Even BBC admits that Arctic ice shows “modest growth”

December 15, 2014

I rely on the BBC for factual news and even consider their opinion pieces as being of high quality except when politically correct subjects are involved. Then the BBC always abides by the “politically correct” view. This actually is what the BBC’s alleged bias consists of; politically correct views which – by and large – tend to be left-leaning, “do-gooding”, self-righteous, sanctimonius views. They do sometimes ignore reports which do not support their “politically correct” memes. But if one makes allowance for the opinion bias, I find the BBC to be one of the most reliable disseminators of news.

The BBC is a strong adherent of the global warming orthodoxy. In the last two weeks they have published their share of alarmist reports in support of the Lima conference. Now that the Lima agreement is virtually devoid of any obligations they have joined the “politically correct” chorus that the Lima agreement is a good step towards Paris! So it is of significance when they start reporting observations – which have been reported for a long time elsewhere – that Arctic sea ice cover is increasing and is now at the same levels as the average for the last 3 decades.

Of course Antarctic sea ice cover is at the highest levels ever recorded (which gets little space at the BBC).

There is just no evidence that the poles are melting (any more than the variations seen normally).

BBC: Arctic sea ice may be more resilient than many observers recognise.

While global warming seems to have set the polar north on a path to floe-free summers, the latest data from Europe’s Cryosat mission suggests it may take a while yet to reach those conditions. The spacecraft observed 7,500 cu km of ice cover in October when the Arctic traditionally starts its post-summer freeze-up. This was only slightly down on 2013 when 8,800 cu km were recorded.

Two cool summers in a row have now allowed the pack to increase and then hold on to a good deal of its volume. And while the ice is still much reduced compared with the 20,000 cu km that used to stick around in the Octobers of the early 1980s, there is no evidence to indicate a collapse is imminent. …….

……… Indeed, Cryosat’s five-year October average now shows pretty stable volume – even modest growth (2014 is 12% above the five year-average).

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Oil price decline is the antibiotic for India’s inflation infection

December 15, 2014

The effects of the dramatic fall in oil prices since June is now beginning to work its way through into cost and inflation statistics. In India, where oil imports are a major burden on both costs and foreign exchange, the impact seems to be killing the persistent inflation virus. The latest government figures for November 2014 have just been released:

The annual rate of inflation, based on monthly WPI, declined to 0.0% (provisionally) for the month of November, 2014 (over November,2013) as compared to 1.77% (provisional) for the previous month and 7.52% during the corresponding month of the previous year. Build up inflation rate in the financial year so far was 0.67% compared to a build up rate of 6.70% in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The most significant contributor has been the cost of fuel:

The index for this major group declined by 5.4  percent to  199.3 (provisional) from 210.7 (provisional) for the previous month due to lower price of furnace oil (13%), high speed diesel oil (10%), aviation turbine fuel (8%), petrol (5%) and kerosene (3%).

WPI inflation has now dropped for 6 consecutive months. Retail inflation is also declining and reached a record low of 4.38% in November. The target was to get it down to 6% by January 2016 and the oil price decline has allowed this target to be met a year in advance. And this in spite of the government raising some of the taxes on fuel to protect their revenues. With industrial growth also down to 4.2% in October the calls for a cut in Reserve Bank rates are increasing.

India is one of the few countries still fighting inflation. Currently growth is running in the 5.4-5.9% range. The Reserve Bank of India is not cutting rates just yet. It will probably wait until the figures for January and February 2015 are out. But the drop in oil prices has provided welcome relief for Indian consumers – even if the inflation virus has not been eradicated.

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EU throws money at unnecessary, “ghost” airports

December 14, 2014

No EU country refuses funds for infrastructure, no matter how useless or unnecessary that particular project is. After all it is wonderful for domestic consumption and for creating some jobs during the construction of the project. The contractors are usually quite happy as well. Infrastructure projects in Europe – in my experience – generally have about a 10% net profit margin for the contractors. Consultants involved in such projects usually make some 30%+ as profit margins. Consultants help in making the forecasts to attract the funds and are usually involved in some part of implementing the project as well.

