We think we have problems, so it is quite instructive to read this in the St. Petersburg Times:
And then we have Manchester Police covering themselves in glory again. Says Chief Superintendent Rebekah Sutcliffe: "All reports of gunshots are taken very seriously and because of the potential threat to people's lives we have to take swift and appropriate action to deal with these very serious risks". Where do they get these people? Is there a special planet we don't know about?
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Artist Oleg Vorotnikov was recently released after spending several months in custody. In September he and other members of the non-conformist art group Voina, or War, overturned several police cars in a highly visible protest in St. Petersburg over a bill to reform the police that they have branded a sham.Come to think of it, it's not a whole lot different from trying to make a complaint to West Yorkshire's finest. At least they are not as thick as the London Plod though – fitting up a "client" while wired for sound. You don't actually know which to be more worried about.
After his arrest, some of Vorotnikov's possessions were impounded by the police. After his eventual release, he filed a formal request at the police station for the return of his items. It did not cut much ice with the officers. "The police officers tore up my letter in front of me", Vorotnikov said. "And then the boss said that he would piss over what I had in my hands if I didn't shut up and stop demanding my stuff".
And then we have Manchester Police covering themselves in glory again. Says Chief Superintendent Rebekah Sutcliffe: "All reports of gunshots are taken very seriously and because of the potential threat to people's lives we have to take swift and appropriate action to deal with these very serious risks". Where do they get these people? Is there a special planet we don't know about?
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Now that it is snowing heavily in northeastern Japan, why are the warmists not blaming global warming? After all, since it caused the original earthquake – and global warming caused all the storms in Europe and the UK - surely they can bring themselves to dump the blame for the snow on their favourite obsession.
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It is rather appropriate that a newspaper that has become known to its former friends as The Daily Failygraph should give space to Mark Seddon to enunciate his failed ideas. Nevertheless, it is marginally interesting to see the author of his own inadequacies actually spell them out, which we see when Seddon offers us what he believes to be the USP of his meal ticket:
This new campaign breaks with tradition because it comes primarily from the Left, includes Labour MPs such as John Cryer and Kelvin Hopkins, trade unionists and Greens, such as Jenny Jones, the party's candidate for London Mayor. Authors and writers – Fay Weldon, John King and Virginia Ironside – have come on board as well. Of course, many of our supporters want a referendum in order to vote "no" to continued EU membership, while others, such as Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, and Keith Vaz, the former Europe minister, are enthusiasts for the European Union – but agree that there should be a referendum.One could ask why one should begin to think that having these people on board is an inducement to join a campaign, but what really blows Seddon out of the water is his bland assertion that, "A Europe-wide free trade area has become a sprawling political union, drawing huge economic and social power to its centre ... ".
In discussing something that is not and never has been a "free trade area", that always was a customs union, and always intended to be a political union, this man is showing that he does not have the first idea of what he is talking about, and has never bothered to learn.
What saddens is the fact that the Failygraph prints such tosh, but then that is why it has become the Failygraph. One would like to think that, in days or yore, wise and knowledgeable sub-editors would have picked up these sorts of error – although I suspect I would have been disappointed.
However, Seddon has basically shot his bolt. Short of starting yet another campaign, he hasn't much more to offer – and certainly, on current form, has nothing to offer the Eurosceptic cause. This is a man who, in a debate, would be an embarrassment, although that probably assures him a long and profitable association with the BBC.
But then, if this is truly a man running an organisation whose website crashes on 20,000 hits in 48 hours (and is proud of it), then a truly glittering career awaits him in government service. He is wasted on mere Euroscepticism and it would be a shame to hold him back.
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Despite all the little warmist wuzzies hyperventilating about ice extent, this is beginning to look as if it is the year of the icebreaker. We've had the Okhotsk Sea, then the Baltic and now St. Petersburgat the eastern end of the sea.
From there we get reports that icebreakers have been called in to free dozens of ships that have become trapped in ice in the Gulf of Finland. At least 97 ships were still waiting for help as of Tuesday, although this is down from 160 ships two days previously.
