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March 2011

Radioactive iodine

Even as engineers tried to pump puddles of radioactive water from the power plant 150 miles north of Tokyo, the nuclear safety agency said tests on Friday showed radioactive iodine had spiked 1,250 times higher than normal in the seawater just offshore the plant.

Sounds terribly scary, doesn\’t it?

And in 8 days it will be, without any dilution at all, 625 times. And 8 days after that, 312.5 times, another 8 days, 156.25, then 78, 39 and so on.

For the radioactive iodine has a half life of 8 days. At 80 days, we\’re back to normal levels. After 120 we won\’t be able to measure it.

And recall, this is assuming that there\’s no dilution in the water (which of course there will be, we\’re talking about the Pacific Ocean here). Even if we assume that it\’s all eaten up by greedy little shellfish and it just sits in one place, it\’s a three month problem.

Remind me, aren\’t some of those shellfish in Prince William sound still not edible after Exxon Valdez, after a decade or whatever it is?

Everything we get told keeps reminding us quite how safe nuclear power is.

Radioactive water was found in buildings housing three of the six reactors at the crippled plant. On Thursday, three workers sustained burns at reactor No. 3 after being exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than usually found in a reactor.

That\’s just fatuously stupid. It\’s levels higher than normally found *outside* a reactor, not inside one.

Jeebus.

UKuncut occupying Fortum and Mason

Friggin\’ morons. Fortnum\’s is owned by a charity, dingbats.

The Trustees would therefore be looking to make grants
of around £40 million as usual during the next financial
year.
The grants made, as usual, support a wide range of
charitable activities, but the largest overall grants in
terms of value were made in the Art (total £5,680,500)
and Education (total £11,985,166) categories. These
included a lead grant of £3 million to the British
Museum for the new Research Institute for Science
and Conversation and a grant of £1 million to the Royal
Opera House towards core costs. A grant of £1 million
was also made to the Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign
and a further pledge for that sum was made to English
Heritage towards the redevelopment of Stonehenge.
Cancer Research UK received a £500,000 grant for its
Clinical Trials Unit in Manchester and there were eight
other grants for this amount. The remaining grants
were mostly for £250,000 or less, thus enabling the
Trustees to provide core support for as wide a range of
projects as possible.

The money comes from:

At 5 April 2010, the Foundation owned 79.2 percent of
Wittington Investments Limited, a company registered
in England. Wittington Investments is the ultimate
holding company of Associated British Foods plc, which
is listed on the International Stock Exchange, and
Fortnum and Mason plc and Heal’s plc.

Is everyone involved with UKuncut entirely fucking ignorant?

The majority support the cuts

Bad news for UKuncut and the marchers: the majority support the cuts.

It\’s actually quite amusing looking at these two headlines on the Guardian\’s front page right now.

Anti-cuts march swells to 400,000

OK, 400,000 out on the streets. The next story but one is:

Voters back cuts but cool on coalition – poll

Guardian/ICM poll finds 57% support for current or deeper cuts, despite a fall in economic confidence.

In more detail:

Despite Saturday\’s protest march in London, public tolerance of cuts seems to be sustained. Only 35% think the plans go too far – a 10-point drop since ICM asked the question in November. Meanwhile 28% think the government has found the right balance and 29% say the cuts are not severe enough. That amounts to 57% support for current cuts or more.

Which leads us to an interesting point. We do live in a democracy, not a mobocracy. Despite the roots of \”demos\” in the Greek for \”mob of oiks\” we do rather differentiate between the two ideas now.

If you want some form of direct democracy, one where what the people want now the people get now, good and hard, then we have clear majority support for at least the current level of cuts: despite our mob of oiks on the streets today.

If you would prefer to point out that we actually have a representative, not direct, democracy then we can point to the fact that the people imposing these cuts have a majority in the Commons, which is where such things are decided. We can also see from public opinion that they do have a mandate to impose such cuts, over and above the one they won at the last election.

In fact, we can go even further than this. Whether you think we are or should be a representative or irect democray, the election win and the current level of public support, show that the politicians have a duty to continue with the cuts.

Yes, despite the fact that 400,000 people marched through London today.

For 64,600,000 Britons did not march through London today and it\’s that 57% of them which is the important number.

Another way of putting it is that the argument here is between tax consumers and tax payers. And there\’s many more tax payers than there are consumers: and their view thus naturally carries more weight.

Yes, quite Mr. Murphy

The Daily Mail, in an appalling diatribe this morning, argues that because in real terms public spending in 2014 will be at the same level as 2008 there is nothing for anyone to protest about.

