informage

Simon's response to my post on Tuvalu is a well researched and argued piece (I'd expect nothing less from a blog entitled Rational Liberal, and by the way Psi: I like - it suits you). The quality of referencing puts me to shame. I actually agree with almost everything he says, and all three of his recommended steps of increased neutrality of scientific research funding, improved empiricism and teaching people to be better at evaluating competing sources of information certainly get my solid support.

Contemporary human epistemology is limited, and we rely on "best estimates". As far as I can tell - and Simon's piece actually reinforces this - the current scientific consensus is that human actions *are* causing climate change, and that climate change will cause changes in sea levels. Any debate appears to be around how much change will occur and over what time period. Considering that all predictions are based on metereological models, and that the best of those models can still have difficulty predicting events more than a few days away, I feel personally open to the possibility that any research findings contain errors. It seems that the eventual test will inevitably be the one we'll live through.

Tuvalu and the recent tsunami are important, not because they provide evidence of anything, but because they act as a kind of harbinger; a means of contacting the possible reality we may have to live into. No one seriously suggests any link between climate change and the tsunami, and perhaps Simon is also right to argue that there is not much of a link with Tuvalu either. When a Tuvuluan says "Doubters should visit Tuvalu", perhaps he offers an opportunity to see what the future might look like rather than an experience of any real emperical value.

My own private Tuvalu was J.G. Ballard's first, and - of those I've read - best, novel The Drowned World. The novel is set some two hundred years in the future after the sea levels have risen, most of the world is underwater, and humanity has retreated to the arctic circle. The focus of Ballard's narrative is the pyschological unravelling of each of the members of a rescue mission that, it transpires, is boating around the remaining visible peaks of London. One by one the characters sail off towards the south and the sun as they get "the dreams" - dark vivid pre-racial memories of a time when humanity was dominated by lizards. Giant iguanas and geckos line the flooded avenues of the city and the baking heat saps the will.

The twist is that Ballard wrote this novel in 1962 before notions of human-induced climate change or global warming had entered the scientific vocabulary. He actually attributes the change in the weather to unusually high levels of solar flare activity, drawing no connection to human activity. It doesn't matter. Ballard wrote an extraordinarily evocative account of what it might be like to be alive as we become aliens on our own planet, as our environment shifts out from under us and ceases to support us. If it happens it'll be damn scary, and if there's anything we can do now to prevent it, then for pete's sake let's do it!

(from Tom Tomorrow)

Now I am not a black chopper guy, apart from anything else I think that there's enough bad crap out there that's openly admitted without distracting our attention with tenuous stories.

However, the more articles like this one on commondreams.org (amongst other sources) that I read, the more I wonder exactly how "free and fair" this little election the other day was.

Reserving judgement right now, but I'm keeping an eye on this story. (2004-11-08)

UPDATE: Simon responded with a link to a Salon article that concludes "The system is clearly broken. But there is no evidence that Bush won because of voter fraud." I don't really argue with that, although the suspicious voice inside me wonders what percentage of actual irregularities the evidence covers. As I said, I'm not a black chopper type, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Whether there was any deliberate wrong-doing, or just smatterings of incompetence and error, it makes the arrogant US attitude that they don't need foreign observers at their elections look even stupider than it did anyway - see for example this BBC article. (2004-11-11)

(by the way, Simon complained that comments are no more here. Well, I got bored of cleaning up spam. Anyone is welcome to email me comments which I will post verbatim if requested to - for those that don't know my email address you'll have to email sean@informage.net and look carefully at the bounce. Sorry about the hoops, but that's the way its gonna be).

Indymedia have frequently clashed with the authorities, it's an inevitable consequence of what they do. Recently they had two servers seized in London and no-one will tell them why or even who they were seized for. The FBI was responsible for the seizing but they're not talking, the UK government won't say if they even knew about it. The whole thing is creepy as all get out.

Salon have a decent article about the seizure which also acts as a mini-history of Indymedia's legal battles (subscription or daypass required). The perenially useful wikipedia has an informative entry and of course there's Indymedia themselves.

I wasn't at any point convinced that Kerry was going to be anything particularly inspiring, except in being "not Bush" and the slight difference in tone that would bring. Historically Democratic administrations have been at least as belligerent in their foreign policy, if not more, than Republican administrations, and as a non-US citizen this has to be my primary area of concern. (I recognise that for US citizens the difference may well have been less superficial).

I believe that there is a fairly consistent belief amongst those I regard as peers that the change we are looking for is on a much more profound level than the change from Republican to Democrat, from Bush to Kerry. A US ruling elite that believes it has the right to violently impose its will on both its own citizens and the citizens of the world is unacceptable to me. Unacceptable whether the figurehead appears to be an incompetent monkey or a sophisticated technocrat.

This article I regard as relevant because it highlights that a leader like Bush is a consequence of the systemic pressures on the politics that governs us. I don't believe too much blame can be laid at the hands of the people that elected him when their cultural context demands that they judge individuals as either worthy or unworthy of the mantle 'president' on very superficial criteria. When I try and 'redirect' to the kind of assessments the average middle American is making, I can see why they vote Bush. They know who he is, they understand him, they are familar with him.

So, although there is a feeling of defeat and depression around what seems a reactionary election result, I don't believe and don't feel that we should be too demoralised in the struggles and projects we are dealing with day-to-day. I believe they have the same chances of success as they had a week ago, and that those chances are high.

From The New York Times Corrections May 13:

"An accounting of reporting flaws on Sunday with an article about plagiarism, misstatements and possible fabrications uncovered in a review of work done by Jayson Blair before his resignation from The New York Times misstated a name in a sentence from a Washington Post article he apparently lifted. The Post article identified the missing serviceman for whom a prayer service was conducted in Cleveland as Brandon Sloan, not Brandy."

*sighs* will it never end?

How's this for spooky. On the very same day, I see on my blog stats that a visitor from Saudi Arabi has been eyeing up my blog, and I get this email:

Dear sir, Let me introduce myself , I am brother to Tariq Aziz , the deputy prime minister of Iraq , before the us led coalition war against my country. I have been working for my brother for past 15 years. My brother have the sum of [46 million Dollars] with me ,which to be send to Europe which has been done already. I have decided to find somebody who can help me to secure the money or establish the money in Europe.Actually my brother has more than that with me. I don't want my identity to be exposed to outside the world, I am now hiding in Kuwait. Please if you are interested in this deal or to be my partner please contact my lawyer through his E-mail address. I know nothing goes for nothing we will be negotiating after you contact my lawyer This is my lawyer E-mail address.... mattarozzi_mirco@rediffmail.com

Thanks.

Aziz.

So what do you think? Should I follow up on this? Sounds like a lot of cash...

I don't know how well discussed this has been back in blighty, but apparently The London Evening Standard are denying that a front-page photo of "Jubilation on the streets of Baghdad" was heavily doctored. The Guardian article runs with the Standard line. Pun definitely intended.

So I took a look at the evidence and it looks cut and dry to me. In fact I spotted the guy in sunglasses who's repeated just from looking at the original photo. It's pretty much cut, paste and dried in fact.

No doubt this kind of doctoring has been going on since The Paleolithic Post, so here's a small victory for the net that deception like this gets some decent exposure these days.