(hat tip: WTF – when there is nothing)
Nuff said.
Category Archives: Society
Palin – Joke or legitimate candidate?
Previously on the WhyDontYou Blog (cue “24” theme tune), I made a tongue in cheek reference to Palin being a Republican party “joke candidate”. At the time, I didn’t really think it was true, I was just mocking her apparent difficulty at doing anything you would expect a potential vice-President to do.
However, reading through the Times Online today, I have to re-assess my opinion. Do people actually intend to vote for this person? Seriously, now? The joke has gone on for long enough. Please come clean.
With monumental understatement, the Times Online headlines “Sarah Palin struggles in unwelcome spotlight on eve of TV showdown.” This begins as if it is an everyday type news item with this almost bombshell:
John McCain’s campaign is putting pressure on the organisers of the vice-presidential debate tomorrow night to go easy on Sarah Palin amid growing alarm that faltering performances in recent days have made her an object of public ridicule.
Ok, on its own its quite funny. The Republican campaign managers are worried Palin is an embarrassment. Can you blame them? Amazingly, it gets worse:
Nancy Pfotenhauer, a senior campaign strategist for Mr McCain, has asked for fewer questions than might be expected on foreign policy in the debate. Pointing out that Mr Biden – chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations – would have an advantage on such issues, she said that the clash should at least be evenly balanced with domestic concerns. “The moderators will have some questions to answer themselves if they do go so heavy [on] foreign policy.”
Take a minute to read that. The Republican candidate for Vice-President, someone who would be expected to lead America in the event the President couldn’t, needed a campaign strategist to beg for special treatment in a debate.
Seriously? Is this really true? By Thor it is shocking.
Equally strange, the campaign strategist fully admits the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate has an advantage with regards to foreign policy. They fully admit the Democrat knows more about foreign policy. How in Asgard’s name can Palin be a serious candidate? I really love the (not-so-)veiled threat at the end.
Surely the idea of a Vice-President who has no idea about foreign policy, even if they are somewhat up to speed on domestic issues, is madness? No matter how isolationist you want to be, you still need to have a foreign policy!
Ironically, she isn’t that hot on domestic issues either:
CBS is said to be planning to broadcast further segments of the interview in which she was apparently unable to name any Supreme Court judgments other than the Roe vs Wade ruling on abortion. An aide said that there was no fumbling on this question, merely silence.
Stop it. You’re killing me. This so has to be a joke.
Its interesting that the only judgement she knows about it is about abortion. Does this show she has spent her entire political career campaigning on a certain issue? Has she used her “faith” to get where she is? I would call her a one-trick pony, but I doubt she can manage that one trick.
Even the attempts to defend her are funny:
Mitt Romney, who narrowly missed becoming the vice-presidential nominee, is among those who think Mrs Palin has been overly schooled – losing spontaneity and confidence as a result. “I think they’d be a lot wiser to let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin,” he said. Advisers said that many people would be appalled at the sneering towards her, and opponents patronised Mrs Palin at their peril. “She continues to be a huge asset who speaks directly to the middle American voter that the media so often ignore,” one source said.
I think being overly-schooled is the least of Sarah Palin’s problems. How, by Odin’s beard a potential Vice-President could be less educated is beyond me.
This leads me to a question for “middle America”: Are you really so stupid that this woman appeals to you? Do you base your votes, not on policies or ability, but by someone’s ability to “speak directly to you“? Aren’t you ashamed that the Republicans think you are this stupid that Palin speaks directly to you? (If you aren’t, you should be…)
There is an excellent quote from Palin towards the end of the article:
[Referring to the debate with Biden] She emphasised how long he [Biden] had been a Washington insider, saying: “I’ve been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, second grade.”
This is an attempt at an insult, when McCain is her running mate….
Well, it seems obvious to me now that McCain / Palin are a stand up comedy act that has been a bit too subtle for people to realise. The Republicans have realised they have zero chance of winning the election so have presented two fall-guy candidates, who will take the heat of their next candidate (and absolve them from having to pick either a woman or an old age pensioner next time). Sadly, though, this all says Palin was the best female they could find. Shame on you. If I was a woman, I’d be insulted that they thought she would appeal to my “demographic.”
No post can reference Times Online without looking at the comments. This is already long, so I will keep it short.
“Payne” from Honolulu seems to have trouble getting their words out:
Commentator’s especially not so appealing women with a chip on their shoulders are so jealous of Sarah Palin they are ready to stab her in the eye every chance they get.. Tne news matron Couric was oosing with jealousy. Hopefully, the Moose hunting gun is loaded and ready for Washington.
I really have no idea what this is supposed to say, but I am sure the last sentence could be construed as a criminal threat…
“Scot Benowitz” from Rye, New York has this to say:
In Nov. 1988 we elected Bush/ Quayle here-
Anybody remember such brilliant Quayle statements as “It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
Republican voters don’t look for knowledge of the world or eloquence in a VP candidate
Sadly, very true. It seems the Republicans look for retardation, ignorance and stupidity in a VP candidate. They dont aim much higher for the Presidential candidate either.
Come the elections, we will see the truth of the statement that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. Truly, if a majority of Americans are willing to vote for McCain/Palin, you deserve them.
