In a NYT town hall recently leaked to the press, a reporter asked the executive editor, Dean Baquet, why the Times doesn’t integrate the message of the 1619 Project into every single subject the paper covers: “I’m wondering to what extent you think that the fact of racism and white supremacy being sort of the foundation of this country should play into our reporting … I just feel like racism is in everything. It should be considered in our science reporting, in our culture reporting, in our national reporting. And so, to me, it’s less about the individual instances of racism, and sort of how we’re thinking about racism and white supremacy as the foundation of all of the systems in the country.”
It’s a good point, isn’t it? If you don’t believe in a liberal view of the world, if you hold the doctrines of critical race theory, and believe that “all of the systems in the country” whatever they may be, are defined by a belief in the sub-humanity of black Americans, why isn’t every issue covered that way? Baquet had no answer to this contradiction, except to say that the 1619 Project was a good start: “One reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that”. In other words, the objective was to get liberal readers to think a little bit more like neo-Marxists.
The New York Times, by its executive editor’s own admission, is increasingly engaged in a project of reporting everything through the prism of white supremacy and critical race theory, in order to “teach” its readers to think in these crudely reductionist and racial terms. That’s why this issue wasn’t called, say, “special issue”, but a “project”. It’s as much activism as journalism. And that’s the reason I’m dwelling on this a few weeks later. I’m constantly told that critical race theory is secluded on college campuses, and has no impact outside of them … and yet the newspaper of record, in a dizzyingly short space of time, is now captive to it. Its magazine covers the legacy of slavery not with a variety of scholars, or a diversity of views, but with critical race theory, espoused almost exclusively by black writers, as its sole interpretative mechanism.
Don’t get me wrong. I think that view deserves to be heard. The idea that the core truth of human society is that it is composed of invisible systems of oppression based on race (sex, gender, etc.), and that liberal democracy is merely a mask to conceal this core truth, and that a liberal society must therefore be dismantled in order to secure racial/social justice is a legitimate worldview. (That view that “systems” determine human history and that the individual is a mere cog in those systems is what makes it neo-Marxist and anti-liberal.) But I sure don’t think it deserves to be incarnated as the only way to understand our collective history, let alone be presented as the authoritative truth, in a newspaper people rely on for some gesture toward objectivity.
Andrew Sullivan, “The New York Times Has Abandoned Liberalism for Activism”, New York, 2019-09-13.
August 13, 2025
QotD: The New York Times and their 1619 project
August 12, 2025
Britain warns online platforms about “overzealous” interpretation of online safety law
“Ben the Layabout” posted a note over at Founding Questions linking to a Telegraph article [archive.ph link] that seems to indicate the British government is demanding that online services both enforce the letter of the law and the spirit … whatever that might mean at any given moment in time:
“Palace of Westminster”by michaelhenley is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Social media giants face huge fines for curbing free speech by “overzealous” enforcement of online safety laws.
Ministers have told platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok they must not restrict access to posts that express lawfully held views.
The warning, in an apparent change of tone from ministers, comes amid a backlash over websites blocking users from viewing material, including parliamentary debates about grooming gangs.
Campaigners have said that free speech is threatened by the Government’s application of the Online Safety Act, which is meant to protect children from harmful content.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, used a visit to the UK this week to warn ministers against going down the “dark path” of censorship.
Whitehall sources have expressed concern that social media firms, some of which have criticised the law, “have been overzealous” in enforcing it and must be “mindful” of the right to freedom of expression.
The Science Department, which oversees the legislation, told companies they could face fines if they failed to uphold free speech rules.
A spokesman said:
As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression.
Failure to meet either obligation can lead to severe penalties, including fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue or £18m, whichever is greater.
The Act is not designed to censor political debate and does not require platforms to age gate any content other than those which present the most serious risks to children such as pornography or suicide and self-harm content.
Platforms have had several months to prepare for this law. It is a disservice to their users to hide behind deadlines as an excuse for failing to properly implement it.
So online sites big and small are required to obey the British law, but only as and how the British government wants it enforced or they’ll levy massive punishment. Too lax? Punishment. Too strict? Also punishment. It’s almost as if Britain wants to be cut off from the rest of the internet …
AOL to shut down its last dial-up access: dozens to be inconvenienced
James Lileks on the end-of-era announcement from AOL — and I can’t recall the last time I thought of that company — that they’ll be eliminating the last of their dial-up internet access accounts:
New tech: shiny today, tarnished tomorrow. Everything that was once bright and brilliant now stamps its walker towards the exit door. The headlines wave goodbye: Last telegram office in the US shut down.
