When the depth of the country’s electricity crisis became apparent in January this year, I noted with some amazement that Alec “The Bolt” Erwin, the minister in charge of public “enterprises”, told us it wouldn’t harm our economic growth. He seems to believe in the notion that if the collective decrees it, so it shall be. Why he didn’t just exclaim “fiat lux” we’ll never know. Surely, this would solve the perception problems South Africans seem to have in the dark?

I, on the other hand, called him an idiot who learnt nothing in economics lectures. I thought those who don’t believe Africans can run a competent government would claim vindication. I predicted severe inflation, and said that we’d be lucky if GDP stayed in positive territory. We can forget about poverty alleviation and job creation, I wrote elsewhere. Privately, I said, “by this time next year [meaning January 2009] we’ll be in recession”, but I couldn’t find anyone who’d accept even an even-odds bet on it.

Some commenters accused me of being overly negative, and several called me an afro-pessimist. I am pessimistic, yes, but it has nothing to do with people or geography. On the contrary, I have good reason to have faith in the ingenuity and productivity of free people, even in — or especially in — adverse conditions. My pessimism has to do with economics and government.

Maybe I was negative, but lo, just a month later, the first signs of the massive impact on growth in the mining sector became apparent.

Now, four months on, South Africa has double-digit inflation for the first time since our liberation. The central bank has jacked up interest rates by a massive 4.5 percentage points already, and its governor, Tito Mboweni, has just threatened a staggering further hike of two percentage points, which would bring it to 13.5%.

Our economic growth has crashed to not much more than 2% — thanks in part to a staggering 22% decline in the mining sector. The proximate cause? Power cuts, of course.

So now we face that dread curse of inflation that doesn’t buy growth: stagflation. Even the unions now argue that we’re heading for recession.

In response, finance minister Trevor Manuel seems intent on jumping off the same rhetorical cliff as The Bolt. He told parliament not to worry, “The slowdown we are experiencing is of a short-term nature.” He describes the causes of this deepening economic crisis as “short-term turbulences”. There will be growth! Fiat auctus!

Is delusion of competence a contagious condition? Is this what Thabo Mbeki means when he said that cabinet takes “collective responsibility for the decisions taken over 14 years”?

My initial response to Mbeki’s apology was, “Well, off you go then, the lot of you! One takes responsibility by resigning.” I had not considered that all Mbeki meant was that cabinet would get its collective story straight, and collectively play God, because what they say is all that matters. The rest is just racism or neo-colonialism or afro-pessimism or negativity or sensationalism or media hyperbole. Reality is created on command. Truth is what the government declares it to be. Hence its attempts to censor the media and establish its own party-run newspaper.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing this to say I told you so (though I did). I’m not gloating that I know more about elementary economics than our minister of public enterprises (though I do). I’m the most modest person I know, after all (though besides that I have few failings).

I’m just wondering who dared disobey the honourable Alec Erwin’s command that growth would not be affected. I want to find the faithless exploiters of our collectivist misery, and expose them to public denunciation. Put them in the pillory and throw stuff at them, counter-revolutionary traitors that they are.

The PublicAffairs division of Perseus Books has published a memoir by former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan. The book is titled, What Happened Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

It somewhat overshadows an editorial by Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy for four years from mid-2001. Published in the Wall Street Journal, How Bush Sold the War is a highly critical assessment of the White House’s foreign policy positions — and one with which I find myself largely in agreement. But unlike Feith’s well-reasoned and carefully considered judgement, McClellan’s tell-all memoir is getting all the press. After all, a book by a man on the lecture circuit needs selling.

Here’s how I reckon the conversation between McClellan and his publisher went:

Scott McClellan, author: Hey, I want to cash in on a book deal, like all the other losers who’re out of jobs and get ghostwriters tell their inside-track stories. At least I was actually employed by the White House. Unlike, say, Joe Wilson.

Peter Osnos, publisher: Not sure a PR’s story is going to sell well. You lot are not much more sympathetic than lawyers and estate agents, in the eyes of the public, and the media hate your kind. So what do you propose writing about?

McClellan: Bush, and what a great job I did defending him in difficult times.

Osnos: Bye-bye. Nice talking to you. May I recommend Vantage Press? Vanity publishing won’t cost you that much, and most people never even notice.

