Moustache of the year at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year

BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the man next to Ryan Giggs has one of the finest moustaches that I have ever seen.



Apparently he is Ryan Giggs' manager.

The return of Lily Allen to this blog and this time in "suspender tights"

Googling

Two oddities this morning:

Google Israel - ISRAEL WAR 2010 - A depressing search but one that my recent article returned in 5th place would be a good answer to.

Google UK - freeview muslim porn - An interesting search term and I don't think that my article on Freeview HD's upcoming availability would do little to satisfy the searcher.

How to park perfectly

Easy? I would say it just comes naturally but some people find it more tricky...

This tickled my fancy last month.


As did this one that I also blogged in November...

BMW parking failure. [As seen on the CCTV] @ Yahoo! Video

And of course sometimes getting out of the space can be just as tricky, as I blogged here.

That sounds very dangerous

The Northern Echo reports that:

"A PENSIONER who admitted committing a sex act with a horse has escaped a jail term.

David Walter Chamberlin, 71, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency by committing a lewd act with the animal in a field at a previous hearing before Teesside Magistrates' Court.

Last month, the court heard that retired farm-worker Chamberlin led the horse towards bushes and then committed the sex act.

...

Mrs Brockbank said the witness described seeing the horse's head in Chamberlin's groin area.

She added: "The witness was shaken and disgusted by what he saw. He was the owner of the horse.

"He picked up a stick and struck the defendant. That startled the horse, causing it to run off, dragging the defendant with it.""

"horse's head in Chamberlin's groin area... startled the horse, causing it to run off, dragging the defendant with it" - A) I don't see how, B) I don't see why and C) That has got to really hurt!

Just like Gordon

Gordon Brown must be so proud of Alistar Darling, afer all his PBR is unravelling almost as quickly as a Gordon Brown budget. Even the BBC have to admit that:

"The pre-Budget report pledge to raise the state pension will not apply to some parts of the pension - potentially saving the Treasury £350m in 2010/11.

The Chancellor said the "basic state pension" would rise by 2.5% in April.

But pensions minister Angela Eagle says extras such as the State Earnings Related Pension (Serps) will be frozen.

She says this will prevent "unfairness" between Serps and company pension schemes. But a BBC report says other pension benefits will be frozen too.

Following the revelation by the BBC's Money Box programme, a Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) spokeswoman told the BBC a statement outlining the break-down of pension benefit increases and freezes would be issued on Monday.

Chancellor Alistair Darling gave his pledge in Wednesday's Pre-Budget report that "basic state pension will not be frozen, but will rise by 2.5% in April".

Nowhere did his speech or the hundreds of pages of pre-Budget documents mention the fact that the parts of the state pension which do not count as "basic" would be frozen."

Surely nobody can be surprised that a Labour Chancellor's official announcement is not entirely accurate, after all they do have "previous".

Why did nobody challenge Major Hasan?

Lt. General Boykin claims that political correctness allowed the murderous Major Hasan to kill 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, and many would agree with him.



Thanks to Sean Linnane/Theo Spark for the spot.

Sarah Palin on the Conan O'Brien Show surprises William Shatner

Nicely done and Sarah Palin is so much less wooden than Barack "One term" Obama.

The worst song of 2009?

Just flicking through the TV and came across Cheryl Cole and Will.I.Am. "singing" Three Words. I presume this is not a joke song and if so it must be up there for the worst song of 2009. Tuneless, talentless and without any redeeming features.

The interview is almost as cringe-worthy, is Cheryl trying to make Ashley Cole jealous.


Here's the video, judge for yourselves...

The economic incompetence of Gordon Brown exposed

From The Spectator - Brown's Toxic farewell

"To understand the scale of the damage that Mr Brown is doing, consider this. Already the national debt is £830 billion — the Pre-Budget Report said it will hit a staggering £1.5 trillion by 2014/15. After that point the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the closest we have to a post-Budget lie detector, takes up the story. It estimates that even with an aggressive attempt to cut spending the debt will hit £1.8 trillion in 2032 and then decline slowly hitting £1.6 trillion in 2040/41. And if these figures sound abstract, like a fiscal fantasy, let us put it into perspective.

This year, and every year for at least the next decade, Britain will pay more in debt interest than on educating our children or defending the realm. Every penny servicing this debt, this toxic legacy of this incompetent Prime Minister, is a penny that could be otherwise put to use creating jobs in the economy. On the Budget’s figures, a child born today in Britain will already owe £13,500 — and will have salary confiscated through the tax system to pay this debt."

Read it all and remember that the UK people's revenge on Gordon "incompetence" Brown will be so sweet when the time comes.


Meanwhile Burning Our Money reports that:

"When the unelected idiot Brown took over in 2007, the UK's official government debt stood at 47% of GDP. By the end of 2011 it will be 94%, a literal doubling over just four years. Under his incompetent management, the UK will have clocked up the biggest increase in debt of any major OECD economy.

So says the OECD itself in its latest World Economic Outlook (see here Annex Table 32). "

Are you angry now? You should be... So get even, get rid of this Labour government and the human slime that heads it - Brown, Mandelson, Straw and the rest.

Nigella porn

"I'll put on my CSI gloves... never a hardship"

Oh Nigella!

And Mrs NotaSheep wonders why I don't complain when she watches Nigella's Christmas Kitchen... Nigella and her mini chocolate bombini, mmmm





Thanks to Ayyy for the photo spot.

"How To Make The World's Easiest $1 Billion"

A very interesting scheme outlined by Henry Blodget on Business Insider, here's the first six steps but do read the whole article:

"STEP 1: Form a bank.

STEP 2: Round up a bunch of unemployed friends to be "bankers."

STEP 3: Raise $1 billion of equity. (This is the only tricky step. And it's not that tricky. See below.*)

STEP 4: Borrow $9 billion from the Fed at an annual cost of 0.25%.

STEP 5: Buy $10 billion of 30-year Treasuries paying 4.45%

STEP 6: Sit back and watch the cash flow in."

Climate Change news

A few pieces that you might have missed:

1. A report in THe Times that

"UN officials have likened the theft of e-mails from university climate researchers to the Watergate scandal, after claiming computer hackers were probably paid by people intent on undermining the Copenhagen summit.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that the theft from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was not the work of amateur climate sceptics, but was a sophisticated and well-funded attempt to destroy public confidence in the science of man-made climate change. He said the fact that the e-mails were first uploaded to a sceptic website from a computer in Russia was an indication that the culprit was paid."

Ignore the facts & fiddles discovered and concentrate on the alleged illegality that surrounded the "theft" of data.


