Are Europe And USA Drifting Apart Over Warmonger President Obama’s Aggressive Attitude To Russia?

The entire foreign policy of the Obama Administration in the USA is based on having its European allies give a veneer of respectability to America’s warmongering, economic imperialism and blatant bullying of smaller nations. But has the rent bot President overreached himself in trying to bully Russia’s Vladimir Putin?

Unfortunately, in the nick of time it would appear, European leaders have woken up to the American scam. While German enviroloons have been forced to accept their green policies based on medieval wind technology have failed and eft the European Union’s most powerful (and the Euro zone’s only solvent) nation dangerously dependent on Russia for its energy needs, smaller economies have bee hit hard by American sanctions preventing them exporting to Russia.

The Russians on the other hand have found it easy to source the products they need from Africa, South East Asia and The Middle East.

Are Europe And USA Drifting Apart Over Warmonger President Obama’s Aggressive Attitude To Russia?

Emperor Obama seeks To Destroy American Econimy With One Executive Order

President and Emperor Barack Obama is moving forward with a central component of his climate-change agenda, as the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that carbon emissions must be reduced by 30 percent at fossil-fuel-burning power plants by 2030 to fend off the devastating effects of a changing climate.

The plan is actually set to take effect next year, but EPA administrator Gina McCarthy says the administration has a “moral obligation to act”. The problem with this kind of ideological is that its proponents are agenda driven. thus they tends to “do what is right” without thinking through the practicalities.

In this case the practicalities are that the USA has become addicted to energy and even if sustainables had not proved disappointing compared to predictions of their efficiency based on mathematical models, there is no possibility that American industrial and domestic users could be served by wind and solar. Read full story: Emperor Obama To Destroy American Economy With One Executive Order

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It’s no fracking use dreaming, shale gas is not The Messiah

To read the headlines or listen to that even more idiotic and unreliable source, Barack Hussein Obama you would think the USA was on the verge of regaining its position as the world’s No. 1 oil and gas producer and exporter due to the discovery of way to exploit vast reserves of oil and gas held in shale deposits.

In fact, according to The White House, fracking shale would drive America’s economic recovery and pave the way for The Emeror Obama to complete Americ’s economic conquest of the world and establishment of a global empire. Told you he’s a dickhead.

Recently President Obama made various noises that the US could alleviate the dependency of Ukraine on Russian gas because of America’s infinite reserves of oil shale and natural shale gas. Ever the dickhead’s dickhead Obama is once again letting his teleprompter do the thinking. There’s only one thing wrong with his dream solution to the Putin obstacle to his planned absorption of Ukraine into the EU and NATO, America’s shale bonanza is not going to happen.

The surface numbers are indeed impressive to a layman or politician but have been complied by the well known scientific method of making mathematical models of reality. And that means ignoring any real world data that suggests things might not be a simple as the scientists would like.

from Veterans Today:
According to US Government Energy Information Administration data, between 2005 and 2010 the contribution from shale gas to total US marketed gas production rose from less than 2% to more than 20%. And 2011 set an all-time record for US production as the result of shale gas growth.
However the shale gas comes from a small number of areas with significant and viable shale rock formations that have trapped gas and oil in the interstices of the sedimentary shale rocks. Continue reading:

Storm, what storm?

“Oh there’s going to be a terrible, terrible storm,” chorused the meteorologists at the met. office, echoed by the CAGWARTs of the BBC and the fearmongers of the political establishment. “Winds so strong they would blow a nun’s knickers off or blow the sun out of its orbit around Brian Cox’s grin, raid so hard it would wash clean the blood from Macbeth’s hand (link) and shit in such copious shitloads it would stop all travel, business, commerce and sexual activity all over Britain for months.

So what happened? I drove from Accrington to Bolton over an exposed road across the moors earlier and it was a bit windy but not enough to curtail my speed. There was a bit of rain but never enough to warrant putting the wipers on high speed. And businesses were doing business as usual.

“Ah but aren’t you northerners well hard and used to such atrocious conditions Little Nicky, you might well ask.

Yes and no, yes we are used to such conditions and no they are not atrocious, if fact they are pretty normal for this time of year.

Could it be the computer models that promised us global warming at an accelerating rate until we all fried just as the time global getting a little bit milder accelerated to a standstill got it wrong again?

Was it all just hyperbole or do the science worshipper so desperately need to belive that if we do not shout down all conventional power generation now and reclaim the lifestyles of bronze age goat botherers, the demon Carbonzebub will destroy the world?

Maybe the CAGWARTs hyped the threat of this weather system in the hope that the principle of cosmic attraction would attract a storm that they could then blame on global warming, you know like Noel Edmonds wished for a television comeback. Weell much as I would like to blame global warning for Noel Edmonds, that’s stretching things a bit far.

No, these believers in magic, miracles and fairies hoped to use the storm to press their case for covering our beautiful landscape in windmills and mirrors ,to further their agenda of living in a clean green dystopia with no heat, light, television or recorded music.

Here’s an interesting infographic showing how much of our beautiful landscape would have to be covered in ugly technological monstrosities to make up for just one large power station.

And as you digest that remember no matter how many of those bloody things are installed, they still don’t generate electricity when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun does not shine.

