I meant ‘minor’ in health terms - although I recognise that there are a few horrible exceptions every year in the UK where the consequences of a dog bite are much more serious.

My intent was to highlight the horrific consequences of dog bites in a poor country like Sierra Leone with poorer public health and health services - where people die for lack of access to medical interventions that we take almost for granted.

I agree completely that it’s always unacceptable for owners to allow dogs to bite members of the public going about their lawful business - even if it’s through a letter-box!

I’m not entirely convinced that dog licenses are the answer because I’m not clear how they would help (although I recognise that this puts me in opposition to Lib Dem party policy)! I’d rather there was proper prosecution when dogs do attack.

I don’t know how much of a “nip” you got, but I think that much more should be done to make dog owners responsible for the behaviour of their dogs.

I was attacked by three dogs (in a pack) whilst out running on the downs and bitten by one. Far too many owners seem to think that it is *my* fault that *their* dog wants to attack me (one excuse was “oh, it is because you wear a hat”).

I was up in Cheshire over the last few days, and was even chased by a dog when walking along a public footpath. In the same way that people who allow dogs to chase sheep and cows should be held responsible, farmers should be responsible for keeping farm dogs under control.

I am not usually in favour of new laws, but I do think it was a mistake when dog licensing was abolished - except that I would make it owner licensing, and conditional on proper training for both dog + owner.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/12/tombstones-with-bar.html

> First, not every URL is and will be mobile compatible. There will be a long time before every website has an additional mobile site. PC Web is and will never be the same at the Mobile Web. Both mediums have their own advantages and disadvantages.

> Second, the iconic value of the QR Code is as much important as the scanning. Every QR Code basically tells you that there is “mobile content” behind it.

I think getting the future of the aeroplane wrong might be a slightly bigger mistake!

Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s a very interesting concept (and a good enough idea to put on my blog), but I also think there’s a risk that it gets overtaken by ‘conventional’ OCR recognition as phones get more powerful before it gets broadly taken up.

• It’s quite a lot smaller (5-8,000 homes vs. 12,500 for Micheldever)
• It’s backed by the local councils - all the local councils for Micheldever Station Eco-Town were opposed
• It’s on brownfield land (an old military site) rather than open fields

In these respects at least, the Bordon proposal looks better than Micheldever Station Eco-Town.

One area I would be interested to understand better is the transport impact of Bordon. I had a very big problem with the traffic growth from the Micheldever Station eco-town proposal. Several commentators have pointed out that traffic is the biggest conceptual problem with eco-towns in general. I don’t know what the traffic situation is with Bordon. Before reaching a final conclusion, I’d like to understand this area better.

Stephen

http://www.europeantruth.co.uk

I suspect one reason is to make sure that people who may have thought they might be disadvantaged (irrespective of the legal situation) are reassured that they won’t be.