The animated pig’s new theme park has plenty to delight kids – but don’t forget to bring a towel She’s bright pink, bossy and her TV show is watched in more than 180 countries. Before you make any unflattering guesses, we’re talking about Peppa Pig, whose animated adventures – usually involving muddy puddles – have splashed across our screens since 2004. The character is such a phenomenon among the under-fives that she’s appeared in videogames and a live stage show. Now comes the ultimate accolade: Peppa Pig World, a £5m three-acre area of Paultons Family Theme Park in
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The aesthetic movement was more than William Morris wallpaper – it turned Victorian values upside down. Jonathan Jones goes to Paris to seek out its dark side In spring sunlight, art students rush through the grand courtyard of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Artists such as Matisse studied here. But I am looking for a British and Irish cultural hero. On the Rue des Beaux Arts, a narrow Left Bank street next to the famous art academy, an expensive hotel (simply called L’Hôtel ) is getting ready for the lunch hour. Only if you know this was once the run-down Hotel d’Alsace where Oscar Wilde died in 1900, disgraced, despised, penniless, his health broken by Reading jail , will you
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The aesthetic movement was more than William Morris wallpaper – it turned Victorian values upside down. Jonathan Jones goes to Paris to seek out its dark side In spring sunlight, art students rush through the grand courtyard of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Artists such as Matisse studied here. But I am looking for a British and Irish cultural hero. On the Rue des Beaux Arts, a narrow Left Bank street next to the famous art academy, an expensive hotel (simply called L’Hôtel ) is getting ready for the lunch hour. Only if you know this was once the run-down Hotel d’Alsace where Oscar Wilde died in 1900, disgraced, despised, penniless, his health broken by Reading jail , will you
Continue reading …Jane Harman: We Should Assume This Might Not Turn Out to Be an Arab Spring – It Could be an Arab Winter
March 28, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media (h/t Heather at VideoCafe ) Join with me now and breathe a collective sigh of relief that Jane Harman is no longer in Congress. Because a bigger war-mongering Neocon-in-Democratic-clothing I do not think you could find. Not content with just three declared fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya (and one stealth one in Pakistan) draining the country’s resources, Jane Harman gets visibly excited at the thought of stopping all the evil Iran is supposedly doing in the Middle East. Gosh, it sounds like Harman is getting all her intel from Saudi and/or Israeli sources. because you know, they don’t have any kind of agenda in dealing with Iran . That “playing” in Bahrain? Debunked . That “playing” in Lebanon? At the request of the Lebanese PM . Even the weapons with Iranian markings allegedly found in Gaza –how does that line up with all those American-made arms pointing at Palestinians ? Funny how that goes unmentioned. I’m sorry, but no American should be bemoaning the hegemony of any other country in the Middle East, unless we’re just bound and determined to be the only purveyors of it. Note how quickly Harman glides into decrying Iran as the fount of all things bad in the Middle East to Yemen and conflating the country proper (no matter how unstable it is) with the American-born and officially Yemeni-convicted terrorist spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki, whom Harman has referred to as “Terrorist #1 ” (again ignoring the repeated acts of terrorism being committed in this country by all those “lone wolf” right wing nut jobs). The very fact that she holds up some magazine written by al Qaeda as proof of the threat because it featured an article on how to build a bomb in your kitchen, but ignores all that same information has been not only readily available on the internets (and hell, even in the library for us old-timers that still read books), but used by people like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph. But that Jane Harman, she loves her some military interventions in the Middle East…so much she’s looking for more. Transcripts below the fold BORGER: Jane Harman, can we walk and chew gum at the same time, I guess is the question. HARMAN: Well, let’s hope so, but the government of Iran is not sitting in Iran. They’re playing in all this. They’re playing in Bahrain, they’re playing in Lebanon, they’re playing in Gaza. Arms with Iranian markings were just picked up by the Israelis, fortunately, before they went into Gaza. They’re playing in Egypt. You know, we should assume that this may not come out to be an “Arab Spring” but an “Arab Winter” and that would happen if we take our eye off what I think is our central problem here, which is a (sic) expanding Iranian hegemony over the region. And finally, let me just mention Yemen. Yemen is the place where in the boonies we have the folks that are plotting to attack us, the “Christmas Bomber” was trained in Yemen, the parcel bomb plot was hatched in Yemen. Awlaki lives and is protected by a local tribe somewhere out there in Yemen and he called for active attacks by our…against our country and in our country and finally the fellow—whoever he is—who’s writing this English language magazine called “Inspire” which teaches you how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom is in Yemen. And so I worry about the threat to our home land being greatest in Yemen than from any other place.
