threegee

Yup, they got me on that one too! Looks pretty convincing these shots of melting glaciers, and solitary penguins or polar bears floating away on a large chunk of ice. The camera never lies etc... That was until I took a detailed look at the map. In fact over on the other side of the ice shelf there are areas where it's thickening, and in the middle too. How do they get their polar ice core samples of past climatic conditions? Ice doesn't continually build up for ever, it has to go somewhere. Sure there are glaciers melting, but there are also ones thickening. All too easy to take a camera (or mug reporters) to show what you want to show, and no more. On a re-read I see you mentioned religion well before Nigel Lawson. You should ask him for a credit in his new book! Anyway, this is what the so-called scientists are now reduced to: We concede that recent figures don't show any change, but it's just a statistical blip. It's going to start up again in 2009 or... (insert today's year of convenience), just you wait and see! In fact it's they who are looking at a statistical blip - they've based this lunacy on only a couple of decades. Their computer models were badly wrong at the instant the predictions were coming off their printers, yet we are supposed to believe that they can even get into the ball park fifty and one hundred years hence. But even the wildest scenario they can produce from simplistic computer models isn't good enough; there has to be a hidden run-away effect - that no one can actually model - resulting in doom & disaster. Then, when it is shown that a highly improbable +3c to +4c "disastrous rise" could be easily coped with and would throw up more benefits than problems, the goal posts are moved to the third world and there's an appeal to our morals; as if the third world could make no progress in 50 or 100 years! In just a few decades it looks likely the third world will enjoy living standards better than we have now. That's unless the green loonies have their way, and put us all back into the middle ages! None of this has anything to do with science, it's just scare politics of the worst kind. There are plenty of genuine problems in this world without setting out to invent them. But real problems need real solutions; you can't go flying off to an international conference on the other side of the world, and throw out sound bites for the international media, If you're an aspiring big-league politician that's the inconvenient truth!

The REAL inconvenient truth: Zealotry over global warming could damage our Earth far more than climate change - Nigel Lawson http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 I think he's bang-on right about this being a replacement for religion - especially in Europe. The reaction of some so-called scientists to the recently published figures showing that there has been no measurable increase in overall temperatures this century so far is about the same as you'd expect from an archbishop if you questioned the second coming!

It has become apparent that a number of local people haven't been able to register over several months. The one common factor is that they are all using BT provided e-mail. I won't expand on my own problems with BT Internet and how they barefacedly thieved over £100 out of my bank account a few years back. But it does seem that the people who use BT don't seem to know about the other free e-mail services open to them once they have an actual internet connection. We are bringing this problem to BT's attention, but don't expect a sensible answer or a fix on their part any time soon (and my Indian language skills aren't too good). So... if you are unluckly enough to have signed up with a BT Internet account that you can't ditch, then use a third party mail service to ensure the email gets through. Anything at all but BT! http://www.google.com/search?q=bt+sucks

Yes, there's another point here that I missed. When TB stood for election he did so promising to "serve a full term". What circumstances conspired to stop him keeping this promise? Did he become ill? Or did he simply choose to dishonour this promise at the first instant it became inconvenient? At the time of the election we were left in no doubt that it was him, and him alone we were electing. Brown has absolutely no mandate, and his refusal to call an election illustrates that he has no honour either!

But this isn't what be are led to believe when he goes flying around the country canvassing at election time, or spouts away on the party political broadcasts! People are left in no doubt precisely who they are voting for to run the ship. And, this is what the parties themselves discuss these days, far more than political direction or finer policy matters. It's the person they can put to the public that will get them elected. It's totally dishonest to pretend the situation is otherwise! And these day's it's particularly damming as folks no longer know who stands for what, even assuming the parties know themselves! It's all the electors have left to tell one mob from the other. This would be OK if we had an elected president to oversee what he's up to. But what we have is a load of dozy old of time-serving hacks that he himself (not his party) has placed. The few hereditary ones who haven't been got rid of and aren't completely subservient, are under constant threat of being abolished. Now, of course, we have The Parliament Act which was sneaked under our noses to ensure that even if the PM gets rebels in his own lot he can still have his way - not the way of his party or his cabinet. A few years back if I had said this is the guy who has the power to drag us into a war on any old pretext, you'd have agreed, but added that it was a purely hypothetical argument. Now everyone knows differently! The next stage in the slippery slide that's the (make it up as we go along) British Constitution, is that a PM gets to anoint his successor. A few decades back we had some sort of standards. People resigned even when they weren't directly to blame as a matter of principal. Often on "major" issues like who had slept with who! Now, taking one, or even a hundred thousand innocent lives as a result of your organisation's total incompetence doesn't seem to matter anymore. Then, if the PM resigned or was taken ill, we had a "caretaker" PM who was under a moral obligation to go to the country for a new mandate. No more! Once again the constitution has been bent for the sole purpose of grabbing at power, and the average voter doesn't even realise that they've been further disenfranchised! Getting back to the subject of this thread: it's this that makes such damn silly statements possible from our MP's, of whatever party. They've lost all grip on what really matters!

