Posts by Jellied Eel

Re: Plastic Dossier

That's call in-clu-si-ve-ness (not leaving minorities aside). Your calling it a "fixation" reveals that you're resenting it.

No, it reveals that you keep ignoring the question in order to make crude personal attacks. My question is very simple. Presdential Decree from Biden issued before March 31st, along with X's etc. After March 31st, Biden claims to know nothing about it. Is this a sign of more memory loss? Did someone stick a pile of paperwork in front of Biden, telling him he could have his ice cream once he'd signed them?

Yes, Navalny was born before Nemtsov was gunned down.

He emerged after Nestov's assassination by democracy-loving Putin.

Yet clearly he emerged before Nemtsov's murder. And again, you have no evidence Putin had anything to do with it.

Re: Plastic Dossier

Trumpards fascination against LGBTQIA+ is just... fascinating.

But I'm not talking about Trump. You're desperately deflecting away from Biden denying his decree. Why is this? To me, the more fascinating aspect is the Dems fixation on <5% of the US population rather than it's Christian, Islamic and other large majorities. This is a rather novel election strategy campaign that Biden is following..

What takes the biscuit is that all of this comes from minions of a self-confessed sex abuser, notable sex addict, who can't talk about women without being either disrespectful or inappropriate and remembered for famous quotes about dating his own daughter. Deranged cult members with repressed sexual impulses congregating around their master.

Not sure what you're referring to, other than projecting. Again. I assume you're referring to the Biden family? Showering with daughters, marrying sister-in-laws, blowing millions on, well, hookers and blow?

It's Nemtsov of course. You already know that.

I have many skills, but telepathy isn't one of them. But another sic burn. Anyway-

The assassination of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian politician opposed to the government of Vladimir Putin, occurred in central Moscow on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge at 23:31 local time on 27 February 2015

In late 2006, Navalny appealed to the Moscow City Hall, asking it to grant permission to conduct the nationalist 2006 Russian march. However, he added that Yabloko condemned "any ethnic or racial hatred and any xenophobia" and called on the police to oppose "any fascist, Nazi, xenophobic manifestations"

So Navalny was politically active well before Nemtsov was murdered for reasons unknown. Nalvany's career with Yabloko was, of course slowed down after they expelled him for being racist and xenophobic. But then-

Upon his release on 20 December 2011, Navalny called on Russians to unite against Putin, who Navalny said would try to claim victory in the presidential election, which was held on 4 March 2012

So as usual, you mix up cause and effect. Navalny had been campaigning, and being promoted by the West long before Nemtsov's murder.. But then you usually believe that effect precedes cause, don't you?

Re: Plastic Dossier

Tansgender is a non issue for most normal, balanced people

You are, as always missing the point. Biden signed a decree proclaiming TV day. Then prompty denied knowing anything about it. So it obviously seems to have become an issue for him now. As for balanced, well there's plenty of evidence from his falling off bicycles, falling up or down stairs and wandering around aimlessly to show he may have problems in that respect.

Nobody "picked" Navalny. He emerged after Nestov's assassination by democracy-loving Putin.

Cite evidence or retract. Thanks. I think.. you'll struggle because from a quick search, I can't find any evidence of a 'Nestov', let alone his assassination. There's a ton of evidence to show we promoted Navalny, and now Yolanda..

Facts. Judging by your constant attempts to demote him, he must have been a dangerous threat to Putin and the Russian regime

Nope. Facts really aren't something you're familiar with. He was never any threat to Putin, and neither is Yolanda. Again the issue is why Clinton is whining about foreign interference when we interfere all the time.

FWIW, the FT is a well regarded newspaper targeting readers with some decent level of education, especially in economics matters.

It's like the Grauniad, only with fewer pictures and more numbers. The crossword is ok though. But it's been consistently pro-globalisation, and also supported Clinton, Obama and Biden in the last US elections. If you understood some of their articles, you'd perhaps have a better grasp of the simple relationship between costs, prices and inflation though.. Or it's again a demonstration that you're just a poor troll..

The issue with ballot stuffing is that it isn't difficult to clamp down on in a controlled environment. When I vote, my name (with ID) is compared against the roles including my address as I have a pretty common name and I get a chit for the next table where my name is checked again and I'm given a ballot to fill out and a folder to carry the ballot in so nobody can see my choices. I insert my ballot into a locked ballot collection box on the way out.

Hello, this is the Lockpicking Lawyer..

I think this is where the serious (and neutral) debate needs to happen. It's one of those things where in principle, it's simple, in practice, it gets complicated. Especially if there's an erosion in trust. ISTR in the UK, there were ballot drop boxes in public locations like libraries. I guess the idea is that they're accessable, and library staff could keep an eye on them. The boxes themselves tend to be pretty low-tech with simple padlocks and simple seals over the slots to prevent tampering in transit once the election was over. Then those transported to counting sites. In the UK, when I was a scrutineer, we were locked into the Town Hall once that started. If we wanted to leave, we couldn't get back in and boxes were brought into the hall and stored in plain sight so we could witness them being unsealed, if we want to.

Now, we could potentially make that more secure. Apply Apple's Airtags or similar location tracking to ballot boxes, and maybe better anti-tamper seals & locks. That would at least provide a better audit trail and accountability. But another issue with some of the ballot box claims is.. So what? Unless an election is really close, you'd have to stuff a lot of boxes to swing the vote the way you want. But it may help avoid some of the complaints that happened around the last US election. And then there's mail-in ballots, which seem the most problematic. In theory, the USPS should be trustworthy, but still leaves the potential for stuffing or tampering.

Or this situation from Pennsylvania that caught my eye-

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/republicans-score-win-in-court-battle-over-pennsylvania-ballot-requirements-5618180

Pennsylvania rules that require mail-in ballots to be dated are legal, a federal appeals court has ruled.

“This is a crucial victory for election integrity and voter confidence in the Keystone State and nationwide. Pennsylvanians deserve to feel confident in the security of their mail ballots, and this 3rd Circuit ruling roundly rejects unlawful left-wing attempts to count undated or incorrectly dated mail ballot,” Michael Whatley, the RNC’s chairman, said in a statement after the new ruling was handed down.

Also count unsigned ballots, making any attempt to improve signature verification impossible, or ballot stuffing easier. But I think this case is a good example of the way election issues have become politicisied, and shouldn't have required a Federal Court determination. Rules are rules, if Pensylvannia law requires procedures to be followed, then those procedures should be followed or the law changed. If people make mistakes, or can't follow simple instructions, well, that's too bad. Educate voters, but those rules were in place to provide some sense of security. I guess it's also an area where security could be improved, at a cost, eg tamper-resistant paper and envelopes.

Re: Plastic Dossier

Thanks for confirming exactly what I wrote (and adding your aversion for transgender to the [long] list of Trumpard features.

