King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visited the Pope on this European tour. This meeting helps to alleviate some of the religious tension in geopolitics and an example for enlightened Muslims and Christians to observe. Both leaders represent communities which legislate restrictions on personal behaviour, from celibacy to limitations on public expression, and may seem to …
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Category:Living
Food prices rising – eat less meat.
The natural constraints of land are beginning to be felt, as this slide show illustrates. Meat consumption is rising. Meat demands 5-10x more land per calorie. Arable land is shrinking. More people are eating more. The solution: eat less and eat less meat.
Another US execution paused
The US Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Mississippi death-row inmate Earl Wesley Berry moments before he was due to die. His lawyers requested the execution be stopped until the court rules on whether death by lethal injection is unconstitutional. His temporary reprieve adds to a series of stays granted since a challenge …
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Living with nature in California
The extensive wildfires in Southern California at the end of October have been devastating: half a million acres burnt, 7 dead, and 1,800 structures burnt. But they are not unexpected, have happened before and will happen again. The native Americans were more cautious about development in this area realising the fire hazard, and would even …
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Eco baby shower, a la Sheryl Crowe
This article caught my eye because my children like to listen to Sheryl Crowe. The article links a handful of sites that offer advice and products to green your baby’s public debut. See Behind the Scenes at Sheryl Crow’s Green Baby Shower, Party Planner to the Stars Shares Tips and Tricks for Eco-Showers
Fear stops children’s development
Tim Gill, a child expert, shows in his new book a reluctance to let children take risks could stop them developing vital skills needed to protect themselves; youngsters are missing out on their childhood because we over-protect them. In No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society, Gill argues that childhood is being undermined …
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Money wins over humanity, by a wide margin
Humanity’s interest in raising the poor and destitute from the threshold of survival is insignificant. But our interest money, even the virtual money crated by trading opinions in the stockmarket, remains supreme. Whether Boston or Bombay, money, that metaphysical asset, seems to feed our souls. It took minutes for the top guns to swing into …
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America, please stop convicting children as adults
As the rumblings of a change to the policy of capital punishment begin in America, the Equal Justice Initiative is releasing a report that says states should be required to review sentences of juvenile offenders, looking for cases where parole might be warranted. According to the report, there are 73 Americans serving life without parole …
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Dalai Lama, Politics and Religion
The hosting of the Dalai Lama by Bush raised hackles in China, as expected. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour. China is upset because it sees the Buddhism as a threat to state unity. It seems as if it is fighting a rearguard action though, because in August …
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Behaving like monkeys
A couple of articles discussed recent research in to the genetic programming of fairness. A study by Keith Jensen of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology published in Science concludes that a sense of fairness is genetically encoded in humans, but not in chimpanzees. It is also apparent that some people are fairer than …
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