An Appeal to Reason - A Cool Look at Global Warming

In this book Nigel Lawson, the former British Chancellor, systematically demolishes the bunk that passes for the "science" of global warming. He rightly points out that the emissions cuts in the UK are an expensive folly, a cost today with no benefit for succeeding generations. All done because of Blairite views on morality and ethics, the same ones that brought us the dodgy dossier and the Iraq war.
Lawson has done us all a great favour in exposing the sham for what it is. As he points out no British publisher would touch his book which he says he was able to write only as his public career is over and he no longer seeks employment. Many thanks to The Overlook Press of Woodstock, New York for righting the wrong. The greatest danger he points to is that scientists who are sceptical about the United Nations and its fell works are denied access to funding. This is science as religion which plans to snuff out academic freedom. After all the argument is "settled." Not while Lawson is around it isn't - as he says "that is no excuse for abandoning reason."
Lawson pokes fun at Al Gore, the man who invented the internet, as he invented most of the scenes in the film An Inconvenient Truth. Actually the truth is inconvenient as it does not support the doomsday cultists who say the end of the world is nigh. Here in cold Canada we would be glad of a bit of global warming! Bring on the northwest passage.
Any contrarian should read this book. It is a tonic for those spoonfed the pap from politicians and gullible journalists. Only 106 pages long and heavily footnoted, Lawson nails the flabby thinking, particularly the reliance on computer modelling, and the liberal guilt of the west.
Lawson opens with a quote: "There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted." (Schopenhauer, Die Kunst Recht zu Behalten.) I have a shorter saying: "There is nothing so stupid that it won't happen."

Lewes-Uckfield line in limbo

This article about a disused Sussex railway is by Dick Tyler of Railwatch magazine:

There is disbelief locally at the long-awaited report which has ruled that there is an “insufficient business case” for the reinstatement of the Lewes-Uckfield rail line in East Sussex. The line is in the most crowded part of the country, would give relief to an overcrowded Brighton line, and passengers are returning in droves to the environmentally friendly railways because of the rise in motoring costs.
The negative Network Rail report commissioned by the Central Rail Corridor Board was published on 23 July.
But former transport minister Tom Harris said before the board convened: ‘I would really like to see this go ahead, I think you have a very good case.” He added: “I want this project to succeed.”
Although there are no major obstacles to the reopening and the reinstated line would make a profit, Norman Baker MP, one of the board members, revealed the “business case” flaw. Network Rail is obliged to use current cost benefit analysis models which are loaded against rail. A review of the process is under way and hopefully there will soon be a new approach to analysis.
Currently the Treasury says time saved for the motorist is a benefit and has a monetary value while time saved for train and bus passengers, cyclists and pedestrians is unimportant. It does not know the monetary value of landscapes, global warming, accessibility, social inclusion and quality of life.

Comment: People who live in Lewes know only too well the traffic chaos at rush hours and the buses needlessly traversing the town one-way system, at all hours of the day, for the lack of a roundabout. They also know that the town increasingly depends on good rail connections to London and elsewhere. East Sussex has been starved of investment by governments of all stripes. The policy is tax the peasants and give nothing in return.
Under the present NuLabour lot revived railways are sprouting up in Wales and Scotland, as payoffs to their voters, while the rest can go to hell. RLT.

Folie de grandeur

I first called for the cancellation of the Olympics back in May. (See: Olympics). Now the story has reached the mainstream press. As the cost soars past £10 billion taxpayers surely know now, if they had failed to spot it, that they are being taken for a ride.
From The Times:
This month Tessa Jowell, the Minister for the Games, admitted that the Government would not have bid for them if it had seen what was coming. “Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost certainly not.”
After the £1 billion Greenwich Dome flop you would have thought they would have seen it coming. Not these sleazebags.
Update: Suppressed report warned government of Olympic folly.

Taxpayers in fresh Olympic sting

An Olympic-sized bill is heading the way of UK taxpayers. Now surely is the time to cancel the Olympics, as the government can no longer justify this folly.
Update: Vancouver taxpayers due for haircut too.

Standby for killer Olympics

A cycling story from the Evening Standard:

"More than half of those killed are involved in accidents with lorries and experts fear the death toll could rise as construction lorries pack onto London's roads in the build up to the 2012 Olympics."

Olympics £1 billion black hole

The boondoggle goes on.

Dome £1 billion, Olympics £10 billion

If at first you make a large cock-up why not go for broke next time out? Suitcases full of cash stuffed with your money are being handed out with abandon. Somebody is getting very rich out of four weeks of drug-fuelled sport. One thing you can be sure of it isn't going to be the taxpayer or the poor mugs who buy the lottery tickets.

Not an Equitable Life under Brown

UK pension scandal goes on.

Snouts in trough

The placemen, sinecurists and tax-eaters have been at it again. Oink, Oink!
Update: more.

Brown in denial

The Telegraph reports it "is a "dirty tricks" operation being orchestrated by his enemies within Labour..."
With friends like these.

An Inspector Calls

While Blair meets Knacker at Number Ten, Brown is now a person of interest it seems. Whiter than white, purer than pure.

Boyo in court date

Old Labour politician, now sinecurist, Neil Kinnock has been standing on the gas. The Telegraph grasses him up.

Deputy PM in trouser trouble

Now we know why John Prescott needed two Jags. More in The Times.

Knacker fishes, minnow caught

Expedition searches for big fish. Pissed headmaster caught in reporter's net, answers to the bill. The Times has the story.

Rip-off Blair

Blair 'liable for tax bill over use of Royal Flight' - The Times has the story.

Blair used royal jet for family holidays

Snout in trough, the Prime Minister makes the most of it while it lasts. Piglets too. Oink, Oink!
See also Private Taxis, "the system is being abused" and "A total of £3.06m was spent on government flights between 2002 and 2004."

More spin: blame it on the Tories

Labour news management changes tack.

What a fool believes

Have you noticed when a scandal breaks the damage limitation ring-fencers go to work. "Brown knew nothing about it, old boy." "Prescott was completely in the dark." This is rapidly shown to be balderdash in the following days, but suits the news management strategy of that particular day. Yesterday's lies are soon forgotten.