You can spend many years reading many books to try to understand liberal modernity, or you can just watch this 24-second video. pic.twitter.com/KyJLKAuzKM— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) June 2, 2020
Eastern Europeans look on baffled.
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Sunday, 7 June 2020
This really does explain where the West is now
Eastern Europeans look on baffled.
A revolt by the Taliban against old-school liberalism in the New York Times
The New York Times is so extraordinarily biased these days that it cannot be trusted to separate opinion and facts or accurately report the facts about the US Administration or even Swedish death rates. It would hardly seem worth reading. As it is behind a paywall, the question does not arise often.
Still, it did print an article by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, almost the only Republican with the possible exception of the President not grovelling to Black Lives Matter, who argued:
The puritans were, of course, the 17th century equivalent of the Taliban and so are their contemporary left-wing secular descendants.
Still, it did print an article by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, almost the only Republican with the possible exception of the President not grovelling to Black Lives Matter, who argued:
It's past time to support local law enforcement with federal authority. Some governors have mobilized the National Guard, yet others refuse, and in some cases the rioters still outnumber the police and Guard combined. In these circumstances, the Insurrection Act authorizes the president to employ the military "or any other means" in "cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws."Publishing his article prompted a huge debate, if you can call it that, or at any rate a huge divide between journalists over forty, who believe in free speech and debating ideas, and the ones in their twenties who had been triggered. The story is here.
Note 'not to say something would be immoral' - this is the puritanism that runs through America like Southend through a stick of Southend rock. It is responsible for so many bad things (think prohibition) and possibly one or two good ones.I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but to not say something would be immoral. As a black woman, as a journalist, as an American, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this. https://t.co/lU1KmhH2zH— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) June 4, 2020
The puritans were, of course, the 17th century equivalent of the Taliban and so are their contemporary left-wing secular descendants.
Suppressing dissenters from the new religion
Look at those two faces. I never heard of either of them in my life but those are two journalists who pride themselves on having been around the block and having contrarian opinions on a lot of subjects. Characters, in a word, the sort of men you once found in every pub in every English village, though I am told that characters disappeared years ago.
Now they are disappearing from the media. Characters are not wanted any more.
"We are actively working with the caller involved to develop some ideas to debate the issues involved." https://t.co/HWL9upxfX9 The last thing anyone wants is 'debate' - submit, or lose your job— Ed West (@edwest) June 6, 2020
Book judge axed after criticising Black Lives Matter https://t.co/aowkerCFSz just kiss the royal emblem on my cloak, and you will feel no more— Ed West (@edwest) June 6, 2020
Yes
If you ever wondered “how could that have happened” when reading about a period of history where people got hurt and bystanders just blindly went along with it, pay attention, because it’s happening right now.— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) June 7, 2020
The entire thread is very interesting. I must read the books mentioned.
I particularly liked this comment.
In recent years it's been fascinating to see how historians & psychologists have applied this to historical revolutionary movements— Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 (@AvidCommentator) June 7, 2020
Only a very small fraction of the populace needs be fully committed to a cause to completely transform a society for better or worse
The BBC, though in some ways wonderful, is no longer an impartial news service and risibly woke
27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London https://t.co/vIq1VL1aiT— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 7, 2020
I think the BBC does have to be privatised yet ,considering how anti-conservative and right-on private TV channels like Sky are, that will not be a real solution.
Is there a solution? Porsche, inventor of the famous car, said that when a problem has no solution it ceases to be a problem and becomes a fact.
It depends entirely on the objective of the protest - if the protest was against, say, the rape of white girls by Pakistanis in provincial England or sexual assaults by migrants in Germany, one injury would make the protest violent.It's interesting, for example, that @BBCNews didn't report the the 2019 protest in defence of Tommy Robinson as "largely peaceful". Only 20 were injured in that, yet it was described with terms such as 'violent disorder', despite it being just a minority who attacked the police.— Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) June 7, 2020
A new religion supplants Christianity (but not Islam)
"For when a new sect—that is, a new religion—emerges, its first concern is to extinguish the old to give itself reputation." Machiavelli
Has the world gone mad over the last few years and especially this year? It looks like it because it is hard to find a rational explanation for what is happening. Perhaps we should be looking for irrational explanations instead.
Ed West writing in The Tablet is one of my few soul mates in the mainstream media and clearly thinking along very similar lines to mine. Human rights ideology is a religion, a Christian heresy like the ideas of Voltaire, Rousseau, Robespierre and Marx. As a religion it cannot be understood rationally. and indeed mkes no sense rationally. Think instead of Albigensians, although they were not in fact Christian heretics but believed in an entirely different religion. Who will lead a crusade against this
As Christianity started to seriously haemorrhage support in the 1960s, so a new faith arose, with “privilege” a form of original sin and so-called “vulnerable groups” the new sacred. Once large sections of the population abandon Christianity, liberalism becomes their default setting. If you meet any well-meaning and highly moral person under the age of 45 today and they aren’t religious, the chances are that they will be heavily into social justice causes – people need that religious impulse, with all it brings.
