Interesting EU petition.

There is an EU petition, mentioned in the Indy, that so far has around 38,000 signatures.

This is where it is

This is the background, which is provided in each of the languages of the European Union. Mrs Rigby has chosen to share the English version :-

Petition [EN]: We, European citizens of all origins and of all political persuasions, wish to express our total opposition to the nomination of Tony Blair to the Presidency of the European Council. To sign the petition, please go to the bottom of this page. follow this link

Whilst she would hesitate to influence, or appear to coerce, anybody who might chance upon this blog post, Mrs Rigby does think it is rather odd that such a huge 'democracy' as the EU does not give its' citizens the opportunity to vote for its' very first 'President'. Instead those already in authority have presumed that they are better placed to make that decision on our behalf.

Because of this Mrs Rigby urges you to read the full text of the petition and then make up your own mind - perhaps mulling over the relative merits of Mr Blair and the other 'candidates' for the job ...

Here's more from the Indy article :-

The alternative front-runners

Jan Peter Balkenende 4/1: Current Dutch PM, a Christian Democrat once described as a 'petit bourgeois Harry Potter'

Jean-Claude Juncker 5/1: Prime Minister of Luxembourg, author of the Maastricht Treaty and therefore creator of the euro

Paavo Lipponen 6/1: Former PM of Finland, a social democrat who supported the Iraq war but is not a toxic figure in Europe

Mary Robinson 8/1: Former president of Ireland and UN human rights chief whose odds at Ladbrokes shortened yesterday

Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change

Apparently today is "Blog Action Day"

"Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web."

This year they want the hot topic, discussed by all bloggers round the globe, to be "Climate Change", and they want blogs to register with their site too.

Mrs Rigby notes that quite a few people are already talking about Climate Change, for example Samizdata, which is where she read about this 'action day' - she'd never have heard of it otherwise.

It's interesting that the BBC has decide to join the party, with an article telling us that in a very few years the North Pole will be ice free. Bit of a contrast to last Friday's article

You see, that's one of the problems.

The experts who want to convince us the planet is doomed, and doomed very soon if we don't pay a lot of money into carbon credit schemes, don't keep to their own script. They don't talk about "Global Warming" any more because they realised it isn't happening, although all the populist, high profile, reports say that it is. Today's piece on the BBC is a case in point, it directly contradicts the earlier article. Something within it has also been picked up within the comments on Wattsupwiththat The Top Ten Reasons why I think Catlin Arctic Ice Survey data can’t be trusted

Alan the Brit (06:07:15) :

timbrom (04:07:53) :
“The seasoned Arctic Explorer, who was the first person to trek to the North Pole alone, was forced to continue with just a simple ice drill. During the 73 day trek he took 1,500 readings, often during pitch blackness and with windchill factors down to -70 degree C. The team also took thousands of visual observations to give an impression of how the shape of the ice sheet is changing. ”
“Mr Hadow insisted the effort was worth it. He pointed out that no other readings of this year’s winter sea ice was available to scientists and surface readings can pick up changes in the ice that were not being picked up by computer models.”

Changes like recovery I presume!
Presumably they made those “observations” in daylight or they might have got a rather different impression in the dark! Taking “accurate” readings by torchlight would be tricky in most cases too.
1500 holes/73 days is around 20 holes a day. Is it feasible in those conditions to walk 6km (3¾ miles) per day for 435km & do that back breaking, arm twisting work, day in day out, breaking open the equipment, setting it up, drilling, reading, packing away again, loding up the back-packs, trudging off again, etc???? I am presuming for now that it was all manual work as battery life would be critical in such conditions for power tools. I have my doubts. As I understand it the exteme cold can play tricks with the mind for even the fittest of us, how do we know they were not so affected? Come to think of it, if they were using radar electronics for the first week or so that bumps it up to almost 23 holes a day. (They should have gone a year earlier & they could have hitched a lift with Jeremy Clarkeson & James May in their 4 x 4, although I somehow doubt that those two would actuallly want them aboard.)
Good job the good Professor managed to mention satellite data, or Pen would be right!

