OMB

The Economist sums it up more succinctly than I’ve ever managed to:

Most of the [agricultural] subsidies and trade barriers have come at a huge cost. The trillions of dollars spent supporting farmers in rich countries have led to higher taxes, worse food, intensively farmed monocultures, overproduction and world prices that wreck the lives of poor farmers in the emerging markets. And for what? Despite the help, plenty of Western farmers have been beset by poverty. Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land.

Read the full story, here

Nor even Manhattan space. Fillling out my "Family Doctor Registraion" this morning, I see the question: "[Do you] live more than 1 mile in a straight line from the nearest chemist?" Oh Dear. The NHS could do with some kind of information system that stores geographic information.

There’s a lot of trash on TV, and the news on BBC 1 is no exception. Near to top of the heap is BBC Regional news, which seems to strive to achieve mediocrity and still fall short of its own mark. The BBC London news this evening lead with an article about unexploded WWII bombs that litter the Olympic site in East London. The article is one in a long line of attempts by the media to trash the Olympics in London - some more deservedly than others. I personally don’t really care about the Olympics being in London. I probably won’t go and watch any of the games, I don’t own property in the East end of London, my work isn’t really related to the Olympics and the wider economic benefits of the Games seem to to be marginal at the best.

With all the aspects of the London Olympics that can be criticised its no suprise that the chronically unimaginative drudge of the media have resorted to such rampant bad-mouthing. This article gives a slightly more balanced view regarding the issue - but still falls short of the mark. Take the leading paragraph:

Unexploded World War II bombs may be buried under the east London 2012 Olympic Games site, BBC London has learned

BBC News

This is not news. If its taken BBC 1 journalists this long to figure out that there are unexploded bombs in east London, then the Corporation needs to raise its recruitment standards. The truth is that most urban areas in Britain’s industrial cities are littered with unexploded bombs. There were, after all, several years of intense aerial warfare over the skies of Britain. Unexploded bombs rarely explode. When they do, its usually because a piling rig drills into them; its really hard for human action to set off an unexploded bomb. Risk assessments are carried out by construction companies (who stand to loose lots of money if the negligently allow bombs to explode) who employ ex-Armed Forces personnel who work on medium to high-risk sites all the time that there are construction personnel present. This is not an issue that is related to the Olympics in London - it is related to any form of construction in most urban areas in Britain.

I just heard about Geek Tool, a nice little app for Mac OS X that will output a local text file, standard out or a local or remote web page onto your desktop. Its kind of like Conky on acid. So what have I done with the world of possibilities that this app presents and my all too short lunch hour? See for yourself:

Click to see a full screen version

I have a few windows that output some shell commands, then two images that Geek Tool grabs from the web, one of the left from BlairClock, which counts down the days until Blair’s expected leaving date and another from OSM’s image of the week. The saving you from terrorism bit comes next. I grabbed a feed from the Terror Alert website, ran it through a ruby script that outputs to stdout and bingo! Live terrorist information on my desktop. Now all I need is for the guys at Terror Alert to update their feed and I will be safe from the threat of International Terrorism.

(If anyone can suggest why my script won’t read the dates from the feed when it runs on my Mac, but will on Ubuntu, that would really make my day.)

The ever wise Labour government in the UK have recently placed decision making powers surrounding the licensing of pubs in the hands of local councils. This follows last November’s supposed liberalising of licensing hours, that has not lead to a significant increase in the number of pubs that open past 11pm, in London at least. This evening I was enjoying a social pint at the Fitzroy Tavern, near Tottenham Court Road. whilst debating the relative pros and cons of a free market economy.

The Fitzroy Tavern is a very relaxed pub that attracts a mix of students, locals and new media types, who congregate on the wide pavement on warm summer nights. At about 9pm this evening, whilst standing on the pavement of Charlotte Street, I noticed a large police van with at least six police officers parked just down the road from the pub. About 10 minutes later, I went into the bar to order some more drinks. Shockingly, I was told that the pub could not serve anymore drinks as the Police had warned the licensee that there were too many people standing on the street. The pub’s license only covered 40 odd people to be outside of the pub, so in response the police were prepared to shut the place down.
This angered me on numerous levels and when I saw a fully loaded police van edging slowly towards me, I decided to take some action. I stepped into the street and photographed the police van. My actions were met with a very harsh response from the police, who immediately jumped out of their van and surrounded me. Now, surrounded by five armoured police officers, I began to argue my case. Why had they asked me to “step aside”? Could I leave? Were they arresting me? I have noticed before that the police do not like being questioned, and tonight was no exception. Steve’s interjection was met with a harsh, physical rebuttal, which prompted me, once again to ask the police why they were questioning me.

My question was cunningly countered by an officer who asked me if I had been drinking. “Of course I have. I am standing outside a pub”, I replied. The officer then warned me that it was illegal to be drunk on the street; I asked him what qualified as drunkenness, but I received no response. The tete-a-tete continued until I asked the officers if I was being detained, at which point they moved aside and let me return to my pavement space to finish my drink.

The situation raises several issues and is characteristic of an increasing level of surveillance and monitoring that is being inflicted on modern, metropolitan society. Aside from the social and philosophical connotations of living in a society in which the police are freely able to bring about such disruption, there are also a number of issues. I suspect that at 9pm on a Friday there are more pressing issues that warrant police attention within London than a bunch of people standing and drinking on a pavement. A barely feel the need to highlight how ridiculous the situation is. What should come to mind though, is that this kind of behaviour is characteristic of a society in which are fundamental freedoms are benign eroded with every day that passes. The police should street everyone with courtesy and respect. Instead I was immediately threatened and provoked and was only “released” when I asked if I was being arrested. How far into the pit of mutual suspicion and loathing will our society descend before we loose all bearing on the liberties and freedoms that we are supposedly fighting for?