There's an old proverb 'my enemy's enemy is my friend', unless he's called Julian Assange, in which case he will skip bail and hide in the Ecuadorean embassy. He claims the allegations of rape and sexual assault in Sweden are faked, a cunning ruse to extradite him to United States, where he might face the gas chamber. On a pedantic, technical point, neither the Federal Government nor the States use the gas chamber as their primary method of execution. So ignoring for a moment the tortuous, paranoid logic where Assange ends up on Death Row via Sweden, once he's there, he can relax, it's most likely to be a lethal injection. (Given he's an internet geek, you really think he could have checked that for himself).
Now there's probably a few of his former supporters wishing they could administer him a fatal jab or at the very least a sharp uppercut, after Assange broke his bail conditions and left them liable for £240,000. Before indulging in wild conspiracy theories, let's start with the facts. The Swedish police wish to question him about claims of sexual assault by two different women, this is the real Swedish police mind, not the ones from the Stieg Larsson books, and they are doing their job.
Seems to be that too many Wikileaks supporters have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. Assange is not a real life Lisbeth Salander and the Swedish authorities are not the pocket of American neo-cons. If you based your opinion of the inhabitants of Copenhagen on the The Killing, you would conclude that every one of them was sex-crazed, pathological liar with short term memory issues that never turn a light on indoors. Maybe they are all like that; I'll report back after my long weekend hanging about in disused warehouses in Vestamager.
When your hero ends up hiding in Ecuadorean Embassy claiming asylum for sex crime accusations from Sweden, one of the most liberal, open and fair societies on the planet, it is time to doubt your hero's credentials. Especially if in the same year, he started presenting a TV show on Vladimir Putin's propaganda channel, asking the head of Hezbollah difficult and searching questions like 'Israel is an illegal state isn't it?' Assange claims to speak truth to power, but only of the power in his sights is the US government. If there is one country that would benefit from a Wikileaks expose, it is Russia; a murderous, corrupt gangster state. Yet Assange is curiously silent about their litany of human rights abuses, probably a clause in his contract. Keep silent about Putin's murders and you need not worry about the other kind of contract he might issue.
Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend, he's a narcissist who cares only about himself.
Friday, 22 June 2012
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Irish Times
I'm back from a blogging absence, with a little story told to me by a British actor, which gives an insight into the Irish economy and its government. Every month he travels from London to Galway with two other British actors, also based in London to record four episodes of a children's cartoon series. Except the Irish government can't afford to keep Galway airport open, so they all have to fly to Shannon and then take a taxi ride that lasts 90 mins.
These three British actors then voice the cartoon, which is shown on Irish TV, as well as Australia and other countries. No Irish actors are employed in the production, so the voice over sessions could be recorded in a London location. As indeed they were originally, at a studio in the West End, neatly avoiding the five hour journey from London to Galway.
Now the funding came with conditions, that the production had to take place in Ireland, even though as you note, no Irish actors were used (couldn't do American accents apparently). True, an Irish sound engineer gets a day's work and the Holiday Inn Galway gets three new bookings, so that's probably worth it for the £1,000s in extra expenses, flying the actors over once a month for the last few years. Not.
This money, of course, doesn't originate from the Irish government, who are apparently closing down parts of Ireland in order to save cash. It was an EU grant, which given that every country save Germany is running a deficit, means the money was borrowed, which is another way of saying they took it off you, me and everyone else in the European Union.
Maybe this is a special case and Ireland reformed its ways. Although Shane Filan's Westlife has been declared bankrupt with debts of £18 million, following a failed property venture for 90 houses. No I can't work out how you can lose so much money, especially as they only built half the houses. Perhaps they burned it in braziers to keep the builders warm.
And this cartoon, which involves the scenic tour of West Ireland for three actors, it's not even that good.
These three British actors then voice the cartoon, which is shown on Irish TV, as well as Australia and other countries. No Irish actors are employed in the production, so the voice over sessions could be recorded in a London location. As indeed they were originally, at a studio in the West End, neatly avoiding the five hour journey from London to Galway.
Now the funding came with conditions, that the production had to take place in Ireland, even though as you note, no Irish actors were used (couldn't do American accents apparently). True, an Irish sound engineer gets a day's work and the Holiday Inn Galway gets three new bookings, so that's probably worth it for the £1,000s in extra expenses, flying the actors over once a month for the last few years. Not.
