Have been away simply because the internet connection has been down for five days due to problems at Vodafone (formerly Ghana Telecom and a very murky privatisation deal indeed). Delighted to have a connection again, however slow, and hope to blog tomorrow.
I most missed the chance to tell you how much I hope the new President of the EU Council will be caught having an affair in Portsmouth.
Oh, I geddit: Rompuy Pompey.
Good to hear that you have access to the internet again. The new EU President, Herman Van Rompuy, appears to be have a record for tact in dealing with his country’s Flemish and French-speaking parts, which augurs well for his new role in the EU with its Latin and Germanic parts. The new EU President also appears to be mainly a spokesperson, not someone with real executive power. All in all, the situation appears to be not so bad.
Looks like there’s a few stories doing the rounds about our ambassador to Yemen.
Has he been trodding on toes back home, perhaps?
Loved this line from the FCO:
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said, “We cannot and will not discuss the personal lives of employees”.
She didn’t add, “unless smearing them is in the national interest….”.
I wonder why?
“Tim Torlot, 52, on his first ambassadorial posting, has risked a diplomatic incident in his host nation with his domestic arrangements in the ancient Yemeni capital of Sanna.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/6581773/Married-ambassador-to-Yemen-moves-pregnant-mistress-into-official-residence.html
@ Abe Rene
So long as you think a lack of accountability and democracy are “not so bad”.
Are you paid to spout this drivel, or are you just really rather dim?
I mean, I’m all for egalitarianism and recruiting from the “new” universities and all that, but surely at least 5 C grades at GCSE must be considered an absolute minimum.
George whatever
I have no interest in personal comments, which I will treat as drivel.
Van Rompuy is an economist who graduated from the Catholic university of Luvain and worked at the Belgian central bank. That places his erudition a bit higher than 5 GCSEs.
If the EU President were ever to have real power, the citizens of the EU would be right to insist on an adequately democratic process for electing him. But precisely because he doesn’t have much real power at present, I’m not inclined to complain.
Craig,
About 15 years ago, the company I worked for – had the best, biggest system in the UK…
But then the Regulators Split Us Up…
And they thought we were certain to fail…
And we had several options to go with…
One of which was Vodafone…
Now it just so happens that I was in a rather influential position because I was also getting my technical hands dirty…
And I said to my top Management – We have Got To Dump Them
They Are Just Not Performing…
I Said
And I Was Completely Serious
It Was My Job On The Line AS Well
So we Beat The Cunts Into Shape
Anyway That Was Then
This Is Me Now..
And So I Tried To Explain – No It is Not Like That
There are only so many of these Rock Gods who can actually Play Guitar..
Meanwhile the band on this afternoon had a much better philosophy…Look – they weren’t crap – they even did Hotel California with two guitars… Now it wasn’t completely not perfect – but it was really close? What else can you expect on a Sunday afternoon when Wigan are being beaten 9-1 by some fucking London Club who no one else has heard of…???
And all our Lancashire Friends turned Up…
And we had such an amazing time…
And one of the band’s friends did a collection with a beer jug…
And I put a £5 note in it…
And she goes fishing to the bottom of the beer pot – and tries to give me 4 pound coins back…
And I decline…
And towards the end of the afternoon – and it really was like Christmas time – the band start throwing these things to the audience…
And My Wife Screams
“I Want One”
Well I got mine XL size
And so we invite a few friends after wars back to our house to give them bacon butties – and then I get thinking about all these Superheroes who are World Famous and keep turning up in our local pubs when we least expect them
Admittedly it was a bit out in the sticks – but it was a 4 Day Festival, and we were camping – like you do – we hadn’t even yet discovered blow up beds – it was 3 years ago – maybe 4…
And we had never heard of the main band headlining on one of the nights…but there were all these 40 year old kids running around dressed like the Evil Drummer…
It was so fucking bizarre – it was like God Worship…
Sure I knew The Drummer And the Bass Player…
And I said to these 40 Year Old Kids..
Why are You All Dressed Like The Drummer?
They Said – Well _ He is Our Hero – We Reckon He is The Best Drummer Of All Time…
And I said No – He isn’t as Good as Neil Peart…
They said – No He is Far Better…
I said don’t be silly – he plays down our local pub in another band – and the bass player…
And they couldn’t believe it – that us mere mortals knew these SuperGods
I said – No – They Are Just Real Normal People…
They are Not Superheroes or Anything
They are Just Trying To Earn Their Living In One Of The Hardest Professions…
Sure You Might Think Bono is a cunt with his head stuck up his own arse – but how do you know – unless you have met him…???
And someone at the back pipes up…
Tony
Given that Rompuy attended a meeting of the Bilderberg group only a few days before his “appointment” I feel the situation is very bad indeed and am inclined to complain very strongly.
Better him than Blair.
