what happens when the US outspends the rest of the world's defence budget?

A link from the CiF post I mentioned below reveals this little gem of information. Its always puzzled me how the Americans never object to the amounts of money their government spends on weapons and the military-industrial complex when they have no public health care and little decent public schooling. I suppose that's what having a shite education system does for the ruling elite; it keeps the populace ignorant of the wider world and amenable to simple emotional manipulation by dissemination of outright propaganda. That a Wikipedia article should exist describing this phenomenon and yet for the subject to not be a major point of contention in recent and past elections in the US is indiciative of the enormous success of this policy.

Educated people see through the bullshit, question what their government tells them, seek information from objective sources and generally don't vote for morons like Blair and Bush. Its that simple.

By this standard the number of intelligent people in the UK and US are pathetically low. Oh dear.


Back on the subject of weapons, I feel depressed that the US administration seems to be forcing its way into a new cold war against Russia and even Europe too, which the yanks seem to view with utter contempt for our (relatively) liberal, socialist politics and habitat of pointedly criticising the bullshit that gets churned out by the Whitehouse. The combination of fear of foreigners and a massive defence budget bode ill. Particularly as that nation still has no national policy in place for combatting climate change. Indeed, attempts to push through legislation at the local and state level are being thwarted by the central administration.

those who cannot learn from their mistakes . . .

So, after the CIA stuffed the Taleban's bunkers full of stingers and heavy machine guns back in the '70s- which were later connected to several downed airliners, warlords and opium production- it seems that the hard lessons about the stupidity of trying to buy off guerillas with weapons hasn't been learnt by the UK. I can't decide whether the inept handling of the Afghani situation is, in fact; some Kevorkian attempt to divest the nation of our responsibilities in that nation by inciting the government there to eject us in disgust; or just the usual bumbling incompetence from the good ol' boys of the civ-serv.

Patrick Cockburn on Basra

He relates how the British armed forces have abjectly failed in their attempts to wrest control of Basra from the militias after the invasion. Its a pretty pathetic tale, the text of which should be tattooed onto Tony Blair's eyeballs so that he can't avoid its grim reality as long as his eyes are open. A luminescent ink would eliminate even that respite . . . . .

DEFRA: UK has a "good record" on tackling climate change

Yes, it sounds like a bad joke, I know.

Fuckers.

the European rail revolution - unless you live in the UK, that is

This is one of my favourite subjects to rant about. Check the map and, apart from Portugal- a country of 10 million with less than half the population density of the UK- see if you can spot any country in Western Europe without a red, high-speed line in it (The poxy piece between Waterloo and the channel tunnel doesn't count, IMO).

Yeah, I know. You can't.

Thanks, Maggie, John "Y-fronts" Major and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara!

counting the cost of climate change

OK, I'm going to jump to a conclusion here without any real depth of understanding.

The floods that have wrecked half of Sheffield, killed three people and are threatening to collapse a dam are a direct result of climate change. There I said it.

Unless you're wilfully ignorant you will have heard scientists predicting the first effects of climate change upon our weather systems. They include warm, cold, dry winters and warm, wet summers. Well, warm and wet is what we have right now so here it is, people: Climate change is here now and you can see the financial costs it will incur unless we take drastic steps to limit it. The clean-up bill from the current flooding is going to cost hundreds of million. Flood prevention already takes up two thirds of the Environment Agency's budget, do you want that to increase? Because I'll tell you something for sure- Gordon Brown is not going to increase the Agency's budget without cast-iron evidence of the costs associated with it. Seeing as the Labour government have already shut down the CEH and stole £68 million from Research Council's budget and seeing as that sort of data just doesn't come for free . . . . well, work the rest out for yourself.

Wikipedia on the economic costs of climate change:

"According to a 2005 report from the Association of British Insurers, limiting carbon emissions could avoid 80% of the projected additional annual cost of tropical cyclones by the 2080s.^[86] A June 2004 report by the Association of British Insurers declared "Climate change is not a remote issue for future generations to deal with. It is, in various forms, here already, impacting on insurers' businesses now."^[87] It noted that weather risks for households and property were already increasing by 2-4 % per year due to changing weather, and that claims for storm and flood damages in the UK had doubled to over £6 billion over the period 1998–2003, compared to the previous five years. The results are rising insurance premiums, and the risk that in some areas flood insurance will become unaffordable for some."

Additional

Johann agrees:

"This week's storm-floods follow hard on the floods of 2000 and 2001, which the distinguished meterologist Philip Eden says would have only naturally happened once every 750 years."

