All posts by Richard
Dunedin turns on a nice day
[Reprised from Wombaticus Ad Nauseam, October 2007.]
Unexpectedly nice weather caused havoc in Dunedin yesterday, as temperatures soared to 18 degrees.
As local radio stations advised local residents to stay inside, police fielded a number of calls from people alarmed at the presence of an intense ball of fire in the sky. “We assured them it was only the sun,” said a police spokeswoman.
By lunchtime, Dunedin hospital’s Accident and Emergency department was overwhelmed by dozens of bald-headed men with sun-burnt scalps. “Their pallid pates are particularly susceptible to the sun’s ultraviolet rays,” said a doctor, adding that most of the patients had not heard of sun-screen. “We never bothered to take our ‘Slip Slop Slap’ campaign that far south,” a spokesman for the Cancer Society acknowledged, when contacted for comment.
Emergency services were stretched to the limit as scores of pedestrians around the city succumbed to heatstroke. The Fire Service were called in to attend one casualty on St. David St., a middle-aged woman who had to be cut free from several layers of polypropylene. The Mayor reacted quickly to the sudden crisis, appealing to those in other parts of New Zealand accustomed to sunshine to send teeshirts, shorts and light cotton garments.
Fortunately for the people of Dunedin, the crisis was short-lived. By early afternoon it had clouded over, and by late afternoon the temperature had plummeted to normal levels. By evening Dunedin was being lashed by a cold southerly bringing heavy rain.
See also Area Locals Exposed to Terrifying Force of Nature: Government Refuses to Help.
The Iron Law of Political Parties
The Iron Law of Institutions states
The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution “fail” while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to “succeed” if that requires them to lose power within the institution.
The Iron Law of Institutions is a sad indictment on human nature. So is this.
Membership of many institutions is voluntary. I’m thinking of charitable organisations, political parties and any other organisations whose goals are deemed worthy by their membership, and whose stated values it is that are the reason people became members in the first place.
What is it about so many people that, after having joined, they come to care more about personal aggrandisement than the values of the voluntary organisation they belong to?
Christianity is an antidote of sorts. A good Christian seeks to do God’s will. Nothing he does is for himself. It’s all for the greater glory of God.
The Iron Law of Institutions bites hardest when the members of those institutions are selected on the basis of psychopathy. Of course, not all politicians are psychopaths. But the successful ones usually are.
A successful politician who wasn’t a psychopath was Nandor Tanczos. He famously described Parliament as a “toxic hellhole” and was glad to see the back of the place.
Here’s a remarkably forthright piece from a Facebook friend of mine who’s also an aspiring politician.
A career in Politics basicallly consists of a career in attempting to get other people fired.
If you’re an MP, then you are trying to get other MPs fired. If you are not an MP, but are a candidate, then you are trying to get MPs fired so that you may become one. If you’re in Opposition, you want Ministers fired. If you’re a Nat Minister, then you want your workforce fired. (c.f MFaT restructuring) If you’re in ACT, you want most of the state sector AND your predecessor as Leader fired.
And if you’re in a political party (just about *any* political party), you will be spending considerable and capacious amounts of time attempting to get your own comrades, workmates, underlings and overlings fired.
So, in sum … Parents, if you want your offspring to grow up happy, healthy, of sound mind and secure prospects … don’t let them get into politics.
But if you want them to grow up to be bad wo/men, dangerous men , sad men, paranoid men, and vituperative, vindictive, and vexatious men … men who are, in short, entirely unbothered by playing merry hell with the lives of others for points of personal, political, or principle … then tell them to become Politicians.
And proud.
Is Curwen Ares Rolinson too honest ever to make a career in politics? Am I?! Time will tell.
R(1)8
This is the video documentary that, in the past 48 hours, has been viewed by 1 in 10 New Zealanders.
Won’t somebody please think of the children? That’s the question I’m asking. Because somebody needs to do something. But that somebody is not the government, and that something is not making legislative provision for tighter regulations, harsher penalties and harder-hitting advertising campaigns. Not at all.