The Bilderburg group is sadly much maligned, by ignorant people in popular fora.
It’s a purely charitable institution which wishes to bring current and future world leaders together to discuss matters of mutual interest.
What’s wrong with that?
I sometimes wonder if any of you people have any experience of the real world at all.
I suspect you’re little more than armchair humans.
Love it. The Rompuy/Portsmouth/manicurist cum stripper saga.
Seems to me though that Hermy’s private life will have been sifted and sifted. No grubby secrets will have been found. Unlike the cv of a certain, more prominent runner for the post whose closets are so bursting.
Whatever his score on the saintliness index, I still haven’t voted – directly or indirectly – for Hermy. No honest democracy fan could possibly concur with this situation (aka stitch up).
Abe Rene –
– I find it bizarre that you show so little concern that pivotal figures of EU influence and governance are chosen in a manner more appropriate to Catholic ecclesiastical conclave than those we expect of democratic institutions.
Are you some sort of fascist, or just exceedingly dim?
No, it wasn’t me. I did not do it, but yes like many hundreds of thousands of people I have got the files.
About the completely outrageous behaviour of some people who work in Norwich…
FOIA
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?
How Do I Explain This To Over 10 Million Homeless Americans Who Have Had Their Homes Repossesed?
You are Going To Fucking Freeze To Death Unless You Repossess Your Homes – and Collect Some Firewood or Coal – or Anything That Will Burn..
You Have Got To Keep Warm
The COLD Will Kill You, If You Don’t Repossess Your Homes…
Just Do It
Most People Have Absolutely No Idea What Is Like To Be REALLY COLD
At first it is uncomfortable, and then it gets painful, and then your entire body slows down and starts to almost completely seize up…
And then you start hallucinating like you are in a field of snow – and you can see the warm house in the distance and then you pass out and you think you are slowly dieing…
And then this Angel, just appears out of nowhere – and puts you in the back of the van…
And you are lieing there with another 10 bodies who also seem to be frozen to death…
And the Angel puts on the heating on in their van, and you slowly wake up and thaw out.
Tony
Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
And even before Middle America Had Their Coldest October on Record…
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”
“Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment ?” minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
Oh Yeh?
Your Scrap of Authority Is Disappearing The Toilet..
Best Flush it Quick Before The Bog Freezes Up.
Global Warming My Arse.
Tony
Craig – what’s your take on this:-
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:NEloVoS2_kIJ:www.thefirstpost.co.uk/56326,business,michael-ashcroft-bank-lent-millions-to-disgraced-caribbean-pm+Independent+Ashcroft&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk
George whatever
I will not waste time on any personal comments, but tell the writers to get their medication. You have been warned.
Why is it
that some
just can’t cope with writing in a sensible
connected way, so thatwe are able to
disseminate and connect
sentences. I cannot read
empty spaces.
To the point. Welcome back from Internet exclusion, I hope you don’t get sweaty hands if you can’t connect, that would be a sign that its getting to you.
Its a bit late to whinge about unaccountability of the EU, george, when it has been in existence since the lady did protest too much, negotiated and re negotiated the opt outs and various other niceties that were designed to bring Britain into the EU.
The EU has kept peace between us Europeans, it was not hard for Britain’s empiracal mindset stooges to say NO to the Bush advances.
Still the EU stood by Britain, they did not like our course of action and said so.
That anybody even expected T.Blair to be in for the job I cannot imagine, what a front.
As for global warming and the mainly rightwing denialists, self or otherwise, Cockermouth is a hint of whats to come, 347 mm of rain in 24 hours are impossible to deal with and it will get more chaotic as we go along.
Calva bridge ist sill standing, but condemned, it will have to be taken down, cutting Workington in half, nothing compared to the many death worldwide from landslides and overwhelming rivers. My condolences to the policemans family, luckily it was only this one fatality.
Should you not believe in gl0obal warming, come and live in Hunbstanton or Hemsby, it will cure you of your blinkers, annual sea level rise has been upt from 2mm/annum to 3mmm, those land based glaciers are not collaborating with wishfull thinking, sadly for us all.
meanwhile, our newly elected MEP, who has his hands on the tiller and should be asking the EU for immediate emergency help from existing contingencies, is swooning about Barking in abid to get himself two jobs whilst neglecting his constituency voters in the North West.
The dangers of being in the public eye will soon get to him, his bouncers physical jostling with an investigating school boy at Ypres, his shambolic walk abouts in Barking, neglecting his Constituents, it will all come out in a wash.
so sorry about the typos.
Anyone interested in the (off topic) so-called ‘Climate Gate’ posts above might be interested in a more balanced view than that of tony_opmoc above.
From wikipedia:
“Computerworld magazine reported it was likely an “insider” responsible for the incident. It further reported the blog RealClimate’s view that what was not contained in the e-mails was the most interesting element: “There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’ [Medieval Warm Period], no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate
Also worth a look is http://www.realclimate.org:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853
Paul
Do you think the Quilliam Foundation has quietly dropped it’s threat against you?
