Current Affairs

Really Very Scary

~ Cheryl

This week’s Economist suggests that it is time to stop worrying about the price of oil and the credit crunch and start worrying about the price of food. Money shot:

Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, reckons that food inflation could push at least 100m people into poverty, wiping out all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth.

Of course this won’t affect people in the West much, because food makes up a relatively small amount of their daily budget. When Zoellick is talking about the “poorest billion” he’s talking about people who live on $1 a day or less, and for whom food is a major expense. For them, life is getting very ugly.

Part of the cause, however, is that we in the West are encouraging our farmers to grow biofuels instead of food.

UK Alzheimer’s Petition

~ Cheryl

Via the Match It for Pratchett campaign I learn about a e-petition that has been put on the UK government web site calling for an increase in funding for research into dementia (which is currently less than 5% of the funding for research into cancer). Given that more and more people are surviving into old age, I suspect this will become a major issue is years to come. It also links in with something that Professor Wakeham was saying at the reception last night about the UK government apparently wanting to concentrate medical research on high profile spectacular cures rather than on general wellness. If you are a UK citizen you can go here to sign the petition.

Nothing But Red

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Peter Wong, who contributed a number of comic and movie reviews to Emerald City, writes with the following news:

Nothing But Red is a benefit anthology inspired by the brutal honor killing of Du’a Khalil Aswad. That killing, which occurred one year ago today, inspired TV series creator Joss Whedon to write an impassioned essay condemning the murder. Editor Skyla Dawn Cameron was inspired by Whedon’s piece to solicit from fans essays and art for what became Nothing But Red. Among the 70 contributions to the book is my essay “(A Woman’s) Blood Cleanses Honor.”

Proceeds from the book benefit Whedon’s favorite charity Equality Now. This organization works around the world to push for justice and equality for women.

The book is available via POD and e-book by ordering from this link.

For more information see the International Campaign Against Honour Killings and the Nothing But Red blog.

Earth Hour Tomorrow (and some economics)

~ Cheryl

Yes, this is another one of those international “everyone do something” events. Tomorrow the World Wildlife Fund is asking everyone to turn off their lights (and hopefully most other energy-using appliances as well) for an hour. It will be 8:00pm in California when Earth Hour starts, so there will probably still be some daylight, but our apartment gets so little natural light that we’ll be in the dark anyway. I have no idea how they are planning to monitor the success of this, though electricity output numbers will be interesting, but there is an event for it on Facebook so you can register your intention to participate there. It currently has just short of 800,000 members, which is a drop in the ocean for the world population but not bad for Facebook. More details from the official web site.

Kevin has just commented that various people are blogging about what a sham the whole thing is because it won’t actually do much to reduce energy consumption. Here’s an example. Power station economics is, of course, one of my areas of expertise, so here’s my take.
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Not So Special Relationship

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

This week’s Economist has a leading article about different attitudes between Brits and Americans (doubtless prompted by the current visit of Sarko to London, which we responded to by sending Posh and Becks to Paris, thereby proving that Britain and France are still at war). The results of their poll are quite interesting. I’m not at all surprised to find that Brits are way less religious than Americans. I mean massively so, to the extent that Tories are way less religious than Democrats. I am, however, disappointed to see that Brits of both major political persuasions are more hawkish about military matters than Democrats. You would have thought we could have learned something over the past few years.

Of interest to Americans will be the fact that the two countries are pretty much in step on climate change, despite the fact that their governments are poles apart. The only area of disagreement is to do with airline fares, which is entirely understandable because most Brits only need to fly when going on vacation whereas air travel is the only simple means of getting around the USA, even for such short trips as San Francisco to L.A. or Seattle.

But perhaps the oddest result came from asking Brits about the forthcoming US elections. Apparently the Tories favor Barack Obama while Labor supporters prefer Hilary Clinton. This seems very strange.

(Zemanta has just got very excited because I mentioned the US presidential race.)

A Happy Ending

~ Cheryl

It is always nice to hear that a small press publisher that was in trouble has managed to get back on its feet. Dedalus is a British small press that publishes a lot of work in translation and in particular has produced a series of fantasy anthologies from various countries. These include books edited by excellent people such as Brian Stableford and Johanna Sinisalo. Had I know that they were in trouble, I would have been encouraging you to go out and buy their books.

But, as I said, the story has a happy ending. Although the £25,000 annual grant that they were receiving from Arts Council England is to end, they will be receiving a similar sum in sponsorship from a subsidiary of the Routledge publishing group. More details via The Guardian.

