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Saturday, October 01, 2011

Human cost of green policies - Dundee Courier Letter

  I was informed by a UKIP supporter looking for information about windmill costs of this letter of mine in the Dundee Courier: They did have a reply from somebody a couple of days later which was a bit silly but they didn't print my reply.
..............................
750,000 Scottish homes are in fuel poverty; our few remaining real industries are expected to compete with economies where energy prices are under 1/4 of ours. All this is because our government insist on using the money to subsidise windmills and other "renewables" because they allege it is necessary to reduce CO2 and prevent the catastrophic global warming we allegedly see around us. Paradoxically the same people demanding this oppose nuclear power though it combines the advantage of being available at under 1/4 the cost with the possible advantage of being much more CO2 free than even windmills.
But is this alleged catastrophic warming true or a fraud created by government so that we will submit to more tax and regulation?
I have asked repeatedly and no alarmist, anywhere, is able to name a single scientist who supports the catastrophic warming scare and is not paid by government. I intend to keep asking. Perhaps some reader here believes they can name one.
The largest expression of scientist's opinion on the subject is the widely unreported 31,000 who have signed the Oregon Petition saying that CO2 rise is not only not catastrophic but likely to be beneficial (more CO2 means better growing crops). The BBC, with typical disregard for their legal duty of "due balance" maintain that catastrophic warming is more widely accepted than the law of gravity, censoring any mention of this document - showing literally more heavy censorship than Stalin ever practised over Lysenkoism.
It will be obvious to anybody who understands statistics that it is statistically impossible for "97%" of state funded "climate scientists" to be promoting alarmism and 0% of independent scientists doing so without it being a case of deliberate promotion, to a career making or destroying extent, by the politicians funding the former which is why my unanswered question is very relevant.
When one bears in mind that those and such as those can sell intermittent and unreliable "renewable" electricity to the grid at 46.1p per kwh when French nuclear is produced at 1.4p a kwh (a 3,190% difference) and that the Prime Minister's father in law is making nearly £1,000 a day from "renewable" subsidies, it is clear that there are considerable incentives to keep the scare going despite the obvious lack of evidence, after 32 years, that the planet is suffering.
In modern times the main driver of economic growth has been, and continues to be, energy.
So such government parasitism explains why we are in recession while China and India are growing 10% annually.
.....................................................
Ref - 750,000 fuel poverty http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/fuel-poverty-crisis-warning-1.1112254

Father in law's £1000 a day http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100103077/sir-reginald-sheffield-bt-an-apology/

Oregon Petition http://www.oism.org/pproject/ - all BBC mentions ever of Oregon Petition - http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/?q=oregon%20petition - 2 out of the 3 are responses from members of the public.

BBC claim warming more certain than the law of gravity http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2010/12/bbc-guidelines-officially-mean-war-is.html

"In modern times the main driver of economic growth has been, and continues to be, energy". http://www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2011-01-13.32212.0

paying 46.1p for power available at 2.2p (Scotsman "new vistas for domestic power" 7th Sept)

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Friday, September 30, 2011

"Scienceblogs" - Greg Laden

     The Greg Laden site on the string of related American sites called "Scienceblogs" is arguably the most prominent.

     Greg is a catastrophic warming supporter, which is his right. He censors opposing views or even questions put courteously which is his right because, as he explains its his site, though incompatible with any claim to "science".

   He has claimed to be opposed to censorship. saying "Censorship is the second to last refuge of tyrants, the last is violence" (#23) a refreshingly liberal (in the true meaning of the term) viewpoint on "scienceblogs" where 9 sites, at last count, promote censorship. Rather than answer the 7 questions any climate alarmist should be able to easily answer if it is true, he simply censored them.

    Note that he does not delete ad homs or indeed obscenity, which are clearly, after all, the stock in trade of climate alarmist "scientists", particularly those "peer reviewed and published in the finest journals" http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2011/07/ever (#5) (although he did censor some criticisms made in return, neither ad hom nor remotely obscene since I don't find that persuasive). Indeed, while censoring me, he recently passed a comment that I should be glad Greg hasn't come round to my house and cut off my head which is the last argument he allegedly disapproves of.

