March 2009 Archives

From it one can learn that he:

Glad as I am to see British involvement diminishing at last, will this actually feel any different to those occupied in Southern Iraq? Reuters suggest the Americans may be even less popular because of their "fearsome, and sometimes trigger-happy, reputation".

Here's a wee set of video clips from those I cited:

That Was The Week That Was (includes some edgy civil rights stuff)

Yes Minister (how planning's really done)

House of Cards (an Urquhart monologue which the Brownites might not like)

Thick of It (some quality Tucker)

Wernher von Braun (the immortal Tom Lehrer)

Mark Thomas (does a number on the arms trade)

Jon Stewart (the recent feud with Jim Cramer)

Also, anyone wishing to leave marks out of ten for the original articles may do so in the comments. No favouritism please.

It also has the advantage that it looks radical and anti-discriminatory if you squint really hard, and so it appeals to the former republicans on Labour's benches. But why now? The Prime Minister is quoted as saying: 

No-one wants to see mob rule, except perhaps the mob. Personally, I prefer democracy.

It's also absurd to blame one man, no matter how grasping, for the massive systemic problems supported and facilitated by Governments of all colours, north and south of the border.

However, with only the Greens and Margo opposing the scheme either in the City Chambers or Parliament, it's taken the market to deliver victory. With Mountgrange in administration as of today, the only risk (flagged in that article) is that the directors will buy the scheme back from Deloitte and try to revive it. I doubt it'll wash.

There'll be a street party on the High St if this is confirmed. With the centre of the city no longer under the shadow of the bulldozer, mostly thanks to the hard work of Sally, Julie and others from Save Our Old Town, perhaps we could all turn to the matter at hand: how to do something constructive with the part of the site that was the old bus station. The Council should start with proper and long overdue consideration of S.O.O.T.'s proposals.

Update: Apparently the bank calls its loan to Mountgrange "a toxic asset". Shame they didn't notice the toxicity a little earlier..

83% of those polled said they were "ready to make significant changes to the way I live to help prevent global warming or climate change", actually slightly up since the start of global financial meltdown.

A recent Yale and George Mason survey in the States also came up with some eye-catching numbers on this issue. 69% of Americans said the US should sign up to an international treaty designed to reduce emissions by 90% by 2050. 

That 90% by 2050 figure is so radical that in this country only the Scottish Green Party and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research back it, incidentally. Next time the SNP, Labour or the Liberals tell you they back radical action on climate change, tell them even the much-judged average American is ahead of them.

To complicate things an actual upper-case-G Green candidate in Oxford also went nuclear, allowing the Independent to go to town on us. 

The absurdity of the piece is made obvious when you see that one of the greens they cite as having had a road-to-Sellafield conversion is a former Labour cabinet Minister with a 100% record of backing nuclear power.

Despite some hostile noises at an earlier stage, it was backed unanimously and now seems certain to pass into law. A good birthday present indeed.

How quickly things have changed. Gordon Brown not only supports the Iranian civilian nuclear programme, but threatens them with sanctions if they don't develop it. It's like the 1970s all over. The truly odd thing here is that even George Bush opposed Iran's plans to go nuclear. OK, he wanted to terminate it with a demented bombing run, but at least he linked civilian nuclear power to military nuclear proliferation. What on earth is Brown up to?

Perhaps coincidentally, there has also been an extraordinarily high volume of spin on show in the BBC coverage of nuclear power over the last couple of days. Here's just a few samples.

"No cost-effective low-carbon technology should be off-limits", including nuclear, according to Lewis Macdonald MSP on Newsnight. He's obviously not seen the numbers - nuclear emits about four times more CO2 than renewables, and will cost us billions and billions once you take into account waste, decommissioning and all the rest. He also claimed that "nuclear waste issues have been resolved". I take it he's found a way to convert these dangerous materials into butterflies and champagne.

Moving on, the British Energy person on GMS this morning said we have had "an almost utopian mix" of generation in Scotland - that would be one which in 2006 included 59% climate-busting coal, oil and gas, plus 26% coming from expensive, unsafe and unreliable nuclear stations. He also claimed that on a typical day nuclear provides 66% of Scotland's electricity, which is proper lies (see that 2006 data above). 

