Professor Michael Hambrey, who recently received the Polar Medal from the Queen for his research on glaciers, thinks that it is "clompletely legitimate" for the BBC to have faked scenes in "Frozen Planet":
“Natural history programmes are there to tell a story, and that is what Frozen Planet has done, showing the viewer animal behaviour that we already know exists in the wild. It is perfectly logical to do that by filming the behaviour in a zoo so I think what the BBC have done is completely legitimate.”
The same professor also predicts that Wales can expect extreme winter conditions to become more common:
But he said the public should not confuse weather patterns with climate change.
“In this country, according to the Met Office at least, the long-term projections to climate are that we will see overall global warming,” he said.
“With that we are expected to see more extreme periods of weather within our seasons. That is the distinction that needs to be made between weather and climate, while the earth is warming our weather will create more extreme events like cold spells or heavy rain within the four seasons.
“So we could see more extreme winters becoming the norm but, having said that, our last two cold winters really came from weather atmospheres that simply happened to come our way.”
Read the entire article here
Professor Hambrey clearly belongs to the group of warmist scientists, who "are there to tell a story". The world will see global warming, "according to the Met Office at least", and that means that even a coming ice age would be clear proof for global warming. Medal winning science is that easy.
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Friday, 16 December 2011
Furedi on the chattering classes´ hysterical reaction to Cameron´s veto
Another great piece of analytical writing from my favourite acedemic, professor Frank Furedi:
Exposed: the snobbery and intolerance of the EU elite
The chattering classes’ hysterical reaction to David Cameron’s veto of a revised Lisbon Treaty reveals the dark heart of pro-EU sentiment.
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Outwardly, the anger of the cosmopolitan clerisy is directed at Cameron’s alleged appeasement of Tory Eurosceptics. The term Eurosceptic has a special meaning for the adherents to cosmopolitan policymaking. In their view, Euroscepticism is associated with values they abhor: upholding national sovereignty, Britishness and a traditional way of life. The moralistic devaluation of these values was vividly communicated by the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, who this week characterised Tory Eurosceptics as the ‘pinstriped effluence of an ex-imperial nation’. He seeks to dehumanise these people by arguing that this ‘specimen’s ascendancy’ was reflected in Cameron’s behaviour during the treaty negotiations. Cohen’s moral devaluation of Eurosceptics, his dismissal of them from the ranks of humanity, is captured in his description of them as a ‘bunch of insular snobs who seem to have a hard time restraining their inner fascist’.
The intemperate language suggests that the venomous anger directed at Eurosceptics cannot simply be driven by the clerisy’s love affair with the European ideal. Rather, what is at issue here is the clerisy’s preference for the technocracy-dominated and cosmopolitan-influenced institutions of Brussels. From their standpoint, the main virtue of the EU is that its leaders and administrators speak the same language as the UK clerisy. They read from the same emotional and cultural script, which they believe to be superior to the script and values associated with national sovereignty. That is why it isn’t surprising that a BBC journalist can casually ask the Estonian prime minister to have a go at her own national leader. The UK-based communications clerisy has a greater affinity with the outlook of EU technocrats and political administrators than it does with the outlook of its own people.
Of course, Cameron may be isolated in the corridors of power in Brussels - but the clerisy is more than a little out of touch with popular sentiments in Britain. Indeed, their visceral castigation of Eurosceptics is actually a roundabout way of morally condemning what the old oligarchy used to call ‘the little people’. The main sin of Euroscepticism is that it has the potential for mobilising popular sentiment. And certainly, the anger of the cosmopolitan elite does not resonate with people getting on with their lives in Birmingham, Newcastle or Leeds. Those who want to expose the heinous Eurosceptic plot to undermine the EU should remember that opinion polls demonstrate that the majority of the UK electorate does not like the EU, and when the Mail on Sunday carried out a poll asking ‘was Cameron right to use the veto?’, 62 per cent of respondents said ‘yes’.
Read the entire article here
Exposed: the snobbery and intolerance of the EU elite
The chattering classes’ hysterical reaction to David Cameron’s veto of a revised Lisbon Treaty reveals the dark heart of pro-EU sentiment.
