Unions join protest against airline ID cards

Now could be the time to be a Trades Unionist: the chance to be on the side of the angels politically and throw weight behind ID-card refusal.
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Unions join protest against airline ID cards: "The Trades Union Congress has told Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, of its 'significant and substantive' concerns about the plans for thousands of airport workers to become the first British nationals to be issued with the new biometric cards." And witness the confluence of concern from airline leaders who have written to Jaquie Smith with major reservations on the very same subject: "ten leading airline chief executives have stressed their "joint and determined opposition" to a proposal they claim will add unnecessary costs and risks to an already secure system."
As implementation becomes more real, those who are most affected start to worry first...

Babies, memory, categorising and 'chunking'

Interesting research just published (mentioned in New Scientist): "Babies also remember only three things at a time, and they get past the limitation by categorising.". The 'alo' refers to the general human capacity. Which indicates that our memory is not about dloping brains but about developing thinking tools and skills. Another blow to genius. Needless to say, this fits with the insights about the importance of 'chunking' in learning and I'm adding it to my ongoing theological reflection relating to the importnace of 'naming' for human culture and development (see 'homo loquens' tag).

Is contract and converge manageable?

Would the solution be better if we focussed on big oil. Monbiot is convinced by the arguments of Oliver Tickhell. I think I may be too. See here. "Carbon rationing, he argues, requires a level of economic literacy that’s far from universal in the most advanced economies, let alone in countries where most people don’t have bank accounts".

Recesion is a green issue

I think that George Monbiot may be right here: "If the world is sliding into recession, it’s partly because governments believed that they could choose between economy and ecology. " Though, as I have argued before, I am doubtful that an unassisted market-led solution is going to do what we need; I doubt that the market is showing the kind of reponsiveness we clearly need and I think that the market historically has tended to 'handle' massive structural readjustment with misery and enriching the next nouveaux-riches.

Monbiot in thi article declares his former support for contract and converge is being replaced. The reasons are interest and should be looked at. It flows from reading a report on Kyoto2 by Oliver Tickell. Monbiot' summary is that Tickell's critique of contract and converge outcomes flounder on the shore: "Carbon rationing, he argues, requires a level of economic literacy that’s far from universal in the most advanced economies, let alone in countries where most people don’t have bank accounts". Good point. To which I'd add that some outcomes do not seem especially friendly to a free society.

The proposed solution, which does seem to address the concerns, is

"... setting a global limit for carbon pollution then selling permits to pollute to companies extracting or refining fossil fuels. This has the advantage of regulating a few thousand corporations - running oil refineries, coal washeries, gas pipelines and cement and fertiliser works for example - rather than a few billion citizens. These firms would buy their permits in a global auction, run by a coalition of the world’s central banks. There’s a reserve price, to ensure that the cost of carbon doesn’t fall too low, and a ceiling price, at which the banks promise to sell permits, to ensure that the cost doesn’t cripple the global economy. In this case companies would be borrowing permits from the future. But because the money raised would be invested in renewables, the demand for fossil fuels would fall, so fewer permits would need to be issued in later years."

And I was particularly interested in one of the final comments:

Tickell’s proposal could represent a classic Keynesian solution to economic crisis. The $1, $2 or even $5 trillion the system would cost is used to kick-start a green industrial revolution, a new New Deal not that different from the original one (whose most successful component was Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which protected forests and farmland(10)). This would not be the first time that business was rescued by the measures it most stoutly resists: there’s a long history of corporate lobbying against the kind of government spending that eventually saves the corporate economy.

Looks like a book to wtch out for and to see the responses by Green lobbies.

Five dysfunctions of teams

Anglican Cell Church site has a useful pointer to a management book with a useful-seeming core content.

Each ‘dysfunction’ is caused by a failure to address the previous one.
They are
1. Lack of trust: We’re working together but I don’t share anything vulnerable of myself in the process.
2. Lack of conflict: We don’t genuinely say what we think as issues are discussed, feeling free to disagree vigorously.
3. Lack of ownership: Because I didn’t express my reservations, I don’t fully buy into the process and decisions.
4. Lack of accountability: We don’t hold one another accountable to follow through on the things we are each responsible for.
5. Lack of commitment to team results: To use a football analogy (painfully current!) a player finishes a match elated that he scored a hat-trick even though his team lots 4-3.

In my experience these seem right and it's good to have a one-stop place to see them laid out. I'll have to think further to see whether I think there are more things I'd want to add or whether there is a greater synthesis of these reasons.

Thoughtfulness on the gay debate

I thought this was quite a succinct intro to some of the moredeveloped issues in the debate, written without rancour and debated in the comments similarly. Click on the heading to this post

Mind mapping web2.0

Could be useful for peops like me:
"Collaborative mind mapping in your browser
Isn't 42 the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything? Well, in this case it means FOR TWO and indicates the collaborative character of mind42. Manage all your ideas, whether alone, twosome or working together with the whole world - collaborative, browser-based and for free. "
Here's one I made earlier about a year ago when just starting my present job.