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July 2019

Well, this is correct at least

The Senior Lecturer tells us that as a result of Boris’ ascension:

Nationalists can no longer dither.

Quite so, that English nationalist dream of Brexit is closer today, isn’t it?

Hmm, what’s that? Other nationalisms are just fine but English isn’t? Why’s that then?

Poor little dears

Pink lights that highlight children’s acne to disperse them from public places and anti-loitering sonic sirens only children can hear should be banned, says the children’s commissioner for England.

Anne Longfield told The Telegraph the devices were “cruel and demeaning” as it emerged that increasing numbers are being deployed by councils, businesses and residents to disperse groups of young children congregating in public.

They’re supposed to be cruel and demeaning Love.

The truly important thing here

The New Yorker’s indefatigable Jane Mayer has written the definitive piece on the Franken affair. In it, she conclusively establishes that Franken’s main accuser, Leeann Tweeden, of the 2006 USO tour incident, was acting as a right-wing operative, a birther no less. Tweeden, Mayer documents, had participated in identical Franken skits involving fended off kisses several times before and had registered no objection.

The photo of Franken with his hands hovering over the breasts of a sleeping Tweeden was a sight gag. The joke was that everyone on the USO tour was wearing flak jackets. Again, Tweeden never objected until it was part of a well-orchestrated right-wing takedown of Franken.

Was Franken guilty of anything? He was guilty of horsing around, and Mayer tracks down three women who felt their space was violated. That’s it.

No, that’s not it. The two things truly important are that Al Franken is a Democrat. And a Progressive.

To explain this

The Italian-American economist is more than just a theorist. Her faith in the ability of governments to create inclusive and sustainable prosperity has found a large and receptive global audience. In the US, she has the ear of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren. Across the Atlantic, her “mission-oriented” approach to public policy serves as the foundation of the European Union’s €100 billion ($112 billion) research and innovation program and inspired Scotland’s government to set up a national investment bank.

The European Union wanted to be told that EU finding of research and development was very important. Further, that the EU should take equity stakes in the users of that new tech in order to increase the funds the EU could use to spend to be the EU.

A certain Italian American economist was hired, on a grant, to investigate the manner in which government could and should increase technological development. The answer being that governmental type things like the EU should spend lots on basic research and development and then keep equity stakes in the tech that was developed.

The economist then went on to found an institute which gets money from…..

And there are people out there who say that public choice economics isn’t true.

So, don’t bother to write for Medium then

Medium says it offers a chance to get published behind their paywall. Doing so then gains you some portion of what people pay to be able to get past the paywall.

I tried this. Two essays. Not saying that either are pure and golden but each is a couple of thousand words looking askance at policies being advanced in the Democratic primaries.

No, not saying that the political line is the reason for the following.

After a couple of weeks neither has been reviewed by Medium for inclusion behind that paywall. One actually tells me their editorial staff is so overwhelmed that they won’t even bother. The other says they’ve not got to it yet – that second being the older one by a couple of days.

Yes, I have sent emails and asked and got no response.

So, the conclusion has to be that Medium, as a place to write and get paid, simply doesn’t work.

Ah well, shrug.

Elsewhere

Why? Why would we want to invest a lot in a sector which pays lower than average wages? This would just be making us all poorer, obviously. Think on it: Fast food workers make less than accountants, so therefore we must invest in burger joints not financial management? No, of course not, we want to invest in the industries that pay the higher incomes to the workers, on the sensible grounds that we think it a good idea that people get higher incomes. Investing in manufacturing, given those lower wages, thus makes us all poorer — both by gaining more lower-wage jobs and also by losing the higher incomes that would have been gained by more sensible policies.

By the way, the very complaint being made of free-market economics is that it’s already doing this, investing in the better-paid sectors. That’s why there’s a plan, to force the market to stop investing in nice highly paid service jobs and to spray money at impoverishing manufacturing ones. The basic insistence here is that laissez faire economics is by itself and on its own making us richer. By golly, surely this must be stopped!

