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August 31, 2005
Scottish seabirds failing to breed
Some 45 per cent of all European seabirds nest around the coast of Scotland, but large numbers have failed to breed this year, notably guillemot, puffin, kittiwake and razorbill, and especially on the west coast.
It appears likely that the reason is to do with rising sea temperatures and the resulting scarcity of food for the birds.
Perhaps an indicator of the acceleration of global warming?
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4201880.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:56 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 29, 2005
Chirac's air tax for Africa
France, Belgium and Germany are promoting the idea of a compulsory tax on air travel to benefit Africa via the International Finance Facility for Immunisation.
I don’t know what the British position is on this. It seems to be a good idea, except that I don’t see the logic of asking air passengers in particular (rather than drinkers, drivers, golfers or whatever) to pay for medicines for Africa. Perhaps it should be more broadly based?
Chirac announces air tax for aid - BBC - France, Belgium and Germany have said they will introduce a compulsory tax, while Malta, Cyprus and Ireland will give passengers a choice as to whether or not they pay it.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4194386.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:39 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 28, 2005
Lockerbie verdict unsound?
There have been persistent doubts about the soundness of the Lockerbie bombing trial verdict. New testimony now suggests that the CIA faked the evidence to incriminate Libya rather than a Palestinian group.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1855852005
Posted by Simon Holledge at 07:26 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
August 27, 2005
Edinburgh drivers confused
Having had difficulties myself with the new traffic arrangements around Princes Street, I was interested (amused?) to see this report in the Scotsman.
The Skakagrall solution would be to make a one way circle route round Queen Street and Princes Street!
New Edinburgh road system ‘unenforceable’ - Scotsman - Police are refusing to fine drivers who flout new restrictions at key road junctions in Edinburgh city centre, saying they are unenforceable.
thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1851252005
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:12 PM | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
Two-thirds oppose faith schools
According to an ICM/Guardian survey, 64 per cent of people in Britain oppose government funding for faith schools.
“Schools play a crucial role in integrating different communities and the growth of faith schools poses a real threat to this.” Barry Sheerman (Commons Education Committee)
www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1554592,00.html?gusrc=rss
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4175834.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 24, 2005
English to be European official language
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. French and Spanish were rejected earlier. The report explains:
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as ‘Euro-English’.
In the first year, ‘s’ will replace the soft ‘c’. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard ‘c’ will be dropped in favour of ‘k’. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ‘ph’ will be replaced with ‘f’. his will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent ‘e’ in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing ‘th’ with ‘z’ and ‘w’ with ‘v’. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining ‘ou’ and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
[Anonymous via Useful Sounds, Nicole Simon’s German-English podcast]
Posted by Simon Holledge at 01:12 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
August 23, 2005
William Wallace 700th anniversary
Dawn at the Wallace Monument, 23 August 2005, Photo © SCH
Today is the 700th anniversary of the death of William Wallace, executed at Smithfield, London, on 23 August, 1305.
Who is the real Wallace? - Scotsman - Jim Gilchrist on history, film and monuments thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id=1806372005
I Can Not Be a Traitor - BBC - Radio Scotland broadcast about William Wallace www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/genres/history/aod.shtml?scotland/feature2_thu
Ancient Scots documents mark Wallace anniversary - Scotsman - Three historic documents brought together as part of the For Freedom Alone exhibition at Holyrood thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1789442005
The Wallace Monument from Stirling Bridge, sunset 19 August 2005, Photo © SCH
Posted by Simon Holledge at 09:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
The 'lost village' of Daingean
A heritage trail was opened around the ‘lost village’ of Daingean, near Glengarry on the west side of Loch Ness, on 18 August.
Lost village uncovered in forest - The Herald www.theherald.co.uk/news/45269.html
‘Lost’ village resurrected for future generations - Scotsman news.scotsman.com/inverness.cfm?id=1789382005
Forgotten village open for visits - BBC - Daingean was cleared for sheep in the 1700s and obscured by trees until it was found by a forester five years ago. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4163384.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:30 AM | TrackBack
August 19, 2005
Robin Cook as a closet atheist
Robin Cook emeerges as a closet atheist, who declined an invitation to become an honorary associate of the National Secular Society because of the atmosphere of ‘religious correctness’ in the government.
Maybe ‘Born-again Labour’ would be a better description than ‘New Labour’?
observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1549550,00.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at 04:35 PM | TrackBack
August 14, 2005
Rosebay willow weed
Here in the Trossachs the roadsides are lined with a tall magenta-coloured wild flower called rosebay willow weed or herb (Epilobium angustifolium). It’s known as fireweed in the States because it grows on sites with a lot of wood ash. It was also celebrated for taking over blitzed bomb sites in London during and after the war.
