John Crace of the Guardian writes about someone totally cool.
Max Hardberger makes his living by stealing back stolen cargo ships, beating pirates at their own game from Haiti to Russia.
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November 15th, 2010 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The Royal College of Nursing has just won a case against a bureaucratic body in England that many may not have heard of, the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). The victory is a fairly minimal one: it has been ruled that the ISA must confirm to some elements of fair procedure, and may not ban people from their professions automatically without hearing. None of the professional bodies or establishment human rights organisations such as Liberty appears to be challenging the principle of state vetting in employment. They are fussing about the procedure. But to me this is an epitome of the degree of state intrusion into our lives that is now accepted in Britain as completely normal. Here, from the Nursing Times report, are summaries of the cases on the basis of which the most recent ruling was made:
For those who are unfamiliar with English criminal law, “accepted a caution” is a sort of plea bargain in the hands of the police. If one accepts a caution, one is admitting an offence in return for no further action being taken by police (except keeping a record on you, fingerprints and DNA, till you reach the age of 100). One might believe one was avoiding punishment. That would almost certainly be suggested by police (whose figures are improved and paperwork decreased by disposing of offences by caution). Nevertheless the routine admission of a minor offence can be used by distant bureaucrats (whether they give you a hearing or not) to deprive you of your career (and in the case of British nurses wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers money in training). And not only that but such a decisions makes it a criminal offence for anyone to employ you in any capacity in medicine, education or social care. Mr O and Mrs W would have been barred not just from professional nursing, but scrubbing the lavatories in a school after hours, or driving a bus for the elderly. (Or even, by a bureaucratic version of magical contagion, a bus for carers for the elderly. see pdf Q.35) And cautioned for what? In the one case leaving a near teenager alone for a short while. In the other for allowing (allowing!?) one’s wife to leave the children for less than a working day. Who knew these were criminal offences? I want children to grow up to be independent. That means them learning to manage themselves as early as they can. Leaving your children on their own for short periods, perhaps overnight or for a weekend, with proper provision and knowledge of who to call in case of problems, is not criminal. It is fine. It is laudable. But we live in a state that demands you not use your judgement, that cannot bear the possibility of error and learning. It fears mistakes enough that there are now rules about how you may bring up your family, requiring all minors to be treated as needy infants. All adults, on the other hand, whether at home or in their working lives, are deemed to be cruel monsters unless restrained by the threat of excommunication from the benevolent database. The state knows what is right. The ISA was originally to use a checklist to assess lifestyles for ‘risk‘, though that has been deferred for the moment. You are either among the elect, or you are damned – and the ISA has a list saying which is which. November 14th, 2010 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
The thing about Delingpole is not just the things he says, but the huge numbers of people he says them to, throughout not just the UK but the entire anglosphere. He said “climate science” was hooey to his massed readership, when saying that really counted for something. Now he is arguing for serious cuts, as in actual reductions, as in large reductions, in government spending, here in the UK, in the USA, and pretty much everywhere, at a time when that too needs to be said very loudly. It is an odd feeling watching all the things I have have been banging on about for the last third of a century or so – about taxation, spending cuts, Hong Kong, the Asian Tigers, etc. – being banged on about by someone half my age and of several times my eloquence. Extreme jealousy mixed with extreme delight about sums it up. The former, I am getting over. The latter will last. I can remember when we used to dream of getting stuff like his in the Telegraph … blah blah. So, well done Delingpole, and keep it coming. November 12th, 2010 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Remember Paul Chambers? Twitter joke trial: Paul Chambers loses appeal against conviction
Has Judge Jacqueline Davies ever met an ordinary person other than in the courtroom? They have usually got over wetting the bed coz he said scawy fings mummy by the age of three. This particular form of infantile behaviour is everywhere. There is a second example reported in the papers just today. Tory councillor arrested over Alibhai-Brown ‘stoning’ tweet
You’ve brought her up to be as big a baby as you are, then.
