Monday, November 14, 2005
BMA PROVES SEA LEVEL RISE CAUSED BY OBESITY
Global warming and rise in sea-levels linked to obesityRead on...
12 Nov 2005 by Peter Gee
British scientists have confirmed that recent rises in UK temperatures and sea levels are directly linked to the obesity rate and not to pollution levels as was originally thought.
Doctor Greg Mullet of the British Medical Association, said: "The BMA has carried out its most extensive research effort ever over the past couple of days. We have identified that the rise in UK temperatures is due to the increased calorie intake of some of our population, equivalent to an additional 29.597 billion Giga-Joules of heat energy, and that the 'perceived rise' in sea levels around the UK is simply due to the fact that the UK is sinking with the increased weight of its population".
Good to see some real verifiable research, the increase in UK obesity being well verified, rather than stuff like the Mann Hockeystick theory, where you can literally feed in any old data & get a hockeystick, or passive smoking where only 7 out of 42 studies, all of very small & therefore statistically useless populations, actually showed any sort of corelation.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
WORLD'S GREATEST ECONOMIES
Last year I did a short article with this title that became one of my most refered to so I am taking the hint & doing a new one. Once again the figures are cribbed from GeographyIQ.
These are the worlds top economies by dollar values:
See Growth Rate
---State---------------GDP--------------Growth
1. United States--10,990,000,000,000 $...3.10%
2. China---------- 6,449,000,000,000 $...9.10%
3. Japan-----------3,582,000,000,000 $...2.70%
4. India-----------3,033,000,000,000 $...8.30%
5. Germany---------2,271,000,000,000 $..-0.10%
6. United Kingdom--1,666,000,000,000 $...2.20%
7. France----------1,661,000,000,000 $...0.50%
8. Italy-----------1,550,000,000,000 $...0.40%
9. Brazil----------1,375,000,000,000 $..-0.20%
10. Russia---------1,282,000,000,000 $...7.30%
11. Canada-----------958,700,000,000 $...1.70%
12. Mexico-----------941,200,000,000 $...1.30%
13. Spain------------885,500,000,000 $...2.40%
14. Korea, South-----857,800,000,000 $...3.10%
As opposed to last year:
1.United States$10,450,000,000,000
2.China$5,989,000,000,000
3.Japan$3,651,000,000,000
4.India$2,664,000,000,000
5.Germany$2,160,000,000,000
6.France$1,558,000,000,000
7.United Kingdom$1,528,000,000,000
8.Italy$1,455,000,000,000
9.Russia $1,409,000,000,000
10.Brazil$1,376,000,000,000
11.Korea, South$941,500,000,000
12.Canada$934,100,000,000
There must be what accountants call a balancing factor here since there is a disparity of some of the figures with the growth rates - this may be currency fluctuations.
So Britain has gone from a fraction of a per cent below France to a fraction above but still nowhere near being the 4th (or 3rd) as our politicians repeatedly boast.
The average of growth rates here would be about 3% but since the 4 largest are all doing better than that I think the figure for world growth of 5% reported elsewhere is probably right. The often reported claim that the UK is a successful economy clearly relies on comparison overwhelmingly with our partners in the original EU states (Germany, France & Italy) whose performance could politely be called abysmal. The failure of the EU is obvious. By world standards the UK is doing badly.
For anybody who wants to calculate how things are changing the simple way to calculate the doubling time of an economy is how long it takes the growth rate per annum to reach 72 - this is because growth is a compound function. Thus China will double its economy compared to the US in < 72/(9.1 - 3.1) = 12> 12 years at which point it will be comfortably larger than the US.
Newspapers which spend acres of newsprint on reporting where Scotland is in the world football rankings (not quite last) do not report this stuff. Even the posh ones mention it purely on the business pages & don't go into such detail. Yet there is no real reason to believe that most people aren't at least as interested in our economic as football performance. Football is said to be more important than a mere matter of life & death but our standard of living affects everybody every day. You may remember that after Bush 1 beat the Iraqis he lost the election to the charmless but true slogan "its the economy stupid". It may be that this is an example of our media choosing to feed us "bread & circuses" to distract us from the fact that the "great & good" who run the place are so clearly bad at the job.
