more XKCD

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Snigger.

Johann Hari is awesome

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His article on child-marriage and Islam got rather predictably flamed to shit. His response is mature and balanced and I have utter respect for him.

Jesus is a junglist

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Shit, I laughed!

Ciderpunk!

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This is just so awesome I might actually spiff in my pants.

Now I know what 'casus belli' means

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And I found out from Spinwatch's take-up of the story about Dick Cheney planning to have a bunch of Navy Seals dressed as Iranians attack a US warship in the Persian Gulf to provide an excuse to attack Iran.

Dick Cheney is a monster and needs to be locked away.

high-grade tunage

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These guys are playing at Recydrate. They're gonna rule.

this is ultra-rad

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late night entertainment

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No, not porn. This.

A few corkers:

• Hanlon's razor — A corollary of Finagle's law, normally taking the form "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.". As with Finagle, possibly not strictly eponymous. Alternately, "Do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence."
• Hofstadter's law — "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." It was created by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach.
• Littlewood's law — States that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. Coined by Professor J E Littlewood, (1885–1977)
• Poe's Law — Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to tell the difference between religious Fundamentalism and a parody thereof.
• Sturgeon's revelation — "90 percent of everything is crap."

"Free Trade" is an oxymoron

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Yeah, anyone who's read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine knows what a bunch of inhuman monsters the WTO and World Bank are. Johann would like to remind us of this.

the festival experience

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It was dark and wet; soaked in the fermented juice of a million apples. I spent hours with my eyes closed and inhaled the charred fumes of exotic spices. There was a roaring fire around which dark shapes cavorted bizarrely. I feared them and retired to the bosom of the psy-trance bunker. Later they played dubstep, which suited my state of inebriation well. The following day I had the most amazing veggie burger that has ever slid past my tonsils. The mud got deeper and the tea stronger. Nell appeared and we danced and laughed like wild gypsies, drunk on the beauty of life. I had a wee in front of one of the most beautiful panorama's I have ever seen. The mud got even deeper.

Iran calls moratorium on stoning

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This is pretty good news for the eight or so people currently lined up for this most hideous of deaths.

drugs are good

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Word. A wonderful piece of writing.

Pure Energy Systems Wiki

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If you're as fascinated by renewable generation as I am then you should love this Wiki. I found my way there through their algal biofuels page, which is awesome!

the CBI is sociopathic

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They rather predictably want the government to ignore the unions' demands for flexible working hours for parents and are forecasting doom, gloom and general plagues of frogs if the government gives in. Wankers.

This is a typically one-sided argument from the corporate whores, completely ignoring the benefits to society of parents being able to spend more quality time with their children. Of course the CBI will claim that they don't deal in 'intangibles' such as 'theoretical' benefits. However, evidence exists to demonstrate the benefits of such policy. For example, the Scandinavian countries who already implement such policies have far higher education standards and lower juvenile crime rates. Social studies of parent-child contact also reveal the potential for this policy to provide much benefit to our society.

This seems obvious to me but the corporate whores of the CBI don't seem to realise this or they don't want it made known because its another nail in the coffin of their demands for global corporate slavery. So they are either stupid and have no place commenting on policy or they are deceitful and sociopathic. I wonder which . . . ?

another step closer to sustainable biofuels

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science puts an end to racism

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Nice work.

Demonstrating once and for all that racism is purely a product of prejudice, arrogance, bigotry and selfishness.

sodding HPLC . . . .

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Punkscience just destroyed another £400 HPLC column.

Bugger.

I'm trying to quantify metallothioneins in my beasties according to a method adapted from these two papers. And its not working.

I can't seem to get a peak from the derivatised metallothionein, no matter what I do. The derivatising agent, 6-IAF, should bind happily to thiols such as those on the MT. I've tried pre-incubating the MT with cadmium to ensure the thiols are saturated, there's EDTA in the labelling mixture too which should pull those metals off and allow the label to bind. I've also tried adding a reducing agent, TCEP, so that the thiols aren't oxidised and unable to bind the metals/label. Still no peak.

I've varied the gradient, I've extended it to silly lengths just in case the MT peak was being masked by one of the other peaks that come out. Still nothing.

I'm using the gradient version of the HPLC protocol with acetonitrile/methanol and water and when I go to clean the columns after a busy day's cocking around and getting no peaks I ramp the organic eluent up to 100% to clean all the crap off the column. The first time I tried this with one of my bitch columns a load of cloudy white stuff came off as I ramped the organic phase back down again. Oh dear. That would be the stationary phase being stripped off the silica particles then. Exit first column.

I then tried using my uber-bad analytical column I bought a couple of years ago for my crab-urine work. This should have improved separation and resolution of any peaks. It didn't. No.

Instead, after taking great care not to ramp the solvents up and down too quickly and to rinse the column with milliQ I ran the wrong gradient program one day and got another nasty little white cloud in my waste bottle, just like before. I almost cried that time.

Then yesterday, using my last column- a random C8 one I 'acquired' nefariously- I switched from the stupid, shitty MT analysis to another piece of work I was planning, which also used an acetonitrile-water gradient and managed to fuck that column too, first time I tried to wash it.

Bastard fuckbollock goat cock. Now I am out of good RP columns and still have no data.

this site is awesome!

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Word.


Addition:

Here's mine.

research careers - an exercise in exploitation

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Careers in research suck. Not because of the work but because of the nature of the contracts that research is carried out under. Typically these are less than 3 years and often just one. Competition is high and wages often low (a typical "hirers' labour market). Whilst working on one contract it is often near-impossible to set yourself up for another to start immediately after the first has ended. For example, one of my supervisors spent 8 months unemployed between her last position and this one- and that is not an unusual spell. She told me she met a guy at a conference recently who worked in his Dad's hotel for four years before being able to pick up another contract. This isn't to say there isn't work out there- I know people who aren't suitable for the projects they are on but got the job through favouritism or by picking up the reigns from someone who had quit. And who wants to relocate every two years or so just to stay in work? Try maintaining a relationship in those circumstances, or buying a house (not that you'd want to right now).

This Guardian article outlines the situation well.

new wave powered generation technology

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PFC.

(PFC = Pretty Fucking Cool).

busy, busy, busy

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Punkscience is going to a conference in Marseille so won't be around for a few days. You can rest assured that while I am away I will be working hard to disseminate my cutting-edge worm science to a wider audience and when I'm not doing that I will be working on my thesis. Not swanning around Marseille and getting pissed. No. Not at all. Honest!

new page feature

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Either of my regular visitors (Hi Rossinisbird and Bryan!) might notice the new page feature on the left. I thought it might feature as a poignant reminder of the utter stupidity of voting for 'grey' parties. The spiralling oil prices, climate change and global strife that they are perpetuating have the potential to ruin the rest of our lives. It doesn't have to be this way.

