Huguenot

The official line on homosexuality in Singapore is that it is illegal - this is a religiously divided nation with an absolute moral code - but that the government doesn't interfere with what consenting adults do in their bedrooms. There is a homosexual community in Singapore with the usual bars and clubs, but they're asked to keep their actions private (as, I should add, are heterosexuals). As you say, nothing to do with caning though.

I think if you're talking about mean-testing, then you're seeing state payments as charitable. I'm all for charity where it's due and not to those who can afford it. However, I'm not sure Child Benefit is seen as a charity - it's a service to the state in principle (from '46), and so shouldn't be means tested,as you're getting paid for doing a job.

Yep agreed. I think politicians are in a very difficult hole, especially from a local council perspective. Nationally and globally populations and opinions don't move quickly. If you make grand statements and commitments the most likely conclusion is that you won't get elected. If you were purely altruistic you could argue that taking a 'dramatic' position on climate change will shift the centre ground, but it's not much use being a politician if you don't get elected. I guess I'd favour small but noticeable changes at first, that are easier to communicate to the electorate. This can be followed up with grander gestures when we've got a bit of momentum. (This is why I like plastic bag campaigns and sequestration, they might be of minor impact technically, but they pave the way for bigger things). I'd probably prefer to see climate change decisions taking place in an environment less subject to lobbyists both corporate and unionised - a situation more likely to be delivered by transferable voting systems and centralised funding. Thus there's a very fine line between the demands of climate change & economic insecurity, and the request for 'great modern political thinkers' on another thread. Maybe this really is the time for new thinking, and a new political system?

Well I only skim read it, but I appear to share the same argument as his own? He cites non-renewable energy sources (fossil fuels and nuclear) as dumping heat into the climate faster than it can be dissipated through thermal radiation. Recognising that thermal dissipation increases when there's a higher temperature gradient between the atmosphere and 'space', he calculates that with current use of non-renewables the temperature at which the earth reaches another equilibrium is 1.8 degrees hotter - along with the unacceptable social consequences that would create. He makes no calculation about the impact of additional insulation of greehouse gasses, apart from an airy observation that there may be more cloud which would reflect more heat - his assumption is thus that the greenhouse effect is negligible, which seems more than a little flippant. In that sense he doesn't address the key issue of the climate change debate. His main point is that net heat generation must be addressed in addition to CO2 deposits - that CO2 will be insufficient on its own. His final sentence says it all - "With renewable energy sources it is not even possible to alter the energy balance of the earth" . Hence I don't think he could be assumed to be arguing that renewable energy sources will vent as much heat as the fossil sources they replace. I should add that he makes no argument against climate change - he accepts that the additional energy will be stored in oceans, ice fields and the atmosphere, with all the climatic effects that others have already predicted.

It's impossible to judge the success of corporal punishment in Singspore by the crime rate. There are other far more fundamental cultural elements that impact on attitudes to crime before you could question the impact of a physical deterrent. Not least of these are the social bonds of family, community and respect for their elders. Social support networks mean that locals rarely get into the state of desperation that cause some crimes. However, you could also observe that drink and drugs aren't popular, thereby reducing both the incidence of 'moments of madness' and the addictions that feed crime. Either way, a society that can get away with corporal punishment also demands other restrictions on its citizens that the British would find unpalatable. Interestingly, corporal punishment seems largely to be reserved for those crimes which 'violate' the rights of another individual - such as robbery, burglary and vandalism. It does strike that if you were stone cold sober and knew that there was a signifcant threat of a bit of very painful whup-ass, it might make you think twice.

"How is an 80% reduction to be achieved without venting as much waste heat into the atmosphere from the alternative energy sources as that which the eliminated fossil fuels would have generated in the first place?" That's one I've never heard before. Who's got the data on that one? Fossil fuels introduce energy stored in one form (chemical energy) into a system otherwise at a dynamic equilibrium - the climate. It does this through both the release of it's own stored resources, and the increased atmospheric retention of energy from secondary sources (sunlight) through chemical insulation (CO2). The impact of the latter significantly outweighs the former. Renewables such as wind and wave recirculate energy already in the climate system, producing no net change there, and do not contribute to increased atmospheric energy retention through insulation. If there's data that suggests otherwise I'd be happy to consider it! On the 11m issue, I'm glad to see that the Lib Dems care not only for ourselves, but our children etc. ;-)

