Peter C Glover's WIRES (blog)

The above titled piece from me was published by Energy Tribune this month. Go here.

The above titled piece (co-written with Professor Michael Economides) has just been published over at Energy Tribune in the Features section. If you want to know the true cost of politically correct, taxpayer-funded, windy rhetoric, you'll find it here.

TCSDaily has today published a piece I co-wrote with Professor Michael Economides which reveals just what a great scam the wind farm/ turbine industry actually is. This particluar version of the article was written for the US market, to warn them/US taxpayers about the massive dangers and enormous technical problems that are associated with the industry.

So much so, that only taxpayers in the major wind power countries will invest in it. No one else, as we say in the piece, would be so stupid as to (invest private equity, or) "touch it with a wind turbine rotor blade"!

To read the piece go to 'Blowin' In The Wind' at TCS Daily. 

The Persian National Humanitarian Choir.  A couple of months ago the US conservative site Human Events published a piece I co-wrote with Professor Michael Economides with the above title (go here).

Then the infamous National Intelligence Estimate (NIE report) was published making the ludicrous claim that Iran has no nuclear pretensions (I am sure Israel was relieved to hear the NIE reports claim - written, as it was, by liberal career diplomats in the US State Dept! About as useful as the UK Foreign Office).

To take in the findings of that NIE report Michael and I re-drafted the piece which has today been published (under the same title) here by Energy Tribune magazine.

I hear that Europe has made Liverpool its 'City of Culture' for 2008. Is this a joke? Just listen to the BBC here describing how Liverpool intends to kick of its first day in the cultural limelight.

"The show's centrepiece will be a rooftop performance by Ringo Starr who will be premiering a new song."  Right then. So the ex-Beatles DRUMMER (ie. the one with no talent) is going to sing (have you heard this guy sing?) a new song. The Beeb carried on with the irony. " Recent chart toppers The Wombats will also be taking centre stage at the proceedings." Oh stop it! I've been trying to sit upright on my chair ever since I heard the announcement. No wonder Europe is in a mess.

Clare McColgan, executive producer for the Liverpool Culture Company said the opening show "will be something the city has never seen". Well Claire, you could say the same about clean streets.

Referring to Liverpool as a 'city of culture' is on a par with praising Baghdad for its safety record or Teheran for its work towards world peace. But then what would I know. I'm from Manchester. For those who remain unaware of the fact: Liverpool, of course, is one of Manchester's poorer suburbs.

Altogether now: "I'd like to be, beside the sea, in an Octopuses Garden with you."  Don't you just love these special moments of high culture?

If only their parents had smacked them the Mass. lawmakers wouldn't be considering the latest assault by liberals on God-given parental rights!

A piece by me published over at US Human Events (December 12). Go here.

Kevin Rudd: a victim of climate change?I saw a headline the other day that said "Toad takes over Australia". I thought it was a reference to Kevin Rudd ousting the excellent John Howard from office. It turned out to be about a small browny-greeny slimy thing that spat a lot before, in due course, getting flattened by reality on life's road. So I was right, it was about Rudd.

So Oz is being dragged back into the liberal-Left dark ages once more, after 11 years of re-joining the human race. Note Howard's alliance with the rest of the Anglosphere group of nations that saw his vision extending beyond mere national self-interest in Afghanistan, Iraq et al. Note also Howard telling Islamist immigrant troublemakers: shape up (as an Oz citizen) or ship out. And, especially, Howard's scepticism that global warming was just another Geoge Bush-inspired White House plot.

A well-known Australian pest .The first thing the dipstick Rudd did was sign Australia up to the dead and failed Kyoto Protocol - that's a bit like opening an account at Northern Rock.  A man of vision is our Kev. Rudd's another climate alarmist obsessive who genuinely thinks he can make a difference to an entirely natural phenomena. Rudd now proposes to spend millions, perhaps billions, of his countrymen's money (just like the EU) proving to the world that man affecting global warming ... just can't be done.

They may continue to beat the crap out of us at cricket but otherwise: Australia RIP (Rudd Is a P...k).   

