Can anyone explain what it is about this that makes me laugh?

For those who can’t be bothered to click on the link, here is an extract:

“Japanese toilets have long and famously dominated the world of bathroom hygiene with their array of functions, from posterior shower jets to perfume bursts and noise-masking audio effects for the easily-embarrassed.

The latest “intelligent” model, manufactured by market leader Toto, goes a step further and isn’t for the faint-hearted: it offers its users an instant health check-up every time they answer the call of nature.

Designed for the housing company Daiwa House with Japan’s growing army of elderly in mind, it provides urine analysis, takes the user’s blood pressure and body temperature, and measures their weight with an inbuilt floor scale.

“Our chairman had the idea when he was at a hospital and saw people waiting for health checks. He thought it would be better if they could do the health tests at home,” says Akiho Suzuki, an architect at Daiwa House.

Toto’s engineers developed a receptacle inside the basin to collect the urine for sugar content and temperature checks, and an armband to monitor blood pressure. The readout is displayed on a wall-mounted computer screen.

“With the current model, your data is sent automatically to your personal computer, and then you can email it to your doctor,” said Suzuki.

“In the next generation model, the data will be sent automatically to family members or doctors via the Internet,” she told AFP.

The electronic marvel, called the “Intelligence Toilet”, is capable of storing the data of up to five different people and retails for 350,000 to 500,000 yen (about 4,100 to 5,850 dollars) in Japan, she said.

“For now our customers are essentially middle-aged and senior people. But we hope the young generation will also become more health-conscious.”

The model is the latest advance in a string of sophisticated toilets, known as “washlets” in Japan, which have become ubiquitous in recent decades.

The first models were imported from the United States, where they had been used mainly in hospitals, and quickly became standard in Japan in the booming 1980s, finding their way into at least 70 percent of Japanese homes now.

Pioneering Toto designed its first models by asking hundreds of its employees to test a toilet and mark, using a string stretched across the bowl and a piece of paper, their preferred location for the water jet target area.

“For the problem of nozzle angle and water temperature, there was a particular development team dedicated to these tests,” Kuno recalled.

First-time foreign visitors to Japan are often baffled by the complexity of Japanese high-tech toilets, which feature computerised control panels, usually with Japanese language instructions as well as small pictograms.

Standard functions include heated seats, water jets with pressure and temperature controls, hot-air bottom dryers and ambient background music.

A function called “otohime” (literally “princess of sound”) produces a flushing sound to cover bodily noises. A portable gadget is available for customers who want to use it on the go, in restrooms far away from home.

In most recent toilet models, the lid automatically lifts when a user enters the restroom. Men can then push a button to also flip up the seat.

As soon as the user leaves the room, both the seat and lid automatically glide back into horizontal position, a clever feature that can preempt potential conflict between male and female members of the same household.”

Research into Conservative-led Brighton and Hove Council’s lottery system for allocating places to over-subscribed schools has supposedly found that it “failed in one of its key aims – to give poorer children equal access to top schools“.

However, as the scheme has only been in operation for two years, it is hard to see how the scheme can have had a huge impact and the findings seem seriously premature: behavioural changes in terms of how parents respond to the secondary schools allocation system are likely to take more than two years to work through as parents will first need to see how the system has worked in practice and then devise “rational” responses to it.

More significantly, it looks as though the research was setting an unrealistic target for the scheme as its conclusion is that the system does not give equal chances to all pupils because catchment areas are still the main determinants of access to particular schools.  The scheme only applied to over-subscribed schools.  Therefore, while it would have some impact on disadvantage, the scheme remained essentially catchment-based and it could never have achieved an objective of completely equal chances.  So why use that as the measure?

The Brighton experiment still needs to be properly assessed.  This research tells us very little.

If there were any reports in the UK media about a story reported in Der Spiegel last month about the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Turkish army against Kurdish rebels, I missed them.

The story states:

“German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.

It would be difficult to exceed the horror shown in the photos, which feature burned, maimed and scorched body parts. The victims are scarcely even recognizable as human beings. Turkish-Kurdish human rights activists believe the people in the photos are eight members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) underground movement, who are thought to have been killed in September 2009.

In March, the activists gave the photos to a German human rights delegation comprised of Turkey experts, journalists and politicians from the far-left Left Party, as SPIEGEL reported at the end of July. Now Hans Baumann, a German expert on photo forgeries has confirmed the authenticity of the photos, and a forensics report released by the Hamburg University Hospital has backed the initial suspicion, saying that it is highly probable that the eight Kurds died “due to the use of chemical substances.”

