Link received from Douglas (Mick) Field
Sat, 11 Mar 2017 at 9:45 p.m.
### breitbart.com 10 Mar 2017 DELINGPOLE: We Won Brexit But the Same Dreary Losers Are Still In Charge
by James Delingpole
There is still much dispute as to precisely what it was that persuaded 17.4 million Britons to vote for Brexit last year. Some may have done it to regain Britain’s sovereignty, some to curb immigration, some because they realised correctly that everyone on the Remain side of the argument from one-hit-wonder gobshite Bob Geldof to that preening renter of overpriced desert islands Richard Branson was a weapons-grade, copper-bottomed tick.
But here’s one thing of which we can be pretty sure: nobody voted Brexit – the biggest public vote in favour of anything in UK history – in order to get more of the same old, same old.
Brexit was, perhaps more than anything, a cri de coeur from the silent majority who had been ignored for too long. It sprung from the same impulse that saw Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency – what political economist (and friend to the Donald) Ted Malloch has argued is a paradigm shift in global politics.
If you had to sum up that impulse in a phrase, it would go something like “Enough of this shit, already.”
Sure we might differ on our preferred solutions, but we’re all agreed what the general problem is. For too long a remote, democratically unaccountable, smug, corrupt, self-serving liberal elite has been making all the rules and all the running, while the rest of us just feel poorer, less fairly treated and more constrained by stupid, politically correct rules, regulations, and taxes in a failing system which wastes lots of our money yet gives us little in return.
The good news is that, against the odds, we won Brexit. Read more
A reader says “How unpredictable life can be….yesterday fluked a ticket to the Inauguration and am now standing in Union Square with thousands of others.”
Sunrise over the Capitol, Inauguration Day [iPhone image supplied]
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The day of pageantry and ritual — orchestrated both to celebrate the installation of a new commander in chief and to symbolize a peaceful transfer of power — began with a church service and included a military review, a triumphant parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and evening balls. Washington Post
The White House Streamed live 13 hours ago The Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States
President-Elect Donald J. Trump and Vice President-Elect Michael R. Pence will be sworn in to office on the west front of the United States Capitol (5:02:08)
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### time.com 4:34 PM ET Updated: 8:31 PM ET Donald Trump’s Unprecedented, Divisive Speech
By David Von Drehle In a rancorous first speech, the new president announces a sharp U-turn in U.S. policy, “America First”
The inauguration of a new president is always a balance between the national legacy and the promise of a fresh start. It is common for the speaker to try to set himself apart. Nevertheless, when Donald John Trump stood for the first time as the 45th President of the United States in a light rain to deliver his address, he went where no president has gone in more than a century. Trump’s message was not on the order of John F. Kennedy’s torch passing, or Ronald Reagan’s declaration that government is the problem. It was not even a 21st century version of Andrew Jackson’s attack on corrupt and incompetent Washington. In 16 mostly harsh, mostly confrontational minutes, Trump laid out a view of America’s destiny and place in the world that would alienate his predecessors dating back to Theodore Roosevelt and beyond.
It may go down as one of the most consequential—or one of the most misleading—speeches in the history of presidential inaugurations. Newly sworn into office, Trump announced a U-turn in the foreign policy that has defined America’s place in the world for more than 70 years. And while he was at it, he savaged the record and the motives of a large number of the men and women seated around him on the West Front of the Capitol. For all his reputation as a builder, he entered office as a wrecking ball. His choice of Vice President Mike Pence and his Cabinet appointments have been sharply conservative, but President Trump’s first message to the world was as radical as they come, and as populist as a pitchfork. If he truly means what he said (always a pertinent question for a fellow who once said he enjoys being compared to P.T. Barnum), Washington is about to become even more rancorous. And the world is in for some very big—and entirely unpredictable—changes. Read more
FebMar 2016 cover detail [economist.com via AP]
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ABC News Streamed live 13 hours ago Trump Presidential Inauguration 2017 (FULL EVENT) | ABC News
Trump Inauguration begins at: 1:04:02
Trump Full Inauguration Oath/Speech begins at: 1:56:00
Trump Inauguration Parade begins at: 5:26:08
Donald Trump, now the 45th president of the United States, promised that he would work tirelessly for every American and vowed to put “America first.” Trump told Americans, “This moment is your moment. It belongs to you. It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.”
