So why was Viktor in Thailand? Well, there are some possible explanations beyond the CTB theory that it was something to do with the Burmese junta, or the Chinese, or someone.
Specifically, there are reasons to think that South-East Asia might have been the next stop in the VB caravan, after Ostend, South Africa, and the UAE. Consider Imtrec Aviation; a regular on the various war routes out of Sharjah, they're based (officially) in Cambodia but the aircraft, as ever, are based in Sharjah. Antonov-12 serial no. 1347907, for example, went from Aeroflot back in the days of respectability, via East Line or Avial and a spell on lease to the World Food Programme, to Aerocom, the Moldovan-flagged operation that was shut down after one of its planes was seized for smuggling cocaine through Belize, that shared aircraft with Jet Line International, Asterias Commercial, and ATI, and that was at the heart of the missing Bosnian guns case.
She later worked for Air Bridge Group, the short-lived Aerocom offshoot that wanted to operate from South-East Asia to Australia with aircraft that could open the rear cargo door in flight, and then, Imtrec. From there she was sold on to South Asian Airlines, a Bangladeshi-flag operation whose other aircraft included another An-12 leased from Imtrec that ended up with Veteran Airlines, yes, another regular Sharjah-Iraq/Afghanistan/Somalia shipper, and a very old Boeing 707 that was last heard of with Galaxy Air.
Galaxy Air? Yes. Galaxy Air, the people whose Il-18 serial no. 188011201 EX-786 was seized in Pakistan after a flight with 142 passengers, 20 of whom were standing in the aisle, during which one of the pilots collapsed with hypoxia. More relevantly, EX-786 had come via Phoenix Aviation of the UAE, a company repeatedly implicated in dubious activities there, formed from the old Viktor Bout companies Flying Dolphin and Santa Cruz Imperial. And another Galaxy Air Il-18, serial 185008601, EX-601, came from Santa Cruz Imperial via Phoenix Aviation.
Rolling the tape back a few, Antonov-12 serial no. 8345607 went from Imtrec to Daallo Airlines in Djibouti, and ended up with Click Airways in the UAE; one of the biggest operators on war routes there, and a company banned in the EU. On the way, as EK-12555, this aircraft survived a SAM hit over Baghdad whilst working for "private users in Armenia" - you could put it like that.
Then there's the strange case of 3X-GDM, the Boeing 727 exported from the US to Afghanistan that was curiously involved in two other cases; the disappeared 727 in Angola, and the tragic Christmas Day 2003 crash in Cotonou. All three were traded via Afghanistan, Opa Locka in Florida, and the services of a company in the UAE called Financial Advisory Group; strangely enough, the Swazi registration 3X-GDM vanished shortly after the Cotonou accident to reappear on an An-12 in Cambodia. That aircraft (serial 401912) is now back with Avial Avn on the Russian register as RA-11372. Note that Andrew Smulian, Bout's co-accused, was on the payroll of Air Cess back in 1998 when Bout wanted to move operations from South Africa to Swaziland.
Jetline International, the other one, owned two Il-62s it obtained from Viktor Bout companies Air Bas and Centrafrican Airlines, and leased in another from a Cambodian operator at the same time as it operated 3C-QRF, allegedly Bout's financial manager Richard Chichakli's plane.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Friday, March 07, 2008
Smulian In the Bag With Viktor Bout
Much more is filtering out about the Bangkok Bout Bust; it seems fairly certain that his arrest was the result of a sting operation in which the DEA posed as buyers from the FARC. Bout booked a meeting room in the Bangkok Sofitel; he, and several others, were waiting for their guests to arrive when the Thai police arrived instead. Initial reports said that he had only arrived in Thailand four hours earlier, on an Aeroflot flight (presumably from Russia); this has now given place to the suggestion that he had been staying in the hotel since January. It's most likely that both are in fact true, and that Bout has been in Thailand for some time but had recently travelled to Russia.
The fake buyers ordered surface-to-air missiles and anti-armour weapons, precisely what you'd expect a modern guerrilla army to import. A figure of 100 missiles was given. According to the complaint against him, he went as far as offering them helicopters for sale, and suggested that the missiles could be delivered by airdrop into Colombia. Given the length of the route from the ex-USSR or Middle East pickup point to the destination, this argues that an Ilyushin 76 would have been the means of delivery.
According to the FT, the DEA narcs had been on the case for some time, and there had been past meetings in the Netherlands Antilles and Denmark. Further, the FT claims they got access to e-mail from Viktor's Gmail account.
Viktor Bout has a Gmail account?!!!
In a further report, the FT mentions some of the people who were arrested with Bout. Chief among them is one "Andrew" Smulian, who has apparently already been ghosted from Thailand to the US. This name is interesting; someone of that surname has been associated with Bout since at least 1998, and he appears in the accounts of Air Pass for that year as a major recipient of cash from the company. This would appear to be corroboration of those documents.
It was inevitable that something weird would happen, though:
OK, so Bout is in Thai custody awaiting an extradition hearing. Bout and Smulian are the men named in the DEA's writ. Smulian's already been handed over - what's that about? - but some five others have been released including one Briton.
I'm aware of at least two British associates, but one of them is in jail and the other hasn't been reported as being involved in anything evil for years, and was anyway a marginal figure. The FT reckons the released men were the sting merchants.
Further, Doug Farah reports that the Russians have been making noises about issuing an extradition request; I remember overhearing a group of teenagers on a bus in Feltham, passing an ANPR mobile camera installation on the A30. One of them mentioned that it was a police camera that read number plates; the rest exclaimed "Sneaky Russians!" Indeed.
Meanwhile, the affair set the TYR infrastructure sweating, roaring and creaking like an old Antonov 12; just listen to those Kuznetsov turboprops. It was the biggest day in the history of the old blog with 1,576 uniques, plus a hundred or so more on the new blog; anything with a plane photo has been in heavy demand. My favourite google search ever: is max boot related to viktor bout? (the top result is this.)
But more interestingly, look at this: someone queried Russian Google for "Tenir Bout", from theUAE. We also had someone in Moscow googling british gulf, as in British Gulf International Airlines/British Gulf International Company.
Here's what our highly sophisticated surveillance network reported:
Wired Danger Room, meanwhile, theorises that the Bout network has been involved with the emerging Andes-West Africa-Europe cocaine route, and was trading weapons for drugs with the FARC. It's plausible; even as early as the British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000, some of the militias were noted to have transatlantic trading connections.
Just for laughs, meanwhile, someone on an Armenian IP is googling for Viktor Bout and Pierre Falcone.
Update: More detail from the horse's mouth. Looks like the DEA agents got Smulian to call Bout on a mobile phone they handed him so they knew which line to listen on. Huge security fart on Smulian's part.
The fake buyers ordered surface-to-air missiles and anti-armour weapons, precisely what you'd expect a modern guerrilla army to import. A figure of 100 missiles was given. According to the complaint against him, he went as far as offering them helicopters for sale, and suggested that the missiles could be delivered by airdrop into Colombia. Given the length of the route from the ex-USSR or Middle East pickup point to the destination, this argues that an Ilyushin 76 would have been the means of delivery.
According to the FT, the DEA narcs had been on the case for some time, and there had been past meetings in the Netherlands Antilles and Denmark. Further, the FT claims they got access to e-mail from Viktor's Gmail account.
Viktor Bout has a Gmail account?!!!
