[ezcol_1half] Seen today. ‘AOC’ is left Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Bill Gates is, well, Bill Gates. I’m no fan of Bill, and not best qualified to say whether cows or cars are the greater emitters of greenhouse gases. (I’m told that … Read More »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
… then I’m slacking on the job. Can’t stand the thought of losing friends you once held dear? Fine – just don’t take up political blogging is my advice. Not if your key message is out of step with mainstream … Read More »
In his book, Bad Science, Ben Goldacre, who used to have a Guardian column of that name, does three things. He: targets the shoddy thinking (at best) used to promote ‘alternative medicine’; targets the even bigger health risk posed by … Read More »
Facebook a few days ago: Tried to do what? … compete with the MacDonalds quarter pounder by selling a third-pounder at a lower price. They failed because most people thought a quarter pound was bigger. And what’s “just … not … Read More »
Life is not an easy matter. We cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless we have before us a great idea to raise us above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness. … Read More »