“I don’t understand people who believe that if you ignore something, it’ll go away. That’s completely wrong — if it’s ignored it gathers strength. Europe ignored Hitler for 20 years. As a result he slaughtered a quarter of the world!” Lemmy Kilmister
Society
Gary Younge spent over ten years in the US working for the Guardian, and gave an thoughtful interview with Uri Friedman in the Atlantic. Sample: Friedman: During the course of your time in the U.S., how did you come to understand allegations and instances of excessive force by the police? Younge: [My understanding] didn’t change […]
Society
Technology
Interesting: Addicted to Your iPhone? You’re Not Alone – The Atlantic Harris is the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience. As the co‑founder of Time Well Spent, an advocacy group, he is trying to bring moral integrity to software design: essentially, to persuade the tech world to help us disengage more easily from its […]
Economy
Regulation
Society
Hmmm, good if you’re expecting, bad if you’re sick or laid off: Ireland offers the second longest maternity leave in Europe but comes last in terms of pay entitlements, according to a new survey.According to the study, which covers 15 European countries and also the United States, Ireland comes second behind the United Kingdom in […]
Europe
Politics
Society
What I find most odd about the age we live in is that even though fear is the predominant emotion, people still take the relative peace and prosperity we have in this continent for granted and thus tend to discount just how large a part the EU plays in all that. Despite fearing change enough […]
Cycling
Society
New Canadian study shows bike helmet laws make no difference to injury rates: The ultimate conclusion is that other factors are more important that mandatory helmet legislation. In our study comparing exposure-based injury rates in 11 Canadian jurisdictions, we found that females had lower hospitalisation rates than males. This difference in injury rates is consistent […]
Society
UK
You Couldn't Make It Up
Ruth Hardy points out the huge disparity between the content of David Cameron’s drive for permanent austerity in the UK, and the rather more lavish surroundings he made the speech from. State events always have, and perhaps require, a certain pomp and ceremony about them, but to stand there at a “golden lectern” pronouncing on […]
Politics
Society
Interesting: How does this affect peoples’ likelihood to go to the ballot box? We were totally unprepared for the results, which may point the way to new strategies to encourage people to vote: particularly people for whom social and environmental issues are important: Voting is as strongly related to peoples’ perception of what other Brits […]
Housing
Society
An argument that I’ve heard a lot over the years is that, since I often earn reasonable money, I should vacate my home and let someone in greater need take up the tenancy. Like the tenancy rule changes the chancellor announced in his July budget, this thinking demonstrates a particular view of social housing. In […]
Cycling
Society
Those people. They are us. Sobering piece from Mark Treasure. Top comment, which explains a lot: “When I mentioned the latest casualty at Bank, a woman next to me at work said “What I don’t understand about cyclists is, they see all these accidents and people killed, what I don’t understand is….why they don’t get the […]