Political stuff from the week 14-20/5/12

The UK Parliament will tackle libel reform!! (We're catching up with the rest of the world - whoop whoop!!)
http://skepchick.org/2012/05/uk-parliament-will-tackle-libel-reform/
http://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/blog/entry/progress-on-lobbying-reform

Economic growth has not made people happier nor healthier in China, where you would expect the effect to be most obvious. Of, course, this comes as no surprise to me, because Growth just means acceleration of increase in inequality
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-economic-growth-china-meant-greater.html

Challenging the stigma of rape. Think burglary's your fault if you leave the window open? No? Then don't blame victims for being raped, when they're wearing a short skirt!
http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2012/05/challenging-the-stigma-of-rape/

YouGov's found the truth: the UK public does want House of Lords reform, and does want equal marriage rights
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/05/15/public-does-want-gay-marriage-lords-reform/

There's an unnervingly strong correlation between the demographics of countries and their propensity for democracy-transpiring rebellion
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428653.800-egypt-arab-spring-could-be-wasted-in-youthful-nations.html

Apple's to be taken to Court for price-fixing
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-class-action-ebook-price-fixing-proceed.html

The Cuntservatives want to use an illegal weapon to scare tourists during the London Olympics
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-london-sonic-weapon.html

Physics stuff from the week 14-20/5/12

[video] Don't miss the transit of Venus on the 5th June - it won't happen again until 2117!
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-transit-venus.html

Did you notice that asteroid, last Monday? No? It came incredibly close. Admit it - you were cacking yourselves!
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-haircut-asteroid-ju.html

A great picture of an annular eclipse, which happens when the moon's too close to fully obscure the sun. This happened for the same reason as the recent 'supermoons' - perigee - where the moon's closest in its elliptical orbit around the Earth
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120519.html  

Another great picture of a partial (annular) eclipse, seen from Manila Bay, in 2009
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120520.html

Blazars - black holes that emit high-energy gamma rays - are heating up galactic dust, in some places to temperatures 100 times hotter than expected!
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-astrophysicists-source-cosmological-formation.html

180 million years ago, during the Jurassic period, Earth's magnetic field flipped. This was one of the best-recorded geomagnetic flips, set, quite literally, in stone, in the rocks of South Africa
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-tracking-jurassic-reversal-earth-magnetic.html

A wonderful picture of Cygnus X
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120517.html