Futurama was The Simpsons’ much misunderstood younger cousin, running for four seasons before being being cancelled by dullard Fox Network suits. The show, it would seem however, remains influential.

In the episode, ‘Crimes of the Hot‘, as the planet looks doomed at the hands of global warming, malevolently dweebish scientist Ogden Wernstrom announces:

‘I have placed in orbit a giant mirror that will reflect 40% of the sun’s rays, thus cooling Earth.’

The plan comes unstuck when a piece of space debris hits the mirror, spinning it so it becomes a giant magnifying glass, scorching a furrow across the planet.

I guess the Bush administration turned the episode off before it got to that part:

The US government wants the world’s scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming, the Guardian has learned. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be “important insurance” against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major UN report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday.

Of course, if that doesn’t work, they could always go with a Futurama Plan B from the same episode:

‘…we simply drop a giant ice cube into the ocean every now and then.’

Sorted.

Update: How US government scientists hope the Earth will look in 2050.

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Patricia Hewitt’s got a little list…

At the beginning of November we had this:

Millions of personal medical records are to be uploaded regardless of patients’ wishes to a central national database from where information can be made available to police and security services, the Guardian has learned.

Details of mental illnesses, abortions, pregnancy, HIV status, drug-taking, or alcoholism may also be included, and there are no laws to prevent DNA profiles being added. The uploading is planned under Whitehall’s bedevilled £12bn scheme to computerise the health service.

Now, (via the excellent Philip), at the beginning of December, we have this:

Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, said letters from patients who want to keep their private medical details out of the government’s reach should be sent to Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, for “full consideration”.

‘Full consideration’. The Secretary of Health would like to give you her full consideration. Sod the privacy of patients frightened of what an authoritarian government, that has been shown time and time again to be darkly mendacious and comedically incompetent, might be capable of. Patricia wants to know who you are.

Just what that ‘consideration’ will involve other than creating another little database, this time of dissidents, and then tossing the letters in the trash, isn’t clear. The Government’s response seems to be a polite ‘get stuffed‘:

The department’s response to people [...] explains that it will not agree to their request to stop the process of adding their information to the new NHS database. The department does not believe that processing their information in this way is a genuine reason linked to substantial and unwarranted distress.

This form letter (pdf) sent out to all those good enough to submit their misgvings, along with their names and addresses, to the authorities is full of warm reassurance:

While a few doctors have said that the Spine could have been designed in a different way, the majority - including some of the most senior and respected doctors in the country - are supportive and believe that it will improve delivery of healthcare to patients.

There are those who disagree. You have to wonder how much of a comfort that is to Helen Wilkinson who…

…was mistakenly labelled an alcoholic after a simple computer error by the NHS. An unknown official at a hospital was updating her medical records and inputted a wrong code. The mix-up meant she was recorded as having received treatment for alcoholism, instead of surgery.

Wouldn’t you call that ’substantial and unwarranted distress’? And how about this:

She was also angry that the records had been shared with a private company which distributes personal medical records to academic researchers [...] In 2003 she was contacted by researchers a week before she was due to have an operation.

The thing is, and it can’t be pointed out enough, the people forcing this on us are the last people who are going to have to rely on it. Are you seriously telling me that Gordon Brown’s son will have nothing but the finest care for his cystic fibrosis? That he’ll suffer the vagaries of the system as pointed out by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust? (Word document). Tony Blair was lucky enough to get the catheter ablation he needed to sort his dodgy ticker. Others haven’t been as fortunate.

Is it any wonder that people refuse to sign OurPetition, the petition asking ‘elected representatives of all UK political parties voluntarily refrain from self-paid or insurance-paid medical care treatment’. The former Tory leader Michael Howard was just the latest:

I cannot sign your petition for a number of reasons. First, the number of letters I receive from my constituents suggests that very many people have to use private healthcare not through the desire to jump the queue and the system, but because it is necessary for their own health. Such is the state of NHS dentistry, for example, that many people have no option but to use the private sector.

It looks, once again, that we’ll have to put our faith in governmental incompetence and hope the system never sees the light of day in full ‘working’ order. That you have to hope your government is as stupid as you suspect it is in order to secure peace of mind just shows how low we’ve come.

