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MP Nadine Dorries claimed she 'didn't know' who funds the Right to Know group that supported her bid to restrict abortion counselling. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Nadine Dorries won't answer it. Lord Lawson won't answer it. Michael Gove won't answer it. But it's a simple question, and if they don't know it's because they don't want to.
Secretive thinktanks are crushing our democracy | Comment is free
Have you heard that the devastating riots across England were caused by a chemical deficiency in the brain? Or that we will soon be able to cure such behaviour with a nasal spray? Over the past two weeks, such news stories have been read by potentially millions of people across many countries on at least three continents.
Riot control: How can we stop newspapers distorting science? | Science
As chancellor, Gordon Brown thought it important to flatter the books – and the private finance initiative helped to do just that. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA In a destructive relationship you shut your eyes to problems, dream up plus points, and lie about your motives. As in love, so – it transpires – in infrastructure. But just as Whitehall is rekindling its ruinous romance with private finance, the Treasury select committee last week decided to speak like a true friend, and confronted the interminable excuses.
PFI: the conjuring trick exposed | Tom Clark | Comment is free
Wrong Answers in Britain
The perpetrators must be punished, the police must improve their riot control techniques, and Prime Minister David Cameron’s government must do all it can to make such episodes less likely in the future. We are more confident about the first two happening than the third. Mr. Cameron, a product of Britain’s upper classes and schools, has blamed the looting and burning on a compound of national moral decline, bad parenting and perverse inner-city subcultures. Would he find similar blame — this time in the culture of the well housed and well off — for Britain’s recent tabloid phone hacking scandals or the egregious abuse of expense accounts by members of Parliament? Crimes are crimes whoever commits them.
Hello, is it an accurate headline you're looking for? On the afternoon of Friday 12 August, the BBC tweeted the below: I could pretend that it made me think, wow - that's shocking news!
Once, twice, three times a headline
Governing in the private interest? « Alex's Archives
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power. Franklin D Roosevelt Anyone interested in the health and sustainability of liberal democracy should be concerned if the levers of government come under the control of concentrated, sectional interests. That is the case whether the interest is corporations, the military, trades unions, bureaucrats, or organised religion.
The Daily Mail knowingly and commercially used my photos despite my denying them permission.
A few days ago, I snapped a picture in The GAP on Oxford Street: their ALWAYS SKINNY mannequins' legs are not only always skinny, but anorexically/starved so. I tweeted it , and TwitPic'd one picture. Then Cory BoingBoing'ed it . Then the WashPo emailed, asking permission to reprint, and asked for a quote or two . I said yes.Graham Lawton, deputy editor, New Scientist magazine A snowy drunk-driving conundrum probes how luck influences the law (Image: Sam Burt Photography) Future Science , Max Brockman's latest collection of essays by frontier researchers, is both thrilling and bewildering MAX BROCKMAN clearly has designs on the family business. While his literary agent father John represents many of the big beasts of science writing - the Richard Dawkinses and Steven Pinkers of this world - Max focuses on nurturing the stars of the future. This collection of essays follows the blueprint of 2009's What's Next?
CultureLab: Science straight from the source
Stop Coddling the Super-Rich
OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.
I have had many emails in response to my open letter to Baroness Greenfield . All but one have been approving. The one exception is an eminent Professor who has chided me for misrepresenting her views. I am reproducing here our unedited email correspondence. I have anonymised the name of the correspondent, as he has not given permission for it to be used, though I will happily break the anonymity if he wishes me to do so, so he can take credit for his arguments. As a non-celebrity scientist, I would like to get on with my day job and do some data analysis, and so have decided to reproduce the debate here, so that others can pursue it.
Susan Greenfield and autistic spectrum disorder: was she misrepresented?
Many may not have rationalised it. May not even understand, may not be able to articulate it. But they feel it. It therefore conditions and colours their social attitudes. Alienation expresses itself in different ways in different people. It is to be found in what our courts often describe as the criminal antisocial behaviour of a section of the community.
Still irresistible, a working-class hero's finest speech - UK Politics, UK
Top Gear's electric car shows pour petrol over the BBC's standards | George Monbiot | Environment
Jeremy Clarkson test drives the Leaf electric car Photograph: BBC What distinguishes the BBC from the rest of this country's media? There's the lack of advertising, and the lack of a proprietor with specific business interests to defend. But perhaps the most important factor is its editorial guidelines , which are supposed to ensure that the corporation achieves "the highest standards of due accuracy and impartiality and strive[s] to avoid knowingly and materially misleading our audiences." Here's a few of the things they say:Not the usual suspects, after all | Ballots & Bullets
The May referendum on the Alternative Vote is now the stuff of political history. The futility of the referendum campaign has, however, overshadowed the epic political battle which went on to get the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies bill onto the statute book in the first place. In the House of Lords this involved the longest Committee stage for 40 years , as Labour peers participated in a mammoth filibuster.UK Front Pages Analysis - July 2011
I'm going to try something new and "exciting" - this month. I've been gathering data from all the front pages of the UK papers. I type up all the words from the front pages that I can clearly read when the front page image is about 230 pixels wide. I also include any main image captions, as the picture is also a big part of the front page punch. The idea is to get a feel for the character of each paper and how it focusses its coverage, based on how it shouts at its audience. I will try and do this at the end of every month and see what each paper focussed on and found most imperative to sell to its audience.John Kennedy, right, shown with Lyndon Johnson, recognized gumption was rare in midcentury Washington, Shapiro says. Walter Shapiro: Politicians too worried about polls, fundraising to step up and stand out He says we need bravery on issues such as taxes, Social Security and military spending Leaders like Lieberman, Wellstone showed courage to do what was needed, he says Editor's note : Walter Shapiro, who is covering his ninth presidential campaign, is a special correspondent for The New Republic.
Shapiro: Bygone patriots and the end of political courage
policy based evidence
individual integrity
Institutional integrity
Journalistic integrity
Beyond individual span of time and space