Another thing all these experts forget is that not all ordinary people are ill-educated. Some went through school, college or university before government got their hands on the curriculum and started massaging it to suit an agenda. It's very difficult to remove all traces of a good education, and bullying makes some people very stubborn.

There are people who don't trust government, and who don't trust big businesses. There are people who think they can see through global environmental policies, and believe they're just money-making scams. There are people who believe that wind turbines are a visual PR con, costing more to make than they'll ever give back.

All these people get called names by the establishment, they're almost as bad as the 'vile' cigarette smokers.

There are also people who are old enough to have lived through tough times caused by very cold, very long, winters. These people have personal knowledge of the cycles of climate - hot followed by cold - but they only see this data mentioned as an anomaly, because otherwise the upwards graphs wouldn't work. These people don't believe that anomalies cause snow to lay on the ground for several weeks, and normally ice-free rivers to freeze over. They believe low temperatures and climatic conditions cause it.

When people read weather reports of the earliest snowfall for x years they're again sceptical. Maybe the powers-that-be can explain this, reported on Wattsupwiththat

Early start to winter ≈20% of USA is covered in snow already

Here is the accompanying table and discussion:
October 13, 2009

Area Covered By Snow:	19.9%
Area Covered Last Month:	0.0%
Snow Depth
Average:	0.7 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	728.8 in
Std. Dev.:	2.1 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average:	0.1 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	403.4 in
Std. Dev.:	0.4 in

By way of comparison, here is the October 13th USA snow cover for the last few years:
2003- .7
2004- .3
2005- 1.7
2006- 3.7
2007- .3
2008-12.7
2009-19.9

Mrs Rigby believes that climate changes, it's been changing for millennia.

Why should mankind be so arrogant, and believe we can mess with what the planet is doing naturally, and change natural cycles solely for the advantage of one single species of animal.

Are MPs revolting?

Interesting choice of words by The Mirror :-

Revolting MPs says they won't pay back expenses (their grammar, not mine!)

Revolting MPs last night threatened to dodge demands to repay thousands of pounds in the expenses scandal.

and in The Times :-

MPs threaten to reject ‘unfair’ expenses report (with a nice picture of those naughty climate change activists!)

MPs will attempt today to dodge demands to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds as the expenses scandal engulfs Parliament once more.

And in the FT there's this article, by Jim Pickard, which I'm sure he/theythey won't mind me sharing. :-

Union of the angry backbenchers - Tory 1922 Committee to meet Labour’s PLP

My sources tell me that backbenchers from the Parliamentary Labour Party are to meet their equally angry counterparts from the Tory 1922 Committee to discuss what to do about Sir Thomas Legg. They are all furious about the fact that his criteria are being applied retrospectively. “Why not just go back and decide that Germany won the 1966 World Cup?”, one asked me.

There was a meeting of 40 or 50 Labour MPs with Nick Brown and Harriet Harman this morning in Room 11 in the House of Commons. They were a tad upset, I’m told. Some were moaning that there were clerical errors in Legg’s paperwork (eg dates were wrong), others that papers had been lost.

Can anyone else think of an occasion when the two groups have gathered together? Curious times indeed. I’m not sure where and when it will happen yet; I’ll update you in due course.

UPDATE

Except they won’t get it. Despite a groundswell of enthusiasm among the Labour ranks for this meeting I’m told that Tony Lloyd, chair of the PLP, has put a kibbosh on it. “The prospect of a joint action…it’s just not going to happen,” says my (more authoratative) source. Could it possibly be that someone has been sat on?

Prosecuted for criminal damage ... to hamburgers.

It seems that when Stephen Morgan's hamburgers failed to arrive with the rest of his food delivery he did something that has led to a criminal prosecution for :-

criminal damages to hamburgers, worth £5

Stephen will be appearing in Swansea Magistrates Court on 10th October.