--
Outwardly, the anger of the cosmopolitan clerisy is directed at Cameron’s alleged appeasement of Tory Eurosceptics. The term Eurosceptic has a special meaning for the adherents to cosmopolitan policymaking. In their view, Euroscepticism is associated with values they abhor: upholding national sovereignty, Britishness and a traditional way of life. The moralistic devaluation of these values was vividly communicated by the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, who this week characterised Tory Eurosceptics as the ‘pinstriped effluence of an ex-imperial nation’. He seeks to dehumanise these people by arguing that this ‘specimen’s ascendancy’ was reflected in Cameron’s behaviour during the treaty negotiations. Cohen’s moral devaluation of Eurosceptics, his dismissal of them from the ranks of humanity, is captured in his description of them as a ‘bunch of insular snobs who seem to have a hard time restraining their inner fascist’.
The intemperate language suggests that the venomous anger directed at Eurosceptics cannot simply be driven by the clerisy’s love affair with the European ideal. Rather, what is at issue here is the clerisy’s preference for the technocracy-dominated and cosmopolitan-influenced institutions of Brussels. From their standpoint, the main virtue of the EU is that its leaders and administrators speak the same language as the UK clerisy. They read from the same emotional and cultural script, which they believe to be superior to the script and values associated with national sovereignty. That is why it isn’t surprising that a BBC journalist can casually ask the Estonian prime minister to have a go at her own national leader. The UK-based communications clerisy has a greater affinity with the outlook of EU technocrats and political administrators than it does with the outlook of its own people.
Of course, Cameron may be isolated in the corridors of power in Brussels - but the clerisy is more than a little out of touch with popular sentiments in Britain. Indeed, their visceral castigation of Eurosceptics is actually a roundabout way of morally condemning what the old oligarchy used to call ‘the little people’. The main sin of Euroscepticism is that it has the potential for mobilising popular sentiment. And certainly, the anger of the cosmopolitan elite does not resonate with people getting on with their lives in Birmingham, Newcastle or Leeds. Those who want to expose the heinous Eurosceptic plot to undermine the EU should remember that opinion polls demonstrate that the majority of the UK electorate does not like the EU, and when the Mail on Sunday carried out a poll asking ‘was Cameron right to use the veto?’, 62 per cent of respondents said ‘yes’.
Read the entire article here
Putin and condoms
Vladimir Putin has made fun of the country´s democratic opposition´s sign of solidarity, a white ribbon:
Vladimir Putin has made fun of the country´s democratic opposition´s sign of solidarity, a white ribbon:
“Frankly, when I looked at the television screen and saw something hanging from someone's chest, honestly, it's indecent, but I decided that it was propaganda to fight Aids – that they were wearing, pardon me, a condom,"
Frankly, when one looks at and listens to this thug masquerading as a statesman, another object, usually closely connected with condoms comes to ones mind.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
"China´s credit bubble has finally popped"
The Telegraph´s International business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard today reports about a development that will have serious repercussions on e.g. the booming German export industry:
China's credit bubble has finally popped. The property market is swinging wildly from boom to bust, the cautionary exhibit of a BRIC's dream that is at last coming down to earth with a thud.
... something is wrong when the country's Homelink property website can report that new home prices in Beijing fell 35pc in November from the month before. If this is remotely true, the calibrated soft-landing intended by Chinese authorities has gone badly wrong and risks spinning out of control.
Read the entire article here
China's credit bubble has finally popped. The property market is swinging wildly from boom to bust, the cautionary exhibit of a BRIC's dream that is at last coming down to earth with a thud.
... something is wrong when the country's Homelink property website can report that new home prices in Beijing fell 35pc in November from the month before. If this is remotely true, the calibrated soft-landing intended by Chinese authorities has gone badly wrong and risks spinning out of control.
Read the entire article here
Is Russia going to save the crisis-ridden eurozone?
For months now EU leaders have been begging China´s communist rulers to participate in the continuing "rescue" efforts of the crisis-ridden eurozone. As the Chinese have not been willing to take any serious action the increasingly desperate eurocrats are now turning to the Russian thugocracy for help.
The Russians clearly enjoy this opportunity to focus attention away from their own domestic problems. That is why the de facto dictator Vladimir Putin has ordered his puppet president to show a friendly face in Brussels:
Russia is open to suggestions from European leaders on how it can help tame the region’s debt crisis during a summit in Brussels attended by President Dmitry Medvedev, a Kremlin official said.
The Russians clearly enjoy this opportunity to focus attention away from their own domestic problems. That is why the de facto dictator Vladimir Putin has ordered his puppet president to show a friendly face in Brussels:
Russia is open to suggestions from European leaders on how it can help tame the region’s debt crisis during a summit in Brussels attended by President Dmitry Medvedev, a Kremlin official said.
