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It was a busy Halloween evening. Between 5.30-7.30 pm, the doorbell rang no less than nine times as we were visited by a total of 31 local children. Fortunately Vee had bought lots of miniature chocolate bars and filled up a plastic bucket with them, so everyone went away with two items each. Here are some of the scarier visitors:
When I was a kid (which admittedly was some five decades ago), here in Britain (at the time I lived in Manchester), this time of year meant Bonfire Night: collecting material for a bonfire, building a guy, collecting money for fireworks and then - on the night itself - the bonfire, the fireworks, toffee apples and parkin cake.
By the time my son was a kid (some three decades ago), Bonfire Night was already being challenged by the celebration of the more American festival of Halloween which I guess really took off in Britain with the success of the film "ET". In those days, we had abandoned the idea of a bonfire, but I collected money from the neighbours with children, bought a special set of fireworks, and then set them off at a street gathering in circumstances which I hoped were safer and more fun than individual household displays.
Now we then lived - and still do - in north-west London which has a large Asian population and the celebration of the Hindu festival of Diwali in late October usually meant at least as many fireworks in the area as Bonfire Night in early November. Meanwhile Halloween has become more and more popular and one can see why - no dangerous bonfires and fireworks, an excuse to dress up and knock on neighbours doors, and lots of treats.
As far as our cat Honey is concerned, late October and early November is one long nightmare in which Diwali, Halloween and Bonfire Night just run into one another as a set of unpredictable loud noises. But Vee and I have bought lots of treats for the local kids and are ready for them ...
Matrix management is very fashionable in the business world - although far from easy to achieve effectively. But the concept seems to be growing in popularity in the political world.
Take, for instance, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (snappy title that) which I deal with most because of my involvement in consumer affairs (notice that the Departmental title does not mention the consumer).
Four of the five junior ministers in BERR exercise their responsibilities jointly with another Government Department - see details here.
Barack Obama (playing himself) pals around with Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) to discuss For me, the best entertainment television ever produced was "The West Wing". I watched every episode of every one of the seven series as they were first broadcast; then I rewatched every episode of every one of the first five series on DVD; and the DVDs of series six & seven are on my Christmas list.
So, like many other "West Wing" fans I could not fail to notice the similarities between the real life Barack Obama and the fictional Matt Santos - except that we now know that the Santos character was modelled on Obama in a case of art imitating life before seemingly life imitates art.
As it looks ever likely that Obama will win the presidency, more and more commentators are picking up on the Obama/Santos comparison including stories this week on both sides of the Atlantic - such as this piece in the "Guardian" and this item in the "New York Times".
Of course, the pre-election comparison is between Obama and the Santos character, but post-election the better comparison might well be between Obama and the Jed Bartlet character (played by Martin Sheen). After all, both are very well-educated, both are academics, both are liberal, both are immensely fluent, both are calm and considered - just what you want in a US President.
The traffic figures for my web site (which embraces my two blogs NightHawk & CommsWatch) follows a couple of cyclical patterns.
On a weekly basis, traffic usually peaks on a Tuesday (when people have got on top of the new week's e-mails?), slowly falls down to Saturday, and starts rising again on the Sunday (when I send out my "Thought For The Week"). On an annual basis, traffic grows each month until June, falls back in the summer months when people go on holiday, and starts to climb again in September.
So this week I am back where I was in April when I blogged that traffic was up to 6,000 visits a day. Thank you so much for your interest and support. Please spread the word.
You can watch the groundbreaking 30-minute commercial from Barack Obama in four parts here:
"The Living Planet report calculates that humans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species. As a result, we are running up an ecological debt of $4tr (£2.5tr) to $4.5tr every year - double the estimated losses made by the world's financial institutions as a result of the credit crisis."Full "Guardian" story here and full text of the WWF's "Living Planet Report 2008" here.
I would - but apparently one in five voters in Britain and one in two voters in the United States would not.
"In the US survey, the most electoral objectionable group was atheists, with 53% of Americans saying they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified Presidential candidate who was an atheist. One would expect that figure to be much lower in the UK, but actually it is still surprisingly high at 20%. One might not have guessed it, but not believing in God would appear to be almost as much of an electoral handicap for a potential leader in the UK as being Muslim or gay."See full story here.
Here in London, it snows rarely. Indeed we can go a whole winter without snow.
But tonight it's snowing here. I can't remember when it last snowed in London in October.
Footnote (29/10/08): I've lived in London since 1971 and never seen snow here in October. Today's media advised us that this has been the first October snow in the capital since 1934.
