Self indulgence

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Self indulgence

Booker is having great fun today, tweaking the tail of the zealots.

He draws the parallel between the religious fervour of the warmists and the Darwinians, noting how both camps share the common traits of blind faith in their beliefs and their fanatical intolerance of anyone who dares question their dogma. One might also add the euro-fanatics whose enthusiasm for the "project" has quasi-religious aspects, and who also display the same fanatical intolerance of the warmists and Darwinians.

Certainly, it is a fascination reflection of current times that so many of those who believe passionately in the "project" are equally slavish to the warmist dogma, the two so often going hand in hand. It would be an interesting hypothesis to explore that there might be a three-way tied up, with a conjoining of the eurofanatics, the warmists and the Darwinians, the three tenets thus represented forming the basis of a wider belief system, the core of a modern secular religion to replace those which are no longer fashionable.

An irreverent thought thus occurs that, if only we could get the Islamic fundamentalists interested global warming, the "global war on terror" might thus be solved. I am sure there must be a reference in the Koran to anthropogenic carbon dioxide and an injunction from Allah that emissions must be reduced. That is definitely one for al-Gore, methinks.

Anyhow, to an extent, Booker's piece is a tad self-indulgent. He has always had a great fascination for Darwinian theory – and its very obvious flaws, to which he refers. The 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the reverential treatment of the BBC – which also sides with the warmist and EU camps – allows him to indulge his interest in the column.

By the same measure, I will do likewise, remarking that yesterday evening, I dotted the last dot and crossed the last "t" on the "great work" and e-mailed it off to the publishers as the "final" draft, only then to find two typos in the last chapter. Even now, there are a few little "tweaks" I must do, but, by and large, the project is finished … unless or until someone comes up with a mass of new material that is highly relevant to the study. (If anyone wants a look at the pre-publication version, drop me an e-mail and I'll send a copy to you.)

In constructing the narrative that has emerged, I have tried to remain faithful to basic principles, the lack of which in current, so-called scientific thinking are noticeable. I have assembled the data first, corralled it into a chronological sequence and then let the facts tell the story. For sure, there is a strong element in the selection of the facts, but the reader can, if so inclined, check them out and form their own opinions. There are over 1,000 referenced sources.

The experience has been fascinating, if somewhat arduous. For over three months now, I have effectively opted out of the human race, focusing exclusively on the project, to the exclusion of virtually everything else barring just enough effort to keep this blog going, with two posts a day. Inevitably, though, I have dropped the ball on a number of issues, or given them less attention than they deserve, and will now have to do a "catch-up".

Interestingly though – and I don't know whether this is a reflection of my own obsession or a genuine response to reality – I find it more and more difficult to "engage" with what passes for news. On several occasions, I have found myself, more out of habit than anything else, going out to the shop to buy the newspaper, bringing it home and then forgetting to read it. Similarly, at times, one even finds Microsoft "Spider solitaire" more interesting than the headlines offered on Google News.

However, the real world beckons, or so I am told and, after a gradual re-acclimatisation, I hope to have this blog – and its sister Defence of the Realm - back running normally, if there is such a thing as normality, which I very much doubt. In the meantime, enjoy Booker and add to the comments on the online edition. Some of his readers have fallen for the delicious trap that Booker has set them, displaying the very intolerance of which he accuses them.

In the meantime, I'm going to have just one last look at my book, to produce the final, final version … until the next one, that is.

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The blind shall lead the blind

Weary one is with these lame-brain johnny-come-latelys who dive into a subject, half understanding it, and then pontificate mightily from a position of almost total ignorance.

We have another one here, who calls himself Dan Lewis, research director – no less - of the Economic Research Council.

He is trilling on about "The rise of the EU Quangos," trotting out the cliché that "that imitation is the greatest form of flattery," and that "the EU's newly acquired taste in aping Britain's growing quango state is a compliment we could well do without."

This is based on a flawed thesis that gets its own airing here. It rests on the basic misunderstanding of the nature of the Quango, easily revealed when you unpeel the acronym and remember that it stands for Quasi-non-governmental organisation. In other words – no, in the exact words - they are non-governmental.

Lewis, apparently unaware of this, then goes to twitter on about EU agencieswhich "duplicate work done elsewhere, crowd out private sector activity and add very dubious value." Probably the most indefensible of these bodies, he says, is the European Defence Agency (EDA). 

Before going any further, we can immediately see the difference. He is talking about agencies. These are not non-governmental, they aregovernmental bodies – they are part of the government and they act on its behalf – no less so than the EDA.

Further, in the European structures – as is explained on the EU site, there are several different types of agency, five to be specific, each with different functions. Even to group them together as one, much less call them "quangos" is an utter travesty.

More to the point, this little dimwit clearly does not understand what is going on. He bleats about the "Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency", "where you just wonder that if they were to disappear tomorrow, unless you work there, would anyone actually notice?" 

In so doing, he glosses over the word "executive", as in Executive Agency. This is a body "established in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 (OJ L 11, 16.1.2003) with a view to being entrusted with certain tasks relating to the management of one or more Community programmes". In other words, it is part of the EU governmental structure.

Now, you can argue validly that these agencies are dangerous, that they have too much power and that they, like the EU, should be abolished for that reason – as Booker and I have done (another blast here), but to bleat on about "quangos" is totally, comprehensively and completely to miss the point.

Nevertheless, he grinds laboriously to a conclusion, that the "quangos" both in the UK and EU "represent the soft underbelly of the oversized state." From there, we get the stunning recommendation that: "It's high time to start cutting them down to size." The man is a total (insert word here). In the EU they are the state. They are integral to the EU and are central to its functioning.

You can't cut them down to size. You can only get rid of them, and to do that, you have to get rid of the EU.

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