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The Sidereal Record Straightener - Archives
Since 2007, Europol has issued an annual report on terrorism in the EU. See https://www.europol.europa.eu/latest_publi... and subsequent years The stats for the EU countries added up: ('Islam'=Islamist; 'Separ'=separatist; 'Left'=left wing and anarchist'; 'Right'=right wing; 'Single'=single-issue; NotSpec=other or not specified) Attacks (attempted and successful):
Islam Separ Left Right Single NotSpec Total
2006 1 424 55 1 - 17 498
2007 4 532 21 1 1 24 583
2008 0 397 28 0 5 11 515
2009 1 237 40 4 2 10 294
2010 3 160 45 0 1 40 249
Arrests:
Islam Separ Left Right Single NotSpec Total
2006 257 226 52 15 - - 706
2007 201 548 48 44 - 0 1044
2008 187 501 58 0 3 4 1009
2009 110 413 29 22 2 11 587
2010 179 349 34 1 0 48 611
(UK arrests not classified, so total higher than parts)
Trial verdicts
Islam Separ Left Right NotSpec Total
2007 198 214 27 1 9 449
2008 190 155 27 2 10 384
2009 268 89 39 1 11 408
2010 201 84 37 4 6 332
Convictions (not classified)
2006 257
2007 221
2008 272
2009 337
2010 241 As you can see, most attacks have been separatist, and the majority of arrests in most years too. In the last 2 years, trial verdicts have been mainly in Islamist cases, but still by no means an overwhelming majority. The number of actual Islamist attacks has been very small. In previous years, there have been a very few high casualty Islamist attacks. Simply, one should not leap to conclusions about terrorist acts.
There are endangered species out there he may have infected, people! He still hasn't denied inappropriate sexual contact with juvenile Hawaiian Hoary Bats. I've not seen a long form certificate of sexual health from any department in Hawaii, have you?
I hope no-one is putting their posts about this in their journals, because that would massively increase the number of hits Google will record permanently about Breitbart's communicable disease (if he is infectious now - I hear antibiotics clear these things up well. He claimed to be disease free a few years ago, after all). Once he's sure that he's finally able to have sex without risking the extinction of several rare species, he's much rather not have to be reminded of this embarrassing phase of his sexual history.
http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/waitingt... The link "Historical Time Series" (.xls file) gives you a spreadsheet of waiting times, going back to 1987 with the number who were waiting more than a given number of weeks. Waiting times used to be a problem; but it became a political problem, so governments (both Tory and Labour) started measuring hospitals on it, and giving them some more money, and the times have come down a lot as a result. So, for instance, in 1987, 826,000 were on an inpatient waiting list, and 207,000 had been on it for more than 12 months. That slowly started getting better around 1989. By the time Labour got in in 1997, the total waiting list was 1,190,000; over 12 months 47,000. By June 2003, the TWL was 993,000, and over 12 months just 220; by April 2006 it seems no-one had a waiting time of more than 9 months, and the total waiting list is now under 600,000. Or you can look at the median and mean waiting times: 1988 21.7 45.3 1993 13.8 19.6 1998 14.8 20.0 2003 11.9 15.6 2008 4.5 5.6 There are similar figures for times between a GP refering someone for an outpatient appointment, and them being seen; Sept 2008 the median wait time was 2.6 weeks, mean 3.2 weeks; in 2004 (1st time the published median and mean), it was 5.2 and 5.9 weeks. At the worst, in Sept 1999, over 512,000 people had been waiting for an outpatient appointment more than 13 weeks; that figure is now just 686.
In 2000, a formula for 'mpg equivalent' for all-electric vehicles was published. http://www.epa.gov/EPA-IMPACT/2000/June/Da... The end result of this is to find the 'petroleum-equivalency factor' (PEF). There are 2 values: PEF = 82,049 Wh/gal (if no petroleum-powered accessories are installed) PEF = 73,844 Wh/gal (if any petroleum-powered accessories are installed) Now, the Volt uses, from a charged battery, 25 kWh per 100 miles. So, 25 kWh/100 miles = 25,000 Wh/100 miles = 250 Wh/mile. So the 'all-electric' mile/gallon figure is either 82,049 / 250 = 328 mpg , or 73,844 / 250 = 295 mpg , depending on if you allow for the accessories or not. They have combined one of those with the 50 mpg the car is said to get when its using power from the gasoline engine, and come up with an overall mpg of 230. Now, there's another calculation you could make: the amount of carbon dioxide produced from 'standard' grid electricity. From http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-reso... , the average non-base load electricity generated in the USA produces 718g of CO2 per kWh. So that's 718g per 4 miles, or 179.5 grammes/mile. Compare that with the car when running at 50 mpg on the gasoline engine: 8810g per (US) gallon of gasoline, ie 50 miles, = 176.2 grammes/mile. So if you just plug it into any old socket and use the 'average' electricity generation mix, you won't actually be producing any less CO2 than if you drive it on the gas engine. You have to use electricity generated with a low carbon method. There is cheaper electricity available at night, when demand is low; if that's an indication that they'd really be throwing it away otherwise, then you might say using that would help save carbon dioxide. I don't know if the electricity really is 'thrown away' then, though.
