My Quote Of The Day…

From the always excellent “Underdogs Bite Upwards” blog comes this belter…

“I know the British have a long tradition of complaining about the weather but these people are taking it way too far. It was meant to be a conversation opener, not a religion.”

It tickled me. It is contained in this post.

Here is another good excerpt…

“Anyway, Mrs. Sting was apparently asked how she justified herself and ElectroHead campaigning on green issues while having seven houses and flying everywhere in jets while pouring burning aviation fuel out of the window and all the rest of it. She said:

“I would like to think that we both work hard for the rights of indigenous people… but we do need to get around.”

Oh. They need to get around. Nobody else does so everyone else can make do with mud huts and all gather around the smouldering remains of the local power station after the Green Saviours have torched it.”

There, in a nutshell, is what they (and by that I mean the glitterati, cognoscenti, illuminati and guardianistas) think of you little people.

They hate us. Really they do. Is being married to an American and a quaint desire on her part to meet her parents once in a blue moon sufficient reason for “me to get around”. Or should I be taxed to penury for the pleasure?

To be fair to Leg-Iron, the post he linked to was from a blog by Steve Shark, which, as yet I’ve not read any of but will be sure to do so…

It Is All About…Control

Oh, I’ve been blathering on about this for ages now, and my football loving, walk-following, photo-seeking, fridge-magnet gawping readers probably by-pass all this political / climate change stuff for their chosen likes / dislikes. But when I read articles like this, by a former member of this government, who has lived the high life on the back of the people he purports to represent, got himself a cushy number in the Lords, and attends Parliament which isn’t exactly known for its frugality, you get what this is all about.

Control. Control what a person CAN do, and you control the person. You can control what they buy. You can control what they use. And you can control their travel. But it isn’t rationing, you see. If you want to use more than the state deems you are entitled to use, you can always pay MORE, much MORE for it. Except if you are in government of course – all this malarkey comes for free.

So the idea these communists want is for us all to be given a Carbon Account. Notice the lovely use of the word “account”. The nice government will give us something – isn’t that nice – and we decided how to use it.  Let’s not call it Carbon Control. Carbon Constraint. Carbon Restriction. Carbon RATIONING! For that is what it is. We get some trumped up science, the government latch on to it, and they get to exercise what all governments like…control. No matter what political disposition it seems.

Despite the fact the current powers that be are taxing airline travel as if it is the biggest cash cow known to man or beast, the answer, according to Lord Smith, is not to tax flights more as that will restrict the poor’s trip to the Costas or wherever each summer. No it is to punish those who educate themselves, get better jobs, do more work, and to say NO – you can’t use more than to which you are entitled. NO. NO. NO. The Government tells you what is good for you.

Read this fuckwittery from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee

“Opposition to personal carbon trading could be reduced if the public could be convinced of three things. First, that it is absolutely essential to reduce emissions; second, that this can only be achieved if individuals take personal responsibility for reducing their own emissions; and third, that personal carbon trading is a fairer and more effective way of reducing personal emissions than alternatives such as higher taxes.” The committee concluded: “Widespread public acceptance, while desirable, should not be a pre-condition for a personal carbon trading scheme; the need to reduce emissions is simply too urgent.”

“Widespread public acceptance, while desirable, should not be a pre-condition.”

Read that again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And remember, you elect them to represent you. Let that thought sink in when you read what they really think of the people they represent. We may hold the view that all this nonsense isn’t really worth it, and maybe we should actually see if the sea laps up against our doors, or if we can start planting those vineyards in the Grampians, before we decided to hand over our freedom of movement to people who don’t seem to want that constraint upon themselves. But we don’t matter. Our acquiescence should not be required. It is the same attitude that has us signing a Lisbon Treaty that if it went to a vote, would be defeated massively. We can’t possibly know best. Widespread public accepatance, while desirable, should not be a pre-condition. I’m surprised they even think it should be desirable.

You don’t think they hold us in contempt? Really?

I read the following post in a blog not known for its calm, rational debate, but which I find myself agreeing with too often for comfort. I think he gets to the bottom of much of it, but I don’t share his views on how the public will react. It seems to me the only way the public might get off its arse is if it taxed people £10 a show for watching X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent or anything with fucking Jordan in it. Then they’d riot…. So we can’t fly away for a second holiday – why would those retards care?

The Cut And Thrust Of Debate – Good For The Soul

Unless you are shrieking climate change harridan who thinks it appropriate to lobby BBC journalists to ban any questioning of the climate change mantra.

If you read one link on this blog at all, read this. Then tell me how this approach is different in any way to totalitarian regimes. I’m right, everyone else is a paid-for crook. Climate change’s biggest figurehead? Al Gore. And he’s not made any money out of it at all, has he?

The breathtaking insanity screams at you across the paragraphs. “I am willing to purchase a copy of James Hoggan’s book for you and each of your Science/Technology/Environment colleagues if you promise to read it and get your heads around what has been going on in “denial” land.” she says. Could you be any more patronising. Why is Hoggan so right and sceptical scientists (which should be all scientists) are not? Who is paying Hoggan, can we ask?

I am not in the pay of anyone on this topic. I see what I see. I don’t believe everything I’m told. I’m a notorious sceptic. When people tell me something is proven, and I doubt it, just screaming at me ain’t going to make me believe. But they don’t want me to believe, they just don’t want me (or anyone else) to speak. Watts up with That (linked right) is a brilliant site, and yet he’s supposed to shut his hole? The BBC is not allowed to raise any of his concerns, because some Canadian said that we are in the pay of big oil (who will do very well out of anything climate change related, believe me).

Staggering stuff. Please do read it. You may agree with climate change, that is your right. But if you can’t see the breathtaking hypocrisy of this, then I fear. As Old Holborn puts, succinctly, in the comments “Are you mental?”

Moonbats

Dmitri’s younger brother sent me an e-mail last week. This is not a particularly common event, but I put it down to him missing the wife and kids. He’s a sentimental sort.

