Sunday night rock 'n' roll

Rainbow were a hard rock and heavy metal band formed by former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in 1975. In addition to Blackmore, the band originally consisted of former Elf members lead singer Ronnie James Dio, keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule, bassist Craig Gruber, and drummer Gary Driscoll. Over the years Rainbow went through many lineup changes.

In 1974 Blackmore became infuriated at the funk/soul elements being introduced to Deep Purple by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes as well as with the rejection from his bandmates of his suggestion to record a cover for inclusion in Stormbringer, and originally intended to record "Black Sheep of the Family", a song written and recorded by the band Quatermass, as a solo single to express that his ideas were being suppressed in Deep Purple. During recent US tours Deep Purple's support band had been Elf, and Ritchie had been impressed by Elf's singer, Ronnie James Dio. Blackmore and Dio found they had such a creative rapport that a full album's worth of music was soon composed and they recorded it with Elf as a session band. Emboldened by the experience, Blackmore decided to leave Deep Purple and form his own band around Elf, effectively taking it over minus their guitarist and renaming it Rainbow. The name of the band was inspired by the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Hollywood that catered to rock stars, groupies and rock enthusiasts.

Rainbow's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975 and featured the minor hit "Man on the Silver Mountain".

Man On The Silver Mountain (Live)



Hall Of The Mountain King (Live)



Blues & Beethoven (Live)



(Nothing Follows)

Global Warming is Cool

If the cognitive dissonance gap between global warming rhetoric and real world observation is not the greatest in living memory then I want to know what is.

A negative annual temperature trend per year since 1998 seems to have gone unnoticed by the Climate Faithful for whom the term 'inconvenient truth' has already been co-opted by their side.

From the UK's Daily Mail:

Yesterday's picture in the Mail of a cascade of icicles in the Yorkshire Dales was a reminder of how cold Britain can be - something many of us have forgotten in this unusually mild winter.

But it really is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the extraordinary weather events which in recent weeks have been affecting other parts of the world.

Across much of the northern hemisphere, from Greece and Iran to China and Japan, they have been suffering their worst snowfalls for decades.

Similarly freakish amounts of snow have been falling over much of the northern United States, from Ohio to the Pacific coast, where in parts of the state of Washington up to 200in of snow have fallen in the past fortnight.

In country after country, these abnormal snowfalls have provoked a crisis.


A waterfall frozen mid-air in China

In China - the only example to have attracted major coverage in Britain - the worst snow for 50 years triggered an unprecedented state of emergency.

Worst for 50 years? Yes. Did the climate models predict this? No. No matter, though. As long as the Climate Faithful can impose more government into our lives then reality can be blissfully ignored.

Large parts of the country have been paralysed, as rail and road transport ground to a standstill.

More than 25,000 miles of power lines collapsed under a weight of snow and ice they were never designed to cope with.

The were 'never designed to cope with' the load? Nobody ever imagined that it was possible for that much snow and ice to form. However, the Climate Faithful can imagine all sorts of evil outcomes if the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere rises from 0.03% to 0.04%.

Snow has devastated thousands of square miles of farmland, threatening severe food shortages.

Food shortages? When I pointed out that cold kills I was pilloried by my anonymous, loopy, left wing interlocutor in comments. Let me reiterate. Cold bad. Warm good.

The total cost of the disaster to the Chinese economy may be more than £10billion.


Mr and Mrs Snowman! Good to see you! Your usual table?

In Afghanistan, freezing weather and the worst snow for 30 years have killed more than 900 people.

In neighbouring Tajikistan, according to aid agencies, the coldest winter for 50 years, along with soaring food prices and a massive energy crisis, threatens a "humanitarian catastrophe".

Here we have an existential crisis across the globe caused by fantastic cold but what do we hear from the Climate Faithful? The same old turgid drivel. Even the government's climate report, penned by former Kevin Rudd mentor Ross Garnaut, has called for economic extinction in order to save ourselves.

In Greece and Turkey, where temperatures dropped as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius, hundreds of villages have been cut off by blizzards and drifting snow.

In Iran, following heavy snowfalls last month, its eastern desert regions - normally still hot at this time of year - have seen their first snow in living memory.

In Saudi Arabia last month, people were amazed by the first snow most had ever seen.

First snow in living memory? First snow most had ever seen?

On the Pacific coast of Japan last week, heavy falls of snow injured more than 50.


Frozen benches. Could be anywhere, really, but they're in Greece.

Meanwhile in the U.S., similarly abnormal snowfalls have hit more than a dozen states. One Massachusetts town reported 12ft drifts after its heaviest snows in 30 years.

In Wisconsin, the state governor declared a state of emergency as schools and airports were forced to close by up to 20in of snow - and even this was dwarfed by the blizzards which dropped as much as 16ft of the white stuff on parts of Washington state.

In light of such similar news from so many places round the world, it may not seem surprising that U.S. satellite data for January shows the extent of snow cover in the northern hemisphere as reaching its highest level since 1966, 42 years ago - and that temperatures were lower than their average for the whole of the 20th century.

James Hansen had better get to work quick smart modifying the temperature record to ensure that the average over the century is lowered again to make current happenings look above normal. Where's that Michael Mann when you need him?

Furthermore, it is not only in the northern hemisphere that records are being broken.

Following last year's freak snowfalls in such southern cities as Buenos Aires and Sydney, satellite observations from the other end of the world have this winter shown ice cover round the Antarctic at easily its greatest extent for this time of year since data began in 1979, 30per cent above average.

Yet so far in our corner of the world, we have been remarkably slow to notice what was going on elsewhere, and to put the different elements of the story together.

Doubtless much of the reason for this has been that, in Western Europe, we have (until the recent cold spell) enjoyed yet another comparatively warm winter - probably thanks to changes in warming sea currents which scientists find hard to explain. (Although Alpine ski resorts have seen their best snow conditions for many years.)

