General

I wrote this a couple of years ago after seeing so many vile and venomous attacks on the parents of Madeleine McCann on internet forums etc. (most of which were subsequently removed). My fascination was with why people seemed to be completely transfixed with the parents' perceived characteristics, traits, motivations, and such like and how blame was apportioned to the parents with virtually no consideration of the situational factors that may have given rise to Madeleine's tragic disappearance.

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There’ve been noises from the government about making children swear an allegiance to the Queen or British flag; in other words, they want to instil a sense of patriotism.

What does patriotism mean though?

To many people it simply means some sort of pride in one’s country, a sense of historical or cultural identity, or a unifying concept that transcends religious and ethical differences: the pride in one’s nation should have precedence over other allegiances such ...

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Whenever the topic of extraterrestrial life comes up, there’s usually an almost unanimous agreement that life probably does exist elsewhere in the universe. The odd thing, however, is that there’s absolutely no evidence at all that it does!

Why do people believe in alien life despite the lack of any evidence?

Well, people are aware of the vastness of space, the limits of current technology, and the unlikelihood of life existing so conveniently close to us that we ...