The freezing/frozen Thames...and climate change...

...finally we must return to basic science. Climate is the most complex, coupled, non-linear, semi-chaotic system known. The claim by UK MPs that they can manage climate predictably is the ultimate folie de grandeur. In such a system, both doing something (i.e., emitting gases) and not doing something (i.e., not emitting gases) at the margins are equally unpredictable as to outcomes.
Interestingly, the world average surface temperature has now exhibited no ‘global warming’ since at least 2001, a trend that could possibly be extended through a phenomenon called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and by the lateness of ‘Solar Cycle 24’, leading to an absence of sunspot activity.
I fear that the Climate Change Bill will end in political tears, when the targets are missed stratospherically, when the the lights go out in the UK, when our economic competitiveness is undermined, and when the climate fails to behave as predicted by our politicians.
If and when these outcomes occur, the electorate should not be generous. They must hold the sheep to account as lambs to the slaughter.
For, on ‘global warming’, they have fleeced us too often.
“Baaaaa humbug!” “Brrrrrrrr!” More, here...

Me dad and me uncles...

...there's me dad in the middle. He were the clever one...

Sharia law in the UK cont...

...So forming a distinct and separate police group within the Metropolitan Police will help to overcome negative stereotypes. And the segregation of Muslim police office will allay fears about Muslims and Islam. This will lead, as sure as night follows day, to ‘Muslim areas’ of London being policed only by Muslim officers, for the kuffar will not be welcome. There is already a very vocal Muslim contingent which does not wish the British police a pleasant afterlife...more here...

and this from Geert Wilders...
...I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? ...more here...

Nostradamus and global warming...

...Only a few weeks ago, we were hearing that South Africa had snow, and not just that, but of the very late variety (South of the Equator, this time of year should be warming). But don't worry, we must have a flexible view of reality: when it gets hot, it's warming; when it gets cold, it's warming; and when it seems to stay the same, it's warming twice as fast.

Does global warming predict the weather right now? Only in the sense that Nostradamus predicted the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in the 1985 edition, and the fall of the Shah of Iran in the 1980 edition.What does predict the weather we're having is the sunspot cycle and we can now add some idea of what reduced solar wind does. 
Here's a somewhat better forecast of the end of 2008's weather than anything cooked up by the "capitalism causes tsunamis" crowd. Farmer's Almanac? Maybe astrology is more scientific than the ecofascists...more here

Obama v McCain...

...Ultimately the choice between Obama and McCain is a choice between a malthusian, crisis-oriented world view that will lead to rationing, high prices, and crippling regulations, and a supply-oriented, business-friendly world view that will encourage innovation and enable ongoing prosperity. A recent book by Michael Shellenberger entitled “Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility” illustrates this choice in important ways. The premise of this book is that prosperity creates the wealth that makes all socially desirable outcomes more possible; a wealthy society can afford to clean up the environment and an impoverished one cannot...More from EcoWorld here...

Hey Jonesy !..this is goin straight into the pool room...

Thanks JDw.

Quote for the day...

“The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations.”

Dr Richard Lindzen.

More here...

Niche marketing of climate catastrophe...

...How do you enlist African-Americans in the global warming hoax?Make it a racial thing and stress victimhood:The growing movement to fight global warming includes entertainers and evangelical ministers, scientists and suburban moms. Even both presidential candidates have called for fewer emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses that contribute to climate change...more, here...

Earth has a fever...Uranus has cysts...

This from Blamebush !...When it comes to global warming, one of the most idiotic talking points in the right-wing's arsenal is if the ice caps are melting on Mars, Earth's warming trend couldn't possibly be caused by humans. As with anything cons say, the exact opposite is true. The facts is that the bizarre weather conditions seen on Mars and other planets are undeniable proof that the ecological destruction Bush has wrought on our own world is spreading like a virus to others in our solar system.
If Earth truly has a fever as the prophet Al Gore says, then Mars has a severe runny nose. Neptune has a persistent cough. Mercury has the clap - probably something it picked up from that slut, Venus. Jupiter has herpes. Saturn has ringworm. Pluto isn't considered a planet any more and is probably just feeling a little depressed. Uranus, of course, has cysts.
Al Gore has been deeply troubled about Uranus for some time, but he's never been able to put his finger on it... More, here...

Quote for the day...

Schools have not necessarily much to do with education....they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school." Winston S. Churchill

From Celestial Junk (see blogroll)...

