Month: May 2013

On Defeating Terrorism

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

This is how to do it:

Image courtesy of Enid Alvarez/New York Daily News
Image courtesy of Enid Alvarez/New York Daily News

Today, the 10th of May 2013, the spire was added to the top of One World Trade Center, bringing the building to a symbolic height of 1,776 feet and making it the tallest structure in the western hemisphere.

The New York Post reports:

The silver spire topping One World Trade Center on Friday was fully installed on the building’s roof, bringing the structure to its full, symbolic height of 1,776 feet.

Loud applause and cries of joy erupted from assembled construction workers as the spire was gently lowered and secured into place.

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling,” said project manager Juan Estevez from a temporary platform on the roof of the tower where he and other workers watched the milestone.

“It’s a culmination of a tremendous amount of team work … rebuilding the New York City skyline once again.”

And this is how not to do it:

 

 

This is Fox News talking head (and supposed token liberal) Bob Beckel cowering like – well, a pathetic coward – and arguing that all foreign student visas for muslim students in the United States should be revoked, and no new visas issued for a period of five years, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing.

It’s not clear from Beckel’s “sober and solemn” pronouncement whether he means to target anyone from outside the US who self-identifies as a muslim, or students from predominantly muslim countries (whether they self-identify as muslims or not), or through some other method of profiling. Probably because he hadn’t thought it through before going on live television and acting the part of a terrified little girl in the face of a lone act of terrorism.

So there we go. One case study in how to face up to and defeat terrorism, and another in how to cower in the face of terror.

“Patriot” Watch, Ctd. 3

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Since the “Patriot” Watch is going to be an ongoing series on this blog, it would be negligent of me not to link to this amazing video of our intrepid hero, Alex Jones from InfoWars, as he totally owns Piers Morgan on his own CNN show, in a debate on gun control legislation.

 

I have very few positive things to say about Piers Morgan, and I am actually quite relieved that he is now polluting the airwaves of the United States rather than residing and editing newspapers in London, close to me.

And so it is with considerable glee that I watched this 14-minute “interview”, in which Piers Morgan manages to utter probably no more than 100 words, and in which Alex Jones answers precisely none of his questions, but delivers a wonderfully spirited argument in favour of his conspiracy theories and warnings about the coming New World Order.

Enjoy.

Sanford Wins

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Well, I was wrong.

Based on pre-election polling data, and an excess of trust in the wisdom of the electorate, I predicted that the Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch would defeat the Republican former governor Mark Sanford in South Carolina’s 1st congressional district election.

Politico reports:

In the end, the nail biter that late polls hinted at never materialized: Sanford crushed Colbert Busch, 54 to 45 percent.

A turning point in the race came two weeks ago, when Sanford held a mock debate with a cardboard cut-out of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, implying that the California Democrat — persona non grata in conservative South Carolina – was a stand-in for his Democratic opponent.

The former governor endured days of derision from the press for the move — Mark Sanford, once regarded as a viable potential presidential candidate, was debating a piece of cardboard.

But behind the scenes, Sanford’s aides grinned: Every time a reporter put “Pelosi” and “Colbert Busch” in the same sentence, the Republican was winning.

From reading this article it is clear that Sanford ran a far superior campaign to Busch. Tightly-controlled campaigns such as Colbert Busch’s, with handlers keeping the candidate away from any potentially awkward encounter with a real person, are almost never the best way to win, let alone the right way to behave, and yet that is precisely the model that Colbert Busch chose to follow.

Sanford, by contrast, ran an old-fashioned retail politician campaign, barnstorming the district, accepting every invitation for interview or appearance, and offering no end of mea culpas whenever he was asked about his chequered past.

The article continues:

This time, Sanford was, in a sense, running from scratch once again. Without the trappings of the governorship, he hop-scotched the Lowcountry in a black van driven by an aide. After spending a year in obscurity, he was reintroducing himself to voters — soothing the concerns of voters who still felt squeamish about what he had done.

In a district rich with evangelical voters, he adopted religious language to describe his personal journey, talking about a “God of second chances.”

“His strength of his campaign style is that he’s out there every day,” said Scott English, who served as Sanford’s gubernatorial chief of staff. “He loves being around people, and that’s the hallmark of his campaign.”

He ran a smart campaign because he knew how to run a smart campaign. Because he has been doing this since the age of 34. Because he is a career politician.

In South Carolina, the better candidate – but the worse representative – prevailed.

On Bank Holidays

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday in the United Kingdom.

We all get the day off work, which is thrilling and terrific. Apparently, the weather is going to be nice for this one, which will end an unbroken streak of rainy bank holidays stretching back to 1834. But something has been bugging me today, as I look forward to my day off tomorrow. What could it be?