Last phone booth in New York is decommissioned. The latest: AOL to shut off its landline customers.
You’d think this would be news on the level of “homing pigeon trainer employment hits record lows”.
Who uses dialup? Yahoo, which now owns the AOL brand, says that the user base is in the “low thousands”, which suggests that some people forgot to turn off autopay in 2005. What does AOL do today? The usual basket of dross and chum. A website that offers “trending videos” — gosh, don’t know where else you’d find those — and a lot of news stories, supplied by Yahoo, and its … numberless army of journalists, I guess.
It’s a legacy brand for people who want to slide into the internet like comfy slippers they left under the desk. And that’s fine. Facebook serves the same function. It’s a place to start, a home base. A familiar window out which we gaze daily We all have them. But let us not get nostalgic for AOL and the early days of the internet. Some people, of course, love to talk about the pioneer days, and how it required some technical know-how:
Well, we didn’t have those fancy little pre-made modems like you got in the 90s, so we had to get a little matchbox and fill it up with a certain kind of specially-bred insect that sang a note at a particular pitch when exposed to electrical current. So you’d crank up the generator and put the little alligator clips on the box and hold the box up to the phone while you entered your user name in Morse code by pushing on the hang-up buttons, and then you had to shake the box so the insect singing would modulate. Took about an hour, but then you’d be “On the Line”, as we said, and you could go to a Usenet group and call people Nazis. Kids today, they can call someone a Nazi without lifting a finger.
QotD: Rick Wakeman – “I was Spinal Tap for real”
“How’d you do that?” an engineer asked.
“Don’t tell him,” Visconti told Wakeman. “It’ll make you a fortune!”
Visconti asked Wakeman if he could come back to play mellotron for one of his artist’s recording sessions. After getting dropped off at the studio by his mother, Wakeman was greeted at the studio by a precocious young rocker whose eyes appeared to be two different colors. His name was David Bowie, and he wanted Wakeman to play mellotron on “Space Oddity”, the title track of his second album. “This will be a piece of cake for you,” he reassured Wakeman.
“Oh, okay,” Wakeman stammered.
“I take it you have played a piece of cake before?” Bowie replied. Wakeman, confused and nervous, offered no reply.
“Well,” Bowie went on, “maybe not then.”
The song launched a lifelong friendship with Bowie, and Wakeman’s career. He became rock’s go-to keyboardist, playing in countless sessions. In 1970, Melody Maker, at the time England’s most influential music publication, featured Wakeman on a cover story that anointed him “Tomorrow’s Superstar”. Bowie offered him a few key pieces of advice: get your own band, play with musicians who understand you, and, when it comes time to perform, “do what you want onstage, especially if you’re using your own money. Don’t let a promoter, agent, or manager tell you otherwise — they don’t have the imagination.”
Wakeman put the advice to use in the brashest of ways: He turned down Bowie’s offer to play in his sideband, the Spiders From Mars, and instead became the keyboardist for Yes. With its mystical lyrics, orchestral productions, Tolkienseque album art, and long, multipart songs, Yes exemplified progressive rock in all its technical breadth and portentous glory. Wakeman, who surrounded himself with keyboards and wore a cape to hide his arms after a critic said he moved like “a demented spider”, became prog rock’s most iconic star. “Here comes Rick, the caped crusader!” the band’s lead singer, Jon Anderson, recalls with a laugh. “He had a great sort of stance onstage, and very powerful energy. It really put him apart from any other keyboard player.” Or, as Wakeman deadpans, “I was Spinal Tap for real”.
David Kushner, “The Stranger-Than-Fiction Secret History of Prog-Rock Icon Rick Wakeman”, Vanity Fair, 2020-06-25.
August 11, 2025
Smug Canadian boomer autohagiography rightly antagonizes the under-35s
Fortissax had an argument with one of his readers over a smug, self-congratulating meme about how wonderful Canada was in the 1990s and early 2000s:
What we lived through long before Trudeau was the Shattering, the breakdown of Canada’s social cohesion, driven by left-liberalism with communist characteristics applied to race, ethnicity, sex, and gender, and punitive almost exclusively toward visibly White men. My generation, those millennials born on the cusp of Gen Z, saw post-national Canada take shape not in the comfortable suburban rings of the GTA or the posh boroughs of Outremont and Westmount, but in self-segregated, ghettoised enclaves of immigrants whose parents never integrated and were never required to.
