jaywalker

As far as I can tell, the only evidence in this article is that wood burning stoves (therefore including ones that burn wet or unseasoned wood which it should be illegal to sell in London) contribute 10% of air pollution in cities. I guess the data from an Ecological Institute would need to be interrogated :-), for example, has it been replicated, and what is the status of such a reading in a particular house? For sure London air is still polluted (although nothing like as bad as in my youth, let alone in my parent's lives). But I can go down my street and find a couple of cars running their engines for no good purpose. Electricity seems clean when you use it; but not if it is coal fired (and nuclear is not my cup of tea at all).

It is not that Trump is currently totalitarian. It is that he is probing the possibility. This is why we should not welcome him here. BTW how is May different?

I loved the way that the Government's bad faith came undone on Newsnight. 'We cannot take them because it is unsafe for them given that local authorities have no capacity'. Speaker after speaker relayed that local authorities do have space (and indeed that the government had not asked them about it). And if there truly had been no spaces for them, was it not then the responsibility of central government to provide them? Truly, I think Sartre's category tells us all we need to know here. Unclegen, your post is so very sad: you seem unable to distinguish a general principle from an exception (my god, were they wearing beards?), you see the whole thing as a conspiracy ("hushed up") and your pitifully reactionary disposition is barely disguised.

oh and just at the time when the net migration OUT of London will start becoming visible.

The DEFRA approved appliances burning kiln dried less than 20% moisture do not emit much - they burn at extraordinary efficiency which is why they are approved. There are new models that will be compulsory by 2018 that are even more efficient. A good target would be garages that sell only unseasoned wood - it is damp and burns horribly. Mind you, by far the most polluting events are from diesels in London - unfortunately it was government policy to switch to them, and of course black cabs ... think you can wait a while longer before they are banned.

melting

I will of course sign this. It seems to me we should realise, however, that the government just doesn't care. I really do look forward to hearing the counter-arguments. Dark days for the UK, and elsewhere.

coffee

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Bizarre linking attacks on unions with fuelling > inflation - Wilsons failed 5% wage policy of the > 70s to try and curb inflation was continually > thwarted by unions, when they had the power > -frankly rubbish economics there jay. The Tories > attack on trade unions was arguably a factor in > the reduction of 70s hyper- inflation rather than > the other way round. ????, I guess you are not really doing anything more in your posts than mooing. Perhaps in the post-truth world this is all we can do now. Thatcher subscribed to Monetarism, the key doctrine of which is that inflation is nothing whatsoever to do with unions. "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" (Friedman): contrary to this, the Heath government attacked unions for "causing" the inflation that came directly from the monetary loosening of the Barber (Chanceller under Heath) boom - at least according to Thatcher. Please do tell me where I am wrong here :-). I am of course completely economically illiterate ...

I think it is 50:50 whether they will hold the balance of power: they do not need a majority. Why do you always go for the absolute dismissal ("bonkers") rather than engaging with the points being made?

Abe_froeman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The concession referred to above came out today on > the fourth day on which parliament has debated our > exit after the referendum and after the highest > court in the land ordered them to talk about it. > It's anythimg but supine. It is not a concession, it is game of chicken. (see game theory 'game of chicken'). It is increasingly likely that we will not brexit. Independently 1. there may well not be an EU to exit (see Greek gilt prices and the Fallon scandal) 2. the house of lords 3. no agreement will be made by the EU (whatever our own dreams) before the next general election (the lib-dems will then rightly reverse the undemocratic referendum nonsense).

Abe_froeman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Were you hoping the option would be to vote to > reject the deal and then just carry on as if the > referendum had never happened? I was hoping that there would be a democratic (in the sense of representative government) review of what it would mean were we to take the course negotiated by the government. It is absolutely undemocratic to rely on a referendum vote (or to have a referendum) - and Parliament is being supine in the face of that monstrosity.

