civilisationReview

This book of psalms has an £18m price tag, which could make it the world's most expensive book when it's auctioned on Tuesday in New York. Pretty good, considering it is riddled with punctuation and spelling mistakes. bbc (following discussion from BBC Facebook )
 Lord-Jon Trumpington : It's also riddled with lies and superstition of course. Dave Hunter : Is this the most expensive work of fiction ever? Steve Pugsley : Will it be sold in the fairy story book, part of the sale. David Jones : "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." Ed :  Ahhh....i see the heathens are out in force - in condemning religion. They'd rather hang on to the epistles of celebs, royalty, oprah, tycoons, and sportstars. Pay them no mind. They have to discount such beauty and truths as contained within scriptures of all religions so that they can feel justified cheering for Beckh...

For many people, the main concern in a yoga class is whether they are breathing correctly or their legs are aligned. But for others, there are lingering doubts about whether they should be there at all, or whether they are betraying their religion. Farida Hamza, a Muslim woman living in the US (pictured above), had been doing yoga for two or three years when she decided she wanted to teach it. "When I told my family and a few friends, they did not react positively," she recalls. "They were very confused as to why I wanted to do it - that it might be going against Islam." Their suspicions about yoga are shared by many Muslims, Christians and Jews around the world and relate to yoga's history as an ancient spiritual practice with connections to Hinduism and Buddhism Last year, a yoga class was banned from a church hall in the UK. "Yoga is a Hindu spiritual exercise," said the priest, Father John Chandler. "Being a Catholic church we have to promote ...

ed

India has successfully launched a spacecraft to the Red Planet - with the aim of becoming the fourth space agency to reach Mars. The Mars Orbiter Mission took off at 09:08 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the country's east coast. The head of India's space agency told the BBC the mission would demonstrate the technological capability to reach Mars orbit and carry out experiments. The spacecraft is set to travel for 300 days, reaching Mars orbit in 2014. - bbc Great! India is finally taking on the west in the latter’s game. But in running head to head with an upstart, don't forget your own unique soul. Winning is not upstaging a competitor, but in being all that you can be at your own game despite the competitor not bothering about it. 

And as for those in the west who condemn India for not bothering about a fair bit of its impoverished population, well, the Indians don't have the benefit of colonising other states and ripping them off so that they can affo...

video & music, by, ed

Exams regulator Ofqual has confirmed the changes it is making to GCSEs, in what it calls the biggest shake-up of exams in England for a generation. A new grading system will use numbers instead of letters and coursework is being scrapped for most subjects. - bbc (following comments from BBC facebook discussion ) ed: Memory over analysis, research and working together on intellectual and creative tasks? Right, that's what it takes to vote in wrong governments all the time.....and play Angry Birds. * Habibah Amin : This is actually very annoying. Every bloody term we have news Michael Gove's doing something different. Please Mr. Gove, go and get some experience teaching or go try and focus into the mindset of someone my age! At the end of the day it is NOT fair on the people of my age and younger. I would do a better job than Michael Gove for sure. He claims he wants "...the best for the youth of today...", yet - he's making it worse! If you look back on the strike...