McClellan: Okay, what would you need?

Osnos: To make money? How about inside-track confessions? Sordid tales of sex and betrayal? Did you know Bush lied about the war? Did you have doubts about White House policy?

McClellan: No, not really. If I had, I would have taken my own advice, as I said about Dick Clarke when he published his memoir, Against All Enemies: “Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let’s look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry’s campaign. The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments [that Mr. Clarke made] up on their website.”

Osnos: Best you never bring that paragraph up in public again. We can’t have people questioning our publishing ethics, now can we? Okay, let’s try another angle. Did Bush and Cheney confide in you?

McClellan: No, they didn’t. I just made press statements. Karl Rove actually ran the show.

Osnos: Then here’s an idea: write how the evil twins, Karl Bush and George W. Rove, didn’t confide in you, and told you only what they thought you needed to know to lie to the media.

McClellan: Like what?

Osnos: Take Katrina.

McClellan: Her name was Monica, and that wasn’t Bush, anyway.

Osnos: No, you idiot, the hurricane.

McClellan: Oh yeah. Forgot about that. What about it? I had my hands full defending the White House against charges that they should have violated states rights to send in the cavalry, when the fools in charge of Louisiana didn’t bother to summon federal assistance. Not one reporter would believe that Bush’s powers are actually limited by the constitution.

Osnos: You were the spin doctor, right? Did you set up disaster photo-ops?

McClellan: That’s my job. PRs stage photo-ops.

Osnos: Excellent. Nobody likes staged photo ops. Like spin, or PR, they’re synonymous with insincerity and lies. So just explain matter-of-factly how they were staged, and your book will sell like hotcakes. Nothing of actual substance required.

McClellan: And then?

Osnos: Well, just write how Bush screwed up on this, that or the other, in your extremely well-informed opinion. Without hindsight, book publishers like me would be out of business, and great authors like you would never make the bestseller lists.

McClellan: But my opinion wasn’t well-informed.

Osnos: Who cares? You stood on the podium in the White House briefing room, didn’t you? You have hindsight, don’t you? So you were the only dolt who actually said “yes” to a question on whether Saddam was involved in 9/11. Most people think that was a Freudian slip anyway, because they think a press secretary is supposed to be well-informed of what goes on in the inner circle. People will believe whatever you say now, just because of that White House seal behind you, and the hindsight in front of you. Hindsight will not only make you look well-informed, but it will make you look like you were smarter than them all along.

McClellan: Yeah, I guess. So I write about what I think about Iraq, and the PR job leading up to it — before I was in charge of PR, mind you — that sort of thing?

Osnos: Exactly! Or take the Plame affair. Everyone knows a special investigation failed to turn up anything incriminating at all, except maybe against that Armitage fellow over at State, who wasn’t even being investigated. Bush, Cheney and Rove never did tell you about their role in leaking her identity, did they?

McClellan: Of course not. They knew nothing about it. Well, except that Joe Wilson was a proven liar, and then offered to campaign for John Kerry. Even Kerry washed his hands of him. I advised the White House that if he’s too toxic even for the Democrats, they’d better not comment at all, because that would only give his story credit it didn’t deserve.

Osnos: No, you prat. Want to make money from your book? Just write that the cabal didn’t tell you anything, but they did “collude” to get their stories straight, so they wouldn’t make the mistake that poor fool Libby made. Presumably, this is standard PR advice, but don’t mention that. Just say they met at the time to discuss the Plame case and how Fitzgerald’s investigation might affect the White House. This makes them look like liars, without actually calling them liars, and without implicating you in any way. So you get to dodge lawsuits, and the book will sell millions. Then, when they heed your advice about Joe Wilson once again — not to respond to your book, for fear of looking defensive — everyone will believe they’re guilty as sin. The headline will read: “Bush White House doesn’t deny that Rove and Cheney were in cahoots”. They’re hung by what everyone will think is their own petard — not knowing it’s yours — and you’ll come out smelling like roses.

McClellan: But I have no idea what they actually discussed.

Osnos: Who cares? Write exactly that, in fact. In fact, not taking you into their confidence suggests dishonesty. So why don’t you call it a “culture of deception” or something?

McClellan: But I don’t think calling the White House deliberately dishonest is very smart. Or very honest.

