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cabalamat's blog
I'm Phil Hunt, the founder of the MeowCat project.
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Syrian economy is collapsing
The Syrian economy is collapsing, according to the FT:
Syria’s government is under growing financial pressure but is surviving through a mixture of help from allies, severe spending cuts, money from wealthy businessmen and the country’s remaining functioning industries.
Crucial revenue sources such as oil, tourism and agriculture have been choked by a combination of western sanctions and the devastating impact of the conflict on the wider economy. The Economist Intelligence Unit estimates the economy contracted 18.8 per cent last year
(If you can't read the article, Google on Syria finds means of financial survival and follow the link.)
Jamie K comments:
it is also de-facto stabilized because territory lost to the opposition means that it can reduce expenditure.
Interestingly, the Syrian government’s main sources of income now seem to be patronage from friendly overseas tycoons, smuggling and sanctions busting and seizure of resources from people deemed to be hostile. In other words, it has reached a point of equilibrium with the rebel economy. Everyone’s a militia now.
If the Syrian government and the rebels now have approximate equality of funding, it makes my prediction that Assad won't last the year out more likely to come true.
In this civil war, the rebels have had the advantage that they are supported by most of the people, whereas Assad had the advantage -- at least at first -- of vastly more resources. But take away that advantage, and Assad looks like a loser.
So, what's the outcome?
The fighting in Syria will continue, probably until late this year when the Assad government will finally collapse.
The big winners will be Islamists, and the big losers will be pro-democracy activists. The reason for this is that by the time the civil war ends, after 2 years of fighting, Syria will be devastated, with many of its people dead or fled, and its infrastructure largely destroyed. A harsh environment breeds harsh attitudes, so in this environment Islamism will do well against pro-democracy and liberal viewpoints. This will be especially true for the people with the guns, who will be best placed to take over once Assad has gone.
It's quite likely that there will be a genocide against Syria's Alawite minority who are the main backers of Assad. If a separate Alawite state was set up with international backing, that outcome would probalby be prevented.
The worst-case scenario for Syria is if after the end of the war, the victors start fighting among themselves, as they did in Afghanistan when the Soviet-based government collapsed. If that happens, Syria will be a breeding ground for Islamist extremism, refugees, and will cause major regional unrest.
English democrats infiltrated by BNP?
According to the (formerly English Democrat) Mayor of Doncaster, the Eng Dems are being infiltrated by BNP entryists:
Peter Davies, the mayor of Doncaster, has resigned from the English Democrats claiming there has been a big influx of new members joining from the British National Party.
Mr Davies, who was elected to the post in 2009, had planned to stand for a second term at May's local elections.
He will now continue in office as an independent until the poll.
I wonder what that will mean for the English Democrats' fortunes in the European election next year.
Elephants "know" where is safe
According to the BBC:
Wild African elephants prefer to live in safer, protected areas and become stressed when they leave them.
Scientists have found African elephants living outside Serengeti National Park are more stressed than those within the protected area.
More elephants also choose to live inside the park, suggesting they "know" which areas are safer to live in, and actively avoid humans.
It's a bit silly that the reporter has put "know" in quotes.
All mammals have a sense of danger and actively avoid it. If they didn't, they wouldn't last very long.
New European election website
I've been making a website for the 2014 European election.
Right now you can view the 2009 result, in the UK as a whole, by region, or in aggregations such as England or the Midlands.
You can also predict the result in 2014.
Here's what it looks like:
Will all intellectual property be in the commons some day?
Someone asked on Reddit "I wonder if all intellectual property will be in the commons some day". This was my reply:
I think it will. I think that these sorts of issues are going to continue to be controversial -- e.g. SOPA/PIPA in the USA, ACTA in Europe -- and that every new controversy will raise the profile and support of the Pirate Party, which will eventually gain power in Europe.
(The Pirate Party is active outside Europe too, of course, but it has had its main successes so far in Europe and it seems likely that it will come to prominence there earlier than in other parts of the world.)
Once Pirates run the EU -- or more realistically are big enough that the other parties want to go into coalitions with them -- then Europe will stop supporting the increasingly restrictive laws around copyright including things like secondary infringement.
Once this happens, copyright is effectively dead in the EU, in that it will be impossible to stop anyone from copying digital content. This will mean inter alia that The Pirate Bay will be able to operate totally openly from servers in Sweden. And the only way any country can stop its citizens from copying content will be to disconnect itself from the worldwide internet.
