It’s a “Political Earthquake” according to the French PM. The EU and British local Elections have been marked by the smashing rise of Euroskeptics, climate skeptics, and skeptics-of-politics in general. (Monckton dares anyone to suggest a more skeptical party than UKip). UKip got 16% last time round in the European elections of 2009, this time it’s looking at something like 28%. “We’re coming for YOU, Red Ed’: Nigel Farage boasts…
Sunday’s UK election results were the first since 1910 in which a party other than Conservative or Labour came out on top in a national vote. That’s to say, Nigel Farage did something nobody from outside the two-party system has done in over a century: he won.
“Try as I might, I cannot remember a time when Britain’s various elites were as united in fury as they are now over UKIP leader Nigel Farage.. The Right and Left of the Political Class Have United Against A Common Enemy: Us”
Mark Steyn‘s advice to the non-UKIP parties (which they didn’t heed):
You can’t keep calling these guys “fringe” “extremists” when they get more votes than you. So instead of shrieking about “fruitcakes” and “loonies” why not try engaging on the issues?
This is big:
The Tory vote fell by 3.8 per cent, but the Ukip vote went up by 11 per cent. Which means they took votes from the other parties, too. Labour likes the idea of Ukip as a right-wing vote-splitter, but once it starts eating into their own base all bets are off. And last week Ukip proved it could do that just enough to make a difference.
The Westminster system is implicitly designed for two players: one to be the Government, one to be the Loyal Opposition. Until the 20th century, other than the various transient Irish Home Rule parties, there were literally only two parties. In that 1910 election, a fledgling Labour came fourth. Within a decade and a half, they’d displaced the Liberals as the alternative to the Tories, and the Libs never again held power until Cameron so bungled the last election that he was forced to form a coalition with them. It’s obviously premature to suggest that Ukip will replace the Conservative Party, but I’d say we’re now in for an era of four-party politics at Westminster.
read more of Mark Steyn
UKIP: why these election results matter – and why the political class will tell you they don’t
A quip which has been doing the rounds on Twitter the last few days concerns the official projection of how many seats UKIP stands to win in Westminster next year, based on its stellar performance in the local and European elections.
The answer is a big fat zero.
No doubt it’s a figure which will afford enormous comfort to the mainstream political class and their many friends in the mainstream media this morning as they strive to explain in various different clever ways why it is that last night’s seismic election results across Europe mean nothing whatsoever.
In one way they are quite right: the European parliament is a fake parliament, none of whose elected members have any say on any issue that matters. (All the important decisions are taken by the unelected European Commission).
But in another way they couldn’t be more wrong. The elections of the last few days mark the beginning of a revolution which will completely transform the face of politics across Europe and which will inevitably lead to the destruction of the European Union.
See also Farage’s Revolution Is Thatcher’s Revolution from Delingpole too.
Watching the stamping of little feet in the British Establishment is a joy to behold.
About the only thing UKIP has not been accused of yet is being the party of paedophiliacs and rodent abuse.
However, they are accused of being ‘climate deniers’, which means they are the only party of common sense in regards to the UK’s future energy supplies.
The media had a witch hunt seeking out every oddball they could find in UKIP, not surprisingly they found a few, as you would in any political party. The scale of this witch hunt was unprecedented and disgusted a lot of people into voting UKIP.
Unfortunately, UKIP is very much a one man party; its leader Nigel Farage is a highly charismatic and lucid individual, who unlike all the other UK’s political party leaders actually held a real job in business before becoming a politician. Perhaps, that’s the reason he is hated so much by the effete political ‘elite’, he has proven he can do a real job.
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I get the feeling the media moguls are starting to get the idea that their media pipelines are on the cusp of being openly despised. This is as much in retaliation for the media hoopla and self-flagellation as it is retaliation for business-as-usual politics. To get the media offside with your political position is starting to be seen as a badge of honour by the voters, and I have absolutely no sympathy for the media or incumbent politicians. Happy to see them have a huge degree of uncertainty in their respective futures…as it should be.
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Literally one day after UKIP and the other eurosceptic parties scare the poo out of the Establishment, it strikes back:
His Charlieness makes a speech spouting his usual uninformed drivel about imminent Thermageddon, while the French, Germans and Spanish plot to put an ultra-federalist into the president’s position in the EU, exactly what the electorates have told them not to do.
If anything demonstrates the concept of a totally out of touch,a European, effete ‘elite’, this is it.
Sigh……….
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‘Effete elite’- oh well done. Here is that champion of causes Prince Charles mixing it with the apparatchiks of the Global Elite.
He said, “Either we continue along the path we seem collectively determined to follow, apparently at the mercy of those who so vociferously and aggressively deny that our current operating model has any effect upon dangerously accelerating climate change, which I fear will bring us to our own destruction, or we can choose to act now before it is finally too late.”
http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/05/27/prince-charles-capitalism-should-serve-humanitys-interests-and-concerns/
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The day Prince Charles and his extended family of public parasites gives up his gig at Buck Palace for a council flat in Putney, I’ll believe him. Otherwise he is merely an inbred tapeworm suckling on the life blood of the British people -bleeding them white, and using CAGW as a means of suppressing the masses whom he feels are a little too comfortable not wearing the yoke of servitude around their collective necks.
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So eloquently put Winston, just like your namesake who currently resides in Westminster Abbey. I like the former famous UK PM, was also born in England and am appalled, as surely Winston C no doubt does too, how this once great nation is now self destructing in a web of idealism, and Charlie, whose IQ barely rates, is in the thick of it.
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Love those red thumbs!
Bonnie Prince Charlie wasn’t called “fog” for nothing. Dumb as a box of rocks.
Their stance against the common man having access to cheap energy, while gallivanting around the countryside (and the globe for that matter)in full regalia and indulging themselves in every possible luxury available to man, has in my opinion of itself delegitimised their right to rule.
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Remember when “our ABC” used to broadcast My Word?
One session was built around “Charlie is my darling”.
With the exception that, in the case of Lady Diana Spencer “My darling is a Charlie”
20
So, I will interpret your comment as a “don’t know” then? In the standard way that the EU does these things.
30
You don’t like him then Winston? I too think that he talks nonsense about global warming but he talked good sense about the arrogance of modernist architects and their foul creations. The point about the Royal Family and Parliament is to prevent power becoming too concentrated in one pair of hands. you don’t have to like the individuals concerned. Moreover the pageant of the Royal Family brings in a huge amount of tourist revenue. The USA also has a system designed to keep power reasonably dispersed but does it in a slightly different way. Tell me, do you think that the average British monarch has been more or less corrupt than the average American president over the last 100 years?
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If nothing else …
Farage is a survivor
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But it is not just about the UKIP, and Britain, it is about the whole of Europe (excluding, of course, Germany, who will always vote in the way they are told to, and the Netherlands who didn’t get the memo).
UK Independence Party – 28% of the vote (2009 – 16.6%)
French National Front – 25% of the vote (2004 – 9.8%)
Italian Five Star Movement – 21.2% of the vote
German Alternative for Germany – 7% of the vote
Danish People’s Party – 26.7% of the vote (2009 – 15.3%)
Netherlands Party for Freedom – 13.3% (2004 – 17%)
Finland Finns Party – 12.9% of the vote (2009 – 9.8%)
Years and percentages in parenthesis record previous highest proportion of vote. These numbers are not available for Italy or Germany.
