Zinger of the day

Peggy Noonan on dealing with Obama-

He's like a walking headache. He's probably triggering Michele Bachmann's migraines.

All solutions to Typominima headaches

Ok, not all. Not even most. But a lot, I hope, of that some which is really troublesome about this gorgeous but exasperating template.For this last emotion see the comments here or here where I am involved.

Typominima is a single wide column template created by Blogsessive for Wordpress (sometimes it seems all good designs are created for Wordpress) and adapted to Blogger by Vikas Bhargava (I think) of Besttheme.net.



It has minimum of graphic elements to distract(hence the name Typo -minima). However that also creates problems for those who love this design but are rankled by the lack of options. You love it, you hate it! It feels like your spouse!

The elements missing in the original template include the post date, author stamp, link to comments, labels, quick edit icons, share links etc (that is, all the goodies in a post footer). There is also a loneliness at the top,  at least for me. I love big, colorful and striking blog header images. And I just can't live without sidebars. Where else to put ads, shameless self-promotions and other thingamijigs?

After great inhuman exertions ( so great that if someone of finer intellect had put them to task in a higher field, he might have come up with the Super Grand Unification Theory of the Universe), I believe I have managed to solve some of the most entangling tangles of this lovely template.
(Ok, I'm kidding - about the effort, I mean. But it was exasperating at times).



An index of the stuff in this post so far (there will be more surely)-

i) SINGLE COLUMN TYPOMINIMA TEMPLATE FOR BLOGGER WITH MISSING ELEMENTS ADDED

ii) SINGLE COLUMN TYPOMINIMA TEMPLATE FOR BLOGGER WITH MISSING ELEMENTS ADDED AND WITH HEADER IMAGE
How to replace header image with your own

iii) 3-COLUMN TYPOMINIMA TEMPLATE FOR BLOGGER WITH MISSING ELEMENTS ADDED AND WITH HEADER IMAGE
How to replace header image with your own

iv) 4-COLUMN TYPOMINIMA TEMPLATE FOR BLOGGER - NEWS SITE OR MAGAZINE LOOK

v) ANSWERS TO SOME ANNOYANCES
how to change site description

Ah! The genius of Obama

is so resplendent that-

The government racked up $5.3 trillion in new fiscal obligations last year alone -- bringing the current unfunded tab for future expenses on things like Medicare, Social Security and military medical and retirement programs to a whopping $61.6 trillion, or $534,000 per American household.

Then there's today's bills: We're borrowing $125 billion a month that we have no hope of ever paying back on our current course.


The growth in GDP declined to a measly 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011 as consumers hung desperately onto their wallets. Job growth has completely collapsed. Fully 60 percent of the electorate thinks the country is on the wrong track. No wonder the daily economic briefing, once on a par with the intelligence briefing, has vanished from President Obama's schedule.


Heckuva job, guys.


And now Obama says he's not worried about a double-dip recession. Easy for him to say: For Americans not feeding at the government trough, the first recession never ended.

The above is from Michael A. Walsh whose article is appropriately titled Professor Disaster. We in India can understand as we are also suffering another academic in power, Dr. Manmohan Singh. For such academics, we the commoners are blocks to build the edifices of their (disastrous) social and economic theories and when the whole thingamajig collapses, as it always does, it ruffles not a hair of the professors' heads. Reality is too alien to those ensconced in the bubble of power. This is even more true of those that have entered that bubble from an even greater bubble -the hermetically sealed,close minded ivory towers of the academia.

In the faculty lounge inhabited by the president and his credentialed playmates, the economy is a controlled experiment, with manufacturers and consumers mere lab rats who cheerfully respond to the prodding of their ivory-tower betters, no matter how many taxes and regulations are piled onto their backs. 

Do catch it all. It is superb.

"The Empire of Corruption is striking back"

B.S.Raghavan has a simply not to be missed opinion piece in the Hindu Business Online-

There is a sudden streak of hawkish hot-headedness evident in the Government's postures and pronouncements.


In particular, one notices the Human Resources Development and Information Technology Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, and the Home Minister, Mr P.Chidambaram, adopting a conspicuously imperial tone and tenor, which is clearly hostile to ‘We, the People', to whom they are beholden for their transient positions of power and authority in the first place. Mr Sibal has the bravado to hold up as “a lesson for all” the sneaky and dastardly Ramlila maidan rampage by the police against sleeping, innocent men, women and children who had come from far-off places just to join the movement against corruption and black money.