Osnos: So write about “Washington’s culture of deception”. If Barack Obama can say it, why can’t you?

McClellan: Won’t all this look rather dishonourable?

Osnos: Look, Scotty. Mind if I call you Scotty? There are a million people out there who already believe all the adjectives in the world aren’t enough to describe the evil of the Bush cabal. They already believe every word you have yet to write, and more importantly, every word you won’t write. Most won’t even bother to read the book, but will blog about it anyway. Just write them something that doesn’t conflict with their partisan prejudices, and you’ll come out looking like the brave dissenter who did your duty but whose honour now compels him to go public. Who cares that you’re not going public with anything of actual substance? For that matter, who cares about honour? This is Bush we’re talking about, remember?

McClellan: Wow. And I thought I was pretty hot stuff as a spin doctor.

Osnos: No. You gave two-page press releases to journalists who are paid to read them. A mechanical monkey can do that. I’m hot stuff. I have to sell turgid 500-page tomes filled with the partisan drivel of non-entities to a million illiterate nobodies, and get them onto the NYT and Amazon.com bestseller lists to boot. You’re an amateur. That’s why you’re on that side of the desk, and I’m on this side. You have no idea how to spin stories.

McClellan: I see now what you mean by your “innovative and aggressive new model of publishing” that ensures profitability. I’m impressed. Just remember to put in the blurb something like that I was kind of the power behind the throne — one of Bush’s closest aides, or something — and that the White House couldn’t say anything without going through me. I hear what you say. You’re a professional. So am I, so let’s go make some money. I must say, this book-writing business is pretty cool. Used to be you had to actually save for your retirement, and protect your integrity. Now you can just turn around and screw everyone you worked for and make a killing. Here I thought PR was a pretty dishonest but profitable job. It’s clearly got nothing on book publishing.

Osnos: Indeed it doesn’t. Now let’s go find some rare whiskey to toast with. I’m buying.

McClellan: Och aye. A wee dram would numb the pain of prosperity.

Osnos: That it does, Scotty. That it does.

If you really care about global warming, there are a whole bunch of things you probably think you shouldn’t be doing that you should, and vice versa. The environmental religion of the modern age, in which an angry Gaia will punish us for our sinful ways, but we can redeem ourselves by sacrifice and self-denial, has spawned a mythology of classical proportions. The problem is that many of those myths, spouted as accepted wisdom by an uncritical media and special-interest activists, appear to be just plain wrong.

Wired magazine goes to the actual science — remember science? — and makes some proposals for those who really care about climate change, and think not only that reducing carbon emissions will actually help, but delude themselves that it is possible to reduce them enough to make even a little dent in anticipated warming.

Here is its list, each of which is explored further in a separate article:

• Live in Cities: Urban Living Is Kinder to the Planet Than the Suburban Lifestyle
• A/C Is OK: Air-Conditioning Actually Emits Less C02 Than Heating
• Organics Are Not the Answer: Surprise! Conventional Agriculture Can Be Easier on the Planet
• Farm the Forests: Old-Growth Forests Can Actually Contribute to Global Warming
• China Is the Solution: The People’s Republic Leads the Way in Alternative-Energy Hardware
• Accept Genetic Engineering: Superefficient Frankencrops Could Put a Real Dent in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Carbon Trading Doesn’t Work: Carbon Credits Were a Great Idea, But the Benefits Are Illusory
• Embrace Nuclear Power: Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy
• Used Cars — Not Hybrids: Don’t Buy That New Prius! Test-Drive a Used Car Instead
• Prepare for the Worst: Climate Change Is Inevitable. Get Used to It

It doesn’t say all of these are good ideas, of course. There are excellent reasons to slash-and-burn overgrown, bug-infested jungles, to plant more productive crops, sure. But there are also plenty excellent reasons not to cut down old-growth forests. However, if your policy goal is to reduce carbon emissions, which seems to be the sole fetish of environmentalists and policy makers, then all of these points, including razing the rainforests, are valid.

Meanwhile, the US Congress is about to debate a cap-and-trade scheme that will vastly expand government powers and revenue, cost consumers trillions in bureaucratic red tape, tax and lost economic growth, and achieve very little indeed. In welcoming an open floor debate on these mushy measures, the Wall Street Journal writes:

The vehicle is a bill that principal sponsors Joe Lieberman and John Warner are calling “landmark legislation.” They’re too modest. Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.

