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The fascinating thing about this response is that it demonstrates that Cameron, whose only claim to fame is that he is a politician, isn’t even very good at politics. – Richard North describes Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s stonewalling response to suggestions that he might want to rethink his attitude towards the climate change debate January 27th, 2010 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
 We should not forget, here in the UK, that dislike of the state-financed broadcasting network of the BBC has been going on for some time. Here is Kingsley Amis, the author and lecturer, writing in 1984:
The point, however, is that the focus on entertainment has arguably increased since the late Mr Amis wrote those words back in the era of Mrs Thatcher. As a consequence, the paternalistic intentions of the creators of the BBC have been frustrated to a remarkable degree. When Amis commented on the BBC, he at least was part of a country in which it was assumed that the BBC’s controllers felt that they had some sort of mission to educate and inform – not that this justified coercive funding even then. But the paternalism was at least fairly blatant. Now even that sense of mission appears to be more evident in the breach rather than the observance. The contradictions posed by the BBC’s funding model are unendurable. The quote is taken from The Amis Collection, page 257, published in 1990. I am not sure if the book is still in print. January 26th, 2010 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Being tried by 12 good men and true sounds brilliant but if, God forbid, you were to find yourself in the dock charged with a crime you did not commit, would you want to be tried by 11 dinner ladies and Trigger from Only Fools and Horses? Or Wayne Rooney? Or Piers Morgan? Speaking personally, I’d far rather plead my case in front of nothing but a judge. I know that some are a bit doddery, and that many live in houses with no central heating, but most are more astute than the alternative: 11 lunching ladies and Benny from Crossroads.” Read on, and he nevertheless defends trial by jury, despite his rather bracing opinions of our fellow men and women. For our non-UK readers, I should explain that Wayne Rooney is a footballer, Trigger is a character from a comedy show, Piers Morgan is a journalist and arsehole, and Benny is also a character from a forgettable soap opera. I hope this information proves informative and enlightening. January 22nd, 2010 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
In Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman. – Keith Olbermann, MSNBC host. To which Mark Steyn responded, under the heading “Homophobic Nude Teabaggers on the March”: That’s certainly why I’m supporting him. But who knew there were so many of us? January 20th, 2010 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
“It says something about our prospective future prime minister that when he decided to respond to accusations of being a lightweight, he did so by granting privileged access to the “most fashionable man in Britain”, and that the subsequent book that was produced (for which he was paid £20,000) and the subsequent articles that continue to be produced (Jones recently wrote a 3,288 word piece on Cameron for The Mail on Sunday), have resulted in revelations such as the fact that Cameron doesn’t really like Pot Noodle, that he needs six or seven hours’ sleep a night, that he has “small flecks of grey in his thatch” and that his karaoke song of choice is A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles, because “even I couldn’t muck up a song like that”. January 14th, 2010 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
This development may horrify the old guard, but peer-to-peer review was just what forced the release of the Climategate files – and as a consequence revealed the uncertainty of the science and the co-opting of the process that legitimizes global warming research. It was a collective of climate blogs, centered on the work of Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, which applied the pressure. With moderators and blog commenters that include engineers, PhDs, statistics whizzes, mathematics experts, software developers, and weather specialists – the label flat-earthers, as many of their opponents have attempted to brand them, seems as fitting as tagging Lady Gaga with the label demure. – Patrick Courrielche, discussing the circumstances by which the Climategate e-mails came to light and were analysed by independent parties. Parts two and three of his article are unnecessarily on separate pages. I confess that I do like the phrase “Peer to peer review”. I am struck by how much of the progress here has been made by the so called “lukewarmers” – people who are (or at least were) open to the idea that global warming was real and human caused, who often had relevant expertise, and wanted to look at the data for themselves. After all, many interpretations are always possible. (First link via Bishop Hill). January 13th, 2010 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
