Bright and shiny thinking

I’m quoting a fairly long rant from the Devil’s Kitchen.
I’m reminded of Calvin and the reformers: they knew the works of the Church Fathers, and (as the Catholic reformers of the same period did) chose not to make laws around morals: they generally pleaded for mercy, not justice.

They did not tell people what to eat: indeed the Swiss reformation started by breaking the Catholic regulation of eating fish on Friday. They did say that if you wanted to call yourself a member of the Church you had to stick to a standard of behavior. They did not (unlike Islam) judicially murder those who chose not to be part of the Church.

You can sum up the Devil’s comments as Laws do not make people moral.

I’d add that legislative tolerance and inclusion implies that the only moral standards that exist are those of the state, and that is indeed tyranny.

Really? What about the restrictions on drinking in Sweden? Or in this country, for that matter. Or the laws against drug use, or a million other things? Adults are constantly being punished for the stupidity and ignorance of other adults; it is what governments do these days; they punish the innocent majority for the sins of the guilty few.

Besides, you don’t have adults: your molly-coddling Welfare State and communitarian bollocks has castrated your men and spayed your women. And thanks to your malign influence and the lack of cojones amongst the UK population, the British are rapidly going the same way.

Our politicians are turning most of the population into sheeple, fucking morons who will do anything to gain some crumbs from the government’s table—crumbs that are, in any case, stolen—extorted under threat of punishment and imprisonment—from the productive in society. And these same fucking morons are forcing those of us who disagree with them to toe their line, to pay for their lifestyle choices, to fund their habits.

And everywhere goes the cry, “more people want it than not, so they must be indulged. The people voted for this, and they keep on voting for it.”

Some call it democracy: I call it tyranny.

And I reject it.

I do not wish to be forced into state subjugation by the stupid, the ignorant and the just plain bastard lazy.

I do not wish to be forced to associate those with whom I have no wish to spend my time.

I do not wish to be forced to close my mouth for fear of arrest.

I do not wish to find myself locked away without trial, not knowing what I am accused of.

I do not wish to be an indentured servant, half of the product of my hard work stolen to pay for the lifestyles of those who are parasitic on the productive.

I reject this statist evil and I reject the validity of this democracy—this tyranny of the majority—this totalitarianism of the lazy and stupid over those who think and would be free.

I am not interested in democracy, but in liberty. And our democracy is proving, as any system of government always does eventually, to be the enemy of liberty.

It is why I am a libertarian—because it is the only moral philosophy. Under true libertarianism, no one is forced to support anyone else. No one is forced into a socialist hell-hole. No one is even forced to be a libertarian: if you want to form your own voluntary, socialist enclave, then

So what now should we do? It seems that Social Democracy is doing exactly what Popper and Havel said it would: it is becoming intolerant and tyrannical.

I’m not a libertarian: I’m a Calvinist. My faith has thrived under persecution, and we are entering a period where admitting one is a evangelical is to exclude oneself from polite, liberal society, or worse. I prefer freedom, because I am not afraid of the marketplace of ideas. We should therefore pray for a government that will leave us alone, and allow us to succeed (which means it must allow some to fail). We should vote that way as well.

I like this term. Yellow science is like yellow journalism: a method of making up plausible fiction instead of carefully setting up experiments. To quote James Kerian:

Nevertheless, the acceptance of man-made global warming as scientific fact has become so prevalent that the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, recently declared: “The debate is over. It’s time to discuss solutions.” Leaving aside the question of the secretary-general’s qualifications, that is certainly one of the most antiscientific statements ever made. The first question that this raises is why have so many scientists chosen to ignore this glaring failure of the global warming hypothesis to meet the standards of their own profession? The second question is what, if anything, can be done about it?
The first, and most obvious, temptation for this sort of willful blindness is financial. Hearst made only a fraction of his estimated $140 million in net worth from yellow journalism. Global warming, on the other hand, has provided an estimated $50 billion in research grants to those willing to practice yellow science. Influence in the public sphere is another strong temptation. It might not be as impressive as starting the Spanish-American War, but global-warming alarmists have amassed a large group of journalists and politicians ready to silence any critics and endorse whatever boondoggle scheme is prescribed as the cure to our impending climate catastrophe.
Finally, one should not underestimate the temptation of convenience. Just as it is far easier to publish stories without verifying the sources; so is it much more convenient to practice yellow science than the real thing. It takes far more courage, perseverance, and perspiration to develop formulas, make predictions, and risk being proved wrong than to look at historical data and muse about observed similarities. Yellow scientists have fled the risks of science that Albert Einstein described when he said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

I’m going to quote extensively from an article in the times. I agree with the authors: if a General Practitioner refers to a psychiatrist…. they should be seen by a psychiatrist, or at least a doctor training to be a psychiatrist.

Psychiatry, the group says, is the only medical speciality to adopt an approach that so distorts its original purpose. “For those with severe mental illness, to avoid medicalisation is at best confusing and at worst damaging or even life-threatening … these individuals are being let down by the current state of affairs.”

