NASA “US has not seen landfall of any hurricane of Category 3 or higher for nine years”

May 15, 2015

What exactly is this man-made climate change which is caused by the use of fossil fuels?

It cannot be global warming which has been absent for almost 20 years while the use of fossil fuels has doubled.

“It is stormier weather”, I hear the warmists say.

Well not according to NASA at least for hurricanes. And when NASA can do no better than to reckon that the non-occurrence of hurricanes is a matter of “luck” I have little tolerance for the alarmists and their “religious belief” that every storm which occurs is caused by human influences.

NASA:

Statistical analyses from hurricane track data indicate that for any particular Atlantic Hurricane season, there is about a 40 percent chance that a major hurricane (category 3 or higher) will make landfall in the continental United States. However, during the period from 2006 to 2014, no major hurricanes have made landfall.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The United States hasn’t experienced the landfall of a Category 3 or larger hurricane in nine years – a string of years that’s likely to come along only once every 177 years, according to a new NASA study.

The current nine-year “drought” is the longest period of time that has passed without a major hurricane making landfall in the U.S. since reliable records began in 1850, said Timothy Hall, a research scientist who studies hurricanes at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York.

The National Hurricane Center calls any Category 3 or more intense hurricane a “major” storm. The last major storm to make landfall in the U.S. was Hurricane Wilma on Oct. 16, 2005 – the fourth major storm landfall of that year, which was the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record. Of course, storms smaller than a Category 3 have made landfall with destructive results, such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Hall and colleague Kelly Hereid, who works for ACE Tempest Re, a reinsurance firm based in Connecticut, ran a statistical hurricane model based on a record of Atlantic tropical cyclones from 1950 to 2012 and sea surface temperature data. While hurricane records stretch back to 1850, the data becomes less complete prior to 1950, Hall said. The study was published recently in Geophysical Research Letters.

The researchers ran 1,000 computer simulations of the period from 1950-2012 – in effect simulating 63,000 separate Atlantic hurricane seasons. They found that a nine-year period without a major landfall is likely to occur once every 177 years on average.

While the study did not delve into the meteorological causes behind this lack of major hurricane landfalls, Hall said it appears it is a result of luck.

“The last nine hurricane seasons were not weak – storms just didn’t hit the U.S.,” Hall said. “It seems to be an accident of geography, random good luck.” ….. “Each year is roughly independent of the year before,” Hall said. “There are known signals, and natural cycles, and possibly human-induced influences. But for the most part, they are independent, especially for the rare intense landfalls.”

The Antarctic has more ice cover than has ever been measured before. Global sea ice extent is at its highest levels seen in a decade. Snow cover in the Northern hemisphere are at among the highest levels recorded. So if the 9-year non-occurrence of US hurricanes is only to be expected every 177 years, what exactly is this man-made climate change which is caused by fossil fuels?

The Lorentz effect does not apply to climate, and fossil fuels are not the “flap of a butterfly’s wings” causing climate change.

The butterfly effect

“coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a hurricane (exact time of formation, exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome”.

 

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Explaining inflation as resistance to motion

May 14, 2015

“Dad, What’s inflation? Why are Sweden and the UK trying to increase inflation and why are India and China trying to reduce it? Is inflation good or bad?”

Well, it all starts with the economic cycle and the resistances in …….

“What’s an economic cycle?”

OK. Let’s start at the beginning.

Let’s start at the very beginning
a very good place to start
when you read you begin with abc
An economy begins with “N”, “P”, “C”
“N”, “P”, “C”
the three legs needed just happen to be
“N”, “P”, “C”; “N”, “P”, “C”

When you get hungry you have a Need, a need for food. That’s where all economies start – with a need, the “N”. So you shout “Mom, What’s for dinner? I’m starving”. It’s fortunate that Mom is there and responds to your shout and starts Producing some dinner. Thats the “P”. And after some time you get your dinner and you Consume it. That makes you a consumer. And then when you’re ready to go out to your party you shout “Dad, can you drop me off at Jimmy’s (and pick me up later)?” you are just another Consumer expressing another Need – a need this time for transport. And when I take you there and bring you back, I am the Producer. And when you come home you’re hungry again. This is the basic cycle – Needs lead to Production which in turn leads to Consumption which leads to new Needs.

