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From threats to bomb Assad, Obama bombs Assad’s enemies a year later

September 23, 2014

What a difference a year makes.

In September last year Barack Obama and John Kerry were drawing red lines in the sand and threatening to bomb Bashar al-Assad. They never did.

And Obama – with his coalition against evil – is now bombing Assad’s enemies in Syria.

NYT:

The United States and allies launched airstrikes against Sunni militants in Syria early Tuesday, unleashing a torrent of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs from the air and sea on the militants’ de facto capital of Raqqa and along the porous Iraq border.

American fighter jets and armed Predator and Reaper drones, flying alongside warplanes from several Arab allies, struck a broad array of targets in territory controlled by the militants, known as the Islamic State. American defense officials said the targets included weapons supplies, depots, barracks and buildings the militants use for command and control. Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from United States Navy ships in the region.

The strikes are a major turning point in President Obama’s war against the Islamic State and open up a risky new stage of the American military campaign. Until now, the administration had bombed Islamic State targets only in Iraq, and had suggested it would be weeks if not months before the start of a bombing campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria.

Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in the strikes, American officials said, although the Arab governments were not expected to announce their participation until later Tuesday. The new coalition’s makeup is significant because the United States was able to recruit Sunni governments to take action against the Sunni militants of the Islamic State. The operation also unites the squabbling states of the Persian Gulf. ….. 

Assad will surely spin this as support for his regime. That may not be the primary intention of the air strikes but he will surely be strengthened by the attacks on the most potent of his many enemies

I think ISIS does need eradicating but it needs to be by the Sunni Muslim world in the first instance. I cannot help but wonder which of Obama’s moving red lines was crossed now by ISIS which was not crossed earlier by Assad. The difference of course is that bombing ISIS is – politically – almost risk-free for the US President. Vladimir Putin will not protest and neither will Netanyahu. Even Iran will be quite happy with this attack on Sunni extremists opposed to Assad. Even the EU will support – though the position of the EU is largely irrelevant for the US. But air strikes alone will not eradicate ISIS or bring much greater order to the chaos in Iraq and Syria.There is a real risk of the chaos being extended – geographically and in time – but Obama’s final term has not long left to run.

The entropy of the chaos increases.

Barack Obama will be remembered not  as a leader with any clear principles but merely as the first black President of the US and for whom principles were always subordinated to his fear of risks. Courage will not be associated with his terms in office.

“Yes. We can” will become “Well, I tried..”.

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So Scotland stays British – but Iceland managed to go it alone

September 19, 2014

Here in Rejkjavik we heard something about how a country of less than 300,000 became independent in 1944. It has not been easy but my perception is that Iceland has battled its way out of the Great Banking Scandal and Financial Crisis of 2008 and is now back on a tourist driven growth path (even though prices are  even higher than I expected).

It is not irrelevant that Iceland has access to such enormous amounts of geothermal energy. It only convinces me even further – if that was possible – that it is access to energy and electricity that is fundamental to humans mastering the global cooling cycle – that is already underway – and the next ice age whenever it comes.

But back to Scotland.

There is no doubt that they could have gone it alone. But I am also glad that there is no change to the world order that I know and the UK that I am familiar with. The Scots will see themselves continuing as part of Britain.

But the English will continue to believe in the supremacy of the English Pound and the Bank of England and the English Queen as being their gifts to Scotland (and the world).

There will always be a Wales!

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The purpose of argument …

September 16, 2014

The purpose of argument and the art of disputation

“In disputes upon moral or scientific points, let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.”

Arthur Martine 1866 guide to the art of conversation,

If only ….

This post from Judith Curry is well worth reading: How to  criticize with kindness where she refers to this article by Maria Popova in brainpickings.

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

  1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
  2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
  3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
  4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

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Sweden votes “against”, but what is Sweden “for”?

September 15, 2014

It was quite a high turnout at 83.4% in the general election.

The results show that Sweden has voted “against” many trends but has not really voted “for” anything. The left (red-red-green) will govern while the far-right show the greatest gains. Perhaps this is an indictment of all parties in that none succeeded in presenting any compelling vision of the future. 

After 8 years in power, the free market Alliance have lost power quite decisively, but the Social Democratic block (including the Environment and the Left Party) while clearly the largest grouping, are quite a bit short of an absolute majority. The Moderates lost 6.7% of the vote share. The clear gain is for the anti-Europe, anti-immigration, nationalistic, neo-Nazi party the Sweden Democrats who have more than doubled their vote from 5.7 to 12.9% – a gain of 7.2%. The Social Democrats actually gained virtually nothing (+0.4%). The losers are the small right-of-centre parties supporting the Moderate coalition in government (the Centre Party, Peoples Party and the Christian Democrats). The Environmental Party also lost a bit but will find itself in government anyway. The top 3 parties cover 67% of the vote. As much as 30% of the vote share is split between 6 parties with less than 7% share each. The Left Party (erstwhile communists) are now absolutely necessary to the Social Democrats and may well even be formally in government.

