Friday 7 August 2009
Here are the details of tonight's programme
"I am not going to be a shrinking violet" - Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman.
We'll get to the non-shrinking violet in a moment, but we expect to lead tonight with news that Pakistan's most wanted man, Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, has reportedly been killed by a US missile. President Barack Obama's spokesman greeted the news with "If he is dead, without a doubt, the people of Pakistan will be safer as a result".
We'll be asking what this means for stability in the region. The news comes as the MoD confirmed that three members of the Parachute Regiment have been killed while in southern Afghanistan. They were killed when their Jackal armoured vehicle was hit by an explosion and small-arms fire.
Click here to watch Barbara Plett 2008 Newsnight report from Pakistan on the growing strength of the Taliban when she was taken to see Baitullah Mehsud.
Plus, while the prime minister's away... Harriet Harman and Peter Mandelson (among others) are taking it in turns to occupy the headlines while Gordon Brown enjoys his summer break. Are they running the country or making the running for a post-Brown Labour party?
At the time of writing, it seems that England are on the brink of disaster in Leeds. We've got a film from New York about how the police department there are using cricket to help improve relations with the city's ethnic minorities.
Gavin will be joined by Joseph O'Neill, author of "Netherland", the story of cricket in a post-9/11 New York - the book Barack Obama describes as "brilliant".
And on Newsnight Review at 11pm, Kwame Kwei Armah is joined by comedians Natalie Haynes and David Schneider, and the politician Michael Gove to look at your best cultural options for a staycation this summer.
The Junior Officers' Reading Club tops a reading list given out to Conservative MPs for the summer recess. Patrick Hennessey's memoir of his time serving in Afghanistan is an account of the highs and the horrors of army life. With the deaths of three more British soldiers announced today, his frank assessment couldn't be more timely. But can policy makers learn from it?
Frank McGuinness' new version of Euripides' play, Helen at London's Globe Theatre nods towards ideas of the futilty of war too, meanwhileTom Payne's book Fame traces the origins of celebrity culture to 500BC. There has been a flurry of renewed interest in the classics on stage and page - is it because they particularly chime with our times?
We'll also be looking at a new road movie staring Isabelle Huppert where no-one leaves Home, and asking whether summer entertainment phenomenon Big Brother has had its day.
Join us from 10.30pm on BBC Two tonight.
© MMX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~52~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
It is a shame so many of your team are on Holiday at the same time. You would not get away with it in a real business. Anyway I would have left this on Mark Urban's Blog had he not been off on vacation.
Afghanistan Casualty Rate
The news of another three soldiers killed by IEDs in theatre is most disheartening. From the reports in the press this seemed to be a well prepared ambush in an area that we were meant to have cleared and held.
The casualty rate as a percentage of fighting troops on the ground is approaching a level which will not be sustainable, either logistically nor in terms of public support.
It poses a number of questions which need to be answered from a strategic point of view, never mind the political question of “should we be there or not”?
These questions are:
What force level o we need to deny the enemy insurgents freedom of movement? During the Boer War we needed to deploy enough troops to man a blockhouse every mile, or so, on major routes.
Could such freedom of movement be denied through increasing the air assets, both fixed wing and rotary.
What level of spending do we need to deploy to ensure that we can find better technical solutions to the IED problem? The incredible inventiveness displayed at times of total war seems to be lacking.
What are we doing to interdict the supply of explosives and other technical resources needed for the construction of IEDs?
Are we spending enough on acquiring indigenous intelligence assets?
Would improving the internal communication infrastructure make a difference? – Building new roads, laying asphalt on existing roads, creating rail links – whatever it would take.
I hear a lot of replaying the phrase “winning the peoples hearts and minds”, however we seem to be missing the fact that this is meaningless unless you can supply basic security, which we do not seem able to. Remember in the Malayan campaign we moved the people away from the insurgents and into protected villages.
We need some better answers to the problem!
Complain about this comment
Aside from the possibility of - previously - undiagnosed case of Narcolepsy it is not possible to see why the trailed Ms Harmon story was cut from last night’s NN? Replaced, seemingly, by the over-ridingly important coverage of a playboy-like criminal being given his freedom sic it can only be assumed that some senior NN editor has links with the East End and wishes to pay homage where no credit is due.
However it is comforting to see that it is on the schedule for tonight! (Unless of course an important report is released by X organisation stating that cornflakes are better for the GBP than soda-pop which just, must, absolutely take precedence!)
Had the ten minutes or so critique of Ms Harmon attempts at doing stand-up comedy been replaced by a more important story one could understand but .....
A possible example of a more important issue ....
A guilty drugs mule will not serve her sentence in the country where she was convicted, she callously cocks-a-snoot to conceive an unwanted child - whom will probably be state supported for many years to come - and then, upon return to her adopted home will in due course become eligible for parole?
Why?
Parole ....... ?
Oh yes! Of course!
Our Jails are full to bursting, we are told!
How many lives would have been destroyed had she had completed her, presumably, well paid task?
And, Lo and behold, now a foundation sic abhors that she was sentenced to spend the rest of her life behind bars!!!!!
Shimple ....
Don’t smuggle drugs!
Easy!
(Notably - ? - the same effort not been put to repatriating one other british prisoner whom now will presumably be required stroke obliged to pay child support for his pleasures stroke offspring stroke act of generosity stroke compassion?)
Come on NN, here are plenty of viable, worthwhile and important stories out there.....
Go for it?
Although some of the posters on this site bang on about the same thing day in day out perhaps with good reason - Mea culpa perhaps - there have been plenty of statements, suggestions and requests from key-kickers that post on here, perhaps it’s time to take a hint?
After all ..... You are called the British Broadcasting Corporation ......
