One of the things that's most noticeable about Ed Miliband is how much he talks about love - love for his brother, who he just beat for the top job, not least. The living wage, he says, is about dignity and love; his campaign was about "time, compassion and love". I'm pleased he won - and who could disapprove of love?

But there are few words that can't be rapidly devalued by being regularly placed in the mouths of politicians, churchmen and tycoons. If an MP talks about his honour, you can almost bet on there being a duck-shed or an affair somewhere in his near future; if a businessman talks about service to the public, the biggest serving will always be reserved for him and his friends. Gibbon talked of the abbot whose vow of obedience had brought him the rule of his many monks, whose vow of poverty had brought him control of vast estates; the historian affected to forget what the vow of chastity had brought him.

And so it is with love.

You've seen his famous poster, but he just isn't feeling so inspired these days:

"Fairey, who at 40 is no kid himself, said it's easy to see why young voters are down on Obama and the Democrats. He lamented that health care reform was watered down, Tea Party activists have been emboldened, and his man has fallen short on bold campaign promises like closing Guantanamo Bay. 'There's a lot of stuff completely out of Obama's control or any of the Democrats' control,' Fairey allowed. 'But I think there's something a little deeper in terms of the optimism of the younger voter that's happening. They wanted somebody who was going to fight against the status quo, and I don't think that Obama has done that.'"

Orange Satan - Johnny Venom - Thankyou Petrov for not killing me and my friends and family

In the early hours of September 26th, as Lt. Col. Petrov was looking at his monitors, one of them alerted a single US missile heading towards Moscow. Petrov quickly dismissed this, as he had known that recently some of their systems were acting up. Moments later, the bank of monitors showed five more incoming ICBMs. He could not contact any early warning system because he was the early warning system!

WASHINGTON -- Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is "going dark" as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephon

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct "peer to peer" messaging like Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has welcomed French first lady Carla Bruni to make a personal appeal to the parliament for humanitarian aid. But some German lawmakers say they do not want a celebrity visit. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has welcomed France's first lady Carla Bruni to make a personal appeal to the German parliament for humanitarian aid, despite a dismissive response to the plan by some German politicians.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Thursday that the chancellor supported Bruni's aim to speak before the budget committee of the Bundestag lower house to seek funding as an ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

"The Chancellor found this a good idea because Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy could deliver important arguments," he said, using the former model and singer-songwriter's married name

Introspection and nostalgia are rife ahead of the 20th anniversary of German reunification -- and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has joined the trend. In an unusually candid magazine interview she explained how her habits still bear the hallmarks of growing up in communist East Germany.

Whether she is relaxing in her river-side apartment after a long day at the Reichstag or mingling with international premiers, Angela Merkel's day-to-day life is a far cry from her experience of growing up in the German Democratic Republic. But in a new interview, the German head of state admitted that her habits are still influenced by her experiences under communism.

"Sometimes I buy something because I have set my eyes on it, even though I don't really need it," she told the German magazine Super Illu, which is widely read in the former east. "This penchant for stockpiling lies somewhere deeply inside me, because living amid the shortages (in the GDR) you just took whatever you could get."

Almost 100 defendants, including two former mayors, have appeared in court in the Spanish city of Malaga for the first day of one of the country's biggest ever corruption trials.

The scandal, which broke in March 2006, centres on the alleged payment of millions of euros in bribes to city officials in the mid-1990s by property developers in return for planning permission.

Among the 95 defendants are former mayors of the nearby Spanish resort town of Marbella on the Costa del Sol, Julian Munoz and Marisol Yague, and the ex-chief of urban planning Juan Antonio Roca, suspected to have been the mastermind behind the operations.

Spain's "babysitter" grandparents have been called on to take part in a general strike against the human cost of austerity.

Spanish grandparents, who give a big, unpaid boost to Spain's economy by taking the strain of deep cuts with free childcare for their grandchildren, have been called on to down tools this Wednesday.

Manuel Pastrana, the Andalusian leader of the UGT general workers' trade union, the country's biggest, said: "We want grandparents to strike to prove they are a key part of the way this country functions."

The European Commission wants to keep EU members' finances under closer supervision. Countries that have chronic import or export surpluses -- such as Germany -- can expected to be fined under the new rules, which will be announced Wednesday.

Stricter controls are required -- that's what European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn believes, at least. In a bid to return stability to the teetering monetary union, Rehn intends to much more closely supervise the economic and financial policies of EU countries, particularly the euro-zone members. Those who fail to meet the criteria can expect sanctions.

According to draft regulations drawn up by Rehn's agency, countries with chronic current account surpluses or deficits (in other words, countries that export far more than they import, or vice versa) are to pay an annual fine amounting to 0.1 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), because they threaten the stability of the euro zone.

MANILA, Philippines - The U.S. government said Sunday it made an "honest mistake" when it displayed an inverted Philippine flag -- which wrongfully signified that the Southeast Asian nation was in a state of war -- in a meeting hosted by President Barack Obama.....

It was not immediately clear who pointed out the mistake. A photograph of Aquino sitting beside Obama with the inverted flag behind them was displayed on a government website Sunday but its caption did not point out the error.

During the summit, Obama discussed ways of bolstering economic ties between the U.S. and Southeast Asia as well as Asian regional concerns such as territorial disputes in the South China Sea and Nov. 7 elections in military-ruled Myanmar.

This should fuel the conspiracy theories among Chinese ultra-nationalists.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?

In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of "scare quotes" to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.

On Saturday, animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) celebrated its 30th anniversary in Hollywood, California. Countless celebrities were in attendance for the gala, hosted by Alec Baldwin.

PETA, which claims to be the largest animal rights organization with more than 2 million members and supporters, was founded in 1980. In 1981, PETA embarked on a laborious legal struggle, the Silver Springs monkey case. The efforts resulted in the first arrest and criminal conviction of an animal experimenter in the United States, and the first confiscation of abused laboratory animals.

More pictures inside the link.

in his neighbours garden.

I had sent him this article, from the oildrum

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6954

but obviously those turbines are much smaller than the one he is planning.

Does anybody have any experiences with the one he wants to install?

well, i do. (notice the camera on acid.)

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Gender equality is still a major dividing factor in today's society, despite progress over the last 50 years or so. Did you know that during the 1931 general election, there were just 13 Conservative women MPs? Guess how many in the 2005 election? You guessed it... 13.

Women still lag behind in terms of equality in pay for the same job roles as men, are still grossly under-represented at a government level, hideously under-represented within the cabinet itself (similarly to ethnic minorities), and occupy few senior positions within the boards of the FTSE 100.

I've created a little infographic to illustrate some of the issues of gender equality we face as a nation today. You might be as surprised as I was in making it, at just how bad the situation is...

So despite relentless pro-corporate propaganda from politicians and the media, Americans still have some sense of economic fairness. Will Democrats embrace this information -- or ignore it in favor of more corporate-friendly findings?

Americans generally underestimate the degree of income inequality in the United States, and if given a choice, would distribute wealth in a similar way to the social democracies of Scandinavia, a new study finds.

For decades, polls have shown that a plurality of Americans -- around 40 percent -- consider themselves conservative, while only around 20 percent self-identify as liberals. But a new study from two noted economists casts doubt on what values lie beneath those political labels.

According to research (PDF) carried out by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and flagged by Paul Kedrosky at the Infectious Greed blog, 92 percent of Americans would choose to live in a society with far less income disparity than the US, choosing Sweden's model over that of the US.

What's more, the study's authors say that this applies to people of all income levels and all political leanings: The poor and the rich, Democrats and Republicans are all equally likely to choose the Swedish model.