Arcoarena

This appear to be my favourite subject recently.

From the BBC News Discussion on a possible smoking ban

“I sympathise with all the non-smokers who don’t wish to be forced to breathe second hand smoke, but by the same token I don’t want to be attacked by an aggressive drunk when I’m on a night out, so will drinking in public places also be banned?”
Ian, Stoke on Trent, England

Drinking isn’t being drunk and abusive is, infact it’s a criminal offence known as being drunk and disorderly. Also many councils don’t allow drinking on the streets (I’m a little unsure about this but I believe it’s true in Portsmouth atleast). I’m pretty sure that there are several laws that protect against actual violence and many more against other antisocial behaviour. So that’s that point done away with.

” No, I don’t believe smoking should be banned in public places. Isn’t this a form of discrimination?…..As more and more people give up smoking, the government collects less tax from it. This shortfall must be collected elsewhere, i.e. out of the pockets of non-smokers”
Jay, Wigan

Ok then if it’s a form of discrimination how about I sue smokers for some form of abuse?

The bits I chopped out talked about driving smoking underground. A little far fetched as you’ll be able to smoke in your own home. Maybe there would be ‘private’ pubs for smokers or maybe they’d just go outside like they have to in the office or many other places already.

And taxes. Well smoking isn’t being banned outright so the taxes will keep on rolling in whilst people are addicted. Maybe more people will smoke less or give it up so yes taxes may decrease in the long term but that will hopefully be countered by the reduction in smoking related illnesses and hence the cost to the NHS which I suspect is more than then revenue raised from taxing tobacco.

“I am a smoker, enjoy nights out and because I am a smoker pay more tax than non-smokers. Why should I be shoved onto the street to enjoy a cigarette?”
Lisa, UK

And as a smoker you will put a greater burden on the NHS in the future. In my opinion you should be forced to smoke in separate rooms to cause yourself harm. I hate people smoking anywhere even if it isn’t as bad on the street it’s still unpleasant.

“Whatever happened to freedom of choice in this country? It’s ok to gamble and drink all night but not ok to smoke in a pub?”
Jason, Dudley, England

I’ve mentioned freedom of choice before. Gambling and Drinking don’t directly cause harm to others and there are laws to control them already. Infact that point was made by the next person on the page

“Ban smoking in restaurants. Whilst you’re there, ban alcohol as that is dangerous. Ban high fat content in food, ban E numbers, ban petrol so we can’t go out in the first place. Sick to death of this nanny state.”
Paul Gatsby, Newcastle, UK

All those sound reasonable to me. Except the fact that it is possible to go out without petrol, we have these things called legs, that is if you can see past your big fat cholesterol filled stomach to see them.

Do I sound a bit harsh? Smoking pisses me off. I don’t like people doing it, it serves no purpose and it does harm to me and others. Someone give me a good reason for it and I will accept the point but to be fair if you were God and you could go back and decide whether or not to create tobacco or not you’d be hard-pushed to find a reason to create it.

So to Ian, Jay, Lisa, Jason and Paul, you can all f**k off and damage your own lungs and no-one elses and don’t come crying to me when you want a new pair

From a comment on Slashdot

-Pinky, are you thinking what I’m thinking?
-Narf, I think so Brain, but where are we going to get enough punchcard ballot machines for all the voters in Florida by midnight November 1st?

French drink-drive hosts cleared - A French court clears a couple who failed to stop a drunk friend driving home and killing a family in a crash. [BBC News]

It has to be admitted that sometimes people (and I include myself in this) lack social responsibility. The case of a woman that lay bleeding by a roadside whilst atleast 12 drivers passed (some even having to swerve to avoid her then continuing on) is a very good example. There is however the other side of the coin where people have to take responsibility for their own actions. The idea of the couple actually being found guilty is quite scary. How about prosecuting gun-shop owners when shootings happen?

Admittedly not the best contrast in examples (the unconscious woman could hardly ‘take responsibility for herself’) but you get what I mean

Now this is something I have been wanting to put into writing for a while now. Recently certain groups of people, namely smokers and fox-hunters (but I’m not going to talk about that), have been campaigning against various degrees of bans on their activities. I personally don’t agree with either but I shall try and keep this aside. What I want to do is focus upon what I see as some of the very dubious justifications used by the participants.

