I’ll start.
Lots of space launches.
And?
|
|||||
|
December 25th, 2023 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
 December 25th, 2023 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
Taking a Christmas break from my customary snarkiness, I mean this without irony. I would like to make one of those motivational posters with an inspirational quotation or slogan on it. The slogan would express an idea that I already believe strongly, only I have not yet found the best way to express it. The starting point is a slogan that has many variants, but the version I saw first and like best is:
Knowing my audience, I shall link to the demotivational version as well. It’s a quote from B.J. Novak, who was probably a ray of sunshine until he played the temp in the American version of The Office. So, the slogan for which I reach is similar to that one (the motivational version, not Novak’s), but is about acceptance rather than love. Something like:
Then what? I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure if it’s even a good idea to mention the consequences of the other person saying “no”. I suppose I could say “better to be aware they do not accept you than to be deceived by them feigning acceptance out of fear, which will probably lead to them stabbing you in the back whenever they get the chance”, but that one’s a bit of a downer to put on a poster. The point I really want to make is that true acceptance cannot be had if the person being asked to do the accepting does not have the option to say “no”. The reason I seek a more pithy way to express this sentiment than anything I have come up so far is that, as I said a few years back in a post called “To knock on the door is better than booting it in”, “Like some warrior cultures of old, the grievance culture holds getting what you want by asking or peaceably trading to be fit only for slaves. The superior person does not ask for what they want; they demand it.” This attitude is culturally dominant in both senses. I can see why this disastrous misapprehension arose. There are circumstances where the only moral course is to demand one’s just rights as rights, with not the slightest hint of pleading. But there can be no right to be accepted, just as there can be no right to be loved. December 24th, 2023 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
Javier Milei gave a speech:
He says a lot of good things of the sort that have been said on this blog: socialism causes economic failure and costs lives; the individual is more important than the state; it is better if everything not forbidden is permitted than if everything not permitted is forbidden; politicians are not God; fiscal deficit is bad. I hope that he means it, and that he can do it, and that he is not undermined by the civil service, or by whatever Argentina has in the way of a “deep state”. It would be good to see Argentina getting wealthy again. It would be bad if there are further disasters and they can be conveniently blamed, by those with bad ideas, on these good ideas that Milei is talking about. December 22nd, 2023 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
The word “disaster” has its origins in astrology. It means “ill-starred”. But the people killed on 21st December 1988 were not killed by bad weather, human error, or an unfortunate conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. They were murdered.
December 22nd, 2023 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
The video linked to in the tweet starts with a clip of Horowitz talking to a San Francisco State University student whose back is facing us. Horowitz says,
The video then cuts to Horowitz talking straight to camera. He says,
Horowitz, who, in case anyone is unclear on this point, is not actually trying to raise money to murder Jews but to warn how commonplace support for the murder of Jews has become at American universities, proceeds to politely stop various young people who are walking along the paths in the SFSU campus and solicit their support for terrorism against Jews. There is no obfuscation about “Zionists” or “Israelis”; Horowitz says “Jews” throughout and is abundantly clear that he is talking about physical violence. In the sequence starting at 1:02 he says, “Attack, blow things up … blow shit up … all we have a rockets and suicide bombers”. The SFSU students are fine with that. I can sympathise with Rebecca Levin who said in the replies,
I, also, would really like this not to be true. It would be a good thing for Horowitz to release the full videos. Deceptive editing is on my mind right now. Remember the way that George Eaton of the New Statesman was nice as pie when he went to interview Sir Roger Scruton and then maliciously edited Scruton’s words to make it seem that Scruton believed that each Chinese person is “a sort of replica of the next one”, when what Scruton had actually said was how frightening it was that the Chinese Government was trying to force each Chinese person into being a replica of the next one? Remember how Eaton posted a picture of himself swigging champagne to celebrate how he had got Scruton fired from an unpaid government role?
