[blogfocus saturday] back to the roots

Another 10 original bloggers

2] Today I’ve posted twice on the friendliness, or lack of it, of the Brits and the French and of the Americans and the French. Clive Davis has this to say about the French:

Pondering another political fracas - striking firemen, this time - the Economist's Paris correspondent stumbles across a self-evident truth: There really are two Frances. One demonstrates; the other shops.

... then asks this about American airports:

If the system can't track illegals, what can be gained from antagonizing the millions of bona fide business travellers and holidaymakers? Andrew Sullivan has more on this problem. And here's Bryony Gordon in the Telegraph: I've never expected officials to welcome me with balloons and banners, but … it's never good after a 10-hour flight, having had to fill out that ridiculous visa waiver form "Are you a terrorist? A drug smuggler?" "Yes, yes, I am!", to then have to deal with a smug man dressed as a member of the Village People for half an hour.

And this about the French again:

BTW, this goes back beyond the Bush era. I had my share of stressful encounters in the 80s and 90s. And I have to say that the French can't be far behind in the unpleasantness stakes. There was a time when I couldn't get through Charles de Gaulle airport without being searched. My fault for looking like an Arab, I suppose.

3] Devil’s Kitchen has been a busy boy – up in the highlands or down south in the big smoke. I’m still waiting for someone [anyone] to write to me and tell me how DK went on Doughty that evening. Were there sparks? Did he look resplendent in his sartorial elegance? Did he quote Cecil Spring-Rice? What I wouldn’t give to see the noted Thespian intoning: The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test, that lays upon the altar the dearest and the best.

But I want to debate with him what’s wrong with Jerusalem as an anthem? Surely he doesn’t dispute that those ancient feet walked upon those tin mines black with Joseph of Aramathea? So, to the point of this evening and it seems to me that DK is at his very best, never ceasing from mental fight and his sword most certainly never sleeping in his hand, when getting stuck into some poor innocent such as Polly Toynbee or in this case, Peter Mandelson:

Ah, Peter, Peter; always renowned as a man with expensive tastes, it seems that Master Mandelson has once more set his grubby feet upon the property ladder. Naturally, I'm very happy for him: being able to afford a delightful £2.4 million property in Primrose Hill must be very lovely for him. What a lucky chap he is.

Then follows a detailed account, complete with statistics, on just how expensive his tastes and just how above board the man’s dealings are. Box by box, step by step, he’s taken down the anomalous path and DK sums up:

Of course, I am absolutely certain that the whole purchase is very much above board, right and proper. After all, it's not as though Mandy has previous, is it? Oh, no, wait a second ... In the end, we are just going to have to trust the slippery, unprincipled bastard. I know that I do, don't you?

Finally, let’s raise our glasses and toast This Lime Street Bower.

4] Oliver Kamm’s spot of bother with an alleged maniac [my words, not his] make for compelling reading and reflect both on the dangers of blogging that we may not be completely aware of but which we should be aware of. Litigation is expensive and time consuming and few of us can afford this:

Last March I posted a comment about … blogger Neil Clark … Earlier this year Mr Clark objected to comments I had made about him on this blog. He sent me several emails threatening legal action if I did not remove those comments and publicly apologise. After considering his complaints carefully, I declined to do as Mr Clark requested. In my opinion, the remarks in question were fair comment on a matter of public interest. I told Mr Clark that if he initiated legal proceedings then I would defend myself to assert the right to fair comment within appropriate bounds.

The first issue had arisen from a review that Mr Clark published in The Daily Telegraph of a book by me … On this blog, I … questioned whether Mr Clark had even read the book. The second issue had arisen from a statement by me that, on his website and in communicating with the Books Editor of The Daily Telegraph, Mr Clark had claimed that assertions made in his review were supported by a report of the “Institute of Strategic Studies Organisation”. I pointed out that a reasonable person might readily take this as a reference to the well known International Institute for Strategic Studies … I stated on this website that I did not believe Mr Clark had intentionally sought to mislead.