This money, of course, doesn't originate from the Irish government, who are apparently closing down parts of Ireland in order to save cash. It was an EU grant, which given that every country save Germany is running a deficit, means the money was borrowed, which is another way of saying they took it off you, me and everyone else in the European Union.
Maybe this is a special case and Ireland reformed its ways. Although Shane Filan's Westlife has been declared bankrupt with debts of £18 million, following a failed property venture for 90 houses. No I can't work out how you can lose so much money, especially as they only built half the houses. Perhaps they burned it in braziers to keep the builders warm.
And this cartoon, which involves the scenic tour of West Ireland for three actors, it's not even that good.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
David Cameron
What is the point of David Cameron? There must be a purpose for the leader of the Coalition, otherwise that expensive Eton education and Bullingdon Club initiation were all for nothing. (Poor Dave couldn't walk straight for weeks). Wasps, for example, are often demonised by angry picnickers and beach-goers as being utterly pointless pests that ruin humans' leisure activities. Yet without wasps no fig tree could reproduce and we would be overrun by spiders. So, does David Cameron play a vital role in the pollination of a fruiting tree? No. Does he lay eggs inside spiders, keeping their numbers in check? There's no mention of it in the leaked emails about the BSkyB takeover.
So what he is for? As the allegations swarm around both Cameron and Osborne like flies around the proverbial, there must be something in mitigation. Don't worry that he picked Andy Coulson as his communications chief, a choice only marginally less wise than Myra Hindley, don't concern yourself about those dinners with Rebekah Brooks, she of paediatrician witch hunt fame, don't fret about deals done on mobiles between James Murdoch and Jeremy Hunt, because at least the Tories have got the economy going again. They might be corrupt but they get the job done...oh...whoops. Why isn't the world working the way Hayek said it would?
Cameron considers himself born to rule; sadly he doesn't know why. On reaching the highest office in the land, no one, neither David nor the electorate, know what he's there for. Perhaps that explains the lousy election result. Tories spin doctors call that win, in the manner of an England sports team (take your pick they are all equally pitiful) explaining why going nil-nil to the Christmas Islands was a decent result under the circumstances. In the depth of the deepest recession of all time and the worst banking crisis in centuries, facing a Labour leader who may actually have gone insane, Cameron blew it. Short of Gordon Brown being caught on camera interferring with one of the Queen's corgis, the Conservative Party leader could not have asked for a more favourable pre-election scenario.
Finding Cameron leading the country is an experience similar to anyone who used to order products from the Innovations catalogue. On the page, he looked useful, a moderate Conservative who had rebranded the Tories with an oak tree. Then he arrived, you got him out the packaging and realised he was totally useless. I had a similar experience when I ordered a de-ionsier, to purify the air in my bedroom. No one wants ions floating around in the air, do they? Take it from me, you'll get more value out of the cardboard box it came in. The Tories might well have fared better if they followed their rebranding to its logical conclusion and run with an actual oak tree as leader. Everyone, from squirrels to citizens, likes an oak: it has a solid, dependable, English reputation with a touch of the Robin Hood about it and you never need to worry about it saying the wrong thing.
But then it occurred to me, David Cameron does have a point or purpose in life. His role is to make us feel better about ourselves and our own judgement. He came to power after a banking meltdown that devastated the UK economy and has potentially bankrupted us for generations. Any normal, average intelligence person in his position would think the first priority of government was a wholescale reform of the banking industry. Not Dave, he didn't want to rush into things. For a man who believes in his own destiny, he should take more care about the judgement of history. Cometh the man, misseth his moment.
So in these troubled times, remember this heartwarming thought: you probably would have done a better job than this empty vessel.
So what he is for? As the allegations swarm around both Cameron and Osborne like flies around the proverbial, there must be something in mitigation. Don't worry that he picked Andy Coulson as his communications chief, a choice only marginally less wise than Myra Hindley, don't concern yourself about those dinners with Rebekah Brooks, she of paediatrician witch hunt fame, don't fret about deals done on mobiles between James Murdoch and Jeremy Hunt, because at least the Tories have got the economy going again. They might be corrupt but they get the job done...oh...whoops. Why isn't the world working the way Hayek said it would?
