I’ve always admired the game of chess. Like a musical instrument or a foreign language, becoming good at chess is a frustrating challenge, but one that I feel must lead to being a “better person”. I’ve always wanted to play more, but rarely find the opportunity.

I tried out several chess sites on the internet (Yahoo Games, for example), which had the annoying problem of being timed games. I’m far from being good enough that racing against the clock will have any benefit to my learning of the game. These games were short bursts of annoyance, without really much gain. Then I found the Chess.com Facebook App, and started playing against a couple of Facebook friends. This is by far my favourite “app”, so I went to the Chess.com site.

That was one week ago. So it’s still early innings for me. However, I really like the site. The games are timed, as in, moves should be within the next 3 days (as a default, but variable). So, then you can have several games on the go, each with different opponents from throughout the world. Aside from the playing, there are several other features including the option for a chess “blog”, email account, inter-chess social networking. There are chess forums where you can discuss your favorite Kasparov opening (I guess), or tutorials where you can learn what an opening is.

So far, I’ve only been playing the game. Right now I have finished five games, and are playing four others. Its great; I’m playing people from Venezuela, Philippines, the UK and the US. Some people are really good (so thats what you were doing!) and some aren’t.

Most importantly, I’m playing - and quite a bit. And I’m starting to understand the concepts a bit better and see the traps. With all the discussion of “Brain Training” and the fads that come with it, Chess certainly works - it has a track record that extends thousands of years.

Does Tory leader David Cameron’s new welfare plan work? This from his newsletter to supporters:

“Our radical programme is designed to end the culture of long-term welfare dependency, and involves measures such as time limits on out-of-work benefits and US-style return-to-work programmes for jobseekers.”

Who are these people, and how did this begin? Well, they are the former working class. Their previous jobs were in manufacturing, steel working, coal mining, etc. The sector where they had a culture of employment has been shipped overseas as Britain became a services economy. It came about from long stretches of unemployment brought on by previous Tory governments, as we can see with unemployment figures.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Time Series Data, ESDS International, (MIMAS) University of Manchester.

Mr. Cameron’s Green Paper wants to introduce workfare policies to eliminate this culture of welfare dependency. However, workfare is a dubious idea. Robert E. Goodin dissects the Australian workfare policy in his article “Structures of Mutual Obligation”(1), showing workfare is based on these three flawed concepts

• Government support is conditional upon work completed.
• Labour in employment is the only currency that a citizen can provide
• That the exchange between labour and government support must be immediate.

I’m sure Mr. Cameron would disagree that government support is conditional, or that labour is the only currency that one can contribute to society (versus being a home carer, motherhood, volunteering, etc.). I’m sure he understands that welfare can be viewed as an investment in future taxpayers. After all, at the launch of his green paper he said:

“Having a job and working is good for you. Not just because you can pay the bills and put food on the table, but it is a way to get on and make something of your life.”

In this I agree with him. Who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, this plan still does not address the underlying concern. There is still no viable replacement for the manufacturing industry that left in the 1980s to serve as jobs for the working classes. What will a guy on a council estate in Leeds accept as a job? Flipping burgers at MacDonalds?

Nobody has figured this out, its the same problem in any economy that has shifted from a manufacturing economy to a service economy without the support of a resource based economy (which is why it isn’t as much of a problem in Canada). Reducing the working class to minimum wage earning service staff is not an answer. This culture of welfare dependency comes from a the lack of a job sector that can provide sustained employment.

1) Goodin, R.E., 2002. Structures of Mutual Obligation. Journal of Social Policy, 31(4), p.579-596. Available Here: [accessed 16:06:12 8, 2008].

So far, the most telling “2007 Top List” I’ve come across is Bob Cesca’s list of Pres. Bush’s “War Smirks”. I don’t have access to a complete listing of times when the President has been smiling and cracking jokes while he brazenly puts forwards foreign policy hubris - often in the form of sending young American citizens into a war that makes no sense in a place they have little chance to understand. It takes too much time. Anyway, I hope that these four examples are the definitive version. They are sick enough.

