Many commentators in the mainstream media have pussyfooted around the Moteddy affair. Ian Hislop on tonight’s Have I Got News For You has no such problem. Asked by host Clive Anderson, “Do you think her mistake was allowing the pupils in the class to take a vote?”, Hislop replied:

She didn’t make any mistakes. She asked the children, “what would you like to call the bear?” and they all said Mohammed. And one boy said, “because my name’s Mohammed”. And she was surrounded by lunatics who all said, “death to the primary school teacher.” “Behead middle-aged women who’d like to do a favour to children NOW.” And then taken to court: “this is a serious offense” say senior Muslim clerics. “This is on a par with Salmon Rushdie.” “Oh yes, of course it is.” “Let’s lash her!”

Hislop is very entertaining when he’s in full blown rant mode.

Update: Jeremy Clarkson on the Stig: “Some say that he once lost a canoe on a beach in the Northeast, and that he once did some time in a prison in Cantebury because his teddy is called The Baby Jesus.”

Posted by Rob Fisher as News at 10:16 PM EST

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The news that HMRC has lost personal data (name, address, bank details, NI number, date of birth) of 25 million people is entirely unsurprising. All large organisations are capable of this kind of incompetence.

Any information you tell anyone might as well be published on the Internet. Talk of security procedures is irrelevant: mistakes will be made; information will fall into the wrong hands; it will be used for nefarious purposes.

YOU are responsible for your information security. If you don’t want anyone to know something, don’t tell anyone.

There is one important exception to this rule: the government will demand information from you under threat of force.

They will demand 53 peices of information every time you leave the country, including your passport number, full details of your destination, “any other information the ticket agent considers of interest”, “any other biographical information”, and of course departure and return dates (imagine a database of empty houses).

Who knows what information you may be forced to publish under the Identity Cards Act?

How happy are you with all your personal information being available for anyone to see? Not very happy? Then refuse.

Aside: The Reg story I linked to opens with this sentence: “Early last month Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue apologised after a laptop containing data on 400 customers was stolen.” In the comments to that story, John Stag hits the nail on the head: “I can think of a dozen ways to describe my relationship with the revenue service, but “customer” would never have occurred to me.”

Posted by Rob Fisher as Civil Liberties at 2:59 PM EST

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At the weekend I finally visited Whole Foods Market in Kensington. It was great fun. I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of Texan global capitalism with namby pamby lefty organic vegetarian fairtrade produce.

I don’t go in for all that nonsense. It’s possible organic food tastes better, but I’ve never really noticed. I certainly don’t think it’s any more “ethical” than normal food. It’s modern intensive farming that allows people to worry about something other than whether the next harvest will fail. If the whole world switched to organic methods we’d have billions of starving people. But as a luxury product for people with more money than sense it’s fine. I’d certainly prefer British farmers to switch to low yield luxury food production than get subsidies for doing nothing.

And Whole Foods Market does what it does in such style. It’s not preachy: I didn’t notice any signs or leaflets about saving the planet. It says, here are thousands of products you can’t get anywhere else, available in huge quantities, in an attractive setting. The service is good: were were looking for garam masala in a small display of spices and a passing assistant came by and offered to show us where to find the full range of spices several aisles away. It is convenient: the baskets have wheels and extendable handles so you can drag them like little suitcases; there is an amazing escalator contraption to move trolleys between floors; there are over 20 checkouts with an intelligent queueing system. There is a cheese room with cheeses the size of car wheels. There are countless varieties of freshly baked bread; I had no idea where to start but the baker was able to recommend something suitable for dipping in soup.

The best thing about Whole Foods is that it sells products that Guardian readers like, but not only is it a big American global company (which they hate) but its founder has plenty to say that I suspect they would disagree with. So when shopping there I can indulge in a smug little fantasy about how hypocritical a lot of the other shoppers must be.

I’m not being hypocritical by shopping there, you understand. I have nothing against organic produce per se. And there’s lots of great stuff I’m going to enjoy trying from Whole Foods. I love trying different sauces and I could easily have bought a dozen different varieties of olive oil.

The only down-side is that it’s on an awkward branch of the District Line. I hope they open some more stores.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Reviews at 2:55 PM EST

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The first I heard was a story on BBC Radio 1 that went something like, “the UN’s top scientists say humans are definitely causing global warming.” Back in February this was only “very likely”. What has changed?

Today’s story, according to BBC News, is yet another report.

The IPCC report states that climate change is “unequivocal” and may bring “abrupt and irreversible” impacts.

So far, so same old, same old. So what new research is there?

After a week of arduous talks in Valencia, Spain, the UN panel of scientists agreed the document which says the planet is being driven toward a warmer age at a quickening pace by human activity.

Sounds suspicious. A panel of scientists appointed by politicians sit round and have a chat, and suddenly there are new revelations? Where is the research?

Even if levels of CO2 in the atmosphere stayed where they are now, he said, research showed sea levels would rise by between 0.4 and 1.4 metres simply because water expands as it warms.

What research? How quickly will sea level rise? What temperature rise will cause this?

Further down in the IPCC predictions box, there seem to be two sets of figures: probable ones and possible ones. The probable temperature rise of between 1.8C and 4C presumably equates to the probably sea level rise of between 28-43cm. The 40-140cm range must come from the “possible” temperature range of 1.1C and 6.4C, even though that range starts at a lower temperature. The figures in the main story must have been chosen for maximum impact. Who knows where the figures in the box come from?

The whole story reads like a UN press release. The only person quoted is United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

So what are the time scales and where is the new research? The story doesn’t say, but helpfully the UN draft Report is included, but unhelpfully this doesn’t contain any references. A graph of “Changes in temperature, sea level and Northern Hemisphere snow cover” is footnoted simply with, “Based largely on data sets that cover the period since 1970″.

As far as I can tell there is *no* new research. This is just the UN’s “final part of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report”. It’s another presentation of guesswork. Because CO2 levels are rising faster than the IPCC previously reported, and the temperature data hasn’t changed, we’re supposed to agree that this means global warming is even more “unequivocal” than ever and even more “cause by humans” than ever.

The media laps this up and presents it as if it was some new discovery that we should all be worried about.

What about that sea level rise? From the report:

Because understanding of some important effects driving sea level rise is too limited, this report does not assess the
likelihood, nor provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise. Table SPM.1 shows model-based
projections of global average sea level rise for 2090-2099.

Guesswork, in other words. Educated guesswork by scientists who’ve made computer models of all their assumptions, for what that’s worth. My point is: that’s not how it is reported.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Enviro-Mentalism at 1:18 PM EST

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Lewis hamilton is moving to Switzerland for tax reasons. Good for him. Why this should be considered an “admission” is beyond me. He should be proud of himself for avoiding the thieving scumbags that want his money.

Meanwhile, our Lords and Masters have been squandering their ill gotten gains on ceremonial pomp in London, not to mention bringing the city to a halt.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 2:57 PM EST

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I think that in the larger picture people in developing countries will prefer not to squander life-giving investment capital on bullshit environmental schemes whose main purpose is to make western elitists feel good.

This was in response to a complaint about missing the “larger picture”, which was in response to this:

My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit “global warming.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Enviro-Mentalism at 2:47 PM EST

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Young people today don’t know they’re born:

The camera generally recognised as the first digital still snapper was a prototype (US patent 4,131,919) developed by Eastman Kodak engineer Steven Sasson in 1975. He cobbled together some Motorola parts with a Kodak movie-camera lens and some newly invented Fairchild CCD electronic sensors.

The resulting camera, pictured above on its first trip to Europe recently, was the size of a large toaster and weighed nearly 4kg. Black-and-white images were captured on a digital cassette tape, and viewing them required Sasson and his colleagues to develop a special screen.

The resolution was a revolutionary .01 megapixels and it took 23 seconds to record the first digital photograph. Talk about shutter lag.

Link via Chicago Boyz.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 2:42 PM EST

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Sometimes an old post comes to life with new comments and brings back memories. On an old post about an Iranian shortwave propaganda radio station called Voice of Justice, Paul writes:

I heard the Voice of Justice just last night on 6125 between 0100 and 0200 UTC from my location here in Sweden.

It was nothing but a long string of propaganda. What was interesting (and saddening in my opinion) was the great number of interviews held with so many American commentators so eager to lambast their own country on Iranian radio.

American commentators like professor Dwight Simpson of SFSU. I have recorded audio of that interview (in OGG format so you’ll need Winamp).

Another commenter, Marty, has me wanting to fire up the SW receiver again:

For really good ol’ fashion propaganda, try Radio PMR from the self-declared Soviet-style republic of Pridnestrovye, which isn’t recognized by anyone. It is a small strip of land between Moldova and the Ukraine. They broadcast in English (winter 2007 freq.) on 7,370 kHz at 1700 UTC.

Marty has a blog called Shortwave Scatter.

Posted by Rob Fisher as World Band at 12:43 PM EST

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