Mrs Rigby can't imagine the CPS pursuing a prosecution that is neither in the public interest nor value for money, so presumably the case will either cost less than £5 or assaulting hamburgers is a dangerous pastime. Otherwise it would be a waste of taxpayer's money - right?

Mrs Rigby had a quick rummage through the depths of the internet to see if anybody had been taken to court, and been given a criminal record for something that cost even less. Here you go ...

Court case over 90p Oyster Card bus fare to cost £10,000

Mrs R is delighted by this ongoing vigilance, rapid intervention, charge and appropriate punishment of lawbreakers. She's pleased to know that anybody who breaks the rules or tries to get a free ride will be prosecuted - no matter how little the sum involved. After all, the Rigby family pay their way, so why shouldn't anybody else.

Ah, it doesn't always work that way.

Following Sir Thomas Legg's decision that Jacqui Smith," ... wrongly classified her main family home in Reddich as her second home ..." she is not to face prosecution. Her punishment was to stand up in Parliament and say, "Sorry!" and then go home with a clear conscience, and without a stain on her character. There will be no criminal record for Jacqui Smith for taking around £117k of taxpayers' money, and she's not being forced to pay it back - yet. (Mr Brown might change his mind because Dave C ordered Tories to repay any over-claims or face the sack.)

All this is nice for her and her family, and they won't face penury. No doubt it's something of a relief too, because it would be awfully unpleasant and very demeaning for an MP to be questioned by the Police, have their DNA harvested, and face criminal prosecution. Ah, but it happened to Damian Green, and Jeffrey Archer was sent to prison in 2001, after he was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice (that's 'telling lies under oath', and 'fabricating or disposing of evidence') - such a terrible thing that prison was the best place for him.

But wait!

It doesn't always work out like that, because although Lord Ahmed killed somebody when he was using his mobile phone whilst driving his car he didn't go to prison. Harriet Harman is said to have driven away after hitting a parked car whilst using her mobile phone, but she might get away with a slapped wrist. A certain Mr Blair is known to have shredded all sorts of documents before he left Downing Street, I wonder why?

Mrs Rigby wouldn't mind betting that Stephen Morgan would be delighted to be able to say sorry, or be sure of getting away with a slapped wrist for assaulting a hamburger, but the Police and the CPS won't let him.

Mrs Rigby believes that it shouldn't matter what political party anybody belongs to, or who their friends are, especially if they've broken the rules and used somebody else's money as if it's their own.
Because of this she thinks it IS in the public interest to at least attempt to recover the money misappropriated and treated as personal spending money by Jacqui Smith and other MPs of all political colours.

We are, as even Gordon Brown himself says, "... facing difficult times ..." and the country's broke. The country's so broke that we're selling bits of it off to the highest bidder.

Wouldn't you think that these MPs would be proud to 'do their bit' for their country? They expect the rest of us to, and to use a phrase oft quoted by a well-known supermarket, "Every little helps!"

Territorial Army loses out to FairTrade

On 10th October the FairTrade organisation carried an article announcing this

The Fairtrade Foundation is celebrating 15 years of the FAIRTRADE Mark with news that the UK Government is to provide £12 million over the next four years in funding to Fairtrade and its international partners

On 10th October our newspapers report this

The Territorial Army has been told to stop training for six months to save millions of pounds from the Army’s budget because of growing financial pressure on the Ministry of Defence.

Mrs Rigby notes that the Ministry of Defence carries no article referring to the cuts, nor does it carry any recent article referring to the well-known fact that members of the Territorial Army are being used on operations overseas, alongside the regular Army.

The Mirror is pretty annoyed :-

Britain's part-time soldiers will be at risk in battle after devastating cuts to the Territorial Army's training budget, experts warned last night.
In a desperate drive to save money, defence chiefs have ordered £6.4million a year to be saved. They have even axed live firing on ranges for the TA.
Just two weeks ago, a TA soldier was shot dead in Afghanistan while guarding his base.

Mrs Rigby knows that her comment about this is late, but put alongside last night's little announcement that bits of England are up for sale to the highest bidder it all smacks of Britain being a "posh coat and no drawers" country.