This, of course, would be in comparison with the fully democratic UK which: has political prisoners, no free elections for its leader (hello there Gordon!), and absolutely lousy dentistry!

I remember a Mrs Bottoms back in the 1970's - 1980's. But, just at this moment, I've no further information. Will keep a look out for some.

Good question monsta. What have you advertised? Answer: Several things. And.. I almost got my scooter, but it drove away! Everything has to start somewhere, and unless you try it you will never know. There's no risk, and some work underway to syndicate the content so there will be a bigger audience. The site does get alot of hits and they are still growing monthly. But, there are a lot of idiot people in the Town who do use the Internet but don't give the community site the support it deserves. They do visit occasionally, but are otherwise quite apathetic to any initiative going on around them. That I can partly understand; but more importantly for the community there are a lot of dumb business folk who don't know an effective marketing medium from their elbow (there I almost said it Malcolm! ). Quite happy to pay for ineffective press advertising, but haven't got the wit to exploit what other people are providing to them for free. Do these business' deserve to be part of our community? Maybe it's a self-leveling playing field? In business you reap what you sow! But - and here's the really sad fact - many of the prime movers here have already left the Town, and I suspect more are to follow! Can your generation rise to the challenge or will they give up on the place and move on to greener pastures like many before? That's the real question!

And it's now moving North!

..and GB doesn't want to risk looking like (the other) GB. Flood alert amid storm warnings

It has been scientifically proven that you can list for sale items 17.29 times more quickly on BedBay For Sale than you can on a well known auction site! That's a huge saving in your time, and a considerable reduction in your blood pressure. Why not list something you no longer need right now, and see for yourself.

Ching!! --- SOLD --- to a good home in Bedlington!

So.. you want to support a website that doesn't even acknowledge the existence of your own Town?!!

Is this going to be the very first item in the BedBay-Take-It-Away forum then?

Just to remind everyone that this project is still live. Only one site has so far been secured, so we are still looking for at least three (if not four) others. If you have a site available it won't cost you a penny, and a web pro will set up the gear for you.

I wouldn't go to "a den of sonic inequity", but I could be persuaded to go to a den of iniquity - even if the organisers didn't know the difference! The Beats Per Minute thing is a simple inverse function of mean climatic temperature. Doesn't take a PhD to work that one out BBC News 24.

"Annual results statements issued by the banks in recent weeks have revealed the extent of the payouts." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/448121b6-ea1c-11...00779fd2ac.html

Having people sitting at computers all over the place actually trading carbon emissions is about as crazy a situation you can imagine. They contribute absolutely nothing to anything. In fact all those pointless offices contribute to the very problem they are supposed to be combating! Yet, the real poluters - those distributing huge amounts of plastic - continue in their addiction to automation convenience tax free! There's no beach anywhere on our planet that isn't totally littered with the stuff, and wildlife can no longer cope. Why no tax on plastic packaging? Because it's politiclly unacceptable; it would lose votes! The logical extension of the carbon trading madness is to trade deaths. When you die all your carbon is released to the environment again, so, using current logic, somebody must pay for this. A carbon tax on dying is the obvious solution. This would introduce the offence of intent to die without a permit!

It's a matter of degree. It's not happening to anything like the degree the politicians have been suckered into believing. And, in historic terms, it is completely insignificant. There is nothing to put right except clean up the obvious pollutants. CO2 is NOT a pollutant - it's part of the Earth's biosystem. That's where it came from in the first place and that's where it will go. If true then why are more and more people dying of hospital related diseases? Other countries have nailed this problem stone dead! Ask any professional and they will tell you that youth facilities and education will vastly alleviate drug abuse and related petty crime. But - apparently - there are few votes in providing the necessary.

