Day: November 25, 2014

If you can get hold of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 5 Feb 2013 you can see an interesting take on how politicians use language to dress up their intentions in a palatable phrase. In the Daily Show it was about the American election where the GOP lost to the Democrats. Apparently it was a messaging problem, not bad policies.

I am thinking here of the Labour/Liberal parties and their ‘efficiency dividends’ which are in actual fact cuts disguised under another name. To badly paraphrase Shakespeare, an efficiency dividend by any other name would not smell as sweet.

Anyway here is a link, it won’t work here unfortunately so you are on your own in find another source, eg iTunes:

Daily Show – GOP Whisperer.

One example from the show was the Republicans calling relaxed pollution standards the Clear Skies Act.

Rather than ‘smaller government’ call it ‘more effective and efficient government’. The Republicans are fans of minimal government, hence the attempt at disguising their actual aim of getting rid of as much government as possible.

Still have a temperature. At least no rigors so far.

My kidneys have performed a miracle, a normal reading for the creatinine level. For those unfamiliar with my delicate condition I lost 25% of my kidney function from the last 6 years of treatment. How do I know this I hear you ask? I had a kidney biopsy. This consisted of me lying on my front while they stuck a needle of some sort through my skin into the kidney and extracting samples. This procedure was performed under local anaesthetic. Immediately afterwards I had to lay in bed not moving at all for something like 4 or so hours to prevent the kidney from bleeding.

To counter balance that news it appears my liver has gone off a little. Probably due to one of the drugs I am taking. Most likely Posaconazole.

If anyone is wondering where the quote in my blog title is from it is from Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart.

If you know your guitarists you will recognise the name Ry Cooder, a member of the band on this album.

For what is worth Trout Mask Replica is in the Rolling Stone top 500 albums or some such list. The recording conditions were described by one band member as cult like. The music on it is unique in an interesting way.

Apparently Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons, is a fan. The Simpsons is one of my favourite TV shows. A nice bit of personal trivia to end with.