Particularly now London is ruins I know that I really do have to get back to covering the current fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.
The UK news media certainly aren't covering it.
However that will take significantly longer then the roughly 45 minutes I can spare here. So instead I'll quickly talk about the absolutely huge US TV show of the moment; "The Handmaid's Tale." After all I suspect I will be revisiting it around the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.
The TV show is a re-telling of the 1974 Margaret Atwood novel of the same name.
It is very much in the same vein as Aldous Huxley's 1931 novel "A Brave New World" and George Orwell's 1949 novel "1984." It is set in a dystopian future in which a totalitarian regime is trying to build a utopian society. On the fringes of that society there is an ever present war but no-one's really allowed to talk about it or how it started.
The particular twist in the Handmaid's Tale though is that pollution has caused a fertility crisis. To compensate any fertile women are forced to act as concubines and surrogates for the ruling elite. These women are known as; "Handmaids."
Due to this subjugation of women many Hillary Clinton supporters have claimed that the TV show is a timely warning about the fate of women's rights under President Donald Trump. However if you watch carefully the show seems packed with these subtle little references that suggest maybe the joke's on them.
For example the Handmaids dress in a uniform of red and are trained at what is known as; "The Red House/Centre."
Margaret Atwood is Canadian. In Canada as with almost all the rest of the World politically the colour red is synonymous with socialism and the political left. The confusion arises because in mounting their revolution against the Tsar Russian Communists were inspired by US Republicans who overthrew the British Monarch in their revolution of 1775. Red is the colour of US Republicans.
So while people in the US may look at these references to the colour red and see them as a reference to the US Republican Party everyone else will see a reference to the socialist left. Or the "progressive left" as Hillary Clinton prefers to describe them.
In one scene in the opening episode the Handmaids are gathered together in a wooded area of a park. In that area there is one of those small stages that you see frequently at protest rallies in the US. This creates a seen rather similar to the recent anti-Trump "Sister Marches" or the more recent "March For Truth."
This ceremony begins with the Handmaids being forced to kneel in prayer. No specific religious prayer is mentioned but the use of prayer mats and gender segregation suggests Muslim prayer. The Sister Marches and March For Truth are organised by the US branch of the Muslim Brotherhood alongside Hillary Clinton's Democrat Party.
Once they have risen from prayer the Handmaids are addressed by the older women who control them known as; "The Aunties." They present the Handmaids with a man who they say has committed rape. The Aunties then encourage the Handmaids to beat that man to death.
When it was first published in 1974 The Handmaids Tale and it author Margaret Atwood were adopted almost as religious figures for the very aggressive Feminist movement that existed at the time. This is a movement that would declare all men to be rapists, all forms of penetrative sex to be rape and women who shaved their armpits to be gender traitors.
One of the Aunties on stage during this Handmaid's rally scene was Margaret Atwood in a blink and you'll miss it cameo.
In a later episode one of the Handmaids is caught having a lesbian affair with an infertile woman. Neatly flipping the language of the 1970's feminist movement they are both declared to be gender traitors and put on trial.
The infertile woman is sentenced to death by hanging. If the show was trying to make reference to the US right I think it would have shown her being hung from a tree in reference to racist lynchings of America's past. However it shows her being hung from a crane. The preferred method of execution in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As she is fertile the Handmaid is spared death. Instead she is sentenced to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in order to allow her to reproduce but leaving her unable to experience sexual pleasure. FGM is a predominately African tribal practice that exists on the fringes of Islam. It seems to be growing in popularity in heartlands of the US Democrats such as Dearborne, Michigan and Minnesota.
In flashback the show demonstrates how society came to arrive at this point. It started with a law declaring that women cannot own property and must be escorted in public by a husband or male relative.
In short the Islamic Guardianship rules that are still common in many Gulf Arab states. Particularly Saudi Arabia. The same Saudi Arabia that Hillary Clinton's pal Khazir Khan lobbies for.
As soon as this guardianship law is introduced protests erupt. These are shown very much in the style of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and earlier Occupy Wall Street protests.
Both of these protest movements hold the 1968 Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama as a sort of religious ideal. Due to current US Democrat Senator John Lewis suffering nothing more then a bump to his head the American left refer to this as; "Bloody Sunday."
The original Bloody Sunday occurred on January 22nd 1905 (22/1/05) when striking workers marched on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia. The Tsarist guard opened fire on the crowd killing an estimated 4,000 people.
The second Bloody Sunday occurred on November 21st 1920 (21/11/2) in Dublin in what is now the Irish Republic. In response to British agents being killed by Irish Rebels the British Army marched into a football stadium with heavy machine guns and murdered 32 people.
Probably the most famous Bloody Sunday occurred on January 30th 1972 (30/1/72) in the Northern Irish city of London/Derry. Here the British Army opened fire on a Catholic Civil Rights march murdering 14.
In the Handmaid's Tale the protest march is broken up on a bridge by men with heavy machine guns. These scenes are very similar of scenes from the 2002 British TV Movie "Bloody Sunday" about the events in Derry in 1972.
So I doubt anyone watching the protest scenes in Handmaid's Tale will dare to refer to the 1968 events on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma as "Bloody Sunday" ever again. Particularly with menstruation featuring so heavily in the episode.
As with 1984 and A Brave New World before it the main message of The Handmaid's Tale is a warning about the perils of ideological absolutism.
So if you do see any ideological absolutes in it I think there's a fair chance you're doing it wrong.
17:40 on 13/6/17 (UK date).
Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Friday, 9 June 2017
Terrorism Defeats Democracy.
Yesterday (8/6/17) the UK held its General Election. This campaign has been dominated by not one but two Islamist terrorist attacks.
The first of these occurred on May 22nd (22/5/17) and was a suicide bomb attack against the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the UK city of Manchester. This killed 22 people and wounded 59.
The second of these occurred on June 3rd (3/6/17) and took the form of a low tech marauding run-over and knife attack in the London Bridge area of the UK capital London. This killed 8 and wounded 48.
The purpose of these attacks was to swing the UK election result in favour of the UK Labour Party. The reason for this is that the UK Labour Party have long supported Islamist terror.
Take for example the organisation CAGE UK.
CAGE UK have long supported Al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki who has inspired or directed numerous Islamist terror attacks such as;
The November 5th 2009 (5/11/09) Fort Hood shooting in Texas, US in which 13 people were killed.
The failed December 25th 2009 attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 on route from the Netherlands to Detroit US.
The April 15th 2015 (154/13) Boston Marathon Bombings in Boston, US in which 3 people were killed and 280 wounded.
In 2007 CAGE UK successfully campaigned to have al-Awlaki freed from prison in Yemen. Upon his release the first person al-Awlaki spoke to was CAGE UK's director and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg. In 2008 CAGE UK invited al-Awlaki to the UK to appear at an event to raise funds for the group.
Between 2009 and 2012 CAGE UK helped a young man named Mohamed Emwazi avoid prosecution for Islamist terror offences. Emwazi went on to become better known as; "Jihadi John" - the high profile killer for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
When Jihadi John's identity was revealed CAGE UK issued a statement declaring him to be; "A beautiful young man who is extremely kind and gentle." Apparently the consider beheading non-Islamist terrorists to be a gentle form of kindness.
In October 2014 while Jihadi John was still on his murderous rampage the UK police prosecuted CAGE UK director Moazzam Begg for terrorism offences. They also tried to seize the group's assets to prevent them being used to support acts of terrorism.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn stepped in writing a public letter in support of CAGE UK and used his position to exert political pressure over the case. This prosecutions against Begg were dropped along with the efforts to seize CAGE UK's assets.
The other extremely high profile case of Labour supporting Islamist terror groups was the death of Labour MP Jo Cox. Jo Cox had wholly illegally used her position as an MP to not only provide political support to but also funnel millions of dollars in support to ISIL and Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.
Therefore Jo Cox's should have triggered a counter-terrorism investigation into her criminal activity. However as they did with the CAGE UK cases the Labour Party immediately started exerting pressure on the police and the investigation was dropped really before it got started.
It is very easy to see why a terrorist attack would damage a governing party and help an opposition party.
Much of politics in the western world is based on the work of philosopher John Locke. He introduced the concept of The Social Contract. Basically this states that citizens give up part of their freedoms and money to the government. In return the government protects the citizens.
A terror attack obviously blows a hole in this Social Contract at its most basic level.
The MENA bombing was organised in Libya. This was done specifically to highlight how the Conservative government of David Cameron had completely ignored the Social Contract by using taxpayer's money to make them less safe by giving it to Islamist terror groups in Libya.
The hope being that the UK electorate is so poorly informed they would fail to notice that David Cameron is no longer Prime Minister. He has been replaced by Theresa May was the Home Secretary (Interior Minister) under David Cameron. Libya, Syria and Iraq are definitely aspects of foreign rather than domestic policy.
Due to the complexity of the portfolio it is a tradition that the job of Home Secretary is given to the Prime Minister's worst enemy. The hope is that it will either keep them too busy to mount a leadership challenge or they will fail miserably. Theresa May was David Cameron's Home Secretary for six years.
The Labour Party's response to the MENA bombing and the London Bridge attacks was to shamelessly leap on the support they were being given by the attackers.
Following the MENA bombing Jeremy Corbyn re-launched Labour's campaign with a speech blaming the attacks on the west's War on Terror which actually ended back in 2011. The reasoning behind this is so flawed it borders on a learning disability.
