Sidelights on energy

Woodsy, who was in a discussion with Frank and others over energy strategies, adds this today … or rather, I add what he wrote at another place:

Yeah well I got told off for suggesting that all UK controlled fossil fuel extraction should be nationalised for domestic use. It was a poor choice of word, the gov can't run gas wells and I didn't mean they should. 

But in war and emergency they can and do directly control what businesses do, what is manufactured, and who it's for. Like Vox I see a dire emergency here. 

It's not as though the Gov have not been controlling the fuel industry anyhow. They allow (or more often disallow) leases, they make conditions of who when and where gas is extracted, and for 2 decades have squashed fossil fuels, prevented extraction and use, now forcing us to subsidise so called green technology and to turn to electric (of which there is not enough and it's increasingly unaffordable). 

While waiting for the magic unicorns to solve the problems of not enough power, no storage of even the inefficient windmills and solar arrays, they outsourced all the nasty polluting manufacturing and mining to China and covered the shortages by the inconcievable stupidity of handing Putin, a known potential antagonist, the master key to all western economies by making us all 100% dependent on his gas. 

To an extent we can deal with some shortages, the 3 day week and petrol rationing has happened before. Not comfortable but we can survive it. However society cannot cope with energy prices doubling, tripling and more. People will freeze, pubs, hotels, bakeries and all,manufacturing will close down, farming won't cope, food storage and freezers will become uneconomic, hospitals and schools won't be heatable, society will collapse when food is scarce and unaffordable because nobody can make fertiliser. 

The real test will be next year.

The Uk is fundamentally better placed than central Europe as we do have offshore gas and oil, but we need it all now and we need it here at an affordable price.

So I won't use the word nationalise, lets call it a type of excess profit reduction scheme,for the duration of the emergency, instructing UK controlled extraction wells to be fully decoupled from the international market and delivered to the UK at a sensible price. It's certainly intervention, but no more so than the net zero crap and increasing controls of the past 20 years. 

Bits of sticking plaster won't work. Liz can throw payments to benefit families, pensioners, pubs etc but they don't solve the problem. I fear she will cap prices and pay fuel companies the difference, leaving our children with ridiculous long term debts and still failing to make us energy independent which is the only long term solution.

And while they are at it I read recently an article that much north sea gas is exported because it's calorific value is slightly outside our rules so we can't have it, we'll have that too please. Better to have gas that's a bit less efficient than none at all.

Then when it's over, if we are still here, we can maybe get rid of the net zero fairy tale scenario of 'renewables' and force the green nutters to explain - if they want to reduce fossil use and CO2 suggest a workable plan not this current stupidity.

Will anyone take such, or equivalent, drastic action, let's see.

Another Case Of 'Working As Intended'..?

Terror suspects like Shamima Begum could be treated like victims if they exploit modern slavery laws, the terrorism watchdog warned last night.

Would anyone be surprised at this? 

It sparked calls for an inquiry into claims the Met and the government knew the alleged people smuggler was responsible for helping Begum and her two fellow schoolgirls join ISIS while also working as a double agent.

Would anyone be surp ... oh, I'm just repeating myself now! 

He's not right on everything, mind you:

Mr Hall voiced particular concerns with the idea that a child recruited to a terrorist organisation was automatically a victim, 'if they did so entirely of their own free will'.

'It is at odds with the fact that children are not generally seen as victims when they commit other crimes, just because someone suggests they should do so,' he added.

Well, I guess he's spent so long on terrorism that he's failed to see the direction the wider justice system has been heading in. 

A ‘Site’ for Sore Eyes

Some two odd years ago, my optometrist told me that my eyesight would be deteriorating over the next year, because of cataracts developing in both of my eyes. I felt reassured, because the cataracts had not developed to such an extent that my vision was not yet impaired.

A year later, another eye sight test, and the Main Man told me that I should consider putting myself and the eye test results forward, via my GP, to the NHS, for consideration as to Cataract Surgery. I agreed, because if a specialist states I may soon have a problem, I wanted to do something towards the removal of that problem.

