tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31953042024-02-20T11:41:10.462+00:00Natalie SolentPolitics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
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<font size=1>E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com
(I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.)</font>Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comBlogger3556125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-67625141006310263672013-11-24T23:13:00.000+00:002013-11-24T23:13:05.670+00:00'Refusal will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child's education record, which will remain on this file throughout their school career''Refusal will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child's education record, which will remain on this file throughout their school career'
I have only one thing to add to this Telegraph blog post by Daniel Hannan. It is this: I am glad that Mr Hannan and other newspapers have not followed the usual timid practice when reporting stories of this type and obscured the nameNataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-24434645391315130192013-11-24T23:04:00.000+00:002013-11-24T23:04:08.849+00:00Loving the Aussies even moreLoving the Aussies even more
At first I thought that Tim Blair's account of the outrageous behaviour of the Australian delegates to the Warsaw UN climate conference was written for laughs. I duly laughed. Then I followed the links. It's all true; the snacks ... the T-shirts ... the pyjamas. Then of course my laughter was replaced by profound sorrow at the disgrace brought upon a once-respected Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-78975523605986366682013-11-21T13:02:00.000+00:002013-11-24T23:10:31.933+00:00The superior virtue of the oppressedThe superior virtue of the oppressed
It’s no coincidence the MPs found guilty of fiddling are all Labour, writes Peter Oborne. The book can at last be closed on The Daily Telegraph investigation into the MPs’ expenses scandal. More than 300 Members of Parliament have paid back wrongly claimed expenses. Several of the worst offenders have stood down from Parliament. Now that the former minister Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-66852495628280074402013-11-20T14:15:00.000+00:002013-11-24T23:07:26.688+00:00If you like your health plan you can...If you like your health plan you can...
An entertaining story from the Guardian:
Obamacare website developers rush to fix bug suggesting hacking methods
Flaw in Affordable Care Act site records hack attempts through its search box and re-presents code as autocomplete optionsNataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-31375550052767331862013-11-17T16:03:00.001+00:002013-11-17T16:03:25.445+00:00Fools and their futile appealsFools and their futile appeals
White Sun of the Desert writes on Obamacare.
Parallels between the soft evils of the modern UK or US and the monstrous twentieth century dictatorships do not usually appeal to me for reasons I need not rehearse. However I think that in this post Tim Newman has made an acute psychological comparison.
Time to appeal to the vozhd.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-44781887045062105142013-11-15T16:05:00.000+00:002013-11-17T16:05:50.291+00:00A wrongheaded actA wrongheaded act
Syria al-Qa'ida rebels apologise for beheading the wrong man, reports the Irish Independent:
Syrian rebel fighters linked with al-Qaeda have begged for forgiveness from Allah after cutting off the head of one of their allies by mistake.
In a video posted on YouTube, fighters affiliated to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were pictured holding up the head of a Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-80042279101612492362013-11-14T18:22:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:22:11.405+00:00Thirty pieces of nickel-brass alloyThirty pieces of nickel-brass alloy
Sometimes the Guardian justifies its name. This is worth knowing about:
Police tried to spy on Cambridge students, secret footage shows
Officer is filmed attempting to persuade activist in his 20s to become informant targeting 'student-union type stuff'
Of this sort of thing is not new. A friend of mine was asked to spy on far-left groups back in the '70s. Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-26218158998338098302013-11-14T18:20:00.001+00:002013-11-14T18:20:41.951+00:00Samizdata quote of the daySamizdata quote of the day
If you don’t own your own body, I shudder to think of the implications of the tragedy of the commons.
- Commenter "charles austin", here. Read about those implications here. The mills of incentives grind slow but they grind exceeding small.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-72565523307989135092013-11-10T18:18:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:19:00.000+00:00On this day let us commemorate...On this day let us commemorate...
... the victims of the French Revolution. Today is 20th Brumaire in the year CCXXII. On this day in in Year Two, 10th November 1793 in the former calendar, the Festival of Reason was inaugurated in the Temple of Reason, before and afterwards known as the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
When reading his description of the first Festival modern readers may find it Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-58069886416266735612013-11-09T18:15:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:16:37.373+00:00"Now, gods, stand up for bastards!""Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"
"Those French bastards. Will they never learn?", asks Joan Smith in the Independent. And answers. By the grace of the State and in the Most Holy Name of Equality, yes! Those bastards will learn. They will be taught a lesson.There is a bunch of well-known "bastards" in France who are keen on having sex with prostituted women. Don't take my word for it: that's Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-10019770907296594402013-11-03T18:12:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:13:13.481+00:00Sunday night strangeness: why does an academic book about fruit flies cost $23,698,655.93 on Amazon?Sunday night strangeness: why does an academic book about fruit flies cost $23,698,655.93 on Amazon?
