Stating the obvious

The BBC, arch eco-activists and pushers of global warming/climate change are at it again. Stating the bleeding obvious.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15972810

I draw your attention to the first paragraph;
"The drought that has affected parts of England since June will last into next summer if there is insufficient winter rain, the Environment Agency has said."

True. But then, the sun will definitely shine tomorrow if there are no clouds in the sky.
These days my trust in the BBC's impartiality and trustworthiness has eroded to zero. I don't trust them on climate, I don't trust them on weather, and I don't trust their wild life and nature films.
OK, they were always suspect. When Armand & Michaela Denis made their wild life films back in the 50s they used to piece together the films they had shot in order to create a story. In some ways the only honest wild life film maker was Johnny Morris, who used to put words into the mouths of zoo animals. It was tosh. He knew it, we knew it. It was not a factual programme, merely entertainment.
But then the BBC wild life unit (or whatever it's called) in Bristol got hold of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) and all pretence of factual broadcasting went out of the window. Programmes about dinosaurs are the worst.
All we know about dinosoars are a few fragments of fossils, yet there they are on the screen in full technicolour and sound. I'm all for using your imagination but these programmes are passed off as fact.....
Now dinosoars are accepted a gospel and don't anyone contradict them.
I do. I am contradicting them and their cronies at the Natural History Museum.

All we know for certain about scientific knowledge is that in time, eventually, everything we take as fact will be disproven. Anyone who disagreed with the church's belief that the earth was the centre of the universe and that everything revolved around it was a heretic. Now we know better.

One hundred and forty years ago the best scientific minds believed that space was filled with a mysterious jelly like substance called "ether". Einstein disproved that theory but was mocked for years by people who thought they knew better.Now we know better.

One day we may know more about evolution, but for now it is only a theory.

Back to the BBC's article. Some parts of the country don't get much rain. Well tell me something I didn't know. This has always been the case. 30 years ago there was talk about doing something about it. Now that successive governments have sold off the water boards who built the reservoirs we rely on, it's going to be difficult to fix. difficult but not impossible.

The rain falls in the North West, but not the South East, where the people live (mostly because it's not raining). The rainwater drains into the rivers and then to the sea. Our Victorian forefathers created a network of navigable rivers and canals that criss cross the country. It is possible to travel in a boat from the North West to the South East by canal and river. If that is the case then it is surely easy for water to be moved using the same network? A few pumps to move the water up the lock systems and a few miles of underground pipework similar to that which links Rutland and Pitsford reservoirs and the water could easily flow.

People keep claiming that the world will run out of drinkable water. Nonsense.
80% of the world's surface is covered by water. Although most of that is seawater, modern technology can easily convert saltwater into fresh.

According to Wikipaedia:
"A typical aircraft carrier in the U.S. military uses nuclear power to desalinate 400,000 US gallons (1,500,000 l; 330,000 imp gal) of water per day." A big ship with a large crew floats in sea water and converts sea water to fresh water as required. We are an island surrounded by sea. Why not convert sea water to fresh?

There are several methods of desalination, but two that spring to mind are:
Multi-stage flash distillation which accounted for 85% of production worldwide in 2004; and processes that use membranes to desalinate, by applying reverse osmosis technology.
Membrane processes use semi-permeable membranes and pressure to separate salts from water. Reverse osmosis plant membrane systems typically use less energy than thermal distillation, which has led to a reduction in overall desalination costs over the past decade. (Source- Wikipaedia- desalination)

OK so they use a lot of energy and won't solve all the world's problems, but in the UK, an island where no-one lives more than 100 miles from the sea, they could be useful. The nuclear power stations that are sited next to the sea could supply the energy, and an underground water pipeline could move the fresh water to where it can be stored and used.

I envy the Victorians and their "can-do" attitude. If they'd have had access to our technology, they'd have sorted it all out. Everything would have been built to last and not jerry-rigged as cheaply as possible. It would have worked and would have looked great as well (even the insides of the Victorian sewage works- where no-one would see them- were designed to look beautiful).

I'm convinced that there are people in power who want this country brought to its knees. Who want it to fail. Who want it destroyed. 60 or 70 years ago they would be condemned as traitors. Call me old-fashioned, but that's what they are.

The importance of being important

Alan Yentob is all over the Grauniad defending why he has to travel business class. He says he wouldnt be able to do his job if he had to travel with the ordinary folk in steerage.
You can read about it here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/28/bbc-alan-yentob-job-business-class

Why is he flying at all? The BBC are so committed to Global Warming/Climate Change that they take every available opportunity to tell us how bad CO2 and air travel is for the planet.
But that is only for the sheeple. Important people like Alan Botney (he should spell his name backwards so that it sound more like a man of the people)have to travel by air because they are important.

