Your Grace,

Remember that question that the barber used to ask on a Saturday morning. " A little something for the weekend sir?" That raised joyous expectations for the allotted free time before starting to think about the return to work on Monday morning. Only those of a certain age group will, and for those of the youthful generation the barbers used to be the place for a gentleman's haircut.

Well expectations change as you, erhm mature, and raise a family which also provides moments of joy and thought stimulation which lift your spirits, one of which led me to think of raising a general question here for yourself and others to ponder over the weekend if I may.

It started when taking my young son to bed last night who instead of asking for a story was quizzical about a program, probably a cartoon, that he had watched earlier in the evening.
The program involved an extra terrestrial being landing and offering advanced technology and an unlimited source of energy to mankind (my embellishment) and included that age old phrase 'Take me to your leader'.
Now the question that my son asked and, if you fancy a little lateral thinking and a bit of fun this weekend, I will ask this of you all:

If an extra terrestrial being with advanced technology and an unlimited source of energy said to you 'Take me to your leader'. Who would you take them to?

Here is a list of some options but feel free to embellish or provide alternatives.
1. The government, DECC, Chris Huhne.
2. The Royal Society
3. The Army.
4. The CBI.
5. An environmental group, Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth.
6. The Monarchy, Prince Charles.
7. The Americans, the White House
8. The Chinese, the National Peoples Congress.
9. The European Union, Brussels.
10. Your missus, she knows everyone on Facebook.

Obviously there will be opinions for and against each of the above and probably more that I haven't mentioned but I wonder if a consensus will emerge?

Dread0

Let's be optimistic and hope that this is a bellwether.

Your Grace, El Reg is carrying a story about the Dutch Govt throwing "renewables" under the bus:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/10/holland_energy_switch/

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes our own Enviro-Hoons to catch on.

Bish: have you seen this: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/news/110127-new-inquiry---peer-review/

Just a quick note to point out that Prof Cox is on the Chris Evans show (Radio 2) tomorrow morning. From what I have heard of him in the past he has similar views to Prof Nurse. I did originally wonder how long it would be until he was on, after the bizarre discussion that was on the show a few weeks ago when the Horizon hatchet job was discussed.
John Lyon

The Moral Maze on Radio 4 last night, subject - multiculturalism, discussion triggered by Cameroon's speech.

Long introductory voice-over, saying that in the past people who questioned multiculturalism were often considered to be racists, and of course the most hated groups in society are: racists, paedophiles, and **climate change deniers**

http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/climategate-2-0/

is this going to be interesting. What a smorgasbord of stories we have at the moment!

Climate change fuelled by pursuit of economic growth, says Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales warned today against the pursuit of economic growth at the expense of the environment - and condemned climate change sceptics for their ''corrosive'' impact on public opinion.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8313302/Climate-change-fuelled-by-pursuit-of-economic-growth-says-Prince-of-Wales.html

@Bishop Hill: Thanks. Here's hoping.

@Cumbrian Lad: True, but angels on the head of a pin, IMO.

@Jerry: I apologize for being so intemperate in my response and for the name calling. In my defence:

I have spent (too) many years developing applications for commercial clients. My paymasters wanted websites that worked on every browser. I never had the luxury of telling someone to get a better browser.

Bishop Hill will not thank me for starting one of these interminable browser discussions, but the fact is, though, that all the major browsers are much of a muchness. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. A new version of a particular browser gets an advantage for a short while, until the competition overtakes it - also for a while. The differences between them are miniscule.

The free market is indeed a wonderful thing. For example, before IE8, Firefox had a really cool DOM viewer that made its use almost de rigeur for web developers. IE 8 now has its own version. In the foreseeable future at least, IE, Firefox, Opera and co. are not going to fade away, so developers have to build websites that work well on all of them. You should just be able to choose a browser and stick with it.

Nor is Firefox intrinsically more secure than IE8 (IMO). Now that Cumbrian Lad has alerted the bad guys to how popular it is, just watch the number of attacks on it rise. And if you are incautious enough to visit websites that are run by people masquerading as clerics and that track your every action... well, you have been warned.