A production-consumption loop provides a business process.

economic cycle

The fundamental economic cycle

 

Every human is a consumer. All producers are consumers. But not all consumers are producers. The economic cycle is the cycle of living. And the more complex the society, the more complex and interconnected are all the various business processes that go to making up the economic cycle. Much of the production may be indirect or the production is of abstract things. Teachers produce “education”. Policemen produce “safety”. Actors and sports stars produce “entertainment”. It can be difficult to discern what politicians and priests produce but they too satisfy human needs. Even you produce something – mainly tension and stress which we consume for the goodness of our souls.

But time is the necessary additional dimension. All these various processes take time. It takes time for a new need to entice a producer and it takes time for the production and then it takes time to get to the point of consumption. The economic cycle is not just a circle. It is a continuous circle wrapped around the time axis. With time involved, the economic cycle reflects “motion” – a movement in time. And wherever there is motion there is resistance to motion. Each part of the cycle and of its subcycles is subject to inertia and friction. Inertia is the resistance not only to the start of motion but also to a change in an existing motion. It comes into play whenever a new need or a changed need requires some new production process or a change to a production process. And once the motion is in progress – and this applies to every business process and to every interaction between processes – there is a frictional resistance to the motion. Inertial resistance is generally higher than rolling friction.

And so we come to inflation. You can think of inflation as a measure of the resistances (inertial and frictional) to motion within an economic cycle. For any business process it can never be zero except if motion stops. When an economic cycle is said to have a negative inflation or a deflation, it only means that some of the component business processes are coming to a halt. For a well functioning economy, the resistances will be as low as possible and that represents the “healthy” level of inflation for that economy.  When inflation is said to be very high it means that business processes are operating sub-optimally – maybe in a stop-go manner, or that they are not meshing together very well or that there is turbulence in the work place.

So when the UK and Sweden try to bring their inflation rate up to about 2%, it is because 2% is judged to be representative of the resistance if all parts of the economy are functioning as smoothly as possible and growing modestly. When India tries to bring its inflation down from double digits to about 4% as a target, it means that many component parts of their economic cycle are functioning – or not – with too high a level of resistance. Processes are starting and stopping or are very inefficient – within themselves or that their inter-connections are broken or damaged.

In a rapidly growing economy where there are inertial resistances to overcome, the “healthy” level will have to be greater than the assumed 2% norm.

So, inflation is neither bad or good – it is a consequence of the business processes making up the economic cycle. It is measure of resistance to the motion of business processes. Even when operating smoothly these processes are subject to frictional resistance. Any growth of the cycle itself requires that production processes start or change and that brings in inertial resistance in addition to the frictional resistance. So inflation can never be zero but for every economic cycle, it needs to be as low as possible for a given complexity, a given size and a given growth. A too low inflation means that some of the component business processes are shrinking or coming to a halt. A too high level of inflation in an economy indicates that resistances are much too high and that the component business processes are not functioning as they should.

In developed countries of Europe the target inflation is at about 2% whereas in faster growing economies (China or India) the target is to be at around 4%.

It’s just a simple matter of “N”, “P”, “C”.

Got it?

“Duh!

With the resistances in this house, my pocket money needs to go up by 20% – at least!”

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EC looking for GE concessions to approve Alstom acquisition

May 12, 2015

UPDATE!

The New York Times also reports on the potential anti-trust issues and GE’s readiness to make some accommodations for EC concerns. However my take away from the NYT article is that GE is warning the EC that Alstom and the European Union have more to lose than GE has if the deal does not go through:

In now dealing with the European Commission’s antitrust office, Mr. Immelt has not forgotten the harsh experience of his predecessor, Jack Welch. In 2001, Mr. Welch failed to win approval for a proposed $42 billion takeover of Honeywell International after objections were raised by Mario Monti, the European antitrust commissioner at the time.

