Heartland Institute poster campaign

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS..

which is somewhat  alike to finding out they are fundamentalist Christians who believe in creation.

‘Well’ they say ‘its all a scam’, ‘What’ I say ‘how about the science?’ to which the reply becomes vague and unspecific. It is all about making money or some government conspiracy but when pressed the answers dry up. It’s an awkward feeling, and rather like a close friend revealing that they collect Nazis war memorabilia. Despite the number of friends with doubts only one is an ardent sceptic and they are also vocal about the truth of 9/11.  Hit the internet and sceptics abound with the free press slowly catching up.

The Mail and the Telegraph get into a whirl of misinformation about Climate Change along with Europe, Health and Safety and of course moral decline, they bang the cage and the monkeys go bonkers, I enjoy the blogs, I wouldn’t form opinions based on them but they make educational reading. Peter Hitchens and Mel Philips only make passing nods of recognition to the Climate Sceptics being far more concerned about political correctness gone mad, the real deniers are Christopher Booker and James Delingpole. Booker is completely deranged believing in creationism and the harmless nature of asbestos , Delingpole is perhaps more cynical and sees his alliance to the deniers exposing the climate change hoax as a means to get noticed and build a following.

It amazes me just how those little details like facts just don’t seem to have any impact on ‘sceptics’ . Climategate or rather we made stuff up gate is an example where if you offer the context of a line from the email it loses any wrong doing yet the same old lines are peddled as proof that climate change is a rather elaborate hoax. ‘”The fact is, we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it’s a travesty that we can’t.” becomes “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate”.

I wandered into the denialshere of blogs, thinktanks and sceptic comment to find out what it was about. For one it is very male, aggressive, slightly paranoid and conservative, it is an upside-down world where they seem to think that getting in with the first insults like calling science a religion based on faith makes them right. The demonising of Michael Mann of the climategate emails and who was the first to build a 1000 year record of Earth temperature is disturbing. There is the odd belief that the entire science of climate change rests on the work of his paper dubbed the hockey stick rather than the, now, thousands of peer-reviewed papers and basic science. If only they could just bring this one man down surely the whole hoax would collapse and we could resume to a world of cheap abundant energy.

However the sceptics do have a few scientists on their side and even peer-reviewed papers so in the interest of real sceptical balance I read some.  Professor Geoffrey G. Duffy, in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, said “Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” Duffy isn’t a climate scientist but lets not be fussy, he tends to write articles rather than peer-reviewed papers, but lets get too nit-picky. He believes the world is actually cooling and that CO2 stops working as a greenhouse gas after it passes a certain concentration. The cooling, and the previous decades of warming are caused by the sun or rather the intensity of sun spots which occur over an eleven year period, the sun has gone rather quiet and he presumes- or rather predicts, that the coming solar cycles will have few sun spots and therefore 1% less radiation. Less radiate= less global warming, if it wasn’t for the CO2 we would be heading for a little ice age and the Thames would freeze. Prof Geoff Duffy presented these facts in his paper Climate Change- The Real Causes, however he is not big on citing his references, but with a little research I found this where Stephen Wilde F.R.Met.S.  a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968 complains [read the comments] that Duffy has lifted his article Global Warming and Cooling – The Reality, otherwise known as plagiarism. Stephen Wilde is not a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, [it appears he joined as a weather enthusiast- one of thousands who man weather stations] and you can check the Societies website, he is a property solicitor and member of a thinktank [opposed to Climate Change legislation]. But he does provide references to the remarkable claim that we are heading for a mini ice-age- he cites, as a main source, David Archibald, who according to another think[climate change sceptic] tank is a Perth, Australia-based scientist operating in the fields of cancer research, oil exploration and climate science.

David Archibald has a Geology BA [so technically a scientist] and Geologist with Summa Development Limited. His cancer cure turns out to be based on herbs and spices and similar to the Generals secret KFC recipe. He takes a similar line to the previous scientists in that the sun is responsible and “There are no deleterious consequences of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are wholly beneficial,” … “Anthropogenic Global Warming is so minuscule that the effect cannot be measured from year to year, and even from generation to generation” He actually published a peer reviewed paper on his findings, well sort of. “Solar Cycles 24 and 25 and Predicted Climate Response” in Energy and Environment in 2006 , considered to be the worst paper in scientific history [link] uses a few temperature locations and in one case just one that just happen to correlate to solar variance and then uses this as proof that the world is cooling. Energy and Environment Journal is supposedly a peer reviewed science journal yet is not rated internationally and the publication of choice for sceptics who can’t find a proper journal to publish their work. see here.

