A philosophy derailed For more than fifty years, the Mail and its collaborators in the right wing media have been pushing one simplistic mantra “Private Sector Good. Private Sector Bad.” So it came as a surprise to see this candid admission of the appalling state of Britain’s privatised railway system.[1] It’s a story that’s repeated across swathes of our economy. Public Housing, water and sewage, Forensic Science, energy regulation… the attempt to privatise and create a market at all costs has often been a costly failure. Now, anyone who has y worked in the public sector and seen its inefficiencies close up cannot remain a socialist. Or not enjoy the delight of pompous civil servants being exposed to a little competition. But the invariable prescription of a single nostrum, whatever the circumstances, that so appalled us. Good to see a little honest admission of error.
Immunity to radiation? When we were young we thought “radiation is an ineluctable killer. It so affects the genetic material that there’s no way back.” Wrong again! As this intriguing article from the Independent shows, to our extreme chagrin. Apparently the famous nuclear disaster zone of Chernobyl in Ukraine has nurtured a whole new type of radiation resistant worms. [1] The implications for life on earth are intriguing enough. But even more so in our quest to find living creatures both in our own stellar system and in more distant ones. What a way to end the week.
thanks to p seymour
[2]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chernobyl-worms-nuclear-power-plant-b2509161.html
#chernobyl #worms #radiation #privatisation #public sector
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