This is why we saw reports of balmy, prematurely spring-like weather, with primroses and blossom coming out earlier than usual and the curator of Kew Gardens suggesting "there is no winter any more" - just when much of the rest of the world was shivering through the coldest January and February since The Beatles were still together.


Warning. Ice on steps during cold snaps not predicted by Climate Faithful.

But one of the oddest features of this great freeze is how little it was predicted.

We are so used to hearing that the world is inexorably warming up thanks to rising CO2 emissions, and that recent years have been the hottest since records were kept, that no one prepared us for the possibility that there might suddenly be such a dramatic exception to the accepted trend.

So far, the leading advocates of the global warming thesis have remained fairly quiet about the 2008 freeze, although some may explain that "freak weather events" such as we are now witnessing are just what we should expect to see as Planet Earth hots up - even if this produces the paradox that warming may sometimes lead to cooling.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Hello, Climate Faithful? Anyone home?

Global warming "sceptics", on the other hand, are inevitably pointing to these record snowfalls as evidence that global temperatures are no longer rising as the CO2 theory predicts.

That's me!

We may, they suggest, be seeing the start of a period when temperatures reverse their generally upward trend over the past 30 years, as we did in those decades before 1978 known to climate scientists as "the Little Cooling".

The truth is that it is still much too early to draw any long-term conclusions from 2008's great freeze. But it is one of the most startling developments to have emerged in the world's weather patterns for a long time - not least in that it was so unexpected.

At least it raises important questions over how our global climate is evolving which the scientists will have to try to explain.

To the millions of people whose lives have been seriously disrupted by this year's freeze, the concept of global warming must seem awfully remote.

Fortunately for the Climate Faithful they are all rich enough to live in heated homes, eat whatever they want, drive a Toyota Prius and not have to deal with reality.

Unfortunately, there's a real world out there.

(Nothing Follows)

Texas Democratic Nomination prediction

For what it's worth, I predict that Barack Obama will win the Texas Democratic primary handily, which will effectively be the end of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Polls show that things are close but given Obama's run of wins has included majority support from women and white men it's hard to see how the Hispanic supporters of Clinton will be able to make up the difference.

McCain v Obama will certainly be an interesting contest.

Will people support the grouchy, old man with a heap of experience or the elegant new-comer who preaches hope and change?

Betting markets have Obama as odds on favourite over McCain.

One last comment - the fact that Obama is getting such a large percentage of the white male vote puts to bed the notion that America is a racist society.

(Nothing Follows)

Pakistan Political Ponderings

A number of articles (introductions below) give a pretty nice overview of matters pertaining to Pakistan.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The results of Pakistan's parliamentary vote are being billed as a repudiation not only of Pervez Musharraf, but also of President Bush, who has mostly supported the Pakistani strongman over the past seven years. We're more inclined to see the elections as a vindication of both.

There is no doubt that the election was a significant blow to Mr. Musharraf's political party, the so-called Muslim League-Q, which placed a distant third behind the Muslim League-N of former Islamist prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan People's Party of the late Benazir Bhutto. Mr. Musharraf certainly did little to endear himself to Pakistanis last year by suspending the chief justice of the Supreme Court and later firing him when it looked like the judge would not certify his election to a third term. Even worse was Mr. Musharraf's November declaration of emergency rule, an ostensible move against Islamic radicals in which lawyers and civil-rights activists bore the brunt of the repression.

Under these circumstances, it would have been surprising -- and suspicious -- if Mr. Musharraf's party had polled better than it did. But the Pakistani president nevertheless made good on his promise to resign his position as army chief of staff and hold parliamentary elections, despite a delay of six weeks following Ms. Bhutto's assassination in late December.

Yesterday, an international observer group composed of members from the U.S., Europe and Australia certified that the election was "sufficiently transparent" and that "the will of the people was reasonably well expressed." That is good news given predictions that Mr. Musharraf intended to rig the results, not to mention what might have been a bloody fallout if he had.

And again:

Pakistan's election has been portrayed by the Western media as a defeat for President Pervez Musharraf. The real losers were the Islamist parties.

The latest analysis of the results shows that the parties linked, or at least sympathetic, to the Taliban and al Qaeda saw their share of the votes slashed to about 3% from almost 11% in the last general election a few years ago. The largest coalition of the Islamist parties, the United Assembly for Action (MMA), lost control of the Northwest Frontier Province -- the only one of Pakistan's four provinces it governed. The winner in the province is the avowedly secularist National Awami Party.

Despite vast sums of money spent by the Islamic Republic in Tehran and wealthy Arabs from the Persian Gulf states, the MMA failed to achieve the "approaching victory" (fatah al-qarib) that Islamist candidates, both Shiite and Sunni, had boasted was coming.

The Islamist defeat in Pakistani confirms a trend that's been under way for years. Conventional wisdom had it that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the lack of progress in the Israel-Palestine conflict, would provide radical Islamists with a springboard from which to seize power through elections.

From the Pakistan Times:

Eleven women candidates on the national assembly general seats have won the contest.

According to break-up, out of the winning women 5 belonged to PPP, two to PML-Q, 2 to PML-N, while one each from Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and independent candidates, a private news channel reported.

And again:

Overseas Pakistanis remittances during the current fiscal year seven months jumped up by 22.44 percent.

SBP spokesman, Syed Wasimuddin told that the overseas Pakistanis remittances during July 2007 to January 2008 amounted to $3.62 billion, while $2.95 billion were received in the same period previous year.

Bulk of the remittances came from the Pakistanis residing in US, Saudi Arab, Arab Emirates and Gulf Cooperative Council countries.

Parsing all of that you come to the conclusion that the political system in Pakistan is robust and inclusive of women, that fundamentalism has been rejected by the majority and that the country is benefiting from a beshiverload of money coming back from overseas Pakistanis for whom increased access to employment markets in the US may be due to the country's support for the War On Terror.

So, without going over the top, it seems reasonable to suggest that things in Pakistan will work out OK.

