Young Master Smeet
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Very sage analysis from the usually very well informed Juan Cole:http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Quote:Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, then led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, deployed this sort of polarization strategy successfully in Iraq, constantly attacking Shiites and their holy symbols, and provoking the ethnic cleansing of a million Sunnis from Baghdad. The polarization proceeded, with the help of various incarnations of Daesh (Arabic for ISIL or ISIS, which descends from al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia). And in the end, the brutal and genocidal strategy worked, such that Daesh was able to encompass all of Sunni Arab Iraq, which had suffered so many Shiite reprisals that they sought the umbrella of the very group that had deliberately and systematically provoked the Shiites.I was heartened by the pictures of crowds of solidarity at Place de la Revolution, hopefully these crowds can hold the line and see off any NF attempt to exploit the Islamist bifurcation strategy.
Quote:We have a model for response to terrorist provocation and attempts at sharpening the contradictions. It is Norway after Anders Behring Breivik committed mass murder of Norwegian leftists for being soft on Islam. The Norwegian government launched no war on terror. They tried Breivik in court as a common criminal. They remained committed to their admirable modern Norwegian values.and
Quote:“Sharpening the contradictions” is the strategy of sociopaths and totalitarians, aimed at unmooring people from their ordinary insouciance and preying on them, mobilizing their energies and wealth for the perverted purposes of a self-styled great leader.I hope this is followed up by a public show of support: demonstrations in favour of free speech rather than calls for some sort of state clamp down. The main beneficiaries, I fear, will be the Front National…
This is a very interesting article:http://theconversation.com/sun-and-wind-could-finally-make-electricity-too-cheap-to-meter-34166
Quote:When the UK’s electricity industry was privatised in the 1990s its power plants had the capacity to generate more than was needed. This was despite the fact many of these plants had already been in service for decades. The national transmission network was also well established. This meant the cost of electricity was largely determined by fuel prices – mainly coal and gas.Quote:A free market for electricity would be likely to produce extremely high prices in winter, particularly at periods of peak demand, but very low prices at times when the demand can be met entirely by renewable energy. If these energy costs are passed on to the customer, we could see the cost of using an electric kettle to make a cup of tea at 18:30 in January being many pounds, but electricity costing almost nothing during long periods in the summer.The market isn't working for providing energy (although the above article does seem to ignore the possibility of using renewables to produce hydrocarbons for later use, so wind can make gas).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30525539
Quote:Goldman Sachs has suggested $930bn of projects, worldwide, could fail to get the go-ahead next year. And the North Sea is seen as one of the higher-cost, lower-return regions for investment.This is, again, the difference between the speed information travels through the market, and the real timepractical implementation of decisions will mean that this contraction in oil investment could have knock effects for years to come, as plants and staff are mothballed, knowledge and skills are lost and it will take time to replace them and the necessary infrastructure to resuscitate the Scottish oilfields (adding additional costs that such projects would not need to incurr now).Obviously, while in socialism would have to 'rest' lnes of production that were unnecessary, we wouldn't need to dismantle the infrastructure and get it's pesky value off our books. Oil capitalism is about to eat itself.
http://may2015.com/ideas/is-ukip-hurting-labour/
Quote:He goes on to suggest that “New Labour’s move to the liberal consensus on the EU and immigration in 2001, 2005 and 2010 left many of their core voters out in the cold a long time before Ukip was around”.Evans confirmed his findings at the constituency level, by looking at who Ukip voters in “Labour seats” voted for in 2010 and 2005 (the piece doesn’t elaborate on “Labour seats” – presumably they mean the 258 the party won in 2010).He found only 18 per cent of Ukippers in Labour seats are 2010 Labour voters, whereas 39 per cent are 2010 Tories. But if you look back to 2005, 30 per cent of Ukippers voted Labour, while 31 per cent voted Tory.They do make an interesting point:
Quote:The Government is also failing to clamp down on employers who do not pay the National Minimum WageIn each year since 2010 the Government has issued fewer fines than Labour’s last year in Government, with the overall value of fines issued to businesses falling by over 53 per cent compared with 2009/10 in 2012/13.As we've always said, minimum wage legislation needs to be enforced, , and simply turning a blind eye allows employers to ignore the law (that and letting it slide in real value terms).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_IndependentSee what you mean. I knew they'd had a recent spat with gerry Adams when he mentioned the IRA raid on their offices (his argument was that establishment politicians who lionise Michael Collins are a bit cheeky to criticise the provos, fair enough, as far as it goes).
