Some thoughts

 A very quick Quick links this week, as I'm in the middle of my 5000-word essay and am meeting some friends tonight so won't have time to post this evening. Having said that, here's this week's summary of items that caught my eye. Astroneurs: The Private Sector Goes to Space Unconscious Reprogramming: The Deepest Form of War The Unbearable Whiteness (and Hypocrisy) of Critical Race Theory Lockheed-Martin's Woke-Industrial Complex There’s No James Bond To Stop Jeff Bezos From Increasing His Global Power Why is the National Trust so embarrassed by Britain? The EU has learnt nothing from Brexit Latest proof that western civilisation is over: Sky Atlantic's Domina reviewed How Christianity has cancelled itself How the culture wars came for history Video: Why the West isn't having Children and Why Elite Men are having all the Fun And finally,  The world's first robot artist discusses beauty, Yoko Ono and the perils of AI

This week's track: Gay bar by Electric 6.  Another band I saw live back at Reading, what I like about this track most is the OTT video which gets gayer and gayer as it progresses!

 It is well-established that militaries tend to get soft in peacetime and it takes the trauma of a major war to shake them up and reestablish their fighting prowess (see for example the states of the UK and USA's armed forces at the start of both world wars. With that in mind, a trio of worrying stories. First up,  Royal Navy appoints first female admiral . I don't have an issue with women in the military, apart from in front-line infantry (and that's only because to get them in standards have been lowered). However, as the linked article states: 'her career has seen her move up the ranks from a Royal Navy Logistics Officer to the Deputy Director of People Delivery. Jude Terry has also worked with the MoD as an operational planner, a branch manager for Navy Command HQ and Assistant Chief of Staff at the Standing Joint Force HQ' So she has basically worked in support roles and is the equivalent of a Director of HR. The fact that the Navy has a 'Director of People...

As I may have mentioned, my view is that WW1 was the key event that shattered the West, but specifically Europe. The USA wasn't as shaken, it took later events to do that. This brings me to this interesting article I came across a few days ago, which argues that the death of JFK was a similar seismic shock for America:  JFK’s Death Split the American Psyche . Some excerpts: Unable to face the fact that Kennedy was murdered by a communist, liberals became intolerant, prone to hysteria and conspiracy theories, and intent on punishing America for the sins of its past. Feminism transformed from a quest for quality to hating men, particularly the darker impulses of men This makes a lot of sense, it was from the mid-sixties and Vietnam war (that Kennedy got the US into- a fact that is often ignored) that the left began to be anti-American. Christopher Lasch noted that the fact that both left and right believe in the idea that societies move towards perfection would have been considered b...

I don't use Twitter anymore due to it devolving into a cesspit, but I occasionally see nuggets elsewhere. Case in point: this tweet ( via ) True.  

  Well, he certainly didn't pull his punches ! I've long been an admirer of Cummings insights into the problems in government, particularly with the dysfunctionality of the civil service (such as his Hollow   Men  posts) and his comments on this topic today show nothing much has changed. It also shows the flaw in the leftist's arguments that their side would have done better, as they would still have to deal with these issues.  I also find it frustrating how he still seems to be pushing the line that lockdowns were essential, being such a data-driven guy he can't be unaware of the problems with the modeling, and the actual death rates (that I've posted about ) among the under 60s and patients with no prior conditions. He is right that shutting the border earlier and screening arrivals would have been a good idea, and I suspect his comments on Hancock are on the mark.  For me, the real tragedy with Cummings is that while he is good at diagnosing problems he seems...

I used to think Ellen Page was cute in the X-men film and Juno. Not anymore: (warning, pics at link)   Ellen Page Shows Off Her Mutilated Body, and the Media Celebrates Yikes. If her/she is happy to be a homeless man's Justin Bieber fair play to him/her, but the media fawning is vomit-inducing. I also find it disturbing how Page's prior identity has been memory-holed. For example, the Wiki page for the film Juno describes the plot as: Elliot Page* stars as the title character, an independent-minded teenager confronting an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent events that put pressures of adult life onto her. To be fair they do footnote that Page used to be a woman, but just based on that passage the film makes no sense to someone unaware of Page's history, it sounds like a male actor is playing a teenage girl (which Page was at the time). 

 This is very clever and well done: 関ケ原山水図屏風 / Sekigahara-Sansui-zu-Byobu -Folding Screen of Painted Sekigahara Landscapes. ( via )

A busy week, had a job interview on Wednesday in the middle of Sussex (didn't get it), which meant I had to take the day off work. On Thursday I got stuck in traffic coming home (just made it back in time for my lecture) and noticed my car was sounding funny. Took it to Quik Fit first thing on Friday and it needed a new exhaust (£200), which they managed to fit that morning so I didn't miss any more work. Spent most of this weekend editing and finishing off an essay that I just submitted, one more (5000 words, due in two weeks) to go!  Having said that, here is this weeks link round-up. Alba and the unity of Britain Richard Dawkins views on downs syndrome aren't a surprise How much credit does the NHS deserve for the covid vaccine rollout? Only the government can truly put an end to wokeism How infographic activism took over social media  Should the government launch a culture war? Lithium-Metal Battery: Scientists Find Holy Grail of EV Batteries Brexit Retrospective: Rober...

I've posted a   lot   recently on demographics because I consider it to be one o the most important issues of our time that is rarely commented on by the media in this country, plus as Mark Steyn often says 'The future belongs to those who show up'. I have come to the conclusion that feminism, especially the third and fourth wave varieties, has played a large part in the declining birthrate in developed countries. Case in point, this article:  Baby Bust When a graduate student in a committed relationship asked me for advice about sequencing marriage, children, and career. I gave the advice I always give. “Marry him. Start your family, and keep doing good work, professional or otherwise, monetized or otherwise, when it makes sense for your family.” The student was flummoxed. “But what about graduate school?” she asked. My advice was the same. She protested. “But what if I get married, have a baby, and it is too hard to work at the same time? To travel?” This student has...

 This week's track: Brassneck by the Wedding Present. I first came across the band at the Reading festival in 2005, and soon became a fan, in particular of their early 90's albums Bizarro and Seamonsters , both of which I've seen them do album playback concerts for. I also saw them live while living in Japan, and got a chance to chat with them before the gig. What I particularly like about this track, apart from the Steve Albani remix on the single, is the video. I can just imagine the director getting a load of drama students and yelling 'just do what you feel like!'

Another good piece at Unherd:  Science has become a cartel With the centralisation and bureaucratisation of scientific funding, defection from a well-institutionalised consensus is even more costly now than it was when Thomas Kuhn wrote   The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.   He showed that it is almost always from outside a research community that challenges arise. Progress happens when a prevailing scientific consensus is revealed to rest on the loyalties and intellectual affinities of an established research milieu, and not simply on correspondence with reality.  Something is left unexplained in the consensus view, and to focus on this lacuna is to be an outsider. Reliably, such challenges are fought tooth and nail by the research empire built on the encrusted consensus. The scientific paradigm they are invested in is typically superseded only when the scientists sitting atop the institutional hierarchy literally die, or retire. It is not “anti-science” to ac...

Following on from yesterday's post, a look at Jewish demographics:  Israel's population time bomb . This passage struck me; Secular Jews and those from moderate branches have historically made up Israel’s elite, but are losing population share due to their relatively low fertility. Instead, the Jewish fertility rise is largely due to the growth in highly religious Jews, especially the Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox. The latter have   doubled   their share of the adult Jewish population in Israel since 2000, and are extremely young, forming a third of Jewish first-graders — up from a few percentage points in 1960. Though they currently only make up 10% of the American and British diaspora, they are expected to form a   majority   of observant American and British Jews by 2050. As with Christians, it seems the more traditionalist you are the more kids you have. It's almost as if they take the 'go forth and multiply' idea seriously! Whereas the secular seem not to bot...

 One topic that has interested me has been how traditional religious groups have avoided the collapse in birthrates in secular societies. From this Unherd piece-  Why utopias always fail -  we hear of the Amish: The Amish arrived in Pennsylvania in the 1730s to create their own heaven on earth. In 1900, there were around 5,000 Amish; and yet despite holding themselves radically apart from mainstream America, famously by rejecting most modern technology, the sect has around 350,000 members in North America today. And that figure is only set grow: the Old Order Amish double their numbers every 20 years. and  The Amish are ideologically committed. They are not atomised, individual actors responding to civilisational malaise like the hippies. They are connected families, connected through marriage, buying connected land and lots of it. Having a pro-growth and family ideology leads to an expansive, optimistic society. Who'd thought it?

As we approach the 5th anniversary of the referendum, it becomes more and more apparent the vote was justified. Case in point: this comment by former negotiator Lord Frost: 'For at least some Europeans, they have a very strong view that Brexit simply cannot succeed. It’s a sort of historical error that goes against everything they know about the progress of history and the way things work… that is at the root of some of the problems.’ He stresses that ‘we don’t have any [problem] at all about the EU and the member states succeeding. We think that’s a good thing. And we think they should think it’s a good thing if we succeed’. RTWH:  Bloc buster: David Frost on Brexit, Barnier and the backstop

 Looks like I called 1 out 5 correctly:  Royal Navy formally announces the names of the ‘inspiration class’ Type 31 frigates I'll admit that when I saw that headline I did worry we were going to get some feeble woke names, maybe HM ships Inspiration, Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Solidarity, but thankfully we got some historic ones:  According to the RN, names have selected to represent key themes around future missions. Forward deployment of ships around the globe to protect UK interests – HMS Active. Operations in the North Atlantic – HMS Bulldog. The Future Commando Force – HMS Campbeltown. Aircraft carrier operations – HMS Formidable. Technology and innovation – HMS Venturer. Not bad, although I'd have preferred a common theme or first letter scheme. I guess the fleet is going to be of a size that these themes won't be worthwhile so they are just going to use whatever they fancy. Now we just need to get them built and into service.

Via Guido, we see this story:  Police action over 'slavery' flag flying in Norwich garden   Someone was flying the confederate flag, that must mean they support slavery! Quick, ba repeats of the Dukes of Hazzard and Primal Scream's 'Give out but don't give up' album! As is often the case, this was due to one wokescold: It was reported to police as a hate crime by 34-year-old teacher Emily Robinson, who spotted it while passing by with her artist partner. Sigh, why is it always a teacher? The article also notes she has moved there from Brighton, which is even less surprising. She also was quoted as saying: To me, this is a great opportunity to educate people on how damaging this is to many people who are a minority in our lovely city - as I know many people may not have any reason to know why it is such a big deal.  It isn't a big deal, and you are wasting police time. Norwich BTW is currently  90.9% white  and 1.6% black. Even if this proportion were higher,...

Truth of the day:  The Student Loan system is a racket which needs reform before it is expanded . Excerpt: It is not commonly appreciated the extent to which the Student Loan system is based on lies. The first deception is that the system is progressive. This is untrue. Wealthier students either opt out of it, with the help of “bank of Mum and Dad”, or repay early, with help of large City salaries. Below them is a cohort of people who earn enough to be constantly required to repay while in employment, but never enough to repay the liability. This particularly effects women, who take career breaks for childcare, or those in caring professions like nursing or medicine. As The Great University Con spells out this is very true, we are saddling a generation with unrepayable debt for a lot of useless degrees. I agree with that book's author that we need to get rid of the idea that you need a degree to be a nurse, police officer, etc, and scrap the 50% of students going to uni goal. If w...

A good post at The Critic:  Letter from Washington: Team Musk . I liked this part contrasting his approach to the majority on the green movement: James Pethokoukis has contrasted the “Team Elon Musk” and “Team Greta Thunberg” approaches to climate change. The latter thinks “we must reject ‘fairy tales of eternal economic growth’ and settle for scarcity and stagnation to prevent environmental collapse”. The former “believes that humanity has the will and know-how to create a future of vast abundance”. Sign me up for Team Musk. Me too. Also by the same author, a report from the Boa Chica site:  Liftoff in Brownsville  

A very good article at the Washington Post:  An Obama scientist debunks the climate doom-mongers  Key quote:  “If we stop emitting CO2 today, it would still be there in the atmosphere for hundreds of years” he tells me. “If we manage to reduce emissions a little bit, it’ll just accumulate at a slower rate but it’ll still go up.” Even that is hard to do at an acceptable economic cost. True, as is this: Climate change “will be gradual, and human ingenuity will certainly get us through this, if not allow us to prosper.” Indeed, Koonin notes there are advantages to a changing climate, such as the greening of the planet through increased vegetation, which he believes will dramatically increase the food supply for the world’s population. “So, this is not at all an unmitigated disaster as people would have you believe,” he says. “We’ll learn to take advantage of whatever changes happen rather than simply tolerate them. That’s what humans do, and we’re pretty good at it.  Ye...