Since the EU is a quarter of the world economy (and bigger than the USA), it's big enough that it would simply laugh at any US attempt to pressure it into following US copyright rules. And since those rules, by design, favour the USA, it's likely that most countries outside the USA will stop enforcing the USA's rules. And then the USA will stop too because (1) they will realise it's pointless, (2) the MAFIAA will have run out of money with which to bribe politicians, and (3) politicians will start realising that ending the War On Copying is a vote-winner.
And ten years after that, small children will say incredulously to their parents, "you mean there was a law against copying things on the internet and you could go to prison for breaking it? I don't believe you, you're having me on."
Edinburgh Pirate Party: Christmas Drinks
Edinburgh Pirate Party is having its Christmas Drinks event on Tuesday, December 11th, from 7pm onwards, in the links Hotel, Bruntsfield.
The Croydon, Middlesbrough and Rotherham by-elections
Yesterday there were there by-elections, in Croydon North, Middlesbrough and Rotherham.
Let's look at the change in %age vote share for the main parties:
Party Croydon Middles Rotherm Average
===== ======= ======= ======= =======
Con -7.3 -12.5 -11.3 -10.4
Labour +8.7 +14.6 +1.8 +8.4
Lib Dem -10.5 -10.0 -13.9 -11.5
UKIP +4.0 +8.1 +15.7 +9.3
These are clearly good results for Labour and UKIP, and bad results for both coalition parties.
What would these results mean for a general election? Plugging them into Electoral Calculus puts Labour on 381 seats, the Tories down to 206 and the Lib Dems on 36, a comfortable Labour majority of 112.
Ed Miliband would be happy at that result, since it would give him a workable majority and make it look like Labour were becoming the natural party of government -- by 2020, the Tories wouldn't have won an election outright for 28 years.
Nigel Farage would also be happy. True, UKIP would probably not win a single seat on these figures, but they'd be doing well in the polls, would look to be replacing the Lib Dems as the 3rd party in British politics, and their strength would make an eventual replacement of FPTP more likely, and PR would mean lots of UKIP MPs and real power for them.
For David Cameron it would be a disaster, a massive rejection of his term of office. The Tories would be in turmoil, not sure whether to tack to the left, top pick up votes from Labour, or to the right to see off UKIP.
I doubt if the Lib Dems would be enormously upset. They probably expect to do a good deal worse than 36 seats and would be relieved that the bloodbath wasn't worse. Nick Clegg might even stay on as leader.
Friendship is Optimal
I've recently read Iceman's novella, Friendship is Optimal.
It's set in a world where there's an MMO based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and the AI behind the MMO tries to take over the world.
It's also the most interesting and important story I've read this year. Go ahead and read it.
First mention of Pirate Party in opinion poll
Today I saw the first mention I've seen of Pirate Party UK in an opinion poll.
3% of the electorate would consider voting for us, including:
- 4% of men
- 9% of people aged 18-24
- 4% of AB social class
- 4% of people in South East England
- 5% of Lib Dem voters
- 15% of Green voters
(Figures on pages 20 and 21 of the poll).
Our support is higher than that of Respect (who have an MP) and only slightly lower than the BNP (who have 2 MEPs).
These figures show that we're starting to make an impression -- the polling companies are including us, and people are saying they'd consider voting for us, which obviously indicates that they've heard of us and know something of what we stand for.
How the UK public sees young people
From Reddit:
UK society is so fucked up in its views of young people:
Age 0-12 - Innocent little angel
Age 13-18 - Evil murderous scumbag
Age 19-21 - Scrounging Student Wastrel
Age 22 - Productive member of society - here is your lifetime Daily Mail subscription.
Police election spoilt ballots
There's a blog with pictures of spoilt ballots in yesterday's police commissioner elections.
Many of the spoilt ballots say that policing shouldn't be political. Here's one such:
The low turnout, and the number of spoilt ballots objecting to the election at all, both indicate that the elected commissioners lack democratic legitimacy. These elections need to be done better in future, or to be scrapped.
I propose that future elections reduce the deposit from £5000 to a more reasonable £500. To make sure people know more about them and the candidates, a booklet should be sent to every household, which would include a page for each candidate to state their case.
Finally, some people don't want the election at all. In each area a vote should be held to decide whether the voters want elected commissioners.