Generally at Failed State we take a progressive view of things. We are not prudish or religious. I want to make that clear at the start because the traditional left can get a bit confused about pornography, women's rights, promiscuity and liberal thinking.

As a society, we are getting over-sexed. Sex is everywhere - on the TV, in music, on the radio, in magazines, on billboards. It has become a problem that progressive minded people can no longer ignore.

Today the UK government hinted that it might extend a scheme which has allowed victims families to speak in court at the end of trials. The scheme has, so far, enabled the families of victims of murder or manslaughter victims to read (or have an advocate read) an impact statement to the court. In the future crimes like "Causing Death by Dangerous Driving" may well be added. Of course the victims family is important and of course they have strong feelings on what has happened. But these victim statements really do not help us, or them.

This interesting article by Shahira Samy appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly. It focusses on Ex-US President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

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Tonight, on BBC 2 There is a programme on 911 Conspiracy Theories. It will go through the conspiracies ranging from ligitimate scientific questions (why did the towers collapse so quick) to the ridiculous (were New York's Jewish Community forewarned). There are many people who believe both of the above and much more.

I hate it when rich capitalists protest. I know they have rights and freedom of speech like the rest of us, but it is very boring to hear them whinge.

Imagine driving around Kensington and Chelsea in thirty thousand pound cars, which are normally parked outside three million pound homes to complain about an £8 congestion charge.

In my youth I felt sorry for chavs. I am a left-wing liberal minded kind of a bloke who likes to see the good in people. And as My equally left-wing parents always told me, "they come from a difficult background". This is without a doubt true. Chavs do come from difficult backgrounds. They grew up in a society rocked by Thatcherism and Blairism. They are the product of a society blighted by extreme capitalism, high wealth disparity, 24 corporate media and education cuts and mismanagement (the former by Maggie and the latter by Blair and Maggie both).

Yet again, a small local school has been closed down. Increasingly civil servants are looking at a education with their market-economist hats firmly on, doing the sums and counting the pounds. Lanreath Church of England School, it has been decided, is not "educationally viable", a phrase that echoes the classic Michael Douglas film Falling Down.

Even George Bush accepts that global warming is a problem, and for the second time in six months a major report has found that Global Warming is real, that it is man-made and that it is going to hurt us unless we take major steps now. Furiously battling against the scientists are a small but powerful band of Climate Change Deniers who have the world of PR at their fingertips and think nothing of stooping to dirty tricks in order to deceive the public and further delay action to tackle the human causes of global warming.

The call tonight from the Metropolitan Police (London) for the government to stop putting "undue pressure" pressure on them has probably fallen on deaf ears. New Labour is renowned for its arrogance and will be buoyed by its recent triumph over justice in the dropping of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into an arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the UK.