A Place to Stand

This graph of global temperature has recently been published:

Using data from eighteen 2000-year-long proxy temperature series from all around the world that were not developed from tree-ring data (which provide significant interpretive challenges), the author (1) smoothed the data in each series with a 30-year running mean, (2) converted the results thereby obtained to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from each member of that series, and then (3) derived the final mean temperature anomaly history defined by the eighteen data sets by a simple averaging of the individual anomaly series, a procedure that he rightfully emphasizes is "transparent and simple."

.... "the mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values."

Loehle notes that "the 1995-year reconstruction shown here does not match the famous hockey stick shape," which clearly suggests that one of them is a poorer, and the other a better, representation of the truth. Because of its simplicity and transparency, as well as a host of other reasons described in detail by Loehle -- plus what we have learned since initiating our Medieval Warm Period Record-of-the Week feature -- it is our belief that Loehle's curve is by far the superior of the two in terms of the degree to which it likely approximates the truth.

I love the qualification of "superior" as being only in terms of its truth. That is a scientist not a PR man speaking.

Note that this takes no account of records from weather stations which, a century ago were in open country & are now in the middle of towns, which seems to be the explanation for alleged recently recorded rises.

Coincidentally an article in the New York Times says that those who died during the Black Death were largely already weak.

This was reported by Jerry Pournelle & led me to remember that the period of the Black Death was at the end of the Medieval Warming Period, though prior to the Little Ice Age, when temperatures had fallen to pretty much where they are now. He published my comment & added (in italics) his own.

If the Black Death mainly killed the already weak it suggests that it was an inevitable result of decreased crop production caused by the end of the Medieval Warm Period. We know that there had been a major population rise during the warm period.

Neil Craig

But we all know there wasn't an actual Medieval Warm and there couldn't have been a population expansion. Anyway it was the Gulf Stream, and the Greenland Colonies were tiny, and the Inuit don't really have stories of the times when they were reindeer herders. It's all an illusion.

Seems that the masses aren't exactly worried about it:

The League of Conservation Voters has been tracking the number of questions asked of the presidential candidates on the Sunday news shows and the debates televised by the major networks. Of the more than 2,900 questions asked, only four have mentioned the words "global warming."

But this won't stop our politicians from putting the lights out as happens in other 3rd world countries:

Leading South African gold and platinum mines stopped production today because of a lack of power, as the Government announced emergency steps to deal with outages causing chaos and misery and threatening economic growth.

....The outages have undermined confidence in South Africa, with incidents such as the stranding of hundreds of people on tourism icon Table Mountain because of a power cut gaining international media attention.

"The unprecedented unplanned power outages must now be treated as a national electricity emergency situation that has to be addressed with urgent, vigorous and co-ordinated actions," Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin told journalists after a cabinet meeting today.

"We are viewing the next two years as being critical," he said, as government officials unveiled measures, including rationing, price hikes and a massive switch to solar power.

However the EU can be trusted to be ready to spend the money to not produce the power

Few might guess, from the two-dimensional reporting of these plans in the media, just what a gamble with Europe's future we are undertaking - spending trillions of pounds for a highly dubious return, at a devastating cost to all our economies.

The targets Britain will be legally committed to reach within 12 years fall under three main headings. Firstly, that 15 per cent of our energy should come from renewable sources such as wind (currently 1 per cent). Secondly, that 10 per cent of our transport fuel should be biofuels. Thirdly, that we accept a more draconian version of the "emissions trading scheme" that is already adding up to 12 per cent to our electricity bills.

The most prominent proposal is that which will require Britain to build up to 20,000 more wind turbines, including the 7,000 offshore giants announced by the Government before Christmas. To build two turbines a day, nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower, is inconceivable. What is also never explained is their astronomic cost.

At £2 million per megawatt of "capacity" (according to the Carbon Trust), the bill for the Government's 33 gigawatts (Gw) would be £66 billion (and even that, as was admitted in a recent parliamentary answer, doesn't include an extra £10 billion needed to connect the turbines to the grid)


And equally unreported is the EU's drive to get the rest of the world in a trade war with us:

Commission plans to tighten Europe's greenhouse gas reduction regime, presented on 23 January 2008, recognised the risk that new legislation would put European companies at a competitive disadvantage compared to countries with less stringent climate protection laws, such as the US, China and India.....

To address this threat, the draft legislation includes proposals to impose restrictions on imports unless an international agreement subjecting all industrialised countries to similar climate change mitigation measures is reached.

According to the proposal, such a "carbon equalisation system" could take the form of an obligation for foreign companies doing business in Europe to obtain emissions permits alongside European competitors.....

However, the mere fact that the EU is considering such action has already caused outrage among its trade partners.

The United States has warned it would "vigorously" resist any move to introduce a tax on American products based on its position in climate change negotiations. Last week, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab accused the EU of using the climate as an excuse for protectionism.

Legal experts remain divided on whether the EU's proposed measures would be compatible with international trade regulations, as the WTO has no clear provisions on the subject.

Excerpts from FCO covering letter:

Dear Mr Craig
........ Following a search of our current records I can confirm that some documents are available which mention the name of a cemetery called Dragodan and the investigation of human remains found there, which may be related to the period of inter ethnic violence in Kosovo in 1999. I enclose copies of these documents and Hansard archives I obtained in researching your questions. Some information has been redacted from the FCO documents as it is not relevant to your request.

I am sorry that the informatio in these documents does not enable me to answer your questions about the number of British police involved, whether any indictments have been issued or whether any other bodies were found. They also offer no clue as to when the bodies were buried at Dragodan so it is not possible to comment on the implication in your letter that a massacre took place during the period after British Forces had entered Kosovo. It appears that the investigation of this site was conducted under the auspices of the ICTY & it may be that they have information more readily available that would provide answers to your questions.

I can also confirm that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) holds more information falling within the description specified in your request in its historical records. However, we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £600.....
Yours Sincerely
(name not published to protect the probably innocent)
Western Balkans Group

My reply

Ref 0977/07
Dear --------------
Thank you for replying to my enquiry.