The September 11th attacks of course took place on September 11th 2001 (11/9/01). The War on Terror did not begin until October 7th 2001 (7/10/01). Saying the events of October 2001 caused the events of September 2001 is the sort of flawed conspiracy theory that particularly Islamist terrorists use to justify their violence.
If you were to demonstrate to a psychiatrist that you were unable to grasp the concept that an event cannot be influenced by an event which occurred after it you would fail a mental state assessment. This would lead to you then being assessed to see whether you have £23,000 to pay for your care in a residential care facility. You would also lose your right to vote.
Following the London Bridge attacks Labour started campaigning on the claim that Theresa May's cuts to police numbers as Home Secretary had allowed the attacks to take place. This is equally false.
The problem with this type of marauding attack is that in order to stop it you need large numbers of armed police officers at the scene the moment the attack begins. There was actually a recent incident in Israel where two busloads of armed soldiers did not stop a run-over attack.
So if you want the police numbers to prevent a repeat of the London Bridge attack you are talking about having 15-20 armed police officers stationed every 500 metres/yards on every street. This turns Britain into a totalitarian police state.
Communists like Jeremy Corbyn might aspire to East German Stasi-style state but I'm pretty sure most people in Britain don't.
The most cynical thing that the Labour Party did in response to the MENA and London Bridge attacks was to market voting Labour as a victory for democracy and an act of resistance against terrorism. They particularly aimed this campaign at young, first time voters.
Due to the failure of the British media and, yes, the British criminal justice system these voters were not properly informed about the Labour Party's close links to both the MENA and London Bridge attackers. As a result many young voters seem to have been taken in by this charade.
The result of this is that Britain has failed to elect a government. With Britain technically being at war whilst going negotiating its exit from the European Union (EU) this is the worst possible outcome. Worse even then a Labour government.
Fortunately before taking up office British MP's must swear a loyalty oath. This requires them to pledge to be loyal to the King/Queen and uphold all UK laws. This includes the 2006 Terrorism Act and the specific offences such of the glorification of terrorism and terrorists.
In a speech last night Labour candidate for Newcastle Chi Onwurah praised and glorified known terrorist Jo Cox. As such she cannot take the oath to become an MP.
Unless the Labour Party formally rejects Jo Cox and any members who have glorified Jo Cox or other terrorists, terrorist groups or terrorist acts none of their 260 other candidates can become MP's.
This will reduce the number of MP's needed for a majority from 326 to just 65. That will give the Conservatives a very stable majority of 256.
I still think though the best thing to do is to re-run the election. Only this time with a properly informed electorate.
17:10 on 9/6/17 (UK date).
The first of these occurred on May 22nd (22/5/17) and was a suicide bomb attack against the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the UK city of Manchester. This killed 22 people and wounded 59.
The second of these occurred on June 3rd (3/6/17) and took the form of a low tech marauding run-over and knife attack in the London Bridge area of the UK capital London. This killed 8 and wounded 48.
The purpose of these attacks was to swing the UK election result in favour of the UK Labour Party. The reason for this is that the UK Labour Party have long supported Islamist terror.
Take for example the organisation CAGE UK.
CAGE UK have long supported Al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki who has inspired or directed numerous Islamist terror attacks such as;
The November 5th 2009 (5/11/09) Fort Hood shooting in Texas, US in which 13 people were killed.
The failed December 25th 2009 attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 on route from the Netherlands to Detroit US.
The April 15th 2015 (154/13) Boston Marathon Bombings in Boston, US in which 3 people were killed and 280 wounded.
In 2007 CAGE UK successfully campaigned to have al-Awlaki freed from prison in Yemen. Upon his release the first person al-Awlaki spoke to was CAGE UK's director and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg. In 2008 CAGE UK invited al-Awlaki to the UK to appear at an event to raise funds for the group.
Between 2009 and 2012 CAGE UK helped a young man named Mohamed Emwazi avoid prosecution for Islamist terror offences. Emwazi went on to become better known as; "Jihadi John" - the high profile killer for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
When Jihadi John's identity was revealed CAGE UK issued a statement declaring him to be; "A beautiful young man who is extremely kind and gentle." Apparently the consider beheading non-Islamist terrorists to be a gentle form of kindness.
In October 2014 while Jihadi John was still on his murderous rampage the UK police prosecuted CAGE UK director Moazzam Begg for terrorism offences. They also tried to seize the group's assets to prevent them being used to support acts of terrorism.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn stepped in writing a public letter in support of CAGE UK and used his position to exert political pressure over the case. This prosecutions against Begg were dropped along with the efforts to seize CAGE UK's assets.
The other extremely high profile case of Labour supporting Islamist terror groups was the death of Labour MP Jo Cox. Jo Cox had wholly illegally used her position as an MP to not only provide political support to but also funnel millions of dollars in support to ISIL and Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.
Therefore Jo Cox's should have triggered a counter-terrorism investigation into her criminal activity. However as they did with the CAGE UK cases the Labour Party immediately started exerting pressure on the police and the investigation was dropped really before it got started.
It is very easy to see why a terrorist attack would damage a governing party and help an opposition party.
Much of politics in the western world is based on the work of philosopher John Locke. He introduced the concept of The Social Contract. Basically this states that citizens give up part of their freedoms and money to the government. In return the government protects the citizens.
A terror attack obviously blows a hole in this Social Contract at its most basic level.
The MENA bombing was organised in Libya. This was done specifically to highlight how the Conservative government of David Cameron had completely ignored the Social Contract by using taxpayer's money to make them less safe by giving it to Islamist terror groups in Libya.
The hope being that the UK electorate is so poorly informed they would fail to notice that David Cameron is no longer Prime Minister. He has been replaced by Theresa May was the Home Secretary (Interior Minister) under David Cameron. Libya, Syria and Iraq are definitely aspects of foreign rather than domestic policy.
Due to the complexity of the portfolio it is a tradition that the job of Home Secretary is given to the Prime Minister's worst enemy. The hope is that it will either keep them too busy to mount a leadership challenge or they will fail miserably. Theresa May was David Cameron's Home Secretary for six years.
The Labour Party's response to the MENA bombing and the London Bridge attacks was to shamelessly leap on the support they were being given by the attackers.
Following the MENA bombing Jeremy Corbyn re-launched Labour's campaign with a speech blaming the attacks on the west's War on Terror which actually ended back in 2011. The reasoning behind this is so flawed it borders on a learning disability.
The September 11th attacks of course took place on September 11th 2001 (11/9/01). The War on Terror did not begin until October 7th 2001 (7/10/01). Saying the events of October 2001 caused the events of September 2001 is the sort of flawed conspiracy theory that particularly Islamist terrorists use to justify their violence.
If you were to demonstrate to a psychiatrist that you were unable to grasp the concept that an event cannot be influenced by an event which occurred after it you would fail a mental state assessment. This would lead to you then being assessed to see whether you have £23,000 to pay for your care in a residential care facility. You would also lose your right to vote.
Following the London Bridge attacks Labour started campaigning on the claim that Theresa May's cuts to police numbers as Home Secretary had allowed the attacks to take place. This is equally false.
The problem with this type of marauding attack is that in order to stop it you need large numbers of armed police officers at the scene the moment the attack begins. There was actually a recent incident in Israel where two busloads of armed soldiers did not stop a run-over attack.
So if you want the police numbers to prevent a repeat of the London Bridge attack you are talking about having 15-20 armed police officers stationed every 500 metres/yards on every street. This turns Britain into a totalitarian police state.
Communists like Jeremy Corbyn might aspire to East German Stasi-style state but I'm pretty sure most people in Britain don't.
The most cynical thing that the Labour Party did in response to the MENA and London Bridge attacks was to market voting Labour as a victory for democracy and an act of resistance against terrorism. They particularly aimed this campaign at young, first time voters.
Due to the failure of the British media and, yes, the British criminal justice system these voters were not properly informed about the Labour Party's close links to both the MENA and London Bridge attackers. As a result many young voters seem to have been taken in by this charade.
The result of this is that Britain has failed to elect a government. With Britain technically being at war whilst going negotiating its exit from the European Union (EU) this is the worst possible outcome. Worse even then a Labour government.
Fortunately before taking up office British MP's must swear a loyalty oath. This requires them to pledge to be loyal to the King/Queen and uphold all UK laws. This includes the 2006 Terrorism Act and the specific offences such of the glorification of terrorism and terrorists.
In a speech last night Labour candidate for Newcastle Chi Onwurah praised and glorified known terrorist Jo Cox. As such she cannot take the oath to become an MP.
Unless the Labour Party formally rejects Jo Cox and any members who have glorified Jo Cox or other terrorists, terrorist groups or terrorist acts none of their 260 other candidates can become MP's.
This will reduce the number of MP's needed for a majority from 326 to just 65. That will give the Conservatives a very stable majority of 256.
I still think though the best thing to do is to re-run the election. Only this time with a properly informed electorate.
17:10 on 9/6/17 (UK date).
Well Britain's Stuffed That Up.
In 2010 the UK had a coalition government made up of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat (Lib Dem) parties imposed upon it. This was the UK's first coalition government since the World War Two government of national unity.
Dominated by the Conservative Party this coalition was led by Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor (Finance Minister) George Osborne. It is the sort of government that you would not wish on your worst enemy.
Cameron and Osborne's big plan was to slash public spending to levels below that of the 1930's. This was pure fantasy land economics.