On the European elections coming up in early June, and the danger of the racist BNP winning a seat
An informative site is UK Polling Report. They have threads for each (UK) European region, and some reasonable comments (ie not just "my party will smash you all!!!" chest-beating). It looks like the most likely place for the BNP to win a seat is North West England (so that's where they've stuck Griffin, of course - the Maximum Leader gets first dibs on a seat). Thread here: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/north-w... Under the d'Hondt system, for a party to win its nth seat, it must have n times the number of votes of a party that hasn't yet won a seat. So, for instance, for a party to win 3 seats, it must get at least 3 times the number of votes that a party that doesn't get a seat got. NW England has 8 seats, and if the votes went: Con 30% (+6 from 2004) Lab 23% (-4) LD 15% (-1) UKIP 8% (-4) BNP 8% (+2) Green 7% (+1) Others 9% split various ways then it's Con 3 seats, Lab 2, LD 1, UKIP 1, BNP 1  To stop Griffin from that position, 2 out of 5 parties must hit their 'targets': Tories: get more than 4 times the BNP vote Labour: get more than 3 times the BNP Lib Dems: get more than 2 times the BNP UKIP and Green: beat the BNP The Greens are calling for tactical voting for them to stop the BNP. Whether that's the really the most likely way to stop them, I can't tell - anyone think my guesses for swings from 2004 are realistic/unrealistic? London looks less likely for the BNP (8 seats again, but the BNP got just 4% there last time); Yorkshire & Humberside is probably the BNP's next target (6 seats, and they got 8% there last time). South East England has 10 seats, but the BNP only got 3% there last time - but if there's a mass defection from UKIP to them, it could happen there too, I suppose (and that might go for East Midlands too, where UKIP got a huge vote last time).
It's the obvious next step.
I propose Diana Ross in place of Paula Abdul (the pun possibilities are just too endless), Joe the Plumber in place of Randy Jackson (both balding and a little on the plump side), and Clive Stafford Smith in place of Simon Cowell (as the token Brit - just get him to pull his belt up a little more, and no-one will tell the difference). I see 'American Idol' now has a fourth judge - just bring her straight over, to pull in the existing fans. I'm sure she has excellent views on judges from the previous program anyway.
Then we get the contestants to rerun old 'Judge Judy' decisions, 'Law and Order' episodes, and dance with a computer-generated baby in a unisex bathroom. This gives a good overall view of the American legal system, I feel.
All we need is a snappy title. "I'll Be the Judge of That!"? "The Supreme Sacrifice" (maybe just for the early auditions, when there are lots of no-hopers for everyone to laugh at and humiliate publicly)? "Court in the Act"? Or "Act in the Court"?
Suggestions on a postcard, please.
On whether the US tax system is more progressive than pther industrialized countries
Yes, those excellent people at the 'Sadly, No!' blog knocked this right wing canard on the head the moment the Tax Foundation came out with it. First comes a real study by a real European research institution, and so far so good: Income inequality and poverty rising in most OECD countries
21/10/2008 - The gap between rich and poor has grown in more than three-quarters of countries over the past two decades, according to a new OECD report.
OECD’s Growing Unequal? finds that the economic growth of recent decades has benefitted the rich more than the poor. In some countries, such as Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway and the United States, the gap also increased between the rich and the middle-class.
Countries with a wide distribution of income tend to have more widespread income poverty. Also, social mobility is lower in countries with high inequality, such as Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, and higher in the Nordic countries where income is distributed more evenly.
