On Wednesday (27/11/13) evening Rihanna returned to a New York City hotel on the pretence of helping to support her brother's career as a DJ. However if I was to politicise this for a western audience I would say that it looked a lot like a glamorous version of a female victim of domestic violence being sent to local council run emergency Bed & Breakfast (B&B) accommodation. However if I were to say that experience tells me Rihanna would only use it to reaffirm her life choices by convincing herself that rather then f*cking up her life she is instead making a bold protest in support of the less fortunate.
Anyway just as I was waking up on Thursday (28/11/13), switching off one Blackberry, transferring the SIM card to another Blackberry and waiting for the Blackberry to boot up Rihanna took to Twitter/Instagram to confirm that not only is she in a New York even the hotel staff think she really needs to sort her life out. I of course responded in the most obscure way I could manage at the time.
Shortly after that the New York Police Department (NYPD) had to make the final decision over whether the nationally famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade could go ahead. Basically over the last week to ten days a winter storm has been making its way across the east coast of the US creating the possibility that wind speeds in New York could exceed the maximum safe limit for flying the balloons that the Macy's Day Parade is famous for. Although this storm had been weakening significantly over recent day someone from the NYPD still had to make the decision that the wind was within safe limits and give the balloons permission to fly. I like to think that the wind suddenly dropped off at the last minute in order to mock the notion that it is controlled by Rihanna by giving her permission to fly on to somewhere else.
That is of course the same NYPD who had to deal with Chris Brown getting beaten up by Drake. However I believe there is at least one rape investigation they bungled. I decided to highlight this point by Tweeting Chris Brown a picture of a stick man that was supposed to indicate the anatomical diagrams that are used in police investigations and trials to highlight where a victim has been injured. After all with my fingers still sore from the COP19/CMP9 post that was so much easier then simply typing all this up(!)
In between the start of the Macy's Day Parade and my COP19/CMP9 post the Twitter account of the British Monarchy posted an open invitation to visit the state apartments at Buckingham Palace that had been decorated especially for Christmas. This appeared to me to be the British Monarchy saying that it would quite literally roll out the red carpet for Rihanna to come and visit me especially if they were able to bug the room. I'm not sure if the British Monarchy realise that actually makes it far less likely that Rihanna will visit or whether we're just dealing with their usual level of stupidity.
Anyway long before that happened Justin Bieber decided to recreate the scandal he caused by spraying graffiti in Brazil by spraying some Chris Brown style graffiti on a wall in Australia. This was obviously intended to convince the South Americans (Brazil and Argentina are really the key markets) that Bieber was being used to have a very exciting discussion between the US and Australia about Rihanna. The idea being that the South Americans would be so intrigued by all this they would beg for Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour to be extended to they can have a good look at her.
Australia's response to this was nothing short of amazing. Firstly it fell to the local Mayor of the Gold Coast Tom Tait to respond. Local government such as Mayors was a big element of the COP19/CMP9 and apparently has also been something of an issue in Toronto in the fellow UK Commonwealth nation of Canada. Tait began by pointing out that Bieber was setting a bad example to local children all of whom would be sentenced to community service if they were caught doing the same thing. He then went on to announce that he was sending cleaning equipment to Bieber's hotel so he could remove the graffiti. Tait went on to list all the things he would put in that cleaning kit. For example there would be goggles to protect Bieber's beautiful eyes and gloves to prevent him from injuring his soft and delicate hands. So basically the extent of the bilateral was Australia telling the US to "F*ck off and grow up" whilst having a bit of a giggle their expense.
In the meantime the hotel has claimed that it owned the wall and had given Bieber permission to spray graffiti so I can't help but think Bieber is going to be mailed a revised bill after his stay. Ideally from the Sydney harbour hotel that Rihanna was forced to stay (twice).
15:55 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
Friday, 29 November 2013
I Will Go to the Gym.
And I will also clean the bathroom, cook dinner and have a relaxing evening in front of the TV. If I get time I will also try and add detail the US' SpaceX tantrum. Basically during the COP19/CMP9 the US scheduled a launch of it's new public/private partnership Space X rocket. This was obviously an attempt to inflame the COP19/CMP9 by the US claiming that it does enough to combat climate change by funding all the satellites. After now two failed launches and the US attacking one of it's own military bases in Japan with bottle rockets this has sort of turned into the US screaming at the entire Asia-Pacific region; "We should have won! WE SHOULD HAVE WON!!!!!!"
Before I do that though I feel I have to point out that whilst I was trying to put together all the REDD+ stuff I chanced upon a promoted Tweet from the Terrence Higgans Trust offering a free postal HIV test. I obviously clicked on it to find out what the hell a postal HIV test is. Turns out it's just your standard 4th generation 20 minute HIV test. However after performing the test at home you then have to post it off so someone can read the result for you and then post you back a letter containing the result.
In fact I strongly suspect that the Terrence Higgans Trust only paid for the promoted Tweet and indeed the scheme in order to protest UK legislation that prevents someone receiving a HIV test result without medical supervision. After all posting the test off to a medical professional who reads the result before communicating the result to the test subject certainly gets around the legislation but also makes the legislation look a bit silly in the process.
13:00 on 29/11/13.
Before I do that though I feel I have to point out that whilst I was trying to put together all the REDD+ stuff I chanced upon a promoted Tweet from the Terrence Higgans Trust offering a free postal HIV test. I obviously clicked on it to find out what the hell a postal HIV test is. Turns out it's just your standard 4th generation 20 minute HIV test. However after performing the test at home you then have to post it off so someone can read the result for you and then post you back a letter containing the result.
In fact I strongly suspect that the Terrence Higgans Trust only paid for the promoted Tweet and indeed the scheme in order to protest UK legislation that prevents someone receiving a HIV test result without medical supervision. After all posting the test off to a medical professional who reads the result before communicating the result to the test subject certainly gets around the legislation but also makes the legislation look a bit silly in the process.
13:00 on 29/11/13.
The Things That Keep Me Up at Night.
Subtitled; CAR 101.
Basically there is this central African region that is rich in natural assets such as diamonds. So a little while ago a group of Seleka (literally "rebel") formed an Alliance (I kid you not) to sweep across the Central African Republic (CAR) to install Michel Djotodia as the coup prone nations latest President. Turns out this was a bit of a mistake because Djotobia's government quickly ran out of money so Seleka were dispatched to loot and steal anything they could lay their hands on to fill the government coffers.
This state run looting quickly developed into just general looting, raping and killing. In response people began to organise through friends and relatives to set up loose neighbourhood defence groups. So far this has managed to keep the carnage within the regional averages of bloodshed. The worry though is that an event such as that which recently occurred in the Dominican Republic could occur in the CAR.
Basically what happened in the Dominican Republic was that a woman was beaten and killed in her home during a botched robbery. The local crowds decided that the murder was committed by Haitian immigrants causing a wave of anti-Haitian protests. The Dominican government responded by stripping roughly 200,000 Haitians of their Dominican citizenship in what very closely resembles an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
If a similar flash point were to occur in the CAR the worry is that these neighbourhood defence groups would quickly turn on each other creating a situation that is exactly like the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Officially it was the prospect of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide that prompted the world to intervene in Libya.
Needless to say the situation in the CAR is now being picked up on the fringes of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Nations such as the US seem to be in favour of increasing the funding of the African force that has been in the nation throughout all of this including 13 South African troops who were killed when Djotobia was swept to power. However a lot of other people have suggested deploying a UN peacekeeping force of around 9000 and France has already deployed 1000 troops.
As the French troops are in the nation with the nominal permission of the CAR government there is strictly speaking no need for a UN mandate however it seems likely that the UNSC is going to have to vote soon on a Chapter 7 resolution authorising the use of military force. On one hand local African troops would certainly benefit from the leadership and oversight of a UN mission in what is largely going to be a policing operation to keep the lid on things. On the other hand though the main problem is going to be separating the CAR's government from the people who are going to need to be on the receiving end of some hardcore violence.
11:10 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
Basically there is this central African region that is rich in natural assets such as diamonds. So a little while ago a group of Seleka (literally "rebel") formed an Alliance (I kid you not) to sweep across the Central African Republic (CAR) to install Michel Djotodia as the coup prone nations latest President. Turns out this was a bit of a mistake because Djotobia's government quickly ran out of money so Seleka were dispatched to loot and steal anything they could lay their hands on to fill the government coffers.
This state run looting quickly developed into just general looting, raping and killing. In response people began to organise through friends and relatives to set up loose neighbourhood defence groups. So far this has managed to keep the carnage within the regional averages of bloodshed. The worry though is that an event such as that which recently occurred in the Dominican Republic could occur in the CAR.
Basically what happened in the Dominican Republic was that a woman was beaten and killed in her home during a botched robbery. The local crowds decided that the murder was committed by Haitian immigrants causing a wave of anti-Haitian protests. The Dominican government responded by stripping roughly 200,000 Haitians of their Dominican citizenship in what very closely resembles an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
If a similar flash point were to occur in the CAR the worry is that these neighbourhood defence groups would quickly turn on each other creating a situation that is exactly like the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Officially it was the prospect of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide that prompted the world to intervene in Libya.
Needless to say the situation in the CAR is now being picked up on the fringes of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Nations such as the US seem to be in favour of increasing the funding of the African force that has been in the nation throughout all of this including 13 South African troops who were killed when Djotobia was swept to power. However a lot of other people have suggested deploying a UN peacekeeping force of around 9000 and France has already deployed 1000 troops.
As the French troops are in the nation with the nominal permission of the CAR government there is strictly speaking no need for a UN mandate however it seems likely that the UNSC is going to have to vote soon on a Chapter 7 resolution authorising the use of military force. On one hand local African troops would certainly benefit from the leadership and oversight of a UN mission in what is largely going to be a policing operation to keep the lid on things. On the other hand though the main problem is going to be separating the CAR's government from the people who are going to need to be on the receiving end of some hardcore violence.
11:10 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
Thursday, 28 November 2013
COP19/CMP9: A Review.
Ever since Svante Arrhenius quantified the way in which greenhouse gases (ghg's) trap heat back in 1896 scientists have speculated that increasing the amount of ghg's in the earth's atmosphere could cause global temperatures to rise. Following the start of the space race in the 1950's which saw us put increasing numbers of satellites into orbit to measure things like the volume of ghg's in the atmosphere and global temperature the volume of evidence to support this theory has only increased.
So much so that in 1995 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held it's first Conference of Parties (COP) Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Unfortunately many developing nations saw this as an opportunity to try and con large amounts of money out of developed nations while developed nations saw it as an opportunity to give developing nations small amounts of money in return for trapping the developing nations into complex negotiations they didn't really understand.
While the politicians had their fun though the levels of ghg gases continued to increase and the earth's temperature continued so rise bringing us to a point where UNFCCC negotiations couldn't really continue without the developed nations actually doing something. So in 2012 the developed nations insisted that the 18th COP (COP18/CMP8) should be held in Doha, Qatar - a nation whose entire existence is dependent on other nations continuing to release ghg gases by burning the fossil fuels that Qatar produces. The hope being that this Summit would go so badly that no-one would turn up for the 2013 Summit and the whole issue could be quietly forgotten about.
Fortunately though the process just about survived and the 2013 COP Summit (COP19/CMP9) took place between November 11th (11/11/13) and November 23rd (23/11/13) in Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately though rather then making any major leaps forward in the battle against climate change the COP19/CMP9 was all about steadying the ship after the storm, checking for damage and trying to agree in which direction to sail next.
This task was not made any easier by the fact that many seemed intent for the maelstrom to continue. Lead amongst these was the US who - as I've explained at great length - sent the popstar Rihanna on a 9 month world tour with the intention of getting everybody so confused, frustrated and angry that they would have spent the summit arguing about whether it is ghg gases or Rihanna's mood swings that are the main driving force behind climate change. Then there was the UK who put me on trial over allegations of criminal damage on the second of the COP19/CMP9. After the case was dismissed through a lack of evidence the UK proceeded to attempt to further disrupt the summit by wildly speculating which criminal conspiracy was responsible for bringing me to trial. Then of course the Gulf and European Monarchies were continuing to try and bash Russia and Iran over Syria's continuing attempts to repel the Saudi and Qatari invasion of their county.
Under those circumstances you wouldn't imagine that anybody would be able to get anything done but still the COP19/CMP9 set about it's task of adding flesh to the bones of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) which was established at the COP17/CMP7 Summit in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to the start of the COP19/CMP9 six main areas were identified as needing progress in order to allow the ADP to take shape;
Mitigation; This covers all the ways in which nations can reduce their ghg emissions through for example capping the emissions from power stations or designing new cities so they use less energy to begin with.
Adaptation; This covers all the ways that nations can adapt to the increased environmental hazards such as desertification, flooding and typhoons/hurricanes that increased global temperatures bring.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This covers finding technological solutions to both mitigation and adaptation problems and finding a way to meet the cost of implementing those new technologies.
Economic Instruments; This covers all the economic mechanisms such as simple donations from one nation to another through to things such as loan guarantees and carbon credit trading schemes that are supposed to help pay for the technical solutions mentioned above.
Transparency; This covers the oversight of all the data required in the above four areas such as money spent and emissions reduced in order to make sure that it is accurate and not fraudulent.
Periodic Review; This highly technical area simply covers the way in which all the technical data is periodically reviewed in order assess what if any effect all the mitigation and adaptation actions are having in order to give us a clearer understanding of the world around us.
While it was wrestling with these complex topics the COP19/CMP9 was also stung by some inflammatory announcements by nations on matters actually relating to the UNFCCC;
On Wednesday November 12th (12/11/13) the Australian government announced that it was introducing a Parliamentary bill to scrap a ghg emissions tax and replace it with an incentive scheme that would reward business for voluntarily reducing their ghg emission. This obviously looked like Australia giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However the bill is not expected to pass the upper house of Parliament so seems intended to promote discussion within Australia about whether the vaguely Communist carbon tax is the best way to proceed when the ADP favours carbon credit trading schemes.
On Friday November 15th (15/11/13) the Japanese government announced that is scrapping it's target to reduce its ghg emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020 and instead introducing a target of 3.8% which actually represents a 3% increase on 1990 levels. Again this looked very much like Japan giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However this is something we've all really known Japan was going to have to do since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear power plant forcing Japan to replace all 50 of its nuclear power plants with coal and natural gas fired power plants simply to keep the lights on. Therefore I think this was Japan making its shameful admission while apologetically trying to highlight the importance of having a diverse energy policy and drawing attention to the fact nuclear is such a dangerous form on energy that should not be considered a technological solution under the ADP. That last point also seemed to be an effort to discourage non-nuclear nations from getting to caught up with the Iran nuclear talks that both the US and the European Union (EU) were trying to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 with.
On Monday November 18th (18/11/13) the Canadian government admitted that it had only succeed in cutting its ghg emissions by 4.8% of 2005 levels meaning they are only one quarter of the way to the 17% cut on 2005 levels they'd pledged to achieve by 2020. This was simply Stephen Harper's government giving COP19/CMP9 the finger.
Despite all this and an unscheduled extra day of negotiations the COP19/CMP9 did succeed in making significant and real if highly technical progress in some significant areas;
Mitigation; In this critical area there was sadly very little progress. That is because with sadly too many people clinging to the Kyoto Protocol notion of Annex I developed nations and Annex II developing nations progress here would require developed nations to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMCs) which essentially means emissions cuts. Developing nations would have to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) which are essentially green development plans. Unfortunately the developed nations have no real desire to submit NAMCs and the developing nations are holding off submitting NAMAs in an attempt to leverage developed nations into action. This strikes me as an extremely foolish negotiating position by the developing nations because deadlocking negotiations actually gives the developed nations exactly what they want. Also it prevents the developing nations taking advantage of the benefits that NAMAs offer them. Take Nigeria as an example that I'm just familiar with. One of their main economic development problems is that they lack a national power grid which forces people to generate their own electricity using kerosene powered generators. This is both very expensive and very polluting. Therefore by classing building a national power grid as a mitigation action in its NAMA Nigeria could take advantage of the technical expertise, technology and funding mechanisms available through the ADP.
Adaptation; This is the area that saw the most, erm, exciting progress with the adoption of the "Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism." This is important because it creates a mechanism in which the way that loss and damage caused by climate hazards can be properly quantified. Primarily this gives us a much clearer idea of exactly what the problems created by climate change are and how effective our solutions to those problems are being. With the Warsaw mechanism being overseen by an executive committee of experts this also helps bring technologically advanced and less technologically advanced nations together offering the less advanced nations technical assistance. The increased oversight also helps build confidence amongst donor nations and private sector partners that their investments are producing results rather then helping line the pockets of corrupt local officials.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This is another area where progress is extremely hard work. Essentially the problem is that developing nations are still insisting that donations from developed nations should be the primary source of all funding (Capacity building is often used as a codeword for "more funding"). Developed nation are simply not agreeing to this.
However the COP19/CMP9 was successful in making progress in consolidating the various funds into the single Adaptation Fund and placing it under the control of the Adaptation Committee to increase the fiduciary oversight of how its funds are dispersed. In return developed nations not only met the Adaptation Funds target of USD180million but exceeded it by USD4million. Further more at COP19/CMP9 great effort was made to involve the private sector in the Green Climate Fund (GCF) although this drew some ire from certain developing nations for being too capitalist.
Again I think this is the developing nations making a mistake by trading help that is available for help that is unlikely to ever arrive. Take for example the Sahara which is a case study always comes up in climate negotiations because something is causing that desert to expand. All there is in the Sahara is sand, sunlight and the occasional Islamic terrorist. The human race is now at the point where it can turn sunlight into electrical energy. Obviously country specific, inter alia work needs to be done but many have suggested that building solar farms in the Sahara could not only produce enough electricity for north Africa and the Sahel belt but also parts of southern Europe. The problem is that often the nations that surround the Sahara that lack basic power grids and certainly don't have the money to build solar farms. What the GCF is set up to do is put any one of these nations in contact with a private company that builds solar farms and provide loan guarantees that would allow the nation to pay back the cost of the construction through the revenue from the sale of the electricity over a period of 25-50 years in what is essentially a very complicated mortgage deal.
