August 22, 2012
UPDATE 2! As I understand the sentence he has the maximum time in prison allowable by Norwegian law for 21 years and then – if he is deemed dangerous – he can (will) be kept incarcerated for extensions of 5 years at a time. In practical terms he has been given a life sentence – for life.
UPDATE! His sentence will be announced in court today. Paradoxically the prosecution wants him to be declared insane while he wants to be declared sane!
BBC:
… Breivik, 33, who insists he is sane, has refused to plead guilty and has sought to justify his attacks by saying they were necessary to stop the “Islamisation” of Norway. Prosecutors have called for him to be considered insane. ….
Throughout the trial, Breivik showed no sign of remorse. He began several hearings by giving a right-wing clenched fist salute. If the judges conclude that Breivik was sane, he will be sent to prison. The maximum sentence in Norway is 21 years although that can be extended if he is viewed as a danger to society.
If the court finds him insane, Breivik will be ordered to undergo treatment at a closed psychiatric unit – most likely at the same high security prison where he is now. Breivik has said that psychiatric care would be “worse than death”. …..
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He killed 77 people and this is what his cell will look like.
Sentenced to “luxury for life”?
No further comment needed.
From Svenska Dagbladet
Living cell at Ilas Secure Department FOTO: ILA FENGSEL OG FORVARINGSANSTALT/GLEFS AS
And a special cell to keep fit in! He has access to 3 special cells.
FOTO: ILA FENGSEL OG FORVARINGSANSTALT/GLEFS AS
Tags: Anders Behring Breivik, luxury for life
Posted in Behaviour, Norway | Comments Off on Anders Behring Breivik’s cell to be
August 20, 2012
Reality of course is that coal, gas, hydro and nuclear are the cheapest sources of electricity generation and will be with us for some time to come. And there is no need – for the sake of idiotic scenarios of nuclear holocaust and nonsense theories about AGW – to move away from them.
Bloomberg:
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government says RWE AG (RWE)’s new power plant that can supply 3.4 million homes aids her plan to exit nuclear energy and switch to cleaner forms of generation. It’s fired with coal.
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Tags: Coal, Coal firing, Electricity generation, EON, Germany, Nuclear power, RWE
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Germany | 1 Comment »
August 20, 2012
As Fisker recalls all its Karma cars because of a fire risk, I observe that it represents yet another case of the fundamental failing of subsidies.
1. Fisker has received government subsidies of $528million
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Tags: counter-productive subsidy, electric cars, electric hybrid cars, Fisker Karma, Karma, subsidies
Posted in Automobiles, Business, Politics | Comments Off on Fisker Karma electric hybrid car is a gold-mine – for someone
August 18, 2012
The cost of wind power is beginning to bite in Germany. Two articles in Der Spiegel and in Financial Times Deutschland puncturing the virtuous bubble that surrounds wind power in Germany:
Der Spiegel:
Grid Instability Has Industry Scrambling for Solutions
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Tags: cost of wind power, Der Spiegel, Financial Times Deutschland, Germany, wind power
Posted in Energy, Germany, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on Wind power beginning to lose its gloss in Germany
August 18, 2012
In a previous post I wondered why the lurid series by Larry Pickering about crooked union leaders and Julia Gillard was not being taken up by the main stream media – though the content of the 5 part series by Pickering – “Is our Prime Minister a Cook?” – seemed quite explosive to me.
Well, it now seems to have reached the Sunday edition of Canberra Times:
(UPDATE! The same article is also in the SMH but it was on the web first in the Canberra Times. The Australian also carries a story about Julia Gillard and the loss of her job at the law firm of Slater & Gordon, which is then also reported on by The Telegraph. It looks like the msm are now running to jump onto the bandwagon started by Pickering.)
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Tags: Canberra Times, Julia Gillard, Larry Pickering
Posted in Australia, Corruption, Politics | Comments Off on Lurid Julia Gillard story reaches the main stream media
August 18, 2012
I have a theory that within a hundred years we will be bemoaning the lack of world population. The collapse of society will be forecast as an impending catastrophe as the total world population stabilises at less than 10 billion with the proportion of the young working population decreasing relative to the increasing numbers of the “leisured” population. And that apocalypse too shall not come to pass.
Matt Ridley has a new essay in Wired which needs to be read. Just some excerpts below:
Apocalypse Not: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times
When the sun rises on December 22, as it surely will, do not expect apologies or even a rethink. No matter how often apocalyptic predictions fail to come true, another one soon arrives. And the prophets of apocalypse always draw a following—from the 100,000 Millerites who took to the hills in 1843, awaiting the end of the world, to the thousands who believed in Harold Camping, the Christian radio broadcaster who forecast the final rapture in both 1994 and 2011. ………
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Tags: Alarmism, climate change, Doom-sayers, Harold Camping, Innovation, Limits to Growth, Matt Ridley, Thomas Robert Malthus
Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Engineering, Environment, Politics, Science | 1 Comment »
August 14, 2012
London 2012 has been a fantastic Olympics – the Bolt Games – notwithstanding a fairly pathetic closing ceremony.
The BBC with the help of Meghan Busse from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the US has produced a table of the underachieving and overachieving nations (based on population and GDP).
The top-10 list of countries that won most Olympic medals barely changed between 2008 and 2012. The top four – US, China, Russia, UK – were identical. Just one country dropped out – Ukraine – which was replaced by Japan. But which countries did better or worse than we should have expected?