In the future, said British politics’ very own Lawnmower Man, David ‘Dave’ Cameron this week, political battles will be fought in cyberspace. As he strapped on his virtual reality goggles to launch the Conservative’s new down-with-the-kids ‘Sort-It’ website, he declared the ‘internet revolution’ is ushering in ‘a whole new age of political communication and engagement’ where ‘the old answers will not work’.

Now, to run the terrible, if unlikely, risk of sounding less cool than Cameron, we’d like to ask if the ‘old’ ways of political communication and engagement have really had their day. You know, the quaint, unfashionable stuff like going out and talking to people. Obviously, neither Cameron nor Blair like meeting the public face to face in uncontrolled situations because there are too many variables and too many chances they’ll be made to look like idiots. But it’s a problem of their own making.

(more…)

Like a Chinese puzzle, fiendish but beautiful in its simplicity. From Silicon.com we have:

Biometrics cut pub brawls by a quarter
A biometric scheme that scans drinkers’ thumbprints before they enter a pub has helped cut alcohol-related crime in the South Somerset town of Yeovil.

Then (via Jamie) we have this from the Register:

Beer fingerprints to go UK-wide
[Julia] Bradburn [principal licensing manager at South Somerset District Council] could not say if fingerprint security in Yeovil had displaced crime to neighbouring towns, but she noted that domestic violence had risen in Yeovil.

There’s the rub. Out of sight out of mind. Just what a violent man would do with himself when turned away from the pub doesn’t seem to have occurred to anybody. Let’s put him under house arrest where he can contribute to his very own 7/7 (or two).

Chalk it up to the law of unintended consequences. Or, if you like, crude utilitarianism. Are fewer women killed by their partners each year than punters in pub fights?

The greatest inequality of power between those who impose costs and those who have to bear them is the one that exists between those who are alive now, and those who will inhabit the world we have created. The basic iniquity of the Government’s latest round of support for nuclear power lies in its willingness to exploit this power gap rather than to face it with a sense of responsibility.

read the rest…

I’m a big fan of small acts of unsolicited kindness to and from strangers. I like good manners and, being an old fashioned sort, I also enjoy chivalry and not just because I fancy having a natty suit of armour and a warcharger. In short, I despise beastliness.

So, being of good breeding and while dropping my daughter off at school the other day, I held the gate open for one of the mothers. I didn’t catch a thank you from her which isn’t unusual - 90% of the parents with children at the school are pig ignorant after all.

What was different, however, is that the mother was wearing the niqab. And do you know, like Jack Straw, I realised that the garment can be a barrier to communication; the mother may well have smiled gratefully and said an unostentatious ‘thank you’, both niceties being disguised by the niqab.

Where Jack, a man with evidently such thin skin and delicate sensibilities that it remains a wonder how he ever summoned the courage to shake the hand of Robert Mugabe or flog weapons across the globe, evidently frets about this kind of thing, on further consideration I realised there is in fact an upside. Whereas I would have mentally added a non-niqab wearing parent displaying such behaviour to my list of enemies, on this occasion I didn’t.

The mother may have said thank you, she may not have. That being the case, I’d like to posit a new theory based on the famous thought experiment, Schrödinger’s cat.

I know for a fact that 90% of the non-niqab wearing parents in the schoolyard, knowing neither the cost nor value of civility (low and high, respectively), are ill-bred boors deserving of a size nine up the backside and capable of spoiling my mood. Under the terms of McKeating’s Niqab, however, just as the physicist’s feline was simultaneously both alive and dead, so a niqab-wearing mother is both polite and friendly and rude and stand offish. Or, for those readers of lower intelligence, much like a box that could be holding either £50,000 or one penny.

In this state of uncertainty, I am neither able to condemn the mother along with the rest nor gather her to my bosom as I have those showing themselves worthy of my esteem. My mood is neither spoiled nor elevated and a sense of benign ambivalence is maintained until further evidence is presented. A synthesis - a Third Way, if you will - is reached, while achieving a state of being that is quintessentially British.

What could be more modern than that? The conclusion that this new theory arrives at is surely, in Britain today, we should decide to refuse The Banker’s* offer.

*Popular rhyming slang.