UK has the world's highest inflation of food prices

Znet carried this article, written by Alan Simpson, a Labour MP.

Gee, thanks Tony! Whilst you've been engaging in a little genocide and sucking Bush's cock the rest of the country have been facing spiralling energy, housing and food prices. Nice job running the country, mate!

Monbiot interviewed about his book, Heat

This is a great interview with George (its 1 of 4 - the others aren't hard to find). He lands a few crushing body blows on the UK's climate change policy. The line about the government's chief scientist is simultaneously hilarious and appalling.

Newsflash! - UK Government squanders more intellectual wealth

This time its not hovercrafts or computers but carbon capture and sequestration technology. We've already thrown away our world beating lead in wind turbine technology and now we're letting CCS projects lapse for lack of government investment. The same almost happened to wave power technology 30 years ago.

Why does this happen? Are our leaders and rulers so utterly fucking ignorant of the process of investment and return and this big climate change hootenanny that they are prepared to let an opportunity such as that described my Robin McKie slip by? Didn't The Stern Report make the point, clearly and concisely, that combatting climate change is actually an economic opportunity and not a threat? Why does the fucking government spend millions on researching white papers and then completely ignore them!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH FUCK!

Bush's Demagoguery

Online Journal is usually a bit too ranty and neurotic for my liking but it ran a great article slating Bush's complete inability to engage in rational, lucid, public discourse. Of particular note is his abuse of the term "evil". This, of course, applies to a great many intangible terms that appear far too frequently in our rulers' vocabulary- "terror" is a good one, or "threat" or "intelligence" . . . how about "insurgency"? All of these words are bandied about by politicians without any attempt to elaborate on their meaning.

I think Blair is worse because at least he is aware of what he's saying. Bush can barely read an autocue, let alone comprehend the meaning of the words he's parroting.

Ignorance is bliss in Blair's world

Johann has some fascinating gems here, particularly with reference to Blair's complete ignorance of the bloody and tyrannical history of US covert intervention in the ME and Latin America. He didn't even know who Mossadeq was.

Big, fucking surprise.


Additional:

Some chap called Avi Shlaim agrees.

Money quote:

"Blair has the audacity to say that God will be his judge over the Iraq war. This is a curious attitude for a democratic politician to adopt. History will surely pass a harsh judgment on Blair. He has the worst record on the Middle East of any British prime minister in the past century, infinitely worse than that of Anthony Eden, who at least had the decency to accept responsibility for the Suez debacle."

Britain's pseudo-democracy stolen by the Tories again

The dirty fucking tories seem to have come out as winners of the elections. The curse of the first-past-the-post system has condemned many excellent councils to change hands, instantly reversing any gains made in levels of service. Winston Churchill once said: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." If you accept this, as the vast majority of civilised individuals do then you cannot argue against making that political system as fair and representative as possible. FPTP does not provide anywhere close to that. The Electoral Reform Society will tell you why and what we should use instead.

On a similar subject, a passage from the first link really made my blood boil:

"research from professors John Curtice and Pippa Norris shows that those with the least political knowledge are far more likely to vote under proportional systems, up from 38% in first-past-the post systems to 54%."

I would like to know why it is a good thing for those with the least political knowledge to vote? Why should we be bothered that the Sun readers of the country do not vote? Does no-one comprehend the danger of letting people vote who don't vote rationally? This is a recipe for the sort of reactionary politics that runs much of the US system and look where its got them. I'm not saying that people should be prohibited from voting, quite the opposite- I believe strongly that democracy requires every single person to register their political stance be it Monster Raving Loony, BNP (cnuts) or a simple abstention. The obligation to vote would require that people take an interest and would encourage engagement with the political system.

when will the absurdity of the formula, more roads = less congestion finally be perceived by government?

I thought this was sort of proposal was a thing of the past but apparently not. Can anyone ever imagione the government allocating £5.1bn to the rail network? Yeah. Right.

These links might elucidate the matter further.

1. link 1
   
2. link 2
   
3. link 3
   
4. link 4
   
5. link 5
   
6. link 6
   

Additional:

In response to the comments I would like to rephrase a sentence above. It should read: "Can anyone ever imagine the government allocating £5.1bn to spend directly on the rail network and rolling stock instead of penalty payments to the regulator, director's bonuses and marketing campaigns?

The problem with nuclear generation . . .