Logic is all Greek to you I guess. How do you come up with "aversion to transgender" when I simply pointed out Biden is denying issuing the Presidential decree for TV day? Even though it was a pretty pointless bit of gesture politics given that day has been celebrated on March 31st for years, it's just Easter is a movable feast. And Biden is (allegedly) a staunch Catholic and many American voters are Christians. But now he's denying transgender visibilty, presumably because he's seen the polls over the weekend.

Exactly my point. Thanks for confirming. At least that's clear

Clinton's whining about election interference. Nalavalny was an example of our election inteference, even though we picked a far-right candidate who hated immigrants and loved fraud. And had essentially zero chance of toppling The Putin because Russians knew he was a Western puppet. Well, those that had even heard of him. Russia's Communist Party is, and always has been Putin's main opposition party. Funnily enough, America's Communist Party often marched with the Dem's 'Antifa' during those 'firey, but mostly peaceful' protests that declared Trump stole the election and demanded he be removed from office. Democrats and Communists working together to overthrow a President.. who'd have thunk it?

Gunmen were four Tajik citizens... they just ignored the warnings shared by the US embassy.

The four 'Tajik citizens' who happened to be making a beeline straight for Ukraine's border.. Which just happens to be a heavily mined and defended conflict zone. Why not head for the Baltics instead, as the murderer of Darya Dugina did? But they didn't make it to the border, and probable liquidation. Instead, they were captured and interrogated, raising the question of who paid and assisted them. As for the US warnings, apparently they were both information limited, and perhaps more importantly, time limited. So they warned of an attack in the 'next 48hrs', issued on 7th March, with the massacre occuring on the 22nd March. We apparently gave minimal information to 'protect methods and sources', but if you're playing the great game, warnings like that could also be used to analyse how Russia responds, which locations and events they secure, and use that to plan future attacks..

And previously various Western leaders had been encouraging Urkaine to practice asymettric warfare, ie going after soft targets like this to create terror and promote political change..

Re: Plastic Dossier

Most people mentioning Trump trigger hilarity, disbelief, disgust or pity.

Indeed. This may be one of the reasons I mention he who must be named because it's soo easy to trigger TDS sufferers. Meanwhile, Biden signs written decree declaring-

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-easter-transgender-visibility/

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility.

And as usual for a 'neutral' 'fact checker', completely ignores that Biden's now denying ever doing this. In which case, who issued this decree? Cornpop?

Yes, we remember how you supported Navalny. A true defender of democracy indeed.

I don't see any connection between Navalny and democracy. I do see a bunch of politicians looking rather foolish for declaring his murder without any evidence. Many promptly did the same when they declared the Moscow massacre was the responsibility of ISIS-K(iev). I do however see those as examples of hypocrisy, where the West will happily interfere with other country's democracy, but it's JUST NOT FAIR if they interfere with ours.

Re: Photo ID in UK

It's an addition tax levied on each parcel of land in the city. In my case, the original tax was proposed to pay for police and fire. It took the city three goes and the last one was handled entirely locally and I have my concerns about that. The problem is the city is part of a state-wide pension program that is behemoth fraud.

Ah, I was wondering if it was an attempt to tax home shopping. UK pays for that in part via national and council tax, but has similar problems with unfunded pension liabilities, and regular pay rises. So there was an example of a school caretaker on a 6 figure salary higher than the Prime Miinister, simply because they'd been in that position for 30yrs and their pay had compounded. US property taxes have always confused me with incorporated vs unincorporated plats and different rules, ie when I looked some places had exemptions for school taxes if you were over a certain age, or your kids were. Not sure I agree with that given education is a public good, but I've seen there are problems in the US with empty, but expensively staffed schools.

A UID is the One Ring. Any breach could bring an entire nation to a halt. It's also a massive target for criminals since the data files would make identity theft a complete dawdle and it could be very difficult to impossible to recover. There are also varying levels of need to keep things locked up tight with passports being rather more important than a driving license. Social Security numbers in the US have been compromised and unguarded for ages.

Yup, I think there are pros and cons. There are similar issues to SSID with the UK's NI numbers. They're both widely used as ID, even though they probably shouldn't. I think an advantage of a UID used by all official systems is it might make recovery from ID theft simpler. Show evidence the ID's been compromised, then cancel old one and issue new one. It probably won't do much to reduce ID theft but it might make recovering from it easier, if there was a single point of contact to notify and push updates rather than the victim having to deal with multiple agencies.

Something that might help reduce ID theft is creating a way for data subjects to monitor activity on their UID. I once was refused credit, tried Experian's system to query my credit record and failed their ID validation because I couldn't answer questions about a loan I didn't have. So sent a formal Subject Access Request and found I had 5 people living in my 2-bed apartment, which perhaps explained why the milk vanished. Having a portal to check might help prevent that, ie property and tenancy agreements require ID, so being able to see if I'd moved, or mysterious strangers had moved in with me might help reduce fraud. Even better would be requiring all data controllers (with exceptions like LEAs) to provide data subjects with copies of all personal data held quarterly, or at least annually.

For voting though, if there was a trusted ID-residence-entitlement system, then it might help clean up electoral rolls. But an issue with that is they're currently localised, isolated and outsourced. The outsourcers would naturally object to a federalised system that cuts them off from their fees. In the UK and EU, it's already happening though to create online ID systems under the guise of online safety.. With the UK selecting Fujitsu, of Post Office fame. What could possibly go wrong? But ID services are something 'Big Tech' has been lobbying for years, ie logging into your government service with your FaceMelta ID. FaceMelta obviously loves this idea because they'd make bank, and of course it might provide a more trusted way to link our identities to all the other data they collect and sell.

Re: Plastic Dossier

Eel,

You come off as a foaming at the mouth conspiracy theorist.

Et tu, Brute. All I need to do to get people foaming at the mouth here is mention Trump, or criticise Clinton. If you actually bother to read what I post, I'm actually more interested in democracy and ways to safeguard that.

Re: Photo ID in UK

If she hadn't run off to fight for a terrorist group then there wouldn't have been an issue. I have no doubt that if a UK citizen went off to fight for Russia against Ukraine you'd not want them back.

They're both lifestyle choices. Begim chose an extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism over moderate Islam, or more traditional British lifestyle and values. She chose to reject the UK, so too bad. If she wants to live in an Islamic nation, other choices are available and she can request asylum in one of those. I think Ukraine gets a bit more complicated. So if someone chooses to go fight against Nazis, maybe that's a good thing, after all being a Nazi is mostly illegal in the UK. If they're fighting with Nazis, maybe we don't want those people back either, and both Ukraine and Russia offer citizenship for volunteers. AFAIK volunteers haven't been stripped of their UK citizenship, but probably would be interviewed about their motivations, and could be prosectuted if there's evidence they committed crimes.

