Natalie Solent |
|
|
Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.) Back to main blog RSS thingy 
Jane's Blogosphere: blogtrack for Natalie Solent. 
Links ( 'Nother Solent is this blog's good twin. Same words, searchable archives, RSS feed. Provided by a benefactor, to whom thanks. I also sometimes write for Samizdata and Biased BBC.) The Old Comrades:
Archives
November 2001
December 2001
January 2002
February 2002
March 2002
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
August 2007
October 2007
February 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
March 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
October 2009
January 2010
March 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
April 2011
June 2011
August 2011
September 2011
October 2011
November 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
April 2012
May 2012
June 2012
July 2012
August 2012
September 2012
October 2012
November 2012
December 2012
January 2013
February 2013
March 2013
April 2013
May 2013
June 2013
July 2013
August 2013
September 2013
October 2013
November 2013
|
Sunday, November 24, 2013
'Refusal will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child's education record, which will remain on this file throughout their school career'I have only one thing to add to this Telegraph blog post by Daniel Hannan. It is this: I am glad that Mr Hannan and other newspapers have not followed the usual timid practice when reporting stories of this type and obscured the name of the culprit. A storm of public anger is about the only weapon we have against the likes of Mrs L Small, head teacher of Littleton Green Community School, Colliers Way, Huntingdon, South Staffordshire WS12 4UD. And if "our R.E. coordinator Mrs Edmonds", she being the one with whom parents are invited to "discuss this further", does not wish to join her boss in the stocks, she should direct her further discussion towards disassociating herself from the literally fascist tactics Mrs Small uses. The L stands for "Lynn", by the way. Lynn Small, head teacher of Littleton Green Community School, the one who coerces parents by threatening to harm their eight year old children. Loving the Aussies even moreAt first I thought that Tim Blair's account of the outrageous behaviour of the Australian delegates to the Warsaw UN climate conference was written for laughs. I duly laughed. Then I followed the links. It's all true; the snacks ... the T-shirts ... the pyjamas. Then of course my laughter was replaced by profound sorrow at the disgrace brought upon a once-respected nation by its so-called representatives*. *While acknowledging the limited validity of concerns about health and safety of delegates in late night negotiations. Thursday, November 21, 2013
The superior virtue of the oppressedIt’s no coincidence the MPs found guilty of fiddling are all Labour, writes Peter Oborne. The book can at last be closed on The Daily Telegraph investigation into the MPs’ expenses scandal. More than 300 Members of Parliament have paid back wrongly claimed expenses. Several of the worst offenders have stood down from Parliament. Now that the former minister Denis MacShane has at last pleaded guilty to fraud, no further prosecutions are planned, and all criminal investigation is reported to have ceased.His argument that there is "only one chance in 64 that Labour’s score of 6/6 was a coincidence" should be saved as an Awful Example for the probability chapter in a GCSE mathematics textbook, with calculation of the precise odds that he has let the Tories off far too lightly left as an exercise for the student. This part of his explanation, however, is accurate: It is especially perplexing because the party in general strongly feels itself to be the embodiment of decency and morality. Indeed Labour has always insisted that the Conservatives are the party of venality, greed and selfishness. How baffling it is, then, that only Labour MPs have been sent to jail as a result of the Telegraph revelations.Many Labour people cannot believe that anything done by the oppressed classes or their champions can ever really be wrong, not when there are Bullingdon-educated toffs who were in the Eton club out there for comparison. The jailed MPs and their supporters know in their hearts that their very sentences are part of the oppression. They take comfort as the prison gates clang behind them from the thought that when they hear that sound they join the company of heroes. Stanley Kurtz described a similar persecution envy burning in the breasts of greens and climate change activists in The Wannabe Oppressed: What do America’s college students want? They want to be oppressed. More precisely, a surprising number of students at America’s finest colleges and universities wish to appear as victims — to themselves, as well as to others — without the discomfort of actually experiencing victimization. Here is where global warming comes in. The secret appeal of campus climate activism lies in its ability to turn otherwise happy, healthy, and prosperous young people into an oppressed class, at least in their own imaginings. Climate activists say to the world, “I’ll save you.” Yet deep down they’re thinking, “Oppress me.”And deeper yet, "Oppress me a little bit so that I can resist you with visible heroism safe in the knowledge that you will not actually hurt me." Wednesday, November 20, 2013
If you like your health plan you can...An entertaining story from the Guardian: Obamacare website developers rush to fix bug suggesting hacking methods Sunday, November 17, 2013
