There hasn’t been much progress on my long-term beef with Martin Kettle for a while. But it’s worth remembering that if the Guardian has a major leading article that isn’t a business/economics story, it’s probably him. And Saturday’s second lead (behind a rather competent finance story) bears the Kettle hallmarks. Forty years ago the Royal…
Read More The Guardian Is Not Serious About CVFHa. Ha. Ha. Looks like Kelvin McFuck won’t be standing after all. Too risky, eh? There we were, thinking he was a heroic fighter for all he thought was right, not to mention a formidable enterpreneur, and a man confident in the backing of the deadliest nonkinetic weapon system on the planet. After all, heroism…
Read More fully recyclable cellulosic macro-feline predatorSo, the US Army’s research centre employs a climate-change denier as a scientist, and then sets up a blogger conference call with him. I’m less interested in the fact he’s a weirdo on the specific issue than the simpler point that he’s talking out of his arse. Instead, Dr. Bruce West, with the Army Research…
Read More Now that’s what I call sciencinessThis essay by Ian McEwan in the Guardian Review shows precisely why the Decent influence on British intellectual life is so damn depressing. You may think, and I would say the AaroWatch crew are guilty of this, that they are just a bunch of wankers left behind with their blogs after history moved on. But…
Read More Indecent behaviour at a police station, TPCA 1847This NYT story is nonsense. Various rightwing barkies have taken the opportunity of the French armed forces’ deliciously 007-esque mission to rescue the sailing yacht Le Ponant to tout the following story around the media: the Royal Navy has been ordered not to detain pirates under any circumstances, for fear that they might something or…
Read More The Bombardment of Walthamstow Rages OnMartin 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: HypocriteOK, so it’s frankly hilarious that a RESPECT councillor and Socialist Workers Party member has defected to the Tories. But describing him as a “socialist jihadist conservative” is offensive, stupid, illiberal and anti-democratic, not to mention libellous. For a start, it assumes facts not in evidence. Mr Hussain is not, to the best of my…
Read More James Graham Badly Needs to Wind his Neck InI would like to take this opportunity to make clear that I stand for surgery. We know that the queen of specialisations is a highly effective treatment for many different conditions; British surgeons are respected around the world. In fact, I believe we would be failing in our moral duty to patients of all kinds…
Read More In Favour of Surgical InterventionWell this is impressive; Polly Toynbee arguing that anyone who disagrees with ID cards is objectively pro-illegal immigrants being beaten up. Seriously; the argument is not that we need ID cards to keep the immigrants out, but that we need to cut the government some slack in order to stop them beating up illegal immigrants.…
Read More Polly Toynbee: Is an Egregious Hack