Economic Instruments; This is an area where absolutely no direct progress was made. Although there are issues tied up with the GCF the primary economic instrument that everybody is pursuing is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which is funded through the capping of ghg emissions and the trading of permits to exceed those caps. The primary problem is that with that very few nations imposing caps on ghg emissions the market for permits and therefore the revenue they generate has collapsed. The other main problem is that socialist nations, primarily ones in South America along with full blown Communist nations in South-East Asia refuse to participate in the CDM because it's Capitalist and instead prefer to use negotiations about it as a way to rage against America.
As if to highlight how stupid these nations are being on Tuesday (26/11/13) the world's largest Communist nation, China opened a carbon trading market in Shanghai that will serve around 22 million people. Today China opened a carbon trading market in Beijing that will serve 20 million people. In December China will open a carbon trading market in Guangdong that will serve around 100million people making it the world's second largest carbon trading market behind the EU. With Mexico also opening a carbon trading market on Tuesday this growing global commitment to the principles of the CDM seems to have shamed certain European nations into actions with Switzerland buying up USD109million worth of carbon permits, the UK buying up USD80million worth and Norway buying up USD50million. These nations don't really have any need for those permits but the extra USD239million should help keep the CDM afloat until something more permanent can be worked out.
Although they are important in their own right the areas of Transparency and Periodic Review tend to be covered through negotiations about the other areas so I won't give a specific progress report on them. However the increased transparency achieved through the setting up of the Warsaw mechanism on Loss and Damage and the Adaptation Committee will certainly make progress in the quality of the data that is available for periodic review.
A sort of progress was also made on the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation plus (REDD+) project. Throughout its history - long before humans turned up - the earth has regulated the amount of ghg's in it's atmosphere through forests absorbing the ghg's emitted by things like volcanoes and turning it into oxygen and ever bigger trees. Therefore as something of an oxygen addict I think it is absolutely essential that developing nations are given an incentive to leave their forests intact rather then cutting them down for economic development as we did in the developed world. Ideally this would be done through an emissions trading scheme that allows nations with large forests to charge nations without large forests for doing the job of cleaning up their ghg emissions. Unfortunately we're having a bit of trouble putting that together so instead we're left with REDD+ which has got to be the most dodgy of all the projects to tackle global warming.
The main problem is that while most people are happy for this to be funded through a market-based carbon trading mechanism (especially if it doesn't cost them any money) the predominately socialist South American nations where most of the worlds forest are located instead want it to be funded through donations from capitalist nations - sort of 'Red Fund' if you will. This failure to agree how anti-deforestation projects should be funded has meant that up to now REDD+ has operated on an extremely ad-hoc basis with specific developed nations doing specific bilateral deals with specific developing nations over specific bits of forest.
In certain areas this approach has had limited success. However in South America it has largely resulted in corrupt officials taking money from donor nations to protect areas of forest whilst at the same time taking even larger sums of money from loggers and ranchers to cut down those same areas of forest. As a result in 2012 the rate of South American deforestation rose by about 30% despite all these very large sums of money.
In central Africa where the second largest amount of forests are located REDD+ has been even more devastating. Here rather then tackling deforestation developed nations have largely been using relatively small REDD+ donations to trick relatively weak governments into complex negotiations that have nothing whatsoever to do with deforestation or climate change.
The obvious sexual innuendo of asking things like; "Whose got the most wood? What are you going to do with your wood? and Can you keep your wood up?" means that more often then not REDD+ discussions actually turn into discussions about HIV/AIDS. Incase the sexual innuendo wasn't enough REDD+ also shares it's name with Live Nation supported "(RED)" charity set up to deal with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Discussions about HIV/AIDS in Africa are complicated enough on their own because they touch on issues such as colonial powers using contraception to control indigenous populations, sexual politics, homosexuality and religion to name but a few.
Also when we say that central Africa is one of the most resource rich regions on earth the resource we are primarily talking about is wood and timber. The illegal cutting, smuggling and sale of timber is often used to fund the myriad of vicious little conflicts that are going on in the region. So although I have no evidence to support it I have strong suspicions that REDD+ money has been used to fund groups like the M23, Seleka and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).
So although there is some good work being done I personally would have liked to have seen REDD+ scrapped entirely. However with the CDM on its knees the scrapping of REDD+ would have caused many developing nations to completely lose faith and pull out of the UNFCCC entirely. So instead what happened is that REDD+ became a formal project with all funds being disbursed by the World Bank's BioCarbon fund. Before a project can be considered for funds it must first be submitted for assessment by a panel of technical experts who will consider it against defined benchmarks. If a project is successful and receives funds it will be periodically reviewed by both the technical panel and the World Bank who despite their many faults do not have a reputation for tolerating corruption. To incentivise this cleaning up of REDD+ Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) eventually agreed to allow the USD280m they'd contributed to the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) to be used to fund REDD+.
So in summary although it produced nothing in the way of headline grabbing or campaign slogan satisfying big announcements and while there is clearly still a lot of work to do COP19/CMP9 was an extremely successful summit that far exceeded both mine and I think anyone's expectations of what could be achieved.
20:20 on 28/11/13 (UK date).
So much so that in 1995 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held it's first Conference of Parties (COP) Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Unfortunately many developing nations saw this as an opportunity to try and con large amounts of money out of developed nations while developed nations saw it as an opportunity to give developing nations small amounts of money in return for trapping the developing nations into complex negotiations they didn't really understand.
While the politicians had their fun though the levels of ghg gases continued to increase and the earth's temperature continued so rise bringing us to a point where UNFCCC negotiations couldn't really continue without the developed nations actually doing something. So in 2012 the developed nations insisted that the 18th COP (COP18/CMP8) should be held in Doha, Qatar - a nation whose entire existence is dependent on other nations continuing to release ghg gases by burning the fossil fuels that Qatar produces. The hope being that this Summit would go so badly that no-one would turn up for the 2013 Summit and the whole issue could be quietly forgotten about.
Fortunately though the process just about survived and the 2013 COP Summit (COP19/CMP9) took place between November 11th (11/11/13) and November 23rd (23/11/13) in Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately though rather then making any major leaps forward in the battle against climate change the COP19/CMP9 was all about steadying the ship after the storm, checking for damage and trying to agree in which direction to sail next.
This task was not made any easier by the fact that many seemed intent for the maelstrom to continue. Lead amongst these was the US who - as I've explained at great length - sent the popstar Rihanna on a 9 month world tour with the intention of getting everybody so confused, frustrated and angry that they would have spent the summit arguing about whether it is ghg gases or Rihanna's mood swings that are the main driving force behind climate change. Then there was the UK who put me on trial over allegations of criminal damage on the second of the COP19/CMP9. After the case was dismissed through a lack of evidence the UK proceeded to attempt to further disrupt the summit by wildly speculating which criminal conspiracy was responsible for bringing me to trial. Then of course the Gulf and European Monarchies were continuing to try and bash Russia and Iran over Syria's continuing attempts to repel the Saudi and Qatari invasion of their county.
Under those circumstances you wouldn't imagine that anybody would be able to get anything done but still the COP19/CMP9 set about it's task of adding flesh to the bones of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) which was established at the COP17/CMP7 Summit in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to the start of the COP19/CMP9 six main areas were identified as needing progress in order to allow the ADP to take shape;
Mitigation; This covers all the ways in which nations can reduce their ghg emissions through for example capping the emissions from power stations or designing new cities so they use less energy to begin with.
Adaptation; This covers all the ways that nations can adapt to the increased environmental hazards such as desertification, flooding and typhoons/hurricanes that increased global temperatures bring.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This covers finding technological solutions to both mitigation and adaptation problems and finding a way to meet the cost of implementing those new technologies.
Economic Instruments; This covers all the economic mechanisms such as simple donations from one nation to another through to things such as loan guarantees and carbon credit trading schemes that are supposed to help pay for the technical solutions mentioned above.
Transparency; This covers the oversight of all the data required in the above four areas such as money spent and emissions reduced in order to make sure that it is accurate and not fraudulent.
Periodic Review; This highly technical area simply covers the way in which all the technical data is periodically reviewed in order assess what if any effect all the mitigation and adaptation actions are having in order to give us a clearer understanding of the world around us.
While it was wrestling with these complex topics the COP19/CMP9 was also stung by some inflammatory announcements by nations on matters actually relating to the UNFCCC;
On Wednesday November 12th (12/11/13) the Australian government announced that it was introducing a Parliamentary bill to scrap a ghg emissions tax and replace it with an incentive scheme that would reward business for voluntarily reducing their ghg emission. This obviously looked like Australia giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However the bill is not expected to pass the upper house of Parliament so seems intended to promote discussion within Australia about whether the vaguely Communist carbon tax is the best way to proceed when the ADP favours carbon credit trading schemes.
On Friday November 15th (15/11/13) the Japanese government announced that is scrapping it's target to reduce its ghg emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020 and instead introducing a target of 3.8% which actually represents a 3% increase on 1990 levels. Again this looked very much like Japan giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However this is something we've all really known Japan was going to have to do since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear power plant forcing Japan to replace all 50 of its nuclear power plants with coal and natural gas fired power plants simply to keep the lights on. Therefore I think this was Japan making its shameful admission while apologetically trying to highlight the importance of having a diverse energy policy and drawing attention to the fact nuclear is such a dangerous form on energy that should not be considered a technological solution under the ADP. That last point also seemed to be an effort to discourage non-nuclear nations from getting to caught up with the Iran nuclear talks that both the US and the European Union (EU) were trying to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 with.
On Monday November 18th (18/11/13) the Canadian government admitted that it had only succeed in cutting its ghg emissions by 4.8% of 2005 levels meaning they are only one quarter of the way to the 17% cut on 2005 levels they'd pledged to achieve by 2020. This was simply Stephen Harper's government giving COP19/CMP9 the finger.
Despite all this and an unscheduled extra day of negotiations the COP19/CMP9 did succeed in making significant and real if highly technical progress in some significant areas;
Mitigation; In this critical area there was sadly very little progress. That is because with sadly too many people clinging to the Kyoto Protocol notion of Annex I developed nations and Annex II developing nations progress here would require developed nations to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMCs) which essentially means emissions cuts. Developing nations would have to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) which are essentially green development plans. Unfortunately the developed nations have no real desire to submit NAMCs and the developing nations are holding off submitting NAMAs in an attempt to leverage developed nations into action. This strikes me as an extremely foolish negotiating position by the developing nations because deadlocking negotiations actually gives the developed nations exactly what they want. Also it prevents the developing nations taking advantage of the benefits that NAMAs offer them. Take Nigeria as an example that I'm just familiar with. One of their main economic development problems is that they lack a national power grid which forces people to generate their own electricity using kerosene powered generators. This is both very expensive and very polluting. Therefore by classing building a national power grid as a mitigation action in its NAMA Nigeria could take advantage of the technical expertise, technology and funding mechanisms available through the ADP.
Adaptation; This is the area that saw the most, erm, exciting progress with the adoption of the "Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism." This is important because it creates a mechanism in which the way that loss and damage caused by climate hazards can be properly quantified. Primarily this gives us a much clearer idea of exactly what the problems created by climate change are and how effective our solutions to those problems are being. With the Warsaw mechanism being overseen by an executive committee of experts this also helps bring technologically advanced and less technologically advanced nations together offering the less advanced nations technical assistance. The increased oversight also helps build confidence amongst donor nations and private sector partners that their investments are producing results rather then helping line the pockets of corrupt local officials.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This is another area where progress is extremely hard work. Essentially the problem is that developing nations are still insisting that donations from developed nations should be the primary source of all funding (Capacity building is often used as a codeword for "more funding"). Developed nation are simply not agreeing to this.
However the COP19/CMP9 was successful in making progress in consolidating the various funds into the single Adaptation Fund and placing it under the control of the Adaptation Committee to increase the fiduciary oversight of how its funds are dispersed. In return developed nations not only met the Adaptation Funds target of USD180million but exceeded it by USD4million. Further more at COP19/CMP9 great effort was made to involve the private sector in the Green Climate Fund (GCF) although this drew some ire from certain developing nations for being too capitalist.
Again I think this is the developing nations making a mistake by trading help that is available for help that is unlikely to ever arrive. Take for example the Sahara which is a case study always comes up in climate negotiations because something is causing that desert to expand. All there is in the Sahara is sand, sunlight and the occasional Islamic terrorist. The human race is now at the point where it can turn sunlight into electrical energy. Obviously country specific, inter alia work needs to be done but many have suggested that building solar farms in the Sahara could not only produce enough electricity for north Africa and the Sahel belt but also parts of southern Europe. The problem is that often the nations that surround the Sahara that lack basic power grids and certainly don't have the money to build solar farms. What the GCF is set up to do is put any one of these nations in contact with a private company that builds solar farms and provide loan guarantees that would allow the nation to pay back the cost of the construction through the revenue from the sale of the electricity over a period of 25-50 years in what is essentially a very complicated mortgage deal.
Economic Instruments; This is an area where absolutely no direct progress was made. Although there are issues tied up with the GCF the primary economic instrument that everybody is pursuing is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which is funded through the capping of ghg emissions and the trading of permits to exceed those caps. The primary problem is that with that very few nations imposing caps on ghg emissions the market for permits and therefore the revenue they generate has collapsed. The other main problem is that socialist nations, primarily ones in South America along with full blown Communist nations in South-East Asia refuse to participate in the CDM because it's Capitalist and instead prefer to use negotiations about it as a way to rage against America.
As if to highlight how stupid these nations are being on Tuesday (26/11/13) the world's largest Communist nation, China opened a carbon trading market in Shanghai that will serve around 22 million people. Today China opened a carbon trading market in Beijing that will serve 20 million people. In December China will open a carbon trading market in Guangdong that will serve around 100million people making it the world's second largest carbon trading market behind the EU. With Mexico also opening a carbon trading market on Tuesday this growing global commitment to the principles of the CDM seems to have shamed certain European nations into actions with Switzerland buying up USD109million worth of carbon permits, the UK buying up USD80million worth and Norway buying up USD50million. These nations don't really have any need for those permits but the extra USD239million should help keep the CDM afloat until something more permanent can be worked out.
Although they are important in their own right the areas of Transparency and Periodic Review tend to be covered through negotiations about the other areas so I won't give a specific progress report on them. However the increased transparency achieved through the setting up of the Warsaw mechanism on Loss and Damage and the Adaptation Committee will certainly make progress in the quality of the data that is available for periodic review.
A sort of progress was also made on the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation plus (REDD+) project. Throughout its history - long before humans turned up - the earth has regulated the amount of ghg's in it's atmosphere through forests absorbing the ghg's emitted by things like volcanoes and turning it into oxygen and ever bigger trees. Therefore as something of an oxygen addict I think it is absolutely essential that developing nations are given an incentive to leave their forests intact rather then cutting them down for economic development as we did in the developed world. Ideally this would be done through an emissions trading scheme that allows nations with large forests to charge nations without large forests for doing the job of cleaning up their ghg emissions. Unfortunately we're having a bit of trouble putting that together so instead we're left with REDD+ which has got to be the most dodgy of all the projects to tackle global warming.
The main problem is that while most people are happy for this to be funded through a market-based carbon trading mechanism (especially if it doesn't cost them any money) the predominately socialist South American nations where most of the worlds forest are located instead want it to be funded through donations from capitalist nations - sort of 'Red Fund' if you will. This failure to agree how anti-deforestation projects should be funded has meant that up to now REDD+ has operated on an extremely ad-hoc basis with specific developed nations doing specific bilateral deals with specific developing nations over specific bits of forest.
In certain areas this approach has had limited success. However in South America it has largely resulted in corrupt officials taking money from donor nations to protect areas of forest whilst at the same time taking even larger sums of money from loggers and ranchers to cut down those same areas of forest. As a result in 2012 the rate of South American deforestation rose by about 30% despite all these very large sums of money.
In central Africa where the second largest amount of forests are located REDD+ has been even more devastating. Here rather then tackling deforestation developed nations have largely been using relatively small REDD+ donations to trick relatively weak governments into complex negotiations that have nothing whatsoever to do with deforestation or climate change.
The obvious sexual innuendo of asking things like; "Whose got the most wood? What are you going to do with your wood? and Can you keep your wood up?" means that more often then not REDD+ discussions actually turn into discussions about HIV/AIDS. Incase the sexual innuendo wasn't enough REDD+ also shares it's name with Live Nation supported "(RED)" charity set up to deal with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Discussions about HIV/AIDS in Africa are complicated enough on their own because they touch on issues such as colonial powers using contraception to control indigenous populations, sexual politics, homosexuality and religion to name but a few.
Also when we say that central Africa is one of the most resource rich regions on earth the resource we are primarily talking about is wood and timber. The illegal cutting, smuggling and sale of timber is often used to fund the myriad of vicious little conflicts that are going on in the region. So although I have no evidence to support it I have strong suspicions that REDD+ money has been used to fund groups like the M23, Seleka and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).
So although there is some good work being done I personally would have liked to have seen REDD+ scrapped entirely. However with the CDM on its knees the scrapping of REDD+ would have caused many developing nations to completely lose faith and pull out of the UNFCCC entirely. So instead what happened is that REDD+ became a formal project with all funds being disbursed by the World Bank's BioCarbon fund. Before a project can be considered for funds it must first be submitted for assessment by a panel of technical experts who will consider it against defined benchmarks. If a project is successful and receives funds it will be periodically reviewed by both the technical panel and the World Bank who despite their many faults do not have a reputation for tolerating corruption. To incentivise this cleaning up of REDD+ Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) eventually agreed to allow the USD280m they'd contributed to the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) to be used to fund REDD+.
