What A Gas

More problems with Russia and Europe's gas supplies: Reuters.

And from OpenEurope:

EU gas supplies suffer further cuts;

Delegation to meet Gazprom officials today

Russia has ordered further cuts in gas supplies to Europe as part of its ongoing dispute over payment from Ukraine. The Times reports that EU ambassadors predicted cuts of up to 20% at a private meeting yesterday and 10 countries have already reported reduced gas flows from Ukrainian pipelines. The Commission and the Czech Presidency dispatched a fact-finding mission to Kiev yesterday to investigate the disruptions, according to European Voice.

EUobserver states that supplies from Russia to the EU via Ukraine fell overnight by 70%. The article also states the Prime Minister Valdimir Putin ordered the cuts in supplies to the Gazprom CEO live on Russian television.

The Irish Times writes that both Moscow and Kiev have urged the EU to mediate the dispute, but it is "loath to intervene". However, a European delegation including Commission officials are due to meet executives from Gazprom, the state-owned energy firm, today in Berlin.

A leader in the WSJ argues that Europe has failed to diversify Europe's gas supplies and it has been indecisive about alternate pipelines to pursue, such as the Nabucco pipeline, which could supply gas from central Asia rather than Russia. A comment piece by Jan Rokita in the Polish daily Dziennik argues that the decision of Bulgaria and Hungary to opt for the South Stream gas pipeline project over the Nabucco pipeline project, of which they were important partners, was a major event in 2008 and came following influence from Moscow.

As usual, it seems that everyone concerned is a fuckwit.

Luckily for the UK, most of our Russian gas doesn't come via Ukraine. On the other hand, energy supply in the UK is going to prove a real problem.

Miscellaneous Cockwaffle

Learning can be boring (Ofsted): anyone ever told them how dull and boring it can be teaching?

Considering how little our children are actually taught in schools these days and how 'relevant' and light their reading, it's unbelievable they find anything boring.

The Jacqui Smith Fan Club. Doh! Caught out again!

The Spawn of the Manse promises to 'create' 100,000 new jobs to beat the recession. Time for your medicine, Mr Brown.

Purnell loses pass. Plonker.

Compel, punish, fine, imprison: the true nature of New Labour revealed.

Qu'on nous permettre de nous en foutre

Or, "Allow us not to give a fuck." - which comes from the book The Coming Insurrection, written by the Tarnac 9, ie the nine young people arrested by French police recently for alleged 'terrorist' offences (ie wanting to be left alone by the powers-that-be).

The book is available for download in French and English versions. I found myself agreeing with a great deal of it, particularly its assault on the fetishisation of work. Not something The Spawn of the Manse would approve of, given his love of 'hard-working families' and such like. And the fact that he's a twat with a severe personality disorder.*

It connects with the fact that for the past thirty years in Britain we have basically had a constant level of unemployment (one million at least, which is 'mass' unemployment' in old media money) without it apparently having a bad effect on the economy. Couple that with the thousands of well-paid pointless non-jobs created in government, education and business (anything with 'adviser', 'service', 'quality', 'manager' or 'value' in the title, for instance) and you realise that the country runs pretty well with a large number of people not doing anything useful or productive at all.

On another tack, there's the school that is no longer a school, because the word has 'negative connotations'. It's a new build and seems rather nice according to the description by the developers. The local MP, who is a Labour man, isn't all that keen, which is odd considering his government has eradicated the world 'education' from the titles of the two main departments in charge of education.

Over at samizdata.net the discussion point XXVIII is 'How can we bring down the European Union?' By any means possible, I think. We better get working on it.

*Talking of twats, the ex-red Fascist, now Green EU Fascist, Daniel Cohn-Bendit has come out in support of the Tarnac 9:

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a European Parliament member and a leader of the 1968 student anti-government protests in Paris, accused the police of “pushing people who criticize society to the brink,” the Liberation reported on Nov. 28.

Cohn-Bendit recently showed his true fascistic colours in his treatment of the Czech Prime Minister at an EU meeting. He's a vile opportunistic hypocrite and his 'support' for these people is game-playing on his part.

Pay To Throw EU Labour Garbage Woolas Out But Keep Hicham Yezza In

'Pay as you throw' household waste trial shunned by councils: we already pay through our council tax, but the bloody British government also wants to make us pay more. Luckily (at the moment) the local authorities are showing an unusual measure of independence and refusing to take up trial schemes.

This is all part of the government's lickspittle desire to implement the requirements of the EU's Climate Change Bill. I don't have the will to trawl through pages of online EU cockwaffle, but I'm sure there's something in there about opening waste collection up to competition, which must surely be behind this and the following:

The 130-year old right of citizens to have their rubbish collected by their local council was abolished recently:

Phil Woolas, the environment minister, quietly added an amendment to section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 earlier this month which now states: "A waste collection authority is not obliged to collect household waste that is placed for collection in contravention of a requirement under this section."

Mr Woolas is a robotic Labour clone and may, with a bit of luck, lose his seat at the next election (maj. 3,590). A long spell at the Job Centre would serve him right but no doubt he'll have some well-paid pseudo job to take up if that happens. Not something useful like emptying my bins.

Woolas's current job is Minister for Buggering Up Immigration. He's doing really well and is busy trying to deport Hicham Yezza, who was found to be unbearably innocent of any crime back in May. Please write to your MP and Woolas to complain about this.

Another Shit Idea From A Shit Government

The government is considering plans to compel everyone to take out private insurance to cover the costs of care in old age.

Why is this a shit idea?

1. Very few people will earn enough to ensure their payout will cover their needs (in just the same way few people can afford private health insurance).
2. If it works anything like the government-inspired private pension plans of the last 30 years then it'll be an expensive rip-off that won't deliver. It will, however, be a bonanza for insurance companies and the owners and shareholders of nursing homes.
3. We already pay a tax called National Insurance which should go towards state provision of care. In my case, for example, I often pay two lots of NI, one as a self-employed person and another when I take part-time PAYE employment.
4. This is a wheeze by a desperate government that wants to offload responsibility for its citizens and is de facto a shit idea.