Friday, 25 January 2008
Israel and Palestine
Watch this clip and as well as thinking about what Azzam Al-Tamimi says about Hamas and Israel, also think on this - if Azzam Al-Tamimi says that "Where did your father come from? ... Never, I will never recognize that you have a right..." how is that different from racists in the UK who say (or rather can no longer say) things along the line of "you may live here, you may have been born here but where did your parents come from? They were foreign, so you are foreign, go home foreigner"?
Balen report update
Bad news emerged today as The Press Gazette reports that "The BBC today successfully fended off a Court of Appeal bid to force it to make public the Balen report, an internal review of its reporting in the Middle East... but today Lord Justices Buxton, Lord Justice Lloyd and Sir Paul Kennedy backed the High Court ruling. Sugar is considering taking his case to the highest court in the land, the House of Lords, where he would argue that the Act was badly drafted and prevents disclosure of material which should be available in the public interest."
If the report didn't accuse the BBC of bias against Israel I doubt that the BBC would be so keen on suppressing it. If I am wrong then I will happily apologise but only if the Balen report is released in its entirety first.
If the report didn't accuse the BBC of bias against Israel I doubt that the BBC would be so keen on suppressing it. If I am wrong then I will happily apologise but only if the Balen report is released in its entirety first.
20mph zones
20mph zones are springing up in odd residential areas at the moment and by all accounts more are on their way. They are being brought in to increase road safety, although teaching children the "green cross code" might be a simpler alternative.
The Standard report that "Cutting speed limits in London to 20mph could increase emissions of carbon dioxide by more than a tenth, the AA claimed today.
Slowing vehicles down makes engines work less efficiently, and the AA has calculated that even on free-flowing routes, fuel consumption in a petrol car going 20mph can be 5.8 miles per gallon worse than at 30mph.
This is enough to produce an extra quarter of a tonne of CO2 every quarter mile travelled. On congested roads the effect can be even more marked, especially with small-engined cars."
The Standard report that "Cutting speed limits in London to 20mph could increase emissions of carbon dioxide by more than a tenth, the AA claimed today.
Slowing vehicles down makes engines work less efficiently, and the AA has calculated that even on free-flowing routes, fuel consumption in a petrol car going 20mph can be 5.8 miles per gallon worse than at 30mph.
This is enough to produce an extra quarter of a tonne of CO2 every quarter mile travelled. On congested roads the effect can be even more marked, especially with small-engined cars."
Another day, another piece on Ken Livingstone
Andrew Gilligan has yet another piece on Ken Livingstone's troubles, this time. The piece is exceedingly interesting and I am repeating it all here because I wish to comment upon parts of it - my comments in italics, my emphasis in bold.
"Whistle-blower to sue Mayor over 'bullying' claims
Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard 25.01.08
The whistleblower who exposed a key part of the City Hall scandal is to sue Ken Livingstone for libel, the Evening Standard can reveal.
The move comes after the Mayor claimed on BBC radio that Brenda Stern was sacked for bullying her staff.
Ms Stern, a former London Development Agency manager, was forced from her £70,000-a-year job after she complained about serious irregularities in a project run by a friend of the Mayor's equality adviser Lee Jasper.
A complaint of bullying was made against her but in a letter seen by the Standard, LDA chief executive Manny Lewis says the allegation was investigated and was "not founded".
But speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today, Mr Livingstone described Ms Stern as a "very embittered former member of staff we had to get rid of after complaints she was intimidatory to the staff working for her, and the entire senior management team said it was impossible to work with her".
Ms Stern said today: "One of the Mayor's most unattractive characteristics is the way he responds to any legitimate question with personal abuse. What he said about me to six million listeners was completely untrue, and I have that in writing from his own LDA chief executive.
"I am not a political opponent who can respond in kind. I am an ordinary member of the public who has no means to defend her reputation from this bullying other than the courts. I will not be intimidated into silence."
The Mayor's office hit back, threatening that if Ms Stern sued, the GLA would investigate "other matters" apart from her stint at the LDA, including her past life and previous employment. "
This is the sort of claim that Martin Bright made in this week's Dispatches programme which "alleged that public money was used to smear one of Livingstone's adversaries". The standard response of Ken Livingstone and his team to criticism is to smear the critic, rather than answer the criticism. To be fair, they are not alone as it was also a tactic used by Labour in the Tony Blair/Alastair Cambell days with regard to such people as Rose Addis.