Of course, local politicians champion specific projects and specific consultants and local contractors. They help in getting the appropriate EU bureaucrats and those in their own countries to select the projects and the contractors. And so what if the merits of the project are a little exaggerated. So when I see a story like this one, I am not too greatly surprised.

It seems that the EU has spent some €2 billion on airports in member states. A third of this money has gone just to Poland. Projects are selected based on forecasts of future usage (made by consultants and local politicians and bureaucrats) and these rosy forecasts are nearly always grossly exaggerated.

Reuters: EU funds help Poland build ‘ghost’ airports

The European Union has given Poland more than 100 million euros ($125 million) to build at least three “ghost” airports in places where there are not enough passengers to keep them in business.

The result is gleaming new airport terminals which, even at the peak of the holiday season, echo to the sound of empty concourses and spend millions trying to attract airlines.

Poland is not the only country in Europe to have built airports that struggle to attract flights. Around 80 airports in Europe attract fewer than 1 million passengers a year, and about three-quarters of those are in the red, according to industry body Airports Council International. Some cost much more to build than the Polish projects. One airport in eastern Spain, open for three years, has so far received not a single flight. 

Poland received 615.7 million euros in EU support for airports between 2007 and 2013, according to figures supplied to Reuters by the European Commission. That was almost twice as much as the next biggest recipient, Spain, and more than a third of all member states’ money for airports. The government declined to provide all the information on which it based its decisions to invest in the airports, but Reuters has reviewed data on three sites where traffic fell dramatically short of forecasts. …….. 

…… Between 2007 and 2013, the European Union promised funding to help build and upgrade 12 Polish airports. Some of the projections underlying the plans were highly ambitious.

The government declined to detail its predictions for passenger numbers. But figures for three of the airports – Lodz, Rzeszow and Lublin – are contained in letters on a related topic sent by the European Commission to the Polish foreign minister. The letters show Polish authorities projected combined passenger numbers for the airports to be more than 3 million passengers a year. In 2013, the actual number was just over 1.1 million.

Together, the investments in the three airports totaled about 245 million euros. Around 105 million of that came from the European Union. The rest came from central government in Warsaw, local governments and the airports themselves.

About Lodz, Reuters reports

The airport commissioned a feasibility study from advisory firm Ernst & Young (EY), published in November, 2009. EY predicted a minimum of 1.042 million passengers in 2013 for Lodz. That was less than the government forecast but many more than the 353,633 who actually passed through the airport last year. EY declined to comment.

Low cost airlines also get much benefit from the money spent on promoting the airports.

The state also has indirect methods of helping the airports, in particular by giving money to the airlines – mainly low-cost carriers like Ryanair.

“In practice, these payments serve as an incentive for airlines,” CEE Bankwatch Network, the non-governmental watchdog, said in its report.

Lodz and Rzeszow airports did not respond to questions about how much they pay airlines. A spokesman for Lublin airport said only that it was successfully boosting communications to help the local economy.

But public records for Podkarpackie, the mountainous, forested region where Rzeszow airport sits, show that between 2011 and 2014 its government paid 5.7 million euros to Ryanair in exchange for advertisements promoting the region, which appeared on Ryanair’s web site and in its in-flight magazines. Podkarpackie spent another 3 million euros to advertise with Polish carrier Eurolot over a three-year period. ……. 

In all, 70 percent of the region’s 2013 promotional budget went to airlines that fly into Rzeszow airport. These payments are problematic, say several people involved in Polish aviation, because the airports are at the mercy of the airlines. With so many airports to choose from, airlines can easily shift routes.

