The Bewilderness

Scumference

What is the Labour equivelent of HS2? Overriding the planning rules through central diktat. More central planning through new towns and allowing councils to plan new build on neighbouring councils' land. So, Labour protects its own municipal land and builds on other councils.

And we shoudl believe these scum? after they brought British politics into the sewer. One word we will not hear from this vomit faced hypocrite is sorry: apologising for the damage he did to this country; the lives runied by his government's errors; and the blight yet to be from any. problems caused by his imbecilic policies, giving Labour, that corrupt sump, an opportunity to piss more heavily on some than on others.

What difference is there between the pigs in Animal Farm and Miliband's millionaires in the Shadow Cabinet: both shout their slogans "Two Legs bad ("the Few"), Four Legs Good ("the Many").

This is truly the Cirscumference season 

 

The Sussex Ouse Valley Way (an ODI)

The Sussex Ouse Valley Way is a 42 mile long distance walk that runs from Lower Beeding, a small roundabout south of Horsham (with pub attached) to the outskirts of Seaford (very near the station of Bishopstone (so empty that rabbits graze on the platforms). If one attempts to do this in a day, then the distance meets the criteria for a challenge walk (an echo of a conversation with Lev Babiev haunts here).

When one commences these walks, there are two directions to choose: from sea to source or vice versa. The official version is quite clear: start at Lower Beeding and proceed downhill. Undertaking this in late September when the light fails before the dark has some advantages. The route into Newhaven and Seaford runs along clear paths and mostly through lit towns: not a bloody forest (where the chances of getting lost rise significantly!). Yet, taken in a more philosophic sense: the source is the primary goal of any quest. You are walking up the river to discover something. This discovery contrasts with the less exciting goal of arriving at the sea. Arrival is a goal but doesn't quite embody the same promise. (The whole debate for this path is somewhat academic as the Ouse appears to vanish some fifteen miles before the end, though the source is listed as Lower Beeding.

The walk is a pleasant meander through Sussex: mainly flat with ponderings on various hills, downs and woods, rending a pleasing variety of terrain and stiles. Though the stiles became more painful later on in the day. The website of the organisers tells it far better than myself.

A challenging and grulling one day, especially with the night hike section.

Leafmould and mud: autumn is here

The Greensand Way follows the southern ridges of the North Downs past Dorking. From that town, one would assume that the northern slopes (Box Hill) are the higher points. Yet, south-west is the second highest point in the south-east (I have already visited this controversy and it is definitely not a peak!): Leith Hill.  

My group walked from Holmwood to Shalford yesterday along well-appointed footpaths through the fields and woods of the Surrey Hills. Beautiful rolling landscape with fading greens as the year turns. Like most Surrey walks, views across the weald towards Sussex are worthwhile without the encumbrance of spectacular. Apart from the tower on Leith Hill, I found no singular note to distinguish this excursion. With the rain, the endless mist and dripping rain in the woodland, the walk connected again to the seasonal cycle and brought home how summer has gone and boots again will squelch through mud and leafmould. 

Mapping Complexity

This news may date but Obama stood in a line of Presidents announcing Big Science. Some were successful like the Moon Landings; others were a hostage to complexity like the war on cancer. The latest speech falls in the latter camp.

Neurologists have been moving towards a more ambitious reseach programme for brain research. This is based upon a more diverse range of technologies that promise to allow wider mapping through non-invasive techniques. The important emphasis here is on non-invasive. However, brains have proved impervious to theoretical. The stubborn grey matter is immune to itself, or at least part that theorises about what it is. Yet, the advances in research and the lobbying of scientists, nationally and internationally, led to this speech, this announcement, this campaign.

Will Obama's speech and subsequent piecemeal funding provide adequate resource and motivation to create a true and overall understanding of the brain? Perhaps, but more probably not. Larger funding may champion a risk-averse research program: a common problem with state funded science. The articles describes parallels with the Human Genome Project, a simpler challenge that was enlivened by the competition from Celera.

Perhaps diversity and competition for grants will be sufficient to check mediocrity and avoid the application of Grasham's Law. Perhaps not! The more complex the object of study, the longer the timescales.  

Obama's speech may well enter the same pantheon as Nixon's War on Cancer or that future leader who will raise the same expectations on space colonisation, AI and defeating aging.

Help to buy your vote

I hate to find myself agreeing with the sentiments aired by Cable. However, his grasp of policy does place him on the same side as other cautious critics of the coalition's policies. Tinkering with access to credit could stimulate an artificial rise in property prices unreflective of actual demand in the economy. Not that Cable is averse to tinkering in his own way. 

