The Last Ditch

Political gratitude

BBC NEWS | UK | Porritt parting shot at ministers.

Time and again, outgoing government employees criticise the administration that employed them. Jonathon Porritt has sucked at the public teat for nine years, without ever a word of criticism, but now he has come over all brave. If the government had taken his advice, presumably it would now have a strong record (as it claims) on environmental policies. If it was not taking his advice, why did he continue to take our money from it? Why was he not principled enough, this paragon of the green virtues, to resign?

Porritt is one of those who claims that green issues are of paramount concern; that the end is nigh for the world if they are not addressed. Yet, for taxpayers' money, he was prepared to keep silent for nine precious years when - as he would now have us believe - the government was failing to address them. When he sneers that Britain is a "...world leader in green rhetoric..." and accuses the government of hypocrisy, does he not see the irony of that?

In a mildly indignant tone, a government spokesman is quoted as saying;

Jonathan Porritt last week praised our Low Carbon Transition Plan which is backed by active steps to make sure firms in the UK grab the growth and job opportunities in nuclear, renewable, electric car and other growth industries.

Ah but yes, dear boy, last week you were still paying him with money looted from us. Prime Minister Balladur of France once cynically observed;

In politics there is only gratitude for favours yet to be received

It seems the insufferable, holier-than-thou Greens are more like their political opponents than they pretend.

The Englishman on "Saint Al"

Link: An Englishman's Castle: Balance on Channel 4.

I have said this often to my friends and colleagues, but have never published it. The Englishman's post stimulated to me to write it in a comment over at his Castle, so I reproduce it here (with apologies for quoting myself);

Al Gore is the 21st Century's Karl Marx. His influential presentation of pseudo-scientific gobbledegook and its adoption as gospel truth by the gullible masses (of intellectuals) will kill millions of the real masses and ensure that hundreds of millions more live their whole lives in unnecessary poverty because of arrested economic development. His ideas justify ruthless centralisation of state power on "humanitarian" grounds and are therefore irresistibly attractive to politicians of a certain ilk, who will live high on the hog behind closed doors while their subject peoples suffer and die. Stupid mug punters will fall for the spiel because it's "for a better future." It will all collapse in chaos, with only Guardian journalists and British academics still believing in it when the scales have fallen from everyone else's eyes. The parallel is exact.

There. I have it off my chest. Now the anthropogenic climate change fanatics can use their sophisticated debating skills (i.e. calling names which draw parallels with neo-Nazis) on me. See if I care. History, I fear, will prove me right. I am sorry to disappoint Osama bin Laden, who no doubt covets the title, but Al Gore may just be the most dangerous man alive.

Another point of view

h/t Douglas S. Harford

Chief scientist in sports cars warning to women

Link: Chief scientist in sports cars warning to women - Telegraph.

It's official. The Government acknowledges no boundaries to its role in our lives. Now it is trying to tell women to which men they should be sexually attracted. One can't help wondering if they are being disinterested though. Does the Government's chief scientist (pictured, with cheesy grin) have no personal interest in suggesting attractive women should fancy nerds?

In the famous words of  Mandy Rice-Davies "Well he would, wouldn't he?"

The deceit behind global warming

Link: The deceit behind global warming - Telegraph.

Please read this, if only to get a flavour of the true character of Al Gore. Gore's involvement in building a new justification for State Power after the final discrediting of Socialism began when, as a young Senator, he chaired Senate hearings on "global warming." These hearings, arguably, started the whole juggernaut rolling. Gore had studied under Dr Roger Revelle, a distinguished American oceanographer, who had commissioned temperature readings which suggested there might be a problem.

Gore owes his Nobel Prize and his approaching canonisation to the Revelle connection. Yet, as the authors of the book reviewed in the linked article point out, he ratted out his mentor shamefully for political advantage. Speaking of Gore's failed efforts to get the US Senate to ratify the Kyoto Treaty in 1997 they comment;

Not the least of his efforts was his bid to suppress an article co-authored by Dr Revelle just before his death. Gore didn't want it to be known that his guru had urged that the global warming thesis should be viewed with more caution.

What scum these politicians are. Science and truth are nothing to them; nor are friendship, duty or the teacher/student relationship. All that matters to them is frightening the ignorant masses into giving them more power.

h/t The Englishman

Ask David

I have posted a question to the WebCameron site about the reported contents of the Conservative Party's  "Greener Skies" paper. I would really appreciate it if you could please head over there and vote for  Mr Cameron to answer the question. Thanks.

Cameron considers tax hikes on air travel

Link: Cameron considers tax hikes on air travel | Uk News | News | Telegraph.