2. Megan McArdle in The Atlantic writes:

"that is the actual worrying question about CRU, and GISS, and the other scientists working on paleoclimate reconstruction: that they may all be calibrating their findings to each other. That when you get a number that looks like CRU, you don't look so hard to figure out whether it's incorrect as you do when you get a number that doesn't look like CRU--and maybe you adjust the numbers you have to look more like the other "known" datasets. There is always a way to find what you're expecting to find if you look hard enough.

There are other issues: selection bias in the grant process, papers with large results being much more likely to be published than papers with equivocal results, professors preferring students who agree with them, and so forth. I doubt that could amount to faking the entire thing. But it could amplify the magnitude."

An interesting article that is kinder to most of the climate change scientists that I would be.


3. Watts Up With That put the hockey stick into context... This is a must read and is well worth passing on to any warmists that you know.

Googling

I have not written about Tiger Woods and his affairs as I have very little interest in how or why he cheatd on his wife, so far as I am aware he never claimed to be the perfect husband or sage on morality so I was surprised to find someone coming to this blog having googled (from Greece) LOVE AFFAIRS OF TIGGER WOODS. Maybe this was Winnie the Pooh I thought? But no it was my article entitled "The BBC love affair with Tiger Woods. It would seem that "of" and "with" do not narrow the field down that much for Google...

Whatever happened to Gordon Brown's "Golden Rule"

"The greatest golden rule is that you can never trust a Labour government with the economy." - George Osborne

Weird lookalike

Andre Agassi and "The Hood" from Thunderbirds




Well I thought so...

Might they have something to hide?

I note that it is being reported that:

"Gordon Brown’s government was on a collision course with the UK Information Commissioner last night after ministers decided to block the release of key Cabinet discussions in 1997 covering decisions taken in the run-up to devolution.

Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner, said he was “concerned” that ministers will now try to routinely block the publication of Cabinet minutes.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, vetoed the release of the documents, citing the convention of collective Cabinet responsibility. "

Anyone would think that the Labour government had something to hide.

You might like to take a look at Jack Straw's speech to the Campaign for Freedom of Information's
annual Awards ceremony, 7 June 1999 for a bit of light relief at this point.


Having pondered that you might like to also remember that

"in February 2009, Straw used his authority as Justice Secretary to veto publication of government documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act: in particular, those pertaining to early government meetings concerning the (back then, forthcoming) Iraq War."

A great believer in Freedom of Information; well maybe more in theory than practice.

Blind Blake - J.P. Morgan

Blind Blake is a favourite of mine and Mrs NotaSheep and this song is our current top choice. Listen out for some other tracks by this calypso genius of the early 20th century. If you want a Blind Blake primer try his Bahamian Songs album - pay particular attention to: Love, Love Alone, a pre-Beach Boys version of Sloop John B - John B. Sail (Wreck Of The John B.), Run Come See Jerusalem and Jones (Oh Jones).

Britain and Israel - an uncomfortable truth

Please read this it's a verbatim report of a speech by the historian Andrew Roberts delivered at the annual dinner of the Anglo-Israel Association. Like Melanie Phillips, I reproduce it here in full, with no further comment.

Fruit Bats Enjoy Oral Sex, Too

Well that's good news for fruit bats, isn't it? io9 has the full details telling us first that

"Outside of humans and a few other primates, oral sex is a rare phenomenon. But researchers have found male fruit bats do enjoy a little oral stimulation, and that the reasons females offer it go beyond simple pleasure."

and even offering us a little video of fruit bat on fruit bat action...

"the decline Jones so urgently sought to hide was not one of measured temperatures at all, but rather...those determined by proxy reconstructions."

"the decline Jones so urgently sought to hide was not one of measured temperatures at all, but rather figures infinitely more important to climate alarmists – those determined by proxy reconstructions."

Read the whole incredible story at Heartland including how The Medieval Warming Period disappeared from IPCC charts, how "proxy data was scrapped because unlike those measured, reconstructed temperatures showed a marked decline after 1980" and how "defining legends" disappeared from charts, how a key "graph represents an amalgam of proxy and measured temperatures", more about the scandal that is Yamal and more about the situating of weather recording stations and how "methods to “adjust” for such bias, including the use of “smoothing” adjustments to “homogenize” station data to that of surrounding stations." may account for as much as 50% of the "increase" in temperatures.

You must read the whole article and spread the word. Maybe the BBC would like to discuss the points raised; maybe not?


Thanks to Greenie Watch for the spot.

Open up the books and hold an enquiry into what Gordon Brown' has misled us about

I know I have blogged about this before, but it is worth repeating. On day one of a Conservative government the economic books need to be opened and forensically examined and all electronic systems checked for deleted files... A new wrinkle is that David Cameron needs to promise the British people now that this is what he will do and also to start warning Gordon Brown and his cabal that this will happen, I'd like to see Gordon Brown's fat furious face as he contemplates this...

Gordon Brown and Labour's fightback must be crushed and so must he.

Another apartheid wall?

The BBC report that:

"Egypt has begun constructing a huge metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip as it attempts to cut smuggling tunnels, the BBC has learned.

When it is finished the wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long and will extend 18 metres below the surface.

The Egyptians are being helped by American army engineers, who the BBC understands have designed the wall.

The plan has been shrouded in secrecy, with no comment or confirmation from the Egyptian government.

The wall will take 18 months to complete.

For weeks local farmers have noticed more activity at the border where trees were being cut down, but very few of them were aware that a barrier was being built.

'Impenetrable'

That is because the barrier, made of super-strength steel, has been hidden deep underground.

The BBC has been told that it was manufactured in the US, that it fits together in similar fashion to a jigsaw, and that it has been tested to ensure it is bomb proof.

It cannot be cut or melted - in short it is impenetrable.

Intelligence sources in Egypt say the barrier is being sunk close to the perimeter wall that already exists.

They claim 4km of the wall has already been completed north of the Rafah crossing, with work now beginning to the south.

The land beneath Egypt and Gaza resembles a Swiss cheese, full of holes and tunnels through which the Palestinians smuggle the everyday items they are denied by the blockade.

But the Israelis say the tunnels are also used to smuggle people, weapons, and the components of the rockets that are fired at southern Israeli towns.