PhD blues

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I am reaching the end of my PhD and will run out of money in ~3 months time. If I work my arse of for those three months I should end up with almost all of the data that I set out to collect at the start of my PhD. This is not a little impressive, I should point out. As I have been living in Plymouth and working in ~~~~~~ I have been losing three hours a day travelling. To remedy this unproductive situation I decided to buy myself a van, build a bed in the back and sleep up at ~~~~~~ during the week to give myself some highly concentrated and much needed work time Punkwiff is wholly supportive as she's fed up of me being grumpy when I crawl in at 2200, only to have to get up the next day and head back up country.


The upshot of this narrative is that I have the considerable luxury of a whole 16 hours or so of working time available to me. Being human I tend to spend at least a couple of those hours cocking around in t'interweb, which is good news for you lucky blog fiends out there as I get to share more of my fascinating life with you.

Anyhoo, I have spent the last few days quantifying lipid, sugars and protein in polychaete oocytes and preparing my talk for the SEB Annual Conference in Marseille. Consequently, I have some nice data and am going to share it with the world.

I rule.

Chinese public transport

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Its an incredible thing to watch. I don't know what I'm appalled by most: The way that people surge forward into the train or the way that the 'porters' manhandle them so that the doors can close. It must be thoroughly degrading to have to subject yourself to such an experience every day. To me, this is a prime example of how humans can become 'desensitised' to their plight. I wonder what the Swiss make of this? If you've ever been on Swiss public transport you would know what I'm talking about.

Johann is right, but for the wrong reasons . . .

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Equality. Johann explains why its a good thing with his usual eye for telling statistics. Why this otherwise intelligent bloke continues to support the Labour Party I do not know.

""we will remember this Bill in dark times as one of the reasons to fight for a Labour government"

No, Johann, we will not. We will remember- as you yourself observe, that equality in the eyes of the law is a good thing and vote for whoever enforces it. As you noted, this legislation has been effectively castrated by the Labour cabinet. Why you continue to delude yourself that Labour is, somehow, the party of social justice remains beyond my ken. Labour will surely be remembered for failing to address climate change, despite Sir Nicholas Stern's best efforts, for the economic suicide of PFI- for which my unborn children already hate them- and for the genocide of over a million Iraqi civilians.

Vote for a future. Vote Green."

I'm working at my computer today, BTW. Can you tell?

weekly bible quote

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Genesis 38:

⁸Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’ ⁹But since Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother. ¹⁰What he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

corporate sociopathy

infotainment

believing in god gives you the right to do this:

.
Evil.

Inhuman.

Ignorant.
.

weekly bible quotation

No, really.

Deut 25:11-12

Various Commands

11 If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, ¹²you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.

Coldplay suck goat cocks

Andy Gill's review of their latest formulaic shite for the Independent is awesome.

"But for me, it's the band's anguished professions of supposed political concern, while simultaneously indulging the rampant self-pity of the most cosseted, comfortable constituency of music fans the world has ever known – that's the most irritating aspect of Coldplay. Rock'n'roll used to be a rallying cry, a clarion call; now, in their hands, it's just a palliative."

Chris Martin is definitely a candidate for what Motorhead said.

Polly sees through Cameron as if he was made of glass

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Word.

"He dangled an extraordinary array of un-Conservative ideas. "People haven't understood the scale and depth of the family-friendly reform we want," he said, "getting family finance right" by "redistributing money to poor households", "giving families more time to spend together", "affordable child care" and "taking on the unrelenting commercial influences on childhood". On all of these, the Tories opposed every measure Labour brought in - tax credits, childcare, flexible working and anything the CBI disliked. So is this real change or just a wise acceptance of things already done? Cleverly, there was not one bankable promise."

Clever, but in an evilly calculating way.

today's statistic of interest

The Lazy Environmentalist quoting Phil Woolas MP.

""UK economic activity accounts for 15% emissions worldwide" . . . (note: this is a rarely alluded to fact by our government . . .), "2% of which comes directly from within our shores.""

model corporate sociopathy

"The head of BP said today oil prices are unstable because markets are not well supplied, and attacked higher taxes in oil-producing countries for holding back investment in new output.

"The problem is not below ground, the problem is above ground," Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, said at an oil and gas conference in Malaysia." (my bold)

BP posted record profits of $16.2 billion in February. That must really hold back investment. Yeah.

doublespeak

Read this article and see if you can spot it.

Hint: Its a comment about something that Switzerland and Germany have been doing for over a decade . . . .


WRAP sounds alright- I approve of their key objectives- . Its just their executive dirtector talking complete shit, that I object to.

UK government buries head further in sand over climate change

The government refuses to adopt meaningful targets- even the lproposed increase from 60 to 80% emissions reductions by 2050 is useless. They have no power on the international stage to push others to adopt similar emissions becuase they have lost all credibility over Iraq. And the closing paragraph to this article states this:


"Department for the Environment officials said the bill had been 'strengthened quite significantly' by the amendments, but 'remains largely unchanged', both raising and dashing hopes that they have accepted some or all the changes. Some campaigners fear the government, under pressure over rising oil prices not to introduce what are seen as expensive 'green' policies, are not ready to bow to the demands in full."

You see? Head In Sand. The government still fears to take effective action because it might cost a lot. Its as if the Stern Report had never been produced.

Government teams up with Virgin media to disseminate propaganda

I use P2P sites and I love them. It has revitalised music and pulled the rug out from under the mass-produced shite that the industry pumps out. I also advocate supporting local upcoming artists by buying their music wherever possible, preferably at their gigs so that all of the money goes into their pockets and none gets skimmed by Amazon or some other distributor.

For example:

Babyhead
Yes Sir Boss!
Kat Marsh
Albenaza
Circus of Sound
Martin Harley Band
Black Friday
etc.

The industry hates P2P because people get to listen to more music than you get from the radio or the cable music channel- all of which, apart from the Beeb's efforts, are controlled by the same parent companies as the music industry slags.

I don't approve of paying £15 for a CD either. It costs a few pennies to print up a CD and case. I don't want to belittle the creative efforts of bands such as these above. I just feel that there's a massive difference between seeing the band in the flesh and 'doing their thing' and listening to a recording that about two hundred thousand people also own. I think a CD should cost about £3.50 and a ticket to a live gig at least £20. I'm not a tight-arse and I love live music.