At the beginning of the summer, I blogged about a new web site created by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to offer advice to young adults on financial matters. It's called simply What About Money (WAM).
Nearly half (47%) of UK youngsters find financial language confusing and over a third (36%) are unsure of where to turn for financial advice. Considering the current economic climate, never has there been a better time to encourage young adults to be in control of their finances – 84% of the 16-24 year olds that WAM talked to felt it was important to be informed about money matters.
In a new development, the FSA is now taking What About Money to the road visiting young people at universities and on high streets across the country, starting with the Bluewater Shopping Centre, bringing the young people of Kent free and impartial information to help them make the right choices about their money. The only site of its kind for this age group, it brings together a selection of useful links and specific articles about money for young people and presents it in a clear and easy to read way.
More regulators should be this active in providing information and advice to consumers - especially vulnerable consumers - in ways which are accessible and friendly.
Seventy years ago today, Czechoslovakia - now the Czech Republic and Slovakia - declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since my wife is half-Czech, I have a special interest in Czech history.
That's why I've read several books on Czech history - reviewed here - and Czech historical figures - reviewed here.
You've all heard of Big Ben - although most people think it is the clock tower on the Houses of Parliament in London when, in fact, it is the name of the bell at the top of the tower.
But have you heard of Big Ben's younger brother Little Ben? Think I'm making this up? No - I met a colleague there today (I find it a distinctive meeting point).
You can see a picture and location here.
A week tomorrow, Americans go to the polls for a Presidential election - plus all the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate (including Joe Biden's seat!) - in what seems to have been the longest and has certainly been the most exciting race that I can remember. Between now and 4 November, every opinion poll will be seized upon and analysed. It is likely that the national polls will show some fluctuation and overall some narrowing of Obama's lead over McCain, but we shouldn't pay too much attention to these polls. Why?
First, because these polls relate to how those who say they are likely to vote say how they are likely to vote - which is not the same as actually going to the polls and and actually voting for the candidate in question. More than in previous elections, there has been a record number of new registrations (especially by Democrats) and there is likely to be a record turnout (especially by young and black voters). Obama - the former community organiser - has a formidable organisation on the ground and this should make a crucial difference that might even mean his position is understated in the national polls.
Second, because the President is not chosen by a national vote of the people but by an Electoral College of the states. Each state is represented on the basis of a combination of the number of members in the Senate (two for each state regardless of size) and the number of members in the House of Representatives (roughly proportional to population). The states with the largest number of votes are California (55), Texas (34) and New York (31). The states with the smallest number of votes - there are six of them - have only three votes. The District of Columbia, which has no voting representation in Congress, has three electoral votes. In effect, therefore, the Presidential election is not one election but 51.
The total Electoral College vote is 538. This means that, to become President, a candidate has to win at least 270 electoral votes. The voting system awards the Electoral College votes from each state to delegates committed to vote for a certain candidate in a "winner take all" system, with the exception of Nebraska and Maine (which award their Electoral College votes according to Congressional Districts rather than for the state as a whole).
In practice, most states are firmly Democrat - for instance, California and New York - or firmly Republican - for instance, Texas and Tennessee. Therefore, candidates concentrate their appearances and resources on the so-called "battleground states", those that might go to either party. The three largest battleground or swing states are Florida (27 votes), Pennsylvannia (21) and Ohio (20).
Now Obama is doing very well in all the battleground states and even encroaching into states that usually are reliable Republican causes. Check out this allocation of states to the candidates by CNN based on all the polls and other political intelligence. Now, if CNN is right, McCain could win all the states said to be safe for him, all the states said to be leaning to him and all the states said to be a toss-up and he would still lose the election.
So I might be influenced by my long-term enthusiasm for Obama and I might look silly after the election, but I reckon that Obama could win the national vote by around 5-7% and win the Electoral College by 60-70 votes.
"Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug. Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge."This is how an article in the current issue of "Wired" magazine opens. It's led to quite a discussion.
The suggestion in the article is that blogs are being replaced by the likes of Twitter. I did try Twitter when it first became popular but it wasn't for me. I need more words to express my thoughts and ideas and I want a larger audience that I would have with Twitter.
The fact that you - and so many others - visit NightHawk so often is proof enough for me that I'm doing something worthwhile as well as enjoyable.
It isn't over yet- and every vote will count. Even mine?
Footnote: The video was sent to me by a friend - from Sweden!
