If you ever doubt that the wingnuts are really nuts, listen to the discussions on the Schiavo autopsy over at Free Republic. (Comments are below the tendentious news story).
Truth will out
Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, it seems, and Michael Schiavo hadn’t physically abused her. Humble pie all round.
More discussion chez Margolis.
The drugs don’t work
Erk
This article in the Washington Post is fairly interesting, but only worth blogging because of the existence of the Democratic Erk Party of Uzbekistan. Actually, it’s the Democratic ERK Party (Erk == Liberty, apparently), but I did have an interesting few minutes wondering what a British Erk Party would be like.
(I’ve just wasted five minutes looking for a definition of erk. So here’s some RAF slang).
Understanding house prices
Evan Davies writes an interesting article about how house price rises and falls actually work, and who benefits.
The line:
The people who lose out from falling house prices are not house-price obsessives, but those who are elderly, about to trade down, or emigrate.
gave me a moment of clarity as to why the Daily Mail is so obsessed with house prices.
New Cabinet Secretary
Congratulations to prominent Manchester United fan Gus O’Donnell, who has been appointed Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of The Home Civil Service.
Ichabod, the glory is departed
Jonathan Crowe over at the Map Room covers the second volume in an atlas of the 1946 US railway network, which sounds fascinating – if depressing in the light of Amtrak’s current woes.
For a similar view of Britain’s railways, past and present, you could try:
- British Rail Pre-grouping Atlas and Gazetteer
(for the situation pre-grouping, in 1926); or
- Rail Atlas Great Britain and Ireland
for the position today.
Boundary disputes
The villagers of Sompting are cross, because the new road sign in their village suggests that some of them have been annexed by the expansionist forces of neighbouring Lancing. Today Sompting, tomorrow – Portslade! Link: Brighton Argus.
The need for U2
I’ve just been watching an interview with U2 on BBC2’s the Culture Show. When I was a callow yoof, I used to get rather tired of musicians getting all political (this was under Thatcher, so there was quite a lot of it about). Just concentrate on the music, I thought.
But listening to Bono and the others talking about the moral necessity of debt relief just now, I realised how wrong I had been. U2 are the voice of the people, or as near as damn it. We have outsourced our political sensibilities to pop musicians. At least they wear cool shades.
What happened to Metro-Land
This blog was briefly called Metro-Land, but has now reverted to its former name, the Lewes Chronicle. (www.metro-land.org still works, as well as lewes.typepad.org)
It was renamed Metro-Land when my wife got a job in that part of the world, and we planned to move to Amersham, on the end of the Metropolitan line. However, due to a mismatch between the hours her employer needed her to work, and the hours during which reasonably-priced childcare was available, she had to withdraw from the job, and our move was cancelled (16 hours before the removal men turned up).
So, it’s been a weird couple of weeks, and our eyes are now open to the extraordinary cost of childcare. Our current plan – now our house is on the market anyway – is to move closer to the coast, probably to Lewes or Brighton, and for Jane to try and find some work in the media industry there.