http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pdjmk

Just how many people can the planet support?

Stolen from badboybunny

If I came with a warning label, what would it be?

I think a verse from Hootie and the Blowfish's song "Let Her Cry" sums up how I feel. Admittedly, it's about a girl, and I'm feeling this about lots of different people, but the sentiment of lost friendships and pain should be clear.

Last night I tried to leave;
Cried so much I could not believe;
She was the same girl I fell in love with long ago;
She went in the back to get high;
I sat down on my couch and cried;
Yelling "Woman, Woah,
Please help me;
Won't you hold my hand?"

It's all too much.

So, there's not really much to disagree with here:



Got me bang to rights, they have :o

https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality

So, it's official - the Belgian Prime Minister, Herman van Rompuy will become the first ever President of the European Council. Baroness Catherine Ashton will become the first 'foreign affairs chief' of the EU.

After much reading, I like Herman van Rompuy. He's a consensual type, one able to hold together bickering groups and get things done - like cutting the national debt of Belgium down from 135% of GDP to 100% - no small achievement. He also writes haiku, is renowned as a bit of an ascetic and a safe pair of hands. If he can weave the same magic with 27 European states as the French and Flemish of Belgium, then he will do the job extremely well - acheiveing strong, if not outstanding, things while keeping people on board.

And he's a bit of an EU federalist - not much, just a bit. Someone who should be able to stick up for the EU in the face of the naysayers and foot-draggers - like David Cameron and the party that leads him on Europe. Sadly, he doesn't like the idea of Turkey in the EU, but then again, that's looking like rather a lot of a dead end. We shall have to see after the next British election as to where the EU heads on that.

Baroness Ashton is an interesting choice - briefly, if successfully, EU trade commissioner, former leader of the House of Lords. Burnished free trade credentials are good, long history in the Labour Party not so good (to me, anyway, you're welcome to disagree and call me a looser). But the EU does need someone to argue in favour of freer trade that will support her economy - especially Germany, Slovakia and their ilk, all big manufacturers and exporters - and someone who will help gradually wear down the French to enable the CAP to be seriously reformed as part of global trade talks.

So two relatively unknown entrants - but safe pairs of hands. I think they'll be compotent, solid people - not superstars like Blair, but not faceless penpushers. A nice balance - just what Europe needs to get itself on its' feet after the Constitution, Lisbon Treaty, recession, Russia-Georgia War and so on.

20 years ago, today, a great event in history transpired. Events like this are few - the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and 9/11 - and when they come, they send shock waves around the world that echo on for generations. This event, of course, was the fall of the Berlin Wall.

With it, the Cold War began to thaw, permanently. A year of great change is wrapped up in this one event, this great punctuation mark in history, whose impact is still with us today. Before then, our lives were governed by a permanent fear that, at any time, we could wipe out the entire planet several times over in a nuclear armageddon. 

Today, therefore, should be a happy day. We should take this day to remember how emancipated the end of the Cold War made all of us - not just those living behind the Iron Curtain, but all of us in the world. And to remember that things that seem permanent can collapse without warning, virtually overnight.

 Today, on the BNP row. And how we all share the blame.

Click Me!

Comments on the blog, please!

Schwiped from londonwolf

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me. You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Repost as "my life according to (band name)"


Pick your Artist:
Motion City Soundtrack

Are you a male or female:
Hangman

Describe yourself:
Broken Heart

How do you feel:
The Future Freaks Me Out

Describe where you currently live:
Indoor Living

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Where I Belong

Your favourite form of transportation:
Hello Helicopter

Your best friend is:
It Had To Be You

You and your best friends are:
Boombox Generation

What's the weather like:
Feel Like Rain

Favourite time of day:
Last Night

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
Everything is Alright

What is life to you:
Let's Get Fucked Up And Die (L. G. FUAD)

 After the sudden and untimely death of Stephen Gately, there was a rush, as ever, of celebrity journalists to their laptops to run out articles of ebullient praise for him. Among the many pieces penned in the aftermath, was this sparkling little gem by a writer for the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html

Behold, oh ye of little faith, why the Daily Mail is a bastion of all that is so very, very wrong with journalism. I can't do, however, nearly as good as job as Charlie Brooker did: "It has been 20 minutes since I've read her now-notorious column, and I'm still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo."

Go on, treat yourself: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir

Now, as 'celebrity news' goes, I'm never a fan. But this, this one incident, has made my blood boil. If you want to do something, go and complain to the PCC, as Mr Brooker suggests.

 Truth be told, I've been too busy for much of an e-life, only dipping in and out when I can and trying not to spend all my time online.

This year is going to be a very busy one. As many of you know, I'm gunning for a First Class degree, which would mean that it would be much easier for me to get onto an MA course here at Hull. This would not only enable me to get further qualifications, but would also allow me to keep studying the subject I've come to love (the MA I'm looking at is in International Politics) and keep me out of the frankly shocking UK graduate job market another year, until they economy (hopefully) looks more rosy.

Now, this year is very important - it counts as 60% of my final mark. The modules - two each semester - are weighted 60% essay, 40% exam, which is good for me, as I tend to do better on the essays than the exams. In one module this semester, though, I have no exam, 'only' a 6,000 word essay. Coupled with a 3,000 word essay for my other module and the 3,000 word proposal I have to write for my dissertation, I'm already grinding my nose into fine powder to try and keep on top of it. Then, in the second semester, I have two more 3,000 word essays to complete, as well as the dissertation of a mere 12,000 words, followed by two exams. 

Needless to say, this is going to be a hard year, but I'm determined to plough through and get this First. But, in the meantime, I am going to be probably extremely stressed, extremely busy and extremely unavailable a lot of the time. I mean none of you any harm - unless I make it clear to your face that I do, and even then be aware that I'm probably tired, poor and stressing out :P I just ask that you all bear with me in this year, which I feel will be like pregnancy - months of horrid moods swings, bad sleeping patterns, money down the pan, hormones everywhere and all the rest of it to finally, in one hideous final act, get what I've been brewing up for - a First. He says.

I'm sure you'll all be supportive, in your own ways, and patient and tolerant of my foibles and failings this year, as you are. I'll be grateful, and probably relieved as well, but don't worry if I don't always say thanks, or pay you back right away. I will get around to it, but you'll have to wait while I get my socks pulled up.

So, that's what's happening this year, academically. Fun times, eh?

This entry looks at the need for fiscal sense among British politicians.

As ever, comments on the blog, please :)

 http://armouredcentrist.blogspot.com/2009/09/poundland-politics.html

Today, on drugs policies, and why we may have the short end of the stick with the 'War on Drugs'.

All comments on the blog, plz :3

 http://armouredcentrist.blogspot.com/2009/09/high-on-love.html

 #welovetheNHS

I say no more :3

 http://armouredcentrist.blogspot.com/2009/08/alan-duncan-is-right.html

Today, on the 'controversy' surrounding Alan Duncan's secretly filmed remarks.

Today, on religion and tolerance:

http://armouredcentrist.blogspot.com/2009/08/religious-tolerance.html

From now on, all thoughts on Politics, Economics, the Railways, International Affairs and the like will be going here:

http://armouredcentrist.blogspot.com/


Every time a new post goes up there, though, I'll try and put up a quick link here for you all. Going to pare down my LJ to personal things =3

Aremay~ <3

"There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville describes it, 'a new form of servitude.'"

- Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order

Inspired byavon_deer 's LJ on the service commemorating 25 years since a major fire at York Minster.

( Their place today... )