Remember that episode of the Simpsons where the moral guardians got in a tizzy over Michelangelo's David? And how that argued for 'empowerment' often end up as modern-day prudes? Well here's another example, which I spotted today:  Backlash against giant Marilyn Monroe statue for ‘forcing upskirting’ The 26-foot-tall, stainless steel and aluminum statue portray the movie star in her famous scene from The Seven Year Itch, wearing a white dress while standing over a subway grate. A Change.org petition set up in protest of the statue also argues that it is “misogynist” and “hyper-sexualized”. The petition has received over 40,000 signatures of its 50,000 target. "She’s literally going to be mooning the museum," Elizabeth Armstrong, a spokesperson for the petition effort, told NPR. "It’s blatantly sexist. It forces people almost to upskirt." Said spokesperson needs to go have a look in some of the stores in Akihabara selling anime figures! That said, I d...

RonLiddle in this column : 'various noisome nests of weirdos and perverts, such as Brighton.' As a former resident of Brighton (3 years of uni at Sussex), this rings very true!

 Got the first draft of one essay finished yesterday, and in the week got 1000 words (out of 5000) done of the second, so feeling fairly confident about my progress despite losing a day to covid vaccination lurgy. That said, here's this weeks link roundup. (from Monday)  Today’s blacklisted American: Anyone in Hollywood who is white The Wokest Place On Earth: Disney Training White Employees To “pivot” From “white dominant culture” To “something different” These peeps are building a race-exclusive communist state in the Rockies and I wish them the very best of luck . From the same site:  Here's a 97-item "Privilege Checklist" courtesy of the YWCA that is 100% real. The Problem with “Western” Religions on Campus The Spent Society What Voters Are Saying About Critical Theories Should Have Woke Educators Shaking in Their Shoes How the right fell out of love with markets Falling Down and Falling Apart Why won't Israelis let themselves be killed? Don’t Stop Believing Wh...

 This week's  track: Take it Off by the Donnas. I randomly recalled this song earlier in the week and it was every bit as good as I remembered. The album it was taken from, spend the night was one that I played heavily in the latter half of the 2010's, it was a shame they never got really big in the UK.  One sad thing that I noticed while re-watching was how the (slightly chubby) bassist was kept in the background of the video, and hardly gets any close-up shots during the performance scenes.

I'm currently working my way through an anthology collection I picked up cheap somewhere called  The Mammoth Book of the End of the World . This evening I got to a story called Pallbearer by Robert Reed , which really struck a nerve. The story gradually reveals that a deadly virus emerged in China, in response to which the world rapidly develops and deploys a new vaccine. Canada, Europe, and Japan quickly innoculate the majority of their populations, but the USA falls behind due to the number of poor, isolated communities and resistance by religious groups.  The big twist is that the vaccine turns out to be slowly lethal, leading to mass death and civilizational collapse. The narrator was a young boy at the time and survived due to his religious mother's refusal to get vaccinated. In the end, it is revealed that the virus and vaccine were deliberately engineered and release to 'weed' the human race to prevent environmental collapse, and a second 'weeding' is bei...

I had my first dose of the (Oxford-Astrazeneca) vaccine on Monday at 7:15pm. The set up at the local civic centre was very efficient, I was in and out in less than 15 minutes. I felt fine when I got home, however, I woke up in the middle of the night shivering uncontrollably. The rest of the night alternated between feeling freezing cold and boiling hot. I ended up taking the day off work (which being an agency worker meant I didn't get paid), sleeping through most of it. Weirdly I found taking paracetamol warmed me up and when they wore off the shivers returned. Luckily today I felt fine, although my injected arm still feels a bit stiff.  This experience seems to tally with family members and neighbours, I'd say roughly half felt no effects while those who had effects similar to mine had them for up to two days. I had heard that people who've had covid previously had worse side effects, which makes me wonder if I didn't actually have it while in Taiwan. Before it all b...

