Is this as close to a Climate Wobble the BBC Will get?

The BBC have this article, considering Solar Data and its links to terrestrial climate. 

Now considering that the BBC is firmly in the warmist camp, the fact that it mentions Solar Climate effects at all is surprising, because as we all know, their line is that current and future climate changes are exclusively down to nasty old humans.

So for the BBC to give any time to the Solar driven climate theory (albeit with a healthy dose of warmist alamism) is akin to the BBC sitting on the fence (scientifically speaking).

Is the warmist case crumbling, or is this just an aberration to cover the bases? I just wonder if this is a move to be able to say in the coming years if solar driven climate trumps man-made global warming that they were there at the start. Or it may just be a nice try at showing they're unbiased.

Well, no. Despite the tone of the majority of the article, the dig a The Register for promoting Solar Driven Climate science and the last few paragraphs actually show the BBC is just as vehemently behind the corporate-driven warmist agenda as ever.

Head of Care Quality Commission Resigns

Cynthia Bower, head of the CQC has resigned. She says its time to move on (no doubt she's found a more lucrative public sector non-job somewhere else)

Not before time, as all the organisation has been doing since it's inception has been re-inventing the wheel. Or if you'd like another analogy, a spinning wheel with no traction.

Replacing already working, workable and good practices with dogmatic, unworkable regimes isn't the way to improve care, especially as it entails taking one's eye off the ball. That particular ball being actually improving and regulating the standard of care in the country.

With a number of high profile failures over its life, it was about time someone at the top went. Unfortunately I don't imagine for one second that things will improve, given the types of people employed in the higher echelons of the CQC.

Steeped in the public service culture they are about as out of touch with reality as you can possibly be. My disdain for such people stems from my dealings with them in local government, social services and other public agencies. A professional committee member is a professional committee member, even if their roots were more practical.

Heaping more and more paperwork on healthcare professionals isn't the way to improve care: all it does is take hardworking people away from the job they should be providing, it adds costs to healthcare without benefits and because paperwork is so easily managed to provide a rosy picture even in the worst run homes, it doesn't prevent poor care standards.

Its about time the CQC got it's act together and started to improve the quality and depth of it's inspections and started routing out the bad establishments that I know for a fact exist and continue to run despite (and probably because of) the CQC and its ineffective executives.

UPDATE:

The Ranting Penguin has an idea where Cynthia Bower may crop up next.

How Long Before Greece's Military Act?

Greece's military have prior form for taking control of the government in the past.

All it would take would be the will of the people to be strong enough to ask the military to act on their behalf and wrest political control away from the corrupt government and the EU-imposed puppet Papademos.

Especially if there is any truth in the rumours of the terms of the latest "bailout" (read buttfucking) of the Greek nation. Especially as it appears more than just a bailout. Its a wholesale asset strip of the country and a real and malevolent attempt to rub the noses of the Greek people into the dirt.

Just when will the Greek people say enough is enough and demand military intervention in order to protect their national assets and put those responsible for the rape of their country and the death of their democracy on trial?

Or have Greece's military been seduced by the junkets, hookers and easy money available on EU expenses like all the rest of the elite?

More on Tidal Power

Interestingly the BBC today have an article about tidal power.

Its interesting for quoting Tim Yeo, chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee sounding off about how the UK is in the lead globally on tidal power and how we invest in it in order not to lose the lead.

However, also quoted in the BBCs report is the committee's report titled The Future of Marine Renewables in the UK only concentrates on the sort tidal power that uses propellers inserted into the tidal stream to generate electricity.

For some unfathomable reason, the report body-swerves around tidal barrages, which is curious. Except when you take into consideration the ecological impact. I'm sure a barrage looks hideous to an ecologist and the fact that the tides in the estuary or harbour are disrupted, which will put the twitchers up in arms. But the submerged propellers aren't free from ecological impact either: what about the fish swimming through the devices, especially prized and rare species? What about mammals such as seals and dolphins? How will they fare when the devices are installed in their territory?

The omission of barrages is curious because tidal barrages are more efficient and although initially expensive to engineer, are most likely cheaper to maintain. They are more efficient because all of the water is harnessed, all of the tidal stream is used to create energy. The propeller devices have the tidal stream spilling past them, and they only use a tiny fraction of that tidal energy. Of course the propellers, being submerged are harder to maintain. In fact they have to include expensive raising mechanisms to haul them out of the water for maintenance. Compare that with a nice, dry turbine hall housed within a concrete barrage.

So, we know they are inefficient so guess what? Yep, they'll be hideously expensive (the article states 5 times more expensive than onshore wind). Hideously expensive translates as "unprofitable without subsidies", which in essence is what the Committee's report is saying: the taxpayer should stump up billions in subsidies to keep us at the forefront of an inefficient technology that no-one can afford and that those less ecologically inclined will ignore in favour of more efficient barrages.

Makes you wonder with all these subsidies for all of these unprofitable technologies; the companies involved must have bloody good lobbyists....

Minimum Price for Alcohol Isn't Necessary.

First, let me state some facts: I have never smoked, ever. I also rarely drink.

So, you'd think it was strange if I was against the anti-smoking laws and against minimum pricing on alcohol.

With the smoking laws, I think its too draconian. It would have been far better if public establishments were allowed to make up their own policies on smoking. Once the policy is made, its up to employees as to whether they work in a smoking or non-smoking environment. The phrase is informed choice. A normal adult should assess the risks in any activity they partake in and then decide themselves if they do it or not.

The same goes for minimum alcohol pricing. The problem is binge drinking. However, I don't see much of it on Havant high street, nor do I personally binge drink. So why should I, or any of the people in Havant be punished for a problem they aren't causing?

The answer is nanny knows best: we're all being treated like kids, because there's a section of the population that refuses to grow up. You see it in schools and even in families: collective punishment. If one of you can't behave, all of you get to suffer. 

However, we already have a law covering alcohol abuse. Anyone in public who is drunk and incapable should be liable to a being drunk and disorderly. So why aren't people that binge drink and cause trouble (the supposed reason for bringing in a minimum price) charged with that existing law? Why do we have to have yet another law that punishes everyone instead of specifically targeting the law breakers and trouble makers?

Now I have heard that alcohol pricing might fall foul of EU anti-competition laws, effectively installing a tariff on alcohol that restricts it's sale and is therefore restricts free trade. It would be an interesting court case.

Ed Milliband: Dead Man Walking.

Well, its just a matter of time before Ed Milliband is ousted by Ed Balls, as EdB has started his bid for leadership in earnest.

However, I'm not altogether sure that his his entourage have much of a plan. Agreeing with everyone about everything isn't a way to win hearts and minds. It just makes him sound like a grade A jerk.

And we haven't forgotten Ed Balls was part of the government that got us in this mess in the first place.

He didn't speak up against Labour's excessive borrowing then did he? He didn't agree with Tory "cuts" then did he?

But I'm sure enough Labour activists will be cajoled to vote him in as leader, especially since everyone in Labour have finally noticed EdM's total lack of charisma. 

Ed Balls is the least qualified person to get us out of this mess, given his wholehearted support for everything Labour did even as it drove us off the rails.

This is a "Very Good Day for Northern Ireland"??

A £580 million investment in Northern Ireland is supposed to "potentially" sustain 3,000 jobs.

That's over £193,000 per job, an obscene amount in anyone's eyes. Now, either the N.I. assembly is completely incompetent, or the jobs don't actually cost that much.

I just wonder how much of that £580 million is going on consultations, surveys, executive salaries and all the other associated perks for the privileged that soak up public funds and finance the governmental gravy train...