'Nother Solent

Just in case anyone was worried.

If I do not post between now and around January the fifth it is absolutely not because I am celebrating Christmas and the New Year with family and friends. It will be because I have been sucked up the left upper pseudonostril of a passing gravitic marmoset.

The mountains have laboured and given forth a mouse.

Via Instapundit I was led to this article in Scientific American. It says that most of the positive effects claimed for high self esteem either are not true, or are correlations with causation not proved. The only ones that really stand up are the links between self esteem and the ability to initiate relationships and between self esteem and general happiness.

Much as I like being a introverted, chronically guilt-ridden, marginally agoraphobic miserable git, I pronounce no general anathema against either being able to talk to people or happiness. Some people like living that way.

The image that sticks in my mind, though, is of all those housands of studies, books, seminars, courses, programmes, lectures... and it all boils down to something grandma could have told you in 1898.

Waiting for Monibot.

You all remember the famous Pentagon report on global warming? The report about which the authors said, "Contrary to some recent media coverage, the report was not secret, suppressed, or predictive."

Fear not. I shall spare you the Holy Roman Empire joke. All I'm going to say is that many of us were grieved to see that dear old Monibot at the Guardian had not heard the news.

Rob at Semiskinned put him right. He is now awaiting a reply.

I take this to mean that he is aware of the inaccuracy of the sources he used for his original article and will rush to issue an update in the Guardian and/or on his own site correcting the gaffe. I cannot conceive how it could be otherwise.

Ah, but what if the non-arrival of that correction turns out to be a dramatic necessity...

Gogo: [Remembering] OH! We have to go back there. [beckons to the stage]. We'll miss Godot. He will be here soon.

Didi: Here?

Gogo: No! There. [gestures to the stage] I think--

UPDATE: Peter Briffa writes:

Actually, his name is Moonbat.

Or if you insist

MONBIOT

Futz it. I've written Moonbat too often.

Socialists are also worried about having Christmas stolen from them. (Via Crooked Timber.)

Yeah, yeah, rivers of blood, whatever.

I read stuff like I'm writing now for years, and I thought it no more than a cynical ploy. Show me someone wittering on with about "avoiding a backlash", said I, and I'll show you a sub-Powellite racist who wants a respectable-sounding reason to deny minorities their rights.

I don't know if anything I can say now will be more convincing than what I read back then, but here is my best shot: people whose own culture is denigrated and supressed do not generally become more tolerant of other cultures thereby. Other than the Aztecs, whose behaviour to strangers in their midst was somewhat improved by the complete extirpation of Aztec religion by the conquering Spaniards, I can't think of any other poster children for the success of this policy.

Rather more generally applicable are Jim Bennett's justly famous words: Democracy, Immigration, Multiculturalism - pick any two.

Down with Scrooge.

Anthony Browne writes in defence of Christmas. Proper Christmas with Christ in. Mr Browne is an atheist.

He says that it's not Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs who seek to edit out every image of stable, star or baby. As each story about editing out Christmas arose I have specifically looked to see who the prime movers were, and I say he's right: the anti-freedom factions within minority religions in Britain often seek to silence criticism of their own religions, but rarely to silence Christianity. All but the most extreme correctly see that in these matters religions had better hang together lest they hang separately.

No, the real Christophobes are the self-loathing, guilt-ridden politically-correct liberal elite, driven by anti-Christian bigotry and a ruthless determination to destroy their own heritage and replace it with "the other". It is the American Civil Liberties Union that is threatening lawsuits against any schools that allow the singing of carols and the BBC’s editorial policy bans criticism of the Koran, but not the Bible.

In reality, the Christophobes are acting against the interests of ethnic minorities. By stripping Britain of its culture and traditions, they are causing a dangerous rising tide of anger. It prevents social cohesion and integration — who could want to integrate into a culture that is committing suicide?

How strange it is that the people who say that the Islamic world hates the West because of the West's alleged lack of respect for Islamic tradition are so often the same people who see no danger to minorities in supressing the traditions of this country in the name of minorities.