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The Great Lie Of Germany’s Green Revolution

You have probably heard Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem politicians singing the praises of Germany’s Green revolution or mainstream media watermelon bloggers (green on the outside, red on the inside, disguising their Marxism as environmentalism as they harangue us for being fossil fuel fossils and complaining about the fact that “green” energy has vastly increased our electricity bills. They too point to the fine example st by Germany.

It’s all lies of course. Here’s an item from the English edition of Spiegel:

“Germany pretends to be a pioneer in the green revolution. But its massively expensive Energiewende has done nothing to make the environment cleaner or encourage genuine efficiency. One writer argues: Either do it right, or don’t do it at all.

So, perhaps you’ve heard about Germany’s heroic green revolution, about how it’s overhauling its entire energy infrastructure to embrace renewable energy sources? Well, in reality, our chimney stacks are spewing out more than ever, and coal consumption jumped 8 percent in the first half of 2013. Germans are pumping more climate-killing CO2 into the air than they have in years. And people are surprised.

Why coal, you might ask? Aren’t Germans installing rooftop solar panels and wind turbines everywhere? What’s being done with the billions of euros from the renewable energy surcharge, which is tacked onto Germans’ power bills to subsidize green energy and due to rise again soon? This is certainly not how we imagined the Energiewende, Germany’s push to abandon nuclear energy and promote renewable sources, which Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government launched in 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

This same government acts as if this coal fever were merely a growing pain or transitional problem. But that’s not true. Instead, it stems from structural flaws in the Energiewende. Renewable energy and the coal boom are causally linked. The insane system to promote renewable energy sources ensures that, with each new rooftop solar panel and each additional wind turbine, more coal is automatically burned and more CO2 released into the atmosphere.”

Read full post at Spiegel Online

So next time you hear Cameron Clegg or Miliband or that Cupid Stunt Ed Davey telling us we all have to have a 400 foot wind turbine in out back yard, send the lying twat a link to this.

And if you see that grinning loon Brian Cox screaming “Isn’t science brilliant,” KILL HIM because he believes wind and solkar power are BRILLIANT.

Big Energy Kleptomaniacs Double Profits

This week as millions thousands hundreds a few Daily Mail readers prepare to celebrate the life and achievements of Margaret Hilda Thatcher a story in the Guardian brought to mind that one of Maggie’s great achievements was the privatisation of the energy industry.

Now the nationalised energy suppliers, The CEGB and British Gas may have been incompetent, bureaucratic, moribund and resistant to change butthey were not theiving scumbags.

To be fair, the electricity and Gas suppliers that emerged after Maggie’s privatisation were not too bad. It too a Labour government to truly fuck things up by letting Krauts, Eyeties, Yanks, Crapauds and any old Tom Dick and Hari Krishna follower buy British energy companies. Not just buy shares in but buy total ownership of.

Any good Briton knows you can’t trust Johnny foreigner, especially when he’s in a position to say “You-a either pay-a da price we set or you don’t-a get no more-a da gas and lekkitric, capisce?”

Nobody therefore should be surprised to learn that energy companies are doubling profits while selling less gas and electricity. The way the energy business works is very similar to the way The Olive Oil business works.

from The Guardian:
BIG SIX ENERGY FIRMS ACCUSED OF COLD BLOODED PROFITEERING
The big six energy suppliers have been accused of “cold-blooded profiteering” after official figures showed they had more than doubled their retail profit margins over the last 18 months and were now earning an average of £95 profit per household on dual-fuel bills.

The industry regulator Ofgem, which produced the estimates, said profits per household would reach £100 over the next 12 months.

Other new figures obtained from British Gas, EDF and the four other suppliers showed their profit margin from power generation – a separate part of the business – averaged more than 24% in 2011. They are believed to have risen since.

The escalating earnings were condemned by fuel poverty campaigners, rival energy companies and the shadow energy secretary, Caroline Flint.

Read full story

The Latest ‘Green’ Levy Is A Stealth Poll Tax

The government’s latest ‘Green Levy’ is a stealth tax on families and will increase domestic fuel bills by 8%. The ‘carbon price floor’ which comes into effect today will drive tens of thousands of families into fuel poverty, experts warn.

This new ‘green energy’ surcharge on commercial and domestic energy consumers (everybody) is designed to ensure suppliers use less gas, coal and oil – but has been described as a ‘stealth poll tax’ on individuals and businesses.

In fact it is to ensure the thieving scum who jumped on the green energy bandwagon when Labour were handing out subsidies for wind turbines and solar panels for not generating electricity will be stealing more of your money for providing no electricity in future.

Analysts say the levy on the production of electricity from fossil fuels will account for an 8 per cent rise on household bills in just two years.’ The Coalition are not prepared to be honest and denounce this crooked scheme cooked up by their predecessors because they too get donations from the fascist corporations who benefit from this legalised theft.

The Carbon Price Floor is of course an EU promotion. We must leave the EU.

Vote UKIP – or anybody except Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem.

