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February 11th, 2011 | 121 comments - (Comments are closed)
 … Kenneth Clarke invariably supports anything with “european” in front of it. If they re-named ebola virus “european virus”, I expect he’d declare himself in favour of that, too. – Owen Morgan commenting on James Kirkup’s Daily Telegraph blog February 10th, 2011 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Oakeshott was an enchanting elfin figure, rather slight with a rather light but seductive voice. Men sometimes found him a little creepy, women never. He was married three times and was said to have various girlfriends scattered in boltholes in London and around the country. He was sceptical in his views, and not at all religious, thus conforming to my general theory that, as soon as British philosophers stopped believing in God, they started believing in sex. There is no more startling contrast between the celibacy, and indeed chastity, of Pascal and Locke and the insatiable appetites of Bertrand Russell and AJ Ayer and PH Nowell-Smith, the author of Ethics, who was said to have regarded it as a positive duty to sleep with other men’s wives.” Ferdinand Mount, Cold Cream, page 273. Quirky, self-effacing and brilliant about its portrayal of Mount’s life as a journalist and Downing Street policy wonk and conservative intellectual, this is one of the finest autobiographies I have read in years. Among the details that startled me was Mount’s battle with a terrible asthma problem; I also loved his portrayal of his father and vignettes featuring the likes of Malcolm Muggeridge and Siegfried Sassoon. I can also recommend Mount’s recent book about how we are becoming rather like the ancient Romans. February 9th, 2011 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
A charity that relies in the main part on taxes is no more a charity than a prostitute is your girlfriend. – Guido Fawkes ruminates on how David Cameron’s idea of the Big Society differs from Big Government. Strongly recommended to all those who, like me, have to force themselves to listen to anything said by David Cameron, but who like to read Guido. Doing this got me wondering how Fake Charities has been doing lately. Answer: it’s buzzing along very well, and is also strongly recommended. February 9th, 2011 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
A literary work, whether it be fiction or non-fiction, a brief essay or a lengthy treatise, should be composed with constant attention to the underlying theme of the work, summarised if possible in one sentence. I have borne this precept in mind. The message that integrates the text of this biography is that one man, relying on reason, and daring to stand alone, can make a difference in the world. – The last paragraph of the preface of Dare To Stand Alone, Bryan Niblett’s biography of nineteenth century atheist, republican, birth control advocate and radical individualist, Charles Bradlaugh. Niblett spoke eloquently about Bradlaugh last night in London, at the most recent of Christian Michel’s 6/20 evenings. February 7th, 2011 | Comments are closed
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Emma Jay grossly misled Delingpole as to the nature of the programme. It does occur to me though that in the internet age, this kind of thing, while remaining possible, will be hard to sustain in the long run. Anyone who is ever approached by Ms Jay can immediately put her name into Google and discover that she cannot be taken at her word. In the internet age a TV producer or journalist stands or falls on their integrity. Emma Jay’s looks to be gone, as does that of Rupert Murray, the guy who dissembled his way into Monckton’s confidence. I wonder what these question marks over their trustworthiness will do for their career prospects. – Bishop Hill, in a posting entitled Integrity in the internet age reflects on the lack of integrity that was involved in the making of two recent BBC attempts to drive a stake into the climate sceptics. The thing about Bishop Hill is that he does not make such judgements lightly. He does not indulge in thoughtless abuse, and constantly posts little homilies discouraging it among his commenters. If he says you lack integrity, the chances are, overwhelmingly, that you do. Presumably, many will want to defend these deceptions as being beneficial in the same way as has been claimed on behalf of whoever it was who revealed all those Climategate emails. But the fact remains that if you are dealing with either of the two above mentioned people, you should not trust them to tell you the truth about what sort of progamme they are really making. Their cover is now, as Bishop Hill says, blown. February 4th, 2011 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
“OK, for years, people who claim to be my intellectual betters on foreign policy (and pretty much everything else), and particularly about the Middle East, have been telling me that the root cause of the problems in the Middle East is the “occupation” of disputed territories in the West Bank and Gaza, and that we won’t be able to make any progress without solving that issue. It is what motivates Arab anger, and animates their protests. Well, surely if this is the case, with all of the apparent anger and ongoing revolt in Cairo, we should be seeing many reports on the ground of protesters with angry signs against the Zionist entity, right? Or have I just missed them somehow?” February 2nd, 2011 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
And that is called paying the Dane-geld; but we’ve proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane. – Rudyard Kipling January 31st, 2011 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
The government can take away my freedom, but if they take away my internet porn, they’re going down – @arabist January 27th, 2011 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
January 26th, 2011 | 60 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The moon shot has long been a favorite trope of politicians plugging for new government programs, right up there with the Marshall Plan. It was a wondrous achievement, but it presented a relatively discrete engineering problem. If only reforming education, a complex task involving the crooked timber of humanity here on earth, were as straightforward.” – Rich Lowry, giving his less than joyous take on the State of the Union address by The One. January 25th, 2011 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
How about adding some math lessons to plot statistically the chance of an Arab suicide bomber and a gay socialist vegetarian pacifist wearing a Che Guevara tee shirt and no sense of irony all ending up on the same bus in London? Sigh…Math was never that much fun in my school days. State education is beyond parody. – Perry de Havilland commenting here January 23rd, 2011 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
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