Message from the left. Shut up.

Andrew Klavan kicks a goal with this brilliant analysis of today's left wing policies.



Seems like the left has simply taken Joe Dolce's idea and put it into effect.



And seriously, can you understand how this tune was #1 all over the world?

(Nothing Follows)

Why do I have a Climate Stalker?

I have a comments stalker whose sole task in life seems to be to gainsay any of the science I post demonstrating that climate science is fraudulent and that its adherents have ulterior motives.

Last year I wrote that all anonymous commenters should be referred to as 'fudgie' when people respond to them.

However, one commenter was so prolific in his contribution supporting the pro-AGW argument and so distinctive in his style that I dubbed him big F 'Fudgie'.

I doubt that there was ever one climate change post to which Fudgie did not respond with a counter argument based upon the 'consensus' science of the IPCC and its contributors.

Fudgie had a bit of character, too, and was clearly smart enough even though he was afflicted by the mental condition that sees one end up on the left side of politics.

Fudgie did out himself one day by putting up a comment using what I presume is his real name and then deleting his blogger profile shortly afterwards. Given he had always posted anonymously I didn't see it as my place to refer to his real name even though had I done the same thing on a left wing blog they would have splattered it all over the place with glee. Such is the difference in quality and maturity between those on the left and right.

After a little while I worked out that Fudgie was not just some ordinary citizen concerned for the environment but an activist assigned to my blog by one of the Big E environmental groups to make sure that there was always a counter argument made to the anti-AGW posts I wrote.

If there was one thing that could be said about Fudgie, and it can be said about all of the Climate Faithful, and that is that he never let the facts get in the way of his counter argument.

The pro-AGW methodology followed by Fudgie seemed to be:

1. discount the science because it hasn't been peer-reviewed;
2. attack the scientist for some affiliation or other that isn't currently politically correct (Big Oil, being at a conservative think tank, being Christian etc etc);
3. Cherry pick the data set that best supports their response (i.e. NASA GISS data set shows an higher trend than others due to Climate Lunatic James Hansen's "adjustments");
4. provide links to articles by mainstream climate scientists such as Schmidt, Mann, Tamino etc even though the science in the articles has been well and truly debunked; and/or
5. modify the response to the main argument being made by me by shifting the goal posts.

A classic example of that last point is the Climate Faithfuls' response to the claim that there's been no warming since 2002.

In response to this completely incontrovertible statement they come back with graphs showing a positive trend for the period 2002-current by moving the starting point of the trend back to 1979, which is when satellite data first became available and which was at the tail end of the 1940s-70s cool period, leading to an enhanced positive trend.

For a number of months things were pretty consistent. I'd post a climate change article, Fudgie would jump in all guns blazing, there'd be some back and forth between Fudgie and my commenters and then it would die down after a few days.

And then something odd happened a few months ago.

I, and my merry band of commenters, noticed that Fudgie's tone changed.

He became much more aggressive. He started referring to me as F*cky, which is another example of the quality difference between left and right; the left swears far more (in an article I read recently by some university that had done a study into profanity on the left and right wing blogs their conclusion was that those on the left used profanity at something like a 14:1 ratio compared to those on the right...which surprises nobody on our side of politics). His use of the English language also plummeted from at least a college level education to something that could be written by a 14 year old who only averaged a C in English; and his understanding of the science diminished significantly.

And then it struck me.

I had been assigned a new Fudgie.

So now I ask New Fudgie who he works for when I'm responding in comments. Unsurprisingly, he ignores the question completely and accuses me of not providing a response to whatever scientific blather he has picked out of his backside that particular day to supposedly counter the argument I was making.

Which makes one wonder.

Why is it that a little old blog like mine - hardly one of the mainstream, high visibility blogs - garners such attention from the Climate Taliban that they would assign a stalker?

Readers of other conservative blogs that regularly write about Climate Astrology will notice that there are commenters whose sole purpose seems to be to defend the orthodoxy. Andrew Bolt has DanR, for example, and Steve McIntyre at ClimateAudit had quite a few before the hollowness of their arguments coupled with Steve becoming much more legitimate in the mainstream media meant they couldn't compete at the intellectual level required to post there so they pretty much gave up.

It's clear that the organised Left is trying to make sure that no argument opposing their position gets through unchallenged, which has been exposed recently in articles on that subject, regardless of the popularity of the blog.

Hopefully, Old Fudgie has been promoted by his masters to stalk other sites that are more popular than mine, such as Jennifer Marohasy , for example.

New Fudgie - can you please ask your boss to give me a New New Fudgie if for no other reason than you give your side a bad name?

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll covers

"Come On Feel the Noize" is a hard rock song originally released by Slade in 1973.
Written by Jim Lea and Noddy Holder and produced by Chas Chandler, "Cum On Feel the Noize" was Slade's fourth number one single in the UK and their first to enter straight at number one. As a single from Slade it was a follow-up to "Gudbuy t'Jane", a #2-hit in the U.K., kept off the top notch by Chuck Berry's novelty single "My ding-a-ling" and later again by another novelty hit, "Long haired lover from Liverpool" from 9 year old Little Jimmy Osmond.