Memes like that are dishonest because they feed a false memory. The 2000s were not normal. Wages were stagnant, housing was already an asset bubble, and immigration was still flooding in under a policy that explicitly forbade assimilation. Brian Mulroney had enshrined multiculturalism into law in 1988. Quebec alone resisted, carving out the right to limit immigration under the 1992 Quebec–Canada Accord. After Chrétien, Stephen Harper brought in three million immigrants, primarily from China, India, and the Philippines in that order.
The Don Cherry conservatives of that era were Bush lite. They were rootless, cut off from their history, their identities manufactured from the top down since the days of Lester B. Pearson. They conserved nothing. For Canadian youth, it was the dawn of a civic religion of wokeness, totalitarian self-policing by striver peers, and the quiet coercion of every institution. My memories of that decade are of constant assault — mental, physical, spiritual — from leftists in power, from encroaching foreigners, and from the cowardice of conservatives.
Your 2000s might have been great. For us, they were communist struggle sessions. In 2009 we were pulled from class to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, a foreign president, as a historic moment for civil rights. Our schools excluded us while granting space to every group under the sun: LGBT safe spaces and cultural clubs for Italians, Jamaicans, Jews, Indians, Indigenous, Balkaners, Greeks, Slavs, Portuguese, Quebecois, Iroquois, Pakistanis — every culture celebrated except our own. Anglo-Quebecers and Anglo-Canadians got nothing but an Irish club, closely monitored for “white supremacy” and “racism” by the HR grandmas of the gyno-gerontocracy of English Montreal. Students self-segregated, sitting at different cafeteria tables and smoking at different bus shelters. At Vanier, Dawson, and John Abbott College, these divisions were institutionalised. I remember walking into the atrium of Dawson, my first post-secondary experience, greeted by a wigger rolling a joint while a Jamaican beatboxed to Soulja Boy.
We became amateur anthropologists out of necessity, forced to navigate a nationwide cosmopolitan experiment from birth. We learned the distinctions between squabbling southeastern Europeans of the former Yugoslavia, and we did not care if Kosovo was Serbia or whether Romanians and Albanians were Slavic, they all acted the same way. We learned the divides within South Asia, the rivalries between Hindutva and Khalistani, the differences between a Punjabi, a Gujarati, a Telugu, a Pakistani, a Hong Konger, a mainlander, and a Taiwanese. We know the shades of Caribbean identity, the factions of the Middle East, and the intricacies of North African identity. We should never have needed to know these things, but we do.
For us, childhood in this cesspit was the seedbed of radicalism. We never knew an era when contact with foreigners was limited to sampling food at Loblaws. All we know is being surrounded by those who hate us, governed by a state that wants to erase us, with no healthcare, no homes, no jobs that are not contested by foreigners, and no money to start families.
August 10, 2025
“Believe all women” especially when they imagine (or hallucinate) offense
An excerpt from a work-in-progress by James Pew, from an incident during the heydey of #MeToo hysteria in the Toronto media community:
Steve Paikin is a Canadian journalist and author, and the host of TVOntario’s acclaimed flagship program, The Agenda With Steve Paikin. In his brush with #MeToo infamy, Paikin was accused of asking for, or possibly suggesting sex with a woman (who had previously appeared on his show), while at a business lunch with her at Grano restaurant in Toronto. The woman, a former Toronto Mayoral candidate who has a record of previous unsubstantiated claims against former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, claims to have “politely” declined Paikin’s request, but said she was not invited back on his show because of her refusal to have sex with him.
The Paikin scandal was different from others which had unfolded in the hazardous year of 2018. This was a #MeToo story where the public appeared interested in both sides. Were chinks in the #MeToo armour beginning to appear? As Joe O’Conner wrote in the pages of the National Post, there was “an accusation and a vociferous denial”.1 But similar to other #MeToo narratives, the accuser was reaching deep into the past. According to Sarah Thomson, Paikin’s unwanted proposition for sex occurred in 2010.
Defending himself on Facebook, Paikin called the allegations a “complete fiction”. He wrote: “To be clear, I did not have sex, suggest, request, imply, or joke about having sex with you (Sarah Thomson)”.
