The election has dealt a major blow to the political class, though it hasn’t been a catharsis; we still hate them.
– Raedwald
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… the Greens won an MP in the enclave of Brighton, but their share of the vote fell. I find this quite amazing, really. After five years of relentless environmental yakkery in the mass media, bombarding us on all channels at once, the Greens received a lower share of votes than the BNP. All that most Greens can now look forward to is to return to their yurts, and prepare for recycling. – Andrew Orlowski, writing in the Register, and reaching the fairly sensible conclusion that the reason every political party did badly was because they are all intellectually bankrupt, and the public is starting to get this. Read the whole thing. May 7th, 2010 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The $146 billion bailout package approved this weekend for Greece is advertised as a move to “stop the worst crisis in the [euro]’s 11-year history,” but it is having exactly the opposite effect. … So you have politicians defying the will of the voters to pour more water into a leaky bucket; transnational economic planners destroying a currency in order to save it; markets responding to those actions with predictable horror; and the few recipients of all the largesse too dumb to say “Thank you.” This is apparently what EU stability looks like. – The start and the finish (I recommend the stuff in between as well) of a piece by Tim Cavanaugh about the Greek Bailout May 3rd, 2010 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
“After trying to watch the first debate Maggie said, ‘they irritate me’. She is particularly angered by the way all three do their utmost not to answer questions.” – Margaret Thatcher’s apparent view of the recent election debate. Attributed to her by Katie Hind May 2nd, 2010 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Amazing isn’t it? Not that Labour slimed an ordinary member of the public who disagreed with them. They’ve been doing that since before they were elected in 1997. The lucky ones only found their reputations traduced in the press. The not so lucky ones found themselves dead in a field. No, what’s amazing is that is was caught live and bang to rights.” If I were this Mrs Duffy person who was slimed by Brown, I’d be thinking of watching my back for a few months. One thing we have learned over the past 13 years is that NewLabour are vindictive bastards. Update: Janet Daley draws a certain parallel – as well as noting a key difference – in another famous example of a leftist politician blurting out certain comments during an encounter with an ordinary member of the public, the famous Obama/Joe The Plumber exchange. As this Joe character found, Obama’s attack dogs tried to make life hard for him and as I said above, it may already be happening to the lady who was slagged off by Mr Brown. April 29th, 2010 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Gordon is cyanide on the doorstep. – Rachel Sylvester gets lucky quoting a Labour candidate in what used to be a safe Labour seat, just before Gordon Brown calls a core Labour voter a bigot. I reckon he’s cyanide everywhere. April 28th, 2010 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Getting the institutions right matters. Many people simply don’t understand that issue. They don’t understand it because they still believe in magic. Few people believe that the chanting of magic words or incantations exercises power over the world. Most of us believe in cause and effect – in tracing out the effects to their causes. The scientific approach has been triumphant in such fields of enquiry as physics, chemistry, biology and geology. Unfortunately, when it comes to the science of human behaviour, many people – possibly most – still believe in magic, because they believe that a special class of wizards and magicians are called legislators, rulers, governors and presidents, and so most people believe, when they say such words as `It shall be the law that all shall have the right to good health care, or a good education, or a higher living standard,’ that those words carry the power to bring about the intentions behind them.” – Tom G Palmer, Realising Freedom, page 207. I strongly recommend this gem of a book. April 19th, 2010 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
When David Cameron spoke to activists on the Embankment yesterday morning, one was at once splashed in the face by the cold water of the obsession with image: almost everyone in sight was young, several of them (including a man Mr Cameron ostentatiously embraced with that warm insincerity that is his trademark) from ethnic minorities, a correct proportion of them women. His approach has always been about ticking the boxes of militant superficiality. His main argument is that he is not the Labour Party. Well, not in name, at any rate. April 7th, 2010 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbours. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. “Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I’m not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I’m in trouble, I’ll go to him. My next-door neighbour is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee – no prospect of a fee – I believe in Doc. I believe in my townspeople. You can know on any door in our town saying, ‘I’m hungry,’ and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I’ve found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, ‘To heck with you – I got mine,’ there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, “Sure, pal, sit down.” I know that despite all warnings against hitch-hikers I can step up to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, ‘Climb in Mac – how far you going?’ I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones. I believe that almost all politicians are honest. . .there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the 13 colonies. I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in – I am proud to belong to – the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history. And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet – will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart. April 4th, 2010 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
While Nature had turned the paper down because so many others had already shown the existence of the problem, this referee recommended rejection because no evidence for the problem existed. – Ross McKitrick, discussing the difficulties of getting sceptical papers on climate change published in climatology journals. Read the whole thing. Three quick asides: Firstly, McKitrick is Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, and the partner of Stephen McIntyre in many of the papers that have questioned Michael Mann’s hockey stick. Basically, McIntyre is someone of considerable quantitative expertise whose actual career is (shudder) in the private sector (in the mining industry) and who has done the heavy lifting, whereas McKitrick has provided oversight and experience of academia and the academic publishing process. At least, such is my impression. If I have undersold his contribution, my apologies. That said, this doesn’t seem to have helped greatly in getting papers published in climatology journals. Secondly, this kind of thing seems to have happened a lot with respect to people attempting to take a sceptical line on climate change. Papers have been submitted to journals, relatively neutral referees have come out in favour of publication, but the papers have ultimately been rejected on the basis that they are unsuitable in some way with respect to the journal’s editorial policies. Really, this reveals weaknesses of the peer review process. Ultimately it is the editor of a journal who decides if a paper will be published. If an editor thinks yes, then he will find a way for peer review to support this belief, either by choosing tame additional referees or by overruling negative referees on technical points. If he thinks no, the tactic of changing the referees and/or the terms of reference under which the paper should be accepted is an old one, and one that has been used a lot in this field. McIntyre and McKitrick’s 2004 submission to Nature, which attempted to question the methodology of the Hockey Stick is a classic example. Initially both referees argued that the paper should be accepted, but somehow it was ultimately rejected. Thirdly, the fact that neither McIntyre or McKitrick are climatologists is highly relevant. I suspect, though, that the argument is about how it is highly relevant. The Global Warming alarmist camp would say that it is relevant because they lack expertise on climatology and/or they are funded by the oil industry, I suspect. The sceptical camp would say that it is relevant because they are not part of a captive clique. The libertarian camp would probably say that it is relevant because they (or at least McIntyre) are not directly funded by the state, and are not being therefore funded to advance a pre-decided agenda. I will leave decisions about the appropriate level of cynicism to the reader. Link via Bishop Hill April 1st, 2010 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
“So you live beyond your means and rack up a bunch of bills you can’t cover. So you go to your rich uncle. He’s tapped out, alas. And tired of supporting you. So he goes to his rich uncle who’s even richer and known for his desire to keep the family name unsullied. But what if he’s tapped out? Those are my thoughts when I read this story that Sarkozy is supporting Merkel in getting the IMF to bail out the Greeks. The IMF is the richer uncle. Eventually the other guy runs out of money. We’re going to have to start borrowing from Mars or Venus soon.” – Russ Roberts, at the Cafe Hayek blog. March 26th, 2010 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
March 24th, 2010 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
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