By any measure, this is a significant swing away from the European Union power elite. People are not voting for something, they are voting to get rid of it.
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Looking a bit deeper into the patterns, in the majority of cases, this is the third election where there has been an increase in the Eurosceptic vote. That is a fifteen year trend.
The European Commission will, of course, try to ignore it. But their funding comes from the member countries who, if they feel they have a popular mandate, might just decide to reduce the amount they pay … ?
Interesting times may be approaching …
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Just spotted sentence containing “15 year trend” can I apply for a grant to study the implications of that?
It is in fact democracy in action , you can now watch the mainstream parties insist that it was always there intention to allow “The People” a voice and a referendum and will now establish how they can so misconstrue a question as to limit the possibility of exiting the EU , perhaps they should ask Cook and Lowendowsky for assistance.
20
“People are not voting for something, they are voting to get rid of it.”
Just as happened in Australia last September..
But unfortunately, people seem to have already forgotten what they were trying to get rid of. 🙁
Do they really think Shorten would be any less incompetent than Rudd or Gillard ??????
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UKIP won a trivial 234 of 19,384 council seats (1.2%).
To describe UKIP as a fringe party would be a gross overstatement. It is a complete nonentity.
05
Hey, bananabender, get yourself a different name. I am the original.
—–
Sorry – on this site, bananabender has posted 746 comments. You’ll have to be Banana Bender 2 – Jo
00
The media reaction to UKIP successes is very similar to what happened in the US over the Tea Party successes. The entrenched rarely say nice things about serious competitors and I’m sure it will get worse.
I think we are about to find out how democratic democracy really is.
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Opinions on Facebook and blogging sites are holding more sway on political appointments and voter decisions than anything in the mainstream media. A turning point in world political affairs?
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Fred Allen @ # 2.1
Opinions on Facebook and blogging sites are holding more sway on political appointments and voter decisions than anything in the mainstream media. A turning point in world political affairs?
_________________
I think you have seen the future.
As I have posted before, we are in the middle of a major transition in our global society, all of it due to the pervasiveness of the Internet and it’s electronic off spring, the mobile phone / cell phone and it’s increasingly sophisticated off spring.
Personal and communal communications has gone from standing around talking and gossiping on street corners or the office or in bars or kitchens or parties, all of which required the personal presence of the participants in the discussion to a global communication which are still personal and communal discussions separated by space which is countered by the instantaneousness and personal intimacy of the today’s global electronic communications network.
This, Jo’s site right here where we are all sitting around playing with ideas, expressing opinions often very strong as you can with friends , discussing, arguing, debating and even drinking coffee or stronger while doing so and for many, having the feel they are talking amongst friends could never have existed until just two decades ago.
Few remember just how short is the history of this all pervading internet and World Wide Web.
[ My son was the 40th person on the Internet in Horsham. pop 13,000, in 1994 /95 ]
Few even stop to think of how it has changed, possibly for far into the future, the way in which we each can interact with so many others across the entire world of humanity.
Even fewer have ever stopped to think about how it will and already is changing the way in which we look at science for instance where science’s faults and flaws and arrogance and lack of real ethics compared to it’s carefully groomed image of infallibility and near perfection of the pre internet days is being taken apart to show the fallibility of the real science underneath.
Like wise we are seeing the role of an arrogant overweening in it’s self importance media and its power and influences on and over the political system being almost destroyed as the pervsive internet and it’s multitudinious opinions of all it’s participants provides a brand new force for the average voter to see both the good side and the dark side of the political process and it’s practitioners and to make a judgement on those political parties and it’s political participants and then instantly discuss their choice with a very wide range of others of various political affiliations and opinions.
.
It is this new communications technology of the internet and the cell phone which is leading the transition into a new political, scientific, legal, business and societal system, the outcomes of which we still have no conception of or know where it will lead us.
All we do know is that the power of the old media and political and scientific and business and legal networks, some a couple of centuries old and which arose from the industrial revolution will be altered, changed and broken and reshaped into a new world order in the few short years and decades ahead.
As has has happened numerous times in past through out the history of the rise of civilisation when the old orders of men were broken never to be repeated.
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But…but…but that was not “The New World Order” the effete elite had planned on making happen. They wanted to return the world to the glory days of King X the N’th where the effete elite lived off the King, the King lived off the peasants, and the peasants lived off of what the King allowed them to keep.
The horrors of a world in which everyone has his say and the effete elite are daily shown for what and who they are: parasitical fools of less stature and import than a stand up comedian on Saturday Night Live. They are the takers. We, the makers, are increasingly saying: “Enough. You exist by OUR leave and not we, yours. You no longer have our consent. It is long past time for you to depart. Now go away!”
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Perhaps there may yet be a third time in British Parliamentary history where these words will ring out once again through the House of Commons.
The words of Oliver Cromwell to the “Long Parliament”.
And then on 7th May 1940 following the invasion of Norway by the Germans, former Cabinet minister Leo Amery to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.
Amery;—–
“This is what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
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Ahhh…. The glorious rhymes of history.
00
This means that blogging and Internet will be peer viewed? Censored?
00
Well yes, and that is why the Elite hate the Internet so much, too much freedom of expression you know, old chum….that will just never do. We need the serfs in their places or the whole place will go to pot, what what….
Its no conincidence the globalist power orgy ( the UN ) has been given control over the internet. Once the UN is in control, watch as blogs and web sites get blocked and taken down.
The reason people are openly deserting the Elite globalist two party system is because the elite “rats” have had a light shone into the corner via the internet information sharing and its caught the Elite dead square to rights.
As such, expect an ongoing of door kicking in ( like Tallbloke suiffered ) with black covered goons and flimsy excuses.
In many repects, the serfs have woken up, and the Elitye are being exposed for their frequent abuse of power.
DOnt get me wrong, govt has to exist and must to preserve law and order – I’m not talking about govt, per se. Rather the memes are exposed and the mechanisms are exposed.
Right now the Elites are a cornered dangerous animal.
I’ve loaded up lots of popcorn for this one…
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You’re going to defend yourself with popcorn? Good luck with that.
20
FYI – one of the favourite tricks of the Elite is to create a diversion e.g. pandemic/war/crisis when things get a bit uncomfortable or close to home.
Diverts the serfs from attention from the problem into something more distant.
Dont fall for it.
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Good parallel, Mark.
Let the denigration commence …
10
The real issue is that the elite in British politics are part of the new fascist creed in the EU. Renewable energy is all about benefitting the elite who own the land, the renewables corporations and carbon trading enterprises. The latter include fossil fuel groups like Shell, who have set out to keep the energy in the ground and convert themselves into banks and commodity traders, centred on the new commodity, carbon.
These people own the politicians and the politicians’ relatives have their snouts in the trough; Cameron’s in-laws, Clegg’s wife, Miliband’s wife, Brown’s brother, Davey’s brother, Huhne’s personal interests, etc. etc.