The Feminine Initiative were neither here nor there and ended up as being yet another “spoiler” party.

Sweden election 2014 - graphic from SvD

Sweden election 2014 – graphic from SvD

So a very fractured picture emerges but what strikes me is that voters have generally voted “against” trends they do not like far more than voting “for” anything. Maybe it is simplistic but my reading of the results is that Sweden has expressed strong opposition to:

  1. European meddling in Swedish society
  2. EU bureaucracy
  3. Further immigration (but not necessarily against immigrants)
  4. the Euro
  5. profit – rather than quality – as the basis of health care
  6. profit – rather than quality – as the basis of elderly care
  7. profit – rather than quality – as the basis of schools
  8. ideology in environment

But what Sweden is in favour of is not at all clear.

It will not be easy for the Social Democrats to build a stable government which has any clear direction. The votes “against”  do not allow any block to find a clear way forward – in any direction. Nobody wants to treat – visibly – with the Sweden Democrats. Their votes “for” anything are of little value in themselves and provide neither opportunity or risk to anybody else. They have not the power to get their proposals accepted but they will have the parliamentary votes to stop many things.

I am afraid that we have 4 years of horse-trading and vacillation and drift ahead.

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Sweden’s general election – unsatisfactory choices in a quiet campaign

September 11, 2014

Sweden goes to the polls on Sunday for its four-yearly general election (parliamentary, county level and municipal level). Even though there are sporadic efforts to inject some excitement into the proceedings, excitement is notably lacking. But engagement is not and a fairly high turn-out can be expected – thought it will probably be slightly lower than 4 years ago. We shall be voting and I – for one – am quite happy that the noise and the circus of an Indian or a US election will be absent. I am also quite happy that the nastiness (but stupid nastiness) of a UK election will also be missing. I find nastiness in campaigning can be mitigated to some extent if there is some cleverness involved but the campaigns of all the various parties in Sweden are not nasty but neither are they very inspiring or very clever.

The only little “excitement” has been the “shock” disclosures by the Expressen newspaper about the various members of the neo-Nazi, right-wing, nationalistic Swedish Democrats who have been busy making anonymous, nasty, racialist and anti-zionist comments on the internet on a number of “hate” sites. But there has not been much shock involved. Their attempted nastiness is only to be expected. The Swedish Democrats remain largely a party of “junkies and hooligans” but the party leader, Jimmy Åkesson, is actually the most personable of all the party leaders on display and more articulate than most.

Though quiet campaigns are much to be desired they do not necessarily ensure rational discussion. There are some serious issues facing Sweden (schooling, health care, the balance between private profit and quality of service, integration of immigrants, energy policy and – above all – job creation) but the limited coalitions of parties that are available lead only to unsatisfactory choices for the electorate. There has been -unfortunately – little intellectual content in the debates even though there could have been much more. Cliche has been set against cliche. “Political correctness” has been immune to challenge. In fact one of the fundamental problems is that Swedish “political correctness” is well past its “sell-by date”. All the parties talk down to the electorate. They give voters little credit for being able to think and that has been a pity. The Swedish electorate is probably more capable of applying their minds to the many issues than in many other countries. But they have not been given the chance.

The choice is limited to either a coalition of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, the Centre Party and the Peoples Party (a sort of libertarian, right-leaning, profit oriented, market oriented grouping) or a coalition of the Social Democrats with the Environmental Party and supported by the Left party and the Feminine Initiative (a sort of socialistic, do-gooding, left-leaning, we-know-best, authoritarian grouping with tinges of communistic zeal). These two blocks actually demonstrate the undemocratic nature of party politics. You don’t actually vote for individuals as your representatives or that of a constituency – you vote for people on the party lists. How people are selected to be on the party list has little to do with democratic principles and everything to do with activism within the party. Those elected represent their party first, party members next and the general electorate last. Whichever block wins, a coalition is inevitable. And the evils of all coalition governments will be again on display. The smaller parties will have a disproportionate influence and importance in the policies followed by each block. If the two large political blocks are evenly balanced it will put an undemocratic balance-of-power into the hands of the extremist, but small, Swedish Democrats.