Today just 16 per cent of liberals in the US think religious faith gives them a “great deal” of meaning in life, compared to 62 per cent of “very conservative” Americans, yet almost a third of those very liberal Americans find a “great deal” of meaning in political causes, compared to just 9 per cent of conservatives. Politics seems to satisfy the same thirst as religion, fuelling a new form of political sectarianism that is intense in the US and growing in the UK.
Testing for Covid-19 is useless says Knut Wittkowski
Whatever you think of his other opinions the Nut, as a friend of mine calls him, is pretty obviously right about the uselessness of testing for Covid-19.
Where I suspect he is mistaken is when he says antibody testing can tell us how far we have progressed towards achieving herd immunity. The answer the tests give is that we are a very long way off it, but quite a lot of people suspect that many more people are immune than have antibodies, which may be why the virus seems to fade away after two or three months in each country infected.
Saturday, 6 June 2020
Please watch this clip and decide if Joe Biden is in good enough mental health to be U.S. President
Please watch this clip and decide if Joe Biden is senile or could credibly win the presidency and discharge its functions.
The women who are questioning him about sexual harassment are clearly on his side and willing him to clear up the issue with a show of words, but Joe is unable to concentrate on the matter or be at all coherent. The women are embarrassed for him.
It may just be my fancy, but I imagine they are Democrats worried that performing like this he has no chance of beating Donald Trump.
He always made lots of 'gaffes', always waffled, got confused and strayed from the point, it is perfectly true, but if you doubt he is losing his grip this is how Joe Biden spoke in 1992, when he was in his prime.
(By the way, in that clip from 1992 he was arguing that Congress should refuse to approve President George H.W. Bush's nomination of a judge to the Supreme Court before the forthcoming presidential election. When the Republicans followed his advice in 2016 he felt differently.)
The women who are questioning him about sexual harassment are clearly on his side and willing him to clear up the issue with a show of words, but Joe is unable to concentrate on the matter or be at all coherent. The women are embarrassed for him.
It may just be my fancy, but I imagine they are Democrats worried that performing like this he has no chance of beating Donald Trump.
He always made lots of 'gaffes', always waffled, got confused and strayed from the point, it is perfectly true, but if you doubt he is losing his grip this is how Joe Biden spoke in 1992, when he was in his prime.
(By the way, in that clip from 1992 he was arguing that Congress should refuse to approve President George H.W. Bush's nomination of a judge to the Supreme Court before the forthcoming presidential election. When the Republicans followed his advice in 2016 he felt differently.)
Putting the kibosh on it - an etymological mystery now apparently solved
Professor Matthew Little suggests in Origin of Kibosh: Routledge Studies in Etymology that “kibosh may derive from the word kurbash, a long whip used for punishment in parts of the Muslim world. It originally appeared in Arabic and Turkish, borrowed into French as ‘courbache’ and into English as ‘kurbash’ and other variant spellings.”
Co-author Professor Stephen Goranson found a poem, “Penal Servitude!” from around 1830 using the phrase.
“The key verse in the poem (supposedly written by a convict who has returned from imprisonment in Australia) [includes] the following clarification about ‘put on the kibosh’: ‘That is if they was to introduce the lash.’”I must say that if someone gave this explanation on Call My Bluff I'd not be convinced, but the true etymologies on Call My Bluff were often unconvincing.
...A Cockney chimney sweep, hauled into court in 1834 with his companion for violating the 1834 Chimney Sweepers Act, had an outburst of frustration and anger after the trial. That outburst — delivered in an unmistakable Cockney dialect — contained a blast against ‘the Vigs’ (Whigs) and the sweep used the new expression put the kibosh on. The London Standard article reporting on the trial was widely reprinted in England, and now people all over the country were reading about 'putting the kibosh on the ‘Vigs.’”
Death in Minnesota and Weather Underground
Black Lives Matter is a scam, of course. It is a pretext rather than a reason for the protests around the world but, at the same time, it is a heartfelt, passionate critique of an unjust world. It makes people who want to overthrow the established order feel they have an obvious justification, one with which everyone who is not malign must agree.
It is genuinely revolutionary, like the protests and riots of 1968, but also the ideology of the authorities. No politician or journalist wants to look racist by questioning the protesters. Anti-racism is a permanent revolution, of the sort desired by Marx and Engels.
A lot of the reason for the protests and for the violence that often accompanies them is the frustration of the poor and the well-off due to lockdown. Yet before Covid-19 appeared there had been a mood around the world for protest, riot and violence: in Hong Kong, Beirut, Santiago, Catalonia, Iran. It's as if the world is ready for revolution.