A woman walks in front of the check-in area at the airport in Lodz October 10, 2014. REUTERS-Kacper Pempel

The busy check-in area at Lodz airport on 10th October 2014 CREDIT: REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL

Interestingly another report today is about one of the CIA’s rendition airports which is to get an expensive make-over

EU funds help Poland re-fit CIA rendition hub

Poland’s next big European-funded airport project is at Szymany, a remote airfield which the CIA used just over a decade ago to transport al Qaeda suspects to a secret interrogation center it ran in Poland. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was probably among detainees who landed at the airfield en route to the CIA facility, code named “Quartz,” in a nearby forest, according to a Council of Europe report.

…… Now, a 48.6 million euro ($60 million) project is underway to create an international airport on the site of the airfield. Just over half the cost will come from the EU. The airport’s operator, Warmia i Mazury Sp., says it expects 80,000 passengers in 2016, the first full year of operation, and about 250,000 passengers a year by 2035.  ……..     “That part of Poland needs an airport, but not there,” said Jacek Krawczyk, a former chairman of Polish airline LOT who has a senior role at the European Economic and Social Committee, which advises the European Commission. “It’s a complete mistake.”

When EU funds are at stake common sense tends to leave the scene.

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Psychologists do not swear any oath to “Do no harm”

December 14, 2014

Theoretically Doctors follow the Hippocratic Oath though I am not certain that all Doctors all around the world actually swear to do so. Psychologists and other therapists are not required to hold to any oath. They do not swear as many believe to “Do no harm”. So the two psychologists who designed and ran the CIA’s torture program and managed to extract $81 million for their services did not break any oaths. (Of course, $81 million for 2 people for 12 years is only $3.375 million per psychologist per year).  In any case any obligations to a patient did not and do not apply. Those being tortured were certainly not their patients – they were just subjects to be wrung dry. Medical Doctors were also around as reported by the Washington Post:

But in most instances documented, medical personnel appear to be enablers — advising that shackles be loosened to avoid extreme edema while a detainee was subjected to prolonged standing or stress positions; covering a wound in plastic during water dousing; and administering “rectal feeding” and “rectal rehydration,” which one medical official described as an apparently effective way to “clear a person’s head” and get him to talk.

The psychologists used the techniques developed by Martin Seligman on dogs. Learned helplessness is a behaviour in which an organism forced to endure aversive, painful or otherwise unpleasant stimuli, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable.

Martin Seligman’s painful animal experiments and theory of learned helplessness began at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967. ….. In learned helplessness studies, an animal is repeatedly exposed to an aversive stimulus which it cannot escape. Eventually, the animal stops trying to avoid the stimulus and behaves as if it is helpless to change the situation. When opportunities to escape become available, learned helplessness means the animal does not take any action. ……. In CIA interrogation manuals learned helplessness is characterized as “apathy”

I suppose torture qualifies as painful and unpleasant stimuli.

BioEdge:

Two psychologists contracted by the CIA to create enhanced interrogation techniques for al-Qaeda detainees have come under fire for violating human rights and medical ethics. Although pseudonyms were used in the 480-page report published this week by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, it was clearly referring to Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, who were paid US$81 million for their work.

Both Jessen and Mitchell had worked on  the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program in which soldiers are trained to endure brutal mock interrogations, including waterboarding. After 9/11 they were asked to design an interrogation program. …… 

The strength of ten

 The techniques they designed were based on the notion of “learned helplessness”, which was developed in the 1960s with dogs by Martin Seligman (who is mortified by his indirect link with torture). People who face unending adversity eventually become depressed and give up attempts to improve their situation. The CIA’s psychologists thought that this state would encourage detainees to become cooperative and volunteer information.

Physicians for Human Rights was highly critical of the participation of health professionals in all stages of the CIA’s program. Their involvement in monitoring the torture techniques was central to providing legal protection to interrogators, said PHR, as torture could them be described as “safe, legal, and effective”.

