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After the exposure and the lies, the excuses and the ‘business as usual’ attitude, we are told that only four broke the law. Only four were stupid enough to actually get caught. The rest get slapped wrists or a golden handshake, happy wanking their golden pay-off from the backs of the taxpayer, now viewed as a bottomless treasury for Labour’s ballot fund.
This Parliament is a sump, a slough, a slurry pit which does not even have the decency to develop an upper crust to disguise its foulness. You cannot drain this away as the swine have developed a taste for speculation, peculation and entitlement. And worse than the poor suckers of dole who know no better, their entitlement is a result of greed, not Special Brew.
How can an electorate inoculate ourselves from those who would wield power? In days past, this was the result of a tie: the contractual ties between governed and governor enriched by the fear of riot, the joy of bribery and an indecent sense of superiority over the occasional war: such are the advantages of a rising power. Even thirty years ago, our greatest traitor, Heath, was tested and sent packing when he had the temerity to ask “Who governs Britain?”
That crisis of governance may be more important than we know. Fifteen years of turbulence may have taught some that it is better to dilute the power of the demos, and transmute rage to apathy, gold to lead. And what better vehicle for this inoculation arose than the European Union: a new structure that observed the norms and the forms, but rendered each voter more impotent than a castrati in a Nevada brothel.
So when I say “only four?” I know that their fellow politicians will look on them as sacrificial lambs, thrown to wolves now and rescued later through sympathetic parole boards and glowing character references from fellow peers.
I first wondered whether this story was a spoof, but it appears not to be so.
I recently read David Friedman’s latest book, A Future Imperfect, and thoroughly enjoyed it. He has now posted a series of lectures he has given at different venues, touching on many of the subjects in the book, as well some that were not in the book. Subjects, for example, such as encryption, copyright, how technology is changing legal systems, society, our view of family life, and the like. Definitely worth downloading some of these lectures if you have the time. Ideal for playing on the MP3 player on the way to the office. A definite improvement on listening to the BBC’s Today programme, that is for sure.
In the meantime, here is a quote from the book that I particularly liked. It is about nanotechnology and some of the fears people have, including the “grey goo” issue:
“Before you conclude that the end of the world is upon us, you consider the other side of the technology. With enough cell repair machines on duty, designer players may not be a problem. Human beings want to live and will pay for the privilege. The resources that will go into designing protections against threats, nanotechnological or otherwise, will be enomously greater than the (private) resources that will go into creating such threats – as they are at present, with the much more limited tools available to us. Unless it turns out that, with this technology, the offense has an overwhelming advantage over the defense, nanotech defenses should almost entirely neutralise the threat from the basement terrorist or careless experimenter. The only serious threat will be from organisations willing and able to spend billions of dollars creating really first-rate molecular killers – almost all of them governments.”
(page 272.)
If you want to see how different the world now is from how it was before the internet, look no further than this story (now bouncing energetically around the world):
It is claimed that the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has been hacked and there is a massive file of emails and code up on a server in Russia. If what has been posted is real then the balloon is about to go up.
Excerpts of the emails have been posted here. They include a CRU scientist welcoming the death of a prominent sceptic, discussion of how to fiddle results and so on.
Amazing. If true.
As someone says, if it looks to good to be true, it probably is.
Those were my first sentiments exactly (although I don’t think that being glad when an opponent has dropped dead is all that surprising – I’m sure we all know that feeling), and the sentiments of practically everyone else in the anti-AGW blogosphere when they first heard about this. Now, it is looking ever more likely that it is true, all of it.
Not least because the first big response from the hackees has been to cry, not: load of made-up bollocks, but rather: stop thief! Yes, we have been hacked, and that’s outrageous. The story is that we have been hacked. (Lots of people are suddenly discovering the case for intellectual property rights.) The BBC’s first version of this story goes with this angle, and with pretty much nothing else. AGW scientists (good) robbed by anti-AGW fanatics (bad). But this response has not killed the story. It has only given it legs. If there’s nothing to it, why be so fussed about the hacking?
Even if the mainstream media try to bury this, they can’t stop us anti-AGWers from talking about it amongst ourselves, and my bet is that they will quickly abandon the attempt to ignore the content of this material, and instead make copious use – perhaps even acknowledged use, with links – of the work even now being done by all those damned bloggers. If they don’t do this, they will merely look foolish. It’s a different world, from the one where all the journalism was done by “journalists”, and only those journalists could decide what journalism would be done.
