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1561 Replies to Cian, Doug, and Dennis on rail -- rank: 1000

In message <20020115110529.54445.qmail at web20010.mail.yahoo.com>, Cian O'Connor <cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk> writes >The vast majority of people who commute into central >London from the suburbs come by train What's your source for this assertion? The published statistics on miles travelled by car and rail would seem to go against it. Outside London, people travel 6804 miles by car a year, and just 533 by rail (which would let you commute just two miles per day, by my reckon ...

Document Size:	6954
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Jan 15 05:44:36 PST 2002

1562 Replies to Cian, Doug, and Dennis on rail -- rank: 1000

In message <20020114013535.61744.qmail at web20010.mail.yahoo.com>, Cian O'Connor <cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk> writes >They can't be run privately because it was a botched >privitisation scheme conceived to give Labour a poison >pill. Prior to that they had been under funded. No >reason why they had to, except the treasury seems to >think that spending money is wasteful. I agree that it was a botched privatisation scheme (in fact it was no privatisation scheme at all, ...

Document Size:	11396
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Jan 14 12:41:38 PST 2002

1563 Britain's rail meltdown -- rank: 1000

In message <200201131755.g0DHtKq23518 at infothecary.org>, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> writes, in an accurate precis of my post >The government doesn't want it: >Private investors don't want it: >Europe doesn't want it: >No one thinks there's a balance to be made between revenue/expenses: >Why do you have trains at all? Which is a good question. First let's ask why does the government say that they want it when there actions say otherwise. I think they ar ...

Document Size:	8320
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Jan 13 19:39:00 PST 2002

1564 Britain's rail meltdown -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 13 January 2001 BRITAIN'S INTEGRATED TRANSPORT NETWORK: NOTHING MOVES Strikes by the Rail Maritime and Transport Union members on South Eastern trains stopped Londoners from going back to work after the holiday season. The press used the stoppages to attack government aloofness as transport minister Stephen Byers holidayed in India. The Unions were made the scapegoat, as commentators sought to shift the blame onto the other, train-drivers' union, Aslef, for opening up pay-differe ...

Document Size:	11101
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Jan 13 09:00:42 PST 2002

1565 Sex offenders and the 'net -- rank: 1000

In message <20020107182401.30090.qmail at web11104.mail.yahoo.com>, Kevin Robert Dean <qualiall_2 at yahoo.com> writes >Sure they are perverts and will probably want to >commit these crimes again, but I don't see how, if >this person is under constant survelience they can >commit any crimes using the internet. (ie he would >have to physically engage in these activities), so how >monitoring where he goes on the internet is going to >accomplish anything is beyond ...

Document Size:	7503
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Jan 7 13:49:26 PST 2002

1566 Euro and Greece -- rank: 1000

It is as well not to fixate on the technical aspects of the Euro as means of exchange. The changes that happened before the introduction of the common currency are more important. Principally, European countries dismantled their oppositional labour movements, and curtailed their welfare spending. These were the principal preconditions for the Euro. The so-called 'free market' was largely an alibi for attacking labour, such as the abolition of inflation-indexed wages in Italy (to 'met the conditi ...

Document Size:	6339
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Jan 6 06:09:19 PST 2002

1567 Britain's mission in India -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 6 January 2002 BRITAIN'S MISSION IN INDIA 'We are not a superpower, but we can act as a pivotal partner, acting with others to make sense of this global interdependence and make it a force for good, for our own nation and the wider world. In so doing, I believe we have found a modern foreign policy role for Britain.' Tony Blair chose to codify his humanitarian foreign policy, not in Britain, but before an audience of Indian industrialists - and in the middle of a regional conflic ...

Document Size:	9515
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Jan 5 16:43:36 PST 2002

1568 US economy turning? -- rank: 1000

In message <20020104003426.89367.qmail at web20010.mail.yahoo.com>, Cian O'Connor <cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk> writes >How much of Germany's economic problems can be >attributed to the integration with East Germany? I >would guess quite a bit, but presumably there must be >some advantages as well (a cheap labour source for example). > Though the value of the East German industrial base turned out to be even less than was thought, the 'costs of integration' were always ...