Cameron considers himself born to rule; sadly he doesn't know why. On reaching the highest office in the land, no one, neither David nor the electorate, know what he's there for. Perhaps that explains the lousy election result. Tories spin doctors call that win, in the manner of an England sports team (take your pick they are all equally pitiful) explaining why going nil-nil to the Christmas Islands was a decent result under the circumstances. In the depth of the deepest recession of all time and the worst banking crisis in centuries, facing a Labour leader who may actually have gone insane, Cameron blew it. Short of Gordon Brown being caught on camera interferring with one of the Queen's corgis, the Conservative Party leader could not have asked for a more favourable pre-election scenario.
Finding Cameron leading the country is an experience similar to anyone who used to order products from the Innovations catalogue. On the page, he looked useful, a moderate Conservative who had rebranded the Tories with an oak tree. Then he arrived, you got him out the packaging and realised he was totally useless. I had a similar experience when I ordered a de-ionsier, to purify the air in my bedroom. No one wants ions floating around in the air, do they? Take it from me, you'll get more value out of the cardboard box it came in. The Tories might well have fared better if they followed their rebranding to its logical conclusion and run with an actual oak tree as leader. Everyone, from squirrels to citizens, likes an oak: it has a solid, dependable, English reputation with a touch of the Robin Hood about it and you never need to worry about it saying the wrong thing.
But then it occurred to me, David Cameron does have a point or purpose in life. His role is to make us feel better about ourselves and our own judgement. He came to power after a banking meltdown that devastated the UK economy and has potentially bankrupted us for generations. Any normal, average intelligence person in his position would think the first priority of government was a wholescale reform of the banking industry. Not Dave, he didn't want to rush into things. For a man who believes in his own destiny, he should take more care about the judgement of history. Cometh the man, misseth his moment.
So in these troubled times, remember this heartwarming thought: you probably would have done a better job than this empty vessel.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Village People
Recently I posted a parcel to a most unusual address in London, a strange and magical place known as 'Wandsworth Village.' If you check Google Maps, the Post Office or Wandsworth council websites' you will find no trace of this mystical hamlet. Although I can recommend the council's handy interactive maps which allow you to locate your nearest grit salt bin. If there is another overnight freeze or your street is invaded by giant flesh-eating slugs neither black ice nor carnivorous gastropods need worry you again.
There are some hints of this so-called village of Wandsworth: local businesses that call themselves bizarre affectations such as 'Cafe du Village Wandsworth', an eaterie that has recently closed. No doubt it fell victim to the crippling contradiction of giving your restaurant a fake Gallic name that includes a letter, 'W', that is not found in the French language.
So other than linguistically-challenged cafe owners, why had the my parcel's recipient insisted on this odd address, when normal folk would use the simple borough and postcode combination. Technically you don't need to use the borough at all, postcode and house or flat number are all that you require, but it seems alien to have only alpha-numerics designate our homes as if we were all robots or drug controlled slaves in the dystopia of THX 1138. So let's stick to boroughs.
But my parcelee had not stuck to boroughs when he emailed his address; nope he was freestyling his location. It's most baffling when the city in question is London, which in my totally unbiased opinion as Londoner born and bred who has lived here his whole life, is without a doubt the greatest city in the world. (And yes I've been to most of the other contenders. Sydney, for example, is wonderful city sadly filled with Australians. Paris is crammed with French people, alas).
It's as if living in one of the greatest cities on the planet is not enough and these lovers of the village suffix have to carve out their own little corner, signally to the world that they are not like the rest of us vulgar city dwellers. To an estate agent, the word 'village' tacked on the end of an area means a bump on the sale price, because it is also a code. It's a way of white middle-class, educated people telling others like themselves that there is a part of town where you are likely to find a second hand book shop, overpriced organic cakes, brand new furniture for sale that looks battered and broken on purpose and nightlife revolving around cheese tastings or mandolin recitals. There is also a one in two chance of a decent theatre.
As we have all been thinking about the dappy, delusional dame Samantha Brick last week, one phrase springs to mind: get over yourself. Cities are exciting and interesting places to live, precisely because they are not exclusively filled with rich, white folk who left to their own devices create environments so mind-numbingly dull you end up secretly craving a higher crime rate just to liven things up. If you want to live in a village populated with people exactly like you, go and live in the Home Counties; if you live in a big city, celebrate the fact. To quote Groove Armada, 'if everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other.'