Arctic Ice Melting "even in winter"
Yes, The Sunday Times did print this nonsense as a headline. It even quotedPeter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, saying: "This is one of the most serious problems the world has ever faced."This is the same Prof. Wadhams who told the Telegraph, last week: "The warmer temperatures will also take longer to dissipate, the autumn freeze will take longer, meaning thinner ice."Booker, in this week's column has reported that the Arctic ice cover is 31 percent up on last year, while Anthony Watts reports "sea ice area approaching the edge of normal standard deviation".But there is no end to the tosh these warmists and their fellow travellers dribble out. Two weeks ago, the girlie environment correspondent, Louise Gray was writing in The Daily Telegraph that a "Green Christmas [was] more likely than a white one"... More, here...

What ? make fun of the greens ?

...in the NZ Herald ? no, no, no the greens are too earnest, Colin...

The suicide rate in clean,green NZ (511) ...

..now exceeds its road toll (419) to the year ended 30th June 2008....more here...is that a world first for a supposedly first world nation? or does it simply mean that we Kiwis are wonderful drivers, (but depressed); or does it point to deep seated Kiwi malaise? Things may have gone badly wrong in this lucky country, but we haven't descended into the severe psychosis of psychosexual religion (yet). From present day suicide bombings and on camera beheadings in the name of Islam, to the mass suicide of over 900 at Jonestown, the Lord can certainly work in mysterious ways...more, here...
Also see...Michael Portillo's Death of a School Friend exposes devastating legacy of teenage suicide ...more here

Correction and Clarification...This from The NZ Herald this morning...

"A pulled quote in Thursday's paper, attributed to Sir David King, former UK chief scientist, that 'GM...has been adopted across the whole of Africa, with devastating consequences,' was incorrect. Sir David's actual remark was that it was the Western world's move towards organic farming and away from GM that was having such a disastrous effect.

Two points...Sir David King has pointed again to the truth of Denis Dutton's 2005 claim that the despicable green political movement worldwide has the blood of innocents on its hands, and;
WTF is happening in our newspapers when such blatant misrepresentation and lying simply is noted as a "correction and clarification"? The general public quite rightly hold journalists in low esteem, ranking them with used car salesmen and politicians, turning away from the main stream media simply because of lies like this. I wonder if anybody at the source of the lie (where was the quote "pulled" from?) likely to lose their job ?
I doubt it...f***ing bastards liars, ratbags...

Sweet, sweet the memories you gave to me...

A day in the life of Helena Klarkovavitch...

What evidence is there that more CO2...

...forces temperature up further? See the answer to this pivotal question in The Sceptics Handbook (a great resource)...here
From the comments page...I am a degreed, career geoscientist and environmental consultant and am presently Environmental Manager for a major American university system. ..As a geoscienctist and environmetal steward, I have closely studied the data for close to a decade and can find no convincing evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are a significant cause of warming...
...Take away the politics, and the science does not support the assertions by alarmists. While we cannot know individual motives, it is clear that climate is one of the best funded areas of modern science. Those who have a vested interest in research funding are having a difficult time staying objective and resisting the pressures to align the “science” to fit the “religion” of anthropogenic global warming...

A holiday snap of the family...

...no no Fatima, that's you on the left, that's Souriba on the right... or is it Mousina...or is it deviant little Moustaffa again?...

Thanks JD.

Thought for the day...

...politicians and babies nappies need to be changed regularly for the same reasons...

And talking of nappies and Mums' anguish/guilt over disposables, see this...

Alaskan Glaciers Grow for First Time in 250 years...

...Since 1946, the USGS has maintained a research project measuring the state of Alaskan glaciers. This year saw records broken for most snow buildup. It was also the first time since any records began being that the glaciers did not shrink during the summer months. Those records date from the mid 1700s, when the region was first visited by Russian explorers. Molnia estimates that Alaskan glaciers have lost about 15% of their total area since that time -- an area the size of Connecticut.
One of the largest areas of shrinkage has been at the national park of Glacier Bay. When Alexei Ilich Chirikof first arrived in 1741, the bay didn't exist at all -- only a solid wall of ice. From that time until the early 1900s, the ice retreated some 50 miles, to form the bay and surrounding area.
Accordingly to Molnia, a difference of just 3 or 4 degrees is enough to shift the mass balance of glaciers from rapid shrinkage to rapid growth. From the 1600s to the 1900s, that’s just the amount of warming that was seen, as the planet exited the Little Ice Age.
Molnia says one cold summer doesn't mean the start of a new climatic trend. At least (8?)years like this, however, might mark the beginning of another Little Ice Age.As DailyTech reported earlier, Arctic sea ice this year has also increased substantially from its low in 2007.
More here...and from The Canadian National Post here...

