In the beginning

In the beginning there was Mickey Kaus.

When I started reading his Kausfiles, I fell in love with weblogs. After Kaus, I added the brilliant  Andrew Sullivan site to my favorites, then Real Clear Politics, then Arts & Letters Daily and soon dozens of sites, all of them American.

Then blogging came home and I found myself reading Stephen Pollard, the redoubtable Oliver Kamm, the inspired selections of Clive Davis, and, I don't know, a host of others. I've been driven mad by the comments under the postings on conservativehome, laughed at the irreverence of Guido Fawkes, gained insight from Nick Robinson and enjoyed myself in the company of Iain Dale.

There's so much out there for Times readers and others to be stimulated and amused by, that The Times has decided to establish Comment Central, a place where I can help readers find some of the great content that's available.  Comment Central will be:

• A traditional weblog. In other words, I will be logging the web (which is how blogs originated) not my life.
• Democratic. I want to help provide context for those who read Times columns, but I intend to go far wider than that. Comment Central will link, for instance, to articles on other newspaper sites.
• Idiosyncratic and selective. Inevitably.
• A part of the blogging community. I will try to maintain network etiquette, acknowledging where I sourced links from with a hat tip or other acknowledgement, for example.

I hope you will enjoy Comment Central.

Comments

[Tim Worstall]

Aaaaargh!
How did you know that I was about to pitch you with a proposal to create exactly this? Was, in fact, gearing myself up over the weekend, writing the notes and sorting out my arguments?
Still, now that you’re blogging does that mean I get to write your columns?

[Jonathan Haskel]

Not enough Economics, only one article so far. I expect an improvement.
Yours, Jonny (Professor of Economics)

[Ross]

This blog isn't as good as it used to be.

[Jonathan Sheppard]

The fact that you aren't reading my Tory Radio blog means I won't read yours!

Well only once a day then! Great idea - about time too! Looking forward to it.

[Raiyan Khan]

Dear Mr Finkelstein,
This is an urgent request for your assistance, since you were referred to me as an 'extremely helpful' columnist of TheTimes. I read MARTIN FLETCHER's report on his clandestine meeting with MIRZA TAHIR HUSSAIN who has been imprisoned in Pakistan for 18 years and is due to be executed by month end. Living in Karachi, I have witnessed with growing dispamy the utter lack of media responsibility in covering Mirza's plight. I earnestly request The Times and Mr Fletcher to allow me to circulate these articles in the local dailies, informing the Pakistani populace of the MURDER they will passively participate in, and the 18 years of injustice on which they have remained silent.
Sir, how do I go about doing this, and could you assist my efforts in any way? I have emailed NI Syndicate and am willing to pay for any copyright fees myself to ensure the article and Mirza's appeal are printed. But since time is truly of the essence in this case, I want them printed as soon as tomorrow. Furthermore, I wanted to confirm with Mr. Fletcher that he personally feels comfortable with such a move, for obvious reasons relating to the nature of how he obtained this exclusive.
If you are able to assist in ANY way, pl know that it would be greatly appreciated.
Oh and I'm not affiliated to and/or part of any organisation - I am pursuing this on a completely independent basis and just have some contacts in the local media who I plan to use.
Thanks for your time
Best,
Raiyan Khan
Karachi, Pakistan

[Daniel Stroeder]

Dear Mr. Finklestein,

Your weblog is very good, as are your articles - always insightful and thought provoking. I was wondering if you could send me an electronic version of one of the funniest columns I've ever read in The Times. It's the one where you worked as a plumber for a few days. I think the only thing that tops that was the one where they sent Richard Morrison to Ibiza to find "culture". I meant to save your article but I forgot and I wanted to show it to a friend who is a HVAC mechanic. Well, many thanks if this is possible. Sincerely, Dan Stroeder

[Dr. Subramania I. Sritharan]

This regarding the article by Bronwen Maddox on Sri Lankan War:

It is totally erroneous to say that Rajapakse, since he won, has seemed more willing to talk. He has the definite agenda of winning the war and returning to the status of the 60's. He wants to talk peace to appease the wetern nations. You expect the Tamils to participate in a program that would guarantee their obliteration from the Islan?

[Dhondopant Joshi]

Dear Mr. Finkelstein,

Please accept my compliments for your weblog.

