A Few Quotes
The intelligence picture that they paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.
Sir John told the inquiry that he was not pressurised into firming up the dossier, but considered that it would have been better for the document to have stated that the 45 minute claim referred to battlefield munitions, not long-range missiles, to avoid the information being “lost in translation.”
“There was absolutely no conscious intention to manipulate the language or to obfuscate or to create any misunderstanding on what this might refer to,” he said.
The Chilcot Inquiry – 8th December
Saddam has used chemical weapons, not only against an enemy state, but against his own people. Intelligence reports make clear that he sees the building up of his WMD capability, and the belief overseas that he would use these weapons, as vital to his strategic interests, and in particular his goal of regional domination. And the document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.
January 10, 2010, by Jimmy B.
Category: Our Glorious Leaders bureaucrats and the unco guid | Tagged: quote, tony blair, wmd
More Copyright Infringement
While Alejandro Fernandez sues Sony for an estimated $4 Billion in Mexico, a coalition of Canadian Artists are suing members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
Between $50 million and $6 billion may be owed to musicians and artists in Canada, but not from your run-of-the-mill file sharers. The Canadian recording industry itself is being accused of massive copyright infringement, and the list of miffed artists just keeps getting longer.
Hurr hurr.
The cool thing about this case is that the companies have already admitted that they do not have permission to use the songs—apparently under Canadian law you can go ahead and publish as long as authorisation is ‘pending’.
Instead of keeping up with its tab on the pending list, the recording industry just kept adding songs—without obtaining any rights. The pending list among the lawsuit’s defendants has topped 300,000 songs from both large and small artists alike—300,000 songs that the labels are openly admitting that they have not secured the rights for.
January 10, 2010, by Jimmy B.
Category: music | Tagged: copyright, hoisted on your own petard
In The Name Of Profit
So Rage Against the Machine get the Christmas No. 1 then.
Respect to whatever marketing exec that came up with this campaign eh. Over 500,000 copies sold. Even at 20p a hit, that is about £100,000 of pretty much all profit. A great day’s work really.
Here is Biffy Clyro covering said song. It’s quite amusing when, after a bit of eager anticipation, the band pussy out of singing the famous refrain. The crowd begin to boo, then take up the chant themselves.
December 21, 2009, by Jimmy B.
Category: music | Tagged: christmas, marketing, music industry
LEDs Too Cold To Melt Snow
New LED traffic light covered by snow. Wonder how much they cost then?
Hurr hurr.
They didn’t think this one through did they.
All across the US, traffic lights have been upgraded to use LEDs. These bulbs save energy and last longer, and presumably count towards some carbon trading quotas.
However, when it snows, they don’t work!
Britain, under encouragement from ‘environmental’ groups seems to be following suit.
Around 57,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide could be saved by converting all UK traffic lights to LED (light emitting diode) lights by 2010, according to new research.
The UK currently has an estimated 420,000 traffic and pedestrian signal ‘heads’ [1], a figure that is rising at around 3% annually. Currently, these use an estimated 101.7m kWh of electricity per year and cause the release of around 50,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.
So said the UK Energy Research Centre. And oh yes, the politicians have fallen for it.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said “I’ve seen the future and it comprises these tip-top, energy-busting traffic lights. Installing these eco-bulbs will cut the climate change emissions coming from London’s galaxy of traffic lights by over half, as well as saving money from energy bills.”
“We are pressing ahead to get many more of these illuminating orbs on to our streets to join a range of other energy-zapping measures already saving us money such as solar-powered bus stops and shelters.”
December 20, 2009, by Jimmy B.
Category: bureaucrats and the unco guid environment | Tagged: law of unintended consequence, winter
Number Crunchers
Is it surprising that scientists would try to keep work that disagrees with their findings out of journals?
Yes. Yes it is.
It’s also deeply depressing.
Luckily, the fuckers that work for the CRU don’t appear to be scientists. Rather, they deal in statistics and prediction (much the same as economists like Steve Levitt). So I suppose I’ll accept that these people shouldn’t be held to any standard of ethics or integrity.
December 3, 2009, by Jimmy B.
Category: economics environment | Tagged: bullshit statistics, ethics, making things up