So, the peoples of Europe are now waking up to this new Corporatist fascist state which will in turn introduce Eugenics as part of its aim to own all the wealth and make the people into serfs.
The worst UK political party is Clegg’s Liberal Democrat, who were infiltrated 20 years’ ago by people whose relatives, ex ‘Blackshrts’, supporters of the pre-WWII British Union of Fascists, set up the ‘Soil Association’ in Coventry; organic farming and renewables. One founder, Jorian Jenks, was a personal friend of Hitler’s Agricultural Minister who worked with ‘Blud und Boden’. In Austria, the Freedom Party, which had been their Liberal Democrats, is now openly fascist.
The IPCC scam, renewable energy and carbon trading is outright fascism; the state granting monopolies for private profit. Gillard set out to do the same for the Aussie Unions. Ukip is a movement of the people which doesn’t realise yet that it is anti-fascist. In political terms, we are now at 1935 when the British Establishment last woke up to fascism developing in their midst. That was when T E Lawrence (of Arabia) was probably assassinated by German agents as a potential leader against the Greater Reich.
PS the infiltration of the Liberal democrats was organised by the stepson of the 1930s’ leader of the pro-Nazi group in the British Establishment, the then Governor of the Bank of England.
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And don’t forget the part the BBC plays in all this. 🙁
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The development of modern fascism in the UK dates from the mid 1970s when there were two planned coups d’ètat, Mountbatten to be Regent. In 1975, the man I referenced above wrote two articles in a major newspaper eulogising the Pinochet regime, in particular its ‘humane’ internment camp system.
These fascists control the BBC but do so as the liberal elite. Remember, the NASDP was a Socialist Party. In 1944, a group of German businessmen knowing the War was to be lost, created the EU concept and the organisations that would be set up to continue the formation of the Greater Reich.
Renewables and carbon trading was started in 1975 by the Club of Rome and US eugenicists led by Margaret Meade; the ‘Endangered Atmosphere’ Conference. Present were Club of Rome Eugenicist Paul Erlich and John Holdren, now Chief Scientist for Obama. Obama is the front for GE and GS, renewables and carbon trading. Carbon trading was also to underpin the Euro and its American counterpart, the Amero, which Obama agreed to in July 2008 in Ottawa with the Canadian PM and the Mexican President. The Amero plan collapsed because the Chicago carbon exchange Obama helped set up, collapsed.
The liberal elites use the BBC to impose Cultural Marxism to destroy the family hence working class solidarity, also mass immigration, particularly islamic. It also pushes the fake IPCC ‘consensus’ to justify the imposition of totalitarianism and Corporatist taxation of the population to make the fascist elite rich. And behind thios is the intention under Agenda 21 to halve Western populations and cut the Third World population by 90% as it is forced back to hunter gathering.
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PS The 1930s’ Governor of the BoE and chief supporter in the British Establishment of Hitler went on to control the Tavistock Institute. This organisation set up the New Wold Order. its influence on history has been enormous as it has creatd modern fascism: http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwotavistockbestkeptsecret.shtml
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Fascist indeed. Where might have environmentalism be derived from?
http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/nazi-greens-inconvenient-history
00
I agree with what Peter Miller has said, Nigel Farage has
certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons.
However, in order to maintain his party’s momentum, he really
needs to formulate a policy for withdrawing from the EU.
As of now, he does not have one that is not good enough.
In my opinion, the only way that Britain can extricate itself
from the EU, is to invoke article 50, re-negotiation of the
existing treaty is not an option because it requires changes to
the existing treaty.Unless UKIP produce a comprehensive withdrawl
plan, failure is guaranteed and there are no signs that Nigel
Farage appreciates this.
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It’s easy. Don’t say that you intend to withdraw unilaterally. Just cease complying with EU nonsense and let them chuck Britain out. Gives you more traction in the negotiations.
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For your information
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/reflections-on-elections-ukip-wins-the-euros-and-a-raft-of-local-council-seats/
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Some great cartoons!
If I were one of the ‘leaders’ of any of the 3 main parties I would be focussing on the fact that 64% of the votes in that division went to other than the main 3 parties.
May your next success be even greater.
10
Here in France the Front National came first in the European Union Election. As is the UKIP, the FN is an anti-EU party.
The (governing) Socialist Party and the (opposition) UMP are blaming everyone else, except themselves, for their defeat.
The FN is rather ‘wobbly’ when it comes to Warble Gloaming.
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Not only is UKIP skeptical of climate change, they are treated in the same way as climate skeptics. Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg (and Europhile, climate alarmist) challenged Nigel Farage to a public debate. Clegg said of Farage (Daily Mail)
Much as a result of the debate, UKIP nearly doubled their share of the vote compared with 2009, and the Lib-Dems halved exactly halved their share, down 6.87% to 6.87%.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014/eu-uk-results
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Australia is in need of another political party. The ALP imports Muslim criminals and Tony Abbott suports them once they are here.
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Will any of this change the real elitist power-brokers that run each country, or the EU?
I doubt it.
All these little parties will be appeased by getting their tiny taste of local or EU government but they will ultimately be powerless.
That’s unless some of the younger elements of the electorite have learned to think for themselves, and can see beyond the big state-run propaganda machines. I can not seen that happening either, so (IMO) within 5 years it will be all be back to the same elitist back-scratching club it was always designed to be.
Oh well, we’ll have fun while it lasts.
40
“UKIP would appoint a Royal Commission on global warming science and economics, under a High Court Judge, with advocates on either side of the case, to examine and cross-examine the science and economics of global warming with all the evidential rigor of a court of law.
“The remit of the Royal Commission would be to decide –
Ø “Whether and to what degree the IPCC has exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2 or other greenhouse gases;
Ø “Whether and under what conditions, if any, the IPCC’s imagined consequences of the present rate of atmospheric CO2 enrichment will be beneficial or harmful;
Ø “Whether and under what conditions, if any, mitigation of global warming by reducing carbon emissions will be cheaper and more cost-effective than adaptation as, and if, necessary;
Ø “Whether and under what conditions any emissions-trading scheme can make any appreciable difference to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and whether and to what degree, if any, any such difference would affect global surface temperature.
“Other climate-change measures
“Pending the report of the Royal Commission, UKIP would immediately –
Ø “Repeal the Climate Change Act, and close the Climate Change Department;
Ø “Halt all UK contributions to the IPCC and to the UN Framework Convention;
Ø “Halt all UK contributions to any EU climate-change policy, including carbon trading;
Ø “Freeze all grant aid for scientific research into “global warming”.
“In any event, UKIP would immediately –
Ø “Commission enough fossil-fuelled and nuclear power stations to meet demand;
Ø “Cease to subsidize wind-farms, on environmental and economic grounds;
Ø “Cease to subsidize any environmental or “global-warming” pressure-groups;
Ø “Forbid public authorities to make any “global-warming”-related expenditure;
Ø “Relate Met Office funding to the accuracy of its forecasts;
Ø “Ban global warming propaganda, such as Gore’s movie, in schools;
Ø “Divert a proportion of the billions now wasted on the non-problem of global warming towards solving the world’s real environmental problems.
