I want to quickly just say, before I get into this, that my thoughts are with all those affected by the M5 crash – it’s a real tragedy.
Anyway, news stories from today:
The Welsh government plans to bring in a new law for presumed consent of organ donation by 2015. Implementation of this law would mean that people would need to opt out of donating organs rather than signing the donor register to opt in, which could potentially save many more lives each year. They told the BBC Wales Politics Show that they were planning a “soft” consent, meaning that a person’s family members would still be consulted after their death.
"Introducing a soft opt-out system will mean people are more likely to make decisions about donation during their lifetime and to have discussed their wishes with their family," said one spokesperson.
Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire, Glyn Davies, is seeking time in Westminster to debate the issue.
“It does not deliver but a fraction more organs,” he said, also expressing that he felt that presumed consent “undermines trust.”
However, Roy Thomas, chairman of the Kidney Wales Foundation, claims that these measures could increase the number of available organs for donation by up to 30%, stating that: "We are losing one person each week here in Wales and that's a huge amount of people who are dying and we need to give them hope.
"I believe the Welsh government has got this absolutely right and are progressive. Indeed I think the rest of the UK will follow."
In other news, Asteroid Yu55 will be coming into close proximity to Earth on Tuesday night.
Scientists hope to be able to study the elements and chemical composition that make up the 400 metre wide asteroid as its path brings it within 198,000 miles from Earth, closer to us than the moon.
Even if skies are clear, the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye, but both professional and amateur astronomers are expected to try to catch a glimpse through their telescopes as it passes Earth at 23:28 GMT.
Finally, I just want to mention a couple of news stories that caught my eye. The first is from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/05/kina-grannis-in-your-arms-jelly-beans_n_1077702.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003 which discusses how one clever YouTuber has made a video using thousands of jelly beans. I think the video is pretty amazing, I’m not going to lie, but I can’t help but think it’s a little bit of a waste of jelly beans. It also made me desperately crave them, which I think is weird considering I don’t really like them. It’s a textural thing…
Anyway the other story I only looked at because the headline was so impressively cheesy: “Scrabble king celebrates with night on tiles.” The story is from http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/06/scrabble-champion-2011-wayne-kelly?CMP=twt_fd and, I think, just goes to show the importance of a good headline in print and digital media news articles. The story itself just discusses Wayne Kelly’s (a 37 year old “local government finance adviser who lives with his parents in Warrington”) victory at the British national Scrabble championship and briefly mentions at the end how he intends to “go wild” in the next three days before he returns to his studies for his next public finance accountancy exams.
I’m saying nothing.
Anyway, that’s it for today. I would be incredibly interested in hearing your opinions on any of the above news items, so please do feel free to leave a comment below.
Until next time.
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