Well, that same George Eaton is celebrating again now. He has just been made Senior Politics Editor of the New Statesman. Deceptive editing does happen and is no bar to a successful career in journalism. At least… not if the journalist is left wing, a protection that Mr Horowitz does not have. Like Rebecca Levin, if Mr Horowitz’s video were to be revealed to be deceptively edited, the moment of annoyance I would feel of seeing left wingers gloat at the “gotcha” would be far, far outweighed by the relief of knowing that it was not really the case that 28 out of 35 San Francisco State University students Horowitz spoke to expressed support for killing Jews and 17 out of 35 students Horowitz approached pledged money to kill Jews. But, even though I would like to see the full unedited videos, it is difficult to see how the girl with the black bag could claim to have misunderstood Horowitz when he told her at 0:36 that he was raising money to strike Jews “around the world, in France, in Germany, in Britain, wherever they are”. Conceivably he could have edited out her horrified objections to this proposed terrorism, but could he really have made her appear to say, as she does say at 1:14, “Because it’s like, part of their religion. Like, they wanted to take over”? She then pledges him $30. Given that the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, three of the top universities in the United States, found it tricky to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews was against the rules of their respective universities, I suppose we should not be surprised that San Francisco State University (“SF State prepares its students to become productive, ethical, active citizens with a global perspective”) wants to follow their lead. Is contributing money that one has been explicitly assured (0:55) will be used to blow up “cafe’s, hospitals, Jewish schools, Jewish buses, synagogues, that kind of thing” legal in the United States? Whether it is or not, is there any good reason why the anonymity of sweetie with the black bag and the others who openly put their support, and in many cases their money, down for some Jew-killing should be preserved? December 22nd, 2023 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
How swell to at last have a major biography of that most aloof of all rock stars, George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle, by respected pop music historian Philip Norman, and how sobering to learn that the reclusive rocker’s feet were all too completely made of clay. Though this book is quite detailed and very well written, I now know far more information about Harrison than his underlying motives. Alas, what is still a worthy biography could have been splendid if not for several shortcomings. Perhaps the book’s top theme is George Harrison’s remarkable cornucopia of contradictions, something he alluded to in the “Pisces Fish” song on his superb last album, 2002’s Brainwashed:
Massive contrasts define Harrison’s story. With bomb craters from World War II still decorating his neighbourhood, he grew up in a crowded little Liverpool apartment with no bathroom, whose only heat came from a “small coal fire,” and where the weekly bath was in a backyard bucket. But massive musical success would earn him enormous wealth. Harrison was the Beatle most in the background whose growing songwriting abilities were largely ignored by the group’s leaders, John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney. But after the Fab Four’s 1970 breakup, the lead guitarist would stun everyone with his astonishing All Things Must Pass triple album to become the most critically and commercially successful Beatle of the early 1970s. It is comforting to learn how Harrison was usually kind, caring, and giving. Not only did he co-write “It don’t come easy” and “Back off Boogaloo,” two of Beatle brother Ringo Starr’s biggest solo hit songs, but he did not even ask for a (quite lucrative) songwriting credit for either. Even when sick in bed dying of cancer, he offered to visit the drummer’s ailing daughter. But Harrison was a stubborn loner who was often moody and brutally blunt. As Ringo put it, “There was the love and bag-of-beads personality and the bag of anger. He was very black and white.” Indeed, when Beatle brother John Lennon queried his bandmates on what they thought of his girlfriend and future wife, Cynthia Powell, Mr. Curt remarked she had “teeth like a horse.” While the second Mrs. Lennon, Yoko Ono, conceded “George was very nice,” she still complained how “very hurtful” his caustic comments could be, to which John would shrug, “That’s just George.” And on a long flight when a stewardess asked the softly chanting Hindu convert if she could get him anything, Harrison snarled, “F#%& off, can’t you see I’m meditating?” The supposedly most spiritual Beatle who publicly sang warnings about “Living in the Material World” privately luxuriated in a 25-bedroom gothic mansion, and the Beatle purportedly most at peace as a devout Hindu nevertheless smoked lots of marijuana, drank loads of liquor, snorted copious quantities of cocaine, and chain-smoked French cigarettes. He was also an inveterate adulterer who cheated in his own house when his first wife was home and even with his closest Beatle brother Ringo’s wife. This was a conquest too far even for licentious Beatle brother John who denounced it as “virtual incest,” and the affair led to the Starrs divorcing the next year. Surprisingly for the superb composer who wrote so many beautiful love songs, including the classic “Something,” George did not appear to be all that passionate or romantic. He not only routinely betrayed both of his spouses but did not seem to mind losing his first wife to his closest friend, Eric Clapton – who remained his best buddy. While enjoying most of his time in the world’s biggest band for all the easy camaraderie with his bandmates and being too shy to perform on his own, by the latter 1960s Harrison firmly rejected any more concert tours and had grown deeply bitter that more of his compositions were not allowed on Beatle albums. Later calling himself “the economy-class Beatle,” he felt liberated when the group finally broke up and would never seek a reunion. Asked to help Sir Paul perform December 20th, 2023 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Javier Milei, President of Argentina, is a very odd person. He has four dogs. Now, you may think there is nothing particularly odd about that. But these dogs are clones. They are clones of the late Conan, Milei’s first mastiff, who was named after Conan the Destroyer. The clones are named Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas apparently after famous economists. Sadly, they are not so famous to me. Yes, Murray is doubtless Murray Rothbard and Milton, Milton Friedman – men who incidentally did not necessarily see eye to eye on monetary matters – but otherwise I am stumped. Robert? Surely not Skidelsky? Lucas? A complete blank. And no Adam, Ludwig, Friedrich or Henry? Truly Milei is an odd person.
