Category Archives: Ayn Rand

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A decade ago, Britannia Unchained, a poorly researched and written book charting new directions for UK growth, was released. Today two of its authors hold the keys to the kingdom.

Ten years ago this month, a group of eager young Tory things issued a pamphlet called Britannia Unchained. It is a rather unremarkable little treatise -- badly researched, with cherry-picked data and using the anecdotes of London taxi drivers as evidence that we are all lazy.

Britannia Unchaineddeserves to be less than a footnote of history. And it would be, if it were not for the fact that two of its authors are the new prime minister and her close friend, the new chancellor of the exchequer.

The others were Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Chris Skidmore, who had an undistinguished ministerial career -- unless you measure his achievements against the disasters of Patel and Raab. All have now been dropped as not good enough, and this is in lockstep with the theme of the book. Only hardworking, dynamic risk-takers can survive. Failures are to be dumped, and they deserve to fail in the first place. Ayn Rand, eat your heart out.

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Jonty Bloom

The New European

Jonty Bloom is a freelance journalist, and was previously business correspondent for the BBC.

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Originally posted here:

Fool Britannia: sloppy Tory treatise a hint of horrible things to come - Crikey

Is levelling-up still government policy? This was the question being asked by many in Birmingham yesterday on the first day of this years Conservative Party conference.

Even with this mornings remarkable U-turn over plans to cut the 45p tax rate for the most affluent, there is little sign from Liz Truss that levelling up remains a core part of government policy and it is hard to dispel the sense that the tide has turned against a Johnsonian redistributive approach. This appears to be a new era of libertarian trickle-down economics.

Yesterday in Birmingham had started with Truss acknowledging that she could have done a better job of laying the ground for Kwasi Kwartengs shock fiscal statement onSeptember 23. The chancellors pledge to borrow more in order to cut taxes mainly for the wealthiest had spooked markets, undermined the pound and sent mortgage interest rates soaring.

Michael Gove, the former secretary of state for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) then attacked the proposed 45bn of unfunded tax cuts for high earners, claiming they were not Conservative and appearing to threaten to vote against them in parliament.

As one of the key Tory ideologues behind levelling-up, Goves opposition would appear to underline the extent of the break we are now witnessing with recent government policy. And it surely played a significant part in prompting this mornings dramatic U-turn.

But despite this and whether it was a case of wishful thinking or not was unclear the rebuttals from government ministers came thick and fast.When asked whether the levelling-up agenda was dead in the water, Dehenna Davison,the recently appointed minister for levelling-up, could only respond by saying, I hope not Theres no way Id take on the role if I didnt think this was at the core what this government is going to do.

Like Davison, Robert Buckland,the secretary of state for Wales, was adamant that levelling-up was still a government priority. It has started, he said, and remains at the core of the government.

When I asked him whether the 4.8bn released in the first round of levelling up funding was sufficient for the task of redressing decades of structural imbalance, he responded by telling me that youve got to start somewhere.

Investment zones and deregulation

Following a week of turmoil, the government had sought to take back the political agenda on Sunday morning with the announcement that it was encouraging formal applications from local authorities to set up new investment zones.These zones will seek to stimulate investment through tax incentives, and by removing ineffective EU requirements, lengthy consultations with statutory bodies and onerous national and local policy rules.

Seeking to hark back to happier times for the Tories, Buckland compared these to the enterprise zones which the Thatcher government had set up in the docklands of London, Liverpool and Cardiff in the 1980s, with varying degrees of success.

I view investment zones as part of the levelling up agenda, he said, before going on to argue that far from representing a tilt towards libertarianism the new initiative was a continuation of Boris Johnsons interventionist approach.

We make interventions where appropriate, he said. The idea that the government has come to preach trickle-down economics is for the birds.

But elsewhere at the conference there were clear signs of concern about the wider implications of the investment zones.Former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers expressed concern about the erosion of local decision-making in planning and suggested that deregulation within investment zones could be rolled out more broadly.

David Thomas, CEO of Barratt Homes, said he did not want to see investment zones being used to short-circuit environmental regulation.Paul Brocklehurst, chair of the Land Promoters and Developers Federation, told me that he suspected the zones would see commitments to good design in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill cast aside in order to fast track development. I expect design codes are going to go in investment zones, he said.

Planning backlog

The government has declared that it is committed to a growth strategy. In recent years planning departments have seen an average of 43% cuts in resourcing. Given that developers and architects are constantly bemoaning the financial implications of massively delayed planning decisions, you might have thought this would have included a commitment to unlock the backlog in the wider planning system.

When I asked the new housing minister Lee Rowley what his plans were to address the under-resourcing of local authority planning departments, he could offer no more than a commitment that he would look into the matter and address it as and when.It seems architects should not hold their breath for any swift solution to this on-going problem.

Uncertainty

Elsewhere, there were murmurings of discontent from the big housebuilders. Thomas, the Barratt Homes chief, repeatedly mentioned the lack of clarity and consistency in government policy as a cause of concern for industry. We dont care if targets are set nationally or locally, we just want a system that works, he said.

The churn in built environment ministers was underlined by the presence of Rowley. He was much in demand, sitting on several panel discussions, but preceded his comments at each event he attended with an acknowledgement that, with only two and a half weeks in the job, he was not yet fully on top of the brief.

Given that he is the fourth housing minister of 2022, and the seventh in four years, he could perhaps be forgiven for his lack of insight, but it does rather underline James Watess concern that construction has for too long suffered due to a lack of attention from a heavy-hitting senior minister.