Archibald does at least try to pretend to write a real paper [all 8 pages of it] with references, although the main contributor is Archibald, he finds some real papers such as  Brunetti, {M. 2003, Solar signals in instrumental historical series of meteorological parameters} yet if you read that paper [its on line] the conclusions states clearly that sun spot activity does not make any real difference to global warming. But 2006 was an age ago so the same paper is updated and reworked as Solar 24-Implications for the US, then Warming or Cooling and Solar 24-Implications and Expectations and each time heralded in blogs, newspapers and Fox news as proof that there is no global warming.

Sceptic science is just recycled nonsense theories that get dreamt up and then passed around between the sceptics. And there is nothing new in this. Duffy’s other theory is that CO2 stops functioning as a greenhouse gas once saturation has been reached but this is as old as the idea of global warming and gets recycled once a year as proof that it isn’t happening. Around 1900 Svante Arrhenius published his argument that our use of fossil fuels would eventually cause global warming, another scientist, Knut Ångström, asked an assistant, Herr J. Koch, to do a simple experiment of sending infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide, and at that time the tube appeared to reach a saturation level of CO2 where there was no more heating. Knut Ångström was quick to warn geologists of all people not to listen to Arrhenius wild theories of global warming.

Dear Ed Miliband

sorry to hear that a close political ally has said your leadership has  ” no strategy, no narrative and little energy”, I would find that kind of comment difficult to stomach so here is what I think.

I am not one to write to political leaders telling them what I think but on this occasion I sent him [or rather some lowly intern who reads his public emails] some simple advise.  As a swing voter [and I swing to the left] I am not particularly concerned about a parties leader as substance overrides the personality but what I am looking for is the kind of leadership that inspires the politics worth voting for.

Over the last year or so Ed’s leadership is worthy of the criticism offered by Lord Glasman and I particularly agree Ed needs to show some courage.  I feel all Ed needs to do to show courage, strategy, narrative and energy is be himself: you would be hard pressed to know who Ed really is judging by his performance. The current strategy is  appears to be that of populist, a Blair 2.0 or a shadow Cameron. The message is about being likable, understanding of the common man and quick with criticism of the opposition but it is without substance. The real Ed is apparently an intellectual genius with a deep understanding of politics and an intelligent grasp of the issues.

Advisers have pressed the need to keep the message simple and to have smart soundbites for easy digestion so as not to scare the working classes who are turned off by anything remotely intellectual. Ultimately it is the right that have promoted the dumbing down of politics and the left who historically have striven to promote a better understanding of the issues that effect us.  Now is a time when we really need to understand the issues.

Britain’s future is going to be very different to anything we have known:- climate change, economic downturn, unemployment, youth unemployment, energy inflation and lots of old people! I have witnessed unemployed youth on Question Time and other political debates demand the government do something but state job creation is a thing of the past, there are some things that can be done but ultimately it will be about us being clever and innovative. The youth and the unemployed in general will need to DIY by being passionate, clever and interesting and creating their own futures. The other option is to be more competitive with reduced wages, working conditions and lower expectations.  Cultural conditioning has meant that youth will take on tens of thousands of pounds of debts for education but fear investing in their own business. Schools promote succeeding in academia but neglect developing passion and innovation. Our future rests with the values of the enlightenment which of course includes the academic but also free-thinking and passion and a man for the job could be Ed.

Dear Ed Miliband

please be courageous and be yourself, forget about the advisers and focus groups and start dazzling us with your alleged intellect. Be a leader, don’t fear the tabloid press, what are they going to do? call you academic? The leadership we need is as great as that shown after the war but the intellectual tradition behind that is part of your heritage so why not use it.

Please inspire

love and peace Jules

Life’s too Short

to watch shit comedy.

I was tired, I was vulnerable, I sat down and ended up watching a Ricky Gervais comedy: Life’s too Short.

Even during Gervais’ heights of the Office I was not really a fan, yes I could recognise it was good but it was a form of humour I never really liked. As a child I found ‘Some Mothers do have em’ embarrassing, sure some of the slapstick and stunts were excellent but on the whole I wanted Frank Spencer to come out on top just the once. The character David Brent was embarrassing to watch for different reasons but unlike Frank nearly managed to redeem himself and it was that failure that was funny.

Warwick Davis’ alter ego is selfish and crass, caring only for himself he is just a prick. And that, along with dwarf ‘jokes’ is what this comedy is about. Some critics find it funny, laugh out loud comedy, but I fail to find the funny side. The gags are laboured and dragged-out to the point of beating the viewer into submission, the comic techniques of timing, story telling and subtle twists are absent. Delivering gag after gag is a challenge, delivering good comedy is a skill that should be celebrated as true high art form.