In April … I received notification from his local County Court of a claim against me by Mr Clark … [seeking] … damages, removal of allegedly defamatory material and an apology. It did not state what the alleged defamatory comments were. At this point, Charles Russell [acting for me] wrote to Mr Clark on 24 April. The letter informed Mr Clark that his purported claim had clearly been invalidly issued. A claim for damages … for libel may not be started … unless both parties have agreed in writing. I had not given my agreement, and [thus] Mr Clark’s action was thus an abuse of process.

Immediately on receiving this letter, Mr Clark wrote to me … [informing me] … he would take action against me in the High Court … Mr Clark’s claim was struck out by the County Court on 3 May, with the forfeiture of his court fee. No action was subsequently initiated by Mr Clark in the High Court.

As the issue did not arise, I cannot say for certain what form my defence would have taken … I consider it wrong in principle and self-defeating for a writer to threaten legal action against a blogger, and cannot imagine realistic circumstances in which I would do so.

Mr Clark’s claim was, in short, an abuse of the legal process, and a waste of my time, my lawyers’ time, and court time. I thought very hard about whether, in the circumstances, to pursue Mr Clark for my legal costs … Blogger disputes are usually trivial affairs, conducted at high volume but with low stakes and few readers. The issues in this dispute were important.

According to an article on the Guardian web site, this was believed to be the first case in the UK of a libel action against a blogger. I defended the case, and have voluntarily borne costs that are not trivial, because an action that would have had the effect of restricting free comment would otherwise have succeeded by default. Blogging would be a less free medium than it is, and than I hope it will continue to be, if I had acceded to Mr Clark’s demands.

Note from James Higham in case Mr. Clark also wishes to litigate him for defamation: Mr. H used the term ‘alleged maniac’ because that is how it seemed to him from various writings by both parties and by another blogger who shall remain unnamed. On another matter, in the opinion of Mr. Higham, blogging is an expensive business, with few returns and so a bit of cash in the pocket from litigation appears to be a resort certain bloggers may well be tempted to stoop to.

5] Stay with this one by Stephen Pollard – the post itself and the comments which followed it. I don’t know what it is but Stephen Pollard seems to induce this sort of thing and I remember my own three day slanging match with Indecent Left over G-d [the existence or non-existence thereof] which left Stuart and I as the best of adversaries to this day and launched me into blogging:

Hmmmm. Now here's an intriguing thought. One of my more eagle-eyed readers has drawn my attention to the remarkable similarity between comments left here by 'Green Goddess' and some of Neil Clark's posts on his blog.

This latest one, for example - Green Goddess left a comment on my post A Principle To Fight For. I'll leave readers to draw their own conclusions. Ninety minutes later, Neil Clark concluded his post A Tawdry Affair (on the same issue - Clark's deeply misguided attempt to use the libel laws to silence criticism of his work) thus: I'll leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

That's hardly proof of anything, and could easily be a pure coincidence. So I had a look at Green Goddess' comments here. He/she has left 9 comments. Eight of them have only one point: praise for the wisdom of ... Neil Clark.

The other comment consists simply of the phrase Freedom to the pike is death to the minnow. It's a comment in response to a post by me in which - you'll never guess - I attack Neil Clark's stupidity. So every one of Green Goddess' comments is about, and in praise of, Neil Clark.

It's possible of course that Green Goddess is simply a big fan of writers who hero worship genocidal dictators. But maybe Green Goddess actually is a writer who hero worships genocidal dictators. Whoever you are, Green Goddess - do tell us, please.

Commenters then got into the act:

Perhaps green goddess IS Neil Clark. Stated by: James Higham

Initially I thought greengoddess might be Clarkie's better half - hence my question about "her" possible Hungarian origins. However, it seems like our host has hit the nail on the head yet again. "greengoddess" certainly is the kind of handle Clarkie is likely to choose given his love of objects antiquated, ugly and useless and his quite barmy desire to turn the clock back fifty years and more.