The current United States Presidential election campaign has understandably created great interest all around the world but American politics is not always easy to understand. Even how the Americans actually choose their President is so different from anything in any other country.
Therefore, in recent weeks, I've had a lot of visits to my web page on the American political system. I've recently revised the essay and added some more information on the method of election of the President so, with the actual election fast approaching (4 November), you might want to check it out here.
This ditty from Australian Tim Minchin certainly captures my approach to the world:
The tiny northern Pacific nation of Palau - which only became independent of United States administration in 1994 - consists of more than 200 volcanic and coral islands, many of them surrounded by a single barrier reef, and its tropical waters are home to an abundance of marine life, making the pace a paradise for divers.
The population of just 20,000 relies on financial aid from the USA, provided under a Compact of Free Association which gives the US responsibility for Palau's defence and the right to maintain military bases there. Direct aid is set to end in 2009.
Tourism is low key, though growing in economic importance. Many visitors come from Taiwan, with which Palau has diplomatic ties. Taiwanese aid boosts the economy.
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a small country with few natural resources, but it has played a pivotal role in the struggle for power in the Middle East. Jordan's significance results partly from its strategic location at the crossroads of what most Christians, Jews and Muslims call the Holy Land. It is one of two Arab nations to have made peace with Israel and is a key ally of the United States.
The desert kingdom emerged out of the post-World War I division of the Middle East by Britain and France. The population at that time was made up largely of bedouin tribesmen, who were followers of King Hussein's grandfather, Abdullah - himself originally from Arabia. Today, these families - known as East Bank Jordanians - are outnumbered by the descendants of Palestinian refugees from Israel and the West Bank. The total population now is 6 million.
Unlike many of the states in the region, Jordan has no oil of its own. Its resources are limited to phosphates and agricultural produce. The economy depends largely on services, tourism and foreign aid, for which the US is the main provider. Jordan prides itself on its health service, one of the best in the region.
Last year, I visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In my account of the holiday, I wrote:
"There has been a great deal of reconstruction and investment is slowly coming in from abroad, but there is still unemployment of around one-third and the divisions are greater than ever: this small country with half the population of London has no less than three presidents (Bosniak, Croat and Serb); there is much, much less integration of communities than before the war; children are being taught three different histories in their respective schools; and there are even three different mobile systems used by the three ethnic communities. As one very knowledgeable observer of the political scene put it to us on our visit: 'The bottom line is that the situation is a mess - and it's getting worse'".Today, in this article, Paddy Ashdown (the international community's high representative and EU special representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006) and Richard Holbrooke (the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement) issue this warning:
"Almost exactly 13 years ago, American leadership brought an end to Bosnia's three-and-a-half-year war through the Dayton peace agreement. Today the country is in real danger of collapse. As in 1995, resolve and transatlantic unity are needed if we are not to sleepwalk into another crisis."They propose:
"Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, should initiate an independent study tasked to produce a new transatlantic policy, backed by Washington's full engagement and strong EU conditionality, which can lead to deeper and broader international involvement in Bosnia. A collapse of the Dayton peace agreement would be an unnecessary and unwanted additional problem for the new White House administration."
A friend of mine in the United States - a supporter of Barack Obama - has drawn my attention to this video clip of a frank discussion of the race issue in the presidential election from trade union leader Richard Trumka :
The Vatican was created by the Lateran Treaty of 1929. It is the smallest independent state in the world - a mere 0.44 sq km (0.17 sq mile) - and the residence of the spiritual leadership of the Roman Catholic church. Its territory is completely surrounded by the Italian capital Rome, while priests and nuns of many nationalities make up much of the resident population of around 900. The official language of the tiny state is Latin.
The Vatican has been headed by the German Pope Benedict XVI since Pope John Paul II died in 2005, after a 26-year pontificate.
“Energy companies all put their prices up arguing that it was down to rising costs of oil and gas, but now that is reversed, we are seeing delay, blather and procrastination. We believe that consumer prices need to come down with no ifs and buts over the coming weeks. When companies all put prices up at the same time, there were suspicions of a lack of competition. Now, they are all delaying together.”This is a quote from Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of Consumer Focus (where I am a Board member), in a piece in today's "Daily Telegraph".
As well as an overall reduction in energy prices, we need to see changes in the tariff structure:
Zambia is landlocked and sparsely populated by more than 70 ethnic groups, many of them Bantu-speaking, with a total population of 12 million. When it gained its independence from Britain in 1964, the country switched from colonial government into an era of one-party rule lasting 27 years. A multi-party system emerged in the early 1990s. The late president Levy Mwanawasa, who served from 2001-2008, won respect for his anti-corruption drive and sound economic management. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Western donors have rewarded this by cutting Zambia's foreign debt.