Anyway, the message went as follows:

Waiting on your views on Lord Stern’s lets all become Veggies to save the planet.

Why would he need to wait? You don’t have to be Derek Acorah (ha ha) to know that this sort of utter fuckwittery is just what those of us who aren’t in hock to cult of climate change need. If you spew out enough ridiculous bollocks to last a lifetime, all you are going to do is laugh at it. If people laugh at it, the thing lacks credibility. Then the mock science can be put to rest and the powers that be can just do what they really want us to do – pay tax and allow them to control us. Debunking climate change really will only be a Pyrrhic victory. It isn’t as if when the planet doesn’t provide the apocalypse and we all do live much the same as we do now that the twats who sold it to us are going to say “ooops sorry” and then proceed to drop their “green taxes”.

Nope, brother. I don’t really think there is any mileage in commenting on such utter nonsense as Lord Stern’s assertion that if we were all vegetarian, it would be better for the planet. What good does it do? Just as it doesn’t really play well to comment on the ridiculous nonsense that keeping a pet is as unenvironmentally sound as running an SUV. I knew that border collie was a problem.

What’s irresponsible behaviour anyhow? Is it me going to see the wife’s family for which I’ll be royally fucked in taxes for my one flight – let alone Transatlantic, it is my only flight – this year; or is it President Obama, wife, kith and kin going to Copenhagen to bid for the Olympics using all manner of aviational means to get there, and all paid for by the US taxpayer (and as I have a Tax Identification Number, I am now in that bracket! Well, I need to pay a cent or two first, but hey, I can comment). Or am I the danger, or all those thousands of tax enthusiasts joining together in Copenhagen next month to tell me to cut out things from my life, while they don’t give a shit because they still live the life of the lord?

You can’t parody it any more. Al Gore can still stick a hurricane on the front of his latest work of fiction, and because this has been the quietest Atlantic hurricane season in many a year, it is stuck in the Pacific this year, and they’ve had a few, he can keep to his yarn about destructive storms blah blah blah. He certainly hasn’t got poor on the back of his powerpoint presentation, even though his hockey stick graph as been shown up to be pretty crap, frankly.

So no, bro. No more on this for now. Well, not until my blood pressure rises due to the next item of moonbattery.

 

Don’t Worry People.

This has not passsed me by.

I just can’t comment on it at the moment for fear that I might have an aneurysm.

And you wouldn’t want that, now, would you?

WARNING – Health workers on standby after reading this BBC article. The main argument against this guff isn’t that it is “too scary”- which is the neat little headline, in its own subtle way making the complainers look like prats, but that most of those who watched it and felt the need to complain thought IT WAS A LOAD OF BOLLOCKS.

Further Update – My head is starting to hurt. I read a comment on the youtube thread (and rest assured the bloke, despite his name, is no relation of mine). Here it is..

“the ad is highlighting that the exponential increases in carbon emissions and consumption of resources today will create a problem that the next generations will have to deal with. Children of 9 years old will pray that they had a voice in 2009 when in twenty years time they have to deal with global conflict over food, water and energy resources. Your selfish ignorance now will not be forgiven. Reduce your consumption now. insulate your home, drive less, fly less, save money.”

No it isn’t. It is saying we are all going to drown, be burned alive or whatever because we warm our houses and have to drive to do our basic living needs. It uses emotive pictures of cute and cuddly cartoon animals to illustrate a crappy point in as emotive a way as possible “pleeeeeeze – won’t you think of the children.” I’m surprised in this climate they’ve allowed a bloke to read the story to his daughter. Can’t be too careful. If he isn’t really her father, has he been CRB checked? You can’t be too careful, for the children.

It is this deluded fool, who knows better than all of us of course, who comes up with this little belter at the end.

Reduce your consumption now. insulate your home, drive less, fly less, save money.

Insulate my home (has been for years), drive less (at these prices, do I have a choice), fly less (ditto – has someone stopped politicians from flying – like Obama from Washington to New York yesterday on Air Force One), save money (with what we are being taxed, and with these attractive interest rates and with the economy in a mess – anything you earn now you need to live, you fucking cretin).

They want us back in the dark ages, with talk of population crises, carbon rationing et al. If we make these sacrifices, on the back of political and environmental hyperbole, what would be the point of living at all? I don’t live to exist. Sorry, and neither do any of these advocating this crock of shit.

I’m off for a lie down.

The Voice of Sanity…

I recommend this website to my readers, limited as they are.

www.abd.org.uk

I found myself nodding my head so often, I could be Churchill in the next ever so annoying insurance advert.

I recommend this article to you as well.

On the ABD site, read some of the submissions by highly trained traffic police officers. They show up the vindictiveness, the craven surrender of councillors to the politically convenient line, and the collaboration in attempting to make us all “offenders” in this brave new world. They persecute the car driver using the twin hydra of “road safety / less people killed” and “climate change”. There is an article on there about the closure of the tidal flow at the Blackwall Tunnel that finally got their objective from me, to pack in the car to work and take public transport.

It is an excellent site, and I would urge anyone to have a look around.

Ice Ice Baby

Readers will know that I am a teeny, itsy witsy bit sceptical about global warming, sorry climate change. You see I was always taught to look at both sides of an argument before making a decision based on information from both sides of the fence and then drawing what conclusions I can.

One factor I always like to bring in to any particular “decision” is that if it benefits a tax-levying government, and at the same time allow them more control levers over all our lives, then I have what is called a “don’t take the piss” warning alarm. Tax flights even more, tax petrol even more, use our money for gut wrenching adverts involving the “cheeeeldren” – please, won’t we think of their future – and when you add in to that Al Gore getting richer Nobel Peace Prizes on the back of it, then the attenae are bleeping off the chart.

Anyway, on to the subject of the day. The BBC raised the hopes of a number of us who have a hard time working out why those who believe in climate change think the only thing to do to continue their unfettered taking over of our lives is to silence, when they published an article which put forward scepticism to the tiniest degree. The leftie / greenie alliance (when they are about, I reach for my wallet and keep it shut) reacted with outrage. “You are giving these loonie deniers (we are akin to Holocaust deniers, you know) a platform. You are treating them as equals”. Call me a fool, but when someone wants to shut me up, I think, naturally that they have something to hide. It is called “natural cynicism” if you like.