Large cosmopolitan cities such as London are one of humanity's greatest inventions, alongside Wikipedia and enormous but affordable flat screen TVs. To all those villagers, be glad you're part of something bigger than yourself and drop the village people act.
There are some hints of this so-called village of Wandsworth: local businesses that call themselves bizarre affectations such as 'Cafe du Village Wandsworth', an eaterie that has recently closed. No doubt it fell victim to the crippling contradiction of giving your restaurant a fake Gallic name that includes a letter, 'W', that is not found in the French language.
So other than linguistically-challenged cafe owners, why had the my parcel's recipient insisted on this odd address, when normal folk would use the simple borough and postcode combination. Technically you don't need to use the borough at all, postcode and house or flat number are all that you require, but it seems alien to have only alpha-numerics designate our homes as if we were all robots or drug controlled slaves in the dystopia of THX 1138. So let's stick to boroughs.
But my parcelee had not stuck to boroughs when he emailed his address; nope he was freestyling his location. It's most baffling when the city in question is London, which in my totally unbiased opinion as Londoner born and bred who has lived here his whole life, is without a doubt the greatest city in the world. (And yes I've been to most of the other contenders. Sydney, for example, is wonderful city sadly filled with Australians. Paris is crammed with French people, alas).
It's as if living in one of the greatest cities on the planet is not enough and these lovers of the village suffix have to carve out their own little corner, signally to the world that they are not like the rest of us vulgar city dwellers. To an estate agent, the word 'village' tacked on the end of an area means a bump on the sale price, because it is also a code. It's a way of white middle-class, educated people telling others like themselves that there is a part of town where you are likely to find a second hand book shop, overpriced organic cakes, brand new furniture for sale that looks battered and broken on purpose and nightlife revolving around cheese tastings or mandolin recitals. There is also a one in two chance of a decent theatre.
As we have all been thinking about the dappy, delusional dame Samantha Brick last week, one phrase springs to mind: get over yourself. Cities are exciting and interesting places to live, precisely because they are not exclusively filled with rich, white folk who left to their own devices create environments so mind-numbingly dull you end up secretly craving a higher crime rate just to liven things up. If you want to live in a village populated with people exactly like you, go and live in the Home Counties; if you live in a big city, celebrate the fact. To quote Groove Armada, 'if everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other.'
Large cosmopolitan cities such as London are one of humanity's greatest inventions, alongside Wikipedia and enormous but affordable flat screen TVs. To all those villagers, be glad you're part of something bigger than yourself and drop the village people act.
Friday, 23 March 2012
Troll Feeding
It's an old motto of internet intercourse: 'Do not feed the troll'. By old, I mean net old, in other words cast your minds back to the era of dial-up and 'waiting for page to load' warnings; by troll I refer to that foul breed of human that lurks on message boards, discussion groups and comment areas. The idea behind not feeding or not responding was that trolls are attention seeking, malcontents who post deliberately provocative and contrarian comments to incite arguments and enjoy disputing ad infinitum.
Don't engage, then the troll will go away and find some other harmless public discussion area to spoil. If we all followed that sensible advice, then many trolls might have reverted to other asocial activities, like exposing themselves in the park or frotting which hopefully leads to prison and/or psychiatric care.
Unfortunately newspapers thought that a way to stay relevant and current was to open up their web pages to comments from their readers. Much like the cool teacher at school, this is an exercise is self-delusion. Those pupils did not respect you, they flicked the V when your back was turned and spat in your tea when you weren't looking. We never dared do that with the disciplinarians.
So these aging newspapers, with their dwindling circulations think that comment pages keep them fresh and relevant. Suddenly the troll whose mind garbage was dumped only a humble special interest message board which a readership of hundreds, could spew their drivel on a website viewed by millions. Those trendy teachers fed the trolls, they poured water on The Gremlins and look what monsters emerged.
Go now to the web version of the following newspapers: The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail or the current affairs magazines The Spectator, The News Statesman. You will find the comment sections underneath certain articles are infested with trolls; so badly that the columnists often complain about what is written underneath their copy, desperately trying to disassociate themselves from the misanthropic poison that lurks below.
