ALB
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Actually he didn't. If you read to the bottom of the link you'll see that the Guardian was obliged to publish a retraction and a correction:
Quote:• This response from the government’s chief scientific adviser, Mark Walport, was added on 16 December 2014:(…)“The Guardian article that linked fracking with thalidomide and asbestos is a florid example of what my report argued most strongly against. It confuses arguments about science with value propositions. It selected one sentence from one evidence paper, quoted it in part, and in doing so misrepresented both the report and indeed the evidence paper itself. This has been picked up in a careless fashion by other news channels and by social media and subjected to a hopefully brief period of amplification. In doing so, the article debased an important discussion about future energy supplies – and, at least as importantly, it devalues science journalism. I am glad however, that the Guardian has allowed me to express my own voice adjacent to the offending piece of journalism.“With regard to fracking, the hydraulic fracturing of shale to obtain natural gas and oil, I fully endorse the report of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Of course methane is a fossil fuel, but as long as it is burned efficiently and fugitive emissions of methane gas are minimised, it is a less harmful fossil fuel than coal and oil, and is an important way-station on the global journey towards low carbon energy. The scientific evidence is clear that any environmental or geological risks can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through effective regulation.”I agree that the passage you quote from Bruton is a fair assessment. However, his other views are not so acceptable, such as his saying that the Irish Nationalist Party in the House of Commons was right to have supported the British side in the First World War (though he does make a telling point against the Irish Republicans for supporting the other side):http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/1916-Easter-Rising-was-not-a-just-war-says-former-Irish-leader-John-Bruton.htmlIncidentally, the Irish Independent has a pretty unsavoury history.The other thing is that the result of next year's general election in the rest of the British Isles could lead to a repeat of the pre-WW1 situation when the Irish Nationalists held the balance of power (and propped up the Liberal government) with, this time, this role being fulfilled by the Scots Nats (propping up a Labour government?)
That doesn't make sense. Twenty or so years ago we did a survey of readers of the Socialist Standard. One of the facts revealed was that about 25% (one in 4) had voted Labour at the previous election. So should we throw the message out with the medium and not bother to publish the Socialist Standard?
This is the same description of how banks work as in the articles in the Bank of England's Quarterly Review for the first quarter of 2014 mentioned in message #139:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/100-reserve-banking?page=13#comment-12263Positive Money and other currency and banking reforms (they don't like being called cranks) think this backs up their view of how banking works, but it doesn't. It confirms that banks don't and can't "create money from thin air". As the article you quote says, of banks
Quote:In addition to helping manage this payments system they issue money in the form of loans. Banks earn a profit in the means of transacting business when their assets are less expensive than their liabilities. In other words, banks need to source their ability to run this payments system smoothly, but will seek to do so in a manner that doesn’t reduce their profitability.Profitability, that's what places a limit on what they can lend.
I see it's more complicated than I thought. Just found this:
Quote:•ILP advocated universal suffrage (the vote for men and women). This meant a lack of support within the Party for a separate women’s suffrage bill.••ILP ambivalence also because suffragists demand for the vote, ‘on same terms as men’ would have mostly enfranchised propertied middle and upper class women who traditionally voted Conservative.While the ILP campaigned for universal suffrage under capitalism we said that enough workers already had the vote to win control of political power once they had become socialist, adding of course that bringing in universal suffrage would be one of the first measures introduced after the working class had won political power for socialism. There are quite a few articles in the archives section here showing what we said at the time. For example: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1900s/1908/no-46-june-1908/suffragette-humbug http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1913/no-111-november-1913/franchise-questions
Young Master Smeet wrote:http://qi.com/infocloud/votes-for-womenI assume they could be contacted and asked for their source…You mean of this:
Quote:The 'suffragists', established in 1897, believed in peaceful campaigning, persuasion and the Liberal party. Emmeline Pankhurst’s 'suffragettes' established in 1903, favoured direct action (smashing windows, arson, hunger strikes, etc). Both groups only sought votes for property-owning women. This reduced support among socialists, who were against sexual discrimination but unwilling to campaign for even more votes for the middle classes.So, now those campaigning against water rates have two rival groups trying to hi-jack their campaign — the Irish Republicans of Sinn Fein and the Trotskyists. Down with Leaders was never a more relevant slogan.Meanwhile Sinn Fein have a new recruit:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2867123/Irish-singer-Sinead-OConnor-joining-Sinn-Fein.htmlIt seems her views have changed somewhat than twenty years ago:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1993/no-1061-january-1993/%E2%80%9Cabolish-money%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-sinead-o%E2%80%99connor
I can't understand how these antediluvian Trots (who are still boring from within the Labour Party) have any appeal to students. Nor why ex-comrade Dan Read passed through themBut I see that they are still plugging an underconsumption theory of crises:
Quote:Arturo Zoffmann Rodriguez, member of the Oxford Marxist Society, gave the introduction to the topic. (…) He went on to explain the concept of crisis of overproduction, highlighting how capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class and that the producers cannot consume all the goods that they produce, creating an excess that can be temporarily overcome by capitalism through mechanisms like credit but that eventually leads to prolonged crisis.SPEW have also inherited this from the same source (Ted Grant) but theirs is not so crude as this.
