MSM on the ropes? - by Richard... Friday, January 14, 2011

MSM on the ropes? - by Richard... Friday, January 14, 2011

England Expects has picked up the latest Press Gazette circulation figures for the MSM. The Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Times, Observer and Scotland on Sunday all posted average circulation figures more than 10 percent lower than the same month a year ago. Not a single title gained sales.

One is particularly taken with The Daily Telegraph figures. It does not seem that long ago when the daily circulation was just over the million. Now it comes in as 631,280 copies, a fall of 10.23 percent.

Two of the titles which come out best are The Mail on Sunday, on 1,951,783 and the Financial Times on 390,121 copies. Both have lost circulation, but only -2.43 and -2.67 percent, respectively. The relatively modest losses may reflect their strong commitment to news and "added value" in that department. Perhaps, if The Daily Telegraph and the other titles upped their game, they might see the rate in the decline of their sales arrested.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

A man-made disaster? - by Richard...

With the waters having peaked and now beginning to subside, and with the clean-up starting, there are now calls being made for a full-scale inquiry into the reasons for the Brisbane flood disaster. Initially, they have comes from the blog Regionalstates, which has been picked up and developed byJo Nova, with significant input from her readers' comments – demonstrating yet again the value of a properly organised comments section (or forum).

The attention falls on the management of the largest dam in the region, the Wivenhoe dam (pictured above). This was built in 1984, as a direct response to the 1974 record flooding which inundated much of Brisbane. And, at the time, premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen said the dam would mean the floods of 1974 would never happen again.

The current claim is that the water authority mismanaged the water flows from the dam, waiting until after last weekend, when the dam was near overflowing, before releasing water – thereby adding to the natural peaks. By this means, the flood, which the dam was designed to prevent, was actually caused by the dam managers, which would make it a man-made disaster.

Regionalstates is asserting that controlled releases of water from the dam over the weekend, before the volume in the dam had peaked and when there was only low level flooding in Brisbane, could have avoided the situation later in the week. By then, with flooding at a higher level, the dam was at risk of overflowing, forcing a massive release which added to the peak flows at just the wrong time.

However, it is not just bloggers who are making the running. Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman wants a judicial-style inquiry into the flood disaster, and appears to be gunning for the state premier, Anna Bligh. She may well be in the frame, because the roots of this disaster could go back to last spring. Local pundit Cameron Reilly points to her insistence on maintaining water conservation measures, even though dams were then at peak storage capacity.

As Brendan O'Neil remarks, the obsession with global warming may well, therefore, have contributed to the floods. In particular, it may have influenced decisions on water levels maintained in dams and release policies. Better planning, suggests Reilly, might have allowed the water company to keep less reserves in the dams in the lead up to summer, which would have meant smaller releases during this current crisis.

Given that, despite all this, the actual peak of the Brisbane River scraped in just under the 1974 peak - surprising most of the experts, as the general consensus for the previous few days had been that it would exceed the 1974 peak – there do seem to be strong grounds for a full inquiry as to the causes of the disaster.

COMMENT: GREEN CATASTROPHE THREAD

Share

Print ready

The faux election - by Richard...

If anyone is interested (and doesn't already know), Labour won the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. Now there's a surprise. Debbie Abrahams takes the seat with 14,718 votes (42 percent - up 10 points since the general election) on a turnout of 34,930 (48 percent). This gives the constituency a new MP on a mere 20 percent of the potential vote.

The Lib-Dims maintained their share of the vote, taking 11,160 (32 percent, up 0.32 points) and the vote for the Tories collapsed, the candidate Kashif Ali taking 4,481 (13 percent, down 14 points). The Labour majority is 3,558. Already, the party political wonks are dissecting the result, but it actually means very little, other than the sheeple are firm advocates of the performance standard set by Proverbs 26:11.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

In serious trouble - by Richard...

Spin it any which way you like, the ships involved in the Okhotsk Sea crisis are in serious trouble. From just one source, Ria Novosti, we get the news that the Krasin and the Admiral Makarov (pictured together) are continuing with their attempt to lead the Sodruzhestvo out of the ice. But what comes over, though, is how painfully (and dangerously) slow this has become.

