Some nice illustrations over at Silence TV.

The tone of the article bugs me somewhat (as does the whole argument in fact!) with the use of these stupid names thrown around in the global warming debate. Warmists, alarmists, believers, skeptics, deniers, bla, bla, bla, (im all of the above) but he does make some good points and brings up some important information. Yes, the climate of the earth is probably changing (although I have yet to see any thorough, worldwide non ‘corrected’ data-sets saying there is anything to get worried about), it always will change and there is nothing we can do about it. Up, and down, down and up. Unequally from one place to the next. The cycles of time, the Milankovitch cycles, the glacial cycles, the solar cycles and all the other cycles we do and don’t know about are far bigger and more powerful than we are. I’m just amazed they are still trying to implement more taxes based on this completely ridiculous idea it will change the temperature of the earth (what do they want anyway, warmer or colder??) or even stop the temperature changing. Hahah, Bollox it will!

Warmists may be winning the big grants, but they’re not winning the argument, says Christopher Booker.

Ever more risibly desperate become the efforts of the believers in global warming to hold the line for their religion, after the battering it was given last winter by all those scandals surrounding the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One familiar technique they use is to attribute to global warming almost any unusual weather event anywhere in the world. Last week, for instance, it was reported that Russia has recently been experiencing its hottest temperatures and longest drought for 130 years. The head of the Russian branch of WWF, the environmental pressure group, was inevitably quick to cite this as evidence of climate change, claiming that in future “such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent”. He didn’t explain what might have caused the similar hot weather 130 years ago.  Meanwhile, notably little attention has been paid to the disastrous chill which has been sweeping South America thanks to an inrush of air from the Antarctic, killing hundreds in the continent’s coldest winter for years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7908604/Desperate-days-for-the-warmists.html

Currently the Earth is tilted at 23.44 degrees from its orbital plane, roughly half way between its extreme values. The tilt is in the decreasing phase of its cycle, and will reach its minimum value around the year 10,000 C.E.. This trend, by itself, would tend to make winters warmer and summers colder.

Free T-Shirt and stickers to the first person to correctly name the drivers of these helmets.

In the next door room, Montoyas Monza winning Williams F1 car is sitting against a wall. Waiting.

Short vid I made for KTM/Kiska.

JUST BEFORE THE First World War in 1913, the German mark, the British shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira were all worth about the same, and four or five of any were worth about a dollar.

Ten years later in 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the Weimar Republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal, and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. In desperation, the Bavarian Prime Minister submitted a Bill to the Reichsrat proposing that gluttony be made a penal offence his exact definition of a glutton being ‘one who habitually devotes himself to the pleasures of the table to such a degree that he might arouse discontent in view of the distressful condition of the population’.

Since its first publication in 1975, When Money Dies has become the classic history of these bizarre and frightening times. Weaving elegant analysis with a wealth of eyewitness accounts by ordinary people struggling to survive, it deals above all with the human side of inflation: why governments resort to it, the dismal, corruptive pestilence it visits on their citizens, the agonies of recovery, and the dark, long-term legacy. And at a time of acute economic strain, it provides an urgent warning against the addictive dangers of printing money — shorthand for deficit financing — as a soft option for governments faced with growing unrest and unemployment.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Money-Dies-Nightmare-Hyper-Inflation/dp/1906964440

It is interesting to note the three reasons why it kept going for as long as it did – one, the authorities knew that balancing the books would lead to an increase in unemployment, two, printing was politically the easy solution, and three, (much like in Argentina in 1989) the authorities in large had an interest in keeping the inflationary scheme going, as it erodes it’s debt and the value of it’s liabilities.

I found out about this book after reading this pretty good article.

Gregg’s Customs 2009 Yamaha YZF-R1 Tracker. Tribute to Kenny Roberts.

Wales represent! haha. Thanks to H for the link.