The wall is not expected to stop all the smuggling, but it will force the Palestinians to go deeper and it will likely cut the hundreds of superficial tunnels closer to the surface that are used to move the bulk of the goods. "

I presume that the United Nations, Human Rights groups etc. will be up in arms any day now..... No, sorry that's just for walls built by Israel - see previous articles

Inheritance Tax threshold freeze

From when I heard that little dig last week that if Labour were so anti-rises in inheritance tax then why were they raising it themselves I knew this rise would have to go, and lo it came to pass today. But do bear in mind that it is not as clear cut as Alistair Darling pretends; the inheritance tax threshold may well be frozen at at £325,000 rather than rising to £350,000, but it will allow couples to pool their total IHT allowance to make £650,000. That looks like an IHT tax cut to me. So is the Labour party as opposed to cutting IHT as it likes to claim?

John Prescott is not a figure of fun he has done as much to destroy the UK as Tony Blair most albeit not as much as Blair, Brown or Mandelson

The BBC report that

"Former deputy prime minister John Prescott is to make a cameo appearance in BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey.

Character Nessa Jenkins - played by co-writer Ruth Jones - has referred to him several times as one of her old flames."

This reinvention of John Prescott must not be allowed to continue; look at his record and judge him on that not his willingness to appear on a TV comedy.

What do you mean the Earth has been warmer before?

Graph of CO2 (Green graph), temperature (Blue graph), and dust concentration (Red graph) measured from the Vostok, Antarctica ice core as reported by Petit et al., 1999. Higher dust levels are believed to be caused by cold, dry periods.


You will note the regular warming and cooling cycles and the linked CO2 levels. You will also notice that the temperature has been warmer than now before and the CO2 levels higher. You will also note that in the previous cases that just as the CO2 levels and temperature peak, they both fall fast.

Some questions, how did temperatures and CO2 rise so high previously without the assistance of man's emissions? Can I be alone in spotting a regular 100-130,000 year cycle? Is the Man Made Climate Change panic really about wealth distribution rather than Climate?

10 Climate Change questions that need answering

Copenhagen Climate Challenge that they want answering and they are 141 Climate Change experts.

Funny guy that Alistair Darling

"We take these decisions from a position of strength"

Deficit reduction

£178bn, £176bn £140bn ...

A reduction of £2bn in the deficit in year 1. What about DEBT, this Labour government is looking at increasing debt by another £493bn over the next three years.

DEBT - what about the items not included in the government's measure? PFI, pensions......

God I hate this bunch of ****s that rule us.

3.5% growth

Does anyone believe that estimate? I believe most forecasters are looking at range between 1.1% and 2.2%, who would you rather believe Alistair DarlingGordon Brown or independent experts?

Displacement activity

You can almost fel the joy as the BBC report that "UK 'to punish bankers over bonuses'". All this blame the bankers activity is to take the attention away from the man who is really to blame for the state of the UK economy - Gordon "complete lack of prudence" Brown.

Rodney Carrington - "Show them to me" LIVE with audience participation - NSFW - and the Pre-Budget Report 2009

The original video even more Not Safe For Work (NSFW) can be found linked from this earlier post. But God bless Texans.


As we now know (see yesterday's article), staring at women's breasts for 10 minutes extends a man's life. So go on extend your life a bit, three runs through the second video could do wonders for your cardiovascular system!


The upcoming Pre-Budget Report is too depressing to contemplate at length, coming as it no doubt will with the usual Gordon Brown/Peter Mandelson inspired Labour spin to hide the true state of the UK's finances and no doubt an attack on those evil bankers - the fall guys who allow Gordon Brown to try and evade his responsibility for the Country's finances. So ignore the PBR and look at ladies breasts - you know it makes sense...

A specialist on sea-levels writes

Please read this article in The Spectator that points out the absurdity of the recent press friendly Maldives government underwater meeting.

Nils-Axel Mörner is a former lead reviewer for the IPCC and was head of Geodynamics at Stockholm University until his retirement in 2005. Oddly he has written three times previously to the Maldives government and not received a reply hence this open letter. Here's a few extracts:

"The people of the Maldives had no problems surviving the 17th century, which was 50cm higher than now. Nor the last century, where it rose by 20cm. This bodes well for their prospects of surviving the next change.

...

Neither of those levels would pose any real problem — simply a return to the situation in the 17th and the 19th to early 20th centuries, respectively.

So why the scare-mongering? Could it be because there is money involved? If you inhabit a tiny island and can convince the world that its very existence is under threat because of the polluting policies of the West, the industrialised nations will certainly respond. The money is likely to flow in more quickly than the ocean will rise."

I seem to remember the BBC splashing footage of the underwater cabinet meeting over their website and TV news; I wonder if they will give equal coverage to this letter... I think we know they won't.

A pole vault problem that I had not thought of

Ouch

Important health advice for men

It would seem that:

"Researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt studying 200 healthy males for five years have found that staring at women's breasts is beneficial to men's health and it increases life expectancy."

Apparently:

"According to Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist and author of the study, gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, almost at par with an intense exercise regime, that prolongs the lifespan of a man by five years.

She added, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out." [...]

. . . the researchers noted that the men who stared at the breasts of females on a regular basis exhibited lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and lesser episodes of coronary artery disease."

Mrs NotaSheep is not convinced but I am. However a question; does this have to be a live woman or would the internet suffice? If the latter I am sorted, if the former then I may have to get out the old high magnification binoculars and head for the nurse's hostel... (A Gregory's Girl reference there...)

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 9 of 9)

That's the lot, what do you think?

Downgrading Countries' credit ratings

It is being reported that Standard and Poors has put Greece on negative credit watch, saying that Greece's deteriorating public finances have raised concern about its debt levels. Greece's debt stands at more than 110% of GDP. Just remind me how high the UK's debt levels are... Standard & Poor's said it was considering actually downgrading Greece's credit rating to reflect its view that "the fiscal consolidation plans outlined by the new government are unlikely to secure a sustained reduction in fiscal deficits and the public debt burden". Remind you of the UK under Gordon Brown's mismanagement?

Standard and Poor have also cut Portugal's outlook from 'stable' to 'negative'.

If you think that Iceland, Dubai and Greece are the biggest likely defaulters on debt then you are much mistaken. Gordon Brown's reckless wastefulness since about 2000 is leading the UK into penury.

Does Gordon Brown really think we are stupid

Gordon Brown's comments on Government Waste are widely recorded today and I found this passage almost beyond belief:

"Money which should be spent on health, schools, policing and social services is in some cases going on excessive salaries and unjustified bonuses far beyond the expectations of the majority of workers. This culture of excess must change and will change."

Has Gordon Brown really just worked out that not all of his 'investment' was going to front line services and some might possibly be being spent on highly paid Labour voting bureaucrats? This pretence anger at the waste that he has discovered really angers me. The man has deliberately created a Labour client state with our money and now he seems to think that we will believe him when he seems to state that it all grew up without his knowledge.