Fools and their futile appealsWhite Sun of the Desert writes on Obamacare. Parallels between the soft evils of the modern UK or US and the monstrous twentieth century dictatorships do not usually appeal to me for reasons I need not rehearse. However I think that in this post Tim Newman has made an acute psychological comparison. Time to appeal to the vozhd. Friday, November 15, 2013
A wrongheaded actSyria al-Qa'ida rebels apologise for beheading the wrong man, reports the Irish Independent: Syrian rebel fighters linked with al-Qaeda have begged for forgiveness from Allah after cutting off the head of one of their allies by mistake. Thursday, November 14, 2013
Thirty pieces of nickel-brass alloySometimes the Guardian justifies its name. This is worth knowing about:Police tried to spy on Cambridge students, secret footage shows Officer is filmed attempting to persuade activist in his 20s to become informant targeting 'student-union type stuff'Of this sort of thing is not new. A friend of mine was asked to spy on far-left groups back in the '70s. Perhaps it is inevitable; among the innumerable sects that split and reformed and split again to become the RCPBML and CPGB(ML) we all know and love this week, there were a few that really did need spying on, as do some of the Muslims who have replaced them. But "student-union type stuff"? Yup, MI5 really needs a deep cover mole in the the SUTS. And were they always such cheapskates? The officer also suggested the man he hoped to recruit would be paid expenses or other sums. "You might go to a UK Uncut or Unite Against Fascism meeting one evening, you might get say £30 just for your time and effort for doing that. That's the sort of thing you are looking at." Samizdata quote of the dayIf you don’t own your own body, I shudder to think of the implications of the tragedy of the commons. - Commenter "charles austin", here. Read about those implications here. The mills of incentives grind slow but they grind exceeding small. Sunday, November 10, 2013
On this day let us commemorate...... the victims of the French Revolution. Today is 20th Brumaire in the year CCXXII. On this day in in Year Two, 10th November 1793 in the former calendar, the Festival of Reason was inaugurated in the Temple of Reason, before and afterwards known as the Cathedral of Notre Dame. When reading his description of the first Festival modern readers may find it difficult to share the outrage expressed by the highly partisan nineteenth century politician and historian of the French Revolution, denounced alike by Carlyle and Marx, Adolphe Thiers. The Catholic Church under the ancien régime was oppressive and parasitical, and the Festival can seem to modern eyes like nothing much worse than an embarrassingly amateur charity pageant run by the Women's Institute: The first festival of Reason was held with pomp on the 20th of Brumaire (10th of November) It was attended by all the sections, together with the constituted authorities. A young woman represented the goddess of Reason. She was the wife of Momoro, the printer, one of the friends of Vincent, Bonsin, Chaumette, Hebert, and the like. She was dressed in a white drapery; a mantle of azure blue hung from her shoulders ; her flowing hair was covered with the cap of liberty. She sat upon an antique seat, intwined with ivy and borne by four citizens. Young girls dressed in white, and crowned with roses, preceded and followed the goddess. Then came the busts of Lepelletier and Marat, musicians, troops, and all the armed sections. Speeches were delivered, and hymns sung in the Temple of Reason ; they then proceeded to the Convention, and Chaumette spoke in these terms : Whatever the semblance, nothing about the French Revolution was harmless. The Goddess Reason ascended her throne two months into the Terror. When the Catholic peasants of the Vendée were so ungrateful for the blessings of the Goddess as to attempt counter-revolution, Momoro, the man whose wife had played the role of the Goddess, was deeply involved in its brutal suppression. Chaumette, too, was one of the leading enragés, and soppy modern "liberals" inclined to praise the Cult of Reason as an ancestor of their own views might like to read more about its teachings regarding women. Neither Momoro nor Chaumette had long to enjoy their status as founders. By spring of the next year Robespierre decided to replace the Cult of Reason with the Cult of the Supreme Being. From then on it was the People's Front of Judea scene from Life of Brian with real deaths. The Committee of Public Safety sent Momoro to the guillotine on 24th March 1794 and Chaumette followed him on 15th April. Robespierre himself fell from power in June and was guillotined in July. A few paragraphs later Thiers describes "restraints" being imposed on a people that he thought were unprecedented in all prior history. They were not, alas, unrepeated in subsequent history: If then we survey the state of France at this period, we shall see that never were more restraints imposed at once on that inert and patient part of the population on which political experiments are made. People dared no longer express any opinion. They were afraid to visit their friends, lest they might be compromised with them, and lose liberty and even life. A hundred thousand arrests and some hundreds of condemnations, rendered imprisonment and the scaffold ever present to the minds of twenty-five millions of French. They had to bear heavy taxes. If, by a perfectly arbitrary classification, they were placed on the list of the rich, they lost for that year a portion of their income.It was a straight road from Revolutionary France to Soviet Russia, but if you look carefully the twisty paths from there to nearly all the "political experiments" and other horrors of the twentieth century can be discerned, including the two great wars remembered today. |