About half – if not more – of the US believes that the CIA torture program was justified even if torture – at heart – is wrong. I observe that the debate in the UK is about under what conditions torture may be acceptable, not on whether torture is wrong. In India, torture in the service of the State or of religion is implicit and considered justifiable. In Sweden torture is absolutely wrong and only to be used by others – where it may be justifiable. The prevailing Value which applies to humans as a whole, it seems to me, is that in certain circumstances, torture is regrettable but acceptable.

Human Rights are whatever a society determines it to be. The UN or European Human Rights conventions are supposed to be well meaning goals but that is all they are. Countries sign up to these conventions only because it is the “politically correct” and expedient thing to do. But what they truly  believe in is something different. Actual values determine actual behaviour. The conventions may represent “values we would like to aspire to” but they are not values that we do have. When Obama proclaims “That is not who we are” he forgets that what we do – not what we say – is who we are.

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20th Climate games over! They all agree to meet again

December 14, 2014

The global warming community is nothing if not self-serving. We have had 2 weeks of relentless publicity. New alarmist articles have appeared every day. Thousands have flown in and out of Lima. They have had a good time. They have reached agreement to continue having a good time.

THEY WILL MEET AGAIN.

And now, in accordance with tradition, we declare the Climate Games of the 20th COP closed, and I call upon the parasites and wastrels of the world to assemble one year from now in Paris to celebrate the Climate Games of the 21st COP.

The international climate conference will be held at the Le Bourget site from 30 November to 11 December 2015. This will be the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP 11) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

One wonders why.

BBC:

United Nations members have reached an agreement to tackle climate change after negotiations ran into the weekend in the Peruvian capital Lima. The president of the meeting said delegates had approved a framework for setting national pledges.

The deal puts off many critical details until a summit in Paris next year. Environmental groups criticised the deal as a weak and ineffectual compromise, saying it weakened international climate rules. The talks proved tough because of divisions between rich and poor countries over the scale and scope of plans to tackle global warming.

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UN climate conference in Lima collapses and defers all contentious issues to next meeting

December 13, 2014

The UN climate conferences are an exercise in futility for something quite unnecessary. But they provide an annual jamboree for the “global warming community” of do-gooders, pseudo-scientists, advocacy groups, bureaucrats and politicians. They have been meeting for over 2 decades and have achieved nothing. The ostensible goal is to get the world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions so as to limit global temperature rise. But during the life of these nonsensical meetings, the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide has increased by over 70%. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has risen by about 15% and it is uncertain how much of that is due to man-made emissions. But while all this has been going on, global temperature has remained stagnant and may even have decreased slightly.

So one wonders why the UN keeps hosting these incredibly wasteful and pointless meetings. But of course this is because the meetings are not really pointless – they have a hidden agenda. And this agenda is all about the getting of funds and the redistribution of money. And that automatically divides the participant countries into those who will pay and those who will get. The largely parasitic “global warming community” is always on the receiving end and has a vested interest in keeping these meetings and their funding alive indefinitely. Never mind that nothing significant is achieved as long as their funding continues.

The conference in Lima has been no different. It has all been about rich countries putting money (which countries and how much?) into a pot which other so-called developing countries can dip into (who, when and how much?). It is inevitable that the fringe elements supporting the redistribution of wealth, from the creators of wealth to the consumers of wealth (and these fringes are always consumers), are well represented at these conferences. Listening to some lobby groups it sounded like “a conference for the promotion of socialist ideals”. Greenpeace made an utter fool of itself again by their cheap publicity stunt causing damage, pollution and desecration of the Nazca Lines site. John Kerry showed up for a day and made his alarmist speech. Al Gore made a speech on the sidelines noticeable for the number of empty seats.