The two major parties (the Moderates and the Social Democrats) have little choice but to put up with the foibles of their smaller partners. Rather than providing a natural check and balance, mollifying the smaller parties leads to fractured and inconsistent policies. The Moderates are forced to adopt some policies to satisfy the fundamentalism of the Christian Democrats and others to satisfy the Big-Nanny tendencies of the Peoples Party (Folkpartiet). The Centre Party is chasing the youth vote but are remarkably superficial about everything. The Social Democratic Party (which is just a straight-forward, if anachronistic, Big Union Party) has to put up with the eco-fascism and intellectual bankruptcy of the Environmental Party. They will have to ignore the job-destructive consequences of all the so-called Green policies. They may have to accept the support and some far-left policy elements of the Left Party (which is just an old-fashioned Communist Party by another name). The Feminist Initiative is neither here nor there.

Not great choices then. I expect the Social Democratic, red-green coalition will probably win – just. But jobs are going to be destroyed mainly by the Green initiatives which will have to be pandered to. And where jobs are created they will be in the public sector and will be wealth consuming rather than wealth creating.

But it will be a quiet election. And I do appreciate that.

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Shy people get depressed (courtesy Facebook)

September 9, 2014

Two articles today about research on Facebook usage.

Shy People Use Facebook More [Research]

Shy and introvert people spend more time on Facebook but disclose little information with friends and acquaintances, said Pavica Sheldon, assistant professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville’s communications arts department.

Facebook addicts at a risk of developing depression

Facebook users spending a lot of time on the social networking site, might be feeling down, lonely and even depressed, claims a new report.

A recent study has revealed a link between a Facebook and the dampened mood of active users who feel they have “wasted time on doing” what they call “meaningless activity.”

Which in turn suggests that shy people use Facebook longer, are more likely to be addicted and therefore more likely to be depressed.

But I would have thought that shy people are more likely to be lonely and more likely to be depressed – anyway.

 

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Six months since MH370 was “vanished” by somebody

September 8, 2014

Today it is 6 months since MH370 disappeared.

A most astonishing vanishing act and not a hint of an explanation in sight. The Vanishing has already passed into the category of “Great Mysteries of the Past”. All “plausible” explanations have been exhausted and only the implausible remain. MH370 has been overtaken by the shooting down of MH 17.

But it is MH370 which I find somehow very disturbing. Maybe because the only implausibly possible explanation is of a covert, callous action by a State or State agencies. One of the many theories even has it that “the plane purported to be MH17 at the crash site in Ukraine was actually MH370. Both aircraft were the same model but MH17 was a 1997 version as opposed to MH370, which Malaysia Airlines took ownership of in May 2002.”

But no explanation can provide any real solace for the relatives of the 239 passengers and crew who vanished (and died).

The search goes on.

Thursday, August 28

Malaysia Reaffirms Commitment to Search for MH370

Signs MOU with Australia for ongoing collaboration

…. Today, Malaysia signed an MOU with Australia which provides the framework and broad parameters for cooperation in the search for MH370. This forms an important part of our existing cooperation with Australia and reaffirms Malaysia’s commitment towards the search. 
 
In this regard Malaysia will provide the necessary financial contribution towards the search effort and match Australia’s commitment. The combination of undersea search equipment, world-class experts and cutting edge technology that is being used will be our best chance of finding MH370 and we are hopeful in our prospects of doing so. …..

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Fifty years of counter-productive affirmative action

September 7, 2014

I don’t like “affirmative action” which is merely a euphemism for reverse discrimination. Whether for race or for gender, affirmative action and quotas not only don’t work, they are also counter-productive in that they perpetuate the differences they are supposed to eliminate. Quota systems only create a privileged – and often undeserving – class and reaffirm and enshrine the very differences they try to address. The analogy is with subsidies for non-commercial technologies which only remove all incentive for those technologies ever becoming commercial. The “reservation” system in India – for example – has only ensured that those “scheduled castes” privileged by such “reservation” have no longer any incentive to get their children to come out of the “reserved” category. In fact whole communities now fight to be classified as “backward” or as a “scheduled caste” to enjoy the undeserved privileges that brings. Competence and ability are given no value and – surprise, surprise – are in decline. Five decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the US, there is no discernible improvement in the position of the home-grown, US, black population.

Jason Riley is black, writes for the Wall Street Journal and has a new book : Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed

He addresses “which efforts have facilitated black advancement, and which efforts have impeded it?“ and makes the case that “Liberalism has also succeeded, tragically, in convincing blacks to see themselves first and foremost as victims. Today there is no greater impediment to black advancement than the self-pitying mindset that permeates black culture.”

