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I thought the population issue story last night was quite good. Did think that you could have panned out the range of hard decisions that may have to be made. You also didn't really show that debate would/will focus around quality of life issues. What kind of world do we want to live in?

For instance there was the lady arguing against the idea that population could be an issue. If the population increases by say 3 in 100 years (growth is on an exponential curve; scientists have found the aging gene; hospital care improves; aid programmes are very efficient) you may find people can cope on the food front. But what kind of food - grown in a tank etc? Tiny flats; no gardens etc. I also cannot believe that there is no link between population pressure and increased social conflict and violence. Perhaps I should book up on that in fairness.

Long run as Porrett said finite resources - infinite population - bang goes the balloon.

On the fuel front I am still puzzled as to why oil companies are not more worried. Their oil is getting a great price but given the oncoming carbon shortfall can only accelerate green alternatives like batteries, leaving biofuels aside as a short run fix compounding climate change, why aren't they more worried? They are not heavily diversified. No oil sales no money.

On the Brown "listening" front I know he had nothing to do with the Monsanto add that was on the news trying to cash in on the OECD report. Americans are eating GM but there is no study possible on what long run effects are being created. Remember they are often staple foods like rice, wheat and soya because that is where the money is - and large populations are consuming it. But when Blair held the National Conversation the first thing he did was to try and push through GM after consultation showed 85% of people were against it. As for the phone calls to individuals its like a man standing in front of a dam thats breaking and trying to push the water back with his hands. It says it all really.

I have to say I thought he would be gone by now but maybe we have to wait till the autumn. Daresay the men in grey suits will leave the loaded pistol on his desk, cough politely and leave.

Viva MI5.

In the face of the umpteenth enquiry into corruption allegations against Premier Olmert, and since,from memory, the last 4 or 5 Israeli leaders have faced similar allegations, perhaps we could hear a report on the culture of corruption at the top of Israeli politics?

Fuel Shortage - - - BP are developing a hydrogen extraction system between their on-shore facility at Peterhead and the Miller gas field (in the North Sea). The biproduct (CO2) is being used as a 'pipeline compressant' to extract the 40% of remaining gas. Similar efforts in other fields would help to extract the 40% of hitherto unextractable oil. Surely this is the way forward - - not only would we gain a 'carbon-free fuel (hydrogen - only emits water on combustion), but also gain the means of Carbon Capture and Storage. There is enough volume in depleted sub North Sea strata to store vast quantities of liquified CO2. This could become the 'new oil industry with huge potential as a 'storage facility for other CCS nations.

#2 Is the start of an important angle.

The majority of Israelis are repulsed by the situation in Israeli politics. What is the average percentage of those who vote?

The is a considerable body of opinion in Israel that the country has "lost its character" since 1967.

Certain well-known people have left in disgust, e.g. Prof. Tanya Reinhardt, Daniel Barenboeim, etc.

The facts have to be presented, although the orchestrated reaction will be predictable.

THE TONY BLAIR FAITH FOUNDATION.

I am reminded of the 60s film: 'Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment'. It beggars belief that this wannabe Mick Jagger has progressed through triumphant degradation of a nation, to World Posturing Prat, and at no point along the way has spotted that he is delusional. If the TBFF (how I would love to put other words to that) does not herald in Armageddon, then Tony is not the Tony I think he is. I reckon the Antichrist can take a long holiday . . .

Re-5.
Bonkers and deeply deluded isn't he barrie. Did you happen to see that academic?/ civil servant? interviewed about a meeting that he'd attended re-planning for post invasion Iraq. People were trying to focus on detailed planning issues, responsibilities etc., when Blair turned to the meeting with a dreamy look on his face and asked "Do you think Sadam is uniquely evil?"
Happily, millions of people around the world are determined to see him in a War Crimes Court.

HI GRUMPY - YES

Also Blair's "garden eyes" in meetings when those present tried to get into detail, as his gaze wandered out the window. As Heinz Kiosk used to say: "we are all guilty". We created this monster. We need to test voters for competence. The first test would be related to charisma immunity. The second would be related to the ability to spot weasel words (aka b . . . . . .). add your own. War Crimes court? Aren't they run by lawyers? Doh!

The Macmillan smoking story is shocking even for 1956 - but even more shocking perhaps is that this stern warning about the dangers of tobacco was banned even 1971 as Britain went to pot .....................:

" DRUGS

Drugs are poisons which can have a pleasant effect

This is how the section begins on page 120
and after a section headed 'Habit-forming,
dependence and addiction' 'The Little Red School Book' (1969, 1970, 1971) went on
after warning that too much coffee might mean 'quite a lot of people find they can't get to sleep if they have a cup of coffee before they go to bed' [see pages 94-120 banned by London magistrate Mr John Denis Purcell, 57 who decided on 1 July
1971 that 'The Little Red School Book'
was likely to "deprave and corrupt" young people]) to take issue with HM Treasury:

page 123 Tobacco

"The most expensive form of tobacco, ounce for ounce, is the cigarette. Cigars are cheaper, and the cheapest form of all is pipe tobacco". [This was the Wilson era]

"Tobacco contains the poisonous drug nicotine. Four minutes after the first drag on a cigarette the concentration of nicotine in the brain is at its highest. The nicotine takes half an hour to get out of your system.