In any event the Lima conference is now winding down. No major agreements were reached (thank goodness) and a final draft being circulated pushes all contentious issues to the next conference (which at least achieves the purpose of continuing the meetings). One positive is that for the first time since 1992, the favourite – and critical – expression of the countries which seek to get money of “common but differentiated responsibility” is not referred to. Without an agreement on these differentiated responsibilities all talk about who will donate and how much and who will receive and how much becomes entirely meaningless. The latest draft effectively mouths platitudes and leaves each country to set its targets and its own levels of action. This is also a good thing.

Another positive is that countries making pledges of funding for the Global climate fund (target $100 billion and about $10 billion pledges received) are now just transferring or allocating money from their normal Foreign Aid budgets – which therefore cost nothing extra. I was pleased to hear that the pledges have been “ridiculously low”.

“We are disappointed,” said India’s Prakash Javadekar. “It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.” Javadekar said the pledges to the green climate fund amounted to backsliding. “We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn,” he said.

If this reluctance to pay for something pointless and ineffective is real and continues, then it could be the return of a much -needed realism and a very good thing for the world.

Reuters:

United Nations climate talks, which ran on into a an extra day on Saturday, are heading for a watered-down deal on limiting global warming, leaving many of the toughest issues for next year’s Paris summit.

Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, hosting the talks, told delegates that a new text on Saturday morning to try to break impasses was not perfect, but reflected common ground.

Rich and poor nations were at odds after two weeks of talks in Peru over how to share the burden of curbing rising world emissions and how to raise a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help the poor cope with a warmer world.

Latin American and other oil producers are desperately trying to increase oil sales and curb the revenue losses as the oil price has collapsed. They have no great interest in curbing fossil fuel use. Most countries are phasing out subsidies for renewable energy especially as these subsidies will have to increase to keep renewable energy flowing when oil prices are so low.

Senior country representative are now leaving Lima and are leaving their bureaucrats to complete the final communique which will effectively say nothing and defer everything till the Paris meeting next year.

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Less than $60 – but where’s the bottom for oil price

December 12, 2014

I reckon the bottom is about 6 months away and probably less than $40 per barrel before there is some recovery. If the price does not fall that much, or if it recovers faster, then Saudi Arabia will have lost its battle against shale oil. In any event, shale oil is here to stay and all Saudi Arabia can hope for is to restrict new and small oil shale wells. Even a steep fall to around $40, held for a period of only 6 – 12 months, will not be enough to put all shale oil producers out of business and win the battle against shale oil.

oil price bottom

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The shameful vilification of James Watson

December 12, 2014

In a recent post about the Nobel ceremony I observed that James Watson who had sold his Nobel medal had it returned to him by the purchaser. Apart from his recognition along with Crick and Wilkins for their DNA work, he has been and still is one of the most important evolutionary biologists of our time. But he has become persona non grata now with the self-appointed guardians of public morality and the prevailing “political correctness” which disallows “intelligence” – however it may be defined – from being in any way dependent upon the genetic variations between different human populations. His vilification and downfall was a rapid business in 2007, even though, “everything Watson got in trouble for saying was entirely correct” as Gene Expression pointed out in October 2007:

It’s difficult to name many more important living figures in 20th century biology than James Watson. He ushered in the current age of molecular biology with his achievements in 1953, he built up one of the world’s greatest biological research facilities from damn near scratch, and he is a former head of the Human Genome Project.
Given such an august curriculum vitae, you would think that this man perhaps understands just a few things about genetics. But given only the condescending media coverage, you’d think this eminent geneticist was somehow “out of his depth” on this one.
In his interview with the Times on Oct. 14th, we learned that:

… [Watson] is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address.

These thoughts were a continuation of an important theme in his book Avoid Boring People:

… there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.

