The 2010 General Election: So many issues they have tissues.

First off, in my long standing campaign to make the media declare there potential for bias I should mention that I voted Liberal Democrat and I voted against the Tory party and although I can think of no particular reason to hate Gordon Brown I cant wait to see the back of him.

Gordon Brown

Perhaps I should explain, nearly everyone in the country wants Gordon Brown out. I want him out but cant help wondering why I want him out. Having spent some time thinking about it, the best I could come up with was that I perceive him to be an arrogant bully. Yet is that opinion based on fact or based on a tissue of lies woven by the media. I submit to the jury the fact that during the election campaign the media changed their portrayal of him from a frowning worn character to a beaming arrogant idiot. Compare photographs of a year ago to photographs of today.Did this portrayal change my perceptions.

So what evidence do I have that he should go. Well actually he handled the economy reasonably well, we survived and I don't think any other party could have done much better, no matter what the opposition parties say. Then he didn't handle the expense fiasco very well either, but then no party or leader was blameless. He was responsible for the continued mess in Afghanistan but again it will always be a mess even under the next government.

I think the best thing I can say about him is we could do a lot worse and maybe that is what lead to the mixed result we had last week.


The Election Result

In my humble opinion no major party won, in fact you could say the only party that could declare a complete victory is the Green Party who finally got their first MP and can finally be a force for good in parliament rather than outside on the protest line.

The Conservative party may have got the most votes and seats but they did not get the landslide victory they wanted and the public judged them as not convincing (or perhaps trustworthy) enough to be put in power.

The Labour party lost seats and were unable to convince the electorate that they were the only safe pair of hands for a secure economy.

The Liberal Democrats had Clegg mania but in the end lost seats, failing to convince anyone they should be given more . Although in their defence I think voters got scared off at the last minute by talk of a "Hung" parliament. Vote Conservative or we are doomed! Doomed I say! Sorry got carried away a bit there.

So no party convinced everyone and we all voted for either local issues or something different. The wind of change was coming but for most of us it felt like a sigh.

The Electorate spoke

So no overall winner and the only majority coalition would be a Conservative / Liberal Democrat pact. However, in their arrogance the Conservatives seem to be refusing to offer much compromise and virtually making the offer of your either with us in government or you can rot on the back benches for another 70 years. The Liberal Democrats appear to be sticking to their principles and holding out for the best deal for their voters especially over electoral reform.

The Labour party in desperation offer everything to the Liberal Democrats to cling on to power although if I were the Labour Party I would give in and come back on a change agenda in five years. OK so Gordon Brown is finished but the Labour Party could come back stronger than ever especially as the next five years probably isn't going to end well for whoever is in power.

So the Liberal Democrats have started to talk to the Labour party to see if they can get a better deal for the people that voted for them. Even though they wont have a majority a Lib / Labour pact would still represent 15 million votes which is more than the last Labour government represented of 9. 5 million votes.

Personally although some people are accusing the Liberal Democrats of being arrogant king makers I would suggest that the Conservative party are the arrogant ones. If they are seriously committed to a stable and secure government then they should be working hard to work out a fair deal with the Liberal Democrats. We the electorate have asked you the Conservative Party to work with another party to form the next government. So get on with it otherwise at the very next election (which may come round a lot sooner than you think) you may find that the electorate may remember that the reason it all went wrong was because the Conservative were more interested in what was best for the party and themselves than what was best for the country.

The world is going to end with proportional representation or a hung parliament

At least that is what the media would like you to believe, conveniently ignoring the fact that many countries around the world have some form of proportional representation or collaborative governments working together in the best interests of the country. New Zealand is one such example.

The whole point of government is to act in the best interests of the people. Look at it this way, a party with a strong majority could be considered to be a form of dictatorship who can put through any laws they want. Surely a weak majority or a collaborative government is better, as they hopefully work in the best interests of the country as without the electorate's support they will be out. This could be strengthened if we all get the right to vote MPs out if we disagree with them, if the majority is single digits the balance of power could change on a monthly basis as MPs are voted in and out. Maybe that is not such a good idea after all, we don't really want to change prime ministers like we change our socks. We would be the laughing stock of the civilised world and even the uncivilised world come to that.