Not the E.S.D.C.C.!
i.e. Editors Soapbox and Deserving Causes Channel.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
BBC should show Claude Goretta's The Lacemaker, Isabelle Huppert was just magnetic, the last scene as she stare's into the lens - such intensity with delicateness.
Complain about this comment
'GET MORE OF THE TALIBAN TO CHANGE SIDES' (Miliband D)
While we have military strategists of that calibre, we cannot lose. . .
Does Miliband-D know that when Britain expected to be invaded, we were told by some chap called Churchill, that we would fight to the last man/ditch and NEVER SURRENDER? Is it our contempt for Johnnie Foreigner - especially a JF who refuses to teach his girls in schools, thereby messing with the boys' heads until they eschew learning as 'girl stuff'?
Does Miliband-D know that we dug chambers in woods and stocked them with food and explosives for virtual suicide squads (life-expectancy counted in days) to lurk in, then emerge, to attack the enemy from the rear?
Has Miliband-D or Gumby Bob - or any of them - put themselves in the sandals of men whose forebears we treated with UTTER CONTEMPT for generations? Does Miliband-D know the EU subsidises the growing of TOBACCO; the CARCINOGEN WITH AN ALMOST 1:1 CAUSAL LINK TO LUNG CANCER?
Does Miliband-D have much idea about anything, except his burning, personal ambition? How many British blokes, listening to the German armour rolling over their hidey-hole, would be preparing to 'change sides'? DO WE PAY THIS MAN? We might as well get Tony back to sort it out. Mind you, it will cost! But he was always hailed as a great communicator, so he could carry the Miliband message of side-changing to the Talib fighter, personally. Such a mission requires a straight sort of guy - with God on his side. . .
Complain about this comment
'There has been a flurry of renewed interest in the classics on stage and page - is it because they particularly chime with our times?
We'll also be looking at a new road movie staring Isabelle Huppert where no-one leaves Home, and asking whether summer entertainment phenomenon Big Brother has had its day.' Gavin
Talking of the spooky 'big brother', in two of my recent poems I've used the word 'chime', including today in my further verses on Copernicus - perhaps Gavin has special access to the small 'big brother'? Mind you, it could simply be a coincidence. My life, however, seems to be full of such predictable 'coincidences'. Ah well.
On Harriet Harman
'I am not going to be a shrinking violet" - Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman. We'll get to the non-shrinking violet in a moment,etc'. Gavin again
Doesn't the above sound a touch patronising?
Complain about this comment
#5 barriesingleton
Totally agree!
The peddling of essentially racist assumptions about the superiority of the West is dreadful. The Beeb continues this with so called "experts" who continue to talk as if Afghanistan and Pakistan were "countries" as in Europe and not the product of the imperial partition of the Pashtun in the 19th century. There are 18 ethnic groupings in Afghanistan, and the Taliban are essentially a Pashtun organisation.
While it is reasonable to dislike their treatment of women, the extension of that principle would have seen the UK males "changing sides" when invaded by the Nordic countries in the early 20th century to enforce women's suffrage.
Complain about this comment
SHRINKING VIOLET? MORE A SHRIEKING HARRIDAN
It is high time politics registered that on the male-female continuum, inhabitants of the female end are few in Westminster; and Horrible Harperson is definitely not one of them.
It is well known that Mums who venture into male toilets, with a toddler son, find the air unbreatheable; I suspect the Westminster atmosphere is similarly anathema to the sensitive, genuine female.
By showing her lack of femininity, while at the same time banging on about superior women, Harriet is doing a grand job of making my point for me. Heil Harriet!
Complain about this comment
"Staycation"
Given the English language is your stock in trade, it is baffling why so many in the media have such a weak grasp of it; slavishly adopting every illiterate U.S. way of speaking and writing.
I'm sure many U.S. short-hand ways of speaking and writing enable you to get across the point more easily and more quickly, but do you really enjoy speaking and writing like this?
Why, when the non-English-speaking world rapidly embraces learning the English language - correct English, from textbooks (at least while at school) - do our representatives, here - the media - appear to abandon it.
"Affect" and "effect", anyone? Will I ever hear these words again?
Complain about this comment
#5 barriesingleton
I agreed with your post, but something in my subsequent comments caused a referral!
Complain about this comment
Why have I, "strugglingtostaycalm" (post #9), be re-named "you"?
Complain about this comment
#11 You are only You on your previous posts, when you are logged in writing a new post.
Don't ask me why they changed it!!! :O :/
Complain about this comment
KEY STAKEHOLDER DESIGNATION REASSIGNMENT - GOING FORWARD (#11 & 12)
Imagine some brainstorming session by a bunch of media-studies types, desperate for a more 'now' interactive stakeholder-friendly 'experience' for the keyboarding service-availer. Some pathetic twit, who actually reacts to banks and supermarkets saying 'your bank' 'your closed branch' 'your trolley' and the like, comes up with the change from the old designation to 'you' when you are viewing (but your usual designation when others read your post). "This will be of immense appeal to the relevant demographic cohort, and reduce post-traumatic stress among our target bloggees." They all glow, and no one bothers to cost the enterprise.
Edgy culture at its best.
Complain about this comment
#9 Strugglingtostaycalm
Len could certainly have written "holiday spent at your home, or in your hometown" instead of "staycation", but quite why you would want to classify any use of a word from one of the many forms of Standard English around the world as "illiterate" is unclear. Perhaps you consider your own dialect of English to be the only "pure" form and every variant user of English is "wrong".
There are many types of "Standard" English. The one used within England is simply one - and isn't even used throughout the UK.
