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Fuck off, Matey

At the heart of this effort is a commitment to partnership. The process we envision is one of engagement, bringing together states, institutions, scholars and communities to explore constructive and forward-looking approaches to reparatory justice. These may include investments in education, health, cultural restoration and economic opportunity, designed to close enduring gaps and build shared prosperity.

Gimmie Money.

It’s time for the UN to formally recognise the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity

Fuck off.

Grifters gonna grift

‘Ithink I’ve had at least seven books that have been banned in the United States,” says Ibram X Kendi, in a tone that carries no bitterness but stops just short of pride. It’s proof, he says, that his works on racism, which extend from deep, scholarly histories to a biography of Malcolm X for children, are getting through to the right people – and annoying the right people.

The US does not ban books. Therefore this is not true.

According to the writers’ advocacy group PEN America, his books have been banned at least 50 times by multiple US school districts during the tumultuous “anti-woke” backlash of the past five years.

Some school districts have declined to purchase his books. This is not a ban.

This before we get to the loon inside the books:

By extension, he argued that all racial disparities in outcome for Black people were the result of racist policies – not just some, all.

Insane. There’s a difference in the incidence of sickle cell for genetic reasons. This is not a result of racist policies. QED.

Discussing his latest book, Chain of Ideas, 43-year-old Kendi presents another uncompromising binary. “We, as human beings, have two choices in the 21st century: antiracist democracy or racist dictatorship,” he tells me over a video call from his book-lined study at Howard University in Washington DC.

Piffle but grifters gonna grift. Even if that’s from Howard now, not Boston.

“There is almost certainly a likelihood that in 20 years, the better part of Europe, and frankly the world, could be led by racist dictatorships,” he continues. “We’ve gone from monarchy to democracy to dictatorship. We’re literally going backwards. Why? Because we fear people we don’t know.”

Dr. Heinz Kiosk was a satire of course, not a career guide.

He’s also an idiot because of course he is:

But the primary route to enabling antiracist democracy to flourish, he says, is simply improving conditions for people. “Because it is those conditions, and it is people’s own struggles, that are being capitalised on to blame those immigrants, Muslims, Black people, for why those conditions exist. By giving people more, it makes it harder for you to say: ‘You don’t have because others are taking.’” The great replacement theory is a smokescreen for the real causes of poverty and deprivation: neoliberal capitalism and the huge inequalities it has created.

Neoliberal capitalism is the way to have more to spread around, of course.

They do, do they?

Campaign groups rail against Palantir, but the UK contracts keep coming

I’ve never quite grasped why this hated of Palantir. I think it’s the necessity for some of finding a bugbear, an omnicause that all can be blamed upon. Depending upon time and place that can be the capitalists, The Joos, Palantir etc. Can’t really think of any other reason here…..

Don’t forget the Nazis!

War is becoming an economic process, not a military one. Supply chains, resources, and economic resilience now determine who survives.

Both Japan and Germany lost the moment the US retooled Detroit to make tanks and ‘planes.

This has also always been true. A battle can be won with military tactics, sure, but a war is and always ha been an economic process.

This is easy

Perhaps most revolutionary is Abson’s claim that, soon, he could teach anyone to make their own fuel cell within two weeks, something that could completely democratise the energy industry. Little wonder, he contends, the sector views him as a threat. “It leaves the establishment out of the picture,” says Abson, who studied philosophy and Taoist Chinese poetry at university. “The Government doesn’t like it. How do you tax it?”

It’s teaching someone how to make a fuel cell efficient enough to be useful that is difficult.

The question, of course, is if this technology is so marvellous, why is it not being widely used already? One of the biggest problems, says Abson, is getting through to the right people. The “dolts” who pass information on to the decision-makers, he claims, are either corrupt, stupid or afraid. “There is a Chinese wall between the Civil Service and the ministers. The Civil Service doesn’t want to change policy. They know what they know, and they act as a block to any information getting through.”

Lots and lots of work has been done on fuel cells. I can think of at least two, large, listed companies based upon them. I’m less than certain I would believe all of these stories that is….

It’s possible that too much is being made of this

As I discovered while researching my new book, Fashioning the Crown: A Story of Power, Conflict and Couture, Edward’s relationship with clothing was as complex and intense as his passion for Wallis. Indeed, their shared obsession with style would become a lifelong expression of their peculiarities and peccadillos, as well as providing clues to their notorious pro-Nazi proclivities.