DBERR report supports feed-in tariffs for microgeneration

I don't agree with microgeneration- I'm into HVDC and supergrids- but its a step in the right dorection. I can't wait to see the government eat its own words on TV. This report advocates feed-in tariffs, which microgeneration advocates have been screaming for for years.

An interesting point is made clear in the final paragraph of the report:

"The report offers a very different future, as do the Tories, who see microgeneration as central to their philosophy of redirecting power to individuals. David Cameron sees "decentralised energy" as "a key part of our political vision, energy for the post-bureaucratic age". He believes microgeneration could make Britain, and individual communities, "self-sufficient in energy"."

Here we see the Tories passing the buck of energy poverty neatly onto the free market. Those who can't afford electricity through the grid are hardly going to be able to install the several-thousand pounds worth of PV panels, micro-hydro, wind turbines, current inverters and battery arrays necessary to become energy-independent. Instead the rich fuckers are going to be doing this in droves as grid electricity spirals up and up in cost, leaving the rest of us to resort to reducing our own consumption.

high oil prices are awesome!

People are driving less- even Americans, business class only airlines are going bust (woohoo!) and public appeals for efficient public transport as an alternative to private are growing. Sweet.

George knows it too.


Addition:

So does Johann.

ecohackers 2 - the revenge

Someone's managed to do something decent with all the wondrous technology we've developed. Its simple enough to be practical and theoretically viable. Watch this space . . .

do you want a new nuclear power station at Hinkley?

You can register your opinion with the Western Daily News.

punkscience is now a union member

I just joined Unite-Amicus. I thought it was the right thing to do and Peter Tatchell agrees. We shall see how this pans out . . . .


They happened to offer new members the chance to register their political position in the form of a questionnaire. Unfortunately I am physically incapable of turning down any opportunity to slate the Labour party. Hence:

interesting renewable generation factoid

According to Caroline Lucas, research shows that wind energy creates over 2000 jobs per terawatt of energy produced, compared to just 75 for nuclear.

I'd be very interested to find that research. A quick google failed to produce anything tangible.

Green Vehicles

They make this little gem (credit to EcoGeek). Its very similar to something that I want to build myself, originally inspired by the Aptera. The reverse trike layout, the side-by side seats for two. The main difference between the TRIAC and the Aptera is that the latter has an internal combustion engine powering a generator as well as conventional battery storage so that although it can be used as a true BEV it can also be used as a hybrid, achieving 250mpg. That's pretty damn sweet!

The reason this phenomenal mileage is achievable is simply that the Aptera is so thoroughly streamlined that it doesn't have to waste >80% of the energy in its fuel pushing air out of its way. I can't begin to compete with that but I did want to put together a BEV at home that would allow me to scoot around town cheaply and with minimal emissions. So I've been researching suppliers thet hree main components needed for a BEV: The batteries, a speed controller and the motor. The chassis can be a straightforward welded steel job (I looked into a bamboo frame too, BTW) and the running gear can come off bikes. The best bits I've come across have been these guy's speed controllers and motors from China. As for batteries, I had the idea of using recycled lead-acid batteries from a scrap yard- often these are perfectly serviceable (unlike the vehicles they were in).

Whether this turns into any more than a pipe-dream remains to be seen but its fun to research and in a few years I have a nasty feeling that incentives to move to electric powered transport will be particularly prevalent.

Addition:

Another reverse trike. Not very green but highly badassss!

Michael Meacher

He voted for the Iraq invasion and, therefore, is a git. However, he's bang on with this CiF article about UK politics.

Vote Green.

punkscience is back . . .

. . . and he's struggling to come to terms with the world he's returned to.

Bombs in Exeter (where he works).
Oil at $135 a barrel.
Nu Laybur in meltdown and the prospect of a Tory government (can it be worse than Labour?)



The saga continues. Watch this space . . .


P.S.
Thanks for the love, chaps. Much appreciated.

punkscience is going on a cruise . . .

. . . in the North Sea, for two weeks. So you will have to arrange for other sources of anger and vitriol to inform or entertain yourselves, or to disgust yourselves with, if that's why you're here (I dunno- it takes all sorts).

Whatever you do, I can assure you it will be much less fun than playing with crabs for two weeks- for which, I offer my sympathy.

Ciao!

Noam rules

“If the left means anything, it means it’s concerned for the needs, welfare, and rights of the general population.”

Word. I wonder where Noam's political compass lies?

The Media Lens massive are pretty rad too:

"In the last decade of corresponding with journalists we have found that they often do behave as though they were living in a police state, or at least in a state policed by corporate power. Many are privately supportive and helpful. Indeed, many journalists who might be expected to be fierce opponents of our work, are in fact enraged by the mendacity and destructiveness of the media employing them. But they tell us their comments must be off the record; that they are not willing to comment over the internet (which is surely monitored); that they will help us only on condition that their names be concealed. Could it be more obvious that journalists do not feel free to write the truth about Alton and Kelner, and much else, because of the likely professional consequences?"

Peter Mandelson is a sociopathic cockweasel

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Word.

I've had a shit day and to come home to face this neo-classical economical, ecocidal mania is just too much for me. I need a drink.

And a spliff. I'm really not much of a reefer-fiend, preferring a glass of good rum when I'm in company. But tonight I just feel the need for that warm fuzziness and the welcome absolution of short-term memories.

Self-medication rules.


Addition:

I changed the epithet in the title. I regret my original term, which was designed for maximum offense and was a product of my earlier bitterness.

Anyway, how's this for an interesting observation:

" . . . arable land would store more carbon year on year for many decades if just left to revert to a natural ecosystem . . . . If we grow biofuels "on previously unfarmed land" we will obviously incur the opportunity cost that the land would (or already does) store more carbon if we DON'T grow biofuels on it than if we DO."

It was a comment from SteelyGlint below Mandletwat's article. I'm not sure how right it is but it certainly rings true to me. Carbon fixed in biofuel production on arable land is rapidly released back into the atmosphere. The obvious problem is that letting arable land 'return to nature' results in a loss of food production capacity, just as the conversion to biofuel production does.

religion is a byproduct of the evolution of imagination

Word.

New Scientist rules.