(Nothing Follows)

"Iraq is not doing really badly these days"

According to one of my favourite Turkish opinion writers from the Turkish Daily News, Mustafa Akyol, "Iraq is not doing really badly these days".

Like those who blather on about an immediate troop withdrawal being the right 'strategy', Akyol did not agree with the US decision to go into Iraq. Unlike those people, who care little about the slaughter that would follow, Akyol believes that the US should stay until the job is done and that the surge has played a significant role in improving things on the ground in Iraq.

When U.S. President George W. Bush announced his surge strategy in Iraq, which was based on an increase in the number of American troops deployed in Baghdad and Anbar provinces, on January 10, 2007, very few people were optimistic about its success. Well, I was among that minority. I had never been a supporter of the war, but had also believed that, once it started, the United States should not go home without leaving behind a stable Iraq. In my piece dated January 13, 2007, published in the Turkish daily Referans, I wrote that the surge could well be helpful to stabilize Iraq and thus it should not be dismissed out of hand. The best thing for Turkey right now, I concluded, is to pray that Bush's new strategy works, and helps bridging the bitter division between Sunnis and Shiites.

I don't think that the Turkish Foreign Ministry gets, or even needs, advice from me, but apparently, as the Turkish saying goes, the way of reason is one. Ankara indeed has worked for the reconciliation of Iraq's rival groups, and has seen that its prayers came true: Iraq is not doing really badly these days.

Davutoğlu on Iraq:

The other day, I had the chance to get comments on this from the two key architects of Ankara's Iraq policy: Professor Ahmet Davutoğlu, the chief foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Ambassador Oğuz Çelikkol, Turkey's special envoy to Iraq. They both noted that Iraq is in a much more hopeful situation then it was two years ago. Then, we used to worry that the country was on the brink of a civil war and dismemberment, reminded Ambassador Çelikkol. Today, although there are still problems, the violence decreased dramatically and the belief that Iraq will remain united is strong.

Prof. Davutoğlu added to those comments, but first me remind who he is. Until 2002, he used to be an erudite scholar of foreign policy, and perhaps the most respected one in the conservative camp. When the AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in that year, he was appointed as the top policy advisor to the prime minister, a post which gave him the chance to implement his academic vision to actual policy. He believes in a Turkey which has a strategic depth, a one that will be a regional power, with zero problem with neighbors, and through economic inter-dependency in the former Ottoman lands. And since 2002, that is Turkish foreign policy in a nutshell.

Some have accused Prof. Davutoğlu to be an Islamist and to try to turn Turkey's orientation toward the Middle East, rather the West. The Hamas meeting he organized right after the Islamic group's winning of Palestinian elections was shown as the evidence. But as Dr. Davutoğlu told to the Economist, which described him the visionary behind Turkey's newly assertive foreign policy, Turkey's aim was to persuade Hamas to recognize Israel. It apparently didn't work, but intentions are as important as results.

Against al-Qadea

Since Prof. Davutoğlu is labeled by some as an Islamist, I was careful to see what he would say about Iraq and its insurgents. And I found a very anti-Al Qaeda stance. The Al Qaeda is the major source of violence in Iraq, said Dr. Davutoğlu, and emphasized the terrorist group's Wahhabi and Salafi base, which he carefully distinguished from the peaceful Sunni tradition of the country. He also noted that the stance taken by Iraq's Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda terrorists has been a very positive step toward minimizing this foreign intrusion. Ambassador Çelikkol added that Turkey has played a role in the settling of the Shiites and Sunnis of Iraq. Both sides trust us, he said, and we have done our best.

What about Turkey's biggest question vis-à-vis Iraq, i.e., the Kurds? On this matter, the two Turkish policy makers sounded optimistic, too. The Kurdish authority in Iraq is more realistic today than it was two years ago, said Ambassador Çelikkol. They realize that their future is in Iraq, and that have to give up some of their maximalist demands. Both him and Dr. Davutoğlu also noted that there are steps taken toward reconciliation between Kurds or Turkmens over Kirkuk, which Turkey is pleased to support. If Iraqi President Jalal Talabani comes to Turkey soon, as news suggest, the Turko-Kurdish rapprochement will be vindicated.

All this suggests that the critically low point in Turkey's relationship with its southern neighbor, and the United States which still has a role in the latter's destiny, has passed. Since the surge Iraq is doing better, and Turkey is happy about it — something that the next U.S. president, whomever he or she will be, must be aware of.

Turkey has a huge vested interest, obviously, in the success of Iraq. Therefore, their analysis is much more fact-based than the opinion-based drivel posted at DailyKos, HuffPo and in comments at The Guardian and BBC.

(Nothing Follows)

The Fascist roots of Democratic Socialism aka modern liberalism

If you're on the left and still refer to the right as 'fascists' then a short history lesson is in order. You may be shocked at the genesis of your so-called compassionate ideas.

In Thomas Sowell's brief review of Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism, he nails the major belief frameworks of both liberalism and conservatism.

Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg’s new book, Liberal Fascism. As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss — and a major loss.

Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this book a wealth of challenging insights, backed up by thorough research and brilliant analysis.

This is the sort of book that challenges the fundamental assumptions of its time — and which, for that reason, is likely to be shunned rather than criticized.

Because the word “fascist” is often thrown around loosely these days, as a general term of abuse, it is good that Liberal Fascism begins by discussing the real Fascism, introduced into Italy after the First World War by Benito Mussolini.

The Fascists were completely against individualism in general and especially against individualism in a free-market economy. Their agenda included minimum-wage laws, government restrictions on profit-making, progressive taxation of capital, and “rigidly secular” schools.

Unlike the Communists, the Fascists did not seek government ownership of the means of production. They just wanted the government to call the shots as to how businesses would be run.

They were for “industrial policy,” long before liberals coined that phrase in the United States.

Indeed, the whole Fascist economic agenda bears a remarkable resemblance to what liberals would later advocate.