A very long article in the Atlantic in January 2016 called 'Why America Is Moving Left' said the Democratic Party establishment's attitudes to the Black Lives Matter protests were evidence of how far left America, especially young America, had moved since the 1990s.
It pointed out that Eisenhower in effect ratified the New Deal and expected Marco Rubio, if he became President, to ratify Obama's left-wing USA.
It is genuinely revolutionary, like the protests and riots of 1968, but also the ideology of the authorities. No politician or journalist wants to look racist by questioning the protesters. Anti-racism is a permanent revolution, of the sort desired by Marx and Engels.
A lot of the reason for the protests and for the violence that often accompanies them is the frustration of the poor and the well-off due to lockdown. Yet before Covid-19 appeared there had been a mood around the world for protest, riot and violence: in Hong Kong, Beirut, Santiago, Catalonia, Iran. It's as if the world is ready for revolution.
A very long article in the Atlantic in January 2016 called 'Why America Is Moving Left' said the Democratic Party establishment's attitudes to the Black Lives Matter protests were evidence of how far left America, especially young America, had moved since the 1990s.
It pointed out that Eisenhower in effect ratified the New Deal and expected Marco Rubio, if he became President, to ratify Obama's left-wing USA.
Because if George W. Bush’s failures pushed the Democratic Party to the left, Barack Obama’s have pushed it even further. If Bush was responsible for the liberal infrastructure that helped elect Obama, Obama has now inadvertently contributed to the creation of two movements—Occupy and Black Lives Matter—dedicated to the proposition that even the liberalism he espouses is not left-wing enough.
Friday, 5 June 2020
Thursday, 4 June 2020
The lost art of aimless urban walking
The time I love Romania most is probably walking along the crumbling streets of Bucharest's allegedly historic centre. In fact it is late nineteenth century, so not very historic, but it has the patina of dereliction you get in cities that were allowed or forced to decay because of Marxist anti-economic policies: like Havana and, before tourism, Tbilisi.
It feels half as old as time, while really old places in other countries are highly restored and look as if they were just built. People who read the Narnia books as children can think of the petrified city of Charn in The Magician's Nephew.
During the lockdown I took up my old hobby of aimless urban walking again and since the lockdown ended I continue the habit.
The first picture is of the church of St Nicholas Udricani, which I discovered today for the first time in a small uninteresting little street some way east of Piața Unirii.
The exterior wall painting dates from the late eighteenth century and miraculously escaped the Great Fire of 1847, so the priest told me. He gave me some delicious coliva, baked to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon yesterday.
He told me Udricani means inhabitants of Adrianople, a city that the Turkish republic renamed Edirne. It is graced by beautiful mosques and was capital of the Ottoman empire until Constantinople fell. The emigrants for whom this church was built would have mourned the previous Christian Adrianople.
It feels half as old as time, while really old places in other countries are highly restored and look as if they were just built. People who read the Narnia books as children can think of the petrified city of Charn in The Magician's Nephew.
During the lockdown I took up my old hobby of aimless urban walking again and since the lockdown ended I continue the habit.
The first picture is of the church of St Nicholas Udricani, which I discovered today for the first time in a small uninteresting little street some way east of Piața Unirii.
The exterior wall painting dates from the late eighteenth century and miraculously escaped the Great Fire of 1847, so the priest told me. He gave me some delicious coliva, baked to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon yesterday.
He told me Udricani means inhabitants of Adrianople, a city that the Turkish republic renamed Edirne. It is graced by beautiful mosques and was capital of the Ottoman empire until Constantinople fell. The emigrants for whom this church was built would have mourned the previous Christian Adrianople.
 |
| Stavropoleos convent is my favourite church in Romania despite being restored. |
Covid-19 death
Interestingly George Floyd, the Minneapolis man whose death in police custody sparked protests and riots, was infected with Covid-19.
Quotations
Peel's 4th principle of policing: "To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law." (Peelers, historians tell us, did not genuflect to Chartist protesters.)
“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” John Kenneth Galbraith
“Every reformation must have its victims. You can’t expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal’s return.”
Saki
"Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl." Stephen Leacock
"Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult." Stephen Leacock
“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” John Kenneth Galbraith
Saki
"Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl." Stephen Leacock
"Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult." Stephen Leacock
'Now we know coronavirus is not a random killer, this one-size-fits-all lockdown must come to an end'
"When it is all over, we must do our best not to emerge into a ‘New Normal’ – in that dismal cliched phrase that suggests a dull, constrained future – but an ‘Old Normal’, as we seize back our former lives."Professor Karol Sikora, who says the virus seems to be petering out except in Latin America - which is obvious. He hopes it will all be over by September.