"As criticism of Mr Livingstone has mounted, he and his supporters have made personal attacks on their critics, including the Standard, which has been accused of "racism" and of conducting a "lynching" of Mr Jasper. "
One of Ken's favourite "get out of jail free cards" has always been to cry "racist" at critics, it used to work rather well but I get the feeling that those days may be numbered.
"Ms Stern was programme manager for the LDA's Diversity Dividend, an interactive website allowing companies to assess their diversity performance. Before she arrived, the £295,000 contract for the website was given to a company called Diversity International, run by Joel O'Loughlin, a longstanding friend of Mr Jasper's, even though DI had no expertise in computers and was based in Liverpool.
The website never operated properly. Mr O'Loughlin deceived the LDA about his company's financial health and overcharged it by more than £50,000. In emails and letters leaked to the Standard Mr Lewis threatened in writing to sack Mr O'Loughlin and claw back the money, but within days performed a 180-degree turn following an intervention by Mr Jasper.
After Mr Jasper became involved, the threats to sack Mr O'Loughlin were withdrawn and he was offered a further £250,000 and a lucrative consultancy. Ms Stern was forced out after she voiced strong internal objections to the volte-face and the deal, calling it "extortionate", "outrageous" and "against the public interest". Mr Jasper had the final say on her fate.
Mr Livingstone also claimed on the Today programme: "The moment that management [of DI] was shown to be defective, we made certain that the company was wound up. It was brought much more in-house and is now thriving." In fact, DI was wound up by Mr O'Loughlin in a bid to keep his grant, and the Diversity Dividend website is now defunct."
Can someone please get Ken Livingstone in an interview studio and keep questioning him and not allow him the wriggle room that Radio London etc. allow him.
"Whistle-blower to sue Mayor over 'bullying' claims
Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard 25.01.08
The whistleblower who exposed a key part of the City Hall scandal is to sue Ken Livingstone for libel, the Evening Standard can reveal.
The move comes after the Mayor claimed on BBC radio that Brenda Stern was sacked for bullying her staff.
Ms Stern, a former London Development Agency manager, was forced from her £70,000-a-year job after she complained about serious irregularities in a project run by a friend of the Mayor's equality adviser Lee Jasper.
A complaint of bullying was made against her but in a letter seen by the Standard, LDA chief executive Manny Lewis says the allegation was investigated and was "not founded".
But speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today, Mr Livingstone described Ms Stern as a "very embittered former member of staff we had to get rid of after complaints she was intimidatory to the staff working for her, and the entire senior management team said it was impossible to work with her".
Ms Stern said today: "One of the Mayor's most unattractive characteristics is the way he responds to any legitimate question with personal abuse. What he said about me to six million listeners was completely untrue, and I have that in writing from his own LDA chief executive.
"I am not a political opponent who can respond in kind. I am an ordinary member of the public who has no means to defend her reputation from this bullying other than the courts. I will not be intimidated into silence."
The Mayor's office hit back, threatening that if Ms Stern sued, the GLA would investigate "other matters" apart from her stint at the LDA, including her past life and previous employment. "
This is the sort of claim that Martin Bright made in this week's Dispatches programme which "alleged that public money was used to smear one of Livingstone's adversaries". The standard response of Ken Livingstone and his team to criticism is to smear the critic, rather than answer the criticism. To be fair, they are not alone as it was also a tactic used by Labour in the Tony Blair/Alastair Cambell days with regard to such people as Rose Addis.
"As criticism of Mr Livingstone has mounted, he and his supporters have made personal attacks on their critics, including the Standard, which has been accused of "racism" and of conducting a "lynching" of Mr Jasper. "
One of Ken's favourite "get out of jail free cards" has always been to cry "racist" at critics, it used to work rather well but I get the feeling that those days may be numbered.
"Ms Stern was programme manager for the LDA's Diversity Dividend, an interactive website allowing companies to assess their diversity performance. Before she arrived, the £295,000 contract for the website was given to a company called Diversity International, run by Joel O'Loughlin, a longstanding friend of Mr Jasper's, even though DI had no expertise in computers and was based in Liverpool.
