In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
– John Adams.
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Peter Mandelson’s re-appointment to Gordon Brown’s cabinet is a potential disaster, and not just for Britain. I have always liked Mandelson more than any other Labour politician. I ought to hate him, because his strategic genius gave us the New Labour revolution of the last decade. But his lucent unwillingness to pretend he is an imbecile, to conceal the fact of his cunning, or to act out his party’s customary hatred of private enterprise, even while his pupils execute their vile populist capers, is to me endearing. Maybe that is why I’m worried more than stunned by his return to British politics. While most commentators are mesmerised by the story of Brown’s feud with The Prince of Darkness, and the daring of playing with Labour Party’s own resentment of him by bringing him back from Brussels, I am more interested in strategy. Do not just look at the flashy sacrifice; see how it changes the board. There is now a gap in the European Commission. Brown will appoint one of his favourites to it, and have far reaching influence on Europe, and therefore Britain, even after he steps down. This can be seen as a subtle purge by bribery, and as a retirement strategy. A preparation for the Brown legacy. There is now a gap in the European Commission. Whoever fills Mandelson’s Trade portfolio will be replacing one of the most free-trade-friendly commissioners that the EU has ever had, in a financial crisis, with protectionist populism surging on both sides of the Atlantic. Brown’s legacy could easily be a trade war and a real depression. October 4th, 2008 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
 From the Spectator:
This is from two weeks ago, so adjust for the financial turmoil since… the advice still stands. October 3rd, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Here is a press release on the event scheduled for tomorrow:
It sounds like fun, and if by chance you get thirsty during the speeches, there is a great old pub called the Green Dragon not far away where the Boston Tea Party was purportedly planned… October 3rd, 2008 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
YouTube blocks Pat Condell’s attack on sharia in Britain. As my friend Geoff Arnold reminds us:
My favourite phrase (slightly paraphrased):
If you are a Brit (resident or expat), please sign the petition that Pat mentions. October 3rd, 2008 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he brought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service….The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent of the national income.” – A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945, page 1. Quoted by Alvin Rabushka in “From Adam Smith to The Wealth of America, page 80. The latter is a particularly good book, written very much from the “supply-side” school of economics with a strong account of developments in UK 19th century politics, Hong Kong, and the Reagan presidency. October 3rd, 2008 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Rand Simberg is live blogging the conference in Lake Buena Vista and from his initial description it sounds like all the players are there. It is really not too difficult to understand why the military would find the idea of beaming power from space to a front line post a more appealing solution to energy requirements than driving trucks loaded with petrol hundreds of miles through ambush country. Power from space starts to sound cheap when compared to a cost of as high as $200 per gallon for gasoline pumped into your Hummvee on the battlefield. October 2nd, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is simply brilliant:
The serious point here, of course is that Americans are being asked to bail themselves out, or their more feckless citizens, many of whom are far richer than they. And this is meant to save “unregulated capitalism”, apparently. Thanks to Bob Bidinotto for the link. Bob has been on fire recently. October 2nd, 2008 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Over at EU Referendum blog, there is a good item about the regulatory system which to a degree, lies at the heart of the current market turmoil. It refers to the network of rules known as Basel II, taking their name from the fact that the headquarters of the Bank of International Settlements is based in the Swiss city. BIS is the place that central bankers meet regularly to discuss regulations governing the world’s main banks and other financial institutions. I used to go to Switzerland quite a bit to sit in on some of the discussions surrounding these rules when I used to report on this sort of stuff. Essentially, the rules lay down how much capital banks should set aside to cover against risks. They are extremely complicated, but in a nutshell, they are designed to protect the financial system from a wave of debt defaults. The Basel II rules have in turn acted as the foundation for bank capital regulations in the EU and other major industrial economies. If I have a “point” to make here, it is that the existence of these and other regulations utterly nails the lie, put around by a lot of MSM commentators, that what we are seeing is the demise of unregulated, cowboy capitalism. Au contraire, what we have seen is the failure of a large body of rules, assembled over many years, to do what they were supposed to do. In fact, as EU Referendum persuasively argues, these rules may have even worsened the crisis and encouraged financial players to take certain risks “off balance sheet” to avoid having to set aside capital. But you can bet that policymakers will not draw the conclusion that too much regulation might actually be part of the problem. October 1st, 