“My goal is a white Ukraine” – Swedish neo-Nazi

July 24, 2014

Whether they admit it or not, the European Union and the United States have helped the growth of the far-right, neo-Nazi Right Sector in Ukraine. My belief is that this was more due to incompetence in applying foreign policy (what else would one expect with John Kerry, William Hague and Catherine Ashton in charge?) than due to any well analysed implementation of foreign policy. The growth of the Right Sector – which makes no secret of its fascist, anti-semitic, anti-black views –  was probably not intended, just as the growth of ISIS and Al Qaida related groups was not intended in Syria. Just as the growth of ISIS in Iraq or the rebirth and growth of the Taliban in Afghanistan were not intended.

Ukraine and the Right Sector have also provided the idiot, neo-Nazi, white supremacists of western Europe with a cause to rally behind and an opportunity to exercise their yearnings for violence. Just as Syria and ISIS have provided young, radicalised, idiot Muslims of western Europe with a cause and an opportunity. (That this was not foreseen by the governments of Europe and the EU is another indicator of incompetence and also that the “common” EU foreign policy is just a “dumbing-down” of the policies of its member countries).

In Ukraine the Azov Batallion  was formed by, and operates under, the authority of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. It is, ostensibly, a volunteer force, about 300 strong and has provided a home for the more violent, far-right Ukrainian hooligans. It has also provided a home for neo-Nazi “volunteers” from at least Sweden, Finland, Norway and Italy.

Svenska Dagbaldet:“My goal is a white Ukraine. I am a nationalist and I want that white Europeans will remain in Europe” , says Mikael Skillt from Sundsvall. SvD reached him by telephone with the Azov Batallion somewhere outside Donetsk.  

Skillt is a member of the Swedish neo-Nazi, Swedish Party. Since February, he is in Ukraine. Now, he is in the Azov batallion and leads a search party outside Donetsk.

Skillt has also been talking to the BBC:

The appearance of far-right activists, both foreign and home-grown, among the Ukrainian volunteers fighting in east Ukraine is causing unease. Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. He is known to be dangerous to the rebels: reportedly there is a bounty of nearly $7,000 (£4,090; 5,150 euros) on his head.

In a telephone conversation from an undisclosed location, Mr Skillt told me more about his duties: “I have at least three purposes in the Azov Battalion: I am a commander of a small reconnaissance unit, I am also a sniper, and sometimes I work as a special coordinator for clearing houses and going into civilian areas.”

…… Mr Skillt believes races should not mix. He says the Jews are not white and should not mix with white people. His next project is to go fight for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he believes Mr Assad is standing up to “international Zionism”.

Italians and Finns and Norwegians are also in the Azov Batallion.

YLE: 

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a demand on Monday for Finland, Sweden, the Baltic countries and France to investigate claims published in Italy’s Il Giornale newspaper that citizens from these countries have voluntarily left to fight alongside government troops in east Ukraine.

The article in Il Giornale, published over the weekend, said the international fighters had joined the armed volunteer group the Azov Brigade, said to be made up of around 300 far-right extremists fighting against pro-Russian separatists.

Il Giornale featured an interview with one Italian volunteer who had joined the brigade, who says he and his colleagues are there of their own will and for their own ideological reasons.

“Many have joined us from the Nordic countries, like Sweden, Finland and Norway,” the fighter says.

It would seem that the Azov Batallion is the unregulated military arm of the Ukrainian government.

 

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A theory of motivation (as a subset of manipulation): Part 1

July 23, 2014

This is the first part of series of posts describing what I call The Engagement Theory of Motivation and which I have found useful during my working career.

1: Manipulation, motivation and behaviour

In common usage, “manipulation” has a negative connotation but “motivation” is generally regarded as being something positive. A “manipulated” person is considered a dummy, or someone being exploited. A ” manipulator” is considered “bad” even if not always “evil”. A “motivated” person  is usually seen as being diligent and performing to the best of his ability. To be “motivated” is usually considered a “good” thing – but not always. A “motivated” witness or a “motivated” observer is biased and therefore “bad”! To “manipulate” someone has a connotation of being unethical whereas to “motivate” someone is usually seen  as something to be admired.

This usage reflects the mixing up of what elicits human behaviour on the one hand, with value judgements about the objectives or purpose of causing such behaviour on the other. I try to keep these separate. The means of eliciting behaviour is merely a tool.

Manipulating the behaviour of others is central to being human. Most social interaction involves the influencing of the behaviour of others. Requesting, debating, arguing, persuading, coercing, threatening, ordering, begging, praying, rewarding, punishing are all methods we employ to elicit desired behaviour from others. I take all such influencing of behaviour to be “manipulation”. When I “request” a cup of coffee at a cafe in return for a “reward”, I successfully “manipulate” the behaviour of the server. An order in the army is to “manipulate” the actions of others. Politicians “manipulate” their voters – or try to. The cry of a baby “manipulates” the behaviour of its mother. We manipulate our children, our friends, our colleagues and our enemies. All man made laws manipulate. Manipulation is the very essence of social interaction.

Manipulation, as I use it here, is the eliciting of human behaviour. It is a tool of social interaction and is neither good nor bad.  It is only the objectives and purposes of manipulation which can be subject to value judgements about goodness or badness.

I take “motivation” – and particularly “motivation in the work place” – then to be just a particular subset of manipulation to elicit desired human behaviour. By empirical observation, I note that when a person is “motivated” he is not

  • more competent, or
  • more knowledgeable, or
  • more intelligent, or
  • more skillful, or
  • stronger or taller or smarter,

but he is

  • More effective
  • More focused
  • More cooperative
  • More “driven”
  • More dynamic
  • More result-oriented
  • More diligent …….

Thus I take the level of motivation to be a measure of the level of engagement of an individual in the actions he is performing (his behaviour). The more motivated he is the more “effective” his performance is, within the constraints set by his abilities. An unmotivated or demotivated person performs the actions in hand well below the limit of his capabilities. Motivation does not affect capability but it does affect performance.

Human behaviour and what causes it is part of the seemingly infinite universe of psychology in all its myriad forms (social psychology, cognitive psychology………). I can only approach behaviour and its causes in an empirical and pragmatic way.

My basic assumption in developing my “Engagement” theory of motivation invokes an analogy from the physical world. It is entirely qualitative and only very small parts are subject to quantification.

I assume that all human actions (which we call behaviour) are analagous to motion in physics. Further, I take a change to be only in response to a “force of behaviour”. The challenge lies in describing and defining this force. Building on Maslow (Motivation and Personality – 1954) I assume that any human, at any given time, exhibits a “state of human condition” which is a composite of

  1. the levels to which his various needs are satisfied, and
  2. the levels of his various dissatisfactions from deficiencies that are not met

I take “satisfaction of needs” and “dissatisfactions due to deficiencies” as two separate scales, neither of which can be negative and which are not diametrically opposed. Of course there are many needs and many deficiencies and there is a level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with each of them,

state of human condition

state of human condition

It should be noted that there is a scale for each need and for each deficiency and that the scale itself is a composite of “health, wealth and happiness factors”. Nevertheless it should be possible by suitable weighting to combine all the levels of satisfaction of all the various needs into a single “level of satisfaction of needs”, and to combine all the various dissatisfactions due to deficiencies into a single “level of dissatisfaction due to deficiencies”. This then allows the positioning, at any given time, of an individual’s “state of human condition”.

state of human condition -2

state of human condition -2

For every deficiency – again following Maslow – there is a tolerable level of dissatisfaction. If this level is exceeded then rational behaviour is no longer possible and an individual can and will only act to reduce the dissatisfaction to the exclusion of everything else. It is the tolerable level of dissatisfactions which defines the behavioural space where manipulation and motivation can be brought into play to influence behaviour.

Next – 2: The Behavioural Space

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The very model of a modern individual

July 21, 2014

I can never find a political label that fits me or a label that I would like to be fitted to.

(some edits on 24th July to try and improve the scanning)

(With apologies and thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan)

I am the very model of a modern individual,

I am well informed on matters social and political, 

I know the his-tory of Man and of theories philosophical,

Of apes and Denisovans and matters anthropological.

I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand the flow of heat in a manner thermodynamical.

About politics and sociology, I’m up-to-date with all the news,

On any subject under the sun, I have opinions and decided views.

 

Of science led by politics, I tend to be suspicious,

My views on global warming verge nigh on being scandalous.

On matters social, economical and all that is political,

I am the very model of a modern individual.

 

I know our myths and legends from time ages immemorial,

I can tell the tales of Duryodana, of Beowulf and Galadriel.

I can quote from the songs of Omar Khayyam and from the sonnets of the Bard,

Verses from the Bible, the Koran or from the Vedas do not come so very hard.

I am familiar with the post-modernists and privy to all the schisms,

Between environmentalism, and feminism and even conservationism.

I could hum you an air from Bach or Mozart or even a Shankar raga, 

And even sing along with you the many hits of Abba.

I am quite familiar with the works of Marx and Paine and Friedman,

I can And debate with you the ins and outs pros and cons of abortion or execution

In short, in matters social and political,

I am the very model of a modern individual.

 

I don’t know what is meant by “God” and by ridiculous “Religions”,

As if w‘re e are still stuck in the dark depths of the Spanish Inquisition.

I have little time for Islamic jihad or rampant Zionism,

I only have contempt for Christians killing Christians.

I find I’m simultaneously, conservative and socialist,

And when I’m not a fascist, I can even be a communist.

Nationalism and patriotism seem to me quite artificial,

Since Nation States are merely accidents geographical.

As a conglomeration of matters contradictory,

There is no better modern individual than me.

 

I don’t know what I don’t know, or even all there is to know,

But I will know all that I can know, before it’s time for me to go.

In short, in matters social and political,

I am the very model of a modern individual.

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Can Obama do anything other than make pretty speeches?

July 20, 2014

I was listening to Barack Obama after the shooting down of MH17. It was just another pretty speech.

Barack Obama’s place in history is assured.

He will be remembered as the first black President of the US.

The history books may have little more positive to say than that. They may mention that he did win a second term. They may well wonder why? They may mention his dithering and some of his pretty speeches. They may have many more negative things to remember. Of being a US President who despite a Democratic majority in the Senate managed to accomplish very little. In both international affairs and on the domestic front some of his failures could be catastrophic enough to earn a place in the history books.

Iraq and Syria are overrun with terrorists. Violence is flaring in Ukraine and on Israel’s borders. A humanitarian crisis is developing on our own southern border, but immigration legislation, like most all legislation, is moribund. Probes of the veterans’ health-care system, the IRS and Benghazi are sucking up attention and the administration’s time.

Now fully one third of the US thinks Obama was/has been the worst US President since the Second World War! Worse than Jimmy Carter, worse than George Bush Jr., even worse than Richard Nixon., and I can remember the loathing that Tricky Dicky engendered – both in the US and internationally.

Obama’s reputation internationally is one of pretty speeches and no substance, of a President who is so risk averse that he is virtually paralysed in any situation demanding courage and of a President who has abdicated control over his security services. The NSA spying revelations, the expulsion of the CIA head in Germany and the failure of intelligence in Libya and Syria and Ukraine, despite unprecedented levels of information gathering, give the impression of a security service completely devoid of oversight or direction. Obama’s security apparatus is going rogue but he has not the wherewithal to control or direct it.

Even domestically his healthcare flagship is less than convincing. He may have bigger failures to come both internationally and domestically, but there is little expectation of any future successes. His over-analysis and dithering on virtually every issue suggests he could possibly have been of some use in a think-tank advising a President. But they are characteristics which have not served him well as President.

But Obamacare’s “free” benefit mandates, and overregulation, has only resulted in sharply increasing health insurance costs, more than doubling premiums in many cases, another President Obama failure by his own words and standards.

But the worst President Obama failure can still be yet to come.  Obama told us that nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran’s terrorist government would be “unacceptable” and he would stop it by any means necessary, with all options now on the table.  But the flower child Obama/Kerry nuclear negotiations now actually seem resigned to only trying to contain what Reagan defense expert Frank Gaffney now is calling the Iranian “Obamabomb,” to echo the Obamacare failure.

His pretty speeches have fooled a lot of people and have built up hopes and expectations. But it is not just that hopes and expectations will have been dashed. He will leave the world a more turbulent and dangerous place when he leaves the presidency than when he started. Eight wasted years.

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Which idiot organisation declared MH17’s flight path as “safe”?

July 18, 2014

It now looks like it was a surface-to-air missile (of Russian make) which downed MH17 and killed 298 (not 295) people. The missile was probably launched by a pro-Russian, Cossack, separatist group in eastern Ukraine though this claim is made by the Ukrainian Security service – for whatever that is worth. It was certainly not a hand-held missile which cannot reach such altitudes.