The website never operated properly. Mr O'Loughlin deceived the LDA about his company's financial health and overcharged it by more than £50,000. In emails and letters leaked to the Standard Mr Lewis threatened in writing to sack Mr O'Loughlin and claw back the money, but within days performed a 180-degree turn following an intervention by Mr Jasper.
After Mr Jasper became involved, the threats to sack Mr O'Loughlin were withdrawn and he was offered a further £250,000 and a lucrative consultancy. Ms Stern was forced out after she voiced strong internal objections to the volte-face and the deal, calling it "extortionate", "outrageous" and "against the public interest". Mr Jasper had the final say on her fate.
Mr Livingstone also claimed on the Today programme: "The moment that management [of DI] was shown to be defective, we made certain that the company was wound up. It was brought much more in-house and is now thriving." In fact, DI was wound up by Mr O'Loughlin in a bid to keep his grant, and the Diversity Dividend website is now defunct."
Can someone please get Ken Livingstone in an interview studio and keep questioning him and not allow him the wriggle room that Radio London etc. allow him.
An unmissable article on Lee Jasper from Harry's Place
Go and have a read of this article at Harry's Place. Shocking but not that surprising.
Polly's upset with Gordon
Polly Toynbee's upset, do you think she's just realised that Gordon isn't the man she thought he was? "For political vacuity and ineptitude, Labour has really excelled this week"..... "These are the images that the ghost of the election yet to come would summon up for Ebeneezer Scrooge Brown. Is it too late, Brown might ask the ghost. No, of course not. It's never too late for redemption - or "change" as Brown calls it without changing anything. For despite all this, the Tories are still only a few points ahead, nowhere near where they should be. That's some comfort, but frankly it's hard to believe enough people would turn out to vote for four more years of this. A pusillanimous cabinet bungles its safety-first policies, failing to appease unappeasable enemies while losing most of its friends. But imagine if Labour now reversed all this week's cornucopia of bad decisions. Look into the future - and avoid it."
When even Polly Toynbee turns on Gordon Brown, things must be feeling really bleak in the Number 10 bunker...
When even Polly Toynbee turns on Gordon Brown, things must be feeling really bleak in the Number 10 bunker...
Anatole Kaletsky on Gordon Brown
I read Anatole Kaletsky' columns in the Times for years until I became too irritated by the political slant of his columns. Now this one has been brought to my attention. It is a fine demolition of Gordon Brown's Northern Rock policy as I have read; and all the more brutal coming, as it does, from a formerly fairly Brownite commentator. Do read the while article but the last few paragraphs I think bear repetition (my emphasis):
"he has chosen the worst of all possible worlds, described by Vince Cable, of the Liberal Democrats, with his customary precision as “nationalisation of risks and losses, combined with privatisation of gains”. In effect, Mr Brown is offering £55 billion of public money to Sir Richard Branson and other shareholders in Northern Rock, whether present or future, with which to speculate on the housing market and the stock market. If these speculations work out, these private individuals will pocket 90 per cent or more of the profits. If the speculations fail (which is much more likely) taxpayers will bear the entire loss. Looting of public wealth on this scale has not been seen in Britain since the South Sea Bubble.
If you think I exaggerate the egregiousness of the announcement, consider the following facts. The so-called bonds that will be used to “repay” Northern Rock's £25 billion in borrowing from the Bank of England will be guaranteed by the Treasury and will therefore be indistinguishable from any other government borrowing. In addition, the Treasury will maintain indefinitely the present guarantees on £30 billion of other Northern Rock obligations. In other words, not a penny of taxpayer money will be repaid by the proposed “rescue bids”. That much is obvious. What is much worse politically, however, is that Alistair Darling will keep claiming that these bonds constitute some kind of repayment - yet this falsehood is so transparent that what little is left of the Government's economic credibility will be completely lost. Mr Brown is sliding out of an embarrassing admission by insulting the intelligence of the British public. We all know about using our Mastercard to pay off the Visa debt. This is an insult that voters are unlikely to forget.
Once people fully understood that the Government, far from receiving any repayment as part of this “rescue”, will be offering a long-term operating loan to Northern Rock for five years or beyond, the politically embarrassing questions will pour in. If this kind of money is available for a minor bank in Newcastle, what else could the Treasury have done with £55 billion? Here are a few ideas: it could have rescued MG-Rover and turned it into the worlds strongest car manufacturer after Toyota. It could have acquired control of the Airbus programme and shifted its headquarters to Bristol from Toulouse. And even after these industrial subventions there would have been plenty of change from £55 billion to set up a permanent endowment fund to finance Britain's universities, or build a new high-speed rail system covering much of Britain, or a new London airport in the Thames estuary to replace Heathrow or underwrite the entire economic risks of a new generation of nuclear power stations. And what about rescuing the pension funds wrecked by Mr Brown's previous excursions into high finance?
