Wee, sleekit, cow'rin tim'rous beastie!

This isnae a blog post aboot a moose, but it wis inspired by Burns Nicht. Actually, I wonder if there's a Scots word for "blog"? Not according to Wikipedia, but the article on Scots, written in Scots does make me smile. Anyway, I'm haverin' so I'll quit ma bletherin' and get back tae it.

Back in the day when I still lived in Scotland, I used to (perhaps unkindly) take great amusement from Americans who would visit Scotland to connect with their roots. You know the type, "My great-great-great grandfather was born in a tiny mud-hut north of Arbroath and then moved to Boston, so I've come back to find my roots, family and declare myself Chieftain of the clan". And then they'd ask for a Scotch on the rocks, and I'd smile my smug smile, thinking "aye, right".

So, has spending a year or so in the US softened my attitude? Sort of. It was Burns Nicht on Friday so we went to our local Scottish themed pub, the Royal Mile, to take part in their celebration. I'd received   a better haggis offer, but that was in up-state NY, so not so easy to get to. Anyway, the Royal Mile is a wee pub in the bustling metropolis of Wheaton, which is where we live. The bar has a certain dinginess to it that wouldn't be out of place in Scotland, but they ruin the experience by being too clean, having table service and friendly, cheery staff.

I'd never actually been to an organised Burns night event before, as I've never needed an excuse to chug whisky and munch haggis, but we thought it would be an interesting experience. It was actually pretty good fun, with pipes and the address to the haggis, and random punters coming up to recite a poem, sing a song, etc. I may even have got caught up in the spirit(s) (Laphroaig & Caol Ila, to be precise) and done a couple of songs myself. Much tartan was on display and there was a surprising range of ages present (I expected it to be an older crowd, hanging on to memories of the motherland), although I was the only Scot in the village, as it were.

So it got me thinking about why USians (North Americans in general, I suppose) like to cling on to heritage of their colonising ancestors. One often meets Canadians / Americans who identify themselves as Irish, Scottish, Italian, Dutch, German or even French. Although, oddly enough, I've yet to meet an American who claims English ancestry, although statistically, there should be more of them! I ask myself why people need to claim some heritage other than "American". I suppose the first reason is that immigration wasn't a single event but happens continuously, and I've met more than a couple of Scots who have taken citizenship and popped their sprogs in this land. A lot of the people who sound USian may only have been here for a couple of generations.

I guess another reason why many Americans cling to an older heritage is because their country isn't actually that old: I've drank in pubs back home which have been around longer than the US. As a European, I have a sort of vague, lazy sense of cultural identity. I know my country has been around for quite a while and that I'm unambiguously Scottish, so I don't need to spend much time wondering about my family tree or identifying with my people. Given that the US hasn't had enough time to generate much history, there's not a single national identity that USians have - if anything, it seems more regional. Folks in the deep south are pretty different from those here on the east coast, and I've been assured that people out west are more likely to be laid-back, pot-smoking hippies.

Of course, I'm generalising - I do meet many people who are settled enough just to be American or Canadian, but a significant number still look to the past to identify who they are. Interestingly enough, I've met more Canadians who speak Gaelic than I've met Scots with the same skill; Nova Scotian single malts do, however, still need some work.

To those north Americans claiming to be Scottish - do I still silently mock them? Not so much: everyone has to come from somewhere and, while they have funny ideas about how one should drink whisky, I've no qualms with folks identifying with my country. Especially if they want to visit and give our tourism a boost. Or even just furnish me with an excuse to wear my kilt. My main complaint is that the attempts at haggis in this country are woefully inadequate, but I'll save that rant for next time.

Going over the cliff...

Merry non-denominational celebration of the winter solstice! Have a picture of congress, where a third of the US government lives, namely the House of Representatives and the Senate. I took this a couple of days ago, but alas I missed the small window where we actually had some snow. Oh well. Today I want to moan a little bit about how the US government manages to not function.

Time for a quick compare and contrast: in the UK, there are two houses of parliament, the Lords and the Commons and, while the Queen is technically head of state, all decisions are taken in the commons, with the Lords serving purely as a revision chamber. The Lords can slow down, but not block, legislation coming from the commons.

