Sunday 31 March 2013

Bonus Castle and Gotye

Rog accused me of not liking any current music.


Here is the greatest series ever made with music by Gotye an Aussie whose music I do like.

Actually this music grows on me each time I hear it. Of course it is always a pleasure to look at the beautiful Stana Katic playing Kate Beckett. She does blushes, embarrassment , love looks etc better than anyone I have ever seen.  Nathan is pretty good at it too.

Castle and Beckett look like potential lovers. The music the series uses is pretty good too.

This series is about Beckett and Castle solving murders BUT also the relationship between Beckett and Castle. They do act like lovers or almost lovers. I could becoming a born again romantic

As a special bonus here is Castle with music by Andrew Belle who sounds coldplayish.



Enjoy

Saturday 30 March 2013

Jesus has risen, He has risen indeed

It is the  resurrection of Christ that is central to Christianity. Without it the cruxification is meaningless. Without it there can be no forgiveness, Without it Jesus is only a mere human and Without it there is no God.

Three songs from heathens to celebrate.

First the Mormon tablenacle choir sing the greatest song from the greatest oratorio ever written (by Handel).



next Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart do the great negro spiritual People get ready.  Jeff Beck really is one of the great guitarists



Lastly Rod Stewart singing one of the greatest hymns ever written Amazing grace. It is by John Newton a former slave trader.

Friday 29 March 2013

Lincoln

On Friday night I saw Lincoln with my wife.

It is an outstanding movie. Excellent acting ( James spader had a ball), marvellous script and john Williams was sensational in his music. Who was the trumpet player? He was unbelievable, his lilting tunes lifted the movie even higher if that were possible.

Highly recommended.

Funny thing is the amendment was never a big issue in any book I read on the man.

Thursday 28 March 2013

Why Easter makes Christianity different

Easter is the reason why Christianity is not a religion.

A religion is when people believe they can make good with god through their own works. It takes God completely out of the picture

In Christianity works have nothing to do with it.

We are all sinners and must be punished.
Christ took out punishment on the Cross. He then proved this by rising from the dead. He could only do this if he was without sin.

Therefore God has done it all. We only have to accept it.

Thus there are only two kinds of sinners.

Forgiven and unforgiven ones.  It is best to be a forgiven one and accept Christ's sacrifice.

Happy Easter

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Johnny Cash ( just for Jason!)

I am not a johnny Cash fan but here is two of his best?


and


you owe me a Leo buring Riesling Jason!!

Around the Traps Easter Edition 29/3/13

Early Easter edition  No David Glasner nor Ricardian Ambivalence. I am not happy!!



Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy


US

Europe



Cyprus


General

Statistics (well mostly Andrew Gelman)



wonkish


voxwonk

Monday 25 March 2013

Queen

Queen as a band really sucked.

but they did do one decent song.


In this version George michaels is singing and does it much better than Freddy Mercury ever could.




This really is brilliant

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Austerity Advocates Apologise

Those people who have advocated expansionary austerity should now fess up and apologise.

Their theory was wrong.  Empirical evidence,as we have seen previously ,demolished this theory.

Now Europe has now shown it to be complete claptrap.

No country that had embraced has experienced a recovery. In fact it has been quite the opposite.

People such as Trichet and Rehn  in Europe should hang their heads in shame that they have put a lot of people on the unemployment scrapheap.

Here in Australia would it be too much to ask peope such as Carling, Kirchner , Davidson , Kates et al simply to admit they got it completely wrong and resign from their jobs!

This sums it up well.



Around the Traps 22/3/13

Here it is again for this week.

Please note I do not agree with all the articles cited but they are damned interesting!

I will add more if articles occur over the day.

The cricket team I coach is in the final and then I umpire in the senior finals so the week-end is packed again.


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy




US


Europe

General


Statistics ( well mostly Andrew Gelman)



Wonkish
Voxwonk

Monday 18 March 2013

Budgetary Costings

Now that Wayne Swan has set up the Parliamentary Budget Office there is no excuse for an Opposition to not to have detailed costings.
The PBO can do this very easily for any policy position any party has.
 The Opposition has no need and nor should it release its costings until the PBO puts it imprimatur on it which would occur AFTER the release of the PEFO.

Wayne Swan has also got the PBO to lok at all parties costings and to release their findings after the election.

Unlike Peter Costello's effort re Charter of budget honesty this has been clearly thought through. The Charter of budget honesty was only an asset to the Government of the day. The Opposition was always at a disadvantage.
Now it is a level playing field because of the PBO.

It will be interesting to see how the opposition responds. They clearly and undeniably lied about their 'costings' in the last election.

We will also see if they recognise the economic circumstances of the day here in Australia. We already have a contractionary budget. With weak nominal GDP growth the last thing  needed is a more contractionary budget that at present.

Thursday 14 March 2013

Around the Traps 15/3/13

Here we are again.

Another great week and no I am not a David Glasner groupie. I actually disagree with him but he is always interesting and courteous!


Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy



Austerity


Austerity in the UK ( sounds like a Sex Pistols song)

General

Statistics ( Andrew Gelman mostly)

Wonk
Voxwonk

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Duane Allman

Duane Allman was one of the great guitarists.