Devolution and local planning

There were mixed messages on devolution. While acknowledging that the relationship between Westminster, local government and grassroots communities had bedevilled attempts at levelling up for decades, Buckland argued that now was not the time for a radical overhaul of existing arrangements.

But elsewhere at the conference Davison and Paul Scully, the minister for local government and for London, were making the case for more local devolution deals, prioritising the introduction of directly elected mayors.

The tensions around centrally-set housing targets, Robert Jenricks failed allocation algorithm and the vestiges of David Camerons localism agenda are still being played out within the party. Rowley, stated that the ultimate decision-maker on beauty and design is the locality.

Nowhere at the conference though was there a clear solution to the challenge of delivering the millions of new homes that Britain needs, in the face of widespread opposition to building from many rural and urban communities.

Samuel Hughes, who was until recently head of research at the Office for Place, made the case for gentle density and suburban densification. He also argued that the only way to deliver large quantities of new housing in a politically sustainable way was in a way that has the support of local communities and restores the environment.

We cant smash our way through local communities, he said, before advocating for clear-cut design codes over vaguer design guidance.

More confusion to come

Industry may not be happy but the one thing that this government seems most likely to deliver is disruption and uncertainty. Kwartengs U-turn this morning only emphasises that point.

Whether this is by design or by accident is perhaps not important. It clearly reflects the increasing instability of the British political and economic systems over recent years.

Our one-party system the primary benefit of which we have always been told was strong government has given us four prime ministers in eight years.Anyone looking for greater clarity around regulatory and planning reform, or clear targets for housing, will have to wait. The merry-go-round of government ministers and policy changes seems certain to continue for the foreseeable future.

Although there were ministers yesterday making the case that the Truss government remains committed to levelling up, it is hard to see this latest regime as representing anything other than a full takeover of the Tory party by the libertarian right.Some government ministers may be labouring under the delusion that some kind of One Nation agenda survives, but the thrust of economic and regulatory policy appears to be moving ever further in the direction of hard-line ideological libertarianism.

Unquestionably, Truss and Kwarteng are shifting the UK determinedly towards an Ayn Rand-ian model, in which wealth is generated and accumulated by a select few.

Continue reading here:

Day one at the Tory conference: Industry cries out for stability but U-turns and uncertainty continue - Building

COURAGE UNDER FIRE: UNDER SIEGE AND OUTNUMBERED 58 TO 1 ON JANUARY 6 By Former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund

ASHLAND, Ore. (PRWEB) September 26, 2022

COURAGE UNDER FIRE: UNDER SIEGE AND OUTNUMBERED 58 TO 1 ON JANUARY 6By Former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund

ON SALE: JANUARY 3, 2023

HES PROTECTED EVERY LIVING PRESIDENT BUT NOTHING COULD HAVE PREPARED HIM FOR JANUARY 6

An explosive new book by Steven A. Sund, Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, will be published by Blackstone Publishing on January 3, 2023: COURAGE UNDER FIRE: UNDER SIEGE AND OUTNUMBERED 58 TO 1 ON JANUARY 6.

Courage Under Fire is former United States Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sunds gripping personal account that takes readers inside the events leading up to January 6, and provides a detailed and harrowing minute-by-minute account of the attack on the US Capitol, which was valiantly defended in hand-to-hand combat by the US Capitol Police officers who found themselves outnumbered 58 to 1.

Courage Under Fire contains never-before-seen photographs and draws upon audio recordings, key documents, and government records as it traces Sunds extraordinary journey from his command post on January 6 to his explosive behind-closed-doors testimony before the January 6 committee.

"It's almost two years after January 6 and the American people still dont know the truth. It's time to break my silence and reveal everything that I know happened," said Sund.

Courage Under Fire will be released in print and digital formats by Blackstone Publishing. An unabridged audio edition of the book, read by Chief Sund, will be simultaneously released in digital and physical formats. The book was acquired by Josh Stanton, CEO of Blackstone Publishing from Shane Salerno at The Story Factory representing Steven A. Sund.

"Chief Sund has written a book that details the road to January 6, including never before revealed information, a harrowing account of the attack itself which reads like Black Hawk Down at the U.S. Capitol, and the cover-up that followed. The book contains shocking new information that the American public needs to know," said Josh Stanton, CEO of Blackstone Publishing.

Steven A. Sund, one of only ten men in history to hold the title of Chief of the US Capitol Police, has coordinated dozens of National Special Security Events, responded to numerous critical incidents and active shooter events, and has protected every living US president. But nothing could have prepared him for the violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Three days before the attack, Chief Sund requested the assistance of the National Guard. This request was denied. In preparation for the Joint Session of Congress, Chief Sund directed every available sworn officer to be on duty to protect the Capitol and all of its members and staff.

But it wasnt enough.

The savage attack that followed was a well-planned and carefully coordinated armed assault on the United States Capitol, involving thousands. The shock and horror of this attack exploded on TV screens worldwide as US Capitol Police officers under Chief Sunds command found themselves facing a violent siege, hit with pipes, fire extinguishers, boards, and flag poles. Dedicated men and women were knocked unconscious and sprayed with mace and bear spray as live pipe bombs were discovered at the national headquarters of both major political parties.

Finally, multiple police lines were breached. Then the building was breached. The National Guard didnt arrive until it was much too late. In the end, 150 officers were seriously injured, and nine Americans were dead.