A British nurse friend of mine told me in March that it would be over in three or four weeks, 'but don't quote me'. I didn't believe him. I hope it is over before September and before a vaccine is developed, if one is. In Romania and Eastern Europe, including Greece but very possibly not including Russia, it should be over by the end of July.
1,296 deaths in Romania are recorded up to this morning of people who were infected with Covid-19. 80% of them, according to the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Health who has looked at each case closely, were not from Covid-19. Fewer than 300 deaths from Covid-19 then in almost ten weeks, mostly of old people with other serious health problems too. Thankfully this is nothing like the pandemic we feared, though a terrible pandemic will no doubt come one day. Let's hope we have better ideas about what to do when it does and let's hope they do not involve stopping the world.
By the way, YouTube removed an interview with Professor Sikora, before later reinstating it. (They also shadow banned Peter Hitchens, deleted an interview with Dr Knut Wittkowski, former head of epidemiology at Rockefeller University, and removed a clip of Toby Young talking to Stanford Professor Michael Levitt. Imagine your telephone company cutting off your calls if you made remarks which contradicted WHO advice.)
'The coronavirus lockdowns have upended the lives of Americans to “protect” them from a virus with a 0.2 percent fatality rate, with the majority of those fatalities occurring in nursing homes and among people with chronic health conditions.' (Ron Paul five days ago.)
Wednesday, 3 June 2020
Facts about Covid-19
This tells you everything you wanted to know about Covid-19 but were afraid to ask.
But a couple of caveats, at least. Though there is evidence that masks are useless there are also arguments that they might in some ways be useful. In any case, they make us feel safe and that the government is doing something to protect us.
Studies have indeed shown that the virus was not found on surfaces, but on one of the cruise ships hit by the virus the virus was found everywhere. I suspect though that you catch this thing by talking to people at length or singing with people indoors.
But a couple of caveats, at least. Though there is evidence that masks are useless there are also arguments that they might in some ways be useful. In any case, they make us feel safe and that the government is doing something to protect us.
Studies have indeed shown that the virus was not found on surfaces, but on one of the cruise ships hit by the virus the virus was found everywhere. I suspect though that you catch this thing by talking to people at length or singing with people indoors.
This, if you do not know it, is invaluable information, much better than that provided by the press.
No comment
A re-enactment of Mao's— Kristian Niemietz has long given up on all that (@K_Niemietz) June 3, 2020
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, but with updated terminology. https://t.co/6d6N7ap9vq
America’s colonial subjects now have to subscribe to its new woke ideology. https://t.co/qW3iZO6QvE— Alessandra (@alessabocchi) June 3, 2020
This one killing in America is the main news throughout the developed world
Ann Coulter has reminded us not to jump to conclusions about George Floyd's death, as we did with the case of Rodney King, all those years ago. The case is sub judice and a man has been charged with murder. If he is not convicted I hope he makes a fortune suing people who have said he is a murderer. Piers Morgan is one example.
Why this should interest anyone outside the USA it would be hard to explain to Martians, but this quarrel in a far away country holds the attention of the world. It was the same with OJ Simpson, of whom no-one outside the USA had ever heard until he was charged with having tried to murder his former wife.
We know why. America rules the world. Even England is reduced to being a suburb of what was once our suburb.
This means that intellectual fashions that start there spread here, even via the EU apparatchiks to Romania in the end.
Why this should interest anyone outside the USA it would be hard to explain to Martians, but this quarrel in a far away country holds the attention of the world. It was the same with OJ Simpson, of whom no-one outside the USA had ever heard until he was charged with having tried to murder his former wife.
We know why. America rules the world. Even England is reduced to being a suburb of what was once our suburb.
This means that intellectual fashions that start there spread here, even via the EU apparatchiks to Romania in the end.
Give this lady a Nobel Peace Prize & a cabinet position in the White Housepic.twitter.com/pltUCpPsqB— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) June 3, 2020
A Democrat Governor oversees a Democrat Attorney General, who oversees a Democrat Mayor, who appointed a Democrat Police Chief, who built the office culture that hired Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd.— Tom Dees (@ThomasWDees) June 3, 2020
But it's Trump's fault?
O Canada
Canada is the world's first postnational state. Justin Trudeau
Canada, the colony that stayed at home to look after mother. Anthony Burgess
Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner. Douglas Adams
Canada is like a loft apartment over the world's greatest party. Robin Williams
Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner. Douglas Adams
Canada is like a loft apartment over the world's greatest party. Robin Williams
Quotations
'This virus will spread more. I have to say it with regret that there will be more deaths. If people do take care they can live with the virus.’
Prime Minister Imran Khan telling Pakistan that it cannot afford to lockdown any longer.
Kyle Harper's Fate of Rome is SO interesting about how the Plague of Cyprian hugely increased the power of Christianity, and then the Justinian plague radically reshaped Christianity (and led to the rise of Islam). we're seeing something similar https://t.co/9zbOD1dTWB— Ed West (@edwest) June 3, 2020
Homicides in the USA
The internet is full of stories about endemic racism among American police. I suspect they are misinformation. This article in WSJ might tell me the truth, but it is hidden from me by a paywall.
