The Party Which Must Not Be Named

From the BBC:

Sweden's first ever female prime minister has resigned just hours after she was appointed.

Magdalena Andersson, was announced as leader on Wednesday but resigned after her coalition partner quit the government and her budget failed to pass. Instead, parliament voted for a budget drawn up by the opposition which includes the anti-immigrant far right.

And who might they mean? Ah, The Swedish Democrats, who are the third largest Party in the Swedish Parliament with nearly four times as many seats as the Green Party, who are mentioned by name several times in the article and not just obliquely referred to as the "pro-immigrant far left".

I wonder whether they've censored "Nineteen Eighty-Four" yet?

From Part One, Chapter 7, as printed in 1976:

Of the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance had most impressed Winston... He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy hair, his face pouched and seamed with thick negroid lips.

If anybody has a more recent print, I'd love to know what happened to that sentence.

UPDATE: Lucy (in the comments) confirms that the sentence in book she bought in Canada in 2012 is as follows: "Of the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance had most impressed Winston... He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy gray hair, his face pouched and seamed, with protuberant lips."
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A couple of other things struck me on re-reading it recently:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

There are endless articles like this trying to explain or justify why Orwell didn't make the second slogan "SLAVERY IS FREEDOM", which would fit in with the logic of the other two. I'm not convinced. I don't think it was a 'mistake' as it was clearly deliberate, but I still think it was a misjudgement on his part. Unless he wanted to troll his own readers.
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Part One, Chapter 1, on a visit to the cinema:

A woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they didn't oughter of showed it not in from of kids...

I'm in two minds about this. Was Winston highlighting the proles' incapacity to distinguish between 'have' and 'of', or was Orwell highlighting that under IngSoc, not even Party workers like Winston have a basic grasp of grammar any more?

Either way, he called that one right. I have colleagues - whom you'd expect to be reasonably intelligent or well-educated - who think that 'of' is an acceptable alternative spelling of 'have'. I usually send the terse one-word reply "Have" (making sure to hit 'reply' and not 'reply all').

Censorship

Over the years of leaving comments on articles and blogs, I've noticed a few don't make it pass the moderators. Frustratingly, the more well thought through and polite the comment, sometimes the less likely it is to make it into the public domain.

One of my favourite places to leave the odd comment or two is the London School of Economics SERC( Spatial Economics Research Centre) blog. There, economists like Professors Cheshire, Overman and Hilber write about the evils of the UK planning system and its stifling effect on new construction, the cause of our so called Housing Crisis.

To be fair, they do by and large indulge my hectoring of the learned professors, but when I do manage to point out the contradictions in what they say, my comment never goes up.

Here's my latest in response to this article written by Professor Hilber over a month ago "The UK planning system: fit for purpose?"

"I completely agree with Prof Hilber that supply is not being matched with demand in the UK housing market, causing many serious problems. I am sure the Professor would agree that market rents are the best way of allocating scarce resources like valuable land(location). Problems arise when owner occupiers can impute their rent, as the market can not then fully internalize opportunity costs. This leads to misallocation, the cause of excessive vacancy, under occupation and investment distorted in favour of London/SE, at the expense of the economy as a whole.

We can therefore kill two birds with one stone. A title deed can currently be seen as meaning"rent free". If title owners paid full market rent(as tax) for exclusive rights to a valuable location, as renters do now, the selling price of land(location) would fall, theoretically, to zero. Dropping the selling price of property to its capital only value.

Only then could the market allocate land and immovable property at optimal efficiency. Negating the need to wastefully build homes and additional infrastructure where a functional market would deem them surplus to requirements.

It’s a puzzle then why the Professor and his colleagues continue to recommend policies that concentrate on building more houses, as this is clearly sub-optimal from an efficiency point of view, let alone one where lowering house prices is a priority. 

Of course politics of land value taxation is tricky, but then the consideration of political issues is not the job of an economist."

 If Prof Hilber responds on this blog it would be gratefully received and published.

The old ones are the best.

Newsthump did the Sonny and Cher/Sunni and Shia joke yesterday, which was quickly removed again from the main site but can still be viewed via Google Cache.

The last time I did this one was eight years ago.