"Cum On Feel the Noize" entered at the top slot in the U.K.charts, was quite a rare feat at the time and was the first time this had happened since The Beatles with "Get Back" in 1969. It went on to spend four weeks at the top of the chart in March 1973. Typical of Slade's releases at the time, it fared less well in the USA where it would only peak at #98 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song actually inspired Kiss to create their popular trademark rock anthem "Rock and Roll All Nite".

The Original - Slade



Great cover version - Quiet Riot



(Nothing Follows)

UK - Gay voters now more likely to vote Tory than Labour

This is a pretty interesting article from UK LGBT magazine Pink News on the growing support for the Tories over Labour.

If gays are starting to understand that it's the conservative side of politics who are the real champions of equality and freedom then how far behind can other left-leaning demographic groups be?

Gay and lesbian voters are now more likely to vote Tory rather than Labour, a poll has suggested.

The survey of 1,800 gay men and women found 30 per cent said they intend to vote

Conservative at the next general election.

It was conducted by the Gaydar consumer panel for the Outright Consortium last month.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats each took 18 per cent of the vote, while 17 per cent said they will not vote and nine per cent were undecided.

At the last general election in 2005, 33 per cent voted Labour compared to 21 per cent who voted Conservative.

Unsurprisingly, 73 per cent said the next election will be fought on the state of the economy. Ten per cent said unemployment would be a key issue and five per cent cited immigration.

Fifty-nine per cent of respondents felt Gordon Brown was not doing a good job as prime minister.

In terms of finance, 24 per cent of those questioned were most worried about losing their job in the recession, compared with 20 per cent who were concerned about paying their mortgages.

However, 22 per cent said they were not worried at all.

Although 71 per cent blamed the banks for the recession, 72 per cent said they were not planning to change financial services providers in the near future.

Just over half (51 per cent) said the recession had impacted on their spending, with 35 per cent admitting to making the biggest cutbacks in their social lives.

Here are some interesting responses from among the comments to the article:

• I'm gay and I vote Tory- so a few respondants have met their first one! We vote Tory because we like being treated as equals- no extra nanny state 'help' for us...we also like to walk neighbourhoods without being beaten up- breaking news- we feel safer in Tory neighbourhoods like Surrey than on Council Estates in Hull. Conservatives live and let live...more than can be said than in many Labour voting areas.

• Too right it's for real. And there's plenty of us who "admit" to voting Tory, more all the time in fact. Gay people as a group ought to find Conservative ideas about liberty and individualism more attractive than the collectivist alternatives.

• I'm happy to 'admit' it too. One of the reasons you are seeing the overt change in position on gay issues is that there are so many gay poeple in the Tory party these days. Equality legisation came from Europe not from Labour and whoever was in power would have had to introduce it - that argument is long dead as far as I'm concerned. I am however concerned that what Labour has done economically to this country will haunt us for generations, gay or straight, and I find it incredible that so many gay people who seem to use this site have failed to educate themselves on the politics that affect their lives so greatly. How much corruption needs to be exposed before people realise that New Labour was merely a vehicle for Tony Blair's ambitions and that Gordon Brown is just the patsy that was handed the smoking gun when Blair had set the country into a terminal downward spin?

• "I've never met a gay person that votes Tory" - Ah bless - what a funny little world Stuart and his red-rinse old dears inhabit! Its a generational thing Stuart - us younger gay men (younger in body and/or in mind) who look forward with optimism and will be voting in a new Tory government in our 1000s next year have no interest in harking back to all that class-war, gays-as-victims, blah blah politics of the last century and the 1980s - who is interested in the 1980s? Life, the world and politics has moved on - blue is the new red. The 21st Century Conservatives are very much in tune with the 21st Century gay man and woman - look at any london borough council or the Mayor's office or local conservative party office and you will find scores of conservative gay politicians, advisors and organisers. So don't look back and be a bitter old has-been, look forward and join the in-crowd, vote Conservative!

(Nothing Follows)

Blame the world's central banks for the current financial problems

Anyone who has studied the origin of the current global financial perturbation understands that it is rooted not in political ideology or corporate greed but in an increase in the money supply by the world's central banks.

Unfortunately, central banks aren't good political footballs. After all, who the heck knows what they do, anyway?

Therefore, both sides of politics point the finger at the other, the left and their acolytes in the media blame capitalism and Wall Street while doing absolutely nothing to fix the underlying cause of the problem.

Gerard Jackson gets it right again:

Every economic bust demands scapegoats. And you can always bet your bottom dollar that politicians and journalists will be the ones leading the mob. (One need only recall the Democrats' recent efforts at whipping up hatred against bankers for confirmation of this dismal fact). But all said and done, you can never beat a good conspiracy story. And that is basically what Simon Johnson* has given us. According to this brilliant student of economic history America is facing

"elite business interests — financiers, in the case of the U.S. — played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them. (The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009)."

These sinister business interests have now formed a "financial oligarchy" whose political balance of power . . . gives the financial sector a veto over public policy". (And some of my readers still wonder why I am so contemptuous of journalists). Like the vast majority of his colleagues Johnson is completely ignorant of economic matters and of anything pertaining to the history of economic thought and economic history. (With respect to the latter the same can be said of the vast majority of economists and economic commentators). They have a saying back in Yorkshire: "Where's there's muck, lad, there's brass". Oddly enough this holds true for Johnson's article. Wading through the muck we come across the following details:

"From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent. Pay rose just as dramatically. From 1948 to 1982, average compensation in the financial sector ranged between 99 percent and 108 percent of the average for all domestic private industries. From 1983, it shot upward, reaching 181 percent in 2007."

