What's the point of having scientific advisors if you only listen to them if they confirm your priors or support your political position? If you're never going to change anything, even if a respected scientist says you're basing your position on nonsense, why even bother having an advisory body?
I'm so tired of this empty debate about drugs. All governments ever say they are going to do is "fight against illegal substances", ignoring the fact that they are only illegal because they called them that. What we're trying to say is that there's hypocrisy in the distinction between those currently legal and those currently illegal, despite many of them being less personally and socially harmful (by a number of different measures) than nicotine and alcohol. If you can't get past an argument more sophisticated than "they're illegal because they're illegal", you're not the right people for this job.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
So we're are three nights into the show, and it's going well. I would say, although its open to debate, that they have been improving each night, certainly from a personal level, and also with things like the degree of mind-meld and reincorporation. There were several times last night when I realised we were all thinking the same things, which makes driving an improvised storyline that much easier, and look that much better. That said, last night was also more silly and over-the-top than previous nights, which means that perhaps, whilst enjoyable for ourselves and entertaining for the audience, may not have been the best (or deepest) improv.
John and Sarah Lloyd attended last night, and said they thought it was so well improvised, it was possible to forget that it wasn't scripted. This is a huge compliment, although also creates problems, which we may need to deal with. Reviews have been good, generally. Aside from a savaging in the Oxford Student, based on what was admittedly not the greatest press preview, the Cherwell review was good (although the star rating reflected the perceived likelihood that a improvised show varies in quality) and OTR put up two here. It's a shame no-one was in to review Wednesday or Thursday's show, as they were our best yet.
Anyway, tickets are mostly sold, though some remain, especially for Saturday. If you haven't had chance yet, do come: 9.30pm, tonight and tomorrow, Burton Taylor Studio Theatre.
John and Sarah Lloyd attended last night, and said they thought it was so well improvised, it was possible to forget that it wasn't scripted. This is a huge compliment, although also creates problems, which we may need to deal with. Reviews have been good, generally. Aside from a savaging in the Oxford Student, based on what was admittedly not the greatest press preview, the Cherwell review was good (although the star rating reflected the perceived likelihood that a improvised show varies in quality) and OTR put up two here. It's a shame no-one was in to review Wednesday or Thursday's show, as they were our best yet.
Anyway, tickets are mostly sold, though some remain, especially for Saturday. If you haven't had chance yet, do come: 9.30pm, tonight and tomorrow, Burton Taylor Studio Theatre.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
I'm as Pro-bama as the next guy, but seriously, what on Earth?
Edit: Actually, reading this is an impressive argument. My initial thoughts were based on the fact that its still early days. Maybe that misunderstands the purpose and nature of the prize.
Edit: Actually, reading this is an impressive argument. My initial thoughts were based on the fact that its still early days. Maybe that misunderstands the purpose and nature of the prize.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Sorry, haven't done this for a while. I meant to put up a Kitson review, and I probably still will. In the meantime, however:
Every morning, Cath puts on GMTV as she's getting ready. I have reached the point now where if I meet Andrew Castle in the street, I'll probably injure him (although that would only give him something else to look outraged about the following morning). Every morning there's some massive injustice going on somewhere in the country, some Little Man's battle against evil business or ineffectual government where he (or one of his co-hosts) will attempt to impersonate a real journalist by asking what I assume they think are the tough questions, but are actually just populist jabs, usually without the slightest bit of research or knowledge apart from the talking points from the segment introduction.
About a month ago, they were doing a segment on teen binge drinking, with the angle being that marketing departments in drink companies aggressively target young people. Possibly true, and morally quite dubious, but that misses the point. A representative from the industry made the reasonable point that companies can only operate with the existing law, and that maximising profits for shareholders is actually a legal requirement. They also had on a girl who had become an alcoholic in her mid teens. This sort of reporting, where you take one person with a huge vested interest and a sympathetic backstory as a spokesperson or expert for a particular point of view is manipulation, pure and simple, both of the individual, and of the watching audience, and lacks the intellectual rigour these issues deserve. Think Paul Betts everytime there's a drug tragedy story.
That said, she impressively and bravely argued that it was much more her personal choices than advertising that was her downfall, despite Castle's attempts to place sentences like 'wouldn't have happened if these companies didn't target children' in her mouth, nearly destroying the whole angle of the segment (it would have been destroyed if the host paid any attention to the input of their guests, rather than continuing with whatever they were going to say anyway).
This morning was a familiar one - the idea that electricity and gas companies pass on increases in energy costs much more than they pass on decreases in energy costs. The whole segment was lunatic on many levels. There was an 'expert' claiming that the problem was that the Big Six energy firms had been allowed to get too big, and competition was weak. There are SIX firms. That's four or five more firms than are active in most other European countries. The UK is the country furtherest along with the sort of market liberalisation the European Commision wants. How can any of them get too big? They have to share a market six ways.
The report also pointed out that companies tend to buy fuel a long way in advance, which is true, and for good reasons to do with reducing risk (which, ultimately, lowers cost). This, then, is the reason why changes in energy prices aren't always seen on bills. That is the end of the argument, because the initial question is the wrong one. Obviously, this point of logic ignored. They went on to ask if government should step in, as Ofgem wasn't doing enough, without the slightest discussion of why regulators are made independent from government in the first place.