So the wife of the 'missing canoeist' has admitted a picture taken last year of her with her husband in Panama is authentic. In other words, its just a bizarre fraud case (she claimed the insurance readies) - a classic case of someone wanting their kayak and eating it.

When John Darwin turned himself in at the police station he apparently said, "I think I am a missing person". I'll say he is. Anyway, it will be for the courts to deal with now. Personally, I think he's up the Swanee without a paddle. The only question left to answer is: why did he turn himself in? Back in 2002 when he disappeared of the coast near Hartlepool, Knowing Hartlepool (I used to live near it) I thought he may well have been driven to suicide. Hartlepool's the place where they hanged a monkey for being a spy during the Napoleonic Wars. The RSPCA have been keeping an eye on it ever since.

Islamist thugs burn their applications to re-join the Human RaceSo the Sudanese Government are 'allowing Gillian Gibbons home' today. So that's it then? Until next time, of course. Or should we be teaching the Sudanese and other Arab/Muslim basket case economies a major lesson? In truth, we should already have done so by threatening them the minute they charged Gibbons. Over the last 5 years the UK gave Sudan £326 million in development aid. In 2008 we are due to give them a further £14 million.

Here's a thought. Why not suspend all UK government aid to Sudan - just where is the UK Government's anger at this rogue state?

But there is a double whammy in this story - and it is how badly this incident and that of the Iranian authorities taking 12 Royal Navy hostages a couple of years ago - and getting away with humiliating us nationally on both occasions. As my father put it so succinctly to me over the weekend: Where are the 'real men' in government these days? As we both agreed God save us from the spineless ilk of David Milliband and Labour ministers. Just read the excellent Melanie Phillips in the Mail on Sunday for a briliant take.

In retrospect Mohammed perhaps is not a good name for a teddy bear. Teddy bear's, after all, are cute and cuddly. But it would make a good name for a reptile - and let's face it the Sudanese regime - responsoble for mass murder in Darfur - are pure reptilian.

There's been a good deal of fuss this weekend about Tony Blair's comments on God and his 'claimed' Christian faith. Which all comes as some surprise because he pretty much said the same kind of things back in March 2006 on The Michael Parkinson Show.

As a practising Christian (and long-time Bible teacher) myself I have long been bemused at what passes for faith with Tony Blair. That is to say, I do not deny he possesses it, but he clearly does not have a great understanding of what faith means in practice.

The Bible is crystal clear about what it/what God himself (i.e. if the Bible is not God's revelation to all men, then it is of no value at all) accepts as genuine faith. First, he/she must 'believe that Jesus Christ is, uniquely, the Son of God and co-equal with God - hence: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit'.

But the Bible is also clear about the corollary of this truth - that the believer should "believe with his heart" (i.e. private) and "confess with his lips" (public) that this is so (Romans 10:10).  Alistair Campbell and Blair may pick and choose when to do God - but that, biblically speaking does not amount to faith, at least on God's terms.

Here is the bottom line: there is no such thing as purely private faith. Faith is - and must always be - made public. One may come to Christ 'privately' but at that instant he must join the church - the body of Christ - and thus make a very public statement. I have news for Mr Blair and for all Christians: becoming a fool (read: in the eyes of  non-believers) for Christ is actually a fact of life for all genuine believers (1 Corinthians 4:10). Sorry Tony, when it comes to the Christian faith, it must be professed. There is no hiding place - not even in the highest public office. Bottom line: Private Faith is a Christian oxymoron.

(NB. I also fully understand the need to 'keep a low profile in countries where this could instantly cost a Christian his/her life - but that clearly does not apply in Blair's case.) 

The desertion of a second Lib Dim politician within a year to the Cameron Conservatives should tell you all you need to know about the real state of British politics: there's no real choice.

Lib Dims are deserting to the Tories because they are, under Cameron, the real liberals. New Labour, under the Centraliser General, doesn't know whether it wants to go back to its natural pre-Blairite socialism  or  keep pinching Tory ideas (old and new).  The UKIP are the 'almost Conservative Party' (and the one I have voted for of late) but lack coherence to go the whole hog. The Lib Dims are...just what it says on the label.

