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RANT ON NON-TOLLS TOPICS

AP - "Japan population to shrink by one-third by 2060".
The story cites an official estimate that Japan's population "will shrink" to about 87 million in 50 years and says that the "estimate paints a grim future"
What is not said is that even if the estimate is correct then Japan would only be back to the population size that it had 60 years ago. It is not said that Japan's population size is unchanged since ten years ago and is not yet experiencing a significant decline. It is not said that Japan is overcrowded with nearly three times as many people per acre of arable land as Britain and 15 times as many people per acre of arable land as the USA.


Friday 27 January 2012

AGW

Hadley, who as usual are last and don't massage the data as much as GISS and NOAA, published their version of the Global temps yesterday. They have December as the 13th warmest, and 2011 as a whole as the 12th warmest ever - CRU - Hadcrut3.


Tuesday 24 January 2012

Pop

BBC - "Outlook for global labour market worsens, ILO says".
According to the ILO, there will be 600 million more jobs needed over the next decade. What they and the news media do not say is that the Earth's population is forecast to grow by about 770 million over the same period. This growth may be good for those who want cheap labour and servants, but is disastrous for the world as a whole.


Monday 23 January 2012

Peacekeeping

There has been little change since we last commented on the 10th.

The news blackout over most of Libya continues, and one of the few bits of news is that the main spokesman for trhe new Government - Mustafa Adbul Jalil - has been forced out - Digital Journal - "Libya protesters demand resignation of NTC, warning of civil war". By coincidence there were reports on Friday that the main spokesman for the previous Government - Moussa Ibrahim - had been captured - Sky - "Former Gaddafi Spokesman Captured". But it is most likely that Moussa was killed by the rebels or NATO some months ago.

It is still not clear whether the next target will be Syria or Iran or neither. The latest overt moves are against Iran, but it seems more likely that NATO and the oil sheikhs will deal with Syria first. If they can't cow the present Government into handing over power to opposing interests, then there will be overt military action.

AGW

There was a big delay with GISS Global temps for November as they rehashed their series. But it was eventualy published with November according to them being the 11th warmest ever (figures begin in 1880). They have also published the December figures showing it as the 10th warmest ever. The year as a whole was the 9th warmest ever, and 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer than 1880 - "GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 degrees Celsius base period: 1951-1980".


Tuesday 10 January 2012

Peacekeeping

The Government continues to chose some strange friends, the latest example being Field Marshal Hague's visit to Burma - BBC 6 Jan - "William Hague hails Burma reform, says more needed".
Though Aung San Suu Kyi is free, according to Amnesty International there are still over 2,000 political prisoners in Burma and the Government uses torture. Though perhaps the organisation will be inspired to change its views in its next report.

AGW

"Scientists" and the BBC are doing their best to keep people misinformed - "Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age'".
The story says that "The last Ice Age ended about 11,500 years ago, and when the next one should begin has not been entirely clear." It also refers to the present day as having a "warm climate".
To be correct we are now in the Quaternary / Pleistocene glaciation ("Ice Age") that began about 2.5 million years ago, albeit that for the last 12,000 years or so we have been in a less cold phase known as an "interglacial" which if it has an average length will end very soon (in gelogical terms).
The BBC story mentions a paper co-authored by Fred Hoyle. The paper suggested that the interglacials are caused by meteors which impact the Earth's surface where it is Ocean, causing a large increase in water vapour in the atmosphere and thus causing a "greenhouse" effect sufficient to nudge the temperature up a few degrees. (There is of course about a 30 per cent chance that the next major meteor impacts land rather than sea, which will kick up a lot of dust and thus make it significantly colder. The direct and indirect effects of a large meteor hitting land rather than water will be about 10,000 times worse for life, though presumably AGW believers will be pleased with the increased cold.


Sunday 1 January 2012

AGW

Though the World seems not to have gotten any warmer over the last decade, according to the Met Office, 2011 was "the second warmest on record for the UK" - BBC 30 Dec - "2011 is UK's second warmest year on record - Met Office".
There are various reasons why Britain may be getting warmer, but the most obvious one is that as Britain becomes more urban, the temperatures will be bumped up by the Urban Heat Island effect. AGW believers though they admit that the effect (first identified about 1830 when temperatures in London were compared with the immediate countryside), exists, they turn a blind eye to the result - the long term temperature record increases as population increases.

Peacekeeping

It is still not clear whether NATO's next target will be Syria or Iran and there is still an almost total news blackout over most of the last target - Libya. Though to a large extent the next target may be determined by the actions of of the major (Sunni and Shia) or minor (Senussi, Salafi, et al) divisions between the aggressor Arab sates such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, against the old and new target states - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran.
The divisions are confused as many of the states are themselves divided between different sects. The losers are almost everyone including non Moslems or unorthodox Moslems who will be persecuted. Telegraph 22 Dec - "How can we remain silent while Christians are being persecuted?"   Canada Free Press - "The Year We Lost Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Most of the Middle East"


Saturday 17 December 2011

AGW

This week Canada was attacked for withdrawing from the Kyoto AGW protocol - BBC - "Canada under fire over Kyoto protocol exit". Though as we pointed out on the 11th, the AGW system is one where Europe and a few other countries spend and give away billions to the rest of the world who do nothing. Reuters Canada - "Analysis: Canada's Kyoto withdrawal began when Bush bolted".


Sunday 11 December 2011

AGW

The BBC says - "Climate talks end with late deal". In reality the AGW oddballs have merely agreed to extend the Kyoto protocol for a while. In the US, the agreement has generally been reported as if it applies to them - CNN - "Delegates at climate talks agree to extend efforts of Kyoto Protocol", presumably the Americans have forgotten that though the US "agreed" to the protocol it pulled out - ten years ago.
In effect the world has agreed that Europe will spend vast amounts of money on a futile effort to curb CO2, and that Europe and perhaps a few others will give away billions more each year to the third world.

AGW

Global Temperatures per HADCRUT3. This is the least doctored of the temperature figures from HADCRUT, GISS and NOAA. The figures are published as anomalies, but have been converted to temperatures by adding them to 14 degrees Celsius which HADCRUT give as the average temp in the base period.

The starting point has been taken using 1959 as as a base of 100. (1959 is when the Mauna Loa figures go back to.)
Pop and temperature figures are available for a long time before 1959, but the AGGI only started in 1979 (though oddly the AGGI is based on taking the year 1750 "pre-industrial" as 100). For the purpose of this graph we have estimated (using the trend from 1979) what the AGGI would have been in 1959. Explanation of the graph
CO2 in the atmosphere goes up from 316.0 parts per million in 1959 to 389.8 ppm in 2010. An increase in percentage terms of 23 percent (0.41 per cent a year). (The amount of "man made CO2" is not shown. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere immediately prior to the advent of industry was about 280 ppm, so by deduction the "man made" CO2 increased from 36 ppm in 1959 to 110 ppm in 2010, an increase of 305 per cent or an annual increase of 2.1 per cent.)

The Annual Grennhouse Gases Index has gone from 1.71 in 1979 to 2.81 in 2010, an annual increase of 1.62 per cent. The AGGI shoots up far faster than CO2 because it uses calculation methods designed to support the creed that increases in CO2 will have catastrophic effects.

World population has grown from 3,000 million in 1959 to 6,869 million in 2010, that is plus 129 percent (an annual percentage increase of 1.64).

The temperature per HADCRUT has gone from 13.93 degrees Celsius in 1959 to 14.48 in 2010 - an increase of 4 per cent or an annual increase of 0.076 per cent.

If you look at the slope of the lines, those for population and for CO2 are almost straight lines. The AGGI and temperature wobble a bit but are almost straight.
Though the increase in CO2 is major it is relatively flat compared with the upward lines for AGGI and population (most people believe that population increase is slowing, this is true in percentage terms, but the absolute annual growth in 2010, of 75.6 million, was the same as it was in 1970).
The temperature line is even flatter than the CO2 line, with no upward movement except between 1985 and 1998.

What does any of this prove?
The figures don't prove anything, but they point to a few things:-

That the politicians are mad or dishonest to pay so much attention to AGW and ignore what is happening to population, which is a big driver of CO2 - and most of the other problems in the world.


Thursday 8 December 2011

AGW

The global temperature figures for November are not yet available. Those for October from NASA/GISS and NOAA we mentioned on the 14th and 16th November. Britain's HADCRUT published their figures for October more recently. HADCRUT had October as a bit cooler than the Americans, and showed it as the coolest October since 2000 - CRU - HADCRUT3 (This is the version which is not "variance ajusted", but that version also shows it as coolest since 2000.)

Peacekeeping

The Euro zone crisis is a distraction at the moment. Once that has been "sorted", then there will be more attention on the next target. This originally was to be Syria, but there are other possibilities, including "preemptive" missile attacks on targets in Iran.


Friday 25 November 2011

AGW

BBC - "UK calls for new legal climate deal by 2015".
Britain's politicians may as well be on LSD as they live in a fantasy that is not related to the real world - though it is often difficult to see what the real world is as the full facts are usually buried. But we have some idea of the effect of the last major "binding" agreement. The Kyoto Protocal was made at the end of 1997 (its genesis wsas in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992), but did not come into force till 2005 and most countries were not required to do anything. The NOAA's AGGI was 2.23 in 1992, about 2.40 at the end of 1997, 2.64 in 2005 and 2.81 last year (a 26 per cent increase in 18 years). It seems clear that the vast effort and expenditure on curbing "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere has had very little effect.


Thursday 24 November 2011

Pop

Environmental academic from Oz says that pop growth is not a problem and it would be unfair to cutback on immigration, instead people should consume less - ABC - "New approach needed to tackle population problem".

Pop

More confirmation that Britain's politicians are either stupid or totally incompetent or corruptly controlled by interests that benefit from cheap labour and demand for housing etc - ONS - "Migration Statistics Quarterly Report November 2011 - Statistical Bulletin" pdf   Guardian - "UK net migration hits record high"   Mail - "High immigration could drive Britain's population to 77million by 2035"   Mail - "Mac on... UK population growth"   Telegraph - "Immigration must be cut substantially to keep population under 70 million"   BBC - "Net migration to UK in 2010 at record high".


Wednesday 23 November 2011

AGW

The replacement for CFCs in cooling systems, may make the Earth warmer - BBC - "Climate concerns as ‘ozone-friendly’ HFCs use grows".

Peacekeeping

It is a bit risky sending emails in a country that America relied on as a Pacific staging post for its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - BBC - "Thailand lese majeste man jailed for 20 years". (Lèse majesté is the crime of violating the "majesty" of the head of state and their family.)


Tuesday 22 November 2011

Money trouble

On Sunday we mentioned that the sham solution to the American debt crisis was likely to fail. Today was the deadline - NYT - "A Failure Is Absorbed With Disgust and Fear, but Little Surprise"   Washington Post - "Supercommittee announces failure in effort to tame debt" LOTS of comments.
Though America seems beyond redemption there has been little reaction on the stock markets. They expected the news and are still largely buoyed up by the over supply of money.

Peacekeeping

CNN - "Egypt battles show revolution's unfinished business".
The chances of the Western establishment openly getting involved in Egypt are zero. There are limited natural resources in the country and it has one of the establishment's favourite forms of rule (military or feudal / hereditary or sham democracy). The West will also not want a stronger and more religious state to develop so close to Israel.

Pop

Another story bemoaning Japan's lack of pop growth (despite the article admitting that growth in GDP per head has been higher in Japan than in USA or Europe). According to the writer the Japanese should have been encouraging immigration. The writer also suggests that the retirement age in Japan is raised (though in any case a high proportion of Japanese that reach the official retirement age carry on working).   Economist 21st - "The real lesson from Japan".
The Japanese unemployment rate at 4 per cent is less than half that in countries like Britain and America that have higher population growth. So it seems that the real aim is not to benefit individuals but is to provide a pool of cheap labour.


Sunday 20 November 2011

Money

Some more stories from last few weeks - Paul Krugman in NYT on 17th - "Subsiding Inflation"   Wall Street Pit 14th - "How Fiscal Stimulus Screwed Up Monetary Policy"   Guardian 10th - "UK Treasury prepares for 'economic armageddon' if euro falls apart"   Seeking Alpha 10th - "Paul Krugman And The 'Saltwater Economists' Predictions"   Bloomberg 10th - "IMF’s Lagarde Warns of Risk of ‘Lost Decade’ for Global Economy".