Anyway, the BBC decided to run a story about an Ice-Free Arctic.

I won’t offer much comment as yet, except I will link you to the original article, and the utterly brilliant riposte from Anthony Watts’ “Watts Up With That Site”. I followed the Pen Hadow circus on WUTW (it is linked on the right) and you will know how scientifically inept this crap was if you read it. Please wonder how the BBC, an institution we fund, falls for such cobblers. Ask yourself, and then weep. All right, I couldn’t stop myself commenting….

The BBC Article.

Arctic To Be “Ice-Free In Summer”

The Watts Up With That’s comments

The Top Ten Reasons Why I Think The Catlin Arctic Ice Survey Data Can’t Be Trusted

Make your own minds up. Please. Don’t be told. Do your research. Look up the debunking of the Mann Hockey Stick graph and the Yamal Tree surveys. Question why the Times says a shipping passage has become navigable for the first time in history when patently it is an untruth. Ask why the Guardian deletes comments from sceptical people who think we might be being lied to.

Don’t trust a politician with an idea that gives them more control over you – make your own mind up. Dig about, ask why the sceptics are denied any airtime worthy of the name, while Al Gore’s discredited powerpoint presentation is treated as a latter day Biblical text. Ask why, as happened at a recent “press conference” why Phelime McAleer had his microphone switched off rather than ask a hostile question to the great Gore. No, the autocracy want you in their pockets, and what way to do this than by controlling us by tax and restricition of movements.  

In the words of Thomas Jefferson..

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

Let me state, for the record, that I don’t believe in using up the earth’s resources irresponsibly. I don’t believe that people shouldn’t recyclye. I am using public transport at the moment because it benefits me (it wasn’t cost, it was opportunity cost that changed my mind). I have a love of our countryside and scenery and love seeing the world when I get a chance as it is educational and enlightening. Yet we seek to deny that opportunity on the altar of guilt. What do you want us to do, freeze? Stay where we are? Cut our standard of living on this gaia nonsense. I believe we should be responsible. I don’t believe we should believe we are guilty.

Ah…Rage Welling Inside…I’m Back…

I knew it. I had been too calm, serene, peaceful etc. etc. So what has made me angry, I hear none of you ask…

THIS.

I am travelling to the US with my beloved in November. If it isn’t bad enough that BA are going to start charging for the extra bag you take to the States (although they don’t make it crystal clear, because we booked before the 7th October we are “grandfathered” into the two bag clause) then they take the next step in the Ryanliar business model by charging you to pre-book seats. This isn’t aimed at the solo traveller, but at the couples (families with kids look like they are still free) or mates. It also appears to be targetted at those who read seatguru and look to book some of the better seats that have more room (I benefitted from one of those coming from and going to Singapore en route to Australia). I know the airlines are having a tough time, victimised as they are by specious climate taxes by governments who seem hell bent on making travel the preserve of the rich once more, and by the tiresome climate lobby… so you respond by what? Pissing what customers you have off even more than you already have to.

If that isn’t bad enough, then this takes the biscuit

British Airways last night defended its new seat reservation charges.

‘British Airways is launching a new service to give customers more control over their seating options.

You see, the only thing that pisses me off more than being taken the piss out of, is being taken the piss out of in an even more patronising way than you usually do. How the fuck is this giving me “more control”? At the moment, I am in charge, even total control, of £80 of my (hard) earned cash. Because, reasonably, I would quite like to sit with my wife on the flight out and back, BA would like to give me more control of the seating arrangements, that have never been a problem before, by charging me £80 to guarantee I sit next to my wife. That’s the element of my control….

‘Customers will now be able to select their seats when booking and secure exit row seats.’

Only you won’t be able to get the emergency exit seats until 10 days before, and you have to pay £50 per seat for them. Not that they are any use to me, as I’m wider than the average bear. I prefer a window seat if at all possible, but I suppose they’ll go..

Mark Hassell, BA’s head of customer experience, said: “There are various seats within the aircraft that we frequently receive requests for from our customers.

Yes. And those you are charging extra for. How does this square with the couples who’d like to sit together and are now faced with an £80 gamble? Do we shell that out to guarantee a seat together, or risk it and pray we can still do so? How pissed off would you be to pay £80 and find, as I frequently do, the flight half-empty?

This quote, though, is the one that makes the blood boil..

‘The move is in line with the airline’s response to surviving the economic downturn, by listening to customers’ requests and looking for innovative revenue streams.

Every customer I know wants to pay more. Every customer I know wants to pay for something they previously got for nothing. Every customer welcomes such innovations.

BA, well done. I despise Virgin, but you’ve made it much more likely that I’ll be flying with them next time around. Have you the fucking foggiest idea what you are doing? People despise Ryanliar, but realise it is just an hour or two hindrance rather than 7 or 8 hours flying back and forwards to the States. We all know Ryanliar to be a bunch of thieving deceptive bastards, but they are the cheapest source of travel and we use the rules the best we can. No-one loves Ryanliar. Now, in the name of customer innovation, as you call it, you are charging for seats, you are charging for bags. What next? I know when you are trying to fleece me. You utter, utter fuckwits. You can fuck off.

Always Leave ‘Em Laughing…

Always got to love those prophets… This one, according to the people what know this stuff, made this list of prophecies in 1958. I suppose he’s keeping his reputation intact on the Iraqi war thingamy (or predicting the plot of Capricorn One), but I defy anyone to get to number 30 and have the will to live.

Mr Meier’s Laugh In

Let no-one ever call me a misery-guts again. Never.

Sorry Mum, Sorry Dad – You Brought Me Up Better Than This

But I am afraid I am going to have to let you down again…

Because when I see this sort of utter bollocks, I am afraid the swear words have to be out in fucking force.