“Only in fucking Fairfield.”
Not only in the suburbs of Hamilton, unfortunately. As the YouTube uploader says, “Time to reveal one of the BIGGEST issues in New Zealand, under-aged drinking.”
“He’s allowed.”
How did we get to this? For the answer to that, I suggest that readers take a while to follow some of the incisive and insightful social commentary at blogs such as Brendan McNeill‘s and Lindsay Mitchell‘s. Do so, and the root causes of New Zealand’s problems with drinking, drug use and delinquency ought quickly to become all too glaringly apparent.
“Bro, yous got a problem, bro? … He’s Maori, bro, he’s different. … Bro, he’s Maori. He’s a Maori, bro. Bro, we drink at any time, bro.” (“It could kill him.”) “It doesn’t matter, bro. … I been drinking since the age of 9.”
As ever: what is to be done?
Somehow, we need to return to Christian family values (commitment and fidelity—the child is from a broken home) and repair to parental responsibility (neither parent knew where he was, and an aunt, allegedly, had provided the alcohol – “He’s allowed”). Long-term, we need to bring about a cultural sea change.
In the short-term, the NZ Police are trying to have the clip removed from the Internet. Good luck with that.
“Fuck drinking, smoke weed.”
It’s good advice, but not to a 9 year old.
“I do smoke weed.”
This is where I say a few words about our drug laws.
A common objection to cannabis legalisation is that society already has enough problems with alcohol. We don’t want to add another mind-altering drug to the mix. We already have 9 year olds turning up drunk to skate parks. We don’t want them turning up drunk and stoned.
Well, guess what? At the bottom end of society, neither regulation nor prohibition can stop New Zealand’s two favourite drugs, alcohol and cannabis, from falling into the hands of minors. Over the rest of us, regulation can provide government with some measure of control. But to regulate is to legalise.
The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party‘s policy is for the sale and use of cannabis to be strictly R18.
There’s one factual error in the documentary.
“You can’t ride a scooter when you’re drunk and 9 years old.”
The video evidence says otherwise.
To conclude, in the words of the YouTube uploader, “You may think this video is funny, but there’s a point where it becomes serious as alcohol intake can cause serious impalement and damaging to the brain.”
Oceanicide
It’s hardly news, but we are overfishing our oceans and filling them with rubbish and radioactive waste.
Last year, yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen gave a grim account of his ocean voyage from Melbourne, Australia to Osaka, Japan.
It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it.
Not the absence of sound, exactly.
The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull.
And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris.
What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.
The birds were missing because the fish were missing.
Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he’d had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.
“There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn’t catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice,” Macfadyen recalled.
But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.
No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.
Some of the rubbish that Macfadyen encountered and most of the radioactivity is there as a direct result of the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that ensued. Even so, what we are doing to our oceans greatly worries me.
In the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N is a gyre of marine debris known as the Great Pacific garbage patch (also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex).
The patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography, since it consists primarily of suspended particulates in the upper water column. Since plastics break down to even smaller polymers, concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper water column is significantly higher than average.
We’re talking roughly 5 kilograms of plastic per square kilometer, covering an area of ocean between 700,000 and 5,000,000 square kilometers in size. So, between 3.5 and 25 million kilograms – the equivalent of 5 billion plastic grocery bags. Still just a fraction of 1% of the more than 100 million tons of plastic garbage that floats at sea according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The video above is the trailer to the movie Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
(The North Atlantic garbage patch is a similar patch of floating plastic debris found in the Atlantic Ocean. Here‘s a picture of a man in a boat in Manila harbour in the Philippines. Rubbish, rubbish, everywhere.)
Now, just in case you thought you’d accidentally clicked on a link to Frogblog, why am I telling you this?
Because I’m wondering, what’s the libertarian solution to this particular tragedy of the commons?
As ever: what is to be done? We can’t privatise the oceans the same as we could privatise the whales.