By contrast, the US government has three branches: the Presidency, Congress and the Judiciary, with each supposedly having equal power. Congress is split into two: the House of Representatives and the Senate. While the senate is more prestigious, having fewer members (two per state, with none for DC) who serve six-year terms, the House has equal legislative powers, with the number of members per state being proportional to that state's population and each Representative serving two-year terms. I think the House has 435 members, but I'm not sure and it's not important for this moan.

The constitution of the US means that Congress and the President both have powers that can be blocked by the other, so passing something like a budget requires unanimous agreement between the President, the House and the Senate. This is supposed to prevent any branch of government from getting above itself but, as can clearly be seen by the current "crisis", it can also cause government to grind to a complete halt when you have different parties controlling different branches of government.

I'm sure you're all aware of the fiscal cliff? Basically, the two parties, Democrats and Republicans, couldn't agree on a budget just over a year ago when they had to agree to raise the the debt ceiling (a legal limit on government borrowing). After much haggling and silliness, and after causing the US government's credit rating to be downgraded, both sides agreed a temporary budget settlement by writing in automatic spending cuts and tax rises (that no one wanted), which would apply if the parties couldn't reach an agreement by the end of 2012. This agreement was supposed to buy time to sort out negotiations, because it includes blanket cuts to all federal agencies as well as cuts to welfare spending (to upset Democrats) and to defence spending (to upset Republicans), providing a mutually-assured-destruction form of motivation to sort things out.

So, as we approach the end of 2012, it's safe to assume that both parties put aside their idealistic differences in support of the greater good of the country? Aye, right.

We did a tour of Congress yesterday as we had a couple of friends visiting from back home (woot!) and, 48 hours before everything supposedly goes to shit, there was a surprising lack of politicians around the Capitol, with neither house sitting. So what will happen immediately if no agreement is reached? Lots of things, perhaps the most striking being the immediate cessation of unemployment benefits (around $290 a week) for about 2 million USians. Not a nice way for the very poorest in this country to start the New Year, especially given the current lack of jobs. I guess certain USians believe that the poor are only poor because they haven't worked hard enough, so it's their own fault, so don't see this as a bad thing. Just ask Mitt Romney.

Another Bad Thing will be increases in the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which I only learned about today when I was working out my tax return (even more fun than it sounds). Basically, in the late 1960s, Congress noticed that 155 very wealthy households in the US were not paying a single penny in income tax due to various loopholes and exemptions, so they created the AMT to ensure that they at least pay something. It's effectively another tax form where you do your taxes again, but it has less exemptions for things like business expenses. This seems like an unusually socialist policy for the US (i.e., a good idea).

The problem with this tax is that they didn't index-link the threshold income for paying AMT, so the number of people paying the tax would increase every year. What normally happens is that congress "patches" the threshold for the AMT every year and a patch hasn't been applied for 2012. As far as I understand it, if an agreement isn't reached soon, folks will be liable to pay 26% of anything they earn over $22,500 (in addition to other federal taxes). Given that the median household income in the US is about $48,000, you can imagine how that will hit quite a few people.

(As an aside, I noticed that, even with 2011 levels, the AMT seems to punish those who are married as a married person has an exemption threshold of $10,000 less than for a single person. As I have no child care or mortgage payments to deduct against the AMT, I would have to pay an extra $800 in tax this year just for being married to Dom, if I wasn't a dirty foreigner who has slightly different tax rules. However, we'd better pop a sprog before next year's tax return is due, or skip the country...)

I have read some interesting view points suggesting that the US should accept the same austerity as Europeans and actually deal with their deficit. Others suggest that going "over the cliff" may not be a bad thing at all. Most commentators, however, seem to agree that the sky will fall, rivers will run red and the global economy will crumble massively. Who knows? What seems obvious is that, whatever happens, it'll be poorest in society who pay the biggest price for political and financial uncertainty. In that respect, our cousins in the US are no different from us Europeans.

Scottish independence: doing the sums

I'm again breaking from my usual theme today, and again because of political reasons. The last time I did this was when I published a letter that I sent to the then Home Secretary (posted here). Unsurprisingly, she never replied to me but at least the income thresholds have dropped enough that I could probably afford to come back if we didn't have too many kids.