December 19th, 2023 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
The point here is that if one only has a right so long as it is in accordance with the public interest, then that is tantamount to saying one does not have a right at all, because it is entirely contingent on the authorities’ view of what the public interest entails. If they have a plausible-sounding reason why depriving one of one’s property is in the public interest (spoiler alert: they almost always will have such a reason), then they can do so irrespective of one’s ‘rights’, and one’s rights therefore are of no real practical or legal consequence. This is the position we find ourselves in, then, with respect to A1P1. We have a right to property but only insofar as we can be deprived of our possessions when it is in the public interest. We do not then really have a right to property at all, at least insofar as the ECHR goes, but more a liberty to enjoy peaceful possession of our property on the sufferance of the State. We are on implied notice that as soon as it is in the public interest to deprive us of our property, the State can do so. Strongly recommend you real the whole thing. December 18th, 2023 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Make energy expensive so industry moves abroad, then tax the goods coming back in due to their carbon content. You pay twice. – Steve Loftus, illustrating why the Tories should and will burn to ash at the next General Election. December 18th, 2023 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
We don’t face a Brexit crisis, a migration crisis, a housing crisis, an NHS crisis, a social care crisis, an energy crisis, a productivity crisis, a deficit crisis or an education crisis — there is one universal and interconnected crisis of British politics and government. The article is not new but it is still interesting. December 16th, 2023 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
I recently read Economics In One Virus, by Ryan Bourne of the CATO Institute in the US, and an excellent account it is. (It was published in 2021.) It is a good overview of how people should think about the economic issues involved in a pandemic. The current farcical “inquiry” into the UK government’s handling of COVID-19 (see my recent posting here) got me thinking about some of the more admirable things I noticed during the nightmare. One of them was the way that the supermarket industry, and associated logistics sector (warehouses, lorry drivers, ports, shipping, stock inventory platforms, etc), worked. Suddenly, everyone became familiar with the term “supply chain”. I recall a few years ago meeting a person who introduced himself as a “supply chain specialist”, and others in the room made rude comments about how “dull” this sounded. (I make a point of avoiding jerks like them, by the way.) Well, his field of expertise came into a very bright spotlight, and to an extent, there it remains. Getting supplies right is about as non-dull as you can imagine. Global capitalism gets a lot of silly criticism, and yet those who presume to champion it often fail to note the triumphs when they occur. They would do well to point out how much better the bottom-up, entrepreneurial, market-based way of doing things is than the top-down, government approach. I recall that when the news first broke of a virus in Wuhan and what to do about it, the conventional (ie, wrong) wisdom seemed to be that we should copy the Chinese in their lockdowns and restrictions, and this was seized upon, it seemed, by those itching for these controls for various other reasons, such as harsh “Green” policy. What got drowned out was the case for how enterprise could provide solutions, from rapid development of ICU unit technology through to better management of supplies, treatments, vaccines, etc. In the months since lockdowns ended, we have forgotten these lessons, and I fear that the wrong ones have been learned. Not enough is being done to point out how inventiveness, enterprise, intelligent risk-taking and experimentation are what’s wanted, not the often oafish fist of the state. December 15th, 2023 | 18 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