crime by nick ross, a brief review 
This is an excellent primer on crime, police incompetence and the general political and commercial self-seeking corruption of the legal system.
The author, Nick Ross, suffers from the grave short-comings of honesty and having researched his subject over thirty or so years.
Any person aspiring to understand the political problems involved in crime prevention should read this book.
| Crime: How to Solve it - And Why So Much of What We're Told is Wrong by Nick Ross |
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Biteback Publishing, hbk, 2013
ISBN-10: 1849544999
ISBN-13: 978-1849544993
amazon.com
£12.59 [amazon.co.uk] {advert} |
Kindle edition
Biteback Publishing, 2013
ASIN: B00CKOPKV8
ISBN-10: 184954610X
ISBN-13: 978-1849546102
$14.16 [amazon.com] {advert} |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2012.php#crime-nick-ross-280914
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a useful tract/booklet on constitutions - pr and national socialism
Borrowing constitutional designs
by Cindy Skach has approximately 130 pages of text.
Skach provides ummaries of the Weimar
and French 5th Republic constitutions, as well as discussing
proportional representation [P.R.].
“...Weimar was an experiment with one of the
purest forms of proportional representation ever used
to elect deputies to a national parliament...”
The Weimar produced and elected Hitler.
The author has done her homework. She
uses a two-dimensional grid of left/right and religious/secular.
She correctly labels the National Socialists
at the extreme left and secular ends.
It is interesting that academic liberals
generated the Weimar constitution. Such is the ascendancy
of theory over pragmatism!
related material
authoritarianism
and liberty
Borrowing Constitutional
Designs: Constitutional Law in Weimar Germany and
the French Fifth Republic
by Cindy Skach |
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Princeton University
Press, 2005, hbk
ISBN-10: 0691123454
ISBN-13: 978-0691123455
£26.55
[amazon.co.uk] {advert}
Princeton University Press, 2009, pbk
ISBN-10: 0691146721
ISBN-13: 978-0691146720
$20.95
[amazon.com] {advert}
Kindle edition
Princeton University Press, 2009, 724 KB
ASIN: B0051U9JJC
$15.86
[amazon.com] {advert} |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2012.php#constitutional_designs_010312
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Willard L. Beaulac (1899-1990), two reviews
Franco,
silent ally in World War Two
Written by the number two in
the American Embassy in Spain during World War Two,
this book is a model of fluency and organisation
by someone right in the centre of the action. It
is also among one of the very best books of political
realism that I have read. The book’s author
went on to become ambassador to five different South
American countries.
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amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
Southern Illinois University Press, 1986
ISBN-10: 0809312549
ISBN-13: 978-0809312542
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| The
fractured continent
This book is not as well written
as Franco, silent ally, but it is still
very neat. It is packed with snippets of wise political
advice by a very experienced man of the world. This
book was written six years earlier than Franco,
silent ally.
“IN 1945, when I was serving in Paraguay,
an American writer visited Asuncion, the capital.
He noticed that most people were modestly and
even poorly dressed, that dwellings were far below
United States standards, that only the principal
streets were paved, and that there were few automobiles.
The city's best hotel had very simple accommodations,
and the writer was unable to hnd a really good
restaurant. He was appalled at what he considered
Paraguay's poverty.
“About the same time another American
visited Paraguay. He was a businessman and banker,
one of the hrst presidents of the US government's
Export-Import Bank. He walked up and down Asuncion's
streets and drove out through the countryside.
And he looked into the eyes of Paraguayans. Later
he said to me, "I hope nothing we may do
will change these people." The banker remarked
that Paraguayans seemed to be well-fed. They were
a sturdy, vigorous people. Their clothing was
usually very clean. While he noticed the scarcity
of automobiles he saw, too, that nearly everyone
who came in from the country had an animal to
ride. He said he would not soon forget the sight
of a country woman trotting into market on her
burro, her baskets of vegetables slung behind
her, a black cigar in her mouth. To him she was
a free woman, one of nature's capitalists, self-confident
and independent. The banker saw in Paraguayans
not poverty but pride, an inner tranquility that
he had missed in many countries, possibly including
his own.