In the late 1960s, Zambia was the third largest copper miner, after the USA and the Soviet Union. World copper prices collapsed in 1975 with devastating effects on the economy. However, more recently, improved copper prices and investment in mining have improved prospects for export earnings. The World Bank has urged Zambia to develop other sources of revenue including tourism and agriculture. The country has some spectacular scenery, including the Victoria Falls which it shares with neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Please watch this clip of Michele Bachmann, a member of the US Congress from Minnesota, being interviewed on "Hardball", a leading American talk show:
Then read this article by Michael Tomasky, editor of "Guardian America".
McCarthy may be dead - but clearly McCarthyism is alive and kicking. When a black man is elected President of the United States in two weeks, I hope that McCarthy spins in his grave and that Bachmann has lost her seat in the Congress.
It's been almost two months since I've run a week of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World - a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 145 entries here.
Honduras is one of the least developed and least secure countries in Central America. Military rule, corruption, a huge wealth gap, crime and natural disasters have devastated the nation of 7.5 million.
Endemic poverty, chronic unemployment and the prospects offered by drug trafficking have contributed to a virulent crime wave conducted mainly by youth gangs known as "maras". The "maras" are said to have tens of thousands of members and use threats and violence to control poorer districts in towns and cities. Meanwhile, police officers have been implicated in high-profile crimes, and the police are thought to have been involved in the murders by death squads of youths and street children.
Until the mid-1980s Honduras was dominated by the military, which enthusiastically supported US efforts to stem revolutionary movements in the region. Since then, civilian leaders have sought to curb the power of the military - with varying degrees of success. Some army officers have been charged with human rights abuses, but many have still to be prosecuted for violations committed in the 1980s.
This evening, Vee and I - together with our American Jewish friend Eric - went to see a show at London's Hammersmith Apollo by the American Jewish comedienne Sarah Silverman. The British - and here I include myself - have really only just discovered Silverman.
It probably started with her video called "The Great Schlep" about the US presidential race. Last weekend, she was the subject of a colour supplement profile and this weekend she was on the "Friday Night With Jonathan Ross" show (where strangely there was a lack of connection between the two).
Now the tickets for the event gave no start time but stated that doors would open at 6.30 pm. I've been to the Apollo before and guessed that the event would not in fact start until 7.30 pm so we rolled up about 7 pm. However, it was 7.45 pm before the audience was allowed to take its seats and around 8.30 pm before the event started.
I think that there was supposed to be a support act from an American comedian but apparently he was ill and we just had a very short video link with him. Then there was a video advertising season two of a Silverman comedy programme in the States that was unintelligible to anyone - virtually all the audience, I guess - who has not seen the first season.
At last, around 8.40 pm, Sarah Silverman herself appeared. Her material - scatological monologues broken up with little songs - was always politically incorrect and totally outrageous but only occasionally really funny and the unevenness of the performance was oddly amateurish.
Then, about 9.30 pm, it was suddenly and surprisingly over. There had been slow hand-clapping while we waited for the event to start and now there was more slow hand-clapping as the audience virtually demanded more.
Eventually Silverman reappeared but astonishingly insisted: "Go home. I've got nothing more". She was pressed by the audience to come up with something and she struggled to find a joke or two and even faltered badly with one of her own old songs. Eventually she resorted to inviting the audience to field her with some questions. This might have worked with a much smaller audience and a performer with more depth, but she just couldn't hack it. One woman screamed out: "You're over-hyped, Sarah!". Sadly this was true.
Our tickets were £42 each with a handling charge of £5.75 each. That meant that we paid more than a pound a minute for a show that was not even that funny. I think it will be a while before Silverman dares to take to a British stage again.
But, heh, she's cute - and she supports Barack Obama.
Footnote 1 (20/10/08): A review in today's "Times" - and the comments from others at the show - confirms everything I've written as you can see here.
Footnote 2 (21/10/08): A review in today's "Guardian" is not much kinder to Silverman and concludes "a trader in racial insensitivity narrowly escapes a lynching".
Footnote 3 (26/10/08): Today's "Observer" carries a broadly supportive review.
Oh, Sarah - come back with more material and a more polished performance.