In a further report, the FT mentions some of the people who were arrested with Bout. Chief among them is one "Andrew" Smulian, who has apparently already been ghosted from Thailand to the US. This name is interesting; someone of that surname has been associated with Bout since at least 1998, and he appears in the accounts of Air Pass for that year as a major recipient of cash from the company. This would appear to be corroboration of those documents.
It was inevitable that something weird would happen, though:
Mr Surapol said Mr Bout was arrested with five other people – four Russians and one British citizen – all of whom had been released due to lack of evidence of against them, and lack of local arrest warrants for them.
OK, so Bout is in Thai custody awaiting an extradition hearing. Bout and Smulian are the men named in the DEA's writ. Smulian's already been handed over - what's that about? - but some five others have been released including one Briton.
I'm aware of at least two British associates, but one of them is in jail and the other hasn't been reported as being involved in anything evil for years, and was anyway a marginal figure. The FT reckons the released men were the sting merchants.
Further, Doug Farah reports that the Russians have been making noises about issuing an extradition request; I remember overhearing a group of teenagers on a bus in Feltham, passing an ANPR mobile camera installation on the A30. One of them mentioned that it was a police camera that read number plates; the rest exclaimed "Sneaky Russians!" Indeed.
Meanwhile, the affair set the TYR infrastructure sweating, roaring and creaking like an old Antonov 12; just listen to those Kuznetsov turboprops. It was the biggest day in the history of the old blog with 1,576 uniques, plus a hundred or so more on the new blog; anything with a plane photo has been in heavy demand. My favourite google search ever: is max boot related to viktor bout? (the top result is this.)
But more interestingly, look at this: someone queried Russian Google for "Tenir Bout", from theUAE. We also had someone in Moscow googling british gulf, as in British Gulf International Airlines/British Gulf International Company.
Here's what our highly sophisticated surveillance network reported:
[u'06-Mar 23:45', u'Al-Fujairah', 'Sharjah', u'Tenir Airlines', u'TEB 4361', u'Estimated : 23:45 ']
[u'07-Mar 00:02', u'Al-Fujairah', 'Sharjah', u'Tenir Airlines', u'TEB 4361', u'Arrived at 00:02 ']
[u'07-Mar 03:00', None, 'Sharjah', u'Tenir Airlines', u'TEB 4361', u' '] We've also seen them in the past doing routes like Sharjah-Baghdad-Kabul; a true war-on-terror trifecta, and in the last few weeks running into northern Somalia. Just look where the planes came from.Wired Danger Room, meanwhile, theorises that the Bout network has been involved with the emerging Andes-West Africa-Europe cocaine route, and was trading weapons for drugs with the FARC. It's plausible; even as early as the British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000, some of the militias were noted to have transatlantic trading connections.
Just for laughs, meanwhile, someone on an Armenian IP is googling for Viktor Bout and Pierre Falcone.
Update: More detail from the horse's mouth. Looks like the DEA agents got Smulian to call Bout on a mobile phone they handed him so they knew which line to listen on. Huge security fart on Smulian's part.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
We Must Ask You, Please, To Come Quietly, For this Is the Cadogan Hotel...
Viktor Bout arrested in Thai hotel room on charges of arming FARC.
And I didn't even know he *was* doing. More, as they say, as we get it.
Update: Here's the pic - it's obviously him.
And I didn't even know he *was* doing. More, as they say, as we get it.
Update: Here's the pic - it's obviously him.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
More Phorm Horrors
Spyblog is, of course, making sense when they say that the BT/Virgin Media/Carphone Warehouse spying scheme may be illegal because of the sweeping-up of e-mail traffic with the rest. As you know, Bob, e-mail has the legal status of a letter, thanks to the good folks of the EFF years ago. I thought of this, too; here's the text of my complaint to the ICO.
Some people are concerned that other ISPs that either use BT's IPStream service - buying wholesale service on BT's access lines - or else use BT Wholesale to backhaul the lines they have taken over under local-loop unbundling to their facilities might be affected.
I'm pretty sure they're not; the distinction between an IPStream customer and a BT Retail customer is essentially which ISP bills you and routes the traffic onwards. BT Retail deals with BT Wholesale and Openreach on the same basis as other ISPs, under the terms of their agreement with Ofcom; so it buys service from BT Wholesale, and its traffic is piped from the BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Server) into its own core network. Meanwhile, the IPStream operators' traffic is wrapped into something called the Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol (L2TP) and shipped from the BRAS over BT Wholesale wires to their own core networks, where they unwrap it, bill it, and route it.
If you look at the leaked network diagram above (right-click to enlarge), the Phorm/Websense/whatever stuff is all located in the BT Retail core network, upstream of the switches that handle traffic through their RADIUS servers. RADIUS is a server protocol used for accounting for IP traffic and controlling access, so essentially, all that goes through here is traffic BT Retail is billing for. We can therefore conclude that the other ISPs who use BT IPStream or local-loop unbundling are safe. Note that the left hand side is within BT Wholesale, i.e. everyone, the centre section is within BT Retail, so just their customers, and the right hand side is BT Wholesale's IP backbone network, so everyone again; if you like, imagine that the other ISPs' traffic goes around the back of the slide.
Which leads to the ironic conclusion that the best you can do if you're a Virgin customer is to churn to someone who uses BT's network.
I have just become aware that BT, Virgin Media, and Carphone Warehouse have signed agreements to implement a wideranging scheme to monitor Web traffic passing over their access networks. The intent is, apparently, to insert targeted advertisements into Web content requested by their customers.I consider the details of the scheme to be unacceptable and of dubious legality. It appears that the technical implementation requires the participating network to intercept traffic between requesters and remote sites, to keep logs of individual users' activity, and to amend the content returned in accordance with rules applied to these logs. Legally, electronic mail is considered equivalent to a letter; this implies not just reading the traffic but altering it.
Note that many electronic mail users access their mailboxes via a Web interface, so their electronic mail could be affected by this insofar as it is not encrypted. As requests are being redirected, it is also possible that the security of authenticated sessions might be compromised. No guarantees are offered, or indeed technically possible, that this system would only be used for commercial purposes; as if that made it all right.
Corroborative information is available here [snip a gaggle of links]
Some people are concerned that other ISPs that either use BT's IPStream service - buying wholesale service on BT's access lines - or else use BT Wholesale to backhaul the lines they have taken over under local-loop unbundling to their facilities might be affected.
I'm pretty sure they're not; the distinction between an IPStream customer and a BT Retail customer is essentially which ISP bills you and routes the traffic onwards. BT Retail deals with BT Wholesale and Openreach on the same basis as other ISPs, under the terms of their agreement with Ofcom; so it buys service from BT Wholesale, and its traffic is piped from the BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Server) into its own core network. Meanwhile, the IPStream operators' traffic is wrapped into something called the Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol (L2TP) and shipped from the BRAS over BT Wholesale wires to their own core networks, where they unwrap it, bill it, and route it.
If you look at the leaked network diagram above (right-click to enlarge), the Phorm/Websense/whatever stuff is all located in the BT Retail core network, upstream of the switches that handle traffic through their RADIUS servers. RADIUS is a server protocol used for accounting for IP traffic and controlling access, so essentially, all that goes through here is traffic BT Retail is billing for. We can therefore conclude that the other ISPs who use BT IPStream or local-loop unbundling are safe. Note that the left hand side is within BT Wholesale, i.e. everyone, the centre section is within BT Retail, so just their customers, and the right hand side is BT Wholesale's IP backbone network, so everyone again; if you like, imagine that the other ISPs' traffic goes around the back of the slide.
