Saturday, March 13, 2010
RADIATION DAMAGE - LNT OR HORMESIS - PROF COHEN'S PAPER
Extracts from Professor Bernard Cohen's paper
Validity of the Linear No-Threshold Theory of Radiation Carcinogenesis at Low Doses
on the alleged damage caused by low level radiation:
Basis for the Linear No-Threshold Theory
The principal basis for the LNT is theoretical, and very simple. A single particle of radiation hitting a single DNA molecule in a single cell nucleus of a human body can initiate a cancer. The probability of a cancer initiation is therefore proportional to the number of such hits, which is proportional to the number of particles of radiation, which is proportional to the dose. Thus, the risk is linearly dependent on the dose; this is the LNT.
The problem with this very simple argument is that factors other than initiating events affect the cancer risk. Our bodies have biological defence mechanisms (BDMs) which prevent the vast majority of initiating events from developing into a fatal cancer...
There is plenty of very direct and obvious evidence on this. For example, the number of initiating events is roughly proportional to the mass of the animal; more DNA targets means more hits. Thus, the simple theory predicts the cancer risk to be proportional to the mass of the animal. But experience indicates that the cancer risk in a given radiation field is roughly the same for a 30 gram mouse as for a 70 000 gram man, and there is no evidence that elephants are more susceptible than either.
If only the number of hits (which is proportional to the number of initiating events) were relevant (regardless of the mass of the target), then our very definition of dose in terms of radiation hits per unit mass of the target would be misleading. Another obvious example of the failure of the simple basis for the LNT is in the spectacular increase in cancer incidence with age. Young people experience cancer initiating hits as frequently as old people, but the probability for a cancer to develop is much higher in old people...
Effects of Low Level Radiation on Cancer Development
The effects of LLR on several different measures of the immune response are ...the immune response is increased by LLR. There is at least one study of this effect over a wide range of radiation doses (Ref 10). It reports increases in immune response by 80% in vitro and by 40% in vivo at about 20 rad followed by a rapid decrease to well below the unirradiated level at doses of about 50 rad.
All of the work reported in this section suggests that LLR is protective against cancer; quite the opposite of what is expected from the LNT. Not only has the simple basis for the LNT collapsed, but also there is a large body of evidence indicating that a more complete treatment of the problem would show a decrease in risk with increasing dose in the low dose region.
Risk vs. Dose Data from Human Exposures
IARC study (Ref 15) of 95 673 monitored radiation workers in the USA, the UK and Canada. For all cancers except leukaemia, there were 3830 deaths but no excess over the number expected. The risk is reported as -0.07 per Sv with 90% confidence limits (-0.4, +0.3). There is surely no support for the LNT here...
The data on leukaemia among A-bomb survivors ... data strongly suggest a threshold above 20 cSv.
for breast cancer among Canadian women exposed to x-ray fluoroscopic examinations for tuberculosis ... there seems to be a decrease in risk with increasing dose, at least up to 20 cSv.
... bone and head cancers among dial painters, chemists, and others occupationally exposed to ingested radium ... there were no tumours among those with exposures below 1000 cGy ... give no support for the LNT, and are strongly suggestive of a threshold behaviour. Moreover, this threshold behaviour is strongly supported with much better statistics by data from injection of radioactivity into animals.
.... the percentage of all deaths that are from cancer varies in the USA from 22% in New England to 17% in the Rocky Mountain States (where radiation levels are highest)...
no excess cancer has been found in the high radiation areas of India or Brazil. But all such effects can easily be explained by potential...
Obtaining Indisputable Evidence
According to the LNT, {radon in homes] is responsible for at least 10% of all lung cancers, and a known confounding factor, cigarette smoking, is responsible for nearly all of the rest. Another advantage is that levels of radon in homes vary much more widely than natural gamma radiation.
There have been numerous case-control studies of the relationship between radon in homes and lung cancer... results from different studies have been inconsistent. This work has given no statistically significant information on the validity of the LNT in the low dose region... A different approach, specifically designed for testing the LNT, was carried out by the present author and is described in the following section.
University of Pittsburgh Study
...We compiled hundreds of thousands of radon measurements from several sources to give the average radon level (r) in homes for 1729 US counties, well over half of all US counties and comprising about 90% of the total US population
We see a clear tendency for m [age adjusted lung cancer rates] to decrease with increasing r [radon level], in sharp contrast to the increase expected from the supposition that radon can cause lung cancer, shown by the line labelled "theory".
The report goes through a number of possible confounding factors which could distort the result & concludes
Since they are typical of the largest confounding effects one can plausibly expect, it is extremely difficult to imagine a confounding effect that can explain the discrepancy. Requirements on such an unrecognised confounding factor were listed, and they make its existence seem extremely implausible.
Since no other plausible explanation has been found after years of effort by myself and others, I conclude that the most plausible explanation for our discrepancy is that the linear no-threshold theory fails, grossly over-estimating the cancer risk in the low dose, low dose rate region. There are no other data capable of testing the theory in that region.
An easy answer to the credibility of this conclusion would be for someone to suggest a potential, not implausible, explanation based on some selected variables. Either they or I will then calculate what values of those variables are required to explain our discrepancy. We can then make a judgement on the plausibility of that explanation. To show that this procedure is not unreasonable, I offer to provide a not implausible explanation for any finding of any other published ecological study. This alone demonstrates that our work is very different from any other ecological study, and therefore deserves separate consideration.
I have highlighted the last paragraph because this is precisely how science works. Measurements & theories are tested to destruction, or otherwise. Anybody maintaining the "official" LNT theory or even disputing its opposite, the hormesis theory, simply has to be prepared to put up an alternative, plausible, explanation for these measurements. Anybody arguing against them without at least putting forward a testable hypothesis, no matter how well supported they are by the great & good in government, is simply showing no respect for scientific principles.