Although Watson’s book had already been out for a month with these more euphemistic, but still obvious, comments on race and intelligence, no one expressed any outrage. In fact the reviews were reverential and universally positive.
The explicit reference to intelligence and people of African heritage in his interview was clearly a violation of a much more formidable taboo. Still I am not aware of there being much noise about it until Oct. 17th when the Independent caused an immediate stir by calling attention to the remarks: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners says DNA pioneer.
There’s no point in rehashing the rapid sequence of events in detail: several of Watson’s sold-out speaking engagements were cancelled, many critical articles appeared in the British press, trailed by the American press a few days later, hundreds of blogs were fuming with negative commentary, including ones by the editors of Scientific American and Wired Magazine, a number of associations issued statements condemning his words, and soon he was suspended from his chancellorship at Cold Spring Harbor. Watson cancelled his already ruined book tour and flew home to tend to the destruction. It was too late; the eminent biologist retired in disgrace on Oct. 26th. 
One thing, though, was conspicuously missing from this whole irritating denouement: any semblance of factual refutation. There is good reason for this: everything Watson got in trouble for saying was entirely correct!

Gene Expression goes on to show that the data support what James Watson said.

Unfortunately our esteemed band of sputtering media scientists forgot to provide, in all of these instances, any of their allegedly voluminous citations to the contrary. Allow me, then, to take a different position, with the added benefit of evidence: ………

………. 65 psychometric intelligence study citations for sub-Saharan Africa, collected in IQ & Global Inequality, Race Differences in Intelligence, and IQ & the Wealth of Nations. The citations cover 47% of SS African countries or 78% of the people by national population numbers. The studies vary in quality, sample size, and representativeness, but broadly agree in their findings. Representative studies of the school age population with large sample sizes do not exhibit higher scores, much less scores that approach anything like European norms. …..

….. Thus typical African IQ scores of 70 and below can still be taken as a reliable finding. It is not simply the manufactured data of racialist researchers, or a byproduct of inadequate testing procedures. And, more importantly from the standpoint of the Watson controversy, certainly no reliable body of evidence has shown anything like parity with typical European scores.

The entire episode and shameful treatment meted out to Watson by an unscrupulous and sensationalist media and by politically correct but cowardly members of the scientific community was based, I think, on

  • the intellectual laziness in defining what “race” is, and the sloppy way in which the term is used, and 
  • a fear of confronting the ideological notion that some meaningless, diffuse “equality” of all humans transcends and overrides the real genetic variations due to ancestry

We use the term “race” colloquially and loosely and for convenience. There is no firm scientific definition of what constitutes a “race”. Often it is taken – wrongly – to be just a difference of skin colour. The politically correct brigade claim that race is a “social construct” but this is just nonsense. An “African-American” carries genes from his African ancestry and not any particular social behaviour from his ancestors. But “race” is also a dynamic term and shifts with the generations of man. The races we recognise and classify humans into today, is based on the prevailing groupings of populations that are convenient today. Fifty generations ago the “races” of that time would have been quite different. And fifty generations from now they will be quite different to the “races” we recognise today. The classification is about ancestry and is based on (or should be based on) the separate packages of genetic characteristics (some visible and some not) which are discernible and allow the grouping and classification of populations.

It seems perfectly logical, and is highly probable, that humans, though they may have originated from just a few relatively small populations out of Africarabia, have then over the next 5,000 generations, continued evolving in situ, giving the genetic diversity and the consequent physical diversity that we see today. The geographical populations we observe today are the result both of evolution in situ and a plethora of admixtures as people have migrated and mixed over the last 100,000 years. There were no “African-Americans” 50 generations ago. But already “African-Americans” today are different to “Africans” and both continue to evolve and develop in situ. It is quite unlikely that “African-American” or “Asian-British” or “Turkish-Germans” or “Chinese-Indonesian” will be classifications of race or ethnicity that will be used 50 generations from now. This geographically evolved and still evolving diversity, already shows up as genetic differences not only of skin, eye and hair colour but also as differences in disease resistance, physical characteristics, athletic capabilities, behaviour and surely many more invisible (including mental) characteristics.