The political persuasion of the majority of the trolls is easy to deduce, as they cluster, like rotten fruit under particular headlines: Israel, banking, immigration, EU, crime etc. Spend even a short while in the lower reaches of these online mental wards and you'll find misogyny, homophobia, violent fantasies of retribution against criminals, all wrapped in a general dislike of anyone who isn't white, male and English speaking. To top it all, you'll find many trolls aren't even UK based as there are many posts from Steves of Gibraltar ranting on about why they left Britain, typically so they could avoid all those foreigners...
In the freaks gallery of trolls, the US breed stands out as being particularly vile, using Confederate flags or blood splatters as their avatars, with names such as Truthseeker, Patriot and other puerile bilge. Their speciality is Good Ole Boy invectives against 'libruls' and 'libtards'. See, bloody foreign racists coming over onto our comment is free sections, taking webspace from traditional English racists.
News sites should insist on is real names and genuine photos, like the troll hunter from the excellent Norwegian film, shine a light on these creatures and they will turn to stone. Free speech does not mean you have to give the oxygen of publicity to extremists and freaks who otherwise would be reduced to handing out badly photocopied leaflets in the streets.
Send them back to their troll caves.
Don't engage, then the troll will go away and find some other harmless public discussion area to spoil. If we all followed that sensible advice, then many trolls might have reverted to other asocial activities, like exposing themselves in the park or frotting which hopefully leads to prison and/or psychiatric care.
Unfortunately newspapers thought that a way to stay relevant and current was to open up their web pages to comments from their readers. Much like the cool teacher at school, this is an exercise is self-delusion. Those pupils did not respect you, they flicked the V when your back was turned and spat in your tea when you weren't looking. We never dared do that with the disciplinarians.
So these aging newspapers, with their dwindling circulations think that comment pages keep them fresh and relevant. Suddenly the troll whose mind garbage was dumped only a humble special interest message board which a readership of hundreds, could spew their drivel on a website viewed by millions. Those trendy teachers fed the trolls, they poured water on The Gremlins and look what monsters emerged.
Go now to the web version of the following newspapers: The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail or the current affairs magazines The Spectator, The News Statesman. You will find the comment sections underneath certain articles are infested with trolls; so badly that the columnists often complain about what is written underneath their copy, desperately trying to disassociate themselves from the misanthropic poison that lurks below.
 |
| Trollus Fuckwitticus |
In the freaks gallery of trolls, the US breed stands out as being particularly vile, using Confederate flags or blood splatters as their avatars, with names such as Truthseeker, Patriot and other puerile bilge. Their speciality is Good Ole Boy invectives against 'libruls' and 'libtards'. See, bloody foreign racists coming over onto our comment is free sections, taking webspace from traditional English racists.
News sites should insist on is real names and genuine photos, like the troll hunter from the excellent Norwegian film, shine a light on these creatures and they will turn to stone. Free speech does not mean you have to give the oxygen of publicity to extremists and freaks who otherwise would be reduced to handing out badly photocopied leaflets in the streets.
Send them back to their troll caves.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Kony 2012
By the time I type this, 80 million people and counting will have watched the Kony 2012 video; its director Jason Russell has been arrested for public drunkeness and public masturbation on Pacific Beach San Diego. Sadly the only video of the incident is a fifteen second clip of a naked man (presumably Russell) assaulting a shrub. According to a spokesperson, Jason Russell was emotionally exhausted and dehydrated, hence the breakdown. So do make sure to drink plenty of water when stressed or you'll end up attacking ornamental plants and wanking on the seafront.
I started watching Kony 2012, then stopped after a few minutes because like all net junkies I have the attention span of an ADHD goldfish on crack. There was no way I could spend 30 precious minutes watching a worthy film when there were so many videos of cute baby sloths and Russian brides losing their dresses to view in the same time frame. Those last sentences contained several exaggerations and falsehoods, much like the film itself.
After only five minutes of Russell's film, I clicked off. It was pure propaganda, apparently to highlight a human tragedy, but propaganda nonetheless. Opposing Joseph Kony's child soldiers in Uganda is surely a given, like the UK group, Mothers Against Murder, you should assume we are on your side. It's hard to think many mums would support a pro-homicide policy, unless it included people who play music through their mobiles on public transport.
