 |
|
 Friday 5th March 2010
I would vote for Geert WildersA good deal of hand-wringing will be taking place in Holland this morning following the announcement that Geert Wilders' Freedom Party has made significant gains in the country's regional elections. If the Party receives the same support in the national elections on June 9, Geert Wilders will be Holland's next Prime Minister. "The Dutch political system, based on consensus and co-operation, is coming apart at the seams," noted NRC Handelsblad, Holland's newspaper of record. (To read more, click here.)
Thursday 4th March 2010
A few tips for the Dalai Lama now that he has joined TwitterI was pleased to see that the Dalai Lama has joined Twitter -- and I'm not the only one. Since he signed up to the micro-blogging site, he has attracted over quite a few followers. However, I regret to say that he has already made several beginner's errors and is unlikely to get the most out of the site unless he follows two basic rules. (To read more, click here.)
Wednesday 3rd March 2010
New formula for finding the perfect wifeI was pleased to discover that a group of social scientists have come up with the formula for a perfect wife. According to a study published in the European Journal of Operational Research, a man should marry a woman who’s five years younger than him, from the same cultural background and 27 per cent more intelligent. It’s that last characteristic that jumps out. I can understand why it’s essential that a wife should be more intelligent -- someone has to know how to operate the DVD player, after all -- but why 27 per cent? Is the idea that if the gap was any smaller, husbands wouldn’t be able to tolerate their wives and if the gap was any bigger wives wouldn’t be able to tolerate their husbands? Or is it that women think they’re 13.5 per cent less intelligent than they really are, whereas men over-estimate their intelligence by 13.5 per cent, so a wife needs to be exactly 27 per cent more intelligent than her husband in order for the two of them to imagine that they’re intellectual equals? (I realize that the degree of deflation for women would have to be less than 13.5 per cent and the degree of inflation for men greater than 13.5 per cent, but I haven’t got a high enough IQ to work out the correct percentages. Perhaps I should ask my wife.) (To read more, click here.)
Wednesday 3rd March 2010
Cameron's strategy in the TV debates should be to get Gordon to throw a tangerine at himThe fact that terms have been agreed and the televised Prime Ministerial debates are now going ahead must be good news for Cameron. The reason I say this is not because I think Cameron is a more skilled debater than Brown — though he usually gets the better of him in the House of Commons. Rather, it’s an opportunity for Cameron to goad the Prime Minister into losing his temper. (To read more, click here.)
Monday 1st March 2010
I've been replaced on Top Chef by OJ Simpson
Monday 1st March 2010
Survey finds intelligent men "less likely to cheat". Yeah, right.Men with high IQs are less likely to be unfaithful to their partners than their less intelligent peers, according to a researcher at a British university. Interestingly, though, there's no evidence that intelligent women place a higher premium on monogamy than the general population. The research was carried out by Dr Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and published in the March edition of Social Psychology Quarterly. After analysing two major US surveys that examined the IQs and social attitudes of thousands of teenagers and adults, he concluded that there was a link between intelligence and monogamy: "As the empirical analysis ... shows, more intelligent men are more likely to value monogamy and sexual exclusivity than less intelligent men." (To read more, click here.)
Sunday 28th February 2010
Cameron positions himself as the British ObamaWatching David Cameron's speech on BBC News just now, it's pretty clear that he and his team have been studying the Obama campaign. We already knew this, of course. "Vote For Change", the Conservatives' newly-unveiled campaign slogan, was also the campaign slogan of Barack Obama -- but I hadn't expected Cameron to steal so many of Obama's lines in his keynote speech. There was a whole section towards the end in which he talked about "optimism", of what a transformed Britain might look like after five years of Conservative government, that was awfully reminiscent of Obama's emphasis on "hope". He didn't actually use the phrase "yes we can", but he might as well have done. (To read more, click here.)
Saturday 27th February 2010
Lockerbie Bomber not dying of cancer after all -- shock!The news that the Lockerbie bomber is not dying of cancer after all does not come as a great surprise. I thought the fix was in at the time -- with his "compassionate release" a smokescreen to conceal a cynical quid pro quo that had been worked out between the British Government and Colonel Gaddafi -- and so it has proved to be. Yes, yes, I know he was released by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, but I suspect he was just doing the bidding of his countryman in Downing Street. (To read more, click here.)
Friday 26th February 2010
The Home Office report on child sexualisation is a 100-page Cosmopolitan articleToday's Home Office report on the sexualisation of children feels like a bit of cheap electioneering rather than a serious piece of research. The report, by Dr Linda Papadopoulos, claims to have established that there's a "clear link" between sexual imagery and violence against women and makes a number of proposals, including selling mobile phones and games consoles with parental controls switched on, stopping the sale of lad mags to under-16s and banning sexualised imagery in adverts. (To read more, click here.)
Thursday 25th February 2010
Et tu, Barack? America betrays Britain in her hour of needIt was a headline I never expected to read: US refuses to endorse British sovereignty in Falklands oil dispute. Washington has declined to back Britain in its dispute with Argentina over drilling rights in the waters surrounding the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands. President Obama's position is one of strict neutrality, refusing to take sides. According to the State Department: We are aware not only of the current situation but also of the history, but our position remains one of neutrality. The US recognises de facto UK administration of the islands but takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party. (To read more, click here.)
<< Older Blog Entries Blog Archive Newer Blog Entries>> |
|
© 2004 - 2010 Toby Young