Its the USSR all over again. Peasants with carts on rutted roads while the important people have whole lanes of the motorways for the own personal use.

Important people are important because they are important. Its important you know that.

Combatting scepticism by shouting loudly

Biased-BBC pointed me to an interesting article on this site
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/03/combating-the-growing-influence-of-climate-sceptics/




Now I'm an AGW sceptic. As far as I can see, global warming or climate change is all about money. There's money to be had by trading on people's fears and taxing them as punishment.
When the "climategate" story broke, it revealed to the world that the figures quoted by all the "authorities" were in fact made up. The antics of the warmists and their refusal to countenance any deviation from the party line, followed by calling us "denialists" only made me more convinced of the shakiness of their argument. The science is not settled, and when one party in a debate has to resort to name calling, then he has lost the debate, full stop.


The BBC and the Met Office are central to their cause. This was highlighted in a recent report commissioned by fake charity and political lobby group Oxfam . My eye was drawn to this line on the Leftfootforward site, which sums them up -
"Oh, and remember to check out James Delingpole’s column at the Telegraph. If any of it makes you angry, you might like to let him know. Did I say be polite? Scratch that."

So, more encouragement to be rude towards sceptics. You don't win arguments by shouting louder than everyone else.
Here's a handy little diagram that accompanies the article.

Click on it to enlarge it.

Trouble brewing at the BBC

Back in November the Grauniad ran a piece about troubles with the BBC's new IT system that had just been installed by Siemens
"The BBC has been hit by a major technological breakdown affecting its phone and computer networks that could cause chaos for the corporation's news output and leave it marooned in a "pre-digital age"
Read it here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/25/bbc-news-pre-digital-age

A week or so later I read over at iamseb.com

"The prob­lem is that the BBC doesn’t con­trol its own tech­nical infra­struc­ture. In an act of stag­ger­ing short-sightedness it was out­sourced to Siemens as part of a much wider divest­ing of the BBC Technology unit. In typ­ical fash­ion for the BBC, they man­aged to select a tech­no­logy sup­plier without inter­net oper­a­tions exper­i­ence. We can only assume that this must have seemed like an accept­able risk to the tower­ing intel­lects run­ning the BBC at the time. Certainly the staff at ground level knew what this meant, and resigned en masse. 

Read the full article here
http://iamseb.com/seb/2007/12/perl-on-rails-why-the-bbc-fails-at-the-internet/


Today the Register is running this story
"Siemens IT staff working at the BBC are mulling possible strike action over a planned pay freeze by the tech firm.
Bectu said it was sending out ballot papers to members today, in which the broadcasting union recommends industrial action.

The ballot will close on 19 March and followed Siemens' decision to bring in a pay freeze for employees working on its 10-year Beeb contract.
Bectu said more than 70 BBC contract staff had been laid off by Siemens, which provides technology, transmission and IT services to the Corporation."

Full story here
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2010/02/22/siemens_bbc_strirke_ballot/

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The BBC has succumbed to the madness that plagues the NHS and government departments. They all spend public money without regard for consequence. There is no accountability at the heart of these organisations. In fact the only people in danger of losing their jobs are those who do the work and know what is going on.
The first act of these vandals of business upon gaining office is to get rid of anyone and everyone who is deemed a threat. These tend to be the ones who actually run the business and know exactly how it works. With them out of the way, madness begins. Oblivious to the age old truths that if it ain't broke don't fix it, and ignoring the mantra that cheapest is dearest, they order systems without knowing what they are buying or having the foggiest idea of how it is supposed to work. As the man said- "what do you mean it's automatic? I have to press this button!"
The smooth talking salesman sees an opportunity for profit and bumps the price up. It doesn't matter if the thing will work. IT professionals are ignored. They say it won't work and a few sorry years later say I told you so.
Meanwhile the very people whogot rid of the knowledge base are floundering. Something must be done they say. Someone pipes up "This is something!" so they all say in unison "Let's do that!"
Down at the BBC the shit has hit the fan. They've locked themselves into a contract with a supplier who has no track record in IT. The system doesn't work. Trouble is the BBC transferred all the staff to Siemens and they're in danger of losing their jobs. They can't go forward and they can't go back.
And the BBC bosses carry on as if nothing happened. No-one will lose their jobs over this, except the innocent workers. The clever ones jumped ship long ago.
How does that song go?
"It's the same the whole world over, it's the poor who get the blame.
It's the rich wot has the pleasure, ain't it all a bloody shame."