James Delingpole's Blog, page 22

Does the Queen know the truth about her Archimedes screw?

The Queen has spent £1.8 million pounds on an Archimedes Screw, which will – in theory – provide lashings of environmentally friendly power to Windsor Castle by harnessing the mighty currents of the River Thames. Of course, in reality it will do nothing of the sort, which is why I was originally going to title this story "Elderly Lady Mugged By Climate Cowboys." That's because the amount of energy it is estimated it will produce – 1.7 million kilowatt hours per year – gives an average output of 200,000 watts. This (thanks to m'learned friend Christopher Booker for these calculations) means that Her Majesty's new toy will be producing no more than enough to power 2,000 x 100 watt lightbulbs.

All right, so Windsor Castle probably doesn't use 100 watt lightbulbs…

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Ron Paul is right. Military adventurism is a luxury we can no longer afford

Ron Paul has got himself into trouble over his suggestion that if the US military stopped air con for its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, it could save the treasury a whopping $20 billion a year. He remarked in the latest Republican presidential candidate debate in the Ronald Reagan Library:

I was astonished! We are spending twenty billion dollars on air conditioning for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would take all that away, use ten billion to pay down the debt, and use the other ten toward FEMA and any other agency that we really need. And if you took that air conditioning away, those troops would come home very quickly, and I'd be happy with that.It's unlikely to endear him to the rump of US right: there…

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Obscure editor resigns from minor journal: why you should care

If you read Watts Up With That or Bishop Hill – or indeed, if you're mad enough to take RealClimate or Daily Climate or the BBC seriously – you'll know that the biggest 'climate change' story of the last few days has been the one about Wolfgang Wagner.

Who?

Well, yeah, quite. That was my immediate response. In fact I was quite tempted to write up the story with the headline: Incredibly Obscure Editor Of Magazine You've Never Heard Of Resigns Over Immeasurably Trivial Issue For No Apparent Reason.

There were several reasons for my lofty indifference.

1. It's too esoteric.

2. I sensed there was more yet to emerge and I wasn't going to bother till it did.

3. – and most important – when you write up stories like this you're playing the enemy's game. A…

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Be afraid: German ex-Chancellor demands 'United States of Europe'.

Gerhard Schroeder has just called for an end to "national sovereignty" and the creation of a "United States of Europe." Does anyone else find this sort of talk a bit scary, especially when voiced by a former Chancellor of Germany? (H/T Rich Scherf)

Among those who doesn't, apparently, is our Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. What Schroeder is proposing differs very little from what Osborne was suggesting earlier this summer when he wrote in the Telegraph:

As I've said, the eurozone countries need to accept the remorseless logic of monetary union that leads from a single currency to greater fiscal integration. Solutions such as euro bonds now require serious consideration if investors are to…

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When you really, really need the state, will it still be able to save you?

At my uncle's holiday apartment in Salcombe, Devon, is a tiny service lift so cramped and claustrophobic that you only use it in extremis: when you have heavy bags to carry up from the car, say, or a pile of sodden wetsuits which need drying on the balcony. Otherwise, it's best avoided. Even the 40 seconds or so it takes to get from the bottom floor to the top are enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. You find yourself glancing at the emergency phone next to the floor buttons and thinking: 'Jesus, I hope that works. Imagine if this thing ever broke down. It would be like the Black Hole of Calcutta.'

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Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt: an apology

It has been brought to my attention that this blog owes Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt. an apology. In a recent column entitled Green Jobs? Wot Green Jobs? (Pt 242), I carelessly suggested that Sir Reg – beloved dad of the famous environmentalist "Sam Cam"; distinguished father-in-law of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no less – is making nearly £1000 a week from the wind turbines on his estates.

The correct figure is, of course, nearly £1000 a day.

In other words, Sir Reginald is making the equivalent of roughly 1000 looted widescreen plasma TV screens every…

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Green jobs? Wot green jobs? (pt 242)

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has published a report into the future of "Green Jobs" in Britain. It is damning indeed. Though it doesn't actually say as much – the GWPF is too austere and restrained for such flippancies – this Government's green policies are the equivalent of trying to pay off the national debt by breeding unicorns to sell to Chinese millionaires.

Among the conclusions of The Myth of Green Jobs by Gordon Hughes, Professor of Economics at Edinburgh University, are:

1. "Green jobs" are a chimera. Though diverting taxpayers money into the renewable energy sector may indeed "create" jobs in the renewable energy sector, it will cost many more jobs in the broader economy.

2. Policies to promote renewable energy will add 0.6 to 0.7 per cent per…

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Edge of darkness

I've got this idea for a book, when I get the time, called Everything You Know Is Wrong. Its job will be to attack all the idiot received ideas of our age — what my father-in-law calls 'notions'. High on the list of candidates, most definitely, is the commonly held belief (especially among stand-up comics) that Bill Hicks was the greatest comedian who ever lived.

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Nick Clegg's riot inquiry panel is beyond a joke

Just when you thought Cameron's Coalition couldn't get any more lame along comes its announcement that Nick Clegg has appointed the panel which will investigate the riots. And guess what their conclusion is going to be. No, really, I can tell you already. It's going to read something like this:

In a very real sense, the riots were the result of an outpouring of rage and frustration by disaffected youth who feel alienated and disenfranchised by a materialistic, racist society which they feel offers them no hope and no future. Therefore what the government must do is appoint an Inner City Cohesion Czar, on a salary of not less than £500,000 pa,to oversee a series of regional initiatives in which swarms of technocrats and social workers and…

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'Climate scepticism is the new racism' says Gore

Climate scepticism is the new racism, Al Gore has told an interviewer. And do you know what? He's absolutely right.

Just as "racist" has been honed over the decades by liberal-lefties for casual use as a deadly weapon against anyone who disagrees them, so "climate denier" has become the new leftist shorthand for "evil, wrong, uncaring, right-wing – and almost certainly funded by Big Oil."

In both cases, the intent is the same: to close down the argument by implying that your opponent is so morally compromised that his case isn't even worth consideration. He's just wrong: "End of," as they say.

Gore is by no means alone in this tactic. Consider Paul Krugman's recent effort in the New York Times to smear sceptical Republicans such as Rick Perry by writing them off as "anti-science."…

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