. . . is that there are so many hidden costs and its green credentials are not at all proven. Yeah, I know the French have been running nukes for years and have made it shine but the government really really needs to pour money into a comprehensive costings study comparing renewables and nukes before they make any rash decisions. . . . .Oh. What? . . . . They already have? . . . . . .

Oh well then.

MPs to push through new generation of nuke stations

The consequences of the failure of successive UK governments to act on good scientific advice and embrace renewable generation has finally come home to roost with the endorsement by "ministers" and "senior Whitehall sources" of a nuclear power stations instead. 20 GW of generation capacity is scheduled for decommissioning in the next 15 years and there are only plans to replace 20MW - 1/1000th of the loss, so they had to come up with something pretty substantial. And it was the nuke option.

The way I see it, this demonstrates misgovernment on an enormous scale. How can you neglect to plan for the long-term security of your country's energy supply? The opportunities offered by development of renewable technology, the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and the significant returns on offer for those who develop such technology have been made clear to government time after time. The continued failure to take the difficult decision to move away from conventional generation- for whatever reason, be it economic, strategic or environmental- has been passed from one administration to another. I am fully aware of the enormous cost involved in constructing such generation capacity but there is no excuse for avoiding it because it was too difficult or too expensive when this government is pissing money into an illegal war, illegal weapons of mass destruction, a near-mediaeval education system and a struggling NHS that haemorrages money like a cash-cow impaled upon the spear of New Labour's arrogance.

its a telling moment when soldiers break their silence

So several soldiers, fresh from Iraq, have been breaking their traditional silence over defence policy and have started speaking out against their presence in Iraq. I think this quote sums it up nicely:

"Every patrol we went on we were either shot at or blown up by roadside bombs. It was crazy. . . . . . . .We have overstayed our welcome now. We should speed up the withdrawal. It's a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits."

Did you get that Tony? If you are, in fact, human and not a lying machine as you appear so convincingly to be, would you now consider bringing these poorly paid, under equipped, unfortunates home?

how not to fund renewable micro-generation - the UK model

This is utterly farcical. The Stern Report stated unequivocally that sustainability is an opportunity, not a burden. Someone should tell the monkeys who commissioned the report in the first place because they're still deploying the "petulant child" approach.

How not to go about canvassing votes

Yesterday I encountered a bespectacled figure through the frosted glass of my front door trying to shove something through my letter box. I opened the door, as I do to take it from him and was immediately struck by the fact that this was no circular or advert for a takeaway but a bright red leaflet callingupon me to vote for the local labour candidate, Tudor Evans, in the May elections. I politely declined to take the leaflet that he promptly shoved towards me without explanation and stated that I was a member of the Green Party. His resposne, far from acquiescence to my professed personal choice, was to turn his back on me and call over his shoulder, "So you're one of the ones who don't want nuclear power, good luck with all that CO2 then."

How rude!

The canvasser had moved straight onto my neighbours property without stopping to talk, even though I asked his receding back if he would like to discuss the issue. (Ironically enough, I am supportive of the development of new nuclear power stations as there is no other way to meet our obligations to reduce CO2 emissions. Its the lesser of two evils.). This offensive little toad then continued to mutter an offensive commentary under his breath whilst he moved to my neighbour's door which, unfortunately for him, brought him right back to my face as the two doors are right next to each other, thereby providing me with an opportunity to return the offense.

"Yeah, well done on the 650,000 dead Iraqis!"

I think I came out on top in that one.

Newsflash! - UK foriegn policy has produced more terror in the Middle East

Surprised? Nope, me neither. But the more it gets said the greater the chances that Cockweasel-in-Chief Blair might actually start to perceive reality as opposed to the fluffy-bunny fantasy in which he seems to dwell. The Oxfam report looks pretty good but I haven't time to read it now. The Oxford Research Group ones are pretty damning too and come from a very respectable bunch of minds.

is the BBC biased to right-wing opinion?

Johann Hari seems to think so.

I'm inclined to agree, the BBC is very vulnerable to reports in the less principled media of accusations of left-wing bias. This is because much of that media is controleld by right-wing oligarchs keen to push their own conservative agenda. It could reasonably be argued that if the BBC spent all its time fighting unwarranted accusations of liberal bias then it wouldn't have a lot of time left to report the news and make programs.

The problem is that this argument negates the BBC's own reason for existing. Yes, they are there to make TV and radio programs to entertain but the BBC was created to report news objectively. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain".

Read the article, see what you think. I'm with Johann on this one.