Which leads to the ironic conclusion that the best you can do if you're a Virgin customer is to churn to someone who uses BT's network.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
push the button, click the switch
We’ve been seeing a steady flow of Click Airways (ICAO: CGK) and Click Airways International (ICAO: CKW) movements between the UAE, Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Bagram, and some other war-on-terror locales like Djibouti and northern Somalia. Here’s something interesting; Click(CGK), one of the airlines banned by the EU in April last year, is registering a lot of Ilyushin 76s in the EY-, Belarussian Tajik registry. I reckon, what with the closure of the Moldovan registry and even pressure on some of the Central Asian ones, they’re running out of space.
Something else that’s interesting; I occasionally mention that I heard from a source that Aerocom’s shortlived Australian operation (Air Bridge Group - used the same registry and the same aircraft) “wanted to start flights between South-East Asia and Australia with aircraft with a rear cargo door that could be opened in flight”. Why on earth could anyone want that particular capability on that route? Who knows, eh.
Back when Air Bridge was a going concern, in 2003, the Antonov 12s involved came from Aerocom and Imtrec, another UAE-based operator often seen on UAE-Iraq or UAE-Afghanistan routes. Now, look who’s here; Click(CKW) just bought an An12, registered EK-11418, serial 7344705, that not only came from Click (CGK) but also from Air Bridge via Imtrec and some outfit called Air People International; in the old 3C- Equatorial Guinea registry but after they pulled all the regs to clean up.
Update: As a commenter points out, EY- is Tajikistan, EW- is Belarus. Which is interesting; Trans Avia Export Cargo is in Belarus, but this is the first Tajik activity we've seen.
Something else that’s interesting; I occasionally mention that I heard from a source that Aerocom’s shortlived Australian operation (Air Bridge Group - used the same registry and the same aircraft) “wanted to start flights between South-East Asia and Australia with aircraft with a rear cargo door that could be opened in flight”. Why on earth could anyone want that particular capability on that route? Who knows, eh.
Back when Air Bridge was a going concern, in 2003, the Antonov 12s involved came from Aerocom and Imtrec, another UAE-based operator often seen on UAE-Iraq or UAE-Afghanistan routes. Now, look who’s here; Click(CKW) just bought an An12, registered EK-11418, serial 7344705, that not only came from Click (CGK) but also from Air Bridge via Imtrec and some outfit called Air People International; in the old 3C- Equatorial Guinea registry but after they pulled all the regs to clean up.
Update: As a commenter points out, EY- is Tajikistan, EW- is Belarus. Which is interesting; Trans Avia Export Cargo is in Belarus, but this is the first Tajik activity we've seen.
tha mun laike w'it gangling-iron
The RepRap just gets cooler; they're now working on plastics derived from plants that are cured solid with UV light, so as to bring more of the toolchain into the project. Also see here.
If that don't work, there's always Lego. (If anyone gets this title, I'll be delighted.)
If that don't work, there's always Lego. (If anyone gets this title, I'll be delighted.)
Who needs remote control?
My ISP just did something naughty. BT, Virgin Media, and Carphone Warehouse have been caught in a scheme to sell details of all your Web activity to marketers (...and anyone else) without your knowledge or consent. And the full details are genuinely worrying. The Register has a major scoop, in that it's got hold of the network architecture diagrams; they imply that any and all Web traffic transiting BT Retail's core network is going to be tapped off and passed to several instances of the ad system. This will intercept your page request, place a cookie on your computer or update it if it's already there, then (and only then) pass the request to the remote host.
(Some people are concerned that other ISPs using BT Wholesale's IPStream service might be affected. My reading of the diagram is that the taps are within BT Retail systems, which suggests they're OK. On the diagram, the ad system is beyond the RADIUS billing/authentication server.)
When the page comes back, the system reads the data in the cookie and decides what ads to squirt into it (or conceivably, to remove from it). Put it another way, they're going to make their network lie to you. Here's how to stop them, or at least mitigate the damage. (More data is here. The issue has already sprouted a website, here.)
First: go to Internet Options/Privacy in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Edit/Preferences/Privacy in Mozilla Firefox, and choose "show cookies". You're looking for anything from webwise.com, oix.com, or sysip.net. Delete any you see. Now choose Exceptions, enter these names, and choose Block.
Second: if you're running linux, unix, or MacOS, log in as root and open your /etc/ directory. Look for a file called /etc/hosts; open it. Add the following line: 127.0.0.1 dns.sysip.net (there should be two tabs between them). Save the file. You've just told your computer that whatever the DNS server says, dns.sysip.net is located at your own machine, so any attempt to send it information will fail. If you're running Windows, same procedure, but the file is in a different place.
Third: consider using another DNS server. OpenDNS is handy; open whatever tool your system uses to manage networks, select your home connection, and untick the option to get DNS servers from DHCP. Instead, add 208.67.222.220 and 208.67.222.222 in the boxes provided. The question is, however, whether you trust OpenDNS; if they can't find a page they return a Google search rather than a 404 or nxdomain, which can break things.
Fourth: go right over here and submit a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Fifth: consider getting another ISP. I'm on Virgin Media and I will be.
(Some people are concerned that other ISPs using BT Wholesale's IPStream service might be affected. My reading of the diagram is that the taps are within BT Retail systems, which suggests they're OK. On the diagram, the ad system is beyond the RADIUS billing/authentication server.)
When the page comes back, the system reads the data in the cookie and decides what ads to squirt into it (or conceivably, to remove from it). Put it another way, they're going to make their network lie to you. Here's how to stop them, or at least mitigate the damage. (More data is here. The issue has already sprouted a website, here.)
First: go to Internet Options/Privacy in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Edit/Preferences/Privacy in Mozilla Firefox, and choose "show cookies". You're looking for anything from webwise.com, oix.com, or sysip.net. Delete any you see. Now choose Exceptions, enter these names, and choose Block.
Second: if you're running linux, unix, or MacOS, log in as root and open your /etc/ directory. Look for a file called /etc/hosts; open it. Add the following line: 127.0.0.1 dns.sysip.net (there should be two tabs between them). Save the file. You've just told your computer that whatever the DNS server says, dns.sysip.net is located at your own machine, so any attempt to send it information will fail. If you're running Windows, same procedure, but the file is in a different place.
Third: consider using another DNS server. OpenDNS is handy; open whatever tool your system uses to manage networks, select your home connection, and untick the option to get DNS servers from DHCP. Instead, add 208.67.222.220 and 208.67.222.222 in the boxes provided. The question is, however, whether you trust OpenDNS; if they can't find a page they return a Google search rather than a 404 or nxdomain, which can break things.
Fourth: go right over here and submit a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Fifth: consider getting another ISP. I'm on Virgin Media and I will be.
Blog de frappe tous azimuts
Martin Kettle can fuck off with this:
The bright Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Greg Clark asked recently why politicians are so ready to discuss antisocial behaviour but so poor at discussing its pro-social equivalent.
Bright? Christ, we're in a bad way. The first thing that needs discussing here is that "pro-social behaviour" is a term doing a hell of a lot of work; as with anything that could be de-syllabicised as "good stuff", it's profoundly meaningless.