I mention that only to relate it to real world problems; our own little corner of the world; and this bit of cyberspace. Honest I do! That's a very unscientific, and unconvincing, argument for spending a huge proportion of the entire world gross economic product. So why don't we start building a fleet of giant nuclear-tipped rockets to blow the next wayward asteroid to kingdom come? There's universal scientific agreement that we face the "big-one" sooner or later. Even the broad range of statistical possibilities will have few if any dissenters. The solid evidence and inevitability is there right now, and by the time any specific threat is clear it will likely be "too late to do anything about it". I think the reason it's not a hot topic is that the sums don't add up, so it's better to put the possibility to the back of our minds and only act as best we can when disaster is looming. The GW doom+disaster scenario on the other hand has no real sums, or any convincing evidence. It's all pure conjecture by those who have a lot to gain by promoting it. There are many dissenting scientific voices but their plain speaking doesn't put food on anyone's table, or build any reputations, or sell any popular newspapers. My bet now is that these scientists will be slowly but inexorably be proven right. But that won't stop all sorts of circle-squaring and self-justifying nonsense from those who have been sucked in by this tulip-mania. Yes, it does. But only what we can see and measure directly. The oceans are a huge CO2 reservoir, vastly greater than you could imagine, and all part of the self-regulating mechanism we've been provided with. They've survived far worse than a few car exhausts in the past. Where did the exhaust emissions come from in the first place? It's a closed loop, but with a little engineering and ingenuity we can make it a much tighter closed loop for recirculating the Sun's energy. Bio-fuels are one of the answers but there is no single magic cure like we were led to believe (by our politicians!) in the 1950's.

Clean environment very good - global warming utter tommy-rot. Don't confuse the issues! If a tiny tiny fraction of the money being squandered on this nonsense was spent of provable environmental improvements we'd all benefit greatly. Al Gore is someone looking for windmills to tilt at. Bush is presently perceived as an environmental Luddite - I think quite unjustly, though he may be one in other ways - so it pays lawyer's party Gore to go for this nonsense. It's a good living and a way to rise in public esteem - without actually doing anything!

I've long suspected that it was all a load of rubbish, but now the sceptics have convinced me. Of late it has become an entire industry with lucrative careers built on the myth. When you use a limited data set you can "scientifically prove" almost anything, but as more and more conflicting data comes in this becomes increasingly difficult. I have a feeling that this mass delusion is about to be exposed. Slowly at first, then on to the amusing part i.e. watching the "ship jumpers" and their attempts to rationalise their past barmy behaviour. How can we even contemplate spending the vast sums being bandied about on such a crazy idea that we can have any major long term influence on the Earth's climate? Is it even desirable to try, given the huge natural changes that have taken place in the past? Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour of cleaning up the unholy mess we make of our planet, not breathing in muck and lead etc., and certainly DO more than most. But, if politicians spent just a tiny tiny part of the money (our money!) they are throwing at GW on cleaning up our hospitals properly, thousands of people wouldn't be dying every year in the UK alone. We could get kids off the streets and out of the drug habit, and still have change to do other important things. Why are staggering sums of public money available in a vain and pointless attempt to alter the world climate by a mere degree or two, but totally insignificant amounts never available for a town like Bedlington to build a youth/sports center and address real problems?

Note that WMA files aren't a method of encoding/decoding like say MP3 is. It's a wrapper around several different codecs. Some lossy some not. One of the codecs is MP3, and much of the information on some of the others isn't available to other developers! The point I'm making here is that WMA support from anyone other than M$ may not be complete or buggy. OK, OK, delete the "other than M$".

Seems like you already know! Non-specific questions get non-specific answers. The question doesn't even say the burning is to be done with a computer let alone which computer, which operating system, and what additional software/hardware is to hand - it could be with heated curling tongs! Was sitting next to a guy at dinner last night and a computer question came up. He said he'd had the machine back to the shop to correct this or that, and, making a square with his hands on the table, that it was a tiny machine. Oh, said I, an UMPC then? Blank stare. Runs Windows Tablet Edition then? Blank stare. It was a very good buy, said he, only cost £212. Immediately my mind started churning through what tiny bit of obsolescent crap only cost £200 and what closed, highly-forgettable, OS it might run. What make is it? It's an ASUS, he said. What usable ASUS UMPC can possibly have cost only £200, and what outdated version of Windys were we struggling with here, thought I. Inspiration then hit: It's not a Eee PC - is it?! Yes, he said, a tiny bit surprised. Then, it runs a version of Xandros Linux; luckily you've got a huge amount of PD software available to do your xyz task. You install it from a repository using the package manager off the command line! Very, very, confused stare. I poured another glass of wine. Moral of the story: you can assume diddly squat until you are specifically told. Not even that you've got any sort of disk drive available. And, even when you do guess dead right, often you still can't provide more than generalisations!