An Englishman's Castle

March 20, 2011

Cash For Amendments MEP Scandal

Insight: Euro MPs exposed in ‘cash-for-laws’ scandal | The Sunday Times

European MPs have been caught agreeing to accept secret payments to alter laws that will damage the interests of millions of consumers across Britain and Europe.

Three senior MEPS — including a former deputy prime minister — put forward amendments in the European parliament on the understanding that they would be paid by lobbyists.

Two of the amendments now appear in the parliament’s official documents just as the lobbyists had written them. They are a few steps away from becoming law.

The lobbyists were in fact undercover Sunday Times reporters investigating persistent rumours that MEPs are prepared to sell their services....

Adrian Severin, the 56-year-old former Romanian deputy prime minister, emailed the reporters saying: “Just to let you know that the amendment desired by you has been tabled in due time.then sent an invoice for €12,000 for “consulting services concerning the codification of the Directive 94/19/EC, Directive 2009/14/EC and the amendments thereto”.

Zoran Thaler, the former Slovenian foreign minister, put down an amendment as his first work for the fake company. He asked for the cash to be routed through a London company to keep it secret. “There is no way that I disclose this,” he said.

Ernst Strasser, a former interior minister in Austria, told the reporters, “I’m a lobbyist”, and boasted about serving at least five commercial clients who each paid him €100,000 a year.

The rest is behind a paywall but details will emerge.

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Get The Nuclear Accident Data (Mostly)

Nuclear power plant accidents: listed, visualised and ranked since 1952 | World news | guardian.co.uk

Nuclear power plant accidents: listed and ranked since 1952
How many nuclear power plants have had accidents and incidents? Get the full list and find out how they're ranked
• Get the data

Except some have nothing to do with nuclear power stations and there are no fatality numbers, and in the end the health worries are what the Greens are always banging on about

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Render Unto

A small town in Germany where recycling pays | Environment | The Guardian

The citizens of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse take their recycling very seriously. So much so that there is even a collection point at the recycling depot for dead animals.
"People bring their dead dogs here," says Stefan Weiss, one of the town's waste managers, as he steps into a refrigerated shed and opens the lid on a wheelie bin containing a deer's head recently deposited by a local hunter.
"All these animals get rendered down at a nearby facility for their fat. It then gets used to produce things like this." Weiss pulls a tube of lip balm from his pocket.

Do they make lampshades as well?

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March 19, 2011

Saturday Morning Song Request

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March 18, 2011

Bhola Balls

Environmental migrant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1995, half of Bhola Island in Bangladesh became permanently flooded, leaving 500,000 people homeless. The Bhola Islanders have been described as some of the world's first climate refugees

View Larger Map

Can you spot the flooded half?

I wonder if the story if connected to:

The 1970 Bhola cyclone which was a devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and India's West Bengal on November 12, 1970. It was the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, and one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern times. Up to 500,000 people lost their lives in the storm, primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta.
This storm would also inspire ex-Beatle George Harrison to organize The Concert for Bangladesh, the prototype benefit concert, to raise money for aid, in 1971.

Not only did it kill thousands, and make homeless the hundreds of thousands it also caused the televised charity fundraiser...

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Obesity Scare - Expert Admits No Evidence

BBC News - Life expectancy on the rise 'despite obesity epidemic'
Life expectancy in the UK is on the rise, along with the rest of Europe, despite fears over the impact of obesity, a population expert has said.
Despite concern that health problems arising from obesity would affect life expectancy in high-income countries, such as the UK, there is no evidence of this to date.

National Statistics Online - Life expectancy

Life expectancy at birth in the UK has reached its highest level on record for both males and females. A newborn baby boy could expect to live 77.7 years and a newborn baby girl 81.9 years if mortality rates remain the same as they were in 2007–09.

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Friday Night is Music Night (Bedroom Punk Edition)

Say three Hail Marys and don't think those thoughts again.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Green Power Disaster

The Banqiao Dam was begun in April 1951 on the Ru River with the help of Soviet consultants as part of a project to control flooding and to generate electricity.

Movie coming out this summer - Dam 999
Have you ever thought of the possibility of a dam disaster and the magnitude of its aftereffects? Will you believe that a dam disaster can kill more people and can cause more causalities and after effects than that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki incident? Yes, if we do not give much attention to this issue, which is looming over the millions of lives all over the world, it will bring out catastrophic consequences for humanity.

