The Daily Stirrer, November 2010 (for breaking news skip to News Feeds)
We were a bit late setting up the December holding page for the Daily Stirrer. Sorry about that if you have been wondering where our daily updates had gone.
4 December 2010
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3 December 2010
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2 December 2010
Today's News and Comment
Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said there "must be some risk" to the electricity network when the sun's activity peaks around 2013 as part of an 11-year cycle. The threat of disruption grows during each cycle due to our increasing reliance on electricity. The National Grid is already undertaking ...
Solar Flares Could Cause Blackouts In UK
The Daily Stirrer reported this several months ago. Onve again we prove that if you want to know the news before it happens you should look at The Daily Stirrer first every day.
RELATED POSTS:
DClimate Change Science Scam
Climate Scam Busted By Science Superstar
The real threat is not carbon but water
Meanwhile it amused to to read that "scientists", those strange, shallow, emotionally unstable people, prote to over - excitement and hysteria as they are, had stumbled upon something unusual and immediately jumped to the irrational conclusion that they had found alien life forms here on earth.
It's Life Jim But Not As We Know It
Cameron Fails To Secure E. U. Budget Cut.
David Cameron has failed in an attempt to rally other EU governments behind a British proposal to cut Brussels spending by 210 billion between 2014 and 2020 ...
Cancun Climate Change Summit: Japan Refuses To Extend Treaty
The delicately balanced global climate talks in Cancn suffered a serious setback last night when Japan categorically stated its opposition to extending the Kyoto protocol the binding international treaty that commits most of the world's richest countries to making emission cuts.
The Kyoto protocol was adopted in Japan in 1992 by 16 major emitting countries, who committed themselves to cut emissions by
Starlings In Flight Just to take your mind off the snow.
1 December 2010
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No Daily Stirrer Yesterday due to bad weather problems eating up available time.
29 November 2010
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27 November 2010
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26 November 2010
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25 November 2010
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24 November 2010
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23 November 2010
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22 November 2010
Today's News and Comment
UK Offers Loan To Help The Irish Republic In Financial Crisis
from BBC News:
The UK has offered a direct loan to the Irish Republic in addition to contributing to an international rescue, Chanellor George Osborne has said.
Negotiations are continuing over terms but the chancellor told the BBC Ireland was a "friend in need" and it was in Britain's national interest to help. Asked if the UK contribution would be about 7bn, he said "it's around that".
The Irish Prime Minister has confirmed they and the EU have agreed a ...
read full story:
UK Offers To Help The Irish Republic In Financial Crisis
more on this topic:
Irish Bail Out Bad For Britain - The Daily TelegraphGovernment faces questions over the decision to put up more than 7 billion of taxpayers' money at least 300 per family to help prevent crisis in the eurozone.
UK To Lend 7billion - The GuardianChancellor confirms UK will help towards international rescue package for Ireland but eurosceptic MPs condemn cost to UK taxpayer
Portugal Will Be Next To Be Brought Down By European Monetary Union The Portuguese seemed baffled - and pained - that investors should link their country in any way with Greece or Ireland. I am afraid they must come to terms very soon with some unpleasant facts.
How We Avoided Ireland's Nightmare We all know what has brought Ireland to its knees. An economy growing much too fast on the back of an unsustainable property boom. A government powerless to raise interest rates to calm the economy. Banks lending irresponsibly to borrowers against the crazy value of their properties. But all that and much more would have happened in Britain, too, had our politicians taken us into the euro. And we would be not so much on ...
John De Roe is not available today to give us an expert analysis of this problem but The Daily Stirrer's writers have covered the topic of systemic failure in the global financial system. Below is a large selection of our posts:
RELATED POSTS:
Bond Villain Targets BritainBill Gross, the world's biggest bond investor might have voted for Obama hnd has some sympathy for Labour because they talk of creating jobs, but he thinks the British economy is in worse shape than anyone is going to admit and is quite willing to take advantage of our vulnerability.
Next Boss Warns On Cotton Price IncreasesAs the boss of a major UK clothing and fashion retailer warns of the likely impact of rising cotton prices on the cost of clothing John De Roe revisits on of The Daily Stirrer's recurring themes throughout the economict crisis, overpopulation.
All The People Who Never Had A Job?Information released by the government shows one point four million Britons have never had a job. A Boggart Blog investigtion shows the unemployment problem is further reaching. Many of the waged do not have proper jobs, they are public sector tax eaters whose candy floss jobs have been created onlu to make the unemployment statistics look better.
The Wisdom Of Urgent Deficit Reduction Reaches ObamavilleIn spite of the latest slapdown of Obama at the G20 summit his supporters in the USA are still yelling for more stimulus spending. China and India are not buyiong US bonds, Obama can't borrow any money to spend. What is difficult to understand about that?
Defending KeynesThe name of a great Englishman, John Maynard Keyes, is being trashed by that jug eared steak of piss and racist hater of all things British Barack Obama in attempts to give the failing Obama administration's loonytoons economics a veneer of sanity. Keynes recommended governments should use publc spending to sustain their economy during periods of recession. He did not say, as Obama's supporters claim he did, that nations already way past the point of bankruptcy should continue with reckless poublic spending projects.
United In AusterityVince Cable on the budget and why the cuts and tax rises were necessary. A quiet but devastating denunciation of Labour's lie that they left the economy in good shape
The Necessity Of Curbing State SpendingWith Labour politicians and supporters still screaming insanely for more public spending incurring more public debt in order to "sustain the recovery" John De Roe spells out the financisal realities
Holy CityA rollicking 'slam' style performance poem about the toxic debt crisis, the meltdown of the finance industry and the irresponsible speculating by investment bankers that led to it.
Chasing BubblesA poem, also set to music and recorded by Brother Bastion about the insane levels of self indulgence seen in the build up to the crisis in the finance industry
Real UnemploymentHow the government massages unemployment figures to disguise how few real jobs there are in the economy
Before The Pubs CloseA sign of how much trouble the Brtish economy is really is can be found in the number of pubs having to close because they are not financially viable
Economy Of The Living DeadWith debt levels preventing public spending on infrastructure projects and interest on public sector debt taking an ever bigger bite out of stae revenue are we heading for a zombie economy
The Truth About Education, The Economy, Crime and Everything
The Future Is Cancelled
Whom The Gods Would Destroy
Interesting Times
Jobless Economy
Magic Money
Holy City
And You Thought We Were Joking
Demonizing Credit Default Swaps
Bond Vigilante Bill Gross
Labour Isn't Working
Patient Affairs Officer - Public Service Non Jobs
Debt Crisis
Politics, Economy
COMMENT AND OPINION FROM AROUND THE WEB
How We Avoided Ireland's NightmareWe all know what has brought Ireland to its knees. An economy growing much too fast on the back of an unsustainable property boom. A government powerless to raise interest rates to calm the economy. Banks lending irresponsibly to borrowers against the crazy value of their properties. But all that and much more would have happened in Britain, too, had our politicians taken us into the euro. And we would be not so much on ...
Eurosceptics Aren't GloatingGeorge Osborne who was once a proud Eurosceptic himself has rounded on the sceptic tendency within his own party. I told you so, he says sulkily, is not an economic policy. Well, no but its a start. It is, in the present crisis, a necessary precondition for any realistic ...
Cuts Might Increase The Deficit Ha-Joon Chang, author of 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, talks about the global crash and why we should treat financial products like new drugs ...
Politicized Science versus the anti - Science Right It is an article of faith among many conservatives that climate change is sham science. Even worse, it is the nexus of a vast conspiracy involving governments, the UN, and climate scientists that is seeking to destroy the industrial economies of the West, create a one world government, and enrich people like Al Gore who have bet a bundle on a reduced carbon emissions future. They believe that either the earth is not warming at all, or that rising temperatures are the result of ...
20 November 2010
Today's News 101120
Afghan Withdrawal by 2014
leaders are meeting the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to discuss the alliance's troop withdrawal from his country by the end of 2014.
The talks today at the Nato summit in Lisbon are aimed at deciding what sort of long-term military presence the alliance should maintain once responsibility for security is handed over to Afghan forces
Despite the withdrawal of troops Nato officials stressed the alliance would maintain a military presence in Afghanistan far beyond the end of the transition ...
Afghanistan Withdrawal By 2014
Nine years in and they still don't get it. What the Afghans want, what they really really want, is to be left to the9ir own devices to sort it out for themselves.
RELATED POSTS:
Tenants May Face Eviction
Tenants May Face Eviction After Two YearsNew social housing tenants could be evicted after as little as two years under government plans to be formally announced on Monday. In a move that will anger some Liberal Democrat MPs, coalition moves to put an end to lifetime tenancies will go even further than previously indicated.
Prime Minister David Cameron has already said he wants an end to council tenancies for life and the introduction of fixed-term contracts of "five or 10 years". But, under reforms to be detailed on Monday, councils and housing associations will be able ...
This proposal is not actually as bad as the screaming of the left wing media whould have us believe.
With "right-to-buy" laws in place social housing providers can look at tenants and see who are the basket cases who will always need support, who are the people with a track record of trashing houses and ten demanding to be rehoused and who are the people who are more suited to renting than buying a home.
Nobody has suggested tenants will be thrown out after two years only that they may be.
RELATED POSTS:
Local Counciles Seek Parking Stealth Tax
Councils Seek Parking Fine Rise
from BBC News:
Some councils in England and Wales have been lobbying the government for the right to increase the amount they can charge motorists in parking fines, the BBC has learned. The local authorities want to bring their fines in line with London, which has a higher upper limit of 120. Penalties outside the capital currently have an upper limit of 70.
The British Parking Association is also calling for ...
We told you a long time ago when The Daily Stirrer was Little Nicky Machiavelli that the insatiable appetite of the ever expanding state and its many agencies for money would lead to this kind of stealth tax. We are creeping closer to a tax on breathing all the time.
English Standards In Schools To Be Tightened Up
According to proposals released by the government teenagers will lose up to five per cent of marks in GCSE examinations if they fail to display high standards of written English.
The rules, which are likely to apply to all subjects, including mathematics and science, follow claims that thousands of children leave school without being able to compose a sentence, spell difficult words or write a coherent letter or email.
The move, to be outlined in an education White Paper next week, would reverse a Labour decision seven years ago to scrap rewards for good ... Pupils To Be Penalised For Bad English
Another positive move by the coalition against the hijacking of the education system and young minds by the wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth Naziism of the left.
No matter what subject they are working in pupils should be capable of expressing themselves competently (not necessarily eloquently but clearly) in comprehensible terms n not in txt spk.
19 November 2010
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18 November 2010
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17 November 2010
Todays News
Ireland's Debt Crisis
Most of the quality papers led on the debt crisis in Ireland today. The UK government has pledged to help the Irish as we should, not in a guilt tripping way but because they are neighbours, we share a language and most of a culture and they mke great music and beer.
Read here how theGuardian sees the crisis
Anther view from the right of the spectrum in the Daily Telegraph.UK Pledges To Help Ireland
The Daily Stirrer's John De Roe has reported many times on the systemic problms in the global finance system. It is hard to justify blaming a small nation like Ireland for its profligacy when the economic giants amng nations and of finance and the multi national corporations forced financial irresponsibility onto governments.
The Currency War
Obama G20 Hopes Hit The Rocks
Ireland's Euro Crisis
A roundup of our Debt Crisis posts
the political shenanighans Politics Economy
and the human cost of the Jobs Crisis
Food Prices Set To Rise
from The Guardian:
Poor harvests put global food reserves under pressure, with African and Asian countries likely to be worst hit. Prices of wheat, maize and many other foods traded internationally have risen by up to 40% in just a few months.
The UN today warned that food prices could rise by 10%-20% next year after poor harvests and an expected rundown of global reserves. More than 70 African and Asian countries will be the worst hit, said the Food and Agricultural Organisation in its monthly report.
Food Prices May Rise 20%
Slight Fall In UK Unemployment
Unemployment in Britain, measured by the controversial claimant count, fell unexpectedly last month, suggesting that the labour market may be in better shape than feared.
Employment also improved, although this was due to a rise in self-employment and part-time work while the number of full-time employees fell.
The number of people claiming jobless benefits ...
Number of Part Time Workers Hits Record High
Concerns about the economy are making businesses reluctant to take on full-time workers as official figures showed an increase in part-time jobs.
RELATED POSTS:
Food Crisis Control Freakery
Food Price Crisis
Food Supply and Potash Monopoly
Vertical Farming
Obama's Biofuel Blunder
Obama Runs Out Of Hope
Obama's Hopes Of Foreign Policy Triumph Fading
Barack Obama's hopes of reshaping US foreign policy stand on the brink of failure tonight, after two of his most cherished initiatives nuclear disarmament and better relations with Moscow were dealt serious setbacks. According to a leaked Nato document ...
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Obama G20 Hopes Hit The Rocks
China Downgrades US Bonds
CAmeron Told To Bollock Chinese
Obama Is Doomed
16 November 2010
Today's News 16 November 2010
15 November 2010
BHP Drops Bid For Potash of Canada
from BBC News:
Mining giant BHP Billiton has abandoned its takeover bid for fertiliser group Potash Corporation after it was blocked by the Canadian government.
BHP said it had been unable to convince the government of the deal's merits despite "unparalleled" pledges on jobs and investment.
Canada rejected the offer on 3 November, saying it was not convinced that it was in Canadian interests.
read full story: BHP Drops Bid For Potash of Canada
We should start to appreciate Canadians more perhaps. A few months ago The Daily Stirrer was praising two Canadian sceptics for exposing the fraud of climate science and "anthropogenic global warming" by analysing the mathematical data on which the case was built and exposing how the academic community had manipulated figures and ignored results which did not fit their expectations.
Now, after the media reported how Austrailan minerals giant BHP Billiton were attempting to take over Potash of Canada and so establish a near total monopoly on potash (potassium) resources essential in producing the fertilizers needed for intensive farming. Had the takeove gone ahead BHP Billiton would have ben able to control food supplies and manipulate the commodities markets trading in essential food products such as grain, beans and coffee.
Fortunately ministers of the Canadian government saw the danger in ths and have blocked the move. It is a victory in the war against corporate fascism but the war will go on.
RELATED POSTS:
The Imminent Potash CrisisA bid by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton to buy Potash Corp of Canada draws attention to food price inflation, rising commodity prices in world markets and an impending global food supply crisis. It is not just potash, essential in food production, but other finite resources like oil that corporate giants are bidding to gain control of that should concern us.
The Growing Problem Of Rising Food PricesWhile the warmists rant about carbon and the Church of Scienceology Cult rave about climate science. there are threee real and immediate problems facing us that nobody is talking about. These are overpopulation, water shortage and food price inflation. This article deals with food prices, links at the bottom lead to our posts on population and water scarcity.
Don't Call Me A Conspiracy Theoristt has become the habit of the self styled 'progressive left' to shout conspiracy theorist whenever anybody very reasonably suggests they are being duped by the dark forces of corporate fascism, that their favoured brand of collectivism is not in any way liberal but in fact will lead to an oligarchic tyranny similar to the big brother regime depicted in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four and that far from being theoretical, conspiracies are verey real and exercising much more influence on our lives than the unimaginative lefties would ever believe.
United Nations Warns Of A New Food CrisisWith food price inflation causing social problems in poor nations already the United Nations, as always slamming the stable door after the horse has bolted, has warned of an imminent crisis. from The Daily Stirrer
Next Boss Warns On Cotton Price IncreasesAs the boss of a major UK clothing and fashion retailer warns of the likely impact of rising cotton prices on the cost of clothing John De Roe revisits on of The Daily Stirrer's recurring themes throughout the economict crisis, overpopulation.
Vertical FarmingClimate Science is a strange area of human endeavour. Part trainspotting, part trekkie convention goer, it combines an almost autistic obession with collcting details, a very autistic obsession with focusing on a single theme and a fantasists capacity for self deception. The latest loonytoons idea for saving the planet involves turning skyscraper buildings into farms growing food for urban populations. Apart from increasing the cost of food by 1000% and increasing rather than reducing the carbon footprint of food production the idea is so insane noboy could ever take it seriously. Nobody that is except scientists, politicians, academics and the media.
Food Crisis Control Freakery
Fancy eating grey goo, or according to scientists meat grown in a vat. Thius is one of the ideas proposed by science academic to deal with the problm of feeding the world when the population has beemed to nine billion. This number of humans is redicted to be reached by 2050. The simple answer to overpopulation that nobody is talking about is population control. Do we need nine billion people? Do we have the technology to keep population levels manageable? Yes and yes..
Iceberg Alley BluesWe must stop using oil say the politicians and scientists as it becomes more imperative that exploration begins in Iceberg Alley off the Canadian Coast, elsewhere in the Arctic and in other sensitive locations. They are just trying to soften us up for carbon taxes of course. Nobody knows better than politicians that the world runs on oil and that alternative non polluting sources are a long way short of being able to supply energy needs
Calorie Offsetting Humour Everybody has heard of carbon offsetting, the super wheeze that will allow those of us in the civilised world to carry on as we are while the people of developing nations sell us their carbon allowances to keep body and soul together. Well how do you fancy our calorie offsetting scheme that allows you to eat what you like and pay a poor person to get fat for you.
