H/T to Roger Henry for the link.
December 8, 2010
December 7, 2010
Never mind the scientists
The British government is finding that scientific evidence is getting in the way of what they want to do, so they’re scrapping the requirement to have scientists provide input:
Ministers will not be required to seek the advice of scientists when making drug classification policy in future, under new government proposals.
The police reform and social responsibility bill, published last week, contains an amendment to the constitution of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) that would remove the requirement on the home secretary to appoint at least six scientists to the committee.
A further amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 would allow the home secretary to place temporary controls on substances for a year by statutory instrument.
The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government’s treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
Why waste a great opportunity to get up in front of the media and sound all “tough on crime” just because the scientists say it’s a load of bollocks?
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The economics of Ebenezer Scrooge
Russell D. Longcore looks at the economics underlying Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:
Next we are introduced to Scrooge’s philosophy on celebrating Christmas. His nephew greets him warmly with a “Merry Christmas!” Scrooge responds:
What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in them through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
Is he wrong, or is he a prophet? Today, a large percentage of Americans pay for Christmas with their credit cards, borrowing money from the future to pay for today’s luxuries. They work for wages, but American savings rates are near zero, so they are no richer than last year. They trade their irreplaceable time for wages as the years tick off. Where is Scrooge wrong in his assessment of Christmas celebrants?
Next we see an exchange between Scrooge and two do-gooders who come to the office looking for charitable donations.
[. . .]
Let’s pause to learn from this attempt at a shakedown.
The very existence of Christmas… both in the Dickensian era and today… promotes a desire for the giving and receiving of gifts. And that has nothing to do with Jesus. Merchandising is King of Kings in December. With that desire comes the feeling of “Want” described by Gentleman #2., particularly among those who have not. Everyone knows and feels the ubiquitous pressure on everyone to give gifts, even if you cannot afford to do so. Those who do not wish to participate in the expression of so-called “Christian cheer” may not be moved to part with their Abundance to provide the Poor with food, drink and warmth in this particular method of coercion.
As Scrooge reveals, he already supports the institutions that care for the needy. He either gives his own money voluntarily to the debtor’s prisons, the Union workhouses, the Treadmill… or money is exacted from him by taxation for the operations of these institutions. But Gentleman #2 argues that “many can’t go there… some would rather die (than go there). That is a choice made by an individual based upon haughty pride, not true need. Scrooge states that he does not accept the premise offered by #2 that anyone would rather die than go to the poor house, and that he is busy enough minding his own business. And thus ends this part of the story.
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December 6, 2010
British parents unable to say no, may get Nanny(state) to do it for them
Apparently, British parents are so fearful of the disapproval of their own children that they’re afraid to say “no”:
Retailers selling sexualised products aimed at children could face new restrictions under plans being considered by the government.
An inquiry to explore whether rules should prevent the marketing of items such as “Porn star” T-shirts or padded bras to children has been set up.
A code of conduct on “age appropriate” marketing and a new watchdog are among plans being considered by the review.
Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said parents faced a tidal wave of pressure.
She said: “Parents often find themselves under a tidal wave of pressure, buffeted by immense pester power from their children for the latest product, craze or trend.
“I want this review to look at how we can equip parents to deal with the changing nature of marketing, advertising and other pressures that are aimed at their children.”
Parents need the government to step in and protect them from “pester power”? Pathetic.
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Reindeer determined to shed that pesky “child-friendly” reputation
Joe Fay reports on an unpleasant meeting between rambler and reindeer:
Children are advised to hide under the duvet if they hear sleighbells this Christmas Eve, after it emerged that reindeers appear to have developed a taste for human flesh.
The reindeer’s ability to transform from Santa’s little helper to ravening maneater was illustrated by the tale of a 57-year-old woman who was subjected to a terrifying two-hour assault from a juvenile male last month.
Pat Cook was walking in the Cromdale Hills near Grantown-on-Spey when the juvenile bull separated himself from the rest of the UK’s only reindeer herd and began stalking her.
As she reached the summit of the hill, he pounced, knocking her to the ground.
Cook told The Scotsman: “One of my walking poles was thrown into the air. The reindeer kept trying to stick its antlers into me, but I managed to brace my feet on them.”
You’d really better watch out!
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December 5, 2010
Worst Autumn snowfall in Britain since 1963
Roger Henry sent me this link earlier this year, but it seems even more appropriate now:
I wonder how many budding documentarians will try to replicate the 1963 effort?
H/T to Ghost of a Flea for the reminder.
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December 3, 2010
HMS Ark Royal arrives in Portsmouth to be decommissioned
Steven Morris was there as HMS Ark Royal arrived back at her home port for the final time:
The music was corny: a Royal Marines band was belting out a version of the Rod Stewart hit Sailing as HMS Ark Royal emerged from the freezing fog to tie up at her home port for the final time.