Paikin had been a supporter of #MeToo. He wrote that “The #MeToo movement is too important to be undermined by spurious allegations”. Did he not realize that #MeToo means “believe all women”? Aren’t spurious allegations the type we are not supposed to believe? Wouldn’t that mean that women don’t (or can’t) make spurious allegations, but only the type of allegations that must be believed unquestioningly? Didn’t Paikin realize the contradiction in thinking that #MeToo was important, but in his case it was acceptable to cast off its intrinsic blanket credulity concerning the abuse claims of women? Paikin wrote:
Sadly, in this day and age, too many people are going to believe the lie, especially when it comes to this subject. I am mortified that in many peoples’ eyes, I have lost the presumption of innocence that I’ve previously enjoyed. But I did not do these things. There is simply no truth to these allegations.2
Surprisingly, TVO did not remove Paikin, but launched an investigation instead. In a piece published in the Globe and Mail called “The Humiliation of Steve Paikin”, Margaret Wente wrote, “Mr. Paikin was lucky not to be suspended, people say. Some luck. His name is in the headlines, generally on the same page as all the other #MeToo stories that now dominate the news. I imagine that most people who know him don’t believe a word of it. Others will think, ‘These days you never know’.”3 A fair assessment. Wente later points out “Women (just like men) lie for all kinds of reasons, including the fact that they are unbalanced or unhinged.” However, it should be pointed out that in the #MeToo era and since, women do not get cancelled and humiliated because a man (or men) made unsubstantiated allegations against them.
The most suspicious part of the story is that Thomson’s assistant was present at the lunch meeting when Paikin supposedly propositioned her. Who would do such a thing as Paikin was accused in the presence of other people? Thomson did not provide the name of her assistant, and no investigative journalists were able to find out who she was. A critical detail appeared to go uncorroborated. However, the independent investigator tracked her down and conducted an interview. Her testimony was essential to clearing Paikin, although she chose to remain anonymous.
By April of 2018, the independent investigation into the allegations against Paikin was complete. It was found that while Thomson genuinely believed that Paikin had propositioned her “the evidence brought forward by Thomson and others (did) not support her account of what happened”.4 Rachel Turnpenney, the lawyer who conducted the investigation, referred to Thomson’s former assistant as “Witness J” – whose testimony contradicted Thomson’s account. Witness J told investigators that Paikin did not proposition Thomson or make any inappropriate sexual comments during the lunch.
But even if the allegations were true, was what Paikin alleged to have done really so bad? Aren’t men taught to ask for consent? Isn’t that what “propositioning” Thomson would have been? It could be argued, had the allegations turned out to be true, that Paikin demonstrated inappropriate, perhaps insensitive conduct. Clearly it would have been poor judgement, but should a man like Paikin be fired for a slip in judgement where no crime occurred? In hypothetical defense of a mis-step that never occurred, is it not possible to argue that a man might misread body language or other signs from a woman, and interpret them as mutual sexual interest? Getting this wrong can be embarrassing for both parties involved, but does it meet the severity of a cancellable offense? As Margret Wente wrote, “The truth is that not all men are guilty of what they’ve been accused of, and others aren’t that guilty of very much”.
But the social justice contingent is obsessed with power dynamics. According to them, any man who holds a professional position elevated over a woman he is attracted to, will automatically use his power to coerce the woman for sexual favours. In spite of the high-profile example in figures such as former American movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, it is insane to assume this is the default position of successful men, or men in places of authority or influence, just as it is insane to believe all women unconditionally.
Turnpenney felt that while Paikin’s testimony was consistent and credible, Thomson made “leaps without sufficient evidence to do so and she linked evidence together without factual foundation. Thomson’s evidence also veered toward being exaggerated and untrue.” Even though Paikin was ultimately exonerated, he was humiliated by the experience. In the initial statement he made defending himself, he characterized Thomson’s actions as defamatory. However, lucky for Thomson, Paikin chose not to sue. Thomson paid no penalty for all the trouble she caused, and most people felt Paikin was fortunate to have dodged a #MeToo bullet. As of this writing, Steve Paikin is still the host of The Agenda.
1. A #MeToo story with two sides: Steve Paikin fires back at sexual harassment allegations
2. ‘My turn’: Steve Paikin responds to sexual misconduct allegations – Sudbury News
3. The humiliation of Steve Paikin – The Globe and Mail
4. TVO host Steve Paikin cleared by investigator after sexual harassment accusations | CBC News
Al Stewart – “Helen and Cassandra”
jonnoms
Published 19 Jun 2011Slight re-working of ‘Where Are They Now?’ video to another, Al Stewart song.
