The Bewilderness

A vote to preserve their 1945

Whenever you read a social democratic article masquerading as a defence of Scottish independence, the whiff of sanctimonious superiority and dripping codewords of democracy (equals voting for the SNP and the Scottish welfare state). This is accompanied by some Whiggish complacency that naturally the Scottish electorate will recognise what is good for them by voting "Yes". 

Now I am as agnostic as most of the English about whether the Scottish opt for self-determination. But, they tax my patience when they take note of this gift, a consequence of our shared liberal polity, and choose to reinterpret that event as a token of their better qualities. It is not a view of all Scots; just that priggish minority that pursues constitutional forms of popular sovereignty: a written constitution that would cement the power of the Scottish public sector oligarchy in perpetuity. 

This is a democratic, not a liberal solution - in the sense of enduring checks and balances. It is a solution to mediate the elite consensus in token forms to stop the actual Scots getting uppity and doing something radical. Independence is a conservative step to preserve the postwar settlement in one nation.

To know how this nation will look like, one need see no further than policing: centralised under one Chief Constable, accountable to the executive and local control emasculated. If this is how Scotland will be governed in future, then the whole vote is a retrograde step. 

 

Google's grave goods

Oh dear, again I have to migrate and familiarise myself with OPML files. Google is putting its RSS reader to death on the grounds that there are too few users. Alternatives are available and will be used. But, Google did entice its users with a range of products; yet now some are going: like IGoogle. What will be next?

The decision to remove a popular service has proved a step too far for many. How can you trust Google if they suck out your data and then destroy the service upon which you depended? Looks like they did not really understand how dependent much of the tech reporting community was upon Reader. A real shoot 'em down in the foot moment. And another sacrifice to the great altar of compliance and regulation. Every product now needs managers and lawyers to make sure that there is no chance personal data can be accessed, changed or deleted. Such costs require a base of 100,000,000 users to justify the cost. Only government can destroy the internet and they are giving it a damn good try.

Reader is first but not the last.

Unsustainable tech

The World Economic Forum's list of 'sustainable technologies' for the forthcoming year. Some seem farfetched like Online Electric Vehicles, due to the large infrastructural investment required. More hopeful is the possibility of efficient and profitable nuclear power, using new designs to remove the long-tail liabilities that have always required nationalisation. With shale, I don't see this being useful for another twenty years. 

None of it will sustain itself in 2013.

A branch is hacked off our tree of liberty tonight

The Independent, in its leader, tries to maintain a moral high ground in welcoming political intrusion (defined as external influence and regulation) by distinguishing between itself and the popular press. The distinction lies between those who provide information at a profit and those who don't. Such organs, who believe free speech is best curbed by rules and regulations, welcomed the Hacked Off campaign and want the right people to be able to gag the Sun.

Our politicians have gagged the press at the behest of celebrities; when the victims of NHS maltreatment or medical cover-ups warned that the new rules could destroy investigative journalism.

Freddie Astbury, president of Thalidomide UK and a victim of the side-effects of the morning sickness drug, said: “With thalidomide we learned the lesson that it’s very important to have a free press.

“If the Lib Dems and Labour introduce a law making it harder to investigate things like this they will be protecting the likes of pharmaceutical companies and not protecting the victims"

The voices of victims will find it much harder to reach the public from tonight just so left-wing politicians can spare their own blushes and that of their pet celebrities. Scum is a useful collective for those who have destroyed Britain's freedom of speech.  

The diversity of worms

Shale may now prefix oil and gas but long before this, it gave us the strongest evidence of the Precambrian explosion. This was the Burgess Shale in Canada with its evidence of soft-celled invertebrates giving us a fortunate of life in those early oceans. 

This gift is still giving: with a rather extraodianary hemichordate: a cousin of ours; a worm of some distinction. If Blackadder had been a palaeontologist, he would have been taken aback by the worm that looks like a thingy nestling in those warm waters. To view a modern equivalent, click on the link.

When I look down, is it a case of convergent evolution?

North Korea bays to the moon

North Korea has played a strong defence from a position of weakness depending upon threats, bluster and the covert deployment of weapons of mass destruction and their proliferation to obtain aid from the West. Without such assistance, it is not clear that the existing regime: a revolutionary regime ossifying into a hereditary kleptocracy would have survived without reform. (One looks to the red princelings of its big brother, China, to see how one party states follow this path, even without personality cults). 

North Korea has recently conducted another nuclear test and stated that it has a ballistic missile almost ready for intercontinental attacks. The new leader, Kim Jong Un, has proved even more aggressive than his father (who is rumoured to have died in a fit of angry apoplexy). The rhetoric, the grooves, the moves have become shriller as the regime ups the ante.

This becomes a concern since it mirrors an increasingly assertive China. Foreign policy is partially restructured by the People's Liberation Army, which appears to wag the Communist party, not vice versa. Is it too far-fetched to think that North Korea's own repudiation of the armistice and bellicose threats to attack the US mirror those of its patron? 

With treaty conditions, Chinese assertions, increased tensions on the Korean peninsula and the freedom of manoevre for radicals and hotheads to aggressively threaten the status quo, is it not a concern that war could break out in the Far East? Will the Glosters again defend Imjin?