But it's worse; who decides what is "pro-social"? What limits would be set on this power? "Pro-social behaviour" according to the State could be anything from insulation to denouncing your neighbours to the NKVD, and has been both these things and everything in between. Those states who have the institution of a Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Punishing Vice, like Saudi Arabia and the former Afghan government, presumably believe themselves to be promoting "pro-social behaviour".
And why does Kettle pass by this without offering any explanation of why politicians apparently find it difficult to discuss "pro-social behaviour" as opposed to "anti-social behaviour"? My guess is blatant partisanship. Politicians like "anti-social behaviour" for a number of reasons; the first and probably least repellent is that like "pro-social behaviour", it's a concept with no meaning at all. It's the modern version of Orwell's crack about "fascism" now meaning "something not desirable". Nobody is in favour of anti-social behaviour, by definition.
But then, nobody considers their own behaviour anti-social; this is my second and rather uglier reason. Anti-social behaviour is what THOSE PEOPLE do; youths! the white working class! braying posh kids in Cornwall! black people! asylum seekers! It's a cheap way of being indifferently hostile to all possible target-groups and therefore pandering to every prejudice available in the population, a rhetorical multiple independent re-entry vehicle.
And finally, politicians love anti-social behaviour because its solution is negative; you punish and coerce people you expect to commit it. I, the Man in Whitehall, can order the powers of the state to go and harass the potentially anti-social; I can be reasonably certain that the police will manage to be unpleasant to sufficient numbers of people who at least some groups of voters will consider to be anti-social. This is at least one managerialist control that will indeed produce results.
Further, anyone who can use the phrase "the bag menace" without apparent irony wants...severely criticising.
The bright Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Greg Clark asked recently why politicians are so ready to discuss antisocial behaviour but so poor at discussing its pro-social equivalent.
Bright? Christ, we're in a bad way. The first thing that needs discussing here is that "pro-social behaviour" is a term doing a hell of a lot of work; as with anything that could be de-syllabicised as "good stuff", it's profoundly meaningless.
But it's worse; who decides what is "pro-social"? What limits would be set on this power? "Pro-social behaviour" according to the State could be anything from insulation to denouncing your neighbours to the NKVD, and has been both these things and everything in between. Those states who have the institution of a Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Punishing Vice, like Saudi Arabia and the former Afghan government, presumably believe themselves to be promoting "pro-social behaviour".
And why does Kettle pass by this without offering any explanation of why politicians apparently find it difficult to discuss "pro-social behaviour" as opposed to "anti-social behaviour"? My guess is blatant partisanship. Politicians like "anti-social behaviour" for a number of reasons; the first and probably least repellent is that like "pro-social behaviour", it's a concept with no meaning at all. It's the modern version of Orwell's crack about "fascism" now meaning "something not desirable". Nobody is in favour of anti-social behaviour, by definition.
But then, nobody considers their own behaviour anti-social; this is my second and rather uglier reason. Anti-social behaviour is what THOSE PEOPLE do; youths! the white working class! braying posh kids in Cornwall! black people! asylum seekers! It's a cheap way of being indifferently hostile to all possible target-groups and therefore pandering to every prejudice available in the population, a rhetorical multiple independent re-entry vehicle.
And finally, politicians love anti-social behaviour because its solution is negative; you punish and coerce people you expect to commit it. I, the Man in Whitehall, can order the powers of the state to go and harass the potentially anti-social; I can be reasonably certain that the police will manage to be unpleasant to sufficient numbers of people who at least some groups of voters will consider to be anti-social. This is at least one managerialist control that will indeed produce results.
Further, anyone who can use the phrase "the bag menace" without apparent irony wants...severely criticising.
Donal Blaney: Hypocrite
February 23, 2008:
O rly?
February 25, 2008:
A few years back I observed that the Tory policy which envisaged an opposition on fundamental principle to the Euro, but only for the life of one parliament, made it possible to objectively estimate the length of a Tory principle at something less than five years. Clearly, exposure to the Leadership Institute has enabled the puissant advocate Blaney to dramatically reduce the half-life; it's like a political linear accelerator that blasts neutrons off anything you place in front of it.
However, given enough power you can transmute lead to gold with a real linac; this version works more in the opposite sense. A reverse Maxwell's Demon; it actually increases entropy by reducing information.
Further, note the interesting fact; the first post has an active comments thread. The second, containing two arguably libellous statements ("race-baiters"? "alcohol-dependent"?) as it does, doesn't. Blaney again:
How right you are, eh.
Regarding his "race-baiters" smear, it's worth stopping for a teachable moment here; this is a classic piece of extreme-right rhetoric. You could call it the phone-in three card monte. First of all, you make a coded attack on some group or other; Where is the BBC White Male Middle-Class Network? Well, it's called Radio 4, as someone pointed out. The basis of all this stuff is that you deny that racism exists; the existing institutions are perfect, so any specific provision for any other group is illegitimate. (Don't miss him getting schooled about the World Service Polish programme, either.) Then, when you get called on it, whine like a whipped dog;
Finally, you're ready to launch an inversion smear: see comments above.
Now, the messages that are actually transmitted here are as follows: first of all, Look at me! Bashing THOSE PEOPLE! (This one for the benefit of your target audience.) Secondly, to the wider public: I'm alady libertarian. (This one is an exercise in working the ref; it's necessary camouflage.) Thirdly; RACISTS RACISTS RACISTS!! Nur-nur-nye-nur! (This one is intended to demonstrate your aggression to your target audience; see Josh Marshall's classic statement.)
Blaney: hypocritical, intellectually dishonest, determined to import everything that is most repellent about US politics into Britain. And apparently cool with the idea of shooting Greenpeace protestors.
One of things that I find so frustrating about blogging is dealing with people who are either stupid, venal or willfully choose to misrepresent your views. More often than not, these people post anonymously and decide to tar their opponents with the epithet "racist", "homophobic" or "fascist" in the hope that by using such a description, debate is closed down and they win by default.
O rly?
February 25, 2008:
Moving on from the oh-so powerful list of race-baiters who announced their endorsement of Ken Livingstone, we now see a new list of Livingstone supporters - except that this time it isn't particularly impressive at all.
The idea that this alcohol-dependent divisive figure should be re-elected as Mayor is absurd. He has had his time and it is time for a change. While Boris Johnson may not be perfect, he'd be a damn slight better as Mayor of London than Ken Livingstone.
A few years back I observed that the Tory policy which envisaged an opposition on fundamental principle to the Euro, but only for the life of one parliament, made it possible to objectively estimate the length of a Tory principle at something less than five years. Clearly, exposure to the Leadership Institute has enabled the puissant advocate Blaney to dramatically reduce the half-life; it's like a political linear accelerator that blasts neutrons off anything you place in front of it.
However, given enough power you can transmute lead to gold with a real linac; this version works more in the opposite sense. A reverse Maxwell's Demon; it actually increases entropy by reducing information.
Further, note the interesting fact; the first post has an active comments thread. The second, containing two arguably libellous statements ("race-baiters"? "alcohol-dependent"?) as it does, doesn't. Blaney again:
Such is their intellectual insecurity that they will not engage in honest debate and instead they resort to infantile abuse in an attempt to stifle debate. I cannot help but wonder whether these people would not prefer to live in a police state where only certain views (theirs) are allowed to be held because the venom and vitriol that flows when you dare to stand up to them is quite astonishing. It says a hell of a lot about them and their upbringing.
How right you are, eh.
