They're falling like ninepins. For all of you lovers who remember with as much fondness as I the romance of a long weekend in Paris some decades ago ..
EU frustrations
34 minutes ago
Monday, 7 February 2011
More fake science
More rubbish science this morning in the Mail, which really should know better. This time it's a Danish loony who wants to ban open fires and wood burning stoves on health grounds. You need to read the article carefully to discover that he's got absolutely no evidence at all that people are actually harmed by using open fires; he bases his conclusion on two facts he's discovered; that if you drench a petri dish of DNA with wood tar, it dies, and that his sister-in-law, who has a wood burning stove, sometimes gets headaches.
In fact, it's even worse. The loony studied two distinct groups of people from two different areas - those who used wood burning stoves all the time, and those that never did. He found no health differences at all between the two groups - none whatsoever - but rather than being honest enough to admit that wood-burning stoves have no health impact, he twisted the reality in the way that bent, loony scientists do to find that;
1. The wood burning area had more smoke particles in the air
2. If someone breathes in twenty billion trillion smoke particles, they'll get ill.
3. QED - wood burners are a tool of Satan and must be banned
About the only people who give credence to fake science such as this are, unfortunately, the civil servants at the heart of the Central State, who no doubt will now be preparing legislation to ban wood burning stoves.
In fact, it's even worse. The loony studied two distinct groups of people from two different areas - those who used wood burning stoves all the time, and those that never did. He found no health differences at all between the two groups - none whatsoever - but rather than being honest enough to admit that wood-burning stoves have no health impact, he twisted the reality in the way that bent, loony scientists do to find that;
1. The wood burning area had more smoke particles in the air
2. If someone breathes in twenty billion trillion smoke particles, they'll get ill.
3. QED - wood burners are a tool of Satan and must be banned
About the only people who give credence to fake science such as this are, unfortunately, the civil servants at the heart of the Central State, who no doubt will now be preparing legislation to ban wood burning stoves.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
If your child has head lice, blame 'Rab' Butler
As a prime example of a muddled but well-meaning central State pouring millions of tax money into doing something that people did quite adequately themselves already only to leave the situation worse than it was before, this from today's Indie;
The other problem, she says, is that when routine scalp inspections were introduced as part of the 1944 Education Act (leading to the establishment of an army of "Nitty Nora" nurses whose job it was to examine thousands of schoolchildren on a regular basis), parents stopped taking responsibility for the problem.
"Before that, lice were a problem that parents had to deal with – the knowledge was there in families, and if they were discovered people knew how to get rid of them," she says. "But that knowledge has disappeared. In fact, she maintains, "Nitty Noras" were spectacularly ineffective in detecting head lice infestations. "They were a complete waste of time. They couldn't possibly hope to detect the lice in every child's hair – they missed most of them."I really can't add to that. If your child has nits, blame 'Rab' Butler.
Muscular liberalism?
Muscular liberalism? Muscular Christianity I'm aware of, and Muscular Conservatism I could understand, but isn't Muscular Liberalism a bit like strong spaghetti or robust cowardice, a contradiction in terms? Social liberalism has always meant an absence of moral standards and controls. I'm confused.
White Trash Sally Bercow is not novel
If you've never read Nicholas Monsarrat's 'Richer Than All His Tribe' I urge you to search Abe Books to find a copy. In it a Labour life-peer is sent off as Governor-General of a British colony preparing for independence, bringing with him his wife, Bobo...
".. a one-shot erotic poetess who had written a notorious narrative poem, banned in half a dozen countries, which read like a catalogue of her past lovers, complete with their achievement-ratings. It had been called 'Oh Come! All Ye Faithful', and its jacket alone, on which was a nude photograph of the authoress quartered like an anatomical Ordnance Survey map, was a collector's item. She was now First Lady of Pharamaul, entitled, amongst other things, to the curtsys of all lesser females."
Monserrat develops wonderfully Bobo's wild swings between insisting on rigid formality and wholly inappropriate chumminess where protocol should have prevailed; she attempts to seduce her husband's ADC and makes a clumsy pass at one of the colony's leaders-in-waiting, an African statesman of great gravitas and dignity. She is an embarrassment to the entire British establishment, and viewed by the natives as the worst kind of white trash, undeserving of respect. The parallels with Sally Bercow are obvious. I won't spoil the ending.