Shitty name, dreamed up by some fucking gimmicky advertising guru – CHECK

Promulgated for a “newspaper” so pious about climate change that it doesn’t mind us being taxed to fuckery, but is a little bit more parsimonious with its own finances – CHECK

Backed by the Cabinet – A surefire sign of its appeal – CHECK

Launched at a trendy spot, occupied principally by Guardianistas – CHECK

Accompanied by quotes from utter, utter fuckwits – CHECK

Refusal to countenance any other view on a complex subject other than to treat them akin to holocaust deniers – CHECK

Widely ignored – CHECK.

Want to know what I am raving on about.

Click here.

What? Are the people wising up after another pretty woeful summer? Hey look, the Atlantic hurricane season, so prominent in the evidence provided by the guru of climate change, a Mr Al Gore (he of the “science is settled”) has been relatively peaceful this year. But weather isn’t climate, except when extreme weather can be used as evidence of course.

I could go on, and I probably will when I digest the full horror of this utter tripe, but it was the quote on a blog called Mr Eugenides that caught my eye…

“Unfortunately, the 10:10 campaign highlights the petty moralism behind environmentalism. At the launch at the Tate Modern last night, the artist Bob and Roberta Smith suggested that people who own a 4×4 should spend a “night in the cells”. Another attendee said “it’s immoral to be wasteful”.”

Words cannot adequately express the rage building inside me at this absolute weapons grade fuckmong. For the love of fucking all on this earth, what is this absolute cock wittering on about? He’s a fucking artist. They are all fucking wasteful – no-one “needs” art. I dread to think what this twat does in the name of art, but this pretty much sums up the cock. Glad there is no wastefulness in this utter shite.

Oh my God. I need a lie down.

To be utterly fair to the Guardian, there is a reasonable riposte article by Brendan O’Neill but still, the paper is backing this cut 10% of emissions by 2010 cobblers for all it is worth. Given that one of my large sources of emissions, namely travelling across the Atlantic to see my wife (and now for my wife to see her family) has been made prohibitively expensive by additional taxes and the obstacles placed in the way of my wife to seek work, we’ll be cutting more than our 10%. Don’t think for one minute I am signing up to this bollocks in any way.

Cocks.

Stating The Bleeding Obvious…

The BBC, in its flagshit, I mean flagship Breakfast News, was in marvellously annoying form this morning. If it wasn’t bad enough that the terminal cretin Chris Hollins was hosting it, the headline news immediately got the blood pressure rising like it should do… if you want a stroke.

Let BBC News.com put the gist of the story…

Motoring taxes have been handled so badly that drivers no longer trust what ministers say the charges pay for, an MPs’ report says.

Really? What a stunner! I really, really thought that the added fuel duty taking petrol over £1 a litre when it is $80 a barrel cheaper than it was this time last year went on “saving the planet”. I really thought that my additional road tax would be to pay for new roads, new trains, new buses to make my commute to work that much easier. I really thought that adding taxes on the Dartford Bridge would be to maintain and improve transport in this country and fight climate change. And when I’m totally deluded, I believe all those speed cameras are not revenue generators for the police and local councils’ Christmas parties and pork barrel projects, but are there for “road safety”.

Tell me who these people who believed taxation and soaking motorists for the environmental good in the first place, and I’ll show you someone who needs to be institutionalised.

So who did BBC Breakfast News bring in to discuss this particular story? My old favourite from an old place. Look here, and here. It is a belter of a site. Look at how many people have voted on their poll. I get more hits on this site in a couple of days than have voted in that poll, and I’ll bet, in fact I know, I’m not on my favourite show’s roladex.

Here is a little belter… “But people aren’t convinced, which is why we told the committee earlier this year that the Government should spend money it has raised from motoring to give people alternatives to their cars. It’s common sense really: if you have to drive to work you’ll resent paying taxes for the priviledge, but if you driving pays for other people to take the bus or tram then that’s fairer for everyone.”

Last time I looked, when I get public transport, it costs me – and let me set this out for you, Georgey boy, the following.

Assume I walk to the station for the train that gets me into work just in time.

Return to Lewisham – £4.20; Return DLR to Canary Wharf – £2.20 (with Oyster) and the bus home from the station £1. £7.30!!!! So I pay twice! I pay when I drive, I pay when I get public transport. This bloke would want me to pay more fuel duty so that I can pay the same (ever heard of a train company cutting fares – any revenue increases and Bob Crow and his boys are “”avin some of that”) for my journey the other way. When’s this chump going to get into the real world?

Look at the site – it is one thing in its campaign for better transport – it is anti-road (oh, it has a go at aeroplanes too, but all the main news stories are road related).  So who better to bring on to the show for a story about how drivers feel pissed off at being treated like a never-ending cash cow for the government to suck dry than one of the people who wants to suck us dry even more to fund his and his little gangs preferred approach.

Still, as the presenters were probably chauffeured in, and the editors/producers are nicely parked up in the staff car park, who the hell cares.

Tits.

Monday Morning Moan

I have one thing to say to Sir Paul “Herbal Cigarette” McCartney, and the other “campaigners” who have made their fortune on international fame fed by copious trips around the world using copious amounts of air travel to do so.

Why don’t you go f*** yourself, you f***ing hypocrites.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090615/tuk-meat-free-mondays-to-save-planet-6323e80.html

Vegetarian jet setting celebrities (plus that absolute cocktrumpet Richard “cocktrumpet” Branson who owns a f****** airline for pity’s sake) telling me not to eat food I quite enjoy to “save the planet”. What am I saving it for? To eat tofu?

Jesus. Do they have no sense of themselves. It’s enough to make you want to cop off with the local one-legged gold digger.

Misanthrope Or Fascist – It Matters Not. I’m To Blame

My old mate Jonathan Porritt, or as he is more formally known The Honorouable Sir Jonathan Espie Porritt, CBE and 2nd Baronet (of Hampstead, I do believe), son of the former Governer General of New Zealand (and another one who whilst rich as sin, has so humbly not taken up his title), is off about us chunky folk, saying we are major contributors to Climate Change. Ah yes. That one again…..

I love the number of chins Mr Porritt has in that picture. Sorry, the number of baronial chins Sir Jonathan has in that picture (I mean, he’s down with the proles, but not down that much).

So far this year Porritt has advocated cutting the UK population by a half – another pissing in the wind idea which has little merit at all when you consider the explosion of population in Africa – and has told us fatties to ride more bikes, eat less meat to stop cows being “produced” and put a stop to those damaging farts, and walk a bit more.

I am a bit tired of this. No, really I am. If you picked on another class of people, and I mean those with disabilities, a different race, or travellers, or those with “poor backgrounds” and just roundly insulted them as the establishment does with anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of an ideal body form, then you are accused of all sorts of “isms”.  But because fat people are easily picked out in this day and age for ridicule and insult, the top table take their lead. Look, I’m not that sensitive a flower as others, acknowledging my overweight form is down to the fact I love the Walkers Sensations a bit too much, have never got on with cooking plants, and had a decent if up and down relationship with Mr Lager, so I get “what I deserve” in terms of any health complications that arise from that. But according to these people we are to be insulted, denied health care, told we are the cause of all evil and this is right. Why should we be denied health care? We bring it on ourselves? So when idiots go on a poorly planned, poorly conceived mission to the North Pole and then get into trouble, why should we (at taxpayers expense) rescue them? They brought it on themselves. They were under no compulsion to do so! That’s the theory.

 Porritt’s use of figures defies rational analysis – it is like primary school playground argument.

“The World Health Organisation recently published some data showing that each overweight person causes an additional one tonne of CO2 to be emitted every year.,” he said. “With one billion people judged to be overweight around the world – of whom at least 300 million are obese – that’s an additional one billion tonnes.”

 What about all those overweight people on diets trying to go from obese to just a little bit overweight? Aren’t they reducing their carbon footprint, or are there a load of skinnies trying desperately to get fat, because these people never use cars, aeroplanes nor eat exotic truffles from Tuvalu, or drink bottled water from Fiji?

I reckon rich baronets poncing off around the world are probably a bit more to blame than someone who likes Monster Munch!

Porritt can make these dense statements if he likes, after all, last time I looked we were supposed to have freedom of speech in this country. So here’s my view, baronet or no baronet. Lighten up. Talk to us fat people – some of us have brains you know and try to do good when we can. Try to understand how easy it is to fall into temptation, and don’t be so all damn high and mighty (which is easy when you don’t have to worry where your next penny comes from, or budget accordingly out of necessity rather than obsession). The more outlandish statements you make, the less you are taken seriously.

First you want to reduce population by limiting how many children you can have. You neatly set that number at 2 each. Ho Ho. How many kids you got, JP? Now you want to do something about us chunky chaps – what’s the suggestion other than your hoary old anti-car diatribe? Make us all vegans? Yes, I’d rather croak. Or as one of the fanatics put on a Climate Change Blog, before it was removed (but saved for posterity by Climate Depot)

At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers

June 2, 2009, 9:42PM

What is so frustrating about these fools is that they are the politicians and greedy bastards who don’t want a cut in their profits who use bogus science or the lowest scientists in the gene pool who will distort data for a few bucks. The vast majority of the scientific minds in the World agree and understand it’s a very serious problem that can do an untold amount of damage to life on Earth.

So when the right wing fucktards have caused it to be too late to fix the problem, and we start seeing the devastating consequences and we start seeing end of the World type events – how will we punish those responsible. It will be too late. So shouldn’t we start punishing them now?

Anyone trying to discern the difference between these people and fascists may be having a hard time right about now?

Driving Me Mad

So there I was this morning, minding my own business, trying to find out who won the Orlando v Cleveland NBA Conference Final last night when I went out into the kitchen to prefer a breakfast. I don’t (yet) have Sky out there in the kitchen but the TV does have BBC1; which means my old favourite show is on at 8:20ish….

Today we had a discussion on the (lack of) knowledge of the Highway Code. Should people be tested on it at regular intervals to maintain their driving licence? In my humble opinion, and having driven in both the UK and the US, the sheer amount of “street furniture” is getting in the way of concentrating on the road. Take the Bus Lanes, for instance. If you are new to a road you need to (a) know a bus lane is coming up to avoid veering into another lane, potentially late (b) at the same time look at the signage to find out if you are permitted in at that time or not and (c) if you are at or about that time, check your clock / watch. In addition, sometimes to turn left, or get into a driveway, you need to cross the bus lane and on one occasion in the past, I’ve been nicked for that. I’m not bitter…..

The point of today’s ire wasn’t the sheer stupidity of people coming on thinking it would be a cracking idea for us to sit the test or lose our licence. Do you really need to know what this sign means (I always thought it meant Eddie Kidd was making a comeback) in everyday life.

I Thought Eddie Kidd Was Out Of Commission

More trouble is caused by ill thought out road works, poor light phasing, and dawdlers on the M2 two lane stretch driving at 40 mph than failure to know what a Stag’s Crossing sign is.

Of course, I’d have no objection to taking a refresher test, provided it was free. Oh, and there’s the present tense of Swine Flew….

But where there’s a “safety” campaign, and where there’s “lives to save” there will be a campaign group. In this case, the duo are the wholly uninterested Direct Line (and their ever increasing premia) and an organisation called Brake! I’ll come to them in a minute…

One of the signs we aren’t supposed to know the meaning of is the Zebra Crossing sign…

 

Where's the Zebra?

 Actually, unless we have the picture of a zebra inside a red triangle, I would say you have a technically incorrect answer as the Code says “Pedestrian Crossing”. I digress.. The genius came up with this obvious point. Don’t recognise the sign (or the other ever so subtle clues of BIG ORANGE FLASHING LIGHTS, or TRAFFIC LIGHTS) and you are bound to kill…

“With this study finding two-thirds of motorists don’t recognise a zebra crossing sign, it is easy to see why there were 773 people killed or injured on zebra crossings in 2007.”