I assume, from the fact that it isn't recorded, that no supporter of the official line has done so. - Neil
Validity of the Linear No-Threshold Theory of Radiation Carcinogenesis at Low Doses
on the alleged damage caused by low level radiation:
Basis for the Linear No-Threshold Theory
The principal basis for the LNT is theoretical, and very simple. A single particle of radiation hitting a single DNA molecule in a single cell nucleus of a human body can initiate a cancer. The probability of a cancer initiation is therefore proportional to the number of such hits, which is proportional to the number of particles of radiation, which is proportional to the dose. Thus, the risk is linearly dependent on the dose; this is the LNT.
The problem with this very simple argument is that factors other than initiating events affect the cancer risk. Our bodies have biological defence mechanisms (BDMs) which prevent the vast majority of initiating events from developing into a fatal cancer...
There is plenty of very direct and obvious evidence on this. For example, the number of initiating events is roughly proportional to the mass of the animal; more DNA targets means more hits. Thus, the simple theory predicts the cancer risk to be proportional to the mass of the animal. But experience indicates that the cancer risk in a given radiation field is roughly the same for a 30 gram mouse as for a 70 000 gram man, and there is no evidence that elephants are more susceptible than either.
If only the number of hits (which is proportional to the number of initiating events) were relevant (regardless of the mass of the target), then our very definition of dose in terms of radiation hits per unit mass of the target would be misleading. Another obvious example of the failure of the simple basis for the LNT is in the spectacular increase in cancer incidence with age. Young people experience cancer initiating hits as frequently as old people, but the probability for a cancer to develop is much higher in old people...
Effects of Low Level Radiation on Cancer Development
The effects of LLR on several different measures of the immune response are ...the immune response is increased by LLR. There is at least one study of this effect over a wide range of radiation doses (Ref 10). It reports increases in immune response by 80% in vitro and by 40% in vivo at about 20 rad followed by a rapid decrease to well below the unirradiated level at doses of about 50 rad.
All of the work reported in this section suggests that LLR is protective against cancer; quite the opposite of what is expected from the LNT. Not only has the simple basis for the LNT collapsed, but also there is a large body of evidence indicating that a more complete treatment of the problem would show a decrease in risk with increasing dose in the low dose region.
Risk vs. Dose Data from Human Exposures
IARC study (Ref 15) of 95 673 monitored radiation workers in the USA, the UK and Canada. For all cancers except leukaemia, there were 3830 deaths but no excess over the number expected. The risk is reported as -0.07 per Sv with 90% confidence limits (-0.4, +0.3). There is surely no support for the LNT here...
The data on leukaemia among A-bomb survivors ... data strongly suggest a threshold above 20 cSv.
for breast cancer among Canadian women exposed to x-ray fluoroscopic examinations for tuberculosis ... there seems to be a decrease in risk with increasing dose, at least up to 20 cSv.
... bone and head cancers among dial painters, chemists, and others occupationally exposed to ingested radium ... there were no tumours among those with exposures below 1000 cGy ... give no support for the LNT, and are strongly suggestive of a threshold behaviour. Moreover, this threshold behaviour is strongly supported with much better statistics by data from injection of radioactivity into animals.
.... the percentage of all deaths that are from cancer varies in the USA from 22% in New England to 17% in the Rocky Mountain States (where radiation levels are highest)...
no excess cancer has been found in the high radiation areas of India or Brazil. But all such effects can easily be explained by potential...
Obtaining Indisputable Evidence
According to the LNT, {radon in homes] is responsible for at least 10% of all lung cancers, and a known confounding factor, cigarette smoking, is responsible for nearly all of the rest. Another advantage is that levels of radon in homes vary much more widely than natural gamma radiation.
There have been numerous case-control studies of the relationship between radon in homes and lung cancer... results from different studies have been inconsistent. This work has given no statistically significant information on the validity of the LNT in the low dose region... A different approach, specifically designed for testing the LNT, was carried out by the present author and is described in the following section.
University of Pittsburgh Study
...We compiled hundreds of thousands of radon measurements from several sources to give the average radon level (r) in homes for 1729 US counties, well over half of all US counties and comprising about 90% of the total US population
We see a clear tendency for m [age adjusted lung cancer rates] to decrease with increasing r [radon level], in sharp contrast to the increase expected from the supposition that radon can cause lung cancer, shown by the line labelled "theory".
The report goes through a number of possible confounding factors which could distort the result & concludes
Since they are typical of the largest confounding effects one can plausibly expect, it is extremely difficult to imagine a confounding effect that can explain the discrepancy. Requirements on such an unrecognised confounding factor were listed, and they make its existence seem extremely implausible.
Since no other plausible explanation has been found after years of effort by myself and others, I conclude that the most plausible explanation for our discrepancy is that the linear no-threshold theory fails, grossly over-estimating the cancer risk in the low dose, low dose rate region. There are no other data capable of testing the theory in that region.
An easy answer to the credibility of this conclusion would be for someone to suggest a potential, not implausible, explanation based on some selected variables. Either they or I will then calculate what values of those variables are required to explain our discrepancy. We can then make a judgement on the plausibility of that explanation. To show that this procedure is not unreasonable, I offer to provide a not implausible explanation for any finding of any other published ecological study. This alone demonstrates that our work is very different from any other ecological study, and therefore deserves separate consideration.
I have highlighted the last paragraph because this is precisely how science works. Measurements & theories are tested to destruction, or otherwise. Anybody maintaining the "official" LNT theory or even disputing its opposite, the hormesis theory, simply has to be prepared to put up an alternative, plausible, explanation for these measurements. Anybody arguing against them without at least putting forward a testable hypothesis, no matter how well supported they are by the great & good in government, is simply showing no respect for scientific principles.
