Utopia, you are standing in it!

The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during October 2018 shows that throughout the month a total of 330 incidents took place: 95 in Judea & Samaria, 14 in Jerusalem and 221 in the Gaza Strip sector.

In Judea & Samaria and Jerusalem the agency recorded 80 attacks with petrol bombs, 15 attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), eight arson attacks, two shooting attacks and four stabbing attacks.

Incidents recorded in the Gaza Strip sector included 141 attacks with petrol bombs, 39 attacks using IEDs and twenty-five grenade attacks. Sixteen separate incidents of rocket or mortar fire – a total of forty-six launches – took place during October.

The murder of two Israeli civilians and the wounding of another in a terror attack at the Barkan industrial park on October 7^th was reported on the BBC News website well over 24 hours later – with the words ‘terrorist’…

So who  do you feel  sorry for:  primary school  teachers  who  say they are  are undervalued, underpaid  and  overworked?

Or Education Minister  Chris Hipkins, who is  “disappointed”  teachers are  going  on  strike, despite the government’s “strong new offer”.

Political aficionados might find some irony  in the  whole  affair. Teachers   were   desperate  for  the Labour  Party to win the  Treasury benches,   knowing it    would be a relatively  soft touch  after  nine years  of  a flinty-faced  National government.

And  Hipkins  early  in  his term  sought to cosy   up  to the teachers’ union  by  bending to  their   demand  that charter  schools  be abolished.

This is an oldie, but worth reviewing for its appropriateness for today. A fascinating interview with Thomas Sowell about “intellectuals”. Do make time to watch the whole thing, It throws a lot of light upon what is happening in our present day, how to consider what’s going on. Whats the matter with intellectuals anyway? Aren’t they smarter than the rest of us? Shouldn’t we listen to them?

So whose opinion matters? See the previous post on “Opinion.”

The Reserve Bank is a powerful public agency, whose views receive a lot of coverage, and some respect in some quarters. The views taken by the Bank affect where interest rates are set, and thus the short-medium term path of the economy itself.  They aren’t just commentators –  they are players too –  but they aren’t less than commentators.  They use a lot of public money to undertake analysis that is supposed to underpin their commentary and decisions.   It should be pretty much Open Government 101 that citizens –  who pay for the analysis and are directly affected by how the Bank uses it –  should be able to see that analysis.     The Reserve Bank has never seen it that way.  Over decades –  when I was closely involved, and still now –  they’ve taken the view that the Bank is different, and special, and that all…

With the abdication of German Emperor, his flight to the Netherlands and the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918 brought the Great War to its close.

His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia

By October, German Emperor, Wilhelm II was at the Imperial Army headquarters in Spa, Belgium, when the uprisings in Berlin and other centres took him by surprise in late 1918. Instead of obeying their orders to begin preparations to fight the British once more, German German sailors, exhausted by four years of war, led a revolt in the naval ports of Wilhelmshaven on October 29, 1918, followed by the Kiel mutiny in the first days of November.

These mutinies were the first salvos in the German Revolution of 1918-1919. When a mutiny occurred among the ranks of Emperors beloved Kaiserliche Marine, this profoundly disturbed him. Wilhelm struggled between acceptance denial and…