Quote of the Day

 Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times -- 

There is just one threat to English as the world’s lingua franca, and it is not Mandarin. It is not even the (overrated) potential of translation technologies. It is the language’s own descent into bullshit.

About that swimming pool

A neologism: Gom-bling -- an ostentatious display of wealth with Irish characteristics, such as might be designed by today's version of the Gombeen Man. See, e.g., the Skypool in Embassy Towers, with Ballymore as the developer. 

Irish leftist nationalism, explained

You're not a socialist or a Republican if you support a Property Tax. Sin é.

— Ógra Shinn Féin (@Ogra_SF) June 1, 2021

 And, in case they delete it, here's the screenshot:

Quote of the Day

Philip Stephens, Financial Times:

By prioritising a hard Brexit for England over border arrangements for Northern Ireland, [Boris] Johnson put economics on the side of Irish nationalism.

Basildon Man

 Financial Times --  

Exchange group Euronext has completed its €4.4bn purchase of Borsa Italiana and will concentrate its operations in the EU by moving its computer servers out of the UK. ... The takeover, formally cleared by regulators on Thursday, means Europe’s largest listing venue will move the computer hardware on which deals on exchanges across the continent physically take place, from Basildon in Essex to Bergamo .. Many have spent millions on superfast cables and microwave radio networks and towers so they can race in milliseconds between trading venues in Slough, Basildon or central London and Frankfurt to execute trades. “It seems like Brexit gets harder and harder as it gets done,” said one trading executive who declined to be identified. However he said ICE had been one of the more expensive providers. “The move will be costly short-term but in the long-term it will be beneficial as [Italy] will be cheaper,” he said.

So one thing that Brexit has found out: Britain was expensive, but affordable by being in the EU. Once out, costs become more of a factor.  

Already Gone

 It's fine to do the "Prince Philip was an immigrant!" discourse if Twitter is your level. But people with a column at their disposal really should do better. Philip was also an immigrant from a different Europe -- one that was no longer on the map when he was born -- that of the multinational empires. World War 1 had destroyed these empires, and replaced them multi-ethnic nation states, that would then go on to destroy each other in World War 2. And what emerged from that was a Europe where borders corresponded more to "national identity," and a Europe with its Jewish population mostly killed or displaced. So rather than the easy layups, how about a reflection on which Europe was better, for whom, and why Philip's life story is more than validation for comfort-zone bourgeois opinions? 

Tonight I'm Gonna (Rock You Tonight)

 

The organizers of the world’s leading events are gathering for an invite-only online conference to discuss the future of events.

Event organizer? Want to join?https://t.co/o089XC05Sb

— Paddy Cosgrave 🏴‍☠️ (@paddycosgrave) April 16, 2021

Live Action Role Playing, Belfast edition

Financial Times -- 

Residents watched the action [riots[ from cars parked six deep in a retail park separated from New Lodge by high railings. “It’s like Netflix,” said one man in his sixties, adding that he had spent the previous nights bingewatching US crime drama Quantico. Some brought snacks. 

Imagine how Ireland would be doing against an unpartitioned Luxembourg

 

By Spanish_Inquisition - LuxembourgPartitionsMap_english.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

There they go again

 Reuters on the latest surge in regime killing in Burma / "Myanmar" --

"Russia is a true friend," Min Aung Hlaing said. [Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is the the junta leader]

Bibi's salvation

from Imgflip Meme Generator

Under Siege 3: Suez Sand

  

Cool soundtrack to the Egypt "MENA" on-the-scene video of the Evergreen / Ever Given situation.

His most brilliant stunt yet

Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Abu Dhabi later today. He is meeting Mohammed bin Zayed and Israeli media rumour has it that Mohammed bin Salman might show up as well. 

How could Bibi top that? By appearing with the allegedly in Abu Dhabi but long not seen Leonardo painting, Salvator Mundi. 

UPDATE: Bibi's bag of tricks didn't include an airspace clearance from Jordan.

Is there a moment?

It's understandable that people are interested in #TheMoment, that one time when they realized that Covid-19 was going to be something really big and disruptive.  But maybe the focus should be more explicitly on the retrospective aspect: not a moment that was immediately evident, but something that stuck in your mind when you saw it, but its significance only became apparent later. Here's an example, from RTE one year ago tomorrow:

Meanwhile, a healthcare expert from the Royal College of Surgeons said the urgency of Covid-19 merits the cessation of government formation talks and for political leaders to instead focus on national planning to deal with an outbreak of the virus here. Professor Sam McConkey, Associate Professor of International Health/Tropical Medicine at RCSI, ... also said that an '"open, transparent national discussion" should take place to decide upon "acceptable levels of social control and social distancing" as Irish people are not used to being told what they can and cannot do. He said the spread of the virus onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship and across northern Italy showed that efforts to contain the spread had failed. He said the "draconian measures" of mass quarantine and social distancing in China seem to have reduced the spread of the virus so Ireland needs to consider how best to approach an outbreak here.

At the time, this seemed jarring. All the discussion was around individual or a small number of cases. Prof McConkey was warning of the possibility that the disease was not contained and radical measures like in China might have to be considered, despite their seemingly shocking nature. It would still be many weeks before this level of alarm permeated the general debate. 

Song for a year into the pandemic

 

George Harrison and Leon Russell - Beware Of Darkness - Live Madison Square Garden 1971 [link if embed doesn't work https://youtu.be/G7jN08RQGnM ]

Newest IMF member state

 

From this just released IMF paper. 

Curiosity and the cat, etc.

 US House Member Marjorie Taylor Greene in her otherwise patently insincere apology for believing crazy stuff today (via WSJ) --

“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them and that is absolutely what I regret,” she said Thursday, wearing a “Free Speech” mask.

