Vanuatu Vacancy

Beyond physical isolation and rising sea levels, Vanuatu is facing a new problem reports news.com.au (yeah, I think that's their name, not just their address). Prime Minister Edward Natapei has lost his parliamentary seat over a paperwork error. After missing three consecutive sessions of parliament with out giving the speaker a note from his mum (OK, a note explaining why), according to Vanuatan law (that most ancient of judicial traditions) he must lose his seat. The prime minister was said to be rushing back to Vanuatu (to hell with icebergs) whilst furious debate has broke out on the island.

Partygate (crash)

So, last Tuesday, as widely reported, a Washington couple decided to gatecrash Obama's reception for the visiting Indian premier Manmohan Singh. After arriving and posing for photos, including with Obama, they then went to have cocktails in the East Wing. It's known at no point were they thrown out, but how they could have had a seat at dinner is bizarre. These things are planed in advance, both for food and wine, but also for who sit next to who. It's obviously not just possible (is it?) to pull up a couple of chairs and share with your neighbour. A later article suggests the secret service is now considering criminal charges. Quite what for it's not clear. Is gatecrashing where you just walk up and say "let me in" illegal?

Beer Boggles (the mind)

A Scottish (where else?) brewery, BrewDog, has released a beer weighing in at 32%, much to the horror of the Alcohol Focus Scotland (whose members no doubt felt like having a drink after hearing this would soon be hitting the streets). According to the BBC BrewDog previously released an 18% beer called "Tokyo", for which they were branded "irresponsible" (I'm not sure because the beer has 18% or for making any association with Japanese drinking culture), so they rather amusingly followed that beer with one called "Nanny State", which is described as a "low alcohol" beer (which by their standards might be 12%). The new beer's name? Tactical Nuclear Penguin, the first two words of which bring to mind some sort of nuclear weapon, whilst the third seems to be there as a non sequitur.

The English Patient

A rather drab article about the firing of a hospital boss in the UK comes alive towards the end when they start to list the problems inspectors found with the hospital. I kid you not:

"

The inspectors saw:

• Floors and curtains stained with blood

• Blood-splattered on trays used to carry equipment

• Badly soiled mattresses in the A&E department with stains soaked through to the foam filling

• Items that should only be used once still in use

• Equipment in the resuscitation room that was past the use-by date

• A children's blood pressure cuff heavily stained with blood

• Suction machines contaminated with fluid inside and out, with what looked like mould growing on the equipment

"

Man Eating Lions Apparently on Diet

The (relatively) famous man eating lions that plagued railway construction in Kenya in the late 1800s may not have been as insatiable as many believed. The Railway Gazette writes analysis of the isotopes found in the fur of the skins shows what the lions were eating (or not) before they died. One probably ate 3.5 humans and the other 8.1. This is somewhat less than the 135 deaths attributed to the lions at the time. If you wish, you can read more on this topic in the delightfully named 'Co-operation and individuality among man-eating lions' by J D Yeakel published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Because it matters.

Fresh Balls

I'm rarely speechless. I really don't know what else to say. Here.

Witches in Saudi

Saudi Arabia has a witch problem, at least according to the religious courts there, according to the BBC. A man, Ali Sibat, in Lebanon who hosts a TV show giving out psychic advice has been arrested whilst performing his pilgrimage to Mecca. Apparently the authorities see no irony in arresting a man for witchcraft who has just traveled thousands of kilometers and taken days out of his schedule in order to demonstrate the fact he believes in Allah.

Magnetic Heat Shield

Kind of cool concept outlined on FlightGlobal. When space craft reenter the atmosphere the friction, and resulting heat, requires heat shields to protect the craft. Scientists are working on the idea of creating a magnetic shield that will repel the atoms of the air away from the craft thus avoiding friction and the need for shields. Big implications for safety (the last shuttle was lost after hot atmospheric gases breached its heat shield) and for easy of access to space (huge weight savings and great design freedom).
It is hoped the concept will be tested in the next decade, with a launch three years after approval (which is yet to be given).

Plane strikes Goose

More from FlightGlobal, about a Frontier Airlines jet had hit a flock of geese. The safety board's investigation found that the Airbus A319 had hit 6 or 7 geese, damaging both engines. The airliner landed without problem, using the left engine as the right engine had shut down. What I like is the rather placid language the safety board uses in saying passengers saw "...fireballs being ejected from the engine". I somewhat imagine looking out the window and seeing huge fireballs being blasted out the back of your plane's engines might inspire rather stronger language.