The questions I have are:

  1. Which idiot organisation in such a war-zone, where unknown and unaccountable separatists were known to be in possession of missiles, declared the air space as “unrestricted” and therefore safe? “Malaysia Airlines said on Friday the flight route taken by the MH17 airliner that came down in Ukraine had been declared safe by the UN aviation arm, the International Civil Aviation Organisation. It also said the International Air Transportation Association “had stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions”.
  2. Why was MH17 flying south of its filed route and closer to the “war-zone” than planned?, and
  3. What were the Russians doing in allowing the separatists access to such missiles? Like giving a loaded gun to a chimpanzee.
MH17 Ukraine flight path Guardian - Flight Radar 24

MH17 Ukraine flight path Guardian – Flight Radar 24

Ukrainian air space was emptied out very quickly yesterday after the shooting down of MH17.

 

ukraine airspace

Ukrainian airspace after MH17 was shot down image Newsweek

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Indian monsoon rainfall recovering from deficit but strong El Niño no longer expected

July 18, 2014

Yesterday the monsoon covered the entire country but while this is only 2 days later than the “long term average”, the progress of the monsoon across south and central India has been around a week or 10 days late. Until last week the rainfall was in deficit by over 40%, but heavy rains this week are beginning to eat into this deficit. In the meantime the possibility of a strong El Niño  this year, which could have further depressed the monsoon rainfall, is receding.

With 2½ months of the monsoon season left, there is now a reasonable – and improving – probability that the shortfall will end up at less than 10% of the long term average and that the hit to the Indian GDP will not be too severe.

Climate alarmists (mainly the environmental mafia) have been hoping – and praying – for a strong El Niño, a disastrous monsoon, a strong blow to the agricultural sector and an increase in farmer suicides. They are increasingly likely to be disappointed. Fortunately the cost to consumers usually reduces and the good of society usually increases with the increasing disappointment of the loony green mafia.

The best thing to have happened for Australia in years is probably the recent repeal of the Carbon tax which has – surprise, surprise – caused great disappointment to the loony green mafia.

Monsoon covers entire country 17 July 2014 - IMD

Monsoon covers entire country 17 July 2014 – IMD

ET:The monsoon delivered this season’s heaviest showers on Tuesday, drenching southern and central India with 50 per cent more rainfall than normal, while international forecasters said the rain-disrupting El Nino phenomenon would be weaker than feared.

The northern and western parts of the country remained relatively dry, but for the country as a whole, Tuesday’s rainfall was 10 per cent above normal, reducing the season’s rain deficit to 40 per cent. The deficit is still abnormally high, but two days of heavy rainfall is expected to speed up crop planting, which was half of last year’s mid-July level. 

The weather office has forecast good rainfall in many parts of the country in the days ahead. Further, the latest forecast of Australia’s weather department could bring some relief to policy-makers as it has suggested that the El Nino weather phenomenon that curtails June-September rains is unlikely to be intense this year.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology writes in its ENSO wrap-up:

Warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean over the past several months primed the climate system for an El Niño in 2014. However, a general lack of atmospheric response over the last month has resulted in some cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean.

While the majority of climate models suggest El Niño remains likely for the spring of 2014, most have eased their predicted strength. If an El Niño were to occur, it is increasingly unlikely to be a strong event.

Changes are also occurring in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) index has been below −0.4 °C (the negative IOD threshold) since mid-June, but it would need to remain negative into August to be considered as an event. Negative values are rare when the central Pacific is warmer than average. Model outlooks suggest the IOD is likely to return to neutral by spring. Conditions in the Indian Ocean may have contributed to the above-average rainfall experienced in southeast Australia during June.

 

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Commercial airlines avoiding eastern Ukraine airspace as Malaysian 17 probably shot down

July 17, 2014

It looks like MH17 with 295 passengers and crew has been shot down over eastern Ukraine near the Russian border.

By the Russians? Unlikely.

By Russian-leaning rebels? possibly with a Russian ground to air missile.

By the Ukrainians? by air-to-air or ground-to-air missiles? Not unthinkable.

In the meantime commercial airlines are now avoiding this airspace as – for example – Thai Airways TG921 and others are just doing. There seem to be many aircraft avoiding the area right now.

TG921 and commercial airlines avoiding eastern Ukraine

TG921 and commercial airlines avoiding eastern Ukraine

Considering the number of commercial aircraft in the area, it is particularly poignant that after MH370, it is another Malaysian airliner which has been shot down. And MH370 itself disappeared due to hostile action.

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A new protein (FGF1) which could eliminate diabetes

July 17, 2014

This is more than just interesting.

