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Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Waitrose's merlot is Duchy of Cornwall.(reserve). I just checked.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
There is a new (maybe old) paradigm developing....

In the olden days after a careful study of the results coming in last night from Euro lands.... your commentator would weigh up whether left or right had won, and predict what relevance this had for the UK.


Those commentators do seem to be sticklers for predictions based on "the way it's always been done". Which explains why they are always so astonished when anything new happens.

Plus, there's the one-dimensional world they live in (of Left v Right). It's not even a Flat Earth perspective, as that would have two dimensions.

What dimensions can we donate to them to ease their pain?

For starters, I'd suggest Libertarian -v- Authoritarian. At right-angles to the Left v Right. Look at how much more interesting the political landscape becomes.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Problems, problems in Euroland.

The idea is for a fortress, with free movement inside. Everyone agrees fortress and free movement.

But who to let into the fortress? We have obligations to those fleeing foreign lands, we must open the gate, just a little. Where do these foreign folks go? The answer is obvious: they have "free movement", they can go where they please. So your foreign folks are choosing to go to affluent areas like Bavaria. Fine, except.... the Bavarians don't appear to like this, they are pretty fed up, they think that your foreign folks should make their claim for asylum in the area of the fortress that they arrived, the Fortress Gateway. Now when foreign folks arrive in poor areas the "mutterings" of locals is rejected as "uneducated", or worse "racism".......But when it's Bavaria, the site of the fortress keep, these mutterings must be taken seriously.

Free movement can complement a fortress, provided you are not letting too many folks in. Let in too many and you have to restrict free movement as folks will all head off to areas of affluence. These richer folks will then use their power and influence to restrict free movement.

In short Merkel's coalition is falling apart, the CSU are pulling out, without the CSU the CDU must either come up with a new leftier, greener coalition or dump their queen.

The Queen is dead.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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This problem caused Brexit and may lead to a wider break-up of the EU (or the evolvement of a different EU). The liberocracy always has a general methodology which is as follows
1. Identify the problem (people in rich countries won't do rubbish but necessary jobs)
2. Come up with the obvious solution (allow controlled migration from poor countries)
3. Work out how this is best achieved in current circumstances (migration from poor parts of the EU to richer ones)
4. Deal with the social consequences ("Be nice to the Poles, everyone, they're a lot like you.")

So far, so good. The liberocracy are excellent administrators. Then they make the fatal mistake of remembering the libero- part. They have to be good people as well as effective people. But unfortunately the people are not good people. They hate all change, they hate all foreigners. But the liberocracy are excellent administrators and can handle the people in normal circumstances.

Then Frau Merkel has a brain malfunction and says Germany (and therefore, as Wiley points out, the whole EU) will accept anyone who shows up. Since about two-thirds of the world, given the choice, would like to live in the EU either permanently or temporarily this has unleashed a problem that is uncontainable. If the liberocracy were an autocracy they would just say, "Whoops, sorry, bit of a boo-boo there, we're reversing the policy." But because they are a liberocracy they can't do this without being seen as racist (or Islamophobic or non-egalitarian or whatever constitutes 'not being nice' at the present time).

They would rather their pet project, the EU, be destroyed rather than being seen to be not nice.
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Grant



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We have obligations to those fleeing foreign lands


But why? Logically if a country is a despotism should we not be encouraging the inhabitants to sort it out rather than running away?
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Mick Harper
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I cannot believe you have used the word 'logically' in that sentence.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Merkel has switched from being the champion of "open doors" to a policy based on the somewhat sinister sounding "Transit Zones" and "Regional Disembarkation Platforms". Unfortunately for her she can't call for a huge great Wall....as "Walls" bring back unhappy memories for Germans.
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Mick Harper
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What price a grand re-gathering of the political clans because of Brexit? It would be the first successful one since Labour replaced the Liberals in the 1920’s and the first attempt to do so since the Social Democrats didn’t replace Labour in the 1980’s. The generative factor is the currently weird situation in which virtually the whole of the Left (Labour, Lib Dems and Nationalists) is in favour of close ties with the EU, yet votes against every attempt on the part of May and the Tory moderates to move in an EU direction.

The way it is going is that instead of the five hundred MP’s who want close ties getting their way, we will crash out without a deal (o.n.o.), something only the other hundred MP’s want. Then what? Sullen acceptance by the majority of this new unsought landscape? Are they really that stupid? I mean from their point of view -- I do not myself say it is either a good thing or a bad thing per se.

The only obvious solution is for a grand re-design of the parties into Rees-Moggites on the one hand and everyone else on the other. One thing though you should bear in mind: the Corbynistas (the leadership anyway, and that's all that counts) are essentially Rees-Moggite when it comes to the EU so they might resist the change. It could be a three-way split. Rather like what we have today really. .
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Topic suggestion for the AEL Annual Conference delegates.

Should AEL follow the InfoWars example and get itself banned?

Infowars was recently banned by YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, MailChimp, Disqus, LinkedIn, Flickr, Pinterest and several others - leading many to wonder exactly how and why this seemingly coordinated mass takedown took place between platforms.