I think from the documents we can be certain beyond reasonable doubt of a number of facts.

1) That no British police were involved in any conventional murder investigation; that the ICTY "investigation" was deliberately carried out in such a way as to maintain a good relationship with our genocidal KLA allies, now sworn in as NATO police; that no DNA tests were made, which would certainly have been done had any serious investigation been done; and, since all records are now in your historical dept, that the number of people now working on solving what is officially the 2nd greatest murder case in contemporary UK history is zero.

2) That none of the dozens of perpetrators of this genocide has been prosecuted & that no real attempt has been made to do so.

3) I regret you have been unable to confirm if the number of bodies found has gone up though the Roma advice that the total of KLA murders in the area was 250-300 suggests 210 may be indeed the total at this particular mass grave though at least 360 unidentified bodies from the neighbourhood have been displayed by NATO.

4) I have independently been able to confirm the name of the Prime Minister at the time, which, you assure me, cost limitations precluded you finding out. He was a Mr T Blair.

Since Serb relatives confirm some victims were definitely alive when NATO took over on 1th June. e.g. "Sasa Ristanovic recognised a blue shirt his father, Momcilo, wore June 17, 1999 - the day he disappeared in the Kosovo city of Prizren" as AP has reported. Thus this genocide undeniably happened under UK authority.
http://www.truthinmedia.org/TruthinMedia/Bulletins2002/4-2.html
Secondary command authority lies with George Robertson & Robin Cook (deceased) who were Ministers for defence & foreign affairs. Under the doctrine of collective responsibility all other ministers also bear legal responsibility, as must a number of members of the FCO & armed forces. Since the war was a criminal aggression under the rules we accepted during the Nuremberg Trial & Parliament has also accepted that the war was illegal http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/780847.stm it follows without question that there is a prima faci case against all those invalid in the illegal war & genocide that they are guilty under British law of murder on a scale that makes the late Mr Frederick West look comparatively humane.

I presume the FCO has equally never expressed any regret about HMG rewarding the KLA for their genocide by allowing them to kidnap thousands of children, mainly female, from the streets of Kosovo to sell to brothels across Europe. The class from which our civil service is drawn once, in an earlier era, played an honourable part in the end of the slave trade.

One of the Yes Minister episodes has Sir Humphrey comfortable with the suggestion that he is a moral vacuum in a situation similar though much less serious than this deliberate genocide. It seems the civil service is indeed determined to live down to the most obscene expectations.
Sincerely
Neil Craig

This will include relevant sections or interesting sections of the 9 pages I have been sent & covering letter. My comments will be in italics:

Parliamentary Question 6th Feb 2002

123 Mrs Mahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made in identifying the bodies found in Dragodan and Suva Reka in Kosovo

124 Mrs Mahon : To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what progress has UNMIK made in tracing the missing Serbs in Kosovo.

No answer is given & I don't know if this is because it is a private written answer or not.
------------------------------
Source Unknown (not found on Google or Hansard either)

Mr Ancram: To ask the |Secretary of state for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many of the bodies found in the mass grave at Dragodan, Pristina have been identified, broken down by (a) ethnic background and (b) sex. {10450}
Mr McShane: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has exhumed 210 bodies from individual graves at the cemetery in Dragodan, Pristina. Of the bodies exhumed, 36 were females and 139 were male. The gender of 35 bodies could not be identified. According to the Missing Persons Unit of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), 52 of the 210 bodies have been identified to date. Five bodies were Kosovo Serbs (4 male & 1 female), 47 bodies were Kosovo Albanians (40 male & 7 female).
The reference to 210 "individual graves" is deliberate. A mass grave is ipso facto proof of genocide whereas 210 individual graves are merely proof of 210 murders. Normal practice is for the ICTY to classify 2 bodies as a mass grave, so clearly they have no doubts of who the culprits are here. Mr McShane used the same wording in his previous letter to me. Were he to admit the truth he would be admitting to our government complicity in genocide instead of merely 210 over enthusiastic murders.

Presumably the "identification" has been achieved entirely by having locals identify the remains rather than using DNA. Since Serbs had been "cleansed" it is amazing that as many as 5 were identified as Serb. It is quite likely that many of the Albanian "identifications" may be fraudulent since fraudulent claims of massacres by them were very common on the other hand the KLA is widely accepted as having killed as many Albanians as Serbs so finding bodies from both nationalities is not surprising. A DNA check would have proven whether the people identifying relatives were genuine. In fact, had a serious attempt been made there is no possible doubt that all of the bodies could have been identified by sex & most of them by race by the "investigators" testing DNA. I have written previously on the obvious refusal to seriously check DNA in Bosnia.
-------------------------------
the following is marked XXXX where blacked out & ' where a letter is obscured
FM PRISTINA
TO I'@EDIATE FCO
TELNO 64
OF 230600Z AUGUST 99

MASS GRAVES y/war crimes
11. XXXMedia reports talk of a mass grave at DragodanXXX this phrase had been obscured but I assume using a different colour of felt tip than the photocopier is designed for & thus the deleted words are visible. The phrase "war crimes" is handwritten & the stroke points to the censored phrase. I am told that all deletions were because the information is "not relevant" which I think we may take as a lie. I assume this deletion was because it proves that our government knew about this massacre, knew it was a "mass grave" despite MacShane's lie, & had no intention of doing anything about it until it became media knowledge the middle-class suburb of Pristina where our office and residence are located difficult for them not to know of it then. A local doctor reported finding nine sites with civilian bodies while looking for the body of a friend no mention of his nationality but since he was able to move around possibly he was an Albanian on the other hand most professionals were Serb so possibly he was a Serb & was able to persuade British military to give him protection as he searched. British squaddies seem not to have been as willing to turn their eyes from genocide as their superiors. Roma witnesses are reported as saying that there are between 20 and 50 sites in and around Pristina where 250-300 bodies are buried. Roma are generally described in the media as "allies" of the Serbs thus justifying genocide against them too so we can assume they are talking about mass graves created by our KLA "police"