I'm actually feeling a little bit sorry for Clark. It's been like watching a tiger flicking a mouse away with its paw. What possessed him to pick a fight with someone who outclasses him so comprehensively in every single area is I suppose something that will remain forever a complete mystery. Stated by: Joshua

It's undoubtedly true that Clark isn't the brightest spark, quite aside from the touching (if not toe-curling) naïveté of most of his writing, if you notice the entries in his blog circa January to March this year, you'll notice a lot of linkage to other people's comments about Kamm, but virtually no substantive criticism originating from him. And I suspect that this is because he knows full well that if he attempted the Kamm-fisk that he so unwisely promised, Kamm would respond in kind and the end result would make Christians being fed to lions look positively humanitarian by comparison. Stated by: CheekyBob

Dearest Stephen, I can assure you I am not Neil Clark. But I will not be revealing my true identity when commenters who agree with you are under no compulsion to do likewise. With my warmest regards, The Green Goddess. p.s. As much as I disagree with most of your opinions Stephen, I would not dream of sending malicious emails, under an alias, to your editors at The Times and the Daily Mail in an attempt to prevent you from earning a living. That is what a "Mr George Courtenay" did to Neil Clark. And "Mr George Courtenay" cced his email to Mr Oliver Kamm. Clark has posted the email in question on his blog. www.neilclark66.blogspot.com Stated by: greengoddess

James Higham steps in here and asks: So what does cc-ing prove? I could cc something to Neil Clark but would that make him culpable of anything? Seems to be very shaky logic in green goddess’s assertion.

[On greengoddess] The longer you continue in this vein, the more people will side with Stephen Pollard. Behaving like a total bitch might well work well in your usual neck of the woods, but around here all you're likely to get is the cold shoulder. Stated by: Pooh

Having dealt with ticket agencies such as Ticketmaster, I can confirm that the 'sod the public' attitude is alive and well in the private sector. Stated by: thesquid

Oh balls, comment is in wrong thread - humble apologies! Stated by: thesquid

We are "hiding" and you are not? And if you are indeed Clark or his wife, then there is also a huge difference between us and you. Stated by: Joshua

Who's hiding around here? Miss 'Communism was great in Hungary' or this commenter? Stated by: Tim Worstall

Steven Pollard sums it all up with his update: Green Goddess has commented below that he/she is not Neil Clark. Naturally, I take that at face value. There is, however, an equally plausible explanation. I wonder, Green Goddess, if you are Mr Clark's wife? Given that Mr Clark himself has been so thoroughly discredited as a reliable writer, perhaps his wife is the only person left who is willing to defend the mass murderer worshiping lover of the Warsaw Pact in public. Do tell us.

6] With Chris Dillow, we return to more pleasant matters: Monty Panesar and market failure. In my humble opinion, Chris is one of the few bloggers who views cricket, football or any other aspect of human behaviour in purely economic terms. I just wonder how he feels about making love? [That’s not an offer, I hastily add.]

It looks as if Monty Panesar will not play in the first test. Chris suggests this might be because his superior bowling skills will be wasted as Geraint Jones can't catch a spinning ball.This raises an important economic problem - of indivisibilities in the production function. Imagine an extreme case in which spinners only take wickets through stumpings or caught behinds. If the wicket-keeper were useless, the spinner's skills, however great, would be wasted.

In this case, the production of Australian wickets is indivisible; it requires two inputs (a keeper and spinner) each of whom is little use without the other. Such indivisibilities have important implications:

1. They can cause increasing returns to scale. If Monty did play, the marginal product of a an extra, good, keeper would be very high. Of course, England can't field more than 11 players.

Then follows a business analogy. It continues:

2. They help explain the existence of firms. If two assets only work well together, each has an incentive to threaten to pull out in order to bargain for a bigger share of the output. This is the hold-up problem. One natural solution to this is for the assets to be owned and managed together.

And so on. Next:

3. Indivisibilities can reduce incentives to acquire skills. There's little point spending years training to be an engineer, if there'll be no manufacturing industry when you qualify. This can lead economies into a "low skill equilibrium."

This one takes some reading and you’ll have to go to Stumbling and Mumbling to do it. One reader commented thus:

The economics here is excellent, but I cannot let Chris's loony ideas about cricket go unchallenged. Panesar hasn't been picked because he can't field, can't bat and his bowling is really not good enough to stand on its own. He's a left handed fingerspinner which is a rarity, but he doesn't have much variability and would have been found out really badly against Australia. One good test in India on really favourable pitches does not make someone an automatic pick. Posted by: dsquared

Now, in the light of the previous blogger’s situation, perhaps Chris might consider litigation here but somehow I don’t think it’s his style. Besides, dsquared has a history of usually making sense.