The eastern Gulf of Finland has not seen such thick ice since 1992, according to the Federal of Sea and River Transportation Agency. In some places the ice is more than three feet thick. The strength of the pressure exerted by the ice is measured at three points — a serious threat for the exteriors of the vessels, so we are not talking about a jolly little rest cure here. Think bent metal, big 'oles and bubbles.
The icy conditions also have significant economic impact, which is making shipping operators wish rather fervently for
Most of the trapped ships are cargo vessels, but some are passenger ferries. Many have been trapped for a several days. Among the ships freed over the weekend was a ferry that had been stuck for six days with 12 people on board, including a pregnant woman. The ferry runs between a port near St. Petersburg and the Kaliningrad region.
The Princess Maria ferry running between St. Petersburg and the Finnish capital, Helsinki, has been suspended since 9 March, but was due to resume its operation on Wednesday.
The federal agency says that ten icebreakers, including the nuclear-powered Vaigach based in Murmansk, were leading the ships to open water in caravans. Andrei Kovalyov of Rosmorport, a state company overseeing seaports, said passenger ferries and ships with hazardous cargo were being given priority. He says the situation could improve within three weeks if weather conditions were favourable.
Given this sudden rush of global warming, for those who might be considering their long-term future and looking for a stable career, with prospects, at the moment "icebreaker crew" looks extremely promising (although you might find it difficult to convince people you were serious if you said you worked on the Mudyug - icebreaker pictured, top). Ice fishing (pictured) also looks good.
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This haunting tale Takata, a town that failed to heed the lessons of history:
"From the top floor we watched everything get swallowed," 73-year-old Tsuyoshi Kinno said. "People relied too much on the order and bureaucracy. They became too obedient. In the olden times they would have just got straight to the mountains, to higher ground."And there, on 9 March, I wrote:
... if you rely on government, its neglect may kill you, and having done so it will lie and deceive to obscure its actions and its responsibility for them. Salvation lies not in government but in making government conform to the wishes and needs of the people. Government is a poor master. But it can be an adequate servant, if forced to be so.Self reliance, healthy scepticism, a good understanding of history, and a strong-dose of bloody-mindedness – are the essential survival traits in this world. We need a system – which we are now going to have to devise – which enables us to make government do what we want, and not the other way around.
Are we therefore talking about "realism" for our new "ism" – perhaps "newrealism" (one word)? Do we need to play with the word - such as turn it into "nurelism"?
Whatever we call it, this would have as its basic philosophy a rejection of the modern fantasy that government is a force for good, treating it as a necessary evil which must be constrained and tamed: our country; our government; our decisions - ours, not yours.
And there's our slogan: "ours, not yours".
COMMENT: NEW "ISM" THREAD
Even before the violence in Libya cut gas supply to Europe, and the closure of several nuclear power plants in Japan drove up UK energy prices, UK suppliers had already raised their tariffs blaming rises in wholesale costs since early 2010. This was already set to cost us about £63 more, on average, this year.
But further increases in wholesale prices - with gas for summer delivery up 17 percent and the equivalent power price up 11 percent from the start of 2011 - together with the high cost of bringing more low-carbon technologies into the UK mix, are likely to filter through to cash-strapped British consumer customer bills in a few months.
The interesting thing though is that the soubriquet "cash-strapped" is not mere polemics. According to The Daily Mail, around twenty percent of British households are in debt to their energy supplier. Consumers collectively owe a massive £624 million to electricity and gas companies. The average amount of debt now stands at £126 per household, a lower figure than last year but still 10.5 percent higher than in 2008, when the average debt stood at £114.
Mind you, putting the global figure in perspective, it would appear that punters are queuing up to pay £500 million for Olympics tickets – if they could get the payment system to work ... and the countdown clock, which also seems to have ground to a halt.
That is not to say that the people who are apparently having trouble settling their energy bills are the same who are going to be buying tickets, but it does indicate that there is a certain amount of gash money in the economy.
Nevertheless, the people who are really going to be caught out are the politicians. Having been confident that they could top-load energy bills to pay for their carbon fantasies, they will find energy prices already increasing to unacceptable levels, without their imposts. Carbon-free mania is looking unaffordable, so the politicos are going to have to rein in the greenies - and their own ambitions.
When we first heard the news of the Japanese earthquake coming in, little did we expect such widespread consequences. And the ripples have by no means begun to abate. In fact, the stresses are beginning to multiply.