Peacekeeping

Telegraph - "Saif Gaddafi must face justice for role in 'barbaric' reign of terror in Libya, David Cameron says".
A strange story. The widely distributed pictures of a man said to be one of Gadaffi's sons on a plane, don't match previous images of the son. There is another that does seem to really be his son, though it is not known when and where this was taken - Facebook picture.
Another strange aspect is that he was captured in the south where there is a news blackout, but a Reuters reporter was there. The son may well have been captured, but there is no knowing where and when and whether he is still alive. This story is quite likely to be another lie possibly either to distract attention from the fact that there is still no Libyan Goverment and the NTC deadline (November 22nd) is about to run out or to give more influence to one of the militias jockeying for power.


Saturday 19 November 2011

Pop

Mail - "England 'is world's sixth most crowded country: High rate of immigration blame for population surge".

Pop

International News (Pakistan)- "Population explosion behind price hike, poverty, unemployment".

Peacekeeping

Having made Libya "safe" (though no tourist or businessman in their right mind would now go there), it is unclear whether the next target will be Syria or Iran or even China - BBC - "Foreign Secretary William Hague to meet Syrian rebels"   CNN - "U.S. to slap new sanctions on Iran's petrochemical industry"   Global Research - "Enhanced US Military Presence in Australia Directed against China ".


Thursday 17 November 2011

Pop

Making money from more people - Equities 14th - "Swelling Population Could Mean a Swelling Portfolio".


Wednesday 16 November 2011

AGW

More comedy from the BBC - "UK trees' fruit ripening '18 days earlier'".
The data on which the claim is made that "climatic shifts" have made a big difference to trees in Britain only goes back to "about 2000". It is ludicrous that any claim can be made based on such a short period. And how many people will believe the implication that is has got significantly warmer over the last decade? It would be interesting to see what the Met Office say on this.
As usual the Met Office data is buried very deeply under their AGW propaganda, but it seems that in 2000 the average mean temp for UK was about 9.1 Celsius, it fell to 8.8 in 2001, and then rose to a peak of about 9.75 in 2006, and then fell reaching 8.0 in 2010 (the average for 2001 to 2010 is about 9.2). The Met Office show an upward "smoothed kernel filter" on their graph (which starts in 1910) - Met Office - "UK trees' fruit ripening '18 days earlier'", but visually it seems clear that the real trend from 2000 to 2010 is flat due to the low in 2010.


Monday 14 November 2011

AGW

GISS have published their updated Global temps up to October. "GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 degrees Celsius base period: 1951-1980". Their figures show it as the 8th warmest ever (figures begin in 1880) October.

Peacekeeping

There is a veil over what is happening in Libya between the various groups that did the fighting and between them and the various carpetbaggers who since March have arrived from their exiles in America and elsewhere. It is likely that ground and air forces from France, Britain and Quatar are still operating in Libya, but neither NATO or the various governments are saying.
Here is a report from Pravda, much of what it says may be a fairy tale but there are no independent reports on what is really happening - "Libya: Media blackout, why?".


Saturday 12 November 2011

Pop

A bit more on the seven billion mark, starting with an example of the stories that say how wonderful it is that there will be more of us - Oxford Student on 11th - "A milestone we should be proud of". And a couple of examples from those with a different view of the benefits - Express Tribune (Pakistan) 11 Nov - "Our Population Bomb"   East African Business Week 7th - "Population increase worries African agriculture experts".


Thursday 10 November 2011

AGW

It is a while since we mentioned sunspots. The latest prediction has increased the forecast strength of the current cycle (24), though it is still low compared with those over the last century or so - NASA as at 2nd - "Solar Cycle Prediction".


Saturday 5 November 2011

AGW

Most of the news media have ignored the story from AP, which says that there has been a substantial increase in CO2 - AP - "Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases"   CDIAC - "Record High 2010 Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Combustion and Cement Manufacture Posted on CDIAC Site".
There are two resaons why the news media will ignore this story. The first is that it is embarassing that despite a long economic slump and despite the billions spent on schemes to get CO2 down, it has actually gone up. The second reason is AGW theory says that there is a strong positive relation between CO2 and temperature, but the latter seems to have plateaued over the last ten years while CO2 has continued to rise.


Friday 4 November 2011

AGW

HADCRUT have issued their version of the Global temperature for September (as usual about 4 weeks later than the figures from NASA/GISS and NOAA) - CRU - anomalies starting in 1850 with base of 1961 to 1990. They have it as the coldest September since 2000.
Based on the October satellite figures from UAH, October is also likely to be the coldest globally since 2000. Though the NASA/GISS and NOAA figures for October (which will be out next week) may tell a different story.


Thursday 3 November 2011

Money

Paul Krugman in NYT on 1st - "Eurodämmerung"   Global Research on 29th - "Saving The Eurozone. Will it Work? ".
Other recent stories indicate that experts expect that Central Banks will stop the spiv system from collapsing by buying junk debt, and that we can expect many years of inflation (i.e. falling value of money) combined with stagnation.

AGW

The BBC wearing its green and establishment hat proves that temperatures are still going up - BBC - "'Hide the decline' revisited".
This is BBC propaganda and not science. The BEST study took all the official data (so far for land only) and having applied its own methodology came to the same general conclusion as the official one. i.e. there seems to have been a warming trend over the last century or so - Wood for trees - BEST and Hadcrut from 1800.
BEST also did some work on whether the results were biased by poor siting of weather stations and by the urban heat island effect and concluded (in our view incorrectly) that poor siting and the urban effect did not increase the upward trend.
But whichever figures you take, you have to be wearing BBC biased glasses not to see that the recent trend of increased temperature is flat - Wood for trees - BEST and Hadcrut from 2000.
(See also our report on the 8th October.)

Pop

More on petition from chairman of Migration Watch - Mail - "'No to 70m' e-petition is signed every three seconds as 45,000 join campaign in just two days".

Pop

The greens are mainly turning a blind eye to the issue, either because they don't want to appear racist or because their real aim is to make money out of the various green scams - Newsworks 2 Nov - "Why are environmental groups silent on population growth and immigration?"   Guardian 1 Nov - Spectacular population growth creates investment opportunities".

Peacekeeping

Daily Mail - "Peace? You're joking. Much blood will yet be shed in Libya".
A perhaps unique report from a news media that has supported the war machine, though even this report has to have the usual statements of how terrible the former Government was. One example is the statement that the rebel's military leader was held in "one of Gaddafi’s torture cells .... Manacled to a wall in Tripoli’s notorious Abu Salim prison ... not allowed to wash for three years". We have no idea how badly he was treated, but while in prison he wrote a 400 page book - "Corrective Studies" - quite a feat if he was still manacled to a wall.


Tuesday 1 November 2011

Pop

Petition from chairman of Migration Watch - Mail - "At last, you have the chance to make your voice heard"   Telegraph - "Petition launched to curb population growth"   HMG epetitions - "No to 70 million".

Pop

Bit more on the seven billion mark - UN Dispatch - "Seven Billion: What Does it Mean?"   NY Times - "Breaking a Long Silence on Population Control".

Peacekeeping

The rebels that form the NTC have appointed a Libyan-American professor of electrical engineering as PM - Washington Post - "Dual U.S.-Libyan citizen chosen as prime minister of Libya".
This strange choice will reassure the Americans, and may be a sign that the NTC Government will be relying on continuing military help from America as well as Britain, France and Quatar so as to remain in control of the country.


Monday 31 October 2011

AGW

About one MP and only a few other people turned up last Wednesday at Westminster to hear a discussion on AGW - YouTube - "Climate FoolsDay 2011" movie.
In the video, Piers Corbyn gives a peek at his forecast for the next couple of months and says that there will be extreme cold from 27th November to 28th December in Britain & western Europe.

Pop

Today is the day when the world officially reached the seven billion mark.
Much of the news media is telling its readers that seven billion is not a problem and that in any case there will soon be not enough babies to stop the pop from falling and that that will be a problem - BBC - "Population boom heralds big global economic shifts"   Guardian 30th - "Population is not the problem"   Reuters 30th - "Seven-billionth human marks demographic change: expert"   Independent - "A world of seven billion people like you"   FT - "The impact of 7bn people on commodities markets"   Straits Times - "The End of Population Growth".


Sunday 30 October 2011

AGW

There have been more stories about the supposedly sceptical BEST study proving that there really is AGW, here is one of the latest - Watts Up - "Uh oh: It was the BEST of times, it was the worst of times".


Saturday 29 October 2011

Wonderland

It's that time of year again when Britain returns to GMT and Britain's loony politicians and their establishment masters again propose moving us to Berlin time - BBC 28th - "UK clocks change trial being considered"   Peter Hitchens in the Mail a year ago - "Berlin Time and Time Again".

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya: Gaddafi son Saif al-Islam says he is innocent".
The original source of the story that Ghadaffi's son who has not yet been killed wants to go to the ICC, is the new Libyan Government. The ICC is the usual French dominated bureaucracy whose treaty has either not been signed or not ratified by countries that contain most of the world's population including China, India, USA and Russia. Only two countries in North Africa and the Middle East recognise the ICC - Jordan and Tunisia (which has just joined). The ICC has turned a blind eye to what the rebels and NATO did in Libya and it is unlikely that Ghadaffi's son would be foolish enough to trust his life to them or any other tool of the Western establishment.
Though NATO is officially pulling out, the new Government is making deals with Britain and others so that air cover and ground forces will remain to ensure that the new Government is not threatened by either supporters of the former Government or by one or other of the rebel factions.
Global Research - "Truth is the First Casualty of War. No Justice, No Peace, No Truth... ". (One of the earliest references to war and truth was in 1758 from Dr Johnson writing on the "Corruption of news-writers" during the Seven Years' War - "Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. ... I know not whether more is to be dreaded from .. or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie.")


Friday 28 October 2011

Money

Some recent stories - EuroMoney 25th - "Country risk: Bank scores plunge across Europe"   Weekly Standard 31st - "Losing the Economic Battle The global debt apocalypse approaches"   New Statesman 18th - "Plan B: Print money for the public"   Seeking Alpha 18th - "The Inevitability Of QE3".


Thursday 27 October 2011

Pop

While Britain's rulers lie and feather their own nests, one of the really big problems is getting worse - BBC 26th - "UK population 'to increase to 70 million by 2027'"   ONS - "National Population Projections, 2010-based projections" various links   Telegraph 26th - "Migrants to send Britain's population soaring to largest in EU".

Pop

As the world officially reaches the seven billion mark, there are more reports on pop growth. As usual the establishment wants to ignore the issue of trying to rerstrain pop growth, with the UN saying at the start of its report - "How did we become so many? How large a number can our Earth sustain? These are important questions, but perhaps not the right ones for our times.". The latest story in the Guardian series is from George Monbiot who says that it does not matter how many people there are, as long as we all consume less, though the piece from Forbes wants as many people as possible in order to boost economic growth :-
UNFPA - "People and Possibilities in a World of 7 Billion" pdf (may take a few seconds to load)   UNFPA - "Interactive ‘7 Billion and Me’ Exhibit Personalizes Demographic Trends" inc link   Guardian - "Crowded Planet" links to sundry stories   Telegraph 26th - "World population could double, warns UN"   Forbes 25th - "Why Pro-Immigration and Pro-Growth Policies are Good for America"   Reuters 26th - "Population boom heralds big global economic shifts".

Peacekeeping

Another Guardian story, is one of the very few stories in the British press that comes anywhere near to the truth about the Libyan war - "If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure".


Wednesday 26 October 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya's Mustafa Abdel Jalil asks Nato to stay longer".
NATO has stopped issuing the press releases where they gave deatils (albeit lies) about their operations in Libya. Though their last press release (yesterday) siad that they will continue with "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions" and would continue to attack from the air "i>"should the situation require us to do so".
It had been known that Qatar as well as nominally joining in the NATO bombing had been funding at least two of the rebel factions. Qatar is now boasting that a lot of the rebels on the ground were provided by Qatar - AGI (Italian Government) - "Qatar Admits Sending Troops To Fight Alongside Libya NTC".