Ouch. Nothing like a fat bureaucracy to infringe on the liberty and prosperity of the people. Nothing like a first-country moral crusade to give developing-country leaders ideas to foist upon their long-suffering people. Nothing like an overbearing state to hold down the development of the poor.

As if $130 oil isn’t reason enough to consider more fuel-efficient cars, reduce energy usage in industry and invest in alternative energy sources.

While we wait for this legislative disaster, however, would the disciples of St Al please report to the consistory, so they can get cracking on Wired’s measures?

(Hat tip: Climate Skeptic.)

So, we went marching in protest against attacks on foreigners this weekend, to point out that no, we’re not all like that. Surrounded by communists and socialists and unionists and other great folks, I tried valiantly to get my “free markets, free immigration” message in front of the big red banners. Call it a protest within a protest. Not having marched in any cause since before 1994, I made two double-sided posters and one tall one, and met up with Duncan McLeod from the Financial Mail, and our convict-cursing comrade, Brian Bakker. Somehow we swindled him into carrying the poster with Duncan’s line on it. He will not be living this down any time soon.

The other side of my placard says “free markets, free immigration, free south africa”, and the other side of Brian’s placard reads “foreigners are scapegoats for government failure”.

A few more pictures can be found below the fold, and here’s a cool photo-essay by someone I don’t know, to a very appropriate sound-track:

For more pictures… Read the rest of this entry »

The last fortnight has seen a disgusting display of inhumanity, targeted against foreigners living in South Africa. Whether or not they’re illegal, whether or not they’re fleeing repression in Zimbabwe, whether or not they have jobs, local scum who think they’re superior have attacked anyone who is not like them, in the most brutal fashion. Our streets resemble the worst days of apartheid, and the pogroms continue.

We should be ashamed.

That foreigners flock to South Africa is a compliment. Do we really want the sort of country that isn’t attractive to foreigners? Perhaps one in which the government has to fence people in? After the decades of succour foreign countries gave our liberation leaders, are we returning the favour by slaughtering them like animals?

The problem is deep. Much of it is appears to be simple tribalism, racism and xenophobia, yes. But that’s not the cause. The cause is two-fold: the failure of government to improve the lot of our own people, and a widespread misunderstanding of the economic issues raised by immigration.

Foreigners strengthen a country. Yes, there are criminals among them, who steal out of need or opportunity. But the majority — even the poor, the jobless and the refugees — on balance contribute to an economy over time. They’d have to, or they’d starve. The notion that they “steal jobs” is mistaken. They do take jobs, yes, but every new job created adds more value to the economy than it costs. They contribute to production, and to consumption, and as a result create new jobs in turn.

Many foreigners, both in South Africa and elsewhere in the world, have become successful business people. They’re often entrepreneurs who create companies (and jobs) that locals haven’t created, to supply products or services locals haven’t (or won’t) supply. Obviously, they do compete against South African workers and businesses, but if they do so successfully, one has to ask why every consumer should pay the price for a local’s inefficiency or rapaciousness. Protectionism might help the protected, but it does so at a heavy price to consumers. Is it really fair to expect our people — many of whom are themselves poor — to subsidise inefficiency in the name of nationalism?

The most notable example of success that rests heavily on free immigration is the United States. It grew strong and prosperous on the hard work, the energy, and the entrepreneurism of immigrants. It didn’t let in only “skilled” immigrants. It recognised that free people, working for themselves in free markets, develop skills. That free people create prosperity and an economic vitality that is both deep and wide, and reaches far beyond just the immigrant communities themselves.

We demanded our freedom, and celebrated it when it was won, yet we refuse to grant others the same freedom? Why protest the pass laws, but demand that our borders be closed? Why ignore the biggest benefit of liberty: the ability to prosper without the dead hand of government holding us down?

True, immigration has its problems. Most notably, it’s a problem in welfare states. When taxpayers cough up to support people without the means to support themselves, it stands to reason that they don’t want bums arriving who leech off the system. This is the reason why modern America is no longer as welcoming as it once was, and why European countries have even bigger immigration problems. The problem isn’t immigration, it’s economic policy at home.