Regarding his "race-baiters" smear, it's worth stopping for a teachable moment here; this is a classic piece of extreme-right rhetoric. You could call it the phone-in three card monte. First of all, you make a coded attack on some group or other; Where is the BBC White Male Middle-Class Network? Well, it's called Radio 4, as someone pointed out. The basis of all this stuff is that you deny that racism exists; the existing institutions are perfect, so any specific provision for any other group is illegitimate. (Don't miss him getting schooled about the World Service Polish programme, either.) Then, when you get called on it, whine like a whipped dog;
The fact that I do not believe in multiculturalism, cultural apartheid or so-called positive discrimination automatically makes me, in their eyes, a racist - despite the fact that in opposing these beliefs I share the same worldview as the likes of Martin Luther King, Bishop Nazir-Ali and Trevor Phillips.
Finally, you're ready to launch an inversion smear: see comments above.
Now, the messages that are actually transmitted here are as follows: first of all, Look at me! Bashing THOSE PEOPLE! (This one for the benefit of your target audience.) Secondly, to the wider public: I'm a
Blaney: hypocritical, intellectually dishonest, determined to import everything that is most repellent about US politics into Britain. And apparently cool with the idea of shooting Greenpeace protestors.
Send - the envoy!
Last week: Two-thirds of Israelis want talks with Hamas. Not just that, but former secret-service chiefs were in the press arguing for it. Here's Efraim Halevy talking to old-school TYR ally Laura Rozen. And here's the data: ;not only did 64 per cent of Israelis support direct talks, and a majority of Labour and Kadima voters, but a plurality of Likud voters did as well.
Now; first, an air raid in fabulous Khan Yunis that kills five people including a couple of Hamas leaders. The inevitable retaliation; rockets hit Ashkelon and its various network-industrial nodes (oil terminal, power station, etc). A truly impressive amount of linguistic escalation. And a bloody punishment expedition.
Talks, even with the PA, are off. And this is worrying, even though the source is low credibility with a capital S. The whole thing has a kind of Lebanese feel; a mixture of extreme violence with a very low commitment to its actual aims. Consider the US Navy surface-action group that is annoying the Lebanese government; it's not by any means a credible threat of effective intervention, so what is it doing there? (There is only one US aircraft carrier away from home; and she's in the Arabian Gulf, not the Med.)
It also has a nasty echo of the incident back in 2002 that led Alistair Crooke to be blown as the SIS station chief in Tel Aviv; you may recall that he had secured Hamas agreement to a truce when, after some days of calm, an Israeli air raid intended to kill a Hamas man destroyed a block of flats and some children. A major suicide bombing instantly followed; shortly after, Ma'ariv was leaked Crooke's identity and likeness and he was forced to quit.
What's interesting here is that the war doesn't seem to matter to the respective leaderships any more; it's a second-order issue. (Amusingly, I remember that back in tha day Laura was asking for advice on how to buy euro-denominated bonds just after Bush's re-election; more recently, this post. Turns out she didn't.)
Now; first, an air raid in fabulous Khan Yunis that kills five people including a couple of Hamas leaders. The inevitable retaliation; rockets hit Ashkelon and its various network-industrial nodes (oil terminal, power station, etc). A truly impressive amount of linguistic escalation. And a bloody punishment expedition.
Talks, even with the PA, are off. And this is worrying, even though the source is low credibility with a capital S. The whole thing has a kind of Lebanese feel; a mixture of extreme violence with a very low commitment to its actual aims. Consider the US Navy surface-action group that is annoying the Lebanese government; it's not by any means a credible threat of effective intervention, so what is it doing there? (There is only one US aircraft carrier away from home; and she's in the Arabian Gulf, not the Med.)
It also has a nasty echo of the incident back in 2002 that led Alistair Crooke to be blown as the SIS station chief in Tel Aviv; you may recall that he had secured Hamas agreement to a truce when, after some days of calm, an Israeli air raid intended to kill a Hamas man destroyed a block of flats and some children. A major suicide bombing instantly followed; shortly after, Ma'ariv was leaked Crooke's identity and likeness and he was forced to quit.
What's interesting here is that the war doesn't seem to matter to the respective leaderships any more; it's a second-order issue. (Amusingly, I remember that back in tha day Laura was asking for advice on how to buy euro-denominated bonds just after Bush's re-election; more recently, this post. Turns out she didn't.)
A short break in social democracy
Felix Salmon recalls the impact the appearance of wealth, and Buenos Aires’ status as a quasi-European city, had on Argentina’s finances; part of the reason the banks thought it could pay back the money they lent it was that it looked OK, or rather the steaks were superb, the wine better, the company classy (and white); how could anything go wrong?
It’s worth reading. It’s also interesting, as it’s his response to a debate between carta dell’oro glibertarians Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle about why those terrible lefties persist in believing that Cuba is richer than northern Mexico. Cowen’s argument is essentially that there is a distinction between perceived wealth and actual wealth; the outsider sees crappy roads but not humming export industries, handsome Spanish buildings but not stinking jails. This is OK as far as it goes, but there is a far more interesting and fundamental point here.
Essentially, what they are talking about is J.K. Galbraith’s paradox of private affluence and public squalor. Naturally, right-libertarianism obliges them to carefully avoid citing him, but this is exactly the point he made in the 1950s; it’s quite possible, indeed common, for prosperity to coexist with ugly and generally ‘orrible visuals, precisely because people will optimise the stuff they control and which affects them individually, like their own homes. Further, there is some sort of indifference curve between private and public goods; people are willing to put up with crappier public spaces if they can compensate with greater private comfort. You can argue endlessly about the slope of the curve, but there is at least some tradeoff.
The international aspect, though, is interesting and I think original; as a foreigner, the visual terms of trade are inverted. You don’t spend time in private space, and you spend much more time than usual in public or semipublic, so private affluence is invisible except in so far as it spills over into the public square (good steakhouses, say, and high culture). Further, a lot of travelling occurs between cultures where different private-public exchange rates apply. It occurs to me that much tourism is motivated by precisely this factor; tourism as a form of commuting from the suburbs of private affluence to the city of public prosperity. In a sense, urban tourists are unconsciously spending a few days in socialism. (Other forms of tourism may provide something similar by creating pseudo-public spaces of great luxury, the poverty of the country being concealed.)
This goes double for questions of egalitarianism - tourists don’t stray into the favela, and a colleague of mine recalls the Ericsson engineer he worked with who was robbed of all his possessions down to and including his underpants on the first day of the project, so private suffering is as invisible as private affluence - and maybe triple for questions of politics.
After all, you’re unlikely to be the object of oppression as a visitor unless you’re actually coming to seek it out; if you don’t speak the language you’re unlikely to miss much through the censorship of the news. Add to this some special factors that apply to visitors who have come to do something rather than just to visit; if business is good, your old friends the fundamental attribution error and the salience heuristic will assure you that things are OK, if you’re as smart as you are. If it’s bad, well, look how dirty the streets are.
It’s worth reading. It’s also interesting, as it’s his response to a debate between carta dell’oro glibertarians Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle about why those terrible lefties persist in believing that Cuba is richer than northern Mexico. Cowen’s argument is essentially that there is a distinction between perceived wealth and actual wealth; the outsider sees crappy roads but not humming export industries, handsome Spanish buildings but not stinking jails. This is OK as far as it goes, but there is a far more interesting and fundamental point here.
