Title: A Swift Blow to the Head: Alex Goodall's Blog

Well, that's another fine mess you've got me into...

Published on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:59:00

What a shambles. The Brown government employs a scientific advisory council to provide them with supposedly objective information on the dangers of various illegal drugs, then refuses to listen to their advice. When the head of the council, David Nutt, points out that the government is ignoring their advice, they sack him. Other scientists resign in protest. The government’s attempt to present Nutt’s sacking as an issue of authority rather than scientific probity falls flat. As much as I read more..

University literacy standards

Published on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:36:00

Courtesy of HNN, I read this article by William O’Neill, which reports that the percentage of American graduates proficient in prose literacy has fallen by around 25%. “Apart from the oldest graduates having died the addition of ten, or at most eleven, graduating classes to the pool of college graduates, meant that the members of these classes had to have scored very badly indeed to drag down the averages of the entire population by so much,” O’Neill reports. “Further, the graduates te read more..

Sitting atop politics

Published on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:31:00

This morning began with another indictment of Obama on the breakfast table: condemned for compromising too much, for looking too hard for Republican support, for failing to understand the true nature of modern Republicanism. This time it came from David Bromwich, a professor of literature and political thought at Yale, in the London Review of Books. Obama is naive and afraid, Bromwich says: “His reason for waiting doubtless has something to do with fear. Obama receives four times as many deat read more..

Problems viewing?

Published on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:39:00

One of my readers has been reporting continuing problems viewing this site, loading and adding comments. For the life of me, I've no idea why. Can I ask, is this a more general problem people are experiencing? If so could you let me know - especially if you have any idea of how I might solve the problem. I wouldn't want to make my ramblings any more inaccessible than they already are... read more..

Peaceniks and warniks

Published on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:06:00

I was planning on avoiding comment on the whole Obama/Nobel thing, until this morning’s op-ed from Ross Douthat in the New York Times landed in my inbox, arguing that the president should have refused the prize. Not content to point out some of the damaging political consequences of Obama's acceptance, Douthat argued that his acceptance was a “travesty”. Let’s be clear about this: the Nobel Prize has attained a certain universal status because of the broad aspirations it stands for a read more..

Health care, the story so far

Published on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:40:00

Great summary of this summer's health care from Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books... "It's apparent that Obama is still learning the differences between campaigning and governing. And sometimes his inexperience shows. His speeches on health care on Labor Day and before Congress a few days later drew on his old rhetorical skills and finally showed some passion, and the one before Congress was his most effective so far in combining both rhetoric and explanation. But it was of inter read more..

Evgeny Morozov: How the Net aids dictatorships

Published on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:00:00

read more..

Speechless

Published on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:17:00

h/t: Below the Beltway read more..

Victor Hugo and some cotton buds

Published on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:10:00

Kate Muir of The Times (h/t: normblog) writes about the Chavez book programme, whereby Chavistas are distributing literature to encourage broader reading among the masses of Venezuelans who, until recently, were functionally illiterate. Influenced by El Presidente's own shelves, Victor Hugo, Eduardo Galeano and Simon Bolivar are, unsurprisingly, pretty high up on the list, along with a pile of anticapitalist stuff ranging from intriguing to turgid to soul-sapping. Friedman and Hayek, surprisingl read more..

What is Obama's direction in foreign policy?

Published on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:56:00

Perhaps it's unfair to say so, but Obama has to date come across as sharing some of his liberal predecessors’ problems when it comes to foreign policy, much of it relating to that old “vision thing”. The simple fact is that a blinkered, ideological and stupid foreign policy is easy to sell to the public, whereas complexity is, well, complex. Few people had much doubt about what the Bush administration wanted to do after 9/11, even if they hated it. By contrast, Obama is trying to juggle a read more..

Racism and logic

Published on Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:32:00

Ok, a quickie here as I had my racism argument quotient filled up with Henry Louis Gates earlier in the year. For the record, my view is that Republicans are perfectly able to get angry about Obama without it always being about race. Sometimes and for some people I imagine it is, sometimes it isn't. Life is complicated. The stuff about Obama's religion and birthplace seemed to offer fairly badly sublimated racial undertones. But we should remember that Republicans in the 1930s were quite happy t read more..

The Onion: New Live Poll Allows Pundits to Pander to Viewers in Real Time

Published on Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:39:00

New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time read more..