I mean, sure, fashion, but clothing is clothing after all. Still, book to sell etc.

Seems reasonable

A transgender volunteer Metropolitan Police officer who attacked a 12-year-old girl will be sent to a male prison for 24 years.
James Bubb, who now identifies as a woman under the name Gwyn Samuels, was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting the girl after a trial last summer.

In England, at least, rape is a crime that can only be committed with a penis. Someone with a penis ghoes to a male jail. Seems fair, no?

What damned experts?

‘A toad is a perfect tenner’: experts recommend wild candidates for new banknotes

We have experts in what should be on banknotes now?

Tony Juniper…Chris Packham….Lucy Lapwing….Isabella Tree….Hannah Bourne-Taylor….

The Guardian’s continued linguistic degradation. “Expert” now means “Nutter we like”.

Anyway, the Wren:

Image

For the £50 note, as that’s what it’s worth after 80 years of fiat money and MMT.

Stunning analysis, isn’t it?

There are many such ideas, and almost all of them challenge the neoliberal framework that has got us into this mess, and which cannot get us out of it. As Keynes argued in 1941, you cannot rely on markets in wartime. Nor can we do so now. Questions around rationing, regulation, price controls, capital controls, taxation, changing consumption patterns and many supply arrangements, as well as new forms of international cooperation, should now be on our agenda.

Someone else is at war therefore I get to shape the economy as I’ve always wanted to.

It’s Friday, so I get to shape the economy as I’ve always wanted to…..

Well, yes, but….

If it sounds like his economic policy has been derived from hours of scrolling on his phone in a well-crafted echo chamber where nobody dissents, it’s because it has been.

It sorta depends upon whose missives Zack has been reading on his phone. And that it’s Spud, Grace and Gazza is the problem…..

Wait for it, wait for it…..

The record-breaking heatwave scorching the US west this week would have been “virtually impossible” if not for the climate crisis, a team of scientists has determined.

Millions of Americans from the Pacific coast to the Rockies baked under unseasonably warm and even dangerous temperatures this week, with temperatures up to 30F (17C) above average for the time of year.

The climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, has made this kind of heatwave four times more likely to occur over the last decade, according to a new rapid analysis released Friday.

“These temperatures are completely off the scale for March,” said analysis co-author Ben Clarke, who is an extreme weather and climate change researcher at Imperial College London, in a statement.

We’re All Gonna Die!

In a world without global warming, the current heatwave would have also been milder, with temperatures about 1.4F (0.8C) cooler, says the analysis by World Weather Attribution, an international consortium of climate researchers.

Oh. So the Big Scary Monster makes a difference of under a degree? A warm March could/would have happened anyway, we’re arguing about that last 0.8 oC? Umm, yeah, well, OK……and?

Advising elsewhere

Veronique de Rugy:

The United States has a rare earth problem, but it is not the problem Washington is trying to solve (see this and this). The debate in Congress has centered on supply and on the fact that China dominates the processing of rare earth elements and that this dominance creates a vulnerability. The proposed solution, Project Vault, is a $10 billion government stockpile financed through the U.S. Export-Import Bank. This is not a military stockpile. It is a civilian stockpile. And it is the wrong answer to the wrong question.

Bit of a surprise, must say

So, last few days, bit of family biz to take care of. In which I find out that my nephew in law now does pretty much the same job I used to do for Nigel. But for a rather different political party:

Volt aligns its political positions across Europe, presenting a common, pan-European manifesto. In the 2019 European Parliament elections, Volt ran in eight member states with a shared platform, emphasising solutions to supranational challenges, such as climate change, defense, energy policy, migration, economic inequality, terrorism, welfare, and the technological evolution of the labor market. The party advocates for a stronger, more integrated European Union, with the long-term goal of creating a federal Europe.[9] Additionally, Volt endorses the formation of a European army, joint European debt and taxes, nuclear energy including the construction of new nuclear power plants,[10][11] and stronger economic solidarity between the EU member states.

Given the difference in views between us – no, not discussed at a family gathering – it’s even possible that the clan as a whole is now neutral on this specific subject. Which, given how far out on one wing I am would be something of an achievement.

