It's NMA World News again

"Unload!" magazine? That's... that's just wrong.

H/T Huffpo. Yeah, I know, but I can give it up any time I like.

The most expensive electricity in the world - UPDATED

It's tricky to determine what's the most expensive form of electricity generation and you can probably come up with different figures depending on whether you include capital and decommissioning costs, not to mention the thorny and not always transparent issue of subsidies. However, if you want to use a very simple measure of income generated divided by electricity generated then the most expensive electricity in the world is wind, which can come in at a cost which is literally infinite, which is what my calculator says £1.2 million for producing absolutely nothing works out to be.

A wind farm has been paid £1.2 million not to produce electricity for eight-and-a-half hours.
The amount is ten times greater than the wind farm's owners would have received had they actually generated any electricity.
The disclosure exposes the bizarre workings of Britain's electricity supply, prompting calls last night for an official investigation into the payments system.

Well, if governments are prepared to pay farms not to grow things then it's not that much of a leap to pay wind farms not to produce electricity, but this seems to be all to do with grid management.

Quote of the Day

Via the Pistonheads forum, Sky's Kay Burley turning a tragedy into an embarrassment:

KB: What's this colliery used for?

Interviewee: It's a coal mine.

Subtext: Coal, woman, fucking coal. Do you not know what the word colliery means? Are you asking for the benefit of an audience with a room temperature IQ? Get a dictionary, for Christ's sake. Sheesh!

Owling? That's a new one on me.

Connecticut? What's wrong with Connecticut?

Prizes for all

The Total Politics blog awards category that I was really interested in is now up, and half my blogroll seems to be in it. The top 40 Libertarian Bloggers include many well known names, and of course it should be no surprise by now that Leg-iron's there as well - I might have a look in the Green and Left Wing lists to see if he's on them too - Dick Puddlecote's climbed to number 5 this year, Max Farquar, the Ambush Predator and Pat Nurse all feature again. And sneaking in near the bottom are the ramblings, occasionally obscene and frequently obscure, of a potty mouthed expat hanging upside down by his feet on the bottom (but most definitely not the arse) of the world.

You've been a wonderful readership. Uh-huh-huh.

I must remember to whore myself shamelessly again sometime, but the one I feel most deserves the spotlight is Orphans of Liberty. James and Longrider only started the Orphanage up five months ago and it's nice to see it at number 13. Being a contributor I'm biased of course, but I hope it does as well in the Group Blogs category.

Who cares?

So Sarah Palin, someone I'd probably agree with on several issues while at the same time suspecting she may be a little mad, has supposedly had some Bolivian marching powder while on a snowmobiling trip, smoked marijuana at college and had a one night stand with a professional basketball player. And to that I'd say simply, so what if she has? Seriously, so what? Who died as a result? Nobody. I don't see the attraction but coke has gone up enough noses, particularly noses of fairly wealthy people and certainly some politicians, without doing any appreciable damage to much beyond their own septums that I really can't see what difference one more or less makes. As for weed, many students past and present have smoked it, and again some will end up being politicians. Do you really believe Bill Clinton didn't inhale? Really? Or Obama? In fact we can be pretty certain he did because when asked he said he thought inhaling was the point. Ah, but the basketball player. Scandal, sharp intakes of breath, miscegenation, ruined marriage... oh, give over. If it happened it was before she married and in this day and age should be a non-issue, not to mention it's bugger all to do with anyone other than the people concerned. Come on, if she's supposed to be as mad as a crate of badgers there ought to be something better than that to put everyone off the idea of her being president. Except there's not really a lot of point since she's not running for president, so the question stands: who cares?

In other news, son of former Labour leader so useless he couldn't even defeat John bloody Major is accused of being gay by wife's enemies who are trying to prevent her becoming PM of Denmark.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

This isn't news, it's fucking soap.

Permission must be sought for everything

I've occasionally had to defend Oz against charges that it's turned into a nightmare bureaucracy cum fascist society where everything is either banned, compulsory or requires prior application in triplicate for the relevant licence. One day, maybe, but not yet. And mostly it's just duplicate. Nor is it noticably worse than the UK (and lacking both the pernicious influence of the unelected EU as well as the UK's various mini-enabling Acts that allow the British government to do suspend virtually any law it wants I'd say it's still quite a lot better) when it turns out that you need to ask permission to ask for donations for a good cause. And if you don't, then you're banned from tin rattling.* This isn't a problem for the various fake charities which have found that they don't need to ask permission when they get your money direct from the government, but it is a problem for some that do that rather old fashioned thing of soliciting voluntary donations. Like the Royal British Legion, for instance.