In due course, at the lava-flow speed of the NHS, I received instructions from the NHS that I could book a consultation with an eye specialist. I followed the booking procedure, and received word that, yes, I could make an appointment: but only after a waiting period of forty eight weeks. 

After a short pause to check if my bank balance was still healthy, I commenced calling all the Private Hospitals to see if my needs could be accommodated. I chose a Newcastle Hospital, as the optical surgery people said that there were vacancies with only a six week wait before the surgery could be done. This of course was at a cost of +/-£2,500.00. 

I was given the full test treatment, eyes measured for the lens replacement, and had my Left Eye given the full ‘decoke’ treatment. After a three week wait, so my eye sight could adjust itself to the new lens, I found that my left eyesight had gained the full clarity of fifty years ago. 

As I really could not afford another private operation, I set myself to wait; but Lady Luck smiled, and I was contacted by the NHS, and asked If I could take up an appointment which had been cancelled at short notice. So, early March, I was there like a shot, but found that, as opposed to Private Practice, everything moved with that afore-mentioned lave flow speed. 

I had one appointment with a female consultant, who had all my notes. She checked me out, then told me that I would be given another appointment to be measured. I did murmur that I wondered why I couldn’t be measured then and there, as they had all the latest optical equipment. 

I honestly did not know until that moment that a facial expression could mirror the mind behind that face, but I learnt at the speed of light that this was the NHS, not private practice, and everyone had to take their place in the queue. 

So I returned, and had my right eye’s lens measured. I then had to cancel the first operation appointment, because I had an attack of the Virus, so had to wait six weeks, as the hospital demanded that no possibility existed of the virus getting exposed in one of their operating theatres. 

But I eventually got to lie down, and have this alarmingly attractive young woman (Well, at my age everyone is young) slice into my eye, and conduct the whole caboodle with care and accuracy. I had to return in two weeks, so this young woman could remove the suture she had placed on the top corner of my eye, and three weeks after that, I was eye-tested, and given the all-clear.

So the reader may ask why an eighty-one year old bloke is describing the tortuous route towards regaining full vision with the cataract operations. It is simply this: if you drive, you MUST, MUST, MUST, ensure that your vision meets the legal requirement for driving, you have to be able to read a vehicle number plate at 20 metres. (66 feet away). The DVLA requires that, if you cannot meet that standard, you remove yourself from driving, until an optometrist conducts the tests, and allows for corrective glasses, or indeed an operation, which will then allow you to drive safely.

Grandfather James Tassell would be alive today if “Reckless and foolish” Peter Gardner, 82, nearly the same age as myself, had such poor vision he “shouldn’t have been driving” when he “catapulted” James Tassell six feet into the air. His vision was so bad he could not make out a car licence plate three metres (9ft 10ins) away.

A court also heard the retired rail worker had recently been told by an optician he may be developing cataracts – but failed to arrange a follow-up appointment.

There is a virus … and it isn’t covid

The Irish Savant [via reader Steve] shows that this thing is indeed global, as if we needed further evidence:

Meanwhile the malaise that incapacitates law enforcement in most Western countries has become entrenched here. Police will respond instantly, at breakneck speed, sirens blaring, to reports of a racist or homophobic tweet. But report an ongoing burglary at your home and you’ll be told the under-resourced cops can’t make it out until tomorrow when they’ll close the case by signing off on the insurance report. 

Limited brain pollies ae falling over themselves to reintroduce Q Codes for everything [permission to even breathe, ma’am] and Paul Watson summed it up in an ascerbic piece we ran yesterday, in which he said that while the pollies call it a redistribution of wealth to the needy, in fact it is a handout to Britain’s feral underclass to feed their warped sence of self-entitlement and sense of criminal opportunism.

Knowing the Met police, he went on, police have already said they don’t have the resources to investigate theft and bashing of that woman the looters beat up, presumably because they’re too busy off doing the Macarena at gay pride parades … you know, the companion fest for the kiddies drag shows, guarded by Antifa with AR-15s in the States, to prevent non perves from dealing with the lowlifes.

I was reading a Gab by one keyboard warrior yesterday, in which he castigated other keyboard warriors for not getting out there and “doing something”, whilst he stayed at home, furiously typing.