Tuesday 25 October 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Muammar Gaddafi 'buried in desert grave at dawn'".
Having sodomised him with a metal object before killing him and then displaying his and his son's naked bodies on the floor of a meat refigerator, it is said that the muhjadeen who were on temporary loan to NATO have now buried the bodies.
That Ghadaffi or anyone else that opposed the rebels was given a proper burial is as unlikely as the BBC, the British Government or NATO telling the truth.
What is happening over large parts of Libya is still a mystery, though according to the last published media operational update from Milo Mindbender Inc, they were still carrying out strike sorties up to Sunday, three days after they succeeded in having Ghadaffi killed.
Libya is in effect no longer a unified country, and we had expected that there would be fighting between the various rebel factions. Though it is not certain that this will happen, as the West will be using a mixture of bribes, threats and "disappearances" to deter any public fighting.


Saturday 22 October 2011

AGW

More on It's official - it is getting hotter - Independent - "Ex-climate sceptic now backs global warming".
As with most of the news fed to the British public, if you read it in a mirror you may get to the truth. This sceptic who has apparently now seen the light has on his website an extract of a book he wrote over ten years ago - "brief introduction to the history of climate". He said "Beginning in the early 1900s, the climate of the world began to warm ... the 20th century had a temperature rise of nearly one degree Celsius ... many climate scientists think it is the result of the addition of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by humans."
In any case, there is more real scepticism over the validity of "BEST"'s statistical techniques - Watts Up - "A mathematician’s response to BEST".


Tuesday 25 October 2011


Friday 21 October 2011

Pop

Likely not to be available at Blockbusters - "Hooked on Growth".

AGW

It's official - it is getting hotter - BBC - "Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study"   Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project - links to papers released today   Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project - "COOLING THE WARMING DEBATE - Berkeley Earth Releases Global Land Warming Analysis" pdf.
This project was established because sceptics did not trust the three main publishers of world temperature - HADCRUT, GISS and NOAA. Provisionally (unusually for a scientific release it has not yet been peer reviewed) the project says that their results are virtually the same, though so far they have only looked at land temperatures.
One of their draft reports also says that the urban heat island effect is negative, i.e. that temperatures taken in urban areas are rising at a lower rate than those in non urban areas. Like a lot of AGW science, you wonder whether the scientists with their millions of records and their computer programs can't see the wood for the trees.
It is unlikely that sceptics will entirely accept the results, though even if they did, the figures do not prove that there is a permanent trend linked to man made CO2 emissions. Only time will tell.
Watts Up - "The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project puts PR before peer review".

Peacekeeping

Developments elsewhere include Turkish troops entering Iraq to hunt armed Kurdish separatists - BBC - "Turkey steps up offensive in Iraq after Kurdish raids".
The action has been approved by NATO and America. This may seem odd as Iraq is still in American occupation, but they have little control over what happens in the Kurdistan region (though the Regional Government officially condemns any raids into Turkey).


Thursday 20 October 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Muammar Gaddafi killed in Libya".
Over the last two weeks, NATO and supporters of the new Government have struggled to eliminate the last resistance in Libya, but it seems that this stage of the war is now over. Given the NATO lies and the many stories from the NTC that turn out to be wrong, it is not yet clear if Gadaffi is dead, and if so then whether he was killed by NATO warplanes or was shot. NATO might have preferred a showtrial for Gaddafi, though in other cases - such as Moussa Ibrahim (the official spokesman) - the establishment will want to make sure that he does not get a chance to speak (though one report says that he has not been killed yet.)
Libya in news terms is like the Dark Continent. Almost all the reporting has been of supporters of the new Government firing their weapons and celebrating; the absence of places like Sabha from the news may be an indication that they are now ghost towns.

AGW

Britain's next head of state and big bosses call for "action" - BBC - "Companies call for tougher climate action".
Does this action include higher taxes and less consumption?

AGW & Pop

More official nonsense about "climate change" rather than the real problem of pop growth - BBC - "Climate change migration warning issued through report"   Foresight (Govt Dept for Business) - "Migration and Global Environmental Change - Future Challenges and Opportunities - Executive Summary" pdf.


Monday 10 October 2011

AGW

Watts Up does not have this story yet (and neither does the website of the Met Office, though it comes from them), but it seems that the Met Office are starting to move away from the AGW stance that the Sun is not relevant, and seem to have moved towards the views of Piers Corbyn and Weather Action who most of the time produce better weather forecasts - Planet Earth - "Clear link between solar activity and winter weather revealed"   BBC - "Ultraviolet light shone on cold winter conundrum".


Saturday 8 October 2011

AGW

Globally, almost every month seems to be in the top five or so highest. All the global figures come from bodies that preach AGW. Two of them (GISS/NASA and NOAA) are in America, but in Britain we have the longest established of the three sets of figures - HADCRUT - a dataset of monthly temperature records which brings together the sea surface temperatures per the Hadley Centre of the Met Office and the land surface temperatures per the Climatic Research Unit based at the University of East Anglia. HADCRUT3 is the latest version. Though the figures are as unreliable as other official sources of information, we have used the latest information to produce three graphs.

The first covers the period from 1961 to date, and the polynomial line shows the temperatures going up as an almost straight line at the rate of about 1.2 degrees Celsius in a hundred years.

The second covers the period from 1961 to 1990, which is the period that HADCRUT uses as the base that it gives the anomalies from. The polynomial line shows the rate of temperature increase going up over the three decades.

The third covers the period from 1991 to 2011, which is the years after the base period. The polynomial line clearly shows that the temperature increase is slowing down.

What does this prove?
Well first of all, these graphs are based on the official figures which many believe exaggerate the upward trend, so it is surprising that the upward trend is slowing.
Secondly, some people would not accept that a polynomial trend is appropriate, though given that the temperature anomaly series goes up and down, we believe that it is appropriate. Some people would also argue that a period as short as 21 years may be biased by one or other cyclical factor.
Thirdly, even if the figures are "true" and a polynomial graph is the best way of plotting them, there is no way of knowing why the temperature is going up or why (for the moment) the rate of increase is slowing. But it is an indication that forecasts of continuing and significant increases in temperature may well be wrong.

Peacekeeping

The usual lies from the BBC who are now little more than a press agency for a Government that has taken control of how much money they get - BBC - "New bombardment hits Gaddafi stronghold of Sirte".
One of the best bits is the caption which says that "Libyan government troops have moved on the city from two directions". In reality there is no government and there are no government troops. The various people who are firing at Sirte and other towns where supporters of the former Government are holding out are dependent on NATO bombing and tactical direction from special forces. The reason that they are struggling is that many of the the special forces have been withdrawn in case they are caught in the crossfire when fighting starts between the factions.
The BBC says that there "are certainly some mercenaries from neighbouring African countries in the city". It seems that the BBC is giving an excuse to the former rebels to get rid of anyone who's skin is too dark.


Friday 7 October 2011

Peacekeeping

NATO's longest running (though they only officially took over after the war had been running for two years) overt operation is "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan which is backed by the UN - BBC - "US and Nato 'far from goals' in Afghanistan".
It is difficult to see how this war will ever end. It is more likely that it will spread into Pakistan, where the US is already attacking various targets using drones and special forces.


Thursday 6 October 2011

Money

Since the weekend Gold has gone up a slightly to 1,640 dollars, (22.6 per cent up on 12 months ago). The FTSE100 had gone down through the 5000 floor but has today shot up and is now at 5290. The rise is because the Old Lady has decided to print another 75 billion pounds of intrinsically worthless money. In normal circumstances this would encourage more spending (though as we are on the brink of a liquidity trap, it may have no effect).
The markets may gone up because investors believe that there will be more spending and this will be good for the economy or because they are fleeing from increasingly worthless paper money. Though it seems more likely that investors believe the former, rightly or wrongly.
Either way, the move by the Old Lady is a desparate gamble by an organisation that has betrayed its main purpose of maintaining the value of sterling and is instead trying to prop up a Government which is itself totally incapable of doing anything to improve the real economy. Though it is a mystery why the Prime Minister was only yesterday telling people that like the Government they should cut back on debt, when he must have known that his chums in Threadneedle Street were just about to print another vast amount of IOUs.
Our prediction is that the Old Lady's move will have little effect on the real economy, though it will no doubt benefit the spivs and vultures that are fed by politicians of all parties.
BoFE - "News Release - Bank of England Maintains Bank Rate at 0.5% and Increases Size of Asset Purchase Programme by £75 billion to £275 billion"   BBC - "Bank of England injects further £75bn into economy".


Saturday 1 October 2011

Money

More of the recent reports on the real crisis - Economist `1st - "Be afraid"   Forbes 29th - "Why Interest Rates Tell Lies About Inflation, Growth And Just About Everything Else"   FT 29th - "Japan's rate dilemma casts shadow over Fed"   Seeking Alpha 29th - "10 Bold Plans To Save The Euro"   Economist 29th - "Malaise, money and ideas".

Peacekeeping

We had expected that the next targets would be Syria and then Iran, but there have been suggestions that Pakistan, and even China, are higher up the "to do" list for America.


Monday 26 September 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "More than 1,200 bodies found in Tripoli mass grave".
It might seem strange that the news media, in the area controlled by the new Government, has not been able to dig up a more recent atrocity than one which it is said happened in 1996 and according to Wikipedia is based on the testimony of one man.
Meanwhile NATO is saying - "NATO strikes shield civilians in Sirte" that its current bombing of Sirte is because there are "executions, hostage-taking, and the calculated targeting of individuals, families, and communities .. Hundreds of families are being prevented from their desired evacuation by the absence of safety and fuel. Other resources required for survival including water, medicine, and food are in short supply or denied to civilians. Mercenaries roam the streets and civilians lack access to outside information.". It is still a mystery what Milo Mindbender Inc. are really bombing, and their media update for Saturday's bombing was not on their website till today, it says that they carried out 34 bombing raids on Saturday.


Sunday 25 September 2011

AGW

In the middle of the month the NOAA announced that "Globe had eighth warmest August on record". As usual the GISS seemed to have a different take, as their figures showed it as the fourth warmest August (after 2006, 1998 and 2003).
The greatest oddity is that, as usual, the prime source of the global temperature figures - Hadley / Climate Research Unit - have still not published their figures for August. When they do, we will be publishing a graph which seems to show quite clearly that the rise in temperature (according to the official figures) is tailing off.

Peacekeeping

We mentioned on the 3rd August that one reason for bringing down the then Libyan Government was that there was fear that they were going to demand payment for oil in gold rather than pieces of paper. It has also been suggested that the French controlled IMF and the American controlled World Bank wanted the Government replaced as they were concerned about Libya's increasing influence in Africa.


Saturday 24 September 2011

Pop

Guardian 19th - "What happens if the population forecasts are wrong?".
The Guardian is worried that the population forecasts may be optimistic. The real problem is that the world will not be able to cope even if they are correct.

Money

Up to a few weeks ago there were only a few reports a week that touched on the real crisis. Now there are several a day, perhaps it might even get into the more popular press - Seeking Alpha 23rd - "Whether The U.S. Is Following Japan's 'Lost Decade'"   Seeking Alpha 23rd - "Operation Twist: Doing Nothing While Looking Busy"   Macon 22nd - "Economic fears reverberate across globe"   Wall Street Pit 22nd - "Interest Rates and Slumps: Competing Views"   PK in NYT 22nd - "What Profit Hath A Man Of All His Labor?"   Business Standard 23rd - "Operation Twist spooks mkts"  Seeking Alpha 22nd - "The Last And Only Solution For Eurozone Survival".

Peacekeeping

Once NATO and the new Government have defeated the remaining resistance in Libya, the aim will be to try and prevent any disorder from supporters of the ex Government who may go underground and also from various factions within the muhjadeen. As the Libyan air force was destroyed long ago, this as a mimimum will require ongoing aerial support from Milo Mindbender Inc over the desert areas that make up most of Libya; so on Wednesday NATO announced that they will continue their involvement, initially for another three months.
The next target is likely to be Syria, where the CIA may be able to bring down the Government without any bombing. Though the ultimate aim of taking over Iran is unlikely to be achieved without a ground and air war.