Moreover, during the 1920s “progressives” in the United States and Britain recognized the kinship of their ideas with those of Mussolini, who was widely lionized by the Left.

Famed British novelist and prominent Fabian socialist H. G. Wells called for “Liberal Fascism,” saying “the world is sick of parliamentary politics.”

Another literary giant and Fabian socialist, George Bernard Shaw, also expressed his admiration for Mussolini — as well as for Hitler and Stalin, because they “did things,” instead of just talk.

In Germany, the Nazis followed in the wake of the Italian Fascists, adding racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular, neither of which was part of Fascism in Italy or in Franco’s Spain.

Even the Nazi variant of Fascism found favor on the Left when it was only a movement seeking power in the 1920s.

W. E. B. DuBois was so taken with the Nazi movement that he put swastikas on the cover of a magazine he edited, despite complaints from Jewish readers.

Even after Hitler achieved dictatorial power in Germany in 1933, DuBois declared that the Nazi dictatorship was “absolutely necessary in order to get the state in order.”

As late as 1937 he said in a speech in Harlem that “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.”

In short, during the 1920s and the early 1930s, Fascism was not only looked on favorably by the Left but recognized as having kindred ideas, agendas, and assumptions.

Only after Hitler and Mussolini disgraced themselves, mainly by their brutal military aggressions in the 1930s, did the Left distance itself from these international pariahs.

Fascism, initially recognized as a kindred ideology of the Left, has since come down to us defined as being on “the Right” — indeed, as representing the farthest Right, supposedly further extensions of conservatism.

If by conservatism you mean belief in free markets, limited government, and traditional morality, including religious influences, then these are all things that the Fascists opposed just as much as the Left does today.

The Left may say that they are not racists or anti-Semites, like Hitler, but neither was Mussolini or Franco. Hitler, incidentally, got some of his racist ideology from the writings of American “progressives” in the eugenics movement.

Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is too rich a book to be summarized in a newspaper column. Get a copy and start rethinking the received notions about who is on “the Left” and who is on “the Right.” It is a book for people who want to think, rather than repeat rhetoric.

Here's a question for you. Which government in history implemented democratic socialism, aimed to implement a ban on smoking, introduce compulsory vegetarianism and built a large natural medicine research centre?

Hitler's Nazis.

Of course.

When today's control-our-diet fanatics are referred to as Food Nazis it's actually an apt term.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

Gary Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd May 8, 1944) is an English rock and pop singer and songwriter who had a string of chart successes with a collection of 1970s glam rock hits including "Rock and Roll parts 1 & 2", "I Love You Love Me Love", "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)" and "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again". He is currently in jail until August 2008 in Vietnam for child sexual abuse.

Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s. He had one of the longest chart runs of any solo singer in the UK during the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1995 Glitter charted no fewer than 25 hit singles which spent a grand total of 179 weeks in the UK Top 100. His success as a live performer lasted well beyond the decade. He continued to record in the 1980s and 1990s, with his 1984 song "Another Rock N' Roll Christmas" being one of the Top 30 Christmas hits of all time. He released seven studio albums, and at least 15 greatest hits collections or live albums. In 1998, his recording of "Rock and Roll" was voted as one of the Top 1001 songs in music history.

Leaving aside Gary Glitter's disgusting paedophilia, now that I'm back online after Telstra fixed the phone line that had been cut through by a sewerage team up the street his song Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again seemed appropriate after the three day hiatus. Rock and Roll is a terrific piece and deserves its place in the Top 1001. Make sure to turn up the volume and bass for Part II of that tune. His version of House Of The Rising Sun is also great.

Rock and Roll Part I



Rock and Roll Part II



Hello Hello I'm Back Again



House of the Rising Sun



(Nothing Follows)

Waiting for Telstra to fix my phone line

A company putting in sewerage pipes near where I live managed to sever the telephone cable in the street cutting us off completely. No phone; no Internet.

Telstra won't tell me when it will be fixed but it appears to be somewhere between Feb 19 and Feb 26, which besides being outrageous is outside Telstra's 24 hour service guarantee. At least I can claim compensation from them.

Writing this from a friend's PC.

Updates when I can if I get time at work or when Telstra does the right thing and fixes the line.

(Nothing Follows)

Get ready for a cooler world

Trouble with my internet provider has been a bit frutstrating lately. Hopefully not too far away from a return to normalcy.

Anthony Watts reports on the dearth of sunspots that will lead to a significant period of global cooling:

I’m writing this after doing an exhaustive search to see what sort of solar activity has occurred lately, and I find there is little to report. With the exception of the briefly increased solar wind from a coronal hole, there is almost no significant solar activity.

The sun has gone quiet. Really quiet.

It is normal for our sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but we’ve seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized (as first reported here) then abruptly disappeared. The reverse polarity sunspot that signaled the start of cycle 24 on January 4th, dissolved within two days after that.

...Given the current quietness of the sun and it’s magnetic field, combined with the late start to cycle 24 with even possibly a false start, it appears that the sun has slowed it’s internal dynamo to a similar level such as was seen during the Dalton Minimum. One of the things about the Dalton Minimum was that it started with a skipped solar cycle, which also coincided with a very long solar cycle 4 from 1784-1799. The longer our current cycle 23 lasts before we see a true ramp up of cycle 24, the greater chance it seems then that cycle 24 will be a low one.

No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, because a Dalton type solar minimum would be very bad for our world economy and agriculture. NASA GISS published a release back in 2003 that agrees with the commonly accepted idea that long period trends in solar activity do affect our climate by changing the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI).

Some say it is no coincidence that 2008 has seen a drop in global temperature as indicated by several respected temperature indexes compared to 2007, and that our sun is also quiet and still not kick starting its internal magentic dynamo.

Folks, cold kills. Warmth gives life.

The science underpinning predictions of a downturn in global temperatures is profoundly more sound than that supporting a catastrophic upturn. If you truly believe in science - we understand exactly what reduced solar activity means - then you should at least consider the possibility of 50 years of cooling temperatures and the negative global consequences that will bring.