I am speechless. Is parliament really this craven and stupid? The government has made perfectly clear that this promise will be a 'take it or leave it' vote: when the time comes, vote against it and all the negotiations will be null and void and there will be a vanilla break (the dream of the swivel-eyed members of her cabinet - still actually a minority but the rest are running scared). The only hope is that there will be a general election before this vote.

The problem is that inflation in the past has been triggered by exogenous shocks (and Brexit is nothing if not a shock!). So I agree that the inflation from the initial fall in sterling is a one-off. The trouble is that this feeds into positive feedback loops. The destruction of the labour market through severe restrictions on immigration greatly amplifies one of those (rather like the Tories' attack on Trade Unions in earlier inflationary episodes I fear). Then there are the further falls in sterling to come ... (did you track the pound today? dear God). And the abolition of farm subsidies ... (do we really think these are going to be 'made up'?) And to some extent independently, the increase in energy bills, tv subscriptions, insurance tax, you name it.

Interesting that price pressures are coming from a big fall in the pound (our open economy) which "has nothing to do with brexit". I guess the fall in the pound after the referendum was just a spurious correlation then? To be sure there were signs of an upsurge in inflation regardless of the fall in the pound. Several years of quantitative easing eventually shows through. But this is an AND not an OR. The significant Brexit effect will be if the May government fulfills its promises over immigration. You would then see wage pressures of 1970s proportions - or is this too "nonsense"? Add to that the abolition of the free trade area in an import dependent country and prepare for significant falls in the real standard of living.

Great post jimlad. A very disturbing period of history to study. Mind you, I was careful in my OP not to pass judgement on the use of nuclear bombs as I was writing about something else: I would like to see them not used in the future of course. Thanks for filling in the details of how their use stopped the war by changing the framework of understanding. There are of course ethical positions that would condemn the use of nuclear bombs even if to do so would save millions of lives: but that is a different post.

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > jaywalker Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > rahrahrah Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > It is easy, with so much craziness, to almost > > > become immune to it. > > > > That is exactly right, and why we should keep > > posting and (where appropriate) re-threading. > > I think quite the opposite. People tire quickly > of news. If it's sharp and relevant, they'll stay > interested. If you post and repost any old crap, > their attention will go somewhere else. > > My Facebook timeline is currently such a full on > trump-dump that I gloss over it. The lowlight of > this week was the video from someone with way too > much time on his hands that wrote and recorded a > song about the idiot who made the 'Bowling Green > Massacre' gaffe. Suffice to say, I didn't watch > it. Life's too short for that kind of crap. I don't see how that is the "opposite" to my post. Clearly there are two separate questions: to respond in a timely manner to new events (of which there may be many), and how to respond (posting crap or posting not-crap). Posting not-crap is not the same as not posting (either not-crap or crap) when there is something to post about. I am a little scared by Facebook and other flows - the one that really gets me is the BBC's Have Your Say, which seems to have been over-run by people with extreme views. The 'echo-chamber' effect here is deeply worrying and trying to interrupt it tends to reinforce it (on the whole the EDF doesn't suffer from this, except perhaps with respect to the serial cat killer).

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > jaywalker Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > The origin of the UK's independent so-called > 'deterrent' lies here. Its > > credibility thought to over-ride the 'special > relationship'. > > > > We had to establish this AGAINST USA foreign > policy as quickly as possible or simply become a > > pawn-gambit. > > > > At some point later, we decided that the USA was > a good supplier of said deterrent (they now build > > our missiles). Do you really want me to say > more? > > Since the US supplied the missiles for Polaris and > the whole programme was only established after the > UK/US Nassau agreement, your writing doesn't seem > to me to be historically accurate. Ah, you are too young to remember Vulcan bombers then. A truly terrifying site. It is true that I'm taking my history from fiction - the post-war reconstructions of Edward Wilson are particularly good.