Complain about this comment
Here is a link to a BBC story on a subject which many posters have dicussed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8189231.stm
Have to put this BBC news story up which linked from the above page if only for the line containing 'private clinic'.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8189296.stm
Complain about this comment
Was going to say the BBC should show The Piano Teacher but then, no The Lacemaker would probably be bad enough for the BBC power women.
Complain about this comment
harman polices sound a bit bonkers? if not unstable?
40 years in afghanistan? is that the brilliant strategy milliband crowed about in the usa and the reason why he says the british people are right behind him? Neoconism of the FO is not worth one british life.
cricket book
a casino society is the american model?
Complain about this comment
20k trial over a banana theft in yam yam land. When is the common sense get out clause going to be inserted into this repeating lunacy ?
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090808/tuk-banana-theft-trial-costs-taxpayer-20-45dbed5.html
Ive mused for some time over the use of *yam yam land* to describe Birmingham and Ive deemed it acceptable but only because (BBC induced paranoia) yam yam land is my home and therefore said from me it is not location racism. OK BBC PC people.
Complain about this comment
NR
if anyone is interested in how to tell the difference between tragedy and comedy and understand how to construct them Dr Pierre Grimes explains it in this video
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B7652758DD7FCBCB
Complain about this comment
AND THE SPIKE IN THE GURU! (#19)
Old Grimy 'does guru' too intensely for me to maintain concentration.
I reckon the radiation from that head can fog a photographic plate at forty paces.
Surely he IS the fusion of comedy and tragedy? (:o)
And he does look a lot like Spike!
Complain about this comment
Here's one for you Leo http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8188166.stm fits in very nice with your domino theory of world collapse. Some people must be listening to you. : )
Complain about this comment
#15 Leo, The BBC might have a nice neat answer to it all, but look what the Telegraph is printing....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5994047/Muslim-Europe-the-demographic-time-bomb-transforming-our-continent.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5994045/A-fifth-of-European-Union-will-be-Muslim-by-2005.html
I don't understand why the europeans are allowing this to happen. Or rather their governments, do we really have to go backwards to a repressed society under muslim domination?
Complain about this comment
FURTHER TO MINE AT #5 ABOVE
I forgot to post the priceless reference (on BBC1 10.00pm News last night) referring to the 'INDISCRIMINATE' planting of IEDs by those terrible indigenes. I bet our suicide-blokes, down in their woodland bunkers, waiting for the Hun, were avidly devouring the handbook, mugging up on DISCRIMINATORY PLACING of explosive charges, with particular reference to roof-surveys for bats, before bringing a building down on Gerry.
I just don't know what warfare is coming to - I really don't!
Complain about this comment
Does this mean that the BBC have now capitulated to referring to all films as 'movies' ?? When did this hideous habit take hold ?? When is it going to be nipped in the bud ??
Here's a clue - this is the BBC, not the American Broadcasting Corporation.
Complain about this comment
#21 Ecolizzy
Looked at that link and thought about posting it. As I've tried to explain before Newsnight and the BBC news have a very narrow and extremist agenda and view.
Basically they suscribe to the belief the only way to run a planet is to convert the ecological life systems of the planet into economic growth. Even when they have what they consider is a 'balanced' studio discussion, the reality is those involved are all discussing how to do them same thing, only in slightly different ways. There is no counterpoint to the philosophy the BBC holds as a central tenet.
So as this is a site which reflects the BBC philosophy I tend not overdo links from alternative perspectives on reality.
Re collapse etc this is a short piece.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium_in_social_theory
Celtic Lion
Complain about this comment
#25KCL
Your response could also apply to ecolizzy's #22 link and query on the topic of 'sleepwalking' into major changes in our society.
Your link states that "..(punctuated change)is characterized by long periods of stability, punctuated by large—though less frequent—changes due to large shifts in society or government. ... Gun control and U.S. tobacco policy have also been found to follow punctuated changes.... despite a significant mobilization to change, U.S. state tobacco policymaking from 1990 to 2003 was characterized by limited and symbolic punctuation which favored the pro-tobacco policy agenda."
Your response comes across as something of a cop-out.
Many bloggers are critical of government policies and of apparent BBC support and attitudes and post to try to achieve changes.
Although it is difficult to see much change -
"... policy generally changes only incrementally due to several restraints, namely the "stickiness" of institutional cultures, vested interests, and the bounded rationality of individual decision-makers. Policy change will thus be punctuated by changes in these conditions, especially in party control of government, or changes in public opinion"
Whilst we eagerly await the change in 'party control of government' (except Barrie!) surely it is encumbent upon us as bloggers to give voice to our public opinion demands for change, rather than accept what policies NN choose to condone often by a bias in the studio debaters chosen?
There have been suggestions of bloggers meeting up; although this is unlikely to give any more leverage to our individual views/demands, it could provide an extended conversation amongst some of us to debate out differences. For Southerners, I suggest the Union Jack Club near Waterloo Station, where I meet up occasionally with several of my more distant mates: any support, or alternative proposals?
Complain about this comment
PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM
I presume that would employ the Comma of Pythagoras? Or am I getting muddled with a punctured asymptote?
Complain about this comment
#8; RAGE AGAINST THE NAME.
You touch on something here, barrie, which chimes with some of my father's views.
He firmly believes that because Kelvin Mckenzie is called - Kelvin Mckenzie - he rages against the Scottish origins of both his forename and surname by berating all things Scotch (sic) at every opportunity.
It must therefore, be dreadful for Harriet Harman to be called - Harriet HarMAN - given her views, so she goes bananas about male supremacy at every opportunity.
My dad explains Gordi and Miliband in similar ways.
