are politicians the most stupid people in society?

After reading this:
http://en.avaaz.org/826/spain-indignados-austerity-protest-crackdown
I have to wonder why it is that politicians never seem to see that changing the way things look does not change how they really are. It is obvious that putting wallpaper on a cracking, crumbling wall won't hold that wall up, but it seems that politicians almost universally think that outlawing protests repairs problems. I'm astounded. Are they really that stupid? Can they seriously not see what remains when peaceful protest is made illegal...?

John Wyndham... amazing writer

I bought that copy of John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen. After removing the locks from it and converting it to a much easier-to-read format I've been reading it each night before bed.

I think this is my third or fourth reading of Trouble with Lichen since I first read it as a kid. Each time I love it more. What a superb writer he was! In many ways I think this book was his best. His portrayal of women was always very strong -- excellent in this one.

I can't help wondering how many more masterpieces he might have given us if he hadn't died at the comparatively young age of 65. I seem to recall he succumbed to lung cancer as a result of smoking tobacco for much of his life, but I can't find a reference to that on the net and I can't remember where I read it.

weapons are theft

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech, 1953