None of this is simple for politicians to discuss. Arguments have to be clear and careful. None readily tabloidize. But if party hacks are wondering about electoral disaffection, they could start by interrogating their own eagerness to abdicate. While they’re happy to confine health debates to PCTs and the small print of dentistry contracts, the politics of abortion is happening without them.

read the rest…

I still enjoy my job, when I am allowed to do it.

But, knowing everything I know now, looking down the all powerful retrospectoscope, would I do it again?

No.

read the rest…

And then there were eight.

Picked the wrong summer holiday to build one of these with the kids. It was out of date before we even hung it up.

As if butchering Tom and Jerry wasn’t enough. All those childhood years spent poring over books about the solar system. And for what? Bloody progress.

It’s been a bad week for those of us with arrested development. Next they’ll telling us that the Jim’ll Fix It footage of those cub scouts who ate their lunch on the roller coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach was faked.

That 2003 UB313 can sod right off as well.

Britain’s official food safety watchdog - which prides itself on its “openness” - is embroiled in a row over the blanking-out of large sections of a document relating to a banned GM maize illegally imported into the country.

read the rest

Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.

read the rest

The Guardian: Unlicensed GM rice may be in UK food chain

Unlicensed GM rice sold illegally on the internet to Chinese farmers has been sold for human consumption and may have been imported undetected into the UK, even though it could cause allergic reactions.

Still, look on the bright side for the GM companies: a huge field test of the product on human specimens conducted at no expense. It’s a market researcher’s dream. If no-one slips into a coma or dies, the rice could be a big seller.

NZZ Online: US authorities fine Syngenta over Bt10

Agrochemicals firm Syngenta is to pay a fine of $375,000 (SFr449,475) for contaminating seeds with an unapproved variety of genetically-modified corn.

The European Food Safety Authority has said the Bt10 corn contains an antibiotic-resistant gene that it believes should not be present in crops grown commercially.

Syngenta made $3.7 billion in profits before tax last year.

The Guardian: Joint US-UK cover-up alleged over GM maize

The whereabouts of 170,000 tonnes of contaminated GM maize and its possible import into the UK has caused an international investigation and claims of a cover-up on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) first put out a statement saying the contamination was “on a small scale” but later retracted it, instead saying the maize was unlikely to have got into food but might have been fed to cattle.

The lessons of the BSE crisis well-learned then.

What’s puzzling is when you compare the lack of fuss over this rather disturbing debacle with the hysteria over Sudan 1 - a chemical so dangerous you’d have to eat a block the size of Alan Milburn’s ego to suffer any lasting harm.

The GM maize in question is Syngenta’s BT10 which contains a gene that is resistant to certain antibiotics and is unlicensed in Europe. Thanks to Syngenta it was mixed with a similar corn, BT11, and it’s been in the food chain as cattle feed for four years. You’d think in age of MRSA the phrase “resistant to antibiotics” would be pushing more buttons.

But the fix is in, and the spin has been spun:

A Syngenta spokesman said 150,000 tonnes would have been marketed but it believed only a tiny amount reached Europe. Only 18% of US maize was exported and less than 1% came to Europe. He conceded that, before 2004, GM maize destined for Europe was not labelled, so it would be impossible to know where it had gone. The company and the US authorities were investigating and would notify all concerned as soon as possible.

“Less than 1%” to Europe. That’s still quite a few tons. And “only 18%” was exported. To where? Was it fed to the Argentinian cattle who went on to become the steaks I saw in a supermarket the other day? Just because the maize itself didn’t reach these shores doesn’t mean a health risk didn’t.

You can see why, with Tony heading for the Palace on Monday, DEFRA might have wanted to keep this quiet. And it’s in a lot of people’s interests to keep the public ignorant on the wider issues surrounding GM.

I am myself speaking from a position ignorance when it comes to the health risks posed by GM crops and food. But then, so is everybody else.

It shows what a slow weekend it’s been for news when this reaches the headlines:

BBC News: GM golden rice boosts vitamin A

UK scientists have developed a new genetically-modified strain of “golden rice”, producing more beta-carotene.

The human body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, and this strain produces around 20 times as much as previous varieties.

I’ve written about this wonder rice twice - here, in January, and on my old blog three years ago. Which shows, a) how long this story has been around and b) what a fringe issue it’s been regarded as until someone at BBC News was desperate to fill some space on a bank holiday, picked up a Syngenta press release and produced an advertorial.