Thursday 22 September 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya uprising: Gaddafi 'losing control of Sabha'".
With so much disinformation it is impossible to know what is happening in Libya. The few independent journalists left Libya as Tripoli fell.
NATO has consistently lied about the type of target it has been bombing, but we had assumed that the general locations were correct, it now seems likely that even the locations are lies.
It does however seem that NATO and the new Government have succeeded in getting control of the strategic area at the centre of the triangle which has Sirte as its apex. This seems to have been achieved by bombing the main source of water - the Al Hisha dam.


Monday 19 September 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya conflict: Anti-Gaddafi troops move towards Sirte".
The press continues with the usual nonsense which will give their readers no idea of what is really going on in Libya.
Supporters of the ex Government now occupy a triangle with Sirte at its apex and the whole of southern Libya as its base. The crucial bit seems to be in the centre of the triangle in the Waddan / Hun / Al Jufra area, and this is where a lot of the recent Milo Mindbender Inc bombing has been concentrated.
NATO has various problems. One is how long can it get away with being the rebels' air force, now that the rebels are the Government.
Another problem is targetting. In the first six months of bombing, the targets were in built up areas with the bombs and missiles being guided in by "journalists" and special forces. Now the targets are in areas with low population and it is more difficult to place people there to guide in the bombs. If NATO is to win any time soon then it will have to use a lot more air power (particularly helicopter gun ships) and to deploy it from bases in Libya. It is likely that NATO already has plans for this, though they have the problem that at the moment the new Libyan Government is one man without a cabinet, and when they do have a broader Government it may well not want NATO forces based in Libya.


Saturday 17 September 2011

Money

Some more of the reports that will never get on the BBC - Market Orcale 16th - "Why the Gold Price is So High?"   Atlantic 15th - "What Does Stimulus Do?"   Reason 15th - "They Gave a Recovery and Nobody Came"   Seeking Alpha 15th - "Monetary Policy And The Future Of China"   Business Spectator 15th - "Symptoms of a US depression?".

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya conflict: Fierce fighting resumes for Sirte".
It may seem puzzling that the rebels, who are now the Government, have been having difficulties over the last few weeks. They are still being supported by bombing by Milo Mindbender Inc, who according to the NATO media update carried out 43 bombing raids on Friday. The rebels also have a lot of firepower on the ground and use it in a reckless manner. The most likely explanation for the slow progress is that Britain and France have withdrawn their special forces and mercenaries, and left the mopping up to the muhjadeen and amateurs.
There are still almost no reports from the Fezzan area which makes up a third of Libya, though the main town of Sebha was bombed on Thursday, so presumably it is still occupied by supporters of the former Government.


Wednesday 14 September 2011

Money

Good news for the spivs that run Britain, RPI is up to 5.2 per cent and CPI to 4.5 per cent - BBC - "UK CPI inflation rate rises to 4.5% in August"   ONS - "Consumer Price Indices August 2011" pdf   ONS - tables.
The inflation on fuel over 12 months was 17.0 percent.

Money

Some more of the recent reports in the non-popular press about the coming Armageddon - Seeking Alpha 14th - "'A Crash Course In Market Monetarism"   Krugman in NYT 13th - "The Problem With Quasi-Monetarism"   FT Alphaville 13th - "Beyond the QE2 adventure"   Seeking Alpha 13th - "Hyperinflation And The Fiscal Case For Gold"   Krugman in NYT 13th - "How Much Hoc to Add? (Wonkish and Methodological)".

Pop

BBC - "Immigrants have children for benefits, says Asian peer"   Financial Express - "Overpopulation and poverty"   Scotsman - "West must change its food habits so the world can be fed".


Monday 12 September 2011

Hari-kari

BBC - "Banks face major reorganisation"   ICB Final report (pdf).
The regulation that is most needed is not ring fencing - it is to have far higher capital requirements. This will never happen as it runs contrary to the policy of the Government and the Old Lady of making money dirt cheap. Though any new regulation of the banks carries the risk that they will relocate overseas.

AGW

The Met Office have produced their - Climate summary for August 2011. They say that "It was a rather cool month overall". Their anomaly map shows that the north and west of Britain was about one degree Celsius below average (1971 to 2000); central and eastern areas had average temperatures.
It has recently been pointed out that the Met Office published figures for temperatures over the last decade or so are not consistent with the published figures for the "Central England Temperatute" historical series.

AGW and Pop

The green Guardian / Observer dares to mention pop growth - "Climate change: summer in the city".

Peacekeeping

Nearly all the "news" from Libya is disinformation partly intended to act as a smokescreen which hides the trutn from people outside Libya, and partly intended to encourage supporters of the previous Government to flee or surrender and risk what the Islamic militants may do to them and their families.
Oddly some of the information which does not get into the news comes from the daily NATO "operational media updates". What they say about the targets is nothing but lies, but the updates are the only source that gives the scale of bombing by Milo Mindbender Inc. (though the updates don't reveal attacks by missiles or helicopters). Today's update says that there were 44 bombing raids yesterday.

Pop

All Africa - "Energy Crisis Looming As Charcoal Prices Soar".


Saturday 10 September 2011

Percentage game

BBC - "Lawson adds voice to calls to ditch 50p tax rate".
The call for an end to the 50 per cent tax rate (which kicks in for earnings at above 150 thousand a year) is more disinformation from the people that run Britain aided by the BBC and other news media.
As usual the effect of employees and employers NI contributions is ignored. Including them the marginal rate of tax on earnings e.g. between 20,000 and 50,000 a year is 48.31 per cent, and between e.g. 100,000 and 150,000 a year is 61.78 per cent.
What is needed is a reform which merges Income tax and NI (including employers' contributions), so it is clearer what everyone is paying, but clarity is the last thing that Governments and the racketeers that control them want.

Money

Some of the recent reports in the non-popular press - WSJ 9th - "'Operation Twist' Augurs Pain for Banks"   Business Times 9th - "Currency intervention is not the answer"   The Source 8th - "A Tail Event to End All Tail Events"   Atlantic 7th - "A Tenative Defense of Breaking Windows"   FT Alphaville 7th - "Through the looking glass with US Treasuries and gold"   Krugman in NYT 6th - "Treasuries, TIPS, and Gold (Wonkish)".

Peacekeeping

The rebels attack "one of only four towns still under the control of loyalist fighters" - BBC - "Libya conflict: 'Battle under way' for Bani Walid".
This is the usual disinformation. There is no mention of NATO bombing, though on Friday Milo Mindbender Inc bombed, according to their own "media update", five towns. Neither is there any mention of the British and French special forces and mercenaries or the tactics that are being used to encourage the ex Government forces to give up.


Monday 5 September 2011

Money

Another forecast of doom, with the same proposed cure - dirt cheap money - FT - "The worst of the euro crisis is yet to come".

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya conflict: Bani Walid siege talks 'have failed'".
NATO had 52 bombing raids on Libya yesterday (none of which are mentioned by the BBC), Bani Walid was not one of the targets. It seems that NATO must have some reason for limiting damage to the infrastructure there.


Sunday 4 September 2011

Money

A few of the recent stories (naturally not from the popular press) as to where we may be - Alphaville on 2nd - "What if We're Headed for a Recession?"   Motley Fool on 2nd - "Liquidity lessons".
Even Paul Krugman recognises that the end is nigh, though his cure might be more of the medicine that got us into this mess - NYT on 3rd - "Broken Windows, Ozone, and Jobs".

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya conflict: anti-Gaddafi forces threaten Bani Walid".
This story starts "Hundreds of troops loyal to Libya's interim government are closing in on one of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi's few remaining strongholds." Like 99 per cent of the news stories this is fantasy. The rebels as seen on TV are incapable of any fighting against armed opposition. France and Britain are relying on the same tactics as used thoughout the war - local attacks by mercenaries and special forces; cutting off supplies and in particular water (which they are now trying to restore to Tripoli); bombing (which following a lull due to shortage of bombs has now increased - yesterday there were 48 raids which is nearly back to the average of 51 since NATO took over the bombing on 31 March). Though the West's principal weapon is the sense of inevitability that they will win, which encourages those who supported the former Government to change sides or flee.

There has been some reporting on the links between the former Government and America - BBC - "Libya: Gaddafi regime's US-UK spy links revealed".
This is not really news. The Americans don't really care what happens in any country as longer as it does not clash with their interests. Though the US is playing a dangerous game as their new puppet Government may come under the influence of the more militant mujahideen.

AGW

Cambridge Scientific Alliance - "Time for a more mature debate on climate change".

Pop

Church doing its bit to increase Indian (and Catholic) population - Pioneer - "Church giving incentives to larger families ".


Friday 2 September 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya interim leaders vow tolerance and respect for law"   BBC - "Libya: Western diplomats step up a gear".
It seems that the war against Libya was so that we could have help them get over a dire shortage of "water, medical supplies, food and fuel". As Libya scored far higher than any other African country in the UN Human Development Report for 2010 - Wikipedia map, perhaps the shortages have something to do with the West?

The whole of the rebel Government was sacked on the 8th August following the killing of the rebel military chief. The rebel Government now consists of one man - an academic who taught at Pittsburgh and until the rebellion started was the head of the Libyan Economic Board and according to Wikipedia he "promoted privatization".

Surprisingly the BBC are now reporting on the rape and murder of darker skinned Libyans, but they suggest that either this may be being done by the ex Government forces and / or that the people being raped and murdered are merely supporters of the ex Government - BBC - "Plight of sub-Saharan Africans in Libya".

NATO's latest press release says that they carried out 38 bombing attacks yesterday (as usual the figure for attacks may be correct, but the stated targets are lies). There is an implication that NATO is holding back from a full scale assault in order to minimise the number of women and children killed. But given that the news media is so servile it is likely that the real reason for a delay is that NATO is replenishing its bombs and missiles. Though they may also be worried about the reaction from the Warfalla tribe if many of them are killed.


Thursday 1 September 2011

Money trouble

To save the Titanic, it is best to slow down or stop before you reach the icebergs - IStockAnalyst - "Missed Opportunities".
This report mentions the bail out of LTCM. The rich and powerful who had gained from its bets were the ones that would have lost out by its failure when the bets started to go wrong, but they were saved by intervention which may have indirectly included the British taxpayer. The BCCI Wikipedia, which mainly operated from London, got into trouble about the same time.

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya conflict: Leaders gather for Paris summit".
The BBC refer to banknotes flown in by "the British air force". It is not clear whther this refers to the RAF or to Milo Minderbinder Inc. In any case the BBC omits to report that while the rebels have given supporters of the former Government till Saturday to surrender, NATO yesterday flew another 34 bombing missions against Government supporters. It is not clear whether the Government supporters will surrender themselves and their families to an uncertain fate at the hands of the rebels or not surrender and probably be killed by the air strikes. Though it is still possible that the final collapse will mainly be because of NATO's siege tactics and the cutting off of water and other supplies.
It was also reported today that Britain's SIS played the major rule in the cutting off supplies to Tripoli and other areas while they were controlled by the ex Government.


Wednesday 31 August 2011

Money trouble

Britain's Business Minister is waving his fist at the banks - BBC - "Banking reforms will go ahead, says Vince Cable".
The reality is that the Government have done nothing to inprove the capital ratios of the banks and that the planned breakup of the banks between retail and investment is as likely to make the banks less secure as make them more secure.

AGW and Pop

The President tells young people that the big problem in their future is the economy, but that the other big problem is carbon that is polluting the atmosphere and causing "climate change" such as droughts and hurricanes - The Hill - "Obama tells young reporters: Climate change a top challenge for young people"   Scholastic News - "Challenges Facing America's Youth" video.
It's reassuring that the President does not believe that pop growth is a problem.


Tuesday 30 August 2011

Pop

More people = more profits - Seeking Alpha - "Investing In Population Growth".

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Libya rebel leaders give ultimatum to Gaddafi fighters".
Milo Minderbinder Inc., aka NATO, carried out another 42 bombing raids yesterday. It is surprising that there are apparently any Government forces left to surrender.


