Making everyone happy is impossible. Pissing them off is a piece of cake. I like cake.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Experts get drunk on power

Your humble Devil is often asked why scientists would "lie" over climate change, as they must be doing if anthropogenic global warming is not the big disaster that is currently claimed. There are, of course, many reasons why this might be seen to be the case.

First, people often misunderstand what scientists are claiming. This is especially true of politicians, who usually have stuff-all knowledge of the underlying concepts, let alone the most recent data. This idea was starkly illustrated when I appeared on the Wolverhampton Politics Show for the second time [MP3], when a LibDem Councillor asked me how I squared my scepticism of AGW with—amongst other things—the hole in the ozone layer "caused by global warming": the ozone layer depletion was not, of course, linked to global warming, but gases known as chlorofluorocarbons.

Second, scientists need money and it so happens that there tends to be more money floating around "politically sensitive issues" because governments give out a lot of cash (the USA spent $4 billion on AGW research last year). Thus, you get the ludicrous sight of scientists appending pieces on the end of their papers, e.g. that they still believe CO2 drives global warming, even though their paper shows that it never has before.

Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were “plucked out of the air” as an “intelligent guess”.

The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever....

The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by “a feeling that you had to say something” came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it.

He told The Times that the committee’s epidemiologist had confessed that “it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t” because “we don’t really have any data whatsoever”.

Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. “Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee,” he said.

If fact, not only were these limits plucked out of the air, we now understand that they were not even a very intelligent guess.

Subsequent studies found evidence which suggested that the safety limits should be raised, but they were ignored by a succession of health ministers.

One found that men drinking between 21 and 30 units of alcohol a week had the lowest mortality rate in Britain. Another concluded that a man would have to drink 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine a day, to face the same risk of death as a teetotaller.

If you look at it that way, these arbitrary guidelines may have cost lives! And yet despite this revelation—despite being rumbled as a bunch of lying cunts—the fucking abysmal health Nazis are moving in to attempt to further curb our "excesses".

In a further attack on Britain’s drinkers, it was revealed yesterday that a coalition of health organisations is mounting a campaign to force a 10 per cent increase in alcohol taxation.

The group, headed by the Royal College of Physicians, is also seeking to secure the support of MPs for stricter regulation of the drinks industry and warnings on alcohol advertising. A total of 21 bodies, including Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust, will form the Alcohol Health Alliance, according to Harpers Wine and Spirit magazine.

And here we go again. These fuckers are not interested in the science: they are only interested in one power and money. They want the power to order the world as they see fit, and the money to be able to buy their way out of having to obey their own diktats.

These people are, to an extent, worse than politicians or civil servants; they are special interest pressure groups, often funded by the state (for who else would willingly spend money on these killjoy shits) to lobby the state, interested only in prolonging the world's "problems" so that they can continue to draw their fat, fucking salaries.

They use the classic "ratchet" concept; achieve one restriction and then move to tighten up that restriction and spread the net yet wider. How else are they to survive?

They are parasites and they too shall populate the lamp posts of Britain in time...

13 comments:

These busybody vermin are a typical by product of a socialist system! Give in once and they always want more(nature of the beast). A true libertarian society would say, if you want to throw your self off a mountain in a bin' GREAT! knock yourself out, but dont expect the state to pick up the pieces! Humanity truly thrives only when people take responsibility for their own actions. The EU commisars want to add a tracking device into all cars so they know who and where you are at all times BUT how do they sell it? well they bring out a fake report that states it MAY save a few lives(2000) if these devices are fitted to every car! Dishonest or what? THAT is the key to the EU lie, they cant help but lie and cheat and confuse to get their own way! In a true democracy for example government meetings would be open and transparent with minutes available to the public? NO, the EU commisars meet in secret and their wheeling and dealing is never known! Why is that important? well, secret meetings and backroom deals are a fertile breeding ground for corruption!When will people get it through their thick heads that the commisars dont realy give a flying fuck whether we live or die! these "health&saftey laws are there to control us like animals!

Was that the British Liver and Onion Trust (BLOT)? We had some alcohol concern last night, down to last two bottles of red wine, situation rectified today, wine fridge is full, all is well in the world.

poohbear -> that's also to raise tax revenue for the completely useless Galileo satellite system, that no-one uses, since everyone uses the American GPS system.

The "we want to build a superpower but are unwilling to pay for a massive increase in defense spending" Eurocrats wanted to be "independent" of America. So in order to pay for a Galileo system that nobody wants, they're going to ram it down our throats instead.

I had heard that the Galileo system is needed because the USA will/could deny access to GPS if its used to further a dictatorial or Fascist regime or if its used to abuse or deny a countrys human rights? Do the Euro commisars have plans to use a GPS system to create a 1984 style Soviet/Fascist regime? It would make sense that Congess could well vote to deny GPS to a hostile or anti human rights regime!

Frankly, I have no issue about Galileo per se, in fact a plurality of GPS systems - US, Russian, European, Chinese, Indian is a good thing as it does help us if a monopoly holder decided to deny aspects, as happened with the Selective Access in GPS or the entire service.

I am pretty sure that should the whole Taiwan thing kick off, China will knock out the US GPS network.

The problem occurs in the use of force and extortion in getting people to pay for it~. Galileo will be, AFAICT, very good at improving the accuracy, and especially so in urban environments IN CONJUNCTION WITH GPS AND GLONASS§.

I am CERTAIN that the UK could flick up its own 36 birds at a fraction of the cost that Galileo has cost us. The UK has expertise in small, efficient sats, and in fact the first bird for Galileo is a British one - we do not need technological aid in making our own GPS.

Once could say that it is cheaper for 27 states to pay for Galileo than each build its own, but again this is not even the end of it - we are being forced to use technology and "services" such as road pricing as a COVER for the extortion of the money. They get two for the price of one - their system paid for AND the population oppressed and monitored.

~I do wonder if the tendering and cost for Galileo was effective. I actually think it was a joke.

"sharing"...as in we provide and they take. I think that is an amazing piece of folly. China will take everything, reveal nothing and then use it to their advantage and to hang with any downside for us.

sharing eh? sharing with those oh-so-cuddly communists, who also happen to making arms and oil deals with Iranians? That Galileo will come in handy for those Iranian missiles aimed at Israel and Europe eventually.

Those Eurocrats have as about as much fucking long term strategic fucking thinking as a British WW1 Captain leading his men into a headlong charge against a German machine gun nest.

Fucking idiots. And yet they dare to snigger and they all subscribe to the "Americans are stupid" meme from their lofty ivory tower of Eurotocracy.