August 9, 2025
Carney hints at backing away from Trudeau’s digital policy catastrophes
Michael Geist on the possibility that Prime Minister Mark Carney is starting to recognize just how damaging to Canadian interests the previous government’s various online bills have been:
Digital policies did not play a prominent role in the last election given the intense focus on the Canada-U.S. relationship. Prime Minister Mark Carney started as a bit of a blank slate on the issue, but over the past few months a trend has emerged as he distances himself from the Justin Trudeau approach with important shifts on telecom, taxation, and the regulation of artificial intelligence. Further, recent hints of an openness to re-considering the Online News Act and heightened pressure from the U.S. on the Online Streaming Act suggests that a full overhaul may be a possibility.
This week’s decision to let the CRTC’s decision on wholesale access to fibre broadband networks stand is a case in point. Last November, the Justin Trudeau-led government sent the CRTC’s initial ruling back to the Commission for reconsideration, noting that it “has concerns about future and ongoing investments in broadband infrastructure and services in Ontario and Quebec, including in rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and concerns that those investments could, if they are unprofitable, lead to a decline in quality and consumer choice in the retail Internet services market”. Nine months later, the CRTC came back with the roughly same ruling. That led to yet another request for a cabinet review but this time the government stood by the CRTC despite significant industry opposition. New leader, dramatically new approach.
The CRTC is example was preceded by the decision to eliminate the digital services tax. While the strategic approach seemed misguided – dropping the DST should have garnered more than just an agreement from the U.S. to return to the bargaining table – some noted at the time that perhaps Carney wasn’t a supporter of the DST and had few qualms with rescinding it. The tax had been a foundational part of the government’s campaign to “make web giants pay” but in a matter of 72 hours in late June it was gone.
The government has also shifted its approach on AI regulation. After months of supporting Bill C-27 and the EU-style AI regulatory approach, a new government brought a new minister and a new approach. Evan Solomon, the newly installed AI and Digital Innovation Minister, used his first public speech as minister to pledge that Canada would move away from “over-indexing on warnings and regulation” on AI. That too represents a significant shift in approach, particularly since Trudeau had embraced the EU style regulatory model.
Then there is the Online News Act and Online Streaming Act. When asked about the Online News Act this week, Carney seemed to suggest he was open to change, stating “this government is a big believer in the value of … local news and the importance of ensuring that that is disseminated as widely and as quickly as possible. So, we will look for all avenues to do that.” While that isn’t a clear commitment to change, it is far from an ironclad commitment to legislation is viewed by many to have done more harm than good. Further, reports indicate that the U.S. Congress is escalating pressure to rescind the Online Streaming Act, which may put that law on the chopping block, particularly if a court appeal strikes down elements of the bill or the CRTC’s implementation of the law puts the bill on the Trump radar screen.
Alert the non-crime hate incident police: soccer star proclaims pride in being English!
In Spiked, Obadiah Mbatang discusses a recent disturbing incident of a member of the Lionesses (England’s female national soccer team) saying something completely unacceptable to the great and the good:
So the Lionesses were victorious in the UEFA Women’s Euros, holding the title they won in 2022. England forward Chloe Kelly, who scored the decisive penalty in the final against Spain, declared after the match: “I am so proud to be English”.
To hear a sports star make such a simple and patriotic statement was, for most of us, a pleasant breath of fresh air. Just as refreshing has been the muted response to her declaration of national pride. In the week or so since, there have been no online campaigns denouncing Kelly’s views as “problematic”. This raises the question: is it just the Lionesses who are allowed to be patriotic?
Compare the response to Kelly’s post-match comment with the recent treatment of Courtney Wright, a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the West Midlands. A few weeks ago, she wore a Union Jack dress inspired by the Spice Girls to her school’s “Culture Day”, in which pupils were encouraged to “proudly represent their heritage”. Courtney, who had also prepared a speech celebrating Shakespeare and fish and chips, was put into isolation by her school and then sent home. Essentially, she was told it was unacceptable to express pride in being British.
What followed next gave us a fascinating, if depressing, insight into the online left. Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Novara Media, came out in defence of Courtney. “A white British person being proud of their country and its accomplishments does not make them racist”, Bastani said on X. “Either all groups get to celebrate identity and culture, or none.” Yet for striking a fair-minded and consistent approach, he was attacked by his largely left-wing audience.