The changes came about under a scheme, New Ways of Working, established in 2005. GPs now refer patients with symptoms of mental illness to a team of up to eight people, which will include psychologists, nurses, social workers and a psychiatrist.

There is no guarantee that the patient will be seen by the psychiatrist, the only doctor on the team. The psychiatrist, a clinician with a medical qualification as well as higher training in psychiatry, is the only member of the team able to diagnose mental or physical illness with any certainty. The result, says Professor Craddock, is that patients may be prescribed “psychosocial support” rather than medical treatment, only to find in six months’ time that they have a treatable mental illness for which they could have been prescribed drugs or behavioural therapy.

Physical illnesses that may underlie a mental condition include thyroid disorder or, less commonly, cancer of the brain.

Professor Craddock and his co-signatories are not claiming that psychosocial treatments do not have a place, but they claim it is vital that patients are seen by a psychiatrist first

The problem is that community psychiatry is expensive. You need a doctor for about every 100 to 200 patients in specailty care: most of it is hands-on. You also need a member of the team for about every 30 people in the service. Ideally, the psychiatrist sees the patient, an appropriate (that means effective) treatment is offered, and the patient goes back to primary care.

But… the ideology among mandarins is that mental illness has social causes. They clearly have not conversations like this;

Doc: how are you going?
Pt: the new meds are making me shake and i’m not sleeping well, but I’m much better.
Doc why? (thinking he cannot tolerate this drug?
Pt. I’m not scared to leave the house and I can now get to places I want to go.

Psychiatry needs to be remedicalised. Psychiatric nursing needs to be nursing: social workers need to social work (psychologists can supervise therapy, or leave). We need skilled people.

But these are expensive. In the old days we used psychiatric hospitals — which were underfunded and negelected patients. Now we use charities, who employ underskilled caregivers because they are underpaid. For the patient with chronic, crippling psychosis, the amount and quality of care has not changed for the better and (particularly in the US, where “patient rights” mandate abandonment of the most vulnerable) the care is far, far worse.

Hat tip NHS Blog doctor.

Outh. The market is the lowest it has been in 3 years and we have negative growth.

In New Zealand, a gloomy retail sector and data showing economic contraction played second fiddle today, analysts said.

The benchmark NZSX-50 lost 1.98 per cent, or 65 points, to close at 3226.9, its lowest level since December 2005. During the day, the index hovered just 3 points shy of a three-year low.

Turnover totalled $130.8 million.

“It’s a negative day and we’re following international markets, and it’s just sentiment,” said Macquarie Equities senior adviser Ian Witters, who noted investors did not appear to be panicking.

The Warehouse’s warning of a marked sales downturn, after yesterday’s profit warning from fellow retailer Briscoe Group, added to the dire economic outlook.

Data showing the economy shrank 0.3 per cent in the first quarter looked set to make up the first half of a technical recession, or two consecutive negative quarters.

Hmmm: a recession going into an election: will Helen pull the plug now and limit the damage or wait until November in the hope things get better? They are clearly getting worse worldwide.

Low lakes, campaigns for power saving just as it is beginning to snow, shops are closing and the car is left at home.

People are angry… From Auntie:

Labour is taking a hammering in the polls with the third poll in as many days showing a massive 20-plus gap between the two main parties.

A TV One Colmar Brunton poll last night had National on 55 per cent with Labour lagging on 29 per cent. This followed Saturday’s Fairfax Media poll by AC Nielsen showing National winning 54 per cent against Labour’s 30 per cent.

The latest Roy Morgan poll also shows a large gap with National support at 52.5 per cent while Labour drops to 31.5 per cent.

However, in Helengrad, it is all OK: to quote the whale

Newsflash Clark, Denial isn’t a very large river in Africa.

If she thinks that the polls at the weekend, conducted by three very reputable companies are “extreme” wait till she sees next months polls

And it is only June. The election is in November…. the campaign is going to be cold, bitter and nasty

John Crippen gets a lot of flak because he is seen as a crusty, obsteperous GP out of step with the new reasoning in the rationed (but heavily spun) UK NHS.

All of these qualities are virtues. His comments about psychogeriatrics are accurate:

There is currently no effective treatment for dementia. Big Pharma would like to pretend that the current drugs are incredibly effective. They are not. Most GPs would say they are next to useless. We therefore need to put serious money – billions – into researching the neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neurochemistry of dementia and then, maybe, we will one day find some really effective drugs or, even better, find what causes the problem.

We need more Consultant Psycho-geriatricians, and they need to have good, motivated, career orientated junior doctors. If the government funded a hundred psychiatric registrars to do an MD or PhD in dementia each year, our knowledge would improve and more bright young psychiatrists would be attracted to the speciality. They would, in time, become Consultant themselves. This would move psycho-geriatrics out of the medical Twilight Zone

Meanwhile, we need more residential units for patients with advanced dementia and they should be hospital based with resident doctors, and with nurses, real nurses, trained in mental health. Too many so called EMI units are private sector dumping grounds understaffed by young, untrained teenage girls many of whom do not speak good English.

For the dementia patients cared for at home, we need dedicated CPNs with specific training in dementia, and we need more auxiliary carers.