Read more: Carbon Price Floor Under Fire, Dubbed Stealth Poll Tax

Crippling Fuel Prices Caused By Tax Increases Over Past Ten Years

Crippling Fuel Prices Caused by Tax Increases Over The Past Ten Years

by Phil T Looker

These pages don’t really work on blog.co.uk but if what you see whets your appetite real the full article Crippling Fuel Prices Caused by Tax Increases Over The Past Ten Years at The Daily Stirrer

http://www.greenteethmm.com/fuel-tax-inflation.shtml

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Are governments and utility firms using bad science to rob us?

A new report issued under the radar by the UK Meteorological Office shows there has been no increase in the average global temperature for sixteen years. So why are governments pressing ahead with green energy schemes? Could it be the whole thing was a scam to justify imposing punitive carbon taxes. I told you so.
Read full post:
Governments and Corporations Using Bad Science To Rob Us

New Green Energy Scam As Blatant As Mighy Wind Fiddle

Little Nicky has always informed you that the wind power industry was a scam, a snouts – in – the – trough carve up between dodgy businessmen, corrupt tax eaters and power crazy politicians. But your friend nicky who is never wrong must admit to having slipped up on this one. You see I have always said run of river hydro electric schemes were the way to go.

So is Little Nicky’s cloak of infallibility slipping? Well no, I merely underestimated how corrupt and venal the people running the country and those with their snouts in the trough of tax money actually are. Generating hydro electricity is relatively easy so even a property developer or a banker ought to be able to manage such a venture. but why bother when the government will help you pick the taxpayers pocket and violate their human rights at the same time. next to the green con men medieval robber barons look like Salvation Army workers.

Prime minister “call me Dave” Cameron has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford, according to published data one of the world’s top ten universities. One might be forgiven for thinking then that he would understand property rights are a cornerstone of liberty and security throughout our civilization. Wiser political thinkers than Dave understood this a long time ago.

The Virginia Bill of Rights, a precursor to the US Declaration of Independence contains these words:

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Here’s Samuel Adams, one of the signatories of the U S Declaration of Independence on the same subject:

The Natural Rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; second, to liberty; third to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.

Finally and most robustly is the godfather of liberalism, the philosopher who inspired them all, John Locke:

Whenever the legislators endevour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience,…

So when we consider what is happening throughout the free world, why are we not out in the streets protesting at they way our property is being stolen from us in the name of “saving the planet”, and at the same time kicking the crap out of the occupy protesters (not to further our rebellion you understand but just for the fun of it?)

Time for a pitchforks and cudgels, time to invoke the memory of Wat Tyler and Dick Puddlecote. The theft of our property rights being made lawful by our notionally “Conservative” prime minister as the continues his desperate bid to suck up to the Euronazi Brussels bureaucratic dictatorship, the United Nations and the globalist, totalitarian, scientific dictatorship lobby. Dave tried to position his rickety coalition as the “greenest government ever”, and now finds himself being held to ransom by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, authoritarian lefties and crooked scientists.

Principally Dave’s always dodgy government is a hostage of the ongoing renewables scam.

The wind farm industry is surely the worst offender. Some idiotic, green, obsessive – compulsive bell end complained the other day about a report that claimed wind farms reduce property values by between 25 per cent and 50 per cent. Actually, if anything, the scale of the problem was understated. Cases have been reported of properties being rendered unsaleable by their proximity to wind farms. Whatever the exact figure, 25 per cent or 100 per cent, I think those of us not in the pay of Mighty Wind or trotting out propaganda for the preposterous and devious QUANGO Renewable UK would agree that the very last thing we’d want on our doorstep (or on the ridge a hundred feet above our house in my case) would be a wind farm. Few people would ever dream of buying a property near one.

Not a single one of the wind farms blighting Britain would have been built without state incentives (in the form of Renewable Obligations Certificates, Feed In Tariffs, and legislation which makes it very hard for communities to prevent wind farms being built in the area)because without an intravenous drip of taxpayers money they are not commercially viable. We can confidently assume therefore that wind farms represent a wanton assault by the state on property rights. We have been deprived of the right to protect our property because “saving the planet” trumps any logic when we try to object to some money grubbing tax eater putting up a 350 foot tower with a thirty ton turbine perched on top of it at the end of our gardens. Such confiscatory measures “for the common good” belong to the “socialist” regimes of Uncle Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao and Pol Pot. From a Conservative- Liberal Democrat Coalition such tyranny is an outrage.

But it’s not just Mighty Wind industry which is involved in this scam. A lead story in the Spectator recently reporting on the UK hydro power industry which turns out to be very nearly as damaging, duplicitous, unpleasant, corrupt and underhanded as its evil twin Mighty Wind.

Many of you probably thought that hydro-electric power represented the acceptable face of “renewable” energy. I did until I read Pippa Cuckson’s article in the spectator. The story reveals hydro to be yet another taxpayer-subsidised feeding trough for rent-seeking scumsuckers, a technology which produces next to no electricity and which – just like wind farms – causes immense damage to wildlife. Now I don’t give a damn about a few dead fish, not about the birds and bats taken out by wind turbines. But remember, o my brothers and sisters, the fuss from the greenies when there was a proposal to build a conventional gas power station on scrubland that is a breeding ground for the two toed toad. As always different sets of rules apply to things the left approve of that those they don’t like.

