Delusion bites back - by Richard... Sunday, June 12, 2011

Delusion bites back - by Richard... Sunday, June 12, 2011

The "grim official assessment" of the capabilities of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), says The Independent on Sunday is "a major blow" to the hopes of a troop withdrawal by 2014.

The fiction, of course, is that the ANSF will be able to start taking the lead in fighting the Taliban from next month. The commander of Nato's mission to train the ANSF has admitted the task will not be complete until at least 2016 – although that is almost certainly another fiction.

And this comes after a decade in which tens of billions of dollars have been spent building up the Afghan army and police. Then, when you have a policy based almost entirely on delusion, occasionally it will bite back.

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The story continues - by Richard...

An unremarkable piece of news, you might think, even if it is interesting enough in its own right. But it takes on an extra special significance when you recall one of the BBC's earlier efforts, published in January 2007, warning that the snow on the summit was going to disappear forever due to global warming.

But there was a lot of global warning scaremongering about that year, with the local paper pitching in, as the local assembly environment minister attended an exhibition showing photographs ten years apart, purporting to show a progressive decline in snow cover - despite reports of heavy snow in the winter of 2001.

In fact, though, they'd been at it for some years, witness this 2004 report by Richard Savill in theFailygraph, giving us the same message - the "snow" in Snowdon was on its way to oblivion.

Of course, early 2008, it had all changed, with late snow on the mountain, Picked up also by Booker, and by early 2009 the egregious Savill was having to report the unfortunate incident below.

By late November we were seeing early snows, after earlier complaints of 70 days lost to snow and bad weather, in constructing the new peak-top café. Then, as Booker informed us, we had snow over the winter of 2010, and it was "waist high" in snow in the December. Now we have snow in June. And in Yorkshire yesterday - and today - we had the central heating on.

Terrible stuff, this "global warming" - it puts a special substance in the air (or water - no one really knows which), that turns journalists, politicians and many scientists into complete and utter fools.

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By special request - by Richard... Saturday, June 11, 2011

101 ways of getting rid of subsidy farms ... No. 2. Or, if you prefer, you can have the variation below:

Then, there's one for the Brown Jobs ...

And we mustn't forget the offshore subsidy farms ... good job we still have a Navy:

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Another day, another promise - by Richard...

... bites the dust. The government is to abandon its plan to make councils restore weekly bin collections. It concedes that it would be too expensive and would reduce recycling. Ministers will announce instead support for weekly collections of food waste, with millions…

That from the paywall Times, and many others. Not quite the same league as the EU referendum, but typical of our political classes – who say one thing in opposition – or in this case, on assuming office - and do another when their armoured ministerial limousines have been delivered - without, of course, telling us the real reason.

And they wonder why so many of us have nothing but contempt for them? Or do they even give a damn?

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The wheels groan on my wagon - by Richard...

"Why vote blue, go green doesn't sound quite so clever any more", is the headline under which the Great Charles Moore writes in the Failygraph today, telling us, "It is time for Britain to walk away from its ridiculously stringent renewable energy plan". I do love the smell of a bandwagon in the morning ... and it is so good to see the great and the good catching up, at last.

But the truth is, it never did sound clever to "vote blue, go green", and it was five years ago that we should have been talking about walking away from the ridiculously stringent renewable energy plan, instead of sucking up to the "green tosser", as so many, so aptly, call the Boy Cameron.

Still, I suppose it's better late than never – and this is what it needs to get the political worm turning. But permit me a wry smile, as the latest Johnny-come-lately comes piling onto the bandwagon. You can already hear the wheels groaning under the unaccustomed weight.

Perhaps, though, the writing is on the wall, as Rosehall residents in Sutherland have had enough of the industrialisation of their neighbourhood and have prevailed on the Highland Council to shut down the 23-turbine farm owned by Scottish and Southern Electricity – on noise grounds. The real noise is beginning to achieve what the "big noises" can only dream of.

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What did they expect? - by Richard...

If you launch a scheme which is economically illiterate, culturally inept and politically obtuse, there is a fairly good chance that it is going to fail. This is entirely predictable, it was predicted andthoroughly analysed, and still our rulers persevere with their stupidity.

But because they are our rulers, they know everything. They do not acknowledge that they can make mistakes (it is always someone else's fault), and do not have to pay for the consequences of their actions. Thus, they not only never learn, they are incapable of learning.

This seems to be something of a theme, which tends to alter your perspective on what to do with our corrupt and useless government. Certainly, expecting it to change voluntarily is a complete waste of time.

In the meantime, our idiot military brass and their political leaders will continue to make fools of themselves, wasting our money into the bargain, while the "primitive" Afghanis run rings round them. Just maybe, they have more to teach us than we have to teach them.

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