Italia

So the Italians have been very naughty. They have gone around exercising their democratic rights in an inappropriate fashion.

While I personally dislike Berlusconi, I dislike the bankers rather more.

Given the choice between a captive of the financial elite (Monti) and a maverick of the more general elite (Berlusconi) I, too, would prefer the little pervert.

Thing is, the tried and tested policy of austerity is all that our Lords and Masters are interested in debating. How much Austerity. How quickly to eliminate the budget deficit. How much to cut spending.

The problem is the policy is tried, tested and has failed.

Berlusconi has siad the economy must be reflated.

Monti obeys the banker.

That the European leadership shold have allowed Berlusconi to get on the right side of a fundamental policy argument is incompetent.

That they should still refuse to take their heads from the sand, and plan to deal with the Italians' disobedience by scolding them back to austerity, is criminal.

People say unless the naughty countries embrace austerity, Europe will fail.

No.

Unless the European elite learns to respect democracy, Europe has already failed.

Creationism

So far as I can understand, creationism is a belief that the world was created in six days.

As described in the bible.

And that days are defined as 24 hour periods. As not described in the bible.

So why the big deal? Why indeed. After all, a day, if defined in the bible at all, is the period from sunrise to sunset. This varies according to the time of year. If defined at all by God in creation, a day is the time taken for the earth to revolve about its own axis. This also varies, very slightly, with variations in the earth's orbit.

So, what is the definition of day one, before the earth was even created? The sun which governs the day wasn't even created until day four.

How can this talk of six 24 hour timeslots make any sense?

It is instructuve that neither Jews or Muslims have this issue. It is not about religion, but about politics. About tribalism, cultural identity.

Nukes

So, today I read that the UK Labour party is just as keen as the Conservative party in retaining nuclear weapons.

Really. And I asked myself.... what for?

The whole thing is eerily reminiscent of the gun control debate in the US. The basic function of a gun is to fire bullets, but people more often justify liberal (as opposed to liberal inspired) gun laws in terms of personal protection by referencing deterrence. Like, 'I won't really shoot anyone, coz they won't mug me as soon as they see I have a gun'.

So it is with Britain and nuclear weapons. We don't talk about how many nuclear missiles we have. How many cities we could blow up or anything like that. We talk about an 'independent nuclear deterrent'. Which kind of assumes there are countries which might invade us if we didn't have some of our own nukes.

I am wondering, which countries are these?

Also, different commentators have different stories. How independent is this system? Could it be fired without America's consent? If so, could they disable the guidance system?

Other people say we really need some big nuke bombs to retain our seat at the top table.

They mean our place amongst permanent members of the UN security council.

But no one ever listens to Britain any more. Apparently we can't afford to pay tuition fees for our young people in university. If that is the case, and we all know 'tough' decisions are essential, how can we possibly afford nuclear weapons?

This is not for the benefit of the people of Britain. Al Qaeda won't suddenly love us if we aren't nuclear.

This is for the vanity of the politicians.

I will never vote for any party that renews the UK nuclear armoury.