Saturday 6 June 2015
Friday 5 June 2015
Big fauna
At a British zoo recently, I was reading the boards describing tigers. They were part of a conservation effort (which should of course be commended), and there was explanation of how their situation was getting worse because of shrinking habitat and hunting.
All of it quite true, of course. But, as with other of the boards they had, with the way it was written you could easily end up feeling "ah, what a shame that those unenlightened populations should be like that, what a relief that the British should be there to give those animals a chance".
So I thought it would be useful to reflect on what the biggest carnivorous animal left on the British Isles is. It happens to be the grey seal, which ventures on some Scottish islands. What about on land then? It is the Red fox - a frightening prospect indeed. Want to throw in omnivores? Then you have the badger as the largest.
Not that it was always thus. Large mammals, carnivorous and otherwise, used to be plentiful here as elsewhere. But they were exterminated. They were so ages ago would you argue, people nowadays would be far more enlightened? Well, you will find that the UK was not thrilled even with its badger monsters -the last government spent a fortune to get many of them killed, on health grounds that were rejected by the specialists in the field. It is hard to avoid the impression that they were being hunted because some Tory voters wanted them dead.
We would be wise to consider these points when we lament the disappearance of the habitat of animals we admire. Yes, I do lament that - but without re-wilding great chunks of our lands these laments are collectively hypocritical.
Amusingly, a few days after I was having those thoughts, George Monbiot had a column about our past large fauna. It is well worth a read.
All of it quite true, of course. But, as with other of the boards they had, with the way it was written you could easily end up feeling "ah, what a shame that those unenlightened populations should be like that, what a relief that the British should be there to give those animals a chance".
So I thought it would be useful to reflect on what the biggest carnivorous animal left on the British Isles is. It happens to be the grey seal, which ventures on some Scottish islands. What about on land then? It is the Red fox - a frightening prospect indeed. Want to throw in omnivores? Then you have the badger as the largest.
Not that it was always thus. Large mammals, carnivorous and otherwise, used to be plentiful here as elsewhere. But they were exterminated. They were so ages ago would you argue, people nowadays would be far more enlightened? Well, you will find that the UK was not thrilled even with its badger monsters -the last government spent a fortune to get many of them killed, on health grounds that were rejected by the specialists in the field. It is hard to avoid the impression that they were being hunted because some Tory voters wanted them dead.
We would be wise to consider these points when we lament the disappearance of the habitat of animals we admire. Yes, I do lament that - but without re-wilding great chunks of our lands these laments are collectively hypocritical.
Amusingly, a few days after I was having those thoughts, George Monbiot had a column about our past large fauna. It is well worth a read.
Tuesday 19 May 2015
A clearheaded take on the recent UK general elections
With all the recent noise from blairites and right-wingers stating that the only way for Labour to be relevant is to be Tories-light, it is good to see someone make some sense after all -even though it's on a blog, not on very public media.
So, take a look at that.
As an aside, I find it remarkable (though not surprising -there has been a strong tendency in developed countries to make sure that polities only get the choice between parties that elites approve of, something a friend called "elites having solved democracy") that this call to move on Tories ground should be made so strongly and be dubbed "moving to the centre ground", when:
-Well, that was essentially the positioning that the Liberal Democrats took and they got resoundly thrashed
-Labour, as it was, ran to the right of the median voter, a fact that is evidenced by countless polls of preferred policies, by the results of the SNP when running against austerity, and by the fact that people picked by some distance the Green programme when programmes were presented without being attributed to their parties of origin. So how can moving further to the right be called moving to the centre?
Anyway, have a look at the link, it makes good reading.
So, take a look at that.
As an aside, I find it remarkable (though not surprising -there has been a strong tendency in developed countries to make sure that polities only get the choice between parties that elites approve of, something a friend called "elites having solved democracy") that this call to move on Tories ground should be made so strongly and be dubbed "moving to the centre ground", when:
-Well, that was essentially the positioning that the Liberal Democrats took and they got resoundly thrashed
-Labour, as it was, ran to the right of the median voter, a fact that is evidenced by countless polls of preferred policies, by the results of the SNP when running against austerity, and by the fact that people picked by some distance the Green programme when programmes were presented without being attributed to their parties of origin. So how can moving further to the right be called moving to the centre?
Anyway, have a look at the link, it makes good reading.
Monday 11 May 2015
Awful
By now, everyone probably knows that the Conservative party
has achieved an absolute majority in the latest general elections in the UK.
And that is tragic in many ways.
Cyrille at Ronnie's
No, not a
bout of megalomania.
You see,
French artists taking some of their roots in Gipsy jazz have been in view of
late at Ronnie Scott's.
Biréli
Lagrène in March, and six months after I finished a post about Stacey Kent with
these words: "Now, if we could bring Cyrille Aimée to Ronnie
Scott’s.", she was indeed the star of the show.