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This is a few days old now, but it has haunted my thoughts ever since. There is an undeniable majority who now favour a referendum on our continued membership of the EU. When confronted with the facts, the political classes mock, they howl with laughter and they jeer. These smug, self-satisfied vermin are so assured in themselves, that they know what is best for us, that they can dismiss out of hand the one thing that broadly unites British opinion. Their contempt for you is total.
Perhaps the only thing that is as detestable, is that this is the best that Euroscepticism, for all the millions of pounds and countless man hours it has consumed, has to offer; A doddering old fool making light of the greatest betrayal we have ever known, standing to be ridiculed in the House of Commons.
And yet today, Facebook is all atwitter and Twitter is all afacebook about yet another intellectually empty campaign. With it comes the ongoing tribal spats between factions, as to whose worthless petition is more deserving of the dwindling limelight, failing to notice that if a major national newspaper does not get their attention, then nothing conventional or peaceful will.
If ever you needed evidence that democracy is dead, then what you have just witnessed is it. That is their verdict on you, your opinions, surveys and petitions. They have passed judgement on us and now we must return the favour in kind. If they will not listen then we must make them. It is the view of this blog that they do this because they do not fear us. It is time that changed. We must now make sure they do not sleep soundly.
COMMENT: NEW "ISM" THREAD
A photo album of nearly 100 photographs on Facebook. Many you will have seen before ... some are new - especially these here.
And is the nuclear crisis over?
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And is the nuclear crisis over?
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After this, we get this:
Police rushed a pair of officers in a marked car to a park after two young sisters were spotted picking daffodils. Sienna Marengo, four, was seen picking flowers with six-year-old stepsister Olivia in Poole, Dorset. A member of the public reported them to police and two constables attended and advised the girls' mother, Jane Errington, that she and her partner, Marc Marengo, could be arrested for criminal damage.We will all now sleep that much easier in our beds, now that we know that Dorset police are on the case. Funny thing is, when I was a kid, we used to have park keepers, who stopped us picking the flowers. Such is progress that we now get two uniformed plods in a patrol car. And the plods tell us they are short of money?
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The response to latest make-work scheme for redundant campaigners seems, from the poll response (illustrated above), to be one of less than total enthusiasm.
One never ceases to wonder, however, at how easy it is to milk the Eursoceptic community with one faux campaign after another, often with the seductive cry of: "better to do something than nothing". There are far too many people thinking with their backsides instead of their brains. When you get the Speccitwats and a failing newspaper in it together, it is time step back and ask what is going on.
Interestingly, I quoted J B Priestley quite recently ("Out of the People", 1941), on the issues of activism and strategy. He wrote:
We often hear people cry: "Never mind all this writing and talking, get on and do something." The answer to that is, that at the stage at which most people in the country have arrived, writing for them and talking at them is the best kind of action. It is a change of ideas and mental attitudes they primarily need.That is especially true now – what we need is a "change of ideas and mental attitudes". The reason we got into the Common Market in the first place was because people were attracted by the idea ... not the practicalities ... they had no notion of what those entailed. The way we get out is to reverse the process. We have to devise an alternative idea, a "vision" of a Britain of the future. You think of a Britain as you want it to be, a Britain that you believe would be attractive to the majority, and which is achievable.
Then you "sell" that vision. When and if it comes to an EU referendum, all you then have to do is point out that the vision is not achievable as long as we are members of the EU. In that context, instead of leaving the EU being seen as a leap into the dark, it is seen as a barrier preventing us from reaching the light. That is a winnable position.
One of our commenters got the point:
Our eventual withdrawal from the EU must come about as a natural consequence of a new national way of thinking ... a new 'ism'. Which will have gained such purchase within the hearts and minds of the nation, that continued EU membership becomes untenable simply because it is at odds with that new thinking. Withdrawal won't even require a referendum ... it'll just happen as a matter of course.My point, which very much reflects what is said above, is that the battle is won or lost in the preparation: think Monty and el Alamein. The battle was won before the first shot was fired. This is the position we must be in. If they lose the battle, they lose the battle ... if we lose the battle, we lose the war.