The UK has what is known as a consumer economy. Basically it relies on people to have enough spare money to by luxuries that they don't really need. Years of frozen wages, inflation and tax rises means that the spare money is simply not available causing the entire economic model to unravel.
Since roughly 2013 the Conservatives have been forced to quietly abandon this plan. Although I will need to check my notes the Conservatives claimed the UK's borrowing would eliminated first by 2015 then by 2017 then by 2020 then by 2022 etc.
With the Conservative Party having to abandon their own economic plans it was almost certain that the Labour Party would win the 2015 General Election. However by some miracle the Conservatives managed to win an outright majority meaning they no longer needed the support of the Lib Dems.
This bizarre outcome was almost entirely the result of the extremely damaging effect the British media's obsession with TV debates is having on British democracy.
During the 2015 campaign Labour focused really on this issues. However in the debates Cameron claimed that voting for Labour would result in a coalition between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). Depressingly voters ended up believing him.
Following their 2015 defeat the Labour Party imploded. They replaced Ed Miliband with Jeremy Corbyn as leader and replaced policy with just incoherent ranting. Under Corbyn a hallmark of Labour campaigning has been senior figures appearing to launch a new policy and then quickly revealing they have absolutely no understanding of the policy they are launching.
In June 2016 Cameron and Osborne's seeming prank against Britain ended. Cameron resigned as leader and was replaced by Theresa May. This marked a shift in Conservative Party away from the extremism of Cameron and Osborne back to the political centre ground and, dare I say, sanity.
A prime example of this was the new Conservative government's budget of March 8th (8/3/17). This introduced plans to raise National Insurance (a form of payroll tax) Contributions for self-employed workers.
Historically self-employed workers have paid lower National Insurance Contributions because in retirement they have received a lower state pension. This was changed in 2016 so self-employed workers now receive the same state pension of everyone else. With them continuing to pay a lower National Insurance Contributions this effectively saw self-employed workers robbing everyone else in the economy to pay for their luxury.
Classification as self-employed for tax purposes has also become a major form of tax avoidance. People set up a company of which they are the sole share holder and register as self-employed. However that company will only have one customer - the company that would normally be considered the individual's actual employer.
The rise in National Insurance Contributions was accompanied by changes to the way that this type of small businesses are taxed. It reduced the amount of tax free dividends that can be taken out of this type of company and increased the rate at which further dividends are taxed from 9% to 10%.
Due to the costs of registering a business this type of tax scam is normally carried out by extremely wealthy people who would normally be paying the 40% rate of income tax. Therefore the effect of this self-employed tax scam is to allow the rich to be subsidised by the poor.
The changes of the March budget were also intended to tackle the social problems of the growing so-called; "Gig Economy."
This sees companies like Uber and Deliveroo force employees to register as self-employed so the company doesn't need to pay National Insurance Contributions, sick pay or holiday pay. The very low paid workers really do need things like sick pay and holiday pay and this new Gig Economy has almost overnight done away with more then a hundred years of struggle for worker's rights.
So in these changes to National Insurance Contributions the new Conservative government has done more for workers rights then an entire army of Jeremy Corbyn supporters standing on a street corner endlessly chanting; "No Ifs. No Buts. No Tory Cuts."
The issue of National Insurance also brings me on to one of the bigger issues of the 2017 election campaign. Dubbed the; "Dementia Tax" this really covers all aspects of how we fund social care for particularly elderly people.
The UK economy has long relied on something known as the; "Population Pyramid." This sees a large base of young, healthy workers supporting a narrow tip of elderly non-workers who are often in poor health.
Like all insurance schemes National Insurance works by socialising risk. The large number of young healthy workers pay for the care of the small number of non-workers.
The problem is that falling birthrates and better healthcare means that this Population Pyramid is being replaced by more of a Population Square. The tip is now almost exactly the same size as the base.
This means that the risk is no longer socialised and means that rather than each paying a small amount the young, healthy workers are now having to almost entirely fund the care of an older non-worker on their own. This effectively means that the lives of the young are being destroyed to fund the luxury of the old.
The current model for funding in social care is that anyone with assets over £23,000 has to pay for their own care. The value of the person's home is not included in this calculation. However if having been assessed as paying for their care the person will have to end up selling their home to pay for that care.
Although all of the young are being crushed by this Population Square this system further unfairly punishes those from poorer backgrounds. Being able to afford accountants and lawyers the very wealthy tend to hide their assets in trusts meaning they don't have to fund their care. This allows them to pass those assets down to their children giving those children an unfair advantage over their less well off peers.
The Conservatives introduced a new policy that would see the threshold raised to £100,000 but with the value of the person's home included in the calculation. This shifts the balance of care funding away from the lower middle-classes onto the very wealthy. It would also ensure that first £100,000 would not be used to pay for care allowing more parents to pass down more money to more children creating a fairer society.
To see how good these new Conservative policies are you only need to look a who objected to them the most; The extreme wing of the Conservative Party that was represented by Cameron and Osborne.
This brings me on to the other big issue of the election. Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) - the Brexit.
The extreme wing of the Conservative Party want the hardest possible Brexit imaginable. Not only do they want to withdraw from the single market and the customs union they actually seem to want to break off all economic, social and political ties with Europe entirely.
With a small majority of just 17 the Conservatives were being forced to actually listen to these people in order to get them to support the government's position. The purpose of calling the 2017 General Election was to increase the Conservative majority allowing those voices to be ignored helping to secure a softer Brexit.
Unfortunately amid TV debates every other day that political reality seems to have been entirely lost on voters. So they have returned the worst result imaginable.
The Conservatives remain the largest party but only have 319 seats. This is seven short of the 326 seats they needs to secure a majority.
This would normally open the possibility that the opposition parties could form a coalition against the Conservatives. However combined Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Green Party only have 309 seats still leaving them far behind the Conservatives and a majority of 326.
It is possible that the Lib Dems could form a coalition with a majority of 5 with the Conservatives. However being so damaged by the 2010-2015 coalition they have campaigned on a pledge that they will not do that.
The only other possible outcome is that the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) form a coalition with a majority of 3.
In terms of Brexit this will be the worst possible outcome. On the issue of Brexit even the most extreme Conservatives seem like Remainers when compared with Northern Ireland's Unionists.
Therefore I think the only option is for the UK to call another General Election.
During that election the broadcast regulator OFCOM and the Electoral Commission really need to introduce restrictions on the number of debates that can be held as part of an election campaign.
The only thing that Britain seems to have proved today is that when faced with an uninformed electorate democracy fails.
10:20 on 9/6/17 (UK date).
Dominated by the Conservative Party this coalition was led by Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor (Finance Minister) George Osborne. It is the sort of government that you would not wish on your worst enemy.
Cameron and Osborne's big plan was to slash public spending to levels below that of the 1930's. This was pure fantasy land economics.
The UK has what is known as a consumer economy. Basically it relies on people to have enough spare money to by luxuries that they don't really need. Years of frozen wages, inflation and tax rises means that the spare money is simply not available causing the entire economic model to unravel.
Since roughly 2013 the Conservatives have been forced to quietly abandon this plan. Although I will need to check my notes the Conservatives claimed the UK's borrowing would eliminated first by 2015 then by 2017 then by 2020 then by 2022 etc.
With the Conservative Party having to abandon their own economic plans it was almost certain that the Labour Party would win the 2015 General Election. However by some miracle the Conservatives managed to win an outright majority meaning they no longer needed the support of the Lib Dems.
This bizarre outcome was almost entirely the result of the extremely damaging effect the British media's obsession with TV debates is having on British democracy.
During the 2015 campaign Labour focused really on this issues. However in the debates Cameron claimed that voting for Labour would result in a coalition between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). Depressingly voters ended up believing him.
Following their 2015 defeat the Labour Party imploded. They replaced Ed Miliband with Jeremy Corbyn as leader and replaced policy with just incoherent ranting. Under Corbyn a hallmark of Labour campaigning has been senior figures appearing to launch a new policy and then quickly revealing they have absolutely no understanding of the policy they are launching.
In June 2016 Cameron and Osborne's seeming prank against Britain ended. Cameron resigned as leader and was replaced by Theresa May. This marked a shift in Conservative Party away from the extremism of Cameron and Osborne back to the political centre ground and, dare I say, sanity.
A prime example of this was the new Conservative government's budget of March 8th (8/3/17). This introduced plans to raise National Insurance (a form of payroll tax) Contributions for self-employed workers.
Historically self-employed workers have paid lower National Insurance Contributions because in retirement they have received a lower state pension. This was changed in 2016 so self-employed workers now receive the same state pension of everyone else. With them continuing to pay a lower National Insurance Contributions this effectively saw self-employed workers robbing everyone else in the economy to pay for their luxury.
Classification as self-employed for tax purposes has also become a major form of tax avoidance. People set up a company of which they are the sole share holder and register as self-employed. However that company will only have one customer - the company that would normally be considered the individual's actual employer.
The rise in National Insurance Contributions was accompanied by changes to the way that this type of small businesses are taxed. It reduced the amount of tax free dividends that can be taken out of this type of company and increased the rate at which further dividends are taxed from 9% to 10%.
Due to the costs of registering a business this type of tax scam is normally carried out by extremely wealthy people who would normally be paying the 40% rate of income tax. Therefore the effect of this self-employed tax scam is to allow the rich to be subsidised by the poor.
The changes of the March budget were also intended to tackle the social problems of the growing so-called; "Gig Economy."
