"It's our contention that the psychological 'pull' of games is largely due to their capacity to engender feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness,"
In a series of nine experiments, researchers found that money enhanced people's motivation to achieve their own goals and degraded their behavior toward others.
high pay rises among the top 1% are as inflationary as wage rises among the mass of the population. It's just that this inflation affects assets rather than goods and services. For years our rulers have insisted that one worker's wage rise is another's job loss. It is equally true that one person's fat-cat bonus is another's loss of home ownership prospects. It may be a job loss, too, since the Bank of England's concerns about an overheating housing market may cause it to raise interest rates. ... More important, they can hire the best accountants to minimise or wipe out their tax liabilities. If an increasing proportion of national income and wealth is taken by a tax-avoiding elite, the tax base ultimately shrinks. Increasingly, we must look to the philanthropic efforts of the rich to relieve poverty and to create social assets such as schools and arts centres. That sounds fine in principle, and Victorian philanthropy, free from the stultifying effects of public bureaucracy, is often held up as a model. But the result is a step backwards for democracy, with the super-rich deciding our social priorities. ... there is overwhelming evidence that as inequality grows a country becomes nastier. In The Impact of Inequality, Richard Wilkinson, professor of social epidemiology at Nottingham University, shows rates of violent crime and racism tend to be higher where the gap between rich and poor is greater. So firmly established is the link between homicide rates and inequality, according to Wilkinson, that many criminologists regard it as more important than any other environmental factor.
a rising tide only lifts the boats that have already had money spent on them and that haven't been filled with boulders and concreteor holed!
psychologists have identified five tips to help keep resolutions. The first is to make only one resolution: ... They also suggest planning your resolution in advance, instead of waiting until New Year's Eve. ... Another tip is to avoid repeating a previous resolution, or at least try a different technique to keep it. ... The remaining tips include keeping resolutions specific and rewarding yourself by buying a new book or CD if you manage to lose a few pounds or cut down on smoking.
"peak oil" will officially "tip."
The clash of civilisations was a mere notion, a theory that was open for debate and academic discussions. The clash of Islamic sects, on the other hand, is more than a clash of words; it is a real clash and not a theoretical one, which can be dismissed easily. ... The enemy within has become more lethal, violent and devastating than all external foes put together. The Islamic sectarian clashes take many forms, but the most lethal is the growing and bloody sectarian violence in Iraq. The US occupation from one side and the detested Iranian expansion from the other side feed the Islamic sectarian clashes in Iraq. They provide fuel to the conflict and work together on its continuation.
Folksinger John McCutcheon wrote a song about that night in Belgium, titled "Christmas in the Trenches," from the viewpoint of a young British solder. Several poignant verses are:
"The next they sang was "Stille Nacht," "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I.
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky
"There's someone coming towards us!" the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one lone figure coming from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men.
Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone for evermore."
The IPPR says too many schools are "teaching to the test" in an effort to boost their standing in league tables. Such short tests in the key subjects lead to "unreliable results".
Instead, pupils would take a small number of national tests, but not in every area of every subject. Those results would be used to measure the school's performance but not individual attainment, and help moderate the teachers' own assessments.
To burn off the calories in one gingerbread cookie, you will have to swim 18 minutes..
The martini and party mix will take 47 minutes on the bike.
And the fruitcake? Take an 84-minute walk.
... The exercise calculations are for a 155-pound person; add time if you’re lighter, subtract time if you’re heavier.
A half-pound of prime rib will cost you 230 minutes of yoga.
A Starbucks Caramel Macchiato is 38 minutes on the bike — add 81 minutes if you grab a piece of coffee cake.
You’ll have to walk 173 minutes to burn off a Whopper from Burger King.
I began to visualizing all the alternate ways Christians have approached the gospel across the stream of history and the ocreans of the earth, juxtaposing them post-modern style. Feeding my unconscious, drifting off into dreamscapes. I experienced the story in new ways which I'm still working through, but I thought I'd try to represent some of this visually, rudimentary as some of my visual arts skills still are. I hope it feeds your imaginations too. I've called it Christmas Dreaming.
