Heroically cautious

It appears that the global World Health Organisation is run by anti-globalisation zealots:

The WHO claims lead continues to be a menace - up to 30% of urban children show high blood levels in some places.

It says the emphasis from now on should be on the precautionary principle, putting safety first.

The WHO says "the vested interests of industry and free trade" have worked against this approach so far.

Supporters of industrialisation and free trade hold their views because they believe that industrialisation and free trade make everybody rich. So, if it is industrialisation and free trade that cause pollution, then presumably the victims of pollution must be rich. But apparently not:

Globally, the WHO says, 15 to 18 million children in developing countries suffer permanent brain damage from lead poisoning. Other threats to children's health include methylmercury, dioxins, furans, PCBs, pesticides, nitrites and nitrates, and benzene.

I wonder if it occurs to them that the poor suffer most from pollution because they have rather different priorities from the rich. Instead of regulating away their means of becoming rich, perhaps if we allowed them to become as rich as possible, as quickly as possible, we shall see them turn their efforts to cleaning up their environment, just like we did when we became rich.

Dr Roberto Bertollini of WHO said: "For too long, policy-makers have retrospectively pleaded; 'If only we had known earlier what we know now.'

"I believe that what we do know now must guide us in our review and approval processes, and should become the basis of a bold new precautionary approach that puts the burden of evidence on safety first."

A bold new precautionary approach? How thrilling.

Read Roger Scruton on the approaching petty tyranny from the WHO.

Academic Cheating

The most exciting blog I've read for a long time must surely be Natalie Solent's account of her career as an academic cheat and fraudulent examiner. Reading how she plagiarised the results of her physics experiments had me on the edge of my seat as I wondered whether she'd be caught and have to live out the rest of her days in shame or if she'd get away with it and go on to a glittering career with no-one the wiser about her guilty secret. I won't give away the ending, but it does come down to three decimal places.

Natalie's confession was prompted by this piece from Brian's Education Blog about academic cheating. I'm afraid I don't have any such confessions. My memory of my physics experiments was that they usually worked without any need for plagiarism or fiddling the data. That experiment where I calculated Plank's constant correctly to four significant figures was an honest result, no cheating necessary.

However, there is a story that one of my professors told me that must surely be a well known urban legend. At a famous, but unnamed university, there existed a large collection of essays which contained essays suitable for any conceivable assignment that a student may be required to undertake. The whereabouts of this collection was a closely guarded secret and its guardianship was entrusted to a single student who had the responsibility of appointing his successor after his graduation. A student, in desperate circumstances, could, for a small honorarium, borrow a suitable essay, copy it and submit it instead of his own original work.

One such student, after a heroic effort of procrastination, found himself dreadfully hungover and with one day to write an essay on the consequences of the Franco-Prussian War. Not to be downhearted, he tracked down the Guardian of the Essays and asked to borrow an essay on the subject in question.

"No problem," replied the Guardian. "What grade would you like?"

"Well, I've been getting mediocre grades so far this term, so I think a C would be appropriate."

An essay was duly borrowed, copied and submitted.

At the tutorial, a fortnight later, the essays were returned and discussed. The hero of our story had been given a grade A. "I've been getting Cs all term," he said. "What have I done right this time that I wasn't doing before?"

Said the professor, "This was an essay that I originally wrote back in nineteen forty-eight, and at the time it was only given a C. But I thought it deserved an A, so I took the opportunity to rectify that injustice."

As my primary four teacher used to say, your sins will find you out.

David Blunkett on the menace of honest work

Various elements of the blogosphere have been getting a little exercised by David Blunkett's plans to charge victims of miscarriages of justice three thousand pounds board and lodgings for each year that they have been wrongfully imprisoned. I'll reserve judgement on this for the time being. I was more depressed this week by Blunkett's plans to stamp out illegal working:

The Home Secretary said illegal working is a modern day slave trade that exploits vulnerable people, undermines fair business competition and the minimum wage, deprives the economy of tax and National Insurance contributions and encourages illegal immigration.

"Illegal working" really means people with unlicensed aspirations engaging in those antisocial habits of feeding their families and seeking a better life without official permission. Attempts to stamp out illegal working mean that the government will force your employer to sack you if you don't have the necessary permission. By calling it "a modern day slave trade that exploits vulnerable people", Blunkett indicates that he thinks that forcing your employer to sack you will be for your own benefit.

Now, it is only immigrants who require government permission to work. British citizens require no such permission. However, the government's primary duty is to protect British citizens. If so, then surely the protection that the government grants to immigrants should be extended to British citizens. Why doesn't the government require me to seek its permission to work, and without it, force my employer to sack me for my own good?

I must say, I'm confused.

How democracy works

Bruce George MP, Chairman of the Defence Select Committee:

We voted for it (a) without understanding it and (b) without any responsibility. So to pass us the blame is disingenuous...

From Iain Coleman.

A small improvement in the world

China has enshrined the protection of private property in its constitution:

Citizen's lawful private property is inviolable

Of course, a constitution is just a piece of paper. Whether it means anything depends on whether it is enforced. But it at least suggests that the Chinese government understands what capitalism is all about.

End of an era.

I now have a great big Alistair Cooke shaped hole in my life.

What am I to do on Sunday mornings?