Links regarding current credit crisis
Well, this is still quite big news globally so here are a couple of interesting links that give viewpoints and opinions regarding the whole deal:
First off – I detest Michael Moore but this is interesting: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2008-09-30.
An argument from the other side: http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/why-im-still-concerned-about-yesterdays.html. The comments here are a mixed bag and, IMHO, capture a great snapshot of the confusion most people are experiencing regarding this.
Lord Palmerston vs Pitt the Elder
The Tories have been playing a game that looks a lot like the bar room argument from an old Simpsons episode.
At Moe’s Tavern…
Barney: And I say, England’s greatest Prime Minister was Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!!
Barney: Lord Palmerston!!!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!!!! [pokes Barney]
Barney: Okay, you asked for it, bud! [punches him out]
Moe: Yeah, that’s showing him, Barney! [scoffing] Pitt the Elder…
Barney: Lord Palmerston!!!! [punches Moe] (from www.snpp.com/episodes)
Except in the Tories’ case, it’s a survey on “greatest Tory ever” and the Conservative Party show less understanding of political reality than Barney and Moe.
(I won’t make any jokes like “the only good Tory is..” Some, eg David Davies, have even been known to do the right thing on occasion.)
Ironically, given the present global meltdown of the financial system, they chose Mrs Thatcher over alternative Tory leaders such as Churchill and Disraeli. Hmm. (Lord Palmerston was both a Tory (Conservative) and a Whig (Liberal) according to wikipedia, so maybe he doesn’t count. Pitt the Elder was a Whig so he definitely wouldn’t count anyway.)
You can’t just blame Margaret Thatcher – you can blame the idiots who fawned on her and voted for her, for a start. Mainly, you can blame the global tide of neo-liberal economic policies.
But it was her mission to dismantle most of what remained of the UK manufacturing sector, giving people the bizarre ideas that
- as long as the rich are getting ever richer, the economy must be sound
- messing about with money is a reliable basis on which to base a national economy
- rising property prices are somehow putting wealth into the economy as a whole rather than making a few property speculators wealthy
- private companies are so much more efficient than nationalised companies that the taxpayer will magically save money by letting private companies profit from providing public services
- and plenty more than doesn’t stand the test of a moment’s consideration, if you factor in the awareness that markets fluctuate
- but makes lots of sense if your backers are going to profit from your “reforms”
(Amazingly, the nuLab part of the Labour Party is also mesmerised by this tosh.)
It’s quite funny that the Tories are choosing the moment at which the mad vapour-industries of finance are self-destructing to align themselves with the personification of the stupidity that allowed these industries free rein. Not as funny as the Simpsons, admittedly. Moe and Barney could probably form a more effective government.
Tory Leader spins tabloid appeal
Well, time for a departure from American politics and a look closer to home.
At the moment the Conservative party are spewing out vast tracts of nonsense, under the guise of a party conference. It does, however, give an insight into how willing to manipulate the voters they are, and how easily manipulated we actually are.
This is a headline news item which has been in papers and on radio bulletins quite a bit under the headline “Tories ‘to help have-a-go heroes’“:
Measures to help the public and police tackle criminals and end the “walk on by society” have been outlined by shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve.
He told the Conservative Party conference that too many people making “genuine attempts to prevent crime” had been arrested or prosecuted.
Erm, no. Not really true. It is, however, the poster child of the tabloid news papers. For decades we have been hearing urban myths about how a “have a go hero” stepped in to save someone and then got prosecuted. Most of the time, these are just that – urban myths. If you investigate the cited examples, the truth is often very different.
The law of the land is not biased against “have a go heroes” but, quite rightly, punishes vigilante gangs and disproportionate use of force.
Sadly, British journalists are shamefully bad at investigating. The BBC even have an example in their article:
Mr Grieve’s comments came after banker Frank McGarahan died following an attack in Norwich. The 45-year-old intervened when he saw two other people being assaulted in the early hours of Sunday morning, but was himself set upon, suffering fatal head injuries. Police have launched a murder inquiry.
Now, is that relevant? No. Mr McGarahan was not prosecuted by the police. The government did not kill him. Unless this is an example of the BBC showing why it is a bad idea to encourage untrained, unskilled people to pile in, there was no reason to bring it up.
If, however, the BBC are similar to the tabloids, the conflation of statements like this is often done to generate misdirection – the public hear the two, and decide that the government shouldn’t have prosecuted people like Mr McGarahan….
Madness. I am saying this a lot lately. We are a society of lunatics. Worryingly, when you think everyone else in the world is insane it normally means……..
Anyway, pushing that to one side. We get more ludicrous waffle from the tories:
Mr Grieve pledged to “take on the health and safety culture” and the legislation which “is holding officers back and making them more risk averse”.
This defies belief.
Health and safety measures are there to protect people. They are there to stop your employer forcing you to risk your life and limb for your job. They are there to make sure that you can function as a working member of society for as long as possible. It has nothing to do with stopping people from being “risk averse” (and here I suspect the Tories demonstrate a lack of understanding as to what “risk” means).
The Conservatives point to examples like the case of 10-year-old Jordan Lyon, who drowned in May 2007 saving his younger sister.
Two community support officers were at the scene but did not get into the water because they had not received the appropriate training.
What should they have done? Should they have died trying to save the 10-year old? (In which case the 10-year old would have died anyway). Do the tories plan to force everyone to risk their lives on a daily basis?
Note, the 10 year old was not risk averse. He took a risk and died. Should two other lives have been added to the tally? If you are family of Jordan Lyon, the likely answer is yes, but if you were a loved one of the community support officer would you have wanted them dead? Whose life is more important?
It gets funnier though:
The Conservatives want to amend Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure that protecting the public from risk is given priority over the risk to officers.
Interesting. Police officers will no longer be able to risk the life of the public to protect themselves… There go the tasers, armed police, batons, riot shields etc. When someone tries to jump off a balcony, will police have to throw themselves underneath to break the fall?
Still it is a sad day that the lives of our Police officers is now deemed to be less important the lives of our public. This is doubly sad in the case of the Police Community Support Officers(*) who have no powers, are paid appallingly bad wages but still have to sacrifice their lives.
Going back to the tragic Jordan Lyon case, the officers were untrained in how to save someone. If they had been compelled to dive in without knowing what to do, what are the chances they would have saved him? Why is lifesaving a taught skill that comes with a qualification if everyone can do it automatically?
The sad fact is, the manipulative tories have jumped on this bandwagon to stir up an apathetic public. They have made meaningless gestures but grabbed headlines. The tabloids love them and to uncritical thought it sounds great.
Dont you just hate politicians?
It isnt just the tories who are prone to such underhand statements:
But the government said its was already working on the issues the Conservatives had raised, including changes to the law, so people using “reasonable force” to protect themselves could have “greater confidence” they would not be prosecuted.
Political vapourware at its best. This basically says: they are not currently going to be prosecuted but the tabloids and tories make them think they are so we will change a meaningless part of the law so everyone feels better. Argh.
Given the lies of the tories, the emptiness of the Labour party and the pointlessness of the Liberal Democrats is it any wonder voters are apathetic?
—
(*) I detest the very concept of PCSOs. It strikes me as a nasty way of getting policing on the cheap, while allowing under-trained, under-educated thugs out on to the street with a false idea of their own authority. Spend more money on getting real police out. That would save 99% of the problems with PCSOs. IMHO of course…. 😀
Do anything when in crisis
In my previous post, I pretty much said everything I could ever say regarding my limited understanding of the financial crisis, so this has a slightly different spin.
The BBC today have carried an interesting quote from the illustrious George Bush:
Mr Bush said at the White House: “We are in an urgent situation and the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act.”
Taken at face value it is quite frightening. But here in our comfortable Ivory-WhyDontYou Tower we have heard this before. Lots of times. On both sides of the Atlantic. About lots of different situations.
For those of you have been bored enough to read high pressure marketing crap, you will recognise some of this. A staple of a scam is the call to urgent action. The sales idea is that by telling you to “Buy now while stocks last” is a great way of over-riding your decision making process. I am sure most people can remember when, idly surfing, you would be confronted with a pop up window saying you were a winner and you only had 10 seconds to click before you lost you wonderful prize.
Now, unusually for Bush, this is slightly more sophisticated. It is very true that we are in an crisis situation. It may even be urgent. However, none of this supports the second half of the statement. Even more crucially, not one part of the statement supports the proposed bill.
If you accept that the situation is urgent and delay will make it worse, you are still left with having to find out what the solution is. Simply doing anything is not the answer. Oddly, this is what the English speaking politicians seem to be crying for. The idea appears to be that doing anything is better than nothing.
What madness.
Doing something useful is better than nothing. Simply acting is not. In fact, doing the wrong thing can be worse than doing nothing. Bush again:
“We’re facing a choice between action and the real prospect of economic hardship for millions of Americans,” he warned.
“Action” – don’t you just love it? Sounds so dynamic and heroic. In fact it is so masterfully-leaderlike, who cares what the action is! More importantly, who cares what nonsense it is.
The choice is not between action and economic hardship. Even with the bail out plan, economic hardship is in store for millions of Americans – just a different set of millions than the one he wants to protect.
The choice is between a knee-jerk reaction and doing anything in the hope it will work, and trying to discover what will actually work.
Anything else is selling snake oil to the American public. Do people still buy that stuff over there?
Banks Fumble, Taxpayers Punished
The current “banking crisis” has been pretty hard to ignore of late, but here in the WhyDontYou ivory towers, we have tried. Partly this is because both of us are in (largely) economy immune employment sectors and partly (mainly) because neither of us can really fathom the nonsense being thrown about in the news. Given that both of us are required by profession to be mathematically astute (yes, really) it could be taken to imply that the average citizen would be even more lost.
With this in mind, it is entertaining to watch the news about the crisis when it pretty much only shows scared-to-death financial experts going on about weird ways of selling things you dont have (short selling) and how important the banking risk takers are to society. They are so important that the rest of society has to protect them should their risk taking go wrong. Being ignorant of the financial wizardry, this strikes me as being totally insane, let alone unfair. This post (long, sorry) is pretty much a way for me to let off steam about something that is destroying peoples lives and, basically, really annoys me. I would welcome your comments and feedback on my take – if I am wrong, please educate me.
