"Biased BBC": Kirsty Wark's Newsnight

Is there some reason why Kirsty Wark's survey of tomorrow's front pages tonight, left out the most-read newspaper in Britain, the Daily Mail?

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Kenya backs away from wind

From Bloomberg we hear Kenya is finding wind power too expensive :-

Kenya suspended issuing new licenses for wind farms and solar plants until 2017 as it prioritizes development of cheaper fuel-based sources to help cut electricity prices, Energy Secretary Davis Chirchir said.

The East African government plans to add at least 5,500 megawatts of power supply in the 40 months from September, more than quadrupling output from current installed capacity of about 1,700 megawatts mainly from rain-fed hydropower plants.

About 80 percent of that additional output will be tapped from facilities powered by coal, liquefied natural gas, and geothermal, Chirchir said in a phone interview on Nov. 25 from Nairobi, the capital. Wind and solar power will contribute a maximum of 15 percent of new supplies and projects already under way have filled that quota. Hydropower and diesel-fired sources will comprise the remainder, he said.

“The planned energy mix is what will give us the tariff and reliability of supply we want,” Chirchir said.

Energy Secretary Davis Chirchir has acted swiftly, at least compared to our lot here in the UK. Back in April when he was appointed to the post, Mr Chirchir said :-

Kenya is a country of great opportunities. We can’t be competitive if the cost of power is what it is today,” Mr Chirchir said Thursday after his nomination. “We shall ensure the power we give to Kenya is cheaper for them to be competitive.”

So - how do we swap Ed Davey for Davis Chirchir when the transfer window comes round? Obviously the UK would have to pay a substantial transfer fee, but how much? One hundred million sounds reasonable to me - cheap even.

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The weirdness of unreason II

Another World - M C Escher - from Wikipedia

Have you ever tangled with the vexed problem of obviousness? Are some things so glaringly obvious as to leave you baffled when someone transcends the bounds of reason by taking a view contrary to your own? 

Do you occasionally find this kind of thing a little odd – even weird? We are after all, the same species. One might think we'd respond to reality in much the same way.

So in true Hollywood style, this is the second post of my weirdness of unreason franchise. By the way, why is a cinematic rehash called a franchise?

Anyhow, the first post was a kind of write-it-and-see test to see if reasons, concepts, ideas, explanations and arguments can be equated to allegiances. I think they can is the sense that something useful emerges from the idea even though our allegiances are bound to get in the way of knowing that useful something.

I suspect we cannot form ideas without framing them within some kind of validating allegiance.

Take politics for example. Those people with no particular allegiance to political abstractions will find it difficult to frame political opinions. Their vote will be dictated by other allegiances, however frustrating that may be for those who happen to have political allegiances.

Similarly with climate change. It isn’t so much a technical or scientific issue, as an issue about allegiance to abstractions within which the debate is always framed. Those who don’t share those allegiances tend to sit on the fence and see the issue as too complex for them to resolve. Maybe they merely lack framing allegiances.

So let us keep the focus on our allegiance to abstractions because they already have a well-known framing role.

We obviously have allegiances to numerous abstractions such as science, logic, equality, honesty, justice, peace, politics, beauty, reason, education, style, fashion, social mores, religion, what Mum always said, politeness, aesthetics, the rule of law and so on.

Unfortunately many claimed allegiances are false as we all know too well. Ideas supposedly bolstered by some authoritative allegiance but framed within in a different, covert allegiance designed to hide our endless primary allegiances to the usual suspects.

Me.

My career.

My inner circle.

My outer circle ...these are a few of my favourite things!

A good example is David Cameron’s strikingly crude offer of an EU referendum after the next election. His idea is far too obviously framed by allegiance to his future career while claiming a false allegiance to democratic ideals.

Claimed allegiance to abstractions is where the prim, prissy, supercilious, devious, dishonest and shamelessly unworthy frameworks of so many manipulative debates come from. Those we have to cope with every day of our lives.

As ever, behaviour highlights the deceit. As ever it isn’t enough if the deceit has powerful backing as we so often know to our cost.

A life not dominated by allegiances is an ideal never realised in the grit and grind of the real world. Maybe a life without allegiance would be akin to nirvana. Or maybe it would offer a glimpse of the eternal as Spinoza envisaged a blessed state of purely disinterested knowledge.

Unfortunately, in daily life every idea we have is framed by some allegiance or other. Including this one.

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Picture quiz

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A passive disciple

A bear, who had worn himself out walking from one end of his cage to the other, addressed his keeper thus: 

“I say, friend, if you don’t procure me a shorter cage I shall have to give up zoology; it is about the most wearing pursuit I ever engaged in. I favour the advancement of science, but the mechanical part of it is a trifle severe, and ought to be done by contract.”

“You are quite right, my hearty,” said the keeper, “it is severe; and there have been several excellent plans proposed to lighten the drudgery. Pending the adoption of some of them, you would find a partial relief in lying down and keeping quiet.”

“It won’t do — it won’t do!” replied the bear,  with a mournful shake of the head, “it’s not the orthodox thing. Inaction may do for professors, collectors, and others connected with the ornamental part of the noble science; but for us, we must keep moving, or zoology would soon revert to the crude guesses and mistaken theories of the azoic period. 

And yet,” continued the beast, after the keeper had gone, “there is something novel and ingenious in what the underling suggests. I must remember that; and when I have leisure, give it a trial.” 

It was noted next day that the noble science had lost an active apostle, and gained a passive disciple.

Ambrose Bierce

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Sparrowhawk kill

Spotted on the lawn this morning, a sparrowhawk standing in the remains of its breakfast, probably a dove.

Not a great picture, but I only have a cheap camera. 

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The Co-operative: an announcement

Organisers of the Co-op's funeral service have asked for no Flowers. Donations may be made to a number of uncharitable funds instead.

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