(21)

Christopher Booker has a great article in the Telegraph titled Watch the web for climate change truths, which shows that The One True Faith of Anthropogenic Global Warming, having used the internet to preach their gospel, are going to have a hard time suppressing global warming non-conformists using the 'net to do the same.

Last November, viewing photographs of a snowless Snowdon at an exhibition in Cardiff, the Welsh environment minister, Jane Davidson, said "we must act now to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change". Yet virtually no coverage has been given to the abnormally deep spring snow which prevented the completion of a new building on Snowdon's summit for more than a month, and nearly made it miss the deadline for £4.2 million of EU funding.

[...]

On April 24 the World Wildife Fund (WWF), another body keen to keep the warmist flag flying, published a study warning that Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it may soon reach a "tipping point" where "irreversible change" takes place. This was based on last September's data, showing ice cover having shrunk over six months from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million. What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded

So not such a bad time to be a polar bear after all. It is also nice to see in-article out-linking to a source on a newspaper site.

Also Daniel Hannan has a Telegraph blog article called How bad does the UN have to get? which presents the difference between the ideals and reality of that vast organisation, mentioning ivory poaching, the Iraq food-for-oil scandal, the betrayal of Bosnian Muslims massacred in Srebrenica and the appalling UN role in the Rwanda genocide. However the most interesting part for me was in the comments, a defender of the UN replied thusly:

I don't think you have bothered to give us enough information regarding the various allegations you have made about the UN.

There isn't enough information on the Bosnian Muslims being betrayed for any of us, lefties or righties, to make a reasonable assessment. Where in the chain of command did this betrayal happen? What, exactly, was the UN betrayal of these Muslims? What else was the UN doing in Bosnia and in regard to Bosnia at the same time, so that we can come to some opinion as to whether what happened in Srebrenica was a small part or a large part of the total UN activities there in that region?

Was the oil-for-food scam [in Iraq] the activity of a small group of UN employees or was it what all UN staff were engaged in directly or indirectly? We don't know because you haven't told us! Was the UN institutionally guilty right through all its employees for the oil-for-food scam or was it down to a few individuals, whom the UN may have disciplined in some way by now? You didn't tell us!

What were the UN reasons for not seizing the arms caches [in Rwanda]? We need to know! Did they make a mistake in not realising that the genocide would follow? A mistake is not corruption nor is it a failure to deliver overall.

So we need more information before rushing to judgement. That is a very representative defence of the UN of the sort I have heard for years. It is the equivalent of the time hallowed tactic of a UK minister responding to embarrassing questions by saying "we must hold an enquiry before rushing to judgement" in the knowledge that by the time the enquiry gets under way, said embarrassing news will be months or even years in the past and the the headlines have vanished down the memory hole, allowing harsh reality to be safely reinterpreted into something more 'nuanced' and the gravy trains will still keep running along their well polished rails undisturbed... except in the cases of Srebrenica, Food-for-Oil and Rwanda, the nasty truths are very well documented and understood. All this is only ten seconds of typing and click of the Google button away.

The internet really does change almost everything.

(50)

The pseudonymous Sunfish is well known member of the Samizdata commentariat and brings some interesting perspectives as when he is not throwing down pixels in this parish, he is a policeman 'somewhere in the USA'. And Sunfish has a question...

Governments have goons. That's what makes them governments rather than debating societies. Even the governments of relatively free societies have them. I would like some guidance from my fellow goons now.

Back in the 1990's, when I first graduated the academy and became a cop, I thought I was going to go out and slay dragons. I also thought that I would not have to compromise any of my beliefs in order to do so. I can not have been the first libertarian to go into this line of work. However I did not originally sign up to be a drug warrior, tax collector, or the mailed fist of the 'Mommy Knows Best' state. Yet somehow, I occasionally end up being all three of those things. Most of the time, though, I think that we still do more good than harm.

But at what point do we actually do more harm than good for liberty? When is it time to quit?

(25)

I came across a couple articles that puzzled me. Advocates of all beliefs, be they religious, political or philosophical, generally try to argue their position and convince other people their view of the world is the best one. Of course some religions (and pretty much all political systems) are evangelical, whereas some, like Judaism for example, are not. Nevertheless even Jews will argue their corner on why their beliefs are sensible and it is far from unheard of for people to convert to Judaism, something most Jews would probably regard as A Good Thing.

Yet strangely as of late, some Jews and Muslims seem a bit bent out of shape when another religion, the Roman Catholic Church, either lands a high profile convert or prays openly for non-believers to convert.

Being God free myself, I have no dog in this fight but this all strikes me rather like shop owners protesting that some other shop is advertising and therefore 'stealing' their customers. Guys, like everything else, religion is a market... why are you shocked that the Boys in Rome engage in marketing?

