DaveR

Surely you would know the author - isn't she a prominent vegan campaigner? Why don't you all b*gger off and let us eat what we want? Also, the claims for the health benefits of a vegetarian diet need to be treated with caution, especially when coming from someone who is clearly not impartial. A lot of people seem to think that it's the not eating meat bit that provides the health benefits, whereas actually it's the eating lots more vegetables, fruit, nuts that can have a positive effect (provided you also take care to ensure that you get a proper nutritional balance, if necessary with fortified food and supplements). Eating endless bowls of pasta and rice will not make you healthier, especially compared to a balanced diet that includes sensible amounts of meat and fish.

I love this blog for unintentionally hilarious coffee-based self-importance: http://colonnaandsmalls.wordpress.com/

"aaaah daver you clearly have anger issues and some previous" I think what you mean is that I find it difficult to resist challenging nonsense, and that I have been consistent in my views and arguments over a period of time. Hands up to both of those. Well done at getting your parents behind you - you're obviously more persuasive in the flesh (so to speak) than in writing. Alternatively, have you considered that maybe they're just being polite? "perfect prose and pedantic nature" I make no claims to perfection, but one of my teachers used to say "messy page, messy mind", and it's a pretty reliable guide (unless you're Einstein, I guess, but no danger for either of us there).

I have now, and I now understand the subtext i.e. the real allegation against Charter is that it is using its admissions policy to skew the social mix of the intake. I have no idea whether this is right or not, albeit the fact that the policy has not changed since it was administered by the LA kind of suggests not. I do have some difficulty with the idea that clarity and fairness in the policy are somehow equivalent. Ultimately, if a change in policy results in a child getting a place who wouldn't have done so before, there is another child who now will have to go elsewhere. Is there any evidence that as a result of these changes, the newly admitted pupils are somehow more deserving than those who will lose out?

"But you're still trying to imply the 80% are against it which isn't true. If these "sensible teachers" that are the majority are so embarrassed, why less than 5% of the membership vote against the action?" Chippy, what I said was: "80% of the NUT's membership did not vote for a strike" which is just a fact. The obvious inference is that the majority of that 80%, and therefore a sizeable majority of NUT members, are not sufficiently supportive of strike action to have taken the trouble to vote in favour of it. If someone asks you a yes-no question and you decide to ignore them and go to the pub instead it must say something about your interest in/commitment to the question at hand? In any event, you object to my using the phrase 'teaching unions' because you would like us to believe that strike action has mass support throughout the profession, as opposed to being largely driven by union leadership/activists. We may disagree on that, but the raw figures are not going to determine the issue either way - they just are what they are. And to be honest, it's a minor point. The big point is that there is absolutely no justification for a strike beyond a plea for preferential treatment compared to every other poor sod in the country.

I have read the judgment. In summary: Charter use exactly the same process as the LA used i.e. they use a mapping contractor to determine safe walking distances. Neither the principle nor the process is unfair. The mapping contractor uses the latest available information to make their determinations. Consequently, the school didn't want to publish a map because if they do it at the time that the annual admissions policy is published, there is a risk it will be out of date by the time the admissions period closes. As a result of your complaints, the school will either have to (i) publish a map, monitor any changes, and then work out how to communicate any changes to every single applicant before the deadline or face appeals, or (ii) ask the mapping contractor not to use the latest available information. Bravo! Well done! Fairness all round.

"82.5% voted in favour of strike action in the NUT's ballot" ....on a 27% turnout. Hence 80% of the NUT's membership did not vote for a strike. I don't just make this stuff up, you know. The purpose in using the phrase is to ensure that I don't tar all teachers, or even most of them, with the 'idiot' brush. Anecdotally, I have met plenty of teachers who are union members for various reasons associated with the less exciting aspects of labour relations, but are frankly embarrassed at the political posturing of the leadership and their conference cheerleaders. I call them "sensible teachers", and I suspect they are in the majority. LocalTeacher: "if i do teach your kids they will be receiving outstanding tuition from me" It's possible. Maybe you save up your flabby thinking and incoherent ranting for your spare time. "hopefully they have more respect for the teaching profession than you seem to possess" It's not the teaching profession; it's you.

