Idiotic “gender-equal” snow clearance (!) has been a fiasco in Stockholm

November 13, 2016

The price for politically correct idiocy has to be paid. A year ago the Red/green coalition that rules Stockholm city introduced what they called “gender-equal snow clearance”. With the first, early, albeit heavy, snowfall of November the clearance system was a fiasco as it degenerated into a farce.

(The Red/Green coalition is notorious for its lack of common sense and known for a very warped sense of right and wrong. They inevitably prioritise what is wrong. They believe victims of crime have only themselves to blame and that criminals are victims. They believe that returning jihadists from Iraq and Syria need to be cared for and treated for the trauma of having killed so many others. They believe that biology can be legislated away).

But even after the fiasco (and I experienced it myself when a journey which normally took a little over 2 hours, took over 3 going and about 5 hours returning), the only real change will be a new report. In my opinion and from what I experienced the snow clearing was extremely careless but more importantly, was incompetent. It was the unevenness of the clearance, followed by freezing, which created vicious pot-holes. Driving through Stockholm last Thursday reminded me of driving along the pot-hole strewn death-trap from Calcutta to Durgapur just after the monsoons.

Auto Motor & Sport: 

When winter comes, the roads have generally been plowed first, but last winter Stockholm introduced something called “gender-equal” snow removal in the city. It meant that the bike paths, sidewalks and roads with heavy public transport have been given priority.
But when the snow struck Stockholm earlier this week the new snow removal was a flop. Vice Mayor of Stockholm, Daniel Helldén (MP), is self-critical. In an interview with the Daily News, he admits that pedestrian and bicycle paths have not been cleared as intended.

“I have requested an emergency report to know what has happened these past few days. If it failed somewhere and we’ll correct it. With this report, we hope to be able to do it better next time,” he told DN.

Daniel Helldén is ultimately responsible for the snow removal work and he regrets that many were stuck on the roads or in public transport and could not get through.

“I will do my utmost so that we do not have to experience this kind of chaos again. Large snowstorms always means trouble. But it should not be like it was now,” he says.

Foto: Pär Brandt/auto motor & sport

 

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The media’s sanctimonious self-righteousness contributed to Trump’s victory

November 11, 2016

It should be fairly obvious that I am not overly impressed by the main-stream (mainly liberal) media in the US. It is my contention that their blindness to the anti-establishment wave that was abroad, and then their sanctimonious stupidity, was no small contributor to the anger against the perceived establishment.

Now the analysis starts.

But some few liberals do see – at least in hindsight – what I thought I saw back in May.

Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away.

This is Thomas Frank in The Guardian: (my bold)

Clinton’s supporters among the media didn’t help much, either. It always struck me as strange that such an unpopular candidate enjoyed such robust and unanimous endorsements from the editorial and opinion pages of the nation’s papers, but it was the quality of the media’s enthusiasm that really harmed her. With the same arguments repeated over and over, two or three times a day, with nuance and contrary views all deleted, the act of opening the newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station. Here’s what it consisted of:

  • Hillary was virtually without flaws. She was a peerless leader clad in saintly white, a super-lawyer, a caring benefactor of women and children, a warrior for social justice.
  • Her scandals weren’t real.
  • The economy was doing well / America was already great.
  • Working-class people weren’t supporting Trump.
  • And if they were, it was only because they were botched humans. Racism was the only conceivable reason for lining up with the Republican candidate.

How did the journalists’ crusade fail? The fourth estate came together in an unprecedented professional consensus. They chose insulting the other side over trying to understand what motivated them. They transformed opinion writing into a vehicle for high moral boasting. What could possibly have gone wrong with such an approach?

 

Image from Truth Feed

Image from Truth Feed

 

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Highest level of November snow in Stockholm for 111 years

November 9, 2016

Dagens Nyheter is one of the most “politically correct” newspapers in Sweden. It believes – not in mono-cultural, multi-ethnicity (which works) – but in fractured multi-culturalist societies (which don’t). It believes people should get what they desire and not what they deserve.

And it believes in the religion of global warming being due to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.

No doubt the record snowfall in Stockholm will also prove “global warming”.

snow in Stockholm 9th November 2016 — photo TT (via DN)

Dagens Nyheter: 

The worst snowfalls in Stockholm in 111 years.
It has not snowed in Stockholm this early in the winter since SMHI statistics started in 1905.

