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Johann Hari: Jade Goody showed the brutal reality of Britain.
In her short life, Jade showed how as Britain has spiralled into one of the most unequal and immobile societies on earth, we have begun to openly jeer and sneer at the people trapped at the bottom.
Incredible clip from the sixth and last episode of the BBC’s Nature’s Great Events.
Under his and Blair’s leadership the economy tanks. What does he do? Blatantly tries to divert attention by screaming “War on Terror.” Little more than a propaganda tool to take away the freedoms of the people of Britain.
Prince Charles detox ‘quackery’, BBC
“Nothing would, of course, be easier than to demonstrate that detox products work. All one needed to do is to take a few blood samples from volunteers and test whether this or that toxin is eliminated from the body faster than normal,” [Professor Ernst] said.
“But where are the studies that demonstrate efficacy? They do not exist, and the reason is simple: these products have no real detoxification effects.”
Earlier this year the charitable trust Sense About Science produced a report seeking to debunk claims made about detox products.
Its researchers reviewed a series of products, from bottled water to face scrub, and found the detox assertions to be overwhelmingly meaningless.“It seems outrageous for companies to be making money selling meaningless products but for the heir to the throne to be doing so, at £10 a pop, is even more inappropriate,” said Tom Wells, who helped carry out the original research.
We must break link between green issues and alternative medicine, The Guardian, George Monbiot
Environmentalism is, or should be, a movement led by scientific findings. I see the role of environmentalists as being to explore and explain the implications of what the science – whether on climate change, habitat loss, biodiversity, fisheries, pollution or resource depletion — is saying, and how this should translate into public policy.
2500 scientists attending a recent conference in Copenhagen have warned we face irreversible climate change.
Lewis Smith, writing for The Australarian:
The demands and alerts contained in the statement were described as a defining moment in scientists’ relations with political leaders, representing a shift away from their traditional role of merely offering advice to telling politicians to act.
It’s been a long time coming but two people, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, have finally put the numbers together and conclusively shown that modern social problems are substantially worse in those societies with wider gaps between rich and poor.
Any cursory look at the world tells you this but these are the first people to show it scientifically. This, I would suggest, is going to be huge. The implications are profound.
Will Hutton, writing for The Guardian:
Income inequality, they show beyond any doubt, is not just bad for those at the bottom but for everyone. More unequal societies are socially dysfunctional across the board. There is more teenage pregnancy, mental illness, higher prison populations, more murders, higher obesity and less numeracy and literacy in more unequal societies. Even the rich report more mental ill health and have lower life expectancies than their peers in less unequal societies.
They have produced a book on their findings called The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. And they’ve also created website, equalitytrust.org, to make the evidence they set out better known.
As John Carey points out in his review of their book in the Times: “It might be said that The Spirit Level merely formulates what everyone has always felt.”
Now maybe we can get on with changing a few things around here.
External links:
George Bush oversees torture and commits the “supreme war crime” of aggression, causing suffering and death for millions. Gets to go back to his ranch.
One of the victims of these crimes throws a shoe at the perpetrator. Gets 3 years in jail.
The Guardian did get one thing wrong in their report. Muntazar al-Zaidi is not just a hero in the Arab world.
It’s part of the NZ National Party’s DNA to make democratically funded services appear inadequate, so that people lose faith in such services and turn to the private sector.
Once sold to the private sector for a pittance such services can then be used to make profits for their supporters and donors in the private sector.
It’s for this reason that this unscrupulous group of people is trying to manufacturer a crisis over ACC, New Zealand’s very good public accident compensation scheme.
The same can be said for their nasty little scheme to privatise prisons and turn NZ into mini disfunctioning US of A.
So, thanks again to those who voted National (out of a “mood for change”).
Republican Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, describe’s America’s problem in a nutshell:
Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe” or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their strategic interests.”
Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up check points on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.
Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers’ attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed.
According to our own CIA, our meddling in the Middle East was the prime motivation for the horrific attacks on 9/11. But instead of re-evaluating our foreign policy, we have simply escalated it. We had a right to go after those responsible for 9/11, to be sure, but why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn’t stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason?
I see the National Party are kicking their little ideologically driven project of plundering NZ into a higher gear.
This time it’s the privatisation of ACC and prisons.
Thanks again to those who voted National (out of a “mood for change”).