Due to a combination of sickness and hardware troubles I’ve been offline a few days and mostly out of commission. The “Max Weber: A Skeleton Key” review will be published later this week.
In news from across the Pond I see that the right of members who joined British Labour after January 12th to vote in the leadership election has been taken away again by the High Court on appeal (they had won in the original ruling); their right to appeal refused and the court insisted the five new members who launched the court pay thirty thousand pounds of court costs to the Labour party within 30 days.
I was surprised when the original ruling went in Corbyn’s favor. This is a particularly spiteful ruling, however, and exactly in line with my reading of the British ruling class. Corbyn will still win, I expect, but the British ruling class keeps making the case for (non-violently) purging them.
Feel free to use this as an open thread.
(Article corrected to reflect that May wishes to expand Grammar schools, not “public” schools. (aka. took that bit out. Thanks to commenter MFI for the correction.)
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markfromireland
No she isn’t, she’s floated the idea that the ban on new Grammar Schools being founded should be rescinded. A Grammar School is a publicly funded (tax funded) secondary school which selects its pupils according to how well they do they do in the (standardised) entrance examination known as the eleven plus.
Calling them “public schools” in the British sense of the term is to make so basic an error as to be a category error.
Ian Welsh
I stand corrected, thanks MFI. Article corrected.
Stirling Newberry
Use is different on the other side of the pond.
Different question: how do you set up a “donate” page?
Ian Welsh
WordPress “add page”. Then you need somewhere to accept the money. Paypal and “GoFundMe” seem to be most common these days. I haven’t used GoFundMe but it seems more popular for donations for bloggers, etc… than Paypal right now.
Paypal will generate the code for you, but it’s been a while since I did it so I can’t tell you exactly what buttons to click (and they’ve changed their site since then). GoFundMe seems more robust about such things, however, and might be a better choice. PayPal’s really more set up for e-commerce, but since I’m already set up for it, I just keep using it.
wendy davis
Hope you feel better soon, Ian Welsh. This may be of interest to you:
‘Labour Appeal: Fury as Appeal Court Judge Philip Sales’ intimate links to Tony Blair revealed
By Matt Turner -12th August 2016
http://bit.ly/2b4jtfs
Duder
Trump and Clinton (or better their surrogates and interested parties) continue to trade barbs over who is more corrupt. I guess a consolation for this joke of an election is that we are getting a clearer picture of how the moneyed elite actually operate in international politics made public knowledge.
Peter*
I’m still trying to understand how Crobyn’s Plan is anything but a Hogwarts pipe dream. The Labour Party would have to win the next election and unless most of the present LMPs were replaced with Corbyn supporters he would face a hostile HOC. Unless he dons his wizard outfit and performs some strong magic most of his own party MPs will continue to despise him and his wish list of policies.
I think the UK Grammar Schools are similar to our Academies or Prep Schools in the US but their trick of getting the public to fund them is what our elite schools hope to accomplish with vouchers. In either case it is an example of the rubes funding the education of those elites who will mislead them in the future.
Stirling Newberry
“Jeremy Corbyn wins backing of 84% of local Labour parties”
Dublin Times.
Peter*
@SN
So what if they do, they don’t elect MPs and they certainly don’t make government policy. This is a tiny group in the UK electorate who managed to stuff the ballot boxes and elect Corbyn as their Party Leader and they may keep him there but that won’t change the bigger picture of Labour politics.
markfromireland
@ Stirling Newberry August 15, 2016
Which is not an excuse for getting a very basic fact completely wrong. If you’re going to write about British politics then you need to familiarise yourself with British usage. And explain that usage to those amongst your readership who may be unfamiliar with it.
Before continuing I emphasise that nothing in my following remarks constitutes either legal or professional advice and may not under any circumstances be construed as such.
You, I think, are on blogger? You need to check the T&Cs for blogger to see whether they allow you to solicit payments or not.
I also believe that you reside in the State of Massachusetts you might be well-advised to read the information provided here: Website of the Attorney General of Massachusetts | Fundraising for an Individual
I’m going to presume that if you are going to solicit contributions that you will want to use PayPal. Be aware that unless you’re a registered and properly incorporated charity in the jurisidiction in which the site is hosted and in which you reside that you may run into severe problems if you use the word “donate”. Given that you’re in the USA this basically resolves to whether you’re a 501(c)(3) entity or not.
If you do use the word “donate” and you’re not a 501(c)(3) entity you run the risk of having your PayPal account frozen, and of losing all the revenues and monies therein. This is because PayPal’s default position is that “donations” are reserved for recognized charities and they take serious issue with people and businesses that are not charities making them accessories to soliciting and accepting funds under false pretenses.
