A Place to Stand

Labels: constitutional amendments, International politics, Social

"Barak Obama intends to kill; all the white people in America. He intends for them to be dropped from an aeroplane, dropped from a helicopter, left in the sea".

Anybody think that is not a false statement of fact in relation to that Obama's character or conduct? I must admit I do think it is false. But it was said by British Labour MP Margaret Hodge. Though she didn't use the word "Obama".

The relevance of the "false statement of fact" remark is that that is precisely what the LudDims got Labour MP Phil Woolas removed for

Mr Woolas ran a "risky" campaign, the court was told, designed to "galvanise the white Sun vote" because he feared he faced defeat on poling day.... was also accused of making a false statement that Mr Watkins had reneged on a promise to live within the constituency prior to the election.
Declaring the May poll result void, Mr Justice Nigel Teare and Mr Justice Griffith Williams said Mr Woolas was guilty of illegal practices under election law.


They said he knew all three claims to be untrue, and had sought personal advantage by making them...

The case was brought under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act. This makes it an offence to publish "any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's personal character or conduct" to prevent them being elected - unless they believed it was true and had "reasonable grounds" to do so

      As a result not only is the election to be rerun but Woolas, who has been expelled by Labour in any case, is not allowed to stand again.

      OK on that precedent the BNP are bringing a similar case against Margaret Hodge who, among other things said and was recorded by C4 as saying the BNP want

“everyone who is sitting in this room to be expelled from this country, dropped from an aeroplane, dropped from a helicopter, left in the sea.”

Now correct me if I'm wrong but quite certainly that is a "false statement of fact in relation to that candidate’s character or conduct", which the court have decided is illegal when a LudDim objects. Indeed it is a far more dishonest & extreme lie than anything Woollas said.

I will admit I was surprised when the LDs won this because politicians have always told lies to get elected, not leadt the LDs who made manifesto promises to support an EU referendum at the previous election & to vote against tuition fees at this one. If this reinterpretation of the law is honest I am rather happy with it - politicians should be accountable for their promises and a chance to do so onl;y 5 years latter, possibly after they have changed the electoral rules without asking us,  & at best after they have taken a couple of trillion £s from us, is hardly accountability.

However if the law is not blind on this but run in a blatantly discriminatory way that removes such democratic rights as we nominally have. This appears to have been done when the court told the BNP to "legalise" their constitution & when a body which decided the LudDims had no duty to return money a donor had given them which had been stolen & then turned round & confiscated money from UKIP which had been honestly earned but with a minor technical irregularity in form filling.

If Woolas is guilty & deserves to be banned from Parliament & the Labour party then Margaret Hodge is 100 times moreso.

A big practical difference is that Woolllas only just won & Hodge won massively so the odds are Labour would beat Griffin again but that is of no relevance to the the principle of the "false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's character or conduct".

Legally the BNP clearly have a cast iron case.

Lets see if we live in a democracy or a police state.

We certainly don't live in a country where the news media prefer balanced reporting to party propaganda. BNP/Hodge coverage V LibDim/Woolas coverage

Dear Ed Miliband,
                              When Phil Woollas was found to have lied about another candidate the Labour party expelled him without even waiting to see if his appeal succeeded. I assume you have seen the video of Margaret Hodge claiming the BNP candidate wanted to throw a large section of the population out of helocopters into the sea & that you accept that this claim is a lie. If so a respect for democratic principles would appear to require Ms Hodge's immediate expulsion too. Or do you & your party disagree with this assessment in any way?

Labels: British politics, Fear, Government parasitism

  This is an interesting idea. I have previously pointed out that the ecofascist jibe that the nuclear industry ever promised electricity "too cheap to meter" is a foolish lie by ignorant & dishonest politicians. Apart from anything else why should a commercial company raise such expectations?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reality today is that the world has changed enough so that it is possible to build a profitable business model around the concept that atomic energy is, in fact, "too cheap to meter." I do not even mind if I am quoted as saying so. ..