Here he is in all his glory


Sunday 10 March 2013

Why the budget cannot be balanced

This graph courtesy of Grog's gamut shows us why the budget cannot be balanced and will not be balanced until this dramatically improves.

image

Saturday 9 March 2013

Rory Gallagher


I am sure even Chris Shiel would agree Rory Gallagher was one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Enjoy







Thursday 7 March 2013

Around the Traps 8/3/13

Here we are again.
Last week Kruggers only starting talking about the Paul DeGrauwe's work AFTER Around the Traps was out.
A coincidence maybe but I am shouting from the rooftops Kruggers is reading Around the Traps!!!



Aussie, Aussie,Aussie, Oy, Oy,Oy



US


Europe


General


Statistics ( well mostly Andrew Gelman but not today)


Wonkish

Voxwonk

Tuesday 5 March 2013

Castle



Last weekend my wife took the boys to her mother's at Blayney. I couldn't go as the game I was umpiring hadn't been called off at the time.

I watched some Castle episodes.

I have said previously the acting and writing is first class so here i give evidence to that fact.

She is very strait laced since her mother was murdered.It has taken over her life and thus she is a very good detective.

He is still the multi-millionaire playboy yet to grow up.

In this scene she is almost sneering to start with. Castle shows he has substance and withdraws when he sees how vulnerable she is. She starts to have doubts about her original judgement of him.

Watch this and her facial expressions. It is really very good.  ( She is smoking hot with her longer wavy hair but I prefer her like this. She is merely attractive. Very tough but vulnerable.




This is the very last scene of Series two. They all want Beckett to get together with Castle. She has changed since Castle came on board and they think it would be great for her to now have some happiness given her history BUT fate deems otherwise.

It is a very sad scene because of the facial expressions of the group. the haunting song in the background ( into the blue by Sarah Jackson- Holman, I should add after listening to the lyrics how very appropriate) and by Beckett's facial impressions and voice.





I love this series.

Postscript
I have been asked to elaborate a bit more on this series by a friend ( female) who got tearful at the second scene.

As I said Castle is a multi- millionaire crime writer who is still a boy i.e quite irresponsible. He also has wrtier's block. A crime is committed which looks like just like ones he has written about. In short he teams up with Beckett  to find the killer. At the end of all this he realises he has found his new subject. Detective Kate Beckett.

As time goes on it is clear Castle changes. He originally is a  a person who thinks outside the box in assisting to solve crimes, however as times goes by he becomes responsible whilst still being fun.

She gradually changes as well and begins to enjoy life.
The scene above has her realising how important Castle is in her life but she has made her move too late.
(Isn't the music appropriate and fantastic.)

This is the end of Series 2. The writers are superb and the acting ,as you can see, is as well.

One minor criticism . Beckett is clearly an introvert but every so often they make her an extrovert.

Monday 4 March 2013

The ALP Government does not deserve sympathy

I am sick to death with people who wish to make up excuses for the present Government.

As this is a rant I am no particular order going to show that they do not deserve sympathy.
The Government helped Australia avoid a recession from the GFC . Other nations either had a recession or depression. The Opposition at the time promised to do something similar but using different policies ( as I have elaborated here.) Add to that the blatant lies the Opposition told about the cost of their policies and the government should be a mile ahead in terms of better economic manager. The Kouk has written some good stuff here  and here.  Why has no-one said any of this?


As we observed  previously the policy on insulating homes was actually reasonably good.( Note the comments sections. See how dyslexic they get.). BER is even better. Critics  put up a figure that they believe the government is being over-charged without realising it is cheaper than the average cost of schoolrooms etc built.

The Government should have realised by now that government is about policy, selling those policies and criticising different policies to theirs.

In short this present mob couldn't sell a cold beer on a hot day. They can't even perform a proper defence of good policy. Essential polling has over 30% of people believe interest rates are now higher than when the government came to office! That in essence tells you everything about the Government.

Tony Abbott went overboard on criticism of the ETS. . He claimed the ETS would have a larger impact on the economy than the GST. What did they say?
The ETS was NO different that the deal between the Government and Opposition. No-one called that a carbon tax. Why in heavern's name did they call the present ETS a carbon tax?

This is only very brief but it shows a Government which has bad staff and Ministers who cannot explain anything. Add to this an inability to explain why they got rid of  Rudd and you have little reason to vote for them.

Saturday 2 March 2013

Classical economics finest hour

In Germany the name Bruning is not as wellknown as Hitler.

The reason for this is that the policies he implemented via the classical textbook and as advocated by such luminaries as Hayek made Germany worse.

The Nazi party went from an asterisk in parliament to dominating it as you can see  here



courtesy of Alan Kohler courtesy of Lombard Street.

Friedman thought it mad and Hayek actually said he was wrong around 1936 I think.
Austerity brought on at the wrong time brings disastrous consequences.

Friday 1 March 2013

Coldplay

Coldplay is my oldest son's favourite group.
I do like this song.

I'm told they sing it in their encore like here.