It may come too late for me but I suspect that by 2050, the great fear of diabetes Type 2 and the real damage it causes, will long have been forgotten. But there will still be a challenge in not allowing the solution to excuse and encourage a life-style which is essentially unhealthy. It should not become like a glutton inducing vomiting so that he can eat some more!!

A new paper in Nature

Jae Myoung Suh, Johan W. Jonker, Maryam Ahmadian, Regina Goetz, Denise Lackey, Olivia Osborn, Zhifeng Huang, Weilin Liu, Eiji Yoshihara, Theo H. van Dijk, Rick Havinga, Weiwei Fan, Yun-Qiang Yin, Ruth T. Yu, Christopher Liddle, Annette R. Atkins, Jerrold M. Olefsky, Moosa Mohammadi, Michael Downes, Ronald M. Evans. Endocrinization of FGF1 produces a neomorphic and potent insulin sensitizer. Nature, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/nature13540

From the Press Release:

One injection stops diabetes in its tracks

In mice with diet-induced diabetes—the equivalent of type 2 diabetes in humans—a single injection of the protein FGF1 is enough to restore blood sugar levels to a healthy range for more than two days. The discovery by Salk scientists, published today in the journal Nature, could lead to a new generation of safer, more effective diabetes drugs.

The team found that sustained treatment with the protein doesn’t merely keep blood sugar under control, but also reverses insulin insensitivity, the underlying physiological cause of diabetes. Equally exciting, the newly developed treatment doesn’t result in side effects common to most current diabetes treatments. ……. 

Diabetes drugs currently on the market aim to boost insulin levels and reverse insulin resistance by changing expression levels of genes to lower glucose levels in the blood. But drugs, such as Byetta, which increase the body’s production of insulin, can cause glucose levels to dip too low and lead to life-threatening hypoglycemia, as well as other side effects.

In 2012, Evans and his colleagues discovered that a long-ignored growth factor had a hidden function: it helps the body respond to insulin. Unexpectedly, mice lacking the growth factor, called FGF1, quickly develop diabetes when placed on a high-fat diet, a finding suggesting that FGF1 played a key role in managing blood glucose levels. This led the researchers to wonder whether providing extra FGF1 to diabetic mice could affect symptoms of the disease.

Evans’ team injected doses of FGF1 into obese mice with diabetes to assess the protein’s potential impact on metabolism. Researchers were stunned by what happened: they found that with a single dose, blood sugar levels quickly dropped to normal levels in all the diabetic mice.

“Many previous studies that injected FGF1 showed no effect on healthy mice,” says Michael Downes, a senior staff scientist and co-corresponding author of the new work. “However, when we injected it into a diabetic mouse, we saw a dramatic improvement in glucose.”

The researchers found that the FGF1 treatment had a number of advantages over the diabetes drug Actos, which is associated with side effects ranging from unwanted weight gain to dangerous heart and liver problems. Importantly, FGF1—even at high doses—did not trigger these side effects or cause glucose levels to drop to dangerously low levels, a risk factor associated with many glucose-lowering agents. Instead, the injections restored the body’s own ability to naturally regulate insulin and blood sugar levels, keeping glucose amounts within a safe range—effectively reversing the core symptoms of diabetes. ……… 

I suspect a golden age of medical science is underway and it will be unrecognisable – for us – by 2050.

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Tattooed ladies on Drottninggatan

July 16, 2014

So we were in Stockholm with some guests from the UK and engaging in typical tourist activities. The sun was shining with a light wind and the program was to walk down Drottninggatan to Gamla Stan and wander around the Old Town and the Royal Palace for a few hours. But my knees were playing up and it was decided that my services as a tour guide were not really either necessary or useful. I would be better employed – we concluded – in watching the tourists rather than being a tourist.

I took up station at an outdoor cafe sometime before noon. I chose my table carefully to maximise my time in the sun. I was well armed with a large coffee and a small Danish. And the world went by. (I have no doubt that every one who visits Stockholm does – at some time – walk down Drottninggatan and past my observation post).

image: http://www.hufvudstaden.se

The analogy was of watching water flowing in a river – but in both directions simultaneously. The passers-by moved in little waves, in ripples, in eddies swirling about and in large waves. Sometimes they trickled by, at times they surged past and sometimes they surged and receded and surged past again. Some determined individuals strode by with clear direction and objectives, others merely loafed by with a general sense of direction of flow but with no great urgency. Some weaved from one shop window on one side to the next on the other – but still generally forward. Some few clumps moved first in one direction, then reversed course and moved back as they caught sight of something they fancied. Kids milled around, lost sight of their parents and then found them again. Large waves of tour groups (one Chinese, one Japanese and one which sounded Russian) flooded past. But there were no collisions.

