First the good news. They've finally decided where to site ITER. I'm a firm believer in fusion as a major part of the solution to the world's energy crisis. It has few of the drawbacks of existing power generation methods: it doesn't contribute to global warming unlike fossil fuels; it doesn't create unmanageable amounts of radioactive waste unlike fission; and it creates much more energy on a like-for-like basis than renewables. We can't get too excited yet, since it won't be ready to start operation until about 2015, and the first commercial plant isn't expected until about the middle of the century. However, at least they've stopped arguing about where to site the damned thing and are getting on with it.
Now the bad news. The religious nut brigade are trying to strike again. This time in Northern Ireland, with a so-called Christian organisation trying to get a gay pride march banned. With so much hate and anger already in Northern Ireland, there's really no need for any more. Since the organisation itself doesn't seem to have a website (surprise, surprise, I'm sure they think that the Internet is the tool of Satan) so I couldn't send them an abusive email, I decided to do something constructive, and sent an email supporting the parade to the Parades Commission. Mind you, the email address that they have published on their website was wrong, and I had to call them up to get one that I could use. So any (constructive) emails should go to info@paradescommission.com.