raging for christmas

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We did it! And raised at least £65,000 for the charity Shelter in direct donations alone. Awesome!

Now, if someone could just come up with an equally appealing motive for regaining democratic control of the country . . .

Catholic crocodile tears

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The Vatican said 'the Holy Father was deeply disturbed and distressed.' Well poor baby, but why was he not deeply disturbed and distressed before? Why did he not give a rat's ass while the report was in progress and the Vatican ignored all its questions? To say nothing of while the abuse and the cover-up of the abuse and the perpetuation of the abuse via refusal to do anything about it, were going on? Why is his distress so god damn late? Why is he bothering to do a Bernie Madoff, pretending to be all sorry and repentant after it is no longer possible to conceal and deny and hide?

''He wishes once more to express his profound regret at the actions of some members of the clergy who have betrayed their solemn promises to God, as well as the trust placed in them by the victims and their families, and by society at large.'' The Vatican said the Holy Father shared the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland, and that he was united with them in prayer at this difficult time in the life of the Church.

No he doesn't! [jumps up and down in fury until the windows rattle] He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't! It's all soothing oil, it's all sleazy self-exculpation. He does not share the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland because he and his Vatican are what the outrage, betrayal and shame are all about. He doesn't get to make himself another subject; he's the object. He's not one of the victims, he's the top perpetrator. He has an unbelievable gall claiming to feel all this sorrowful emotion when he is the head of an institution that did everything it could to protect itself and did nothing to protect children who were assaulted by its priests. He shouldn't be talking eyewash about his emotions, he should be saying the Vatican behaved like a criminal organization. He should resign. They should all resign. They should fold up their tents and go do something useful.

And knock off the 'Holy Father' crap, too. With a father like that, who needs enemies?

Word to Ophelia.

weapons grade squeee

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Can't resist . . . too . . . cute . . .

surreal science moment

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I just happened upon a friend of mine carrying a tray of my sperm across campus. We found it rather amusing.

Here they are, BTW:


The sex chromosome in each nucleus has been FISH stained. Red means its a girl and greens are boys.

global opinion strongly against free-market capitalism

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"In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well. . . . . . Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed."

excellent blog

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Its called Information Is Beautiful.

Check it out.

rapid population growth undermines development efforts

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"the priority given to population issues has diminished compared with concerns about development. If population growth continues unabated, we fear the problems of development will be "solved" by rises in death rates. For this reason, efforts to slow population growth should be treated as a human rights issue."

Word.

Plymsoul

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This is some fierce local talent in the shape of Kat Marsh:



Kat is awesome.

it always amuses me how "thesis" sounds so similar to "faeces"

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Here it is, kids. The whole chibang:

the essence of manliness

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Its testosterone, of course. A paper covered in New Scientist found reduced levels in fathers and in older Senegalese men and higher levels in men with multiple wives. The conclusion was that fatherhood lowers levels. There's an interesting circle of casue and effect here that they might have got the wrong way round. Testosterone is associated with dominance in men (pdf), as anyone who has been threatened with a slap by a two metre wide bouncer knows. Could it be that the domestic servitude of diligent and conscientious fatherhood stifles our inherent manliness in a manner akin to the subordinate life of an omega-male and quenching release of the man-essence? (No sperm-related puns, please).


Addition 02-09-09:

Female gorillas imitate oestrus and engage in copulation when pregnant in order to obstruct fertile competitors mating with them.

manifest awesomeness

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Q: What happens when the state fails to regulate polluters?

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A: Anarchy.


There is a lesson here for all governments.

The Yes Men

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Never heard of these guys either either? Well, let New Scientist educate you. They have a film out which I am going to pay money to watch. If it comes to my town, that is.

The moral of this story?

"we need to change the rules that allow the market to reward bad behaviour"

Word.

this is awesome

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From a list of "Products of The Year" on the New Scientist site comes this- your own personal cycle lane:

Cycle lanes are a good way of keeping bikes away from cars and minimising accidents, but they aren't available on every road.

Evan Gant at the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and Alex Tee of Altitude Inc in Somerville, Massachusetts, have designed a portable cycle "Light Lane" that straps to the back of a bike.

A laser projects an image of a cycle lane onto the road directly behind the cyclist to remind approaching cars to leave room.

UK body endorses Christian fundamentalist curriculum as equivalent to A-Level

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"Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

"Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."