Mr. Immelt was worried enough last week that he met with Ms. Vestager in Brussels, where he also gave an address at the American Chamber of Commerce highlighting Europe’s economic potential. In that address, Mr. Immelt said young Europeans were “awesome” and “amazing,” but he emphasized that Europe needed investment to gain competitiveness and beat unemployment.

Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Immelt said his meeting with Ms. Vestager was “very constructive” and he described her as “a good leader.” G.E., he said, was engaged in “a process” with Brussels, and would “take the process where it goes.”

If G.E. is unable to convince Ms. Vestager of the merits of its case, the next step could be a so-called statement of objections, as soon as next month — formal charges that would outline the commission’s specific antitrust concerns. G.E. and Alstom could avoid that step by offering remedies sooner, perhaps proposing to sell parts of the gas turbine business in Europe.

My expectation was that the European Commision would look for some concessions from GE and would only grant a conditional approval for the acquisition of Alstom’s power and grid businesses.

The EC concerns seemed to be focused on Heavy Duty Gas Turbines (HDGT), and I wrote:

Will the EC approve GE’s acquisition of Alstom’s power business?

…. In any event,  I expect that the deal will go through, but I will not be surprised to see an approval conditional on some assurances from GE regarding R & D centres, R & D jobs and/or R & D budgets in Europe. I think it highly unlikely – and a little meaningless – if the EC were to ask for divestment of Alstom’s HDGT business to a third party (if any such exists). The bottom line is, I think, that Alstom’s HDGT technology has come to a dead-end and can not be developed any further in their own hands. While the business can continue in a diminishing way for some years, Alstom technology has no long-term value except to another party which has access to high temperature cooling technology. To have Alstom continue with the HDGT business as an unwilling and reluctant player does no one any service at all.

This Reuters report today suggests that my expectation may be close to the mark. However it also seems that if the EC demands too much in the way of concessions, GE might walk away. Clearly GE are already getting a little irritated at the protracted nature of the EC approval process. The failure of the deal is not something that Alstom or the EU would look forward to.

The EC decision may also be delayed somewhat beyond August 6th.

Reuters:

General Electric Co said on Monday for the first time it would be willing to consider concessions in order to win European approval to acquire the power equipment unit of France’s Alstom. “We are willing to explore remedies to get this deal done even though again we believe in the merits of the deal,” Steve Bolze, president and CEO of GE Power & Water, the conglomerate’s biggest industrial unit, told Reuters in an interview. Any concessions would have to “preserve the deal economics and our strategic value,” he said. …

… EU regulators typically prefer merging companies to sell overlapping assets or make it easy for rivals to enter the market. GE’s gas turbine competitors include Siemens AG and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

…GE already altered the deal to win the French government’s backing during last year’s two-month battle, in which it fended off Siemens and Mitsubishi. In the interview, Bolze acknowledged the “protracted process” for Alstom, and said GE was focused on “how to move … forward as it makes sense.”

In GE’s first-quarter conference call last month, Chief Executive Jeff Immelt backed the deal’s fit for GE, but said if it “ever would become unattractive, we wouldn’t do it.”

…. GE, which is undergoing an overhaul involving the exit of most of its finance assets, has said it expected synergies from the Alstom deal to add between 6 to 9 cents in earnings per share in 2016. But some analysts have told Reuters they doubt GE’s stock would take a big hit should the deal collapse, with the idea that GE could make up those earnings with stock buybacks or other deals. ……. 

…… EC spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said regulators are waiting for data from the companies before a setting a new deadline to act. The previous deadline was Aug. 6.

The EC will need to be very precise in demanding concessions from GE while ensuring that the deal does go through. Divesting parts of the HDGT business to unknown (and probably non-existent) buyers is probably a lose-lose solution. I expect that GE’s walk-away point will be reached if earnings from the service of Alstom’s fleet of gas turbines is removed from the mix. In fact any conditions set by the EC which dilute future revenues could prove fatal for the deal going through. Assurances about keeping R & D located in Europe and assurances about jobs and even about R & D budgets could be absorbed by a robust business plan. But no business plan can survive if something as fundamental as the revenue stream is adversely affected. And it is the volume of that revenue stream – and not just the margin from those revenues – which is crucial.