“We see ourselves as a responsible partner for the European Union,” Sergei Prikhodko, Medvedev’s chief foreign policy aide, told reporters in Moscow. “We are ready to study most attentively what they are doing and hear if they have any proposals for the Russian side.”
Medvedev is set to hold an informal dinner tonight with European Commission President Jose Barroso and EU President Herman Van Rompuy in Brussels, followed tomorrow by this year’s second Russia-EU summit. The meetings will address issues ranging from Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization to unrest in the Middle East, Prikhodko said.
Read the entire article here
Medvedev will make some friendly noises in Brussels. However, the supposed "assistance" comes with strings attached:
The EU must allow Russia (Gazprom) a much more dominant role in European energy markets
The EU must prevent the American-led shale gas revolution from reaching Europe
The EU must turn a blind eye to the repression of human and political rights in Russia
The EU must not criticize Russia´s support of Syria´s Assad and other thugocrats.
There is a risk that Putin´s political menu will spoil Van Rompuy´s and Barroso´s dinner tonight.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
The truth about EU´s "fiscal union": Modern serfdom for the people of the EU
"Fiscal union" is a code-phrase for a highly profitable debt-serfdom: the banks profit, the EU bureaucracy flourishes and the people of the EU are imprisoned in a modern serfdom.
Charles Hugh Smith
Today Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the German parliament about last week´s EU "summit", which was supposed to - once again - "save" the euro. As we pointed out in an earlier post, Frau Merkel´s speech included a great number of meaningless words that will not convince markets and investors.
The novelist and economic commentator Charles Hugh Smith gives a much more honest description of what Europe´s leaders in reality have been doing:
As a result the gain remains safely private with the banks while the risk and losses are shifted to the taxpayers and citizens of the EU, who must now make good on those stupendous losses while remaining exposed to the risk of future default.
The same is of course also true in the U.S., another facsimile democracy in which the government and its proxies guarantee banks' profits and leverage while transferring the risk and losses to the voiceless taxpayers. (Go try to cast a vote over Fed policy. Serf, meet your Overlord, Ben Bernanke).
The banks and their lackeys in government prefer to use unaccountable proxy agencies to do the heavy lifting--the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve, and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which is soon to be joined with other alphabet-soup agencies of oppression and predation, all in the name of "rescue."
Smith´s phrase about the"quasi-religious devotion of the Eurocrats to the single currency, a catastrophically wrong-headed fantasy that they cannot give up without losing face" is particularly to the point. Merkel, Sarkozy and the others may be able to postpone the day of reckoning, but in the end they will not be able to avoid a loss of face. However, the longer it takes, the more expensive it will be for the European taxpayers.
Charles Hugh Smith
Today Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the German parliament about last week´s EU "summit", which was supposed to - once again - "save" the euro. As we pointed out in an earlier post, Frau Merkel´s speech included a great number of meaningless words that will not convince markets and investors.
The novelist and economic commentator Charles Hugh Smith gives a much more honest description of what Europe´s leaders in reality have been doing:
"Fiscal union" is the code-phrase for the EU nation agreeing to automatic sanctions (penalties) should their borrowing exceed what is deemed prudent. In this sense, it's little different from the 3% deficit limit that the member states agreed to via the initial treaty but conveniently ignored.
The "teeth" of automatic sanctions is supposed to force nations to "tighten up" their fiscal and tax policies (including collection)--"austerity" at the fundamental economic and governmental levels.
In other words, "Oops, we borrowed too much, default looms, let's paper over the insolvency by really really really promising to borrow less from now on."
The mechanisms of the overborrowing--overleveraged, politically dominant banks and the euro--are left untouched. Why? For the "obvious" reasons the mechanisms of EU governance has been captured by the banks and their apparatchiks, and as a result of the quasi-religious devotion of the Eurocrats to the single currency, a catastrophically wrong-headed fantasy that they cannot give up without losing face.
In a functioning democracy, then those who reaped the gain (the banks) would actually be exposed to the risk that accompanied their gain. But sadly, the EU is not a democracy except as a simulacrum propped up for PR purposes. The risk and the gain have been neatly separated by the Eurocrats and the toady figurehead leadership (Merkozy et al.).
As a result the gain remains safely private with the banks while the risk and losses are shifted to the taxpayers and citizens of the EU, who must now make good on those stupendous losses while remaining exposed to the risk of future default.