WAR CRIMES: ORAHOVAC
12. KFOR have confirmed the arrest by Dutch & German troops of three Serbs in Orahovac on war crimes charges> Local Serbs have reacted strongly, demanding their release & complaining about double standards in treatment from KFOR. Tanjug Yugoslav news agency has also issued a statement drawing the inevitable comparison over war crimes between here and Bosnia and Croatia: it is always the Serbs that get picked on.
(comment: this along with a KFOR campaign to collect arms from Serbs inn the town, will create an interesting backdrop for the deployment of Russian KFOR troops into the town on 23 August. Albanian residents have threatened to prevent the Russians getting there). this is not relevant to the Dragodan genocide but has been reprinted because it shows the breathtaking dishonesty of the Btitish occupiers - there is no question, as the failure to arrest anybody for Dragodan proves, that the Serbian complaints of bias are 100% true & that the Foreign Office knows it - it is clear that by disarming Serbs but not KLA supporters (whom under the occupation treaty they specificly guaranteed to disarm) they are deliberately inciting the KLA to kill Russian UN troops
----------------------------
KOSOVO SCENES OF CRIME TEAMS: PROGRESS REPORT

SUMMARY
1. Scenes of crime teams working well. 67 bodies exhumed in first month. Accredited to UNMIK civilian police the "police" were created by swearing in entire units of the KLA . Good relations with ICTY, KFOR and others
DETAIL
2. I visited Kosovo 3-6 June. The first scenes of crime team which had arrived on 4n May, was just leaving, having exhumed 67 bodies. I observed the enthusiastic second team undertaking their first 2 exhumations onn 6th june. The first team had spent a large proportion of their time around Kosovo Polje and had spent a large proportion of their time at Dragodan cemetery in the outskirts of Pristina. The second team was due to work on some sites at Gracanica, but Serb unrest diverted them to the still unfinished Dragodan cemetery. ie NATO really wanted to get away from examining the largest mass grave in Kosovo as quickly as possible

3. The Kosovo Polje sites had proved unproductive, yielding only 3 bodies (all homicides). Of the 64 bodies recovered from unmarked, recent graves at Dragodan cemetery, 27 had died from natural causes but the remainder were homicides I don't know whether the reference to Dragodan cemetery is a separate location from the mass grave but photos of the later which used to be available on Decani suggest the main grave was not the cemetery.http://www.kosovo.net/dragodan6.jpg
. ICTY investigators were at pains to stress that empty grave sites had value in themselves, for example providing evidence of Serb removal of bodies after the intial burial or alternately providing evidence of KLA removal, if that were ever a matter of interest, or indeed that the KLA had been creating false "graves" for propaganda reasons. A thorough, or even not so thorough examination of these "graves" would have shown if they ever contianed human bodies. This, for obvious reasons, has clearly not been done in exactly the same way it was never done for what the CIA had assured us were "mass graves" in Bosnia which contained nothing. Our teams are also well aware that, even if their forensic evidence are not used in ICTY or UNMIK trials, identifying and returning bodies to families is important for Kosovan society this also suggests that all of the 158 bodies Mr McShane said were unidentified were in fact those of Serbs whose families had been ethnically cleansed & that he was perfectly well aware of this fact.

4. The core team members, who will stay for the full 6 month deployment, have built good relations with the key organisations in Pristina:
(a) Since the UN Secretariat's approval on 19 may that the team should be part of UNMIK civilian police ie the KLA, all team members '''''''''''' the 10 police officers & 5 forensic experts) are receiving '''ipol passes. I saw Commissioner Fredericksen who was pleased with arrangement and appreciated that the team were responding to both ICTY and UNMIK tasking (the Gracanic site is an UNMIK priority unlike the far larger Dragodan one) Det Supt XXXXXXXXXXXXX the team leader, and I spoke with the UNMIK finance people who seem agreeable to cope with the rapid turn-over of the 11 rotating team members by giving XXXXXX twice ? their daily subsistence in arrears at the end of their stints in theatre. XXXXXX will then repay the subsistence advances made by the British Office. The teams have UNMIK radios and receive UNMIK fuel looks like a minor scam.
.... ..... I had been disappointed by the obstructive attitude of one (British) member of ICTY staff at the start of the deployment, but I put the problem down to poor communication and a personality clash with the Hague. We have a good ally in John Ralston, Chief of investigations interesting that while all names of British representatives are censored MR Ralston who is not, technically, acting as a British civil servant isn't - such is the madness of bureaucracy in the Hague, and I do not expect the problem to recur I assume that the unnamed member was fired for being unwilling to support the position that Serb bodies don't count. It is always convenient for genocidal mass murderers to have a "good ally" running the organisation whose official duty is to bring war criminals, on all sides, to justice...... The Orahovac team is staffed by 2 international ICTY-funded teams & some gratis personnel small groups of Austrians, Swedes & Canadians and a larger German team so we have "gratis" workers collecting evidence but, with the marginal exception of the Swedes, all from countries which participated in a war which even the British parliament has subsequently acknowledged was criminal...........

The British scenes of crime teams are becoming well-known in Pristina, working within a web of other organisations and earning their respect obviously all other organisations there are KLA/NATO friendly so this acknowledges that the British "investigators" are not going to seriously investigate NATO/KLA crimes They have settled onto a productive working rhythm and morale is high presumably due to "obstructive" members being fired . They are dedicated people who are keen to do a good job.

The scenes of crime work, like any operation in Kosovo, can be thrown of course by various factors: political, personal & practical. But I do not forsee insurmountable problems. XXXXXXXXXXXXX is now more philosophical about taking setbacks in his stride & is coping with his frustrations of UN bureaucracy. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX & I aim to make regular visits over the summer to check things remain on an even keel Many thanks as usual to the British office in Pristina for their support. The invitation to the QBP went down very well with XXXXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Signed XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
War Crimes Coordinator
------------------------
UK SCENES OF CRIME TEAMS IN KOSOVO

Many thanks for your letter of 3 May & for your agreement that our team in Kosovo should begin work on the sites identified by the ICTY.