Some aspects are also similar to Begim though and having seen interviews with foreign volunteers, many were very ignorant of the history, politics and civil war. Plus a lot really didn't understand what they were getting in for, especially a conflict as brutal as the SMO has been.

Re: Photo ID in UK

Many issues on a ballot are only applicable to a certain area. It's bad enough that renters in my area are allowed to vote on a proposed parcel tax extension. It would be even worse if voters in other parts of the state could chime in as well. In the US, districts are defined and politicians run to represent a particular district of be a mayor of a certain town. If you don't live there, you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

I hate to think what a parcel tax might be. Aren't they already covered by postage and sales taxes?

Rest is a basic IT problem. Well, not so basic, but..

Step 1. ID everyone and issue a UID. For all official purposes, this is me. Ok, some issues to resolve, like ID theft linked to existing UIDs like the US SSN..

Step 2. Add metadata for voting entitlement.

Step 3. Have a simple portal that can allow metadata linked to a UID to be quickly and easily updated, like address info

Easy really. Well, except for keeping that secure, preventing fraud, government overreach etc etc. US system seems to be a lot more complicated given differences in State & Federal laws/regulations. This UID is entitled to vote in these elections, so simple, right? But kind of why a national ID card could be a good thing, except for the usual problem of the database ending up being abused. Labour tried it in the UK, it got repealed, but the plan never really went away and is being pushed still in various guises like election integrity, ID fraud prevention, online safety etc etc.

But that still wouldn't prevent potential frauds. I used to be involved in politics, mainly to get an inside look at how it worked. So locked into a Town Hall for the count. So a rather laborious process with tellers counting paper votes, and party scrutineers allowed to watch. We could challenge a ballot if we thought the marks weren't clear, or tellers would show us ballots and we could poll ourselves to decide who it was really for. But then the push for voting machines that could automate this, in theory. Except the last election had issues with everything from wrong paper sizes to possible remote logins. Exciting new ways to potentially committ election fraud! Or more simple problems. AFAIK some US procedures scan ballot papers, save counts and then the physical ballots are destroyed. Then when machines can't read ballots, they're manually 'cured'. Some stuff came out of an investigation into 'Zuckerbucks' that claimed his agents used same color pens to 'cure' ballots, so the curiing wasn't obvios as election rules state. So partisan operatives potentially manipulating the vote. Then if those original ballots are destroyed, there's no way to audit results, or in a case I can't find out right now, a state official decided to encrypt results so they cannot be challenged.

Or things like the results from the primaries. Apparently DC (pop 700,00ish) only has around 2,500 registered Republicans. The election process is supposed to be neutral, but in a city overwhelmingly Democrat.. can that be trusted? The Hatch Act is supposed to be anti-partisan, but in an increasingly divided political system, can that be trusted? Or can private contractors and volunteers be trusted? So back to Zuckerbucks-

https://rollcall.com/2024/02/07/lawmakers-clash-over-zuckerbucks-and-how-to-stop-private-election-funding/

“These funds were intended to support poll worker recruitment efforts or the purchase of new equipment. But in reality, some of these funds were used primarily for voter registration events and get-out-the-vote efforts in Democratic-leaning cities and towns,” the Wisconsin Republican said, arguing that these measures undermined the public’s trust in election administration.

I'm not convinced that's actually a bad thing, ie encouraging people to vote is arguably a good thing. If the Republicans didn't do the same thing, well, that's too bad. But problem with Zuckerbucks is it apparently went a lot further, ie staffing and taking over election processes instead of just funding them.

So a wicked problem made worse by politics. The basic idea should still be making sure people can trust in elections and the results.

Re: Photo ID in UK

Maybe if when they arrived the labour govt at the time could have ensured they were given them the right paperwork and those that had been given paperwork had then kept it then there would not have been an issue.

I'm guessing you weren't around when Blair & Co. tried to bring in the UK's ID cards? I campaigned against that, even though in principle the idea of a single ID Card is a good one, the implementation was a typical bureaucratic circle jerk. List every address you've lived at for the last 20yrs with exact dates. I have no clue, and have moved around a lot.

It's much the same with charges for ID docs, like replacement birth certificates, especially if they have to be notarised. Why would I need a physical copy? Government already has that, so why would I need a copy of something they already hold to 'validate' information they already have? Especially when per the DPA, data controllers have a legal responsibility to ensure the data they hold is accurate. So simple solution would be to send the data subject everything they want for an ID and allow us to check that. But nope, bureacrats love making people fill out blank forms, and threatening large fines if anything is inaccurate.

But such is politics. With most ID schemes, the challenge and risk is usually with the database. Or more accurately, databases that can't or won't talk to each other. All that's really needed for an ID Card is a UID that uniquely identifies me. But we already have that, ie NI number in UK, or SSN for US. But a UID that can link to whatever relevant data already held negates most of the need for garbage that was proposed for the UK's ID Card system. Holding some of it on the card might be convenient, but also carries risks. The real problem is behind the scenes. So in the US (and UK) it's a legal requirement to update address for drivers licences. It's also a legal requirement to notify changes of address for Poll.. I mean Council Tax. Then there's the Electoral Roll, that's also mean to hold names and addresses. But AFAIK, they don't really talk to each other very well.

So a voter ID or ID card maybe helps prevent personation. Better hygiene and more joined-up databases might help reduce postal/ballot fraud. Then it's just a case of re-risking stuff like signature verification, the 'curing' and counting process and all the other things that are necessary for a trusted electoral system.

Re: Photo ID in UK

Frankly it's time governments focused on closing the bear gap. Do you have any idea how many have they in Russia, and China has at least 10 different kinds.

Sadly, that bit is true, eg-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68675794

A brown bear that injured five people during a rampage in a Slovak town has been shot dead, Environment Minister Tomas Taraba says.

And we thought urban foxes was a bad idea. I think a hiker was also killed by a bear recently in Slovakia. But it's a bit like polar bears. They were arguably over-hunted, hunting was banned/restricted, now they're no longer endagered they're becoming a threat to public safety again. Fortunately most places with polar bears also have advice like 'carry a gun'.. except oddly, Russia where firearms are tightly controlled. But not as tighly as within the EU. So the bear population has been happily expanding in Europe, especially around the Carpathians. The solution probably isn't to go full-Alaska and let everyone pack .45-70s, but culling seems like a really good idea. Especially as eco-freaks are busily re-introducing large predators like bears & wolves all around Europe.

As for voters dressed as bears, that'll be fine until we get to pack those .45-70s. I'm pretty sure furries are now a protected species. Might even be a market to create verified paw prints, but as long as they can pass any required ID checks, it's all good.

And, of course, the longest composite words are almost everytime coming from politicians, beaurocrats

Germans are not alone in that respect. See also the Welsh and the 'worlds longest placename'. Oh how they laughed winning that world record. Oh how the Welsh cried when they realised filling in their address on pretty much any official form was going to take forever. Only 58 letters!