Cimate Change Population ControlThe ice caps melt at an accelerating rate, despite all the hand wringing of "progressive" politicians a global economy built on perpetual growth cannot reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and the scientific quick fixes offered by the academic community get whackier and potentially more catastropic. Is it time to say the unsayable?
Cloned BeefRecent reports that cloned beef will soon be on shelves set us thinking is there any point cloning animals for food. Why go to all the trouble and expence of cloning new animals when the animals themselves have a perfectly good way of making new, non clone animals that has woked for millions of years. If it ain't broke, break it seems to be the driving force behind so much science these days.
Internet Anti Virus Scam
from The Daily Telegraph:
Gangsters are tricking internet users into buying anti-virus protection that is actually malicious software in disguise, security experts have warned.
Investigators fear the hacking gangs are pocketing millions of pounds by infiltrating customers computers and stealing their banking details.
They said criminals pose as legitimate IT companies who cold call victims offering fake security software that can be downloaded for about 30.
The crooks then combine credit card information from the sale with stolen personal information to defraud ...
read full story Internet Anti Virus Scam
Yet another example of why we should not rely on the internet. The inability of those who allegedly regulate the internet to police it against threats like this, which has been around for several years now, should be sufficient warning to anybody thinking of using a net based service to provide a function vital to their business.
Those who believe in the life enhancing qualities of the internet are however nothing if not sheeplike. Only a couple of days ago while looking at the comment thread on a Daily Telegraph article in which a tablet computer virgin was waxing lyrical about the Apple iPad I joined and exchange in which an Apple geek and a Googlegeek were disagreeing about which technology will change the world.
The Apple geek, displaying all the symptoms of religious cult membership that we associate with Apple geeks, declared the iPad will change computing, kill print for the book, magazine and newspaper market and bring about a cultural shift that will end war, poverty and disease (and when we have all acknowledged Steve Jobbies as our saviour all our clothes will fall off and we will ascend to heaven to dwell in eternal bliss - well OK, maybe that is a slight exaggeration but you know how enthusiastic Apple geeks are.)
"No, no!" protested the Google Geek, Google docs and Google cloud will be the transformational technology. We will all give up using our own software and rely on Google for everything, mail, word processing, html authoring, instant messaging and and and - well everything anyone could want (like my broadcast quality video editing suite for example - not everyone either needs or wants on but I wouldn't be without it.).
The Googlehead went on to babble about how much more efficient it would be if everybody used Google for all their business and personal computing and data storage needs. I guess it would be for businesses that do not mind having their product specifications, pricing structure, supplier and customer files, payroll and personnel details and banking records put in the public domain or details of assignations with their secret lover "shared" with all their Google friends. When I replied to this effect it incurred the ire of both Applegeek and Googlegeek.
Predicatably one defined himself as "a scientist" and said that I do not understand science. Quite what that has do do with my not wanting to let Google, a company whose business model is built on the principle of stealing businesses / individual's private data and selling it is perhaps something only a "scientist" (aka dickhead) could understand but I do not want Google anywhere my stuff which is why I keep it offline.
The other cupid stunt geek then chimed in. Did I think that copies of my e-mails were kept on the service provider's servers? (Yes, but my e-mails are on little consequence) Did I think my PC was totally safe from hackers (Yes it is, I'm a former IT pro and too savvy to leave the PCs in my network on line when nobody is using them) or that my data was safe in the event of a hard drive failure? (Has he never heard of backing up, my important stuff is easily recoverable.)
It was a strange experience because I had not mentioned most of the things these geeks were banging on and accousing me of being paranoid about. What I had cited as an example of why we should not rely on providers of free services to support business or personal data processing requirements was the case of streamload.com.
You will only get a 404 if you try to connect to Streamload now, they set up about five years ago offering stupendous amounts of storage for free to businesses and private users alike. There were pay-to-use services too but twenty five gigabytes storage is plenty for all but the biggest operation. Plenty of people signed up for a free account, just enter a user name and password, no need to prove who you are or supply credit references, no silly, pointless contracts. Away people went, loading their data to streamload, linking to it and relying on it.
There was one thing the ubergeeks at streamload had not thought through, a thing more essential that great ideas, technical wizardry and a "progressive" laid back attitude to life. They did not have a revenue stream. The people behind the venture had believed in the ideas of the illusion dwelling and delusion dwelling stoners and acidheads who promoted the idea that the way forward for a global economy based on perpetual growth was to all get rich by giving everything away free. As business plans go it is not up there with the Wal Mart "pile it high, sell it cheap" model nor even with Senor Ponzi's "promise the earth, then sell them another promise" method.
Streamload diappeared overnight. The web addresses ceased to exist, the servers (which were probably only virtual servers anyway, were reassigned to other users and people who had relied on the sevice lost all their stored data. They had no legal redress of course, no contract existed, the company had never set out in its terms and conditions what would happen to users data in the event of bankruptcy. And no contracts had ever been signed or even clicked to guarantee a service.
What I was trying to point out is that people who rely on Google or Yahoo or Microsoft to provide a free service are putting themselves in a vulnerable position. There is nothing to stop providers of uncontracted services from simply withdrawing from the market.
If we are all to rely on the internet to the extent service providers encourage we should make ourselves familiar with how the net works, what various terms mean and who we can trust (as in real life, nobody, especially those who seem eager to give you a valuable service for nothing.) And we all need to know the most effective was to protect our data and machines so we will understand that the threat from malware and viruses is greatly overstated. Usually the people talking up the threats have a simplke agenda, to sell you expensive software you do not really need.
Really we should be afraid, be very afraid of the blind faith in technology that seems to be spreading among the younger generation of technology professionals. They reckon they are experts but only the very gullible would have such faith in dumb, insensate machines. The very kind of cupid stunts who would fall for a cold callers spiel about virus threats and the need to buy a new security package nobody has ever heard of and install it at once.
RELATED POSTS:
Apple iPad Rant
iPad Will Not Rewrite The Book
Is The Internet Making Us Stupid
Internet Threat To Our Culture
Don't Be Evil (That's Google's Job)
The Great Internet Scam
Self Driving Cars Are The Latest Dehumanizing DevelopmentDon't be evil, that's Google's job. The world's greatest corporate Nazis are always eager to promote the latest dehumanizing technological advance. The most recent project they revealed from a long line of technologies aimed at cutrailing our ability to think for ourselves and make our own choices is the self driving car. No doubt the Evil Empire will sell this as something to keep us safe and ...
Cotton Price Inflation
from: The Guardian
Cotton farmers in west Africa are losing out on vital income because of subsidies paid to rival growers in the EU, US, China and India, the Fairtrade Foundation says.
The continuing struggle of cotton growers in the poorest region of the world is highlighted today by a report which reveals the many billions of dollars paid to rival farmers in the biggest economies since international talks began to make trade more fair.
As the Doha trade talks enter their tenth year ... Africa's Cotton Plight
opinion: When we protect our trade we harm Africa
RELATED POSTS:
Cotton Price Inflation
13 November 2010
Today's News
obama-china-g20
Obama Takes A Swipe At China
US president Barack Obama took a swipe at China's currency policy after G20 leaders failed to resolve tensions running high over global trade imbalances.
The summit in South Korea ended as it began, the row over gaps and surpluses which sees China accused of keeping the yuan artificially low to boost its exports at the expense of American and European jobs dominated discussions .
"It (the yuan) is undervalued and China spends enormous amounts of money intervening in the market to keep it undervalued," Mr Obama said, adding:
No nation should assume that their path to prosperity is paved simply with exports to the US."
However Beijing is furious that the United States Federal Exchange recently to launch a further round of quantitative easing, pumping an further $600bn (370bn) into the US economy in addition to the $720 billion already flooding the markets. China and other trade competitors of the U.S. view this as an attempt to weaken the dollar. The Obama administration has ben trying to drive down the value of the dollar for some time but because the it is the world's reserve currency, the money international trades are conducted in, other trading nations such as China, India, Japan and the Arab oil states are reluctant to see the value of their holdings fall and are forcing their own currencies down against commodities in line with the devaluation of the $US.
This has seen the price of gold rocket to a ridiculous $1,400 an ounce in international markets while essential food and mineral commodities have also experienced rapid rises.
International support for Mr Obama's attempts to get tough on China was muted. The world knows if Obama is hellbent on a currency war with China and its allies he cannot possibly win they must stand well back or risk their own economies and trading relationships being damaged by the repercussions.
The final G20 communique thrashed out in negotiations saw leaders agree various measures towards economic stability, including a commitment towards market-determined exchange rate systems.
But a pledge to refrain from "competitive undervaluation" not allowing a currency to rise as China is accused of was replaced with "competitive devaluation".
This subtle difference was interpreted as being less pejorative about China's chosen course. Commitments to guidelines to rebalancing trade between nations fell far short of US hopes for 4pc limits on surpluses and deficits, due to resistance from China and other big exporters.
The UK's Prime Minister David Cameron said there was never going to be a quick or easy solution to the problem and adopted a more conciliatory tone towards China than President Obama had.
The American President's delusional belief that he was elected President Of The World is now the main obstacle to making any meaningful progress towards workable trade agreements. Obama, a man of very ordinary intellect and a quite extraordinary set of complexes and neuroses, has spent his adult life surrounded by guilt tripping politically correct Americans who, because of the colour of his skin and their own desperate desire to be seen as non racist, have lauded his every banal utterance, praised his faults and massaged the ego that causes him to think he is the only human being who ever understood anything about anything.
Thus when he pontificates to Chinese, South East Asian, Indian, Arab and European leaders he fully anticipates they will agree with him on all points. As long as he persists in this attitude, that is as long as he remains President he will continue to piss off the people he needs to establish a mutual understanding and working relationship with him.
And so long as the mainstream media persists in their sycophantic, politically correct fawning on this weak, ineffectual man because they are afraid to publicly criticise any member of the dark skinned races the flow of power from west to east will continue in a torrent.
RELATED POSTS:
Obama The Philosopher President
The Dollar Is Sinking
Lib Dems Planned To Drop Tuition Fees Pledge
The Liberal Democrats were drawing up plans to abandon Nick Clegg's flagship policy to scrap university tuition fees two months before the general election, secret party documents reveal.
As the Lib Dem leader faces a growing revolt after this week's violent protest against fee rises, internal documents show the party was drawing up proposals for coalition negotiations which contrasted sharply with read full storyLib Dems Planned To Drop Tuition Fees Pledge
The amount of rage being hurled at Nick Clegg and other Liberal Democrat ministers in the coalition government by labour-lefie-loonies and by their own party members is as amusing as it is irrational. The first thing we should note is that none of us at The Daily Stirrer (and we've all been round the block a few times) can recall Labour members ever being so vitriolic towards their own party in government when the wishful thinking of campaign promises has to give way to the harsh realities of government.
The left has a long tradition of hypocrisy of course, look how they rant and rave about abolishing private education and yet how many among the Labour elite send their children to private schools or, every bit as bad, to faith schools in expensive suburbs where the catchment area ensures a large majority of pupils will be from affluent middle class homes, the offspring of professional couples.
The angst of Liberal Democrats, while amusing to behold is worrying for people who wish the coalition government well and are hoping they survive long enough to really stop the tide of politically correct lunacy set in spate during thirteen years of Labour rule. After ninety years of dreaming of power, the Lib Dems, finally having put a fingertip on the levers of government are finding responsibility not to their taste.
When I was an active member of the Liberal Party on of the greatest frustrations for those of us who believed a common sense, non ideological approach to the everyday problems facing voters could really help achieve "the greatest good of the greatest number" was that faction of the party we referred to as the raffia mafia. These sandal wearing, tree hugging, lentil munching wierdies were far more concerned with being seen to be "nice" and "caring" that with facing up to reality, deciding what needed to be done and setting about doing it. Their utopian dreams marginalised the whole party.
It seems too many Lib Dems are still living in that bubble of unreality, to eager to show how much they care about education and the plight of poor students to face up to the reality that Labour's rapid expansion of the higher education system was too great a burden for the education budget to bear. The aim was to have 50% of school leavers going to University. This is a totally unrealistic target. The country does not need and cannot find suitable jobs for so many graduates.
We have to get a sense of reality about this. Yes, the state should fund Uinversity tuition and provide support for students whose parents cannot subsidise them through three years of higher education. Having said that we must set a limit on the numbers we support through higher education so that the financial burden on the taxpayer does not become unsustainable.
It might seem harsh to some but let's remember, Utopia is a fiction.
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12 November 2010
Today's News
Papering Over The G20 Cracks Will Not Avert A Currency War.
from BBC News:
Leaders of the G20 group of major economies, including Barack Obama and the UK's David Cameron have agreed to avoid "competitive devaluation" of currencies after a second day of difficult talks in the South Korean capital, Seoul.
Leaders agreed to come up with "indicative guidelines" to tackle trade imbalances affecting world growth.Tensions had been high between some delegations over how to correct distortions in currency and trade.
But the agreement fell short of a US push to ...
read full story at BBC News:G20 To Adress Currency Wars
another perspective at The Guardian:Papering Over The Currency War Crack In The G20
John de Roe Comments for The Daily Stirrer.
The G20 leaders can pass all the resolutions they like and issue joint statements ''til the cows come home, the fact is we have a currency war and until the United States, owner of the world's reserve currency, the US Dollar stops trying to reduce its debt by devaluing the currency the world trades in and starts to work on getting its deficit under control the currency war will go on.
The American economy has since the 1970s been both beneficiary and victim of the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Whatever nations buy from across national borders they must pay for in dollars and whatever they bring to the world market to trade they want to be paid in dollars for. So it does not really matter how big the US deficit on oil, steel, food crops and coffee may be because what Uncle Sam is really selling in the world market is the dollar. This means the Federal Reserve Bank can print dollars to buy whatever the consumers demand.
The situation had persisted since the British economy crashed and burned after World War 2. The pound is still a trading currency but mostly within the British Commonwealth. In the world market a wodge of British wonga no longer begs the question "how much of our stuff would you like, sir?" but "how many dollars will that monopoly money buy us, schmuck?" No matter, we own enough of America to ensure we have a ready supply of dollars flowing in through our holdings in the Caymans, Bermuda, The Channel Islands, The Isle of Man etc. World trade is truly a wonderful thing when a nation does not have to trade in food or manufactured goods using money as the token of exchange but can survive simply by trading in money. London is the largest world centre of currency trading and without that business Britain would have become a basket case nation a couple of decades ago
The happy situation for the United States of dollar supremacy looked set to continue but for the push towards European integration and the resurgence of Arab nationalism. So long as the dollar remained supreme the United States could continue to run up massive debts to support a lifestyle unparalleled anywhere in the world. As long as the world needed dollars Washington could pay the interest on its debts.
After the fall of the Soviet Union certain economists and political philosophers (mostly in France and Germany) decided that to have only one superpower would be bad for the world community. Another trading bloc was needed and the European Union could easily be adapted to fill the void.
It is easy to follow the reasoning, around 70% of the world's currency reserves are held in dollars which of course means that essential commodities, particularly oil, are valued in dollars. While the U.S.A. controls the money supply in effect it gets imports for free. As a bonus most of the dollars that other nations have worked hard to earn have to be invested back in the U.S. economy. It is so smart we should be surprised the Mafia did not think of it first.
At the time this was going on the European Union's collective economy suffered from none of the systemic weaknesses of the American economy. Only the smaller nations of Europe, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, were burdened with the same pro rata levels of debt as America and the stronger nations could easily absorb the problems This being so, the Euro was the only serious competitor to the Dollar as a world currency. There we have one of the true, but unmentionable, reasons why The White House was so anxious to bring about regime change in Iraq, promote the growth of China and other emerging nations and create new markets to trade in the commodities it was thought would farm the basis of the future economy as resources of oil and other basic raw materials ran out.
The lesson has not been lost on people who are not friends of America however. Control the money supply and they could control everything
The oil nations of the Middle East do more trade and have better political relationships with Europe than the U.S., the EU imports more oil and the European economies are cashflow based rather than debt based and so are more sustainable in adverse trading conditions. There have already been rumblings from within OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) that a switch from dollars to euros for pricing oil could be a serious option. Should Europe's two main oil producers, Britain and Norway adopt the euro it could well be the tipping point at which a switch by OPEC becomes not possible but inevitable. On top of that there is another risk. Western News Media portray Al Qaeda as an organisation intent upon destroying western civilisation but this is a dangerous over estimation of terrorist ambitions. There are surely terrorist cells around the world who meet in gloomy basements and mutter darkly through beards of mass destruction about the downfall of the decadent west and the triumph of Islam but Osama bin Laden is certainly neither mad nor stupid. He knows well the American collective psychology, the siege mentality that sees enemies (and Satan) lurking behind every rock and tree along the borders. America will be destroyed by fear and panic rather than enemy action.
A shift to a more inward looking stance on foreign policy as the Obama adminitration's domestic problems grow and the obsession with "minority rights" issues in Obie's natural constituency, the politically correct left obstructs any attempt to do what needs to be done could well open the way for a Bin Laden inspired coup in Saudi Arabia, overthrowing the House of Saud and replacing it with an Islamic fundamentalist regime. And with the fundamentalists in Iran and Saudi Arabia pulling the strings in the world's main oil producing area you can bet the exodus from the dollar would be rapid and total.
