No room for good news

What happens when a bad news item becomes a 'good news' item?  It disappears. 

But it's still irritating when an item disappears without trace. It was big on Radio Wales this morning and the Jeremy Vine rang me to debate it at midday. The story involves a constituent of mine who has had some treatment for his cancer in Switzerland. The NHS stumped up the huge cost of that  because the treatment is not available here. Great, NHS.

The story this morning was an allegation that the patients would not have his travelling and residential costs paid. That's was the 'bad news' that excited the Jeremy Vine show. I was dragged out of a debate on Georgia in which I  was speaking. The patient had not previously contacted me. I understand now that the Assembly Member for Newport West was already working on the case and the funding had been allocated. Splendid service. NHS! Well done!

Of course, there is no room for good news. The story was dropped by the Jeremy Vine Show and disappeared from the BBC Wales website. An update might have helped. It could have explained why the original web story was based on a falsehood. 

Perhaps that is too much to ask. 

No dissent Duma

It's over a year since Russia annexed two chunks of land from Georgia and set up independent new states. There was provocation on the Georgian side, but nothing justifies the suffering of those who have been ethnically cleansed from South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Council of Europe a year ago set up conditions for pacifying the area. Georgia has abided by nearly all the conditions. Russia has respected none of them. The big country is bullying the small countries in the way that they always do. Still no progress on the murder by Polonium 210 of Alexander Litvenenko in spite of a radioactive trail to the culprit. It was the first case in the world of nuclear terrorism. No one has been arrested for the murder of Anna Politkovskanya, the critic of the slaughter of the Chechen population by Russia. No apology either for the cyber-attack on Estonia.

In today's debate I stressed the very close 25 year link between Newport and Georgia's second city Kutaisi. Students, politicians, doctors, rugby players, fireman have all taken part in a very active twinning. A constituent of mine was in Georgia last year when the Russians attacked. What is so depressing about today's debate is that not a single member of the Russian Duma expressed any dissent to the line put out by their monopolistic state media.

Who said....?

Some of the quotations heard I today's debate. 

Where the rule of law stops tyranny begins

You must live simply so others may simply live.

The Council of Europe is the greatest peace project in history.

Trillion explained

A message today from someone correcting an explanation I offered a  while ago on what a trillion is. Thought you would like to know.

Actually One Trillion Seconds equals 31,708 Years, 140 Days, 6 Hours, 49 Minutes, 48 Seconds.

This result takes into account that with our current calendar, the Gregorian Calendar specifies that in century years leap years occur every 400 years and in non-century years leap years occur every 4 years

Comments

[Kay Tie]

The Gregorian calendar isn't accurate enough to cover 38,000 years. And in any case the planet is slowing down unpredictably. So that calculation is likely to be out by around 4 or 5 days.

[Adam]

No I worked it out, he is right. I think the Gregorian callender is a disgrace though to be honest.

[Kay Tie]

It can't be right because we don't know how many leap seconds will be added over the next 32,000 years. Although "a second" is well-defined but "a day" changes as the planetary rotation slows.

[Adam]

'It can't be right because we don't know how many leap seconds will be added over the next 32,000 years.'

I feel you are overly critical without saying anything of substance.

'The Gregorian calendar isn't accurate enough to cover 38,000 years.'

I think you need to argue your case.

[Paul Flynn]

Sorry I started this, KayTie and Adam. I'll stop worrying about triliona and get back to thinking about global warming.

I did get an e-mail from an eminent person about the 'When bad-news becomes good-news it's no-news' story. My priorities are not your priorities. I will feel guilty if I have sparked off a new neurosis about how long is a trillion.

[Kay Tie]

"I will feel guilty if I have sparked off a new neurosis about how long is a trillion."

To be pedantic, we know how long a trillion is (9,192,631,770,000,000,000,000 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom). We just don't know how many days that will be!