".. a one-shot erotic poetess who had written a notorious narrative poem, banned in half a dozen countries, which read like a catalogue of her past lovers, complete with their achievement-ratings. It had been called 'Oh Come! All Ye Faithful', and its jacket alone, on which was a nude photograph of the authoress quartered like an anatomical Ordnance Survey map, was a collector's item. She was now First Lady of Pharamaul, entitled, amongst other things, to the curtsys of all lesser females."
Monserrat develops wonderfully Bobo's wild swings between insisting on rigid formality and wholly inappropriate chumminess where protocol should have prevailed; she attempts to seduce her husband's ADC and makes a clumsy pass at one of the colony's leaders-in-waiting, an African statesman of great gravitas and dignity. She is an embarrassment to the entire British establishment, and viewed by the natives as the worst kind of white trash, undeserving of respect. The parallels with Sally Bercow are obvious. I won't spoil the ending.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
A hoppy conundrum for the Olympics Boot Boys
I wrote some time ago of the draconian powers being mooted for the ODA's Boot Boys, a private army of 'enforcers' who are being empowered in regulations made under the Olympics Act to tear down, cover up, confiscate, exclude and hide any advertising or message within the Olympics Zones that challenges the official sponsors. Olympics sponsors have sole right to display their brands and logos within the zones, and the government are making sure the Boot Boys have powers to prevent any 'ambush marketing' by competing brands trying to sneak into camera views of the VIP convoys streaking down the Zil lanes and suchlike.
The appointment of Heineken as Official Beer Sponsor will give the Boot Boys a hoppy conundrum. You see, across the whole of East London the local breweries used to proclaim their houses from afar by the prominent badging at high level of gable walls and the like. 'Take Courage' is perhaps the best known, but Fullers, Ind Coope and others still decorate East London's brickwork, as prominent as you like, and as permanent.
I'd imagine any attempt to cover over, obscure or remove such brand advertising within the Olympic Control Zones would result in popular fury - particularly since the official beer is 'foreign'. And if they're going to be left alone, it's an ideal opportunity for Britain's brewers to, er, refresh them a bit before the games. Maybe some neon. Or flourescent paint. C'mon guys - let's give the Olympic sponsors the finger.
The appointment of Heineken as Official Beer Sponsor will give the Boot Boys a hoppy conundrum. You see, across the whole of East London the local breweries used to proclaim their houses from afar by the prominent badging at high level of gable walls and the like. 'Take Courage' is perhaps the best known, but Fullers, Ind Coope and others still decorate East London's brickwork, as prominent as you like, and as permanent.
I'd imagine any attempt to cover over, obscure or remove such brand advertising within the Olympic Control Zones would result in popular fury - particularly since the official beer is 'foreign'. And if they're going to be left alone, it's an ideal opportunity for Britain's brewers to, er, refresh them a bit before the games. Maybe some neon. Or flourescent paint. C'mon guys - let's give the Olympic sponsors the finger.
No shortage of landfill in the UK - update
Warning: long, techy post updating this 2008 post
How much waste needs to go to landfill?
When talking about waste and landfill there are a few basic definitions that need to be understood to make sense of it all. The first is to understand the term arisings. Included in the figures for arisings is waste that's immediately reused or relocated on site, such as the product of dredging a river or canal which is deposited on the bank, unsaleable mineral and mining waste that is dumped elsewhere within the mine or quarry, and construction and demolition waste that is spread on site or crushed and reused elsewhere. Waste arisings from industrial processes frequently have a residual value and are re-sold or reused, and other industrial and commercial waste can be profitably recycled. Thus of the estimated 335 million tonnes of waste arising in the UK each year, only a small fraction needs to be disposed of.