The British Government is giving FairTrade more than twice the amount that the TA needs - and that money will have been either borrowed or will be fresh off the printing presses as a result of 'Quantitative Easing'.

Brown and his chum Darling know we can't afford overseas aid - but they don't care any more. They know that by sometime next year they're unlikely to be in charge of anything governmental, so it doesn't matter.

Brown seems determined to pretend that Britain is rich. He prances around the world stage telling everybody who'll listen that we're well-off. He tells them that his policies have staved off recession and to prove it he has to send loads of money overseas.

But, surely it's all a long-term con. They know their speeches will be on record for all to see, and so will the proof of their largesse. They're sure to refer to all this once another party holds the reins and has to do the mopping-up exercise and try to find realistic ways of paying the burgeoning bills - including those currently concealed by creative accounting and PFI.

When is Brown going to realise that there's no news blackout? When is he going to realise that the rest of the world knows very well what's happening in Britain and is sniggering behind their curtains?

Brown and Darling refuse to even think about cutting benefit payments. They daren't, because if they did the bubble would burst and the idle would have to think before they spend - and when that happens they get angry and march on Parliament, at least they did last time and managed to bring down a government.

So what does our Labour government do? It tells the world our Army is underfunded, and proves it by shutting down our reservist training - neither of which are particularly clever things to do when you're fighting a war. Then Government announces that it's going to sell off bits of the country, whilst also thinking of new money-raking scams such as fining people up to £1,000 for putting dirty rubbish in the bin.

The country is beginning to feel a bit like a sale at a decaying big house - one that's being sold off to pay death duties. Some are viewing the crumbling remains with dismay, a little surprised by the trash and soiled linen that's up for sale, whilst others are picking over the spoils of our once-wealthy nation, hoping to pick up a bargain that will eventually line their own pockets.

Britain was once rich. Britain was once proud. Labour has destroyed our pride. Labour has spent the country's money.

Labour policies have quietly stoked the flames of dissent, whilst ordering us to be 'inclusive' and introducing draconian laws that stifle free speech - except for the favoured and sometimes violent few who mustn't be upset. Social policies have split the country into warring factions. Labour has encouraged a culture of envy, greed and spite, whilst hiding behind a smokescreen of tolerance and equality.

Labour has encouraged an apologist state, one that denies the good in our past. Britons are ordered to welcome the diversity of incoming hordes, rather than encourage newcomers to assimilate, acknowledge and respect not only our language but also our own rich history and culture. A culture that Labour has done its utmost to dilute - claiming those who cling to our tattered banners are either racist or xenophobic.

Labour, when it eventually falls from power, will leave Britain resembling a dying lion, our proud national beast. Rather like a dead lion Britain will quietly succumb to the circling vultures who care only for themselves.

Bits of England for sale.

The Government has announced, late on a Sunday (article timed 6.56 pm BST in the Telegraph) and the day before Parliament returns from the Summer Recess, that it's going to be selling off bits of England to the highest bidder.

They will be selling :-

Both Dartford Crossings (bridge and tunnel) - part of which were meant to be toll free by now.

The Student Loan Company - that hasn't even managed to "loan" enough money for the current years' students to pay their tuition and accommodation fees.

The Channel Tunnel rail link.

The Tote, about which Mrs R knows absolutely nothing.

A 32% stake in Uranium Mining company Uremco.

A proportion of the state -owned property portfolio - which of course won't cause a property market crash.

They hope to raise a total £16 billion pounds, which should be enough to clear a bit of Britain's current debt - but will leave the country poorer in the long term because income from these sources will no longer land in government coffers, instead it'll go into a private company's pockets. (Mrs R thought Labour preferred socialism to capitalism.)

Of course they won't have made the same mistake as when they sold off the gold, causing the price to plummet, or will they?

Mrs R notes that each of the tangible assets is in England, nothing from either Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland is being sold, and there's no consideration of reducing public spending by, perhaps, reducing payments made to layabouts who can't even be bothered to get out of bed to earn enough to put food on their table.