I assume, from the fact that it isn't recorded, that no supporter of the official line has done so. - Neil
Labels: Government parasitism, Hormesis, Science/technology
Friday, March 12, 2010
WHAT LABOUR'S BUDGET SHOULD SAY IF THEY WANT TO WIN
This isn't exactly original. I detailed a year & a half ago how to get not merely out of recession but into world class growth a year & a half ago & nobody, least of all no politician, has disputed that it would work. Nor have they done anything. This was & is my 16 point plan:
1 - Cut the size of government spending - I would go for a no new hires rule & price freeze in the government, probably excluding new doctors & a few other proven front line requirements - this should be about a 5% real reduction year on year. Also completely prune particular departments described later. 5% of the budget is £30 billion so including both actions over a couple of years that is probably about £100 billion. Mark Wadsworth comes up with a similar figure from different directions. This doesn't itself increase the economy, indeed cutting the non-productive £100 billion would cut the economy by £100 billion (ie 7%) but gives us money which can be used with a real multiplier effect & long term growth benefits.
2 - Cut corporation tax to Irish levels - cost about £30 billion & this is the main bit of what got Ireland's growth up from 2% to 7%.
3 - Lets go overboard & cut business rates too - about £20 billion at half the effect.
4 - Gut the Health & Safety Exec - if it saves the work of 4 million workers that is 14% of the economy.
5 - Allow the free market to build as many nuclear plants as the market needs, starting tomorrow. There are arguments for & against the government paying for & owning it but lets keep it simple & at zero cost.
6 - Improve transport - better roads, particularly motorway junctions, allowing airports to expand & the road tunnels project. Cost a few billion. Improving transport infrastructure is one of the things where government expenditure actually works.
7 - Adult job training. Hire retiring plumbers, electricians etc etc to do evening classes in some of the schools empty in the evenings. Adult, particularly male, technical education is the part of education which shows real worthwhile payoff in productivity.
8 - Automate the rail system & introduce lightweight vehicles based on road vehicle technology. My guess is this would be about £10 billion annually but once it is done rail costs go way down & capacity way up.
9 - Quit the EU. The Bruges Group have said the EU costs us £55 billion in direct costs. The EU's Enterprise Commissioner says the regulations alone cost £405 billion - ie £67 billion to us.
10 - Allow almost unrestricted housebuilding & encourage modular methods. This should let them cost about 1/4 the present price. Housebuilding is pretty much the biggest industry in any country & that would give us an enormous boost.
11 - End most of the sort of "environmental" regulations which have stopped Trump investing his £1 billion here for 3 years. This alone has cost the Exchequer £360 billion (£12% a year).
12 - This has already been done, albeit accidentally & need not be extended - Letting the £ drop is a major stimulus to the productive sector though exports. It worked in Major's time too - also accidentally.
13 - An X-Prize foundation & a free market regime on Ascension Island as a British Space base. So long as the Foundation is guaranteed an increasing amount of money at approx 5% above the rate of growth & able to offer prizes based on what the fund will be in future it can offer multiples of the current cost & in turn the gain to the economy will be multiples of that figure. Of course if nobody wins such prizes it has zero cost - that being the worst case scenario. I would suggest £1 billion a year as starting payment which would certainly put us at the top of the space & high technology trees attracting many times that level of investment & even more importantly, many of the world's best brains.
14 - I see that though we have saved £155 billion plus we have only spent about £70 billion. Put the rest into cutting taxes (28p off income tax or equivalent!). I would also support raising alcohol taxes since it discourages something socially damaging whereas most tax discourages productive stuff. It wouldn't take many years of excise duty rising faster than a Chinese style growth rate to pay for all the size of government here.
- These are a bit of a flyer not to be done till we know the economy is recovering:
15 - Build some floating islands, probably around Ascension island, probably about £1 billion each.
16 - Make a purchase guarantee for a factory to mass produce turnkey operation nuclear reactors in Britain, for use here & around the world. If it can be done with a new design & much smaller & hence less economic reactors it can be done for normal 1 gw ones. Invite the best designer, probably Ariva or Westinghouse (which used to be British owned but the government forced British nuclear to sell it off). We guarantee that if they can make a production line turning out one, turnkey operation reactor, a day we will purchase the first 2 years supply at cost if they can't sell them abroad. Assuming £350 million (70% of the current minimum price) a shot that puts us on line for a £255 billion liability & I am working on the assumption that, since there is currently a backlog they would actually sell. That is a bet but a reasonable one & if it works we would lead ourselves & the rest of the world to unequalled prosperity & end up with the sort of role in building the world's electrical power that the US has exercised for decades in world aircraft production.
- I think it would be conservative to say that most of the above individually, excluding #1, would increase growth by more than 2%. It would be optimistic to assume they would all work cumulatively but but even so that would be pretty good.
------------------
We live in an era when the policies of all 3 parties are close to indistinguishable, are not motivated by any ideology & are subject to change at any time. With the exception of #9 - quitting the EU - none of them breach the policies of the officially pro-business, pro-nuclear Labour party. Even on that one Labour have been on the quitting side of the policy dance more recently than the Tories & we know Brown refused Blair's offer to let him take over on condition of joining the Euro so clearly Brown is at least dubious of EU membership.
The current Labour position is that they have to keep borrowing £500 million a day to fuel growth. The problems with that are that the money is currently going to finance day to day state spending rather than investment & that so long as it is not actually invested in achieving real growth the time when it simply becomes impossible to persuade anybody to lend to us looms fast.
Using the existing deficit as I suggest would allow Labour to do an end run round the Conservative's fiscal prudence. If we could achieve 10% growth, like China, India etc, we could certainly afford our current deficit of 12.5% of GNP knowing that it could be paid off - people we are borrowing from would know the same.
I think a budget run on this basis would, along with their promise on electoral reform, leave the Conservatives dead in the water, guarantee a Labour win & much more importantly (assuming the promises made were kept since this budget is only a set of promises for after the election) guarantee great prosperity for the British people.
Obviously the Conservatives or LibDems could do the same, though without the platform of holding the Chancellorship, or the record establised doing so.
On the other hand this learned magazine proposes what is currently the official economic policy of the US & UK governments.