Complain about this comment
INTERESTING DAD (#28)
How pleasing to see such a mix of philosophical enquiry and human psychology here. Has poor Harriet's inability to express (fearfulness of expressing) her femininity (femininity being so much more powerful than feministity will ever be) been explained at all? I seem to remember she is 'well endowed' with antecedents; but was she mentored or given a nasty fright?
Complain about this comment
No. 27: As opposed to acute synaphea?
Complain about this comment
GREAT BRITAIN PLC COULD BE NEXT?
According to the reliable BBC News, 100 companies have been struck off for 'misleading the public'. (I have checked the calendar - it is not April 1.)
By my observation, it is a FUNDAMENTAL tenet of Westminster party politics, that the public ARE THERE TO BE MISLED.
In passing, I hear our Iranian embassy staff have been falsely accused of spying. It reminds me of the sixties when 'wholly innocent businessman' Greville Wynn was so accused by the dastardly Soviets. The mass of ethical Britain was incensed - our chap was INNOCENT. The BBC reported reliably then, also; and later when he turned out to be a spy after all. . .
Small wonder 'tangled web' Mandelson is MD of GB PLC.
Complain about this comment
#27 Barrie
A PRECURSOR TO POST EUCLIDIAN ASSESSMENT
Having given your enquiry full and due consideration. The punctured asymptote is the closest of the 2 options you present.
If the trajectory of evolution is correct to form a straight datum line. Homo Saps evolution did initially follow the underlying criteria of the evolutionary trajectory.
But as you have recently pointed out there are now inverse relationships and unsustainable elements in the human development trajectory.
This has caused this pathway to 'veer off' from the fundamental principles which have under pinned life for a few billion years.
With both development trajectories initially running parallel, and now the human one curving away (until it 'snaps' back), punctured asymptote could be considered the appropriate terminology.
This is not to discard a hesitant Pythagorean analysis wholly. With two trajectories originating from an original source, this allows the creation of a force vector diagram. Pythagoras's' most familiar work, can then be used in determining at what point in space and time future events will occur.
Not so much chiming together, more striking a chord. The knowledge of the future being the extended secant.
Complain about this comment
EXTENDING THE SECANT BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS (#32)
But if - as is close-to-infinitely likely, life on this planet (which has randomly thrown up an unsustainable expression) is insignificant in cosmic terms, might it be EXPRESSIONAL PREJUDICE, on your part, to see Hom Sap's (your) survival as worth a nano-hill of quark-beans?
Quirks such as us, should be treated with the contempt that we are clearly held in, at a cosmic level.
#30 That's synaphea nonsense. (:o)
Complain about this comment
'The UK needs to lead a revolution in food production, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has told the BBC.'
So the government is going to have one last run at forcing Genetically Modified foods onto the agenda - again.
Complain about this comment
#31 barriesingleton
"By my observation, it is a FUNDAMENTAL tenet of Westminster party politics, that the public ARE THERE TO BE MISLED."
1. You have previously said you have done a "bit of R&D" in the past and felt that the scientists "could have it wrong" on climate change - but did not feel the need to offer any evidence to support it. You probably feel you have been cheated out of one or two Nobel prizes.
2. The BNP who would replace democracy with a National Socialist dictatorship are known to tell a few porkies - in fact it often seems to happen. The London Assembly Member having to explain three local murders that did not happen. "Race rapes" in Oxford St that did not happen. The "race murder" of a BNP activist in Stoke - that was due to a border dispute.
The BNP are "not a Nazi Party" they are "modern and progressive" - whatever that is. Yet the BNP activists who pollute this page regularly clearly endorse a view of Hitler as a revered "peace lover". They will offer statistics on Jewish survival rates from the thirties - but they are "agnostic" on the Holocaust.
They are in a different league on the "lies" front.
Democracy has its flaws but it can correct itself via the system.
Dictatorship in the form of a Hitler requires a brief case bomb left in an opportune location or the Red Army to rid the people of a leader.
Complain about this comment
I have an idea for Newsnight on the assumption that Von Bruun and Djemjanjuk are proven to be guilty.
The former was associated with the American Friends of the BNP and is awaiting trial for the murder of a security guard at a US Holocaust Memorial. There is a previous conviction for attempting to kidnap a US Fed member - on the basis that Jews manipulate the economy and run the world etc.
The latter claims not to be a WWII Nazi war criminal who acted as a guard at a death camp.
I assume that the latter will not be trying to prove that the Holocaust did not happen as part of his defence - as there is an abundance of evidence that it did such as Nuremburg and previous prosecutions. I believe the defence will be "I didn't do it - I wasn't there".
Yet the former criminal Von Bruun clearly believes that there was no Holocaust.
I have read a little of the views of Von Bruun and they correspond quite closely with the views of some far right posters who use this page.
None from the far right, I believe, will turn up to guide the Djemjanjuk legal team to a successful defence on the basis that there was no Holocaust.
Do the people who analysed Von Bruun understand how he sustains an illogical and irrational argument and how the far right movement encompasses such inherent contradictions as is exemplified by attitudes to the Holocaust?
The whole cause of the far right anti-semitism seems to have been a very vague view that Stalin ejected Jews in the thirties and that there may be a "Jewish Communist International".
Alternatively it could be argued that Stalin ejected people with brown eyes and there is a "brown eye communist international" based on just as solid evidence.
Are they more of a cult than a political movement? Is the emotional need for hatred that over rides logical consistency the glue that binds these people together?
Complain about this comment
#22 ecolizzy
"I don't understand why the europeans are allowing this to happen. Or rather their governments, do we really have to go backwards to a repressed society under muslim domination?"
Could BNP activists have an angle on this? Race "realism" or whatever cosmetic nonsense they use to describe their need for racial division and to incite turmoil that they may exploit.