Well, here’s my idea. Get a boat and a trash compactor and sail out to the Great Pacific garbage patch and create a habitable, floating island in the middle of the North Pacific Gyre. Then, start your own country!
The concept isn’t new. It’s called seasteading. The details aren’t new, either.
billionaire adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild announced his plans to visit the trash mass on the Plastiki, a boat constructed from recycled waste and webs of plastic. Now the Plastiki has launched, and a group of architects from Rotterdam have already come up with another way to draw attention to the plastic gyre: a Hawaii-sized island made entirely out of recycled plastic.
That water looks inviting! And now that US President Obama has approved his Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to raise the levels of exposure to radiation deemed safe, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and other radiological incidents, it should be just fine to swim in.
Satanist or reptilian shapeshifter?
It’s often said that Satan’s greatest trick was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist.
That’s not quite right.
Satan’s greatest trick was convincing his own followers that he doesn’t exist!
Magister Diabolus Rex Leaves the Church of Satan
Magister Diabolus Rex has resigned his title and membership in the Church of Satan effective January 1 due to the incompatibility of his personal belief in a literally existing “Prince of Darkness” and the fundamental Atheism of the philosophy of Anton Szandor LaVey. We wish him well on his new path.
Readers should be aware that the late Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, was no ordinary atheist. He was, in fact, an Objectivist—a disciple of Ayn Rand.
In two important respects, then, Diabolus Rex obviously isn’t a total fool.
Even so, I think he’s seriously misguided. 🙁
Meanwhile, in other news of this world …
After a schism, a question: Can atheist churches last?
LONDON (CNN) – The Sunday Assembly was riding high.
The world’s most voguish – though not its only – atheist church opened last year in London, to global attention and abundant acclaim.
So popular was the premise, so bright the promise, that soon the Sunday Assembly was ready to franchise, branching out into cities such as New York, Dublin and Melbourne.
“It’s a way to scale goodness,” declared Sanderson Jones, a standup comic and co-founder of The Sunday Assembly, which calls itself a “godless congregation.”
But nearly as quickly as the Assembly spread, it split, with New York City emerging as organized atheism’s Avignon.
In October, three former members of Sunday Assembly NYC announced the formation of a breakaway group called Godless Revival.
“The Sunday Assembly,” wrote Godless Revival founder Lee Moore in a scathing blog post, “has a problem with atheism.”
Moore alleges that, among other things, Jones advised the NYC group to “boycott the word atheism” and “not to have speakers from the atheist community.” It also wanted the New York branch to host Assembly services in a churchlike setting, instead of the Manhattan dive bar where it was launched.
Jones denies ordering the NYC chapter to do away with the word “atheism,” but acknowledges telling the group “not to cater solely to atheists.” He also said he advised them to leave the dive bar “where women wore bikinis,” in favor of a more family-friendly venue.
The squabbles led to a tiff and finally a schism between two factions within Sunday Assembly NYC. Jones reportedly told Moore that his faction was no longer welcome in the Sunday Assembly movement.
Moore promises that his group, Godless Revival, will be more firmly atheistic than the Sunday Assembly, which he now dismisses as “a humanistic cult.”
In a recent interview, Jones described the split as “very sad.” But, he added, “ultimately, it is for the benefit of the community. One day, I hope there will soon be communities for every different type of atheist, agnostic and humanist. We are only one flavor of ice cream, and one day we hope there’ll be congregations for every godless palate.”
Nevertheless, the New York schism raises critical questions about the Sunday Assembly. Namely: Can the atheist church model survive? Is disbelief enough to keep a Sunday gathering together?
LOL! Read more here.
CLR Rule #1: Don’t diss other people’s drugs
As regular readers will know, I’m actively involved in the drug law reform (DLR) movement here in New Zealand.
In particular, I’m actively involved in the cannabis law reform (CLR) movement. And I regularly see some of my fellow cannabis law reform activists dissing other people’s drugs. My fellow cannabis law reform activists, how can I put this politely?
Stay off the synthetics and stay off the booze!