There are schools in the UK who teach this shit as fact and will get you an A-Level for your pains. When was lying to children in a manner which strongly influences their world view and social interactions (by making them look like a fucktard to the rest of society) not child abuse?

punkscience is busy . . .

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Going to festivals, getting a new job and trying to finish his thesis. I fear you must look elsewhere for ranting hyperbole for now.

Word.

As an interesting closing comment, a friend nearly killed Karen O in a moshpit at the Secret Garden Party this weekend. I spent the rest of the festival looking for her to marry her but never found her again. He's a credible, upstanding sort of scoundrel so I believe his very word. Poor Karen. She will probably never get another opportunity to feel the punkscience power. Weak.

animal experimentation - do crabs have rights?

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"No" says Peter Fraser of the University of Aberdeen. So do I and would also like people who say they do to not be so fucking stupid. This sort of "rights creep" is a direct threat to much high quality research that makes use of the lack of authoritarian oversight of invertebrate experiments to do good and interesting science.

Put it this way: If I wanted to manipulate an organism's environment in the lab to test its responses to some stressor (eg. ocean acidification) I could do so with invertebrates (eg. crabs, mussels) without any bureaucratic oversight. The same experiment with vertebrate fish would require a home office licensed facility; a separate licence to be approved for the specific experiment; qualified and registered staff to conduct husbandry, sacrifice the animals and take biological sample and piles more bureaucratic fiff-faff. Now, I'm not saying that animal welfare is not a concern for scientists. I'm saying that some of the legislation designed to produce it is unnecessary and obstructive, costs an enormous amount of money and does not necessarily improve the welfare of the animals as no-one can explain in cold, hard terms exactly what this term means. Animals in the wild are typically perpetually hunted, starved and otherwise stressed to fuck. Putting fish in sterile tanks with no natural features whatsoever is kind of like locking your average human indefinitely in a single room with nice, soft, padded walls and providing them with regular meals but nothing else. And about as humane. Scientifically its absolute bollocks.

Unfortunately the alternative- called mesocosm experiments, where you try to replicate natural communites of organisms in a recreation of their natural habitat- is incredibly complicated and generally produces very complicated results that are difficult to interpret. Also, such experiments are an order of magnitude more space-, resource- and labour-intensive due to the need to study all of the different components of the community in sufficient detail to observe statistically robust differences. I fail to see how this is anything more than a challenge to scientists, however, as the underlying rationale for such experiments and the potential for real insight to be gained from them is clear. Resort to single species tests in sterile, unrealistic conditions is defeatist and cowardly. Unfortuantely the regulations for conducting such tests with vertebrates make mesocosm studies including them almost impossible to conduct robustly.

is this the best music video evah?

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Karen O, dead dogs and kids with axes are all awesome.

painfully funny

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SO much sniggering my sides are aching really badly.




Addition:

This one is almost as good:

punkscience goes to the beach . . . . in France!

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Packing shit and finishing touches to the van prior to boarding Brittany Ferryies' flagship Pont Avon (which nearly sank on its maiden voyage) at ten tonight. Fuck me dead I need a holiday.

Back in a week. Au revoir to both my regular readers and a big, hairy "fuck you" to the UK government, the BNP, the Tories, UKIP, Obama, Brendan O'Neill, all postmodernist cunts and the rest of the cockweasel fraternity.

Word.

IDF solider who shot dead 4 Israeli Arabs in a shooting spree "is not a terrorist"

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"The authorities want Zada to be seen as a lone madman but the research we've conducted suggests he was part of a larger Jewish terror organisation that operates freely even though it's outside the law. It appears the attack was organised and planned."

Eden Natan Zada's shooting spree on a bus full of Israeli Arabs, in which 22 Arabs were also wounded, was apparently conducted with the support of a banned extremist group called Kach. Kach espouses the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories. Despite this the group apparently operates within Israel with impunity. Zada was beaten to death by a mob of Arabs who surrounded the bus after a female passenger managed to snatch his IDF-issue M16 from him whilst he was reloading. His victims have been denied state compensation because a military tribunal decided that a serving soldier could not be classified as a "terrorist". Twelve Arabs are being prosecuted for the lynching, seven are charged with attempted murder.

Israel is a racist state that conducts torture, murder and ethnic cleansing.

Also see this article:

"This proposal coming from a party in Israel's governing coalition should set off alarm bells that fascism is emerging."

SW election results

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The Green Party beat the ruling party into 5th place! Shame about the filthy UKIP's success though. What the fuck point is there voting for an anti-EU party in European elections? I can't begin to voice my disgust at being beaten by these wankers, let alone the dirty Tories.