These are indeed very significant facts. But being a journalist Johnson found himself utterly inadequate to the task of discerning their importance. (In fairness to Johnson I must note that the conservative journalist Mark Steyn also failed to grasp their significance). Having approached his subject with the preconceived notion that there exists an extremely powerful "financial oligarchy" it became self-evident that these figures confirmed the power of this "oligarchy" to manipulate the economy to its own financial advantage. (Boy, this is nearly as good as the "Illuminati Conspiracy"). What Johnson — and Steyn — should have noticed from the charts below is that earnings and profits started their sustainable take-off in about 1980.

That Mr Johnson thinks these charts reveal something new and sinister is just a reminder of how ignorant and intellectually narrow-minded journalists can be. Roundabout 1734 Richard Cantillon wrote Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General in which he explained how inflation changes the pattern of production and incomes. The effect of inflation on the financial sector was noted in the French inflation that by 1720 had wrecked the currency. The South Bubble of 1720 was another example.

What we find is that not only do the number of purely financial transactions rise but a number of new financial activities and intermediaries also emerge. It becomes apparent that inflation creates financial imbalances that involve transferring wealth from one group of people to another group at the expense of wealth creation. As these financial dealings expand more labour is demanded. The Weimar inflation provides a graphic example of this process. From 1913 to the autumn of 1923 the number of bank employees jumped from 100,000 in 1913 to 375,000 in autumn 1923. As Constantino Bresciano-Turroni observed:

"The increase in banking business was not the consequence of a more intense economic activity. The work was increased because the banks were overloaded with orders for buying and selling shares and foreign exchange, proceeding from the public which, in increasing numbers, took part in speculations on the Bourse. The banks did not help in the production of new wealth; but the same claims to wealth continually passed from hand to hand. (As Constantino Bresciano-Turroni, The Economics of Inflation: A Study of Currency Depreciation in Post-War Germany, John Dickens & Co LTD, 1968, p. 216)."

Anyone who has taken the trouble to research this subject quickly becomes aware of how inflation corrodes moral values and subverts business ethics while engendering an irresponsible attitude to savings and speculation. Bresciano-Turroni certainly found this to be the case. As he wrote in his definitive study of the Weimar inflation:

"At first inflation stimulated production . . . [then it] annihilated thrift; it made reform of the national budget impossible for years. . . it destroyed incalculable moral and intellectual values. It provoked a serious revolution in social classes, a few people accumulating wealth and forming a class of usurpers of national property, whilst millions of individuals were thrown into poverty. . . . it poisoned the German people by spreading among all classes the spirit of speculation and by diverting them from proper and regular work, and it was the cause of incessant political and moral disturbance. (Ibid. 404)."

The malevolent effect of inflation on the pattern of incomes and wealth led to him to lament:

"Inflation was always a terrible instrument for the redistribution of wealth (Ibid. 286)."

Irrespective of the level of inflation the Cantillon effect always takes hold. Hence the view that "moderate inflation" is not only safe but healthy is a dangerous delusion. Therefore the greater the monetary expansion the greater will be the real and financial imbalances. The chart below shows how much M1 has expanded since 1960. It also shows that the growth in M1 started to accelerate at about the same time as salaries and profits began their rapid rise.

And who is responsible for this reckless monetary expansion? The Fed, of course. Yet we have the likes of Johnson creating a mythical "financial oligarchy" whose power exceeds that of governments. It was not some sinister cabal of financiers that inflated share prices and wrecked retirement accounts but the lousy monetary economics that the Fed and its fellow central bankers practise. As Machlup stressed 69 years ago:

"... continual rise of stock prices cannot be explained by improved conditions of production or by increased voluntary savings, but only by an inflationary credit supply. (Fritz Machlup The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, William Hodge and Company Limited, 1940, p. 290)"

Those who blame deregulation and Bush for the crisis ignore the salient fact that Britain and the whole of Europe were swept by their own financial crisis. And one would have to be a complete political bigot to seriously assert that European banking was less regulated than its American counterpart. And this brings us right back to monetary expansion. Like the US Europe too has let loose with the monetary spigots as did China. The chart below reveals just how reckless the world's central bankers have been.

Compiled official global money supply data was used to create the following chart
So how do our brilliant politicians and their economic advisors plan to solve the crisis? By pumping trillions of dollars into the world's monetary system. In other words, they intend to make the very same mistake again.

*Simon Johnson is in fact a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund during 2007 and 2008.These facts had been omitted from the copy of his article that had been emailed to me. However, the fault is entirely mine for not having gone to the source. The article was bad enough if he had been a journalist. Considering his qualifications it is an intellectual disgrace.

(Nothing Follows)

US economy becoming like Europe's

Check out the following graph of the change in US budget expenditure proportion from 1968 to 2008:



The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 contributed to a significant reduction in military spending and that money has largely been spent in Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security programs. Reagan increased military spending in an effort to finish off the Soviet Union. Bush 41 reduced spending and then Clinton really took a sword to it, which has left the US military less able to deal with the threats the US faces around the world than previously. Even with Bush 43's adventures into the Middle East it's only gone up around 1-2% of budget. It is worth noting that the Obama budget increases military spending by $13B although the percentage of budget spend will decrease.