At the moment, I'm reading a book by the American academic Jonathan Zittrain entitled "The Future Of The Internet - And How To Stop It". Today I reached page 110 which contains this statement:
" Mobile phones can be reprogrammed at a distance , allowing their microphones to be secretly turned on even when the phone is powered down."The nearest Zittrain gives to a source is a footnote which refers to this article by Brian Wheeler on the BBC web site in 2004. In fact, the relevant comment here is that:
"Mobiles communicate with their base station on a frequency separate from the one used for talking. If you have details of the frequencies and encryption codes being used you can listen in to what is being said in the immediate vicinity of any phone in the network. "This would suggest that a mobile does not even need to be "reprogrammed from a distance".
Is Zittrain correct? Is Wheeler right? Is there any evidence of such surveillance techniques being used?
"Obama's performance in the South could mark a new phase in American politics. The South has been the modern Republican party's spiritual home. The social conservative revolution was born here. It is the land of the Bible Belt and social values. Yet the Republican party is facing a serious challenge here for the first time since Bill Clinton.And Obama is no southern white conservative governor like Clinton. He is a liberal black senator from Chicago. If he wins even three of the traditionally Republican southern states, it might be heralded as the start of something almost revolutionary."
If this article is correct, the United States may be on the verge of something like a second revolution. One hardly dares to hope ...
In the mid 1970s, I served as a Special Adviser in the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson and Jim Callahgan. I remember that in 1975 inflation in the UK reached an annual rate of 25%. It was suggested by the media at the time that no modern nation state could survive such a rate of inflation for very long and it was rapidly reduced by a tough incomes policy.
Yet what has been happening in Zimbabwe in recent years defies comprehension. A friend of mine was on holiday in Zambia this summer and bought this Zimbabwean 100 billion dollar note.
At the time (end of July 2008), it was worth around 40 pence.
The latest news suggested that inflation in Zimbabwe has now risen to 231 million %. Meanwhile the power-sharing agreement concluded in September between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai has still not been implemented.
I have no idea how any economy can function with such an inflation rate or how the people of Zimbabwe are surviving. This story tries to give a sense of what life is like in such appalling circumstances
In the (unlikely) event that Barack Obama does not become President of the United States, he could become a comedian:
Apparently new research suggests that, for middle-aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power. A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulated centres in the brain that controlled decision-making and complex reasoning. More information here.
So looking through my web site would actually be good for you!
There are lots of candidates for blame over the crisis facing the world's financial markets: the bankers, the speculators, the regulators, the politicians, or all of us for racking up debt and being so greedy.
But there's another possible culprit: computer software. Apparently calculating whether to buy or sell shares - and especially derivatives - is too complicated and time-sensitive that humans cannot do it and software based on complicated algorithms has been doing it for us. So it's the machines that provoked the crisis.
You can read a discussion of this theory here.
This evening, I spent one and a half hours watching a recording of the third and last debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. This was the liveliest debate of the three because it was up close and personal. McCain kept referring to some character called Joe the Plumber but Obama was once again the more assured and convincing. I'm not the only one who thought Obama won - in the first poll, 58% made him the winner compared to 31% for McCain.
This is a fun page with all sorts of little delights for you to discover as you move and click your cursor.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight in this country - a distance of just 1,390 feet - which was actually made by an American and you can find some information here.
Thanks to my father, who trained as a fighter pilot with the RAF, I have a lifelong enthusiasm for aviation which is reflected in five sections on my web site here.
Let's forget for the moment that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, during his decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer, presided over the deregulation of the financial markets that has now cost us all so dear.
In the last couple of weeks, he and the current Chancellor Alistair Darling have put together an impressive rescue package that exhibits both boldness and pragmatism. The key elements are now being replicated throughout Europe and the United States.
Brown and Darling have worked extremely hard and shown coolness and decisiveness. But I know, from my four years in two Whitehall Departments as a Special Adviser, that this package could not have been put together and implemented without the expertise and skill of many officials who so far are publicly unsung.
In the next few weeks, we may learn the names of some of them. We owe them our appreciation and gratitude.
"Thanks particularly to the month-long financial crisis, Republicans are in extremely poor shape with the election three weeks away. This means the worst case scenario is now a distinct possibility: a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic Senate with a filibuster-proof majority, and a Democratic House with a bolstered majority."Sounds great to me - but the conservatives in the United States are now running scared as revealed by this article.
