Road deaths

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Since 2010 there has been a steady increase in people being killed by motorists in cars.  In that year 4,302 pedestrians were killed on American roads. Since then the total of deaths has steadily increased. In 2018 41% more pedestrians were killed than in 2008.  Drivers, on the other hand, have become safer, that is, unlikely to be hurt badly in a collision.  This fatality rate is mirrored in Europe. In fact, everywhere in the world it is more dangerous to be walking than driving.  Yes,  cars pollute, but they are also killers (actually, the fault lies with the driver, not the machine)

My comment:  Cars are  increasingly made like tanks, and drivers drive far too fast, often speeding through red lights and apparently imagining themselves in some video game.  I know because I walk a lot around the city and have to be vigilant about the traffic.

The fact is that governments everywhere cater to motorists and spurn pedestrians.  I can’t remember how often I have been crossing on a (striped) pedestrian crossing and have had to stop mid-street to let a car pass a foot or so away. Some drivers don’t seem to know what a pedestrian crossings is; drive over a crossing in England when a pedestrian is walking across it and you are banned driving. Period.  My personal view is that 16 is too young to be allowed to drive solo; but then that  “infringes upon individual liberty”, a phrase convenient to all who do whatever they want to do.

Are we taking the threat of China and its chief megalomaniac seriously enough?

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Up to 200 academics from more than a dozen UK universities are being investigated on suspicion of unintentionally helping the Chinese government build weapons of mass destruction.

  • China overtakes Russia as world’s biggest state hacker.
  • Russia warns US against including China at nuclear disarmament talks.
  • China uses microwave weapons to blast Indian troops in disputed border area.

The scholars are “suspected of transferring world-leading research in advanced military technology such as aircraft, missile designs and cyberweapons”, The Times reports.

In doing so, they would have violated “strict export laws intended to prevent intellectual property in highly sensitive subjects being handed to hostile states”, the paper continues. Many of the academics are thought to have “unwittingly” breached the laws by striking commercial deals with Chinese companies.

If found guilty, they could each face a maximum of ten years in prison. A source told The Times that “we could be seeing dozens of academics in courts before long”.

“If even 10% lead to successful prosecutions, we’d be looking at around 20 academics going to jail for helping the Chinese build super-weapons,” the source said.

News of the investigation comes just over a week after The Times reported that thousands of Chinese academics and researchers may be blocked from entering Britain amid concerns about the theft of intellectual property.

The Foreign Office is said to be introducing security vetting for academics and researchers working on national security issues, in response to fears that Chinese spies may acquire technology and data that could benefit Beijing.

The Telegraph revealed last week that three Chinese spies posing as journalists have been expelled from Britain in the past year. The trio, who arrived in the country on journalism visas, were “understood to be intelligence officers for Beijing’s Ministry of State Security”, according to the paper.

My comment:  there is enough blame to go round for the rapidly advancing Chinese hegemony.  You can blame 19th century colonialism and the British and Japanese interference in China, the short- sighted idea that by moving massive amounts of manufacturing to China you are benefitting the American consumer ( yes, for a short time) and so on.  Suffice to say that we in the West have helped to create the current threat from China and President Xi, and the unquenchable and ruthless thirst he has for power.  If you offer a tiger your hand in friendship check the integrity of your arm carefully after the event!

I know someone in the UK who opened a Chinese factory near one making similar products for hi-tech end products.  Every idea he had  was stolen, raw materials disappeared and the neighbor discovered that  the neighbor was siphoning off even the electricity via hidden cables.  And still we trust these people!

Restoring voter rights

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H.R.1, the For The People Act, is a vital step in finally achieving voter and election equality. It would strengthen our democracy by making voting easier for folks in states that employ rampant voter suppression tactics, like unnecessary scrutiny of voters, strict voter ID laws, limited polling sites, language discrimination, and so much more.

H.R. 1 would eliminate gerrymandering, mend the corrupt campaign/election finance system, and ultimately make voting equal across the board, as it always should have been. The bill would also tackle the $14 billion of “dark money” or money used to influence the 2020 elections by forcing financial disclosures, putting a stranglehold on government and corporate corruption. Basically, this bill is essential if we care about the survival of our democracy. (Jack Holmes, The Patriotic Millionaires  28 Jan 2021).

My comment:  Why are some people so hostile to making one-person-one-vote universal?  It is ironic that many truly believe that the last election was rigged, when for years it has been their own  party policy to suppress the vote themselves, gerrymandering election boundaries, limiting voting sites, excluding citizens whose English is not good, scrutinizing the bona fides of voters, removing African Americans from voter rolls and trying to stop or reduce mail- in voting.  Elections have indeed been “stolen” over years, and the politicians must be prevented from doing these things in the future.  Guess what?  Excluding citizens from voting because of their race or presumed political leanings is the antithesis of democracy, a word thrown around with abandon, but the reality  is becoming daily more fragile.

By the way I like, even if I am unable to join, Patriotic Millionaires.  They support democracy when, for all I know , the electoral outcomes can be inimitable to their personal interests for financial and other reasons.  That is a patriotic stance!

Light relief

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“This England” magazine carries the following pieces of intellectual information:

The second person to receive a Corona vaccination in England was ….. William Shakespeare from Warwickshire (this is absolutely true!). This spawned the following newspaper headlines:

  “The Taming of the Flu” and of course,

  “The Two Gentlemen of Corona”

  Also, there was this possible conversation between Will Shakespeare and the nurse administering the jab :

  Nurse: Which arm?

  WS    : As You Like It.

  Nurse: Was that painful?

  WS:     Much Ado About Nothing.

  Nurse: What do you think of the Government’s handling of Covid?

  WS    :Comedy of Errors.

The poor Scots!

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The Scotch whisky industry is worth more than £5.5bn to the UK economy. The sector employs 11,000 people in Scotland, while the related supply chain supports a total of 40,000 jobs across the UK. 

Exports of Scotch whisky to the US have dropped by more than a third since the Donald Trump administration imposed tariffs just over a year ago in an unrelated trade war, newly published figures show.   The 25% tariff was introduced in October 2019 “in retaliation for EU state support given to Airbus”, but has cost whisky exporters a total of £500m.  The Scotch Whisky Association says that distillers are “continuing to pay the price for an aerospace dispute that has nothing to do” with them.

The cost of lost exports is “being borne by large and small producers alike, who are losing sales and market share in what has been for decades the industry’s largest and most valuable market, which they may never now recover”.   

Despite those high stakes, the UK government last month failed to conclude a “mini-deal” with the US that would have removed tariffs on Scotch whisky and other products caught up in the dispute.

Industry representatives are asking the UK government to act urgently and call for the immediate suspension of all tariffs on unrelated sectors and, at the same time, redouble efforts with the new US administration to resolve the aerospace dispute and lift tariffs permanently.

“The government must also offer some support to distillers, who are shouldering tariff losses alongside dealing with unprecedented difficult trading conditions as a result of Brexit and global restrictions to curb Covid-19 transmission.  (The Guardian)

My comment:  This illustrates how petty tit-for-tat dealings between countries does no one any good.