It’s also interesting how Syngenta has given us a GM-related good news story just a week after admitting their massive cock-up in allowing an unapproved strain of GM corn into the food chain, for four years.

UPDATE: Some quick maths.

The BBC article above says the new strain of rice “produces around 20 times” the amount of beta-carotene than previous strains.

Now, this article from AlterNet in 2003 says of the old strain:

…an analysis of industry data shows that in order for those most vulnerable to blindness — infants — to get enough vitamin A from breast milk, their mothers would have to consume almost 40 pounds of cooked rice per day.

Which means even with the new strain, a nursing mother would still have to eat around two pounds of the rice to produce enough vitamin A. Which still seems a lot to me.

Over at Bloggerheads, Tim lays down the rules of one of my favourite sports, Googlebombing. It seems I may have been in breach of some of them from time to time.

BBC News: GM beet ‘can benefit environment’

Some genetically-modified crops can be managed in a way that is beneficial to wildlife, a UK research team believes.

But wait there’s more…

The study, Management Of GM Herbicide-tolerant Sugar Beet For Spring And Autumn Environmental Benefit, was funded in 2001 and 2002 by a consortium of GM industry interests, the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC).

But the researchers say they accepted the support on condition that they could publish their work with no restrictions or reference to the ABC.

Fair enough. The research is being carried out by Broom’s Barn Research Station which is part of Rothamsted Research.

Let’s have a look at some of Rothamsted Research’s senior management:

Dr David Evans
“He joined ICI Agrochemicals in 1989 as Research General Manager and after demerger became Director of Research and Development of Zeneca (later AstraZeneca) Agrochemicals. Following merger with Novartis in 2000, he was appointed Head of Research & Technology and member of the Executive Committee of Syngenta International AG, based in Basel, Switzerland.”

and…

Professor Sarah Gurr
Her collaborations with industry and research stations include Aventis, Dow Agrosciences, Syngenta, Stiefel, Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research and Rothamsted Research.

The research may be above board and the researchers claim no allegiance with the ABC. But Rothamsted Research has some close links to industry.

BBC News: Bangladesh ‘endorses’ GM rice

The Bangladesh Agriculture Ministry says it hopes to release a type of genetically modified rice to farmers if on-going research is successful.

Apparently, this is a new wonder rice:

He said beta carotene - which the body develops into Vitamin A - had been taken from daffodils and added to the rice. This made it useful in fighting conditions such as poor sight and blindness.

I wonder if this is the same “golden rice” that Anuradha Mittal wrote about on the Alternet website a couple of years back:

Alternet: ‘Golden’ Rice Is Tarnished

This altered rice was given the honorific “golden” because a daffodil gene was inserted, giving it an orange color. This gene produces beta-carotene in the rice, a nutrient humans can convert into vitamin A. Because vitamin A deficiency contributes to blindness and infectious diseases among the poor in developing countries, golden rice was aggressively advertised as a miracle grain to end suffering for millions around the world. More importantly, golden rice was the first of several foods the biotech industry said would make it possible to eradicate world hunger.

…

Developers of this grain have been vague on how much golden rice a person must eat to get enough beta-carotene for the recommended daily vitamin A needs. But an analysis of industry data shows that in order for those most vulnerable to blindness — infants — to get enough vitamin A from breast milk, their mothers would have to consume almost 40 pounds of cooked rice per day.

Let’s hope the formula’s been concentrated a little more since that article was written in July 2003.

As in all these things, you have to ask in whose interest would this rice be introduced and why.

Research into the new crop is being carried out by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute. Back in 2003, the BRRI worked with Syngenta Bangladesh Limited to develop a method of protecting Bangladesh’s rice crop from the yellow stem borer. A venture funded, interestingly, by the Crop Protection Programme of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

There’s a mention of Syngenta on the BRRI’s links page

Syngenta Bangladesh Limited is a subsidiary of Syngenta, the “world-leading agribusiness committed to sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology”.

Syngenta, also owns AstraZeneca, formerly (before a merger), Zeneca which owns the exclusive commercial rights to “golden rice”.

So, a connection between the institute evaluating the viability of the new strain and the company who owns the commercial rights to “golden rice”. The research’s findings will make interesting reading.