Now, what do you think the effect of the Obama budget will have on that graph over the next 4-8 years?

Remember that graph from the Congressional Budget Office?



Folks, the US cannot withstand such a seismic impact on its economy and remain...the US.

Prepare for a period of Euro-Japanese stagnation and an increasing number of US corporations relocating to countries with friendlier taxation regimes.

How that helps end the recession is beyond me.

(Nothing Follows)

Things I Hate...Surfing

I hate surfing.

There. I said it.

Sun, sand and surf have become an iconic part of Aussie culture so it's no surprise that we have had so many champions including the first world champion, Midget Farrelly, Nat Young, Mark Richards and Mick Fanning along with 7 time female champion Layne Beachley.

I don't care.

And the fact that I've never surfed hasn't influenced my decision.

I've never surfed because I've never wanted to.

What has surfing ever done for the world?

Have any pro-surfers, in their post surfing careers, gone on to contribute to society in any meaningful way?

Any brain surgeons? Nope.

Any captains of industry? Nope.

The best you can say is that surfing provides the odd moment of TV news drama when some unfortunate surfer happens to look too much like a juicy seal when a hungry white pointer happens along.

I'm sorry, but surfing is a complete waste of space.

(And don't even get me started on skateboarding)

(Nothing Follows)

Up to 50% of Arctic warming caused by black carbon?

Climate Astrologers dealt with the inconvenient non-warming period from about 1940 to the mid-1970s by blaming it on atmospheric aerosols.

In order to make their models 'work' they assigned a figure to the impact of the aerosols.

How did they come up with this figure?

Did they understand the chemistry, quantity and impact of the aerosols?

No.

They simply used a figure that 'corrected' the non-warming period.

THAT is just one of the reasons that I keep pointing out that climate models are the result of massive backfitting, which statistically invalidate them and render them incapable of forecasting anywhere near accurately, as we have seen in the last decade.

A paper has just been released from NASS GISS showing that black carbon is having a significant impact on the Arctic.

An article published this week in Nature Geoscience shows that black carbon is responsible for 50 percent, or almost 1°C of the total 1.9°C increased Arctic warming from 1890 to 2007. The paper by Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space (GISS) and Greg Faluvegi of Columbia University also notes that most of the Arctic warming – 1.48°C of the 1.9°C – occurred from 1976 to 2007. The study is the first to quantify the Arctic’s sensitivity to black carbon emissions from various latitudes, and concludes that the Arctic responds strongly to black carbon emissions from the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, where the emissions and the forcing are greatest.
Black carbon is an aerosol produced from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass and is estimated to be the second or third largest contributor to climate change. Its emissions cause damage in two ways: while in the atmosphere, the dark particulates absorb sunlight and emit it as heat; when it falls back to earth it can darken snow and ice, reducing their reflectivity and accelerating melting.

Arctic warming is more than twice the observed global average surface warming of 0.78°C above pre-industrial levels. According to another study published by Lenton, et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, this increased warming may soon lead to the disappearance of the Arctic summer ice, which would in turn accelerate Arctic warming by exposing darker heat-absorbing water now covered by heat reflecting ice. This would also increase the risk of releasing methane and other greenhouse gases from permafrost and from methane hydrates in the ocean, which could lead to a runaway feedback process.

“Climate conditions in the Arctic are rapidly deteriorating,” said Rafe Pomerance, president of Clean Air - Cool Planet. “This study reinforces the opportunity to control short-lived forcers of global warming including black carbon, methane and tropospheric ozone in order to slow the rate of warming in the Arctic. We cannot afford to allow the shrinkage of the Greenland ice sheet to accelerate.”
Because black carbon only remains in the atmosphere for several days to weeks, reducing it can bring about almost immediate mitigation of warming, whereas decreases in temperature lag reductions in CO2 by 1,000 years or more.

“We need to broaden climate policy to include reductions in black carbon, given its critical role in Arctic warming and overall global warming,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. “Black carbon is part of a package of fast-action strategies that can achieve mitigation in the near term and slow Arctic warming, including targeting short-lived, non-CO2 climate forcers such as HFCs, methane, and tropospheric ozone, as well as increasing carbon sequestration through forest protection and production of biochar.”

There are a few comments to make here.

1. Dealing with airborne particulates is an important matter and we should be demanding that China, and other emerging markets (known as BRIC), do more to deal with air pollution.

2. The article invalidates claims that the warming in the Arctic is as predicted by climate models. This black carbon effect is not included in climate models so if they have managed to get a number close to what we see then it's the result of other faulty factors and not reality - in the same way as Hansen Scenario B claimed to be correct for a while but used inputs that did not reflect what actually happened over the period.

3. Expect to see climate astrologers recycling the aerosol argument to explain the current period of cooling that has not seen temperatures rise above those achieved in 1998.

(Nothing Follows)

Australia is following the rest of the world into deep recession

The Australian economy is in the process of following the rest of the world into a sustained period of economic contraction.