It’s indigenous. I don’t remember seeing so much of it in previous years and I don’t know whether it’s so common in the south.
www.wssa.net/photo&info/larrymitich_info/fireweed.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at 01:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
August 13, 2005
Data contradicting global warming is discredited
Data used to cast doubt on global warming has been discredited. According to a report, “Satellite and weather-balloon research released Friday removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming.”
www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68510,00.html
www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-08-11-global-warming-data_x.htm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Car number plates and RFID
More surveillance news. ‘Active’ RFID micro-chipped e-plates are to be tested on vehicles here. Tracking chipped cars is said to be much more accurate than using other methods.
Hills Numberplates Ltd have a good website page explaining the technology.
www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68429,00.html
Wired News also have a good general introduction to RFID.
www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68271,00.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at 09:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 12, 2005
Robin Cook's funeral: Labour without Blair
Robin Cook’s funeral was moving. It was also interesting to see Labour without Blair. ‘Les absents ont toujours tort’ (Philippe Néricault Destouches).
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:42 PM | TrackBack
Democracy Vs meritocracy in the House of Lords
Among the 38 writers who agreed to blog about Lords Reform for the Elect the Lords campaign, Nosemonkey, with impressive chutzpah, has argued against electing the Lords! He writes:
“The Lords does not need democracy - it needs meritocracy.”
I thought that was where we started off. After all, the aristocracy were well educated, nicely spoken, had good family connections, international contacts, knew a lot about farming, were occasionally artistic etc. However Nosemonkey explains his ideas about the best way to select the Lords :
” … the 1917 Bryce report proposed a House three-quarters elected indirectly on a regional basis, one quarter chosen by a joint standing committee of both houses, with a proportion of hereditary peers and bishops. I’d obviously ignore the elected part. I’d scrap the hereditary peers. I’d scrap the majority of bishops …. So we’d be left with the joint standing committee of both houses to make appointments… .”
Selection by the joint standing committee of both houses sounds like a glorified system of horse trading, but he goes on:
“If we accept that the Lords’ prime purpose is to scrutinise legislation that will affect the country … If we accept that their prime purpose is to ensure that we end up with the very best laws possible, I do not think that this can be done within a party-political system. … And that is what - if we had an elected upper House - we would end up with, because elections cost time and money. Those standing for election would need the kind of support that only a party could provide.”
Why should the second chamber should be restricted to revising? Surely that is committee work. Second chambers in other countries are not used just to revise legislation. The purpose of reform should be to improve the performance of parliament as a whole, by making it more responsive, more democratic, and more efficient, while eliminating the corruption that is implicit in patronage. (I happen to believe that parliament is inefficient but that’s outside the scope of this piece.)
Political parties are there to enable ordinary individuals to become politicians. Without them only rich people could stand for election.
” … once you are beholden to an electorate, and rely on re-election to maintain your position, you are less able to act on your conscience, instead having to second-guess what the people who will be voting for you might want.”
True, but this problem can be addressed easily enough by restricting members to a lengthy single term. That way they would be able to act on their consciences without looking to re-election.
“The peers … are supposed to be the country’s best and brightest. They include experts in almost every field on which the government may legislate: economics, law, science, media - you name it, there are members of the House of Lords who are world-leaders on the subject at hand. Would we be able to ensure such a spread of expertise through election?”
I don’t know how best to describe Blair’s latest batch of appointments but ‘best and brightest’ and ‘world leaders’ don’t come immediately to mind. The present crew who turn up (or not) in their thespian-style robes and coronets are a mixture of ex lobby fodder MPs, civil servants, clerics, lawyers and aristocrats etc. with the odd genuine meritocrat, appointed to distract attention from big donor appointees, looking conspicuously like a fish out of water. Many of the lords would frankly be better employed doing shows for tourists, than attempting to contribute to politics.
In any case, the place for experts is in the government ministries, helping to research the issues and draft legislation. Politicians, by definition, have to be generalists, seeing broad trends and inter-connections in public policy. They have to understand the issues but also anticipate the consequences of actions addressing them.
There is a long history to experiments in government that give power to wise men, hereditary leaders, oligarchs, meritocrats, technocrats, party elites etc. rather than the representatives of the people. All kinds of justifications have been made for these arrangements, and continue to be made, all over the world. However ultimately we have to choose; do we uphold democracy or not? Do we side with Churchill and agree that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried”?
“I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it.” Alexander Woollcott of the New Yorker.
europhobia.blogspot.com/2005/08/94-years-of-equivocation-and.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:36 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
Lords Reform Day
Today is the 94th anniversary of the 1911 Parliament Act, which looked forward (with unjustified optimism) to “a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis”. Led by James Graham of the New Politics Network, 38 bloggers have agreed to write in support in reform.
The facts: Britain is the only so-called established democracy to appoint the members of its second chamber for life. The Kingdom of Lesotho in Africa is the only country in the world with a comparable system.
A total of 65 countries have two-chamber parliaments; 46 of these elect their second chambers, of which 29 are established democracies. Of the 19 countries that appoint their second chambers, only 5 are established democracies.