Maybe you can change the world for the better by sharing a video, maybe solving the world's problems is possible through social media, maybe if we all send enough tweets then all the bad things in the world will end. Remember all those email petitions to save the rainforest, a much needed campaign with the one tiny flaw that no matter how many people signed up, whoever you send it to can always just hit delete.
Invisible Children, the organisation behind Kony 2012, could have good intentions, but as they say, that's how the road to hell is paved. I've become more skeptical about the ability of best intentions to produce positive results; Iraq and Afghanistan spring to mind as ghastly examples of the mismatch of aims and outcomes. Turns out the West is good at blowing things up, drone strikes and shooting people; nation building is a lot harder, especially when the peoples and nations in question hate you, mostly because you keep blowing up their homes and killing their relatives.
If this episode proves anything, it's that our first responsibility is to get the facts straight, before sending on a video link. And in case this all seems very uncharitable, watch this piece by Charlie Brooker to put you straight.
A bit of background on that video
I started watching Kony 2012, then stopped after a few minutes because like all net junkies I have the attention span of an ADHD goldfish on crack. There was no way I could spend 30 precious minutes watching a worthy film when there were so many videos of cute baby sloths and Russian brides losing their dresses to view in the same time frame. Those last sentences contained several exaggerations and falsehoods, much like the film itself.
After only five minutes of Russell's film, I clicked off. It was pure propaganda, apparently to highlight a human tragedy, but propaganda nonetheless. Opposing Joseph Kony's child soldiers in Uganda is surely a given, like the UK group, Mothers Against Murder, you should assume we are on your side. It's hard to think many mums would support a pro-homicide policy, unless it included people who play music through their mobiles on public transport.
Maybe you can change the world for the better by sharing a video, maybe solving the world's problems is possible through social media, maybe if we all send enough tweets then all the bad things in the world will end. Remember all those email petitions to save the rainforest, a much needed campaign with the one tiny flaw that no matter how many people signed up, whoever you send it to can always just hit delete.
Invisible Children, the organisation behind Kony 2012, could have good intentions, but as they say, that's how the road to hell is paved. I've become more skeptical about the ability of best intentions to produce positive results; Iraq and Afghanistan spring to mind as ghastly examples of the mismatch of aims and outcomes. Turns out the West is good at blowing things up, drone strikes and shooting people; nation building is a lot harder, especially when the peoples and nations in question hate you, mostly because you keep blowing up their homes and killing their relatives.
If this episode proves anything, it's that our first responsibility is to get the facts straight, before sending on a video link. And in case this all seems very uncharitable, watch this piece by Charlie Brooker to put you straight.
A bit of background on that video
Friday, 24 February 2012
Climate Change
As we bask in the sun's rays in mid-February, many of us are wondering if it's warm enough to sunbathe and exactly how much of our flabby, winter physique we wish to bare to the elements. By this time of year, most Caucasians who haven't spent two weeks Costa Rica have developed a complexion the colour of a corpse dragged from The Thames and a body shape with all the tone and firmness of raw sausage meat in a bin bag. But perhaps our thoughts should turn away from tanning to climate change, because the weather in the past decade as been increasingly odd. Moreover, the strangest development of all is that as the evidence for man-made climate change becomes ever more convincing, the number of people who believe that humans are changing the climate has fallen.
Witness then the publication of James Delingpole's new book Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colours. I imagine he's terribly pleased with the title because the implication is that 'greens' are actually 'reds' on the inside. For those of you not in throes of Cold War style paranoia, the likes of Delingpole believe that Western civilisation is under assault from militant eco-socialists who hate freedom, the West and posh white men like James in particular. To serve their evil ends these 'eco-Nazis' have concocted global warming as a scam to enslave us in lesbian-run cycle-powered collective farms, where we must all pedal for our daily ration of tofu.
Now I'll share with you a little tip for spotting bullshit arguments, which is how quickly the person uses the words 'Hitler', 'Nazi' or 'slippery slope', because that's shorthand for saying I can't present any convincing logic arguments so I'll mention the greatest evil in human history next to the thing I don't approve of, you are gullible and stupid, the two things are close together, you'll assume they are one and the same. So put 'eco' next to 'Nazi', job done. I am actually making Delingpole's thinking sound a lot more coherent than it is; he writes frequently on the subject of climate change whilst admitting he has no scientific training nor does he have time to read peer-reviewed journals. It's the written equivalent of being cornered by a belligerent, drunken toff in the pub.