I am Dhondopant Joshi, from Mumbai, India

Yesterday I got registered on this site and I read your weblog. I liked it so much that I could not resist the temptation of making this site my homepage.

Thank you so much for making life better.

Warm regards,

yours,

(grateful) Dhondopant

Mumbai, Maharashtra,
India

[Dr. David Bowsher]

Dear Mr. Hurst
As an atheist republican, I find that "God save the Queen" is a perfectly asequate, impressive, and happily meaningless national motto
David Bowsher

[Lampeter]

Is Peter Hain a Victim of Working in Wales where the Rules are ignored and being Regulated by Westminster?

The row over Peter Hain will hopefully highlight the lack of regulation that goes on inside the country for which he is Minister of State and that as everyone knows is Wales. What is less well known is the constitutional black hole that Neil Kinnock warned about has created a situation whereby the rules or relevant laws are simply ignored when it is politically convenient to do so. Moreover, these issues would not see the light of day nor would they be reported. Would anyone make a fuss? Well no; the reason being that any complaint is a waste of time as it is simply ignored and the lack of regulation means people get away with it.

However, change is on the way as much of the abuse of power and corruption that goes on is committed by exempt charities and the warnings that private schools could lose their charitable status also applies to the Church and Universities. It seems that the Charity Commissioners have been left to fill the black hole of regulation abdicated by the Welsh Assembly Government for fear of not only being seen as ineffectual to stop it, but of actively concealing it from public knowledge.

I once complained to the Welsh Standards Office on the failure of Welsh Cabinet Ministers to tell the truth and set an example on these issues and the reply was he did not know what I talking about. That says it all!

[Colin B.M. Scott]

Small pub in North Wales, summer 1954. Overheard conversation.
"Yahba, yahba , yahba motorcar, Bach!
Australia. 1967. Having completed loading Fresh Water bunkers, I delivered the Waterman with paperwork to my Overstyrmann.
The Waterman said, "Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. You speak very good english."
I left him with his illusions intact.

The vocabulary of "English as it is spoke" is and will continue to expand.
The same cannot be said of Doric, my birth place. Gaelic, my home.
or of Welsh and Sami.
A Telephone Exchange in Hindi is the
house of many voices.
Your Oline Poll question is daft,
Iwould not go as far to say that you are a numpty.

[John Arnold]

Can someone explain to me why the UK media is so hysterically transfixed on the US primary elections? We have no influence on the proceedings, and whilst the outcome is undoubtedly important to us, the excruciating detail with which the BBC et al pursue the subject is beyond belief. I am an intelligent businessman, I visit America every now and then (as well as other parts of the world), but for the life of me I don't see why we have to be subjected to every detail of the glacial progress of the proceedings. It is boring in the extreme.

[Ed Smith]

Daniel Finklestein is absolutely right in his comment piece today to highlight the conventional misconception that communist crimes somehow exist in a lesser category of evil than fascist crimes.

What is the difference between being shot because you are the 'wrong' class (as in Soviet Russia) and being shot because you belong to the wrong religion or ethnicity (as in Fascist Germany)?

Alongside Mr. Finklestein's excellent list of reasons why people insist on making this fasle moral distinction, I would add the following:

1. Bad history. There is sense that communism somehow started with noble intentions and then went a little off track, whereas fascism was rotten from the start. People who think like that may have read Orwell but not Lenin.

2. Communism's cosy relationship with the Marxist intelligentsia. In the second half of the twentieth century, even long after Communist atrocities were publicized, Marxism retained some intellectual credibility for the simple reason that a large number of leading British intellectuals and academics were Marxists. Admitting that Communist crimes were as bad as Hitler's made them no better than the fascist apologists - a position they were understandably reluctant to take up.

The best book I've read on this subject is 'The Lost Literature of Socialism' by the literary historian Geroge Watson. He sets the record straight on several fronts but quoting the Marxist intellectuals themselves - what they knew and how they exculpated themseves.

Watson first drew attention to this almost half a century ago, in a series of pieces in Encounter called 'Did Stalin dupe the intellectuals?' (Answer: no.)

Today's double standard about Communist and Fascist crimes is a hang-over from the long decades of denial among the intelligentsia about the realities of Communism.

[PacificGatePost]

Terrific, the blogging world keeps improving. Some of the quality is terrific. Keep pointing to the good stuff.

