WUFOOB … (Oct – Dec 2014)

Hackers incensed by Sony film about fictional assassination of Kim Jung-un

Reuters, Tuesday 23rd December 2014
North Korea, at the center of a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of Sony Pictures, experienced a complete Internet outage for hours before links were restored on Tuesday, but U.S. officials said Washington was not involved. U.S. President Barack Obama had vowed on Friday to respond to the major cyber attack, which he blamed on North Korea “in a place and time and manner that we choose.” The hackers said they were incensed by a Sony comedy about a fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which the movie studio has now pulled from general release.

Sending billions abroad, and borrowing to do it, is absolutely wrong

Express, Friday 5th December 2014
The Conservatives, aided by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, today pushed through their decision to dedicate 0.7 percent of British GDP to foreign aid. This means that because of an uptick in GDP this year, we’re actually going to be giving away £12 billion – and in 2015, this will have to rise to £13 billion. The idea of sending billions abroad, and borrowing to do it, is absolutely wrong.

Osborne angry about BBC’s Orwellian jibe

The Times, Friday 5th December 2014
George Osborne rounded on a BBC journalist yesterday for suggesting that he was taking Britain back to 1930s deprivation depicted by George Orwell. In a tetchy interview with John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today programme, he accused the BBC of unfairly inventing an Orwellian vision of a broken Britain because of the swingeing public expenditure cuts that will have to be imposed in the next Parliament.

UK gains from migrants, according to economists

The Guardian, Wednesday 5th November 2014
European migrants to the UK are not a drain on Britain’s finances and pay out far more in taxes than they receive in state benefits according to a new study by two leading migration economists at University College. The study, the Fiscal Impact of Immigration to the UK, was published in the Economic Journal.

The end of the IPCC?

International Business Times, Tuesday 4th November 2014
The future of the United Nations’ leading climate body [the IPCC] is uncertain, as experts wonder whether the panel’s merits outweigh its shortcomings. Michael Oppenheimer, lead author of the second part of the agency’s most recent climate change report, told the Associated Press: “You have to ask yourself: Is that the best way they should be spending their time?” The panel has also been criticized for delivering information that was already known by the time they announced it. On Sunday, the IPCC released its most comprehensive report yet on climate change. The painstaking study, the agency’s fifth since 1988, was six years in the making and included the work of about 4,000 authors, reviewers and contributors and about 30,000 climate studies, according to the AP. But many of the claims made in the latest IPCC report are nearly verbatim identical to ones included in its 1990 report.

“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”

Wolf Street, Monday 3rd November 2014
Among the core principles of the EU are the free movement of goods, capital, and people. Britain – or rather the City of London – has benefited more than any other Member State from the free movement of capital. That speck of land within London has become one of the largest and murkiest financial centers in the world. The institutions located there have been involved in nearly every major financial scandal and market rigging scheme discovered over the last few years. It’s so big that the British economy has become dependent on it. Any measures that other Member States suggest that might in anyway reduce the bonuses, wealth, and power of those involved in the Square Mile has (sic) been opposed with religious fervor by successive UK governments.

Angela Merkel threw down the gauntlet. If Cameron insists on quotas to restrict the free movement of people from Member States and limit the number of these folks who want to live and work in the UK, in clear violation of a core principle, well then, according to unnamed sources of the Spiegel, Merkel would end her efforts to keep Britain in the EU and would accept an exit.

Retirement age set to increase by six months each year

The Independent, Wednesday 8th Oct 2014
People in their fifties and sixties will be urged to work longer by the Government in a drive to increase the average retirement age by six months each year.