Now, for the first time, Chief Steven Sund has written the definitive inside story of the perfect storm of events that led up to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, a day that rocked the nation and threatened our democracy. As the Capitol descended into chaos, insurrectionists infiltrated and stormed its hallowed halls and democracy was pushed to the brink. Few people realize just how close we came to seeing the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and countless members of Congress beaten, maimed, or killed.

Other explosive revelations in Courage Under Fire include:

There have been many false reports and outright lies concerning the conduct of the US Capitol Police on January 6, and there has been no accountability for the individuals who bear most of the responsibility for the failures that left the USCP unprepared that dayfrom the shocking failures in intelligence to the outright stonewalling Chief Sund received from the Pentagon when he repeatedly called for the National Guards help, even as the attack on the Capitol was raging.

Two years later, so many questions still remain unanswered: What did the intelligence community know about the plans of the insurrectionists before the attack? Why was the request for the National Guard continually denied and delayed? Why was the U.S. Capitol so vulnerable on January 6? And why does the U.S. Capitol remain vulnerable to future attacks?

Forced to take the fall and resign, this is Chief Sunds chance to answer those questions and to tell the full truth about what really happened on January 6.

###

ABOUT STEVEN A. SUNDSTEVEN A. SUND was the tenth Chief of Police for the United States Capitol Police from June 13, 2019, until January 8, 2021. Before joining the United States Capitol Police in 2017, Sund had a 25-year law enforcement career working for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C., where he rose in the ranks from patrol officer to Commander of the elite Special Operations Division (SOD). As Commander, he led planning for numerous high-level security events including four Presidential Inaugurations, and oversaw a number of specialized units, including the Emergency Response Team (SWAT), Special Events/Dignitary Protection Branch, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit (Bomb Squad), and many others.

Chief Sund is a recognized expert in critical incident management and active shooter preparedness and response. His experience includes being the on-scene incident commander on the 2009 shooting at the National Holocaust Museum, the 2012 shooting at the Family Research Council, and the 2013 active shooter incident at the Washington Navy Yard. In addition, he has handled dozens of criminal barricade and hostage situations. Due to his knowledge and experience, Sund served as an instructor with the United States Secret Service in the area of major events planning and has taught the Incident Command System (ICS) at the George Washington University. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Johns Hopkins University, and a Master of Arts in Homeland Security from the Naval Postgraduate School. He also completed the Police Executive Research Forums Senior Management Institute for Police and the FBIs National Executive Institute. Courage Under Fire is his first book.

COURAGE UNDER FIRE: UNDER SIEGE AND OUTNUMBERED 58 TO 1 ON JANUARY 6 by Steven A. Sund

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

On sale date: January 3, 2023

Hardcover U.S. Price: $27.99

E-Book U.S. Price: $9.99

#CourageUnderFire

Book jacket design: Stephanie Stanton

About Blackstone Publishing:

Founded in 1987, Blackstone continues to pioneer new and creative ways to bring stories to life. With multiple New York Times Best Sellers, Grammy award-winning audio productions, and three books placed on the New York Times Best Books of the Year list, Blackstone has firmly positioned itself as one of America's fastest growing and respected publishing houses. A true independent, privately owned publisher, with offices on both coasts, Blackstone is home to a vibrant and eclectic community of storytellers and story lovers, offering hundreds of new titles each month to its catalog of 17,000+ books. The authors published are as varied as the books themselves, with works by some of the biggest names in literature including Gabriel Garca Mrquez, Ayn Rand, Ian Fleming, George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, James Clavell, as well as more contemporary authors like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Karen Slaughter, Don Winslow, Robert Downey Jr., Jeneva Rose, Norman Reedus, and many more.

For press inquiries contact: Lauren MaturoBlackstone Publishinglauren.maturo@blackstoneaudio.com

Excerpt from:

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund Set To Publish A New Book About The Attack On January 6th With Explosive Never-Before-Revealed Information...

Since the last shift at Parkside colliery in St Helens clocked off in 1993 and its two shafts were capped, nature has progressively taken over: scrubby silver birches have seeded themselves on the hardstanding all over the huge site alongside the M6, which once employed 2,000 local people.

But peer through the trees and the piles of fly-tipped junk this week and there were signs of life: bulldozers were busy working on a taxpayer-funded access road, to join this long-neglected site to the adjacent motorway.

It is the first stage of what St Helens council, which owns a 50/50 stake in the project with the local developer Langtree, hopes will be a 1 million sq ft distribution hub, and ultimately an even larger manufacturing centre, bringing potentially thousands of new jobs.

For us, employment and high-value jobs is what this site is really all about, says the councils director of place, Lisa Harris. We want to make sure that there are local benefits for local people.

The Parkside project was conceived almost a decade ago, and it is one of hundreds of schemes around the UK poised to benefit from the tax cuts and other incentives that form a central part of the Conservatives dash for growth.

It may be a good 20 miles from the sea, but Parkside is part of the Liverpool city regions freeport. Notwithstanding the name, the freeport takes in not just the port of Liverpool itself but a 28-mile (45km) area around it, including a long-planned regeneration project across the Mersey in Wirral Waters, a huge transport hub in Widnes and this former colliery site in St Helens.

Future investors will be able to take advantage of a slew of tax breaks including capital allowances, stamp duty relief and reduced employer national insurance contributions on new workers. Crucially for champions of Brexit, they also include customs privileges, allowing imports to arrive (and be stored) tariff-free and with light-touch checks, in designated customs zones.