So here's a challenge:

CONTROL in Britain's and America's boardrooms has shifted for the worse over the past 30 years. As a result, due diligence and oversight are out the window. We are now enjoying the results of this self-serving governance.

Instead of lauding adulation on CEO's, how about pressing for restructure of their boards of directors. All of them.

"WE THE SHAREHOLDERS OF YOUR COMPANIES...... >>

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/boardrooms-need-restructuring-and-not.html

The sooner the better, before the cracks in the system become too big for putty.

Common sense needs more than a nudge here. BLOGGERS let's blog the boardrooms into common sense with a little persuasion.

James Raider
"RAIDER of The Lost Bark"

[Stefan Lazarus]

PROFILE OF A PANDEMIC
Item: An incurable fatal venereal disease is permitted entry into the general population, a disease with virtually no symptoms, and an incubation period of many years. The stigma associated with this disease is such that the media decides to minimize mention of the topic. As a result, the public are ill-informed of the consequences of promiscuity, the primary cause of spread. Now, 25 years later, promiscuity is still “fashionable” and pornography is rampant. I can’t see how the consequences of this can be considered anything less than the near-annihilation of mankind, i.e., mass death preceded by mass dementia. There are at present about 100 million AIDS orphans in Africa, where the virus originated. What is happening in Africa will happen across the globe. What’s going to stop it? There’s no cure on the horizon, and the media seems to think that ignoring it will make it go away. How does an “intelligent” society justify this imminent holocaust? And when blame is cast, whose decision was it to ignore all medical warnings and release this plague upon the children of man? Because history will call this “The Time of the Great Dying”.
310-593-1297 Stefan Lazarus

[Kay O'Neil]

Restore our Constitution. Get rid of all of Bush's executive orders that contradict the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kay O'Neil]

Get rid of the Federal Reserve. Discontinue the IRS and the Income Tax. Help the veterans. Stop the Wars. Go as Green as you can, and provide us some jobs that help with going green. Tell us about the UFOs, and unclassify any new and effecient energy systems that have been hidden from us. Legalize the growing of Industrial Hemp to save the US Farmers and promote a lot of new industry with the incredible hemp plant. Bring jobs home, by taxing companies who take their workforce (and their money) OUT of the USA. Improve the immigration situation, penalize the people who HIRE illegal aliens. Secure the borders. Make people be PROUD of a good day's work, we need to respect the products we make in this country as quality products, we need a Renaissance of Art and Music in this country. There are a few of my favorite things.

[Kay O'Neil]

of course, we can't stress or forget the importance of EDUCATION. Pay teachers more. Get more children educated so that we won't have so many stupid voters in the future who are prejudiced, who so easily believe silly things - who basically believe most anything they are TOLD without investigating the TRUTH on their own. We have a country on the verge of being sheep because of their ignorance. This has to stop. We need to be smarter, in a fundamental way. Economics and ignorance are the basic things that rule most people. We can change this, we are all AMERICANS, we CAN reach out to our fellow countrymen and women. Lets ride into the next era - helping eachother, instead of trying to control eachother.

[David Zukerman]

On the constitutionality of the Clinton appointment
to be secretary of state, don't you know the Constitution means whatever the left says it does?

[Larry Daley]

Yet, another serious glitch with global warming see:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY

It is absurd to base policy on such flawed data

Larry Daley

[Carol Jennings]

Re the Berlin Airlift Times 1st 2009 My My father was one of the RAF Civil Engineers responsible for extending and strengthening the airfield at Gatow and for the 24hr maintenance required to keep it open. The impact of enormous heavily laden planes on what had been until then a small private airfield would have been unsutainable without their expertise and creativity in the face of this sustained human as well as military crisis.
My parents lived in a small flat in Gatow until just before Christmas 1948. My mother was eight months pregnant by then and was flown out to the comparitive safety of the west in the back of a Dakota. She sat in the hold, on her suitcase. I was born at RAF Rinteln a few weeks later.

[deanludd]

This is the best chance they have:

http://moralorder.mediumisthemess.com/

[paulina marciniewicz]

Today i receive your email, i am so glad to have access to this site.

Any chance of making this site my homepage?

LOOKING FORWARD TO SEE MUCH MORE DOWN THIS SITE

THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME OUT
REGARDS
PAULINA MARCINIEWICZ

[Mel Byars]

The editing--concerning punctuation, grammar, standard style, etc.--of The Times is appallingly incept.