(8)

I'm grateful to an anonymous commentator on a The Register story for this, which deserves a wider audience.

Are there any other examples? Does anyone have an estimate of how much it cost?

(37)

Some people are their own worst enemies. Take, for example, the rather eccentric-looking chap in the photograph below. He appears to have rather clumsily allowed himself to be portrayed as a depraved menace when he is but a makeover away from becoming a card-carrying member of The Great and The Good.

A network of "suicide gurus" who use the internet to advise people how to kill themselves has been exposed...

One of the most notorious figures on the internet suicide scene is Nagasiva Yronwode, a self-confessed Satanist who runs a shop selling occult books and charms in the small Californian town of Forestville, north of San Francisco.

Yronwode, 46, describes himself as the "outreach director" for an extremist cult called the Church of Euthanasia, which advocates suicide as a means of saving the world from the effects of overpopulation.

Does this self-defeating fool not appreciate just how seductive his central message would be to the bien pensant? Indeed, they are treading water just waiting for someone like him (only a plausible, marketable version) to come along. All he needs to do is to make himself a bit more presentable.

First off, he should drop the 'Satanist' thing. Satanists are nowhere near homicidal enough to be taken seriously.

Secondly, he needs to change the name of his cult from 'Church of Euthanasia' (too many negative connotations, especially the 'Church' bit) to something like...let's see...'Earth Guard'. Yes, something like that.

Next, the hair. I see where he is going but it is actually a bit too scary. He needs a team of stylists to give him that immaculately unkempt, tousled look that suggests that he has just spent the last six weeks trekking through the Amazon basin while actually remaining clean, sexy and approachable.

While it is difficult to criticise a man's wardrobe when he appears to be wearing nothing, he must, in fact, give a lot of thought to this. It is very important. He must dress in casual but expensive designer clothes (but avoiding anything pin-striped or which may smack of business). He must also learn to wear them without even a hint of self-consciousness, developing the kind of incidental nonchalance that says he does not spend even a second thinking about anything so trivial and consumerist as his appearance and that these designer togs all just fell on him as he unthinkingly walked past a wardrobe.

His name is good. He can keep that. It is appropriately ethnic and difficult to pronounce and will enable him to fabricate some cock-and-bull story about his native land and peoples being despoiled and plundered by the predations of the greedy, Western, warmongering profiteers. They will lap that stuff up on the college circuit and the less truth there is behind it the better. He can also keep his job title - "Outreach Director". Nobody has the slightest idea who they are or what they are supposed to do but they get hosed down with money drawn from the public well. Why change that?

So, by taking his central idea of mass suicide for the sake of the planet while undergoing a few easily-achievable adjustments, this man could turn himself from a pariah into a much-admired ethical voice for decency in the midst of a wicked, uncaring world. Instead of being hounded by and pilloried in the press, he would find himself the subject of fawning editorials, his merest utterances carried away and borne forth into the popular lexicon almost before they have left his lips. He would be whisked off to every international climate jamboree where he would rub shoulders with all the governmental and non-governmental glitterati. He would be glad-handed by politicians who would earnestly seek his advice on framing their next round of legislation. He would be slobbered over by dewey-eyed Hollywood celebrities and the legions of vulnerable teenage followers that he seeks would flock to him in such numbers that he could never have imagined in his most flagrant flights of Satanist fantasy.

Yes, Nagasiva Yronwode is a man for our times. He just doesn't know it yet.

(0)

The Dissident Frogman brings us some of the highlights in our broadening understanding of our good friends across the English Channel...

(19)

Bobby Fischer, chess genius and generally unpleasant wacko, has died in Iceland. Perhaps he will play Beelzebub for his soul?

Update: noted by commenter Walter Boswell: "I just realised he died at the age of 64. The same number of squares on the chess board. Bobby, spooky moves right up until the end."

(48)

Hundreds hacked or burned to death in Kenya, in response to and election that may well have been rigged. Shootings and suicide bombing by Islamic radicals in many parts of the world. And news of record prison suicides and savage violence here in Britain. And, of course, the centralization and growth of government. Less wildly violent than the preceding, but hardly welcome and based on the same principle - the threat of violence.

Yesterday Cyprus and Malta became part of the Euro Zone. Thus further centralizing power in the hands of the EU and the magic circle of politically connected banks and other business enterprises that depend on the credit money which, in the end, comes from the European Union Central Bank. In this way competition between government currencies, and the possibility, that some might expand the credit/supply less than others, is reduced.