' understand from our people on the ground that their work, with the guidance of the ICTY office in Pristina, is progressing satisfactorily. The team has already investigated 15 reported grave sites in Kosovo Polje, where they have found only 3 bodies. They will move at the weekend to what they expect to be the more substantial site of Dragodan cemetery. first things first & obviously "graves" without bodies which the KLA are keen about come well ahead of 210 murders they aren't & which happened under NATO rule. Since NATO's war ended in June 1999 this letter means that the serious investigation of Dragodan didn't start till at least a year after.
---------------------------
The original proposal to transfer all bodies to Drahovac, which seemed unnecessarily laborios, has been put to one side. VRIC and/or the families should be able to take custody of identified remains, given the limited capacity at Prisitna & Orahovac, we favour early burial pending possible later identification which means that DNA identification is still possible for the 158 unidentified bodies........

'n media policy, Det Supt XXXXXXXXXXXXX is the laison point with the media. XXXXXXX and I will consider a few media requests for the interviews with other members of the teams, on the strict understanding that they are restricted to personal reactions to the nature of the work, with no comment on the political or legal context. This has worked well in the past: last night's BBC documentary on one of last year's teams, "The Body Hunters", struck the right note. One can rely on the BBC to strike the right note when reporting genocide. If only they had been reporting Auschwitz they could have avoided all the stuff about Jews & concentrated on the "personal reactions" of the poor guards.

Perhaps we could have a quick word on the telephone about any remaining concerns.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Coordinator for War Crimes Issues
United Nations Department
That covers the information I was sent. Perhaps i should also post relevant bits of the covering letter & the reply i will send.

We are assured by Ian Hendry (letter Monday) that nuclear power is "uneconomic" (except presumably in France where they have been producing it at half the price of our coal power for decades) & that it is not [absolutely 100%] carbon neutral because reactors have to be built (though this produces less carbon than windmills). This is allegedly why the nuclear industry is desperate to kill off the "renewable" industry.

The truth is the [exact] opposite. In March 2006 Nicol Stephen, Lib Dem leader, speaking in the BBC energy debate on the "renewablist" side said that "nuclear is the easy solution" & went on to explain that it must therefore be destroyed since, if allowed to succeed the voters would never be so foolish as to pay for all the useless "renewable" subsidies [the movement requires. Fair play to him for the unusual political honesty of disclosing his motives but] it can hardly now be denied that the desperation lies entirely with those "environmentalists" who see their scare stories & therefore their power & subsidies coming to nothing.

Ref - I was in the studio audience when he made the remark
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/search?q=nicol+debate
A small amount of editing [ ] which removes a little of my vituperation & may thus be an improvement.

This letter is from me in today's Herald. Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, they removed the last paragraph marked [ ] referring to Glasgow's Green MSP publicly supporting Ludditism. They also removed my reference to the "environmentalist" prediction that Chernobyl would kill 500,000 which I think was a useful counterpoint to the real figure of 50. Nonetheless I think this letter works & am pleased to have got a mention of the hormesis theory published:

Several correspondents have taken me to task for saying that nuclear power has only killed 2 people over the last 20 years, compared with 150,000 each year from coal power. All of them mentioned Chernobyl & of the predictions of death to happen sometime from it. I do not dispute that Chernobyl was the worst possible accident, indeed worse than could even conceivably happen here since it had no containment building. [Nor do I dispute that numerous, different, predictions have been made of anything up to 500,000 deaths by various sorts of "eco" groups all of which are still predicted to start happening sometime in the next 20 or 40 years.]

Nonetheless the fact remains that only 28 people died within four months from radiation or thermal burns, 19 have subsequently died, and there have been around nine deaths from thyroid cancer apparently due to the accident: total 56 fatalities as of 2004. An authoritative UN report in 2000 concluded that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed. This was confirmed in a very thorough 2005-06 study. The numerous predictions of disaster have failed to come true as all the other numerous predictions of disaster on other subjects from the same sources have so often failed to come true (think of the global ice age, global starvation due to overpopulation, reduction of the US average death rate to 42 because of pollution, catastrophic sea level rise, sinking of Holland by 2007, forced evacuation of all coastal towns by 1980 due to death of all sea life & the ever popular peak oil predictions for 2005, 2000, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s back to 1854).

The fact is that Chernobyl is now back to close to its original background radiation level, which makes it much lower than natural background in many places in the world including Cornwall & Aberdeenshire. There has been enormous effort to find statistically measurable rises in cancers & with the exception of thyroid cancers mentioned above there has been absolutely no detectable increase. In Britain we have sheep farms which cannot sell their produce because measurements of radiation first taken after Chernobyl have not yet fallen. This suggests they are measures of background radiation which have been like that since humans arrived here, but it is politically impossible to say so.

The UN report concluded that the major health hazard of Chernobyl was depression due to false fears. Or to put it another way, even in the worst nuclear disaster ever, the anti-nuclear movement has been considerably more damaging than the actual accident.

What the statistical results from Chernobyl, along with a wealth of other data, prove is that the theory that there is no lower limit to radiation damage, on which the predictions of mass deaths depended, is certainly wrong & the alternative, known as hormesis, that at low levels it is harmless or even beneficial, probably correct.

For political reasons the original theory survives but there is not & indeed never has been any statistical evidence to support it.

[Anti-nuclear hysteria, like the very similar "Green" attitude to virtually all new technology is based on a purely political aversion to progress & has nothing to do with the actual facts on the ground. Robin Harper MSP recently said in debate that his support for the EU bureaucracy was because it would stop the "continuous economic expansion" we are suffering from. The same clearly accounts for their opposition to nuclear, support of windmills & the increasingly threadbare attempts to smear the nuclear industry.}

Reference - Chernobyl http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.htmHormesis - http://www.jpands.org/vol9no1/chen.pdfHarper - GUU debate on the EU http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2007/11/reasons-for-supporting-eu-1.html

the Dragodan Massacre:

The woman, Vesna Mulic, said she was taken to the HQ of UNMIK police in Pristina, to identify her husband's remains. There she was told that her husband, Rame, was one of 160 bodies found in a mass grave near the village of Dragodan outside Pristina.

