Julian, a majority of councillors in Carmarthenshire speak Welsh and use it in council meetings. The council employs an interpreter so that non-Welsh speakers can understand what is being said. In the books this goes down as part of what the council is spending on the Welsh language, but I think you will agree that the cost should really be attributed to the English language and those like yourself who take pride in their monolingual ignorance. The same is true of many of the other costs attributed to Cymraeg. Perhaps we should start levying a service charge on monoglot English speakers. How would you like to pay?

Thank you.
I clicked on the link to Amazon and read the sample pages. My first thought was: ‘Surely no one would publish works containing so many misuses of the apostrophe?’ So, I did a little research. (Approximate time taken: one minute.)
“the peoples’ guardian” See: Chapter One, Line Six of ‘A Judge and Nothing but’ by Julian Ruck.
Even the Google Search application flags ” the peoples’ guardian ” as an error.

Boys! Boys!

So the Tories ditched the electrification of the railway lines west of Cardiff because they didn’t understand the science. Oh the poor things.

Most of those muppets are either lacking in basic numeracy/quantitative techniques or look down their pompous PPE/Social science noses at people who engage in the data rational. Verbally fluent, empty headed twats do NOT make good political representatives and are certainly only good at pretending to be leaders of nations.

And therein lies the core problem. Most of the ‘muppets’ are from legal/ teaching backgrounds (usually from the arts subjects). People who can waffle fluently, but are totally devoid of any scientific knowledge – with very few exceptions.

I well remember trying to debate the ridiculousness of wind turbine energy generation from a technical point of view, with other politicians (some of whom openly admitted they were technophobes – Cynog Dafis being a case in mind). You might as well be talking about nuclear physics to a Bushman from the Kalahari.

However, they were totally taken in by lobbyists from the energy companies, and didn’t want to know about the scientific realities and facts. Not a clue, but these are the people who make the decisions.

I agree that many MPs are not fit for purpose but bear in mind that the main debating chamber is not the place where the finer details of projects are pored over.
The issue here is a major project of importance that was promised has been ditched in the final hours before Parliamentary recess.
Here are the Zelo Street and Political Scrapbook reports.

… and that is a sure sign that data rational discussions are alien to that House. Most of those muppets are either lacking in basic numeracy/quantitative techniques or look down their pompous PPE/Social science noses at people who engage in the data rational. Verbally fluent, empty headed twats do NOT make good political representatives and are certainly only good at pretending to be leaders of nations.

You need to look at how Oral Answers to Questions are handled at the House of Commons
MPs have to submit a question in writing and it gets allocated a number.
After the Secretary of State has stood up and given an oral reply to the question, the MP who tabled the question is only allowed one follow up statement.

Do you honestly think that an MP standing up in the debating chamber and uttering “a = (v – u) / t => v – u = at” is likely to impress the House?

Here’s the link to the debate: HoC: Debates and Oral Answers 13 July 2017
A reward of a bag of Boyo’s Enjoyos to anyone who spots a mathematical formula.

Peter Walker ?? you must be joking. So many allegations about him from those who worked closely with him while he managed the “Principality” ( one of his favoured terms for his domain), accepting “gifts”, “helping” friends, working hard to make cronyism the default position for the Welsh Office. Superficially very likeable, easy going, public school twat, but not a man to present as a role model for this type of position.

Fleet testing of the Hitachi 800 bi-modal trains were conducted at Kasado, Japan in March of this year.

The maximum acceleration achieved in diesel traction mode (nine cars) was found to be 0.575 m/s/s while an acceleration of 0.700 m/s/s was achieved under electric traction. This means that it takes 30% longer to accelerate to line speed under diesel generation mode. This is what determines the time it will take to travel from Cardiff to Swansea, especially as the train has to accelerate from a stand not just at Cardiff, but also at Bridgend, Port Talbot, and Neath.

Chris Failing claims that there will be no reduction in journey times as a result.

It’s not the line speed that determines the journey time but the time it takes to accelerate to line speed from a stand. The power to weight ratio means that it’s only possible to achieve anything close to the acceleration rate of electric traction is the reductions in the number of carriages. The Kasdo testing was done on nine-car sets which (five of the coaches with under-floor diesel engines) and a five-car sets with (three of the coaches with under-floor diesel engines).

This means that only the five car sets will get to Swansea. This is reflected in the contract that was signed between GWR and Eversholt Rail, the company that will own the trains and lease the rolling stock to the operator. This contract was signed in 2015. The contract was for 22 five-car-sets and seven nine-car-sets. This means that the current hourly service to South Wales will either be reduced to a train every two hours, or an hourly service will go to Cardiff only, with only a sporadic service through to Swansea.

Also, it should be noted that there’s a difference in the passenger floor level between carriages with under-floor diesel engines and those without. The disabled access carriages (with accessible toilets) is situated in the latter, so there will be less disabled access on the Swansea bound trains.

Science lessons for Antoniazzi ..

(a) The law of conservation of energy is that it can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it transforms from one form to another. So the confusion between direct drive diesel or diesel powered electrical generation is actually irrelavent. Whilst its true that an electric engine can provide more torque in the power to weight ratio, and therefore greater accellection, more hoursepower at any given time, needs to be applied. Bigger engines.
(b) The formula used for determining journey times of an electric train is a = (v – u) / t => v – u = at. This was something that was taught to 13year olds at the education authority she used to teach in. I’m surprised she was so easily fobbed off in her new role as front of the queue in the Westminster canteen.

Whilst it’s true that Mr Failing sneaked through the announcement just prior to the dissolution of the Westminster parliament to avoid scrutiny, with some suggesting that this was sugar coated with the Severn Bridge toll announcement, opposition Labour MPs have failed to scrutinise all the decisions that have led up to this announcement. Also, no informed debate has taken place in the Senedd since the Welsh Government opted to oppose the devolution of these matters to Wales.