From The Independent...

...Global warming is happening and we're to blame, right? That's certainly the view of almost every expert in the field. But a die-hard band of naysayers continues to rail against the consensus. Are they completely mad? Judge for yourself... More here...

Teach British children what Muslims did for us....

This from Cranmer re Jim Knight MP (Labour) (below)...

...( I have )never met a Muslim who agitates for the origins of the pinhole camera or the three course dinner to be taught in schools. Yet he has heard of many who insist that Islam may not be questioned and the Qur’an may not be criticised. There can be no lesson on ‘what Muslims did for us’ without the counterbalance of what is being done in their name now - like the suppression of women, the execution of children, the eradication of free speech, the threats of violence, the erosion of Western notions of liberty and democracy. And there can be no unqualified credit without analysis of its perceived intolerance.

Muslim children who live in the United Kingdom need to be taught what Britain and Christianity have done for them – the provision of education, freedom of conscience and inquiry, debate and the exchange of ideas, equality, and reward for hard work. They should be taught to consider this, and then thank God that they do not live in Egypt, Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia, where their liberties would be curtailed, their education narrow, their creativity stifled and their prospects diminished.

The slow suicide of the West continues with the eager help of Jim Knight MP...more from Cranmer here...

See also the acclaimed Ibn Warraq on Why the West is Best...

MMP a nightmare scenario...

...before the introduction of MMP, businessman Peter Shirtcliffe formed the group Campaign for Better Government. The campaign favoured proportional voting but pointed out that MMP had serious anti-democratic flaws. I participated as the local spokesman. Every pronouncement and warning made about MMP has indeed come to pass, and apart from my distaste for our present PM and her authoritarian mindset, John Key's promise to hold a referendum on the future of MMP guarantees him my vote. Here's Peter Shirtcliffe's feelings about MMP today...
If it wasn’t for the fact that the general election is just around the corner, new home owners would be forced to install government approved showers that plumbers say deliver little more than a dribble of water. This is on top of government approved hot water cylinders - modified for heat pumps and solar panels - that cost $500 more than standard models.[1] For these nanny state interventions we have MMP and the Green Party to blame....With growing numbers of New Zealanders now believing that MMP has compromised the quality of government in this country (as the shower debacle reminds us) it is refreshing to hear that there is now growing support amongst political parties for holding the long-awaited referendum on MMP... more here...

Protective shield of the sun is shrinking...

...LONDON: The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, NASA scientists have discovered.
New data from the Ulysses deep-space probe show that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.
Scientists, baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way, were set to launch a mission overnight...

News flash from the Greens...Earth's CO2 emissions are now destroying the sun's heliosphere. It's the end of the world as we know it...
More here...and from NASA here...and here...

From the wishful thinking dept...

NASA'S James Hansen

...In a surprising yet welcome move, most major North American and International news outlets today reported on the IPCC and Warmist admission that predictions of an ice-free arctic in 2008 were simply wrong. Furthermore, most MSM outlets quoted two studies that pointed to "winds" and "circulation", not global warming, as the likely causes of arctic ice depletion. Most surprising of all, was NASA's Dr. James Model Hansen, who told reporters, "I was wrong ... just simply wrong ... predicting an ice free 2008 was clearly hyperbole ... and for that, I apologize."Even Al Gore got into the act, and expressed regret at fanning the flames of sensationalism ...More, here...

Machete man asks me for money...

Harry Hutton writes...

...so I'm walking down the street in Managua when a guy with a machete asks me for money. Lots of people walk around with machetes in Central America, even in the cities, and lots of people ask for money; but I've never had the things combined before. He is not a mugger, merely a mendicant with a fruit knife, so I ignore him, and cross to the fashionable side of the street. Then I can't find the hotel so I stop to ask the way. Wait, they say, the owner is over there; we'll get him for you. This "owner" is an obvious criminal, very ugly, who tries to get me to go round the corner with him. I could have outwitted them by asking why, if he owned the hotel, could he not afford front teeth. Not as stupid as I look. In fact, very few people are as stupid as I look. Just then a taxi pulls up, which I'd have been a c*** not to take. As we pull away I want to shout an insult out of the window, but am not sure if it is safe to do so. Had it been High Wycombe, where I know my way around, I would have done. It's a question of knowing the terrain...follow the comments...