Have a great Tuesday, folks.

Update: Reader Andy summed it up at my new substack:

The writing is on the wall in six foot high letters, people walk by every day and don't notice it. How on earth can this assault go unnoticed? Wake the **** up, you dozy lot! All of your lives you have been cosseted and protected, you have been told what is and what isn't, you trust the untrustworthy, you follow the priesthood of faux science. You look at yesterday as if peering through the wrong end of a telescope, that's a long time ago and forgotten you say. Whatever happened to your critical thinking? Where is your sense of self preservation and the natural instinct to protect your family? Shame on you all! Henry Kissinger once said that there is a need to cull the stupid. I wonder if he knew how many people that would involve.

Wait, Isn't This A Good Thing..?

Britain is returning to the era of asylums, a top doctor has warned, after figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday show the number of mental health patients locked up in psychiatric hospitals against their will has spiralled over the past four decades.

Why is this considered a 'warning'..? We should be celebrating!

Experts say the situation is at least in part a symptom of a wider problem in the NHS: the practice of defensive medicine. This is when doctors offer treatment or an intervention that may not be warranted, simply in order to avoid the possibility of a complaint or legal action should something go wrong.

I'm not sure why they should be so worried, since they are hardly ever face any consequences... 

Retired consultant psychiatrist and Care Quality Commission reviewer Dr Duncan Double said: ‘When I started working on an acute psychiatric ward in 1984, we used to pride ourselves on having an open-door policy.

‘In the 1960s and 1970s there was a drive to close old psychiatric institutions in favour of supporting mental health patients in the community, but, if anything, things have become more bureaucratic and more restrictive.

‘Doctors have become more fearful of public safety or being blamed, so may be more likely to section patients inappropriately. We’ve returned to the worst aspects of the asylums era.’

No, we've returned to the best aspects of them - they kept people safe from the mentally ill and the mentally ill safe from themselves. 

Of particular concern to doctors are people with personality disorders, who make up almost half of mental health patients detained in out-of-area placements. These include borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, in which patients are unable to control their emotions and behave impulsively and irrationally. They can also harm themselves or others, meaning doctors might feel sectioning them is the safest option.

But Dr Jorge Zimbron, consultant psychiatrist at Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge, says this can have disastrous consequences.

‘The majority of patients with a personality disorder have a history of abuse, so restraining them is traumatic and won’t be beneficial.’

It'll be very beneficial to those members of the public who'd otherwise be assaulted or murdered by them, though, wouldn't it? 

The pot, the kettle and energy in the UK

LR on Carrie hubby bashing:

https://www.longrider.co.uk/blog/2022/09/04/have-i-got-news-for-you/

That show’s about as funny now as a colonoscopy or root canal.  Hislop and that other one were never funny and the guests were uniformly awful.  The only humorous ones were the producers and that one who had a prostitue while his wife was pregnant.

Is the word ‘lowlifes’ too strong for such as these?  Which is not to excuse Carrie hubby or Liz the PM … think it’s more a case, is it not, of pot … kettle?

Meanwhile, on energy, I posted Woodsy’s comment at another place.  Here tis:

I assume all 'our' gas - 'ours' being what is extracted under UK licences - is being extracted by international companies and sold at the highest price they can get on the open market. So we are being charged that rate plus all the levies, renewable obligations etc. But I don't see that Lizzie has the recognition to see how deep the problem goes or has the will to solve it. She needs to nationalise all UK licensed wells and scrap net zero to provide power at extraction cost. If we rationed to (say) a 4 day week because of shortage GDP would take a 20% hit. But if energy is simply unaffordable for businesses they will close down and there won't be any GDP in a year's time and the food shortages and subsequent riots will finish us off.

This is the bit I’d found earlier:

… and that relates to my Ukro-Russian mate sending me the Euro-Woke Conversation blog trying to sheet it to the war. He’s partly right though … the decision makers here, the bstds … are desperately trying to link our situation to EU-Ukraine-Russia.  Not unlike driving Dutch farmers off farms, acquiring the land for nefarious reasons … then crying out, syndicated, that there’ll be food shortages in winter.  Best I just shut it now.

