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BBC reports that Boris Johnson made crocophobic remarks today, with LGBTQIAC activists decrying this blatant display of Tory prejudice as “triggering”. A Tory spokesman dismissed the criticism as “a complete croc”. April 21st, 2022 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The job of the BBC is to inform us of the Governments intention to send migrants to Rwanda. Our job is to determine whether we deem it racist or not. April 19th, 2022 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I do not think that word “refuted” means what you think it means, Mr Head of Communications. The quotation comes from an article in the Wexford regional edition of the Irish Independent called “Wexford County Council Head of Communications denies attempt to influence output of local radio station”, though I first saw the story in the Irish section of the Times called “Micheál Martin weighs into editorial independence row at Wexford county council”:
The fact that the taoiseach has weighed in probably means that South East Radio’s independence is safe for now. But as a Times commenter called Helena says, “One small insight into the pressure state bodies with lavish advertising and PR budgets may exert over a financially struggling “independent” media sector. The extensive “no go” areas for media scrutiny in Ireland reflect this imbalance.” Ireland is far from the only country where this is true. April 13th, 2022 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
When a boxer or wrestler who would normally be expected to trash-talk his opponent instead gushes about how strong they are, be suspicious. Here is the Jen Psaki story the press want to talk about: “Jen Psaki Has Now Held More Press Briefing Than All Of Trump’s Press Secretaries Combined” – Jason Easley, Politicus USA. Mr Easley writes,
This story about Psaki’s achievement in having done her job on two hundred separate days has been syndicated across the English speaking world. Jason Easley’s enthusiasm is matched by that of David Charter in the (London) Times: “Jen Psaki holds onto the White House job no Trump aide could handle”
I hope that Mr Charter remembered the stamped addressed envelope and the required four box tops from special Psaki-edition cartons of Rice Krispies when he sent off for his membership badge. He regales us with tales of her witty put-downs of Fox News reporters and Republican Senators. Only a spoilsport would say that the information revealed in the eleventh paragraph of the Times story, the one paragraph out of fourteen that had any news value, might have been given more prominence:
Emphasis added. The New York Post’s October 2020 scoop about Hunter Biden’s laptop was censored by Facebook and Twitter, derided by the establishment media, and certified as “Russian disinfo” by “dozens of former intel officials”, according to Psaki. For some reason the Post wanted to talk about that rather than her 200th briefing: “Psaki won’t defend claim Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scoop was ‘Russian plant’”. March 19th, 2022 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
Christians in MP Steve Baker’s seat pray for him to quit role on climate thinktank
When it says “protesters gathered”, we are not talking about the First Crusade. The gathering process probably took less than three seconds.
I see something missing there.
Smite the idolaters?
All very civilised, and these doubtless well-meaning folk, all fifteen of them, have every right to make their protest, and I am glad that Mr Baker smote them not. But if we’re gonna be doing political prayers, here’s mine. Oh Lord, open their eyes: we need fracking and nuclear power for the sake of the poor and the peace of the world. As Andrew Neil writes in the Mail,
Added later: From Tipp Insights, “Anti-Fossil Madness Funds Putin’s Ukraine Aggression” February 26th, 2022 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is an article in today’s Guardian by Nesrine Malik called “Scared to be ‘woke’? It’s time for progressives to take a stand in the culture wars”. The title is a fair summary of her argument. As so often, the comments were more interesting than the article. The five most popular top-level comments were: Wiretrip
Quaestor
Lump
ServiusGalba
Giovanni1234
The days are long gone when the Guardian comment section was called “Comment is Free” and, true to its name, allowed readers to comment on practically every article. These days comments are rarely allowed except on those articles where most of the Guardian readership is likely to agree with the Guardian‘s own line. This article was an exception. Of course, the newspaper has every right to pursue whatever policy on comments it wishes, but the habit of not permitting people to talk back has costs. One loses the chance to feel the wind change. I think Nesrine Malik will have been surprised by the hostile reaction to her article, and many of the commenters will be surprised to find out how many of their fellow left wingers share their doubts. February 21st, 2022 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression”, says the gov.uk website. It would be nice to think that meant that the Bill would make the UK the safest place in the world in which to defend free expression online. The text of the draft Bill soon dispels that illusion. Today’s Times editorial says,
It is sweet to believe the best of people, but that “appears not to have seen” is either sweet enough to choke on, or sarcasm.
The editorial continues,
That’s us bloggers dealt with then. Notice how the article frames the threat to free expression almost entirely in terms of its effect on newspapers. Still, in the current climate I am grateful that the Times has come out against the Bill. If self-interest is what it takes to wake them, then good for self-interest.
