Getting Warmer
The Bush administration still don't listen. A UK Government report spells out the situtation
Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts than previously believed, a major scientific report has said.
The report, published by the UK government, says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below "dangerous" levels.
It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to rise by seven metres over 1,000 years.
The poorest countries will be most vulnerable to these effects, it adds...
...UK Prime Minister Tony Blair writes that "it is now plain that the emission of greenhouse gases... is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable."
Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said the report's conclusions would be a shock to many people.
"The thing that is perhaps not so familiar to members of the public... is this notion that we could come to a tipping point where change could be irreversible," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"We're not talking about it happening over five minutes, of course, maybe over a thousand years, but it's the irreversibility that I think brings it home to people." "
How many reports do we need? Is the personal greed of a small ruling class to destroy the planet for future generations?
Source BBC
Stop
The efforts by the Bush administration to silence one of its leading scientists on climate change is reported in the New York Times.
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."...
...Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan...
...He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide...
It is also reported by the Washington Post.
Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.
This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible...
...The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth's average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would "imply changes that constitute practically a different planet."
"It's not something you can adapt to," Hansen said in an interview. "We can't let it go on another 10 years like this. We've got to do something"...
...This tipping point debate has stirred controversy within the administration; Hansen said senior political appointees are trying to block him from sharing his views publicly.
When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to withdraw the information because he had not had it screened by the administration in advance, according to a Goddard scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More recently, NASA officials tried to discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for this article and later insisted he could speak on the record only if an agency spokeswoman listened in on the conversation.
"They're trying to control what's getting out to the public," Hansen said, adding that many of his colleagues are afraid to talk about the issue. "They're not willing to say much, because they've been pressured and they're afraid they'll get into trouble."...
The push by the wealthy for more wealth and ignoring its effect on the planet is a crime against future generations. We must shout stop. If we are silent we acquiesce.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)
The State The Unions In
James Adomian doing a great
impression of President George W. Bush and what he might say in a State Of The Union Address.
Reaction Timer
A simple test which tells a lot.
I intend to try this later tonight after a few glasses of wine... in the interest of scientific research you understand.Update. After just two glasses of wine much slower. D'oh
Escape
This skillgame is much harder than it looks and very addictive.
Detecting Political Spin
We often feel that the politicians are spinning but now some academic research...James Pennebaker, from the University of Texas at Austin, developed a model for deception in text. The model is based on the relative frequency of certain kinds of words.
The Pennebaker model predicts that deceptive text will be marked by:
* A decreased frequency of first-person pronouns, perhaps because of a speaker's attempts to distance himself or herself from what's being said;
* A decreased frequency of exception words, such as `however' and `unless', perhaps to keep the story simple;
* An increased frequency of negative emotion words, perhaps because of some instinctive distaste about deceiving; and
* An increased frequency of action words, perhaps to keep the story going so that inconsistencies might not be noticed.
Would like to see some research here. I feel we have a group of politicians who would be worthy of study. Queens University CanadaHat Tip
Guardian Technology
Low Cost Heat
Our sources of energy are finite and we need to start looking at alternatives. This is one possible environmentally friendly way...
In an empty warehouse in Oxfordshire sits a large block of ice, which pumps out enough heat to keep a nearby office warm. Yes, you read that correctly. Heat from a block of ice. This oversized ice cube is an essential part of a clever heating system called a heat pump
...Heat pumps work just like fridges, by sucking heat from warm things and moving it elsewhere.
...That's the thinking behind domestic heat pumps. There's heat everywhere, in every substance over -273C (absolute zero). The block of ice in the warehouse is kept at -10C, warm in comparison. Plenty of heat to be had from that.
...Domestic heat pumps can also suck warmth from the ground...then put the heat to work in your radiators and hot water taps.
Source
Guardian Technology
Stardust Mission
The Stardust spacecraft returned safely a couple of weeks ago, but now the real work begins: finding the comet dust grains that it brought back.
So NASA is recruiting volunteers to help find the microscopic particles. If you're interested, you can find out if you qualify to participate in the project.
