Wi-Fi hysteria

"radio frequency radiation levels in some schools are up to three times the level found in the main beam of intensity from mobile phone masts."

This meaningless comparison proves nothing, but it does generate fear in the minds of thousands of parents. Most people do not understand electromagnetic radiation so they are dependent on people like the BBC to explain it to them properly. Not in sensational headlines worthy only of the Daily Express or Mail.
The radiation from mobile phone masts and a Wi-Fi network are so different that they cannot be compared. They use different radio frequencies, different digital standards, different antennae, serve vastly different purposes and transmit at widely differing power levels.
Why not compare the Wi-Fi radiation to the TV transmitter at Crystal Palace or the Microwave link on top of the BT Tower, both in the centre of densely populated areas in London. I suggest that the mobile phone mast was chosen because it is already surrounded by hysteria and is more likely to connect parents with their fears in a massive short circuit of common sense.
The headlines may scream, so might some misguided protesters but if our children were going to be in pain from radiation it would have happened in a provable way by now. Radio waves have been with us for more than a 100 years and the BBC and other broadcasters have been pumping millions of watts of electromagnetic energy towards our homes since the 1940s.
This Panorama is bad science and helps to serve nothing except the audience figures.

Free Energy?

There's a Guardian Reader offer for a device called a Freeloader.
It allegedly offers free energy for a one off payment of £29.95. It supplies enough energy to charge a mobile phone or iPOD from Solar Power.

I have just received an electricity bill from my energy supplier which charges £0.072 for each kilowatt hour. That's enough energy to power a 100W lightbulb for ten hours.

This Freeloader device supplies just 5 watt hours per charge. Assuming it could be recharged a thousand times your £30.00 delivers 5 kilowatt hours of energy. This works out at £6.00 for each kilowatt hour a mere 8,334 times more than the cost of plugging in my mobile phone charger.

There is also an option of using the device from the USB socket of a computer .... the will does not exist to calculate the cost of this source of power ..... but it goes without saying that it will be even more expensive than using the rays of the sun.

And before you stray down the "green" road. Just how environmentally friendly is it to create a device that uses a rechargeable battery to charge a rechargeable battery. Isn't that one battery too many?

Keep looking

Four burning candles stood in the centre of the meal table. Fragile flames flickering in the gentle breeze of our conversation reminding us of the tiny life that is the focus of so many of our thoughts this weekend. Madeleine McCann is missing, abducted by people of evil intent, keeping her from her family who are anxiously searching The Algarve for their lost girl.

The family here in the UK has set up a website with pictures, messages of support and the latest news about the investigation into her disappearance ten days ago.

Keep looking.

Light Four Candles for Maddie's Birthday

Today is Madeleine McCann's fourth birthday. She is still missing, nine days after being abducted from her holiday home in Portugal. I write this as part of the campaign to keep her profile high and to engage as many hearts and eyes as possible in the search for her.
If you pray, pray for her safe return. Send her picture to your friends by email.
In the remote chance that she has been brought by her abductors to your area, keep looking for her. Remember her face.
Today - whenever you read this message - light four candles for her. It's Maddie's birthday.