Hardly a week goes by without a new piece of data pointing towards human-produced carbon dioxide warming the earth, acidifying the oceans and producing freak weather; yet less people believe in climate change than a decade ago. Now despite the best efforts of X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent, I don't think the population has got noticeably stupider in the last ten years; cannabis consumption has stayed broadly stable so we can discount drug-induced psychosis and Britons only drink themselves senseless on the weekends. Yet an increased segment of the population think that climate change is a 'con', roughly forty percent at the last count.
This belief is so irrational and so delusional that to engage with its claims gives it a legitimacy they do not deserve. Explaining why witches do not exist gives the witch hunters false respectability. So in the case of Delingpole, engaging with him on the science is pointless as he will revert back to his magical thinking; you would be better discussing your favourite dunking ponds with the witch hunters. And if you are in any doubt at all, ask yourself this question: is it even remotely plausible that the scientific community, together with the BBC and our political establishment would engage in a systematic intellectual fraud, the like of which has never been seen in human history and if discovered would lead to the destruction of their careers, reputations and the very institutions they serve, just so they can build wind turbines?
Bonkers isn't it? But why would a large number of people prefer to believe something patently absurd than engage with reality. I think the answer is that many would rather be consistent than correct; so deniers cannot concede that pressure groups from the political left might be right therefore climate change must be a fabrication. It is comforting, like all magical thinking, it is reassuring, but like magic, much as we would like it to be real is an illusion. Witches don't exist, they aren't fairies at the bottom of the garden and no matter how much you like Harry Potter there is no platform nine and three quarters (the novelty sign doesn't count.) So sadly, all of us, including the refuseniks, will have to deal with the reality of climate change. Still at least it's mild for this time of year!
Witness then the publication of James Delingpole's new book Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colours. I imagine he's terribly pleased with the title because the implication is that 'greens' are actually 'reds' on the inside. For those of you not in throes of Cold War style paranoia, the likes of Delingpole believe that Western civilisation is under assault from militant eco-socialists who hate freedom, the West and posh white men like James in particular. To serve their evil ends these 'eco-Nazis' have concocted global warming as a scam to enslave us in lesbian-run cycle-powered collective farms, where we must all pedal for our daily ration of tofu.
Now I'll share with you a little tip for spotting bullshit arguments, which is how quickly the person uses the words 'Hitler', 'Nazi' or 'slippery slope', because that's shorthand for saying I can't present any convincing logic arguments so I'll mention the greatest evil in human history next to the thing I don't approve of, you are gullible and stupid, the two things are close together, you'll assume they are one and the same. So put 'eco' next to 'Nazi', job done. I am actually making Delingpole's thinking sound a lot more coherent than it is; he writes frequently on the subject of climate change whilst admitting he has no scientific training nor does he have time to read peer-reviewed journals. It's the written equivalent of being cornered by a belligerent, drunken toff in the pub.
 |
| Instruments of oppression |
This belief is so irrational and so delusional that to engage with its claims gives it a legitimacy they do not deserve. Explaining why witches do not exist gives the witch hunters false respectability. So in the case of Delingpole, engaging with him on the science is pointless as he will revert back to his magical thinking; you would be better discussing your favourite dunking ponds with the witch hunters. And if you are in any doubt at all, ask yourself this question: is it even remotely plausible that the scientific community, together with the BBC and our political establishment would engage in a systematic intellectual fraud, the like of which has never been seen in human history and if discovered would lead to the destruction of their careers, reputations and the very institutions they serve, just so they can build wind turbines?
Bonkers isn't it? But why would a large number of people prefer to believe something patently absurd than engage with reality. I think the answer is that many would rather be consistent than correct; so deniers cannot concede that pressure groups from the political left might be right therefore climate change must be a fabrication. It is comforting, like all magical thinking, it is reassuring, but like magic, much as we would like it to be real is an illusion. Witches don't exist, they aren't fairies at the bottom of the garden and no matter how much you like Harry Potter there is no platform nine and three quarters (the novelty sign doesn't count.) So sadly, all of us, including the refuseniks, will have to deal with the reality of climate change. Still at least it's mild for this time of year!
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| Attractive woman + coal mine = coal is sexy, let's keep burning it |
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