There's an article in today's "Education Guardian" about why people believe in alien abduction based on the work of psychology professor Chris French whom I have heard speak [see posting here]. The piece includes figures from an opinion poll on the beliefs of a representative sample of 1,000 British adults (the figures in square brackets indicate those reporting direct personal experience of the phenomenon in question):
• 64% believe that some people have powers that cannot be explained by science [16%]
• 63% believe in God [14%]
• 52% believe in life after death [11%]
• 49% believe in ghosts [13%]
• 49% believe in precognitive dreams [19%]
• 49% believe in heaven (only 28% believe in hell) [2%, 2%]
• 47% believe in thought reading [14%]
• 41% believe in communication with the dead [9%]
• 34% believe in psychokinesis [4%]
• 26% believe in angels [ 3%]
• 25% believe in reincarnation [-]
Am I weird or something because I don't believe in any of these things. Why? Because there is no convincing evidence to support any of them. Does evidence matter? I think it does as I explain in this short essay.
So why do people believe in alien abduction? The "Guardian" article offers some possible answers. More generally why do people believe weird things? Michael Shermer has actually written a whole book on the subject which I have reviewed here.
It is rare to see such an open discussion of the Prime Minister's vision problems as we find in this piece.
More openness on this issue may enable the electorate and the media to take a fairer view of Brown's demeanor and manner as well as encourage understanding of the large number of people in this country who have poor sight.
First, the good news - on Sunday, I reported a water leak in my main road to the local water company and today work began on stopping the leak.
Now the bad news - this is the fourth time that I've reported a leak in this location and each time the problem is sorted for a few months and then the leak reappears.
There's a section on my web site which provides advice on How To Save Water and the last piece of advice concerns burst pipes, but hopefully you won't have to phone your water company as often as I do.
I have blogged before on the subject of homeopathy here. On that occasion, I had two comments: one opponent and one supporter.
I return to the subject this week because I have been contacted by e-mail from someone with whom I was at university but with whom I have not been in contact for the intervening four decades (he found me via my web site). He is now a Registered Homeopath and wanted to challenge my opposition to homeopathy as expressed in one of the essays on my web site.
We have exchanged e-mails setting out our respective views and I thought that I would share an edited version of this exchange with you so that you can express a view.
Homeopathist
In the early 90's I saw an advert for Homeopathy evening classes - so my wife and I decided we should attend and learn what was all about. Well fairly soon a knee problem that had bothered Celia was cured quickly and fast with one pill! My chronic headaches of some 30 years went away and so on.
Having seen the EVIDENCE for my self I then went and studied the subject at professional level in one of the London colleges and I am now a licensed and registered Homeopath.
You say that "I believe in reason and I believe in evidence". If you study homeopathy you soon find that it is all based on EVIDENCE and REASON. What other evidence does one require when some who is sick is cured literally before your eyes? The Materia Medica - properties of materials - used in Homeopathy is all based on the experience of volunteers and patients.
The principle of homeopathy is based on the trial of substances which having produced a set of symptoms in volunteers, cured a similar set of symptoms in the sick. Some many years afterwards it was only perhaps by chance that it was discovered that when you dilute the substance it still continues to work - but reduces the unwanted effects. How this happens we still do not know exactly. But just because we cannot explain something, it does not mean that the effect is not there, when we see it ourselves.
Did Radio waves not exist before Marconi discovered them? Do we know how all things work? When we think we know the theory of something, how long does it take before that theory is replaced by another? Have you had any personal experience of Homeopathy? Or was the comments that included homeopathy purely based on personal
thought and reason?
Me
Of course, I accept that homeopathy 'works' in the sense that people feel better, BUT I question whether:
1) It works better than a placebo
2) It works differently than a placebo.
All the evidence is that the answer to both questions is 'No' See this large-scale examination of 110 trials for instance.
Homeopathist
1- Almost anything can act as a placebo - the more complicated the greater the effect! However, there are two groups that you cannot fool with placebo:
A- Infants
B- Animals
And Homoeopathy works on both.
In fact BBC 2's QED Prog Circa 1991-2 ran a programme on it showing how a herd of dairy cows with mastitis was cured with one dose of a homoeopathic remedy! In fact so far as I was concerned it was QED for Homeopathy.
2- The article in the Lancet was discredited as it was proved to be extremely biased and unsubstantiated. The Society of Homeopaths replied to the Lancet article - please see here.
Me
Neither infants or animals are in a position to give objective information to researchers, so the results of tests on infants and animals are interpreted by people who believe in the efficacy of homeopathy so that they are simply influenced by the placebo effect again.
Show me a large-scale double blind experiment that has demonstrated that homeopathy has a greater benefit than a placebo.
