http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-31618389
Funny how such pragmatic and sensible legislation as that enacted by certain US States, Uruguay and (most recently) Jamaica had to wait until the end of the vaunted 'War on Drugs'.
You might almost think that strong arming Latin American states and sending in American troops was having a negative effect, perish the thought,
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Thursday, 19 February 2015
On Libertarianism (and Scottish Sci-Fi Writers)
“Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to
those unable or unwilling to see past their own sociopathic
self-regard.” Iain Banks.
I've just finished reading Ken MacLeod's 'Intrusion' which contained some very interesting ideas about the implications of geno-fixing and the development of the surveillance state.
I never know entirely how to feel about MacLeod. He was the protege of the late and much missed Iain Banks but, possibly surprising, this does not mean he is his political clone or even a close fellow traveller.
Having read Banks' entire back catalogue and being familiar with MacLeod from his Fall Revolution series and a scattering of his one off novels, I feel that the former is far more optimistic about the ability of institutions and assorted 'do gooders' to achieve positive change.
The Culture may be a post-scarcity, anarchist utopia but Banks does often present traditional hero characters working within some kind of institutional structure (Special Circumstances, Contact, his various mercantile or cultist clans); even if they are generally personally flawed and often fleeing some personal nightmare or atrocity.
By contrast MacLeod's characters can seem almost Randian in their attitudes and values. Intrusion and the Fall Revolution novels bring this to the fore in presenting self sufficient individuals engaged in life and death struggles with such unlikely 'Statist' or principled villains as the Labour Party, environmentalists and computer geeks.
Not that there is anything wrong with this. As I've said at the start of this article I find MacLeod's books compelling and imaginative (although I don't think his characters are ever quite as strong as those produced by Iain Banks). However, I do feel that it is a bit rich for libertarians to continue to present the strong State as the main nemesis of the free and the good. Ever since the Thatcher era we have seeed locked in a race for ever weaker government control. Capitalist libertarianism is certainly dominant now and for all off the doom-saying I don't see a return to totalitarianism being a threat again until governments can carry out basic functions like taxation and basic wealth distribution without being deterred by vested interests or hostile popular opinion.
I've just finished reading Ken MacLeod's 'Intrusion' which contained some very interesting ideas about the implications of geno-fixing and the development of the surveillance state.
I never know entirely how to feel about MacLeod. He was the protege of the late and much missed Iain Banks but, possibly surprising, this does not mean he is his political clone or even a close fellow traveller.
Having read Banks' entire back catalogue and being familiar with MacLeod from his Fall Revolution series and a scattering of his one off novels, I feel that the former is far more optimistic about the ability of institutions and assorted 'do gooders' to achieve positive change.
The Culture may be a post-scarcity, anarchist utopia but Banks does often present traditional hero characters working within some kind of institutional structure (Special Circumstances, Contact, his various mercantile or cultist clans); even if they are generally personally flawed and often fleeing some personal nightmare or atrocity.
By contrast MacLeod's characters can seem almost Randian in their attitudes and values. Intrusion and the Fall Revolution novels bring this to the fore in presenting self sufficient individuals engaged in life and death struggles with such unlikely 'Statist' or principled villains as the Labour Party, environmentalists and computer geeks.
Not that there is anything wrong with this. As I've said at the start of this article I find MacLeod's books compelling and imaginative (although I don't think his characters are ever quite as strong as those produced by Iain Banks). However, I do feel that it is a bit rich for libertarians to continue to present the strong State as the main nemesis of the free and the good. Ever since the Thatcher era we have seeed locked in a race for ever weaker government control. Capitalist libertarianism is certainly dominant now and for all off the doom-saying I don't see a return to totalitarianism being a threat again until governments can carry out basic functions like taxation and basic wealth distribution without being deterred by vested interests or hostile popular opinion.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
The End is Nigh
http://rt.com/news/232591-12-causes-apocalypses-scientists/
Good old Russia Today - returning to form with a hilarious list of the ways in which the World might end.
It's got all of the actual favourites (asteroid strike, supervolcano) in there but rates them as least likely when they probably should be most likely (along with the mid-ranking nuclear holocaust). AI gets ranked as the most likely apocalypse which is frankly laughable. Whatever Hawking may think I'll be more worried when robots can walk and think at the same time without collapsing or getting stuck in an infinite loop.
The high point, however, has to be the extremely highly rated 'Future bad governance' with a picture of the White House underneath.
Who said propaganda had to be subtle?
Good old Russia Today - returning to form with a hilarious list of the ways in which the World might end.