Jaysus boys...

... would yez stop pushin' me? an calm down ! and mind me harp will ye ! I'm after tellin' yez that we can't rush things!"
...the Irish President Mary McAleese has announced that she will be taking a 10% pay cut in light of the current budgetary troubles. The finance Minister Brian Lenihan says he and his ministerial colleagues will also take a 10% wage cut. The opposition leader has instructed his party's parliamentarians to take a 5% cut. The governor of the Irish Central Bank and Financial Services Authority has volunteered to also surrender 10% of pay. RTÉ's top six executives are taking a "significant reduction" in pay. This follows the government's announcement of a round of spending cuts as recession bites...
...and here in New Zild The Hon. Winston Peters Out has offered, in a last desperate push to regain public affection to forgo his Ministerial limo in favour of a Vespa, take a 99% pay cut and turn all his attention if elected to campaigning for the public flogging of illegal immigrants...Jaysus boys...

One has to do what one has to do...

...one has an eventual franchise empire in mind, eventually with a totally hands off supervisory or management role for one...perhaps one might appoint PKH as Head Poobah...

Repression of Idiots...

F**k off ! Some of my best mates are idiots...

A quiet muse...

...as one socialist suffocates another, ever so delicately, with a pillow...

...it would be nice if Klein’s alternative were generally viable. Thomas Jefferson’s vision of forty acres and a mule would be vindicated, albeit in a more socially organized manner. But it is not. Worker’s control is a great dream (I dreamed it myself for many years), but it founders on the reality of capital diversification, which the worker-owned firm cannot handle. Cooperative land holding is just a myth, pure and simple, and always has been, throughout human history...Herb Gintis on Naomi Klein here...

White extremist nerds for Obama...

...the morons look relatively undamaged, obviously they didn't come within range of Mr Palin... More here...

Vote for...

...the devil... you know ?

Thanks MAWM.

America’s first far-left radical President?

More from Melanie Philips, here...

The Islamisation of Europe...and free speech...

...Geert Wilders has released a controversial film about Islam which no TV company would broadcast and some politicians in the Netherlands tried to ban.
The Dutch MP has upset the Muslim world before, by calling for a ban on the Koran and likening it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Nicknamed "Mozart" because of his mane of platinum blond hair, he was voted politician of the year in 2007 by the Dutch political press, partly because of his "well-timed one-liners".
But his opponents see him as a provocateur and a disillusioned colleague describes him as "the most stubborn man I've ever met".
His stance has created problems for the Dutch government, which fears a re-run of the cartoon furore in the Muslim world. Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has complained of the danger to Dutch companies, soldiers and residents abroad.
When asked about the impact of his film, Mr Wilders told a TV interviewer: "It's not the aim of the movie but people might be offended, I know that. So, what the hell? It's their problem, not my problem"....more here...and here (film link)...thanks Neil CB.

WWF (annual budget US$487 million) says...

...how do you like my new carbon footprint? Classy huh?

Some ridicule just writes itself...or is this a spoof?

From foghorn.co.nz...

...Labour and the greens (plan/were planning) to make it compulsory to have a shower head that delivered no more than 7.5L/minute (help combat global warming y'see)... a response (above) from the blogosphere to their control mania...and this from the NZ Herald editorial...
The widespread perception of petty personal bossiness, the "nanny state", is Labour's Achilles heel at this election. It has been carrying the label at previous elections but people are in a more decisive mood of rebellion now and petty restrictions like the shower will weigh more strongly.
The planet can surely be saved without treating people like children (or teenagers whose showers are definitely excessive).
Energy-efficient home appliances and house designs carry their own incentives in lower operating costs. They do not need to be enforced by punitive measures on life's little indulgences. Or is that the real purpose of environmentalism? Rules such as this make us wonder. And tempt us to enjoy a good strong shower somewhat more. More here...

Global financial catastrophe, how it all began...

...As of 6:00 PM today, the ballooning Treacher porn debt will stand at nearly $15 trillion dollars, two times the combined annual GDP of China and Japan, and represents more than 70% of all outstanding debt in the entire global economy. If corrective action is not taken immediately, this crisis threatens to to destroy our already fragile economy, and condemn our children to a short, brutal lifetime of despair, pestilence, and starvation...

more ! from the ever vigilant Iowahawk, here...