Conservative 468,742
UKIP 341,845
Liberal Democrat 255,253
GREEN 144,179
Labour 118,716
BNP 60,889
Pensioners 37,785
English Democrat 25,313
Christians 21,329
Mebyon Kernow 14,922
Socialist Labour 10,033
Misc 39,702 (6 other groups mostly around 7,000)

trains can be more polluting than aeroplanes says new report

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New Scientist article of considerable import to anyone interested in transport and energy policy. The obvious conclusion is that electric trains fuelled by coal-fired power plants are more carbon intensive than a jumbo jet over the same distance. Similarly, off-peak buses carrying a handful of passengers are less efficient over their entire lives than a Chelsea Tractor.

Slay those demons, people. The facts matter (see preceding post).

Mikhail Chester is awesome.

check out the new widget

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Like my new widget on the left? You can get it too from here.

Sourced from the awesome power of the Data Not Shown blog.

snigger

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WolframAlpha is awesome.

genetically modified crops hand control over food production to corporations and will aggravate poverty and starvation across the globe

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And all this from a sky-pixie-cuddler. Impressive! I bet he still lusts after little boys.

"According to classical economics, financial crises don't happen – clearly, then, there is a lot wrong with classical economics."

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Brilliant article from New Scientist, titled: "Can science reinvent the economy?". Its subscription only so if you require access I will happily share a copy. Email me at punkscience at gmail.com.

why wasn't I taught at school that the British invented the concentration camp?

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Johann has a harrowing article up detailing the British occupation of Kenya and their appalling treatment of its indigenous people. Its funny how I remember several years of my schooling being spent learning about the World Wars but little of it being devoted to the British Empire.

Johann rules.

petition the queen not to give Margaret Thatcher a state funeral

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Mark Thomas. He rules.

Do it!

Sir David Attenborough: "Our planet is overcrowded".

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Dave rules.

do you want a vagina full of AIDS?

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Because apparently, if you use a condom as a precaution against STDs, that's what you'll get:



This video is funny but only because the guy is such a distressingly ignorant fucktard.

This next video is the funny junglist mash-up version. Oh yes!

UK democracy is dead

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From the synopsis of The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby:

"[T]he author argues that anti-rational government is not the product of a Machiavellian plot by “Washington” but is the inevitable result of “an overarching crisis of memory and knowledge” that has left many ordinary citizens and their elected representatives without the intellectual tools needed for sound public decision-making."

This applies equally well to the UK. If the electorate cannot make sound public decisions then democratic elections become dysfunctional. Elected governments become plutocracies, which then entrench themselves and install policies that suppress any attempt to enact reform and reinforce the antidemocratic cycle; typically through demagoguery and assaults upon the professional classes, who are the only people with the intellect to perceive the threat and challenge it.

Sound familiar? It ought to.

cultural differences

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"Speaking in the parents' defense, Tom Molomby, SC, said that, as the parents came from India, where homeopathy is in common use, they should be declared not guilty due to cultural differences."

Yes, sure. Because killing your nine month old daughter by neglect is an intrinsic part of Indian day-to-day culture. And we should respect that.

libel tourism in the UK and Obama's dodgy Syrian friend

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Cool article from Wikileaks that points out- surprise, surprise- that UK libel law is shit and a threat to freedom of speech, good investigative journalism and democracy, generally.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAH A HAHAHAHA A AHAH ah aahaH AHA HAhahahaha AH ha ha ah ha . . . . .

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Holy crap, this made me laugh like a donkey. Sadly I can't embed it.

punkscience: helping to understand swine flu

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I read this article on swine flu and was surprised to come across the demographic parameter R0. This is something that I have regularly encountered in my work on demographics and I revel in the opportunity to explain a little straightforward maths to the pubelic: R0 is the net reproductive rate of an individual or a population.

From my thesis' scrap file:

R0 can be calculated from the equation:

R0 = V(α) . b . E(α)

Where: V(α) = Survival rate to the age of first reproduction.
b = is the product of the lifetime average rate of offspring production.
E = is the average adult life span of an individual at the age of first reproduction.

