Utopia, you are standing in it!

You’ve probably heard of at least several authors of this new Politico piece, which I suspect but don’t know for sure was submitted to (and rejected by) the New York Times after the paper retroactively redacted a column by Bret Stephens on the overrepresentation of Ashkenazi Jews “in intellectual and creative fields”. The article by Paresky et al. is a severe indictment of the Times‘s policies, which now include giving in to an “outrage mob” and changing a column (as well as removing genuine facts), without leaving a record of the changes. Truly, the New York Times under its relatively new management (wokemeister A. G. Sulzberger) is going down the tubes—fast.

You probably know of Jon Haidt and Steve Pinker, whom I’ve written about often, and have likely heard of Nadine Strossen (former head of the ACLU and now a Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law…

This is a very good book, maybe the definitive one-volume account of the subject currently available.

McMeekin’s earlier volume, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898-1918, although full of solid history, was conceived and structured as an entertainment, using the erratic history of the Berlin to Baghdad railway project as a thread on which to hang an account of the German High Command’s attempt to raise a Muslim Holy War against her enemies, Britain and France, across the entire territory of the Ottoman Empire and beyond, into Persia and Afghanistan.

It had a chapter apiece devoted to the quixotic missions which the Germans sent out to try and recruit various Muslim leaders to their side, very much dwelling on the colourful characters who led them and the quirky and sometimes comic details of the missions – which, without exception, failed.

In Berlin to…

(December 7, 1941)

Steve Twomey is a superb writer whose new book COUNTDOWN TO PEARL HARBOR: THE TWELVE DAYS TO THE ATTACK is a useful addition to the list of books recently published commemorating December 7, 1941.  Employing numerous primary source documents, memoirs, interviews, and a mastery of secondary materials Twomey has recreated the tension filled days leading up to the Japanese attack. The reader is provided a front row seat from which to witness the debates within the Roosevelt administration, the work of the intelligence community, and the approach the American military took in responding to the Japanese threat.  In addition, the author explores the Japanese perspective on all events.

Twomey, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post incorporates numerous biographical sketches of the major figures and these sketches include Japanese as well as American figures.  Prominent on the Japanese side are Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Vice…

I haven’t found much about the author of this piece: Clifford MacArthur. He appears to have written just this one article on Medium (click on screenshot to read it). Nevertheless, if his assertions are correct, Tara Reade, who’s accused Joe Biden of sexual misconduct, is an outright liar. And MacArthur has a theory, which is his, about why she’s lied.

You’ve probably heard a bit about this case on the news, though the facts seem confusing.  Reade, an employee of Biden, originally said that he inappropriately rubbed her on the shoulders and neck in 1993. Then, over time, the story became more serious: this year she said that Biden actually cornered her and digitally penetrated her vagina, which is, legally, rape. Her changing story (there has been more than one change) is made less credible by the contradictions in her story, the failure of anyone to corroborate her accusations, her…

Infection Fatality Rates?

Michael Schulson writes at Undark Magazine John Ioannidis Responds to Critics of His Study Finding That the Coronavirus Is Not as Deadly as Thought. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

At issue here is a simple question: How many people actually have Covid-19? Ioannidis and other researchers from Stanford tried to answer that in a draft paper, or preprint, last month. Other experts began pointing out problems in the study, raising concerns about statistical errors, possible issues with a Covid-19 test kit, and shoddy sampling technique.

A few weeks later, the team released a revised version of the paper. The new draft, which, like the original version, has not yet received formal peer review, softens some of the more controversial claims, and acknowledges more uncertainty about the true number of infections.

The following interview — which covers the papers as well as Ioannidis’ appearances on partisan television…

This post set out to be a fun romp through the naughty marks in the U.S. federal trademark register. Don’t worry, that post is still forthcoming . . . but in the meantime I’ve learned about a distressing trend that’s stopping lots of sweary marks from attaining federal registration.

Despite having been instructed by the Supreme Court that it can no longer refuse trademark applications on the ground that the contents are “scandalous,” the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) won’t commit wholeheartedly. It’s relying on a shaky rationale to justify rejecting a variety of recently-filed FUCK- and SHIT-formative marks, like GOOD SHIT, APESHIT and YOU FUCKING GOT THIS.