   It is his choice to run his site that way. However he does worse than that.
   Greg has also claimed to be the sole scientist anywhere in the world who supports warming catastrophism and is not paid by the state. Not one single cent.

   He has also claimed to be a "climate scientist".

   Indeed he has been given numerous opportunities to say the "misspoke" (a la Clinton), panicked or that the claim needs "clarifying" (a term often used by British politicians caught lying). He has, repeatedly, stood by his claim.

But
Greg Laden is a Biological Anthropologist, studying human evolution, with degrees from Harvard University. He has taught at several universities, including Harvard and is currently a part time Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is an independent scholar who blogs athttp://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/.  http://myudaily.com/volblogs/newscommentary/religionspirituality/greg-laden-an-interview-with-a-biological-anthropologist-and-blogger/

  Not a wise move when elsewhere claiming to be a climate scientist receiving not one cent from government. Though his "scienceblogs" bio is replete with "did I mention Harvard"'s it is astonishingly less forthcoming about his present role as a part time assistant teacher at Minnesota U.

    University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (U of M) is a public research university and A public university is one that is predominantly funded by public means

    So the alleged only scientist anywhere in the world who supports warming catastrophism while receiving not a cent from the government  is actually an assistant teacher of anthropology, largely or entirely paid by said government (at what I understand Americans call a "cow college" rather than Harvard).

     Laden has clearly, deliberately and continuously lied and if the entire "scienceblogs" site and anybody connected is not to it is not to be wholly discredited as not being in any way connected to scientific principles it is impossible he could remain on it.
========================

   Knowing a little about anthropology in academe in Britain I can say that it is largely a matter of keeping ones tongue between the cheeks of those above you on the ladder while refusing to notice any scientific evidence which does not suit the politically correct paradigm (admittedly difficult to do otherwise in such a position). Rather than being a real science it is very much the sort of "science" Richard Feynman described in his "Cargo Cult Science" lecture.

     Perhaps American anthropology is totally different and a real science.

     Perhaps his interest in (and possible limited understanding of CAGW) is inspired by coworkers, friends and neighbours. I haven't visited Minnesota and it may be a warm place with a large coastal area which would explain the local's interest in the possible bad effects of warming. Indeed it must be so because pathetic as it is to lie on the subject it would be unbelievably pathetic to lie in a way that will not impress coworkers and neighbours.

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Thursday, September 29, 2011

What We Are Paying for Electricity and What It Can Cost

I recently read that politicians are very anxious not to let the public know the extent of subsidy we are forced to give "renewables". I am thus reprinting bits from a Scotsman "Energy Ecosse" advertising supplement of 7th Sept p 7 which they did not put online with a few editorial points:

"solar generation systems create a payback of some 10 to 12 % a year on a basic investment of around £14,000 .....what for many households will be virtually a risk free investment. Best of all the FIT (scheme's name) is inflation-indexed for 25 years and that really adds up to a very attractive proposition, particularly for higher rate tax payers.... the new tariff, when it is announced in 2012, is likely to be lower .. factoring in the inevitable reduction in equipment costs that come with the mass take-up of a technology.... but those who buy before the new tariff is announced in 2012 will benefit from being locked in  ... for the next 25 years.

   ... thanks to FIT the government pays out 43.3p per KwH of generation. This comes direct to the household from its electricity supplier in the form of deduction on the electricity bill and, when the bill is zero, in the form of a cheque. The supplier has no option on this. It has to pay.

      ... disincentives to buying a larger system...you have to get your district network operator ... to check that the power lines to the house are sufficient to accept the additional capacity being generated and put back into the grid. The exported current itself generates an  income stream on top of the 43.3p FIT. Currently the household receives  a standard 3.1p for every KwH that it exports to the grid instead of using itself.