Homeopathist
OK I give you the QED's work. You may still be able to get a copy from BBC 2.
A large dairy herd was divided in two. Each had half of segregated field and own trough. In each a small vial of liquid was poured - one was marked A, the other B. The code as to which was the remedy and which was distilled water was in a sealed envelope and was give to the producer for safe keeping. After some weeks (6?) the QED team came back and asked the farmer of the result. One field has some 19 cases of mastitis and the other only 1. When they opened the envelope, the first field had had distilled water and the other with only one incidence had received the homeopathic remedy.
So in fairness, please explain how one could deduct that the herd with one case of mastitis was due to the effect of placebo. Could the cows understand what was happening? And this is not a unique case.
I've now managed to watch the whole of the second of the Presidential election campaign debates between Barack Obama and John McCain. This time the format was different - what the Americans call a town hall meeting with a small audience and the contestants walking around
McCain was better than last time and opened strong with a new initiative on the economic crisis, but overall again Obama was the more fluent and persuasive and altogether more credible. Given that McCain is behind, the debate was a clear victory for the Democratic cause.
The moderator struggled to get the candidates to stick to the time limits and the format that the candidates had previously agreed. Maybe it would have been better if the debate had no rules which would have echoed that wonderful episode in the last series of "The West Wing".
At a meeting of the Board of Consumer Focus this week, I made a contribution which mentioned the black swan theory popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book "The Black Swan".
You can find a brief explanation of the black swan theory here and you can find an article on the concept in the context of financial markets here.
The article concludes:
"Currently, there are clear global risk factors: rising interest rates, the renewed threat of inflation, the slowing US economy, geopolitical instability. And yet global stock markets glide serenely higher. Clearly, investors believe that markets will ride out any short-term problems and believe they have factored in all the risks. But Black Swan thinking tells us to expect the unexpected."
This article was published on 10 May 2007.
You've probably never heard of them and neither have most Americans, but in Latin America - and especially Cuba, their case is infamous.
They are five Cubans who were arrested in 1998 and tried in 2001 in Miami. René González, Geraldo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino and Fernando González, were convicted and sentenced to terms varying from 15 years (René González) to double life plus 15 years (Hernández).
The US authorities accused them of terrorism; they claim that they infiltrated extremist groups in the States who were themselves planning terrorist acts in Cuba.
With the help of a legal team headed by the veteran American civil rights lawyer Leonard Weinglass, they appealed and in 2005 won the right to a retrial outside Florida. But the prosecution appealed, the retrial was stalled, and the case is now due to go to the US Supreme Court in December.
I first came across the Five when I was on holiday in Cuba this Spring - everywhere there are billboards highlighting the case as you can see from my account of the trip. This month, the wives of two of the men - neither of whom has been able to see her husband since his imprisonment - are in Britain to publicise the case which has led to this this article.
Trade unions in more than 100 countries, from Fiji across the globe to Alaska, are mobilising today to demand change in the world economy, as the financial crisis threatens the livelihoods of millions upon millions of people worldwide. The campaign is called Work Day For Decent Work.
“Working people have had enough of policies which have delivered vast wealth to a tiny few who have profited from lax or non-existent regulation of financial markets, while those who actually produce the goods and services of the real economy have seen their wages stagnate or fall. The ITUC’s Founding Congress in 2006 launched the call for this world day of action, to demand a fundamental transformation of globalisation, ending the policies of free market neo-liberalism which have brought us to the very edge of a catastrophic global recession. The time for that change is now”, said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.
Something you should know about John McCain here.
Something you should know about Sarah Palin here.
When the Communication Workers Union was created through a merger in 1995, I was asked by the Joint General Secretaries to become the Head of the Research Department for the new union and fulfilled that role for the next seven years before I took early retirement. My two bosses were Alan Johnson and Tony Young, both immensely able and personable individuals with whom I loved working.
In fact, in 1997, Alan became a Member of Parliament and is now the Secretary of State for Health. Four years ago, Tony became a member of the House of Lords and I was pleased to attend his introduction which I blogged about here.
Now, over the weekend, the Prime Minister has been completing his Ministerial reshuffle and I'm delighted to learn that Tony has been appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills as explained here. Tony has been a good personal friend for 30 years and I know that he will serve the Government and us well.
The last year has seen a substantial programme of post office closures - some 2,500 nationally - in order to make the network more sustainable in the face of many fewer customer visits and rapidly rising financial losses. As a member of the Council of Postwatch - the watchdog for postal customers which merged last week into Consumer Focus - I had to play a role in scrutinising this progamme, especially as it affected London, and arguing for modifications and changes.