Anyone would think they've got a pig in a poke to sell us. And the Iranians.

"Their conference - or more accurately lack of it - was truly a thing to behold, like some Taoist riddle about the enormity of nothingness."

It did strike me as odd that they would spend a weekend talking about how we shouldn't be talking about independence. Perhaps that's also some kind of kōan.

The prospect of Scottish budget cuts totalling £2.3bn was floated, a shortfall blamed on the recession, presumably spun as the Downing Street Downturn. The paper explains:

Labour as the largest party would be one seat short of a majority with their old love, the Liberals. They could make the numbers either with the Tories (ain't happening despite the lack of policy differences) or with the SNP (ditto). The Nats' preferred partners on current form remain the Tories, but the pair of them would be three seats short collectively, while the SNP/Liberal combination would be a substantial six seats short - sorry, Tavish.

Either way, barring some pretty ugly and unlikely combinations, we'd be in demand again in this scenario, only even more so. A minority adminstration might well be the most likely outcome again, but there are a couple of options that would only work with Green support either inside or outside Government. With numbers like this I think we could, if we wanted to, find out pretty quickly which of the other parties are most committed to the business-as-usual soggy middle they all get to sit in week after week. 

How much are we bid for cancellation of the AWPR? Any advance on 70% renewable electricity by 2020? Insulate every home in Scotland by 2025? Do I hear 2021?

Moving on from Labour's internal problems ("they never write, they never call"), I'm not convinced that a 50p per unit price would deter many people, and the main problem still appears to be the widespread flouting of existing licensing laws. Until that legislation is properly implemented, which even brave Kenny Macaskill seems unable or unwilling to deliver, there's little point changing its scope.

No-one's arguing about the problems drink causes, but this idea looks like Yes Prime Minister logic. Something must be done. This is something. Therefore it must be done.

There is one credible argument in favour, though. Good beer will always cost more than that. Dire chemical-tasting cooking lager is all that can undercut it. Perhaps we should instead set a minimum quality for drink? 

Update: See also Macnumpty's take on this.

That final image is two pallets high. If the billionaires pooled their wealth, you'd need to go almost five pallets high. 

For contrast, here's a trillion pennies stacked up. (via MetaFilter)

Here's just one example: "People in the United States, unlike Iraq, are free to protest and to make their case known."

Warren Buffett, for instance, is down from $62bn to $37bn, not even the annual GDP of Uruguay. 

Although we Greens remain the only party in Parliament opposed to this project and to the airport expansions also being rammed through as part of the same process, I'd have thought this decision by Parliament would be newsworthy. Nope. Just one local story from the P&J.

Yesterday, Stewart Stevenson, Minister for More Of Everything, got grilled by Patrick's Committee on the Climate Change Bill, and according to PA, was "clueless". Did his hours being put on the spot get covered in the media? Nope. There's a bit of PA copy, then the previous mentions are all about him taking credit for new roads.

The policy debate gets ignored, even as scientists meeting in Copenhagen warn of even more radical acidification of the seas, and even greater sea level rises. Is it just me, or is the disconnect here absolutely terrifying?

Honestly, does anyone in the real world think it would be better for Mr Clegg to spend the weekend listening to Mike Rumbles bang on about potholes rather than being with his family?

As the current economic crisis deepens, it's putting more and more categories of business under threat, and many sectors are still feeling the impact of the internet on their old business models. 

"The current, five step editorial process - from reporter to newsdesk to designer to sub to revise - has remained largely unchanged for decades. This will be replaced with a new, three-step process - content creation, multimedia desk, page finishing - driven by simplified workflows and supported by cutting-edge technology."

Now, I've never run a newspaper, and I'm sure they know what they're doing, but the five steps in the original process are all clear and practical, whereas the three new steps sounded like either jargon or euphemisms, with some key bits missing. 