For semelparous organisms this equation can be further simplified to:

R0 = V(α) . S(α)

after Charnov (1997)

Where: V(α) = the reproductive value of an individual at the age of reproduction (b multiplied by E)

It is possible to determine several factors which influence either V(α) or S(α) and these factors have often been quantified as surrogates for fitness (eg. McDowell et al. 1999; Kashian 2004). Bearing in mind that fitness is a product of both genes and the environment in which they operate any assessment of fitness will be specific to the environment in which it is assessed (Stearns 1992).

The only problem, of course, is that a flu virus is not semelparous. In which case all of the above isn't relevant. So that's a lot clearer then. Yes.

war crimes

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Punkscience hasn't commented on the civil war in Sri Lanka so far. Its about time he did. Fuckers.

Good Science: Why fertilisers reduce biodiversity

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'Nuff said.

NMR results

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WARNING: This post contains ecotoxicology: Non-biologists may be incredibly bored!

This is the result of Principle Component Analysis on the non-polar spectra from my methanol-chloroform extracts. The different symbols represent three different populations of animals. As you can see they are completely separated by PCs 2, 3 & 4. This is quite a weak differentiation as these three PCs account for 15.29, 9.74 and 7.95% of the variability in the data, respectively. However, differentiated they are, demonstrating that significant differences in fundamental metabolism exist between the three populations. Now I've just got to work out what those differences are. Which is a lot harder.

awesome, awesome little app

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This.

Try this for a sweet little jingle:

34896,8194,33284,9384,34816,9256,34896,8232,34836,8224,35368,9226,34816,8480,35408,11392

Just paste it into the field.

I found it from someone's blog. Can't remember who now, I've been playing with it for so long.


Edit: 66048,64,66080,528,66048,0,66048,512,66052,0,66048,520,66064,0,32832,0

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index Professor Chomsky is the eighth most cited scholar of all time.

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And there's a reason why.

stupid observation of the month

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Holy, fuck! This is sooooooooooooooo STUPID! New Scientist should be ashamed:

"The virus's severity will depend on how many people who catch it die."

No. Shit Sherlock.

exploiting the moment

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The International. Not a bad film, although they could have done a lot more with it. Clive Owen does his ting (Children of Men, Inside Man) predictably well. The ending needed a lot more to bring closure to this story, though.

carbon trading won't stop climate change

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This New Scientist article is just bloody brilliant!

"All these methods of pricing carbon permit the creation of a carbon market that will allow us to pollute beyond a catastrophic tipping point. In other words, they require us to put a price on the final "killing" tonne of CO₂ which, once emitted, tips the balance and triggers runaway global warming. How can we set such a price? It's like saying, how much is civilisation worth? Or, if you needed a camel to cross a desert alive, what is a fair value for the straw that breaks its back?"

"Even if you could price the killing tonne, it is a transaction that should never be allowed. Economics becomes redundant if it can rationalise an exchange that sells the future of humankind."

"Governments are there to compensate for market failure but seem to have a blind spot about carbon markets. They could counteract the impact of low carbon prices by spending on renewable energy as part of their economic stimulus packages, yet they have not done so. The UK, for example, has spent nearly 20 per cent of its GDP to prop up the financial sector, but just 0.0083 per cent in new money on green economic stimulus."

If anyone here is in advertising or marketing . . . kill yourself.

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Do it!



Cheers to Anonymous in the comments.

Mark Thomas endorses the Green Party

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Mark rules.

the solution to the credit crunch

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is simply incredible! William F Engdahl proposes that the US government takes into receivership the five largest financial institutions in America and fires their entire management with no recourse. The reason? - They own 95% of the dodgy financial vehicles that are clogging up the credit system and were primarily responsible for their creation in the first place. Its a simply astonishing prospect. Expect him to die in a tragic accident very soon.

how to extract RNA from biological samples

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This is a protocol I'm currently using which was developed by two PhD student friends and a postdoc. Its really detailed so I thought I'd share it with the world because a lot of this stuff isn't intuitive and is only understood after much trial & error.

By the way, this protocol doesn't work for plant material. Planty RNA is protected by thick cell walls and is not easily isolated from the rest of the planty rubbish you find in there.

RNA Extraction with TRI reagent

1. Homogenize tissue in 0.5ml of TRI (or put on ice to defrost if this has been done)
- Stand for 5 min
- Centrifuge for 5 min @ >10,000 @ 4degC
- Remove supernatant if messy sample and place in a new tube. Dispose of pellet
- Don’t use polytron homogenizer if extracting DNA – shear forces can break strands

2. Add 0.1ml Chloroform
- Shake for 15 sec (vigorously).
- Stand for 15 min (room temperature)

3. Centrifuge 15 min @ 12,000 @ 4degC
- Extract RNA phase (top/clear) into fresh tube straight away!
- Avoid white cloud above white layer as this is genomic DNA.
- If has been standing to long, or there are still bits in supernatant, then
- spin down again.