This sees companies like Uber and Deliveroo force employees to register as self-employed so the company doesn't need to pay National Insurance Contributions, sick pay or holiday pay. The very low paid workers really do need things like sick pay and holiday pay and this new Gig Economy has almost overnight done away with more then a hundred years of struggle for worker's rights.
So in these changes to National Insurance Contributions the new Conservative government has done more for workers rights then an entire army of Jeremy Corbyn supporters standing on a street corner endlessly chanting; "No Ifs. No Buts. No Tory Cuts."
The issue of National Insurance also brings me on to one of the bigger issues of the 2017 election campaign. Dubbed the; "Dementia Tax" this really covers all aspects of how we fund social care for particularly elderly people.
The UK economy has long relied on something known as the; "Population Pyramid." This sees a large base of young, healthy workers supporting a narrow tip of elderly non-workers who are often in poor health.
Like all insurance schemes National Insurance works by socialising risk. The large number of young healthy workers pay for the care of the small number of non-workers.
The problem is that falling birthrates and better healthcare means that this Population Pyramid is being replaced by more of a Population Square. The tip is now almost exactly the same size as the base.
This means that the risk is no longer socialised and means that rather than each paying a small amount the young, healthy workers are now having to almost entirely fund the care of an older non-worker on their own. This effectively means that the lives of the young are being destroyed to fund the luxury of the old.
The current model for funding in social care is that anyone with assets over £23,000 has to pay for their own care. The value of the person's home is not included in this calculation. However if having been assessed as paying for their care the person will have to end up selling their home to pay for that care.
Although all of the young are being crushed by this Population Square this system further unfairly punishes those from poorer backgrounds. Being able to afford accountants and lawyers the very wealthy tend to hide their assets in trusts meaning they don't have to fund their care. This allows them to pass those assets down to their children giving those children an unfair advantage over their less well off peers.
The Conservatives introduced a new policy that would see the threshold raised to £100,000 but with the value of the person's home included in the calculation. This shifts the balance of care funding away from the lower middle-classes onto the very wealthy. It would also ensure that first £100,000 would not be used to pay for care allowing more parents to pass down more money to more children creating a fairer society.
To see how good these new Conservative policies are you only need to look a who objected to them the most; The extreme wing of the Conservative Party that was represented by Cameron and Osborne.
This brings me on to the other big issue of the election. Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) - the Brexit.
The extreme wing of the Conservative Party want the hardest possible Brexit imaginable. Not only do they want to withdraw from the single market and the customs union they actually seem to want to break off all economic, social and political ties with Europe entirely.
With a small majority of just 17 the Conservatives were being forced to actually listen to these people in order to get them to support the government's position. The purpose of calling the 2017 General Election was to increase the Conservative majority allowing those voices to be ignored helping to secure a softer Brexit.
Unfortunately amid TV debates every other day that political reality seems to have been entirely lost on voters. So they have returned the worst result imaginable.
The Conservatives remain the largest party but only have 319 seats. This is seven short of the 326 seats they needs to secure a majority.
This would normally open the possibility that the opposition parties could form a coalition against the Conservatives. However combined Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Green Party only have 309 seats still leaving them far behind the Conservatives and a majority of 326.
It is possible that the Lib Dems could form a coalition with a majority of 5 with the Conservatives. However being so damaged by the 2010-2015 coalition they have campaigned on a pledge that they will not do that.
The only other possible outcome is that the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) form a coalition with a majority of 3.
In terms of Brexit this will be the worst possible outcome. On the issue of Brexit even the most extreme Conservatives seem like Remainers when compared with Northern Ireland's Unionists.
Therefore I think the only option is for the UK to call another General Election.
During that election the broadcast regulator OFCOM and the Electoral Commission really need to introduce restrictions on the number of debates that can be held as part of an election campaign.
The only thing that Britain seems to have proved today is that when faced with an uninformed electorate democracy fails.
10:20 on 9/6/17 (UK date).
Wednesday, 7 June 2017
Searching for Synonyms of Stupid.
On May 22nd (22/5/17) Qatar's ruling al-Thani family conducted a terror attack against the UK.
This took the form of a suicide bombing at the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the British city of Manchester. It killed 22 people and wounded 59.
The primary objective of this attack was to intimidate the UK government into dropping its calls for the closure of an area of northern Syria known as; "Garvaghy Road."
Roughly 100km (60 miles) wide Garvaghy Road was created in August 2016 when Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent regular Turkish troops to invade and occupy the area. Erdogan's objective was to keep supply lines open between Turkey and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The al-Thani's Qatar and Erdogan's Turkey are very closely linked through an organisation called the Muslim Brotherhood. The al-Thani's want to keep Garvaghy Road open in order to allow ISIL fighters to flee from Syria via Turkey to Libya where the al-Thani's have long battled for control of the nation and its vast oil reserves.
On June 3rd (3/6/17) the al-Thani's repeated their threat to Britain over Garvaghy Road with a second terror attack. This occurred in the London Bridge area of the UK capital London and took the form of a low tech marauding run-over and knife attack. It killed now 8 people and wounded 48 others.
Qatar's Arab neighbours led by Saudi Arabia response to this violence has been swift. Following the MENA bombing on May 23rd (23/5/17) many of them banned Qatari news outlets from broadcasting in their countries.
Following the London Bridge attack those nations on June 4th (4/6/17) broke off all diplomatic ties with Qatar. They have also expelled Qatari nationals from their territories and cut off Qatari access to their air sea and land routes. With Qatar importing the overwhelming majority of its food this is an extremely serious situation.
The Gulf Arab states primary objection to Qatar is that it uses the Muslim Brotherhood to export terrorism, Particularly to Libya, Syria, Iraq and even Hamas in the Gaza area of Palestine. Saudi Arabia backs Fatah in the West Banks area of Palestine.
Saudi Arabia is also extremely angry that Qatar does not share its level of animosity towards Iran. It is impossible to overstate just how much Saudi Arabia dislikes Iran.
In the middle of this extremely complex crisis the US decided to announce yesterday (6/6/17) that it was sending the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) into battle against ISIL's de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.
This notion of the SDF attacking Raqqa dates back to the last days of former US President Barack Obama. Deeply in the thrall of the Muslim Brotherhood and Erdogan in particular Obama's plan was to send the SDF into a battle they cannot win. Then when the SDF are defeated Erdogan's troops can advance east out of Garvaghy Road securing control of almost all of northern Syria.
Yesterday's announcement itself was entirely dictated by Erdogan. Since around last Thursday (1/6/17) Erdogan has been claiming that the SDF's Raqqa operation was already underway. With Turkish TV & radio being able to broadcast across northern Syria this has put a lot of pressure on the SDF to confirm or deny that the operation is underway.
Therefore it is extremely likely that yesterday's announcement is simply a ruse designed to counter Erdogan's propaganda. However even that is an extremely risky strategy.
Now I'm said its a ruse Erdogan will likely increase his propaganda in order to force the SDF to demonstrate the operation is underway. This creates a very real risk that the SDF will find themselves strong-armed into a battle they are in no way prepared to win.
This is exactly what happened at the start of the battle for Mosul back in October 2016. At the time Iraq was trying to resist American pressure to start the operation before preparations were complete. Then Erdogan's troops based at Bashiqa opened fire on Mosul forcing the start of the operation. Nine months later the battle for Mosul is still dragging on.
So I am genuinely struggling to find words to convey just how stupid it was to send such a strong message in support of Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism in the midst of this Gulf crisis.
It turns out though America wasn't finished there.
Officially this Gulf crisis has been caused by a speech Qatari leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani gave on May 20th (20/5/17) which was made public on May 23rd (23/5/17). In this speech Tamim al-Thani was extremely offensive about Qatar's Gulf neighbours and America.
Qatar denies that Tamim al-Thani ever made this speech and claim it was faked and then released by computer hackers. Absolutely no-one believes them.
Yesterday (6/6/17) the US came out and said that it believes Qatar. Not only that they accused Russia of being behind the cyberattack. This seems mainly directed at a domestic US audience than having anything to do with the Gulf crisis.
In his speech Tamim al-Thani boasted that he would soon use the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow the US government by using claims of Russian hacking. On Thursday (8/6/17) former FBI Director James Comey will appear before US Congress to answer questions about the Russian hacking investigation.
CNN in particular are so excited that this could bring down the US government they've been running an onscreen countdown showing the seconds until the start of the Comey hearing. They started it more than 50 hours or two days before the start of the hearing.
Using false claims of Russian hacking to defend Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism from Qatar's neighbours certainly makes people like CNN look quite foolish.
Today (7/6/17) there has been a terror attack against the Parliament building in Tehran, Iran. I still need to look at that in detail.
However it would certainly fit with Qatar's need to show it shares Saudi Arabia's hatred for Iran. The Saudis main objection to Qatar's support for ISIL is that they've not used it to attack Iran enough.
14:00 on 7/6/17 (UK date).
This took the form of a suicide bombing at the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the British city of Manchester. It killed 22 people and wounded 59.
The primary objective of this attack was to intimidate the UK government into dropping its calls for the closure of an area of northern Syria known as; "Garvaghy Road."
Roughly 100km (60 miles) wide Garvaghy Road was created in August 2016 when Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent regular Turkish troops to invade and occupy the area. Erdogan's objective was to keep supply lines open between Turkey and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The al-Thani's Qatar and Erdogan's Turkey are very closely linked through an organisation called the Muslim Brotherhood. The al-Thani's want to keep Garvaghy Road open in order to allow ISIL fighters to flee from Syria via Turkey to Libya where the al-Thani's have long battled for control of the nation and its vast oil reserves.