2008 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sometimes the odd phrase can tell you everything you need to know about the kind of philosophical assumptions, held either wittingly or not, that people carry around in their heads. In a rather fluffy BBC TV news item this morning about how elderly gardeners are helping young schoolkids to learn about the great outdoors, a character involved said that this showed the “valuable contribution that senior citizens make to society”. For some reason that really bugged the hell out of me. There is this continued use of the word “society” as if this were a sort of person. I have contributions that I make to my married life such as paying certain bills and taking care of my wife if she gets ill or needs help, for instance, and I am very delighted to do so. I contribute to paying my mortgage by going out to work. I make contributions to certain services by paying for them, willingly or not, via private payments or through the violence-backed channel of tax (although “contribution” is not the right word in the latter case). But the idea that Johnathan Pearce’s activities somehow “contribute to society” is so much collectivist nonsense. The turn of phrase shows that how people choose to live their lives is not viewed through an individualistic perspective – the idea that people are entitled to pursue their lives for their own sake and happiness – but according to some sort of utilitarian or altruistic calculus, as Ayn Rand might have put it. There is actually something rather chilling about this, in fact. What if some person decides that the oldies are not making a “contribution to society”? Should they be put down, like a crippled dog? October 1st, 2008 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have always considered the US Drug Enforcement Agency a bunch of anti-liberty and dangerously out of control houligans (out done only by members of BATF), but this ICE activity just leaves me slack jawed. I think some ICE and perhaps DEA officers are due for prosecution as accessories to murders. Twelve of them, in fact. PS: While you are over at Reason…. the second half of the Counter Debate video is now available. October 1st, 2008 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
What follow is a somewhat edited version of a comment I left on a Hollywood gossip blog called JJ’s Dirt. As the blog owner decided not to approve my comment (as is indeed his right of course, so no nonsensical bleating about ‘censorship’… it is JJ’s blog and any comments on his turf are quite rightly at his unconditional sufferance. His blog = his rules), so I thought I would post my comment here. As it never saw the light of day, I have slightly expended it to more fully express my views. I came across the article in a google search for something quite unrelated and saw a short list of people who are purported to be homosexual or bisexual in various so called ‘public’ walks of life in the USA. Although I am utterly indifferent to people’s consensual sexual behaviour provided it is not aggressively thrust unwanted in my direction, I have always been deeply uncomfortable with the self-righteousness of people who ‘out’ others. This was the trigger phrase that moved me to comment and my (slightly expanded) reply follows.
Or maybe they just have the notion that it is none of anyone else’s damn business and that unless they choose to openly discuss their private life, they should have their privacy respected by others when they are not on the job. If someone is a politician, they are a person controlling the violence backed means of collective coercion and quite reasonably should have no right to privacy whatsoever, be it sexual, social or financial. Being an athlete or actor/actress on the other hand is just a job, not a public office. Why should your wish to ‘out’ someone trump their wish to perhaps not have what they do in private known? Certainly no one can or should force you to stop this (unless they feel you have defamed them, which is a rather different issue that I am not addressing), but that does not make what you are doing right. Perhaps you define yourself by your sexuality but most homosexual people I know do not, so why try to force them to make common cause with you when they may well feel no affinity with you or your world view at all? It is already the case that in most of the civilised world (i.e. the western world) the law does not prohibit homosexual public displays of affection. You have legal protection against violence directed at you and being homosexual no longer mitigates your legal right not to be assaulted… and rightly so of course. Moreover by and large you have tolerance socially too, in that people will not take action to try and stop you holding hands with your partner. That is what tolerance means. It is the natural right of everyone to have their consensual behaviour with others tolerated. However if your ‘comfort’ means it is ‘acceptance’ you want from straight people, rather than just tolerance, well you may ask people for it but you have no right to it and a significant number of people will choose to not accept you. No one has a right to be accepted. As long as someone tolerates you (as they must), it is their right, not yours, to judge you according to their sensibilities. In short, if all someone does is sneer at you and your partner holding hands in public, deal with it. The world is full of jackasses and always will be. But please, stop poking into people’s private affairs if they do not want them poked into. I do not think what you are doing is immensely harmful but it is neither admirable nor justified. September 30th, 2008 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
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