Did the Turkish army in fact use chemical weapons and, by doing so, violate the Chemical Weapons Convention it had ratified?”

Had this authentication been available before David Cameron’s visit to Turkey, would he have been quite so positive about fast-tracking the negotiations around Turkey becoming a member of the European Union?

However, given that David Cameron had had a number of meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel prior to his visit to Turkey and as a prominent member of her own Parliamentary Party, Ruprecht Polenz (the chairman of the Bundestag’s Foreign Relations Committee) has called for an international investigation into the issue, it is more than likely that he HAD been briefed on the matter.  In which case, the only conclusion that one can reach is that David Cameron IS prepared to condone the use of chemical weapons.  I wonder what Nick Clegg thinks.

In the run up to the first Mayoral elections in 2000 I was anything but a Ken Livingstone supporter.  Indeed, I even wrote an article in the Evening Standard entitled “London Deserves Better” arguing that neither Ken nor the emerging Conservative candidate at the time (one Jeffrey Archer – before he went to prison) were suitable candidates to be London Mayor.

But that was before I worked with Ken during his first term as Mayor.  For those four years, I led the Labour Group on the London Assembly and chaired the Metropolitan Police Authority and I saw at close quarters Ken’s commitment to London, his political courage and determination, and his ability to make things happen.

And a lot did happen.  There was the successful introduction of the congestion charge – something that most pundits were convinced would never happen when the provision was first included in the Greater London Authority Bill.  It required vision, drive and an attention to detail.  And Ken showed that he had all three.

There was the transformation of the bus service in London – so that the capital became the only part of the country where there was a shift of traffic away from other transport modes.  And, of course, those four years saw the birth of the Oyster Card – then an innovation, now an integral part of London life.

At the same time, London’s policing was turned round: morale increased; the haemorrhaging of police numbers (which had started under Conservative Home Secretary, Michael Howard) was reversed; Police Community Support Officers were introduced and began their visible patrols all over London, leading to the creation of Safer Neighbourhood Teams in every Council ward in the city; and crime rates that had been increasing for years started to come down.

In Ken’s second term, I was less closely involved.  However, all Londoners saw the leadership that successfully won the bid to host the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012 and that brought London together following the terror attacks in July 2005.  There was also the leadership shown on climate change, which established London as one of the leading cities in combatting the effects of global warming.

All of this was a big contrast with the Boris Johnson Mayorality, where despite the frequent announcements of “new” initiatives that either turn into damp squibs, like the “Story of London Festival“, or are re-packaged initiatives started under Ken’s period as Mayor.  The major so-called success has been the new cycle hire scheme – again originally initiated by Ken – but with the details mismanaged by Boris Johnson and his team – see the analysis by Helen at Boris Watch.

So why should Ken be the candidate in 2012?

The first point to make is that he is the best-qualified candidate.  An effective London Mayor must have a coherent vision for London.  And this means much more than merely stringing together a series of half-worked-through ideas.  Ken has that vision – a vision he has been refining and articulating throughout his political life.  What is more London’s Mayor must be committed to the job.  It should not be regarded as a stepping stone to some different office (as the current incumbent clearly regards it), nor should it be a consolation prize for someone who has failed in their political career elsewhere.  Ken is committed to London and I have already mentioned his political courage and determination, coupled with his ability to make things happen.

The second point is the breadth and clarity about what he would want to achieve for London and Londoners in the next Mayoral term.  This includes:

• the visionary proposal to make London the world’s first ‘Smart City’, utilising cutting-edge technology to the full;
• introducing electric buses to cut emissions;
• managing the tube upgrades more effectively so as to minimise disruption;
• refocussing housing investment on affordable housing;
• reinvigorating London’s cultural life with a commitment to live music;
• protecting and promoting jobs in London by engaging directly with the world’s great economies and capitalising on London’s diversity and diaspora to make this a reality;
• making the Living Wage a condition of procurement; and
• rebuilding the consensus on major infrastructure projects in London to strengthen not only London’s economy but to benefit the UK as a whole.