The same is of course also true in the U.S., another facsimile democracy in which the government and its proxies guarantee banks' profits and leverage while transferring the risk and losses to the voiceless taxpayers. (Go try to cast a vote over Fed policy. Serf, meet your Overlord, Ben Bernanke).
The banks and their lackeys in government prefer to use unaccountable proxy agencies to do the heavy lifting--the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve, and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which is soon to be joined with other alphabet-soup agencies of oppression and predation, all in the name of "rescue."
Rescuing who and what? The banks and bondholders, of course. This requires avoiding not just democracy but also capitalism, which would require the clearing of bad debt via the discovery of price of both debt and risk, and also socialism, which would require wiping out the wealth of the banks and bondholders via nationalization, a process that would at least return surviving assets and control to an elected government.
It's not democracy, capitalism or socialism--it's all opacity and artifice to mask the imposition of a new, improved debt-serfdom on Europe, all in the name of "fiscal unity."
The eurocrats and the toady leadership would be more honest were they to simply declare: "We had to destroy democracy to save the banks. You are now serfs in our financial fiefdoms."
Smith´s phrase about the"quasi-religious devotion of the Eurocrats to the single currency, a catastrophically wrong-headed fantasy that they cannot give up without losing face" is particularly to the point. Merkel, Sarkozy and the others may be able to postpone the day of reckoning, but in the end they will not be able to avoid a loss of face. However, the longer it takes, the more expensive it will be for the European taxpayers.
"The Island President" Nasheed - Après moi, le déluge?
 |
| Nasheed´s new club has a lot to offer: The Legacy club "is, first and foremost, a lifestyle club. And like all lifestyle clubs, members enjoy a range of privileges that include investment opportunities, luxury hotel suite stays and wellness retreats, priority booking for private jets and once-in-a-lifetime experiences" |
Flashback September 2011:
President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, the darling of the leftist "progressive" media, was the hero in Jon Shenk´s documentary film "The Islands President", first shown at the Toronto Film Festival in September. According to the producers the film tells story of "a man confronting a problem greater than any other world leader has ever faced—the literal survival of his country and everyone in it".
In the film a journalist asks Nasheed : If the conference doesn’t achieve its goals and sea levels rise, what options are there for the Maldives?
Nasheed is leaning on his elbow, his face in his palm. He looks the journalist square in the eye and says: “None. We will all die.”
It now appears that Nasheed is deeply influenced by another wellknown statesman, King Louis XV of France, who uttered these unforgettable words:
“Après moi, le déluge” (“After me, the deluge")
If Nasheed still thinks that "we will all die", he has at least decided to go in style by joining the brand new Legacy club:
Legacy Club was officially launched last month with the Latin motto pharus aliis lucis, or "a beacon of light for others". It is a club focused on networking at the highest levels, but with some altruism thrown in.
We're at the Royale Chulan Hotel in Kuala Lumpur for the grand launch of Legacy and the usually mild-mannered Yim is in high spirits. He informs me that the club has gotten off to a good start, with successful personalities like Mohamad Nasheed, president of the Maldives; Tan Sri Francis Yeoh, managing director of YTL Corporation; Kevin Yeong, chairman of Unicef's Special Fundraising Committee; and Dr Keith Goh, neurosurgeon and chairman of the Make-A-Wish Foundation Singapore agreeing to sign up as members.
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"One of the reasons why we conceived Legacy Club was to create an opportunity for high net worth individuals to be in the same club as tycoons, billionaires, royalty, heads of state and individuals who have made an impact on society," he says, as well-dressed waiters circle around us, bearing flutes of champagne.
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While charity is an important focus, it doesn't take away the fact that Legacy is, first and foremost, a lifestyle club. And like all lifestyle clubs, members enjoy a range of privileges that include investment opportunities, luxury hotel suite stays and wellness retreats, priority booking for private jets and once-in-a-lifetime experiences (the next members-only event involves an insider's visit to a certain presidential palace hosted by a certain dignitary). A Legacy Constellation Quest Smartphone, worth RM32,000, will also be given to all members as a welcome gift.
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Yim is going all out to blow his guests away on that day. There will be flight and golf simulators, super cars, fashion shows and live entertainment. And, if all this isn't enough to tickle one's fancy, guests can always hop aboard any one of the small fleet of aircraft - yes, we're talking about private jets - for a joy ride around town.
Read the entire article here
PS
President Nasheed´s official website yesterday published this interesting piece of news:
The cabinet has today decided to set up a government entity to counteract the corruption allegations being charged against the government, by some members of the parliament, political parties, and individuals.
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