Toilet Trouble on the way to Hong Kong

Cathay Pacific has been in news, as their entire long-haul airbus fleet has toilet trouble. Seriously, despite the fact they are licenced to fly hundreds of people thousands of kilometers, they have had such bad toilet trouble they have had to divert a flight from Riyadh bound for Hong Kong, to Mumbai. All ten toilets had stopped working! On other occasions passengers were bumped from flights after they realized they could not maintain the 80 passengers to 1 toilet ratio the airline requires of itself. Their spokeswomen seemed in a combative mood according to the BBC's article;
blaming passengers she said:
"You would be amazed what we find in the pipes when we clean the system - not just face towels but medicine bottles, socks, items of clothing and even children's stuffed toys,"

Airlines move into health tourism

Malev, the Hungarian national carrier, is moving into dental tourism. Their website has a page, complete with sexy Hungarian flight attendant, where you can buy your classic flight + hotel + dental check-up (?!) all in one go. It's pretty cheap (149EUR rtn). What does it tell you about the state of dentistry in western Europe that people will not fly thousands of kilometers to see a dentist? That said, a choice between a dentist in Helsinki and a weekend of partying in Budapest, maybe more doctors appointments should be like this.

Climate Research Unit hacked

The Climate Research Unit (CRU) has been hacked according to several million articles floating around the net right now. Here's one from old faithful, the BBC. The CRU, for those of you not in the know, i.e. most of you, is the climate research department of the University of East Anglia (UEA), and is apparently considered one of the leading institutions of its type in the world. So what you say? Well, the hack (committed last week) mainly involved emails between scientists there and a number of them seem to suggest, to put it bluntly, the climate change isn't real. Some of the quotes from the emails look very bad indeed:
Phil Jones (one of the scientists) talks about using Mann's (another scientists) "...Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series"...to hide the decline".
Many naturally interpreted that to mean hide the decline in temperature. There are easily 50 or so similarly damning statements. Now the scientists, or their "collaborators" seem to be striking back, essentially, through sympathetic blogs, like this one. Most of their explanation do seem reasonable. For example, above, where they talk about "hiding the decline" apparently this is taken out of context, they are referring to the fact tree rings used to give a good indication of temperature, but since the 60s they no longer correlate. Thus it is necessary to use other data to hide that. The words "trick" and "hide" were just unfortunate.
I'd love to read a more professionally drafted analysis of the whole affair. Sadly, on an issue this big, I kind of feel those who believe in global warming (or should I say science) will do anything to interpret the data to support there position (imagine how stupid they'd feel otherwise) and those who don't take anything, even clear science, to support their view.
Frankly, I find it hard to believe that the world's entire scientific establishment has entered into the mother of all conspiracies to trick the world into..... great efficiency? Over 40 Noble laureates over 4 decades, from every part of the world, in every Nobel field all collaborate to trick us? It seems a bit much, so I'm happy enough that these emails are really just massively out of context. I believe the hacker got over 500 emails, more than enough to find things that look bad, especially given the one-sided, casual nature of email. Still, great story, send me more if you find it.

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Great article from the BBC, looking at the Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR). The UK, Poland and the Czech Republic all felt worried enough about it to negotiate opt-outs from it in the forth coming Lisbon Treaty (coming into effect next week). This article points out the charter is not nearly as powerful as people imagine and that much of what it contains is already EU law anyway. Which begs the question why have an opt-out to begin with then? I suspect that this a kind of straw puppet that government worried about anti-EU sentiment can put up to show they have kept some special power or such like. Then, in the future, when the next round of negotiations comes along, they can claim that in exchange for accepting certain new powers they managed to keep the opt-outs, taking the wind out of sails of their opponents. What's brilliant is how many EU sceptics are against the CFR despite the fact it's hardly, from their perspective, the main issue. Be sure that if one of the mentioned governments tried to remove the opt-outs the EU sceptics would go crazy, precisely playing into the hands of pro-EU political forces, and giving the straw puppet the appearance of flesh.

Michal Kaminiski

The BBC looks at Michal Kaminiski, the leader of a new right wing EU rejectionist grouping in the EU parliament. He's relevant because he leads the UK conservatives in the EU parliament and they seem likely to take power in the UK next year. He clearly has a past with far right views, though the issue is more whether he still harbours them. The article doesn't exactly nail him, but it flirts with saying he still has far right views. Whether or not he does this has got to be bad for the Conservatives in the UK, because whereas they want people to think of their position on the Europe as being sceptical, a vote winner for many voters in the UK, if people start to think Nazi they might well end up finding Europe as a liability. Great article.

40,000 ecstasy pills

An article at bravenewtraveller.com looks at a man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills (not at once). The article is OK, but I'm more intrigued by who he is and the effects. More articles about this would be welcome, do post them if you find them.