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Read what Barack Obama said in final farewell after Donald Trump’s inauguration https://t.co/1aX0jfAqZM
[excerpts supplied]
### telegraph.co.uk 20 Jan 2017 • 7:39pm Donald Trump’s inauguration proves our revolution is in full flow – I can’t wait to see where it goes next
By Nigel Farage
This has been a very exciting week to be in Washington. A presidential inauguration is simply a massive event. And what I have found truly astonishing is the impact of Brexit on the American mind. As I walk through the streets – and even during a visit to Arlington Cemetery – people simply call out “Go Brexit!”. It is quite extraordinary. Many people want to come up, talk and say: “Thank you! You guys started it and now we’ve got Trump”. Despite the fact this is a big all-American event, there is a genuine feeling that Trump taking over the White House is part of a bigger, global movement. Our critics, looking at Trump’s candidacy and his speech yesterday, would call it the rise of populism. I would say it’s simply a return to nation state democracy and proper values. For this inauguration is not just a change from the 44th President to the 45th President of the United States. This is a genuine political revolution.
As you can see from the various people that Trump has appointed, be they generals or self-made millionaires, the political class in Washington has simply been bypassed. Trump of course must be careful and needs to keep his elected Republicans onside. But be in no doubt – everything will be different from now on. It will be a presidency where Twitter will continue to feature hugely. For as we were reminded at his inauguration, this is a president who is never frightened to say what he thinks. I have to say that, packed with his supporters, the whole event felt like a coronation. No wonder then that Trump was entirely true to himself and gave an incredibly powerful speech, reiterating of all of his campaign themes. It was an intensely patriotic oration and a genuine attempt to try and bring people together. I loved every word of it and cheered along with the crowd.
But what was particularly telling was to cast my eyes up at America’s political class and former presidents sat on the podium. They looked as though they were sucking lemons. That was the day’s most powerful statement that this was not a normal transfer of power. This is a political revolution that will make America great again.
Many in the liberal media elite here will never take to DJ Trump. I’m sure Donald won’t mind. He won and today he is king of the hill. I personally believe he has the qualities to be a very good president indeed. He is going to bring back money to America. He is going to bring back jobs to America. He is going to bring back proper border controls to America. That is what the American people elected him to do.
But Washington does have its share of protesters, many of them out in the street making quite a lot of noise. I expect over the course of the next few days there will be several demonstrations. The comforting thing though, is that the mood and atmosphere of these protesters reminds me of nothing so much as Bob Geldoff and his friends in the United Kingdom who would love to reverse Brexit – noisy but irrelevant to the direction of travel. Soon enough, even the noise fades away. Take comfort DJT.
The big political question on everyone’s lips here right now (besides what to expect of the new president) is where this mighty political bandwagon is heading next. For after the huge success of 2016, many out here in America are now asking if we will see more of the same in 2017. They are wondering whether the revolution we have seen in Britain and America will roll out across the rest of Europe too. Read more [paywall]
Link received 27/12/2016 at 3:21 p.m.
Message: A lesson for some Dunedin ‘luminaries’ perchance?
It’s amazing how resistant, particularly powerful men, are to people coming from outside and giving them advice on how to make decisions.
—Michael Lewis
RNZ National Trust your gut? Think again
From Nine To Noon with Kathryn Ryan, 10:09 am on 21 December 2016
[Abridged.] Michael Lewis is one of the most famous non-fiction writers in America. He has written 14 books, edited one and is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair. His books include the global best-selling Flash Boys – an expose of high speed scamming in the stock market; The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine – an account of shady financial transactions and accounting that led to the 2008 global financial meltdown and on which the film The Big Short was based and Moneyball, the story of a maverick outsider who beat the system.
Lewis’s new book is called The Undoing Project in which he profiles the professional and personal relationship between the behavioural psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Kahneman and Tversky’s work shed new light on how humans make decisions when faced with risk and uncertainty. They established that we generally trust our gut instinct, over the evidence, to guide our decision-making.
[simonandschuster.com]
Lewis says he came across Kahneman and Tversky after writing Moneyball. He says the two were very different personalities and that made for the perfect team.
“They sensed in the other something they wished they had. Kahneman is an unbelievable creative mind he really has a mind more like a poet or a novelist filled with these flashing insights about human nature. Tversky wanted to be a poet but he has a scientific, logical mind. He’s a brilliant logician.”