“The writer thought the Paraguayan government,
and the government of the United States, should
do more to help Paraguay's masses who were living
in conditions that he considered intolerable.
The banker, who had come to Paraguay to see what
he might do to help, was expressing a wish that
his efforts, wise or unwise, successful or unsuccessful,
would not unwittingly offend the dignity of Paraguayans
or lessen their pride; that he would not needlessly
and thoughtlessly disrupt a way of life that,
simple as it was, and doubtless in part because
it was simple, brought rewards that were real
and lasting and that might not survive mere material
improvement, or the wrong kind of material improvement.”
[pp.95-96]
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Fractured continent: Latin
America in Close Up
(Hoover Institution publication 225)
Hoover Institution Press,U.S., 1st edition, 1980
ISBN-10: 081797251X
ISBN-13: 978-0817972516
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2012.php#beaulac_140112
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boomerang by michael lewis
I was looking at Michael Lewis’s
recent book on the bank crash, The
Big Short, and noted he’s published an
even more recent book on the sovereign debt development
- Boomerang. It looked
more interesting so I put out the hard earned on a copy.
The book is done in terms of reviews
of the ways the mess is having an impact on several societies.
Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany
and the USA.
- p.45
- The lowest ranked schools in Europe are in Greece.
The highest ranked schools are in Finland.
Greece ‘employs’ four times as many teachers
in their teacher-pupil ratio as Finland.
Greek parents assume they will need to employ tutors.
p.89- “...the short-term parking attendants at Dublin
Airport noticed their daily take had fallen. The lot
appeared full; they couldn't understand it; then they
noticed the cars never changed. They phoned the Dublin
police, who in turn traced the cars to Polish construction
workers, who has bought them with money borrowed from
the big Irish banks. The migrant workers had ditched
the cars and gone home. A few months later the Bank
of Ireland sent three collectors to Poland to see what
they could get back, but they had no luck. The Poles
were untraceable. But for their cars in the parking
lot, they might never have existed.”
p.146- “...the German losses are still being totted
up, but at the last count they stand at $21 billion
in the Icelandic banks, $100 billion in Irish banks,
$60 billion in various U.S. subprime-backed bonds and
some yet to be determined amount in Greek bonds...”
p.147- “...one view of the European debt crisis—the
Greek view—is that it is an elaborate attempt
by the German government on behalf of its banks to get
their money back without calling attention to what they
are up to. The German government gives money to the
European Union rescue fund so that it can give money
to the Irish government so that the Irish government
can give money to the Irish banks, so that the Irish
banks can repay their loans to the German banks...”
p.167- A lawsuit still going through the German courts is challenging
the legal status of the euro on constitutional grounds. The
lawsuit was instigated before the euro was formed!
No index, damn him; 212 pages.
I’d like to see him produce a second volume on other
countries like Italy, Portugal, the UK, Japan and Spain.
I’d buy that!
4 GoldenYaks, just - due to negatives such
as there being no index and it being too short.
Boomerang:
the meltdown tour
by Michael Lewis |
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£11.23
[amazon.co.uk] {advert}
amazon.com
Allen Lane, hbk, 2011
ISBN-10: 1846144841
ISBN-13: 978-1846144844
Kindle edition, B005PR44XC,
346 kb
£9.99
[amazon.co.uk] {advert}
$21.18
[amazon.com] {advert} |
The
Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
by Michael Lewis |
 |
$8.69
[amazon.com] {advert}
Penguin Books, pbk, 2011
ISBN-10: 0141043539
ISBN-13: 978-0141043531
US Kindle edition, 0393338827
$9.94
[amazon.com] {advert} |
 |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2012.php#boomerang_171111
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