Here are some wise words from Vince McLeod, author of the Cannabis Activist’s Handbook: A How-To Guide for Fighting Cannabis Prohibition.
[A] common mistake is to attack alcohol and alcohol users. People who enjoy drinking alcohol are often the same sort of people who would enjoy using cannabis, and they will not support cannabis law reform if activists harp on about the damage done by alcohol. Most importantly, cannabis law reformers are not arguing for alcohol prohibition, so there is little advantage in pointing out the damage caused by it (unless the activist is making the argument that the harms done by alcohol are considered acceptable by society and therefore cannabis ought to be accepted as well).
At all times, the cannabis law reform movement must resist any and all efforts to divide it. There are not enough cannabis law reform activists to survive any kind of factionalisation, and prohibitionists are well aware of this.
The classic way of doing this is to set cannabis users who have different goals against each other. … Do not fall for this … the division and infighting caused … do incalculable damage to the movement.
Another way of achieving this is to set cannabis users off against their natural allies. Alcohol was once prohibited, and many of the same wowsers responsible for that are responsible for cannabis prohibition. Likewise, many of the same people who believe that people should be free to drink alcohol believe that people should be free to use cannabis. For these reasons, the cannabis law reform activist should resist the temptation to attack alcohol and alcohol users, even if the evidence is clear that it does more damage to individuals and society than cannabis does or ever could. It is a strong argument to point out that if society can deal with alcohol it can deal with cannabis, but it is best to leave it at that.
The Cannabis Activist’s Handbook is published by VJM Publishing and is available in paperback or as a Kindle edition from Amazon.
The problem of comorbidity
I once suggested that Objectivism is a form of demonic possession.
My unusual suggestion was not well received. One of the usual suspects had this to say.
Richard, your speculation is not a legitimate scientific theory … because demons do not exist, neither do gods, fairies, Santa’s-little-helpers or harpies. You’ve never seen one, heard one, touched one, smelled one nor tasted one, neither can you provide an iota of rationale that there exists such a spirit in the universe.
What was called “demon possession” by religionists is mental illness. You’re giving a psychiatric condition a superstitious definition. You call that scientific?
What is called mental illness by psychiatrists is demonic possession. I don’t call the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders scientific, and neither do many clinical neuroscientists.
Diagnostic Classification Needs Fundamental Reform
The problem with the DSM-IV, our current shared diagnostic language, is that a large and growing body of evidence demonstrates that it does a poor job of capturing either clinical [or] biological realities. In the clinic, the limitations of the current DSM-IV approach can be illustrated in three salient areas: (1) the problem of comorbidity, (2) the widespread need for “not otherwise specific (NOS)” diagnoses, and (3) the arbitrariness of diagnostic thresholds.
Both in clinical practice and in large epidemiological studies, it is highly likely that any patient who receives a single DSM-IV diagnosis will, in addition, qualify for others, and the patient’s diagnostic mixture may shift over time. There is a high frequency of comorbidity—for example, many patients are diagnosed with multiple DSM-IV anxiety disorders and with DSM-IV dysthymia (chronic mild depression), major depression, or both. Many patients with an autism–related diagnosis are also diagnosed with, obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The frequency with which patients receive multiple diagnoses far outstrips what would be predicted if co-occurrence were happening simply by chance. Researchers who have made careful studies of comorbidity, such as Robert Krueger at the University of Minnesota, have found that co-occurring diagnoses tend to form stable clusters across patient populations, suggesting to some that the DSM system has drawn many unnatural boundaries within broader psychopathological states.
If the concept of mental illness does “a poor job of capturing either clinical [or] biological realities” then how, exactly, is it an advance over the concept of demonic possession?
Two thousand years ago the Gospel authors were well aware of the problem of comorbidity and, in fact, mention it no less than twice.
In the introduction to the Parable of the Sower in the Gospel of Luke we read
Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out (NIV)
and in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke we read (variations of) the story of the Gadarene Swine. It’s one of my favourites.