Document Size:	5448
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Jan 3 17:43:11 PST 2002

1569 Question for Econo-types -- rank: 1000

I think the inflation preoccupation is a bit of a shibboleth. Inflation in the seventies shaped a political generation. Right wing parties were elected to stop it. Left wing parties could not be elected unless they committed to tight spending. It's a formative experience for everyone. As it happens, these days, its all bullshit. There are no inflationary pressures (except maybe London house prices). These politicians congratulate themselves for reaching a target that they were heading to anyway. ...

Document Size:	6168
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Jan 3 17:40:13 PST 2002

1570 falsifiability -- rank: 1000

In message <000801c19458$2297ef60$0a7ba8c0 at hellodolly.hellodolly>, Scott Martens <sm at kiera.com> writes >Someday, love of formalism will be regarded as a disaster in the same way >that behavourism is now. Social science is not something to be studied in >labs. The best insights are out there on the streets, where nice white lab >coats can get dirty. Street-wise, world-foolish, a friend, Mo Benjamin once said to me. Or 'ignorance never helped anyone' as Marx said to ...

Document Size:	5773
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Jan 3 05:37:27 PST 2002

1571 Dawn of the Euro -- rank: 1000

In message <Pine.GSU.4.21.0201011757370.9191-100000 at garcia.efn.org>, Dennis Robert Redmond <dredmond at efn.org> writes >It's not mysterious or dark at all, it's right out in the >open: multinational capitalism has arrived in Europe, Really? I see a multi-national market, but the integration of state and economy militates against the disappearance of nation-states. It is pointed that for all the m&a activity in Europe over the last ten years, most large firms are identif ...

Document Size:	6851
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Jan 2 18:15:09 PST 2002

1572 Marxism is a science -- rank: 1000

In message <20020101151730.62794.qmail at web20005.mail.yahoo.com>, Cian O'Connor <cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk> writes >I think you're talking about something else. Unless >I've read Scott very badly wrong, he's saying that >Marx's investigation was not a dispassionate objective >one. Rather Marx came with preconceived ideas about >morality, the way the world is, etc and tried to prove >them. Well, if that's what Scott is saying, then I think he is mistaken. Marx wa ...

Document Size:	8046
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Jan 1 10:00:57 PST 2002

1573 Marxism is a science -- rank: 1000

In message <20011231184604.A18440 at panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> writes >Even if so the problem I mentioned would remain -- the world >is not mindless, therefore a description of the world must >include mentation _as_such_ (that is, not as mere descriptions >of mechanical behavior), and those mentations must include >the subjective experiences of the observers. But that's just bizarre. Who would try to describe 'the world' in its entirety. Science is in ...

Document Size:	7653
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Jan 1 03:09:42 PST 2002

1574 Soviet philosophy (Was : marxist sociology) -- rank: 1000

In message <F22571mrvoGdKO8FNpy000169b6 at hotmail.com>, Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com> writes >Well, it's not "the west," it's just a European exam system. It's the >same at Cambridge. At Cambs, the undergrads have to wear robes to >lectures. You want formal, try the French and Germans. Maybe there, but not here. I think that you can see something of the remnant of a strict teaching regime in the Oxford PPE (philosophy politics economics) course. But the ...

Document Size:	7155
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Feb 24 16:55:34 PST 2002

1575 Soviet philosophy (Was : marxist sociology) -- rank: 1000

In message <F9922x4QYAUoTzgoocw0000f21b at hotmail.com>, Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com> writes > THERE WAS GOOD SOVIET PHILOSOPHY, ESPECIALLY LOGIC, UNDER AND AFTER >STALIN. But there hardly any creative Marxist philosophy of any note >under or after Stalin, and the official Diamat was deadly and is only >of interest as a chapterof culturala nd political history. Interesting point. There was some good philosophy, but lots of rubbish. I thought that Ilyenkov in U ...

Document Size:	6931
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Feb 24 12:08:22 PST 2002