The numbers are correct of course:

The headline numbers are right.

But there is still a problem with them:

But the fallacy is in assuming that the composition of the numbers in 2014 is the same as in 2008. Just look at the composition of spending in 2014 compared with 2008. Interest charges will be much higher.

Indeed.

The problem is, as that interest number is telling us, is that we now have to pay for the money that G. Brown has already spent. That\’s why total spending will be static (ish) while spending upon current activities will fall.

Because the money\’s already gone, innit?

Timmy elsewhere

At the ASI.

If recycling is being done to save the planet then full marks to people who are going to evaluate recycling by how much it saves the planet.

My suspicion though is that the measurement system will be quietly dropped when they realise how much recycling actually damages the planet they are trying to save.

Wrong rant loaded

The Guardian\’s Rantocreator seems to have loaded the wrong script this morning.

Today\’s march is a challenge to the rule of money

How do we escape a system that\’s tearing up the world? We say \’no\’, and do things differently

No, I don\’t think we can describe a march demanding more of other peoples\’ money as a challenge to the rule of money.

If all those tax consumers were to march for the right to do these things for free that would be: but that ain\’t what they\’re marching for, is it?

Small march against the cuts today

Predicted turn out is 300,000.

So, that makes it smaller than the Countryside Alliance march.

The cuts are less important than fox hunting then. And of course the ban on fox hunting remains imposed, largely by those very people who will be marching today.

Sorry Bubbas, you didn\’t listen to your fellow citizens protecting their way of life from you: why should they listen to you demanding to remain upon the public teat?

What a fascinating number

Already, the minister adds, \”green technology and services\” account for an estimated nine per cent of Welsh GDP.

I\’m not sure whether to believe it or not. I\’m equally not sure what to think about it if it is true.

Green stuff is twice the proportion of the Welsh economy than The City is for the UK? Getting on for the sort of proportion that manufacturing is of the economy (13% or so)? The same as the NHS?

Seems very difficult to believe really. Especially as GDP measures \”value added\” and much greenery is in fact value subtractive.

Wonder how the got to that number?

The Guardian and radiation

Japan crisis: nuclear workers exposed to 10,000 times more radiation than normal

Ooooh, my, how terrible!

Are they OK?

The three injured workers now brings to 17 the total number of workers exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation at the plant, an annual exposure level considered the lowest at which any increase in cancer risk is evident.

Err, yes, they\’re just fine.

They\’ve not even gone over the limit for allowable radiation. Allowable radiation in times of emergency that is: they\’ve had about twice what a nuclear worker is allowed to have in a year.

The actual physical damage is akin to a case of sunburn.

Two weeks after the tsunami struck, the official death toll passed 10,000 yesterday with a further 17,500 listed as missing, as rescuers continue to discover bodies, some of which are being interred in mass graves despite Japan\’s cultural preference for cremation.

Government figures showed 660,000 households still do not have water and more than 209,000 do not have electricity, with damage now estimated at £192bn, making this the most expensive natural disaster on record.

A bit of proportion people….

Students do need educating you know

As is proved by these two:

The building used to be a students\’ union but was closed last year due to financial problems and a lack of support from university management – an early victim of the age of austerity in higher education. It lay empty and unused until on 1 February students re-opened it as a base of anti-cuts activism in Glasgow. Now, having been in operation for more than seven weeks, we believe it may be the most enduring of the current wave of student occupations.

OK, lovely.

Booze, chicks, and tellin\’ it to the Man. Good teenage activities, to be applauded.

The Free Hetherington has now moved beyond a protest against cuts to a living example of the alternative. Students have democratically organised the space as a resource for the local community without any support or funding from the university. An incredible range of social and cultural events has been staged – film screenings, film screenings, art and cooking classes, and free performances from artists, including Billy Bragg, and Scotland\’s new poet laureate Liz Lochhead. After protesting for free education for all, we have made it a reality: staff have donated their time to give guest public lectures. An incredible atmosphere of interdisciplinary debate has been fostered. This is all on top of the nightly free meals and tea and coffee, supplied by donations and by recovering food that would have been wasted from supermarkets. It has brought together a huge number of students who did not previously know each other, and given a physical space to students determined to fight back against cuts.

Truly excellent. I applaud your ingenuity.

We also demanded that the Hetherington be re-opened with funding, and that staff made redundant be given their jobs back.

Ah, no, this is why you\’re at university you see. You may well be ingenious, I\’ve no doubt you\’re bright, but you are still ignorant. And that\’s what the university is for you see, to feed you knowledge so that you become less ignorant.

