Friday
There is a good article up at the moment by Brendan O'Neill, one of those strange "libertarians" (he's a Marxist) hybrids who writes good sense on lifestyle issues and the environment, but a lot of guff on economics. He's absolutely on target here about New York City and its ghastly mayor, Michael Bloomberg. (As a former news-wire journalist, I used to refer to Bloomberg, the media business, as the "Borg", given its messianic, controlling tendencies).
Anyone who thinks that the paternalist "nudgers" are not a menace to liberty should read this article.
I love New York, and visited it earlier this year and plan to make a return journey later in 2011 as part of a business trip. It feels safe in the main; I enjoy the sights and the sounds and unlike Taki, the racist uber-paleocon who is strangely indulged in the Spectator, I don't get het up about about the fact that there are a large number of non-whites in NYC.
There is no mystery as to why Taki is indulged, in spite of his vulgar and somewhat disgusting boasts about his success with women, as well as the rest.
He seems to have met absolutely everyone from Nixon, to Bardot, to JD Salinger, to half the dictators of the world, and writes engagingly about it.
Where else can you hear stuff like that? High life indeed.
Posted by Ben at June 3, 2011 10:29 AM
Ben, agree that he has met a lot of the rich, famous, infamous, etc, but then so have a lot of other people. He can be entertaining, but some of his prejudices are astonishingly nasty.
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at June 3, 2011 10:38 AM
Bloomberg is pretty bad, but at least he'll never go after the Jews, unlike a certain mayor of London.
The guy has installed 'bike lanes' on some of the main 'north-south streets in an effort to make car travel harder, They certainly don't seem to be used much my bikes.
The guy really does have a nasty streak, its why in spite of his $100 million dollar campaign for reelection last year he barely squeaked in against a left wing Democrat who spent virtually nothing.
He has seriously overstayed his welcome. Unfortunately it seems that any of his replacements would be just as bad. Could we borrow Boris For a few months ?
Posted by Taylor at June 3, 2011 04:30 PM
Bloomberg (the financial news and data firm) is a weird obsessive compulsive personality cult of a company. In many ways it is very good at what it does, but I really wouldn't want to work there. If New York was a genuine city state, one rather thinks that Bloomberg would have turned it into something like Singapore, only with more fish tanks in the lobbies.
Posted by Michael Jennings at June 4, 2011 10:22 AM
This is great place to live,if you can afford it.Bloomberg is a complete asshole promoted to his level of incompetence,but the other local politicos are probably worse. The good news is he will never be president, and even he must know that at this point.
Posted by renminbi at June 5, 2011 02:02 AM
Mr Bloomberg:
Good businessman - although I do not like Bloomberg television (I actually think CNBC is less bad - I can not get Fox Business in this country) a lot of other people must do.
But rotten Mayor - a person who wants to control every aspect of other people's lives.
Nuff said.
Posted by Paul Marks at June 6, 2011 05:43 PM
