There is nothing so exasperating

Earth's Black Box: 32ft steel monolith will be built in Tasmania this YEAR and filled with hard drives documenting our climate change actions as an 'unbiased account of the events that lead to the demise

If humanity is obliterated by climate change, how will we even know it's happened?

That's the question being answered by Australian scientists, who are building Earth's Black Box – a 32-foot-long steel monolith that captures data about our planet.

It'll be filled with hard drives that constantly document climate change, giving an 'unbiased account of events' that lead to Earth's demise.


There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood which affects not to see what is quite palpable.

Sheridan Le Fanu - Uncle Silas (1864)

Not party political

Church is not party political, says archbishop amid Rwanda plan spat

The Archbishop of Canterbury has used his Easter sermon to say the church is not party political after facing criticism over his high-profile condemnation of the government's controversial Rwanda deportation scheme.

The word "party" is doing a great deal of work there - not with conspicuous success.

A change election

Tories set for worst election result, major poll suggests

Rishi Sunak’s Tories could be reduced to fewer than 100 MPs at the general election, a new poll has suggested.

The 15,000-person poll was used to create a seat-by-seat breakdown, which indicated the Conservatives would be wiped out in Scotland and Wales and hold just 98 seats in England.

Best for Britain chief executive Naomi Smith said: “With the polling showing swathes of voters turning their backs on the Tories, it’s clear that this will be a change election.”


This is the problem for voters who pay attention. Based on these results there is almost no chance that the forthcoming general election will be a change election unless a marked acceleration of the decline counts as change. Otherwise it's more of the same with different faces and marketing. Even sillier faces unfortunately.

The only real hope for this general election is a major upset of some kind, but a huge Labour victory is not a major upset. Otherwise it's a case of waiting five years for the next general election in the hope that millions more voters wake up.

Two Headlines

E-bike 'explodes outside Buckingham Palace'

An e-biked has seemingly exploded outside Buckingham Palace.

Photos and videos on social media show what appears to be the frame of a bike in flames on Saturday afternoon.


This e-motorbike provides a shockingly fun and functional commuting experience

Himiway, a prominent player in the electric mobility sector, made a big splash at CES 2024 with its new range of commuting machines, particularly the C5 e-motorbike. And finally, the bike is available to buy!

The exact idea of things

Hussonnet was not amusing. By dint of writing every day on all sorts of subjects, reading many newspapers, listening to a great number of discussions, and uttering paradoxes for the purpose of dazzling people, he had in the end lost the exact idea of things, blinding himself with his own feeble fireworks.

Gustave Flaubert - Sentimental Education (1869)


This is pretty much what goes on now if people aren’t selective enough when they look to the media for information. Feeble fireworks rather than adequate information is what they get. Millions still watching the BBC on a regular basis suggests those millions aren’t selective enough and have probably lost the exact idea of things. Not that there are good reasons to assume they have a powerful desire for the exact idea of anything.

Complexity and big media don’t mix. Big media outfits don’t put in the work and money required to untangle complexity, they don’t want to pay for the expertise and effort. It is unsurprising that what we so often see is lying by omission. Beyond the headline, stories often peter out into minimal effort, padded out with conjecture, gossip a few quotes and some stock images.

A good example occurred in the early days of the US presidential election where Donald Trump claimed that the election of Joe Biden was fraudulent. I recall an online BBC response which claimed that Trump’s allegation was false without explaining that this was an editorial opinion, not something the BBC knew.

The BBC response was too quick, it was too early to know one way or the other and probably still is. The issue was too incomplete and complex for definitive analysis to have been done, but big media and complexity don’t mix.

Nixon on Fonda

Nixon could have been harsher here, but maybe he didn't need to be. The point is made well enough for anyone but ideologues.

 

Coy

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Why won't Rayner come clean on tax?

When then Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi got into bother with the Inland Revenue, she led calls for him to come clean or resign.

And when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was on the rack over failing to declare his wife's business interests, she volubly condemned the 'transparency black hole'.

Yet when inconvenient questions are asked over her own tangled property and financial dealings, Mrs Rayner becomes uncustomarily coy. This reticence is regrettable.


What fun, but it always is fun to see politicians squirm. This story doesn't yet seem to be on the way out either, especially as the Tories don't have many reasons to indulge in some finger-pointing. 

"Sir" Keir must have doubts about managing his Parliamentary rabble if he is unlucky enough to become Prime Minister.