“It’s about record levels, which, on Thursday morning, will be  official”, says Stina Kihlgren, meteorologist at SMHI. A formal measurement of snow depth is made only once a day in Stockholm, 07:00 each morning at the Observatory. When Stockholm woke up on Wednesday ,SMHI measured 21 centimeters of snow. At midday there was an unofficial listing that showed 30 centimeters. “And then the snow continued to fall. It has been between 30 and 40 centimeters in total. The probability is very high that there will be a new record”, says Stina Kihlgren.

She refers to the measured snow depth in Stockholm in November, where the previous peak was in 1985 at 29 centimeters. “The snow has fallen for several days, it has been very intense.” 

But not to worry. As global temperature numbers continue to be fiddled with new algorithms every year, the snow will, no doubt, disappear.

 

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Part 2 of “Why Trump couldn’t win but did”

November 9, 2016

It is deja vu.

It is not that I am expert enough to have predicted a Trump victory. But in May this year when Trump won the Republican nomination I posted:

May 6th 2016:

I have made this point before. Attacking Trump head on only fuels his anti-establishment support. It is only by occupying the ground he occupies that some of his support can be captured.

Attacking Trump – from any direction – only seems to strengthen his support. That suggests that his support is coming from those who feel that their fears are completely unrepresented by any of the other candidates. The 2016 election is dominated, I think,  by the avoidance of worst fears and not by the meeting of aspirations.  It could well be that nobody will be able to take away from Trump’s support unless they can articulate the same disdain for establishment politics and political correctness that he does and address the worst fears that exist.

The current headlines in the US media are now about how and why Clinton will trounce Trump. It all sounds exactly like the reasons given over the last year for why Trump couldn’t win the Republican nomination. Some of it – especially in the left leaning media – HuffingtonPost, Slate, Politico and Washington Post – are more like wishful thinking rather than analysis. They have not learned from their past mistakes and still haven’t understood the strength of the anti-establishment wave. Bernie Sanders is the only other candidate from either party who has begun to understand the mood abroad. To take away the “politically incorrect” territory from Donald Trump may be beyond Hillary Clinton.

My prediction for November is that Clinton support is more likely to collapse than that Trump’s campaign will implode. And therefore I will not be at all surprised at a very close run election and even if Trump wins.

And from the results it is pretty clear that the entire main stream media missed it and are still missing it. They are also still missing the point that they have themselves contributed to the resentment and anger that the Trump voters have now demonstrated with stunning effect. They (WaPo, HuffPo, LATimes, BostonGlobe, Politico, CNN and even the NYT) have been living in their own little bubble of virtuosity and sanctimonious blather that their vituperative attacks on Trump have been entirely counter-productive and have only cemented his support. Looking at the editorials today, they are still living in their bubble. They are still in denial about their own role in their own defeat. They have imbued political correctness with such a halo that Trump supporters have been invisible to the pollsters. Election models have been discredited soundly.

(As I have written elsewhere, election models are like climate models. They

  1. have pre-determined outcomes,
  2. are based on data manipulation,
  3. are biased to protect the “establishment”, and
  4. just plain wrong.)

I don’t expect even Trump the buffoon to be all bad. There are many silver linings to his dark cloud. But one thing is sure. President Trump is, at least partly, a reaction to Obama’s failures. His failure to let the US economy to be the engine for global growth, his failure to curb profligacy in government, his failure with Obamacare and his many failures with foreign policy. To that extent it is Obama’s fears of action which have enabled Donald Trump.

 

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Media and establishment thrashed by the “people” as Clinton concedes

November 9, 2016

A different world?

Only one US newspaper endorsed Trump.

And it certainly wasn’t the Washington Post or the New York Times (and in this case it was the NYT which copied the WaPo headline).

trump-triumphs

trump-triumphs-2

The polls and the models — not much good that can be said about them.

 

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It’s all over as the establishment circles its wagons around Hillary

November 7, 2016

They read fast over at the FBI.

650,000 emails read and analysed in a week is pretty impressive. That the FBI ( and the Department of Justice) are part of the political establishment that Hillary belongs to is fairly obvious. In any event the FBI interventions have put some life into the final stages but now, as the establishment wagons circle around Hillary, her victory tomorrow seems a foregone conclusion.

So the US will have another Clinton as another dodgy President. The new First Lady will probably be Huma Abedin. Bill Clinton can be President Emeritus.

The odds of another Clinton being impeached are fairly high. The odds of another President being forced to leave prematurely like Nixon are also fairly high.

The markets should gain today.