Can he win?  ConservativeHome clearly think he can, pointing out that “London isn’t the most hospitable territory for the Tories” and that it “won’t be easy” for Boris Johnson.  And as Steve Hart’s detailed analysis has shown the 2008 election:

“took place on a very bad night for Labour  …..  one of the worst nights of local election results since before the second world war, with Labour polling 24%.  …. On this terrible night for Labour Ken Livingstone actually increased his first preference votes from 685,541 in 2004, to 893,877 in 2008. This was not simply a consequence of a higher poll. He actually increased his share of first preference votes by 1.3% from 35.7 per cent to 37 per cent (the London wide Labour member vote increased by 0.32 per cent to 27.12 per cent, which was 10 per cent behind Ken?s vote).

Any reasonable interpretation of these results would suggest that on virtually any other Thursday of the last five years, Ken would have been likely to win. Ken?s share was higher than Labour achieved on General Election night in London – when the national results had Labour 10 per cent better than in 2008. On this alone, it is clear than Ken was outperforming Labour by a wide margin and also that, to a lesser extent, London Labour outperformed the rest of the country.”

The message is that Ken has consistently out-performed Labour in the elections he has stood in and as Steve Hart concludes:

“The evidence that Ken is a substantial electoral asset across London is substantial, whereas the only evidence regarding Oona is that she has lost a safe seat; and nothing whatsoever suggests that Ken?s rival for the nomination is an asset in any other part of London.”

Now this does not mean that Ken Livingstone is without his flaws – indeed no political leader with any flair ever can be.  Nor does it mean that I agree with all the judgements he made during his terms as Mayor (I disagreed, for example, with his decision to extend the original Congestion Charge zone westwards rather than creating a separate zone).  However, I am clear that having Ken Livingstone back as London’s Mayor would be good for London and Londoners and that Ken Livingstone is the candidate best-placed to win the Mayorality for Labour and to get rid of the current ill-focused and chaotic regime.

The latest journal from the Royal United Services Institute contains a perceptive article, entitled “Terrorism: The New Wave“, which was widely reported last Friday.

It follows concerns I raised in the House of Lords last month:

“Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, what is the rate of conversion to Islam within prisons and what steps are the Prison Service taking in terms of monitoring radicalisation and external speakers who come into prisons?

Lord McNally: I do not have precise figures on conversions, but I know the background to this question of whether or not there is radical Islamisation in prisons. The studies that I have been shown reveal no conclusive evidence of this, although there are examples which give rise to concern. The staff and the wider Prison Service keep a close eye on imams in prisons. Bringing them in to lecture, preach and minister within prisons has been one of the benefits, but we must make sure that it is a positive influence, as the noble Lord suggested.”

The RUSI study warns that one of the key threats from this next generation of terrorists comes from within the ranks of the 8,000 Muslims currently serving prison terms who are at risk of being converted to extremism by hardcore inmates jailed for terrorist offences.

The report cites estimates by prison probation officers that up to one in 10 Muslim inmates are being successfully targeted while inside jail, leading to the creation of a new generation of potential attackers who are due for release in the next decade and whose previous convictions do not relate to terrorism.

The report suggests that radicalisation is taking place in British prisons at a rapid rate, especially in the eight high-security establishments where most terrorism offenders are detained.

However, newspaper reports the study’s findings as being dismissed by the Coalition Government:

“The Ministry of Justice said it did not agree that radicalisation was widespread within the prison system. A spokesman said: “We run a dedicated expert unit to tackle the risk posed by those offenders with violent extremist views and those who may attempt to improperly influence others.”"

The response smacks of complacency.  I trust the complacency does not extend to one of the other major findings that large-scale and co-ordinated attacks such as the 7 July bombings are likely to be replaced with terrorist assaults by highly motivated but poorly trained lone individuals whose lack of connection with any major terrorist organisation will make them more difficult for police or MI5 to detect.

RUSI, which is very well-connected and whose reports are normally highly respected, has produced a timely and important contribution to the discussion of the terrorist threat faced by the UK.  Its conclusions should be taken seriously and not brushed aside by the Government.

Yesterday’s Radio 4 “Beyond Westminster” programme, “A Touch of Ermine” contained an interesting discussion featuring Mehdi Hasan and Meg Russell debating the role of patronage in British politics and the future of the House of Lords.

I provide some local colour being interviewed by Michael Dobbs (author of “House of Cards”) recorded over coffee on the Lords Terrace last month (with the extraneous noises of the police helicopter and motor launches edited out, along with my response to one question “As somebody once said, you might say that, but I couldn’t possibly comment”).