But republicans who initiate voter ID laws don't do of any of those things because they are putting the ID requirement in place to suppress the minority vote.

Of course they are geniarse. So poor people and 'minorities'. Soo.. what do you need to access welfare and social services in the US? Or obtain a SNAP or EBT card? Or if you're a minority, deal with being stopped and asked 'papers please'?

But no, it's all an evil conspiracy to deny election integrity and security. Also funnily enough, the Republicans have been gaining 'minority' votes because those minorities are often the victims of Democrat's policies. People want law and order, safety and security. Minorities tend to like stuff like Trump attending the wake for a murdered NYPD officer, while Biden throws a $500,000 a head fundraiser. At least Diller's murderer is actually in jail, unlike many other violent criminals who go through NYC's catch & release program.

Re: Stupid people

And this attitude is normally considered ridiculous, but there was also an internet discussion that Trump's computer was accessing Russian internal sources several months before the US election. with a lot of DNS monitoring.

Yep. You're right about that. This is the problem with 'misinformation'. A lot of people are extremely gullible. Many of them support the Democrats. Some are even IT types who support the Democrats. Other IT types look at this bombshelll and just go 'WTF?'

But it's explained here-

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/1/13486596/trump-russia-alfabank-server-hotline-connection-debunk

A simple DNS query to a mailserver somehow gets spun into a conspiracy theory from the person who wiped her mail server 'with a cloth'. Later, there were of course other conspiracy theories where someone decided to leak Whitehouse DNS records.. but Democrats have rarely been concerned with security.

Re: Stupid people

Just fact checking this. The Steele dossier was partially paid for by her foundation but neither Clinton nor her team personally wrote it.

I paid for your assassination, but I didn't pull the trigger. So I'm entirely innocent right? It doesn't matter whether she wrote it or not, but her election campaign certainly span the heck out of it.

Re: Photo ID in UK

Younger people and minorities? What a ridiculous excuse, if you arent eligible to vote, you cant vote, a picture ID along with your poll card is what lets you vote. you need to prove who you are, nothing is stopping younger people and minorities getting ID cards, you can get one for free from the government site.

Yep, plus young people are already conditioned to require ID, ie age ID to buy booze, go to pubs & clubs etc. I guess even stuff like non-transferable tickets for concerts helps as well.

But the real challange and risk is still around the integrity of votes that aren't cast in person. So verifying postal ballots etc. In future, e-voting could probably be made to work, but not everyone has Internet access, 'smart' phones etc. A lot is also down to isolated systems, ie voter registration and electoral rolls are often outsourced and suffer from poor hygiene leaving them open to abuse, or just errors. The last US election kinda highlighted those issues being mid-Covid and an increasingly mobile population.

They're not unsolvable problems though, and improving election integrity and security might help stop all the pointless (and often dishonest) arguments.

Re: Stupid people

It was Hillary's campaign team that made up that lie, you know?

Democrats support the right to lie. TSHTF around the world, and the leader of the free world just gave a speech about how he used to take the train across the Baltimore bridge. Now, he's off to do extremely important thing, namely attend a fundraiser with Clinton, Obama and a bunch of celebs. This is how the 'ordinary Americans' roll..

Re: Plastic Dossier

Nobody's interested in your conspiracy theories STFU.

And yet you chose to respond. Thank you for your well considered and insightful contribution to the debate. If nothing else, you've shown just how 'liberal' Democrats can be, and how they absolutely do not act as fascists. And even choosing to do so from an anonymong account. Are you embarrased to be attributed to your comments?

The only reason people falsely believe elections are such a "sham" is because of liars like your Orange Jesus who started making claims of election fraud long before the first, second and now third election he faced because being known as a loser is the worst thing in the world.

And Al Gore did the same thing with his hanging chads. Hilary has been whining about how her election was stolen.

But Democrats don't believe in democracy, hence why they're obstructing pretty much every attempt to investigate or improve the US voting system. Methinks they doth protest too much. Plus there's also the Streisand effect in play. Every time they throw Trumped up charges against the Orange One, his polling tends to improve. If they'd just ignored him, maybe he'd just have faded from the public consciousness. Instead, the Democrats have probably given him billions in free publicity, and if he wins his appeals, he'll get even more.

But you also highlight the real problem with modern politics. I have no real skin in the US elections games. You assume because I question the Dem's motives, I must be an 'extreme MAGA Republican' and Trump supporter. As I keep pointing out, I'm actually a libertarian, and if you want a functioning democracy, you have to be able to trust (and verify) election systems. I can't remember where this happened, but there's an ongoing case where the governor(?) encrypted voting results so they couldn't be examined, or challenged.. Despite no legal authority to obstruct in that way.

Anyone who believes in democracy should find that kind of behaviour troubling, regardless of what colour they wear.

Re: Photo ID in UK

In fact, personation was not, and is not, seen as a problem by the Electoral Commission. All requiring a PhotoID to vote does is put yet another brake on the general population's voting rights.

I think it's more about the creeping compulsion to introduce ID cards in the UK. Also has some interesting consequences, ie for an experiment, I took an expired passport and was told it wasn't a valid ID document. Why not?

US is rather different and you can't really do anything without ID, so their argument that requiring ID is somehow 'racist' is totally bogus. That's also morphing things like driver's licences, or-

An applicant for a Real ID, either as a new driver license or ID card applicant, or renewing a current license or ID card, must present a citizenship document (US passport, certified birth certificate or citizenship certificate) or proof of legal immigrant status, proof of a Social Security number if they have been issued one, proof of any name changes if using birth certificate, and two proofs of residency in the state.

Some drivers licences already include things like CCPs for officer safety, and could easily add voting entitlement. But with a lot of ID card issues does little to prevent absentee voter fraud. Which is where the real problems lie, ie no real focus on security and integrity around mail-in or drop-box frauds. Basic theory is simple though. Laws state who is entitled to vote. If they're not, the vote should be counted. But implementing that is the challenge, and various investigations have show problems with accurate voter rolls, signature verification etc etc. All compounded by an increasingly mobile population. But laws can help with that, ie for drivers licences, it's mandatory to notify changes of address within a fairly short time. But that's also a challenge in general with ID systems. My identity is me. Not my address. So if I decide to live in a mobile home, what happens then?

Isn’t it strange how only the elections he loses are fraudulent...

Don't you mean 'she'? Nearly 10yrs on, and she's still going on about how she was robbed. See also Al Gore and hanging chads, or just the way pretty much every US election has been challenged by one party or the other in the last few decades..

But he can't, because there is no such evidence, and he has always known and admitted to insiders that he lost... hacking that somehow amazingly affects even hand recounts of paper ballots!

And yet, investigations continue, irregularities are discovered, prosectutions for election interference or irregulaties are ongoing.