& here to depress you further are the figures for per person GDP, since size doesn't matter on per capita figures (quite the opposite in fact since I think some the smaller countries here are doing well on artificial banking figures) we are doing worse here:
Rank Country Value / Unit
1. Luxembourg-----55,100 $
2. Norway---------37,800 $
United States---37,800 $
4. Bermuda--------36,000 $
5. Cayman Islands 35,000 $
6. San Marino-----34,600 $
7. Switzerland----32,700 $
8. Denmark--------31,100 $
9. Iceland--------30,900 $
10. Austria-------30,000 $
11. Canada--------29,800 $
12. Ireland-------29,600 $
13. Belgium-------29,100 $
14. Australia-----29,000 $
15. Hong Kong-----28,800 $
16. Netherlands---28,600 $
17. Japan---------28,200 $
18. Aruba---------28,000 $
19. United Kingdom-27,700 $
20. France--------27,600 $
Germany---------27,600 $
22. Finland-------27,400 $
23. Monaco--------27,000 $
24. Sweden--------26,800 $
25. Italy---------26,700 $
At least at 19th place we are now ahead of Germany & France, but again this is because they are doing badly. We are well behind Ireland & Hong Kong, both of which used to be poor colonials.
Ireland, as I have said elsewhere, provides a fine example of how we could be doing if we just made the effort. Their average growth of 7% over the last 15 years could have been achieved by us simply by getting government taxes & regulations off the back of industry. Because growth is a compound function the universe is extremely unforgiving of those countries which abandon progress.
These are the worlds top economies by dollar values:
See Growth Rate
---State---------------GDP--------------Growth
1. United States--10,990,000,000,000 $...3.10%
2. China---------- 6,449,000,000,000 $...9.10%
3. Japan-----------3,582,000,000,000 $...2.70%
4. India-----------3,033,000,000,000 $...8.30%
5. Germany---------2,271,000,000,000 $..-0.10%
6. United Kingdom--1,666,000,000,000 $...2.20%
7. France----------1,661,000,000,000 $...0.50%
8. Italy-----------1,550,000,000,000 $...0.40%
9. Brazil----------1,375,000,000,000 $..-0.20%
10. Russia---------1,282,000,000,000 $...7.30%
11. Canada-----------958,700,000,000 $...1.70%
12. Mexico-----------941,200,000,000 $...1.30%
13. Spain------------885,500,000,000 $...2.40%
14. Korea, South-----857,800,000,000 $...3.10%
As opposed to last year:
1.United States$10,450,000,000,000
2.China$5,989,000,000,000
3.Japan$3,651,000,000,000
4.India$2,664,000,000,000
5.Germany$2,160,000,000,000
6.France$1,558,000,000,000
7.United Kingdom$1,528,000,000,000
8.Italy$1,455,000,000,000
9.Russia $1,409,000,000,000
10.Brazil$1,376,000,000,000
11.Korea, South$941,500,000,000
12.Canada$934,100,000,000
There must be what accountants call a balancing factor here since there is a disparity of some of the figures with the growth rates - this may be currency fluctuations.
So Britain has gone from a fraction of a per cent below France to a fraction above but still nowhere near being the 4th (or 3rd) as our politicians repeatedly boast.
The average of growth rates here would be about 3% but since the 4 largest are all doing better than that I think the figure for world growth of 5% reported elsewhere is probably right. The often reported claim that the UK is a successful economy clearly relies on comparison overwhelmingly with our partners in the original EU states (Germany, France & Italy) whose performance could politely be called abysmal. The failure of the EU is obvious. By world standards the UK is doing badly.
For anybody who wants to calculate how things are changing the simple way to calculate the doubling time of an economy is how long it takes the growth rate per annum to reach 72 - this is because growth is a compound function. Thus China will double its economy compared to the US in < 72/(9.1 - 3.1) = 12> 12 years at which point it will be comfortably larger than the US.
Newspapers which spend acres of newsprint on reporting where Scotland is in the world football rankings (not quite last) do not report this stuff. Even the posh ones mention it purely on the business pages & don't go into such detail. Yet there is no real reason to believe that most people aren't at least as interested in our economic as football performance. Football is said to be more important than a mere matter of life & death but our standard of living affects everybody every day. You may remember that after Bush 1 beat the Iraqis he lost the election to the charmless but true slogan "its the economy stupid". It may be that this is an example of our media choosing to feed us "bread & circuses" to distract us from the fact that the "great & good" who run the place are so clearly bad at the job.
