Skip to content

steel city scribblings

  • about
  • life
    • arts
    • consumer
    • humour
    • science and reason
    • sport
  • media
  • politics
    • asia
    • covid-19
    • europe
    • general
    • latin america
    • middle east
    • russia
    • uk
    • usa
  • travel
    • britain
    • china
    • ethiopia
    • europe
    • guatemala
    • india
    • vietnam
  • steel city tunes
  • about
  • life
    • arts
    • consumer
    • humour
    • science and reason
    • sport
  • media
  • politics
    • asia
    • covid-19
    • europe
    • general
    • latin america
    • middle east
    • russia
    • uk
    • usa
  • travel
    • britain
    • china
    • ethiopia
    • europe
    • guatemala
    • india
    • vietnam
  • steel city tunes

Category Archives: science and reason

My date with Sister Scope

15 Dec

. Stats nerds and propellor-heads aside, humans are crap at probability. It’s not that we can’t do sums. Weaving the lanes of a crowded M1 at 70mph, cutting a zig-zag across a busy junction on foot or leaping for a … Read More »

humour, science and reason 10 Comments

Roddis v Sheffield Hallam Part 10

24 Nov

As summarised in Roddis v Sheffield Hallam Part 8 – and more briefly in Part 9 – it had been found in March 2018 that, for the purposes of a claim under the Part-time Workers (Prevention of less favourable treatment) … Read More »

science and reason, uk 4 Comments

Roddis v Sheffield Hallam Part 9

21 Nov

My battle with Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) over its treatment of me as one of more than eight hundred part time lecturers – almost forty percent of its academic workforce – on a zero hours contract is now over nine … Read More »

science and reason, uk 3 Comments

The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect

20 Nov

Thanks again to Dave Hansell for this. Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton named the effect after his friend, the Nobel Prize winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann. Crichton describes it thus: You open a newspaper to an article on a subject you … Read More »

general, media, science and reason 4 Comments

More from the (Face) Book of Wisdom

18 Nov

(You never know. The poster might actually try a night with the garaged bovine and find himself among the four people a year in the UK (twenty in the USA) gored or trampled to death by cow. But that’s a … Read More »

science and reason Leave a comment

Adam Smith on enlightened self interest

17 Oct

Bloggers like me are prone to self doubt. Not, I hasten to add, in respect of what we say of the state we’re in, summarised in my open letter on China. There’s too much evidence for there to be any … Read More »

general, science and reason 2 Comments

More crap thinking on Covid

2 Oct

David Leonhardt, New York Times, September 27, 2021 The messianic certainty I detect on all sides of the Covid conversation is dismaying. People with no obvious qualification to do so are not only sounding off in FB echo chambers as … Read More »

covid-19, science and reason Leave a comment

Brexit, Dali and cognitive dissonance

1 Oct

In Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali, George Orwell targeted a knee-jerk mode of thinking; a binary either/or refusal to see (or acknowledge) nuance and complexity. Why, asked Orwell, did the liberal progressives of his day who recognised … Read More »

europe, science and reason, uk 2 Comments

Freud’s narcissism of small differences

20 Sep

In her blog post today, Caitlin Johnstone implicitly draws on the great man’s insight with these words: You don’t own your comrades. A lot of people will get angrier about a political ally disagreeing with them on one percent of … Read More »

general, science and reason Leave a comment

Help!

18 Sep

NB for those who got here via my e-alert to this post, my remarks on the brilliant C4 drama, Help, come after these idiotic outpourings on Britain’s nuclear weapons. * Late yesterday a FB post plugging BBC History Extra began … Read More »

general, media, science and reason Leave a comment

Posts navigation

← 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 14 →

tune for the day

Art is love and theft. Take the Fab 4’s ’63 hit, All My Loving. Four years earlier The Dave Brubeck Quartet had released Time Out. It houses Take Five – and Kathy’s Waltz

last 350 posts (most recent first)