If I knew what made great comedy I would be writing or performing it. I know what it isn’t: it is not ridicule based on sex or race or height, but ridicule of beliefs and ideas can be funny especially when we laugh at our own stupidity. Gervais has made a point of saying his ridicule of dwarfs, people in wheelchairs, celebrities, his own fans and ‘mongs’ is ironic, he is getting us to laugh at our prejudices; I am not convinced.

Great comedy is not just shock value; sadly there is too much racism, sexism, prejudice to find it shocking, but hearing my mother talk about anal sex probably would cause me to giggle.  Comedy, just like modern art, has to break ground: it is not so much that it has to be constantly original rather it has to be contemporary. Of course there will always be a fan base for the classics and I have only just watched Life of Brian again, but we watch for a different reason which is more to do with comfort and familiarity.

We tend to assume that talent and genius is enduring, that it will continue to amaze as the decades pass, but the reality is more temporary. Numerous performers show promise, the exciting first album, in the case of music, followed by the classic and then the third difficult album. Some slip into oblivion, some re-invent themselves and those ahead of their time can make a comeback but I feel it is the fans who allow a performer to continue well past their best by date and it they who do a dis-service to the art they wish to preserve.

This post is not about Ricky Gervais any more than it is about Roy Chubby Brown or Jim Davidson but he represents, in comedy terms, Mummy Bates with the fans acting like Norman. Weirdly the loyal fan base of Gervais are incredibly defensive, the comedian Richard Herring who is actively involved in SCOPE questioned Gervais’ use of ‘mong’ and then was confronted with a barrage of comment from Ricky’s fan base. Read comments that feature the topic of Gervais and there are normal opinions, that in recent years have progressively reflected the comic’s critical decline, and fans who have just wet themselves with laughter. It is almost religious and these awe struck fans have even caused Jeremy Clarkson to be publicly envious and complain that his fan base doesn’t go off into cyberspace to attack his critics.

The fan base is the interesting element, it is they who get the joke when all around them fail to see the funny side. They are the ones that allow a public body like the BBC to commission another season of tired comedy. And sadly they are the ones who take the alleged ironic use of ‘mong’ and use as the insult we spent years trying to eliminate. Quite what their psycological make-up is, is somewhat a mystery to me, some of it may be parasocial interaction where the celeb appears to directly talk to the viewer and therefore build up a ‘connection’. and perhaps it was the Office that triggered this with David Brent doing his now ubiquitous ‘look to camera’ raise eyebrows etc a technique now re-used in Life’s too Short. [this blog explores some of the fan issues]

Gervais treats his fans as loyal followers, his comment on twitter about the ‘mong’ criticism was   “Dear fans. Don’t give the haters any attention. Those people aren’t really offended by the things I say – they are offended by my success.” It doesn’t require much viewing of the man, whether it is a passing interview, his stand-up, Comic Relief , Golden Globes, the news about the Golden Globes etc etc etc to see the man is obsessed with his own celebrity but one where he portrays his fans as little better than scum. It’s a strange relationship where he tests the loyalty of his fans, whether it be insults or progressively more expensive tickets for stand-up and now the pretty rubbish television with the Life’s to Short sitcom.

A shocking child who constantly tests his doting parents would indicate a deeply insecure personality and no big surprise but then again it could be the genius of the man stretching the boundaries of comedy! Yes, OK it is unlikely but it would make a really good plot for a mockumentary!

Great, even good comedy is a rarity and perhaps the t.v. should spare us of too much comedy, more is less sometimes.

Petrol £1.35

After collecting 100,000 electronic names on a petition on a Downing Street website campaigners had there day in Parliament, but rather than fuel tax being drastically reduced from the current 70p a litre all the backbenches asked the Chancellor to do was:

‘…consider the effect that increased taxes on fuel will have on the economy, examine ways of working with industry to ensure that falls in oil prices are passed on to consumers, to take account of market competitiveness, and to consider the feasibility of a price stabilisation mechanism that would work alongside the fair fuel stabiliser to address fluctuations in the pump price.’

quite simply, there isn’t going to be a tax cut for motorists.

But how bad are things in reality? I remember when a gallon, or 4.5 litres cost around 5 bob or 25p. Imagine that but also imagine that your average wage was just £2,000 a year.  The FT that published the last 100 years of average pay gives today’s annual average at £40,000 [a dream income to most of my friends as was £2k for my parents], anyway with a simple bit of maths [2k is 1/20 of 40k with fuel at about 7p a litre x 20 = £1.40 a litre]. VAT on fuel came in at 10% in 73.

Just three years ago fuel was only £1.10 a litre which was a heady time when income reached a peak when compared to fuel prices yet even with the increased prices we have little to complain about.  Cars are cheaper, they perform better and fuel consumption is up.

If prices appear to be going up it is simply you’re getting older and able to remember when everything was cheap but not remember how little you earnt.

If you don’t believe me here is a more authoritative study.[link]

I read the news today oh boy…….

and according to the Guardian:

Global recession grows closer as G20 summit fails

following economic news immerses  you in the detail, the impact of the Euro crisis, the state of debt in developed countries and the fear that recession will at some point tip into depression.

A state of fear grows, fear of loss, fear of the future, fear for our children.

But wait. slap yourself in the face and read some basics.

The current Global economy generates about $63 trillion [it looks like this 63,000,000,000] or £43 trillion. a year or so ago it was $5 trillion less. The human race is still busily mining, growing, making and buying stuff, in fact we are doing more of it than ever before. There are a couple of minor exceptions: contraction in GDP of a few hundred billion in South Korea and the UK but it reflects a minimal amount of growth over a period of a year rather than the beginnings of some kind of dark-age.  A lack of growth in the economy is a rarity because there is a tendency for producers to get better at their job year on year. It makes sense for businesses to economise on energy, to have more able staff and reduce costs.

Much of the so-called recession we see is visible in the financial markets where $billions are lost overnight. What happened to all that money? Did slip down the back of the sofa? Was there some great heist? The money was la-la money, a fantasy and most of it had little to do with GDP, or actually stuff.

The World may have produced $63 trillion worth of goods and services as well as a couple more trillion for illegal activities but this is nothing compared to the La-La land of the derivatives market which last year was around $600 trillion.  Derivatives which are ‘market instruments’ deriving from the real economy, such as Futures, has grown from almost nothing 20 years ago and producing nothing have a disproportionate influence on the global debt crisis.

The futures derivatives have been around as long as humans have been trading and serve a sound purpose.  An example is the potato farmer who expects 100 tons of crop in 6 months time and is promised a set price by the grocer. If there is a glut of potatoes on the market and the price per ton goes down the farmer doesn’t lose out because the price is set, likewise if there is a shortage the grocer is not forced to pay more.  The most widely used [by normal people] Derivative is the Fixed Mortgage rate over a variable one. This sounds reasonable and it is the example that the ‘money market’ wants people to hear. But just as people are very creative at working out ways to fill a casino with novel ways of making money so to the ‘market’ has taken the principle to an extreme.

If potatoes can be bought for a set price in the future so can company shares and government bonds, this is the Options game so roll up and learn the rules to this fab game of risk.  A broker can offer shares at an above market value i.e £1.20 rather than the current £1 to a buyer for a small fee of around 6%:6p and they have the option, say two months later, to buy them. This is great for the buyer if the price has risen above £1.26p as they can make a profit, if they don’t sell the seller has made 6p for their trouble. The game also extends to government bonds which are IOU notes with interest paid either at the end or maturity of the bond which can be as little as 3 months or every 6 months if the bonds are longer loans.  Bonds can become more or less valuable depending on the interest paid and how much risk, Greek bonds currently make a lot of money with excessive interest demands but buyers get nervous if they think the Greeks won’t eventually pay out, it’s all about selling at the right time.  And you can also play this game with currencies buying say, Euros with Dollars and betting on the exchange rate.

In their simple form some of these ‘instruments’ are useful: a smart phone company in the US may wish to launch in the Euro zone with a product at a set price in 6 months time but if the Euro becomes less in worth against the $ 6 months from now the phone price will not cover its costs. The phone company may hedge its bets by taking out an option on Euros and the Euro zone buyers will look to have an option [to buy] Dollars. Where it gets all weird is in the first instance you don’t have to own the shares /bonds / currency/ potatoes etc to sell options on them and the buyer then has to right to sell the option they have agreed which then can be sold on to other speculators and resold and traded.  Options and futures can then be bundled up together mixing potatoes with mortgages, oil and Greek debt and traded.  Some of these instruments become incredibly elaborate allowing low risk betting to cover more suspect deals. Even more mystical is the use of Leverage where borrowing can increase profit even when the price of the real asset may have increased in value by 10% the profit on the Derivative can be 100%.

When it comes to Derivatives I do not pretend to know anything but the basics but it should be remembered that in this unregulated area of the markets all this money making is based on nothing being produced and in the main benefiting no one beyond the speculators and dealers. What is worse is these traders are looking for a quick buck which means they move their money very quickly sometimes in as little as half an hour. All this movement, especially in currencies can destabilise them leading to drastic interest rate raises and subsequent borrowing problems. The problems become drastic for the people of affected countries and lead to reduced social care and reinvestment.