Continue reading …Jane Harman: We Should Assume This Might Not Turn Out to Be an Arab Spring – It Could be an Arab Winter
March 28, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media (h/t Heather at VideoCafe ) Join with me now and breathe a collective sigh of relief that Jane Harman is no longer in Congress. Because a bigger war-mongering Neocon-in-Democratic-clothing I do not think you could find. Not content with just three declared fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya (and one stealth one in Pakistan) draining the country’s resources, Jane Harman gets visibly excited at the thought of stopping all the evil Iran is supposedly doing in the Middle East. Gosh, it sounds like Harman is getting all her intel from Saudi and/or Israeli sources. because you know, they don’t have any kind of agenda in dealing with Iran . That “playing” in Bahrain? Debunked . That “playing” in Lebanon? At the request of the Lebanese PM . Even the weapons with Iranian markings allegedly found in Gaza –how does that line up with all those American-made arms pointing at Palestinians ? Funny how that goes unmentioned. I’m sorry, but no American should be bemoaning the hegemony of any other country in the Middle East, unless we’re just bound and determined to be the only purveyors of it. Note how quickly Harman glides into decrying Iran as the fount of all things bad in the Middle East to Yemen and conflating the country proper (no matter how unstable it is) with the American-born and officially Yemeni-convicted terrorist spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki, whom Harman has referred to as “Terrorist #1 ” (again ignoring the repeated acts of terrorism being committed in this country by all those “lone wolf” right wing nut jobs). The very fact that she holds up some magazine written by al Qaeda as proof of the threat because it featured an article on how to build a bomb in your kitchen, but ignores all that same information has been not only readily available on the internets (and hell, even in the library for us old-timers that still read books), but used by people like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph. But that Jane Harman, she loves her some military interventions in the Middle East…so much she’s looking for more. Transcripts below the fold BORGER: Jane Harman, can we walk and chew gum at the same time, I guess is the question. HARMAN: Well, let’s hope so, but the government of Iran is not sitting in Iran. They’re playing in all this. They’re playing in Bahrain, they’re playing in Lebanon, they’re playing in Gaza. Arms with Iranian markings were just picked up by the Israelis, fortunately, before they went into Gaza. They’re playing in Egypt. You know, we should assume that this may not come out to be an “Arab Spring” but an “Arab Winter” and that would happen if we take our eye off what I think is our central problem here, which is a (sic) expanding Iranian hegemony over the region. And finally, let me just mention Yemen. Yemen is the place where in the boonies we have the folks that are plotting to attack us, the “Christmas Bomber” was trained in Yemen, the parcel bomb plot was hatched in Yemen. Awlaki lives and is protected by a local tribe somewhere out there in Yemen and he called for active attacks by our…against our country and in our country and finally the fellow—whoever he is—who’s writing this English language magazine called “Inspire” which teaches you how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom is in Yemen. And so I worry about the threat to our home land being greatest in Yemen than from any other place.
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In discussing the present “kinetic military action” in Libya, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell and Contessa Brewer both tried to shift scrutiny away from President Obama and toward Republicans Monday afternoon, hours before the President's address to the nation on Libya. O'Donnell tried to pinpoint the hypocrisy of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for criticizing Obama's failure to obtain authorization from Congress for military action in Libya. The liberal MSNBC host referred back to a nonbinding Senate resolution passed unanimously on March 1, calling for the U.N. Security Council to implement a no-fly zone over Libya. Since the resolution passed unanimously, O'Donnell believed McConnell to be a hypocrite for voting for a no-fly zone and then calling out President Obama for failing to seek authorization from Congress. The nonbinding resolution, though, was effectively an opinion from the Senate on the matter. The U.S. Congress never authorized President Obama to declare war or preside over military action in Libya.
