Brit Weather Forecasting

The Brit Meteorological Office’s day to day forecasts are famously inaccurate, so it’s not surprising its longer term predictions are equally useless.

The problem lies in the location of the UK – it’s warmed by the Gulf Stream, but right next to the heat sink of the European land mass, so its weather system is highly complex and volatile.

Brits take the today’s weather as the best forecast of tomorrow’s, and ignore the Met Office – as general Eisenhower (correctly) did when he launched D-Day.

The Met Office does however take itself seriously, thus (my emphasis):

12 March 2007: Britain is on course to swelter in the hottest year since 1659, when records began, weathermen said yesterday.

This year is already 2.7C hotter than average and forecasters say it will smash the record for the warmest year ever if the trend continues. It comes just months after 2006 was named the hottest year on record but that was just 1.35C warmer than usual. This year has seen that difference double so far.

Here’s how 2007 turned out:

31 December 2007: This has been the second-hottest year ever recorded in Britain, according to the Met Office, but 2008 is set to begin with snow and freezing temperatures.

This average is just below the 49.5F (9.7C) set last year, the warmest since records began in 1914…

So instead of it being the hottest year in 348 years, 2007 was just the second hottest in 93 years.

Oh well.

Back In Italy

Via London Gatwick and British Airways – the first predictably awful, the latter surprisingly good.

Yesterday was a peak travel day as Brits headed out to sun or ski. Gatwick is a tourist airport, so doesn’t work to maintain the loyalty of frequent travelers. It’s run by the hapless BAA, so its security process as as customer-abusive as BAA’s Heathrow.

There’s a small wrinkle – Gatwick has a second security stage after bag and WTMD screening, in which selected travelers (about 50%) get to walk barefoot on dirty tiles while their shoes are screened. We didn’t get pulled over, but the pen walls were low enough for us to watch the victims – mostly kids – being put through this dirty and humilating process.

The MRSA epidemic in UK hospitals has now spread to the community, no doubt thanks to BAA.

So if you have to travel out through a BAA airport, take some disposable socks. If they insist you walk barefoot, don’t fly.

But British Airways was fine – their online boarding pass system is well designed, they’ve rationalized checkin,  the plane was a Boeing 737-436 with good legroom, and it took off on time and landed early.

2007’s Top Ten

Here are the year’s top ten events most likely to shape the future of the Anglosphere (in which we include Japan, India, and Israel).

1. Al Qaeda Was Beaten

They’ll continue to attack their usual targets – defenseless men, women and kids – but they’ve lost Iraq. And, more importantly, showed the world’s terrorists that killing American is a lousy career choice and that Muslim victims fight back.

So now we can expect them to turn on vulnerable non-Americans, for example Pakistani democrats such as Benazir Bhutto.

2. BMD Became A Reality

The sea-launched SM-3, the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, and the Israeli Arrow II, all now work and are being deployed. Layered with launch phase defenses and short range weapons, notably the Patriot PAC-3, these offer quite good protection, including attacks with decoys and volleys.

This buys at least a decade in which our nations (but not Israel) are very unlikely to be attacked by missile.

3. The Tide Turned Against Insurgency

That has involved new leaders, new politics, new war fighting, and new technologies.

The drone came into its own, as many Hamas killers can testify from their virgin-havens in the sky. The IED was defeated by the US (but, sadly, not by the poorly equipped Brits).

The F-35B rolled out – this successor to the mighty Harrier will provide the US, UK and Israel with extremely flexible air assets in what promises to be a succession of expeditionary wars against Islam.

4. The Euro Exploded

It’s currently $1.47 – at least 25% above purchasing power parity. That’s killing Europe’s export sector, notably the German car giants and Airbus.

5. The Brits Reached The Edge Of The Precipice

The UK has the second largest external debt in the world – $8.3 trillion, not much less than the US $10 trillion.

But the UK economy is much smaller and weaker than that of the US, so it’s more vulnerable to an economic downturn. And the latter is very likely, given its highly incompetent and dishonest government.

6. Voters Got Silly

Australia showed the way, electing a tree-hugger called Kevin in place of the doughty Howard. That seems to happen in all democracies towards the end of stressful times, and it usually ends in tears. The Brits dumped Churchill in 1945, ushering in a vastly destructive era of socialism that took over 40 years to put right.

US voters seemed headed in the same direction, and if they don’t get real they (and we) face a decade of Dems running the US, with the attendant high taxation, stagnant economy, and appeasing foreign policy. However the new systems mentioned above should stop that being to militarily disastrous.

7. Global Warmenists Hit The Wall

The shrillness of the warmers at Bali confirmed they’re realizing they’ve lost the argument. The world hasn’t warmed since 1998; the warmenist-deniers got organized, so nuking the “consensus” argument; and its quite clear now that warming causes atmospheric CO2 to rise rather than the other way round.

In fact there are worrying signs we’re moving into a cooling phase.