We have no difficulty in accepting that different populations (effectively different races in colloquial usage) have differences of physical characteristics due to their genetic ancestry. There is no great outrage now that recent studies point to some genetic differences that Tibetans have which may give them an advantage in absorbing oxygen at high altitudes. Similarly there are no screams when other genetic studies suggest that East Africans (Kenyans and Ethiopians in the main) have some genes – or combination of genes – which give them better endurance and therefore – given good nourishment – lead to better performance as long distance runners. West Africans, or those of West African descent, it seems may have some genetic advantages which make them the fastest sprinters over short distances. African genes also seem to give a lower fat content in body mass – which is genetic – and may be one explanation why their performance as swimmers is less than exceptional. That Indians are more prone to Type 2 diabetes than other “races” is not indignantly opposed but just taken for the observation it is. Indian-Americans (3 generations) are already exhibiting lower rates than their Indian ancestry would indicate. Japanese have very low rates of heart disease but already (in less than 6 generations) Japanese-Hawaiians have heart disease rates that are 2 -3 times higher.

It is illogical to assume that these genetic variations between different geographic populations ( colloquially “races”) have only manifested themselves as physical variations. It is highly probable and probably inevitable that these genetic developments will also have affected the brain, its functioning and behaviour. And intelligence.

“Intelligence” is many things to many people and – by most definitions – more than just an IQ test. The IQ test only really measures the ability to do the test. Nevertheless the IQ test results do seem to correlate well to whatever we may choose to call intelligence. There is without doubt a genetic component to both intelligence and IQ test results. IQ test measurements do show that results are significantly lower – for whatever reason –  among sub-Saharan African populations – on average. If intelligence has a genetic component and the colloquial use of the term “race” refers to an identifiable population exhibiting a certain package of genetic characteristics, then it is quite likely that the different genetic packages lead to some differences of intelligence.

If it is acceptable – and not racist – to observe that there are genetic differences in physical characteristics between the “races” of today, then it is just as acceptable and no more racist to observe that there are genetic differences of intelligence between the “races” of today.

That is all that Watson said.

(What “intelligence” actually is or may be is another story for another day).

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Farce continues as trade unions force the Swedish Social Democrats to dump the Greens

December 11, 2014

Just a week ago the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, lost a budget vote in parliament. The whole process was one of low farce. The budget was one his party and their Green (Environment Party) partners in government and supported by the far Left party had put forward. After the loss he announced that he would call an “extra” election as soon as it was permitted on 29th December and to be held on 22nd March 2015. He was quite belligerent and adamant that the joint budget with the Greens (the one defeated) was the very best for Sweden and that they would go to the hustings on the basis of the joint budget. The Greens were quite happy to ride his coattails for it gave them an exposure and a position at the High Table that they could never otherwise have commanded.

In the next day or two it became pretty obvious that it was the Social Democrats shift far to the left with the Greens and the Left party which effectively blocked any possible cooperation with parties further on the right. But Löfven was not prepared to give up his new found friends on the left. Even though it meant that his government was now required to administer the opposition’s alternate budget which had won in parliament until the new elections. Effectively income tax levels would continue throughout 2015 at the levels of the opposition’s budget. Even some expenditure items would have to remain static for the best part of 2015. He kept repeating the self-contradictory mantra that his party would contest the elections as a separate party but on the basis of the joint budget with the Greens. His propping up of the Greens and his obsession with the goodness of his Red/Green budget was becoming untenable.

Many voices within the Social Democrats pointed out the inconsistencies of this position but he stuck to his partnership. But the final straw came when the head of the Landsorganisation (representing the trade unions of Sweden) came out publicly  with the advice to abandon the Greens and fight the election on their own strengths – not least because any coalition agreements could only be negotiated later if they were not encumbered by the Greens and the Left party.

Dagens Nyheter(1):

Stefan Löfven should go to elections without the Green Party. So says a deeply concerned LO chairman Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson.

