Brits Gone Batty: A Ladder Warning For Fireman

Daily Mail:

Firemen who are used to climbing 300ft ladders have been ordered not to climb up small step ladders due to health and safety concerns.

They have been told to use a special telescopic rod when checking and fitting smoke alarms rather than using step ladders.

The move has been blasted as ‘ludicrous’ by firemen who say they are trained to climb ladders as part of their job.

One said: ‘It is preposterous. Climbing a ladder safely is an integral part of being a firefighter. It is what we do and we receive expert training to ensure we do it properly.

‘To now be told we are not to be trusted with a set of step ladders is ludicrous. We will be banned from tackling fires because they can get quite hot.’

Adrian Clarke, a regional secretary of the Fire Brigades’ Union, said: ‘If the firemen don’t go up a ladder then there is no chance of falling off but they are trained to go up ladders.’

The rule has been introduced by Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service which is handing out 13ft fishing rod-style poles with the aim of speeding up smoke alarm fitting and checks.

Two years ago, firefighters from the same brigade were banned from removing festival bunting strung across the road in Ampthill because bosses feared they might fall off their ladders.

Another firefighter said: ‘The lads all think it’s daft – health and safety gone mad. At first bosses told us we couldn’t climb other people’s stepladders in case they were rickety and we had to take our own along.

‘Now they have ordered us not to use stepladders at all in case we fall off and hurt ourselves. I’ve been up a 300ft ladder with my hosepipe in my hand just feet away from roaring flames. I didn’t fall off my ladder then so I am not likely to suddenly develop vertigo up a little stepladder.’

Designers of the equipment, Fire Angel, said it was safer for firemen as well as being cost-effective and enabling higher ceilings to be fitted with smoke detectors.

A spokesman for Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service said the equipment was being rolled out because it was an efficient method of fitting detectors.

He said: ‘The firefighters can use the rod to fit the smoke detectors and then carry out the home safety visit meaning that they are done quicker and can fit more in.

‘The equipment allows smoke detectors to be quickly and effectively fitted to ceilings up to four metres high.

‘It is an efficient method and enables BLFRS staff to fit more detectors in people’s homes thus increasing public safety which is our aim.’

Deputy chief fire officer Graeme Smith said: ‘Firefighters will climb ladders to rescue people from burning buildings but not to remove bunting after a festival.

‘But one is a 999 job where, in order to save lives, we will take calculated risks.

‘The other is a maintenance job which is covered by standard health and safety rules which we would have to abide by, the same as everyone else.’

In 2002 Gloucestershire Fire Brigade became the first in Britain to ban firefighters from sliding down the fire polices at their stations in case they hurt themselves – instead they were told to take the stairs.

In December 2005, fire crews in Merseyside were also banned from going running in case they injured themselves.

Baseball Bailout?

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Go Forth

Who Lost?

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Biofools

Congratulations! It’s A Baby…

Chocolate: Higher Math Scores, Longer life

Telegraph:

Mental arithmetic became easier after volunteers had been given large amounts of compounds found in chocolate, called flavanols, in a hot cocoa drink.

They were also less likely to feel tired or mentally drained, the findings, presented at the British Psychological Society annual conference in Brighton show.

Prof David Kennedy, director of the brain, performance and nutrition research centre at Northumbria University, and a co-author of the study, said that chocolate could be beneficial for mentally challenging tasks.

The findings suggest students who binge on chocolate when revising for exams may gain a real benefit from doing so.

“For things that are difficult to do, mentally demanding things that maybe crop up in your work it could help,” Prof Kennedy said.

The flavanols, part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, work by increasing the flow of blood into the brain.

For the study 30 volunteers were asked to count backwards in groups of three from a random number between 800 and 999 generated by a computer.

The findings show that they could do the calculations more quickly and more accurately after they had been given the drink.

However, the same was not true when the group was asked to count backwards in groups of seven, which the researchers described as a more complex task, requiring a slightly different part of the brain.

The findings also show that the volunteers did not get as tired doing the calculations if they had been given the cocoa drink, despite being asked to do them over and over for an hour.

The researchers gave the volunteers a total of 500mg of flavanol.

Although the amount was too great to be found naturally in the diet, researchers said that people should ensure that they have lots of flavanols, also found in fruit and vegetables, on a regular basis.

Emma Wightman, one of the study’s lead researchers, said: “You can get bars of chocolate that have 100mg of flavanol, and we are also going to look at the effect of lower doses of flavanol on the brain.”

Dark chocolate contains higher quantaties of the chemical than plain or milk chocolate.

Prof Kennedy added: “The amount that you are giving is more than in the diet but there is quite a lot of evidence that general amounts are protective against declining function and that kind of thing.

“The more fruit and vegetables and things that are high in polyphenols the better that is for your brain in the long run.”

What Goes Up

World Gone Mad: Dad sued by daughter after grounding loses his appeal

CBC:

A Quebec father who was taken to court by his 12-year-old daughter after he grounded her in June 2008 has lost his appeal.

Quebec Superior Court rejected the Gatineau father’s appeal of a lower court ruling that said his punishment was too severe for the wrongs he said his daughter committed.

The father is “flabbergasted,” his lawyer Kim Beaudoin told CBC News.

In its ruling, issued Monday, the province’s court of appeal declared the girl was caught up in a “very rare” set of circumstances, and her father didn’t have sufficient grounds to contest the court’s earlier decision.

The family’s legal wrangling started with a dispute over the girl’s internet use.