CNet
Christina
Another couple, one Irish one Canadian, are rowing in the Atlantic Challenge race to raise funds for charity. Their latest report tells us that
...we seem to be experiencing some fair weather now and our speed has picked up. We hope that it continues for as long as possible. We intend to completely refresh ourselves, the boat and above all our mental attitude to mark the upcoming half way mark. We are going to approach the remainder of the race as a new start (same crew!) which we reckon will be a mental boost.
They deserve our encouragement and support which you can do by following the notes on their News page.
Leatherback Turtle
Mentioned on Today with Pat Kenny (10.55) was the Irish Sea Leatherback Turtle Project. They have had a remarkable success in tagging a leatherback turtle. Its location is now being tracked by satellite and you can follow its progress at their website.
Hiccups Lead To Two Deaths
A bit drastic...
A Colombian man accidentally shot his nephew to death while trying to cure his hiccups by pointing a revolver at him to scare him, police in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla said on Tuesday.
After shooting 21-year-old university student David Galvan in the neck, his uncle, Rafael Vargas, 35, was so distraught he turned the gun on himself and committed suicide, police said.
The incident took place on Sunday night while the two were having drinks with neighbors.
Galvan started to hiccup and Vargas, who works as a security guard, said he would use the home remedy for hiccups of scaring him. He pulled out his gun, pointed it at Galvan and it accidentally went off, witnesses told local television.
"They were drinking but they were aware of what was going on," one witness said.
...well that cured him.Reuters
Legless
He ended up in bits...
An Oregon man hurled both of his prosthetic legs at a state trooper, striking him with one, after his son was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, police said on Monday.
The incident on Friday began when the trooper stopped a sport utility vehicle going the wrong way on a highway in southern Oregon.
The trooper at first detained only the driver, Adam Kackstetter, 26, after he became aggressive. But then his father, Joel Kackstetter, 53, a passenger in the vehicle, grew hostile, a police spokesman said.
The senior Kackstetter charged at the arresting officer several times before the trooper knocked him to the ground, according to the police report.
"Passenger removed a prosthetic leg and threw it at trooper, hitting trooper in chest. Passenger removed second leg, threw it at trooper but missed," the report said.
Reuters
A Long Journey
Irish Rail looks good...
Migrant workers in south China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday because they have no access to a toilet, state media said Tuesday.
About 120 million peasants from China's vast rural areas swarm the cities for work and all try to make it home for the holiday, filling all standing room on trains and making access to the toilet impossible during trips often lasting 24 hours or more.
Reuters
Frozen Assets
I know it's their own money but...Like some 1,000 other members of the "cryonics" movement, Mr. Pizer has made arrangements to have his body frozen in liquid nitrogen as soon as possible after he dies. In this way, Mr. Pizer, a heavy-set, philosophical man who is 64 years old, hopes to be revived sometime in the future when medicine has advanced far beyond where it stands today.
And because Mr. Pizer doesn't wish to return a pauper, he's taken an additional step: He's left his money to himself.
With the help of an estate planner, Mr. Pizer has created legal arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his roughly $10 million in land and stock holdings until he is re-animated. Mr. Pizer says that with his money earning interest while he is frozen, he could wake up in 100 years the "richest man in the world."
...At least a dozen wealthy American and foreign businessmen are testing unfamiliar legal territory by creating so-called personal revival trusts designed to allow them to reclaim their riches hundreds, or even thousands, of years into the future.
Such financial arrangements, which tie up money that might otherwise go to heirs or charities, are "more widespread than I originally thought," says A. Christopher Sega, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and a trusts and estates attorney at Venable LLP, in Washington. Mr. Sega says he's created three revival trusts in the last year.
...In addition to heirs or charities, estate lawyers are also naming their cryonics clients as beneficiaries. If they come back to life after being frozen, the funds revert back to them. Assuming, that is, that there are no legal challenges to the plans.
Source
Wall Street Journal
The Problem of Success
The Million $ pixel site faces more problems. After having a DDoS attack it now faces a legal threat.
The problem of success. Nice to have it though.Source
The Register
Its In The Smoke
Coffee and...