Quite true Quids. On an earlier point, I think it's disingenuous to say that child benefit is getting your own taxes back. If this were truly the case you'd simply ask not to pay them in the first place and hence save on administration fees. Taxation is a public pool for investment in social objectives agreed by consensus. The implication when you receive benefit payments is either that you're receiving an amount from the public purse for pursuing a public benefit, or that you're receiving welfare payments as an act of charity. I don't see the necessity for incentivising children as a public service, this was a post-war policy introduced in 1946 for repopulation from parents who couldn't necessarily afford it. I don't see that it can possibly be an act of charity, when having kids is a matter of choice abused by many.

Ah, yes, sorry misunderstood. Dumping GM crops clearly isn't the way to go about it. The right way is to bite the bullet and spend whatever you've got to spend to persuade the people back home. (Not sure you're right about the Japanese having 'already surrendered'. On July 28th 1945, Japan's PM Suzuki said... "I consider the Joint Proclamation [request for surrender] a rehash of the Declaration at the Cairo Conference. As for the Government, it does not attach any important value to it at all. The only thing to do is just kill it with silence (mokusatsu). We will do nothing but press on to the bitter end to bring about a successful completion of the war.". This was mainly because they wanted to retain their military government, their empire and newly conquered territories, something even the Brits didn't get to do and they were on the winning side!)

It's worth dwelling slightly on '?mmoral', becauase it's most likely that the really, really immoral thing to do is to let millions of people die because we wouldn't even research GM solutions. Really immoral.

Well the Americans can't give it away because of the kinds of superstition we've seen on these pages. I don't think prejudice is the same as proof, even though it's Uganda - a nation that is a symbol to the world of development and progression ;-) "As far as I am concerned the whole thing is immoral and terrifying." There's that religion thing again. Your concerns about the possiblity of unintended consequences are not unreasonable, but it doesn't make them the overriding influence. Everything that we do entails risk - just getting out of bed in the morning can give you a heart attack. The question with GM is whether the risks outweigh the benefits. The problem is that for those people for whom anti-GM is a religious issue don't want to rationally review the risks, and they don't want to recognise the benefits. This is mostly pampered well-fed westerners, because they'll get fed anyway, and they don't care if someone else is dying as a consequence.

In fact he could almost be characterised as sulky, small minded and vain. He certainly had superiority complex (a neurotic mechanism for compensation for feelings of inferiority). It all went wrong when we gave India independence (he wanted to be the Governor General an put the locals in their place). After that he saw traitors everywhere, mainly to project his own inadequacies onto others. He always said that he wished he'd died in the war. He clearly saw himself as a glorious hero, but didn't want to get found out by actually being alive. It's kind of a meoldramatic, self-obsessed suicide. If he was a member of your family you'd probably think of him as the annoying attention seeking one.

'over-population' which often means no more than 'I and people like me are in danger of losing our way of life if more people have children who also want a way of life like mine' Some splendid nails, hitting and heads there! I think that legislating on reproduction asks some very serious questions about what it means to be human. I do think that we shouldn't be bankrolling them out of the public purse. Crazy idea this 'child support'. If you can't afford them or provide for them, don't have them.

I kind of symnpathise with where you're coming from, but the numbers don't pan out. It's one of those peculiar anglo-centric perspectives, as much to do with inflating our sense of importance as it is to really address the food issue. If we take 'western overfed' societies to mean Western Europe and North America, well then the total population is only 500m people. There's 7 billion people on the planet however, of whom an estimated 4 billion are malnourished. Even if we slaughtered the populations of all the 'western' nations and recovered their food (and your proposed 50% 'waste'), it's not enough to feed them. That's not to deny that global food distribution is inefficient, but the suggestion that if we improved distribution there would be no need for better crops is incorrect. Likewise your assertion that there are no proven benefits to GM food is quite simply wrong. GM crops have already been created that are more resistant to pests and disease, more resistant to frost and drought. Crops have been created that generate a higher nutritional content, and provide more Vitamin A - a critical component of a healthy diet that is missing for half the world's population. Ironically, GM crops have been created that have LESS requirement for highly damaging pesticides, fungicides, bactericides and fertiliser. The deeply concerning thing is that actually most Brits don't give a flying f**k aboput the starving billions around the world and their desperate need for crops that confer these benefits. What most Brits seem to concerned about is navel gazing religious angst about 'Frankenstein' tomatoes. Being both rich and pampered Brits are lucky enough to have the (rather self-indulgent) choice. You'd have a quite different view if you'd lost several children to malnutrition. Having said that, there are valid arguments against GM that HAL9000 has touched on - potentially unwanted expression of genes in both crops and weeds, commercial control and terminator effects.

