Paul Smith's Blog

Saw this pop up on New Scientist... Should doctors assume that people are happy to donate their organs unless they make the effort to opt out? That's the scenario being considered in the UK, as a means of reducing the widening gap between supply and demand for donated organs. At the moment, a dead person's organs cannot be taken unless they registered themselves in life as a donor. "Around 8000 people in the UK need an organ transplant [each year], but only 3000 transplants are carried out,"...

So I was browsing the politics forum and came across somebody who said the following: Yes, I have [heard of socialism in one country], but I don't buy it. I was reading a book which was written by Edvard Radzinsky on Stalin. His book discusses these comments and many other issues. His book was based on recently released Soviet Archives. Archives, which have not been known until years after the collapse of the Soviet Union....

This is just sick, watching this made my blood boil. Tasering some guy for asking John Kerry some awkward questions. The guy half way through his question had his microphone cut, he was then grabbed from behind by the goon squad.

Ofcom has said the BBC launching an HD channel would not cause a "significant" negative effect on commercial stations and green lighted the move to launch BBC HD on Freeview. However due to lack of space on the radio spectrum it will only be for four hours a day, between 02:00 and 06:00. Something that won't change until we stop wasting bandwidth on analogue transmissions, which is planned nationwide for 2012, although some more advanced, modern and developed regions of the country will be doing it in 2008 and 2009....

OK so the pressure has been building for a while for me to join one of these social-network things. Catherine said I should join MySpace, which I did, but being owned by King Murdoch and having no improvements made to it in years, and the bad UI, and that stupid astrology nonsense being forced down your throat with no way to turn it off, I just never bothered doing anything with it....

Mr Brown this is a highly inappropriate time to be inviting Thatcher around for a friendly chit chat. There's something very wrong with this Labour government. An Autumn of Discontent is exactly what we need.

Surely, this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes. My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros....

The US prison population now stands at around 2.3 million. This is around 800,000 higher than the PRC with around 1.5 million (with a total population of 1.3 billion) and around 55% higher than the number of prisoners in the USSR under Stalin, which peaked at 1,500,524 in January 1941. The level of crime and the levels of inequality in a society go hand in hand, statistically you are more likely to commit crime the more oppressed you are*....

John McDonnell: In the past political parties brought together their supporters to debate, discuss and decide the policies which were then drafted into a manifesto and placed before the electorate. If there was sufficient support for the policies and the party was elected, new ministers would arrive into office with civil servants waiting with advice on how to implement the policy programme. The battle for an incoming Labour government was with the vested interests of the status quo which had largely permeated government and all its departments....

Next week is the deadline to submit feedback on Mr Brown's "Extending and Renewing Party Democracy" document, it's so good it could of been crafted by the marketing department at Game. Anyway Comrade Skevington has organised a meeting of the General Committee to discuss the issue. Summary of proposal one: A commitment to give greater support to local Labour Parties in holding Policy Forums and creating a duty on the NPF to better consult, engage and involve party members in policy discussions....