People would be fined up to £1,000 for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least £30 for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a £1,000 fine if they do not comply.
The revelations will fuel debate over ID cards in the countdown to their nationwide introduction, which the Government claims will boost security, tackle identity fraud and prevent illegal working. But costs are soaring and the technology has failed in tests.
Nicholas continued helping people. He always tried to help secretly. He didn't want any attention or thanks. Years passed and he was chosen to be a bishop. Bishops look after their people as shepherds look after their sheep. And that is what Nicholas did. When there wasn't any food, he found wheat; so no one went hungry. He always helped people in trouble. All his life Nicholas showed people how to love God and care for each other.
Luke 1:26ff
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you. Is that not a statement that fits all those whom the Lord calls. But we need to be reminded, I think, that God's first words to us are more like this than the 'On your knees, miserable sinner; you've got a lot of grovelling to do.' that popular spirituality seems to attribute to Christian religion.
And now, you will conceive...okay, we're not going to literally conceive a child, some of us don't even have the biological equipment! But Mary's mission was given in these words: she was to bear and nurture Jesus. And in our different ways we are to do likewise. St.Christopher may never have existed, but the name gives away the significance of the story; Christ-bearer. That remains our calling. We too are to bear Christ in ways that are appropriate to us, our situations and our potential. We each have our mission[s] from God. God plants in us the seed of our calling and we need to consent to it and then to nurture it.
How can this be...?and we offer our excuses, according to our situations and potential. Sometimes we try to buy God off with alternatives; "I'll do that instead, that'll be okay won't it?"
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.
The Sufis were especially devoted to Jesus and called him the prophet of love. The 12th-century mystic Ibn al-Arabi called him "the seal of the saints" - deliberately pairing him with Muhammad, the "seal of the prophets". Some Sufis went so far as to alter the shahadah, the Muslim profession of faith, so that it became: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and that Jesus [not Muhammad] is his prophet."
This is a zero-sum game; either Xianity is right, and Jesus was god, in which case Islam is automatically wrong, or vice-versa; Jesus was merely a mortal prophet--in which case, Xianity is automatically wrong. (And let's not forget Judaism, which claims that they're both wrong, a favour that both Xianity and Islam return.)
The Baha'i Faith stands to Islam much as Islam stands to Christianity (i.e. they claim Muhammad as a prophet, reinterpret him a bit, add a couple of extra prophets). How do you suppose Muslims react to this? They react in just the way that Christians react to Muslims' claim that Jesus was a prophet (and not the son of God). So it's not the case (as you suggest it is) that Christians have been less tolerant than Muslims in relation to one religion's claim to have incorporated the insights of another.... it's not complimentary, but condescending, to tell someone that central features of their religious beliefs are a confused version of your own. If you tell someone that, you should not be surprised when they don't "return the compliment"
the real challenge is finding a way that people who beleive such opposing things can live togetehr in peace- personally I think they can.
Each morning, since the fog set in, Rowan and I have run into the garden to check out the sky, then sat down to calculate the torrents of CO2 that will not be released.
The Christmas congregation last year stood at 2,785,800 — an increase of 156,500 over 2004. It was the highest figure since the Millennium celebrations drew 2.85 million. Cathedrals saw an increase in Christmas attendance of 14,000 to 121,000 (News, 8 December), but the main rise was in parish churches, where an extra 142,000 people attended on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The figures did not include carol services during Advent. Christmas communicants, who were included in the figures, increased by four per cent to 1,207,800. Results from an Opinion Research Business poll on the C of E website reported that 43 per cent of the population intended to go to a church service over Christmas last year. The figures were up from 33 per cent in 2001, and 39 per cent in 2003.
THE Bishop of Southwark, Dr Tom Butler, has spoken publicly about the incident when he arrived home with head and face wounds.
Isn't there already too much narrative cliche clogging up our relationship to experience; the Brown/Blair tiff is packaged in advance as a three act drama with deferred climax; Global Warming as a set of progressive complications yielding the mother of all climaxes. We can't blame McKee for his influence, but story's looking increasingly like another patent, branding random experience into manipulable commodity.
