Archive for April, 2007
How democratic is Iran?
April 30th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
At first , this might seem a strange, even silly, question. After all, hasn’t no less a figure than President George W Bush told the world that Iran is a member of the “axis of evil”? Isn’t this a country building nuclear weapons in defiance of UN sanctions? Isn’t this the nation that only recently […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
400 thoughts for the week
April 29th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I send out a motivational “Thought For The Week” to over 1,000 people around the world which has underneath a brief note of recent additions to my web site. This weekend, I sent out my 400th thought. Underlying these thoughts are my personal values and my personal philosophy which encompass difference and diversity, fun and […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Fancy going weightless?
April 28th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I have read several books by and about the brilliant British scientist Stephen Hawking who suffers from motor neuron disease and once I even heard him lecture at London’s Royal Albert Hall. So I was delighted when this week he fulfilled his ambition to go weightless. He did it by taking a flight in a […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (1)
5,000 visitors a day
April 27th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
This week has seen up to 5,000 visitors a day to my combined web site and two weblogs. This has happened before but then it coincided with a surge of spam to the comment sections of the blogs. This week is the first ‘normal’ week that traffic has hit 5,000 visits a day. This equates […]
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
Stories from Israel (1)
April 26th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I love travelling to different countries and meeting people from different cultures. So I was delighted to have the opportunity this Easter to spend a week visiting Israel with a good Jewish friend who once spent 18 years living there. As well as seeing many places, I was able to meet some of his friends […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Welcome to the world, Joshua (1)
April 25th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
When Vee and I went on holiday to China in September 2000, on the long flight back we talked to a 25 year old Chinese woman sitting next to us who was making her first-ever trip out of China to travel to Oxford University to do a PhD in biochemical engineering. She was called Hua […]
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (8)
1900’s predictions for 2000
April 25th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The “Ladies Home Journal” of December 1900 contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr entitled “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”. You can read it here. I particularly this: ‘Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Should the UN have a Parliamentary Assembly?
April 25th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Sounds like a good idea to me. This week several hundred political leaders, among them 378 MPs from 70 countries, have joined to call for the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations (UNPA). The joint appeal states that, in an age of globalization, citizens need to be vested with a stronger voice […]
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Do walls help or hinder?
April 24th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Walls have played a special role in history – but they seem to be making a comeback. The Great Wall of China was a mammoth enterprise – but, in the end, it provided no real defence since opposing forces simply went round it. I have visited this wall as I describe here. Much more recently, […]
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Where is Alan Johnston?
April 23rd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The BBC’s corrrespondent Alan Johnston was abducted in Gaza on 12 March and is still missing. BBC poster in London called for the release of Alan Johnston The consensus amongst journalists is that he is being held by the Durmoush family in Zeitoun, a criminal gang who use kidnappings as a source of substantial revenue. […]
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