If you’re of a certain age then you’ll remember the Kaleidoscope – not something you see much of now. You can re-live your childhood memories with zefranks virtual Kaleidoscope: draw in the box on the left and your fractal image appears on the right.
Hat Tip: Very Short List.
It seems the Tories don’t learn – first they gave us a poster which has allowed us hours of fun in creating humours spoofs as seen at MyDavidCameron.com now they’ve created another poster that’s brought into existence MyToryTombstone.com.
New powers to control lap-dancing clubs are being given to councils in England and Wales, the Home Office has said.
Current licensing laws put clubs in the same category as pubs and cafes and councils can object only on the grounds of crime, nuisance or public safety.
From April, clubs will be classed as sex establishments and residents will be able to oppose venues for being “inappropriate” to the area.
Existing clubs will have 12 months to apply for a licence or face closure.
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But lap dancing club owners said a change in the law would lead to job losses and lower investment in a £2.1bn industry. Source: The BBC.
Job losses and lower investment in sexist exploitation is a problem how exactly?
With record – sorry CD – shops disappearing from our high streets faster than a snow flake in June – with the demise of mainstream stores such as Virgin, Zavvi, Fopp and MVC we are left with just HMV which if my local store is anything to go by is now a film and game shop with music relegated to a few racks at the back – it’s now become almost impossible to indulge in the simple pleasure of browsing through racks and racks of CD’s.
Help is at hand with the website Indie Record Shop which provides a store locator allowing you to find your nearest independent shop – it’s not perfect – anybody know of a decent shop in Birmingham? That said the site has only just launched and anything that aims to help stores survive has got to be a good thing – there’s even a record store survival guide.
Hat Tip: Drowned in Sound.
It must be the week for petitions on Tuesday I received an email asking me to sign a petition against legislation before Uganda’s parliament that punishes gays with prison and death – which I signed.
Today I received an email from Simon Singh who is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for an article he published in The Guardian – if you look for the article on the newspapers website you won’t find it at best you’ll receive the message Sorry – we haven’t been able to serve the page you asked for. I’ve republished the original article at the end of this post along with a list of websites publishing the article and here’s the text of Simon Singh’s email.
I’ve had an idea – an unusual idea, but I think it might just work.
As you know, England’s chilling libel laws need to be reformed. One way to help achieve this is for 100,000 people to sign the petition for libel reform before the political parties write their manifestos for the election. We have 17,000 signatures, but we really need 100,000, and we need your help to get there.
My Idea
My idea is simple: if everyone who has already signed up persuades just one more person each week to sign the petition then we will reach our goal within a month!
One person per week is all we need, but please spread the word as much as you can. In fact, if you persuade 10 people to sign up then email me (simon@simonsingh.net) and I promise to thank you by printing your name in my next book … which I will start writing as soon as I have put my own libel case behind me. I cannot say when this will be, but it is a very real promise. My only caveat is that I will limit this to the first thousand people who recruit ten supporters.
When persuading your friends remember to tell them:
(a) English libel laws have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee.
(b) These laws gag scientists, bloggers and journalists who want to discuss matters of genuine public interest (and public health!).
(c) Our laws give rise to libel tourism, whereby the rich and the powerful (Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs and overseas corporations) come to London to sue writers because English libel laws are so hostile to responsible journalism. (In fact, it is exactly because English libel laws have this global impact that we welcome signatories to the petition from around the world.)
(d) Vested interests can use their resources to bully and intimidate those who seek to question them. The cost of a libel trial in England is 100 times more expensive than the European average and typically runs to over £1 million.
(e) Three separate ongoing libel cases involve myself and two medical researchers raising concerns about three medical treatments. We face losing £1 million each. In future, why would anyone else raise similar concerns? If these health matters are not reported, then the public is put at risk.
My experience has been sobering. I’ve had to spend £100,000 to defend my writing and have put my life on hold for almost two years. However, the prospect of reforming our libel laws keeps me cheerful.
Thanks so much for your support. We’ve only got one shot at this – so I hope you can persuade 1 (or maybe 10) friends, family and colleagues to sign.
I’m never sure how much influence a petition has but it only take a few seconds to complete so what have you got to lose – also you can email your MP, so sign the petition and email your MP!
Beware the spinal trap – Republished
This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let’s be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.
In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.
You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.I can confidently label these treatments as bogus because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.
But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.
In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.
More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.
Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.
Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”
This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Professor Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.
Bearing all of this in mind, I will leave you with one message for Chiropractic Awareness Week – if spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.
About this article: This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday April 19 2008 on p26 of the Comment & debate section.
Source: Svetlana Pertsovich.
Or here’s a copy of the printed version – click to enlarge:
Source: London Skeptics in the Pub.
Beware the spinal trap also appears at
The British Humanist Association
Steven Novella on Science-Based Medicine
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Blog
Respectful Insolence at Science Blogs
The Sceptics Book of Pooh-Pooh
Committee for Skeptical Enquiry
Association Francaise pour l’Information Scientifique (Translated into French)
brightsfrance.org (Translated into French)
GWUP Die Skeptiker (Translated into German)
Swedish sceptics Vetenskap och Folkblidning (Translated into Swedish)
Hungarian Sceptic Society (Translated into Hungarian)
Source: Sense about Science.
Before Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury the company made allsorts of promises about jobs and investment in the UK and once shareholders approved the takeover.
Cadbury’s new owner, Kraft, says it plans to close the company’s Somerdale factory in Keynsham, near Bristol.
Just last week it said it would keep it open. The shutdown would mean the loss of 400 jobs.
Cadbury had earmarked the plant for closure but Kraft’s takeover had raised hopes of a reprieve. Source: The BBC.