In a perfect world, this stuff should be investigated thoroughly. After all, free & fair elections are fundamental to democracy. And yet when questions are raised, Democrats jump into insta-denial mode and block investigations.. Usually when they can't possibly know the truth because there has been no investigation. Or, those investigations have been obstructed. So then we end up with 'secure' voting machines with mysterious logins from Kosovo. As I've said before, not necessarily proof of interference, just evidence of perhaps weaker security than we've been lead to believe, and easily fixed with 2FA for logins.

Then for paper ballots, there have been questions, and prosecutions for ballot stuffing. There's also stuff like 'Zuckbucks', and the way 'independent' campaigners pushed out election officials, took over critical roles like counts and 'curing' ballots etc.. All of which provide opportunities for election interference, even if they may not have altered the outcome.

Or there's more blatantly political stuff. The UK's introduced a photo ID requirement for voting in person. This can reduce election interference. The US, or the DNC is refusing any attempts to introduce voter ID, and pushing hard for mail-in votes with very weak voter ID and verification, which increases the risks of election interference.

All of which goes towards creating exciting new conspiracy theories rather than just doing some simple stuff to improve election security and integrity.

Re: Plastic Dossier

Yep. I liked this part-

Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 White House race, has personal experience with election disinformation attempts and how technology can be potentially used for nefarious purposes.

She should certainly know. Nearly 10yrs later, she's still ranting about how she was robbed, despite running an extremely dirty campaign. And not understanding that she lost because a lot of Americans just can't stand entitled hypocrits like her.

Re: Still misleading

No matter what Google tracks and does not track, nothing prevents third-party websites or your ISP from tracking you when you are in incognito mode; and there's nothing Google can do about that.

Sure there is. Preventing ISP tracking is a bit harder, especially given the legal requirement for ISPs to retain communications data. That one can be kinda fixed by governments by legislating to throw ISP execs in jail for a minimum of 5-10yrs, if that data is shared outside of the LEA that's allowed to collect it. So in the UK, after tightening up rules on lawful intercepts, for bulk/automatic data collection that's pretty much just GCHQ. And they have better things to do than lol about our pron habits. Plus ISPs generally don't want to track you anyway because it's a PITA to do, and without DPI it doesn't really tell you much other than the basic TCP/IP header info. Sure, if the ISP runs DNS, they could maybe log DNS requests but a lot of ISPs outsource that to.. guess who? From my experience though, the only 'tracking' I've ever wanted or needed to do is collecting src/dst IP addresses for routing & peering analysis. Which is also where legislation can get FUN!, ie a few times I've needed to dig deeper in to packets to troubleshoot weird problems, which is generally legal given I'd got the users consent, and any data was deleted once I'd figured out what the heck was going on.

But AlphaGoo has many more options-

"must delete and/or remediate billions of data records that reflect class members' private browsing activities"; block third-party cookies in Incognito mode for the next five years (separately, Google is phasing out third-party cookies this year);

Hmm.. let me think for a second. How about blocking all cookies, and actually implement a real privacy mode? But then AlphaGoo's already in the process of changing Chrome to block anyone's cookies than it's own, as the report says. Funny how that works, AlphaGoo shutting out it's competitors..

Re: Now wait a minute

You're telling me that, if I get a Windows AI PC, I will be using Borkzilla's cloudy thingy whether I want to or not. Okay, got it.

But of course! It's the future! Possibly not one most of us want to live in, but Windoze exhibits a number of interesting behaviours if you try to use it with just a local account.

But my WinBox now has a Copilot. I know this because Windows Update did the usual thing of updating, but not shutting down again. Despite having every option to wake the PC disabled, and telling it if it really has to update, then it should update and shutdown. I wonder how much energy that collectively wastes? But MS force a Hobson's choice. You must update. If you pick a time where you might be using your PC, it'll happily shut down in the middle of you trying to do something, if you don't see the notification. So I set mine to update just before I normally wake, but it still seems to do a double reboot the next day.

If MS is that incompetent, why would I trust my Copilot?

But I got got. So I fired up Copilot and asked it "How to uninstall Copilot". Luckily it didn't go into HAL-mode. But it turns out that according to MS... I can't. It told me how I could use group policies to disable it. Luckily I have the 'Pro' version so have some illusion of control. But I want to uninstall, delete and prevent it from ever installing again.. But that doesn't seem possible.

Another 'feature' that snuck in is telling me the weather on the login splash screen. Not sure why MS thinks that's useful as I have real windows to tell me this. But I'm guessing this is where the ads will go. Which might have interesting consequences in an office environment, if ads are selected based on individual's browsing habits. Go ahead, lock your screen, go to lunch.. meanwhile, your cow-orkers may get to see some insight into your lifestyle. But another feature I'm going to have to figure out how to terminate with prejudice.

Re: Anticipating grid failure is more like it..

OK genius. So why is inflation now down and renewable energy deployments still on the rise?

Are you sure about that? Have you looked at the results of the last capacity auction? Look ma, no wind..

Also, "indexation feedback loop" is a myth. Otherwise inflation would be like entropy: always increasing.

Yep, at last you're beginning to understand. Energy is a key element of inflation. Energy costs increase, inflation increases, then that increases energy costs again. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Yet 'renewables' were supposed to reduce our energy costs, and yet they haven't. Why is this, I wonder?

Re: Anticipating grid failure is more like it..

Bollocks. Prices are determined by offer and demand. If supplier A is inefficient and supplier B is more efficient, supplier B will easily grow their market share at the expense of supplier A and eventually take supplier A out of the market.

Again you demonstrate your ignorance of well, everything. But it's been very easy to troll you because it's always been easy to keep throwing you shovels so you can keep digging..

So what happens in a market that is rigged to favour supplier A? Let's assign 'renewables' to that variable. The inefficient supplier A grows market share thanks to regulatory capture, which also forces suppliers, B, C, D out out of the market because it's rigged against them.

And, again, energy prices and inflation are two different things

Yes, again you state the obvious, but miss the connection. Energy prices are in input cost to pretty much everything. Energy costs rise, so do prices, so do wage, pension and social costs etc etc. Then because of the indexation feedback loop, energy costs/prices inflate again and the cycle repeats. Interest rates also play a part, ie despite claims of falling costs from the 'renewables' scumbags, they're also saying they have to keep inflating prices because it's harder to get free money.

Re: Anticipating grid failure is more like it..

Preposterous year 3 level confusion. Why do I need to state the obvious?

I have no idea why you attempt to state the obvious, other than it amusing me when you get it so very, very wrong.

Costs, as a measure of efficiency, only applies on seller side.

Uh, no. But then seeing as you brought this up..

You're again using prices to make a point about efficiency.

