A while ago I wrote about plans to tax people based on government bureaucrats’ opinions about the value of their homes. A Daily Telegraph article explains how this means that people living in low crime areas will have to pay more tax. (Hat tip: Jonathan Pearce.)
I can only imagine how the law of unintended consequences will apply here. “Tax bill’s a bit high, dear. You call in another attempted burglary and I’ll go down to the corner and shoplift some vodka!”

Even worse:

Sophisticated computer equipment will be used in the forthcoming revaluation of all 21 million homes in England, and will allow a precise value to be put on each home, not only by its size and features but also its location.

A system described as “intelligent proximity analysis” will allow valuation officials to differentiate between thousands of neighbourhoods and adjust bills accordingly.

The computer model will be able to classify each household on the basis of 287 “lifestyle variables”.

Like *that’s* gonna work. We’re doomed!

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 2:24 PM EST

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A new study has revealed that if we don’t do something about X, there will be disastrous consequences. The government is planning new taxes to prevent X. It could be almost any news story. Today the X is global warming. An X campaigner has said (and one actually said this on Radio 1’s Newsbeat, where Britain’s youth gets its news and understanding of the world), “imagine the whole of Britain under water. It’s starting to happen: we already have floods and droughts.”

Interesting reasoning, that. Floods and droughts, therefore Britain under water unless you do what we say. That’s the voice of authority that the BBC presents to the Chris Moyles demographic. Thank God for public service broadcasting.

It’s also the top story on the BBC News website. Apparently the global economy could shrink by 20% because of global warming. Nowhere in that story does it say how long it will take. Presumably either the BBC doesn’t think that’s relevant information, or the report doesn’t say.

It would be interesting if the report was so flimsy that it doesn’t mention timescales, because in the fifth paragraph we learn that it’s a government comissioned report that Gordon Brown is using to argue that we must “tackle” global warming. Tony Blair says (in the Sun newspaper) that it’s the most important report he’s ever received!

So what is this new report? About half way down the article is this enlightening gem: “The study is the first major contribution to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than a scientist.”

So this report, which will be used to appease us as the government goes about making our lives more difficult, our fuel and our holidays (because cheap flights are even more evil that 4×4s) more expensive, doesn’t contain any new information about the causes or even the existence of global warming.

The scientific evidence for man made global warming is highly debateable. We have evidence that the planet is a bit warmer than it was. We have some evidence that it may be warming quicker than it ever has before. But the changes are disputed: there are plenty of sources for error, such as urban heat islands; they’re very small compared to changes the planet has been through in the past; that whole hockey stick thing is a joke caused by different methods of measurement combined into one graph. The only other “evidence” we have is computer models that have never predicted anything, and have wildly different outcomes only the worst of which are ever reported.

So, the governemnt commissions a report by an economist (Sir Nicholas Stern) presumably taking it as a given that global warming will be as bad as it can possibly be, and he comes up with some figures based on, say, the cost of flooding large areas of land and water shortages, and that’s the most important report Tony Blair has ever seen.

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum. It’s a merry-go-round of bad science, bad reporting, lack of understanding, self interest and power-crazed politicians who in turn fund and commission more bad science to support their plans.

Remarkably, in the bottom third of the article, is this: “BBC environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said some economists say climate science is so uncertain that we should not spend huge amounts now to cut emissions.” But, failure to act early “could” (no actual probability given) cost “between 5% and 20% of global GDP” (that’s a 400% margin of error — in other words, a guess).

So, based on guesswork, we have a “moral duty” to act now and cut emissions. Apparently, *already*, “Environment Secretary David Miliband is considering a range of taxes designed to change people’s behaviour to offset global warming.” Already? As if this report is a complete surprise and the government is acting fast on our behalfs against an urgent new threat? He’s been considering a range of environmental taxes forever, that’s pretty much his job. He’s just been waiting for the really juicy report he commissioned to come out so that he can sound authoritative and well considered about it.

Not that these taxes will have any effect whatsoever on real or imagined climate change: “For example, if the UK shut down all of its power stations tomorrow, the reduction in global emissions would be wiped out in just over a year by increased emissions from China.”

The Stern report doesn’t seem to be available yet. I’ll be interested to have a look at it when it is.

Update: Philip Chaston writes about this on Samizdata. He argues that, never mind climate changes, these taxes will make poor people poorer, hurting the economy. In the comments, Nic points out that the government could just as easily offer green tax breaks for green behaviour, instead of penalties. I think they won’t because it’s the tax they’re interested in, not the green. TimC points out that the government causes all this car use in the first place: “One example: Commuting patterns are interfered with - incentives for office location create jobs in places where they would not naturally be, stamp duty, state education patchy forcing parents to be cautious about moving, thus requiring people to travel hours by car each day.”

Update2: An astonishing amount of consensus on the BBC’s Have Your Say discussion on this topic. Have Your Say has vastly improved since they started publishing all comments instead of just the ones selected by the editors.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Enviro-Mentalism at 9:34 AM EST

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I’ve been watching That Mitchell and Webb Look, a funny sketch show that actually has different jokes every week instead of the same ones repeated over and over. It does have a few recurring jokes, though, and one is an incomprehensible game show called Numberwang.

A quick search will find a few explanations of Numberwang, including a serious looking description on a database of UK game shows. The wikipedia entry, led me, via Mornington Crescent, to a kind of game I hadn’t heard of before: Nomic.

The point of Nomic is that the rules can be changed democratically as you go along. So a game that starts off being an intentionally dull dice game with the winner being first player to reach 100 points will rapidly change into a game with elaborate rules and completely different victory conditions. It is even possible to redefine the rules governing the way new rules are introduced — if enough players agreed one player could become a dictator.

Peter Suber compares the game to the way laws are made with repeated ammendments and replacements of legislation.

There are a few games of Nomic active online, including BlogNomic, which is more accessible for being reset once in a while.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Geekism, Links at 9:17 PM EDT

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A win for freedom of association: moves to force religious schools to take pupils from other religions have been dropped. Probably for the wrong reasons, though. It’ll be because it was impractical, because people don’t want to send their kids to schools of other religions. It won’t be for the right reason, that no-one has the right to force people to associate with those they don’t want to.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Civil Liberties at 8:56 PM EDT

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James and Ian, some guys I know in the “content delivery and broadcast” industry — making electronic gadgets for broadcasting and encrypting digital TV, that is — have gone public with their weekly podcast called On The Couch.  They chat about the week’s news in broadcasting, technology in general and games, in a very entertaining way.

This week, they discuss, among other things, the alarming news that teenagers are watching *less* TV than older people!  This could be a big problem; we don’t want teenagers running around outside where they can get in the way.  Give it a listen.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Geekism, News at 10:44 AM EDT

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