4. Add 0.25 ml Isopropanol + 1 ul LPA (linear polyacrylamide – coprecipitant for very small amounts)
- Stand for 10 min @ room temp OR over night @ -20degC
- Centrifuge 30 min @ 13,000 @ 4degC
- Mark where pellet is with marker
- Pour Isopropanol gently out into a beaker, keep an eye on pellet. Don’t lose it!

5. Spin 30 min @ >13000 @ 4degC
- Decant supernatant

6. Wash “Back down” with 1 ml 70% Ethanol
- Vortex
- Centrifuge 10 min @ 13,000 @ 4degC
- Decant Ethanol – pour off gently onto blue roll, watch pellet.
- Make sure pellet re-attaches

7. Repeat Ethanol wash
- Allow pellet to dry - upside-down on blueroll (not in sun)
- Try to take as much of EtOH as possible so doesn’t take too long to dry
- Dry completely – approx. 1 hour. But not too long.

8. Resuspend RNA with H2O (in minimum amount of water)
- 8-40 ul dependant on pellet size
- If pellet is hard to dissolve, heat solution for 10 min at 55-60 degC, then aliquot
- immediately and freeze at -80.

9. Transfer to clean 0.5ml tube and freeze at -80
- Don’t transfer if low amounts.
- Aliquot solution immediately and freeze at -80 – RNA is very unstable at room temperature.

After this step you have to remove DNAases and then create cDNA from the RNA.

comedic genius

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The bit in Pixar's new film, Monsters vs Aliens, where the President is trying to communicate with the robot probe through a Yamaha DX7 , starting with the tones from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and then breaking into a surprise little number (I won't spoil it for you). Its just classic.

Green Stimulus or Simulus?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Report out a few days ago from Greenpeace and the New Economics Foundation. Pertinent statistics include:

• New and additional green spending included in the green stimulus package of the government’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR) is astonishingly small compared to other recent spending commitments, at just 0.6% of the UK’s £20bn recovery plan. This key element makes up just 0.0083% of UK GDP, but in the wake of the banking crisis nearly 20% of UK GDP has been provided to support the financial sector.

• New and additional green measures could save just 0.128 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) per year from the atmosphere and will only delay the accumulation of UK carbon emissions by six and a half hours by the end of 2011.

• Just over £100m is being allocated to spending that is genuinely new and additional; this is a fraction – less than 13% – of the annual bonus package given to staff at the failed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which is estimated at approximately £775m. £100m represents just 0.0083% of UK GDP. Estimates for necessary new annual spending on environmental economic stimulus and transformation range from £11bn to £50bn.

• Figures from HSBC and the IMF indicate that among the major economies, the greater the proportion of GDP spent on bailing out banks coincides with a lower proportion spent on green stimuli.
  

• Several of the government’s measures are, in fact, in conflict with the environmental stimulus. By comparison with the new and additional spending of the PBR’s green stimulus, £2.3bn – around 22 times – has been put aside to assist the car industry. If spent on energy efficiency measures this would save about 3 MtCO2 annually.

• £27m has been put aside specifically for development of a new Land Rover vehicle, the Land Rover Group are one of the most climate-unfriendly manufacturers in Europe. The potential CO2 savings of the proposed vehicle have not been specified. This is not encouraging, particularly given that this financial support is likely to delay a shift to greater use of public transport and that historically much of the gain in efficiency in vehicles has been negatively counter-balanced through a gain in weight of the vehicle concerned.

• There has been a further commitment to spend on building 520 lane miles of road expansion. Research indicates that the provision of new lanes leads to relative increases of between 30 and 50% in the number of vehicle miles travelled on that road – in other words, more car use. This happens due to the phenomenon known as induced traffic: building new roads merely encourages more traffic.

There's another report from Greenpeace detailing how investment in an energy-efficiency programme to insulate public buildings and private homes could generate 55,000 jobs, reduce expenditure on energy consumption and bills and reduce carbon emissions.


What's the betting the government fails utterly to address any of these points?

crazy fish that can see through its own head!

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The green spherical things are its eyes! Mental!

the war for the holy land

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Los Angeles Times (via Media Lens):

“The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel.

