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midori_no_saru

Listed below are comments made by midori_no_saru between Monday, 23rd February 2009 and Friday, 30th October 2009.

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Nutt gets the sack 5:53pm on 30 Oct 2009 In presenting the empirical evidence surrounding drug use, and the actual risks of taking drugs, Professor Nutt is doing the public a great service, if not the government.
An obsession with wealth 09:41am on 16 Sep 2009 Mark, I think you share the problem that our society and our leaders have: an inability to distinguish between wealth and money.

Wealth is whatever human beings value, and that can include happiness. Money is an arbitrary unit that can be exchanged for wealth. The problem lies not in our love of wealth, but in our values - i.e. what we consider wealth to be.
Will he stay or will he go? 10:39am on 18 May 2009 Martin has shown signs of incompetence nearly from day 1. When MPs had to prompt him once, over a point of procedure, he ranted "don't tell me how to do my job!" Well they shouldn't have to! He has only lasted so long because of fear of collateral damage if he was removed. Claims of persecution, and of class prejudice against his detractors, are simply ad hominem insults: they fail to address the issues and should be ignored. Claims of scapegoating are also irrelevant as they invalidate criticism of any individual! Speaker Martin is not a scapegoat because removing him will just be the start.
My shirt's hairier than yours 10:42am on 13 May 2009 They're still trying to slip in the main problem with the whole system - mortgages. This still allows them to make capital gains on expenses. If you can get a free mortgage paid by the taxpayer, what incentive is there to prevent over-heated housing booms from dragging down the rest of the economy?

The other more insidious problem of obtaining non-executive directorships also seems to be slipping by unnoticed.
Honourable no more? 12:43pm on 11 May 2009 I was only thinking the other day of the way Mark Anthony managed to turn the crowd so that, to their ears, the phrase "honourable men" meant the exact opposite. Now, thanks to its use by our politicians, the phrase "within the rules" also means its total opposite.

It's time to totally modernise our political system to a post Enlightenment style system, like most of Europe and the US, not this feudal-based system that has no written constitution and is so open to abuse.
Hobbling hedgies and bashing buyout boys 10:16am on 30 Apr 2009 eatingantonyo wrote: "Why not have a piece on the 'real culprits'? The regulators."

But look further back in the causal chain. Who were the regulators? In Britain they were the banks. The FSA was staffed from the banks, and funded by the banks. No wonder there was weak regulation! Now, who set up the FSA? ;)
Children in detention at Yarl's Wood 1:25pm on 27 Apr 2009 Gorecki wrote: "By demanding the government to get 'tough' on these people, we are creating these inhumane outcomes. There is no just way of controlling migration."

This is a typical "argument of the excluded middle" whereby a few undesirable outcomes are used as an argument for going all the way in the whole opposite direction. The fact is, migration is already controlled, for very good reasons, and we cannot afford not to control migration.

It is bad if children are harmed. We can do what we can to ameliorate this, but we must also accept the multiple causes of this kind of situation, not least the parents who brought them, or in some cases send children, unaccompanied, the political situations in the migrants' countries, the countries they refuse to go to, preferring this one, and the simple fact that we cannot take the numbers of children and adults who want to come.
Where is the accountability in Number Ten? 12:05pm on 22 Apr 2009 It's simple. You can't delegate your responsibilities.
Smith thought she'd be cleared 11:34am on 30 Mar 2009 Apologists can equivocate about "allowances" versus "expenses," but surely the allowance was for a home she was supposed to own, not for her to live in someone else's and pocket the difference?

It's the duty of you, Nick, and other journalists, to do some digging and find out what the wording of these "rules" are and report them. Please don't let us hear that they are unwritten, like our "constitution."
Action on the streets? 1:28pm on 23 Feb 2009 I,m just looking at some of the language in this blog: "...attempts to exploit?" That's a bit of a value judgement that shows bias. "...a desire to destroy capitalism" seems to be an attempt to portray a potential protest as a Manichean split between two alternatives where there is no middle ground. You're either with us, or against us. This kind of polarised view denies us the balanced way forward that is the answer to most of our problems. Protest should be seen as part of a dialectic, not a terminal threat to an established order.

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