1 - Cut the size of government spending - I would go for a no new hires rule & price freeze in the government, probably excluding new doctors & a few other proven front line requirements - this should be about a 5% real reduction year on year. Also completely prune particular departments described later. 5% of the budget is £30 billion so including both actions over a couple of years that is probably about £100 billion. Mark Wadsworth comes up with a similar figure from different directions. This doesn't itself increase the economy, indeed cutting the non-productive £100 billion would cut the economy by £100 billion (ie 7%) but gives us money which can be used with a real multiplier effect & long term growth benefits.
2 - Cut corporation tax to Irish levels - cost about £30 billion & this is the main bit of what got Ireland's growth up from 2% to 7%.
3 - Lets go overboard & cut business rates too - about £20 billion at half the effect.
4 - Gut the Health & Safety Exec - if it saves the work of 4 million workers that is 14% of the economy.
5 - Allow the free market to build as many nuclear plants as the market needs, starting tomorrow. There are arguments for & against the government paying for & owning it but lets keep it simple & at zero cost.
6 - Improve transport - better roads, particularly motorway junctions, allowing airports to expand & the road tunnels project. Cost a few billion. Improving transport infrastructure is one of the things where government expenditure actually works.
7 - Adult job training. Hire retiring plumbers, electricians etc etc to do evening classes in some of the schools empty in the evenings. Adult, particularly male, technical education is the part of education which shows real worthwhile payoff in productivity.
8 - Automate the rail system & introduce lightweight vehicles based on road vehicle technology. My guess is this would be about £10 billion annually but once it is done rail costs go way down & capacity way up.
9 - Quit the EU. The Bruges Group have said the EU costs us £55 billion in direct costs. The EU's Enterprise Commissioner says the regulations alone cost £405 billion - ie £67 billion to us.
10 - Allow almost unrestricted housebuilding & encourage modular methods. This should let them cost about 1/4 the present price. Housebuilding is pretty much the biggest industry in any country & that would give us an enormous boost.
11 - End most of the sort of "environmental" regulations which have stopped Trump investing his £1 billion here for 3 years. This alone has cost the Exchequer £360 billion (£12% a year).
12 - This has already been done, albeit accidentally & need not be extended - Letting the £ drop is a major stimulus to the productive sector though exports. It worked in Major's time too - also accidentally.
13 - An X-Prize foundation & a free market regime on Ascension Island as a British Space base. So long as the Foundation is guaranteed an increasing amount of money at approx 5% above the rate of growth & able to offer prizes based on what the fund will be in future it can offer multiples of the current cost & in turn the gain to the economy will be multiples of that figure. Of course if nobody wins such prizes it has zero cost - that being the worst case scenario. I would suggest £1 billion a year as starting payment which would certainly put us at the top of the space & high technology trees attracting many times that level of investment & even more importantly, many of the world's best brains.
14 - I see that though we have saved £155 billion plus we have only spent about £70 billion. Put the rest into cutting taxes (28p off income tax or equivalent!). I would also support raising alcohol taxes since it discourages something socially damaging whereas most tax discourages productive stuff. It wouldn't take many years of excise duty rising faster than a Chinese style growth rate to pay for all the size of government here.
- These are a bit of a flyer not to be done till we know the economy is recovering:
15 - Build some floating islands, probably around Ascension island, probably about £1 billion each.
16 - Make a purchase guarantee for a factory to mass produce turnkey operation nuclear reactors in Britain, for use here & around the world. If it can be done with a new design & much smaller & hence less economic reactors it can be done for normal 1 gw ones. Invite the best designer, probably Ariva or Westinghouse (which used to be British owned but the government forced British nuclear to sell it off). We guarantee that if they can make a production line turning out one, turnkey operation reactor, a day we will purchase the first 2 years supply at cost if they can't sell them abroad. Assuming £350 million (70% of the current minimum price) a shot that puts us on line for a £255 billion liability & I am working on the assumption that, since there is currently a backlog they would actually sell. That is a bet but a reasonable one & if it works we would lead ourselves & the rest of the world to unequalled prosperity & end up with the sort of role in building the world's electrical power that the US has exercised for decades in world aircraft production.
- I think it would be conservative to say that most of the above individually, excluding #1, would increase growth by more than 2%. It would be optimistic to assume they would all work cumulatively but but even so that would be pretty good.
------------------
We live in an era when the policies of all 3 parties are close to indistinguishable, are not motivated by any ideology & are subject to change at any time. With the exception of #9 - quitting the EU - none of them breach the policies of the officially pro-business, pro-nuclear Labour party. Even on that one Labour have been on the quitting side of the policy dance more recently than the Tories & we know Brown refused Blair's offer to let him take over on condition of joining the Euro so clearly Brown is at least dubious of EU membership.
The current Labour position is that they have to keep borrowing £500 million a day to fuel growth. The problems with that are that the money is currently going to finance day to day state spending rather than investment & that so long as it is not actually invested in achieving real growth the time when it simply becomes impossible to persuade anybody to lend to us looms fast.
Using the existing deficit as I suggest would allow Labour to do an end run round the Conservative's fiscal prudence. If we could achieve 10% growth, like China, India etc, we could certainly afford our current deficit of 12.5% of GNP knowing that it could be paid off - people we are borrowing from would know the same.
I think a budget run on this basis would, along with their promise on electoral reform, leave the Conservatives dead in the water, guarantee a Labour win & much more importantly (assuming the promises made were kept since this budget is only a set of promises for after the election) guarantee great prosperity for the British people.
Obviously the Conservatives or LibDems could do the same, though without the platform of holding the Chancellorship, or the record establised doing so.
On the other hand this learned magazine proposes what is currently the official economic policy of the US & UK governments.
Labels: British politics, ecnomic growth, Fixing the economy
Thursday, March 11, 2010
IRISH INDEPENDENT LETTER - ANOTHER REPLY ON GLOBAL WARMING
The Irish Independent have published another letter from me on global warming.
I did send this previous letter to them in reply to 2 others disagreeing with me, However since I had already had 2 letters published, here & here, there they were entirely within their rights not to use it, frustrating though that always is..