Mr Chidambaram has the braggadocio to denounce a sovereign people's inherent basic right to protest as “destabilising the Government” and attack the media's brilliant performance in highlighting the people's anger and revulsion against the Government's black deeds as “competitive populist coverage of these movements” and an attempt at “undermining Parliamentary democracy”.

do you hear the music of fascism? -

With all the “behave or else!” hauteur that he is capable of, he imputes motives to the media's discharge of its mandatory duty to keep the people informed, basing his insinuations on “reasons which I can't spell out”.

No doubt, he is ominously hinting at some concocted intelligence and cooked-up cases the Ministries of Home Affairs and Finance are planning to foist to subjugate the media and silence the critics.

Have the new rulers of 'free' India turned out be worse than the British-

Our rulers should know, as from an authentic witness to the glorious age of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru whom I had seen from close quarters, that they are behaving contrary to the values of colossuses who won for us our precious freedom and taking the country back to the era of slavery and savage repression by even doing one better than the British colonial masters.

Actually, the British, with the background of a thousand years of democracy in their own country, were more tolerant and responsive. They dealt with freedom fighters fairly and justly after their own fashion, and never sought to crush them with the ruthlessness that is fast becoming the established mode in the so-called democratic India.

Why do we keep on electing monsters -

Parties and groups playing politics with the evil of corruption and black money eating into the vitals of the nation should also understand that it has become in the people's eyes the repulsive face of politicians of all parties without exception, no matter that some of them for the nonce are jumping on to the bandwagon in the manner of one set of thieves joining the chase given by the people to catch another set of thieves.

Both fire-eating apologists for the Government's callousness, and political opportunists in the Opposition who had not lifted their little finger while they were in power, now sitting in dust-proof, noise-proof, climate proof cavernous offices, with all the creature comfort at their beck and call and spending hundreds of crores of rupees on security and healthcare must cultivate some understanding of the excruciating torture hourly inflicted on the aam aadmi in villages, towns and cities by every public servant from the traffic policeman upwards to the Cabinet Minister.

The fact that they are not able to do so shows either that they are totally devoid of humanity, blinded by their cushy existence or that they have a vested interest in perpetuating the system.

Did I say "don't miss" the article?

From the LNC Quote Shop

John Nolte-

One of the most pathetic creatures on the planet is one desperate to be liked.  

Congress 'logic' akin to colonial and Soviet-style authoritarianiasm

Congress party's logo - This hand was made for looting and smacking

From an editorial in Hindu Business Online-

The main takeaway for the people is that this Government will go to any lengths to protect the corrupt. The mistakes have been well-chronicled, but it is the ingenuous arguments that now stand out. One is that groups of well-meaning citizens cannot be allowed to hijack the legislative agenda; the other is that the RSS is behind the anti-corruption movement. Taking the second argument first, one must ask: even if it is true that the RSS is behind the movement, does that somehow make it illegitimate? Why is the Government trying to shift attention from corruption to the RSS? If RSS volunteers helped out in an earthquake or a flood, would that help be rejected by the Government? So the point is not who is doing it but what it is sought to be done. And this clearly makes the Government nervous to the extent that it is even using phrases from the Emergency days, such as “an attempt to de-stabilise the Government.”

The first argument — that citizens should not drive the legislative agenda — is intellectually identical to what colonial and Soviet-style authoritarian governments tended to use: we know what's good for you. According to this view, people don't matter, only the rulers. That this is sheer effrontery in the 21st century has not occurred to the Congress party apparatchiks. But that is not all: it is the Congress party that created the National Advisory Council (NAC), chaired by its President. If it is fine for the NAC to recommend legislation, why is it not all right for Anna Hazare and Ramdev to do likewise? As Shakespeare said, it is surely a tangled web they weave when they seek to deceive. If the people now conclude that the Congress party is trying to protect some of its high-ups, it will have only itself to blame. And this impression will only be strengthened after the ham-handed attempt by the party to distance itself from the Government's action against Ramdev. The effort, clearly, is to minimise the negative fallout against the party. It is not likely to succeed. It is also remarkable that the party has learnt nothing from the Bofors years. Then also, faced with allegations of corruption, the party had tried to brazen and bulldoze its way out.

Well said.
Read the whole thing, as they say.

Monster Singh

Is there a heart under that blue turban?

In his first comments on the issue, the Prime Minister Singh, who has been accused of mishandling the situation, said, "It is unfortunate that operation had to be conducted but quite honestly, there was no alternative."