On June 3rd (3/6/17) the al-Thani's repeated their threat to Britain over Garvaghy Road with a second terror attack. This occurred in the London Bridge area of the UK capital London and took the form of a low tech marauding run-over and knife attack. It killed now 8 people and wounded 48 others.
Qatar's Arab neighbours led by Saudi Arabia response to this violence has been swift. Following the MENA bombing on May 23rd (23/5/17) many of them banned Qatari news outlets from broadcasting in their countries.
Following the London Bridge attack those nations on June 4th (4/6/17) broke off all diplomatic ties with Qatar. They have also expelled Qatari nationals from their territories and cut off Qatari access to their air sea and land routes. With Qatar importing the overwhelming majority of its food this is an extremely serious situation.
The Gulf Arab states primary objection to Qatar is that it uses the Muslim Brotherhood to export terrorism, Particularly to Libya, Syria, Iraq and even Hamas in the Gaza area of Palestine. Saudi Arabia backs Fatah in the West Banks area of Palestine.
Saudi Arabia is also extremely angry that Qatar does not share its level of animosity towards Iran. It is impossible to overstate just how much Saudi Arabia dislikes Iran.
In the middle of this extremely complex crisis the US decided to announce yesterday (6/6/17) that it was sending the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) into battle against ISIL's de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.
This notion of the SDF attacking Raqqa dates back to the last days of former US President Barack Obama. Deeply in the thrall of the Muslim Brotherhood and Erdogan in particular Obama's plan was to send the SDF into a battle they cannot win. Then when the SDF are defeated Erdogan's troops can advance east out of Garvaghy Road securing control of almost all of northern Syria.
Yesterday's announcement itself was entirely dictated by Erdogan. Since around last Thursday (1/6/17) Erdogan has been claiming that the SDF's Raqqa operation was already underway. With Turkish TV & radio being able to broadcast across northern Syria this has put a lot of pressure on the SDF to confirm or deny that the operation is underway.
Therefore it is extremely likely that yesterday's announcement is simply a ruse designed to counter Erdogan's propaganda. However even that is an extremely risky strategy.
Now I'm said its a ruse Erdogan will likely increase his propaganda in order to force the SDF to demonstrate the operation is underway. This creates a very real risk that the SDF will find themselves strong-armed into a battle they are in no way prepared to win.
This is exactly what happened at the start of the battle for Mosul back in October 2016. At the time Iraq was trying to resist American pressure to start the operation before preparations were complete. Then Erdogan's troops based at Bashiqa opened fire on Mosul forcing the start of the operation. Nine months later the battle for Mosul is still dragging on.
So I am genuinely struggling to find words to convey just how stupid it was to send such a strong message in support of Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism in the midst of this Gulf crisis.
It turns out though America wasn't finished there.
Officially this Gulf crisis has been caused by a speech Qatari leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani gave on May 20th (20/5/17) which was made public on May 23rd (23/5/17). In this speech Tamim al-Thani was extremely offensive about Qatar's Gulf neighbours and America.
Qatar denies that Tamim al-Thani ever made this speech and claim it was faked and then released by computer hackers. Absolutely no-one believes them.
Yesterday (6/6/17) the US came out and said that it believes Qatar. Not only that they accused Russia of being behind the cyberattack. This seems mainly directed at a domestic US audience than having anything to do with the Gulf crisis.
In his speech Tamim al-Thani boasted that he would soon use the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow the US government by using claims of Russian hacking. On Thursday (8/6/17) former FBI Director James Comey will appear before US Congress to answer questions about the Russian hacking investigation.
CNN in particular are so excited that this could bring down the US government they've been running an onscreen countdown showing the seconds until the start of the Comey hearing. They started it more than 50 hours or two days before the start of the hearing.
Using false claims of Russian hacking to defend Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism from Qatar's neighbours certainly makes people like CNN look quite foolish.
Today (7/6/17) there has been a terror attack against the Parliament building in Tehran, Iran. I still need to look at that in detail.
However it would certainly fit with Qatar's need to show it shares Saudi Arabia's hatred for Iran. The Saudis main objection to Qatar's support for ISIL is that they've not used it to attack Iran enough.
14:00 on 7/6/17 (UK date).
Sunday, 4 June 2017
Threat Status: Crescent Moon.
On May 22nd 2017 (22/5/17) a suicide bomber attacked the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the British city of Manchester.
This attack occurred at the end of a concert by US popstar Ariana Grande. Staged by the promoter Live Nation this concert was being performed as part of the Dangerous Woman Tour (DWT). 22 civilians were killed in the attack and 59 were wounded.
At around 21:00 (22:00 local) yesterday (3/6/17) a low tech marauding terror attack occurred in the London Bridge area of the British capital London. Three men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge itself before exiting the van and stabbing passers-by in the bars and restaurants in and around London Bridge.
Within 10 minutes all three attackers had been shot and killed by police. However they had succeeded in killing 7 and wounding 48 more.
Last night's attack is simply a continuation of the MENA bombing. So I could spend my Sunday cutting & pasting what I wrote about the MENA into a new post in an effort to pretend I've done some work.
Alternatively you could just read what I wrote here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-manchester-bombing.html
Here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/operation-temperer.html
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/state-sponsored-terrorism.html
In those posts I pointed out that although it has extremely little to do with Islam the threat of terrorism rises during the holy month of Ramadan. On this occasion I just couldn't resist.
In the five days since I wrote those posts two significant things have happened;
Firstly US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday (1/6/17) that the US is to withdraw from the so-called Paris Agreement.
As I've said Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour (DWT) had many purposes.
The primary objective was to cause Rihanna to suffer a Kanye West style psychotic break/mental health emergency in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in October 2013. This was to serve as an apology for Rihanna causing the democratic revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011. As I've said it's probably best you don't try and question the reasoning of crazy people.
Beyond that the hope was that such a dramatic event would create a culture of global anger and mistrust. That would render the COP19 Summit held in November 2013 unable to function. Particularly the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) which was tasked with drawing up a legally binding global response to climate change.
Obviously I am awesome. So none of that happened.
In 2015 the US Democratic Party and the Gulf States who fund them changed tactic. In October 2015 the US would throw away the ADP's work and replace it with a new agreement intended to block efforts to combat climate change. The Gulf States would then use terrorist attacks to intimidate nations into signing up to the Obama text abandoning the fight against climate change.
These included but are not limited to;
Now the US has withdrawn from the 12/12 Atrocity it raises the possibility that global efforts to combat climate change will resume. This obviously presents something of an existential threat to Gulf Nations who exist only to provide fossil fuels to be burnt to emit Green House Gases (ghg's).
Already Trump's announcement seems to have triggered a fresh uptick in terrorism. Particularly in west Africa.
On Thursday (1/6/17) itself two French soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack on their base in northern Mali. On Friday (2/6/17) 6 Nigerian soldiers were killed in an Islamist terror attack in Mali's neighbour Burkina Faso. Also on Friday (2/6/17) twin suicide bomb attacks killed 11 in Nigeria's neighbour Cameroon.
As developing nations particularly vulnerable to climate threats west African nations have a lot to lose for the Paris Agreement continuing and a lot to gain from it being scrapped. These attacks seem intended to intimidate similar developing nations in west Africa and beyond from speaking up in support of President Trump's decision.
Secondly on Tuesday (30/5/17) Live Nation announced that Ariana Grande will be headlining a one-off benefit concert called; "One Love Manchester." This will be taking place in Manchester today. It is being touted as the most watched concert in history.
I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this concert.
On the one hand I think that it is important that in response to the MENA bombing we show that terrorists will not force us to cower in the dark as they hope. However from experience I suspect that Live Nation's true motive is to get the currently suspended Dangerous Woman Tour back on track so they don't have to refund the tickets already sold.
However the timing of the concert seems wrong.
In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing the world's media have descended on Manchester only really leaving last weekend (27/6/17). So it is only really now that the people of Manchester have been allowed to start to forget that a tragedy has struck them. Today's concert denies them that right to start to forget.
In response to the concert Manchester Health Authority have been forced to set up a special psychological trauma counselling centre in the city centre to assist those who will find the concert psychologically triggering. I mean that in the legitimate medical sense rather than the US liberal bullsh*t sense.
The concert is also an open show of defiance and therefore challenge to the terrorists. This has the effect of painting a big target on Britain's back while the concert is taking place. Normally I'm all for that but the concert takes places the day after the UK hosted the UEFA Champions League Final.
Some Americans have described the Champions League Final as being like the Super Bowl. The truth is it is a far bigger deal than that. It is followed by roughly 1/7th of the entire population of the planet.
Hosting the Champions League Final allows a nation to show of its expertise in providing security for this type of large public event. It certainly gives all other UEFA nations the opportunity to annoy the host with stupid questions about security.
For example I think the Principality Stadium in Cardiff which hosted this year's final is the only stadium in Europe to have a closable roof.
Long before events in Manchester there was lots of questions about whether that roof should be closed during the match to prevent terrorists using commercial drones to drop bombs on the crowd. However I think that owed more to Lady Gaga's use of drones during the 2017 Super Bowl then any legitimate security concern.
Therefore I can't help but think this One Love Manchester concert is something the UK security services could have done without. However I am mindful of the fact that Ariana Grande is not only a real person but also technically one of the survivors of the MENA bombing.
