THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: UK gun controls different to US; remembering Yeltsin; all change at the Diana Inquest, and much more …
A REAL VOICE OF BRITAIN
A VERY CLOSE NEIGHBOUR
The discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting the Red Dwarf, Gliese 581 will have come as a shock to astronomers. Some 12,000 miles across, it has a mass five times that of Earth, and takes just 13 days to orbit its sun, itself a third the size of our Sun.
Existing in the ‘Goldilocks Zone – not so close to the sun to be too hot and not so far as to be too cold – the most interesting thing about Gliese 581c is its closeness to Earth. At just 20 light years, it is far closer than predictions said such a planet could be.
If Earth-like planets are this close together throughout the universe, chances of life ‘out there’ increase significantly.
GOODBYE BORIS
Boris Yeltsin is dead. A giant of a man, we all owe him a debt of gratitude. The first democratically-elected president of Russia, his mounting of a tank to rally the Russian people against the Communists was a seminal moment of modern history …
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KINGDOM
Kingdom (ITV1 UK 22 Apr 07) was a good, gentle drama – perfect for Sunday night viewing. It was pleasing to see Stephen Fry with a more mainstream role, although there was some irony in a solicitor having a sidekick like a detective …
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PROBLEMS AT DIANA INQUEST
Dame Butler Sloss has resigned as Coroner to the Diana Inquest, citing her inexperience with dealing with juries at such sessions. A new Coroner has been appointed but this is unlikely to change the farce the Inquest is fast becoming.
Mohamad al Fayed has been blamed, thwarting the Coroner at every turn in his insistence on proving a conspiracy behind the death of Diana and his son, Dodi. However, it is the nature of conspiracy theory around such a tragic event that if he wasn’t doing it, someone would.
I feel for Diana’s sons, William and Harry, but I fear the conspiracy theories will outlive them. And the more the British establishment try to impose order and commonsense, the more the theories will proliferate.
GUN CONTROLS IN UK
Following the harrowing events at Virginia Tech many in the US gun lobby cited the UK as evidence that gun controls do not work, with gun crime soaring in recent years. However, the UK experience is not comparable to gun ownership in America …
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Anthony North, April 2007
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