Incidentally the article the first letter was based on has been selected by this fortnight's Britblog Roundup as the first in the "grab bag of assorted gems" of the fortnight - "Neil Craig appears to have found proof that the scientific consensus on climate change is a fabrication" - naturally, except for the Irish Independent, no part of the western press is interested in reporting such facts even in their letter pages.
UPDATE - A very good letter in the Irish Independent here
Carbon dioxide is not one part in every five million of the atmosphere but about 300 parts. The human contribution to CO2 is about 3pc so that makes the total nine parts in a million. However, Michael Job (Letters, March 10) is wrong to say that only CO2 has a greenhouse effect (by which he means only it absorbs infrared light).There is another letter today saying, from a centrist position, that this is a very large amount of money & we should be more certain before spending it, which I cannot disagree with in any way. I should have said CO2 is 300 parts in a million since as written it could be interpreted to suggest 300 in 5 million.
Oxygen and nitrogen, which make up more than 99pc of the atmosphere, do absorb infrared, albeit not as strongly but there is so much more of it.
A greater greenhouse gas, both in its quantity in the atmosphere and its absorptive powers, is water vapour.
In total, the human element of CO2 is so tiny that any effect is also bound to be of the same order. In fact, the correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is very close, certainly very much closer than with CO2 levels, which presumably explains why global temperature has repeatedly been considerably higher than it is now, particularly during the medieval period and the well named Climate Optimum of 9,000BC to 5,000BC.
Michael says: "The notion that vast sums of money are being wasted on combating climate change is a myth, but even if it were true, it would be worth any amount of money to prevent the catastrophe which will occur if the boffins are right."
In fact, vast sums are being spent -- Kyoto has been calculated at $800m (€587m) a day -- and it is difficult to see why it would be worth any amount of money to prevent us enjoying an optimum climate, even if that were on offer. As my previous letters pointed out, it is simply wrong to claim that "the boffins", in general, support this scare. Indeed, even Professor Jones, the head of the British CRU (Climate Research Unit) which has led regarding this theory, has had to admit there has been no warming over the past 15 years and that it is cooler now than in the Middle Ages.
Perhaps the world has no real problems that require money?
I did send this previous letter to them in reply to 2 others disagreeing with me, However since I had already had 2 letters published, here & here, there they were entirely within their rights not to use it, frustrating though that always is..
Incidentally the article the first letter was based on has been selected by this fortnight's Britblog Roundup as the first in the "grab bag of assorted gems" of the fortnight - "Neil Craig appears to have found proof that the scientific consensus on climate change is a fabrication" - naturally, except for the Irish Independent, no part of the western press is interested in reporting such facts even in their letter pages.
UPDATE - A very good letter in the Irish Independent here
Labels: global warming, letters, Media
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
WHEN GOVERNMENT'S SHARE OF THE ECONOMY WAS 6%
This is part of an article on New Zealand's adoption of free market reforms but this particular line jumped out at me.
In Britain at the moment government spending is just over 50% of GNP (60% in Scotland) though 1/4 of that is money raised by borrowing rather than tax. It strikes me that a society that can borrow 12.5% of GNP in a period of flatlined growth would have no difficulty whatsoever in borrowing 6% fairly permanently if our growth matched China's. That, somewhat improbably, means we could do with no taxation at all! Actually if we raise about £20 bn (1.5% of GNP) on bandwidth licencing & other sorts of rental assets that can only easily be done by government & there is a continuing increase in money supply to keep prices at a constant rate zero taxes become not unreasonable.
HT to Jerry Pournelle
If we assume technology has been growing at an exponential rate, as all the evidence shows, this increase in state parasitism accounts for the fact that real rates in wealth increase are not expanding exponentially.
++++++++++++++++B+rad DeLong'+s estimate of historical+ +wo+rld growth:+
Year/ Population millions /GDP per person/ annual growth
5000 BC / 5 / 130 /--
1000 BC / 50 / 160 / 0.21%
1 AD / 170 / 135 / 0.20%
1000 AD / 265 / 165 / 0.14%
1500 AD / 425 / 175 / 0.24%
1800 AD / 900 / 250 / 0.71%
1900 AD / 1625 / 850 / 4.3%
1950 AD / 2515 / 2030 / 5.17%
1975 AD / 4080 /4640 / 10.38%
2000 AD / 6120 / 8175 / 7.4%
This is a my pocket calculator working of the growth rates & is higher than normally believed though the trend is the same. I assume the difference is in the amount of growth worldwide soaked up by increasing population. There is a clear correlation between the rate of rise slowing & then declining & the post 1930 increase in government. There may even be a correlation between the post 1500 rate of growth & the end of feudalism & governments being under the rule of first centralising monarchies & then the rule of law rather than local aristocrats/warlords but that is more speculative.
If we look back through history, growth in government has been a modern phenomenon. Beginning in the 1850s and lasting until the 1920s or ’30s, the government’s share of GDP in most of the world’s industrialized economies was about six percent. From that period onwards—and particularly since the 1950s—we’ve seen a massive explosion in government share of GDP, in some places as much as 35-45 percent. (In the case of Sweden, of course, it reached 65 percent,What has been done clearly can be done & therefore such levels are achievable. I personally would be happy with 15% but that may just be because I am a child of this age.
In Britain at the moment government spending is just over 50% of GNP (60% in Scotland) though 1/4 of that is money raised by borrowing rather than tax. It strikes me that a society that can borrow 12.5% of GNP in a period of flatlined growth would have no difficulty whatsoever in borrowing 6% fairly permanently if our growth matched China's. That, somewhat improbably, means we could do with no taxation at all! Actually if we raise about £20 bn (1.5% of GNP) on bandwidth licencing & other sorts of rental assets that can only easily be done by government & there is a continuing increase in money supply to keep prices at a constant rate zero taxes become not unreasonable.
