The world looks different now

Amazon turning to Natural gas power plant for AI data center – To emit more CO2 ‘than any other power plant in the country’

Amazon is investing in a large-scale natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas, the company confirmed on Friday, a facility that could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States...

“The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge,” said Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokeswoman. Still, “our commitment hasn’t changed,” she said.

Hmm  - there is not much difference here the UK.

MPs fear one key issue could end new PM's honeymoon period

The "Burnham bounce" has largely been driven by Green voters coming back to the fold. Labour MPs warn that spells trouble if more oil and gas is approved following a summer of extreme weather...

Climate conscious Labour MPs are concerned there is a lack of urgency from the government as the UK battles extreme heatwaves, drought and wildfires.

Three Versions of Happiness

From prolix

Can Happiness Be Bad for Your Health?

• You finally got the thing you wanted. So why does part of you feel worse, not better?
• Positive experiences are not psychologically positive for everyone.
• Research suggests that good fortune may be associated with poorer health among people with low self-esteem.
• Experiences that contradict our self-image can themselves become psychologically unsettling.

To pithy

“What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie?” he asked.

“The sense of competence,” was the answer, given without hesitation.

John Buchan - The Half-Hearted (1900)

To pragmatic

Only the fool and the very young expect happiness. The wise merely hope to be interested, at least not to be bored, in their passage through this world.

Arnold Bennett - Sacred and Profane Love (1905)

A very fast JCB

World land speed record for a hydrogen powered vehicle - and a JCB presumably.

Hammer blow reform

'A hammer blow to young people': Businesses fume at proposed zero hours reforms

According to the government's own impact assessment, the direct cost to UK employers could be between £350m and £2.9bn per year.

Retailers have warned that a ban on zero-hours contracts risks inflicting a "hammer blow to young people's job prospects" after the government's own analysis found the move could cost businesses billions of pounds a year.

Something we regularly see in mainstream media is the use of the word 'reform' for government measures which could more neutrally be described as 'change'. 

It's one of those casual language biases which governments favour for obvious reasons, it is an easy way to bias their announcements. Media outfits don't have to go along with the word 'reform' in these contexts, but they usually do. 

As is the case here, the reaction of opponents is usually reported and it may be effective, but that word 'reform' is in there too, with its suggestion of benign authority handing down a carefully considered and beneficial measure. 

There is also a language bias problem with attempts to abolish 'reforms'. It is not easy to present the proposed abolition of a 'reform' as a reform.


But modern Tories have only the dullness of defending situations that they had not the excitement of creating. Revolutionists make a reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the reform, which is often very much wanted.

G K Chesterton - What's Wrong with the World (1910)

Other people’s money - the attraction never fades

The interface between government, politics and numerous institutions is lubricated by other people's money and maintained by those who chase after it. 

We know this, we've always known it, our ancestors probably knew it too.

  

Mr Carter was still secretary to the hospital where Reardon had once earned his twenty shillings a week, but by voyaging in the seas of charitable enterprise he had come upon supplementary sources of income; for instance, he held the post of secretary to the Barclay Trust, a charity whose moderate funds were largely devoted to the support of gentlemen engaged in administering it.

George Gissing - New Grub Street (1891)

The UN’s Green Climate Fund Ran Short Of Other People’s Money

The UN’s climate funds spent a July dialogue asking for more money. The best thing America did was stop sending it.

On July 14, the UN’s Adaptation Committee put fund managers, negotiators, and development bankers on a video call to work through a problem that clearly has them rattled. The money is drying up.

The Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, and the Adaptation Fund all sent people to explain how developing countries can tap them for cash. What they mostly did was ask for more. The reason they are running short, though, is news that ought to please anyone who pays U.S. taxes. In February 2025, the United States rescinded roughly $4 billion in outstanding pledges to the Green Climate Fund. We were the first country to do it. This spring, the United Kingdom followed, halving its pledge from £1.6 billion to about £815 million...

Where does the money go? The funds prefer to answer that in their own vocabulary. Ask what they finance, and you get “readiness,” “institutional capacity,” “capacity building,” “accreditation support,” “project preparation,” and “locally led adaptation.” Some of it does buy physical things, water systems and farms and flood defenses. A good deal of it, though, pays to build and staff the offices that write the grant applications in the first place.

Forget Joe - and some other stuff

As we know, The Babylon Bee is very good at hitting lots of nails on the head as well as being amusing enough to keep the optimism alive. Here's another example.

 
Democrats Announce You Aren't Allowed To Remember What They Did A Few Years Ago

U.S. — The Democratic Party announced on Tuesday that U.S. citizens were not allowed to remember all those things the party said and did just a few years ago...

At publishing time, Democrats had also added that no one was allowed to remember the existence of anyone named "Joe Biden."


As always, the whole piece is well worth a read and a chuckle, but here in the UK, are we likely to be reminded of the name "Professor Jason Arday" after a week or two?

The News Cycle says - "Who?"

Report

Do you have anything to report for your Earth Sector, Observer Gnorbis? The region known as UK I believe is your current area of investigation?

There are still a number of mysteries to untangle here, Controller. For example, Leader Burnham is the current political leader of Earth's UK region and he visited Ilkeston yesterday…

What is an Ilkeston?

It is the name they give to a certain town, Controller.

So, Observer Gnorbis, as political leader of the moment, this Burnham must have some important tasks to complete in Ilkeston, something you should know about, something of social and political importance.

Unfortunately not Controller, nothing of immediate social or political importance from what I can gather. It seems to be more performance than leadership.

Come now, Gnorbis, we sent you on those training years under the distinguished sociologist Professor Arday at the even more distinguished Cambridge University. Surely this equipped you with numerous social and therefore political insights sufficient to complement your role as an Earth Observer?

Unfortunately not, Controller. I have recently completed a report on the matter which explains a certain amount of confusion in my attempts to grasp sociological and political matters in my Observational Remit.

Oh… that in itself may be interesting Gnorbis. So Professor Arday is not likely to improve our somewhat lamentable understanding of why humans behave as they do?

Not at all. Controller. This may be why I cannot make much sense of Leader Burnham’s visit to Ilkeston. It is supposedly to do with listening, yet Leader Burnham has only poorly developed and highly selective modes of listening – in a political and sociological sense.

What is Leader Burnham listening to Gnorbis?

I do not know, Controller. His own voice mostly.

Oh. When is Leader Burnham due to be replaced?

Soon I hope, Controller. In his own way, Leader Burnham is as sociologically confusing as Professor Arday. It is all in my report, Controller.