A nuclear Iran

Three articles that you should read:

1. The Telegraph report the story of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri and how his information lead to the "discovery" of the secret Qom site.


2. The Telegraph also report that:

"Iran is working on a key final component of a nuclear bomb, according to confidential intelligence documents. The notes, reportedly from Iran's most sensitive military nuclear project, include details of a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the part of a nuclear bomb that triggers the explosion.

The documents date to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme."

3. The Times reports that because of stories like the above two:

"The moment is fast approaching when Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, may have to make the most difficult decision of his career — whether to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and risk triggering a conflagration that could spread across the Middle East.

Israeli experts believe the point of no return may be only six months away when Iran’s nuclear programme will have — if it has not already — metastasised into a multitude of smaller, difficult-to-trace facilities in deserts and mountains, while its main reactor at Bushehr will have come online and bombing it would send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf nations.

Mr Netanyahu has consistently called Iran the most serious threat Israel faces. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has called for Israel to be obliterated and his Revolutionary Guards supply training, money and weapons to both Hezbollah in Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, and to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, whose missiles are believed to be capable of reaching Tel Aviv."

Scary world, isn't it?

Al Gore's latest 'exaggeration'

The Times reports an intersting story from Copenhagen about the tireless Climate Change profiteer:

"There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore."

Don't you think that facts are dull, what the Climate Change 'debate' needs are exaggerations and spin, after all the science is settled...

Unprecedented global warming?

I think not. See how by choosing to only show temperatures back to 1400AD the current temperature increases (well up to 10 years ago) look unprecedented. Expand the 800 AD and the maximum temperature of the Medieval Warm Period dwarfs present day temperatures and yet London was not under water. Extend the period even further and you see even higher temperatures around 1,200 years ago. Extend the period back beyond 10,000 years and the previous high temperatures are even more evident. Go back further and you can see the end of the previous ice age. Go back further and you will see that the Earth is indeed in a warming period, one that has lasted about 9,000 years and doesn't the "hockey stick" look small. Finally go back 400,000 years or more and you see the regular cold and warm cycles and how the patterns look so regular. You will also note that is not the warmest and that is most likely to follow the warmth is not ever increasing temperatures but a rapid drop in temperatures. The influence some "insects... crawling on the planet's face" have on the earth's climate is minute and far outweighed by the influence of the sun and other factors. Global Warming/Man Made Climate Change is a con; it's about world governance, taxation and of course control.


On the last graph the increased "noise" in the "recent" graphing is due to more figures being available, not to more variation.

The BBC Today programme - Always something there to annoy me

I dipped in to the Today programme just after 07:30 and caught most of a piece warning against following the Irish example and cutting public spending and services because of the social unrest this might foment. The example used was Ireland; so cue lots of concerned leftists and the disadvantaged alluding to trouble brewing and bemoaning the discrimination that methadone addicts face. No mention was made that Ireland and indeed the UK have been living above their means for years and the money (or rather the finance) has run out. Surely the argument that we cannot continue to overspend forever should at least have been made; but no, this is the BBC where public spending is sacrosanct and you can keep raising taxes on the middle classes by calling it txing the rich knowing that most will not leave the Country.

This piece was followed by a review of the papers which included the good news story that an opinion poll showed the Conservative lead had been cut to "single figures". It's odd that for all those months that the Conservative opinion poll lead was over 14% mentioning the opinion polls was strictly verboten as the BBC didn't want to give the Conservative party any more momentum. However now the polls are movong back towards Labour, boosting Labour is a very high priority, especially if Gordon "cowardice" Brown is to call an early general election so as to avoid having to hold a final budget.

The BBC's bias is evident and wrong, Conservatives must tackle the BBC about it urgently because the BBC could swing the upcoming general election back to Labour.

Love is in the Air

Rupert Everett and Colin Firth's version of "Love is in the Air" from the St. Trinian's film; better than the John Paul Young 1977 original?

And this is good news?

The Mail report that:

"Muslims in Britain are the most patriotic and best integrated in Europe, according to a new study.

An average 78 per cent of UK Muslims identified themselves as British, compared with 49 per cent of Muslims who consider themselves French and just 23 per cent who feel German.

The British average falls by six points to 72 per cent in east London, although it stands at 82.4 per cent in Leicester."

So 22% of UK Muslims do not identify themselves as British, that's reassuring; presumably thy see themselves as still of the country of their origin(if not birth) such as Pakistan or maybe even more worryingly of the Ummah. Mind you in Berlin 25.0% of Muslims identify themselves as German and only 22.0% in Hamburg. The future of much of Europe looks rather dangerous.