Essentially, what they are talking about is J.K. Galbraith’s paradox of private affluence and public squalor. Naturally, right-libertarianism obliges them to carefully avoid citing him, but this is exactly the point he made in the 1950s; it’s quite possible, indeed common, for prosperity to coexist with ugly and generally ‘orrible visuals, precisely because people will optimise the stuff they control and which affects them individually, like their own homes. Further, there is some sort of indifference curve between private and public goods; people are willing to put up with crappier public spaces if they can compensate with greater private comfort. You can argue endlessly about the slope of the curve, but there is at least some tradeoff.
The international aspect, though, is interesting and I think original; as a foreigner, the visual terms of trade are inverted. You don’t spend time in private space, and you spend much more time than usual in public or semipublic, so private affluence is invisible except in so far as it spills over into the public square (good steakhouses, say, and high culture). Further, a lot of travelling occurs between cultures where different private-public exchange rates apply. It occurs to me that much tourism is motivated by precisely this factor; tourism as a form of commuting from the suburbs of private affluence to the city of public prosperity. In a sense, urban tourists are unconsciously spending a few days in socialism. (Other forms of tourism may provide something similar by creating pseudo-public spaces of great luxury, the poverty of the country being concealed.)
This goes double for questions of egalitarianism - tourists don’t stray into the favela, and a colleague of mine recalls the Ericsson engineer he worked with who was robbed of all his possessions down to and including his underpants on the first day of the project, so private suffering is as invisible as private affluence - and maybe triple for questions of politics.
After all, you’re unlikely to be the object of oppression as a visitor unless you’re actually coming to seek it out; if you don’t speak the language you’re unlikely to miss much through the censorship of the news. Add to this some special factors that apply to visitors who have come to do something rather than just to visit; if business is good, your old friends the fundamental attribution error and the salience heuristic will assure you that things are OK, if you’re as smart as you are. If it’s bad, well, look how dirty the streets are.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
I am still in Iraq...I hear nothing from your Government!
Despite all the promises, the Government is still achieving nothing with regard to its Iraqi employees. Leave aside, for the moment, the considerable numbers who are being rejected. Even the accepted - in so far as this category means anything yet - are still in Iraq, still on the streets, and still in danger. “I am still in Iraq…I hear nothing from your Government yet!”, wrote one of them to Dan Hardie.
Over at Dan’s, you can read about the fact that according to Bob Ainsworth MP, this man has been accepted; but the Borders and Immigration Agency, the final arbiter, is still doing nothing. You could read about the man who, according to the Government, worked at the Shaibah Logistics Base for two years - and they should know, as he lived on the base itself after being threatened by (as they say) unidentified gunmen until he was served notice to quit before the camp was shut down last year. He’s now in Syria.
But don’t imagine this is anything new. Three days ago, the Second World War secret agent Pearl Witherington died, after a life that included more than a year on the run in occupied France organising the STATIONER resistance network. She had to take over command of the organisation at one point; eventually they were ready in June, 1944 to set the German rear ablaze. She was refused a military decoration, and more importantly (to her) parachutist wings, until the RAF relented in 2006 and issued the badge. But that’s not why I’m dragging her in.
It wasn’t any different in June, 1940, either:
And she was a British citizen.
Apparently, part of the delay is because the Home Office - of course, inevitably, them - is responsible for finding accomodation for anyone evacuated. They, in turn, are blaming local authorities. The Foreign Office’s offer of cash looks better and better, frankly; at least it’s actual, immediate assistance.
Well, you know the rules: Please write a letter to your MP. His or her address is The House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA. If you don’t know who your constituency MP is, go here and type your postcode in. When you’ve sent a letter, follow it up with an email: his or her address will normally be SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk - for example BROWNG@parliament.uk
Two or three days after you have written the letter, call the Parliamentary switchboard on 0207 219 3000 and ask for your MP’s office. Repeat your concerns to the secretary or research assistant you speak to (and be nice: most of these people work damn hard for little reward), check that your letter has been received, and politely request that the MP ask questions of Ministers and reply to you. In your email, your letter, and your phone calls, you must be courteous: insulting an MP or a research assistant will discredit this cause.
Full talking points are over here. But here’s one more of my own; if it’s the local authorities who are the problem, let’s find out which ones. Why not call your local council member for housing too? And tell us all about it.
Over at Dan’s, you can read about the fact that according to Bob Ainsworth MP, this man has been accepted; but the Borders and Immigration Agency, the final arbiter, is still doing nothing. You could read about the man who, according to the Government, worked at the Shaibah Logistics Base for two years - and they should know, as he lived on the base itself after being threatened by (as they say) unidentified gunmen until he was served notice to quit before the camp was shut down last year. He’s now in Syria.
But don’t imagine this is anything new. Three days ago, the Second World War secret agent Pearl Witherington died, after a life that included more than a year on the run in occupied France organising the STATIONER resistance network. She had to take over command of the organisation at one point; eventually they were ready in June, 1944 to set the German rear ablaze. She was refused a military decoration, and more importantly (to her) parachutist wings, until the RAF relented in 2006 and issued the badge. But that’s not why I’m dragging her in.
It wasn’t any different in June, 1940, either:
At the time of the German Blitzkrieg into northern France in May 1940, she was working as an assistant to the Air Attaché in the British Embassy, but through being “locally enlisted” was not included in the official evacuation scheme and had to make her way to England through the Vichy-controlled zone (which initially avoided German occupation) then via neutral Spain to Portugal, from where she boarded a coaster to Gibraltar.
And she was a British citizen.
Apparently, part of the delay is because the Home Office - of course, inevitably, them - is responsible for finding accomodation for anyone evacuated. They, in turn, are blaming local authorities. The Foreign Office’s offer of cash looks better and better, frankly; at least it’s actual, immediate assistance.
Well, you know the rules: Please write a letter to your MP. His or her address is The House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA. If you don’t know who your constituency MP is, go here and type your postcode in. When you’ve sent a letter, follow it up with an email: his or her address will normally be SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk - for example BROWNG@parliament.uk
Two or three days after you have written the letter, call the Parliamentary switchboard on 0207 219 3000 and ask for your MP’s office. Repeat your concerns to the secretary or research assistant you speak to (and be nice: most of these people work damn hard for little reward), check that your letter has been received, and politely request that the MP ask questions of Ministers and reply to you. In your email, your letter, and your phone calls, you must be courteous: insulting an MP or a research assistant will discredit this cause.
Full talking points are over here. But here’s one more of my own; if it’s the local authorities who are the problem, let’s find out which ones. Why not call your local council member for housing too? And tell us all about it.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
YouTube is Borked: Pakistani Censors Suspected
It looks like an attempt to censor rightwing arsewit Geert Wilders's anti-Islam home movie has broken YouTube.
Pakistani authorities issued a circular to ISPs in Pakistan demanding that they block access to YouTube; but this doesn't explain why it's unreachable from the UK. A traceroute to www.youtube.com goes into PCCW's network and dies; the explanation appears to be that, as mentioned a few minutes ago on NANOG, Pakistan Telecoms has announced a chunk of YouTube's IP address space into the global Internet Routing Table, so traffic bound for them is being misrouted.
This may either be deliberate, or else the result of a BGP leak; whoever it was attempted to reroute traffic to YouTube from their customers to a "site blocked" page and accidentally let the new more-specific route get advertised to the world via their upstream carrier, PCCW. Unsurprisingly, we're not seeing Pakistani splash pages because, well, this suggests that all YouTube's inbound traffic just hit the web server they are using.
