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"The feeling that you aren’t being heard or seen or represented isn’t psychosis; it’s government policy."
-- Russell Brand in New Statesman

because they broke almost all of their pre-election promises.

Here's a nice little summary of all those broken promises, pledges and outright deceit.

I doubt voting will solve the problem, they will just lie and say they won , probably like they have done for a century anyway. Damn, all they do is lie and cheat people out of their rights to make things more convenient to their ambitions. Why choose between two liars? Vote for someone, just not a Repub or a Dem. Its easy!! Even a nut would be preferential to a lying thieving confidence man.

I appreciate the sentiment, but am starting to think that maybe it is time to stop voting as long as there are only lesser evils to choose from. We're encouraging them. I think Russel Brand is a bit of a douche, but this editorial strikes me as rather spot on.

It's still way cheaper that *public* healthcare in the US alone (medicare and medicaid), let alone the full costs of US healthcare, which are astronomical in comparison, but funding has been massively cut the last few years in real terms.

The conservatives have strangled funding for the NHS deliberately for ideological reasons, while funding several expensive wars abroad, because they want to undermine it and then get rid of it piecemeal, as they did with dentistry in the 80s. This sort of story is the precursor to farming out care contracts to private companies, not because it's cheaper, but because of their belief in the free market and connections between the Conservative ministers and private industry, here are some of our recent health secretaries:

Andrew Lansley - bankrolled by a private healthcare company.
Jeremy Hunt - in his previous role had deep connections with the Murdoch companies he regulated.

Of course they're at war. This is one of the most incompetent and scientifically illiterate governments in living memory. It's packed full of lunatic ideologues like Ian Duncan Smith and Teresa May who sideline professional academic advice time and time again in favour of their own prejudices stupidity and ignorance. I just wish their misguided, harmful and plain unworkable policies wouldn't wreck this countries social and political fabric for generations to come. It would be funny if the human cost wasn't so high

And you know what? In spite of this, the main opposition is still unable to differentiate itself as a better alternative than this shower of charlatans, bigots and liars.

I despair at this country. I really do.

Of course they're at war. This is one of the most incompetent and scientifically illiterate governments in living memory. It's packed full of lunatic ideologues like Ian Duncan Smith and Teresa May who sideline professional academic advice time and time again in favour of their own prejudices stupidity and ignorance. I just wish their misguided, harmful and plain unworkable policies wouldn't wreck this countries social and political fabric for generations to come. It would be funny if the human cost wasn't so high

And you know what? In spite of this, the main opposition is still unable to differentiate itself as a better alternative than this shower of charlatans, bigots and liars.

I despair at this country. I really do.

Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, they rule by an army inducing terror on a populace, not because the populace chose the leadership.

The problem is that in Muslim countries the political system they chose is invariably worse. Libya is worse than it was under Gaddafi, Egypt is worse now than under Mubarak, Iraq is worse than under Saddam Husain, and Afghanistan is infinitely worse off than it was under Soviet rule.

Yes, Saudi Arabia is bad, but anything that keeps the Muslims under control is better than letting them have their way .... which is not giving them freedom but allowing them to murder, kill, and rape others as well as killing eachother and removing freedoms under sectarian Sharia militias.

"How do you pick who can vote when the average person votes badly and selfishly?" That is the central question of Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie). One could easily argue many western states get pushed worse off over time due to democracy.

I'm not advocating any particular view here, other than maybe we could do with a little self introspection.

Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, they rule by an army inducing terror on a populace, not because the populace chose the leadership.

The problem is that in Muslim countries the political system they chose is invariably worse. Libya is worse than it was under Gaddafi, Egypt is worse now than under Mubarak, Iraq is worse than under Saddam Husain, and Afghanistan is infinitely worse off than it was under Soviet rule.

Yes, Saudi Arabia is bad, but anything that keeps the Muslims under control is better than letting them have their way .... which is not giving them freedom but allowing them to murder, kill, and rape others as well as killing eachother and removing freedoms under sectarian Sharia militias.

You sure about that? I'm pretty sure they're the exact same demographic. At least the redditors and 4chan people in question.