I personally feel positive about a hung parliament, as I would not support the Conservative party on their own or the Labour party on their own but perhaps a government tempered by the Liberal Democrats will on this occasion provide the middle of the road government and steady pair of hands we desperately need.

A final word on electoral reform

How can it be fair that a party such as the Liberal Democrats get 79% of Labour's vote count but only get 22% of their number of seats.

That is just not cricket. If it were in a book it would be called a conspiracy theory.

Asteroid attack: How would we cope? (New Scientist)

When an email like that hits your in-box you cant help but race across the desktop with your mouse pointer and click it.

The answer apparently if you want the short answer is "Not very well".

Then the article is full of more questions such as

"Should we panic?"

A. Not really, a killer impact strike would only happen once every 2000 years and the odds of hitting a populated area are even smaller.

"Can we nuke it?"

A. No, not unless we had several years warning. At the moment our early warning systems just aren't good enough. One asteroid last year was only detected 20 hours before impact. 2008 TC3 detonated over Sudan and was too small to do any damage anyway but millions of asteroids that could do some damage are out there and we are not yet tracking all of them.

The exciting questions over with, I can tell you about what the article is actually about. The US Air Force ran an exercise in 2008 where they played out a scenario where a killer asteroid was heading straight for earth. Straight out of Hollywood there were two parts of the asteroid, one heading for a splash down in the Atlantic ocean on the west coast of America and the other heading for Washington DC. Cut to people screaming and running past notable Washington monuments and running past electrical shop windows with President Obama on screen urging people to remain calm all the way via satellite from Air Force One currently flying over New Zealand.

Back to the studio where CNN have bought in whoever answered the phone first, to pretend to be an expert on asteroids / politics. "Its all the governments fault they should have seen it coming years ago. They cut funding into asteroid destruction technologies and invested in free health care for all. What were they thinking?"

Sorry, digressed suddenly there, too much thinking about life according to a Hollywood movie script.

Commenting on the scenario outcome which demonstrated that the US was woefully unprepared for such a disaster Peter Garreston (organiser) had this to say:

"As a taxpayer, I would appreciate my air force taking a look at something that would be certainly as bad as nuclear terrorism in a city, and potentially a civilisation-ending event."

He wasn't just talking about the X-factor rejects from the first round who with their off key singing destroyed several world heritage sites yesterday.

Simon Cowell responded with these comments directly to the planet killer asteroid:

"I am just not convinced by your planet killing performance, I just didn't feel it. Your just too small this year, you need to come back next year... Danni Yes or no?"

Normal service is being resumed ... please hold while we connect you to sanity.

US Air force 0 - Asteroid 1. Final Score.

Anyway, moving on. Having pretty much determined that being able to avert disaster was pretty much impossible the assembled team turned to disaster management. Somebody had forgotten to get coffee from the supermarket and everybody knows you cant deal with a disaster without some serious black coffee.

The primary concern in the disaster management scenario was to stop the public who were in the path of the asteroid from panicking. In my opinion the only way you could stop the public panicking is to shut the media up. You only have to look back to the credit crunch to see how good the media are at proclaiming the end is nigh. Their doom scenarios would cause the public to panic within about three seconds although you might have 30 seconds of grace while they come up with a suitable two word caption for the screen.

Cue movie voice. "It was a time of darkness, the media had the biggest story ever, the story to end all stories, the story to end it all..."

A bland boardroom is shown on screen with a number of men and women in power suits.

Random media type 1: Yes, but what's the caption.
RMT2: How about "earth crunch"
RMT4: Sounds too much like "credit crunch", crunch doesn't spread fear as much as it used to.
RMT3: How about "Armageddon"
RMT2: No, that is only understandable by the AB1 demographic and its only one word.
RMT1: How about "Fatal Friday"
RMT3: No sounds like another stock market crash.
RMT2: How about"End of the World, as we know it"
RMT1: Too long it will appear over the station logo.
RMT4: How about "We're screwed"
RMT1: Well its direct, two words, but it just doesn't have any zing.
RMT3: How about "Rocky: The final return".
RMT2: No, that's already been copyrighted for the movie of the disaster.
RMT1: I know, how about: "Mankind's Annihilation"
RMT2: Works for me.
RMT4: Excellent.
RMT1: OK that's agreed, now lets talk sponsorship, are we thinking Coke or Nike...

