We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day


“Leute wie Sie standen auf den Mauer-Wachtürmen der roten Sozialisten, Sie überwachten die Wachtürme der braunen Sozialisten. Und, …, Leute Ihres Schlages werden auf den Wachtürmen der grünen Sozialisten stehen und deren Umerziehungslagern zu klimatologisch korrekten Staatsbürgern.”

(“People like you stood in the guard towers of the red socialists’ wall, they stood in the brown[shirt] socialists’ guard towers. And people of your stripe will stand in the guard towers of the green socialists and their reeducation camps for climatologically correct citizens.”)

– Commenter Frank39, who appears to have lived in East Germany, responding to another commenter on a post on Climategate from the German “Science Skeptical” blog. My thanks to the anonymous correspondent in Germany who pointed this out and provided me with the translation.

15 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • andyinsdca

    That’s farking brilliant.

  • Bod

    Just arrived via the innernets, a friend sent me this link. Warning – probably NSFW language unless you’re s stevedore or member of the merchant marine.

    GrumpyOldTwat.

    I rather liked another post there that highlights Google poisoning their search to suppress ‘Climategate’.

  • Eugen

    Surprise, surprise! Mainstream media strikes back. The most interesting part isn’t the contents of the article itself but the fact that it was on the first page of The Times today.

    The funny thing is that if it happened two weeks ago, I would have probably overlooked it completely… Now, they’re seeing themselves backed against the wall and they’re not pulling punches anymore.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes many of the large companies in the world (especially the media companies – including large sections of News International) are working hand in glove with the green collectivists.

    However, we must be careful.

    The situation reminds me of corrupt policemen – the “climate change” crowd fake evidence, they try to destroy evidence that does not fit their theory, they shamelessly lie and cheat, but……

    Remember that many of the people that corrupt policement try to “fit up” are actually guilty.

    It is quite possible that there is a globel warming problem, and that C02 emissions are the cause of it.

  • Laird

    Highly unlikely, Paul. I commend to your attention the attached article in today’s Wall Street Journal, by a Professor of Meteorology at MIT (a true “climate scientist”).

  • Alice

    I happened to see the BBC “News” recently. They are doing pieces on how bad “climate change” is going to be — without mentioning that, by the way, there seems to have been some related shouting going on in the corner over there.

    Goebbels would be proud of the BBC. Whether one is convinced or not convinced in either direction on alleged anthropogenic global warming, forgetting to mention the recent evidence of fraud by climate “scientists” would be like forgetting to mention President Obama while relating the news on US Afghan policy.

    Incidentally, Mr. Marks, that kind of willful failure on the part of those who believe they are our intellectual superiors is why so few thinking people are now prepared to give the Climate Gang the benefit of any doubt at all. Show us the data!

  • RAB

    Great article Laird, thanks for the link.

    I have just been watching The History of Christianity Paul, you would enjoy it. They are up to the Reformation, and an analogy just popped into my head.

    The person who posted the CRU emails and data can be likened to Luther. He objected to the selling of Indulgences to shorten our souls spell in pergatory, in fact the very idea of pergatory.
    Well for Carbon credits and trading substitute Indulgences. Both bogus and fictional of course.

    Before Luther “God” was settled as far as the Catholic church was concerned.
    After Luther we had Protestantism, so God wasn’t settled after all. Far from it.

    So now we have the beginning of AGW Protestantism, now that we can get to examine how shoddy and dupicious the “Settled” science turns out to be.

    It is going to be a long struggle to disprove these fanatical assertions of hellfire on earth, but I believe we will.
    There are many vested interests here remember. As usual, follow the money.
    Greens always scream that “Deniers” are in the pay of Big Oil, but look who finances the Warmers?

    Well it’s us via our taxes stolen by the usual gang of criminals…

    Big Government.

  • correction

    andyinsdca,

    That’s farking brilliant.

    Should read:

    That’s frakkin brilliant.

    http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Frak

  • Bod

    Paul,

    Therein lies the real crime. Climategate has compromised society’s efforts to determine whether AGW really does exist or not.

    While extraordinary claims should normally require extraordinary proofs, and the onus is on the Warmists to prove their case, the whole topic of AGW has acquired sufficient traction that we’re in for decades of research to settle the issue on way or the other.

    These people, assuming they are found to have obstructed research, should suffer whatever is the scientist’s equivalent of Mussolini’s fate.

    The Climate Unit should be demolished, the site sown with salt and the surviving personnel sent to work in some menial position at an NHS hospital.

  • I prefer PA Annoyed’s description of the “greenhouse” effect.

    Lindzen writes: “The defining characteristic of a greenhouse gas is that it is relatively transparent to visible light from the sun but can absorb portions of thermal radiation. In general, the earth balances the incoming solar radiation by emitting thermal radiation, and the presence of greenhouse substances inhibits cooling by thermal radiation and leads to some warming.”

    Lindzen neglects the fact that plain old atmospheric pressure is what puts the skids under most thermal radiation, not carbon dioxide.

  • nick

    An Emissions Trading Scheme has just been shot down in Australia, mainly due to a new Liberal leader (Tony Abbott), widely criticized for his Catholicism (described as the ‘mad monk’).

    Looking at Carbon Credits as Indulgences, we can really see an ETS as Pascal’s Wager.

  • nick

    An Emissions Trading Scheme has just been shot down in Australia, mainly due to a new Liberal leader (Tony Abbott), widely criticized for his Catholicism (described as the ‘mad monk’).

    Looking at Carbon Credits as Indulgences, we can really see an ETS as Pascal’s Wager.

  • That really is an excellent quote.

  • Paul Marks

    RAB – I had all sorts of problems with that series.

    For example in the first episode we had talk of the “first Christian Kingdom” – ah, I thought, the man is going to talk about Armenia. But instead we got some sillyness instead. There was so much sillyness in the series I have not been able to sit and watch a single episode all through (I keep switching stations because the errors and so on irritate me).

    As for Martin Luther – to talk of Luther without discussing predestination is bad. But the man even talked about John Calvin without discussing predestination – I give up.

    I heard the maker of the series, on the radio about a month ago. He stuck me as a typical modern academic – a mixture of arrogance and ignorance.

    By the way his basic thesis (which does not take long to spot) is false. Christianity has not flurished by adapting to whatever society it finds itself in – or by accepting any social change.

    Certainly their are debates and changes within Christianity (as there were in the Catholic Church long before Luther), but Churches that accept everything – that just go along with whatever intellectial fashions come up, do not flourish.

    In fact a Church dooms itself by doing that – look at the fate of the once “mainstream” Protestant Churches in the United States (and elsewhere) their “liberalism” (i.e. lack of belief) has led them down the same plug hole that the once “mainstream” media are going. It is the same of the Anglican Church in Britain – it is on the road to extinction, “liberalism” is killing it.

    The Roman Catholic church also came close to destroying itself by the interpretations that were pushed of the Second Vatican Council, although the last two Popes do seem to have dragged the Catholic Church back from the brink of destruction.

    No suprise for guessing that the BBC academic hates John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

  • Paul Marks

    Almost needless to say the people who ordered the building of the Berlin Wall loved “liberal Christianity” – they understood that its lack of belief and its desire to always been on the side of “progressiveness” meant it was no threat. Indeed they understood that it was an ally – and not just in Europe, extreme forms of “liberalness” i.e. the Marxism of “Liberation Theology” and “Black Liberation Theology” (and so on) have been very useful to the forces of evil all over the world.