       ..... Providers currently charge households around 14p per KwH so using electricity saves 14p while exporting it earns 3.1p . The arithmetic does not favour exporting until you have used as much as you would normally (actually my reading is that using it saves 43.3p + 14p = 57.3p but lets not get greedy)

        ....Basically you want to use ;power intensive items, such as dishwashers, when the sun is shining. And in the winter you want to use electric heaters rather than gas central heating while the system is producing useful power."(and only sell it when the power it is producing is useless to the seller and probably therefore to the rest of us)

           So 46.3 per |KwH By comparison the current cost of nuclear in Britain is 2.2p http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Cost_Generation_Commentary.pdf   fig2 p5 . It could  be lower (& is in some countries). It is undisputed that at least 50% of the cost of nuclear must be unnecessary regulation and around 50% of the rest be the fact that regulation prevents mass producing off the shelf plants with the consequent savings of mass production. This means production cost could be 0.5p if these eco-fascist politicians feathering their friend's and father-law's nests were not preventing it

- I don’t see any real climate threat connected with global warming in a meaningful time horizon;
- I do see measures – already introduced or planned for the future – which substantially endanger our freedom;
- I do see a very irrational, wasteful allocation of scarce resources which endanger our prosperity.
                                     Vaclav Klaus, Czech President

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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Inconvenient Truths about the Parasites Making Money From "Renewables"



In case anybody has any doubts that assertions made in posters around the Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference gravy train are in any way exagerated.
CATASTROPHIC

GLOBAL WARMING
IS A
DELIBERATE
FRAUD
PROMOTED BY THOSE IN POWER

TO GET US TO GIVE THEM
MORE POWER AND MONEY

IF THAT WERE NOT SO
IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO NAME
ONE SCIENTIST WHO
ENDORSES CATASTROPHISM
AND
ISN'T PAID OUT OF THE
PUBLIC TROUGH.

THOUSANDS OF ECOFASCISTS,
WORLDWIDE,
HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED
AND NONE HAVE BEEN ABLE
TO NAME ANYBODY
WHO DIDN'T TURN OUT EITHER TO BE
PAID BY THE STATE OR THAT
DIDN'T SUPPORT THE FRAUD

========================

ALEX

SALMOND
IS A CORRUPT, LYING,

THIEVING, PENSIONER
MURDERING FASCIST
TRAITOR
DELIBERATELY
DESTROYING
THE
SCOTTISH ECONOMY

CHRIS

HUHNE
IS A CORRUPT

LYING
PENSIONER MURDERING
CHILD RAPING
ORGANLEGGING
PRO-NAZI
WAR CRIMINAL

AL GORE

IS A LYING USELESS

CRONY
CAPITALIST
BILLIONAIRE
WANNABE


=======================



CATASTROPHIC
GLOBAL WARMING
IS A FRAUD
---------
WINDMILLS
ARE A SCAM
TO MAKE US
SUBSIDISE
THEIR PALS
-----


93%
OF EVERY
ELECTRICITY
BILL
IS TAX &
REGULATION

====


THE TRAITORS
IN GOVERNMENT
ARE STEALING


THEY ALONE
PUT US
IN RECESSION


===================





2500
PENSIONERS
DIE
UNNECESSARILY
EACH YEAR
TO SUBSIDISE
"RENEWABLES"


93% OF YOUR
ELECTRICITY BILL
IS "GREEN"
THEFT

====
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the

populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be
led to safety) by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

warming is simply the latest
"environmental" scare, out of
hundreds,
all of them lies


BBC KNOWINGLY LYING AND CENSORING TO PROMOTE WARMING ALARMISM



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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Scottish Tunnel Project - Civil Service Reply

  I have, at the request of Alex Salmond (and Alex Neil) received this letter from a Civil Servant in Transport Scotland on the Scottish Tunnel Project Proposal
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transport Scotland considers transport options (such as tunnels) for changes to the Scottish trunk road or rail networks which have emerged from transport appraisal studies. These appraisals are objective-led and in line with Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidelines (STAG). A completed transport appraisal study will provide the rationale and strategic business case for any emerging option(s) which are taken forward for further consideration.

 The most comprehensive recent appraisal of transport options carried out by the Scottish Government is the Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR). It considered the existing performance and future requirements of Scotland's land based strategic transport networks at the national level, and predicted changes in land-use, population, economic performance and emissions to address objectives of improving journey times and reliability, journey quality and reducing emissions. The recommendations of this Review were announced in Parliament in December 2008 and set out investment priorities over the next 20 years to be delivered subject to future spending reviews and affordability. The recommendations from this analysis did NOT include the provision of any road tunnels across Scotland and the Isles.