The smoking ban in France is also coming into force, although I hope the French resist. Although other Europeans seem in a passive mood - in "Belgium" the Flemish Liberal party leader is back as Prime Minister although he lost the General Election way back in June - but there is no resistance. And in Switzerland the Swiss People';s Party got the highest vote of any party for many decades yet its leader is out of office and the Social Democrats, who got only 20% of the vote, remain in office - but there is not resistance. In both cases "Parliament had a vote" is the defence, and it is true it did.

And, of course, it is yet another year of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Things have come to a strange pass when President George Walker Bush is what pro-freedom people have to rely on - the wild spender facing even wilder spenders, the regulator facing more fanatical regulators.

In Britain also we have regulations being presented as freedom. Prime Minister Brown promises more regulations and calls them a "Constitution for the National Health Service" and there are yet more bans and regulations in other areas.

One can only hope that 2008 does not carry on as it has started.

(15)

Bebe is now three, and has taken to the proper feline adult life of sitting in chairs, demanding to be fed at four in the morning, catching lizards, and occasionally waving her claws at people.

(25)

I remember having a discussion some years back about what was the oldest pub in the world. I still do not have the answer to that, but I recently came across the list of contenders in Britain.

The oldest ones in Belfast are from the 1640 era, White's Tavern and Kelly's, the latter of which actually looks the part as the floor is enough below street level now that there are small ramps at the entryways.

Are there older pub's in Europe, perhaps in Rome? Some little wine establishment tucked away near the ruins of the forum? Or perhaps in China. where one could imagine some spice road inn from Biblical times.

Could there perhaps be some ancient establishment in India with a sign saying: "Buddha Got Pissed Here?"

(60)

Will Smith has expressed his view that people are essentially good, they just do bad things as a consequence of following the logical train of thought from faulty premises.

Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today'," said Will. "I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good'. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I'm looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic."

And this remark has sent the Jewish Defence League into a hissyfit of rage.

Smith's comments are ignorant, detestable and offensive. They spit on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought so valiantly to save the world from those aspirations of Adolf Hitler. Smith's comments also cast the perpetrators of the Holocaust as misguided fellows rather than the repulsive villains of history they truly were. If people do not understand how idiotic and insensitive it was to make such a comment, it is like a Jew saying that James Earl Ray, the assassin of Rev. Martin Luther King, was basically a good person who did a "bad thing."

Now that is a very dubious interpretation of Smith's remarks, to put it mildly. I am not sure I agree with Smith that all people are essentially good, although I do think most people are capable of good. I think that absent a biological defect, we develop towards goodness or evil or, more usually, somewhere in the middle, through the exercise of our free will in accord or in conflict with our genetic predispositions, but all people are capable of both good and evil. Some are more predisposed to good, others to evil (and a disproportionate number of evil people are drawn to politics as a career as it offers such rich possibilities for doing just that), but I do not think we are inexorably forced down either path... and thus find it hard to entirely disagree with Smith.

However the theory that Will Smith is presenting is an entirely reasonable one to argue and using the example of a man not unjustly held to be the very epitome of evil seems a fair and relevant way to express his view of human nature. Without a doubt Smith is in excellent philosophical company on the issue of innate goodness and his position is a deeply Christian one.

When Hitler looked in the mirror, I am sure he did not see an evil man gazing back at him. Of course he did what he thought was 'right' within his world view, his meta-context, which was framed by the axioms of a collectivist racist drawing on a long history of collectivist and racist thought. To Hitler 'right' was whatever was good for the 'herrenvolk' which he perceived as being in perpetual conflict with other racial groups. As a consequence his concept of 'right' was always going to be monstrous (i.e. the "twisted, backwards logic" of which Smith speaks).

What Smith seems to be saying is that if someone had the chance to sit Hitler down and 'unpick' his 'twisted, backwards logic', then perhaps they might have been able to 'reach' his deeply buried innate goodness. Although I have serious doubts on that score, it is a far from unsupportable argument and in no way speaks to Hitler's actual manifested goodness but rather the notion of an innate goodness being intrinsic in us all as a species. If you take that charitable view of humanity then of course Hitler (and Pol Pot, Stalin, Genghis Khan and Caligula) had an innate goodness buried somewhere in the deepest basement of their dark souls.

That the JDL feels that is an intolerable position to take rather than just an incorrect one, makes me deduce they are probably not worth the effort of debating, particularly given their preposterous characterisation of Smith's remarks. And although as I have said, I do not entirely agree with Smith's theory of innate goodness, if I was him my response to the JDL would be something along the lines of "Screw you, buddy" whilst proffering the Mighty Forks in their direction.