7] Black Quill is an enigma. A Japanese enigma. He disappears off the radar, hardly anything is known of him in this persona, even I, who count myself as one of his mates don’t know what he’s up to, then suddenly he’ll appear with something like this - My Precious:

The BBC website has an article on the discovery of a sunken treasure ship off the coast of Java. The ship apparently dates back to the time of William the Conqueror and contains a trove of some 150,000 pieces. Salvage was precipitated by local fishermen hauling up ceramic shards in their nets.

What is interesting to me is not the discovery, but the outrage — read between the lines — that the Indonesian government expresses against treasure hunters, saying they pilfer artefacts and sell them off illegally…For a start, it isn’t as though treasure hunters were walking into a bank, leaning over the counter and putting their hand in the draw. They are in fact investing considerable amounts of time and probably money and also risking their lives.

For another thing, when did we ever ask governments to spread their poor and ill advised rule to Posidon’s realm? It isn’t as though the Indonesian government recently lost the treasure in a heist and it could in fact, by rights, belong to some poor descendent of a former thriving merchant in China 60 generations ago, but we shall never know.

What we do know, from the Indonesian governments comments, is that the Indonesian government is as much an opportunist as the next man, more so perhaps as they try to give their claim an air of propriety by enshrining it in law. I’ll bet the poor bloody fishermen living on the breadline don’t get any credit or money from the discovery other than an occasional drink bought by the divers working for the officially approved and certified salvage company.

The sea is a tempestuous beast at the best of times. Anyone finding treasure there and managing to bring it back in one piece deserves to dispose of it as they see fit. Paunchy self-righteous government officials in their oak lined offices do not.

So there! I can feel his righteous indignation from here.

8] In case anyone missed it, there are two recent additions to Euroserf’s family. Somehow, in the midst of this, he continues to bring the latest atrocities of the EU to the notice of the blogosphere and as with the EU itself, no ground is too sacred to tread on, even sport:

There is no end to the lengths to which the EU will go to increase its realm of power. Sport is the latest frontier. EU and UEFA are to agree a formal structure, with UEFA being granted official recognition as the governing body for European football. That is really kind of them is it not, to recognise UEFA as the governing body for European football. After all, they didn't have such a position before did they? Oh just a second they did, so what is the point here?

The EU is basically saying that UEFA is now an extension of EU law making powers. This means that EU laws will be adopted by UEFA. UEFA & EU members Kazakhstan, Israel, Armenia and Iceland will be very pleased. Imperialist scum is the best way to describe the Eurocrats that control our very existence.

One of his readers, Colin, commented ... Serf, your blog shows an incredibly high level of industriousness after the birth of your twins. I wonder where you find the time for all that. Any advice for hopeful fathers?

9] Tim Worstall posts some very strange posts at times and that’s because he’s posting posts on people who post strange posts. This one’s on Prescribing Heroin. Not proscribing - prescribing:

Very weird piece indeed in The Times.

Those who seek to legalise narcotics cry “the war on drugs has been lost”. One might as well also argue that “the war on murder has been lost” or that “the war on rape, theft, fraud, larceny and pyromania has been lost” … we just do our best to ensure that they are minimised — and we do this by enforcing the law and the threat of punishment … the best method would not be a ready supply of heroin on the NHS but to arrest heroin users.

Tim comments:

There are two potential answers to this nonsense. The first is the liberal one. My right to do as I wish stops when my exercising that right impacts upon your similar rights. [Apart from] the illegality of heroin usage, what impact does my taking heroin have upon your exercise of your rights? Quite, so why is it illegal? The second is that it is the very illegality which is the problem.

He quotes an august source to back this latter point, then states:

The idea that we're losing the war on drugs because we're not jailing enough people is not just laughable, it's repellent. The problem is that we have a war on drugs at all, something that is inconsistent with the maintenance of a liberal society.