Inneficient and now "noisy"

The Telegraph reveals that:

"A warning about the health effects of noise from wind turbines was removed from a government study following pressure from civil servants.

Consultants recommended lowering night-time noise limits because the sounds made by spinning blades were enough to disrupt sleep patterns.

However, the advice, contained in a draft version of their 2006 report, was removed from the final submission which was eventually used in official guidance for local authorities ruling on planning applications from wind farm developers.

It means that hundreds of turbines at wind farms in Britain built since 2006 have been allowed to continue generating high levels of noise.

Evidence of the changed advice was uncovered after a two-year battle using the Freedom of Information Act by campaigners opposed to a wind turbine development close to their home at in mid-Devon. "

Is anyone in the slightest surprised?

Man Made Climate Change - fiddling the figures

"Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy and actual data" said Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

But that's just what is revealed in this long and fascinating Daily Mail Special Investigation, do read it all. Here's a few teasers:

"Roger Pielke, Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, could in no sense be described as a climate change sceptic, let alone a ‘denier’.

‘Human-caused climate change is real, and I’m a strong advocate for action,’ he said. ‘But I’m also a strong advocate for integrity in science.’

Pielke’s verdict on the scandal is damning.

‘These emails open up the possibility that big scientific questions we’ve regarded as settled may need another look.

'They reveal that some of these scientists saw themselves not as neutral investigators but as warriors engaged in battle with the so-called sceptics.

‘They have lost a lot of credibility and as far as their being leading spokespeople on this issue of huge public importance, there is no going back.’

...

Finally, Briffa changed the way he computed his data and submitted a revised version. This brought his work into line for earlier centuries, and ‘cooled’ them significantly. But alas, it created another, potentially even more serious, problem.

According to his tree rings, the period since 1960 had not seen a steep rise in temperature, as actual temperature readings showed - but a large and steady decline, so calling into question the accuracy of the earlier data derived from tree rings.

This is the context in which, seven

weeks later, Jones presented his ‘trick’ - as simple as it was deceptive.

All he had to do was cut off Briffa’s inconvenient data at the point where the decline started, in 1961, and replace it with actual temperature readings, which showed an increase.

On the hockey stick graph, his line is abruptly terminated - but the end of the line is obscured by the other lines.

‘Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy and actual data,’ said Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

‘They’re apples and oranges. Yet that’s exactly what he did.’


...

Last week, an article posted on a popular climate sceptic website analysed the data from the past 130 years in Darwin, Australia.

This suggested that average temperatures had risen there by about two degrees Celsius. However, the raw data had been ‘adjusted’ in a series of abrupt upward steps by exactly the same amount: without the adjustment, the Darwin temperature record would have stayed level.

In 2007, McIntyre examined records across America. He found that between 1999 and 2007, the US equivalent of the Met Office had changed the way it adjusted old data.

The result was to make the Thirties seem cooler, and the years since 1990 much warmer. Previously, the warmest year since records began in America had been 1934.

Now, in line with CRU and IPCC orthodoxy, it was 1998.

At the CRU, said Davies, some stations’ readings were adjusted by unit and in such cases, raw and adjusted data could be compared.

But in about 90 per cent of cases, the adjustment was carried out in the countries that collected the data, and the CRU would not know exactly how this had been done."

Data is being fiddled to hide the truth and most of the world's media seems not to care. Man Made Climate Change is the new religion and the warmist believers will brook no opposition.

Globalisation, Climate Change and the silence of the BBC

Christopher Booker explains "What links the Copenhagen conference with the steelworks closing in Redcar?" and it is not a pretty tale. Of course to the BBC 1,700 jobs in Redcar are a price worth paying if the Copenhagen conference sets out seriously strict CO2 reductions.

"Redcar will lose its biggest employer and one of the largest manufacturing plants left in Britain. Tata, having gained up to £1.2 billion from "carbon credits", will get its new steel plants – while the net amount of CO2 emitted worldwide will not have been reduced a jot. "

BBC and reporting political opinion polls

Now that a few polls have shown a slight swing back to the Labour party, the BBC are suddenly interested in the polls. This piece is full of opinion polls news whereas during the long period when the Conservative party had opinion poll leads of 13%+ scarcely a word on the BBC. The pro-Labour bias is overt and wrong, the BBC must be held to account.

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.