Keys Corner

The Independent reports that 500 000 rubbish bins in the UK already carry an electronic device to identify the bin, which would allow the local council to track the weight of rubbish in the bin, and charge by weight for its collection. Which is quite a neat idea, I think. Our bin is hardly ever more than half full when it’s collected, so we should benefit from the billing system.

The Mail on Sunday doesn’t think so. Bins and the collection vehicles are being fitted with the new technology, and their headline is: Germans plant bugs in our wheelie bins. The article makes it sound like an act of war has been commited by the Germans, although in fact their only involvement is that two companies doing the fitting work on the bins happen to have their head-office in Germany. It seems to have generated heated views in the UK:

Conservative MP Andrew Pelling said burglars could hack into the computer system to see if sudden reductions in waste at individual households meant the owners were on holiday and the property empty. He said: ‘This is nothing more than a spy in the bin and I don’t think even the old Soviet Union made such an intrusion into people’s personal lives. ‘It is Big Brother gone mad. I think a more British way of doing things is to seek to persuade people rather than spy on them.’

Germany has sold Israel 2 Dolphin-class submarines at a discount of 33%. The $1.27 billion contract, which was agreed under the previous SPD government, was signed in July. The subs are said by Jane’s Defense Weekly, to have the ability to launch cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. Is this a good use of German tax-payer’s money, I ask myself? (Of course, even if the sale wasn’t subsidized, the question is also whether it is a good idea to be selling potential atomic weapons systems to countries which have demonstrated considerable aggression in the Middle East)

After the failed bomb attacks on two German trains, Norbert Geis (a CDU legal expert) and Clemens Binninger (a CDU spokeman for internal affairs) have suggested in Bild-Zeitung that Germany introduce armed “Rail-Marshalls” similar to the Sky Marshalls introduced on aircraft by the USA.

No wonder the country’s economy is in such a desolate state if we are governed by people who think that is a sensible and effective method to improve security.

The fifth of November is the traditional date for the British to go mad with fireworks (although New Year’s Eve has also become popular in the 26 years since we moved to Germany). We didn’t have to wait until November to see a display this year – we went to the Bad Homburger Montgolfiade last night and watched the Night Glow & Fireworks (the balloons lit by their own burners, lots of fireworks and a deafeningly loud music program to accompany the fireworks display), which was organised by the local radio station.

We have been before – it used to be held in the Jubiläumspark, which is in the middle of Bad Homburg, but the trees and the funneling of the wind though the park make conditions tricky for the balloon pilots, so this year was the first time at a new venue on the outskirts of the town. Lots and lots of other people had the same idea, creating chaos in and around Bad Homburg (traffic jams on the A661 at the Bad Homburg exits and cars parked everywhere within about a km of the venue), so we got there after the official start of the “son et luminaire”, but fortunately for us there had been a delay in getting all the balloons inflated, so we didn’t miss anything.

According to Science (subscription required, so look here for a short summary), the percentage of people who believe in Evolution in the USA (40%) is lower than 32 of 34 countries polled^*. Only Turkey came in with a lower percentage of believers, “Old Europe” averages about 70%.

^* “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals” – True / false / not sure / don’t know?

(via John Gruber’s Daring Fireball)

Update (2006-08-17):
The New Scientist will be running an article on American attitudes to evolution in the next print edition on the 19th. You can read it here. One quote from the article:

American adults may be harder to reach: nearly two-thirds don’t agree that more than half of human genes are common to chimpanzees. How would these people respond when told that humans and chimps share 99 per cent of their genes?

Ballbot is a robot, a little shorter than a human, which balances on a metal ball about the size of a football. It was created at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh by Ralph Hollis, who is hoping to develop a robot capable of performing tasks such as moving objects in confined spaces.

In the screenshot above (click to watch the video), you can see the drive-belt on the right for one of the two rollers which drive the ball, so that the robot can keep its balance or roll the ball to move about.

OK - looking back at some of my recent posts, I have to admit I have allowed myself to get increasingly wound up by Bush and Blair’s interpretation of and reaction to world events.

So time for some light relief and the chance to change the world by producing a 1 second film. And while we’re about it, lets take a look at some of the excellent photographs on Flickr by visiting flickr memories.

And I will try not to mention anything to do with Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, the USA or Britain until I have succeeded in attaining normal blood pressure again.

George Bush is quoted on the BBC web site today as referring to

“Islamic fascists… will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom”.

He’s supposed to be brighter than people give him credit for, but I do wonder if he knows the definition of fascist?

There’s a short summary of political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt’s article on fascism (2003 in Free Inquiry) here, which is worth taking a look at. Looking at the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they had 14 elements in common. To summarise the summary, the 14 characteristics that he identified were:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism


2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights


3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause


4. Supremacy of the Military


5. Rampant Sexism


6. Controlled Mass Media


7. Obsession with National Security


8. Religion and Government are Intertwined


9. Corporate Power is Protected


10. Labor Power is Suppressed


11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts


12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment


13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption


14. Fraudulent Elections

Do those seem to you to match more closely with al-Qaeda or the USA?

Update (2006-08-12):
I see that Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies also thinks using the term “islamic fascists” is nonsense:

There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term. This is an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one’s opponent, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the content of their beliefs…

Sounds similar to Bush’s redefinition of the word terrorist, which he uses to mean anyone whose political views divirge from Bush’s.

I have twice tried to buy Nigel Kennedy and The Kroke Band’s East Meets East in Apple’s iTunes Store.

The first time, most of the tracks were full of pops and clicks and Apple gave me a refund and asked me to retry in 3 weeks, by which time they would either have fixed the problem or withdrawn the CD if they couldn’t. Four weeks later the download contained identical errors and Apple refunded the price a second time and told me they would inform me when the problem was fixed. That was on June 28th, since then I’ve heard no more.

Now, I have ordered the CD on eBay through Ihr-Klassiker, which will cost me 15 Euro instead of €9.99 at iTunes, or €19.99 at Amazon, but I am hopeful that the CD won’t be as badly scratched as Apple’s copy – and of course I won’t have to burn it to a CD to remove Apple’s Digital Rights Management

According to The Economist, the answer is that Israel funds a lobby group (AIPAC) in Washington with a budget of nearly $50m and a staff of 200 – allegedly more powerful than the National Rifle Association:

“Thank God we have AIPAC, the greatest supporter and friend we have in the whole world,” says Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister. The lobby, which is the centrepiece of a co-ordinated body that includes pressure groups, think-tanks and fund-raising operations, produces voting statistics on congressmen that are carefully scrutinised by political donors. It also organises regular trips to Israel for congressmen and their staffs. (The Washington Post reports that Roy Blunt, the House majority whip, has been on four.)

The other factor is the evangelical Christians, representing 25% of the American electorate:

White evangelicals are significantly more pro-Israeli than Americans in general; more than half of them say they strongly sympathise with Israel. (A third of the Americans who claim sympathy with Israel say that this stems from their religious beliefs.) Two in five Americans believe that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, and one in three say that the creation of the state of Israel was a step towards the Second Coming.

Finally, the Americans probably see themselves in the same boat as Israel – the 9/11 attacks and the rocket attacks of Hizbullah are both seen as “terrorist” attacks on “democracy”.