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10. mai 2007
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Another blast from the Norwegian past, Norway's first woman prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, later head of the WHO, has now become a special UN envoy on climate change. You know what is coming.
Wednesday's conference marked 20 years since the publication of the U.N.'s research on the environmental impact of industrial growth. Today, Brundtland said, "doubt is eliminated" on the question of the effects of fossil fuels and carbon emissions.
"It is irresponsible, reckless and deeply amoral to question the seriousness of the situation," she said. "The time for diagnosis is over. The time to act is now."
So it is "reckless" (etc) to even question conventional wisdom. Never in the history of science has there been such a rush to declare a "consensus", and that in a young science that has never proven any long-term predictive powers whatsoever.
By contrast, the science of particle physics has been able to demonstrate success beyond our wildest imagination. The Standard Model of Particle Physics has predicted unseen elementary particles, later confirmed in laboratory experiments to an accuracy of 12 decimals. Richard Feynman famously compared the accuracy of quantum physics, a very counter-intuitive model of reality, to predicting the distance between New York and Los Angeles to the width of one human hair. Yet, you don't hear particle physicists proclaim that it is "irresponsible" to ask questions. They don't claim that doubt is eliminated. They will typically sidestep a question about, for example, whether quarks really exist by saying it is a model that very successfully explains what we actually observe. Real science encourages questions and doubt. You may win a Nobel physics prize by further confirming the standard model; you are certain to win it by proving it wrong. This is what science is about!
Politicising a dodgy science, even labeling the mere asking of questions "deeply amoral", has nothing to do with the honest inquiry into nature, which is what science is all about. This sounds like the inquisition, not science. It also sounds like desperation from doomsday prophets who are screaming louder and louder that the debate is over, that all skeptics are evil, but who, when the chips are down, simply can't present the hard facts to back up their extraordinary claims.
10:18:35 PM 
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 Britain reaches the end of an era.
Tony Blair has announced he will stand down as prime minister on 27 June.
He made the announcement in a speech to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency, after earlier briefing the Cabinet on his plans.
He acknowledged his government had not always lived up to high expectations but said he had been "very blessed" to lead "the greatest nation on earth".
Contemporary talking heads have no great regards for Tony Blair, but I agree with historian Andrew Roberts that in the longer term he will not be judged on his shady rule by consultants and focus groups, neither by alleged peerships scandals, and not even on the troubles in Iraq. What defined his time as prime minister was September 11, 2001.
Prime ministers are not judged by posterity on issues to do with transport, health, education, or even - most of them - on economic indicators.
They are judged by the One Big Thing that happens during their premierships.
That is why Neville Chamberlain's Munich Agreement, Anthony Eden's Suez Crisis, Edward Heath's Three-Day Week, and John Major's ERM debacle have left them branded as failures.
Equally, Winston Churchill's Blitz orations, Margaret Thatcher's saving of British capitalism and Tony Blair's vigorous prosecution of the War against Terror will leave them noted by history as highly successful prime ministers.
Agreed.
Blair has also set a standard, like Ms Thatcher did, that makes it impossible for his successors to go back to the past. The Tories are now busy being more new labourer than Blair. The radicals in Old Labour are in shambles and can not recover for a long time.
5:01:47 PM
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Enough with the stupid Americans polls. Here's a stupid Swedes poll:
90 percent of young people aged 15 to 20 years don't know which foreign capital is closest to Stockholm, equally many don't know what GULAG is and 40 percent believes that communism increases the wealth in the world, the study finds.
- They lack understanding of basic concepts like despotism and democracy, and that is unpleasant, says Camilla Andersson, leader for the organisation Information about Communism, which ordered the poll.
Education minister Jan Björklund agrees. Now he wants to change history education in the Swedish school.
- It is cause for great concern that Swedish history education is so limited. Many have probably discerned that history knowledge is not good, says Jan Björklund to the news service TT.
Translated from a Norwegian article on NRK (where the above text was repeated twice. Good thing the MSM has all these editors and stuff).
Judging by all the hammer-and-sickle and Che-t shirts, and young people proudly calling themselves "radicals", Norway is not better than Sweden in this regard.
4:54:25 PM
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Hamas has retired the hate mouse:
A program using a Mickey Mouse-like character to urge Palestinian children to fight Israel and the West and work for world Islamic domination has been pulled off Hamas's television station for "review," Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said Wednesday.
Barghouti said the use of the cartoon character in such a role represented a "mistaken approach" to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.
It was one of the extremely few (the only one I can think of now, actually) examples of Hamas' hate-propaganda making international news. That is what made the terrorist group pull the stunt. This story was even reported by Norway's state broadcaster (and Jihadi propaganda affiliate) NRK.
But Hamas has no plans to stop teaching children hate.
Update: Hamas family values.
Thanks, Rune.
Update 2: Not so fast.
A senior official working for Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) television in the Gaza Strip said that the program - "Tomorrow's Pioneers" - would air as normal this Friday in defiance of information minister Mustafa Barghouti.
"The program will continue and it will be broadcast tomorrow at 4.00 pm [1300 GMT]. Mustafa Barghouti misunderstood the issue," said the official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
The squeeky hate continues, so far.
7:22:18 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.06.2007; 11:45:42.
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