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Renewables don’t risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it’s clear that too little “inertia” due to excess solar resulted in system collapse. Also… here. April 29th, 2025 | 2 comments
 The actual argument being made is that British actors, tax breaks, directors, scriptwriters, lovely Cotswold villages (and in the case of Bridgerton, the street outside my flat) are just such wonderful places to film, film with, that prices are rising. Therefore we’ve got to subsidise all this. The only reason we listen to fuckwits like this is because they’re pretty. Now, honestly, hands up. Who has ever known a pretty bird, handsome man, who can actually think? Even, actually has the base data to be able to think with? No, no, it’s not that the leavening of IQ and looks equals out over genes. Quite the opposite. Dullards in the sense of actual cretins and morons tend not to look good either. But the good looking have never had to think now, have they? So, they don’t. April 28th, 2025 | 8 comments
“My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.” – regular BBC contributor Samer Elzaenen. A report in the Telegraph says,
Er, why not? Given that the Telegraph article says that he made more than thirty posts on social media over the last decade that celebrated Palestinians killing Israeli civilians, including one post where he delightedly said that two murdered boys aged six and eight would “soon go to hell”, was it really beyond the power of the Arabic service of one of the biggest media organisations on Earth to do a simple internet search for his name? If the task of excluding self-identified Palestinian Nazis from giving regular commentary under the BBC name is too difficult for BBC Arabic, then BBC Arabic is a waste of public money. I hope that is the case, because the other possibility is that the BBC’s Arabic-speaking staff knew of Mr Elzaenen’s wish to exterminate the Jews but kept inviting him back because they want to do the same themselves. It’s not a universal opinion among Palestinians, but it’s not uncommon either. April 27th, 2025 | 8 comments
“Europe has a serious free speech problem. Instead of taking ever more measures to punish their citizens for what they say, it’s time for countries from Germany to Britain to abolish the deeply illiberal legislation they have, with little attention from the press or the public, introduced over the course of the last decades. To live up to the most basic values of the democracies that are now under threat, the continent needs to reverse course—and restore true freedom of speech.” April 25th, 2025 | 3 comments
Apple is doing the public a service in challenging the government on this important matter of principle. Encryption enables more than just ‘secure’ communication – it ensures freedom from government snooping, too. That’s why privacy and freedom of expression have long been considered mutually reinforcing rights. Encryption protects not only personal data, but also the ability of journalists and human-rights activists to operate without fear of surveillance or reprisals. Compelling companies to pre-emptively weaken those protections risks chilling users’ ability to communicate freely, share sensitive information or challenge the powers-that-be. LOL Remember this? April 24th, 2025 | 9 comments
Democracy tends towards protectionism when those harmed by free trade are numerous enough to count. But democracy also demands cheap goods. No one has yet squared that circle. April 23rd, 2025 | 21 comments
Like most people, I haven’t tuned in to Have I Got News For You for years. But when I heard of a staggering omission in last Friday night’s edition, I just had to see it – or, rather, not see it – with my own eyes. The biggest news story of the week – the momentous ruling by the Supreme Court on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010 – was not covered at all, even obliquely. You’d think that the absurdity of the highest court in the land being called to adjudicate on one of the most basic facts of observable reality – that there are two sexes, and that the words man and woman mean, er, man and woman – would be a rich source of mirth, the kind of glorious nonsense that’s a satirist’s meat and drink. But no. Not a word. Zilch. ‘We begin with the bigger stories of the week,’ said guest host Katherine Parkinson, as is traditional. These turned out to be steel nationalisation and the bin strike in Birmingham. We also heard about the Blue Origin ‘mission’, gambling on the election date, Liz Truss launching her own app. But the thing everybody was actually talking about? No. That just hung in the air like a vicar’s fart, with everybody pretending it hadn’t happened. – Gareth Roberts (£) April 22nd, 2025 | 11 comments