Ever recall seeing a “Pedestrian Crossing” sign? Sorry, I don’t. I get my clues from traffic lights or beacons, and not from irrelevant street furniture. I’ve managed, in 22 years of driving, never to have hit someone on a zebra crossing who wasn’t drunk and decided to run out just as I was pulling away on a green light!

Please also note the canny use of statisticsin that quote. How many of these 773 were “killed”, how many were “badly injured” and how many sprained their ankles on a fucking pot hole or tripped over the kerb? How many of these involved drunk pedestrians marching out feeling omnipotent or coke heads who think they can fly or something? That statistic is known as, in the trade, bollocks.

And so on to Brake! Oooooh, I like these people, who want to cut my speed down to 20 mph (ever tried driving your car that slowly for any length of time – the clutch really enjoys it, and it does wonders for the fuel efficiency) everywhere and anywhere because at 30 mph I am a death machine waiting to happen.

Brake is a registered charity which seeks to influence government policy in an area where I believe vast majorities of the public really don’t think it needs to interfere. When Brake complains, the authorities see an opportunity to dip into my pocket to teach me to be a better civilian, and when I do, they make the rules even tougher to make sure I’m an even better civilian. Meanwhile, someone can murder a child and get a couple of years inside.

I digress again. Brake is a registered charity – it proclaims itself so on its website. Registered Charity no. 1093244. Whenever I hear a charity that wants to impose restrictions on our way of life to the financial benefit of the gorgon state, I like to know how much money is given voluntarily by individuals. To do this you can go to the Charities Commission website to read their annual accounts, or you can see if they are on fakecharities.org. Indeed, Brake are there, where you can find out that of its income, 6.5% was funded by us, the Government, for various campaigns in the form of grants, while only 30% came from the traditional charitable funding route of voluntary donations. By no means the worst offender in the “we the taxpayer, through no choice of our own, (part) fund a charity I might find meaningless, useless or downright hostile” but still, you are paying some money towards it. There are much worse examples – ASH, for example – but it is symptomatic of what is going on. Once a charity takes the public penny through tax revenues, and then lobbies the government, it ceases being a charity, in my eyes, and becomes another lobby group who should not benefit from the double whammy of tax breaks from the paying out side of the ledger, and receiving a penny of my taxpayer’s money.

Meanwhile, the nanny state continues apace, as this unthinking country, which managed to survive all these years without really being told what to do, reads stunning nonsense like this…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/feedarticle/8527611

You wonder how the University of Leicester tested this theory under laboratory conditions (are there hundreds of self confessed Man Utd fans in the test area tonight with car radios on, ready to kill and maim at a Berbatov near miss), and why this has been done.

It really is enough to drive me mad.

Note This Story…

If the summer is a total washout like the last two, which were both predicted to be “warmer than normal” but which turned out to be damp squibs…

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090430/tuk-weathermen-predict-warm-dry-summer-dba1618.html

They could not predict that last summer would be crap, but we set government policies on their abilities to tell us what it will be like in 50! Jog on…

Dmitri on Swine Flu and Hogwash

As the Daily Mash states “Don’t Panic But You Are All Going To Die”..

And so, following in the hallowed footsteps of AIDS (a serious problem in many Developing Nations I know), BSE and New Variant CJD, Ebola, SARS, Bird Flu and the much touted Flu Pandemic set to wipe us all out, we have the new doozie…Swine Flu.

I am reminded, as I so often am, when authority senses a crisis at which they can save the world / make themselves appear to be halfway competent, of the words of the great Captain Flack in Trumpton. Fed up with dealing with make believe emergencies of cats up trees etc., when the big one comes along, he’s scarcely credulous, but in paroxysms of delight..”A Fire? A REAL Fire?”

So the plans made up on the hoof over a number of years can come to fruition. Sure, a frutibat or two, like an EU Health Advisor will tell us not to travel to Mexico AND THE UNITED STATES, but we can rest assured Roche have sent enough Tamiflu to increase their profits, and the papers can be full of people keeling over and feeling slightly unwell (as symptoms have been described in most people outside of Mexico as “mild”), and nothing sells papers more than panic, which they do little to dampen down with lurid headlines. Two honeymooners have it, and are “getting better”. Seven are being tested in Wiltshire. As the beloved put it this morning “It isn’t exactly the Black Death, is it?”.

No, watch those busybodies and scientists justify their presence, and appeal for more funding on the back of this old keg meg. And can someone somewhere have a headline along the lines of “Last of the Summer Swine” or “Swine, Women and Gone”.

I Am Fat And Deserve To Be Killed….

My late mother would be horrified at my language, but my old mate Adelaide Exile alerted me to the story which has actually been doing the rounds for a while now as evidenced by these two holier than fucking though wankers rehashing their old shit this week, when they raised it in July last year….

As always, I apologise from sourcing from The Sun, but sometimes you need their style to convey what absolute pricks we have wasting our fucking public funding by the taxes they earned to insult a whole set of people… substitute “obese” for black in all of these articles and see if you can get away with it.

Dr Phil Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler.”

Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one.

Dr Phil Edwards, you are a c**t. Get that. An absolute “weapons grade” c**t. What sort of fucking science do you call that? How fucking dare you?

Listen, cock. We die younger, us fatties, so you don’t need us for the extra 20 years to be ferried about and go jetting off on holidays. We won’t be driving as far for as long, because, lets face it, we won’t be around long enough to worry about.

Dr Phil Edwards, in this article, thinks he might have gone a bit far.. and tries to rein it back in a bit..

Dr Edwards went on: “We are not just pointing the finger at fat people. All populations are getting fatter and it has an impact on the environment.

So he’s a misanthrope as well as a c**t.