& here to depress you further are the figures for per person GDP, since size doesn't matter on per capita figures (quite the opposite in fact since I think some the smaller countries here are doing well on artificial banking figures) we are doing worse here:
Rank Country Value / Unit
1. Luxembourg-----55,100 $
2. Norway---------37,800 $
United States---37,800 $
4. Bermuda--------36,000 $
5. Cayman Islands 35,000 $
6. San Marino-----34,600 $
7. Switzerland----32,700 $
8. Denmark--------31,100 $
9. Iceland--------30,900 $
10. Austria-------30,000 $
11. Canada--------29,800 $
12. Ireland-------29,600 $
13. Belgium-------29,100 $
14. Australia-----29,000 $
15. Hong Kong-----28,800 $
16. Netherlands---28,600 $
17. Japan---------28,200 $
18. Aruba---------28,000 $
19. United Kingdom-27,700 $
20. France--------27,600 $
Germany---------27,600 $
22. Finland-------27,400 $
23. Monaco--------27,000 $
24. Sweden--------26,800 $
25. Italy---------26,700 $
At least at 19th place we are now ahead of Germany & France, but again this is because they are doing badly. We are well behind Ireland & Hong Kong, both of which used to be poor colonials.
Ireland, as I have said elsewhere, provides a fine example of how we could be doing if we just made the effort. Their average growth of 7% over the last 15 years could have been achieved by us simply by getting government taxes & regulations off the back of industry. Because growth is a compound function the universe is extremely unforgiving of those countries which abandon progress.
COMMUNISTS SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
This from B92 an anti Milosevic radio station in Yugoslavia (formerly) funded by NATO.
The rather coy bit about many having questioned the truthfulness of his testimony in the Milosevic "trial" is a refernce to his having said, on oath, that he stood on the Albanian border & watched Yugoslav troops ethnically cleansing named villages & the subsequent introduction, by a defence witness, of a map proving that the villages are not visible from the border unless you can see through mountains. Fortunately for Ashdown, Wesley Clark & numerous KLA members who testified that there were no KLA in their village, giving perjured testimony is not an offense. Refusing to testify when Milosevic was denied the right to conduct his defence was an imprisonable offence but perjury isn't.
Equally let us remember that Mr Ashdown claims to have been unaware of the endemic practice of child sex slavery by members of his administration in Bosnia & Hercegovina in conjunction with his Moslem Nazi friends - so endemic indeed that you could get fired for objecting to it.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER I accept absolutley that all 3 claims by this former Lib Dem leader & MI6 operative (whether he quit the latter before taking up the former is unknown) represent the very highest standard of honesty of Mr Ashdown, & will uphold anything else he says in such terms.
Asked whether he will be making another appearance at Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes trial, in which many have questioned the truthfulness of his testimony regarding events which took place in Kosovo, Ashdown said that he is prepared to testify once again if the Tribunal calls on him to do so. Asked if the video footage shown in court which shows him meeting with armed members of the Kosovo Liberation Army puts into question his objectivity, Ashdown said that he made it clear to both Belgrade and London that he intended on meeting with both sides, including the KLA.Strange folk those communists who have such a principled position against gun control (& in favour of free markets) that they happily sell weapons to people who want to fight them. Of course it would have been grossly improper for Ashdown to have met what was at the time officially described as a terrorist group (more for running drugs westerly than for the genocide of Untermensch) so obviously it didn't happen - we have his word for it.
Ashdown said that the footage which was shown by Milosevic was old footage of his visits with Albanian civilians who were showing him their old weapons, which they had bought from the Serbs.
“That’s the communist way.” Ashdown said, and added that he stands behind everything he said while testifying before the Hague Tribunal.
The rather coy bit about many having questioned the truthfulness of his testimony in the Milosevic "trial" is a refernce to his having said, on oath, that he stood on the Albanian border & watched Yugoslav troops ethnically cleansing named villages & the subsequent introduction, by a defence witness, of a map proving that the villages are not visible from the border unless you can see through mountains. Fortunately for Ashdown, Wesley Clark & numerous KLA members who testified that there were no KLA in their village, giving perjured testimony is not an offense. Refusing to testify when Milosevic was denied the right to conduct his defence was an imprisonable offence but perjury isn't.
Equally let us remember that Mr Ashdown claims to have been unaware of the endemic practice of child sex slavery by members of his administration in Bosnia & Hercegovina in conjunction with his Moslem Nazi friends - so endemic indeed that you could get fired for objecting to it.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER I accept absolutley that all 3 claims by this former Lib Dem leader & MI6 operative (whether he quit the latter before taking up the former is unknown) represent the very highest standard of honesty of Mr Ashdown, & will uphold anything else he says in such terms.