Hey you said the other day you "visit" the BNP web site. You also seemed to make the leap that the BNP were "fascist". Knock me down with a feather - how did you make that leap?
Is this the same web site that "has more hits than all of the other political parties put together"?
If so then surely the BNP will win the next general election hands down and so its pretty futile to discuss European issues as they would withdraw I believe.
As for repression - despite the claims of many on the far right - Hitler was known to be quite repressive.
Thats how he came to shoot and gas so many millions and we ended up with circa fifty million war dead.
As the BNP used a Spitfire and an image of Churchill on their campaign literature that is a view they endorse.
The BNP are "not a Nazi party", as one spokesperson claimed, they are a "modern and progressive party".
You have said also that you are not keen on visiting London due to the racial mix.
Tsch - thats a real blow to London.
Complain about this comment
#33
NON DISMISSIVE
"But if - as is close-to-infinitely likely, life on this planet (which has randomly thrown up an unsustainable expression) is insignificant in cosmic terms, might it be EXPRESSIONAL PREJUDICE, on your part, to see Hom Sap's (your) survival as worth a nano-hill of quark-beans?"
In no way do I contradict the above, but hold a view which both complementary and constructive.
I fully support we are probably, still probably, but rapidly and in a multi factored manner exponentially approaching a certainty of an unsustainable expression.
My concern is not of a ego centric, either of my own or Hom Saps, concern. As you have posted before extinction events or die off has occurred before in Earth history.
This time we have a toxic legacy, secondary consequences. Dumps of poisonous chemicals and numerous nuclear dumps, installations and reactors. Which with decreasing human population and break down of society. Their non maintenance and control could lead to poisoning of the biosphere, that the impending extinction event with be of greater severity and duration than previous situations.
My personal view is that this is, regardless of what happens to Hom Saps, disrespectful to all other life, which lead a sustainable existence and to the planet which gave us life.
All our attention now should not be increasing consumption to achieve some irrelevant concept of economic growth, or embarking on a 40 year campaign in Afghanistan etc. But protecting and preserving life and the living systems of the planet. If not for our own interest, but for life as a whole.
Yet the fundamental most important thing we as Hom Saps should be doing, to give ourselves the remotest chance of survival has been lost in the noise of irrelevance.
Celtic Lion
Complain about this comment
On the BBC 'A gang brandishing a snake as a 'weapon' attacked a 14-year-old boy with a 4ft (1.2m) python, forcing the reptile to bite the teenager's arm.
Police suspect the attack, in Bradley Stoke, South Gloucestershire, may have had a racist element to it and officers are appealing for witnesses.
...
An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said: "The teenager had been subject to racist comments and was then reportedly held down as a snake was held in front of him, which bit his right arm.'
Racist comments?
Nick Griffin of the BNP was in Gloucestershire recently in some fracas at a pub.
Could one of his comrades have escaped and be being forced to help racists?
I can't imagine that they would attack anybody but a Romany woman with a four day old child in Belfast or fourteen year olds.
Complain about this comment
#38 kingcelticlion
"Yet the fundamental most important thing we as Hom Saps should be doing, to give ourselves the remotest chance of survival has been lost in the noise of irrelevance."
So you claim to have been a contributor to Nobels and that is what you came you came up with?
Surely you have been spending too much time studying the BNP and 1940's "solutions" to non-existent problems.
Have you ever thought about unleashing your massive intelligence instead of the profound thoughts like:
"I fully support we are probably, still probably, but rapidly and in a multi factored manner exponentially approaching a certainty of an unsustainable expression."
Wow - what did Einstein ever have that you don't.
Surprisingly you are playing off the BNP far right type supporters like barriesingleton.
So many of your Nobel prize winning friends must be Jewish or not "Aryan".
Could I smell a rat?
Complain about this comment
KCL#38
"Yet the fundamental most important thing we as HomSaps should be doing, to give ourselves the remotest chance of survival has been lost in the noise of irrelevance".
Surely that most important thing should be meetings at U.N.level with appropriate scientists to discuss solutions to overpopulation of our planet by Hom Saps. 2 billion when I was born, now 6.8 billion, and forecast to be 9 billion by 2040! not to mention cultural imbalances.
(wonder if I got away with that).
"Growing populations, falling energy sources and food shortages will create the "perfect storm" by 2030, the UK government chief scientist has warned. He said food reserves are at a 50-year low but the world requires 50% more energy, food and water by 2030"(Wikepedia)
I feel increasingly uncomfortable with the 3-fold increase during my lifetime and will not have to suffer the levels of humanity forecast. The 'deep environmentalists' amongst us may take comfort that HomSaps will self-extinguish thus saving the planet for other life forms, but
I would prefer that your #25 (puctuated equilibrium) might cut in here, to give me and my(replacement level)offspring some elbow-room (was going to say 'lebensraum' but that might prompt another blast from Gof1).
I did try to respond to your post (at #26) suggesting ecolizzy's #22 might also benefit from some 'punctuation of the equilibrium' (acquiescence) by more vociferous expression of public opinion, but probably went too far by suggesting a meeting place for NN bloggers, as has been proposed by others. I suppose it was unreasonable to expect the moderator to allow NN's blog to be used for such potential ganging-up.
Complain about this comment
WHAT ARE THEY LIKE? (#41)
Was it not the UN who appointed 'our Tony' to be 'Middle East Envoy' after he dumped Sedgefield in mid-term and fled Britain with his illusions intact?
What might it imply about that organisation? Unlike the EU, founded 'by the corrupt, of the corrupt, for the corrupt', whose goings-on are regularly exposed - but to no avail - I have no idea how the UN is constituted, except for the 5 permanent, veto-wielding, members. (Hope that is right.) (Oh - and it has a pile of constraining resolutions that Israel just ignores - the same Israel, presumably, that Blair was/is envoy to.
