Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: off-topic ranting
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The recent outbreak of measles in America, and its relationship with the anti-vaccination movement, has led to a lot of online debate. Much of this debate is about how these “anti-science” parents and the movement they listen to is increasing the risk of disease for everyone. While the increase in risk is undoubtedly a real…
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In preparation for a post on the political origins of anti-vaccination ideology, I want to make a point about the way that the ordinary public interact with scientists. My last post on anti-vax and Republicans has been linked to by a climate change blog, and on that blog one of the commenters is making big…
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This Sunday Greece is holding a general election in a very tense and fraught environment. It looks likely that the “radical” left wing group Syriza will win, with the threat that they will default on Greece’s debts and possibly lead it out of the Euro, back to the Drachma. Meanwhile Golden Dawn remain a real…
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Everyone knows that Obama’s Democrats just got their arses kicked in the mid-terms. The dominant political narrative is that it was a disaster, right? Those stupid Dems, acting on political principle and bringing in a second rate universal healthcare system by running roughshod over the bipartisan Republicans to overrule democracy, no wonder they lost the…
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Or, perhaps to phrase the question a different way, is the era of the small political party over in modern democratic Anglosphere politics? The question occurred to me today as I read the latest reports of the implosion of Australia’s Palmer United Party, which has been in the Senate now for perhaps four months and…
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On the same day as it publishes a review of a “deeply silly and ruinously pricey” steak-and-lobster restaurant, that serves beef at $100/kg (minimum order 600g; “At that price they should lead the damn animal into the restaurant and install it under the table so it can pleasure me while I eat”), the Guardian also…
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Will Self has declared war on George Orwell, anointing him the “Supreme Mediocrity” in a mediocre essay distinguished only by its needless use of the word “lucubrations.” For those of you Americans out there who know of Orwell but have never heard of Will Self (I wonder how that came about?), Self is a novelist…
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Be careful going outside in London, there’s foreigners everywhere There are millions of undocumented asylum seekers in this country Maybe you didn’t feel welcome in London because they don’t want more foreigners there? Once David Cameron’s elected, them blacks’ll get what’s comin’ to ‘em Your new girlfriend’s not aboriginal is she? You’re not English, you’re…
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I have previously written about the difficulty of accurately understanding the issue of sex trafficking, and attempted to point out the conflicted political goals and deceptive tactics of some of the key activists and organizations in the movement against sex trafficking. I wrote these posts in connection with my argument that radical feminist critiques of…
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Today’s New England Journal of Medicine has a perspective piece arguing that an HIV vaccine remains an essential medical research goal. This might seem a strange question to even be considering, but in the era of test-and-treat strategies it is possible that HIV can be eliminated without resort to a vaccine. It’s a little early…
Compromise and Conceit 