Happy New Year
Archive for December 2009
Met Office severe weather warning out by almost 24 hours
The Met Office issued a severe weather warning yesterday for Shropshire, Herefordshire and eastern Wales, warning of up to almost 10″ of snow overnight.
I excitedly looked out of my window this morning to see this fine example of global warming at work and … nothing. The forecast had been revised for late morning/early afternoon. Took #1 to a birthday party shortly after lunch, no snow. Went to the shops, no snow. Picked up #1 at 5pm, no snow.
Finally, at about 7:15 this evening it started snowing. It’s settling despite the couple of hours of rain we had previously but unless it starts coming down heavily through the night it’s going to be a light dusting in the morning. Certainly nothing like the heavy and sudden snow we had in February.
All of which leads me to one very important question. The Met Office is the British government’s advisor on climate change, handing it carefully crafted “predictions” on the climate for decades in advance. Their predictions are used to form British government policy on the environment, taxation, industry, recycling, transport, civil liberties, energy security and more. But if they can’t predict the weather 12 hours in advance, why do they expect us to believe their apocalyptic climate change predictions and why does the British government pretend that they are a reliable source of information?
Until the Met Office stop making outrageous, headline grabbing predictions like the annual prediction of a BBQ summer that fails to materialise, complete with associated health warnings and advice to paint your house white on the outside to reflect the heat, I can’t take them seriously. While they continue to issue severe weather warnings that never happen or are completely out with their timings and predictions of how severe the weather is going to be, I will continue to treat every prediction they make with suspicion.
Weather forecasting is never going to be an exact science but missing the mark by almost 24 hours on a severe weather warning for 10″ of snow is ridiculous. The Met Office would struggle to predict last week’s football results, let alone the earth’s climate in 50 years time based on dodgy data and an obvious inability to organise a piss-up in a brewery.
Update: In the time it’s taken to type this post, the rain has turned to sleet and the snow is disappearing.
There’s nothing English about the EDL
The Daily Mail has an article on the English Defence League with the snappy title “This is England: Masked like terrorists, members of Britain’s newest and fastest -growing protest group intimidate a Muslim woman on a train en route to a violent demo”. It used to be called “This is England: On the trail of the English Defence League” but that’s not nearly prophetic enough for the Daily Mail.
The English Defence League with their British flag
It’s quite a lengthy article written by a reporter who went on the same train as some EDL protesters to a protest and is therefore an expert on the EDL. It makes much of the fact that their core activist base seems to be football supporter gangs and therefore EDL supporters are thugs. It mentions Cardiff City’s “Soul Crew” but doesn’t make the connection that it’s a Welsh football club’s supporters gang in the supposed English Defence League.
The article starts with a picture of a bemused looking muslim woman in a hijab who was on the same train as some hoodie-wearing EDL supporters. The caption under the picture says:
Some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain head towards Manchester to support a march by the burgeoning English Defence League (EDL), while a woman dressed in a black hijab appears intimidated
Perhaps the photo was taken when she wasn’t looking intimidated but as I said, she looks more bemused than intimidated. And notice the word “Britain” in there – the word is used interchangeably with “England” throughout the article. Further down the article, where the connection is less unlikely to be made, the reporters notes that a protester singing “We had joy, we had fun, we had muslims on the run” was told to shut up by his mates because of the woman in the hijab and that none of the other protesters joined in.
The article recounts an incident where a protester is told to take off a mask by a policeman. The protester ask “Why are they allowed to wear burkas in public but we’re not allowed to cover our faces?” and is told “Just do what you’re told”. It’s a valid point though, why is it acceptable for a muslim to be covered head to toe with only their eyes on show but a non-muslim can’t cover their face in public. According to the article, the same protester then launches into one of the EDL’s favourites – Rule Britannia. Again, the reporter fails to point out the bleedingly obvious: no Englishman would sing Rule Britannia, it’s a British song.
The reporter says that the EDL is linked with “far right” organisations such as Combat 18, Blood & Honour, the British Freedom Fighters and the National Front because their members are believed to have attended EDL protests. No doubt members of a great many organisations attend EDL protests – there have been muslims at EDL marches protesting at radical Islam who probably belong to local mosques and other groups that promote the advancement of Islam in England. Again, the reporter fails to point out that it’s the English Defence League and the British Freedom Fighters are … British.
The British English Communities Secretary has compared the EDL to the British Union of Fascists (ironically supported by the Daily Mail in the 30’s), a political party formed by a former Liebour government minister, Oswald Moseley. The BUF was banned by the British government in 1940 and Moseley, along with most of its prominent members were interned during the second world war. A vision of things to come for the English Defence League, perhaps?
The leader of the EDL started the group as “British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists” and many of their senior officers are member of the British National Party but the reporter again fails to point out the British/English thing. The EDL’s youth wing apparently has over 300 members across the UK and their 18 year old leader, Joel Titus, says “We want to hit every town and city in Britain”. Again, the British/English thing is ignored by the reporter.
