So, the Tories are currently making hay on the economy, while the black clouds are overhead. Unfortunately it’s all drivel, and specifically, it’s drivel because the current economic crisis is entirely the result of the Tory economic settlement. The promise of infinite free money from property was the core Thatcherite proposition, and its costs (specifically,…
Read More The grass is several shades of blue; every MP trips over you…Jamie Zawinski links to a campaign to have a Californian sewage works renamed after George W. Bush. I disagree, strongly. Who on earth would associate something as civic, egalitarian, and useful as sewage treatment with the Commander Guy? Not just that, but it’s a publicly-owned sewage plant, part of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.…
Read More Civilisation is common defence and waste disposalOK, so have you heard the one about the bloke from Goole who was planning to start his own race war? Probably not, because it’s not been on the news at all. Rather like the BNP guy in Burnley, whose trial was also shrouded in tebbly tebbly concerned silence. Martyn Gilleard, a 31-year old lorry…
Read More Get public attention with poetry, not bombsSo, yer National Staff Dismissal Registry. Several people have asked me to comment on this horrible intersection of Blairite justice-style product and the good old Economic League, and they won’t be surprised that I’m against it. For all the usual reasons – you don’t actually need to do anything wrong to be on it, and…
Read More Keeping Britain TidySays Bryan O’Sullivan in his bookmarks: Kevin Myers, the ne plus ultra of ballbag Anglo-Irish reactionary hacks, surprises us all by writing what might be an essential close-up of the Troubles. Maybe his lunatic, protean nature was a perfect fit for the time. This was the upshot of this post. I promised, I think, to…
Read More Review: Watching the DoorVia Calculated Risk, galleries of repossessed houses in Los Angeles. This one can stand for a common theme. It’s hardly got any windows on the street side at all! Just two huge garage doors. Those doors are a common feature throughout the show – houses whose outward appearance is totally dominated by monster garages, like…
Read More The Opposite of ArchitectureKing’s College London’s terribly smart and not at all sinister Insurgency Research Group have some relevant facts about a controversy between Daniel Davies and I. Recap: Dan apparently believes that it’s better to let jihadis advertise on the Internet, on the principle that they will attract lots of idiots, self-dramatising teens, and committee fetishists, who…
Read More Human Capital Saving in a Terrorist CellI liked this comment from Chris “Chris” Williams regarding Arthur C. Clarke: What future? A better one than we’ve got: a worse on than we’d have had without him. Several million fanboys and girls grew up exposed to clear prose, opposition to nationalism, scepticism about organised religion, faith in technology, faith in humanity, and some…
Read More Appreciating ClarkeMartin Kettle can fuck off with this: The bright Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Greg Clark asked recently why politicians are so ready to discuss antisocial behaviour but so poor at discussing its pro-social equivalent. Bright? Christ, we’re in a bad way. The first thing that needs discussing here is that “pro-social behaviour” is a…
Read More Blog de frappe tous azimutsFebruary 23, 2008: One of things that I find so frustrating about blogging is dealing with people who are either stupid, venal or willfully choose to misrepresent your views. More often than not, these people post anonymously and decide to tar their opponents with the epithet “racist”, “homophobic” or “fascist” in the hope that by…
Read More Donal Blaney: Hypocrite