http://www.smokewriting.co.uk Another Fine Edition of Me Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:51:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Bound to be a big tussle over the body, I suspect, mainly to do with getting accusations to stick: was he a teabagger or a closet anti-capitalist? More of a poujadiste I guess, given the contempt shown in his note for the interlocking segments of the power elite. That ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2010/02/19/apocalyptic-nihilism-and-tax-avoidance/ Latest from la gauche décente.Mr Pagès kept up the joke last night, saying: "It has never been firmly established that Botul didn't exist and it cannot thus be ruled out that one day history will prove Bernard-Henri Lévy right."Just like the moral case for the invasion of Iraq. Ba-dum tish.[caption ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2010/02/10/whats-the-french-for-schadenfreude/ Latest on the South Wales Gas Pipeline: National Grid's resubmitted planning application for an above-ground installation in Gloucestershire has been thrown out once again, this time by Tewkesbury council. The initial application was rejected by Forest of Dean, following a tenacious campaign by local campaigners CAPRI, after a planning inquiry ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2010/02/03/national-gridlocked-again/ Report here [PDF]. Food companies are not being open enough about their research into nanotechnology, according to the House of Lords select committee on science and technology - their findings get a lot of attention in the news today, but the report is - perhaps more importantly - also critical ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2010/01/08/house-of-lords-lashes-industry-and-government-over-nanofoods/ Just discovered the book I wrote two years ago with Barbara Adam is now on Google Books. Which is nice, particularly seeing as it's still retailing for over £50 a pop. If that's not enough, then why not comprehensively spoil your Sunday morning by listening to me pontificate about high-level nuclear ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2009/12/17/future-matters-online/ On the subject of the imposition of risk - and matters of consent - check out this post from Justin McKeating over at Greenpeace's Nuclear Reaction blog. The negative impacts of uranium mining - through the impact of tailings and other forms of waste on watercourses, and other forms of ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2009/11/26/our-benefits-your-costs/ Lack of transparency about risk often underlies environmental injustice. Look at any planning issue with an environmental impact, and this becomes apparent - especially where there is a trade-off between some definition of "national interest" and local impact, as with energy infrastructure (wind turbines as much as nuclear power stations). Risk ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2009/11/19/campaigners-tenacity-pays-off/ Assessing chemical hazards is not easy; this interesting post from Richard Denison over at the EDF's Chemicals and Nanomaterials blog points out some reasons why, mainly to do with a distinction (which, as I have noted before, is not unproblematic) between intrinsic hazard and the extrinsic, relational properties of chemicals ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2009/11/12/long-exposure/ Just found this over at Copenhagenize.com, Andre Gorz's devastating little essay on fossil fuel culture [subscription needed], from all the way back in 1973. Mass motoring effects an absolute triumph of bourgeois ideology on the level of daily life. It gives and supports in everyone the illusion that each individual ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2009/11/11/the-car-is-killing-the-car/ Has the IEA been playing down peak oil to keep the markets from going nutzoid? Ex-Agency people are reporting that it has, suggesting that we are closer to the end of cheap oil than governments have been willing to admit. A report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) last ... http://www.smokewriting.co.uk/2009/11/10/passing-the-peak/