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.
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The (Glasgow) Herald reports,
Mandatory climate change classes plan for Scottish leaders
MSPs, business leaders and newly enrolled university students may be asked to take mandatory climate change studies if plans currently under consideration are adopted.
The studies would help arm them with facts and knowledge to make urgent changes to society as it emerges from COVID-19 lockdown. The Scottish Government has already committed to enrolling at least 100 senior officials to the Climate Solutions course.
The news comes just days before Tuesday’s one-year anniversary of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declaring a climate emergency.
The course was devised by experts at the Perth-based Royal Scottish Geographical Society in partnership with the Institute of Directors, Stirling University’s Business School and the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Carbon Innovation.
Among the main areas the course looks at are issues around transport, energy use, supply chains, social behaviours, mitigation and planning for the future.
Former UN executive secretary on climate change Christiana Figueres who brokered the Paris Agreement, former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney who is now UN special envoy on climate action and finance and ex Irish President Mary Robinson who set up a climate justice foundation, are among heavyweight names lending their support.
The Test Acts, in case you had forgotten,”were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists.”
Mr Robinson, said: “What we’re really hoping is we can make it universal.
“The conversations I’ve had are with six universities is about making it mandatory for students as a matriculation course. Stirling and Edinburgh universities are already further down the line on that than others.
“I’m also talking to others about making it as mandatory as we can in all other sectors – including business – because we need everybody to wake up a bit to their responsibilities.
“The Scottish Government are already committed through their programme of government to put through 100 senior staff on it.”
As I mention every time this subject comes up, I am more of a believer in anthropogenic climate change than many here. But the Scottish Government is working on that. If profession of a certain belief becomes a test of office, then soon enough every office holder will profess that belief. But why should anyone believe them? Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
It shakes. It convulses. It casts off its old body. It emerges softer and more flexible.
Don’t kid yourself. It’s still a tarantula.
Clare Foges writes in the Times, “We need Big Brother to beat this virus”.
Hands in the air! Step away from the Easter eggs!” The Keystone Coppery of recent weeks has had some people muttering darkly that we are heading the way of a police state. Those who style themselves as defenders of ancient British liberties will soon have bigger fish to fry: the digital surveillance tools that government hopes to use to trace the infected. Prepare for dire warnings of state intrusion and an avalanche of Nineteen Eighty-Four quotes on social media warning that Big Brother is upon us.
Yet if we are to beat a path out of this pandemic without destroying our economy, overblown concerns about threats to our liberties must be countered by pragmatism. To recover some semblance of normality before a vaccine is found, we must accept the need for the state to access more information about ourselves, our health and our whereabouts — and not waste precious weeks arguing about it.
Look east to see how digital surveillance is an integral part of returning to “normal” life. Hong Kong has mandatory tracking wristbands for those in quarantine. In Taiwan the phone-tracking system is known as an “electronic fence”; those who are meant to be in isolation will be visited by the authorities if their phone is turned off. In South Korea the pooling of data from credit card use, mobile phones and CCTV cameras means that they can detail the movements of an infected citizen down to where they sat in the cinema and which bar they went for a beer in afterwards — and in less than ten minutes can trace and contact the woman who was sitting two stools down. Public support for these measures is high, for the simple reason that they are working.
Via Ed Driscoll of Instapundit, I found this admirably thorough story by Mollie Hemingway in The Federalist. Here, she said, are some of CNN’s reports about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations against Brett Kavanaugh:
Read the letter Christine Blasey Ford sent accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct,
Post reporter says Kavanaugh accuser was ‘terrified about going public’,
Republican senators weigh in on delaying Kavanaugh vote,
Echoes of Anita Hill in allegations against Kavanaugh,
Dems call for delay of Kavanaugh vote after accuser comes forward, Listen to letter from Kavanaugh’s accuser, and
Washington Post: Kavanaugh accuser comes forward.
