In politics there are no absolutes. Suppose we were in the midst of the Black Death. Suppose we were living at a time when if you caught the plague, you would first sneeze, then have a fever, find swelling under your arm and then die within three days. Suppose many in your family were dying in this way. Suppose many of your friends and associates were dying in this way. Suppose on every street in your village, town and city, there were carts coming round with the cry, “Bring out your dead!” and from up and down your street, there were dead bodies being brought out to place on these carts. Suppose there were numberless deaths until in some places everyone had died, and that across the entire continent, something like a third of the population had died within a year. Suppose all that. Then what would you wish the government to do?

In such circumstances you would wish them to do what they are doing right now and then some. You would wish the government to do every single thing they could think of to reduce the chances that you personally might also come down with the plague. There would be no limits that you or anyone else would place on government actions. There would be no levity, no debate about what to call the disease, no disputes about the need for every single resource available to be applied to dealing with the millions of deaths that were undoubtedly occurring. The availability of toilet paper would be the last thing on everyone’s minds. And you would not need any persuasion of any kind to induce people to keep their distance from others.

The reason we are in such a light mood in spite of everything, almost a holiday atmosphere,

is that we all know we are not in the midst of the Black Death. There are comparatively few deaths. Virtually no one knows anyone who has died from the virus, or is even sick because of it. Moreover, where there is fear there are also solid reasons to believe that a cure will be found for this disease and in very short order. And in spite of shortages here or there, not one person is genuinely in fear that they might not find enough to eat. And, we are all grateful that the government does take responsibility for what might eventually happen.

That I believe the government has jumped the gun and over-reacted is only my belief and it’s not the majority view. Most people, virtually everyone, believes that our governments should take whatever steps are necessary. It is only a matter of degree. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in pandemics.

One of the most egregious, and ubiquitous [supplications to the diversity gods], comes from some of those who demand gender diversity in the workplace. It is entirely reasonable to be in favour of gender diversity to increase the pool of talent. The deeper the talent pool that appointments are drawn from, the better a company will perform. That ought to be the extent of gender diversity.

Instead, there is a coterie of loud men and women who go much further. Often to justify quotas and other special measures for women, they claim that women are not just equally talented to men but also better than men.

The quote above is from Janet Albrechtsen in an article titled in the newspaper, “For better or worse, sex doesn’t define skill sets” with this as the sub-heading: Modern-day feminists are wrong to claim women are superior to men”.

This is a dangerous area for any male to get involved with, but what has brought me back into it has been going to see the latest movie incarnation of The Invisible Man. A more wicked film I have seldom seen. If you want to know the story, you can go to the link. All I will tell you is that unlike the original tale, and unlike every other film made based on the concept, this one is not primarily about someone who works out how to make themselves invisible with the plot then teasing out possible implications from having such an intriguing ability. In this film, invisibility is entirely secondary to the plot, which is about a woman who leaves an abusive husband who then, because he has, for no reason discussed in the film, a device that can make him invisible, then menaces his absent wife by turning up at various moments but invisible to her and everyone else. The invisibility aspect is entirely secondary to using the concept to portray spousal abuse.

Tomorrow there will be the final of the women’s twenty-20 cricket final. Are women better at cricket than men? On Monday, there will be thousands of men driving trucks across Australia. Are any of those truck drivers female, and are these handful of women “better” at driving trucks than any of the men? Same for plumbers, same for construction workers, same for lots of things. There was also this from Janet:

Last week, the Australian ­Financial Review ran this headline: “Why women make better CEOs”. The piece regurgitated some “new research” from the Macquarie Business School by Farida Akhtar, a senior lecturer in actuarial studies and business analytics, that finds that women are not only different from men, they also are better than men. According to this research, said the AFR, women create stronger corporate cultures, they nurture employees more, they create better reward systems and offer greater flexibility. Tech companies run by female chief executives do better because women can shape innova­tion and sustainable growth strategies.

But do such companies make more money or satisfy their customers more completely? It’s an academic writing the article so that’s the kind of question that would seldom cross such a person’s mind. And as Janet writes, “a review of more than 3000 companies fails to find any evidence that women on boards or in the C-suite cause, lead to or produce better corporate performance.” But the debate is ideological so facts will not intrude on any part of the debate or convince anyone on the other side of the divide.

There is then this about politics in the US from Cosmopolitan: Stop Lying, America: You Were Never Gonna Vote for a Woman President. Well apparently not among the Democrats, and certainly not for Elizabeth Warren. But in my time I have been all in for Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin among others. But here is the author reflecting on the moment that she realised that Hillary would lose in 2016:

“It’s not just about losing,” I said … to myself. “It’s about all the little boys who will grow up thinking they get to—or have to—behave that way to be president. And all the little girls who will think they’ll never have a chance.”

In deciding who gets which jobs, it’s not a matter of chivalry, men stepping aside to allow a woman to precede them, or at least it shouldn’t be. Political leaders are chosen for their leadership abilities and the clarity of their policy direction. They are not chosen because of which sex they happen to be, or at least that should never ever be part of the equation. And if you think that it should be, you are a moron, whether you are a male or a female. You are just a complete jerk.

Pinky promise! Now there is real leadership ability if you’ll pardon me while I go roll my eyes.

From Terry in a comment here. It’s not so much knowing them but understanding them that matters.

1. Avoid Alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
24. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
25. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
26. Avoid archaeic spellings too.
27. Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
28. Don’t use commas, that, are not, necessary.
29. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
30. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
31. Subject and verb always has to agree.
32. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
33. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
34. Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
35.Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
36. Don’t never use no double negatives.
37. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
38. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
39. Eschew obfuscation.
40. No sentence fragments.
41. Don’t indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
42. A writer must not shift your point of view.
43. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
44. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
45. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
46. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
47. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
48. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
49. Always pick on the correct idiom.
50. The adverb always follows the verb.
51. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
52. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
53. And always be sure to finish what