Free market capitalism is the right to make money but social responsibility must be upheld. The freedom of a few should not be allowed to sabotage the rights of the many. The Nobel price winning economist James Tobin came up with a solution to this inequality back in 1972 when Derivatives were a tiny market and currency speculation was the main problem.

Tobin summarized his idea: “The tax on foreign exchange transactions was devised to cushion exchange rate fluctuations. The idea is very simple: at each exchange of a currency into another a small tax would be levied – let’s say, 0.5% of the volume of the transaction. This dissuades speculators as many investors invest their money in foreign exchange on a very short-term basis. If this money is suddenly withdrawn, countries have to drastically increase interest rates for their currency to still be attractive. But high interest is often disastrous for a national economy, as the nineties’ crises in Mexico, Southeast Asia and Russia have proven. My tax would return some margin of manoeuvre to issuing banks in small countries and would be a measure of opposition to the dictate of the financial markets”.

The need now is greater than ever and a new Tobin or Robin Hood Tax is on the cards. Despite G20 countries, the EU and the UN talking about it for over a decade there is a real chance that it could be introduced with the EU wide European Commission’s financial transaction tax (FTT) proposal. Oxfam reckons a tax of 0.05% could raise up to $400bn which it has been proposed could go a long way in helping protect the Third World from the impact of Climate Change.

I will be no surprise that the millionaire Tory government is opposed to the idea: in the Telegraph 8/11/11 “George Osborne has condemned plans for a European Union levy on financial transactions as a “big tax on pensioners” that will lead to 995,000 job losses and not cost bankers a penny.” But the truth is always different.

In January 2008, The Economist reported that Morgan Stanley estimates that pension funds worldwide hold over US$20 trillion in assets, not quite the $600 trillion of the derivatives market; and pension funds are not big players in the derivative markets because the risks are to great. As for the job losses it appears George Osborne feared for the 995,000 jobs in the banking sector across the EU would be lost to the US and other markets.

Oh well better say by by by.

Bill Nighy stars in Robin Hood tax campaign

More than 50 charities are supporting the campaign to levy a Tobin tax on transactions between financial institutions, which can be used to help fight poverty, protect public services and tackle climate change

If you feel the need to support the EU write to your MP, EMP

I’m a New anti-Semite?!

but the Guardian and the BBC are too.

My journey to being so ‘vile’ began as I researched the anti-capitalist ‘Occupy’ movement to which the web was to eventually lead me to anti-Semitic elements within it.  Banners in the Chicago demonstration read ‘Hitler’s bank’ and ‘google Jewish billionaires’, as well as this there were a few interviews with protesters mentioning 9/11 or the banking crisis as a Jewish conspiracy.  These idiots looking for any kind publicity were featured on web sites campaigning against anti-Semitism but as I read further it seemed that a focus of concern was both the Guardian newspaper and the BBC.

News and comment that appeared to focus too heavily on Israel’s abuses rather than Palestinians’ was anti-Semitic and the accusation was even extended to the level of reporting in proportion to other world events.  My own interest is equally disproportional as is my criticism of Israel’s behaviour which makes me a New anti-Semite. This, despite the fact that behaviour of the leadership of Gaza and to lesser extent the West Bank is far worse, is because Israel is supposed to be an enlightened western democracy.

Don’t get me wrong, even though the notion of a ‘promised land’ by some bronze-age shepherd’s god is ludicrous in the modern world, Israel grew out of a century of complicated history.  If Jordan was carved out of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire as a favour to an Arab chieftain why not Israel?

Israel was created by the secular UN and therefore is a world issue and so is the plight of the Palestinians. Ironic then that the Palestinians would wish the same route to secure their future. Ultimately it will be the US that will block this symbolic if futile gesture.

Some of the Islamic nations reaction is found in newspaper cartoons that the American Anti Deformation League judged as anti-Semitic and demonizing Israel can be viewed via the link.

anti-Semitic cartoons in Arab press following the failure of Palestine to be granted nation status

A couple of the cartoons, in-particular characterises the Jew in a stereotypical and offensive way in that they are dressed in the ultra-orthodox Haredi style with a big nose. It is the use of such caricature that makes it offensive rather than the representation. A French man on a bicycle with beret, stripped jumper, moustache and onions is a false demeaning caricature but is not offensive [perhaps it is] because it has not been used to oppress the French.  The other cartoons are more difficult to judge as anti-Semitic,  anti-Israel yes but considering the plight of Palestinians is  often a convenient guise to play to the gallery this is no surprise or shock.