He points out that

  • The black-white poverty gap has widened over the last decade and the poverty rate among blacks is no longer declining.
  • The black-white disparity in incarceration rates today is larger than it was in 1960.
  • Black unemployment rate has, on average, been twice as high as the white rate for five decades.
  • Black people from the US still continue to perform worse at school than other blacks, Hispanics, Asians and the white population.
  • Black teenage unemployment has never been as high at any time as with minimum wage laws.
  • Racial preferences in the form of affirmative action show no benefits.

Of course the liberals don’t much care for this book (as with this review in Salon.com by Ian Blair who is a student of journalism and apparently a very politically correct person). But Riley’s language is simple and straightforward and his arguments appear – to me – to be well substantiated.

Of course his arguments also fit what my experience tells me – that quotas don’t work and that subsidies don’t often work and both are usually counter-productive. Reverse discrimination only serves to perpetuate the difference it is supposed to reduce.

As this recent article puts it, affirmative action in the US was just a sop;

Slate, Feb 2014:

Today, the statistics on black and white inequality are so unchanging that they can be recited by rote: The black unemployment rate holds steady at double the white unemployment rate; the median net worth for black households is about 7 percent of white households; annual per capita income for blacks is 62 cents for every dollar of per capita income for whites.* When presented with these figures, supporters of affirmative action typically use them as evidence that conservatives kept affirmative action from working. Others say the statistics are proof that affirmative action didn’t really work that well to begin with. But there’s always the third option to consider: that persistent racial inequality is, at least in part, the result of affirmative action working exactly as it was intended to.

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A “society” – to be a society – can be multi-ethnic but not multicultural

September 4, 2014

A “culture” is both the glue that binds any society of humans and lubricates the interactions within that society. It applies as well to a family or an association or a sports club or a company or a geographic area (say a country). The culture of any sub-society – a sub-culture – must be subordinated to that of the larger society it is  – or wants to be – part of.

Of course one can have – if one wishes – many different cultures within different sub-societies in a single geographic area. But if these sub-cultures are not subordinated to a larger culture then the sub-societies cannot – because it becomes a fatal contradiction – make up any larger society. Multiculturalism dooms that geographical area to inevitably be a splintered and fractured “greater” society – if at all.

The politically correct “multiculturalism” followed in Europe in recent times has effectively preserved and maintained each ethnic group in its own cultural silo and – inanely – made a virtue out of preventing the evolution of any overriding, common culture. This has been the fundamental, “do-gooding” blunder of the socialist/liberal “democrats” all through Europe. Creating a society of the future with a common culture as the glue has been sacrificed in a quest for some imagined God of Many Cultures. For an immigrant – anywhere – how could it be more important to keep the language of his past rather than to learn the language of his future? The “do-gooders” have prioritised living in the past to creating and living in a new future.

Hence Rotherham and Bradford or Kreuzberg or Rosengård or Les Bosquets,

Multi-ethnic communities particularly need both a glue and a lubricating medium. And that has to be an overriding common – new – culture and not some mish-mash, immiscible collection of sub-cultures – each within its own silo, insulated and held separate from all others.

  1. Multi-ethnic societies are inevitable around the world.
  2. A single society has a single culture.
  3. To have many cultures in one area – which are not subordinated to a larger culture (values) – is to exclude a single society.
  4. Promoting multiculturalism is to promote the fracturing of that area into many immiscible (inevitably ethnic) societies.

Multi-ethnicity – especially – requires a mono-culture to be a society at all.

Multi-ethnic and multi-cultural is separatism and serves to ensure that a single society will never be established.

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Oh Dear! Celebrities whinge at release of naked pictures

September 2, 2014

I am concerned that iCloud can be hacked – but only because my assessment of their security was clearly wrong. I’ll just have to give iCloud a lower rating for security than I have done.

But I cannot share the indignation of the celebrity “victims” at having their naked pictures publicised  and their “plight” leaves me largely unmoved.

The hackers may be despicable but those who upload naked pictures of themselves (or other compromising material) into the Cloud are just plain stupid. In fact I feel sure that the act in itself is some subconscious (or perhaps conscious) craving for the pictures to be leaked and for the resulting publicity. Stupid people can also be victims but my sympathy for stupidity is very heavily tempered.

What is much more upsetting is that I haven’t seen any of these pictures yet (but I shall not be spending any time looking for them either).

Ricky Gervais got it right first time.

Apparently he has now back-tracked somewhat in response to protest but I only think the less of him for that.

The comedian was criticised after posting this message on Twitter - blaming celebrities for taking the photos and storing them on their computers in the first place 

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