Someone on Twitter says 42% of people responsible for police killings in the USA are black men, a category that makes up 6% of the population. I couldn't confirm this by searching the internet, though I only gave it five minutes. I did find that 43% of people who murdered (as opposed to killed) police officers in the USA between 1976 and 1998 were black.
An average of 85 police officers are 'feloniously killed' in the USA each year and between 1000 and 1500 people are killed by police officers.
All fatalities resulting from use of lethal force by on-duty law enforcement officers from 2009 to 2012 in 17 U.S. states were examined by researchers who found that 52% of the victims were white and 32% black. The states, since you ask, were Alaska; Colorado; Georgia; Kentucky; Maryland; Massachusetts; New Jersey; New Mexico; North Carolina; Oklahoma; Oregon; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Utah; Virginia; Wisconsin (2009–2012); and Ohio (2011–2012 only). So the biggest cities in the USA were ignored.
Overwhelmingly, victims were reported to be armed (83%), though black victims were more likely to be unarmed (14.8%) than white (9.4%) or Hispanic (5.8%) victims.
Someone on Twitter says 42% of people responsible for police killings in the USA are black men, a category that makes up 6% of the population. I couldn't confirm this by searching the internet, though I only gave it five minutes. I did find that 43% of people who murdered (as opposed to killed) police officers in the USA between 1976 and 1998 were black.
An average of 85 police officers are 'feloniously killed' in the USA each year and between 1000 and 1500 people are killed by police officers.
All fatalities resulting from use of lethal force by on-duty law enforcement officers from 2009 to 2012 in 17 U.S. states were examined by researchers who found that 52% of the victims were white and 32% black. The states, since you ask, were Alaska; Colorado; Georgia; Kentucky; Maryland; Massachusetts; New Jersey; New Mexico; North Carolina; Oklahoma; Oregon; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Utah; Virginia; Wisconsin (2009–2012); and Ohio (2011–2012 only). So the biggest cities in the USA were ignored.
Overwhelmingly, victims were reported to be armed (83%), though black victims were more likely to be unarmed (14.8%) than white (9.4%) or Hispanic (5.8%) victims.
The big story is the murders by black Americans. They are 12 times more likely to commit homicide than whites, according to researchers at Pennsylvania State University, but only 8 times more likely to do so according to figures issued by the Obama administration. The reason for the discrepancy seems to be that in the government figures Hispanic murderers were usually counted as white. The Trump administration hasn't issued any figures.
In 2013 African Americans, who by then accounted for 14% of the population, accounted for 52% of all murder arrests, Whites 45%, Hispanics 22%, Asians and 'Native Americans' together 2.5%.
Why are black people in the US disproportionately murderous? That's a very complicated question. Slavery is not the explanation. Slaves in the antebellum South were noted for their passivity.
Note: Since writing this I have discovered that per capita many more black people than white people have been found guilty of murder in the USA from the 1830s to the present day.
In 2013 African Americans, who by then accounted for 14% of the population, accounted for 52% of all murder arrests, Whites 45%, Hispanics 22%, Asians and 'Native Americans' together 2.5%.
Why are black people in the US disproportionately murderous? That's a very complicated question. Slavery is not the explanation. Slaves in the antebellum South were noted for their passivity.
Note: Since writing this I have discovered that per capita many more black people than white people have been found guilty of murder in the USA from the 1830s to the present day.
Tuesday, 2 June 2020
Freedom in England
Great Britain still has a lockdown. A protest against it was dispersed by the police, but a big rally in Trafalgar Sq to protest the death of George Floyd in the USA was allowed to take place, with a complete absence of social distancing.
Dominic Cummings driving his child and sick wife to somewhere where they could be taken care of is said to have destroyed the lockdown, but a tightly packed crowd protesting about a quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom the English know nothing, is absolutely fine, even admirable.
Dominic Cummings driving his child and sick wife to somewhere where they could be taken care of is said to have destroyed the lockdown, but a tightly packed crowd protesting about a quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom the English know nothing, is absolutely fine, even admirable.
If the rally were in support of Donald Trump I wonder whether it would have been allowed by the police.
But at least, though unlike Dominic Cummings they broke the law, they were exercising an Englishman's time honoured freedom of expression. Three British youngsters, aged 18 and 19, posted a photograph of themselves recreating how the unarmed 46-year-old Floyd died at the hands of police in Minnesota. They have been arrested on 'suspicion of committing a hate crime' and have received threats of violence.
