Monthly Archives: October 2009

Wednesday Hail

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Over the afternoon, the weather turned nasty. The staff were talking about snow. To 300m. Have not seen any, but it is unseasonally cold.

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One son, who has cross country tomorrow, is praying hard for snow. The other is praying for no snow because he has  a school trip.

Regardless, it is unseasonably cold.

Which reminds me of this article. To quote them:

Thanks to misreading the significance of a brief period of rising temperatures at the end of the 20th century, the Western world (but not India or China) is now contemplating measures that add up to the most expensive economic suicide note ever written.

Go read it.

This is appropriate.

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Swedes divided over bunny biofuel
By Helena Merriman
BBC News

Residents in Stockholm are divided over reports that rabbits are being used to make biofuel.
The bodies of thousands of rabbits are fuelling a heating plant in central Sweden, local newspapers say.
The city of Stockholm has an annual cull of thousands of rabbits to protect the capital’s parks and green spaces.
The rabbits, not native to Sweden, are mainly the offspring of pets released by owners, and are said to be destroying parks in the capital.
Since they have no natural predators, the city administration of Stockholm employs hunters to kill the rabbits.
Tommy Tuvunger, one of the hunters, told Germany’s Spiegel website that 6,000 rabbits were culled last year, and another 3,000 this year.
“They are a very big problem,” he said. “Once culled, the rabbits are frozen and when we have enough, a contractor comes and takes them away.”
The frozen rabbits are then taken to a heating plant in Karlskoga which incinerates them to heat homes.
Bunny boilers
Leo Virta, the Managing Director of Konvex – the plant’s suppliers – told the BBC that Konvex has developed a new way of processing animal waste with funding from the EU as part of the Biomal project.
He says that with this new method, raw animal material is crushed, ground and then pumped to a boiler where it is burned together with wood chips, peat or waste to produce renewable heat.
“It is a good system as it solves the problem of dealing with animal waste and it provides heat,” said Mr Virta.
Reaction in Sweden has been divided, said James Savage, managing editor of The Local – an online news service covering Sweden.
“In the town where they are burning them the reaction of the residents is quite relaxed,” Mr Savage told the BBC World Service. “But in Stockholm there’s the big city attitude of the rabbits being cute.
“That’s amongst some people, particularly among some animal rights activists who think this is not a good way to treat rabbits.”

From the blogs

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NEWS RELEASE: Tesco Plc Announces Expansion into University Market at Sheffield
2009 October 12
tags: Biblical Studies, sheffield, Tesco
by The Dunedin School

Tesco Plc has announced an innovative proposal, now in its “pre-planning” stage, in which the supermarket chain will expand into the University Humanities Sector.

TescoUniversity will open for enrolment in the 2012/13 academic year, with an initial branch planned in Sheffield and further branches planned in London and Cambridge.

Vice-President Kath Embers stressed the synergies which would result from the initiative. “While universities have attempted to become more market-oriented in their approach, only in the private sector do we find the supporting corporate structure and skill-set available to positively transform tertiary education into a fully fledged market-driven product.”

“Sheffield TescoUniversity promises to provide high-end user-driven results in this space, going forward together.”

tescobiblicalstudies

The announcement has met with a mixed response from academics. While existing university faculty members in the Sheffield area have expressed their “dismay” at the development, there was nothing but praise from recent recipients of honorary doctorates from TescoUniversity.

“It’s about time these ivory tower types earned an honest living by teaching something that everybody understands, rather than some high-faluting theory about feminizing or some sort,” commented the new Dean of Humanities, Dr Barry McFettrick, former Assistant Manager of Tesco Furniture and Kitchen.

The Humanities has been targeted by the company as the academic area which has “thus far responded least to the reality of the market in the modern world” and so “offers the greatest potential for positive growth and development.”

Ms Embers outlined some details of the proposal at a press conference held yesterday, in which the Humanities would be organised into a series of “aisles,” ranging from the more “meaty” disciplines such as Economics and Tourism Studies, to the less substantial “confectionary aisle” which would include “sundry items” such as Philosophy and Biblical Studies.

“But even in disciplines which have traditionally offered little of end-user value, such as Biblical Studies, we intend to offer a range of courses which reflect our market-driven approach. In fact, we are in the process of negotiating an exciting joint-venture which we hope should eventuate in the establishment of the L. Ron Hubbard Centre of Religion,” announced Ms Embers.

“For example, in Biblical Studies, we are developing a strategic staircase to reorient the field towards a profit-focus while retaining all the advantages of the traditional discipline. It is not our intention to make significant changes to what has for many centuries been a successful product venture, so in most cases the changes will be undetectable. For instance, the Introduction to the Gospels will still be taught, but will be rebranded as an Introduction to the Prosperity Gospel.

“Students are always asking us what good will these courses do them in the real world. But at Sheffield TescoUniversity, we hope to produce graduates who can ask precisely the opposite question: ‘What good will we possibly find in the real world following an education at Sheffield TescoUniversity?’