The American currency is already weak in world markets, the past twelve months have seen first a decline against other major currencies and more importantly against essential commodities and gold. The situation is so far out of America's control that with either a weak or a strong dollar they now must be the losers. The weak dollar mean imports, particularly oil, get more expensive and Americans regard the right to cheap gasoline as right up alongside the right to free speech and the right to have bed dress sense. A strong dollar means America's exports get dearer and a country already up to its neck in debt cannot afford a drop in its income from exports. Driving the dollar down in currency markets as the Obama administration have been trying to do, if successful merely buys breathing space at the expense of destroying the value of savings, pension funds and the buying power of wages.
The effect of a lower dollar exchange rate may be felt for six months to a year as contracts made for goods before the devaluation hold prices down. After a certain time though those contracts expire and new ones are negotiated at the new exchange rate. Try to keep devaluing, as the Federal Exchange has and trading partners start to demand settlement in other currencies, commodities or gold. All this is great for the evil bankers but terrible for ordinary people.
The final factor in the slow motion train wreck that is happening to American is the domestic economy is very much consumer led. A few hikes in the price of gasoline will cause panic to set in and people will stop spending. Tax revenues will drop even further, bigger borrowing will be required to cover the public sector deficit and America will have to pay more interest on its borrowings. Rating Agencies have already, last week, downgraded America's credit rating. This can only lead to inflation in parallel with which The White House will have to increase taxes. And then the trouble starts.
Central banks have started to shift reserves into more stable currencies and create a snowball effect. With demand for its main trading commodity diminishing the US economy faces possible collapse and America's position as the world's strongest nation looks precarious.
Europe may constitute a significant threat to America's domination in trade but whereas the Soviet Union was a military superpower but an economic island, Europe and the U.S.A. are allies militarily but economic competitors that, under the unwritten rules of free market economics, would have go head to head in a trade war like two bull elephants. Meanwhile China and India look ever more ready to step up to the mark as the world's economic superpowers.
Free market economics compels all participants to compete for a bigger share of the cake at a time when America is more vulnerable than it has been in well over a century.
And here's an interesting snippet seen in The Daily Telegraph:
Politician Admits Carbon Taxes Are Just Another Revenue Raising Scam
George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister has said that there may need to be new Europe-wide forms of taxation to help pay for the bail-outs that will be needed by the growing number of crashing economies in the euro-zone. His suggestions include carbon dioxide taxes which, he says, could provide important revenues and resouces for funding
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Chinese Credit Agency Downgrades U.S. Bonds by John de Roe
One of Chinas leading credit rating agencies has downgraded United States of America government debt in response to what it sees as deliberate devaluation of the dollar by quantitative easing and other means. If China, now the second biggest economy in the world, stops buying US government bonds this could have a very negative effect on
Benefits Review
One of the proposals put forward by the coalition for reducing the public sector deficit is reform of the benefit system. Predicatably tis sent the hand-wringers, bleeding hearts and human rights screamers of the 'progressive left' into paroxysms of hysteria. People would be starving the the streets, they wailed, malnourished children would queue for a handful of rice. They wished. Actually the coalitions proposals look quite reasonable.
The Arrogance Of Ecomonists And The Stupidity Of Politicians
by Ian R Thorpe
Don't you just love the arrogance of economists and their detatchment from anything remotely resembling reality. They're all scum sucking crackfarts, they really are. Little Nicky Machiavelli has said this many times and here's a mainstream journalist taking up the theme in response to an economics academic who says that anyone who does not have a PhD in economics should not be allowed to express an opinion on the subject as only...
Defending Keynes
The name of a great Englishman, John Maynard Keyes, is being trashed by that jug eared steak of piss and racist hater of all things British Barack Obama in attempts to give the failing Obama administration's loonytoons economics a veneer of sanity. Keynes recommended governments should use publc spending to sustain their economy during periods of recession. He did not say, as Obama's supporters claim he did, that nations already way past the point of bankruptcy should continue with reckless poublic spending projects.
United In Austerity
Vince Cable on the budget and why the cuts and tax rises were necessary. A quiet but devastating denunciation of Labour's lie that they left the economy in good shape.
The Necessity Of Curbing State SpendingThe left, already laughable styling themselves "the opposition" even as Labour splits into tiny factions including the "old left" the traditional party of the working class, the people with traditional Labour values who recognise there are no magical solution, the "progressive left", the kind of people my colleague Ian Thorpe refers to as The Politically Correct Thought Police, who are currently working themselves into a frenzy about
Where Did All the Money Go
Energy Bills To Rise This Winter
Households will see their gas and electricity bills climb by an average of 7 per cent from December 10 according to news reports. Though Brith Gas, followed by other suppliers, reduced bills by 8% last year that was only a fraction of the average 42% increase in the wake of 2008's financial crisis.
The increase will add an additional 1.50 on a typical weekly dual fuel bill, which equates to 78 a year.
As currency continues to devalue on the international markets and the nations sitting on vast oil and gas reserves sense the west's powerlessness to do anything about price hikes we can expect more increases. Stick up on warn clothes.
read full storyEnergy Bills To Rise This Winter
Ireland Faces New Debt CrisisYields on 10-year Irish Government bonds dipped to 8.787pc in early trading after jumping to 8.929pc on Thursday, the highest level since the euro was created in 1999.
Ireland's economic woes have been a cause of ...
We told you it wasn't over.
11 November 2010
Today's News November 11, 2010
Why Can't British Workers Compete With Immigrants For Jobs?
by Xavier Connolly
from The Daily Telegraph
The main controversy in today's news stories is the response of Work amd Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to the citicisms made by the Archbishop of Canterbury about the government's handling of the long term unemployment problem.
The Daily Telegraph put it like this:
Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said it was a "sin" that British workers are not capable of competing for jobs with foreigners.
As the Government unveiled the biggest reform of the welfare system in 60 years, Mr Duncan Smith said immigrants had taken 70 per cent of the four million-plus new jobs created in the last 14 years because British workers "weren't capable or able" to take them.
His language answers criticism from the Archbishop of Canterbury that ... read full storyWhy Can't British Workers Compete With Immigrants
The BBC also led on the story: :
BBC News - New Benefit System Being Unveiled
The situation is an indictment of the failure of politically correct thinking by left wingers in the civil service, local government and education over the past fifty years. The 1945 - 51 Labour government (before my time but I've read history books) made some very important and necessary changes to British society that really transformed the way way people lived and the way they regarded themselves. Unfortunately, like the Liberal governments of Asquith and Lloyd George before them, like the Chartists of the early nineteenth century, like all great reforming movements once they had achieved their main aim (universal health care, the welfare system and the dismantling of the class system in Labour's case) they were effectively obsolete.
New generations of Labour leaders were not content to settle into the role of being part of the political establishment however, they too wanted to go down in history as having successfully brought about major social reforms.
Driven by the left British society moved towards a one-size-fits-all education system, campaigned for equalities for people who were not actually unequal and pushed for the disastrous policy of multiculturalism which has sliced open the belly of British culture and drawn out its guts all in the name of pandering to minorities.
In the employment market The Labour Party and the trade union movement between them replaced the work ethic with a sense of entitlement. "Nobody," went the message "should ever have to do anything they do not want to do, the world owes you a living." It is true to say this was exacerbated by Margaret Thatcher's war on British industry and reforms to the tax system which made it virtually impossible for a family to live comfortably on a single wage.
All the time, from the 1950 through the 1990 to within the last decade the jobs British workers did not want to do, jobs the products of our education system deemed beneath their dignity were being taken by incomers, first from the Caribbean, then from India and Pakistan the Bangla Desh and Africa then Eastern Europe, people who understood what a great privilege it is to live in a society like Britain (or Germany, France, Holland and Italy because we should not pretend our problems are unique. These incomers did not feel they were entitled to a Ford Cortina or a colour television, an iPhone or a foreign holiday. They were happy to have a solid roof over their head, enough to eat, clean water to drink and the opportunity for their children to achieve better lives. We have become accustomed to taking for granted. In short we don't know how well off we are.
One thing we have lost but immigrants still have is the ability to gain their self esteem from the knowledge they have bequeathed to the next generation a chance to do better. Having lost that too many of us in the west can only measure ourselves by our material wealth and the things we possess.
And that, in a nutshell, is why British workers cannot compete with foreigners in the hunt for jobs.
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The Government Is Not Introducing WorkfareThe Governments long awaited white paper on welfare reform is going to be launched tomorrow morning. As well as plans to simplify the benefits system, there is some speculation that the government may require long term unemployed people go on four-week compulsory work experience projects. The Archbishop of Canterbury sparked a row about that over the weekend suggesting,
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UK Unemployment Rises Again as part time jobs increase.
Unemployment in the UK rose by 48,000 in the quarter to December 2011. The figure of people without jobs now stands at 2.67 million, a jobless rate of 8.4 per cent, the worst figure since the end of 1995. The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance rose by ...
10 November 2010
Today's News and Comment 10 November 2010
Higher Tuition Fees Will Keep Costs Down Says Cameron by Xavier Connolly
From The Daily Telegraph
A surprise remark from David Cameron is likely to anger parents who are being forced to find thousands more to fund their children's higher education.
The Prime Minister was quizzed on a trip to a university in Beijing about last week's Coalition proposal to raise tuition fees by up to 9,000 a year.
A student asked Mr Cameron if he believed the move would restrict the opportunities for Chinese youngsters to gain places on university courses in Britain.
read full storyTuition Fees Will Keep Costs Down Says Cameron
another p.o.v
Students Protest Against Tuition Fee Rise - The Guardian
It's hard to see quite what The Prime Minister is driving at here, how can higher fees possibly keep costs down when tuition fees are responsible for the bulk of the debt incurred by students?
Mr. Cameron could of course mean that the prospect of having to pay higher tuition fees and thus leaving University with an even greater burden of debt that students in recent years have been accustomed to will discourage students from taking up University places.
If this kills off some of the courses in bogus arts and pseudo science, examples including "Feminism In Film" and "Evolutionary Psychology" or degree courses in vocational subjects such as our favourite "Waste Management with Modern Dance," it could be positive. If it encourages students to stay at home and take up degree courses on offer in local colleges or to seek out two year courses and opt for serious study instead of partying at the taxpayers expense it could be positive.
And if it reduces the number of students leaving University with degrees in media studies, journalism, fashion design and sociology when there are never going to be enough jobs in those fields to employ them all it could be positive.
If, as I suspect, it is just another example of the spinmeister's art, a catchy phrase created to convince voters the coalition are on the case when in fact they are as clueless as their Labour predecessors about how to tackle the problems the nation faces then Mr. Cameron had better start thinking about where he is going to live when the coalition falls apart and he is ejected from Downing Street. Because it might be sooner than he expects.
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Graduate Tax Would Deter Many From University EducationAs the public sector debt crisis forces the coalition to cut the Universities budget Ian R Thorpe wades into the argument about university education as a right and tuition fees ...
More Graduates, Less Graduate JobsAll the while Labour were in power they kept muttering about the knowledge economy as if simply having attained a University degree was a marketable asset. In reality were were spending fortunes on educating people to be call centre clerks, shelf fillers and burger flippers. Now the coalition must find a way to deal with the problem of having too many graducates in areas that offer no jobs.
No Child Left Behind - Just 800 millionEverybody has been feeling the pinch this past couple of years so just think how well off we would all be if this government stopped wasting our money! Each party is suggesting the other will bring in the more savage cuts to public spending. But they don't have to cut any necessary spending at all, just stop wasting the money we bung into the kitty via our tax on stupid schemes thought up by The Politically Correct Thought Police...
Chinese Credit Agency Downgrades U.S. Bondsby John de Roe
One of Chinas leading credit rating agencies has downgraded United States of America government debt in response to what it sees as deliberate devaluation of the dollar by quantitative easing and other means. If China, now the second biggest economy in the world, stops buying US government bonds this could have a very negative effect on
read full story
Chinese Credit Agency Downgrades U.S. Bonds
More on finance from BBC News
Banks Say Inflation To Remain High - BBC News
It's another case of We Told You So. The Daily Stirrer has been warning of the dangers of quantitative easing since we started this website.
If, as the Daily Telegraph story warns and as now seems likely, China now stops buying United States Treasury bonds the Obama administration that in spite of the crushing defeat suffered by the Democrats in last week's mid - term elections shows no sign of deviating from its chosen course of running up insane deficits in an attempt to change the collective psyche of America are going to find it much harder to fund their burgeoning monthly deficits.
Not only will they find it harder to raise money in the markets, the interest due on those debts they take on will rise too. Already unable to meet the costs incurred in the day to day running of the nation, the growing public sector wage bill and the rising cost of unemployment and welfare benefits as unemployment continues to rise they will have to borrow more money. And when they do that interest rates will rise further and more quickly. All this must be paid for out of falling tax revenues or by borrowed money. Thus the Greek style spiral of debt begins to drag the nation down into financial basket case status.
The President is not apparently concerned by this. He is much more eager to further piss off the government by criticising their record on Human Rights. It seems a strange priority when the leaders of China are in the ideal position to hold a gun to his head.
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Cervical Cancer Jab To Replace Smear Tests by Ed Butt
Girls who have the cervical cancer jab may only need screening twice in their lifetime, an expert said today.
Cervical cancer should become a "rare disease" thanks to the introduction of the vaccine, said Professor Peter Sasieni, from Queen Mary, University of London.
Prof Sasieni suggests the current smear test programme, which sees women invited for screening every three to five years, could be replaced with ... read full storyCervical Cancer Jab To Replace Smear Tests.
This is another lie told in the campaign to brainwash us into believing big pharma can create a vaccine for everything.
There are a few things to remember about the HPV vaccine before you get carried away by the hype. As far as we know there are no serious side effects but then neither is it very effective. The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) which the vaccine protects against is not the sole cause of cervical cancer. Reliable figures are hard to obtain because the medical establishment are more secretive than the climate science community about the data on which they base their claims but it is estimated that as many as 50% of cervical cancers are due to other causes.
The vaccine does not offer lifetime protection, it wears off in about ten years according to independent researchers whose work is not widely publicised (surprise!). This means that as the vaccine is given to pubescent girls it is wearing off by the time they are likely to be at their most sexually active.
The vaccine is very expensive and yet its supporters are not only pushing for legislation to make it compulsory for girls to be vaccinated but also for boys to receive the vaccine as well. How, you might well ask, do they justify vaccinating boys, who do not have a cervix, against cancer of the cervix?
Their case is that boys might be carriers of the virus and infect unvaccinated girls. When sceptics (rational thinkers) challenge this particular piece of illogic, pointing out that if all girls are vaccinated by law there will be no chance of male carriers infecting them the vaccine fascists are ready with their answer. What about women from undeveloped nations where vaccination is not automatic, they wail.
What about them? Why do we not ban all cars from the road in case an Amazonian native on a visit to the west walks in front of one, not being aware of the danger. Why don't we shut down the grids and cut off electricity supplies lest a retard sticks a metal pin in the socket and gets electrocuted. Why don't we erect a giant roof over the world to stop the occasional (once every few million years) rogue asteroid hitting a populated area?
See where these people are headed, these politically correct thinkers who would spend the entire GDP of the developed world on making sure nobody is ever at risk from anything and nobody is ever endangered by anything? They would destroy civilisation for the sake of salving their guilty consciences. And what do they feel guilty about? Being Westerners, that's what. The Daily Stirrer says don't vaccinate such people against anything, they all tend to be militant atheists and voluble supporters of evolution. Deny them medicines and treatment on the grounds that such things mess up the process of natural selection.
Obama Salutes Indonesia As A Deomcratic Example To The World
Obama Hails Indonesia As A Deomcratic Example To The World by Ian R Thorpe
Barack Obama, the great communicator who would reach out to the world and heal its wounds is a bit of a numbskull when it comes to international affairs it turns out.
Barack Obama has hailed Indonesia as an example to the world of how developing countries can embrace democracy. We examine the democratic, social, religious and human rights credentials of the world's most populous Muslim state ...
Well he would say that wouldn't he, being the great uniter, the man of peace reaching out to the Islamic world to reconcile them to the evil west. Pity he did not see fiot to make mention of that democratic, liberal, multiculturalist, inclusive, human rights loving Islamic government in Indonesia is waging a genocidal war against Christians on the remote island of East Timor.
read more on the conflict in East Timor hereand HEREand HERE
There is little to be found in western mainstream media on this conflict in which about 30% (estimated) of the island's population have died at the hands of Barry's new best friends, the liberal, democratic and politically correct government of Indonesia.
Good work Barry, keep it it. My Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim friends here in East Lancashire are all absolutely convinced you are one of them, a Muzza. A few more pronouncements as careless as this and even your supporters, the "liberals" of America's east and west coasts will start to have doubts too,
Firuza Let Your Hair Fall Free
9 Novenber 2010
Cameron Told To Bollock The Chinese About Human Rights
by Ed Butt
Leading Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has risked arrest by delivering a public call to David Cameron to challenge his country's leadership on their human rights record.