So careless were the Albanian killers, whom Clinton's administration is proud to call the US Army's allies, that they left numerous personal document and other forms of identification with the dead. Vesna Mulic, said she saw numerous pieces of identification belonging to other victims.

It would appear that UNMIK has known of the mass grave for a long time. Why it has refused to reveal this shocking discovery is another unanswered question.

Indeed the silence remains deafening.

On 5th December I sent this enquiry to the FOI email dp-foi.img@fco.gov.uk about it:

Dear Sir,
Some years ago my MP Anne McKechne passed on a letter from me asking about the Dragodan Massacre in the British controlled sector of Kosovo. Mr Dennis McShane, then a junior Foreign minister replied confirming that the number of bodies buried & at that time recovered at the massacre site was 210 (up from an earlier report of 160) but that it was not officially a mass grave (which would be absolute legal proof of genocide) but instead 210 separate graves in the same place. In any case he confirmed many of the bodies had been Serbs identified as having been alive at the time our government assumed responsibility.

I did reply to him mentioning that this was the 2nd largest murder case in contemporary British history (Lockerbie being the first) & asking how many British police were allocated, full time, to the investigation, but have yet to receive a reply.

I would now like, under the FoI Act to repeat that request;

1 ) How many British police were, at the time & now, allocated to an investigation which should be closely comparable to that of the Lockerbie bombing.

2 ) How many of the, at a practical minimum, dozens of people who must have committed this genocide, have been imprisoned for it.

3) Further to that I would like to know if any more bodies have been found beyond the 210 mentioned.

4) The names of those holding responsibility, in the line of command up to & including the Prime Minister, for this area of Kosovo when this act of prima faci genocide took place.

Copies of any documents, either on email or paper, relating to this incident would be appreciated.
Yours Sincerely
Neil Craig
--------------------------------
I have yesterday received the reply, which makes it rather late. I will be posting what it says & more importantly doesn't say shortly along with what it means. I must advise that due, I am assured, to financial restrictions, it is very limited. For example, it does not advise as to who, under part 4, was the Prime Minister of Great Britain during the time of this genocide. We must all accept the government's assurance that identifying Mr T Blair as Prime Minister in 1999 would have been prohibitively expensive. This clearly represents the highest standard of honesty to be expected from our government.

Still it happened, it has been proven to have happened & the government & media know about it & have deliberately censored any reporting of this genocide.

Interesting to compare & contrast western media treatment of Bobby Fisher & Garry Kasparov.

Bobby was imprisoned for the purely political crime of visiting another nation. Our media kept silent.

Kasparov is now the leader of a Russian political party that virtually none of the locals actually vote for but receives generous funding from western "non"-governmental organisations & the media not only devote acres of newsprint to his statements but criticise the Russian government for their treatment of him - despite the fact that the Russians never did anything remotely as nasty as imprisoning him on political grounds.

The obituaries have played down his imprisonment & said that he was a bit of a loony for thinking the US government was oppressing him. We may expect to see him downplayed further until he becomes effectively an unperson.

Back when he was beating the Soviet chess grandmasters he was lauded by our media but they discarded him when tried to be a free human being rather than a propaganda tool.

Though we should expect a US hero to get more publicity than a Soviet one Fisher has 326,000 mentions on Google & Kasparov 549,000

This was in reply to a rather silly but long letter giving all the normal Luddite anti-nuclear scare stories. A slightly re-edited version of the original letter is in today's Scotsman to which I have also sent a re-edited reply.

In the first line of his long letter, David McEwan Hill says nuclear is "an unnatural, highly dangerous and highly expensive way of boiling vast amounts of water". It is somewhat unnatural. Nuclear reactors are only known to have occurred once in nature (in Gabon during flooding several thousand years ago).

Of course windmills do not occur in nature and are thus even more "unnatural". It is, however, a lie to say that nuclear is dangerous - it is, in fact, orders-of-magnitude safer than coal since coal kills 150,000 people a year and total nuclear deaths in the past 20 years were two in one accident in Japan - or to say that it is expensive, since there can be no denial that France has been producing nuclear electricity at half the price of coal and one-quarter that of wind.

Indeed, in pointing out that China and India are expanding their nuclear programmes, Mr Hill would clearly have to explain why they would do so if it were more expensive. Are these governments involved in some secret conspiracy to run their countries incompetently?

Mr Hill must be assumed to be unaware that the purpose of electricity generators (nuclear, coal or gas) is not to boil water - that is a side-effect - but to create electricity.

Forestry Commission houses http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Hostile-reception-for-environmentally-friendly.3636006.jp#2341254

John Redwood on the future of rail - he knows what he is talking about http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/01/02/labours-railway-more-delays-and-higher-fares/#comments

Electricity prices http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scitech/Ministers-to-rule-on-coalfired.3640343.jp# http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1944609.0.0.php2345433

Scots economy http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/opinion/We-will-hit-our-economic.3640444.jp#2345579

"Warming weather" http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters/Too-hot-for-comfort.3640324.jp

Tories wobbling http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/01/06/browns-vision-live-next-to-a-nuclear-power-station-a-new-housing-estate-or-a-larger-airport/#respond

Nuclear http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Darling-I-want-answers-over.3644936.jp#2349790
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Darling-I-want-answers-over.3644936.jp
h http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1945918.0.0.phphhttp://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Call-to-think-small-on.3648285.jp#2353082http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/Nuclear-waste-cost-warning.3648271.jp#2353174

Forth crossing http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business/Businesses-demand-39Scotland-first39-policy.3644908.jp

Clinton's secretary of state, in an off the record briefing, told the western media that she had prevented the Serbs being offered a deal they could honourably accept because "the Serbs need a little bombing".