Anyway, today I want to talk about independence. Most of you have probably got at least a vague sense that Scotland will be having a referendum soon to decide whether or not she says cheerio to her southern neighbours and becomes a proper, grown-up country like wot the other kids have done. I guess that my host country, the US, got its independence from the UK a wee while ago now, so there is some relevance to my blog post. After more than a year of petty squabbling and positioning, the UK and Scottish governments finally got it together to agree a legally-binding referendum in the autumn of 2014.

Now that we've got a date for the referendum, you would expect that everyone is getting down to the serious business of having a fact-based, rational discussion on the most important decision facing our country since 1707, right? We can balance on one side all the good things the union has done for Scotland, and weigh it against how standing on our own two feet will bring about a fairer, more prosperous Scotland? Not bloody likely. In the absence of a common foe, us Scots have always revelled in fighting amongst ourselves. The pretty squabbling between Labour & SNP is a case in point: how can two supposedly left-of-centre parties who share so many common goals have such an acrimonious relationship?

I'm going to do something unusual today and I'm going to bring some actual facts to this debate, even though they don't necessarily support my position. I was prompted to write this by an article in today's Sunday Herald, where Prof Hugh Pennington came out in favour of keeping the union because it allowed bi-directional flow of collaboration between Scotland & the rest of the UK, and because us Scots do rather well out of research funding, considered on a per capita basis. Prof Pennington is entitled to his opinion, but what really got me going were the arguments in the comments section.

Firstly, Prof Pennginton said:  "Key to the success of British science has been the unimpeded two-way traffic of ideas, money and people across the Border. So, I believe that if Scotland leaves the UK, its science will take a knock.".  I disagree on this point: science is already an international affair and I'm currently working on collaborations between labs in the UK, Switzerland and the US. These collaborations already happen across international borders, so adding another one between Scotland and England will not make any real difference here.

However, his point about the funding coming to Scotland via research councils does merit further attention. When the SNP won their landslide victory last year and separation became a real possibility, I put together the figures for research council spending over the last few years and calculated how much Scotland gets from the union. I couldn't easily get any figures for the MRC, so gave up at the time. I managed to find some this morning so added them to my spreadsheet. You can see my raw data here - the take home message is that Scotland does a little bit better out of research funding than could be expected from our per capita share. For the funding period I considered, total research spending in the UK was £7,192,911,049.01 of which Scotland received £909,115,907 (or 12.6% of the total).

Here, I'm considering grants made by MRC (Medical Research Council), BBSRC (Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council), EPSRC (Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council), AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council), NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), ESRC (Economic and Social Research council) and STFC (Science and Technology Facilities Council). I don't include any funding that comes from non-Government sources such as the EU, the Wellcome Trust or the other charities in the UK.

Some caveats have to go with these figures: different councils report funding in different ways, so my figures only include MRC grants made in 2010/11 (not including funding for specific MRC research units), currently active grants as reported in summer 2011 for NERC, STFC, EPSRC & BBSRC, and total spending between 2005 and 2010 for the others. It's all in my raw data. It should also be noted that these figures only cover money paid to do academic research, and not the money used to cover teaching undergraduate degrees. While teaching is an important part of universities, research strength is what determines an institution's reputation and the quality of academic that it can attract.

What does this mean? That Scotland is being disproportionately well funded by UK research councils and that going it alone would spell disaster? Not necessarily - research funding applications are made to councils on a UK-wide level and are generally awarded on merit and not in a geographical basis. That Scotland does well may be a reflection on the strength or competitiveness of our universities. What it does mean, though, is that an independent Scotland would have to find a bit more money as a percentage of the budget to pay for academic research. But this funding isn't currently decided in Scotland anyway, so we can't really extrapolate from the current situation.

One thing that I haven't considered is funding that comes from the EU. The EU funds a huge chunk of scientific research across all member states. I find it hilarious that the unionist press threatens that Scotland may be kicked out of the EU after independence to scare us into sticking with the UK with one breath, but then talks about how Cameron could pull us out of the EU with the next. Ironically, it could be that the best way that Scotland could maintain access to EU research funding is by leaving the UK, which seems to be distancing itself as much as possible from our European neighbours.