Mr Weiwei, who was released on Sunday from a two-day house arrest, said he feared he would be silenced again by the authorities for saying that Mr Cameron will commit a crime if he fails to speak out against human rights abuses.
read full storyCameron Told To Bollock The Chinese About Human Rights
As a result of news reports on this story the radio call - in shoes were buzzing today with the 'rights' lefties demanding David Cameron cut off Britain's business relationships with the Chinese in retaliation for their abysmal human rights record.
Right so. But where the fuck would we get our underwear and shirts and microwave ovens and MP3 players from?
The lefties who are always wailing and gnashing their teeth about the way foreign countries manage their societies never seen able to understand what the Chinese or Russians, Tanzanians, Iranians or any other nation does within its own borders is the business of that nation's people. We may not like the way they carry on. In most cases they do not some of the things that happen in our society. If nations start trying to meddle in the internal affairs of other nations however that road can only lead to war.
The west is heavily involved in military action in Afghanistan, is just now disengaging from Iraq, has the Israeli / Palestinian conflict simmering on a back burner, ready to boil over into full scale regional war at the least provocation and is sitting on the permanent powder keg that is Africa.
And still the human rights whiners cannot get their heads round the first principle of international relation; DON'T FUCK WITH THE CHINESE.
Obama Goes Home To Indonesiaby Ian R. Thorpe
US President Barack Obama made a much-delayed homecoming of sorts to Indonesia on Tuesday, seeking to engage Muslims and cement strategic relations on the second leg of his Asia tour.
read full storyObama Goes Home To Indonesia
Goes home to Indonesia? Really? And we were told by so many people he was a natural born nephew of his Uncle Sam citizen of the United States of America.
Even worse was to befall him in connection with his true nationality however. With doubts about his eligibility to serve as United States President surfacing again in the wake of his party's rout in the mid term elections he was, while preparing to give a speech to Indian businessmen introduced by a former Kenyan Asian who was chairing the event as "a fellow Kenyan."
While most of the publicity surrounding Obama's eligibility has centered on whether he was actually born in the U.S. sate of Hawaii several law suits progressing through the labyrinthine American legal system make clear the issue is that according to Obama's own account his father was a Kenyan national (actually a British colonial citizen at the time of the President's birth) and was never even legally a resident of the USA let alone a naturalised citizen.
This would make Obama a dual citizen at birth if he was in fact born in Hawaii, a fact which is acknowledged in his semi - fictional autobiography Dreams From My Father.
Other accusations centre on the time during Obama's childhood when he lived with his mother and her Indonesian husband Lolo Soetoro in Jakarta. It is claimed Soetoro adopted the boy (a necessary step for him to attend an Indonesian state school as documentary evidence proves he did), making him an Indonesian citizen in the process. If Obama has never been renaturalised and no evidence has been found to suggest he has, this also would render him inelegible to serve as President Of The United States.
As my god friend Jeff Schreiber, a U.S. Lawyer warned in 2008 America would have a constitutional crisis on its hands if Obama was elected. They certainly have one of those now and its a humdinger.
Obama's refusal to show his long form birth certificate or other documents that might be relevant to his nationality give grounds for suspicion that there is some substance in the allegations made against him. It could of course simply be that his father is not the fabled Kenyan goat boy Barack Hussein Obama Snr. but an American citizen. This would settle questions of eligibility in Obama's favour but would expose him as a liar and a fantasist who spun this exotioc backstory for electoral gain.
We eagerly await further developments.
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Children Who Have Not Had MMR Jab Should Be Banned From School
by SXavier Connolly
Children who haven't had the MMR jab should be banned from schools, according to Dr Sohail Bhatti, a director of one of the largest health trusts in has said. Oh well, we suppose bureaucratic bullying is the only way to improve uptake of the MMR vaccine which is hitting new lows we hear since the first damages award made in a British court for brain damage incurred as a result of receiving the MMR vaccine. MMR court victory for family.
read full story from The Daily Mail
Children Who Have Not Had MMR Jab Should Be Banned From School Says Doctor
The ploy used by the government and the pharmaceutical industry to sell MMR in the face of doubts is to direct all attention onto the case of discredited Dr. Andrew Wakefield. That is a typical government / corporate diversion. Over the years many parents have stepped forward to affirm that their children had developed serious symptoms comparable to autism shortly after receiving the MMR vaccine and had suffered permanent or long term harm.
It is customary for medical bodies such as the General Medical Council and for respected (but on this issue not necessarily respectable) publications like The Lancet, The Times and The Guardian to dismiss these as coincidence. When a think keeps happening in the course of a pattern of events however it is reasonable to suspect it is perhaps not coincidence.
The official line is predictably that only religious cranks and right wing nut cases harbour doubts about the MMR vaccine. This is not true. There is a significant body of medical opinion which holds that MMR and other multiple vaccines are still in use because of a massive cover up. These people are careful not to express their views too openly because they know that as was the case with Dr. Wakefield, to challenge the official line on this vaccine is to court professional ruin.
One of the reasons we do not take comments on this site is we have experience of web scrubbing campaigns like the one set up to protect MMR by throwing doubt on the sanity of those who question it (hint: the people who write The Daily Stirrer are not right wing neither are we religious) This again is a diversionary tactic so we like people to read our posts and make up their own minds.
Now nobody has ever tried to suggest that ham will come to any child who receives the MMR jab. In all but a very small minority of cases the children are perfectly safe. What gave us grounds to suspect some kind of cover up is exactly the type of official bullying we showed in the lead to this story.
Why this pressure to force MMR on worried parents? Before the introduction of the triple jab and the trickle of cases of the onset of brain damage occurring shortly after the vaccine was administered (a trickle that prompted Dr. Wakefield's misguided research project) there was over 90% take up of the measles vaccine. According to the latest statistics I read the take up of MMR is around 60% and falling. So why did the last government, if they were so concerned about the possibly very serious consequences of measles, not give parents the right to request their children receive the vaccines singly.
Ask that question and you will usually be told you do not understand science. Which is yet another diversionary tactic aimed at making questioners feel stupid and inadequate. WTF has understanding science to do with wanting a single vaccine for your child. It's a perfectly simple question, why can people who are prepared to pay a fair charge not have their children vaccinated singly?
8 November 2010
46 Dangerous Terrorists To Be Released
At least 46 convicted terrorists who have been either released from prison or are close to being freed pose a risk to the public and face tight new controls on their freedom, a secret Government document discloses.
The Daily Telegraph reports that concern over the release of a significant number of Islamic extremists has driven ministers to draw up rules for their supervision orders.
Probation officers have been issued with a menu of restrictions that can be placed on terrorists freed on licence. The curbs are understood to include orders to have contact with only Government-approved imams, not to visit certain mosques, not to associate with anyone with a criminal record and not to use computers.
read full story 46 Dangerous Terrorists To Be Released
Predictably the increasingly doo-lally left is trying to turn this into a human rights issue. "Control Orders will infringe these people's human rights," scream the professional wailers and gnashers of teeth on the progressive side of the political spectrum.
And what human rights are those? The basic human right to freedom of movement, the basic human right to broadband access or the basic human right to blow up a passenger aircraft or a packed commuter train killing hundreds of innocent pasengers and workers.
Benefit Cuts - Poor Being Sent North
Large swaths of southern England will become off limits to housing benefit recipients in a little more than a decade because of the government's proposed plans to cut welfare bills triggering a huge migration of the poor to the north according to a study by housing experts.
The work, by the Chartered Institute of Housing, shows that before 2025 rents on most two-bedroom properties in the south will become unaffordable to those claiming local housing allowance.
Within 15 years, much of London's commuter belt will become
7 November 2010
Education bias towards islam
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has established that the education watchdog has published positive reports praising Muslim schools for their contribution to community cohesion even in the case of a school which openly states that Muslims oppose the lifestyle of the West.
read all:Ofsted Thought Police Praise Islamic Extemist Schools
We really do have to get politically correct thinking out of the education system. We know the left wing mafia hate Chistianity and let's be honest, here in Britain most moderates are not big fans of religion. If leftist militant atheists in local and national government officials are going to persist in attacking Christianity however they must either stop pandering to Islam or hold up their hands and say "Mea Culpa, I'm a bigoted little hypocrite."
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6 November 2010
Today's News and Comment
Oil Price Rise Fuels Inflation Fears
Brent crude, traded in London, hit $88.80 before falling back to $88, which is slightly below highs seen in the spring. But New York prices topped their highest in two years, touching $87.22 per barrel at one point, before retreating on a stronger dollar in late trading. Analysts have begun to forecast that ...
Let Them Eat Cheese
The Irish government has risked fomenting revolution by trying to solve the country's dire economic problems by handing out a free block of cheese to every family. Brendan Smith, the agriculture minister, announced yesterday that the government would use European Union funding to buy 53 tonnes of fresh Irish cheddar and distribute it for free from 15 November.
But Irish citizens responded angrily to the plan, which was likened to the "Let them eat cake" comment by Marie Antoinette that provoked the
Obama's 10 day Asian Tour
Obama Is Doomed
Four days after the elections, the rage continues. If giving the Democrats a hiding was supposed to soothe the electorate, something has gone wrong. It or rather the Democrat reaction to it appears simply to have made things worse.
To the rest of the world, it might have seemed that President Obamas press conference after the defeat was an admission of personal failure. But it wasnt: what went wrong was the economys fault, he argued and, by extension, it was the fault of the electorate for not seeing
Coalition Pledge Immigration Crackdown
The home secretary, Theresa May, is to end the right to permanent settlement for more than 100,000 skilled workers and overseas students who come to Britain each year.
In her first major speech on migration, the home secretary also disclosed that she intends to drastically reduce the flow of
The Rise Of The Geeks
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the 10th most powerful man in the world, according to the latest list from Forbes.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, has been named the 10th most powerful man in the world, ahead of the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Hillary Clinton and Steve Jobs.
Gates, who stepped down from his day-to-day role at Microsoft to concentrate on the philanthropic exploits of his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is praised by Forbes for his work ...
Is The Music Business Playing Its Last Tune
I have a confession to make. I have been involved with music, as a fan, performer and critic, for most of my life. But I still dont really understand how the business works. In fact, I dont think anybody does.
Guy Hands certainly doesnt. I suggested as much when he (over)paid 3.5 billion for EMI in 2007, then set about the great but ailing firm with all the subtlety of ...
5 November 2010
Today's News and Comment
Fears About Obama's Loonytoons Economic Grow
The early verdict is in on the US Federal Reserve's $600bn of fresh money through quantitative easing. Yields on 30-year Treasury bonds jumped 20 basis points to 4.07pc.
It is the clearest warning shot to date that global investors will not tolerate Ben Bernanke's openly-declared policy of generating inflation for much longer. Soaring bourses may have stolen the headlines, but equities are rising for an unhealthy reason: because they are a safer asset class than bonds at the start of ...
You can't say we didn't warn you... debt crisis menu
British Food Prices Soar
Soaring wheat and other commodity costs on world markets have pushed up UK wholesale food prices at the fastest rate in two years, official figures showed this morning.
Prices of food produced in the UK were 9.8% higher last month than a year ago, the biggest annual increase since October 2008, the Office for National Statistics reported. Imported food prices climbed 4.5% on the year, the fastest rate since
Again The Daily Stirrer was first to warn you of this. Hope you stocked up with baked beans, tinned soup and SPAM.
Vince Cable Bottled Out On University Reform
There are three sorts of conservative: a conservative, a fanatical conservative, and a university. Change nothing, it cries. I am poor but perfect. I am special. I am the future. Just give me the money.
The coalition proposals on university tuition fees published by the business secretary, Vince Cable, this week should just about rescue ...
The academic mafia have closed ranks against cable of course. But does the national interest really demand that 50% of the population has University Degrees. After all a degree is no guarantees a person is not a useless fucker. Higher Education Disaster
Why being Green Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry
4 November 2010
News, Opinion and Coment
Document Title
Prison Does Not Reform Criminals
Three in four offenders do not leave a life of crime regardless of whether they are jailed or handed community penalties.
The first long term study of its kind shows that 74 per cent of criminals will commit at least one crime within nine years of being released from jail or serving a community sentence, Ministry of Justice figures show.
The figures show the true challenge facing Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, to meet his promise to bring about a "rehabilitation revolution".... read all Most Criminals Never Change Career
The Coalition has a chance to take another step in the right direction here and roll back the advances made by The Politically Correct Thought Police under Labour. We need to get back to the idea that prison is a punishment handed out to people whose actions have caused material or physical harm to others. It is not a way of compensating the unfortunate victims of society whose home backgrounds, academic failure at school or status as a member of a minority has complelled them to commit anti social acts in order to draw attention to their need for help.
Prison should be unpleasant or it is not a deterrent. Sure, keep the educational opportunities, they can help those who want to change their lives. But restrict access to TV and get rid of the pool tables, video games and such. Prison should not be like home. The aim is to make people not want to go back.
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Stupid Criminal Of The Month
Bank Of England Decides Not To Print More Monopoly Money.
Common sense has prevailed and the Bank Of England will not embark on another round of quantitative easing.
The decision by the Monetary Policy Committee was widely expected following a raft of positive recent UK economic data, including rising confidence in both the manufacturing and services industries as well as economic growth of 0.8pc in the third quarter double predicted levels. Yields on 10-year gilts rose marginally to 3.05pc following ...read all Bank Of England Resists More Q.E.
The last round of Q.E. achieved little beyong putting taxpayers money in the pockets of the bankers and triggering inflation, thus punishing the people who had been thrifty by devaluing their savings and rewarding the very people and corporate entities whose actions caused the financial meltdown.
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OPINION AND COMMENT
Vince Cable Challenges News Corp's BskyB Takeover Vince Cable has ordered media regulator Ofcom to examine News Corporation's 12bn bid to take control of BSkyB, as revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk last night. Cable has issued an intervention notice under the Enterprise Act ordering Ofcom to investigate the proposed transaction, which would ...
Can David Cameron Turn America's Weakness Into A Strength
Until yesterday, our ministers were under strict orders to avoid all references to America's gargantuan deficit and to Barack Obama's failure to address it. When Mark Hoban, the Treasury minister, dared to suggest last month that the US had taken the wrong decisions on fiscal ...
3 November 2010
News, Opinion and Coment
Bugger all in the news today apart from analysis of the mid term elections results in the USA. Not of much interest to us then, we could say we told you so but what's the point? Anyone who has not seen through Obama before now is never likely to.
Instead let's have a wry little simle.
Most Gobsmackingly Important Scientific Study Of The Month
From the website of Live Science comes this shocking revelation:
Oral Sex Leads to Intercourse Among Teens, Study Suggests.
Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to the site and log in to read the article. But do you need to read it to know that all you will see is another ezample of scientists having to spend huge amounts of money to discover what the rest of us could have told them for nothing.
2 November 2010
News, Opinion and Coment
Austerity Measures Will Cost 1.6m Jobs Says Think Tank
from BBC News:
The government's spending cuts and the rise in VAT to 20% in January will result in more than 1.6 million job losses across the public and private sectors by 2016, research suggests.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said the impact of the Spending Review had been "understated".
It predicts 725,000 public sector jobs will go - more than 100,000 higher than a government-appointed body.
The left never give up do they? They try to create fear and panic around every issue with the unspoken subtext being "Only more government can save you, you are herlpless, like children. Trust Nanny State.
750,000 public sector jobs need to go. We have six million people employed in the poublic sector (and more if we count consultants etc. That is ten per cent of the population and over 35% of the work force. No wonder the economy is up shit creek. Everyone who has a proper job has to support a passenger.
Prisoners To Be Given Right To Vote
Ministers and think-tanks push for strict limits on concessions to the European ruling that prisoners should be allowed to vote, suggesting that it should only apply to convicts serving short sentences.
read Ed Butt's rant on this topic votes for criminals
Republicans Set For Sweeping Victory In The U.S. Election
Anxiety over the stumbling economy and discontent with Obama and government in Washington have propelled Republicans to the threshold of huge gains that could give them a majority in the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate.
Opinion polls and independent analysts project Republican gains of at least 50 House seats, far more than ...
Looks like the end of the narcissist Obama's dream of a world remade in his image.
Perfect Storm For Investors
Never mind what the Bank of England monetary policy committee says about interest rates on Thursday. One of the biggest wealth managers in the world is discretely warning its income-seeking clients to beware of bonds issued by the British Government; generally known as gilts.
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management fears that despite the apparent security of gilts, a combination of rising inflation already underway higher interest rates and the cessation of quantitative easing both widely anticipated could create a perfect storm for investors who ...
If you have savings be afraid, be very afraid.
1 November 2010
News, Opinion and Coment
Once again, without actually having done very much, Al Qaeda have scored a victory in the so called 'war on terror.' The purpose of a campaign of teror is not to kill vast numbers or to destroy property, industrial installations and military hardware but to disrupt the routines of the nation or organization under attack. The alleged discovery of a bomb disguised as a toner cartridge for a laser printer on a transatlantic cargo flight at Heathrow airport represents a victory for the terrorists.
We say alleged because rumours are circulating that a high ranked executive of UPS, the carrier on whose flight the parcel was being carried, has denied it was a bomb. The conspiracy theorists were on the case immediately, claiming the Obama abministration were behind the story in an attempt to frighten voters ahead of the mid term elections tomorrow.
This can be discounted because Obama is seen by voters as being too sympathetic to organisations connected with terror so and incident or near miss at this stage would be more likely to drive votes towards Obama's opponents.