There are two headline examples today (in the UK at least) – The UK Government take ownership of the crap part of Bradford & Bingley, after selling the good bits to a Spanish bank; The American government fails to secure a $700bn line of funding for its banks to keep them safe. (Neither are good news items. Neither are going to reassure people that their future is safe. Do not mistake a light tone here for a lack of concern)
Some Background
UK first. Starting about 20 years ago there was a big rush for building societies to become banks – changing from being basically there for a group of people in one area (eg. Bradford, Halifax) where everyone who paid in was a member to becoming a limited company, where some of the members became shareholders. In the process, especially throughout the 1990s the drive was on for these banks to press hard and return massive profits for the shareholders (often a tiny subset of the Building Societies membership). At the time (and in principle it still does) this seemed a good idea. Most people got a bit of money (sadly for most of the members this was just a bit – around £100) and a few people got lots and lots of money. Everyone was happy.
From this, there was a drive in the finance sector to target more and more high risk trades, where often the winnings were large beyond the avarice of mortal man. City bonuses in the millions ceased to be newsworthy and sales of high end sports cars went through the roof. Being a “risk taker” became the nicest thing you could say about someone. We (the public) were dimly aware that there was a risk it could fall down on the bank (Barings) so we accepted the ostentatious lifestyle of the successful. For some reason we were convinced it was down to skill and intelligence rather than basically throwing dice and hoping for the best. These were people who worked hard predicting the markets and had a rare skill in knowing where the trades were. Or so we thought.
Hidden for most of the time were the downsides to this.
Insane wages in London made the already insane prices there spiral out of control. People began to think that paying £750,000 on a one bedroom apartment was a “good investment.” In turn, this priced even well paid people out of the city, so prices near London went up (often even faster if it was commutable and “nice”). For the last ten years it has been impossible for anyone on less than twice the average wage to even think of buying a house in the south of England, without a hugely fiddling their application – so they did. People overstated their income, understated their expenses, and took insane repayment terms hoping they’d get on the gravy train before they had to pay the capital. Lots of these people had “normal” jobs and were not aware that they were bearing the same risk that the Ferrari driving millionaires living in central London appartments had. The public never benefited from the wins so, rightly you would think, assumed it was safe from the risks.
Wrong. (More on that in a minute)
A similar story in the US (I assume, I have no idea of the background). From my visits, the gulf between rich and poor in America vastly outstrips that in the UK. I have always thought that if you were filthy rich, there is no better place to live than the US, but if you were penniless poor the UK wins. Rich people in America are really rich. I am amazed the poor survive one day to another.
In recent years, the risk loving traders have really had a few field days in the US. Massive windfalls made rich people richer. They took huge risks, which often paid off. People applauded them for having the guts to risk so much, making it hard to condemn them for their salaries and bonuses. As with the UK, most Americans had some fallout from this (house prices going up for example) and people begin to think that property is the best investment, so take some personal risks to buy a house. In turn the bank takes a bit of a risk lending to them, but often at crippling interest rates that will see the bank get its money back in spades.
Eventually, as everyone with hindsight knew it would, the whole system explodes. That is the thing with taking a risk, sometimes you get hurt.
Here is where my understanding and reality part company.
Current events
I have always thought that you took a risk, gambled something for example, sometimes it would pay off and other times it wouldn’t. Some risks are “low risk”: for example, betting that a tossed coin will land on either heads or tails rather than its side is quite a low risk bet – you are a lot more likely to win than lose. Some are “medium risks”: betting on heads in our example. Some are “high risk”: betting the coin will land on its side. They all make sense to us and we live with this sort of understanding on a day to day basis.
The world banks have paid their “High Risk takers” absolute fortunes because they take high risks. This is fair. If I bet £1000 on the coin landing on its side and I won, I would expect to win big, if I bet £1000 on the coin not landing on its side, I would expect to win a tiny amount simply because I wouldn’t expect to lose.
For most of the last two decades, the amazing thing is the risks have (on the whole won). The coin has landed on its side a lot. People have won big.
The problem is people then forgot what a risk it was. If you win something that is high risk enough times, you forget that it is high risk and assume the opposite. The merchant banks have been so successful with high risk ventures, they forgot that “high risk” meant dangerous and plowed more and more money into it. They still throw around the terms, they certainly still paid the bonuses, but everyone assumed it would never happen.
Then the coin came up tails and everyone lost. Everyone who had bet big, lost big.
Oddly, this came as a shock. The great and bold risk takers were mortified. Nothing hits a herd as fast as panic and the trading centres of the west are no different. Contagious fear spread everywhere and a generation of “risk takers” who actually had no idea about risk were the most affected. The less scrupulous traders saw a chance to strip the foundations of fragile structures and asset rich, stable organisations took a massive hit (Bye, bye HBOS). The wonders of a free market allowed short-selling and a few scares to destroy a company with solid resources – can you imagine how scared the rest must have become.
Risk?
So, in the interests of a free market, the government steps in and saves the companies. The government spends billions of the taxpayers money to rescue institutions that have, basically, gambled themselves out into the street.
This is where I am confused.
In the UK, the government has reportedly taken over a £50billion debt on behalf of Bradford and Bingley. That is effectively £1000 per person so that the demutualised, risk taking, company can survive. Although we were not aware of the risk we were taking, nor did we share in the rewards, everyone of us in the UK was involved in the gambles these people were taking.
