Nicholas Robinson; Burglary; 6 months: An appropriate sentence? (via MTPT)

I hope we all agree that all the looting and violence was wrong, but 6 months in prison for stealing something worth £3.50….really?

I personally think these “rioters” (most of whom seem to be simply opportunistic thieves) would be better punished by being made to clear up the mess they’ve made…i.e. by community service orders.

As the first cases make their way through to sentencing, one case has attracted much comment: 23 year old Nicholas Robinson, an Electrical Engineering student, who was sentenced to six months in prison for stealing bottles of water worth £3.50 from a branch of Lidl in Brixton. I’ve already made clear my views on prison sentences of this length for non-violent offenders involved in the riots, so I want to look instead at whether the sentence was a … Read More

via MTPT

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If a Married Lesbian Couple Saves 40 Teens from the Norway Massacre and No One Writes About it, Did it Really Happen? (via Talk About Equality)

“..let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.”

By this point, most of you have heard about the tragedy in Norway a few weeks ago when a Christian Fundamentalist murdered 92 people and injured another 96. The story has been well-covered by International media and the mainstream press here in the US. What you probably have not heard about is the married lesbian couple … Read More

via Talk About Equality

Hello everyone! (via Astronomy Journal Club)

I thought I’d interrupt the preparation of my talk, which has been brought forward to 10.15 this morning, to reblog this interesting experiment. I guess most people likely to be interested will have heard about it on twitter, but for those who haven’t please have a look.

I’m not sure how successful it will be – that 140 character limit looks like a challenge when discussing a technical paper – but you never know!

Welcome all and thanks for your interest in the twitter astronomy journal club! The general idea is that we meet up on twitter at a prearranged day and time and discuss an interesting piece of astronomy research. This will generally take the form of an academic paper, but we could also include some articles too. Everyone's welcome to participate, whether you know anything about the topic or not. This is all inspired by the original Twitter Journa … Read More

via Astronomy Journal Club