One notable assault came from Eleanora Folan, who runs the hugely popular “Stats for Lefties” X account. Folan said celebrating British culture “literally does” make someone racist because “the concept of white ‘identity’ is inherently exclusionary and racist”, adding that “all of Britain’s ‘accomplishments’ were built on racism and imperialism”.
Now, I suspect Eleanora and many on the left would never say that Nigerians should view their heritage as “evil” because of the Biafran War and the anti-Igbo pogroms of the 1960s and 1970s. Does anyone on the left talk about King Ghezo’s determined efforts in the 19th century to maintain slavery, even as the British tried to stamp it out in his West African kingdom? Would they say that British people of Arab descent should be ashamed because of Arab slavery of Africans, which still persists to some extent today? Should British people of Rwandan Hutu descent be ashamed because of the Rwandan genocide? Of course not.
Admittedly, there is no shortage of right-wing whataboutery that uses the histories of other countries to avoid discussing the darker aspects of Britain’s past. But that is not what is going on here. Courtney’s treatment by her school, and those online leftists blasting her as racist, reveals that self-loathing oikophobia remains one of the dominant prejudices of the left.
QotD: The New Newspeak
I’ve read their explanation a few times and it seems to boil down to the idea that all people of African descent all around the world are somehow one single identifiable entity, while white and brown people are too diverse and variegated to be treated the same way. (The Times explains: “We’ve decided to adopt the change and start using uppercase ‘Black’ to describe people and cultures of African origin, both in the United States and elsewhere.”)
Given the extraordinary diversity of the African continent, and the vast range of cultural, ethnic, religious, and tribal differences among Americans of African descent — new immigrants and descendants of slaves, East and West Africans, people from the Caribbean and South America, and the Middle East — this seems more than a little reductionist. As Times contributor Thomas Chatterton Williams has noted, there are “371 tribes in Nigeria alone. How can even all the immigrants from Nigeria, from Igbo to Yoruba, be said to constitute a single ethnicity? Let alone belong to the same ethnicity as tenth-generation descendants from Mississippi share-croppers?” The point, of course, is to ignore all these real-life differences in order to promote the narrative that critical race theory demands: All that matters is oppression.
Andrew Sullivan, “China Is a Genocidal Menace”, New York, 2020-07-03.
August 6, 2025
Actual data demolishes the “climate catastrophe” narrative
At The Conservative Woman, Paul Homewood summarizes the findings of a new report for the US Department of Energy:
A report by five independent, eminent scientists has blown apart the myth of catastrophic climate change, destroying the case for Net Zero in the process.
Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, Ross McKitrick, John Christy and Steve Koonin are all highly respected leaders in their respective fields. Their report was commissioned by the US Department of Energy (DOE) but written with no editorial oversight by the DOE and with no political influence whatsoever. Although it specifically covers the US, its findings have worldwide ramifications.
The 151-page report, A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate, reviews scientific certainties and uncertainties in how anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions have affected, or will affect, the nation’s climate, extreme weather events, and selected metrics of societal well-being.
Maybe the most relevant part concerns extreme weather. According to the report: ‘Most extreme weather events in the US do not show long-term trends. Claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by US historical data. Additionally, forest management practices are often overlooked in assessing changes in wildfire activity. Global sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900, but there are significant regional variations driven primarily by local land subsidence; US tide gauge measurements in aggregate show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate.
A few graphs from the report tell the story, and you can see them at the end of this article.
- US landfalling hurricanes show no long-term trends, either in frequency or intensity;
- Heatwaves were much worse than now before the 1960s;
- Temperature extremes are reducing, as a greater number of extremely hot days is more than offset by fewer extremely cold ones;
- There has been a marked decline in the number of the strongest tornadoes, EF3 to EF5, since the 1970s. The increased numbers of weaker tornadoes is the result of better observation methods, including Doppler radar, not an actual increase;
- US droughts were much more severe for most of the historical record going back to 1895;
- While wildfire activity has marginally increased since the 1980s, it was considerably worse up to the Second World War. Most of these long-term changes are caused by fire management practices, not climate changes;
- Tide gauges all around the US show the same story – a slow and steady sea level rise beginning in the mid 19thC. The rate of rise can vary considerably from station to station because of local factors. New York and the rest of the Atlantic Coast, for example, has been subsiding since the Ice Age; Galveston is sinking as a direct result of groundwater withdrawals.