Launching the report in Paris, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría warned of the dangers posed by inequality and the need for governments to tackle it. “Growing inequality is divisive. It polarises societies, it divides regions within countries, and it carves up the world between rich and poor. Greater income inequality stifles upward mobility between generations, making it harder for talented and hard-working people to get the rewards they deserve. Ignoring increasing inequality is not an option.” Next, as so often happens, comes a phony report on the real study, cooked up by a wingnut shell organization in order to bamboozle people into thinking that false things are true, and vice versa. Watch and see if you can identify the trick they’re using: News To Obama: The OECD Says The United States Has The Most Progressive Tax System
by Scott A. Hodge
Barack Obama’s admission that his policies would “spread the wealth around” has ignited a nationwide discussion of how progressive the tax system should be and how it should be used to redistribute income among Americans. Obama has been very successful in bolstering the conventional wisdom that the U.S. tax system does not place a significant enough burden on wealthier households and places too much of a burden on the “middle class.”
But a new study on inequality by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris reveals that when it comes to household taxes (income taxes and employee social security contributions) the U.S. “has the most progressive tax system and collects the largest share of taxes from the richest 10% of the population.” As Column 1 in the table below shows, the U.S. tax system is far more progressive—meaning pro-poor—than similar systems in countries most Americans identify with high taxes, such as France and Sweden.
Even after accounting for the fact that the top 10 percent of households in the U.S. have one of the highest shares of market income among OECD nations, our tax system is second only to Ireland in terms of its progressivity for households.
The table also shows that the U.S. collects more household tax revenue from the top 10 percent of households than any other country and extracts the most from that income group relative to their share of the nation’s income.
Of course, these measures do not include the litany of other taxes households pay in each country, such as Value Added Taxes, corporate income taxes and excise taxes, but they do give a good indication that our system places a heavier tax burden on high-income households than other industrialized countries.
The study also shows that… The trick? Woo, it’s an old one. If you leave aside the fact that many countries generate much (or most) of their revenue through devices such as VAT taxes, and look only at American-style income taxes, you’ll notice that upper-income people in the US pay a high amount of the total tax dollars collected. Not a high percentage of their income, but a lot of the total dollars. This is because (choose one of the following): ... http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/13611.html So: the OECD report marks out the USA as one of the most unequal countries, with social immobility as a result. Strange, then, to shout out as if this report has said the USA was doing well compared to other countries. And the kicker is that later bit in the Tax Foundation article, that refers to other taxes like VAT, and cash transfers. It continues: The study also shows that while most countries rely more on cash transfers than taxes to redistribute income, the U.S. stands out as "achieving greater redistribution through the tax system than through cash transfers."<1>
Overall, the study finds that income transfer systems (social insurance, welfare) are "significantly more efficient than tax systems at reducing inequality, as well as more effective..." But: our system places a heavier tax burden on high-income households than other industrialized countries is a lie, really. Because indirect taxes place heavier burdens on middle and low income households than high ones, and looking at the burden before you've taken that into account is disingenuous at best. Let's look at the same report's figures for the Gini coefficients for the G7 countries before taxes, and after taxes and transfers - available here, for the mid-2000s - remember, a high Gini coefficient means more inequality in income: Before: Italy 0.56 Germany 0.51 France 0.48 US 0.46 UK 0.46 OECD average: 0.45 Canada 0.44 Japan 0.44 After: US 0.38 Italy 0.35 UK 0.34 Japan 0.32 Canada 0.32 OECD average: 0.31 Germany 0.30 France 0.28 So, we see, it's only after the tax and transfers system that the US becomes the most unequal country of the seven. Why? Well, there's that VAT/sales tax/other indirect taxes thing; and there's healthcare. Most countries take a large payroll tax, not particularly progressive, to fund healthcare - and so the US 'household tax' system looks more progressive, because that doesn't appear in it (for general healthcare, anyway). But when the 'transfers' are use to allow for the benefit this gives everyone in the countries with a universal healthcare system (and similar benefits people get from their taxes), we see the US becomes the most unequal country. Basically, the US is, in global terms, a libertarian paradise - the government takes relatively little in taxes, and does even less that's useful with it (after all, the US spends far more of its budget on the military than the other G7 countries). The other countries do thing like fund healthcare, and as a net result, are more progressive. If you actually summarize the Tax Foundation article, without the quotes designed for gullible people to take and say "lookie, lookie, the US already has a more progressive tax system!", when they don't understand what the OECD was talking about, it says: Income transfer systems are significantly more efficient than tax systems at reducing inequality, as well as more effective the U.S. achieves greater redistribution through the tax system than through cash transfers ie, the US is Doing It All Wrong.
(in the Marlon Brando sense) that the Republicans bow and scrape to.