(So the comment on my new blog containing a YouTube link will just have to wait for moderation until PakTel either relents, sorts out the important distinction between internal and external BGP, or PCCW filters their BGP announcements.)
The politics are interesting; this comes immediately after a succession of people repressed by Musharraf's emergency rule have returned to the public eye. Talaat Hussain is back on TV, with a pair of banned journalists; their own briefly made a comeback before the cable feed was pulled again. Is Musharraf - or someone - trying to scare them, or seeking an excuse to impose more censorship?
Update: They're back...but they're back from Hong Kong.
Pakistani authorities issued a circular to ISPs in Pakistan demanding that they block access to YouTube; but this doesn't explain why it's unreachable from the UK. A traceroute to www.youtube.com goes into PCCW's network and dies; the explanation appears to be that, as mentioned a few minutes ago on NANOG, Pakistan Telecoms has announced a chunk of YouTube's IP address space into the global Internet Routing Table, so traffic bound for them is being misrouted.
This may either be deliberate, or else the result of a BGP leak; whoever it was attempted to reroute traffic to YouTube from their customers to a "site blocked" page and accidentally let the new more-specific route get advertised to the world via their upstream carrier, PCCW. Unsurprisingly, we're not seeing Pakistani splash pages because, well, this suggests that all YouTube's inbound traffic just hit the web server they are using.
(So the comment on my new blog containing a YouTube link will just have to wait for moderation until PakTel either relents, sorts out the important distinction between internal and external BGP, or PCCW filters their BGP announcements.)
The politics are interesting; this comes immediately after a succession of people repressed by Musharraf's emergency rule have returned to the public eye. Talaat Hussain is back on TV, with a pair of banned journalists; their own briefly made a comeback before the cable feed was pulled again. Is Musharraf - or someone - trying to scare them, or seeking an excuse to impose more censorship?
Update: They're back...but they're back from Hong Kong.
6 pop-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com (213.105.174.229) 36.539 ms 34.382 ms 39.406 ms
7 * 195.50.91.69 (195.50.91.69) 42.918 ms *
8 ae-24-52.car3.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.49) 140.151 ms * ae-24-56.car3.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.177) 454.571 ms
9 ge5-3-0-1000M.ar2.LON3.gblx.net (208.50.13.193) 34.647 ms 92.634 ms 54.208 ms
10 YOUTUBE-LLC.po1.401.ar2.SJC2.gblx.net (64.212.108.162) 164.128 ms 174.011 ms 169.919 ms
11 youtube.com.hk (208.65.153.253) 199.622 ms 162.886 ms 195.350 ms
TYR 2.0 Beta
Whilst you snooze, this blog has been moving; I set up an alternate version of it some months ago using Wordpress, but until now it's been private. The upgrade should provide a generally less Spirit of 2003 look-and-feel, improved comments support (a frequent request), a recent comments service, better categorisation, and a linklog.
I'd really like your comments, people; the new blog has been tested by a select group of invitees already. Feedback so far includes requests for a more contrasty colour scheme. I personally want to put in a third column to house things like the linklog and comments separately from the archives and categorisation.
However, can it really be true that Wordpress.com wants me to *pay to edit my CSS*? What is this nonsense? Further, is anyone aware of an API that lets you interact directly with the MySQL db underneath, as I want to replace all the links to yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/somearticle.html with ones to the corresponding yorksranter.wordpress.com?
Update: The new RSS feed is http://yorksranter.wordpress.com/feed/.
I'd really like your comments, people; the new blog has been tested by a select group of invitees already. Feedback so far includes requests for a more contrasty colour scheme. I personally want to put in a third column to house things like the linklog and comments separately from the archives and categorisation.
However, can it really be true that Wordpress.com wants me to *pay to edit my CSS*? What is this nonsense? Further, is anyone aware of an API that lets you interact directly with the MySQL db underneath, as I want to replace all the links to yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/somearticle.html with ones to the corresponding yorksranter.wordpress.com?
Update: The new RSS feed is http://yorksranter.wordpress.com/feed/.
Surveillance: More Il-76s in Somalia
I was wondering what might be going on in Somalia; we're getting a surprising number of lifts a day from the UAE to Puntland/Somaliland (Hargeisa and Berbera) with Tenir AL and British Gulf International Company (not BGIA) call signs. And then this hits the wires via Reuters DeathWatch:
BAIDOA, Somalia, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Heavily armed Somali rebels killed seven government troops and wounded eight others after briefly occupying a southern town on Sunday in the latest show of strength by the nation's Islamists.
Support
I'm very glad to see that Abu Muqawama, Phil Carter, and Lt-Col. Bob Bateman have been quick to leap on the inevitable attempt to swiftboatise this story.
Especially as Abu, I thought, was showing worrying signs of going into the "good news the MSM is suppressing" mental death spiral and turning progressively into Blackfive With Books and FC Barcelona.
Especially as Abu, I thought, was showing worrying signs of going into the "good news the MSM is suppressing" mental death spiral and turning progressively into Blackfive With Books and FC Barcelona.
Tories: Unserious
John Band has some thoughts about Northern Rock. So do I; more precisely, I have some thoughts about the Tories' performance in the crisis. It's been appallingly silly, irresponsible, and sometimes plain ignorant.
For example, last autumn the Tories seem to have thought that the Bank of England's loan to the Rock was taxpayers' money. This year, the Tories' alternative to nationalisation is to have the Bank of England take over the Rock; apparently BoE funds aren't taxpayers' money any more. What on earth has changed? As far as I know, the Bank was nationalised in 1946 and remains so. Alternatively, George Osborne is talking nonsense.
Now, Osborne - and presumably the full faith and credit of the Conservative Party - is behind the notion that the Rock faces a "slow lingering death" under the Treasury-appointed management team. But the Tory alternative is to put the Rock into run-off under Bank of England control; putting a financial institution into run-off is to stop it writing any further business, so as mortgage holders refinance or pay off their mortgages, they wouldn't take on any more, and the business would progressively shrink down to the actual branches and cash. This basically defines a "slow lingering death".
Worse yet, the Tories seem to be claiming that they could keep half the Rock's assets off the public-sector balance sheet by involving the Bank of England. But first of all, the Bank of England is part of the public sector. It is a state-owned company. Its employees are civil servants. Its governor is an appointee of the Treasury. The Tories seem to believe that despite this, it is not part of the public sector; at the same time, though, they seem to believe that this autonomous agency would be amenable to a ministerial directive to take over the Rock. Alternatively, they are fully aware of this and are offering a piece of positively Enron-like creative accounting.
Considered purely as a bank, however, the Bank of England is a very strange beast. Despite handling huge transactions in Government paper every day and managing the UK's foreign exchange and gold reserve, it isn't actually very big. Its broader central banking functions do not need much capital. It could only afford to take the Rock's assets onto its balance sheet by either printing an absurd quantity of money or by being hugely subsidised by the Treasury.
The good news, though, was that Osborne's performance on nationalisation day was so annoying (silly voice; shouting; North Korean organised yelling choir; pretending to fear the nationalisation of all the other banks) he's probably made a net loss of votes, which appears to be borne out by the data.