So in summary although it produced nothing in the way of headline grabbing or campaign slogan satisfying big announcements and while there is clearly still a lot of work to do COP19/CMP9 was an extremely successful summit that far exceeded both mine and I think anyone's expectations of what could be achieved.
20:20 on 28/11/13 (UK date).
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 4, Day 2.
Although I'm pretty sure there's actual, proper work I could be doing I feel I have to tell the Taylor Swift story.
A few years back I was sitting in a pub talking with friends when the topic of Taylor Swift came up because either one of her songs was playing on the jukebox or there was a picture of her in a newspaper or something. As the alternative was just sitting there in silence I sort of went into a long rant about how I couldn't find anything remotely attractive about the beautiful multi-millionairess and I wouldn't date her even if she begged.
Fast forward to October 2012 and just as Rihanna was performing at the para-Olympic closing ceremony Taylor Swift was in the UK doing a big marketing push for her "Red" album. Obviously due to the Olympics, the para-Olympics and what I believe is now known as the Rihanna effect this all sort of passed me by. However it did mark the beginning of a British obsession with Taylor Swift. Firstly she had BRIT school wannabe Ed Sheeran imposed on her for much of the "Red" Tour. Although he's reasonably talented Ed Sheeran really offended me by taking quite a dark story from my life and using it for his song "The A Team." He went on to release "Small Bump" about abortion/miscarriage which he no doubt stole from someonelse's life. Therefore I think Ed Sheeran owes us all an apology for being fake because no matter what song he's singing all I hear is him going; "Your so dumb. Now give me all your money." over and over again.
Even with the Red tour going on the UK has repeatedly found excuses to keep bring Taylor Swift back to the country attempting to book her for everything including Establishment events attended by members of the Royal Family. This culminated yesterday with Taylor Swift performing alongside Jon Bon Jovi and the heir to the British throne William Duke of Cambridge at Kensington Palace in London. I think this was intended to give the impression that the UK is demanding to know if Taylor Swift was being used as a distraction while the Rihanna operation was going on because the UK certainly didn't get what it wanted out of that operation. Personally I just think the US were just covering the spread because no-one really got what they wanted from the Rihanna operation.
On the topic of random things I've said about female celebrities whilst she was touring US movie theatres to promote I think the final Hannah Montana movie I joked that Miley Cyrus was only doing so to cover up the fact that she was homeless. What made me think of it now is that I'm pretty sure that Rihanna is technically homeless at the moment which when you consider the amount she's spent on property over the last 6-9 months is quite an achievement.
12:15 on 27/11/13 (UK date).
A few years back I was sitting in a pub talking with friends when the topic of Taylor Swift came up because either one of her songs was playing on the jukebox or there was a picture of her in a newspaper or something. As the alternative was just sitting there in silence I sort of went into a long rant about how I couldn't find anything remotely attractive about the beautiful multi-millionairess and I wouldn't date her even if she begged.
Fast forward to October 2012 and just as Rihanna was performing at the para-Olympic closing ceremony Taylor Swift was in the UK doing a big marketing push for her "Red" album. Obviously due to the Olympics, the para-Olympics and what I believe is now known as the Rihanna effect this all sort of passed me by. However it did mark the beginning of a British obsession with Taylor Swift. Firstly she had BRIT school wannabe Ed Sheeran imposed on her for much of the "Red" Tour. Although he's reasonably talented Ed Sheeran really offended me by taking quite a dark story from my life and using it for his song "The A Team." He went on to release "Small Bump" about abortion/miscarriage which he no doubt stole from someonelse's life. Therefore I think Ed Sheeran owes us all an apology for being fake because no matter what song he's singing all I hear is him going; "Your so dumb. Now give me all your money." over and over again.
Even with the Red tour going on the UK has repeatedly found excuses to keep bring Taylor Swift back to the country attempting to book her for everything including Establishment events attended by members of the Royal Family. This culminated yesterday with Taylor Swift performing alongside Jon Bon Jovi and the heir to the British throne William Duke of Cambridge at Kensington Palace in London. I think this was intended to give the impression that the UK is demanding to know if Taylor Swift was being used as a distraction while the Rihanna operation was going on because the UK certainly didn't get what it wanted out of that operation. Personally I just think the US were just covering the spread because no-one really got what they wanted from the Rihanna operation.
On the topic of random things I've said about female celebrities whilst she was touring US movie theatres to promote I think the final Hannah Montana movie I joked that Miley Cyrus was only doing so to cover up the fact that she was homeless. What made me think of it now is that I'm pretty sure that Rihanna is technically homeless at the moment which when you consider the amount she's spent on property over the last 6-9 months is quite an achievement.
12:15 on 27/11/13 (UK date).
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 4, Day 1.
You would think that after the humiliation of the American Music Awards (AMAs) Rihanna and her people would have wanted to spend a few days quietly relaxing and reflecting on what they've done with their lives over the last 12 months. However if Rihanna and her people were to sit down and list what they set out to achieve with the Diamonds World Tour versus what they've actually achieved along with the roughly 1/3rd of their fortune they've spent on dodgy property deals on Barbados it is likely they would just be hit with an overwhelming desire to kill themselves.
So instead on Monday night (local) Rihanna attended and was seen to attend Drake's concert at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California. This was obviously intended to fuel speculation that Rihanna and Drake are now dating and promote discussion about whether this is a suitable strategy to contain the threat posed to society in general by Chris Brown.
Things got much worse on Tuesday though when it was announced that Rihanna would be the public face of the US fund for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) campaign to raise money for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. You may remember that Rihanna recently visited the Philippines on her Diamonds World Tour.
This concert was made extremely controversial because in preparation someone encouraged the Moro Nation Liberation Front (MNLF) to launch a full scale military assault on the city of Zamboanga on Mindanao island. This took the Filipino army about a month to repel and resulted in the deaths of 150+ people. To add insult to injury the US used this conflict as an excuse so Rihanna only really spent the duration of her concert in the city of Manila on Luzon island. As the entire South-East Asian region were supposed to be speculating about Rihanna's mood and general mental condition during this time this was a grievous insult to the Filipino government especially Rihanna apparently found time to make not one but two visits to Thailand where the Monarch is currently trying to overthrow the elected government.
This performance in the Philippines was so shockingly bad that some have suggested that it angered the earth's quantum field to the extent that it caused Typhoon Haiyan to tear through the parts of the Philippines between Luzon and Mondano islands in order to suggest that despite her ego Rihanna does not control the weather through her moods. It also provided the US with an opportunity to correct it's error of judgement by providing lots of emergency aid to the Filipino people.
As such you would think that Rihanna would be the absolute last person that the US fund for UNICEF would want fronting their Haiyan appeal. After all the general discomfort that Rihanna causes many in the US to feel is only likely to discourage donations. A much better idea would have been to create an umbrella campaign with various celebrities each tapping up their own fanbase for donations.
It is clear though that rather then helping the US' intention here is to disrupt the Haiyan relief effort as much as possible. As a result the US State Department has recruited the rapper "Ludacris" for its rival fundraising campaign. The intention is to give the entirely false impression that the State Department had no involvement in the ludicrous decision to involve Rihanna in the US fund for UNICEF campaign. The idea being that I would then start a campaign calling for the State Department to stop funding the US fund for UNICEF until the people who involved Rihanna are sacked from the organisation. The intention being to promote discussion about US funding for other UN bodies such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is a shame because with European and Gulf nations hijacking UNICEF to politicise the victims of the conflict in Syria I would have thought the US would want the biggest dog it's got in the UNICEF fight.
While I was 'discussing' all this with the State Department on Twitter they brought up a World Health Organisation (WHO) report on the impacts of violence on women globally. This was a reference to a shocking recent report in which the WHO claimed people in Greece were choosing to infect themselves with HIV in order to claim E700 per month in welfare benefits. In a near unprecedented move the WHO today retracted that claim because it turns out that while many people had heard the rumour there was no evidence that it was in any way true. Therefore I should explain to the US that this was the WHO openly mocking your claim that Rihanna must be kept away from me in case I infect her with the full blown AIDS, diabetes, long QT syndrome, hepatitis, liver failure, kidney disease etc that I'm absolutely riddled with.
So yes after complaints from multiple nations Boeing has finally accepted that it's 787 Dreamliner does indeed lose significant power at higher altitudes. After all it turns out the people who attend inter-governmental conference aren't the same teenage boys and girls who buy Rihanna and Chris Brown records.
21:05 on 26/11/13 (UK date).
So instead on Monday night (local) Rihanna attended and was seen to attend Drake's concert at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California. This was obviously intended to fuel speculation that Rihanna and Drake are now dating and promote discussion about whether this is a suitable strategy to contain the threat posed to society in general by Chris Brown.
Things got much worse on Tuesday though when it was announced that Rihanna would be the public face of the US fund for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) campaign to raise money for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. You may remember that Rihanna recently visited the Philippines on her Diamonds World Tour.
This concert was made extremely controversial because in preparation someone encouraged the Moro Nation Liberation Front (MNLF) to launch a full scale military assault on the city of Zamboanga on Mindanao island. This took the Filipino army about a month to repel and resulted in the deaths of 150+ people. To add insult to injury the US used this conflict as an excuse so Rihanna only really spent the duration of her concert in the city of Manila on Luzon island. As the entire South-East Asian region were supposed to be speculating about Rihanna's mood and general mental condition during this time this was a grievous insult to the Filipino government especially Rihanna apparently found time to make not one but two visits to Thailand where the Monarch is currently trying to overthrow the elected government.
This performance in the Philippines was so shockingly bad that some have suggested that it angered the earth's quantum field to the extent that it caused Typhoon Haiyan to tear through the parts of the Philippines between Luzon and Mondano islands in order to suggest that despite her ego Rihanna does not control the weather through her moods. It also provided the US with an opportunity to correct it's error of judgement by providing lots of emergency aid to the Filipino people.
As such you would think that Rihanna would be the absolute last person that the US fund for UNICEF would want fronting their Haiyan appeal. After all the general discomfort that Rihanna causes many in the US to feel is only likely to discourage donations. A much better idea would have been to create an umbrella campaign with various celebrities each tapping up their own fanbase for donations.
It is clear though that rather then helping the US' intention here is to disrupt the Haiyan relief effort as much as possible. As a result the US State Department has recruited the rapper "Ludacris" for its rival fundraising campaign. The intention is to give the entirely false impression that the State Department had no involvement in the ludicrous decision to involve Rihanna in the US fund for UNICEF campaign. The idea being that I would then start a campaign calling for the State Department to stop funding the US fund for UNICEF until the people who involved Rihanna are sacked from the organisation. The intention being to promote discussion about US funding for other UN bodies such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is a shame because with European and Gulf nations hijacking UNICEF to politicise the victims of the conflict in Syria I would have thought the US would want the biggest dog it's got in the UNICEF fight.
While I was 'discussing' all this with the State Department on Twitter they brought up a World Health Organisation (WHO) report on the impacts of violence on women globally. This was a reference to a shocking recent report in which the WHO claimed people in Greece were choosing to infect themselves with HIV in order to claim E700 per month in welfare benefits. In a near unprecedented move the WHO today retracted that claim because it turns out that while many people had heard the rumour there was no evidence that it was in any way true. Therefore I should explain to the US that this was the WHO openly mocking your claim that Rihanna must be kept away from me in case I infect her with the full blown AIDS, diabetes, long QT syndrome, hepatitis, liver failure, kidney disease etc that I'm absolutely riddled with.
So yes after complaints from multiple nations Boeing has finally accepted that it's 787 Dreamliner does indeed lose significant power at higher altitudes. After all it turns out the people who attend inter-governmental conference aren't the same teenage boys and girls who buy Rihanna and Chris Brown records.
21:05 on 26/11/13 (UK date).
Monday, 25 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 3, Day 7 - The AMA's
Yesterday Rihanna attended the American Music Awards (AMA's) at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California. This was supposed to be a celebration of American music over the past 12 months so obviously it wasn't entirely about Rihanna. However;
The show was opened by Katy Perry, Rihanna's sometimes friend and opponent of her relationship with Chris Brown. It was closed by Miley Cyrus who has been frequently compared to Rihanna over the past 12 months or so as both a rival and possible replacement. Somewhere in the middle Lady Gaga performed "Do What You Want (With my Body)" alongside R Kelly who was playing the role of a black President. This was a none too subtle reference to how US President Barack Obama has endorsed the horrors that have been inflicted on Rihanna over the past year in order to further his own political agenda. The show was hosted throughout by Cuban/American rapper Pitbull and featured Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez performing a tribute to Celia Cruz a Cuban singer who was dubbed "The Queen of Salsa." This was all to appeal to the Hispanic audience that is so central to the immigration reforms Obama is trying to use Rihanna to force through.
Despite my best advice Rihanna not only attended the award ceremony but sat in the audience throughout. I suppose we should be thankful for the small mercy that Rihanna was seated away from anyone controversial such as Miley Cyrus although she was just across the aisle from Katy Perry. I suspect that physical gap was supposed to represent the rift between the pair caused by Chris Brown. For the early part of the ceremony Rihanna wore a black custom Jean Paul Gaultier bra top and mini-skirt with lace trim that gave the impression of a much longer skirt. Throughout Rihanna's hair was worn short, slicked back and pinned down in a style known as a "Dominican Doobie Wrap." This was obviously better then the Whitney Houston/Winnie Mandela style Rihanna had been sporting over the last week but was a none to subtle reference to the immigration issue.
Despite being nominated for four awards Rihanna only succeeded in winning "Favourite R&B/Soul Female Artist." This was a surprise because I would have thought in order to get Rihanna to attend the AMA's the organisers would have had to at least guarantee that she would win everything she was nominated for. The reason why most people would have expected Rihanna to miss the AMA's is because the organisers were openly mocking her by presenting her with the special, and unique "Icon" award. This type of award for which there is only ever one nominee is normally reserved for people at the end of their lives and is sometimes dubbed the "Quick Give Them Something Before They Die" or "Epitaph" Award. Therefore by presenting Rihanna with the Icon Award the AMA organisers were trying to send the signal that Rihanna's time is up and her career is now over.
Prior to accepting the Icon Award Rihanna changed into a full length inky grey silk gown and performed "Diamonds" with a full orchestral accompaniment. "Diamonds" is of course the title track of Diamonds World Tour that was intended to destroy Rihanna's career and still might with Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) continuing to push for it to be extended with a South American leg. The act of Rihanna performing "Diamonds" at the AMA's was itself intended to be another nail in the coffin of Rihanna's career by reminding us of the really nasty element of the tour strategy that involved turning the mineral rich nations of central Africa into an even worse hell hole. Fortunately due to the raising of several quite large armies that element of the plan failed to materialise.
Rihanna was presented with the Icon Award by her mother Monica Braithwaite. This was obviously intended to raise all the issues about Rihanna's childhood such as her violent father and the impact on Rihanna's own relationships especially with Chris Brown. Those who have a greater depth of knowledge of the subject will also have picked up on the reference to the ongoing Berdon LLP case and the associated Inland Revenue Service (IRS) investigation into Rihanna. After all while I don't know the truth both Rihanna and her mother's apparent evasiveness in giving depositions of evidence has been used to imply that the pair are guilty of tax evasion and therefore the IRS audit is justified rather then merely a mechanism to allow the management to exert control over Rihanna through fear.
In her acceptance speech Rihanna talked about growing up in Barbados and her journey to America and fame and fortune. This obviously has quite a strong relevance to the immigration debate. However when you consider it alongside the IRS issue it seems to also touch on the issue of slavery and people trafficking. By talking about how at 15 years old she had to battle her mother in order to be allowed to audition for strange men in their hotel room wearing her school uniform Rihanna appeared to be arguing in favour of child prostitution. However on what was clearly a difficult evening I think we might let that one slide.
In case anyone failed to pick up on the fact the AMA's were marking the end of Rihanna's career - and hey Rihanna turned up - later in the show two of the original members of the band TLC performed "Waterfalls" with Lil' Mama assisting. The third original member of TLC - Lisa 'left eye' Lopez - was killed in a car crash in 2002 meaning that the band is now forever associated with death. Also before the start of the Diamonds World Tour I made reference to the song "Waterfalls" in order to highlight the espionage 'waterfall' technique that the management were intending to use to destroy Rihanna's career by turning her fans against her.
As for Miley Cyrus she closed the show by singing "Wrecking Ball" wearing basically panties and a sports bra in front of a computer animation of a giant pussy cat that was singing along with her. Even by my standards this was a really tasteless reference to the fact that since Miley Cyrus has started appear wearing not many clothes literally millions of people have started commenting on her 'Camel Toe.' A 'camel toe' is the outline of the outer lips of the vagina or 'pussy' as they press up against tight fabric. I believe there is now even a Twitter hashtag #MileysCamelToe.
So in closing the only good thing I can say about the AMA's is that now Chris Brown has been given Court mandated rehab Rihanna now has a little under three months to stop, breathe and consolidate her position in LA. Alternatively she could press ahead with the move to the east coast.. I of course though think that Rihanna should come to London, UK to see me for a bit. That's because part of the reason I'm so p*ssed off by all this is that it has always been so easy to avoid.
16:45 on 25/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:30 on 25/11/13 to add;
Writing the above was an experience akin to having your teeth pulled out. So for the sake of brevity I left out Katy Perry's performance because it struck me as obvious. However I've now decided that might have been remiss of me.