8. Darwinism Joined Arafat, Castro, and the Parrot

It seems the major steps in evolution have been aligned with meteorite impacts – supporting Fred Hoyle’s theory that life originated outside the earth. That, or something similar, had to be the case, since the probability of randomly building the basic building blocks of life are so low this couldn’t have happened in the short existence of our planet.

9. Russia Reverted To Type

The lefties at Time magazine made Putin Man Of The Year, confirming that Russia is now an official enemy of the US.

That’s good news, since Russia’s collapsing population means it won’t be around long.

10. The EU Elite Wrote A Long Suicide Note

That’s their Constitution, which they signed in the face of massive voter hostility in all the big European states. Weak empires built on tyranny don’t last, and my guess is the exploding Euro will finish them.

Bah, Humbug!

As I wandered down our high street glumly pondering the previous post, a passer-by noted my long face and called out the above.

Quite right too – it’s Christmas!

Democrats Plan Another Holocaust

After assuring the world the Mullahs don’t have a nuclear weapons program, the Dems have announced Israel would anyway win a nuclear exchange. Both assertions are untrue and their perpetrators dishonest.

We hoped Irangate was a plot to make the Mullahs relax, but that now seems unlikely – here’s a leak, probably from MI6:

War with Iran now appears to be off the agenda and it will be difficult to persuade the international community to approve harsher United Nations sanctions against Iran. But was American intelligence really fooled for four years? Or is it being undermined from within?

…David Wurmser, Cheney’s former Middle East adviser, charged: “One has to look at the authors of this report to judge how much it can really be banked on.”

The “guilty men” were named as Thomas Fingar, Kenneth Brill and Vann Van Diepen, all now in top US intelligence posts, who had seethed at Bush policies for years and were said to have executed a triumphant revenge.

One “very senior intelligence official” who was privy to the same classified information on Iran described the NIE’s conclusions as “a piece of crap”, according to Jed Babbin, a senior defence official under the first President George Bush.

If that’s true, this betrayal deeply harmed the US, since foreign agencies will no longer share sensitive data with their US counterparts.

That’s bad, because US agencies largely depend on human and signals intelligence from MI6, assorted Israeli agencies, and the Germans. – they’re closer to Iran and unlike the US never abandoned human intelligence collection.

And here’s the latest from Israel’s enemies:

If a nuclear war between Israel and Iran were to break out 16-20 million Iranians would lose their lives – as opposed to 200,000-800,000 Israelis, according to a report recently published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is headed by Anthony H. Cordesman, formerly an analyst for the US Department of Defense…

Even if Iran gained the means and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, according to the report it would still be limited to 100 kiloton weapons, which can cause a far smaller radius of destruction than the 1 megaton bombs Israel allegedly possesses.

The report’s numbers aren’t correct.

But even if they were, 800,000 dead Israelis means (using a multiplier of 4) total casualties of over 3 million. And most casualties would die, since that level of destruction takes out most hospitals, food and water distribution, etc.

That’s half the Jewish population – equivalent to the US losing 150 million or the UK 30 million. Plus Israel’s advanced industrial society would be destroyed by the EMP effects of a modest number of Iranian nukes.

In contrast, the Mullahs and their henchmen will stay safe, and indifferent to the loss of 20 million “martyrs” (Iran’s population is about 65 million). Plus their primitive economy would be little effected by EMP, and backed by high birthrates would be back up and running within a decade.

Meet the authors of this report (my ellipsis):

The current president and CEO of CSIS is John Hamre (under Clinton), former Deputy Secretary of Defense…

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees is Sam Nunn, a former Democratic Senator… Its board of trustees includes many former senior government officials including Henry Kissinger (of Vietnam fame), Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter’s man) William Cohen (Clinton’s man) and Brent Scowcroft (Bush hater). Its Transnational Threats Director is Arnaud de Borchgrav (Newsweek hack).

If Israel meets this level of betrayal from the US under a Republican president, it can expect nothing but wall-to-wall hostility from a Democrat Washington.

Collectivists At Work

As previously noted, collectivist elites – such as those running the EU and UK – work to control the behavior of their subjects rather than protect them – here’s a nice example.

Motorists will face tougher penalties for driving misdemeanours ranging from using mobile phones to splashing pedestrians, under new guidelines published yesterday.

Using a mobile, sat-nav or MP3 player while at the wheel could send drivers to prison for up to two years.

But they could also be fined up to £2,500 for driving through a puddle and splashing pedestrians or for failing to dip headlights.

In future a range of misdemeanours will be treated as dangerous driving, which carries a two-year maximum prison sentence, rather than careless driving, which can be dealt with only by a community order or fine.

Unsurprisingly, the supine Brit MSM hasn’t picked up the shoddy reasoning here. Which is that, under ancient English law, any act that causes harm to another can be prosecuted. But in instead of enforcing that law, the elite has criminalized a small subset of behaviors it wants to control.

In so doing, it ignores the many other behaviors in cars that cause harm – violent arguments, certain sexual acts, shouting at the radio, soothing the baby, stopping the kids fighting, applying makeup, eating, etc.

