In the strangest places - by Richard... Saturday, October 17, 2009

In the strangest places - by Richard... Saturday, October 17, 2009

Look at this and check out the sidebar links! It does not compute.

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Sack your home and sell your wife - by Richard...

Actually, it might be the other way around. Either way, it is going to cause ructions (is causing ructions) with MPs.

But a survey indicates that the majorityof the public has no sympathy at all with the "plight" of MPs, and are in a vengeful mood. 

The only problem is that, when all the changes, restrictions, controls and the rest are in place, and all the MPs are little goody-two-shoes, claiming 40p a month salary and selling Big Issue on the side to pay for their beds in the hostels, it is not going to make the slightest difference.

We are still going to have an emasculated parliament – in fact more so – with power spread between the executive, the quangos and Brussels. People forget – it is our parliament, the MPs are to represent us, and protect us from an overweening executive.

Instead, over several generations, MPs have given their power away - our power, held in trust – with the current lot tolerating the decline in parliament whilst living high on the hog. 

Vengeance, satisfying though it is, is not solving anything. The gravy train is still intact . All we have managed to do is force some of the lighter weight passengers to get off – but a lot more are climbing on every day, many at a way-station called Brussels. 

It will be a few years yet, but once the force of the constitutional Lisbon treaty becomes apparent, we will be wondering what lasting changes we have really achieved.

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They keep trying - by Richard... Friday, October 16, 2009

If you're dreaming of your next ski holiday and wondering whether the snow cover in the Alps is going to be as bountiful as last season, says The Daily Telegraph, do something else: go shopping, take the dog for a walk, because it's not looking good. But only if you believe the "experts". 

The Met Office – which predicted our "barbecue summer" – says that temperatures this winter are going to be "above average" over much of Europe. The Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology shares the same view, but, with refreshing honesty, points out that last year it said a cold winter was "highly improbable". It proved to be one of the coldest on record. 

But there is exactly the same dynamic the other side of the Atlantic. Despite the Midwest being covered by an abnormally early blanket of snow, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is saying that this winter should be warmer than usual in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Thanks mostly to the effects of El Nino, "warmer-than-average temperatures are favored across much of the western and central US, especially in the north-central states from Montana to Wisconsin," NOAA says. That applies generally to the Rockies, plains and upper Midwest. It then hedges its bets by stating: "Though temperatures may average warmer than usual, periodic outbreaks of cold air are still possible." 

As to the current unseasonal snowfalls, the long-term forecast covers the period from December through February - so they don't count.

(Pic: A car drives through snow after heavy snowfalls hit parts of the Czech Republic, at Vetrny Jenikov in the Czech-Moravian Highlands, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Prague. AP Photo/CTK)