We don’t have to show the slightest respect for other people’s views – just for their right to hold them. Respect, after all, must be earned. It’s only freedom of speech that’s a right. When someone says something which you find stupid or offensive, you can say something back. You can tell them to fuck off. They don’t have to, but they’ve still been told. – David Mitchell, writing about the self-publicising Islam4UK. As Mr Mitchell says, we should have the right to be offensive, and we should have to put up with being offended sometimes. A pity that we don’t. Freedom of speech has ceased to be a right in Britain. In practice you are no longer permitted to be offensive, if you are within the grasp of the authorities. You may be threatened or arrested, have property seized, or forced to defend a criminal trial. Sell or wear a mildly rude T-shirt, and you may find public order legislation stretched to make an example of you. Write down “inappropriate” fantasies in a blog, or a poem, and prepare to defend a serious criminal charge. Quarrel with someone, a planning department, say, and if they can even suggest you hinted at forbidden speech, they can use the police to intimidate you. January 10th, 2010 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
“I think that people can legitimately complain that the educated class that dominated Wall Street and Washington first made the mortgage mess and then railroaded through a bailout in which a transfer of wealth from main street to Wall Street was marketed as a benefit to main street. The educated class is losing the respect of the rest of America for reasons that are well deserved.” – Arnold Kling. The quote is equally applicable to the UK. Read the whole item. It contains interesting commentary on a new book by Thomas Sowell. By the way, the question of the influence of an “educated class” begs the interesting question as to whether this class is all that well educated in the first place. Surely one of the hallmarks of a traditional, liberal education was understanding certain lessons of history, such as the dangers of concentrations of power in a few hands with few checks or balances. Just a thought. January 7th, 2010 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The sexual conservative’s true hypocrisy is that he doesn’t really believe in his own idealisation. Men will be inflamed by the sight of hair, women will bear other men’s children at the fall of a veil, boys will suddenly cast off the tedious ways of heterosexuality and put on the gaudy garb of gayness. In truth, sexual conservatives wants to make everyone else pay for their own dark thoughts.” January 6th, 2010 | 67 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Our exercise program can dramatically improve a woman’s sexual performance,” says Olga Nikitina, 40, the founder of the School for VUM-Building in central Moscow. “She can transform herself from a slow Russian car like a Lada into a Ferrari.” To disguise the fact that the equipment really does look like it belongs in a car-mechanic’s workshop – it’s all pressure gauges and rubber hoses – the school’s two rooms are painted pink and blue; stuffed animals model phallic devices. “Once a woman reaches optimal fitness, she can shoot a fountain of water up out of her vagina in the bath,” boasts Nikitina, a ponytailed blonde in a leopard-print top. The core device is a small silicone balloon that is inserted in the vagina and inflated with a pneumatic pump. “You squeeze against the balloon and measure the pressure on the attached gauges,” says Nikitina. Fine-tuning can be achieved by learning to shoot out pebbles onto a metal target. – Russian women learning how to get – and to keep – rich and generous husbands (with thanks to Instapundit) January 2nd, 2010 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
Ho hum! The letter is barking mad but it still needs hours of constructing a careful response, the net effect of which will be the same as two Anglo Saxon words. – Richard North responds to a lawyers‘ letter in a comment on this posting. My thanks to Bishop Hill for an email that got me noticing this latest twist in the Climategate saga a little sooner than I otherwise would have. January 1st, 2010 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
“And what should our mood be? The population restrictionists say we should be sad and worry. I and many others believe that the trends suggesst joy and celebration at our newfound capacity to support human life – healthily, and with fast-increasing access to education and opportunity all over the world. I believe that the population restrictionists’ hand-wringing view leads to despair and resignation. Our view leads to hope and progress, in the reasonable expectation that that the energetic efforts of humankind will prevail in the future, as they have in the past, to increase worldwide our numbers, our health, our wealth, and our opportunities…..Adding more people causes problems, but people are also the means to solving those problems.” – Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, 2nd edition, page 588. The other day, Perry de Havilland took aim at those who would use the violence-backed power of the State to restrict human population. The late Julian Simon had no time for the neo-Malthusian mindset. Among other things, he did not regard wealth as somehow fixed and that if there were more people around, there would be less for each person. We are richer now than we were 100 years ago, and there are more of us. If you want a book that cuts through the crud of the gloomongering cast of mind, this book still ranks up top as one of the very best. December 30th, 2009 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
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