Marijuana growers gathered in Europe's pot-smoking capital Sunday for a trade show that is taking on the trappings of a major industry fair, complete with scantily clad models, glossy brochures and, of course, samples. But instead of posing next to muscle cars, the models explained the intricacies of hydroponics culture such as the "iGrow-box Intensive Irrigation System" and exhibitors showed off their bongs, grinders, rolling paper, reflective film, hemp-fabric apparel and how-to marijuana growing videos.
"This gives you an uplifting high, up in the mind, not in your body," marijuana cultivator Arjan Roskam said of his latest Cannabis Cup-winning strain, "Arjan's Haze #1."
Source Reuters
Would You believe?
...and they let him in.
Dutch police have arrested a thief they dubbed the "salamander man" who talked his way into the homes of dozens of unsuspecting people by saying he was looking for his lost salamander, hamster or iguana.
Police said Monday they had been hunting the 33-year-old homeless man for months and that he had admitted to about 60 thefts in towns across the country.
Once inside a house, the man stole wallets and loose cash. Police arrested him Friday after a tip off and found nine empty wallets in his car, which had been stolen the day before.
Source
Reuters
Compulsory Purchase
The common man fights back...
Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the court's justices evicted from his own home.
The group, led by a California man, wants Justice David Souter's home seized to build an inn called the "Lost Liberty Hotel."
They submitted enough petition signatures only 25 were needed to bring the matter before voters in March. This weekend, they're descending on Souter's hometown, the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500, to rally for support.
ABCHat tip
mcarthurweb
Schadenfreude
Germans have a word for it -- schadenfreude -- and when it comes to getting pleasure from someone else's misfortune, men seem to enjoy it more than women.
Such is the conclusion reached by scientists at University College London in what they say is the first neuroscientific evidence of schadenfreude.
Using brain-imaging techniques, they compared how men and women reacted when watching other people suffer pain.
If the sufferer was someone they liked, areas of the brain linked to empathy and pain were activated in both sexes.
Women had a similar response if they disliked the person experiencing the pain but men showed a surge in the reward areas of the brain.
"The women had a diminished empathic response," said Dr Klaas Enoo Stephan, a co-author of the report. "But it was still there, whereas in the men it was completely absent,"
Reuters
The World According to Google
On TV tonight and looks interesting.
In the 18 months since its stock market flotation, Google has been transformed from a company that prided itself on being simple and effective, into a multi-headed high tech beast which wants to get involved in everything..."While the outside world sees a success, those of us inside know the many different challenges and possible failure points and risks," observes Ms Mayer [vice president of search products at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters].
...Google's canny founders are also all too aware that Silicon Valley has seen many high tech companies, from Netscape to Pets.com, which in their heyday appeared to be unbeatable, but are now all but forgotten.
The World according to Google. BBC Two at 1900 UK time on Friday 20 January.
BBC
Definition
I like this description at the head of
Let the Good Times Roll.
Blogger n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.
He has a lot of good things to say in one of the most interesting blogs I have read.
Joe Duffy and The Health Service
As I write I am listening to another series of horror stories about the state of the A&E service. The politicians need to be afraid. There is a head of anger building up and when it breaks some of the politicians will be swept away. Given the length of time this has been a problem it can't happen soon enough.
Why do we have to leave it to a radio programme to expose this?
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
A series of fascinating charts. Guess what I have just spent the last hour looking at? Highly recommended but make sure that you have time to spare!!
Karl HardingHat Tip
Let The Good Times Roll
Canister Opened
The opening of the Stardust canister reveals priceless samples.
At Johnson Space Center in Houston today, NASA astrophysicist Scott Sandford reports that a team of scientists, "opened the (Stardust) canister and exposed the aerogel tray (containing comet dust and interstellar particles) for the first time."
BoingBoing
The Next Step For Stardust
Soon we can all participate...
A capsule containing precious space dust from NASA's Stardust mission is due to arrive at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, US, on Tuesday. The capsule, which appears to have survived its landing intact, is scheduled to be opened on Tuesday evening local time...