Daisy Cousens on top form: Personally, I'd wouldn't say it was just this, but it was a big factor, along with feminism this caused the demographic collapse but these were also due to the decline in the west's self-confidence and moral underpinnings, which in tern were  destroyed by the two world wars.   

Can the Labour party be saved?  No. Next question  

I used to like the term 'Humanism'. Now I'm not so sure, for reasons outlined here: The decline of the humanist movement . Key quote: Freedom to practice religion and freedom from religion is a laudable principle. In the Western world, it has largely been achieved. With little left to complain about, Humanists crusade against vague public references to religion. And Efforts to cleanse “In God We Trust” from all public buildings and the dollar encapsulate just how ridiculous the movement is. How does puritanical secularism represent superior/scientific morality? Related,  The great American birth dearth has arrived . The UK isn't doing much better either . This is very true: We are not a civilization confident in its own continuity, which is why more and more Americans are choosing not to bring more children into it. This slow dying can be attributed to countless signs of ill health, our faltering faith and our increasingly atomized families and communities, the latter o...

After spending the weekend watching the results trickle in, a lot of commentaries have been generated. The biggest surprise was how close the London mayoral race was, as some  have pointed out Bailey could have won if his campaign had been better supported.  Looking at my hoped-for results from Thursday , it was disappointing that Fox ended up sixth. It also shows the shattering of the former UKIP vote. If we look at the numbers ((from the BBC ): Combined Reform, UKIP, and the Abolish the Welsh Assembly party got 107454 votes but zero seats (another  disappointment) ,  compared to the last election when UKIP got 132,138 votes and 7 seats. These results show  If they are to be viable going forward, these shards need to be put back together into a single party IMO. Looking at the English results, a few commentators have picked up on the beginnings of a shift away from the conservatives in the more affluent, remain voting areas. I'm not sure if there is suff...

 A good article at the American Spectator on last week's SN15 flight summarising the program so far and next steps:  SpaceX Starship Ushers in New Era of Space Travel . I caught the end of the live stream of the flight, was a lot smoother than previous ones. Am looking forward to seeing the first orbital attempt.  Related, the UK Spectator reviews Eric Berger's (of Ars Technica) new book chronicling the early history of SpaceX:  Life on Earth is too tame for eccentric American billionaires . I do find it odd how many on the right (particularly the more libertarian elements) dislike Musk and moan about his being a subsidy junkie, especially as he is the closest thing to a real-life Tony Stark (who was a defence contactor...) or Randian superman. Maybe the fact that he took government contracts makes him a traitor in their eyes and shows the flaws in their pure capitalist worldview. It also seems the more they know about SpaceX compared to his other activities the less...

Another busy week, another roundup of links with minimal commentary. Enjoy this week's reading! The Man They Couldn’t Cancel Springtime For Spengler Operation Fortis: The importance of sustainability The Origins of the Cruel Ritual of Diversity Training Why Our Current Approach To Work Is Unsustainable Purging Whiteness to Purge Capitalism How Do We Reopen the Intellectual Frontier? What is unionism for? Broken eggs, no omelette The hypocrisy of The Northern Ireland Office France Stands at Crossroads, as Members of Military Demand Action . Related,  Twilight in Paris The Covid-19 Emergency Did Not Justify Lockdowns Scottish independence isn't like Brexit. It would be a real disaster Have we seen the end of covid ? Hartlepool and the theft   of the Labour party Shame of Starmer, the-covid lapdog who didn't bark As Europe struggles the Brexit doom-mongers are being proven wrong   And finally,  In New Cut Of Empire Strikes Back, Vader Will Now Say 'I Am Your Non-Birthi...

I'd gotten interested in Japanese music for some time before I moved there. For me, one advantage of living there was being able to explore more artists and see them live. I became a big fan while there of this week's artist, LiSA. This is a live version of one of my favourite tracks of her's: Best day, Best way: Unfortunately, this version is of low quality. I had previously seen an HD version but it seems to have been removed. What I like about this performance is her energy, not just singing but riding a bike around the arena at the same time! In my two years there I was privileged enough to be able to see LiSA live three times. The first was at a one-day festival featuring many artists from the same label called SME MUSIC THEATER 2017, the other two were her own concerts in Kawasaki and at Nippon Budokan.  Incidentally while looking for this track I found this video by someone was also at the latter concert, which gives a good idea of what going to a concert in Japan ...