These senators could make or break Kavanaugh’s nomination,
The Kavanaugh controversy is a watershed moment for GOP,
Trump stands by Kavanaugh, supports ‘a full process’,
Why the Kavanaugh allegations come at the worst possible time for Republicans,
an interview with the reporter who broke the Post story,
Kellyanne Conway says Kavanaugh’s accuser ‘should not be ignored or insulted’,
a page devoted to a video of Kellyanne Conway’s statement,
Kavanaugh allegations lead to White House scramble,
Lawyer: Kavanaugh accuser willing to testify publicly,
State of play of the Kavanaugh nomination on Capitol Hill,
Joe Biden reacts to Kavanaugh allegation, reviving memories of Anita Hill hearing,
Why sexual assault survivors often don’t come forward,
Why Dianne Feinstein waited to take the Brett Kavanaugh allegations to the FBI,
White House plan to defend Kavanaugh relies heavily on women,
Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford to testify on assault allegations in public Monday,
Anita Hill’s accusations did not hurt public support for Clarence Thomas in ’91,
Republicans and Democrats grapple with Kavanaugh political fallout 7 weeks from midterms,
The power of a named accuser: Kavanaugh’s future now hangs in the balance,
Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s high school classmate, details high school parties in past writings, and many others.
By September 18, CNN’s participation in the anti-Kavanaugh campaign was even more intense:
Why Kavanaugh should make men question ‘himpathy’,
Dianne Feinstein, elected in the ‘Year of the Woman,’ navigates the politics of #MeToo,
Julia Louis-Dreyfus lends support to Brett Kavanaugh accuser,
Anita Hill: Senate should ‘do better’ than it did in 1991,
Doug Jones: Senate should compel Kavanaugh’s friend to testify,
Kavanaugh nomination descends into chaos,
What happens if Christine Blasey Ford doesn’t testify?,
With Kavanaugh, McConnell’s throne is on the line,
Christine Blasey Ford is risking it all to speak out,
Kavanaugh decision moment: A horrendous act or a monstrous lie,
Emmy attendee shows up with ‘Stop Kavanaugh’ written on her arm,
What The Wall Street Journal gets dead wrong about Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh,
Women hold the key to Kavanaugh — and maybe control of Congress,
Trump on Kavanaugh: ‘This is not a man who deserves this’,
Former classmate of Kavanaugh’s denies being at party in sexual assault allegation,
Kavanaugh accuser wants FBI investigation before testifying,
Sen. Hirono’s message to men: ‘Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing.’,
5 big questions about the Kavanaugh hearing,
Kavanaugh hearing uncertain for Monday as accuser wants FBI to investigate before hearing,
George W. Bush defends Kavanaugh as ‘a fine husband, father, and friend’,
Accuser’s friend: She is nothing but honest,
Reliable Sources: Kavanaugh questions; left and right reactions,
Mark Judge tells Senate he ‘has no memory of alleged’ incident with Kavanaugh,
Read: Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys’ letter requesting FBI investigation, and many others.
Trump calls Kavanaugh ‘an extraordinary man’,
Kavanaugh’s accuser made her move — now Republicans have to choose,
Mazie Hirono: Kavanaugh accuser is hesitating to testify because she’s afraid of a GOP ‘railroad job’,
Trump says he wants to see Kavanaugh’s accuser testify,
6 possible Kavanaugh scenarios, including a Supreme Court vacancy until 2021,
Anita Hill: FBI should investigate Ford’s claim,
Kavanaugh’s accuser says he was drunk at the time. What studies say about alcohol and memory loss,
Kavanaugh accuser’s lawyer: ‘Rush to a hearing is unnecessary’,
Friend of Kavanaugh’s accuser speaks out,
Toobin: If she won’t testify, he gets confirmed,
Reliable Sources: The Supreme Court clock is ticking,
Republicans just made a giant gamble on Brett Kavanaugh,
Collins says ‘it’s not fair’ for Kavanaugh accuser not to testify,
Did Donald Trump just hedge on Brett Kavanaugh’s future?,
McCaskill’s voting against Kavanaugh – and it has nothing to do with the accusations,
Grassley sets Friday deadline to hear back from Kavanaugh accuser,
Garamendi: This is a defining Me Too moment,
Accuser’s lawyer: Rush to hearing unnecessary,
Gillibrand: GOP approach amounts to ‘sham hearing’ on Kavanaugh allegations,
Begala: Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP,
GoFundMe raises more than $100K to help Kavanaugh accuser with security expenses,
Graham wants Kavanaugh vote before midterms
In Hemingway’s report, every one of these is a link. Click ’em and see. There were more, I just got bored of copying them.
And here is all the reporting CNN had done of the very similar allegation against Joe Biden by Tara Reade until yesterday:
Samizdata no longer needs me. Soon it will no longer need you. I took the text from the sidebar:
The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property.
and copied it into Talk To Transformer.
The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Most of them are rich white males who are probably atheists, but many are probably questioning the existence of a god as they revel in their limitless wealth. They believe that anyone who is unprotesting of their cause is a threat to their cause and a threat to their own existence. They don’t care if you are a child and a physician or an Arab and a journalist. You must conform and accept their conspiracies. This is the true face of
Comments are, as ever, welcome. Even from humans.