Monday 29 August 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Gaddafi still threat for Libya and world - NTC's Jalil".
Presumably the "threat to the world" is a cache of WMD! In the meantime Britain with help from a few other countries continues (according to NATO there were 38 bombing attacks on Sunday) to bomb the remaining areas controlled by the now ex-Government.
To minimise complaints from the tame press, the bombing up to now will have mainly been targetted using lasers to "paint" the position of Government troops. The lasers will have been hand held by either journalists who moonlight for the CIA or by the British special forces (and some French) who have directed the ground attacks. This technique may be difficult with Sirte. NATO bombs, missiles and gunships could easily wipe the town off the map, but NATO has not got 100 per cent control of the news media, so it will probably cut off water etc and wait for the supporters of the ex-Government to either engage in suicidal breakouts or surrender.
Centre for Research on Globalization 28th - "The "Liberation" of Libya: NATO Special Forces and Al Qaeda Join Hands".

Pop

The American majority is becoming the minority according to the latest release of the 2010 Census data - CNN - "America reaches its demographic tipping point".
The writer from conservative / liberal Brookings Institution says that "The great demographic change has potential long term benefits for our population growth in terms of our economic competitiveness in the international marketplace".


Sunday 28 August 2011

Peacekeeping and AGW

BBC 24th - "Warm, wet - and warring?". So we were wrong after all about the cause of the wars against Jugloslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. It is all down to "climate change".

Pop

This story - BBC 26th - "Neanderthal sex boosted immunity in modern humans" has an interesting quote from a Professor of Immunogenetics - ""Initially you have small bands of Europeans exploring, having a difficult time and making friends with the natives; but as they establish themselves, they become less friendly and more likely to take over their resources and eliminate them.".
The Professor and the Beeb must not have realised that this principle may not just apply to the "elimination" of Neanderthals and "the European conquest of the Americas".


Saturday 27 August 2011

Money trouble

Gold reached a new peak of 1,900 dollars on Monday, but has slipped a bit and is now at 1,830 dollars (the previous peak reached a week ago). The FTSE has continued to yo yo but has not yet gone through the 5,000 floor (it is currently at 5,130).
The gradual collapse was partly stopped by official rumours (since denied - BBC 26th - "US economy: Ben Bernanke signals no new stimulus") that a lot more money is to be printed. Before the denial this would have propped up asset prices, even though markets know that more money will probably hasten the death of the whole paper money system.
In theory Stock markets, as with other asset prices, should rise as paper money loses its value, but this effect is to some extent offset by the fear that consumer spending in real terms will fall substantially as people and businesses will be scared to spend as we are now in or at least approaching the liquidity trap. Any move that confirms that the authorities are panicking will mean that many people stop discretionary spending. This will wipe out profits and more firms will go bust however much money the central banks are giving away.

Government fails to close the gates

Telegraph - "Seven million foreigners living in Britain as immigration rises by a fifth"   Mail - "Immigration soared by 20% last year - making a mockery of Government pledge to bring it DOWN".
The ONS have made the key facts even more obscure by stopping the summary and hiding the figures in a forest of detail - ONS - "Immigration Statistics April-June 2011".
Migration Watch for some reason blame Labour, but there is no chance of this Government doing anything effective on immigatrion or population growth. The Tories have to do what the business interests that finance them want, and the Lib Dems would welcome in the whole world.

Peacekeeping

The war to replace the Libyan Government nears the end of the main phase - BBC - "Libya conflict: UN chief Ban urges stable transition".
Britain has played the biggest role in the war, with Field Marshal Hague providing a large part of the bombers, and most of the special forces and mercenaries. It is difficult to see how Britain will have gained.
When the main phase of the fighting is over it is unlikely that Libya will turn into an Iraq or an Afghanistan, as NATO had as allies the mujahideen. So there are unlikely to be any significant attacks on the new Government. Instead it is likely that there will be the killing of anyone who supported the previous Government (including some of those who had thought it prudent to go over to the rebels) and ethnic cleansing of those whose skin is too dark. It is most unlikely that any of this will be reported in the news media.
Despite their certain victory, there were another 42 bombing raids on Libya yesterday, bringing the total up to 7,732 since NATO took over co-ordination of the bombing. As usual the NATO list of targets is fiction, partly designed for the public and partly to ease the conscience of the pilots who carry the bombs and missiles - NATO - "Operational Media Update - For 26 AUGUST".


Sunday 21 August 2011

Peacekeeping

A Foreign Office minister (Alistair Burt) has told the BBC that the next target for NATO would be Syria, but that as with Libya they would first have to get UN backing.


Thursday 18 August 2011

Money trouble

The official unemployment figures are now starting to show what has been foreshadowed by the rise in part time working over the last year, i.e. people can't get even a low paid job and over 23 per cent of those aged from 16 to 64 are "inactive" - BBC - "UK unemployment total on the rise"   ONS - "Labour market statistics August 2011" pdf.


Tuesday 16 August 2011

Money trouble

The market falls are over for now. Gold is still fluctuating around the 1,760 dollars an ounce level (it is currently 1,770 dollars about 43 per cent up over 12 months, but below the peak of 1,780 dollars a week ago). The FTSE is still fluctuating around the 5250 level and is currently about 5300. It is a flip of a coin as to whether the next move will be back up to the 6000 level of just one month ago or there will be a fall below the 5000 level and beyond.
Germany seems to be feeling some effect from the global slowdown - BBC - "German economic growth slows sharply".
In America, the President is promising something which will presumably be a non-radical rehash of an Old Deal - BBC - "Obama promises 'very specific' plan for US economy".

Peacekeeping

One of the latest stories in the war to replace the Libyan Government - BBC - "Libya conflict: Gaddafi forces 'launched Scud missile'".
The SCUDs that the Libyan Government forces have are out of date and totally useless for attacking rebel positions. The real muscle continues to be the largely Anglo French air attacks and the ground attacks by a mixture of special forces, mercenaries and mujahideen who call in the air attacks. NATO Operational Media Update For 14 August. (The 7,200 air attacks to date excludes the French, American and British air and missile attacks before NATO took over.)
The aim still seems to be to cut off the Libyan capital's supplies with the hope that Libyan Government forces will themselves force the Government to surrender to the rebels.
The next American / French / British target seems likely to be the ex French colony of Syria.

Pop

One of the leading Republican contenders for President is the Troll Governor of Texas. He is praised by the right for creating jobs, but due to high pop growth, the proportion of the pop who are working has gone down - Reuters - "Perry's employment record in Texas".


Saturday 13 August 2011

AGW

GISS have just published their figures for July. According to them July was the third warmest (since 1880) and the only warmer Julys were in 1998 and 2009.


Friday 12 August 2011

Peacekeeping (at home)

BBC - "What Los Angeles can teach UK on riot control".
Since the 1st Jan there have been 357 murders in Los Angeles, so perhaps the LA police chief who was given a CBE by the Queen and now chairs a private security consultancy would like a few tips on murder control.

Money trouble

Gold today is back down to the price it was on Wednesday 1,760 dollars, and it looks as if it will fluctuate around this level till there is some news that will cause a further big movement up, or possibly down. The FTSE has been having a bit of a roller coaster ride but is currently back at about the price it opened on Monday -5,200, though this is still a ten per cent fall in two weeks - BBC - "European markets lower as short-selling ban comes in".
Four central banks have banned what are in effect bets that bank stocks will fall in price - BBC - "Four EU nations ban short-selling on banking stocks". This is a sign of panic, and also a sign that things are really bad as otherwise they would not show their panic. It is looking increasingly likely that Governments will rob even more money from savers, lenders and investors to prop up the system.


Thursday 11 August 2011

Money trouble

The rapid rise in the price of gold is showing signs of stopping though it has gone up from the 1,760 dollars we reported yesterday to 1,790 dollars (a rise of 48.9 per cent in one year). The stock market fall is showing signs of stopping, though it is still down about 900 points (8 per cent) in just five weeks. It is possible that those who are buying stocks are doing so as they are privy to knowledge that the Central banks will be printing a lot more money. This will ultimately add to the disaster, but will give the elite time.
One view of what is happening that you won't see in the news media - Gold Seek / Golden Jackass - "Inflation & Deflation in a Storm".

Pop

Sunshinecoast Daily - "Population backflip a real betrayal".


Wednesday 10 August 2011

More Money trouble

Britain's Inflation King has reduced his growth forecast and issued a report on inflation - BBC - "Bank of England cuts UK economic growth forecast"   BofE - "Inflation Report, August 2011 and Press Conference".
The Guv is in a bit of a bind. Nominally his job is to control inflation, but he and the Government really want inflation to increase (providing that they can keep workers in check by penal laws and fear of unemployment). And because we are near enough in a liquidity trap he needs people to believe that inflation will remain high (again with the proviso that workers are kept in check). But he can't admit to any of this, so he is also in a trap.

Money trouble

David Cameron having been forced to end his holiday, put other MPs on the spot by getting the Boss Queen to recall her Talking club for Thursday to chat about the trouble on the streets. The Boy Wonder will also be speaking on the money trouble - BBC - "George Osborne to make statement to MPs on economy". It is difficult to see what George can say. Will he undermine the fiction that the Old Lady is supposed to be independent and they are already doing what he wants by making money cheap and fuelling inflation? Can he go back on his tight fiscal policy, when he knows that Ed Balls will bawl "I told you so"?


Tuesday 9 August 2011

Peacekeeping

While the police are having difficulty in keeping the peace on London's streets, the French and British forces fighting to remove Gadaffi seem to be having little trouble, at least for the moment.
The leader of the Rebel government has just sacked his entire "cabinet" but this might actually help the French and British to control the fighting. The war along the coastal towns and in the western mountains seems to be in the hands of a mixture of special forces, mercenaries and mujahideen volunteers from outside Libya.
Those who are from Libyan tribes that support the Government are being encouraged to flee. Given the continuing high level of NATO air strikes it is a wonder that there is anyone who dares to resist the "rebels".
NATO is stil issuing daily bulletins which state that their targets each day are mainly tanks and air defences. This is highly implausible as Libya's air defences were destroyed, even before NATO joined in, by hundreds of largely American missiles and by bombing by the Americans, French and British. Britain is also now using its Apache attack helicopters.
There are reports that camel trains are being attacked; if correct then the aim is probably to remove an alternative form of supply to Tripoli. Even with their recent success, the "rebel" forces could never take the capital and more widespread NATO air attcks are unlikely while western reporters are still in the capital, so the aim seems to be to cut off fuel and electricity and other supplies.


Monday 8 August 2011

The Seeds of Wrath

Another day of trouble on the London streets - BBC - "London riots: Theresa May meets police as Hackney violence erupts".
Trouble can be sparked off by any immediate grievance, real or imagined, but the trouble is worse if the seed falls on fertile ground. And that is what London is following a policy of mass immigation which gives the establishment cheap labour and tenants, but adds to unemployment, overcrowding and poor conditions for those of all races at the bottom and which seems a lot worse in a city where the hedonists rule.

Money trouble

The ECB has this morning been buying bonds. This news at first caused stock markets to rise, but they then went back to falling - BBC - "Markets volatile following European Central Bank move".
The ECB bailing out some of the Eurozone Governments begs the question of where they get their money from. The answer is that they "print" more money in order to pay for the bonds that they buy. There is little else that they can do as though at first sight they have an impressive balance sheet with assets of two trillion euros, their liabilities are also large leaving them with capital and reserves (if you exclude unrealised gains) of only 81 billion euros. ECB Annual reports.


Sunday 7 August 2011

Money trouble

One indication of the fall in the value of paper money is the rise in the price of gold. Since the General election in May 2010, the sterling price has gone up by 25 per cent. But against the dollar the increase in gold price is even greater, in the last 12 months alone it has increased 38 per cent (graph is from goldprice.org).

Pop

Ghana Web - "The Leading Root Cause of Unemployment".


Saturday 6 August 2011

AGW

The Met Office have produced their - Climate summary for July 2011. According to them the mean temperature over most of Bitain was about one degree Celsius below average (1971 to 2000). An exception was the West coast of Scotland where mean temps were average.

Money trouble

Views of a Nobel prize winning economist - NY Times - "The Wrong Worries".
Mr Krugman is probably correct to be worried, but if part of his solution is to stimulate demand by printing more money then America will have a problem that is so massive that only a World War could "solve" it.


Friday 5 August 2011

Start of a Real Down?