Back in the reality created by the US Air Force which one can only assume didn't include a simulation of the media machine.

Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts who has also probably been watching two many Hollywood blockbusters suggested this scenario.

"I'm picturing people panicking and driving the wrong way on the freeway, screaming 'Oh my god, it's going to kill us!'"

We are not just talking republican policies on health care here either (little current affairs reference for my American audience). In true Hollywood fashion he forgot to mention the two teenage virgins by the side of the road getting busy as they certainly don't want to die a virgin. I am thinking American Pie meets Armageddon, now that would be worth going to see.

The outcome of the exercise was a realisation that there is no asteroid emergency plan beta 6 and Bruce Willis is not on 24/7 asteroid destruction call out. However the earlier the warning the better the response would be.

Which brings us nicely on to early warning systems. The good news is that two out of the three early warning systems are in Arizona where during the months of July and September you cant see a thing because of the cloud cover. Excellent, I can see that makes everyone feel better. Lets hope no asteroids turn up at that time of the year, perhaps they will just leave a calling card and come back later.

Even better news, the US Air Force have imagined a scenario where an asteroid could start world war 3: The final showdown. If an asteroid detonated over a politically sensitive area like the middle east then it might be interpreted as a nuclear attack and governments may retaliate.

Of course NASA has put a lot of money into funding projects to track potential planet killers but in a selfish approach they only focus on the Northern Hemisphere which is perhaps a bit short sighted as a planet killer in the Southern Hemisphere could still destroy all life on the planet as we know it.

NASA and the European space agencies are working on it though, so hopefully things will improve in the future.

NASA are also working on an Asteroid ship which will help defend the planet. Exclusively, here now I can reveal the working prototype:

Think Tank - New ideas for the 21st Century - Your call up the civil action squad (The Sunday Times)

Charlie Edwards writing for the times suggests it is time for a civil protection volunteer force (CVPF). I have to say the name is quite important and the acronym even more so, I may have to think of something more suitable by the end of the article.

Not a month goes by where there is not an emergency in the UK. In almost every case emergencies threaten to overwhelm local and national resources, whether it be the emergency services or local councils. Most emergencies are dealt with by bringing in all available staff and working long hours. In the worst case with a prolonged disaster or emergency operation this would not work. Most organisation can only deal with an incident over the short term until national or more resources can be brought in. Alternatively due to the stretched resources emergency services sometimes only deal with life threatening emergencies.

According to Charlie this is why politicians from across the political spectrum are calling for a new civil protection force. A network or organisation of volunteers that are prepared for the threats and risks to the population.

I think Charlie has hit the nail right on the head. I work for a government organisation, part of which deals with emergency situations such as the snowstorms in Jan / Feb. I work in HR, while the snow storms were raging and one part of the organisation was struggling to cope with the unfolding crisis I was just struggling to get to work and all I did when I got there was to do the same as I ever do. In fact if there was an even worse crisis, as far as I know there is no official plan to redeploy me to the operational side of the organisation. There is a staff helpline to call in case of emergency but I have no idea what I might be told apart from to report to my nearest local office where I would, I guess, be given a job to do but as I am untrained in any useful task how much use would I actually be?

So my first point is that any public sector organisation which has any kind of an involvement in an emergency situation should have plans to redeploy all their staff to where the operational demand is greatest. In a sense all staff should have a secondary post which they would deploy to in a given emergency. Admittedly you might have a different post for each type of emergency but when the call goes out either in advance or as it happens, on national tv and radio you would know exactly what you would have to do and where to report to. Even if this was done on a voluntary basis it would double the capacity of these organisations to deal with incidents.

What Charlie suggests could double the capacity again with the a team of volunteers specifically trained to deal with emergency situations. The real fourth emergency service. I have been thinking about this and in a sense it is a civilian army. You might have the following platoons or units.

Command and Control: High level command and control officers to direct the volunteer response and liaise with other agencies.

General grunts: Units of extra people who would be an extra pair of hands, they could help out with anything.