If there is a disaster, would you like people for hundreds of miles around to drop everything and make herculean efforts to get those worst affected exactly the sort of help they need most – even when the helpers have no personal connection with the victims? Would you like factories worldwide to rush to switch production to making whatever they are short of in the disaster zone?
You would? Then let people make money by doing it. You can either rely on the small subset of people who will seriously disrupt their lives to help strangers out of pure charity, or you can also get help from the much larger pool of people who who are pushed from vague thoughts of benevolence into action by the prospect of profit. Let them sell goods of which there is a shortage at a higher price and soon there won’t be a shortage any more.
– something sorta like this was said by someone, whom I would gladly credit if I could remember who they were.
My post was prompted by this story by Edward Thicknesse in City A.M.: Coronavirus: Calls for price controls dismissed as ‘economically illiterate’.
“NHS phone app holds key to lifting UK’s coronavirus lockdown”, the Times reports.
Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.
The app would allow mobile phones to trace users who have come into contact with infected people, alerting them to get tested.
This would make it possible to start lifting the most stringent social-distancing measures from late next month, ministers hope.
Senior sources say NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, has been working on the app with Google and Apple at “breakneck speed”. The system will use Bluetooth technology to alert those who download the app if they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.
Combined with a vast expansion in testing, which ministers claim will hit 100,000 a day by the end of the month, the app is a central plank in the government’s push to lift the lockdown. “We believe this could be important in helping the country return to normality,” a Whitehall source said.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app. Experts say the “track and trace” concept only works effectively if 60% of people adopt it.
One idea under consideration would mean people being told they could resume normal work and home life if they installed it on their phones.
As I said in the title, the worst of it is that this might be the way to control the epidemic, an outcome greatly to be desired. And then it might be the way to control us.
“Police under fire for telling dad he can’t play with his kids in his own front garden”, LBC reports.
I found myself with a certain sympathy for the cop lady. Daniel Connell, the man who made this recording, gave her an unnecessarily hard time by pretending to misunderstand what she meant by “special powers”. But his pretended misunderstanding of her powers was not nearly as serious as her actual misunderstanding of them. As the title of this post says, it is not asking too much that those entrusted with the police power should have some basic knowledge of what that power does and does not entitle them to demand.
South Yorkshire Police released a statement on Twitter, saying: “This encounter was well-intentioned but ill-informed and we’d like to apologise for the way it was handled.
“We’ve spoken to the officer concerned and made our approach absolutely clear.
“Again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused and will continue our work to support the NHS.”
There’s a fruit store on our street
It’s run by a Greek.
And he keeps good things to eat
But you should hear him speak!
When you ask him anything, he never answers “no”.
He just “yes”es you to death, and as he takes your dough
He tells you
“Yes, we have no bananas
We have-a no bananas today.”
Those are some of the words to the 1923 hit song “Yes, We Have No Bananas” by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn. The song is mostly associated with World War II, but according to Wikipedia it had found its way into the history books before that:
The song was the theme of the outdoor relief protests in Belfast in 1932. These were a unique example of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland protesting together, and the song was used because it was one of the few non-sectarian songs that both communities knew. The song lent its title to a book about the depression in Belfast.
For nine decades “the depression” meant the one that started in 1929. But the coronavirus looks likely to bring in its wake an economic depression that may well take the definite article for itself. Naomi O’Leary of the Irish Times reports,
Euro finance ministers reach compromise to fund pandemic recovery
Deal dashes hopes of Italy, Ireland and seven others for the roll out of so-called corona bonds
The 19 members of the euro zone agreed a compromise on Thursday to aid states in need of funding to address the profound economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
But it dashed the hopes of Italy, Ireland, Spain and six other member states that had called for eurobonds to bring down borrowing costs and send a signal of unity as the continent confronts a health crisis that is threatens to become an economic disaster.
Under the deal, states can borrow from the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund to finance spending needed to overcome the crisis.
I do not seek to play down their achievement in reaching a compromise at all. Every finance minister on Earth must be passing sleepless nights wondering how best to deal with our current predicament. But the dilemma faced by the Eurozone countries is particularly acute. Italy and Spain will never forgive the EU if they receive no help in their hour of need. But the northern countries were repeatedly assured that EU membership and the adoption of the Euro would never mean they had to write a blank cheque to what they see as the spendthrifts to the south (and a few other directions besides). The Dutch, the Germans, the Finns and the Austrians must hope that when they say, “yes, we have no Eurobonds” the upbeat momentum of the first three words will carry them over the next two.