In 1975, China witnessed the greatest manmade disaster that caused the death of more number of people than in any other manmade disaster happened across the world so far. At the beginning of August, there occurred a typhoon because of the change in the weather pattern. When the hot, humid air of the typhoon met the cold air of the North, series of storms and rain occurred. The first one was on August 5, followed by the second one on August 6th and the third one on August 7th. The dam was designed to store 300mm of water per day. During these days within 24 hours itself more than one year's rain was poured. Banqiao and Shimantan dams were filled by August 8th and were in the urge to burst. On August 8th 12:30 am, Shimantan dam collapsed followed by the collapse of Banqiao dam by 1:00am on the same day. Totally 62 dams broke, affecting the life of eleven million people. Even the evacuation orders failed to reach many people because of the problem in communication caused by flood. People who survived in this flood were trapped without food. Contaminated water affected the health of several people. These dams were built by foreseeing the flood that may occur, but even then, the natural calamity was of that high level and the dams failed to hold the tempestuous water rained down. To prevent more disasters they even destroyed several small dams so that the water would flow to the areas with less population.

These dams, which collapsed mainly, affected the local population. According to the records nearly 26,000 people died because of flood and nearly 145,000 people died because of famine and epidemics. Nearly 5,960,000 buildings collapsed and 11 million residents were affected. Many were injured. This converted China into a land full of corpses.

Puts other power station disasters into perspective.

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A Quiet Pub Makes It Worth The Risk

Japan earthquake: for the defiant Brits who stay in Tokyo, a quiet pint - Telegraph

It is St Patrick's Day and Tokyo's Mermaid pub, a cosy, sticky-floored boozer that looks like it has been transplanted from the City of London, should be full of British expatriates.
But this year there are only three, nursing pints of Guinness and trying to ignore the warnings of impending nuclear doom.
One British investment banker said: "I suppose there is a bit of a Blitz spirit but, to be honest, I see the reports about radioactive winds and I just don't believe them. Where's the evidence? I blame the French for spooking everyone."
Michael Summons, 47, a trader at an international bank, said he had thought hard about joining the rush to the exit, but decided to stay because he loves the country. Just in case the worst does happens, and he has to outrun a radiation cloud, he has a motorbike on standby. "It's full of petrol and I'll use it if I have to."

Let the French run, make the most of the opportunities and enjoy a quiet pint without some garlic breathed onion seller breathing all over your pork scratchings. That's the spirit.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Telegraph Cut And Paste Journalism

Karen Buck profile: former council worker who rose to Labour front bench - Telegraph By Victoria Ward

Karen Buck was elected to parliament in 1997 through a controversial all-woman shortlist. The method had been declared illegal the previous year as it breached sex discrimination laws but Ms Buck was allowed to remain in place as the Labour candidate.

Born in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland, she was educated at the London School of Economics before joining a small charity specialising in employment for disabled people.

She later joined Hackney Borough Council as a disability officer and later, a public health officer.

She joined the Labour Party in 1987 and was elected as a councillor for Westminster City Council in 1990, a post she retained until becoming an MP.

Ms Buck represented Regent's Park and Kensington North from 1997 until last year, when boundary changes saw her contest the new seat of Westminster North. She narrowly beat Tory favourite Joanne Cash with a majority of 2,126.

The 52-year-old has long been a vocal opponent of Tory housing policy and last year warned that the housing benefit cap would lead to "social cleansing on an unprecedented scale."€

She is married with one son.

Ain't journalism wonderful - at vast expense it brings us the detailed background on the stupid munter who claims the Tories want to ethnically cleanse Central London. I wonder how much research Victoria Ward did to justify her fee...

Karen Buck - Wikipedia
Born in Castlederg, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland,...was educated at the Chelmsford County High School for Girls and the London School of Economics, from where she was awarded a BSc and a MSc in Economics, and a MA in Social Policy and Administration. She joined the Labour Party in 1978. In 1979, she became a research and development worker with Outset, a charity working with disabled people, before joining the Hackney London Borough Council in 1983 initially as a senior disability officer, and from 1986 a public health officer. She went to work for the Labour Party in 1987 as a health directorate researcher, becoming a campaign strategy coordinator in 1992. She was elected as a councillor to the City of Westminster Council in 1990 and remained on the council until her election to parliament in 1997. Buck was selected to stand for election for Labour through an all-women shortlist. This method of selection was subsequently declared illegal in January 1996 as it breached sex discrimination laws. Despite the ruling she remained in place as the candidate for the following year's election.
Buck was elected at the 1997 General Election as the Labour MP for Regent's Park and Kensington North with a majority of 14,657 ...At the 2010 General Election she was elected MP for the new seat of Westminster North with a majority of 2,126 over Joanne Cash, the Conservative candidate.
..(age 52)..She is married to Barrie Taylor and they have a son

Posted by The Englishman at 7:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

No Afrika Corps

Germany: Abstained on Libya no-fly zone because it sees "considerable dangers and risks" in military action against Muammar Gaddafi.