The business model currently in place for electricity in most places is that it is a "natural monopoly" business where a single, government owned or government protected enterprise manufactures, transmits and delivers the product on demand to end users. Each customer uses a measurable quantity of electricity, which is recorded by a meter, and receives a periodic bill for that amount of use. There are other components to the bill - there is a basic service charge, a fuel adjustment charge, specified taxes and fees, and, in the case of many larger scale users, a capacity charge that varies based on the maximum amount of electricity used during peak demand times. (Actually, there are a few more complications that do not fit into the above summary, but I will try to hold your attention by avoiding too many details.)

The whole model is based on the idea that making electricity consumes a certain quantity of raw material, labor and other cost components that make it necessary and fair to charge customers for each unit of electricity that they use. Measuring, keeping records and issuing accurate statements for that use consumes a certain amount of company resources - in other words it costs consumers money - but, under current conditions, that is seen as a required cost of doing business.

The major reason why metering is necessary, however, is that the fossil fuels consumed to produce electricity represent between 60 and 90% of the production cost of that electricity. If the electricity is not needed, the fuel consumption rate can be reduced in almost direct proportion, so producing less electricity really does cost the utility company less money...
In contrast, nuclear plants have fuel costs that are low enough to disappear into insignificance. They also have permanent crews that do not get much smaller when the plant is not running. In fact, it is often more expensive to maintain a nuclear plant in a shutdown than it is to operate it.

Because of those characteristics, measuring the actual use for each customer is not required; it would be more cost effective and fair if customers were charged a flat fee based on the amount of power that they wanted to have available at any one time. This capacity charge would be more like a cable bill or a local phone bill. The utility would know how much capacity it needed to have on hand and could invest wisely to ensure that it could meet its obligations and it would save money in its billing systems.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So if nuclear produced the large preponderance of electricity a flat rate in which we paid based on the maximum power we would ever want would give much better price signals & thus power would be used more efficiently. This is like off peak electricity but moreso

It would, of course, make a mockery of all these tokenist ecofascist calls not to keep equipment on standby overnight, when electricity use is low, but it would also encourage us to do most heating at times when we aren't using it for other stuff. It would encourage industry to time its electricity use with maximum efficiency.

It also makes a nonsense of those self styled "moderate" politicians who recognise that wind cannot keep the lights on and that we need nuclear but still want an excuse for subsidising wind firms they make money from by saying we need a "balanced power portfolio". In fact the system runs much more efficiently if we do not have to mix & match. In the same way car engines work better if they are designed to work on one specific fuel source without "balancing" petrol with diesel, sugar or coal.

  It is doable, far cheaper & more practical than Scotland continuing subsidisng windmillery by £1 bn a year.

Labels: Government parasitism, nuclear, Scottish politics

  Following yesterday's BBC response &; my further query I got this back from the programme producer

Dear Neil - thank you for your e-mail. I feel my reply below suffices and answers the points you've raised.

Richard Downes

  OK I'm going to treat this in the legalistic manner such a response deserves.

He is a BBC employee on a BBC email responding to an enquiry to the BBC. This therefore is an official BBC statement representing the very highest standard of integrity to which the BBC can lay claim.

I had raised some specific questions Perhaps you could point me to some occasion when a BBC representative has said that the production of some foreign company could not possibly be described as propaganda because in an hour's broadcast it contained more than 1 word. Indeed if you are sincere in your claim [that the claim at the end of the programme that not drastically cutting CO2 would cause "catastrophe" didn't mean the programme was claiming catastrophe} you certainly must be easily able to & I ask you to within the next 48 hours

.Well pretty lightweight but Richard/The BBC has answered that the failure to give such an example does indeed prove that the BBC do not hold themselves to any standard remotely close to those they claim to apply to others & any claim they ever make to greater integrity is just the mouthings of lying hypocrites.

