No Refunds, Credit Note Only

For buoyancy. 🙂

The money *will* go to evil causes, won’t it?

Love monetized.

Thanks to all who’ve chipped in so far. It makes a big difference to how much time I can spend posting and gassing with you lot.
In other news, former Trotskyite and current Channel 4 News economics editor Paul Mason tries to define “neoliberalism,” his catch-all word for things he doesn’t like. He then gets quite peeved when people point out his error. Those beastly “right-wingers” who prefer things to make sense. And Tim Worstall sends a probe into Mr Mason’s alternate reality.

hours of fun to be had just trawling with a large glass of red for company
I wholeheartedly endorse the drunken perusal of the archives. It’s the only way, really.
was it in the same vein as your blog, or entirely unrelated?
Much the same, just tidied up and expanded slightly. But there’s very little money in writing books, of that kind at least, and quite a bit of risk if one of the things you do throughout said book is point out, repeatedly and with specifics, that some statusful commentators and academics have been known to lie.

Tim Worstall sends a probe into Mr Mason’s alternate reality.
That’s some powerful woo.

That’s some powerful woo.
It does make me wonder how exactly he got a job as economics editor, first at the BBC and then at Channel 4. This is a man who champions the “occupation” and vandalism of other people’s property, who says he wants to “overthrow capitalism,” and whose ideal city would have “self-policing and non-chaotic” slums, and be enlivened by riots and “political unrest.”
A couple of years ago, Mr Mason wanted us to believe that the Occupy fad-cum-wanker’s-gap-year was part of a “new global revolution,” a “wave of revolt… sweeping the planet.” He also described the 2011 London rioters – mostly career criminals with records as long as your arm – as indulging in some “political trailblazing.” In his mind, the looting, arson and beatings of the elderly were a “massive political demonstration against the capitalist state.” The “so-called ‘rioters’” – his words – weren’t just predators, thieves and opportunist thugs; they too were part of this “global revolution,” giving it to The Man.
His kind of people.

Bought a bunch of college engineering texts for my son via the US Amazon link. I hope you get your cut.

Have a bottle on me.

Keep up the good work.
Tip jar hit.

Because you’re worth it.
[ Runs fingers through hair, does selfie face. ]

Have you considered turning yourself into a charitable foundation?
No, just a giant robot that shoots lava from its eyes.

Er… can’t see the Amazon widget thing.
If you’re using an ad blocker in your browser it may hide the Amazon widget. If you click on the ad blocker button, there should be a setting to disable it for specific pages and domains. Then refresh the page and the widget should appear.

From McClatchyDC, my nomination for sentence of the week re: Hillary Clinton
“The expanding inquiry threatens to further erode Clinton’s standing as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.”
ANYONE else would be awaiting trial on multiple felonies, sans bail as a flight risk.

If you look closely at the screengrab from this episode (where Maggie is sent to a nursery for neoliberals
Fails at the first sentence. The man’s a joke.

Fails at the first sentence. The man’s a joke.
Yes, it’s laughably confused, a logical train wreck. He can’t even get his pop-cultural references right. But again, this is a man who conflates the events of Tiananmen Square with a few bandana-wearing wankers acting out their power fantasies, and whose acts of spite and vandalism he breathlessly describes as “a new political consciousness… global revolt.”
That’s who he is, a Marxoid fantasist. He’s the embarrassing dad of leftist politics, a man desperate to relive his teenage years in the student union bar. The political equivalent of Les from Crème Brûlée.

It’s amazing how quickly this site has become part of my daily reading. I can’t even remember how I discovered this blog, I’m just thankful that I did. My PayPal account is currently broken, but when I’ve had the problem, you can have a double Talisker on me.

Mr Mason wanted us to believe that the Occupy fad-cum-wanker’s-gap-year was part of a “new global revolution,” a “wave of revolt… sweeping the planet.”
Hehe. Button pushed.

Hehe.
But it’s dismal stuff. He bundles together wildly disparate social and economic phenomena in an ahistorical haphazard mess, blames all of it on “neoliberalism” (his definition of which remains nebulous and ever-shifting, such that it includes massive, unsustainable state spending), and then says “we” need to “delink work from wages” and embrace “co-ops” and “sharing.” The particulars of his fluffy “post-capitalist” utopia – in which “work becomes voluntary” and “services are free” – are laughably vague, almost entirely unexplained. It isn’t so much an argument as a pile of fashionable sounds.

Oh, Dear . . . Noting recent cultural topics, the attempt at Fantastic Four has some company . . .
Not so good ‘U.N.C.L.E’ is Ritchie’s ‘Citizen Kane’
Then there’s the camera work, which is strenuous without being vigorous or inspired, . . . this is a Guy Ritchie movie, . . . There are two torture sequences in the film, involving electrodes and an individual strapped to a chair and screaming. Yet it never once seems like a metaphor for what the audience is going through. For Ritchie, that’s progress.
Oops.

“Did they get lost, or were they led astray?”
Fell in with the wrong crowd, most likely. I’s an old story.

Reprieve!
They sent us to Mission Impossible instead, having read the reviews for Fantastic Four.
Which, M:I was good only if you like opera and Casablanca. The city, not the movie.

Reprieve! They sent us to Mission Impossible instead, having read the reviews for Fantastic Four.
Perhaps someone will make a film about someone who’s obliged to sit through Fantastic Four and escapes at the very last minute.

@ Patrick Brown
I like what you say about Peter Bottomley’s amendments, that’s a really good way of putting it.
Re Arsenal edm: Have to disagree but definitely one of Corbyn’s more palatable opinions.

*Tosses coins at old hat on floor*
Why, thankee kindly, sir. Do help yourself to some performance art.

I wonder what happened to bring him to this?
Solvent abuse? The terrible crushing pressures of life under capitalism? Relentless probing by alien abductors?
We could be here all day.

“neoliberalism” (his definition of which remains nebulous and ever-shifting, such that it includes massive, unsustainable state spending)
Mason lives in the same fantasy world as Owen Jones.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/06/18/the-dominance-of-the-neo-liberalism-myth/

Mason lives in the same fantasy world as Owen Jones.
Well, if you start with a laughably counterfactual premise, much of what follows will be laughable too.

I have often wondered how people first found themselves here. Did they get lost, or were they led astray?
I suspect I got here via proteinwisdom.com as well.
Nice to see that Ace picks you up from time to time, as does Insty.

I suspect I got here via proteinwisdom.com as well.
See, now I’m trying to remember how I first found Protein Wisdom. Eight years feels like forever.

I came here for the waters.
It’s after eight. The ephemera’s compiled. I’m upgrading to a glass of red.

Great blog, David. Consider yourself tipped.

I appreciate the time you spend in the comments.
Well, for me, it’s sort of the point of this place. My posts aren’t The Final Word™ on whatever the subject is, quite the opposite. The posts are intended to spur discussion. That way, I get something out of it.
And thanks again to all who’ve chipped in or subscribed or done shopping via the Amazon widget. It’s what keeps this place here.

*Drops cash in bucket*
Keep up the sterling work, Mr Thompson.

Off-topic, but I have a feeling the readers of this blog will be appreciative of this scathing essay about the “trigger warning”/”microaggression” nonsense that is infantilising American academia and is now making inroads on this side of the pond too:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/#disqus_thread

Tip jar hit.
As to the question how I got here, led astray. Definitely led astray.
Nel mezzo del cammin’ di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita.

Tipped.