Category Archives: Cultural

James Delingpole off to greener pastures

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Alas:

Today is the sad day when I must bid you all farewell. I have been appointed Chief Sustainability Consultant at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, working directly to one of my all-time-heroes Ed Davey, with a juicy, taxpayer-funded salary, a ring-fenced pension and a bio-fuel-powered Aston-Martin just like the Prince of Wales’s.
No, not really, about the second bit. Just the first bit: I’m off to pastures new. . . .

Thank you most of all to those of you who have supported me through thick and thin. Thanks for your technical expertise and advice (it prevented anyone ever noticing that I’m an English graduate and know NOTHING about science apart from, maybe, how to grow copper sulphate crystals); thanks for your jokes, links and irrelevant asides; thanks for your friendship and loyalty and courage in the face of sometimes, near insuperable odds, against the dark forces of statism, political correctness, and green-left-liberal lunacy. You are like brothers to me: all of you; apart from the ones who are more like sisters.

UPDATE: But still with The Spectator. Here is James discussing The martyrdom of Mark Steyn. A serious issue and part of the reason that free speech is not what it used to be in the US. This is the final para but all the paras before should be read as well.

Mann may or may not have a case against Steyn on technical grounds; but in terms of the bigger argument about empiricism, free speech and the scientific method, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Steyn gets this and — as he did in his case against the Ontario Human Rights Committee — is laying his neck on the line not solely because he’s a show-off and an awkward sod but for the greater cause of western civilisation. Now go to his website Steynonline.com and read what you can do to support him.

The science is settled – Capricorns are more pragmatic

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This is about the generation most worried about global warming: Majority of young adults think astrology is a science.

According to a new survey by the National Science Foundation, nearly half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies’ purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either “very scientific” or “sort of scientific.” . . .

What’s more alarming, researchers show in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, is that American attitudes about science are moving in the wrong direction. Skepticism of astrology hit an all-time high in 2004, when 66 percent of Americans said astrology was total nonsense. But each year, fewer and fewer respondents have dismissed the connections between star alignment and personality as bunk. . . .

Young people are also especially inclined to offer astrology scientific legitimacy, with a majority of Americans ages 18 to 24 considering the practice at least “sort of” scientific, and the 25-34 age group is not far behind them

So let me re-write that, taking into account that 47% of adults (i.e. voters) in Australia still think global warming is a problem with presumably an even larger proportion of those under 30 having swallowed the Kool-Aid. Please bear in mind that this is a paraphrase just for satirical purposes:

According to a new survey, nearly half of all adults say anthropomorphic global warming (AGW), the study of carbon dioxide’s purported influence on our economy and world temperatures, is either “very scientific” or “sort of scientific. . . .”

What’s more alarming, researchers show in the study that attitudes about AGW are hardly budging. Skepticism about global warming still remains low, with only just over half of those surveyed saying AGW is total nonsense.

But don’t worry. When the moon is in the seventh house and Mars is at its zenith, things will begin to shift.

A level of ignorance only exceeded by his irresponsibility

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Melanie Phillips discusses the revamping of drug laws, and more importantly, drug morality in the US:

Rub your eyes: an American President, the nation’s ultimate role model, using his uniquely powerful position of influence to talk down the dangers of drug-taking – displaying a level of ignorance only exceeded by his irresponsibility – and talking up therefore the likely incidence of addiction, mental degeneration and death from narcotic abuse.

After Obamacare, Obamaddiction. It’s a tragedy all right – but on a rather larger and more devastating scale than one dead actor.

Multiculturalism and the new migrant

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Canada has not only become jaded with the effect of migration on Canadian society but has begun to take steps to limit numbers. This is a column by George Jonas the National Post with the self-explanatory title, Multiculturalism encourages a new type of immigrant who shares our wealth but not our values.

The new immigrant seemed ready to share the West’s wealth but not its values. In many ways he resembled an invader more than a settler or an asylum-seeker. Instead of making efforts to assimilate, the invader demanded changes in the host country’s culture. He called on society to accommodate his linguistic or religious requirements. . . .

It’s not a matter of where immigrants come from but where they’re going. Refugees from the East are no threat; colonizers are. That’s where non-traditional immigration and multiculturalism become a volatile mix. Extending our values to others is one thing, but modifying our values to suit the values of others is something else.

By now multiculturalism has made it difficult to safeguard our traditions and ideals against a new type of immigrant whose goal is not to fit in, but to carve out a niche for his own tribe, language, customs, or religion in what we’re no longer supposed to view as a country but something between Grand Central Station and an empty space.

It’s no longer impossible to imagine the death of the West since we see the potential before our eyes at every turn. It’s not too late to do something, but time is getting very short. Diversity is a concept of the left – themselves frequent enemies of our existing cultural traditions and economic structures – part of whose aim is to swamp own culture of tolerance and self-reliance with migrants who often do not believe in either.

The Superbowl and Richard Sherman

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The Superbowl is about to start and while I might have preferred Denver on other grounds, this epic rant by Richard Sherman after the NFC championship game has me totally won over. Defensive corners are seldom the stars, but Sherman in the very last minute had gone one-on-one with the star receiver of the 49ers and had tipped the ball away after an acrobatic half twist and pike that ended up with a Seahawk interception. So there he was, being interviewed, moments later.