The US has the same problem. The $700bn bail out (good idea or not) is a phenomenal sum of money. The high flier financial wizz-kids and their high risk lifestyle would cost every one of the 300 million people in the US over $2000. For someone on federal minimum wage, that is 321 hours work – 40 working days – to save the rich from becoming poor (I know it is not quite that simple). Instead, the poor get a little bit poorer. Wonderful.
The US must be the only modern democracy where funding the rich bankers is a more appealing proposition than giving healthcare to the sick. That confuses me.
To confuse me even more, the news today had lots of talking heads on both sides of the Atlantic saying how it might seem strange but it was vital that the taxpayer (poor) bail out the bankers (rich) because. Often simply because. Sometimes there were vague, dire, warnings about the economy, but most of the time it was just a simple statement. We have to do it.
Why?
I don’t doubt that letting one or two banks slip will cause even more panic which will destabilise the economies, but if the US has $700bn and the UK has £20bn going spare, then surely we can weather some rough times. When the average person on the street still has money for shops to take off them, then the economy will still work. In my mind that is where the salvation needs to be pointed.
Equally odd, is this new definition of risk.
If I gamble my house on a high risk deal and lose, I lose my house. Will the government bail me out? (Well, in the UK we have social housing but that is different) It is unlikely. For me, betting on high risk stocks is just that – high risk. I stand to gain but I also stand to lose everything.
If a bank gambles the houses of 20 million people and loses, well they really lose nothing. Poorly paid staff will get laid off but the “risk takers” are immune. The organisation is immune because as long as it cries loudly enough the government helps. For the banks, betting on a high risk is actually risk free. They will either gain a lot, or lose nothing.
Why is this acceptable? Why is this considered normal? Why are we still hearing that it is all down to the taxpayers to save these banks? Why not claw back the multimillion bonuses? Why not fine the fund managers? Why are they allowed to gamble without risk, yet still be thought of as “cool” risk takers?
Crime and Punishment
The most sickening thing about the whole deal is not just that the taxpayer has to suffer.
If, through negligence or design, I caused someone to lose out to the tune of £1000 there are laws that would punish me. If I gambled £1000 of someone else’s money without their knowledge and lost it, I would expect the police to visit me and to end up in jail.
It seems, however, if you do it with enough people then not only does the government step in to cover your debts, but you dont even get punished. In the middle of the credit crunch, UK stockbrokers were still getting massive Christmas bonuses (just not as massive… poor things).
While it often smacks of unscientific voodoo, I accept what the “finance experts” say and that the state has to prop up these failing institutions. However, why should the people who have caused this problem be allowed to walk away? If, for example, the fund managers and directors of each organisation were to be fined in proportion to their participation, the rescue plan’s tax burden would be a sweeter pill.
Alternatively, if this heralds a new era of tightly controlled financial markets, where crazy risks are punished, and these people are not simply able to start ripping the world off again in a few years then, again, it becomes a bit more acceptable.
I think the problem is, this will never happen. The hint that the US bail-out would be followed with government involvement meant that the Republicans stood against the great George Bush and turned down the bill (*). It seems the only way a rescue plan will be approved is if it carries no strings or punishments. Basically, the bankers are free to risk all our money without having to worry…. (Slightly better over here, where we are more accepting of government control and oversight).
What a wonderful world.
(*) This adds an ironic twist. I strongly think that the Republican party expect to lose the next election. McCain/Palin are their idea of a joke. They know the country and the economy is about to tank, and the war in Iraq has gone badly. If they lose the election, Obama will be handed a hospital ball of a presidency. Unless he is truly Odin’s chosen one, come the next elections people will still be smarting from the economic crisis and will be ready to turn to the Republicans once more. Taken in this light, both Bush’s plan to asset strip the country, and the parties refusal to do something that (on the surface) benefits the public makes sense.
Can you be too cynical?
EnRaptured
The makers of the Rapture Ready Index are getting really quite upset about the prospect of Obama’s winning. (Make it so. Please, make it so.)
So upset that they seem to see Obama in a rapture-causing category almost all of his own.
…If Obama should win in November, I plan to issue the most dire warning I’ve ever issued during the history of this ministry.
That will be pretty damn dire then. Isn’t that their whole raison d’etre? Issuing dire warnings? And this will be the most dire.
I admit to being too dumb to understand the whole “dire warnings” thrust of the Index. Aren’t these people counting the minutes until they get raised up to heaven on a big cloud? Is their Index supposed to list bad things or good things, from their perspective?
In fact, if they really believe that an Obama victory will issue in the end of the world, then why are they condemning the “liberal” media for supporting him? Shouldn’t they be welcoming him for supposedly hastening their coming move upstairs?
Why are they supporting the emetic McCain/Palin combo, then?
(Well, not quite. They barely mention McCain. All their hopes seem to be on Palin, who is much scarier even than McCain to my godless self – and quite a threat to moose, wolves and polar bears, too, apparently.)
Of course, they manage to get in a sly insinuation that Obama is a mysteriously secret Muslim. This is utterly confusing, apart from obviously being the worst kind of nonsense, although it seems to be believed by a fair proportion of the people on their chatboards. How can such people both blame Obama for the words of his former Christian pastor and still see him as a Muslim? (Quite apart from their bizarre assumptions that “Muslim” is just a euphemism for “being a suicide bomber” and would self-evidently disqualify anyone from the presidency.) But, again, if they really believe this, shouldn’t they be welcoming it, following what I hesitate to call their logic?