Secondly, not all waste that needs to be disposed of can be sent to landfill. Medical, clinical and biohazardous waste needs to be incinerated and toxic and radioactive waste similarly needs special treatment. However, both these categories are so small in overall tonnage terms that they can be ignored. Of the remaining waste for disposal, much will be inert, such as demolition rubble, and can be disposed of near to people and close to watercourses without risk. The remainder of household, commercial and industrial waste that may rot or that contains pollutants or products of decomposition that fall below hazardous can be disposed of in dry landfill. So how much of that 335 million tonnes needs to go to landfill altogether?
From DEFRA's published figures here, here and here, the annual totals are:
In fact, the household figure is too high; it's actually the figure for what's termed municipal waste and includes both household waste and a proportion of commercial and industrial waste where councils collect and dispose of this as well, so there's some double-counting. But no matter, let's stick with the higher total.
Where does the landfill capacity come from?
Landfill sites come mainly from the activities of quarrying and minerals extraction - holes in the ground. Generally, hard-rock and opencast coal sites will tend to be dry and suitable for all types of non-hazardous waste whilst sand and gravel workings are frequently close to the water table and will be mainly suitable only for inert waste. The following figures are for the annual quantities of products sold, i.e. the quantity of space created by materials leaving the quarry gate. Unsold excavated material that is redistributed elsewhere in the workings is not included.
You will have noticed I've converted tonnage to capacity; this is important in the next section, in which we compare the capacity of annual space created against the capacity of waste requiring landfill disposal. But you will see that we take some 246 million tonnes of stuff out of holes in the ground each year and need to put 62 million tonnes of stuff back in.
Is landfill in the UK running out?
This is where we need to watch our figures. Firstly, we have lots of empty holes in the ground left over from two centuries of industry and development. So total capacity is the sum of the existing capacity plus the new capacity created each year. Then there's a big difference between licensed existing landfill capacity and actual existing landfill capacity; not all quarries and mineral workings are licensed to receive waste. And then there's the frustration that England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all report their licensed capacity separately, and whilst England and Wales report in terms of volume, Scotland reports in tonnage terms.
The mass density of compacted household waste will vary widely, but from a number of studies a density of around 0.77 tonnes / cubic metre can be assumed. Construction and demolition waste will be denser, around 1.0 tonnes / cubic metre.
First, existing licensed capacity is as follows;
(Sources here here and here)
Now converting our annual waste streams to volume;
Conclusion
1. The UK has some 819 million cubic metres of licensed landfill capacity, sufficient for over 11 years of waste at current levels
2. The UK's potential landfill capacity is increasing at the rate of 114 million cubic metres a year, a surplus of some 42 million cubic metres a year over and above our annual landfill waste disposal needs
3. There is no shortage of landfill in the UK.
Given the above, if you fancy fisking silly, poorly researched scare stories such as this one in the Guardian, be my guest. I can't be arsed.
How much waste needs to go to landfill?
When talking about waste and landfill there are a few basic definitions that need to be understood to make sense of it all. The first is to understand the term arisings. Included in the figures for arisings is waste that's immediately reused or relocated on site, such as the product of dredging a river or canal which is deposited on the bank, unsaleable mineral and mining waste that is dumped elsewhere within the mine or quarry, and construction and demolition waste that is spread on site or crushed and reused elsewhere. Waste arisings from industrial processes frequently have a residual value and are re-sold or reused, and other industrial and commercial waste can be profitably recycled. Thus of the estimated 335 million tonnes of waste arising in the UK each year, only a small fraction needs to be disposed of.
Secondly, not all waste that needs to be disposed of can be sent to landfill. Medical, clinical and biohazardous waste needs to be incinerated and toxic and radioactive waste similarly needs special treatment. However, both these categories are so small in overall tonnage terms that they can be ignored. Of the remaining waste for disposal, much will be inert, such as demolition rubble, and can be disposed of near to people and close to watercourses without risk. The remainder of household, commercial and industrial waste that may rot or that contains pollutants or products of decomposition that fall below hazardous can be disposed of in dry landfill. So how much of that 335 million tonnes needs to go to landfill altogether?
