Tuesday, 15th January 2008
11:45am
There's a nice post on the Telegraph blog about a chap who has written a book about Starbucks which is - yawn - a long moan.
Now Starbucks coffee might not be the best, but do any of those who complain about its supppsed homogenizing effect and impact on local coffee shops remember just how bloody awful coffee shops used to be? Until Starbucks came along, buying coffee in British cafes meant buying some disgusting brown sludge.
Good riddance to those shops forced out of business, Starbucks opened up the market by serving decent coffee, and led the way for other chains, too. All of which are better than what went before. (For what it's worth, I prefer Costa, with Caffe Nero next best.)
That said, I drink my coffee almost always at home, via what is my second favourite machine. (This is my favourite.) And that machine is the wondrous Nespresso. I used to sneer at it. How could coffee made by Nescafe be any use? And then I tasted it. Glorious. If you love coffee, and you've never had it, try it. (And no, I'm not being paid by them!)
UPDATE: Michael Gove has excellent taste.
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9:59am
Newsnight had a very good report last night on the idea of removing traffic lights to boost safety and ease congestion.
They say there's nothing new in this world. The late, great Nick Ridley used to advocate precisely that, and was dismissed as a nutter for so doing. Now it's the green and cuddly stance.
My father worked for a while with Nick Ridley. Civil servants used to swap stories of his eccentricities. My favourite was when, as Transport Secretary, he was taken to Piccadily Circus to have a look at the underground. He paced up and down the platform looking rather concerned, so his civil servant asked him if anything was wrong. "I'm just wondering where the buffet car is".
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9:43am
There's an important post about the London Mayoral election at Harry's Place, by Jonathan Hoffman. He points out that:
the BNP needs to win just 5% of the 'London-wide' votes (in the 2004 election it won 4.71% and issues such as immigration and militant Islamism are obviously higher on the agenda than they were then).
You may have heard about the BNP’s bitter internal feud which began just over a month ago. But the BNP heartland in East London has been little affected...If the BNP were to win a seat, it would represent another rung on the ladder of ‘respectability’ that they crave. First the Oxford Union, then the London Assembly….
As he goes on argue, the way to defeat the BNP is through the ballot box. Turnout in 2004 was only 37%. It's critical therefore to boost the turnout and thus reduce the share of votes which go to the BNP.
More to the point, given that there's a while to go before voting:
Many people do not realise that EU and Commonwealth citizens can vote and it is in these categories that the potential for registration may be greatest. So please tell anyone in this category.
Here is a site which contains a form to register to vote.
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9:06am
I think this is what is known as being hoist by your own petard:
Hamas security foiled an attempt to plant an explosive in a rally attended by their leader in the Gaza Strip, they said. Forces at a Hamas rally earlier in the day found 4 kilograms of TNT in the backpack of a man during a search after he was stopped at the entrance to the gathering, Hamas security spokesman Ihab Ghussein said.
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8:56am
The Guardian has a good piece today asking why the rate of convictions for rape is so low. At the end, it canvasses the views of some experts. Miranda Moore QC, described as a "barrister with wide experience of prosecuting and defending in rape cases", has this to say:
Twenty years ago it was not unknown to have a QC prosecuting. These days it's exceptional.
Can someone explain please what that means? Twenty years ago it was merely 'not unknown'. And today, too, she doesn't say it never happens, merely that it's rare. Isn't that the same thing?
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Monday, 14th January 2008
9:44am
The Guardian has a cover piece on G2 about Facebook. I hadn't realised how wonderful Facebook is until I read the piece, in which the writer, Tom Hodgkinson, is drooling with enthusiasm for the people behind it:
Facebook is a well-funded project, and the people behind the funding, a group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, have a clearly thought out ideology that they are hoping to spread around the world. Facebook is one manifestation of this ideology. Like PayPal before it, it is a social experiment, an expression of a particular kind of neoconservative libertarianism. On Facebook, you can be free to be who you want to be, as long as you don't mind being bombarded by adverts for the world's biggest brands. As with PayPal, national boundaries are a thing of the past.