The first one of two I’m going to talk/(moan) about is the one used by smokers. In the Times recently (can’t remember which day) the age-old argument of ‘why do smokers get to take smoking breaks but I don’t get fresh-air breaks’ resurfaced. I don’t want to get too deep into it but one of the justifications used by the smokers interested me. Apparently smokers only spend around 10 minutes three times a day (or whatever) smoking and the rest of the time working solidly with no interruption of wavering. The argument that ‘non-smoking colleagues chat to their mates so I can smoke’ doesn’t work unless all smokers only have smokers as friends and are capable of super-human acts of concentration. Whilst some of the 10 minutes smoking might replace other breaks I’m fairly certain not all of it does.

The second point is choice. Smokers say, ‘it’s my choice’. The point being as John Donne said “No man is an island, entire of itself”. I find cigarette smoke entirely unpleasant and I really hate people smoking near me. What choice do I have in that? I accept that a ban in pubs and clubs would be silly but anywhere else it would make my life more pleasant, again not quite the point though however I think ethics is on my side since even secondary smoking causes health problems. The idea of choice is fine until real life comes into the equation. I don’t want to have to breathe in other peoples cigarette smoke even if they would choose to do it themselves. In an age when one can’t even choose to play loud music late at night without having environmental health coming round how is smoking allowed? I might just try that next time someone is smoking next to me….

Student targets ‘breach rights’ - Universities which “discriminate” against private school pupils could be in breach of human rights, a report says. [BBC News]

There is something inherently stupid about this situation. Universities could be in break of the human rights act if they discriminate against public school pupils (in order to admit a larger number of state school pupils).

However, the government has set targets to admit a certain proportion of state school pupils, which, if not met the universities may incur financial penalties (including the loss of the right to charge top-up fees).

Now look at those two paragraphs. How do you both meet targets of admission of state school pupils and not discriminate against public school pupils. If the targets would be met without any form of positive discrimination towards state school pupils the targets wouldn’t exist.

As far as I can see the universities are in a bit of a corner here. Whatever they do they loose out somehow.

Judging by Mr Haselip’s article (Felix issue 1295) on the subject of Nuclear power it is obvious that Felix is not necessarily the place for balanced debate (certainly not from one article).

I actually live near the Sellafield site and have done since I was born. I do not glow, and I haven’t got extra limbs, eyes or anything else for that matter! What I can say is that the area around Cumbria is less radioactive than parts of Cornwall (due to geological reasons, the whole lack of radioactive gas seeping up through the ground helps) and much of the spiel emanating from Greenpeace is at the very least sparing with the facts and at worst misleading.I am not trying to argue for or against nuclear power - other people can do that but it is worth pointing out that matters aren’t quite as black and white as Mr Halelip implies. Nuclear power is not the big bad evil guy with wind power being perfect.

Wind power cannot fulfill the same needs as nuclear power can in terms of reliability of supply and sheer size. Also if nuclear power isn’t as cheap as people make out neither is Wind power. The firms that build the off-shore wind-farms near Denmark themselves admit that it wouldn’t be worth it without Government subsidy. Also if public opinion ‘generally oppose[s]‘ nuclear power I think people would be surprised how much consternation was caused by plans for an off-shore wind-farm in the Solway Firth, an area so close to Sellafield you’d think (or at-least if you believe the implications of Mr Haselip’s article) the residents would be so opposed to the big bad evil plant that they would welcome with loving arms Green Power.
Oddly enough the world isn’t quite so straight forward. Maybe the talk by Dr Ion. (how appropriate) was a little one sided as is an article totally denouncing nuclear power as evil.

Food for thought

Ken brands 4×4 drivers ‘idiotic’ - Parents who drive their children to school in Jeep-style cars are branded “idiots” by London’s mayor Ken Livingstone. [BBC News]

It’s interesting that Ken has branded a large group of people living in London “idiots” immediately before an election. The comments at the bottom are even more interesting.

One person from Cornwall says that they are safe for children and that if you continue that line of thinking through you shouldn’t have high performance cars either. Well firstly 4×4 are a bit like the nuclear deterrent. Once one person has one you need one in order not to end up in very small pieces if you have an accident involving a Land-Rover. Secondly Ken would probably agree about the high performance cars as they too are unnecessary.

There were two comments that disagreed with Ken. Both of which were from the US of A. Apparently “Every man and his dog owns a 4×4″ and “there doesn’t appear to be any problems”. Well what do you expect from Yanks.

