The Public sector, as you know, is entirely funded by virtue of the taxes that flow from the private sector. That’s economics 101 although I am always a bit surprised when some leftists recoil from this simple fact. Perhaps it is a secret guilt that makes them behave this way, especially when we read of stories like this… 

“The outgoing head of the quango that acts as a mouthpiece for town halls has described his £300,000 salary as ‘peanuts’. John Ransford, who quit as the chief executive of the Local Government Association earlier this month, receives a total pay and pension package of £302,840. He claimed this was ‘not particularly out of line’ with the salaries earned by other executive staff in the public sector.”

That’s about twice what the Prime Minister earns but to the thinking of this public sector panjandrum, it is “peanuts”. The very fact that we accept these bloated salaries in the public sector make us monkeys.

We live in the ominous days just before a major world currency dies. I refer to the Euro, of course;

 ”The defining moment was the fiasco over Wednesday’s bund auction, reinforced on Thursday by the spectacle of German sovereign bond yields rising above those of the UK.

It’s just as well kooks and extremists who don’t intend starting endless wars do not direct foreign policy eh? Otherwise we might not have such desirable outcomes as this, reported in the NYT:

The children were from two families and aged between 4 and 12. The reporting is just words on a page of course, but to those families it’s horrifically real. Their children were slaughtered, blown apart, ending up as dismembered, blackened bits of meat. Still, they hate us for our freedoms, as we’ve been told many times.

“I have been to the scene and haven’t found a single bit of evidence of bombs or any other weapons. The Americans did a serious crime against innocent children, they will never ever be forgiven.”

Well, maybe not.

I’m on BBC 5 live, across the nation, just after 10pm, debating the looming public sector strike next week which threatens chaos. I absolutely condemn it, and see this as a form of blackmail being exercised by the feather-bedded class. As we saw earlier this week, the median public sector salary is £9000 ABOVE that of the wealth creating private sector. It has longer holidays, much superior pension, more sick days. Now that this is threatened, it seeks to show how MUCH it wants to serve us by ….striking. Enough. If the terms of employment are so awful, if working conditions are so awful, why not leave and let others currently without a job gain the chance to gain employment?

This is a great song from the 60′s and I think this is a cracking cover from the late 70′s. It was written by Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono believe it or not!. In his autobiography, Bono states that he sang along with Nitzsche’s guitar-playing, thus creating both the tune and the lyrics. It has such a great beat to it and merits a listen!

Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate

A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.

Regarding scientific transparency, a defining characteristic of science is the open sharing of scientific data, theories and procedures so that independent parties, and especially skeptics of a particular theory or hypothesis, can replicate and validate asserted experiments or observations. Emails between Climategate scientists, however, show a concerted effort to hide rather than disseminate underlying evidence and procedures.

“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,”writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a newly released email.

“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”

The original Climategate emails contained similar evidence of destroying information and data that the public would naturally assume would be available according to freedom of information principles. “Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]?” Jones wrote to Penn State University scientist Michael Mann in an email released in Climategate 1.0. “Keith will do likewise. … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!”

The new emails also reveal the scientists’ attempts to politicize the debate and advance predetermined outcomes.

“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out” of IPCC reports, writes Jonathan Overpeck, coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s most recent climate assessment.

“I gave up on [Georgia Institute of Technology climate professor] Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but its not helping the cause,” wrote Mann in another newly released email.

Read the rest of this entry »

The latest futile attempt to rectify what government causes: the rest of us will be looted to subsidise jobs to jobs which would have existed without government intervention in the first place.

Under the Youth Contract, 160,000 workers aged between 18 and 24 will have half their wages paid for the first six months. The scheme will only pay half the minimum wage – worth £2,275 – to employers who will then make up the difference.

Can’t just do away with the job-destroying minimum wage, oh no. That would be an admission of their disaster.

You can hear me debate “Sick note culture” with young socialist Owen Jones here. Go to about 49 mins it. Young Owen is under the impression that “unpaid overtime” (lol, great socialist concept and totally irrelevant to the Public sector) somehow negates malingering. Let the spongers and parasites be exposed and let the genuine people with real illness be given help.

Say it ain’t true!

The European Commission was last night forced to deny claims that Brussels had issued an ultimatum to David Cameron over his attitude towards the EU.

Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso held talks with the Prime Minister in Brussels last week and, according to some reports, made clear his frustration over what is seen as a British bid to play EU powerbroker from outside the eurozone.

Mr Cameron is accused of wanting the best of both worlds – no responsibility for eurozone bailouts and exemptions from EU financial rules which might harm the City of London.

The Prime Minister is currently under pressure from fellow members of the Tory party to capitalise on any forthcoming EU Treaty change designed to help fix the eurozone to seek the repatriation of powers to London.

It was reported yesterday, in the run-up to another crucial EU summit next month, that Mr Barroso had told Mr Cameron to make a choice between defending the City of London and maintaining its presence within the EU. However last night the commission flatly denied the reports of the conversation.

Were I Cameron, I would simply have asked Mr Barroso how would he feel if the UK decided to withhold our contribution to the EU budget forthwith?

You judge?

Northern Ireland Minister for Enterprise and Photo Ops Arlene Foster has insisted she had no role in granting a licence for shale gas exploration in an area of Co Fermanagh where her husband owns land. The Enterprise Minister said she had no interest to declare on the issue. It is understood her husband Brian bought the land in Stranacally in 1989. Australian-based firm Tamboran Resources was granted a licence by Ms Foster’s department to allow the exploration of gas in the area. Her comments come as she was challenged by Green Party leader Steven Agnew, who called on First Minister Peter Robinson to sack the minister.

For once I agree with Steven Agnew. For Foster to say that SHE had no role is perfectly true but she must have know that her husband owned a substantial tranche of land in the area where the license was to be granted BY HER DEPARTMENT? If she didn’t she is incompetent and should resign. If she did, she should also resign. I heard Peter Robinson on the media defending her, declaring that there are no issue to answer. Coming from a man who bought a valuable piece of land for £5, that’s rich!!!