From what I understand, the trick is each miner goes through a search space. If it doesn't find anything, it requests another search space from the control server. If it does, it tells the control server about it. The control server then tells the rest of the world that it found this new bitcoin. If you shut down a machine during a search the control server eventually sees this and has another machine look through the same search space. This is basic parallel programming using a scatter-gather approach with a little bit of management on the server side.

As for the bitcoin itself. There's nothing anyone can do. There is no mechanism within the bitcoin system to declare a bitcoin to have been produced illegally. If the command and control server is shut down then the bitcoin wallet might very well be lost. In that case, the bitcoin is lost forever. See this CCC video about bitcoin loss, deflation, and why that's a bad thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-FaQNPCqG58#t=1137s As cool as bitcoin is, it has serious problems which will keep it from being used in day to day life. Hyped Example: http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/04/bitcoin-hyperdeflation

The idea behind this malware is kind of neat though. It's not stealing log in credentials, so it doesn't need to do browser interception and then have the hacker physically dealing with banks. It doesn't preform ddos attacks or send spam, so it doesn't use any network resources except for talking to the command and control server. If it's written correctly, it should run at low priority with a small memory footprint. It might be using 100% CPU, but on a desktop machine, the user would probably never even know its there.

Obviously you did not follow recent events where the French government forced Google to pay $81 million, or where the Free ips threatened Google by blocking every ad on their internet service. And after all, France is in Europe, you know, the union that fined Microsoft $672 million.

Al Jazeerah is BBC . . . It was formed when BBC closed it Arabic division. Those folks went and started Al Jazeerah.

That makes perfect sense.

Electing a New People: The Leftist - Islamic Alliance
Islamist-Left Alliance A Growing Force

(BBC Director General) Mark Thompson: “There was massive left-wing bias at the BBC”
The BBC's Left-wing bias isn't in its news coverage; it's in everything else that it does
BBC bias - The BBC has managed to flabbergast even those Israelis who hadn’t expected minimal fairness from it.
More absurd anti-Israel bias from BBC MidEast editor
For once, there is no ambiguity: the Today programme's report on Gaza this morning was totally and utterly biased

The UK is supposed to increase the fixed amount (the duty) every year, but in the last few years the government has "put off" the increase. Driving in the UK is cheaper (accounting for inflation) than it's been for a long while.

You're right that they haven't raised the duty in the last couple of budgets. But you appear to be wrong about that meaning inflation adjusted fuel is cheaper than it's been for a long while. On the contrary, it's quite a bit more expensive.

http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html

I probably got that from here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9493041/War-on-motorist-a-myth-says-left-of-centre-think-tank.html but can't quickly find the original report. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/war-motorists-myth has more quoted numbers from it.

I wrote (and remember reading) that driving was cheaper, not fuel alone. Accounting for better cars (using less fuel, needing less maintenance) might be what makes that true.

This is a system whereby every time someone connects a new computer to the Internet, it will ask a series of probing questions and if you don't answer them all correctly (or at any point imply you have a child in the house), a massive (and wildly-inaccurate) web-filter will be put in place, in theory blocking anything about:

• sexual messages;
• violence;
• gambling;
• bullying;
• alcohol/drugs;
• abuse on social networks;
• self-harm;
• anorexia;
• grooming;
• radicalisation (religious and political); and
• suicide.*

• Because these are all things that children need protecting from and shouldn't be able to find out about (on the Internet; offline everything is fine). Oh, and because user-generated content tends to contain a lot of this, many of the existing filters just block all blog sites. And anything that flags certain keywords.

  Oh, and this is to protect children from "sexualisation and commercialisation." But it won't block adverts. Or the Daily Mail (who are, of course, behind this block - presumably to drive desperate children to their website?).

  And this will require putting "government sponsored filtering and snoop-ware software on every machine in the country" as part of what will be one of the largest state-sponsored mass-censorship programmes in a democracy.

  So you think nothing of value will be lost here? You might want to have another think.

  *List taken from the Government's response to the consultation on this.

Funnily enough came across this article about the benefits and disadvatages of gamification about a month ago.
http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2012/11/gamification-does-it-make-business-more-fun-or-it-just-exploitationware

Apparently too much gamification can be a bad thing, as we'll become immune to it. But on a small scale can be an effective tool.

I believe that Obama naively did not expect the Republicans to dedicate themselves to stopping him from getting reelected.