Even if such embarrassing questions die down, behind them will loom an even bigger challenge to Mr Brown. By piling another £55 billion of government debt on top of a government deficit that is already exploding, Mr Brown will explode the entire fiscal framework on which Labour has built its tax and spending policies. By lavishing unthinkable sums of public money on the shareholders of Northern Rock he will directly repudiate the warnings from Mervyn King about the “moral hazard” of subsidising irresponsible banking. It is hard to see how the Prime Minister and the Governor could continue to work together given this fundamental, and enormously expensive, difference of views.
The Northern Rock bailout will demolish or, at best, discredit the entire economic policy framework created in 1997. Since the creation of this framework was his one unquestionable achievement, it seems fair to say that Mr Brown's career as a serious politician ended yesterday."
Well said Anatole Kaletsky; it is a shame that the BBC consider the matter too difficult for the general public to understand and too embarrassing to their beloved Prime Minister to try and explain.
Thanks to Edland for bringing this article to my attention. Edland is a blog that is fast becoming worth a daily visit.
"he has chosen the worst of all possible worlds, described by Vince Cable, of the Liberal Democrats, with his customary precision as “nationalisation of risks and losses, combined with privatisation of gains”. In effect, Mr Brown is offering £55 billion of public money to Sir Richard Branson and other shareholders in Northern Rock, whether present or future, with which to speculate on the housing market and the stock market. If these speculations work out, these private individuals will pocket 90 per cent or more of the profits. If the speculations fail (which is much more likely) taxpayers will bear the entire loss. Looting of public wealth on this scale has not been seen in Britain since the South Sea Bubble.
If you think I exaggerate the egregiousness of the announcement, consider the following facts. The so-called bonds that will be used to “repay” Northern Rock's £25 billion in borrowing from the Bank of England will be guaranteed by the Treasury and will therefore be indistinguishable from any other government borrowing. In addition, the Treasury will maintain indefinitely the present guarantees on £30 billion of other Northern Rock obligations. In other words, not a penny of taxpayer money will be repaid by the proposed “rescue bids”. That much is obvious. What is much worse politically, however, is that Alistair Darling will keep claiming that these bonds constitute some kind of repayment - yet this falsehood is so transparent that what little is left of the Government's economic credibility will be completely lost. Mr Brown is sliding out of an embarrassing admission by insulting the intelligence of the British public. We all know about using our Mastercard to pay off the Visa debt. This is an insult that voters are unlikely to forget.
Once people fully understood that the Government, far from receiving any repayment as part of this “rescue”, will be offering a long-term operating loan to Northern Rock for five years or beyond, the politically embarrassing questions will pour in. If this kind of money is available for a minor bank in Newcastle, what else could the Treasury have done with £55 billion? Here are a few ideas: it could have rescued MG-Rover and turned it into the worlds strongest car manufacturer after Toyota. It could have acquired control of the Airbus programme and shifted its headquarters to Bristol from Toulouse. And even after these industrial subventions there would have been plenty of change from £55 billion to set up a permanent endowment fund to finance Britain's universities, or build a new high-speed rail system covering much of Britain, or a new London airport in the Thames estuary to replace Heathrow or underwrite the entire economic risks of a new generation of nuclear power stations. And what about rescuing the pension funds wrecked by Mr Brown's previous excursions into high finance?
Even if such embarrassing questions die down, behind them will loom an even bigger challenge to Mr Brown. By piling another £55 billion of government debt on top of a government deficit that is already exploding, Mr Brown will explode the entire fiscal framework on which Labour has built its tax and spending policies. By lavishing unthinkable sums of public money on the shareholders of Northern Rock he will directly repudiate the warnings from Mervyn King about the “moral hazard” of subsidising irresponsible banking. It is hard to see how the Prime Minister and the Governor could continue to work together given this fundamental, and enormously expensive, difference of views.