One of these will sit at the historic port of Liverpool, which is owned as is much of the land around by the private firm Peel Ports and which was brought to a halt this week by striking dockers.

Steve Gerrard, the national coordinator for freeports at the Unite union, which is organising the action, says that aside from a dispute over pay, they are concerned that workers will not feel the benefits of the freeport project. What theyre going to be looking to do is undermine terms and conditions. Theres a risk that what you get is a race to the bottom.

The Labour-controlled Liverpool city region combined authority, which has oversight of the entire ambitious scheme, denies this, insisting that despite freeports being distinctively Conservative, it will implement it in its own way.

The regional mayor, Steve Rotheram, said when the bid was announced: I want to attract investors into our region who believe in and support our local ambitions those who will help us to protect workers rights and uphold standards, and who want to work with us to regenerate and invest in the areas that need it most.

Rishi Sunak championed freeports even before he was chancellor, and he confirmed eight sites in his final budget, with a bidding process ongoing on for three more, in Scotland and Wales. But after Kwasi Kwartengs mini-budget on Friday, it is clear that the Liz Truss government wants to supercharge this model and replicate it throughout the country.

As many as 38 new investment zones will be created. These will lack the customs benefits of the freeports, but alongside tax incentives there will be a dramatically simplified planning system.

As a Treasury factsheet put it, there will be designated development sites to both release more land for housing and commercial development, and to support accelerated development. The need for planning applications will be minimised and where planning applications remain necessary, they will be radically streamlined.

Kwarteng called it an unprecedented set of tax incentives for business to invest, to build and to create jobs right across the country, which will last for a decade.

Councils already in early discussions stretch from Cornwall to Cumbria, and include the Liverpool city region, which is still awaiting confirmation that the business case for its freeport plan has been accepted, and will have to decide whether to take up these new powers. Significantly, for those such as Liverpool with a regional mayor, the offer will include more control over funding.

Angela Eagle, the Labour MP for Wallasey, whose patch includes Wirrall Waters, says the governments tax-cutting, deregulatory approach is firmly shaped by Trusss free-market ideology.

She seems to be wanting to establish tax havens internally in the country, where the law doesnt apply. Theres no sign that any of these things ever actually work, Eagle says. They are completely faith-led, and their faith is market fundamentalism, with Ayn Rand [the US libertarian] as one of their saints. Theyre completely divorced from reality.

Using tax breaks to tempt inward investors is by no means new: it was part of the Thatcher governments toolkit as it sought to kickstart regeneration in areas including Londons Docklands, and the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition introduced a new generation of enterprise zones from 2012. Freeports are not new either: the UK had seven, of which Liverpool was one, between 1984 and 2012.

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Analysis by the Centre for Cities thinktank of the Cameron-era enterprise zones found that over five years they created fewer than 14,000 jobs, against the Treasurys forecast of 54,000. Of those, more than a third were existing jobs that had moved from elsewhere, and the overwhelming majority were low-skilled.

That comes about because these zones are trying to cut the costs of doing business. But these are cheap places to do business anyway, says the thinktanks Paul Swinney. Youre making them even cheaper, and that appeals to a certain type of business, that is doing something quite routinised.

Adam Hawksbee, the director of levelling up at the thinktank Onward, agrees that tax incentives are only part of the picture when investors are looking for opportunities. The other big thing is what in investment terms they call the table stakes: what does the land supply look like? What do education and skills in the area look like? How many people are economically active? he says.

Many of the areas earmarked for the new investment zones are not obviously in need of levelling up a phrase noticeably absent from Kwartengs statement. Trusss home patch of Norfolk is on the list, as are Suffolk and Greater London. Scully says the planning powers may be more significant here.

Where planning bites the most is not in struggling places, where getting planning through is relatively straightforward; where planning really bites is in the greater south-east, he says.

At Parkside they are optimistic the freeports model will give this project almost a decade in the planning a fillip. Harris says it gives the council more tools in our toolbox which we wouldnt have had previously.

John Lucy, the director of the overall Liverpool freeport, of which this is just one small piece, says he hopes it will benefit from two big trends the push for energy self-sufficiency since Russias invasion of Ukraine, with zero-carbon projects a key part of Liverpools plans; and the worldwide move towards shorter, simpler supply chains.

Because of the way the world is now, theres a lot of near-shoring and onshoring of manufacturing, he says. All these global supply chains, the existing model is just being totally ripped up. For once, we seem to be in the right place at the right time.

As the dramatic market reaction to Kwartengs statement underlined, however, this and other major investment projects are being launched against the nail-biting backdrop of economic and financial instability, with interest rates likely to continue rising sharply.

But in Liverpool, lapped by so many waves of regeneration over the decades, they are hoping this latest iteration helps give the historic port and its surrounding area renewed economic impetus.

Lucy says: All of these areas have been vacant and in need of regeneration for three decades or so. If this doesnt help, this doesnt help, but its better than nothing, and theres no plan B locally or nationally, so its as good a place to start as any.

Originally posted here:

Right place at the right time: freeports model gives fillip to St Helens regeneration scheme - The Guardian

The queen is dead. Long live the king.

From my earliest childhood memories during World War II, Elizabeth has been a constant in my life a changeless symbol of stability during unstable times.