Nope, not really. But now you've gone there, it's again something you clearly don't understand. Yet I'm meant to believe you're an 'expert' in climate 'science' because you believe the Bbc & Grauniad. So business 101, as opposed to the Room 101 at the Bbc. Which used to be labelled 'Library'.

So efficiency is usually a relationship between two or more variables. So picking a simple one, ROI which is basically the difference between cost and price. I realise even that is a difficuly concept for you to grasp. That affects everyone in the supply chain. If the energy supplier, ie 'renewables' has high costs and is inefficient, that's going to increase the sell price. That then obviously impacts on the cost of the buyer, hence why so many businesses are going bust due to high energy costs. The ones that are currently surviving are becoming more inefficient because of those energy costs, especially as they're also inflated by all the subsidies. People are being made redundant due to those high costs, prices are increasing driving inflation, and businesses can't afford to invest in stuff that does useful work because they're struggling to pay their energy bills.

But I doubt you'll understand this, because I doubt you've ever done any useful work in your life.

ps.. and you still don't understand the way indexing affects inflation, or why electricity prices increase by either CPI or RPI, when most of those costs aren't relevant to a 'renewables' operator..

Re: More energy needed?

Still not multi-factorial. Want to give it another try?

Playing guessing games with morons is always such fun.

But the temperature 'record' was a result of-

Jetwash

Poor station siting

Reflected temperatures due to the above

Radiant heat from the above

Temporarily increased temperatures due to Hunga Tonga and ENSO

Variations in albedo

Variations in albedo due to SEPs, CRs, or just general solar behaviour

CO2

Enough factors for you? But your nanobrain can only hold one variable, which is of course CO2. It certainly cannot explain how CO2 could cause a 0.6C temperature variation that allowed the 'record' to be set, even though it only lasted around 10mins. It certainly can't explain why the Met Office decided to validate that record, when according to WMO records, a weather station like that is only accurate +/-1C.

Politics, and of course the billions being made/wasted from the global warming scam provide an easy explanation for the way the Met Office does 'science'.

Re: More energy needed?

Self proclaimed climate expert doesn't seem to understand that local heat waves are multi-factorial phenomenons

Sure I do. I'm the one pointing out the temperature record was set by jet wash, not 'global warming'. But you'll also note (or should) that I was questioning what was meant by 'intense heat'. The actual heat was pretty normal for a UK summer, and only 'intensified' to 'record' levels by a fraction of a degree. Hardly 'intense' is it? But then exageration is a characteristic of the pro-Global Warming terrorists.

Re: Cakeism...

One SMR most assuredly cannot deliver 9GW average.

It doesn't need to. It just needs to produce consistent, reliable power 24x7x365, which 'renewables' will never do. So look at the minimums from either wind or solar. SMRs can easily, and more cheaply deliver the 160MW wind has achieved YTD. A single RR SMR can double the capacity the entire UK wind fleet can deliver, for a lot less cost. But then comes the solution from the 'renewables' scumbags. Just add batteries!

So figuring on lows, a 160MW battery would supply enough electricity for 1s, 160MWh for 1 hour, etc etc. Then once you've drained the battery, which usually takes <1hr, the DC goes dark. Then when the wind picks up, you need to recharge it again which takes power out of supply.

Why is the data centre not moving to the generator is perhaps the more obvious question. Former steelworks and aluminium foundries used to be near our big nukes at Wylfa and Hartlepool respectively. Fibre optics don’t make much for the difference between 1km and 100km being at speed of light and all.

Ah, politics. I tried to do this once-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomes_Industrial_Estate

Given it was also close to international fibre routes that land on the East coast. Plus it was close enough to London and Slough for synchronous replication to work, and far enough to keep insurers happy. But we were outbid by other developers, which is the usual problem.

Russia has enough land to site SMRs well over 100km away from everyone. Can you cite examples of where they do have them operational? China doesn’t give a shit about anyone. Neither are models of nice places to be a citizen.

Neither is the UK as we struggle to keep our lights on, our cars, owning nothing except bugs and being happy. But I digress. I was looking at this list, which reckons it's mostly the power barges that are operational. But this also caught my eye-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RITM-200

In November 2020 Rosatom announced plans to place a land-based RITM-200N SMR in isolated Ust-Kuyga town in Yakutia. The reactor will replace current coal and oil based electricity and heat generation at half the price. Technical design for this type of RITM-200 core should be finished in 2022.

And curious how the economics of that would work. Ust-Kugya pretty much meets the definition of 'ass end of nowhere'. But Russia isn't exactly short of coal or oil, so assumed 'half the price' was due to transpot costs. But on further digging, it's a mining region that produces brown coal. Oh, and gold, which I suspect is what makes the economics work. Or it may be the cost of shipping in materials to build a larger coal power station vs the requirments to house the SMR.

Regarding kettles, 13A/240V doesn’t care if it’s wind or nuke sourced. There is no speed advantage. Did you write the marketing material for HS2 or something?

I am not the ghost of Terry Pratchett. NPPs though are essentially kettles. Boil water, make steam, spin turbines, run AI deepfakes. But it's also a Brexit thing. The EU, in their infinite wisdom proposed limiting kettles to 1kW to 'save energy'. Physics really isn't their thing, hence the continued promotion of windmills over nuclear.

Re: More energy needed?

Oh geeze. Are you trolling us now?

You are, if you think the Bbc is a reliable source when it comes to climate science.

The UK has very variable weather. But in recent years, climate scientists have observed periods of intense heat becoming more frequent around the world,

wtf does 'periods of intense heat' mean? CO2 has now gained function and the ability to self-organise into a CO2 laser now? But in some ways, the Bbc is slightly honest, eg the Coninsby record being man made. The author was a-

BBC<sic> climate disinformation reporter

So paid to produce climate disinformation. When they're not 'verifying' missile strikes in Sudan, terrorist attacks in Russia. And according to their LuckedIn profile, have no qualifications in any of those subject areas. Alternatively, read this-

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/28/exclusive-three-typhoon-jets-landed-next-to-measuring-device-when-britains-record-temperature-of-40-3c-was-recorded/

At 15:10, the temperature suddenly jumped by 0.6°C to hit the 40.3°C record at 15.12. Within 60 seconds, the record temperature dropped back by 0.6°C. At the time, the Met Office claimed that verifying the record had been a “rigorous process” and that all data was accurate.

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? So yes, the temperature record was 'man made', by the pilots of the 3 Typhoons. The actual record should have been caveated as +/- 1°C due to the weather station not meeting WMO siting standards, but the Met Office no longer cares about data quality, just publicity. And I guess you could argue it was CO2 given jet exhausts probably contain a fair amount of that.

Re: More energy needed?

Global warming is a scam?

Yep.

A Texas setup breaks - let's give up and burn oil! A brilliant idea!

If you say so. Where have I suggested burning oil though? What's wrong with 'burning' uranium?