I may be about to set a record for the shortest membership of a political party. This week, David Cameron having recently announced a policy I agreed with, I sent off my form to join "Conservatives Abroad." Before the form has even reached London however the Conservative Party has managed to infuriate me. According to the Telegraph:

The Conservatives will also suggest - most controversially of all - rationing individuals to as little as a single short-haul flight each year; any further journeys would attract progressively higher taxes, a leaked document entitled Greener Skies suggests.

If this is true, Dave Cameron has lost all touch with reality. The Shadow Chancellor is saying that the proposals will target "frequent flyers," i.e. people like me who fly at least once every month. Anyone who lives that way will tell you we don't do it for frivolous pleasure. We do it because our businesses require it. Businesses that send money back to Britain because our services constitute the country's "invisible exports."

These proposals would spell the end for the City of London. New York is the biggest stock exchange in the world, but only on the basis of American business. The biggest international exchange is in London. Why should that exchange, and the banks and professional firms that serve it, remain in a country that penalises international business? How will they visit, on competitive terms, the foreign businesses they serve?

These proposals would damage Britain's exports generally. Goods don't sell themselves and services need to be delivered in the shape of people flying to the customers to provide them. Better to locate the companies in countries that don't make that as difficult and expensive as possible.

These proposals would spell the end for airlines based in Britain. Since the Tories are talking of penalising anything more than "a single short-haul flight" per year, they would spell the end of a lot more besides. Britain has more expatriates than most countries, because its business is more international . Will Britain's mobile business people be prepared to expatriate, if they and their families will be increasingly cut off from home?

How can a conservative party, supposedly in favour of free markets, seriously advocate rationing? It's quite insane. As they are saying over at Samizdata, the Conservative nostalgia for the past has gone too far:

The Conservative Party has long been regarded as having a certain nostalgic, and some would say romantic, yearning for the past. I had no idea that this included a desire to drag us all back to the 19th Century

Fortunately, before they ever get the chance to kill the City of London, British exports or Britain's international business culture, these policies will kill the Conservative Party.

graphics from the collection of David Levine

Let Them Eat Tofu, by Ann Coulter

Link: Let Them Eat Tofu! by Ann Coulter - HUMAN EVENTS.

God bless America. Even her wet liberals can sing and she produces real Conservatives, with enough fire in their bellies to evaporate a Guardianista at 100 yards. How I roared at the following line:

"The whole U.S. will look like Amagansett, with no one living in it except their even-tempered maids (for "diversity"), themselves and their coterie..."

To get the full effect, you need to read the whole thing, Please do. You won't regret it. Who cares if she's right about the science? All women should be this passionate and funny.

H/T Theo Spark [Parental Advisory], who is on very fine form today.

Green talk but no green walk? | Ethical living | Guardian Unlimited Environment

Link: Green talk but no green walk? | Ethical living | Guardian Unlimited Environment.

I honestly think this is the best confession I have ever read in Pravda  The Grauniad. One of its writers effectively admits, without a flicker of embarrassment, that he thinks his readers' principles are often just for show.

"Hands up anyone who isn't a hypocrite. Come on, own up. Who out there actually lives by every one of the principles they profess to uphold?"

For the benefit of any passing Guardianistas, please consider that a principle you merely "profess" to uphold is more of an affectation, really. Still, it probably impresses your "right on" friends down at the wine bar every bit as much as a real principle, so don't worry.

On the other hand, if you would like to start living a principled life, perhaps you should use more intellectual rigour when forming your principles? You might consider only adopting those you are able to live up to? You might reflect on the notion that, in professing principles for others to adhere to, while failing to do so yourself, you are following in some fairly unsavoury footsteps.

Just a thought.

'Contaminated' fuel fury

Link: BBC NEWS | UK | Drivers tell of 'contaminated' fuel fury.

This is an interesting story. Early indications suggest that the fuel in question originates from Greenergy, an independent oil company specialising in less environmentally-unfriendly fuels.  Its "mission statement," in typical jargon, is:

To deliver financial and environmental solutions to our customers through innovation and the development and management of secure, sustainable fuel supply chains.

The company ships 275 trucks of fuel a day (one full oil tanker). If an entire consignment was defective (or made defective by the company's "green" additives), then many cars will have been damaged.

While every company should be considering the environmental impact of its products, I worry about a company which focuses more on "green" issues than quality.  The "mission statement" is notable for the absence of any reference to quality and it should be remembered that the "customers" mentioned are the supermarkets and independent petrol stations, not the motorists running about, all unknowing, with "innovative"  additives in their fuel. Consider also the following quote from their website which, in the current context, is rather interesting:

Our specifications are at the leading edge of technology, driving forward the debate in Europe and the UK on the relationship between fuel quality [my emphasis] and emissions.

We must wait and see who, if anyone, is to blame for this story. Greenergy may be entirely innocent and I don't mean to suggest otherwise. My only comment for now is that customers should drive businesses, not political posturing or "debates."