Many leading climate scientists...

...don't really believe their own theories. The fantasy of AGW is unravelling day by day...

...So here, in the words of leading climate scientists who are part of the so-called consensus, we have recognition that there are some major problems with the climate theory on which many of the world’s governments, including the Australian government, are making major interventions into our lives and our economies.

Interestingly the issues raised by the IPCC scientists are similar to those often discussed at this blog, including the issue of cloud feedback and climate sensitivity. There have been recent major breakthroughs in this area by Dr Roy Spencer a so-called climate change skeptic who’s research findings, if incorporated into the climate theory of the IPCC, could significantly improve it and also perhaps go some way to helping develop a more scientifically sound basis for regional climate. More here...

as Groucho says...Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know...

U.N. climate plans v. the poor...

...Climate mitigation schemes, in contrast, are too often dreamed up by bureaucrats with little appreciation of the local situation. The Nigerian government, for example, recently announced its intention to generate 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2012, forgetting that the vast majority of its people rely on noxious fuels like wood or dung because they have no access to existing electricity, let alone any future schemes. Nigeria has recently spent over US$10 billion, according to some estimates, on an energy programme that has added zero megawatts to existing supply.

People need electricity now, not pipedreams: sustainable bio-mass fuels, meaning dung and wood, kill at least 1.6 million children a year, the World Health Organisation says.

The world's poorest countries must continue to fight for greater realism in the climate debate: their livings and even their lives depend on it....More here...

May you live in interesting times...

...environmentalism is a political idea; it aims to reorganise society around its values and ethics. Yet this ideology has never been tested democratically. It hasn’t won any seats in the UK parliament, yet almost the entire house of commons has embraced environmentalism. It's as though, one morning, the House of Commons turned up for a debate, not as the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the independents, but as members of the Green Party. (More here...)

Why is this? Is it that the science is truly settled or that the precautionary principle has won converts? Or simply that most elected MP's in the U.K. are entirely comfortable with drastic wealth reduction ?

Next month's elections, the global financial crisis and the acknowledged forecast global cooling - for possibly the next 30 years - will see the beginnings of a reappraisal of climate change as an environmental and economic priority. At least one likely future cabinet minister in NZ, Rodney Hide; is a firmly declared climate change sceptic.

The gloves are coming off, and battle is about to begin...in NZ we can only hope for determined, principled leadership and an enlarged debate over climate change...



This too, re financial anguish internationally from the UK blog An Englishman's Castle. Challenging and interesting times indeed...

The intervention, or rather interference, of the state in financial and economic matters can only lead to sclerosis, the suppression of enterprise, the raising of taxes, starvation of investment, lack of innovation, technological retardation and the rise of the power of organised labour. Judging from yesterday's interest cut, the much-vaunted independence of the Bank of England has already gone out of the window and state control of the central bank is back with a vengeance.
If you doubt this analysis, recall what happened in this country between 1945 and 1979, when such an ethos as we are now returning to existed unchallenged, even by Tory governments. The more the state intervened, the more it had to intervene: the appetite grew with eating...more here...

Warning... serious cossie malfunction...

...instructions for use needed...

Safety first Colin (says Peter)...

...further to the shock announcement from Doyle Redland (right) that McDonalds will be forced to place health warnings on individual french fries (Onion news here) comes the timely call from Rev. Pete Mullen (left)for a tattooed health warning on gay buttocks...

Reverend Peter Mullen posted on his blog that homosexuals should be tattooed with the slogan: "Sodomy can seriously damage your health."

The Chaplain to the London Stock Exchange and rector(sic) in the City of London also called for gay pride parades, Che Guevara Tshirts, cyclists wearing lycra and gay themed carnivals to be banned.

The 66 year old insisted it had all been a joke, but had to remove the comments from his blog - and has since issued a "frank, full, utter total and complete apology".

He said his remarks were "injudicious" and had caused offence.

The Diocese of London said the blog is in no way reflective of their views Colin, and that while clergy are entitled to personal views, "we recognise that the content of this text is highly offensive and may even be seen as homophobic".

The remarks were also condemned by gay rights campaign group Stonewall, the Elton John fanclub, the Chelsea Flower Show organising committee, PETA, the IPPC and Boy George...more. The reckless Rev. also has on opinion (my God!) about other things...