What an be said however is that with their usual impeccable timing Al Qaeda have managed to cause maximum disruption in the west at a time when tensions are already high. When security services proclaim their success in combating the terror threat after each unsuccessful attack they miss the point. Last Christmas massive disruption was caused by a wannabe suicide bummer whose plan was to detonate explosives hidden inside his own body as the filight from Nigeria he had travelled on was coming in to land at Chicago.
Forget the fact that the guy was so incompetent he only suceeded in setting fire to his own bollocks, his mission was spectacularly successful. Air travel was disrupted for the rest of the holiday period and higher security measures imposed on airlines since his failure have cost western businesses and governments $billions.
Again the terrorists, whether the bomb was real or there is some substance in the latest rumours, have caused massive disruption.
We do not need higher security on passenger flights. Cargo is a different matter but given the just in time philosophy of modern business, corporate interests are likely to override security risks.
And as for those of us who are not concerned with the air frieght industry, all we need do is heed the words of Winston Churchill, "Keep calm and carry on."
Read news reportPassengers Face Ludicrous Safeguards "> The Daily Telegraph
29 October 2010
News, Opinion and Comment
New Air Travel Tax
An increase in flight taxes that will add 100 to the cost of many family holidays threatens to end the benefits brought to the British economy and its people by air travel, British Airways has warned.
US Fiscal Trainwreck Fears
The US economy is a "fiscal train wreck" waiting to happen, US economist Nouriel Roubini warned on Friday.
He painted a bleak outlook for the world's biggest economy in a commentary for the Financial Times, saying while President Barack Obama's stimulus package prevented another depression, it was coming to an end with nothing to take its place.
The economist - one of the first to predict the US housing crash and nicknamed 'Dr Doom' - said the likely path of fiscal policy after next Tuesdays election will mean ...
E U Budget Plans Frighten BondholdersInvestors face large potential losses on eurozone debt under German plans likely to win backing from EU leaders on Friday risking a boycott of Greek, Irish, and Portuguese bonds.
I'm A Eurosceptic, Says CameronJames Kirkup writes in The Daily Telegraph: Ill post more on this soon, but Ive just come out of David Camerons press conference here in Brussels. I asked him a question thats been on my mind (and many others) for some time: Are you a Eurosceptic? Mr Camerons answer: Yes.
BoJo atacks Cameron's Housing Benefit Cap Government housing reforms were under attack on multiple fronts as council home associations predicted they would backfire by driving up overall welfare bills and Boris Johnson warned against "Kosovo-style social cleansing" of poorer people from cities such as London. Downing Street moved to squash growing ministerial dissent by signalling there would be no retreat from ...
The Housing Benefit Cut Will Not Be A Vote Loser
Here is my column from this mornings paper (the printed version has a few sub-editing cuts): There seems, at the moment, to be a competition among the political classes to describe the Coalitions housing benefit cuts in the most lurid and tasteless possible terms. They are, were told, a final solution for the poor and a
Great Forest Sell Off
The government's plan to put half of England's state-owned forests up for sale might raise billions, but what will we lose?
The dog walkers arrive early at Cardinham Woods. It's still another hour before the cafe in the old woodsman's cottage starts serving walnut cake and bowls of stew, but already the car park is filling with vehicles containing excitable dogs yelping to be released on to the muddy forest trails heading up towards the steep valley flanks. The dense rain cloud resting ...
Now They Are Demolishing My Prejudices
From Trafalgar Square walk down Whitehall to Downing Street and stop. From this point on, the government in the 1960s wanted you to enter somewhere quite different, a British Stalingrad of concrete and glass slabs stretching to Westminster Abbey and Victoria Street. It was to obliterate acres of the city where now stand the Foreign Office, the Treasury, Richmond Terrace and New Scotland Yard, as far as the houses of parliament and across to St James's Park.
Perhaps one day a 21st Century Society battling to preserve Canary Wharf will emulate the heroes of our Victorian heritage ...
Modern Fiction Just Not Up To Scatch
The shortlist of titles for the Guardian First Book award has been announced. But even before deliberations reached this stage, the prize has become the source of a debate about the direction the publishing world is taking.
Book competitions have a habit of spawning rows: who should really have won, who should never have been a finalist and so on. But this year's Guardian first book award managed to set off a fierce debate, even before the shortlist had been announced, and it was all down to a tweet from one of the judges...
28 October 2010
News, Opinion and Comment
Could Liberalism Be Genetic
Liberalism may be genetic, according to a new study published by Cambridge University Press: Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called
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Biofuels - A Growing Evil
Is the world running out of food, alongside oil, metals, water and much else?
The answer to this question, according to a recent OECD and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report is a definitive no; global agricultural production is on track to satisfy the expected long-term increase in demand, the OECD reckons.
Yet it's little thanks to public policy, which in combination with the current craze among financial speculators for commodities, seems hell bent on driving up prices to what for millions of the world's poor may be starvation levels ...
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America Like A Ponzi Scheme
US authorities are operating a "brazen" Ponzi scheme in government debt by buying trillions of dollars of bonds to stimulate the economy, according to Bill Gross, managing director of Pimco, the world's biggest bond house.
In a bid to restart the stalling recovery, the US Federal Reserve is next week expected to unveil a second round of quantitative easing (QE) of as much as $500bn, on top of the $1.2 trillion already completed.
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You Can't Keep A Bad Idea Down
Tom Friedman writes: I confess, I find it dispiriting to read the polls and see candidates, mostly Republicans, leading in various midterm races while promoting many of the very same ideas that got us into this mess. Am I hearing right?
Lets have more tax cuts, unlinked to any specific spending cuts and while were still fighting two wars because that worked so well during the Bush years to make our economy strong and our deficit small. Lets immediately cut government spending, instead of phasing cuts in gradually, while were still mired in a recession because that worked so well ...
27 October 2010
News, Opinion and Comment
27 October 2010
Today's News:
Von Rompuy - Pumpuy is trying to fuck us through the back door.
The National Socialist Government of Federal Europe is making another bid to get its hands on the controls of the British state. Yes, that dirty little Belgian bastards Von Rompuy is trying to use the Lisbon Treaty to transfer control of Britain's finances to Brussels. In other words The Bastards of Belgium are trying to stick their Federal superstate ambitions up our national arse.
Now this story comes from the Daily Mail and we normally treat DailyMail EU scare stories with some scepticism. This one does check out however. Well we told you the Bureau Rats would not give up on their dream of world domination - ever.
European President Herman Van Rompuy intends to use a report on the economic crisis to press for sweeping reforms that will strengthen economic governance in the EU.
"Ah but aren't you over - reacting?" you might well ask. After all Coalition Dave promised us a referendum on any further transfers of sovereignty to Brussels. He did, and that's why Rompuy - Pumpuy is trying to stick it up us the back way.
Mr Van Rompuy also suggests that ministers should sidestep calls for a new treaty and try to force through the new measures using existing powers under the Lisbon Treaty.
Yeah well no worries, if Dave says he will look after us we can relax, he's a much bigger bloke than Von Rumpuy - Pumpuy you are probably thinking. Maybe so but Dave is a former Public School Boy so he will be used to taking it up the arse
You think?
Downing Street has indicated that David Cameron may be prepared to trade agreement on a new treaty in return for a deal to cap the EUs runaway budget.
Now don't you wish you had taken UKIP a bit more seriously at the election?
Hat tip to the Grumpy Old Twat for pointing us to this one.
UK Airlines Back Changes To Crazy Security Measures
from BBC News
Mr Broughton said some "completely redundant" security checks should go. The Department for Transport said there were no plans to change rules on checking laptops and shoes. Practices such as forcing passengers to take off their shoes should be abandoned, Mr Broughton added.
He also criticised the US for imposing ... UK Airlines Back Changes To Crazy Security Measures">read full story
also reported in
The Guardian: UK Should Not Kowtow To U.S.
Virgin Media Ups Ante In Broadband Wars
Virgin Media is set to turn up the dial on its cable network, offering users speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second).
It aims to provide the service to over 50% of the UK by mid-2012, beginning in December with 200,000 homes in London, the Home Counties and West Yorkshire.
It is the latest move in the race to bring super-fast broadband services to the UK.
It will give new impetus to rival BT's ...
OPINION and COMMENT from around the web
Osborne Needs Plan B To Deal With Banks
Supporters of cuts can still fear a recession. The lenders will pay no heed: demand and jobs must be kickstarted elsewhere
There must be a plan B. Yesterday's revelation that Britain's economic growth slowed from 1.2% to just 0.8% in the last quarter clearly indicates a stall, when it should be accelerating with the rest of Europe. Despite earlier spin making this rise better than a predicted 0.4%, George Osborne's recovery faces a blazing amber light. With cuts in public spending ahead and a swingeing rise in VAT in January, he needs a course adjustment ready for action.
So tribal is British politics that a non-partisan response
Stalking Deer In Thrilling - Killing Them Is Necessary
There are more deer in Britain than at any time in the last 1,000 years; the only humane way to manage them is to shoot them
The chill of the morning air on your face, the fresh smell of the forest, the sound of the birds as you slowly make your way through the trees in search of a stag. Nothing compares to the thrill of the stalk. The feeling as you select a beast, approach it, take aim and fire to ensure a clean kill is unique, as is the feeling that you are doing something important. Deer stalking is more than simply shooting a deer. Deer can cause considerable damage to habitat, especially where their numbers exceed the available food supply. If the deer are unmanaged, the herd will grow too big and the deer will starve.
Polly Toynbee And The Final Solution Polly Toynbee finally lost it on Monday. Faced with one of the most progressive governments in recent history, she simply cannot contain her outrage. From Primrose Hill, she looks out across the land and sees nothing but suffering. From next year, the Government will not pay more than 400 a week in housing benefit. Thats only 89 less than ...
Why Magical Thinking Works For Some People
Ray Allens pregame routine never changes. A nap from 11:30am to 1:00pm, chicken and white rice for lunch at 2:30, a stretch in the gym at 3:45, a quick head shave, then practice shots at 4:30. ... and though many coaches, teammates and fans snicker and shake their heads, a new study headed by Lysann Damisch at the University of Cologne and recently published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that we should all stop smirking and start
26 October 2010
News Opinion and Comment
UK Economy Grows Faster Than Expected
Following the rash of gloomy predictions that followed his announcement, the Chancellor is likely to be pleasantly surprised by the figures, which are the first to reflect the period of the new Coalition Government ...
Fears that Britain is sliding towards a double-dip recession receded today, after the UK economy grew by 0.8% in the last three months.
UK GDP grew twice as strongly as the City had expected between July and September, with most analysts expecting growth of just 0.4%. However this was still slower than the surprisingly robust growth of 1.2% recorded in the previous quarter.
The government also received a boost from ...
UK Economy Grows Twice As Fast As Predicted
GDP expanded 0.8 per cent, well above the 0.4 per cent predicted by economists, as the prospects of a double dip recession receded.
The latest figures improve the chances that Britain will be able to withstand the effects of the Government's austerity package and will reduce the likelihood of the Bank of England pumping more cash into the economy in the coming months.
Just a week ago, George Osborne announced cuts of 81 billion aimed at reducing the deficit and restoring credibility to the countrys finances.
Paul Krugman's Ignorance Of History Adam Collyer hands the Nobel prize winning economist a lesson in economics.
Paul Krugman reckons the UK government is wrong to cut spending. Mr Krugman is a leading American economist, and indeed a Nobel prize-winner. Heres what he had to say:
Both the new British budget announced on Wednesday and the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement might have come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. Or if you prefer more British precedents, it echoes the Snowden budget of 1931, which tried to restore confidence but ended up deepening the economic crisis.
The best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Amazing that a Nobel-prize winning economist should be so ignorant of the history of a period that was so significant to economics as a discipline.
The truth is that in Britain, at least, the real economic pain happened from 1929, when the stock market crashed, to 1931...read all
Jobs Grow Even In Recession
The left continues to rubbish the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecast of 2m new private sector jobs by 2015-16. This morning the BBC's Evan Davis described it as "quite a claim", and according to the Grun, Alan Budd is going to be hauled before the Treasury Select Committee to confess his manifest pro-Tory bias.
But in truth - as we blogged a couple of days ago - Budd's forecasts do no more than suggest a return to the same sort of ...
25 October 2010
The Cancer Of Modern Life
Medical research insititutes continue to spend vast amounts of money on cancer research and the less level headed types involved, the boy - scientists twiiter about finding a cure for cancer as if it were one disease with a single identifiable cause. New research however suggests cancer is just one of the hazards of modern life. ( Health Menu )
Today's News
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23 October 2010
Just one big crontroversy today but it is one we will be arguing about for years to come.
Coalition Needs To Come Clean About Labour's Failure On Energy
As we gloomily contemplate our present discontents, we should be pleased to learn that, to the outside world, the Comprehensive Spending Review looks good.
In the past few days, I have spoken to several people from America and Australia who are studying it with forensic interest. In France, where the modest suggestion that people should retire at 62 rather than 60 seems to have caused national paralysis, those who worry about deficits look enviously at our apparent readiness to take our medicine.
22 October 2010
Effin Hopeless: A Rant about the internet, ISPs, customer service and the general crappiness of everything.
As we regard the state of western civilisation with it's 'liberating' internet that puts all the information in the world
(and fart lighting videos) at our fingertips, lives lived online by increasingly isolated and dysfunctional people, the ability of authoritarian governments to control information and the politicians parallel and contradictory exhortations to reduce our carbon footprint and start spending to get the economy back in growth we are entitled to ask "Why are you telling us everything is great when experience tells us everthing is very, very crappy." - read all Effin' Hopeless
Opinion and Comment From Around The Web
opinion-and-comment-daily-stirrer
From: The Washington Examiner
Obama Speech About Car In A Ditch, Opponents Sippin' On A Slurpee Misfires
You've heard it a lot. Barack Obama describes the economic crisis by accusing Republicans of driving the nation's economy into the ditch and then sitting back and watching -- "sippin' on a Slurpee" -- while Obama and the Democrats did the dirty, exhausting work of pulling the car out of the ditch.
Recently, Obama used the Slurpee line at a rally with the First Lady at Ohio State on the 17th. At a fundraiser for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland the same day. At a rally for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on the 16th. At a rally for Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons on the 15th. At a fundraiser in Miami on the 11th. At a DNC rally in Philadelphia on the 10th. At a fundraiser in Chicago on the 7th. At a rally in Maryland on the same day. And so on. (The president seems to always use the image at big rallies, but not always at the high-dollar intimate fundraisers he also attends.)
Many people began rolling their eyes at, say, the 10th time they heard the Slurpee story. And on Tuesday, a reporter asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs about it. Why Slurpees? Gibbs didn't have ...
We're not part of the American election but we have to say that Richard Pryor imprersonation Obama does is enbarrassingly bad.
The Islamic Republic Of Tower Hamlets
I have received a number of requests for a full transcript of my Channel 4 Dispatches film, broadcast in March, about Lutfur Rahman, just chosen as the new directly-elected mayor of Tower Hamlets. Lutfur was council leader at the time of the programme, a position from which he was subsequently removed. The full transcript is read all
Bond Markets Have Become The Latest Investment Bubble
The benchmark five year gilt yield fell to a new low of 1.43 per cent on Thursday, which astonishingly takes it to a 25 basis point discount to that of its German bund counterpart. The UK Government likes to think of the record lows to which gilt yields have sunk to be a vote of
Education Gap Widened Under Labour
Theres a laughable headline in the Guardian this morning: State school pupils do better at GCSE. Technically, thats true. According to the latest tranche of examination statistics released by the Department for Education, 53.1% of GCSE candidates in state schools in 2010 managed to get five or more at grade C or above, including Maths
Savage Cuts And Social Cohesion
Of all the victims of George Osborne's Comprehensive Spending Review, none have more cause for complaint than local government. Councils are facing a 27 per cent cut in central funding, adjusted for inflation, by 2014-15. That compares with a 3.4 per cent cut for education, a 7.5 per cent cut for defence and a real terms increase for health. And thanks to the Coalition's two year freeze on council tax it will be difficult for councils to raise more money themselves to ease the pressure of this squeeze from the centre ...
The Chattering Classes Are Out Of Touch
Oh dear, oh dear. If you want an example of all the selfish little societies that coexist in the so-called United Kingdom, you have only to survey the public responses to the Coalition's "cuts". In how many ways is it possible to say how utterly unjust, disastrous, catastrophic the Comprehensive Spending Review will be for the wealth, health and happiness of everyone, while actually meaning dreadful, disastrous and catastrophic for ...
21 October 2010
Today's News
There Is No Plan B Says Osborne
In a phrase reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher's "no turning back" George Osborne yesterday told MPs there is no Plan B. In other words there are no other options on the table for the economic savation of the country than his drastic public spending cuts and efforts to reduce the budget deficit.
The Chancellor insisted that he will stick to his plan for cuts, even after economists suggested he should be prepared to change course if the UK economy slips back into recession.
Mr Osborne yesterday set out a four-year plan to eliminate the structural deficit in the public finances, cutting welfare payments and Whitehall departments budgets.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think-tank, has warned that the deficit could turn out to be larger than expected, and suggested that Mr Osborne should review his plans after two years.
also reported in The Guardian
The DSaily Stirrer is with Osborne on this.