...There is much debate on who exactly were the original co-founders of Facebook, but whoever they were, Zuckerberg is the only one left on the board, although Hughes and Moskowitz still work for the company.
...But Thiel is more than just a clever and avaricious capitalist. He is a futurist philosopher and neocon activist. A philosophy graduate from Stanford, in 1998 he co-wrote a book called The Diversity Myth, which is a detailed attack on liberalism and the multiculturalist ideology that dominated Stanford. He claimed that the "multiculture" led to a lessening of individual freedoms. While a student at Stanford, Thiel founded a rightwing journal, still up and running, called The Stanford Review - motto: Fiat Lux ("Let there be light"). Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web. Thiel calls himself "way libertarian".
TheVanguard is run by one Rod D Martin, a philosopher-capitalist whom Thiel greatly admires. On the site, Thiel says: "Rod is one of our nation's leading minds in the creation of new and needed ideas for public policy. He possesses a more complete understanding of America than most executives have of their own businesses."
This little taster from their website will give you an idea of their vision for the world: "TheVanguard.Org is an online community of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market and limited government as the best means to bring hope and ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest among us." Their aim is to promote policies that will "reshape America and the globe". TheVanguard describes its politics as "Reaganite/Thatcherite". The chairman's message says: "Today we'll teach MoveOn [the liberal website], Hillary and the leftwing media some lessons they never imagined."
...The internet is immensely appealing to neocons such as Thiel because it promises a certain sort of freedom in human relations and in business, freedom from pesky national laws, national boundaries and suchlike. The internet opens up a world of free trade and laissez-faire expansion. Thiel also seems to approve of offshore tax havens, and claims that 40% of the world's wealth resides in places such as Vanuatu, the Cayman Islands, Monaco and Barbados. I think it's fair to say that Thiel, like Rupert Murdoch, is against tax. He also likes the globalisation of digital culture because it makes the banking overlords hard to attack: "You can't have a workers' revolution to take over a bank if the bank is in Vanuatu," he says.
...The third board member of Facebook is Jim Breyer. He is a partner in the venture capital firm Accel Partners, who put $12.7m into Facebook in April 2005. On the board of such US giants as Wal-Mart and Marvel Entertainment, he is also a former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Now these are the people who are really making things happen in America, because they invest in the new young talent, the Zuckerbergs and the like. Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. After 9/11, the US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which "identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions".
The US defence department and the CIA love technology because it makes spying easier. "We need to find new ways to deter new adversaries," defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003. "We need to make the leap into the information age, which is the critical foundation of our transformation efforts." In-Q-Tel's first chairman was Gilman Louie, who served on the board of the NVCA with Breyer. Another key figure in the In-Q-Tel team is Anita K Jones, former director of defence research and engineering for the US department of defence, and - with Breyer - board member of BBN Technologies. When she left the US department of defence, Senator Chuck Robb paid her the following tribute: "She brought the technology and operational military communities together to design detailed plans to sustain US dominance on the battlefield into the next century."
Wow. I've enjoyed Facebook, but I hadn't realised just how wonderful it really is, and how it is driving human progress and prosperity. Thanks to Mr Hodgkinson for digging all this up, so we can appreciate Facebook properly.
Oh, wait a minute. It seems Mr Hodgkinson thinks this is all bad. Weird.
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Sunday, 13th January 2008
7:16pm
Apologies for my absence over the past few days.
Bad news about Major Miller. He really does have bad luck. It turns out that it wasn't a pulled muscle which caused him to be lame but a hairline pelvis fracture. That means 6 weeks box rest and 6 weeks light walking before he can go back to training, which means in turn that he's out for another season.
The injury isn't serious, so hopefully he will be ready for action this autumn. Meanwhile Muggins here will carry on paying for him to loll around all day.
PS I've started writing for the Racing Post, but they don't seem to put their columns on line. If I figure out how to, I'll put up a link.
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Thursday, 10th January 2008
Wednesday, 9th January 2008
8:03am
Naturally, you've turned to a site written by a man in Finchley, North London, for analysis of the behaviour of voters in New Hampshire.
Instead of offering thoughts which I am not remotely competent to offer, here are some from people who do know what they are talking about.