From DEFRA's published figures here, here and here, the annual totals are:
| Waste to landfill | UK Million Tonnes |
| Household waste (2006) | 22.46 |
| Construction and demolition (2005) | 28.00 |
| Commercial and Industrial (2009) | 11.30 |
| Total | 61.76 |
In fact, the household figure is too high; it's actually the figure for what's termed municipal waste and includes both household waste and a proportion of commercial and industrial waste where councils collect and dispose of this as well, so there's some double-counting. But no matter, let's stick with the higher total.
Where does the landfill capacity come from?
Landfill sites come mainly from the activities of quarrying and minerals extraction - holes in the ground. Generally, hard-rock and opencast coal sites will tend to be dry and suitable for all types of non-hazardous waste whilst sand and gravel workings are frequently close to the water table and will be mainly suitable only for inert waste. The following figures are for the annual quantities of products sold, i.e. the quantity of space created by materials leaving the quarry gate. Unsold excavated material that is redistributed elsewhere in the workings is not included.
| UK Million Tonnes | Density tonnes/m3 | UK Million Cubic Metres | |
| Opencast coal | 9.51 | 1.50 | 6.34 |
| Land-won sand and gravel | 66.64 | 1.65 | 40.39 |
| Crushed Rock (note 1) | 128.00 | 2.60 | 49.23 |
| Clay and Shale | 6.47 | 2.00 | 3.23 |
| Limestone & Chalk | 23.62 | 2.55 | 9.26 |
| Other | 11.72 | 2.00 | 5.86 |
| Total | 245.95 | 114.31 | |
| 1. Assume 50% limestone, 35% igneous rock, 15% gravel | |||
| Source: British Geological Survey, UK Minerals Yearbook 2009 | |||
| Excludes Marine dredged aggregate, Peat, Rock Salt |
You will have noticed I've converted tonnage to capacity; this is important in the next section, in which we compare the capacity of annual space created against the capacity of waste requiring landfill disposal. But you will see that we take some 246 million tonnes of stuff out of holes in the ground each year and need to put 62 million tonnes of stuff back in.
Is landfill in the UK running out?
This is where we need to watch our figures. Firstly, we have lots of empty holes in the ground left over from two centuries of industry and development. So total capacity is the sum of the existing capacity plus the new capacity created each year. Then there's a big difference between licensed existing landfill capacity and actual existing landfill capacity; not all quarries and mineral workings are licensed to receive waste. And then there's the frustration that England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all report their licensed capacity separately, and whilst England and Wales report in terms of volume, Scotland reports in tonnage terms.
The mass density of compacted household waste will vary widely, but from a number of studies a density of around 0.77 tonnes / cubic metre can be assumed. Construction and demolition waste will be denser, around 1.0 tonnes / cubic metre.
First, existing licensed capacity is as follows;
| Licenced existing landfill capacity | |||
| Million tonnes | Conversion factor | Million Cubic Metres | |
| England and Wales (2006) | n/a | n/a | 693.73 |
| Scotland (2009) | 146.32 | 0.85 | 124.37 |
| Northern Ireland (2005) | 1 | 0.85 | 0.85 |
| Total | 818.95 |
Now converting our annual waste streams to volume;
| Waste to landfill | UK Million Tonnes | Conversion factor | Million Cubic Metres |
| Household waste (2006) | 22.46 | 0.77 | 29.17 |
| Construction and demolition (2005) | 28.00 | 1 | 28 |
| Commercial and Industrial (2009) | 11.30 | 0.77 | 14.68 |
| Total | 61.76 | 71.84 |
Conclusion
1. The UK has some 819 million cubic metres of licensed landfill capacity, sufficient for over 11 years of waste at current levels
2. The UK's potential landfill capacity is increasing at the rate of 114 million cubic metres a year, a surplus of some 42 million cubic metres a year over and above our annual landfill waste disposal needs
3. There is no shortage of landfill in the UK.
Given the above, if you fancy fisking silly, poorly researched scare stories such as this one in the Guardian, be my guest. I can't be arsed.