Yes, I'm sure that was his first and enduring thought on the matter.

Also, I don't think anyone expected the Republicans to declare war on reality.

That should be, "war on reality, as reported." That is the key, as reported. The BBC leadership admits it as a bias problem, but there can't be a problem in the United States?

As Margaret Thatcher noted, "The facts of life are conservative."
It is the reporting that is liberal.

Pew: Public Perception of Media Bias Hits Historic High

In Pew's biennial news survey, out today, the public revealed an alarming opinion that the media just can't be trusted to tell a story straight. . . . Said Pew, "The overall ratings for the performance of the news media are quite negative: Fully 66% say news stories often are inaccurate, 77 % think that news organizations tend to favor one side, and 80% say news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations. The percentage saying that news stories are often inaccurate has risen 13 points since 2007, with much of the increase coming among Democrats and independents."

Media bias worse than money in politics

Rasmussen Reports Tuesday revealed poll results that 47 percent of likely voters feel that "media bias is a bigger problem in politics today than big campaign contributions." Fewer, 42 percent, say money is more evil.

Worse for the media, 51 percent believe that "most reporters will try to help the president," while just 9 percent will go to bat for Republican Mitt Romney. The polling is just the latest to slam media bias, with most still viewing the TV, internet and print reporters on the left's payroll.

The following has been known for some time now, from more than one study.

Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)

Msnbc.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The Vast Left-Wing Media Conspiracy

When I'm talking to people from outside Washington, one question inevitably comes up: Why is the media so liberal? The question often reflects a suspicion that members of the press get together and decide on a story line that favors liberals and Democrats and denigrates conservatives and Republicans.

My response has usually been to say, yes, there's liberal bias in the media, but there's no conspiracy. The liberal tilt is an accident of nature. The media disproportionately attracts people from a liberal arts background who tend, quite innocently, to be politically liberal. If they came from West Point or engineering school, this wouldn't be the case.

Now, after learning I'd been targeted for a smear attack by a member of an online clique of liberal journalists, I'm inclined to amend my response. Not to say there's a media conspiracy, but at least to note that hundreds of journalists have

Please explain ... how is a society where the majority are apathetic and ignorant versus an oppressive government that uses 1984 as their handbook to stifle creativity, truth, and just outright murder people they find inconvenient?

--
Free "Ai Weiwei"
* http://www.newstatesman.com/staggers/2012/10/taking-great-firewall-china
* http://www.newstatesman.com/media/media/2012/10/ai-weiwei-if-someone-not-free-i-am-not-free

Please explain ... how is a society where the majority are apathetic and ignorant versus an oppressive government that uses 1984 as their handbook to stifle creativity, truth, and just outright murder people they find inconvenient?

--
Free "Ai Weiwei"
* http://www.newstatesman.com/staggers/2012/10/taking-great-firewall-china
* http://www.newstatesman.com/media/media/2012/10/ai-weiwei-if-someone-not-free-i-am-not-free

The fact that "most everyone" believes something, doesn't make it true. It really bugs me that a lot of causes that I agree with (human rights activists, envionmentalists, and others) are filled with very vocal, very naîve, mostly young pepole who will repeat anyting they percieve to support their cause, weather true or not. This severely hurts the cause, and in a time when a simple Google fact check takes only seconds to do, there is no excuse for repeating untruths. (Unless you consider "being an idiot" an excuse for any kind of behavior.)

The extradition treaty between Sweden and the UK means that Assange can not be extradited from Sweden to a third country unless the UK agrees. So it would be much easier for the US to request extradition directly from the UK (requres consent only from a UK court) than from Sweden (requires consent from a UK court and a Swedish court.) (Sources are linked from this article wich took me only a few seconds to find on Google.)

Seems the Slashdot editor has broken the link - the file is easily available from the link in the article.

The PDF is at http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/files/AWW%20New%20Statesman.pdf Also its in Mandarin so not sure how much more you will be able to read into it.

It was in poor taste generally but particularly poor taste given that it was on *that* particular facebook wall.