I do not know a great deal about the JDL but a brief trawl of the internet suggests to me that anyone not following certain ritual forms of abomination when discussing anything whatsoever relating to Hitler, is immediately branded as The Enemy Beyond The Pale. What an excellent way to make yourself look like a complete prat, not to mention wrapping yourself in the same psychological cloth as certain Islamofascist crazies who become unhinged at the sight of irreverent cartoons.

(3)

It is half two in the AM as I write this Christmas greeting, warm in my well worn Aran jumper and to a soundtrack of carols playing on a 1990's left over computer to which I have delegated such things. It struck me some of you might be interested in Christmas elsewhere, so I have selected a small number of photos to try to give you some of the atmosphere of a Northern Ireland Christmas.

The centerpiece to celebrations is City Hall. It has recently been attacked by a giant alien space station.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

The grounds are turned into a Christmas village with shops selling Christmas goods and foods from all over Europe.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Like any village in Ireland.... it has a pub!
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

We also have the typical modern mega-mall. It was filled with Saturday afternoon Christmas shoppers as I went in search of an ATM that could take my Chase Visa... and which had not been emptied by voracious shoppers. I finally found one, almost hidden behind Santa's grotto, where the queue was only about eight shoppers in length.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Unlike this somewhat longer ATM queue.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

A few hours later I was ensconced at the bar in my local listening to friends play a merry jig or three.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

But of course the most important part of Christmas anywhere is the company of old friends to share it with.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

And here is my Belfast Christmas Card to all of our loyal readers. Have a good one and feel free to eat and drink too much and in general overindulge in happiness and joy.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

(26)

Simon Heffer has written a very sensible (damn, I hate that word) article about why atheists rooted in our culture should have no problem at all enjoying Christmas. I agree whole heartedly with that view but...

We atheists are supposed to feel bad about Christmas. After all, what is it to do with us? All the present-swapping, drinking and over-eating is merely taking advantage of someone else's festival, isn't it? I have always had my doubts about that analysis, all the more so since the Archbishop of Canterbury this week refined the Christmas story as "legend". I start to wonder whether I am any more of an atheist than he is.

Oh Simon, Simon, Simon...really. You are talking about the head of the Church of England...of course he is more of an atheist than you are! Folks like you and I simply decline to believe on the whole beardy-guy-in-the-sky thing and that is good enough for us, no need to bang on any drums about it and generally be a tiresome crypto-fascist prat like Dawkins. Dr. Rowan Williams on the other hand drives more people into our way of thinking every time he opens his yap. Clearly he and Dawkin are batting for the same side no matter how much they pretend to not like each other.

So try to have a Merry Christmas one and all, even you Dr. Williams and Prof. Dawkins.

(19)

Rupert Everett is a serviceable actor but he does seem a little confused:

“Hollywood is a place that pretends it’s very liberal but it’s not remotely,” he told The Times. "It’s like Al-Qaeda." Everett, who is gay, believes that his sexuality has cost him “tons” of leading roles during his career.

Silly man! Because Hollywood is like Al Qaeda, you keep losing out on jobs not because you are a poofter of moderate talent but because you do not have a beard!

Given how Hollywood is famous for stoning adulterers and gays to death, making snuff porn videos of Muslims cutting off the heads of western journalists, forcing women to hide their bodies from view (something Hollywood is particular well known for), prohibiting secular movies (another one of Hollywood's strong points) and making men wear beards, clearly poor old Rupert is lucky to still be alive.

(56)

Alec Muffet, redoubtable trencherman that he is despite his dainty frame, pointed me at this splendiferous expression of the manifest superiority of western civilisation:

Multi-bird roasts, where different types of bird are stuffed inside a larger one, have become the thing to carve this year - and the more birds involved the better. One of the top-sellers is the Waitrose four-bird roast: guinea fowl, duck and turkey breast stuffed inside a goose. Demand has soared 50 per cent this year - even though each roast costs an eyewatering £200 [about $400 USD].

The surge in popularity may have something to do with TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's creation of a ten-bird roast on his show two years ago. He stuffed an 18lb turkey with a goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock - producing a remarkable Russian doll-like dish. But now his effort, inspired by recipes dating from Tudor times, has been dwarfed by a behemoth containing no fewer than 48 birds of 12 different species. This massive roast, the proud creation of Devon farmer Anne Petch, weighs almost four stone (more than most airlines' baggage allowance), costs £665, and has enough meat to serve 125 people.

