Sometimes there are simply no words: The media are reporting on an incident involving a Muslim woman, presumably a mother, carrying a small child in one arm - and a bomb in the other - which she detonated. Beyond belief!
Can't wait to read this one: Via the good - nay, excellent! - offices of Arts & Letters Daily, I have come across an article by Arnold Kling (no, me neither) at the National Affairs site. The heading reads: How Effective Is Economic Theory? Good question, can't wait to read the answer!
Oh God! Another week of plink-plonk: Yes, it's the Wimbledon season again and, my God, tennis is a total bore! And it's so slow! There has been talk of speeding things up a bit by, for example, only letting them bounce the ball twice instead of 23 times, making it a one shot serve not two, or doing away with net calls. I would insist that they go back to "the good old days" and do away with all those chairs and umbrellas these 'athletes' laze about on between games. Either let them stand for a minute or better still just make them change ends and get on with it! Oh, and topless tennis for the ladies - natch!
Nor am I that keen on all those 'rugger-buggers': Alas, even after 78 years I still haven't got the hang of rugby. I became mildly interested in the All Blacks vs. the Lions but, alas, I couldn't watch it because my ex-best friend, 'Rupe', had snaffled it onto his eye-wateringly expensive TV channel. Thus, I had to listen to the radio commentary provided by TalkSport but it might just as well have been in Mandarin because I couldn't understand a word of what they were describing. Just one bunch of testosteronic hearties bashing into another bunch - such fun!
Should she go or should she stay? That is the question facing Mrs. May and her Conservative party. Instinctively, one feels that after such a monumental balls up, she should go and go quickly. However, that would free up the Tory party to indulge in extremes of stupidity as they all fight like cats in a sack to produce a new leader. That, of course, would play right into the hands of 'Jezza' and his Comintern - please note that I have not placed inverted commas round the word Comintern because that is exactly what the leadership of the 'Labour' party has become!
A proper pukka gent of the first order: I give you, Major Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah of the Household Cavalry who has just been appointed as an equerry to 'Her Maj'!
According to The Telegraph, he moved here from Ghana with his family in 1982 and attended Queen Mary University and then the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Even if only armed with a furled umbrella, I think I would rather have him on my side than in opposition. Well done, Major!
AN ABSOLUTE DEFINITE MUST WATCH TONIGHT: This is another of the 48-odd films which are in my Top Ten! It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and if that makes you think it's another light as a feather comedy not worth ten minutes of your time - then think again! It's called 'Gravity' and it is absolutely terrific. It's on ITV2 at 7.00pm. Set your recorders - that's an order!
A Shropshire lad? Well, maybe! Good old 'Arts & Letters Daily' does it again! This time they have nudged me into memories of A. E. Housman and his curious collection of poems known as "A Shropshire Lad". I still remember my instant attraction to them as a young schoolboy so I was delighted to follow their link to an excellent article in The New Yorker which attempts to get to grips with this strange, prickly scholar whose poems have become synonymous with 'Englishness' even if he hardly ever set foot in Shropshire! Well worth a read - and then give the poems a try as well!
No more rumbles today
Beyond belief!
Unfortunately not Duffers. Anything these barbarians do is believable.
To quote Golda Meir, "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.
Posted by: AussieD | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 11:16
Beyond belief? Clearly the answer is to invite more Muslims into the West. Then all will be easily believed. The people who refused to believe will become strangely silent.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 11:55
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
US (Canadian-born) administrator & economist (1908 - 2006)
Posted by: Wigner's Friend | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 16:22
Once again, beware the ignoring of nuance.
Microeconomics can be "effective".
Macroeconomics is hard.
Broad-brush "analysis" of complex issues produces "bumper sticker" nonsense.
Posted by: TheBigHenry | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 16:43
Maybe the Conservatives should stick with PM May, furl the sails and put the oars in the water. All ahead to a slow beat.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 17:38
Gotta ask. Who does the Comintern report to? Surely not Putin's kleptocracy which now supports right wing parties or China's thoroughly capitalistic political oligarchy. Neither seems much interested in people power or social services do they? Don't you need to have a communist power to pull the strings of a communist international? Cuba maybe? You may be dating yourself. Had you considered calling them something more modern like rapscallions or perhaps poltroons?
Posted by: Peter G | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 18:01
Wasn't that a fascinating piece WF? Of course to understand the subject and the limitations inherent in either mathematical modeling or statistical analysis you would have to understand quite a lot of abstruse mathematics. There is something deliciously ironic about an economist declaring his field unscientific especially given the author's self declared heterodox views. To give him credit he does seem to recognize that those "left leaning" economists had much the better analysis of what happened in 2008. Self regulating free markets my ass. Self interest was supposed to restrain stupidity but it did not. Every single player in the housing market acted in their own self esteem interest to their mutual destruction.
He doesn't believe that economic stimulus or government regulation had an effect on the recovery. Which makes him more than a little heterodox. It puts him figuratively on an island somewhere in the South Pacific with Amelia Earhart.
Posted by: Peter G | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 18:41
You probably saw this in yesterday's Telegraph (the only day I buy it), in the magazine, Ruby Wax bumped into her ex-husband. "He says he has been working for a women's television network in America, making terrible shows like Manicurist by Day, Trucker by Night. I ask how long he has worked for the network. "Ninety-seven menstrual cycles," he says."
Posted by: mike fowle | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 18:57
Postmortem analysis has practically zero predictive value in macroeconomics.
Posted by: TheBigHenry | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 19:26
@Mr G. As Gilbraith died in 2006, I am sure he was not commenting on the crash of 08.
Posted by: Wigner's Friend | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 20:27
Mrs May should stay. For now. Pick a leader in haste, repent at leisure.
That's how it worked out picking Mrs. May.
Posted by: Pat | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 20:47
By all means Ms. May should stay until she finishes the Trumpian task of destroying her party. Unfortunately, YouGov doesn't allow hot linking charts. Scroll down and udači (good luck), comrades!
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/15/theresa-may-now-almost-unpopular-pre-campaign-corb/
If she really applies herself, perhaps she'll even be able to mimic Trump as international pariah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMZ2bkyhLR0
Posted by: Bob | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 21:13
Tennis is the only sport and I am actually up all night watching Wimbledon this week. Love it!
Posted by: Andra | Sunday, 09 July 2017 at 21:59
That's an interesting article about Housman. There's a recording of Robert Donat reading On Wenlock Edge which is almost unbearably moving. Housman was a distinguished classical scholar as the article says and he wrote a parody of Greek tragedy called Head of a Traveller, which literally translates the sort of verse forms and expressions found in Greek tragedy. It's very funny and it gave Nicholas Blake (C Day Lewis) the title of a detective story.
Posted by: mike fowle | Monday, 10 July 2017 at 09:59