Less economy of truth, please: who pays whom?
In today’s UK, we can only envy the US its first amendment, but Brits familiar with the PC narrative on race over here still find some US excesses hard to credit. Even Brits who hang out with lefties...
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Agreeing to disagree
Inevitably, a parliament that can agree on nothing can agree on a two-week delay. Hilariously, it’s the EU that protects us from longer delay – they disliked the last time Brits voted on them too much...
View ArticleOh, beware my Country
Build on the flanks of Etna where the sullen smoke-puffs float — Or bathe in tropic waters where the lean fin dogs the boat — Cock the gun that is not loaded, cook the frozen dynamite — But oh, beware...
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The balance of forces
Guido presents evidence that we have God on our side, along with the Queen, 63% of voters, a large part of an infuriated Tory party, and the army (or at least, the parachute regiment – I’ve lived next...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
“When hedge-fund managers and the Communist Party see eye-to-eye on any question, it’s time to be concerned.” – Peter Oborne, writing in OpenDemocracy.
View ArticleElections have consequences – and so does arranging that they don’t
There’s a Snoopy cartoon that starts with Linus telling Violet he is running away from home. “I know a joke about running away from home”, says Violet. “A boy at a street crossing tells a friend he is...
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As annoying?
We’re confident that North Carolina’s politics will annoy us from the right as much as California’s does from the left, but we’re equally confident that center-right North Carolinians won’t try to...
View ArticleResisting ethnic prejudice by other means
Germany resists islamophobia. German law seeks to purge the public domain of such offensive views. Germany also resists anti-semitism. The German government’s anti-semitism commissioner has warned Jews...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
“By stifling his criticisms of human rights-abusing regimes, what Donald Trump may see as the projection of strength is surely viewed by America’s adversaries as weakness. Turkish President Recep...
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Too Easy to Rebut the PC Ta-Nehisi / NYT
The long-suffering readers of this blog know that, like Bilbo Baggins, I occasionally inflict poetry upon you (in deference to this blog’s free speech convictions, I also allow the word ‘doggerel’ )....
View ArticleA logical danger in PC illogic
(Normal service – i.e. prose – will be resumed promptly. I promised a follow-up poem about its being too easy to rebut the race scammers – or ‘race hustlers’ as is, I believe, the US term. Here it is.)...
View Article“Does Britain have free speech?”
The title is quoted from a Quillette article (h/t instapundit) inspired by the following letter to author James Flynn from Tony Roche, publishing director of Emerald, explaining their decision to drop...
View ArticleDisparate-Impact Anti-Semitism
Between Momentum activists complaining that Labour is “not helped by the fact that the BBC has a lot of Jewish journalists“ and Corbyn saying the BBC “has a bias towards saying that… Israel has a right...
View ArticleBarking Parking Teslas
Long ago, Milton Friedman suggested the US might be better off without the Food and Drug Administration. People wrote to him saying the FDA should not be abolished but reformed so it would act...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
Tax havens are a good thing. Without them, the cartels can continue without any competition. So, if not attending Davos really is a start to a low tax economy that forces tax competition on the...
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Echoes of distant rhymes
“The Romans were blinded to what was happening to them by the very perfection of the material culture which they had created. All around them was solidity and comfort, a material existence which was...
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If only the Italian government had not so much else to do and can defer none...
To add to the burden, hospitals in Italy depend on medical personnel to try to trace the contacts that people who test positive have had with others. One doctor in Bologna, who asked not to be named,...
View ArticleWhat will you yield?
Duke Gorlois of Cornwall: “Lord Uther, if I yield to the sword of power – what will you yield?” Uther Pendragon: “ME YIELD !!!??” (from the film Excalibur*) We are yielding quite a few liberties to...
View ArticleOur astonishing controls
Who would have thought that Sweden would end up being the last place in Europe where you could go for a beer? writes an understandably surprised Swede (No lockdown please, we’re Swedish). In Sweden,...
View ArticleL’absurdité cruelle
Not long ago, I posted that events in the UK distantly echoed “the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for...
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