All the Japanese iconography was clearly a reference to Japan. However I think the main theme of Katy Perry's performance was that of the Geisha. Although there is slightly more to it then that Geisha's are essentially prostitutes so this brings up the prostitution element of the slavery/human trafficking debate which has been a central element of Rihanna's life recently especially in her relationship with Chris Brown. Also the issue of "comfort women" who were essentially Chinese women who were kidnapped to have sex with Japanese soldiers during the second world war is still a major source of tension between China and Japan. Therefore it seemed an appropriate way to start a ceremony that was intended to exert pressure on people in the eastern hemisphere who were getting up and starting their working week while all this was going on.
As for my performance apart from screwing up my sleep patterns the management were hoping that I'd be watching and giving a live Olympic ceremony style Twitter commentary in order to make sure all the issues were raised and discussed by the audience. In protest I decided to just muck about in the most confusing and offensive way I could manage in. So for example when I announced I was following Katy Perry on Twitter I was merely pointing that I was actually listening to Orpheous' "The Can-Can" at the time. When I asked Miley Cyrus if she'd had any large incursions recently I was trying to hint that I was listening to Massive Attack in the smuttiest way possible.
The show was opened by Katy Perry, Rihanna's sometimes friend and opponent of her relationship with Chris Brown. It was closed by Miley Cyrus who has been frequently compared to Rihanna over the past 12 months or so as both a rival and possible replacement. Somewhere in the middle Lady Gaga performed "Do What You Want (With my Body)" alongside R Kelly who was playing the role of a black President. This was a none too subtle reference to how US President Barack Obama has endorsed the horrors that have been inflicted on Rihanna over the past year in order to further his own political agenda. The show was hosted throughout by Cuban/American rapper Pitbull and featured Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez performing a tribute to Celia Cruz a Cuban singer who was dubbed "The Queen of Salsa." This was all to appeal to the Hispanic audience that is so central to the immigration reforms Obama is trying to use Rihanna to force through.
Despite my best advice Rihanna not only attended the award ceremony but sat in the audience throughout. I suppose we should be thankful for the small mercy that Rihanna was seated away from anyone controversial such as Miley Cyrus although she was just across the aisle from Katy Perry. I suspect that physical gap was supposed to represent the rift between the pair caused by Chris Brown. For the early part of the ceremony Rihanna wore a black custom Jean Paul Gaultier bra top and mini-skirt with lace trim that gave the impression of a much longer skirt. Throughout Rihanna's hair was worn short, slicked back and pinned down in a style known as a "Dominican Doobie Wrap." This was obviously better then the Whitney Houston/Winnie Mandela style Rihanna had been sporting over the last week but was a none to subtle reference to the immigration issue.
Despite being nominated for four awards Rihanna only succeeded in winning "Favourite R&B/Soul Female Artist." This was a surprise because I would have thought in order to get Rihanna to attend the AMA's the organisers would have had to at least guarantee that she would win everything she was nominated for. The reason why most people would have expected Rihanna to miss the AMA's is because the organisers were openly mocking her by presenting her with the special, and unique "Icon" award. This type of award for which there is only ever one nominee is normally reserved for people at the end of their lives and is sometimes dubbed the "Quick Give Them Something Before They Die" or "Epitaph" Award. Therefore by presenting Rihanna with the Icon Award the AMA organisers were trying to send the signal that Rihanna's time is up and her career is now over.
Prior to accepting the Icon Award Rihanna changed into a full length inky grey silk gown and performed "Diamonds" with a full orchestral accompaniment. "Diamonds" is of course the title track of Diamonds World Tour that was intended to destroy Rihanna's career and still might with Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) continuing to push for it to be extended with a South American leg. The act of Rihanna performing "Diamonds" at the AMA's was itself intended to be another nail in the coffin of Rihanna's career by reminding us of the really nasty element of the tour strategy that involved turning the mineral rich nations of central Africa into an even worse hell hole. Fortunately due to the raising of several quite large armies that element of the plan failed to materialise.
Rihanna was presented with the Icon Award by her mother Monica Braithwaite. This was obviously intended to raise all the issues about Rihanna's childhood such as her violent father and the impact on Rihanna's own relationships especially with Chris Brown. Those who have a greater depth of knowledge of the subject will also have picked up on the reference to the ongoing Berdon LLP case and the associated Inland Revenue Service (IRS) investigation into Rihanna. After all while I don't know the truth both Rihanna and her mother's apparent evasiveness in giving depositions of evidence has been used to imply that the pair are guilty of tax evasion and therefore the IRS audit is justified rather then merely a mechanism to allow the management to exert control over Rihanna through fear.
In her acceptance speech Rihanna talked about growing up in Barbados and her journey to America and fame and fortune. This obviously has quite a strong relevance to the immigration debate. However when you consider it alongside the IRS issue it seems to also touch on the issue of slavery and people trafficking. By talking about how at 15 years old she had to battle her mother in order to be allowed to audition for strange men in their hotel room wearing her school uniform Rihanna appeared to be arguing in favour of child prostitution. However on what was clearly a difficult evening I think we might let that one slide.
In case anyone failed to pick up on the fact the AMA's were marking the end of Rihanna's career - and hey Rihanna turned up - later in the show two of the original members of the band TLC performed "Waterfalls" with Lil' Mama assisting. The third original member of TLC - Lisa 'left eye' Lopez - was killed in a car crash in 2002 meaning that the band is now forever associated with death. Also before the start of the Diamonds World Tour I made reference to the song "Waterfalls" in order to highlight the espionage 'waterfall' technique that the management were intending to use to destroy Rihanna's career by turning her fans against her.
As for Miley Cyrus she closed the show by singing "Wrecking Ball" wearing basically panties and a sports bra in front of a computer animation of a giant pussy cat that was singing along with her. Even by my standards this was a really tasteless reference to the fact that since Miley Cyrus has started appear wearing not many clothes literally millions of people have started commenting on her 'Camel Toe.' A 'camel toe' is the outline of the outer lips of the vagina or 'pussy' as they press up against tight fabric. I believe there is now even a Twitter hashtag #MileysCamelToe.
So in closing the only good thing I can say about the AMA's is that now Chris Brown has been given Court mandated rehab Rihanna now has a little under three months to stop, breathe and consolidate her position in LA. Alternatively she could press ahead with the move to the east coast.. I of course though think that Rihanna should come to London, UK to see me for a bit. That's because part of the reason I'm so p*ssed off by all this is that it has always been so easy to avoid.
16:45 on 25/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:30 on 25/11/13 to add;
Writing the above was an experience akin to having your teeth pulled out. So for the sake of brevity I left out Katy Perry's performance because it struck me as obvious. However I've now decided that might have been remiss of me.
All the Japanese iconography was clearly a reference to Japan. However I think the main theme of Katy Perry's performance was that of the Geisha. Although there is slightly more to it then that Geisha's are essentially prostitutes so this brings up the prostitution element of the slavery/human trafficking debate which has been a central element of Rihanna's life recently especially in her relationship with Chris Brown. Also the issue of "comfort women" who were essentially Chinese women who were kidnapped to have sex with Japanese soldiers during the second world war is still a major source of tension between China and Japan. Therefore it seemed an appropriate way to start a ceremony that was intended to exert pressure on people in the eastern hemisphere who were getting up and starting their working week while all this was going on.
As for my performance apart from screwing up my sleep patterns the management were hoping that I'd be watching and giving a live Olympic ceremony style Twitter commentary in order to make sure all the issues were raised and discussed by the audience. In protest I decided to just muck about in the most confusing and offensive way I could manage in. So for example when I announced I was following Katy Perry on Twitter I was merely pointing that I was actually listening to Orpheous' "The Can-Can" at the time. When I asked Miley Cyrus if she'd had any large incursions recently I was trying to hint that I was listening to Massive Attack in the smuttiest way possible.
Sunday, 24 November 2013
Geneva Deal on Iran's Nuclear Program.
Despite the best advice of everyone around them Iran appears to have been dazzled by the bright lights of high-level talks and agreed a deal on its nuclear program after 5 days of talks in Geneva, Switzerland. Perhaps one of the things that fooled Iran into this agreement was the claim that it is only an interim deal time-limited to six months. However even a cursory glance of the details reveals that is simply not the case.
Put simply Iran has agreed to freeze all uranium enrichment activity and the operation of its plutonium plant at Arak. It has also agreed to begin destroying its existing uranium enrichment centrifuges and destroy it's stockpiles of more then 5% enriched uranium under international inspections regime.
In return for this commitment from Iran you would have expected major and significant concessions on the comprehensive global sanctions on Iran's oil and banking sectors that are costing Iran roughly USD4bn per month. These sanctions are basically the product of an Obama brain fart and have an extremely negative effect on the region and the global oil market including the largest oil consumer - the US. Unfortunately all Iran's negotiators have managed to secure is lifting of USD1.5bn in sanctions on oil and gold, the return of USD4.5bn of oil revenues that are being withheld from the Iranian government and USD400m in cash aid for Iranian students living abroad. These are all to be paid in a controlled fashion over the course of a year so can be halted in response to Iranian non-compliance. They are of course also significantly less then the USD48bn the sanctions will cost Iran in that time.
So basically Iran simply cannot deliver on what it has promised especially its commitment to destroy already enriched uranium and centrifuges. As a result when Iran comes to the next round of talks in six months they will have a big black mark against them at a time when they really should be challenging the current European Union (EU) led P5+1 model for talks. After all a P3+1 model with observer status granted to the EU would certainly help smooth discussions between the major players.
12:50 on 24/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:45 on 24/11/13 to add; With Iran dropping a turd of this size into the water it is obviously going to take a little while for the ripples to work their way though.
However the first attempt at a Geneva deal on the weekend on November 9th (9/11/13) was all US led. The intention was to get to Iran to agree to some technical sounding but not particularly meaningful commitments on its nuclear program and receive some small but impressive sounding financial concessions in return. This of course would lock Iran into the EU led P5+1 Framework. Mainly though it would disrupt the the COP19/CMP9 Summit by getting everyone to search for the secret details of the deal and make people demand to know why Iran was allowed a nuclear energy program and money while they were not. Fortunately Iran stood up to the pressure and no such deal was reached.
This latest round of Geneva talks was very much led by Catherine Ashton the British Baroness who also holds the office of the EU's Special Representative for External Affairs. The intention here was to appeal to European anti-American sentiments by being seen to retaliate against John Kerry's effective tricking of Foreign Ministers into attending the last round of talks. It was also meant to appeal to more right-wing elements within the EU by disrupting the COP19/CMP9. With the EU being one of the few to maintain its Kyoto emissions targets this has become a growing source of tension amongst EU member states. Mainly though the purpose of the talks was to give Iran's great regional rival Saudi Arabia access to the talks through the overlap with the COP19/CMP9.
The fact that Iran managed to not only lock themselves into the EU led P5+1 Framework but also agreed to an extremely bad deal was entirely their fault. After all anyone who has followed Iranian nuclear talks knows Iran's negotiators can be extremely hard work because they never seem to have an end game to their plans.
In fact the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's decision to attend this latest round of talks seemed to be an attempt to explain to the Iranians in person that they really needed to stop demanding ministerial level talks on an issue where discretion is the better part of valour. As for Kerry's decision to respond by also attending the talks I honestly don't think there was much of a thought process behind it. However coming on the back of a failed 9 month operation that was intended to put the US back at the centre of global politics the US seems desperate to take any intelligence it could get by increasing the disruption of the COP19/CMP9.
Put simply Iran has agreed to freeze all uranium enrichment activity and the operation of its plutonium plant at Arak. It has also agreed to begin destroying its existing uranium enrichment centrifuges and destroy it's stockpiles of more then 5% enriched uranium under international inspections regime.
In return for this commitment from Iran you would have expected major and significant concessions on the comprehensive global sanctions on Iran's oil and banking sectors that are costing Iran roughly USD4bn per month. These sanctions are basically the product of an Obama brain fart and have an extremely negative effect on the region and the global oil market including the largest oil consumer - the US. Unfortunately all Iran's negotiators have managed to secure is lifting of USD1.5bn in sanctions on oil and gold, the return of USD4.5bn of oil revenues that are being withheld from the Iranian government and USD400m in cash aid for Iranian students living abroad. These are all to be paid in a controlled fashion over the course of a year so can be halted in response to Iranian non-compliance. They are of course also significantly less then the USD48bn the sanctions will cost Iran in that time.
So basically Iran simply cannot deliver on what it has promised especially its commitment to destroy already enriched uranium and centrifuges. As a result when Iran comes to the next round of talks in six months they will have a big black mark against them at a time when they really should be challenging the current European Union (EU) led P5+1 model for talks. After all a P3+1 model with observer status granted to the EU would certainly help smooth discussions between the major players.
12:50 on 24/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:45 on 24/11/13 to add; With Iran dropping a turd of this size into the water it is obviously going to take a little while for the ripples to work their way though.
However the first attempt at a Geneva deal on the weekend on November 9th (9/11/13) was all US led. The intention was to get to Iran to agree to some technical sounding but not particularly meaningful commitments on its nuclear program and receive some small but impressive sounding financial concessions in return. This of course would lock Iran into the EU led P5+1 Framework. Mainly though it would disrupt the the COP19/CMP9 Summit by getting everyone to search for the secret details of the deal and make people demand to know why Iran was allowed a nuclear energy program and money while they were not. Fortunately Iran stood up to the pressure and no such deal was reached.
This latest round of Geneva talks was very much led by Catherine Ashton the British Baroness who also holds the office of the EU's Special Representative for External Affairs. The intention here was to appeal to European anti-American sentiments by being seen to retaliate against John Kerry's effective tricking of Foreign Ministers into attending the last round of talks. It was also meant to appeal to more right-wing elements within the EU by disrupting the COP19/CMP9. With the EU being one of the few to maintain its Kyoto emissions targets this has become a growing source of tension amongst EU member states. Mainly though the purpose of the talks was to give Iran's great regional rival Saudi Arabia access to the talks through the overlap with the COP19/CMP9.
The fact that Iran managed to not only lock themselves into the EU led P5+1 Framework but also agreed to an extremely bad deal was entirely their fault. After all anyone who has followed Iranian nuclear talks knows Iran's negotiators can be extremely hard work because they never seem to have an end game to their plans.
In fact the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's decision to attend this latest round of talks seemed to be an attempt to explain to the Iranians in person that they really needed to stop demanding ministerial level talks on an issue where discretion is the better part of valour. As for Kerry's decision to respond by also attending the talks I honestly don't think there was much of a thought process behind it. However coming on the back of a failed 9 month operation that was intended to put the US back at the centre of global politics the US seems desperate to take any intelligence it could get by increasing the disruption of the COP19/CMP9.
Friday, 22 November 2013
The #JFK Assassination.
With obvious apologises to Poland because hosting a COP/CMP Summit is a feat that makes herding cats look easy I promised myself that I wouldn't make a post marking the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. However with current US President Barack Obama's CNN approval ratings dropping to an all time low of 41% I feel this represents a teachable moment for a certain someone.
So allow me to clear my throat, straighten my back and say;
"Would you look at that. By convincing him there will be disastrous consequences if he acts they've managed to get him to defeat himself!!!"
21:10 on 22/11/13.
So allow me to clear my throat, straighten my back and say;
"Would you look at that. By convincing him there will be disastrous consequences if he acts they've managed to get him to defeat himself!!!"
21:10 on 22/11/13.
The Porch Saga.
I suppose I should tell this story now because it has some vague connection with technical solutions reducing ghg intensity through architecture/urban design.
For as long as I can remember my house has had a vestibule porch separating the front door everyone sees from the street from the actual front door of the building. This porch is built of brick, timber and single pane glass. Over the years the weather has got into the timber wearing it out so my father decided to replace the timber with a - I believe UPVC- frame and the glass with double glazing units. This new design should reduce the heat loss thus reducing the amount of natural gas needed to heat the property.
Rather then being done as a properly planned and costed construction project this is being done through friends. As a result a few months ago it was all measured up and the design sent off to a manufacturer for construction. All the pieces were delivered on Wednesday (20/11/13) so I should have been spending today helping to assemble it all which isn't actually as painful as it sounds. Unfortunately the manufacturer screwed up the design with the door opening to the wrong side of the frame. As a result we are now entering into a lengthy negotiation about who should pay to replace the defective double glazing units/frame. I obviously vote the manufacturer but failing that the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). After all this wouldn't be the first double glazing unit they've unexpectedly had to pay to replace recently.
As a result of all this I'm still trying to catch up with what has happened in the world since I went to bed. However it's clear that one of the big stories has been the collapse of a supermarket in Riga, Latvia that has killed at least 33 people. This actually helps to highlight the way in which the green development strategies being developed at the COP19/CMP9 can have wider social benefits. For example bringing in international verfied environmental construction rules will help strengthen over all construction rules in developing nations helping prevent this sort of tragedy.
Latvia is of course one of those nations that is getting squeezed between an expanding European Union (EU) and Russia in a situation that is being massively complicated by the Syria conflict. For example in response to Russia's anti-promotion of homosexuality laws the UK's gay community banned Stolichnaya vodka from all its outlets. Stolichnaya vodka of course comes from Riga in Latvia.
So in summary the COP19/CMP9 summit was never going to end with the signing of some great international agreement. As it enters into its final hours we are still holding out hope that it will result in some very small and technical improvements along with a consensus that the SBI and the SBSTA should at least be allowed to grow their budgets in line with their increased work load.
12:55 on 22/11/13 (UK date).
For as long as I can remember my house has had a vestibule porch separating the front door everyone sees from the street from the actual front door of the building. This porch is built of brick, timber and single pane glass. Over the years the weather has got into the timber wearing it out so my father decided to replace the timber with a - I believe UPVC- frame and the glass with double glazing units. This new design should reduce the heat loss thus reducing the amount of natural gas needed to heat the property.