The scientists pour scorn on weather attribution computer models, which have become the media’s go-to source for climate apocalypse stories. These attribution models routinely claim that extreme weather events have been made more likely because of global warming. They are dismissed in the report, which highlights the lack of high-quality data and reliance on deficient climate models. Other scientists have not been so kind!
Do journalists’ “unnamed sources” have to actually exist? Asking for an imaginary friend …
At The Rewrite, Peter Menzies discusses the growing trend of Canadian journalists depending on “unnamed sources” to fill in details in their political stories:
No name news image created by Grok, via The Rewrite
If I spun you a tale about my life as a mercenary in the 2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d’etat, I’d probably get your attention.
It would be a ripping good yarn, filled with evil masterminds, hints of Bond villains, precious relics, and blood diamonds. I might even sprinkle it with how I’d heard that the Ark of the Covenant is guarded quietly and stored in Nokolo-Koba National Park, not far from the Gambia River.
You might enjoy it. But I’m thinking you might ask for proof. Trust me, I would say, it’s not something I’m at liberty to discuss freely. Loose lips sink ships, these boys don’t like publicity, I’m not authorized, I wish to speak freely, etc. You’re going to have to put your faith in me.
Which, while I used hyperbole to make the point, is what the nation’s reporters are increasingly asking the public to do.
The once rare use of unnamed sources in the new “just trust me” world of Canadian journalism is getting out of control.
Exhibit A is a National Post story posted on May 23 in which readers learn of changes in the Prime Minister’s Office where staff are now expected to dress professionally and show up on time. In other words, a return to what most people would view as normal office decorum. Yes, you might wonder — as I did — why this constitutes news while the previous nine years’ shabbily-attired tardiness went unreported, but that would involve a significant digression. Another day, perhaps.
The sources were “half a dozen current and former PMO officials, senior bureaucrats and caucus members”, granted anonymity “to discuss internal workings of government openly”.
Two are “former” Liberal staffers, which makes one wonder if they might bear a grudge and what their motivations are. There is not a single named source in the story, nor is there any reference to the Post having asked the current management of the PMO for comment.
Exhibit B is the May 14 analysis on the pages of the Globe and Mail, which explains the thinking involved in selecting a finance minister. The thesis was based on “seven sources who have worked for Liberal and Conservative governments over the last two decades”, whose identities are being hidden “because they were not authorized by their parties to speak publicly about the federal finance minister”.
In Exhibit C, CBC/Radio Canada uses no fewer than 12 — count ’em — anonymous sources discussing whether party leader Pierre Poilievre should dismiss his chief of staff and recent campaign manager, Jenni Byrne. All were granted “confidentiality to discuss internal party matters”.
To his credit, the reporter selected sources offering a variety of perspectives on the issue. But still, other than reference to public statements by Poilievre, no one is on the record even for passive phrases such as “No one seems ready to make this their hill to die on”. Are there no political scientists left to comment on such topics?
August 5, 2025
High tech and lust for power are a bad combination
Spaceman Spiff discusses the malign confluence of technocrats and amoral power-seekers (BIRM):
Today’s technocrats, assisted by billionaire tech bros, want to implement a digital surveillance grid that will eradicate any notion of anonymity or privacy forever.
Every major country, including the United States, is working on this with enthusiastic support from governments and their many agents.
The sales pitch is primarily platitudes about protecting people from harm, especially children.
What they seek is the end of the internet as it currently is, which means it will look a lot more like licensed corporate TV than the current free for all. From here their goal is to extend their surveillance operation into every aspect of our lives, from the energy we consume to the food we are permitted to eat.
This will probably cause a lot of damage, but it will ultimately fail.
Tech bro arrogance meets managerial control freakery
We are witnessing a partnership between the technocratic elite, with a limited understanding of technology, and silicone valley titans, who are blinded by the promise of technology.
Each group believes draconian surveillance systems combined with fancy data analysis will solve many societal problems and usher in a new era with them at the helm.
To the technocrats it promises full-spectrum control of all our choices. The food we eat, the material we consume, the ability to travel.
They are salivating at the thought of the ultimate control, the issuing of government-controlled digital currencies they can deactivate on a whim. No steak for the memelords, and no road trips for those without the right carbon profile.
They have been discussing these things for many years with a degree of enthusiasm bordering on mania.
The technologists see a chance to keep in with the powerful, to join the club. If they can be the trusted partner of the visionaries currently wrecking our world they will cash in and perhaps be spared from the concentration camps.