If your claim to "due" balance is true then, if you can point to 1 single programme where the BBC has given unfettered time to the sceptical view the balance of scientific opinion must run at least 10.000 to 1 for alarmism. Can you name one such BBC programme? Since 31,000 scientists have signed a petition denying alarmism can you name at least 310,000,000 scientists who support alarmism. Can you? Indeed can you even, as Professor Stewart has been unable to, name 2 scientists, from among the large majority not paid by government, who support alarmism? If the BBC claims to be even 0.0000001% honest you will certainly be able to. Again I think it reasonable for you to do so within 48 hours.

That's more like it. He insists that this question is entirely answered by the fact that the original answer doesn't giive any examples of any programme allowing sceptics free speech, not even to 1 allowing a genuine debate he/The BBC have just officially stated that, as an organisation they are not as much as 0.0000001% honest. For non-mathematicians that is normally rounded to zero. Obviously if the entire BBC are officially wholly & completely corrupt & dishonest every single person working there must also be wholly
& completely corrupt & dishonest.

 I must ask you how the term giving "due weight" to "minority" views is specifically interpreted since your answer has been that in this case & therefore presumably in all others "due weight" means "almost total censorship of"? Unless you have information to the contrary that must be the default assumption. Of course that definition is politically compatible with, indeed almost the definition of, fascism.

If the BBC wish to claim that their definition of "due weight" means anything other than total censorship you will be able to say, within48 hours, when the decision not to broadcast formal debates on "global warming" (or indeed any other subject of public interest) or even report the results of such debates was rescinded?

Well from the horse's mouth the BBC officially do not dispute that that under their Newspeak the term "due balance" in the BBC guidlines does indeed mean "total censorship" & that the organisation is, by definition, undeniably Fascist.

       That they feel the refusal to deny that the particular egregious lies told in the programme were indeed total lies fully "answers the point" & that, rather than retract either of the the BBC intends to, quite deliberately maintain them as representing the very highest standard of honesty to which the BBC ever aspires.

       Note also that we are officially told that the "undeniability" that the BBC " lies & continuously censors reporting of racial massacres for the deliberate purpose of assisting (ex-)Nazis  in the practice of racial genocide". They refused previously to dispute that, despite saying they would if presented with the evidence so this is not a new one but the repeated acceptance & particularly the admission that the refusal to do so "answers the point" makes it impossible for any BBC representative ever to claim not to be a pro-Nazi murderer.

Elsewhere I have said that while journalists who lie to promote genocide are just as criminal as those who worked the ovens at Auschwitz. However the comparison is grossly unfair to the latter. Any of them who refused would either have been shot or sent to the Russian front (almost a death sentence itself). The worst that could happen to a BBC employee who decided not to promote racial genocide, child rape & organlegging would be having to work for a living.
PS Near the end of last night's Question Time somebody tried to ask a question about whether the snow we are seeing was really consistent with the global warming the political elite, with all the honesty they are capable of, insist they see. Naturally the obscenely overpaid Nazi murderer Dimbleby silenced her but not before the audience, notoriously hand picked by the BBC to ensure "due weight" to different view, cheered her. If that is how even people selected by these Fascists feel I think the claim that scepticism about catastrophic warming is a "minority" view is another lie.

 PPS Japan has decided that it is not going to support a continuation of the Kyoto Treaty beyond 2012. Since Kyoto is in Japan that makes it about as big a blow to all the catastrophic warming eco-fascists trtying not only to extend but enlarge this parasitism as could be. Expect it to lead the BBC News tonight or, assuming they are still  reporting on the basis of "due weight" expect to see it censored.

UPDATE to PPS My lowest expectations of BBC censorship were marginally exceeded. Not only did the Japanese disowning of Kyoto not make 1st item on the news but it was entirely censored. The BBC did spend several minutes reporting from Cancun but without using the word Japan. Instead they stated as undisputed fact that 2010 is the "warmest year". This is based on claims from known liar James Hansen who says that though almost all measurements show cooling a small number, at sea & in the Arctic, representing enormous areas, allegedly show increases & that this more than cancels out the cooling in all the parts of the world where people live. No explanation has been made of how the observed increase in Arctic ice can be compatible with alleged substantial warming & 0obviously Hansen's "discovery" has not been independently verified, which it would have to be before the BBC (or anybody else) could honestly call it proven.