I had a bad dream, Fox. (I do have some human investments in terms of family and so on). I mean 'bad dream' in the Hamlet sense: "I would could count myself a king of infinite space were it not that ...". I live in a road where bombs fell during my parent's lifetime. My house was spared: many lives down the road were not. In the years and months leading up to those bombs there was incredulity about the danger. And also derision of those who said that war was likely. The war was stopped by nuclear strikes on two Japanese cities by the USA. After the war there was a further crisis. In the 1950s the USA knew that the USSR did NOT have ICBMs. Many super-intelligent people (the most documented John von Neumann, perhaps the most gifted mathematician of the C20th on a par with Godel and Turing) urged pre-emptive strikes on Russia. The UK knew that the USSR DID have missiles reaching USA airbases in the UK. So any retaliatory strike from such action would annihilate us, not the USA. The origin of the UK's independent so-called 'deterrent' lies here. Its credibility thought to over-ride the 'special relationship'. We had to establish this AGAINST USA foreign policy as quickly as possible or simply become a pawn-gambit. At some point later, we decided that the USA was a good supplier of said deterrent (they now build our missiles). Do you really want me to say more? I wonder if this is echoed in the obvious panic over the Trident misdirection?

OP suggests dogs were from next door, no?

With whom is it productive to attempt to open up de-stabilising dialogue (i.e. one that might change either side, most especially ones own)? Not my cat (his self-reference is solipsistic). His world has much to teach me, but we cannot cross the language barrier. Not a child - their self-reference is solipsistic until aged 7 or 8 as a rule at least if one believes Piaget. Not often with politicians (they tend to see their self-reference as purified to faith in party. A group solipsism.) Not with essentialists (they already know how the world is - forensic solipsism.) Philosophers often fall into this. Not with a psycho (they are trapped in a world you do not want to share). Not those with (justified) ressentiment about their inheritance (this was Marx's fundamental mistake). Perhaps only (in later life I have come to think) with those who have shared life-events that already de-stabilised their certainty so much that they were forced open to the other. The latter too few to count: the human is always therefore in self-destruct mode even in its certainty of achieved solidarity.

If "virtue signalling" means anything - which I think it does - then it is a pity to use it so loosely. When I was five or six I gave in to the proto-fascist inside my head. The teacher asked who in the class had done something, and I knew. So I put up my hand to tell her. In retrospect, I wonder if teachers should think more carefully about this kind of appeal. I am glad to say that the proto-fascist then wrestled with the angel (where do they come from?) and I burst in to tears before I could reveal the identity of the 'culprit'. So much so that I was taken to be the culprit :-(. I fear some are abandoned by angels - I was exceptionally lucky.

rahrahrah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It is easy, with so much craziness, to almost > become immune to it. That is exactly right, and why we should keep posting and (where appropriate) re-threading. This from Trump for me is key: "I say it's better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against Isis [so-called Islamic State], which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world - that's a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea. (square brackets inserted by the rather overly-squeamish BBC news editor). He knows very well (given the half-recognised fact that he is a simulation of himself) that he must identify an overwhelmingly self-evident foe to anchor his presidency in 'reality' (the judicial fight back against his immigration orders, though absolutely right, will reinforce his support). Meanwhile, Ukraine is greatly destabilised and he is promising to "get along" with Putin to fight the greater foe of Isis. Now I wonder what opportunity that presents to Russia? The UK govt meanwhile is frightened out of its wits. It knows that it is moving us out of the natural security of the EU and feels it must now depend on a "special" relationship with Trump. At some point Parliament will wake up: but I doubt it will be in time.

EPB must be right. It is true also of cats. Both my own and my neighbour's often escort foxes out of their territory in no uncertain terms (unless it is a very big fox the fox knows it could be seriously injured). Problem may be that some foxes are losing sense of who is friend/enemy (I admit I feed them if asked to by them).

Think we should cool it: and yes, I do have a cat. It is highly unlikely this is anything other than a cat present, or a fox disturbed. Cats are crepuscular creatures: they need to go out to express themselves as felines. It is wrong to keep them in when they want to go out unless there is clear and present danger (like a big fox in the garden). They give us a lot: we should respect their independence. Some will die when out: but far more from cars than from serial cat killers.