Cllr. Gavin Ayling

So, I’ve neglected you since March 16th? How time flies.

So here’s an extraordinarily brief bit on each of the things I’ve missed:

On May 1st there are local elections here in Adur. If you’re in Buckingham Ward, vote for Debbie Kennard. If you’re elsewhere in Adur or if you’re in Worthing, vote Conservative. And if you’re in another District, Borough, Unitary, Parish, County etc. then check out your local candidate and assuming they’re not insane (hey, I don’t know that their selection processes are perfect) vote for the Conservative one.

Ken Livingstone has five children… Who cares? And even if you do care, don’t read his responses because they’re far too clever. No, instead, ignore the story and vote Johnson anyway.

Car trouble has forced me to use public transport. Sort out the prices will you (whoever you may be) please?

A trip to London, and a savvy companion caused me to invest in an Oyster card. Say what you like about civil liberties (only applicable if they become compulsory in my humble opinion), but they’re fantastic. They just need to work on the rest of the public transport infrastructure and you may find people giving up on their cars (not likely given the infrequency of services to and from some locations).

Embyro Bill

Discussions about the so-called embryo bill set some dangerous precedents. Religions have no reason so claim the right to direct people’s ethics and MPs voting on religious grounds scares the bejesus out of me. If I don’t agree with the Catholic Church’s take on ethics (you know, the one where condoms are evil even if they protect African women from their promiscuous husband’s HIV) I am presumably forced to vote along religious lines. In some future where Islamic votes reach a critical point, will people start to find that Islam in the UK is politicised? Is this not the very thing we are fighting in Afghanistan and which Turkey’s constitution protects against?

MPs who wish to violate the whip because of religious reasons should be sacked from their party before the vote’s even taken place. Religious zealots who would put the country on the path to politicised religion in the House of Commons should not be welcome in mainstream parties.

That said, the gradual emergence of primaries in British politics may be the thing we look back upon as the reaon Britain didn’t fall into the politicised religion trap.

Today’s Google quote of the day is this:

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.
- Paul Dirac

Poetry, as I said recently, has only just made sense to me and, of course, science always has been deeply important to me so I thought it appropriate that I share it with you.

I’ve renewed my membership of the Planetary Society.

If you believe that the world’s States alone cannot make the best of space (or even if you do believe that they can); if you believe that we, as a species, need to leave this planet eventually to ensure our existence; if you believe that ‘progress’ is a reason enough in itself…

… then join the Planetary Society as I did a year ago, and join in that effort. See the progress that the Planetary Society’s efforts are achieving and know, in your heart, that you are part of something great, momentous and meaningful.

Join me, join the Planetary Society

During a week where wild fires have spread across Greece, literally unprecedented rain has affected England and killed four and where Italy and the surrounding area have experienced unusual heat, it is difficult to avoid the suggestion that climate change is having an effect. I still have a nagging doubt, but it’s meaningless to debate anyway in my opinion.

Interestingly, though, June’s Scientific American magazine has a passage which I think presents the barrier to solution quite clearly:

To accomodate the economic aspirations of the more than five billion people in the developing countries, the size of the world economy should increase by a factor of four to six by 2050; at the same time, global emissions of greenhouse gases will have to remain steady or decline to prevent dangerous changes to the climate. After 2050, emissions will have to drop further, nearly to zero, for greenhouse gas concentrations to stabilize.

Assuming the scientific community’s poor understanding of the climate is accurate then it is reassuring that the solution (technology) as proposed by the author (Jeffrey D. Sachs) costs approximately 1 penny per kilowatt hour. That’s on top of a current electricity price of approximately 8.1 pence.

I have long said that environmental-socialism is not the solution and I am heartened to read the technological-solution being espoused.

Anyone who has known me for a long time will know that for all my criticism of the modern, socialist green movement, I have always been one who cares deeply about the environment. Before it was cool I used to chide friends who didn’t visit the recycling point (before doorstep collections) and I have always been amazed that you get free stuff by composting.

So, despite my criticism of the modern, socialist green movement, I bought an Electrisave recently and have enjoyed (perhaps too much) seeing what impact each device has on power consumption.

At the rate of 8.192 pence per kWh (kilowatt hour) a 100W lightbulb uses 0.6 pence per hour. A 20″ LCD TV and two 19″ LCD computer monitors don’t register any cost at all. A kettle uses a comparitively amazing amount (around 20 pence per hour) and an electric shower uses 38 pence per hour.

My PC (which is reasonably specced) uses a little less than a lightbulb and when it is on standby makes no impact on the meter at all. Fascinatingly, though, a 20″ CRT computer monitor registers a little less than a lightbulb on its own. And a 25″ CRT TV uses a little more than a lightbulb.

The most expensive things are kettles, electric showers and vacuum cleaners. But the most surprising thing of all was my Xbox 360. While that is running it costs between 1.8 pence and 2 pence per hour. When two PCs, an LCD TV, two LCD monitors, one CRT monitor, the fridge and double-height freezer, two cordless telephone base stations and two cordless telephone charger points as well as all the household’s standby lights and LCD clocks were running, the Xbox 360 doubled the amount of power being used!

So if you have an Xbox 360, and you care about your bills or wasting fossil fuels (or even CO₂ emissions if you’re an extremist) turn off your Xbox 360 when you’re not using it.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, a Wii doesn’t register even 1/10 of a penny while it is running.

The Electrisave is a sinch to install and works beautifully, I’d strongly recommend them to anyone who asked.

Sam Harris is another in the growing number among us humans who believes that religion per se is dangerous. Listen to what he has to say:

If you agree, or even if you just know there’s no reason to believe in God, consider signing up (for free) as a Bright and spreading the 21st Century’s Enlightenment.

I’ve only read the headline, but it appears common sense has prevailed: BBC News.