ADL cite these cartoons as a further example of inherent anti-Semitism throughout the Arab world and it is this which is used as another obstacle to a Palestinian settlement. Another much quoted example of Arab anti-Semitism is the use by states such as Saudi Arabia, Iran  and Syria as well as the Egyptian media of the [faked] Protocols of the Elders. A Russian propagandist pamphlet written around 1900 that purports to be the minutes and manifesto of a secret global Jewish organisation bent on the overthrow of the Russian establishment and eventual world domination.

It has been used as proof of a Zionist conspiracy by, amongst others, Henry Ford, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the now ex-tyrant Gaddafi and most of the ultra right of the last century. Like all good prophetic works it is vague enough and contradictory to fit most situations. Although rambling the key tools of the conspirators are the installation of Jews or if unavailable, Freemasons into global positions of power. The use of both communism and capitalism, liberalism, war, revolution, atheism, as well as pornography and now pop music to achieve their goals. The ‘proof’ is that Jews control the media and more importantly the banks, hence the financial crisis was orchestrated to bring about the new world order. At the centre of that crisis are firms like Goldman Sach which was indeed founded by two American Jews.  A reason perhaps why one of the cartoons features Obama in the pocket of a fat cat  Jewish banker.

It could be presumed that America’s support for Israel is a direct consequence of the control exercised by American Jews who represent just 2% of the population.  The global population of Jews is tiny at around 13 million with most either in the the US or Israel so how is it they appear to have so much power? The logic is that the Protocols of Zion must be true. Obama is just a puppet, controlled by the banks and the powerbrokers.

Personally I have wondered why presidential candidates are pressed by the media as to whether they are going to support Israel and why the Israel lobby has quite so much influence.  But what is clear is that there is no Jewish banking cabal [curiously the term for secret group comes from cabala which is the Jewish mystic sect]. As far as banking and financial businesses are concerned Jewish companies do not dominate the sector, in fact Goldman Sach is ranked 20th and Rothchilds doesn’t even make the rankings. The most successful group of companies were founded by an average mixture of cultures with the Welsh dominating through the success of Morgan Stanley and Chase Manhattan.

Search the internet for the prominence of Jews in society and you can turn to the far right whose comprehensive list will prove Jewish control or to the Zionist camp which will do much the same to prove how special they are. Wikipedia has a list of American Jews that features a lot of names from the film and media business, and surprising the names of just four current US politicians. There is also a list of notable Americans of Irish descent that includes half of all presidents as well as plenty of well known actors and businessmen; curiously the most noted American anti-Semites were Ford and Disney, both of Irish descent.

The number of US politicians of Irish descent is far more disproportional than rest of the US population so perhaps there is a secret Irish conspiracy for world domination. All of this is foolish talk and that goes for any Zionist conspiracy but in the Arab World [and Persian] it would appear to be logical that Zionists have a disproportionate control over US and therefore UN policy.

Relations between Israel and the US have cooled during the Obama presidency with Obama actively seeking a settlement but ultimately it is the US voter who in the main supportive of Israel.  It is not the Jewish vote, although their small numbers are in key swing states, but the American fundamentalist right. Evangelical Christians need the State of Israel to exist and even expand to a notional historical Israel to fulfil prophesy of the second coming. Read some of the Tea Party movement’s literature and it’s plain that support for Israel is fundamental political dogma.  Both sectors have a frightening amount of power.

Earlier in the year Obama not only sought to make closer bonds with the Arab world but also saw the pre 1967 as the starting point for negations for a two state solution. Perhaps it would have been a step to far and political suicide to support the symbolic acceptance of Palestine to the UN even if  Palestine was moved up from observer status to that of the Vatican which is observer state status.

for a reasonable balanced understanding of the plight of the Palestinian people I would recommend the link below.

http://www.btselem.org/

I know what’s in your bin and I hate you

Abdullah II  king of Jordan and myself have some things in common: not because we are of a similar age, nor our interest in Star Trek, no it is that we both like to see how the other half live.  Abdullah nips out in ordinary clothes, a fake beard and only the minimal security of a couple of bodyguards to experience life as a citizen. Apparently he does this frequently and like him, usually when I have run out of money, I go out and get down with the workers. Last month I was picking potatoes, well, more accurately I was picking rocks out of conveyer belt of potatoes but over the summer I was picking through the rubbish bins of the people of Presteigne.

Presteigne: hometown of World Supersport Champion Chaz Davis, my adopted hometown and home to Zero Waste.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-15023268

‘Presteigne and Norton, which have been in the Zero Waste Wales scheme since April 2010, recycled 74% of municipal rubbish from April to June.’ The praise doesn’t stop: Katy Anderson of the Cwm Harry Land Trust said: “Presteigne and Norton have reached the Welsh Government Zero Waste target for 2025 14 years ahead of schedule”. She also said people had also been made aware of the value of waste, and the communities had been given back the value of their recycling which was £10,800 last year.