More bollocks from Brown, bias from the BBC and some advice for David Cameron

The BBC report with a straight face that: "Gordon Brown promises hi-tech 'efficiency savings' " With the 'news' that

"Gordon Brown has said technology such as crime maps and online school reports will cut bureaucracy, as Labour attempts to halve the Budget deficit.

Ahead of Wednesday's pre-Budget report, the PM said "efficiency savings" would help to save £12bn over four years - £3bn more than planned in the Budget. "

Leaving aside the fact that I am sure I have heard this sort of promise of Labour "efficiency savings" before with little or no fulfilment, what is this conflation? The story is about £3 billion of extra savings over the Budget, but let's be generous and say it is really about the £12 billion; that's 12 billion of an annual deficit of £175 billion, so this announcement addresses under 7% of the deficit and it's best not to consider the percentage of the National Debt, oh OK it's about 1.5%. Looked at another way, £12 billion is about 2% of Government expenditure... Looked at any way it's of no consequence, it's the sort of figure that could be found in measurement errors accross all Government spending and yet the BBC present it as major news.

The contrary views are left to end and are reported as claims not facts.

"The (Conservative) party has also called for a moratorium on all government computer projects, claiming Labour has spent £100bn on IT since 1997 and that contracts worth another £70bn are due to be renewed or commissioned in the next two years."

Are the Conservative Party's figures correct, if so why does the BBC not say so?


Gordon Brown's announcements more and more resemble the sort of tractor statistics announced by the Soviet Union in days of old. The figures are always better, the figures will always get even better in the future but all the time the figures get further and further from reality. The other comparison, a comparison that is increasingly easy to make is with George Orwell's 1984:

"But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."

We are witnessing a Labour government that has run out of ideas and money but still wants and expects to rule over us (for our own good) and thanks to the unfairness of the current electoral boundaries, the expansion of vote-rigging via the postal vote and a supportive BBC may well still do so.

We have as Prime Minister a man whose grasp on reality and truth seem at best tenuous but who still manages to keep his grasping hands on the instruments of power because of a complicit Labour party, a compliant BBC and a cowardly Conservative party. David Cameron and the rest of the Conservative leadership need to attack Gordon Brown for what he is and what he has done to this country. The attack needs to be brutal and honest and it needs to articulate what so many of the people of this country think and feel - the Labour party have fucked up and they need to be held to account. David Cameron needs to stop being statesmanlike and hold Gordon Brown to account for his lies, his incompetence and his destruction of Britain. PMQs on Wednesday would be a good place to start this new phase of the fight agaonst Labour misgovernment.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 8 of 9)

Last part tomorrow

The sixty-fourth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's winner by a long way is the Deloitte consultancy for reporting (per The Mail) that:

"The equality watchdog lacks leadership, represents only the Labour party and is packed with state sector 'placemen'... It described the Equality and Human Rights Commission as cumbersome, confused and divided."

Representing only the Labour party, packed with state sector 'placemen' (surely 'placepersons).

"No shit, Sherlock"

Jon Stewart sums up ClimateGate so well, well mostly

Thanks to Donal Blaney for the spot.

First the BBC and now The Guardian - two media organisations with one voice

After reading the BBC's piece on Climate Change deniers this morning, as blogged here I was unsurprised to see that one of the other left wing media outlets has done a similar disapproving look at the Climate Change "deniers". This time it's The Guardian with an article entitled

"
Coalition of denial: The sceptics who are trying to reshape the climate debate"

Apparently

"The prominent climate change sceptics do not speak with one voice"

Almost as atrocious a piece as the BBC's but shorter and so less detailed. I did like the last entry though:

"Vaclav Klaus

President of the Czech Republic

Key claim
Told US Congress that "manmade climate change has become one of the most dangerous arguments aimed at distorting human efforts and public policies in the whole world".

Could it be true?
His view that climate change is caused by natural processes such as solar activity has been disproved by scientists."

"Disproved by scientists", oh well that's it then - all scientists? Most scientists? Some scientists? Scientists working for the IPCC and other governmental and pan-governmental organisations?

Gordon Brown treated with the respect he deserves and not a word on the BBC

The Times reports that:

"Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.

More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.

The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.

Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: “It is almost as if we are the product of an unwanted affair ... he has done nothing for us.” "

Oddly not a word of this story on the BBC, I wonder why? Maybe my friends at ARRSE have more on this story...

"The arguments made by climate change sceptics"

Recently I commented on another blog that in a sensible world the BBC would now have to discuss the case against the "science" of Man Made Climate Change, assuming that they would not do so. This morning I note that the BBC have such an article of course being the BBC it takes the form of

"what are their arguments, and how are they countered by scientists who assert that greenhouse gases, produced by human activity, are the cause of modern-day climate change?"

The "counter" is used to disprove each of the arguments to the contrary...

The arguments and counters are so biased it would be funny if it wasn't so brainwashing, here's a few examples but do go and read the whole article....

"Sceptic
Instruments show there has been some warming of the Earth's surface since 1979, but the actual value is subject to large errors. Most long-term data comes from surface weather stations. Many of these are in urban centres which have been expanding and using more energy. When these stations observe a temperature rise, they are simply measuring the "urban heat island effect". In addition, coverage is patchy, with some regions of the world almost devoid of instruments. Data going back further than a century or two is derived from "proxy" indicators such as tree-rings and stalactites which, again, are subject to large errors.

Counter
Warming is unequivocal...."

In fact on re-reading this article it needs a damn good fisking, when I have the time I will do so...

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 7 of 9)

Next part tomorrow

If one more person tells me they drive a Prius and it is emission free, I swear I will scream!

Thanks to Theo Spark
for the spot.

Climate Change update

These updates are almost a daily occurrence at the moment as the news keeps coming in and it's not all to the benefit of the "warmists". Two Telegraph items have caught my eye; the first is a news piece that reports that despite the wall to wall pro-"warmist" propaganda spewed out by the BBC and most of the rest of the British media, "Only one in two voters accepts man-made climate change, according to new poll". It seems that the British public is more sensible and sceptical than the political class and media would like. The Telegraph's article uses some loaded language (my emphasis) as it reports

"Asked if they backed the main conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that humans are largely responsible for modern day rises in temperatures, 52 per cent of voters agreed.

However, 39 per cent said climate change had not yet been proven to be man made, while seven per cent simply denied the phenomenon was happening at all. Furthermore, fewer than one in four voters (23 per cent) believed that climate change was "the most serious problem faced by man" – a view endorsed by governments across the world.