The technologists have powerful tools that promise amazing things. Machine learning, predictive programming, behavioural modelling.
Spotting patterns within trillions of data points is appealing to society’s tinkerers, all the better to predict problematic behaviours and to spot trends. Combined with nudge units and related horrors of social engineering this promises to be the holy grail for a technocratic managerialist regime absolutely convinced it can steer society in enlightened directions, just like they imagine they did during Covid.
It is all very futuristic, and it has clearly impressed our technology gurus as well as those who love control.
But along with the outsized data stores will come outsized cockups they cannot properly plan for.
Climate modelling has promised immense benefits and accuracy for decades and we have yet to see a single successful prediction. Indeed, some of the most famous climate predictions are almost comically wrong but nonetheless trigger endless rounds of funding, chatter, conferences and hubris. Such is the lure of anything that can be adapted to enforce top-down social control.
There have been many attempts to harness technology to predict the stock market, another obvious target. None of them worked either. It doesn’t seem to matter. No one is checking the track record. It is sold on its promise and that works because of who is buying. Or, rather, the type of person who embraces these schemes.
Digital surveillance, digital currencies, digital voting, digital IDs. Everything we do tracked and stored. Such absolute total control would make our superiors into gods as they exploit these powerful tools to direct us towards better versions of ourselves.
There is a delusion at play here. Those closest to this seem lost in their fantasies. They are blind.
August 4, 2025
TERF Island
At Spiked, Jo Bartosch reviews Fiona McAnena’s TERF Island: How the UK Resisted Trans Ideology:
The truth is, before they are revered, history-makers are almost always reviled. From universal suffrage to the abolition of the slave trade, the freedoms we take for granted today began as the unpopular obsessions of the awkward and bloody-minded. Fiona McAnena’s TERF Island: How the UK Resisted Trans Ideology charts how just such a small group of determined women – mocked, maligned and misrepresented – dragged sex-based rights back from the brink, often at huge personal cost. It’s the story of how they were hated before they became feted.
Part battle manual and part whodunnit, TERF Island is an insider’s chronicle of how a scrappy, unfunded grassroots movement of mostly middle-aged women outmanoeuvred a lobby bankrolled by billionaires and cheered on by multinational corporations and well-intentioned human-resources departments.
I have been involved in the TERF wars for a decade, and I know McAnena herself is no bystander. Formerly a volunteer at Fair Play for Women and now director of campaigns at Sex Matters, she has done her time in the trenches, too. Each chapter is a vivid, accurate and compelling profile of a key figure in the movement, including Transgender Trend’s Stephanie Davies-Arai, Fair Play for Women’s Nicola Williams, Let Women Speak founder Kellie-Jay Keen and Maya Forstater, whose case against her employer established gender-critical beliefs as protected in UK law – all women I’m proud to know.
It’s almost hard to remember how recently it was considered heresy to say, to use the words popularised by Keen, that “a woman is an adult human female”. In April, the Supreme Court confirmed this truth in law. The BBC may still choke on it, but the legal precedent stands. Yet only a few years ago, saying this out loud could land you in a police station, on the dole queue or even in hospital.
McAnena captures the febrile atmosphere of those early days, when stating a biological fact was enough to have you smeared as a fascist. She takes us inside the campaigns that exposed the lunacy of housing violent male offenders in women’s prisons, the cruelty of sterilising confused children and the institutional capture of sporting organisations. Now, a decade after Davies-Arai launched Transgender Trend, barely a week passes without a professional body or council quietly reversing a discriminatory “trans inclusive” policy. That didn’t happen by accident.
What makes TERF Island so readable is that it doesn’t just document the headline moments. McAnena records the unglamorous grind: women lobbying MPs, poring over policy documents and calmly dismantling pseudoscience from stalls in the high streets of British towns. As McAnena puts it, the campaign against gender self-identification, which galvanised the resistance, brought “hundreds of women on to the streets and thousands more online to defend their sex-based rights”. “It was the catalyst for greater awareness, resistance and campaigning for the rights of women and children in the face of the demands of transgender ideology.”
HBO’s Rome – Ep 8 “Caesarion” – History and Story
Adrian Goldsworthy. Historian and Novelist
Published 19 Feb 2025Continuing series looking at the HBO/BBC co production drama series ROME. We will look at how they chose to tell the story, at what they changed and where they stuck closer to the history.