The section of Ms. Cuckson’s expose that should concern us is her anecdote about Nottingham Angling Club – which in 1982 forked out £150,000 for the fishing rights to a one and half mile stretch of the river Trent above a weir which is now about to be converted to hydropower. The quality of their fishing will almost certainly diminish.

There are stories like this from all over the country, Whether its wealthy fly fishing enthusiasts who’ve paid a fortune for a prime stretch of trout stream or an ordinary working man’s club like the one in Nottingham, people are going to suffer as a result of this state-sponsored drive for renewables. Ironically the places where these run of river hydropower schemes are being approved their is neither enough depth in the river nor enough fall to provide the kind of pressure which would make the scheme commercially viable without the feed in subsidy from taxpayers. In paces where geography indicates a hydro scheme would be viable the objections that prevent it going ahead come from the green lobby, because of course the human rights of the Two Toed Toad, the Chocolate Coloured Corncrake and the Brazilian Chuff must take priority.

As with wind power, the only reason these hydropower schemes are going ahead is because the government subsidies and incentives funded by us poor taxpayers for those greedy and cynical enough to get their snouts in this latest trough of cornucopean income. So again, what we have here is a clear case of the state arbitrarily confiscating people’s property rights (and money) because of its desire to be seen paying lip service to the green religion while in reality keeping party donor happy with big bungs of tax money.

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Dirty Electricity

There is a capitalist myth gaining currency that electricity is “clean energy.” When we are sucking the watts out of sockets or batteries it is clean enough of course, no columns of yellowy grey smoke rising from tall chimneys, no nasty oily smell as of exhaust fumes from internal combustion engines.

That might seem to confirm the claims of commercial operations promoting the virtues of the electric car or electrical home heating systems but think again. Electricity is not a clean fuel, most of the electric power used for domestic and industrial purposes is generated by burning coal, oil or gas. Power stations are the biggest emitters of CO2 and NO2, running 24/7, pumping these pollutant gases into the atmosphere.

Plus your Prius into the main supply and you can feel virtuous, the generating plant that produced the electricity flowing into your batteries is well away from town so out of sight, out of mind. But the power station is not the only source of pollution drivers of electric cars should be aware of the environmental impact of manufacturing and disposing of Nickel Metal – Hydride (NiMH) batteries. both are absolutely filthy processes. Lithium – Ion batteries would be a better option but for the scarcity of lithium and the abundance of people who want to own cars.

Still, so long as the batteries are not manufactured in our back yard the public relations peoples’ job in persuading us to scrap our perfectly good conventional cars and buy new hybrids or electric cars. We can continue to be concerned without actually changing our lifestyles.

Clean generation systems are the answer but what does The Great Conspiracy come up with? Carbon Capture Systems. Even if the technology works it only succeeds in moving the problem out of sight.

Nuclear power from fission offers CO2 free electricity but pollutes in other ways. So much for electricity being a clean fuel. It is time we stopped letting the media and the evangelists for free market solutions divert attention from the grim realities. As things stand we have no reliable and environmentally friendly way of providing the electricity modern societies need. And the effing Government are pratting about with windmills.

Nuclear fusion would seem to provide and answer but research has not progressed much in the last fifty years.

We will only have abundant clean energy when we are prepared to elect Governments that are not slaves to big business and big finance, that will not prioritise the profit factor but sink public money and human resources into developing power generation technologies that utilise genuinely reliable and sustainable sources, the Sun, tides, river flow.

Support For Sensible Science

Support For Sensible Science

Words and phrases highlighted in bold type in this article indicate there are links to further reading at the end of the article
For a few months I have been baiting the “boy-scientists” of the Bad Science site and their cult leader Ben Goldacre (don’t bother too much about him for now, its a false name for sure.) There are many examples, one of the best being Dr. Strangelove’s Secret Bacon Butty Weapon, as the title suggests a tongue in cheek article, but with a keen edge.
Well some very reasonable people working in Research and Development in several fields have commented on these posts and feel I have presented a negative view of the sciences at a time when colleges are struggling to recruit students to science courses. I thought I had done enough to distinguish between “scientists,” the kind of people who think that by announcing themselves as scientists they have somehow defined themselves quite clearly and explicitly as members of a superior species, “boy-scientists” who practice a very simplified version of “science” such as might be shown on Children’s Television but behave as if “science is some kind of religion that must not be questioned except by initiates to the priesthood and the scientists who are simply conscientious and competent knowledge workers.
Following my most recent baiting of boy-scientists in the Strangelove post one of the boy-scientists made reference to my “irrational hatred of scientists”. RESULT!
The point many critics miss, presumably because they do not set much store by language skills is that I am actually quite a fan of the natural sciences. I do not hate people who work with any of those skills, physics, chemistry, biology, or their work. Having spent twenty odd years working in computers and telecommunications I am no stranger to applying some of those bodies of knowledge in solving problems. Though pretty hopeless at pure mathematics maths I have always been able to “do the maths” if there is a practical need. Also, my work as a consultant took me into the nuclear and conventional power industries, chemicals, oil, defence, public service agencies and a number of financial and commercial enterprises. All of them use various sciences at some level so I am well aware of the importance of the sciences in a modern society And I deplore the way boy-scientists with their dorky dress sense, their cone-heads and their nerdy tunnel vision present an image of scientific work as something to be avoided at all costs by cool dudes and their hos.
What irritates me increasingly is the way some people, usually of the no-life, mega-personal-hygiene- issues tendency will talk of “science” as a zealot talks of the divine, as if it is something that can only be understood by initiates who have progressed through several stages of competency.
So before we go further let’s get straight what exactly a science is. The Oxford English Dictionary and leading American dictionary, Websters, define a science as “a systematic and formalised body of knowledge.” From Agriculture to Zoology there are many sciences or “ologies” that we do not usually think of as sciences, so it is both misleading and confusing to refer to oneself as a “scientist” without qualifying what science one actually works with. Sorry, I can be a bit pedantic about language at times, but language is a science too. If we study language at a high level it reveals a wealth of information about the history and development of human culture.
Is it any wonder then that so many people get mightily pissed off when somebody like boy-scientist Ben Goldacre or his sad little buddies such as the guy who runs skeptico.com announce “I’m a scientist” before dismissing without thought something like homeopathy or the Intelligent Design argument. It may be the smugness, that “I’m a scientist so I must be cleverer than you” attitude or simply that they appear to think by citing “science” they prove their case beyond argument when in reality they do not even begin to understand the question.
The good thing is they lack life-experience and emotional immaturity so winding them up is easy.
It seems however, in playing these games I have given the impression that the sciences are purely for saddos and nerds, it is time to put it right.