The thing that most annoys me about the independence referendum debate is how the unionist side is demanding minutiae on every level of how an independent Scotland would be run and what our spending priorities would be. If Scotland does decide to become independent, these details would be decided by whatever party or parties form the first government of an independent Scotland. Promising lower corporate tax rates, or higher social spending is daft because we don't know who would form that first government. We should look, in detail, at what our current position is and then talk about what we would do differently if we were independent. I guess we could save a fortune by not paying for WMDs on the Clyde. But would the loss of a permanent seat in the UN security council reduce world-wide influence both for Scotland and the rUK?

Incidentally, I waver between supporting full independence and federalism. My current thinking is that I would like a fully Federal Republic of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, where Scotland raises all of its own revenue (including geographic share of oil, etc) and then pays some money back to the UK for foreign policy, defence and currency (but not Queenie or her awful progeny). But this would involve the rest of the UK consenting to mixing things up just to keep their plucky northern neighbours happy, and it might be easier to achieve independence. Greater fiscal responsibility for Holyrood is key though: whether you believe Scotland is a net contributor to the UK or subsidised, she should still be responsible for raising the money she spends. That would shut up the vile Daily Torygraph's lazy anti-Scottishness and also make Scotland stand up for herself and stop blaming Westminster for all her woes.

P.S. For the record: I can vote in the referendum because I'm still on a postal ballot at home, but I'll choose not to as I don't know if or when I'll be living back in Scotland, so I may not live with the consequence of that decision. But I still feel entitled to have my tuppance in the debate that shapes my country!

Suffering suffrage

Even the most socially-isolated, reclusive hermit has probably worked out by now that there's an election going on here in the Land of the Free-to-Buy-Whatever-You-Want. It's even managed to knock Jimmy Saville off the headlines on the BBC news, which I guess is a welcome relief. I thought that by being in Washington around election time, I would gain some understanding of US politics and it wouldn't seem as crazy and weird. That hasn't happened. Politics here actually get more outlandish as you delve deeper.

First, it should be pointed out that even the US Democratic party is so far to the right of UK politics that Obama makes Cameron & Osbourne look positively Marxist. Well, almost. And the Republican party is actually completely insane. Especially the Tea Party folk, who manage to make the UKIP party seem like a bunch of reasonable, well-meaning folks. To an outsider, it seems that the Republican party hates women.
Republicans in some states are busily repelling equal pay legislation, because obviously all these modern ideas of equality are unnecessary.

And, believe it or not, some (Republican) states have actually tried to pass laws where women who want an abortion first have to endure a transvaginal ultrasound in case seeing the sonogram makes them change their mind. Even in cases of rape, because being violated once obviously wasn't enough. They've tried to do this in Virginia, and in Pennyslvania, Mississippi, Nebraska and Kansas. I'm not sure if any have actually passed the laws yet because I've only recently started taking an interest in US politics.

Of course, these are all state legislatures, so have no bearing on the election, yeah? The Republican Vice-Presidential Nominee has also expressed extreme anti-abortion views, although they've been keeping him quieter of late. A bunch of Republican candidates for congress have recently said some pretty insane things about rape, such as saying that women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape" or that any pregnancies resulting from rape are God's will. Seriously. You couldn't make this stuff up.

So, back to the election. As I recently learned from Wikipedia, the president is actually elected by something called the Electoral College, a group of people who get together to elect the President and Vice-President. Voters in each state actually elect representatives to the electoral college, who have pledged to vote for whichever party they represent. There are 568 members of the electoral college, allocated to states on a population basis. Most states have a winner-takes-all rule so that whichever party wins the state gets all of the electoral college from that state. This New York Times Blog has really helped me make sense of it all.

Most states are either true-blue Democrat or deep red Republican (opposite colours from the UK, which I still find confusing) so the outcome from those are pretty certain. That means that almost all campaigning occurs only in those few swing states (10 this year) and the vote of those who live in other states effectively means nothing. This year, Ohio and the 18 electoral college votes it has are seen as critical to both sides winning the campaign, so the poor folks are battered by more than 300 political ads a day. The Daily Show did a fantastically amusing piece on it a couple of days ago, hopefully this link well let you folk back in Europe watch it. If it doesn't, type "Daily Show swing state hell" into Youtube, it's worth watching.