Retail Sales Fall
Retail sales in Britain unexpectedly fell last month as consumers started tightening their belts ahead of the government's austerity measures, fuelling fears that the economic recovery has stumbled.
Retail sales have now fallen for two months in a row. Yesterday's spending review set out sweeping cuts to welfare, higher education and social housing which are likely to sap consumers' confidence further.
"The second successive fall in retail sales in September is surprising and
Opinion and Comment from around the web
How Juries Are Fooled By Statistics
Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics -- and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials.
. In this video, Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics -- and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials....
The Universe Just Got Bigger - New Galaxy Is Most Distant Yet
A tiny faint dot in a Hubble picture has been confirmed as the most distant galaxy ever detected in the Universe.
This collection of stars is so far away its light has taken more than 13 billion years to arrive at Earth.
Astronomers used the Very Large Telescope in Chile to follow up the Hubble observation and make the necessary detailed measurements.
They tell the journal Nature that we are seeing ...
A Life Without Work
A century after a ground-breaking investigation into unemployment, the remarkable journey of one British family has been traced. It starts amid the deprivation of industrial Yorkshire and ends in the glamour of film stardom.
Exactly 100 years ago an extraordinary investigation began into the lives of the poor. It provides a detailed account of the staggering poverty many of our grandparents or great grandparents endured.
"Up at five, walked round and round the town until 12. Nothing doing anywhere, so I was fairly sick of walking about. No breakfast, no tea and no supper. Went to bed around ...
Soft Sciences And The Slow, Stupid Return To Reason
A rather astonishing piece appeared in the New York Times this week, offering some degree of hope that the pursuit of scientific truth has a chance of once again becoming the dominant theme in university science.
I know, it felt just as foolish typing it. But the article itself in a pigs-fly moment of self-reflection at the NYT expressed the same concern regarding what multiculturalism has done to the sciences: truth has been subjugated in favor of answers that either a) do not make the scientist uncomfortable, or b) per the leftists fevered imagination, will not cause a broke, greedy, elitist, Appalachia-trash teabagger to lynch someone ...
Biodiversity: The New Big Lie To Replace AGW
And so it begins. With all the shamelessness of a Goldman Sachser trading in his middle-aged wife for a hot, pouting twentysomething called Ivanka, the green movement is ditching Climate Change. The newer, younger, sexier models name? Biodiversity. (Mega hat tips to: Hilary Ostrov and Ozboy at Libertygibbet) When I say shameless, Im talking so amoral
Cutting Public Sector Management Bureaucracy Will Improve Services
The biggest hit from George Osbornes spending statement will be suffered by the management of the public sector. Some 490,000 jobs will go over the next four years as administrative budgets are scaled back, in some cases by almost 40 per cent. Will it matter if these jobs go? The Government says it does not want
20 October 2010
Nothing on todays news - we looked at all that stuff about the government spending review and decided we couldn't be arsed.
Plenty of opinion and comment on a wide variety of topics however.
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Quote of the day:
Presenting the climate changes we've been experiencing in the last decades as a threat to the Planet and letting the global warming alarmists use this bizarre argument as a justification for their attempts to substantially change our way of life, to weaken and restrain our freedom, to control us, to dictate what it is we should and should not be doing is unacceptable. Their success in influencing millions of quite rational people all around the world is rather surprising. How is it possible that they are so successful in it? And so rapidly? For older doctrines and ideologies, it took usually much longer to get such an influential and widely shared position in society. Is this because of the specifics of our times? Is this because we are continuously "online"? Is this because religious and other metaphysical ideologies have become less attractive and less persuasive? Is this because of the need to promptly refill the existing spiritual emptiness connected with "the end of history" theories with a new noble cause," such as saving the Planet?
The environmentalists succeeded in discovering a new "noble cause". They try to limit human freedom in the name of "something" that is more important and more noble than our very down-to-earth lives. For someone who spent most of his life in the "noble" era of communism this is impossible to accept.
- Vclav Klaus
Rees and the Royal Society are seeking ever greater roles for science in the political sphere. Politicians, who are suffering from a historic inability to define their purpose, take the authority this lends them with ever more enthusiasm. But this has resulted in a qualitative shift in the character of science. Where once it provided the means to liberate human potential, it now exists to regulate it. Instead of speaking truth to power, science increasingly speaks official truth for official power. The result is bad politics and bad science.
- Ben Pile of Climate Resistance asks What's Next for the Royal Society?, the above quote being his concluding paragraph.
19 October 2010
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Opinion and Comment from around the web
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18 October 2010
Today's big news stories.
Merkel: Multicultural Society Has Failed
Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.
She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.
The comments come amid rising anti-immigration feeling in Germany.
A recent survey suggested more than 30% of people believed the country was "overrun by foreigners".
The study - by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank - also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany's immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for its social benefits ... read full story Merkel: Multicultural Society Has Failed: BBC News.
Angela Merkel's admission that German's policy of multiculturalism has failed will come as a relief to those of us who have been opposing (in the blogosphere mainly - mainstream media is controlled by the Politically Correct Thought Police) the advancing of an agenda aimed at building a homogenous global culture. This globalism, not to be confused with the globalisation of trade, was the bainchild of the 'progressive left' whose political ideologies grew out of new age quasi - philosophies embraced by Californian stoners in the 1960s. The ideas at the core of their thinking always seemed to be based on the notion that if we all joined hands and sang Kumbiya the lion would lie down with the lamb, the hawk would bring (vegetarian) food to the dove's nestlings and rich people would share their wealth with the poor so we could all live in peace and plenty.
Apart from displaying a tragi - comic failure to understand human nature and the realities of the world such thinking is infantile in its naivete.
On the question of multiculturalism it is a basic requirement of successful communities that there is a common culture to bind people together. The common culture leads to common perceptions. Over long periods of time mythologies and folklore develop so that the cultural threads are woven into a single social fabric. Unravel that fabric, the civilisation collapses. Thus the native people resent large groups of incomers, people of an alien culture or religion whose unwillingness to adapt to the ways of the host nation threatens to disrupt the fabric of society.
There is bound to be resentment, there will always be resentment when a way of life is threatened. If people leave an area or nation en masse it implies they are dissatisfied with life in that nation. So why should the people in a society where there is no such mass desire to leave, where people are generally content with their way of life?
Speaking to young members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday Mrs Merkel that at "the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country."
She added: "We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality."
"And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other... has failed, utterly failed."
In her speech in Potsdam, however, the chancellor reiterated her previous pledge that immigrants are welcome in Germany.
There has been intense debate about multiculturalism in Germany in recent months. Many Germans feel that too many concessions have ben made towards Mulim communities living in Germany, there have been too many istances of the Islam card being played to gain exemptions to German law. People inside the Chistian Democrat party say Mrs Merkel faces pressure from within the party and its allies in Germany's coalition government to take a tougher stance and require immigrants to do more to adapt to German society.
Earlier this week, Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the CSU, said Multikulti' is dead, it is "obvious that immigrants from different cultures like Turkey and Arab countries, all in all, are not willing to integrate.
Tensions first started to rise in August when Thilo Sarrazin, a senior official at Germany's central bank, said that "no immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime". Mr Sarrazin later resigned in the face of pressure from the 'progressive left'.
Strong anti-immigration stances from mainstream politicians come amid anger in Germany about high unemployment and an exploding bill for benefits as unemployment rises and the age time-bomb, exacerbted by the generosity of Germany's state pension system takes its toll on state revenues, even though the German economy is growing faster than those of its rivals.
He adds that there also seems to be a new strident tone in the country, perhaps leading to less reticence about problems that were not discussed in the the past.
Anti Obama Tsunami of Anger Threatens Leading Democrats
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is threatened with political oblivion as she is demonised by beleaguered Americans who see her as the epitome of liberal elitism
pro-Pelosi sentiments are harder and harder to find these days, especially outside her fanatically liberal hometown. Across America, as the fiercely contested midterm elections at the beginning of November draw near, Democrats are on the run from a resurgent and freshly powerful Republican party. Many experts expect the Republicans, powered by a flow of energy from the Tea Party movement, to wrest control of the House which Pelosi heads. A few think they may even win the Senate too.
Homophobic Violence In The USA:- The Guardian
Carl Paladino, a Republican politician running for governor, is calling for gay people to be barred from teaching in New York, where homophobic attacks are on the rise a stance which has horrified liberals but does not seened to have harmed his support among working class voters.
Liberal America has looked on in horror as virulent homophobic prejudice seems to have returned to its streets and cities.Much of it seems to be focused around the New York region where a noisy and highly politicised gay community's demands that they be granted certain 'rights that are simply not extended to heterosexuals have push the limits of tolerance too far. New York, traditionally liberal and usually tolerant in its politics has not been hostile to homosexuals living openly or to their relationships being legally recognised by civil partnerships . The current push for Christian churches to be complelled by law to recognise same sex marriage is a blatant case of a politically correct administration riding roughshod over the feelings of the majority to pander to the demands of a vociferous minority.
Opinion and comment from around the web.
Labour Activist Dresses As Poo
We always thought that old election maxim "Round here they'd vote for a dog turd if it was wearing a labour rosette was a joke.
Obviously we were wrong
Climate Science: Is It In Their Nature To Lie
Devil's Kitchem:In his real life, your humble Devil is a Product Manager for a small software company. Given that it is a small software company, your humble Devil actually delves into the methods and programming of said software.As such, I know a little about how software programming works, and what is considered acceptable and what is notboth by the programmers themselves, and by those performing the "acceptance tests".
Having established some vague credentials, I would like to draw your attention to this article in Natureas highlighted by His Ecclesiastical Eminenceregarding the ClimateGate data releases last year.As most people will know, most of the forensic fury was focused upon the emails exchanged between the key players in this fraud, but a few people started delving into the data that was released alongside those communications.
Barack Obama And The Deathly Midterms
Film fans in the United States will have to wait until November 19 to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. But Americas liberal elites only have to wait another couple of weeks for November 2nd to roll by and see the latest frightening installment in the thrilling decline of the Obama presidency, and
Anti Obama Tsunami of Anger Threatens Leading Democrats
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is threatened with political oblivion as she is demonised by beleaguered Americans who see her as the epitome of liberal elitism ...
How The West Is Getting Greener At The Expense Of The Rest Of The World
The impending extinction of tigers, the melting icecaps and the ravaging of the rainforests are symptoms of an emerging global crisis. A new World Wildlife Fund report out maps its scale and concludes that if we don't change course by 2030, we will need a second Earth to meet our needs.
But does all this ring true? After all, in the UK we are greener than ever. Our air quality has improved dramatically "pea soup" killer smog has been ...
To Hell With Middle Class Self Pity
Oh those poor old middle classes. Day after day after weary day, we hear about their woes. Coping classes at breaking point; middle class hit by something or other; it never rains but it pours for these poor people. They go under many names: the coping classes are what the last government called the hard-working
Atheists and Believers Can Get Along
Julian Baggini: My atheist 'sermon' in Westminster Abbey seems incongruous, but it shows good faith is more important than the right beliefs ...
Climategate: The Fox Connection
A strange story in Bishop Hill about Fiona Fox. You may remember shes the director of the Science Media Centre who claimed earlier this year that the way BBC could improve its science coverage was to give less space to sceptics. She said: To have a sceptic or contrarian in every interview is really misleading the
16 October 2010 Todays News
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Runs Short Of Fuel.
Strikes against government austerity meaures aimed at bringing the public sector debt under control are causing significant disruption to business and everyday life in France
Most newspapers today carried reports of a warning from the management of Chartle's de Gaulle airport, France's main international hub:
France's main airport, Charles de Gaulle, has enough fuel to last only a few days, the government warns, as unions prepare to hold another day of strikes against pension reforms ... read full story:Paris Airport Running Short Of Fuel
The French Unions are always good entertainment value when they take on the government, whether they are blockading major ports by setting up a chain of small fishing vessels across the harbour entrance, driving their lorries very slowly, abreast, to obstruct the lanes of main arterial roads, grounding all flights on busy holiday weekends by withdrawing air traffic control services or letting livestock loose in the streets of cities to protest the poor prices being paid to farmers by food cartels.
All good stuff and we can enjoy it because it is not happening here.
Such protests are very effective ways of bringing the nation to a near standstill and the government usually backs down. This time the protesters may have bet on a loser however. While the unions are protesting cuts to welfare budgets, reform of pensions (French pensions are very generous) and the raising on the retirement age among other things. All these measures are necessary if France is to avoid slipping into the same kind of debt trap as the loonytoons economics of Britain's 'progressive' New Labour government steered our nation into.
We in turn are not in as dire straits as the PIIGS nations (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) but very harsh austerity measures are needed to keep the United Kingdom from going the same way.
It is a measure of how far the left are detached from reality that leaders and prominent supporters of Labour are calling for a return to the days of profligate public spending in spite of their government, before it was thrown out of office, having been warned by the IMF that if the deficit was not reduced the international monetary regulator would have to step in and curb the government's excesses.
Ministers Agree MoD Budget Cuts
Cutbacks in the UK's 37bn annual defence budget have been finalised ahead of the chancellor's Spending Review, the BBC understands.
The reduction is expected to be less than the 10% the Treasury had been seeking, possibly around 8%.
The Army is not expecting significant cuts in personnel, while the Navy will get two new aircraft carriers ... read full story:
Ministers Agree MoD Budget Cuts
The problem of waste and iresponsible financial management is endemic in government, not only in the Ministry of Defence but throughout all departments. One area particularly prone to incompetence and sloppiness in procurement is the National Health Service. In my experience NHS procurement depatrments, with their enormous buying power, have always been able to find ways of paying for Information Technology hardware around four times the price it could be bought for commecially by medum sized firms.
We have to make sure it meets our exacting standards, is the excuse.
Do you remember when mobile phones were banned in hospitals? It was claimed they affected equipment. In fact they never did unless they were very close to small, extremely low voltage devices. What had the NHS wallies in a righteous panic was the 'snow' effect on screens caused by radio fequency interference that could have come from mobile phones, taxi radios, atmospheric static electricty or many sources.
The Snow on screens did not prove patients were being put at risk. What it did prove was that while enormous effort had been expended on ticking boxes, filling in forms and filinfg them, holding meetings going on expensive, unnecessary jollies fact finding missions and finding one thousand and one ways of justifying the existence of their jobs the NHS technical experts had not bothred to make sure the expensive kit they were happy to pay over the odds for had been properely earthed.
Currency War Likely To Escalate As U.S. and China Clash
A long-awaited report from the US Treasury on whether China manipulates its currency has been delayed in a move that will do little to ease foreign-exchange market tensions. (...)The long-simmering tension between the US and China has flared aggressively over the past month. China warned the US on Friday not to use the dispute over the value of the yuan as a "scapegoat" for America's high unemployment and flagging growth prospects.
The Daily Stirrer's John de Roe has predicted a destructive currency war between the US and its trade rivals for over a year. Once again we find ourselves saying: We told so so.
Attacks On Iraq Security Forces Rise
A wave of targeted attacks on soldiers, police, traffic officers and senior officials is steadily picking off the custodians of Iraq's streets at rates that are nearing the darkest days of the insurgency, according to security commanders.
As of last Monday 710 Iraqis had been killed this year with silenced pistols or rifles. At least 600 more had been killed by magnet bombs placed under the cars of officials, according to Baghdad's Major Crimes Unit. Hundreds more have been injured.
The killings have increased sharply in the past four months amid fears ...
They thought it was all over and Obie claimed credit for winning the war. Pity American's don't realise there is a grat big world beyond their borders.
Opinion and Comment from around the web
Church'a vision Can Help Guide The Young
Stranded somewhere between the moon-shots and the launch of the iPad, "generation X", as it became known, was caught between two worlds, and didn't know where to turn. Grunge was its visceral groan of a soundtrack. And the accompanying "culture of despair" (remember that?) was identified by some, such as the author of generation X himself, Douglas Coupland, as a spiritual issue.
Back in 1994 when most of us were yet to send an email, or text, or surf the internet Coupland published his third ...
How Real Is America's Faith?
The British, I have discovered, assume that Americans are more religious than they are. That presumption seems justified in the light of Ed Miliband's declared atheism. As yet no one running for high political office in the US has been willing so to identify themselves. Indeed, it seems to be a requirement of political office in America that youyou believe in God. Americans seem to think those who rule us must believe in God because, if they do not, they cannot be "moral" which means they will cheat on their spouses, thus destroying the family, which will bring civilisation to an end.
Yet I remain unconvinced that the difference between Britain and the US, when it comes to religion, can be determined by the faith or
Female Genital Mutilation Cannot Be Defended As Part Of Islam
Should a man who supports female genital mutilation (FGM) really be considered a "leading progressive in the Muslim world"?
When I recently asked this question, I thought that the only people to answer "yes" would be far-right bigots who, choosing to ignore the many mainstream Muslims opposed to FGM, believe that Islam is inherently backwards and violent.
I shouldn't have been so naive. My expression of concern at Ken Livingstone's continued endorsement of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian televangelist who supports FGM, as a "progressive" swiftly led to me being denounced on one prominent leftwing blog as writing a "dishonest hatchet-job against a leading ...