Sure enough, the New York Times already has a report about this, and James Delingpole already has a piece up at the Telegraph blog. (Thank you Instapundit.) This won’t now be buried, even if the story ends up being that a lot of trivia was hacked, and then a lot of incriminating stuff was forged and added, which is looking less and less like the story with each hour that passes.
Two particularly good bloggers on this story so far have been Bishop Hill (already quoted above) and Devil’s Kitchen, the Bishop for the trawling through that he is already starting to do, and DK for the way he (among many others) is already teasing out what it all might mean:
What these emails do show is that there is not consensus amongst scientists and that, privately, they think that certain papers are crap. No word of this gets to the media, or to the people being soaked for ever more cash to pay for these delusions.
What these emails really show is why such information never gets to the public: it is because climate scientists – like doctors – close ranks when attacked.
Not only this, but these emails also clearly show that climate scientists have been doing their absolute best to ensure that those who would question their findings cannot find the data.
The Bishop even has a new book out about AGW trickery, entitled The Hockey Stick Illusion. Coincidence? Well, yes, and one that is liable to mean lots of further work for him, riding whatever wave these new revelations may cause. But a nice coincidence nevertheless. This could now become a global best seller.
I already know what some of our cup-mostly-empty commenters here will say about all this, or want to say. Yes, the anti-AGW camp may now be starting to win the argument, but “they” still command the institutions they need in order to impose AGW-based tyranny. True. But those institutions can never be neutered, closed, etc., if they do not first lose their argument. (Think: USSR.) This is already rather good news, and potentially very important in its longer term impact.
For other early AGWer reactions, read this, together with all the comments.
Anything that p*sses off the mad mullahs is worth seeing twice in my book. In addition to seeing cool special effects you can set 10th century heads spinning in blind hatred as you enjoy a doomsday fantasy!
I recently recorded a conversation with Toby Baxendale, who owns and runs a fish distribution empire, and who is the founder of the Cobden Centre. Listen to it by clicking here.
Our chat lasted about fifty minutes and a lot of interesting biographical and intellectual ground is covered. For the benefit of those for whom that is rather a long time to spend listening to talk, I have written at greater length about listening to and learning about this interesting and formidable man here.
I suppose it says something about The Daily Telegraph’s admirable commitment to freedom of speech that it let this comment I paste up below through, or possibly, the laxness of its editors. Following a comment piece about the forthcoming trial of the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, we get this remark, by someone dubbing itself “Lord Barnett”:
The trial will be a farce,held in New York for the benefit of the jews and the media of the World,The people who should be on trial are the Israelis,George Bush senior,Bill Clinton,the Bush Administration and American jews.Nobody is interested in why 9/11 happened,you can also lay the blame at the door of all Western Govenments for doing nothing to stop the holocaust on the Palistinians by Israel.Every American Administration has stood by,watched and helped Israel steal Palistinian land and murder its people, then call them Terrorists when they try to get it back,we have all watched and read about it,what is going on there is an absolute disgrace,lets just have a look at the Middle East today,Saudi Arabia,run by dictators with American backing to keep them in power,well its either that or the mad mullas who would switch the oil tap off,who would you rather have in power?, Its the same with Kuwait,Bahrain,Oman and the rest,but then you have Syria and Iran,the only Arab Nations who are trying to fight America and its dominance in the Middle East,they are called pariahs because they speak out against America,Iran is developing nuclear weapons,just like the Israelis,why should Israel have them but not Iran?, And then yesterday we have Netanyahu saying he is going to build around nine hundred more new homes on stolen Palistinian land,and what does America say to this? “Its Disappointed”, wow,there`s a strong statement that will have the Israelis quaking in their boots,until the West stands up to Israel and America there will never be peace in the World,but i am sure there will be another 9/11.The United Nations is a farce,not one single resolution it has brought against Israel has passed because America has vetoed them,whats the point? Then Independant Inquiries done by jewish people outlining all the crimes that Israel has committed have been dismissed by Israel and America as biased,who is going to stand up to these criminals?.
This character repeats the trope that Israel has “stolen” land from others, that it is a terror state, and that its fear about Iran’s having nuclear weapons is somehow groundless or unfair. This moron presumably is deaf to the fact that from the time of its founding, various Arab powers have been vocal in their desire to crush this relatively tiny state; he – I assume it is a he – is deaf to the fact that Iran is led by a man who is openly in favour of wiping Israel out.
