The UN has not agreed yet that decriminalisation of sexual orientation is an appropriate step towards adoption of the universal declaration of human rights. While the majority of countries voted to decriminalise homosexuality, a significant number of conservative governments did not want to have anything with the motion. Homosexuality is a criminal offence in more …
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Category:Living
Urban car clubs taking off …?
Hertz, which buys half a million cars annually is about to launch a car club to serve people that live in cities and would like access to a car without teh cost and trouble of owning one. This initative is very encouraging. If it works well it should remove cars from the streets of cities, …
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Optimistic? Pestimistic? No. Realistic
You’re right to try to be optimistic. Or at least positive. A positive outlook helps keep spirits up, helps avoid despondency. despondency can be the worst because then you just stop doing anything and sink in to a mire of desperation. But optimism about the outlook could be even more dangerous. It could result in …
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Babies – to make them or not to make them?
The problems of the world are underpinned by an excesisve population of humans. The exponential growth in human population has been driven by the oil age which has fuelled food and healthcare. The consequence is that the footprint of humanity is too great for the biosphere. The carrying capacity of the earth has been exceeded. …
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World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009
The United Nations released part of their World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009 today. The chapter Global Outlook is available here (pdf) and the slide show summarising the Outlook is available here (pdf). I strongly recommend reading the slide show which should take about 5 minutes, and then continue to the chapter if you like. …
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Yoga and the Economic Crisis
Read Pam’s essay Yoga in the Economic Crisis – Maintaining Emotional Health in Hard Times. In it she talks about how yoga help, why it works and mentions some alternatives too. Maybe it’s worth getting a bit of yoga in your life.
Morals and the Meltdown
A good perspective from Robert Skidelsky. He writes well. His language is a bit religious for me, but the analysis is all too accurate. Here’s the link to his website and the article is copied below. In our view, we are now confronting the limit to the growth of humanity he concludes with. Morals and …
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The sad economics of growing vegetables
I came across an article on intensive commercial horticulture in Organic Matters. It reflects much of what we’ve learned over the past decade of organic production in Ireland (a developed economy, with subsidised industrial farming and a consumer market generally interested in cheapness and uninterested in quality or source). Two main ideas which are relevant …
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LOHAS mind maps and videos
LOHAS 12, the twelfth annual gathering focussed on sustainable an healthy living, has recently put presentation videos and summaries online here. Particularly good are the graphic mind maps of about a dozen presentations which are linked here. Here is one of them entitled LOHAS Market Trends prepared by idea360.com:
Japan murders 2 more murderers …
Japan has hanged two convicted murderers, bringing the total number of death penalties implemented this year to 15, thought to be the highest total in many years. It is a strange anomaly that a country with such wealth, such a high standard of living and having suffered itself as a victim has not yet removed …
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