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Reality check: Increasing sea ice making it difficult to reach Antarctic stations

May 12, 2015

This is reality – not a forecast from a a mathematical model.

news.com:

THE size and power of ships needed to break through Antarctica’s increasing sea ice levels is a worry for the global research community.

IN recent years countries including Australia have battled to reach their stations on the frozen continent, making resupply missions time consuming and expensive, Australian Antarctic Division spokesman Rod Wooding said.

“We’re noticing that the sea ice situation is becoming more difficult,” he told reporters on Monday.The sea ice through the Southern Ocean and around Australia’s Mawson Station usually breaks up for a couple of months a year allowing ships to enter the bay but that did not happen in 2013-14.“We had to get fuel in by helicopter which is inadequate for the long-term sustainability of the station,” Dr Wooding said.“Other national programs have had similar problems: the French in particular, Japanese also.”

The problem has been the main driver for a meeting of more than 50 international experts, convening in Hobart until Wednesday, to try and nut out a plan to accurately forecast sea ice levels.Meteorologists along with ice and Antarctic experts will take part in a series of workshops, looking at trends in satellite imagery and the environment.“One of the things that Antarctic programs will need to understand going forward is what sort of ice breaking capability we’re going to need to get through the ice in these areas,” Dr Wooding said.“Australia is currently in a tender process for a new ice breaker … and it’s important in understanding what sort of ice breaker we might need … to have a good understanding of likely sea ice conditions.”The

re is no single reason why sea ice levels are increasing but Hobart-based expert Tony Worby said it tends to gather around icebergs and wind patterns also play a part.“We know sea ice extent is increasing, there was a record maximum in September 2014,” Prof Worby said. “It’s quite hard to forecast but whatever effort we put in to improving our ability to forecast sea ice will ultimately pay dividends in terms of savings for national programs.”

Sunshinehours also points out that current Antarctic sea ice extent is the highest measured for this time of year. (In fact the global sea ice extent is the 3rd highest ever measured for this day of the year).

Antarctic_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2015_Day_130_1981-2010

from sunshinehours

 

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Swedish Green party leader exhibits her immaturity to be in government

May 11, 2015

Green party “co-spokesperson” (a euphemism for “leader”) Åsa Romson has once again demonstrated that the greens have great difficulty in making the transition from being demonstrators on the streets to actually being in government. Åsa Romson is even the Deputy Prime Minister. She has been silly enough to first compare the Mediterranean to Auschwitz and then to refer to the Roma as “zigenare” which means gypsy and as a term has officially been declared to be “offensive”.

Of course she wasn’t around during the Holocaust, but who does she see as the Nazis of today? The Mediterranean may well be a graveyard for many but the reference displays an amazing ignorance.

TheLocal: Green party co-spokesperson Åsa Romson has apologized after calling Roma people “zigenare” (gypsies) as well as comparing the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean to the Holocaust. ……. 

The leader later told SVT that she was sorry, adding that she had used an expression that “did not fit”, while trying to make a strong argument about the migrant crisis in the EU.

Her press spokesperson Hellström Gefvert later told the broadcaster that Romson had been “tired” after the debate and knew that her choice of words was “indefensible”.

On Monday, Romson issued another apology on Twitter, posting: “Again: It was wrong to make an Auschwitz analogy. I sincerely apologize”.

But this is not the first time that the greens have demonstrated their lack of judgement. They show little evidence of exercise of mind. The Swedish Greens border on being anti-semitic. They are definitely pro-Palestine, even have mild islamists in positions of power and are generally anti-Israel. It is sometimes difficult to tread the balance between being anti-Israel and being anti-semitic and, unfortunately, the Swedish Greens just don’t have the judgement and quality of thought necessary to walk the line. Mehmet Kaplan and Gustav Fridolin are Green party members and Ministers in the current Red/Green government. Kaplan was also unthinking enough to equate Swedes joining IS with Finns fighting against Russians during WW2. Also a remarkable display of ignorance of history and an apologist remark – in any interpretation – for the IS.

TimesofIsrael: Housing Minister Mehmet Kaplan, of Sweden’s Green Party, was arrested in 2010 by Israeli forces after participating in the Mavi Marmara flotilla, which was headed to the Gaza Strip. The Turkish-born MP was later deported from Israel over his involvement. 

During this summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Kaplan called for the “liberation of Jerusalem” at a pro-Palestinian rally.

He also downplayed the evils of the Islamic State in a July address, saying that Swedes joining their ranks in Iraq and Syria were similar to those who went to Finland during World War II to combat the Soviet Union. His comparison was lambasted by many Swedes, who consider the soldiers who volunteered to fight the Soviets on behalf of Finland freedom fighters.

In addition, Sweden’s Education Minister Gustav Fridolin was detained by Israeli forces in 2004 for protesting the security barrier near Ramallah. Fridolin left the country shortly after he was released.

The thoughtlessness is evident even in environmental issues which ought to be their strength – but is not. In fact even on many environmental matters they tend to be remarkably uninformed and blindly follow an eco-fascist line. They know best what everybody else should do – for their own good.

Greens in government just don’t work and in Sweden they are an embarrassment to rational thought.

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A “British Solution” for a federal Britain

May 11, 2015

The “British Solution” has traditionally been to draw new lines on maps. In India, in Africa, in Arabia and the Middle East and even in the Eastern US and Canada, the British expertise at and love of cartography has provided the “solutions” of the day. Notwithstanding any tribal affiliations and nomadic behaviour, ethnic and religious and political divisions have been enshrined – and confined – in situ by drawing lines on maps to keep the warring parties separated.

After this election, a federal Britain is now in the realm of the possible – if not yet probable. And the British Solution should be applicable without really inventing anything new. 1,800 years ago the Romans already drew the lines that could be applied.

roman britain (thedockyards.com)

roman britain (thedockyards.com)

Of course this requires that Scotland be split into a northern and a southern part and they would, obviously, be called Upper Scotland and Lower Scotland. England would have to split into three parts (with a somewhat expanded Wales). Upper England, Middle England and Lower England would be quite fitting.. Wales would of course be called Cymru. Northern Ireland (Ulster) could pretty much stay as it is (geographically). Manx, the Channel Islands, the Falklands and the Hebrides could be independent Crown territories and could serve as tax and gambling havens (since any self-respecting federal, monarchic, republic must have these).

The great job-creation opportunity is that 9 parliaments (8 national and one federal parliament) could be set up, each with its supporting paraphernalia and bureaucracy.  And it could be 10 parliaments if the House of Lords is kept as a tourist attraction.

And Welsh place names would continue to be used.

lllanfair pg station

llanfair pg station

 

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The value of a vote

May 10, 2015

In all democracies it is universally assumed that “one man, one vote” is sacrosanct. The “vote” is not earned in any way. Just being born and then being of the minimum age is sufficient to be bestowed with “one vote”. The value of a vote has no connection to merit.

In Scandinavia and most of Europe proportional representation means that one votes for political parties rather than for individuals as representatives of a constituency. The number of seats won by a party is then generally proportional to the total number of votes cast and this leads to an over-representation of minority parties but an under-representation of minorities defined in other ways (gender, ethnicity, age). But the party lists from which the “elected officials” are chosen are produced by the members of the party and the names on the list may or may not have been chosen democratically. The value of the vote of a member of a party is something more than one since that vote also has a say in choosing the party list.

In “first past the post” systems as in the UK, every constituency has an identified representative. In spite of party affiliation, in theory, the elected member represents the entire constituency including its minorities. Of course the elected member then mostly behaves as his party dictates. In the recent UK election the number of votes needed to win a seat in parliament varied from just 25,000 for those supporting the SNP to almost 4 million for a UKIP voter. An SNP vote had a weight 160 times greater than than that of a Ukip voter and 12 times greater than that of a Lib Dem voter.