Scared of power stations, scared of the desert, bunch of wusses but at least we have the Italians to save the day...

Just a shame we don't have an aircraft carrier or any capability to really help, but then the MOD brains are only planning for the last war as usual.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Olympic "Fun"

Ban on mobile phones, picnics and music in London's 'fun' Olympics - Telegraph

People booking tickets, which went on sale this week, have to sign a terms and conditions document, which runs to 7,350 words, published by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog).
This list of rules and regulations makes clear that the following items are banned: "Food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, liquids in containers of greater than 100ml in size, umbrellas, horns, whistles, drums, rattles, musical instruments, or any other devices that in the opinion of Locog may disturb a session (including mobile telephones), flasks, Thermoses and in general any material that Locog may deem dangerous or that may cause damage or disruption to a session."
The conditions suggest that anyone wanting to bring a picnic to a venue – a tradition that many British sports fans indulge in at Lord's Cricket Ground or while watching the tennis at Wimbledon – will find themselves banned from entry. Mobile phones, which most people now find invaluable, are also not allowed.
A spokesman for Locog said the organisers wanted spectators "to have lots of fun".

"Fun", after being queued to be x-rayed, patted down and stripped of your bottle of water, so the corporate sponsors can then resell you one at their price inside the bug infested concrete caverns. But at leat you know Lord Snooty Coe and chums will have fun as they are whisked pass the common people in their special Zil lanes with synchronised traffic lights to their full hospitality suites.
Poking your eyes with knitting needles will be more "fun".

Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

March 17, 2011

Global Warming To Cause Global Warming

Deadly heatwaves will be more frequent in coming decades, say scientists | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The analysis, published in the journal Science, revealed the unprecedented nature of the 2010 heatwave using temperature measurements dating back to 1871 and estimates from tree rings and other proxies going back to 1500.

I was beginning to miss global warming scares being about global warming, nice cuddly retro feel to the story. Comforting in these dark days.

Posted by The Englishman at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Dde Cock-up

Source 1 & 2 - Chwith is left in Welsh, I will let you guess Dde. They really don't like the tourists do they?

Posted by The Englishman at 9:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Talking About My Generation

Baby boomers get more in benefits then they pay in taxes | Business | guardian.co.uk

Baby boomers want decent pensions and a modern health service, but are not putting enough aside to pay for them. That was the message from the boffins who have been mulling the ongoing transfer of wealth from the baby boomer generation to their children.
We are taking out more than we put back, and on a massive scale. If the situation continues, younger people, and the unborn, will have to pick up a tab that by 2030-40 – when the boomers are on Saga holidays or in nursing care – will be overwhelming.
David Willetts reckons that the average boomer will get 118% more in benefits and services over the course of their lives than they have paid in taxes.
We can argue over how and who to tax, but more money for health and pensions needs to come from somewhere.

Or maybe not tax?

Posted by The Englishman at 7:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Royal Flush

Helen Mirren joins protest against 'super sewer' - Telegraph

Thames Water plans to build a 24-mile long super sewer at a cost of £3.6 billion has generated anger across the capital.
Needed to carry millions of tons of raw sewage, the scheme will be completed in around 2021. But it is feared anyone living near the project will face noise around the clock.

I suppose she is a star so her shit doesn't smell. Bazalgette did a wonderful job, that is the Bazalgette who piped crap out of people's homes not the Bazalgette who pipes it in, but it needs up dating. And crap comes out of your back yard so Nimbyism is just stupid, so put up with the work because the option of not having a modern sewerage system is a lot worse....