It’s not completely black and white because AFAIK PayPal will allow the use of the word “donate” for “worthy causes” but my understanding of US charity law is that “worthy causes” refer to activities that don’t benefit people. For example an activity in aid fluffy kittens or restoring a historic building would both constitute a worthy cause whereas an activity in aid of poverty stricken children would constitute a charity. Similarly something that benefits a private individual is generally considered to be a cause rather than a charity. Paypal will of course allow you to fundraise for a cause:
PayPal Online Charity & Fundraising Event Fundraise for a Cause
Your best bet is to be extremely clear on your website’s contributions page that any donations are not tax-deductible, that you are not a 501(c)(3) entity, and that any payments made are essentially gifts from the donor to you. I would also strongly consider using wording other than “donate”. “Contribute” “Support me” “Buy me beer” and so on.
I’d check with PayPal’s support service exactly what the set up is at present and how contributions to you will be treated. Once that’s clarified and assuming that you’re covered under blogger’s T&Cs you can add a payment button to your site. See Guide to Creating a PayPal Donate Button for your Website. and related pages for the basics.
This posting Add Paypal Donate Button to Blogger seems to cover how to modify your blogger template. However note the date the posting was made.
Ian Welsh
I had a chat with paypal about donations, but I am in Canada.
It might be best to use GoFundMe, or at least look into it.
As for grammar schools, I did not make any excuses because, of course, I should have known/done the research.
I did, however, call that the Blairites would do everything they could to destroy Corbyn well in advance, and I was correct and far in advance of most pundits who live in Britain. I might still be worth reading on Britain. Those who do not feel I am, are, of course, free not to do so. Perhaps they should, as frankly, in my career as a blogger I have made bigger mistakes about more important things.
Aside: having spent 5 years in a boarding school modeled on British boarding schools and run by half masters who were British, I know a bit about their effect on people.
markfromireland
@ Peter* August 15, 2016
As with almost everything you write this is factually incorrect, the CLP selects the candidate who will stand at the election. They can also deselect a sitting MP. Not until the candidate has been elected or re-elected as a Labour party candidate by their CLP branch can they present themselves to the electorate at large as Labour party candidates.
markfromireland
@ Stirling and Ian – I’m not familiar with GoFundMe but a very quick look at their site makes me thing it might suit Stirling rather well.
Stirling Newberry
It means moving my blog.
“Which is not an excuse for getting a very basic fact completely wrong.”
Other way around – he should have got it right, but didn’t. I was agreeing with your point.
markfromireland
@ stirling.
I presume you’re moving to self-hosted and WordPress? I think you’ll find WordPress to be superb in comparison to Blogger.
It’s been ten years since I did it. But my memory of switching from Blogger to WordPress is that it was very easy. There was a “gotcha” in that the first time I tried it I hadn’t deleted all the draft posts in blogger. But once that was done it was pretty easy.
The basic facility import facility in WordPress was what I used but looking at my notes for blog conversion I see that I have a note saying Blogger Importer Extended plugin has very good reviews.
You can get it and read the reviews from the repository: WordPress › Support » Blogger Importer Extended
The ability to grab and properly place images will save you lots of grief.
If you want suggestions about plugins etc either ask here or get Ian to pass on your questions.
Ah, I mis-read, sorry ’bout that.
Peter*
Because you are the expert on this subject can you tell us when and which MPs have been deselected recently and why the people who voted for that MP would or should support a party that usurps their democratic choice.
Oaktown Girl
Hey, Ian. Sorry to hear that you were ill, I hope it wasn’t anything too serious.
There’s so much going on, but I’ll just post this one thing from yesterday I found quite interesting. It’s from the KPFA Sunday morning show. Professor Robert McChesney (whose work I’ve admired for years) puts Hilary Clinton’s speeches to Corporations and other moneyed interests in a historical context I’ve never heard before, and in a way that was certainly never examined by corporate media.
Anyway, it’s worth a listen. The part I referenced above about Clinton’s speeches is at the 17:30 mark. Listen here
V. Arnold
Oaktown Girl
August 16, 2016
I’m likewise a fan of McChesney; thanks for the link.
He brings up very salient points re: Clinton’s speeches.
Off with her head…
Oaktown Girl
@V. Arnold – you’re very welcome; I’m glad you liked it.
Hugh
The US election is a propagandist’s paradise and a wonderful illustration of the corruption of American politics. It is a place where a billionaire who was born rich, thinks Versailles is understated, increased his fortune catering to the rich while screwing over small business owners and American workers is running as a Republican, –and he’s the POPULIST candidate. It is important to note that he is being castigated by the media and the Establishment of both parties as a racist, tasteless nouveau riche nutter not because he is any of these things. The media and Establishment are, after all, filled with such types. Who, for example, can forget that being a vacuous nit was no hindrance to nor held against George Bush by this selfsame media and Establishment? He was extolled for having the common touch, of being the dry drunk everyone wanted to have a beer with. Despite the fact that he presided over 9/11, engaged in a disastrous, prolonged, and fantastically expensive war in Iraq based on false and fabricated pretenses, and had the financial system crash on his watch, and despite the fact that Trump has about ten times the number of neurons firing in his frontal cortex, it is not with Bush but Trump that the Establishment has a problem. Trump probably isn’t a real populist, but the Establishment is so virulently anti-populist that it won’t take any chances on even the possibility of one. And populism in the eyes of the Establishment and their lackeys and sycophants in the media is Trump’s true and unforgiveable sin. Being a monumental fuckup like Bush causes barely a ripple among them, but even the suspicion of populism is enough to send them into paroxysms of indignation and rejection over Trump.