The Northern Rock bailout will demolish or, at best, discredit the entire economic policy framework created in 1997. Since the creation of this framework was his one unquestionable achievement, it seems fair to say that Mr Brown's career as a serious politician ended yesterday."
Well said Anatole Kaletsky; it is a shame that the BBC consider the matter too difficult for the general public to understand and too embarrassing to their beloved Prime Minister to try and explain.
Thanks to Edland for bringing this article to my attention. Edland is a blog that is fast becoming worth a daily visit.
An interesting article on democracy
Take a read of this from the Guardian's Comment is Free. The comments are worth a read too.
William Hague in fine form and making a good serious point as well as raising a laugh
From the initial debate on the EU Reform Treaty:
A shame that it will do no good because all Labour MPs are under a 3-line whip to vote for the bill.
A shame that it will do no good because all Labour MPs are under a 3-line whip to vote for the bill.
Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama
Their latest radio advertisements ahead of the crucial South Carolina Democratic primary.
Neither of the above would appear to be the best choice!
Neither of the above would appear to be the best choice!
"Mental illness - Jeremy Paxman on the prime minister who overcame depression
That's the lead-in headline for an article currently on the BBC Newsnight home page. Take a read of the article and it's not about who you might think, it's about Mr Bondevik of Norway. Maybe the clue was the word "overcame"?
More BBC bias on Israel
The BBC just cannot help themselves. This is a headline from a page in their Middle East section, the headline is "Three dead in Mid-East violence".
The story if one reads on, and remember many just scan the headlines, continues "Two Palestinians infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and attacked students at a religious school before being shot dead, police say."
Once again that "police say" to insinuate that this is according to the Israeli police and therefore probably lies.
The article continues "Witnesses said the two men, who were disguised as Israeli soldiers, managed to stab two students in Kfar Etzion, near Bethlehem, before being killed.".
So they died after they dressed as Israeli soldiers and stabbed two students.
The article continues "In a separate attack, an Israeli border policeman was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen on the outskirts of Jerusalem. A female colleague of the officer was also wounded in the incident at a checkpoint close to the Shuafat refugee camp."
So here we have an Israeli policeman killed and another one wounded.
Let's return to examine the headline "Three dead in Mid-East violence". In fact this is not a story of tit for tat violence, it is two stories. One of two Palestinians dressing as Israeli soldiers and stabbing two students before being shot by Israeli forces and another of Palestinian gunmen shooting dead one Israeli policeman and injuring another. It seems to me that in both cases the cause was Palestinian aggression, perhaps the BBC would like to comment?
UPDATE:
I have been informed that "The two terrorists who were killed Thursday evening after breaking into a yeshiva in the settlement of Kfar Etzion were released from an Israeli prison last week, Palestinian sources in Hebron told Ynet."
The story if one reads on, and remember many just scan the headlines, continues "Two Palestinians infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and attacked students at a religious school before being shot dead, police say."
Once again that "police say" to insinuate that this is according to the Israeli police and therefore probably lies.
The article continues "Witnesses said the two men, who were disguised as Israeli soldiers, managed to stab two students in Kfar Etzion, near Bethlehem, before being killed.".
So they died after they dressed as Israeli soldiers and stabbed two students.
The article continues "In a separate attack, an Israeli border policeman was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen on the outskirts of Jerusalem. A female colleague of the officer was also wounded in the incident at a checkpoint close to the Shuafat refugee camp."
So here we have an Israeli policeman killed and another one wounded.
Let's return to examine the headline "Three dead in Mid-East violence". In fact this is not a story of tit for tat violence, it is two stories. One of two Palestinians dressing as Israeli soldiers and stabbing two students before being shot by Israeli forces and another of Palestinian gunmen shooting dead one Israeli policeman and injuring another. It seems to me that in both cases the cause was Palestinian aggression, perhaps the BBC would like to comment?
UPDATE:
I have been informed that "The two terrorists who were killed Thursday evening after breaking into a yeshiva in the settlement of Kfar Etzion were released from an Israeli prison last week, Palestinian sources in Hebron told Ynet."
EU Constitution
It might be worthwhile keeping an eye on this story. "As the Government embarks this week on its concentrated procedure to persuade Parliament to approve ratification of the EU Reform Treaty, to which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have already committed the United Kingdom, Stuart Wheeler, who founded the spread-betting group, IG Index, is preparing a determined challenge in the courts to confront the EU constitution head-on...