Posted by The Englishman at 7:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Time To Wean Them Off The Teat

Ross Martin: Let's blow whistle on glorious failures - Scotsman.com News

Another year. Another Six Nations flop. Like the failed and debt-laden bank whose fallen crest is emblazoned on the field of play, our national rugby team has suffered a catastrophic collapse. From Five Nations Grand Slam-winning amateurs playing it professionally in the 80s and 90s to a group of very well-paid professionals looking decidedly amateur, fighting over the wooden spoon.
This sad decline in rugby reflects a wider malaise in Scottish professional sport, ironically driven by huge injections of cash. Inversely proportional to the level of funding invested, a number of Scottish sports have fallen into a spiral of performance decline. As funding has increased exponentially, we have seen a reduction in competitiveness in both football and rugby....
These two sports have squandered huge cash injections, imitating real life where the unprecedented increase in Scottish public expenditure has not seen a consequential improvement in public service standards.

I couldn't see anywhere in the rest of the article where the obvious lesson is drawn, instead it is a call for more Government intervention to make them less dependent on Government intervention...

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March 16, 2011

How To Fill In Your Census Form - Video Help

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Atomkraft? Nein, danke!

EU official: Europe must consider nuclear-free future

I don't know what the outcome of the Japanese reactor problems is going to be, Nor does the MSM and especially nor do the politicians.
Here seems to be the best source of information I can find.

In summary it seems unlikely that the accident will kill as many as erecting a couple of hundred wind turbines or that reactors not built on the seashore in earthquake zones have many lessons to learn from it.

Of course this is a greenie wet dream come true and no chance to beat the one realistic non fossil fuel source of energy about the head will be passed up.

Back to the Stone Age will be the preferred option.

Posted by The Englishman at 8:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Olympic Cock

London 2012 Olympics countdown clock stops | UK news | guardian.co.uk

"The launch of the Omega countdown clock is an important milestone for any Olympic Games and is something of a tradition within the Olympic movement," said Locog chairman Lord Coe before the launch. "It will be a daily and hourly reminder to everyone who visits Trafalgar Square that the countdown to the start of London 2012 has well and truly begun and that the most boring, drug addled, narcissist, fascist, taxpayer bleeding waste of money greatest show on earth is soon coming to our country."

Posted by The Englishman at 8:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Celebrate The Decline And Fall

Bloggers' Bash 2011'

Title: Blogging: Yesterday's news?

Speakers: Tim Montgomerie (ConHome), Douglas Carswell MP (TalkCarswell.com) and Harry Cole (Guido Fawkes blogger)
Date: 21st April 2011
Time: 6.30pm to 8.30pm
Location: The Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, SW1P 3DW
RSVP: events@adamsmith.org
Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome, will be joined by blogger and MP for Clacton, Douglas Carswell, and former ToryBear and current news editor of order-order.com, Harry Cole. In the light of the decline of centre-right bloggers and growth of mainstream media blogs they will discussing the future of the blogosphere.

Blogging, it was fun whilst it lasted, I suppose this is the official wake for it.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sign The Pledge

People’s Pledge campaign for a European Union EU referendum

The People’s Pledge is a campaign that brings you together with others in your constituency to demand your MP supports an EU referendum.

Some sayit is amateur night out , I think everyone realises it won't lead to its desired outcome of a referendum. Will the campaign be counter productive? I don't think so. Will it make a few MPs a bit nervous, maybe?
Consider it a chance to run up to their letterbox and shout rude words through it at them. Unlikely to do much good but satisfying fun.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 15, 2011

Global Warming Will Cause Instant Ice Age - LSD Guru

Owsley Stanley - Telegraph

Owsley Stanley, who died on March 13 aged 76, was the “outlaw-acid-chef” whose production of industrial quantities of LSD helped fuel California’s 1960s counterculture; his chemical wizardry was immortalised in song by Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead, and in prose by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
By the early 1980s Owsley had left San Francisco for the Australian state of Queensland, apparently to avoid a new ice age destined to engulf the northern hemisphere. There he established a business selling enamel sculptures and adhered to an all-meat diet.