On the grounds that the poster must have intended to cause upset and distress, he is likely to be found guilty under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

Section 127 provides that it would be an offence (and thereby means that a person can be arrested, charged, convicted, sentenced, and obtain a criminal record) if a person sends "a message or other matter" which is "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" by means of a "public electronic communications network". (Description from here)

I agree with free speech but only in the case of your own liberty or the liberty of others. Making a callous joke directly to the people who have lost a child whose fate is as yet undetermined is *not* a case of free speech.

I'm afraid you've got things a bit wrong.

It's also no small matter that the UK has the BBC. . . . The licensing fees you pay are amply repaid not just in terms of quality programming, but also unbiased programming.

BBC chief Mark Thompson admits 'Left-wing bias'
Mark Thompson: “There was massive left-wing bias at the BBC”

That has been found more than once, by the way.

Lastly, the UK was bombed into near-nothingness. The US never has been. The closest we've come to having to reassess economically was the Great Depression. Because we never had to rebuild from scratch, we never learned the social lessons that an experience like that offers --

19 - Ruins of Charleston, 10 - Damaged Atlanta, 7 - Burned-out Richmond

Besieged, bombarded and blocked from commerce, Charleston suffered greatly in the war. Sidney Andrews, a Northern reporter in Charleston at war’s end described it as “a city of desolation, of vacant homes, of widowed women, of deserted warehouses, of weed wild gardens ... of miles of grass grown streets.” - - The Destruction of Charleston in the Civil War

Ruins seen from the State Capitol - Columbia, SC, 1865

It's not socialism per-se that we're afraid of -- it's the idea that we aren't in control of our own fate. That we aren't individuals, but actually part of something more than ourselves, . . . .

Religion takes a back seat in Western Europe
The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism

For us, socialism is a sign of weakness;

Soviet internationalist socialist "weakness" on parade
Chinese internationalist socialist "weakness" on parade
North Korean internationalist socialist "weakness" on parade
Polish internationalist socialist "weakness" on parade
Czeck internationalist socialist "weakness" on parade
German internationalist socialist "weakness" on parade (Same tailor as below?)
German Nationalist Socialist "weakness" on parade (Same tailor as above?)

The Big Lies of the Soviet Union

I was recently re-reading John Gross’s marvelously entertaining Oxford Book of Parodies when I came across a 1938 passage from George Orwell that attempts to explain the strangeness of

America is doing evil things. Those who do evil things deserve to die.

America as a whole deserves to die? I'm curious, when did you acquire a taste for genocide?

Those who do evil things deserve to die.

By the way, does that include Assange?

The treachery of Julian Assange

Julian Assange and Europe's Last Dictator

In December 2010, Israel Shamir, a WikiLeaks associate and an intimate friend of Julian Assange -- so close, in fact, that he outed the Swedish women who claim to be victims of rape and sexual assault by Assange -- allegedly travelled to Belarus with a cache of unredacted American diplomatic cables concerning the country. He reportedly met Lukashenko's chief of staff, Vladimir Makei, handed over the documents to the government, and stayed in the country to "observe" the presidential elections.

When Lukashenko pronounced himself the winner on 19 December 2010 with nearly 80 per cent of the vote, Belarusians reacted by staging a mass protest. Lukashenko dispatched the state militia. As their truncheons bloodied the squares and streets of the capital, Minsk, Shamir wrote a story in the American left-wing journal Counterpunch extolling Lukashenko ("The president of Belarus ... walks freely among his people"), deriding the dictator's opponents ("The pro-western 'Gucci' crowd", Shamir called them), and crediting WikiLeaks with exposing America's "agents" in Belarus ("WikiLeaks has now revealed how... undeclared cash flows from the U.S. coffers to the Belarus 'opposition' ").

The following month, Soviet Belarus, a state-run newspaper, began serializing what it claimed to be extracts from the cables gifted to Lukashenko by WikiLeaks. Among the figures "exposed" as recipients of foreign cash were Andrei Sannikov, a defeated opposition presidential candidate presently serving a five-year prison sentence; Oleg Bebenin, Sannikov's press secretary, who was found dead in suspicious circumstances months before the elections; and Vladimir Neklyayev, the writer and former president of Belarus PEN, who also ran against Lukashenko and is now under house arrest.