The piece actually finished with a long statement from Ofgem stating that this issue had been investigated extensively last year, and no evidence was found that this perception (which has been propogated by media outlets like GMTV). I haven't read this report, but I do know that regulators rarely tend to side with energy companies on principle. I've worked on reports for regulators, and reviewed regulatory proceedings, and the amount of times a regulator will reject the arguments of a regulated company far outweigh the times they concede the point. Clearly, however, this argument will continue until someone writes a better report. Your move, Ofgem.
Let me finish this by noting that I'm no champion for the benefits of unfettered free market capitalism and big business. I realised long ago that capitalism is the only sustainable economic system, because it best matches human nature, with all its innate self-interest. That is not to say that I think that just because these motivations are natural, they are the best we can do - and anyone who argues otherwise is grotesquely unambitious. I believe that one of the challenges of the modern left is to find ways which greater equality can be created within this system.
Big business and the free market can, at times, do this - lower costs of living are a benefit to all, but a particular benefit to the poorest. At other times, the necessary conditions for effective free markets (information, rationality and power) fail so much that goverment intervention is better. I believe that government should care about social welfare, and that taxes can be redistributive, but that not all taxes on the wealthy are effective in achieving this goal. There's no hard and fast rule. But we can surely all agree that these sorts of programmes, with their uninformed, analysis-free posturing helps nothing or nobody - the whole purpose of it is to generate public anger, which takes away energies that could probably be better spent on real issues.
Every morning, Cath puts on GMTV as she's getting ready. I have reached the point now where if I meet Andrew Castle in the street, I'll probably injure him (although that would only give him something else to look outraged about the following morning). Every morning there's some massive injustice going on somewhere in the country, some Little Man's battle against evil business or ineffectual government where he (or one of his co-hosts) will attempt to impersonate a real journalist by asking what I assume they think are the tough questions, but are actually just populist jabs, usually without the slightest bit of research or knowledge apart from the talking points from the segment introduction.
About a month ago, they were doing a segment on teen binge drinking, with the angle being that marketing departments in drink companies aggressively target young people. Possibly true, and morally quite dubious, but that misses the point. A representative from the industry made the reasonable point that companies can only operate with the existing law, and that maximising profits for shareholders is actually a legal requirement. They also had on a girl who had become an alcoholic in her mid teens. This sort of reporting, where you take one person with a huge vested interest and a sympathetic backstory as a spokesperson or expert for a particular point of view is manipulation, pure and simple, both of the individual, and of the watching audience, and lacks the intellectual rigour these issues deserve. Think Paul Betts everytime there's a drug tragedy story.
That said, she impressively and bravely argued that it was much more her personal choices than advertising that was her downfall, despite Castle's attempts to place sentences like 'wouldn't have happened if these companies didn't target children' in her mouth, nearly destroying the whole angle of the segment (it would have been destroyed if the host paid any attention to the input of their guests, rather than continuing with whatever they were going to say anyway).
This morning was a familiar one - the idea that electricity and gas companies pass on increases in energy costs much more than they pass on decreases in energy costs. The whole segment was lunatic on many levels. There was an 'expert' claiming that the problem was that the Big Six energy firms had been allowed to get too big, and competition was weak. There are SIX firms. That's four or five more firms than are active in most other European countries. The UK is the country furtherest along with the sort of market liberalisation the European Commision wants. How can any of them get too big? They have to share a market six ways.
The report also pointed out that companies tend to buy fuel a long way in advance, which is true, and for good reasons to do with reducing risk (which, ultimately, lowers cost). This, then, is the reason why changes in energy prices aren't always seen on bills. That is the end of the argument, because the initial question is the wrong one. Obviously, this point of logic ignored. They went on to ask if government should step in, as Ofgem wasn't doing enough, without the slightest discussion of why regulators are made independent from government in the first place.
The piece actually finished with a long statement from Ofgem stating that this issue had been investigated extensively last year, and no evidence was found that this perception (which has been propogated by media outlets like GMTV). I haven't read this report, but I do know that regulators rarely tend to side with energy companies on principle. I've worked on reports for regulators, and reviewed regulatory proceedings, and the amount of times a regulator will reject the arguments of a regulated company far outweigh the times they concede the point. Clearly, however, this argument will continue until someone writes a better report. Your move, Ofgem.
Let me finish this by noting that I'm no champion for the benefits of unfettered free market capitalism and big business. I realised long ago that capitalism is the only sustainable economic system, because it best matches human nature, with all its innate self-interest. That is not to say that I think that just because these motivations are natural, they are the best we can do - and anyone who argues otherwise is grotesquely unambitious. I believe that one of the challenges of the modern left is to find ways which greater equality can be created within this system.
Big business and the free market can, at times, do this - lower costs of living are a benefit to all, but a particular benefit to the poorest. At other times, the necessary conditions for effective free markets (information, rationality and power) fail so much that goverment intervention is better. I believe that government should care about social welfare, and that taxes can be redistributive, but that not all taxes on the wealthy are effective in achieving this goal. There's no hard and fast rule. But we can surely all agree that these sorts of programmes, with their uninformed, analysis-free posturing helps nothing or nobody - the whole purpose of it is to generate public anger, which takes away energies that could probably be better spent on real issues.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)