Rapture Ready’s avid enthusiasm for the prospect of the destruction of humanity is expressed perfectly in another disturbing piece on the same page, which complains that the US is stopping the rapture by failing to support Israel:
The perfect prophetic storm is upon this last-time generation. To understand the darkly serious truth of America’s tinkering in the matter of forcing Israel to make human peace with its enemies, we must delve heavily into the relevant prophetic Scriptures.
(If only the US would force Israel to “make human peace.” ) They reckon that America and the UN are interfering in god’s plan for Israel.
…America’s and the Quartet’s (U.S., E.U., U.N., and Russia) attempts to force the making of a Palestinian nation upon land that is Israel’s by divine right.
I’m not going to be too snide about people with absolutely no education in history, let alone modern international politics. These are tough subjects and I am already marvelling that people as mentally challenged as the RR gang can write sentences and use the Internet.
I am going to challenge “god’s plan.” Either their god wants the world to be scourged of us evil humans or he doesn’t. If he does, but is too idle to do it himself, shouldn’t they be welcoming any potential anti-christ figure who fills the bill? If god wants the US to support Israel right into the jaws of Armageddon, why can’t he bloody do it himself?
Look, RR people. I wouldn’t dare suggest you try reading history books or anything. But there are plenty of other holy books that you could take as literally true. You could take the Eddas or the Mabinogion or the Baghavad Gita or the Dao de Jing (however they are spelled.)
I’m not saying that you still couldn’t do serious damage if you believed in any of these books as accurate prophecies but at least the rest of us would get a break for a few centuries while you worked up an appropriately life-destroying worldview.
Do you want blood?
I don’t know about art (as the saying goes) but I know what I like. Or, alternately, see as a piece of shite.
A lipstick doodle by Kate Moss has been auctioned and sold for £33,000, according to the Daily Telegraph. It’s basically what you’d expect a teenager to scribble on the back of an exercise book during an especially boring lesson.
Impossible to imagine that anyone has enough spare cash to spend about three year’s minimum wage salary on a piece of random scrawl. Maybe magic celeb dust gives this a value but it’s not even signed, ffs. If you cost the paper and materials – assuming it’s an expensive lipstick – it must be worth all of, oh, I don’t know, 4p.
No, wait, it’s got Pete Doherty’s blood on it. In that case, surely, you’d imagine that you’d have to pay someone to take it away.
Well, it seems that we have to take the auctioneer’s word that it was sold for this sum, and to someone other than Kate Moss herself. No one was fool enough to actually bid in the auction
The work was auctioned by Lyon & Turnbull in London. It was not sold during the auction but bought by someone after the event.
A self-portrait by Doherty, signed in blood, also went under the hammer but a buyer could not be found
The National Blood Transfusion Centre might be a more suitable recipient for Doherty’s artworks. I think they at least give you a cup of tea and a biscuit.
And so it begins
The good old almost forgotten UK ID nonsense creeps inexorably closer. First they came for the foreign nationals… etc.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the cards would allow people to “easily and securely prove their identity”.
Critics say the roll-out to some immigrants is a “softening up” exercise for the introduction of identity cards for everyone.
The card will also include information on holders’ immigration status. (from the BBC)
There is something especially shameless about the way the government is playing the immigrant card to soften up the UK population. Grrrrrrr.
Fish-oil on trial
Ben Goldacre’s excellent badscience site has an update on the absurd “trial” (now rechristened an “initiative”) of the effects of fish-oil supplements in Durham schools. His piece starts:
I think it’s clear now that Madeleine Portwood and Dave Ford, the leading figures behind the Durham fish oil “trial”, will be providing us with comedy and teaching opportunities for many years to come.
There was no astonishing increase in the GCSE results of those kids who took the fish-oil capsules then? Blimey, what a shock.
The wages of sin
For a while, the Daily Mail has been has been casually stirring up oposition to the vaccine against the virus associated with cervical cancer. A few weeks ago, the print edition had a banner asking something like “Would you let your daughter have the sex jab?”
This vaccine has been offered to all 14 year-old girls and is being promoted on tv. It almost defies belief that anyone would object to it. However, the utterly irrational idea has been spread that it somehow promotes promiscuity.
Quick recap on the blindingly obvious point that cancer is worse than “promiscuity.” On any scale. By several orders of magnitude. You would assume that even the most extreme bigot must see that.
Quick logic check on the idea that the vaccine will somehow encourage promiscuity. Does any teenager make decisions about sex on the basis of a remote chance that they might get cancer at some unspecified time in a couple of decades? This is well nigh inconceivable. Have they even been teenagers or ever met one? Making decisions on the basis of something that could just about occur in bounds of possibility in the remote future? Does that sound very teenage? (Does that even sound human? Look at our leaders’ action on climate change, ffs) Pregnancy or STDs are much more likely and immediate bad outcomes of sex and they don’t seem to be putting off kids from following the urges of nature, do they?
Any argument against the vaccine on these grounds is basically an argument for honour killing.