Kevin Rudd's immoral spending of the next generation's wealth on futile projects that will have no positive impact on Australia's financial position is something that will be well covered in history books that are yet to be written on what went wrong and why.

One only needs to look at the Performance of Manufacturing Index for February to see how parlous things are becoming. The construction and services sector indexes have a very similar shape.

Gerard Jackson highlights just how mistaken, and dangerous, the whole thing is becoming:

Recent economic commentary has merely served to demonstrate once again how bad our economic pundits are. Devoid of any critical faculties they relentlessly parrot the fallacious doctrine that consumption is the key to economic recovery. Every movement in consumption and consumer sentiment is monitored as carefully as a doctor notes the pulse of a feverish patient. It never occurs to them to question the method of national accounting. It never crosses their minds to consider that omitting from the accounts the masses of spending on intermediate goods just might be a terrible error, just as they never raise the simple question: "If the accounts are value-added then how can they be gross?"

Failure to see the gross error at work must result in erroneous conclusions. For example, Greg Evans director industry policy and economics at tje Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, claimed that the Rudd Government's initial $10.4 billion spending binge saved the economy from a steep contraction. George Megalogenis — and economics writer for The Australian — argued that the financial crisis was caused by consumers who "closed their wallets across the world in the December quarter" (The live now, pay later trap, 21 March 2009).

From the earliest days of the so-called "business cycle" observers noted that the higher stages of production — particularly the capital goods industries — not only felt the first impact of a recession but the drop in output in these sectors greatly exceeded the contraction in the consumer goods industries. We are witnessing the very same phenomenon today.

If Megalogenis were right then the closing of "wallets across the world" would have preceded the contraction in manufacturing. Yet manufacturing in the US has been contracting for 13 months and for at least 9 months in Australia. According to Greg Evans' logic Rudd's $10.4 billion spending splurge should have seen manufacturing rebound. Instead it continued to contract. The table below shows what an awful state manufacturing is in.



Moreover, we can expect the situation to worsen. In response to a downturn it was the central bank's rule to lower interest rates which in turn would stimulate industry and trigger an economic recovery. In simple English, central banks would 'steer' the economy by manipulating the money supply. It should be stressed that monetary expansion is the heart of this monetary policy.

The following chart shows that the money supply has been comparatively flat for sometime. We can see that in May last year the Reserve raised M1 and bank deposits significantly but then let them go flat again. Of particular interest is that the sudden increase in the monetary base that started last September had no effect on M1 or bank deposits, at least up to January. Should this situation continue one can expect the Reserve to once again lower interest rates.



It should have been obvious to our economic commentariat that faced with a flat money supply manufacturing would eventually contract and that this contraction would not only precede the contraction in consumer spending it would be proportionally much greater. This is borne out by the figures. Manufacturing has suffered a significant decline while in comparison consumption remains stable.

All that Rudd's spending did was to increase consumer purchases. Desirable as this is from the point of view of the consumer it does nothing for economic growth even though it can cause GDP to rise. What matters is not consumption but spending on projects that raises the value of labour's output. This and only this can raise real wages. Encouraging consumption at the expense of savings will retard this process.

Rudd, like Obama, is following in the destructive footsteps of Gordon Brown. Australia, the UK and the US are being led by economic and historical illiterates, men who are criminally ignorant of how free economies functions and the forces that destabilise them. Unfortunately our media commentators are every bit as bad.

At a time when lower taxes, reduced government spending and increased labour force flexibility is needed in order for the economy to right itself Australia's most incompetent ever Prime Minister intends to raise taxes through an emissions trading scheme, increase spending in order to 'stimulate' the economy and reduce labour force flexibility by giving unions increased powers.

Unbelievable.

People seem to think that Australia's prosperity is a given and that we can fiddle around with economy wrecking ideas such as these without consequence.

The rise of Asian economies over the coming decades will prove this thinking wrong.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll covers

"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" is a song written by Neil Diamond, whose recording of it on Bang Records reached #10 on the U.S. pop singles chart in 1967.

The song first appeared on Diamond's album Just for You, which came out the same year. The mono and stereo versions of this song differ slightly. On the mono "Just For You" LP as well as on the 45, the strings do not come in until the second verse. It also has a slightly longer fade. The stereo "Just For You" LP version has a shorter fade and the strings come in on the first chorus.

"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" garnered a second life span when it appeared on the 1994 Pulp Fiction soundtrack, performed by rock band Urge Overkill. Other versions have been done by Cliff Richard (1968), Gary Puckett and the Union Gap (1969), the Biddu Orchestra (1978), and 16 Volt (1998).

The Original - Neil Diamond



Cover version - Urge Overkill (from Pulp Fiction)



(Nothing Follows)

Reality catching up with Climate Charlatans

The group of people who steadfastly retain their faith in the CO2-as-cause-of-global-climate-catastrophe meme is growing smaller and smaller with the increasing release of new science demonstrating that CO2 is far from the bogey-compound it's made out to be.

This group now almost exclusively comprises publicly funded climate scientists, environmental activists who have hijacked the cause to suit their own political purposes and left wing politicians who see global warming as an ideal cause to increase government control in people's lives.

