Dear MyDisk user
You have had a free account for more than 6 months.
Please login to www.MyDisk.se
and pay the yearly fee of 5$.
The account will be deleted if not paid within 14 days.Best regards,
MyDisk
contact@mydisk.se
Genius!
No, not the sort you think. Read the article <rant>Would they use the word “suggest” if the crime figures had gone up? They say “show” later in the article, so why not in the headline?</rant>
Crime figures are down 7% 2008 to 2009, by the way, save sexual and violent crimes (2% and 1% rises). We can argue about the quality and reach of the British Crime Survey if we like, but if you are comparing crime figures over time, its one of the few sources available that police and politicians don’t control.
It’s a great business that manages to stiff its customers (us) and its employees (musicians). An oldie but a goodie to help you understand. Summary:
The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music
industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000
on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as
they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a
month.
Tab is on about 26 minutes in. Huzzah!
Still a while away from humans, and still only dealing with symptoms, this is still a big thing. Post-metastasis is the phase of cancer where survival rates tend to drop (from 93% 5-year to 2.5-year with skeletal metastases in prostate cancer) and the severity of the treatments has to rise as you are treating more sites in the body.
So the finding of a small molecule that appears to prevent or slow metastasis is important. Fascinating to read how cancer cells move: I had popping off into the blood stream and floating to another site. Wrong (FYI macroketone stops actin binding together):
In order for a cancer cell to leave a primary tumor, fascin bundles
actin filaments together like a thick finger. The front edge of this
finger creeps forward and pulls along the rear of the cell. Cells crawl
away in the same way that an inchworm moves.
A lengthy, but interesting article covering the effort that Rowan Williams is expending to prevent the Anglican church from schisming over gay and / or female bishops. There is a great counter argument to the “It is the tradition of the church”: so was slavery for many cultures. The appeal to the direct quote from scripture has been skewered in so many ways, but I can’t help thinking of Bartlett in the West Wing (which apparently was sourced from an anonymous email):
I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as
sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks
fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What
would a good price for her be?
My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus
35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated
to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?
Here’s one that’s really important cause we’ve got a lot of sports fans
in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus
11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins
still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother,
John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in
a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different
threads?
Think about those questions, would you?
Time to have a squizz through the election-time West Wing episodes for inspiration, I think.
Nice to see lots of information being made public during the process of refreshing Camden’s customer-facing website. Normally this would be written up at the end in a gushing or arse-covering manner. Sharing the detail of the process actually makes it useful for other councils considering their websites. This should save us all money. Of course it is also neat that it is being run by a friend of mine.
Hitchens makes a strong case for us seriously considering arresting the Pope. Johan Hari makes a slightly more shouty one (at 3 minutes in). Dawkins has some stupdly ad-hominem comments (“leering old villain in a frock” is a classic quote, but doesn’t help the discussion).
It has taken me a while to get into the detail (loads on Wikipedia, for example), and there are some troubling issues there. While the Crimen Sollicitationis document from the 60s shows evidence of trying to hide evidence of abuse, it does seem clear that not many people knew it existed. The Beast File has a selection of similar discussions throughout the history of the Catholic Church. The more recent 2001 document suggesting that any abuse claims are subject to the pontifical secret (e.g. you can’t talk to the police without excommunication) is more troubling.
The summary seems to be this: a number of Popes, including the current one, directly instructed their subordinates to conceal evidence of known child abuse. If we substituted “Head Teacher” for “Pope”, we would say this is worthy of a criminal charge. Why shouldn’t it be for the Pope as well?
It is nigh-on impossible for the Lib Dems to win the upcoming election, even if they improve their share massively. Our first-past-the-post system just doesn’t give them that chance.
However, the ability and growing intention (seemingly) of the public to make their displeasure with the ruling classes clear by contemplating a vote for the Lib Dems makes for some interesting dynamics.
Bring it on!