"Nicotine affects the central nervous system and therefore, among other things, the heart and the digestion. Nicotine makes the veins and arteries contract. This happens very quickly. This contraction reduces the supply of blood to the various organs, for example the brain. This means that you get less oxygen and other necessary substances, so your body doesn't function as well as it ought to.

"The smoke you inhale contains a lot of tar, a poison which enters your body as a gas. It's absorbed into the blood-stream from the lungs, which means that you absorb less oxygen into your bloodstream. All your organs need oxygen, but when you smoke they don't get enough. They get tar instead. This means, among other things, that the brain cells get damaged. Our bodies have a lot of brain cells, but once they're damaged they don't recover, and the body doesn't replace them.

"Tobacco smoke, and particularly cigarette smoke, contains other substances as well as tar and nicotine. To get an idea of what
goes into your lungs when you smoke, get someone who smokes to try an experiment. Get him to take a drag on a cigarette without inhaling the smoke and then blow the smoke out through a clean white handkerchief held over his mouth. The result may surprise you.

"The substances in tobacco smoke can cause bronchitis, heart disease and lung cancer. The Royal College of Physicians
produced etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

There are another two pages of dire warnings telling kids to stop - before
they warn of the dangers of drinking!

The sections on Marijuana and Hashish follow ........ but not till page 134!!!!!!!!!

[Extracted from: The Little Red School Book
(British Edition 1971 - first published in Denmark in 1969 by Soren Hansen and Jesper Jensen]

Re-8.
How fascinating. Thanks neil r.

REARGUARD ACTION

Government has run a long rearguard action to protect tobacco; probably both revenue and private rake-off. We know well at least one tobacco baron, and a baroness. When they banned advertising within some laughable distance from any school, it was writ large as 'doing something' but avoiding doing much. We really are a nation of sleepwalkers. Remember the outraged cry (of Sadam) 'He gassed his own people'? He was a dictator - it's allowed. But when democratic leaders do it, what does it say about democracy? Democracy: the only word in the English language that encompasses both 'mock' and 'crass'. You wanna phone me Gordo?
I have a few more things to say before my blood pressure comes down.

WAR PARLIAMENT

Emily touched on the need for a “wartime” approach to the oil situation. Apparently we are at war with terror, and climate seems like a serious invader of our shores, but the bizarre party-political mind sees allegiance to the leader and protection (re-election) of the party as paramount. When will this small-minded ciphers realise that we, the people who matter, can no longer afford the ‘lost motion’ of the party system? Westminster leaks what little viability it might have like an unlagged Victorian pile with single-glazed sash windows leaks heat, while it insists on the continuation of party games. We are now at war with catastrophic collapse of commerce; we need a war parliament.

STATE SPONSORED MISERY

Tonight the news is of a mother who had to choose to give evidence against her sons because she could not live with herself had she kept quiet about their drunken attack.
The key word is of course ‘drunken’. The government was not in court, nor the brewers, nor the retailers of the drink. Alcohol itself was not accused; just two individuals, unfortunate enough to be immersed in a culture of alcohol, that our leaders just will not address. Poignantly there is, currently, a human rights challenge to have chimps declared quasi-human; while it is abundantly clear that a pissed bloke becomes, at best, a chimp. All this is known, yet the law falls very narrowly; pissed bloke is condemned as if the alcohol were absent from his brain. Government counts its tax take. And we are civilised?
We are also, tonight, reminded of government complicity in the self-gassing of countless Britons with their own (and others’) cigarette smoke and the on-going connivance at ‘legal torture’ to further the interests of high (western) culture. Dante’s inferno cannot hold a candle to this Hell.

@barriesingleton
The government, nor the brewers, nor the retailers attacked that poor guy who now has to live his life with one eye. No one held those two morons on the ground and poured that booze down their throats and then told them to go attack someone. I commend their mother for doing the right thing and it's because there are not enough mothers out there like her, who have a civil conscience to do this, that we are left to have to deal with more and more of it. This is the harvest of the "Free love" of the 70's and the "there is no such thing as society" seeds that were sown in the 80's and 90's. No society is anarchy as we can now see everyday. If my children did what these two idiots did I'd shop them too without hesitation, because I have educated them to know right from wrong, and that as adults society demands they are responsible for their actions and will hold them accountable, and if they will not learn that my way, they will learn it the hard way. That mother should get a medal from the Queen.

What was the AQ Khan interview and where is the URL for the story?

i would like to see it!

thanks