“Sweden is in a dangerous position, we are no longer seen as a politically stable country, we risk investment and jobs. The image of Sweden as stable, pragmatic and growth-friendly gave us investment and more jobs”, says LO’s chairman. He now sees this threatened on several fronts.

Mainly because of the parliamentary mess. But also because of the Green Party’s influence,  which he has criticized strongly several times in recent months. Among other things their requirements for nuclear decommissioning, the decision to close Bromma airport and postpone the Stockholm Bypass.

The Social Democrats ignore the trade unions at their peril. And Löfven has now been forced to back down and throw the Greens under the bus. But his contortions to keep his position today in touch with his position a week ago are also a little farcical.

Dagens Nyheter (2):

On Thursday the LO boss Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson put it plainly to DN: “Stefan Löfven should throw MP overboard and go to the polls alone”.

So on Thursday Löfven gave a number of bizarre answers. On the one hand, he had intended to do just that (dump the Greens) all the time – even though his press conference with Gustav Fridolin last week clearly showed that this cooperation was firm and fixed. “We like thecooperation we have and we have a very strong budget,” said Löfven.

Dagens Nyheter is scathing:

  • The Social Democrats are going to go to the polls alone, 
  • but together with the MP (Green Party),
  • with a budget that does not apply anymore
  • but which will anyway form the basis for future policy.

The show goes on. At least farces and pantomimes are quite suited to the festive season.

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Sweden | Comments Off on Farce continues as trade unions force the Swedish Social Democrats to dump the Greens

Glittering Nobel ceremony, disrupted peace prize and Watson gets his medal back

December 11, 2014

In Sweden, 10th December every year is Nobel Awards Day. This year the ceremony in Stockholm – as always – was a glittering occasion. It was very ritualised but not solemn and carried out with pomp and precision without being pompous. The music all through is especially apt. Crown Princess Victoria, I thought, stood out and stole the show. The speeches all followed protocol and were – as expected – eminently forgettable.

The Peace prize was awarded in Oslo in parallel with the celebrations in Stockholm (just offset a little to allow uninterrupted TV coverage). The Oslo ceremonies are not as impressive as in Stockholm and the music they use is awful. Their security isn’t up to much either. This year saw the ceremony disrupted by an unknown intruder with a Mexican flag. He came within a metre of the prize winners, but fortunately had no malicious intent and apparently shouted “Don’t forget Mexico” before he was hustled off. I have little respect for the Peace prize and the Norwegian committee who choose the laureates. The winners this year, Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi, are very worthy people working in very difficult circumstances on very worthy causes. But their work has a very tenuous connection – if any – with the promotion of World Peace. In fact in the last 10 years the only winner who had anything to do with Peace was Martti Ahtisaari. None of the other choices has had anything to do with peace but has had everything to do with a fawning – almost sickening – observance of the perceived political correctness of the time. Barack Obama, the EU, the IPCC, the OPCW and Liu Xiaobo had achieved nothing of any significance for peace at the time of their awards but were “in the news”. I observe that they have not achieved very much since either.

The Peace prize degrades the Nobel brand.

And yesterday Alisher Usmanov revealed that he had bought James Watson’s Nobel medal for $4.8 million and would be returning the medal to Watson. Interestingly, if Watson was receiving the award today he would get one-third of 8 million SEK or about $350,000. In 1962 when he was awarded the prize he received 85,740 Swedish krona as his one-third share. The 1962 Nobel prize for Medicine was won jointly with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. Crick’s medal was sold at auction in 2013 for more than $2m (£1.3m).

Crown Princess Victoria with Chemistry laureate Eric Betzig arriving at the City Hall Stockholm for the Nobe banquet. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg /TT

Crown Princess Victoria with Chemistry laureate Eric Betzig arriving at the City Hall Stockholm for the Nobel banquet. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg /TT

Peace prize disruption Oslo 2014

Peace prize disruption Oslo 2014

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Posted in Behaviour, Nobel Prize | 1 Comment »

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