It is now Tuesday evening in the Okhotsk Sea area, well after the time when the crisis should have been over and all the ships extracted. Instead, the news is virtually the same as it was yesterday .
The Krasin (pictured) and the Admiral Makarov are still attempting to lead the Bereg Nadezhdy fish carrier out of the ice, the sole difference being that they are reported to be half way to freedom. Monitored by an Emergencies Ministry helicopter – which suggests, at least, that the storm conditions might have abated - this is painfully slow progress. But it is at least progress, if we are to believe what we are told.
The Western media are largely ignoring the operation, the latest being a barely informative report from the UPI agency, giving no hint of the underlying drama.
Should the Bereg Nadezhdy be safely extracted – and neither the Russian authorities nor their media now seem keen to speculated when - it will have taken the combined efforts of the region's two largest icebreakers to get a 13,000-ton ship to safety. (The largest, nuclear icebreakers, are of course, over in the West, their precise whereabouts unknown to us.)
The icebreakers on station will then have to plough back into the ice, which at this time of year – and at the prevailing temperatures, as low as -23°C - is expanding faster than a man can walk. They then have to pull out a 32,000-ton giant, in circumstances that have never been tried before, in an attempt to save over 340 crewmen.
If this is not a drama worth reporting, then nothing is, but then there are so many more important things to write about.
UPDATE: The Voice of Russia is reporting that the Bereg Nadezhdy has been towed "to a safe place" and that the rescue operation has "entered the final, most complicated stage" - the extraction of the Sodruzhestvo. The paper notes that "it is for the first time in the last few years that the Tatar Strait has frozen to the bottom ... the ice field is continuously enlarging. It was 25 miles wide only recently, while now the field's width makes up 45 miles".
Just another normal winter, it would seem, with global warming rampant.
COMMENT: OKHOTSK SEA CRISIS
Having abandoned his pledge to give us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Dave "Euroslime" Cameron has decided to give us a faux act of parliament which pretends to limit the further acquisition of powers by the EU, long after it has got most of the powers it needs.
Some of the Tory backbenchers, though, are entering into the spirit of things. Presented with a faux Bill, they are working on having a faux rebellion, led by that faux eurosceptic (who still thinks Britain should be in a "reformed" EU), Bill Cash.
The egregious Cash, whose ability to "bore for England" is reckoned to be able to clear the lobby of MPs faster than a fire alarm or an investigation into personal expenses, has tabled amendments to the Bill. This thereby ensures absolutely minimal support, as most MPs would rather poke their eyes out with blunt screwdrivers than support anything Cash put his weight behind.
This especially applies to Labour MPs. Although it was hoped that some might vote for the Cash amendments, Labour sources have dismissed that idea, saying: "We are not voting with the Tory Right". Instead, they will be voting for their party's own, weak as dishwater amendment, which is almost as meaningless as a Miliband speech.
So it is that Euroslime's Bill will get an easy passage through the House tomorrow. There will be some faux excitement from some faux journalists, and then it will all be over – treble gins all round and book a call to Barroso to tell him it's in the bag.
COMMENT THREAD
COMMENT: RUBBISH PIECE THREAD
Experience warns to be very careful when the BNP – or any political party – seeks to exploit a situation for propaganda purposes. But the idea of a candidate at a hustings, member of a lawful political party, being forcibly removed by the police at the behest of another candidate, is repugnant. And that is what appears to have happened here.
Outside, we are told, the police apologised to the candidate, Mr Derek Adams, saying that they "were just doing their job". One wonders whether any of the police involved were aware of the irony, and of the so-called "Nuremberg" defence?
But if this situation is as is presented, then it is an outrage, not least also the members of the audience who appear to have been shouting "out, out, out" when the police took their action, and the apparent quiescence of the other candidates, including the very visible Tory candidate.
UPDATE: Comments from the Saddleworth News. They make interesting reading.