Birmingham City Council has changed its application system to allow only one charity to collect in the street at once, meaning the day before Remembrance Sunday there shall be no poppy sellers in the second city.
[...]
Homeless charity Shelter had submitted an earlier application which meant the legion would have to forgo collections in New Street and High Street on 11 November.

Still, the 11th this year is on a Friday, right? So they'll still be able to sell some poppies on Saturday before Remembrance Sunday passes and there's no point. Er, no.

And the legion is not permitted to collect anywhere in the city on 12 November.

So no collecting in the main shopping areas on the Friday because someone else has first dibs and no collecting anywhere in the whole city on Saturday. What the fuck, Birmingham? Seriously, and on more than one level, what? The? Fuck?

Look, first off if are you seriously saying that in Britain's second biggest city there's only room for one lot of charity collectors to work at a time? I can't see any reason why Shelter and the Legion couldn't get on the phone and arrange where their respective collectors would set up so as not to tread on each other's toes, and to avoid saturating the area with collectors at the risk of having shoppers pissed off with charities generally and not donating to either of them. I'm sure the local management of both charities could thrash something out in less time than it takes me to type this blog post.

Secondly, if there is to be a system where only one lot can be allowed to operate on a given day and it's to be the one who booked first then I have to ask if Birmingham City Council is unaware of the significance of the 11th of November (11/11/11 this year, which might play with minds and generate an extra few quid if they're actually out there selling poppies) and of what the Royal British Legion do. And most importantly when during the year their traditional fund raising drive takes place. They may not have actually booked but please don't say that nobody there thought that there'd be a poppy appeal in early November. My contempt is already high and that would send it off the scale.

And thirdly, who the fuck are the council to decide these things anyway? Charity collectors can be a pain in the arse, though nothing like as annoying as the fake charities who get money even from people who are completely opposed to what they do, but we're all adults. We can say no to collectors. We can, if push comes to shove, tell them to naff off. Charities in the main - and again we're not talking so much about the fake ones here - understand this and realise that it's not in their interests to annoy potential donors my harassing them, so if they overdo things it's the charities themselves who lose out. It does not need a system of permission slips from the local council, who seem unable to state exactly what the restrictions are anyway.

A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council said: "Between 29th October and 13th November, The Royal British Legion has permission to make charitable collections across the whole, or the major part of Birmingham every day. This includes the city centre on Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday."
[...]
Chairman of the licensing committee Bruce Lines, who raised the issue at a council meeting on Tuesday, said: "Unfortunately they are unable to overturn that decision as it would be unlawful."
He said the legion had to take responsibility for not making an earlier application. The legion said there had been no formal deadline.
"They have got 10 consecutive days to work in the city centre, and it's only on a few days when they are excluded from a couple of streets," Mr Lines added.

So which is it, fellas? Carte blanche between 29th October and 13th November, which is a sixteen day period, or the ten consecutive days mentioned by Mr Lines? Have any of you even looked at a calendar to work out what the fuck you're talking about? Incidentally, Birmingham City Council is almost a miniature of Westminster, being a Con/LibDem coalition with a Tory leader and a LibDem deputy, and it speaks volumes about them when I find myself agreeing with the Labour oppo.

Opposition Labour leader Sir Albert Bore said: "I am calling on the officers, the Tory and Lib Dem leaders and everyone else involved to join with me in making sure this problem is sorted, that common sense prevails and that the British Legion get a satisfactory outcome."

Indeed, and common sense would suggest that charities and the public be left to get on and sort it out themselves, in the knowledge that real charities lack the power to help themselves to the taxpayers' wallets and must therefore work to maintain good relations with the public if they want donations to continue. They know that they'll kill a town if they flood it so it's in their interests not to, and those that do annoy people will be punished by getting more polite and not so polite refusals. I repeat, it does not need the council writing permission slips and creating stupid rules just because they can.

A spokesperson for the Birmingham Royal British Legion said: "We are disappointed to be not to be able to collect in parts of the city on some of the days because it is 11/11/11 this year."
The Poppy Appeal is officially started in London one week prior to Remembrance Sunday, which falls this year on 13 November, giving fundraisers one week to make street collections, although tins can be left in stores earlier.
Oxfam said it has waived its right to collect in Birmingham city centre on 5 November to allow the legion to collect on that day instead.
However city council licensing restrictions remain in place for Armistice Day on 11 November and Remembrance Sunday on 12 November.
Unfortunately they are unable to overturn that decision as it would be unlawful."