In NZ, psychogeriatrics is popular & staffed with some of the brightest graduates from the psychiatry training programme working closely with geriatricians and (very, very experienced) RNs. The RNs like the job because they can nurse…

… and, even with funded care, we struggle. I agree with the good doctor, this needs to be an international research priority, not just ih the world of big pharma. The US has taken the lead here — they spend the bulk of money on research and are making progress: CATIE-AD is an example of a state funded trial in an area of controversy. The UK and EU should be doing the same…

Satudray evening was inetersting. Was going to a shared dinner on the Taieri plains and (as I did not want to be late) used Google maps to print out the directions. There was one major error. The last street was not 0.2 km from a major turning: it was about 2 km away. I therefore did not go far enough down the street.

In the end I did what I should have done at the beginning: Asked at a pizza parlour.

Following that to a midwinter and birthday party for David. Despite it being the shortest day, we were outside: it was about 10 degrees, and the fire we were cooking over kept us warm..

About a week ago a couple of goblins armed with a .22 went into a booze barn in Mangere and shot the owner in the chest. They are now up before the beak, and I’m aware the police have done their job in apprehending them.

However, the police stopped the ambulance from treating a man with a gunshot wound to the chest as it was “not safe”. The theives had fled: and despite the need to treat chest trauma immediately there was a delay of 20 minutes.

Now the police want to be armed.

Armed response vehicles” would be manned by firearms specialists and provide a quick response to call-outs like last week’s shooting of Manurewa liquor store owner Navtej Singh.

The Weekend Herald can reveal a proposal for a six-month trial of the patrols is being recommended by a top-level police review.

The proposal will be put to Police Commissioner Howard Broad for consideration by August and, if approved, the patrols could begin in March.

Police say the trial would probably involve four cars, each manned by a pair of officers and carrying Bushmaster rifles and Glock 9mm pistols.

It would create an official policy of routinely arming police officers, eroding the force’s 122-year-history of being “generally unarmed”.

The Weekend Herald has also learned police want the patrols to carry a medium-range “less-lethal” option such as the newly developed Taser Xrep - which fires an incapacitating Taser projectile from a 12-gauge shotgun.

Police acting national operations manager Superintendent John Rivers said the armed patrol proposal was part of a review that began this year.

The review’s aim was “to further develop police effectiveness when responding to calls for service where weapons are involved” and Mr Rivers said the patrols would augment existing police procedure.

“If armed intervention is required they [the patrols] are placed to readily provide it,” he said.

Mr Rivers said there was a “strong and obvious connection” with Mr Singh’s murder. Police have been criticised for rigidly following procedure in waiting 24 minutes from the 111 call until entering the shop where he lay dying.

Garth George wrote a superb piece about this. I’m quoting an part of it below. What he did not say explicity is that the social contract that keeps us unarmed and without private bodyguards — In George III’s reigh a gentleman never leff home without a weapon, and after dark without “a few men” is that we have a civilian police force to stand in the way and save lives. I do not think this is about the cops having guns. It is about the cops throwing away the rules written by labour party lickspittles that have never broken up a fight, and doing their job.

He understates the case. I consider the behaviour of the officers cowardly and seriously in dereliction of their duty.

Had Mr Singh received prompt attention from the St John paramedics who arrived at the scene shortly after the first police and were held back, he might well be alive today.

Instead, a young woman is left a widow and three little girls are left fatherless.

These were officers who swore to uphold the law and to protect and defend the lives and property of the citizens of this nation.

That’s what the police are for. Their job is to stand between us and those who would do us harm in the same way that a nation’s armed forces stand between us and anyone who threatens our safety and security.

Last night I left the cinema at 10 pm to the mating calls of the hoons in the Octagon: expletives and broken glass. I found a taxi, as my usual plan of walking home was too risky. If we cannot trust the police, we will take steps to protect ourselves. If we cannot trust the government to protect our vulnerable relatives, we must arm. This is the reason for the US second amendment, and any goverment who deliberately handicaps the police so they cannot do their prime duty is choosing to take a free people and make them slaves to fear.

The name for such a government is tyrannny. As Cromwell said, it is the duty of all Englishmen — by which he meant free men — to destroy tyranny. I preay this happens at the ballot box, not at the end of a SMLE.

Lots of technical issues around blogs lately.

It all started when the site’s comments were flagged as badware. I deleted all the comments, checked akismet was up, and asked the badware people to review. No dice. Still stuff up. Got into the server files and borked the comments database. Now awaiting for the tag of shame to be removed…

Huge credit to a2hosting, who make all this easy.

While I was doing this, I deleted a webcalendar I never have used and set up a subsite using B2evolution. I find this interestingly different. It is still not set up right… but it will get there.

The final technical issue is embedding videos into openoffice under ubuntu. It seems to be impossible: or it will require the FULL openoffice (including all the java and imaging bits). This makes for a bloated office, but I think I will need to do that….

Then the really big question is if you can save it as powerpoint for the windows machines. Or use a memory stick and wubi to run it on a windows machine. Still have to work that out.