The samples include less than one-thousandth of an ounce of dust from Comet Wild 2, which it reached in January 2004, and about 45 grains of interstellar dust. Internet users can search aerogel images for the interstellar dust beginning in March in a project called Stardust@Home.
Source
New Scientist
The Y Chromosome Tells A Tale
We have spread worldwide...
Up to three million men around the world could be descended from a prolific medieval Irish king, according to a new genetic study.
It suggests that the 5th-century warlord known as "Niall of the Nine Hostages" may be the ancestor of about one in 12 Irishmen, say researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Niall established a dynasty of powerful chieftains that dominated the island for six centuries.
In a study of the Y chromosome - which is only passed down through the male line - scientists found a hotspot in northwest Ireland where 21.5% carry Niall’s genetic fingerprint, says Brian McEvoy, one of the team at Trinity. This was the main powerbase of the Ui Neills, which literally translated means "descendants of Niall".
McEvoy says the Y chromosome appeared to trace back to one person.
"There are certain surnames that seem to have come from Ui Neill. We studied if there was any association between those surnames and the genetic profile. It is his (Niall's) family."
The study says that Niall "resided at the cusp of mythology and history but our results do seem to confirm the existence of a single early medieval progenitor to the most powerful and enduring Irish dynasty".
The results also lend support to surviving genealogical and oral traditions of Gaelic Ireland and are a "powerful illustration of the potential link between prolificacy and power".
Source
New Scientist
More on Stamp Duty
I see that the an IAVI
report says that
while average prices of second hand houses in Dublin increased by 11.3% to 13.5%, some areas of Dublin saw increases of up to 23.5%. He added that an increase in stamp duty exemption levels had also increased prices at the lower end of the market.
...supporting
my argument that the reduction in stamp duty was to the benefit of vendors not purchasers.
The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs
To balance his The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists we have
The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs. Very perceptive and based on his experience, a must read for all interested in this area.
Hemingway's Bar
Fire has taken a piece of literary history.
A fire destroyed the Ernest Hemingway museum and The Compleat Angler bar on Friday on the Bahamian island of Bimini, one of the American novelist's 1930s haunts during the days he stalked big game fish.
The early morning blaze leveled the wooden inn in Alice Town and destroyed photographs and Hemingway memorabilia, police said.
They said the caretaker of The Compleat Angler, Julian Brown, was presumed dead. Brown, said to be in his 60s, alerted the inn's sole guest, who escaped though a window, but then disappeared.
Source
Reuters
More On Low Cost Telephone Calls
A post on
Irish Eyes reminded me to update my comments on
low cost telephone callsMy son returned to China last week. He was unable to call the designated
call2 number from his mobile. He discovered that, in China, you must have a large credit in your 'pay as you go' mobile before you can dial international numbers. He had to call a UK number and hang up (no cost!) to instigate a call. Research on the website revealed that he could instigate the callback by SMS message. Problem solved. He was able to call Ireland from his mobile in Shanghai for 4c+vat and the cost of the SMS message.
Stardust
A real step forward. Brilliant achievement.
A capsule containing dust collected from a comet and stars has landed on Earth after a seven-year space mission.
The US probe Stardust released the capsule as it flew past Earth after a 3 billion-mile (4.7 billion km) trip.
The capsule plunged through the atmosphere and touched down in the Utah desert at 0312 (1012 GMT).
Scientists believe the pristine particles snatched from a comet and interstellar space will give insights into the origins of the Solar System.
It is the first time in history that a space mission has brought back such material.
BBC
Take a leap into hyperspace
We are only starting to understand...
Every year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year's winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There's just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious?
Source
New Scientist
Paraskevidekatriaphobics
From
mcarthurwebHey, it really is Friday the 13th:
...Paraskevidekatriaphobics — people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th — must be pricking up their ears just now, buoyed by seeming evidence that their terror may not be so irrational after all. But it's unwise to take solace in a single scientific study — the only one of its kind, so far as I know — especially one so peculiar. I suspect these statistics have more to teach us about human psychology than the ill-fatedness of any particular date on the calendar...
