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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You might have thought decades of Ba’athist tyranny caused the war in Syria… WRONG! Nope, it was not decades of murderous repressive Ba’athist socialism under the Assad family that caused the civil war in Syria, it was…
Climate change!
And what is more, climate change has caused my cat to sing Sondheim at night. Climate change has made my tea taste bitter if brewed after 8 am. Climate change has created inequality amongst llamas in the Atacama Desert. Climate change has caused Putin’s man-boobs (daddaries?) to itch so much it drove him to invade Crimea. I defy anyone to prove scientifically these things are not true because the science is settled. Or something like that.
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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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The BBC are quite adept at crowbarring a reference to ‘changing climate’ into almost any item about biological matters, or even tourism, but only usually an insinuation, as if to say ‘Of course, climate change will affect this…’.
Oddly enough, under Climate Changes Germany has been rather more settled than of late in the 100 year perspective of climate cycles. Surely someone is going to blame the bombing of Warsaw etc, on climate some time soon?
Pearl Harbor? There was a gyre in the Pacific distorted by global warming (despite the Great Depression reducing carbon emissions, re-armament raised C02), and the Japanese Navy saw a mirage of the US Fleet in the warmer than usual air (it was December) and so they launched a pre-emptive attack, the rest is history, including the first low-carbon emission bombs! Heck, a bit of a neutron burst might create 14C, but it decays back to nitrogen.
Back in the day I’d blame El Nino for (well, sarcastically, everything)peoples stupidity in taking out loans they couldn’t pay in full, to have beach front
houses “developed” that they couldn’t afford, at a premium out of their league, requiring mandatory Federal “insurance”, and all the while having no “plan B” while they waited, and waited, for FEMA to fix it for them when ..uh….weather happened…AGAIN!
Kinda’ like mobile homes set up on that “really nice, flat, riverside, park property.
Oddly, farmers (who used to own the land) KNEW better, even without a “higher education” degree.
“SURELY it will be different THIS time, appropriate RESPONSABILIY just hasn’t been ASSIGNED yet!”
Now, lawyers (as seen on Tee Vee) are busy figuring out why “the State” is responsible for cash payouts…for the ignorance of our Public School’s (soon to include 2 years “remedial” college?)Best and Brightest.
Anthropomorphic Global Warming? No.
Invasive diversity? Maybe.
Anthropomorphic “social climate” change? Most assuredly.
Funny. I just did global warming in my pants.
Climate change has been colonized. Or as we like to say in the States – settled.
And don’t forget “The Cubs”.
Sorry to hear about your cat singing Sondheim. Can’t you persuade it to sing something else?
I don’t suppose you hold with Puccini either?
I’ve been shovelling a great deal of global warming off the sidewalk and driveway this last month.
Phil B Quote “Sorry to hear about your cat singing Sondheim. Can’t you persuade it to sing something else?
I don’t suppose you hold with Puccini either?”
Cats don’t do Puccini, there is a cat clause against it.
(Apologies to Groucho).
Up until recently science was intended for the betterment of mankind.
Climate Soothsaying seems to be intended to ensure the regression of mankind………….
Well the ones who will ride around on Bicycles toiling the land and the biomass pits.
The ruling class will drive around in Limo’s sounding their horns for the peasants to make way.
Oh and flying off to Climate Conferences in private jets, that too.
You don’t need a cause for war in Syria or the rest of the Arab world, as this is their natural, default state. What you need is a “cause” for peace. That cause was, until recently, the Assad family (and it’s tribe) which managed to impose, by brute force, some kind of intermittent, relative quiet or truce in the perpetual warfare.
So, Assad is not the cause of the war, rather Assad’s weakness was (not climate change). Syria also suffers from chronic shortness of water, exacerbated by population growth, and a dam Turkey built on the Tigris. The lack of water is real enough, only it has nothing to do with climate change.
But, no need to worry, pronto they’ll install there some windmills, financed by the World Bank (i.e. Western taxpayers) and everything will calm down (that is – “liberal” conscience, not the war).
From the article:
“The researchers examined a century of observed trends in precipitation, temperature, and sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean”
An Israeli researcher examined a century of observed (measured) data of precipitation and temperature for Israel, and found no significant trend. We still have wars, though.
A commentor here in Australia (in ‘Catallaxy’) has coined the term, the thermometer effect. Temperatures are in line with global warming until you take out a thermometer to measure your local temperature, when it then cools a few degrees. The uncovering of the thermometer seems to cause a local cooling, as local temperatures don’t match with predictions, a bit like the observer effect in quantum physics.
This would explain so much!!
Global warming, er, climate change, is hot air.
I once had a cat who loved Baroque piano pieces. Sadly, she passed away some time ago.
I currently have a cat who enjoys Yes – but only proper Yes, with both Jon Anderson and Steve Howe at the same time. Experiments with Asia and Olias of Sunhillow have confirmed that.
I realise that the above is somewhat peripheral, but there’s more real science in my casual inquiry into feline musical taste than there is in any of this climate change malarky.
I’d give real money for a cat that did Sondheim. Mine only sings Yoko Ono.