But at least, though unlike Dominic Cummings they broke the law, they were exercising an Englishman's time honoured freedom of expression. Three British youngsters, aged 18 and 19, posted a photograph of themselves recreating how the unarmed 46-year-old Floyd died at the hands of police in Minnesota. They have been arrested on 'suspicion of committing a hate crime' and have received threats of violence.
So much for freedom of speech. The affair reminds me of these cases.
Riots in the USA
Listening to the BBC World Service means entering a depressing and infuriating presentation of a left of centre world view, paid for by the British Foreign Office. That's just how it is. It wasn't always nearly so bad. But nevertheless you learn things.
Yesterday an American who had worked for the Obama administration (of course) told the BBC that 1200-1500 people a year die in US at hands of police. Fewer than 20 police officers are prosecuted. This seems shocking and is what should concern Americans, not the colour of the many hundreds of people killed.
But in fact these killings are not what concern Americans. The race question is what concerns them.
When a Somali-American policewoman killed a white women in Minnesota for what seemed like no good reason few cared. When a white policeman kills a black man riots happen.
And what is interesting is that much of what in England is called the middle class, meaning the comfortably off people with a good education, are on the side of the street and the protesters. Anti-racism is a huge social movement, but I suspect mostly among graduates.
The left-wing press misuse statistics to imply the killings of blacks are because of the colour of their skin, but the evidence is the other way.
When a Somali-American policewoman killed a white women in Minnesota for what seemed like no good reason few cared. When a white policeman kills a black man riots happen.
And what is interesting is that much of what in England is called the middle class, meaning the comfortably off people with a good education, are on the side of the street and the protesters. Anti-racism is a huge social movement, but I suspect mostly among graduates.
The left-wing press misuse statistics to imply the killings of blacks are because of the colour of their skin, but the evidence is the other way.
Unsurprisingly it's people from the same milieu as the violent criminals who get arrested and sometimes killed.
Nevertheless, for every 10,000 black people arrested for violent crime, three are killed, while for every 10,000 white people arrested for violent crime, four are killed.
Vox found that blacks were 32 percent of those killed by police -- right in between blacks' proportion of the general population (about 13 percent) and blacks' proportion of homicide offenders whose race is known (52 percent).The Black Lives Matter movement was born on Facebook and made great strides during the 2016 election campaign until an African-American sniper at a BLM protest in Dallas on July 7, 2016 killed five police officers and injured nine others and two civilians.
The key variable is age: The ratio of blacks to whites killed by police is much higher among teens than among older adults. And so is the ratio of blacks to whites identified as homicide offenders, a decent measure of involvement in serious violent crime.
Today's protests are already violent and involve much looting. I imagine they are being planned by someone rather than spontaneous.
Back in the 1950s, when Americans pointed out the wickedness of Communist regimes, Communists had one reply which they repeated a lot and which Americans found hard to answer,
Back in the 1950s, when Americans pointed out the wickedness of Communist regimes, Communists had one reply which they repeated a lot and which Americans found hard to answer,
What about the negroes?Now, once more, China, Russia and Iran are criticising the USA for its treatment of black people. Some things do not change.
Actually I think we should turn our attention to a much more important and much sadder story, the protests in Hong Kong, against a real evil, Chinese communism.
Monday, 1 June 2020
The media are consummate hypocrites, but we knew that
“Labour MPs and woke leftists are kicking up a storm about the tactics being used by American police right now. But the exact same tactics were used by French police against the gilets jaunes every single weekend for a year and these people said nothing.”
Brendan O’Neill on Sky today
The rioters in America are behaving with terrible violence which bears no comparison with the gilets jaunes, but the gilets jaunes were just uncool, mostly white and campaigning against environmentalism. The media instinctively disliked them. The media are hive-minded and as anxious to suppress as to discover news. They are above all astonishingly lacking in intellectual curiosity, something which should mean they chose the wrong profession.
Or perhaps they are scared of the disapproval of their peers and potential employers.
As Charles Moore said recently, about the Emily Maitlis affair,
The rioters in America are behaving with terrible violence which bears no comparison with the gilets jaunes, but the gilets jaunes were just uncool, mostly white and campaigning against environmentalism. The media instinctively disliked them. The media are hive-minded and as anxious to suppress as to discover news. They are above all astonishingly lacking in intellectual curiosity, something which should mean they chose the wrong profession.
Or perhaps they are scared of the disapproval of their peers and potential employers.
'It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living'.Bertrand Russell's remark applies to journalists more than most people but it's not just about being employable - though I am told people who have worked for Breitbart, unlike the Morning Star, are not - it's about being part of the club.
As Charles Moore said recently, about the Emily Maitlis affair,
Long ago, I remember the novelist Kingsley Amis telling me that the trouble with broadcasters, especially BBC ones, is that they were “much more concerned with ‘How will it go down at the club?’ than with the viewers.” His expression “the club” now sounds a bit old-fashioned, but the point holds.
