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Really sorry I didn't have access to this while I was writing the review for Foundation. It's Greg Egan's slap down of Adam Roberts's truely appalling review of Incandescence. Roberts has form for this in his review of Schild's Ladder, but at least that hung a halfway interesting, if wrongheaded, discussion off of his complete incomprehension. The Incandescence review is, as Egan says, a hatchet job. Most entertaining rebuttal, and the first Egan's ever written to any criticism of his work as far as I'm aware. |
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Reading the comments on one of Paul Mason's recent blog entries. Mason's relatively left leaning (for low values of left, but better than most of the BBC), and the comments on his blog are often quite good - well informed with people espousing mainstream and left economics talking to each other usefully. That entry seems to have attracted the wingnuts, but it's scary.
Rhetorically 'well informed' anti-immigrant bullshit:
At least US workers are a bit more savvy about cheap labour entry and, via their representatives, who they seem to be able to influence a bit more than we can ours, are NOT allowing their Govt to make 'movement of natural persons' commitments under WTO, or other, trade agreements.
It's all the fault of giving proles the vote, y'know:
The average ninny is not permitted to fly a plane, mend a gas appliance or drive a vehicle WITHOUT PASSING A TEST. Whence comes the bizarre notion that ALL SHALL VOTE? Add the lot together, and you have a Britain that defies reason. QED
And this gem, taking the reactionary fuckwittery prize (who gets outed as a nazi later on to much hilarity all round):
By encouraging women to stay longer in education and to enter the workforce as independent they naturally defer motherhood relative to those who are less able to do so (i.e are less 'skilled'). As a consequence, not only does the birth rate drop overall, but it becomes tilted towards producing more lower skilled people.
But actually scariest of all are the well meaning greens with their bullshit belt tightening 'the earth is waiting for us to hear' bollocks:
I see nothing wrong with low wages ?. Why not think about low consumption with low wages that North American should learn , perhaps not all some are learning it now?.. Rather than falsely created debt culture and high consumption based on wastage of resources, they should at least at this point should try to live simply with what they earn minimizing wastage of resources ?.
At least this recession, naturally may provide grounds for them to think differently rather than traditional way of looking at small things which are beautiful
that is what wolrd wants from US
To which the only reasonable response is 'fuck you'. |
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A more conventionally marxist analysis of the financial crisis from Walden Bello (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bello031008.html). This is straight down the line crisis of over-production stuff, but clearly argued and presented with a decent historical outlook. There's a conflict between autonomist marxist views like that from Federici and this more conventionally marxist view that needs thinking about. The different analyses lead to expectations of different responses from the ruling class and different forms of working class resistance. Not sure how I'm thinking about it at the moment, but given that leftist and anarchist groups in the UK are slowly staking out their positions at the moment (and most of it is coming out as appalling, ill-informed, knee jerk, old left shite) this might be one of the underlying (unconscious?) theoretical tensions that's driving it.
( Read more... ) |
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This (http://freeofstate.org/new/?p=4208) is the first analysis of the financial crisis from the left that I've seen that's doing anything different to the mainstream reporting so far. I'm not sure how far I agree with it, but at least it has something of its own to say rather than simply talking about government 'hypocrisy' or whatever.
( Read more... ) |
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Ghengis Tron are touring with Behold... the Arctopus!!! My life is complete, my hearing is forfeit. |
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Genius
The pupil is reported to have written "fuck off", and would have had another mark for adding an exclamation point.
Mr Buckroyd is quoted by the Times as saying: "It would be wicked to give it a zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for - like conveying some meaning and some spelling."
Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 04:05 pm
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| » Moving tomorrow |
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Tomorrow I move back in with my mum and dad - this is intensely depressing, despite the reasons being very good indeed and it in fact not being an entirely forced choice.
I will, however, have most of the summer away from the social centre and any need to fight tooth and nail for things that should be absolutely fucking obvious and basic with so called fucking comrades who have about as much understanding of solidarity and collective working as a cat in a particularly bad mood being asked to help a rat fetch a piece of cheese. This is probably good, although it feels a little bit like giving in which is not.
I will also, hopefully, have the time and head space to do some new academic writing for the first time in ages. If I manage this I may still have an alternative to alternating temp teaching and call centres for the rest of my life. I also have two political writing projects that I might get time for. This may also be good.
I will, however, probably go completely insane whilst doing these things, and it's all contingent on my Gran's health continuing to improve which is by no means guaranteed. But, I'm stuck in a pretty deep rut at the moment which it could potentially get me out of. Call back in a month and see how crazy I've gone.
And now, more useless bits of paper to stuff in bags and throw away.
May. 23rd, 2008 @ 01:32 pm
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| » Yay!!! |
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Greg Egan's new novel is winging it's way to me as we speak. I am ridiculously excited by this.
May. 16th, 2008 @ 08:06 am
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| » Meme pay-off |
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Ok, I said I'd do this and it is easter after all so I shall take time out from my busy schedule of almost pointless crap and do what I said I would.
( from autumnpsyche )
( From purplepooka )
( From daria2 )
LJ tags are all to fuck, you'll have to find the users yourselves if feel the need.
Mar. 18th, 2008 @ 01:51 pm
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| » meme (gakked from fjm) |
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I quite like this one, not that I've been able to think of a topic for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fjm, and may even have time to do something about it over the weekend, therefore...
Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't
blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something
I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post
about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read,
political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear,
graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal if you are so
inclined.