(Nothing Follows)

The consequences of saying sorry

So Australia has said sorry to the so-called Stolen Generations.

Leaving aside the fact that there is no such thing as the Stolen Generations it does show the power that white-man's-guilt lobby groups can have when they work as hard and as long as they have to achieve this outcome, enabled by the left wing 'elites' in this country and an agenda driven media. It's like water dripping on stone; after enough time the water wins.

The real story of the 'stolen' Mary Hooker (via Andrew Bolt):

Hooker’s mother was in fact taken to hospital unconscious from an overdose of pills, and Hooker says she didn’t wake up for two weeks.

She left behind her 12 children in a house that welfare officers found had plenty of rubbish but little food: “The only food available was three sausages and a small piece of steak.”

There is no mention of any man in the house, but the documents show the dad of seven of the children was a prisoner at the Mount Mitchell Afforestation Camp, a low-security jail.

There is also no mention of abuse in what documents I could read, but Hooker last week admitted on ABC radio “there was also abuse going on in the community”, and that she had been “raped"...

These documents confirm Hooker and three of her 11 siblings were removed not because they were Aboriginal, but because a magistrate found proven a complaint that ”they were neglected” and without a guardian.

Another of the Stolen Generation, Helen Moran, was interviewed on ABC's 7.30 Report last night. She was removed from her parents, who had apparently abandonded their children, at age 18 months.

SHARON ONEILL: Do you believe that you were taken as a child because of your Aboriginality?

HELEN MORAN: I do, absolutely. Maybe not because of our Aboriginality. Maybe because of our non Aboriginality.

Removal of Aboriginal, or half-caste, children was never government policy in any jurisdiction in Australia. If it was then Helen Moran could be quite clear that she was taken because she was half-caste. The fact that she "believes" means that she doesn't "know".

Now here's a thought to ponder.

If well-intentioned people who had the committment and means to help children whose parents physically abused them, whose uncles and cousins sexually abused them, who lived in squalor with little food to eat, whose parents were too drunk to care to send them to school or who had been abandoned by their families sat back and did nothing then would the white-man's-guilt lobbyists now not be talking about the Stolen Generations but about the Genocided Generations? Or the Abandoned Generations?

Abandoning these children to a certain negative fate was never an option to those committed to helping.

Which takes us to the present day.

The situation in Aboriginal communities all around the nation is at its most dire. Alcohol, violence, sexual abuse and abandonment are rife in spite of the huge sums of dollars of 'sit down' money paid to these communities and in spite of well meaning but wrongheaded advocates who promoted the idea that Aboriginies were best served by adhering to their traditional cultural norms and standards, which took precedence over the laws and standards governing the rest of Australia.

Now that we have said sorry for helping out children in exactly the same situation 40 years ago, what are the chances of at risk children being removed now?

About none.

A tragedy for them. A shame for Australia.

(Nothing Follows)

British Olympic Association cracks down on free speech

The British Olympic Association will muzzle free speech by its athletes by contractually ensuring that they do not criticise China.

If the Olympics were being held in the United States then do you think they'd have the same ban?

Europeans not being allowed to bash America? Isn't that the national pastime?

Pressure needs to be brought to bear on China to improve its human rights record. How a ban on talking about it will achieve this is beyond my ken.

British Olympic athletes will be forced to sign contracts banning them from criticising China's human rights record before travelling to the Games.

Each athlete will have to sign a 32-page contract, which includes clauses describing how they will not be allowed to comment on "any political sensitive issues", The Mail on Sunday reported.

The British Olympic Association (BOA) confirmed that any athlete who refused to sign the contract would not be allowed to compete at the Games, which begin in August.

The move is in stark contrast to other countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia where Olympic Committee president John Coates has said athletes are "entitled to have their opinions" and will be "free to speak".

BOA chief executive Simon Clegg said if athletes stepped out of line in Beijing "action will have to be taken".

"There are all sorts of organisations who would like athletes to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to publicise their causes," he told the newspaper.

"I don't believe that is in the interest of the team performance. As a team we are ambassadors of the country and we have to conform to an appropriate code of conduct."

It's yet another example of the cultural capitulation of the British.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

The Vines are an Australian garage rock band notable for producing a musical hybrid of 60s rock and 90s alternative music. The original version of the Vines met in suburban Sydney in the late 90s where Craig Nicholls and Patrick Matthews met whilst working at their local McDonald's. They began playing together, with Nicholls on guitar and vocals and Matthews on bass. They were soon joined by Matthews' school friend David Oliffe on drums. The band was originally named by Nicholls as 'Rishikesh', pertaining to a place in India where his favourite band The Beatles had visited. The local newspapers always misprinted the name as 'Rishi Chasms', so he decided to name the band as The Vines. This was a mention to Nicholls' dad's frontman lead in a local Elvis cover-band called The Vynes. They started performing Nirvana covers at backyard parties while developing a sound of their own with Nicholls' four-track recorder.

...the release of the album saw more critical success with the band appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and NME. The album debuted at #3 in the UK's albums chart, #5 in Australia's ARIAnet albums chart, and #11 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 albums chart. The band played high-profile slots on The Late Show with David Letterman and the MTV Video Music Awards. A few more singles were released from the album, including "Get Free" and "Outtathaway!". A fourth single, "Homesick", was released in Australia only. Highly Evolved sold 1.5 million copies throughout the world with distribution through Capitol Records.

Highly Evolved



Get Free



Ride



(Nothing Follows)

Archbishop of Canterbury's latest unwise pronouncement

"There's a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law."

If it had have been said by any other major religious leader then it would have been a truly culture-shattering statement. When it's said by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose moral compass seemed to break about thirty years ago it's a less surprising event.

Rowan Williams is supposedly an intelligent man but is living, breathing proof of my aphorism that 'intelligence does not beget wisdom', which is one of the reasons that university professors can know so much and understand so little about the world in general and people in particular.

His statement is part of the cultural and moral self-disarmament of Western Europe that has led to a surrender of both cultural integrity and conviction that Western societies are justly ordered.

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

I reckon that Pope Benedict might say that all new citizens need to face up to the fact that they should integrate with the culture and laws of Britain or go home. He'd be right, too, in the same way that Australia's senior politicians in the Liberal Party did over the last couple of years.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

In that case he should support Jack Lacton Law. A ban on politically correct speech, reduce the size of government - and arts grants, no speed cameras, reduced taxes and on the front foot in relation to the global nonsense of the UN, expansionist Islam and ninnies like Chavez, Mugabe, Ahmadinejad and the North Korean lunatic.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

Would he agree that a Muslim could go and pray in an Anglican church and cover up all of those offensive Christian symbols? That'd be a stark reality for Anglicans.

In an exclusive interview with BBC correspondent Christopher Landau, ahead of a lecture to lawyers in London on Monday, Dr Williams argues this relies on Sharia law being better understood.

At the moment, he says "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouds the issue.

How can the reporting of opinion polls be sensational? The fact that the vast majority of Average Joes in the street disagree strongly with the politically correct, cultural suicide being inflicted on the country by its supposed political elites is the sensational bit for the culturally unaware like Rowan Williams.

He stresses that "nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well".

His position is untenable, of course. Those that are promoting the introduction of Sharia Law in Britain have stated that they will do it a bit at a time - and that obviously includes the most heinous parts of Islamic law.

But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger".

How can the police actually do their job if certain communities can simply make up the laws they want to follow, which is the natural extension of allowing Sharia Law?

"There's a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law."

Dr Williams added: "What we don't want either, is I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people's religious consciences."

The funny bit is that the culturally-correct, intellectual minnows of the left would agree with him while at the same time rejecting religion out of hand as being unnecessary.

"We don't either want a situation where, because there's no way of legally monitoring what communities do... people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes another way of intensifying oppression inside a community."

The issue of whether Catholic adoption agencies would be forced to accept gay parents under equality laws showed the potential for legal confusion, he said.

"That principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a western democracy," he said.

"But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that."

No. It doesn't.

Dr Williams noted that Orthodox Jewish courts already operated, and that the law accommodated the anti-abortion views of some Christians.

"The whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways the law of the land pays respect to custom and community, that's already there," he said.

People may legally devise their own way to settle a dispute in front of an agreed third party as long as both sides agree to the process.

The fact is that these agreements are supported by the existing legal system.

Muslim Sharia courts and the Jewish Beth Din which already exist in the UK come into this category.

There's a big difference between Sharia courts and the Jewish Beth Din. The former imposes outcomes on one party regardless of that party's agreement that the court has jurisdiction. The latter cannot decide the outcome of disputes without the prior agreement of both parties.

The country's main Beth Din at Finchley in north London oversees a wide range of cases including divorce settlements, contractual rows between traders and tenancy disputes.

Dr Williams' comments are likely to fuel the debate over multiculturalism in the UK.

And so it should.

Last month, the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said some places in the UK were no-go areas for non-Muslims.

Isn't that a truly profound situation? Britons can't go wherever they want because of the threat of violence by Muslims? Where are the violent Christian enclaves in the world? Where are the violent Buddhist enclaves? What about the Mormons? Or Hindu? You get the point. Why is Islam the only religion that creates these sorts of no-go zones whenever their population reaches a certain point?

Dr Williams said it was "not at all the case that we have absolute social exclusion".

Clearly, the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't get out much.

Tolerance, rightly understood, does not include kowtowing to thousand year old barbarism.

(Nothing Follows)

Hottest January on record in Australia. Coldest global average for 50 years.

Headlines in Australia loudly proclaimed the news that Australia had recorded its highest average January temperature on record. No surprise there from the Climate Useful Idiots of the mainstream media.

Reports of Australia's coldest June since 1950 are but a distant memory.

From the SMH report:

Sydney's daytime January temperature was right on average at 25.9 degrees thanks to easterly summer winds, but night-time temperatures were almost two degrees up at 20.3 degrees.

Sooooo...it pissed with rain all month flooding vast parts of the country. What's the effect of that? It increases minimum temperatures. Note that the daily maximum is right on the average. Across the two the overall average is up.

If global warming causes daily highs to stay the same, overnight lows to increase, causes it to piss with rain which fertilises all those CO2 enriched crops then I have only one thing to say.

I want more of that.

How did Australia's rain-induced warm January stack up against the rest of the world?

January posted a -.08°C near global anomaly between -70S and 82.5N latitude (the viewshed of the satellite sounder). That makes it the coldest month since January 2000, and the 2nd coldest January for the planet in 15 years. Both northern and southern hemispheres posted negative anomalies of -.120°C and -.038°C respectively, happening for the first time since January 2000.

Here are some headlines from various countries facing the 'planetary emergency' of global warming. All are from recent weeks.

Mumbai, India - At 9.4 degrees, city experiences second coldest night in 46 years

China - China Experiencing Coldest Winter in 100 Years, Will Media Notice?

Pakistan - Turkmen leader chides weather official - "Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has scolded his top meteorology official for failing to provide accurate weather forecasts about a cold snap gripping the country. Turkmenistan is struggling to survive the coldest winter in 40 years which has frozen up parts of the Caspian Sea and blanketed its deserts with ice and snow."

Alaska - Brrrrr. Near-record cold chills Interior Alaska

Global warming's main effect is on minimum temperatures, which it raises thus raising the overall average temperature. These record colds simply shouldn't be happening.

If anyone is taking any notice I'd suggest that 1998 is starting to look like a long-term high point that won't be challenged for some time to come.

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No funds for researching cooling effect of the sun

Popular Mechanics has an article on the slow down in solar activity and the difficulty researchers are having getting funding to understand the cooling effect better. Cooling effect? That doesn't play into the current Climate Change hysteria so - no soup for you.

It's a perfect example of my view that the politicisation of science driven by the left will have a negative impact on those looking for funds to undertake real research.



Every day, scientists hoping to see an increase in solar activity train their instruments at the sun as it crosses the sky. This is no idle academic pursuit: A lull in solar action could potentially drive the planet’s temperature down, or even prompt a mini Ice Age.

For millennia, thermonuclear forces inside the star have followed a regular rhythm, causing its magnetic field to peak and ebb, on average, every 11 years. Space weathermen are watching for telltale increases in sunspots, which would signal the start of a new cycle, predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. “When the sun’s active, it’s a little bit brighter,” explains Ken Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council.

So far, Tapping reports no change in the magnetic field strength, as measured by radio telescopes. On the more positive side, last month NASA reported a small, earth-sized sunspot with a magnetic field pointing in the opposite direction from those in the previous cycle; qualities that designate the spot as a signal of a new upturn in activity. At the solar maximum, scientists expect to see between 75 and 150 such sunspots per day.

Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” Recent magnetic field readings are as low as he’s ever seen, he says, and he’s worked with the instrument for more than 25 years. If the sun remains this quiet for another a year or two, it may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

The last such solar funk corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death’s depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans and, more substantially, increased volcanic activity spewing ash into the atmosphere—the sun’s lethargy likely had something to do with it.

Just how much influence the sun has on global temperatures has been the subject of sometimes acrimonious debate. While an upswing in solar activity may cause a warming trend, it was discounted in the mid-1990s as the sole driver of current climate change. And for anyone hoping that a solar downswing might bail us out of our current dilemma: Solar influence on climate is slight compared to the impact of man-made greenhouse gases, a National Academy of Sciences report concluded in 1995.

The planet’s climate is a messy picture, with all sorts of influences and feedback cycles that need to be taken into account. In order to build more accurate computer models, scientists need to understand both anthropogenic factors and the link between the sun and our planet, Tapping says. To help get at the sun’s influence, he and other researchers connect Earth’s temperature with historic sunspot records of sky watchers from Europe and China, as well as with carbon-14 isotopes­—residue from cosmic rays delivered by the sun’s magnetic field—found in tree rings. To understand our role in climate change,” he says, “we need to understand the natural process.”

A new generation of radio telescopes could lead to a better understanding of the sun’s behavior—of importance to space-faring countries, satellite operators, astronomers and earth scientists alike—but currently await government funding.

In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun’s emissions more rapidly. It would also provide details about the sun’s emissions by examining signals at more wavelengths than the current instrument. Canada’s space agency coordinates activity with England and the U.S., sharing data and constructing complementary telescopes. Researchers were hoping the new radio telescope would get the green light as early as last week, but are now saying that budget cuts from other countries may delay or even jeopardize the program.

“Things are all on hold due to the consequences of the huge science funding cuts in the U.S. and the U.K.,” Tapping says. “This is impacting other partner countries because of the possible need to cover financial holes. Nobody is clear yet as to how this will unfold so they are hanging onto their wallets, for the moment.”

The new Canadian telescope is an independent project but has been designed to work closely with a proposed array of 100 telescopes in the United States. Collectively called the Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope (FASR), the array will directly measure coronal magnetic field strengths. The system will also show the locations of electrons accelerated by solar flares and will provide images of coronal mass ejections. Assuming, of course, it is funded.

“Given fiscal realities, it has been slow in moving forward,” says Tim Bastian, principal investigator of the FASR team, which represents a consortium of American universities. “However, we recently submitted our preliminary proposal for construction to the National Science Foundation and expect to submit the full proposal in June. If all goes according to plan, the five-year construction project will be funded at the end of this fiscal year.” In which case, the first monitoring systems will be coming online in three years, giving us much-needed insight into the state of our local star.

(Nothing Follows)

Super Duper Tuesday - dark days ahead

Back in April last year in a post Kerplunk writes off the chances of three US Presidential candidates I suggested that John McCain, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton could not become president for various reasons.

At the end of the day it is clear that John McCain will gain the Republican nomination and either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will get the Democratic nomination meaning that for only the second time in history a US Senator will become president. The other was JFK.

People who are a good twenty years older than me describe it as the worst field of candidates in their lifetime. It's certainly the worst that I can recall and having studied election races through US history it's hard to find a worse field, though it might exist.

In terms of predictions I think that McCain can't win - too old, too grumpy and he's hardly a conservative - so whoever wins the Democratic nomination will become president.

Regardless of who wins of the three of them the world has dark days ahead.

One of the main things holding back the killing of the free market golden goose is US entrepreneurship. Today's left has decided that because the goose smells a bit and sometimes craps in the wrong spot that it should be killed and replaced with the rubber duck of increased state control. Naturally, if there are no more golden eggs then we'll all end up like Zimbabwe after a time.

None of the three candidates understand the economy. None of the three understand global politics. None of them stand for responsible government.

As the old saying goes, "When the US sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold."

The cold that any of these three could give the rest of the world might lead to pneumonia.

Given the increasing activity of anti-US forces in the world in the form of the UN, EU and Muslim world, supported by their useful idiots in the mainstream media, I think that there are dark days ahead, indeed.

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Britons embarrass themselves on myth vs real historical figures

I hope nobody does a survey like this in Australia so we can take shots at the British but cop no return flak.

Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out today which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.

I guess that's what happens when history is turned into relativistic pap by education departments and people get their information from leftist outlets such as the BBC.

No wonder they're so gullible as to believe all of the global warming drivel.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

The Hives are a rock band from Fagersta, Sweden that first rose to prominence in the early 2000s as a leading group of the garage rock revival. Their breakthrough came with the release of the "best-of" compilation Your New Favourite Band, featuring their most commercially successful song "Hate to Say I Told You So". The band produces punk-influenced garage rock songs and wear matching black and white suits.

Vocalist Pelle Almqvist is known for his habits of stage diving, climbing amps, executing scissor kicks and nonsensical speech. At the 2002 Video Music Awards, on MTV, The Hives performed "Main Offender" in a "Battle of the Bands" type of set up, with The Vines playing their hit "Get Free" right after The Hives. Before The Vines began playing, Pelle Almqvist said to the crowd, "I know you want us to play more, but that's all the time we have so you can turn off now!" The Hives performed at the 2008 NHL All Star Game in Atlanta, GA.

I saw The Hives at The Forum in Melbourne when they toured Australia a couple of years ago. They were great. Do yourself a favour and get their album "Your New Favourite Band".

Hate To Say I Told You So



Main Offender



Tick Tick Boom



(Nothing Follows)

Good old ex-Commie keeps on speaking the truth. AFP shows its bias.

AFP has a short article about Czech President Vaclav Klaus' latest statements on global warming.

BERLIN (AFP) — Right-wing Czech President Vaclav Klaus slammed the EU's sweeping new measures to fight climate change as a "tragic mistake" in an interview with a German newspaper on Thursday.

Leftist mainstream media such as AFP always make sure to identify their political opponents as "right-wing". In Europe it's the ultimate pejorative term for the leftist elites.

"I believe that our government and others will stand up against these bureaucratic ideas," Klaus told the Handelsblatt business daily.

"This package is without doubt a tragic mistake, a misunderstanding of nature and an unnecessary limitation of human activity," the outspoken Eurosceptic leader added.

"For me it is almost a tragedy."

For tens of millions of people around the world the depth of tragedy will be played out in the next couple of decades as they suffer malnutrition and early death brought on by the implementation of the left's policies, especially in relation to global warming. Socialism killed over 100 million people in the 20th century, wars excluded, and I reckon that the left will kill more than that in the 21st century. It's a sobering thought.

Klaus has previously compared German Chancellor Angela Merkel's pro-environmental platform to Soviet-era centralised planning and described evidence of global warming as bogus.

And he should know.

He said the measures presented by the European Commission would threaten economic growth and limit personal freedom.

And, of course, it will.

The energy blueprint is designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, by setting targets for industry.

It also stipulates that the use of renewable energies like biomass, wind and solar power have to make up 20 percent of all energy forms by 2020.

The European Union aims to enact the new measures by the spring of 2009.

Good luck with that.

The Czech Republic is due to hold the rotating EU presidency for the first half of 2009, followed by Sweden.

The Czech parliament will next week begin to elect a new president as Klaus's term expires in March. He faces a challenge from Czech-American professor Jan Svejnar.

Jan Svenjar is standing for the Czech Social Democratic Party so why doesn't AFP describe him as "left-wing"? They may not even realise they've done it, which really would show the unbridled political bias of today's media.

I'd actually like an answer to that. Do those of you on the left think it's fair to describe one person as right-wing and not identify another as left-wing?

UPDATE: Greenie Watch has an email from Will Alexander, Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria regarding the issue of power shortages in South Africa.

South Africa is experiencing an energy crisis that has all the dimensions of a national disaster. Last Friday all South Africa's gold, platinum, diamond and some coal mines closed. This was because of the dangers to miners during unexpected power failures. Energy-demanding ventilation and dewatering are critical requirements for our mines. Large energy-consuming aluminium and other smelters have closed down. Tens of thousands of workers are out on the streets. Gold and platinum account for about 25% of South Africa's exports. Losses are estimated to exceed R200 million per day from these sources alone.

Our only energy supplier is the semi-state body Eskom. The mining industry uses 12% of Eskom's capacity, accounts for 7% of the economy, 30% of exports and 25% of foreign exchange earnings.

This is only one of the consequences of the energy crisis. There are many examples of how the crisis is affecting all aspects of life in this country. Our national economy has already been adversely affected. On two occasions I visited local shopping centres. The lights were out, doors were closed, and the staff were waiting in the corridors for the power to come on again.

In order to overcome the problem, the authorities intend imposing severe reductions in electricity use. These will be in place for the next five years at least. The reductions include industries (10%), commercial use (15%), shopping centres and hotels (20%), large office complexes (15%), agriculture (5%) and household use (10%). The target is the reduction of national energy demand by 10% to 15%. No mention is made of the mining sector or of the natural growth in demand.

The relative use of electricity of the various sectors is as follows: households (35%), industry (35%), mining (12%), commercial use (9%), export to neighbouring states (4%), agriculture (3%) and transport (2%). The economies of our neighbouring states will also suffer.

I was directly involved in the imposition of water restrictions during the severe drought of the 1980s. These were very difficult to implement. The control of electricity use will be even more difficult. Voluntary reductions on the required scale will not be achieved. It will take at least a year to implement enforceable measures.

Other long-term measures are proposed. They include the compulsory use of energy-saving light bulbs and the installation of solar water heaters. It is not a coincidence that these restriction measures have long been proposed by climate change activists. They are also the basis for South Africa's support for internationally enforceable and economically damaging greenhouse gas control measures.

Now the South African public will directly experience the consequence of these measures long proposed by climate alarmists. There is little prospect of South Africa meeting its goals of halving unemployment and poverty by 2014. Economists are also predicting that we will not achieve the targeted 6% annual economic growth within the foreseeable future.

The South African authorities have acknowledged that the crisis is the result of not taking heed of warnings issued in 1998 that this would happen if our power generation network was not expanded to meet the growing demand. There is some suspicion that the delay was also the result of pressures from environmental activists.

This is a very good example of what will happen to the fragile economies of other developing countries with large disadvantaged populations. It also demonstrates the consequences when developing countries are forced to comply with compulsory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions imposed by developed counties such as the EU for example.

The UK sent Nicholas Stern and David King to South Africa in order to persuade the South African authorities to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to persuade other developing counties to follow suite. Now we see the result.

Well done, International Left. This will kill South Africans. As I said above, the left will cause the deaths of more people in the 21st century than the 100 million that socialism took care of in the 20th. They truly are Moral Idiots.

(Nothing Follows)