Raymond Convill  (raymondconvuill@transportscotland.gsi.gov.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's it on this subject. No attempt whatsoever to dispute that the Scottish Tunnel Project is perfectly feasible. No attempt to dispute the Norwegian costs. Or to say that UK costs would, for any reason, inherently by higher. No attempt to dispute that it would, in time, increase GNP by around £40 billion, nor that the cost of doing it would be a one payment of about £1 billion, all of which could be paid without touching the current Exchequer.

  The sole reason for not doing this is that the idea was Not Invented here (NIH) back in 2008.

   Sir Humphrey Appleby, who said "'many, many things must be done, but nothing should ever be done for the first time' would have approved..


  In fact it is worse than that. The Review is only permitted to propose things which " predicted changes in land-use, population, economic performance and emissions". That means they are specifically prevented from looking at any pro-active attempt to improve infrastructure. The Scots Islands heave had a declining population trend for centuries so nothing may even be considered which might reverse that trend. One can see why they want to replace the Forth Bridge - that is merely maintaining current infrastructure. Had it not been built in the 1960s it would now be against the rules to consider whether we needed a bridge.
 
    The letter goes on mention the question of a Forth Tunnel rather than bridge and states "This was because it is significantly cheaper than the tunnel options, can be delivered quicker, has fewer risks associated with construction and has the best value for money".
 
    This is simply untrue.  John Swinney told Holyrood that a bridge would cost £2.3 billion. The Norwegians have been cutting tunnels, much faster, at £4 million per km. Even accounting for dualling of tunnels doubling their length to allow for run up a tunnel should cost under £40 million. If £40 million is less than £2,300 million, as is the case with traditional arithmetic, it simply cannot be claimed that the tunnel figure is greater. Mr Convill could have said that the crossing study decided to say a bridge would be cheaper thereby passing the responsibility for that nonsense and I am quite surprised he didn't. 
Dear Mr Convill
I have posted the relevant parts of your recent letter with my comments. If you wish to clarify or correct anything I would be pleased to here from you. I am thinking in particular of
1 - your decision to give, as the only reason against the tunnel project - that it hasn't already been invented within Transport Scotland back in 2008
2 - That tunnels which have been and thus can be constructed at £40 million are more expensive than a bridge at £2,300 million.
   I have hopes that some of the Holyrood MSPs are more progressive. They could hardly be less, which, with government being nearly 60% of our economy, may explain a lot.

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Monday, September 26, 2011

Anti-Nuclear Linear No Threshold (LNT) - Fraud Goes Back to 1945

University of Massachusetts Amherst environmental toxicologist Edward Calabrese, whose career research shows that low doses of some chemicals and radiation are benign or even helpful, says he has uncovered evidence that one of the fathers of radiation genetics, Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, knowingly lied when he claimed in 1946 that there is no safe level of radiation exposure.


Calabrese’s interpretation of this history is supported by letters and other materials he has retrieved, many from formerly classified files. He published key excerpts this month in Archives of Toxicology and Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.
Muller was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery that X-rays induce genetic mutations. This helped him call attention to his long-time concern over the dangers of atomic testing. Muller’s intentions were good, Calabrese points out, but his decision not to mention key scientific evidence against his position has had a far-reaching impact on our approach to regulating radiation and chemical exposure.
Calabrese uncovered correspondence from November 1946 between Muller and Curt Stern at the University of Rochester about a major experiment that had recently evaluated fruit fly germ cell mutations in Stern’s laboratory. It failed to support the linear dose-response model at low exposure levels, but in Muller’s speech in Oslo a few weeks later he insisted there was "no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold." To Calabrese, this amounts to deliberate concealment and he says Stern raised no objection.
Calabrese adds, "This isn’t an academic debate, it’s really practical, because all of our rules about chemical and low-level radiation are based on the premises that Muller and the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) committee adopted at that time. Now, after all these years, it’s very hard when people have been frightened to death by this dogma to persuade them that we don’t need to be scared by certain low-dose exposures." ctd
=============================
 
  I have, for some time, been promoting the fact that the LNT theory, which has no evidential backing is not only wrong but that the opposite theory, hormesis, that low level radiation has vitamin effects, is clearly proven.
 
  This is important because LNT is the only vaguely credible reason for opposing nuclear power and and the part of the anti-nuclear scare which is most scary because it is invisible.
 