A natural break here, so I should explain that although the phrase Intelligent Design has been hijacked by fundamentalist Christians as proof of the Bilical creation myth. In fact the original theory of intelligent design referred not to the creation of life on Earth but to the design and interaction of sub atomic particles and atoms.The Bible is in fact quite clear on the point that there was life on Earth before the Creation but to understand properly we need to look at the creation myth of the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta.

We must find ways to make study of the sciences appealing or we are in big trouble. Bigger trouble than we are in already. So the first thing we must broadcast is that without the sciences human civilisation would be nowhere. Had Mesolithic or Neolithic humans not made the evolutionary leap that led to their beginning a systematic study of the world they lived in and had they not developed languages to communicate what they learned from tribe to tribe and generation to generation we would still be running around naked and eating dung for our dinner. (BTW If you did eat dung for your dinner it’s probably because you are homeless in Westminster where the dark forces of Nimbyism have stopped the soup run, but that is another issue.) Without the sciences we would have no tele, books (papermaking and printing involves several sciences) no cars or bikes, no trains and boats and planes. We would live in mud huts and cook our food over open fires lit by banging our thumb with a big stone (that might not be true, I just put it in hoping some of the boy-scientists would be thick enough to test the theory.)
Science is a formal body of knowledge and almost everything we do, whether it is related to survival of fun, depends on knowledge.
Science comes from the Latin word “scientia” meaning know or discern. The same Latin root also gives us conscience, (knowing or being aware of onself), prescience (having foreknowledge – like fortune tellers: fortune telling always sets the boy-scientists off,) and omniscience (being all knowing).
Knowing is perhaps the biggest thing that raises us above animals and makes us human. Even the name of our species, homo sapiens sapiens, (from Latin sapere, knowing in the sense of being wise rather than aware of, our early ancestors were homo sapiens, man who knows, we are homo sapiens sapiens, man who knows he knows. I told you there was a science in language.) After 50,000 years or so of living in communities and not only surviving but advancing because we learned first to co-operate and then to record what we learned through co-operating it is rather sad to have come to a point where in some walks of life we have people who declare “I am a scientist (a knowledge worker) as if they have uttered some kind of magic word.

To present the sciences thus, as some kind of closed world of esoteric knowledge that may only be acquired by a select few, the chosen ones, is utterly wrong and damaging. We should be presenting the sciences, including those subjects which are not usually viewed as sciences, archaeology for example, as exciting and cool.

How cool is Physics?

For twenty years now I have followed the work being done at Cern (Conseil Europeean pour Recherche Nucleaire) in Geneva and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S.A.) to identify the Higgs Boson and study other sub atomic particles and thus prove the theories of physicist Peter Higgs. Back in 1957 Higgs was looking one of the great mysteries of the universe, why heavy stuff is heavy (I doubt he would put it like that.) Another way of saying this is “why does a rock weigh more than all the individual atoms making up that rock?”
Everything is made out of atoms so why does a cannonball weigh more than a ball of feathers. Well obviously because that is the way things are, but that was not enough for physicists like Higgs. They wondered about the mysteries of the Universe, not in the sense of why are we here, where did we come from, is there any point to it all and who put the ram in ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong and the questions that puzzle philosphers such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but why did all those gluons and quarks, the sub atomic particles bind together in the nanoseconds after “The Big Bang” (if there was such an event) and make a tiny thing with a nucleus and orbiting electrons. And then why did those tiny atoms bind together with other atoms to make molecules which in turn made galaxies, stars, planets, asteroids, cheese, shirts and poo.

Higgs theory was not just made up out of thin air as I and other fiction writers make up stories and boy-scientists make up facts to support their attempts to get on the corporate gravy train, but carefully thought through after intensive study of the work of other theoretical physicists and the results of experiments carried out in Britain, America, Russia, France and many other nations. He suggested the existence of a sub atomic particle that could only exist as a separate entity for a nanosecond after the nucleus of an atom had been smashed apart, but that while bound with other sub-atomic particles in the nucleus of an atom, gave off a type of energy that joined it to all the bosons in all the atoms in all the gin joints in the Universe to create a field in which all matter is contained. It is this, his work suggests, that enables matter (us and our world) to have physical existence.