Did Assange at this point repudiate Shamir or speak up against Lukashenko? No. Instead he upbraided Ian Hislop for publishing an article in the Private Eye that exposed Shamir as a Holocaust denier and white supremacist. There was, he claimed, a "conspiracy" against him by "Jewish" journalists at the Guardian. Addicted to obedience from others and submerged in a swamp of conspiracy theories, Assange's reflexive reaction to the first hint of disagreement by his erstwhile friends was to hold malign Jews responsible.

Sweden Issues Arrest Warrant for WikiLeaks' Assange in Rape Investigation

Inform yourself.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-there-should-be-no-immunity-for-julian-assange-from-these-allegations-8053869.html
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition

It's not so much a joke, as blowing the actual "threat" out of proportion. By the sounds of it, the UK government didn't threaten to story the embassy, but pointed out that they have the legal right to withdraw the embassy's diplomatic status if they have a good enough reason under international law. Once diplomatic status has been withdrawn, the police can just go in there normally and arrest him. However, withdrawing diplomatic status would be challengable in court, and that could take years to sort out (possibly longer than a prison sentence he could face if convicted of rape or molestation in Sweden).

Actually, the law doesn't say that. The law says that if a State wants to use land for diplomatic or consular premises, they can apply to the UK Government. The UK Government can accept or reject their application, and can also revoke the application at a later date.

However, they can only "withdraw consent or withdraw acceptance if [they are] satisfied that to do so is permissible under international law."

So they can't just decide to shut down the embassy at will, they need a reason within the rules of international law. And even then, the Ecuadorians (or Assange) could probably apply for an injunction delaying the effect of withdrawing diplomatic status for as long as it took to challenge the decision in the courts, which could take years.

There are a couple of good articles (by lawyers) on this sort of thing, here and here.

It sounds like the UK probably didn't threaten to "storm" the embassy, but pointed out that they're legally allowed to revoke the status of the embassy if it is being used improperly; whether hiding a fugitive counts as improper use would be something for courts to argue about, and that could take years. So it is unlikely we'll see armed troops bashing down the door next week...

See this post (by an actual lawyer) for more details.

Hey, why leave for Afghanistan when Israel has summer boot camps for foreigners. For those who wish to google it themselves keyword is: MARVA and GADNA

The British children who train to fight in Israel

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k_aatIlgcmI
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VM7tDiIzIHk
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=909xamDTsz4

mahal-idf-volunteers.org/

http://www.alternet.org/world/64100/

Let Israelis Show You Israel Web site reads. "The program includes military content such as: navigation, field training, weapons training, shooting ranges, marches and more, as well as educational content such as: Zionism, Jewish Identity, history and knowledge of the land of Israel. All of this is taught in Hebrew in an intensive eight weeks."

Also if you are non-jewish you can join the israeli army in all corps except the elite ones. You will fight side by side with the israeli pretty much what taliban does when they invite foreigners to fight side by side with them. Google is your friend on how to join these programs. And no there is no comparison to the french foreign legionnaire as they are distinctly different army under french command and you become french after 3 years of service and have high honor, ethics and moral which can be seen by their almost 200 years history.

It's not the body of the communications that can be trawled, but the headers. The government want to be able to see who is communicating with who, and when. The plan was written about in The Telegraph last monthbut the plans are much older than that. The last Labour government, lover of all things authoritarian, came up with the Interception Modernisation Programme which in its original form would have had details of all electronic communications sent to a central government database. When the government eventually realised that this would be completely impractical they shifted the work to the service providers, who would all have to keep the details of the communications travelling through their networks and give the government access to their database at all times. The service providers realised just how much this would cost and so the government committed £2 billion to cover those costs over ten years. The plan was heavily criticised by the Conservatives, who published a paper titled Reversing the rise of the surveillance state. (Which is still on their website.) It was also criticised backthen by the London School of Economics.The plan was shelved in 2009 after opposition from communications service providers and a realisation that it would not be popular with the public.

After the election, though, the Conservatives decided to resurrect the plan, giving it a new name, theCommunications Capabilities Development Programme. (CCDP) Questions were raised in 2010 bythe Information Commissioner's Officeand it was mentioned in The New Statesman. Now the government are pushing ahead with the CCDP and the queen's speech will say that they intend to introduce legislation to implement the programme as soon as possible.