Friday, 4 February 2011
Revealed: The most subversive threat to the Central State
Pictured below is the most pertinent and subversive threat to the Leviathan Central State. The ordinary British family may appear to be in retreat, its very existence under sustained assault from the forces of Statism, but it's proving stubbornly resilient. Labour's years in power were no more than one, long campaign to destroy the family, to achieve the dream of that deluded rogue Rousseau to shatter the bonds between parent and child to form direct bonds between each individual and the State. Clegg also hates the family, fears the power it holds. Milliband loathes the very idea of family to the extent that he'd rather leave his children as bastards than marry.
So what is it these Central Statists loathe and fear about the family? Well, the family is a micro-nation - 'l'etat, c'est nous'. It makes its own rules, has its own Parliament, taxes and redistributes income, operates a banking system, makes its own decisions about environmental management, defends itself from threats, maintains an active diplomatic service to cement relations or declare war on other families. Counselling, care and health support, education and welfare, diet and nutrition are all services provided within this micro-state. In fact, just about everything the macro-State aspires to do is already done by the family micro-state. And the Leviathan State hates it. As Peter Oborne writes in today's Telegraph;
So what is it these Central Statists loathe and fear about the family? Well, the family is a micro-nation - 'l'etat, c'est nous'. It makes its own rules, has its own Parliament, taxes and redistributes income, operates a banking system, makes its own decisions about environmental management, defends itself from threats, maintains an active diplomatic service to cement relations or declare war on other families. Counselling, care and health support, education and welfare, diet and nutrition are all services provided within this micro-state. In fact, just about everything the macro-State aspires to do is already done by the family micro-state. And the Leviathan State hates it. As Peter Oborne writes in today's Telegraph;
For this reason, the nuclear family has normally been supported by the Conservative Party – and, of course, hated by progressives. From 1997 onwards, New Labour waged war against the family. Gordon Brown (in a financial statement deceitfully tagged “a budget for the family”) abolished the married couple’s allowance, replacing it with a system of tax credits which viciously punished couples who insisted on getting married.
After the 2001 general election victory, New Labour felt confident enough to obliterate marriage from the official record. The term “marital status” suddenly ceased to appear on government forms, a seemingly innocuous move that went unnoticed at the time but has been full of consequence ever since. Thereafter, the British state no longer acknowledged the institution of marriage as being in any way different from other kinds of connection between couples.For years, we've asked why the French and the Italians had higher-achieving, less problematical, better behaved and more socialised children, and the answer from the political class was always that our State wasn't intervening enough, wasn't controlling enough, wasn't spending enough. What rubbish. The truth is obvious for all to see - it's because these nations have traditionally had strong families to stand against the State.
Robert Nisbet wrote "The war between the family and the state is very old. When one is strong, the other is generally weak". And this is the core of our way forward; the classic economic liberalism of the Lib-Dems, greater sellers-off and privatisers than even Thatcher, will come to nought if it's not combined with classic social Conservatism that boosts the family as the building block of our nation. Only together will economic liberalism and social conservatism succeed in shrinking the State. And the sooner we admit it, and the sooner Clegg and Cameron articulate it, the better.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Back to MP Sleaze and Corruption
Well, it didn't last long, this new regime of honesty and financial probity. MPs have had enough of having to account to the public for their spending, and are unwilling to stand for being revealed as mean sods on £65k a year who still submit claims for the cost of a single newspaper or a pint of milk. They long for a full return to sleaze and corruption, to unaccountability, to greed and waste hidden under a cloak of lies and obscurity.
King of the Sleazeballs Sir George Young (why the Hell wasn't he culled last time round?) claimed that the requirement to be honest and accountable was deterring poor people from becoming MPs - implying that the sleazier, the more corrupt and the more obscure the system became, the more attractive it was to poor people. That's not a great argument, George.
And as constituents push their way past the bulk man-high stacks of bum-wipe bought by Bob Russell for his constituency office they may consider that it will take longer than the life of this Parliament for Bob and his official constituency support worker to get through it, for had he bought it for the use of the local party as well it would make his expenses claim unlawful and criminal. I expect Bob is now recording three sittings a day to justify this purchase.
The whining bunch of bent shits calling for IPSA's abolition may well have the power to vote it out of existence, but they forget who they're really answerable to. And we've had enough.