COMMENT THREAD
And you and I, Mr and Mrs Taxpayers, will be paying the bills.
COMMENT THREADThe long shields are being taken out of the PSU stores and cleaned & checked all over Ruralshire for the 11th and 28th January. We are already planning the back-filling of duties for the MAST (Mutual Aid and Support Tactics....Public Order) trained officers. Has anyone else noticed shed-loads of MAST kit being checked in the backyard of their nick?
They know it ... we know it ... something is in the air. And the politicians sail on, oblivious, in thegated communities of their minds.
COMMENT THREAD
The worse it seems to get with the Okhotsk Sea crisis, the less information we seem to get. But the latest bulletin (already some hours old) tells us that the Krasin has begun a rescue operation to release the Bereg Nadezhdy fish carrier and the Admiral Makarov icebreaker.
This is almost "tar baby" territory, where one ship gets stuck, another goes into to get it, and it gets stuck as well, with another then sent in after it. Then we are offered stock photographs (above), bearing no relation to reality, showing cheery scenes of icebreakers leading ships through the ice – which is precisely not what is happening,
The agency TASS, as always, is trying to put a gloss on it, advising us that Bereg Nadezhdy will "possibly be freed by Tuesday morning", presumably relying in short memories. The Bereg Nadezhdy was supposed to be freed Saturday, and the Sodruzhestvo was going to be brought out today.
What now seems to be going on is that the Krasin has been cutting its way to the zone of loose ice. Earlier, both the Krasin and the Admiral Makarov had coupled to pull out the Bereg Nadezhdy (type pictured above), but they only managed to cover the distance of 1.5 miles. With the Krasin now leading, the Admiral Makarov has the fish carrier under tow. The convoy has to cover 35 to 40 miles to the zone of loose ice before it can get free, sailing at a speed of one to three knots.
There is still much talk of the difficulties in extracting the Sodruzhestvo, with its 28 metre beam, which makes one wonder whether the public is being prepared for eventual failure of the mission. The weather conditions are still described as "adverse", with high winds and with temperatures having fallen to -23°C.
One report has two Mi-8 helicopters monitoring the rescue effort from the air, which is interesting. These are medium-lift helicopters, carrying up to 34 passengers (more in an emergency) and are not the type equipping icebreakers – which will more usually have the smaller Mi-2 or the Kamov-32. The Mi-8s, therefore, might be on standby for an evacuation, with the Russians preparing for the worst.
There is also some question of whether the Makarov needs to refuel, which could add complications to an already complex situation, although - presumably - it can take off stocks fromSodruzhestvo, which is the support ship for the trawler fleet in the area and should, thus, have supplies available.
COMMENT: OKHOTSK SEA CRISIS
Virgin Atlantic has said it is not going to pay its Heathrow landing and parking charges due from 1 January, to the tune of about £10 million, until it sees the results of an internal inquiry into the disruption during the snow last month. "Because while we accept, and indeed we did, step up to our responsibilities to look after our customers, we feel they should [the airport operators] also feel some of that accountability," the airline says.
Steve Ridgway, Virgin's chief executive, says: "We want this inquiry to really focus on what happened and when the airport reasonably should have reopened and then we want compensation for all the costs we unnecessarily incurred after that".
"We're going to do that by holding back the fees we pay BAA and when the inquiry comes out we will happily sit down and work out what the right numbers are."
Needless to say, the leaden corporate response from BAA's owners absolutely typifies the problem: "Heathrow's conditions of use do not provide any basis for Virgin Atlantic or any other airline to withhold airport charges," it says.
This is in response to one of its largest clients. You can imagine the problems a human being might have dealing with this monolith. Corporates? All the same, part of the problem, and handmaidens to the government in their insensitivity and insolence.
