Jon's Blog » Politics

My Picks for the Festival of Ideas

Jon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:31:30 +0000

Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
11 May 2010, 19.30-20.30
St George’s Bristol

Peace and the Plundered Planet
Paul Collier
12 May 2010, 18.00-19.00
At-Bristol, Bristol

How Are We to Live?
With Sarah Bakewell, John Cottingham and Michael Foley
13 May 2010, 19.30-21.00
Arnolfini, Bristol

The Future of Capitalism
Will Hutton
24 May 2010, 19.30-20.30
St George’s Bristol

Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilisation
Spencer Wells
26 May 2010, 18.10-19.10
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol

The Story of Stuff
Annie Leonard
26 May 2010, 19.40-21.00
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol

What goes around…

Jon — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:23:19 +0000

Interesting (as usual) piece from George Monbiot in today’s Guardian about the whole “cash for laws” scandal…

So the circle is closed. The government that won a landslide in 1997 after Tory MPs were revealed to have taken cash for parliamentary questions now faces far graver allegations: cash for laws. Along the way, almost every policy that distinguished it from John Major’s corrupt and pointless regime has been abandoned.

Read more here…

Tony Blair was the Obama of his day when he was first elected, offering change from an unpopular government. Let’s hope the new President can leave a more popular legacy.

You don’t see that every day

Jon — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:12:47 +0000

Unicycling pandas? Whatever next?

Polar bears in the Thames, that’s what.

Double Standards

Jon — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:02:06 +0000

Visit TED

Jon — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:52:06 +0000

The TED conference is an annual gathering of some of the world’s top thinkers and doers. Fortunately for the rest of us, the website contains a wealth of videos from many of the presentations made at the conferences in the last few years by people such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Richard Branson and a whole load of less well known experts-in-their-fields. I’m yet to watch a boring video on the site so I recommend you take a look.

Here’s one I particularly liked as someone with a particular interest in unlocking the information in large data sets and presenting it usefully (you won’t be bored, I promise):

Dear America…

Jon — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:18:03 +0000

…please don’t elect McCain/Palin.

References:

McCain suddenly supports financial market regulation after many years of opposition

They lie, then they lie about the lies and then they play the victim when challenged

McCain may believe in man-made climate change but considering how quickly he abandoned his previous values of straight talk and integrity, and that Palin and many of the party are more interested in their oil concerns than what those whiney climate scientists have to say, you have to wonder whether he’d be equally easily persuaded to continue with the current plan of ignoring the issue and hoping it goes away. Here’s what we can look forward to if they do.

Sarah Palin doesn’t like polar bears or whales – only guns!

Jon — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:34:57 +0000

“She sued the Department of the Interior for classifying polar bears as an endangered species”