  • A rubber tramp in Hartlepool
  • A rubber tramp in Redcar
  • I’m a fan of Sean Penn but …
  • Ukraine Take 4 – The Guardian
  • Carole and Aretha trans-slated!
  • More trans lunacy
  • Redress and the presumption of guilt
  • Ukraine Take 3 – Caitlin Johnstone
  • Oxfam, WSWS and survival of the richest
  • US and NATO send tanks to Ukraine
  • We are stardust …
  • Ukraine Take 2 – Stephen Gowans
  • Ukraine take 1 – Richard Murphy
  • Caitlin is with Ghandi on Western values
  • Mayflies – the Swiss option
  • Scramble for Africa – Version Two
  • Thank God Trump lost!
  • Film Review: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  • Is Vladimir Putin too soft?
  • I’m no fan of Scottish Tories but …
  • Iran: we’re being played. Again.
  • Biden’s role in the US war in Ukraine
  • Conspiracism and the late David Griffin
  • Russian oil cap? No EU-turn in Brussels!
  • Dress code for a night at the Mariinsky
  • Jonathan Cook on a myopic Monbiot
  • Europe cannot win this economic war
  • Ukraine: Europe’s anger at Washington
  • Guardian to Julian: may I help you?
  • Ukraine – a wintry endgame?
  • Why does the West hate Putin?
  • Cheerleading for WW3
  • The staggering hypocrisy of Julian’s jailers
  • Ukraine: training the West’s far right
  • The lies that triggered WW3
  • UK responses to Hunt’s budget
  • Missile strikes on Poland: cui bono?
  • Ukraine: more dangerous Guardian drivel
  • Straight talking on Cop27
  • The propaganda blitz on Bucha
  • Shills for empire: a matter of intent?
  • Cook on Monbiot on Ukraine (again)
  • Objective journalism is an oxymoron
  • Ukraine and the official narrative
  • Austerity? Britain can’t afford that!
  • Ukraine and the Democrat ‘progressives’
  • Magic Money Tree? Part Two
  • Keir Starmer on “hate crime”
  • Magic Money Tree? Part One
  • Labour’s love of voodoo economics
  • Two ways Hunt can “balance the books”
  • Britain’s new chancellor of the Exchequer!
  • Zugzwang for TrussTweng?
  • With Ukraine ablaze, is Taiwan next?
  • How sanctions on Russia boomeranged
  • Caitlin on Ukraine opinion manufacture
  • So Truss and Starmer want growth …
  • Stellar! Mrs Assange v John Bolton
  • UK in turmoil: a Quaker speaks
  • It’s only a conspiracy theory if anti-USA
  • “The economic illiteracy is staggering”
  • Rupa Huq: Kwarteng “superficially” black
  • Shock therapy for Britain?
  • From Black Hole to Bucha
  • Footnotes: top tactics for top tacticians
  • Why read Michael Hudson? Part 3
  • Ukraine: what does Russia want?
  • Wear the fox hat!
  • Jacques Baud: a vital voice on Ukraine
  • Drinkable water please …
  • On the death of a Queen
  • Democracy is so not coming to the USA
  • Where have all the flowers gone?
  • The tragedy of Mikhail Gorbachev
  • When State & Capital conspire to censor
  • Persecuting Professor Hayward
  • Who killed Daria Dugina?
  • Attacks on Crimea up the nuclear ante
  • Down with Covid!
  • Why read Michael Hudson? Part 2
  • It ain’t half hot mum!
  • Pretending the US Empire doesn’t exist
  • Who wants a nuclear disaster in Ukraine?
  • Why read Michael Hudson? Part 1
  • Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?
  • There are no adults in the room
  • Dementia patient tries to start WW3
  • Three cheers for amazing Audrey White!
  • Dress code for an execution
  • US diplomacy as Greek Tragedy
  • Ukraine: Europe’s very own Bangladesh
  • Nancy playing with fire over Taiwan
  • Will the real Zelensky please stand up?
  • Caitlin on Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan
  • Covid in the age of crisis capitalism
  • Big pharma, and people with penises
  • Meanwhile back in Norfolk …
  • Meanwhile back in Taiwan …
  • Ukraine and the fall of the US Empire
  • What makes America so dangerous?
  • After Boris Johnson, what next?
  • Ukraine: graveyard of the US Empire?
  • Socialism or barbarism?
  • Two big errors about Russia
  • Good Luck To You, Leo Grande
  • Anyone (not Russian) for tennis?
  • Getting real about Ukraine
  • The invisibility of empire
  • Priti Patel and the power of lies
  • What price US nukes? $80k a minute!
  • The barbarism of dying empires
  • Understanding empire, from “i.e.” to “e.g.”
  • On war crimes in Ukraine
  • Who am I? (And why write?)