 Really?
No alternative to a 1 a.m. surprise assault on peaceful citizens protesting corruption for which his party, the Congress, has historical responsibility?
No alternative to senseless(OK, not senseless -it was to save the Congress) beatings of all including women? No alternative to misbehaving with old women?
No alternative to sheer state brutality?
No alternative to unleashing his dogs on the public?


There was, of course, an alternative - to let the peaceful protests go on

 At no time did Baba Ramdev and his supporters threaten to become violent. If there was a problem of space and disruption of traffic then they could have been given the sprawling lawns of India Gate, the traditional place for protests in Delhi. There was simply no reason for this 'crackdown' as if the protesters were criminals and were creating a law and order problem. Law and order problem was actually created by the police atrocities themselves with their criminal assault.

But, irony of ironies, the Congress party claims to be the heir of Gandhi. They are, actually. Both literally and symbolically the heirs of another Gandhi - Emergency Indira. Like a scorpion cannot change its character and will bite the Congress cannot shed its repressive heritage. It's in gene and blood. OK, the blood is ours.

Manmohan Singh -Other than that he is quite decent

Remember the narrative the media has fed us for years - how Manmohan Singh is a decent man, very sharif(honest), incorruptible, so nice. But power corrupts all and only fools and media persons(I repeat myself) could have believed that under that blue pug(turban) beat a tender heart.

No, there is just dark, cold vacuum.




Update -
     Hemant Shah left the folowing comment to this article in The Hindustan Times -

Prime Minister Mao Tse Singh, I agree with your decision. There was no alternative to Ramlila Ground atrocity. Just like there was no alternative to Tiananmen Square excesses or Jalianwala Baag massacre.

You gotta do what you gotta do!

Digvijay Singh's crime is greater than that of Sushil Kumar

When Baba Ramdev said on being forcibly expelled from the Indian capital that Delhi kissi ke baap ke nahin hai (Delhi does not belong to anybody's father), his vernacular encapsulated the sheer arrogance with which the political elite struts over this city. For the feudal Congressi, Delhi is his fief. He moves about in bullet-proofed cars protected by ferocious looking commandos(breaking speed limits and other traffic laws)as we serfs strive in desperation to move our inconsequent selves out of the way. He is surrounded by taxpayer paid domestics(aka senior officials) who 'yes,sir' him 24/7 and would gladly lick not only his boots but his ass at a mere hint. So, who can blame them if the politicians believe they are our masters and not servants. In the system created by Nehru and perpetuated by his descendants, they are.


Have a look at today's example -

  Man Tries To Hurl Shoe At Congress Leader Janardan Dwivedi

High drama was witnessed at the AICC headquarters here today when a person posing as a journalist tried to attack party General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi with a shoe, apparently miffed over the treatment meted out to Swami Ramdev.

The person, who was carrying an identification as Sunil Kumar of Nav-Sanchar Patrika from Jhunjhnu, Rajasthan, came close to Dwivedi, removed his shoe and stopped short of hitting him with it.

The middle-aged man, wearing a striped T-shirt, was heard telling Dwivedi that "you cannot stop us from asking questions."

The man was immediately caught by the a AICC staffer and some journalists and was removed from the briefing hall while being beaten up. He was then taken away by police.

 Video -

While being beaten up? By who? Congressi chamchas(sycophants) and toadies? Isn't beating up anyone a crime? Not in the Capital of the Compassionate Congress Cukoo land. 

Any senior leaders around who tried to stop this gross violation of the law?
Well, Digvijay Singh ,with all his sobriety and high-mindedness was there. So what did he do?
He joined in!

Why wouldn't he? A commoner had to be punished for his effrontery. Saale, maalik ko joota dikhata hai! (Bastard, how dare you show a shoe to your master?!)

Digvijay Singh assaults Sushil kumar

Video - Digvijay Singh takes law into his own hands(or feet)

Digvijay Singh Kicked Assailant Sunil Kumar

 Congress workers and some mediapersons overpowered the assailant Sunil Kumar at the party headquarters today, a furious party general secretary Digvijay Singh was shown on video footage kicking him thrice, as the man was lying on the ground.

The video clearly showed that Digvijay was very angry with the act of the assailant, who had tried to hit party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi with a shoe.

Digvijay Singh was sitting inside his room in the party headquarters when the shoe incident took place, rushed out into the corridor near the press conference venue and kicked at Sunil kumar, lying on the floor, with his leg thrice.

The assailant was later taken outside and bundled into a police jeep to be taken to Tughlak Road police station.

Diggie usually implants both his feet in his mouth but today he used them to take law in his hands. It's OK, law hamare baap ka maal hai (is our father's property), we can do anything.