This is also the reason why the Establishment has no problem with a corrupt, greedy, power hungry grifter like Clinton. Clinton may be going around talking about raising taxes on corporations and the rich and fighting for American workers, but the Establishment knows she is a card-carrying member of their club and all her talk is just that, talk, a necessary if demeaning nod to the rubes. Her newfound progressivism will get ditched the day after the election. They know this because they can look at her record and those she surrounds herself with. Nothing and no one progressive anywhere to be seen. They can look at her corruption, and far from being a negative, it is clear and comforting evidence that she is one of them. You see when a Clinton is tasteless, nouveau riche, when a Clinton looks down on all us rubes, that’s OK. Because the Establishment knows she is all about government of the rich and elites by the rich and elites for the rich and elites.
The equation is simple: Establishment and status quo = good (no matter how destructive and corrupt); populism (however tangential = demons, devils, and hellfire. Understand this and you understand this election.
Stirling Newberry
No that’s not all the election is about… stop being … I won’t stay, it’s far too accurate.
Oaktown Girl
Majority Report podcast today – excellent interview with Professor Carol Anderson. Absolutely a must-listen. Interview starts at the 9:16 mark.
http://majority.fm/2016/08/16/carol-anderson-white-rage-the-unspoken-truth-of-our-racial-divide/
8/16/16; 10:34pm PST
Ian Welsh
Are others finding the site having a lot of periods of glacial slowness in the last few days?
markfromireland
@ Ian – yes. The most likely cause is a badly behaved script being run on another site on your host. A common problem with very cheap hosting plans is that company offering the plan put way too many sites on their servers all it takes is one or more poorly written script that doesn’t run sandboxed for all the sites hosted on that machine to slow down dramatically.
Similarly if one site on an overloaded server is either experiencing a lot of traffic or is the subject of an attack all the other sites on that overloaded server will suffer.
EmilianoZ
I’ve also had some problems accessing the site. Sometimes takes a long time to load.
markfromireland
Incidentally I have presumed that your installation and plugins are all up-to-date. If they aren’t try doing that first.
You DO take backups don’t you? If you don’t you need to as all too often even reputable hosting companies’ backups are less than good. The backup plugin I recommend is:
WordPress Database Backup by Austin Matzko
It’s very easy to schedule a backup to take place at a quiet time – say three o’clock in the morning and to email it to a gmail account you keep for the purpose. It’ll be years before you run out of space on the gmail account.
Ian Welsh
Thank you MFI, thoughts and suggestions appreciated.
It’s running cleanly now. These things are often hard to track down, I haven’t changed any scripts etc… in quite some time. I suspect it may indeed be a problem with something else running on same server. Perhaps one day I will be able to justify/afford my own server.
I do, however, not always upgrade immediately. My old-timer’s instinct is that so-called stable releases often are really beta tests.
markfromireland
You don’t need your own server – few do, but a move to another hosting company might be a very good idea. Good and expensive aren’t necessarily synonymous in this context there are plenty of good hosting companies around that don’t charge a lot – particularly if you’re in North America.
I know what you mean about upgrades but that being said I switched to WordPress automatic upgrade and have been very happy with it for the last couple of years. (I wish I could say the same about Firefox I’m not even slightly happy with the path Firefox is going down and am actively considering junking it). At some point I’ll probably ditch my last Microsoft Windows machine and go all Linux.
markfromireland
I’ve been dropping by periodically – and response time isn’t good. It’s still slow and sometimes the page doesn’t load at all. I have to refresh to get past a blank page.
I don’t think the problem is your site, it might be a good idea to open a support ticket – that particular host is fairly good on WordPress issues, they’ve got a lot of experience.
Some free online tools:
LoadImpact
DNS Speed Test to Check DNS Hosting Speed | UltraTools
Pingdom Website speed test
and of course Google Developer’s – page speed tools
PageSpeed Tools | Google Developers
V. Arnold
Glacial is an apt description of click to opening times.
It is often for me.
Chiron
The Zionist owned media wants to keep the Neoliberal/Neocon consensus going in Western Politics, I feel bad for Corbyn because the attacks won’t end, the Zionists control the money and they hate Corbyn for being against their supremacy.
Tom W Harris
David Duke, is thaat you?