COMMENT THREAD
Yesterday, in the Mail on Sunday I accused the political classes of living in a "gated community" – behind their barricades and machine-gun toting police. But what is perhaps as significant is the comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph authored by William Hague, on the faux EU referendum Bill. What made it stand out from the other comment pieces of the day was a simple omission – there was no comment facility. (For a critique of the piece, you'll need to go to Autonomous Mind. I can't bear to do it myself.)
On a parallel news piece, however, there were comments permitted. One read: "I don't believe William Hague exists, I think he's a conspiracy theory. No one could be that stupid could they?" But one of the most pointed simply said: "I notice the Hague piece has comments turned off. What a disgrace; I would have loved to have given this sell-out a piece of my mind. He is obviously a coward as well as a traitor and a liar."
That is as good as it gets. It serves to confirm that which we already knew. Communication with our politicians, and especially Conservative politicians, is a one-way street. They talk, we listen. That, at least, is the theory. They are very slow in learning that, if it is not two-way, then it is nothing. People are in no mood to be lectured by those they despise.
Therein lies a serious problem. The politicians have not only retreated physically but spiritually. We are seeing gated communities and gated minds. And if the politicians don't yet realise how dangerous this is, they will soon enough find out.
COMMENT: RUBBISH PIECE THREAD
Autonomous Mind has read my Mail on Sunday piece and takes it further. He draws the obvious conclusions. Raedwald also has some very interesting comments and his commentator makes a valid point or two. I really smiled at Ockham's Razor, and enjoyed hugely Wittering from Witney.
It is always interesting to see who links to you on these occasions ... and who doesn't - that tells its own tale. To get an op-ed in the Mail on Sunday is a significant event, and the paper has given it good exposure, with also a link on the front page of the website. Some bloggers, who might have been expected to have crawled all over a piece covering the issues I raise, are strangely silent. You don't have to be a genius to work out why ... or why so few seem to be linking to Booker's piece. But there is something rather "precious" and pathetically small-minded there.
Me, I was going to do a review on Hague's piece in The Sunday Telegraph, but reading it induces a sort of torpor that prevents any further action. There is nothing Hague or any Conservative politician can say to me, to which I actually want to listen.
So, what do we want from our political institutions? Well, I wrote the answer in July 2005. And note ... I am referring to the institutions. They have served their purpose. We need to move on.
COMMENT: RUBBISH PIECE THREAD
The rescue operation to free Russian ships trapped in the ice in the Sea of Okhotsk has been delayed due to bad weather conditions. It looks as if they haven't even got the Bereg Nadezhdyout. Why am I not in the least surprised?
Things are becoming serious amid the stormy wind, near-zero visibility and strong ice pressure, the Russian Ministry of Transport says. The icebreaker Krasin, which is sailing at full speed to assist the icebreaker Admiral Makarov, is expected to arrive at the site later today.
Earlier, TASS was saying that the Krasin had arrived in the Okhotsk Sea and was making its way through the ice fields of the Sakhalin Gulf in a bid to reach the Admiral Makarov. The Makarov was said to be towing the Bereg Nadezhdy (Shore of Hope) to clear waters, and the Krasin was just 9 miles short of that convoy.
That seems to have been rather over-optimistic reporting - something which TASS is prone to do. But with this agency now reporting delays in the operation, things must be very serious indeed.
COMMENT: OKHOTSK SEA CRISIS
Modesty does not permit me to pass comment on this piece but you might note the author and decide it is worth a quick visit over to the Mail on Sunday site to read the whole thing.
Nevertheless, there is praise indeed (above).
COMMENT THREAD
The Booker column was up quite early yesterday (Saturday) evening. Readers might recognise the picture and some of the details in the text. But, within minutes, the trolls were at work, the gratuitous insults flowing – using the classic "flaming" technique which seeks to take the thread off topic and destroy any chance of a reasoned discussion. Last week, the column reached over 2,500 comment entries, mostly on counter-troll activity.