Engineering corp: Builders, plumbers, electricians and anyone with any building or labouring experience.

Medical corp: all of the usual doctors, nurses, first aiders etc.

IT corp: Special IT units to repair IT infrastructure

Transportation corp: A vast fleet of lorries and drivers that could be co-opted in an emergency. Also cars, boats, helicopters and planes.

All of the corps could be trained to a basic level such as first aid and basic disaster management perhaps with specific courses for each type of incident. The Command and control and team leaders would receive specialist training courses to prepare them for emergency management. In terms of training compare the corps with the TA, every member would given up say 15 days a year to complete training.

The role of the corps would be simple, protect life and limb, support the emergency services and restore critical infrastructure and supply lines quickly. Some of this would include supervising other volunteer organisations with the command and control units representing and co-coordinating all volunteer help. On this, having just one contact for all volunteer help will make it easier for the emergency services and easier to co-ordinate a volunteer response to incidents.

This would strengthen our response to any incident and increase the safety and security of our communities. Ultimately it would save lives and perhaps make us appreciate the emergency services for the hard jobs they do and perhaps even help us to take responsibility for our own actions in an emergency so that the emergency services can deal with those really in need.

And finally, all we need to do is come up with a name and an acronym, how about the Civil response Emergency Volunteers (CREV). OK may need to work on that one some more.

One last thing, count me in, I will be happy to be part of the command and control unit to help supervise the deployment of CREV in an emergency.

Great British Disaster movies

Yesterday I may have perhaps suggested there was no such thing as a genre of British disaster movies, so here are a few suggestions that might make up the Genre.

Great British End of the world / Disaster movies - A list in no specific order of anything in particular

Flood (2007) - Its coming straight for us.

A Freak North Sea super storm threatens London leaving Robert Carlyle to save the day.

28 days later (2002)

Virus sweeps the UK wiping out most of the UK population, this is the story of survivors

The Day of the triffids (1962)

99% of the population go blind and rabid aliens (experimental plants in the book) take advantage and start attacking people.

28 weeks later (2007) - It all begins again.

Robert Carlyle in another disaster movie has survived the original version of the virus from 28 days later (he wasn't in the original film) gets rescued only for the virus to escape yet again.

Shaun of the dead (2004) - It's just one of those days when you're feeling a little...dead.

A now undisputed cult horror comedy, British and best, Hollywood could not write and certainly would not produce a movie like this. No list would be complete without Shaun of the dead.

Population of London catch a virus, die and then return from the dead to eat the living. Shaun and friends must survive and escape.

Conclusion

After that I cant really think of any more British disaster movies and five films hardly makes a genre, however if anyone can think of any more I shall add them to the list, over to you Bobbicus.

Gone in 90 Seconds (New Scientist)

In searching around for something to write an article about I return to an old favourite of "the end of the world". This is one that keeps popping up every so often and is about how susceptible our electricity transmission grid is to solar storms. Its not just the electricity network either, its satellites and communication systems.

Of course there is a bit of movie fake realism to the start of the article, you can imagine movie voice over man coming on and saying:

"It was a time when our best friend became our worst enemy... it was a time when the life giving light became the plague of darkness...mankind at its darkness hour... a future in which people fear the dawn... Solar Storm 2012 coming soon to a screen near you. Certificate 15 with mild violence and on screen nudity."

Any way ... returning to reality and the new scientist article they have a much more sensible scene setter:

"It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south and their fascination is short - lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs (note from zephyrist: is that as opposed to gas bulbs?) dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment (Another note from zephyrist: or in one word "blow"). Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds the entire eastern half of the US is without power."

Just like in Hollywood the rest of the world doesn't seem to exist as usual the world ends in New York. Seriously can a UK director not come up with an end of the world film set in Bristol or something that isn't cheesy or just a comedy. Why is the British film industry based on period dramas or rom-coms with Hugh Grant or cheap comedies or gritty low budget crime thrillers. Where is the British block buster disaster movie?

Any way back to New Scientist again, rather than just a ramble through a myriad of thoughts about nothing much in particular.

