Taking Out The Trash

three into two won't go

The Guardian has an interesting report on a call from some doctors for people to be encouraged to stop having so many children.
It seems two is the magic number otherwise we'll have too many mouths, too many carbon footprinting people and, as Malthus reckoned we'll consume ourselves out of existence.
As I'm expecting my third child in a couple of weeks and like to think I'm pretty ecologically-minded I find the adoption by some environmentalists of population control ideas interesting.
Certainly, this is an issue which can really rile people. You can slag people off for flying short haul every other weekend and they'll study their fingertips and shrug or laugh. But telling someone that by having a third child they've make a catastrophic choice for the planet and you'd better duck quick.
So firstly, bring on the debate - but let's be clear about what it entails.
The authors of this call in the British Medical Journal are part of the Optimum Population Trust which says it is "the leading  think tank in the UK concerned with the impact of population growth on the environment". It's a small field so leading is not that difficult.
It's blog has links to different articles, many on immigration, and all seems fair and reasoned.
My problem is that population control is all about someone else choosing who gets to breed - and quickly that becomes a question of what kind of people get to have children. and what kind of children.
Most of the people in my village with three or more children are AB1 social class - they're exactly the type who will find a way round any moves we might make for population control. The same as they mangle rules on education to make make sure their ones get in to the best state schools.
I fear that we'll end up with the state telling poor people to stop breeding.
Consumption needs to be curtailed but I don't see fewer children as the silver bullet because it presume they only consume and don't contribute.

Rural housing

My latest post is up on the Total Politics site

I was quite excited when the clerk dropped by the house to tell me there was an emergency meeting tonight.

Had another councillor resigned? (The last one went with a very stroppy letter which said that, apart from a few exceptions, we were all “bovine”. We’re not sure who were cows and who not.)

Actually the meeting it is to formally approve a section 106 agreement with the district council for our plans to convert part of our parish rooms into flats.

You can read the full post here.

Slap and tickle

The News of the World claims that Max Mosely's victory today is gag on investigative journalism.
What guff.
They got the key point of the story wrong and then tried to claim after the fact that Mosely's job meant he was fair game.
I cannot see how Mosely choosing to pay women to beat him is of any concern to me. The judge said that his actions made him liable to blackmail, but that is only because of the hypocritical stand of papers such as the NoW. A copy of the judgement is available via this page.
This wringing of hands from Myler about being unable to challenge the rich really sticks in the craw. Perhaps he should look at the top businessman who pays virtually no tax despite earning millions in this country. That's a scandal.
If he's short of story ideas how about one of these.
One point that interests me is that the ruling suggests it's OK to be into S&M but not Holocaust-inspired bondage. Does that mean there are other atrocities which are acceptable? Perhaps an Armenian genocide-themed spanking sessions wouldn't get legal protection while a Rawanda-inspired event would? It is because of these questions that we pay good money to send people to public school so they can tell us the answers.

Chapter & Verse

The title of this blog comes from an episode of The West Wing and, because of the content here, I think works in a number of different ways.
I was listening to a report today on calls by the Archbishop of Sudan for Bishop Gene Robinson to quit because Robinson was gay. The archbishop had lots of other reasons; but  being gay was pretty much it.
It reminded me of this spine-tingling tirade from Martin Sheen in The West Wing

I ink therefore I am

I just love some of the examples Carl Zimmer has collected of scientists and their tattoos.
It makes your ying-yang or celtic band seem somewhat, well, crap.
Could you have journalism tattoos? Your name in shorthand, a notebook, a font name and point size, picture of C P Scott, your foot on a doorstep.
What about politics? The Labour rose, Lib Dem pigeon or Cameron's tree I suppose. Sheet music for the Red Flag perhaps, a quote from Burke or Mandela's prison number.
Tough to get it right without it looking a little bit stupid.
And what happens if you cross the floor? You'd be like a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who added the words: "Is a slapper" to his girlfriend's name when their relationship broke down. Another friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend was a skinhead nicknamed 10 because he tattooed the word Oi (as in the skinhead music) on to his foreheard himself using a mirror. Unfortunately he forgot to account for the reversing effect.
I came across Carl Zimmer's science tattoo collection when it was mentioned in a Utne email newsletter. They ferret out some good stuff.

That bloke next to Hazel

My first post is up on the Total Politics local government blog

Without consultation or negotiation First Group decided to axe the Colerne's only daily bus service.

With just 90 days notice, hundreds of people who relied on the 228 to get to work or shop faced being stranded. Bath may be only 20 minutes drive away but, stuck on top of a steep hill with only a fast and twisting road to connect us, it might as well have been 500 miles away.

You can read the rest here

Leave it at the office

This jaw-dropping spat between a TV presenter and reporter is well worth a look - the fun kicks in after about 30 seconds.

Breaks duck

Just posted my first blog on to the Total Politics local government site and it's waiting approval. I must have written thousands and thousands of articles but the first time you file for someone new it's always really nerve wracking.
The feeling is second only to when it actually gets published and then the phone goes and you hold the receiver at arm's length and think about pretending to be the cleaner. It could be worse and be like this or this or this

Swindled

They couldn’t even be bothered to stick a question mark at the end of the title.

C4’s The Great Global Warming Swindle has been given a hammering by Ofcom for misrepresenting contributors. However, there is enough wriggle room in the judgement for the producers to have the chutzpah to claim they have been vindicated on the substance of the complaints.

George Monbiot flays the film alive in a typically forensic piece in The Guardian today.

The approach of C4 seems to be that it’s enough to have a forthright and opposing view to give people airtime and money. That’s not balance or a full debate, it’s just the crap commissioning of poor journalism.

Week in, week out Ben Goldacre exposes the media’s inability to report science correctly. When coupled with a desire to make a noise rather than shine a light we end up with garbage such as TGGWS.

Expanding your horizons

There's a little section in my bookmarks folder dedicated to those organisations which will give grants for you to study journalism abroad.
The latest I have seen involves the Winston Churchill trust. He's not a particular hero of mine, or a friend of working people generally. But it looks like a pretty good way for a journalist to get a grant and spend a month expanding your mind away from ever-present deadlines.
I think my favourite, though, remains the international Nieman Fellowship. A year studying at Harvard, trips out to Boston and soaking up the East Coast. Marvellous. You get funding for your spouse too!