Look, here’s a proposal from a founder member of the “fat man club”. If you fucking hate me that much, come for me and fucking shoot me. Do it. Don’t be fucking mealy mouthed about, you heinous fascist pricks. Do it. Be brave. Don’t hide behind bogus medical studies reinforcing your prejudices. Don’t hide behind Snake Oil Salesman and the issue of the day. Don’t hide behind the “costs” of my obesity when your medical professionals harangue me constantly when I don’t want them to. Don’t ask me to pay tax to you if you are going to fucking insult me. Shoot me. I’m a waste of God’s precious oxygen. I don’t deserve to live. I am a blight on humanity. I’m more dangerous than a medical profession who thought acceptable treatment for my father was to try to kill him off before his two sons arrived. No. I listen to you c***s over my dead blubberous body you scum.

This has to stop. You stopped mocking disabled people. You stopped mocking black people. Hell, you stop us saying one word out of place about the Islamic faith, and like being fat, that is a personal choice, a lifestyle choice. Don’t think you can come out with this bollocks and people don’t get annoyed.

You are all fucking fascists at heart. You want control over me. You won’t have it. So if you won’t have it, don’t be mealy mouthed. Come for me.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe Out.

I’m calmer now. (c***s).

A reporter on the LA Times makes a reasonable point…

I guess, too, we could always point a finger at those lean people we all know who have such high, wasteful metabolisms they can eat what they want, lift not a finger yet stay skinny as a rake. And how can I defend a friend of mine who consumes thousands of calories so he can get on his bicycle and go for 100-mile rides — only to end up at the very same place he started from, only hungrier? (And by the way, he drives a car — five miles — to work.)

You could try, mate, but that won’t satisfy Dr Phil the Fascist Scumbag….Against the wall, you scum.

Update – As always, the Daily Mash has a great slant… http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/casual-racism-can-save-environment%2c-say-experts-200904211715/ - I particularly love this quote…

The government insisted it was already adopting 1970s measures to combat CO2 emissions including a grinding recession and a violent, bigoted police force which keeps everyone cowering indoors for fear of getting a riot shield across the trachea.

A spokesman added: “All we need is a clapped-out Labour prime minister, a resurgent IRA and a Star Trek film. Wait a minute…”

BBC Breakfast – The Double – Eco-loonery and Speed Kills…

BBC Breakfast News was at it again this morning. Two stories caught my ears, and both made me seethe in only the way this show can.

First up, “It won’t Stop Global Warming You Know” (Even though it is cooler now than 1998 – if they can cherry pick, so can I)…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008473.stm

The BBC have realised what Watts Up With That and Junk Science have been going on about for quite a while now. That the sun is exceedingly calm at the moment and lo and behold, the thing that influences our temperature the most is not quite as lively as it can be. At the same time it is “calm” the temperature readings have been going down. Of course, I’m not a scientist, and can in face be labelled as a complete ignoramus, but it seems to make as much sense as some of the other old pony I’m being fed day in day out. However, what made me madder than a mad man with mad madness syndrome, was the fact that the reporter, a Mr Pallab Ghosh, showed he was totally on message by continuously repeating that the sun dying down would not “help us against global warming”. For the love of God man, or whatever deity you worship, you don’t have to keep going on about it. We got it the first time – your editor / political master / eco loon consultant wanted you to make sure that the great unwashed can’t link a peaceful fiery ball which heats our planet with the temperature on this Earth. Instead it is us and our cars, electricity and budget flights to Provence, not that big orange thing in the sky. We get it. You have joined the “consensus”.

I love this headline.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7327393.stm -  The sun is not responsible, do you hear. That thing with power and energy beyond our wildest dreams can’t do a thing. So don’t fly to Granada this weekend you polluting scumbags…

Second up, and no less annoying, was this story trumpeted by the BBC…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8009364.stm

For the love of another deity, will you just fucking stop this nonsense? We are supposedly safer now than we have been at any time, but these meddling fuckers will not let the honest drivers on their way. I suppose they aren’t raking in enough from speed fines so they need to set the bloody bar lower. Add to that driving your car at 20mph is not fuel efficient, it is not doing your car any good, and we have government enforced fucking speed humps ruining our tyres and suspension, and the experience of driving is fast beginning to resemble something as pleasurable as Laurence Olivier’s dental therapy.

We have some specious old nonsense from some Government busy body who has his own chauffeur driven car to ferry him around, no doubt…

“We’ve already made real improvements to the safety of our roads – there are now almost 17,000 fewer deaths or serious injuries in a year than there were in the mid-1990s. But it is intolerable that eight people are still dying on our roads each day.

What real improvements? Since the snowfall of February, the hill on which I live resembles a crater ridden moonscape, with bits coming out of it especially handy to the local “bored youth” to throw at passers by. And tell me, Jim old boy, how a 20mph limit would have prevented this little piece of carnage.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/8006605.stm

Or maybe speeding idiots caused this death… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7943107.stm

No, it is just the nanny state. I have a couple of roads around my way that are ostensibly 20 mph. We have no school on these roads, but they are festooned with all sorts of street furniture and “traffic calming measures”. We have the ubiquitous speed humps, junction tables, and hell, chuck in a chicane or two and a pointless mini-roundabout (except from my junction, which could do with a mini-roundabout,  but is left as a blind spot death trap that no-one who actually does this shit cares about) to slow us down. But we never keep under 20 because it just doesn’t get you anywhere. We aren’t tearing about at 40-50 mph, but a sedate enough pace. But no. The Safety Police have determined that this is more important than actually solving real problems.

The only safe speed is no speed. So the only way not to have car accidents is to ban motor vehicles. As I saw in the comments page on Obnoxio the Clown (a site many of my readers may not appreciate as he does rather swear a lot), this sums it all up.. “When speeds are 20mph or lower, the risk and severity of accidents can be reduced, which is in everybody’s interest.”

How about 10 mph? Even better, why not have a 4 mph limit, and require every vehicle to have a man walking in front carrying a red flag??

Oh how true..

The Suicide of Sir David Attenborough

This article caught my eye yesterday…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6087833.ece

Now following on from that particularly nice man Mr Porritt and his exhortations not so long ago about “optimum” population, we have the respected gorilla cuddler and all round good old Galapagos Gallivanter wittering on about saving the environment by culling a few billion people here or there.

