“The environmental movement has never been short on noble goals … But today, one ecological problem outweighs all others: global warming … Just one problem. Winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows.”
Wired has a great bunch of articles looking at the sacrifices environmentalists may need to accept in order [...]

“Targets also miss the point of what the public want. The Home Office judges each police force by how many crimes it detects and clears up. The public want something different. They do not want crimes happening in the first place. They believe, like Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan police, that ‘the [...]

I just came across a post on Olly Jackson’s blog about Ordnance Survery finally opening up some of their data. There’s been widespread disquiet for several years over OS’s strict licensing regime for use of their data, including online use, which generally boils down to charging people a lot of money to use data collected [...]

Greg Clark MP recently introduced his Right to Roam (Mobile Phone) Bill in Parliament. The bill would encourage mobile phone companies to allow roaming between UK networks, in the same way that phone signals are seamlessly transferred on the European continent. While phones would preferentially connect to their home network, when the user went out [...]

I saw this last month but didn’t get round to blogging it. Showing what can be achieved when big business considers social issues, YouTube software has been adapted to help analysts from the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) find child pornography. In turn, this will allow solutions to be developed to [...]

“Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving survivors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people … The continuing rice sales looked like just another facet of the Burmese regime’s insensitivity to the suffering of its own people as [...]

BBC News reports that Barak Obama has overtaken Hillary Clinton in number of super-delegate endorsements. It’s increasingly certain that Obama will win the US Democratic race, and Clinton would do well to sacrifice her pride for the sake of her party. Her pulling out of the race would allow the Democrats to begin more effective [...]

“After listening to Jacqui Smith MP talking about skunk cannabis in Parliament today millions of young people have decided to quit using cannabis and drink 3 litre bottles of white-lightning cider instead.”
The Transform Drug Policy Foundation blog has an amusing post on the futility and impacts of reclassifying cannabis. Despite the caustic humour, the charity [...]

Scotland on Sunday have a fascinating article about the plight of Sudanese children who are abandoned by their parents. Until recently they were not considered orphans in Sudan, and 80% of those in the country’s orphanages died of neglect. However, a recent law and fatwa have drastically changed this only a few years, helping Sudanese [...]

“The EU started with the premise of a ‘right to a private life’ and allowed only limited data collection exceptions to that right. Search engines can only hang on to European user data for six months, must generally treat IP addresses as ‘personal information,’ and must comply with the rules even if they are based [...]

“A few days ago, New York’s State Senate passed a bill making it illegal to recruit someone into a street gang … In the never-ending fight by city officials and legislators to combat gangs, this is one of the latest efforts to outmaneuver gang members.”
Yeah, ‘cos that’ll really do the trick. The gangs mug people, [...]

“The United Nations is using the mapping programme Google Earth to highlight the plight of millions of refugees and its humanitarian work to help them … Users can explore the lives of those in exile by clicking on exact locations in the refugee camps to see photos of the facilities, such as health clinics, schools, [...]

“While the new rulers accepted the notions of Western-style multiparty democracy, in their hearts the liberation movements did not contemplate that they could lose power at the ballot box … Zimbabwe is the first country to face this crisis.”
Time takes a fascinating look at why so many African leaders don’t seem keen to relinquish [...]

As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela
Mark Thomas
Rating:
I read quite a lot, and as I like giving my opinions (that’s what this blog’s for, after all) I thought I’d start writing some reviews However, as external websites provide fuller information on the books, the authors, and other readers’ opinions than I’ll ever be [...]

Time reports on increasing evidence that biofuels may not be the eco-friendly solution to oil dependence that they are made out to be. Not only do they result in land being used to grow fuel rather than food, but the planting of these crops causes large-scale destruction of vegetation. While good land management practices can [...]

Senior al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been defending the terrorist organisation’s tactics. Nothing new there, it would seem - except that the rebuttals are against those who would normally be supporters but are now increasingly questioning the group’s methods. Answering specific questions posted on al-Qaeda linked websites, it seems that the terrorist network’s leaders may [...]

“As many as eight Tibetans may have been killed when paramilitary police opened fire during protests in Sichuan province, according to Tibetan support groups. They say the protesters were gunned down in the Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture when police used automatic weapons on the crowds on Thursday evening.”
China continues its murderous behaviour against unarmed Tibetans. [...]

“The UK’s reputation was damaged when the government hesitated in calling for an immediate end to the Lebanon war last year, MPs have said … The foreign affairs committee also said it was ‘counterproductive’ not to talk to Palestinian militant group Hamas. “
The foreign affairs committee is clearly correct in both cases. However, whether or [...]

In another post that I never got round to blogging, Boing Boing linked last month to a new study into copyright. Economist Rufus Pollock takes into account that the optimal copyright period on intellectual property will fall as costs of production reduce, and that the optimal level will fall over time in general. Putting this [...]

“When all the pieces of the global economy work together smoothly, all the players involved benefit. In this decade, a clear pattern emerged: China became factory to the world, the U.S. became buyer to the world, and India began to become back office to the world.”
In an excerpt from her new book on the subject, [...]