Category: Politics

Lids

I vowed when I started blogging never to take part in a stream of consciousness prompt. I generally want my thoughts to be well-polished before they are published. I know. It doesn’t always seem that way.

But there is a Stream of Consciousness prompt today that I could not resist.

So, here are my thoughts on “lid”.

  1. If you’re going to boil a pan of vegetables, you will boil more efficiently if you boil with a lid on the pan. You will lose less heat, therefore require less energy. It’s not just your energy bill – less heat lost to the environment also means less fuel burned, and, in general, less CO2 emitted.

That’s almost all I know.

On the subject of boiling pans of water, however, the most energy-efficient way of raising water’s temperature in the kitchen is by boiling a modern kettle – just think how quickly they get the water up to temperature. So, it is better to boil the kettle and then transfer the water, rather than to boil the water on the hob, from scratch.

If you do insist on boiling water on the hob, then as you might expect, modern hobs are better. Induction hobs are more efficient at transferring energy into the water than, say, the old gas or electric rings.

Choices

If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.

Tony Benn

Skid Row

There’s no petrol in Salisbury!

Mrs Bump went out today (fortunately, she filled up only last Thursday, and our eco car takes > 1 month to drink a tank of fuel). She happened to notice that every petrol station in our village, along the route to Salisbury, and everything she saw in Salisbury itself, was showing “empty”.

Did somebody mention Revelation?

Fortunately, cheesecake had not run out.

Reblog: Promemoria

From one of my Italian friends.

The translation is “Memorandum: women are beautiful when they are happy, not when they are thin”.

If you choose to “like” this, please show your support on their original post, not on this repost.

Centoquarantadue

Le donne sono belle quando sono felici, non quando sono magre

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St Elmo’s Fire

The situation in Afghanistan has upset lots of us, including me. I had intended to hold my tongue on this subject, but I can’t. Please forgive me.

I’m upset that we have failed to recognise that we have a duty to Afghan people. I don’t just blame the US administration. I include the UK here, I include every country which was part-responsible. Joe Biden’s reverse (he voted for military action way back at the start of all this) was nothing short of convenient for every other country, because I think they all recognised the mire they’d gotten into.

But I recognise that many, many good people opposed this folly from the start, for the very reason that has come to pass, people who were ignored by their leaders. I am one of them. We knew a war was not the solution.

The plane creeps forward, inch by inch
Illicit cargo clinging on
Their promise slowly taxis out
St Elmo’s Fire
Euphoric dream
Destroyed by morning’s blur
Inevitable motion
Like time, unstoppable.

Can talk about their doctrine
Where emptiness pervades
Just bankrupt hollow vows
Of roast beef and McDonalds.
Of apple pie and soccer
Roll up and buy the dream
Deliver though the nightmare
As we pull the rug from under.

We know your noble history
We have our history too
Of empire and Wild West
So do not be surprised
Our skills undiplomatic
the big stick and the gun
The self-appointed policemen
A thug a better word.

We’ll soon enough lose interest
We’ll bully someone else
We’ll finish our destruction
And leave you to repair
A lesson to be learned, you think?
That’s really not our style
We’d sooner come destroy you,
And make you start again.

Plane’s grasping payload, weakens grip
Those flailing hands begin to slip
The engines scream, the bird ascends
For silent safety of wisps of clouds
The hand from its fissure
Torn loose by a gust
Adrift he is cut
A final refuge for this soul.

Once the decision had been made to invade, the one thing we owed to the Afghans was to leave them with a better tomorrow. Tomorrow was yesterday.

Leopards don’t change their spots and many people will now face a struggle under the Taliban. But I refuse to single out women. Yes, women will suffer. Everybody will suffer. Afghanistan has an estimated population of 34 million people and I’m not about to sweep half of these people under the carpet from the very start. A sentiment that places women over men is every bit as unacceptable as one which place men over women.

As if to offer confirmation of the Taliban’s intent, on the news just a few hours ago, there were reports of summary executions of those who had collaborated with the West. This is the dream we mis-sold them.

The Dirtiest Word

I read a post the other day. I’m paraphrasing but it was basically, “politics is a dirty word”.

I can kinda agree, if we’re talking about Party Politics. I can see that we might agree with a party on a certain issue, how we might agree with them on several issues, enough maybe to cast our vote in their favour.

But how somebody goes from that point to saying “everything they say is right” is beyond me. Yet such people exist.

I don’t think politicians help their own case. However noble a politician’s beliefs might be, very few of them will put those beliefs ahead of self-interest. Probably the most transparent of them are standing on a platform where they actually promote self-interest.

I see politics as something wider. Politics is simply looking at a situation, and judging whether it is right or wrong. You see somebody homeless on the street. Do you say:

  1. It’s disgusting. The single biggest measure of a “civilisation” is how that civilisation treats its weakest; or,
  2. there are winners and losers. And this person just happens to be a loser. There need to be losers in order for there to also be winners.

Politics is simply taking a view. We should all have a view, I think. Not to have one, isn’t that just wasting whatever brainpower we’ve been blessed with?

Who Won the Week (11 July 2021)

In response to Fandango’s Who Won the Week posts, I have been looking at my own newsfeeds.

I posted once on this story, so it feels appropriate to post again, to give international readers a sense of closure.

I

Who Won the Week (4 July 2021)

In response to Fandango’s Who Won the Week post, I have been looking at my own newsfeeds.

Greenpeace won the week. Here’s why:

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