Is anyone surprised? Kraft is here to make money for their shareholder so of course they’re going to move production to Poland it’s cheaper – for now – that’s investment Kraft style.
On Monday David Cameron gave a speech on rebuilding trust in politics in which he said:
We’d swing our weight right behind the Kelly Review’s proposals to clean up the House of Commons. We’d sweep away the subsidies and luxuries that sit so uneasily with public service – including the gold-plated pensions. We’d make it the law that anyone who wants to sit in the Parliament of the United Kingdom must be a full UK taxpayer in the United Kingdom. We’d cut the cost of politics by cutting the number of MPs by ten per cent. And we’d equalise the size of constituencies so that everyone in the country, no matter where they live, has an equal vote of equal value. David Cameron. Source: The Conservative Party.
I guess the use of parliament is carefully avoiding the House of Lords – could that be because of Lord Ashcroft?
The Conservatives’ long-standing defence of their deputy chairman and multimillionaire donor Lord Ashcroft was in chaos as the party struggled to explain fresh revelations about his tax status.
Today the party was forced to row back from what appeared to be the first admission by a senior Tory that Ashcroft was avoiding paying full British taxes.
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Ashcroft, who is helping to bankroll the party’s election campaign in marginal constituencies, faced pressure on a second front tonight after it emerged that he has not declared all his business interests to the parliamentary authorities.
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The row came as Ashcroft faces fresh pressure to declare the status of Bearwood Corporate Services, the company through which he has donated millions of pounds to the Conservatives. The company is under investigation by the Electoral Commission after accusations that it is operating as a front to circumvent rules barring people who are not domiciled in the UK from funding political parties.
The latest register of Lords interests, published this week, has no record of Ashcroft owning Bearwood despite its being the main vehicle for his donations to the Tories. It is understood the party has received up to £5m from Bearwood. The company is known to have one UK client. Accounts from 2008-09 show the firm received $300,000 (£181,000) in consultancy fees from BCB Holdings, another Ashcroft company based in Belize. The Electoral Commission has confirmed it first began inquiries into Bearwood 16 months ago, with the official investigations launched in January 2009. It is the longest investigation it has ever conducted, sparking questions about why it has taken so long.
An Electoral Commission source said today they could not comment on the process or length of the inquiry conceding only that it was proving “complicated”. Source: Nicholas Watt and Polly Curtis, The Guardian.
Clean politics? I think not.
Snowflake5 has a compelling argument as to why John Major lost the election in 1997 and why Gordon Brown might well win – house prices.
That’s the reason the Conservatives lost the 1997 election. Nearly nine years after the housing peak, house prices were in the doldrums, affecting most homeowners in the land – a vast number of people, and after all that time people simply lost patience and thumped the Conservatives in the general election as hard as they could. It wasn’t just that the Conservatives lost a lot of people a lot of money (which is pretty bad). They caused social grief too. Loads of unmarried couples had been encouraged by Nigel Lawson to buy properties together to take advantage of double mortgage tax relief – when they split up they found they couldn’t sell, and had to endure the hell of co-habiting with an ex. People who had started families in small flats found they couldn’t trade up, had to endure the pressure of bringing up small children in very cramped conditions. The Major years record the highest divorce rates ever, as the pain gleefully unleashed by Lamont and co, tore families apart.
By contrast, the Labour government’s more protective family-centric policies are holding people and the economy together.
If you are wondering why Labour has been rising in the polls these last six months, look to the similar rise in house prices in the last seven months. People who don’t own property tend to be dismissive about property value. You have to live somewhere, they say, why the obsession with price. But most people who own property are long-term dwellers. They have no intention of moving. But they like the idea that they have the option of moving if they need to. And nobody likes the idea of taking losses, even if they are paper ones.
If the economy continues to recover, and house prices continue to recover, then there is the possibility that Labour can make the final push to the 35% of the vote that we need to win. If we can stage a full recovery just three years after the peak, we deserve victory. The Tories can do what they’ve been trying to do all last year – talk the economy down in the hopes of panicking people and inducing a crash. But they failed at this doom-mongering when the economic danger was most acute. Things will get more difficult for them from now on. Snowflake5.
I suspect financial self interest plays a great part in how many people vote and once they get to the polling booths at the next general election I suspect many might stick with Labour after all despite what they’ve told the pollsters.
Uganda’s parliament is considering medieval legislation against gays.
The bill proposes life imprisonment for anyone convicted of having same-sex relations, or even intending to do so. It imposes the death penalty for ‘serial offender’ homosexuals and gay people living with AIDS.
Members of the public face up to three years in jail if they fail to report any homosexual activity to police within 24 hours. And NGOs working with the gay community on HIV prevention or human rights could be imprisoned for up to 7 years for ‘promoting homosexuality’. Source: Avaaz.
In the words of Avaaz
Click below to sign the petition, and pass this message on to friends and family. Across Africa and the world, let’s send a united message that we reject persecution and denial of human rights everywhere:
SOURCES
Ugandan church leader brands anti-gay bill ‘genocide’:
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexual bill:
Uganda anti-gay bill may change, says MP Bahati:
Cameron and his fellow scaremongers can’t stop their insistent refrain of “broken Britain” – The Economist exposes the lies.
Less crime, less killing, fewer teenage mums, far fewer fags, perhaps a bit less drink and drugs: why is it that the idea of “broken Britain” rings true with so many, when it seems far from reality? Partly, it is because people’s ideas about the state of society are simply inaccurate: the average voter reckons that four out of ten teenagers have children, for instance, whereas in fact perhaps three in a hundred do. Official statistics to the contrary are viewed with suspicion after successive governments have relentlessly massaged them. The Economist.
I’m not saying there aren’t problems there are – just not those that Cameron would have us believe.