The Department for Transport has put the papers from its recent Future of Rail conference online.
In unrelated news, they have also published their new vehicle emission rating system. (link to WorldChanging)
Blog
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Compromising with the uncompromising
The Government has annnounced its new immigration policy. It’s “responding to people’s very real worries”, apparently. Well, call me a dogmatist, but I don’t think that the Government should be appeasing the poisonous libels of the Mail and its ilk. Today’s Mail headline said it all – “Asylum – You are right to worry”.
For all the undoubtedly clever wording in the Government’s position, the fundamental of it is this: rather than fighting for what’s right, they’ve allowed the Mail to present its petty, vicious racism as in some way approved of by the State. The nuancing and statements in favour of immigration will be lost in the noise and shouting.
The problem with triangulation is that the Mail and their ilk are not open to compromise. It’s like trying to compromise with a Hutu militia by adopting a “let’s just kill some of the Tutsis” policy. Hatred and bigotry cannot be appeased, they can only be fought against, and the Government has clearly bottled it.
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OpenDemocracy – the All Bran of political debate
All Bran is very good for you, but sometimes – just sometimes – you want Frosties. This advert (!) from openDemocracy today:
openDemocracy writers bring life to philosophy:
- “Iraq, philosophy in war” – articles on Immanuel Kant, Dostoevsky, and Leo Strauss
- “Robert Nozick, anarcho-capitalist” (May 2002)
- Ramin Jahanbegloo & Richard Rorty, “America’s dreaming” (August 2004)
- Candida Clark, “Jacques Derrida, a Cambridge epiphany” (October 2004)
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A really stupid idea
Put the main competitive event of the football season (given the League position) in the middle of the week.
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Rand at 100
Excellent discussion in this MetaFilter thread on the life and philosophy of Ayn Rand.
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Death penalty ironies
From the NY Times front page on the web:
“The D.A. [of Los Angeles] said today that he would probably seek the death penalty for the suicidal man who left his S.U.V. on a track.”
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Tube photos
Some great photos of tube stations. More interesting than it sounds. (via MeFi)
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Techy but strangely fascinating
A history of the new wide-screen test card.
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Desperate times
Two sorts of desperation on display today. The Conservative party have said they’ll make immigration a central issue of the election campaign. And Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has declared war on the principle of democracy.