Presumably "page finishing" is meant to include sub-editing, but it could just be demoting proper subbing to mere spell-checking. Which might lead to more of this:

It's lucky for all these brave cheerleaders for Mr Trump that he's such a reliable businessman. Otherwise, one might wonder whether the whole thing is what geeks call vapourware. 

You can ignore his casino business, which has filed for bankruptcy over and over again, because he quit the company last month. Presumably he jumped before he could have his catchphrase used against him. I'm sure these guys are wrong about why that might be, so let's look only at his construction projects.

The $790m Nakheel project in Dubai: suspended. The Trump International Hotel and Tower: loan default, blamed by Trump on the "act of God" known to everyone else as the recession, unfinished, with lawsuit. Trump Tower in New Orleans: on hold. Trump Parc in Stamford: falling debris. Trump Soho condos: breached planning regulations, being nimbied to death.

The list goes on and on, but a particularly scandalous example popped up today. A scheme he was running in Baja California has collapsed, leaving some very angry people who've lost millions in deposits. That article has some extraordinary elements, worth quoting at length.

I wonder if John Swinney will end up feeling like Guadalupe Mendoza when his unimpeachable decision to clear the Menie plans starts to unravel. Describing her purchase, Mendoza told AP: "I did it in less than a minute. I remember my head was hurting and thinking, 'My God, what was that?' I was thinking maybe I should have asked questions. It was like a roller-coaster ride." 

Martin Ford was right: this obscene scheme should never have gone ahead. The silver lining is obvious, though. The markets and Trump's own incompetence now seem so likely to scupper it that we shouldn't even need the fallback plan.

To those who regard this kind of protest as silly or stupid, I'd simply ask if it's as stupid as his efforts to expand airports, nuclear power and coal plants. I'd also like to know what you're doing to try and stop him. 

Finally, it's good PR: the stunt automatically becomes the picture the media will use to cover his so-called low carbon summit, which was the tawdry business-as-usual affair one might expect. They'll then have to explain why there's opposition to him - there's hardly any in the Commons, after all.

Scoop of the year: I think Gerri Peev will be hard to beat. Her story about an Obama aide describing Hillary as a monster went round the world.

Columnist of the year: From the shortlist, I'd vote for Joan McAlpine, both for style and for resisting party lines, even on the numerous occasions I don't agree with her.

Political journalist of the year: Heaven forbid that someone in my line of work should pick and choose from the luminaries on that list. 

His diatribe was built around a peculiarly hypocritical core. In one breath he says teenage girls "have been indoctrinated with the lie that they'll never amount to anything, and have fulfilled that prophesy by making no effort to achieve any qualification", then he goes on to tell them that their choices "result in a greater burden on the state, and lead to the continuation of the underclass". No room there for self-awareness.

And, as Patrick said in the Record piece, where are Harris's admissions of Labour's failures on poverty, on sex education, on the pay gap, etc? Where is the basic biological acknowledgement that babies have fathers as well as mothers? 

Harris's courage is the typical courage of the right, brave assaults on the most vulnerable in society, brimming with sexism and class hatred. Yet again he's proved how utterly out of touch he is.

Instead, they're actually a pro-nuke and anti-wind lobbying group, made respectable by their name and nothing more. They're backed by the radioactive Ian Fells, who some have harsher words for, and the demagogue Noel Edmonds.

They're also hosting a conference next week, with Tavish Scott as the keynote speaker. Could this be related to the fact that his former MSP colleague Euan Robson has also taken REF's irradiated shilling? Surely the Liberals aren't warming up to go nuclear as the basis for another ill-conceived line of attack on the SNP?

A series of letters then appeared in the local paper from former Labour Councillor Tony Carlin, defending Adam Ingram and attacking Kirsten. Except the letters weren't really from Carlin, and he came right out and said so. Ironically, the forger had even called Kirsten a liar. The News of the World has more.

The longer a government serves in office, the more likely it is to become corrupt, especially when it's clear the electorate are about to turf them out. Labour MPs could be forgiven for wanting to polish up their CVs, but I suspect honesty and hard work would be more appealing than either fraudulent and self-serving astroturf campaigns or consultancies with truly incompetent IT companies.