For a fascinating insight into the thinking of a Pakeha Appeaser of Griever Maori, I commend to you this email exchange between Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty and author Dr John Robinson.

I urge you to read it all, particularly Delahunty’s second email, and Robinson’s reply.

As you read, and perhaps weep, remind yourself that Catherine Delahunty is a member of our Parliament, to whom we are paying over $140,000 a year.

__________________________________

From: John Robinson
Sent: Thursday, 16 August 2012 3:00 p.m.
To: Catherine Delahunty
Subject: When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience

Hi Catherine,

I was forwarded your comments on the Treaty, which I believe are mistaken.

The promise was kept and it was some Maori tribes who broke the compact by revolt against the government and many peaceful tribes.

I hope that you will read this historical account.

With best wishes,

John

[Dr Robinson pointed Ms Delahunty to his new book, When Two Cultures Meet…

If, as seems likely, Corbyn goes down to disaster, on December 12th; then the next UK General Election, due in late 2024, will be one, in which the last time Labour won an election, without Tony Blair leading it, was in October 1974. Then they managed a majority of 3. That was fifty years earlier. Fifty years: think about it.

Tony Blair won three General Elections with majorities of 179, 167 and 66. No wonder the left of the Labour Party hate him: he won elections. “Tory with a red tie” they call him. They much prefer to lose elections and let a Thatcher or a Johnson screw the country. I often think that Militant Tendency and Momentum were/are entryist Tories.Their stupidity does the Tories job for them: Tories Useful Idiots they are. I mean what’s not to love for Johnson to face the dire Corbyn and his cult? And…

Karl Von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

Creative Conflict Wisdom is not a blog about war, but we cannot write about conflict without considering the author of the classic: ‘On War’, because as he most famously said:

‘War is the conduct of policy by other means’.

This could be paraphrased to mean war as the conduct of conflict by more than political means. Many think that his book is the greatest ever written about war. As has been well said in Michael Howard’s excellent ‘Very Short Introduction to Clausewitz‘, few can help us think about war so well, and few have penetrated the ephemeral phenomena of their own times so incisively and considered war as a ‘…great socio-political activity distinguished from all other activities by the reciprocal and legitimized use of powerful violence to attain political objectives.’

So what were his top ten insights? (This is the first of…

Are some recent wars the result of over simplistic Power Point driven thinking?

This is a recent Power Point slide of the US military’s view of the Afghanistan War. Clearly unworkable as a Power Point. But that is the point: we often cannot reduce the complexity of a war or other major conflict to a few bland bullet points on a Power Point. Some people I knew in the corporate world used to talk about ‘crisp’ presentations: it came to make my want to throw up! They represented an attempt to seduce into shallow thinking.

We need to pay attention, get into the data, the causal loops and really think about many possible solutions, to think outside the box. Eventually, we have to distill this complexity down into a decision for action, for a strategy. But there is a profound difference (as Albert Einstein noted) between the simplicity that lies…

Planet of the Humans, Michael Moore’s withering attack on the power and money behind the renewable energy scam (see above) has incensed the climate cult and those that profit from the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

For the best part of 20 years, the mainstream press has been parroting the climate cult’s line that the only solution to the planet’s ‘imminent doom’ is more windmills and solar panels. Subsidised, of course, with your money.

New ‘Green’ Deal Democrats are in it up to their necks. Back in March the Democrats sought to assist their benefactors by amending Donald Trump’s $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package such that wind and solar power outfits would be able to siphon off hundreds of $billions and keep their scam going for just that bit longer. When that failed, Democrats led the charge on a second round attempt to look after their rent…

The legality of the Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand has been thrust into the spotlight, with valuable analysis from colleagues Profs Geddis and Geiringer on this blog, subsequent public airing of that legal debate, and issue of judicial review proceedings to test the regime on the back of that analysis. Questions about the validity of the orders under the Health Act – closing business premises and confining all New Zealanders to their household bubbles, for over 6 weeks now – have been percolating in legal quarters. Those doubts have recently seeped into public discourse and become part of political argument. This risks disrupting the delicate equilibrium of public acceptance that has characterised the lockdown – a lockdown that seems to have been pretty successful, so far, in breaking the chain of transmission and stamping out the virus.

We take a more benevolent view on whether the orders are valid and…