The electoral college system seems weird, especially as someone can win the popular vote and still not be President (think George Bush losing by more than 500,000 votes in 2000 and still being inflicted on the US and the rest of the world). But the weirdest thing about US politics is that candidates can actually lie during a campaign, both about their policies and each other. The most recent (striking) example was Romney running a series of ads saying in Ohio saying that Chrysler is moving production of Jeeps to China, all because of Obama's policies. This was such a whopper that the CEO of Chrysler came out and said, translated into Weegie, "haul, big man, that's pure shite, by the way". Compare this with the UK system where ex-Labour minister Phil Woolas was booted out of parliament for knowingly making false statements about his Lib Dem opponent during the last election campaign. They could do with a dose of that here.

Another insane thing about US politics is the money. Each candidate has nearly $1 billion during this campaign. Which is quite a lot of money. Just think how many packets of chocolate Hob Nobs I could buy with that. The combinted total money rasied by both parties combined so far is $1.85 billion (source), which is approximately 352,305,901 packets of Hob Nobs at today's exchange rate. And that doesn't include all the spending by independent Super PACs and such like.

While the candidates can say pretty much anything they want about each other, Federal Employees are allowed to say precisely nothing that can be seen as supporting one candidate or the other during working hours, or on Federal property, all thanks to the Hatch Act, and cannot solicit funds for elections at any time. Even clicking "like" on a Facebook page of a candidate from your personal mobile phone is a violation of the Act, if you do it on Government property. Similarly, even re-tweeting a partisan statement from a government-issued computer whilst working at home is a violation. Which is why I'm writing this on my old desktop computer. Incidentally, I should probably state that all views expressed in this blog post are entirely my own and in no way reflect those of my employer, whoever that may happen to be.

The funny thing is that, while it's clear that one party in this country is actually insane, many people here in the US are just as flabbergasted as me and are all preparing to move to Canada in the unthinkable happens on Tuesday and Romney actually wins. I'm sure that won't happen though. One good thing about the election is that I've started reading US newspapers, instead of relying on the BBC all my information. Of course, I'm only reading the Washington Post and New York Times as they are openly pro-Obama and right now, I need as much confirmation bias as I can muster to sleep well at night.

Fingers crossed that I won't have to join the exodus to Canada on Wednesday as I'm just starting to enjoy myself here.

Bumper stickers

One thing that USians seem very big on is bumper stickers. They love to plaster their opinions all across the back of their car to let everyone know which tribe they associate themselves with. It doesn't seem to be restricted to any sort of demographic - in the last couple of days, I've noticed everything from a bumper plastered with all sorts of band names (Radiohead, etc) through those proudly declaring their support for Obama, to those expressing their right to be a gun-totting believer in Jesus and Romney. Not that I'm  implying that support for guns necessarily correlates with religion or support for Republicans, but I've not yet seen a car that has both Democrat and NRA (National Rifle Association) stickers on it. Here's an example, taken from our local shopping mall:

I guess if you combine the facts that USians are somewhat outspoken, and in love with their cars, then you get the bumper sticker phenomenon. It's quite striking just how prevalent it is though, in stark contrast to Europe. And the bumper stickers are not just political or religious - you see everything from "Proud parent of student from High School X" through to support for football teams or declaring that the driver is an alumni of whatever Ivy League college they happen to be proud of. Actually, some states give out a learner's permit as young as 15 so it's not uncommon to see stickers saying "honours student at high school X", which is pretty weird. Surely 15 or 16 is too young to drive a car? I know I was a dick-head at that age..!

Maybe we should get some bumper stickers for our bikes? "My other bike is a cannondale" or "At least I'm not killing the planet, you SUV-driving arsehole"? Maybe not then.

Moon-lighting

Hello. Just a quickie today as I've been moonlighting and writing for a friend's blog where I've been writing on my usual theme of food, talking about what irks me about the paleo diet.

Recently, we experienced something that highlights a subtle difference between the US and the UK. Dom and I bought a digital piano, something we've always wanted, at a music store about 1.5 miles from our house. As we'd gone out grocery shopping and also refuse to own a car here, we were ill-prepared for this spur-of-the-moment shopping trip, and found ourselves having to carry a very large, heavy box back home. Fair enough, as our friend Ian has been using CrossFit to make us mightier over the last few months, so moving a big object was a good work-out.

