Anorak Corner

Christopher Monckton is no ordinary fellow. Outspoken and trenchant, he could probably start an argument in an empty room. But he is bright, and determined. He has argued credibly and loudly against Anthropomorphic Global Warming, and whilst you won't see him on the BBC (heavens, no!) those honest folk at Fox News, uncomplicated by Leftism and guided by their loyalty to their constitution, gave him a slot last week. A proper slot, lasting an hour, with the company of John Bolton, that fine undiplomatic diplomat, who calls a spade a bloody shovel.

I have given you part one above. But YouTube has to break things up into bite-sized bits, so there are 6 more after this (with a bit of overlap in places). I urge you to visit that vital haven of sanity, WattsUpWithThat, which gets 2 million hits a month, for the remainder of the show.

Are you enough of an anorak to listen to the whole lot? I was. Did you follow the mathematical demonstration first time? No, nor did I.

Copenhagen is going to cost us hundreds of billions in tax over the next few years. I smell a big fat multinational government rat. Our own discredited and ludicrous Prime Minister says we have 50 days left to save the earth, as does the quite mad Prince of Wales (but God bless our monarchy regardless, we've coped with madder and badder ones than Charles before). I think a huge and cynical con is being played upon the taxpayers of the developed nations. All power to Lord Monckton, slightly strange fish though he may be. Listen to his argument.

Send for Clouseau

Fact One: Blair Government Reneges on Referendum Promise on Constitutional/Lisbon Treaty
(Headlines, 2005-2009)


Fact Two: UK Government Throws its Weight Behind Blair as First European President
(Headline, BBC News, 26 October 2009)


At this point, put on a macintosh, cloth hat, and leather gloves. Effect a franglais accent.

"You will notice, Cato, ze old 'It's no longeur ze Constitutional Treaty' ploy. Even zat madman Dreyfus would be able to decifer zis one. Cato, my leetle yellow friend, I 'ave ze detective's instinct and I can tell you zat zere ees something distinctly feeshy about zis. Even ze organ grinder and hees minkey would be able to solve zees."

"Cato....... Cato? NOT NOW, CATOooooooooooo!" etc

Call me an old cynic, but I do believe this was planned before 2005. Where are the Tory attack dogs to point this out in a way that even the bovine Labour clientstate voters in the Northern inner cities would understand and find revolting?

The Place To Stay in Lancashire

As I was being driven from Preston to Clitheroe this morning (oh, the style of this new job!) we passed a hamlet on the A59. A sign loomed a hundred yards ahead. Black writing upon a white background, it appeared to say "BROWN LEAVES COUNTRY". The 'the' and the 'hotel' were in a smaller font. Is that a joke, I asked my Lancastrian companion. No, he replied, it's a real hotel. I can't be entirely sure he got my drift.

Sadly, I couldn't get the mobile phone into picture mode soon enough, so the pictorial evidence above comes from their website.

The rooms start at £45 a night and no, I don't plan a visit. And yes, we do have entrepreneurs near the Pennine grouse moors with eight figures to invest.

With my current output drier than the Sahara, any post will just have to do. But it's nice thought, is it not?

How to Deal With Knee-Jerk Big Government Journos

Gotta love that Milton. A pint-sized giant.

PS If the comments bar isn't showing - dunno why, but it does this sometimes - doubleclick on the title and the post plus comments will appear. The idle blog follows a full-comment policy.

The Nobel Peace of Cake Prize

Take one black community organiser and put him up against the boot-faced, humourless, divisive lawyer wife of a discredited (if charming) ex-president; assure the black senator's nomination.

Run against a Republican party that is labouring beneath the weight of disgust and unpopularity of its retiring two-term president, during a financial crisis of epic proportions.

Create messianic fervour for an untested socialist politician, because WE CAN! Encourage said Messiah to give speeches suggesting that the toothpaste can be forced back into the tube, the genie pushed back into the lamp, and the world denied nuclear weapons, wherever they may be, and whoever may have the recipe.

Nominate the new fellow for a Peace Prize as a wild punt, expecting it will in fact be awarded to a worthy brave recipient, or at the very least a long-serving Finnish diplomat who has made many trips over many years attempting to stop rival tribes slaughtering each other in a hot, humid African or Asian backwater.

Watch, open-mouthed, as the 200-1 long shot comes in at a canter.

Let's not blame Obama for this, though. This is what happens when left-leaning peace prize committee members have too much aquavit with their sprats at the pre-vote lunch.

PS James Forsyth at the Speccie finishes his post with this:

My favourite quote on the Nobel Peace Prize comes from a friend who just reminded me that ‘it’s the prize that Gandhi didn’t win but Arafat did.’

Irish Re-Jig

On 13 June 2008, I wrote a short post entitled "Brave Bogtrotters Banish Brussels". Illustrated with a picture of a couple of fair colleens in their tricoleur swimwear, I congratulated the Irish people for their good sense and robust independence. They had had a good look at the Fritzes, Christianos and Jacques who planned to run the Irish state as a satellite of Brussels, and had said "no tanks, to be sure", or words to that effect.

Well, I take it all back. It was just the old Irish sense of humour, rascals that they are; they never meant to stop the dishonest undemocratic Euro juggernaut, they just wanted to be taken seriously for for a while, until they returned meekly to heel. What a bunch of spineless fenian ratbags they are. All that gibberish about a Free Ireland for the last two hundred years, all those deaths, and now they sign up to become a cadet branch of the overbearing, stifling, malign bureaucracy that passes for government from Europe. And they'll get that wanker Blair as President if they are not careful.

So now it's down to the Czechs and Poles. Only the great Václav Klaus can deliver us from this terrible fate, if he can hold up the Czech ratification until our General Election. Don't hold your breath, but say your prayers, heathen or otherwise.