 Now compare the two crimes-
1) Sushil Kumar - impersonating, threatening violence with a shoe but not actually getting violent
2) Digvijay Singh and Congress toadies -actual physical assault on a person which could have(or perhaps have) resulted in injuries and even serious injuries.

Whose crime is greater?
And who was picked up by Chidambram's(India's home minister and a Nehru-Gandhi cutlery piece) palace guards aka Delhi police?


But who cares? Law, they say, is an ass and those who are supposed to keep it are, we have all seen, assholes.

Whose money and face is the blackest -Congress or Ramdev?

Congressi big mouth Digvijay Singh-

Senior Congress leader, Digvijay Singh on Monday said yoga guru Baba Ramdev should prove that money used to make his ashram is not black money and tax has been paid on it.

Ironical in the extreme. And that itself is an understatement. Which gangs organizations need huge mountains of black money to function at all -political parties! And the Congress party has been the premier party since forever. It is doubtful if any individual or corporate could have consumed as much black money as the Congress has over its history.

Not only that -the black money used by the political parties is of the worst kind. It is unearned, quid pro quo and of course criminal but not just because there is a law against it. It is the blackest money.


Yes, there is black money, there is blacker money and then there is the blackest money.
This needs some explaining as there is a lot of confusion regarding black money.

Black money at root is simply wealth that has escaped paying the cut demanded by the government. Which by itself does not make it immoral. Unlawful, yes, immoral, no.

Types of black money on the scale of immorality

 Let us take the main examples of black money and we shall be able to perceive the differences in 'immorality' -

1) Black Money - You expend sweat and tears to earn a living for your family, to keep them off poverty. Say your tax liability is 15,000/- but you pay 13,000/- and decide that that 2000/- you unlawfully keep is better spent on your mother's medical bills than on the foreign junket of a creep minister or become infinitesimal part of a giant scam. And there are many such scams. You have no faith that the government will spend wisely your hard earned money and not, like thieves, divide it among corrupt politicians and their boot-licking bureaucrats and politically favored contractors.

You are a criminal now and you have black money. And there are millions of 'criminals' like you.
But you earned your money. You produced wealth.
Who can call you immoral? Not me.


2 )  Blacker Money - this is simply loot. Money stolen, extorted by thugs and criminals doing criminal things like burglary, bank dacoity, things that mafiosi do etc. Nothing complicated about it. Obviously, very high on the immorality scale.


3) Blackest Money -  this is the loot of the worst kind because it is looted by those who are the custodians of the law. From the lowest corrupt sarkari peon to the bribe taking traffic inspector to the corrupt Commissioner of police to the dishonest joint secretary to the minister in spotless white clothes but with a lot of filth inside to the 'decent' prime minister who knows all but does nothing.The amount of wealth looted in corruption is huge. It is ENORMOUS.

Add to that the HUGE amount of illegal funds collected, extorted by the political  parties from corporates etc, often as exchange for later favors.  The very functioning these parties depends on such criminality. And yet they lecture us, harangue us, rule us, control us, loot us - while dressed in impeccable, well creased and starched whites.

They did not 'earn' all this loot. They created no wealth. They consumed what others produced. Like parasites that they are.

This is the Blackest Money and the politicians and the bureaucrats have it in truckfuls.

There is no reason not to consider political parties as criminal gangs since their very existence as viable power seekers depends upon large scale criminality.
 
On my scale of immorality, this ranks the highest.





Thus, we implore Diggie Singh to dig a little and tell us-

Who has the most black money - Baba Ramdev(even if he has any) or the Congress Party - and whose is the blackest?

Kiska mounh jada kaala hai?*

*The colorful Indian language translator-

      Kiska mounh jada kaala hai?  - Who has the blackest face (i.e. is the most disgraced) ?

"Why are you covering your face? You don't have a heart."

What happened (my own remarks are in italicized brackets and bold is mine)-

Police lobbed teargas shells apart from carrying out a "mild" truncheon charge (Ed -which didn't happen) on the protesters on Sunday. Many fainted because of the gas engulfing the covered venue and minor fires erupted.(what if they had turned into major fires or a stampede happened and killed hundreds? It was very possible.Wouldn't have meant anything to this 'compassionate' government.'Inclusive growth' is for those who don't get in the way.Those who do risk being excluded all the way to the other world.) "There was complete chaos. People could neither open their eyes nor keep them shut," recalled Shiv Kumar from Saharanpur. Protesters alleged that women and girls were manhandled. ( Bravo, Sonia, you go fight for women's rights!)