It's got all of the actual favourites (asteroid strike, supervolcano) in there but rates them as least likely when they probably should be most likely (along with the mid-ranking nuclear holocaust). AI gets ranked as the most likely apocalypse which is frankly laughable. Whatever Hawking may think I'll be more worried when robots can walk and think at the same time without collapsing or getting stuck in an infinite loop.
The high point, however, has to be the extremely highly rated 'Future bad governance' with a picture of the White House underneath.
Who said propaganda had to be subtle?
The Economist vs the socialists
Having picked up this week's Economist I have made an amazing discovery. A disinterested observer might be tempted to think that oil-producing countries are nearly certain to struggle during an oil glut especially following OPEC's decision to not curtail production.
This is evident in the cases of Russia, Venezuala, Brazil and even Nigeria. America should be treated as something of a special case. The shale gas producers are certainly being squeezed be low oil prices but the size of the US economy and its central position in world investment means that the boost to economic endeavour given by the low prices helps to offset damage to the exporting energy industry.
However, if you read the Economist it becomes clear that these failings are due to the number one suspect. Venezuala is suffering for decades of, unfathomably, attempting to fund social progress with oil profits rather than stakeholder dividends. Brazil could have avoided this crisis entirely if it had nipped corruption and state control in the bud with a healthy dose of market forces.
I'm not saying that this is entirely a fabrication. The corruption in Brazil's Petrobras company is abominable (although it wouldn't look out of place in the modern state capitalist China). What seems unfair is the special pleading that the same journalists would apply in analogous cases for devout capitalists. The Coalition are heaped with praise for staying the course with austerity even though it is clear that low oil prices (over which they had little control) are responsible for much of the recent upturn in economic growth.
This is evident in the cases of Russia, Venezuala, Brazil and even Nigeria. America should be treated as something of a special case. The shale gas producers are certainly being squeezed be low oil prices but the size of the US economy and its central position in world investment means that the boost to economic endeavour given by the low prices helps to offset damage to the exporting energy industry.
However, if you read the Economist it becomes clear that these failings are due to the number one suspect. Venezuala is suffering for decades of, unfathomably, attempting to fund social progress with oil profits rather than stakeholder dividends. Brazil could have avoided this crisis entirely if it had nipped corruption and state control in the bud with a healthy dose of market forces.
I'm not saying that this is entirely a fabrication. The corruption in Brazil's Petrobras company is abominable (although it wouldn't look out of place in the modern state capitalist China). What seems unfair is the special pleading that the same journalists would apply in analogous cases for devout capitalists. The Coalition are heaped with praise for staying the course with austerity even though it is clear that low oil prices (over which they had little control) are responsible for much of the recent upturn in economic growth.
Sunday, 8 February 2015
Osborne resorts to bribery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31241867
I just saw an interview on BBC news with Osborne offering the flimsiest reasoning for this blatant piece of electioneering.
"We've just come out of a recession where our need to lower interest rates have hit savers", he mugs. Fair enough so far, "and therefore we should support those who save for the good of the economy".
Lots of buzz words. Impeccable logic. However, one wonders why the over 65's with their Final Salary pensions and innumerable state-funded benefits are especially deserving of further government largesse. Osborne's move has been described as 'reverse social engineering' since all the studies show that the young have been disproportionately screwed by the downturn. This further encouragement to growing wealth inequality doesn't seem to faze the chancellor.
The only reason for this move is that we are now in election season and Osborne wants the silver vote to help stave off the defeat that threatens with the splitting of the right wing vote between Tory and UKIP.
I just saw an interview on BBC news with Osborne offering the flimsiest reasoning for this blatant piece of electioneering.
"We've just come out of a recession where our need to lower interest rates have hit savers", he mugs. Fair enough so far, "and therefore we should support those who save for the good of the economy".
Lots of buzz words. Impeccable logic. However, one wonders why the over 65's with their Final Salary pensions and innumerable state-funded benefits are especially deserving of further government largesse. Osborne's move has been described as 'reverse social engineering' since all the studies show that the young have been disproportionately screwed by the downturn. This further encouragement to growing wealth inequality doesn't seem to faze the chancellor.
The only reason for this move is that we are now in election season and Osborne wants the silver vote to help stave off the defeat that threatens with the splitting of the right wing vote between Tory and UKIP.
Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Ecology and War: The Wiki Review
So, a while back I wrote a couple of posts about the effect of war on the environment: (http://stochasticreview.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ecology%20and%20war)
By the standards of this generally idiosyncratic and opinionated blog they were actually pretty scrupulously researched. However, I neglected that most venerated source of amateur research knowledge - Wikipedia.