Note: she's admitting that "asking questions" was her gateway to believing crazy stuff. It's a case study in faux-scepticism. 

Saturation Coverage

Dr Mike Ryan, WHO Executive Director for Emergencies at the weekly Covid-19 media briefing yesterday,  when asked about the China expert visit:

The visits will include the Wuhan Institute of Virology, other labs, the Hunan market, early responders, hospitals in which the first clusters of cases occurred. It's a very busy schedule and I also wonder; sometimes the media accompaniment of the teams is much larger than the international and Chinese team put together. 

Don't mess with the Protocol

 

The afterlife

Saudi Arabia Future Investment Initiative press statement --

Others scheduled to participate include ...  Lord Grimstone of Boscobel; Minister for Investment at the UK Department for International Trade; ... and Anthony Scaramucci, Founder & Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital.

He also is Mermaid Man in one Spongebob episode

A classic detail from the superb FT recounting of the last year in Brexit: 

To while away the tedious hours in Brussels, Frost and his exhausted team would sip whisky at the UK ambassador's ­residence. "There was one night we were discussing our favourite Batman — Frosty could only think of Adam West," says one British official. 

Irish Blood, English Heart

From the truly bizarre White House 1776 report, where it sounds like reactionary American conservativism meets rant overheard at Irish bar in Washington DC --

British monarchs not only disputed one another’s claims to the throne but imposed their preferred religious doctrines on the whole nation. Gruesome tortures and political imprisonments were common. The Puritans proclaimed a “commonwealth” which executed the Anglican king. The executed king’s son proceeded to supplant the “commonwealth,” but because his brother was suspected of being Catholic, Protestants expelled him in the so-called  "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 that installed the Protestant monarch of the Netherlands and his wife as England’s king and queen.

Self-censoring

There was an article briefly posted on the White House website which purported to blame state-level Covid-19 related business restrictions for the bad payroll numbers in December. The article has disappeared (here's the busted link). Blaming states for their attempted mitigation of uncontrolled spread  of a virus whose impact was constantly minimized by the President is ... interesting.  

UPDATE: It's reposted, but the headline message has been changed. The headline does not blame the states ("December job losses driven by state-enforced shutdowns"), it is now attributed to industries. 

Late to the party

There is attention of the "that's unexpected!" variety on the Wall Street Journal editorial calling for Donald Trump to go, preferably via resignation. The problem is, the editorial is rubbish.  It's not worth line by line analysis. But it starts: 

The lodestar of these columns is the U.S. Constitution.

But then it goes on to complain that some people say the 6th of January events prove he was unfit for office all along. Which it rebuts by reference to the 63 million votes that he got in 2016. Except that ... Hillary Clinton got more votes! If the metric is votes, he wouldn't be in office in the first place. So you can't say that your lodestar is the Constitution and what about his millions of votes -- they are constitutionally irrelevant.

The Constitution does not have a fit and proper test for the Presidency. So conduct in office surely matters -- that's what impeachment is there for.  So now their complaint is that the Democrats "abused the process" in 2019. Remember how the constitution is their lodestar? It says nothing about something "abusing the process" by applying it -- it's for Congress to decide what merits impeachment. 

The most that they can bring themselves to say about Ukraine is Trump was "ham-handed." But the only reason it didn't translate into Senate conviction is that some Senators (most notably Susan Collins) decided that he had learned his lesson from it. Which his phone call to Brad Raffensperger showed otherwise. 

This editorial is more about easing the consciences of people jumping off the Trump bandwagon at this late stage. But there's no way such a logical shambles has broader significance. It's not news. 

USA chaos Art Selection

  

Explanation. And yes, we've used it before. 

USA chaos musical selection

 

Putting the ME in media

Just one of the astounding exchanges in the Trump Georgia election phone call (transcript via Wall Street Journal) --

MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, Mr. President, the problem that you have with social media, they can – people can say anything. 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, no, this isn’t social. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not. It’s not social media. I don’t care about social. I couldn’t care less. Social media is big tech. Big tech is on your side, you know? I don’t even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.

Quote of the Day

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism (1927):

This is the function that the liberal doctrine assigns to the state: the protection of property, liberty, and peace. The German socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, tried to make the conception of a government limited exclusively to this sphere appear ridiculous by calling the state constituted on the basis of liberal principles the "night-watchman state." But it is difficult to see why the night-watchman state should be any more ridiculous or worse than the state that concerns itself with the preparation of sauerkraut, with the manufacture of trouser buttons, or with the publication of newspapers. 

Context: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing a new layer of eligibility proof and associated penalties for when a vaccine is given out of "priority." The night-watchman state would seek to vaccinate as many people, as quickly as possible.  

Burgundy over blue

 

It's truly Peak Telegraph that on the day before True Brexit, the sub-headline about Gibraltar doesn't spell Schengen correctly. Maybe it's the shock before the delayed realization that, like Northern Ireland, Brexit has put another EU neighbour in the driving seat regarding a border. 

Bonus points for the NHS-bashing. 

Image: screen capture 3.25pm before the hideous Pay-for-Outrage flash page takes over. 

Add to reading list

The New York Times article today about the unfolding process of realization in China a year ago about Coronavirus as the political instinct clashed with the scientific is interesting and has some new details. But in substance, it's very close to a lengthy Financial Times investigation from over 2 months ago. The FT article also involved some riskier local reporting, as a note at the end indicates. And both articles agree that there is a critical 2 weeks in the middle of January where President Xi is missing in action, which may also be the critical 2 weeks in scaling the virus up to a pandemic.