Professor Philip Stott provides a cogent analysis of the current state of play and why the Climate Faithful can expect to be disappointed:

Yesterday, a mere 35,000 protesters [by contrast, between 60,000 and 80,000 folk participated in the Peterloo protests of August 16, 1819] took to the streets of London to shout about - er, well - everything, from evil bankers to ‘global warming’ and the urgent need to support motor-car manufacturing. To say that the protest was both inchoate and incoherent would be to understate its naivety. Moreover, it took no fewer than 150 separate organisations, from trade unions to charities, to muster the 35,000 souls. Meanwhile, some 70,000 diehards trekked to Wembley to watch a fairly boring friendly match between England and Slovakia (at least England won 4-0). By contrast, in 2002, the Countryside Alliance persuaded over 400,000 people to march in defence of hunting the fox and country living, a figure confirmed by the Metropolitan Police; and just think of those 1819 Peterloo statistics when adjusted for relative population size. Moreover, the ‘global warming’ contingent yesterday was, as usual, a small, if rather noisy, runt. As ever, it was a case of empty vessels making the most sound.

35,000 is a pathetic turnout, really, especially when one considers that the G20 is being held and there are a more than usual number of protesters in town.

Al Gore describes Global Warming as a 'planetary emergency'. If this were true then why are there so few people who are out and demonstrating?

Consider this. If, by 2050, the planet is going to be a wasteland, or well on the way to being one, due to man's continued burning of fossil fuels then why are governments so blasé in their response? Why don't they ban motor car racing? Night time sporting events that require lighting? Tourism via air travel? Big plasma TVs (such as California is considering)? Or a raft of other 'unnecessary' items?

Imagine that a real planetary emergency existed; scientists had established with 100% certainty that a meteor would hit earth in 2050 with the potential to wipe out a large amount of life on earth.

Wouldn't there be more than 35,000 people marching in the street? Wouldn't the policy response of government be more meaningful than the failed cap-and-trade carbon scheme?

The Five Big ‘C’s

Sadly, I think that neither our politicians, nor the mainstream media like the BBC and The Times, have quite yet grasped how few people are convinced by the ‘global warming’ panic. I speak to many groups around the country, and I am constantly amazed (and encouraged, I might add) by the level of scepticism I encounter. Indeed, I am now more convinced than ever that, despite the hysteria and the manic depressive hyperactivity that will inevitably accompany the run up to the Copenhagen climate meeting in December, we are about to enter the Last Days of the ‘Global Warming’ Grand Narrative. It is surely crunch time for ‘global warming’, as it faces what I call the five Big ‘C’s:

The Credit Crunch: all over the world, important corporations are quietly withdrawing support for so-called ‘renewables’, while targets for carbon, and markets for luxuries like ‘organic’ food, are collapsing. We can no longer afford the indulgences of Green ‘global warming’ utopias. After all, which is the more dangerous? ‘Global warming’, or the massive reordering of the world economy folk demand in its name [“Not in my name!” cry I], likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes? Luckily, it won’t happen;

I've pointed out before that it's not just in the financial world that bubbles are created that need to be cleaned up by way of a recession. Good times are also when some of the world's dopiest ideas take hold. Global warming is just one of them.

The Coal Crunch: during the latest cold snap in the UK, wind power provided a derisory 0.4% to 0.6% of our electricity. Just guess what coal generated? Over 50%. All over the world, we are seeing a resurgence of coal, gas, and oil. There is no choice. The politicians have left the diversification of our energy supplies woefully late. Coal and gas will be Kings once again, and soon. As we read in today’s The Sunday Telegraph: “The Government gives the go-ahead for three new 1,000 megawatt gas-fired power stations in Wales. Each of them will generate more than the combined average output (700 megawatts) of all the 2,400 wind turbines so far built. The days of the ‘great wind fantasy’ will soon be over.” The fatuous jibe of the arrogant and snide UK Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, that opposing wind farms is as “socially unacceptable” as “not wearing a seatbelt”, will surely come back to give him severe political whiplash. No wonder politicians are held in contempt by so many;

Anyone who promotes wind power as the answer to the world's energy needs is an immoral, incompetent misanthrope.

The Colonial Crunch: the idea that the countries of the BRIC(K) [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and (Kenya)] are going to roll over and accept the capping of carbon, and to fall happily in line with the more damaging and expensive delusions of Europe over climate-change policy, is just political hogwash. In reality, of course, Europe itself is backtracking like mad. Developing countries will no longer be lectured to neo-colonially by former weakening colonial powers that constantly fail to swallow their own medicine;

But, but, but...aren't we 'showing leadership' to the rest of the world by slashing our economic wrists? Of course those countries aren't going to do anything. Their leaders would be hung, drawn and quartered in the public square by their own populations.

The Climate Crunch: especially damaging is the inexorable, and probably inevitable, fact that climate itself increasingly fails to fall compliantly into line with the virtual world of the climate modellers. This will severely undermine the whole credibility of the Grand Narrative with the public. In addition, attempts to scare the world sick, like the recent cobbled-together science meeting in Copenhagen, are even concerning some of the more serious scientists involved, like Mike Hulme, Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), and founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research: “We should let politics decide, without being ambushed by a chimera of political prescriptiveness dressed up as (false) scientific unanimity” - a most brave, and wise, comment. Further, certain of the scientific claims are so far fetched that they are just bringing down ridicule onto the basic science involved; and finally:

I'll go into broken record mode here: climate models have a zero percent successful prediction rate. This must be the case for three fundamental reasons: 1) they're the result of massive backfitting, which statistically invalidates them as predictive tools; 2) they do not include all of the variables involved in determining the climate; and 3) of the variables they do include they incorrectly weight their impacts leading to CO2 being the main driver of their projections.