Explosive Coronavirus report leaked from German Interior Ministry - the work of one maverick or a panel of experts?
Ron Paul's site publishes a report leaked from the German interior ministry. The site says the German government tried to dismiss the report as “the work of one employee” but
Some of the report's key passages are:
the 93-page report titled “Analysis of the Crisis Management” has been drafted by a scientific panel appointed by the interior ministry and composed by external medical experts from several German universities.In fact this story made the pages of the Times, what Americans call the London Times, back on May 13.
Some of the report's key passages are:
- The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.The report says that more people are dying because of state-imposed Corona-measures than are being killed by the virus.
- The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).
- Worldwide, within a quarter of a year, there has been no more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 1.5 million deaths [25,100 in Germany] during the influenza wave 2017/18.
- The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm.
- A reproach could go along these lines: During the Corona crisis the State has proved itself as one of the biggest producers of Fake News.
New York lawyers charged with hurling Molotov Cocktail at police vehicle
Someone said that the French Revolution was not caused by hungry peasants but by hungry lawyers. The race riots in America allegedly involve lawyers who are far from hungry.
Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman have been charged with throwing a Molotov Cocktail at a police vehicle, an act that was caught on camera. Colinford Mattis graduated from Princeton University and is an associate with a Times Sq firm called Pryor Cashman, where he specializes in start-ups. The average associate salary in the firm is $237,000 p.a.
Colinford Mattis seems to embody a large element of the American left and of the zeitgeist and explain why Donald Trump got to the White House.
Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman have been charged with throwing a Molotov Cocktail at a police vehicle, an act that was caught on camera. Colinford Mattis graduated from Princeton University and is an associate with a Times Sq firm called Pryor Cashman, where he specializes in start-ups. The average associate salary in the firm is $237,000 p.a.
Colinford Mattis seems to embody a large element of the American left and of the zeitgeist and explain why Donald Trump got to the White House.
An anarchist is as an anarchist does. Old proverb. https://t.co/d4eeFUTrfw— John O'Sullivan (@JohnOSullivanNR) June 1, 2020
We simply do not know why many more die from Covid-19 in some parts of the world than in others
This brings one to an inescapable conclusion that has been obvious since mid-March, at least to anyone who has been prepared to see it: that there is a fundamental difference in the way that this virus has behaved in the Far East compared with Europe and America. It has been far, far deadlier in the latter two, and in a way which cannot even nearly be explained by the way different governments have handled the epidemic. This raises two possibilities: either there is a difference in the virus that has been attacking Western countries or there is a difference in the human populations.
Ross Clark today in the Spectator.
I realise that the virus behaves very differently in different regions and we really do not know why. The virus was far less dangerous in the Far East, which is why only 0.6% of foreigners in Wuhan were infected.
Writing yesterday he quoted Karl Friston, a neuroscientist at UCL, saying Germany has not had relatively few deaths because of superior testing capacity.
'There are various possible explanations, but one that looks increasingly likely is that Germany has more immunological 'dark matter' – people who are impervious to infection, perhaps because they are geographically isolated or have some kind of natural resistance.'
What we do know, thank God, is that it is not anywhere nearly as dangerous as the WHO originally led us to believe. We do know that if you catch it your risk of dying is somewhere between 0.2% and 0.05%, not the 3.4% the WHO incompetently told the world was the rate in Wuhan (Donald Trump said his hunch was it was below 1%), and that if you are under 65 and in good health the risk is not non-existent but negligible.
Tom Holland who, like Emily Maitlis, went to my college
“Our wise men have said man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat & black nose with little or hardly any intelligence” - Voltaire— Tom Holland (@holland_tom) June 1, 2020
The development of scientific racism depended on European intellectuals losing faith in Genesis.
Tweets
Some of the most intelligent and learned accounts I interact with on this site are anonymous, because their owners know that expressing views seen as “conservative” may well make it impossible for them to get a job. What field are they in? Philosophy.— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 30, 2020
One thing about what’s happening in the US. Whatever your views on the rights or wrongs, if it continues Trump will walk to re-election.— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) May 30, 2020
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Just when you thought nothing else could go wrong. https://t.co/NcDIZM0ppN— Eccles (@BruvverEccles) May 29, 2020
— Eccles (@BruvverEccles) May 29, 2020
Quotations
We know from history that in pandemics the countries that have not been hit early on can be hit in a second wave. What are we going to see in Africa and Eastern Europe?
Dr Hans Kluge, director for the WHO European region, in the Daily Telegraph
Johnson was, he [George Osborne] thinks, too slow to execute lockdown. But that mistake will look small in two years, “when we’re in a huge great recession, probably still living with the virus and the vaccine’s not yet there”.
Interview in the Times a week ago
Good manners are very simple to define: they mean putting other people before yourself without thinking about it. Actually, Christianity is good manners.