I hope to God that the Muslim Council of Britain contines to protest that such initiatives as banning hot cross buns or The Three Little Pigs are "bizarre", and that its protests are widely reported.

No more English, no more French / No more sitting on the old school bench...

Ross Douthat, guestblogging for Andrew Sullivan, writes:

Suppose you tried to universalize college education -- how many people would actually go for it? At present, a little over a quarter of all Americans have college degrees, and around half try college for a while but never graduate. No doubt a lot of these people drop out, or never go, for financial reasons, and having government-subsidized college tuition would certainly raise both matriculation and graduation rates appreciably. But I'm not sure the rates would be raised to anywhere near universal levels. I think that many, many people drop out or don't go to college because they don't want to go . . . because they've spent a dozen years in school, they don't like school, and they want to get out into the world and start making money.

Of course once they've seen the world and made the money, a spell back on the old school bench might start to appeal. When I was teaching unruly secondary school pupils I often thought how helpful it would be to have adult pupils in the class. Most of the help would come from their mere presence.

Too angry

about identity cards to blog much about it. I know I've quoted this before, but it will stand saying twice.

On December 27th 1944 a Mr Antony Wells wrote to the Times as follows:

Sir, -While obtaining, recently, a National Registration identity card for my small daughter, I remarked that it was pleasant to think all this bothersome business would soon no longer be necessary. I was blandly informed by the clerk that my expectation was quite wrong, since registration was to continue after the war. On looking at the card in my hand, I discovered it was valid until 1960.

The Enemy Class never give up.

A dilemma concerning free speech and religion.

No, I'm not talking about the theatre surrendering to the mob. That one has been settled in obedience to the word of that god before whom every modern knee doth bow:

The theatre said it had refused to censor the work and was abandoning it purely on health and safety grounds.

So that's all right then. Let us turn to the case I did want to talk about. It is reported in the Richmond and Twickenham Times of 3 December that

A CHISWICK man has had an injunction taken out against him after he was accused of bombarding members of the Mormons with phone calls and text messages to tempt them from their faith.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was granted an injunction at the High Court following a prolonged campaign by Andrew Price, an Evangelical Christian preacher.

Price was also banned from going within 30 yards of any Mormon mission, with the exception of its central London headquarters in south Kensington, where he is barred from standing on the same side of the road.

The judge presiding over the case was told that Price, 44, had made over 4,000 cold calls to Mormon missionaries, preached for 30 minutes at members travelling on the tube, chased them down the street and had even spent three hours knocking at a church elder's door.

Ho ho! The biter bit! But it's not really that funny.

What this guy was doing clearly did amount to persecution. Although an unwilling recipient of a Mormon missionary couple's knock may resent the minute it takes to send them on their way, the fact that it is a minute and not three hours is crucial.

Yet I feel sorry for Price. He faces a legal bill of thirty thousand pounds. Better for him and his victims if he had faced a smaller punishment sooner. (A thing I often say in all sorts of contexts.)

It would be an ill day if door-to-door evangelists or, indeed, candidates for election or door-to-door salesmen, were forbidden to do what they do. Imagine a zero tolerance regime for doorstep canvassing. You get into a political argument with your work colleague while driving her home from the office Christmas do. You drop her home, polite but tense, neither she nor you wanting to come out and say that you really have quarrelled. She steps inside her front door and it clicks shut - you think of an absolutely conclusive point - and half-meaning to carry it off as a joke but wanting at the same time to land a verbal punch, you ring the bell - she answers, thinking she has forgotten hat or gloves - you smirk and say rather louder than you intended, "And another thing..."

And you are up in court the following morning.

Low blogging alert!

Christmas 'n' stuff. Ritual swapping of tokens. Parties. I posted this minor Samizdata QOTD from his party, where I completely spontaneously started blathering on about his famous coffee jars, unaware of his post. Can this be coincidence?