By an accident of timing, I was in Oxford when the new prime minister was elected, and I saw the pictures of the very frail queen still doing her duty, welcoming Liz Tuss. Then, on Friday, on the eve of my granddaughters wedding in Italy, word quickly spread among us: The Queen is dead.

And eight days later, I was back in England, where I counted myself privileged to be among the English as they mourned their queen. We shall not see the likes of her or the pageantry, ritual and assemblage of world leaders for her state funeral again. The second Elizabethan Age has ended.

Duty. Honor. Country. God.

Virtues honored more today in the breach than in practice, virtues the queen embodied and the traditional Anglican funeral ritual captured so perfectly. Vows made in youth and kept over a long lifetime. She was described as a servant leader, a term we use so often in the church and witness so seldom.

Flashback. In 2011, during a tour of the Scottish Highlands, our group called on Lady Grace Macpherson-Grant at Ballindalloch Castle. She was about my age, and she described how her father inherited the title and the lands upon the death of his uncle when she was 6. Her parents explained to her then, Someday this will all be yours. She was reared to manage a huge estate and as laird, to represent the queen in the county. She quipped, I had to find a man who would love me and my castle.

As I watched the visible signs of succession this past week Charles stepping into the role of king and William into Prince of Wales I was most touched by the presence of young George and Charlotte (that little girl, dressed in funeral black with a broad-brimmed hat) at the funeral. Did you catch a glimpse of that moment when William entered Westminster Abbey and Kate stepped forward with the children to join him? William took Georges hand to lead him up the aisle. George, so often impish and mischievous in the photos, bit his lower lip, and Williams brow was deeply furrowed lines I had never seen before. I could imagine the conversation he had had with George, Someday this will all be yours. At the age of 9, George is being trained to be king someday.

I wonder if we are doing our children a service in giving them the privileges of adulthood without the responsibilities.

How very different from how we rear our children. We want them to enjoy childhood and the college experience. We want to give them time to find themselves. We want to protect them from the burdens and responsibilities of adulthood for as long as possible. My bank has a term for the twenties emerging adults. I wonder if we are doing our children a service in giving them the privileges of adulthood without the responsibilities.

The royal family provided a stark visual reminder that with privilege comes responsibility. Harry, who rejected the responsibilities of royalty, and Andrew, who broke the rules, were part of the family but clearly distinguished from the working royals. Thats a fine line, one that would be difficult for most of us to imagine. A modern parable of the Prodigal Sons.

When I was young, I really didnt understand the value of the rituals of death. At times I thought the family should simply gather at home for a time of remembrance, shared stories and prayers. Other times I wanted a service with just the minister and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But eight decades of life have exposed me to a lot of loss, and I have come full circle.

I watched the queens funeral in my room at Gravetye Manor, an old country house hotel about 20 miles southeast of London, before going downstairs for lunch and then on to Heathrow for my flight back to Texas. The mood in the hotel was somber and quiet, but in English fashion staff carried on. My driver was a Hungarian who has lived in London 18 years but does not regard himself as English.

Im not religious, he told me immediately, but I was moved by the funeral service.

Im not Anglican, but I was moved too, I replied.

Surely, its a comfort to Anglicans that the same words that apply to the queen apply to them.

For all the pomp and circumstance, it was still the familiar liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, read at Anglican funerals around the world for centuries the same words of comfort and hope from the Gospel of John, the prayers and hymns, the brief homily that bore testimony to the queens faith and to the sure confidence in eternal life. As I told my driver, Surely, its a comfort to Anglicans that the same words that apply to the queen apply to them, that they are equal in Gods sight regardless of their status here.

I fear I am out of step with most in my generation on the subject of funerals. When my husband, Lev, died 13 years ago, I didnt want a celebration of his life. I wanted a funeral, where we could grieve but be reminded of our hope in Christ. Too often today, I leave a service feeling like I have been to a roast. At the queens service, the homily and the prayers captured all that truly mattered in the queens life. Eulogies would have been a distraction.

I didnt see anyone celebrating the queens death. Even the most strident anti-monarchists were mostly silent and respectful. Certainly the faces on the king and his queen, on William and Kate, now prince and princess of Wales, belied any state of joy about their newly elevated positions. They all appeared older, bowed down by heavy new responsibilities, by the fact that their old lives are gone and of course, by their grief that they have lost their mother, their grandmother, their great-grandmother.

As the cameras panned the family at the end of the service, as the congregation sang God Save the King, it seemed to me that they sang it as a prayer and fervent hope for Charles. The future for the family, the nation and the Commonwealth is uncertain.

Flashback. On Jan. 20, 1961, at his inaugural address, John F. Kennedy spoke those famous words that inspired my generation:

And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedomof man.

Finally, whether you are citizens ofAmerica or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on earth Gods work must truly be our own.

We were 21 and ready to change the world. Friends signed up for the new Peace Corps. Many entered ministry and chose professions of service. For a brief moment we celebrated Camelot. But then came assassinations and racial conflict, Vietnam and Watergate. And Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman and the glorification of libertarianism. Its all about me and my rights and my freedoms, even in the church.

In recent years I have frequently wondered how todays audience would react to a speech like Kennedys. Sadly, I suspect there would be widespread ridicule and rejection of the old-fashioned virtues of duty, honor, country, God.

Perhaps that is why we Americans of a certain age celebrate and mourn the queen. She was our last thread to forgotten virtues of faith and patriotism.