The government should instead use the money to set up a dedicated UK border police, said Mr Davis.
Nick Clegg, for the Liberal Democrats, said: "These are sticking plaster measures in which the government is cutting corners to make the increasingly unpopular ID card scheme more palatable.
"The fact remains that however much John Reid rearranges the deckchairs, ID cards are doomed to be unacceptably expensive, intrusive and unmanageable."
The SNP called the move an "embarrassing u-turn" which proved the Home Office was "not fit for purpose".
Campaign group No2ID said "mixing up" new data with existing data meant the system would be "even less secure than originally suggested".
The idea that this could then be integrated with banks' chip and pin system, as the Home Office has proposed, was "farcical" in practical terms, a spokesman added.
the change of approach could also offer Gordon Brown an escape route, should he become prime minister and opt to scrap or scale back ID cards.
“It doesn’t close off an ID card scheme,” one senior industry figure said. “But it lets the government proceed with two things it really cares about – e-border controls and an identity management system that will let citizens do e-business more easily with government – while allowing a successor to Tony Blair to drop or significantly amend the ID cards project if that’s what they want to do.”
regular religious service attendance (at least weekly attendance) was associated with a slower pulmonary function decline among men and women, compared to those who never attend services. The findings could not be explained by differences in smoking or physical activity.
all's finally going right for large-scale wind, what's wrong with its domestic counterpart? One problem is turbulence: in urban areas, buildings, trees and other urban furniture obstruct the wind. The result is erratic wind speeds, and most home turbines simply aren't designed for that. "Home turbines are definitely not ready for the mainstream," says Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity. "The current crop suffers from the same fundamental problem of design. They are horizontal-axis machines which work well in open areas but are unsuited to urban areas due to the way they need to rotate to track changing wind directions - called hunting."
in free countries every faith must be allowed - and every faith must be allowed to be questioned, fundamentally, outspokenly, even intemperately and offensively, without fear of reprisal. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford scientist, must be free to say that God is a delusion and Alistair McGrath, the Oxford theologian, must be free to retort that Dawkins is deluded; a conservative journalist must be free to write that the Prophet Muhammad was a paedophile and a Muslim scholar must be free to brand that journalist an ignorant Islamophobe. That's the deal in a free country: freedom of religion and freedom of expression as two sides of the same coin. We must live and let live - a demand that is not as minimal as it sounds, when one thinks of the death threats against Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoonists. The fence that secures this space is the law of the land.
As a christians we struggle to work out how to relate honestly and lovingly to our muslim or hindu neighbours. Clearly descending into some mush of poly-faithism is not an option (i.e. not it doesn't matter what you believe, all beliefs are as good as any other). I expect my muslim neighbours to think that I would be fulfilled by converting to islam: they would be probably be poor muslims is they did not think so. Conversely, I would love them to hear the christian message. Similarly, I would be very disappointed with my atheist friends if they did not think that I would be better off if I realised that I was mistaken in my view of the world. Believing (in God or in the absence of God) is to have a view of what's true, and it's pretty dishonest to pretend that you would not want others to have benefits of seeing the truth. However, once we get beyond infancy we discover that the world is full of people who, maybe inexplicably, don't see the world as we do, and as we live cheek by jowl with people of differing faiths we have to find ways of living together. It's not clear to me that the secular majority is capable of the respect and mutual listening that will make such living together possible.
# What if we Plutofied the letter "C" from the Roman alphabet? "S" and "K" can do the job just as well. And 25 letters can be neatly arranged into a nifty 5 x 5 matrix
...
# Think of how the New Testament would change if the Gospel of Luke were Plutofied.
One in 400 Jews, compared with one in 1,700 Muslims, are likely to be victims of faith-related hate attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.
Seven Asian teenagers followed them down the road shouting “Yehudi,” which means Jew in Arabic and Urdu. One of them shouted, “We are Pakistani, you are Jewish. We are going to kill you,” before punching Mr. Chapper in the face and hitting one of his friends over the head with a bottle.
researchers found that when students are actively engaged in the learning process, they are more likely to sort out the logic behind mathematical problems.