But the post office network - even with the closure of one in five outlets - is far from safe and the earliest threat is also the largest: the award of a Government contract for the successor to the Post Office Card Account (POCA) which enables pensioners and other benefit claimants to obtain cash and other services.
Towards the end of an article in today's "Daily Telegraph", I am quoted for the first time in my capacity as a member of the Board of Consumer Focus. I point out that, if the new POCA contract is not awarded to the Post Office, there will inevitably be many more closures.
The problem is that the rival bidder to the Post Office is PayPoint which has more outlets - some 20,000. Therefore, if the contract is awarded to PayPoint or shared between the Post Office and PayPoint, it could be a good deal for consumers in the short term but will probably lead to more post office closures in the medium term.
Let's see what the Government announces ...
I've just had an e-mail from someone in New Zealand who grows and sells delphiniums. For those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere and encountering the cold and wet of Autumn, his web site has some enjoyable photographs.
"A 30-year experiment has come to an end. The world of go-getting investment banks has gone forever. The danger is that we go from feast to famine; debt remains a vital element in any economy, and if we too suddenly try to live without it we will crush ourselves economically.What we are witnessing is a system failure that requires a systemic response – the creation of a new system that sponsors a fairer, more productive capitalism in its place, while maintaining high flows of credit and debt.
This is a terrifying moment; but it is also our generation's once- in-a-lifetime chance to change British capitalism. Brown has an awesome responsibility to his party and his country. I hope he rises to the challenge."
These are the final words in a thoughtful article by Will Hutton in a special 12-page "Observer" newspaper supplement on "The 2008 Crash".
Should Americans vote?
I confess that I'm an inveterate - possibly even compulsive - 'to do list' person. I think that it all started with my university studies when I kept lists to ensure that I completed all my projects on time and had a good revision timetable for exams.
These days, I still do my daily 'to do' list on paper and love ticking off accomplished tasks. Each daily list includes adding a posting to this blog. I reckon that it makes me efficient and ensures that I don't miss deadlines.
However, in addition to the daily list on paper, I have another six electronic lists on my iPhone (things to buy, books to read and so on).
Now, my wife - she's the exact opposite. The only lists she ever makes are shopping lists and she usually forgets them at home.
In the colour supplement of today's "Guardian" newspaper, Oliver Burkeman devotes his column to his list-keeping habit.
What kind of person are you?
I just love politics - never a dull moment. The reshuffle of the Cabinet today makes really interesting news.
The headline appointment is clearly the return of Peter Mandelson. This is as inspired as it is unexpected. It shows that Brown is big enough to put past hurt behind him.
I met Mandelson a couple of times when he was Secretary of State at the DTI (now BERR). He is a really impressive Minister who energises his officials and his four years as an EU Commissioner has only strengthened his business credentials. I just hope that he shows more interest in consumer issues than his predecessor John Hutton.
The second of the four debates between the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates - the only one between the No 2s on the slate - was held at 2 am British time, so we recorded it from CNN and watched it over breakfast this morning. I found it even more riveting than the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, mainly because it was a livelier affair with both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin giving really spirited responses.
Palin exceeded expectations and did really well. She avoided answering questions she didn't like and kept returning to her comfort zone of energy policy, but she had memorised her talking points very effectively and spoke fluently. Biden was the more assured and confident and altogether more authoritative. I reckon that on points he won.
Either way, no candidate made a gaff or gave a truly memorable quote so, as the Americans put it, this debate was no game changer. Since Obama is currently in the lead in the polls, that really means that the contest was a success for him.
Over the next few weeks, Palin (and Biden) will have many less scripted moments when they may yet damage their causes but, for now, it's on to the second debate between Obama and McCain.
Can Americans trust John McCain with their economy?
Check out this set of clips.
Nine months after I joined the Board of the newly created Consumer Focus, the organisation comes into effect today with the merger of Postwatch, Energywatch and the National Consumer Council.
It is the largest and best-funded body in the history of the UK consumer movement with an economy-wide remit. As the credit crunch and the financial chaos hits all consumers, never more have they needed a strong voice. You can check out the organisation's web site here.
Consumer Focus has an impressive Chief Executive Ed Mayo who runs a blog here and I have a distinguished group of colleagues on the Board as you'll see here. I'm really looking forward to working with the staff and getting my teeth into some big issues.