Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived

A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?

Update: seemingly not

Update: Oh yeah!


Sunday, August 27, 2006

 
Full toss over middle stump

Olïver Kamm writes, on the subject of Günter Grass or something:

(I should disclose an interest in that Tonkin refers to "the work of our remarkably gifted translators, such as Anthea Bell and Michael Hofmann", of whom the first named is my mother. If any of my regular crop of extremely frequent and - in the absence of any reply from me - surprisingly indefatigible correspondents wishes to write in to observe that familial giftedness plainly came to be severely diluted as it traversed a single generation, they should be aware that I have anticipated their contribution.)

I cannot speak for the ëxtremely frequent and surprisingly indefatigable community, but the joke I was going to make was that this perhaps expläined why Oliver's blog often looks as if it has bëën translated into German and back a few tïmes.

Üpdate: Gosh it's lovely being by the seaside. I suppose Ï should have put some sort of notice up that I was on hölïdäy.

Double update: Ötöh, while I was away you could have caught me having a go at "evidence based medicine", a trend toward the Taylorisation and managerialisation of medicine which I regard as quite baleful, here and here, as I had to pop back to London to TCB.

Update with a vengeance Oliver emails me to point out that my umlauts are all over the place and "Günter" isn't a "Gunther". Gunther, Gunter, stick it up yer jumper is my personal view of people who have the temerity to bear foreign names I can't spell (and balls to Francois Miterrand too), but thanks very much and I have made a correction. I have also scattered a few more umlauts throughout this post because I think they look nice and it helps amortise the fixed cost of learning how to do umlauts in HTML. Very metal.

Üpdate Éät ìt ràw, yöú Firefox using Communists. Ïnternet Explorer handles my non-conforming HTML jüst fïne.
1 comments this item posted by the management 8/27/2006 02:32:00 AM

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

 
The gradual suicide of liberal Europe

Since Melanie Philips is on holiday (see the posts below of which I note with horror this is the third consecutive one!), it falls to me to document the gradual suicide of liberal Europe. It is actually a lot more difficult than Mel makes it look to find real evidence of European societies literally committing suicide, but I think that this must surely count, from the Guardian letters:

"In the Netherlands, no bags are offered to customers. This saves money for shops and customers and stops landfill becoming choked in plastic."

Trying to reduce landfill in the Netherlands? What do they think polders are made of? The entire country is basically built on landfill! I can only assume that the postmodern green relativists and Gramscians are undermining the traditional values of Dutch society to the extent that the country will literally disappear beneath the waves. I bet the dhimmis are involved too but I can't work out how to fit them in.
0 comments this item posted by the management 8/08/2006 02:41:00 AM

Monday, August 07, 2006

 
From the Guardian

John Reid on immigration:

Mr Reid said he wanted to change the culture of the debate and end the "daft, so-called politically correct notion that anybody who talks about immigration is somehow a racist".


Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

more Freakonomics coming soon, plus a reply to Marc Mulholland on "Anti This War Now" as soon as I can think of a way of walking away from my original argument that looks suitably weaselly and inconclusive.
0 comments this item posted by the management 8/07/2006 12:56:00 AM

Friday, August 04, 2006

 
Melanie Phillips blogging

Mel has gone on holiday. I think this is probably the wisest course as she has written the following paragraph. You can play a fun game with the Melanie Phillips blog, btw; scroll down, select a paragraph and without looking at the title, try to guess whether it is part of the series "The War Against Israel", "The War Against the Jews", "The Media War Against Israel" or "The Media War Against the Jews". This one is from "The War Against Israel".

If, heaven forbid, this does turn into a second Holocaust, we can now discern the key difference from the first one. This time the Jews will be blamed for their own destruction. And this time, the political left and the media will have blood on their hands. Indeed, they already do. The lies, libels and distortions, the selective reporting and omissions, the egregious double standards, the moral inversion which turns jihadi murderers into resistance fighters and their victims into war criminals, the willingess to report Hezbollah propaganda as the truth while disparaging Israeli statements as lies (when they are even reported at all), not to mention the ancient canards against the Jews now being blurted out everywhere from California to Canary Wharf � all are not only creating a lethal climate of increasingly hysterical hatred against Israel and the Jews, but are also egging on the terror-puppeteers of the jihad and recruiting yet more to the cause of murdering Jews and waging holy war against the west.