I don't know how many people read the Economist piece, but its main (only?) criticism of Fairtrade was that it prevents market signals from getting through to producers, stimulating them to switch to other crops. Cheers, Economist. The whole point of Fairtrade is that it is a corrective to practices by large multinational produce buyers that are, in effect, monopolistic. Nescafe switches off market signal transmission by standing like a Himalayan range between me, the individual consumer on this side, and the individual producer on the other. (Don't know anything about Nescafe's buying practices, so I apologise if that's a poorly aimed example.)
Fairtrade activates the signal again by showing that we are happy to pay more, indicating to producers that they *can* raise their prices, whatever the man from Del Monte says.
come on, fuck economic theory, market signals etc. It should not be possible to buy coffee, rice, sugar, whatever, at a price which does not provide a living wage to its producers. To do so is simply immoral.
... The alternative is to become landless labourers, migrating to the slums of big cities or (in the case of countries like Mexico) trying to get work in the USA – illegally if necessary. Faced with a choice between hardship and destitution, coffee farmers actually make a rational economic decision to take the lesser of two evils and hang on in production as best they can. This actually encourages further over-production as farmers try to offset low prices by increasing volume, often at the expense of quality.
This is why coffee prices slumped to such a low level for so long, before a slight rally in the last year or so. This had nothing to do with Fairtrade – it accounts for less than 1% of global production whereas the excess of supply over demand was more like 10% annually.
So, there’s the analysis. But wouldn’t it be more interesting to think about what we can do to help? Everyone agrees that artificial subsidies aren’t a long-term sustainable solution – which is why we don’t do them. Instead we work with farmers who are potentially viable but need help to improve their position. The minimum price ensures that they can maintain a decent living, while encouraging them to work through co-operatives means that they take greater ownership of their product and retain more of the export price. It also means they engage more directly with markets and gain the knowledge to trade more effectively. The premium means they can invest in improving their efficiency and in diversification. It also promotes social development by funding community projects in health, education etc.
Another important point is that articles like the one in last week’s Economist always compare Fairtrade with schemes like the Common Agricultural Policy as proof that guaranteed prices lead to over-production. But it’s a false comparison. The CAP encouraged wine lakes and butter mountains because it guaranteed a sale, regardless of how much was produced. Fairtrade doesn’t do that and demand is driven solely by consumer purchases. If there isn’t a Fairtrade buyer, the growers sell to the conventional market – and we encourage them not to just rely on Fairtrade anyway because we’re trying to promote sustainability and it’s not sustainable to be over-reliant on one channel of business.
Now none of this is rocket science. I studied economics for five years in my youth but most of what I’ve written comes from the first term of my O. Level studies. So how come the brains at The Economist don’t get this? Why do they use selective arguments and ignore or distort what we say in order to dismiss it? Which is why I wanted to make the point that rigid, dogmatic approaches are flawed whichever side of the debate they come from. The poor are not interested in our debates on economic theory. They want practical action. Where free trade works that’s fine, where Fairtrade has a role, why can't that be OK too?
are more likely to ponder the risks, take longer (about 170 milliseconds more) weighing the pros and cons of engaging in high-risk behavior than adults -- and actually overestimate the risks. It's just that they often decide the benefits -- the immediate gratification or peer acceptance -- outweigh the risks
The findings on teenagers imply that interventions that use risk data regarding smoking or unprotected sex, for example, may actually backfire if young people overestimate their risks anyway. Instead, interventions should help young people develop "gist-based" thinking in which dangerous risks are categorically avoided rather than weighed in a rational, deliberative way
more experienced decision-makers tend to rely more on fuzzy reasoning, processing situations and problems as gists [the essence of their actions] rather than weighing multiple factors
The gesture the Diocese suggests wants to be "a sign of hope for society and the Diocesan Church, awaiting peace for a long time." "We wanted to live up to the peace expectations since ETA declared an indefinite cease-fire. The Christian community wants to be conscious of the present momentum and contribute to peace and the creation of reconciliation ways," he noted.
