European links
About Georgia’s bumpy road to democracy.
Post with lots of links on the difficult time for Ireland and its very unpopular government.
Signs of change in attitudes to Islam in Europe. A highly critical review of a (pdf) new book worried about Muslims in Europe. The UK reports a tenfold increase in suspected forced marriages in four years.
From Germany, concerns about US economic policy and that Europe is losing ground to China in influence with the US. Eastern Europeans are nervous about the Obama Administration’s friendliness with Russia. More.
A premature baby apparently left to die provides a classic health-rationing problem case. Various senior medicos have signed an open letter denouncing the NHS’s way of deciding if a patient is terminal or not.
The earnest attempt to make Britain safe for extremely stupid people. Truly spectacular stupidity: Civil servants have refused to name inmates who have fled prison even though individual police forces will often identify them if they pose a risk to the public.
They say releasing their names would breach obligations under the Data Protection Act. Meanwhile, the notion that “bad families” are to be put under continuous CCT surveillance was floated: one has to agree with the comment that Orwell was providing a warning, not an instruction manual.
A health risk consultant on how “greenery” is killing innovation in Europe: And here we are talking about a new religion, the eco-religion. We've killed our Christian religion, but man can't live without one. So rather than God we have Gaia and a certain sense of purpose in our lives to save the world. Ecological rituals to recycle and to try to lessen our ecological footprint are all very strong religious symbols which add meaning to our lives. We have an Armageddon principle of climate change, and of course good and evil depends on whether we live our lives sustainably or not. So it is a religion. ….
The third definition was formulated by the European Environment Agency and forcefully espoused by its science policy head David Gee, previously an environmental activist and director of Friends of the Earth UK: "Until you have enough information to be certain about something, you should take precautions". This definition is the most widely used in Europe now. This definition switched the burden of proof - science now has to prove that something is safe with certainty before we permit further research. …
I used to believe that if you can communicate science clearly to politicians and the public - you can get better policies and improve public perception. But I'm not that optimistic anymore. I, unfortunately, see that increasingly facts don't matter very much. Influence matters more and the same NGOs campaigning against the influence of lobbyists are those enjoying the greatest influence on EU policies influencing science. ….
NGOs know they can present things without scientific evidence and it doesn't matter - they are trusted from the sense of their good intentions that they are there to protect us. But if a scientist makes a mistake one time out of a million it is not the same thing. We have different standards of expectations on the scientific and technological world than we do on the societal elements. People die from malaria (around 3000 per day) or hospital super-bugs due to policies based on caring, good intentions (without scientific grounding), and nobody seems to mind - trust in the influence of NGOs is not undermined. How can facts matter in this context?...
We need a little bit of courage, political courage first of all. Precaution is a policy tool for cowards, because if you are never wrong, you don't have to take risks or be responsible for any indirect negative consequences. More.
Post with lots of links on the difficult time for Ireland and its very unpopular government.
Signs of change in attitudes to Islam in Europe. A highly critical review of a (pdf) new book worried about Muslims in Europe. The UK reports a tenfold increase in suspected forced marriages in four years.
From Germany, concerns about US economic policy and that Europe is losing ground to China in influence with the US. Eastern Europeans are nervous about the Obama Administration’s friendliness with Russia. More.
A premature baby apparently left to die provides a classic health-rationing problem case. Various senior medicos have signed an open letter denouncing the NHS’s way of deciding if a patient is terminal or not.
The earnest attempt to make Britain safe for extremely stupid people. Truly spectacular stupidity: Civil servants have refused to name inmates who have fled prison even though individual police forces will often identify them if they pose a risk to the public.
They say releasing their names would breach obligations under the Data Protection Act. Meanwhile, the notion that “bad families” are to be put under continuous CCT surveillance was floated: one has to agree with the comment that Orwell was providing a warning, not an instruction manual.
A health risk consultant on how “greenery” is killing innovation in Europe: And here we are talking about a new religion, the eco-religion. We've killed our Christian religion, but man can't live without one. So rather than God we have Gaia and a certain sense of purpose in our lives to save the world. Ecological rituals to recycle and to try to lessen our ecological footprint are all very strong religious symbols which add meaning to our lives. We have an Armageddon principle of climate change, and of course good and evil depends on whether we live our lives sustainably or not. So it is a religion. ….
The third definition was formulated by the European Environment Agency and forcefully espoused by its science policy head David Gee, previously an environmental activist and director of Friends of the Earth UK: "Until you have enough information to be certain about something, you should take precautions". This definition is the most widely used in Europe now. This definition switched the burden of proof - science now has to prove that something is safe with certainty before we permit further research. …
I used to believe that if you can communicate science clearly to politicians and the public - you can get better policies and improve public perception. But I'm not that optimistic anymore. I, unfortunately, see that increasingly facts don't matter very much. Influence matters more and the same NGOs campaigning against the influence of lobbyists are those enjoying the greatest influence on EU policies influencing science. ….
NGOs know they can present things without scientific evidence and it doesn't matter - they are trusted from the sense of their good intentions that they are there to protect us. But if a scientist makes a mistake one time out of a million it is not the same thing. We have different standards of expectations on the scientific and technological world than we do on the societal elements. People die from malaria (around 3000 per day) or hospital super-bugs due to policies based on caring, good intentions (without scientific grounding), and nobody seems to mind - trust in the influence of NGOs is not undermined. How can facts matter in this context?...
We need a little bit of courage, political courage first of all. Precaution is a policy tool for cowards, because if you are never wrong, you don't have to take risks or be responsible for any indirect negative consequences. More.