Before the Games started, BBC Radio’s More or Less programme decided to level the statistical playing field by working out how many medals nations could expect to win based on population and GDP alone.
“If you use those predictions as a kind of benchmark, then you can ask the question, who’s done well and not so well relative to that prediction – who won more medals than they should have, and who won fewer,” says Meghan Busse from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the US, who helped with the sums.
THE ALTERNATIVE MEDAL TABLE
Tags: BBC, Bolt Games, London 2012, Olympics, The Alternative medal table, Underachieving nations
Posted in India, Sport, Trivia | Comments Off on India tops the list of Olympics underachievers
August 13, 2012
I first came across Australian politics some 25 years ago when trying to sell a turnkey power plant to be located in W. Australia. I found myself trying to negotiate through a morass of cronyism together with convoluted local and national politics which I never did succeed to decipher. Since then I have been a fascinated – but always confused – observer of Australian politics. I never did manage to sell that particular power plant in Bunbury but I did manage to see a couple of Test matches at the WACA. I have subsequently sold steam and gas turbines in Australia where these projects did not attract the same level of political interest. But I still have a very meagre understanding of how things actually get done within Australian politics.
An Australian political cartoonist – Larry Pickering – has been running a series of articles on his blog (4 parts – so far – with part 5 yet to come just published). The contents seem to reveal a web of corruption and deceit encompassing a crooked union leader, the AWU, dirty weekends, a law firm and Julia Gillard who was then employed at that firm. Somewhere along the line Ms. Gillard was apparently sacked from the law firm and then entered politics. The revelations appear quite explosive to me but I note there is almost no coverage of these in the Australian media. I am not quite sure what to make of the apparent disinterest of the MSM. It could be that the “revelations” are pretty tame and just represent the “normal” and expected behaviour of Australian politicians?
Part One: Our Prime minister is a Crook
Part Two: Is our Prime Minister a Crook?
Part Three: Is our Prime Minister a Crook?
Part Four: Is our Prime Minister a Crook?
UPDATE!
Part 5: Is our Prime Minister a crook?
Larry Pickering’s cartoons are pretty interesting as well. The Bolt Games are over now and I like this one:
Cartoon by Larry Pickering
Tags: Australia, Australian Labor Party, AWU, Julia Gillard, Larry Pickering, Politics
Posted in Australia, Behaviour, Politics | 4 Comments »
August 12, 2012
A new paper claims to have found evidence of dark matter near the sun.
“We are 99% confident that there is dark matter near the Sun,” says the lead author Silvia Garbari. In fact, if anything, the authors’ favoured dark matter density is a little high: they find more dark matter than expected at 90% confidence. There is a 10% chance that this is merely a statistical fluke, but if future data confirms this high value the implications are exciting as Silvia explains: “This could be the first evidence for a “disc” of dark matter in our Galaxy, as recently predicted by theory and numerical simulations of galaxy formation, or it could mean that the dark matter halo of our galaxy is squashed, boosting the local dark matter density.”
But I cannot help thinking that “dark matter” and “dark energy” are no different conceptually to the theories of phlogiston and luminiferous aether . They are plausible artefacts created to explain observations but are not themselves observable. I am not particularly convinced when
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Tags: Albert Einstein, Dark matter, General relativity, gravity, Luminiferous aether, phlogiston
Posted in Physics, Science | 1 Comment »
August 10, 2012
Three days of competition left and then I can get back to a normal routine again. But Usain Bolt and David Rudisha were well worth waiting for last night. And behind David Rudisha in the 800m came two unheralded teenagers. What is left to say about Usain Bolt? The sprint double at successive Games is unprecedented and will not be repeated for a long time. From day one – and long before the athletics had even begun – it has been the Usain Bolt show even if the Team GB performance has been quite remarkable. Almost a fairy tale for the host nation. The organisation of the games has – to all appearances – been a great success. Journalists still look for negative stories but London has coped and coped quite easily. But London 2012 will be – should be – known as the Bolt Games.
Of course Usain Bolt has the 4 x 100m relay yet to come but that does not carry the majesty that the 100m and the 200m does. Rudisha vs. Bolt at the compromise distance of 400m could be interesting.
But – and without any disrespect to the proponents – there are far too many events which just don’t feel Olympian to me. I think I would prefer to see the emphasis on the performance of individuals. Faster, higher, stronger. All team events then feel wrong. This would remove football and hockey and volleyball and handball and basketball and beach volleyball. Even the doubles events in the racquet games would go (and do we really need three racquet games?). Wrestling and boxing are surely enough of the “combat sports” without having to suffer the judo and Tae-kwon-do bouts. Even wrestling has become quite unintelligible for the uninitiated. Pairs and fours in rowing could go. Events where performance is entirely subjective have no place here I think. This would remove artistic gymnastics and synchronised diving for example. And synchronised swimming would die a natural death if it was not an Olympic event. The equestrian events are interesting and dressage is an equine ballet that can be a joy to watch. But for riders to be feted for the performance of their horses seems a little ridiculous.
The Olympics must be the celebration of individual performance – I think – rather than team performances (with their nationalistic overtones).
Faster, Higher and Stronger!
And Tae-kwon-do, Wrestling, Judo, Water polo and all team events would be the first to go if I could choose.
Tags: David Rudisha, London 2012, Olympic Games, Usain Bolt
Posted in Sport, UK | Comments Off on The Bolt Games are coming to an end …… and some events need to go