LocalTeacher, this is getting embarrassing. Somebody who isn't a teacher tells you what the proposals are that you are so opposed to that you intend to strike, and asks you what your objection is, and you say.... "congrats on the homework Londonmix im sure daver will mark it highly (depending on quotas)" If I took all your posts, squished them together, corrected the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and took out the repetition, it would sound just like the kind of utter crap I'd expect to hear from a nice, middle class, pretend Lefty first year undergraduate sounding off in the Union Bar during Freshers Week, about 15 minutes before they vomited all over themselves. Which I guess is what you are, some years into the future (I dread to think how many), but obviously no smarter. I only hope to sweet Jesus Christ you're not teaching my kids (though I suspect they could teach you a thing or two about how to construct an argument).

"The idea that all teachers have a fantastic pension is a myth - Hutton found the average teacher pension in 2009-10 was ?9,806." Payable at 60, and index-linked. At present rates that is equivalent to having a cash pension pot of approx ?250,000 - not too shabby. And that was an average i.e. not representative of the pension a teacher would draw after a full career. And Hutton also found that employers' contributions to teachers' schemes averaged over 14% - pretty generous on any view. Useful to have the full picture rather than a single stat out of context. BTW, DaveR - the NUT and NASUWT are lay member organisations i.e. it is not "the teaching unions" per se that oppose this, it is the teachers that make up the membership. What's your point? They are unions made up of teachers i.e. "teaching unions", and intended to distinguish between their more vociferous members, and teachers who do not belong, or do but did not vote in favour of the strike i.e. 80% of the NUT's membership. LocalTeacher - it's not getting any better. D- and stay behind after school.

BTW, I agree that recruiting teachers in London may well be difficult because of the cost of living. At least part of the solution to that is either getting rid of, or significantly changing, the current national pay arrangements. Needless to say, this is opposed by teaching unions and in fact is one of the cited reasons for the proposed strike. "a job for life ? seems fair as we devote our life to our job we deserve a decent pension if we do it for 40+years we should not be making up the shortfall because governments have overspent elsewhere dont be angry at teachers for getting what they are due we are all paying more for less being duped but its ok cos tescos are whacking out unhappy chickens for 2.29" Is this really the best case that you can make? It's pretty poor, I'm afraid. As is this: "I've said this many times, but the "I haven't got it, so why should someone else?" mentality stinks" It's an obvious misrepresentation of the point being made i.e. current economic circumstances (and future predictions about longevity etc.) require a sober analysis of spending priorities in the short term, and pension arrangements in the long term. The outcome may not be pleasant for anyone, but shouting "it's not fair" like a spoilt child is neither impressive nor persuasive. For the avoidance of doubt, I think teachers should be well paid, with a decent pension scheme, and have a high degree of job security. As matters stand they have all of these things and the actual/proposed changes will not have a significant impact. I would support higher pay and more generous terms if it was justified by both local labour market conditions and rigorous performance requirements, but, as noted, teachers (or at least teaching unions) are opposed to both of these things. ETA - sorry for duplicating some of the sensible things said above.

I prefer the word 'disingenuous' You say that you will be promoting meat-free days and you cite "tackling obesity rates and damage to the environment', but these are not your real concerns - they are a vehicle for your animal rights agenda, which includes, for example, opposition to 'captive animals' for any purpose (see your previous posts on this thread). By implication, you would oppose any sport where animals are involved and presumably the keeping of pets? Conversely, you would oppose any initiative that proposed 'tackling obesity rates' but nevertheless countenanced the eating of meat? Tom, just admit it. You are about as extreme as it is possible to get on the animal rights spectrum and that will both determine your position and be your primary concern whatever the purported issue. If you did this up front, people would know who they are dealing with. And that's exactly why you don't.

"What's wrong with ramen. Spicy broth with stuff in it. It's hardly world shattering but it's far from 'bland'." Agreed. But as noodles in soup go, it's almost always less interesting/tasty than Vietnamese or Malaysian/Singaporean offerings. My particular favourite is Assam Laksa - officially the 7th most delicious food in the world! http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/worlds-50-most-delicious-foods-067535?page=0,1 And to anyone who says chains are never as good as independents, two words. Richer Sounds.

"Dave r are you a parent with children of school age ?" Yes. I have two children who attend a local primary school. I'm afraid you're going to have to find another reason to dismiss what I say. Or you could even address the points that I made - it's called 'debate', and it's something that teaching unions are usually reluctant to engage in. I'm sure you can do better.

