Sell your shares! - by Richard... Sunday, December 06, 2009

Sell your shares! - by Richard... Sunday, December 06, 2009

The smart money is saying, "don't get stuck with investments tied to it [global warming], either directly, or via tax credits."

"How close are we to the unravelling of the global warming fad? I think it has started," the man says.

The end can't be far away!

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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And they want us to pay more? - by Richard...

Large rises in cost of gas and electricity as winter bills loom - Gas and electricity prices have soared during the last decade, new Government figures show.

Last year the number of households in fuel poverty rose from four million to 5.4 million, with one in five homes affected. And figures from the National Office of Statistics revealed recently that the excess winter death rate was 25,300 last year, a 49 percent rise from the year before.

These Greenies need to wake up to the fact that the greatest emerging threat to public health is extreme cold – of which we could see a great deal more. Yet the whole Global Warming Scam is designed to increase energy costs – and kill a lot more people.

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Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate - by Richard...

The Sunday Times laments the poor state of the Afghan security forces, with a long piece headed: "Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate: the forces waiting to take over." This is by no means the first article to draw attention to the parlous state of the forces, on which the Coalition exit plan entirely depends.

More on Defence of the Realm.

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The TWI visualised - by Richard...

Cap'n Bob has visualised the Tiger Woods Index (picked up from Planet Gore). The larger the segment, the greater the public interest relative to media coverage. What was that about one picture being worth a thousand words?

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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On a completely different subject - by Richard...

A very good piece in The Sunday Times on how the Mastiff protected vehicle has been saving lives, over and over again.

The story is told around Guardsman Stuart Cook, who survived three bomb blasts, a rocket-propelled grenade and heavy machinegun fire in which a round was stopped by bulletproof glass inches from his head.

Those who have read my book or this piece on DOTR will know how much the Army resisted the introduction of these vehicles, and especially in Afghanistan, where it preferred the Vector.

This is another of the many stories that the media completely missed, as indeed they are missingthis one about how the USMC are applying engineering solutions to the IED problem (pictured), while our troops lack basic equipment to do the job.

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Typical media - by Richard...

Unable to address the substantive issues – its hacks being quite incapable of research or analysis – the media have launched into reams of speculation about the "Climategate" leaks, all based on the single fact that, at the second or third attempt, the "whistleblower" uploaded the data onto a Russian server (webpage header grab above).

The Mail on Sunday, without spending any effort telling its readers what the issue is about, devotes a two-page spread to the most amazing tosh, built on entirely unsupported speculation. It is a classic of its kind.

Not to be outdone, The Times follows in its wake, with: "UN officials likened the Climategate controversy to Watergate today, claiming that computer hackers who stole thousands of e-mails sent by a senior climate scientist were probably paid to do it by people intent on undermining the Copenhagen summit."

And here we have our old friend Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is quoted (again) saying that the theft from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit was not the work of amateur climate sceptics but a sophisticated and well-funded attempt to destroy public confidence in the science of manmade climate change.

He said the fact that the e-mails were first uploaded to a sceptic website from a computer in Russia was an indication that the culprit was paid.

At least his comments are entirely consistent with his religion: totally unsubstantiated and without a scintilla of good evidence. But how typical of the media that they should give this garbage house room when they are ignoring the massive scientific fraud under their very noses.

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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The hypocrisy of the Greens - by Richard...

I could not resist a "quickie" on this one.

"Rare earths, a class of metallic elements that are highly reactive (er ... no - many are not. ed), are essential for the next generation of 'green' technologies. The battery in a Toyota Prius car contains more than 22lb of lanthanum. Low-energy lightbulbs need terbium. The permanent magnets used in a 3 megawatt wind turbine use 2 tons of neodymium and other rare earths."

So says The Sunday Times.

And the biggest source of these elements is China, where they are mined in the most appalling conditions, causing significant pollution and untold human misery ... all so rich Westerners can prattle on about their green credentials and how they are saving the planet. And there is no realistic alternative to China – they have the biggest deposits.

But, asks Mark Smith, chief executive of Molycorp Minerals, a US mining firm, "If the purpose of putting hybrid vehicles on the road is to lower our dependence on foreign oil, and all we're doing is buying cars that need Chinese rare earth materials, aren't we trading one dependence for another?"

Indeed we are. But as long as the sanctimonious little Greenies get their feel-good factor out of it, why should they care? Doesn't the Boy Cameron have a Prius, by the way?

Back to Afghanistan. Sigh!

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A short hiatus - by Richard...

I really have to do a piece on Afghanistan for DOTR. If you keep the excellent "Climategate" comments going on the forum, with the very helpful links to interesting posts elsewhere, I'll pick them up later and do a catch-up post - unless the sky really does fall in.

Meanwhile, a good piece on American Thinker.

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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Googlegrid? - by Richard...

Last week we reported on the strange case of the disappearing Booker article on Google News and other search engine news sites. Nothing sinister at all we were told. The article simply grew too big in length to stay in Google News.

So why is it that the current article, which is just as long and has 173 comments (currently), is up on Google News ... and other search engines? Has Google changed its policy, alongside the other search engines. Or have they simply swapped the gates for a cattle grid?

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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Not just the e-mails - by Richard...

The code was just as important. We did know that, but two interesting pieces here and hereexplain (in part) what was going on - written by an IT specialist.

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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Dale rejected (again) - by Richard...

The Independent on Sunday notes that "A constant complaint of people who blog is that what they think is important is different from what is reported in the mass media." It continues:

"Climategate", the 1,000 or more emails and documents stolen by hackers from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and posted on the internet last month, already merits an incredible 30 million hits on Google, but only the occasional appearance in the newspapers or on television or radio. People who do not believe that human activity causes global warming regard those emails as very important.

Richard North, who writes a blog called EUReferendum, has done a calculation that shows there is one blogosphere obsession that is even more underreported. It is Tory blogger Iain Dale, who is mentioned 25,429 times on the blogs for every time his name appears in the mass media.

With that rebuke in mind, it is our sad task to report, belatedly, that Mr Dale was not shortlisted for the safe Tory seat of Beckenham. That's three Tory associations who could have had the nation's number one political blogger as their candidate, but chose not to. Surely this cannot go on.

We couldn't possibly comment, other than to remark that, of all the things we've written on EUREF, it should be this that gets in The Independent.

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A lack of trust - by Richard...

The [Climategate] scandal has shaken trust in researchers ahead of this week's Copenhagen summit, according to a poll for The Sunday Times.

YouGov asked more than 2,000 people whether they trusted scientists to tell the truth about climate change. The poll showed that 41 percent did so, while 44 percent did not.

Here are 13.7 million reasons why you should not.