The article goes on to mention 3 big hits about the days and years after the solar storm when the electricity network fails in the US:

4-10 years for the US to recover
72 hours of healthcare remaining
30 days of coal left (although if no power grid why would you need coal for power stations)

A Solar storm will spew out plasma balls from the surface of the sun which will hurtle towards earth and create a massive interference with the earth's magnetic field which in turn induce currents in wires of the electricity grid. Which will in effect overload the system blowing virtually every transformer in the system. With few spares and every transformer needing to be replaced it could take up to 12 months to manufacture and replace them. In the mean time how would we survive without a fully functioning grid network. Every aspect of our lives from fuel, transport, food, healthcare, water and heat depend on the electricity grid. It would be the end of the world as we know it.

Such events have happened before all be it before technology was so embedded in life. In 1859 the Carrrington event disrupted telegraph networks across the globe. In 1989 six million people went without electricity for 9 hours in Quebec during a minor storm.

Solar storms follow a cycle and the next maximum after this current period of calm is expected in 2012 and the question that new scientist asks is are we prepared?

We do have NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer(ACE) which can give us up to 15 minutes of warning before a solar storm hits, just enough time to minimise the effects of a solar storm on an electricity grid. However, ACE is coming to the end of its life, it becomes less reliable as time goes on and eventually it will fail. With no imminent replacement on the cards our early warning system would be gone and we might loose our last chance to avoid planetary disaster and the end of the first technological age of mankind.

Until then lets face the moonlight and dance...

The end of the world as we know it..

OK may be not quite the end of the world but the end intellectual debate and the dumbing down of the English language.

I am designing some new assessment materials at work based around communication skills, part of the folio is some group discussions. These group discussions have now gone out to consultation with our partner groups and I am collating the feedback.

One topic included the world "eradicate", one comment has suggested that we use the word "remove" instead, as people may not understand the word "eradicate".

I am all in favour of not over complicating things, I started nodding and thinking what a good piece of advice that was. Then I had one of those record screeching moments where the needle is taken off the record scratchily (that reference probably lost 90% of the audience but I shall struggle on, if you are not sure what a record is try wikipedia). If someone doesn't know a word it is not cruel or unfair to use it or a reason for me to change it, that is a reason for someone to pick up a dictionary or use the internet to look up the meaning.

To me the two words have distinctly different meanings so I feel it is important to use eradicate. The English language is currently rich with many great words for all occassions, we should not reduce it to a language where there is only one word for everything. What next, get rid of blue and call it light black, where do we stop, eradicate is a good word and I say it stays.

"Say no to the eradication of eradication"

My point is that everyone, if they dont know something should take the opportunity to learn and look it up. It should never be that if people dont know something its the other persons fault for not using the right word. Individuals need to take responsibility, develop themselves and protect the richness of the english language.

Another comment was that I cant use a discussion topic about insurance because some people might not understand the concept. Well if they dont that should form part of the discussion and if they dont, why dont they? Insurance is virtually fundamental to several aspects of life and surely it is a fairly simple concept. Even if you cant explain how insurance works you know about premiums, claims and have a vague knowledge of risk. Again we shouldnt avoid discussing things because people might not know, the things people don't know are the exact things we should be discussing. Humanities job is to learn and develop, there is nothing wrong with ignorance if you do something about it, if you ignore it and hope it goes away then the only person you are failing is yourself.

End of moan, join me next week when I tell you about the new course I have been on, "Effective moaning for professionals". Apparently it even comes with roleplays.

A solid prudent plan that I heartly recommend to the house

This is a good plan and an even better plan than the American plan. This plan doesn't buy so called 'toxic debt' and make it a government and therefore taxpayer liability. This plan is about investing in the banking industry and potentially even turning a profit in the coming years when the crisis lessons.

This plan should solve the immediate crisis and though it is likely we will suffer a recession it is likely to be shorter and shallower because of the positive action the government has taken. For all the whiners out there who say we shouldn't bail out the fat cats they should bear in mind that a broken banking system will lead to deep recession or a complete collapse in the economy. At its best it will mean high unemployment and high inflation, at its worst it could lead to hyper inflation, housing crashes and the extreme devaluation of the pound. Doing nothing was never an option.

A lot of people are saying how it is costing the taxpayer over £2000 per person. Well it actually isn't, the government will borrow the money either from existing reserves, or by selling government bonds etc which are always in demand. They could even cut spending to compensate or in the worst case the £2000 could be reclaimed off people via the tax system over the next ten years.