Finally a rational explanation!

More Funny Videos

“How do we hold you accountable for these stupid policies thirty years from now when you wrong and you’re dead?”

This is what a member of the crowd asked HE Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic who was showering the Chatham House meeting hall with his irrational anti-climate change rantings. Rantings not dissimilar to what seems to be floating around Ottawa at the moment.

Prime Minister Harper, you are gambling with something that is not yours to gamble with, and it is truly shameful. How do we hold you accountable in thirty years when you are wrong? This is unforgivable.

I’ve been assisting in producing FairPensions’ second annual pension fund transparency survey, which got released last Saturday. The report sees a pretty clear divergence between the more enlightened funds who see it as their duty to remain transparent and to engage with investments. The bottom half seem pretty ambivalent to transparency or engagement, even when studies are increasingly proving that engagement on environmental, social and governance issues can potentially increase returns.

Actually, the first birthday of Carson’s Post came and went last week. I have been struggling with this post as it has been one that I have been thinking about almost all year. Before I began this blog I quickly realized how often bloggers blog about blogging, and have worked hard to resist this narcissistic behaviour. However, today: it’s our birthday and we’ll blog as we want to.

I started this blog essentially to get a better understanding of what a blog is. The title “blog” has been assigned to everything from teenaged MySpace droolings over Justin Timberlake through to Al Gore writing about Climate Change on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website. There is also a lot of chatter out there about it, though most of it is the aforementioned bloggers blogging about blogging navel gazing.

A blog is user generated content, broadcast into cyberspace - but this definition doesn’t mean that much to me. I think of a blog more as a sheet of paper pinned to a telephone pole. This blog is my sheet of paper, etched with my declarations, thoughts and neuroses. Writing the blog is the fundamental part of blogging, but it is not the only part.

If a blogger posts a post and nobody is around to read it… who gives a shit?

One year ago, when my virgin fingers spewed out my “hello world” post it did so to a community of nobody. Now after a year, there are quite a few more readers frequenting the site, which makes the process worthwhile. Blogging into dead space is not fun at all, and so an important part of blogging is marketing. After six months, Carson’s Post happily joined the Progressive Bloggers group, and a few others, and the Google Page rank has expanded giving us more audience.
It is important to get people to read your blog, as it gives you reason to blog. I have spent hours agonizing over the visitor stats wondering how to encourage more readers. Tony and I had many discussions on how to target headlines and topics to bring in more readers. Really, on the whole we haven’t been that successful at attracting readers. We had a great summer but the hits have really fallen in the autumn. I think this is largely due to an inconsistent subject matter, and this is something that is going to change.

My own experience with blogging is rather mixed. I don’t really like blogging as a medium. This post is probably littered with typos and poor grammar. It certainly is not “good writing”, and I can’t think of any blogs that are particularly well written.

My biggest skepticism is in the relationship between you, the reader, and me, the writer. I have never really understood why I should have the gall to transmit my opinion, and you should take the time to read it. If this is indeed a piece of paper stuck to a telephone pole, why did you bother to stop and examine it. This question sits in the back of my head whenever I do anything with this blog. I actually think it makes it a bit better. I would hate to waste your time.

I don’t know how often Tony will blog, if he ever does again. I really enjoyed having him write here and his posts sparked the largest amounts of debate and discussion - not to mention hits - that the site has had. He worked very hard at blogging, but the problem comes that keeping up a blog is essentially a waste of time. It does not pay any money, and the satisfaction received diminishes rather quickly.

I will continue to blog, however infrequently. I have gotten used to it - the blog is not something that I work at, it is a friend I speak to. So, as we crack open the birthday beer, I’ll just say thank you to Tony, as well as all the readers and participants for making the first year of Carson’s Post so interesting and memorable. Hopefully the second year will be just as fun.

You know the rules: environmentalists and concerned “green” citizens on one side, business on the other. The green lobby shouts and screams about the threats of climate change, and the business lobby ignores them or reacts with “reality” statements, excuses and a lack of general acceptance.

It seems these rules don’t work anymore, and the past month may have been the tipping point. If you don’t think so, just ask Tony Juniper of the NGO Friends of the Earth.

In mid-November the Nobel Peace Prize co-winners, the Interplanetary Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the latest report (AR4). A Report that concluded - yet again - that Climate Change is here, very much here and now, and it was time to stop dicking about.

Two weeks ago the UN released its annual development report. Once again, Climate Change is here, very much here and now, and it’s time to stop dicking about… from a global security perspective.

Last week the Confederation for British Industry (CBI) released a report that had environmentalists and activists across the UK scratching their heads with bewilderment. The report is called Climate Change: Everyone’s Business, and calls for green taxes, increased regulation on environmental issues. The day after the UK’s foremost legal firm Clifford Chance released a report that surveys the world’s more prominent business leaders and finds that 80% of them are calling for increased regulation on environmental issues.

Then, as if to knock the point home, the next day Prince Charles delivers the “Bali Communiqué”, signed by the heads of some of the largest firms in the world, to the environmental conference in Bali that calls for increased regulation on environmental issues. Kevin Rudd was also in Bali, signing the Kyoto Accord on behalf of the Australian people, as his election platform dictated - providing a handy crystal ball for politicians throughout the industrialized world: the next election will be on the environment.

What does this mean to us on the street? The CBI report tells business to increase the range of environmentally friendly products available to consumers, that environmental management provides both an avenue for managing risk, as well as opportunity to expand and diversify the marketplace. I’m sure we’ll soon see “Carbon Footprint Labels” next to nutrition boxes on the packaging of products. Your local politician is probably cramming George Monbiot at the moment, and with any luck the end is nigh for the suburban SUV brinkmanship game as gas guzzlers become as antisocial as smoking cigars in a daycare.

Dinosaurs like HE Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic can continue to watch the pitch pass them. Environmentalism is an ideology, as he claimed. But it is not an undemocratic one as he painted it, nor does it require confrontation with markets. Clear regulation will provide the playing field for business as the new, rapidly developing eco-marketplace unfolds to its willing consumers.

Meanwhile, environmentalism presents an opportunity for citizens. As politics in our globalised age becomes more complex, it is increasingly hard for the citizen to participate in the political discourse. Environmentalism changes that. We all play a part, must play a part. Smart political leaders will realize this is an exceptional opportunity to engage with citizens and bring them back into the process.

From the gentlemen who brought us The Front Fell Off

More Funny Videos

A few weeks ago Tony posted about the recent trend of uploading University lectures onto the internet.  His point was that professors are usually more interested in the research side of things — the lectures are an annoyance for many profs.  If that is the case, the more profs post these lectures, the more the importance of the live presentation is diminished.  In the end, why have a lecture at all?  Why not take tuition fees in return for a nice little chunk of software that includes a smattering of eLectures and an eLibrary, and be done with it?

I agree.  Why not?

A degree is an essential requirement for upward mobility.  Trust me, I know.  Gone are the zero to hero days on your own talent, it just doesn’t happen, other than a few entrepreneurial exceptions.  To be a part of the system you need a degree.

Not that the education is what is looked for, that is the lamentable fact.  A friend of mine works in insurance on the back of a geology degree; my wife is an accountant after four years of history and classics.  In fact, it often seems like someone with a degree that supports their profession is the exception, rather than the rule.

So, the degree is required.  But why?  If not for the education, then why do hiring policies require one?

It separates the “wheat from the chaff”.  It costs money to obtain a degree, a serious amount of money.  Though financial support structures are available, it requires a commitment of a large amount of capital, and a vast amount of time.  So, be wary of someone who does not have a degree: as they have been unable to commit to the capital or the time.