Unfortunately, according to plans presented to Labour’s national policy forum in July, the Labour Party are again putting forward schemes to minimize reform, weaken the Lords, retain the sleaziest forms of government patronage, and maintain in parliament what the Indonesian generals under Soeharto used to call ‘functional groups’.
From a Scottish perspective, I hope the Lords will one day be part of an English Parliament, but I believe their reform is an essential stage in a series of constitutional reforms that may eventually bring real democracy to every part of the British Isles. (I am delighted to see that the SNP - and Plaid Cymru - are supporting the campaign.)
The Elect the Lords Campaign are asking for your support - and it doesn’t cost anything! All you have to do is click on the link below!
www.new-politics.com/blog/index.php?p=132
Other blog links are available via the Technorati tag electthelords
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:07 PM | TrackBack
Scottish Opera Klinghoffer controversy
Scottish Opera will perform The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, on 23 August and three subsequent dates.
The work is about the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists who murdered the elderly, disabled Leon Klinghoffer, and attempts to see the tragedy from the point of view of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The production is said to involve machine-gun armed chorus members sitting disguised in the audience before storming on stage.
Scottish Opera has something of a genius for exciting controversy, and there is already a call by Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles for the production to be boycott.
news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1741092005
Andy Karzas of Chicago comments on an opera list:
“What if someone in the audience had suddenly feigned a heart attack and interrupted the performance? And once the curtain came down and the medics had arrived the individual under discussion suddenly sat up and said ,’oh, I’m fine; I’m just using the same kind of shock tactics that the director employed in the performance.’ Could/should he or she be prosecuted?”
Interesting!
Posted by Simon Holledge at 04:49 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 08, 2005
Strange usage of the word 'Asian' in Britain
Reports about ‘ethnic rebranding’, the wider use of hyphenated terms like Asian-British or Indian-British, reminds me of the strange use of the word Asian.
Asia starts in Turkey and ends in Japan, and yet here in Britain the term Asian is reserved for people from the sub-continent of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why? What are the people of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand etc etc if they are not Asian? Reserving the term Asian for sub-continentals is equivalent to restricting the term European to the Italians.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4130594.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:17 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
August 07, 2005
Tourist attraction attacked for 'Satanism'
Members of Edinburgh’s London Road Church are objecting to ‘Satanism’ at The Edinburgh Dungeon. They are asking for the tourist attraction’s entertainment licence to be revoked. The Dungeon’s displays are said to be offensive to Christians.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1741132005
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:24 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 06, 2005
Robin Cook dies
Robin Cook died today after collapsing while walking on Ben Stack in Sutherland. A great loss. We have few politicians with integrity. He was one of them.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4127654.stm
UPDATE 9 August 2005
Fraser Nelson has an impressive ‘analysis’ of the political side of Robin Cook’s funeral at St Giles’ Cathedral on Friday.
Mentioning Blair’s presumed absence, he remembers the fatal non-appearance of Trotsky at Lenin’s funeral, which reminds reminds me that in Chinese politics trouble always starts after a prominent reformer has ‘gone to meet Marx’.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1749382005
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Cartier-Bresson exhibition
Edinburgh doesn’t have a lot of exhibitions but it has had some spectacularly good ones coinciding with the festivals.
The exhibition of the work of the great French ‘humanist’ photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) at the Dean Gallery opened today and continues until 23 October.
news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1104&id=1735632005
www.hubtickets.co.uk/show.asp?code=1956
Posted by Simon Holledge at 10:51 AM | TrackBack
August 05, 2005
Jon Udell on del.icio.us
Jon Udell has an interesting screen-shot and voice over demonstration of how he uses the bookmarking database service del.icio.us (see also the story links in top right column of this blog).
weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/delicious.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:07 PM | TrackBack
August 04, 2005
Scottish climate change
The BBC have a report about Scotland’s weather. Apparently July was hotter than usual. It is claimed that temperatures have gone up one degree since the 1960s.
Given variations from one year to another, I wonder how useful this kind of report is. Maybe the public will just get confused? Changes in sea temperatures - together with the effects on wildlife - are surely a better indication of global warming.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4745927.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:10 PM | TrackBack
Council discover walking but not car-free zones
Edinburgh City Council officials have made the astonishing discovery that (in the words of the BBC) “walking is the most reliable form of transport over short distances and has a positive impact on health.”
Terrific! Now perhaps they could start considering why there are so few car-free zones in the city, and what they might do about it!
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4743151.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 09:49 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 03, 2005
Laser Surface Authentication (LSA)
Nanotechnology has come up with a clever, simple (and potentially cheap) method for validating documents such as passports, which avoids the problems that go with biometrics etc. It’s called Laser Surface Authentication (LSA).
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4741809.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 01, 2005
Catching up with the Scottish news
Scotland has been rather boring recently, which from the perspective of the (probably spurious) Chinese curse “May You Live in Interesting Times” is undoubtedly a good thing. Since the G8 meeting at Gleneagles we have had the usual football news, murders and farcical (though tragic) failings of the National Health Service. Nevertheless a few things have been happening and it’s time to start catching up with them …