...Anticipating an "agreeable carnage" at the start of the annual Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, he wrote: "They usually manage to stampede and slaughter quite a few hundred of their co-religionists. Just imagine for a moment what a field day the BBC and the leftwing press in England would have if anything even remotely as bad as that happened in Vatican Square at Christmas or Easter." He said also that Muslims "certainly lend themselves to ridicule: sticking their arses in the air five times a day. How about a few little choruses, 'Randy Muslims when they die/Find 70 virgins in the sky'?" ...more here..and here...

I rather like the cut of the man's jib Colin...the blog at the centre of it all, here...

Well, I'd use my right hand, but that's just me...

STOP PRESS...Economist socked on the sneezer in fridge row...

Some light relief worth repeating from the incomparable Harry Hutton...
I once had a fist fight with JK Galbraith. True story. He was in the Red Lion in Tooting mouthing off about the world economy. “Growth is slowing,” he said, “as the housing market cools and consumers rein in their spending.” Terry the Pole overhears, and comes over from the fruit machine. “Don’t be a c**t," he says. "I’m a consumer, and I just bought a new fridge.” Then he headbutts him.

We all piled in on Pole’s side, because he had indeed bought a new fridge.

Paul Johnson, ex editor of The New Statesman...

...and author of the magnificent "Modern Times - A History of the World..." has this to say about the greens and climate change...
I wish the great philosopher Sir Karl Popper were alive to denounce the unscientific nature of global warming. He was a student when Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was first published and then successfully tested. Einstein said that for his theory to be valid it would have to pass three tests. "If," Einstein wrote to British scientist Sir Arthur Eddington, "it were proved that this effect does not exist in nature, then the whole theory would have to be abandoned."
To Popper, this was a true scientific approach. "What impressed me most," he wrote, "was Einstein's own clear statement that he would regard his theory as untenable if it should fail in certain tests." In contrast, Popper pointed out, there were pseudo-scientists, such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud...The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels--the essence of the Greens' theory of global warming--has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism. Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.
More...

The Climate Cops are coming...

...Hitler and Goebbels were well aware that today's Hitler Youth became tomorrow's stormtroopers...their successors, the East German Stasi, made extensive use of child informers. The old marketing adage, "get 'em while they're young" is the inspiration for this item for der kinder. The Little Green SchoolBooks are apparently already in use... and the green cultural revolution is in full swing in our schools. Parents probably won't buy this thrilling game for their kids, so what's the bet sales will be driven by embedded green zealot teachers? ... More here...
Your cellphone, climate police and your carbon footprint...
Keeping track of your carbon footprint could become as simple as slipping a mobile phone in your pocket: a London-based start-up company has developed software for mobile phones that uses global positioning satellites to work out automatically whether you are walking, driving or flying and then calculate your impact on the environment...here

Promises, promises....

JUST 18 months ago the European Union promised to save the world from climate change. A final plan to deliver on those promises must be finished soon. But it is in deep trouble.
The conclusions of the March 2007 summit proclaiming the EU’s “leading role” on climate change make for wistful reading today. They begin “Europe is currently enjoying an economic upswing,” and add that growth forecasts are “positive”. Back in that long-lost golden age, the EU’s leaders were in heroic mood...The heroic mood is gone now...
More from The Economist here...
and from Tim Blair, here...

Fatima, don't look at me like that...

...at least have the decency to cross your eyes !

...A prominent Saudi cleric has called for a one eyed niqab (full headress) as many Saudi hussies overexcite the blokes by getting too daring and adventurous with seductive eye make up. (Not to mention their wink, wink, nudge, nudge come ons...) Such inhuman and slutty provocation is simply too, too much for Osama and his mates....more here...although caution advised... this item is from the BBC, and might just be more lurid propaganda like their environmental reporting...

No joke if you're called Colin...

From Old Holborn...again

...the bad tempered, foul mouthed old bugger writes...

Why do I do it? Why do I continue to send my blood pressure soaring?I’ve just been prodding around in cyberspace and found out that the BBC’s favourite lickspittle, Marcus Brigstock, the most unfunny man rimming the BBC’s arse since Lenny Henry, is doing something very, very special at the moment.He is on a boat, funded by me (via the Arts Council) on it’s way to the Arctic Circle to “highlight” global warming. That alone is funny. IT would be even funnier if the f***er caught fire and sank.The “expedition” is called Cape Farewell ...

No greater love...