Thinking hard about it (the cat singing and musical appreciation) I wonder if there is any significance in the cat only singing at night?
Would daytime renditions of a medley of West Side Story songs be more acceptable? Or would an entirely different musical genre be preferred.
Interested people want to know, you know …
The only way I can see climate change kicking off things in the middle east is through some tribes panicking that the oil might get left in the ground due to mad green legislation, before they have a chance to sell it.
The only climate change issue I am aware of in the Middle East is the desire of a lot of very nasty people to eliminate the morning dew, or did they say ‘eliminate the Jews in the morning‘?
If those ‘deniers’ would relent, it might be a far better place. But there would still be a lot of work to be done to make some free and prosperous Commonwealths.
Since we had a night at -24° F the other day, my llamas are all for climate change, and want a lot more of it, and soon.
As for inequality, ’twas ever thus – they’ve always known they are superior to me, no change there.
llater,
llamas
Yes “Climate Change” clearly caused all these things.
Absolutely.
What I am about to say will make me unpopular, indeed Perry may ban me from Samizdata for saying it (and it is his private property after all).
I fully accept that Assad is a vicious dictator from a socialist family – although his evil father actually launched a coup against an even more extreme socialist President.
I also accept that Assad is a puppet of Iran – and that the Iranian regime is determined to use nuclear weapons against Israel and other nations…..
HOWEVER (and this is the bit that will get me into trouble), I believe that with the collapse of the moderate rebel groups (due to their betrayal by Mr Barack Obama over recent years) Assad is, perhaps, the less evil option.
The suffering of the people of Syria is vast – millions of people are suffering horribly.
And the various mostly extreme Sunni groups (the moderate groups having been betrayed by Mr Obama) are not going to end that suffering.
Yes – the victory of Assad would be horrible, utterly horrible.
But possibly less horrible than the continuation of the war or the victory of ISIS and co in Syria.
I repeat that if the moderate groups were stronger I would NOT say what I have just said.
But the moderate groups are weak – their betrayal by Mr Obama has left a choice between Sunni extremists and Assad.
Oh really Paul, I never ban people from Samizdata merely for being wrong, only for being excessively rude or wilfully obtuse (such as the interminable ‘race realists’ who can turn a discussion of cricket or art into one about race, or anyone I think is a genuine paid PUTINBOT).
Your argument is tantalisingly close to that of the person in Kent who takes the view that opposing Hitler led to such a woeful aftermath that on balance it might have been better to just swallow our pride and accept his tyranny. Shame about the Jews and all that, but at least we would have avoided decades of communist domination over half of Europe and the British Empire might have survived. A terrible argument in my opinion but not all that different to the one you are making in terms of dynamics.
So no, I really do not think Assad or Saddam should have been left alone for the sake of stability and to avoid the current set of horrors. Indeed in the unlikely event you ever find yourself in Erbil, I recommend keeping such opinions to yourself if you do not want to get a fist in the face from an Iraqi Kurd, followed by a detailed account of why regardless of the fact the Kurds are losing people daily fighting the Daesh Islamic State, things are vastly and incomparably better than under Saddam. Indeed I suspect very few Syrian Kurds were hankering for the good old days of Assad as they resolutely and successfully defended Kobane from the Daesh, and who are now on the offensive in Rojava (northern Syria).
So your argument contains a serious false dichotomy. It assumes the alternatives are between a Daesh Islamic State (et al) victory, or a Ba’athist victory, which is a spectacular oversimplification. There are a great many other possible outcomes and not all of them increase the net badness in the world. You seem to be seeing a two way war when there is in fact a three and a half way war going on. Moreover the least-worst side (by a long way) is currently on the upswing.
And the most moderate side of all (Massoud Barzani and the KRG) is going to probably end up the actual ‘winner’ of this war and moreover almost certainly end up winning the internal Kurdish political fight between the pro-Western Iraqi Kurds and the Marxist Syrian and Turkish Kurds for dominance in an independent Kurdistan that will possibly include northern Syria, which is a Very Good Thing Indeed. Hell, if you hang out on the Kurdish pro-Peshmerga forums, there is even considerable pro-Israeli sentiment to be found.
“And the most moderate side of all (Massoud Barzani and the KRG) is going to probably end up the actual ‘winner’ of this war”
If you add to that the possibility of a truly independent Kurdish state being established in northern Iraq (and its environs) I would call that an absolute victory (and not merely the “least bad” outcome) for the Forces of Good.
Oh I agree Laird but the Syrian Marxist Kurds are also on the military roll at the moment, so whilst they are still VASTLY preferable to the Ba’athists or Islamists, they are hardly folks to invite around for a spot of tea.
That said Barzani has consistently outmanoeuvred them politically, and one of the criminally under reported stories is that the main opposition party in the Iraqi KRG area is no longer the socialist PUK but the pro-market, anti-corruption and overtly secularist Gorran movement. And they did this without having an armed militia (unlike the KDP and PUK, who between them make up the Peshmerga), which speaks rather well of the state of health of the Iraqi Kurdish polis.