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Post by mrsonde on Apr 17, 2019 10:27:59 GMT 1
Did you see Adam Boulton's interview with the self-appointed planet saviour just now? Brilliant. I'll see if I can find it.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 17, 2019 10:35:49 GMT 1
No, it's not up yet - will be later, I'm sure, it's a classic. Found this little gem though:
Dear me - I knew he didn't like Beth as much as he should. How long before he gets dismissed for "bullying" and "abusing" his colleagues? You can't do anything to your workmates these days - no cuddling, no jokes, no browbeating, no squeezing of knees or rubbing of shoulders or grabbing of pussies.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 17, 2019 16:13:26 GMT 1
Not seen anything on the meeja yet but a young friend is involved, and curiously excited by the prospect of being arrested. Not sure how a criminal record will promote her otherwise promising career, but I'm just an old fogey (Committee of 100, Aldermaston...) whose advice doesn't count.
My summary? A good point ruined by crap presentation and no actual proposed solution.
Mark Carney seems to have been swayed by the argument that Something Must Be Done Urgently but then dissolved into waffle about repurposing capital.
Nobody seems to see the obvious problem: too many people. And the obvious solution: don't make babies. But somehow the idea of solving all the world's problems by literally doing nothing doesn't appeal to rebellious youth or brain-dead economists (is there any other sort?)
I remember the infamous battle cry "they can't arrest us all!" They did.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 17, 2019 17:03:24 GMT 1
Not seen anything on the meeja yet but a young friend is involved, and curiously excited by the prospect of being arrested. Not sure how a criminal record will promote her otherwise promising career, but I'm just an old fogey (Committee of 100, Aldermaston...) That sounds horribly, horribly...Soviet. Not the Sixth Man, were you? Tell us more, if it's not too incriminating. Tell us - what is the good point? My actual proposed solution is to cut off their electricity supply for...oh, I don't know, no need to be too harsh...ten years? Until they repent, then. And take their driving licences away, of course. And ermmm...nah, it really doesn't seem harsh enough, somehow. How about - you remember that wheel thing Arnie used to have to trundle around every hour of every day in Conan the Barbarian, like a donkey? I've come to the conclusion, after digging into his past career, that the man is a know-nothing menace. I try to avoid it. Doing my bit, you know. They don't seem at all rebellious to me, and not all that youthful. Most of them seem like either old time hippies - except they're not old enough to be: they must have been like that at about the time of Punk, which makes them about as square as you can get - or middle class librarians, when they used to have librarians. Liberal Democrats! That's what they seem like to me! They wouldn't know how to rebel out of a teabag. It's a weird subject, all right. What the Rolling Stones told Marianne Faithfull, wasn't it? Commmme on, it's only a Mars Bar.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 17, 2019 17:24:48 GMT 1
Oh, here it is - the last minute of it anyway. Shame, because the rest was just as good.
The truly worrying thing is that he's awfully redolent of William Hague circa age 16, isn't he, delivering his speech at the Tory Conference? Most of you w-w-won't be a-laive when I'm prime minister - that one. Tory Boy cum Tim Nice-but-Dim. Anyway, this creepy little bastard needs to be strapped to the wheel, generating some electricity...for the poor Africans, like.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 18, 2019 0:16:45 GMT 1
Becoming prime minister is a reasonable aspiration for those unfit for useful work, but trying to reverse el nino by gluing yourself to Jeremy Corbyn's fence makes Canute look like a rational scientist - he did at least go to the seaside. Spike Milligan is dead, but surrealism lives on.
PS re your avatars. I went to a good gig last week. Chris Ingham plays music composed by Dudley Moore. Apparently there is very little surviving sheet music from a bloke described by his tutor as "the nearest thing I have seen to a genius", but Ingham was given a manuscript book. The band fell upon it like ravening wolves, only to discover that Dud had in each case simply sketched out a melody, then written "now play jazz."
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 18, 2019 9:19:53 GMT 1
Not seen anything on the meeja yet but a young friend is involved, and curiously excited by the prospect of being arrested. Not sure how a criminal record will promote her otherwise promising career, but I'm just an old fogey (Committee of 100, Aldermaston...) That sounds horribly, horribly...Soviet. Not the Sixth Man, were you? Tell us more, if it's not too incriminating. CND was perfectly rational. As a scientific adviser to Civil Defence I quickly learned that, unlike the other nuclear powers, the UK could not survive a nuclear war, but was perfectly capable of sustaining both a conventional and a guerrilla response to any actual invasion if properly prepared, which we weren't. We lost the argument and now have just one response (bomb Moscow) to any threat to national security and sovereignty. Invading Iraq (bring your own boots), providing human targets for the Taliban, and still spending less on defence, haven't achieved anything.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 18, 2019 9:55:58 GMT 1
Becoming prime minister is a reasonable aspiration for those unfit for useful work, but trying to reverse el nino by gluing yourself to Jeremy Corbyn's fence makes Canute look like a rational scientist - he did at least go to the seaside. When I was at school we were taught his name was Cnut. Spelling class, if I recall. But - do you actually have a link to prove that this actually happened, at all? To The Guardian or The Independent or the BBC- something reliable like that? (I do like to channel Fing, occasionaly.) I told you I was a Canute. Chris Ingham...rings a bell. Not the guy who got into Pete Townsend-style deep water? Dud, Dud - a genius, yes, I'd say, as Pete was. But something so very sad about him, the way his life went, don't you think? (Unlike Pete, imo.) What's the lesson? Be careful of drink, fame, too much success, talent...women?
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 18, 2019 10:09:02 GMT 1
That sounds horribly, horribly...Soviet. Not the Sixth Man, were you? Tell us more, if it's not too incriminating. CND was perfectly rational. As long as the Americans were prepared to pay for and guarantee the defence of our country, I suppose it was. One word for it, anyway. Like the Hungarians, Czechs, East Germans, Poles, and Chechens, you mean? The case against you wasn't: was it? Bertrand Russell and Michael Foot never could think of an answer to that devastating point. Hardly!
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 18, 2019 18:50:52 GMT 1
Judging by the concerted news coverage, the message for the day is: "We're forced to cause all this disruption to working folk during our holidays because no one is listening to the scientists." My emphasis.
Including you lot, obviously, else you'd know that according to the scientific method the AGW theory has been falsified, many times. So, who you've actually been listening to, rather than "the scientists", is the media, who have for many years only allowed you to hear a certain sort of "scientist", saying a certain sort of thing - the millenarian thing you actually want to hear, if you were being honest - and the UN agency of the IPCC, who are not "scientists": they're political appointees, enjoying a very nice lifestyle thanks to the same message of Doom.
The truth is, the blame for all this hysteria lies entirely with the broadcast media in this country, who abandoned their responsibility to pursue impartial truth about the same time they banned "climate sceptics" from their coverage. The "climate sceptics" were proven, by science, to have been right all along two or three years ago. Yet still they're banned, and still "the News" is pumping out the same Fake bullshit.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 18, 2019 20:14:51 GMT 1
Don't blame me, dear. I pointed out around 20 years ago that the historic record shows CO2 following the temperature graph, not leading it. More proof from Mauna Loa shows that this is still the case.
Nevertheless it is true that homo sapiens is modifying the environment (all animals do - it's called living) at a faster rate than it can recover (other animals don't). And all for a perfectly good reason - everyone aspires to a Western lifestyle. So if the desideratum is per caput consumption that cannot be sustained with our present population, just reduce the number of capita.
Fat chance. There's no profit to be made.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 19, 2019 13:36:27 GMT 1
Don't blame me, dear. I pointed out around 20 years ago that the historic record shows CO2 following the temperature graph, not leading it. More proof from Mauna Loa shows that this is still the case. Nevertheless it is true that homo sapiens is modifying the environment (all animals do - it's called living) at a faster rate than it can recover (other animals don't). And all for a perfectly good reason - everyone aspires to a Western lifestyle. So if the desideratum is per caput consumption that cannot be sustained with our present population, just reduce the number of capita. Fat chance. There's no profit to be made. Oh yes, all true indeed. But, having taken on board those baseline truths, there's still plenty that could be done to at least mitigate them - in the long term, even to make a future perfectly feasible. Of course, it is undeniably the case that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced, given population growth, and our common striving for greater prosperity. At the moment, leaving aside genuine technological breakthroughs that are still widely unknown, the case for Nuclear to achieve that aim is overwhelming. Are these libdem alt-types demanding the Govt. embarks on a massive program of building new nuclear power stations? Are they f*#k. It is also undeniably the case that the climate is getting warmer - though how serious a problem this is, and how much longer it's going to continue, is a matter totally open to debate (given that all the scientific evidence shows that our CO2 emissions are responsible for only about 10% of that warming - 15% at the very most.) The causes - 80% of the warming at least, probably 90% - are temporary fluctuations in our interplanetary plasma environment, our current galactic position, and the galactic and even extra-galactic cosmic ray preponderance - this has all been known, scientifically proven, for well over a decade. What's not known yet is how long these passing and cyclic conditions are going to persist, and how much warmer it's therefore going to naturally become. But - what is also known is that there are very simple and very affordable technological solutions to this problem. Are these libdem alt-types demanding the Govt. embarks on a program to test and develop those solutions? Are they f*#k. Is the IPCC - who have been made fully aware of them, again over a decade ago, but insist on not considering or even reporting on them because "it's not part of our remit." Is it f*#k. Is Al Gore making a film about these easy straightforward solutions, now that he's become a billionaire from his scaremongering? Is he f*#k. A billion's not enough. The whole issue is a farce.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 19, 2019 15:17:17 GMT 1
CND was perfectly rational. As a scientific adviser to Civil Defence I quickly learned that, unlike the other nuclear powers, the UK could not survive a nuclear war, but was perfectly capable of sustaining both a conventional and a guerrilla response to any actual invasion if properly prepared, which we weren't. I've always been somewhat puzzled by the CND types. Are they actually so sympathetic to communism that they genuinely didn't consider the USSR a threat? A lot of them were that way, certainly - Russell, Foot, Montefiore, probably most of the rest of the leadership. We now know they were in fact secretly funded by Moscow, as the CIA and MI5 always claimed. But the general membership? Were they simply naive? Deeply ignorant of history? Let me ask you this. Supposing you'd won your argument, and Britain had unilaterally disarmed. It's not that outlandish - Foot might have won the 83 election, if the Falklands had gone the other way, and that could very easily have occurred. Now - what do you think we could have done had the Kremlin said something like: Hand over the Orkneys to us. We're in control of them now. Past history has proven that the imperialist Royal Navy have used Scapa Flow for centuries to impose its militaristic fascistic colonialism on the poor of the world and we can no longer sit by and allow this to continue. It is also vital for the defence of the Revolution that the people of the Soviet Union have a North Sea port to resist the neo-imperialist expansionism of the United States in furtherance of its militaristic domination of Europe. You have two weeks to leave. Following the arrival of our northern Fleet shortly thereafter, any act of resistance to our landing will be seen as an Act of War, and we will be forced to retaliate. In order to bring that conflict to as speedy and peaceful conclusion as possible, and to avoid any grievous unjustified bloodshed of the Soviet people, we give clear and fair warning that this would necessitate a preemptive targeting of the militaristic port of Plymouth for complete destruction. If any further aggression is encountered, we shall be forced to extend this policy by destroying the militaristic centre of Portsmouth the following day; followed by Bristol after that; and Liverpool after that; and so on and so on, see attached appendix. What would you have advised then, my friend? Complain to the UN? Like Tibet did in 1960?
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 19, 2019 17:58:03 GMT 1
I was never in favor of disarmament, so can't answer your question.
However you might consider what would happen today if a friendly Russian ship were to request emergency shelter in Scapa Flow and make excuses as to why it couldn't leave (reactor problems) but required assistance from another, whilst its friendly passengers fraternise with the locals.....At what point do you bomb Moscow?
Or if another nuclear power, say Pakistan, were to insist that the human rights of dual nationals were being infringed by the refusal of Bradford magistrates to apply Sharia law. Anyone remember Sudetenland? At what point do you bomb Islamabad?
Nuking Plymouth doesn't achieve anything for an invading power except to piss off the population of Devon. Turning off the gas supply, however, will bring the government trembling to its knees in a week. And why bother to invade? All the Saudis have to do is increase the price of oil, and without firing a shot, they own London.
The scenario we were given in Civil Defence (which I think has now been abandoned and not replaced by anything) was a 2-week Transition To War followed by a nuclear exchange that would inevitably destroy the UK's centralised infrastructure and turn the country into a police state in order to....err... prevent the country being occupied by a police state. Who would come to our aid when the elected government had failed to do anything except hide? The friendly Russians, of course, well used to managing a devastated country by imposing a police state.
The more probable scenario that I suggested we should consider was the unannounced explosion of one tactical nuclear weapon. No more details on a public forum, but it is an entirely feasible tactic of some well-funded scum like ISIL. The government's failure to deal with about a million minor casualties (mostly resulting from panic) would cause the collapse of public order. There is (AFAIK) no plan for dealing with it. Who do you bomb in retaliation?
The success of conventional guerrilla forces against major nuclear powers, in Vietnam and Afghanistan, is worth studying. Unlike ISIL, they did a reasonable "hearts and minds" job and kicked out the invaders.
The UK has a better initial resilience to invasion than either Vietnam or Afghanistan as a result of the last 2000 years of civilisation replacing civil war with a grudging acceptance of the status quo. Not apathy, as events in 1939 showed, but an ability to act reasonably cohesively if properly armed and organised. We should be spending as lot more on the defence of what we know, rather than preparing to counterattack....er...what....or when..?
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 19, 2019 19:03:13 GMT 1
I was never in favor of disarmament, so can't answer your question. Oh, my mistake. So, in the spirit of Ms.Hartrick, when you said: You meant to write...? Eh? Sorry, you've lost me. It's been a long hard day. What are you referring to? Why should we even think of bombing anywhere? The rights of Sudeten Germans were not being infringed. A better analogy would be Danzig. But anyway - until Pakistan attacks us, at no point. You're missing the point. What it achieves is the mere threat would be enough to extort whatever they wanted, because it would be irresistable. It's conceivable a government would see Plymouth obliterated, through brinkmanship, but none would let it happen again, Not for the Orkneys. But then - where do you draw the line? I don't think anyone was in any doubt that there wouldn't be anything left to occupy. Here or in Russia. That's what Mutually Assured Destruction meant. It would doubtless cause the collapse of order, locally. Nationally? Doubtful - quite the opposite effect would ensue, I should think. But it's been a long-standing nightmare - a dirty bomb, rather than a nuclear one. Of course, as it turned out, more than once, the most probable scenario was an accidental first strike from the technologically primitive Soviets. Vietnam and Afghanistan were at no point threatened by nuclear weapons. China was, in the Korean War, and that did stop their invasion. Why are you so transfixed by the idea of invasion? Extortion. Do what we want or give us what we want or...The Soviets didn't actually need to invade or occupy most of their satellite states - they just installed puppet regimes, and extracted whatever they wanted.
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