Magnificent! However after reading the comments attached to this Daily Mail article decrying the practice, I could see my enthusiasm was not shared by all. The best comment and a real contender for the Samizdata Pig's Head on a Spike Award for Thigh Slapping Hilarity was:

See, it's because of madness like this that the terrorists hate us
- Marcus, Northampton, UK

The man is either a sage-like wag of the very highest order or a deranged Imam in need of an extended holiday in a certain part of Cuba... and an honourable mention also goes out for:

These graceful animals were alive and living a short while ago. Go veggie this Cristmas and let more of gods creatures experience what you do ...Life
- James Mills, Nottingham

Naturally I felt the need to leave one of my own, as indeed you might:

This year for Christmas we are having one of these wonderful multi-birds and I am very much looking forward to it. However after reading some of the comments here, next year we are going to eat a PETA activist stuffed inside a Greenpeace activist stuffed inside a Animal 'Rights' activist stuffed inside Gordon Brown's voluminous carcass (with a non-'Fair Trade' apple stuffed into his mouth).

Merry Christmas and God Deliver Us All... from priggish activists of all stripes.

Yummy! Nom nom nom!

(15)

Just a thought for the day:

A world in which all personal success depended on virtue would be insufferable.

(15)

It always amazes me the number of businesses who use the Internet without really understanding how it has changed everything in business, not just the bits they find useful. The entire balance of power has been shifting towards information rich customers for years now and one of the things about this shift is that people's tolerance for a company's behaviour when things go wrong has also changed dramatically.

It has always been the case that when things go wrong, the single worst thing any company can do is to make a customer feel he is being ignored. In many ways, even a half-arsed press release is (just) better than none at all, but frankly the days when a press release drafted by a PR professional whose job it is to pretend everything is all right are long gone. That approach never worked, only now the fact the PR Emperor has no clothes (and in truth never did) is impossible to hide. Customers are going to tell each other just how much they hate you, if indeed they do, regardless of whether or not you participate in the discussion because companies can no longer frame the terms of the debate. This article is an example of that, in fact.

And so I was amused by a fairly trivial incident: a purchased a copy of the Epic/Microsoft games studio shooter Gears of War for the PC. Cool game. How do I know? Because I have repeatedly played the first two to ten minutes of the game before getting a wargame-g4wlive.exe crash to desktop. And judging from the number of screaming customers on the Epic forums, I am far from alone in experiencing this.

Now the truth is, games these days are bloody complex things and it is rare to get a major game released without some significant kinks, so far be it for me to criticise Epic for releasing a bugged game... it happens and is probably an inevitable fact of life.

Also I have no doubt that Epic has an army of coders working to fix the (many) issues that people have reported and most likely they will solve them all soon. Looking at their forums, both Epic and Microsoft developers posted early comments and that is exactly the correct approach. If people know for sure that someone is on the problem, it is amazing how much slack they will cut a company and in many cases, dealing frankly with the issue and frequently acknowledging there is a problem makes people empathise rather than criticise.

But after the initial surge of developer input, the forum started filling up with often highly irate and typically semi-literate gamers cursing and howling because they had become convinced that as the first attempts to patch the game had not helped a great many people, the companies had just banked their money and written the game off. In truth I think that is highly unlikely at this stage and it is an avoidable self-inflicted wound to have well paid programmers working to fix what may be a difficult problem but because your inept PR department does not make that clear on a daily basis, customers whose game is about as useful as a prismatic beermat are left incandescent with rage at being ignored (as they see it). Crazy corporate behaviour.

Interestingly, posts to the forum filled with F words and imprecations about the marital status of the developer's mothers when they were born, seem to be generally left on the forum. I posted an invective-free article urging Epic to get themselves a new PR director and the post was taken down, which I must confess I find vastly amusing. So no prize for guessing which department is responsible for the Epic forums then.

(7)

There is a huge plume of smoke rising from Stratford, east of the City. Nothing on the news as to the origin of this. Mobile networks are already becoming overloaded.

UPDATE: Spectacular plumes, but terror motive "discounted". Any jokes about London's taxes going up in smoke can be made in the comments.

(16)

First turn up volume as soundtrack is quite soft...

(49)

Are UFOs evidence that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings?

(0)

Lincoln Allison, a contributor to the excellent Social Affairs Unit blog has this rather amusing, if at times harsh, list of various people he thinks are not quite the greats they are cracked up to be. Revealing the conservative tilt of that blog, his candidates are:

Princess Diana, Che Guevara, Salman Rushdie, John Lennon, George Best and John Osborne.

Maybe I am getting soft and liberal (in the US sense) in my early middle age, but with the exception of Guevara, I rather like most of the above, or at least I do not get as exercised as some right-of-centre folk do. Diana? Well, she was annoying, or at least the hysteria over her death was, but I was saddened by her death, sorry for her sons and relations and would rather she was still with us.

Lennon? A bit of a nob as a person, maybe, but a brilliant musician - Revolver is one of my favourite albums.

Osborne - no real opinion, although I loved his personification of evil in Get Carter.

