Thursday, 5th May 2011
2:41pm
The Guardian is a great newspaper but, lord, does it ever print some claptrap. Via Messrs Geras and Worstall comes this dreadful piece by Adam Curtis. The headline, for which Mr Curtis is not responsible, is a warning of the nonsense to come: For 10 years, Osama bin Laden filled a gap left by the Soviet Union. Who will be the baddie now?
From the off we're supposed to appreciate, I think, that bad as bin Laden certainly was, he was never as bad as you were led to believe and, gosh, certainly not as bad as...
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Monday, 18th April 2011
4:42pm
The only thing that has been proved by this referendum on changing the electoral system used for Westminster elections is that referendums are a hopeless way of deciding these matters. Neither the politicians nor the press have distinguished themselves during an affair that's been distinguished by the mendacity of almost all the protagonists, the hysteria of partisans on both sides and the sheer quantity of lumpen stupidity on display. It has not been an edifying or comforting process.
Today alone has seen a spectacular amount of hyperbollocks. Andrew Sparrow's Guardian live-blog is grim reading. As ever the Yes campaign's...
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Tuesday, 12th April 2011
2:34am
A classic, via Norm, from Sir Simon Jenkins. Apparently, "The Internet will strut an hour upon the stage, and then take its place in the ranks of lesser media". Also:
So great is the commercial hyperbole surrounding the Internet that common sense is obliterated by dazzle. It has proved a boon for pornographers and lawyers and for the sort of up market pen pals who used to rave about Citizens' Band radio. For companies and interest groups, the "interment" is a more efficient version of the fax. E-mail has done wonders for the ancient art of letter-writing.
...
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Sunday, 10th April 2011
3:30am
Brother Korski is right to draw attention to Rachel Sylvester's interview (£) with Unite's Len McCluskey and right too to note that his defence of Castro's island gulag* is indefensible. But there's more that's wrong with it than that and not all of that is McCluskey's fault. Consider these lines:
He would choose tea and scones at Fortnum and Mason over beer and sandwiches in a smoke-filled room. He is a fan of the romantic poets — “I love Byron, Keats and Shelley, I’m a romantic at heart” — and takes a feminist interpretation of Christina Rossetti.
...
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Friday, 8th April 2011
12:13am
I'm most grateful to Selena Gray for publicising Glenda Jackson's response to the notion that volunteers might run a library that Brent council has threatened to close. I don't think, however, Selena goes nearly far enough.
Firstly, it cannot be pointed out too often that any library closures are the responsibility of councils, not central government. The latter may not send as much money to the former as it did in previous years but the decisions on what to spend the money councils do have are entirely a matter for the councils themselves. If your local...
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Wednesday, 30th March 2011
11:46pm
The Alternative Vote isn't a great voting system but neither is First Past the Post. I suspect inertia and boredom and a lack of outrage will help swing the day for the status quo in the end. Neither side has impressed during the campaign thus far. Claims that AV is some kind of elixir that will "clean-up" British politics are absurd. But at least the Yes campaign is, on the whole, only peddling pie-in-the-sky. They're not, again on the whole, trying to frighten voters. Their exagerrations seem a little less desperate than those made by the No campaign.
Take Baroness...
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