Murdoch criticises the BBC for being great

James Murdoch, clone of his BBC-hating, right-wing extremist father, has decided that the BBC's iPlayer service is a bad thing. Unsurprisingly really, seeing as his company BSkyB has completely missed the boat on internet TV and is now unable to compete with the BBC's visionary service. This is the second time in a month that the iPlayer has been criticised by corporate figures, who are clearly rattled at its success. Personally, I've never used it, but I can see how I will soon come to rely on it as I loathe the pre-programmed format of modern television almost as much as I hate the mindless shite that is perpetually broadcasted. Basically, these guys are assaulting the BBC because of what it is, not what it is doing. They simply can't stand having to compete with an organisation with a prescriptive mandate for objectivity and balance, however poorly that may be implemented. It clashes directly with the corporate media's goal of homogeneity, elimination of real news and the dissemination of nationalist and corporate propaganda.


Addition:

More lies and propaganda from the little shit in this CiF post. Read the 3rd comment. Word!

The Spectator: A mouthpiece for US and Israeli propaganda

Compare and contrast these two reports of the Israeli air strike on September 6th upon a target inside Syria.

One of them presents balanced perspectives and attributes its sources. The other is hysterical and makes extensive use of unattributable, unnamed sources.

Which do we think is the most accurate? Hmmmmmmm?

Middle Eastern insight

This ZNet interview with Norman Finkelstein is an amazing insight into the forces at play in the ME.

Dominic Lawson is a climate change-denying cockweasel

For someone who writes for the Indy he's remarkably stupid. He has utterly failed to contemplate the trend for rising fuel prices that will make renewable generation profoundly competitive within a few years. He is stupid enough to not have learnt anything from The Stern Report. He also makes no consideration of the apocalyptic consequences of rejecting sustainable development and renewable generation. In fact, this article misses so many glaring chances to point opinion in progressive directions- that is, directions which would lead to progress- that you have to wonder at the man's motives for essentially advocating the end of our society as we know it.

Take the economic point Lawson makes: That the economic downturn turns people's concerns away from environmentalism and towards economic stability. What he has missed completely is that the economic system itself is sick and in dire need of reform. The banks, whose idiocy and greed produced the economic crisis, aren't mentioned at all. Neither is any proposed changes to the system that might allow economic concerns to be mitigated.

That's just one example of an elephant in Dominic's room. Another would be his justified assault upon micro-generation. Damning David Cameron's poxy little turbine is entirely correct and Dominic throws some good figures in there. But this is after he has slated the EU's proposals for renewable energy generation, observing that they will cost the consumer £10 billion in total. The fact that such capacity will produce essential reductions in carbon emissions, increase energy security, generate thousands of jobs, shield us from subsequent rises in fuel costs and another million good reasons also pass mention, as does the fact that we should not be footing the bill for it- the government should be using our tax money to stabilise our economy and energy security!

But the worst piece of misdirection is Lawson's observation that "the British public . . . need educating about [the inconsistency of wind generation]" using the Texan example. His tone implies that, if the public knew about this flaw in the technology's reliability to generate electricity, they would reject such technology whole heartedly.This implication that renewable generation is flawed, uneconomic and inappropriate runs through the whole article. And, of course, it is entirely incorrect. As I have demonstrated time and again on this blog, renewable generation is perfectly capable of powering the world as long as it is applied intelligently.

Finally, and most damning of all, Lawson fails to extrapolate from his condemnation of renewable generation and covert endorsement of unsustainable development to the future: If we don't move to a sustainable society then catastrophic climate change will be inevitable and millions will die, our society will be crippled by food-poverty and mass migration of climate refuges and the economy will collapse. Dominic seems to imply that this is an acceptable alternative.

He is, clearly, a fucking cockweasel.



Addition:

Case closed:

“The burning of fossil fuels sends about seven gigatons of CO₂ per year into the atmosphere, which sounds like a lot. Yet the biosphere and the oceans send about 1900 gigatons and 36000 gigatons of CO₂ per year into the atmosphere – ... one reason why some of us are sceptical about the emphasis put on the role of human fuel-burning in the greenhouse gas effect. Reducing man-made CO 2 emissions is megalomania, exaggerating man’s significance. Politicians can’t change the weather.”

A dirty little propagandist cockweasel.

Israeli Defence Force tortures children

I'm not a fan of the Israeli military, for various reasons. This is one of them. There are several others.

manufacturing consent

So, evidence has surfaced revealing the extent to which the BUsh administration has used ex-military characters, many with conflicting corporate interests in defence contracts, as expert commentators on US television to disseminate propaganda and disinformation regarding their terrorist and torturing activities.

children aren't stupid

A notable social phenomenon is that of the disgruntled teenager. I was just thinking about this and I wondered if its a result of modern children seeing beyond the hypocrisy of modern educational discipline, whose mandate states that "if you conform, you succeed". Most children develop the perceptiveness to analyse their own, and other children's, parents' degree of conformity to this dogmatic principle and perceive the utter lack of correlation with wellbeing, affluence or happiness.
Therefore- they reason- if it is clearly unrelated to real-life success, why is it enforced with such zeal and conviction?

Seriously, kids are way more perceptive than most people give them credit for. I am reminded of a quote from The Guide:, that one where the guy who runs the universe is explaining how he interprets things he sees . . . the exact one escapes me but its all about saying what you see, not what you think you see. Its a perception thing, yeah? Like seeing a British soldier shooting an Iraqi youth and thinking "wow, he just shot a kid", instead of "wow, he just saved me from a terrorist".


Final comment: Yes, I am drunk.

English racism

Really quite laughable.

Putin's latest trophy?

He emphatically denied it. It has to be true.

Tyrannical piece of sleazy shit.

shite internet and Ubuntu

I'm spending my Friday evening in front of the TV sharing my mind with you, my totally awesomely random readership and I'm getting frickin frsutrated with Virgin broadband because every page I try and access through Windows Firefox hangs halfway through downloading. I figured this was just Friday night internet access in the 'Muff and then, out of curiosity I switched to Ubuntu and tried it through that and wow! All pages came through straight away, except for my staple reference site, WIkipedia. I don't know if their suffering server issues but I can't get anything from them or other Wiki sites, like Wikiquote (I'm looking for a Churchill quote from this shit).

Anyway, I'm impressed with this access thing but remain ambivalent towards Ubuntu, despite my early hopes for it.

BTW- Lethal Weapon (the first one) is probably one of the best films ever. Its depiction of '80s society and its failings is poignant and touching, despite Rigg's homophobic lines.

a model of corporate sociopathy

No, I'm not talking about PFI. This is new. And its another prime example of how mega-business can exist beyond the law- does anyone imagine for one moment that the fine ultimately levied against these morons will come close to covering the true sum they have extorted from the nation?

marine ecology blog

Interesting. And amusing!