From Paper Money Collapse on 20th July - "Bernanke's blind side".

Peacekeeping

NATO have succeeded in killing a second of Gaddafi's sons by bombing Zlitan. (On Monday it was reported that the rebels had "taken" this town ( Guardian - "Libya rebels take Zlitan as RAF clears way after two-month struggle", so it is strange that NATO were still bombing it).
More significantly NATO are cutting off supplies of oil and electicity to the Libyan capital, they have taken over at least one oil tanker and diverted it to the rebel area, and special forces have destroyed the pipeline that served the only refinery still working.
NATO have now flown 6,701 "strike sorties" against Libya - NATO - "Operational Media Update For 03 August" pdf. As usual their claimed targets are not credible, particularly the anti aircraft targets, when NATO has been bombing Libya with impunity for over 4 months.

AGW

A deniers story that got on to BBC - BBC - "Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached"   Watts Up - "New study suggests Arctic 'tipping point' may not be reached".
Some background -
An "Ice Age" consists of "glacial" periods of 70,000 years or so broken by "interglacial" periods of about 10,000 years or so. We are in the Quaternary (also named "Pleistocene") glaciation that began about 2.5 million years ago, and within that we are in the Holocene interglacial that began about 12,000 years ago.
Journalists and even most climate "scientists" refer to the glacial period that began about 100,000 years ago and ended about 12,000 years ago as the "Ice Age", but it is more correct to refer to the Quaternary that began 2.5 million years ago, and which we are still in, as the Ice Age.
Even within an interglacial there are variations in the temperature with the high points called "climatic optimums". Despite the current panic about CO2 we are currently a bit below these "optimum" temperatures, so it is not really a surprise that "the team found evidence that ice levels were about 50% lower 5,000 years ago".


Thursday 4 August 2011

Pile 'em high

Globe & Mail - "More immigrants are in Canada's national interest ".
The Globe & Mail is a Toronto paper that supports the introduction of road tolls as it says the roads are crowded with too many cars.
Canada has lots of space but in practice most of the people crowd into a few cities. More people means that those cities (and their roads) will get more crowded. These crowds may be good for the establishment but they don't stop Canada from having the World's sixth highest trade deficit.

Money trouble

BBC - "PPI costs push Lloyds into loss as banking shares fall".
The banks are free to rob savers while the rergulators look the other way, but those who otherwise get ripped off by the banks seem to be well protected.
The problem is that while borrowers get a free ride and politicians look to milk the banks, the banks get weaker when instead they should be making big profits which they are then required to set aside as reserves. The Old Lady and the Government are not following this prudent policy as they are only concerned with the short term, and hope to be out of the way when the next financial crisis hits.


Wednesday 3 August 2011

Peacekeeping

With Libya, the "reporting" makes it almost impossible to know what is happening. E.g. on Monday there was a story about some of the people fleeing Libya dying on a boat. None of the reports said who they were fleeing from, though based on that omission and the fact that they were sub-Saharan Africans, the answer is obvious.
Despite some internal problems, the Libyan rebels are reported to be taking more towns, albeit that they may be empty. One reason for rebel successes is that despite Norway having now stopped their bombing there seems to be more bombing overall.
Most people assume that the reason for the war is that France and America want to control the oil, while America and Britain get the Libyan Government funds (though about one per cent is being given to the rebels). Another reason has been suggested - apparently the Libyan Government were unhappy about accepting potentially worthless dollars as payment for oil and had been demanding gold.

Nothing Day

Yesterday the Senate passed the Bill and the President signed it - NY Times - "Debt Bill Is Signed, Ending a Fractious Battle" lots of comments   ABC - "Debt Ceiling Raised, But Markets Still Depressed"   BBC - "US avoids default as Obama signs debt bill into law".
In the House of Reps, the Democrats were evenly split, but in the Senate they voted 45 to 6 for the Bill. It was the Republicans who's doubts were increasing as they only voted 28 to 19 for the Bill.
It is still not clear what the trend in borrowing will be longer term. That the system seem to be unable or unwilling to produce any meaningful forecasts is disturbing.
These are some of the opinion pieces in the NY Times -
"Editorial: Hiding Behind the Budget Act"   "A Crisis Merely Postponed"   "Washington Chain Saw Massacre".


Tuesday 2 August 2011

No solution

Yesterday, the "Workplace Retirement Income Commission" issued their final report (pdf)   BBC - "Workers facing a bleak old age says pension review".
The recommendations do nothing more than shore up a very unfair and very inefficient system. The present system needs to be completely replaced with a funded system based on what a person has contributed over their life and fully integrated into the income tax system. We won't get that because too many people are making a profit out of the present mess.

One day to go to nothing

The House of Reps has passed a Bill, which will go to the Senate today - NY Times - "House Passes Deal to Avert Debt Crisis" lots of comments   ABC - "Sec. Geithner on Debt Deal: Don't Know If We Will Avoid Downgrade"   BBC - "US House of Representatives passes debt-limit bill".
What may not be immediately obvious is that the Democrat reps were split 95 to 95 on the vote for the Bill and it passed because the Republicans voted 174 to 66. The Democrats control the Senate, so it not absolutely certain that the Senate will vote for the Bill.
What is also not obvious, and is in fact invisible, is how much further America will get into debt during the ten years that the spending cuts will kick in. There is nothing on the Treasury site or on the Congessional Budget Office site. One might expect the markets to be anxious about this lack of data, but the markets act like a swarm of lemmings which have been lobotomized. Having said that the real disaster has already occurred over the last decade or two, and it is the financiers who stole the trillions and the innumerate politicians who let it happen. Whatever Congress does or doesn't do now, the future is grim.


Monday 1 August 2011

Two days to go to nothing

A deal which is likely to go through Congress has been reached over how much will be cut from spending (2.4 trillion dollars) and how much more will be borrowed (2.4 trillion dollars) - NY Times - "Obama and Leaders Reach Debt Deal" lot of comments   ABC - "Obama, Boehner Announce Agreement to Raise Debt Ceiling, Avoid Default"   BBC - "Obama announces US deficit deal between party leaders".
This deal might seem like the judgement of Solomon with the cut in spending being equal to the increase in borrowing, but the cut will take 10 years to achieve and the increase in borrowing will only last for about 18 months. The Federal Government will still be operating at a large loss and further massive borrowing will be required.

The stock markets may go up on the "news" of a deal, but the reality is that America and the World is in a financial mess and "bond" holders will be looking for a safer place for their money (their best bet is probably to spend it!).
It makes little difference to the world's economy as to whether America sinks deeper into debt or there are recessionary spending cuts - and there will be both. We are in a position that can only be solved by either going back in a time machine or by radical steps - neither will happen.

Peacekeeping

Given the bias of the news media and the ability to hide contradictory reports on the web, it is difficult to know what has really been happening since the western attacks on pro Libyan Government forces began on the 19 March. But it seems that the rebels in Benghazi have attacked the "al-Nidaa Brigade" who it is said were pretending to be rebels but were actually pro Government. It is unlikely that any of the brigade will survive to give their version.
In the west of Libya, rebels aided by special forces and NATO bombing have been attacking various towns. It is not clear whether they came in via Tunisia or the desert to the south or both. Some reports say that a large part of the local population continue to cross the border into Tunisia to escape the fighting. Other reports say that the refugees are moving back now that the area has been "liberated" by the rebels. Given that the western news media have turned a blind eye to these refugees, it seems more likely that is is the reports of refugees moving back that are false.


Sunday 31 July 2011

Pop

International Business Times - "Are We Prepared as World Population is Set to Breach 7 Billion Soon?".


Saturday 30 July 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Islamist militia 'shot Libya rebel Abdel Fattah Younes'".
As with the new Libyan ambassador to London, the "Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade" does not seem to have been mentioned anywhere before this week. The name seems to come from one of the earliest Muslim leaders who led a war to take Syria from Byzantine / Roman Empire about 13 AH. / 634 CE.

Three days to go

A picture paints a thousand words and this graph from the Fed at StLouis illustrates the yawning gap that will be almost impossible to close whatever deal they reach about raising the 14.3 trillion dollars debt limit.
Here is the graph redrawn to just show the last ten years -

.

Pop

There has been a lot more coverage (though little of it in Britain) about the world reaching seven billion. We are usually told that there is no problem, we just need to share out resources more equally. We are also reassured by the National Geographic that there is no need to worry as we could all fit into Los Angeles - video.


Friday 29 July 2011

Four days to go

From CNN - "Obama dismisses House debt plan, urges Senate compromise"   "The debt ceiling battle: Where things stand on a vote"   "Apple now has more cash than the U.S. government".
Strangely, despite the British Government and the British people being so deeply in debt, we are the third biggest lender to the US Government who have 350 billion dollars of our cash - "Major Foreign Holders Of Treasury Securities".

Peacekeeping

Field Marshal Hague on Wednesday removed the Libyan ambassador, who was replaced with Mr Mahmud al-Naku. Before Wednesday this "writer and journalist" was completely invisible and all the subsequent reports on him are solely based on one brief interview he had with the BBC.
Two African countries - Gambia and Senegal - also seem to be backing the rebels despite the atrocities that it is claimed the rebels have carried our against any blacks who are accused of being sympathetic with the Libyan Government. According to Amnesty International, the Gambian government ".. commit human rights violations with impunity. Members of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), army, police, and shadowy militias close to the President - known as ninjas, drug boys and jugglers - arbitrarily arrested and detained government opponents, human rights defenders, journalists and former security personnel. Torture and other ill-treatment in custody were reported. A second wave of mass arrests took place, culminating in the treason trial of eight prominent men, who were sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial." Amnesty says about Senegal- ".. civilians were abducted and killed. Torture was regularly used by the police and condoned by the judiciary ..".

Pop

A Pakistani (living in US) does not agree that Pakistan's high pop growth rate is a problem - Dawn - "The population question".


Thursday 28 July 2011

Pop

Population Reference Bureau - "The World at 7 Billion - World Population Data Sheet 2011" pdf.

AGW

A few sceptics believe that the "Greenhouse effect" is not possible because of thermo dynamics. But most sceptics believe that an increase in CO2 probably does make it warmer, though they also believe that the data and models, that show that the effect of more CO2 is significant, are biased and unreliable. Here is one amateur's account of why the effect may be very small - Irish Weather Online - "Greenhouse Confusion Resolved".


Wednesday 27 July 2011

Peacekeeping

Field Marshal Hague throws out the Libyan Government reps who are to be replaced with the rebels - BBC - "UK expels Gaddafi diplomats and recognises Libya rebels".
Interestingly the wew Libyan "Government"'s official website - The Libyan Interim National Council is registered through a Surrey company that enables the real site owner to be secret.
Meanwhile the reports of atrocities (beheadings, other executions, rapes, torture, and attacks on sub-Saharan Africans) that it is claimed are carried out by the rebels, are not mentioned in the British media and instead there are reports that Government forces are committing atrocities. Here is an example of the reports that 99 per cent of people are not aware of - Veterans Today - "NATO's War Crimes in Libya" (the writer was accused in 2004 of being an enemy agent and held in various US Government facilities before being deemed to be insane).
The reports (on foreign websites) of rebel atrocities have fallen over last two months, possibly because the British special forces have advised the rebels that there is a danger that what they are doing may become more widely known and Western public opinion might stop NATO aid.
Hague may only be following orders from France who are the main supplier of arms to the rebels. The NATO or "OTAN" (Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord) operation is led by a French Canadian and continues to attack Libyan Government forces and any vehicles which it thinks may be supplying them. When we last gave a figure on the 11th, NATO had flown 5,539 "strike sorties", the latest figure is 6,285 - NATO - "Operational Media Update For 26 JULY" pdf.

George and Ed, Dynamic duo

BBC - "UK GDP figures show slower growth of 0.2%"   BBC - "Cameron says he is 100% behind Osborne growth plan"   ONS - "Gross domestic product preliminary estimate 2nd Quarter 2011" pdf.
GDP is almost meaningless as it increases with wars, crime, waste, inefficiency and corruption. The GDP could be dramatically increased by tolling all roads!