Wooden skyscrapers

You know, I can’t help feeling that thee’s a risk here:

British Columbia is no stranger to wooden giants. Along its western coast, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce trees topping 60 meters in height have in some cases weathered nearly a millennium of storms.

Now a growing chorus of architects, foresters and engineers want the province’s biggest city to grow another cluster of wooden giants: timber skyscrapers.

Already, Vancouver’s 18-storey Brock Commons tower stands as a testament to the vast possibilities of wood. Once the world’s tallest timber building, it was built cheaper, faster and with less environmental impact than a comparable steel and concrete structure would have been – offsetting an estimated 2,432 metric tonnes of carbon.

Now the provincial government has changed its building codes, effectively doubling the height limit for wood-frame buildings to 12 storeys (Brock Commons was granted an exception when it was built). The Canadian government is expected to match BC’s codes nationwide.

Hmm, well. As Grenfell showed, building in concrete doesn’t make a place fireproof. But still:

Despite popular misconceptions of wood as fire-prone and unstable, it can be a robust and innovative building material.

That doesn’t quite answer the misconception, does it?

Congratulations Honey – you might now be an adult

I learned I could do my job and not feel ashamed of having a baby
As a freelancer, I struggled to separate my work from my duties as a parent – until I realised that the two could exist side by side

What does anyone think mothers have been doing this past 100,000 years?

Sure, the baby’s not a side issue, it’s the point of it all. But it has always required the labour of two to raise the human race. That’s why pair bonding and all the rest of it.

Simple economics

Analysts say the government is making strenuous efforts to stabilise the economy, running a budget surplus for the first time in years and refraining from printing money, a key cause of the hyperinflation of 2008.

Last month, the central bank raised interest rates to 50% to protect the local currency and has made transactions using the US dollar illegal.

Why not drop the local currency and use the US$ instead? Inflation would stop immediately.

The answer is of course:

“The trouble with Zimbabwe is a predatory elite that prioritises personal accumulation over public interest and service. Comprised of top ruling party officials, their relatives and friends”

Olson’s stationary bandits don’t always farm the population effectively…..

This is fun

The far northwestern region of Xinjiang is an “inseparable” part of China despite efforts by extremists to distort history and facts in a bid to split the country, the Chinese government said in a document published late on Sunday.

The government said in a white paper published by the State Council Information Office it was wrong to suggest members of Xinjiang’s minority Uighur Muslim community were descended from Turks, noting they had become the political tool of pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic groups.

They’re not exactly Han now, are they?

No

To answer a Guardian headline question:

His brother was killed at Sandy Hook – now, 19-year-old JT Lewis is running to be a Republican senator. Can he win?

He’s too young. The US constitution insists that you not only be out of both diapers and braces but even have been able to drink legally for a few years before joining the Senate. Not that Ted Kennedy’s training for this worked all that well but…..

A teenager whose brother was killed in a mass school shooting may not seem the natural candidate to be running as a Republican senator. But this “unique position,” says 19-year-old JT Lewis, is exactly what makes him the man for office. His bid to represent the 28th district of Connecticut which covers Newtown,

Ahhh, state senator? That’s different. And it’s not, in the language of these things, senator. Also, who gives a toss, state level spendthrifts are a dime a dozen.

Also known as winning

He made millions bringing authentic pizzas to Britain, but by the time of his death, businessman Peter Boizot had lost all of his money.

The Pizza Express founder, who died last December aged 89, left assets of £99,050, but the size of his net estate was reduced to nil after his liabilities were settled, probate records show.

Despite making a reported £33 million when he sold the hugely successful restaurant chain in 1993

Interesting meaning of the word “responsible”

We are in the middle of the most intense political crisis for a generation. And in a few days Boris Johnson could well be handed the keys to No 10. That will make things worse, not better.

Any responsible future prime minister would have spent the past few weeks seeking to find a consensus in parliament for a way forward, building bridges with our European allies rather than Donald Trump, and making the case for unity not division across the country.

“Responsible” here meaning “does what I want”.