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Newly refurbished museum at Tower of London highlights regiment’s 325 year history Private W Reginauld may not have been the Royal Fusiliers’ most distinguished soldier, but the boot he wore will have pride of place at the newly refurbished regimental museum in the Tower of London. It was not the sort of footwear anyone would want to wear – a heavy iron contraption stretching from toe to knee that an exasperated colonel ordered Reginauld to put on in 1808 following years of malingering with a bad leg. The painted inscription tells it all: “Found of great use after imposing on the regiment for three years and six months, was cured in 12 days …” To complete the cure, Reginauld was sentenced to 500 lashes to dissuade him from swinging the lead again. The Royal Fusiliers, drawing recruits from London, has had plenty of more gallant soldiers than Reginauld, among them 20 winners of the Victoria Cross, with 12 of those medals on display in the museum in an interactive display case whose touchscreen will describe how each came to be won. The regiment, first raised at the Tower in 1685 and now amalgamated with three regional fusilier regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, has missed few significant battles in the last 320 years. “We have only been absent from Waterloo and D-day,” said Colin Bowes-Crick, the museum’s curator, whose connection with the regiment stretches back nearly 50 years. “We missed Waterloo by a day and for D-day were still fighting in Italy.” There is also a Russian musket ball extracted from the thigh of a fusilier wounded at the battle of Inkerman in 1854 – together with the soldier’s letter home to his family describing the incident, written the same day – and a white tablecloth waved by German troops surrendering at the end of the prolonged and bloody battle at the Italian monastery of Monte Casino in the second world war. A mannequin in a display case depicts the surprisingly diminutive figure of George V – much smaller than Michael Gambon in The King’s Speech — wearing his uniform as colonel of the regiment, complete with bearskin. And, some things never change, there is also a letter from a regimental colonel to William Howard Russell, the first war correspondent, complaining about his coverage of the Crimean war. There is also the Napoleonic imperial eagle on its pike, captured from the French in 1809, in a battle at Martinique. “That really makes my temples tingle,” said Bowes-Crick. “It’s the thought that Napoleon himself would have touched the eagle in presenting it to his troops.” Entry to the museum, reopening to the public next week after the £850,000 refit, will be included in the price of admission to the Tower. Military Museums Museums Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
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Royal Society report shows China pushing UK into third place in scientific publishing and predicts it will soon surpass the US China could overtake the United States as the world’s dominant publisher of scientific research by 2013, according to an analysis of global trends in science by the Royal Society. The report highlighted the increasing challenge to the traditional superpowers of science from the world’s emerging economies and also identified emerging talent in countries not traditionally associated with a strong science base, including Iran, Tunisia and Turkey. The Royal Society said that China was now second only to the US in terms of its share of the world’s scientific research papers written in English. The UK has been pushed into third place, with Germany, Japan, France and Canada following behind. “The scientific world is changing and new players are fast appearing. Beyond the emergence of China, we see the rise of South-East Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and other nations,” said Chris Llewellyn Smith, director of energy research at Oxford University and chair of the Royal Society’s study. “The increase in scientific research and collaboration, which can help us to find solutions to the global challenges we now face, is very welcome. However, no historically dominant nation can afford to rest on its laurels if it wants to retain the competitive economic advantage that being a scientific leader brings.” In the report, published on Monday , the Royal Society said that science around the world was in good health, with increases in funding and personnel in recent years. Between 2002 and 2007, global spending on R&D rose from $790bn to $1,145bn and the number of researchers increased from 5.7 million to 7.1 million. “Global spend has gone up just under 45%, more or less in line with GDP,” said Llewllyn Smith. “In the developing world, it’s gone up over 100%.” Over the same period, he added, the number of scientific publications went up by around 25%. To compare the output of different countries, the Royal Society’s report collated information on research papers published in two time periods, 1993-2003 and 2004-2008. It counted research papers that had an abstract in English and where the work had been peer-reviewed. In both periods, the US dominated the world’s science, but its share of publications dropped from 26% to 21%. China’s share rose from 4.4% to 10.2%. The UK’s share declined from 7.1% to 6.5% of the world’s papers. Projecting beyond 2011, the Royal Society said that the landscape would change “dramatically”. “China has already overtaken