The two decide to come together and study how the human mind works. That work became an examination of human fallibility – the weakness of the human mind. They designed experiments to show how our mind plays tricks on us.
One they stumbled on was a phenomenon they called anchoring that skews human decisions. They also established that we are terrible at assessing risk – we rate risk based on what’s most memorable which tends to be what happened most recently.
[marketwatch.com]
“People long for the world to be a far more certain place than it is, instead of dealing with uncertainties they tell stories that make it seem much more certain and respond to stories that make it seem much more certain than it is. A politician speaking in certain terms as if he’s infallible has weirdly an advantage – even though we shouldn’t believe him. We’re very vulnerable to people who simulate certainty.”
Lewis is unsure whether this inbuilt fallibility can be fixed.
“I hate to sound fatalistic but one of the big takeaways from [Kahneman and Tversky’s] work is just how hard it is to correct for human fallibility – they equate cognitive illusion with optical illusion.” Read more
Michael Monroe Lewis (born Oct 15, 1960) was born in New Orleans to corporate lawyer J. Thomas Lewis and community activist Diana Monroe Lewis. He attended the college preparatory Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. He then attended Princeton University where he received a BA degree (cum laude) in Art History in 1982 and was a member of the Ivy Club. He went on to work with New York art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. He enrolled in the London School of Economics, and received his MA degree in Economics in 1985. Lewis was hired by Salomon Brothers and moved to New York for their training program. He worked at its London office as a bond salesman. He resigned to write Liar’s Poker and become a financial journalist. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009. More at Wikipedia.
Vanity Fair – Hive: Politics
█ Donald Trump and the Rules of the New American Board Game
By Michael Lewis Dec 18, 2016 7:00 pm
While volunteering at his daughter’s new high school, Michael Lewis watched kids of all races and backgrounds react to Trump’s election with a peaceful demonstration of their grief and fear. It inspired a game he’s devised for thinking about the future. Link
Vanity Fair – Hive: Politics
█ Obama’s Way
By Michael Lewis Sep 11, 2012 6:12 pm
To understand how air-force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and on the basketball court, Michael Lewis learns the reality of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent Stark into combat. Link
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
*Image: Michael Lewis by Tabitha Soren / W.W. Norton Company
blackwhite by whatifdunedin
YES YES YES !!!
(if it helps STOP all the rot at DCC, Dunedin *takenoteDavidCull)
[firstpost.com – Trump tweet during winter of 2012*]
### The Daily Telegraph (UK) 27 May 2016 • 7:04pm Donald Trump vows to cancel Paris agreement and stop all payments to UN climate change fund
By Associated Press
Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump unveiled an “America first” energy plan he said would unleash unfettered production of oil, coal, natural gas and other energy sources to push the United States toward energy independence. Mr Trump promised on Thursday to cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of US tax money to a United Nations fund to mitigate effects of climate change worldwide. But the speech, delivered at the annual Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, went far beyond energy, as Mr Trump laid out, in his most detail to date, a populist general election pitch against likely rival Hillary Clinton.
AT A GLANCE : Paris climate change agreement
1. A long-term goal to limit global warming to ‘well below’ 2C, or 1.5C if possible
2. National pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the 2020s
3. A plan to make countries pledge deeper emissions cuts in future, improving their plans every five years
4. Rich nations to provide funding to poorer ones – ‘mobilising’ $100bn a year until 2025, and more thereafter
5. A plan to monitor progress and hold countries to account
[…] Mr Trump delivered the policy address just hours after The Associated Press determined he had won the number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. […] He is among many Republicans who reject mainstream climate science. He has called climate change a “con job” and a “hoax” and suggested it is a Chinese plot “to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” He accused President Barack Obama of doing “everything he can to get in the way of American energy”. Read more
*He took it even further in 2015, saying: “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING b******* has got to stop. Our planet is freezing.”
–The Week (UK), 5 May 2016
[freethoughtblogs.com]
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
Election Year —this post is offered in the public interest.
![Donald Trump [firstpost.com]](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/donald-trump-firstpost-com.jpg)
![Anti-Trump-cartoon [freethoughtblogs.com] 1](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/anti-trump-cartoon-freethoughtblogs-com-1.jpg)
What if? Dunedin... 