http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cieiWP6nXg

[Read more →]

Just found out that Londoners get free access to the British Library of Political and Economic Science under arrangments made with the Libraries & Learners in London scheme.
Now, how cool is that?

[Read more →]

There is a long running discussion between K-Punk, Foucault is Dead and Amish Lovelock over the media’s response to Jade Goody’s outbursts during Big Brother. Whilst I generally agree with the conclusions reached by all parties, I do take issue with Foucault is Dead’s opinion that saying ‘I’m not a racist, but I think the [...]

[Read more →]

My house has no power, and the electricity company can’t be bothered to fix it.

[Read more →]

The climateprediction.net experiment has now concluded, with results to be published in time for the IPCC AR4.
However, they’ve released some information on the future climate of Britain as a sneak preview:
For 2020, the prediction is that temperatures in Britain will be about 1.2C warmer than in the 1970s, chosen as the baseline for this project.
Temperatures [...]

[Read more →]

Ulrich Beck is lecturing at LSE next month on “A Cosmopolitan Perspective on the Sociology of Generations” (iCal available at link).

[Read more →]

The British government plans to raise the school leaving age to 18, with students to stay either in school or receive vocational education.

[Read more →]

Israel has a plan to use nukes against Iran’s nuclear facilities if the US doesn’t do anything, according to a Sunday Time exclusive. Other than the fact that the use of nuclear weapons is morally reprehensible, the information that Israel has been using Gibraltar for training suggests some involvement with the British government. If you [...]

[Read more →]

I said my calculations were very crude in the previous post, and I was right. Most studies tend to use a linear programming model. In addition, there’s a logarithmic relationship between the energy costs of healthy and unhealthy foods so taxation isn’t very effective unless it’s high(?):
Poverty and obesity: the role of energy density and [...]

[Read more →]

Studentmedic writes about a proposal for taxing high-fat/sugar containing foods due to the overwhelming costs to the NHS to treat obesity. The original proposal also suggested taxing labour-saving devices, so that people got more exercise. My knee-jerk reaction was quite libertarian in nature. But after some more time and some very crude mathematics, here are [...]

[Read more →]