ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Next week what about something on " Cern lab set for beam milestone - The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the LHC will re-create the conditions present in the Universe just after the Big Bang."

It would be great, probably very difficult too, if Susan Watts could expand this existing report so that non scientists could appreciate how important and significant this experimental lab could be.

South Ossetia looks to be the kind of problem we don't want when many leaders are in Beijing. Is that accidental?

We have seen lots of reports of China in the build up to the olympics, but lets for a second see how protest outside Parliament would be dealt with... Immediate arrest isn't that the case since this Govt. banned protests near Parliament and Whitehall?

How does that compare with the Chinese banning protest around the Olympics?

South Ossestia is part of a dangerous power game being played out between the USA and Russia in the post cold war era, very dangerous especially as the USA does not seem to comprehend that Russia is not a paper tiger and wont simply accept what USA wants to do without biting back.

I was laughing at the suggestion that the Culture minister has set a target for the number of medals. How very New Labour, targets in Hospitals, targets in schools and now targets for the Olympics. Well, one thing is for sure, once a new labour minister declares a target, there goes any chance of reaching it!

#1, thegangofone, agree, there should be a in depth report on the Cern lab and the steps it takes towards the initial start up.

Unfortunately, Mark Urban's blog does not answer the questions you pose.

Such answers would be desirable.

Where and why the disconnect?

Here are the statements you made:

"he asked him what he now thinks about the prospect of war with Iran, and about Barack Obama's Iraq policy."

What are the answers?

@thegangofone #1 Black holes are probably the remains of planets where mad scientists, such as those doing this LHC experiment, played around with forces they didn't understand and certainly couldn't control and then BANG!

BLACK HOLES AND BLACKBOARDS

Black holes only exist as a mathematical concept based on an orthodox universe where space is 'empty' and gravity rules alone.

A quick look at the alternative cosmology

where space is strung with plasma 'wires' carrying electricity to light the stars, makes black holes disappear up their own indiscretions. If Cern makes a black hole, I promise to make a nice box for it.

#5 - Barriesingleton - Ummmm, nice link to a book for sale.

FROM PLAYING TO WINNING (British cultural decline)

How apt that the Culture Minister is fixated, not just on wins, but THE NUMBER of wins (allegedly).
What happened to 'play up and play the game' - 'not the winning but the taking part'? Oh that - yeah - well . . . Have they flogged the Playing Field of Eton to a developer of Super Casinos?

I enjoyed Newsnight's interview earlier in the week with the artistic advisor to the
Swiss architiects of the birds' nest Wei Wei and I would like to hear more from his too.



What was fascinating about the show was of course the complete expurgation of Mao.

Going back to Confucius and taking a theme of Harmony would clearly have needed the
approval of the Communist Party of China?

That in itself is interesting - is it not? I thought I heard some adverse crowd
reaction when the Chair of the Chinese
organising committee said something on the 'green-ness ' of the Olympics though?
Or was that just a sound problem .........??

Just how green are they? Twenty years ago at a similar level of economic development the Japanese were preparing for Kyoto and had environmental protection written into all their economic development planning.

Did you manage to interview Lang Lang?
The best bit of the show for me was the
section on Chinese typography - and all
that implies ....... that sends me back to the work of Joseph Needham with a renewed interest in the scientific role of China over the centuries which was quite seminal ....

Having lived in Georgia for some time, I am not in the least surprised that Russia and Georgia are on the verge of a full blown war, that will be tremendously destructive to life and property, and next to impossible to solve.

Its Olympic week, the middle of summer and the US is distracted by the war in Iraq and impending election. Russia will cynically use the Kosovo precedent to cripple Georgia and impose its awful rule on the so-called semi autonomous regions of Georgia.

What can the world do to stop an inevitable war crime against Georgia? It is probably too much to hope for help by the EU, NATO, US or the UN. I hope Newsnight covers this awful development with its usual excellence, as pressure needs to be brought to bear immediately on Russia to get out of Georgia.

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Large Hadron Rap

Huh? Sorry but I am a little baffled and bemused by the first part of this Newsnight report. The report speaks of the ceremony’s "omissions" and "selective" review of Chinese history. For starters, the ceremony wasn’t so much an objective review of Chinese history as it was a celebration of China's 4000 years of cultural history and civilization. Are you seriously suggesting that we should expect some kind of political critique of Chinese history from the standpoint of 20th or 21st century morals and at a celebration of this kind?! That sounds pretty bizarre. I don’t recall any mention of the Spanish atrocities committed on the Native Americans in the Barcelona Olympics. I might be wrong, but I also don’t think the Japanese war crimes were mentioned in the Japanese Olympics either. Was there any mention of Vietnam War in the Atlanta Olympics? I am a Londoner and surely any standards applied to the Chinese Olympics should also be applied to the British one. Should we expect some discussion of Iraq, the Suez Crisis and a critique of the British Empire in the 2012 ceremony? Are we to suppose that the British did not go through periods of serfdom, absolute monarchy and repression? Did we forget that some 50 years before China's Invasion of Tibet, the British too invaded Tibet?! So what exactly are you getting at when you talk of a selective review of Chinese history? I have a feeling that all your references are to China’s recent and 20th century history. Now I do not support or sympathize with the CCP in any way whatsoever and I am actually for the secession of Tibet, but surely the events of the 20th century only form a tiny portion of China’s 4000-year history and are certainly not in any way representative of Chinese culture and heritage. Chinese communism is after all a western or western-inspired ideology! Is there anything conceivably wrong with a celebration of one of the world’s most influential and historically significant originating cultures, a commemoration of traditional Chinese art, architecture and music?

Don't get me wrong. I am all for the discussion of Tibet and horrendous human rights violations in China, but I am troubled by this political utilization of history, a subject that not even proper (as opposed to popular) objective historians and scholars can claim to get right. The old historical motto is that β€œwe all have skeletons in our closet” and it’s difficult to claim a moral high ground for any country on basis of a subject as complex as history. If we want to criticize China on Tibet and human rights, we should do so loud and clear and refer to what they are doing now. However, we should let the 1.3 billion Chinese or the substantially more ethnic Chinese (not to mention their historically sinicised neighbors) have their β€œcultural” celebrations. We are not anybody to tell them not to.

In the piece on whether Britain's expenditure on winning medals was worthwhile, I was disappointed to hear the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ journo doing the piece, whoever he was, say that the expenditure was being funded "by you and I ". Aaagghh! When will the Beeb start sending its presenters to some, at least basic, English grammar lessons ?

The piece on Georgia was irritating too, for another reason: the daft split-screen appearance which added absolutely nothing, apart from a distracting element, to the report.