Towing actually started on Wednesday afternoon and, despite optimistic forecasts, soon ground to a halt when towing ropes snapped. And, although the extraction resumed on Thursday morning, since the very start of the operation the two icebreakers and the factory ship have only covered 17 miles.

They now have another eight miles to reach the Bereg Nadezdy fish carrier, which had earlier been "parked" in what was then looser ice, pending extraction from the ice field.

But such have been the delays that, in the sub-zero temperatures which have dropped to -27°C at time, the ice field has extended and thickened, and it will be now a best part of 100 miles before the ships reach clear water. And in between, there is "a very difficult stretch of ice floe", according to the fisheries company spokeswoman, Tatyana Kulikova.

Once the Sodruzhestvo is reunited with the Bereg Nadezdy, the plan is for the icebreakers continue towing the factory ship, while the fish carrier will attempt to sail on its own along the channel cut in the ice by Admiral Makarov and Krasin.

This is not much of a plan, considering that, to get her this far, the Makarov had to resort to a close-coupled tow to extract the Bereg Nadezdy (pictured above). But, given the resources available, they really do not have much option. With the added complication of the Makarov being short of fuel and weather conditions in the area deteriorating rapidly, it is no exaggeration to say that this rescue attempt is in serious trouble.

On the plus side, the Russians are enormously skilled and experienced in ice navigation, and there seem to be enough helicopter assets in the area to effect an evacuation if need be, so the continued protestations that no lives are at risk is probably true. But whether either of the two commercial ships will ever get clear of the ice remains to be seen.

COMMENT: OKHOTSK SEA CRISIS

Share

Print ready

Questions may be asked - by Richard...

The two "most respected" national weather services in the US, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), agreed that 2010 tied with 2005 as the hottest since records began in 1880. So writes the tree-hugging Louise, in The Daily Telegraph, telling us that, overall, 2010 and 2005 were 1.12F (0.62C) above the 20th century average when taking a combination of land and water surface temperatures across the world.

That the fair Louise uses the words "most respected" is interesting. Most respected by whom, one wonders – especially when Hansen's GISS, masquerading as NASA, is an object of derision to the average "denier". This appears to be the classic reliance on the power of "prestige" to bolster a failing case.

Meanwhile, Bob Ward in The Guardian is asking why the UK media are ignoring "climate change announcements". Many commentators, it appears, would have liked to have given him an answer but, from the blizzard of deletions, it seems the moderators got there first. Questions may be asked, but answers are not permitted.

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD

Share

Print ready

A crack in the façade - by Richard...

We do not stray too often into discussing Afghanistan these days. This is not for lack of interest – simply, our views are known and there are only so many times and so many ways you can write: "get out".

But it is worth noting a piece in The Guardianwhich records a "scathing attack" from Britain's "former top diplomat in Afghanistan" on the conduct of UK military operations in the country.

This is Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who has accused the army of deploying "spurious" arguments, claiming that the war in Afghanistan gave the army a raison d'être it had lacked for years, and "resources on an unprecedented scale".

What is especially interesting is that Cowper-Coles, in taking on the Army, is also attacking the Dannatt legend, arguing that the real reason for the enthusiasm for the adventure back in 2006 was that, "In the eyes of the army, Afghanistan has also given our forces the chance to redeem themselves ... " in the wake of its dire performance in southern Iraq.

As to our initial deployment in Afghanistan, Cowper-Coles argues that Army dispositions were then dictated not by military logic (such things as defeating the "enemy") but to proof the Army against future defence cuts. Dannatt, he says, had told him in 2007 that, if he did not use the battle groups coming free from Iraq in Afghanistan, he would lose them in a future defence review.

Strategy in Helmand was thus driven as much by the level of resources available to the army as by "an objective assessment of the needs of a proper counter-insurgency campaign in the province". What Cowper-Coles calls the "supply-side strategy" was reflected in the policy of rotating entire brigades through Helmand every six months.

Recalling that time, when the attacks on the then government were sharp, and the narrative very much favoured the military Cowper-Coles offers some insight into what was going on. Ministers, he says, were reluctant to question military advice for fear of leaks to the press suggesting they were not supportive of the troops.

This, of course, reflected the culture of leaks within the military and the MoD, when senior civil servants and the military were briefing against their own ministers, supported by media defence correspondents and by the Conservative Party, who were happy to use the disarray as a stick with which to beat the government.

