Tales from the Tigerfort

The appalling "Digital Economy Bill" I've expressed my concerns about previously is now moving rapidly through the Commons. The current joint proposal from the Labour and Conservative front benches[1] is to shove the bill through next Tuesday basically without any discussion in Parliament, in order to get it passed. I was going to say "get it passed before the election", but frankly, the concern of the parties appears rather close to that of the BPI, who want the bill passed without discussion (an internal BPI memo "cites an expert on legislation as saying that the bill will likely die if MPs insist on their right and responsibility to examine this legislation in detail before voting on it".

That is, the powers behind the bill don't think that MPs would pass it if they looked at it, so the two main parties have agreed to deny MPs the chance to look at it. What can you do about this? Well, before it can go into the "wash-up" (which ex-MP Martin Bell reckons is better described as a stitch-up), it has to pass a vote in the Commons.

38 Degrees is raising money for adverts opposing the bill to be published/broadcast on the morning of the vote; if you feel able, donate.

More important, though, you can write to your MP. Explain that the bill is bad law (there are plenty of detailed links in my previous posts on the subject), and that if it is to be passed at all it must be subject to proper Parliamentary process, not pushed through on the nod. There's also an Early Day Motion opposing the bill and asking for it to undergo proper scrutiny after the election, proposed by two Labour back-benchers, which you can ask your MP to support.

Last but very much not least, please pass the message on and ask other people to do the same things. This bill gives big media companies the power to cut people off from the net on a whim, without evidence; it puts huge burdens on small publishers of all kinds; it creates a power for a member of the government (or anyone they choose to appoint) to introduce basically unlimited secondary legislation; it has no upside (except for existing big media groups).

[1] the Lib Dem front bench had originally agreed to go along with this, but have now changed their minds following pressure from members and back-bench MPs.

There's now a Number 10 petition against a small part of the proposed law; please go and sign it. Petitions don't mean much, and there are a lot of other things wrong with the proposed bill, but every little helps.

Further to previous reports, the bridge connecting Wilkins ice shelf to Charcot Island has finally snapped. But you must understand that there's absolutely no evidence for anthropogenic global warming, and no need to do anything about carbon dioxide emissions or anything like that. Absolutely not.

Some interesting research done recently, and usefully summarised on the Effect Measure scienceblog, suggests that in fact a significant proportion of "microwave safe" plastic containers may actually be rather less safe than ideal. Many of these containers turn out to leak potentially-toxic chemicals left over from the manufacturing process into their contents when heated. Storing food in them at room temperature (or below) seems to be fine, but heating them in a microwave or oven may not be.

In even more alarming news, which I missed until recently, ESA satellite images show that the bridge connecting the Wilkins Ice Shelf to one of the islands that anchor has almost completely disappeared since February this year. The most recent data show new rifts in the main body of the shelf, suggesting it may now be on the verge of collapse.

Finally, on a lighter note, a Canadian police video camera captured some impressive footage of a meteor coming in low across the night sky:

Someone elsewhere pointed me at this page, which collects together photographs from the half-dozen assorted probes currently orbiting round/sitting on Mars. It's actually about a month old, but there are quite a few images I'd not seen before there.