Charlotte Church Slams Music Industry for Doing Its Job

From the Telegraph

The singer said she was put under considerable pressure to market her own music in ever more suggestive outfits.(1)

In a keynote speech, Church said the music industry must take responsibility for playing artists who relied on "soft porn" to boost their profile(2) as she backed calls for an age-rated system for music videos.(3)

Her address to radio executives comes as there is increasing concern about sexual imagery to sell music(4) with singer Miley Cyrus appearing naked in her video for the single Wrecking Ball.(5)

"The irony behind this is that the women generally filling these roles are very young(6), often previous child stars or Disney-tweens(7), who are simply interested in getting along in an industry glamourised to be the most desirable career for young women,”(8) she said as she delivered the John Peel Lecture at the annual Radio Festival in Salford. 

"They are encouraged to present themselves as hyper-sexualised, unrealistic, cartoonish, as objects, reducing female sexuality to a prize you can win."(9)

1. Well, if you don't have a great voice (she doesn't) or songwriting talent (she doesn't), what else do you have, especially once the brand image of being a child star disappears? Sorry, that's the free market. If you want a record deal, you've got to be better than thousands of others.
2. Anyone who thinks that someone wearing skimpy clothing is soft porn is nuts. In most cases it's not much less than what Betty Grable wore in the 1940s. Or what Kate Bush wore for Babooshka in the 1980s.
3. There is an age-rated system for music videos. If you want to buy Duran Duran Greatest on DVD, it's rated 18 for a good reason. The content in these videos is no worse than what used to get shown on Benny Hill.
4. Sexual imagery has always been used to sell music. People were complaining about what Elvis was doing, remember?
5. She's no more naked in that video than a woman lying face down on a beach.
6. Miley Cyrus is 20, and by definition, legally an adult. She can make her own choices.
7. So what? Judy Garland and Liz Taylor were child stars. Didn't stop them being a boozer and a slut.
8. Madonna is worth $500m. Britney Spears is worth $200m. OK, there's some richer women out there than that, but most of them inherited their wealth. There's very few self-made women in business worth that much.
9. And that's because that's how you win in the pop music market. In no country on earth where people are free is this not the case. Olivia Newton-John singing Physical in the 1970s, the French singer Alizee in the 1990s, or Korean K-Pop. All rely on their sexuality to sell records. Unless you're going to suggest censorship

House Price Crash (Survivors' Group)

M'learned colleague 'Pete Green' and I (and others) decided that the editorial line at HPC was becoming rather more dictatorial so we've set up a Facebook group so that we can keep in touch.

Sign yourself in and one of us will add you as soon as we have time.

Thank G-d for The Daily Mail, protecting us from this sort of filth

Hopefully the new anti-porn filter which the UK is going to introduce at their behest will shut down sites that make it oh-so-easy to access indecent material like this:

"Net porn block on every home"

Yes, I can fully understand how it corrodes society when bored males visit sites like this or this.

"Porn block on EVERY home: Victory for the Mail as PM pledges 'opt in' rule for all viewers"

From The Daily Mail:

Every householder with a Freeview or satellite box will have their access to property porn blocked unless they ask to receive it.

On a victory for the Daily Mail, David Cameron will announce the move today among a series of measures cracking down on against the tide of land speculation sleaze. The Prime Minister will warn that property porn – much of it easily accessible to young couples and the unemployed – is 'corroding capitalism".

By the end of next year, all 19 million UK homes with digital, satellite or cable television will be contacted by the Independent Television Commission and told they must say whether family-friendly filters that block programmes such as "Homes Under The Hammer" or "Locational, Location, Location" should be switched on or off.

From the end of this year, all new customers setting up a satellite television contract or switching provider will have the filters automatically switched on unless they opt to disable them to allow programmes with 'rent-seeking content'.

"The Daily Mail has campaigned hard to make Freeview box filters "default on". Today they can declare that campaign a success," Mr Cameron said. "We are taking action to help clean up our housing market and protect a generation of children from a lifetime of renting."

H/t DBC Reed

Victory for the Mail! "One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe".