Thursday, 24 January 2008
David Bellamy v Michael Fish
The BBC have a section on their website for Wearside and there are two articles there one by David Bellamy and one by Michael Fish on Global Warming. Take a read of them both - David Bellamy and Michael Fish.
David Bellamy explanation for Global Warming runs "Environmentalist David Bellamy is sceptical of man's influence on global warming - he believes rising temperatures are part of the Earth's natural cycles. David Bellamy is used to being attacked for his views on climate change but he believes there is a need for a much more balanced debate on the issue. The botanist, who is now based in County Durham, believes the recent temperature rises are just part of the Earth's natural cycle and that such changes have been seen before. He said: "Climate change is happening, it's been happening all the time there has been a climate, and there certainly is a period in recent times when it appears that the temperature is going up and up. "But I would show you this one thing out of the paper – strawberries in December, frog spawn in February – not 2007 but 1868 and no one blamed global warming then. I have asked the global warmers how to explain facts like that and they always don't give me an answer. So I am a sceptic.""
More importantly he calls for DEBATE - "What he passionately believes is that the subject should be properly debated and not just one side accepted without that.
He said: "We have got to get this thing argued out in public properly and not just take one opinion.
"Science works like that. Science is wonderful because you can argue with people and when you got proved wrong you went away with a bloody nose but you looked up to that scientist even more and you tried to get your research right.
"And I don't actually think we have been given, and especially the public, has been given a fair whack of the other side."
Debate call
He said he would like people to be given the other side of the story and let them make up their own minds.
But he says he is used to attracting derision for his opinions on the subject. He said he has had problems getting papers published which go against the view that global warming is due to carbon.
He said: "We are labelled climate sceptics, heretics. In fact some people have said we should be tried for crimes against humanity because if we don't stop something which perhaps isn't even happening, millions of people are going to die.
"I honestly think it's appalling that we have been told by some pretty top people that global warming is going to kill billions of people in the future and there's nothing we can do about it."
He adds: "I think it's pure scaremongering and I would stay stop it until the debate has been had in public and we can come out with a real scientific consensus of fact.""
Michael Fish sees things differently, he "is convinced about global warming, the impact of humans on it and that we can take measures to make a difference.
He said: "It's certainly a genuine phenomenon and it's certainly happening right now. I mean here we are, the middle of March, I'm standing out here in my shirt sleeves and I'm feeling really warm.
"A month ago I was down on the south coast, I sat outside in a restaurant and had my lunch – the middle of February, now how often can you do that.""
Mmm that's seems conclusive!
"His belief is that the phenomenon is going to have a dramatic impact.
He said: "The main message I try and get across to people is that it's the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, that's my terminology.
"Because there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that more people are going to die as a result of it than anything else and that equally applies to the north of England because come 30/40 years time the sort of summers that we had last year and back in 2003, that is likely to be considered the norm or even cool and thousands of people died as a result of those summers and the same is going to happen in the years ahead."
He believes there is very little we can do about it at the moment, and while we can slow it down, we can't stop it.
And he is in no doubt that global warming is to do with the actions of humans.
He said: "There is no doubt, and the recent IPCC report that came out about a month or so ago is unequivocal, it is definitely, definitely to do with human activity and that of course means burning of fossil fuels, more particularly power stations, but you and I are causing it as well.""
So there you have it the sceptic calls for debate whilst the believer knows that debate is unnecessary as the argument has been one! Science?
Please read my previous postings on Man Made Climate Change and take a visit to sites such as Bishop Hill, Climate Audit, Junk Science, this New Scientist article and this letter written by proper climate scientists.
David Bellamy explanation for Global Warming runs "Environmentalist David Bellamy is sceptical of man's influence on global warming - he believes rising temperatures are part of the Earth's natural cycles. David Bellamy is used to being attacked for his views on climate change but he believes there is a need for a much more balanced debate on the issue. The botanist, who is now based in County Durham, believes the recent temperature rises are just part of the Earth's natural cycle and that such changes have been seen before. He said: "Climate change is happening, it's been happening all the time there has been a climate, and there certainly is a period in recent times when it appears that the temperature is going up and up. "But I would show you this one thing out of the paper – strawberries in December, frog spawn in February – not 2007 but 1868 and no one blamed global warming then. I have asked the global warmers how to explain facts like that and they always don't give me an answer. So I am a sceptic.""