A Home Office advisor, Professor Matthew Goodwin, says:
The EDL is now well-organised and not just a minor irritant. It has become a rallying point for a number of different groups and to have them marching through sensitive areas is a major concern.
What I find more concerning is that any area should be so sensitive that a group protesting at muslim extremism should be a problem for the British government but that muslims who want to preach racial and religious hatred and intolerance or left wing fascists like Unite Against Fascism who turn up at EDL marches to cause riots are acceptable. Not only are they acceptable but UAF actually get funding from the British government and senior members of the British establishment are members.
The truth is, there is nothing English about the English Defence League. Why they decided to call themselves the English Defence League and then go about singing British songs and waving the British flag is beyond me but it is important that the schizophrenic nature of the British/English Defence League and the media’s reporting of them is exposed and challenged at every opportunity so that moderate civic English nationalists are not incorrectly associated with the EDL.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all my friends, relatives and enemies *
* Except Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, you’ve gone through enemy and out the other side.
CEP: British Business Secretary to destroy English universities
Peter Mandelson, the unelected British English Business Secretary, has announced over half a billion pounds in budget cuts for English universities and told them to protect quality and access to higher education at the same time.
The Scottish Chancellor announced £600m of cuts for English universities in his pre-budget report a few weeks ago and it is not clear whether this £533m cut to the English universities budget announced by the British Trade Secretary is an additional cut or part of the £600m cuts announced by the Scottish Chancellor.
The introduction of top-up and tuition fees in England, which were rejected by MPs elected in England but passed with the votes of MPs elected in Scotland, priced university education out of reach for most people in England. The shambolic English student loan system introduced to try and entice more poor people into university has crippled tens of thousands of young English people with tens of thousands of pounds of debts. A half billion pound cut in the budget will devastate the English university system, a £1.1bn cut would cripple it.
Danish police beat back climate change nutters at Cophenhagen
Hundreds of eco-terrorists and assorted left wing fruitcakes and swivel-eyed loons have had to be beaten back by police in Copenhagen after they tried to break through a perimeter fence designed to keep the unwashed nutters away from the terribly important politicans that are going to save the world at the Copenhagen World Government Climate Change Conference.
No Mandate Brown was on BBC Breakfast this morning spinning like a maniac, telling us that “there is no doubt about the science”, that the first climate change refugees have already emerged and our children will be living in floods and droughts. Presumably he doesn’t mean at the same time although that wouldn’t be the most bizarre claim the environmentalists have come out with.
He didn’t say exactly where these mythical climate change refugees were but he was talking about Bangladesh which has, of course, been experiencing terrible and unsual flooding this year which is all caused by global warming climate change CO2 pollution. And in 2007. And 2005. And 2004, 1998, 1991, 1988, 1987 … in fact, according to Wikipedia, there have been 18 major floods in the last century in Bangladesh but let’s not let facts get in the way of an outrageous lie. This explanation of the Bangladeshi climate from the perspective of disaster planning and prevention draws on pre-global warming hysteria reports and indigenous knowledge to explain the flooding in Bangladesh.
Or he may have been talking about Ethiopia which has been talked about this last few days with the droughts and desertification it is suffering being blamed on global warming climate change CO2 pollution. Again, some basic research and a reasonable memory for anyone over the age of 30 will confirm that the droughts and famine of the last few decades were caused by war and deforestation and that much of Ethiopia is desert. But once again, let’s not let facts get in the way of an outrageous lie.
Anyway, back to the fruit loops in Copenhagen. They were apparently trying to break into the compound because they’re angry about the lack of progress at the conference. And at the lack of access to information about what’s going on at the conference. But let’s not let a lack of facts get in the way of some mindless violence.
The Africans have been throwing their teddies out of their prams again today, complaining that the Danes have been tailoring the agenda to fit the pre-determined outcome decided by their EU masters. They walked out of the conference the other day because people weren’t throwing enough money at them.
Despite the large number or world leaders at the conference talking about a subject they’re completely uneducated in and unqualified to talk about, the chances of the promised “global deal” on climate change actually materialising are looking pretty slim at the moment. The only openly-stated objective of the conference that is likely to be achieved is- keeping global warming to below 2 degrees, on account of the earth cooling for the last decade and the hockey stick graph being a load of bollocks.
All these protesters seem to be having lots of fun getting angry, waving their placards and shouting at people which made me wonder today how many of the sensible majority in this country who see through the global warming scam would turn up to a climate change non-believer’s protest. I might even organise one for a laugh, who’s up for it?
Bloggers4UKIP: Diplomatically incompetent, economically illiterate
Gordon Brown has plumbed new depths of diplomatic incompetence and financial illiteracy with the announcement that the UK will contribute £1.5bn to a £6.5bn fund for “poor” nations to combat climate change.
The pre-budget report this week set out the bleak outlook for the economy – taxes are going up, £30bn of extra pre-election vote buying, tens of billions of pounds of extra borrowing – but the chosen one has found a spare £1.5bn down the back of the sofa in Number 10 to spend on adverts showing drowning puppies and polar bears in the Seychelles.
But setting aside the idiocy of borrowing £1.5bn to give away to some corrupt, third world tinpot dictatorship to spend on guns and gold plated Mercedes, why are we paying one fifth of the amount being pledged in the name of the European Empire when there are another 26 member states who are supposedly out of recession? No wonder the economy is in such a state when the person holding the purse strings thinks 6½ divided by 27 is 1½.
The Times forced to change misleading climate change advert
The Advertising Standards Agency sent me a letter the other day in response to a complaint I made (prompted by another blogger who I really can’t remember at the moment, sorry!) about adverts for the Times plastered all over London Underground stations claiming they have more climate change experts than any other newspaper.
The posters have a picture of an ship in icy waters and claim that the North West Passage has just been opened for the first time to commercial shipping. The poster implies that this story verifies the expertise of their “experts”.
The truth of the matter is that the Canadian government has been licensing commercial shipping through the North West Passage since the 1930’s. The Vikings navigated the North West Passage using wooden boats as opposed to the huge metal ice breakers used nowadays. At various times throughout history, the North West Passage has been navigable and at others it has been impassable. It’s all part of the natural cycle which is being used by eco-fascists to push their environmentalist one world socialist agenda.
News International, the owners of the Times newspaper, have agreed to change their adverts to avoid the Advertising Standards Agency launching a formal investigation.
Still no news on the complaint about the British government’s “drowning puppy” child propaganda advert.
Who cares?
Yesterday was National Carers Day and BBC Radio Shropshire marked it with features throughout the day.
One of the features was about an announcement of a new scheme for elderly carers. More money and support is to be given to elderly carers who need their partners to have respite care. This annoyed me.
My father-in-law has a rare degenerative disease called superficial siderosis. As of 2006, there were only 270 reported cases of superficial siderosis and nobody knows what the long term prognosis is other than it won’t get any better.
So how does it feel to be a carer for someone who is disabled, has to be pushed around outside in a wheelchair, is deaf, has no short-term memory and doesn’t feel pain? My mother-in-law is my father-in-law’s full time carer and it’s pretty damn stressful, not to mention tiring.
My father-in-law used to get respite care in Telford but the care home decided – understandably – that they would rather rent out the only room they had for middle aged disabled people to the council for OAPs for £600 a week rather than leave it empty for 3 weeks a month. But as this was the only room of its kind in the borough (population 160,000) this means that my father-in-law now has to go to Oswestry, on the Welsh border, for respite.
Telford & Wrekin Council isn’t entirely to blame but they certainly aren’t blameless. They haven’t invested in respite care for middle aged people but it wouldn’t be such a problem if it wasn’t for bloody stupid British government regulations that insist on care homes in England segregating their buildings based on age groups.
My father-in-law was, until recently, taken to the gym for an hour and a half every week by the council’s Social Inclusion Team. But a few weeks ago they decided that they wanted paying £38 every time they took him. They can’t afford it so the council offered to do it for £17 a time. They still can’t afford it (their household income consists of disability living allowance, carers allowance and a wage for a few hours of work that my mother-in-law does) so they won’t take him.
He goes to a day care centre for a few hours a couple of days a week where they do group activities – it’s the only chance he gets to socialise with people outside of the familiy. It costs £9.50 each time he goes but it’s been capped by the British government for years. The cap is being lifted next year so the price will be going up to an unknown amount. People who pay privately to go to the day care centre pay £26 a time – if it goes up to £26 he won’t be able to go there either.
If you are young or past pensionable age there are plenty of services available. I don’t imagine there are enough services to satisfy everybody’s needs but the services available to middle aged people are so sparse that they might as well not exist.
Me and the mother-in-law were interview by BBC Radio Shropshire about it yesterday and it was on the radio this morning. Click here to get the Eric Smith show on the iPlayer. Skip forward to 06:40 to hear the mother-in-law talking to the reporter and 59:44 for my comments in the news.
Fuck you Jack Straw
Female prisoners are very different to male prisoners, and while there is a consensus that we need to be tougher on male offenders there is also a broad consensus that where possible we should punish and reform females in the community and not in prisons.
What the fucking fuck? No, seriously, what in the name of all that is fucking holy is that fucking idiot saying? Women shouldn’t go to prison but men should, just because they’re women? Unbe-fucking-lievable.
Is it a coincidence that the Equality Bill was passed today making discrimination against white men legal? Is it bollocks. Why must we endure this constant fucking battle just to be treated fairly? Why do these people think it’s ok to treat white men like shit?
Well I’ve got a message for you Jack Straw you fucking fascist. Fuck you. Fuck your government and fuck your fucking illiberal, fascist fucking agenda. I swear to god, if I ever see you in the street I’ll fucking spit on your shoes you fucking twisted, fascist bastard and if that’s all you get you’ll be fucking lucky. There’s a special lampost reserved just for you outside parliament because come the revolution comrade, you will be the first one swinging.