As a generalisation, I expect proper chain outfits to deliver standardised products cheaper and more efficiently than non-chains, and 'independents' to do a better job with non-standard stuff. Because standardised products usually only work up to a certain level of quality, the easiest niche for independents to operate in is top end bespoke type goods/services. Unfortunately, although you can make high margins doing this, you make more profit from the same square footage by piling high and selling cheap, hence even successful independents getting priced out. On the other hand, chain operators have higher ultimate overheads to pay (head office etc.) and so have less flexibility and tolerance of underperforming units, so if it ain't working they will close down and bugger off - sharpish. Worth remembering if you're a commercial landlord. Back on topic, Wagamama is mediocre at best IMHO, tho' I'm not that keen on ramen anyway. I like pho (but haven't tried 'PHO' - is it any good?), but if I had a free choice for a new resto on LL I'd go for Middle Eastern - tagine, brochette, cous cous etc.

"how do we hope to encourage the brightest people to work in schools when they can earn more being estate agents or bankers or computer drones." Interestingly enough, there are many bright, motivated people who are attracted to a teaching career. From the Times today: "Teach First, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary, attracted 7,000 applicants for about 1,000 places last year, including 10 per cent of graduates from Oxford and Cambridge and 6 per cent of graduates from the Russell Group universities." http://www.teachfirst.org.uk/TFHome/ Do you think selfish strike action by teachers is likely to encourage more to join the profession? LocalTeacher, I'm not an English teacher either, but I was taught by a very good one, who didn't strike even though I suspect that his pay and benefits package was no better than yours. "we need a wholesale change in politics and policies" If we do, the electorate will decide. If that is the basis for the strike, it is an improper one. If your posts are a genuine representation of your political thinking, I suggest you concentrate on the day job. With extra English lessons.

Currys follow the letter of the law i.e. if you buy it online you are allowed to open to inspect and then return for any reason, but if you buy in-store they only allow returns if faulty. It's good to remember that if you buy in store, that's your chance to make sure the product is exactly what you want. Other retailers often offer more generous terms (and usually better prices, and more knowledgeable staff, and a wider range of products) so as far as I can see the only reason Currys are still in business is because enough people can't be bothered to shop around.

I am strongly opposed to teachers taking strike action. UK teachers' pay increased substantially over the last ten years or so and compares favourably both with international comparators and UK pay for similarly qualified groups. Cuts to the wider education budget are inevitable in the current economic circumstances, but even then we are talking about spending being at the level it was 5-10 years ago - I don't remember schools being so terrible then? A genuine comparison with the private sector would be instructive - during 2008-9 a lot of people lost their jobs, many others took pay cuts to ensure that their employers survived, and if some private sector wages are rising now it will be because businesses found ways to do things cheaper and better, a lesson that would be well-learned by many schools. The main teaching unions have a long and ignoble history of ridiculous knee-jerk reactions to any proposal that they perceive in any way may detrimentally affect any teacher (competent or otherwise) including opposition to giving heads and governors more power to run schools more efficiently and be more responsive to local communities. Fair play, that's their job, but if you pursue naked self-interest, don't expect any sympathy from anyone else. As for this: "this government care more about protecting big business than your kids" It's not worthy of comment. Finally LocalTeacher, your post, in terms of grammar, punctuation and spelling, doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence in your profession. I know this is an internet forum, and not the classroom, but it would be nice to think that teachers are particular about that sort of thing. Does that answer your question?

I chose 300 years because it's a reasonable approximation of the industrial age, and because I would regard industrialisation as having been something of a game changer as regards the ability of society to engineer solutions to problems. You may well be right in your prediction but I think you would have to accept that if I take a different view it is a bit more reasoned than a leap of faith.

""nobody is seriously suggesting that the murder rate would have been lower if gun laws hadn't been tightened" actually that's exactly what the cited Harvard report was suggesting, ie "people don't mug people if they might be carrying a gun", reasoning attractive to aforementioned hard-ons and nobody else." I should have said 'nobody in the UK'. And I was talking about the past, not the future. It seems to me perfectly possible that if the UK government announced that they were (i) issuing guns to all householders whose council tax payments were up to date and (ii) introducing a new binding policy that no-one would be prosecuted for shooting a trespasser on their land, provided you only shot them twice, that that may result in a dramatic fall in burglaries and only a negligible rise in murder figures. I don't think it would be a good idea, though, and I suspect (based on the available data) that it would result in a fairly spectacular increase in the number of accidental and suicide deaths due to firearms, if nothing else.