I make the assertion that ANY official body that still regards Anthony Blair as an asset - in any capacity - is either comprised of fools or knaves (except, possibly, The Theatre). As for 'top scientists' of the kind who advise 'at the top' with aplomb, I am seriously jaundiced. Science is now suffused with dogma and vested interests; rather like 'dark' matter and energy. Can you help me out here IDG2?
Complain about this comment
As a contribution to the discussion that's going on these pages re: the Universe,global issues and inventions, please may I be allowed to quote a couple of stanza's from my poem on Copernicus 'Oh, what a Pole - a Journey through Time' as well as one on another Pole, the discoverer of 'polonium' and 'radium'? This may also perhaps throw some light on my background, education and quality of twirling.
Oh, what a Pole!
Wouldn't you say Copernicus was bright
Bringing space workings for us to light?
On mysteries hitherto in cauldrons hid
Lifting the lid, that's what he did.
Turning the earth flat into a globe
As now accepted human abode.
And so we float in the universe here
Producing pearls like those of Shakespeare.
Marie Curie Sklodowska
Another Pole that reached the pole
Of new discoveries making
Was Marie Curie, you know,
She was the other Pole.
Reaching for heights until unknown,
Though on a different scale,
First she discovered element ‘polonium’
Following on with now known ‘radium’.
For those she got two Nobel Prizes
Never previously achieved by none.
Her daughter also later got one
As did her in-law son.
She made a gift of it to Poles,
Never forgetting her roots.
My uncle it was who saved the gift
By hiding it from Nazi boots.
His name was Dyzio Zuberbier,
Murdered in Katyn, you know.
He worked on cancer wanting to cure
People afflicted by stuff impure.
Dyzio – diminutive of Dionizy
9 August 2009 5/6 am
Complain about this comment
And I can't resist a couple of verses on how I like to rhythm and rhyme. After all, I did have a request to send in more!
The weight of my verses
Heavy and dreary I don't want them to be
My verses reception means something to me.
Easy to read and yet also compelling
That's what I'm trying - at what I am aiming
Easy to grasp and easy to read
That's how I want my verses to be
Some of them on matters important and great,
Some for amusement, not for their weight.
- part of a longer poem
Complain about this comment
#43 & #44
the above were sent in by mimpromptu, not you
Complain about this comment
from mimpromptu re: Barrie Singleton
Sometimes I think that Mr Singleton has voluntarily gone into a purgatory saying things like he ain't a friend of the blogdog, etc, but then I'm not sure again, like slagging off women, for example. But then perpahs he just likes to tease (painfully).
He did say, however, at some stage that 'you', i.e. 'mimpromptu', was more fun than JJ, I presume. Let's hope that's what he meant. With no threats or instructions 'mimpromptu' might communicate with him from time to time. Puppet in the bin, then?
Complain about this comment
'YOU BEND PRODUCTIONS'. WHERE WE FLUSH WITH PLEASURE AT BENDING THE NEWS TO SUIT YOU. (#45)
In the interest of youser-friendly interactivity in the blogspace, Usenight (previously 'Newsnight' but now user-friendly) will be referring to all 'where-you-are' yousers of this forum as 'you' in place of depersonalising yousernames. A BBC think-bowl has found that 'you' is more acceptable than a name, to narcissists, as they always think 'you' means them. And as the majority of people who can read and write are now narcissistic, it is deemed to be another caring service to the public.
You know it makes sense.
Complain about this comment
Barrie #42
Endorse all you say in first para., and can't offer much help - or hope via UN either, but what other options? I'm well familiar with corrupt organisations and vested interests, having tried to forc through changes under an African President-for-life dictator, whose regular boast was that he taught his people how to grow maize and tobacco, most of which he owned! But another country with which I have attachments overthrew two such dictators with 'people power' and that's all we have, if we can only mobilise a common demand.
Not much chance of world agreement on overpopulation with approximate distribution Asia 60%; Africa 15%; Europe only 10%(and set to halve).
However, we could put our own house in order. People power should be vociferous in the view that UK is already too full, aid to 'developing' countries should be reduced to take account of emigration to UK and be dependant on factors such as sensible population control measures. This would provoke violent reaction from religious bodies and liberals, but UK should show that we are serious and realistic about the disasters - ecological, political and social that are being caused primarily by over-population, and take a lead.
The alternatives are to stop making advances in medicine, and to allow diseases, natural catastrophes and wars to continue unabated.
Complain about this comment
SUSTAINABILITY COMES AT A PRICE. (#48)
"Man kills the oyster for its pearl, and his own world for that eureka moment of invention."
How long before the word 'wisdom' passes from the OED?
An interesting post IDG2. The EU figure (and trend) speaks volumes. It just has to end in tears - again.
Complain about this comment
Nos43
Keep on at it
Complain about this comment
Hi,
the question for tonight is who said this?
"you don't understand the kind of love I have for this great country of ours. Love's not built that way, my way, any more. These days love is marriage, and the compensation is alimony; love these days is bravery under fire, and the compensation is medals; love is a donation of party funds, and the compensation is a political plum; love is some lady you left back in Oldham. My love is nothing like that. My love is this great company of brave young men, who are proud to make their country strong!
Complain about this comment
hello
I may be in London next month, one of those conferences I sometimes attend.
indignantindegene #41, I don't know which UK Gov Chief Scientist you refer to, one used my work twice without attributed the source. So am indifferent to what they say.
I can only advise caution of a figure of 2030 for a perfect storm. Due to the interaction of multiple exponential factors it will occur much sooner than that.