the UK as the second leading producer of research publications, but some time before 2020 it is expected to surpass the US.” It said this could happen as soon as 2013. China’s rise is the most impressive, but Brazil, India and South Korea are following fast behind and are set to surpass the output of France and Japan by the start of the next decade. The quality of research is harder to measure, so the Royal Society used the number of times a research paper had been cited by other scientists in the years after publication as a proxy. By this yardstick, the US again stayed in the lead between the two periods 1999-2003 and 2004-2008, with 36% and 30% of citations respectively. The UK stayed in second place with 9% and 8% in the same periods. China’s citation count went from virtually nil to a 4% share. The overall spread of scientific subjects under investigation has remained the same. “We had expected to see a shift to bio from engineering and physics [but] overall, the balance has remained remarkably stable,” said Llewellyn Smith. “In China, [the rise] seems to be in engineering subjects whereas, in Brazil, they’re getting into bio and agriculture.” As it grows its research base, Llewellyn Smith said that China could end up leading the world in subjects such as nanotechnology. “The fact is they’ve poured money into nanotechnology and that’s an area where they are recruiting people back from around the world with very attractive laboratories – that’s my feeling.” In addition, there are new entrants to the scientific community. “Tunisia in 1999 had zero science budget – now it puts 0.7% of GDP into science,” said Llewllyn Smith. “This isn’t huge but it’s symbolic of the fact that all countries are getting into science. Turkey is another example. Iran has the fastest-growing number of publications in the world, they’re really serious about building up science.” Turkey’s R&D spend increased almost six-fold between 1995 and 2007, said the Royal Society, and the number of scientists in the country has jumped by 43%. Four times as many papers with Turkish authors were published in 2008 as in 1996. In Iran, the number of research papers rose from 736 in 1996 to 13,238 in 2008. Its government is committed to increasing R&D to 4% of GDP by 2030. In 2006, the country spent just 0.59% of its GDP on science. Llewellyn Smith welcomed the internationalisation of science. “Global issues, such as climate change, potential pandemics, bio-diversity, and food, water and energy security, need global approaches. These challenges are interdependent and interrelated, with complicated dynamics that are often overlooked by policies and programmes put in place to address them,” he said. “Science has a very important role in addressing global challenges and collaboration is necessary so that everybody can agree on global solutions. The more countries are involved in science, the more innovations we will have and the better off we will be.” Peer review and scientific publishing Research Higher education Research and development Research funding United States Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Spokesman tells BBC he believes Pentagon treatment of jailed soldier Bradley Manning is ‘counterproductive’ to US interests The former US state department spokesman who resigned over the treatment of Bradley Manning has said he has no regrets about his comments criticising the manner of the soldier’s detention, saying it has undermined the investigation into his role as the alleged source for WikiLeaks. PJ Crowley resigned this month after calling the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid” . His remarks, made during a speech at MIT, were first reported by blogger Phillpa Thomas . In an interview with the BBC, his first since the resignation, Crowley said he had recently been asked why the US was torturing Manning. “The United States is doing no such thing, but I understand why the question was asked,” Crowley said. “I thought the treatment of Bradley Manning – the fact that he had to sleep naked and stand in a jail cell naked – was counter-productive to our broader effort of appropriately prosecuting someone who has violated his oath of office,” he told Hardtalk. Crowley said he was a believer in “something like strategic narratives”, saying: “The United States, as an exceptional country in the world, has to be seen as practising what we preach.” Asked if he had realised the effect his comments would have, Crowley said: “Well, I realised that I was challenging another agency of government. Quite honestly I didn’t necessarily think the controversy would go as far as it did. “But I don’t regret saying what I said.” Since June last year Manning has been kept in solitary confinement at a Marine Corps prison near Washington awaiting trial on suspicion of giving classified material to WikiLeaks. Earlier this month it was revealed that he is forced to sleep naked in his cell. His lawyers said his clothes were taken after he made sarcastic comments about using his underwear to commit suicide. The US authorities confirmed Manning was made to relinquish his boxer shorts for about seven hours due to a “situationally driven” event. Barack Obama has said he has asked Pentagon officials about aspects of Manning’s confinement and been assured that they were appropriate. Asked about Obama’s comments, Crowley said: “Again, I can only offer you my view, which is that it is one thing that actions can be legal and it is another thing