Paddy Power's odds on the next Irish election:http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/irish-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=591648That Gerry Adams is 6-1 to be Taoiseach is telling.I was flicking through the Irish Sunday Independent (it was there in the pub) and it was one long sustained attack on the Sinn Fein "fascists" (authoritarian populists, possibly).Anyway, there was also this interesting article in which former Taoiseach John Bruton questions whetehr the '16 uprising and the War of Independence were even necessary:http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/historical-decisions-should-always-be-debated-in-a-spirit-of-free-speech-30833281.html
Quote:Home Rule would have evolved peacefully into dominion status and full independence for the area that now constitutes this state, without the loss of life. This is because an Irish Home Rule electorate, with a much enlarged franchise, would have demanded, and obtained just that.Just as the Treaty was used as a peaceful stepping stone to greater independence, so also would Home Rule for 26 or 28 counties have served as a stepping stone to independence…but without all those deaths, and all that bitterness.I think that is a fair assessment.As is:
Quote:But we must remember that, if we give high-profile commemorations to centenaries of acts of violence, without balancing commemorations of non-violent parliamentary achievements, we send a mistaken and dangerous message down to future generations.[…]In commemorating the 1916 Rebellion, and the subsequent War of Independence, we should not glamorise war. We should instead focus attention on the victims of war… all the victims.http://qi.com/infocloud/votes-for-womenI assume they could be contacted and asked for their source…
Exactly, those who want to keep capitalism can deliver reforms that don't destroy capitalism, and those who propose reforms that would destroy capitalism would be instantly seen to be proposing the "impossible".
Possibly the Irish Times shirt-stirring, but:http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/miriam-lord-no-tanks-on-leinster-lawn-but-revolution-close-to-seat-of-power-1.2033502
Quote:And who organised the protest? The Right 2 Water campaign, apparently. Although that’s not how it looked. Looking across from Leinster House, above the perimeter wall, the scene looked for all the world like a republican rally with a green forest of Sinn Féin flags flying from the rows nearest the stage, augmented by Sinn Féin cumann banners, giant tricolours and Éirígí flags….If Sinn Féin lost ground to the hardline left on the water issue in October, it was clear the party was out to claim/reclaim the issue yesterday. They did it with some style. This will have put more than a few noses out of joint among the likes of Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett and Joe Higgins.Gazumped, I believe is the word. The shinners playing the outsider card again, and using their wider base to nick a populist movement. I suppose ea good example of the problem of the idea of trying to use a reform campaign to build a movement, established (or more established) groups can recuperate such movements very easily. Especially oppositions that have more room for manoeuvre than governments.
http://theconversation.com/we-must-be-sure-that-robot-ai-will-make-the-right-decisions-at-least-as-often-as-humans-do-34985The above is by one of the participants in the pilot projects for autonomous machinery.
Quote:The EPSRC-supported research thgat we have recently launched at the universities of Sheffield, Liverpool and West of England in Bristol are trying to establish answers and solutions to these questions that will make autonomous robots safer. The three-year project will examine how to formally verify and ultimately legally certify robots' decision-making processes. Laying down methods for creating this will in fact help define a legal framework (in consultation with lawyers) that will hopefully allow the UK robotics industry to flourish.It was relatively cordial, and nothing unexpected happened. There were, I think, five of them in all. They seemed to take umbrage at the suggestion that workers don't need leaders, and their speaker explained in detail how he'd led a teacher's dispute over transfer payments (indeed, one of their members, in response to my comment that it wasn't lack of confidence holding back workers, but unemployment chirped up 'What even teachers' unaware, it seems of the massive glut of graduate skicking around who'd have the teachers jobs if they pushed their wages too high). The debate therefore inevitably moved on to the minders's strike (I was aware that they define the current political epoch by the defeat of the miners strike) In his summation, their speaker made the extraordinary claim that with sufficiently determined fight back in the 70's, the British steel industry could have been saved and the glut of unemployment prevented. To the extent that a sufficient fight back to abolish capitalism outright could have happened, he's right, but only that far.
