Never mind the MPs - look what's happened to science

What happens when capitalist governments get their hands on the nation's science work? Greedy bastards get rich and science suffers, that's what (as George Monbiot summarises).

Blears - the lynch mob forms

Monbiot weighs in this time - a head-to-head (actually, her head to around his knees) interview. Compelling, unless you have little stomach for mechanoids.

Fisked!

Over at George Monbiot's place, we get the final of his Christopher Booker prize, awarded for the most unscientific bullshit in environmental journalism, calculated by errors per words (and named after the Telegraph's resident conspiracy theorist and nutter. The winner is John Tomlinson of the Flint Journal for an article which is riddled with howlers, as Monbiot painstakingly and exhaustively (but entertainingly) points out:

He has now seen off all possible contenders (except perhaps a repeat performance by his good self), with a cracking 38 howlers in one short column for the Flint Journal. Ironically he made these errors in response to my exposure of his previous claims.

Amazingly, this even beats his own provisional world record for density: the ratio of falsehoods to words. His first column averaged one misleading statement for every 26 words. This one delivers one per 21 words. I intend to submit his second column to the Guinness Book of Records as the most inaccurate article ever published in a newspaper.

Secondly, this astonishing wealth of disinformation means it has probably taken me 100 times longer to respond to his article than he took to write it.

'ello 'ello 'ello part 2

I've seen the police behave appallingly on various marches and protests, and even ticked of a WPC for over-reacting to some loud skate-kids once, so it's no surprise to me that the rozzers were up for a riot at the G20 protests.

When they were founded, they required leather collars to protect them from garrotting down dark alleys, such was the antipathy towards them from the rest of the working classes, who viewed them purely and simply as class-traitors, thugs hired by the upper-classes to defend property and privilege, much as the 'volunteer militias' put down any opposition to enclosure, oppression or union activism, such as the Chartists. There will always be an element of the police, armed forces and security forces motivated by the desire to violently deal with anyone not espousing the beliefs of the Daily Mail.

Monbiot expresses these feelings much more eloquently.

We're definitely doomed

Monbiot says so, and I think he's right. It'll take a few generations, and the poor, hungry masses who haven't contributed to the disaster at all will perish first. There's always a higher piece of ground for those who can afford it. I intend to learn Norwegian and follow the snow line in my remaining years.

I've never been one of those people who moan about aging, but now I positively embrace it - life is going to get progressively more unpleasant but hopefully I'll be dead before we're all huddled together in refugee camps. What's really annoying is that I haven't even indulged in the kind of short-termist hedonism that's caused all this. I've flown fewer than 15 times in my 33 years, don't drive, snort imported (or local) coke, each much meat etc. etc. What's depressing is that most people don't care - presumably because the effects are exported to distant countries occupied by poor, brown people.

Hazel Blears - has been assimilated

I've met Hazel Blears twice, and was struck both times by the horrifying robotic black voids that are her eyes - not once did she betray a flicker of interest in a) people and b) ideas. George Monbiot discusses her extraordinary life here.