Sunday 28 August 2011

David Hockney: the outsider who sees, and paints, the bigger picture

The Most Appalling Thing Anyone Has Said About Iraq

A Point of View: Kim Philby and the evanescence of power

Australian cybercrime bill on fast-track

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, condemns British education system

Google chairman Eric Schmidt criticised Britain's 'luvvy or boffin' approach to education. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
The chairman of Google has delivered a devastating critique of the UK's education system and said the country had failed to capitalise on its record of innovation in science and engineering.
Delivering the annual MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh, Eric Schmidt criticised "a drift to the humanities" and attacked the emergence of two educational camps, each of which "denigrate the other. To use what I'm told is the local vernacular, you're either a luvvy or a boffin," he said.
Schmidt also hit out at Lord Sugar, the Labour peer and star of the hit BBC programme The Apprentice, who recently claimed on the show that "engineers are no good at business".
Schmidt told the MediaGuardian Edinburgh international TV festival: "Over the past century, the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together."
The technology veteran, who joined Google a decade ago to help founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin build the company, said Britain should look to the "glory days" of the Victorian era for reminders of how the two disciplines can work together.
"It was a time when the same people wrote poetry and built bridges," he said. "Lewis Carroll didn't just write one of the classic fairytales of all time. He was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford. James Clerk Maxwell was described by Einstein as among the best physicists since Newton – but was also a published poet."
Schmidt's comments echoed sentiments expressed by Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, who revealed this week that he was stepping down. "The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians – who also happened to be excellent computer scientists," Jobs once told the New York Times.
Schmidt paid tribute to Britain's record of innovation, saying the UK had "invented computers in both concept and practice" before highlighting that the world's first office computer "was built in 1951 by the Lyons chain of teashops".
However, he said the UK had failed to build industry-leading positions or successfully transfer ideas from the drawing board to the boardroom.
"The UK is the home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV," he said. "Yet today, none of the world's leading exponents in these fields are from the UK." He added: "Thank you for your innovation, thank you for your brilliant ideas. You're not taking advantage of them on a global scale."
He said British startups tended to sell out to overseas companies once they had reached a certain size, and that this trend needed to be reversed. "The UK does a great job of backing small firms and cottage industries, but there's little point getting a thousand seeds to sprout if they are then left to wither or transplanted overseas. UK businesses need championing to help them grow into global powerhouses, without having to sell out to foreign-owned companies. If you don't address this, then the UK will continue to be where inventions are born, but not bred for long-term success."
Schmidt said the country that invented the computer was "throwing away your great computer heritage" by failing to teach programming in schools. "I was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn't even taught as standard in UK schools," he said. "Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made."
Barack Obama announced in June that the US would train an extra 10,000 engineers a year. "I hope that others will follow suit – the world needs more engineers. I saw the other day that on The Apprentice Alan Sugar said engineers are no good at business," he said.
"If the UK's creative businesses want to thrive in the digital future, you need people who understand all facets of it integrated from the very beginning. Take a lead from the Victorians and ignore Lord Sugar: bring engineers into your company at all levels, including the top."
Schmidt also announced that Google TV, which allows users to search the internet on their TV sets, would be launched in Europe early next year, with the UK "among the top priorities". The product is already available in America, although sales have been disappointing.
Schmidt said Google TV did not threaten broadcasters and would enable them to experiment with new formats online. He defended the company's contribution to the TV industry, pointing out that it had invested billions of dollars in IT infrastructure that media companies use.
Google also announced it would fund a new course in online production and distribution at the National Film & Television School in London for three years.
James Robinson @'The Guardian'

UK abortion rules to be tightened in biggest shake-up for a generation

The Department of Health is to announce plans for a new system of independent counselling for women before they finally commit to terminating a pregnancy. The move is designed to give women more “breathing space”.
Pro-life campaigners suggest the change could result in up to 60,000 fewer abortions each year in Britain. Last year, 202,400 were carried out.
The plan would introduce a mandatory obligation on abortion clinics to offer women access to independent counselling, to be run on separate premises by a group which does not itself carry out abortions.
Critics of abortion clinics claim that the counselling they offer is biased because they are run as businesses — a claim denied by the clinics.
But abortion charities said they feared the proposals would prolong the period before an abortion took place, and that the motive was simply to reduce the number of terminations and was not in the best interests of women.
The proposed change comes ahead of a Commons vote, due to take place next week, on amendments to a public health Bill put forward by Nadine Dorries, a backbench Conservative MP.
The amendments would prevent private organisations which carry out terminations — such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) — from offering pre-abortion counselling. Women would instead be offered free access to independent counsellors.
The vote would be the first on the laws around abortion since the Coalition took power. A previous attempt to change the law — to reduce the time limit for abortions from 24 to 20 weeks — was defeated in a free vote in 2008. Ministers appear keen to avoid another such vote. They believe that announcing the consultation on independent counselling will prevent it going ahead.
The plan does not mean pre-abortion counselling will be mandatory — something which is vehemently opposed by pro-choice groups and which has been a flashpoint in parts of the United States.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “We are currently developing proposals to introduce independent counselling for women seeking abortion. These proposals are focused on improving women’s health and wellbeing. Final decisions on who should provide this counselling have not yet been made.”
Proposals under discussion would involve withdrawing payments made by the taxpayer to abortion clinics for counselling women.
Mrs Dorries, a former nurse, claims abortion providers are not independent because they have a vested interest in conducting abortions. Last year, Marie Stopes and Bpas carried out about 100,000 terminations and were paid about £60 million to do so, mostly through the NHS.
Mrs Dorries said she had hoped that her proposed amendments to the health Bill would prompt the Government into taking the kind of action which it has now done.
Frank Field, a Labour MP, said: “I’m anxious that taxpayers’ money is used so that people can have a choice — we are paying for independent counselling and that’s what should be provided.”
Ann Furedi, the chief executive of Bpas, said if her organisation was prevented from advising women about terminations it could be impossible to gain informed consent, as the independent counselling was not compulsory.
Robert Mendick @'The Telegraph'

Glenn Greenwald: Secrecy, leaks, and the real criminals

14 Year Old Redesigns Classic Movie Posters



(Click to enlarge)
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Rick Perry, the Republicans’ Messiah?

Michele Bachmann Would Consider Lowering Minimum Wage To Match The Cost Of Labor Overseas

The Associated Press is reporting that Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is considering lowering the minimum wage to match labor costs overseas to lure corporations back to the United States.
Her comments came in response to the question of a reporter, during a campaign stop in Florida, who asked whether changes to the minimum wage should also be considered to balance the cost of labor here and overseas. “I’m not married to anything. I’m not saying that’s where I’m going to go,” Bachmann replied. She did say she wants to look at all aspects of doing business, from regulations to tax codes, and will consider anything that will help create jobs.
Lowering the minimum wage is not a viable option to stimulate the economy. People are struggling to live on $7.25 an hour as it is. Wages overseas are far lower than they are here. So low in fact that poverty is a way of life. Before Democrats passed the minimum wage law during the Great Depression, workers struggled to make a living while corporate CEO’s made millions. And when the Great Depression hit the country, millions of American workers ended up with nothing. Corporations don’t care how low wages are. Prices will not come down to accommodate lower wages. The only thing that lowering the minimum wage will do here in America is stimulate poverty.
Stephen D. Foster Jr. @'Addicting Info'
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Grand Central Station

MTA Police finished securing Grand Central Terminal after the last trains departed. Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Marjorie Anders.
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