More production or rationing what we have?

I was considering this recently in light of two different factors, that are acted on by the same forces of supply and demand.

Consider water supplies. As you probably know, large parts of Britain were subject to de facto water rationing this summer. Now it takes a special kind of genius to become short of water on this wind and rain swept isle, but there are reasons for this other than just climatic ones. Sure rainfall helps, but you surely cannot be surprised that water becomes short when we use more (dishwashers, more showers etc) than before, and there are more of us through birth rate and immigration.

So even if the climate is totally stable (lets not do that one here) demand goes up and supplies are stretched. Here’s where different approached to the problem come in.

Capitalists like me say “We have money, resources and capability to satisfy our needs, lets build some more reservoirs”

Lefties and environmentalists say “We cannot build more because it will hurt bird habitats or destroy water courses (or whatever) therefore let’s ration what we have”

This is insanity. We do not progress as a species by sharing the one buffalo we killed, we dreamed up better weapons and hunting techniques to get more meat, we thought about farming not foraging to create more. We move forward as a race by seeing what we need and getting it. If we had employed rationing years ago, we’d still be shivering, with a life expectancy of 25 arguing about who gets the last bit of meat.

Similarly roads. The private motorcar is fantastic. It gives you total freedom. But given that we have more or less the same number of roads now that we had in 1980, but twice the cars, is it surprising they are becoming congested? Again, I say, build more roads, the greens say “Building more roads just encourages traffic” without realising that all they are really confirming is that latent demand exists. So they want to ration roads by congestion charges, I want to build more.

Decide for yourself what sort of world you want to live in, a world of plenty or a world where everything is rationed according to government whim (but they won’t be subject to the rationing of course, you will).

Which is better?

Alexander Litvinenko

...was very clearly, murdered by the Russian state in London, in direct violation of British law.

What made it all the more terrible is that there was no serious effort at subterfuge. If you’d wanted to make it look like a mugging, you’d get a couple of your guys to stab the bloke to death and take his wallet.

No. They fed him some kind of radioactive isotope, which realistically, only a state could come up with, and let him die horribly.

So, the method was clearly aimed at other dissidents saying, “Keep criticising us and you’ll get the same”

The “denials” are still more insulting. If they’d have said, “it may have been rogue elements in our security services, we will investigate” at least that gives them an out. But no. Their stance amounts to “we killed him, we’ll kill anyone else who criticises us, fuck you”

The Russians are not our friends, and we should on a Europe wide basis, stop trading with them until the perps of this crime are handed over ~ and someone who “died trying to escape the police in Russia” would not be acceptable. Live, questionable prisoners are what is needed. We should call the ambassador back and the EU should do the same, otherwise sanction the Kremlin killing anyone they don’t like in your territory.

Mobile finger printing

A news story today said that when the cops stop people when they are driving, they get about a 60% rate of people saying they are someone else.

I can’t believe the figure is anywhere near this high, but anyway, the cops now have some techy device that can take your fingerprints at the roadside.

Now we may first want to contemplate why so many people are breaking the law, (assuming 60% to be correct) I would start with a review of why we have criminalized quite so many people.

Second, I will not give the cops my finger-prints on the roadside. If they stop me, in a car registered to me, I see no reason to further “prove” who I am. Indeed this changes the fundamental relationship between citizen and state if I now have to prove my innocence.

Last, the fingerprint records will apparently be “kept” whether you are actually guilty of anything or not.

This is just one more step down the road to authoritarianism, one I will NOT be taking, they can bloody well arrest me.
“If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear” they will trumpet. Saddam Hussein could have said that. Trouble is, it seems like more or less everything is against the law in some shape or form nowadays.

Cost of Olympics goes down - nah, just kidding

The expected cost of the 2012 London Olympic park has risen 40% since the games were won in July 2005, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has told MPs. The extra £900m cost was likely to be met by London council tax payers and lottery funds, Ms Jowell suggested. The new £3.3bn estimate, still does not include a revised security bill or regeneration costs, is still far below the £8bn some critics say is likely.

Ms Jowell told the Commons culture, media and sport committee the rise was partly due to a doubling in the price of steel and also a decision to revise transport costs to take into account inflation in the years to 2012.

This is inept stuff, even for Tessa who is notoriously careless with her own finances (see earlier Blog entry). Lets consider these excuses

- The price of steel has increased – In the midst of a world construction boom, who does this surprise?
- Inflation in transport costs was not taken into account – are you kidding me? Resign
- VAT was not taken into account – this is first year cost accounting, and you’d fail your course if you hadn’t allowed for VAT
- Revised security bill – what’s changed between now and July 6, the climate is identical
- Regeneration costs – Loads of this simply wasn’t accounted for in the initial cost estimate of £2.4B
All total crap. The frustrating thing is, this was utterly predictable, just like Wembley, Scottish parliamant building, Welsh assembly building, just like the Dome. Lessons have not been learned and no-one will be held to account. If you are in government, you are beyond accountability, regardless of how much you screw up.

Old school ranting

The home office is paying compensation to convicted criminals who they jailed, because they didn’t supply them with drugs or methadone, thus forcing them to go “cold turkey” (i.e. obey the law) whilst in jail. The average pay out is £4,000. Staggering.

On the same day, they jailed a 75 year old pensioner because he didn’t want to pay the above inflation increase in council tax. So pay money to criminals but jail pensioners?

Iraq. We originally went into Iraq to stop Saddam developing WMD, but whoops there aren’t any, but no problem, lets have a democratic government that can spread peace and democracy across the middle east, but whoops, that’s not working and the violence is out of all control, so it’s actually a war on terror, only who are the terrorists and why can’t they just stand still while we shoot them, so whoops, change again, lets lecture the “Axis of Evil” (i.e. Iran and Syria) to do what we want, when we have no way at all to make them do it and nothing to offer them, because the army is tied up.
This is the fourth, clueless, “bound to fail” policy being suggested by out of touch incompetents that make WW1 Generals seem like a paragon of efficiency, meanwhile, our soldiers continue dying futile deaths, hundreds of Iraqis are killed every week and terror is boosted not reduced. Total failure.