The obvious solution is simply not to offer foreigners any welfare beyond what the common decency of a civilised country requires. An even better solution is not to delude ourselves that a welfare state is a good idea in the first place. It sounds nice, but it is counter-productive. Let people invest their capital and spend their money as they see fit. Income is, after all, the incentive to be productive, so letting people keep their income seems smart if productivity and economic growth is what you’re after. Capitalism isn’t what makes people poor. You can’t sell stuff to poor people. What makes people poor is when free economic activity is strangled by state control. When markets are prevented from thriving unencumbered by regulation. When government discourages or even bans individuals from seeking profitable and sustainable ways to offer other people the things they need or want.

Liberation shouldn’t be a halfway measure. If liberation is to mean anything, it should carry both its political and economic meaning. Letting free people engage in free markets is how you create a wealthy, job-creating economy — something our government has singularly failed to do. For all its stated intentions and campaign slogans, it has not created jobs. It has not delivered a better life for all. And that’s not because of an “implementation crisis”. It’s because of a policy crisis. It’s because it cannot deliver a better life for all, even if it wanted to. All a government can deliver is the justice and liberty that permits each of us to pursue our own better life, however we define it.

Our economic growth lags even the global average, let alone the growth of other emerging markets. Our government takes almost a third of our GDP in taxes, yet what have ordinary South Africans received for this sacrifice? Very little indeed. No wonder they’re angry.

But making scapegoats of foreigners is misdirected anger. If the government seems reluctant to say so clearly, it is only because it knows the anger should really be directed at the socialist policies, the bureaucratic incompetence and the crony corruption of the ruling ANC. It deserves a great deal of credit for liberating our people. However, as a government, the ANC has failed the people.

We should recognise that economics, job creation and prosperity is not a zero-sum game. Every participant in our economy on average produces more than he consumes. Therefore, we should welcome every participant in our economy, because their work makes all of us more prosperous. Their work delivers the services and goods that make all of us better off. A government can’t make a better life for all, but people can. Where they’re from is immaterial.

Our government has not only failed the people, but it has failed even to speak up against the oppression on our doorstep. The result? Many of the victims of Zimbabwe’s tyrant now need the safety of our country, as many of our own people once needed the safety of theirs. We should take them in. We owe it to them.

Taking our anger at government failures out on foreigners is misguided and counter-productive. It not only hurts our own prosperity and progress, but how is it different from the white redneck who went and shot hisself some kaffirs in Skielik? Or the scum that degraded black staff at their university? Do we all want to be like that? How can we condemn those acts, or blame people for calling us racists and violent third-world savages, when all they see on TV is racism and violent third-world savagery?

We, of all people, should welcome immigrants. We should thank them for thinking our country worth making a new life in. We are the rainbow nation. Or aren’t we?

PS. Tomorrow, Saturday 24 May, a march will be held in Johannesburg to protest the rising xenophobia in South Africa. Despite the participation of many confused socialists who misunderstand the economics of free immigration but instinctively realise this wave of violence is evil, this march is worth supporting. I will be there, marching for the first time since the liberation of South Africa. Join us. Meet at Marks Park, on Empire Road, near Hillbrow, at 9 am. From there, we’ll head to the Library Gardens, via the Department of Home Affairs.

The decision to add the polar bear to the list of threatened species, on the basis that global warming threatens its habitat, is dangerous, and it’s going to hit Americans — and anyone who buys American products or relies on American investment capital — in their pockets. Not only trade, but similar decisions made by other countries or by international bodies, will spread this damage worldwide.

Environmentalists failed to convince the US legislature to enact draconian new laws to enforce costly measures whose benefits are at best speculative. Having failed to make their case, they fall back on what appears to be an innocent and even noble regulatory decision. They know listing the polar bear as threatened opens the door for litigation to enforce their ideas about carbon dioxide emissions on others, on the basis that any such emissions contribute to the destruction of the polar bear’s habitat.

Bloomberg’s Kevin Hassett says “this action will almost surely go down in history as the turning point in the global warming debate”. In an editorial titled Polar Bear Ruling to Bring Tsunami of Lawsuits, he writes:

Environmental groups are already preparing legal challenges. Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity told USA Today last week that the Endangered Species Act requires agencies now to address greenhouse gases, and warned that “we can and will go to court to enforce the law.”