That’s because they’re hard to track, and collectivists seek only to criminalize behaviors they can track.

That’s the same reasoning they use to direct their cops to enforce speed limits, rather than catching criminals.

The good news is that all the Brits we meet are being nicely radicalized against the collectivists.

Brit Warmth

London is a chilly 40 degrees, but the local global warmenists are keeping us warm. Laughing.

Here’s a particularly funny one:

Britain’s favourite spring flowers are in danger of becoming extinct because climate change is causing them to bloom too early, environmental scientists said yesterday…

Some varieties are blossoming six months ahead of time, leaving them exposed to serious winter frosts. Others are losing the chance to pollinate and reproduce because their traditional flowering cycle is disrupted.

Actually, all existing plant species have been around for well over 400,000 years, which means they’ve survived at least 4 ice ages (which, we should never forget, until 10,000 years ago lowered sea levels enough to join England to France). And they’ve survived four interglacials, all hotter than now.

So you can bet a few warm summers won’t stop Brit plant life pollinating and reproducing.

However, with luck, this cold winter might have just that effect on Brit global warmenists, and that would, from an evolutionary standpoint, be a Good Thing.

In Praise of Ryanair and Luton Airport

We’ve found the last civilized way of getting to London for Christmas – RyanAir via Luton.

This was our second experience of RyanAir, and was again favorable.

RyanAir’s price structure is rational – it charges virtually nothing if its load factor is low, then ramps to a maximum that, even after adding Euro “Greenfly” taxes (typically $100 per flight) is about 50% of the highcosters.

If you want something that carries a cost, you can get it, at a price. You pay to check a bag (but can carry on 10 Kg at no cost, double what the highcosters allow). You can’t reserve seats, but can pay for priority boarding (highcosters let you reserve seats, but only 1 or 2 days before the flight). If you don’t take your own food and drink. you can buy RyanAir’s, which we found better than the highcosters.

Flight operations aim to ensure the maximum return from its (mostly new) airplanes. That means quick turnarounds, hence no assigned seats. Plus the interior is designed for fast cleaning – the emergency instructions are laminated to the back of the seat in front, just where you’ll need them in an emergency.

Late takeoff or arrival costs RyanAir money, so it works really hard to stay on schedule – our flight to London took off a exactly on time.

And landed on-time at London’s Luton airport, the only one not operated by the awful British Airports Authority (BAA).

Luton is basic, so we had zero delays clearing immigration, and were on a bus to central London 15 minutes after touchdown, arriving 50 minutes later. That’s better than we’ve ever achieved from the BAA hellholes of Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stanstead.

Your experience may be different, but we’d recommend carrier and airport (and have stock in neither).

The Wise King And The Brave Woman

The Saudi king has pardoned the young woman sentenced to 200 lashes after a gang rape, and the two of them point the way out of Islam’s misogynistic hell.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has pardoned a teenage victim of a gang rape who was sentenced to 200 lashes and jailed for six months in a highly-publicised case that inflicted incalculable damage on the country’s image.

This scandal has encouraged the evolution of Saudi society:

…even leading Saudis had made clear their embarrassment and disquiet at the court ruling. Many commentators in the kingdom’s increasingly outspoken press had condemned as “shameful” the judgment that treated the victim as a culprit.

Human rights activists at home and abroad believe the furor could now empower voices for change in the Kingdom’s Islamic courts.

So a wise king and a brave young woman make a difference.

The WSJ And Illegal Immigration

The WSJ, normally sound on the rule of law, makes an exception for illegal immigrants. This does neither the WSJ or Hispanics any favors, and reminds us to trust no one.

America’s illegal immigration mess is born of bad policies that are either unenforceable or not enforced because it’s not in our economic interest to do so.

These dubious assertions are the conclusion of its argument that Republican candidates shouldn’t oppose illegal immigration, because:

A Pew Hispanic Center poll released this month found that 57% of Hispanic voters now identify with Democrats, while only 23% align with Republicans. That 34-point gap has increased by 21 points in less than 18 months.

The GOP probably can’t hold the White House next year without winning swing states like Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, all of which have large Hispanic populations.

But the rule of law is fundamental to US freedoms. If one group is allowed to flout it with impunity – either through incompetence or in “our economic interests”, the center cannot hold.

And if the center does not hold, where does that leave Hispanics, legal and illegal? They’re a minority, and depend entirely upon the acceptance of their host community.

If, cheered by the likes of the WSJ, Hispanics vote a lefty in to White House, the results will be catastrophic. First for the nation, including its economy. If the WSJ’s editors doubt that, they should try living and working in one of the many countries of the world where the law is not respected – Mexico, for example.

And so will fall the City On The Hill, Hispanics and all.

But no such risk is necessary, since illegal immigration can be easily controlled – starting with honest protection of US borders, but then raising the quotas for legal immigration.

All of which shows that normally sensible groups like the WSJ’s editors are on some topics as deranged as the nuttiest global warmenist.

And that confirms that we must always distrust received wisdom, whatever the source.