You must watch this if you are worried that Gordon Brown may be coming your way during the General Election campaign:

From my post in Jan 2008:

Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Alan Duncan is calling for the Union Modernisation Fund to be scrapped. Alan believes that the Unions have Gordon Brown over a barrel, because his party depends so desperately on Union donations. Alan points out that 610,000 working days (20 times last year's number) have been lost this year due to industrial action.

However the government are still giving the unions millions of pounds of the tax payers' money under the guise of the Union Modernisation fund. Some see this as a money laundering scam as the Unions in turn donate millions of pounds to the Labour Party. If the unions are so desperate for tax payer's money, why are they donating millions to the Labour Party?

I agree with Alan, it's well beyond time that this suspect practice was stopped. I do not pay my taxes for a proportion of them to be given to Unions who are financing the Labour Party. Either the Modernisation fund must be scrapped, or the Labour Party must stop taking donations from the Unions.

You have got to laugh. John Prescott travelling around in his battle bus is going to win Labour the General Election? I don't think so.

Why am I not surprised that the only three Labour MPs who are to face criminal charges are to claim Parliamentary Privilege?

Oh what a wonderful day! The BBC have conducted a poll into public opinion on Climate Change - and guess what? man made climate change sceptics are now in the majority! So the science is not exactly settled after all is it? The figures show that while 75% of people still believe that global warming is happening, only 26% are convinced that it is man made - a majority, 38% are not convinced. 25% believe that it is not happening at all.

From the BBC:

"It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period," Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News.

"The British public are sceptical about man's contribution to climate change - and becoming more so," he added.

"More people are now doubters than firm believers."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, called the findings "very disappointing".

"The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told BBC News.

"Action is urgently needed," Professor Watson warned.

"We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy."

You have to laugh at Gordon Brown's inability to realise that the public are not as thick as he thinks they are. He's been against Electoral Reform all along and now he wants us to believe that he is the great reformer. No shame.



Hat Tip: The Final Redoubt

Green Day, Holiday, enjoy:

An absolute classic: Stiltskin, Inside:

In 1989 Hazel wrote - "I ran away from my home in Coventry when I was 16.....made and sold clothes in Amsterdam, picked grapes in France, joined a dance troupe that went to Tokyo then onto Beirut (escaping the start of the civil war by one month!) travelled West Africa, crossed the Sahara, sang with a dreadful singing trio for the U.S. troops in Germany and came home to "settle down". Through all this experience of life and the world I realized that singing always cheered me up. I decided to be a singer. Through strange turns of fate I ended up in a film called Breaking Glass I also ended up writing all the songs for the movie" Wikipedia.

When Bowie was fifteen years old, his friend, George Underwood, wearing a ring on his finger, punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. Bowie was forced to stay out of school for eight months so that doctors could conduct operations to repair his potentially blinded eye.

Doctors could not fully repair the damage, leaving his pupil permanently dilated. As a result of the injury, Bowie has faulty depth perception. Bowie has stated that although he can see with his injured eye, his colour vision was mostly lost and a brownish tone is constantly present.

Each iris has the same blue colour, but since the pupil of the injured eye is wide open, the hue of that eye is commonly mistaken to be different. Despite the fight, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, and Underwood went on to do the artwork for Bowie's earlier albums. Wikipedia.

I could have picked any Linkin Park song, this will do: Crawling

Louder the better.

One of my favourites: My Chemical Romance - "Welcome to the Black Parade"

Play it loud.

The last year has not been a glorious period in our Parliament's history. MPs have disgraced themselves by abusing their position to line their own pockets. The fact that MPs still use the title "Honourable" in parliament to address each other makes me angry to say the least - very few warrant such a title.

I suggest that the title "Honourable" should be taken away from MPs for one year to signify the disgrace brought on by the expenses scandal. It will also provide an historical reference to this shameful period so that it is never forgotten, or repeated.

- Idiot 1

- Idiot 2

Listening to Clare Short's evidence to the Chilcot Enquiry this morning has got to be excruciating for Labour and Blair in particular. Clare is not pulling any punches and seems, if anything, that she is out to tell it the way it was, warts and all. Who do we believe? Blair, Campbell, Goldsmith and Straw - all who have to defend their actions - or do we believe Short who resigned over the conflict and has nothing to lose? I'm sure Clare has an axe to grind, but I can't help feeling that she is telling us the truth.