Silicon Valley's coordinated purge of all things Infowars from social media has had an unexpected result; website traffic to Infowars.com has soared in the past week, according to Amazon's website ranking service Alexa.




(Annual Conference Venue still to be decided, but Chateau Boreades might be sadly unavailable due to subsequent engagements, we're busy restocking the below decks for the Unauthorised Tour of Wiltshire)
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Mick Harper
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I have often mused on the question of to-be-banned or not-to-be-banned. The basic problem is that it is a Buddy Holly Hobson's Choice: yes, dying is a sound career move but it involves dying. Infowars will discover that yes, it has acquired world-wide immortal fame (as, I think, the first banning on purely political grounds) but Infowars will die without the platforms.

I have been banned from many, many sites for Trollery which is thoroughly gratifying at the time but also a tremendous nuisance. I was rather hoping that Penguin Random House would come after Forgeries but I don't think they were ever aware of it. We put some anti-semitism into Unreliable History (quite legitimately on other grounds, I hasten to say) but again nobody rose to the bait. You have to be as famous as Infowars before anybody bothers and if you are as famous as Infowars you don't need the publicity anyway. This is the origin of the current Is Jeremy Corbyn an Anti-Semite? spat. Until he became Leader of the Labour Party, nobody cared one way or the other.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Talking of banning, Kate Wiles, editor of History Today magazine, just blocked me on Twitter. No reason given. Perhaps Ms Wiles who was posting on AD/BC objected to an observation about the role of Jewish academics in America

By the mid 20th C (AD) Americans dominated the academic world. By the middle of the 2nd half of the 20th C Jews dominated the American academic world. They were irked by the Christianity of such a fundamental matter and started pushing for BCE and CE to replace AD/BC

Rather strange behaviour for a historian/magazine editor. Or perhaps typical?
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Mick Harper
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I'm sure it must be some kind of mistake. Kate has an excellent sense of humour and that normally goes alongside tolerance. But anti-semitism is a hot button issue at the moment, though we have to employ it here because of our No A-Priori Positions Rule. Perhaps we should acquire a House Jew to act as canary in the mine. Best place for 'em if you ask me. He could rule on that one for a start. Acquitted: my client was under strain following the Arsenal/Spurs results at the weekend.
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Mick Harper
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
The.... is JC an anti-semite? rumbles on....
He is dangerous because he is a do gooder, not because he is nasty to Jews.

I think we can all agree that Jeremy Corbyn is not in the least anti-semitic. Nobody in the Labour Party is. Nobody in Britain is bar a few fruitloops. Even Far Right fruitloops, antisemitism’s traditional home, have moved on since Muslims are now their big beef and you can hardly have two hate targets antipathetical to one another. Jews, it seems, are just plain (white) folks. And yet assorted Jews (and assorted liberals) are up in arms about anti-semitism. For every action there must be an over-reaction.

Luckily, we have an in-house illustration of the phenomenon with Hatty’s banning. It may be instructive (and it is certainly hilarious) to itemise the steps that led to this weird event. The dramatis personae are pretty well known to us here

Kate Wiles, Editor of History Today and mocker in chief of Forgeries
Levi Roach sub-mocker and currently my chief rival in the field of Early Medieval Manuscript forgeries
Stewart Brookes who auctioned off Forgeries at a medieval manuscript conference where he fleetingly met
Harriet Vered who was with me, fleetingly, at the conference
Walk-ons who proffer liberal and possibly not so liberal views from time to time.

The whole thing started with this characteristically amusing and self-deprecating tweet from Kate Wiles

Also, not to be petty (lie: I love being petty), but the letters AD stand for 'Anno Domini', which means 'in the year of the Lord', so it comes BEFORE the years. AD 500-1300.

.
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Mick Harper
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Abdul-Azim‏, presumably an adherent of the Muslim system of dating from the Hejira, politely enquires

So I'm meant to write AD 1500 not 1500 AD?

This leads to some leaden byplay which we can pass over but the ever helpful Levi Roach‏ trenchantly puts everyone straight, as is his wont

Though of course Latin word order is flexible, so in medieval terms both are entirely acceptable.

But Kate is not so sure. She has her house style book to worry about

But in modern English publishing terms....?

Stewart Brookes has had enough of this shameful display of political incorrectness

I’m dismayed that “AD” is still in use at all. Another example of a lack of sensitivity.

Suddenly it's a whole new ball game.
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Mick Harper
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Stewart is of course referring to the switchover from AD (Anno Domini) to CE (the Common Era) and BC (Before Christ) to BCE (Before the Common Era). A certain David Brear‏ thinks Stewie is maybe overdoing the dismay.

You should not be. It is time measured (theoretically) from the birth of Jesus. CE is too, it just hypocritically hides it.

Stewart squelches the insolent puppy.

I don’t need to be told how I should feel, thanks. As you are presumably aware, there’s a long-standing scholarly tradition of using “BCE” and “CE”, and to deride that as “hypocritical” is an example of the lack of sensitivity that I was noting.

Mr Brear is no puppy

How long-standing? Twenty years? And don’t think that it’s in general use among academics - it isn’t.

The fool, the poor deluded fool. If there's one thing we've learned it's never brook the Brooke.
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