Might just mention here the best book on North American football ever, The Blind Side, which is about how the least glamorous position in the game, left offensive tackle – which incidentally was the position I used to play – became the second highest paid position on the team. An amazing story in many ways, by the incomparable Michael Lewis.

Enjoy the game for those who enjoy the game.

We’ve heard your views on Peter Seeger. Now tell me about Joe McCarthy

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I have to say that reading the various comments on the death of one of the greatest folk musicians in history made me very cross. There are enough dimwitted entertainers around if you are looking for an outlet for righteous indignation. Meryl Steep or Sean Penn or our own Caite are standard issue cookie cutter lefties, who no doubt would give you chapter and verse on the excellent health system found in Cuba and who would happily wear a Che t-shirt without thinking twice. Pete Seeger was a man of the left but so far as I know, never ran a gulag, wasn’t head of the KGB or provided state secrets to the Soviet Union. And in its own way, I admire this, which is a statement he made to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1955, not exceptionally brave by then but brave enough. He might well have gone to jail for a year to defend his right to free speech.

I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known. I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent this implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American. I will tell you about my songs, but I am not interested in telling you who wrote them, and I will tell you about my songs, and I am not interested in who listened to them.

Stalin is, however, dead and has been since 1953. Great to see that people are such strong anti-Stalinists more than sixty years after he died but to tell the truth, that cuts little ice. So try this on. What’s your personal opinion of the greatest anti-Communist of the times when Stalin actually was alive and plotting. Tell me your thoughts on Joe McCarthy. Tell me that you think that he was one of the most admirable men who has ever lived, a man who took the immense abuse that eventually killed him but whose accusations have been confirmed with almost 100% accuracy given what has come out of the KGB archive and the Venona Papers. Doesn’t take much to stand against Stalin today.

What about cabinet solidarity?

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Well there’s ABC independence and then there’s cabinet solidarity. From The Age:

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has strongly defended the ABC’s editorial independence in the face of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s attack on the national broadcaster, which he says ‘instinctively takes everyone’s side but Australia’s’.

Mr Turnbull defended the Prime Minister’s right to critique the ABC but, in comments that could be interpreted as resistance to Mr Abbott, he said the ABC was rightly accountable to its board of directors, not politicians.

Do I get this right? The Government sets up a media organisation that has been captured by its ultra-left staff and staffing policies and that’s the end of it. This is not Fairfax or News Media whose life and death is dependent on earning an income in the market. This is a government-paid-for media organisation over which the government apparently has no control. Is that the point? Is that what he means? Doesn’t work for me. This works for me, from The Australian:

THE ABC’s $223 million Australia Network Asian broadcasting service is likely to be scrapped in the May budget to save money and end the pursuit of “soft diplomacy” in the region through television.

Federal cabinet has already discussed the option of dropping the ABC’s contract to broadcast Australian news and entertainment in the region, with the Government Solicitor providing advice on the ramifications of stripping the ABC of its 10-year contract.

Cabinet ministers believe the ABC’s coverage of Australia in the region is overly negative and fails to promote the nation as originally intended in the Australia Network’s charter by using the “soft diplomacy” of Australian news and cultural programs.

The ABC is unresponsive to what its market wants, more than half of whom voted for this government which the ABC is viscerally opposed to. No one says that the ABC has to be a government news service but it is also not supposed to outrage more than half the country with its approach to political issues.

The drumbeat is getting louder

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You know, if I were over at the ABC, I would be hearing the drumbeat getting louder. This is from an article in today’s Australian with the ominous title – ominous if you think you are an untouchable media organisation even though funded by a government you do everything you can to undermine – Tony Abbott says ABC ‘takes everyone’s side but our own’.

TONY Abbott says he is concerned the ABC takes an anti-Australian stance in its reporting and wants the broadcaster to stick to straight news-gathering.

The Prime Minister said the broadcaster was, like all media organisations, entitled to report “credible evidence”.

But “you shouldn’t leap to be critical of your own country”, he said, referring to reports of alleged mistreatment of asylum-seekers by naval personnel.

“It dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everyone’s side but our own and I think it is a problem,” Mr Abbott told radio station 2GB

“You would like the national broadcaster to have a rigorous commitment to truth and at least some basic affection for the home team, so to speak.”

He said the broadcaster should have given the navy and its personnel “the benefit of the doubt” in its reporting of the matter,

“I want the ABC to be a straight news-gathering and news-reporting organisation, and a lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everybody’s side but Australia’s,” Mr Abbott said.

He said he was also concerned at the ABC’s reporting of leaks by the “traitor” Edward Snowden, saying it “seemed to delight” in broadcasting his allegations.

“And of course, the ABC didn’t just report what he said, they took the lead in advertising what he said. That was a deep concern.”

ABC spokesman Michael Millett said the public broadcaster would not be commenting on Mr Abbott’s statements.

This no longer feels like our ABC.