Owsley Stanley: The King of LSD | Rolling Stone Culture In 1984, Owsley appeared at Phil Lesh's house with a map of the world showing the mean temperatures at the height of the last ice age. Long before global warming became an international hot-button issue, he delivered what writer David Gans described as "a ninety-minute lecture on a thermal cataclysm that he said would begin with a six-week rainstorm and leave the entire Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable." Passing around Australian visa applications, Owsley then urged all those present to join him in the Southern Hemisphere. Much like his theory that human beings are meant to eat only meat, Owsley's concept of climate change is at odds with most current scientific thought on global warming. In highly abridged form, what Owsley believes is that the phenomenon is real but that it comes from "the steadily increasing movement of large amounts of heat from the tropics across the temperate zones to the poles. 'Global warming: the panic,' is based exclusively on temperate-zone land measurements and ignores the fact that the planet is seventy percent ocean. The Arctic and Antarctic are soaking up the moving heat and the ice caps are melting, but the cause of the heat's movement is a buildup of energy as the prelude to a massive, planetary-scale cyclonic storm, which will build the new ice age glaciers." Because this is a natural cycle, Owsley believes that carbon and methane emissions from human activity have little effect on the process and do not cause the greenhouse effect. "Our planet's heat balance and temperature are buffered and controlled by water and water vapor, which also washes CO2 out of the air and not minuscule fractions of a couple of gases, one of which is very soluble and the other unstable. Not a single atmospheric scientist subscribes to the concept of greenhouse gases or global warming — they all know the truth." Owsley contends there is nothing people can do to prevent the coming of an ice age storm that he describes as "a kind of a gigantic hurricane, a cyclone thousands of miles in diameter, turning with winds of ultrasonic speeds that is one-half the planet in size." This is the Biblical 'flood of Noah,' and the entire portion of the planet underneath the storm will be blown flat and buried under water. "Based on past evidence, the sea will rise 300 meters, and life in some places will be entirely destroyed. I don't see how anyone in the Northern Hemisphere could survive the storm. But there are areas on the planet that are safe, and I hope I'm in one of them."

Sadly not it seems. Whether his drugged addled forecast was any less realistic than other forecasts I will leave to you.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Politicians In Fear

California politicians demand right to carry arms | World news | The Guardian

Politicians in California say their working lives are now so dangerous that they should be given special dispensation to carry concealed guns to their offices in order to protect themselves.

1: Wonder why politicians are so hated they are in fear.
2: Wonder why politicians demand extra for themselves that they deny the voters.
3. Goto 1

Posted by The Englishman at 7:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 14, 2011

Huhne & Other Idiots Plan To Destroy Prosperity

Chris Huhne gets European support to toughen EU climate targets | Politics | The Guardian

Chris Huhne has won the support of six other European governments to push for a toughening of the EU's climate targets, to be discussed in Brussels on Monday . The energy and climate secretary is spearheading a growing movement in favour of a target of 30% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, instead of the current 20%.

Letters: Europe, Japan and energy options | From the Guardian | The Guardian

At a time when the price of oil is soaring, putting in place an ambitious plan for Europe's low-carbon future has wider benefits than tackling climate change. It will increase the continent's resilience against oil price spikes and reduce its dependence on imported energy. And it will help Europe compete with emerging economies in the fast-growing markets for green goods and services. We know that some industries are worried about how they will adapt, but solutions are available. In the best traditions of European co-operation, we can work together to overcome these challenges. We call on all member states to enter into this urgent debate on Europe's future and agree how the road map is put into action– ensuring that Europe gets to the front of this low-carbon race, rather than falling behind.

Chris Huhne secretary of state for energy and climate change, UK, Tina Birbili Minister of environment, energy and climate change, Greece, Andreas Carlgren Minister for the environment, Sweden. Lykke Friis Minister of climate and energy, Denmark, Rosa Aguilar Rivero Minister for Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Spain, Humberto D Rosa Secretary of state for environment, Portugal, Dr Norbert Röttgen Federal minister for the environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany

Remember the guilty names.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:40 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Calling Prince Andrew

India spends £20bn a year to lead world in arms imports - Scotsman.com News
The vast majority of those imports, 82 per cent, come from Russia

Get Prince Andrew out there - that's his job to be the Golf Club bore in a blazer telling dodgy jokes to greasy businessmen and getting the orders. We give them enough foreign aid, we ought to get the orders.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

No Trust In Politicians

Europeans are liberal, anxious and don't trust politicians, poll reveals | World news | The Guardian

Only 6% of people across Europe say they have a great deal of trust in their government, 46% say they have not very much and 32% none at all. Only 9% of Europeans think their politicians – in opposition or in power – act with honesty and integrity.
The lack of trust in government is greatest in Poland and France, where distrust outweighs trust by a net 82 percentage points. In France, the net negative score is 78 points and in Germany 80 points. Only Britain breaks the consensus somewhat, with a net negative score of 66 points.
Even fewer Europeans think their politicians are honest. In Poland, only 3% of those questioned agree; in Spain 8%; in Germany 10%; in France 11%; in Britain 12%. Overall, the percentage of those who think politicians are not at all, or not very, honest outweighs those who disagree by a massive 89 percentage points.