But the emotion was genuine enough. From the quarter deck to the frozen quayside, tough sailors gulped back tears at the end of a chapter in Britain’s proud naval history.
After a quarter of a century of service around the globe, the aircraft carrier is being decommissioned as part of the defence review. The former flagship’s future remains unclear. There has been talk that she could be turned into a museum, but that may be too expensive. It is more likely that she will be sold off or simply scrapped for parts.
“It’s very emotional,” said Leading Seaman Paul Stockell, one of those who had tears in his eyes — and not just because of the biting wind — as he helped bring the ship alongside in Portsmouth today.
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Pay no attention to the statisticians behind the curtain
James Delingpole has a handy guide to assure you that man made global warming is still happening:
“It’s all actually a sign that man made global warming is very much a live issue and that there’s more of it happening than ever,” says a top scientist, who holds the British record for securing grant-funding for global warming research projects so he must know what he’s talking about.
“Look at the Met office,” the scientist goes on. “They’ve just told us that 2010 is the hottest year since records began in 1850 and even though the stupid Central England Temperature record tells us something quite different and even though the year hasn’t actually finished yet they must know what they’re talking about and they definitely can’t have fiddled the data because the Met office is part of the government and they wouldn’t lie or get things wrong which is why that barbecue summer was such a scorcher.”
The big problem is, the scientist said, is that the public are really stupid. They think just because Dr David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit said in the Independent in 2000 that soon there’d be no snow because of global warming, when what he actually meant was that soon there’d be lots of snow and that this would be “proof” of global warming. The interviewer just missed out the word “proof” that’s all because journalists are lazy that way.
Yes, yes, confusing mere “weather” with climate again, I’m sure.
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Reactions to the Irish financial crisis
Kevin O’Rourke sees it as almost a kind of bereavement:
It is one thing to know that someone you love is terminally ill; their death still comes as a shock.
I certainly don’t want to compare the arrival of the EU-IMF team in Dublin last week to a bereavement. But I was surprised at how upsetting I found it, given that it came as no surprise. It had been clear for a long time that the blanket guarantee given to the liabilities of Ireland’s rotten banks, in September 2008, had saddled the State with a debt that was too big for it to handle. Ten successive quarters of declining real GNP, and one attempt too many to draw a line under the losses of our banks, made our exclusion from international capital markets inevitable. But to know something is one thing; to see it actually happen is something entirely different.
I am not alone in feeling this way, it seems. The economics editor of the Irish Times, Dan O’Brien, wrote that
“nothing quite symbolised this State’s loss of sovereignty than the press conference at which the ECB man spoke along with two IMF men and a European Commission official. It was held in the Government press centre beneath the Taoiseach’s office. I am a xenophile and cosmopolitan by nature, but to see foreign technocrats take over the very heart of the apparatus of this State to tell the media how the State will be run into the foreseeable future caused a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.
This is not to say that we would be happy to have our country’s affairs managed by the current, disgraced, government. I yield to no-one in my loathing of the men and women who have done this to my country. What has been the intellectual low-point of the last couple of years? Was it the cash-for-clunkers stimulus package (Ireland does not produce any cars)? Or the statement by our Finance Minister that Ireland need not fear a bank run, since Ireland is an island? Or the biggest Irish joke of them all, which underpinned the bank guarantee in the first place: that if we wanted investors to retain confidence in the creditworthiness of the Irish State, we needed to make sure that nobody who invested in our (private sector) banks ever lost a penny?”
H/T to Tim Harford for the link.
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December 1, 2010
“London Calling” to come to the big screen
Fans of The Clash, your film is in production:
The creation of classic album London Calling by punk band The Clash is to form the basis of a new music biopic.
Former Clash members Paul Simonon and Mick Jones will executive produce the film, named after the 1979 record.
Playwright Jez Butterworth will pen the script, which will tell how producer Guy Stevens worked with the band to create their most celebrated disc.
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Want to buy (the remains of) an aircraft carrier?
HMS Invincible is being disposed of:
Strategy Page has more:
Britain has put its decommissioned (in 2005) 20,000 ton aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible, up for auction at edisposals.com. Five years ago, the Royal Navy said that the ship would be held in reserve until September, 2010, for possible reactivation. That process would take 18 months. However, by last year, Invincible was in a sad state, with its many components removed, and tended to by a detachment of only four sailors. Thus the auction did not come as a big surprise, and the Royal Navy hopes to obtain at least $3 million for the old ship. The Invincible entered service in 1977, and normally carried 18 Sea Harrier vertical takeoff jets, four helicopters and a crew of 1,050. The Invincible underwent a refurbishment in 2004, but cuts in the navy budget forced retirement the next year. Invincible played a vital role in the 1982 Falklands campaign.