I suppose this is more typical of UKIP support and supporters in Oxfordshire if not in Oxford itself:
Quote:Bicester North councillor Jim Tucker announced he was joining the anti-EU party led by Nigel Farage following his resignation as a Tory on September 30.Describing his reason for leaving the Conservatives Mr Tucker said: “Three words: sovereignty, family and liberty – three of the core Conservative values that have been abandoned and that gap has been filled by UKIP.”Vin wrote:Does Nagal deny the existence of an 'objective reality or simply our knowledge of it?She's basically describing the various theories of knowledge still extant (including some ancient ones) but, yes, she does say that all serious theories accept objective external reality. But some raise doubts as to whether we can acquire "knowledge", defined as "a justified true belief", about it. You'd be surprised at the absurdity of some of the arguments they use, eg how do we know that we are not a brain in a vat fed impressions by a computer?
Vin wrote:For example is it a 'fact' that the clock has stopped but the onlooker does not know of this objective fact?Yes, the dominant theory (and the view of most people questioned) is that the person does not "know" that the time is 1.15 because, although this might be a "true belief", it is not "justified". Or something like that.
Quote:But the philosopher does?Someone who knows that the clock has stopped and who has obtained the time from a clock that hasn't can (in the view of most philosophers but not of those who think we might be a brain in a vat) justifiably claim to know that the time is 1.15.This seems to be the level of what they are discussing in universities these days.
Just finished reading this. Main problem is that it is based on what a single individual can reasonably conclude what they 'know'. This is the traditional approach of Western individualist philosophy but it must be wrong because a single individual can only think through language; but language is a social product and so implies the existence of others. Descartes should not have concluded from "I think" that therefore just "I am", but rather have said "I think, therefore others (society) must exist too". Which would take the theory of knowledge off in a quite different direction.I see that modern philosophers of knowledge have abandoned analysng ordinary language and are now amusing themselves by trying to show that what someone thinks they know they might not actually know. One example is the traveller who looks at a railway clock showing 1.15. It actually is 1.15 but what the traveller doesn't know is that the clock is stopped, at 1.15. Question: can they really be said to know that it is 1.15? This apparently is how modern philosophers amuse themselves for their money (and career).The only thing that emerges from the book that might have some relevance to what we've been endlessly discussing here is a doctrine called "contextualism" which says that there can be different criteria for knowledge depending on the context, e.g everyday life or scientific research.
Revealing developments going on at the moment on the world energy market. The price of oil has fallen and some oil-producing countries want the OPEC cartel to restrict production so as to put up prices. This is being opposed by Saudi Arabia which wants to keep the price low so as to discourage fracking. Here are some of the headlines (click on the bold to read the story):UK FRACKING FACES BUST AMID OPEC OIL PRICE WAR FALLING OIL PRICE SLOWS US FRACKINGLOW OIL PRICES ARE PUTTING THE FREEZE ON FRACKING PROJECTS AROUND THE WORLDWhat this shows is the impossibility of a rational energy policy under capitalism as energy use under it reflects the relative prices of the various sources (coal, oil, gas, shale oil, etc) and changes as they vary.There's also a lesson for those who want to campaign against the use of fracking under capitalism. They should be careful what they wish for. They may get fracking slowed but not replaced by renewable sources as these are too costly at the moment but by … oil and coal.