With the Guardian moderators on Comment is Free (or Komment Macht Frei, as Dellers puts it) becoming increasingly severe in excising dissenting comment, the internet is fast turning into a battlefield where the intolerant hold sway. By contrast, our little forum is a haven of civilisation.
Anyhow, the basic thrust of the Booker column this week is to contrast the certainty with which the Met Office argues that the world is heating, against the reality, out in the world.
This is why the Okhotsk Sea incident is so important. Check the internet and you will see a considerable number of papers discussing ice formation in this region, and the impact of global warming – more than enough to justify the claim that this has become a "poster child" for the warmists.
That two large ships and a fisheries research vessel should have been caught out, and locked in the ice, suggests that the conditions, if not unprecedented, were certainly more serious than expected. They do, therefore, seriously undermine the Met Office case that the cooling in the UK and Europe has been a local event.
Booker, however, is now the only MSM journalist to make such a point, his originality and focus contributing to the keen interest in his column, keeping it high in the "most viewed" list for the newspaper.
For this blog as well, readership always goes up when we have a run of global warming stories – and declines when we focus on our core issue, the European Union. But, for those (some ex-) readers who write in to complain about the lack of coverage on EU issues, it should be recalled that "climate change" is fundamental to the EU. Defeat the warmists and the EU is also damaged.
This is where there is a certain lack of vision and understanding. As we pointed out in the previous piece , the traditional, jaded eurosceptic has long since had any direct public appeal – and even then, it was never a winning message. To plug on with the same message, therefore, seems to me not to be the best of strategies.
However, while there are good grounds for defeating the warmists, on the basis that the global warming obsession is harmful, the anti-EU dimension gives added value, especially as so many Europhiles are also committed warmists.
Thus, even if it is an indirect approach (which in war is often more successful, and certainly less costly than the frontal assault), the story of the Okhotsk Sea crisis, and the attack on the warmists, is as much part of the battle as taking on the euroslime directly. We will continue to do both, as will Booker, but from time to time, the emphasis and focus will vary, depending on what is going on in the world.
COMMENT THREAD
Another thing I also get a little bit tired of is being branded the "bad sod", the one who is always out on his own, who can't join in and put his weight behind the common cause.
That much has been put to me about the Referendum Campaign and also the anti-EU campaign in the Daily Express, which has culminated in the publication today of a 23-page booklet, telling us that we must, "Get Britain out of the EU".
It is not, of course, that we do not agree with the sentiment, but the front cover tells you everything you need to know about the eurosceptic thinking in this country. Redolent of the famous 1940 Low cartoon (inset below), it has the trademark Express crusader standing on the cliffs of Dover, looking out toward the Continent – where (by inference) the "enemy" exist.
And here the "cracked record" comes in. The EU is not a foreign construct imposed on us. Our government is an enthusiastic part of the EU nexus and the only reason we are in the EU is because Parliament permits it. It is not looking over the Channel to the Continent that our brave crusader needs to be doing. He needs to be looking inwards, tearing down the gates of Westminster. The enemy is within.
That said, if there was any doubt that the Express had lodged itself in the last century, we just need to read the offering from editor Peter Hill, where the tone – and content – would be familiar to anyone who had attended UKIP meetings ... of the '90s.
All the buzz-words are there, "sovereignty", the mandatory reference to "Napoleon" and "Hitler", the "wine and milk lakes" and the "butter and grain mountains", not forgetting, of course, the swipe at the "superstate".
I have written too many pieces on this blog about the fate of euroscepticism to want to repeat them, but in the forty years, on an off, that I've been fighting the EU, I would like to think I've learnt a thing or two about the enemy, and how to fight it.
Mr Peter Hill of the Express, however, doesn't appear to have learnt a thing, and the eurosceptic movement is a moribund as ever if that is the best it has to offer. In that sense, the movement itself is the cracked record, endless repeating the same tired, jaded message, while the world carries out without it.
We have to be capable of doing better than that and, until we can, I want no part of it.