The Chancellor is fond of saying that Britain has the worst debt in the world and therefore the Government has to make massive cuts and increase taxes. The truth is that Britain is not the worst when it comes to public sector debt, whether this is counted against population or GDP.
On a GDP basis, Japan, France and Germany had bigger debts in 2010 than Britain's which were at 77 per cent. As for the USA it depends who you believe, the widely quoted figure of 59 per cent comes from the CIA who use a debt figure of only 8.7 billion dollars, the real percentage of GDP figure seeems to be just under 100.

The biggest debt problem in Britain, is in the personal and private sectors. This debt has been encouraged by both Tories and Labour. Given interest rates which are negative in real terms, people and businesses are better off by borrowing than by saving. Though the impact of low interest rates has been reduced because when the future looks bleak, people are less likely to spend.

Whatever you believe, there is no point in cutting taxes or increasing public and private spending to achieve a probably meaningless increase in GDP. The important thing is to change laws and practices to reduce waste and efficiency and to promote a fairer and more open society.
As a nation, we also need to stop consumption that is based on either borrowing or sale of assets. Out of 191 countries, Britain has the 186th worst current account balance.

Pop

"We were surprised to read some media reports insinuating that the House was going to pass a bill to curb population growth... as the House is a responsible parliament and will never try to do anything like that, especially considering the fact that such is unreligious and ungodly." allAfrica - "Population Control Not On Our Agenda - Reps".
Fifty years ago the population of Nigeria was 46 million, it is now 160 million. If the current fertility rate does not change then in another 50 years it will be 700 million. Presumably all of them will be religious and godly.


Monday 25 July 2011

Politicians should blame themselves

BBC - "MPs call for energy doorstep mis-selling compensation"   Parliament - "Energy and Climate Change - Sixth Report Ofgem's Retail Market Review".
It was a Tory Government that introduced "competition" which has benefitted no one other than spivs and which has also resulted in most of the electricity generation and supply being foreign owned. They also introduced a system of regulation, which has evolved into a situation where nothing is done to support consumers as a whole, and which has mainly benefitted the spivs who come in and resell something that they do not produce. The chances of anything being done about this are zero.

Pop

America trying to scare the Chinese into more pop growth- USA Today - "China's aging population slows economic growth".
China has over 1.3 billion people, and the numbers are currently growing at a rate of 0.5 per cent a year. Chinese consumption of resources and pollution are increasing at a far higher rate than this, to urge them not to try and control the population is worse than madness.


Sunday 24 July 2011

Pop

Effects of pop growth on Pakistan - Dawn - "The elephant in the room".


Saturday 23 July 2011

Money

Confirmation that Britain's Plastic Chancellor has given Ireland even easier money - BBC - "UK cuts interest rate on Republic of Ireland loan".

AGW

It's hot in North America - BBC - "Deadly heatwave settles across US and Canada"   BBC - "US heatwave raises climate complexity"   CNN - "High dew points breed summer misery".
The BBC implies that this heatwave may be due to "climate change". But the weather in any part of the globe has little to do with tiny changes in global temperature, it is mainly affected by where the jet streams are and whether there is any "blocking". The current heat wave in North America has been caused by blocking that had been forecast made to feel worse by high levels of humidity. The latter may be due to "global warming" but is likely due to the higher than usual levels of rain and snow during last winter. Either way, the Weather Action forecast is that the heat wave will start to wind down at the end of this month.


Friday 22 July 2011

Money

BBC - "Greece aid package boosts stock markets"   BBC - "George Osborne welcomes Greece debt deal".
Modern money is fundamentally worthless and only has value based on confidence. On this basis as money gradually ceases to have value, the price of other items - including shares - will rise. So the rise in the Stock Markets could in part be a subconscious realisation that this deal to shore up the system may mean that the eventual collapse of the value of money will be even worse.
The Chancellor is bound to welcome the deal, as it puts off a further crisis for British banks who have lent the Euro countries over a trillion.

More self abuse

BBC - "Mau Mau Kenyans allowed to sue UK government".
It is almost certain that British forces tortured and killed opponents in various colonies, including in the Malayan Emergency in the early 50s. But it could be argued that those on the other side were at least as ruthless - the Mau Mau in Kenya killed many fellow Africans including by burning them alive.
To reopen events such as these many decades later, begs three questions -
How far back do you go to atone for the sins of the past?
Why does this mainly seem to happen in Britain, rather than in America or various European states who are responsible for atrocities a million times worse?
And why is Britain so weak minded that e.g. it apologises for slavery when it did more than any other country to stop slavery and slave trading?


Thursday 21 July 2011

AGW

Two of the latest AGW stories on the Beeb - "Climate change 'threatens peace', UN official warns"   "Climate: Fractures in the lobby?".


Wednesday 20 July 2011

Old Lady's high inflation, cheap money policy likely to be with us for a long time

BBC - "Interest rate rise unlikely in near term, says Bank"   BofE - "Minutes Of The Monetary Policy Committee Meeting 6 And 7 July 2011" pdf.

Opinions

Yesterday we had shares in News International going up 5 per cent following the "grilling" by MPs of Rupert Murdoch - Guardian - "Rupert Murdoch and his robot sidekick steal the show as Cameron sweats it out".
He suggested to them that as in Singapore - "the most open and clear society in the world" - they should have a salary of a million dollars to avoid the need for corruption - Parliament. Singapore may be a wonderful country for billionaire publishers and those who can afford the high taxes on cars, but this is what Amnesty International said about it in their last report - "Government critics and human rights defenders continued to be penalized for exercising their right to freedom of expression. The media continued to be tightly controlled through restrictive censorship laws and legal actions against publishers. Arbitrary detention, judicial caning and the death penalty were retained.".

Pop

The BBC and Daily Mail have recently been saying that China should relax its "one child" policy. It seems that at least one city does not need any more people - CriEnglish - "Beijing's Population to Exceed 22.6m by '16".


Tuesday 19 July 2011

Money

Another indication that paper money will eventually find its true value of nothing - BBC - "Gold price climbs to new record on debt uncertainty".


Monday 18 July 2011

Toytown

Yesterday we had the resignation (though it seems he has not gone yet) of Britain's most senior Mr Plod - BBC - "Reaction to Met Police commissioner Sir Paul resigning"   Guardian - "Deciphered - the Met commissioner's resignation statement"   Guardian - "Phone-hacking scandal"   Telegraph (Saturday night) - "Phone hacking: Sir Paul Stephenson faces questions of health spa stay"   NY Times - "An Arrest and Scotland Yard Resignation Roil Britain".
This story gives the plebs a rare glimpse into the establishment that runs Britain and keeps its power by occasionally offering up sacrifices to the mob.
The "resignation" statement starts - "I have this afternoon informed the Palace". You may wonder why this was so, it is because police officers when they swear their oath of "attestation" do not promise to serve the public but "solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen in the office of constable". And of couse send people to gaol if they are a threat to Royal secrets, while ignoring the privacy of lesser mortals.
The police force has a very rigid hierarchy which means that an ordinary constable might be sacked for accepting a trivial item while the man in charge thinks that there is nothing wrong with him accepting hospitality from News International on 14 occassions or a stay at a luxury spa from a friend.
Neither does it seem that the Home Secretary or any of Britain's senior politicians think that there is anything wrong with what he did or what happened while he was Deputy Commissioner and then Commissioner. Perhaps the politicians think that there was nothing wrong, because they know that it would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The politicians will also know that hundreds of thousands of the plebs are under surveillance by the Government and 1,001 other organisations which were given the legal power to snoop under RIPA - Wikipedia. While the news media continue to exercise their collective amnesia about RIPA (apart from occasional complaints about local Councils using the powers to investigate "bin crimes"), the establishment will not be too worried by this current storm.

AGW

The sceptical Watts Up site has a new page - "Global Temperature Page".


Sunday 17 July 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Warning over early Afghan pull-out by British forces".
Britain has been in Afghanistan since October 2001, when it joined in the American invasion aimed at replacing the Afghan Government with rebels from the north of the country.
Overwhelming American firepower meant that the Government forces were virtually wiped out within a few weeks. Since then Afghanistan has been under Western military occupation to suppress Islamic militants whose immediate aim seems to be the removal of the Western troops and the Government in Kabul.
It is almost beyond belief that MPs are saying that the Government target of ending British "combat operations" by 2014 is too early. There are 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and it is not plausible that the withdrawal of Britain's contribution would have any military significance. The withdrawal of the American troops would probably lead to an increase in Afghans fighting Afghans in the short term, but at least there would be an end to foreign military interference which has caused the deaths of up to two million Afghans since 1979 when the Soviet Union intervened on the side of the then pro Communist Kabul Government against Mujahideen forces financed and armed by America and infiltrated into the country via Pakistan.

Pop

Guardian - "Beckhams a 'bad example' for families".
Britain could well do without celebs encouraging large families and the Green Party is right to encourage family planning. But there are too many people wherever they come from, and the Green Party is against restricting immigration.


Saturday 16 July 2011

Pop

One of the few reports on the adverse effect of pop growth - "In poor countries like Bangladesh, the prospect is horrifying as resources outrun habitants. Trees are being chopped down for fuel as well as commerce, and croplands are over-plowed by desperate farmers." - Daily Star (Bangladesh) - "The population bomb ticking".

Relying on Dad's Army

BBC - "Army may face cuts to fund TA reservists".
The Army has about 100,000 soldiers, not including about 75,000 uniformed people in the Navy and Air Force. There are also 33,000 reservists and a secret number of civilians (though as many are now employed through contractors, the figure would mean little). The only operation with a significant number of British forces is in Afghanistan where Britain has 9,500 people. The effect of cutting 7,000 soldiers depends on to what extent they come from the sharp end, i.e. the very small part where they may be attacked. The idea that the numbers of regulars will be deliberately cut for the purpose of increasing the numbers who are not at the sharp end illustrates the peculiar vision of politicians.


Friday 15 July 2011

AGW

A week or two ago, there were headlines like these - Telegraph - "Climate change is cause of Ethiopian drought"   Guardian - "Drought in east Africa the result of climate change and conflict". Today there is a report of people suffering from the cold and rain - BBC - "Somalis displaced by drought hit by Mogadishu rains".
Readers of Britain's papers, whether on the establishment right or the green left, all fail to tell people the truth - the problems in the Horn of Africa are because the population has increased almost four fold in only 50 years.

Peacekeeping amd Milo Minderbinder

British forces attacking Libyan forces to help with the French campaign to dominate North Africa are apparently receiving 29 pounds a day bonus, but not everyone is getting it - BFBS - "RAF crews told duties too safe to receive Libya danger bonus".
It is also reported today that Britain is to send more planes to attack Libya, that the US is to share with the Libyan rebels a bit of the billions that it has seized from the Libyan Government, and that Italy, which owes five billion dollars in reparations from its previous colonial invasion of Libya, is to abandon this "aid".

Pop

India's 1.25 billion population at the current fertility rate would double over the next 50 years. Now Assam is to encourage more family planning, a pity that the state only covers 2.5 per cent of India's pop - Times of India - "Govt may reward couples for family planning".


Thursday 14 July 2011

Warning for the Debt Juggernaut

CNN - "Debt ceiling: Moody's puts U.S. on notice"   BBC - "Moody's to review US triple-A debt rating".

Pop

"'Overly fertile' foreign mothers and middle-aged women behind biggest baby boom since 1962"   ONS - "Births and Deaths in England and Wales, 2010" pdf.
The Mail says that about 70 per cent of the population increase is due to immigration or "children born to immigrants". This is an understatement as there has been mass immigration for sixty years. It is likely that second generation immigrants also have a higher than average birth rate.
The ONS / Mail also suggests that older women having babies is part of the reason for population growth. In fact the older women having babies to a large extent will be women who put off having a family, and that would have caused a short term fall in population rather than a long term increase in population.
What the figures do not directly tell us is the reasons that some women have small families (including 20 per cent of women who have now reached the age when having children is unlikely, but have no children) and other women have large families. There will be various reasons, including intelligence levels, degree to which mothers look to the State for support (half of babies have unmarried mothers), and religious and social customs.