Asset stripping? Surely not!

Getting cooler?

Tucked away on the BBC Science pages, and 'last updated' at 15:22 GMT Friday 9th October, is an article that's failed to thrill the media, who are instead much more interested in the "Green" protesters who've managed to avoid the Police who guard our Parliament against attack from terrorists, and have climbed onto the roof.

The article is written by Paul Hudson, the BBC Climate Correspondent, and this is part of what it says.

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

So all those graphs they keep showing us that say the earth is warming have been porkies? Surely not, "they" are all honourable people, with our best interests at heart.

Now Mrs R can remember being very worried when, in the sixties "they" told us it was so cold because Earth was entering a cooling phase and we could expect a mini-Ice Age. The same sort of thing happened in the eighties, and "they" told us we might be going back to the days of a frozen River Thames - with ice thick enough to hold parties. Anybody else remember?

When "they" first started saying scary things about our climate, mentioning CFCs, the Ozone Layer and so on, Mrs R was slightly sceptical because "they" all talked as if they knew what things were like before. They didn't ever mention that the hole in the Ozone Layer, that could only be seen from space, couldn't have ever been "seen" or measured before we were able to go into space and take a look. The CFCs were blamed for the ozone hole, so they took them out of our fridges and out of our aerosols, and put in something that could go bang instead.

Other stuff has happened, including taking lead out of petrol, which meant other chemicals had to be put into it to keep the engines working, so they invented catalytic converters - which chuck out sulphur dioxide. Mrs R remembers acid rain, and all the damage apparently caused by sulphur gases produced from burning coal - but apparently it's now just fine to have the same gas coming out of our cars - although smoking filthy cigarettes in the wrong place is a criminal offence.

"They" tell us that CO2, the horrible stuff that we all breathe out, has made our planet warmer - because it's capable of trapping heat. But few of "them" ever seem to say that lots of CO2 is good for plants and makes them grow bigger and better, which in turn might mean we can grow more food crops and so feed the world's increasing population of people.

"They" never mention that loads of CO2 might have led to the giant plants that were eaten by the massive plant-eating dinosaurs, and these days they never, ever, mention the atmospheric pollution from volcanic eruptions. They only ever blame mankind, and modern mankind at that, and tell us we're naughty.

None of "them" ever seem to look at history and find information about the Romans being able to grow grapes as far north as Hadrian's Wall. And none of "them" ever seem to mention that once almost all of Britain was covered with a huge layer of ice. None of "them" ever seem to mention continental drift and other geological forces beyond our control, but try to scare us into believing that earthquakes and tsunamis can be caused by too much CO2.

"They" brought in a lovely new law recently that said we'd all got to have energy saving lightbulbs, that contain mercury vapour, but we mustn't have mercury in either barometers or thermometers because it's a deadly poison that pollutes the environment.

Is it any wonder there are sceptics and nonbelievers - but not amongst the young who have been brainwashed by the national curriculum, and are no longer encouraged to think for themselves.

All "they" seem to want to do these days is make us feel guilty and find a way of punishing us, by making us pay lots of money for trying to keep warm in the winter, to have lights that are bright enough to read by, and enough electricity to keep our computers working.

These "green" people, not the ones from Mars, have (apparently) successfully managed to stop the new power station at Kingsnorth - but where do they think we're going to get our electricity from?

Energy supply is critical, British power stations desperately need replacing and here we have a French company (which employs Ed Milliband's girlfriend) deciding Britain doesn't need any more generating capacity - they even say there's been a drop in consumption. (Maybe that was because it was summer!) But, maybe it's because Eon has got plenty of power to spare, but I wouldn't mind betting it'll cost a heck of a lot more for it to cross the Channel once we can no longer make electricity for ourselves.

The new name of "Climate Change" can mean either upwards or downwards - so "they" will be right whatever happens, and us mugs will be footing the bill.

We're going to need that power to keep warm, because Global Warming isn't happening and few houses these days can be heated by either wood or coal - they don't have chimneys, and gas fires don't work without that little electrical spark.