Admittedly,
I had suggested in October that it would be fun to pair her with Esperanza
Spalding playing bass, and that did not happen (although it really would be the
ultimate curly hair match), but I was not going to complain.
It was her
debut at the club, apart from her joining in the jam session a few years back,
and she was touring with her band.
I had last
seen her at another debut, when she sang at the Django Reinhardt festival for
the first time, in Samois, where she grew up, a concert at the end of which I
heard a new friend who had been following them for a while mention how they had
by now gelled into an incredibly tight band. This had been a great,
unforgettable moment. I jumped on the chance to book my tickets, but prepared
myself for a concert that could never quite live up to that of course.
Thursday 30 April 2015
From Greece
The invaluable talos from European Tribune once again weighs in with information that you will not find in the Western media.
And if you won't take my word for his reliability (though you could), his report is solidly backed with evidence.
Whatever the reasons, the picture of Greece that is painted for our eyes is highly misleading. And for those of us who don't read Greek (or even some who do: I read Greek - I just cannot understand anything I read), it is difficult to get another view. Unless you know talos and are lucky enough that he has had some time to write.
Here is the opening, but you should really read it at its source. And if you have not avidly been following Greece yet, or even if you have, you could do worse than to read his previous entries.
There is a coordinated PR attack against the Greek government, unfortunately also deceiving people from the left, regarding the Greek government's intentions and actions so far. It is far from certain what the results of the negotiations will be, but preemptively announcing SYRIZA's retreat seems to me to be a performative assessment, meant to both flatter the prejudices on which most of the austerian EU governments have built their TINA alternative, and to dissipate international support away from a government that has up to now, in a small but significant way, made the first steps against the dominant narrative, anywhere in the West, over the past 20 years
So let me put to rest some of the more obnoxious misinformation that is being peddled by "EU / ECB circles" and international media, subservient to the cause of pressuring the new Greek government to submission, by pointing out a few facts...
And if you won't take my word for his reliability (though you could), his report is solidly backed with evidence.
Whatever the reasons, the picture of Greece that is painted for our eyes is highly misleading. And for those of us who don't read Greek (or even some who do: I read Greek - I just cannot understand anything I read), it is difficult to get another view. Unless you know talos and are lucky enough that he has had some time to write.
Here is the opening, but you should really read it at its source. And if you have not avidly been following Greece yet, or even if you have, you could do worse than to read his previous entries.
There is a coordinated PR attack against the Greek government, unfortunately also deceiving people from the left, regarding the Greek government's intentions and actions so far. It is far from certain what the results of the negotiations will be, but preemptively announcing SYRIZA's retreat seems to me to be a performative assessment, meant to both flatter the prejudices on which most of the austerian EU governments have built their TINA alternative, and to dissipate international support away from a government that has up to now, in a small but significant way, made the first steps against the dominant narrative, anywhere in the West, over the past 20 years
So let me put to rest some of the more obnoxious misinformation that is being peddled by "EU / ECB circles" and international media, subservient to the cause of pressuring the new Greek government to submission, by pointing out a few facts...
Monday 27 April 2015
Quote of the day
Hat tips to Migeru of European Tribune:
"Imagine 18 ministers telling a 19th that his government is not throwing enough virgins into the volcano. When the 19th replies with lectures about how how that's not the way the world works, the 18 react by rolling their eyes and calling him unprofessional and a gambler. "
And that is exactly that.
A case in point among many: the insistence that Greece privatises pretty much everything.
Markets demand much higher return on equity than any reasonable sovereign debt interest rates. So unless you are so misleading as to be liable to be sued, you should expect to get a much lower price than the net present value of the future flows.
That's in normal circumstances. Of course, in the case of Greece, the assets will be considered to require a massive discount due to the poor economic situation of the country. So they would not bring anywhere near the normal inflow which, as I said, would itself not be anywhere near the net present value (for the State) of the economic stream that the State would lose.
But that will not stop the Eurogroup from demanding it on the grounds of improving the fiscal position...
"Imagine 18 ministers telling a 19th that his government is not throwing enough virgins into the volcano. When the 19th replies with lectures about how how that's not the way the world works, the 18 react by rolling their eyes and calling him unprofessional and a gambler. "
And that is exactly that.
A case in point among many: the insistence that Greece privatises pretty much everything.
Markets demand much higher return on equity than any reasonable sovereign debt interest rates. So unless you are so misleading as to be liable to be sued, you should expect to get a much lower price than the net present value of the future flows.
That's in normal circumstances. Of course, in the case of Greece, the assets will be considered to require a massive discount due to the poor economic situation of the country. So they would not bring anywhere near the normal inflow which, as I said, would itself not be anywhere near the net present value (for the State) of the economic stream that the State would lose.
But that will not stop the Eurogroup from demanding it on the grounds of improving the fiscal position...
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