Obamas killing of Osama

Well, the 21st century's biggest bogeyman is dead. Already conspiracy theorists are hard at work in the net and in the media, picking holes in the accounts and evidence presented today.

The question not being asked by the media and not being asked by much of the online community is why now? With all the money and resources available to the west, why has it taken 10 years to pin him down and take him out. Surely we should have found him earlier? Is seems that the whereabouts of Osama has been known for a few months and everything in politics has meaning. So why now? What's the significance?

Has Bin Laden outlived his usefulness as a bogeyman?

Who or what will be the next bogeymen we will be presented with? Is the resurgence of Russia set to repeat old emnities, or is the unstoppable rise of China set to create a new target for western animosity?

Is there a need for a bogeyman to scare us with any more, has the military/industrial complex now got the public so tightly controlled there's no need for one?

As always with great news events, there is more to this than meets the eye.

How Mad is Our Energy Policy?

When windfarms are paid not to generate electricity, its sheer madness.

Our energy policy is truely beyond a joke now.

Immigrants Add to GDP?? I Think I Need a Huge Pinch of Salt With That.

The BBC has a cosy report that Eastern Eruropean EU migrants have added £5bn to the GDP of the UK.

However, reading on, the rpeort says that at the same time as we were receiving those immigrants from the EU, GDP went up. But there is no direct correlation, only an assumption that because GDP went up while they were arriving, they made a net contribution to GDP. Its a lot like the man made global warming argument, based on a loose correlation between statistics. The fact that there are two sets of statistics in the same time frame does not prove a link. In the same vein I could say the increase in summer temperatures is caused by increased ice cream sales. I know thats a lie, but the statistics can be used to tell any story you want, especially if you aren't held to prove the actual link.

Besides, there's no mention of whether we would have had a higher rise in GDP had we had immigration restrictions in place. No mention of the net drain to the economy of the influx from the EU of benefit scroungers, the alcoholics and career criminals that see the UK as a cushy number.

No mention either of the effect the supression of wages has on the economy overall, where low wages means that people on benefits have a better standard of living than if they took a job and the drain of keeping those people on the dole. No mention of the drain of providing benefit for children of EU immigrants that are not even in this country. No mention of the effect of EU immigrants migrating back to their countries of origin once they'd saved up enough to live comfortably back home, or the effect of exporting money back to their families.

Even if you take it at face value and agree the influx of cheap labour was good for the economy. Ok, but who really benefits from that?
Business owners? Shareholders?
Certainly not the man in the street, the ordinary worker. I'm sure they don't see the benefit as any increased tax take is gobbled up by the inefficiencies of government.

Nope, not even this report can convince me that unfettered immigration is ever a good thing.