Some thoughts

It's official: Britain isn’t a racist country .  Interestingly, as another spectator columnist notes 'Crucially, members of the commission were not drawn from the race relations industry. They were instead chosen from all kinds of backgrounds and asked to follow the evidence, wherever it led.' As Guido notes,  the left is outraged , naturally. For if there isn't a problem how can they justify tearing down Western Civilisation? Or how can they make a (dis)honest living stirring up greviances?  Hopefully this will be used to push back against the race-grifters and troublemakers and stop the spread of American identity politics.

I've been mulling over this the past week, and just put down the following points as a comment at Navylookout : For me the biggest missed opportunity of the review is the chance to reform defence procurement (esp. as this was something Dominic Cummins was hoping to fix), so I expect we'll continue to see cost overruns, reduced orders or equipment, and BAE making off like bandits. The shipbuilding program is more positive, historically we were always planning ahead and had constant build schedules, but this century we seem to have stopped this and just looked to replace stuff as it wore out (looking at the current ships in-service dates it's clear this happened around the time of the Afghan and Iraq wars) and it's good to see talk of continuous production runs and keeping the yards busy. I'd hope for at least 12 autonomous minehunter units that could be based either ashore or on a ship. However it would be inefficient to use large (and expensive!) frigates for this

I forgot to do this last week, so here are this month's update of NHS England's weekly covid stats and update my charts. As before, all raw data can be found  here , using data up to March 25th. Following the usual format, first here is here is my updated monthly summary data. Top left is total deaths with or without a pre-existing condition. The bottom left is broken down into age, I have simplified it into under or over 60. To the right in orange are percentage totals. Next, here is my graph showing total deaths by a pre-existing condition The graph appears to be leveling off, hopefully, the peak will appear next month.  And here is the graph showing the percentage of deaths by age group and gender. We still see more male deaths in every age group. New for this month, I spotted an ethnic breakdown in the weekly spreadsheets. I simplified it down to 4 groups, white, mixed, BAME, and unknown/unstated. Here is the data: Note that the %  pretty closely mirrors the ethnic demograp

This week was just as busy as the previous, with the added complication of a job interview in London on Tuesday morning. I drove there as I had to go straight to work afterwards (luckily it was outside the congestion charge zone). Was a tiring day- I left home at 6:10am and arrived at about 7:50! At least this week I only have one evening lecture and schools finish on Thursday. Anywhere, here's this week's items that caught my interest: There are no limits to the culture wars:  Sesame Street Forgets Own History To Be Woke It's starting to resemble Weekend at Bernies:  There is no Biden Administration Good advice: How to beat the woke: Never apologize, rally friends and punch back harder . Also from the NY Post,  The woke takeover of US foreign policy spells doom for trans-Atlantic alliance . Whe even the French are hitting back you no its getting bad. If it triumphs, the result will be the West's suicide:  Is The Left On The Cusp Of Permanent Triumph, Or Is It Committi

A brief summary of the past week: Monday: Afternoon reception cover at SEN school, online lecture in the evening, Tuesday: Afternoon reception cover at SEN school, Wednesday: Supply teaching at girls school, online lecture in the evening, Thursday: Afternoon reception cover at SEN school, online lecture in the evening, Friday: Afternoon reception cover at SEN school, Saturday: Online teaching in the morning, Sunday: Online teaching in the morning. Next week will be the same. Despite this, I've still managed to find a large number of items of interest: My biggest concern with this article is how it seems to be a bit too keen on continuing to engage with (i.e. outsource industry) to China, but otherwise it makes some good points:  Why Britain Is Tilting To The Indo-Pacific Region Good:  Canada joins Britain, France in combatting cancel culture 'coming from the United States' Not so good:  The Sovietization of the American Press It comes as naturally to them as breathing:  How

 The long march through the institutions continues, with Royal Mint the latest to fall. I'd noticed previously their ' Diversity Built Britain ' 50p, but this time they've outdone themselves: The UK's Royal Mint makes history with a new coin featuring Britannia as a woman of color Because when you think of the personification of Britain why wouldn't she be non-white, bigots! No doubt this was partly to cause publicity and provoke a backlash (thereby proving systemic racism), but also to show showing what the powers that be see as the UK's future. As the linked article states: Clare Maclennan, The Royal Mint's director of commemorative coins, said "Britannia is an enduring symbol of the people, and as the nation evolves it is right that her image should evolve too."   Never mind that the UK is still (at least up until the last census, God knows what this year's one will show) 87% white, what matters is shoving the diversity agenda in our fac

'Ultimately this is a choice we need to make. We could choose to create a kind of woke utopia, where children and families are rare, upward mobility is constrained, and society ruled by a kind of collective welfare system that rewards inactivity and stagnation. But to those who value the permanence of our society, and the remarkable importance of children, this is something close to a dystopia.' -  How Declining Fertility Rates May Deliver Us Into Oblivion Read the whole thing. I've long suspected woke/SJW politics, extreme environmentalism, trans/alternative sexualities, etc are linked to the belief that there are too many people. At some point (probably in the 60's or 70's) the cultural and political 'elite' became convinced of a Malthusian view that overpopulation needed to be countered, and so began pushing this stuff to crash the birthrates. Notice how the celebs and pols are still breeding. The desired result is a neo-feudal order where a few million v

 After reading Longrider's post earlier I had a look at the ONS data he linked to and decided to present it visually.   From the data set mentioned above, here are the figures of interest: And here is it presented graphically: Finally, here is the data for last year as a pie chart: Consider this whenever you hear someone in the media going on about how women are 'unsafe in our streets'

Finally published today . I had a quick skim this evening and it is broadly positive, you can definitely feel the fingerprints of Dominic Cummijgs on this. I'd suggest this is a good attempt to 'find a role' for the UK, I particularly like the emphasis on scientific research and soft power. More thoughts to follow, esp. as we still need to see the details for actual defence spending (due Monday).