Also if everyone agrees why are people driving round in 4×4s. There aren’t any comments along the lines of ‘I drive a 4×4 because…..’. Maybe because there isn’t a sensible justification for them in London.

As the exams draw to a close (only one more to go) my thoughts have been drawn towards my FYP as Gary would say. My final year project is in SML. As people may have guessed I believe it to be one of the worst languages in existence. I will have to battle my way through this however and I did a little more work on writing up background work. I’m going to have to write up quite a lot of research as I’ve got a horrible feeling my project is going to do very little. Ah well.

I did however relax a little yesterday and went to the extreme length of buying The Times and it is about this I want to talk. Now The Times and other newspapers shouldn’t print people’s opinions unless they are making a sensible point. The Times is particularly bad because people appear to target them in order to get their stupid/outrageous/bigoted views printed. This generally involves emphasising some stupid statement that the writer attempts to show a logical progression from a current issue to putting Badgers on Mars or something equally silly. Some papers even go as far as letting Keith Waterhouse write for them on a regular basis to spread his own brand of complete garbage across the nation

It was such a stupid statement that led me to write this. The Times is allowing people to write in to express their views of binge drinking in young people. One lady called Annabel Darrall-Rew stated that there is a ‘direct correlation between the increase in alcohol and drug use among young people and the decrease in compulsory sport in schools’. As Dr Papavasillou would like to point out it may surprise Ms Darrall-Rew that there is also a very good correlation between the birth-rate of cows in Texas and the number of flights out of JFK airport. A correlation there may be, a link is far from certain. There is also a correlation between teenage drinking and the decrease in fuel consumption of automobiles.

The main point of Ms Darrall-Rew’s argument that kids would get in at 5pm when their parents do, which is only one of the benefits. Increased health awareness, and a release for pent-up aggression (I thought that was normally the school geek that performed that function). Along with this sport would also discourage unhealthy habits such as smoking and drinking. Now this last idea is blatantly stupid. When I did the C2C (the cycle-ride from Whitehaven on the west coast to Tynemouth on the east), I got to the top of the steepest hill on the route and passed a load of cyclists having a fag the celebrate reaching the top. I think the basic argument is that the kids will be too tired to cause a hassle and the the fresh-air will do them good

Now in theory I have to admit this isn’t such a bad idea. I don’t think it would help as much as the writer thinks. I don’t think the lack of sport has anything to do with it. Possibly it’s the change in society. For one I hated sport, the idea of 2 hours of sport after school would have made my life hell. I’ve only really started climbing and running and stuff after I stopped having to do sport in school

Anyway in the traditional Times manner I’m going to state that there was barely any underage drinking and drugs before the industrial revolution. Who needs an education. Get them down the mines. It would be exercise, they couldn’t smoke for fear of explosive gases and being pissed in at the pit head wouldn’t be a good idea. That’s my solution. Failing that proper education, more to do and fewer adults setting bad role models by getting pissed/stoned and laid would be good too. The kids that were underage drinkers binging and taking illegal drugs have grown up now, and nothings changed. Nothing will either, it can’t go back, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Change - it happens, more an increase in entropy really, society modelling the universe.

The news coverage of North Korea is very odd. Reports of a massive explosion with several killed and over a thousand injured and what does North Korean TV say - nothing.
The idea that you can deny all knowledge of an event to the people of the country seems very naive but that’s what they are doing. All North Korean TV has on is the Army Choirs, Sunsets and a woman talking very fervently about the achievements of the ruler.

It reminds me a little of Prague (we visited last summer - it’s a really cool place, a little touristy but really cool). The largest building in Prague is the TV tower that was used to block out all external TV signals. For years they were broadcasting how rubbish capitalism was and that the rest of the world was falling apart whilst Czechoslovakia (as it was) was living in communist splendor.

The thing I find funny is that all the visitors to Prague seemed to say ‘lovely view - shame about that big tower’. This seems to me to be missing the point. Yes, ok, the TV tower is far from beautiful but it represents a very important part of the country’s history so it would seem wrong for it not to be there - ugly or not

Following a very heated (Ameet swearing at people) and to be perfectly honest, long and boring “discussion” (for discussion read slanging match - ahhh, Live! returns to it’s roots) I visited Political Compass.org and found that I’m -
Economic Left/Right: -4.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21
Meaning I’m somewhere in the Nelson Mandela/Dalia Lama area - cool.