Well, here's a thought: what if the Legion's poppy sellers just rocked up anyway? I suspect the answer is absolutely nothing. I'm not advocating breaking the law as such, but just making an observation. If the Legion called their bluff what are Birmingham City Council going to do? Have ageing war veterans arrested for selling poppies? Confiscate their tins and trays? Form a line of PCSOs to block the public from approaching? Make the Legion pay fines from out of the donations people have made to help soldiers and their families?

You know what? I'd pay money to see them try.


* Though actually rattling collecting tins is illegal anyway. A 'public menace' apparently, as the British Legion again found out a couple of years back. Clipboard wielding chuggers don't count for some reason, and are at liberty to ambush you in an attempt to get you to commit to a tenner every month by direct debit, but the old boys selling poppies for whatever people feel obliged to pay, which may be 10p until the same time next year, are supposed to stand mutely by and hope to catch the eyes of passersby. What a country!

Innocent 'til Jon Snow decides otherwise?

Veteran Channel 4 newsborg Jon Snow blogs on the eeeevil bankers, and specifically asks why they haven't been arrested, and by extension I imagine charged, tried, found guilty, purged, flayed, subjected to the Pear of Anguish and possibly also the Banana of Discomfort and the whole Fruit Salad of Much Inconvenience, and finally hung, drawn, quartered and buried in five limed graves each. But that may just be the impression I get.

Click for linky

The publication of the Vickers report into British banking reform sparks the question why the UK has so far failed to prosecute a single individual for his or her misdeeds during the financial meltdown of 2008.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that maybe no actual crime has been committed. Negligence, probably yes. Gross stupidity, almost indubitably. Financial irresponsibility and incompetence of such breathtaking degree that it's comparable with what some governments spunk away every week, for sure. And some of that may be tortious, but is there evidence that an actual offence has been committed and is there enough of it to make a successful prosecution likely? Because if the answer to both is no, Jon, there's your reason why.

We were told at the time that the banking regulator, the FSA, had started a ‘major investigation’. Last night on Channel 4 News when I pressed the City Minister, Mark Hoban, he referred constantly to the FSA’s involvement. But where is the Serious Fraud Office? No sign of much happening on that front.

Well, Jon, do you have evidence of a serious fraud? And if so have you brought it to the attention of the SFO? Because if not have you considered the possibility that they looked and didn't actually find one?

Yet investigators on both sides of the Atlantic have had no doubt that criminality, subterfuge, and downright dishonesty accompanied many of the ingredients that brought about the crash.

"No doubt of criminality"? Well, many people are in no doubt that a damn sight more parliamentarians were feeding of the taxpayers' backs via dodgy expenses claims than the half dozen or so who've been found guilty and gaoled, and that far more than that deserved to have gone to prison in disgrace - possibly even some who didn't even have the decency to stand down as MPs and have, thanks to seats in which tribal electorates would vote in a priapic chimpanzee if it was eating the appropriate colour rosette, even kept their seats - but lacking doubt is still meaningless if you also lack evidence. I don't think that varies much on either side of the Atlantic.

The convenient fall-guy was the Ponzi magician, Bernie Madoff who was quickly jailed for thieving billions with his criminal scheme.

Quite irrelevant and only a fall guy in the minds of those who don't understand that he had square root of bugger all to do with it, which is something Jon Snow brings up himself in the very next sentence.

But Madoff had nothing to do with bringing down the banks.

So why fucking mention him then? You might as well bring up Dick Turpin.

But his jailing served to suggest that a high profile scalp had been secured.

As I said, only in the minds of people credulous enough to think he had anything to do with it. His was a genuine fraud that had been going on for years, possibly since the 70s, and he could as easily have been caught, convicted and forgotten before the GFC began. About eight years before if the US authorities had listened to a guy named Harry Markopolos, who in 1999 realised that Madoff's numbers didn't add up after looking at them for about five minutes and reckoned he knew it was fraud four hours later. And incidentally, a fraud that's not all that unlike National Insurance Contributions in that all the money coming in was going straight out to pay earlier 'investors', the quotes being necessary because little money and possibly not a single cent was ever actually invested. This is, of course, quite illegal when it's not governments doing it, and if you don't believe me try setting up a health insurance and pension scheme on exactly the same business model as NICs and see what it gets you. About 150 years if Bernie Madoff's case is any guide.

Anyway, the point is that Madoff's Ponzi scheme could not only have been stopped earlier had the SEC heeded Markopolos' regular warnings from 1999 rather than ignored them until it imploded of it's own accord, but was also as incidental to the GFC as the Enron scandal. It happened at around the same time, and that's about it. In fact far from contributing to the GFC the effects of the GFC made it harder for Madoff to keep all those plates spinning and probably brought about an early end to the scam. If, as Jon Snow says, Madoff's arrest and imprisonment suggested a high profile scalp had been collected then it was because the media failed in their duty to make it crystal clear what the significance actually was, i.e. none at all.