Ella Wall Prichardis a journalism graduate of Baylor University who is known as a philanthropist and advisor to Baptist causes in Texas and beyond. She was a member of the Baylor Board of Regents and a director of the Baylor Alumni. Her book,Reclaiming Joy: A Primer for Widows, recounts the story of her husbands untimely death and her suddenly finding herself the president of the family oil business. A longtime resident of Corpus Christi, Texas, her primary residence now is in Dallas, where she is a member of Wilshire Baptist Church.

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Womanhood, white Christian nationalism and Queen Elizabeth| Opinion by Greg Garrett

I love the recognition of a life, but the obsession with the monarchy still bothers me| Opinion by Russ Dean

View post:

Reflections from London on the queen's life and death - Baptist News Global

Published: 9/10/2022 8:04:07 PM

Modified: 9/10/2022 8:00:11 PM

In 2003, when the Free State Project first declared New Hampshire the promised land, libertarians who answered the call to move to the Live Free or Die state were regarded in some circles as harmless cranks who read Ayn Rand at an early age and never got over it. Twenty years later, only 6,200 out of a projected 20,000 have arrived, but while they may be cranks, the Free Staters have proved to be anything but harmless. They have done a lot of damage already and are trying to further bend state and local government to their radical will.

In the Upper Valley, perhaps the most notable example occurred in Croydon this year, where Ian Underwood Selectboard member, Free State stalwart and husband of the School Board chairwoman took advantage of a sparsely attended annual School District meeting to propose cutting the school budget by more than half, a surprise motion that passed by a vote of 20 to 14. Chastened residents of the town, which has a population of 800, mobilized to overwhelmingly overturn the cut at a subsequent meeting, 377 to 2, and have since organized to guard against further such shenanigans. Croydon may have learned its lesson, but many other communities especially small ones where a sprinkling of Free Staters can wield outsized influence remain at risk.

The Free Staters have made significant inroads in the Legislature as well. While only about 25 legislators in the 400-member House are known to be Free Staters, they have many allies in the Republican liberty caucus, where they have helped to vastly expand school choice at the expense of public education; rolled back permit requirements for carrying firearms; endorsed tax cuts for business; and pushed back aggressively against government public-health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, who moved to New Hampshire from Ohio in 2010 as a Free State immigrant, is an exemplar of such legislators. He was in the news lately when a 2010 post to a libertarian forum resurfaced in which he repeatedly employed a racist epithet to refer to Black people while attempting to equate lynching with child sex abuse as an abhorrent form of behavior.

Osbornes apology, which noted that he was 33 years old at the time of writing the post, contained the declaration that he would never use such language now and that in the years following that post, he became a new man when he lost weight, stopped drinking and went back to church. This admirable personal transformation did not, however, manifest itself this summer when he urged Americans to celebrate July 4 by laying off the calories and grabbing a few more rounds for your AK-47. Maybe after another 12 years and many more mass shootings, he will outgrow that sentiment as well.

In Belknap County, a Free State stronghold, efforts by libertarians to privatize the county-owned Gunstock Mountain Resort have been stymied so far by Gov. Chris Sununu, who has called for the ouster of three Republican legislators who exercise an oversight role at the resort. One of the three, Rep. Michael Sylvia, supports having New Hampshire secede from the United States, a goal shared by an estimated 40% of Free Staters.

And New Hampshire Public Radio reported last month that the Free Staters tweeted out a list of churches in the state that they consider woke that is, those who support the LGBTQ+ community, condemn racism and back measures to respond to COVID-19. Apparently while the Free Staters cherish the right to be left alone themselves, they do not extend that courtesy to congregations that differ in their views.

New Hampshire has long had a libertarian streak when it comes to limited government and low taxes, but the Free Staters brand is radical. Although rarely articulated, it embraces the fantasy of a future in which individuals are empowered to do exactly what they want to do, when they want to do it, and no one is forced to do anything they dont want to.

Voters beware. Know who you are voting for, and what they believe. The Free Staters are quietly embarked on a hostile takeover of New Hampshire government for their own ends, which amount to exalting the almighty individual above the needs and aspirations of society at large.

Read this article:

Editorial: NH voters, beware of radical threat on ballot - Valley News

My mid-week morning train WFH reads:

Interest Rates vs. Inflation The average yields savers earned in the 1980s were higher than inflation, including education, healthcare and housing prices. Average yields remained above healing CPI numbers throughout the 1990s and 2000s. (A Wealth of Common Sense) see also Your guide to good news is bad news and bad news is good news High inflation has made for unusual times. (TKer)

The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For: He lived almost 200 years ago, but Henry Georges theories might have something to offer people who want to put their money to good use today. (Vanity Fair)

The ESG Crown Is Slipping, and Its Mostly the Fund Industrys Own Fault: Plain-vanilla stock and bond funds are doing better than the socially responsible ones. (Businessweek)

Classic Car Experts on What to Expect From the Market This Fall:If you want an affordable old Chevy or mid-level Jaguar you may be in luckthey havent been selling. In August alone, overall sell-through rates were 16.3% lower than in August 2021, according to data from Classic.com. (Bloomberg) but see also Americans Snap Up Teslas, Bentleys, Lamborghinis as the Luxury-Auto Market Booms The share of premium vehicles sold has risen, lifted by cash-rich buyers, growing affluence. (Wall Street Journal)

Mark Cuban says pharma villain Martin Shkreli inspired him: The Shark Tank investor and Dallas Mavericks owner takes inspiration where he can get it. (Recode)