Legalize it and yes, that does mean prescribing it on the NHS. As to the idea that it will cost £15,000 a year per addict: sorry, that's simply bollocks. £ 41 a day for a legal supply of a drug that can be made in bulk from the hundreds of tonnes of opium coming out of Afghanistan? Give over, I'd be amazed if it actually cost more than the standard prescription charge.

I’d like to know how much support it would attract, Tim. Before leaving Mr. Worstall, he is annoyed about being left off the Top 100 Green Blogs. Well, I’d have to agree with that. My whole blog, dammit, was coloured green and brown and the header was of a wooded lane. How much greener does Iain Dale want? And Ellee, we don’t resent your inclusion at N23 one little bit.

10] There are bloggers you don’t take on lightly unless you have the data at your fingertips and can argue a logical, cogent case. We’ve just looked at some of these and here’s another - Vox Day. Entitled That didn't take long, he first gives a quote which holds that Richard Dawkins: comes out as a eugenicist:

A leading international anti-religion crusader and supporter of Darwinian theory, Dr. Richard Dawkins, has said that the pseudo-science of eugenics that drove the Nazi regime’s genocidal project “may not be bad.” … “Why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?”

Yes, I am vastly amused by this [and] while I'm surprised that Dawkins has gotten so carried away by his success that he is finally daring to openly proclaim a more rational atheism, I'm not at all shocked by his conclusions … Atheism always leads the thinking individual to nihilism. The fact that most atheists aren't nihilists isn't a credit to atheism, it's more a testimony to how few individuals are capable of reason or even understanding the logical consequences of their basic assumptions.

Oh, and Richard, the answer to your question is that music lessons are provided with the consent of the individual, or at least the parent. Breeding heavily implies, (although it does not absolutely require), a lack of consent on the part of the individuals involved. Of course, if you don't believe that Man possesses God-given rights because there is no God to give them, then there's no rational reason why one shouldn't treat men and women like dogs. UPDATE - Here's Dawkin's actual letter. While I always prefer the original source, the Herald link wasn't working when I first posted.

11] Melanie Phillips has her rails and she runs on them, in blogging terms. Articulate, to the point and often scathing, this is an example: The battle for Britain.

Daniel Johnson has written a fine article in Commentary about the appalling spinelessness, anti-Americanism and Judeophobia which now grip Britain. He records the shameful way in which the Conservative party has decided to ride these lethal tigers: [quote follows]. He notes the vicious trap in which Britain has now placed its Jewish community: [quote follows]. And he concludes: [quote follows].

The situation in Britain is as Daniel describes, and it is indeed dire. The problem is a craven, appeasement-minded political class and an intelligentsia that has sacrificed reason for prejudice and bigotry. But as he suggests, a fight is in prospect because many ordinary people are beginning to wake up. I was talking to a Conservative constituency association last night, and was struck by the passionate feeling there that their own leadership in the Tory party was failing to stand up for the country’s values against a governing class that had sacrificed them in favour of fashionable nostrums which had the additional effect of silencing public debate.

And I know that beyond those people there are thousands of others who are simply aghast at what has happened to their country, at the way it is failing to defend its own identity and security and appears intent on waving the white flag at every opportunity.

The problem is that there is currently no mainstream political party to represent them — and that there are also many others in the general population who have succumbed to the current confusion. Like Suez in 1956— a lesser cause, but a totem of Britain’s loss of national nerve —today’s momentous issue of the war to defend the free world is splitting friend from friend, relative from relative. So far, the unholy alliance between the west-hating multiculturalists of the left and the isolationist stability-fetishists of the right has made all the running. But as scales progressively fall from eyes and more and more people realise just what we are facing, the internal battle will be well and truly joined — and there will then be a chance of reclaiming Britain from this madness.

I was asked by a Russian friend why Britain was so pro-Jewish. What? Soon afterwards, he installed cable and BBC News became available – it was around the time that Arafat was eased out of this world. My friend put up with it for three days and then said, ‘If I hear one more thing about what a saint the man was, I’ll send back my subscription. Then he had the weeks of concern for Africa which then petered out once Tony lost interest in it but that’s another issue. So then he asked me why Britain was so pro-Arab.