Separation without confrontation

I read today with some horror about the case of an un-named UK Border Agency Immigration Officer who, without anyone noticing, managed to add his wifes name to the UK no-fly list. You can read the full article here: http://bit.ly/elGEVV

The un-named official wanted to achieve separation from his wife so to avoid the confrontation, he added his wife's name to the list of potential terrorists and other problem people the Border Agency stop from boarding any UK bound flights. While this may seem a novel way of achieving his aim, it throws up an alarming fact - his addition of his wife's name to the list only came to light when, applying for a promotion he was subjected to a new security check, and it was found that he was married to someone on the no-fly list. There seems to be no oversight/audit proceedure for any amendments made to this list.

What really scares me is this - if you can add to the list, surely you can delete names too. There needs to be an urgent review of UK Border Agency procedures.

Dan Evans and Phone Hacking

I can't believe in this day and age, a journalist is trying to get away with what Dan Evans has said about his actions in the phone hacking debacle.  His excuse is that while he made a legitimate phone call, the buttons on his phone stuck and he accidentally accessed the voicemail account of the person he was calling.

For someone who earns their living from creative writing, this is, apart from anything else, just plain lazy.  Surely he could have come up with something better, like "while I was making a legitimate call, my budgie flew over and pecked random numbers on my phone's keypad".  While still incredible, this would at least have been so random that it could almost have been believed.

Oh, and by the way, if anyone did believe him, i've got a lovely tower for sale in Paris.

Gordon Wilson

Science Under Attack 25th Jan

After last night's airing of Horizon - Science Under Attack, I find some of the comment on the program unfathomable. Dr Michael Brooks, quoted by many says "Scientists (well, white haired, white male scientists) wring hands over public engagement. Does Brooks expect us to believe that a younger, female, non-white scientist would hold a differing point of view?
Sir Paul Nurse presented his arguement well, and illustrated points in a manner easy for all to understand. This though, is where I feel the problem lies. Nurse, in a slightly condacending way I felt, referred often to "the public". James Delingpole, the butt of many online comments yesterday, almost got to the root when he commented "I don't have time to read peer-reviewed literature."

What he should have said is that he has neither the scientific knowledge neccessary to disseminate these documents, nor the finances required to access them. This is where the problem lies. A great many members of the public, myself included, are interested enough in issues such as climate change, to research the subject further. However, peer-reviewed papers are thick with impenitrable scientific terminology and also prohibitably expensive for members of "the public" to access.

With reference to the "Climategate" incident at the heart of the program, from what I could tell, the reliably hysterical British press got hold of the fact that a scientific body had mis-labeled a graph.

Big deal.

Gordon Wilson