The Credibility Crunch: in the end, I predict that the real killer crunch with the public will be the ever-widening credibility gap between the rhetoric of the politicians and their appalling hypocrisy and abject failure to be able to reduce CO2 emissions in any meaningful manner. As coal-fired power stations are re-established around the world [without carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS), of course]; as gas flourishes; as tar-oil sands are developed; as car ownership continues to grow; and as politicians, and pie-in-the-sky academics, fly to ever more conferences, the public will call time on the Great ‘Global Warming’ Charade. After all, people now have real problems to face, like losing their jobs and being unable to pay the rent or the mortgage.

Which is demonstrated by the increasing gap between the economy and the environment in public surveys when asked to choose which one governments should focus their attention on.

The ‘Global Warming’ crash is surely imminent. The lever that switched the signal to green, and the branch-line points to the main line, will cause a mighty collision, the fall out from which could be both terrible and fascinating to watch. The Fat Controllers had better be well prepared.

I must admit that I will feel a great sense of satisfaction when the Climate Curtain finally falls.

Politics always lags the public mood so it'll be another few years yet before that happens. I look forward to enjoying the nice bottles of red I've got stored in the cellar just for the occasion.

Parenthetically, the death of Climate Fascism will also weaken the power of the United Nations and that will be a good thing, as well.

(Nothing Follows)

Boost performance of your Windows XP system

I don't know about you but it seems that over time my trusty Toshiba laptop (with beautiful 17" 1680x1050 display) has slowed down significantly and to the point of massive frustration.

I did give myself a performance boost a couple of months ago by exorcising Norton 360 from my machine but even with AVG running it has issues, especially when I have multiple applications running, which is most of the time.

Anyhoo, I wondered whether there was a setting in Windows XP that would give me a performance boost. I hadn't looked before but am happy that I did, as my system is running at least 100% faster than previously.

Here's the change I made...

Right click on My Computer and select Properties so that the following screen comes up:



Then select the Advanced tab:



Hit the Performance button and the following screen comes up:

You can see that it's on the default setting "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer".

Simply select the "Adjust for best performance option" as per below:

Press OK and it's all done.

What this does is turn off a lot of the screen rendering nicities, as you can see from the final image - the ticked options are now all unticked.

My background changed when I did this but all I had to do was restore it to what I had previously and it was fine.

Loading Office, browsers, running my database software is now at least twice as fast.

I'll be doing some tests later on to see how much time my database analysis takes with the changes. I've already done some small tests and it's much better.

Try it yourself.

If it doesn't do anything for you then you can simply reverse the selection.

(Nothing Follows)

South Park explains economics...

South Park explains economics...brilliant...

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



(Nothing Follows)

Baby boomer parents can't let their children grow up and face reality

I see hundreds of resumes per year and interview a stack of people.

What I see in the Gen-X and Gen-Y crowd is enough to make your head spin. They can't write above the level of a 12 year old or do basic mathematics and have no concept of history other than those events that run down Western civilisation.

But, boy, do they have a terrific opinion of themselves and their abilities.

All of which leads to a level of narcissism and lack of self awareness probably unparalleled in the history of history.

I blame the parents and so does Victor Rozek:

File this one under "just when you thought you'd seen everything." As the millennial generation comes of age, the 76 million children spawned by industrious baby boomers are entering the workforce. But unlike past generations, they are not coming to the workplace alone. They are bringing their mommies and daddies.

Reliable sources report that corporate mangers and HR departments are being monumentally annoyed by Boomers who accompany their children to job interviews, review their job offers, intervene on their behalf in salary negotiations, and badger the boss when their nestling fails to be promoted. And they can be irritatingly insistent.

Danielle Sacks, writing for Fast Company, reports that "Last year, when a 24-year-old salesman at a car dealership didn't get his yearly bonus because of poor performance, both of his parents showed up at the company's regional headquarters and sat outside the CEO's office, refusing to leave until they got a meeting." Saner minds prevailed, and they didn't get a meeting with the CEO. What they got instead was a meeting with security which, quite appropriately, escorted them out of the building.

Much has been written about narcissistic boomers raising spoiled, self-indulgent children. And why not? More than any other generation, boomers rode the crest of the American experience. They flourished during a time when middle class jobs were plentiful and well paid. Healthcare, education, and housing were affordable. Sun tans were healthy, energy was cheap, credit was abundant, ecological systems were not noticeably collapsing, and everyone thought the party would go on forever. Being the model of self-indulgence themselves, the boomers assuaged their guilt by showering their nippers with toys. Cars, clothes, computers, flat screens, iPods, cell phones, Wiis; the millennials got whatever they wanted (whether they worked for it or not), all the while being told how wonderful they were.