Typical MAGA anti-science conspiracy theory rubbish. No wonder you're a brexiteer. I know someone quite dumb who voted for brexit, but even he now realises he was wrong.

Oh my! The omnirant! I keep posting about science, anonymongs keep foaming at the mouth. But I also know of some peope who were quite dumb. One lot believed in a Jewish anti-science conspiracy theory and luckily for us, that mean we set up da bomb before they could. Another lot believed in a chap called Lysenko, and you lot are now busily following his methods. The only science is neo-Lysenkoism! Ban ICEs, build moar windmills.

Facists like you have rarely bothered with science, and more often in history have done exactly the same thing.. demonise, denounce and sometimes just simply execute anyone that disagrees with them

Re: More energy needed?

Did you just "reply" to my discussion on GLOBAL sea surface temperatures by whinging about the UK record being set at Coningsby? Doesn't seem very good faith.

Yep. You mentioned the UK's record, but I chose not to quote that part and picked another element instead. But you're right. Reality deniers rarely act in good faith, and their dogma relies on absolute blind faith that whatever the occasion, CO2 is the causal agent. Even when there's no possible correlation, or physical process possible that allows CO2 to create the effect.

So this story all started here-

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

The University of Maine have got a model, and they're not afraid to (ab)use it. They also don't have a great deal of faith in their work, as the site's disclaimer explains-

The University of Maine and the Climate Change Institute make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness of any information on this website or data contained within.

How.. reassuring. But previously UoM grabbed media attention after claiming 2024 was the 'hottest evah'. Ecoterrorists just love a good scare story, especially when it's driving a hot topic and multi-trillion dollar industry like the Global Warming scam. But I digress-

This page shows daily sea surface temperature estimates from NOAA OISST v2.1

So it's a model of a model. As climate 'science' often is. Data may be missing, tampered with, errors accumulate, but a good scare story generates publicity, which attracts funding, and suddenly the world notices the UoM. But notice the website says nothing about attribution..

Quite correct. The 30 years rolling average is pretty unequivocal. It's getting warmer.

Than.. what? And why 'since 1850?'. Why pick the end of the Little Ice Age? Wouldn't you expect it to get warmer, if the LIA had ended? Of course the climate 'science' approach is to simply deny the LIA. Along with the MWP. Oh, and of course ice cores and other studies that confirm those, as well as CO2 levels rising following temperature rises. When effect (temperature) preceeds cause (CO2), then CO2 is obviously the driver.. somehow.

ROFL. Could you find me an independent fact checker who has anything nice to say about him? Anyone?

Could you find me an independent fact checker? You don't cite your sources, but I can imagine who they'd be. When in doubt, attempt to shoot the messenger rather than the message. But this is why climate 'science' hates Tony Heller. NASA alters their climate record to make 1921 cold. If they left the record intact, there wouldn't be such a nice warming trend, there'd be no correlation with CO2, and more people might start questioning the dogma. I'm guessing you didn't bother watching the vid, but if you did, you'll just see him whip out a bunch of newspaper articles contradicting NASA and exposing their blatant data manipulation.

But the bigger story is the hate been poured onto Durkin's latest movie, "Climate, the Movie". This has a bunch of actual climate scientists offering a different theory to CO2 dogma. That theory also potentially explains the SST event, when CO2 cannot. Plus that volcano again. Real climate is cyclical, effects like ENSO, PDO, AMO etc have different periodicities, so when peaks coincide, effects are increased. Throw in transient warming and SSTs aren't unexpected, or at all anthropomorphic. Hence why the reality deniers are so desperate to stop people watching that documentary.

Re: off peak power

There's a big degree of optimism to hope for that, but it could reduce system costs, and automate a lot of grid balancing, meaning that electricity users can do what they should always have been able to do of using power when they want at a price they know in advance (and hopefully without crap-headed time of day pricing)

Don't forget surge pricing. That's become increasingly common. So now, instead of just having a simple 2 or 3 tariff system like off-peak, standard and peak rates at set times of the day that could be plugged into a cheap time switch, our brave new world happened. So now we'll need a 'smart' meter, 'smart' appliances and a 'smart' app that control all that and turn stuff on & off based on the current price per kWh.

None of that is readily available now, fault rates on 'smart' meters are horrendous and it'll all cost far more than a simple time switch we can plug appliances of our choosing into. Plus it'll all be controlled from the cloud, which means when the DCs or networks inevitably go dark, it'll all stop working. Now, if only there were truly 'smart' meters that could select the lowest tariff from a simple rates feed, it may actually encourage 'smart' meter adoption and price competition between suppliers..

Re: More energy needed?

Most places solar runs out every night and starts again the following day, wind turbines run out when the wind stops.

Some places solar runs out for months at a time, other times its almost constant for months.

problems can be found all lover when you look

And last week, it was Damon, Texas-

https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-solar-panels-texas-destroyed-hailstorm-1883546

Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.

Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.

Oops. Sorry Texans, the AI can't see you now. Well, it can't see anything because it's gone dark. This is one of the most bizarre aspects about the great Global Warming scam. We're told if we don't 'invest' in 'renewables', there'll be even more 'extreme' weather events. Yet common weather events happily destroy 'renewable' projects like this. I guess what they really mean by 'renewable' and 'sustainable' is projects like this solar farm create revenue in constantly supplying replacement panels.

Re: Cakeism...

So, huge bun fight here between x, y and z about DCs, AI, nuclear, green, net zero etc etc, but nobody appears to be suggesting we stop consuming as much power or even just using less of the stuff. I mean it's kind of embarassing that we're all fighting over how to power DCs to deliver social media, deepfakes, the best holiday itinerary and whatnot.

Yep, but at least MS is putting it's money where it's mouth is, and vice-versa. It needs affordable and reliable power, or it's entire business model of forcing everything into the cloud and milking customers for subscriptions isn't going to work. It also knows about stuff like this-

https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind

minimum: 0.16 GW maximum: 16.713 GW average: 9.321 GW

which are the YTD wind figures. Bit barns need reliable power. Wind cannot deliver this. Currently MS can greenwash their DCs and buy REGOs, but it can't run it's business on 'renewables' reliably. So it makes sense that MS has been looking at and investing in SMR designs-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor#List_of_reactor_designs

One, single SMR can deliver more power than the entire UK wind fleet for much less cost. Obviously a single SMR becomes a single point of failure, so just buy a couple. They'll keep on generating at a constant rate, 24x7x365 and keep the DC's lights on. 'Renewables' cannot, and never will be able to do this. Even better, MS and it's generating partner can sell any surplus power, and with some regulatory changes, might even qualify for some of the Green subsidies offered to the 'renewables' scumbags. SMRs are, after all low carbon power sources.

