[It] is possible that lockdowns will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history
Not just Canada, old chap.
|
|||||
|
“SNP MSP claims border with England would ‘create jobs'”, writes Tom Gordon in the Herald.
Job creation for guards: sounds just the Scottish National Party’s style. Perhaps that is why they are so keen on the Hate Crime (Scotland) Bill. Think of the career opportunities for snoopers and informers! April 26th, 2021 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
 We should have a 401 (k) plan because 401 (k) plans are a proven failure. – Tim Worstall writing No, Really, These People Are Insane 🤣 April 26th, 2021 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
I fear that, like the High Septon, they’re missing something. Cersei wasn’t there because there wasn’t going to be a trial. I think the Republicans aren’t going to win back the House and Senate (or the Presidency in 2024) because there aren’t going to be honest elections. The Democrats are pushing hard on numerous fronts to make sure that they can’t lose on the national stage – Esteban making a parallel between Cersei Lannister and the Democrats April 25th, 2021 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Jury acquits Extinction Rebellion protesters despite ‘no defence in law’”, reports the Guardian. I remain a supporter of the principle of jury nullification, but, sheesh, guys, this isn’t 2018. Obviously I am in a bubble. I had thought that the blowback after XR stunts like disrupting public transport and doorstepping Sir David Attenborough – stunts that seemed calculated to target potential allies – had turned most people against them. Evidently not all. April 24th, 2021 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
“America innovates, China duplicates and Europe regulates.” – Jeremy Warner, Daily Telegraph, (behind paywall). (He is writing about the EU’s Precautionary Principle and generally silly approach to new technologies. These are differences of degree, of course: it is not as if the US is quite the swinging-from-the-chandeliers classical liberal place of yore.) April 23rd, 2021 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
April 22nd, 2021 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
In Britain there is overwhelming popular support for the legalisation of cannabis, yet because recreational drugs are illegal, our cities are being ravaged by criminal turf wars over drug distribution. Taking the products out of the hands of criminals and into regulated markets would not only end the bloodshed, it would end the unnecessary criminalisation of thousands of young people. Drug addiction would be treated as a medical, not judicial problem. The war on drugs has failed and will always fail because humans like to alter their mental state. Voters should be allowed to enjoy drugs safely … Ever since I attended Essex University in the early 1970s I have been of the the opinion that cannabis can have a very bad effect on some people. I watched it turn a few relatively normal people into excessively placid and “pacific” people who, if you then verbally pressurised them even quite mildly, but in a way they couldn’t handle, were liable to turn on you like cornered rats, in ways that were wildly excessive compared to any rudeness you had subjected them to. In short, cannabis drove them mad. In particular, paranoid. All sense of proportionality in how they defended themselves in a vigorous but basically friendly conversation went out the window. That’s what I think I then saw. And ever since then, I’ve heard further anecdotage that confirms that prejudice. Which does not mean that I favour cannabis being illegal, any more than I favour it being illegal to smoke, or to drink alcohol, or to borrow money unwisely, or to gamble, or to climb mountains, or to parachute out of airplanes, or to do anything dangerous merely because it is dangerous. Guido frames this as an argument about the right to do drugs safely. I prefer to think of it as the right to do unsafe things, to decide what risks you will take with your life, to make your own judgements about how to balance pleasure against danger. Insofar as Guido merely implies that dangerous things which you can only get from criminals are a hell of a lot more dangerous than if they are legal, I wholly agree. April 21st, 2021 | 45 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Five Eyes on China cut to four as New Zealand puts trade first”, reports the Times.
Ms Mahuta waxed poetical about the relationship between New Zealand and China:
Oddly, the Times report makes no mention of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. If only she knew of this cynical act of realpolitik by one of her ministers! April 20th, 2021 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Nothing official yet but it would appear that there are plans for a European Super League. Yes, I know you’re thinking, “Don’t we already have one of those?” Sort of, except that the Champions League is not a league let alone one of champions. This, on the other hand, would be a proper week-in, week-out competition to determine who – really – is the best team in the world. Shockingly, some people don’t seem to like it. UEFA doesn’t like it. FIFA doesn’t like it. The British Government – you really would have thought that Boris Johnson would have bigger things on his mind right now – doesn’t like it. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “If *a**e*s like FIFA and the British government are against it, it must be a good thing.” And you know what? you are absolutely right. But there are other reasons to like it. What it means is that ordinary people will be able to watch the best football in the world on a weekly basis. It also means that the footballers who people actually want to watch will get their just rewards. In many ways it is just as revolutionary as the creation of the Premier League in 1993 or the creation of the world’s first league in 1888 or the decision to ban handling and kicking people in the shins. Frankly, it’s about bloody time. Of course, it is bad news for rubbish teams. But who cares about them? As it happens, I do. I support one of them, well, when they’re not promoting communist thuggery (but that’s another story). But I don’t expect the world to be discombobulated just so I can watch them pulverise the best team on the planet every once in a while. I will still be able to support them – subject to semi-permanent Covid restrictions, of course. They’ll just have to cut their coat to suit their cloth that’s all. Who knows, maybe the competition will stir the game’s organisers to improve it. Perhaps, we’ll see an end to the ridiculous offside rule or sin-bins instead of bookings or even the re-introduction of handling and kicking people in the shins. April 19th, 2021 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
Addendum: Suitable narrative courtesy of “Bell Curve”: Government: We must lockdown due to this terrible disease! Data literate people: Hey, good news, this is a nasty disease if you fit certain profiles but for most people, this is not that big a deal. Government: We must lockdown again due to this terrible disease! Data literate people: Guys! Please! Listen, not only is this not that big a deal, we now know early treatment means this is REALLY not a big deal. Government: We must lockdown yet again due to this terrible disease! Data literate people: Oh for fuck sake… April 18th, 2021 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
‘Buy Large Mansions‘ was not something I expected to see added so soon to ‘Black Lives Murdered‘, ‘Bullshit Marxist Lies‘ and other clarifications of the acronym. It was obvious from the start that Chavez and his family would become stinking rich as Venezuelans starved, that Mugabe’s wealth would grow as his country’s vanished, but usually the socialists themselves say it openly only a good many years after seizing all power, not just a few months after stealing an election. I think it was de Toqueville who said of nineteenth-century French revolutionaries: “I had the impression they were play-acting the French revolution much more than continuing it.” The same impression led Karl Marx, echoing Hegel, to write that history happens twice: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” In that sense, Patrisse is indeed realising Marx’s vision. She is also embodying P.G.Wodehouse’ joke. Foreseeable, avoidable tragedy is farcical. National Socialism conquered Germany, then Europe, before being pulled down by almost all the combined strength of the remainder of the world – and that was shameful, Hannah Arendt pointed out, because it was also ridiculous. The current state of the western world is less grave (as yet), but it is already shameful – because it is already ridiculous. April 17th, 2021 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
Recent Comments