Elizabeth Warren is no more able to verify a climate scientist is accurately interpreting data than an illiterate farmer could tell if a bishop was faithfully reading the words of the bible. As for the message, a climate scientist is equally likely to spout self-serving guff as any high priest that’s walked this Earth, safe in the knowledge the average worshipper has no way of challenging them and in any case wouldn’t dare
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“Ordinary people can’t be trusted to make the right decisions about what’s best for themselves and others. That’s why we need government to decide for them.” “And who will we trust to decide who these government officials are?” “Ordinary people, of course. It’s only fair.” I hope you see the irony here. December 28th, 2017 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The BBC were interviewing an ex police officer today who was complaining that it wasn’t their fault because of “cuts” and they couldn’t resource their investigations properly. This is nonsense. The cases were assigned an investigation officer. He – or she – failed to do their job properly. They also don’t need “resources” to forward all of the evidence to the defence team. They fucked up. This has much to do with politicising the police and the culture in which they now operate. They have gone from not believing the “victim” to believing them unconditionally. Somewhere along the way, they lost the ability to conduct an impartial investigation of all of the relevant evidence. To do this they need to take a neutral stance of neither believing nor not believing until the evidence determines whether there is a case to answer. Then and only then, seek to charge. December 20th, 2017 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Some years back, I decided I had to quit the teaching profession to which I had dedicated half my life. The modern academy, I felt, was so far gone that restoration was no longer possible. Indeed, I now believe that complete collapse is the only hope for the future, but as Woody Allen said about death, I’d rather not be there when it happens. December 18th, 2017 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
When I was in Melbourne some government body or other put on a display of ‘Aboriginal culture’ in Federation Square and advertised it all over town. I guessed in advance that it would consist of a bunch of primitives sat around bashing drums while metropolitan white folk looked on as if they were visiting a zoo. Child-like art would on display wrapped in copious quantities of mumbo-jumbo. I passed by one Saturday afternoon and sure enough, that’s exactly what it was. A more patronising exhibition I couldn’t imagine, and it must have been soul-destroying for any Aborigine who aspires to be something more than a museum piece for liberal whites. December 16th, 2017 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is no inconsistency here. Just as we would support a gay baker’s right to decline to convey a homophobic message, we support this Christian baker’s right to decline to celebrate a same-sex wedding. That is because Masterpiece isn’t really about religious liberty – apart from claims that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission itself treats the religious and nonreligious differently, something that concerned the swing Justice Anthony Kennedy at oral argument – but about freedom of speech. December 15th, 2017 | 81 comments - (Comments are closed)
An Engineer, a Mathematician and a ‘Climate scientist’ are each asked “what is 2 + 2?” The Engineer says “somewhere between 3.9 and 4.1”, the Mathematician says “4” and the ‘Climate scientist’ says “what would you like it to be?” December 14th, 2017 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
In order to be used for transplant, the body must be fresh, undiseased and in a hospital. Presumed consent (which is not consent) will not necessarily make more of these available. That is all beside the moral argument and that one is pretty straightforward. Assuming anyone’s consent is not consent at all. It is the nationalisation of our bodies, it is the state seizing that which it does not own. December 12th, 2017 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
People talk and think about jobs like they are things. Like you can possess one, lose one, or like you need to go get one from someone. So they go to job boards looking for the people who are giving away jobs. They go through the societal rituals that are expected of job seekers. But they are making a fundamental mistake–because jobs are not things, they are abstractions. Getting lost in this abstraction causes a lot of pain and confusion. Seeing past the abstraction lets you see the countless opportunities you have available to you. A job is an abstraction to describe a relationship between one person and another individual or group of people that agree to a certain type of ongoing trade. To get a job, you don’t need someone to create it and give it to you; you simply need to convince someone that you can make them more money than you cost. December 11th, 2017 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
For at least half a century, nearly every secondary school pupil and university student in Britain has learnt about the evils of Nazism and Fascism, and the crimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Most young people have also been taught something about the evils of apartheid in South Africa, Western colonialism, and white racism in the United States. One enormously important subject, however, has generally been missing from the education curriculum: namely, the horrendous and universally destructive nature and record of Communism. December 10th, 2017 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
These new disintermediated internet marketplaces can have interesting effects.
It is not all good news, though:
Apart from cost, there are other advantages to setting up a more permanent shop:
Reducing risks from clients brings more risk from state interference.
Is it time to end the war on some consensual sex? December 7th, 2017 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)
The BBC, along with most of the Remain establishment, is presenting this as if it’s only the DUP which is standing in the way of an agreement between the EU and UK in advance of trade talks. In reality, I suspect a great many Tory MPs, more than a few old-school Labour MPs, and a large percentage of the British population would also object vehemently to Theresa May deciding for herself that Northern Ireland should remain under the jurisdiction of the EU at the behest of the Irish government and their masters in Brussels. Anyone who thinks this is a minor detail being blocked by a gaggle of DUP hardliners really doesn’t understand the issue at all. Or they do, but are spinning it differently for political gain. December 5th, 2017 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
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