Cranmer gives it a fair outing, and offers far more thought that that idiot Myrtle, but his conclusion that it is "all we've got" simply doesn't wash. Futile gestures are still futile gestures, however they are dressed up.
If we lose a referendum, Euroscepticism is wiped out for a generation. There is too much at stake here, for us to be playing games, or allowing the agenda to be taken over by lightweights who are only after a meal ticket. Just for a complete change, let's stop being professional losers and instead consider a winning strategy. In two or three years, we could be there.
COMMENT: NEW "ISM" THREAD
The old charlatan Rajendra Pachauri is getting his pension fund TERI to buy a super-computer to do climate modelling. "Climate modelling at TERI envisions addressing key environmental challenges from global to local levels, by providing plausible scientific knowledge on climate change issues," says Rajendra.
Forget exploding nuclear plants ... this is really serious. Once this man gets his hands on a working computer model, we're domed.
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Forget exploding nuclear plants ... this is really serious. Once this man gets his hands on a working computer model, we're domed.
COMMENT THREAD
For the first time ever, more people said they got their news from the internet than a physical newspaper last year. This is according to a study from the Pew Research Center, reported in theLos Angeles Times, with the added detail that the only platform to beat the web in terms of audience was TV.
The caution here is that this applies to American adults, and may not apply to the UK. However, it does show the direction of travel, reinforcing earlier studies. And, while most of the traffic goes to the websites of traditional news providers, our own experience shows that blogs too are increasing their share of the readership.
This has the makings of a game changer. Politicians have always assumed that the MSM is the primary disseminator of news and opinion, while also assuming that, if they stay abreast of MSM content, they are in touch with the issues in front of the population.
With far more news providers on the block, and with an increasingly fragmented agenda, those comfortable assumptions no longer apply. And nor does the parallel assumption that the MSM is setting the agenda. The paradigm is changing – and with it the balance of power.
Where this all ends up is anyone's guess, but it is reasonable even now to suggest that things are never going to be the same again.
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A long time ago, I got the job of writing the regular farming column in Private Eye calledMuckspreader. It was my first regular journalistic job and, while I had plenty of experience of writing, it was quite another thing keeping up a regular flow of original stories for a national magazine.
For advice on how to handle this, I turned to the first editor of Private Eye, my then partner in crime, a man better known as Christopher Booker. Amongst the tips he gave me was that, by taking two different stories already in the public domain, bringing them together, either to make or reinforce a point, could itself qualify as a genuine, original piece of work.
Now to disclose the stories, in the first we see a pensioner was slapped with a £50 fine as she mourned by her father’s grave – because she came with the family dog. Val Brogan, 65, was tending the resting place of her late dad James Eyres when she was approached by two police community support officers.
Val – who was with her daughter, Nicola Erlan, and Nicola's cocker spaniel, Bailey – was told the cemetery had a strict no-dogs policy and slapped with the on-the-spot fine, despite her tearful protests. The fine has now increased to £80 because she has not paid immediately.
What is especially chilling is the leaden response from Manchester Police, who are responsible for this piece of inspired community relations. They have defended the action at St Joseph's Cemetery in Moston, saying "they were only following council orders".
And now for the contrast ... we have Emdadur Choudhury, who milks British taxpayers for benefits which include a free council flat in Bethnal Green and almost £800 a month state handouts, who last week "laughed at justice" as he was handed a paltry £50 fine for setting light to poppies on Remembrance Day and yelling "British soldiers burn in hell".
Further comment is largely unnecessary, other than to wonder at what precisely was going through what passes for the brain of District Judge Howard Riddle, the man who made the decision to impose the fine on Choudhury. Perhaps he should have some quiet discussions with the plastic police in Manchester.
We will permit ourselves the observation though, that any society which permits this contrast – and whose officials and elected representatives do not actively seek to remedy the matter – are party to terminal decay. But just to rub this in, we have another contrast – the fate of Pex, again highlighted by Booker, compared with the treatment of Emdadur Choudhury.
One could start getting seriously angry here.
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Something the Daily Mail site does extraordinarily well. The first image is especially haunting. Meanwhile, Dellers is taking on the nuclear issue, with his customary verve. The picture of the mutant pony is terrifying.
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