Then there is Rushdie: I just cannot agree with Allison; for all that I cannot be bothered to tackle his fiction, I admire his unbending stance on Islamic fanaticism and his no-compromise approach to free speech.

And then there is dear, dead George Best (I met him a few times). Allison makes the rather unusual approach of not actually attacking George Best's drinking or womanising but attacks his skill as a footballer, claiming that Northern Irish players like Danny Blanchflower were greater as they achieved success with "lesser" teams (I am sure Spurs fans will be galled to hear that their lot was a lesser team in the 1960s than Manchester United. Spurs in fact won a sackload of trophies in that decade). He also says Best could not cope with Italian-style defenders. Well, he did not play against Italy much so how do we know and Best made mincemeat of the likes of top European sides Benfica and Real Madrid. His demolition of the former team at their home ground in 1966 - the year I was born - remains one of the highlights of 20th century football.

(26)

.... of what we are up against:

If Labour had suggested the return of Credit Controls can you imagine the wails of protests from the Tories with their cries of 'You can't buck the market' and 'We want to be free' and other libertarian bollocks like that.

- a commentator on Guido Fawkes' blog.

In the lexicon of some people who can be regarded as within the Westminster village, 'libertarian' is a pejorative modifier, and, "We want to be free," is a discreditable sentiment.

(15)

The ever-reliable Jamie Whyte has a superb piece in The Times in which he identifies quite precisely what's wrong with 'the precautionary principle':

Suppose that, in return for an annual premium of £1, someone promises to pay you £1 million if you are abducted by aliens (such insurance exists). ... You lack the information required to know if the insurance is a good deal. It is in such situations of uncertainty that the precautionary principle is supposed to apply. ... [T]his principle tells you to buy the ticket. You should incur the £1 cost of the premium if there is any chance that it will save you from the greater cost of experiencing an uncompensated alien abduction. Whenever the prize is greater than the bet, and you do not know the odds, the principle says you should gamble. Bookmakers must dream of the day when punters bring such wisdom to the racetrack.

That's a very illuminating parallel. What those who preach precaution are doing is secretly evaluating the likelihood of the Very Bad Thing we are supposed to be scared of as certainty, and their avoidance policy as perfect.

I would add, now Whyte has given me the right analytical start, that the way that the problem is usually posed should give this away directly. The precaution preacher says that: the Very Bad Thing (B) may be unlikely, but it is so very very bad, that however unlikely it is, it is too horrible to contemplate not doing onerous things P prevent it. It might as well be certain, but for P. That is implicitly a claim that both B is infinite in horribleness and that P is guaranteed to reduce its (unknown) likelihood.

Not only is it a bad bet, but the claim to the efficacy of P should be treated with skepticism. As well to remember that when dealing with Greens, securocrats and panic-mongers of all kinds.

(29)

In one of several articles supporting 'universal' (i.e. tax funded) health care in the United States in last weeks Economist magazine (the people who control it call it a 'newspaper' for tax reasons), the line "nobody denies" that the lack of a "universal health system" undermines "economic security" in the United States was used.

It was the words "nobody denies" that interested me. A very obvious obvious lie, as a great many people deny this, but I had heard this sort of lie somewhere before. In another article it was said that some Conservatives wished to "do nothing" about health care - good 'conservatives', like Mitt Romney, of course wished to go along with the demands supported by the Economist for 'universal health care' (see above).

In reality many American conservatives have long argued for less government subsides and regulations, what with government subsidies and regulations being the main reason that health care is expensive in the United States today. But the idea that anyone could want less statism was not even mentioned, let alone refuted - a 'conservative' (of the bad sort - i.e. someone who did not want more statism) was simply someone who wanted to "do nothing".

I had seen that lie someone before as well. And then I remembered - these are the methods of John Stuart Mill.

In, for example, Principles of Political Economy (1848) whenever J.S. Mill comes out with a demand for more statism, whether it be for police, or for government supply of water or other things, he tends to say something like "nobody denies" that the government should provide X, Y, Z. It was a lie as Mill knew perfectly well at the time as many of his contemporaries did did indeed deny these things - but it was a useful lie in that it meant that he did not have to refute their arguments because he pretended that opponents of his statist views did not exist.

J.S. Mill did a similar thing with the theory of economic value. He did not refute the arguments of such writers as Richard Whately and Samuel Bailey who had largely discredited the labour theory of value in the English speaking world (it had never been the main theory of economic value in the no- English speaking world), he just defended the theory of his father James Mill and his friend David Ricardo by saying the labour theory of value was "settled", no one denied it. Again a blatant lie - but a very effective one when dealing with young people whose first (and in many cases last) book on Political Economy would be J.S. Mill's work.