I'm not sue if it makes us lucky or not but our politicians tend to be stupid rather than personally corrupt. Maybe it would be better to have clever crooks instead.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 13, 2011

As Happy As A Cardiff Pizzeria

Two fantastic finishes yesterday - we don't want any of that nonsense today - just regular slotting of points away against the Sweaties as I sup my ale in the pub, please.

Posted by The Englishman at 9:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Caroline Lucas Tax Muddle

Caroline Lucas | Scrapping the fuel duty rise will hurt Britain economically | Environment | guardian.co.uk

...it would result in a significant drain on public finances. A report commissioned from the Policy Studies Institute for the Green Alliance calculates that using a fuel duty cut to bring pump prices back to December 2009 levels would cost the taxpayer almost £6bn in the first year alone.... the Greens would scrap the recent VAT increase – which is set to cost the British public £12.5bn. The reduction in general tax take from reducing VAT could be met by a combination of a Robin Hood tax, a measure this week endorsed by the European Parliament, and a serious crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance, as well as additional levies on huge bankers' bonuses.

One tax costs the public, a different tax cut would cost the public, or the taxpayer or not - who let this muddleheaded loon out in public without a nurse?

Posted by The Englishman at 9:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Polly or Dave - Time To Choose

Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian

Here is the win or lose political battleground of our era. The public realm is either a precious, civilising embodiment of our best collective endeavours – or else it is, as David Cameron described it last week at his party's spring conference: "the enemies of enterprise … Taxing, regulating, smothering, crushing, getting in the way … the bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible".

Polly or Dave? I'm surprised it is possible to slip a fag paper between them but as she declares it is the seismic fault line for once let me declare I'm on Dave's side.

Posted by The Englishman at 9:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 11, 2011

Friday Night is Music Night (Classy Edition)

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Honoré de Balzac - The Guardian's Economic Guru

Scott Walker's real agenda in Wisconsin | Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Economics textbooks, along with Fox News and shout radio commentators, spread the myth that fortunes are gained productively by investing in capital equipment and employing labour to produce goods and services that people want to buy.
One need only to turn to the 19th-century novelists such as Balzac to be reminded that behind every family fortune lies a great theft, often long-forgotten or even undiscovered.

Honoré de Balzac was a highly conservative Royalist; in many ways, he is the antipode to Victor Hugo's democratic republicanism. Nevertheless, his keen insight regarding working class conditions earned him the esteem of many Socialists and Marxists. He was the favorite writer of Engels.

An old dead French playwright is a better economics teacher than the textbooks. I think that is the problem of letting Guardian columnists loose with their crayons on anything other than the arts pages.

Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Scientists Look Into The Wine Dark Sea For Climate Change Answers

A team of scientists from four countries have set out on a seafaring expedition to discover what colour the Atlantic Ocean is - Telegraph

They have tied in their jaunt with investigating Climate Change of course, but Homer has already answered the question - ωνοψ - or "wine-dark". It seems the Ancient Greeks saw colours very differently to us.
William Gladstone wrote a three volume treatise on Homer's Oddessy and Iliad. A chapter in the third volume looks at color in Homer's works. Gladstone's conclusion is: there isn't much and what there is, is peculiar. The sea is wine-colored. So are oxen. Honey is green. The sky is black. Blue is never used, and despite Homer's rich descriptions about many aspects of nature, color is almost absent. Gladstone hypothesized that humans 3000 years earlier weren't advanced enough to perceive as many colors modern folks.
In 1898, W.H.R. Rivers went on an anthropological expedition to the islands in the Torres Straits between Australia and New Guinea to study a group of people who'd only been exposed to outside Western culture in the previous 30 years. He found their color words to be very similar to what was found in Homer and other ancient writings - black and white, reddish, green which included blues, and just different ways of using color labels - including black sky.
This seems to be true of other primitive cultures as well. It is not because their retinas haven't evolved as some suggest, they are as good at distinguishing colours as we are, they just don't have the language for it.
I wonder when our descendent look back at our crude descriptions of climate change if they will pity us for our inability to describe the natural world because we don't have the language for it yet.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

All Heil The Olympics

Olympic ticket touts face £20,000 fine | Sport | The Guardian
Theresa May announces quadrupling of penalty....