There are many things wrong with this programme of spying. It is impractical, expensive, a huge violation of our privacy, it places too much power in the hands of government, a government who we cannot trust. Making the full details of who talks to who available will allow security personnel to trawl through our data on fishing trips instead of requiring some basis for suspicion. Combined with the database for Universal Credit, which will be almost as comprehensive as the National IdentityRegisterthat was criticised so much by the Conservatives, and the centralisation of medical records, this provides private information about us all to the government on anunprecedentedscale with huge scope for abuse and for life-destroying mistakes.

If these plans scare you, please write to your MP to tell them your objection to the Communications Capabilities Development Programme. You can use WriteToThem.com to send it if you don't have their details. Pleasesign theOpen Rights Group's petition against government snooping and maybe consider joining the group too.

I just feel sorry for whomever it is that's living next door to the thieves when Israel overreacts. Israel isn't exactly known for keeping any sort of perspective on things. Kill one of their citizens and they'll kill dozens of your citizens with little to no concern for innocent civilians.

Not according to Jonathan Sacerdoti in the New Statesman (most certainly not a pro-Israel publication). In fact, during Operation Cast Lead, Israel managed a better than 1:1 ratio (that is, one civilian per combatant killed). The UN estimate for similar assymetric warfare is 3:1 - that is three civilians for each combatant killed. And since then, they have done even better. In 2011, it was either 1:10 (Jane's correspondent in Israel) or 1:3 (Elder of Zion - factoring in numbers from PCHR).

Look for the actual facts, not mass media accounts. And as a rule of thumb, I'd discount hysterical claims right after an event, until they are actually examined. (Cases in point: the whole Muhammed al-Dura story, which was later shown to be a hoax, the supposed "massacre" of hundreds or thousands in Jenin that turned out to be 52 or 53, mostly combatants).

Again, we're talking small c conservative. More British citizens identify Blair as right wing than left wing. Brown was supposedly left of Blair, but that doesn't hold up on analysis.

This might be the straw that's very likely going to break the camel's back, but it's been a long running story now. Back in 2005 they were rumbled for hacking into voicemail of aides to the royal family, a good article from a US source, the NYT, here. The tl;dr version of that article is a minor uproar ensues but Newscorp contains it and is more or less successful claiming it as a one-off, rouge scenario, offering up the resignation of Andy Coulson, the editor, though he claims not to have known anything about it of course.

Now Andy Coulson makes the mistake of getting a job - head of communications, think Toby Ziegler in the West Wing - in the Conservatives, who get into government. This, combined with statements made by the private investigator who's decided he's not going down alone, adds enough fuel to get the fire burning again. The Guardian and Channel 4 get digging and out comes a documentary. A handful of celebrities are sniffing around it now, lo and behold Hugh Grant throws gas on the fire by bugging the bugger. All is forgiven Hugh, well played.

Accusations just keep mounting up and the picture is forming pretty solidly of a newsroom where such things were par for the course. An oft-repeated point directed at Coulson I'll paraphrase as "either he knew and he broke the law, or he didn't and he's grossly negligent" (not sure who started that, I think Ian Hislop). Coulson is given the boot.

The shit is flying pretty thick now and it just keeps coming. But it's all the royals, celebs and politicians. There is a sense that whilst it's overstepping the mark considerably, these are all public people and fair game. Milly Dowler, on the other hand, was a child and a tragedy. This is a recent turn in events and very quickly major advertisers have started to step away. I'll applaud Ford for being the first of the big advertisers to drop them, though I'm quite surprised it took so long. I suspect more shuffled away quietly.

News is now coming in that the police investigating the phone hacking have contacted the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the girls killed by the Soham Murderer. This was one of the biggest stories and national tragedies I can remember.

The News of the World really must not be allowed to survive this, it is a stunning failure of ethics, governance and plain decency on a huge scale with substantial evidence. If they can't be brought down for this, they clearly cannot be taken down for anything. Yet it's even proving difficult to remove the editor.

Does it really have to be spelled out to you?

On 17 August 1896, 44-year-old Bridget Driscoll became the first person to be killed by a motor car.

the first person world-wide who died as a result of being hit by a car (not in a car crash) was Mrs Bridget Driscoll

The quote relates to the first person to be killed after being hit by a car. You may note the profound irony in the coroner's statement.