For millennials, the taste of failure was unfamiliar. Coincidentally, school standards fell, allowing kids to graduate with grades they did not earn, while parents were quick to challenge any teacher who dared reprimand or flunk their progeny. High school transcripts were considered so unreliable that many universities began distrusting reports of glowing grades. As a result, when these kids enter the workforce, they are "simply stunned when they get any kind of negative feedback." So says Cindy Pruitt, a professional development and recruiting manager. Sacks writes that one of Pruitt's summer hires broke down in her office after being told his structure on a memo was "a little too loose." Now, for most of us having "loose memo structure" is not career threatening but, said Pruitt, "I practically had to walk him off the ledge." An act of kindness to be sure, because she probably wanted to push him off the ledge.

According to beleaguered managers, millennials are only comfortable receiving positive feedback. They want it early and they want it often, and when it is lacking, watch out for Mom. After a 22-year-old was denied a promotion, "his mother called the human resources department the next day." In fact she called 17 times and left increasingly shrill messages: "You're purposely ignoring us" or "you fudged the evaluation" and then "you have it in for my son." If the company didn't have it in for her son before, they certainly did after.

Hard to know when it all started. Maybe with Nathaniel Branden, the groundbreaking psychologist who began the Self-Esteem movement in the 1970s which, like many worthy ideas, was soon twisted by lesser minds beyond all recognition. Chalk it up to unintended consequences. Brandon wrote extensively about the value of self-esteem in human development. Self-esteem, he argued, was essential to psychological well being, achievement, and healthy relationships. It necessitated six practices: self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living consciously, living purposefully, and living in integrity. Note that these "practices" require that an individual make moment-by-moment choices and has a profound commitment to a disciplined course of action. Thus, self-esteem can be nurtured, but cannot be provided by outside sources such as parents or teachers.

But somewhere along the line, a great many parents and educators came to believe that the best way to nurture self-esteem was to ensure that children not be allowed to fail. And since failure is a frequent by-product of competition, competitive situations were defanged so that losers could feel good about themselves. In little league sports, for example, everybody got to play and, win or lose, everyone was awarded a trophy. From a young age, kids were taught that performance and reward were not linked. Not coincidentally, it was about the same time that fathers started haranguing coaches about playing time for their "stars."

In school, kids grew up being complimented for everything including putting their shoes on the correct foot. When they got into trouble, parents interceded, and teachers who dared discipline kids got into hot water. By the time millennials went off to college, the explosion of personal communication technology made it easy for parents to keep in touch with their kids no matter where they were. Just when young people should have been establishing their independence, they found it difficult to break away from parental influence and easy to rely on it. Sue Shellenbarger, writing for the Wall Street Journal online, reports that "a study at Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT, set for release at an August meeting of the American Psychological Association, found college freshmen are in contact with their parents more than 10 times a week." That this is a topic for psychologists should serve as a cautionary tale.

Hiring companies are just the latest targets of boomer angst. Shellenbarger recounts the dismay of a recruiter. "It's unbelievable to me that a parent of a 22-year-old is calling on their behalf," says Allison Keeton, director of college relations for St. Paul Travelers. After taking many calls from parents "telling us how great their children are, how great they'd be for a specific job," she's started calling this generation "the kamikaze parents--the ones that already mowed down the guidance and admissions offices" and now are moving into the workplace.

For their part, corporations find themselves coping with four dissimilar generations of employees. They are looking for ways to help them understand each other, while adjusting traditional practices to accommodate an increasingly needy workforce. This being America, they turned to inter-generational consultants in the hope of finding feel-good solutions. Why the other three generations have to be subjected to forced encounter groups is not clear. Maybe corporations could save themselves some money by simply giving the problem kids a time out. Better yet, send the parents to bed without their martinis.

The whys of parental intervention are as complex as individual families, but there are a number of theories. Perhaps boomers simply forged strong and lasting relationships with their children. Perhaps their offspring are hapless and unable to stand up for themselves. But the theory I like best (since I know a number of boomers with dependent adult children) is voiced by Shellenbarger. "Parents may fear kids will never leave the nest and want to give them a push." Statistics support the fact that more adult children are staying home longer. The Census Bureau says "11 percent of adults ages 25 to 34 still live with their parents, up from 8.7 percent in 1980." And with the economy in the tank, more kids will find home-cooked meals and laundry service a pleasant alternative to homelessness.

Ultimately, whether the children of boomers are so unprepared for life that they need their parents to run interference for them; or their parents simply want to ensure their kids get the best possible break, misses the point. As a friend of mine who facilitated personal growth workshops for young adults was fond of saying: "Adults don't have Mommies and Daddies; they have ex-Mommies and ex-Daddies." Perhaps the best we can say is that although all millennials may not have had a happy childhood, a number of them appear to be having a long one.

The notion of an extended period of almost-adulthood during which grownup responsibilities are postponed is a relatively modern invention. Things weren't always thus. In 1793, William Parker joined the British Navy at age 11. A year later, he had his first taste of war. By age 20, he was captain of his own ship.
As far as we know, the Admiralty wasn't pressured by his parents to give him the promotion.

How are these people going to cope with the massive downturn in economic good fortune that the world now faces, which will be made all the worse by unwise, immoral spending programs being undertaken by the world's major economies?

(Nothing Follows)

Request made. Answered.

"God damn America"



So he did.

America is really stuffed for at least a decade after only a couple of months of President Obama's magnificence.

Best wishes to all of my Seppo mates.

(Nothing Follows)