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Is there any way a Canadian can vote for these guys?
60
I believe the above list was written by Lord Monkton when he was associated with the Party.
It will be interesting to see how much of that list is retained in the new Manifesto they are preparing ,All of it I hope!
ps
IPCC searching for the heat
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/smgw3.jpg
20
What a breath of fresh air.
20
Morning Jo,
The two party duopoly of three of the most transparent and significant democracies, US. UK. and Aus. – or as some people like to say, tweedle dum and treedle dumber – is not at the end of their natural life, yet.
But they are none-the-less flirting with the prospect of making themselves much less influential within a couple more election cycles (four, five and three years resp.)
I hasten to add that the left-wing parties are more at risk than their right-wing siblings.
This is for one very important reason.
The left wing, esp. in Australia, has become overly-obsessed with the principle of solidarity, totally at the expense of truely representing their individual electorate’s wishes.
The best example of this was when Qld. Lib. Sen. Boyce, and one other, crossed the floor to vote with Labor on Rudd’s emission trading scheme in 2009.
Though I disagreed then, and still do today, with their choice, at least it proves that the Aust. Liberal Party is still comfortable with the very important principle that these elected representatives are supposed to be more in-tune with the wishes of the people who voted them in, than with the wishes of the mandarins in the various state party HQ’s.!!
Keep up the great work Jo.
Regards, reformed warmist of Logan
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I’ve been watching this particular ‘writing on the wall’ for some time, and it was a delight to see fruitful expression of the first sentence. Thus far, the wider establishment including the MSM in the UK have dismissed UKIP, too engrossed in their self absorbed, single minded zealotry to countenance that anyone would either disagree with the direction, in the dual sense of where society was going and how it was directed, or take UKIP seriously.
UKIP appears to remind people that they can own their own future, possess a sense of self-direction that has been eroded to a point of near extinction. There is an irresistable sense of empowerment, a dramatic and stark contrast to business as usual from the Ministry-of-we-Know-Best-for-your-own-good that is working so assiduously to achieve precisely the opposite.
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“England Prevails… ‘
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What the MSM and the three main parties overlooked is the sheer bloody-mindedness of the British people.
60
UKIP is the path the Tea Party in the US must take. Congratulations to UKIP!
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An how’s this for a radical suggestion.
Call it Global Warming to keep Scaring the Bejeezus out them , because Climate Change has gone cold . From the Guardian & friends.
https://mobile.twitter.com/dana1981/status/471391264269926400
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The French president was reacting immediately to the EU election result
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/23871321/frances-hollande-calls-for-eu-to-reduce-role/
“reduced role” is this code for ” we better pull our horns in before the voters vote the EU out altogether”
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Couple of interesting points about this.
a) Much as I would love to see a party like UKIP get some real influence, I wonder how much of this is a protest vote. However, as Dellers said, you wouldn’t get a protest vote of this magnitude if the mainstream parties (right and left) were doing the job they were elected to do i.e representing the interests of their constituents.
b) More relevant to Australia, the low grade rumblings of Malcolm Turnbull replacing Tony Abbott are surfacing again with the budget hysteria. If that happened, it would alienate large sections of the conservative vote, and I could something equivalent to UKIP emerging here (and I’m not talking extremist Hansonite views either). Of course, Turnbull should always have been in the Labor party – I really wonder why he stood as a Liberal candidate.
80
re: b)
I hope the Liberal Democrats are gearing up for a huge swell in voter numbers if Turnbull becomes Liberal leader.
42
Same reason Gough stood for Labor – it was easier to get a gurnsey at that point in history.
10
For the benefit of those of us who do not live under a Mafia style of government, and those of us who have only ever heard of “Gurnsey” in the context of the Channel Islands; what is “a gurnsey”, in the context of Australian politics?
20
Many apologies – if you got picked for a school football team you were given the team shirt/jumper – we called it a footy gurnsey aka gurnsey so it means selected.
20
Ah, thank you, James.
I do like the feeling of being enlightened.
10
Now a Jersey would have been a far better option !
Here in the island of Jersey we assemble along the West Coast as the sun sets and oh how we laugh as it appears that Guernsey is on fire !
30
And you do this every night?
That is so sad.
p.s. I did notice the spelling difference, but chose to ignore it.
20
Turnbull, ex head of GS Australia, is all about making Australia into the same fascist, carbon-trading, NWO dominated country as the US and Europe. Rudd appears to have been the plant in Labor with Gillard the renewables’ Mafia stooge.
20
Turnbull is actually a traditional Liberal Party leader. Abbott and Howard are the exceptions. The Liberal Party was created as a Centrist party by Menzies. Until John Howard the Liberal leaders were all small ‘l’ liberal pragmatists with no ideology.
Under Howard the Liberals were overtaken by incompetent right wing religious nuts such as Cory Bernardi, Bronwyn Bishop and Kevin Andrews. The Liberal party has now become the old Democratic Labor Party. It is a fiscally incompetent and morally conservative bunch of fools. I can pretty much guarantee that Abbott will be a one term PM. [I’ve a lifelong Liberal voter by the way. However they’ve lost my vote.]
03
Come off it. He’s further to the left than Labor on a lot of issues.
00
I suggest you learn some history. ALL the Liberal Prime Ministers (including Menzies) before Howard had similar political views to Turnbull.
The fact that Turnbull is considered Left wing just shows how far Labor has moved to the Right.
02
On what planet?
00
Banana Bender,
brave words about “incompetent right wing religious nuts” when the people you refer to are Catholic.
What thoughts have you on those that slaughter and kidnap schoolchildren?
30
I went to a Catholic secondary school in the 1970s. The teachers were arguably the biggest bunch of sexual deviants, violent thugs and bigoted morons I’ve ever met in my life. One of the Christian Brothers even taught us IRA marching songs.
The Roman Catholic church never condemned Hitler and they were more than happy to deal with Mussolini and Franco.
00
‘loony skeptics win popular vote eh?’, you’ve never being so right!
221
“you’ve never being so right”
Making a particularly noticeable lack of sense today BA, even for you.
81
No, no BAD – you’ve got it wrong again, now repeat:
“loony lefties buy populist vote from lazy luddites.”
Say BAD, what will happen when you have to work for the dole?
100
“Say BAD, what will happen when you have to work for the dole?”
Well james let’s hope “window licking” is an activity just so BAD can show off his forte.
30
‘… have to work for the dole?’ who’ll doing that like? Certainly does apply to me, wrong again eh!
01
You do realize that now your rebuttal does not make sense.
Man, you gotta lay off that stuff, it will fry your brain.
10
“will fry”??? I think it is already too late.
00
There’s an enterprising idea – specially flavoured windows for BAD’s bus.
10
I wasn’t aware that any loony skeptics voted. But with the results we have seen, obviously a lot of rational ones did.
90
And soon they will be in charge..
think about that.. and don’t let your tears make your milk arrowroot biscuits all soggy.
60
ba4
‘‘loony skeptics win popular vote eh?’,
–
Loonies @skepticalscience excepted!