February 19th, 2022 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Little noticed in the UK media, reports from a financial vlogger Joe Blogs (that is his handle) on Turkey tells us that the government is ‘asking’ citizens to hand over their gold and foreign currency, at a time of 50% inflation, but citizens will get Lira in return. There are 30,000 gold shops in Turkey and five major refineries. Do not worry that Erdogan is a (not so) covert Islamist, he is first and foremost a Keynesian. The Turkish government is not simply standing by and watching as the Lira inflates away, the government has cut tax on food from 8% to 1%, and this in the context of a currency crisis, the lira falling 44% in 2021 against foreign currencies. So they know that cutting taxes eases burdens on people. Unfortunately, Atatürk’s doctrine of ‘statism‘ lingers, with lots of Turks employed by the State. Meanwhile, the Turkish Finance Minister has been in the UK and reported had a ‘fantastic‘ meeting with potential investors. And the goverment is determined to keep on down this path, telling the private banks to step up their efforts to help by handing over foreign currency deposits. (Doubtless this is all voluntary). Here is a graph of recent Turkish inflation rates. Are we going to be seeing a ‘crack-up boom’ in real time any week now? Turkey is reportedly informally dollarising, with over 50% of transactions in Turkey in dollars (Why not the Euro?). I can’t help thinking that in the UK, the government is looking at Turkey with envious eyes, dreaming of taking steps to inflate away what remains of our prosperity and to seize our assets. And it is not all bad from the Turkish government, they have changed the name of the country in a re-branding exercise, changing it from ‘Turkey’ to ‘Türkiye’, apparently to avoid confusion with the bird of the same name. Joe Blogs also has some interesting coverage on the Chinese property conglomerate Evergrande, and the efforts of a US Hedge Fund to take ownership of collateral in Hong Kong. February 16th, 2022 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
The deaths of those whom you have met and influenced you for the better is a kick in the gut, a punch on the nose and reminder that cancer really, really sucks. And that is the sort of sentence that the late P J O’ Rourke, literary jester, mocker of fashionable nostrums, lover of fast cars and travel to dangerous places, could have written. I met Mr O’Rourke about a decade ago, in what was the aftermath of the 2008 financial smash. He was charming company (my wife was bowled over by him – you have to watch these silver-tongued Irishmen) and retained the fizz that I recall from his coruscating book, Republican Party Reptile. I read that, I think, in around 1989, and then got my hands on anything he wrote. When he became a traveling correspondent for RollingStone magazine (a fact that today strikes one as impossible, such is the tribalism of our culture), I followed his columns closely. Parliament of Whores, written in the early 1990s and on the cusp of the Bill Clinton decade, stands the test of time as a brilliantly funny takedown of Big Government. Then came classics such as Eat The Rich and All The Trouble In The World. I don’t quite think he kept the standard of searing wit + commentary at that level into the later 90s and into the current century. He did “serious stuff” with an amusing turn, such as a fine book about Adam Smith (he discusses it here) and could turn on the brilliance, but I think some of the energy had fallen off. He was a Dad with all the responsibilities that brings, and younger and less funny and more aggressive voices began to dominate the noise level in the public square. (Or maybe that is a sign that I am getting old, ahem.) O’Rourke, to the anger of some, wasn’t a Trump fan, and said so. He moved quite more explicitly libertarian, having a gig at the CATO Institute think tank. By his early 70s, I did not read or hear much of his doings, and that was a shame in the age of Greta, Cancel Culture, “Save the NHS”, Great Resets, Chinese nastiness and the Keto Diet. (I am kidding slightly about the last point.) P J O’Rourke’s death saddens me as much as did that of two other fine men whom I met over the years and who died from cancer over the past couple of years: Brian Micklethwait and Sir Roger Scruton. They were all very different men, but they shared a common love of liberty, a mischievous wit and a hatred of cant. (See an essay here by Brian about O’Rourke’s essay on the wonders of fast cars and how Brian saw some of the same lessons from the innovations around music tech.) I will miss P J O’Rourke and his chuckling, optimistic and sane voice. And I will miss the chance to share another whisky and cigar with him too. February 16th, 2022 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
From the late 1960s until about 2010 the “liberal” media of the English-speaking world were ideally placed to propagate their values. Sources such as the BBC, the “Big Three” American TV networks, the Times of London and the New York Times were widely seen as scarcely having any ideology beyond apple-pie sentiments about liberal democracy and an endearing pride in their own role. Newcomers such as CNN upset the balance of power but did not upset this perception that what they were providing was “just the facts, ma’am”, albeit with snazzier graphics. Then along came social media, Facebook and Twitter and the rest – another eruption in terms of technique, but they still saw themselves and were seen by others as media platforms. The very word implies a level playing field. They were all blessed with something like invisibility. To be able to mix your message in with the news and spread it without being seen to do so, without being seen as an actor in your own right at all – propagandists of past eras would have sold their souls to be in that position. Now, of course, as Glenn Greenwald put it,
Edit: ‘Tony in London’ comments with an interesting parallel,
The Wikipedia article about verzuiling in the Netherlands and Belgium is here. February 5th, 2022 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
January 9th, 2022 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
If it wasn’t so serious, we could just laugh. But green activists have been so successful over the last 30 years with their “settled” science propaganda that they have persuaded a Conservative Government in the U.K. to embrace the Net Zero agenda. A Marxist-inspired, control and rule agenda complete with reduced mass personal transport, higher energy costs, restricted diets and all the loss of personal freedoms that these entail. The Covid pandemic has shown just how many freedoms can be snatched away in a modern connected society by the spread of widespread fear, fuelled by selective state-sponsored science and, of course, made up models. […] Meanwhile back in the real world, it is obvious that many green extremists are starting to think the unthinkable. Democracy is all very well but is falling short when decisions have to be made by self-proclaimed experts going about their important work of saving the planet. Writing in the American Political Science Review last month, Ross Mittiga, Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of Chile, noted that as the climate crisis deepens, “one can find a cautious but growing chorus of praise for ‘authoritarian environmentalism’”. Another reason for de-covidification otherwise the current totalitarianism will serve as a model for other ones. January 8th, 2022 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
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