Either we pay more or we'll seriously have to cut back and lose some of the benefits of 21st century life, because the lights will start going out - and very soon too.

.....

Added later.

A post written by Goodnight Vienna on "Calling England" says:-

"In the Times today a curious piece centred around the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. They maintain that in order to meet the targets for CO2 emission reduction, living standards in Britain and the West in general must fall dramatically.

The wealthier parts of the world, including Britain, will have to seriously consider reducing their levels of consumption over the next 10-15 years while we put in place low-carbon technologies.

That may mean having only one car per household, a smaller fridge, buying fewer clothes and electronic goods and curtailing the number of weekend breaks that we have.

Read the rest of it here, and make of it what you will.

Media silence is cold as ice.

Not a peep in the media, so Mrs R will link to Wattsupwiththat and the latest from Antarctica.

Here you go!

The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history.
Such was the finding reported last week by Marco Tedesco and Andrew Monaghan in the journal Geophysical Research Letters:

Read the rest here

Mrs R wonders why we aren't all being told about this, surely it's good news?

But, umm, mebbe not if you're deeply into carbon offsetting or carbon futures!

You know, Mrs Rigby remembers learning about Tulip Mania with single bulbs changing hands at tens of thousands of pounds each ... somebody got rich. There was a scam called the South Sea Bubble ... it made some people a lot of money. How about Charles Ponzi?
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Quote of the month!

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This has to be Mrs R's quote of the month

'It is a sorry state of affairs when a guy can't safely walk down the street in a mini-skirt and make-up without getting grief from some idiot.'

Spoken by Daniel Lerwell, when interviewed about how he and James Lilley had been targetted by drunks while on a stag night dressed as transvestites

Daniel and James are professional cagefighters, their drunken attackers could not lay claim to being fighters of any sort although Mrs R wonders if they have experience of getting away with street attacks.

Mrs R hopes they might now think twice before they confront anybody else.

If so, good! Lesson learned.
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Compare and contrast

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Compare and contrast the background of these two stories carried in the Mail :-

Transsexual turned down for breast enlargement claims sex discrimination in case that will cost taxpayers thousands

A transsexual who wants bigger breasts must have her plea for surgery on the NHS heard in the High Court, a judge said yesterday.

The ruling is likely to cost the Health Service more than £100,000 in legal fees and paperwork on top of taxpayerfunded legal aid costs for the unnamed transsexual.

and

Judge Nicola Davies QC declared that the transsexual must have her day in court after hearing that she had undergone 'significant suffering' because she has not had cosmetic breast enlargement.

and

The transsexual, who has been living as a woman for more than ten years, claims the surgery is essential to her female identity and emotional well-being and that the refusal of the operation is sex discrimination and a breach of her human rights.

Then there's this story:-

Plumber with shattered arm left horrifically bent out of shape has operation 'cancelled four times'.

A plumber whose arm was left twisted grotesquely out of shape in an accident ten months ago has had an operation to correct it 'cancelled four times'.

and

Mr Eeles claims his first two operations at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, were cancelled due to a lack of beds and operating time respectively.

His third operation in February was postponed after he was found to have high blood pressure, while the fourth, scheduled for May, was abandoned because of concerns about his smoking.

and

'How the Jobcentre can say I'm fit I don't know. I was on incapacity benefit until a few weeks ago when I went to be assessed by a doctor in Luton.

'He said because I can turn on a tap and I can lift my arm I don't qualify for help.

'Now I'm worried about losing my house. I've got a mortgage on it and there are credit cards debts I'm struggling to pay because I can't work.'

The key difference in treatment, or lack of it, is of course in the text.

Mr Eeles appears to have no right to proper treatment to mend a badly broken arm, even though he has paid his National Insurance and wants to earn a living.

The un-named "C" who is becoming a Mrs is allowed to appeal on grounds of equality and human rights.

There would appear no consideration of either equality or human rights regarding health care of cigarette smokers - unless it means being treated with contempt.
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