Sadly Prescient

Remember how some commentators and a huge number of ordinary people thought that the last US presidential election signalled the start of a shiny new enlightened era in US and world politics? With Obama's poll numbers plummeting and his abject failures to do much of anything substantial on the economy, the wars or the environment, it turns out that Jello Biafra's words from back in the 2008 primary season are looking as sage as ever:

“I figure every available tool should be used relentlessly to fight the powers that be. It’s not as though a President ‘Barack-star’ is going to wave his magic wand and suddenly Iraq is all better. My biggest worry about him is that if he wins, he’s just going to turn around, pull off the mask, and be the creature of the corporate establishment that his voting record indicates. And a whole generation inspired to get off their asses and participate will become so disillusioned that they don’t vote again.”

Indeed, Mr. Biafra, indeed.

"...a very powerful project that lifts the soul and is growing in an amazing way."

Not, sadly, a description of my thesis, which is both stopping me from doing much else and obstinately staying about the same size.

Jayne, however, has been a little busier. That there in the header is a Guardian Charity Awards 2009 judge talking about Jayne's baby, the Comfrey Project.

Just to put that in perspective, I Googled some figures about how many small charities there actually are in the UK, there are a lot of numbers kicking round, but the Charities Commission reckon that the it's about 100,000. Which is a very big number to get yourself picked out of.

So it's sort of like winning the X-Factor if the X-Factor were about judging the good people do in the world, rather than the evil they can potentially inflict when properly primed by Simon Cowell.

It's thoroughly deserved, and we're all mightily impressed.

Murdoch to vanish in cloud of hyperlinks

So Rupert Murdoch's planning to block all his stuff from Google, because he reckons they're stealing his content. There are a number of views on this strategy, but they fall into two broad categories:

Rupert Murdoch is a Global Media Tyrant who can pick governments and start international wars if he so chooses. Turning the internet into a walled garden shouldn't be too much of a problem for him.

Rupert Murdoch is a daft old pensioner who doesn't understand new technology, and has just pushed the self-destruct button. The whole thing is like an infinitely more pleasurable and globally significant version of watching your granddad try to make his mobile phone work.[1]

Which is true? Well obviously, being a decent human being, I believe that what's bad for News International is good for the rest of the world, and would like to believe scenario 2. But I'm not really sure. So I'm going to spew out a few random points, which I'm going to add to as I think of them:

1) This poll in the Guardian is asking the wrong question. It's not a competition between News Corp and Google. It's a competition between Murdoch and other news providers. If enough serious news providers on the web go bust then, as Nick Carr points out, charging people for content becomes a much more attractive proposition. The Murdoch family say as much when they're doing their BBC bashing.

2) What happens to blogs under this scenario? Will it open up more of a space for the magical digital commons utopia future and innovative new business models that folks like Clay Shirky and Tim Lee think is going to happen?

3) Unless we're prepared to assume unlikely things about the direction of copyright law, he's never going to get actual facts behind a paywall. So people are gong to be paying for the wonderful expression and nuanced analysis that are taking place behind the Murdoch paywall. If that's true, you wouldn't expect him to have too much luck.

Most of the Sun's online content, for example, strikes me as eminently replaceable. Tabloid opinions are like arseholes - they're shitty, everyone's got one, and most of us don't get paid for it. So whilst Rupe can already charge for the Wall Street Journal, he might have some more problems with some of the others.

Then again, I've never really understood the argument that he'll always be able to charge for the WSJ. Specialised topics like finance may be the ones that are most valuable to people, but they're also the ones that attract the largest number of clued-up folk who will offer news and insights for free, either because they're shamless self-promoters or they're just very interested in the topic. There are enough great finance and technology blogs out there already that you'd think the WSJ was eminently replaceable too.

Update: There's at least a rumor that the plan is an exclusive deal with Microsoft, so that you can only find Rupe's content on Bing. Siva Vaidhyanathan has some smart thoughts on it.

[1] Actually, MY granddad is far more competent with technology than an octogenarian has any right to be. He's also, for what it's worth, an Australian. Just saying...

In defence of "issues"

So Tony Benn says he finds himself closer to the Tories than New Labour on issues of personal liberties:

There are issues I find myself in agreement with some of the Tories on, particularly on civil liberties. All this security state stuff is very, very worrying. Libertarians like David Davis, a right-wing Conservative, resigned over the government’s 42-day detention law. and I went to speak for him.

David Osler thinks this is a sign of Tony's having finally jumped the shark. I cannot for the life of me work out what the actual argument is, though.

Steady on, mate. Socialists shouldn’t find themselves in agreement with the Tories on anything. Ever. We might share the Tories’ opposition to given aspects of New Labour authoritarianism, but that is a different thing entirely from being in agreement with them. The difference is one of nuance, perhaps, but nevertheless vital to grasp.

This insistence on the momentous significance of the difference - between "agreeing" with someone about something, and "sharing their opposition" to it with them - is the kind of thing that gets left-wing politics a bad name.


Having strayed over the border into "People's Front of Judea" territory, Dave stamps on the accelerator and heads for the middle, telling us that Tony reaping the harvest of his "issues over ideology" pragmatism. The trouble is that he never really explains what's wrong with that, other than the fact that it might make you side with the Tories if you happen to agree with them on more of the issues:

Now we have reached the point where ‘the issues’ align Benn not with striking miners or the women of Greenham Common, but with David Davis and his ilk. When your methodology brings you this far off track, you know that somewhere you have gone wrong.

What's the argument here? That the Labour party's right and everyone else is wrong? That political issues should take a back seat to party politics? Seriously, I really don't get it...

Some links I liked

(1) Focusing health aid on AIDS is leading to a shortage of funding for the less glamorous but more fatal diseases in developing countries;

(2) Crabs or may be lobsters and Jean Paul Sartre; and

(3) economist, Tyler Cowen tells a story about why he’s suspicious of stories.

Poaching nurses from developing countries might just be good for them!

Is recruiting skilled labour from developing countries detrimental to the economic growth of developing countries? Not according to Michael Clemens of the Centre of Global Development and David McKenzie in ‘Think Again’ published in the Foreign Policy Magazine.

They make a convincing economic argument that looks at the national gains arising from skilled labour emigration i.e. higher incomes for skilled labour and remittances sent home, as well as the creation of an incentive system that fills any skills gap left – not to mention repatriation in the long term.  

And the changing international landscape adds to Obama's lack of action

And Philip Stephens, of the Financial Times, here, explains how the changing global landscape is leaving the US as an insufficient super power and the Obama administration asking for cooperation. 

Barack Obama's Faltering Leadership

Steven Hill of The Guardian nails it. However, this is hardly a surprise. Even if he wasn't just a centrist most strongly committed to restoring business as usual, Barack Obama would have had trouble changing anything in a declining superpower that's horribly ill-equiped for change (psychologically, ideologically and physically).

"To this one-time Trotskyite, ideology was the enemy of reason and it had to be fought."

Melanie Phillips tells you everything you need to know about the now-deceased Irving Kristol in a single sentence.

This Speaks For Itself, Really

Credit to Mr. John Estes for spotting this. Terrifying yet priceless!