Schools Are Back and Confronting Devastating Learning Losses: States direct billions to tutoring and other efforts to reverse pandemic declines in reading scores but have little sense of what works. (Wall Street Journal)

One Data Point Can Beat Big Data: Complex algorithms work best in well-defined, stable situations where large amounts of data are available. Human intelligence has evolved to deal with uncertainty, independent of whether big or small data are available. (Behavioral Scientist)

Three reasons why Taiwanese people are increasingly opposed to reunification with China: Surveys show people in Taiwan are worried about what China might do to their democracy and liberal social values.(Grid)

Sheep Are the Solar Industrys Lawn Mowers of Choice The laborious job of clearing weeds in solar-panel fields has triggered a welcome boom for American shepherds and their flocks. (Wall Street Journal)

Stephen Curry Said Davidson Changed His Life. He Changed Davidson. Curry, the N.B.A. superstar, returned to Davidson College, where he first showed how great he could be. The college, and its community, still feel his impact over a decade later. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out ourMasters in Businessinterviewthis weekend withLynn Martin,President of the NYSE, which is part of the Intercontinental Exchange.NYSEis the worlds largest stock exchange, with 2,400 listed companies and a combined market cap of ~$36 trillion dollars. She began her career at IBM in its Global Services.

Is the S&P 490 cheap?Source: @Callum_Thomas

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10 Wednesday AM Reads - The Big Picture - Barry Ritholtz

Regarding Tomlinson: Texas electric grid recommendations are just more crony capitalism costing consumers, (Sept. 7): I have a simple question for Mr. Tomlinson and the others pushing for more adoption of wind and solar generation capacity. Who will fund and invest the necessary capital in fossil fuel plants that will have to sit idly by until needed on days when the renewable sources cant produce their base-load average?

On average, wind accounts for about 20 to 25 percent of power generation in Texas, but some days, it drops well below 10 percent, which means you need at least 15 percent of on-demand generation capacity at the ready. How will this necessary reserve capacity be maintained and funded? Should renewable sources be required to pay fees when they fall below their average? Should home solar users pay a higher rate when they need to draw power from the grid? This is not unlike the issues with electric vehicles and gasoline taxes used to maintain roads. As more and more EVs take to the road, fewer and fewer gas taxes will be collected to maintain the roads.

Renewables are great and all, but how much are we going to have to pay to ensure the power stays on?

Tim Graney, Katy

Texas has enough solar to power the world two times over, Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech, said in a TED talk. Texas can lead the way to a better future.

Alas, our State Energy Plan was written by Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Patrick and House Speaker Phelans appointees. They are like folks driving a car while looking into the rearview mirror. Hayhoe says that will work as long as the road is straight, but when we hit a curve oops.

Texas grid is heading for curves. Because of global warming, air conditioner load will grow and we may have another bad freeze. Were hard at work exporting our natural gas to Europe. Electric vehicle sales in Texas are up 55 percent from last year.

Please vote against Abbott.

Nan Hildreth, Houston

Chris Tomlinson comments acutely on the crony capitalism of the Texas oil industry. What he identifies is endemic to the so-called free market.

Once an industry becomes entrenched, it loses its creative impulses and instead builds defenses around itself. It is not above using political, or state, mechanisms to protect its interests. No entity is more anti-competition than a monopoly or near monopoly. The market winners become anti-free market in reality while retaining rugged individualism in theory.

A hypocrisy develops. There grows a kind of socialism for the (upper) classes and rugged individualism for the masses, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once put it.

The Ayn Rand individualists seem to believe that unleashed capitalism can exist without interference by or with the political system. That is unrealistic. Once wealth has been accumulated, it will be protected by lobbyists, political alliances and ideological friends. This is human nature, something the market absolutists like to remind us over on the port side about.

In the mounting human disaster that results from radical climate change, the reaction of fossil fuel businesses holds back the development of solutions. We need rapid public and private investment in solar, wind and geothermal energy, as well as ecology-friendly energy storage in order to adapt, and to save life on this planet. The old-time religion is not going to get us there. We need a new system of checks and balances for a new, challenging time in history.

As the old Iroquois philosophy teaches, What you do, do for the next seven generations.

Paul L. Rowe, Houston

Regarding With climate legislation complete, Biden looks to presidential power to boost clean energy, (Sept. 6): The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and potential executive action will clean up the air at home, but we still need to fix the problem not yet addressed while we reduce pollution in the U.S., other countries continue to release heat-trapping gases into the air which warms the planet for all of us.

One way to increase responsibility elsewhere is to impose a fee on imported products from nations, such as China, that release more pollution in their manufacturing processes. The EU is rapidly moving forward with a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will force countries trading with it to produce products with a lower carbon footprint or pay a fee. We too can level the playing field by placing a CBAM on foreign manufacturers undercutting our U.S. businesses with their cheaper, higher carbon-intensive goods.

Now it may fall to Republicans to hold other countries accountable. As the new Congress approaches, we urge Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and Houston area Representatives Dan Crenshaw, Troy Nehls, Michael McCaul, Kevin Brady, Brian Babin and Randy Weber to support federal policy that does just that.

We can send a firm message to high-polluting countries if you dont follow our lead, youll pay to do business.