If any reader is wondering why I keep slipping the flippant, irrelevant remarks into a serious(ish) article, it is because boy-scientists get really irritated when I do not take them as seriously as they think they should be taken, that’s why.

If Higgs speculations about the boson is proved to be anywhere near right, it opens up a whole new Universe of knowledge. It also proves that most of what we thought we knew is wrong. The obvious benefits are those suggested by science fiction. Anti-gravity belts that enable you to do without a car and still not have to talk to nutters on the bus, interdimensional travel, rides on Star Ships like the Enterprise, all that. Maybe those things are just fiction, but think of the more likely possibilities, the ability to use the seemingly endless and non-polluting supply of energy that drives the universe, leave all the lights on and a tele running in every room, its all free. The ability to feed everyone in the world. This is all wild speculation of course, but we should bear in mind that only a hundred years ago the idea of sending moving pictures through the air to a glass screen in people’s homes was not even wild speculation. Three hundred years ago they would have burned you as a witch for even suggesting it.

If Higgs theory is proved it will means ghosts and elementals could exist after all. Ghosts are, according to serious researchers into the paranormal, simply electro magnetic echoes of past events while elementals are energies. It may also go a long way to explaining some of the other questions that scientific knowledge as it stands, can only respond to with bluster and evasion. The word “ghosts” is used deliberately here because of the effect it has on boy-scientists. They get as sneery about ghosts as they do about psychics, astrologers, scryers and speculative interpreters of prehistory.

Could ghosts be an electro magnetic echo? Well yes, it is perfectly feasible no matter what our boy scientists say. Such echoes or shadows might be a better word do exist and can be interpreted. How do the ghost deniers think forensic computing works, how can technologists identify data on a hard disk after it has been overwritten many times. Quite simply each layer of data leaves its own echo and with sensitive enough equipment to read those echoes, information can be reassembled. Ghosts in the machine.

Does this mean I believe in ghosts? Well when I walk through graveyards at night I’m quite confident of not meeting any dead people running round with white sheets over their heads. Other than that I am aware of many possibilities, one of which is that ghosts may simply a figment of the imagination. I do believe however that people who claim to have experienced such things are utterly genuine. The Supernatural menu of my new web Multi Media labyrinth Greenteeth will have lots of articles on such topics.

A few weeks ago I raised the question of gravity. What is gravity? If as the standard academic answer suggests it is an attractant force, where does the energy to drive that force come from? Every force needs and energy input the theory goes, yet wherever we are in the universe, whatever we are doing, gravity always works … except when it doesn’t.

An anti – gravity engine has long been a dream of aviation engineers and a safe fallback for sci-fi writers. Such stuff is just fantasy the academic community say, and yet we have an anti gravity device that most of us use daily. Which brings us to another mystery, magnets. Find a ferrous surface to hang a permanent magnet on and it will hang there forever. What power holds it there against the pull of gravity? We might be lucky enough to get someone waffling about weak forces and strong forces working against each other, they are always good for a laugh, but we can be sure they will not be able to explain just what these weak and strong forces are. We simply do not understand the energy that makes a magnet magnetic.

Another anti gravity device, one that offers more tangible practical benefits, is maglev propulsion. Maglev uses the superconductive repellent force of electro-magnets to drive a train at high speed as it floats above its tracks. Maglev technology, based on ideas published by German physicist Walter Meissener in 1933, has been around for twenty years but only now are the first experimental trains being built. Attempts to progress the technology have met with obstruction, yet maglev offers the possibility of shipping goods overland to and from the far east in only two days. It is a realistic, less polluting alternative to air travel for the movement of passengers and freight. Opposition to its development is mainly from the world of academic science, are they perhaps fearful of losing the benefits that accrue from their cosy relationship with the oil companies. The case for the urgent development of this technology is argued here:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/cdoidge/entry/we_need_maglev/

To describe here all the exciting projects going in the field of scientific research would take too long: a new type of generator to provide electricity from tidal currents, zero carbon energy to power our new Maglev trains; cars that need no driver; the many advances in computing; producing energy from sunlight; all amazing and important projects. There is equally important work going on in agriculture to produce better crop yields by methods less damaging to the environment than the chemical fertilisers used for the past century. This is a case of responsible science trying to undo the mistakes of irresponsible scientists who charged ahead, chasing their Holy Grail without ever pausing to think of the consequences. All we hear from the boy-scientists and their paymasters when combating famine is mentioned is promotion of genetically modified crops. These idiots do not learn, again they are wanting to charge ahead with a process when nobody can possibly have a clue what the long term consequences may be.

