A truly strange and fascinating story of forgery in a pro-Nazi cause - or, just possibly, an MI6 subversion - has broken this morning with the report in the Telegraph that:-

Documents from the National Archives used to substantiate claims that British intelligence agents murdered Heinrich Himmler in 1945 are forgeries, The Daily Telegraph can reveal today.

It seems certain that the bogus documents were somehow planted among genuine papers to pervert the course of historical study.

The results of investigations by forensic document experts on behalf of this newspaper have shocked historians and caused tremors at the Archives, the home of millions of historical documents, which has previously been thought immune to distortion or contamination.

The allegation that the SS leader was murdered, with the knowledge of Churchill and War Cabinet ministers, appeared in Himmler’s Secret War, published in May.

What made the claim stand out from other allegations over the years was that it referred to specific documents in the National Archives at Kew - usually an absolute guarantee of validity.

READ MORE...

Two press stories caught my eye today, both causing me to reflect on the state of fairness in our public discourse.

Of course, when anybody mentions fairness in a political context Everyman promptly sails off into the associative chain of moral and political largesse that is the liberal presumption … you know, the acceptable way to think … the way that makes equality and social justice self-evident first principles quite beyond challenge.  We are all good liberals today.  So we all understand that no dissent on this matter can be tolerated.

Well, it happens that the principle of association is how the thinking part of the brain routinely negotiates its territory.  Since Everyman is not in control of the associations laid down in his mind – and, obviously, at no time in his life does he aspire to such godliness - it is all too easy for thought to be scarcely his own and deed, being even more easily influenced from without, still less so.  The human condition is far more worthy of pity for its ignorance of self than ever it is for its (these days) somewhat sporadic social disadvantage.  We are all good and ignorant liberals!

However, we are as we are.  Nature’s little arrangement thinking-wise did not flip-flop out of the cerebral soup just so we could spend our fleeting days in thrall to liberalism.  We are, actually, worth more than that.  You never know, the concept of freedom may even be authentic, if profoundly non-political.  For sure, liberalism is not a means to freedom.  It does not work.  Therefore, it need not be our immutable destiny.

READ MORE...

“At the end of the day, no argument in favour of exclusion can withstand what people see with their own eyes - that it is wrong to treat people they care about in a way that diminishes their personal choice.”

Alex Munter, the national spokesman for Canadians for Equal Marriage.

He spoke as the Canadian House of Commons passed a bill granting same-sex couples equal rights to those in traditional marriages.

Canada became the third country, behind Belgium and the Netherlands, to put the liberal fetish for “rights” and “personal choice” above the practical politics of promoting the known best medium for raising whole, contented human beings.

A few moments ago we cleared 500,000 hits since launch day.  That’s rather better, I feel, than an OK start for a new venture in a crowded market.  On behalf of everyone who labours here thank you for troubling to read us.  To our commentariat, many of whom I feel I have come to know as friends, a particularly warm thanks.  Your views, knowledge, good humour and articulacy are not wasted here.

Next stop six zeros.

Ain’t diversity wonderful?  Can’t see that happening in the Scottish Highlands in January.

Should British conservatives continue to give their allegiance to the British Conservative Party? Peter Hitchens has decided the answer is no. In a recent Spectator column, Hitchens deplores the failure of the Conservative Party to stand up to the “progressive consensus.”

Hitchens believes that the Conservative Party has been rendered ineffective, in part, by the existence of “contradictory wings”. He writes,

“The Tories’ position is hopeless. No man living could conceivably unify the party’s contradictory wings. Europhile or Eurosceptic, pro- or anti-marriage, market enthusiast or moralist – each of these quarrels is fundamental and cannot be settled by compromise. To refuse to resolve them is to ask to be dragged, by events beyond our control, into places we never decided to go.”

READ MORE...

Illustration from the Book of Kells, as suggested by Geoff.  This one is The Four Apostles.

It’s a small, overcrowded world. While browsing through back issues of the monthly newsletter of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), I came across a reference to an article by Colin Campbell (the eminence grise of the peak oil community) entitled ‘Petroleum and People’ and published in ‘Population and Environment’ v. 24/2 (November 2002). The former editor of ‘Population and Environment’ was Professor Kevin MacDonald, author of a trilogy on Judaism as a collective evolutionary strategy. 

READ MORE...