Sir David has always engendered the deepest respect from me, being a part of my childhood by making a range of fantastic nature programmes that captivated someone who wanted to know more about this world I live in. But dear Lord above, David, what makes you join up as patron of an organisation that comes out with swivel-eyed lunacy such as…

The Optimum Population Trust believes that Earth may not be able to support more than half its present numbers before the end of this century, and that the UK’s long-term sustainable population level may be lower than 30 million

Needless to say the old devil of Climate Change, especially with that nice Mr Porritt, who probably has more air miles than my family combined over the last forty years, rears its predictable head. On their website they have in bold plated “Getting The Facts Right”  the statement…

The Optimum Population Trust is absolutely opposed to any form of coercion in family planning.

OK. So if you don’t think this can be done by coercion, how do you propose reducing the UK’s 60m population by half in 90 years? Assuming that’s your target. State-manufactured famine? Suicide for over 60s whether they like it or not (or is that called “visiting Princess Royal Hospital”)? Murder for all “non-productive” citizens?

Everybody who looks at an encyclopaedia will know that the highest birth rates and highest population growth are to be found in developing countries. The first site I came across on a google search said this..

The ten countries which will contribute most to world population growth over the next 30 years are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, United States of America, Bangladesh, Zaire, and Iran – in that order!

Yes, not a UK among them…. I wonder if Porritt, Martin and their Malthusian Jeremiahry has made any real progress in getting these countries to listen. Only the USA would probably even countenance a debate on the subject, while China has put in birth controls and it is still growing inordinately. What do these wishful thinkers believe cutting the UK by 30 million will achieve when this paper suggests that Pakistan will grow by 300 million in the 100 years from 1950.

Over to you Sir David? Where can we stick the needle? I’m sure the denizens of India will be grateful for your sacrifice. After all, they’ll be 400 million more in that country from the 1995 levels in 2025.

Their Annual Report claims that they are gaining more influence. When you come out with headlines like this:

“SEX IS THE MAIN CAUSE OF POPULATION GROWTH” (I thought it was the Storks, so there you go..)

You can see how we are stacking up here. After all, could anything more lunatic be more apt for the authoritarian puritanical (in word, not deed), Big-Brotheristas in Government today? No – of course the headline wants to absolve things like “dependency in numbers” as we were taught in school regarding the population growths in Ethiopia and the like; or for the Catholic religion’s failure to tackle contraception due to its beliefs; or to point out that a lot of the countries increasing quickly are Islamic, or have large swathes of Islamic believers. That’s mere coincidence. The fact is that we are all “gagging for it”, and we can’t be having any fun now, can we?

The hits keep coming..

“The UK could face major problems because of its high population density and low agricultural self-sufficiency. To reduce London’s current “food footprint” of some 20 million hectares – 2 million more than the UK’s agricultural land area – to a globally sustainable “fair share”, Londoners would need to eat an estimated 70 per cent less meat.”

The beloved made me cauliflower cheese last night and also force fed me broccoli last week. Has she secretly signed up to these Vegan Vermin?

For the lack of coercion, lets make it clear, comments like this are ominous…

“Yet despite being long seen as synonymous with contraception, the oral contraceptive pill is not an ideal method. It has the wrong “default state” – conception occurs if an error is made in its use. Long-acting reversible contraceptives, such as implants or copper intrauterine devices (IUDs), are far more effective because, unlike the pill, they are “forgettable”: mistakes in use do not result in conception.”

You are human, you forget. We, the state, control you. We will not coerce you, but “encourage” you not to forget. And you women, you will be the ones we will “encourage”. Jesus. One step up and we are at forced castrations and sterilisation. Except, of course, if you are obese, too young, have medical conditions blah blah blah…

I encourage you to read Optimum Population Trust and not sit there thinking – how is this government employing Jonathan Porritt (Educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Cambridge, no less) with my taxpayer money as the Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, when they come out with this sort of stuff. Frank Field was once told to “think the unthinkable” and when he did so he was fired. Porritt thinks the unthinkable and we stick him on quangos.

As someone said on one of the numerous blogs – population reduction? You first, Jonny old boy.

PS – Little factoid on the The Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt, 2nd Baronet (he hasn’t taken up this title). Jonny boy has two daughters, so instead of keeping himself to one, and thus keeping his family footprint in check by reducing the size of his family, he has seen to it that  he will keep the little eco-warrior family stable by replacing ma and pa with two kids. I don’t know about my limited readership but I call that fucking brazen hypocrisy. What say you?

Serfs Up, Dude…

While Sunday’s News of the World was exposing the shenanigans of the McBride of Gordula, the Great Leader was also allowing his name to be put to an article in which he states that he wants to make teenagers do voluntary work. You know, 50 hours of unpaid work before you are 19, whether you need to or not. It is for the good of the country.

Careful not to slag off the yoof of today as a class, he couched this 21st century serfdom in the usual politician fluff. A particular phrase, though, caught my eye. No pun intended, Gordy…

“What is inspirational is the number of young people who are serving their communities in endeavours from charity fundraising to green activism. We want to harness and encourage this community spirit.”

Seriously – what the hell is this loon on about. Green activism is community service. Sitting on the runway at Stansted is cohesive and will bring the country together? Or does he mean other sorts of green activisim?

Maybe Gordy wants us to be more like this seriously deranged tosser. (Once again I apologise for using the Daily Mail – it was either that or the Sun). Caroline Lucas is the sort of community activist we can all applaud. I mean, yet again, because I have a wife from the States and therefore probably fall into the same sort of bracket as those who have used the toils of their work to buy a property in somewhere a darn sight nicer than London in deepest darkest January, I am akin to some uneducated coked up oik with a blade.

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh (deep breath), I feel that cohesive community spirit flooding through my veins. If it isn’t enough that this Green Party trout can come up with mindless pap, on top of that I seriously need my government cultivating this bullshit with their statist bollocks of a return to partial slavery.

Oh, and Caroline Lucas is a Euro MP. Just thought I’d say that about that really economic, well-run tight ship. AKA – The Gravy Train.

Can this mob get any more deranged?