So unlike other communities we live in the smug knowledge that we are saving the planet, combating climate change and still be able to drive our 4x4s. Of course it is a caricature to think we drive Landrovers everywhere but how effective is our recycling in a small Welsh town on a global or even national level?

Zero Waste boosts that it invests in people with its roadside collection and sorting. In reality this is a low paid unskilled task of sorting waste in all weathers. Compared with other methods of recycling it is labour intensive, the thousand or so houses that are part of the scheme require three full-time and two part-time members of staff to collect, sort and recycle the waste. In actuality the project is under staffed as I found my normal working week included compulsory over-time of anything up to 2 hours a day without any additional benefit, no lunch break and no fixed statutory breaks. On top of this there was no statutory rest area away from the work place and no washing facilities. And if that wasn’t bad enough it can be quite unpleasant if packaging is not washed: maggots, partly eaten take-away and rancid milk bottles can put you off your lunch and people.

If the start-up costs of vehicles, processing machinery and rent are excluded the wage packet alone, at a conservative level, is well over £50k and that excludes employers contributions and administration charges. With the average household producing a ton of waste a year and a 1000 households this amounts to 1k which in turn amounts to a collection rate of £50 a ton or household. By contrast Friends of the Earth estimate £18 as an average collection cost per household per year.  Rural collection will always be more expensive than urban collection but the Zero-Waste scheme is unsustainable it survives with additional funding because it is a pilot experimental project.

Waste is a waste of resources but even with Zero-Waste’s 74% recycling which is 750 tons of waste the revenue generated is only £10,000.  35% of this is food waste which costs more than it generates in either bio gas or compost yet it is an essential component of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and keeping the value of the other recyclables. The next big chunk of waste is paper and card making up 20% but the return is low at  only £20 a ton, clear glass does better but green glass has almost zero value. The problem in the UK is we export products in clear glass and import a billion wine bottles in green into a country that doesn’t make many green bottles. On a positive note those bottles are not going into landfill and are made into sand.

It is plastics that are the most interesting, on the one hand drinks bottles can get an excellent return of up to £380 a ton with milk bottles also doing well, the problem is that the rest of the plastics have very little value. What happens to it is a bit of a mystery as it is traded by middlemen but a huge quantity ends up in the returning containers that China shipped its goods to us to be eventually hand sorted by very low paid workers.

The problems of recycling should not put people off the benefits given that even at today’s rates the UK saves 10 million tons of CO2 output in the process but this is a small % of our total 500 million ton output. Landfill only works if there are holes to fill and few would want to live near one. Waste plastic makes a very good fuel but incineration is even more unpopular than burying waste. Even in a near perfect zero waste system there is still 25% of waste that is not recyclable such as nappies and contaminated paper and that still needs disposing.

The Netherlands has the best record on recycling achieving 60%. Deposits on drinks bottles and electrical items help with this but I can vouch from personal experience of working for Arnham Council on an exchange it is more about attitude. In the Netherlands people have a sense of civic duty. It costs less to recycle there because waste is properly cleaned, sorted and disposed of and it the same reason that they don’t spend a £trillion on disposing of litter as it does in the UK. My experience of Presteigne’s bins demonstrates that we are not quite as collectively diligent.

Incineration may be a taboo subject but we still need to dispose of 25% of our waste and it should be remembered that all that packaging served a valuable purpose and that energy from waste can be eco-friendly. It would certainly reduce CO2 emissions and waste paper as well as a  billion tons of waste wood are carbon neutral.

“We use a slow recycling approach which invests in people rather than the hi-tech shiny trucks of conventional waste management.” Zero-Waste

There are important actions with immediate benefits that are easily done such as separating organic waste and there is a healthy market for more valuable plastics and metal. Ultimately I would rather see investment in machines to sort out our refuse rather than people and for greens to realise the limitations of recycling. It plays a small role in preserving our planet, there are plenty of issues out there and recycling is becoming a distraction.

The Real Jesus

Aside from shouting profanities at the inequalities of the system I have also spent a decade or more writing about that other evil: religion and playing with film making.

This is my first attempt using a simple flash editor that makes the movie for you.

Whilst on the subject of video I came across the quick video maker whilst trying to get my head round quantative easing. These two little bears!?! , although concerning the US, explain it rather well.

Euro in Crisis, or the biggest conspricy?

The Euro is in crisis, a statement that gets mentioned on an almost daily basis yet what actually is going on is a little mystery.