Not only big companies will feel it. In theory, they could sue you for the car you drive, or the air-con you install in your home. And you won’t have a big company’s crack squad of expensive lawyers to protect you from the attack dogs of the green left. In short, this is a big deal. A very big deal.

At least we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that these superior beings (environmentalists, not polar bears) are obviously smarter than the rest of us, and care more too. So perverting the judiciary to achieve their political aims is a small thing when they’re saving the world from certain destruction. In fact, perhaps we should start a Fascist Party, so they can protect us from ourselves.

The poor panda, which really is endangered, had no chance. It was never, ever, going to be this profitable to the cause.

Cross your i’s, dot your t’s, and never, ever, ever put a tittle or iota where it doesn’t belong. Because it causes critical errors and terminal failures. The modest quotation mark may be small, but it is oh so powerful.

Some readers will have noticed that the comment post form hasn’t worked for a few days. That is why. A single quotation mark broke a string, causing a perplexed blank stare from WordPress. Thanks to Hard Rain for pointing out things were broken. I thought nobody loved me anymore.

If you tried to comment in the last few days, please accept my apologies for wasting your time, and by all means try again. It should work now, because this time I did something really radical: testing. I should patent that idea. I’m sure it’s fairly novel.

Great news for Oscar Pistorius, South African sport, and disabled athletes everywhere. The fastest guy on no legs… okay, sorry. I’ve used that line before. But the International Association of Athletics Federation’s ruling earlier this year that said the carbon fibre prosthetics he uses gave him an advantage over athletes with legs — which never did make physics sense to me — has been overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. This raises the possibility that the Blade Runner might yet make it to the Olympic Games in Beijing, although he’d have to slice a fair bit off his current times in the sprint events to qualify. Either way, he has the letters of marque now to challenge anyone who sails across his bow.

He was fighting this battle with the mandarins when I interviewed him a year ago (and Maverick magazine took what might be the only press photo of him relaxing without his running legs on). After all this time, just having won this victory over the sport’s global ruling body is a major achievement in itself, for which Oscar deserves hearty congratulations.

I have long been skeptical of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project. Not because I think selling cheap computers to poor people is a bad idea — I think that’s a brilliant idea. But because Negroponte’s non-profit whines endlessly that poor people don’t buy it, that poor governments won’t buy it for them, and that other companies have the temerity to try to sell competing products for profit. As if that makes a cheap laptop any less valuable.

His protest went something along the lines of: it’s not about the kit, it’s about education, and only the pure-of-heart, i.e. we, care about that. Intel and Asus and all those corporate scumbags are just trying to undermine my noble vision and prevent me reaching economies of scale.

Now, one ex-employee is calling Negroponte’s bluff. When Ivan Krstić resigned, he said only that, “OLPC undertook a drastic internal restructuring coupled with what, despite official claims to the contrary, is a radical change in its goals and vision from those that were shared with me when I was invited to join the project.”

But this past week, he explained just how drastic that change really was. In a long blog post mourning the faded glory of the OLPC, Krstić writes that the project is all about the kit, after all. It’s not about education. It’s about selling lots of cheap laptops. Negroponte couldn’t beat the corporate scumbags, so he’s joining them under the cover of his noble vision.

Quotes El Reg:

“I quit when Nicholas told me — and not just me — that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about learning would be presumptuous, and so he doesn’t want OLPC to have a software team, a hardware team, or a deployment team going forward,” writes Krstić.

“Nicholas’ new OLPC is dropping those pesky education goals from the mission and turning itself into a 50-person nonprofit laptop manufacturer, competing with Lenovo, Dell, Apple, Asus, HP and Intel on their home turf, and by using the one strategy we know doesn’t work.”

Now perhaps Krstić is exaggerating. Perhaps he’s just appalled that the project backtracked on a “clarification” made last year, and just did a deal to offer Windows on the machine, with Negroponte going so far as calling it “key to the OLPC philosophy”.

I can see how this might annoy people involved with the open-source project. Maybe he’s just a bitter liar with an axe to grind. But his story confirms, in uncanny fashion, what I thought I read between Negroponte’s lines last year.