For example, last autumn the Tories seem to have thought that the Bank of England's loan to the Rock was taxpayers' money. This year, the Tories' alternative to nationalisation is to have the Bank of England take over the Rock; apparently BoE funds aren't taxpayers' money any more. What on earth has changed? As far as I know, the Bank was nationalised in 1946 and remains so. Alternatively, George Osborne is talking nonsense.
Now, Osborne - and presumably the full faith and credit of the Conservative Party - is behind the notion that the Rock faces a "slow lingering death" under the Treasury-appointed management team. But the Tory alternative is to put the Rock into run-off under Bank of England control; putting a financial institution into run-off is to stop it writing any further business, so as mortgage holders refinance or pay off their mortgages, they wouldn't take on any more, and the business would progressively shrink down to the actual branches and cash. This basically defines a "slow lingering death".
Worse yet, the Tories seem to be claiming that they could keep half the Rock's assets off the public-sector balance sheet by involving the Bank of England. But first of all, the Bank of England is part of the public sector. It is a state-owned company. Its employees are civil servants. Its governor is an appointee of the Treasury. The Tories seem to believe that despite this, it is not part of the public sector; at the same time, though, they seem to believe that this autonomous agency would be amenable to a ministerial directive to take over the Rock. Alternatively, they are fully aware of this and are offering a piece of positively Enron-like creative accounting.
Considered purely as a bank, however, the Bank of England is a very strange beast. Despite handling huge transactions in Government paper every day and managing the UK's foreign exchange and gold reserve, it isn't actually very big. Its broader central banking functions do not need much capital. It could only afford to take the Rock's assets onto its balance sheet by either printing an absurd quantity of money or by being hugely subsidised by the Treasury.
The good news, though, was that Osborne's performance on nationalisation day was so annoying (silly voice; shouting; North Korean organised yelling choir; pretending to fear the nationalisation of all the other banks) he's probably made a net loss of votes, which appears to be borne out by the data.
The Gobbles Have It
I thought it was Felix Salmon who made a very good argument for a carbon dioxide tax rather than a cap-and-trade system, referring to British Columbia's decision to introduce a progressively increasing levy on fossil fuels and make a matching cut in general taxation. But it wasn't; anyway here goes.
If you read this blog you're probably aware that I think cap-and-trade is too much of a fancy, thinktank hipster/wonk solution; there are a lot of interesting failure modes. Instead, I support the tax that gets to the cause of your problem; higher VAT on fossil fuels is hard to evade (and harder the more fuel you're trying to evade it on), simple to apply, cheap to collect through the existing and very efficient administration, and directly matched to the problem. It's regressive, but that can be fixed by paying out the cash, perhaps under a negative income tax or citizens' income system. (As Daniel Davies would say, many schemes to aid the poor have been proposed but the only one to show consistent success is money.) And we could do it tomorrow; if it only took two days to nationalise the Northern Rock, this is quite a lot simpler.
Anyway,Salmon - in fact, it was Gar Lipow whose argument this is; read the whole thing - made the point that cap-and-trade implies the creation of a market in CO2 permits. That is, after all, the point of the exercise. Then you start to reduce the cap, squeezing the total permits in circulation. But here's the rub; if the policy is a success and people are busily trading the permits, there will be a substantial new lobby against any reduction in the cap - the traders. There is no way they can win from reduced volume, so they will be a powerful opponent of reductions in the cap and a powerful supporter of any move to loosen the definitions of what contributes to the cap.
A carbon dioxide tax, of course, doesn't need a carbon dioxide market and therefore isn't subject to this problem. It doesn't need to decide what counts as an offset; it certainly doesn't require some fiendish extension of the surveillance state like road-pricing or personal cap-and-trade. It just requires a higher rate of VAT on stuff that burns and came out of the ground.
If you read this blog you're probably aware that I think cap-and-trade is too much of a fancy, thinktank hipster/wonk solution; there are a lot of interesting failure modes. Instead, I support the tax that gets to the cause of your problem; higher VAT on fossil fuels is hard to evade (and harder the more fuel you're trying to evade it on), simple to apply, cheap to collect through the existing and very efficient administration, and directly matched to the problem. It's regressive, but that can be fixed by paying out the cash, perhaps under a negative income tax or citizens' income system. (As Daniel Davies would say, many schemes to aid the poor have been proposed but the only one to show consistent success is money.) And we could do it tomorrow; if it only took two days to nationalise the Northern Rock, this is quite a lot simpler.
Anyway,
A carbon dioxide tax, of course, doesn't need a carbon dioxide market and therefore isn't subject to this problem. It doesn't need to decide what counts as an offset; it certainly doesn't require some fiendish extension of the surveillance state like road-pricing or personal cap-and-trade. It just requires a higher rate of VAT on stuff that burns and came out of the ground.
Government Websites: Considered Dire
Unity is on to something with this rant about government Web sites. But I think we can take this a nudge further. Essentially, if you're visiting a government Web site, you're doing one of two things; you're either engaged in some sort of transaction with the government, or else you're looking for some sort of random lump of information. In the first case, there's no reason for there to be Web sites, plural; you'll probably make your way to the thing by a Web search anyway, and once you're there you want to go through the process as quickly as possible.
The Government is actually trying to get this right by rolling as many transaction functions as possible into Directgov (for individuals) and Businesslink (for organisations). But it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. Especially for organisations, the ideal type of going through a process involving transactions with the government is to have a machine do it instead. If it's a transaction - or for that matter, a query of a public database - it should be available as a SPOO (Some Protocol Or Other - an acronym I just invented to cover RSS, XML, SOAP, Web services, REST, JSON, and all their pals) feed/service/whatever, and these should be as much alike as possible across government.
As far as the second type of site goes, you can be certain that people looking for just the right document will be using a search engine; so really all you need is search-friendliness, metadata, and stable URLs so you can find your way back to the stuff. If the stuff is in a database, then there should be some way of querying it automatically.
And finally, there should be a website called developers.gov.uk or something similar with a directory of all the SPOOs, the documentation for them, and a short guide to the legalities involved.
Not that this will discover gunpowder, but it's a nice timeboxed quick-impact project that a small political party with an interest in freedom of information could do worse than to push, and that would make life mildly less annoying.
The Government is actually trying to get this right by rolling as many transaction functions as possible into Directgov (for individuals) and Businesslink (for organisations). But it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. Especially for organisations, the ideal type of going through a process involving transactions with the government is to have a machine do it instead. If it's a transaction - or for that matter, a query of a public database - it should be available as a SPOO (Some Protocol Or Other - an acronym I just invented to cover RSS, XML, SOAP, Web services, REST, JSON, and all their pals) feed/service/whatever, and these should be as much alike as possible across government.
As far as the second type of site goes, you can be certain that people looking for just the right document will be using a search engine; so really all you need is search-friendliness, metadata, and stable URLs so you can find your way back to the stuff. If the stuff is in a database, then there should be some way of querying it automatically.
And finally, there should be a website called developers.gov.uk or something similar with a directory of all the SPOOs, the documentation for them, and a short guide to the legalities involved.
Not that this will discover gunpowder, but it's a nice timeboxed quick-impact project that a small political party with an interest in freedom of information could do worse than to push, and that would make life mildly less annoying.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Very Short 90s
Yes, I miss Melody Maker too, for most of the same reasons. And The Face.
Look, at least there are no rockets in this post. So you get a gratuitious Justin Robertson track.
Look, at least there are no rockets in this post. So you get a gratuitious Justin Robertson track.
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