The people funding the G-M projects are of course those same oil and chemical companies that are obstructing maglev and pushing for forced medication of the entire population. It is interesting to note most of the boy-scientists I encounter work in medical research. Cult-leader Ben Goldacre’s obsessions are homeopathy, diet supplements, those quack remedies that are advertised in the small ads of the Sunday papers, Promoting the safety of the very suspect MMR vaccine (its worth mentioning here that Goldacre’s main claim to fame is he won a prize for freelance medical journalism for an article he wrote about how the silly people who doubted the efficacy of the wonderful MMR vaccine were. Strangely, when dismissing parents who report autism symptoms appearing in their children shortly after administration of the vaccine as gold diggers and delusional hysterics (nice bloke our Ben,) by saying there is “absolutely no scientific evidence” to support their claims he omits to mention his prize was funded by the main manufacturer of the vaccine. Prima facie evidence of a conflict of interest I would say. Goldacre and his crew obviously have an interest in shouting down criticism of their paymasters so I shall continue to pillory boy-scientists and the corrupt companies who fund them whenever I see evidence of their trying to occupy the moral high ground while serving the interests of their paymasters.

Hypocritical is one thing serious scientists are not.

FURTHER READING
Magnetic Levitation – Walter Meissner

Energy from marine currents

An academic report on Organinc Farming, its viability and environmental advantages

BBC News Report argues that organic farming is economically viable when the cost of environmental damage caused by intensive farming methods is factored into the cost analysis.

Developments in semi biological photovoltaic cells reported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Intelligent Design
http://www.y-origins.com/?gclid=CJDA14CTnpACFQcrlAodISUuog
Avesta Zoroastrian Archives

When In Doubt, Do The Most Stupid Thing (Heathrow expansion)

At the present rate of expansion, Heathrow’s Terminal 99 and the fiftieth runway will be built somewhere near Bristol with work commencing in 2050. The latest extension to London’s monster airport have been nodded through without consideration for the impact on the environment so we can expect planning applications for extensions to Stanstead, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool and any other airport that fancies doubling its traffic handling capacity to be fast tracked without the hassles of public enquiries and such.
Britain’s road system, both trunk routes and local roads, in near gridlock. What is the government’s answer? Build more roads, widen existing roads, make it impossible for people who want to shun the car to find a practical bus service or to afford a journey by rail. Sell more petrol and get extra revenue by taxing us per mile for our car journeys.
Climate Change crisis, what crisis? The government is aware of the challenges posed by climate change and is doing all it can to maximise the opportunities for businesses willing to offer market driven solutions.
So long as somebody makes a profit.
The City of Preston’s bus service is in crisis right now. The private operators were allowed to cherry pick profitable routes, the council tax funded City Transport Department is left to provide loss making services on other routes. Now, thanks to government imposed spending targets the transport department is bankrupt and having to withdraw services. And the private operators, freed of even the limited competition they had, are jacking up prices which causes hardship for the poor old and vulnerable.
As a nation we no longer have a transport system, we have a system for handing taxpayers money to private companies whose one area of competence is in moving profits offshore.
The expansion of Heathrow is madness as is any scheme that encourages more air travel, but as usual in this era of unbridled commerce, the last thing anybody wants to do is the sensible thing. The rich and powerful have serious issues about facing reality.
Along with drought (South East & South West U.S.A., Canada, Central & South East Europe, Central Asia, Africa, floods in Southern Asia, Southern Africa, China etc. etc. and the famine and disease than inevitably follows, we face a crisis of overpopulation and the hangover from unregulated industrialisation.
Yet when any green leaning commentator suggests we need to think about major changes in lifestyle, instead of more of everything faster, less of everything slower, much less, much slower NOW! some twunt* (usually a boy scientist from the Bad Science site in my case) will start sneering about going back to a medieval lifestyle. Not at all, unlike the boy-scientists us green campaigners are well up for change and innovation so long as it improves things. We want tidal and run of river power schemes, solar power as soon as a way of harnessing the solar energy that bombards the Earth without damaging the environment can be found, we want urban tramways, intercity mag-lev train services.

There is no point changing things if they change for the worse. To say “if we can’t improve let’s stay as we are” is not medievalism. So joint the protests readers, campaign to stop new road schemes, fight airport expansion and boot out politicians who are less than whole hearted in their support for environmentally friendly transport, power and building projects.

Its our world, only we can save it.

*twunt: a swear word that people like Russell Brand and Jonathan Woss have started using since Boggart Blog invented it and applied it to Brand around two years ago. Brand probably got it from Wossy who is always stealing my jokes. Russell Brand does not steal my jokes, if he did he might be funny although he would still lack comic timing.
Who says bloggers are not influential?

RELATED POSTS:
Blair’s Former Chief Scientist Warns Against Climate Change Scaremongering

The Renewable Energy Con

Now its official, the governments progress on renewable energy sources is all a con. Those windmills may waft their trefoil arms prettily but the truth is the window of efficiency between too little wind to operate economically and too much wind to operate safely just means there are few days we are actually getting energy from wind. Solar power is a non starter in Britain, not because of lack of sun but because the vast areas of scrubland that can be covered in photovoltaic cells are all in other countries. We tend to build new houses on any bit of land big enough to accommodate a cow pat.

There are of course some viable renewable energy sources we could explore but these require massive investment and have a long payback period. No good at all to the fascistic profiteers our public utilities have been handed to.

So what do the government do. They fall back on statistical smoke and mirrors. Energy production from renewable sources has increased 20% in the last year is easily spun to sound as if we get 20% of our energy from renewables. But actually the 20% increase is 20% of 2%.