As for 'conservatives', J.S. Mill was careful to avoid writing much about conservative minded people who had ideas to roll back the size and scope of government activity, such as Edmund Burke (although the word "conservative" was not used in Burke's time, J.S. Mill knew of him via the Mill family and friends membership of the "Bowood Circle" a informal grouping of people who were sympathetic to some of the ideas of the French Revolution and hated Edmund Burke). It was much better to either write about poets like Coleridge, or to pretend that conservatives were just 'stupid' people, who wanted to 'do nothing'.

J.S. Mill wrote and spoke like this because he was a utilitarian, i.e. he defined right and wrong in terms 'good' and 'evil', defining 'good' as nice consequences and 'evil' as nasty consequences. It is quite true that he did think in terms of "higher and lower" pleasures, but that "good" might not mean pleasant or that "right" might not mean "good" was not something he was willing to concede.

In short he was a man without an ethical basis for honour (I do not mean that as abuse - I mean it as statement of fact). To such a man such old sayings as "death before dishonour" are simply the ravings of mad people, and refusing to break faith even at the cost of one's life is irrational. If to lie produced good consequences (with "good" being defined as the greatest happiness of the greatest number) then he lied. And his followers follow in this tradition - right to the writers in the Economist to day.

"We are proud to be associated with the founder of modern liberalism" is the sort of response I would expect from such folk (although no response at all would be more in their tradition). This shows the vast gulf between modern 'liberals' and conservative minded people. Although, almost needless to say, there are few such folk in the British Conservative party.

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Great piece today in the Times (of London) asking why businesses are not more vigorous in defending themselves and why they do not demand that people, as individuals, stop looking to the 'blame culture' and demand that people take more responsibility for their actions:

So where is the business voice telling us that we the public – egged on by politicians, the media and NGOs – have got it all wrong? Where are the companies fighting back at the wilder allegations of publicity-hungry campaign groups, self-interested organisations and junk scientists? I'll tell you where they are: they are at corporate social responsibility conferences, “engaging” with other people’s agendas.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with listening. Companies must always listen, learn and seek to improve. But this 'engagement' is too often a one-way street: the terms of engagement are dictated by others. The 'corporate responsibility' agenda in particular is dominated by anti-business campaigners. And their style is not generally to engage; it is to criticise, demand and oppose. This is understandable: NGOs, like the media and politicians, all thrive on conflict. Quiet and constructive dialogue is rarely in their interests

Amen, brother. One quick observation from me on this is that the litigation culture, which is still far worse in the United States, has spread to our shores; also, the general desire to blame others for our misfortune is possibly also a side-effect of the Welfare State and encouraged by the MSM.

Nice to see such forthright sanity from a major newspaper.

(8)

The Libertarian Alliance has published a new pamphlet by Samizdatista Paul Marks called A Critique of a Critique: An Examination of Kevin Carson's Contract Feudalism.

He is in splendid and splenic form, I am pleased to say.

(19)

At last, a blow is being struck for truth, justice and equality:

Gingerism in the workplace could form the basis of formal grievances or constructive dismissal cases, an employment lawyer has warned. The news comes in the wake of one Newcastle family having to move house because of abuse about its members' red hair.

The Chapman family has moved home three times in three years in the Newcastle area because of abuse directed at its six red-haired members. Kevin Chapman told reporters that his 11-year-old son even attempted suicide after becoming depressed following years of abuse.

The story has led to speculation about whether insults over red hair could have the same legal status as insults regarding a person's race or gender.

This country is plagued with ugly and unchecked gingerism which is completely unacceptable in a multi-folicle society. According to scientifically-proven statistics more than 100% of ginger-haired people die before the age of 6 due to ruthless oppression and rampant pilophobia. This has serious repercussions for their future employment and housing prospects. This is the worst problem facing the world today and it is high time that the politicians did something to combat it. Hirsuitism must stop. Full stop.

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There is an article on the Guardian site called Throw a pebble at Goliath: don't buy Israeli produce, by Yvonne Roberts, in which she urges people to boycott Israel because of its human rights record.

Now I know nothing about Yvonne Robert and have never even heard of her before, but I assume she also an avid campaigner for people to boycott products from Cuba, Burma, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, China (good luck doing that), Iran, Syria, Belorus, Zimbabwe, North Korea (assuming they actually produce any products) etc. etc. etc... after all, if she is such a tireless campaigner for human rights, surely she could not possibly feel it was alright for people to trade with all those places, given the state of human rights in those places. Right?

Anyone want to take any bets on this?