Without interest rate policy, governments have to rely on other methods to pump up a boom in time for the election. It is an irony that Brown did abolish boom by fostering an eternal bust. Now Osborne has reinvented boom and bust: boomtime for your vote and bust a year later, or midterm as the scheme runs out in 2017.

Which wag will call this the 'Help to Buy Your Vote' scheme.

Leith Hill downgraded

There is some controversy as to whether Leith Hill is the tallest hill in the south-east (a nebulous region unless you take the European MEP constituency as your guide). Leith Hill is  974 feet tall and, through the artificial addition of a tower, can be said to rise above 1000 feet. However, Walbury Hill in Berkshire, is also 974 feet. This is either an even tie or some loose work. So, take a county top viewinstead and we find that Leith Hill is recorded as 968 feet, some six feet smaller than Walbury Hill. This may be a small and pedantic point, but even though Surrey is my county, I have to concede to the Berks on this one. And climb it too.

Arctic Circular Ices Up

On the 6th September, meteorologists released a report examining statistically significant weather phenomena and guaged whether anthropogenic global warming could be identified as a causal factor. One of those events was the Arctic ice area in 2012, much reduced, and explained as a response to global warming. This also remains the controversial response of the IPCC.

As for “the extremely low Arctic sea ice extent in summer 2012,” the report says this resulted primarily from the melting of younger, thin ice from a warmed atmosphere and ocean.

“This event cannot be explained by natural variability alone. Summer Arctic sea ice extent will continue to decrease in the future, and is expected to be largely absent by mid-century.”

Arctice ice cover was set to decrease. And now? It has increased by 60% this year after record lows. There is also the significant matter of the 'global pause'.  For some reason, we are not given a reason for the increase, except for the vague notion of variability. This programmed bias raises scepticism; its simplistic, circular arguments in the media  

CSR - Chinese Sycophancy Review?

China's investments in renewable energy and announcements of targeted reductions in CO2 emissions has flattered environmentalist NGOs. To such an extent that they have praised China for its endeavours overlooking the injustices and suffering meted out to those who oppose the CPC. They must be on a par with climate deniers!

The key word in this discourse is sustainability. China, unbeholden to argument, compromise or special interest groups, can mobilise social resources, tax its captive population, jack up investment and direct communitarian resources as appropriate, regardless of how people may feel (and those who dissent disappear).

People like Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is more optimistic. He told me that China is the only country that’s cut its energy intensity over 5 percent a year for a quarter of a century. They are the world leader in distributed renewable sources of power and the only country that has energy efficiency as its top development priority.

To be sure, implementation is at an early stage. But, Lovins said, China has better leaders than we do, and they are more highly motivated and work harder.

“For all these reasons, I think we can rely on China to lead the world out of the climate mess.”

William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle, shares these sentiments. He told me that while “they’re not going to become an eco-paradise overnight, at the senior level, they’ve recognised the idea of closing cycles as being a critical part of any long-term plan.”

It is alarming that the corporate sustainability movement takes China's utterances and statistics at face value; admires its system of governance for long-term stability and planning; and pays lip service to the values of the West. To be watched and fought...

Don't get your 4G here

How far do we understand what is happening in the UK economy. The goods and services transacted are often unrelected in the statistics collected by the government. There is an absence of measurement and thought on the leverage that better communication and information brings. A good example of this is the rather cumbersome 'global app economy': of which 22% is located in Europe and 42% in the United States.

The leader of the European trade body claims this as a success; yet, ten years ago, Europe was praised for having a more developed mobile phone market than the US. Now the app economy for smartphones and tablets is half the size for an area of comparable population. This is not an innovation economy. Further evidence of this decline is provided by the roll-out of 4G services: available in US, Asia and not over here. 

Cashing In

Douglas Carswell MP has noted the growing demands of the House of Commons in holding the executive to account. Supine arselickers are no longer sauce of the day on the green benches. Yet the government still remains contemptuous of such demands. 

Cameron's Euroscepticism is a tour de farce in execution: dragged licking and screaming into the ligh as the latest victim of Brussels syndrome. His persobal penchant for compromise with the EU is highlighted by his latest ambassador to the Union: Ivan Rogers who has worked for the Europhiles, Leon Brittan and Ken Clark. That will raise eyebrows in the drier elements of the Tory party.

Such a combination of parliemantary scrutiny and EU scepticism marry in Bill Cash, chairman of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Commitee. The Committee's wish to speak to Ivan Rogers was rebuffed by William Hague, Foreign Secretary, on the grounds that the appointee was a diplomat. With such powers, the Committee is more than a little disgruntled with such executive highhandedness. 

This is just not good enough....and further evidence that Cameron is not to be trusted on Europe.