If Mrs Clinton is engaged in a "get tough strategy" does this mean she will be bombing hospitals in New Hampshire

Put Northern Rock into liquidation http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business/Bid-to-prevent-hasty-deal.3648210.jp#2353139

£4,200,000,000 - Alleged cost of new Forth bridge which is less than

£4,673,000,000 - the cost given by the Scottish government for a Forth Tunnel which is officially why they chose a bridge.

less than 3 km - Length of Forth tunnel (though there would be 2 carriageways)

£3.5 million
Cost per KM of similar tunnels built in Norway

£9 million - cost per km of Glendoe scheme (but remember tunnels are only a small fraction of total cost)

£19.5 million - cost of previous Forth bridge

£314 million - cost in today's money of previous Forth bridge.

13 times - degree to which proposed bridge cost exceeds cost of the last bridge

100 times - minimum degree to which Holyrood's "costing" of a tunnel exceeds what a tunnel could cost.

0 - Number of Parliamentarians willing to appear in public to explain this


the government regulator deliberately set electricity prices below cost. Nuclear costs are almost entirely fixed costs which is why it didn't quite break other generators. They forced BN to sell off all its foreign assets & reactor building capacity then nationalised it without compensation. Then the regulator put the prices back up.

This nasty bit of fraud did immense harm to our economy as the fact that we are going to have to hire the French to build our next reactors proves. Obviously it was supported by the eco-Nazis.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1951295.0.Fuel_price_rises_show_need_for_nuclear_power.php

I make an error about windmills http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1951835.0.Thousands_without_power_as_80mph_winds_batter_Scotland.php

Green puts forward extermination of 30 million Brits as a preferred alternative to building nuclear power stations http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1951295.0.Fuel_price_rises_show_need_for_nuclear_power.php

Nuclear approved http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1954436.0.0.php
Our Moslem terrorist friends http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Exguerrilla---vows-to.3657658.jp#2360352
"What's the difference between a climate change fanatic and a terrorist?"

"You can sometimes negotiate with a terrorist."

A Lib Dem supports the EU
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters/No-majority-to-quit-EU.3657524.jp
Response to my suggestion of a Forth tunnel - overwhelmingly positive
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters/Boring-solution-is-best.3662809.jp

Nuclear "It is not merely that both correspondents, one of them from a major "environmentalist" organisation, are shading the truth but that both have, obviously quite deliberately, lied 100% Such total absolute & utter corruption & contempt for any trace of honesty whatsoever seem increasingly typical of eco-fascist proponents."

Nuclear http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2008/01/nuclear-power-yes-please.html

A different letter about the bridge this time & my first on the subject in the Herald. Online comments& the other letter show a uniform disbelief that a crossing has to cost anywhere near the £4.2 billion the government are insisting on.

"Nick Dekker (Letters, January 9) asks why a Forth tunnel has been estimated at £4.5bn when Glendoe can be built for a small fraction of that. Having asked for a breakdown of this cost, I can confirm that it is made up of a remarkably round £1bn for the actual tunnel and all the rest being for "optimism bias" (no, I don't know either), "contingency fees", "inflation at 7.5% annually", access roads, unspecified "capital charges" and so on.

The cynical might suspect that this price has been ramped up to make the cost of a bridge, at £4.2bn (itself up from £314m in today's money for the last bridge), look good. This view is reinforced by the fact that, over the past two decades, the Norwegians have built 704km of tunnels at £3.5m-£10.5m per km.

This would mean that they could cut a Forth tunnel for one-hundredth of what we can. Let's hire the Norwegians or Germans."
Here is my October article giving a breakdown of my FoI enquiry into the tunnel costing

Radio Scotland were interviewing a guy from the Met Office whom the introduced by saying that "there is a scientific consensus on global warming. I sent this email which in part they read out - the parts they didn't being marked [ ]

There is a scientific consensus that global warming is upon us?

How does the BBC explain the Oregon Petition of over 19,000 scientists who say otherwise? [Well ok the answer is that you just don't report it.]

However your John Mitchell was actually quite sensible. The rise as low as 1 degree is most definitely not catastrophic warming - it would make us about as warm as North Wales [which is hardly catastrophic & is less than we have experienced during the Medieval & lare Roman warming periods.]

I can hardly object to them not reading out me saying that they censor reporting of the petition. However it may incline somebody there to be less one sided. Or it may be that BBC Radio have already come under pressure to prove themselves less biased. The last half sentence would have been quite nice but would perhaps have made it to hard hitting.

John Mitchell was a Met Office scientist & while he did not express any doubt about some warming nothing he said suggested it would be remotely as expensive as the Kyoto rules.

This letter, published in full is in today's Record, albeit under the title "Dig this idea".

It was also, to my considerable surprise, read out in full on Radio Scotland's Newsdrive after 5 yesterday - usually they content themselves with a one sentence summary from "listener Neil" but they even gave my full name.

Eliza Jane, is the name given to the tunnel boring machine which has just completed the 5 mile tunnel of the Glendoe hydro scheme. Instead of spending £4.2 billion on a new Forth Bridge why not just send her there & start cutting a tunnel under the Forth. If anybody doubts this is practical look at Norway where, over the last 2 decades, they have built 704 km of tunnels, mostly costing £3.5 million per km & some running as much as 20 km underwater.

Surely this would be more practical than shuffling paper until 2012 & then starting building? Can anybody in authority say why this bridge is going to cost £4.2 billion when the last one cost £19.5 million (equal to £314 in today's money) let alone why we cannot have a tunnel at an even better price?

On the other hand it hasn't appeared in the Herald, Scotsman or Mail & I assume probably won't now. The idea of moving this machine today to start cutting is perhaps OTT but the basic tunnel proposal, with figures, is very practical & I am still waiting for anybody in authority to explain why we have to have a bridge at £4.2 billion.