“Viktor Orban ruins his rivals with power grab”, the Times reports.
Under a regime described by critics as the “omnipotence law”, Mr Orban’s government is able to take sweeping measures to tackle the coronavirus epidemic without parliamentary approval.
Within days of the reform it announced that parties, banks, multinational corporations and local councils would be obliged to pay into a £3.3 billion national fund designed to cushion the blow to the Hungarian economy.
Political parties must hand over half of the grants they receive from the state, a total of about £2.8 million, Gergely Gulyas, one of Mr Orban’s closest ministerial allies, said. The measure will apply to all Hungarian parties, including Fidesz, the prime minister’s party, which is backed by businesses that have benefited from public contracts. Some of its struggling rivals, however, are heavily reliant on public funding. Jobbik, the largest opposition party in the National Assembly, is still reeling from a fine of nearly £1 million after auditors found that it had underpaid for billboard advertising.
Emphasis added. From what little I know of Hungarian politics, the Jobbik and Fidesz parties seem to have swapped bodies. I hold no brief for either. But I can sympathise with the plight of anybody – or any body – that suddenly has their financial support kicked away. Unfortunately that is what happens when the state pays your bills: what the state gives, the state can take away. Hence the “self ownership” tag on this post.
As I wrote the above, I remembered having written something very similar before. That post was about the last of the Kalahari Bushmen. The plight of the last opposition parties of Hungary is not quite as desperate as theirs, but give it time.
True to its promise to leave no strategy untried that might help alleviate the coronavirus epidemic, Her Majesty’s Government, in accordance with the advice of the Lords Spiritual, has decreed that in penance for the sins that brought this plague upon us, all persons will now strictly observe the Lenten fast. Effective immediately, all confectionery, sweetmeats, and similar indulgent and luxurious foods will therefore be removed from sale in shops upon penalty of law. In particular the pagan custom of consumption of so-called “Easter eggs”, being a false admixture to the strictures of true religion, is henceforth prohibited.
It will be good for your souls.
OK, in case you were worried, what I just said was not true. Neither I nor the Bishops seek to use the law to deny the British public their choccy eggs. That’s the job of your local council.
Convenience stores are wrongly being told to limit the items they sell to just “essentials”, a trade body has warned.
Local newsagents, which are allowed to remain open under the Government’s guidelines, are facing interference from officials that are trying to restrict the range of goods they sell under lockdown measures.
Some shops have been told by police and local councils that Easter eggs are considered non-essential goods and must therefore be removed from shelves.
The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) blamed “overzealous enforcement and a misreading of the rules”.
Ridiculous as it was, with the drone-assisted “lockdown shaming” of walkers in Derbyshire, I could at least see what the police thought they were trying to achieve. But I really can see no motive other than reflex puritanism for trying to prohibit the sale of “nonessential goods”, particularly as they were on the shelves anyway. What good would it do anyone to make the shopkeepers lose a packet by being forbidden to sell stock they had purchased in happier times? This isn’t World War II. Britain’s food is not coming in by convoys subject to torpedo attack. In fact, if you can afford luxury foods, should you not buy them in preference to plainer things in order to leave more staple foods available for those who cannot afford anything else?
Drones are fun. I understand that. But people do need to use them responsibly.
The BBC reports: Coronavirus: Peak District drone police criticised for ‘lockdown shaming’
Derbyshire Police filmed people in pairs rambling in the Curbar Edge area of the beauty spot on Wednesday.
In pairs. Not mobs, pairs.
Officers said travelling to remote areas for exercise did not count as “essential travel” as permitted under government lockdown rules.
But travelling to remote areas and flying your drones there, that’s essential.
UK civil liberties group Big Brother Watch branded the move “sinister” and “counter-productive”.
The 90-second clip, shot by the force’s drone unit, showed people walking their dogs and taking photos.
It said “the message is still not getting through” about stopping the spread of coronavirus, despite government guidance and several police posts.
One Twitter user called it “the worst kind of nanny policing” while others pointed out that the walkers were away from crowds.
Here is the tweet in question. I am glad there was some pushback. This response from “miroirdufou” was polite but effective:
Hi. Please explain (in terms of epidemiology) exactly what harm these people are doing, taking quiet exercise away from crowds, in small numbers? And if they’re doing no harm, leave them alone?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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