Cheaper Transport?

2007 floods not connected to climate change says report from the Centre Of Ecology and Hydrology. A once in a lifetime event that might occur twice every three hundred years - or so they maintain. Somehow it triggered a similar response in me to that of heavy smokers coughing their lungs up every morning while maintaining it is not connected to cigarettes. So, none of those affected by the floods need have any fear of a repeat in the near future. Hmmm. I wonder if the insurance companies are any more convinced than I am and, if so, will it be reflected in a lowering of their policy prices... what, you doubt it? Cynics :O) Cheaper transport, well it doesn’t look hopeful for canoes.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has announced that Admiral William J Fallon will "retire" at the end of the month. Now, it is very rare that I care two hoots which American big Brass rules the roost but since Fallon is the top military commander for the Middle East it can have a very big impact on all our lives. Fallon who sees Petraeus as Bush’s performing pet poodle – and one that is barking up the wrong tree with his surge strategy – sees Pakistan (who does have WMD) as the real area of concern and would pull troops out of Iraq in readiness for the inevitable conflict with Al Qaeda there (Pakistan). Following Bush's 20 Billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia in mid February Mr Gates now seem more interested in India’s 10 Billion dollar arms contract and the added incentive to buy that having an unpredictable, Al Queda ridden, Muslim dominated neighbour with nuclear weapons, surely brings! Fallon recently (February) refused to agree with the proposed sending of a third naval taskforce to the Gulf as he rightly reasoned that it would have signalled to Iran a readiness to go to war... Fallon had vowed that there will be no war with Iran on his watch. Mr Gates ridiculed rumours that the admiral disagreed with the administration’s approach to Iraq and any notion that Fallon’s leaving signalled that the US is planning to go to war with Iran! http://www.abctales.com/story/mykle/do-you-have-explosive-computer Meanwhile, the military here in the UK are more concerned about the loss of 11,000 military ID cards. Cheaper Travel: Not likely when the oil price rockets to new high’s over fears of a war with Iran.

What saddens me is that if yet another American led invasion of an oil rich state is prosecuted in the name of WMD everyone will sit back and watch it on TV shaking their heads in disapproval but sufficiently convinced by the media machine that it probably needs to be done. A few years down the line they will have convinced themselves that they always knew it was just another excuse to invade a country which wouldn’t play ball with the West and did everything they could to prevent it. “I was always against the war in Iran” they will maintain “but at least the Iranian people have a democracy now!” Ironic that it was American CIA funds that helped topple the democratic government in Iran and install the Shah!