HT to Jerry Pournelle
If we assume technology has been growing at an exponential rate, as all the evidence shows, this increase in state parasitism accounts for the fact that real rates in wealth increase are not expanding exponentially.
++++++++++++++++B+rad DeLong'+s estimate of historical+ +wo+rld growth:+
Year/ Population millions /GDP per person/ annual growth
5000 BC / 5 / 130 /--
1000 BC / 50 / 160 / 0.21%
1 AD / 170 / 135 / 0.20%
1000 AD / 265 / 165 / 0.14%
1500 AD / 425 / 175 / 0.24%
1800 AD / 900 / 250 / 0.71%
1900 AD / 1625 / 850 / 4.3%
1950 AD / 2515 / 2030 / 5.17%
1975 AD / 4080 /4640 / 10.38%
2000 AD / 6120 / 8175 / 7.4%
This is a my pocket calculator working of the growth rates & is higher than normally believed though the trend is the same. I assume the difference is in the amount of growth worldwide soaked up by increasing population. There is a clear correlation between the rate of rise slowing & then declining & the post 1930 increase in government. There may even be a correlation between the post 1500 rate of growth & the end of feudalism & governments being under the rule of first centralising monarchies & then the rule of law rather than local aristocrats/warlords but that is more speculative.
Labels: ecnomic growth, Fixing the economy, Government parasitism
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
EJUP GANIC - WAR CRIMES EXTRADITION
Previously I put up a link to General Lewis MacKenzies's description of the massacre Ganic has been charged with but did not go further. I think it is worth quoting more of:
(Muslim President) Izetbegovic was in a box, and (JNA General) Kukanjac was holding the key. The President looked at me and said very carefully, "General MacKenzie, don't worry. I WILL ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SAFETY OF THE JNA PERSONNEL."
I was surprised; this was quite a commitment. "YOU GUARANTEE IT?" I asked.
"YES," HE SAID.
I paused, and Colm and I exchanged glances again. "Okay," I said. "We'll give it a try." ...
We had gone about a kilometer when I thought I heard a shot. I turned around and looked at Steve. His SUSI was a lot taller than my VBL and he could see back down along the column of trucks. I knew from the look on his face that something was seriously wrong.
I jumped out of the VBL and started to run back towards the sound of the shooting, which no longer consisted of single shots but sustained bursts of machine-gun fire. I hadn't asked Steve to come, but within seconds he was beside me.
The heaviest shooting was about fifty meters away. I could see TDF soldiers sticking their rifles through the windows of civilian cars that were part of the convoy and shooting the occupants. As Steve and I ran by, we saw blood splattered over the windscreens of some of the cars.
When we reached a crowd of some twenty TDF soldiers, we realized they had driven a car across the road to split the convoy in half. The JNA soldiers were SITTING HELPLESSLY in the back of their trucks; the TDF were demanding that they throw out their weapons and military equipment. To make the point, one of the TDF soldiers, who had two grenades hanging from his teeth, was threatening to throw a third into the back of the truck full of JNA soldiers if they did not hurry up and surrender their weapons...
At the first TDF checkpoint... I asked (a TDF sentry) what had happened. He explained that the TDF soldiers had received an ORDER FROM SOMEONE IN THE PRESIDENCY TO ATTACK THE CONVOY. We never found for sure who gave the order, but my suspicion was that Vice-President Ganic wasa lot tougher than he wanted to admit, and had given the green light to carry out the attack...
Needless to say, we were not well received at the JNA camp. Word had been passed that the UN had guaranteed the safety of the convoy, but that we have failed our promise. This was not the time, however, to point out that we were merely accompanying the convoy as impartial witnesses and go-betweens, and that it was the President of Bosnia and his TDF commander who had guaranteed the convoy security...
Goulding held a press conference at the end of the day's activities. We fell it was important that he condemn the TDF attack on the JNA convoy, and so he made the following statement:
"I also went at my request to see the scene of a particularly horrible incident on Sunday evening, where, as I think a number of you know, some soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army were killed in a cold blood when commanders of the Bosnian Territorial Defense had failed to honor a promise on safe conduct which they had given our people who were evacuating the HQ of the Yugoslav Army in Sarajevo."
Months later, when I have left Sarajevo for good, I was surprised to discover just how little media coverage Goulding's strong statement had received around the world. I couldn't help thinking that IF JNA HAD AMBUSHED THE TDF, INSTEAD THE OTHER WAY AROUND, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FRONT PAGE NEWS..."
It seems Ganic was not personally involved in making the safe conduct promise but that it was a genuine guarantee he was bound to honour & that the order to break it came from his office & presumably from him.
A Bosnian Muslim witness has already confirmed Ganic's responsibility. M. Bozinovich | Former Minister of Interior of Bosnia, Alija Delimustafic, told the court in 2002 that Ganic commanded over Bosnian Muslim units that blocked the withdrawing ethnic Serbian soldiers who were slaughtered on the streets of Sarajevo.
Note that MacKenzie, though not firmly committed to the Bosnian Muslim view is also far from impartial let alone pro-Serb. His article starts with the quote from him "If I could convince both sides to stop killing their own people for CNN, perhaps we could have a ceasefire." This is disingenuous since, while it has been very widely reported from many unrelated sources that the Muslim Nazi forces regularly did indeed carry out killings of their own civilians to get on TV there is no evidence whatsoever of any Serbs doing so. Indeed the end of the article, in pointing out how heavily censored any reports of killings of Serbs were, makes it obvious that there would have been no point in Serbs engaging in that sort of obscenity.
It seems there are also a large number of other atrocities by Ganic for which not just Serbs but also our Croatian Nazi allies want justice. However this particular case is unique in that the victims were Yugoslav citizens & presumably mostly born in Serbia (as indeed was Ganic) which therefore, by normal judicial standards gives Yugoslavia/Serbia the right to try the murderer of its citizens.
The other atrocities are not & should not be part of the indictment. However they certainly should tend to discredit claims being put by friends in western media that he was really a nice multicultural moderate democrat (like his boss, Alia "neither peace nor co-existence with non-Islamicists" Izetbegovic if the BBC is in any way to be trusted.
