Friday 26 September 2008

Xinhua predicts the future, part 2

Having already safely forseen the morning ceremonies on the opening day of the Olympics, Xinhua performs new feats in divining the exact words spoken by China's astronauts in orbit. Amazing!

Monday 22 September 2008

New year's day . . . .


September has always been the month of change in my life, far more so that the year's end you'll see on a calendar, just as (uber blogger) Andrew Sullivan says, September is the real start of the year. This September has brought it's own changes - last week I started the Common Professional Exam course with an eye towards becoming a solicitor. Patenting was OK but I'm not sure I really wanted to spend the rest of my working life trying to spot differences between different types of hinges, and my lack of a PhD was also holding me back, I always preferred the legal aspects of IP anyway. Let's hope that change really is as good as a rest!

Monday 15 September 2008

Dear America

What in god's name are you thinking?

Support for the unequivocal position [On banning all torture] was highest in Spain (82%), Great Britain (82%) and France (82%), followed by Mexico (73%), China (66%), the Palestinian territories (66%), Poland (62%), Indonesia (61%), and the Ukraine (59%). In five countries [only] either modest majorities or pluralities support a ban on all torture: Azerbaijan (54%), Egypt (54%), the United States (53%), Russia (49%), and Iran (43%).