that actions can be smart. I do think that the prosecution of Bradley Manning is legitimate and necessary. “The release of 251,000 cables has damaged US interests around the world and more importantly has put the lives of activists who help us understand what’s going on around the world in jeopardy. “But I felt his treatment undermines the credibility of the ongoing investigation and prosecution. I spoke my mind and I haven’t changed my view.” United States Bradley Manning Barack Obama WikiLeaks Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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The former Labour health secretary, now a government adviser on social mobility, joins criticism of Andrew Lansley • Alan Milburn: Labour will contest, not concede, NHS reform A former health secretary, Alan Milburn, has attacked the government’s health reforms, describing them as confused, liable to increase bureaucracy and expected to shift power sideways rather than down to patients. His criticism in a Guardian article is significant since the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, and David Cameron frequently cite Blairite public sector reformers such as Milburn in defence of their health moves. Milburn was asked this month by the government whether he would apply for the post of chairman of the NHS commissioning board, the new arms-length body that is due to run the NHS after the reforms. He is already the government’s adviser on social mobility. His article, presaging further criticism in the magazine Progress, will be another blow to Lansley as he continues to resist criticisms of his reforms from an ever-widening alliance of health professionals, Liberal Democrats, unions and public opinion. The Lib Dems, at their conference, and the BMA voted to reject Lansley’s reforms. Nick Clegg has said he will require major revisions before the bill introducing the reforms currently in committee can return to the Commons for its report stage. Milburn also warns Labour that it must not make the mistake of being opposed to any reform of the NHS. It is expected that Ed Miliband and the shadow health secretary, John Healey, will set out Labour’s position in greater detail in the next fortnight. They will argue that the central ethos of public service reform must be co-operation and not competition between providers, as proposed. The Lansley reforms abolish primary care trusts and hand commissioning of a potential £80bn NHS budget to local GP commissioning boards capable of handing contracts to any willing provider. The reforms will also allow all NHS foundation trusts to become fully independent by 2014, and in the process abolishes many NHS targets set by the government. Milburn writes: “It’s a bad idea to let hospitals off the accountability hook by abolishing the national targets that drove better lower waiting times during the last decade. Cutting waste is a good idea but it’s a bad idea to assume that NHS structural change saves cash rather than costing it. Abolishing PCTs and creating more GP consortia to replace them hardly sounds like a recipe for reducing bureaucracy. “There’s also a chasm between the cost of making change – £1.4bn – and the cash available for it. The NHS budget will fall not rise in the next few years so it is relying on £20bn efficiency savings to make ends meet. Structural change can only distract it from doing so.” Milburn is one of many critics who believe the government will end up making PCT managers redundant and then rehiring them to run GP commissioning boards. The government has tried to reduce this risk by banning anyone working for a PCT being re-employed for a GP board within six weeks. Milburn praises the idea of family doctors facing the consequences of their own prescribing and treatment, but writes: “It’s a bad idea to weaken public accountability over £80bn of public money and to assume that GPs can easily do the complex business of commissioning local services.” Milburn believes the government will have to reintroduce the Lib Dem concept of greater local accountability, the original proposal put forward by the Lib Dems in their manifesto but then weakened in coalition negotiations. But Milburn also urges Labour to box clever in its opposition to the NHS reforms, saying competition can improve the NHS. He writes: “In local areas where new providers were brought in to provide NHS services, waiting times and death rates fell faster than where they weren’t. Labour should promote a legal, level playing field based solely on the interests of patients, not providers. But that requires proper planning, not a free-for-all. Market mechanisms can work in healthcare but only when properly managed and regulated.” Milburn also admits to being unable to understand the politics behind the government’s NHS reforms, arguing Cameron had always seen safety first on the NHS as critical to decontaminating the Conservative brand. In a series of clarifications, Lansley has already promised not to allow competition based simply on price, and said that commissioning consortia would not hold on to, or share with private companies, savings from commissioning budget. In a change of language he has said “any qualified providers” will be entitled to provide NHS services. He had previously promised “any willing provider” would be entitled to provide the services. NHS Health Andrew Lansley Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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