notes.husk.org. archive page 2 of 5.tagged politics.

“ Why doesn’t it bring Americans here? “Because American citizens pay tax on their worldwide income, wherever they are,” he said, then shrugged, and added, “If every government in the world followed that policy, things would look very different. ”

John Lanchester, with one notable exception to Why the super-rich love the UK (and in particular the way its tax laws regard the “non-domiciled”).

2012-03-04

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quote 04:30:53

“ First they came for the NHS and I said nothing because I was not sick. Then they came for the disabled people and those on benefits and I said nothing because I had an income and didn’t care what the ‘scroungers’ said. Then they came for the schools and I said nothing because I had no kids. Then they came for the police force with private/public partnerships and for speaking up, I received a baton to the face. The private guards looked at their targets and smiled: dissent down 35% this month. ”

intercourse with biscuits: Privatising the police: the dystopia starts here.

There are a lot of variations on Martin Niemöller, and usually I find them a little lazy. This one, though, I enjoyed.

2012-02-02

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photo 22:07:05

courtenaybird:

Fifty years ago, the four most valuable U.S. companies employed an average of 430,000 people with an average market cap of $180 billion. This year, the four largest U.S. companies employ an average 120,000 people with an average market cap of $334 billion. The titans of 2011 have twice the the value of their 1964 counterparts with a quarter of the employees.

(via The Atlantic)

I’m not sure why people think the tech industry is a panacea for job creation. Wealth creation? Perhaps. Jobs? Not so much.

2012-01-30

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quote 13:47:05

“ I’m genuinely interested in seeing the human race escape the planet and go exploring. Speaker Gingrich would like to be elected. ”

Warren Ellis on Newt Gingrich, Space Realism and Future America at Motherboard.

2011-11-07

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photo 21:51:57

new-aesthetic:

Occupy Oakland 12PM | publiclaboratory.org, via Mike M.

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quote 19:14:21

“ When I came back I began to realise that NHS facilities, particularly for this cancer, were fantastic. Now I wouldn’t go to a private hospital. I have completely changed my view. ”

Philip Gould, an advisor to Tony Blair, quoted in a Guardian interview published in September. As the story notes, “A surgeon in America told him he did not need the extreme surgery that the NHS had suggested. Gould took his advice and the cancer came back. By the time he returned to the NHS, it was too late.”

Gould died, aged 61, over the weekend.

2011-09-02

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quote 23:14:00

“ The Republican House majority leader, Eric Cantor, had described the proposed regulations as “job-killers”. ”

… as opposed to low-atmosphere ozone as a component of smog, which is merely an actual killer. As in, people die: according to the EPA, 12,000 premature deaths a year.

From the Guardian’s report, Obama backs down on tighter smog regulations.

2011-08-02

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quote 15:34:05

“ Here is one of the enduring ironies of democratic politics: it makes available a mass of new information about how messy life is while producing a greatly simplified political structure in which small numbers of people can claim to speak for everybody. ”

David Runciman in the London Review of Books article Socialism in One County, a review of the thinking of “Blue Labour” (but this quote seems apposite to US politics at the time of the debt crisis).

2011-07-06

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quote 23:14:00

“ Colin Myler, the current editor of the News of the World, yesterday told journalists that the paper faced an “extremely painful period ahead”. ”

The Telegraph: Phone hacking: families of war dead ‘targeted’ by News of the World.

Am I allowed to hope that the “painful period” is as painful as possible? Please?

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quote 06:53:40

“ Canada is the supreme example of how first past the post can explode into madness when it has to cope with more than two contending parties. In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois got nearly 24 per cent of the votes but only 5.3 per cent of the seats. In Saskatchewan, the NDP won almost a third of the vote – and no seats at all. That’s the insult to democracy the British swallowed on 5 May. ”

Neal Ascherson in the Wolves in the Drawing Room (subscribers only), from the LRB, vol 33 issue 11.

The article is mainly about Scotland and its recent election, but this quote about Canada and first past the post was too good to pass up.

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notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

2012-03-14

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