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The Glass Box for Wednesday is here

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Eddie Mair | 16:31 UK time, Wednesday, 14 November 2007

..although if my experience of the Blog today (and it seems others) is anything to go by, you might have a devil of a job posting a comment. Shall we just assume that everyone thought the programme was magnificent and leave it at that?

(Sorry.)

Comments

  1. At 05:12 PM on 14 Nov 2007, wrote:

    I thought it was dreadful.
    Sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear (poor choice of words) - I thought it was magnificent..

  2. At 05:18 PM on 14 Nov 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

    Hope springs eternal.

    I am looking forward to learning more about Gordon Brown in his capacity as the world's most persuasive hypnotist.

    This morning the Security Supremo said he was not convinced that detaining people for more than 28 days without charge was necessary. Then he saw Gordon Brown for thirty minutes, and came out and said that he was convinced that it was necessary to detain people for more than 28 days without charge.

    When do they plan to change the name from Downing Street to Damascus Road?

  3. At 06:04 PM on 14 Nov 2007, admin annie wrote:

    anyone aware in the PM office that there's a scottish budget being delivered today? perhaps a bit more important to some of us than whether it's easier to get to waterloo or whichever other station it was on a high speed train that isn;t going to go to Edinburgh let alone any points further north.

  4. At 06:04 PM on 14 Nov 2007, The Stainless Steel Cat wrote:

    I know Eddie made a joke of it, but I'm still not sure that sending two reporters to Paris for the day was a reasonable use of the news department's budget. What's wrong with getting the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Paris correspondent - who is there anyway - to interview people who've come off the train /plane?

    ...as I'm just hearing with reference to the transport workers strike!

    Sorry team, not impressed by that at all.

  5. At 06:19 PM on 14 Nov 2007, MSR01 wrote:

    Speaking as a science graduate, I'm perplexed as to how one would go about "disproving doubts" as Pallab Ghosh suggested in his piece on the cloning of embryos.

    If we want to see cloned monkeys, we don't need to go to a laboratory. We have the Houses of Parliament where we can view two separate enclosures, both containing more than their fair share of good little clones who always vote according to the party whip and are very quick and easy to train. It only takes half an hour or less to teach some of them new tricks!

  6. At 06:44 PM on 14 Nov 2007, tony ferney wrote:

    The man should serve - and I'm picking my words carefully - a 28-day sentence. By which I mean 28 days in an educational establishment where he will be taught how to construct an English sentence.

  7. At 07:39 PM on 14 Nov 2007, wrote:

    stop whining you weak kneed liberals! it is obviously necessary now to have done with civil liberties. i myself have submitted to three crb checks in scotland this year and i'm currently in my fifth week of waiting for my most recent one to be returned this side of the border. the last one processed in this section of our sceptical isle took seven months to process from when i filled it in. in short, it has a value because so much time and money is spent on it. so, if in doubt you should repeat the mantra: Gor Almighty! Gor Almighty! Gor Almighty!

  8. At 08:05 PM on 14 Nov 2007, wrote:

    stop whining you weak kneed liberals! it is obviously necessary now to have done with civil liberties. i myself have submitted to three crb checks in scotland this year and i'm currently in my fifth week of waiting for my most recent one to be returned this side of the border. the last one processed in this section of our sceptical isle took seven months

  9. At 10:11 PM on 14 Nov 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

    Eddie, you know something? If your computer worked as reliably as this blog has for the past couple of months, and failed to work properly as often as this blog is doing, you would ask the powers that be to get you a new one, and they wouldn't argue: they'd shell out. If your hoover or washing machine or car or any other machine you wanted to use frequently claimed to be broken when it wasn't, but also failed to work for as much as fifty per cent of one, two or three days a week randomly, you wouldn't put up with it.

    Please pass this complaint on to whoever is in a position to buy you a new blog! We know that it isn't your fault, nor that of Marc, but it seems likely that you get blamed for all this by a lot of people, and that is as unfair as blaming you because your kettle has sprung a leak and needs replacing.

  10. At 10:26 PM on 14 Nov 2007, mac wrote:

    Sorry I didn't catch your programme.

    Did you cover the interview(s) Mervyn King (Governor, BoE) was giving today?

    Following on his pronouncements that the banking system will take months to own up to its liabilities he said today that the stock market is threatening to crash.

    The increase in monetary values that the present bubble in stocks represents is in fact valueless because the bank system needed to turn that increased value into spending power is so corrupted. (In King - speak the banks have misspriced their assets for so long they no longer believe in their own assessments and those of other financial institutions. Including the highly speculative stock prices that the market is asking us to believe in.)

    Now King is saying the stocks are overvalued anyway. In Marx - speak King thinks capitalists should admit their capital isn't quite as valuable as they claim. They should indulge in a little less theft at the point of production.