Likewise, it wants to highlight the fact that "we are not mere audience, but main characters" of the process open in the Basque Country, and the conflict is not something external to Christian community, it has also affected the Church in its different fields."
"The market cannot, unaided, educate and train our workforce, plan and fulfill national research goals or restore or even compensate for our battered infrastructure," runs its introduction. "And the market, unregulated, tends inevitably towards socially undesirable ends such as pollution, inequality and monopoly."
A magnetic fridge works like this. Powdered gadolinium (with coarse grains for good heat transfer qualities) is put into a magnetic field. It heats up as the randomly ordered magnetic moments - the electrons with spin - are aligned, or "ordered", by the field. The newly-acquired heat - a boost of between 2-5C, depending on the gadolinium's original temperature - is removed by a circulating fluid, like a conventional fridge.
The magnetic field is removed and the gadolinium cools below its starting temperature as the electrons resume their previously disordered state. Heat from the system to be cooled - your fridge interior - can then be transferred to the now cooler metal. Then all you do is endlessly repeat. But unlike conventional fridges, which need very toxic chemicals, the only liquid needed for heat transfer is water, alcohol or, more likely, antifreeze.
positive sounds such as laughter or a triumphant "woo hoo!" trigger a response in the listener's brain. This response occurs in the area of the brain that is activated when we smile, as though preparing our facial muscles to laugh. ... "We've known for some time now that when we are talking to someone, we often mirror their behaviour, copying the words they use and mimicking their gestures. Now we've shown that the same appears to apply to laughter, too -- at least at the level of the brain."
campaigners in this area seem to agree that the only way to get the big companies to change at this point is regulation and legislation. If we are depending just on voluntary codes and self-regulation, it is going to be slow progress. For now, working conditions are still sunk in the 19th century, except that the sweatshops are that much further away.
Come off it, some will say: we have always had toys and sweets being marketed to children. What about those Meccano sets, Dinky toys, plastic dolls and Roses chocolates aimed at the children of half a century ago? Somehow, despite all that, most of us managed to grow up with decent values.
What has changed is the sheer volume and ubiquity of the marketing, not its essence. ... One researcher, Sue Palmer, estimates that the average child in Britain, the US and Australia now sees 20,000-40,000 television adverts a year. ... so many shows and films are now saturated with product placement, ... this year's PG-rated Pink Panther film, which apparently featured over 30 brands, including Adidas, TGI Friday's and Virgin. ... Then there is the internet. We are talking about more than the pop-up ads. Marketeers are muscling into instant messaging and chatlines with disguised adverts, purporting to be friendly messages. Walmart's website Toyland asks children to pick items they'd like from a conveyor belt and then to enter their parents' email addresses so the list can be sent on and the company can "help pester your parents for you". The traditional Santa's list, this isn't.
what is scambaiting? Well, put simply, you enter into a dialogue with scammers, simply to waste their precious time and resources. Whilst you are doing this, you will be helping to keep the scammers away from real potential victims and screwing around with the minds of deserving thieves.
It doesn't matter if you are new to this sport or a hardened veteran; if you are wasting the time of a scammer, or frustrating them in any way well that's good enough for us...
a third answer allows same-sex ceremonies and ordination of gay men and lesbians, while maintaining a ban on anal sex. It argues that the verse in Leviticus saying "a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman" is unclear, but traditionally was understood to bar only one kind of sex between men. All other prohibitions were "added later on by the rabbis," Dorff told reporters.
the Quebecois ... adopt commonplace Catholic terms -- and often creative permutations of them -- for swearing. In doing so, their oaths speak volumes about the history of this French province.
"When you get mad, you look for words that attack what represses you," said Louise Lamarre, a Montreal cinematographer who must tread lightly around the language, depending on whether her films are in French or English. "In America, you are so Puritan that the swearing is mostly about sex. Here, since we were repressed so long by the church, people use religious terms."
And the words that are shocking in English -- including the slang for intercourse -- are so mild in Quebecois French they appear routinely in the media.
