Something incredible is happening in Scotland. And if the result is a yes vote the shock to the UK will be extreme. You could tell it was getting serious when Gordon Brown made friends with Alistair Darling; and when the Scottish Daily Mail began running doom headlines about the future of the Union.
I don't know whether the narrowing of the poll lead for the no campaign was just a blip, but it doesn't feel like it. Something incredible is happening in Scotland. The little pin badges – Yes or No – that people wear are sparking open conversation: in the pub, the swimming baths, the post office queue. An entire country of 5 million people is asking itself, sometimes quite vociferously, what it wants to be.
It's even more incredible if you consider the possible outcome. It probably won't happen. Jeremy Clarkson and 'n****r', Ukip and Romanians: is this really 2014? Yesterday, Jeremy Clarkson, the famously straight talking presenter of BBC’s Top Gear, attempted to issue an apology after it was revealed he had used the word “n****r” whilst reciting the racist nursery rhyme “eenie meenie miney mo” on one of his programs.
Strangely, on this occasion his capacity for straight talking suddenly deserted him. Indeed, his defence appeared to be he had totally lost control over his ability to use words at all. Initially he had said “I did not use the N-word. Never use it”. But yesterday he explained that he had, in fact, tried to “mumble” the word. Remorsefully, Clarkson went on to explain how he he’d “done everything in my power not to use that word”. “I am sitting here begging your forgiveness” he concluded, “for the fact that obviously my efforts weren’t quite good enough”. Tony Blair, the Violent Islamist's Best Friend. I wanted to begin this piece with the sentence "Tony Blair is back".
But, of course, our former prime minister has never really been away. Not for him a quiet life of self-portraits and coin tosses. Blair, unlike his ol' partner-in-crime George W. Bush, has spent his 'retirement' agitating for military action against Syria, calling for regime change in Iran, dodging citizen's arrests over his illegal invasion of Iraq and making the case for Tory-style austerity at home. We need to talk about TED. In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky.
But have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens?
Mark Steel: Just because you're an atheist doesn't make you rational - Mark Steel - Commentators. The Banality of Systemic Evil. Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures. Sexism. Don Mattera on the Collective Responsibility of White South Africans. How long can waiting work? News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier. In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets.
But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. News misleads. We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. News is irrelevant. News has no explanatory power. News is toxic to your body. News increases cognitive errors. News inhibits thinking. News works like a drug. News wastes time. News makes us passive. News kills creativity. Society needs journalism – but in a different way.
Terrorism and Islam. Drones. Racism. Hans Rosling: Stats that reshape your worldview. Back from the Front: Inside the mind of a reformed UK far-right extremist - Features - Books. When Matthew Collins heard what was happening in Norway in the late afternoon of 22 July, he headed to the offices of his employer, Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine.
There, he and other staff sat up all night watching Twitter and the internet, talking quietly to their informants in Scandinavia. A Disaster 50 Years in The Making « Dekhnstan. Tuareg Woman Mali’s problems did not start with the fall of Libya’s Qadhafi.
They started even before it gained independence from France. A diverse set of ethnic groups were forced to coexist without much thought of the immense potential for conflict caused by that arrangement. France’s 25th hour short-legged attempt at Shock and Awe is potentially a doomed effort because it is a decade late. Relying on inept militaries, and hoping to win a guerilla warfare without a credible strategy is a defeat waiting to happen. Mali crisis: Key players. 12 March 2013Last updated at 10:28 ET Mali is in the grip of an unprecedented political crisis, one of the most serious since the landlocked West African country gained independence from France in 1960.
It was hit by a coup in March 2012 - and a rebellion in the north that has caused alarm around the world. The former colonial power has now deployed troops after an appeal from Mali's interim president. Rory Stewart: Time to end the war in Afghanistan. Susan Cain: The power of introverts. Mike Prysner Talk- 26th January. Monopoly Is Theft.