20
I voted you up.
Farage should be called farago. He is a dangerous racist clown.
010
You just have never been right.
20
Correction: Loony skeptics win a mere 1% of seats in council elections.
00
And any step back from the madness of the climate doomsday Global Warming alarmists is overdue.
Interesting link:
The Death of Representative Government – The Real Conspiracy – Crisis in Democracy
“We do not accept Presidents for life – we should not accept ANY politician for life at any level.”
. . .
The end of the career politician.
Any negatives?
130
Populists’ Rise in Europe Vote Shakes Leaders
70
Love Nigel.
Right or wrong on whatever topic, this is a man who speaks his mind without fear and makes a heck of a lot of sense while doing it.
http://youtu.be/j4FdbIVa2j0
120
Events have just how right he is in that clip and how out of touch is the lady living in a figment of her own imagination on the ‘front bench’.
Unfortunately for them this is not another ad-hoc referendum that can be repeated in a few months time with a rephrased question.
Barrosso, the one time Portugese Communist and appointed President of the EC, continues in denial, despising so called populists, as he spits out the word with venom.
Here again Farage reminds him he is here to serve the people and not they him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWbQTKMPzQ
40
Off-topic, but it was a topic a few days back … Dr Jensen pushes back on Abbott science and defence spending:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/liberal-mp-dennis-jensen-fires-broadside-at-his-governments-medical-research-fund-20140528-392rr.html
(Use Google if paywalled). Keys pointis that he acuses the Government of having no coherant science policy and mourns the lack of a science minister.
50
“no coherant science policy”
Seems the Govt. has more in common with the CSIRO than they thought.
70
Dennis’ speech is online at YouTube. “Science” from about 7:05
10
Thanks for the link.
I asked the Dr if he was having any luck getting that data audit on the BOM.
Seems to me he ought to realise some of these organisations have directed their funding into areas of research that return very little to the Australian people. I would actually argue that if a little belt tightening does not sharpen their focus on what is important in science, then it is highly unlikely that more largess would.
30
I like your logic SafetyGuy.
00
the UK MSM may have ignored Ukip’s CAGW scepticism, preferring to play the race card, but the British public & the CAGW “Stakeholders” are well aware of their stance:
27 May: Business Green: Jessica Shankleman: Will the rise of anti-EU parties derail Europe’s environmental ambitions?
Brussels insiders remain optimistic the EU can still pass ambitious 2030 carbon targets, despite a rising tide of scepticism.
In Brussels, Lib Dems, including Sir Graham Watson, Chris Davies and Rebecca Taylor, who have all been vocal in their backing for the green agenda for the past five years, are packing their bags, while UKIP is preparing to send 24 politicians to the European Parliament – 11 more than they won in the last election.
The loss of all but one Lib Dem MEP will be felt acutely in the corridors of Strasbourg and in the Parliament’s environmentally-focused committee rooms. Davies in particular has led calls for strong policies to support carbon capture and storage technology and reductions in vehicle emissions…
Could the success of UKIP, with its climate sceptic and anti-renewable energy position, derail efforts to agree ambitious new green targets for 2030? And will Marine le Pen’s National Front lead a charge against a 40 per cent emissions reduction target?…
Previous voting records are also a good indicator of what is to come. Analysis by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon reveals that Socialists, Liberals and Greens provided the key support for the European Commission’s 2030 energy and climate package report in February. The pro-European centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) was split over the issue and those on the right were broadly opposed…
The split at the heart of the EPP on environmental issues is likely to deepen further because Poland, which has traditionally opposed more ambitious climate policies, has become the second biggest delegation in the group after Germany with 23 MEPs…
***The first major test for the new Parliament will come in September, when MEPs on the new environment committee meet to discuss long term changes to the Emissions Trading System (ETS), in a bid to boost the price of carbon in the fragile market and build on the temporary fix that this year saw a reduction in the number of allowances being auctioned.
Sanjeev Kumar, founder of the NGO Change Partnership, said he was optimistic that proposals to create a new ETS Market Stability Reserve (MSR) in order to tackle oversupply in the market would pass. “At first glance, there is a stronger majority for than against measures to address climate change, clean energy and inclusive growth,” he said.
However, Hæge Fjellhei, senior policy analyst at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, was less certain about the outlook for environmental policies, predicting the composition of the new Parliament will have implications for the development of European policy for the rest of this decade. “It’s really difficult to see how the debate is going to go forward now in the new environment committee,” she told BusinessGreen. “About half of the parliamentarians are new so I’m assuming it’s going to take some time for them to get their heads around the issue. It’s complex and not straightforward to just jump into. The whole election process has of course postponed the debate on this issue.”…
Beyond the Parliament, the EU Commission is also due for a reshuffle in November, which could bring an end to Connie Hedegaard’s time at the Climate Action department, sparking fears that any change could undermine progress towards a 2015 deal.
There remains a chance that Hedegaard will remain in the post to allow her to continue in the job through to 2015, but insiders admit it is still too early to tell whether or not there will be a change, particularly as member states have yet to elect the new Commission president…
The extent to which climate sceptic politicians will undermine EU environmental policies will certainly become clearer over the coming months and years. But even those who are confident the EU will continue to pursue ambitious climate policies admit it will be a more challenging than ever to deliver environmental action, particularly if Euro-sceptic and climate sceptic parties such as UKIP prompt their centrist rivals to emulate some of their positions…
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/analysis/2346788/will-the-rise-of-anti-eu-parties-derail-europe-s-environmental-ambitions
LINKS FROM ABOVE: 27 May: Business Green: Natalie Bennett (Green Party leader) calls on main parties to face down UKIP climate scepticism.
N.B. i haven’t posted the link to Natalie Bennett’s piece because Business Green (for the first time in my memory) are not allowing me to read two items, unless i register)
30
“The first major test for the new Parliament will come in September, when MEPs on the new environment committee meet to discuss long term changes to the Emissions Trading System”
Ill trade you a jar of my dirty air for a jar of your clean air.
Does anyone with a functioning intellect really take this garbage seriously?
I have a pretty high opinion of Joe Public and their ability to identify verbal waste products, especially in Australia. But the notion of emissions trading is so utterly farcical I do wonder about the basic sanity of anyone who would argue its a good idea, or even a rational idea.
20 odd years ago if you suggested there would be a market for trading air, I think you would have been taken away and locked in a soft room for your own safety, yet here we are, exchanging air for air and air for money. Truth is sooooo much stranger than fiction when it comes to climate alarmism and the people who will do anything to turn a buck from the desperately stupid.
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What they are trading, are the rights to manufacture plant food. We must not have too much plant food, for if there is an oversupply, the price will fall, and we will risk economic collapse.
70
Indeed, comrade. It is very telling that if you do a web search for the phrase “re-establish scarcity”… go on guess, what do you think is the only product or service that is talked about in those terms?
There’s a reason it’s called a “trading scheme” and not a market.
Or in the words of Mean Girls… Stop trying to make “carbon markets” happen, it’s not going to happen!
20
To quote a senior Officer in British Military, “Sometimes you can get a brilliant insight into what is really going on. It always frightens the life out of you”.