    So stocks will crash and the very money that the nervous will retreat into is valueless too. Because the financial assets it can buy are valuless too.

    What is the value of this money falling against? Well, in capitalist terms, gold. Which is so valuable isn't it! Even Mervyn King doesn't believe in THAT sort of 'value'.

    But in real terms it is losing value against decency.
    Decency is no longer respectability for having that yatch, the second home the third car.

    Decency is relief to Africa - the export of 19th Centuary technology there (water, sanitation, housing) - homes for poor Americans, clean energy for the world - the hydroelectric schemes that should be everywhere by now.

    The price of decency is beginning to rise. Rapidly. Will Gordon Brown make good the promises of Glen Eagles?

    The price we pay for delay is rising. Its a good time to direct otherwise useless money to proper ends.

    Bet you lot of clever chaps said that in the prog and better than I ever could.

    Didn't you?

    mac

  11. At 01:22 AM on 15 Nov 2007, R.Whiting wrote:

    Sent originally at 6.25 pm. Thought I'd try again.

    Re: C.Windsor
    Why did we have another dose of pro Christian propaganda with no balancing view.
    I listen to mostly Radio4 (with some 5Live) and on most days I am exposed to several ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ promotions of religion with rarely a rationalist voice to be heard.

  12. At 11:28 AM on 15 Nov 2007, Vyle Hernia wrote:

    R. Whiting (10)

    Ah, I missed that. As a completely unbiased Christian, I find that there is far too much anti-Christian propaganda with no balancing view. If only I could catch the right programmes, perhaps I would realise that the media get it about right.

    For a discussion of rationalism, I recommend "Escape from Reason" by Francis Schaeffer.

    2nd attempt after 502 @ 10:21
    3rd attempt after 502 at 10:29

  13. At 01:22 PM on 15 Nov 2007, mac wrote:

    Sorry I didn't catch your programme.

    Did you cover the interview(s) Mervyn King (Governor, BoE) was giving today?

    Following on his pronouncements that the banking system will take months to own up to its liabilities he said today that the stock market is threatening to crash.

    The increase in monetary values that the present bubble in stocks represents is in fact valueless because the bank system needed to turn that increased value into spending power is so corrupted. (In King - speak the banks have misspriced their assets for so long they no longer believe in their own assessments and those of other financial institutions. Including the highly speculative stock prices that the market is asking us to believe in.)

    Now King is saying the stocks are overvalued anyway. In Marx - speak King thinks capitalists should admit their capital isn't quite as valuable as they claim. They should indulge in a little less theft at the point of production.

    So stocks will crash and the very money that the nervous will retreat into is valueless too. Because the financial assets it can buy are valuless too.

    What is the value of this money falling against? Well, in capitalist terms, gold. Which is so valuable isn't it! Even Mervyn King doesn't believe in THAT sort of 'value'. Or against property as money moves into physical assets of relatively fixed supply. Then even fewer poor people can afford the price of life itself.
    The perfect market paradox really. The crisis 'caused' by helping America's poor. The capitalist market solution? To make more people poor here.

    But in real terms it is losing value against decency.
    Decency is no longer respectability for having that yatch, the second home the third car.

    Decency is relief to Africa - the export of 19th Centuary technology there (water, sanitation, housing) - homes for poor Americans, clean energy for the world - the hydroelectric schemes that should be everywhere by now.

    The price of decency is beginning to rise. Rapidly. Will Gordon Brown make good the promises of Glen Eagles?

    The price we pay for delay is rising. Its a good time to direct otherwise useless money to proper ends.

    Bet you lot of clever chaps said that in the prog and better than I ever could.

    Didn't you?

    mac

  14. At 04:53 PM on 15 Nov 2007, mac wrote:

    Here's to Thursday in the glass booth:


    Do you really believe Barclay's numbers?


    Do the other banks?


    Does Mervyn King, BoE honcho?


    I dont.


    mac.

  15. At 04:54 PM on 15 Nov 2007, mac wrote:

    Here's to Thursday in the glass booth:


    Do you really believe Barclay's numbers?


    Do the other banks?


    Does Mervyn King, BoE honcho?


    I dont.


    mac.

  16. At 05:01 PM on 15 Nov 2007, mac wrote:

    Here's to Thursday in the glass booth:


    Do you really believe Barclay's numbers?


    Do the other banks?


    Does Mervyn King, BoE honcho?


    I dont.


    mac.

  17. At 05:11 PM on 15 Nov 2007, mac wrote:

    Here's to Thursday in the glass booth:


    Do you really believe Barclay's numbers?


    Do the other banks?


    Does Mervyn King, BoE honcho?


    I dont.


    mac.

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