Oh yes, it’s in the name.

It’s technically not a public holiday, as they would call it in America, it’s a Bank holiday (everyone genuflect † now).  Which, when you actually think about it, will make your brain explode. Because the idea of naming our precious days off after the one and only institution as odious as the Bank of England – or the special dispensation granted by Royal Proclamation to high street banking branches, letting them shut up shop on certain days – is a rather large kick in the teeth to everyone in, let’s say, less controversial professions.

Those who know me personally will note the irony in what I am writing now. Nonetheless.

Coal Miner holidays? Sure, that’s probably some serious hard work in a coal mine. Dangerous, dark, unhealthy. I would never go down one of those pits.

Nurse holidays, or Careworker holidays? The people who treat us in hospital, or look after our elderly, infirm loved ones, sometimes for little more than minimum wage? Hell yeah.

Inventor holidays, or Entrepreneur holidays? We could have Tim Berners-Lee Day and Dyson Day, folks, wouldn’t that be sweet?

Corporate Lawyer holidays? My Corp Law friend’s office has sleeping pods for the staff who work so late on a routine basis that they can’t make it home safely some nights. Sleeping pods, people!

Military Service holidays? COME ON! Who deserves the honour of naming our public holidays more than our military and our emergency services?

But no… We name our precious days off in honour of the people who open their shutters at 10AM when we are already at work, close them at 4.30PM before we have a chance to escape for the evening, who deign to give you an exhilarating crowd-packed 2-hour window on Saturday to conduct your financial affairs with a disinterested half-trained drone, who allow fraudsters from countries you have never even visited to make their Amazon purchases with your account but who stop your debit card on suspicion of fraudulent activity if you shop at Tesco and Sainsbury’s on the same day, who offer you the low, low fee of £25 to wire money from one country to another when it costs them nothing, who charge you £12 for going a penny overdrawn…oh yes, and who NEARLY BROUGHT OUR WHOLE ECONOMY CRASHING DOWN ON OUR HEADS.

So to all of my British readers – tomorrow, as you enjoy your Bank Holiday †, take a brief moment to stop by your local bank branch and leave a little sign of appreciation for the people who work inside, so that they can look at it and smile when they open up shop at 10AM on Tuesday morning. A small bouquet of flowers, a cuddly stuffed toy, a votive candle in a jar, that kind of thing. It won’t go unappreciated.

Unlike the bailouts.

Thanks, guys.
Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work.

The complete and actual history of bank holidays can be read here.

Has It Come To This?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Yes, it has.

How did we come to lose water? I’m not entirely sure. One minute our downstairs neighbour was doing some DIY, very lustily with a loud drill, and the next moment a fire engine pulled up outside the building, lights flashing and alarms blazing, some firemen hopped out, and they spent ages fiddling around with the water supply under the street. After an hour or so they drove off, and I went to brush my teeth. But nothing came out of the tap. That was two days ago.

I’m clearly no American “Patriot” worth his salt. I had no stored water, survival straws or water de-fluoridatisation filter system. And after two days with no potable water in the apartment, something needed be done. I had long since swung into action.

Various trucks and vans came and went, day and night. Thames Water. Camden Council. The black helicopters…

I talked to the plumber from Camden Council (who are responsible for the utilities in our part of London) when he came back this afternoon, and he was very courteous and personable, but he said that although the problem has apparently now been fixed (save a massive gaping hole in the street) he needed the agreement of everyone in the building – all six households – before he could turn the supply back on.

In case one of us had left our taps on and left the building, never to return, thereby potentially causing a flood.

Problem is, only myself and one of the other apartment owners are home. The rest are away. Probably because it’s a bank holiday weekend.

I’m not sure how often this happens in real life, if at all – that people lose water pressure and then turn all of their taps on full blast before sauntering away without a care in the world to leave their homes to flood – but it apparently the horrific prospect of this very specific eventuality caused the plumber’s remote manager at Camden Council HQ to make him stand down and leave without reactivating our water supply. He is supposedly coming back at 7pm, when he will reconsider his decision to deny us the life-giving gift of water.

But I’m supposed to be going out to meet friends, and I won’t be here to talk to the plumber when he comes back, or to remonstrate with the remote, faceless managers at Camden Council over the telephone.

So some proper British passive-aggressivism was obviously required.

Strongly Worded Letter
Strongly Worded Letter
Seriously, come on…
Because digging a big hole in the street outside our apartment building and then driving away again doesn’t really fix the ultimate problem.
Although maybe if I pour enough bottled water down into this abyss, I will be able to flush my toilet one more time...
Although maybe if I pour enough bottled water down into this abyss, I will be able to flush my toilet one more time…

There, that should do the trick.