A clear majority (58 per cent) said it was merely "one of a number of serious problems" while 17 per cent believed it has been exaggerated and is "not a very serious problem." "

With these sort of numbers will the British media respond by seriously analysing the climate change data to see if the British public might be right to be sceptical or redouble their efforts to persuade us of the "warmist" agenda and the desperate need for green taxation, redistribution of wealth and a "new world order".


One beacon for sanity on Climate Change has been Christopher Booker's column in the Telegraph and his latest one is no exception. He neatly summarises much of the current debate on Climate Change data including the "hockey stick" expose, the Yamal peninsula tree rings fiddle, the analysis of "Lucy Skywalker" that showed that "in the past 50 years temperatures have not risen at all" in that part of Siberia and why the Copenhagen conference may produce "the most costly economic suicide note in history".

The worst missed football goal ever

Rocky Baptiste misses an open goal in the "miss of the century", although I seem to remember Kanu missing several that looked just as impossible to miss...

I wonder who "London Muslim" will support tonight?

That delightful website London Muslim reports under the headline "Amir Khan to fight a Jew" the seemingly shocking news that

"British Muslim world boxing champion Amir Khan has understandably played down the religious significance of his next fight against a Jew.

Khan who fights Ukrainian born American Dimitry Salita in December emphasised the fight would be between two professional boxers not a Muslim against a Jew."

I wonder what London Muslim's reaction would be if Muslim superman Amir Khan was beaten by a "Jew" on 5 December.

Is this the end for the proponents of Man Made Climate Change?

Not the IPCC's statement that it was "firmly" standing by findings that a rise in the use of greenhouse gases was a factor. Even though the IPCC are hardly an unbiased organisation the real bad news for the "warmists" is that the Jonah himself - Gordon Brown - has put himself firmly in the "warmist" camp with his comments that the scientific evidence was "very clear" and by calling doubters a "flat Earth group". Gordon 'Sadim touch' Brown is reported to have said

"There is an anti-change group. There is an anti-reform group. There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change."

Are Gordon Brown's destructive powers so great that he can destroy the Man Made Climate Change industry as extensively as he has destroyed so much if Britain? Time will tell, but in this case I can only hope he has that power.

"Almost one million Scots are unable to read and write properly, "

So report The Times summing up an "influential group of educationalists who have called for an overhaul of the country’s approach to literacy." Now I could bemoan the fall in educational standards in Scotland and indeed the rest of the UK since 1997 and before. But instead I will use it as an opportunity to remind you of just one of the problems with the third of the three Rs - Arithmetic - that Gordon Brown has had this year.

There was the occasion in January when he said that the typical family would be £5 a week better off "that's £275 a year". The last time I checked, 5 x 52 was 260, but what do I know?


So maybe Gordon Brown's 2007 admission that

"I did maths at school and for one year at university but I don't think I was ever very good at it - and some people would say it shows."

was one of the few honest things this most incompetent Prime Minister has ever said.

That's progress

"The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation—as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I don't want one of these new fangled devices."

John C. Dvorak, San Francisco Examiner, 19 Feb. 1984



Thanks to Devils Kitchen for the spot.

Dr David Kelly update

The Mail report an interesting piece of news, it appears that:

"Six doctors who believe government scientist David Kelly was murdered have launched a ground-breaking legal action to demand the inquest into his death is reopened.

They are to publish a hard-hitting report which they claim proves the weapons expert did not commit suicide as the Hutton Report decided.

They have also engaged lawyers to write to Attorney General Baroness Scotland and the coroner Nicholas Gardiner calling for a full re-examination of the circumstances of his death.

The doctors are asking for permission to go to the High Court to reopen the inquest on the grounds that it was improperly suspended. If Baroness Scotland rejects that demand, or the court turns them down, their lawyers say they will have grounds to seek judicial review of the decision."

As The Mail explains:

"The inquest into Dr Kelly's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as 'fulfilling the function of an inquest'.

Lord Falconer, a former flatmate of Tony Blair, was also responsible for picking Lord Hutton to run the inquiry.

...

Dr Kelly's death certificate states that he died of a haemorrhage, but the results of a post mortem examination have never been made public.

Crucially, the doctors say that Lord Hutton had no witnesses on oath and did not have to make a finding, as the coroner does, beyond a reasonable doubt."

I think a trip to Norman Baker's blog might be in order...

Climate change update

TAke a read of The Washington Times who report that:

"The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s. "

It looks as though the "sceptics" may be about to get the statistical upper hand over the "warmists" but the power will stay where it is, "Climate Change" is too good a weapon to further the left's agenda to be allowed to wither.



Counting Cats has done the unthinkable, he has read the proposed Copenhagen Treaty. Now you remember how the EU made the Lisbon Treaty all but unreadable because people had read and understood the EU Constitution, well it looks as though the "warmists" may wish they had done the same. Counting Cats has uncovered the following clauses that seem to be getting no publicity in the MSM: Annex 1, Paragraph 33:

"By 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least USD 67 billion] [in the range of USD 70-140 billion] per year."

EVERY YEAR?!

Annex 1, Section C, paragraph 41:

"[Financial resources of the Convention Adaptation Fund"] [may] [shall] include: (a) [Assessed contributions [of at least 0.7% of the annual GDP of developed country parties]"

0.7% of GDP, every year, turned over to the UN. I wonder how wisely that money will be spent? Maybe the leading nations of the Human Rights Council will get to spend some of it...


World governance is the aim, green taxes the method and Man Made Climate Change the excuse. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Ben Bernanke disses Gordon Brown's tripartite regulatory system

"[O]ver the past few years the government of Britain removed from the Bank of England most of its supervisory authorities. When the crisis hit - for example when the Northern Rock bank came under stress - the Bank of England was completely in the dark and unable to deal effectively with what turned out to be a destructive run and a major problem for the British economy."

Can't see this quote anywhere on the BBC, how odd; it's almost as though they are trying to protect Gordon Brown and what's left of his reputation.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 6 of 9)

Next part tomorrow

Googling

One of the weirdest as someone googled - cardiff yemen centre eid party in 1979 youtube - and found my blog at number one. Somehow I don't think my blog was quite what he was looking for.

Computer Games demystified - Wii Tennis and more

"Wii Tennis, a part of Wii Sports (Nintendo, 2006), has gone a long way since Pong towards a simulation of reality. Or has it? "

For more, and there is a lot more, take a visit to Eludamos for

"TWO HALVES OF PLAY
- Simulation versus Abstraction and Transformation in Sports Videogames Design"

Oh Mr Balls

How Ed Balls loves to call David Cameron and his front bench Tory toffs and allude to their membership of elite drinking clubs. So I was intigued to be pointed by Biased-BBC to a Daily Mail story that had passed me by. It's the story of a privately educated toff who wore a "German officer's uniform (whilst) staring at the crotch of a (male) fellow student wearing comedy plastic buttocks." and who "was a founder member of the Steamers, an all-male Oxford drinking club so called because they enjoyed 'steaming in' to chat up girls." Apparently the Steamers

'used to rate women on their physical appearance. It was immature nonsense, and some of the women in college found it ridiculous.

