Esa-Pekka Salonen again defends his friend Valery Gergiev

Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen again defends Russian dictator Putin´s admirer Valery Gergiev:

“I’ve spent the morning defending my friend Valery before the Swedish media,” says Salonen.
Gergiev is a committed supporter of the Putin regime, and his appearance at the festival provoked some outrage in Stockholm at a time of strained diplomacy. Salonen describes his opinions as “diametrically opposite” to his colleague’s on the subject of Ukraine but, “as long as London is making money for the oligarchs, as long as the Austrians are lobbying for a gas pipe to make sure they get an uninterrupted supply, regardless of what’s happening to Ukraine,” he says, “why should I, as the artistic director of this festival, not say that Gergiev is allowed to come here?”

One wonders, why on the earth should Salonen "defend" somebody like Gergiev? I never imagined that Salonen would be that stupid.

The Putin dance

Here is the Putin dance everybody is talking about:

 

  

Putin´s Russia summarized in 12 seconds

The Telegraph:

"Russian rouble shaken in biggest one-day fall against dollar since 1998

The currency of Vladimir Putin's Russia has been left shaken by falling oil prices and sanctions related to ongoing tensions in Ukraine" 

An brief summary of Putin´s Russia:

 

Dashcam footage shows a car upside down after it has

been driven into a huge hole in a road in Russia

 

"Thousands of diplomats" gather in Lima in order to fight global warming (which stopped 18 years ago)

It is difficult to imagine a better example of how public money, provided by hard working taxpayers, is wasted:

"For the next two weeks, thousands of diplomats from around the globe will gather in Lima, Peru, for a United Nations summit meeting to draft an agreement intended to stop the global rise of planet-warming greenhouse gases."

(New York Times)

Obama´s "climate breakthrough" with China: Hype and reality

 

The hype: 

 

 

 

With his popularity continuously sinking in the US, president Obama resorts to non-binding hype with China on "climate change". Fortunately the Republican dominated US Congress will most certainly roll back Obama´s spurious carbon "pollution" targets.

Of course China needs to control its real air pollution, but that has nothing to do with the kind of hype now agreed in Peking.


When Obama returns to Washington D.C. he will get a less than warm welcome:

The reality:

 

From the Rockies to the heartland, ferocious winds are ripping across the Plains, bringing freezing temperatures as far south as Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.

And there's more coming.

"Round two gets colder. This is not over by any means," CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said Tuesday. "The next 10 days over the entire eastern half of the country will be below normal."

Hardly anyone in the eastern two-thirds of the nation will be spared by the time the weekend hits.

 

And this winter also Europe will be hit:

 

A FREAK series of rare atmospheric events is set to plunge Britain into the worst winter of modern times with heavy snow paralysing the entire country within WEEKS.

 

Shocked forecasters warned tonight the latest high-tech weather models point to a CATASTROPHIC big freeze in late 2014 with THREE MONTHS of blizzards and Arctic gales.
They fear a lethal and unprecedented combination of low pressure, above-average rainfall and a freak Polar vortex will come together in a perfect storm of misery for Winter 2014.

 

 

PS

This is what Senator James Inhofe has to say about Obama´s "historic" deal in Peking:

 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released the following statement today about the announced deal between the United States and China to address climate change:
"In the President's climate change deal, the United States will be required to more steeply reduce our carbon emissions while China won't have to reduce anything. It's hollow and not believable for China to claim it will shift 20 percent of its energy to non-fossil fuels by 2030, and a promise to peak its carbon emissions only allows the world's largest economy to buy time. China builds a coal-fired power plant every 10 days, is the largest importer of coal in the world, and has no known reserves of natural gas. This deal is a non-binding charade. The American people spoke against the President's climate policies in this last election. They want affordable energy and more economic opportunity, both which are being diminished by overbearing EPA mandates. As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPA's unchecked regulations.”

Gorbachev blames the west and lauds dictator Putin

Mikhail Gorbachev accuses the west and does not have a critical word about Putin´s blatant aggression in Ukraine:

The 83-year-old former leader has accused the west – particularly the US – of “triumphalism” after the collapse of the communist bloc.
Gorbachev called for new trust to be built through dialogue with Moscow and suggested the west should lift sanctions imposed against senior Russian officials over its actions in eastern Ukraine.
Before arriving in Berlin, he gave pointed backing to Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying the Ukraine crisis offered an “excuse” for the US to victimise Russia: “I am absolutely convinced that Putin protects Russia’s interests better than anyone else.”
In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Gorbachev admitted that Putin was not above criticism, but he said he did not want others to pick on the Russian leader.

As they say in Finland, "A Russkie is always a Russkie, even when fried with butter".

Gorbachev apparently wants to secure himself a first class ticket in Putin´s thugocracy when it is time to leave ...

The Republican victory brings an added bonus: Next year´s climate change jamboree in Paris will most likely be a repeat of Copenhagen

The Republican landslide in the US elections means that sanity prevails also in the "climate change" debate. Oklahoma senator James Inhofe will again become the chair of the Senate´s environment committee. The IPCC and the international climate alarmist community can forget about getting a "meaningful" new climate change agreement in Paris 2015.

This is how one warmist blog summarized the elections already before results were in:

Oklahoma senator James Inhofe would become chair of the Senate's environment and public works committee. The committee has the ability to hold up, change, or scrap any climate change legislation. It also holds regular hearings on matters related to climate policy.
Inhofe describes climate change as a "hoax" and is strongly opposed to Obama's clean power plan. He became known for aggressively questioning the validity of climate science in his previous tenure as the committee's chair between 2003 and 2007.
If the Republican's win, climate skeptic committee chairs such as Inhofe, Ted Cruz, and Ron Johnson could also move to cut funding to those charged with implementing Obama's climate plan, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
Combined, the committee chairs would make the Senate altogether less climate-friendly.
That could spook other governments in the run-up to next year's international climate negotiations. If they don't think the US's more proactive approach to curbing emissions is going to last, they are less likely to agree to taking action themselves.
Global issues
The US's efforts to curb emissions and the world's prospects of taking action are largely synonymous.
Those unsure of the Senate's international influence need only to think back to 1997, when a Republican Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. That decision meant the world's only binding agreement to cut emissions was hamstrung from the start. Many say it never recovered.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change yesterday spelled out the dangers of failing to tackle climate change in the clearest terms yet. How the US votes tomorrow will have a significant impact on the type of action the world agrees to next year.
That's why environmental campaigners have spent millions promoting climate-friendly candidates. And it's why it shouldn't just be US citizens watching closely when the polls close.