Sunday, May 06, 2007
Bogus prohibition
Friday was not a bad day for the Guardian. Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder; it certainly makes the stomach fonder of baked white fish. In any event, learnt a new phrase - bogus prohibition. Applied to drugs and illegal immigrants. Both are illegal but both are present in large quantities despite much huffing, puffing and incarceration over many years. The general drift being that management might be a better approach. I find drugs the odder one: I would had thought that we would have moved away from the current criminalise & punitive approach years ago but the outturn has been very little legal movement at all. On the other hand we have large quantities of alcohol, much huffing and puffing - and it is not only legal but encouraged by unrestricted opening.
Greenpeace crashing around again. Charging around in small boats interfering with the unpleasant business of whaling - but in a way which erodes long standing custom about how to behave to others at sea - which to my mind is a dangerous place to be. They are also demanding a judicial review of the decision to get moving on nuclear again. I assume their position is that global warming is bad and that nuclear energy is bad and that the government should do something about both of them. Whereas I don't see how we are going to slow the growth in carbon emissions enough without nuclear. And if that means burying a whole lot of nuclear waste five miles underground where their containers might leak in the event of a volcano erupting underneath them - that is a risk that we are going to have to take. Global warming is rather nearer to hand - even if it is mainly going to hit poor people living a long way away. And leaving aside the issue of substance, going for a judicial review of every executive decision one does not like, strikes me as another dangerous place to be. The point of our reasonably successful indirect democracy is that we empower and trust the executive to get on with that sort of thing while we worry about the pumpkins of more immediate import.
Talking of which, I have now hoed about half my ten rows of broad beans which had come up reasonably well with not too many gaps. Still don't beleive in the practise which some preach of putting two beans in each hole. If you are getting 95% up it doesn't seem worth the bean. The earlier ones now well into flower. But the ground is cracking up - despite being fairly wet underneath and we do need some rain. Clouds have been circling all day, with the odd bout of that pre-rain damp feeling, but so far no rain at all. The in-the-downs-rain-shadow effect seems to be at work again.
In the meantime one can continue to savour the very distinctive smell of water from the watering can hitting dry ground in the sun. Nothing quite like it.
Black flies are early this year. Perhaps they like the warm dry spell which we are having. In any event they are starting to infest the beans much earlier than usual. Will need to spray next weekend to keep them under control. Don't usually get around to this before the plants are around two feet high - that is to say twice the height that they are now.
Greenpeace crashing around again. Charging around in small boats interfering with the unpleasant business of whaling - but in a way which erodes long standing custom about how to behave to others at sea - which to my mind is a dangerous place to be. They are also demanding a judicial review of the decision to get moving on nuclear again. I assume their position is that global warming is bad and that nuclear energy is bad and that the government should do something about both of them. Whereas I don't see how we are going to slow the growth in carbon emissions enough without nuclear. And if that means burying a whole lot of nuclear waste five miles underground where their containers might leak in the event of a volcano erupting underneath them - that is a risk that we are going to have to take. Global warming is rather nearer to hand - even if it is mainly going to hit poor people living a long way away. And leaving aside the issue of substance, going for a judicial review of every executive decision one does not like, strikes me as another dangerous place to be. The point of our reasonably successful indirect democracy is that we empower and trust the executive to get on with that sort of thing while we worry about the pumpkins of more immediate import.
Talking of which, I have now hoed about half my ten rows of broad beans which had come up reasonably well with not too many gaps. Still don't beleive in the practise which some preach of putting two beans in each hole. If you are getting 95% up it doesn't seem worth the bean. The earlier ones now well into flower. But the ground is cracking up - despite being fairly wet underneath and we do need some rain. Clouds have been circling all day, with the odd bout of that pre-rain damp feeling, but so far no rain at all. The in-the-downs-rain-shadow effect seems to be at work again.
In the meantime one can continue to savour the very distinctive smell of water from the watering can hitting dry ground in the sun. Nothing quite like it.
Black flies are early this year. Perhaps they like the warm dry spell which we are having. In any event they are starting to infest the beans much earlier than usual. Will need to spray next weekend to keep them under control. Don't usually get around to this before the plants are around two feet high - that is to say twice the height that they are now.
# posted by Jim @ 6:35 AM 