Distortions were manifest, with the RAF producing a paper arguing for Tornado bombers to be sent to Afghanistan, even when NATO "... made clear that the one category of weapons system [it] did not need more of was ground-attack jets."

And he says, the military blamed ministers unfairly for shortages of equipment in Helmand. Cowper-Coles asserts: "I cannot help remembering an RAF movements officer in Helmand showing me a pie chart of British helicopter movements in southern Afghanistan ... 27 percent of the helicopter movements were for moving VIPs around theatre. And most of those VIPs were senior military tourists from London."

I have my own sources which suggest that much of what Cowper-Coles asserts can be relied upon, despite strong rebuttals from Dannatt via the BBC.

The grouse, if there is one, is that this former diplomat was not more assertive at the time, when ministers and their advisors were struggling to make sense of the Afghan campaign, which was being comprehensively mismanaged by the military, and especially the Army.

The lesson for now, however, is to go back to the time and recall how the narrative emphasised that ministers should rely on the military "experts" for advice, when the Brass were in fact playing their own political games which had nothing whatsoever to do with conducting an effective counter-insurgency campaign.

We should remind ourselves of the bullshit we were then getting from the military and the bien pensants, and how very few people there were who were suggesting that the strategy was about as effective as a bag of bent nails.

And this is only one crack in the façade. As time goes on, more and more will emerge. Gradually we will gain a clearer picture of recent campaigns which will eventually be regarded as examples of military incompetence on a heroic scale.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

Pity poor Brazil - by Richard... Thursday, January 13, 2011

Without the wealth or the attention that Australia is getting, the scale of the human disaster from the floods is in fact far greater. Rescue workers are struggling to reach the areas cut off by devastating floods and landslides, with at least 375 people having been reported killed in what is being described as "one of Brazil's worst natural disasters in decades".

According to the Reuters report, torrents of mud and water set off by heavy rains have left a trail of destruction through the mountainous Serrana region near the city of Rio de Janeiro. Houses have been toppled and roads buckled, burying entire families as they slept.

"It's like an earthquake struck some areas," said Jorge Mario, the mayor of the Teresopolis municipal area, where at least 158 people died. "There are three or four neighborhoods that were totally destroyed in rural areas. There are hardly any houses standing there and all the roads and bridges are destroyed."

This is, of course, not the first time in recent history we have reported on floods in Brasil, most recently in July 2010 and before that in April 2010. Yet this was the region – like northern Australia – which was supposed to be stricken with drought, and is now suffering from torrential downpours.

In fact, as we were writing in March 2010, drought is the least of the country's problems, as la Nina-induced climate patterns currently dominate the region. But, even the walls of mud and water currently destroying lives and property are not as dangerous as the walls of ignorance erected by the warmists.

Weather we can deal with. Stupidly is an altogether different proposition.

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD

3Share

Print ready

Without benefit of human intellect - by Richard...

In The Scotsman today, we see an account of the odious Huhne attending upon the Scottish parliament's energy committee in Edinburgh, to which venue he did so egregiously travel by carbon-emitting aeroplane.

Thence, recalling his time as a financial journalist, did he regale the wastrels with his recollections of Alex Salmond, telling them: "That's when I first became acquainted with the expertise of one of Britain's best energy economists, now doubling up as the first minister".

In like manner – i.e., in a zone of existence not encumbered by the human intellect - we have Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change, who tells us:

I want the City of London to be the global capital of the new, fast-growing green-investment sector. That's why we set up the Capital Markets Climate Initiative – to dismantle the barriers to low-carbon growth and facilitate a new wave of green investment in emerging economies.

This, incidentally, is the same poltroon who was recently asked by Philip Davis for the latest estimate of fully implementing the Climate Change Act. Was there any advance on £400 billion?

Said Barker: "These are big figures and it is difficult to get one's head around them. No new data are available, but I remind my hon. Friend that the cost of not acting is far greater than the cost of prudent early action. Lord Stern estimated that the cost would be between 5 and 10 percent of GDP. Moreover, this is a huge opportunity for UK plc".

This is almost like an episode from the Twilight Zone. They are in this world, but not of it. We have a long way to go, and I suspect things will only start to improve when our politicians rejoin this planet.

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD