I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
Clark
Really? Edit, or not, and delete this comment, as you see fit now you’ve seen it. I mean it’s exquisitely puerile.
stop being such a cunt and you might get better fucked.
-Clark I can see nebula and surprising star patterns and get an awesome view of the moon and its seas and craters and textures, and in the daytime wildlife and people such through a scope like this: Uk ebay shop Important points are the ‘bak4’ prism, and relatively big 40mm lense for the magnification. Quoted magnification for low end scopes is imprecise, from x10 to x16 is best, higher magnifications absolutely require a tripod and large lens. Cheap zoomable scopes are to be especially avoided as the optics are always compromised. You need to keep a scope rock steady to appreciate its view fully, a trick is to wedge it against a doorway or treetrunk… and be placid even hold breath while focusing.
—
Thinking about this situation again – how the worlds financial classes have successfully, in clear day, sucked significant money out of social funds for their private purposes. They have gone one stage further than repressing social funding and planning in economies globaly, and actually have scammed for themselves and their specialy rich lifestyles the future taxes and funding destined for social spending. It is shocking. It is also just a crock of shit to claim that similar blatant deceit, is what motivates and directs climate change and ecological research, and after reading Billy and Chris’s ignorant repetive petitions against the earnest concern and research, i have nothing but contempt for their positions. They are just like the bankers claiming to be hard changed. I am sick of such stupidity and/or dishonesty and ready to throw rotten fruit. Any civil argument can be defeated by willful ignorance and repetition. Then what is there left to say but ‘fuck this’?
Phil, that’s really apt. I’ve edited it in.
Scouse Billy, you’ve changes the subject again!!! Please explain the significance of your conclusion, as I asked before.
CO2, no problem, eh?
In what context? http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-killer-lakes
“What happens in such cases is that the CO2 is trapped in the water, which acts rather like the cork in a champagne bottle. Release the cork and you get an explosion of CO2 gas that has catastrophic consequences if the build up is too large. In this case, thousands of villagers lost their lives as well as many more thousands of livestock animals.”
Scouse Billy 22 Sep, 2012 – 5:11 pm
“Real polution is a problem – CO2 is not.”
I do not read all the posts because I do not have the time (nor probably the mind to indulge the science). So apologies if you have said before, but what do you mean by “real polution”?
Clark 22 Sep, 2012 – 5:27 pm
“I’ve edited it in”
Thank you very much mate.
Phil – a shame you feel the need to resort to such unpleasant delirium. Let me again condense what i think is highly important information. ‘The UN IPCC’s political Summary for Policy Makers was written and given to national governments and media before the science chapters were written. UN IPCC guidelines state that where there is conflict between the science report and the summary for policy makers, the summary takes precedence. Thus science reports are modified to reflect the political summaries’
Here is the instruction in the IPCC procedures: “Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) or the Overview Chapter.”
In other words, the IPCC openly admit that their science reports,which influence the whole globe, are modified to reflect political aspirations
@ Phil 22 Sep, 2012 – 5:37 pm
This was the 666th comment in the thread.
I call you the anti-christ; and claim my 5 shekels.
🙂
Try a risky moderation tactic – stand up for minimum sense and plonk the clear as day, willful or accidental idiots. Civility carried too far lends respectabilty to incessant bullshitting, and burdens progressive communication with their unsolvable noises. Decide when enough dumb is enough and draw that line somewhere.
JimmyGiro 22 Sep, 2012 – 5:43 pm
“I call you the anti-christ”
Thanks Jimmy, I’m blushing from your compliment.
@ Scouse Billy,
Excellent Václav Klaus quote.
@thatcrab 22 Sep, 2012 – 5:46 pm
What????!!!
21st scent tree @22 Sep, 2012 – 6:16 pm
“What????!!!”
He’s cottoned onto the tactic of moral relativism and equivocations of the Borg gloop machine. And I agree with him.
JimmyGiro22 Sep, 2012 – 6:20 pm
er … well I guess that’s OK then.
Splendid,, now get back in the kitchen.
I dont very often agree with JimmyGiro, but i appreciate finding any agreance. I wish there was an agreeable measure of sense which high volume commentry could be held to, better than the mere avoidance of insult.
Clark, just tuned in; had a wobbly bicycle stem to replace, and hopefully will find the energy to replace a rear tyre this evening as well. Wossup?
Regarding the Avaaz graphic, the implication is unfortunate, but not deliberate imo. Draw it to their attention, and maybe show how they could do it so it makes more sense. Of course, ‘Crazies’ needs to be a third circle, which overlaps both of the others separately, and both of the others together.
Clark – excellent bit of moderating by the way.No sign of bias or non neutrality to be seen anywhere. Mature and well balanced throughout – great stuff
Clark, sorry been out – just like to second Chris’s comment above.
I will try to answer your question – bit tied up and I need to think how best to put it. You are a good guy and deserve a respectful answer.
I’d like to third Chris’ comment above.
Poor show. Foul language and ad-hominem, the antithesis of reasoned debate.
Atheism is a religion if you also consider “not collecting stamps” to be a hobby.
Chris, Hey, I stood up for you on that horrible row about immigration, because I knew what had happened in Wales so I knew you had a point. But on this, you should have checked your sources before serving them up to the world at large. You’ve been argued under the table, but you won’t admit where you’re wrong.
It was a shame Phil took to self-censorship when it was you that should have done, so I helped him change his mind after the fact. Hey, you win some, lose some, huh?
Jon, no, I doubt that Avaaz’s Venn diagram is a deliberate distortion, but I’ve contacted Alex of Avaaz repeatedly, all day. I’ve e-mailed Avaaz admin, and like Chris, they refuse to amend their mistakes.
Primary school maths test, diagram:
http://avaazdesign.s3.amazonaws.com/Avaaz_graphic_concept2_VennOnly_a.jpg
Q1: How many Muslims in the West are not Crazies?
A1: None.
Q2: What can you say about ALL Western Muslims?
A1: They’re all Crazies.
etc. I don’t think you can get any non-offensive answers out of it. At what age are pupils taught Venn diagrams?
Zoologist, no. Atheism can be religious just like deliberately offending and winding up stamp collectors can be a hobby.
Foul language and ad-hominem, the antithesis of reasoned debate.
Not always or even necessarily mostly – That. It is also the natural sound of exasperation to the unreasoning campaigning and promotion of concepts which can clearly be read after endless lengthy reiterations, to be little more than passing notions in peoples personal journey towards having figured it ALL out in virtual speakup land.
It always depends on context, which your kind of comment arranges simply and unconcerned for nought, but the survival of your dumb stubborn ignorance.
Chris/Clark, the Oregon Petition has been doing the rounds for a few years.
Whatever its true provenance and nobody’s too clear on this, it has always been cited to rebut the idea that there is a consensus in climate science.
To my mind this is a red herring – science has never been about consensus although it is a shame that this “consensus” has been repeated many times in the media, often by politicians amonst others, some of whom should know better.
That there is dissent within the ranks of IPCC authors is clear but a small clique/cabal have sought to hide this.
The difficulty Svensmark and his co-researchers had in getting their paper peer-reviewed and published (in spite of no substantive criticism of their work) is but one example.
There was a time when the documentary, The Cloud Mystery could have been made by the BBC’s Horizon but not in today’s climate of manipulation (if you’ll pardon the expression).
I have heard the geologist, Professor Iain Stewart on the BBC tell us that greenhouse gasses constitute a “blanket” – this is unfortunate because a real blanket works by preventing convection (just like the roof and sides of a greenhouse). There is no such blanket in our atmosphere.
Here is a short 3-1/2 minute clip that shows the BBC view of climate change “consensus” then a few IPCC dissenting scientists give their view – are we getting balance in our media and, in particular the BBC?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cbWjJFgnqU
See these things! The state of life! The hungry and the targetted, and the poisoned ravished ecologies which we live within, and the worryingly altered atmosphere. These are fucking serious things! Too serious to stay polite and attentive to fools that state over and over the most basic distruptive confusions over chances to examine them and search agreements to solve them.
How could there possibly be more conspiracy over research into the potential threat of climate change, than in making assurances for the safety of Mammons blaze?
How does such nonsense get taken up anywhere never-mind here?
[How lucky we would be in a universe where a species could quite uniquely learn to control fire, but need never worry about how much of a planet could safely be burned.]
Clear Off disruptive confused fools !
Steve Pieczenik: “World War III starts 25 September 2012”
“Atheism is a religion if you also consider “not collecting stamps” to be a hobby.”
@Zooooooologist
People who don’t collect stamps don’t go on whinging about people who do.
Maybe it should be amended to Dawkinism is a religion. SouthPark Chapter 10 Verses 12-13.
It seems to me that there are two ways to go in this shit storm of a society.
Nurture ot destroy!
We build and grow and reap, tender and care. All terms of Nurture.
The Earth requires us to protect her.
I would imagine its part of the deal.
?