[cite as: F. Bi. 2009. You are in a twisting little maze of think-tanks, all different: a new interesting finding. Intl. J. Inact., 2:95]

Here’s a huge update to the diagram of global warming inactivist web sites. Besides incorporating the recent information on the web sites surrounding the America’s Power Army, the Prague Network, and the Heritage Foundation’s overcriminalized.com, it also includes, well, something interesting.

It shows — perhaps for the first time in the world? — a PR web site which hyperlinks to both the right-wing ‘think-tank’ network and the coal-funded ‘Clean Coal’ ‘movement’. (Look for “MJ Brunner Inc.”.) Have lots of fun.

[cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heritage Foundation has a notion of ... freedom. Intl. J. Inact., 2:94]

Brian D mentions a web site overcriminalized.com which was owned by another of those free-market ‘think-tanks’ — the Heritage ‘Foundation’. It protested against what it claims is the overuse of criminal law (in preference over civil law) in the prosecution of things like acts of negligence, and gives the following case study:

Every tragic story that garners public attention seems to be addressed by adding to an increasingly long list of criminal laws. To illustrate the problem, Judge Bing cited the “Careless Driving” law. After a young woman was tragically killed in a car accident where the other driver was at fault but was not intoxicated or otherwise driving dangerously, her father started a campaign to enact a criminal law against “careless driving.”

Yeah, someone died… big deal! Just another sob story that rational-minded people should simply ignore! So what will a real tragedy that requires criminal legislation look like? Let’s see: [cached]

The truth is, there is no difference between shoplifting a DVD from a store and illegally downloading a copyrighted movie from KaZaa. Stealing intellectual property is just as wrong as the theft of “real” property.

Hmm. I think I’m starting to understand why global warming is a non-problem and why we should do nothing about it. The key word here, my friends, is Property.

Repeat: the key word is Property.

You see, clothing and jewellery are property. The music on a DVD is property — it’s intellectual property, which is a very important kind of property indeed, and therefore deserves the protection of criminal law itself.

Is the earth’s climate a type of property? Is a person’s life a type of property? Of course not! Therefore, these things do not deserve the protection of criminal law. It’s as simple as that.

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heartland Institute has a notion of software freedom. Intl. J. Inact., 2:92–93

I have to admit, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with writing about global warming inactivism, because climate is such a diffuse phenomenon which I can’t simply directly tinker with in a lab. Thankfully, our old climate inactivist friend, the Heartland Institute, started talking nonsense about computer software, something I have somewhat more experience with. After publishing an essay by one James Lakely on their web site about the oh-so-scary Marxist plot behind the Free Software movement, they’ve put up another essay by Lakely which says this: [cached]

Apple has approved the creation of more than 65,000 applications (apps) for its wildly popular iPhone.⁵¹ Yet this year, it denied one — Google Voice — for the very good reason it would supplant the iPhone’s core software design and functionality. That decision by Apple prompted the FCC in the summer of 2009 to launch a net neutrality-related inquiry, creating the impression that anything less than approval of all applications may be presumed to be a violation of the FCC’s broadband principles. That is alarming, and absurd. [...]

If a manufacturer or carrier does not have the latitude to reasonably restrict applications to ensure they abide with contracted terms of use and a viable business model/offering, then a provider effectively would have no property rights under the U.S. Constitution. That wireless provider also would have no meaningful design, operating, or business role to differentiate its product or service from competitors. [...]

As more and more smart phones, netbooks, notebooks, and laptops are enabled to exploit wireless broadband, where would the line logically be drawn where the FCC’s wireless innovation regulation would stop? [...]

Well, as you may remember, the other day I wrote a program which crawls through web sites and IP addresses. In the current proto-Marxist regime, I can just load up the program and run it:

$ ./labyrinthvs.pl go http://climatescienceamerica.org/
labyrinthvs: created directory /home/.../.labyrinthvs
labyrinthvs: created db
labyrinthvs: rolled back any uncommitted db changes
labyrinthvs: created any uncreated tables and indices
labyrinthvs: created web ua LABYRINTHVS libwww-perl/5.805
labyrinthvs: added pending url http://climatescienceamerica.org/ (priority 4a957c61.00000000)
labyrinthvs: processing url http://climatescienceamerica.org/
labyrinthvs: ... resolved climatescienceamerica.org to 68.178.254.234

…

Now, if I live in a capitalist world with clear product differentiation and perfect respect for property rights, I’ll probably first need to submit my application to the PC manufacturer for approval, perhaps like an acolyte of yore:

Acolyte (me): O Great Computer Manufacturer Most Wise, Most Capitalist, and Most Free, would you approve my application, that I may use it to perform computations in your honour?