Ignorance Was A Qualification For Quango Boss
There but for the grace of God, etc. As ministers culled the quangocrats this week, I paused to reflect that I could have been among them.
Back in the 1990s, I received a letter from an unknown civil servant inviting me to become chairman of the Zoos
Want To Delay Global Warming? Protect The Ozone.
Remember CFCs? They were the apparently harmless chemicals once used in aerosol cans, hamburger trays, fridges and a host of other everyday objects that once threatened to damage life on earth. For, after doing their job cooling food, puffing up foam and providing spray-on sex appeal, they drifted up into the
Health Fascist First Lady Treates Herself To Burger and Fries
The bad news? Thisll put a crimp in her next anti-obesity lecture. The good news? Once we finally get that VAT that all the smart kids are talking about, we can tax the hell out of fatty, savory treats. FLOTUS is just enjoying the all-American meal while she can, before it becomes prohibitively expensive for 50 percent of the population.
Seriously, though, her weakness for burgers and fries is well known by now. Who cares if shes sneaking out of the White House to hit ...
The Democratic Vision Of Big Brother
when Democrats got control of Congress in 2007 they acted to save the planet from the incandescent light bulb, banning it come 2014. For sheer annoyingness, that matches Congress's 1973 imposition of a 55 mph speed limit, which was abolished in 1995.
Nothing did more to energize conservatism in the 1970s than judges and legislators collaborating in the forced busing of (other people's) children to achieve racial balance in (other people's) schools. This policy expressed liberalism's principled refusal to be deterred by the public's misunderstanding of what is good for it. Obamacare is today's expression of liberalism's kamikaze devotion to unwanted help ...
Entertainment
Ken Fo9llett' Pillars Of The Earth - The Film Version
When the Emmy-award-winning television series Rome went out on BBC2, the public appetite for togas, sandals and bloody sword fights staged on the small screen became clear. High-production values combined with historical detail and romantic intrigue proved winning ingredients. Can Ridley Scott now perform the same trick with Ken Follett's bestselling novel The Pillars of the Earth, about the Middle Ages?
An eight-part mini-series to be broadcast on Channel 4 next week is to attempt to convert the success of ...
15 October 2010 Todays News
Cameron Pledges To Curb Compensation Culture
Today's big story for The Daily Stirrer is the government's promise to end the compensaion culture.
from The Daily Telegraph:
David Cameron has pledged to curb "compensation culture" in Britain and create a new system that "treats adults like adults".
He made the comments in the foreword to a review into health and safety procedures carried out by the former Conservative minister Lord Young.
The Prime Minster said he hoped that the report would prove to be a "turning point" with an end to unnecessary bureaucracy faced by firms as well as "senseless" rules and regulations. read full story:Cameron To Curb Compensation Culture
Compenstation Culture
David Cameron has promised his government will act to end the compensytation culture that has developed in Britain over the past few decades. He said the Government would restrict advertising and marketing campaigns of claims litigation specialists companies which he blamed for encouraging the compensation culture..
"We're going to focus regulations where they are most needed, with a new system that is proportionate, not bureaucratic, that treats adults like adults, and reinstates some common sense and trust," he told journalists.
Unsurprisingly business leaders welcomed the new approach because the draconian penalities imposed under health and safety relguations that place a ridiculous burden of responsibility on em[ployers and businesses have been blamed for causing reluctance to expand busines activity. The Unions argued that the proposals do not contain aany measures which will reduce the high levels of workplace death, injuries and illness. High levels of workplace death? It sounds as if they are talking about the nineteenth century not the twenty first.
A spokesman for the CBI said:
" Public regard for Health and Safety officers has never been lower. Press articles recounting stories where health and safety rules have been applied in the most absurd manner, or disproportionate compensation claims have been awarded for trivial reasons, are a daily feature of our newspapers.
"Businesses now operate their health and safety policies in a climate of fear. The advent of 'no win, no fee' claims and the all-pervasive advertising by claims management companies have significantly added to the belief that there is a nationwide compensation culture.
"The 'no win, no fee' system gives rise to the perception that there is no financial risk to starting litigation. Indeed, some individuals are given financial enticements to make claims by claims management companies who are in turn paid ever-increasing fees by solicitors.
"Ultimately, all these costs are met by insurance companies who then increase premiums."
It is good news for businesses and for lovers of common sense that the coalition government is moving in this direction but compensation culture does not beging and end with workplace injuries. What also needs to be tackled is the politically correct culture that encourages claims for compensation because a person of colour, an overweight person, a disabled person or a member of some crackpot religion claims compensation because "they wrre discriminated against" and their feelings were hurt by some humourous banter, a slightly insensitive remark or bit of plain speaking.
RELATED POSTS:
At Last The Left's Politically Correct Agenda Is Being Questioned - We Can Discuss Poverty, Race and Single PatenthoodWith Germany's leader Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron both recently declaring multiculturalism dead and many commentators starting to question the Politically Correct orthodoxy on issues like race, sexuality and single parent families are we al last smashing down the barrier that has prevented the sensible policies on many social problems being adopted.
Universities To Face 4.2 billion Cut - BBC News Universities are facing cuts of 4.2bn in comprehensive spending review, a leaked e-mail suggests.Good, maybe we can get rid of all the University of Usedtobeapoly colleges and the Mickey Mouse degrees in waste management with dance, etc. that they offer.
Racism and Equality
Opinion and Comment from around the web
America Warns Britain Over Defence Cuts
from The Guardian:
America and her Nato allies should combine their weapons systems to provide more bangs for bucks, not criticise UK cuts
Richard Norton Taylor writes:
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, are complaining about the British government's planned defence cuts. They have a nerve. Gates knows perfectly well that Britain's Ministry of Defence, like the Pentagon, wastes serious amounts of taxpayers' money. In common with his UK counterpart, Liam Fox, Gates is attacking the bureaucratic waste in his department.
Today's report by the National Audit Office is just the latest damning evidence of the billions of pounds the MoD wastes every year as a result of the political cowardice of successive defence secretaries and ...
Effing right. If they can't run their own countries why should we let them tell us how to run ours?
Cutting From The Rich and Clobbering The Poor
from The Guardian:
Simon Jenkins: Pension relief, graduate loans and child benefit all hurt the better-off. Now the axe will hit the public sector's well-paid classes.
The Daily Stirrer can't see a problem with this. The state of the economy was so bad a period of austerity became necessary. So long as the burden is shared there is no hypocrisy in asking us to tighten our belts. The whineing tax - eaters of the public sector have been feather bedded too long. What the coalition are failing to do is get the message across that creating new public sector jobs leads to growth in the economy. For such a policy to work the economic system would have to be a perpetual motion engine.
Fairness Is The Word Of The Weak
Fairness is the Coalitions watchword as it limbers us up for next weeks CSR bloodbath. But as the rows over pensions, university fees and child benefits show, there are as many definitions of fair as there are of middle class. Theres an interesting piece in the latest London Review of Books by the political philosopher John Gray
The Currency War Is Phoney
John Ross: At the US recession's core is a collapse in investment. America should sort out its own economic policy, not attack China's
The core of the "currency wars" in which China has been accused, primarily by the US, of undervaluing the renminbi to boost its exports is a simple piece of arithmetic. The US has only a quarter of China or India's population.
America can remain the world's largest economy only if average Chinese or Indian living standards never exceed 25% of ...
University Reform Will Only Work When State Schools Improve
Why is it that at Oxford University more students went to Eton than claimed free school meals? The Left blames the university system and tuition fees. As one Guardian blogger recently put it, gowns, formal dinners and an unnecessary amount of cutlery put off many from the poorest backgrounds. If only it were so simple. Universities
Are Cancers Man Made Illnesses We report today that cancer is a man-made disease, a suggestion based on studies of ancient Egyptian and South American mummies, who researchers say were almost cancer-free. Now, I want to make it clear, we and other papers are not over-reporting this, at least in one sense. The
The Digital Reading Revolution
Devices such as the Kindle and iPad are changing the way we think about books but who will control the future of reading?
Books have come late to the digital party, but change is now happening at such a furious pace that even conservative members of the trade are starting to realise that their industry is being snatched away from them before their eyes. The undisputed leader in the race to sell digital books is Amazon. Its Kindle e-reader was a late entry into the race but it used ...
Why Maths Is Important And Inteesting
Were lucky enough here at the Telegraph to have Prof Ian Stewart, the Warwick University mathematics professor, writing occasional columns for us on maths and everyday life. I thought Id draw your attention to his latest, about when maths can mislead. The particular example he gives is of a test ...
14 October 2010
Today's News
Death Of Quangocracy
from The Daily Telegraph:
Nearly 200 public sector bodies are set to be axed in a bonfire of the quangos, ministers will announce today. However they are expected to say that the move will save only a few hundred millions of pounds.
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, is expected to stress that the move will make the public bodies more transparent and accountable in a Commons statement this morning.
Cost savings and job losses are expected to be limited as the functions of some of the bodies are simply returned in-house to Whitehall departments.
There will still be high profile casualties as David Cameron attempts to make good his promise in Opposition to have a bonfire of the quangos.
read full storyDeath Of Quangocracy
A few hundred pounds might be peanuts to the government but it would make a difference to most people's lives. Still, the economy being as top - heavy with government as it is we need the coalition to start pruning somewhere.
A billion here, a few hundred million there, it all helps. Unfortunately for their next trick ministers have to do something rather more difficult than pulling a white rabbit out of their collective hat. The have to produce a million real jobs out of thin air to get those dependent on benefit back in work and shift some of the tax eaters into gainful employment.
Middle Class Benefits Money Go Round
The squabbling at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday was the latest episode in what is fast becoming the Government's benefits breakdown. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said to the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, that it's not fair for his poorest constituents to pay for his child benefit. Mr Miliband told Mr Cameron that the child benefit cut had been a ... read full storyMiddle Class Benefits Money Go Round
Parliamentary commentators rated this skirmish a win for Ed Miliband but all he achieved was to reaffirm Labour's enthusiasm for taking tax off people with one hand and giving it back with the other. Still, the Conservatives have no room to make use of that. Throughout Margaret Thatcher's time in power the iron - knickered lady, in spite of all her speeches about traditional values was waging war on the family and rearranging the tax system so that any household that did not have two incomes could not expect to have a decent standard of living.
from The Guardian:
There are 1,000 emails a month trying to penetrate or disable government computer networks. Losses from online banking fraud reached 39m in the first half of 2009, a rise of more than 50% over the year before. Whichever way you look at it, the director of GCHQ, Iain Lobban, was not exaggerating when ... read full story Cyber Warfare
Once again we are threatened by the easily foreseeable unforeseen consequences of scientists arrogance. When Tim Berners
Lee, the CERN physicist decided systems clerks, administrators and hop floor staff had no difficulty using was far too complicated for scientists whose minds were on higher things and 'invented' the universal document format that led to the stripping out from carefully designed and constructed networks all the security measures that kept data safe he made possible all the threats we live under today.
We computer professionals, having already experienced the results of letting the public loose on text only bulletin boards in the early 1980s warned of the chaos that would ensue should governments heed the claims of scientists, academics who worked in physics, chemistry, mathematical research must know more about computers that computer specialists because they are "scientists."
BTW how can anyone work in mathematical research? 2 + 2 = 4 end of story. In the name of scientific research there have even been people sitting (drawing bug fat salaries) for 50 years monitoring the radio waves coming in from space and hoping one days to see a message like "Hello Mum" appear on their screens. We know scientists tend to be a tad autistic but one would hope even the most obsessive human being would have given up after 50 years.
Still, so long as the government is willing to keep handing out our money on this crap people will keep doing it, after all it's better than working.
So there we are, saddled with a global network on which government and commerce now rely and which was designed by idiots who hadn't a clue what they were doing and were too far up their own arses to listen to people who had done the job professionally. And now the whole thing, along with your bank balance and private life are up for grabs by anyone who knows how to write a password crackers (about 20 lines of code) keystroke logger (even less) or simply relies on brute force and ignorance to hit you over the head and grab your laptop case as you walk along the street. It would take me about ten minutes to open a stolen laptop, short out the c-mos battery and thus reset the system passwords and get access to your bank account, credit card or investments. It is even easier to hack a system using remote administrator software.
So no matter how much you have spent on security software it is unlikely to be adequately effective against the kind of cyber criminals operating today. Welcome to the Cyber Wars, courtesy of Tim Berners Lee, Bill Gates and a few others who were similarly driven by the two forces that have shaped human destiny since man first stood erect, greed and stupidity..
Opinion and Comment from around the web
Atheist Civilisation Denounced
Vclav Havel made a perfectly extraordinary speech yesterday, condemning ours as "the first atheist civilisation", which "has lost its connection with the infinite and with eternity".
Havel is not often thought of as a defender of religion, and the Czech republic is by some measures the most completely dechristianised part of Europe. But he means by atheism the kind of insatiable proud greed which mashes both interior and exterior landscapes into
Cameron Was Right To Leave EPP
Here is one reason why David Cameron must be thanking his lucky stars he got the Tories out of the EPP in time. When he led the German-led centre-Right grouping in the European Parliament he was accused of leaving the mainstream and joining up with various weirdos on the EU fringes. He must be delighted therefore to discover that the EPP have taken 400 of its MEPs and staff on a three day study break to Madeira at a cost to you and me of 350,000. Extraordinary ...
13 October 2010
Todays's News
12 October 2010
Miliband, Cameron Clash On Benefit Cuts
from BBC News:
Ed Miliband has clashed with David Cameron over proposed cuts to child benefits in his first prime minister's questions as Labour leader.
Mr Miliband said it was not fair and would see families on middle incomes suffering an "enormous" financial loss.
He accused the PM of breaking promises to protect child benefit and urged him to "think again" over ...
Miliband attacks Cameron on benefit cuts
Nice to see born again Labour will follow down the path trodden by New Labour and Old Labour before them in arguing for the extension of the dependency culture, the sqeezing of the taxpayer base into an ever smaller sector of the public and the insane beliefs that:
(a) Tax eaters contribute to the economy and appointing public sector administrators somehow creates "growth".
(b) the level of public sector deficit does not matter because governments can always simply print more money.
The coalition are not getting everything right by a long way but at least they give the impression that they understand the nature of the problems.
UK Infrastructure Faces Cyber Threat
Having praised the coalition government for understanding the economic threat we must beat them round the read with a big dead fish for resorting to that old standby 'fear and panic' in order to soften the public up for new taxes to fund the security services and buy very big boys toys for the lids who like uniforms.
from BBC News:
The UK's critical infrastructure - such as power grids and emergency services - faces a "real and credible" threat of cyber attack, the head of GCHQ says.
The intelligence agency's director Iain Lobban said the country's future economic prosperity rested on ensuring a defence against such assaults.
The internet created opportunities for hostile states and criminals, he said.
For example, 1,000 malicious e-mails a month are already being targeted at government computer networks, he said.
Speaking to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Lobban said he did not want to go into detail about ... read full story
UK Infrastructure Faces Cyber Threat
There are inherent weaknesses in systems that depend on the internet. These however are easily nullified by simply not mixing sensitive government or corporate data with the public domain chatter of the public internet.
The reasons we have these problems now is explained very clearly in Andrew Keen's book The Cult Of The Amateur. The reasons for it are also demonstated by the popularity if websites like Wikileaks whose founder Julian Assange clings to the stupid idea that nothing is private and everything should be online and accessible to everybody and the frequent scandals that arise from new media companies like Google and Facebook displaying not just a total disregard for privacy but a failure to understand why anyone would object to personal details being displayed onlines without the person's consent of knowledge.
Property Prices On The Edge
from: The Daily Telegraph
The alarming figures show the growing dependency of children on their parents to realize the dream of owning their first home.
A total of 35 per cent of parents with children aged 18 to 24 said they have or are willing to give up to 10,000, while a further 18 per cent said they would raise the amount to as much as 15,000, according to the exclusive research by Halifax, Britains mortgage lender.
More than eight out of 10 first-time buyers only get onto the property ladder because they receive a cash handout from read full story
Britain's Property Market On A Knife Edge
Our finance expert John de Roe has predicted this many times
House prices will not go to zero, homeowners will simply opt to stay where they are rather than moving upmarket and so while nominal values will be static activity in the maket will come to a near standstill.
The much hyped recovery in the market in 2009 was illusory and illustrated this effect. Few houses of the right kind were on the market because people wanting to move up could not afford the asking price and with doubts about job security and fears of interest rate rises decided not to take a risk. Thus the people who had to move created a recoveryette as they competed for the properties available.
Benefit Claimants Rise Again As Jobless Total Falls
from The Guardian:
The picture in the labour market remains bleak, with the number of people claiming jobless benefits in Britain last month rising at its fastest rate since January.
However, the wider measure of unemployment, which also includes people out of work who are not eligible for benefits or choose not to claim, dipped in the three months to August thanks to 16 and 17-year-olds finding work or training.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said this morning the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance climbed ... read full story Jobless Benefit Claimants Rise Again
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Opinion and Comment from around the web
NATO as bad as Taliban
Erica Gaston writes: If the US-led Nato counterinsurgency strategy depends on winning civilian 'hearts and minds', they're losing badly
Last week marked the ninth anniversary of the United States's invasion of Afghanistan, and the beginning of the 10th year of the current international engagement there. In the coming months, the US, Nato and ... read full article
Afghans Say NATO As Bad As The Taliban
America's New Poor
America's New Poor - The Middle Class
The ideology that drove millions of people into expensive lifestyles on low pay and easy credit is bust. But who will tell them?