'I thought it was stupid rather than malicious. But it was sexist, and showed a lack of respect for equality and diversity.'

Here's some photos of Ed 'Eddie' Balls at University: one enjoying the view of his male friend's crotch and one of him removing the face mask from a female friend who seems to be wearing fake breasts...



As Eddie himself would say - "So What" and I agree, so what. He was young and foolish and that's the point, so were David Cameron, Boris Johnson and the rest of the Bullingdon Club BUT whilst the BBC, Channel 4 and the rest of the media love to pass comment on David Cameron's membership of the Bullingdon Club, this is the first and only time I have seen anything about Ed Balls's exclusive Oxford club past...

How many Canadians does it take to change a lightbulb? And other questions posed by Rex Murphy

More on banning lightbulbs, vulgarism, Sheryl Crow and toilet paper rationing.

Ah, "go flick yourself".

There are no easy games...

GROUP A

SOUTH AFRICA

MEXICO

URUGUAY

FRANCE


GROUP B

ARGENTINA

NIGERIA

SOUTH KOREA

GREECE


GROUP C

ENGLAND

USA

ALGERIA

SLOVENIA


GROUP D

GERMANY

AUSTRALIA

SERBIA

GHANA


GROUP E

HOLLAND

DENMARK

JAPAN

CAMEROON


GROUP F

ITALY

PARAGUAY

NEW ZEALAND

SLOVAKIA


GROUP G

BRAZIL

NORTH KOREA

IVORY COAST

PORTUGAL


GROUP H

SPAIN

SWITZERLAND

HONDURAS

CHILE



Of the second pot teams England draw the USA, who are weaker than Mexico, Nigeria, Denmark and North Korea and no better than the other teams. Of the third pot teams, England draw Algeria, who should be easier opponents than Uruguay, South Korea, Serbia, Japan and the Ivory Coast; if not New Zealand and Honduras. Of the fourth pot teams, England draw Slovenia which is an easier draw than France, Portugal, Greece, Chile and Cameroon and no harder than the others.

In other words, whilst there may be no easy games at the World Cup, this is a dream group for England and there will be no excuses should they fail to qualify from this easy group in first place. However I then expect England to just scrape through the round of the last 16 and go out in the quarter finals as usual - probably on penalties...

The "group of death" looks like Group B and if England had been drawn in a group with Nigeria, South Korea and Greece then I would be a worried man.

Superfriends meet Friends

Either you get it or you don't...

Of course women can get out of parking spaces as well as men, just not this one

No comment necessary...

Chilling words from a "warmist"

A member of the United Nations panel on climate change said of its findings: “There can no longer be dissent.” The next step will be to make opposition to the green religion an offence under hate crime laws.

More at THe FT.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 5 of 9)

Next part tomorrow

"The humanitarian situation in Gaza is extremely serious..."

Hansard reports the recent debate on Gaza where the usual hand-wringing and blame Israel was in evidence, here are a few examples:

"The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The humanitarian situation in Gaza is extremely serious and will worsen now that the winter rains have started. Nearly a year after the conflict, 75 per cent. of Gazans still rely on some form of food aid, more than 60 per cent. do not have daily access to drinking water and 10 per cent. have no access to mains electricity. The United Kingdom continues to press Israel for full access to humanitarian aid in line with internationally accepted humanitarian principles.

Mr. Swire: What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the implications of the 18 million litres of raw and untreated sewage being discharged into the sea off Gaza for the population of Gaza and the surrounding environment?

Mr. Alexander: That is but one of the health consequences of the conditions currently being visited on the people of Gaza. As I said, we have made clear representations to the Israeli Government. Only yesterday, I spoke to Defence Minister Ehud Barak and pressed him for wider access to a range of humanitarian goods. The reconstruction effort that we all wanted to see after Operation Cast Lead has not been possible because of the constraints on access that continue to affect the community. The hon. Gentleman's point is well taken, and I can assure him that we take many opportunities to press the Israelis to ensure that the necessary reconstruction efforts are now made.

Mr. Carmichael: The Secretary of State will doubtless be aware that those seeking anything other than the most basic medical treatment in Gaza are required to travel abroad. However, in the period ending in June, no fewer than 40 per cent. of applications for travel permits for health care were refused by the Israeli Government. What pressure can he bring to bear to ensure that that situation improves?

...

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): Is my right hon. Friend aware that 8,000 children in Gaza are without school desks, and will he facilitate the importation of the metal components necessary to complete the construction of the desks?

...

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): Some 50,000 homes are estimated to have been destroyed during the Israeli attacks on Gaza, but cement, panes of glass and steel girders are still not getting in to repair them. I appreciate what my right hon. Friend says about his meetings with Mr. Barak, but if the Israelis are not listening, what are we going to do about it?

Mr. Alexander: I have sympathy with my hon. Friend, who has great knowledge of the region and the challenges facing it. In some ways, the difficulty is exemplified by the issue of cement. John Ging told me that Hamas is building a watchtower opposite the Israeli watchtower at the crossings using cement that presumably has been smuggled in through the tunnels from Egypt. However, at the same time, the Israelis are denying the cement to rebuild the schools that will give the young people of Gaza exactly the opportunities that hon. Members on both sides of the House would want them to enjoy. That is why we are continuing to press the Israelis. However, with humility we recognise that that is not a task for the United Kingdom alone. The European Union and the United State have key jobs, which is why we continue to work in international forums to press the case for those humanitarian supplies to be allowed in for reconstruction to take place.


...

Mr. Jim Devine (Livingston) (Lab): Is it not time that the international community got together and took sanctions against Israel for its behaviour?
..."

I think that this short debate reminds us of the incessant BBC coverage of the unremitting poverty of the population of Gaza and the vile way that Israel treats the Palestinians on a daily basis.

So I was interested to read this article in the Wall street Journal by Tom Gross who found a West Bank (not Gaza) that never gets reported, although I believe you will find such reporting on this blog previously .... :

"It is difficult to turn on a TV or radio or pick up a newspaper these days, without finding some pundit or other deploring the dismal prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace or the dreadful living conditions of the Palestinians. Even supposedly neutral news reporters regularly repeat this sad tale. "Very little is changing for the Palestinian people on the ground," I heard BBC World Service Cairo correspondent Christian Fraser tell listeners three times in a 45 minute period the other evening.