The solutions exist, the established organisations and structures appear not to want to implement. So that requires an alternative
Complain about this comment
#52 Bubble Gum Triffid
General Midwinter Billion dollar brain
So the significance is..........?
Complain about this comment
#51
BubblegumTriffid
The quote comes from Ken Russell's espionage film 'Billion Dollar Brain'. The words were uttered by General Midwinter.
Complain about this comment
As topics are evidently being well extended, and tolerated, might I share this in hope of reasoned counter comment from within:
BBC pays unions to resist sharing of licence fee
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6788757.ece
True, or not?
And, if so, another manifestation of 'unique funding', this time in an outbound form, that I am not sure is quite per Charter, let alone what I consider my licence fee should be directed towards.
Complain about this comment
#53 from mimpromptu
Celtic Lion
Did you know the answer straight away?
I must admit I didn't and had to look it up on the internet. But, as perseverence on my part normally wins the day, I did find it and what a find it is. Ken Russell's film looks quite exciting and I am sure Michael Caine is excellent in it.
Complain about this comment
To the just and transparent:
Have a good day!
mimpromptu
Complain about this comment
Harriet Harman
The problem with women acting as tough as men, whilst hiding her feminine side is that the best outcome she could hope for is becoming No.2. Ms Harman has already achieved that. If she wants to be treated as an equal to Brown or Mandelson, and to be considered as a serious candidate for future prime minister amongst the electorate, she should be a woman and fight like one too. Promoting legislations which clearly work in favour of women, regardless of the individual’s qualification and ability would not do her any favour, nor would being perceived as a radical feminist in the public eye improve her electoral prospects. It certainly didn't work for Hilary Clinton when she tried it. If the last American election taught me anything, it is that a majority of the population still had an overriding and entrenched prejudice against women in powerful positions, that they would favour a black president over a woman president anytime. Maybe Ms Harman could consult the Queen about how she had kept 11 successive egocentric prime ministers in check during her reign.
Complain about this comment
#41 and 48 indignantindegene
Well this all ties in nicely with everything you say... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8189549.stm I cannot believe how the world population has increased in your lifetime, incredible! : ( And as for the european population, we're doomed, all doomed.
Complain about this comment
GOD MAKE BRAVE OUR QUEEN(#58)
"consult the Queen about how she had kept 11 successive egocentric prime ministers in check during her reign."
Surely you are caught jesting, mademoiselle?
On Radio 4 this morning, 'Scarlet John' was chatting amiably about the DODGY DOSSIER cooked up with TONY BLAIR who's delusions were manifestly under no one's control - least of all, constitutional Elizabeth.
Blair took us to war IN HER NAME and the insidious, creeping damage done by just ONE out-of-control PM, will spread like a slime mould, near and far, for untold years to come.
I tend towards the view that monarchy is the lynchpin of patronage, which intermingles with Prime-ministerial power, an established church, and the Westminster charade.
If the Queen cannot free herself from historical trappings, in our hour of need, and close Westminster - with the masses cheering her on - then WE must make a start and SPOIL PARTY GAMES.
Complain about this comment
#58
mademoiselle_h
You may have a point about introducing women to any government just because they're women.
Methinks you're not quite right about why Hilary Clinton didn't win the Presidential election in the USA but do not wish to go into it here. I don't think it was solely because she is a woman.
With regard to Hariet Harman, I feel she is onto something that no person in Westminster, as far as I know, has yet dared to mention and for that hats off to her. Unfortunately, for the time being, I cannot go into any details as the whole thing is shrouded in male mystery.
#60
Mr Singleton
I wouldn't undermine our Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, in her skills to lead the country out of this miserable crisis. Spoil party games is not the way out. It's a question of salvaging the wise and the human that are still there but perhaps do not know how to handle the situation. Transparent democracy, as far as I can fantom, is the only way forward.
Complain about this comment
TRANSPARENT DEMOCRACY (#61)
OK Madam Mim: where do we start, why there, and how will it work? 'Show your working'. (:o)
Complain about this comment
#62 from mimpromptu
Well, I'm not the Queen nor am I a trained Constitutionalist though am doing my best to contribute to the discussions about the possible ways forward. And, by example, despite of threats and absurd instructions thrown at me, am trying to lead as transparent a life as humanly possible, with prservation of some degree of dignity and decency, I hope.
Complain about this comment
Speaking of the 'away' team, may I commend today's Dilbert: http://www.dilbert.com/
A flailing GOAT herd. I am reassured.
Complain about this comment
#59 ecolizzy
WAKE UP AND SWELL THE CACOPHONY
"(Our aim)is to stimulate a debate within the UK on what a food policy should be, and how do we define and look at food security more broadly," said Defra's chief scientific adviser Professor Robert Watson.
"Last year's sudden jump in the price of food and oil, which most fertilisers are based on, was a "wake-up call. We have to feed another two and a half to three billion mouths over the next 40 to 50 years, so I want British agriculture to produce as much food as possible." Hilary Benn, Environ-mental Minister
We certainly need that debate, but not with the chemical industry giants and genetical modifiers. Neither do we need the usual knee-jerk government reaction of clutching for solutions. Management science teaches that one starts by identifying and defining the Problem, before looking for Solutions. The problem is clearly over-population; so we should be brain-storming on 'Do we NEED another 3 billion?'
This century's worldwide multimedia has informed and empowered the world's poor with the knowledge that 'developed' nations enjoy a vastly better life than do they. This has driven mass immigration and higher aspirations. A bowl of rice is no longer sufficient: the millions of newly affluent Chinese and Asians now aspire to steak and all the other consumables of the West, and in turn we demand World Trade to extend our range of consumables. So rain-forests are sacrificed for grazing cattle and growing cereals to feed them, and to solve the fuel crisis. And more land is built on with homes for the burgeoning populations, with heavy industries and mining of ores.