"First, people tried to stop the security personnel from reaching Ramdev. A young man took him away on his shoulders. But later he returned to address us," said Swami Akhandanand from Haridwar. He said about 1.20am things went out of control, "We had no report of where Ramdev went. He was asking everyone to maintain peace."

Eyewitnesses said by 1.30am, there was unrest in the camp with cops almost taking over the entire venue. "There was no provocation. What threat could women, children and men who came to participate in a satyagraha would pose?" asked Anita, a Ramdev follower from Sikkim.(The threat to gaddi*, no doubt)

Cops, however, said Ramdev's supporters pelted bricks and threw flower pots on them. Half an hour after the eviction operation began, the venue was full of smoke and it was difficult to anyone inside to breathe. Volunteers were seen taking out people who had fainted. Many were complaining about their missing belongings. But none was willing to leave Delhi before getting the order from the yoga guru.

"We will not go home. We need to see Baba," said Monika, a young supporter from Rohtak. Amid anti-government slogans, a woman shouted out to the cops, "Why are you covering your face? You don't have a heart." (Bandits and dacoits do this)

At 3am, most Ramdev supporters were on streets around the ground, especially the Jawaharlal Nehru Marg. People had taken over the entire pavement outside the MTNL office. But within minutes, a platoon of cops started driving them away.(Scram, you dogs! Fighting for your rights,bloody hell!) The police brought buses for volunteers to take people away.

"They can throw us out of Delhi by using force. But we will take this protest to villages and cities. The government has crossed all limits," said Sudha, who had come from Jharkhand. (Take that and remember next time -Delhi belongs to the Congress!)

The police kept driving away protesters until they had cleared the stretch between Ramlila Maidan and the Kamla Market roundabout.

Since police had also sealed Jantar Mantar (no shelter for you!)to avoid any gathering there, the exhausted protesters headed to Bangla Sahib Gurdwara beyond Connaught Place.

Timeline of events by News X

*The colorful Indian language translator-
        gaddi - seat, here it means the seat of power
       

It takes balls to thrash innocents -Delhi Police has them in depotful

Leader of the ferocious dog squad unleashed on the unsuspecting and peaceful protesters, Dharmendra Kumar, Special CP (Law and Order), tries to 'explain' away the allegations of atrocities. 'Explain' is perhaps not the right word as he is not interested in taking questions. Just watch it for a spectacle of sheer hubris. Our masters are dripping in such contemptuous arrogance, from 10, Janpath Road* down to the lowest beat constable(who is low and adept at beating innocents like street vendors).

Power made me God

Video. Original link.

Dripping in arrogance, yes, but not drop of sympathy in that drip for what his goons did-

The injured Mr Sibal could not find

Tehelka was the first media network to reach Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital in New Delhi to find out the condition of the injured in the late-night police action against Baba Ramdev’s supporters at a time when the government alleged that no serious injuries had been reported.


The reporter Revati Laul was speaking with the injured when the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital asked her to leave, despite the fact that the injured wanted to give testimonials of the police brutality they faced. Tehelka photographer Naveesh Tejpal was not allowed inside the hospital building with his camera. Therefore, the correspondent had to take these pictures on her mobile phone. They serve as evidence of police brutality. One woman, Rajbala, is critically injured with multiple fractures to her spine and all four limbs paralysed; two others have got serious head injuries. More than 60 people who were injured were admitted to this hospital.

Sunil Kumar at the LNJP Hospital. He got skull fracture. He claims that the police blocked most exits of the Ramlila Maidan

Ravindar Singh from Himachal Pradesh. He is injured in the head and stomach. He says he became victim of the police cane-charge

Cane-charge that according to Kumar didn't happen?! Lying rascal! (I mean the scoundrel feigning injuries and not Kumar who is a saint)
 
 Catch more here by Tehelka's reporter  Revati Laul. She showed courage to find some of the missing injured. However that pales in comparison to the balls required to thrash unarmed civilians, most of them just woken from sleep at 1 a.m, with a police force over 5000 strong.

Bravo, Dharmendra Kumar, you deserve a medal and it is probably being minted at the backyard of  10, Janpath Road.





*   10, Janpath Road  -The residence of Sonia Gandhi, India's de-facto mistress. 

Media Crooks on fire

No, I don't mean Barkha Dutt et al. in a burning inferno though the thought might cockle some hearts. I mean the passionately written blog Media Crooks is in a fit of (justified, I think) outrage and is producing some fiery stuff. E.g. see this, this or an earlier posted this. Don't miss.

Rahul Gandhi -Mums the word

Rahul Gandhi was very vocal about the police atrocities against the farmers at Bhatta Parsul in the opposition held state of Uttar Pradesh. Yet, over 24 hrs after Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi unleashed their dogs(aka Delhi police) on peaceful protesters at the Ramlila Grounds in the Congress ruled Delhi at 1 a.m., the boy king has not squealed a word.

Mums the word

Why so mum, Rahul?
What are you waiting for?
Mummy?

Would you buy a used car from Kapil Sibal?

Kapil Sibal, a senior government minister, has been accused by anti-corruption activists of betrayal. He has been the Congress Party's henchman ('negiotiator' doesn't quiet tell the truth)to see off the attacking waves of activists. Today His Madam's Voice changed his tune and along with other Sonia's boys went on a full frontal attack himself on Baba Ramdev. Like Goebbel's tricks followed Hitler's Blitzkriegs, Sibal's hysterical propaganda followed Delhi police's sudden(but pre-planned) attack on the sleeping activists at 1 a.m. Sunday.

Watching Sibal on several channels, I was intrigued by his looks, or rather the vibes he gives out with his expression. He 'looks' highly corrupt and manipulative to the extreme. He may be a saint for all I know (ha!), but he definitely has the creepy mien of a grasping politician.Still photos do not quite catch it but still -

Would you trust him?

  You be the judge-
If you knew nothing about this man, would trust him just by his 'look'?
Would you leave your pre-adolescent daughter in his charge for a few hours?
Would you trust him with your investments?
Would you buy a used car from him?



Update-
  BTW, after yesterday's state assault on the protestors , Baba Ramdev called Sibal the  "the most scheming man ever."

Bugger! The Climate Change won't let you fight Climate Change

Climate Change is now behaving like those clever internet viruses that once they enter your computer will disable any anti-virus active. You are left without tools to fight it.

The  anti-virus of Global Warming is 'renewable' energy - you know like those giant landscape blighting, "bird-chomping, bat-crunching, taxpayer-fleecing monstrosities" aka windmills. But what good are they without .... wind?

Wind farms: Britain is 'running out of wind'

Despite the freak gales that battered parts of the country last week, climate experts are warning that many of Britain’s wind farms may soon run out of puff.

According to government figures, 13 of the past 16 months have been calmer than normal - while 2010 was the “stillest” year of the past decade.

Meteorologists believe that changes to the Atlantic jet stream could alter the pattern of winds over the next 40 years and leave much of the nation’s growing army of power-generating turbines becalmed.

The Coalition has drawn up plans to open more wind farms in an effort to meet Britain’s European Union target of providing 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.More than 3,600 turbines are expected to be installed in offshore wind farms over the next nine years.

But statistics suggest that the winds that sweep across the British Isles may be weakening. Last year, wind speeds over the UK averaged 7.8 knots (8.9mph), a fall of 20 per cent on 2008, and well below the mean for this century, which stands at 9.1 knots (10.5mph).

And what on earth could be the cause?

Usually Britain has warm, wet and windy winters, thanks to Caribbean air carried here by the Atlantic jet stream, a fast-flowing current of air.

But the last two winters have featured exceptionally low temperatures and were remarkably still when they should have been the windiest seasons of all, as high pressure diverted the jet stream from its normal position.

You know, those frigid winters that were blamed by such eminent experts as Monbiot on Climate Change. The devil! I mean the Climate Change and not Monbiot. A devious creature indeed (again not Monbiot. There is no reason for confusion, is there?).

Bugger! The Climate Change won't let you fight Climate Change. There is no hope now and our only solace would be, as we wait to fry slowly, to languish in the comfort of a 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) like Al Gore has or fly like crazy across the world (even if that would kill the planet sooner. Its gonna die anyway,ain't it?) like the disgraced IPCC chairman R.K.Pachauri or drown our woes over a few bottles of the choicest something at some exotic location similar to the ones where the UN holds its climate conferences.

Al Gore's super mansion - What global warming?

On the other hand, from the same article there is this-

Meteorologists have found that the position of the jet stream has been influenced by the lower levels of activity on the Sun. This decline in sun-spot activity is expected to continue for the next 40 years, with potentially serious consequences for the viability of wind farms.

Even a monkey has enough common sense to wonder after reading the above that if the sun can cause serious change in wind then just maybe it can cause that teeny-weenie apparent change in global temperatures that has the climate scientists and their poodles in the press in such a panic.

From which we learn that the climate experts are not monkeys - and if they are, they are a rare breed . Simians without rational thought.

Bill gets off the toilet as Jill sits on it

The Gray Lady gets a new editor who by looks appears to be the tough liberal type with  four testicles of steel and poisoned knuckles for her opponents. Barely has the new boss moved in that she gladdens the old faithfuls by convincing them that she intends to carry on the hoary New York Times tradition - that of flushing inconvenient facts down their politically correct dual flush toilet.

In the New York Times article announcing the surprise leaving of Bill Keller(kicking out?) and the anointment of  Jill Abramson there slipped in some revealing(but not really, if you know the Times) facts-

Ms. Abramson, 57, said being named executive editor was “the honor of my life” and like “ascending to Valhalla” for someone who read The Times as a young girl growing up in New York.

"In my house growing up, the Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If the Times said it, it was the absolute truth."

Now we know what religion the liberals practice. Thanks for clearing it up.

But somebody at the Times must have realized the enticing free fodder this provides to its hated right wing opponents. An open invitation to snark.You know like Peter Wehner of the Commentary magazine (the Death Star of conservatism) saying-

When Journalism Substitutes For Religion

This is a practically perfect quote from Ms. Abramson, simply in terms of giving voice to what one imagines the people who run the Times are like. She believed the Times wasn’t simply a great newspaper; the stories were written on tablets of stone. (Perhaps she viewed reporters at the Times as secular prophets and the op-ed columnists as secular apostles.) But it goes even deeper than that: the Times was a substitute for religious faith, meaning it must have provided her not simply with the news but with existential meaning and moral guidance.

For a person to have viewed (and presumably to still view, at least to some degree) a newspaper with religious reverence and its stories as sacred text is slightly weird and quite revealing. Devotion to a journalistic enterprise is one thing; cultism is quite another.

Jill Abramson’s mindset is exactly the kind conservatives assume liberals at the Times possess. To see it confirmed by her own words is, in its own way, quite useful.

and with Jay Nordlinger of the National Review (another power center of the dark side) adding his own ridicule of Jill's religious beliefs.

Can't have that, can we?

So up goes a revised version of the article with the following lines missing -

  “In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion. If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.”

 And no mention that it has been edited. They love transparency like their messiah Obama does. So transparent that we wouldn't notice anything. Except for the pesky right wing bloggers who are noticing.

Unfortunately for the Gray Hag(is she a lady?), the original quote has been picked up by other sources like Howard Kurtz and Politico which even gives the vanishing quote as a caption to the image of the quadruple-balled Jill-

So Jill starts where Bill left off - by using the toilet. Looks like it's going to be an overworked loo.

Everything you know about fossil fuels may be wrong

Very likely, isn't it, since most of what you 'know' came from a MSM that has inhaled the environmentalist propaganda in hookah-fuls and exhales it out just as it went in. Michael Lind seems to have escaped the toxic device. The case for a rapid changeover to renewables (wind, solar now or the Earth gets it!) rests on, he says, poof, thin air, in fact on vacuum.

The mind numbing hookah of environmantalism* 

Everything you've heard about fossil fuels may be wrong

Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming. 

How true.



 

As everyone who follows news about energy knows by now, in the last decade the technique of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," long used in the oil industry, has evolved to permit energy companies to access reserves of previously-unrecoverable “shale gas” or unconventional natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.

The implications for energy security are startling. Natural gas may be only the beginning. Fracking also permits the extraction of previously-unrecoverable “tight oil,” thereby postponing the day when the world runs out of petroleum. There is enough coal to produce energy for centuries. And governments, universities and corporations in the U.S., Canada, Japan and other countries are studying ways to obtain energy from gas hydrates, which mix methane with ice in high-density formations under the seafloor. The potential energy in gas hydrates may equal that of all other fossils, including other forms of natural gas, combined.

If gas hydrates as well as shale gas, tight oil, oil sands and other unconventional sources can be tapped at reasonable cost, then the global energy picture looks radically different than it did only a few years ago. Suddenly it appears that there may be enough accessible hydrocarbons to power industrial civilization for centuries, if not millennia, to come.

Abundant energy for centuries. That won't please the chicken littles environmentalists.

So much for the specter of depletion, as a reason to adopt renewable energy technologies like solar power and wind power. Whatever may be the case with Peak Oil in particular, the date of Peak Fossil Fuels has been pushed indefinitely into the future. What about national security as a reason to switch to renewable energy?

Ok, what about it?

The U.S., Canada and Mexico, it turns out, are sitting on oceans of recoverable natural gas. Shale gas is combined with recoverable oil in the Bakken "play" along the U.S.-Canadian border and the Eagle Ford play in Texas. The shale gas reserves of China turn out to be enormous, too. Other countries with now-accessible natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. government, include Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, France, Poland and India.

Because shale gas reserves are so widespread, the potential for blackmail by Middle Eastern producers and Russia will diminish over time.

So-

Two arguments for switching to renewable energy -- the depletion of fossil fuels and national security -- are no longer plausible. What about the claim that a rapid transition to wind and solar energy is necessary, to avert catastrophic global warming?

Yes, yes, whadabboudit? Do tell!

The scenarios with the most catastrophic outcomes of global warming are low probability outcomes -- a fact that explains why the world’s governments in practice treat reducing CO2 emissions as a low priority, despite paying lip service to it. But even if the worst outcomes were likely, the rational response would not be a conversion to wind and solar power but a massive build-out of nuclear power. Nuclear energy already provides around 13-14 percent of the world’s electricity and nearly 3 percent of global final energy consumption, while wind, solar and geothermal power combined account for less than one percent of global final energy consumption.

(The majority of renewable energy consists of CO2-emitting biomass -- wood and dung used for fires by the world’s poor, plus crops used to make fuel; most of the remainder comes from hydropower dams denounced by Greens.)

To wit-

The arguments for converting the U.S. economy to wind, solar and biomass energy have collapsed. The date of depletion of fossil fuels has been pushed back into the future by centuries -- or millennia. The abundance and geographic diversity of fossil fuels made possible by technology in time will reduce the dependence of the U.S. on particular foreign energy exporters, eliminating the national security argument for renewable energy. And if the worst-case scenarios for climate change were plausible, then the most effective way to avert catastrophic global warming would be the rapid expansion of nuclear power, not over-complicated schemes worthy of Rube Goldberg or Wile E. Coyote to carpet the world’s deserts and prairies with solar panels and wind farms that would provide only intermittent energy from weak and diffuse sources.  

There is more, much more. Do read, save and bookmark the article. Remember this gem - there is NO case for  wind, solar and biomass energy. The political elite, in bed with a fascist environmental elite, is looting you to subsidize the crazy renewable schemes. You are already paying and you will be asked -no, forced - to pay more. Much more.




*Markos Botsaris by Jean-Leon Gerome 

Clueless Pundits

Vikram Sood, former Secretary, Research & Analysis Wing(RAW), India's external intelligence agency (it is frighetining that a person of such paranoid views - just read his articles - was in such a senior position. One may not know for a long time the damage he did)-

Why do I keep getting it wrong?

Four years ago, in May 2003 the Iranian authorities proposed a package deal to freeze their nuclear programme in exchange for an end to US hostility. The Iranians offered full transparency about their nuclear programme and full cooperation with the IAEA, on Iraq, terrorism and even material support to Hamas.
      - Vikram Sood,  October 15, 2007

(emphasis mine)

ChewBarracka!

Never has one seen such class gracing the American presidency -

Obama Sits in Front Row and Chews Gum at Joplin Memorial Service

Video

The MSM and the lefty blogosphere is either ignoring it or coming to Barry O's defense by such logic as -

We see their priorities in the face of a massive disaster.
What’s more important, chewing gum or the memorial service?
(from the comments)

or a variation of "What's wrong with chewing gum?", "When did it become criminal?"


Let us help our clueless lefty friends out.
Let's see if this is too difficult. We shall go over it word by word and slowly -
CHEWING      GUM      AT       A      MEMORIAL       SERVICE.

I hope something struck. Read it again if you will, again slowly. Hopefully, some more of it trickled in(or down).

Now let's continue, slowly of course and repeat if necessary (and you may consult a dictionary) -
MANNERS.

CHEWING      GUM     AT      A      MEMORIAL     SERVICE      IS     DISRESPECTFUL     AND   REALLY     BAD     MANNERS.

There got it? Good for you even if it is beyond Barry O's grasp.

Clueless Pundits

Eminent Indian media person, Prem Shankar Jha-

What do I know?

The countdown to a massive aerial bombing of Iran, possibly using bunker busting nuclear weapons, has begun.
      - Prem Shankar Jha, May 04, 2006

Did I say I'll be back?

My apologies for an unexpectedly long break. It was the combination of a holiday (loved it), indisposition (very fatiguing - felt all squeezed out like toothpaste run over by a truck) and above all a frustrating blogger's block (yes, there is such a thing) the size of Milky Way.

Anyway, the things will be settling down to normal soon or so I hope. Whatever normal was.

In the immortal words of Jim Carrey (Real audio file)-

"Did you miss me?"


No, no, don't tell!