The Telegraph:

UK votes per seat

UK votes per seat

But it seems to me that in both systems (PR or first-past-the-post), it is irrational that the value of a vote is not graduated and somehow proportional to the value or the merit of the voter.  It seems illogical that a “vote bought” is equal to a “vote freely given” or that a “fool” has the same vote as a “wise man” (however those are defined).

(It is) mere existence as an individual that suffices to have an “equal vote”. And if everyone has the vote it is assumed that “democracy” has been attained – as if it were some sort of state of grace.  The only real criterion is that of age, even if some countries still have some other criteria in force. The merit of the individual is irrelevant. Votes can and are bought by promises or by free meals or by money or by a bus-ride. A “bought” or coerced vote weighs as heavy as one that is freely given. (There is nothing wrong in buying or selling votes – the flaw lies in that the seller has a vote equal to that of free elector). A fool has the same vote as a wise man. A large tax contributor is equated to a small tax contributor. Government servants paid for by taxes have the same weight of vote as the tax payers. Priests and politicians have the vote. The behaviour of an individual does not affect his vote. Experience, intelligence, wisdom, competence or criminality are all considered equally irrelevant. …..  One hundred and one idiots take precedence over one hundred wiser men. 

Of course, measuring “merit” is no easy thing and to get agreement would be extremely difficult – but not impossible.

There is no good reason why all votes should be equal. If there is such a thing as a “good” citizen, or if you accept – as I do – that individuals are not equal in ability and competence and their contribution to a society, then constraining everybody to the same value of vote is itself unjust. Votes must be given weight, I think, according to the “goodness” of the voter. It should not be beyond the wit of man to see to it that an individual had a way of “earning” extra value for his vote by those aspects of his performance or achievements which had value to society. We might then get closer to a “true democracy”. Of course that would also imply that other “anti-social” behaviour or lack of competence could get penalised by having some value of a vote taken away. I can imagine that a “good” citizen or an accomplished citizen could perhaps have a vote with a value enhanced from a base value of one to be – say – 1.5 or 1.8, while a “bad citizen” might have it reduced to – say – 0,5.  A murderer or a fraud serving time could perhaps have their vote value reduced to – say – 0.5. Instead of just being endowed with a vote on reaching the age of 18, an 18-year old could perhaps have 0.2 of a vote increasing to the base value of 1.0 on reaching 23 (when his brain is fully developed).

Such a system is not practical – for the moment. But I would prefer if the right to vote was “earned” in some way and that the value of an individual’s vote had some connection to merit.

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Russel Brand and The Guardian have helped cement Cameron’s majority

May 8, 2015

On Tuesday last week (28th April) Ed Miliband met with Russel Brand with the goal of “making the election more interesting”.

On Monday this week (4th May) The Guardian (in the shape of columnist Owen Jones) published an article “Russel Brand has endorsed Labour and the Tories should be worried”. Now Owen Jones is a 4th generation socialist and a defender of and an apologist for the stereotyped “chav”. The Guardian has the Lib Dems as their primary favourites with Labour coming close behind.

In the event, The Guardian and Russel Brand have been almost classically, and doubly, counter-productive. Russel Brand’s self-admitted “big mouth and laptop” are not as persuasive as he and some others would like to think. Jones wrote:

He has nearly 10 million Twitter followers; his YouTube interview with Ed Miliband received well over a million hits and counting; he is listened to by hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Britons, particularly young people who have been repeatedly kicked over the last few years. Russell Brand matters.

And however much bluff and bluster the Tories now pull – maybe more playground abuse from David Cameron, who called Brand a “joke” – his endorsement of Labour in England and Wales will worry them. More people have registered to vote than ever before: between the middle of March and the deadline to register, nearly 2.3 million registered, over 700,000 of them 24 years old or younger.

The Brand effect has been compounded by The Guardian effect. Brand’s mouth and his laptop have certainly been irritating enough to have pushed some few – maybe the critical few – towards Cameron. The Guardian stridency has helped in the collapse of the Lib Dem vote and has sent more of them towards anybody rather than Labour. Brand and The Guardian have effectively provided the icing on Camron’s cake. Twenty four hours ago it was unthinkable that the Tories would have gained any seats and the expectation was for prolonged coalition negotiations. That the Tories could possibly have a majority was not even an outlier in the polls or for the political pundits. And now even the SNP must dampen some of their expectations of influence in Westminster since the Tories have a clear majority of 10 (which is in practice a majority of between 15 and 20 considering the Sinn Fein, the DUP and the Speaker).