There is a powerful urban myth in the UK. It contends people don't vote because they are "bored with politics". Piffle. It is because no party currently represents genuine conservative values.

So Richard Branson/Virgin has emerged as the 'preferred bidder' for the Northern Rock Bank. Quite honestly, we should want to know only ONE things about this takeover: when do we get back ALL of the money the Government stole from us (taxpayers) to shore up a badly run private sector business?

There is little doubt that the shareholders would be mugs not to take Virgin's offer - because they wil get zilch if they don't. So I expect this to go through. However, that doesn't get the Government off the hook. So they get back £11 billion of OUR (British taxpayer) money. The other £11 billion + stays 'at risk' for another three years.

I don't blame Richard Branson for the current situation - he's taking quite a business risk and could lose £200 of his own money (mind you, if anyone had £200 million to invest in any business, he can afford to lose it). The Government is squarely to blame for poking its nose in where no government has any business (and is less than equipped): the free markets.  This may be the best business deal to save Northern Rock shareholders - but it is NOT the best deal for Britain's 'shareholders'.  

It is outrageous that the British Government should be using taxpayers - your! - money to fund and sustain a bank in the private sector.  I was listening yesterday to a debate on Andrew Neill's 'Daily Politics' midday show. Having heard from three politicians from the three main parties it was quite clear that none of them had the merest clue what to do. Then Neill summed it up brilliantly asking: "Should it be allowed to go to the wall? The losers should be the Board and the shareholders - its the nature of private investment that it can both pay off and lose money, they lost."  Common sense, at last!

The current policy of taxpayer subsidisation will ultimately mean some of that money will, inevitably, be lost. Why should those who did not put money into NR pay for its market failures, or act as guarantor? If the Board and shareholders lose out by taking it into administration the taxpayers money will be repaid, those who held accounts in the NR will get their money back. The only losers will be 'confidence' in banking (so what?) and the board and shareholders - the latter the deserving losers for their incompetence.

Now you see why government needs to be small and should stay out of free market affairs? Because what they end up doing is 'stealing' your money and investing it in failing organisations and, ultimately, unsuccessful policies.  

It begins. The wave of optimism about changing France's socialism hand-our culture, which swept Nicolas Sarkozy to power in the expectation of a national 'Thatcher moment', has already subsided. The usual response of France's cosseted population now ruined by the benefits of the handout culture which demands cradle to grave nappy changing, is to take to the streets in national strikes. The current wave of strikes shows that until the power of the French unions is finally broken he may make a stand, but it will end being more like that at Isandhlwana than Rorke's Drift.

Will the conviction-driven Sarkozy succeed where previous spineless politicians have failed? I doubt it. The rotten to the core socialism in France has already done its damage of weakening national spirit and will. That's what decadence does. And we may not be far behind, as the French-styled EU treads the same social path. The French will make all the noises about change recognising what should be done - right up to the point where they have to make any sort of sacrifice to do it.

We should understand on thing about leading US Republican candidate Mitt Romney: Romney is a Mormon and NOT a Christian. I am ambivalent about faith becoming an issue for American presidents. But faith appears this week to have become an issue. Here's BBC US Correspodnent Justin Webb pontificating on the issue. Okay then. Here's the bottom line on the faith issue (according the Bible, not just me).

What marks out a Christian as a Christian is that he/she worships God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as, uniquely, the living God.  JW's are appalled by the Doctrine of the Trinity (largely because the actual word doesn't appear in Scripture. Irrelevant...the teaching is plainly there). Mormons believe the opposite, that in some some way, we all 'become gods' (and thus co-equal with God). Both beliefs are pure heresy and anti-Christian. Mormonism and JW-ism are cults. Neither sect is at all Christian. It is not an issue of interpretation but fact. End of story...on faith.

So here is the additional and real problem with Romney - his judgment. And it is worse than those who profess 'no faith'. The Bible and Christ save their bitterest denunciations for those who profess faith in the living God - but who in fact deny Christ as the unique Son of God by their words and actions. So with Romney it is not just about his faith - it is about his judgment. Above all, the one name he and his fellow Mormons must NEVER claim for themselves is that of 'Christian'. As far as Christians are concerned what he believes is worse than atheism.