Plus don't forget tax can be raised from businesses too or that higher rate tax payers could be made to pay more, £2000 per person is literally only the total cost divided by the number of taxpayers. It is another virtually meaningless statistic.

The government is used to sudden demands on capital reserves, natural disasters cause immediate demands. You may find that some of the £500 bn has already been budgeted for in the budget forecasts, it would be bad financial planning by the government if they had not allowed for contigecy funding.

If the worst came to the absolute worst then the government could just print more money or even sell off gold reserves, although both could cause inflation and the devaluation of the pound.

The other good thing is that we are not kissing goodbye to the £500 bn, some £50 bn of the money will buy banking stock as preference shares which means the government will own part of the banks and will get any profit made in preference to other share holders. There is quite a reasonable possibility of the government making a profit, after all when have you ever know a bank like Lloyds making a loss even in these crazy times.

Some of the money, £250 bn is only available as guarantees for bank loans so that will only have to be handed over if a bank defaults on a loan, I think within the next three years and again as everyone keeps saying most of the banks are perfectly well capitalised and unlikely to default on reasonable loan terms, they just cant cope with the crazy loan rates they are being offered at the moment so cant re-finance their debt.

The short term loans, £200 bn, should by and large be repaid with interest. So in all cases there is a reasonable chance we will get the entire £500 bn back plus interest. Even if we don't it is completely unlikely that we will loose any kind of large amount. Even in the absolute worst case once the money comes back into the government it would be hard to imagine any scenario where the government had lost more than £50 bn. This is simply because none of the UK banks are at risk any more. All of the banks with the heavy mortgage exposure have either been nationalised or taken over. All the remaining banks are well capitalsed with a good balance sheet and assest book.

Of course the stock exchange disagrees but this may be simply because the traders are in a blind panic. Once the dust settles and they run out of steam things should start to return to normal. Of course one of the reasons the market is falling is because a lot of people are making money off selling and buyers are too scared to re - enter the market in any great numbers. Once the buyers feel the market has bottomed out they should buy again. In all likelihood if we have a couple of days of peace the volumes traded will decrease, the sellers wills stop selling and the buyers will re - enter.

The icing on the cake if you like is that any bank signing up for this money will have to sign up to an FSA code of practice of executive dividend, pay and bonus payments. The final element of structural reform which can only strengthen the banking system and the economy in the future.

In conclusion, Mr speaker this is a excellent plan and I heartily recommend it to the house.

House votes down bail-out package (BBC)

Houston, we have a problem. Its not really one of those small problems its a huge global catastrophe.

The business news was fairly scary at the moment but at least there was vague hope and then a story like this gets out. This is why the Bank of England is independent from politicians. Sometimes some things are too important to get right to allow for political positioning and point scoring.

I think it would be fair to say that we are witnessing the beginnings of a global economic meltdown. I really, really hope that we are not about to go into an economic dark ages but with stories like this the outlook is looking very black.

President Bush has two choices, try and amend the plan and resubmit it or go back to the drawing board. Either way he better do it quick cos things are turning bad fast.

On the other hand here in the UK we are doing ok, with another small bank nationalised most of the structural changes in UK banks should be finalised. Plus the politicians are on holiday so they cant really meddle. However, given that the world economy is directly linked to the American economy all eyes are across the pond waiting with bated breath for someone, anyone to come up with a rescue plan.

Has anyone perhaps suggested to the UK MP's that at a time like this it might be useful if they could get back to work?

Burma - 18 days on

18 days on.
78, 000 dead.
56,000 missing.
2.4 million severely affected.
Only 25% of people needing aid being reached.

Naked facts about a horrific natural disaster made worse by human inaction, human pride, human ignorance and human failings.

18 days on and people still die while idiots talk.

I, like others have tried to comprehend or find some understanding in this. Why do the Burmese military Junta refuse to openly accept all the aid that can get into their country. They must know that people are dying because of their decisions.

Humanitarian Emergencies are not about politics, or pride or national / regional boundaries they are about saving lives, helping people and restoring basic services.