"‘This rabbi comes to us and says the fight is between the children of light and the children of darkness,’ a reserve sergeant said, recalling a training camp encounter. ‘His message was clear: “This is a war against an entire people, not against specific terrorists.” The whole thing was turned into something very religious and messianic.’"

“In testimony reported by Israeli news media and in interviews with The [Los Angeles] Times, Gaza veterans said rabbis advised army units to show the enemy no mercy and called for resettlement of the Palestinian enclave by Jews.

"‘The rabbis were all over, in every unit,’ said Yehuda Shaul, a retired army officer whose human rights group, Breaking the Silence, has taken testimony from dozens of Gaza veterans. ‘It was quite well organized.’"

Word.

awesome free stuff to read

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"Survival+" by Charles Hugh Smith.

awesome art

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is what I call 'Art'.

Also, see this for pure, joyful whackery! I was actually laughing out loud with joy at the 'pong' section.

Word.

UK police declare 200 children to be "terrorist suspects"

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WTF? This just isn't funny. Children? Children for fuck's sake!

"What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'."

Said the senior pig in charge.

Punkscience is completely immune to charges of racism but as far as a "bad attitude towards 'the West'" goes, he's pretty fucking guilty of that. I think Western society is a fucking joke. Subtle imperialism, corruption and corporate globalisation are a threat to everything I hold dear in the Western world and they are products of that same world. But my attitude is very different from rucksack bombs and fundraising for the Taliban. I note that this program is exclusively targeted at Islam. As if other religious fundamentalists aren't any sort of threat to the integrity of our society (think Catholics and stem cell research, abortion and sex education or the Labour Friends of Israel parliamentary group and war crimes, or the various cultural and religious forces fuelling arranged marriages, female genital mutilation, other misogyny etc. etc. etc. etc.). No, it seems other religious and cultural phenomena promoting equally inhuman philosophies are ignored when there are Mooslims to persecute.

I might add that, to many children living amidst such a culture of pernicious persecution, where the people they are meant to respect and trust (teatures, etc.) grass them up to the authorities instead of confronting their beliefs with reason and argument, I am entirely sympathetic with their plight, if not their beliefs. The reason that kids can embrace such philosophies with such conviction is because there is so much damning evidence of UK war crimes and hypocrisy. That's what happens when you throw the moral high ground away and give people ample reason to hate you and want to blow you up. This was perfectly self-evident to me and the millions of people around the world who marched against the wars. Sadly, not to Bush, Blair, Straw, et al. (Or was it?)

piracy rules

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More XKCD. Which also rules.

IDF veterans relate how they murdered two women and two children in Gaza

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From Wikinews.

to the bastard who lives on Wharton Street in Retford, who found my blog from this google:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are a disgusting, inhuman monster. If I knew you I would probably have to forego my ostensibly pacifist principles to punch you in the face repeatedly. Tony Blair, Dick Cheney or the guy who charged the batteries in that torture chamber in Morocco wouldn't get any worse from me.

continuing in the recent Neo-Malthusian trend . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have this little gem from the PhD webcomic:

why we are all fucked

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Because they keep doing shit like this. NeoMalthusianism 101: You can't expand infinitely within a finite space. Earth is a semi-closed system and, as the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment reported, many of the planet's habitats are already degraded, or threatened with degraation by human activity. And the obssession with growth- both in economic and human population terms- means that that degradation will continue. Choice exerts from the Overall Synthesis include:

"approximately 60% (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services examined during the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are being degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water purification, and the regulation of regional and local climate, natural hazards, and pests"

"there is established but incomplete evidence that changes being made in ecosystems are increasing the likelihood of nonlinear changes in ecosystems (including accelerating, abrupt, and potentially irreversible changes) that have important consequences for human well-being. Examples of such changes include disease emergence, abrupt alterations in water quality, the creation of “dead zones” in coastal waters, the collapse of fisheries, and shifts in regional climate"

"the harmful effects of the degradation of ecosystem services (the persistent decrease in the capacity of an ecosystem to deliver services) are being borne disproportionately by the poor, are contributing to growing inequities and disparities across groups of people, and are sometimes the principal factor causing poverty and social conflict"

Just read the synthesis.

rinsing soundz ! !