"Earlier hominins pursued more narrowly focused economies, with women's activities more closely aligned with those of men with respect to schedule and ranging patterns," write the authors. "It is impossible to argue that [Neanderthal] females and juveniles were fulfilling the same roles--or even an equally diverse suite of economic roles--as females and juveniles in recent hunter-gatherer groups,"
Economic Partnership Agreements threaten to:
* Force competition between emerging ACP industries and powerful European companies.
* Expose poor farmers to heavily subsidised European agricultural products.
This will lead to:
* Small businesses being destroyed
* Millions of poor farmers driven of their land
* Regulations designed to protect the environment being weakened
Many people in developing countries rely on natural resources for everyday needs.
By increasing exports of timber, fisheries, minerals, oil and gas, EPAs could spell disaster for these communities and the environment.
I think that in the end we will have to develop significant industries that utilise atmospheric co2 and fix it in a solid form. We seem to be moving past the stage where reductions in emissions will prevent rapid climatic destabilisation but I think that at some point govornments will really
start to act, if this does ever happen then bioplastics may play some role in bringing down co2 concentrations..
The results showed that strong brands activated a network of cortical areas and areas involved in positive emotional processing and associated with self-identification and rewards. The activation pattern was independent of the category of the product or the service being offered. Furthermore, strong brands were processed with less effort on the part of the brain. Weak brands showed higher levels of activation in areas of working memory and negative emotional response.
"The proposed database is a threat to our profession as well as our lives. There will be no privacy for anyone. Telephone conversations could be recorded, movements tracked and meetings watched. It will mark the end of investigative journalism, people will simply not want to take the risk."
I find it fascinating that among the brilliant scientists and philosophers at the conference, there was no convincing evidence presented that they know how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. It makes me embarrassed to be a scientist and atheist. There is no historical evidence whatsoever that scientists have a keener or deeper appreciation than religious people of how to deal with personal or moral problems. Some scientists have some good and helpful insights into human beings' existential problems some of the time, but some good scientists have done more to harm others than most people are remotely capable of.
There was one proposal in Sir Rod Eddington's report to the Treasury with which, when I first read it, I wholeheartedly agreed. He insists that "the transport sector, including aviation, should meet its full environmental costs". Quite right too: every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned. Reading on, I realised that this is not exactly what he had in mind.
The M25 has 790 miles of lanes. If these are used by cars carrying the average load of 1.6 occupants, at 60mph the road's total capacity is just - wait for it - 19,000 people. Coaches travelling at the same speed, each carrying 30 passengers, raise the M25's capacity to 260,000. Every coach swallows up a mile of car traffic.
A far better scheme has been proposed by a visionary economist called Alan Storkey. Storkey's key innovation is to move coach stations out of city centres, to the junctions of motorways. One of the reasons long coach journeys are so slow in the UK is that - in order to create a system that allows passengers to transfer from one coach to another - they must enter the towns along the way, travelling into the centre and out again. In the rush hour you might as well walk.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system.
Submitted by Dr. Benedict Young – Deadline to sign up by: 17 February 2007
Supposing that we are under threat from "rogue states" as well as "international terrorists", does anyone really imagine that either of those enemies will be deterred in the way that the Soviet Union once was? If Bin Laden or al-Qaida are the enemy, on whom are we to threaten to unleash the holocaust? If it is Iran and North Korea that concerns us, is it remotely possible that those countries will react to the balance of terror as the Soviet Union did in the 1950s and 1960s? Our complaint against them is that they do not behave as rational states behave. Why should they respond rationally to a nuclear threat? The whole idea is clearly a fantasy. So why does the government propose to squander billions of pounds that could be used to fulfil the social purposes that ought to be Labour's overwhelming priority?
A truly modernising government would accept the world as it is today. The error continues. New Labour is neither as new or as Labour as it ought to be.
Stonehenge's appeal was not religious. It answered to the simplest of human cravings, the relief of pain and the postponement of death. The Great Cursus points not to heaven but to Harley Street.
Esther Stanford, secretary of Rendezvous of Victory, a group pressing for compensation, said that a national commission was needed to examine the “holocaust of slavery”.
I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...