40
Pat:
I got the free trial or subscribe at the first hurdle. Obviously I must smell of more scepticism than you.
I didn’t bother even with the 4 week free trial; any Journal with a headline “Germany’s success with renewables” isn’t worth reading, even for laughs. It is so successful that Angela Merkel isn’t even going to the next meeting of heads of governments supposed to give momentum to Kyoto 2.
I must say thanks for your dedication in wading through such muck in the past to keep us informed. At least you can drop them off your list.
30
much, much more at the link:
26 May: Washington Times: Rowan Scarborough: Retired officers poised to profit after Pentagon’s alarmist climate change report
Urgent Obama call can funnel funds to projects
Retired military officers deeply involved in the climate change movement — and some in companies positioned to profit from it — spearheaded an alarmist global warming report this month that calls on the Defense Department to ramp up spending on what it calls a man-made problem.
The report, which the Obama administration immediately hailed as a call to action, was issued not by a private advocacy group but by a Pentagon-financed think tank that trumpets “absolute objectivity.” The research was funded by a climate change group that is also one of the think tank’s main customers.
The May 13 report came from the military advisory board within CNA Corp., a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes the Center for Naval Analyses, a Navy-financed group that also gets contracts from other Pentagon units. CNA also operates the Institute for Public Research…
One of the CNA panel’s vice chairmen, retired Navy Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, is president of a private think tank, the American Security Project, whose prime issue is warning about climate change.
The other vice chairman, retired Army Brig. Gen. Gerald E. Galloway Jr., is a prominent adviser to the Center for Climate and Security, a climate change group.
In all, four CNA board members sit on the panel of advisers to the Center for Climate and Security, whose statements on climate change are similar to those found in the CNA report.
Other board members work in the climate change world of consulting and technology.
The CNA advisory panel is headed by retired four-star Army Gen. Paul Kern, who sits on the board of directors of a company that sells climate-detection products to the Pentagon and other government agencies. At least two other board members are employed in businesses that sell climate change expertise and products.
The greatest influence on CNA reports seems to come from the Center for Climate and Security, whose position is that the debate on climate change, or man-made global warming, is over.
“This is a world which recognizes that climate change risks are unprecedented in human history and does not wait for absolute certainty before acting to mitigate and adapt to those risks,” the center says…
***The Center for Climate and Security has taken donations from the Tides Foundation, which gets money from Democratic Party financier and liberal billionaire George Soros…
The CNA report was celebrated by other global warming foreboders, particularly The New York Times, which gave it home page prominence on its website. The Times quoted Secretary of State John F. Kerry as saying the report would ignite a larger administration effort to combat climate change…
The CNA report prominently displays the opinions of three retired officers who sit on the advisory board at the Center for Climate and Security: Gen. Galloway; Adm. Frank L. “Skip” Bowman, the Navy’s former director of nuclear propulsion and who now runs a consulting business; and retired Rear Adm. David W. Titley, a former Oceanographer of the Navy.
A fourth board member tied to the center is Gen. Ronald E. Keys, a former chief of Air Force Combat Command.
Climate change has become big business. The U.S. government alone increased spending by more than $100 billion from 2003 to 2010, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Nations around the world are buying sensors, imaging technologies and airborne monitors.
That means huge contracts for consulting, studies and technologies to analyze the Earth and its environment.
Gen. Kern, the CNA advisory board chairman, is on the board of directors of Exelis Inc. (formerly ITT), a broad-based defense contractor that is also in the climate change business. It sells climate-detection systems to the Pentagon as well as to private industries.
This month, SpaceNews.com reported that Exelis Geospatial Systems won two climate-related contracts worth a potential $200 million — one for a NASA monitoring system, the other for Japan’s Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite.
Gen. Wald, another advisory board member, heads the largest single business entity within Deloitte, the giant international accounting and consulting firm. Gen. Wald runs its defense unit, and one of his portfolios is energy consulting. Deloitte itself has set up a consulting business that it says helps clients with “climate change and carbon management.”…
CNA Corp. itself is in the climate change business, a check of its client lists shows.
One of its major foundation customers is the Energy Foundation, the same group that financed the CNA military advisory board climate study. It is a global warming activist and is pushing a tax on carbon emissions.
CNA also lists as clients the liberal Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund…
CNA spokeswoman Constance Custer defended the way the study was conducted in response to questions from The Washington Times about board members’ climate change activism and business ties.
“Just as news organizations are confident in the abilities of their journalists to maintain objectivity and guard against personal bias, the MAB is confident in the objectivity and lack of bias of its members, whose careers have been based on honest, objective assessments of situations affecting military planning to ensure national security,” Ms. Custer said…
The CNA report is 100 percent climate change advocacy, stating as fact that global warming has caused flooding and wildfires. It uses phrases such as “more intense storms” and “more frequent and severe storms.”
“Globally, we have seen recent prolonged drought act as a displacement of populations, each contributing to instability and eventual conflict,” the CNA said.
Yet a number of scientists — and the United Nations — have looked at the history of storms and concluded that they cannot be blamed on climate change.
Roger Pielke, an environmental scientist at the University of Colorado who has studied decades of U.S. storm data, told a Senate committee last year: “It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate time scales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/26/sponsors-of-pentagons-alarm-raising-climate-study-/
50
Don’t expect too much folk.
The elites have faced just such challenges before. Labor a centaury back, & women’s lib about 30 years ago.
They show a remarkable ability to surround & envelop any threat threatening group they can’t crush, & make them part of the system, They just add a few more deck chairs & sail serenely on.
We can only hope the internet becomes the iceberg for their Titanic.
30
But next time, perhaps we will get a better class of elite? This one is so boorish.
10
Just like catholicism has always done (how do I do a smiley face)
00
colon hyphen right parenthesis
Substitute a semicolon for a wink, and a left parenthesis for a sad face
No charge, for the advice 😉
10
🙂
Kool, just checking!
00
🙂
🙁
😉
;-(
Last one did not work. Any more?
00
☃
00
Why would you have a frowny winky? 😉
00
my fave bits from Charlie’s speech – speaking their language!
VIDEO: 27 May: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Prince Charles: reform capitalism to save the planet
He called for companies to focus on “approaches that achieve lasting and meaningful ***returns” …
The Prince was addressing an audience of 200 business leaders including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and chief executives of multinational companies such as UBS, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever.
He called on businesses to focus on the long-term and make “an authentic moral commitment to acting as true custodians of the Earth and architects of the well-being of current and future generations”.
“It is only by adopting a broader sense of value that our finances will be sustained and we can find new sources of ***profit,” he said…
The Prince said that businesses would be unpopular with their peers in the short term for going green but would reap ***“immense” rewards in the long term.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html
27 May: Deutsche Welle: ‘Inclusive capitalism’ the big new thing?
Prince Charles has opened a conference on “inclusive capitalism” in London. Institutional investors and business leaders discussed how trust in capitalism could be restored by making it work better for the majority.