Waaaah! Make the nasty Tories go away! Hard to believe this is a woman in her sixties talking. The childishness she displays is pitiable, if genuine. However I rather think that along with the hiding-under-the-blankets stuff she is displaying another form of childishness – that of flouncing around in a strop and demonstrating semi-voluntary control of the tear glands. November 12th, 2010 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
I left this comment over on Tim Worstall’s blog yesterday, and I thought I might reproduce it here:
For those who may not know, Compass is a leftist pressure group in the UK that tends to argue for such clever ideas as higher taxes, ever greater regulation of business, and so on. November 11th, 2010 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
Polly Toynbee in the Guardian back in July:
The UK Film Council, quoted in the Independent in August:
Ivan Lewis in the Guardian yesterday:
November 10th, 2010 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
A disenfranchised population becomes an untrustworthy population, since it loses the habit of making its own decisions. The majority become childish in hundreds of ways, looking to the State as parent, complaining without displaying a willingness to any form of self-determination. The more liberty one has, the more indvidual responsibility is required of one to make rational, well-considered decisions in the context of one’s social and personal life. Most of us are educated to think we are not capable of this when, in fact, most of us are thoroughly capable but simply lack either the circumstances or the determination to test ourselves. An authoritarian, paternalistic State encourages us in this belief, by its actions as well as by its rhetoric. By its very nature it creates a morally enfeebled, child-like population. This population in turn ‘proves’ its inability to control its own fate and consequently ‘proves’ the need for the paternalism which created it in the first place. There is no fundamental difference between Tory and Socialist paternalism. – Michael Moorcock, The Retreat From Liberty, 1983 November 10th, 2010 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Why is it that the BBC, in its reporting of David Cameron’s visit to China, keeps banging on about the supposed dilemma faced by the Prime Minister over whether to raise human rights abuse, and in particular the plight of Liu Xiaobo, a prominent Chinese dissident unable to collect his Nobel peace prize because he’s serving an 11 year sentence in a Chinese jail? There’s no dilemma here at all – except in the vague terms already referred to by Mr Cameron, this is not an issue which needs to be explored at all on a visit which is meant to be wholly about trade. Only the BBC, would, in oblivious disregard for the national interest, keep on trying to make something out of it. I seem to recall some ‘sensible’ commentator of the day made similar remarks about those who deprecated comparable government to government relations with Nazi Germany in the 1930’s over that whole tiresome ‘human rights’ thingie November 9th, 2010 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Says it all, really. Her Majesty’s Treasury informs us that
And here it is. All 349 kilobytes of it. All good citizens will be happy to learn that “Expenditure incurred with regard to safety precautions at a sports ground is eligible for capital allowances.” (No. 530), although perhaps approval will be less enthusiastic for No. 603, “International organisations and their staffs are exempt from specified taxes.” It is a burden off my mind to discover in the form of No. 673 that “Suggestion awards made by employees which do not exceed £25 are exempt from income tax.” – although one might suggest that the effort put forth by lawmakers to create and tax inspectors to administer this provision probably exceeds the benefit felt by the average taxpayer. In fact that conclusion might apply to most of No.s 1- 672 and 674 – 1042 as well. November 9th, 2010 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
This comment by “Armaros”, made in response to a Guardian piece by Michael Tomasky about the former president’s new book, put the case well:
What do you think? November 9th, 2010 | 66 comments - (Comments are closed)
That is, if this sentiment attributed to him does indeed reflect his thoughts:
How about considering that the same courtesy should be extended to everyone else in the world, Mr Olbermann? November 8th, 2010 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
This morning I recorded a BBC Radio 4 programme about the late LTC Rolt, historian of the industrial revolution, biographer of (to name but one) Brunel, and the man who put a Rocket, to coin a phrase, under British industrial archaeology and who did much to make it a popular British enthusiasm. The programme ended by quoting these words from Ecclesiasticus (not in the Bible and not to be confused with Ecclesiastes which is in the Bible) chapter 38:
This guy liked it too, when this show was first aired, on Nov 8th. Not saying I agree, mind. Read what precedes it (e.g. by following the immediately above link) and you discover that the writer of these stirring words had no problem with the working stiffs playing no part in government. That’s strictly for the idle – and therefore wise – rich to take care of. But, stripped of that context, the above quote reads more like a protest on behalf of the downtrodden craftsmen and a claim that they should be sought in the “counsel of the people”. Understanding it that way, which is how I did understand it when I first heard the words on my radio this morning, I liked it a lot. I also think that these words capture something of what the Tea Party is about. We, say the Tea Partiers, run the world, even if we don’t rule it. We certainly maintain the world. We know how the world works. Without us the world – the “fabric of the world” – stops. When the idle rich, mounted on high in their assemblies, decide about how the world shall be ruled, they should damn well be listening to us. A healthy majority of those in such assemblies should be us. November 8th, 2010 | 52 comments - (Comments are closed)
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