Old right and new right

Published on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:52:00

I've just read NYRB editor Sam Tanenhaus' new book, The Death of Conservatism. In many ways it's not very good; it's one of those tiny little overpriced hardbacks that (I assume) are fantastic moneyspinners for the author and publisher on a price to word ratio, written by individuals already able to trade on their name and reputation, but generally rushed together. The argument at times feels a little skewiffy, and the individual chapters still seem like the separate articles they were cobbled t read more..

Fussin' and fightin'. If the press has its way, that is...

Published on Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:34:00

The press loves nothing as much as a fight. And they care nothing about the consequences. Which has made me a little bit annoyed this morning. Exhibit One, from the right. Alex Massie of The Telegraph, writing in The Daily Beast, calls Americans a bunch of wimps for reacting against Joe Wilson. The US needs to take a leaf out of the British book and start heckling each other, he argues. Except, of course, that it is expressly forbidden in the UK to accuse someone of being a liar in Parliament read more..

We never need think again!

Published on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:40:00

More amazement from TED.com: read more..

Playing around with the budget

Published on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:14:00

Amid all the jeremiads about death panels, funding for abortion, and health care for illegal immigrants, there is in my view one criticism of the Obama health insurance reform program coming from the right that is really worth listening to, and that is the question of financial impact. Even if you accept that the mess the United States is in is due primarily to the astonishing financial irresponsibility of Obama’s predecessor, this does not necessarily invalidate the issue. Nevertheless, wh read more..

Partisan bipartisanship

Published on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:01:00

I haven’t had a chance to read the press yet, they’re typically wrong about these things anyway, and it’ll be a while before we’re able to see with any clarity whether it has any meaningful impact on the course of the debate over health care. Things were never as off-kilter as the media presented them during the past month; the bubble of boredom misshaped a lot of the debate and made Obama’s position on the capitol seem more dangerous than it was. And nor was it accurate to say, as the read more..

Barack Obama wants to eat your children

Published on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:53:00

How many letters in the surname of the student Obama selected to introduce him, Tim Spicer? Six. How many words in the name of the place he was talking from, "Wakefield High School In Arlington Virginia." Six. How many letters in the word "school"? SIX!! That’s right, I’m here to announce I’ve uncovered the secret message hidden within Barack Obama’s speech to school children yesterday. Underlying all the apparently smooth sounding words about personal responsibility and your duty to read more..

Banking is too important to be left to bankers alone

Published on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:46:00

I was travelling on the Docklands Light Railway last night. For those unfamiliar with the city, this passes through Canary Wharf, London’s central business district. I picked up a free paper lying on one of the seats, which turned out to be not the tabloid celebrity rags that normally pass for free papers (though don’t get me started on the havoc these wretched things cause, not to mention the distributors who cause pedestrian jams blocking the streets until you take one off their hands). read more..

Silly season over?

Published on Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:33:00

Al Franken - that's right, author of a book called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and, according to his pals at Fox a radical left wing firebrand - shows how to have a reasoned debate on health care reform (h/t Oliver Willis): Isn't it nice when people aren't shouting at each other all the time? read more..

Comparing the private and public sector on health

Published on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:54:00

Ok, I’m sure no-one needs to have the absurdities of the anti-reform rhetoric to be pointed out any more times. (At least, no-one likely to be reading this.) How can a government programme be both so ruthlessly efficient that it will drive insurers into bankruptcy and yet at the same time utterly bloated and inefficient because the government can’t run anything properly? Instead, let’s ask the question: how does health care coverage in the private and public sector really compare when w read more..

The Onion: study finds young people remain apathetic about office politics

Published on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:55:00

Something for a Friday: Study Finds Young People Remain Apathetic About Office Politics read more..

RIP

Published on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:11:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy read more..

Alex has too much time on his hands and gets carried away with charts

Published on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:36:00

Ok, so, the conclusion from the last post was that we should be very worried about what the deficit and debt are going to do to the Obama reform agenda. Health care, the environment, job creation, investment in education will all be affected by the need to control the terrible situation the US has got itself into.That said, the one thing that the debt should not do is convince Americans to support the Republican party, which is why I find the budget-terror rhetoric coming from the town hall Repu read more..

Some mid-season review budget facts; or, perhaps you don’t yet realize how much you’re in the stink

Published on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:40:00

The OMB has just issued its mid-season report on the budget, based on more gloomy predictions about unemployment and growth. Here’s some highlights. The national debt is expected to grow by $11 trillion over the next decade. This means that the national debt accrued between 2008 and 2019 is expected to be greater than the entire national debt acquired between 1776 and 2008 The OMB expects the deficit in 2019 to still be twice what it was in 2008 Interest payments on debts over the nex read more..