A number of things interest me about this. Firstly I’m slightly boggled that £25,000 could make a difference between survival and bankruptcy for a small press. That shows you just how tight things are in publishing. Secondly, the money from Routledge is a sponsorship, not a buy in. Dedalus will be entirely free to carry on their business without interference. And finally, we have come to a pretty poor pass when someone who is no longer dependent on a government arts grant can say with relief:

It also means we don’t have to spend time on masses of paperwork and political games with an organisation that wants us to fail.

Then again, we are talking about the same government that is talking about closing Jodrell Bank. I guess they need more money to sustain all those military adventures abroad.

Political Engagement

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Congratulations are due to Alan Duncan, MP, the Conservative front bench spokesman on business, who today announced that he is engaged to be civilly partnered to his boyfriend, James Dunseath. The engagement was announced in (of all places) the Daily Telegraph. Conservative party leader, David Cameron, has promised to attend the ceremony. My, how the world has changed.

Some of my American friends will probably be muttering under their breath about how this is a disgraceful sham and that British gays should reject the half-way house of “civil partnerships” and hold out for the right to be married. Personally, as long as civil partnerships carry with them the same legal rights as religious marriages, I have no objection to them. Indeed, if I were ever in the position of being able to get married myself I would want to keep organized religion as far away from the procedure as possible. What I think we need, though, is a new word. I don’t ever want to have to write “engaged to be civilly partnered” again.

Inconvenient Revelations

~ Cheryl

So, a little while back the British government finally admitted that it had allowed the CIA to use a British base as a refueling stop during “extraordinary rendition” flights. Now we find out that this appears to be what politicians call “being economical with the truth”, and in fact we’d been keeping people locked up on behalf of the Americans. Thankfully those people who had come forward have attested that, “They had been treated well in comparison with the regime some endured at places such as Guantánamo Bay”, but now I find myself wondering just how much else the government knew about but has not yet admitted. I’d like to remind Mr. Straw that torture is still a crime in this country. And I note also that there don’t appear to be any convenient sex-and-murder trials liable to distract the media in the coming weeks.

Only in America

~ Cheryl

As I have been doing a fair amount of Britain-bashing of late it seems only fair that I should lay into the Americans as well. So here is a little story about the State of Montana threatening to secede from the union over the issue of gun control.

That is, if the federal government acts to tighten gun control, Montana will up and leave. And I can see why. I’m sure that one of their major sources of income is from lunatic Libertarians moving to Montana so that they can live in heavily fortified bunkers.

All Too Predictable

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

OK, so I guess this is what has really been making me cranky. Here in the UK over the past week we have (thank you, Goddess) seen three men convicted in separate, high-profile, sex-related murder cases. This has been very convenient for our government, because it proved an ideal time for them to admit that, prior to many previous assertions to the contrary, they had actually been merrily helping the CIA ferry people around the world to places where they could be tortured. That piece of news was very quickly forgotten by our sex-obsessed media.
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Regulating Pharmaceuticals

~ Cheryl

Thanks to Peggy at the very wonderful Biology in Science Fiction blog I am reminded that I really out to be reading Ben Oldacre’s excellent Bad Science blog on a regular basis. And that led me on to this post, which is ostensibly about other things but also manages to illustrate one of the reasons why the NHS is such a disaster zone. Commercial companies milk money out of the system in various ways, and suppressing evidence of negative field trials is just one of them. But having a state-owned health service doesn’t necessarily stop that from happening. And if you do have a state-owned system one thing I can guarantee is that it too will suck money away, only it does it through an ever-expanding bureaucracy. Here’s Ben:
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Earthquake, What Earthquake?

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

It was only a 5.2. I’ve slept through earthquakes that strong before. And the epicenter was in Lincolnshire. Goodness only knows what people in London and Edinburgh are so upset about. Of course the damage here is much worse that it would have been in the Bay Area because people do insist on building houses with bricks.

Down the Drain

~ Cheryl

Various economics blogs I follow are buzzing with the news that talented professionals are leaving Britain in droves. Various theories have been put forward, but mainly they seem to agree with The Telegraph‘s original assertion that “high house prices and taxes and poor climate” are the prime culprits. The Economist notes, “Given the strength of the pound and the ongoing American housing market meltdown, a Briton can now purchase most of Phoenix for the price of a Chelsea broom closet.” Quite.
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