[blogfocus tuesday] dealing in death

Another 11 bloggers plus the mystery blogger here …

3

The Flying Rodent certainly had me between the Hammer and the Anvil with his “good news about Pinochet recovering”. Then he explained about the old death dealer and all was well:

Old Augusto may be in his nineties, but he clearly has no intention of giving up the fight just yet. This is encouraging for his family and supporters, and also for me - I've got twenty quid on Thatcher to pop her cork first, and the old bat is showing no signs of giving up the ghost. So come on, General, stay with us! Satan will just have to keep that red-hot poker in the fire for another year at least.

4

Mr. Eugenides also has a stake in the matter: It's asking a lot, but for these two old dictators to go on the same day would be a nice final irony. Of course, one will be rather more eulogised in the pages of the Guardian than the other, but that's a matter for another day. Feel free to go ahead and die, señors.

5

Clive Davis hobnobs with a killer [well, an executioner] and comes up with the most surprising things: Old circuits and other electrical odds and ends were scattered [down] his driveway in an anonymous suburb. During the hour we spent together in his kitchen, he broke off to take a call from a southern penitentiary. He was servicing their chair down in his basement workshop, and they were in a hurry to get it back. The conversation took place on his speakerphone, so I could hear every word. You’d have thought they were talking about a car that needed a new axle.

6

Last Ditch puzzles over the Sky News query over the death dealing Trident system: Sky News never queries government expenditure on social services or foreign aid. After all, many of its viewers pay their subscriptions from social security and giving "charity" to African dictators provides a cost-free charitable glow. The channel merely mirrors the slack-jawed sentimentalism of its underclass viewers.

When its gormless news anchor told the Shadow Defence Secretary "there were questions about the cost" of Britain's nuclear deterrent, we were surprised by the unaccustomed rigour. Then enlightenment dawned. "Ah," said my wife, "what a waste of money we could be spending on NHS dance lessons"

7

The Gracchi take a different tack, looking at none less than the birth of America into iniquity: The idea that Neo-conservatism is Machiavellian is hardly a surprise. It might come as a surprise to our author that America was founded by Machiavellians. By people who wished to maintain a republic by craft as well as moral example. Go and look at the reasons why the US is built the way it is and in the Federalist Papers you will find reasons which are precisely to do with elevating the right people to power. Machiavellianism is not really neo-conservative- it dates to a far earlier trend in politics- made incarnate by the Prince- of literature which seeks to instruct a politician not merely in what his ends should be, but in how to attain those ends.

8

Blognor Regis has his eye carefully trained on Bananarama and gives us the lowdown: Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama, Fiji's armed forces commander, took control of his country's government at 18:00 local time. (6AM GMT) Frankly he's played a blinder. Slowly and gently increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase until he was able to virtually stroll into assuming power…

I think Laban calls it right. Anyone coming upon the story for the first time right now is going to automatically assume that Bainimarama is the bad guy and the deposed PM is the good guy here. And that just isn't the case. (Which just goes to show that there's an awful lot of nuance to these sort of situations, Thailand earlier this year, Ukraine last year, and that anyone rushing to judgement with barely any background information can hardly know which is the "right" side to support.

Also check out BR’s new header.

9

Shuggy focuses on yet another dictator: Chavez has been re-elected for a third six-year term. No-one's talking about it. Not in my workplace, not in the pubs I go to. But the blogosphere is a different story. The reason behind this is a familiar one. Political partisans, leftists in particular, have a long history of being obsessed with the events taking place in two arenas in the world - the Middle East and Latin America. It is because it is felt that it is here that the fundamental clashes between right and left, capitalism and socialism, are played out in primary colours. For the ultra-leftist, the attractions are obvious.

10

L’Ombre is the only man I know who would take on Lady Ellee of the Fens but he explains his stance: One of the reasons why I don't live in the UK is the way that as soon as something bad happens politicians and their toadies cry out to ban something to do with the event. I admit this was a minor reason for my choice of life on the Riviera (despite today's miserable drizzle, the weather was the biggest reason), but it is one big reason why I can't imagine going back.The problem is that passing laws banning something makes politicians look like heroes but usually results in them being real villains because the bans always [invokes] the law of unintended consequences.

Classic example of the day is Ellee Seymour who wants all knives banned or something like that. She wants this ban because the existing regulations of knives, which result in retired brigadiers being arrested for posession 5cm pocket knives failed to stop two muggers from stabbing someone.

Sorry, Ellee but I had to get you into this somehow.

11

Dizzy writes of another use which is being made of the blogosphere - a more sinister use: Blogs and wikis are now seen as a vital tool in intelligence gathering agencies in the US. The self-publishing revolution has in effect changed the way intelligence works. For example, one analyst commented about how on the day of the London bombings he visited Wikipedia and within minutes the bombings had an entry. Over the next few hours the article was updated as news changed, the analyst pointed out that “you could just sit there and hit refresh, refresh, refresh, and get a sort of ticker-tape experience.”

12

Moving away from death and destruction but still on the theme of blogging, Tim Worstall raises the eternal issue of the altruism [or not] of blogging: [This] is assuming that economic theories rest upon the maximisation of monetary income. Given that, it is indeed extremely odd that practitioners of the dismal science would do something like blogging for no money (or pittances, certainly less than could be earned elsewhere).

However, extend that thought. Why would such people, who know how the world works, do such silly things like become a college professor? OK, it's not that badly paid but it isn't, with a very few exceptions, the route to a fortune. Why are they doing this silly research, publishing those papers that only 10 people (including their own mother) will ever read? Why aren't they pounding out the Harlequin novels instead? Could it actually be that such economists rather like doing research? Thinking about the world? The long vacations? The short work week? Even, perhaps, the respect of their peers?

Mr. T. Worstall may now be getting some return for his efforts but it’s as well to remember that it was a long hard road there and many of us may well fall by the wayside along that same road.

13

Speaking of blogging, has Chicken Yoghurt rewritten his manifesto and become a public service? Here he gives The Roundup Roundup, urging you to check out Tim Worstall’s Britblog Roundup #94, Mr E’s Swearbloggers Roundup #9 and James Higham’s Blogfocus.

As if that’s not enough, he’s very thoughtfully provided a blow-by-blow, day-by-day Advent Calendar and here is today’s: Advent Calendar: Day 5

[01] [02] [03] [04] [05] [06][07] [08] [09] [10] [11] [12][13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18][19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]

What’s advent? You’ll have to go to our mystery blogger to find that out, plus anything else you need to know about the liturgical calendar. I wish you good luck this week and maybe see you on Saturday evening, at 21:00 London time.