Even before Saturday evening's events in London Bridge Qatar's ruling al-Thani family had been having a particularly active day.
In the US they staged another round of Arab Spring style protest marches against President Trump.
These were almost identical to January's Women's/Sister Marches except that they took place under the banner of "March For Truth." Feeding directly into the US Democrat's Congressional campaign the claim being that there is some hidden link between President Trump and Russia.
In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing Qatari leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of course boasted that at his behest the Muslim Brotherhood would soon succeed in using these tactics to overthrow the American government.
As I've said before if Americans continue to act as enemy combatants on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood they should expect to be treated as enemy combatants.
Also yesterday the hackers that Qatar blamed for releasing Tamim al-Thani's speech leaked emails of UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba. The main thrust of these emails was that they linked the UAE to Israel via the al-Otaiba and the US think-tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD).
Sadly politics in Muslim nations is often a contest of who can be the most anti-Semitic. So there's is no greater insult one Muslim nation can throw at another Muslim nation than accusing it of being linked to Israel.
This is something that voters in London actually have some of experience of.
During the 2016 campaign for London Mayor the Labour Party kept trotting Ken Livingstone out to make increasingly bizarre anti-Semitic statements. This was part of a deliberate strategy by the Labour Party to have their candidate Sadiq Khan elected. Alongside saying non-Muslims should not have the right to vote Labour was trying to show Muslim voters that the party shares their most delusional and hateful views.
The al-Thani's animosity towards the UAE seems driven in part by the fact that the One Love Manchester concert will be taking place at the Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
When staging an event of this scale in the UK the police draw up a security plan. They then hand the bill for that security plan to the venue who have no choice other than to pay it.
I suspect that the One Love Manchester concert will result in the UAE happily paying a highly inflated security bill without question or argument. Even if I think the bill should be handed directly to Live Nation.
Following the MENA bombing the UK government of course raised the terror threat from "Severe" to "Critical." The highest level. However they then lowered it again to Severe last Saturday (27/5/17). In light of last night's events that decision is obviously going to be called into question.
The terror threat level only really relates to things like making sure hospitals have enough blood in stock and trauma specialists available. Keeping the terror threat at Critical would not have meant that there would've been the van full of police officers on every street corner needed to prevent last night's attack.
Although they may not feel like it at the moment British people don't want to live in a society where there are vans full of police officers on every street corner. They certainly don't want to have to pay for it.
Personally I would never have raised the threat level to Critical in the first place. However once it had been done I wouldn't have lowered it certainly until after this weekend and probably until after Thursday (8/6/17) General Election.
On the election the UK is seriously having an election debate every two days. Like Prime Minister Theresa May I actually have an interest in politics so haven't wasted my time with them. However I did catch a little bit of Friday's (2/6/17) debate.
There the Conservative Party are trying to portray Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as being weak on security by saying that he would never launch Britain's nuclear weapons. Corbyn tries to squirm out of those questions by saying the use of nuclear weapons would mean the end of the World. That is simply not true.
Seeming to ignore the two nuclear weapons used against Japan in 1945 Corbyn's thinking still seems stuck in the Cold War. That involved two super powers with vast nuclear arsenal's and second strike capability squaring off against each other. If they'd both used all of their nuclear weapons that would probably mean the end of the World.
However a nuclear armed nation using a couple of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation or non-state actor would be almost entirely without consequence for the nuclear nation.
For example Britain could launch a nuclear strike against Qatar today.
That would result in nothing more than Qatar getting destroyed followed by a short argument over who gets the al-Thani's stuff.
12:25 on 4/6/17 (UK date).
This attack occurred at the end of a concert by US popstar Ariana Grande. Staged by the promoter Live Nation this concert was being performed as part of the Dangerous Woman Tour (DWT). 22 civilians were killed in the attack and 59 were wounded.
At around 21:00 (22:00 local) yesterday (3/6/17) a low tech marauding terror attack occurred in the London Bridge area of the British capital London. Three men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge itself before exiting the van and stabbing passers-by in the bars and restaurants in and around London Bridge.
Within 10 minutes all three attackers had been shot and killed by police. However they had succeeded in killing 7 and wounding 48 more.
Last night's attack is simply a continuation of the MENA bombing. So I could spend my Sunday cutting & pasting what I wrote about the MENA into a new post in an effort to pretend I've done some work.
Alternatively you could just read what I wrote here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-manchester-bombing.html
Here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/operation-temperer.html
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/state-sponsored-terrorism.html
In those posts I pointed out that although it has extremely little to do with Islam the threat of terrorism rises during the holy month of Ramadan. On this occasion I just couldn't resist.
In the five days since I wrote those posts two significant things have happened;
Firstly US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday (1/6/17) that the US is to withdraw from the so-called Paris Agreement.
As I've said Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour (DWT) had many purposes.
The primary objective was to cause Rihanna to suffer a Kanye West style psychotic break/mental health emergency in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in October 2013. This was to serve as an apology for Rihanna causing the democratic revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011. As I've said it's probably best you don't try and question the reasoning of crazy people.
Beyond that the hope was that such a dramatic event would create a culture of global anger and mistrust. That would render the COP19 Summit held in November 2013 unable to function. Particularly the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) which was tasked with drawing up a legally binding global response to climate change.
Obviously I am awesome. So none of that happened.
In 2015 the US Democratic Party and the Gulf States who fund them changed tactic. In October 2015 the US would throw away the ADP's work and replace it with a new agreement intended to block efforts to combat climate change. The Gulf States would then use terrorist attacks to intimidate nations into signing up to the Obama text abandoning the fight against climate change.
These included but are not limited to;
- The November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres in COP21 host city Paris, France. This killed 130 people and wounded 368.
- The November 20th 2015 (20/11/15) attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali. This killed 20 and wounded countless more.
- The November 24th 2015 (24/11/15) bombing of a bus in Tunis, Tunisia. This killed 12 and wounded 16.
- The December 2nd 2015 (2/12/15) marauding attack in San Bernardino, California, US. This killed 16 and wounded 24.
Now the US has withdrawn from the 12/12 Atrocity it raises the possibility that global efforts to combat climate change will resume. This obviously presents something of an existential threat to Gulf Nations who exist only to provide fossil fuels to be burnt to emit Green House Gases (ghg's).
Already Trump's announcement seems to have triggered a fresh uptick in terrorism. Particularly in west Africa.
On Thursday (1/6/17) itself two French soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack on their base in northern Mali. On Friday (2/6/17) 6 Nigerian soldiers were killed in an Islamist terror attack in Mali's neighbour Burkina Faso. Also on Friday (2/6/17) twin suicide bomb attacks killed 11 in Nigeria's neighbour Cameroon.
As developing nations particularly vulnerable to climate threats west African nations have a lot to lose for the Paris Agreement continuing and a lot to gain from it being scrapped. These attacks seem intended to intimidate similar developing nations in west Africa and beyond from speaking up in support of President Trump's decision.
Secondly on Tuesday (30/5/17) Live Nation announced that Ariana Grande will be headlining a one-off benefit concert called; "One Love Manchester." This will be taking place in Manchester today. It is being touted as the most watched concert in history.
I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this concert.
On the one hand I think that it is important that in response to the MENA bombing we show that terrorists will not force us to cower in the dark as they hope. However from experience I suspect that Live Nation's true motive is to get the currently suspended Dangerous Woman Tour back on track so they don't have to refund the tickets already sold.
However the timing of the concert seems wrong.
In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing the world's media have descended on Manchester only really leaving last weekend (27/6/17). So it is only really now that the people of Manchester have been allowed to start to forget that a tragedy has struck them. Today's concert denies them that right to start to forget.
In response to the concert Manchester Health Authority have been forced to set up a special psychological trauma counselling centre in the city centre to assist those who will find the concert psychologically triggering. I mean that in the legitimate medical sense rather than the US liberal bullsh*t sense.
The concert is also an open show of defiance and therefore challenge to the terrorists. This has the effect of painting a big target on Britain's back while the concert is taking place. Normally I'm all for that but the concert takes places the day after the UK hosted the UEFA Champions League Final.
Some Americans have described the Champions League Final as being like the Super Bowl. The truth is it is a far bigger deal than that. It is followed by roughly 1/7th of the entire population of the planet.
Hosting the Champions League Final allows a nation to show of its expertise in providing security for this type of large public event. It certainly gives all other UEFA nations the opportunity to annoy the host with stupid questions about security.
For example I think the Principality Stadium in Cardiff which hosted this year's final is the only stadium in Europe to have a closable roof.
Long before events in Manchester there was lots of questions about whether that roof should be closed during the match to prevent terrorists using commercial drones to drop bombs on the crowd. However I think that owed more to Lady Gaga's use of drones during the 2017 Super Bowl then any legitimate security concern.
Therefore I can't help but think this One Love Manchester concert is something the UK security services could have done without. However I am mindful of the fact that Ariana Grande is not only a real person but also technically one of the survivors of the MENA bombing.
Even before Saturday evening's events in London Bridge Qatar's ruling al-Thani family had been having a particularly active day.
In the US they staged another round of Arab Spring style protest marches against President Trump.
These were almost identical to January's Women's/Sister Marches except that they took place under the banner of "March For Truth." Feeding directly into the US Democrat's Congressional campaign the claim being that there is some hidden link between President Trump and Russia.
In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing Qatari leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of course boasted that at his behest the Muslim Brotherhood would soon succeed in using these tactics to overthrow the American government.