It was time for some anthropology.

Two individuals, one male and one female, went past – separately – fishing out aluminium cans from every rubbish bin. The female – by dress presumably Roma – was equipped with a trolley for her collection, wore plastic gloves  and left the rubbish bins pretty much as she found them. No fuss, no muss. The man used plastic carrier bags but left a trail of candy wrappings behind him. No fuss but much mess till the street sweeper also came by.

Inevitably one sat and watched the girls go by. Some were dressed for a Caribbean beach. Others for an Arctic winter. Nineteen out of 225 had visible tattoos (the count ended at 225 since I needed to refill my coffee). Maybe not universally representative but just under 10% of those surveyed had visible tattoos. Tattoos on arms and legs were the most common. Tattoos on ankles, a few on the face and on the back of the neck were also apparent and no special efforts were necessary to make them visible. Some were on shoulders and thighs and stomachs and chests. Here clothes – or more accurately a lack of clothing – had been chosen to make the tattoos clearly visible. Of course the number of tattooed ladies with hidden tattoos cannot be commented upon. Generally the tattoos were in shades of black but some use of reds and greens and yellows was also evident. It was a lovely day but fairly breezy and not quite warm enough for the level of undress on display. It seemed that every lady silly enough to walk bare-shouldered or bare-stomached or in a bikini top, had chosen to do so because she had a tattoo to display.

(I just note in passing that those men I observed who had  bare shoulders or chests also inevitably had some tattoo to display and triceps or abs struggling to be admired).

But the tattoos were all – every single one – ugly and disfiguring to my eyes. Not one added to the attractiveness of the subject. The already pretty girls sought to enhance their attractiveness – and failed. Attention was diverted from their inherent attractiveness to their ugly tattoos. The not so pretty ones seemed to be using exhibitionism to attract attention (as an alternative to being seen as attractive) – and also failed. The eye was drawn to the ugly tattoo and only reinforced the shortfall of “attractiveness”.

Why do people get tattoos? My less than scientific study leads me to the following “conclusions”. Like jewelry or piercings or articles of fashion or hair-styling,  it can only be to attract the attention of those around. Attracting attention itself can only be for the purpose of being “admired” or of being seen as “different” or “unique” or as a “badge”. It cannot – usually – be for the purpose of attracting contempt (though it could be for being seen as a “rebel” where some contempt is then accepted as collateral damage). Fundamentally it is for the narcissism in us, for satisfying the “Look at Me” syndrome or for the “I am Special” syndrome.

After 3 cups of coffee I needed some beer and so I had to move. But some things were clear. Tattoos are a disfigurement and are all ugly. And whatever the narcissistic aims of the tattooed ladies, they were counter-productive.

 

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Chris Turney – lead Fool of the Ship of Fools – is selling tickets for a lecture at the Royal Institution

July 15, 2014

I don’t know who gets the proceeds from this lecture at the Royal Institution (Tickets: Standard £12, Concession £8, Associate £6, Free to Members, Faraday Members and Fellows) but one hopes that Chris Turney – he of the Ship of Fools – does not.

There is no little irony in the announcement that

“Chris Turney will present the initial findings of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013-2014, and show how private funding brought the public and science together”.

Chris Turney made an utter fool of himself in the Antarctic, and yet the Royal Institution is  providing him with an opportunity to defend his idiocy on 17th July.

To make matters worse the Guardian, instead of bringing the chief fool on the Ship of Fools to book, writes in its own inimitable, fawning style

 Professor Chris Turney from the University of New South Wales decided to follow in the footsteps of visionary geologist Douglas Mawson, who led one of the first scientific expeditions to the region 100 years ago. Turney and his team of geologists, biologists and geographers retraced Mawson’s steps, repeating the original expedition’s measurements as well as conducting new studies and surveys. …… 

Chairing proceedings is the Guardian’s former science correspondent, Alok Jha, who was also part of the expedition. 

Alok Jha’s reporting for the Guardian was particularly inane.

Why the Royal Institution is promoting this charlatan and his commercial interests is beyond me.

He helped set up a carbon refining company called Carbonscape which has developed technology to fix carbon from the atmosphere and make a host of green bi-products, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.

Related: Turney’s tourists: the heroes who weren’t

 

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