  In turn the anti-nuclear movement has meant that humanity do not have two and a half times more electric power and therefore approaching two and a half times more wealth. Also it is why we do not have inexpensive space ships which could have got us to "Saturn by 1970".
 
   All in all far more damaging than the global warming fraud, at least so far.
 
   However a positive development is that this researcher has been able to publish and had a signnificant amount of coverage , ok significant in terms of a physics story from 1945. That would not have happened a few years ago.
 
   Look at the comments on this post on Junkscience . OK Junkscience is a sceptical blog, unlike "Skeptical Science" or "scienceblogs" and thus might be expexted to have readers open to this idea. However they are not merely interested the commenters almost entirely understand that the LNT theory is fraudulent.
 
  Scientific fraud, from whaterver motives, comes about not merely, perhaps not primarily, because of the fraudster. Scientific opinion is the ocean scientists swim in and if that ocean were not conducive to particular frauds they would either not be done or not develop the critical mass (ok mixed metaphor) to achieve common acceptance.
 
    The growing strenght of online scientific scepticism is a major factor in promoting scientific progress. Even the fact that opponents are trying to adopt the label, misspelled, is a sign it is becoming mainstream,  as well as of their dishonesty and intellectual bankruptcy.

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Sunday, September 25, 2011

Recent Comments

  These are some comments U have made on various sites:

If the alarmists truthfully believed a word of their alarmist story they would be begging for the building of many new nuclear plants since this is the only way to seriously cut CO2 (wind by comparison barely does anything).
They don’t proving they know it is a total and deliberate lie intended to promote their and government’s parasitism. http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2011/09/20/a-question-for-mr-huhne/#comment-63461
--------------------------------
Harmless Sky on the BBC "Science Policy review"
Altho, as you say, only a few pages are devoted specifically to warming it is clear that is the entire point of having this.
I put in a submission to Professor Jones on the subject of BBC re reporting of nuclear power. It didn’t even get the courtesy of a dishonest dismissal in writing that yours did and I can’t say that was a surprise.
However the conclusions of his report, if taken as the serious consideration of science coverage in general, as it claims to be, rather than a warmist defence, would have a major effect on their reporting of nuclear power.
He concludes that the BBC should only report the “consensus” particularly the consensus of “experts” employed in the business – ie “climate scientists” for warming..
However in the nuclear industry all nuclear engineers employed by the industry without, so far as I know, any exception acknowledge that nuclear power is the safest, most reliable, least polluting and at least in engineering costs, least expensive way of producing power. Indeed I would be prepared to guess that at least “97%” of all qualified engineers across the board willing to express an opinion would say that. You really have to go to “independent experts” employed by Greenpeace and the like or wholly ignorant politicians to hear different.
Of course the BBC have always gone to such “independent experts” and politicians first and even when a real expert is asked they always “balance” it with someone of that ilk.
However if the Jones “review of science coverage” were honestly about science coverage they would now have to be considerably less willing to interview anti-nuclearists than they are catastrophic warming sceptics, since we sceptics do, at worst, represent a serious part of the scientific community (including Nobel Physics winners) and the alarmist “science”us not within orders of magnitude as well tested as nuclear engineering.
Of course that would only apply if prof Jones and the BBC staff, management and assorted hangers on were something other than 100% (… snip …) with a £140,000 piece of anti-science propaganda (… snip – see blog rules …) that serves the politicians.
. So far no change at all in BBC nuclear science coverage.
-----------------------------------
Next Big Future on a Siberia/Alaska tunnel
High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power line.This can move electricity thousands of KMs with relatively low loses and could be the start of a worldwide grid. Electricity prices vary massively worldwide(in China and Russia it seems to be about 1/4 of ours) and are a key factor in growth.
-------------------------------------

On the Adam Smith Institute energy discussion

Low price elasticity tends to mean the product is a necessity or that it is cheap. Possibly energy isn't cheap compared to history, since government is busy pushing up the price. However both of these suggest that energy availability is indeed central to economic success and that the correlation of 10% annual growth in electricity supply and in GNP demonstrated over the last 30 years in China could be replicated here if the government would allow it. Conversely that their policy of making electricity ever more expensive is certain to prevent us getting out of recession.