As I've said before if Americans continue to act as enemy combatants on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood they should expect to be treated as enemy combatants.
Also yesterday the hackers that Qatar blamed for releasing Tamim al-Thani's speech leaked emails of UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba. The main thrust of these emails was that they linked the UAE to Israel via the al-Otaiba and the US think-tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD).
Sadly politics in Muslim nations is often a contest of who can be the most anti-Semitic. So there's is no greater insult one Muslim nation can throw at another Muslim nation than accusing it of being linked to Israel.
This is something that voters in London actually have some of experience of.
During the 2016 campaign for London Mayor the Labour Party kept trotting Ken Livingstone out to make increasingly bizarre anti-Semitic statements. This was part of a deliberate strategy by the Labour Party to have their candidate Sadiq Khan elected. Alongside saying non-Muslims should not have the right to vote Labour was trying to show Muslim voters that the party shares their most delusional and hateful views.
The al-Thani's animosity towards the UAE seems driven in part by the fact that the One Love Manchester concert will be taking place at the Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
When staging an event of this scale in the UK the police draw up a security plan. They then hand the bill for that security plan to the venue who have no choice other than to pay it.
I suspect that the One Love Manchester concert will result in the UAE happily paying a highly inflated security bill without question or argument. Even if I think the bill should be handed directly to Live Nation.
Following the MENA bombing the UK government of course raised the terror threat from "Severe" to "Critical." The highest level. However they then lowered it again to Severe last Saturday (27/5/17). In light of last night's events that decision is obviously going to be called into question.
The terror threat level only really relates to things like making sure hospitals have enough blood in stock and trauma specialists available. Keeping the terror threat at Critical would not have meant that there would've been the van full of police officers on every street corner needed to prevent last night's attack.
Although they may not feel like it at the moment British people don't want to live in a society where there are vans full of police officers on every street corner. They certainly don't want to have to pay for it.
Personally I would never have raised the threat level to Critical in the first place. However once it had been done I wouldn't have lowered it certainly until after this weekend and probably until after Thursday (8/6/17) General Election.
On the election the UK is seriously having an election debate every two days. Like Prime Minister Theresa May I actually have an interest in politics so haven't wasted my time with them. However I did catch a little bit of Friday's (2/6/17) debate.
There the Conservative Party are trying to portray Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as being weak on security by saying that he would never launch Britain's nuclear weapons. Corbyn tries to squirm out of those questions by saying the use of nuclear weapons would mean the end of the World. That is simply not true.
Seeming to ignore the two nuclear weapons used against Japan in 1945 Corbyn's thinking still seems stuck in the Cold War. That involved two super powers with vast nuclear arsenal's and second strike capability squaring off against each other. If they'd both used all of their nuclear weapons that would probably mean the end of the World.
However a nuclear armed nation using a couple of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation or non-state actor would be almost entirely without consequence for the nuclear nation.
For example Britain could launch a nuclear strike against Qatar today.
That would result in nothing more than Qatar getting destroyed followed by a short argument over who gets the al-Thani's stuff.
12:25 on 4/6/17 (UK date).
Friday, 2 June 2017
The Fight Against Climate Change: Back From the Dead.
In 1824 French Physicist Joesph Fourier observed that Carbon Dioxide gas reflected heat radiation creating a warming effect.
Fourier's work was confirmed by many successive scientists such as John Tyndall. They went on to discover that other gases such as methane create a similar warming effect.
This work was being carried out whilst the Industrial Revolution was releasing these Green House Gases (ghg) into the earth's atmosphere in never before seen levels.
This obviously created great concern that this increase in ghg emissions was causing ever more heat to be trapped within the earth's atmosphere creating Global Warming and in turn Climate Change.
By 1992 these concerns had become so great that the Earth Summit was convened in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. The Rio Earth Summit resulted in the creation of two United Nations bodies;
The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) to increase our scientific understanding of the problem and the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) to find solutions to the problems identified by the IPCC.
The UNFCCC meets annually at its Conference of Parties (COP) Summit. At the 1997 COP3 in Kyoto, Japan the UNFCCC agreed a legally binding, international plan of action to reduce global warming and climate change by reducing ghg emissions. This was known as the Kyoto Protocol.
Although it was the best that could be achieved at the time the Kyoto Protocol was deeply flawed. It's main flaw was the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility.
This concept holds that there are 35 nations on earth who have completed their economic development. There is a second group of around 160 nations who have not completed their economic development.
Therefore is falls to the 35 nations to reverse their economic development to allow the 160 nations to continue their economic development by continuing to emit ghg's.
The Kyoto Protocol was set to expire in 2010. However due to the flaw of Binary Differentiation along with other flaws nobody was prepared to sign up to a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol. So at the 2009 COP15 Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark the UNFCCC agreed to do two things;
The first of these was to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020 so efforts to combat climate change did not lapse. Secondly they established the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP). This was tasked with drawing up an improved legally binding global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
Over the course of the next four years the ADP set about drawing up a vastly improved replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. The main improvement was that this new agreement did away with the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility and replaced it with the concept of Common But Different Responsibility.
This concept holds that all nations have an equal responsibility to reduce their ghg emissions. However it acknowledges that different nations are at different stages of economic development. Therefore the type and levels of emission reductions nations have to take are determined by their individual circumstances with the ultimate goal of totally eliminating ghg emissions.
The idea at the centre of the UNFCCC's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol is that every 10 years nations submit an action plan of how they are going to reduce ghg emissions and respond to the challenges of climate change.
Those actions plans are then peer reviewed before going into effect (ex ante) and after they have been completed (ex post). This allows nations to learn from each others mistakes improving the global response to climate change.
This peer review process also facilitates cooperative action between nations.
The current problem is that it costs rich nations huge amounts to reduce ghg emissions by small amounts while in poorer nations far greater ghg reductions can be achieved at a fraction of the cost. However those poorer nations don't have the money to take those actions.
Cooperative action allows the richer nations to pay the poorer nations to take those actions. The atmosphere does not care where they reductions are made. This also brings about co-benefits meaning that beyond reducing ghg emissions also improve the economic and social development of the poorer nation.
A prime example is Nigeria. Despite being a large oil producer Nigeria has a very poor national power infrastructure instead relying on privately owned oil burning generators. Assisting Nigeria to build even oil fired power stations would not only reduce the nations ghg emissions but improve its economic development by providing a reliable electricity supply.
The UNFCCC's proposed replacement to the Kyoto Protocol also established a legally binding mechanism to impose financial penalties on nations that fail to follow through on their promised action plans.
This establishes the principle that cleaning up pollution is another cost of doing business such as buying raw materials or insuring employees and customers against accidents. This creates the basis for a market mechanism to fund action against climate change.
In short if you want to operate a factory emitting ghg's you have to pay the owner of a forest to scrub those ghg's out of the atmosphere for you.
The UNFCCC's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol was scheduled to be adopted at the December 2015 COP21 Summit held in Paris, France.
However in October 2015 a significant threat to this new agreement arrived in the form of former US President Barack Obama.
Obama's Presidency was defined entirely by his ego and his desire to establish a legacy to boast about to future generations. So Obama wanted to be the President that ended the Israel/Palestine conflict and Obama wanted to be the President who ended climate change.
The problem is that Obama is extremely lazy and feels he deserves these achievements without putting the work in.
So rather than fighting the battle to get the UNFCCC's proposed agreement passed into US law Obama simply tore it up and replaced it with a new agreement of his own that was so weak he could pass it by executive order.
The main flaw to Obama's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol is that it maintains the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility in perpetuity. This means that large polluters such as China and India can continue growing their ghg emissions for ever.
Obama's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol also did away entirely with the peer review process. With nations already submitting action plans and reading each others action plans simply providing a forum for them to talk to each other about it is almost entirely cost free. Obama's opposition to this idea was nothing more than mindless vandalism.
Obama's plan also requires that these action plans are submitted every five years. This is far too short a timeframe and placing an unsustainable burden on particularly poorer nations.
For example it requires the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to count every tree in the World's second largest rainforest every five years. I don't think anyone believes they're going to choose to do that over feeding their people.
Finally Obama's plan removes any legally binding mechanism to impose financial penalties on nations that don't follow through on their action plans.
Not only does this mean that everyone will cheat and no-one will keep their promises it destroys the foundation of the market based mechanism which is needed to fund action against climate change.
With there being no end date to Obama's replacement for the Kyoto Protocol its adoption killed global efforts to combat climate change stone dead on December 12th 2015 (12/12/15).
Yesterday (1/6/17) US President Donald Trump finally scrapped Obama's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. He has not withdrawn the US from the IPCC nor has he withdrawn the US from the UNFCCC.
In fact Trump has urged the UNFCCC to resume work on the agreement that should have been signed at COP21 in Paris prior to Obama's intervention.
So far nations have resisted these calls to revert to the UNFCCC's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. They have been led by French President Emmanuel Macron who made just a stunning error in rejecting calls for a global agreement to combat climate change.
Macron said that all nations have a shared responsibility to combat climate change. This puts him in direct disagreement with the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility which is at the core of Obama's Paris Agreement which Macron says does not need to be renegotiated.
I can only suggest that in future Macron learns to read things before opening his mouth.
15:20 on 2/6/17 (UK date).
Fourier's work was confirmed by many successive scientists such as John Tyndall. They went on to discover that other gases such as methane create a similar warming effect.