In fact nothing could be further from the truth. I had spent that day in the West Bank's largest city, Nablus. The city is bursting with energy, life and signs of prosperity, in a way I have not previously seen in many years of covering the region.

As I sat in the plush office of Ahmad Aweidah, the suave British-educated banker who heads the Palestinian Securities Exchange, he told me that the Nablus stock market was the second best-performing in the world so far in 2009, after Shanghai. (Aweidah's office looks directly across from the palatial residence of Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri, the wealthiest man in the West Bank.)

Later I met Bashir al-Shakah, director of Nablus's gleaming new cinema, where four of the latest Hollywood hits were playing that day. Most movies were sold out, he noted, proudly adding that the venue had already hosted a film festival since it opened in June.

Wandering around downtown Nablus the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets. Indeed I counted considerably more BMWs and Mercedes than I've seen, for example, in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv."

Yes but money is not important what about freedom? The Palestinians in Gaza are kept behind "the security wall" and have to pass through Israeli checkpoints to get anywhere? Really? :

"perhaps most importantly of all, we had driven from Jerusalem to Nablus without going through any Israeli checkpoints. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has removed them all since the Israeli security services (with the encouragement and support of President George W. Bush) were allowed, over recent years, to crush the intifada, restore security to the West Bank and set up the conditions for the economic boom that is now occurring. (There was one border post on the return leg of the journey, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but the young female guard just waved me and the two Palestinians I was traveling with, through.)"

Maybe the wealth described is only in Nablus, but what about Hebron which is often described by the BBC?

"The shops and restaurants were also full when I visited Hebron recently, and I was surprised to see villas comparable in size to those on the Cote d'Azur or Bel Air had sprung up on the hills around the city."

OK, Nablus and Hebron but Ramallah is as we are told by the BBC a hell hole of deprivation and despair, really?

"Life is even better in Ramallah, where it is difficult to get a table in a good restaurant. New apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships and health clubs are to be seen."

Do read the rest of the WSJ article and ask yourself why this sort on good news about life for Palestinians is never reported by the BBC, one might wonder if the BBC had an agenda...

Tom Gross's article then has a passage that is key:

"In Gaza too, the shops and markets are crammed with food and goods. But while photos from last Friday's Palestine Today newspaper, for example, depict sumptuous Eid celebrations, these are not the pictures you are ever likely to see on the BBC or Le Monde or the New York Times. No, Gaza is not like a "concentration camp," nor is the "humanitarian crisis in Gaza is on the scale of Darfur," as British journalist Lauren Booth (who is also Tony Blair's sister-in-law) has said.

In June, the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl related how Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had told him why he had turned down Ehud Olmert's offer last year to create a Palestinian state on 97% of the West Bank (with 3% of pre-1967 Israeli land being added to make up the shortfall). "In the West Bank we have a good reality," Abbas told Diehl. "The people are living a normal life," he added in a rare moment of candor to a Western journalist.

Nablus stock exchange head Ahmad Aweidah went further in explaining to me why there is no rush to declare statehood, saying ordinary Palestinians need the IDF to help protect them from Hamas, as their own security forces aren't ready to do so by themselves yet. "

The BBC are 'all Hamas now' and so the success of Palestinians in the West Bank and even Gaza must be hushed up, Israel is evil and to blame and the BBC will not rest until Israel has gone.

Pay attention Gordon and Harriet (and Barack)

Are all the leaders of the left that incompetent?


This is further to yesterday's item about Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman's claims that Spain is in the G20; when it is not.

For context on the Barack Obama video, take a look here and here.

Pay attention Gordon and Harriet

The G20 website lists the members of the G20 thus:

"Membership

The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries:

* Argentina
* Australia
* Brazil
* Canada
* China
* France
* Germany
* India
* Indonesia
* Italy
* Japan
* Mexico
* Russia
* Saudi Arabia
* South Africa
* South Korea
* Turkey
* United Kingdom
* United States of America

The European Union, who is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member of the G-20."

Spain is not a member of the G20 and no matter how often you say it is, it isn't. So when will Gordon Brown apologise for misleading MPs at Wednesday's PMQs thus: "Spain is a member of the G20 now and it is in recession."

I see that Harriet Harman changed the question and answer slightly today when she claimed that

"Spain is in the G20+ - so the Prime Minister was absolutely right on that point."

I am sorry but I can find no reference to G20+ that includes Spain, perhaps Harriet Harman, Gordon Brown or a passing Labour blog refuter could enlighten me...

There is in fact a G20+ of developing nations:

"Currently, the group consists of 23 nations:

1. Argentina
2. Bolivia
3. Brazil
4. Chile
5. China
6. Cuba
7. Ecuador
8. Egypt
9. Guatemala
10. India
11. Indonesia
12. Mexico
13. Nigeria
14. Pakistan
15. Paraguay
16. Peru
17. Philippines
18. South Africa
19. Tanzania
20. Thailand
21. Uruguay
22. Venezuela
23. Zimbabwe"

No, not Spain there either...

Maybe I should like Andrew Neil on The Daily Politics show explain it for Gordon and Harriet:

Gordon just accept that you made a mistake, for once in your life admit that you were wrong and apologise for it... No, I can't see him doing that either. And as for Harriet, very 'womens lib' of you to have to come out and cover up for another 'Brownie', have you no shame?

The different ways of spending money

I know that I have blogged Milton Friedman's thoughts on the different ways of spending money but I have never before found any video of him explaining the concept. It's a bit more long-winded but shows Milton Friedman for the genial economist he was rather than the right-wing monster that he is usually portrayed as.

"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get."

Not a Sheep in agreement with the Saudi government!

It goes somewhat against the grain but I find myself in agreement with the government of Saudi Arabia whose negotiator at the Copehagen climate change conference is reported to have said:

"It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change.... "Climate is changing for thousands of years, but for natural and not human-induced reasons.... "So, whatever the international community does to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on the climate's natural variability."

Mr Al-Sabban is also reported to have said that other countries shared this view and as a result, governments would not be prepared to countenance agreeing anything that would affect economic growth for many years, until "new evidence" settled the scientific picture.

Mr Al-Sabban also said that the UN summit should encourage a "full investigation" of the CRU e-mails affair.

Well said Mr Al-Sabban; I find myself in agreement with some Australian politicians, the BNP and the Saudis - not all pleasant company but in this instance correct in their thinking.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 4 of 9)

Next part tomorrow

"...is climate scepticism the new Holocaust denial?"