I remember backpacking around Europe 20-ish years ago. You run into many Aussies on walkabout, and some of them complained to me that this one guy was pushing their politics far to the right. By controlling the newspapers he had every politician running scared. The guy? Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch's grip on the Australian press is extraordinary. Of all the daily newspapers published in the capital cities, where most Australians live, two out of every three copies sold are Murdoch's. Three out of every four Sundays are Murdoch's. In Adelaide, he owns everything, including the printing presses.

At the time I remember thinking "Well, good luck with that!"

Fox News and the George W. Bush presidency later, I'm no longer surprised by Australia's bent towards authoritarianism.

Problem is you are basically tying your nation's ability to tax to a single cyclical industry (real estate) instead of the entire economy. Works great when the real estate market is hot and tax revenues crater massively when the real estate market cools off. Asset price bubbles become a HUGE problem.

The problem of real estate bubbles and cyclical prices is in part because land is taxed so little. With a land value tax (or to a lesser extent normal property taxes), people buy less property just for speculation, and buy more to do something actually productive.

The Guardian is indeed an excellent source of free news, but with pre-tax losses of nearly $134m last year, it's anyone's guess how long that will last.

The BBC isn't in the same boat, of course, since it's funded by British licence fee payers, but should the Conservatives win the next general election, its operation also looks set to be scaled back considerably.

"Peace for our time" - Neville Chamberlain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time == "Peace after 1946"

"Mission accomplished!" George W. Bush http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished == "Mission not accomplished"

"Titanic goes down: everyone safe" Daily Express, April 1912 http://www.newstatesman.com/200606190037 == well, even the Cameron film didn't distort reality quite that much.

Here are some more then.

Your number is wrong on one count, and possibly another:

Britain does not have independent nuclear weapons.

States outside those five have large arsenals. India for example.

the IPCC is not "notoriously unreliable"
It is, in fact, a really good study. Look at the science behind it.

this may interest you:
http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/01/global-warming-lynas-climate

There was some discussion in London a while back that the traffic lights at a number of junctions had their red phase increase and green phase decreased just before the introduction of congestion charging and then decreased once it was enforced.

I'm not sure the extent to which these accusations were justified (they were originated by the Evening Standard, which has a long, acrimonious relationship with the mayor. It's an interesting thought, though.

If you jettison anyone fighting for your side (i.e. science) as soon as they are attacked, you will very soon run out of smart people like Gore and Dawkins.

Escuse me? Isn't the core of this conversation about how politics + science = bad times for science? The problem with "global warming" is that Gore, a politician, is speaking a story that climatologists, meteorologists, scientists are denying is occurring. I'm more concerned that he is profiting from involvement in venture capitalists tied to "green" alternatives, while driving the national conversation to enable "carbon credits" managed by his firms.

This guy's not a "smart person", he's an "opportunist"... I'd even go as far as a textbook "special interest", which is doing nothing but driving a weakly supported climatology theory into our nation's science classrooms, and through his political history drives it into our nightly news. Newsflash: The Polar Bear population is not decreasing, and the earth is not getting warmer over the last decade despite predictions, and there's good evidence that the rush to follow the Kyoto treaty is now damaging the ozone layer again. I'd prefer to stick to the measured facts instead of politically jumping the gun just because it's a good "story".

-- Scott

Sir Paul (continued): I'm really excited about the energy and commitment involved in making new music, and hate all these guys who try to hang onto the past. That's why I'm supporting the extension of copyright on music recordings in the UK.

Paul McCartney supports a call for copyright on music recordings to be extended from 50 years to 95 or even 'life plus 70 years'

Call me a troll if you want, but the Bush administration has clamped down hard on free speech

Like the UK government, which has banned protests in parts of London unless you have a license for your free speech?

monitors just about everything,

Like the UK government, which is an enthusiastic participant in ECHELON, runs GCHQ, and used to spy on the National Council for Civil Liberties, CND, and other "subversive" organizations?

litmus tests public servants,

Like the Labour Party, which imposes pre-vetted "New Labour" candidates approved by Central Office, and forces locally chosen Labour candidates to run as independents? And even tried to do it in the high profile London mayoral election?

puts whoever it wants on various lists,

Like the UK government, which has lists of prohibited organizations and the people believed to have joined them?

puts others in prison without charging them,

As opposed to the UK government, which puts people in prison indefinitely without charge?

declares pre-emptive war with no legal basis,

As opposed to the UK government, whose Prime Minister lies to everyone in order to get the country involved in said war, and still gets re-elected after his lies have been documented?

and does it all while putting every citizen and their children so deep in debt they will probably never get out.