The men clustered in the shade of trees, in the 90F heat of a car park in Atlanta, form the lowest layer of America's so-called middle class. They stare, alert like greyhounds, at the vans leaving the ...
Murdoch's Media Monopoly
Murdoch's whingeing rivals have a case
Wow. The Guardian, Telegraph, Mail, Observer and Mirror, the BBC and Channel 4, even BT all in agreement and all spitting mad. Who, you ask, can have conjured up this anguished collective? You guessed it, Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch is the best thing that ever happened to the British media, and they hate it. Without him and his Fleet Street revolution it is most unlikely that today there would be any ...
Krystal Does Congress
Nine compromising pictures of Democratic Candidate Krystal Ball, who is vying to become the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress, were posted on the internet.
Taken at a Christmas party six years ago, they show her clad in a red velvet Santa Claus hat and black lace camisole, cavorting with her ex-husband and making obscene movements using a sexual aid strapped to his head.
28-year-old Ms Ball has dismissed a series of racy pictures of her leaked on the internet, claiming women of her generation running for office are likely to be caught out by such images.
Well maybe they do Krystal, but you are the only one whose name makes her sound like a porn star ... read full story
We start with a new feature today - a roundup of opinion and comment from various blogs and news sites we look at.
Opinion and Comment 12 October 2010
A daily roundup of opinion and comment available online
Compound Interest and Shocking Degrees Of Debt
Compound interest is a cruel taskmaster, as many students and their families are about to discover. Even at todays low rates of interest, debt that is allowed to accumulate on debt will often roll up faster than the debtors ability to repay it. For example, anyone who borrows 10,000 at a typical mortgage rate of 3.5
It goes against our nature but the left must assert its values
The progressive attempt to appeal to self-interest has been a catastrophe. Empathy, not expediency, must drive our campaigns says George Monbiot.
The Daily Stirrer says:
Well yes George but first the left must decide what its values are. Too many on the left think irrational hatred of those who disagree with them is sufficient.
EU To Tax American Tourists
Dan Hannan writes in The Telegraph
Jean Quatremer sets out the proposal in Libration, which I shall translate for the benefit of any Etonians who may be reading:
Does the EU desperately need funds to augment its meagre budget? Heres a proposal that could bring in tens of millions of euros each year: tax the millions of American tourists who come to Europe. Unfair? Hardly: since 8 September last year, the US has demanded a $14 dollar levy from every European issued with a tourist visa. Doesnt the principle of reciprocity demand that we return the compliment?
Dan Hannan on the latest, looniest piece of bureaucratic buffoonery from Brussels that can only do harm to the European tourist industry. It was only fair to mention however that the equally greedy, loony and dictatorian Obama administration though of it first.
The Most Important American Election An election that will take place soon in the American state of Iowa while seemingly irrelevant to the outside world is in fact a vital indicator to the state of deomocracy in Obama-land. The three judges who overturned the state's deomcratically enacted Defense of Marriage Act confirming marriage must be between one man and one woman, thus precluding gay marriage (though the people of the state were happy with same sex civil unions) are up for relection. The result will determine whether in an alleged democracy the government and judiciary can ignore the result of votes they do not like.
Epitaph For Obama's Democrats
Bob Schieffer and Mark Halperin are not exactly Tea Party activists. Within their respective generations, they are archetypes of the media elite, inside-the-Beltway, liberal-leaning purveyors of the conventional wisdom. They dont want to be wrong, of course, so at times they are also weather vanes when the conventional wisdom has undeniably changed, they swivel. So
( also on this topic)
Todays News 12 October 2010
Students To Face Unlimited Fees
Universities in England should be able to charge unlimited fees, a major review of university funding has recommended.
Lord Browne's review calls for the 3,290 cap on fees, which students borrow in loans, to be scrapped.
Instead it proposes a free market in fees - setting out models of charges up to 12,000 a year for a degree course.
Tuition fees charged by Universities to students was always going to be the first big test of the coalition. While the Conservatives favour a policy of charging economic rates to students depending on what course they take, the Lib Dems favour the current flat rate fees regasrdless of course.
The Daily Stirrer is with the Lib Dems on this one. It is not in the nation's interests to exclude talented young people from higher education simply because they are not from affluent homes.
Having said that, the problem of funding the exploding costs of higher education becomes ever more acute as the economic crisis drags on and becomes depression.
The answer is simple. We are sending far too many young people to University. If higher education is a right as the last Labour government would have had us believe, where are all the plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, machine operators, lorry drivers and warehouse workers going to be recruited from? Unless we make those mundane occupations degree entry as has been done with many very ordinary jobs in the public sector and fill the vacancies for manual workers from immigration..
If the government is to have any hope of getting its head round this problem they must understand one thing. Education is worthless without experience.
The Guardian on Students and Tuition Fees
Strong Must Pay Fair Share Of University Fees Lord Browne defends radical proposals that will see students paying up to 36,000 for a three-year degree course.
More on the Evil Empire of Google
The internet search group is launching its own measure of inflation based on the goods and services people buy online, providing more up-to-date figures than official statistics provide ...
As we told you yesterday in Google Carjack the Internet Giant is trying to insinuate itself into the machinery of government.
UK Inflation Rate Stays At 3.1%
The Daily Stirrer's finance expert John de Roe has warned that inflation was the inevitable result of Quantitative Easing and spelled out its consequences for people with savings and pensions that are not index linked.
UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation remained unchanged in September at 3.1%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It means the rate has been above the Bank of England's 2% target for 10 months in a row.
Inflation as measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI) fell back from 4.7% in August to 4.6% in September.
RPI - which factors in a greater chunk of the cost of housing - is important for wage negotiations.
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Interesting Times
The Future Is Cancelled
Debt Crisis menu
British Media Unite Against Murdoch
This headline from The Guardian made us feel there is some chance of resisting the inexorable march of corporate fascis. We have blogged many times on the takeover ob British media by corporations controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Intrnation, a creping subjugation of the means of spreading information carried out for almost tweny five years with the complicity of governments led by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
Many people are sure, although it is unlikely ever to be proved that Blair's betrayal of Independent television was nothing more than what was promised to Murdoch in return for delivering Dowing Street into New Labour's hands.
Now it seems the increasingly beleagured companies that must try to compete with the Murdoch monster are at last seeing that their survival depends on collaboration.
Fleet Street's highly factionalised newspaper industry today set aside historic differences to join forces in an unprecedented assault against the power of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
The companies behind the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail both supporters of the Conservatives united with the owners of the Guardian and the Labour-backing Daily Mirror to petition Vince Cable, the business secretary, to consider blocking News Corporation's proposed 8bn full takeover of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, which trades under the name Sky .
Fearful of the combined might of an integrated News Corp-Sky operation, which would include the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and book publisher HarperCollins, the complainants said the "proposed takeover could have serious and far-reaching consequences for media plurality".
The Evil Empire of The Media is not going to go down without a fight however.
Rupert Murdoch responds to his rivals and appeals to Vince Cable - a reponse printed in The Guardian
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The Internet Is Making Us Stupid
11 October 2010
Control freakery, cars and public spending cuts feature today
Self Driving Cars Are The Latest Dehumanizing Development
Don't be evil, that's Google's job. The world's greatest corporate Nazis are always eager to promote the latest dehumanizing technological advance. The most recent project they revealed from a long line of technologies aimed at cutrailing our ability to think for ourselves and make our own choices is the self driving car. No doubt the Evil Empire will sell this as something to keep us safe and protect us from some of the risks and hazards of modern life.
In reality it is another ruse to make us slaves to machines - machines controlled by Google.
Google Tests Self Driving Cars
Engineers at Google have tested a self-driving car on the streets of California, the company has announced.
The cars use video cameras mounted on the roof, radar sensors and a laser range finder to "see" other traffic, software engineer Sebastian Thrun said.
They remain manned at all times by a trained driver ready to take control as well as by a software expert.
In reality all Google are doing here is claiming credit for innovations developed by other companies, one of the two things Google is good at (the other being creepy levels of control freakery. Mercedes Benz have had self driving cars for several years but have decided the market is not ready for them. Volkswagen have similar projects in the pipeline.
There can be no doubt what Google's sales pitch will be. They will not aim at drivers directly but at governments. What driver with a pulse would want to hand the controls to a car. Would you want to be confined to a secondary role as your car pootles along the prescribed route. When I drive fifty miles to see my Dear Old Mum I can go the motorway route like everybody else or I can choose the senic routes, through the Trough of Bowland, The Ribble Valley or the coastal route. They are all a bit further and take longer but the journey is pleasurable.
With a computer in control and programers taking into account input from government officials you can bet I would be restricted to the safest, most efficient route. And while Google strip me of my freedom the government will wind up the whining from the politically correct 'liberals' who in reality are the most dogmatic, least liberal people in the world. They will bleat about my irresponsibility and selfishness, complain that by choosing to drive myself I am putting people's lives at risk as well as damaging the planet and tell me my 140mph car is racist, sexist and homophobic (it may be homophobic, the contempuous snort from the engine when I get the tachometer into the red zone as I blow away a limp wristed Toyota Prius, Renault Clio or Smart Car would terrify anybody suffering from a testosterone deficiency.
(I should say here the makers data indicates my car will go 140mph but to drive at twice the legal speed limit on a public road would be crazy. I've never taken it above 120mph.)
Google of course, bunch of berks that they are, will want to be paid for making the roads safer. As nobody would pay two cents to have a remote controlled car driven by a geek for them and the kind of money needed to implement this beeing more stupendous than the Obama administrations annual public secor defecit the G - men must be thinking in terms of getting paid out of tax revenues. And why not. Corporate fascism in the healthcare field having failed to find the promised cure for death has now convinced the politicians that science can find a vaccine for everything except death.
To prove their point they are inventing diseases. Remember Swine flu that was going to kill us all if we did not get vaccinated? We did not get vaccinated, we did not die. But that is not the story history will tell. Already, even while the debacle is fresh in people's memories the history is being rewritten and the officisal story being told is that a Swine Flu pandemic and milliions of deaths were only averted by the prompt action of the politicians and the brilliance of the scientists working for Big Pharma.
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happenedthat, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposedif all records told the same talethen the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3
Consider some of the schemes aimed at controlling our freedomof movement floated recently in the developed world.
Fitting cars with RFID chips so that journeys can be monitored and charged by the mile.
Registration plate recognition so cars can be identified and their owners billed when they enter a congestion charge zone.
Adding bio-ethanol to fuel so that less non renewable fuel is used (in fact cars run less efficiently on ethanol so any saving would be marginal)
Electric Cars (which are too expensive for most people and need to be recharded every 200 yards)
If anyone was serious about our safety and the environment we would be talking not about Google projects aimed at increasing their control of our freedoms nor government plans for taking 999% of every Pound, Dollar or Euro we earn and giving 2% back in benefits and allowances. They would be talking about a new networks of tramways in urban areas, new intercity rail or maglev links, they would be talking about putting security gusrds on public transport so the thieving, bullying, drunken, drugged up scumbags victims of our unfair society could not make travelling an unpleasant experience for decent, civilized people. the bourgeois oppressors (I'm trying to make this piece politically - correct - fuckwit friendly.
If anyone was serious about our safety and the environment we would not be talking about computer driven cars, we would be talking about making public transport efficient, clean, practical, cheap and pleasant to use.
But we are not talking about saving the planet or keeping driver safe. We are talking about control. We are talking about the war on individualism. Think about that.
Oh and before I leave Google's control freakery and move on, Bing and Ask Jeeves are far better seaarch engines if you want information. If you like ads and irrelevance nobody can touch Google.
Polls Show Support For Cuts
Voters Support Cuts
An ICM survey for this newspaper shows a clear majority of voters still supports the controversial decision to axe child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers from 2013.
They also back further reductions of the 195 billion welfare budget in preference to cutbacks in defence and education as ministers step up their assault on Britain's record budget deficit.
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that three benefits claimed largely by the elderly and the sick face being cut in this month's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in which all Whitehall departments face reductions in spending of around 25 per cent over four years.
Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions have been ordered to study urgently the overall costs of the Cold Weather Payments system, which last winter paid out 290million. Millions of elderly and ...
Team Obama Hit By Exodus Of Senior Staff
More senior White House staff are to leave in the next few months, adding to the high exit rate from President Barack Obama's administration.
Political analysts attribute the attrition rate to exhaustion, but Republican opponents blame disarray inside the White House, with an insular team responsible for too many policy failures.
The imminent departures include those of ...
Fascistic New Video Underlines Eco - Insanity Of Left A must watch for all those taken in by the climate science scam. See how close to the techniques of the Church Of Scientology the Cult Of Climate Scienceology are in their efforts to suppress criticism of their dangerous creed of mind control.
9 October 2010
Another crisis (or another scare story) about the NHS and a new slant on rising sea levels today.
The main stories of the day
Intensive Care Disaster Warning
The relatively low number of intensive care beds in UK hospitals means it is poorly prepared for major disasters, a report in the Lancet says.
Critical care experts say there may be as few as 3.5 intensive care beds per 100,000 people in the UK, compared with more than 24 per 100,000 in Germany.
The experts from Canada also said demand for intensive care was likely to rise with an ageing population ...
And what kind of disaster are they expecting? One in which the gravy train stops running for consultants hired to dream up scare stories so the politicians keep pumping in the cash?
Nine Arrested After Irish Terror Raids
After reports of Obie's ham fisted attempt to save his Presidency by creating an Al Qaeda terrorist scare here's a reminder that we have plenty of problemes of our own without getting involved in America's.
President Obama may still labour under the misapprehension that he was elected President of the World so we should never miss an opportunity to remind him of the realities of modern life.
Nine men were being questioned by detectives on Saturday after bomb making equipment and handguns were seized in a series of police raids during an investigation into the activities of dissident Irish republicans ...
Rising Seas Not Down To Global Warming
from The Daily Telegraph
Water Mining Prime Culprit For Rising Seas
Nowhere in the Maldives juts more than 10 feet above the Indian Ocean, making it extremely worried about sea level rise. Its president, Mohamed Nasheed, illustrated the point by holding a cabinet meeting under water in the run-up to last year's Copenhagen summit.
But a new study shows that global warming is not the only cause of swelling seas. Much comes from "water mining" the pumping of vast amounts of groundwater from beneath the earth, mainly to irrigate crops. This inevitably ends up in the oceans after it evaporates from farmland and comes down as rain.
The study which will be published in the next issue issue of Geophysics Research Letters estimates that extraction of ground water for domestic and industrial use accounts for about 25% of sea-level rise around the world, the same as the melting ice from the glaciers outside Greenland and Antarctica.
Even more disturbing is the theory that increased pumping threatens food supplies. Underground reservoirs and aquifers are shrinking by more than 280 cubic kilometres a day, well over twice as much as in 1960. Nature cannot keep pace with the loss to replenish the levels of water tables. The enormous Ogallala acquifer which underlies eight states in the USA, helping to grow food on which people in a hundred nations rely is being drawn down by a three feet a year. How much of that is replenished by rainfall percolation? A mere inch.
Clearly then the blinkered focus of the climte 'science' lobby on carbon driven global warming has only served to divert attention from even more urgent and potentially catastrophic problems.
If the atmosphere does warm by as much as six degrees celsius by the end of the century as the most alarmist of doomsday prophets predict, it will not matter because we will all have died of thirst long before that. On the other hand once water shortages start causing millions of deaths thus relieving the pressure of overpopulation on the ecosystem nature will be able to start restoring the balance and the few humans who survive will rebuild civilisation.
Or we could all get the message now, ignore the scintists who are only the hired lackeys of big food, big oil and big money and all just do our best to consume less. There is nothing wrong with using a computer with a I.6 Ghz CPU if it does the job, we don't have to throw out clothes because they are last year's fashion and we should heed the old wisdom of the thrifty, buy cheap - buy twice.
All the science I have seen that claims to address his issue, all the statistics that are chanted like mantras and said to support the 'science' that was done with made up or manipulated data, all the crackpot geo-engineeering theories and all the carbon trading schemes are aimed at only one thing, not saving the planet but saving the unsustainable perpetual growth economic model.
More NATO Tankers Destroyed In Pakistan
Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan have set fire to nearly 30 tankers carrying fuel for Nato troops in Afghanistan.
Suspected Islamist militants have stepped up attacks on convoys carrying supplies for Nato forces since an air strike in northwestern Pakistan in September, described by the US ambassador as a terrible accident.
About 20 gunmen set fire to around 30 tankers parked outside at a roadside restaurant near the southwestern town of Sibi in a pre-dawn attack, officials said.
The tankers were on their way to ...
We have been saying since we started The Daily Stirrer that our troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan not just to stop the waste of young lives but to stop the war spreading throughout the reason. Who cares if it embarrasses Barack Hussein Obama who promised his country victory in Afghanistan, he's fucked anyway and it serves him right for trying to be a world leaders without ever having read a history book.
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