"Its costly having a carbon conscience" - NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!

The Guardian ran this story. "Fucking weak as fuck!", I thought. Not a mention of any need for government legislation to drive people toward the serious changes in life style that any meaningful assault upon climate changing emissions demands.

A personal example: I have to be on an island in the Netherlands next month for a research cruise. I could get there by flying with FlyBe (£30) direct from the city I work in . . . OR I could get the train to London, Eurostar to Brussels, Thalys train to Amsterdam, a local train to a coast town, a bus to the ferry port, a ferry to the island and a taxi or bus to the ship. Guess which I chose?

Ha! BOOOOOOM, sucker!

I am the ultimate responsible citizen, because I chose the train marathon. Actually its only a full day's travelling, leaving on a 5am train and getting there as the sun sets. But the cost? A cool £250. I really can't crow about this too much because the money comes from my budget but I really do try and get everywhere I can these days via the Eurostar. Its not just that I hate airports and flying generally- besides the trauma to my conscience its a god-awful mess standing in lines to be patronised by blank security robots with hand-held metal detectors- but I just hate the process of taking off and flying over hundreds of miles of obscured countryside. I'd rather have my soul connected to the land I'm traversing through the medium of my eyes.

Anyway, this is not a first. In the past couple of years I have only flown to Lanzarote. I have been on the Eurostar to the continent twice. If I have to go anywhere other than Europe- I will fly and I will make the most of the experience. But if I am heading into the civilisation of the continent, where trains, trams and efficient bus services exist in abundance, why scorn it? Why not experience life as it should be!

novel renewable generation technology

This is subscription only but it looks awesome so I have pasted the full text of the article in here:

"Whirlpools created by currents as they flow over obstacles are powerful enough to tear apart bridges and offshore rigs. So why not use them as a source of renewable power?

Previous attempts to harness energy from the flow of the world's rivers and oceans have had limited success, at best. Tidal flow can only be tapped at certain times of day, while underwater turbines are only viable if they are mounted in rapid currents.

Now researchers led by Michael Bernitsas at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, are preparing for the first outdoor trials of a technology that makes use of the slow-moving currents down rivers and across the ocean.

When water flows over an underwater obstacle, whirlpools or vortices form alternately above and below it. The vortices create a tugging effect, so the result is an alternating force that yanks the object up and down (see Diagram). It is these oscillations that can have devastating consequences for rigs and bridges, but Bernitsas has now created a device that turns them into usable amounts of electricity.

In his lab, he took a cylinder 10 centimetres in diameter and 91 centimetres long with the same average density as water and suspended it horizontally in a bath. Then he generated currents of between 0.5 and 1.0 metres per second - speeds that are common in rivers. The vortices generated by the flow moved the cylinders up and down, and by attaching the cylinders to springs that turn an electric generator he was able to convert the motion into 10 watts of electrical energy. Bernitsas calls the technology Vortex Induced Vibrations Aquatic Clean Energy, or VIVACE, and plans to commercialise it with his company Vortex Hydro Energy.

He has also come up with an idea for squeezing more energy from VIVACE. At the Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering conference in Estoril, Portugal, in June this year, he will show how roughening the surface of the cylinders allows them to capture more energy. The idea was inspired by the fact that fish that use energy from vortices to help propel themselves forward also have rough skin.

VIVACE's big test will come next year, when the team plans to deploy a larger version in the Detroit river. They expect it to generate 3 kilowatts, enough to power lights on a nearby pier, and claim that still larger versions could produce megawatts of power at a cost of around 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. This would make it competitive with coal and gas-fuelled generators.

These projections are contested, however, by commentators who point out that the performance has yet to be tested in the fluctuating current of a real river. They also have doubts about the claimed cost of the power it produces, since it is not yet clear how much the system will cost to maintain. "It is very new and very different to existing devices," says Walter Musial of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. "There are a lot of questions still to be answered."

Tony Blair is a cockweasel

He was wrong to meddle in the SFO investigation into BAE's sale of weapons of mass destruction to a tyrannical theocracy. He's also a genocidaire, a corporate whore and a religious fundamentalist nutbag but we all knew that already- this is new.

The Corner House and Campaign Against the Arms Trade are both awesome!

punkscience was off walking . . .

Haven't been around for a few days because I spent Saturday to Monday walking the SW coastal path from Minehead to Woolacombe with some friends. It was awesome! And bloody knackering.

Simon Gunter is a fuckwit

Apparently he's a spokesman for Tiscali, the ISP. He has claimed that the success of the BBC's iPlayer threatens to overload his company's capacity and seems to think that this is the BBC's fault. He is wrong. He's also a complete twat for having the gall to blame his company's shite service and race-to-the-bottom pricing regime on the BBC's awesome service.

TWAT!

when democracy doesn't work - part 2

Johann has written an article which compliments a rant I had recently about the failure of democracy int his country. I ranted about how the political mechanisms in this country are resilient to meaningful reform. Johann has pointed out that the electorate are ignorant of politics due to the lack of sophisticated and objective coverage on TV- the main source of news for the people of the UK. Basically, if political coverage is reduced to a soap opera format then the real issues can be safely buried by those who want them to be and the electorate will go to the polls without any comprehension of the consequences of voting for the person who has come out on top in the popularity contest of modern electoral campaigning. Just look at Boris The Clown's mayoral campaign.

Simon Jenkins rules, "eco-towns" are an ecological catastrophe

What an awesome article! I think its time to write to Alison again.

"Britain has plenty of potential eco-towns. They are called London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, to name a few. They conform to every one of Flint's declared objectives. They have an infrastructure of utilities, schools, clinics, libraries, welfare services and public transport already built. People have shown themselves ready to live, work and play in them without using cars. They are settled communities able to absorb immigration and high-density living, without tearing the bonds of local leadership.

If Flint wants to see land available for development in these eco-towns, she need only get in a helicopter and fly over them. They have the lowest residential densities in Europe, the most road-space and, incidentally, the greatest problem in generating communal cohesion. They can and do handle more people each year, even if it does mean more flats and fewer gardens."

"Any fool can build in what remains of the countryside and call it eco-something. It will not save life on Earth, but merely drive ever more people into hypermobility.

The way to preserve the green of the countryside and maximise the carbon-efficiency of human habitation is to make today's cities work better. They are full of useable land. They have suffered enough insults from politicians for the past century. Cities are the new green."