A conference in London aimed at addressing some of capitalism’s shortfalls has been organised by the “Inclusive Capitalism Initiative” (ICI), convened by a senior member of one of the world’s leading financial-capitalist dynasties, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild…
Luminaries gather to talk about the future of capitalism
Lady de Rothschild assembled a cast of senior dignitaries to participate in Tuesday’s discussions at Mansion House. The starting keynote speech was given by HRH Prince Charles. He was followed at the mic by IMF head Christine Lagarde. Former US President Bill Clinton, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Bank of England chief Mark Carney were also scheduled to give plenary speeches. All the speakers were introduced with gushing praise, as is customary at conferences featuring high-level dignitaries…
It was claimed that institutional investors and business leaders assembled at the meeting represented companies that together control about 30percent of the world’s total stock of financial wealth under professional management. Lady de Rothschild suggested that the amount of influence in the room was sufficient to change the capitalist game, if those assembled could come together behind a common approach – but cautioned that developing a more inclusive capitalism would be a journey that takes time…
Lady de Rothschild has high ambitions for “inclusive capitalism”. She aims to help found a movement, not merely host a conference or two. The ICI project was originally launched in 2011 by the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative think-tank launched in Cambridge in 2005 and now based in London, before being spun off into its own non-profit organization…
This founding document for the Inclusive Capitalism Initiative was co-authored by a task force of British and American business leaders and senior policy makers, co-chaired by Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, and Lady de Rothschild, CEO, E.L. Rothschild.
The tone of ICI seems rather noblesse-oblige. Time will tell whether the “Inclusive Capitalism Initiative” bears any fruits other than more of the sort of conferences at which extremely wealthy people arrive at in private jets to spend a pleasant few hours together and reassure each other that they’re doing their best for society.
http://www.dw.de/inclusive-capitalism-the-big-new-thing/a-17665826
20
just for fun!
InclusiveCapitalism.org: Conference on Inclusive Capitalism: Building Value, Renewing Trust
On 27 May 2014 at the Mansion House and Guildhall in London, the Lord Mayor of the City of London and E.L. Rothschild will host The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism: Building Value, Renewing Trust. The Conference has been organised by The Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism and the Financial Times.
LINK: View all Speakers
http://www.inclusivecapitalism.org/
surely the “Inclusive” crowd wouldn’t be making their way to the “Exclusive” Bilderberg Conference right now!
Bilderberg Conference 29 May – 01 June 2014 – Copenhagen Marriott, Denmark
LINK: Official Bilderberg 2014 list released!
https://secure.gn.apc.org/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=30
00
???
26 May: NoTricksZone: Merkel Snubs New York “Ban Ki-Moon” Climate Conference! … “Burying The Global Climate Agreement”!
By P Gosselin
Berlin-based leftist daily TAZ here reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn’t going to bother attending the Ban Ki-Moon initiated climate conference in New York this coming September. The TAZ adds this has been “confirmed by a government spokesman“…
The TAZ writes that even Presidents Barack Obama and Francois Hollande will be attending.
Merkel’s decision to snub the event is likely another sign that efforts to forge a climate agreement are already dead in water. The TAZ writes: Ultimately only Europe and very few other countries remain on board. Canada for example has opted out.
Japan and Russia are also no longer taking part.”…
Activists groups are howling in response to Merkel’s snub…
http://notrickszone.com/2014/05/26/merkel-snubs-new-york-ban-ki-moon-climate-conference-burying-the-global-climate-agreement/
20
is this the best they can come up with?
28 May: BusinessSpectator: Reuters: Kazakhstan wins support for carbon market
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) said it signed an agreement with Kazakh exchange Caspi JSC to provide support and technology for exchange-based trading of carbon permits, supporting Kazakhstan’s new emissions market, EEX said.
“We welcome Kazakhstan’s initiative to launch a national CO2 market as the first country in Asia and are happy to support Caspi JSC as operator of this market in its development,” EEX Chief Executive Peter Reitz said in a statement on Tuesday…
The two partners will look at the possibility of using the trading technology of EEX’s parent, Deutsche Boerse, for the Kazakh carbon market, the statement said. EEX is majority-owned by Eurex, Deutsche Boerse’s derivatives unit.
“EEX has wide expertise in operating a regulated market for emissions trading,” the chairman of the board of Caspi JSC, Yelnar Nadyrgaliyev, said in the EEX statement.
“It will be a crucial success factor in establishing an emissions market in Kazakhstan,” he added…
EEX, continental Europe’s biggest electricity bourse, also trades gas, carbon and coal contracts.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2014/5/28/carbon-markets/kazakhstan-wins-support-carbon-market
00
As much as I congratulate the UKIP, let’s not read too much into this. In the UK councils, they won a lot of seats but Labour won more. The UKIP did not gain control of any councils, the Tories lost several, Labour gained more. As far as seats of control in the various councils, Labour came out ahead in this election.
In the EU elections, the right did much better.
40
THIS PROVIDED MORE THAN A FEW LAUGHS YESTERDAY:
BBC: Climate Change Mercenaries
Duration: 18 minutes
First broadcast:Tuesday 27 May 2014
Meet the climate change mercenaries – people trying to make a profit out of global warming.
Presenter Justin Rowlatt travels to Greenland where Prime Minister Aleqa Hammond hopes the retreating ice will create business opportunities – such as the successful gold prospecting by Joshua Hughes, chief geologist of Nuna Minerals.
We hear from Christian Bonfils, managing director of Nordic Bulk Carriers, about the opening up the fabled North West shipping passage across the Arctic.
Justin encounters some profitable creepy crawlies – the flies being reared by South African farmer Jason Drew to provide a valuable source of protein, and the sterile mosquitos bred by Hadyn Parry, head of Oxitech, to combat dengue fever.
And it’s not just insect farming. Greg Smirin of Climate Corporation explains his firm’s weather forecasting services and why they have just got together with agriculturual behemoth Monsanto***.
And Justin hears from a pair of winemakers – geologist Prof Richard Selley and general manager Chris White of Denbies wine – about the future for British viticulture…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zdr15
00
Denbies Wine produces about 10% of the wine in the UK. About 1 sq. km. of grapevines.
Predominant varieties are: Seyval Blanc, Reichensteiner, Müller-Thurgau, Bacchus, Ortega, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Dornfelder. All of those are for cooler areas, although chardonnay is more forgiving of warmer weather. Seyval Blanc would probably do well in Tasmania except the local prefer to grow better varieties.
about the future for British viticulture… if it cools over the next 30 years they are going to be wiped out. He should have read John Gladstones Wine, Terroir and Climate Change.
If anyone is going to anticipate Global Warming/Climate Change by planting grapes on Auckland Island I suggest they read what Gladstones has to say first.
P.S. Auckland & Adam’s Island are not near the North Island. Go to Invercagill and head SWS.
00
Unfortunately, the election of UKIP and similar EU-sceptic parties to EU parliament is little more than theatre. See e.g. Euro-elections: small earthquake – business as usual
I think it’s inevitable that voters will lose confidence in the “sceptic” parties when they see thinbs only getting worse.