If you’re going to diss the profit motive, have the courage of your convictions, and the honesty or your vision. If a not-for-profit can’t compete with for-profit companies, it clearly isn’t delivering anything anyone needs or cares about. Which means that it only swindles cash out of the gullible with sweet-sounding lies, and exploits the poor to do so. OLPC wouldn’t be the first non-profit to demonstrate why, for all their noble intentions, so few deliver on the reasonable expectations of trusting donors and needy beneficiaries.

Hey kids, how’s it feel to be unpaid advertising execs for Negroponte’s neo-colonialist ego trip?

Well, that’s it then. The Al Gore Inc special interest lobby has won another victory. The US has declared the polar bear to be an endangered a threatened species. So from today, global waffling alarmists can cite the doomed polar bear in support of their doctrinaire opposition to energy production, industrial projects and economic development.

Care to make further strides in reducing poverty, increasing life expectancy, growing prosperity and improving quality of life? Sorry, poor pretty polar bear cubs with small plaintive voices will stand astride history yelling, “Stop!” This is what, these days, they call “progressive”.

Yesterday’s press release was to the point:

Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today announced that he is accepting the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The listing is based on the best available science, which shows that loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future, the standard established by the ESA for designating a threatened species.

I’ve pointed out in considerable detail before, polar bears should not be listed by any reasonable interpretation of the various criteria that apply. The motives for listing them as endangered threatened — opposition to oil exploration and pathological fear of climate change — are also quite explicitly stated by the green lobby. The only possible scientific reason for listing them (the reason cited by Kempthorne) is wild speculation about future changes in their habitat, combined with the assumption that polar bears won’t bother to adapt to their environment, if it did indeed change.

But here’s what’s really happening to the population:

(Studies, in chronological order, are by: IUCN, Schuhmacher, DeMaster & Stirling, Nowak & Paradiso, Watson, Garner, Truett & Johnson, Schliebe, Lunn et al, IUCN, IUCN. Background photograph is by Steve Amstrup of the US Geological Service.)

Alarmists have a nasty habit of citing the high estimate in 1996, and the low estimate in 2006, to make their case for being alarmed. This technique, of carefully selecting time intervals to “prove” a dubious point by noting changes from an outlier, is a very common and simple means of lying with statistics. Given these studies, the more honest interpreter would use the longest available data series along with the most conservative estimates, to guess at a doubling in the population in the last 40 years. Or, if you prefer, you can assume the early research for technical reasons to be incomplete and inaccurate, and argue that the population appears stable at worst. However, that would appear to be unnecessarily pessimistic, as this article from last year points out:

“There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a … lot more bears,” biologist Mitchell Taylor told the Nunatsiaq News of Iqaluit in the Arctic territory of Nunavut. Earlier, in a long telephone conversation, Dr. Taylor explained his conviction that threats to polar bears from global warming are exaggerated and that their numbers are increasing. He has studied the animals for the Nunavut government for two decades.

Native wisdom, usually treated with great reverence by the environmentalist left, is undoubtedly a crock of self-serving lies in this case:

Inuit hunters make their own estimates of the polar bear population based on the number of animals they encounter on their travels. Taylor says scientists have ignored the anecdotal evidence of the Inuit, who say bear numbers were rising. Inuits also report more polar bears wandering into their towns and villages, where they are a threat to children.

“I’m pretty sure the numbers [of polar bears] are climbing,” says Pitselak Pudlat, an Inuit hunter and manager of the Aiviq Hunters and Trappers Organization at Cape Dorset, Baffin Island. “During the winter there were polar bears coming into town.”

(To be fair, note the chart in my earlier post, which shows growing, stable and declining populations.)

I reckon if the environmentalists are really so concerned about tiny areas of industrial activity in the vast wildernesses of the Arctic, they should just ship the fluffy little maneaters to the Antarctic. It’s uninhabited by people, full of nutritious food, and the ice is getting thicker, over there.

This suggestion is, admittedly, not as funny as the pathetic caveat Kempthorne, having caved to the pressure groups, adds to his press release:

In making the announcement, Kempthorne said, “I am also announcing that this listing decision will be accompanied by administrative guidance and a rule that defines the scope of impact my decision will have, in order to protect the polar bear while limiting the unintended harm to the society and economy of the United States.”

Good luck, Mr Kempthorne. You have a polar bear’s chance in hell. Perhaps you can get a job with Al Gore’s investment company, though. The self-serving capitalists of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers certainly owe you one. Maybe he’ll let you be a roadie on his next great rock star tour.