Most of our energy still comes from coal, oil, gas and nuclear stations. For all the promises of the past decade we have hardly moved forward at all.

Little ?Nicky Machiavelli reported all this going on several times in the past two years. If you want to know the news before it happens read Machiavelli Blog.

Power To The People #1 – Winds of Change

Most people in the world are now aware that something is going on. Changing weather patterns, greater extremes of hot and cold, increasingly more violent storms, unpredictable patterns of rainfall. The only surprise is that it has taken so long for certain influential bodies to sit up and take notice. The scientific consensus is that although some of what is happening may be attributable to the normal cycles of Earth’s climate there has over the last two hundred years been another factor at work. Since the industrial revolution we have been pumping into the atmosphere carbon – heavy residue from the burning of fossil fuels.
We have come a long way since Thomas Newcomen’s steam pump first started to pump water from a Cornish Tin Mine in 1712, power generated by coal, oil and gas has become the most essential commodity in the economic system supporting our way of life. We are gluttons for energy, whether it is to drive our over- large cars, to put the picture on our TV screens, enliven our computers or provide nice hot water to our power showers. And yet the more energy we use the faster we erode the eco – system that supports us. Power from oil and coal is essential to our way of life but not to life itself. What do we need most, TV or food? An SUV or breathable air? Power showers or clean water to drink? Get down to the most basic human needs and abundant electricity does not figure. Still it would be tough to go back to living in wattle and daub huts and painting ourselves blue to while away the long winter evenings.
Like all addictions our addiction to energy is potentially destructive. Unless we find a way to feed our habit that does not have the harmful side effects of carbon fuels, we are in deep poo. And so there is a scramble to find alternative, sustainable, non – polluting sources of energy. This has to be a job for governments, especially since most governments have sold off the electricity franchises to irresponsible profiteers who cannot see beyond the next quarter’s profit and loss account. Are government’s up to the job though?
Enter an insincere grin with no head or body attached.
Mr. Blair has a target. No, it is not the one painted on his back by followers of Osama Bin Laden. Mr. Blair has a vision of how we can start to reduce Britain’s carbon emissions by 2010. It’s the wind, so stop taking indigestion tablets now.
Of all the alternative methods of generating power available the government had decided that covering the country with wind turbines is the only viable option, in other words the only one that gives the power generators a huge return on a very tiny investment. The most obvious flaw in the argument for wind power (apart from the fact that it is supported by the government’s scientific advisors and therefore must be crap,) is that wind is not a reliable sustainable source. Wind often does not blow. Think back to the very cold spell in February of this year; how still it was for nearly two weeks, how the frost clung to the trees and the air started to smell smoky because the fumes from our cars and heating systems were not being carried away. Wind sometimes does not blow for many days at the time we need energy most.
On top of that, wind turbines are not at all environmentally friendly. Take a look at the picture (oops, it isn’t working yet) the wind farm at Cliviger in Lancashire. The turbines make a not unpleasant addition to a rather bleak landscape. Trouble is those turbines would struggle to provide power for a little village like Cliviger. To replace one of the big coal fired power stations along the M6 corridor a few miles to the south would need ten thousand, that’s right TEN THOUSAND wind turbines. Take into account the five power stations along that 120 mile stretch of road and that is most of the high level open ground in this part of the world covered. Look at the picture again. Do you know where it is? If you were to walk a few miles beyond the horizon in the direction the camera is looking you would come to Withins Moor, Wuthering Heights in Bronte fiction, a popular destination for visitors. I mention that in passing, the real point is that these bleak uplands are a vital ecological asset. They are breeding grounds to the insects and birds that pollinate the plants in our countryside, they may look like an unprofitable waste of space to the unschooled eye of a corporate accountant but they benefit us all. Not just the kind of nuts who like to put on Gortex jackets and hike the moorland tracks in rain and snow, but each one of us. If the heathlands suffer, the farmlands suffer. If the farmlands suffer, first our pockets, then our stomachs, then our quality of life suffers.
Think back to those numbers. Fifty thousand wind turbines up there and you would still be nowhere near generating enough power for Lancashire and Yorkshire. Failure at what cost? Each turbine stands on a raft of concrete. Fifty thousand of those, as many acres of heather and peat torn up, natural water features like bogs drained (bogs are very important and not just for our colleague Jenny Greenteeth over at Boggart Blog) streams culverted and redirected and the ability of these vital upland areas to retain vast amounts of water impaired so that instead of draining slowly rainfall will run off into the streams and rivers and become flash floods as its course through the flood plain is blocked by indiscriminate development of housing and commercial property.
Promoting Wind Power as a genuine alternative is probably not the worst idea they government’s tame consultants have come up with, but it is not far off.

If any wind power scheme is proposed in your area please support the environmental groups who oppose it. Whatever they tell you in justification is lies, wind power is just not viable and will do as much harm to the environment as any hydrocarbon based power source.

LITTLE NICKY MACHIAVELLI TELLS IT LIKE IT IS.

Wind Power – objections
Selling out to big business – Greenpeace
FOE – Fools on Ecstacy? Friends of the Earth
George Monbiot – informed opinion