'De-gendered' toilets spark row

'De-gendered' toilets spark row

Personally I am all for the empowerment of gender-free post-hegemonic societal roles. Within the current milieu of the empathy-challenged male oppressor, there is more of a need than ever for the barriers of misogyny, ignorance and sexism to be broken down, and for the complete range of sexual expression to be allowed to flourish in as many places as possible, be that in the White House, or a non-gender enforced university toilet cubicle. As any enlightened observer can see, it is the logic of phallocentric knowledges and the socio-cultural relations and structures that express and justify those knowledges which enable the differential valuation of gender-specific pigeonholes at the levels of patriarchal and sexist discourse.

Can I dig it?

Frankly, digging is the only thing you can do with a baby's first few piles of poo. It's a bizarre set of treacly stuff that goes everywhere when you change the nappy.

And on other random rants, can midwives be taught to say "paediatrician" instead of "baby doctor"? Argggghhhhhh! I know I shouldn't be annoyed by these things, but there you are. In fact, in the classically English way of using circumlocutions to talk about stuff, there were a number of occasions when people really couldn't call a spade a spade. Then again, when someone says "You're doing really well!" you have no yardstick to indicate whether they're jollying you along, or really mean it ...

On that random note, I will return to baby duties. My daughter, I like to think, is a little greenhouse gas producer all on her own, especially since we haven't got round to using the proper nappies yet, and are disposing every time. (The shame ...)

Say Cheese!

I loves Cardiff I does...

Had quite an eventful weekend watching the Blues beat Connacht 58-0 at rugby on Friday. On Saturday I saw the Bluebirds losing 2-1 to Birmingham City, followed by a dinner party chez nous. Sunday saw the permanent move of the Great British Cheese Festival to Cardiff Castle!

That's over 450 different cheeses to sample, plus all the various accoutrements such as real ales, beers, wines, liqueurs, ciders and perries on a glorious sunny day! Naturally I waited till late into the second day to strike - just about the time everyone was flogging off their stuff at knockdown prices.

Best thing of all, was that all of these activities were within easy walking distance, so no need for any unnecessary carbon emissions!

Still doomed...

Hundreds of methane 'plumes' discovered This article was just a couple of days after my original post. It is pretty clear we have irreversibly passed into an era of positive feedbacks that will continue spiralling out of control at ever increasing rates. Where that takes us, we can only begin to imagine, though if we believe James Lovelock,it ain't gonna be pretty...

The question is, what are we going to do about it? Do we sit idly by and let whatever's going to happen engulf us all, or do we try and figure out where the safest place to live and using what means, is likely to be?

I'm thinking of emigrating to somewhere like New Zealand, but that will probably end up getting invaded by the Chinese or someone else when the shit really starts hitting the fan...

McCain can't multitask or delegate

Economics and climate

Yeah Gwil, it is so weird the way people are not more worried. It's as if there was a giant asteroid on collision course with the Earth, and no-one was paying attention. Well, at least it did make the front page of the Indy the other day. But where are the people running around in the street screaming?

Check out the posts I've put on the Institute wiki, particularly the video by the psychologist Daniel Gilbert. http://climatechange.pbwiki.com/ It's quite entertaining to watch anyway.
Gilbert explains the psychology of what's going on, why we're sleep walking to disaster. I'm reading a book at the moment called "Kluge" by another psychologist. It explains how our brains are a kluge. We have so many biases it seems like we're almost completely irrational. I will write more on this. Some people are getting what's going on, like Tom Friedman, with his book "Hot, Flat and Crowded" - he says rightly that we are entering the "Energy-Climate" era, you can't look at energy and environmental and economic issues separately. I believe that people like Friedman are seeing the world as it really is, or at least they have more accurate mental models of the world than most people do. I've not seen anyone do more than hint to the connection between human psychology and the fact that most people have very inaccurate mental models of the world.

Back to economic meltdown. Check out this FT article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/83bf493c-89ba-11dd-8371-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
Warren Buffet is about the most savvy investor in history. He compared the recent market bailout as avoiding an economic "Pearl Harbour". Bear in mind that the bailout hasn't even been agreed by Congress yet, let alone proved to work. Pearl Harbour could still happen. Think about your own financial security. This is the state of our global financial system BEFORE the oil supply starts dropping. What the f is it going to be like when the physical amount of oil starts dropping?

Aargh, we're doomed!

Well if Oliver isn't going to use this title, then I am!

Just read an interesting ('interesting' in a Chinese proverb kind of way) article in the Indy entitled 'The Methane Time Bomb': http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html

So, basically we are now fucked...

The debate now shouldn't be talking about what might happen and how long each thing will take to happen, but more what we can do to 'insulate' (pun obviously intended!) ourselves from when these things do actually happen.

Fallout 3 is due out in the coming weeks, I think I might start by investing in that to get some tips...

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/home/home.php?fbid=YaoS4I2CA0g