Should any MSPs feel able to explain this I will put it on my blog The only explanation I have seen was from Alex on the Herald online which basically blames government bureaucracy.

UPDATE
Angry Steve has told me the letter appeared in the Metro in Glasgow (againn "Boring appeared in the Headline) & the Scotsman have put it in today (Weds) Nobody from the official side has commented though somebody who used to be close to the centre of government has agreed this is a very good question.

The Scotsman says that Hilary Clinton is about to "get tough" to combat her falling polls.

Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madelein Albright, in an off the record briefing, told the western media that she had prevented the Serbs being offered a deal they could honourably accept because "the Serbs need a little bombing".

If Mrs Clinton is engaged in a "get tough strategy" does this mean she will be bombing hospitals in New Hampshire?

On a similar note googling Ron Paul together with Kosovo I found this from Ron Paul published by him in Texas:

Citizens of a free country ought to expect they won't be burdened with the kind of propaganda barrage that has come to be associated with Nazi "interior ministers" such as Josef Goebbles or Soviet "media spokesmen" like Vladimir Posner. However, the more information that comes out about the NATO war in Kosovo, the more evident is the fact that NATO made an apparent "policy decision" to lie about Serbian atrocities......

.....we were told before the bombings that there was mass genocide occurring, the figure of "100,000 or more" was tossed around even though there was no evidence to back-up this claim. One media pundit suggested the number would be a quarter-of-a-million dead. NATO even gave a name to this "campaign of mass genocide," it was dubbed "Operation Horseshoe".....The actual number of people found in the reported mass-graves totals slightly more than 2,000.....Kosovo was safer than any major U.S. city prior to the NATO bombing. Moreover, as Steele shows, it is hardly evident that each of those bodies was killed as a result of a campaign of genocide....

The sad trail of lies in Kosovo merely reinforces two facts. The first is that our republic depends upon a press that will question the claims of our leaders instead of just accepting them. The second is that Congress has shirked both its Constitutional responsibility to declare war before U.S. troops are sent into battle and its oversight responsibility to closely monitor the administration in its carrying out of foreign policy

Having yesterday largely supported his position on space development & the X-Prize I am extremely impressed to see not only that we are in agreement on a totally unrelated subject but that he has the balls & integrity to publicly say what he believes to be the truth when it is against all the propaganda the state has been pushing. America is extremely fortunate to have such a man. I wish we had anybody a quarter as good. I doubt if he will get the money needed to become President but Vice President must be a strong possibility.

Ron Paul's writings In an age when any political idea has to be reduced to a one sentence soundbite for the TV he seems to be quite remarkably literate.

On this side of the pond the US Presidential race is looking interesting but we hear far more about what gender/colour/religious conviction everybody is than the boring stuff about actual policies. Well tough. Policies are what are inside the box. Everything else, no matter how colourful, is just the advertising.

Being particularly interested in Space, a subject which crosses party lines, on which original thought is both allowed & needed & which is going to be vital to the future of us all when the Iraq war will be merely a historical footnote, I checked out this link.

Hilary will produce a "space-based Climate Change Initiative", more robot programmes & reverse Bush's funding cuts of NASA". So she has an interest in the subject & would spend more but in the wrong ways & for a politically correct reason

Edwards "I am a strong supporter of our space program. It reflects the best of the American spirit of optimism, discovery and progress. We need a balanced space and aeronautics program. We need to support solar system exploration as an important goal for our human and robotic programs, but only as one goal among several. And we need to invite other countries to share in a meaningful way in both the adventure and the cost of space exploration." So considerable interest & I agree about international involvement but nothing really specific

Obama "He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years" Now I approve of fiscal responsibility, Bush has spent 8 years kiting cheques & I think NASA is a waste of money so i can't actually disagree with this but he really doesn't have anything positive to say (eg X-Prizes

Guiliani says "Not only did it help us ultimately win the Cold War, it helped us in countless other ways, in scientific development and products. We can do the same thing with energy independence. But we've got to have a president who knows how to get things done." which seems quite sensible & shows an interest in space, but again no actual proposals, though energy independence, if he means it seriously, must include nuclear & probably solar power satellites

Huckabee says "Whether we ought to go to Mars is not a decision that I would want to make, but I would certainly want to make sure that we expand the space program, because every one of us who are sitting here tonight have our lives dramatically improved because there was a space program — whether it's these screens that we see or the incredible electronics that we use, including the GPS systems that got many of you to this arena tonight.Some of you were late because you didn't have one, by the way. Or whether it's the medical technologies that saved many of our lives or the lives or our families, it's the direct result of the space program, and we need to put more money into science and technology and exploration." The first bit is not well phrased because he is running for the job that does involve making that decision (my opinion is that Mars should not be the immediate aim - cheap space access should). Nonetheless he is quite correct in understanding the importance of space, but again has no actual proposals.


Hunter, as a Congressman wrote to Bush about the vital importance of not being outclassed by China, though largely on a military rather than industrial basis.

McCain "When asked ... did not respond." Well screw him

Romney supports Bush's vision for space exploration and has no reason yet to propose a new direction". So nothing then

And the winner & champeen

Ron Paul "Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate and commend the designers, builders, sponsors, and pilot of SpaceShipOne on the occasion of its successful flight out of earth's atmosphere on June 21, 2004. What is most remarkable about SpaceShipOne, of course, is that it is the first privately-financed and privately built vehicle to leave the Earth's atmosphere."
& "Ron Paul consistently opposes taxpayer funding for NASA"
The guy has not only heard of Spaceship One but understands it. There is no promise that NASA funds, or even 10% of them which would be enough give America the solar system, will be put into X-Prizes but you can't have everything.