It’s not as easy as it used to be for navies to get rid of unwanted ships:
In the past, navies would send retired ships “to the breakers” and receive a portion of the value of the scrap metal obtained when the breakers (the firm the disassembles ships) finished their work. But this is no long profitable in many cases, because taking ships apart in an environmentally correct way costs too much. This has become a problem for navies, that have no easy way to get rid of old ships. The U.S. uses many old ships for target practice and lets them sink at sea. But even this practice is under attack because of potential environmental damage.
Update, 3 December: HMS Ark Royal has just arrived in Portsmouth to be paid off. It’s not clear if the British government will try to sell the ship or if she’s headed to the breaker’s yard.
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November 30, 2010
Ireland’s debt problem
James Howard Kunstler looks at Ireland’s plight:
When you’re out of the country, as I was last week, it’s good to know that the home folks are keeping up with the Kardashians and bravely venturing into the blood-splattered chambers of cable TV’s latest hit, Bridal Plasty — where candidates for marriage are transformed from Holstein cows into inflatable sex toys by magic surgical technology — not to mention all those humble guardians of freedom who kept the parking lots of WalMart safe for consumerism in the wee small hours of Black Friday. These are, after all, perilous times.
Elsewhere, Ireland and the rest of Europe wore themselves out with soul-searching all week over how to handle national bankruptcy within a currency system that bears only a schematic relation to reality. Does the bankruptee go broke all at once, or is she recruited into permanent debt slavery so that the bond-holders of various banks can keep their loved ones in marzipan and Fauchon’s wonderful marrons glacés for one more holiday season? As of Monday morning, Ireland has been commanded to, er, bend over and pick up the soap, shall we say, for about a hundred billion euros in loans that will not be paid back until a mile-high ice-sheet covers Dublin (something that might happen sooner rather than later if the climate mavens are right).
We’ll see how this bail-out goes down with the French and German voters, too, who have to pay for it, after all, especially as Portugal, Spain, and Italy line up at the cash cage for their cheques (and bars of soap). Of course, a few more basis points in the interest rate spreads could prang the whole Euro soap opera — does anybody really believe this game of kick-the-can will go on after New Years? I’m not even sure it goes on past this Friday, but I am a notoriously nervous fellow.
This is almost as good as the (temporarily discontinued) daily Financial Briefings from Monty.
H/T to Terry Kinder for the link.
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November 29, 2010
“They’ve taken leave of their senses”
Con Coughlin was also aboard HMS Ark Royal for the final Harrier launch:
In many respects, it was an appropriate end to the glittering career of one of Britain’s most iconic warplanes. For none of the Royal Navy crewmen and women who braved the sub-zero temperatures were in much of a mood to celebrate the Harrier’s last appearance on the deck of a British aircraft carrier.
Most of them are still too shell-shocked over the Government’s decision to consign the entire Harrier fleet to the scrapheap, together with the Royal Navy flagship which has been the fighters’ proud host for nearly three decades.
“They’ve taken leave of their senses,” was one young rating’s verdict of the Government’s decision to scrap the Harriers and HMS Ark Royal. “You can’t get a better fighting combination than this, and yet they are sending us all to the scrapyard. They can find £7 billion to bail out Ireland, but they can’t find a few measly million to keep us going.”
I wonder what the bookies are offering for the British government to sell off the new carriers as they come off the launchways, rather than putting them into commission?
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With a bit of effort, even Erotica can be drab and uninteresting
Laurie Penny attended the “Erotica” trade show, and was underwhelmed:
Welcome to Erotica: Britain’s Gulag of desire
If you had to build a prison for human pleasure, it would look like this.You shuffle through the clinical, white foyer of the Olympia Grand Hall in Kensington and, after presenting several forms of ID to prove that you’ve paid the requisite £20 for your sexy times, security guards usher you into a huge iron stadium full of concession stands and bored-looking women in their scanties.
This is Erotica, “playtime for grown-ups”: a festival that is billed both as Europe’s “best-attended erotic event” and “a unique shopping experience” — statements that, taken together, possibly explain a great deal about western sexual dysfunction.
[. . .]
The punters are English, bourgeois and middle-aged; the strippers onstage and in the booths are young and eastern European. They smile desperately through shrouds of fake tan. The punters, a mixture of hardcore fetishists in rubber and older couples in fleeces, clutch plastic pints of lukewarm larger as they watch the grim stage show. Strippers gyrate in nothing but thongs and a couple of England flags, a cross between a jiggle joint and an Anglo-fascist rally. In true British style, the audience claps politely while pre-recorded applause thunders over the speakers.
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