Here are a few lines from her evidence:

"We asked for a briefing... This just didn't come and didn't come."

"It became clear there was some sort of block on communications."

She told the Iraq inquiry the cabinet had not been a "decision-making body" and called Parliament a "rubber stamp".

Clare is still giving evidence live, and you can watch it by clicking HERE.

What I eat is up to me and me alone. Now thanks to our lovely Labour government I have to eat low salt Cornflakes. Did I, or any other customer ask for this change to the recipe? NO. Is this the Nanny state interfering in our lives again? YES.

Kellogg's have tried to hold out against reducing the salt in their cereals because of the taste that it provides. Thanks to the Food Standards Agency, we are going to be enjoying dull breakfasts because they think they know what is best for us. It really does make me effing sick.


God I bloody hate Labour.

Steve Goreham is an engineer, a former business executive, and a U.S. citizen. Steve has just published (ink not yet dry) the book: Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century's Hottest Topic to add weight against climate change alarmism and for sound science and common-sense energy policy.

Steve says: Climatism! covers the science, politics, and energy policy impacts of global climate mania, which I call Climatism. It's written in a down-to-earth manner for world citizens, with much discussion on events in the U.K., Europe, the U.S., and around the world.

What Others Have Said about Climatism!

“This is a serious book that carefully examines the issues that have been used to create the current climate change/global warming crisis…I endorse Climatism! for its easy-to-read, well-illustrated presentation of complex science.”

–John Coleman, Meteorologist and Founder of the Weather Channel

“If you care about the 21st century society, you must read this book. In my 55-year career as a scientist I have written over 1,000 book reviews for various journals. No book has pleased me more than Climatism! by Steve Goreham.”

Jay Lehr, Ph.D., Science Director, The Heartland Institute

“Climatism! is a myth-buster of a book. If you are interested in climate, carbon or energy, you need this common-sense book on your reference shelf, especially if you are a politician, a journalist, a teacher or a parent. Steve Goreham identifies the origins, symptoms and cures for the societal sickness of Climatism. His book is comprehensive, interesting, logical, factual and well-referenced. He also has a marvellous collection of quotes. You will enjoy reading it.”

Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

“Before your future disappears under piles of climate model printouts and fraudulent carbon credits, read Steve Goreham’s new book Climatism!”

Dennis Avery, Hudson Institute

Climatism! will be available on Amazon in the near future, but you can pre-order your signed copy by clicking HERE.

I've always liked Andrew Neil and today he has impressed me even more with a great post on his Blog:

The bloggers are all over the UN IPCC 2007 report, the bible of global warming, which predicted all manner of dire outcomes for our planet unless we got a grip on rising temperatures -- and it seems to be crumbling in some pretty significant areas.

The dam began to crack towards the end of last year when leaked e-mails from one of the temples of global warming, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, suggested that a few sleights of hand were being deployed to hide facts inconvenient to the global warming case. An official investigation into these e-mails is on-going.

But the flood gates really opened after the IPCC had to withdraw its claim that the Himalayan glaciers would likely all have melted by 2035, maybe even sooner.

This turned out to have no basis in scientific fact, even though everything the IPCC produces is meant to be rigorously peer-reviewed, but simply an error recycled by the WWF, which the IPCC swallowed whole.

The truth, as seen by India's leading expert in glaciers, is that "Himalayan glaciers have not in anyway exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat."

So the 40% of the world's population that relies on the seven major river systems supplied by these glaciers can sleep a little more soundly in the knowledge that their water won't run out in 25 years after all.

Then at the weekend another howler was exposed. The IPCC 2007 report claimed that global warming was leading to an increase in extreme weather, such as hurricanes and floods. Like its claims about the glaciers, this was also based on an unpublished report which had not been subject to scientific scrutiny -- indeed several experts warned the IPCC not to rely on it.

The author, who didn't actually finish his work until a year after the IPCC had used his research, has now repudiated what he sees has its misuse of his work......Continue reading.