Twice on our journey home though, we were pleasantly surprised by warmth of human kindness. The first time was when we had to get our piano down a big flight of steps on the way home: a car drove past as we were resting at the top of the stairs. The car stopped suddenly, reversed back and illegally parked near us. A random guy jumped out and told Dom that there was no way he'd let her struggle with the weight, so helped me down the stairs with the box and then went on his merry way.

A little bit further, an SUV drove past us, double-backed and a lovely lady insisted that she drove us and the piano the rest of the way home. Having two random strangers giving that kind of assistance highlights the more positive aspects of the USian psyche.

I'm fairly sure that wouldn't have happened back in the UK. Not because people are less kind or warm, but probably due to hesitation due to social anxiety of having to talk to a stranger / worrying about being patronising by offering to help / worrying that the people you're offering help to think you're trying to mug them / etc, etc. It's a social anxiety that I've often had myself ("if I offer help to this random woman, will she think I'm being creepy..?") and I don't consider myself to be particularly reserved.

Americans generally are a bit more socially confident: I've seen guys asking girls on a date without getting blind-drunk first!!! While this forwardness can be quite disconcerting at first ("Why is this person talking to me? We're on the metro! Don't they know the rules!?!?"), it eventually stops feeling weird or even unpleasant...

Weathering the weather

As you know, I'm a Scot with one red-haired allele (thanks, mum), so my melanocortin-1 receptors function poorly compared to wildtypes (biology-speak for normal people). This means that going out in the sun comes with a moderate risk of exploding into flames - I think the official term for us half-gingers is Daywalkers. Dom hails from Eastern Canada and inherited pasty Irish skin from her mother, so perhaps moving to a city known for really hot, humid summers was bad planning.

Still, we knew to expect this before we moved out here so are content to spend our summers scurrying from shadow to shadow, desperately seeking out somewhere that sells factor 250 sunblock. I did have visions of spending the summer lounging around in the sun, having barbeques and drinking fine USian beers. This was the case for April & May, but the daytime temperatures are now regularly hitting 35C and above - it got to 40C yesterday, setting a record for the warmest weather I've ever experienced.

One thing that is quite striking about weather forecasts in the US is that they tend towards the hysterical, so we tend to get warnings about tornados, wild fires, torrential flooding, snowmageddon, baking sun and rains-of-frogs on pretty much a daily basis. A consequence of this is that one begins to ignore the weather warnings and have a little smug giggle about how much more hysterical the US media is than back home (unless you read the Daily Mail or any of the Murdoch rags, of course...)

So, we took yesterday's weather warning about the incoming storm with the usual pinch of salt. Then the storm came - I've never seen so much lightning before: there were a few flashes every 1 or 2 seconds, and this went on for a few hours. I tried standing outside when the storm first hit, but with all the bits of trees flying around at face-height and the driving rain soaking me to the skin, I decided that it was best to retreat indoors lest I turn my wife into a widow.

It was breath-taking to be out in though, truly exciting to witness such an impressive weather phenomenon first-hand. Although it was easy to enjoy it with the privilege of having an nice, dry house and air-conditioning to retreat too. I can't even imagine how much it would suck to be homeless in that storm. For us, it seemed pretty impressive and our electricity went down for about an hour but then came back, so we didn't think the storm was that bad.

And then we had a walk around our neighbourhood this morning. As I'm not the most articulate fella in the world, I'll give you some photos to give an idea of the carnage that was around. Click on the photos for the full-sized images.

Most of the houses on our street (actually, I think all of them except for our block) are still without power, as is most of the local neighbourhood. Our local pub was on of the few places open, so we were able to grab a lunch, a pint and Wimbledon before giving up on our shopping tasks for today. According to the Washington Post, 1.3 million homes are still without power, and regional "cooling centres" have been opened so that people without power, and therefore air conditioning, can go somewhere to hide from the heat. Today was a bit milder, at a mere 36C. More storms are forecast for tonight, so I might take the weather warning a little bit more seriously this time.

I'll leave you with a wee ditty that I learned at primary school:

Whether the weather be fine,

Or whether the weather be not.

Whether the weather be cold,

Or whether the weather be hot.

We'll weather the weather,

Whatever the weather, 

Whether we like it or not!