(94)

I do not have any time for Scientology (bunch of total loons, judging from their stated beliefs). I am not a fan of religion, full stop. Believing that one's sins get removed on account of a guy who was tortured and killed by Romans, or believing that we come back on this Earth as animals, or get something called Karma, or Original Sin, are just so much rubbish to me. I do not think life lacks meaning without some Supreme Being. But then plenty of highly intelligent folk believe in these things, and pose no threat to me, nor do their adherents expect me to support their views. For me, tolerance is what counts.

Even so, religions, certainly those which make enormous claims about the world and arguably, mess up the lives of the people they influence, deserve to be scrutinised hard. For that reason, I watched the BBC 'Panorama' show on Monday and I must admit that it was a pretty compelling bit of television. The journalist who completely lost his temper with some very dubious characters from the Scientology outfit has my sympathy (yes, I am sympathising with a BBC journalist). These folk are jerks, and employ tactics that, as the journalist said, would not be the usual operating procedure of your average Anglican vicar.

On a lighter note, here is a reference to the classic South Park episode on Scientology.

(67)

What should be the collective noun for moonbats?

(4)

I was struck by this interesting spin appearing in a BBC news report (not the BBC's fault, they just printed what the spokesman said):

The Commons public accounts committee, headed by Edward Leigh MP, said urgent action was needed to ensure an adequate service was provided.

Its report said the electronic patient clinical record, central to the project, was already two years late.

But the government said the MPs' report was based on out-of-date information.

Does this mean the system is less late than it was, and that time flows backwards in the NHS? No. Not even the current administration would try to sell that.

Has it been completed in the meantime? No. Limited trials begin in Bolton sometime soon (so Lancastrians in particular should attempt to opt-out while they can).

Does it mean there will be more up-to-date information presented by the government to prove the committee wrong? No. The government resists providing information about ongoing projects as much as it can, even to the public accounts committee. Giving out detailed evidence voluntarily (let alone in a checkable form) is unknown.

What it means is the government wishes you wouldn't pay attention to the committee report at all, and wants you to believe it is of no value. Since the committee relies entirely on material presented by the government, simply saying it is wrong presents some problems. That might be taken as admitting government numbers are unreliable. But by saying "out-of-date", it implies some fault in the committee without specifying quite what. You are invited to believe its conclusions are not valid and discount everything it says on that basis.

(3)

The pope is publishing the first part of his book Jesus of Nazareth. An authorised biography, I guess.

(57)

I wish I could play the piano well. What skill that you lack do you most wish you possessed?

(8)

I love the Far East. And hey, this may be my all time most crass post to Samizdata.

(66)

After global warming, what will be the next hysteria?

(23)

What I only guessed to be a possibility on Tuesday night, and repeated as a guess here on Wednesday, has now been officially confirmed:

Jamaican police today confirmed that British-born Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered.

Next question, as Michael Jennings commented here yesterday, and which he also copied-and-pasted to his own blog: How about Hansie Cronje? Just to remind you of what Michael said:

I have always been very suspicious about the death of former South African captain Hansie Cronje in a plane crash in 2003. When someone as mixed up with gangsters as Cronje dies mysteriously, one tends to think the worst. I wouldn't have thought that Woolmer was mixed up with gangsters. However, nobody would have believed it of Cronje (who had a reputation for being honest, upstanding, and God-fearing) until he was caught red handed. Secondly, perhaps the situation is that to enter the Pakistan dressing room is to be mixed up with gangsters.

I don't think that Woolmer was mixed up with gangsters if by that is meant that he was personally involved in match fixing. More probable is that he was about to publish in a book what he had merely observed. But, who knows?

If this was a Poirot murder mystery on TV, the real killer of Woolmer would turn out to be someone entirely unconnected with cricket or with cricket betting, who killed him or who had him killed for entirely different and perhaps purely personal reasons.

But this is not Poirot on TV. This is for real, difficult though many are now finding all this to believe. Today, the entire Pakistan team was questioned and finger-printed by the Jamaican Police.

International cricket matches involving Pakistan now become more than somewhat ridiculous, and are likely to remain so for quite some time, even supposing that cricket's administrators permit them to continue. It makes no sense at the moment to shut down the entire Cricket World Cup. What purpose would that serve? (At least Pakistan are now out of it.) Nevertheless, Ireland's 'surprise' win against Pakistan on St Patrick's day now looks more like a gift than an achievement.

England are looking well below what it would take to get very far in this competition, even if they do get past lowly Kenya tomorrow. Yesterday New Zealand thrashed Canada, and Holland were far too good for fellow minnows Scotland. Commentators will want to avoid words like "murdered" when describing such games.

(32)

Just thought I would share an extract from a letter I wrote to someone asking if I was ant-war or not:

Not all the contributors to Samizdata support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not an 'edito