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The problem with crude oil Now I am not generally in favour of what the ‘Green’s are. Their ‘science’ often seems dubious, their policies ill thought out. Their motives anti progress, anti people. To the point where the mere fact that they may endorse something is enough to raise suspicions about it. Never-the-less I do sometimes involuntarily find myself marching in parallel with them. Their dislike of oil is one of those occasions. Needless to say I am not demonising 4 wheel drive vehicles and their drivers, impose punitive taxation on air travel, or want to see Tata forced to stop selling cheap cars in India. Still it would be nice to wean the world off carbon fuels. This is difficult as there is a massive existing technology and infrastructure. It is not like starting out from scratch. The thing is, a standard car/truck, preferably made with a truth about enzyte stainless steel engine parts and exhaust could run almost unmodified on hydrogen gas, producing nothing but water in the way of emissions. Zero Pollution. Now Hydrogen can be ticklish stuff, but so can petrol. Surely it can not be beyond the wit of the worlds engineers to come up with a relatively 'safe' (as safe as petrol) means of storage, if only a really tough tank/bottle. If it could be accomplished it would be an easy win in so many areas and has the potential to grant energy self sufficiency. With sufficient power it would be possible to crack hydrogen from water. So then, lots of power… atomic power stations anyone? Follow the French lead? That would certainly cut green house emissions, but having power to spare is probably not sufficiently hair shirt for the Greens. Obviously not hair shirts for them personally, just the rest of us who would get to live in mud huts and die before 45. Taking a leaf out of JMB and Moggs book I thought I might post on the subject. It is also interesting to note that other cultures celebrate festivals often involving fireworks, such as Diwali or the festival of Lights celebrated by celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and also Buddhists I believe. Every year, up to this one, we have put out a pumpkin jack-o'-lantern and enter into the ‘spirit’ ;-) of the thing. This year, despite good intentions, it was left just a little too late. Unfortunately I was left attempting to acquire one at short notice in the midst of an apparent pumpkin famine. I drove round all over on Friday afternoon, but was unable to find one. Rather than completely miss out, I thought why not decorate my place in second life? They are unlikely to have run out of pumpkins there, effectively having an infinite supply. So I set off and visited a few rather spooky pumpkin emporia. There was a positive wealth of spooky Halloween gear, most of it at reasonable prices too. So I made a few judicious purchases, including spooky glowing lights and an animated ghost. My place in sl is a pleasant terraced half-timbered building in the Tudor sim of Reading Primley, Renaissance Isle, so it has atmosphere anyway. On my return from the expedition it was the matter of only a few minutes work to fix up some pumpkins, the ghost lights and a the piece de resistance - the ghost, that I set up to emerge from my front door and float into the street every now and again. I think the whole thing worked well. So Happy Halloween, Samhain, Diwali, etc. all. Oh and at this time of year let’s also not forget the man reputed to have been the only one ever to have entered parliament with honourable intentions - Guy Fawkes. Now it seems they have set their sites on Agincourt of all things. Apparently French revisionists are trying to excuse the defeat by claiming the poor French were the outnumbered underdogs and the English ‘war criminals’, though there is nothing to suggest the English violated the rules of war that existed at the time. Talk about sore loosers… The documentary evidence in favour of the accepted versions is pretty solid. Maybe they should concentrate on finding the historical equivalent of the urban myth. "It may be true that you can't fool all Will Durant Sub prime lending by banks to people who were likely to default on their loans got the world into a terrible two & eight, now more sub prime borrowing, this time by the banks from the UK government is going to get us out of it, according to the newly endowed superhero of our times... ...who is about to be outed by the evil Lex Luthor Lord Mandleson as none other than mild mannered Gordon Broon. It may do, but one suspects as much for psycological reasons as economic. Who is really lending the dosh? The British Taxpayer is who. Why does the Government not have the readies to hand? Well one reason might be that Gordon sold off half the countries gold reserves precisely when the price of gold had bottomed out. Now of course it is riding sky high. Just like government borrowing that has now hit an all time high. If he had actually been canny or even prudent, as he likes to spin himself and hung onto it to a more opportune moment (almost any other time since, but now would have been good) maybe he could have got a good price for it and not hocked us all up to our eyebrows. What strikes me as crazy is that there are people out there who believe the spin and feel safer with him in charge than anyone else. " So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." Voltaire The political equivalent of building a new overpass with lots of concrete. Amid all the blanket reporting of the problems with the banking system and stock markets globally the MSM have had such a problem paying attention to things like the New Labour State’s obsessive desire to control and spy on it’s own Citizens. Even 24hr news channels only seem able to find room for one or two story lines, repeated endlessly, or they cut to an empty podium and talk rubbish waiting for a speech. God forbid they should actually report a wider variety of news. So the leopard does not change it’s spots. New Labour does not trust the citizen. It apparently does not believe the average citizen is capable enough adult enough to run their own lives and affairs. They cannot be trusted, they need to be kept safe from the malice of others and their own stupidity. They even need to be told what they can eat and drink. They need a patrician socialist class to govern every aspect of their lives… And if they object then doesn’t that show how foolish and irresponsible they are? The silly citizen has a foolish traditional belief in their hard one ancient rights and liberties, but these just get in the way of shiny new legislation that the state needs to protect itself and it’s interests the public. There is little that can be does to amend this pernicious attitude. New Labour need to be removed from power for a generation to contemplate the error of their thinking and the ripe contempt they apparently hold the citizen in. It would appear that this sort of medicine can work, ask David Cameron… Nations grown corrupt John Milton Of course this is purely ‘for our own good’, to protect us all from terrorism. That catchall ‘bogeyman’ excuse of the Authoritarian state, ‘protecting the citizen from the terrorist and criminal’. The same citizen that the State will not permit to defend themselves against criminals with the frequently used threat of prosecution hanging over them if they do. A Home Office spokesman disingenuously attempted to claim that: "Changes to the way we communicate, due particularly to the internet revolution, will increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data - essential for counter-terrorism and the investigation of crime - and use it to protect the public. Now as far as I know it is still possible for the authorities to tap phone conversations and intercept post, within the law. They do not currently have a database of all letters sent and to whom as far as I am aware. Nor have they ever had one. So when the spokes person claimed:"Losing the ability to use this data would have very serious consequences for law enforcement and intelligence gathering in the UK." it did not follow logically at all. The simple fact is that the state already has access to this and more, such as emails and web useage if they suspect someone. It is going too far to monitor us all. And we all know just how much the promise of the State is worth when they say they will only use legislation only for the purpose it was framed. ...Or maybe we could ask Islandic banks about how anti terrorism legislation was recently limbered up ready to be used to freeze Islandic funds in the UK. Or how other legislation was used to silence and eject hecklers from a Labour party conference. |