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”
I don’t think anyone seriously denies climate change. Historical indicators such as the analysis of tree rings and Antarctic ice show that the climate of the planet has been changing on a cyclical basis since the year dot. The issue is therefore not whether climate change is happening; it is whether it is a result of natural solar cycles, is man-made or is a combination of the two.
Scientific opinion is perhaps predictably divided on the matter, with a majority favouring the second or third scenarios. Those of us who are not scientists have little option but to accept the prevailing scientific orthodoxy, while at the same time keeping a close eye on new data and analyses as they arise. I must say that the prevailing orthodoxy has not been helped by the recent leaking of e-mails showing clear proof of evidence-fixing by scientists at the forefront of the orthodox view.
There are a growing number of climate-change sceptics who suspect that genuine fears and concerns about the environment are being hijacked and manipulated by those seeking a pretext to usher in a form of elitist, unelected global government and that the forthcoming Copenhagen summit will show a clear move in this direction. Why should concerns of this nature be characterised as “right-wing”? Sounds like empty name-calling to me.
Ingo
You don’t have to be a meteorologist to know that we have a large ocean to the left of us with a warm current flowing through it. We have mostly Westerly winds. Cockermouth has mountains near it forcing the air up cooler air from the continent to the right of us condenses the air causing rain to fall. It’s a miracle that huge downpours like that don’t happen all the time. The media and the present inadequate and indoctrinating education system whip this up into a big global warming conspiracy.
The longer you live the more of these once in a lifetime events you see. Don’t be fooled by the new Global warming religion cause that has taken over from the CND anti nuclear anti government causes and the mainstream religions that people had in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Don’t let these government conspiracy mongers distract you. We are not going to fall off the end of the earth and we are not going to boil to death. Freak weather happens all the time, no more no less than before. I was brought up with the ice age cometh era and it never did!
Stop looking for a big meaning to the chaos that we live in and stop the where there is blame, claim culture. We are insignificant on this planet.
I don’t believe in wasting energy or deliberately polluting but CO2 is not a pollutant and is a natural and necessary constituent of our atmosphere. Let’s stop giving the control freaks that run our world an excuse to tax us more and more to save the world.
If Bilderberg is an agency of good, then there should be no objection to sharing the minutes of their meetings.
Although suspicion is no proof of guilt, I must question the efficacy of any secret society… and so should you.
“Do you think the Quilliam Foundation has quietly dropped it’s threat against you?”
I had been fondly imagining an office junior from Clarke Willmott somewhere in the Ghanaian countryside, in a pith helmet, trying to find Craig in order to serve the papers.
Its not empty name calling, MJ, the scientific arguments, despite the lack of supporting evidence at times, due to the chaotic nature of our weater patterns, are being denied by mainly ritght leaning think tanks and politicians alike.
Theis story about one world Government and elite’s that seem to want to eek out their living space is just empty talk.
The Gore’s of this world have to breath the same air than you and I do, maybe at a different altitude, but by enlarge they will be in the same boat, whether its sinking or not.
Careful, tony_opmoc and Stuart…
We KNOW that oil companies etc tried to deny climate change at first. We KNOW that Big Business now use climate change to make our cars unservaceable and to make us all replace our electrical devices. We KNOW that govenments use climate change to justify extra taxation. Yes, we KNOW that manipulation goes on increasingly.
Which means that we DON’T KNOW the truth.
Just because lies are being told doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Have you investigated ocean acidification? I haven’t; I’ve only read two articles. CO2 disolves in seawater and reduces the alkalinity. Excess CO2 *could* be a pollutant.
But it doesn’t really matter. Do we actually WANT to spend the rest of our lives watching propaganda on the telly, or in traffic jams, either on our way to buy a new telly or going down the ‘Recycling Centre’ with the old telly or to / from some job over which we have no control to earn the money to pay for all this junk?
The sort of world I’d rather live in produces less CO2 anyway! And hardly any unfixable four year old failed domestic appliances.
Yeah, I hope those Americans do reposess their homes!
Trolles falsi numquam fora popularia relinquerunt.
Ingo: even right-wing think tanks get things right now and again, even if inadvertently. But the issue isn’t air pollution, it’s global warming isn’t it? And the globalists are not concerned about their living space (or air quality) but about power and control over the rest of us.
I hope it’s just empty talk but we shall see. If Copenhagen ratifies calls for globally enforced and collected carbon taxes then we’ll know something is definitely up.
Clark
You make alot of sense and we come from the same direction. I hope I am correct and the world will carry on as normal. I think all the world leaders were having a chat after one of the G20 meetings and one said I bet I can tax the air people breath. I wonder who won the bet???