As the Spectator writes:

Elsewhere, commentators hailed Brand as the man who has ‘access to voters politicians can’t reach’. Brand was treated as a celeb conduit, a connector of the political class with the plebs, someone who could actually turn things around. ‘The Tories should be worried.’ People seriously said that.

We can laugh at it all now, and we should – in fact, it’s important that we do. Because it turns out that Brand’s ability to get people lining up behind Miliband was pure bluster.

And Russel Brand has compromised his “Don’t Vote” stand for ever and has ensured a Tory majority into the bargain.

 

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Bombay High Court restores the natural order of the universe

May 8, 2015

I am pleased to see that the Bombay High Court has seen fit to follow my exhortations to restore the natural order of the Universe where privilege is given its full due and where the high status of a Bollywood Star is honoured.

The natural order of the universe where respect must be accorded to those of higher status, and Bollywood Stars are indubitably the highest of the high, requires that Salman Khan be released immediately.

Hindustan Times reports:

The Bombay high court on Friday suspended actor Salman Khan’s jail term, handed by a lower court in the 2002 hit-and-run case, pending appeal.

The single-judge bench of justice Abhay Thipsay suspended the five-year jail term after hearing arguments from both sides.

“We can fix a date in June or July whether he is guilty or not.”

I note that the Bombay High Court had little to say about the unfortunate Noor Ullah Khan who was stupid enough to sleep outdoors just where a drunken driver without a licence was about to mount the pavement and crush him to death.

Even if the cowardly driver did run away from the scene, it is surely no reason to chastise him – especially as he is a Bollywood Star.

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UK election night entertainment

May 7, 2015

It should be an interesting next few hours as real results come in. If the main exit poll proves to be correct then it will be quite a coup for David Cameron and a mighty success for Nicola Sturgeon. It will be a humiliating fiasco for Nick Clegg and a great relief to the markets that “Red” Moses Milibrand has a bloody nose. But The YouGov exit poll shows quite different results.

UPDATES!

0530CET: It does look as if the Tories will have 5 -10 seats more than in 2010 and that might be just enough (312 – 317 seats with 323 needed for an effective majority) to try running with a minority government.

The markets will be not too unhappy though the SNP’s clean sweep (almost) in Scotland and their almost communistic tendencies could be a bit worrying. On the other hand the Scots could never be as profligate as Greece has been.

It’s time for a nap before breakfast.

 

0430 CET: Ed Davey has lost his seat. He must take the prize for knowing less about energy and energy production than any other Energy Minister – other than a former Energy Minister of the UP government . Davey also had the remarkable ability to always ask the wrong questions.

0400CET: Mhairi Black of the SNP is the youngest MP since 1667. She thrashed her Labour opponent. (But at 20 years old, we know that she is formally still an adolescent since her prefrontal cortex will not be fully developed till she is about 25)!

Great campaigns – giving great defeats? It is amazing how every Labour or Lib Dem spokesperson talks about how Miliband and Clegg have both run “fantastic campaigns” but have produced a fiasco in the one case and a melt-down in the other.

0330 CET:  There is talk of both Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband resigning tomorrow. It would be appropriate if Russel Brand also retired from public life  – at least for a few weeks.

If Farage also loses then he will also have to go.

Sturgeon and Cameron the winners.

The Tories may be just short of a majority on their own

Some polls are going to be proven quite wrong.

The UKIP bubble would have burst.

The Pound strengthened by 1% on the eit poll.

Cameron could still just have a majority with the Lib Dems but the Lib Dems would be a very junior partner indeed.

But this is only an exit poll and there is a long – and hopefully entertaining – night ahead.

The election campaign had few fireworks and all the entertainment value is concentrated around the results.

A little bit like the Eurovision Song Contest. No substance in the songs or the singers and all the excitement in the counting of the result.

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