I heard the news today, oh boy..

[????]

Chris Huhne was banging on about a Carbon Tax continually wouldn't have ghappened I suspect but worrying.

Don't believe everything you read from afar - The UK still has a manufacturing base especially in high tech high end stuff. It's not all making pots and pansin China

[El Pibe]

In all fairness manufacturing is fucked on labour costs. Energy costs don't help but aren't really the issue. When our grandchildren ask us why the world is so fucked up, we can't really look them in the eye and say "we had to Billy, our margins were slightly compromised "

[El Pibe]

X post.

Exactly, our manufacturing is about doing stuff that other people can't do., and charging a premium. Wind farms are something of a red herring. Plus onshore ones aren't that bad, it's the nimbies forcing them offshore that's costing all the money.

*edited for DYAC*

[????]

Oh come on. Just export the energy pollution manufacturing to China, that gonna help our grandchildren? We'll feel better about ousrelves, not have any manufacturing but you know, we're good and green. The debate needs some reality not gesturing from a relative insignificant country of 60 million. As I said I'm for bridging and developing technology in an attempt at solving it, the only hope we've got IMO. Turning off our lights once a year and poking our tongues out at car drivers is meaningless gesturing. You really think a self imposed UK carbon tax is going to make any foooking difference at all? It'll just fuck our economy a bit more especially the bit that we are now meant to love ie manufacturing. The resource and carbon footprint that goes into the manufacture of a PC isn't anythinginnsignificant and yet people worthy about tgheir green credentials on the internet all day. We have to find away of reducing carbon emmisions from carbon fuel the alternatives are miles away from providing a solution and believe me behaviour will not change, not even here in Green is good Europe let alone China and India.

[????]

Don't get me wrong I support renewables but they ain't fit for purpose yet

[El Pibe]

Clean gas is the cheapest, clean coal is more expensive than you'd think.

Hydro is the cheapest (of the clean ones) but we don't have many options there until wave becomes viable.

Nuclear is very expensive in the long run.

Onshore wind is pricier than dirty coal but its actually pretty cost effective. Offshore aint.

Mind you I got the Sunday Telegraph last week on a whim. Climate change denial seems to be editorial policy. No wonder people are up in arms bombarded with that stuff constantly.

[Loz]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Don't get me wrong I support renewables but they ain't fit for purpose yet

If that is so, then the only way they will become fit for purpose is to investing in the technology. No?

[El Pibe]

Very interesting insights into the nature of the Syrian resistance in a Q&A with Nir Rosen.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221315020166516.html

Not the comments form Hamas and their prognosis of Hezbpollah's future at the end. Fascinating stuff.

[El Pibe]

Possibly the most poorly argued opinion piece I have ever read

[El Pibe]

David Mitchell draws plausible parallels between the heyday of amateur sport and today's obsession with talent shows.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/01/david-mitchell-past-sporting-heroes

[El Pibe]

The Brooks charged then huh?

I'd love to think that this was indeed "unprecedented postureing" by the CPS, taking revenge after years of being accused of letting nonces clutter our streets.

I suspect they're just doing their job though. Shoe other foot etc.

Consider my cockles warmed by this good news.

[woodrot]

good.

[StraferJack]

dunno what she's worried about - if she gets done, life is a piece of piss in prison. I read it in the sun, must be true

Still due process should be followed so hopefully the world and his wife won't prejudice the case

[El Pibe]

Plus a rather lovely (if long and in dire need of some formatting) post about those Heathrow queues and how the old immigration hot potato is really handled by our rulers.

http://tktw.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/heathrow-queues/

[El Pibe]

Mladic on trial at last.

Part of me wishes he was just handed to a mob, but let it be the another step on a road to a more enlightened and peaceful world.

BBC comments make me laugh, this from

"Some people do not understand why we should watch these trials. Well, some Scots are considering seceding from the UK; it would be good to consider problems that others have had with that. I am not suggesting that we would encounter anything like Mladic, but there will be unforeseen consequences, and we need to think and research them. There are parallels between the UK and former Jugoslavia"

Parallels between you and a struggle with the real world more like ;)

[El Pibe]

Excellent NY TImes reportage on the MExican Drug Trade and the man at the top of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-drug-cartel-makes-its-billions.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

[Jah Lush]

Great article. Thanks for that. I have a relative who lives in Columbia and works in Mexico City. I'm sure he'll be very interested in this.