When I went to the US in the late 90s, I was listening to radio news, and they had a piece in which they said, on the topic they were discussing, "talk show host Rush Limbaugh said ...", and then they cut to a fool mouthing off, rather incoherently, about whatever it was. So I assumed this was a caller to his program, and I waited to see what this Limbaugh guy, whom I'd never heard of, would say to expand on this, that made it worth reporting his views on a news program.
But there was nothing. That 'caller' was Limbaugh, though he sounded as if he was just an angry man phoning in the first thing that came into his head in a coffee break. Limbaugh was Joe The Plumber, just several years earlier - a certain type of man recognises themselves in him, and thinks he speaks for them. But they're both just windbags, with the confidence to carry on shouting whatever they want to. The Republicans have mistaken that confidence for 'leadership'.
And now the Republicans have crowned him the irreproachable leader of their party. It really does look like the end of that party. The official chairman actually grovels, and talks about his 'leadership'. If the Republicans hadn't been such arseholes in the preceding years, it'd be worrying. But you can't help feeling they deserve this humiliation.
I wonder where the replacement for the party will come from. There's no doubt there will still be a major party to the right of the Democrats, but will the Libertarians grow to become it? Will an explicitly Christian Fundamentalist party appear? Will moderates look to join the Democrats?
The actual message of the text was that everyone can read it, not '55%'. I suppose what this may prove is that "only 55% of people read both the title and the text, and consider if they actually contradict each other". Snopes says the origin of the whole thing seems uncertain, so all of it may just be made up. But I've seen this elsewhere, and have never seen a lot of people saying "I can't understand it!" On edit: following through the Snopes links, it seems there was a bit of research, by a PhD candidate at Nottingham University, which may be where this came from, because he wrote a letter to New Scientist about it: Reibadailty29 May 1999 by Graham Rawlinson, Aldershot, Hampshire You report that reversing 50-millisecond segments of recorded sound does not greatly affect listeners' ability to understand speech (In Brief, 1 May, p 27). This reminds me of my PhD at Nottingham University (1976), which showed that randomising letters in the middle of words had little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. Indeed one rapid reader noticed only four or five errors in an A4 page of muddled text. This is easy to denmtrasote. In a puiltacibon of New Scnieitst you could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael prsooscers at work. The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two letetrs to spot chganes in meniang. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1622... And, after the claim that Cambridge University was involved, someone there did the snooping, and got a comment from Rawlinson: ... My conclusions, and these are open to question of course, were that: Letter features are processed through a route of letter classification/identification. Middle letter identification proceeds largely independently of position. Higher level units seem to be significant only for the beginnings and endings of words. Information from the middle letters may operate via a sampling/probability system (rather than absolute accuracy). That is, you can have sufficient letters, even though in the wrong position, for the brain to 'recognise' the word. http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.d...
"Notably, the man who personally implemented Thatcherite financial market reforms and deregulation during the era of Tony Blair in Britain was Gordon Brown, then Treasury Secretary." That was for 10 years - 1997 to 2007. And then he became PM. A lot of the mess did happen during the past 12 years. To say he spent the 12 years trying to fix the previous 'mess' would be wrong. For instance, here he is in 2005, with a description of what he likes about the financial markets in Britain: Like you I want a Britain that is a leader in the world's fastest growing, most wealth-creating sectors at the cutting edge of global advance – in capital markets and financial services; in science and innovation; in creativity and enterprise; in skills and education. More than ever, as we have discovered, in one of the most challenging years for the global economy, the foundation for growth is economic stability. We know that in a global economy investment flows to the stable economies and away from the volatile. So when I present my Pre-Budget Report on Monday, I will show how Britain has taken long-term decisions on monetary and fiscal policy and moved from being one of the stop-go economies of the world to one of the most stable. Under our monetary and fiscal regime we will maintain low inflation, low public debt and a long-term commitment to strong fiscal discipline. And nothing we do will endanger that position. Upon our foundation of stability, Britain can become the location of choice and the place to do business. Take financial services and capital markets: today Britain exports twice as much in business services as we import and four times as much in financial services. And I want to congratulate businesses here on their drive, global competitiveness and innovation which have made the City of London alongside New York the leading financial centres of the world - London, the world’s largest foreign exchange market, the largest foreign equity market, the largest bond market - London's success born not out of serving a large domestic economy, but on winning the lion’s share of international business. I want us to build on our advantages - your talent for innovation, the critical mass of skills now in London, our openness to the world including our deepening links with China and India, a unique combination of language, time zone and a legal system that makes English law the law of choice for international contracts. And now the determination of the financial services authority to extend their risk-based approach of financial regulation that is both a light touch and a limited touch.All strengths that we wish to develop so that we become the preferred international marketplace not just for European companies but also for growing Chinese, Indian and other companies and the multinational headquarters of choice. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/speech_chex_... So in 2005 he was praising to the skies the 'innovation' in financial markets, that was increasing all the trade in the City of London. That's all those default swaps and debt bundles. And he wanted regulation with a lighter, more limited touch than there was in 2005. And as far as he was concerned. all that was 'wealth-creating'. In prices adjusted for overall inflation, the average UK house price in Q3 1997 was £82,590. 10 years later, that peaked at £191,490 (+132%; 8.8% growth above inflation every year Brown was Chancellor); in the next 32 quarters that has dropped to £174,514 (down 8.9%; that's the latest figure, for Q2 2008, and they've continued dropping after that). In absolute terms, house prices more than tripled in that time. That was a huge bubble. He did nothing about it.