Anybody who has read 1984's rewriting of statistics will recognise the BBC's corruption.

Labels: British politics, global warming, Media

  Well after 8 days the BBC have replied to my letter objecting to the episode of Scotland's Changing Climate being devoted entirely to the global warming scare story & the BBC's refusal to allow any programme giving the opposite view or even to allow broadcasting of any debate on the subject. My original is here.

    Here is their response & my reply:
================================
Dear Neil – further to Iain Stewart’s reply. Firstly, we categorically did not spend a whole hour alleging catastrophic climate change. Two-thirds of it was about how Scotland's economy became dependent on carbon-based fuels like coal and oil during the late 18th and 19th centuries. We used the word 'catastrophic' once and in the context of humanity making no attempts to combat global warming. Re impartiality and balance. We are obliged under the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines to give ‘due impartiality’ when discussing controversial subjects. This does not necessarily require the range of perspectives or opinions to be covered in equal proportions either across the output as a whole, or within a single programme. We seek to achieve due weight which means that minority views should not necessarily be given equal weight to the prevailing consensus. As Iain pointed out in his reply, there is an overwhelming agreement among geoscientists and climate scientists that human activity is a significant contributing factor. Therefore it is unnecessary for the BBC to either apologise or show an additional ‘balancing’ programme as this would give equal weight to what is clearly a minority view.




As for the experiment, I strongly reject your suggestion that one of the bottles was "allegedly filled with C02"; it contained C02. Secondly, its purpose was not to show "actual increase" as you suggest, but to demonstrate John Tyndall’s experiment and the discovery that some gases warm more than others.

Richard Downes

Series Producer, BBC Factual

Zone 2.21-2.26, BBC Scotland, 40 Pacific Quay, Glasgow G51 1DA
==================================
Dear Richard,
                      I note your contention that the programme did not promote the contention of catastrophic global warming because you only once said "Unchecked, climate change could be catastrophic". In the same way my letter only used the term "global warming" once but it would be equally foolish for you to say that it was not about the BBC reporting of alleged global warming. In \Orwell's 1984 there may have been posters containing nothing but the words "Big Brother is watching" but most propaganda aims for something slightly more subtle. Perhaps you could point me to some occasion when a BBC representative has said that the production of some foreign company could not possibly be described as propaganda because in an hour's broadcast it contained more than 1 word. Indeed if you are sincere in your claim you certainly must be easily able to & I ask you to within the next 48 hours.

     I note your claim that the BBC, if not wholly, completely & totally corrupt, adheres to your guidelines to show "due impartiality". As an organisation which, undeniably, lies & continuously censors reporting of racial massacres for the deliberate purpose of assisting (ex-)Nazis  in the practice of racial genocide, I do not think anybody in the BBC can claim the guidelines are treated honestly in the political sphere. In what is alleged to be the scientific sphere I note that the BBC has collectively broadcast many tens of thousands of hours of material promoting the warming scare. If your claim to "due" balance is true then, if you can point to 1 single programme where the BBC has given unfettered time to the sceptical view the balance of scientific opinion must run at least 10.000 to 1 for alarmism. Can you name one such BBC programme? Since 31,000 scientists have signed a petition denying alarmism can you name at least 310,000,000 scientists who support alarmism. Can you? Indeed can you even, as Professor Stewart has been unable to, name 2 scientists, from among the large majority not paid by government, who support alarmism? If the BBC claims to be even 0.0000001% honest you will certainly be able to. Again I think it reasonable for you to do so within 48 hours.
     
     I must ask you how the term giving  "due weight" to "minority" views is specifically interpreted since your answer has been that in this case & therefore presumably in all others "due weight" means "almost total censorship of"? Unless you have information to the contrary that must be the default assumption. Of course that definition is politically compatible with, indeed almost the definition of, fascism.