Then the Great Computer Manufacturer will carefully scan my program code for any signs of Marxism, or anti-Apple sentiment, or criticisms of Thomas Jefferson — and if all’s clear, they’ll finally tell me that my software has been approved for running, in accordance with the property rights protections as codified in the Constitution of the United States.

In other news, the Bonner and Associates fiasco continues.

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. You are in a maze of little twisting think-tanks, all different: Dobrý den! Intl. J. Inact., 2:91

It seems that Czech President Václav Klaus, in his effort to promote global warming inaction, has started a new (advocacy? policy study?) group called the Prague Network. [cached]

Now this isn’t very interesting in itself; what is interesting, well, is that there’s a web site praguenetwork.org owned by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group which is — let’s put it this way — not based in Prague. [cached]

(Hmm. So how does the free-market think-tank-o-sphere work exactly? Does a new ‘free-market group’ undergo some sort of ‘incubation programme’ during which they live on some larger group’s web space, until they attract enough hack writers to get their own web site?)

OK, here’s the thing: I’ve been blogging here for somewhat more than a year, and while I like WordPress, I can’t help feeling that it takes a long time to merely post a blog entry — the log-in/log-out, the dashboard, and the blog post editor (well, especially the editor) take quite a good while to come up.

So, I’d like to have this changed. Does anyone have any recommendations of lightweight blog hosting services which I can try? Alternatively, any suggestions on how to make WordPress less time-guzzling?

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Not political activism III: watch out, it’s Wealth Transfer!!! Intl. J. Inact., 2:89–90

Meteorologist and global warming ‘skeptic’ Anthony Watts once more shows how he’s opposed to the theory of man-made global warming for purely scientific reasons, and how extremely willing he is to focus on the climate science and keep politics out of it: [cached]

The Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty Draft – wealth transfer defined, now with new and improved “dignity” penalty

Wealth transfer! Goodness gracious! Now that is a purely scientific reason to deny global warming if I ever saw one. And the blog commenters helpfully elaborate on this by offering up their nuggets of total science:

Kaboom: Watt’s wrong with that? I happen to like dignity.

Dignity for me is not having to scrabble around for human and animal dung to light a fire to cook the maggots out of the family meal.

Dignity for me is access to clean plentiful water, provided by dams built with human ingenuity. [...]

Another bit of 100% focused pure unadulterated science:

John Tofflemire: Dictators of Africa, Rejoice!! They are demanding 300 billion US for the “damage” that will be caused by climate change. Of course, their peoples could develop if only there wasn’t so much corruption and repression but that is another matter! This is money that will enrich corrupt thugs throughout the continent. Incredible that this is even being considered.

And yet more scientifically scientific science:

Mark: [...] Nice to know that most democrats (and some certain republicans) are working for the economic welfare of foreign nations over ours.

You can feel the totally scientific climate science in each and every one of these comments. See, if you focus on the science, you’ll see that

• those filthy US Democrats care too much for the welfare of foreign nations, and
• actually we should care for the welfare of foreign nations — after all, it’s obligatory for us to profess our concern for poor people as long as they’re not in our country — but
• instead of giving money to dictators like Robert Mugabe and Jacob Zuma,
• we should give it to capitalist value-producers such as AIG ex-VP Jake DeSantis, and
• this’ll magically help the Africans develop their own economy — oh, and overcome climate change, which doesn’t exist anyway.

Indeed, my friends, we should really just focus on the science of climate change. Please think of the poor people, by keeping all your money. Lastly — and most importantly — remember that Anthony Watts is not engaging in political activism. Not.

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Best ‘grassroots’ campaign ever. Intl. J. Inact., 2:88

DeSmogBlog recently mentioned a message broadcast by a group called “America’s Power Army” regarding the US’s climate change bill, asking people to lobby for pro-coal loopholes in the bill. The web page’s style sheet makes use of images from the web page of a PR firm, the Hawthorn Group; and the message itself was signed by Suzanne Hammelman, who happens to be Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer of Hawthorn, although for some reason she decided not to mention that in the message. What’s more, the America’s Power Army web site is registered to another PR firm, Triad Communications, Inc. (Why two PR firms, not one? Good question.) [cached: 1, 2, 3, 4]

No, I did not make up this diagram. I saw it on a blog calling itself Ragnarok; [cached] clearly the blog is either written by a truly paranoid wingnut or written as a very good parody of the wingnut mind. The blog attributes the diagram to a “SharpRightTurn.com” web site, but unfortunately the web site is no more — perhaps it was secretly destroyed by the New Left Red Diaper Babies.

Or was SharpRightTurn.com actually owned secretly by New Left Red Diaper Babies in the first place? Well, unfortunately there are no answers.