This work was being carried out whilst the Industrial Revolution was releasing these Green House Gases (ghg) into the earth's atmosphere in never before seen levels.
This obviously created great concern that this increase in ghg emissions was causing ever more heat to be trapped within the earth's atmosphere creating Global Warming and in turn Climate Change.
By 1992 these concerns had become so great that the Earth Summit was convened in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. The Rio Earth Summit resulted in the creation of two United Nations bodies;
The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) to increase our scientific understanding of the problem and the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) to find solutions to the problems identified by the IPCC.
The UNFCCC meets annually at its Conference of Parties (COP) Summit. At the 1997 COP3 in Kyoto, Japan the UNFCCC agreed a legally binding, international plan of action to reduce global warming and climate change by reducing ghg emissions. This was known as the Kyoto Protocol.
Although it was the best that could be achieved at the time the Kyoto Protocol was deeply flawed. It's main flaw was the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility.
This concept holds that there are 35 nations on earth who have completed their economic development. There is a second group of around 160 nations who have not completed their economic development.
Therefore is falls to the 35 nations to reverse their economic development to allow the 160 nations to continue their economic development by continuing to emit ghg's.
The Kyoto Protocol was set to expire in 2010. However due to the flaw of Binary Differentiation along with other flaws nobody was prepared to sign up to a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol. So at the 2009 COP15 Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark the UNFCCC agreed to do two things;
The first of these was to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020 so efforts to combat climate change did not lapse. Secondly they established the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP). This was tasked with drawing up an improved legally binding global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
Over the course of the next four years the ADP set about drawing up a vastly improved replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. The main improvement was that this new agreement did away with the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility and replaced it with the concept of Common But Different Responsibility.
This concept holds that all nations have an equal responsibility to reduce their ghg emissions. However it acknowledges that different nations are at different stages of economic development. Therefore the type and levels of emission reductions nations have to take are determined by their individual circumstances with the ultimate goal of totally eliminating ghg emissions.
The idea at the centre of the UNFCCC's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol is that every 10 years nations submit an action plan of how they are going to reduce ghg emissions and respond to the challenges of climate change.
Those actions plans are then peer reviewed before going into effect (ex ante) and after they have been completed (ex post). This allows nations to learn from each others mistakes improving the global response to climate change.
This peer review process also facilitates cooperative action between nations.
The current problem is that it costs rich nations huge amounts to reduce ghg emissions by small amounts while in poorer nations far greater ghg reductions can be achieved at a fraction of the cost. However those poorer nations don't have the money to take those actions.
Cooperative action allows the richer nations to pay the poorer nations to take those actions. The atmosphere does not care where they reductions are made. This also brings about co-benefits meaning that beyond reducing ghg emissions also improve the economic and social development of the poorer nation.
A prime example is Nigeria. Despite being a large oil producer Nigeria has a very poor national power infrastructure instead relying on privately owned oil burning generators. Assisting Nigeria to build even oil fired power stations would not only reduce the nations ghg emissions but improve its economic development by providing a reliable electricity supply.
The UNFCCC's proposed replacement to the Kyoto Protocol also established a legally binding mechanism to impose financial penalties on nations that fail to follow through on their promised action plans.
This establishes the principle that cleaning up pollution is another cost of doing business such as buying raw materials or insuring employees and customers against accidents. This creates the basis for a market mechanism to fund action against climate change.
In short if you want to operate a factory emitting ghg's you have to pay the owner of a forest to scrub those ghg's out of the atmosphere for you.
The UNFCCC's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol was scheduled to be adopted at the December 2015 COP21 Summit held in Paris, France.
However in October 2015 a significant threat to this new agreement arrived in the form of former US President Barack Obama.
Obama's Presidency was defined entirely by his ego and his desire to establish a legacy to boast about to future generations. So Obama wanted to be the President that ended the Israel/Palestine conflict and Obama wanted to be the President who ended climate change.
The problem is that Obama is extremely lazy and feels he deserves these achievements without putting the work in.
So rather than fighting the battle to get the UNFCCC's proposed agreement passed into US law Obama simply tore it up and replaced it with a new agreement of his own that was so weak he could pass it by executive order.
The main flaw to Obama's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol is that it maintains the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility in perpetuity. This means that large polluters such as China and India can continue growing their ghg emissions for ever.
Obama's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol also did away entirely with the peer review process. With nations already submitting action plans and reading each others action plans simply providing a forum for them to talk to each other about it is almost entirely cost free. Obama's opposition to this idea was nothing more than mindless vandalism.
Obama's plan also requires that these action plans are submitted every five years. This is far too short a timeframe and placing an unsustainable burden on particularly poorer nations.
For example it requires the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to count every tree in the World's second largest rainforest every five years. I don't think anyone believes they're going to choose to do that over feeding their people.
Finally Obama's plan removes any legally binding mechanism to impose financial penalties on nations that don't follow through on their action plans.
Not only does this mean that everyone will cheat and no-one will keep their promises it destroys the foundation of the market based mechanism which is needed to fund action against climate change.
With there being no end date to Obama's replacement for the Kyoto Protocol its adoption killed global efforts to combat climate change stone dead on December 12th 2015 (12/12/15).
Yesterday (1/6/17) US President Donald Trump finally scrapped Obama's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. He has not withdrawn the US from the IPCC nor has he withdrawn the US from the UNFCCC.
In fact Trump has urged the UNFCCC to resume work on the agreement that should have been signed at COP21 in Paris prior to Obama's intervention.
So far nations have resisted these calls to revert to the UNFCCC's replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. They have been led by French President Emmanuel Macron who made just a stunning error in rejecting calls for a global agreement to combat climate change.
Macron said that all nations have a shared responsibility to combat climate change. This puts him in direct disagreement with the concept of Binary Differentiation of Responsibility which is at the core of Obama's Paris Agreement which Macron says does not need to be renegotiated.
I can only suggest that in future Macron learns to read things before opening his mouth.
15:20 on 2/6/17 (UK date).
Wednesday, 31 May 2017
James Comey: Super Dick.
This is one of those stories that perhaps didn't receive as much coverage as it should have done due to the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) bombing.
James Comey is of course the former Director of America's FBI. In this role he oversaw all aspects of the FBI's operations including the Counter-Intelligence Division and the Hillary Clinton investigation although as an espionage investigation that should have been conducted by the Counter-Intelligence Division.
Whilst overseeing the Hillary Clinton investigation James Comey was contacted by the Counter-Intelligence Division. They claimed to have intercepted internal Russia intelligence service documents.
These documents claimed that Russian intelligence had been able to penetrate to the communications of both Hillary Clinton and then US Attorney General Loretta Lynch. They went on to claim that Lynch had done a deal with Clinton that she would obstruct the investigation into Clinton in order to stop it; "Going too far."
On receiving these Russian documents - before the Hillary Clinton investigation was complete - James Comey then decided that the FBI was not going to seek the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. He didn't want to be the person who spoilt this corrupt deal between Loretta Lynch and Hillary Clinton.
The thing is though the Russian documents were fake. They are the sort of thing that intelligence agencies circulate internally in the hope of catching out anyone who may be spying on them.
So it seems if there was Russian influence over the US election it took the form of James Comey being such a terrible detective that he failed to recognise a fake Russian document. Instead he took it as his instruction from Lynch and Clinton not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
This story broke I think last Tuesday (23/5/17). On Friday (26/5/17) sources close to James Comey confirmed the story. However they claimed that Comey had known instantly that the documents were fake.
However neither Comey nor those sources have offered any explanation of why Comey failed to seek the prosecution of Hillary Clinton.
Also I can't help but notice that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe who conducted the Hillary Clinton before obstructing the UK investigation into the MENA bombing has still not been fired.
19:25 on 31/5/17 (UK date).
James Comey is of course the former Director of America's FBI. In this role he oversaw all aspects of the FBI's operations including the Counter-Intelligence Division and the Hillary Clinton investigation although as an espionage investigation that should have been conducted by the Counter-Intelligence Division.
Whilst overseeing the Hillary Clinton investigation James Comey was contacted by the Counter-Intelligence Division. They claimed to have intercepted internal Russia intelligence service documents.
These documents claimed that Russian intelligence had been able to penetrate to the communications of both Hillary Clinton and then US Attorney General Loretta Lynch. They went on to claim that Lynch had done a deal with Clinton that she would obstruct the investigation into Clinton in order to stop it; "Going too far."
On receiving these Russian documents - before the Hillary Clinton investigation was complete - James Comey then decided that the FBI was not going to seek the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. He didn't want to be the person who spoilt this corrupt deal between Loretta Lynch and Hillary Clinton.
The thing is though the Russian documents were fake. They are the sort of thing that intelligence agencies circulate internally in the hope of catching out anyone who may be spying on them.
So it seems if there was Russian influence over the US election it took the form of James Comey being such a terrible detective that he failed to recognise a fake Russian document. Instead he took it as his instruction from Lynch and Clinton not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
This story broke I think last Tuesday (23/5/17). On Friday (26/5/17) sources close to James Comey confirmed the story. However they claimed that Comey had known instantly that the documents were fake.
However neither Comey nor those sources have offered any explanation of why Comey failed to seek the prosecution of Hillary Clinton.
Also I can't help but notice that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe who conducted the Hillary Clinton before obstructing the UK investigation into the MENA bombing has still not been fired.
19:25 on 31/5/17 (UK date).
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