  • Who beat the drums for Dear Prudence?
  • On media manufactured monsters
  • Let’s give Ukraine’s fascists a makeover!
  • Rye v Hastings? Dickens v Tressell?
  • Meditation for the politico
  • A little more on the US war machine
  • “The wrong direction at maximum speed”
  • The USA: “no way out but war”
  • Power is at war with truth
  • On and on and on …
  • Why the times they are a-changing
  • “Left” Democrats vote to prolong war!
  • Ukraine: “the global south must act”
  • Starmer, Nato and the death of truth
  • As we hydroplane towards WW3 …
  • Is Team Biden the worst ever?
  • Tucker Carlson on ‘disinformation’
  • Oh my giddy AUMF!
  • “Zelensky good … Putin baad …”
  • Red-lines real … red lines reductive
  • What about those too tired to have sex?
  • We need to talk about pacificism
  • Ukraine and the death-logic of escalation
  • Ukraine in La La Land
  • Easter offerings
  • Caitlin’s love letter to draft dodgers
  • India in the dock for empire disobedience
  • Ursula weeps for Ukraine
  • Red Star Belgrade v Media Amnesia
  • Ukraine: “turning brains to soup”
  • Ukraine: a military assessment
  • Sakwa: “Paul Mason wrong on Ukraine”
  • Peace in Ukraine? Zelensky has zero say
  • Is Russia losing the information war?
  • The day John Pilger met the CIA Boss
  • Britain is a crime scene
  • The US wants this war to go on and on
  • No matter what the risks to us all …
  • Yes, we are being lied to. Massively.
  • Defending democracy in Ukraine?!?
  • Ukraine: the Far Left is almost right
  • Observations on the week so far …
  • Yesterday in and around Lathkill Dale
  • This ain’t Putin’s price hike
  • No, I’m not telling you what to think!
  • Dark Side of the Mood Music
  • Pentagon bioweapons in Ukraine
  • Carbon dating …
  • Ukraine: why bomb a hospital?
  • Ukraine on fire
  • Yes, Ukraine is in the grip of Nazis!
  • Sanctions: America’s Greek Tragedy
  • US Colonel McGregor: “Zelensky no hero”
  • The real purpose of sanctions on Russia?
  • Cook on Monbiot on Ukraine
  • Media double standards over Ukraine
  • Is this Russian propaganda?
  • A calmer panorama in the English Lakes
  • The most important question in the world
  • Ukraine through the eye of a UK diplomat
  • Ukraine: what does Mr Putin have to say?
  • Diana Johnstone on Russia bear baiting
  • Ukraine: the elephants in the room
  • Russia Today
  • Kiev shelled: Zelensky calls martial law
  • Media Lens on Guardian on Ukraine
  • Russia’s recognition of the LDNR
  • Vladimir Putin on what’s bothering Russia
  • “Why Russia wants Ukraine”
  • The royaling boil of Martin’s kettle
  • Useful Useless idiot 76423: Richard Engel
  • Russia’s gonna invade Ukraine for sure!
  • Caitlin on The Official Story
  • Can Europe break free of a dying Empire?
  • The view from Langley, Virginia
  • An inaccurate, biased Amnesty report?
  • Whose bass guitar gently wept?
  • The weirdness of BoJo’s Savilegate
  • Mini-break on the Yorkshire coast
  • “We have evidence” is not evidence!
  • Ukraine: has Washington already lost?
  • Ukraine: maps, history, duff reasoning ..
  • Ukraine: the madness of Empire’s critics
  • Is a nuclear war in Europe probable?
  • Is humanity doomed?
  • Ukraine and the West’s lies
  • Monolithic control at the Guardian?
  • They tried to bury us …
  • Agonising over Auntie
  • Eurasia’s rise is unstoppable
  • Getting real on the US-NATO-Russia talks
  • Mini Gems good – Midget Gems baad!
  • Kazakhstan tests China non interference
  • Mike on Mingus
  • Do dolphins flick the bean?
  • Yes, Kazakhstan is a (failed) US coup!
  • Planting flowers for 2022
  • Caesar salad
  • Kazakhstan: why is the steppe on fire?
  • Battle of the mutes
  • Far-left Sinophobia: an infantile disorder
  • Talking down China’s economy
  • Caitlin calls it right on web censorship
  • Happy new year to The Free World?
  • Sinophobia – but at what cost?
  • The obvious has been made unspeakable
  • CounterPunch on US foreign policy
  • Ukraine and Georgia are Russia’s red lines
  • Assange? China? It’s not rocket science!
  • My date with Sister Scope
  • A third Ukraine read
  • Dear Guardian Media Group …
  • A murderous state speaks of human rights
  • Damn lies and daft stats on Hong Kong