 

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The world looks on amazed as the US picks a Witch or a Buffoon

November 6, 2016

I wonder how November the 8th, 2016 will be recorded in history.

It seems – in our time – to be an epic – and fateful – battle with consequences beyond just the US. Populism versus establishment. The “people” versus the party system. The “people” versus the media. The “people” versus the “elite”. Institutions versus individuals. Liberalism or conservatism. Decadence opposed by decency. Depravity set against prudishness. Open borders versus protectionism. Big government against small. Profligacy opposed by austerity. White trash versus black trash. Muslims versus Christians. Mordor versus Gondor.

It is “the poor” against “the rich” but both Clinton and Trump are extraordinarily rich. It is “good” versus “evil” with both claiming to be the “good”. It is integrity against corruption where it is difficult to see who is less corrupt. It is a choice between evils but the lesser evil may not win. It is a race to see who is perceived worse.

But whether Donald Trump is a white rider from Rohan or the Black Lord of Mordor is uncertain. Or is he just Coco the clown brought on for light relief? Hillary Clinton is certainly no Galadriel but whether she is an Evil Witch or just a Red Queen is open to question.

If Hillary Clinton wins it will either be remembered as the day the Red Queen triumphed or the day when Witch Hillary of Little Rock prevailed. If Donald Trump wins it will either be the day a Great Buffoon came to power or the dawn of a Return to Greatness.

Either way the world is amazed it has come to this. That 325 million people gave themselves no option but the choice of a Witch or a Buffoon.

Lewis Carroll is needed to bring some sense into this.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

That it has come to this is also part of Barack Obama’s legacy.

 

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Paradoxes for our times / 5

November 5, 2016

paradoxes-5

 

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The sum of all wisdom by the mathematics of philosophy

November 4, 2016

The sum of all wisdom is the summation across the population, of the integrals over time of the second values derivative of knowledge.

the-sum-of-all-wisdom

Not the philosophy of mathematics but the mathematics of philosophy!

 

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Brexit is still some way away – as a way opens to stop it

November 3, 2016

It was already clear in July that constitutionally, a non-binding referendum result needed an explicit parliamentary vote to trigger the formal Brexit process. The High Court in the UK agrees with that view – though the Supreme Court will still have to have its say.

Back in July, I posted:

Brexit is not going to happen any time soon.

If it happens at all.

It seems according to constitutional law experts that any government with any Prime Minister will need a vote in parliament to give authority to an Article 50 notification of intention to withdraw from the EU. Once triggered, withdrawal is inevitable and time-bound. But there is no majority in the current parliament for leaving. And it could be the best part of a year before such a vote in parliament can even be held. For any chance of such a vote being passed it will need a General Election fought on precisely such a question and that the party or parties in favour of an exit win such an election. But it is also possible that such a vote can not, in the reasonable future, be passed. ….

….. (It occurs to me that if Nicola Sturgeon wants to postpone, if not block, Brexit she should get the European Court of Justice to rule on whether or not a parliamentary vote is needed to give authority to a government to invoke Article 50. Even EU bureaucrats can not quibble with that).

Now the High Court confirms that opinion.

BBC:

Parliament must vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the European Union, the High Court has ruled. This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – beginning formal discussions with the EU – on their own. Theresa May says the referendum – and existing ministerial powers – mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners called this unconstitutional. 

The government is expected to appeal.

Ministers were given the go-ahead for a further hearing to take place at the Supreme Court, which is expected to take place before the end of the year.

The prime minister has said she will activate Article 50, formally notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to leave, by the end of next March. This follows the UK’s decision to back Brexit in June’s referendum by a margin of 51.9% to 48.1%. The EU’s other 27 members have said negotiations about the terms of the UK’s exit – due to last two years – cannot begin until Article 50 has been invoked.

Gina Miller, who brought the case, said outside the High Court that the government should make the “wise decision of not appealing”.

To what extent the referendum would compel UK MP’s to follow the referendum results remains to be seen. Probably the government will not be quite brave enough to hold a free vote among MP’s. Whether the EU will shoot itself in the foot (again) or actually take on much overdue and much needed reform is perhaps even more interesting.

I have a theory that while representative democracies used to, from time to time, throw up genuine leaders, the current trend of giving in to mass demonstrations and calling a referendum for any and all questions only allows space for sheep-like followers. The point in this case is whether a government is to be one of sheep or one of leaders?

Stop Brexit - image Market Watch

Stop Brexit – image Market Watch

 

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