EARTH—Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world....more

Go baby, go!

I predict a big oscar night...

...thanks EC...

Britain's top cop gets the boot...

...The precursor I hope, to a much needed shake up in NZ...

...He was unashamedly liberal, earning him the nickname of "The PC Pc", and appeared deeply politicised, characterised by his public support of Labour's plan for ID cards shortly before the last general election.
One of his first decisions was to spend thousands of pounds changing the Met's slogan from "Working for a safer London" to "Working together for a safer London", triggering immediate disdain from tabloid newspapers, some of which have waged a campaign against him ever since.
Far worse for morale within the Met was an industrial tribunal in June 2005 at which he was accused of "hanging out to dry" three white officers who were wrongly accused of racism in order to prove his non-racist credentials. Later the following year his judgement was questioned when he excused a Muslim police officer from guarding the Israeli Embassy after the officer objected to the duty on "moral grounds". More here...

The BEEB and bias...

...this from Bishop Hill, uncovering shady goings on at that paragon of impartial and unbiased reporting; the BBC. It seems that its environmental reporter, Mr Roger Harrabin, has been discussing an appropriate spin to attack/deflect negative comment re Al Bore's fantasy climate movie, and has been sprung... one of Harrabin's emails was leaked, revealing that he was spending time trying to come up with a party line to take about Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth being found to be misleading in a court case. The BBC's website at the time had a profile of Harrabin, which revealed that he was a CEMP director, and that CEMP itself was "supported" by the BBC...

More about the BBC, the Cambridge Environment and Media Programme (CEMP) and Mr Harrabin, here...

Nihilism and The VHEMT...

So over the top it's a bit of fun... I think. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement pulls no punches. Its slogan ? "We're off the planet, for the planet." No sorry... my invention, it's not, it's; "May we Live Long and Die Out." Environmentalism on the cliff edge of sanity...More at VHEMT.org...

The Credit Bailout...

...I think I understand it a bit more now. At least I know what to say to my family and friends, I actually have a point of view. Iowahawk explained it all with this debate...

..and re Sarah Palin from The Cato Institute...
Some commentators are suggesting that the McCain campaign has panicked about Sarah Palin’s appeal, trying to cram her head with policy-wonkery and then hiding her in a closet when that didn’t work. Let Palin be Palin, they say — let her show her authentic self, the gun-totin’, family-raisin’, reformist governor that Alaskans love. Good idea. Let’s start with the bailout. Surely a rugged individualist reformer from way outside the Beltway is champing at the bit to denounce this $700 billion bailout for Wall Street insiders cooked up by Washington insiders behind closed doors, without public hearings, with the unanimous support of the mainstream media. Let ‘er rip, Governor Palin. Tell the Wall Street bankers that when a small business makes bad decisions in Wasilla, it goes out of business, and the same rules should apply to large businesses in Manhattan. That’s the Sarah Palin conservatives say America would love.

And a statement of principle from the wonderfully named Congressman Thaddeus McCotter.

We therefore hold these truths to be self-evident...

1. You spend your own money buying something for yourself—you therefore try to get the best possible product for the best possible price.


2. You spend someone else's money buying something for yourself—you still try to get the best possible product, but you are not so concerned about the price.


3. You spend your own money buying something for someone else—you are deeply concerned about the price, but you are not nearly so worried about the quality of the product.


4. You spend someone else's money buying something for someone else—in which case, who gives a shit?

with thanks to P.J.O'Rourke and Milton Friedman.

An apology from the NZ Herald...

...Granny Herald has been carrying columns from Sydney based pro-Muslim lawyer Irfan Yusuf. Mr Yusuf's tedious contributions argue for more tolerance towards Muslims, (and predictably display no tolerance for any counter argument or debate.) A column last month alleged that a US columnist, Mr Daniel Pipes, had stated that Europe's next Holocaust victims would be Muslim "...and they deserved such slaughter" See the litany here...
"The author, Irfan Yusuf, and the Herald accept that Mr Pipes has never predicted nor has he ever endorsed a Holocaust of European Muslims and they unreservedly apologise to him for the errors."
Very good. Presumably after this gross fabrication from Mr Irfan Yusuf his credibility as a columnist is shattered or at least very badly dented. This should preclude him from offering further columns and give Granny a good reason to show him the door. We'll see...note comments from his apologists below...thanks guys...(Nothing from Mr Yusuf as of today 26.11.08...)