David McWilliams podcast : EP37: Boris Johnson, the last PM of the UK? Plus the UKs Reagan Democrats

The elections are over, Boris Johnson has won a massive and the UK is changed utterly. What does it all mean for all of us, where are we now heading and could Boris Johnson be the last PM of the UK? This week we invite the brilliant economist Diane Coyle, to tease out the issues. Plus, are the Tory voting, previously Labour voters of the North of England, going to become the equivalent of the Reagan Democrats ?

I know I keep saying it about McWilliams, but this is a particularly great episode.

Irish Research : Public Records lost during 1922 fire to be recreated through virtual reality

Anyone researching Irish family history will know how hard it is, once you go back before 1900. The earliest full census available is 1901, and then 1911. Because of WW1 and the Irish War of Independence, the next census was in 1926. It's not even covered by the 100 year rule, but funding has been lacking to digitise those records, so worst case we could have another 6 years to wait.

Two major blunders caused the loss of almost all 19th century census records, so this news story offers hope where there was little before

Records lost during 1922 fire to be recreated through virtual reality

Records that were lost following the fire at the Four Courts in 1922 are to be recreated through virtual reality, under a new scheme being announced today. The fire happened during the Civil War and resulted in the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland and the loss of centuries of historical, genealogical and administrative records.

The new project, 'Beyond 2022, Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury' is a collaborative project led by Trinity College Dublin in partnership with the National Archives of Ireland, the National Archives UK, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the Irish Manuscripts Commission. It seeks to re-imagine and re-create, through virtual reality, the archival collections that were lost.





The project is supported by the Government through a capital grant funding allocation of €2.5m from the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, under Project Ireland 2040. An immersive, three-dimensional, virtual reality model of the digitally reconstructed Public Record Office of Ireland will be launched in June 2022 to mark the centenary of the fire.



Director of Beyond 2022 Dr Peter Crooks said: "The Four Courts blaze of 1922 was a national tragedy, but thankfully all is not lost.
"Beyond 2022 combines virtual reality and big data to recover from the losses of 1922 to a greater extent than ever previously imagined. "The scale of copies and duplicates we have identified in other archives is astounding. "We are already working with over 35 libraries and archives in Ireland, the UK and US. And this is only the beginning."

If Durham is saying there was nothing there, why was a criminal investigation opened in October ?

I'm being obtuse in asking that question, when we all know who got it opened, but this is from the failing NYT

Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry Into Its Own Russia Investigation

WASHINGTON — For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began.

Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury and to file criminal charges.

The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry, and has long assailed other top former law enforcement and intelligence officials as partisans who sought to block his election. Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. That view factors into the impeachment investigation against him, as does his long obsession with the origins of the Russia inquiry. House Democrats are examining in part whether his pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into theories about the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power.

SNIP

As Mr. Durham’s investigation moves forward, the Justice Department inspector general is wrapping up his own inquiry into aspects of the F.B.I.’s conduct in the early days of the Russia investigation. Among other things, the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is scrutinizing the application for a warrant to wiretap Mr. Page. Mr. Barr has not said whether Mr. Durham’s investigation grew out of the inspector general’s findings or something that prosecutors unearthed while doing interviews or reviewing documents. But the inspector general’s findings, which are expected to be made public in coming weeks, could contribute to the public’s understanding of why Mr. Durham might want to investigate national security officials’ activities in 2016. Though the inspector general’s report deals with sensitive information, Mr. Horowitz anticipates that little of it will be blacked out when he releases the document publicly, he wrote in a letter sent to lawmakers on Thursday and obtained by The New York Times.

Crime in Progress by Fusion GPS founders

Just finished the Audiobook, and if you have been following the whole Russia thing (!), this book gives an excellent overview and puts perspective on how this came about.

One surprising topic that I never grasped was how much Bill Browder hates Fusion, in fact I never understood there was animosity at all.

This is written from Fusion's perspective, and I loved their digs at GOP reps. They did a deep dive on Nunes, and found ethics stuff that he's gotten away with. In fact that recent $65,000 jolly to Europe is a pattern. Duncan Hunter did similar, and I'd going to jail.