Who won the most caps for England?

Combine the number of England caps won by Stan Bowles, Tony Currie, Charlie George, Rodney Marsh, Alan Hudson, Duncan Mackenzie, Peter Osgood and Frank Worthington. The total is 17. Phil Neville (who I like) has won far more than the lot of them combined.

Stent vs. Scalpel in NYT

In the US carotid stenting is being used as an alternative to blood-thinning drugs and blood-pressure medications to deal with carotid artery disease. But is it safer?

Which fucked-up genius composer are you?

Captain Beefheart... you are one of the first modern fucked-up geniuses. When it comes to creating, you rank right up there with the likes of James Mangan, John Wilmot and Edvard Munch.

Rachel has turned to the light

Rachel was in the carriage that exploded on 7/7. I have been reading her blog for a while. Amazingly this is the second time her life has been changed by a faceless attacker. It would be easy to turn to hate and fear, but Rachel has turned to the light.

Understanding American culture part 245223423

Ruth M. Siems was an inventor of Stove Top stuffing, an enduring emblem of postwar convenience culture.

Civil Partnerships in the UK

Sometimes I am ashamed to live in the USA. Why can't we do this?

What kind of humanist are you?

Hairshirt

Excuse us, could you just put down that hammer for a minute and listen. You’re so busy getting things done you rarely take any time out just to relax. In fact, you’ve probably forgotten how to relax. That’s because you’re so anxious to prove that it’s possible to lead a good and moral life without religion that you have built a strict and forbidding creed all of your own. You keep a compost heap, cycle to the bottle bank, invest in ethical schemes only and the list of countries you won’t buy from is longer than the washing line for your baby’s towelling nappies. You admire uncompromising self–sacrificers like Aung San Suu Kyi and Che Guevara, and would have liked the chance to be incarcerated for your principles like Diderot or Nelson Mandela. You would never cheat on your partner, drink and drive, accept bribes or touch drugs. You never waste money though you give lots to charity. Living a good life? You’re a model to us all. But it wouldn’t hurt you to try a little happiness once in a while. Loosen up.

Britain, land of freedom

The USA may have a written constitution, but it doesn't guarantee freedom.

My Pandora favourite music page

My Pandora favourite music page is quite small at the moment. I thought Pandora was a silly idea, but I was wrong, it is really quite interesting. And now they have (or will have) an advertising supported service, they are fitting in with the zeitgeist.

One of the 7/7 bombing victims is writing a book

One of the 7/7 bombing victims is writing a book.

The subject? What happens when a professor of media studies, habituated to deconstructing news stories, becomes the subject of the story.

Jason Roberts has a brain

I don't know how much of this is ghost written but I like the style of it:

One player who has been so important to our success so far is Pascal Chimbonda.

I have not seen everyone in the league play but Pascal must be up there as one of the best.

He is performing every week, doing really well and it's great to hear he's getting the plaudits.

Hopefully he will sign a new deal and be around for some time.

I just hope that if I ever go to another country to play I conduct myself as well as he has.

Thoughtful words.

The insanity of farm subsidies

America's efficient farmers may be encouraged to produce far more than the country can use, depressing prices and raising subsidy payments. In other words, because the government wants to help America's farmers, it essentially ends up paying them both when they produce too much and when their crop prices are too low.

Why it can be good to think of the worst cases

This article seems to assume that people think logically and probabilistically.

How much do you spend on Intelligence gathering?

Assuming 300 million people in the USA, each spends about $150 a year funding Intelligence. Are we getting value for money?

Things to do in San Jose

... when you're dead.

Big business tries to change the meaning of Organic

Some of the rules do need changing. But the involvement of big companies is a bit scary. And yet as organic food grows, more big players will be involved.

Dean Foods' Horizon Organic [...] gets about 20 percent of its production from a 4,000-cow organic dairy in Paul, Idaho, which is small in comparison with many conventional dairy farms but huge by organic standards.

Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst at Cornucopia, a group representing small dairy farmers, contends that Horizon is able to run such a large farm because it dilutes organic principles. Earlier this year, his group filed a petition arguing that the Idaho farm crams too many cows into a confined area, where most of them do not graze on pasture but instead consume a high-grain diet.

"These factory farms are trying to cut corners," Mr. Kastel said. "When you feed more calorie-dense grains, you get more milk."

Horizon, which also buys milk from 305 family farms, says it is making changes and will divide its Idaho operation into two separate farms so that there will be three to five cows for each acre of pasture.

Mmm, Indian Sweets

The key point here is that the proper name is mithai, which makes it easier to search in Google. But I still haven't found a good place in San Francisco.