 A bit of an old article but one I just came across (a bit of a click baity title though:  This Wonder Material Could Eliminate Dead Batteries Once and for All . In essence, a piece of graphene that gathers energy from the kinetic energy of gas molecules. Sounds interesting, hopefully this will pan out.

A larger selection of items this week, as I've spent more time online but not had time to post here- I got another temp job (afternoon reception cover at a SERN school), so until Easter am going to be a bit busier. Anyway, here's some items that caught my eye over the past 7 days:  Hope he gets some sort of gong:  God bless you, Nigel Farage   Space link:  The Age of Space Reconnaissance Yep:  It’s easy to predict a leftist future — it’s always bad . See also  Orwellian “equity” And ideally, leave him there:  Why Elon Musk should fly me to the Moon Probably correct:  Stanford Doctor Calls Lockdowns the 'Biggest Public Health Mistake We've Ever Made' Because we can't meet people?  Why aren't we all at it like rabbits? True:  Momentum's vapid socialism is not fit for the 21st century US politics:  OPINION Do We Even Have A Republic Anymore? On the union: If Boris has a clever plan for Northern Ireland, now is the time to use it .   The forward march of Sco

'But what is indisputable is that a weird, unsettling and censorious atmosphere of religiosity now surrounds the Duchess of Sussex. The cultural elites have beatified her. They’ve made her the patron saint of critical race theory, the goddess of wokeness. To venture a criticism of this high priestess of correct thought is to risk cancellation. Questioning her ‘truth’ is to 2021 what questioning the truth of the Bible was to 1521. Okay, you won’t lose your head, but you might lose your job.' Thou shalt not criticise St Meghan , Brendan O'Neill at Spiked. While I don't particularly have much sympathy for Morgan, a stopped clock is right twice a day and I agree with him on this.  More good commentary on this by the Lotus Eaters:

 Yesterday I finished reading  Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - And Why this Harms Everbody  by  Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay and highly recommend it.  The authors do a fine job explaining the origins of Critical Theory in the Postmodernists of the '60s (especially Michel Foucault, who after reading this I'm adding to my list of 'authors whose baleful influence are the cause of the current mess' (so far him, Marx and Gramsci), and how these ideas were refined in subsequent decades leading to Critical Race Theory, Gender Theory, Queer Theory and so on. It is a good guide to the key academics in these fields whose writings have been influential, and what they are all about.  After finishing this I now understand where the woke left is coming from and how they see the world- especially in terms of everything being about power and oppression. It was especially interesting how the original postmodernists were essentia

 This is a beautiful work of genius/: People are starting to use Lefties' nonsensical language against them and it’s absolutely beautiful: Meet #SuperStraight and #BlueAnon

 ... an important reminder to the females of the species: Update- good post on TCW-  International moaning day – feminism’s main achievement

 Another short round-up, have been trying to limit my time online this week and be more active as the weather has been improving. I also had some jobs to do and a lot more online lessons. In a positive development, I received feedback for my first essay and got a merit grade, so I was pleased with that. With the schools going back on Monday  I'll hopefully get more supply work next week. Anyway here's what caught my eye this week: Scott Lowther does a good job  taking down an anti-space screed, But surely that was the plan?  The EU is sliding into a United States of Europe A bit old, but very interesting:  Woke Capital Isn’t a Game . True, is deadly serious. Another interesting post for the same site-  The Separation And finally, some amusing images here:  The week in pictures: Peak Stupidity Edition

Via this article, the French have an Oceanographic research ship called the  Pourquoi Pas? (Why Not in English). What a marvelously idiosyncratic name, the perfect response to those who ask what is the point in abstract knowledge.

 I started watching the live stream last night but went to bed before the event. This morning I watched a reply of the flight and subsequent boom: Getting there! At least this one landed in one piece (for a while) In related news, it seems Elon Musk is  s Creating a City in Texas.  According to that article It 'Will Be Called Starbase and It Will Be Ruled by 'The Doge' Faster please

 I happened to notice this film was on tv Saturday night. I haven't seen it since it came out and started watching to see if my initial impression of it was correct- that it starts off ok (but with some flaws), but all goes south from the point when it's revealed that Benedict Cummerbund's character was KHAAAN! The problems with this film have been pointed out many times already, but I got thinking: how could this film be fixed? To start with, I'd have to go back to Star Trek (2009), which I still find enjoyable despite the poor sequels. I liked how they used time travel to make a new timeline, thereby allowing the original canon to exist, and it was a good idea how the death of Kirks' dad and absence from his life has changed his personality. (I really like the opening sequence and still find it powerful)  For me, the biggest mistake was trying to set up the classic series in one go, it's ridiculous how Kirk gets promoted from cadet to captain at the end, and

Useful background points. Post-Brexit we need to decide on what our role in the world is (finally answering the point Dean Acheson  made all those years ago), and then decide on priorities for defence. I'd suggest we need to return to the focus on the Royal Navy as our 'shield', followed by the RAF and Marines, with a smaller army (historically the only parts we kept in peacetime were the sovereigns guard unit plus those essential parts like the Royal Engineers, that would form a core that could be rapidly expanded), but a larger Milita/Home guard as a backup for domestic emergency support. 

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