"[Caroline] Flint wants between 30% and 40% of houses in her eco-towns to be for the poor. Her boss, Hazel Blears, wants "half the households" not to be allowed cars, presumably also the poor. She does not say who will live in these ghettos. The idea that they can be made both privately financed and "affordable", whatever that means nowadays, for locally employed families is laughable. A 6,000-house eco-town cannot begin to sustain a full range of services, nor would any developer touch an estate where nobody can have a car.

To be poor without a car in a British new town is hell. That is why the last census showed only 14% of residents in Bracknell and 19% in Milton Keynes as car-less, against a national average of 27%. People have to get out of these planners' dream towns. Anyway, it is only big cities that do without cars: 37% of Londoners and 48% of Mancunians. Wild horses would not get Flint or Blears to live in their new towns, yet like city builders down the ages, they inflict them on the poor."

why is the disgraced boss of Northern Rock being paid £1,000,000 ???

Can anyone else imagine a mode of employment where, if your actions have led to the complete failure of your business, you would be allowed to leave with anything more than the shirt on your back? Apparently, in the world of high- (and now low-) flying management you get given a cosy million for sinking one of the UK's biggest banks with your ineptitude. If anyone can justofy this to me then please try because I am utterly staggered at the arrogance on display here? This is exactly what 20 years of neoliberalism has done to the UK- disgraced corporate figureheads, like disgraced politicians, are immune to the law of the land that demands accountability for your crimes. Remember the Hamilton's? Seen them in the dole queue? How about Jeffrey Archer? Derek Conway? Jonathan Aitken? (An interesting aside- try googling "disgraced tory" and see how many different names pop up. )

I could do the same ofr the corporate world but I'm bored now- I think you get the gist.

Seriously- a million! I won't earn that much in my entire life in research, unless I work myself like a bitch to make it to professor one day- and believe me, that ain't worth it! It seems that, if you want to earn megabucks these days, discarding any ethics and scruples you may have is the first step. Which is a victory in the first place for those who wish to perpetuate the sordid status quo of our little planet.

scary, scary stuff

The US is already deploying Big Brother tactics against environmental groups. Now activists can be targeted for extreme prison sentences, branded 'domestic terrorists', just for their thoughtcrimes.

barrels, kilos and comments

A very interesting comment on an even more interesting post.

Hmmmm, I might do sum fag-packet sums of my own . . . .

I love booze

And so does the New Humanist, apparently. Its pleasant to hear something good written about drugs and their incredibly liberating effect upon the human condition:

"What he was after was a certain type of unrestrained but civilised conviviality. The kind of generous and sociable cheerfulness that only alcohol can engender through its sacred ability to suspend or abolish the inherent tension of having to spend time among other human beings. Liberality was the key and a parsimonious hand with the bottle an enemy ranked alongside pretension or the tendency to bore."

Lets face it, nothing makes you friends like an evening in the pub in an extroverted and profoundly garrulous frame of mind. God I could talk the hind legs of a weasel when I'm well oiled.

Addition:

I don't suppose anyone's interested but my favourite tipple is Mount Gay Eclipse. No, its not a steamy bisexual videotape, its actually the mellowest sipping rum money can buy. Nothing needed to enhance the experience except a couple of lumps of ice.

Word.

anyone else interested in the parliamentary review of the professional lobbying industry?

This inherently undemocratic industry is the lucky subject of a Parliamentary Inquiry in which anyone with the right money can buy access to anyone in power. I would like to observe that the profiteering industry is quite separate from the semi-democratic right of the elctorate to petition their MP, something that is a step on the road to Direct Democracy.

Anyway, I would like to draw attention to this report of the day's session at the inquiry from the splendid bunch at SpinWatch.

Martin Chalk is an ignorant fuckwit

I didn't know who he was either. Apparently he's an environmentalist airline pilot who wants the 3rd runway at Heathrow to be built. His arguments are flawed and he is massively ignorant of the facts of emissions reductions. So why did CiF give him a podium for his ignorance?

So I could shoot him down, of course!

one step closer to Direct Democracy

As an earnest advocate of DD I love this. Please sign up peeps, together we can actually take control of this godforsaken corruption-and-genocide-fest back from the dirty politicians.

. . . . . . . you what?

John Hutton has dealt the government's attempts to limit climate change a significant blow by announcing his intention to make nuclear produce significantly greater proportion of the country's electricity than at present. Despite there being little to gain, in terms of carbon emissions from an expansion of nuclear, despite the clear and damning ethical reasons not to expand nuclear, despite the utterly unfeasible economics of nuclear generation that will leave the tax payer footing £billion clean-up bills, despite the absurdity of pushing this technology over truly renewable ones that will generate for millenia- not just for a few decades, despite the shortage of uranium reserves and despite the fact that new plants likely won't be generating for a decade- leaving us with continued rising fossil fuel generation for another ten years to add to the existing carbon emissions . . . . . there's so many more reasons not to do this.

So, so wrong.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

He's insane. Completely gone with the pixies. A gibberer. Rossinisbird knows it too. So does Justin Keating. Why the Guardian is giving a podium to this fundie I don't know because whilst his Church obstructs life saving scientific research on the grounds that a ball of 16 cells is 'a human being', it is simultaneously busy sabotaging rational efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. Which makes them complicit in murder. Which doesn't sound like a morally defensible position from which to lecture others on the morality of their actions.

Cnuts.

electoral reform might be imminent

As my dear readers will likely know, I am a big advocate of electoral reform. Apparently it might actually come to pass. Awesome!

I just renewed my Green Party membership

I don't agree with all of their policies, such as their bizarrely extreme firearms policy (specifically CJ500 (iv & vi)), but of all the political parties the Green Party is by far the most likely to bring about beneficial change to our sordid little world, not just our country.

Q - Why isn't the government pushing this technology?

"Professor Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University, one of Britain's leading marine energy experts, estimates that the Pentland Firth alone could generate up to a quarter of Britain's electricity – more than is now being provided by all the country's nuclear power stations – making the channel between Orkney and the north Scottish mainland "the Saudi Arabia of marine energy.""

A - Because they're incompetent sociopathic wankers so wrapped up in their post-Imperialist ideological clusterfuck and in trying to convince themselves that the UK is still a world power that they are emotionally incapable of doing anything other than royally fucking other people's countries up at the expense of our own.

Word.

sick

Just sick.

catastrophic wind turbine failure

Pretty cool.




I found it here. Sadly the chap appears to have posted it in association with negative comments about wind generation, emphasising that turbines can only generate within a given window of wind speed. As if that made climate change, rising fuel bills and energy insecurity worth tolerating.