Rather then being done as a properly planned and costed construction project this is being done through friends. As a result a few months ago it was all measured up and the design sent off to a manufacturer for construction. All the pieces were delivered on Wednesday (20/11/13) so I should have been spending today helping to assemble it all which isn't actually as painful as it sounds. Unfortunately the manufacturer screwed up the design with the door opening to the wrong side of the frame. As a result we are now entering into a lengthy negotiation about who should pay to replace the defective double glazing units/frame. I obviously vote the manufacturer but failing that the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). After all this wouldn't be the first double glazing unit they've unexpectedly had to pay to replace recently.
As a result of all this I'm still trying to catch up with what has happened in the world since I went to bed. However it's clear that one of the big stories has been the collapse of a supermarket in Riga, Latvia that has killed at least 33 people. This actually helps to highlight the way in which the green development strategies being developed at the COP19/CMP9 can have wider social benefits. For example bringing in international verfied environmental construction rules will help strengthen over all construction rules in developing nations helping prevent this sort of tragedy.
Latvia is of course one of those nations that is getting squeezed between an expanding European Union (EU) and Russia in a situation that is being massively complicated by the Syria conflict. For example in response to Russia's anti-promotion of homosexuality laws the UK's gay community banned Stolichnaya vodka from all its outlets. Stolichnaya vodka of course comes from Riga in Latvia.
So in summary the COP19/CMP9 summit was never going to end with the signing of some great international agreement. As it enters into its final hours we are still holding out hope that it will result in some very small and technical improvements along with a consensus that the SBI and the SBSTA should at least be allowed to grow their budgets in line with their increased work load.
12:55 on 22/11/13 (UK date).
Thursday, 21 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 3, Day 3.
Rihanna is indeed in Detroit, Michigan filming the video for "The Monster" alongside Eminem. Although we only know of this through a single picture posted on Eminem's Instagram/Twitter I suspect the story of the song since its release means that this was an awkward first meeting for all involved. Also I think that neither party is particularly happy to hear from me at the moment. I think that's a shame because I've always had tremendous respect for Eminem. In fact it's almost like we're family. Unfortunately though that is the Munchhausen's family so you know things can get a little rough.
The other big development of yesterday (20/11/13) is that Chris Brown did make his first Court appearance since his recent arrest as scheduled. The first revelation of this hearing is that Brown was actually kicked out of the rehab facility he had checked himself into after smashing up his mother's car during a violent outburst on November 10th (10/11/13). The second big revelation is that the Judge did not once again fail to take any action and instead ordered Chris Brown to spend a further 90 days in a Court mandated rehab facility. Brown is set to return to Court on December 16th (16/11/13) where the issue of his arrest in Washington D.C will be addressed.
The purpose of sending Chris Brown for a mandatory 90 day stay in rehab was of course supposed to be interpreted as a sign that the US is now getting tough with him and are starting to reconsider the plan to reunite Chris Brown in Rihanna. In reality though this has completely the opposite effect of just extending the operation. That's because unless the Court takes the further action of instating a 10 year restraining order keeping Brown away from Rihanna in 90 days he will simply be back on the streets with a big sympathy vote and doctors reports to back up his claim that he's changed. Over the course of those 90 days I do not see any possibility of Rihanna's current path changing meaning that the restraining order is the minimum action available to the Court.
In further efforts to convince us that the US was starting to reconsider the plan to reunite Chris Brown and Rihanna and add more complexity to the situation Chris Brown's Court ruling was accompanied by a shooting at an apartment complex in Houston, Texas that left three dead and two wounded. The intention here was to give the impression that the faction of the US Establishment that was opposed to the resumption of Rihanna's relationship with Chris Brown had scored a victory over the faction that supports it - the so-called 'Whitney Houston faction.' This is of course a nonsense because while there may well be factions the faction opposed to the Brown/Rihanna reunion is so ineffective it may as well not exist.
There was also a strange incident in which a Boeing 747 cargo carrying replacement parts for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner landed at an airport in Wichita, Kansas which is far too small to handle to handle an aircraft of that size. So there is now an excited wait to see if the plane will ever get off the ground again and if the 'Dreamliner' will ever get the replacement parts it need. The 'Dreamliner' has long been used as a code for the Brown/Rihanna relationship so this is intended to create speculation that the US may be reconsidering the plan.
On a completely unrelated note but also happening yesterday police in France managed to apprehend their suspect in the recent Paris shootings. Named as Abdelhakim Dekhar the suspect is a general reference to any number of Islamist militants operating in Libya, Algeria, Mali, Nigeria etc. This is of course the region that hosted the famous Paris to Dakar Rally until it had to be relocated to South America due to terrorism. The issue of whether DNA samples recovered match the suspect is a specific reference to Mokhtar Belmokhtar who masterminded the raid on the In Amenas gas facility. At the time he was said to be killed but now people are talking about him still being alive. Ideally we'd like DNA confirmation. The fact that Dekhar had been involved in a previous high profile shooting incident is a reference to the George Zimmerman case in the US.
I should finish by saying to the French's credit they really did tone this story right down the moment they were challenged on it. That is certainly a lot more then can be said for certain other people.
13:05 on 21/11/13 (UK date).
The other big development of yesterday (20/11/13) is that Chris Brown did make his first Court appearance since his recent arrest as scheduled. The first revelation of this hearing is that Brown was actually kicked out of the rehab facility he had checked himself into after smashing up his mother's car during a violent outburst on November 10th (10/11/13). The second big revelation is that the Judge did not once again fail to take any action and instead ordered Chris Brown to spend a further 90 days in a Court mandated rehab facility. Brown is set to return to Court on December 16th (16/11/13) where the issue of his arrest in Washington D.C will be addressed.
The purpose of sending Chris Brown for a mandatory 90 day stay in rehab was of course supposed to be interpreted as a sign that the US is now getting tough with him and are starting to reconsider the plan to reunite Chris Brown in Rihanna. In reality though this has completely the opposite effect of just extending the operation. That's because unless the Court takes the further action of instating a 10 year restraining order keeping Brown away from Rihanna in 90 days he will simply be back on the streets with a big sympathy vote and doctors reports to back up his claim that he's changed. Over the course of those 90 days I do not see any possibility of Rihanna's current path changing meaning that the restraining order is the minimum action available to the Court.
In further efforts to convince us that the US was starting to reconsider the plan to reunite Chris Brown and Rihanna and add more complexity to the situation Chris Brown's Court ruling was accompanied by a shooting at an apartment complex in Houston, Texas that left three dead and two wounded. The intention here was to give the impression that the faction of the US Establishment that was opposed to the resumption of Rihanna's relationship with Chris Brown had scored a victory over the faction that supports it - the so-called 'Whitney Houston faction.' This is of course a nonsense because while there may well be factions the faction opposed to the Brown/Rihanna reunion is so ineffective it may as well not exist.
There was also a strange incident in which a Boeing 747 cargo carrying replacement parts for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner landed at an airport in Wichita, Kansas which is far too small to handle to handle an aircraft of that size. So there is now an excited wait to see if the plane will ever get off the ground again and if the 'Dreamliner' will ever get the replacement parts it need. The 'Dreamliner' has long been used as a code for the Brown/Rihanna relationship so this is intended to create speculation that the US may be reconsidering the plan.
On a completely unrelated note but also happening yesterday police in France managed to apprehend their suspect in the recent Paris shootings. Named as Abdelhakim Dekhar the suspect is a general reference to any number of Islamist militants operating in Libya, Algeria, Mali, Nigeria etc. This is of course the region that hosted the famous Paris to Dakar Rally until it had to be relocated to South America due to terrorism. The issue of whether DNA samples recovered match the suspect is a specific reference to Mokhtar Belmokhtar who masterminded the raid on the In Amenas gas facility. At the time he was said to be killed but now people are talking about him still being alive. Ideally we'd like DNA confirmation. The fact that Dekhar had been involved in a previous high profile shooting incident is a reference to the George Zimmerman case in the US.
I should finish by saying to the French's credit they really did tone this story right down the moment they were challenged on it. That is certainly a lot more then can be said for certain other people.
13:05 on 21/11/13 (UK date).
Wednesday, 20 November 2013
COP19/CMP9: Wednesday 20/11/13.
Yesterday (19/11/13) I commented on Twitter that the daily overview schedule for this year's summit is not the most useful document of this type I have ever come across. To some extent this seems to have triggered off that long running argument about public access that is always in the background. After all there are parties who are infuriated that this type of summit is even going on let alone that people like me are allowed to learn about and even get involved in it.
Therefore I feel I should start by pointing out that this year I've experienced very little problem getting hold of relevant documents. What I have experienced though is a great deal of trouble in finding the time to read and comprehend all these documents. After all you need to do a lot of background reading to even understand what the texts being circulated daily mean. For example today in between putting together the not strictly speaking necessary Rihanna post, the Greenpeace post and some really dull but time consuming domestic chores I've only been able to read the intial overview document on the Durban Platform for Adaptation (ADP). In fact if I'm being honest by the time I'd got on to the bit about transparency it had stopped going into my brain so I sort of gave up.
However tomorrow sees the final working day on the ADP before the results can be presented on Friday's (22/11/13) final day. Therefore I feel I should make some comment about it now. I should stress though that because I've not in any meaningful way followed the progress of the ADP since the opening of the summit this is really just my own ideas rather then a response to anything that has been said.
The main problem that strikes me is that it seems to be following the framework of the Kyoto Protocol which to be blunt did not work. Basically this sees nations divided into either rich nations or poor nations. The rich nations are expected to cap their greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions whilst providing money to the poor nations who allowed to continue growing their emissions while spending the money on development projects. This notion is based on the somewhat valid idea that the rich nations became rich nations by emitting ghg's that are now threatening the poor nations - a sort of historical debt. The problem is that the rich nations simply will not agree to this approach and the poor nations are in no position to force them to.
So although you only need to read the past nine months of this blog to see how the rich nations have been trying to collapse this summit the poor nations insistence that the rich nations must pay to settle this historical debt is also becoming a major barrier to progress. From the glimpses I've seen China appear to be leading this effort most probably in an attempt to avoid being reclassified as a rich nation. This is not only bad news for the entire planet but also could end up hampering poor nations development.
Take for example the area of mitigation. Here rich nations are expected to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMC's) which are simply self-decided reductions in ghg gas emissions. Certain nations *coughs* the US *coughs* are simply not going to set these targets or set them so low as to be meaningless. On the other hand poor nations are expected to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA's). These are much more complicated and require the poor nations to explain to the rich nations exactly how they intend to economically develop themselves whilst reducing the ghg intensity of their economies. Given the way that certain rich nations have been behaving recently I and quite a few poor nations are more then a little worried that the rich nations won't be using this information to help the poor nations.
Therefore I think a better approach would be for all nations to submit NAMA's. That way the rich nations demands for information from the poor nations would be tempered by the amount of information they're prepared to give out about themselves creating a balance that helps build trust. It would also give a more accurate picture of global ghg intensity providing a more accurate starting point from which to negotiate reductions. It would also give rich nations incentive to undertake joined up green development strategies rather then simply chasing targets. Target chasing is of course how the UK responded to Kyoto and ended up getting themselves into quite a serious mess as a result.
Similarly in adaptation the rich nations seem to be expected to provide the latest technological developments to the poor nations either for free or at a heavy subsidy. In return the poor nations are expected to produce National Action Plan's (NAP's) explaining to the rich nations exactly how they plan to adapt to environmental hazards. Again I think it would be better for all nations to submit NAP's. That not only reduces the alarmingly imbalanced flow of information from poor nations to rich nations it also allows the poor nations the advantage of seeing what the rich nations are actually doing rather then what they just recommend to poor nations. The dumping of genetically modified crops on the developing world is a particular example of this.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was actually conceived specifically to allow the transfer of green technology without creating the culture of dependency between rich and poor nations. That's because there are actually many private companies who have developed green technologies off their own backs and now need to sell them to people in order to cover their costs. The only problem is the difference between the price the seller has to charge and the buyer can afford to pay. This can be solved with a variety of financial instruments such as loan guarantees that don't involve rich nations having to give poor nations cash.
On that last point I should mention that rather randomly today I've mostly been watching contributions from Bolivia who seem to have taken over the role of global village idiot from Venezuela. On both occasions I have seen a Bolivian delegate speak they have first raged against the rich nations for not giving them any money before loudly rejecting any market based system that would give them some money. That is not the path to a productive outcome.
23:15 on 20/11/13 (UK date).
Therefore I feel I should start by pointing out that this year I've experienced very little problem getting hold of relevant documents. What I have experienced though is a great deal of trouble in finding the time to read and comprehend all these documents. After all you need to do a lot of background reading to even understand what the texts being circulated daily mean. For example today in between putting together the not strictly speaking necessary Rihanna post, the Greenpeace post and some really dull but time consuming domestic chores I've only been able to read the intial overview document on the Durban Platform for Adaptation (ADP). In fact if I'm being honest by the time I'd got on to the bit about transparency it had stopped going into my brain so I sort of gave up.
However tomorrow sees the final working day on the ADP before the results can be presented on Friday's (22/11/13) final day. Therefore I feel I should make some comment about it now. I should stress though that because I've not in any meaningful way followed the progress of the ADP since the opening of the summit this is really just my own ideas rather then a response to anything that has been said.
The main problem that strikes me is that it seems to be following the framework of the Kyoto Protocol which to be blunt did not work. Basically this sees nations divided into either rich nations or poor nations. The rich nations are expected to cap their greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions whilst providing money to the poor nations who allowed to continue growing their emissions while spending the money on development projects. This notion is based on the somewhat valid idea that the rich nations became rich nations by emitting ghg's that are now threatening the poor nations - a sort of historical debt. The problem is that the rich nations simply will not agree to this approach and the poor nations are in no position to force them to.
So although you only need to read the past nine months of this blog to see how the rich nations have been trying to collapse this summit the poor nations insistence that the rich nations must pay to settle this historical debt is also becoming a major barrier to progress. From the glimpses I've seen China appear to be leading this effort most probably in an attempt to avoid being reclassified as a rich nation. This is not only bad news for the entire planet but also could end up hampering poor nations development.
Take for example the area of mitigation. Here rich nations are expected to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMC's) which are simply self-decided reductions in ghg gas emissions. Certain nations *coughs* the US *coughs* are simply not going to set these targets or set them so low as to be meaningless. On the other hand poor nations are expected to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA's). These are much more complicated and require the poor nations to explain to the rich nations exactly how they intend to economically develop themselves whilst reducing the ghg intensity of their economies. Given the way that certain rich nations have been behaving recently I and quite a few poor nations are more then a little worried that the rich nations won't be using this information to help the poor nations.
Therefore I think a better approach would be for all nations to submit NAMA's. That way the rich nations demands for information from the poor nations would be tempered by the amount of information they're prepared to give out about themselves creating a balance that helps build trust. It would also give a more accurate picture of global ghg intensity providing a more accurate starting point from which to negotiate reductions. It would also give rich nations incentive to undertake joined up green development strategies rather then simply chasing targets. Target chasing is of course how the UK responded to Kyoto and ended up getting themselves into quite a serious mess as a result.
Similarly in adaptation the rich nations seem to be expected to provide the latest technological developments to the poor nations either for free or at a heavy subsidy. In return the poor nations are expected to produce National Action Plan's (NAP's) explaining to the rich nations exactly how they plan to adapt to environmental hazards. Again I think it would be better for all nations to submit NAP's. That not only reduces the alarmingly imbalanced flow of information from poor nations to rich nations it also allows the poor nations the advantage of seeing what the rich nations are actually doing rather then what they just recommend to poor nations. The dumping of genetically modified crops on the developing world is a particular example of this.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was actually conceived specifically to allow the transfer of green technology without creating the culture of dependency between rich and poor nations. That's because there are actually many private companies who have developed green technologies off their own backs and now need to sell them to people in order to cover their costs. The only problem is the difference between the price the seller has to charge and the buyer can afford to pay. This can be solved with a variety of financial instruments such as loan guarantees that don't involve rich nations having to give poor nations cash.
On that last point I should mention that rather randomly today I've mostly been watching contributions from Bolivia who seem to have taken over the role of global village idiot from Venezuela. On both occasions I have seen a Bolivian delegate speak they have first raged against the rich nations for not giving them any money before loudly rejecting any market based system that would give them some money. That is not the path to a productive outcome.
23:15 on 20/11/13 (UK date).
Greenpeace's #Arctic30 Bail Hearings.
Throughout this week Russia has been holding bail hearings for 30 Greenpeace activists from 18 nations who were arrested aboard the Arctic Sunrise ship on September 19th 2013 (2013) and initially charged with piracy. Those charges were then lowered to hooliganism and so far 18 have been bailed, 1 has been remanded in custody, 5 will have their cases heard later in the week and I don't think even Greenpeace know what is going on with the other 6.
Coming during the high level segment of the COP19/CMP9 these sudden grants of bail are supposed to signal that Russia is taking a softer position on measures to tackle climate change. After all the point Greenpeace was trying to make is that Russia has long accepted that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming and that warming is causing Arctic sea ice to melt. However rather then taking action to prevent this Russia seems to have actually been trying to speed it up in order to take advantage of the melting ice opening up new shipping lanes and making Arctic oil easier to access. So by being gentle on the Greenpeace activists Russia is trying to send the message that it may be reconsidering that position.
Obviously this message has been tempered somewhat by the sheer confusion the bail hearings have caused. For example no-one is quite sure if the activists have been granted conditional bail or unconditional bail or whether they will be allowed Russia before their trial. Also there is the question of whether Russia is trying to hold onto the one activist whose been denied bail and those who were given the option to apply for bail in order to punish or maintain channels of communication with certain nations.
I am prepared to make allowances for Russia on this because since the start of the Saudi and Qatari invasion of Syria Russia has come under relentless pressure from all quarters. For example this protest by a Greenpeace ship with a majority UK Commonwealth crew does not strike me as the groups wisest move. As a result Russia is now on its version of a global charm offensive in order to repair its reputation. The most worrying element of this have been the increasing overtures Russia has been making towards Egypt. On one level this is just Russia tying to make friends while the US seems hellbent on destroying its reputation in the region. However it also seems intended to send the message to the Saudis and the Qataris that if Russia can find a replacement Mediterranean sea port it will be happy to press ahead with this chemical weapons destruction scheme giving the Saudis and Qataris exactly what they want.
On a barely related topic that I'm including here because it's hardly worth a full post the UK's efforts to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 has obviously been my case and its aftermath. I've decided not to aid them by commenting on this anymore then I have to. However one international element has been the case of chronically obese Frenchman Kevin Chenais. Chenais was due to fly back from the US to France last month but UK airline British Airways refused to transport him because he was too fat. After lengthy discussions he was flown to the UK last week by another UK airline Virgin Atlantic. Today he tried to return to France via the Eurostar but was told he was too fat to fit in the Channel Tunnel. Finally the UK owned ferry company P&O agreed to sail him back to France and Eurostar provided an ambulance to take him to the port. This is all the UK trying to assess how people feel about lifted the long standing travel restrictions on me. That's because the UK is now very keen for me to able to fly off and meet off with Rihanna. It's almost as if certain people have failed to generate the intelligence product they were supposed to.
In slightly better and actual COP19/CMP9 news Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) have together pledged USD280million for a new scheme they are calling the BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) which will contribute to the REDD+. Although no-one's in a position to complain about any money that's being pledged at the pointI hope this will be a stop-gap measure while the Green Climate Fund (GCF) gets up and running rather then a rival to it.
18:00 on 20/11/13 (UK date).
Coming during the high level segment of the COP19/CMP9 these sudden grants of bail are supposed to signal that Russia is taking a softer position on measures to tackle climate change. After all the point Greenpeace was trying to make is that Russia has long accepted that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming and that warming is causing Arctic sea ice to melt. However rather then taking action to prevent this Russia seems to have actually been trying to speed it up in order to take advantage of the melting ice opening up new shipping lanes and making Arctic oil easier to access. So by being gentle on the Greenpeace activists Russia is trying to send the message that it may be reconsidering that position.
Obviously this message has been tempered somewhat by the sheer confusion the bail hearings have caused. For example no-one is quite sure if the activists have been granted conditional bail or unconditional bail or whether they will be allowed Russia before their trial. Also there is the question of whether Russia is trying to hold onto the one activist whose been denied bail and those who were given the option to apply for bail in order to punish or maintain channels of communication with certain nations.
I am prepared to make allowances for Russia on this because since the start of the Saudi and Qatari invasion of Syria Russia has come under relentless pressure from all quarters. For example this protest by a Greenpeace ship with a majority UK Commonwealth crew does not strike me as the groups wisest move. As a result Russia is now on its version of a global charm offensive in order to repair its reputation. The most worrying element of this have been the increasing overtures Russia has been making towards Egypt. On one level this is just Russia tying to make friends while the US seems hellbent on destroying its reputation in the region. However it also seems intended to send the message to the Saudis and the Qataris that if Russia can find a replacement Mediterranean sea port it will be happy to press ahead with this chemical weapons destruction scheme giving the Saudis and Qataris exactly what they want.
On a barely related topic that I'm including here because it's hardly worth a full post the UK's efforts to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 has obviously been my case and its aftermath. I've decided not to aid them by commenting on this anymore then I have to. However one international element has been the case of chronically obese Frenchman Kevin Chenais. Chenais was due to fly back from the US to France last month but UK airline British Airways refused to transport him because he was too fat. After lengthy discussions he was flown to the UK last week by another UK airline Virgin Atlantic. Today he tried to return to France via the Eurostar but was told he was too fat to fit in the Channel Tunnel. Finally the UK owned ferry company P&O agreed to sail him back to France and Eurostar provided an ambulance to take him to the port. This is all the UK trying to assess how people feel about lifted the long standing travel restrictions on me. That's because the UK is now very keen for me to able to fly off and meet off with Rihanna. It's almost as if certain people have failed to generate the intelligence product they were supposed to.
In slightly better and actual COP19/CMP9 news Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) have together pledged USD280million for a new scheme they are calling the BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) which will contribute to the REDD+. Although no-one's in a position to complain about any money that's being pledged at the pointI hope this will be a stop-gap measure while the Green Climate Fund (GCF) gets up and running rather then a rival to it.
18:00 on 20/11/13 (UK date).
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 3, Day 2.
Just as I was going to bed on Monday (18/11/13) night paparazzi pictures of Rihanna out and about in New York City started to emerged. Apart from the new black bob Rihanna was wearing 1970's style black leather flared trousers, a black leather 1970's style trenchcoat and let's just say a black fabric T-shirt.
Some people have suggested that this made her look like Whitney Houston. Although Whitney Houston did wear a similar style trenchcoat and hairstyle in the video for one of her later singles I think the outfit was mainly a reference to the uniform of the US Black Panther movement of the 1960's and 1970's. Their agenda of black empowerment obviously had huge resonance in the South African anti-apartheid movement which under the leadership of Winnie Mandela at the time was not quite as warm and cuddly as everybody likes to remember. As a result the black leather trenchcoat sort of became a symbol of resistance across the western world during what was really the golden age of international terrorism.
There is also a widely held conspiracy theory that the CIA flooded the US' black, urban population with cocaine and heroin in order to destroy the Black Panther movement. Whitney Houston of course died after decades of cocaine abuse and as I've been saying for a long time Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) have been trying to get Rihanna hooked on cocaine in order to make sure she meets the same fate as Whitney Houston. So while I can't help but be a little impressed by Rihanna's choice of outfit it hardly fits with my recommendation that she keeps a low profile politically.
While she was out and about in New York Rihanna made a point of making sure that paparazzi saw her visiting a tattoo parlour where she picked up some miscellaneous bits and pieces. The main purpose of the visit though was to draw attention to the fact that Rihanna has started having the early work done on her left hand for a tattoo similar to the cover up job she recently had done on her right hand. The hope seems to be that if the tattoos match it will make the right-handed tattoo look less ugly. I obviously think that it will just make it doubly ugly. Therefore Rihanna getting yet another tattoo could be interpreted as an act of defiance of me and my views.
On Tuesday (19/11/13) there was further defiance with Melissa Forde posting on Instagram/Twitter a picture of her sitting with her feet up on a private jet eating popcorn. Obviously with no indication of where she was headed or why a picture that simply indicates Rihanna's core social group are on a plane causes more problems then it solves. I like to think that the popcorn was intended to indicate that Forde was going to enjoy sitting back and watching what management had assured her would be a very stressful evening for me. I of course responded by mocking her homosexuality.
A few hours later Rihanna posted a picture on Instagram only of her herself together with Forde in what could be a hotel room or could be a private jet. The picture claimed that the pair were in Detroit and the flight times would broadly support that. The fact that Rihanna didn't re-post that image on Twitter so I could see it immediately along with her failure to offer any evidence to support the claim that she was in Detroit could well be interpreted as further acts of defiance against me.
We are of course still awaiting confirmation that Rihanna is indeed in Detroit along with the bullsh*t excuse as to why she is in Detroit. However the intention is to create speculation that Rihanna is in Eminem's home town to work on the video for the song "The Monster." The issue of whether the management have given Rihanna permission to work with one of the Eminem's is of course a conversational mine field. There is also hope that Rihanna's presence in Detroit will be viewed as having some connection to the race issues brought up in the ongoing Theodore Wafer/Renisha McBride case which is of course being further complicated by the subsequent arrest of George Zimmerman.
Obviously I didn't find out about Rihanna's Instagram picture until about four hours after it had happened. As a result I though it might have had some bearing on my decision to ignore Tweets from both Cara Delevinge and Chris Brown. As it turns it didn't and that's just sort of what my brain does when I really should have gone to bed 20 minutes earlier.
12:00 on 20/11/13 (UK date).
Some people have suggested that this made her look like Whitney Houston. Although Whitney Houston did wear a similar style trenchcoat and hairstyle in the video for one of her later singles I think the outfit was mainly a reference to the uniform of the US Black Panther movement of the 1960's and 1970's. Their agenda of black empowerment obviously had huge resonance in the South African anti-apartheid movement which under the leadership of Winnie Mandela at the time was not quite as warm and cuddly as everybody likes to remember. As a result the black leather trenchcoat sort of became a symbol of resistance across the western world during what was really the golden age of international terrorism.
There is also a widely held conspiracy theory that the CIA flooded the US' black, urban population with cocaine and heroin in order to destroy the Black Panther movement. Whitney Houston of course died after decades of cocaine abuse and as I've been saying for a long time Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) have been trying to get Rihanna hooked on cocaine in order to make sure she meets the same fate as Whitney Houston. So while I can't help but be a little impressed by Rihanna's choice of outfit it hardly fits with my recommendation that she keeps a low profile politically.
While she was out and about in New York Rihanna made a point of making sure that paparazzi saw her visiting a tattoo parlour where she picked up some miscellaneous bits and pieces. The main purpose of the visit though was to draw attention to the fact that Rihanna has started having the early work done on her left hand for a tattoo similar to the cover up job she recently had done on her right hand. The hope seems to be that if the tattoos match it will make the right-handed tattoo look less ugly. I obviously think that it will just make it doubly ugly. Therefore Rihanna getting yet another tattoo could be interpreted as an act of defiance of me and my views.
On Tuesday (19/11/13) there was further defiance with Melissa Forde posting on Instagram/Twitter a picture of her sitting with her feet up on a private jet eating popcorn. Obviously with no indication of where she was headed or why a picture that simply indicates Rihanna's core social group are on a plane causes more problems then it solves. I like to think that the popcorn was intended to indicate that Forde was going to enjoy sitting back and watching what management had assured her would be a very stressful evening for me. I of course responded by mocking her homosexuality.
A few hours later Rihanna posted a picture on Instagram only of her herself together with Forde in what could be a hotel room or could be a private jet. The picture claimed that the pair were in Detroit and the flight times would broadly support that. The fact that Rihanna didn't re-post that image on Twitter so I could see it immediately along with her failure to offer any evidence to support the claim that she was in Detroit could well be interpreted as further acts of defiance against me.
We are of course still awaiting confirmation that Rihanna is indeed in Detroit along with the bullsh*t excuse as to why she is in Detroit. However the intention is to create speculation that Rihanna is in Eminem's home town to work on the video for the song "The Monster." The issue of whether the management have given Rihanna permission to work with one of the Eminem's is of course a conversational mine field. There is also hope that Rihanna's presence in Detroit will be viewed as having some connection to the race issues brought up in the ongoing Theodore Wafer/Renisha McBride case which is of course being further complicated by the subsequent arrest of George Zimmerman.
Obviously I didn't find out about Rihanna's Instagram picture until about four hours after it had happened. As a result I though it might have had some bearing on my decision to ignore Tweets from both Cara Delevinge and Chris Brown. As it turns it didn't and that's just sort of what my brain does when I really should have gone to bed 20 minutes earlier.
12:00 on 20/11/13 (UK date).
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
COP19/CMP9: I'm Going to be Using This Title Again.
It turns out that six hours reading is not enough to get anywhere near up to speed on this. However with the high level segment beginning today I should point out that apart from attempts to flesh out the Durban Platform on Adaptation (ADP) needed to provide the framework for a 2015 replacement to the Kyoto Protocol the other big issue has been that of finance.
Under the Kyoto Protocol the main mechanisms for climate finance was the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that capped carbon emissions and allowed tokens to exceed those caps (CERS) to be sold on the open market. The intention was that the majority of the revenue generated by these CERS would be used to cut deforestation through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) program which was enhanced to REDD+ by the Bali road map.
The Bali road map and therefore the REDD+ program expired at COP18/CMP8 in Doha. At that same summit the CDM was gutted by the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol caps that collapsed the value of CERS. The value of CERS was further reduced by the decision to extend their life past one year creating a glut on the market. This campaign was led by Poland, the current hosts of the COP19/CMP9 Summit however I feel it was their European Union (EU) partners pushing them to the front of that debate. Fortunately in preparation for the Doha Summit a new mechanism for climate finance known as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was agreed. In 2013 the GCF finally became a legal entity although it is not yet at a point where it can receive donations or disburse grants.
All the work needed to set up the GCF and the ADP along with all the work that used to be done by the Ad-Hoc working groups of the Kyoto Protocol is now being done by the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) on top of all the usual work the SBI does. In response to all this extra pressure the amount of funding the SBI receives has remained largely the same and they're coming under so much pressure from the UK to freeze their budget they included one of the UK's favourite catch phrases "Fit for Purpose" in their annual report.
Obviously with climate finance pretty much frozen the old Annex II developing nations are beginning to panic that the old Annex I developed nations are going to renege on the spending commitments creating a very tense atmosphere. Although mainly through fault of my own I'm not in anywhere near in a position to comment on this may I suggest rather then attacking directly on the funding issue the Annex II nations instead try and pin the Annex I nations on restoring caps for carbon emissions because that will not only slow the growth of carbon emissions but is will breath now life into the CDM. It also makes it looks less like you're just beggars on the take. After all following the year they've had no-one is believing the Central African Republic's self-certification.
Also along with suffering from what seems like a full-scale nervous breakdown since the well COP18/CMP8 the US is now starting to respond to the finance issue by heavily politicise it's aid effort in the Philippines. That's a shame because I thought the US' effort merely an opportunity to correct a grievous error.
23:05 on 19/11/13 (UK date).
Under the Kyoto Protocol the main mechanisms for climate finance was the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that capped carbon emissions and allowed tokens to exceed those caps (CERS) to be sold on the open market. The intention was that the majority of the revenue generated by these CERS would be used to cut deforestation through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) program which was enhanced to REDD+ by the Bali road map.
The Bali road map and therefore the REDD+ program expired at COP18/CMP8 in Doha. At that same summit the CDM was gutted by the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol caps that collapsed the value of CERS. The value of CERS was further reduced by the decision to extend their life past one year creating a glut on the market. This campaign was led by Poland, the current hosts of the COP19/CMP9 Summit however I feel it was their European Union (EU) partners pushing them to the front of that debate. Fortunately in preparation for the Doha Summit a new mechanism for climate finance known as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was agreed. In 2013 the GCF finally became a legal entity although it is not yet at a point where it can receive donations or disburse grants.
All the work needed to set up the GCF and the ADP along with all the work that used to be done by the Ad-Hoc working groups of the Kyoto Protocol is now being done by the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) on top of all the usual work the SBI does. In response to all this extra pressure the amount of funding the SBI receives has remained largely the same and they're coming under so much pressure from the UK to freeze their budget they included one of the UK's favourite catch phrases "Fit for Purpose" in their annual report.
Obviously with climate finance pretty much frozen the old Annex II developing nations are beginning to panic that the old Annex I developed nations are going to renege on the spending commitments creating a very tense atmosphere. Although mainly through fault of my own I'm not in anywhere near in a position to comment on this may I suggest rather then attacking directly on the funding issue the Annex II nations instead try and pin the Annex I nations on restoring caps for carbon emissions because that will not only slow the growth of carbon emissions but is will breath now life into the CDM. It also makes it looks less like you're just beggars on the take. After all following the year they've had no-one is believing the Central African Republic's self-certification.
Also along with suffering from what seems like a full-scale nervous breakdown since the well COP18/CMP8 the US is now starting to respond to the finance issue by heavily politicise it's aid effort in the Philippines. That's a shame because I thought the US' effort merely an opportunity to correct a grievous error.
23:05 on 19/11/13 (UK date).
Monday, 18 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 2, Day 7.
Much to everyones annoyance despite the end of the Diamonds World Tour Rihanna remains still very much alive. As far as anyone can tell she is currently celebrating this fact whilst holed up in a hotel in New York City, US. Considering that Rihanna is currently renting an apartment just around the corner from this hotel this strikes me as an extremely poor decision.
The poverty of the situation is being particularly added to by the fact that Rihanna is staying in this hotel alongside the British model Cara Delevinge. Although for some reason the pair genuinely appear to be friends Ms Delevinge has a well established reputation as a British informant and actually wore the England soccer/Crystal Palace Football Club style outfit at the recent Victoria's Secret show. Therefore the reason why Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) have forced to pair together at this time is to give the impression that the UK is trying to gather information about an operation that is continues to fully endorse. This may have been true even as recently as September with the UK trying to us Ms Delevinge as a way to get Rihanna hooked on cocaine in an attempt to promote discussion about drug smuggling. However since then even the UK has distanced itself from an operation that now only the US and the US alone thinks should continue.
I will though continue to follow Ms Delevinge on Twitter in an effort to try and work out what on earth the attraction is. After all Cara Delevinge and Melissa Forde together is a lesbian porn film I think we'd all pay to see.
One outcome of Rihanna's stay in New York so far has been that she's changed her hairstyle. Gone are the long extensions and the undercut being replaced by a more natural looking black bob. This seems to be a direct nod to the hairstyle of Nelson Mandela's granddaughter Zoleka who has been doing the rounds recently talking about her battle with cancer. Obviously the element of this story that attracts Rihanna is that if she continues to dye, relax and add to her hair it will fall out at the roots much as Zoleka Mandela's did during her chemotherapy. However being a the star of a Kim Kardashian style reality show Zoleka Mandela also raises the issues of her grandfather Nelson's struggle against apartheid in South Africa and her grandmother Winnie's somewhat less noble role in that struggle whilst making the point that in a relatively poor nation where roughly 1 in 5 people are HIV positive people still face more traditionally western health care problems such as cancer.
Basically one of the main outcomes people are hoping for from the COP19/CMP9 is to flesh the Durban Platform which was laid out at the COP17/CMP7 in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto framework which is set to expire in 2015. So win or lose South African has quite a lot of its reputation staked on this.
On the subject of weather/climate the US is currently trying to make an awful lot of a series of late season tornadoes that have swept across parts of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. Despite being home to Chicago and therefore US President Obama's adopted home state Illinois also contains lots of place names that sound a lot like other place names. For example one of the most talked about areas is the town of Washington that shares its name with Washington D.C where the US federal government is based. So I actually think this storm has been the environment trying to show the US what it has been doing to everybody else for the past year.
After all along with Typhoon Haiyan the US storm has posed lots of relevant questions about how urban design adapts to the threat posed by environmental hazards. Particularly why people who live in an area prone to tornadoes still insist on building their houses out of wood rather then stone? After all the effort to repair the damage will place extra pressure on the world's forests (carbon sinks if you prefer) that the REDD+ program is trying to protect.
15:50 on 18/11/13.
The poverty of the situation is being particularly added to by the fact that Rihanna is staying in this hotel alongside the British model Cara Delevinge. Although for some reason the pair genuinely appear to be friends Ms Delevinge has a well established reputation as a British informant and actually wore the England soccer/Crystal Palace Football Club style outfit at the recent Victoria's Secret show. Therefore the reason why Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) have forced to pair together at this time is to give the impression that the UK is trying to gather information about an operation that is continues to fully endorse. This may have been true even as recently as September with the UK trying to us Ms Delevinge as a way to get Rihanna hooked on cocaine in an attempt to promote discussion about drug smuggling. However since then even the UK has distanced itself from an operation that now only the US and the US alone thinks should continue.
I will though continue to follow Ms Delevinge on Twitter in an effort to try and work out what on earth the attraction is. After all Cara Delevinge and Melissa Forde together is a lesbian porn film I think we'd all pay to see.
One outcome of Rihanna's stay in New York so far has been that she's changed her hairstyle. Gone are the long extensions and the undercut being replaced by a more natural looking black bob. This seems to be a direct nod to the hairstyle of Nelson Mandela's granddaughter Zoleka who has been doing the rounds recently talking about her battle with cancer. Obviously the element of this story that attracts Rihanna is that if she continues to dye, relax and add to her hair it will fall out at the roots much as Zoleka Mandela's did during her chemotherapy. However being a the star of a Kim Kardashian style reality show Zoleka Mandela also raises the issues of her grandfather Nelson's struggle against apartheid in South Africa and her grandmother Winnie's somewhat less noble role in that struggle whilst making the point that in a relatively poor nation where roughly 1 in 5 people are HIV positive people still face more traditionally western health care problems such as cancer.
Basically one of the main outcomes people are hoping for from the COP19/CMP9 is to flesh the Durban Platform which was laid out at the COP17/CMP7 in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto framework which is set to expire in 2015. So win or lose South African has quite a lot of its reputation staked on this.
On the subject of weather/climate the US is currently trying to make an awful lot of a series of late season tornadoes that have swept across parts of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. Despite being home to Chicago and therefore US President Obama's adopted home state Illinois also contains lots of place names that sound a lot like other place names. For example one of the most talked about areas is the town of Washington that shares its name with Washington D.C where the US federal government is based. So I actually think this storm has been the environment trying to show the US what it has been doing to everybody else for the past year.
After all along with Typhoon Haiyan the US storm has posed lots of relevant questions about how urban design adapts to the threat posed by environmental hazards. Particularly why people who live in an area prone to tornadoes still insist on building their houses out of wood rather then stone? After all the effort to repair the damage will place extra pressure on the world's forests (carbon sinks if you prefer) that the REDD+ program is trying to protect.
15:50 on 18/11/13.
Sunday, 17 November 2013
That Probably Requires an Incident Report.
As I mentioned on Twitter someone got quite severely beaten up outside my house last night. As far as I can tell it wasn't anybody who was on my radar. Beyond that I really don't know what happened.
About 22:00 I thought I heard raised voices outside but dismissed it as someone either having a house party or at worst someone leaving a house party early after having a drunken row. Then I thought I heard a neighbour calling my father's name so I sort of stuck my head out of the back door to see if the neighbour needed our help. After not seeing or hearing anything I assumed I was just being silly and went back inside. It now appears that I must have chosen the only 10 seconds when there wasn't anything to see or hear.
About 10 minutes later though I went out to check it again and it was quite clear that something big had happened and that it was already over. There were lots of people milling about and one young black kid laying in the road not looking particularly conscious. He was being attended to so after quickly speaking to someone to establish that an ambulance had been called and the victim wasn't known to anyone the police arrived on scene so I decided that in light of recent events I wasn't going to be helping anyone by milling so I went back inside.
What I've heard second hand today though is a group of around ten youths chased the victim down from the park, knocked him to the ground and gave him a kicking. One of the neighbours came out to break it up and got punched in the face for his trouble. I gather the victim was then rushed to the local hospital suffering from a broken jaw, head injuries and possible fractured skull.
Apparently the police are working under the assumption that the attackers were Iranian. So although I think this was just crime you can hear the rumours about Iranian intelligence acting to avenge my recent Court case starting as we speak. I probably should point out though that in my experience Iranian intelligence would have gone after some of the people actually involved in the case.
12:05 on 17/11/13.
Edited at around 21:30 on 17/11/13 to add;
Although I doubt the regional murder squad will be troubled with the victim legitimately being taken to hospital all this is going to have to be investigated as causing Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) with intent to kill contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act of (I think) 1861. That is of course if the young gentleman in question wishes to make a complaint. After all here in the UK we operate on the principle of policing by consent meaning that if the live victim feels that no crime has been committed then as far as the police are concerned no crime has been committed.
However in the event of a lengthy police investigation I obviously saw the whole thing. After all I believe I'm still owed at least one hammer.
About 22:00 I thought I heard raised voices outside but dismissed it as someone either having a house party or at worst someone leaving a house party early after having a drunken row. Then I thought I heard a neighbour calling my father's name so I sort of stuck my head out of the back door to see if the neighbour needed our help. After not seeing or hearing anything I assumed I was just being silly and went back inside. It now appears that I must have chosen the only 10 seconds when there wasn't anything to see or hear.
About 10 minutes later though I went out to check it again and it was quite clear that something big had happened and that it was already over. There were lots of people milling about and one young black kid laying in the road not looking particularly conscious. He was being attended to so after quickly speaking to someone to establish that an ambulance had been called and the victim wasn't known to anyone the police arrived on scene so I decided that in light of recent events I wasn't going to be helping anyone by milling so I went back inside.
What I've heard second hand today though is a group of around ten youths chased the victim down from the park, knocked him to the ground and gave him a kicking. One of the neighbours came out to break it up and got punched in the face for his trouble. I gather the victim was then rushed to the local hospital suffering from a broken jaw, head injuries and possible fractured skull.
Apparently the police are working under the assumption that the attackers were Iranian. So although I think this was just crime you can hear the rumours about Iranian intelligence acting to avenge my recent Court case starting as we speak. I probably should point out though that in my experience Iranian intelligence would have gone after some of the people actually involved in the case.
12:05 on 17/11/13.
Edited at around 21:30 on 17/11/13 to add;
Although I doubt the regional murder squad will be troubled with the victim legitimately being taken to hospital all this is going to have to be investigated as causing Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) with intent to kill contrary to the Offences Against the Person Act of (I think) 1861. That is of course if the young gentleman in question wishes to make a complaint. After all here in the UK we operate on the principle of policing by consent meaning that if the live victim feels that no crime has been committed then as far as the police are concerned no crime has been committed.
However in the event of a lengthy police investigation I obviously saw the whole thing. After all I believe I'm still owed at least one hammer.
Saturday, 16 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 2, Day 5.
Last night Rihanna performed the final concert of the Diamonds World Tour in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The day did not begin well with Rihanna apparently being struck with a bout of verbal diarrhea that caused her to re-Tweet and reply to various comments she was recieving in response to the video for her song "What Now" that debuted earlier in the day. This was so stunningly unprofessional that even the US State Department ended up expressing embarrassment on Rihanna's behalf. However on reflection I think that Rihanna was merely trying to highlight the pressure she was coming under from her social media followers to talk about the video.
Even without the release of the What Now video yesterday was always going to be a particularly stressful day for Rihanna with the US throwing pretty much everything it had at her final concert. So amid a general climate of noise which included more revelations about the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, the recent shooting at Los Angeles international airport a few false alerts about possible mass shooting incidents the US put on a number of high profile stunts.
Probably the strangest of these was the so-called "Batkid" story. This revolves a terminally ill 5 year old boy named only as Miles who was granted his dying wish to be the superhero Batman for a day by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. This hugely elaborate set-up saw Miles rescue a damsel in distress and foil a bank robbery all whilst being watched and cheered on by tens of thousands of people in San Francisco in California. It also included a personal message to Miles from the President of the United States Barack Obama which obviously pushed the event onto the international news agenda and worldwide Twitter trends.
The pathetic young boy being turned into a superhero for the day element of the story along with the massive social media coverage it received were supposed to be confusing and not particularly complimentary references to me especially my recent efforts at fighting local crime. The element of a charity helping out a terminal ill child was supposed to draw comparisons between the UK's "Children in Need" charity telethon that was taking place at roughly the same time. The idea was to raise the international profile of the always politically challenging Children in Need event in the hope of giving the impression that the US and the UK were having some urgent bilateral discussion about something. In reality though I think that the US was struggling to keep up with Children in Need which being run by the BBC already has quite a high global profile.
In terms of actual US politics yesterday the lower house of Congress - the House of Representatives passed a bill that would end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that terminates private health insurance policies that are not compliant with the Act. This is a big thing because throughout the effort to sell Obamacare to the American public President repeatedly claimed that it would not force people with existing health insurance to switch their plans. Since the roll out of Obamacare it has emerged that not only was this a complete and utter lie but that Obama also knew that he was lying every single time he made the claim.
So that fact that a bill overturning that provision has been passed with the help of members of Obama's own Democrat Party is hugely embarrassing for Obama and highlights just how badly his reputation has been damaged over the past year due to his own poor judgement. In practical terms the bill now needs to be passed by the upper house - the Senate - who've said they'll block it and the signed into law by the President who has said he'll veto it.
In preparation for the House vote on Obamacare the New York Times rather unhelpfully published an article comparing the damage to President Obama's reputation by the Affordable Care Act to the damage done to President W Bush's reputation by the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. This promptly propelled the issue of Hurricane Katrina right to the top of American public discourse and the worldwide Twitter trends for most of the day. Hurricane Katrina of course struck New Orleans, Louisiana where Rihanna was performing and most of the damage it did to President W Bush's reputation stemmed from America's black community labelling his failures as racist which has been a divisive issue in the US dating all the way back to the days of slavery. So by comparing Obamacare to Katrina the New York Times was attempting to play about with the notions of race and slavery. For example the fact that Obama the US' first black President seems happy to see Rihanna - a black woman - used and abused in any way imaginable to help him achieve his political goals suggests that the slave owner mentality transcends the issue of race. Mainly though it all contributes to an outsider getting the impression that there was something exciting and vitally important going on in internal US politics.
Also on the issue of race prosecutors in Detroit, Michigan yesterday charged the white Theodore Wafer over the November 2nd (2/11/13) fatal shooting of Renisha McBride a black teenage whose family claim was hammering on Mr Wafer's door in the early hours of the morning in an effort to seek assistance following a car accident. Although this happened in Eminem's home town my first instinct that it was just one of those things and a fair trial needs to take place in order to establish what happened and if any crime has been committed. The chances of that fair trial taking place seem pretty limited at the moment because the case is packed with hot political topics such as race and gun ownership along with strong echoes of the Trayvon Martin case. Also Wafer has claimed that his shotgun went off accidentally meaning that the technical aspects of how a firearm can discharge by accident are likely to play a large role in the case. This issue also plays a huge role in the case of Mark Duggan whose fatal shooting by the police sparked the UK's August 2011 riots which the US is still adamant were entirely Rihanna's fault.
As for the UK it is currently very busy with the hugely controversial Commonwealth Summit in Sri Lanka and the fallout from my most recent Court case. As a result the UK is making huge amounts of noise itself. However as far as I can tell none of this noise bears any relation to the noise the US is making. The US is very keen to have people believe that the two things are connected though. So for example on Wednesday (13/11/13) the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show took place in New York. Last years event was of course headlined by Rihanna. Although this year the music was provided by Taylor Swift the main theme of the show was the UK in particular it's capital city London. As a result lots of British models were used and they wore outfits that resembled the uniforms of the famous British policeman the famous guards at Buckingham Palace and one outfit that resembled a England football kit although I personally think that looked quite a bit like a Crystal Palace FC kit from the 1970's. This though all of course pushed the notion of a tight bond between the US and the UK to the fore.
Obviously to be continued because you can't have failed to notice that I haven't managed to get onto the actual concert yet.
16:00 on 16/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 20:05 on 16/11/13 to add;
As for the concert itself it goes without saying that Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) maintained the information blackout that has been in place throughout the tour. However from unofficial sources I can tell you that it was all pretty routine. Rihanna arrived on stage within the allotted time and performed the standard set-list with the standard costume changes and stage set up. The overall performance was more subdued then the previous night's Houston concert which itself was more subdued then the Oklahoma City performance. Again this isn't saying that there was anything wrong with the performance it just meant that the tour fizzled out rather then ending on a triumphant high. I actually think this was appropriate because while the tour has ended the operation most certainly hasn't and sadly unless she finds a way to alter her current course I can only see Rihanna's world continuing to shrink from here.
The fact that the tour has now ended is not from a lack of trying on the part of the management. Not only did they cancel the Barbados concert in order to raise the possibly of an extension they dispatched Justin Bieber to cause an awful lot of trouble on the South American leg of his tour. Apart from spraying graffiti to pose questions about Rihanna's latest tattoo Bieber has also visited brothels, had a one night stand with a women who may not always have been a woman, stormed off stage and trampled on the Argentinian flag which carries a 4 year prison sentence in the country. The intention was to make the South Americans think that Bieber was playing some significant role in the Rihanna operation so they would have to get Rihanna over for a South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour in order to find out what was going on. Fortunately no-one was falling for that and yesterday the Argentinians responded by seizing all of Bieber's tour equipment. This obviously has the effect of stopping his tour dead and was what the management were hoping would happen to Rihanna on her tour.
With the tour at an end and with the help of the single and video we are all supposed to be speculating what now for Rihanna? The problem is that we all already know. Although reflection and consideration are clearly in very short supply within Rihanna's social group there will come a point where the adrenaline of the tour will wear off and Rihanna will slip into a bit of a depressive lull but I don't mean that in the clinical sense. Just as Rihanna is at her weakest and most vulnerable Chris Brown will be returning to Court in Los Angeles for an appearance that has been made all the more dramatic by his recent arrest. As I've explained Rihanna tends to like to mother Chris Brown so the prospect of him coming under threat coupled with the depressive lull means that it is quite likely that the two will reunite as a couple and the American Music Awards (AMAs) are certainly pulling out all the stops to try and make that happen. So while it may seem cruel I honestly think Rihanna needs to have someone in her life who will openly and spitefully mock the side of her personality that would even contemplate a relationship with Chris Brown.
Obviously though with the high level segment of the COP19/CMP9 taking place during this period the management are not only intending to reunite Rihanna and Chris Brown they also want to cause as much disruption as possible whilst doing it. So not only have we had the rumours and attempts to force Rihanna into a relationship with either Drake or A$AP Rocky a singer whose had the misfortune of being taken under Chris Brown's wing by the name of I think Sevryn Streeter recently released a single. This gave Kerruche Tran the opportunity to prove that she's standing by her man by helping to promote the career of Chris Brown's protege.
As I pointed out in my previous post on the subject though even the management are beginning to accept that there is a possibility that their plan to reunite Rihanna and Chris Brown may fail meaning that the continuance of Brown's relationship with Tran and a new relationship for Rihanna with either Drake or A$AP Rocky becomes the face saving fall back position. Obviously Rihanna starting a relationship with either of those men will make be extremely jealous but either would be an improvement on Brown. That said the way that Drake appears to think that he can win back Rihanna by complying with the management's plan so they will engineer Rihanna into a relationship with him does not fill me with confidence. As for A$AP Rocky I honestly would not recognise him if he was sitting across from me now so I feel I don't have the required knowledge to comment one way or another.
I have to say though that I'm not entirely happy about Rihanna rushing into a new relationship even if it was with me. That's because as I've been saying for more then a year now what I think Rihanna really needs is a little time being single away from the chaos of touring so she can learn about and become more settled in herself even if that doesn't sound very rock and roll.
The day did not begin well with Rihanna apparently being struck with a bout of verbal diarrhea that caused her to re-Tweet and reply to various comments she was recieving in response to the video for her song "What Now" that debuted earlier in the day. This was so stunningly unprofessional that even the US State Department ended up expressing embarrassment on Rihanna's behalf. However on reflection I think that Rihanna was merely trying to highlight the pressure she was coming under from her social media followers to talk about the video.
Even without the release of the What Now video yesterday was always going to be a particularly stressful day for Rihanna with the US throwing pretty much everything it had at her final concert. So amid a general climate of noise which included more revelations about the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, the recent shooting at Los Angeles international airport a few false alerts about possible mass shooting incidents the US put on a number of high profile stunts.
Probably the strangest of these was the so-called "Batkid" story. This revolves a terminally ill 5 year old boy named only as Miles who was granted his dying wish to be the superhero Batman for a day by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. This hugely elaborate set-up saw Miles rescue a damsel in distress and foil a bank robbery all whilst being watched and cheered on by tens of thousands of people in San Francisco in California. It also included a personal message to Miles from the President of the United States Barack Obama which obviously pushed the event onto the international news agenda and worldwide Twitter trends.
The pathetic young boy being turned into a superhero for the day element of the story along with the massive social media coverage it received were supposed to be confusing and not particularly complimentary references to me especially my recent efforts at fighting local crime. The element of a charity helping out a terminal ill child was supposed to draw comparisons between the UK's "Children in Need" charity telethon that was taking place at roughly the same time. The idea was to raise the international profile of the always politically challenging Children in Need event in the hope of giving the impression that the US and the UK were having some urgent bilateral discussion about something. In reality though I think that the US was struggling to keep up with Children in Need which being run by the BBC already has quite a high global profile.
In terms of actual US politics yesterday the lower house of Congress - the House of Representatives passed a bill that would end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that terminates private health insurance policies that are not compliant with the Act. This is a big thing because throughout the effort to sell Obamacare to the American public President repeatedly claimed that it would not force people with existing health insurance to switch their plans. Since the roll out of Obamacare it has emerged that not only was this a complete and utter lie but that Obama also knew that he was lying every single time he made the claim.
So that fact that a bill overturning that provision has been passed with the help of members of Obama's own Democrat Party is hugely embarrassing for Obama and highlights just how badly his reputation has been damaged over the past year due to his own poor judgement. In practical terms the bill now needs to be passed by the upper house - the Senate - who've said they'll block it and the signed into law by the President who has said he'll veto it.
In preparation for the House vote on Obamacare the New York Times rather unhelpfully published an article comparing the damage to President Obama's reputation by the Affordable Care Act to the damage done to President W Bush's reputation by the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. This promptly propelled the issue of Hurricane Katrina right to the top of American public discourse and the worldwide Twitter trends for most of the day. Hurricane Katrina of course struck New Orleans, Louisiana where Rihanna was performing and most of the damage it did to President W Bush's reputation stemmed from America's black community labelling his failures as racist which has been a divisive issue in the US dating all the way back to the days of slavery. So by comparing Obamacare to Katrina the New York Times was attempting to play about with the notions of race and slavery. For example the fact that Obama the US' first black President seems happy to see Rihanna - a black woman - used and abused in any way imaginable to help him achieve his political goals suggests that the slave owner mentality transcends the issue of race. Mainly though it all contributes to an outsider getting the impression that there was something exciting and vitally important going on in internal US politics.
Also on the issue of race prosecutors in Detroit, Michigan yesterday charged the white Theodore Wafer over the November 2nd (2/11/13) fatal shooting of Renisha McBride a black teenage whose family claim was hammering on Mr Wafer's door in the early hours of the morning in an effort to seek assistance following a car accident. Although this happened in Eminem's home town my first instinct that it was just one of those things and a fair trial needs to take place in order to establish what happened and if any crime has been committed. The chances of that fair trial taking place seem pretty limited at the moment because the case is packed with hot political topics such as race and gun ownership along with strong echoes of the Trayvon Martin case. Also Wafer has claimed that his shotgun went off accidentally meaning that the technical aspects of how a firearm can discharge by accident are likely to play a large role in the case. This issue also plays a huge role in the case of Mark Duggan whose fatal shooting by the police sparked the UK's August 2011 riots which the US is still adamant were entirely Rihanna's fault.
As for the UK it is currently very busy with the hugely controversial Commonwealth Summit in Sri Lanka and the fallout from my most recent Court case. As a result the UK is making huge amounts of noise itself. However as far as I can tell none of this noise bears any relation to the noise the US is making. The US is very keen to have people believe that the two things are connected though. So for example on Wednesday (13/11/13) the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show took place in New York. Last years event was of course headlined by Rihanna. Although this year the music was provided by Taylor Swift the main theme of the show was the UK in particular it's capital city London. As a result lots of British models were used and they wore outfits that resembled the uniforms of the famous British policeman the famous guards at Buckingham Palace and one outfit that resembled a England football kit although I personally think that looked quite a bit like a Crystal Palace FC kit from the 1970's. This though all of course pushed the notion of a tight bond between the US and the UK to the fore.
Obviously to be continued because you can't have failed to notice that I haven't managed to get onto the actual concert yet.
16:00 on 16/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 20:05 on 16/11/13 to add;
As for the concert itself it goes without saying that Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) maintained the information blackout that has been in place throughout the tour. However from unofficial sources I can tell you that it was all pretty routine. Rihanna arrived on stage within the allotted time and performed the standard set-list with the standard costume changes and stage set up. The overall performance was more subdued then the previous night's Houston concert which itself was more subdued then the Oklahoma City performance. Again this isn't saying that there was anything wrong with the performance it just meant that the tour fizzled out rather then ending on a triumphant high. I actually think this was appropriate because while the tour has ended the operation most certainly hasn't and sadly unless she finds a way to alter her current course I can only see Rihanna's world continuing to shrink from here.
The fact that the tour has now ended is not from a lack of trying on the part of the management. Not only did they cancel the Barbados concert in order to raise the possibly of an extension they dispatched Justin Bieber to cause an awful lot of trouble on the South American leg of his tour. Apart from spraying graffiti to pose questions about Rihanna's latest tattoo Bieber has also visited brothels, had a one night stand with a women who may not always have been a woman, stormed off stage and trampled on the Argentinian flag which carries a 4 year prison sentence in the country. The intention was to make the South Americans think that Bieber was playing some significant role in the Rihanna operation so they would have to get Rihanna over for a South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour in order to find out what was going on. Fortunately no-one was falling for that and yesterday the Argentinians responded by seizing all of Bieber's tour equipment. This obviously has the effect of stopping his tour dead and was what the management were hoping would happen to Rihanna on her tour.
With the tour at an end and with the help of the single and video we are all supposed to be speculating what now for Rihanna? The problem is that we all already know. Although reflection and consideration are clearly in very short supply within Rihanna's social group there will come a point where the adrenaline of the tour will wear off and Rihanna will slip into a bit of a depressive lull but I don't mean that in the clinical sense. Just as Rihanna is at her weakest and most vulnerable Chris Brown will be returning to Court in Los Angeles for an appearance that has been made all the more dramatic by his recent arrest. As I've explained Rihanna tends to like to mother Chris Brown so the prospect of him coming under threat coupled with the depressive lull means that it is quite likely that the two will reunite as a couple and the American Music Awards (AMAs) are certainly pulling out all the stops to try and make that happen. So while it may seem cruel I honestly think Rihanna needs to have someone in her life who will openly and spitefully mock the side of her personality that would even contemplate a relationship with Chris Brown.
Obviously though with the high level segment of the COP19/CMP9 taking place during this period the management are not only intending to reunite Rihanna and Chris Brown they also want to cause as much disruption as possible whilst doing it. So not only have we had the rumours and attempts to force Rihanna into a relationship with either Drake or A$AP Rocky a singer whose had the misfortune of being taken under Chris Brown's wing by the name of I think Sevryn Streeter recently released a single. This gave Kerruche Tran the opportunity to prove that she's standing by her man by helping to promote the career of Chris Brown's protege.
As I pointed out in my previous post on the subject though even the management are beginning to accept that there is a possibility that their plan to reunite Rihanna and Chris Brown may fail meaning that the continuance of Brown's relationship with Tran and a new relationship for Rihanna with either Drake or A$AP Rocky becomes the face saving fall back position. Obviously Rihanna starting a relationship with either of those men will make be extremely jealous but either would be an improvement on Brown. That said the way that Drake appears to think that he can win back Rihanna by complying with the management's plan so they will engineer Rihanna into a relationship with him does not fill me with confidence. As for A$AP Rocky I honestly would not recognise him if he was sitting across from me now so I feel I don't have the required knowledge to comment one way or another.
I have to say though that I'm not entirely happy about Rihanna rushing into a new relationship even if it was with me. That's because as I've been saying for more then a year now what I think Rihanna really needs is a little time being single away from the chaos of touring so she can learn about and become more settled in herself even if that doesn't sound very rock and roll.
Friday, 15 November 2013
Typhoon Haiyan: Day 7.
Yes Friday November 15th 2013 (15/11/13) that is the one week anniversary of Typhoon Yolanda nee Haiyan striking the Philippines a full 3 hours before it was expected.
Of the estimated 10 million people affected by this natural disaster only around 18% (1.8 million) have been reached by the disaster relief effort. Obviously this is not OK. However rather then being caused by laziness or incompentence this merely reflects the scale of the tragedy. For example the number of provinces without electrical power has now been cut from 11 to 5 and all provinces have had some level of celluar telecommunications restored with the average being 70% and Eastern Samar being the worst affected with only 14% restored.
In a nation where the majority of the population are in shock, homeless, hungry and in need of clean drinking water making sure that all their televisions and radios work might sound like a strange first priority. However the national electrical supply also powers lights, water pumps and things like hospitals. It also powers the national communications infrastructure. Now that this communications infrastructure is beginning to work a clearer picture of the damage is begining to emerge. For example we now know that electrical power has not been restored to certain areas due to the failure of 556 damaged pylons and 7 damaged substations.
In terms of immediate aid (1.Water, 2.Shelter, 3.Food) it has been arriving in ever increasing volumes since Sunday (9/11/13). The problem is that it has largely been arriving at Manila's international airport where it is being loaded off aircraft and stacked in neat rows. In order to get to those affected by Haiyan this aid next needs to be sorted, loaded onto another aircraft and flown to the six Filipino islands for distribution.
The largest and hardest hit of these is Leyte which is served by one airport in the island capital Tacloban. At the best of times this hardly counts as an international airport because rarely deals with large jets and doesn't allow for nightflights. With both of the two runways being roughly 200 metres (600ft) from the sea it goes without saying that it also was badly damaged by the storm surge which brought 14 mtres (45ft) of sea water, cars, houses and associated debris onto the runways.
Since their arrival on Monday (11/11/13) the advance party of US Marines (USMC) and Air Force (USAF) personel having being working to re-open Tacloban airport. They now seem to have achieved this although an argument seems to persist over whether the US military or the Filippino government should pay to upgrading the airport for night flights. Generally I would say that it's the Filipino government's responsibilty just as soon as the US military can get a contractor in.
Fortunately though whilst that argument has been going on the Philippines single C130 and the US's C130 have been bolstered somewhat by at least; a C17 and a C130 from the UK, a C17 and C130 from Australia, 3 C130's from Indonesia, 2 from Singapore and 2 from Malaysia along with a fair few creaky Antanov's from various nations and at least 2 undisclosed large transport aircraft for Israel. These at least 15 Globemaster/Hercules type aircraft give the USAF just enough capacity to set up and control an air bridge between Manila international airport on Luzon island and Tacloban airport on Leyte island.
Of course once the aid products have been transported to Tacloban airport they then need to be distributed across the remaining 6 affected islands. The quickest and easiest way to do this is by helicopter or STOL aircraft. Fortunately on Friday (15/11/13) the USS George Washington carrier group arrived off the coast of Leyte bring with it at least 21 UH-60 Blackhawk type helicopters to compliment the Philippines 50 UH-1 helicopters and the USMC 4 V-22 Ospreys. Further helping the effort the UK is now going to replace HMS Daring with HMS Illustrious which is now being tactfully described as a "helicopter platform" and may even bring one AW101 Merlin with it. Personally I'm just hoping this just turn into a big argument between the UK and the US over the F-35 Joint Srike Fighters.
Elsewhere in international aid news China has contributed a full USD100,000 to the relief effort. This has obviously provoked some discussion with many in the Philippines questioning why China has made such little effort. The Chinese state media has responded by either suggesting that if the Filipinoes have got enough money to buy weapons they don't need international aid or demanding that the Philippines give the money back. So in summary it appears that Chinese official response to this disaster has been to try and be as offensive as possible. This seems to be a deliberate attempt to inform the US of the general regional consensus in the wake of the Rihanna operation and provide them with an opportunity to make a large gesture. After all it would be a lot easier for the Philippines traditional ally to aid with the relief effort rather then their traditional enemy.
As usual Israel has been quite interesting flying two C130's to the Philippines with at least one containing a full feild hospital. On around Wednesday (13/11/13) there were rumours that these aircraft attempted to land at Tacloban airport with orders to take over the local hospital. However as the rumour goes they were refused permission to land so instead flew on to Cebu island where they have now set up their feild hospital and built a landing strip. Israel now has at least 1 C130 going spare and much clearer idea about what it will take to break out from Leyte. In the meantime Australia has also dispatched a feild hospital.
Sadly the Filipino government has, as yet, failed to declare martial law meaning that the relief effort is still being hampered by local political disputes and the effort to re-open Tacloban airport continues to be hampered by the large group of, well, unemployed people milling around outside.
Obviously all of these logistical problems mean nothing without finacial support so while the accountants of my celebrity readers should all be aware of the SWIFT code by now for lesser mortals I can always recommend; https://www.wfp.org/donate/typhoon-philippines-a
23:25 on 15/11/13 (UK date). Spell check is still not working so I apologise if I've spelt most things wrong.
Of the estimated 10 million people affected by this natural disaster only around 18% (1.8 million) have been reached by the disaster relief effort. Obviously this is not OK. However rather then being caused by laziness or incompentence this merely reflects the scale of the tragedy. For example the number of provinces without electrical power has now been cut from 11 to 5 and all provinces have had some level of celluar telecommunications restored with the average being 70% and Eastern Samar being the worst affected with only 14% restored.
In a nation where the majority of the population are in shock, homeless, hungry and in need of clean drinking water making sure that all their televisions and radios work might sound like a strange first priority. However the national electrical supply also powers lights, water pumps and things like hospitals. It also powers the national communications infrastructure. Now that this communications infrastructure is beginning to work a clearer picture of the damage is begining to emerge. For example we now know that electrical power has not been restored to certain areas due to the failure of 556 damaged pylons and 7 damaged substations.
In terms of immediate aid (1.Water, 2.Shelter, 3.Food) it has been arriving in ever increasing volumes since Sunday (9/11/13). The problem is that it has largely been arriving at Manila's international airport where it is being loaded off aircraft and stacked in neat rows. In order to get to those affected by Haiyan this aid next needs to be sorted, loaded onto another aircraft and flown to the six Filipino islands for distribution.
The largest and hardest hit of these is Leyte which is served by one airport in the island capital Tacloban. At the best of times this hardly counts as an international airport because rarely deals with large jets and doesn't allow for nightflights. With both of the two runways being roughly 200 metres (600ft) from the sea it goes without saying that it also was badly damaged by the storm surge which brought 14 mtres (45ft) of sea water, cars, houses and associated debris onto the runways.
Since their arrival on Monday (11/11/13) the advance party of US Marines (USMC) and Air Force (USAF) personel having being working to re-open Tacloban airport. They now seem to have achieved this although an argument seems to persist over whether the US military or the Filippino government should pay to upgrading the airport for night flights. Generally I would say that it's the Filipino government's responsibilty just as soon as the US military can get a contractor in.
Fortunately though whilst that argument has been going on the Philippines single C130 and the US's C130 have been bolstered somewhat by at least; a C17 and a C130 from the UK, a C17 and C130 from Australia, 3 C130's from Indonesia, 2 from Singapore and 2 from Malaysia along with a fair few creaky Antanov's from various nations and at least 2 undisclosed large transport aircraft for Israel. These at least 15 Globemaster/Hercules type aircraft give the USAF just enough capacity to set up and control an air bridge between Manila international airport on Luzon island and Tacloban airport on Leyte island.
Of course once the aid products have been transported to Tacloban airport they then need to be distributed across the remaining 6 affected islands. The quickest and easiest way to do this is by helicopter or STOL aircraft. Fortunately on Friday (15/11/13) the USS George Washington carrier group arrived off the coast of Leyte bring with it at least 21 UH-60 Blackhawk type helicopters to compliment the Philippines 50 UH-1 helicopters and the USMC 4 V-22 Ospreys. Further helping the effort the UK is now going to replace HMS Daring with HMS Illustrious which is now being tactfully described as a "helicopter platform" and may even bring one AW101 Merlin with it. Personally I'm just hoping this just turn into a big argument between the UK and the US over the F-35 Joint Srike Fighters.
Elsewhere in international aid news China has contributed a full USD100,000 to the relief effort. This has obviously provoked some discussion with many in the Philippines questioning why China has made such little effort. The Chinese state media has responded by either suggesting that if the Filipinoes have got enough money to buy weapons they don't need international aid or demanding that the Philippines give the money back. So in summary it appears that Chinese official response to this disaster has been to try and be as offensive as possible. This seems to be a deliberate attempt to inform the US of the general regional consensus in the wake of the Rihanna operation and provide them with an opportunity to make a large gesture. After all it would be a lot easier for the Philippines traditional ally to aid with the relief effort rather then their traditional enemy.
As usual Israel has been quite interesting flying two C130's to the Philippines with at least one containing a full feild hospital. On around Wednesday (13/11/13) there were rumours that these aircraft attempted to land at Tacloban airport with orders to take over the local hospital. However as the rumour goes they were refused permission to land so instead flew on to Cebu island where they have now set up their feild hospital and built a landing strip. Israel now has at least 1 C130 going spare and much clearer idea about what it will take to break out from Leyte. In the meantime Australia has also dispatched a feild hospital.
Sadly the Filipino government has, as yet, failed to declare martial law meaning that the relief effort is still being hampered by local political disputes and the effort to re-open Tacloban airport continues to be hampered by the large group of, well, unemployed people milling around outside.
Obviously all of these logistical problems mean nothing without finacial support so while the accountants of my celebrity readers should all be aware of the SWIFT code by now for lesser mortals I can always recommend; https://www.wfp.org/donate/typhoon-philippines-a
23:25 on 15/11/13 (UK date). Spell check is still not working so I apologise if I've spelt most things wrong.
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