It’s hardly an ‘elephant’ in the room

A different sort of creature I should have thought.

That river in Egypt is deep and wide.  There’s absolutely no point trying to tell those hardwired against or show evidence after evidence after evidence … they just don’t want to know, as Laura Perrins explains:

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/poor-little-olivia-and-the-death-of-justice/

I WAS visiting family in Ireland when I heard that in England they had started shooting nine-year-olds getting ready for bed. Olivia Pratt-Korbel was shot as her mother stood in front of her by a masked gunman who had barged into the family’s home in pursuit of his intended target. 

Neither Olivia nor her mother, Cheryl, who was also hit, knew the men.

This killing is the very definition of evil. That a nine-year-old child cannot even be safe in her own home at bedtime is a scandal; it is monstrous, it is wicked. It is a stone-cold attack on Olivia, her family, the law-abiding community in Liverpool and the law-abiding people of this country in general. 

But talk to me about those tax cuts again, Liz Truss. 

This outrage, this attack on a most precious and innocent child has been a long time coming. My view is simple: evil exists. I feel I have an advantage knowing this, as there are many people out there that think there is no such thing as evil, or darkness or the devil himself, and therefore have no idea how to fight them. 

But there is no question that evil exists; the question for a civilised society is how do we protect citizens from this evil. Currently the answer is: not very well at all. 

Sometimes it’s possible to get the three wise monkeys to at least look and begrudgingly concede “weeellllll, there’s something there”, a bit like Omar the bigamist saying about 911 “some people did some things”.

One of the key sticking points after watching Biden’s speech or a Taylor Swift video or Black Sabbath is that to concede evil is the step before conceding something else … so I’ll stop here.

Is The Answer ''Because They Are Always Up In Arms Over Something'..?

It is, isn't it? But actually, this time, it appears to be beetles.

Hold on, isn’t all fruit vegan? Don’t be a plum. Of course it isn’t. Have you not heard of the female lac bug, who thrives in the forests of India and south-east Asia?

I rarely think of anything else. What’s she got to do with the story? She secretes a resin that is used to make shellac, which helps make lemons shiny.

But surely the lemon juice inside is still wholesomely vegan? Possibly, but lemon rind – which, as you know, is essential for perking up vegan risotto and other cruelty-free meals – isn’t, when it contains shellac.

So...eat something else? Or wash the lemons? 

What does Guardian food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe have to say about this? She noticed that a Pizza Express menu said a glass of Coke would only be vegan if served without lemon. “Wtf,” she tweeted, understandably. The restaurant replied that the wax on its lemons might contain shellac.

So vegans, you bleated about getting any 'contaminants' fully documented on menus and now you see all the things you can't eat, are you satisfied? 

Reader, you know they aren't, don't you? 

Start of school and Beslan remembered

In many countries, esp. the former Soviet, this is the day on which children return to school.  In Russia, it’s a time they dress in their finest, the stop at the flower shop to buy for teacher is widespread, many where black shorts/skirt, white top, girls with ribbons in their hair.

Usually, the ceremony is on the outside flagstones, children and parents in a large U shape.  There’s even excitement at lessons ahead.  Except in Beslan in 2004 … this was last years’:

https://nourishingobscurity.blogspot.com/2021/08/beslan.html

Net Zero exposed as the Pipe-Dream it always was.

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines produced 49% of GB&NI’s Electricity Yesterday

This meter can be checked at this website, which shows all of GB&NI’s Electricity Generation and needs.

CCGT is a complex mix of a Gas Turbine generating electricity by turning a huge Alternator, then using the waste heat to boil water producing superheated steam, which then turns a steam turbine which connects to another Alternator producing even more Electricity.

This shows how dependant GB&NI really is on Gas as its primary reliable source of Generated Power. The question which must be asked, and answered by both Bloody Boris, and his talking puppet Alok Sharma, is this: “Did either of you view this webpage, and the CCGT metering, have it explained by an expert who understands the whole process of Generating Electricity: before going on to promise in COP26; that you would remove all fossil fuels from the Generating Mix long before 2050; on the way towards your suicidal path towards ‘effing Net Zero?’