Addition:

I am engaged in a dialogue with the blogger in question. Lets see if I can rescue him from his REN status.

the Fed, the state prosecutor and $200 billion

Greg Palast rules.

This guy is a model for investigative journalism. The article is available as a podcast too .

Saudi plan to halt spread of extremism by 'retraining' clerics

My fat, hairy arse.

The 5th Anniversary Of The Iraq Invasion Blogswarm

To highlight the continuation of the Iraqi civil war and associated genocide I would like to draw attention to this Guardian article detailing attempts to quantify the number of innocents killed.

One small point of contention with the article, however: Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg state that the Iraqi genocide is "the worst humanitarian catastrophe in today's world". I disagree. The ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 5.4 million people, mostly through starvation and disease. Johann has been there and returned to tell the tale.

We- the British public- are, however, a little less complicit in the Congolese genocide than we are in the Iraqi one. And therefore I would like to call upon anyone reading this to reject another term in power for the Labour government or any return to power for the Conservatives- both of whom supported the initiation of a war of aggression in direct contravention of Article 3 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The leadership of these two parties at the time should be indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, along with George Bush, Dick Cheney and José María Aznar. All UK forces should withdraw from Iraq immediately and any peacekeeping duties that are essential to the preservation of law and order int hat nation should be handed over to a combined UN force whose operation is wholly financed by the UK, the US and Spain.


Addition:

Bush is as blind to reality as ever.



Addition:

This Guardian article illustrates the human suffering caused by our government's actions. Imagine if this was taking place on the streets of Milton Keynes or Worcester or Aberdeen.

greenwash 101

After reading this post from the Lazy Environmentalist I emailed my MP, Alison Seabeck, to petition for her support on the Early Day Motion mentioned. Her reply:

"Thank you for your email. I regret that as a Government
Minister(Whip) I cannot sign EDMs which are used by back bench MPs to
raise issues. Alan Simpson is a powerful advocate for alternative and
renewable energy on Labour's back benches.

I have recently sat on the Energy Bill Committee which discussed a range
of issues including measures which will enable more microgeneration. It
is important though that we encourage the right type of micro generation
in the right places. Too many people have put up wind energy technology
in places where they get very little return.

During the course of the Energy Bill the Minister did announce that
there would be a strategic overview of renewables this summer and that
the issue of feed in tariffs would be included in that discussion. This
is important. They are by no means ruled out and clearly Alan Simpson
is ensuring they remain on the Government's agenda.

Alison Seabeck MP"

Interesting for several reasons: Firstly, her reference to Alan Simpson as "a powerful advocate for alternative and renewable energy on Labour's back benches" is of note because she specifically identifies him to be an advocate. This contrasts sharply with many members of the Parliamentary Labour Party such as Alison herself and particularly the Cabinet, who- if you are to ignore their propaganda and infer their policy objectives directly from their actions- are opposed to any research and development of renewable generation beyond that necessary to appear to be doing so.

Secondly, Alison's role on the Energy Bill Committee is laudable. However the measures she mentions, “ measures which will enable more microgeneration” and “ we encourage the right type of micro generation in the right places”, are problems that have resulted from Labour's own policies on renewables. Their lack of direction on grants for renewable installations has been well documented elsewhere and I will not go into it here. Also, the reason people install inappropriate renewable capacity is because the government haven't shown any inclination to publicise useful information relating to the suitability of the different technologies. Or any information relating to renewables, really.

Thirdly, the Energy Bill itself has been determined to be illegal by Greenpeace.

Fourthly, the issue of Feed In Tariffs should not be a matter for discussion, it should be a matter for immediate action. There are even websites available that explain, carefully and clearly so that even MPs can understand, how to implement FITs.

Time and again I am appalled by the laissez-faire attitude of MPs towards imminent climate change. Ignorance of the facts can't seriously be an excuse for these people and so what is it? Some mass psychosis towards future generations? Outright denial? Any way you spin this these people are perpetuating the status quo that will result in gigadeaths and the end of civilisation as we know it on this planet. They should be removed from power.

They Work For You (supposedly)

The TheyWorkForYou website has a nifty little setup whereby you can have updates automatically emailed to you everytime your local MP does anything vaguely exciting (particularly unlikely for mine).

Anyhoo, I await tales of Alison's stirling work in The House with unbaited breath.

you are here . . . .

I found a real science blog- not just one with "science" in the title. Anyway, here's a nice, visual presentation of your place in the Grand Scheme of Things.



Anyway- who wants to hear me bitch constantly about how hard a PhD is and how I've managed to work through 4 defunct HPLC setups in two and a half months? Exactly. No one.

Fucking shite Kontron kit.

Rowan Williams is an idiot

My new favourite blogger has done one of the most astonishingly complete demolitions of the high sky pixie advocate. Its just . . . perfect!

Does anyone live in a village that's short of an idiot? I've got a great candidate for the job . . .

treating the symptoms and not the disease

Citizenship ceremonies for schoolchildren: That's the ex-attorney general's suggestion to improve "British Citizenship".

Firstly- and most obviously: I am not a citizen of Great Britain. I am a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as stated in my passport. If you really want to piss the Irish off after decades of bloody sectarian strife, just forget to include them in a statement about the state of our nation.

Secondly: If you even need to consider proposals to strengthen citizenship then you've been up to some fairly stupid stuff that alienated it in the first place. Examine any policy of the UK government over the preceding thirty years to understand this one.

Thirdly: Centralised diktats intended to improve citizenship are blatantly going to be counter productive. In most humans positive emotions such as loyalty and pride result from positive experiences. Personally, I find such positive experiences to be few and far between. Simple comparisons of our nation's state with others in Europe reveal that we have exactly nothing to be proud of apart from winning the Rugby World Cup five years ago. Our public transport sucks, our democracy sucks, our military are falling apart thanks to poor management and overextension of limited resources, our government are responsible for exacerbating climate change instead of fighting it. We have one of the worst records on tax avoidance and one of the most unequal societies in the developed world. And suddenly, this plutocratic collection of corporate whores and incompetent halfwits wants to lecture us on how we should appreciate them? I find this to be a distinctly negative experience and the last thing I feel for Goldsmith and his war crimes are loyalty and a sense of kinship. The words that spring instantly to mind are "get fucked".


PS:

Do I have to mention Goldsmith's credibility here with regard to his role in the Iraqi genocide and BAE debacle?

I thought not.

Capitalism As If The World Matters

Some quotes from Jonathon Porritt's seminal text on eco-economics.