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Yup, its another one. And its a maximum Baptist bassline mash up for the 'ardcore Jesus crew. Wicked!

two minutes of your time, please, to join this campaign

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End violence against women.

weird facts

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Punkscience was born in Holland. Many years ago. Punkmum just shared with him that, in the first three months of his pregnancy, she deposited her morning wee in a designated receptacle and left it outside the door for a health official to collect. Back then (~30 yrs ago) HCG was extracted from the collected urine and used in fertility treatment. This program was still operating six years ago. I felt kinda warm and gooey when she told me. Then a bit disgusted. Then warm and gooey again.

You can't imagine public sensibilities being superceded by the Greater Good in good ole Blighty, can you?

Beau Bo D'Or . . .

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. . . rules.

Italy: Full of cunts

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Having been in Italy recently, I don't know what else to say in response to this:

"Italy's government has rushed through a decree [that] sets rules for citizen street patrols, in which officials said [sic] retired police and soldiers would play a major role."

"Critics say the measures could effectively legitimise vigilantism and xenophobia."

Clearly, not all Italians. But it has to be getting towards a majority after they re-elected Berlusconi.

why Israel's genocidal conduct is illegal- and also not genocide

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Yes, its obvious to you that killing nearly 1,400 people is not in any way moral, legal or justified. Beneath the multiple layers of international law little is clear. Some guy has managed to navigate the murky waters of that discipline and pulled from them a nice, well argued explanation of why the Israeli case for "self defence" is a sack of horse shit.

"Israel's recent actions constitute, under Article 147 of the Fourth [Geneva] Convention, as well as Article 85 of Protocol I and Article 8 of the Rome Statute, grave breaches of international law which entail individual criminal responsibility."

Reza Nasri: Weapons-grade badass.


Addition:

I added the last four words of the title after reading this article, which explains why Israel's conduct is not technically genocide. It is still monstrous and the architects and main perpetrators of the many atrocities committed in Gaza over the years should still be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Noam Chomsky has a lot more to say on the issue and I strongly recommend listening to this talk and the following Q&A to anyone who wishes to see through the mountains and mountains of propaganda, misdirection and media blathering. The transcript is available here.

Noam rules.


Addition:

Thanks to Merrick for this link to John Pilger's take on the latest Israeli atrocities.

John rules too.

The UK and the US have "actively undermined" international law in the way they fight terrorism

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"Many governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights.

The result is a serious threat to the integrity of the international human rights legal framework."

Word.

Punkscience applied for a job . . .

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. . . in algal biofuel research at one of the country's top universities. Lets see if they see fit to wipe their esteemed arses with my application . . .

NI Environment Minister is a climate change denialist!

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Punkscience calls for Sammy Wilson MP to be sacked on account of his ignorance. The little fuckstick can't even understand why his views are a problem.

"Why should I resign? I fulfil all my ministerial obligations in all areas of my department, and the idea that I should resign just because I hold a different view from other people on what is a very controversial topic is nonsense. And it just shows the intolerance of these people if they think I should resign because I have a different opinion."

In other news, Thabo Mbeki's health policies based on his belief that AIDS was not caused by the HIV virus, is thought to have been the direct cause of 300,000 deaths due to his rejection of offers of funding and free antiretroviral drugs.

So just what is the difference between Mbeki's incompetence and Wilson's? Both result in mass deaths of innocents.

snigger

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biofuels

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Professor John Pickett FRS:



The Royal Society conducted a review last year of sustainable biofuel technology.

punkscience: Enemy of the people

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Or so Sir Bernard Ingham, former civil servant, would have you believe.

I'm proud.

I got it from a book by David MacKay called "Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air" that's currently being deconstructed on Open Democracy. Its awesome. Here's a question:

"If climate change is “a greater threat than terrorism,” should governments criminalize “the glorification of travel” and pass laws against“advocating acts of consumption”?"

Well?

the only article you ever need to read about the BBC and the Gaza appeal

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Word.

The Age of Stupid

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Film coming out in March with Pete Postlethwaite. Looks awesome.

I ate some mushrooms earlier and its amazing how easy it is to type . . .

is Scott Adams prescient?

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beware of Wally

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punkscience is going to get cancer

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Apparently. Oh dear.

missing the point

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Steve Richards dithers a bit but ultimately makes his point:

"Heathrow will now be a running story, sapping ministerial energy and attention. That is why the whole affair is misjudged. It is not as if the rest of Britain's transport problems are resolved and we have the luxury of moving on. The railways remain an overpriced and chaotic disgrace. Over Christmas we took a sleeper from Euston to Fort William in Scotland. We were kicked out at 3am in Edinburgh because the train was defective. On the way back there was chaos from Glasgow station with Scotrail officials having no idea what Virgin trains were doing. The fragmented monopolies are not delivering. Sorting out the railways is where the intense ministerial focus should be, for economic reasons as well as quality of life ones."