This is a wonderful series of short articles by extremely bright people which I ran across through Mangan's Miscellany.
The particular one I am going to quote from is Freeman Dyson on whether the Atom Bomb made Japan surrender:

"Facts causing me to change my mind were brought to my attention by Ward Wilson. Wilson summarized the facts in an article, "The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in the Light of Hiroshima", in the Spring 2007 issue of the magazine, "International Security". He gives references to primary source documents and to analyses published by other historians, in particular by Robert Pape and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. The facts are as follows:

1. Members of the Supreme Council, which customarily met with the Emperor to take important decisions, learned of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945. Although Foreign Minister Togo asked for a meeting, no meeting was held for three days.

2. A surviving diary records a conversation of Navy Minister Yonai, who was a member of the Supreme Council, with his deputy on August 8. The Hiroshima bombing is mentioned only incidentally. More attention is given to the fact that the rice ration in Tokyo is to be reduced by ten percent.

3. On the morning of August 9, Soviet troops invaded Manchuria. Six hours after hearing this news, the Supreme Council was in session. News of the Nagasaki bombing, which happened the same morning, only reached the Council after the session started.

4. The August 9 session of the Supreme Council resulted in the decision to surrender.

5. The Emperor, in his rescript to the military forces ordering their surrender, does not mention the nuclear bombs but emphasizes the historical analogy between the situation in 1945 and the situation at the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. In 1895 Japan had defeated China, but accepted a humiliating peace when European powers led by Russia moved into Manchuria and the Russians occupied Port Arthur. By making peace, the emperor Meiji had kept the Russians out of Japan. Emperor Hirohito had this analogy in his mind when he ordered the surrender.

6. The Japanese leaders had two good reasons for lying when they spoke to Robert Butow. The first reason was explained afterwards by Lord Privy Seal Kido, another member of the Supreme Council: "If military leaders could convince themselves that they were defeated by the power of science but not by lack of spiritual power or strategic errors, they could save face to some extent". The second reason was that they were telling the Americans what the Americans wanted to hear, and the Americans did not want to hear that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria brought the war to an end."

I had generally held to the theory that the Bomb did not shorten the war. Indeed that Truman deliberately used it not for that purpose but to frighten Stalin. At the Potsdam conference Stalin had told Truman that The Japanese wanted to make peace pretty much on unconditional terms except that they wanted to keep their Emperor. Stalin wasn't keen - after all, having promised to attack Japan 3 months after the end of the European war he expected to be able to conquer Manchuria & Korea. Truman's reluctance is more difficult to explain, particularly since he later did allow Hirohito to stay. However if we take it that he was intending to cow the the Russians it is clearer. It should also be remembered that, having spent several billions (1940s billions so multiply by 100s) Congress & public would have crucified them had it never been used,

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria is not well known in the west (I doubt if 1 person in 100 could tell you it happened). Though it only lasted a week it was a massive undertaking involving 40 didvions yet I found it quite difficult to find a serious online history of it. The Soviets, with an army forged in the war with Hitler & tanks designed for that war, engaged in a 1 week land campaign against a Japanese army which, while large, was equipped to take on Chinese guerrillas & whose best tanks were equal to what we had in 1940 ie harmless. In that week they advanced, in places, up to 600km. Just as Soviets did most of the fighting in WW2 & the Anglo/Americans got all the valuable territory (ie western Europe) the Soviets could, for similar geographical reasons, have expected to take the valuable stuff in the east (China, all of Korea & at least half of Japan.

If Stalin also appreciated the role of the Soviet army in causing the surrender it probably explains the Soviet failure to drop to their knees when America used the Bomb.

It is possible to imagine how the world would have gone had the US not used the Bomb & Japan surrendered anyway. Certainly Americans & Brits would have had a beter understanding of the capabilities & problems of the USSR. One thing I have not changed my mind on over the years is that, however bad Stalin's rule may have been, the Cold War was caused by us not him.

In reply to somebody who said that the unemployed not only cost us money but that they created the need for big government to help them I said this which i would like to keep:

I think it is largely the other way round. That the form fillers need "clients" to help & protect if they are to keep their jobs. Ask most families how keen they are to see a social worker on their doorstep.

We live in a society that is enormously richer than any in history. However government, like any parasite, grows as much as its environment will allow & unlike even the worst historical tyrannies, our society can afford smoking police & regulations which increase cost enormously. The new Forth crossing is promised to cost 10 to 100 times what the rest of the world can do it for & houses, which cost the same as a car a century ago, now cost 50 times as much.

This is why the "caring professions" have had to redefine income inequality rather than being poor as "poverty", why so many benefits are closely comparable to the income taxes the "beneficiaries" pay & why, even so, an ever increasing share of government spending is not transfer payments but on regulation or subsidies for useless nostrums like windmills which nobody would pay for with their own money.. I think we can afford a decent safety net for the poor far more easily than we can afford overgovernment.

This morning Radio Scotland did a piece on how EON are about to put up electricity prices by 10%. They had John Swinburne from the pensioner's party saying how people should vote for his party because they wanted increased money for pensioners to cover rising electricity costs. In the phone in section somebody rang to say that electricity prices in Cyprus were half ours & Gary asked for people to phone in to tell him what prices abroad are. I rang & got on the air to say that while I couldn't give the retail price the French were manufacturing 85% of their power by nuclear at 1.3p a unit, half the price of coal power & 1/4 that of windmills. Gary did say that we also have nuclear but accepted my reply that they are rather old reactors & that Hunterston is working at well under capacity because of age.

I was only on for 30 seconds, which is not unreasonable because it was at the end of the programme, but I think I got the point across.

I also put this comment on the Herald

The "environmentalist" movement & in practice most politicians is opposed to any method of producing electricity that actually works.

Coincidentally EON are about to put up electricity prices 10%. This will be denounced by "environmentalists" & most politicians., (but not by a single honest one).

The French produce as much electricity as they want plus as much as they can profitably sell abroad at 1.3p a unit. We could do the same & the responsibility for high electricity prices & 24,000 consequent hypothermia death lies entirely with the eco-fascists & the politicians.

I am indexing my articles here. It will not exactly be done quickly but I have got the last 2 months up.

Link to it on http://neilsindex.blogspot.com/