"'Development without growth' is precisely the kind of talk that sends shivers down the spines of all good capitalists. But the self-inflicted blindness of contemporary capitalism to the laws of thermodynamics is the first and most problematic barrier to reconciling capitalism and sustainability. It is by no means the only barrier."

". . . at the heart of the issue of scale lurks the vexed issues of population growth. Cut it which way you will, growing populations necessitate growing economies to provide more food, more houses, more services, more teachers, more doctors and more jobs. Growth-bound economists and politically correct environmentalists conspire to keep the issue of population off the agenda, obscuring the incontrovertible reality that every extra human being makes it just a little bit harder to find ways of living within the Earth's limited carrying capacity. It would, however, seem unreasonable to lay the blame for this uniquely at the door of capitalism. Religion, ignorance, prejudice and political cowardice have at least as much to answer for."

"Within any capitalist system, to be 'uncompetitive' at either the company level or at nation-state level, is to fail. It is as simple as that. Competition for customers, competition for capital, competition for talent and competition for reputation and brand value: it is competitiveness that sorts out the capitalist sheep from the capitalist goats. Competition has become both dominant and deeply divisive, as pointed out by Tony Stebbing and Gordon Heath:

"Competition makes economies inherently unstable and leads to the extinction of businesses through dominance and monopoly. The wide-spread belief that the competitive process must permeate every aspect of life is damaging the global environment since the pace of economic activity exceeds the capacity to assimilate polluting consequences. Competition drives the rate of economic activity towards the maximum energy and resource use. It is unsustainable because there are no intrinsic controls upon the pace of economic activity." (Stebbing and Heath, 2003)

However, as we have already seen, competition itself need not necessarily pose such a dilemma. In terms of the efficient use of both resources and capital, the challenge to eke out maximum economic value for every unit of energy and raw material is as critical to sustainability as it should be to commercial success. The problem is not competition per se, but the incorrect valuation of resources and inadequate levels of regulation to create a level playing field conducive to sustainability.

This is probably a judgement that most people would arrive at instinctively anyway. Populist interpretations of evolution, from Herbert Spencer and Thomas Huxley onwards, have accustomed people to the idea of nature being 'red in tooth and claw', with all life forms engaged in endless titanic struggles to ensure 'the survival of the fittest'. So what could be more 'natural' than the history of humankind (both before and after the Industrial Revolution) being cast in the same metaphorical framework? This rationale of social Darwinism has been taken up with unbounded enthusiasm by the politicians and academic economists most centrally involved in the neo-liberal revolution of the last 25 years. When all else fails, it has provided at least some flimsy justification for patterns of irresponsible and uncaring corporate and political behaviour that prioritise competition over everything else, characterised by folksy phrases along the lines of 'Its a jungle out there', 'Its a dog-eat-dog world', 'Let the devil take the hindmost', and so on.

So it often comes as a bit of a blow to them when this interpretation of evolution is revealed as a complete fabrication, a socio-political distortion that tells us much more about Britain during the mid 19th century than about the evolution of life on Earth. What we now know is that individual organisms in a mature ecosystem go to great lengths to avoid competition by specialisation or by developing their own differentiated niches. Resourcews are often shared with frugal efficiency. Territorial animals actually avoid fighting if at all possible, relying upon complex behaviours and rituals that stop short of actual conflict. This has all been formalised by ecologists in what is known as the competitive exclusion principle': The occupant of any niche excludes all others by virtue of specialisation, and therefore avoids competition and possible extinction.

Beyond that the work of scientist such as Lynn Margulis and Janine Benyus has revealed fascinating patterns of mutual interdependence and elegant symbiosis. The great biologist Lewis Thomas is quoted as saying:

'The urge to form partnerships, to link up in collaborative arrangements, is perhaps the oldest, strongest and most fundamental force in Nature. There are no solitary, free-living creatures; every form of life is dependent on other forms' (Thomas, 1980)."

MSM Frenzy - "Evill Colombian terrorist group sought uranium for 'DIRTY BOMB'"

But they forgot to mention that you can't make a dirty bomb out of ordinary uranium. Funny how this small detail was ommitted from the frenzied reports portraying two of South America's leading, populist, progressive leaders as supporters of terrorism. Idiots!

Left I rules.


Addition:

Greg Palast rules too.

"religious guilt"

Its amazing what you can blame on religion: war, crime, misogyny, repression of human rights, etc.

Now you can add 'bad sex life' to the list.

I had intimate encounters with several girls of a sky-pixie-fan persuasion when growing up. As a randy teenager it was always rather frustrating being turned down for reasons of religion. I always thought it was an enormous cop-out (possibly one of the reasons for my deep-seated hatred of religion?). I now firmly believe that parents should teach their children all about sex and leave it up to the child to decide when they need to gain any direct experience. Trying to control my development into an adult through direct repression always backfired with me and made me all the more determined to expand my knowledge of forbidden pleasures such as smoking, drinking and girls' naughty bits.

If you can raise a well balanced child with a broad set of interests and pastimes and help them to understand the pressures of modern society then they are going to be far better placed to deal with the advances of randy teenagers or their own hormonal urges than a child who has been repeatedly told that such things are evil and to be suppressed and resisted at every turn. Human beings are human beings, the better parents understand this and treat their children accordingly the better society will become.

Australian Green Economics thinktank

The introduction at the head of this page outlines what anyone with ambition to change the political landscape for the better must understand. It should be of particular relevance to the Green Party of England and Wales, who cannot seem to shake off their single-issue party image. I'm not saying they are a single-issue party but I'm saying that's what the Sun reading majority perceive them to be, if they think about them at all.

Moses was high when he "received" the ten commandments

This is just beautiful. Whether a historical figure called Moses existed or not it seems that religions haven't changed their approach to divine revelation over the ensuing millenia- anyone else hear that story about an Opus Dei chapter in the US doping new recruits with mescalin to induce visions?

corporations which avoid paying tax should not be entitled to government contracts

This simple rule would enrich the Whitehall tax coffers by billions. Prem Sikka rules.

was anyone else aware that when the Exxon Valdez ran aground its navigation radar was turned off?

Greg Palast rules.

Wikileaks returns

After a US Federal judge ordered the site shut down it is now back again thanks to objections from various public interest groups.

selling out the UK

In a monumental fuck-up from the Labour government the Guardian reveals how three PFI companies have moved their assets offshore, including ownership of the new Treasury Building and the Home Office.

So, not only will the tax payer be responsible for paying far over the odds for these buildings, but they will now not benefit from any tax return on the enormous profits these companies will reap from the tax payer either. Nice.