Last year, the then New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo produced a laundry list of institutions and individuals who were being investigated for potential prosecution. That work too has slowed.

Slowed, Jon, or just uncovered too little evidence of any actual indictable offences? You're the journo - why don't you go find out which?

In one month, hundreds of rioters and looters have been prosecuted and punished by the English courts, often for offences with a value of under fifty pounds. Yet the threat to the wellbeing of UKplc was far greater from the bankers than from any number of more arrestable rioters.

Yes, but as I've mentioned once or twice, stupidity, negligence and incompetence are not necessarily crimes. Rioting and looting, on the other hand, most definitely are. If you can't find an actual offence and make a case then nobody goes to prison, see? And if you believe that every single looter and rioter will be punished you're dreaming, because again they'll have got only the ones with good evidence against them.

There is a strong impression abroad that the UK doesn’t want to prosecute anyone for the banking crisis, a crisis that has affected every tax payer in the Kingdom.

Look, the only reason it's affected every taxpayer is because the Prime Mentalist of the day bailed the bastards out with taxpayers' money. Had the meddling prick been able to restrain his urge to interfere the bad banks would have failed, affecting just staff, shareholders and people with money in them (less the compensation of up to £30K or so each account holder would have got from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme). Instead him and his badger faced sock puppet tried to fill in the holes with taxpayers' money - that was their decision and nobody else's. Yes, the banks came and begged to be bailed out, but Brown and Darling could and should have said no.

Soon enough the statute of limitations will kick in to ensure that no-one will ever be prosecuted for their role.

Oh, yes, that'll be that famous statute of limitations that Asil Nadir so successfully used to avoid prosecution by kicking back in Cyprus for 17 years until he was untoucha... no, wait, actually the SFO arrested him as soon as he got off the plane, didn't they? Still, Jon, how were you supposed to know about that? Apart from the fact you fucking reported on it on Channel Four news.

So tell us, Jon, precisely what statute of limitations are you talking about? I'm no lawyer so I'm willing to be corrected on this, but I was under the impression that the UK doesn't actually have a statute of limitations. Not for criminal offences anyway, though as I keep saying, Jon Snow has mentioned precisely zero offences that have definitely been committed and a total of absolutely none laws that have been broken. But if it turns out otherwise, Jon, well, 17 years wasn't long enough to protect Asil Nadir from arrest so you're probably complaining about it just a smidgeon early.

However, there are time limitations on bringing a civil cases, and while I keep repeating that stupidity, negligence and incompetence aren't generally crimes they may of course be tortious, and if that's so then there is a ticking clock against which anyone who's suffered a financial loss because of those overconfident cocksockets who bought up all those toxic assets without looking sufficiently carefully at what it actually was they were getting can sue the bastards. Not sure if it's possible to sue someone into prison, as the oh so self-righteous Snow seems to wish, but for all my defence of them against Snow's tirade I'm no fan of the likes of Fred the Shred - if I recall I called him a smarmy arsehole and expressed hope that he'd fall down the stairs and land, against all probability, on his balls - and would happily see them sued for every penny they've got. Which, when I wrote that, Fred Goodwin was, even if it was for the unusual offence of hubris and in an American court "where the courts are more flexible and less expensive" rather than a British one, making any limitations in Britain rather irrelevant.

PUNISHMENT!

But Jon Snow's still not happy, and like that mad caretaker out of Harry Potter, shambling around screaming about his cat, he clearly wants to see some punishment.

Then we can all breathe easy – no banker will ever go to jail, and we can stop asking the nightly question, ‘why not?’

Because, Jon, as I keep explaining and as much as it pains me, you can't send someone to jail unless you can actually prove they've committed a crime. It's this thing we have in civilised countries called 'the law', and the idea is that 'the law' is extra extra careful about things like evidence and proving the case so as not to send innocent people off to prison all the time. It's not that way to protect the world's Fred Goodwins, it's to protect you and me all the rest of us. Jon Snow is coming across a bit like Thomas More's wife and son-in-law in A Man for All Seasons.

Arrest them.

                                Why?

They're eeevil bankers who are greedy, stupid and negligent.

There's no law against that.

So now you'd give the bankers the benefit of law?

Yes. What would you do?

Cut a great road through the

law to get after the bankers?

And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it  -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

A twenty-first century More might have put it like this: "If you're so keen to bang people up that you're prepared to shortcut things, Roper, then we're all in fucking trouble."