"Others find it abhorrent that large corporations like Monsanto are able to "play God" by re-shuffling genes" That's kind of a problem with those argumets - they're quasi-religious and really represent a faith-based rejection of the authority of science; hence the Amish connection. These positions are compounded by anti-corporate sentiment; a rallying cry for those suffering from self-imposed disenfranchisement.

This is lounge-bound. ;-)

I've got the 8900 and it's the best Blackberry I've owned, by a long hop.

Sure, and I respect the concern. I'd hazard that the majority of agricultural crops aren't 3.5 billion years old, and there's nothing natural about grafting. Gene insertion is simply grafting at a smaller level. Use of phrases like 'viral insertion' is just another one of those triggers: virus - 'bad'. However I don't think the response to GM is proportionate. Although the argument itself is not new, it's neo-Amish, it has the technical merit of refusing to leave the house because you might get run over. The real motivation is a visceral aversion to change. The same applies to Organics - a rose-tinted throwback to an imaginary older more comfortable age. All old ladies cycling to church. A William Morris rural idyll. The population boom requires new agricultural thinking. GM is a global requirement where the alternative is a Pol-pot-esque reversion to Year Zero. The real challenge is to manage the introduction from an altruistic perspective. It's all very well for pampered Europeans to debate GM/Organic as an intellectual indulgence, elsewhere people are dying.

Sorry Sean, cross-posting. That is indeed a major problem wth GM foods, and the main reason I'm against them!

I'm not sure that linking GM foods and the end of the planet is particularly helpful. You might as well start slaughtering butterflys in China to prevent tornados in the US. It all seems to hinge on this mystical definition of 'natural' and its weird and inappropriate elevation to 'good'. HIV, Ebola, Malaria are all 'natural', and there are no natural cures nor any reasonable expectation of negating their impact through natural selection. Vaccines are by definition genetically modified, and I'd hazard that nobody in a sane state of mind is going to disappear once again down trhe MMR bullshit route? I suspect that there is going to be no sensible outcome to this debate.

This is not the hood you are looking for...

I can't believe that people are conflating Organic and GM. Every crop is genetically modified, organic or not. We've been modifying crops genetically since 4,000 BC. If we didn't modify them then billions of people would have died needlessly. Not only is it uninformed to the point of witlessness, it's about as inspired as being scared of doctors and lightbulbs. The camera steals your soul you know. There are plenty of arguments against modern GM foods, but mostly they revolve around sterility and pricing.

A bit mean to level the 2bn 'out of education' on the city Piersy, they also generate the taxable income that funds a significant part of the rest of the 74bn annual education expenditure. Besides which education wouldn't have got the cash anyway, if it hadn't been spent on shoring up our national industries in the face of cyclical global recession, it would have been spent on cynical tax cuts before a general election ;-) Anyway, I'm only being argumentative, I fully agree with almost everything you say, you eco-commie suit-basher you.

In a dull but worthy way... I was intrigued that for the 1.2 billion Chinese who don't speak English, they all knew one word for the Brits - Hooligan. It's kind of twee and 1970s, but a massive part of the Chinese perception of the UK as a socially failed state. There's no irony in the fact that it's Irish of course. Chancers.

Jedis miss special offers - OFFICIAL

star13uk - I can't quite make up my mind as to whether you're using that as an excuse not to do anything, or just venting. If you were using it as a lame excuse to do nothing, then you would deserve a shoeing - althoug it would be a bit counter-prductive as you can't kick someone out of apathy, you can only dig them a grave. If you're just venting then I'd observe that it might feel good, but it's not really very helpful - just like telling your partner you've cheated on them: it may feel like you're assuaging your guilt but really you're just selfishly upsetting people, and if you really cared you'd be better off doing something about it in silence.