[Annette Curtain]

So, this is the home of a Mexican Narco-Criminal ?

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/17/magazine/17cartel_ss-slide-HYIH/17cartel_ss-slide-HYIH-articleLarge-v2.png

Low level lighting, comfy sofas with scatter cushions. Blinds pulled halfway down to diffuse the early evening light which bathes the room in its warm glow

And huge orderly stacks of American-narco-dollars, casually placed around the room. Machine guns and decapitated corpses all kept neatly in the adjacent double garage

The only criticism would be; the cleaner. Surely those loose Dollar bills could do with a paper weight to hold them down neatly

Maybe something quirky (like a face sewn onto a football) to give the room an interesting focal & discussion point would do it

Nette

[El Pibe]

The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of yemenis injured in drone strikes against US citizens, is suing the US gov't for the killings without recourse to trial and due process. This could bring into question the whole drone strikes policy.

It has admittedly been successful in tackling al-qaeda, but I guess murder is murder and it's dodgy territory for a liberal democracy to be standing on. It'll be intersting to see how this pans out.

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta

I loved this line "The New York Times recently reported that the government counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."

Dunking witches springs to mind!!!

*edited for unforgivable grocers' apostrophe*

[woodrot]

Nothing chanes with teh mericans - theres a quote in Herrs Viet book Despatches along the lines of : it was neccesary to destroy the village in order to liberate it.

Not much fun if you suddenly find your family are living in a newly designated strike zone.

[Huguenot]

I once had a peculiar discussion on an unrelated issue with a couple of yanks about visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.

It was clear that they felt very strongly that this was a completely reasonable pursuit, completely in conflict with my liberal British instincts. They cited several lines from the bible in support of this (there are a couple of lines against also).

I've since found out that this a pretty pervasive belief - that the families, neighborhoods and societies are culpable for the activities of people within the group.

This means that they can all be punished for the actions of an individual.

So although I hate to say it, the American belief that you can label all individuals within houses, neighborhoods or nations as 'combatants' just by virtue of proximity is the normal line - it's only us Brits that find this shocking.

[david_carnell]

Well I suppose, in a tight knit society, like one that exists in Yemeni tribal villages the idea that there could be members of terrorist groups hiding there or running ops without the knowledge of clan elders is absurd. And I guess the argument then runs that if you knowingly harbour terrorists in your village, and you know the possible consequences of both their actions and the actions of the Americans if they are discovered, then you are bringing this wrath upon yourselves.

To play devils advocate.....

[katie1997]

Damn. I really wanted to add a fantastic newsworthy link to this thread ...but use my own title for it (like you could in the old days, er, last month or so).

If I just add the link as it is, it won't have the desired effect.

PS It was about a lemon drink if anyone cares.

[El Pibe]

Esquire on Obama and targeted killings

The Lethal Presidency

It is only human to have faith in the "human intelligence" generated by the agents, operatives, and assets of the CIA. But that's the point: What's human is always only human, and often wrong. America invaded Iraq on the pretext of intelligence that was fallacious if not dishonest. It confidently asserted that the detainees in Guant?namo were the "worst of the worst" and left them to the devices of CIA interrogators before admitting that hundreds were hapless victims of circumstance and letting them go. You, Mr. President, do not have a Guant?namo. But you are making the same characterization of those you target that the Bush administration made of those it detained, based on the same sources. The difference is that all your sentences are final, and you will never let anybody go. To put it as simply as possible: Six hundred men have been released uncharged from Guant?namo since its inception, which amounts to an admission of a terrible mistake. What if they had never even been detained? What if, under the precepts of the Lethal Presidency, they had simply been killed?

For all its respect for the law, the Obama administration has been legally innovative in the cause of killing. It has called for the definition of an "imminent threat" to be broadened and for the definition of "collateral damage" to be narrowed. An imminent threat used to be someone who represented a clear and present danger. Now it is someone who appears dangerous. Collateral damage used to be anyone killed who was not targeted. Now the term "collateral damage" applies only to women and children. "My understanding is that able-bodied males of military age are considered fair game," says the former administration official, "if they're in the proximity of a known militant."

[Huguenot]

Are Esquire editorialising now?

Or was it a particular author?