A potentially fascinating debate tonight at Freeword online between George "The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them" Monbiot and James Delingpole. Somehow I think that George Monbiot may have to be less dogmatic than he was before the CRU email story broke.

I will try and get a transcript of the debate and post it when/if available.

Mud, mud, glorious mud

Actually slurry, but I like the Flanders & Swan song. This story concerns David Truscott who is a man with a sexual fetish for slurry. He was discovered, having broken into a Cornish farm, masturbating whilst covered in slurry. Hmmm, can't dee the appeal, can you.

Baroness Ashton tells the truth

Baroness Aston the ex CND EU's first High Representative for foreign affairs and security is reported as saying that "I won't be an extension of the British government". Anyone who has read my blog will be not in the slightest surprised as I have stated many times (most recently here and here) that "EU pensions are paid on the understanding that the EU can remove this pension, if in the view of the Commission or the Luxembourg Court, the recipient "fail(s) to uphold the interests of the European Communities", I wonder if that applies to EU salaries as well?

Who wrote "Dreams of my father"?

AIM have more evidence that it was Bill Ayers not Barack Obama, take a read. Also take a look at my previous pieces on Bill Ayers and Barack Obama, it may help to explain the Marxist path that Barack Obama seems determined to take the USA down.

Is the UK heading for a Sovereign Debt crisis?

Morgan Stanley think it's a possibility:

"The US investment bank said there is a danger Britain’s toxic mix of problems will come to a head as soon as next year, triggered by fears that Westminster may prove unable to restore fiscal credibility.

“Growing fears over a hung parliament would likely weigh on both the currency and gilt yields as it would represent something of a leap into the unknown, and would increase the probability that some of the rating agencies remove the UK's AAA status,” said the report, written by the bank’s European investment team of Ronan Carr, Teun Draaisma, and Graham Secker.

“In an extreme situation a fiscal crisis could lead to some domestic capital flight, severe pound weakness and a sell-off in UK government bonds. The Bank of England may feel forced to hike rates to shore up confidence in monetary policy and stabilize the currency, threatening the fragile economic recovery,” they said.

Morgan Stanley said that such a chain of events could drive up yields on 10-year UK gilts by 150 basis points. This would raise borrowing costs to well over 5pc - the sort of level now confronting Greece, and far higher than costs for Italy, Mexico, or Brazil. "

Be under no illusions, the UK economy is in deep, deep trouble and unless firm action is taken immediately after the next general election the UK will lose its AAA status. An incoming Conservative government (for a returned Labour government would neither be firm nor honest) will have to honestly declare the mess that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have left them and how they plan to clear it up. The clear-up will be painful, maybe more painful than that required to clear up after Wilson and Callaghan in the early 1980s, but it has to be done. My worry is that David Cameron is not half the man that Margaret Thatcher was and that he craves approval more than he wants to do the right thing by the country.

I think it was a different organ

The Telegraph reported over the weekend the story of Marc Grim, a teacher, who had an affair with a teenage pupil. The quote that struck me was that he was a teacher who let his "heart rule his head". Heart? I think another organ might have been more to blame...

Climate Change roundup

1. The Times reports that (my emphasis):

"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

...

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.” "

How convenient, just the adjusted data remains, the data that their models say is more accurate than the original data?


2. The Telegraph's Christopher Booker discusses where we are with this story and what aspects concern him the most and it is this passage that the "warmists" need to address before they come on my blog bleating about science:

"But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results. "

3. John Redwood explains the different strands of thought that non-warmists fall into - Global warming sceptics, People who do not believe that man made carbon causes warming, Lawsonists and Pragmatists. Have a read, unless you are so wedded to the religion of "warmism" that to read anything contrary to your beliefs is taboo.

Fitting the news to the agenda - "Mild winter ahead"

Not the BBC but the Telegraph who reported recently that

"Britain will have a mild winter, the Met Office said yesterday.... the forecasters said there was a 50% chance of a mild winter"

Hold on there is a 50% chance of a mild winter, doesn't that mean that there is a 50% chance of not having a mild winter but an average or even colder than average winter. So why the headline?

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 3 of 9)

Next part tomorrow

Suddenly I see the point of womens football

Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

The BBC and the Climate Change agenda

Number two and number three lead stories on the BBC World news page today are:

"Australia vote deals climate bill blow
Australia's opposition elects climate change sceptic Tony Abbott as leader, dealing a blow to plans for a carbon trading law."

and

"Melting Antarctic ice to feed major sea rise
Melting Antarctic ice is likely to contribute to a sea level rise of about 1.4m by 2100, a major review of climate change says."

The viewpoint for both headlines and indeed articles is that Climate Change is settled science and that scepticism is wrong and bad and that action is urgently required.

The CRU emails are a forgotten "non" story at the BBC and the Climate Agenda is firmly back on course.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (part 2 of 9)

Next part tomorrow

The BBC "mostly" ...

A simple BBC piece headlined "Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah announces new manifesto" caught my attention. First because Hezbollah are described as a "Shia group" (no mention of Islam or terrorism) an then as "the Lebanese Shia movement" (again no mention of Islam or terrorism). The BBC piece describes how Hezbollah "holds 10 seats in Lebanon's 30-member unity government" and how "The speech took place from an undisclosed location as Sheik Nasrallah fears Israeli assassination." The whole piece accepts the Hezbollah/Iranian narrative that Israel is the aggressor with lines such as

"The AFP news agency reported him saying he would increase Hezbollah's military strength to stop Israel making the Lebanese suffer.

"The ongoing Israeli threat forces the resistance to continue to boost its capacity in order to fulfil its role in liberating occupied territory," he said. "

The best is saved to last as the BBC spin the Israeli/Hezbollah war thus (my emphasis):

"Hezbollah fought a war with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese, Hezbollah fought a war with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israelis, Hezbollah fought a war with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israelis, most of whom were soldiers, also died. , also died. , were killed. Some 160 Israelis, most of whom were soldiers, also died. "

Now if it was a war than Hezbollah fighters should be described as soldiers and counted separately from civilians. Also the context of how Lebanese civilians were killed should be explained.

The BBC mostly despise Israel, most of the BBC's Middle Eastern reporting is anti-Israel and mostly pro Hezbollah and Hamas and indeed any Islamic organisation that kills Israelis.

Sound familiar?

From Karl R. Popper's book "The Open Society and Its Enemies"

"The transition from democracy to tyranny ,Plato says, is most easily brought about by a popular leader who knows how to exploit the class antagonism between the rich and the poor within the democratic state, and who succeeds in building up a bodyguard of a private army of his own. The people who have hailed him first as the champion of freedom are soon enslaved."

Remind you of anyone?