More importantly he calls for DEBATE - "What he passionately believes is that the subject should be properly debated and not just one side accepted without that.
He said: "We have got to get this thing argued out in public properly and not just take one opinion.
"Science works like that. Science is wonderful because you can argue with people and when you got proved wrong you went away with a bloody nose but you looked up to that scientist even more and you tried to get your research right.
"And I don't actually think we have been given, and especially the public, has been given a fair whack of the other side."
Debate call
He said he would like people to be given the other side of the story and let them make up their own minds.
But he says he is used to attracting derision for his opinions on the subject. He said he has had problems getting papers published which go against the view that global warming is due to carbon.
He said: "We are labelled climate sceptics, heretics. In fact some people have said we should be tried for crimes against humanity because if we don't stop something which perhaps isn't even happening, millions of people are going to die.
"I honestly think it's appalling that we have been told by some pretty top people that global warming is going to kill billions of people in the future and there's nothing we can do about it."
He adds: "I think it's pure scaremongering and I would stay stop it until the debate has been had in public and we can come out with a real scientific consensus of fact.""
Michael Fish sees things differently, he "is convinced about global warming, the impact of humans on it and that we can take measures to make a difference.
He said: "It's certainly a genuine phenomenon and it's certainly happening right now. I mean here we are, the middle of March, I'm standing out here in my shirt sleeves and I'm feeling really warm.
"A month ago I was down on the south coast, I sat outside in a restaurant and had my lunch – the middle of February, now how often can you do that.""
Mmm that's seems conclusive!
"His belief is that the phenomenon is going to have a dramatic impact.
He said: "The main message I try and get across to people is that it's the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, that's my terminology.
"Because there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that more people are going to die as a result of it than anything else and that equally applies to the north of England because come 30/40 years time the sort of summers that we had last year and back in 2003, that is likely to be considered the norm or even cool and thousands of people died as a result of those summers and the same is going to happen in the years ahead."
He believes there is very little we can do about it at the moment, and while we can slow it down, we can't stop it.
And he is in no doubt that global warming is to do with the actions of humans.
He said: "There is no doubt, and the recent IPCC report that came out about a month or so ago is unequivocal, it is definitely, definitely to do with human activity and that of course means burning of fossil fuels, more particularly power stations, but you and I are causing it as well.""
So there you have it the sceptic calls for debate whilst the believer knows that debate is unnecessary as the argument has been one! Science?
Please read my previous postings on Man Made Climate Change and take a visit to sites such as Bishop Hill, Climate Audit, Junk Science, this New Scientist article and this letter written by proper climate scientists.
Parking tickets
I parked my car in a pay and display bay, paid for an hour (cost £1.50) and unfortunately forgot that I had done so - I normally can find free parking near this address. I remembered that I had parked in an unusual location after 1 hour and 15 minutes; the cost of an extra half an hour's parking is £1.00, so an equitable fine might be twice or three times that amount. However the council employ a massive number of parking wardens and so I have a nice £60 fine, generously discounted to £30 if I pay within 14 days. Yes, I can afford to pay the fine but what if I couldn't? Why the fuck should I be penalised to such an extent for such a small transgression? The way that councils work so hard to enforce parking restrictions is not far short of criminal. God I hate living and working in London, in fact the whole UK is a complete rip-off where parking is concerned. I was in a little village on the Bristol Channel a while back, quiet and serene, but the car park charged you something like £5.00 for 6 hours. Why? Grrrrrrrrrrrr
Why will the prosecution of Peter Hain not go ahead?
You choose why the prosecution of Peter Hain will not go ahead?
a) "a prosecution would not be in the public interest"
b) "insufficient evidence to prosecute"
It will be one or the other because for some peculiar reason Labour government ministers never seem to get prosecuted, strange that...
On a related matter, once cleared how long before he is brought back into government - not because Gordon Brown wants or needs him back, but just to show us who are the masters and who are the subjects now?
a) "a prosecution would not be in the public interest"
b) "insufficient evidence to prosecute"
It will be one or the other because for some peculiar reason Labour government ministers never seem to get prosecuted, strange that...
On a related matter, once cleared how long before he is brought back into government - not because Gordon Brown wants or needs him back, but just to show us who are the masters and who are the subjects now?
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