This seems plausible, this is interesting, and this from my friend Robert George sums it up: Anyone who thinks they know how the presidential nominating process is going to play out is full of sh**.
Two months ago, John McCain's political obituary had been written; Rudy Giuliani led the national polls and Mitt Romney was the runaway leader in New Hampshire.Two days ago, Hillary Clinton's political obituary was being written: The dynasty was over, the queen was dead; the question was not whether Hillary should withdraw, but under what circumstances; George W. Bush was asking President Obama if he would consider starting a year early. And then people started voting.
Today, we have winners who, not much more than a year ago, everyone expected to be the frontrunners: John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Will they be the eventual nominees? Who knows? The rest of his post is also well worth reading:However, a few things New Hampshire showed:
1) Despite everything, maybe the Clinton name still means something in the Granite State (or maybe the MACHINE is better at stealing elections there, as one partisan Democrat hinted to me tonight).
2) Hillary Clinton is never so dangerous as when she is portrayed as the victim. Her popularity increased post-Monica; she "won" a debate -- and essentially the election -- in 2000 when Rick Lazio pushed a paper in herface and demanded that she "sign it! Sign it!" In that light, Hillary's "emotional moment" on Monday may have touched a chord with undecided women who decided to support her at the last moment.
3) On a related note, there was the Saturday debate: Hillary was asked about the fact that more voters "liked" Obama more than her. She responded, smiling, "That hurts my feelings." The crowd chuckled, Hillary said, "Barack is a likeable guy." But Obama almost sneered, "You're likeable enough, Hillary." It was an unnecessary snide line, delivered at a moment when he could have been gracious (Something like, "Senator, of course, you're likeable, and you have made history as the first First Lady to win office in her own right. Yes, I'd like to make history of my own, but we certainly praise the service you've given this nation.") . Instead, his actual abrupt comment was against character: At a moment when Hillary was being warm/likeable (Obama-like?), while he was being cold and, well, bitchy -- characteristics often associated with Hillary.
4) Finally, it would be dishonest not to mention the elephant in the room -- race. On MSNBC, Washington Post Eugene Robinson and NBC political analyst/polling expert Chuck Todd raised what is often referred to as the "Bradley effect": The Obama internal polls gave him a lead of 14 points (similar to the last CNN poll). Hillary's internal polls gave Obama an eleven point lead. Yet, she won by three points. The "Bradley effect" refers to the 1982 gubernatorial race of African American Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley who the polls showed leading by double digits the night before election day: He lost narrowly to white Republican George Deukmajian. In 1989, African American Lt. Gov. Doug Wilder was leading the Virginia gubernatorial race by about ten points; he won by less than one percent. A similar series of events occured in the New York mayoral race that year with Democrat David Dinkins leading Republican Rudy Giuliani in heavily Democratic New York City by double digits .
To be blunt, in contests involving black candidates, there often appears a hidden (or deceptive) vote in polling that works to the disadvantage of the black candidates. It doesn't always occur: Harold Ford's loss in Tennessee U.S. Senate race in 2006 was certainly within the margin of error of pre-election polls. But when all the pre-election polls were wrong (and not just by the margin of error) as they were in New Hampshire, one has to entertain at least the possibility of the "Bradley effect."
I don't know if that occurred Tuesday. But any punditswho say they definitely know what is going on this year are, well...you know.
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Tuesday, 8th January 2008
7:57pm
An American friend, who is - clearly - no fan of Mike Huckabee, composed these lyrics, to the tune of Yesterday. My friend asked to remain anonymous; I'll just say that s/he worked in the Reagan administration.
Huckabee.
You found a rapist, and you set him free.
Then he went off upon a killing spree.
Was that your fault, Mike Huckabee?
Huckabee.
You’ve read the Psalms,
But not the NIE.
You’ve got no monkeys in your family tree.
Just Adam and Eve, Mike Huckabee.
When your cellphone rings,
It says “God”
On the caller ID,
On His speed dial list,
Number one is Huckabee.
Huckabee.
You’re not half the size you used to be.
But if you become the nominee,
Will you be dead weight, Mike Huckabee?
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