They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss. (NIV)
A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. (NIV)
We all have demons and we often refer to them in animistic terms.
Me, I’m intimately familiar with the Black Dog. Depression’s a bitch, for sure. Thank God, she’s been sent packing and I haven’t seen her in a while. But my mind’s still holiday home to a menagerie of monkeys.
Psychiatric counselling and psychiatric drugs can and do help those afflicted by so-called mental illnesses … somewhat. So I’m not knocking psychiatrists and psychiatry … much.
So, what about exorcism? I’ll leave that to another psychotic episode.
Cannabis should be given interim product approval
Cannabis should be given interim product approval
Herbal cannabis should be given immediate interim product approval under the Psychoactive Substances Act says Dr. Richard Goode, Vice President of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.
His call follows the Ministry of Health’s admission that finalising the safety rules for the legal highs market was “taking longer than expected.”
In 2012 former Associate Minister of Health, Peter Dunne, speaking on behalf of the current National government, promised that “if [manufacturers] cannot prove that a product is safe, then it is not going anywhere near the marketplace. None of these products will come to market if they have not been proven safe.”
“Instead, we are now six months into a an interim period, during which time a dozen or so different synthetic cannabinoids have been approved by the Ministry of Health. And now that interim period looks to stretch to up to a year,” Dr. Goode said.
“The point is that none of these products has yet been properly safety tested. We know nothing of their long-term, chronic health effects. How long do we continue to test these products on consumers before we find out?
“However, we know a great deal about the long-term effects of cannabis, which is the most popular illegal drug in New Zealand. These synthetic highs are specifically designed to emulate natural cannabis, which we know is a benign, low-risk plant substance.”
The ALCP exists to legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes.
“Let’s legalise cannabis now, so the Ministry of Health can have all the time it needs to get its act sorted, and cannabinoid connoisseurs can continue to get high on the real deal,” Dr. Goode said.
“God made cannabis before man made synthetic cannabinoids. In whom do you trust?”
Dr. Richard Goode
Vice President of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
Email: vp@alcp.org.nz
Phone: 021 340057
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party – Truth, Freedom, Justice
www.alcp.org.nz
ENDS
Peak Rand
I was saddened to read that Lindsay Perigo’s forum Sense of Life Objectivists (SOLO) has gone down.
Here‘s my SOLO blog. I posted and commented there between November 2007 and February 2013.
In the end, SOLO’s proprietor succumbed to GDS. (He may yet succumb to something momentous.)
I had two main gripes with SOLO and SOLOists.
They misrepresented me. From the outset.
And they misrepresented themselves as advocates and champions of Reason. Typically, SOLOists have no interest in, and no aptitude for, Reason. As my posts here, here and here amply demonstrate.
Anyway, Perigo insists that SOLO is down but not out. It will be back from the dead, perhaps even as soon as next month. I look forward to the resurrected SOLO.
Meanwhile, in other news from beyond the grave …
Philosopher contemplates ACT leadership role
A former lecturer in philosophy at Cambridge University wants to save the ACT Party and take over John Banks’ Epsom seat.
He’s Jamie Whyte, a management consultant, writer and committed advocate of the free market who has been living in Britain.
With Mr Banks on the way out, ACT is in the worst shape it’s ever been in and history hasn’t been kind to the party.
Now Mr Whyte wants to captain the sinking ship.
“Jamie Whyte does well to save himself, but he’s going to do his best to save ACT,” says Mr Whyte.
“I believe in the principles of ACT.”
A philosopher leading a libertarian party? It’s the best news I’ve heard all year!
A free PDF of Jamie Whyte’s Free Thoughts is available from the Adam Smith Institute here.
From what I’ve read so far, Whyte is surely the man to lead ACT back from oblivion.
(He makes some points with which I disagree, e.g., his Times column, I don’t believe that believers really believe, contains a number of egregious errors. Perhaps I’ll point them out to him and explain why they’re errors. I’m sure he’ll listen to Reason.)