--------------------------
David Friedman on global warming
There is one way we can be effectively certain of a benefit. Increasing CO2 has a measured effect on plant growth
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
This has already increased growth 25%, altho the rate of of increase is starting to tail off. This is highly beneficial to everything that eats food which includes not only us but the entire biosphere the "environmentalists" claim to care about.

A subsequent comment gave this important observation
"World agriculture production is 6% of world GDP. World GDP is about 60T dollars. So CO2 production has increased just the agriculture portion of world GDP by around half a trillion dollars a year. Thats a massive effect."
-----------------------------

Martin Findlay on how winning in Libya will mean oil prices fall
had we not decided to replace Gaddafi with an unstable mixture of his ex-intelligence chief (who would have had to run the Lockerbie bombing in Libya was involved), people who haven't lived there for decades and our former and future al Quaeda allies (one of whom we apparently rendited to Gaddaffi who wasn't smart or brutal enough to kill him), the oil price would never have gone up in the first place.
On the other hand these televised gladiatorial games with the lives of far away people are useful for distracting the plebeians.
------------------------------------------
Douglas Carswell says competing currencies should be allowed
I assume that competing currencies would include currencies issued by non-state organisations such as the IMF, Santander, Barclays, Paypal, BT, Orange, you and me. If so I see where you are going and so long as nobody is forced to take any of it and the laws are strong enough against forgery, I agree.
It would reduce the parasitic power of the state and end inflation.
-----------------------------------
Spiked article making fun of politically approved writers doing short stories promoting warming alarmism
All one can say, indeed all one ought to waste time saying, is that all those authors from Margaret Atwood to David Mitchell are deluded. The evidence that we are not experiencing catastrophic warming is as unequivocal as that which says we are not experiencing an ice age.
The green lobby have been proven liars time after time and nobody can honestly claim to believe a word they say.
---------------------------
John Redwood stresses the importance of inequality but
John, in this thread you seem to have accepted the “left’s definition of poverty. Poverty used to be & properly still is lack of money or income. The “left” has redefined it as income inequality. Thus, by their definition North Korea and Cuba have less “poverty” than South Korea and Hong Kong because although people are starving there almost everybody is starving so nobody is “poor”.
A job of government should be reducing poverty by allowing increase of national wealth. ANYBODY, including Guardianistas who says this should take 2nd (or later) place to reducing inequality is, by definition, opposing reducing poverty. The “right” should not be browbeaten into accepting this Newspeak definition of the word and should make it quite clear that we, not they, are opposed to real poverty.
The evidence is quite unequivocal that economic freedom, including freedom in energy production, leads to wealth and state interference, to produce equality or otherwise, tends to reduce this. An extra 1% growth will, in not many years, give even the poorest, more money than any practical redistribution could.
Whether, or rather how much, it is the state’s duty to reduce income inequality is an arguable question. Machiavelli and many other historical thinkers were of the opinion that gross income inequality tends to produce a less effective society (eg the later Roman Empire). On the other hand few have said that total equality is either possible or desirable. Pournelle is clearly right to point out the ultimate dichotomy of what state power used for this objective could achieve – “Free men are not equal and equal men are not free.
------------------------------------
EU Referendum on our corrupt media
I think you are optimistic to think that modern western societies, not being technically totalitarian, are marginally less likely to fall for state propaganda than in Hitler's day. It may well be that the pure amount of centralised "news" we get and the power and immediacy of TV images are much more effective than anything available to Adolf, or Joe.
-------------------------------------

Al Fin - can the scientific method be restored
Probably the first such in the modern strain of perversions of science was when the bureaucrats produced the Linear no Threshold (LNT) theory of radiation damage because it made it easy to produce regulations without knowing anything more than arithmetic. With a few years it had become "official" and is now OFFICIAL, without any evidence, indeed against both previous theory (that the dose makes the poison) or evidence (there is massive evidence that at low levels, ie anything well above Fukushima, radiation is beneficial).
There are a number of other cases in which the scientific process has given way to "post-normal science", including catastrophic warming but that is, I believe, the first modern one and the most destructive. World electricity production being 40% and thus GNP under 50% of what it would have been had the geometric growth in nuclear plants not been halted..

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