Michael Eisen is a biologist, who studies the fruit fly drosophila with especial interest as nearly all biologists appear to do for some reason some of our learned readers will, I hope, explain to me. In his own words, A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon to buy the lab an extraNataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-74071806489416392782013-11-02T18:08:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:09:47.706+00:00They move among us: paedophiles and Popish plotsThey move among us: paedophiles and Popish plots
Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
Today is the Saturday nearest to Guy Fawkes Night. In half an hour I will be off to a fireworks party to commemorate the foiling of a dangerous Catholic plot against the realm. My Catholic family never had the slightest compunction about burning the chief conspirator in effigy. Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-49626394411230395772013-10-26T18:06:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:06:41.809+00:00Saturday night strangeness - Hitler before his DownfallSaturday night strangeness - Hitler before his Downfall
The bloke who posted this describes it as,'The same scene everyone knows, except it is from a film called "Hitler: The Last Ten Days" starring Alec Guinness.' Presumably both this film and Der Untergang followed Traudl Junge's diaries quite closely for this scene.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-85063429154175662152013-10-15T17:59:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:03:57.103+00:00"Damn you Mrs Clinton. You have just made me like a traffic warden.""Damn you Mrs Clinton. You have just made me like a traffic warden."
Thus laments commenter James Primavesi to this Times story (paywalled, but the title tells you all you need to know):
Do you know who she is? Hillary Clinton gets a ticket despite protests of her security detail.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-37229897668684287382013-10-06T17:57:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:03:39.530+00:00"I thought Racism was illegal.""I thought Racism was illegal."
The Daily Mail reports:
Lord Sugar faced police racism probe after joking on Twitter that crying Chinese boy was upset 'because he was told off for leaving the production line of the iPhone 5'
How far we have fallen.
In speaking of our fall, I do not refer the belief of the complainant, Nichola Szeto, that Lord Sugar's joke was racist: stupid people have alwaysNataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-5104348526081766612013-10-05T17:54:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:03:21.888+00:00That's not an insult to your parents. THIS is an insult to your parents.That's not an insult to your parents. THIS is an insult to your parents.
That. The man who hated Britain: Red Ed's pledge to bring back socialism is a homage to his Marxist father. So what did Miliband Snr really believe in? The answer should disturb everyone who loves this country. - Geoffrey Levy, in a hit piece in the Daily Mail aimed at Ed Miliband.
This.
I am at no loss for information Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-37659056992724803652013-10-05T17:51:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:02:59.992+00:00Discussion point: circumcisionDiscussion point: circumcision
Circumcision ruling: European bureaucrats are effectively banning Jewish boys, argues Brendan O'Neill, quoting the Jerusalem Post and unintentionally supported in his argument by the creepy quote from the Council of Europe in which it calls for "debate" and in the same breath announces what the result of said debate is to be. And this was put forward by a German Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-87296094710863576872013-10-03T17:43:00.000+00:002013-11-14T18:02:28.044+00:00Samizdata quote of the daySamizdata quote of the day
We are the ones, we militants without a strategy of emancipation, who are (and who have been for some time now) the real aphasics! And it is not the sympathetic and unavoidable language of movementist democracy that will save us.
- Professor Alain Badiou, in an article arguing that "We need to rediscover the language of Communism."Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-21241605299384381232013-09-24T11:57:00.001+00:002013-09-24T11:59:05.084+00:00A comment about banning the burqaA comment about banning the burqa
My comment to this Samizdata post by Perry De Havilland:
It’s one of those situations where you have to laugh, because if you don’t laugh you will cry.
The Establishment has, belatedly, nerved itself to say (after obligatory frantic protestations of non-racism) that burqas are, y’know, a bit, um, er, socially undesirable.
This after decades of putting in Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-12138401891976479612013-09-22T17:03:00.000+00:002013-09-24T12:25:09.109+00:00...without a paddle...without a paddle
Venezuela seizes toilet paper factory to avoid shortageNataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-50968663778465539322013-09-12T16:39:00.000+00:002013-09-24T12:22:27.391+00:00The critics' verdictThe critics' verdict
American "Jihadi Rapper" and British Islamist executed by former comrades.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-58989287944619362212013-09-06T07:55:00.000+00:002013-09-24T12:29:02.011+00:00A Song for AustraliaA song for Australia
Over at Samizdata I reassigned the roles in the song One Day More from Les Miserables from French revolutionaries to Australian politicians. Then I was completely upstaged by the team supporting the guy challenging Kevin Rudd for his seat, who had the same idea. My version still might give a chuckle to fans of Australian politics (which as far as I can see is basically Game Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-48426291543291046272013-09-04T22:03:00.000+00:002013-09-24T12:10:41.873+00:00Polly Toynbee might possibly be rightPolly Toynbee might possibly be right
In most ways the Pollyverse is a place where the rules of our continuum do not apply. She worships strange gods and that which she fears causes Earth-humans to rejoice.
But could she be right to fear the new lobbying bill?
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations publishes a report from a human rights QC warning that the bill could breach the rightNataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-29941160274997477222013-09-04T21:39:00.000+00:002013-09-24T12:07:24.030+00:00Karl Marx was nearly rightKarl Marx was nearly right
The quick version of something the old plague-carrier said is that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Second time as tragedy and farce would have been more accurate.
Top comment: "I did not set a red line, Bush did it and you are a racist"Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195304.post-58473304406412848362013-09-02T12:03:00.000+00:002013-09-24T12:08:03.634+00:00Samizdata quote of the daySamizdata quote of the day
These proceedings are closed.
- General Douglas MacArthur, bringing World War II to an end as if it were a parish council meeting, sixty-eight years ago today.Nataliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12041839419953235238noreply@blogger.com