King of the Sleazeballs Sir George Young (why the Hell wasn't he culled last time round?) claimed that the requirement to be honest and accountable was deterring poor people from becoming MPs - implying that the sleazier, the more corrupt and the more obscure the system became, the more attractive it was to poor people. That's not a great argument, George.
And as constituents push their way past the bulk man-high stacks of bum-wipe bought by Bob Russell for his constituency office they may consider that it will take longer than the life of this Parliament for Bob and his official constituency support worker to get through it, for had he bought it for the use of the local party as well it would make his expenses claim unlawful and criminal. I expect Bob is now recording three sittings a day to justify this purchase.
The whining bunch of bent shits calling for IPSA's abolition may well have the power to vote it out of existence, but they forget who they're really answerable to. And we've had enough.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Sausages and Bacon good for you - official
Scientists who have been long advising that smoked and cured meats including sausages, bacon, ham, salami, speck, kippers and the like are harmful because they contain Nitrates are now advising us to eat lots of Spinach, because, er, it contains lots of Nitrates which, it turns out, are good for us after all.
Good. Glad that's clear, then.
Good. Glad that's clear, then.
Election Fraud report still secret
A week on from the promised release date of 26th January and the Electoral Commission's report on election fraud at the 2010 election remains secret. Why? They're not saying.
Meanwhile, further evidence that the UK's third-world standards of electoral probity, so valued by the corrupt Labour Party, comes from evidence that 28% of candidates at the last election thought voting was unsafe from fraud and abuse, and 24% of candidates and agents were concerned about electoral fraud and abuse in their constituencies. Fraud has rocketed since the introduction of postal voting on demand, and is concentrated in Labour areas, frequently amongst Labour's client immigrant populations. Our primitive standards of voter registration have left us, by Michael Pinto-Duschinsky's estimation, with 3.5m people on the roll who shouldn't be and another 3.5m missing from the roll who should be.
Add electoral fraud to the scandal of Labour's rotten boroughs and despair at what this nation, once the mother of democracy, has sunk to. Can we get any lower?
Meanwhile, further evidence that the UK's third-world standards of electoral probity, so valued by the corrupt Labour Party, comes from evidence that 28% of candidates at the last election thought voting was unsafe from fraud and abuse, and 24% of candidates and agents were concerned about electoral fraud and abuse in their constituencies. Fraud has rocketed since the introduction of postal voting on demand, and is concentrated in Labour areas, frequently amongst Labour's client immigrant populations. Our primitive standards of voter registration have left us, by Michael Pinto-Duschinsky's estimation, with 3.5m people on the roll who shouldn't be and another 3.5m missing from the roll who should be.
Add electoral fraud to the scandal of Labour's rotten boroughs and despair at what this nation, once the mother of democracy, has sunk to. Can we get any lower?
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
This shabby, shameful and corrupt Parliament
As suspected, Cameron has sold his soul for the nonsense of preserving a change to AV voting. To secure this concession to his coalition chums, it is reported that he has given the foully corrupt Labour Party their way on preserving an unfairness in our electoral system so undemocratic that the UK is 'off the scale' amongst advanced democracies according to Michael Pinto-Duschinsky.
The glacial pace of progress of the Boundary Commission under Labour was not accidental. The very last thing Labour wanted was changes to their rotten boroughs that would end the unfairness of a Labour vote in a Labour rotten borough being worth several Tory votes in a normal constituency. All their filibustering in the Lords has been in defence of this indefensible inequity, and not at all about a change to AV voting.
For Cameron now to surrender on plans to reform this corruption solely to keep the AV referendum is shabby and shameful and will do nothing to convince the people of this country that the chummy corruption of the political class has ended.
The glacial pace of progress of the Boundary Commission under Labour was not accidental. The very last thing Labour wanted was changes to their rotten boroughs that would end the unfairness of a Labour vote in a Labour rotten borough being worth several Tory votes in a normal constituency. All their filibustering in the Lords has been in defence of this indefensible inequity, and not at all about a change to AV voting.
For Cameron now to surrender on plans to reform this corruption solely to keep the AV referendum is shabby and shameful and will do nothing to convince the people of this country that the chummy corruption of the political class has ended.
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