Internet porn block on EVERY home: Victory for the Mail as Cameron pledges 'opt in' rule for all web users

‘The Daily Mail has campaigned hard to make internet search engine filters “default on”. Today they can declare that campaign a success,’ Mr Cameron said.

And according to the G : David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

"The Daily Mail, which has been running a campaign to crack down on child pornography, reported that the prime minister will say: 'By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family-friendly filters will be automatically selected. If you just click 'next' or 'enter', then the filters are automatically on.  And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe'.

Internet filtering...

Independent 17th June

Claire Perry MP, David Cameron’s special advisor on ‘preventing the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood', has outlined plans for UK Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to make users opt-out to view adult content online by the end of the year.

BBC 18th June

But Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of trade association ISPA, which represents the UK's net suppliers, said: "ISPs have already taken several steps on making the internet safer, with many offering or working towards an 'active choice +' system, which presents parents with an unavoidable choice."

So, Claire Perry is going to make them do it, but there's no legislation, and they don't want to.

Trouble is, filtering's a blunt instrument that works badly. Even people who hate porn often find themselves ordering it to be switched on because a site they use is categorised as pornographic incorrectly.

It's much better done on the PC end - set up your PC with a login for each user and then set filtering accordingly. Not only do kids then get "their" view on the PC (with their choice of wallpaper and files and bookmarks), you can also downgrade their rights so they don't go deleting something important. Then if the kids need to get to a site that the filtering blocks incorrectly, you can do it, rather than having to sit for an hour waiting for the ISP to deal with it.

Well said, Angus!

From this morning's City AM:

...a closely watched barometer of so-called unfairness between the generations shows prospects for young people have worsened in the past year as older peoples’ living standards have improved.

“The housing boom for the older generation in London and south east is a housing crisis for the under-30s,” Angus Hanton, co-founder of Intergenerational Foundation (IF), told City A.M. “This is moving towards a feudal society.”

The first link doesn't work any more, of course, as is so often the way with City AM articles which threaten to rock the boat, but thanks to the miracle that is Google Cache, it's still available here.

Fun Online Polls: Press Regulation & Full English Breakfasts

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Press regulation: is anybody actually bothered?

Yes, me! - 69%
Not me - 26%
Other, please specify - 5%

1. I personally am not too fussed either way, all newspapers and media are government propaganda in one way or another. Some support the actual elected government (or the elected opposition/government in waiting); most support the real government (banks, landowners and other cartels); and some are cheerleaders for a parallel government/system which doesn't actually exist (I'll put my hand up to that one).

2. So when you read anything, it's always interesting to see what spin they put on things and which particular parallel universe they inhabit, most are in the parallel Home-Owner-Ist universe where polarisation of wealth via the land market and tax system is seen as A Good Thing and some are in a parallel Keynesian universe where all government spending is viewed as A Good Thing, regardless of what it is spent on. And Osborne's recent splurge of subsidies for land prices keeps the Homeys and the Big Spenders happy, I suppose.

3. What completely baffles me is the fact that what kicked this all off was actual newspapers breaking actual criminal or civil laws - bribing policemen, stealing and leaking documents, ruining individual people's lives, invading privacy, covering up skullduggery, hacking telephones and bank account details etc etc. The fact it was newspapers doing this is more or less by the by.

4. I understand why politicians seized the opportunity to close ranks against the Murdoch empire which had played off one political party against another so successfully for so long; but at what stage did they cleverly shift the terms of debate from lots of individual offence being committed by newspaper companies and their employees to having some sort of political control over content?
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Longrider misses the point slightly on Full English.

As I said in the comments, the real hard decisions here are toast, chips or waffles; and tea, coffee or other drink to accompany.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

blogspot.co.uk

Further to my recent post blogspot.com.au, all UK Blogger users will be pleased to hear that their url's have been changed from ...blogspot.com to ...blogspot.co.uk as of not very long ago.

ROR!

Flom M&C News:

Beijing - Chinese autholities censoled postings on sociar media and lepoltedry intellupted some mobire terephone selvices duling Sunday's plotests against a chemicar prant in the nolth-easteln city of Darian.

Few peopre wele sulplised by the leaction flom a govelnment that loutinery censols the intelnet, brocks access to Twittel, Facebook and othel intelnationar sociar media selvices, and deretes cliticar posts flom popural Chinese miclo-brogging websites...