"But to believe that that technological advance will continue indefinitely is simply an article of faith on your part." I guess that's where we disagree. The evidence of the last 300 years or so points all in one direction, and it certainly doesn't support any kind of doomsday scenario. The danger is that we allow the debate to become binary i.e. it's either "progress must stop, and if we can't persuade people, governments must force them" or "market forces will solve all our problems, and you know, maybe global warming's not such a bad thing" when the sensible position is "the single most likely route to solving various problems is innovation, so the one thing we definitely ought to do is promote that by incentivising different approaches and removing barriers to change". Although we've kind of moved on to talking about oil, the original post was about the impact on food production of pressure on global water resources, and, as I pointed out above, there are plenty of very sensible people making concrete proposals about how the situation could be improved, without suggesting that everybody should stop eating meat. There are the same kind of people contributing to sensible debate about the future energy policy, but, unsurprisingly, they get drowned out by doom mongers and their opposite numbers.

For anybody who still thinks it's simple, see link for some relatively sober research: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus713/ccjs_gun_crime_report.pdf I wouldn't place too much weight on the conclusions, which tend towards simple government bashing, but the review of the stats and research is pretty good.

"Murder rates have increased by 52% in England and Wales since the introduction of gun control laws in 1968 and 15% since the 1997 handgun ban. So gun laws do not reduce murder rates or violent crime." As already noted, the second proposition doesn't follow from the first. That's because we don't know, and can't reliably predict, what would have happened to the murder rate if gun control laws had remained unchanged. As I said, the use of firearms undoubtedly increases as firearm availability increases, but what is not clear (despite the attractive El Pibe reasoning) is that this consequently leads to an overall increase in the use of lethal force. So on one level, "guns don't kill people, people do" is true, but at the same time, it's also not in the least bit helpful. It is arguable that the US research reported in the Guardian (link above) supports a theory that, in the UK, the use of lethal force by otherwise non-violent homeowners would be likely to increase if guns were more widely available (not difficult as it is currently so rare as to be front page news every time it happens), but it's only a theory, and there's a countervailing theory that wider 'responsible' gun ownership deters burglars etc., so there are likely to be fewer such incidents. Ultimately, none of this really mstters because there is no prospect of UK gun laws being loosened, and no compelling reason to support any change (nobody is seriously suggesting that the murder rate would have been lower if gun laws hadn't been tightened). The only people arguing in favour of more guns are idiots who get a hard on at the thought of shooting a burglar - see posts passim.

There are 2 quite distinct questions here: Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in murders/violent crimes involving the use of guns? Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in murders/violent crimes overall? The answer to the first question is almost certainly yes. The answer to the second is trickier, and unlikely to be able to be answered by doing a snapshot comparison between different countries because of the impossibility of controlling for the all the other factors that affect overall levels of murder/violent crime. There has been a lot of research in the US about the effect of gun control laws, and the academics are just as polarised as the politicians, but even that research is probably of limited use for predicting what would happen in the UK. I'm not aware of any UK specific research that has attempted to track the impact of changing gun laws during the 80s and 90s. One of the problems is that in the UK gun laws are in effect nationally. If you wanted to generate really compelling data you would have to choose two comparable cities, change the gun laws in one, and sit back and see what happens. Might be difficult politically. On the specific topic of shooting burglars, FWIW the US anti-gun lobby is certainly claiming that there is an observable increase in justifiable homicides in states that have both weak gun control laws and "stand your ground" laws: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/05/stand-your-ground-gun-control-data

What about free safeties? To say nothing of tight ends.

I think it's quite difficult to get properly into watching a sport on TV if you've never either played it or watched it live. I love watching baseball (which American baseball fans will say is the true national sport*, historically at least) but that's definitely a result of having been to a few games and getting hooked on the whole experience. I've also been to watch American football and found it much more difficult to get into; as someone said above, the rhythm is like cricket, but to my mind that doesn't work with the nature of the game. The only time it seems to really flow is when the clock is running out and the delay between each down is minimal. *although these days it could equally be basketball, I suppose.