I am truly staggered that there are people so evil that they would rather that their daughters died in a horrific way than have sex. Ever. There is no reason to assume that even an abstinence-till-marriage policy (hat tip, US “sex education” absurdity) would guarantee that the poor girl who observed it to the letter wouldn’t marry someone who has the virus.
Anyway, A Roman Catholic school (no surprise there) has decided that it won’t allow the vaccine to be provided on its premises. In fairness, the school governors distance themselves from the demented argument on “morality”, there being no way in which this can be seen as a “moral” stance, except possibly by the standard of the Taliban.
Although some religious groups are opposed to the vaccine because of fears it may encourage promiscuity, the governors make no moral objection to the programme. (From the BBC)
Instead, the governors claim that they are refusing on health grounds.
In it, they question the effectiveness of the injections and point out the possible side effects.
The letter says a number of the school’s pupils who took part in a pilot study were subsequently off school suffering from nausea, joint pain, headaches and high fevers.
I doubt that the governors have the scientific credentials or research backing to question the “effectiveness ” of the vaccine. I know nothing about the veracity of the side effects claim, but, even if it were true, I think most people would rather than a headache than cancer. So, I’m going to suggest that they have taken the cowardly way out, in response to the concerns raised by the likes of the Daily Mail.
Yet another good reason for not sending kids to “faith schools.”
Equal Rights – educating fundies
(hat tip: DarkfireTaimatsu on FSTDT)
Other than being a bit to soft on fundies at the end, this seems pretty reasonable to me.
Bad Science and Elections
Now, I am sure every one knows that New Scientist is “pop science” – scientific news processed for laymen. In general this is great as is gives people an insight into the wonders of science without the tedium of years studying. Peer review is great, but only in its place. New Scientist is not the place.
Sometimes, this causes problems.
In this weeks issue, there is an article titled “Read my lips… and my voice, and my face” (online version titled “Software spots the spin in political speeches“) which is (at best) bad science being used for electioneering purposes. On the surface this is nothing more than the old idea that you can tell when people are lying by their gestures and use of language. This is a subject close to my heart and generally falls foul of the greatest of problems – it is sort of true. Body language, eye access, word selection and the like can give you an indicator of lies (for example) but only in the broader context of the persons behaviour.
Take the often cited example of people rubbing their nose when they lie. Yes, some people do this. But most of the time it means the person has an itchy nose and nothing else. The same with eye-access (as highlighted in The Negotiator), but the problem is people are different – not everyone looks the exact same way. Language choice is possibly the worst indicator as this is dictated by your background, education and the like. Simply put, there is no easy way you can use this information as a reliable indicator of deception or misdirection. You need to study the person in a variety of controlled circumstances and build up a pattern of their behaviour.
With this in mind, we can return to the New Scientist article. It seems someone has come up with an automated way of monitoring the terminology used, the voice and the facial expressions of politicians to measure how much “spin” there is in their speeches. Amazingly this has not resulted in 100% returns each time. This is how it is described:
The algorithm counts usage of first person nouns – “I” tends to indicate less spin than “we”, for example. It also searches out phrases that offer qualifications or clarifications of more general statements, since speeches that contain few such amendments tend to be high on spin. Finally, increased rates of action verbs such as “go” and “going”, and negatively charged words, such as “hate” and “enemy”, also indicate greater levels of spin. Skillicorn had his software tackle a database of 150 speeches from politicians involved in the 2008 US election race (see diagram).
Now, this strikes me as inherently flawed given that politicians have their speeches written for them by teams of “experts” (who are more than capable of concluding which words mean which things), and are nearly always well coached in delivering them in a manner to “stir” the audience. It strikes me that adding an arbitrary judgement as to what is, or is not, spin gives nothing that even resembles science. In an attempt to dismiss this, Skillicorn (the systems creator) says:
Additionally, [Skillicorn] says, little details count: pronouns such as “we” and “I” are often substituted subconsciously, no matter what is written in the script.
But you have no idea which ones are added by the script writers, which ones are subconcious and you certainly still haven’t proven that using “we” means there is a lot of “spin” in the speech. We still don’t really know what “spin” is – is it a good or bad thing?
The “Headline” results of this study are that Obama’s campaign has more spin than any of the other politicians (+6.7, where 0 is average for a politician) while McCain’s campaign had the lowest (-7.58). It states this supports McCain’s claim to being a “straight talker” (*cough*) and on the surface looks like it is a Republican Political Campaign masquerading as Science. In the articles defence, there is some balance:
So the analysis appears to back up McCain’s claim that he is a “straight talker”. However, for the purposes of political speech-making this may not be an entirely good thing for him. “Obama uses spin in his speeches very well,” says Skillicorn. For example, Obama’s spin level skyrockets when facing problems in the press, such as when Jeremiah Wright, the reverend of his former church, made controversial comments to the press.
Great from a science point of view. We would like to think that the readers of New Scientist are able to accept the idea that spin is a positive force for a politican.
However (and this is supported by a quick scan of the printed media that have picked up on this), the general population are not. We have been indoctrinated by decades of thinking politicians spin is an inherently bad thing. This article has generated several headlines in the free media about Obama being full of spin and McCain being straight talking. Both can translate into political capital. Shame on the New Scientist.