Why Friday The 13th Is Unlucky
Secret Worlds: The Universe Within
A website featuring photo galleries that explore the fascinating world of optical microscopy.
View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.
Molecular Expressions
The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists
An interesting and very perceptive take...
Venture capitalists are simple people: we've either decided to invest, and we are convincing ourselves that our gut is right (aka, “due diligence”) or there's not a chance in hell. While we may be simple, we're not necessarily forthcoming, so if you think it's hard to get a “yes” out of venture capitalist, you should try to get a conclusive “no.”
This is because there's no upside to communicating a negative decision. Entrepreneurs will simply hate us sooner--instead the game is to string along entrepreneurs in case something miraculous happens to make them look better. (An example of a miracle would be Boeing approving a $5 million purchase order.)
Alas, entrepreneurs are also simple people: If they don't hear a conclusive “no,” they assume the answer is yes. This is an example of the kind of breakdown of communication between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs that causes much pain and frustration for entrepreneurs.
... worth following the link
Let the Good Times Roll to read his top ten lies of venture capitalists.
You can search for stardust
...now you can take part in real science.
Amateur astronomers will soon be able to get their hands dirty in a real-life research project: the search for dust grains from stars millions of light years from Earth.
The project, Stardust@home, will invite internet users to search for the few dozen grains captured by Nasa's Stardust probe, which is due to return to Earth in a few days.
Scientists have created a "virtual microscope" that will allow anyone with an internet connection to scan some of the 1.5m pictures of the samples returned by Stardust for tracks left by speeding dust. Each picture will cover an area smaller than a grain of salt.
Guardian Technology
British library puts Mozart's musical diary online
The British Library has added Mozart’s “Catalogue Of All My Works” online.The
BBC reportsNet users are getting a chance to enjoy some of Mozart's most rarely performed compositions.
A digital version of Mozart's musical diary is being put online by the British Library to help celebrate 250 years since the composer's birth.
The digitised diary lets people click on and hear music from the opening bars of many of the works it mentions.
The whistling Language
...how could you have an argument?...
For some people, whistling is more than just a way to hail a cab. The language of Silbo Gomero, found on the Canary Islands, is whistled instead of spoken. Not only is this a unique way of communicating, but it also has an incredibly long range. Without technological aid, it can be used to to communicate over distances of more than two miles.
Silbo Gomero has been in use for thousands of years on the Canary Islands...Unfortunately, in recent years Silbo Gomero has gone into disuse, especially since the impressive distance of the whistled word has been overshadowed by telephones. Luckily, some are fighting to save the language, requiring education in Silbo Gomero for the youth. Imagine going to school and being forced to whistle for an hour each day.
Hear it here
Damn interesting
The Doomsday Clock
There is a clock at the University of Chicago called the Doomsday Clock whose time perpetually lingers just shy of midnight. On this clock, midnight metaphorically represents full nuclear war bringing an end to all civilization, and the clock is meant as a gauge to constantly indicate humankind's proximity to this horrific event.
...It has been as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953, and as far as seventeen minutes in 1991...Today it stands at seven minutes to the hour.
Damn Interesting
Graffiti
I blogged about this
some time ago.
Progress. I travelled to the midlands yesterday and Kildare Co Co had panted out the graffiti. They had even gone to the trouble to match the colour of their paint to the background. Well done. Fingal Co Co need to do the same as graffiti is making the whole area look shabby. I can feel an email coming on.
Stamp Duty
The headline article in
The Sunday Independent was an interesting analysis of the amount of stamp duty collected by the Government. However Jim Power chief economist of Friends First says
...if the rates were cut, there could be a six-month property price increase, but in the long run it would increase the supply of homes
I can't see how there would be an increase in the supply of homes.
The abolition of stamp duty would increase the amount of money that individuals have to spend but not the supply of houses. While it appears that purchasers are paying this tax it is really the vendors, as purchasers have less cash available for the purchase. This is particularly evident at the first time buyer end of the market where loans are frequently taken for the maximum amount available.
The Darwin Awards
The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways. Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously.