    If the BBC wish to claim that their definition of "due weight" means anything other than total censorship you will be able to say, within48 hours, when the decision not to broadcast formal debates on "global warming" (or indeed any other subject of public interest) or even report the results of such debates was rescinded?

   As regards the 2 points which I raised as being wholly & deliberately factually untrue:

1)  The reason I used "allegedly" was because the programme was unspecific about the bottle being purely CO2 though I made that assumption I also used the qualifier. I am pleased you have confirmed that the bottle was indeed 100% CO2. In that case you will be happy to publicly agree that, by your experiment, the amount of warming to be expected by current changes is of the order of 0.00025 C. I thank you for the confirmation.

2) I note that you make no retraction, either here or on air, of the claim that the law of gravity is  more doubted than the global warming scare & that this remains an example of the very highest standard of honesty to which any employee of the BBC ever, under any circumstances, aspires.. Looking out of the window you may note snow lying on the ground. This clearly supports the gravity theory since otherwise it would not lie. I would also say its presence is at least strong negative evidence for the theory that we are experiencing dangerous warming

If you wish to dispute the accuracy of my conclusions from your letter I await your response within 48 hours.

UPDATE The BBC officially acknowledge that none of the evidence I asked for which would disprove the apparent lying of the BBC or prove that the BBC is less than 99.9999999% corrupt can be produced & that the basis of discussion must be that they are.
.

Labels: eco-fascism, global warming, Media

This was said by an anonymous & self satisfied Foreign Office official on news of the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact explaining how, even if we had been outmaneuvered we had kept our moral superiority. In fact it turned out not to be true when Germany broke the pact & invaded Russia.

On Monday we were informed of the good news that

UK will lose fewer public sector jobs, says OBR
The OBR now expects a far smaller number of public sector workers to lose their jobs. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) says public sector job losses will not be as high as previously thought.

The OBR now expects 330,000 public sector workers to lose their jobs over the next four years, far fewer than the 490,000 it forecast in its June report.

Well isn't that nice. Mr Osborne thinks so, so do his LudDim allies, so obviously does the BBC & the Labour party have nothing specific to say against it apart from it not protecting enough jobs.

So how has this wonderful saving of the jobs of government workers been achieved?

The OBR said it had changed its public sector job forecast because the government had put more emphasis on benefit cuts and less on departmental spending cuts than it had expected at the time of its earlier forecast

So there we go. None of this "protecting the most vulnerable in society" which has become the latest buzz phrase. Not even any suggestion that of the 8 million workers of whom, as Martin Durkin pointed out only about 2 million do anything of importance, any large share of them should be dispensed with. A cut of 330,000 is less than 1% a year which, with 5% normal turnover, means no involuntary cuts.

All paid for by cutting benefits.

The whole point about a welfare state is that it provides welfare for those who need it. I don't doubt that much of it does little good, encouraging dependency culture, & that cuts can be made. But they should not be the only ones.

I have no doubt that we could clear the deficit without any welfare cuts, though I think some would still be worth it. Indeed if cuts were targeted on the most destructive parts of government (nuclear regulatory, housing planning, the H&S inspectors) that alone would get the economy growing at close to Asian levels.

Government jobs which have no effect should be cut before welfare. Worse than useless ones or regulatory ones - "But what are the benefits of regulation? The study found ‘no quality benefits’. We all know that government is costly, but a 75-country study found that regulations usually cost a country twenty times more than they cost the government". Yet neither the Conservatives & LDs, claiming to be in favour of market freedom, nor Labour, claiming to be protectors of the poor are anything less than happy to see the poor impoverished to protect government parasitism.

Could there be stronger proof that our "welfare state" is simply a con to provide cover for the parasites & that THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO PAY GOVERNMENT WORKERS AND THEIR ALLIES. Parasitism in which all major parties are deeply involved whatever their ideological claims.

Labels: British politics, Fixing the economy, Government parasitism