I wanna sell you a Tory

Duncan O’Leary over at Demos Greenhouse looks on the bright side for the Tory party. The news stories may have been division, division and more division (oh, and dumping Europe) over the last six months, but at least, he says, the Tories have had a proper debate about the future.

But has it done them any good? The public side had been bad: Party members bickering with each other in public, visions of ideological purity, tight elections, rule changes – it’s like Labour in the 1980s, except it’s also like the Tories in the 1950s (another period where Labour had stolen all their clothes).

And as for the policy debate, there have been a few volleys fired into the air (War in Iraq – bad, apparently. School vouchers – good. No, wait! bad), but frankly, who cares? The Tories won’t be writing their manifesto for another three years, that’s plenty of time to have gone through at least 720° by then. Look at the 1992 Labour manifesto, then look at the 1997 Labour manifesto. Really, the Tories policies will be settled by the winner in the light of the party and the nation, not in the light of any internal debate at the moment.

There is one winner here – and he’s in China.

Purcell and doggerel verse

I was listening to Henry Purcell’s Odes and Welcome Songs on the way home. They’re worth a listen if you haven’t – various songs for birthdays, arrivals or general celebrations of the monarchy, plus some for Saint Cecilia’s Day (22 November). As always with Purcell, the English is set beautifully, with accent and quantity always absolutely right. The thing that really strikes you, however, is the ghastly doggerel verse he had to work with – presumably provided by some grovelling royal acolyte.

The most tortured and implausible brown-nosing surely comes in the Ode The Summer’s Absence Unconcern’d We Bear, one chorus of which ends with the lines:

Then would we conclude that our Isle,
Which of old was “the Fortunate” call’d,
Had her name but foretold
By some learned bard, who in times past foreknew
How in ages to come, she’d be happy in you.

What can you do with that? But Purcell sets it absolutely beautifully – what an artist!

Amazon link: Purcell: The Complete Odes and Welcome Songs

38% of Americans want creationism taught instead of evolution

The Enlightenment has ended in America. It was nice while it lasted.

Why? Take a look at the depressing and astonishing results from a survey on creationism, reported in the New York Times today.

In brief, 64% of Americans are open to the idea of teaching creationist pseudoscience alongside established science, while 38% don’t want evolution taught at all. 42% believed in strict creationism – that current living things have existed in their current forms since the beginning of time.

One of the researchers involved in survey is quoted in the NYT, saying that the results on the education questions are “a reflection of American pragmatism”. That just won’t do. It’s a reflection of American stupidity, or perhaps irrationality, but it’s about as far from pragmatism as it’s possible to get.

There is, of course, no science in support of creationism, and lots of science in support of evolution. Evolution is only semantically a theory – in practice it is self-evidently, obviously true.

The last comment on this – another disheartening statistic for fans of democracy – is that 41% of respondents wanted the parents to decide on what science was taught to their children. At last, a chance for the Flat Earth Society, not to mention the eugenicists. Perhaps the next step is going to be parental choice in the field of history.

iTunes for stattos

I never knew till just now that you can copy the contents of your iTunes library view (or any other view) to Excel using copy and paste, on a Mac at least. This enables you to do all sorts of statto-ish calculations. For example, it turns out that since I bought this laptop (about 18 months ago), I’ve listened to 26,644 tracks, with a total playing time of just over sixty-five days. And subtotals? Don’t even get me started on subtotals.