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]
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Changing the climate Bishop Hill has a couple of good postings on climate themes. We here cannot keep track of all the climate hysteria and anti-hysteria, but he tries do. First, there is this bit of stand-up making fun of Al Gore. Stand-up is cheap to do, cheap to film and easy to stick up on YouTube. Even if YouTube are lefties, they cannot hope to censor everything. Watch this and feel the political climate changing.
The good Bishop ended the posting before that one, a round-up of climate stuff with lots of good links – climate cuttings number 14, no less – with the following:
And that’s it for this time. Thanks to those people who have suggested that I get off my backside and do some more blogging. I will try to oblige, time permitting.
Surely blogging means sitting down on your backside, not getting off it. But, that was the only mistake I could spot.
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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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Just about everyone who looks seriously into alleged anthropogenic global warming seems to come to a conclusion somewhere on the axis that runs from “the science is totally unsettled & still controversial” to “AGW is a load of old cobblers”. Yet those who look seriously are only a tiny minority of westerners, and the rest get swayed by the constant alarmist chanting from the likes of the BBC.
While the west gets on with deciding which foot to shoot itself in (Oh! go ahead, let’s shoot them both off!), Russia & China appear to be focusing on the issue of making sure that they will have enough future energy supplies. Despite having sufficient surplus oil & gas to keep the EU afloat with its exports, Russia is building nuclear plants. As is China, while simultaneously lining up oil supplies from Africa & Asia. Now, what do Russia & China know that the Gorebots have missed?
Well, obviously, the ol’ Russkies wanna export their oil and gas so the nukes are to enable that. Of course the EU is thoroughly somnambulant about power policy and will end up buying Russian gas at whatever price Vlad the Gas-Wholesaler demands.
Either that or the lights go out and I’m crashing at that ass-hat iDave’s gaff where I still might be able to turn on the computer when there’s enough wind.
“Power policy” sounds like I want the government to “do something”. Well, yes, actually. I want them to clear off out of the energy market, which they clearly don’t understand.
Having said that the fact that we have a serious near-future issue here and our Lords & Masters are doing fuck-all about it apart from poncing about playing Windy Miller really does demonstrate what a collection of clowns they really are. I mean this is the justification for big government right – that when there’s a big problem they deliver a big solution? I mean that’s what we pay through the nose for? Right?
Which brings me to the Gorefice. Second time lucky I suppose for the Da Vinci of the age. I mean nobody bought his baloney about inventing the internet but he kept plugging away and got his Nobel (& Oscar) eventually… Such diligence! And all he was armed with was a hockey stick! To take on the evils of Halliburton!
Just one more thing. If as claimed by the IPCC the debate is over will we see a reduction in demands for the funding of climate change studies from the scientists? And if we’re all going to die anyway why are these folk plugging away at their computer models and measuring tree-rings? Surely a more rational approach to the impending secular apocalypse would be blow the research budget and spend the Last Days snorting cocaine from the bare breasts of dusky maidens somewhere exotic?
from the Canadian newspapers this weekend:
No more Mr. Nice Guy: Old Man Winter is back
UNNATI GANDHI
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
November 30, 2007 at 11:09 PM EST
Hey, Canada – brace yourself.
Save for a few small patches here and there, Environment Canada has painted the country blue with the broadest of brushes, forecasting one of the coldest winters in recent memory nationwide.
The seasonal forecast, released yesterday, calls for lower-than-normal temperatures for the next three months in every province and territory, something that hasn’t been seen since 1994-1995.
“Since then, a good chunk of Canada has usually been red [warmer than normal], but, my gosh, this looks like a Conservative sweep,” senior climatologist David Phillips said in Toronto. “From Vancouver Island to Bonavista, it’s just nothing but blue cold.”
In other words, the long-forgotten real Canadian winter is back.
The chilling prediction follows two of the warmest winters on record, as well as a year that saw global warming pushed to the top of most government agendas.
In the Prairies, the bitter cold has already arrived, with Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg all seeing temperatures as much as 10 degrees lower than they should be this time of year. This weekend, Mr. Phillips said, those cities will barely get above -20.
Meanwhile, Vancouver and Victoria are expecting flurries over the next few days, while Halifax may get a dumping of snow on Monday. Much of Southern Ontario will be on winter storm watch, with next week expected to be about seven degrees lower than normal, hovering just below the freezing mark.
All this, Mr. Phillips said, is a taste of the next several months.
“Let’s face it: I think we’ve got out of practice,” he said. “Are we the second-coldest country in the world? Do we shun blizzards and sneer at frostbite? Well, we brag about that, so maybe this is nature calling our bluff.
“Our winters are clearly not what they used to be. Our parents and grandparents were right.”
For the sake of comparison, the last couple of months of 1994 were the start of a wicked winter, according to statistics from Environment Canada, with temperatures across the country dipping as low as -42, before factoring in the wind chill.
The deep freeze this year will be the result of La Niña, the pool of cold water off the Pacific Coast, which will help keep more Arctic air moving across the country than the warmer air from the south.
The good news is that a colder-than-normal forecast does not necessarily mean persistent cold, Mr. Phillips said. There could be a few brutal weeks, followed by a few warm days.
But with precipitation levels predicted to be normal this season for much of the country, combined with the lower temperatures, expect much more snow than last year, when such places as Southern Ontario and much of the Maritimes had only two-thirds of their normal amount.
Some cities will get heavier snowfalls than usual, including Calgary, Regina and Toronto, with much of it falling early in the season, Mr. Phillips said.
That means a lot of white Christmases across the country, technically defined as two centimetres of snow on the ground at 7 a.m. on Christmas Day. Last year, several holiday havens, including Quebec City, Ottawa and Timmins, Ont., had their first green Christmas in decades.
Brilliant point, Nick M! And the rest of your comment was also thought-provokingly hilarious. You have real talent.