As I said, it is perhaps right for the Telegraph to let people like this rant and rave about the Jews, Israel, blah-blah. It is sometimes salutary to be reminded of the depths of hatred and ignorance that exist in the breasts of those who wish that country and the Jewish people harm. It pays to know that there are enemies out there, if only to encourage continued vigilance.
About the only half-truth admitted by this idiot is the point about Western backing for Saudi Arabia. That remains, in my book, a serious failing of Western foreign policy. The sooner we can reduce our use of oil from that nation – which has financed a good deal of anti-western terrorism – the better.
I wonder what Patri Friedman, moving light in the Seasteading Institute and an advocate of the idea of creating new nations, makes of this story.
Sealand is one of the longest-running attempts to create a micro-state. It is off the Suffolk coast, based on an old anti-aircraft tower. The article, by the local newspaper in the East Anglian region, contains a nice photo of the place.
I suspect that if Sealand ever provided services – such as totally encrypted financial service facilities – then a tax-hungry UK would not demur at sending over a frigate to shut the place down. But the guy who set up this place has been known to defend his territory vigorously. For a supposed old eccentric, he’s held out remarkably well.
It is no secret I am no great admirer of some aspects of the US legal system and the corrupting influence of the US trial lawyers lobby, but then along comes a particularly stark example of why the US really really really needs a UK style ‘loser pays’ system to discourage preposterous actions like this…
Man Blames Planes For Divorce, Seeks $555 Million […] (Stanley) Hilton’s 16-page suit against San Francisco International Airport blames 37 organizations for the collapse of his marriage and seeks $15 million from each of them. Targets of the suit include the city and county of San Francisco, the airport and every airline based there, airline engine manufacturers and the real estate agencies involved in the sale of his house.
This is a clear indication of a legal system is in dire need of radical reform. I do not know if Stanley Hilton is in fact deranged, but any legal system which allows him to do what he is doing certainly is.
Yet another example of the vileness of the culture which pervades the management of the public sector…
Paramedics fighting to save a nine-year-old road accident victim were told rigid rest-break regulations meant the closest crew could not be called upon for back-up. Lifesavers at a crash scene in Upton were told they would have to wait for a crew nearly 20 minutes away because paramedics in Poole still had a few minutes left on their break.
Ambulance staff treating little Bethany Dibbs then called Poole ambulance station directly. A second crew abandoned their break and raced to Sandy Lane, arriving just five minutes after their colleagues […] But the South Western Ambulance Service Trust is standing by its decision. A spokesperson said the trust took its statutory health and safety duties for all staff very seriously.
But this is also an example of the fact civil society still has at least some life left in it, because the paramedics on the scene said “screw it” and just called the people they needed directly themselves… and of course those lads came immediately, teacup in hand no doubt, regardless of the rules and regulations that the South Western Ambulance Service Trust and the union think are so damn important.
[via Reason]
Bravo to the security men aboard the MV Maersk Alabama, who when approached and fired on by Somali pirates, fired back and drove them off.
Placing armed security men aboard ships vulnerable to pirate attacks has always been the obvious solution to the problem of piracy. How could anyone have thought that hugely expensive warships designed for real wars, operating under preposterous rules of engagement, was ever the solution to a profusion of scabby predators with small arms zooming about in small fast boats worth a few thousand dollars at most? There simply is no excuse for this having taken so long to implement, but kudos to Maersk for doing the right thing… firearms are a great deal better than relying on a hail of beer bottles.
But I would urge Maersk to invest in a pair of .50 cal HMGs per ship to discourage the more redoubtable of the Somali pirates from upping the ante by taking a Dushka off the back of a ‘technical’. An additional advantage of using heavy machineguns is it makes sinking the attacker and hopefully killing the pirates more likely, which can only be beneficial in both thinning out the herd and encouraging these predatory scum to find a less hazardous line of work.
And then there is always this humorous private sector approach… and the funny thing is, it would probably not only work but also be oversubscribed and profitable for a while, at least as long as the supply of ‘big game’ lasts.
The extremely worthy TPA has a nifty new promo for their new book that dares to think the unthinkable…
The book, Ten Years On, is available to order free here.
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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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