Croat death camp veterans say Ganic responsible for atrocities.
As do Bosnian Serb survivors of Muslim death camps.
None of these, obviously, led to any attempt by the ICTY to bring him to trial though they have done so, or simply killed, very many Serbs on little or no evidence. The Bosnian Muslim Nazi regime hasn't even made a token attempt to slap the wrist of its own mass murderers. I hope the law is followed & Ganic brought to trial. The eyes of the world will then be on the Serbian judicial system. More important even that his conviction will be that the trial is seen to be fair. I think it is difficult to dispute that there is evidence warranting trial. IF they do this they will have proven their judicial system to be not only better than virtually non-existent one of the Bosnian Muslims but much better & less corrupt than the NATO funded ICTY & presumably its patrons.
(Muslim President) Izetbegovic was in a box, and (JNA General) Kukanjac was holding the key. The President looked at me and said very carefully, "General MacKenzie, don't worry. I WILL ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SAFETY OF THE JNA PERSONNEL."
I was surprised; this was quite a commitment. "YOU GUARANTEE IT?" I asked.
"YES," HE SAID.
I paused, and Colm and I exchanged glances again. "Okay," I said. "We'll give it a try." ...
We had gone about a kilometer when I thought I heard a shot. I turned around and looked at Steve. His SUSI was a lot taller than my VBL and he could see back down along the column of trucks. I knew from the look on his face that something was seriously wrong.
I jumped out of the VBL and started to run back towards the sound of the shooting, which no longer consisted of single shots but sustained bursts of machine-gun fire. I hadn't asked Steve to come, but within seconds he was beside me.
The heaviest shooting was about fifty meters away. I could see TDF soldiers sticking their rifles through the windows of civilian cars that were part of the convoy and shooting the occupants. As Steve and I ran by, we saw blood splattered over the windscreens of some of the cars.
When we reached a crowd of some twenty TDF soldiers, we realized they had driven a car across the road to split the convoy in half. The JNA soldiers were SITTING HELPLESSLY in the back of their trucks; the TDF were demanding that they throw out their weapons and military equipment. To make the point, one of the TDF soldiers, who had two grenades hanging from his teeth, was threatening to throw a third into the back of the truck full of JNA soldiers if they did not hurry up and surrender their weapons...
At the first TDF checkpoint... I asked (a TDF sentry) what had happened. He explained that the TDF soldiers had received an ORDER FROM SOMEONE IN THE PRESIDENCY TO ATTACK THE CONVOY. We never found for sure who gave the order, but my suspicion was that Vice-President Ganic wasa lot tougher than he wanted to admit, and had given the green light to carry out the attack...
Needless to say, we were not well received at the JNA camp. Word had been passed that the UN had guaranteed the safety of the convoy, but that we have failed our promise. This was not the time, however, to point out that we were merely accompanying the convoy as impartial witnesses and go-betweens, and that it was the President of Bosnia and his TDF commander who had guaranteed the convoy security...
Goulding held a press conference at the end of the day's activities. We fell it was important that he condemn the TDF attack on the JNA convoy, and so he made the following statement:
"I also went at my request to see the scene of a particularly horrible incident on Sunday evening, where, as I think a number of you know, some soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army were killed in a cold blood when commanders of the Bosnian Territorial Defense had failed to honor a promise on safe conduct which they had given our people who were evacuating the HQ of the Yugoslav Army in Sarajevo."
Months later, when I have left Sarajevo for good, I was surprised to discover just how little media coverage Goulding's strong statement had received around the world. I couldn't help thinking that IF JNA HAD AMBUSHED THE TDF, INSTEAD THE OTHER WAY AROUND, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FRONT PAGE NEWS..."
It seems Ganic was not personally involved in making the safe conduct promise but that it was a genuine guarantee he was bound to honour & that the order to break it came from his office & presumably from him.
A Bosnian Muslim witness has already confirmed Ganic's responsibility. M. Bozinovich | Former Minister of Interior of Bosnia, Alija Delimustafic, told the court in 2002 that Ganic commanded over Bosnian Muslim units that blocked the withdrawing ethnic Serbian soldiers who were slaughtered on the streets of Sarajevo.
Note that MacKenzie, though not firmly committed to the Bosnian Muslim view is also far from impartial let alone pro-Serb. His article starts with the quote from him "If I could convince both sides to stop killing their own people for CNN, perhaps we could have a ceasefire." This is disingenuous since, while it has been very widely reported from many unrelated sources that the Muslim Nazi forces regularly did indeed carry out killings of their own civilians to get on TV there is no evidence whatsoever of any Serbs doing so. Indeed the end of the article, in pointing out how heavily censored any reports of killings of Serbs were, makes it obvious that there would have been no point in Serbs engaging in that sort of obscenity.
It seems there are also a large number of other atrocities by Ganic for which not just Serbs but also our Croatian Nazi allies want justice. However this particular case is unique in that the victims were Yugoslav citizens & presumably mostly born in Serbia (as indeed was Ganic) which therefore, by normal judicial standards gives Yugoslavia/Serbia the right to try the murderer of its citizens.
The other atrocities are not & should not be part of the indictment. However they certainly should tend to discredit claims being put by friends in western media that he was really a nice multicultural moderate democrat (like his boss, Alia "neither peace nor co-existence with non-Islamicists" Izetbegovic if the BBC is in any way to be trusted.
Croat death camp veterans say Ganic responsible for atrocities.
As do Bosnian Serb survivors of Muslim death camps.
None of these, obviously, led to any attempt by the ICTY to bring him to trial though they have done so, or simply killed, very many Serbs on little or no evidence. The Bosnian Muslim Nazi regime hasn't even made a token attempt to slap the wrist of its own mass murderers. I hope the law is followed & Ganic brought to trial. The eyes of the world will then be on the Serbian judicial system. More important even that his conviction will be that the trial is seen to be fair. I think it is difficult to dispute that there is evidence warranting trial. IF they do this they will have proven their judicial system to be not only better than virtually non-existent one of the Bosnian Muslims but much better & less corrupt than the NATO funded ICTY & presumably its patrons.