10
The next acid test will be a bye-election for a new Westminster Parliament MP for Newark in Lincolnshire next week. The Tories have a massive majority but the outgoing MP resigned for taking money to represent outside interests in Parliament. Lincolnshire is plagued by large Eastern Europe immigration to work on the farms there that have swamped the local public services generating a lot of local polarisation. It is doubtful that UKIP will overturn a 16,000 majority but if they do this would trump the EU Election successes and get UKIP their first MP ever. A big step to the General Election next year.
20
The destruction of the European Union. How positively delightful! Next step OZIP please!!
20
I hope Nigel stays away from flights in small aircraft.
20
@ Bernd Felsche – The importance of this vote (and yes I did vote UKIP) is not in the (lack of) power that MEPs have – pretty much the choice we had last Thursday was “whose greasy mitts do you want on the EU rubber stamp” – but in proving that a vote for UKIP is not a wasted vote. By being the most popular party (and you vote for parties in the EU election) UKIP have shown they can win a UK wide vote. Come next May when the UK has its general election (and maybe even sooner with two vacant seats up for grabs) I suspect there will be some purple ties on the green benches of the commons.
40
So the EU parliament is a toothless tiger and has no real power. Can we send the Greens and Labor there?
10
It’s been quite a joy to watch, nigel farage like winston has woken up the country and said you do not have to take it, you can fight back . Take a look at the comments sections of the newspapers on farage stories, always pro. I am surprised the papers don’t stop the comments section , but it must be shock to them as they are often hostile to the newspaper itself.
10
Ukip does mirror the fight against global warming alarmism, a lo achieved on a small budget by a few people.
Ukip coffers for the fisrt quarter this year 475,000
Conservatives , well oiled machine – 6 million
10
Im a skeptic that voted UKIP despite being a life long labour voter.I live in north Nottinghamshire a place known mainly for sherwood forest and Robin hood.Its also known for its coal mining past.I Say past because theyve just recently announced the closure of the last two pits in the county with the loss of a thousand jobs and leaving millions of tons of high quality coal underground.Meanwhile half an hours drive north is Drax power station who are converting two of their turbines to burning wood that will be imported from america.Cutting down thousands of acres of hardwood forest.It will be more expencive less efficient and increase co2 emissions but provide the owners of Drax with hundreds of millions of pounds of subsidies from tax payers. I want us to stay in europe but run it better and i have no problems with controlled immigration.I will vote labour again in the next genaral election and hope ukip split the tory vote,ukip may take a few votes from labour too,but this will be offset to some extent by libdem voters that will switch back to labour because they cant forgive the libdems for getting into bed with the tory party at the last election.
10
UKIP are expected to get 20% of the vote but no seats in the general election next year, such is the ridiculous voting system used in the UK. Whereas the party that will be elected to power need only get 33% of the vote.
So the voting system is rigged to prevent new parties from getting in or upsetting the status quo in ny way. The European elections are a side show and an irrelevant one as the UK vote is a tiny part of the whole EU circus.
20
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the people Mark Steyne was addressing is their total inability to even imagine that they could be wrong. It comes from the fact that in the first place they’re trying to imagine how the world should be instead of actually looking to see how it really is. I noticed this behavior in Hollywood types, politicians (some of all different stripes too), those selling fear (guess who they are), those selling patent medicines… The list is endless.
They constantly stub their toes and worse because reality is a very stubborn thing. It does what it wants to do and doesn’t even care if we want it to be different. If they were the only ones hurt by their foolishness it wouldn’t bother me. But when they take me or people I care about down with them, then I object.
If anyone want’s to know why I’m so vocal about this, it’s because it hurts ME!
And now I sound too much like Lionell Griffith, who is right, by the way. And so I will quit for now.
10
Absolutely correct!
Not as much so. It comes from their DESIRE to create a world in their own warped image, so they immediately throw out any data that does not conform to their view that such a world is possible.
00
So Phil, how does what you said not amount to, “…trying to imagine how the world should be instead of actually looking to see how it really is?” It goes without saying that they reject whatever falls outside of their imagined world, just ass you and I will reject something that doesn’t square with reality.
Just asking. It looks like six of one is half a dozen of the other.
00
Nuts. Scratch “ass” and substitute “as”. My fingers don’t do what I tell them to do.
00
“Not so much” was too short. I should have said “Not as much as absolutely correct”. Shorthand is sloppy writing, sorry.
It is very close, just not exactly what I see. The difference is the word “desire”. Your statement seemed to indicate that they are trying to understand the world, where mine is that they have no desire to understand the world. They merely are excusing their ignorance when their projections do not bear out.
(as for the typo, I am surprised the censors did not flag it! 😉 )
10
Phil,
We both seem to have the same problem — how to state something so the other guy understands what we mean. I’ve struggled with good writing my whole life and try as I might I still have the problem. I envy writers who can do the job right the first time. I can’t even get it right the 3rd or 4th time.
Anyway, I definitely don’t believe they’re trying to understand the world. They see problems, as do we all. But instead of first asking the question, why is it that way? They run off imagining such things as prohibiting gun ownership will stop guns from killing people. It clearly does not and several glaring examples of the failure are available to look at, as are numerous glaring examples of the real solution, allowing armed citizens.
In general, knowing why things are the way they are is a prerequisite for crafting a solution. And some things are the way they are because that’s simply human nature and we’re never going to do any better than manage the problem.
As for the typo, it couldn’t have been a more embarrassing one if I had tried. I think the moderators let some of the longtime contributors get away with more than they should and obviously the filter didn’t look for the word. I do apologize for it.
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It looks like you need the blogging equivalent of the old saying, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant”.
I think what they’re trying to understand is just what their peons are likely to do next, so as to head off anything that looks too dangerous (to them, naturally, not to us). It’s not so much that they think prohibiting gun ownership will stop guns from killing people, more that they think prohibiting gun ownership will stop people from killing them. The understanding is no deeper than “how to control” – not that they’re inexperienced, of course, but the rabble are saying some rather worrying things among themselves these days, y’know.
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They do not ask questions because that is “hard” and doing feel good impotent things is “easy”. Liberals are lazy. As long as they can live off the honest toil of others, they will never change.
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Sorry, should have said “the left” instead of liberals as liberals do not mean the same thing in all countries.
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A couple of items appear to be missing about the Western Antarctic Peninsula.
1) The Eastern flowing Circumpolar Current that flows at an enormous rate between the Antarctic Peninsula and Terra del Fuego. Sea Ice does not form readily on a fast moving current – but it is getting there, from observations of AMSR-2 data from the University of Bremen,in reference to the Antarctic.
2) Volcanic activity on the Antarctic continent is evident from Mt Erebus, on the Western side of Ross Island. It is an open caldera volcano, with an active lava lake. As part of the ridge that extends from the Antarctic Peninsula, there is a chain of 9 small islands, the South Sandwich Islands, with at lest two as active volcanoes. At present the sea ice from the direction of the Weddell Sea has encroached on all but 3 of these islands.
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[…] The remarkable rise of UKip — tiny fringe disappearing loony skeptics win popular vote eh? You can’t keep calling these guys “fringe” “extremists” when they get more votes than you. So instead of shrieking about “fruitcakes” and “loonies” why not try engaging on the issues?– Mark Steyn […]
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