Are the Burmese leaders too proud too accept help. Would it cause them so much dishonour to recognise that they need outside assistance? Can that really be what prevents them from acting.

Leadership is often about making the hard decisions, about not being afraid to focus on the end game. Sometimes its about the end justifying the means, its can be about breaking rules. For the Burmese military leadership should be about recognising we need all the help we can get. Call in all the favours and all the debts, accept every bit of charity because our people need help now.

If there is a fall out from such Western involvement it can be dealt with later. There is no honour or pride in 78,000 dead.

Virtual Worlds

I have been thinking a bit about virtual worlds and virtual relationships. I got bored with second life, couldn't really get into it. I have always liked chat room and remember the aol uk Pub from some years ago now.

I installed IMVU about a year ago to try it out and really it was terrible, there were no chat rooms and everyone seemed to be under 16. They have done a lot of advertising and I thought I would give it another chance. Now they have public rooms and the population is generally more over 18.

I have found a nice club where you can listen to music and chat.

Anyway IMVU got me thinking, everyone in a virtual world picks an avatar who is kind of their perfect ideal, no picks an ugly avatar.

Some people separate the virtual world from the real world. They talk to people, but they never become real friends, they would never think of meeting them, it is a completely separate world.

Some make friends and fall in love, although relationships start in the virtual world they cross over into the real world.

What about when we have real virtually reality, you might be able to do everything in a virtual world and because it is an ideal world you might not want to be in reality. Will there be parts of virtual reality that stipulate only life realistic avatars are aloud. How about a relationship that only exists in a virtual world because you live thousands of miles apart.

Will the virtual and real world collide, how will we operate in such a connected future. How will we relate to people?

Jericho - ITV4 Wednesday's 8pm

I have been watching this new US drama series for the last two weeks and it is turning into a must watch series.

Its starts off with following a prodigal son Jake Green returning home to a small town (population:5000) called Jericho a few hours away from Denver. Then a nuclear mushroom cloud is seen over Denver and all communication is lost without the outside world.

In the first episode is blind panic, the children are missing in a school bus somewhere, everyone can see the mushroom cloud but no one has any information and then the power goes out. One of the first panics is at the gas station where everyone is queuing for fuel. Although it is unclear where they might drive too. Certainly in both episodes no one appears to leave the district. The sheriffs department go off in search of the school bus but get caught up with some escaped criminals leaving the fire brigade to act as public order officials.

The mayor and his family including the prodigal son must then pull the town together to survive. Episode 1 ends with a stirring speech of the best community in the US from the mayor and then his son arrives with the missing school bus.

In Episode 2 the criminals roll into town looking for trouble and lethal radioactive rain storm is on its way from Denver, two hours to get everyone under cover in two small nuclear shelters. Despite some frantic repair work only the town hall shelter is functional leaving all the hospital staff, patients and other stuck with no place to go. Is the salt mine their last hope?

Meanwhile our hero Jake finds out about the criminals and heads out to rescue his friends, can he do it before the killer rain arrives?

This is a very interesting show which has potential, I shall keep watching to see how things turn out.

Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet (CNN)

Well European Scientists have found the most earth like planet yet, a planet with a similar temperature as Earth which could therefore sustain liquid water and potentially life.

Unfortunately scientists are a bit useless at naming things and have called it '581 c'. In order to correct this mistake I hereby use the ancient method of naming new places that are similar to old places by naming the planet 'New Earth'.

So what do we know about 'New Earth', well a full rotation of the 'New Sun' takes just 13 days so an octogenarian will be just getting ready to go to primary school.

Gravity is a bit heavier at 1.6 times earth's gravity so people might be naturally shorter, who knows they might even be ewoks.

The red dwarf 'new sun' will be twenty times larger than our 'old sun' and the planet may not even rotate.

The scientists were very cautious about the discovery and the possibility of life on 'New Earth':

"It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

Michael Mayor - University of Geneva Astronomer

So we may be at the start of the journey to find out whether there is life out there. What if on 'New Earth' there are astronomers looking to the stars who are also announcing the discovery of a planet orbiting a bright yellow star which is twenty times smaller than their sun. Who discovered who first, and will they be our first visitors at only 20 light years away.