The blog says that Ms Phillips has gone to the beach, but on the basis of the above, I think it is more likely that she is hiding in a cabin with a supply of tinned food[1]. On the other hand, it wasn't this paragraph that made me think she needs a holiday but the following one, which says "Mark Steyn, as ever, gets it right".

[1] Here's how much work I put into these blog posts; I tried and rejected "hiding in an attic" and "hiding in a bunker" in that sentence, rejecting both of them because of potentially slightly anti-Semitic connotations.
0 comments this item posted by the management 8/04/2006 05:24:00 AM

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

 
Gimme shelter

Too trivial for an update to my CT post on war crimes, but Melanie Philips (to whom I am not linking more because I cannot be bothered than as a conscious snub; I am not linking to my own post either) has managed to provide the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of the bad faith with which a lot of people are crying crocodile tears over the war crime of "sheltering" behind civilians.

She has attempted to claim that the apartment block at Qana (erratum: it was an apartment block elsewhere in Lebanon, thanks Chris) had its civilian protection compromised because Hezbollah had been seen firing an anti-aircraft gun from it.

Surprisingly enough, it is not a war crime under the Geneva Conventions to mount an AA gun on a building which is being attacked from the air.

In related news, Melanie Philips describes the Daily Telegraph's coverage of the Qana bombing as a "psychological pogrom against Israel"; I presume that Eve Garrard[1] has been informed of this new outbreak of Holocaust denial, from a somewhat surprisng quarter.

Update: Just to clarify, it is not the killing of the civilians which Mel is comparing to a pogrom; it is the reporting of their deaths in the Daily Telegraph. So far no word on which atrocity the coverage in the Western Mail resembles. The Melanie Philips Naziometer currently stands at 5, but I think it would be a foolish man who sold short at this price.

[1] If you can't be bothered, this is a link to what I believe may be the worst argument ever printed on the Internet; that placards saying "Bush = Hitler" are equivalent to Holocaust denial because if Hitler was only as bad as Bush then the Holocaust could not have been that bad (I defy anyone to tell me that's an unfair paraphrase). If the pogroms were only as bad as one day of a broadly Israel-supporting newspaper's coverage, then it is certainly hard to understand what all the fuss was about.
0 comments this item posted by the management 8/01/2006 02:01:00 AM


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?




Links:

Bitch : Lab
Aaronovitch Watch
Balkanalysis
Perfect.co.uk
Maxspeak
Brad Delong
The Robert Vienneau blog

Political and philosophical heroes

Subcomandante Marcos
Will Rogers
Boris Vian
The English Svejk

RSS Feed:
This seems to matter to a lot of people

If you liked this "Daniel Davies" website, you might be interested in

"Danux", the web developer
The martial artist (and fan of extremely annoying Flash intros) from Blackburn
The Welsh political journalist
A Scouse computer programmer who collects Soviet cameras
"Danimal", the heavy metal drummer
Canada's finest recorder of radio jingles
More of the same, at the Guardian
A tailor's in Lampeter where Jimmy Carter once bought a hat
An advertising man who has written a novel about dogging (I think we sometimes get each other's email)
An award-winning facilities manager in Dubai
The son of the guitarist from the Kinks Update: he is apparently "balls-out motherfucking shit-dicked exxxstatic" to be included on a Kerrang magazine giveaway CD of Iron Maiden covers, which is nice.
"Fritz Gretel" from the Ramones film "Rock 'n' Roll High School"
The former presenter of the leading politics talk radio show on the Isle of Man, now a business change manager in the Manx government secretary's office
An aquarium curator in Sussex who keeps on scoring home runs like this (this is the first stable link I've found, but he is constantly kicking ass in acquarial terms)

If you didn't like this "Daniel Davies" website, then don't give up on the Daniel Davies industry completely!

An American "Christian Political Analyst" who has the same name as me
A student at Patrick Henry College
these two might be the same guy ...
"Scatter", the deceased Liberian gangster
A naked man stuck in a chimney in Wigan
A thug in Barrow



This blog has been going downhill since ...

August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
November 2003
December 2003
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
August 2011
September 2011
October 2011
November 2011
December 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
April 2012
May 2012
June 2012
July 2012
August 2012
September 2012
October 2012
December 2012
February 2013
April 2013
June 2013
July 2013
August 2013
March 2014
April 2014
August 2014
October 2015
March 2023