While reading about the military and civilian uses of depleted uranium (scary stuff - look it up some time) I found that there is a Wikipedia article titled 'Environmental impact of war'. Sadly it is pretty much useless. Despite having multiple issues that should be apparent to a literate reader with no expertise in the subject matter it does not even seem to have warranted a clean up label from the ruling Wikipedia cabal.
The most glaring error is a dominant focus on the long term and cross-generational effects of various chemical and nuclear weapons on human beings. Of course humans play a dominant role in most of the Earth's ecosystems but there are plenty of other places where the human impact of war is addressed. In my humble opinion a better use of a page specifically about ecological effects of warfare would be to focus on animals, plants and the general environment.
The historical section (necessarily a whirlwind tour in such a short article) appears to be randomly organised. For example the Vietnam war and Rwandan genocide are lumped together without any apparent rhyme or reason. Surprisingly this section is actually rather good with interesting points made about the US use of herbicides and the pressure that Rwandan refugee camps put on the surrounding ecosystem. Similarly the brief paragraph on the Iraqi oil spills caused by Saddam's scorched earth policy in the first gulf war is thought provoking about the effects of war in a major oil producing country.
We then have another confused list of general environmental hazards from unexploded ordinance to the use of Agent Orange. Again there seems to be more focus on issues that the authors were interested in than on those that genuinely caused environmental damage. At a glance I'd say that increased military use of fossil fuels (potentially offset by the usual domestic economic slow down?), intentional flooding and nuclear testing are most likely to have a major environmental rather than merely human significance.
So unfortunately not much of an asset to anyone considering the effect of war on the environment. Whole swathes of history are ignored with no real consideration of the (likely lesser) effects of war before the modern era. Geographically the picture is better than you might expect with the case studies taken from numerous continents but coverage remains piecemeal and incomplete. Here's hoping some community minded editor takes an interest in it soon!
By the standards of this generally idiosyncratic and opinionated blog they were actually pretty scrupulously researched. However, I neglected that most venerated source of amateur research knowledge - Wikipedia.
While reading about the military and civilian uses of depleted uranium (scary stuff - look it up some time) I found that there is a Wikipedia article titled 'Environmental impact of war'. Sadly it is pretty much useless. Despite having multiple issues that should be apparent to a literate reader with no expertise in the subject matter it does not even seem to have warranted a clean up label from the ruling Wikipedia cabal.
The most glaring error is a dominant focus on the long term and cross-generational effects of various chemical and nuclear weapons on human beings. Of course humans play a dominant role in most of the Earth's ecosystems but there are plenty of other places where the human impact of war is addressed. In my humble opinion a better use of a page specifically about ecological effects of warfare would be to focus on animals, plants and the general environment.
The historical section (necessarily a whirlwind tour in such a short article) appears to be randomly organised. For example the Vietnam war and Rwandan genocide are lumped together without any apparent rhyme or reason. Surprisingly this section is actually rather good with interesting points made about the US use of herbicides and the pressure that Rwandan refugee camps put on the surrounding ecosystem. Similarly the brief paragraph on the Iraqi oil spills caused by Saddam's scorched earth policy in the first gulf war is thought provoking about the effects of war in a major oil producing country.
We then have another confused list of general environmental hazards from unexploded ordinance to the use of Agent Orange. Again there seems to be more focus on issues that the authors were interested in than on those that genuinely caused environmental damage. At a glance I'd say that increased military use of fossil fuels (potentially offset by the usual domestic economic slow down?), intentional flooding and nuclear testing are most likely to have a major environmental rather than merely human significance.
So unfortunately not much of an asset to anyone considering the effect of war on the environment. Whole swathes of history are ignored with no real consideration of the (likely lesser) effects of war before the modern era. Geographically the picture is better than you might expect with the case studies taken from numerous continents but coverage remains piecemeal and incomplete. Here's hoping some community minded editor takes an interest in it soon!
Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Osborne gets back on his hobby horse
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/20/scottish-votes-income-tax-george-osborne-devolution
Anybody else worried about the fact that we are meant to hand our economy over for another four years to the party that took approximately 3 miliseconds after the Scottish referendum to swing from appealing for them to stay to pandering to British nationalists?
Labour may have their issues but at least they aren't total two-faced hypocrites.
Anybody else worried about the fact that we are meant to hand our economy over for another four years to the party that took approximately 3 miliseconds after the Scottish referendum to swing from appealing for them to stay to pandering to British nationalists?
Labour may have their issues but at least they aren't total two-faced hypocrites.
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