One funny bit which never quite made it into the free-papers is this nugget:
“The voice analysis profile for McCain looks very much like someone who is clinically depressed,” says Pollermann, a psychologist who uses voice analysis software in her work with patients. Previous research on mirror neurons has shown that listening to depressed voices can make others feel depressed themselves, she says.
Well, that pretty much summed up the effect his speeches have on me.
It is during the US Presidential elections that I thank Loki I live in the UK….
Good food
Another pointless post about food. And morality.
I bought a bag of impeccably “fair trade” chocolate-covered chunks of ginger from a charity stall. (A long-established and legit Fair Trade brand, sold at cost, on a voluntary basis.)
I’m less than completely convinced by many “fair trade” goods, but I’ll spare you the social analysis of international terms of trade and production relations in the developing world. For now…
People in work bring back communal sweets and biscuits (trans. candy and cookies) from wherever they’ve been on holiday (trans. vacation.) I never do this myself, although I tend to eat the lion’s share of any of these treats. It’s possible to go for days, in the main holiday season, without actually buying any food.
I have even been known to have subtly badgered one co-worker into making a 300 mile return journey to the place from which he’d brought comically expensive handmade real (70% cocoa solids) chocolates to get more. At a total chocolate cost of over £50 (trans, about $80 now, I think.) And not even Fair Trade. (Look, I didn’t know how bloody expensive they were. Nor how far away the shop was. OK?)
I even add insult to injury by using the packaging for an ironic “art installation” and by insulting any over-hyped but disappointing chocolates, like the French ones from the Ritz.
So, to appease my vague feelings of guilt about being just a taker of confectionery and never a confectionery provider, I bought some Fair Trade biscuits, as a baseline contribution to office goodwill, and chocolate gingers, as a purely indulgent treat.
And made a song and dance out of sharing them out, in the hope that anyone keeping a conceptual chocolate altruism ledger would notice that they finally had something to put on my credit side.
Hmm. Chunks of ginger, covered in chocolate. I assume that anyone would think that is great, by definition. The first person I offer them to says “What’s ginger?” Duh? “What’s ginger?” Is this a trick question? I am too confused to offer an answer that is either educational or sarcastic. I can only say “Well, it’s ginger. You know, ginger. Everyone knows what ginger is.”
Two people are now too embarrassed to admit they don’t know what ginger is and each takes an offered sweet. Dare I say it, gingerly.
They insert sweets into mouths. Omigod! Have they been poisoned?
Unbelievable facial contortions. They pretend to be eating, but their faces are betraying them. They are clearly trying to swallow – to get the taste away from their mouths – in the face of a natural reflex to gag. But the chunks are too big so they are forced to chew, fighting their jaws every inch of the way.
I stare in fascination for about three minutes until I remember to do the decent thing and say “Look, just spit it out if you don’t like it.” Explosively emitted ginger chocolate turns the waste paper bins into ad hoc spitoons.
An other worker just says “You have got to be joking,” when I try to offer him a chocolate.
I say :”I don’t believe this. Everybody likes ginger.” (I am clearly speaking in the face of the evidence.) “I will do a survey then.”
I approach every single person in the pretty sizable office, offering a handful of chocolates. One man says “I love ginger” but won’t accept more than one. And I don’t actually see him eating it, so it may have been a polite bluff.
Everybody else, without exception, refuses. And these are people who will polish off a packet of Dorritos or All-butter Shortbread almost before you can blink.
Three refusants produce variations of “I’m being good today”
I know it’s a polite way of saying “No, I don’t want to try those outlandish sweets” but it still really irritates me.
Firstly because of my own serious shortcomings in the “polite” department, I have grown a protective self-justifying moral coating – the view that “polite dishonesty is more insulting than impolite honesty” (Yes, I know it isn’t true. I did say self-justifying.)
Secondly, because I find something offensive in the idea that being “good” means “on a diet.”
The underlying assumption is straight from a life-denying religious worldview. “I enjoy food X (Not the case here, obviously) so not having it makes me morally superior.”
Are people doing some bizarre penance for their physical existence. The body is evil so letting it have what it wants is “bad”. Mastering one’s bodily desires for food is “good.”
Now, in this case, the Fair Trade sweets were probably “better” in genuinely moral terms than any other food on offer. You can argue the toss over the theory and practice of Fair Trade initiatives, but they do have a “moral” basis in aiming to improve the lives of the producers, to provide schools and medical treatments and a living wage. However, they were seen as “bad”, as food containing sugar and fat.
Our sense of “morality”, in food terms, isn’t reached through a rational process of thinking about where food is produced, how it’s distributed, and so on. It’s some sort of kneejerk response, a dilution of monotheistic moralities that see “goodness” in terms of appeasing some arbitrary set of external rules. Organised religion is really effective at instilling ideas of “good” and “bad” conceived of in terms of obedience to rules. This seems to survive even when people have no actual religious beliefs.
Except, in the case of food, it’s not just priests or gods that we are obeying. It’s the food police in our heads – the government health warnings; the anecdotal nutritionists; the claims on the sides of products; the magazine articles; the slimming magazines, and so on.
Of course, there is a religious element in food choices. Every culture or religion has food rules. What we eat is part of our identity. It’s hard to disentangle the “morality” that consists of “following rules set by some authority” from an autonomous “morality” that involves making endless contingent choices.
But then, it’s a waste of our puny human lives if we don’t even bother to try.