Of course when we finally get round to destroying earth we now have somewhere for the escape pods to head for.

So this is the first earth like planet to be discovered but where there is one there is likely to be many so we will have to get much better at naming them.

The truth may still be out there ...

Zephyrist's sunday night briefs - week 16, 2007

Well this week I have been google earth train-spotting. I cant remember much from the news except more bleak news from Iraq and concerns about rising UK inflation and interest rates.

Here are some of the things that have crossed my desk this week:

A hard rain's a-gonna fall (Guardian)

I was watching the film "The Day after tomorrow" where abrupt climate changes causes super cell ice storms and floods, freezing New York. It is an excellent disaster movie but it supposedly has science in it. So is the film based on accurate scientific theories or is it just Hollywood fiction. Find out in the Guardian article.

On a personal note I was hopping it would be more like the BBC drama 'Super Volcano' with science being central to the story. In "The Day after tomorrow" they didn't get the same balance and really should have skipped the bit where the dad was the scientist, it would be an easier plot if the dad was like a marine, fire or police officer. Then they could concentrate on the rescue as the main plot and the politics / science as a back drop.

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future (Guardian)

Everyone looks to the future including governments and companies. The Ministry of Defence has looked 30 years into the future and this article reports what they see.

Here are some quick bullet points:

• electromagnetic weapons will be operational
• Neutron weapons will be in use
• Unmanned delivery / weapons platforms will be used
• Electronic brain implants hard wired to the brain
  
• flash mobs - rent a mob by internet
• Middle classes become revolutionaries against the super rich
• The terrorism threat will grow
• The threat from climate change will grow with potentially the start of a temperature drop in Northern Europe.

Russia threatening new cold war over missile defence (Guardian)

The cold war may have ended but no one seems to have told the Americans and Russians. The US continues to build super weapon technology in order to protect itself from countries such as Iran or North Korea. This method of building super defence technology just antagonises everyone and helps create the uncertain world we live in and suggests the Americans would prefer war to diplomacy.

Now they are planning to place a new missile defence system in Eastern Europe which could potentially start a new nuclear arms race.

'Smart dust' to explore planets (BBC)

This is just like one of those science fiction stories. Intelligent computer chips as small as dust particles get blown on the wind exploring an alien planet (earth in the science fiction plot version).

They are able to act over a local network with each other to distribute computing power.

I can see a horror movie script in this story.

Another week done, tune in next week for more of the same.

Super-volcanos

There was on the BBC a series of programmes about super volcano's including a thrilling two part drama and a horizon documentary. The drama was based on the facts and went through what could happen before, during and after a super volcano eruption.

This is one of those events in nature that has the potential to really mess up the planet and really disrupt civilisation. The thing is it could happen tomorrow or it could happen in a million years. In that sense it is joins the other events we know about that could give everyone on planet Earth the feeling that Mondays are not really that bad after all.

The last super eruption occurred 74,000 years ago and scientists believe they happen on average ever 50,000 years which would suggest one is overdue.

There are 40 super volcanoes around the world including two in the UK but no need to panic just yet, they like many others burnt out long ago.

Yellowstone (Wyoming, US) is a dormant super volcano and again according to the statistics it seems overdue for an eruption which is where the drama takes over, Yellowstone erupts.

The facts of a super eruption at Yellowstone are incredible, 90% of the population within 1000 km would die mostly from ash which when inhaled into the lungs turns into a cement like mixture. This ash would affect almost the entire continental United States and would even have some effect in Europe. Ash would pollute water supplies, disrupt transport, disrupt electricity and reduce sunlight.

The ash and Sulphur gases released from a super eruption would cool the planet worldwide, temperatures could drop by up to 10 degrees Celsius and that effect could last for up to ten years.

Of course if you live in the US you wont be worrying about global temperature decreases, you will probably be fighting for survival. The authorities will be quickly overwhelmed and civilisation break down will be widespread.

In the drama there is a quick realisation that millions will die because the authorities cant get in there to save them in time. The solution the hero scientist comes up with is that the survivors must start walking and the authorities will drop food packs and head out to meet them.

The drama made good viewing and the scenario outlined was scary, however be reassured that such an event in our lifetimes is extremely remote.