War poetry: recent conflicts

The poetry of the first world war is famous: commemorated and memorialised, often through the death of the authors. Who can forget that Isaac Rosenberg or Wilfred Owen never made it back; both dying in 1918 towards the end of the Great War. Their lasting legacy was a powerful set of poems celebrated by contemporaries and canonised. Yet far more popular remained poems of war, glory, duty, honour and pride at the time. Readers did not wish to fumble for reflection or cast their minds to froth corrupted lungs. Their imperial horizons were bound by Kipling.

Contemporary wars have also brought out poetry from all ranks. Its rawness and debt to preceding soldier poets is clear, but those untaught in literature who are moved to pen prove better at articulation than academics wedded to obscurantism. Experience clarifies. I am not sure that this poetry will stand for many years; and, gathers across all views: from those who view the wars as unjust to working class men angered by ranting crtics outside army recruitment offices:

For a middle class student, from here or a foreign state, 
to call a working class soldier scum, makes me more than irate. 
Your own rights of freedom are paid by us scum, 
who stand up against evil, in front of hells guns.    

There are a new generation of soldier poets writing in Iraq or Afghanistan who deserve to be read.

Half a ring to capture a city: the Capital Ring Section 2

The Capital Ring is an ideal winter walk sheltering amongst the green harbours of London's inner city boroughs. Taking the urban heat effect in my calculations, this counts as a challenge for the current months. So, some days ago, I ventured onto my second section: Crystal Palace to Richmond Bridge.

Not as ugly as the Thames Path zero or as fulfilling as some other walks, but I found the route a pleasant stroll. No difficult hills or muddy troughs, the route follows suburban roads for the first section. If there is time to admire the villas with their odd accoutrements adorned by some eccentric, such delights are punctuated by the scrappy parks chosen by some rambler as the quintessence of greenery in the city. There is one stretch near the beginning where the view over south London from the Battersea power station west is worth drinking in. But the path declines towards the Thames and no vista awaits until Richmond. 

If the first half of the walk celebrates suburbia, the second celebrates parkland. Follow through Streatham Park and the rest of the way is forest or parkland by Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park. The path led me by ways that I had not seen before: a windmill of unusual provenance at Wimbledon and the wilder stretches of Richmond. The deer proved elusive due to a Sunday population of trippers and dogwalkers. 

Finally the path pours down the hill to Petersham meadows and I turned away at Richmond Bridge to enjoy a pint. The walk is easy to follow with good signage. You don't even need a map. But the enjoyment comes from the unexpected: a normal house with stained glass windows; a war memorial (as opposed to the bastardised monument to amoralised universalism enshrined at the far end of the green by a left wing council ashamed of working class duty and sacrifice); or the small sense of pride seeing Dartford increase in distance on the signs passed - a small indication of the path travelled.

And I have reached the Thames again...

Spontaneous regeneration

One of the common problems with following trends is that they change their names frequently, often to raise resources or avoid the negative connotations of the previous label. Sometimes, the new label can be meaningless, vague and irrational like climate change (as opposed to the accurate if clumsy anthropogenic global warming).

So when did stem cells become regenerative medicine? The switchover appears to date to about 2005 onwards. It was not caused by a bad press or the culture wars vigorously pursued by bioconservatives. Yet, when a National Centre was designated in the United States, regenerative medicine was preferred to stem cell research. 

The original term stems from a 1992 article and acquired power in the middle of the last decade. Medical practitioners prefer the term to stem cells and the cachet now brands reseach centres, academic journals, firms and associations. In the space of eight years, medical potential has uplifted a disciplinary cadre. I hope the research programme bears hopeful fruit.

No negotiation says Rompuy

Van Rompuy is the latest EU personage to make a statement about the theoretical 'Brexit'. Again, the line has been adopted: the treaties are not up for amendment and an 'a la carte' menu is not allowed. To force this momentum, Van Rompuy emphasised that the option was in or out. 

"The wish to redefine your country's relationship with the Union has not gone unnoticed," said Van Rompuy, a former premier of EU founding member Belgium. "I cannot speak on behalf of the other presidents and prime ministers, but I presume they neither particularly like it, nor particularly fear it."

Perhaps Van Rompuy thought that his line was a clever construction: emphasize the costs and introduce the notion that other members of the European Council are not particularly bothered. This could be defined as an emotional defence. Describe the exit as a form of petulance and indulge in personal metaphors as a descriptive narrative. If you judge this possible exit in a cold light: one of the biggest members leaving; Van Rompuy's speech trivialises the whole process and avoids an actual debate both here and in Europe.

The same symptoms are also displayed in debates over the Euro: an inability to engage with the catastrophic problems of the currency zone and rhetoric that puts forward stories without meaning. Sometimes, the utterances of EU spokespersons rival Comical Ali in their distance from reality.

How does this affect Cameron's wish to renegotiate relationships with the European Union? These statements prove that the ideological underpinnings of 'ever closer union' prevent the Commission and the European Parliament from supporting realistic changes to membership status. Their adherence to all or nothing leads those opposed from in to out. A truer question is how far their adherence will take them if political events within the Eurozone starts to undermine that glue?