There used to be a party that believed in free markets and the right of people to dispose of their own property as they wished, who welcomed the activities of traders in improving the efficiency of a market and applauded if their risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit made them a few quid. A party that stood up against monopolies and fascist movements.
I wonder whatever happened to that party.

Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 10, 2011

What A Complete And Utter Banker

Fred Goodwin gets superinjunction to stop him being called a banker

How was I meant to know he didn't like being called an onanist with other people's money, luckily a slip of the tongue saved me.

Fred Goodwin gets superinjunction to stop him being called a banker

Posted by The Englishman at 9:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Jill Duggan - The Transcript

Don’t know the cost, don’t know if it works | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Andrew Bolt

The two basic questions with any purchase. How much does it cost? Will it do the job?

Jill Duggan is from the European Commission’s Directorate General of Climate Action. She is the EC’s National Expert on Carbon Markets and Climate Change. She was head of Britain’s International Emissions Trading. She is in Australia to tell us how good Europe’s emission trading system is and why we should do something similar.

No one, therefore, should better know the answers to the two most basic questions about this huge scheme. The cost? The effect?.

So on MTR yesterday, I asked them. Duggan’s utter inability to answer is a scandal - an indictment of global warming politics today.= (listen here):

AB: Can I just ask; your target is to cut Europe’s emissions by 20% by 2020?

JD: Yes.

AB: Can you tell me how much - to the nearest billions - is that going to cost Europe do you think?

JD: No, I can’t tell you but I do know that the modelling shows that it’s cheaper to start earlier rather than later, so it’s cheaper to do it now rather than put off action.

AB: Right. You wouldn’t quarrel with Professor Richard Tol - who’s not a climate sceptic - but is professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin? He values it at about $250 billion. You wouldn’t quarrel with that?

JD: I probably would actually. I mean, I don’t know. It’s very, very difficult to quantify. You get different changes, don’t you? And one of the things that’s happening in Europe now is that many governments - such as the UK government and the German government - would like the targets to be tougher because they see it as a real stimulus to the economy.

AB: Right. Well you don’t know but you think it isn’t $250 billion.

JD: I think you could get lots of different academics coming up with lots of different figures.

AB: That’s right. You don’t know but that’s the figure that I’ve got in front of me. For that investment. Or for whatever the investment is. What’s your estimation of how much - because the object ultimately of course is to lower the world’s temperatures - what sort of temperature reduction do you imagine from that kind of investment?

JD: Well, what we do know is that to have an evens chance of keeping temperature increases globally to 2°C - so that’s increases - you’ve got to reduce emissions globally by 50% by 2050.

AB: Yes, I accept that, but from the $250 billion - or whatever you think the figure is - what do you think Europe can achieve with this 20% reduction in terms of cutting the world’s temperature? Because that’s, in fact, what’s necessary. What do you think the temperature reduction will be?

JD: Well, obviously, Europe accounts for 14% of global emissions. It’s 500 or 550 million people. On its own it cannot do that. That is absolutely clear.

AB: Have you got a figure in your mind? You don’t know the cost. Do you know the result?

JD: I don’t have a cost figure in my mind. Nor, one thing I do know, obviously, is that Europe acting alone will not solve this problem alone.

AB: So if I put a figure to you - I find it odd that you don’t know the cost and you don’t know the outcome - would you quarrel with this assessment: that by 2100 - if you go your way and if you’re successful - the world’s temperatures will fall by 0.05°C? Would you agree with that?

JD: Sorry, can you just pass that by me again? You’re saying that if Europe acts alone?

AB: If just Europe alone - for this massive investment - will lower the world’s temperature with this 20% target (if it sustains that until the end of this century) by 0.05°C. Would you quarrel with that?

JD: Well, I think the climate science would not be that precise. Would it?

AB: Ah, no, actually it is, Jill. You see this is what I’m curious about; that you’re in charge of a massive program to re-jig an economy. You don’t know what it costs. And you don’t know what it’ll achieve.

JD: Well, I think you can look at lots of modelling which will come up with lots of different costs.

AB: Well what’s your modelling? That’s the one that everyone’s quoting. What’s your modelling?

JD: Well, ah, ah. Let me talk about what we have done in Europe and what we have seen as the benefits. In Europe, in Germany you could look at, there’s over a million new jobs that have been created by tackling climate change, by putting in place climate policies. In the UK there’s many hundreds of thousand of jobs.

Read on for the full transcript,

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