Oh, well, you've got me there, the US economy has definitely been mismanaged worse than the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidie s

United States

The U.S. Agricultural Department is required by law to subsidize over two dozen commodities. Between 1996 and 2002, an average of $16 billion/year was paid by programs authorized by federal legislation dating back to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the Agricultural Act of 1949, and the Commodity Credit Corporation, among others.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200506200001

If the US and Europe removed their farm subsidies, the value of African food exports would double. According to Oxfam estimates, protectionism in rich countries costs the developing world £60bn a year. The organisation cites the example of sugar. Under the current regime of quotas and high tariffs, Europe's sugar prices are set at almost three times world market levels. Each year, European consumers and taxpayers foot the bill, of roughly £1bn, while developing countries - encouraged to liberalise their markets under IMF/World Bank strictures - suffer the consequences.

Spend a little time watching the documentaries coming out of Pakistan, Taliban-era Afghanistan, etc. On those occasions that a madrasah (Islamic school) has allowed western camera crews to record the setting, it's certainly disturbing in some cases.

But here is a decidedly sympathetic article by a guy that researched the role the madrasahs are (or are not) playing in the molding of young minds into what, in some cases, become extremist jihaddis. You'll note that even the author, who decidedly chastises the west for frequently "not getting it" when it comes to these issues, confirms that a subset of these schools, drenched in wahabism and fueled with some families' oil money, were the factories that turned out the core of the Taliban. That movement is brutally medeival in its treatment of its own women, of any other culture, and famous for happily hosting folks like bin Laden in Afghanistan - a country they moved into and took over like a violent cancer. I'm sure you've seen the lunchtime former-soccer-field executions of women who (gasp!) tried to work outside their houses, or send their daughters to school. But more importantly, it's the mullahs produced by some of these programs that leverage the wide-open immigration policies throughout Europe and set up shop. In some cases, they have very good luck finding impressionable, or addled enough young suburban Muslims to go out and carry (or be) bombs.

Your deliberate misreading of my comment, to suggest that every fundamentalist Islamic school exists only to train terrorists, is nonsense. But they don't all have to do it for at least a few to none the less lean that direction, as they demonstrably do. The leaders of these schools proudly say they do.

So, you can be surprised that I would know, or you can go and digest the information yourself, and then YOU can know. But I'll stick to my original point, which is that altering how US education dollars are spent isn't going to change the creed that's preached to 8-year-olds in some of the crazier madrasahs in Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and so on.

Your example points to why a driver's license is necessary. An ID Card isn't.

Secondly, you could make an ID Card useful without needing to hold centralised data on everyone, simply by storing all the relevant info on the card.

I'm less clear on the Real ID scheme, but the British version is truly scary:
http://www.newstatesman.com/Ideas/200505300020

Call me a cynic but I suspect that all this division, anger and spite is just what (certain) politicians want.

As an outsider it appears to me that US elections are fought and won largely on moral, emotive issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the presidential candidates war record and so on rather than practical issues like healthcare, public services and the economy.

It is far easier to demonise an opposition party and it's supporters in the voters eyes on moral rather than practical grounds. This is especially true of those large sections of the electoret that do not understand the complexities of economic theory, the quagmire of foreign policy or the lofty ideals of social justice but who know a baby-murdering heathen queer or an fascist corporate war-monger when they see one.

It makes it so much easier for the voter to just say "Well, they are just a bunch of [insert ridiculously generalised stereotype here], aren't they." than to fault the opposition on points of policy.

Basically this strategy replaces thinking with feeling in the process of deciding who to vote for.
It is much easier to win peoples hearts than their minds.

By way of example, an article in this weeks New Statesman suggests that millions of Bush voters are, in fact, the very people who suffer the most due to his policies (ie. the poor and powerless) but who are nevertheless won-over by his public position on the emotive moral issues.

Kerry is just as fascist as Bush.