My word, eh?

The HR Executive caught on a kiss camera at a Coldplay concert with her boss has claimed that he lied to her about his relationship status.

Kirsten Cabot, 53, a former HR manager at the tech company Astronomer, was filmed in a romantic embrace at the concert in July with Andy Byron, who was CEO of the company.

She was getting divorced, he said he was but wasn’t.

Shocker, eh?

‘Xactly so

In the Pension Schemes Bill is a clause which gives Mr Bell, the pensions minister, the power to dictate where our pensions are invested. His objective is to drive more investment capital into the UK economy.

They’re going to steal your money.

And the actual answer is:

For starters: cutting regulation, reducing corporation and jobs taxes, scrapping pointless carbon levies, reducing energy costs and raising tax revenues by opening up the North Sea, making it more attractive for companies to list on the UK stock exchange. Do all these things and you won’t need to pass authoritarian laws to invest in the UK, because companies and pension schemes will happily do it of their own free will.

Quite. As with all of Spud’s schemes. The conecntration is always upon the wrong thing. Whose money? When it should be on the incentive to invest, the carrot not the stick. Devise attractive investments and the money will flow in anyway.

And then there’s the second order effect. Which is that if you force investment upon bad terms – what is called financial repression – then you will change the amount saved and therefore invested. This can go either way too. China’s 45% of GDP savings rate is because Chinese households have to save ginormous amounts for their old age yet earnings on savings are often negative. Or, if we remain a less oppressive society than that then people might well in fact save less, thus invest less. Or abroad, or…..

You know this gas sets the electricity price thing?

Even though gas accounts for about a quarter of electricity in Britain, it sets the electricity price most of the time. This means that cheaper renewables, nuclear and hydro power are given inflated prices — set at that of the higher gas price.

I have a feeling that’s not actually true. Or, rather, the second part isn’t, not very often.

The renewables guys are all on CfDs, no?

The scheme offers a fixed “Strike Price” to generators over a typically 15 year long contract period. This provides financial certainty, unlike the wholesale electricity market which can fluctuate significantly. With the contract for difference, if the market price for electricity drops below the Strike Price, LCCC pays the generator the shortfall, however if the market price rises, the generator must pay back the difference. The costs, or benefits, of the scheme are passed onto consumers via their electricity bills.

The renewables guys are getting the same price whatever. WEell, except for those not covered by a CfD which I would imagine is a very small subset. Who pays them changes, yes, but not the amount. So, where are those excess profits from a surging gas price?

If anyone really does understand this system then get in touch. A little reportette might not be a bad idea if I’m right here. Of course, wholly possible I’m wrong and knowing that would be nice too.

Blinder of a quote here

One proponent of this idea is Prof Michael Grubb at University College London. In a March 2026 post on LinkedIn he says:

“The impact of surging gas prices on electricity will again highlight the oddities of our current electricity market – which make sense to many economists, but to hardly anyone else.”

Call me picky but isn’t it a good idea that an idea is regarded as sensible by the specialists in the field? That an intricate bit of economics makes sense to economists? Like, say, we might think that gearbox experts tell us whether a gearbox is built the right way?

Seems a sensible complaint

Who in Hillary Clinton’s team thought it would be a good idea to capitalise on the Jeffrey Epstein case?
Arwa Mahdawi

The you read on to what it is that’s being talked about. Sure, sure, Bill palled around etc, it’s not a good look. But the actual complaint is that Hills, at a hearing about Epstein, said something which has gone a little viral and her campaign are selling t-shirts with the phrase upon it.

You know, not, really, capitalising upon Epstein at all. ““If you guys are doing that, I am done,” she said. “You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home.” She has since slapped that line on cow-themed hats and shirts.”

One of those complaints that tell us much more about the complainant than anyone else.

You know, wimmins journo desperate for a story to use sort of telling us about someone.

Blimey

YouTube is changing how it treats educational content. The algorithm is now prioritising novelty over repetition — and that matters, because repetition is how people learn.
…
This is a major issue for us, with significant consequences for how we promote the ideas that matter to the Funding the Future team. We have realised we have to change how we produce video or face the prospect of reaching few people.

I’m going to have to stop saying the same old thing?