What’s more, the imposition of punitive tariffs on poorer countries like Vietnam will simply impoverish rather than improve the potential importing power of these countries. Disrupting the economic development of poorer countries isn’t going to improve the chances of selling to them. The irony is brutal. Trump’s fixation with trade-deficit “offenders” is punishing the very nations that could one day erase those deficits through development and prosperity. US consumers, businesses, and economic growth will all suffer as a result of the US president’s inability to grasp this elementary logic. There seems to be just one long-term strategy behind all this: unleash populism for immediate electoral returns, blame someone else for the problems that populism inevitably causes, and let someone else deal with the long-term consequences. April 20th, 2025 | 42 comments
Of all the most pointless organisations in history, the Soviet Union’s Central Election Commission must be amongst the funniest. In the run-up to election day, CEC would be tasked with the important job of formally approving candidates. Fortunately for them, the Communist Party was happy to take on most of the work. On election day, the Commission would ensure that all processes were properly followed, dutifully noting down the names of any dissenters or abstainers. And, in the wake of the election, the CEC would rigorously audit the conduct of the election, invariably concluding that each poll was an unrivalled triumph of Soviet democracy. It was striking to read the Home Affairs Committee’s recent report into the Southport riots, which adopted much the same tone. The report condemned fears about two-tier policing as “disgraceful”, denying outright the notion that officers were more heavy-handed when responding to right-wing protests. This will raise eyebrows for anybody who can remember the summer of 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests turned violent in cities across the UK, following the death of George Floyd. Often, the police stood by and watched the disorder — a far cry from their response to post-Southport rioting. April 18th, 2025 | 9 comments
“Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that parts of the Maga movement are embracing a form of Right-wing wokery, with their own dark conspiracy theories, cult of victimhood, identity politics, denial of reality, moral grandstanding, hypersensitivity and purity tests. “In this vein, whingeing about trade deficits deserves to be dismissed as critical trade theory’, as Trumpian corollary of critical race theory: it postulates, nonsensically, that any shortfall must be caused by unfair practices, oppression or historic injustice. The ‘woke Right,’ a term coined by James Lindsay, is almost as much of a turn-off as the original Left-wing variety.” – Allister Heath, Daily Telegraph (£) He gives Mr Trump high marks on taking the fight vs DEI, some of the DOGE cuts (with a few caveats), and on energy policy (which in my view is Trump’s ace in the hole). But the broader point Heath makes about where he thinks Trump/Maga is losing it, including this nifty term of Heath’s, “critical trade theory”, is absolutely spot-on. It is, in my view, one of the big blinds spots of today’s populist Right and threatens to undo the good things that a Trump 2.0 might achieve, which would be bad not just for the US, but the West in general. As Heath goes on to write (and remember, he’s a pro-Brexit, free market chap, and not some obdurate Never Trumper), a course correction is needed. And Trump is not incapable of it. April 17th, 2025 | 52 comments
In the future, people will study propaganda like “Adolescence” in the way they study “Triumph of the Will” as a way to understand Germany in 1935. April 12th, 2025 | 30 comments
[a] trade imbalance is not an inherently bad thing. it can be a very good thing, a beneficial thing. this idea that if we buy $50bn more goods from kermeowistan every year than they buy from us that it implies that they are somehow “taking advantage” or this this is “unstainable” or negative is flatly false. it’s actually ridiculous. it ignores complex trade flows and balancing factors like “capital flows.” people really seem to struggle with this, but it’s not that difficult. you’ll will have a large lifetime trade deficit with the grocery store. you will buy much from them. they will buy nothing from you. is this a problem for you? is it unsustainable? most people seem to sustain this beneficial grocery trade their whole lives. why is it any different if it crosses a border or gets aggregated by nation? (spoiler alert, it’s not) you’ll likely run a lifetime trade deficit with many countries too. you buy a BMW. that’s a deficit to germany. you run a restaurant in toledo. you have no german customers. does this fact harm you in some way? did germany take advantage of you? would it be better for you if we imposed a tax that made that BMW 25% more expensive? no, and if we do, it might create automotive jobs in the US, but the cost to do so is YOUR choice and your budget. Follow the link, read the whole thing. April 8th, 2025 | 62 comments
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