I thought two important points emerged.  The first was (I said it, so it must be important) that we have not yet had the debate about what we want the Second Chamber of Parliament to do – and that really needs to take place before we embark on the next round of reform.  The second came from Meg Russell who pointed out that electing the Second Chamber would not necessarily remove the element of patronage from who become members of the new Chamber.

The Sunday Times (behind its paywall) had a story on its front-page this morning, saying that Mayor Boris Johnson had threatened to resign unless London projects are protected in George Osborne’s comprehensive spending review next month.  So sensitive is the topic that Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome was scrambled to rubbish Isabel Oakeshott’s story.

However, the story itself and Tim Montgomerie’s response underline the fundamental truth: Mayor Boris Johnson is in a dither – he doesn’t really want to stand for London Mayor again; he’s frightened that he will lose; but he doesn’t yet know how to escape with dignity.

As Tim Montgomerie puts it:

“Boris winning again won’t be easy.”

and

“London isn’t the most hospitable territory for the Tories.”

He acknowledges the tensions between David Cameron and Boris Johnson saying:

“Conservatives at every level need to understand that some tension between the Mayor of London and the government isn’t just inevitable but politically healthy”

and he even concedes that:

“Boris hasn’t got a transformational record”.

So if that’s ConservativeHome riding to Mayor Johnson’s support, he really will need rather more cavalry if he is to stand any chance in 2012.

The Washington Post reports that the US Deputy Defense Secretary has publicly acknowledged what is being described as the most significant breach of U.S. military computers.

The cause was a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop in the Middle East in 2008.

And the consequence was that the malicious code, which had been placed on the drive by a foreign intelligence agency, uploaded itself onto the network run by the U.S. military’s Central Command. Apparently, the code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control.

This disclosure was apparently part of a deliberate strategy to raise the awareness of the US Congress and the American people of the cyber-threat being faced by the USA.  Apparently, the Pentagon’s 15,000 networks and 7 million computing devices are being probed thousands of times daily and the US Government’s concern is that cyberwar is asymmetric and that traditional Cold War deterrence models of assured retaliation do not apply to cyberspace, where it is difficult to identify the instigator of an attack.

The problems faced by the Pentagon are no doubt faced – on a smaller scale – by the UK Ministry of Defence and the British armed services.  I do not, however, detect a similar openness about the threat by the UK’s Coalition Government – perhaps because the strategy to address the problem is nothing like as well-developed as it should be.

One of the disturbing features of the last few years has been the way in which terrorist techniques honed in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan have subsequently been used elsewhere in the world.

So a news article in Homeland Security Newswire should be considered not only for the horror of what it describes, but as a warning of a tactic that might be used by terrorists thousands of miles away.  The article reports that:

“The Taliban continues its violent campaign to push Muslim women back into Medieval times; in Afghanistan, the Taliban is pursuing a campaign against girls’ education; the organization’s latest tactics: poisonous gas attacks on girls’ schools, aiming to scare students and teachers; Taliban operatives launched eight poisonous gas attacks on girls schools since April, and earlier today it launched the ninth attack, this time against a girls high school.

Dozens of school girls and teachers were sickened today (Wednesday) by poison gas in Afghanistan, medical and government officials said. The latest incident, this one at a high school, is the ninth such case involving the poisoning of school girls, said Asif Nang, spokesman for the nation’s education ministry (“Taliban uses poisonous gas in attack on Kabul girls school,” 5 May 2010 HSNW).”

Oona King exudes niceness.  She wants a London where everything is nice.  The problem with that approach is that it is not really rooted in the real world.

Being Mayor of London is rather more complicated than sitting on the seventh floor of City Hall and saying “Wouldn’t it be nice, if …..”

According to Ross Lydall at the Evening Standard, Oona King (or her campaign team) has decided that it would be really, really nice if  people could take their bikes onto buses.

Which prompts the question, does Oona King (or her campaign team) ever use London’s buses?

Most buses are now quite full.  And they are getting fuller as routes become de-bendified (the replacements cannot carry as many passengers – even when the frequency has been increased – as the original bendie buses did – despite the  substantial extra costs being incurred to fulfil Mayor Boris Johnson’s campaign whim).

Frequently, mothers with children in buggies are not allowed to board because there are already two buggies on the bus and it is not safe to have more.

So where are all these bikes going to go?  The whole point of using a bike is that the rider does not need to use a car or a bus.  Allowing bikes on buses is likely to mean that those with young children will not be able to board and other passengers will be squeezed even more.

I repeat the question: does Oona King (or her campaign team) ever use London’s buses?