20% income tax + 11% national insurance + working tax credit tapered at 39% = 70%
So, for someone receiving working tax credit, and in work (eg a single adult at the minimum wage, working 40 hours a week), for every £1 extra they earn, they only get 30p. If that's sufficient incentive to work extra for them, then it should be for high earners (1% national insurance above the upper earnings limit, plus 69% income tax).
Or, let's call it 70%, so that the tax system is just about progressive.
See what Bush's regime did about it here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl... Obama wants you to share your vision for America with him, here: http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision Joining the list of civilised nations, from around the world, in signing the French resolution, will cost him absolutely nothing. This should be a small, but symbolic, part of anyone's vision. He should announce his intent now - before the inauguration, as a shot across Warren's bows, to let him know that he's on the losing side, like Bush, whatever he may smugly think at the moment. Ask your representatives in Congress to talk to Obama about this too. None of them should hesitate for a minute, if they're reasonable people, from either party. You can also urge Obama to put the repeal of DOMA and DADT at the top of the agenda, for that matter. But that does involve organising Congress time. All the UN resolution requires is a few minutes' work for the UN ambassador. Nothing else loses any 'priority', for this. Obama needs a symbolic gesture to offset Warren.
After Ayers, Khalidi, Wright, and Rezko, it seems McCain's only tactic for October has been to whine "I don't think we know the real relationship between Obama and <insert caricature villain here>", whatever the truth is , or how many times it's been explained.
So, who's next on the list?
Like you I want a Britain that is a leader in the world's fastest growing, most wealth-creating sectors at the cutting edge of global advance – in capital markets and financial services; in science and innovation; in creativity and enterprise; in skills and education. More than ever, as we have discovered, in one of the most challenging years for the global economy, the foundation for growth is economic stability. We know that in a global economy investment flows to the stable economies and away from the volatile. So when I present my Pre-Budget Report on Monday, I will show how Britain has taken long-term decisions on monetary and fiscal policy and moved from being one of the stop-go economies of the world to one of the most stable. Under our monetary and fiscal regime we will maintain low inflation, low public debt and a long-term commitment to strong fiscal discipline. And nothing we do will endanger that position. Upon our foundation of stability, Britain can become the location of choice and the place to do business. Take financial services and capital markets: today Britain exports twice as much in business services as we import and four times as much in financial services. And I want to congratulate businesses here on their drive, global competitiveness and innovation which have made the City of London alongside New York the leading financial centres of the world - London, the world’s largest foreign exchange market, the largest foreign equity market, the largest bond market - London's success born not out of serving a large domestic economy, but on winning the lion’s share of international business. I want us to build on our advantages - your talent for innovation, the critical mass of skills now in London, our openness to the world including our deepening links with China and India, a unique combination of language, time zone and a legal system that makes English law the law of choice for international contracts. And now the determination of the financial services authority to extend their risk-based approach of financial regulation that is both a light touch and a limited touch. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/1847.htm Oh, silly me, that was from December 2005. Just as well Britain's long term policy had made it one of the most stable economies, then, eh? Got the basic message? Capital markets and financial services are 'wealth-creating', and the innovation in the City of London has been a marvellous thing. All those new ideas about securitisation, and derivatives, are brilliant. Just as long as regulation stays both limited and light, of course. But don't worry, the approach to regulation is 'risk-based', so we can be sure all that innovation isn't risky in any form, can't we?  If you're wondering what happened to the 'low inflation' and 'low public debt': Consumer Prices Index, Dec 2005: 1.9%; Aug 2008: 4.7% Public sector debt, as % of GDP, Dec 2005 - about 35%; Aug 2008, 43.3% (see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.as... )
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