Labels: Media, Yugoslavia
Sunday, March 07, 2010
EJUP GANIC - "LET JUSTICE BE DONE THOUGH THE HEAVENS FALL"
Photo accompanying General Lewis MacKenzie's witnessing of the event "We're moving. Tell Ganic." The Serbian government seem to be on the edge of a game changing move. They have asked for the extradition, from Britain, under an international warrant, of Ejup Ganic. Under international law there is no question that our government now has a duty to transfer him & he is currently in jail as various British politicians & media (ie C4) do their best to muddy the waters.
What happened
on May 3, 1992 .. a convoy of JNA soldiers was pulling back through Dobrovoljacka street, in central Sarajevo, to the barracks in Lukavica, remains unresolved.While there is doubt about the number dead there is none that some died. Nor that Ganic, as deputy President with Izetbegovic arrested had command authority. Nor that he personally had signed on the cease fire that was to allow the JNA (Jugoslav National Army) forces to leave. Nor that they were doing so peacefully & were therefore in no way combatant. There is, at the very least, a clear prima facie case that Ganic was responsible for mass murder. In his defence he may & now appears to be saying that the attack started without his permission. That is something a defence lawyer would be perfectly right to claim & a prosecution one to examine. The fact that neither Jusef Pasina nor anybody else has been arrested for what would be, if not so authorised, not only mass murder but mutiny.
In the middle of the convoy was Alija Izetbegovic, then President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was seated in the first armored transporter, having been seized by the JNA at Sarajevo airport the previous day.
As per a previously reached agreement, the president was to be released once the convoy had passed through the city safely to the barracks. But in the afternoon hours the convoy was disjoined and a number of soldiers were killed.
Seventeen years on, it is not known exactly how many died.
A criminal report filed by the Public Safety Centre from Eastern Sarajevo claimed up to 42 soldiers were killed and 73 wounded.
Jovan Divjak, then deputy commander of the Territorial Defence, who was present in the street, says he knew about only “between seven and nine victims”, however.
The investigation conducted by the Serbian Prosecution, meanwhile, mentions 18, while another criminal report, filed by the Republika Srpska authorities, mention 15.
Various media reports have named as possible suspects: two former members of the Bosnian wartime presidency Ejub Ganic and Stjepan Kljujic, the former Territorial Defence commander Divjak, Backovic.
The report filed with the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution accused the aforementioned Ganic and Kljujic of having “organised and ordered [two] Bosnian Army officers, the late Mustafa Hajrulahovic and Jusuf Pusina, then and now an Interior Ministry member, to attack the army convoy.”
It says Ganic and Kljujic ordered the attack even though an agreement had been made to allow the Second Military Regional Staffs of the JNA to leave Sarajevo peacefully.
The report alleges that, in this way, the two men “directly participated in killing and wounding several tens of JNA members”.
The Serbian government, which is recognised as the successor state of Yugoslavia has a clear interest here that may not apply to other cases - namely that the victims were serving members of the Yugoslav armed forces & presumably in most cases citizens of what is now Serbia. As such they have a remit which may not apply generally even though very many murders by our Bosnia Muslim, Croatian Nazi, KLA etc friends were much worse.
There is no question that we have undertaken a legal duty to extradite him if there is a case to answer.
The request is valid if it states that it is a request for a person accused or convicted of an offence and it is made by an appropriate authority of the requesting territory such as a diplomatic or consular representative.
Paperwork is needed to get the case off the ground:
particulars of the person whose return is requested
particulars of the offence of which he is accused or was convicted
in the case of a person accused of an offence, a warrant or a duly authenticated copy of a warrant for his arrest issued in the requesting state, or for a provisional arrest, details of such a warrant
in the case of a person unlawfully at large after conviction of an offence, a certificate or a duly authenticated copy of a certificate of the conviction and the sentence, or for provisional arrest, details of the conviction
evidence or information that would justify the issue of a warrant for arrest in the UK, within the jurisdiction of a judge of the court that would hold the extradition hearing.
If the court is satisfied that the request contains the required information an arrest warrant may be issued. It is sent to the police for execution.
NB Serbia is on a list of respectable countries which do NOT need to provide prima facie evidence in support of its extradition request. Likewise Bosnia and Herzegovina.
There is no question that there is a case to answer.
Legally the Serbs have the case bang to rights. It would be difficult to find a stronger legal case short of a confession. Of course legality has not been a significant consideration in British public life of recent years. Perhaps this is changing - we will see.
One of Ganic's supporters Robin Harris says
No one, knowing the circumstances, could imagine that Ganic would receive a fair trial in Belgrade. Yet Britain has limited its own options, by legislation passed in 2003 that reduces the scope for ministers to intervene to stop such cases.but it seems to me the exact opposite is true. That the Belgrade authorities will bend over backwards to be seen to produce a fair trial. After all if the evidence is that the event happened & he bore responsibility then a fair trial will convict. If it does not it will be because it has been proven that some other named person, currently being shielded by the Bosnian Nazis was responsible & Serbia could demand his extradition. The prosecution has nothing to fear from a fair trial & indeed quite a lot to gain from one, whichever way the verdict goes. The important thing for Serbia & indeed for the world is that the rule of law be established. The ICTY have previously refused to bring Ganic to trial, as indeed they have refused to bring almost all non-Serbs to trial but nobody really believes the ICTY have ever been interested in purely fair trials.
The problem for western governments is not that Ganic will not get a fair trial but that he will.
The legal maxim is Fiat justitia ruat caelum - meaning "May justice be done though the heavens fall." If it is not then we have no rule of law. If it is then perhaps perhaps the world has at least made the turn towards having one.
Labels: International politics, Yugoslavia