Update: The term “endangered” is a catch-all term (as in “Endangered Species Act”), but also indicates a particular classification, different from “threatened”. I have read the US Endangered Species Act (and its IUCN counterpart), and should have known to be less careless with these terms. Corrected where necessary.

Shock. Horror. SMS messages are more expensive than data transmission from the Hubble Space Telescope. So says a scientist at the University of Leicester.

Problem is, academics are often surprisingly ignorant of economics, whether in theory or in practice. This — and the fact that most haven’t ever worked for a private firm in the real world — may explain the appeal of radical-left politics among university faculties across the world.

This fellow, probably an excellent scientist, is an excellent example. He doesn’t recognise as simple fact that price has no relation to cost. None whatsoever. You cannot derive price from cost, nor infer cost from price. Impossible, unless the price is regulated.

(The scientists at physorg.com don’t know much about writing headlines, either, but we can let that slide since they don’t presume to write media analysis.)

Space scientist says texting is four times more expensive than receiving scientific data from space

A University of Leicester space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dr Nigel Bannister’s calculations were used for the Channel 4 Dispatches programme “The Mobile Phone Rip-Off”.

He worked out the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble — and compared that with the 5p cost of sending a text.

He said: “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.”

He went on to explain that text messages comprise 140 bytes, which is £374.49 per megabyte.

He concludes: “Hubble is by no means a cheap mission — but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical!”

Undoubtedly. We’ll let that pun slide too, but note that he’s not exactly comparing apples with apples, is he? My PC is also more powerful and expensive than the computer that drives the Hubble. Does that mean… what does that mean?

As Dr Bannister points out, data transmission from Hubble is measured in megabytes. Text messages are very many individual small messages, that have to be routed around the network separately. A similar comparison will find that internet access is vastly cheaper, per byte, than text messages, and that comparison likewise misses the point completely.

It may well be true that text messages are a ripoff. But a comparison with Hubble transmissions doesn’t make the point.

Price is simply an agreement between two people on the subjective value to one party of something the other has. If something cost me nothing to acquire, and has no real inherent value, but I then sell it at auction, did I rip anyone off? If item one cost me a million, but I can’t sell it for more than a hundred bucks, am I being ripped off? If identical item two cost me ten bucks, but I sell it for a hundred, are the tables now turned? Cost is one decision factor (of many) for a seller, because the seller may want to cover it, as one condition of agreeing to a transaction at a given price. Knowing the cost might also be a decision factor for the buyer, because he may choose to procure or produce the services or goods himself if he thinks that doing so will have more value. But cost is not, it is never, the basis or justification for a price in a free market. “Cost-plus” is a regulatory abomination, not a means by which price is discovered in a free market. And finally, there’s no such thing as a “fair” or “unfair” profit. By definition, in a voluntary exchange, the profit is fair no matter how high or low it is, otherwise the exchange wouldn’t have taken place.

If you think text messaging is too expensive, well, then don’t use it. Set up an alternative. Use instant messaging. Use voice. Stop waffling at your victims friends during movies or sports games. If you use text messaging, you’ve implicitly agreed that the price of a message is fair. Until operators can’t sell enough volumes there’s no reason, financial or moral, to reduce the price.

Instead of deploring the people who make commercial choices of which he disapproves, perhaps our scientist friend should express his gratitude to the involuntary payers of the tax that permits academics, sans economic nous, to download data cheaply from Hubble. And he might note that looking up the etymology of “nous” is pretty cheap, unless you prefer to buy a real, paper dictionary, or you choose to query an online version using text messaging.

Well, I’ll be fairly scarce around here for a while. While I catch up with offline obligations, please do browse around the 200 000 or so words I’ve already posted on climate alarmism, stats abuse, South African politics, universal economics, science and technology, libertarian rants, or just cool stuff that made me gasp or laugh. I will keep an eye on the comments and moderation queue while I’m off blog duty, so feel free. If you like what you read, or you hate what you read, do let me know, recommend me, or sound off. After all, despite being convinced of the power of market economics, I really doubt my scarcity alone will do much to increase the spike’s value. Your feedback is a key reason I spend so much time blogging in the first place, and positive or negative, it is always welcome.