Wednesday 13 July 2011

More on Good news for the establishment. Bad News for the rest of us

BBC - "Brown in ferocious Commons attack on News International".
The BBC say that "some Tory MPs jeered and several intervened during his speech to question why he had not done more to combat press power during his time in office". This is an understatement as the Tories gave the impression that compared with Rupert Murdoch, the ex PM was the Anti-Christ.
The reason for the bickering is that some MPs must be nervous as they realise that any investigation into the Murdoch Empire, if it goes back to the period before the law was tightened, risks straying into the dangerous area of the illegal financing of all three parties and the rewards given to individual MPs for representing various interests such as tobacco and alcohol.

Unemployment falling, sort of

BBC - "UK unemployment level falls again"   ONS - "Labour market statistics: July 2011" pdf.
Unemployment fell by 26,000 in the last quarter. Given the policies of the Government, this would seem to indicate that the economy is doing better than we expected. This mirage is because the Government have been clever at managing people's expectations of getting a good well paid and full time job. The ONS report says that "The number of employees and self-employed people working parttime because they could not find a full-time job increased by 80,000 on the quarter to reach 1.25 million, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992". It also says that the number of people in the 16 to 24 year olds age group not in full-time education fell by 42,000 during the quarter.

Trying to hold back the tide

BBC - "EU to unveil Common Fisheries Policy reform".
Stopping the throwing of "illegal" (and dead) fish back into the sea is so sensible that it highlights the stupidity of politicians for ever having such a policy. But whatever the EU does, overfishing will continue, as it is driven by population size. Over the last 50 years, the population of an already crowded Europe (in and out the EU) has grown by 135 million. The fertility rate in the EU is only 1.6 children per woman, so this growth is entirely due to immigration and higher birth rates in the part of Europe not yet in the EU club.

AGW

All rightminded people must believe the scientists when they say that there is AGW - NY Times - "On Experts and Global Warming".


Tuesday 12 July 2011

More on Good news for the establishment. Bad News for the rest of us

BBC - "Hacking police round on News International".
The only reason that the Police were originally looking at this was to protect the Royal Family. The Police obtained tens of thousands of documents in 2006 from News International. These documents may well not have been complete, but even so it seems that what the Police did have covered the hacking into the details of thousands of people, but the only prosecution related to the Royals. What else would anyone expect? The most unfortunate part of this affair is that the current furore will make it even easier for the establishment to hide what they are doing from the public.

Latest figures for fall in the value of money

BBC - "UK CPI inflation in surprise fall to 4.2% in June"   ONS - "Consumer price indices : June 2011".
For "fuels and lubricants", inflation was 15.1 per cent over the 12 months to June.

Britain to give nine billion more to the French led IMF

BBC - "MPs approve £9bn increase in IMF lending capacity".
The Government says that this will have no effect as it will apparently come from the pile in the sock under the bed - "existing foreign exchange reserves". This begs the question of where the reserves come from and how they will be replenished. Our trade deficit is about 48 billion pounds a year. (The latest figures were issued today - ONS - "UK Trade: May 2011, as usual the 12 monthly figure is obscured.)
So where does the money come from? Either Britain is borrowing or it is selling off assets. Perhaps we should be asking the IMF for help!

Pop - A bit more on World Population Day

One reaction to the new Carbon tax - 9News - "Population gain will offset emissions cuts".


Monday 11 July 2011

Britain to sink further into mire

BBC - "Cameron promises 'people power' in public services plan".
Spivs, crooks and various other "entrepeneurs" will be able to get their hands on an even bigger slice of the cake, all funded by the mugs who pay taxes.

Good news for the establishment. Bad News for the rest of us

To the ruling class, politicians and celebs, the recent news about phone hacking etc is the best thing that could have happened. It will be used as an excuse to stop any further revelations about how these three groups rob us or lead lives which are different from the image that they project. In the meanrime, most of the great British public remain blissfully unaware of RIPA and the way in which communications of those who oppose official policies are monitored by hundreds of public authorities.

Peacekeeping

When we last covered this war, NATO had up to the 25 June flown 4,748 "strike sorties", two weeks later the figure is 5,539. It was also reported yesterday that HMS Liverpool was firing at Libyan land targets with its 4.5 inch guns. It is perhaps just as well that NATO only has the seemingly invisible Libyan Army to deal with, if it can't cow them into submission, how would it have dealt with the Red Army? Though perhaps the problem is that NATO lacks the full weight and ruthlessness of American firepower.

Laugh of the Day

BBC - "Chris Huhne: Energy bill rise claims are nonsense".

Modern Britain

BBC - "Southern Cross set to shut down and stop running homes".
Modern = privatised, bust and controlled by foreign capital.

Pop

Today is "World Population Day". It does not appear to have been reported in Britain, this is one of the few overseas reports - Online News (Pakistan) - "President urges to control alarming population growth".


Sunday 10 July 2011

AGW

A month or two back it looked as if the Sun might be heading back to more normal levels of activity, but that resurgence may be fizzling out - Watts Up - "Solar activity report: the sun is still in a funk". It is most unlikely, but it could be that we are already at or about the maximum, though this has not been suggested.


Saturday 9 July 2011

Not really failing

BBC - "Bank has 'failed' over inflation".
If the Bank's aim was really to keep inflation low, then it would be failing. But the real situation is that the Government and the rich and powerful want inflation to be as high as they can get away with without provoking too much reaction from workers and savers. Part of the Bank's trick is to make optimistic forecasts about how inflation will soon be falling.
One example of the robbery committed by the Government is the amount paid to those who defer their state pension for a year or more. The Government website - "Pensions and retirement planning - Claiming a lump sum payment" says that people will get "weekly interest added and compounded". What they don't say is that the interest is 2.5 per cent, i.e. half of the inflation rate. So the Government has a significant benefit to its cash flow, while pensioners are duped.

From the Man in charge of the AGW asylum

Independent - "British Gas to push thousands into fuel poverty with huge price hike"   Mail - Wars, food shortages and mass immigration: How global warming poses dire threat to Britain's security".
As we pointed out on Thursday, Sainsburys is selling solar energy panels on the basis that the average house will get an 847 pounds direct subsidy from the Government. It is hypocritical or worse for the Minister responsible for this to suggest that energy prices will be lower when we have more "renewables".
Bssed on his speech at the Royal United Services Institute on Thursday, the Minister is well aware that the earths's population is growing and may have already reached an unsustainable level, yet he still says that "climate change" is the threat.

Pop

An appeal that will fall on deaf ears - New Europe - "An appeal to the EU on World Population Day".


Friday 8 July 2011

AGW

The Met Office have produced their - Climate summary for June 2011. They say that UK "Temperatures overall were close to the 1971-2000 average". The Anomaly map shows the exceptions as being the east coast of England which was warmer, and central Scotland and western part of Northern Ireland which were cooler.


Thursday 7 July 2011

The Old Lady is keeping interest rates at virtually nil

BBC - "UK interest rates remain on hold at 0.5%"   BoE - "Bank of England maintains Bank Rate at 0.5% and the size of the Asset Purchase Programme at £200 billion.

AGW

BBC - "Green energy investment hits record global high".
Green energy investment is a scam where Governments force money from ordinary people and use it to subsidise uneconomic schemes. One example of this is the Sainsbury scheme - "Solar Electricity" where a householder installing solar panels is expected to "generate" 996 pounds a year, of which 847 pounds is a direct subsidy.


Wednesday 6 July 2011

Money is what I want

BBC - "Obama to meet congressional leaders over debt"   CNN - "Obama invites congressional leaders for deficit talks this week"   Washington Post - "Running in the red: How the U.S., on the road to surplus, detoured to massive debt".
Given the size and resources of America, going over 14.3 trillion dollars in debt is not necessarily bad. What is bad is that the debt has mushroomed in a short period and that the colossal debts are due to wars, bank bail outs and giveaways to all and sundry, rather than due to investing for the future.

Pop

BBC - "Somalia food crisis reaching 'unimaginable proportions'".
This crisis is said to be due to drought and there is not a mention of population growth. The "Horn of Africa" is an arid area, much of which is desert due to overgrazing, it consists of four countries - Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia. Fifty years ago their pop was 27 million, now it is 100 million, and the UN prediction for 50 years time is 205 million (medium variant) or 390 million if the birth rate does not fall.

AGW

BBC - "UK faces more harsh winters in solar activity dip".


Tuesday 5 July 2011

The train bolted long ago

BBC - "Bombardier announces 1,400 job losses in Derby"   Bloomberg - "Bombardier to Cut 1,000 Jobs at Britain's Last Train Factory".
One reason that the country that invented railways relies on foreign firms (Bombadier is Canadian and Siemens is German) is that ever since Margaret Thatcher took over, British industry has been sacrificed on the altar of competition, with the benefit going to foreigners and spivs. A notable example of this was the attempt in 1985 by GEC (one of the few industrial giants in Britain) to take over Plessey (Britains most technically advanced company). Eventually GEC was only allowed to take over by bringing in Siemens who thus aquired a lot of technical know how and a base in Briatin and elsewhere. Now both Plessey and GEC have dissapeared while London trains are to built by Siemens in Deutschland.

AGW

Thermometers are not recording the warming that is caused by burning fossil fuels because of the burning of fossil fuels - BBC - "Global warming lull down to China's coal growth".
Oh dear, perhaps the answer is to spend billions on removing dust from the emissions to make it warmer, while spending billions on removing the CO2 from the emissions to make it cooler. Or perhaps the answer is to investigate why so many scientists come out with so much useless "information". If the smoke from burning coal in China was responsible for global cooling, then the effect should be most pronounced over China. This "Peking" University paper from 2000 - Adrem - "Enhancement of the warming trend in China" pdf says that the area was then one of "the rapidest warming regions in the world".


Monday 4 July 2011

Peacekeeping

Field Marshal Hague helps to unveil a statue to the man who bombed Libya in 1986 - BBC - "Ronald Reagan statue unveiled at US Embassy in London".
The vast military expansion in the Reagan Presidency from 1981 to 1989 probably helped to destroy the economy of the Soviet Union and thus "Commumnism". He is also credited with the modern Islamic Jihad, though it eventually became an enemy rather than an ally.

National Lottery

BBC - "Funding overhaul for social care to be set out"   Commission on Funding of Care and Support.
The care provided for those who are too old to look after themselves varies across the country. But one thing is standard - those who have not saved (or have hidden their wealth) get free care, and those who have saved pay almost all the costs. There must be a compromise which is fairer and does not cost too much. But the chances of anything being made fairer or more efficient are zero.


Sunday 3 July 2011

Smokescreen

BBC - "Lord Patten: BBC to tackle 'toxic' pay issue".
It is suggested that the BBC might implement some of "Will Hutton's proposals for fair pay published in March"; and in particular that "an executive would not receive pay of more than 20 times the median salary of an organisation".
This is gross distortion of what the Fair Pay Review said - Treasury - "Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the public sector" pdf. They looked at a suggestion that there should be a ratio of no more than 20 times betweeen the bottom and the top pay. They said that this would only affect 70 people in the whole of the public sector and that in any case they thought a ratio between median and top pay might be better. They did not say what the ratio should be but said that currently it ranges in the public sector between 3 and 8 times the median. So by proposing a limit of 20 times the median, it seems that the BBC has no intention of doing anything other than feeding disinformation to its viewers.


Saturday 2 July 2011

Peacekeeping

BBC - "Morocco approves King Mohammed's constitutional reforms".
Following these reforms, the king will stiil be "head of the military, religious authorities and judiciary". According to Amnesty, Morrocco abuses human rights. It is also in military occupation of the territory of Western Sahara (which may have oil). So why is Morroco so acceptable that in April, the next hereditary British head of state visited it with the blessing of Field Marshal Hague - Evening Standard - "Prince Charles and Camilla visit Morocco amid unrest". The main reason is that Britain and the West always support hereditary heads of state, the other is that the country is one of the many African countries where France determines who is in charge.

AGW

Every now and then we remind you, that we are in an Ice Age - to be more precise we are within the Holocene interglacial that began about 12,000 years ago and is part of the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation that began about 2.5 million years ago (which if this Ice Age was to be a typical one, we are only near the beginning of). Watts Up today have an interesting post. It shows how the current peak is only one of several fluctuations within the Holocene (and is below previous peaks or "optima"), but then goes on to say that the pattern of these fluctuations suggests that the temperature is about to start going down again - "What's Up Next?".


Friday 1 July 2011

Pop