Drew Eyerly and Waqar Qureshi, conservative outreach director and volunteer, Citizens Climate Lobby

Here is the original post:

Opinion: Renewables are great and all, but who'll pay when they fail? - Houston Chronicle

In 2012, back when they were still under the 20th Century Fox banner, the studio did something a little different and released a "Simpsons" short film called "Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare" to theaters, which preceded "Ice Age: Continental Drift." The four-minute short follows Maggie on her first day of daycare at the Ayn Rand School of Tots, which favors groups of children over others.

The appeal of "The Longest Daycare" is that it doesn't feature a single line of dialogue, focusing instead on Maggie's silent attachment to a blue butterfly that a unibrowed baby wants to squash. Even when there's no spoken banter for these characters, the subtle inflections on Maggie's face coupled with the rapid-paced background gags prove how adept this team is at getting a laugh. The short was even nominated for an Oscar, but lost to Disney's "Paperman."

Maggie would return to the big screen nearly a decade later with another silent short entitled "Playdate With Destiny," which featured the youngest Simpson finding herself in a meet-cute romance with a boy at the park named Hudson. According to an interview with The AV Club, executive producer Al Jean claims the short had been in development for years. It was likely for another episode in the series' 31st season ("The Incredible Lightness of Being a Baby").

But there was an exciting development for the team behind the short when they learned where it would ultimately end up.

See more here:

The Simpsons' Playdate With Destiny Short Was A Product Of Serendipity - /Film

Reviews

In Filthy Animals, a collection of short stories, Brandon Taylor is at his most original and inventive.

Brandon Taylors Filthy Animals (Daunt Books Originals, 2021), which won this years Story Prize and was on the Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist, is a collection of 11 short stories, of which a few are interlinked. While each story in this collection is chiselled to perfection and displays Taylors hallmark oeuvre as his characters arcs and their behaviours in the myriad relationships they develop over time, stand out.

In Taylors fiction, relationships neither get conducted in the boring, believable way they tend to do in most fiction writing, nor do they crumble under the weight of meaning as stories about love, longing, and finding ones place in society often seem to carry. Instead, its the vilest of human conduct that Taylor masterfully renders in these stories, prying open the animalistic instincts in human companionships.

He not only exposes the interiority and duality in his characters but also weaves their unsaid motivations wonderfully. Sample the first story, Potluck. Lionel a Mathematics doctorate turned Proctor, whos fresh out of the hospital after trying to kill himself finds that not recognising anyone apart from the host both a comfort and a warning.

Why should one feel this way, you might think? Is it because Lionel is an introvert? Or a Black person? Or someone who is difficult to talk to as professional dancers Sophie and Charles, whom he meets in this gathering, believe?

It may be because even though he leads what appears like a mediocre existence, Lionel refuses to be part of the mindlessness that surrounds him, yet he partakes in the everyday because thats what it takes to survive. For example, Lionel was ashamed of proctoring only when he had to tell other people about it, and only when those people knew that he had once been a graduate student with good brain chemistry.

Theres something intriguing about Taylors prose: it criticises without claiming a territorial hold on the viewpoint. Nor does Taylor overburden his stories with whats expected of a Black queer writer. In comparison, consider the following two novels that become unreadable midway because their authors didnt know how to keep their characters removed from their politics: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy.

When an author snatches away from its character the autonomy to decide for themselves or interferes with their natural progression, then such characters become unrealistic and inauthentic to read. And thats what separates Taylor from his contemporaries: he listens to his characters inherent need to bring themselves out in the story, fully.

Indulge in these moments in his stories. Observing Charles, Lionel finds that Charles has the kind of body you could only get at great personal risk. He was good-looking, in a way that seemed incongruous with ordinary life. Or this, about unprivileged childhoods: That was the blessing of certain childhoods. The illusion of your invincibility. Your safety. Some people didnt know the danger they were in until years later, looking back. These sentences convey the whole background power imbalance, sexual tension, and need for validation in so few words, and need no glorious explanations. Theres beauty in their muteness.

Perhaps it is in this measured way that Taylor crafts his characters that hes able to extract raw emotions in a dialogic manner without appearing philosophical and conveys the meaning without being melodramatic. Sometimes it is the ridiculously mundane that Taylor presents in his story, and you cant help but marvel at the observation and accompanying thought with it. Heres one incident from Proctoring: Lionel swirled the coffee in the cup, aware of the gesture as he performed it, knowing that it had little utility, that it was something performed to make him look a certain way, pensive, thoughtful.

Theres something wounded in each of his characters, too, but he doesnt let them exhibit their hurt. Be it the babysitter in Little Beast who feels its a disservice to let children go on thinking the whole world can be something it cannot or Marta in Anne of Cleves who becomes uncomfortable after meeting her ex-lover, knowing that a part of important information has escaped her: that shell be outed for now he knows everything. Theres unusual humour at play, too. Theres this moment when Lionel feels like laughing, wondering that he hasnt taken his own suicide seriously enough.

Two stories, in particular, were gut-wrenching to read: As Though that Were Love and the titular Filthy Animals. While the choice of Mercy Me the violent game that Simon and Hartjes play is so clever in the first story that this hunger for power and superiority renders it animal recognition, in the second the palpability of violence, which doesnt leave any trace, makes it a fascinating read.

I wouldnt use the word brave to describe this collection, for in one of the stories Lionel says: People called you brave for going on because it affirmed their own value system. They considered their own life worth living, and so they considered every life worthy. It is in fact located beyond the instruments of value system and judgement.

Originally posted here:

Filthy Animals Pries Open The Violent, Animalistic Notions In Human Relationships - Gaysi