She had been living with her father after her parents split up when he grounded her in 2008 for defying his order to stay off the internet. The father caught her chatting on websites he had blocked, and alleged his daughter was posting “inappropriate pictures” of herself online.

Her punishment: she was banned from her Grade 6 graduation trip to Quebec City in June 2008, for which her mother had already granted permission.

The father — who had custody — withheld his written permission for the trip, prompting the school to refuse to let the girl go with her classmates.

That’s when the girl asked for help from the lawyer who represented her in her parents’ separation, and petitioned the court to intervene in her case.

“Going to court was a last resort,” said Lucie Fortin, a legal aid attorney who represented the girl. “The question was that there was a problem between the father and the mother, and the child asked the court to intervene because it was important to her.

“The trip was very important to her.”

Legal battle destroyed father-daughter relationship

A lower court ruled in the girl’s favour in 2008. She went on the trip, but her father appealed the decision on the principle of the matter.

He doesn’t have regrets, his lawyer said.

“Either way, he doesn’t have authority over this child anymore. She sued him because she doesn’t respect his rules,” Beaudoin said. “It’s very hard to raise a child who is the boss.”

The girl — who now lives with her mother — doesn’t have much of a relationship with her dad now, Beaudoin said.

“We went from a child who wanted to live with her father, and after all this has been done, they’re not speaking anymore.”

“We have a lot of work to re-establish a link between those two.”

Beaudoin believes the ruling reflects a loss of moral authority in Quebec’s court system.

“Is this what we want in our society? Laws are supposed to reflect our values. And if the courts aren’t reflecting that, maybe the government will, to prevent children from going this way,” she said Tuesday, adding her client may take the case to Canada’s Supreme Court.

In its Monday ruling, the appeal court warned the case should not be seen as an open invitation for children to take legal action every time they’re grounded.

‘Don’t Worry, Obama Has Us Covered’

What To Expect This Halloween

Ethnic Self Cleansing

Yesterday, our post Class Pictures Tell The Story: Why The Chinese Are Beating Us At Math garnered much attention. What follows is an article on what happens to a nation where self indulgence and self hate becomes the order of the day.

World Affairs:

A specter is haunting Russia today. It is not the specter of Communism—that ghost has been chained in the attic of the past—but rather of depopulation—a relentless, unremitting, and perhaps unstoppable depopulation. The mass deaths associated with the Communist era may be history, but another sort of mass death may have only just begun, as Russians practice what amounts to an ethnic self-cleansing.

Since 1992, Russia’s human numbers have been progressively dwindling. This slow motion process now taking place in the country carries with it grim and potentially disastrous implications that threaten to recast the contours of life and society in Russia, to diminish the prospects for Russian economic development, and to affect Russia’s potential influence on the world stage in the years ahead.

Russia has faced this problem at other times during the last century. The first bout of depopulation lasted from 1917 to 1923, and was caused by the upheavals that transformed the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union. The next drop took place between 1933 and 1934, when the country’s population fell by nearly 2 million—or almost 2 percent—as a result of Stalin’s war against the “kulaks” in his forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture. And then, between 1941 and 1946, Russia’s population plummeted by more than 13 million through the cataclysms  and catastrophes of World War II.

The current Russian depopulation—which began in 1992 and shows no signs of abating—was, like the previous episodes, also precipitated by events of momentous political significance: the final dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of Communist Party rule. But it differs in three important respects. First, it is by far the longest period of population decline in modern Russian history, having persisted for over twice as long as the decline that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, and well over three times as long as the terrifying depopulation Russia experienced during and immediately after World War II.

Second, unlike all the previous depopulations in Russia, this one has been taking place under what are, within the Russian context, basically orderly social and political circumstances. Terror and war are not the engines for the depopulation Russia is experiencing today, as they have been in the past.

And finally, whereas Russia’s previous depopulations resulted from wild and terrible social paroxysms, they were also clearly temporary in nature. The current crisis, on the other hand, is proceeding gradually and routinely, and thus it is impossible to predict when, or whether, it will finally come to an end…

Read it all.

Good News For A Good Morning: The sandwich that cures a hangover

The Telegraph:

Researchers claim food also speeds up the metabolism helping the body get rid of the booze more quickly.

Elin Roberts, of Newcastle University’s Centre for Life said: “Food doesn’t soak up the alcohol but it does increase your metabolism helping you deal with the after-effects of over indulgence. So food will often help you feel better.

“Bread is high in carbohydrates and bacon is full of protein, which breaks down into amino acids. Your body needs these amino acids, so eating them will make you feel good.”

Ms Roberts told The Mirror: “Bingeing on alcohol depletes neurotransmitters too, but bacon contains a high level of aminos which tops these up, giving you a clearer head.”

Researchers also found a complex chemical interaction in the cooking of bacon produces the winning combination of taste and smell which is almost irresistible.

The reaction between amino acids in the bacon and reducing sugars in the fat is what provides the sandwich with its appeal.

Ms Roberts said: “The smell of sizzling bacon in a pan is enough to tempt even the staunchest of vegetarians. There’s something deeper going on inside. It’s not just the idea of a tasty snack. There is some complex chemistry going on.

“Meat is made of mostly protein and water. Inside the protein, it’s made up of building blocks we call amino acids. But also, you need some fat. Anyone who’s been on a diet knows if you take all the fat from the meat, it just doesn’t taste the same. We need some of the fat to give it the flavour.”

She explained that the reaction released hundreds of smells and flavours but it is the smell which reels in the eater. “Smell and taste are really closely linked,” she said. “If we couldn’t smell then taste wouldn’t be the same.”