The Left's EU problem

Since my move from being pro-EU to being anti-EU, the questions and contradictions that dog the left still remain.  The EU, along with the EC and EEC before that, is essentially about trade, that is the free flow of goods, capital and people. Therefore at its inception the left was hostile to the concept of a trade bloc. Indeed, during the original EEC membership referendum the late Margaret Thatcher campaigned for a yes to enter vote and the late Tony Benn campaigned for no to stay out vote.  This changed slowly in the 80s and 90s as the EC and later EU moved more to the left with laws to protect worker's rights, thereby circumventing the sovernignty of its member states. But in the 2000's a new factor entered the mix - immigration.  The addition of the former Eastern bloc countries and the Blair government's policy of allowing citizen's from these new members to enter the UK to work and live turned the whole debate on its head. So instead of the EU being a businessman's club to help them earn more profits, the paradigm was about cultural diversity, enrichment and the benefits of immigration. Now the axiom was that if you were against the EU then you were racist, in the same way that being against mass immigration was racist.

We can see this in the way UKIP are demonized during the 2015 general election, and the Green's party rather confused policy of campaigning to stay in the EU during the referendum but cutting down on the amount of trade between the UK and EU.  Strange that Greens do not mention cutting done the free movement of labour, only the free movement of goods and capital.

So therefore now we are in a situation where the British left are essentially campaigning to stay in a businessman's club , because it does not want to be seen as being pro-nation state, pro-sovereignty and against immigration.  This all ties in with the fact that since the fall of the USSR, the left has been pushing a cultural marxist of Frankfurt school agenda rather than an economic one.  In that anything that undermines British or western culture is good as the western or British culture is essentially racist, imperialist and made no positive contributions in the the left's view of the world.

Finished Quantum: a guide for the perplexed

Yesterday, I finished reading 'Quantum: a guide for the perplexed' by Jim Al-Khalili. It is aimed at those without a physics background, more so than Gribbin's Quantum Cats book.  There were items which I needed further explanation from Youtube such as decoherence and Heisenberg's Uncertainty principal.

I particularly liked the final chapter which deals with practical applications of quantum mechanics in areas of computing, medicine and biology.

Now that I have a firmer background of the subject, I will restart Gribbin's book again.

Paris 2015

Last Saturday morning(14th November HK time), I heard the horrible news about the events in Paris. This is a city that's very close to my heart. I have been there many times, including a 3 month stint in 1998. During that time I have been to Saint Denis, on one occasion but did not go into the stadium.

The rest of the attacks took place in the 11th arrondisment, which I am not very familiar with, I do recollect visiting the Place de la Nation, where the Boulevard Voltaire suicide bombing took place.

And I haven't previously heard of the theatre Bataclan and the Eagles of Death Metal who were performing that dreadful night.  It's a sad thing that I heard about the theatre and the band due to this horrible event.

I later found that Eagles of Death Metal recorded a death metal cover of one of my favourite songs - 'Save a prayer' by Duran Duran.  Here is a live recorded clip of this cover with the Duran Duran boys.  Its difficult to believe that a few weeks after appearing on Chris Evan's show, they would witness death and destruction, where one of their entourage was a victim.

To all the victims, rest in peace.

Command: Europe at war, follow up review

As you may know, I am currently playing Commander: Europe at War strategy game on the PSP.  It is a turn based game and you play at being a staff commander rather than a field commander.  Unlike other strategy games like Total War and Age of Empires, there are no real time battles.  So it is more like a chess game and aimed at the strategy purists.

Just like real millitary campaigns, there is a finite amount of men, hardware and money to play around with.  Moreover, you 'invest' the resources in creating more hardware and training more men.  In keeping with the technical advances that both sides made during the war, you have a research module whereby you can develop new technologies like rockets and jet air craft.

So far in my round I have successfully conquered Poland, but dealing with France is a little more difficult.

Harrows 18g Assassin soft tip dart review

Here is my latest dart review video, please feel free to leave comments.

Back to quantum physics

I have just finished reading my latest astronomy book and I have bought Jim Al-khalili's "Quantum: a guide for the perplexed". He is Scottish born Iraqi physicists who made a wonderful BBC series about electricity, so I have high expectations about his written work.

Murderer or terrorist

As a result of the recent migrant crisis there has been a spate of violent attacks on migrants in numerous European countries and sadly some have resulted in deaths.  Elsewhere a number of Israeli Jews have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists through stabbings, rocks and car collisions.  To me all these deaths are deplorable.  The sad thing is that people on social media try to make political capital out of these tragic events.  One of these is - why are murders by muslims considered terrorism and why are murders by non-muslims considered murders and not terrorism? These memes appear usually on the politcal left and in muslim written articles.

To me it is the very simple.  When a muslim commits an atrocity, whether 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Bali, Charlie Hebdo, the left media always make excuses for the attack, blaming Western foreign policy, occupation of muslim land, support for zionism and in the case of Charlie Hebdo, insulting Islam.  There is very little thought for the victim and there is always a motivating factor and if that factor wasn't there then there would be no muslim outrages.  Also in more insidious cases some muslims and their far left fluffers claim that these outrages are part of greater conspiracy to take away our freedoms, stoke up 'islamophobia' and demonize the muslim population. Israeli is usually mentioned in the same breath as these conspiracies.

In contrasts, such questions are not asked when Brevik killed the teenagers in Utoya, or when a neo-fascist hacked two school workers to death in Sweden, including a muslim.  Absent is the question of why Brevik and other neo-fascists carried these attacks and what motivated them.  They are simply seen as evil acts by evil men.  Whilst it may be interesting to discuss why these acts were carried out, they are sure to raise very uncomfortable questions for the left.

So it is not the mass media that makes the distinction it is the left and muslim commentators that make this distinction.