For your argument is \”Now we\’ve shown that this can be done for no money we demand money\”.

To which the correct response is \”Now you\’ve shown this can be done with no money you don\’t need money. Very well done by the way, have a gold star\”.

Adam Smith, who you may know was a Professor at your institution, would have been proud of your gumption and self-reliance. But, given that he was a professor of logic, less proud of your knowledge of that subject.

I\’m usually against the death sentence but….

A US soldier who pleaded guilty to the murders of three Afghan civilians has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after saying \”the plan was to kill people\” in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers.

The military judge said he initially intended to sentence Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal.

I think I\’d make an exception here.

No, not because the murder of Afghan citizens is worse than the murder of anyone else. But because he was a soldier. Something which carries with it certain liberties (you get to kill bad guys and are praised for it), certain excuses (killing people by mistake is excused) but also certain duties (you only get to kill bad guys or make mistakes).

Actively going out to kill people for the fun of it is worse when done by a soldier than when done by anyone else.

For, among other things (leaving morals entirely to one side), the reason that it endangers all of your fellow soldiers by mightily pissing off all the relatives, friends, and possibly half the nation, of those you have just murdered.

Therefore I would hang him and his buddies.

For reasons of state even if not for reasons of natural justice.

Military law is notably harsher than civilian in cases of rape for example, for much the same reason.

Nice try Mr. Weldon

Duncan tried to tell us that high January income tax figures showed that the 50p tax rate was raising revenue.

Now we\’ve got the OBR saying that there was indeed a surge of income tax.

From people paying themselves early to dodge the 50 p income tax rate.

The Office for Budget Responsibility revealed on Thursday that the Government received about £3bn in tax in 2009 through \”forestalling\” – as the rich brought forward salaries, dividends and other remuneration to avoid the 50p rate.

Note that for those under self-assessment, the final payment for the 2009/10 tax year would be in Jan 2011.

Exactly the month that Duncan used to tell us that the 50 p rate was raising money.

So we\’ll take that as, at best, a not proven as yet shall we?

Once a diva

The start of Elizabeth Taylor\’s funeral has been delayed after the film star left instructions requesting that her coffin should arrive 15 minutes late.

Always a diva.

Tim Lang: cretin

Professors should be able to manage logic, yes?

Professor Tim Lang, the Government’s top food tsar, said prices are likely to rise even further, up to ten per cent, as oil prices go up and demand for basic commodities like wheat increases.

In the last 20 years the amount of food imported into the UK has grown to 40 per cent.

He said the UK Government has failed to protect the country against these price shocks by encouraging farmers to grow our own fruit and vegetables or produce meat.

So, err, why is it that imports have been rising, domestic production falling?

Because Johnny Foreigner is able to grow food more cheaply than we can do it domestically.

So, encouraging, insisting, that more food be grown domestically will mean higher food prices than if we were importing it all.

Certainly, this was true in the past.

Despite efforts to turn the situation around, Prof Lang said the Coalition Government has abandoned any policy on sustainable food.

Whether it will continue to be true in the future is another matter of course. Nobody actually knows. But we do have a mechanism that will deal with this for us. If, as and when, foreign food becomes more expensive than local then people will naturally seek out that local food, supply of local food will rise in response and everything will be just hunky dory.

We even have a name for this system: \”market\”.

When relative prices change we see the behaviour of both consumers and producers changing. No government policy needed, you see?

Thankfully, the sustainable Development Commission has been closed down and this will be Tim Lang\’s last report as \”food commissar\”. We\’ll not miss him, no.

Sad when an accountant cannot add

We\’ll let one of Ritchie\’s commenters do the heavy lifting here:

Gauke isn’t in conflict with his boss, you’re confusing some of the figures:

Assume the tax gap is £42bn, as stated. That’s close enough to Gauke’s £40bn if £84bn is “close enough” to your estimate of £95bn.

George Osborne referred to £14bn being the figure for tax avoidance AND evasion together. As you say, that’s about 33% of the tax gap, or one third.

The document on tax avoidance talks about avoidance only, not evasion, and estimates it at 17.5% of the tax gap. Which is about one sixth of the tax gap, and is about £7bn. That’s consistent with Gauke’s figures, so Gauke is agreeing with Osborne’s figures, as he’s talking about £7bn of avoidance (not avoidance and evasion).

If avoidance is around £7bn then evasion must also be about £7bn, being the other half of the £14bn and is therefore consistent with the other one-sixth that Gauke refers to. The two one-sixths make up one-third, and so you get your £14bn out of £42bn.

So there’s no real inconsistency. Certainly not if you think £84bn is close enough to £95bn.