Not that I blog that much anyway and mostly announcements these days, but never mind, it gives you more scope.
In other news - social centre collective = really, really shit. Some of the things going on around the social centre = really, really good. Ability to talk about any of these things in public = 0. With possible exceptions in the near future which I may even have time to take advantage of.
Mar. 13th, 2008 @ 08:41 am
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| » Fan Squee |
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I live in a bubble, a very nice bubble, but a very strange one.
The other week I was having a conversation about the RAF and got confused when people made jokes about planes. RAF stands for Red Army Faction first and foremost - everyone knows that.
On Thursday night I got really excited when it turned out that our speaker knew Mariarosa Della Costa and Toni Negri personally, and had in fact been on holiday with them. Like proper fan squee excited.
I went to three meetings last week and flaked on a fourth because I'd fallen behind on work because of an action on the Saturday and a house full of hippies on Sunday (not to mention a stupendous hangover).
Need to get my perspective back. May be spending just a little bit too much time on this politics lark.
In other news, entirely contradictory to the above sentiment, we have another film and food thing down in Next to Nowhere tomorrow. We're showing Crash (not the good 1996 Cronenberg one, but the crap 2004 Paul Haggis one). Not my idea, but some people seem to like that one. I have keys for the place myself now (despite the fact that our keyholder system is crap and we should be doing it a different way) so we'll be open from about 1.00 to set up and food from 2.00. Be warned, I'm having a go at making some myself this time, so there may be blood.
Tuesday evening is an important, but likely fairly crap, demo against the Liverpool leg of Anne Widdecombe's anti-abortion speaker tour. 6.15 outside the Liner Hotel (near Lime Street Station). For those with strong stomachs there's also an LSF meeting that night at 7.30, although I suspect I may just give that one a miss in favour of the pub.
Feb. 9th, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
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| » Pan's Labyrinth - Sunday in Next to Nowhere |
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As part of our continuing series of Sunday brunch and film showings we'll be screening Pan's Labyrinth in Next to Nowhere (96 Bold Street, underneath News from Nowhere) this Sunday 27th January. Doors at 1.00, food from 2.00 and the film starts at 3.00.
You know you want to...
Jan. 23rd, 2008 @ 10:48 am
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| » Could be interesting... |
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Curry powder in a stew. Why would you do that?
Jan. 8th, 2008 @ 03:48 pm
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| » Letting the Marx show |
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Interesting quote from Frank Field in a story on Tory plans to cut incapacity benefit even more than Labour plan to (because these people are lazy don't you know - with the two wonderful subtexts that always run through these stories: if we're lazy then the immigrants will destroy our country and mental health problems are just malingering):
"If we are to reverse that trend it's crucial that this huge reserve army of people who could be working, should work," Mr Field said.
He's clearly got the standard Marxist analysis of this kind of thing in mind - reserve army of labour kept around to depress the wages of those in employment with the welfare state safety net as a working class victory reducing the power of the ruling class by reducing how scary being unemployed is. He was around the Labour party in the 70s so of course he knows the theory, but I find it strange that he's been able to doublethink his way into using this language without, presumably at least, identifying himself as the enemy. Unless he's doing it on purpose.
Jan. 6th, 2008 @ 07:17 am
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| » Things that make the world slightly better than you thought it was |
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The fact that when the sticky 't' on this keyboard means I mistype 'hotmail' as 'homail' I get a blank page and not what everyone was expecting.
Jan. 3rd, 2008 @ 06:23 am
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| » Drunk |
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Walking home I just drafted a fabulous entry in my head about how fabulous the lot of you are and all that. But I am far too drunk to type properly (only semagic's wavy red lines are saving me from embarrassment) so you'll have to make do with this till later.
You're all a bunch of glorious wronguns who have helped me think so much clearly than I've ever thought before. Despite what appears to be grumpy intellectual snobbishness, which I know I'm prone to, I'm incredibly grateful to everyone on my friends list and many more besides for making me deal with the contradictions in the way I think. I realise this is a geeky as fuck thing to be grateful for, but it's there nonetheless. Merry thingy to all of you and a happy whatitsname, you're all ace as fuck.
Jan. 1st, 2008 @ 07:57 am
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| » Hubris? |
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Would it be an act of extreme hubris to go for this job, or can I sell it to myself as a useful exercise in research planning? They want a five year research plan and it would have to be in a field I have no official expertise in, although I've been teaching it. If I go for it I won't be doing anything else for the next fortnight.
Oct. 22nd, 2007 @ 08:43 am
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| » It's going well |
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This is much more for myself than for anyone else.
There is a lot of needless, pointless bullshit going on at the moment which you don't need to hear about.
I am sick of said bullshit and yet still have to deal with it.
However, the bullshit is mostly concealed, the bullshit is only there to be dealt with by the people that have to deal with it.
Things are going well. People are coming to the events, people are enjoying the events, something positive is happening. Not everyone is having to deal with the turd in the punchbowl, and it is in fact a very small inoffensive turd when all's said and done.
But fuck me, it's hard work.
Sep. 20th, 2007 @ 11:14 am
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| » The Locust |
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The Locust are playing tonight. I didn't ask any of you buggers because I knew none of you would like it and I don't care (also, I forgot what with being slightly busy with several things and I'm not going till after the event at the social centre tonight).
I'm all excited: they rock.
Sep. 18th, 2007 @ 03:28 pm
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