Of course Russia and China both already have SMRs in operation, and don't have the insane regulatory environment or regulatory capture that the UK does. Our neo-luddites and 'renewables' scumbags absolutely hate SMRs because they offer the prospect of obsoleting their 'technology' once again. Last time it happened, we used coal to generate steam and spin turbines. The Age of Sail was replaced by the Age of Steam, and the Industrial Revolution happened. Now, nuclear can boil the kettles faster and cleaner than coal and gas, but the neo-luddites would rather we go back to pre-Industrial technology and lifestyles.

Re: More energy needed?

Yes you can, and in fact that's roughly current government policy of achieving 24GW of nuclear capacity by 2050, albeit they've not firmly committed to anything beyond Hinkley C. But that means a bill of around £400-500bn at current prices (and probably a lot more) and quarter of a century to achieve - before the inevitable delays.

We've kinda, sorta committed to the new Sizewell NPP though, haven't we? But part of the problem with government is they do stuff like 'committ' to catchy, media friendly dates like 2050 without understanding the consequences. Fools rush in and all that. Especially as government can also control demand, ie delay decarbonising heating, cooking and transport until after we have the generating infrastructure and can support the increased demand.

Re: More energy needed?

We're now in a record-breaking year - not 2024, but the fact that since 13 March 2023, the Daily Sea Surface temperature has been the highest on record for that day since 1981, and are more than 2σ above the average for that period (more than 3σ most of the time actually). So far temperatures for 2024 are comfortably exceeding the same day for 2023. Global average air temperatures are doing the same.

Uh huh. From your Wennington Wildfire link-

Advance predictions were made that the UK's all-time temperature record could be broken,[15] which it was, with the highest temperature recorded in the country 40.3 °C (104.5 °F) in Coningsby, Lincolnshire,

That would be the home of RAF Coningsby, where the weather station is sited next to the flightline. This might be good for flight ops, but makes it a lousy weather station by WMO standards. But for around 10mins, ie pretty much 1 sample interval, CO2 set a new temperature record. Then temperatures promptly fell back to more seasonal, or just daily average tems. So somebody checked with RAF Coningsby and a flight of 3 Typhoons just happened to be taxiing and taking off at the same time. Their jet exhausts set records, not 'global warming'. But given the number of 'records' set at airports and other badly sited weather stations, it is clear proof that 'Global Warming' is man-made after all.

As for the rest, 1 year does not make a climate change. A 'climate' is 30yrs of average weather. So over 'climate' timescales, stuff like this gets averaged out-

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/26/hunga-tonga-volcano-cause-of-recent-high-temperatures-says-scientist/

Hunga Tonga was a massive subsea volcanic eruption that chucked a truly collosal* amount of water into the atmosphere. Volcanos have done this before, eg the Tambora eruption mentioned in the article. H2O is a far better greenhouse 'gas' than CO2 given the absorption points overlap, except for a narrow 'atmospheric window'. Which is also why CO2 dogma is much like homeopathy, so tiny amounts can have enormous effects. Just ignore the H2O used to dilute the memories of warming. But I digress..

This is a rapidly heating climate which has finally triggered a positive feedback loop and really start taking off in the past 12 months. I know people have been banging on about it for decades, but it's now actually happening. The inflection point has been reached.

Sooo.. what if it doesn't start taking off? Weather and climate aren't like a Typhoon. But this is also why events like Hunga Tonga are great for science, just not 'climate science'. Science theorises that increased water vapour due to that eruption could lead to warming. So far, that part of the theory appears to have been validated by multiple measurements. Next part of that theory is that as the effects of Hunga Tonga recede, temperatures will return to normal. Both water vapour and temperature can be measured reliably by satellite microwave sounders, weather ballooons and research sounding rockets.

So if temperatures start falling again, how do you explain that via CO2 dogma? For climate 'science', the usual answer is to just ignore, or worse, alter the data. That's explained here-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJLEGVysy-c

NLP/the anonymong will be along momentarily to denounce Tony Heller, and ignore the inconvenient truth about the way historical temperature records have been deliberately altered to create an entirely fake and man-made historical temperature record for the US. 1921 went from being part of the widely documented Dust Bowl and Great Depression to a cold year, all with a simple and entirely unjustified spreadsheet hack. Normally, faking data in such a blatant way would be considered gross scientific misconduct, but different rules apply in climate 'science'.

*I have no idea how many swimming pool equivalents that would be.

Re: More energy needed?

To be fair to JP, he's doing his job within the limits of what the incompetent DBEIZ/OFGEM/Government triumvirate will let him do. But to really live up to the ambition we need to do a LOT of speculative investment.

Not a problem. That's what businesses are expected to do. Take risks, take the rewards. Except of course 'JP' isn't taking any risks in a rigged market where he knows he can shunt the investment risk onto his customers and then trouser the profits. NG Plc generates enough profits to take a few risks without asking for even more subsidies and rigging the market in it's favour. But then that's soo much fun when you're running an effective monopoly.

Re: More energy needed?

I am reminded of a UKIPper that asked the question "what happens when renewable energy runs out"?

It's much more fun to ask a neo-luddite what happens when wind speeds fall. Then point them at the Met Office or IPCC reports that say average wind speeds have been falling, and the IPCC predicts both more calm days and 'extreme weather'. Then ask why we're wasting billions on a generating system that's entirely dependent on, and vulnerable to the weather and 'climate change'. Meanwhile, NPPs don't care. We're an island surrounded by a massive heat sink after all.

but he knows where I work professionally.

McDonalds? An on-site security guard at an off-shore windfarm?

Re: About NoTricksZone

You problem, JE, is that you start by picking your preferred conclusion and then only go ahead and hunt "facts" that prove it right. If, in the process, you come across facts that disprove it, you either ignore or dismiss them. Totally anti-scientific.

Uh huh.. Come rain or shine, wind or snow, the answer's CO2, so it must go. CO2, the miracle molecule that heats, cools, brought an end to the Little Ice Age and answered the age-old question.. How can we make money out of thin air?

But with a moment of introspection, you'd realise you actually hit on the problem. CO2 is the answer to any question. Any alternatives, like maybe, just maybe wooden thermometers suck is immediately denounced and denied. Any null hypothesis gets the same treatment. And you know I've long been a fan of Svensmark's theory, which CERN validated. Variations in albedo provide a much better answer to climate change than CO2.

But you're right, anything that might challenge CO2 dogma is immediately ignored or dismissed. That is indeed anti-scientific, but sadly it's exactly the method climate 'science' uses. Don't forget dear'ol Stephen Schneider who said (paraphrasing) it's ok to lie about the science because there's so much money to be made. NG boss wants another £10bn to build more grid. Oh happy days when he can get us to make that 'investment', and trouser any ROI. It's no wonder NG Plc is such a fan of 'renewables' when it generates so much new business, revenues and profits.

Oh, and you still haven't told me what you don't like about those papers. Are you ignoring, or just dismissing them because they challenge your world view?