The officiar Xinhua news agency wercomed Blitish Plime Ministel David Camelon's statement rast week, forrowing lioting in Rondon and othel cities, that his govelnment wourd tly to ensule that peopre suspected of inciting viorence wele banned flom sociar netwolks.

Camelon arso said that the companies opelating majol sociar netwolks shourd take gleatel lesponsibirity fol poricing onrine content, a simiral carr to one often made by the Chinese govelnment.

"The Blitish govelnment, once an aldent advocate of absorute intelnet fleedom, has thus made a U-tuln ovel its stance towalds web-monitoling," a Xinhua commentaly said. It noted that in Feblualy, Camelon had ulged Egypt and othel Nolth Aflican nations to arrow fleedom of explession aftel they tlied to lestlict the opelation of sociar media, which prayed a key lore in olganizing and lepolting anti-govelnment plotests.

"We may wondel why Westeln readels, on the one hand, tend to indiscliminatery accuse othel nations of monitoling, but on the othel take fol glanted theil steps to monitol and contlor the intelnet," the commentaly said.

At least they cared enough to write...

I left a comment on that BBC bansturbation article as follows:

"What a load of drivel. I'm surprised that the BBC publishes stuff which is quite clearly fabricated, distorted and exaggerated, and irrelevant for that matter."

Their moderators sent me an email as follows:

"Thank you for contributing to a Have Your Say debate. Unfortunately we've had to remove your content below. Posts to the BBC website may be removed if they are off-topic* for the debate to which they are posted. For more information, please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/moderation.shtml#house...

Please do not reply to this email. For information on appeals visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/moderation.shtml#canappeal

Please note that anyone who seriously or repeatedly breaks the House Rules may have action taken against their account.

Regards, The BBC Moderation Team."

* I fail to see how my comment was 'off-topic', and AFAIAA (TFB to confirm) where a rule says a judge (i.e. a moderator) 'may' impose a fine (i.e. delete a comment) in certain circumstances, that is far from saying that he 'has to'.

See also UKIP's triumph in the House of Lords Supreme Court last year. The relevant law Section 58(2), PPERA, said that a judge "may" declare donations to be forfeit and the original High Court judge decided that this gave him the complete discretion not to do so if it seemed inappropriate (which it clearly wasn't, so he didn't).

So El Comm had to prove two things: that it was appropriate AND that he had no discretion anyway (and luckily they failed on one or both counts).

Balanced coverage of the Middle East?

Over at ShareCrazy.

I love a good conspiracy theory

Fausty, among others no doubt, has linked to this short clip, which clearly appears to show that the host (David Dimbleby) of a programme on a state-controlled TV station interrupts opposition MP (Iain Duncan Smith) on the orders of a government Minister (Harriet Harman).



Being of a suspicious nature, I did wonder whether it was just clever editing by some cunning YouTube conspiracist, so I watched the full-length broadcast on the BBC's iPlayer, and that is, in fact, exactly what happened (fast forward to 14 minutes 14 seconds).

Being fair though, if you start a few seconds earlier (at about 14 minutes 0 seconds), David Dimbleby cuts off Harriet Harman in mid waffle to give Iain Duncan Smith a chance to speak, and Iain Duncan Smith does manage to finish off what he wanted to say, despite the best efforts of the host to shout him down.

More black ink tomfoolery (2)

From Catch 22:

All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by all the enlisted-men patients, who were kept in residence in wards of their own. It was a monotonous job, and Yossarian was disappointed to learn that the lives of enlisted men were only slightly more interesting than the lives of officers. After the first day he had no curiosity at all. To break the monotony he invented games. Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective. The next day he made war on articles.

He reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an and the. That erected more dynamic intralinear tensions, he felt, and in just about every case left a message far more universal. Soon he was proscribing parts of salutations and signatures and leaving the text untouched. One time he blacked out all but the salutation "Dear Mary" from a letter, and at the bottom he wrote, "I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army." A. T. Tappman was the group chaplain's name.

Submitted by MacHeath in the comments to the previous post.

My expense claim, as published.