The Greeks have a big debt, Ireland and Portugal aren’t much better off and Italy and Spain look to follow. But, like most people, I don’t quite get the complexities. Call me stupid but as I understand it the amount of money in the World, in Europe, in the banks is actually more rather than less. The UK just dumped £75 billion into the economy on top of an equally improbable amount in the last round of ‘quantative easing’.  It is not real money, it is electronic but so is most of the money in the world.  The Federal Reserve has dumped an astonishing £1.4 trillon, a figure so vast that it would normally be used in astronomy but all to no real avail.

The last round of Euro crisis featured the Greeks asking the rest of Europe, or rather Germany for a mere £8 billion to pay off its impeding debt payment. The Greeks have taken a kind of mortgage holiday and are only paying off the interest on their loan whilst they look for a new job. The Germans will give the money to the Greeks who will give it to the banks who lent the money and here is the twist: the banks will then pay interest to those who put the money in the bank for them to lend. It turns out most of the spare money that ended up in the banks was German in the first place.

Germany makes lovely cars, fridges and a whole host of beautifully engineered products. They are very good at it and make far more than they can sell in the home market so off they go to other countries. And can I say how happy we are with our new black Bosch fridge freezer. The Greeks also like their new fridge freezers and BMWs but had to take out a few loans and max out the credit card to get them. The Germans take their well-earned profit and pop all that spare money into the bank, and the moment anyone utilises the banks vaults the bank is allowed the money as if its their own. We think this to be perfectly normal because money isn’t really anything in particular but if you left your lawn mower or BMW in the bank for safe keeping and they took it home and lent it out to their neighbour who then actually dented it, then we would be slightly pissed off.

The Germans and the Greeks were happy with the relationship; German Euros could be lent to Greeks so they bought German goods. Except the Greeks lied when they filled out the enrolment details on their collective credit card, failing to mention that they also had a few store cards hidden away and that their credit rating was based on loans being taken out to pay the interest on the new loans. If the relationship was purely between the two nations fingers could be pointed at the Germans for being so stupid in lending money to people who couldn’t pay it back. But in between were the banks.

Banks take German Euros and pay a small interest rate in return, then lend it to Greeks at a slightly higher rate. And who would begrudge a small admin charge to the banks for moving all that money around? So were the banks stupid in lending out money to someone who could never afford to pay it all back? Well, it was never really their money so why should they care? But there is a neat way they can maximise the interest they get. If debtors are particularly risky then it is sensible to secure one’s investment and reduce the risk of loss by charging a higher interest rate.  The Greek crisis is that it can no longer borrow money on the open market without incredibly high interest repayments so its gone to Euro countries for a  €209 billion top up loan. If Greece defaults then the chances of anyone getting their money back is slim. Greece could declare bankruptcy and go back to the Drachma which would mean cheap holidays for the rest of the world but Greeks would be unable to afford goods from other European countries.

The Euro is in crisis because if Greece defaults or goes bankrupt then other Euro countries like Ireland will also fail, or simply have some of their debt written off. Yet with all this potential chaos the big banks and financial capitalists are making millions  because they trade in currency and with so much uncertainty there is a huge amount of activity as money is being shifted about and with very low risk for the traders they can collect the commission on each trade.

As we have seen the commercial banks are very good at scaring people as to the what would happen if they are not protected from the very risks they took. At the same time they are free to find neat ways to profit from the crisis they help create. It would appear that the huge sums of quantative easing are not trickling down into the wider economy but used by the banks to spend on speculating on commodities like oil and wheat which pushes up the price, makes them more money, and increases inflation by a further 1.5%.

The banks and the financial capitalists are either a) stupid b)spoilt brats who expect to be bailed out by their parents or c) very smart. If c) then they have conspired to allow the debt crisis to manifest so as to make a killing.

Capitalism in a pure form is fairly straight forward. More and more people want oil/ fuel/wheat etc and if the supply isn’t there the price can increase. I may complain that it cost more but I won’t complain if my skills are in short supply and everyone wants to pay me more. Even speculation on commodities can help even out the income of producers in volatile markets. But financial capitalism looks to make a buck out misfortune. It is not evil just without any morels. If money can be made out of a failing economy even though a stable one would in the long term would benefit everyone then any opportunity is fair game. Neither is this form of capitalism a level playing field as the financial capitalists are able to unfairly influence government policy.

I don’t pretend to have anything but a vague understanding at what is going on but if you want to get away with murder try making the trail so complicated that it is almost impossible for anyone to work out. We may all be deceived on an unprecedented level with a conspiracy so elaborate that it would make the faked moon landings, 9/11 and Roswell look like wild speculation on the Web.