...No drug or alcohol evidence was found; Philip Quinn, 24, in his right mind, placed a lava lamp on his kitchen burner and turned up the flame. In due course, he rediscovered this favorite explosive generator of deadly shrapnel. He was found dead in his Kent trailer home, a shard of glass through his heart.
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." -Benjamin Franklin
Darwin Awards
Technology and Bank robbers
A new use for GPS...
Moments after a Spokane bank was robbed, police found a duffel bag full of cash - and the global positioning satellite device that bank workers had tucked inside.
The device used satellite signals to relay location of the getaway minivan to police shortly after the Wednesday robbery..."You guys are good!" Fricks said as Spokane Police Officer Tim Moses arrested him shortly after the Washington Trust Bank branch robbery, according to documents filed in federal court.
Techdirt
The Gift Economy
Karlin Lillington had an interesting piece on the gift economy in today's
Irish Times. There is an Irony in that it is protected by the IT's "Paywall", though I hope she is able to post it on her blog.
I can't give you an extract from it as on principle I won't subscribe, though I have been buying the print edition for more years than I care to remember.
Another pensions time bomb
The movement to change defined benefit pension schemes, often called final salary schemes, to defined payment schemes is gathering pace.
New York Times BBC This will leave Civil Servants among the few with this valuable benefit. Employers will meet resistance from Trade Unions though it is difficult to get many members to focus on pensions.
This move to boost corporate profits has the seeds of major conflict but requires the Trade Unions to make their members aware of the issues involved to counter the corporate spin.
Slowly does it
A Canadian credit card holder is putting a new twist on an old trick practiced by disgruntled debtors -- repaying his bill in pennies to maximize the collector's inconvenience.
Unhappy when his Canadian bank began outsourcing some of its credit card processing to the United States, the man lodged his protest via the bank's online payment system, jamming its computers by making dozens of tiny payments a day.
Don Rogers said he was worried that anti-terrorism laws in the United States could allow the U.S. government to access his data without his consent.
"I don't want the CIA or George Bush to know how many cases of Viagra I bought last week
...a new meaning for a slow pay.
Reuters
Million Dollar Homepage
The way to go. Wish I had the smarts to do something like this...
The scheme to sell every pixel on a 1,000 by 1,000 pixel webpage to advertisers for $1 each is almost over: the owner, Alex Tew, says he's down to the last 1,000 pixels (so he's $999,000 ahead already).
Guardian TechnologyMillion Dollar Homepage
Murder Most Foul
That this could happen in the richest country in the world, in the bible belt, shames those who call themselves Christians...
Tirhas Habtegiris, a 27-year-old terminal cancer patient at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, was removed from her ventilator last month because she couldn't pay her medical bills. The hospital gave Ms. Habtegiris' family 10 days' notice, and then, with the bills still unpaid, withdrew her life support on the 11th day. It took Ms. Habtegiris about 15 minutes to die. Slate
No one here can forget the spectacle made over the death of Terri Schiavo, whose brain had died long, long ago. But in Texas, the law George W. Bush signed as governor allows doctors to inform the family that further treatment is hopeless (and costly) and Pull the Plug. Literally.
In the latest case to escape the Culture of Life warriors, Tirhas Habtegiris, a young woman and legal immigrant from Africa, was CONSCIOUS and responsive when removed from a respirator and allowed to die. Let me rephrase that: She was killed by doctors who removed the ventilator keeping her alive. And this action was fully legal under Bush's "economic considerations" law. Her body was ravaged by cancer, but she was alert. She was responsive. Daily Kos
This merciless act leaves me numb.
Hat Tip
mcarthurweb
Low Cost Telephone Calls
The
New York Times today has an article on low cost international telephone calls. I call my son in Shanghai, China at least once a week. I have been using
Alphatelecom and found them very satisfactory and low cost at 4c per minute (some of their plans are 3c), and this includes to his mobile. The only drawback is that there is no callback available on an Irish account. I have just set up an account with
call2 as this allows callback. When he returns at the weekend it will be interesting to see if this works. As he only has a computer in the office
Skype is not an option and the Chinese have banned Skypeout for commercial reasons.