  • Two short reads on the Ukraine crisis
  • Frankly I couldn’t give a damn …
  • Xinjiang debated
  • Priti’s Police Bill – why now?
  • Sunlit but wintry: Woollaton today
  • Another winter comes to Attenborough
  • Are we sleepwalking to Armageddon?
  • Snowfall on the Soar
  • Margaret Mead and that femur …
  • Sri Lanka and the ‘debt trap’ slur
  • Kyle Rittenhouse and the outrage industry
  • Roddis v Sheffield Hallam Part 10
  • That’s rich!
  • Roddis v Sheffield Hallam Part 9
  • The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect
  • Another FB China debate
  • Julian’s mother speaks
  • Attenborough in peace
  • More from the (Face) Book of Wisdom
  • The unaccountable power of Bill Gates
  • Selfishness in 4 easy steps
  • The Atlantic: “the bad guys are winning”
  • Attenborough in November
  • IDS and sleaze: the view from Hong Kong
  • Syria’s My Lai is why Julian matters!
  • China’s carbon footprint
  • Facebook and the whistleblower
  • Lest we forget …
  • “I am ashamed of Israel”
  • Ten second guide to Owen Paterson
  • Human rights weaponised
  • Another US academic on Taiwan
  • What a Bezos!
  • Exchanges with my Guernsey freeholder
  • Julian: a year and a day on
  • Dark side of the state: Waters on Assange
  • The myth of independent media
  • Turkey arrests Syrian banana eaters
  • Meet the Otters
  • Three autumn reads
  • In praise of Insulate Britain
  • Fake news on Dune epic in China cinemas
  • It was twenty years ago today …
  • 38 years ago today
  • Demo for Julian: my day in pictures
  • A Guardian study in propaganda
  • Adam Smith on enlightened self interest
  • It’s all a question of balance
  • Talking WW3 Blues – again …
  • Those nights in Tiananmen Square …
  • Mother takes sons to see dad …
  • Who wants a war with China over Taiwan?
  • Support Julian – two October dates
  • Nobel Prize for fearless journalism …
  • The Pandora Papers: controlled dissent?
  • More crap thinking on Covid
  • China is bad!
  • Says Rosa …
  • Brexit, Dali and cognitive dissonance
  • We need to talk about Kim
  • Salt to King’s Bromley the slow way
  • “Israel was born in sin”
  • Salisbury – the Third Man!
  • An open letter: isn’t China “just as bad”?
  • Freud’s narcissism of small differences
  • Xinjiang now a top tourist draw
  • Help!
  • Nuclear subs go down under
  • Sometimes it’s the little things …
  • Sinophobia – two new reads
  • King’s Bromley to Sawley by slow boat
  • BBC admits to flawed Syria documentary
  • Sunak’s NI charge to fund the NHS
  • Meanwhile, on Uncle Sam’s doorstep …
  • If my posts don’t piss people off …
  • Israel is an apartheid state
  • Those eco-friendly berserkers
  • Ruled by crooks, governed by liars
  • Blowback: Taliban target US shadow army
  • Is Tony Blair insane?
  • Who remembers “press button A”?
  • Engels on the ‘graveyard of empires’
  • Did China abandon socialism?
  • Pear Jam Miles
  • What about the squaddies in Afghanistan?
  • Panda cub won’t take a hint
  • Flee Kabul for just $6.5k
  • Covid’s boost to Big Pharma
  • Who checks the ‘fact checkers’?
  • Xinjiang and the square root of FA
  • Britain’s haven for litigatory bullies
  • Until you realise …
  • What about the Afghan women?
  • Julian Assange on Afghanistan
  • Burgers & the Battle of the Fractions
  • Afghanistan: who bears the costs?
  • Great ironies of history #61,836
  • “Kenny go home!”
  • Two new reads on Afghanistan
  • Correspondence with a friend
  • Think tanks for warfare
  • Julian: yesterday’s High Court ruling
  • Santuario Madonna della Corona
  • 76 years ago today
  • Electric kettles and cars
  • Richard Murphy’s transitional demands
  • 75 years ago today
  • It’s raining snakes!
  • Caitlin on Covid
  • This morning on Stanage Edge
  • Sheffield Labour Party on GC beliefs
  • What does China want?
  • Richard Murphy’s peaceful revolution
  • Craig Murray: jail time begins on Sunday
  • Good advice from a librarian
  • I’m backing a hero!
  • Say what you like about Tricky Dickie …
  • “I was a US sniper in Iraq”
  • Watch out Boris: Priti is after you!
  • Another whistle-blower pays the price
  • The level of ‘debate’ on China
  • NATO Expansion map Mark II
© 2023 steel city scribblings
Powered by WordPress / Theme by Design Lab