This reeks of class division. The middle class, as a matter of course, disappear around Europe or Asia for a gap year, then spend three years drunk and irresponsible at University before they turn up as city professionals.  It is a well read script.  The working/immigrating classes go to trade colleges, or apprenticeships before going to work.  University, and therefore the big city money not available without exceptional effort.  Those who do push into University do so against the cultures of their high schools (whose catchment policies are geographical, and therefore reinforce the class divisions of neighbourhoods), and overcome the wealth and time restrictions.

If universities have a second tier of education: cheaper, portable and not time structured, then it allows more opportunities for this class division to be overcome.  More opportunities for everyone: parents of newborns can use the time to study, or professionals looking to expand their expertise or people who just want to learn more.  The Berkeley Podcasts are a terrific example: I listen to them for fun and interest - the lectures on Open Source, the History of Information or following the path of society through literature.  These courses are fascinating to me but without the podcasts I would never have the opportunity to listen to them - I don’t have the time to it in a class and listen, I don’t have the money to buy such wonderful education, and I don’t have the access as I live in London.

But I do listen to them.  And if I press through all lectures, and out of interest do all the required reading, why shouldn’t I be allowed to take the exam and get that precious college credit?  If I take the time to learn the concept, isn’t that what the degree is about?  Or is it really about the piece of paper?  Or the class division?

In our modern society, the imperatives of education on the person are too demanding to waste learning without certification over lamenting aged forms of information distribution (lectures) and geography.  In another way, if the certification is the most important point, then allow that certification to expand to everyone.  Not just those with the time and money.

“The Editors”, the blog that serves as another example of the BBC moving in a smarter direction than all media, has just posted an interesting piece on Global warming. How does a media organization as august as the BBC report climate change? Moreover, what does the Beeb do about climate change sceptics? Do they automatically get column real estate in order to “balance the opinion”?

No, according to an internal memo written by website environmental correspondent Richard Black (whose brilliant research into climate change skepticism is well worth reading) and Roger Harrabin, BBC News’ Environment Analyst (and the moderator at the recent Chatham House event on climate change that I reported on). The memo is very interesting and seems to outlines the questions and answers surrounding the BBC’s approach to Global Warming:

Back in the 1980s the battleground was defined in caricature as bi-polar, with naive lentil-eaters on one side and ruthless big business on the other. But in the new reality the centre ground in climate science, economics, politics and business has shifted seismically, leaving us struggling sometimes to locate a new core of impartiality. We are still living with criticism over our coverage of MMR when we gave the impression that each side was underpinned by science of approximately equal weight. We must get it right on climate.

What has changed since the ‘80 when environmentalists were “naive lentil-eaters”? The IPCC, for the most part, presents the new reality, that climate change is real.

In a recent survey of 140 climate scientists, 18 percent found the IPCC too alarming but 82 percent either thought the IPCC represented a reasonable consensus – or said it was not alarming enough. No one agreed with the statement that global warming is a fabrication and that human activity is not having a significant effect. All the world’s major scientific bodies have endorsed the IPCC concerns about the risk of increasing greenhouse gases.

Given the weight of opinion building up around the IPCC it makes sense for us to focus our coverage on the consensus that climate change is happening, is serious, but is manageable if tackled urgently.

So, what do you do about the sceptics?

We do not need consistently to ‘balance’ the reports of the IPCC. When we broadcast outlying views we should make sure we do not over represent them and we should keep a rough balance of views from either side of the IPCC. If we do not, we will distort the issue and risk misleading or confusing our audience.

We must also be more savvy about the way we treat outlying views – and we should make it clear to our audience when an interviewee holds a minority position.

And worse:

Then there are the ‘sceptics’ (particularly in the US) funded by big business to run ‘think tanks’ spreading uncertainty and thus delaying action. We need to think hard about how and when we invite these various groups to contribute to the debate. Would we, for instance, serve our audiences by inviting lobbyists for tobacco firms to challenge the scientific links between smoking and lung cancer?