Taki, in this week's Spectator
Dr Hans Kluge, director for the WHO European region, in the Daily Telegraph
Johnson was, he [George Osborne] thinks, too slow to execute lockdown. But that mistake will look small in two years, “when we’re in a huge great recession, probably still living with the virus and the vaccine’s not yet there”.
Interview in the Times a week ago
Good manners are very simple to define: they mean putting other people before yourself without thinking about it. Actually, Christianity is good manners.
Taki, in this week's Spectator
Maybe saddling an entire generation of kids with debt & no hope of joining the property class while sending them to institutions that marinate them in neo-Marxist ideology wasn't such a good idea.— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) June 1, 2020
An amazing capture of a severe storm in a mature stage, over Tunari, Romania.— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) May 31, 2020
Photo by Cristian Bulugea. Posted with permission. pic.twitter.com/bBVjb45yZF
Robert Tombs on Ashoka Mody's EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts
A crisis like the present one tests everything—individuals, nations, states, governments, health systems, bureaucracies, businesses. Their solidarity is stretched, their bluffs called, their promises and reassurances tested. The rabbits are caught in the headlights. No frightened rabbit could be more petrified than the European Union, for the Covid-19 crisis has hammered all its weakest points: its democratic deficit, the fragility of its solidarity, and—most dangerous of all—the inherent faults in its financial and economic structure.
The lack of genuine democratic support—which its creators thought they could dispense with—makes it almost impossible to take hard decisions imposing sacrifice. Its solidarity was immediately shown as hollow when member states began acting in their own interests.
....A European currency was suggested in the 1950s, and the French pushed it for nearly half a century with a persistence one might admire in other circumstances. They finally got their way. Their motive was and is to control Germany, their three-times invader. But beware of what you wish for: the outcome has been Germany controlling them. The fatal episode was the collapse of the USSR and German reunification. President François Mitterrand did a deal with the Germans, and did it ruthlessly: if Germany wanted unification, “you must show that you continue to believe in Europe”, or risk “a terrible backlash”. Chancellor Helmut Kohl readily gave in—he himself saw his mission as unifying both Germany and Europe, and he condemned objections as “nationalist”.
The whole essay is here.
Professor John Ioannidis Reviews the Totality of the Evidence on Covid-19
This is from the latest essay on Coronavirus on the net from the distinguished Professor John Ioannidis. (I'd skip the first half of it if you are short of time.) He said, you remember, a while back that the risk to people under 65 of dying from Covid-19 were the same as dying on a very long drive to and from work.
I can't help wondering if he is being completely candid when he says he thinks that lockdowns were initially justified because of our ignorance about the virus, since what he said back in March strongly suggested that we were overreacting.
On March 3 the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general introduced a media briefing with these distressing words: “Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected.” Others spoke of a very high reproduction number, of almost no asymptomatic infections, and of the high likelihood that the virus would infect most of the global population. Many, including the team led by Neil Ferguson at Imperial College London, drew comparisons to the 1918 pandemic, which cost at least 50 million lives. These claims had a dramatic and arguably dangerous impact on public perception. Moreover, if these claims had been true, any EBM practitioner would call for swift and thoroughgoing lockdown measures. EBM is dead clear in such situations: if the risk is 50 million deaths, shutting the world for a month or two is nothing.
But it was my infectious disease side that had questions. A virus that spreads like wildfire, killing one out of thirty and infecting almost everyone in the absence of a vaccine, should have killed far more people in China and should have spread widely worldwide, perhaps with millions of fatalities, by mid-March. Hence, as I wrote in an op-ed in Stat News, I began to plead that we seek to obtain better data as quickly as possible to best inform our actions. I think lockdown was justified as an initial response, given what little we knew about this new virus, but I also think we needed better data to decide on next steps. And given what we know now, it is reasonable to consider alternatives to population-wide lockdown, even as we continue preventive hygiene measures, exercise local infection controls, focus on protecting those most at risk, and support health care systems to care for patients who are sick.
Two and a half months after COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic, we lament a great and acute loss of life, especially in places like Lombardy and New York. Since the outbreak was detected in Wuhan in December 2019, the global death toll is estimated to be 346,000 as of this writing. But because our interventions can harm as well as help, it is not unreasonable to put this number in context.
We now know that the death toll is not comparable to that of the 1918 pandemic. We also now know that the virus has spread widely, but for the vast majority of people it is far less lethal than we thought: it kills far fewer than 3.4 percent of those who develop symptoms. Late last week the CDC adopted an estimated death rate of 0.4 percent for those who develop symptoms and acknowledged that there are many other infected people who develop no symptoms at all. These estimates will continue to improve as time goes on, but it is clear that the numbers are much lower than first feared. The exact infection fatality rate varies across populations and settings, but it appears that in most situations outside nursing homes and hospitals, it tends to be very low.
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