Congrats to the Ambush Predator, and congrats to Leg-Iron (again)

The Ambush Predator is the number 41 right wing blog (bloggers and bloggeresses aren't up yet) and Underdogs Bite Upwards is the number 3 Scottish blog. Well done both, Akubra doffed and so forth.

PS - oops. Also to Raedwald at 25 and Oldrightie at 44, who I missed somehow, as well as Witterings From Witney whose writing I know from the Orphanage. Same goes.

There's never a cop around when you want one - UPDATED

And The Thinking Policeman may have the reason why.

My boss recently told me that I had not been attending the Town Centre Management Group meeting. I had been missed and they would like me to attend. So I attended. The agenda had nothing on it that I thought need my presence but clearly I was wanted. Item 7 on the agenda was the turning on of the Christmas lights in the High Street. I was excited to hear that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be the pantomime at the local theatre this year and the actors taking part will be invited to turn on the lights. The actors will stand on the first floor balcony of the town hall. Concern was expressed that people would not be able to see the dwarfs on the balcony. A suggestion was made that the dwarfs could stand on a bench so they could easily be seen. There was then concern that the dwarfs might get caught up in the excitement and fall off the balcony. The solution: We can stand the dwarfs on a bench but have them all wear harnesses and tie them to the building so they cannot fall.

So, nearly two hours into a meeting that has no relevance to the police at all, we have discussed for nearly half an hour whether some dwarfs from the local panto can stand on a bench and whether they should be harnessed and tied to the building to ensure they don't fall off the balcony. I kept having to remind myself, this was not a dream...

Now obviously that's not going to mean that every copper is busy in Town Hall meetings about irrelevant crap all the time - Lex Ferenda is an Inspector after all - but the point is that for however long he was in that meeting for was time in which he wasn't able to do what he's paid for. The guy clearly prefers to do that policework thingy over boring meetings about how to prevent the differently tall (or whatever is the PC term) from falling off things, but attending the meeting sounded less like a choice and more like a three line whip. And it's not like it's never been suggested that it applies to rank and file officers to an extent as well, because of course it has.

Or try the Town Hall - there's probably at least one down there

Let's just remind ourselves of a few salient points. In Britain the law abiding citizen's ability to defend himself is very restricted and they're expected to call on the police, either literally because there has been a crime or figuratively because the very existence of the police force is supposed to deter crime in the first place. There are roughly 145,000 police officers in England and Wales, so at the most basic level there is only one cop for every 380 people, and assuming that roughly 95% of people are law abiding citizens that one cop has about 19 crims to worry about. That cop needs to eat, sleep, have time off, take holidays, and will occasionally be unwell and unable to work, so the workload is divided and realistically it's probably closer to one on-duty cop for every thousand or so people, each of whom has about 50 crims to worry about. And if they're spending half their time doing paperwork and desperately wishing that they weren't twiddling their thumbs listening to plans to attach safety harnesses to dwarfs (side note: did anyone think to ask the dwarfs, who are adults and probably more experienced with the needs of dwarfs than anyone at the meeting, what they thought? I'll leave a comment asking at The Thinking Policeman, but somehow I doubt it) then it's more like one active cop per hundred criminals and per couple of thousand citizens. Who, as I mentioned, are prevented from doing very much if they attract the attention of one of those criminals while the nearest copper is dealing with one of the other 99 crims or 1999 members of the public.

Marvellous.


UPDATE - over at The Thinking Policeman Lex Feranda comments that they did ask the dwarfs - all in the name of consulting the relevant community, natch - and incredibly decided that maybe tying them to a wall might not be a good idea. But before you think that meant actually letting them decide for themselves whether to stand on the bench it should be added that the elf'n'safetee knob said that the council would be liable no matter what so it sounds like everyone stands on the balcony and the crowd get to look at Snow White (or Mild Albinism with Narcolepsy, I imagine) and the Seven Hats.

Pack it in!

Look, Google/Blogger, I've told you before: no, you are not having my phone number. You don't need it and I don't need you to have it, and if I do need you to have it I already know it's an option since you keep going on about it. Okay? So fucking stop asking or I'll clear off to Wordpress.

Australia's Carbon Taxed National Anthem

SING!



Australians all let us revolt,

For we are carbon free;

We’ve iron ore and coal and more,

But live in poverty.
Our land abounds in Nature’s gifts,

To use we do not dare;

In history’s page, we’re now stone age

What chance Australia fair?

In worried strains then let us ask,

What chance Australia fair?


H/T to the Real World Libertarian.