Whereas the UK government (condom machine in vatican) has missed the important details almost completely. Because they are shit.

I love the idea of sleeper trains. I wish they ran to more locations. I remember travelling to Southern Germany when I was young. It was magic. Sleeping in bunks and watching the landscape roll past. Like I said: Magic.

Marc Jacobson is super-awesome

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Word!

"Putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles, and transmission lines would not only create jobs but also reduce costs due to healthcare, crop damage, and climate damage – as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power,"

Energy & Environmental Science

democratic reform of the UN

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I keep banging on about this. Its really very badly needed in light of this sort of thing:

"Ten of the 15 seats on the U.N. Security Council are held by rotating members serving two-year terms. We find that a country's U.S. aid increases by 59 percent and its U.N. aid by 8 percent when it rotates onto the council. This effect increases during years in which key diplomatic events take place (when members' votes should be especially valuable), and the timing of the effect closely tracks a country's election to, and exit from, the council. Finally, the U.N. results appear to be driven by UNICEF, an organization over which the United States has historically exerted great control."

(Journal of Political Economy)

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 377 A, the "Uniting for Peace" resolution

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The US has used its permanent position on the UN security council to veto every draft resolution that has criticised Israel. Every single one, pretty much. Including the ones condemning Israel for killing UN staff in its various wars (pdf). Likewise with all the ones that might threaten international condemnation of Israel's utter disregard for international law.

However, the resolution in the title allows the security council to be circumvented in the interests of peace if the security council cannot agree on a draft resolution. In specific the resolution declares that the General Assembly of the United Nations:

"Reaffirms the importance of the exercise by the Security Council of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the duty of the permanent members to seek unanimity and to exercise restraint in the use of the veto," ...

"Recognises in particular that such failure does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relieve it of its responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security," ...

"Resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security."

This endows the UNGA with the ability to call an "emergency special session" which can consider motions and draft resolutions that cannot be blocked by a veto of the five permanent members of the UNSC. This provides a mechanism to catalyse international action in cases such as the Gazan genocide, where the rule of law is clearly being broken, peace has been destroyed and global security is being threatened. I'm going to see who I can talk to about this.

Kelly Slater rules

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Word!

the problem with neo-classical economics

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This is frickin rad:

". . . the situation in the current capitalist system whereby much of the surplus labour appropriated by capitalists and shareholders ends up unable to find genuine investment opportunities because workers whose surplus labour has been appropriated do not earn enough to provide a sufficient market for the goods or services that would have been produced or supplied. In other words, much of the capital derived from the surplus labour that people have performed ends up not being invested at all – at least not in any meaningful economic sense, in new productive activities. Indeed, this is the primary cause of the world’s current economic crisis – too much capital accumulating at the expense of wages and growth of economic demand."

My only gripe is that it lacks any mention of sustainable development. Just a small elephant in the room, there.

tempting fate

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From NewScientist:

"Last year saw the first handful of prototype robotic exoskeletons go on sale to the public – with the most advanced being the full-body HAL robot suit made by Japanese firm Cyberdyne."

(emphasis is mine)

Surely, naming your robotic company and product after the most notoriously psychopathic such examples in popular fiction is more than a little irreverent and stunningly arrogant, even for the Engrish-bound Nipponese. Watch this space for the latest reports of amokkery.

SHOCK DECLARATION! - TV exec condemns online file sharing of his programs

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The Indy has been slipping into Daily-Mail-like demagogy for some time. Giving a pedestal to a TV executive from which he can broadcast his condemnation of file sharing is a classic business-and-upstanding-citizen-friendly example and ignores the fact that the recording and distribution of such programs was going on long before teh interweb became the medium of choice for sharing video (anyone remember video cassettes?).

Anyhow, file sharing over teh interweb is becoming less and less popular as video streaming sites start to take over, supplying a world of content on demand (if slightly jerkily and after ten minutes' buffering). Funny how you don't see cnuts like Garrett screaming about that in the press. The most damning thing is that TV networks are now offering their own streaming sites to compete with the Chinese. So the market is already being forced to work with this new paradigm without any obvious collapses of big TV networks or any obvious fall in program quality. So claims to the contrary are all a pack of fucking lies.