It's a wake-up call OK, and we may have suggestions to put forward amongst the cacophony of solutions, but first let's focus on the cause - over-population - and start to protest at any further over-population of our congested island. It has now been established that most new jobs have gone to immigrants but a real cost/benefit study has been avoided. Potential food shortage has to be one of the many costs. The obsession with GROWTH should be confined to grow-your-own food.
Complain about this comment
:o) Well Jeremy's made it onto Dizzee Rascal's brand new album due out next month!
Source: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4137560-first-listen--dizzee-rascals-tongue-n-cheek
Complain about this comment
Thanks Mimpromptu #54
thought for all bloggers, not least me, or is it you? sorry lol
'thoughts are tweet
but how are we going to turn our views into action?'
or dont tweet...
what could come next?
second thought for the Newsnight presenters who blog on this site,
if we regularly read and respond to your blogs why do you not reciprocate?
or are you more important than the viewers who blog? do you thik you are smarter than us? from oiky polloi hoi
hi de hi to us all,
less tweeting, more action this week! (perhaps)
Complain about this comment
#67
How do you know which presenter is behind which name? Or do you have special access to special information?
Complain about this comment
#66
You know, Mistress76uk, I just love every now and then to really let go with my fist hitting the air while gliding away on ice to Dizzie's 'Excuse me please' from his 'Maths & English'. It does feel good doing it every now and then!
Complain about this comment
LAND, WATER, NUTRIENTS AND SUN - THE PLANET HAS THEM ALL (#65)
A chap called Harry Hart (qv) is the link to decades of investigation of sea-water algae + sun-distilled seawater + pragmatism and will, offering a way to bring sterile land into growth. I doubt Limited Ed is even aware of it, let alone smart enough to espouse it, in the face of 'expert scientists' with vested interests, 'advising' him.
Overpopulation will presumably crash, one way or another, bringing its own misery and a 'dark age'. Oh well - look where enlightnement got us!
Complain about this comment
#65 indignantindegene I think it should be made compulsory for everyone in the country to read the Migrationwatch site! ; ) When I speak to friends or relatives, with the exception of my aged mother, they have no idea of the scams to get foreign people working here. Look at the one today happening in Scottish banks, bringing IT workers in by the back door, which I've read a thousand other companies are doing as well. Why does any kid here go to Uni to study computers or programming, they won't get a job the Asians can undercut them by miles and come in and out of their own free will. I also read in an IT mag. that getting employment in the computer field is getting very difficult, a lot are unemployed or on short term contract work.
I'm quite terrified of the amount of people being allowed in here, let alone feed, house, and health care the lot of them. The indigenous people keep being chucked out of work, so how are we going to pay all the taxes to keep the new people and infrastructure going. It does make you wonder if we should go the whole hog and copy the USA in everything. They don't pay for health care or housing, or unemployment benefits, so perhaps we ought to do the same, sink or swim, perhaps our own people would try a bit harder to find work, which some of them don't want to do.
And as for the population growth, even China is relenting on it's one child policy. Although I do believe Latin and South American birthrates have fallen quite dramatically. Two or three kids only, instead of 12 to 15, so the Popes message isn't followed there!
Complain about this comment
#71 Codocil
The best thing Britain could do is stop child benefit, that would bring the population down like magic. Just pay out a lot for the first child, half that for the second, and NONE after that. After all contraception is easily and cheaply available to all, so why encourage and support these huge often badly cared for families. Addmittedly the first generation of kids would suffer, but boy would people soon learn.
Years ago I worked with a woman, my current age. She was always saying that the Welfare State had ruined this country, at the time I thought she was mad, now I think she is right. Everybody wants something for nothing and are not prepared to work for it. Hence third worlders coming in here and making the most of what we don't!
Complain about this comment
The "smoke" does not seem to be billowing from MI6 regarding torture but :
'However, the committee said it was unable to draw conclusions about the involvement of British officers because ministers and the head of the domestic security service MI5 refused to testify at parliamentary hearings on the claims.'
Does this not show how weak the committee system is and how limited oversight is.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Will Kingcelticlion be collecting any Nobel prizes this year?
I await the news with baited breath regarding the ground breaking science ... maybe not.
Complain about this comment
#73
Alternatively, it may show that living through long-drawn-out wars
with terrorists who have no regard for innocent civilians, we find that our civilised Geneva Convention rules no longer seem to apply, and put us at distinct disadvantage, as does continually attempting to occupy the higher ground of morality.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Acknowledging that this guy was the "most wanted" in Pakistan is an implicit acknowledgement that bin Laden, the official reason we have people dying & killing in Afghansistsn, is dead. The evidence is strongly that he is & has been since at least not long after Tora Bora.
If so this would be yet another case of government manufacturing "hobgoblins" to keep the people cowed & easily led? Of course if the BBC believed that such fraud would be one of the biggest news stories for decadeds (or at least one of the biggest actually told) & the BBC would never dream of censoring it. Is this in line with guidelines Mr moderator?
Complain about this comment
#60
Hi,
On the Iraq war, there was a vote in the Commons. Blair won his approval because a majority of MPs from both the Labour and the Conservative parties supported the decision of going to war. What has the Queen got to do with it? It wasn't her sole decision to make on behalf of the 600 odd MPs in the parliament.
Hindsight is a powerful thing. Let's not blame people on the terrible mistake of Iraq war anymore. What's done is done. Tony Blair has paid dear for it (having all his good work during the early years wiped out completely and being forced out of Downing Street in a humiliating way). It is more important to look to the future and think about what we could do to make the best out of the cards we got dealt.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS