All posts filed under: awareness

The Case of the E Cigarettes v. Australia

Published by

As some of you know, I am currently in the sunny land of Australia. Home of beautiful beaches, exotic wildlife and stunning scenery. Australia has been an amazing experience. It is very tempting to stay here forever. There are, however, some pretty big differences between here and my native homeland of the UK. Whilst some are very positive (free swimming anyone?) others are more disconcerting. The one that has really struck me is Australia’s approach to smokers, and particularly to e cigarettes. E cigarettes that contain nicotine are apparently illegal in Australia. I have a confession to make here folks. I was a smoker. A dirty nicotine fuelled smoker. I smoked cigarettes for quite a long time before I switched to e cigarettes. While I understand the controversy and negative feelings towards any form of smoking, I personally am a big believer in the mighty e cigarette. I don’t know what it’s like in America, but e cigarettes have taken England by storm. They are still relatively new. They became mainstream about four years ago, but …

Labour leadership

Published by

Originally posted on historyxpolitics:
Who’s who? Liz Kendall has been the  MP  for Lester West since 2010 and Shadow Minister for Care and Older People since 2011. She is a relatively new MP and henceforth, claims that Labour needs a fresh start. Although I do agree that the party needs to change in order to win again, Liz does not have the experience needed to succeed as leader. Economic competence is important to her and this has lead to comparisons between her and the Tory party. She believes in strong welfare reform and recently revealed that she does not oppose the proposed cuts to child tax credits. In my opinion, this is completely wrong and proves that she lacks key Labour principles. I also disagreed with Liz when she said that her party should not have voted to recognise the Palestinian state. As a pro-Palestine advocate I am disgusted with her approach, but also as a human being I cannot understand how she would deny those who have suffered for so long a chance for peace. Despite…

Hope and Skepticism about the New MCAT

Published by

Originally posted on project millennial:
by Karan Chhabra and Allan Joseph The MCAT (better known as every pre-med’s recurring nightmare) just went live with some pretty big changes intended to better prepare premedical students for the healthcare system of tomorrow. We’ve got a guest post over at Dan Diamond’s Forbes blog examining and reacting to the changes. A small excerpt: That’s why we applaud the AAMC for resisting this bias and placing social science, psychology, and the humanities on the same plane as pure science — where they belong. The new MCAT sends a new signal to aspiring docs: they need this knowledge just as much as they need hard science, and the medical community now demands they have it… But unless admissions committees firmly commit to selecting “broader” applicants in all aspects of their applications, the newest version of the MCAT will fail in the same way its ancestor did. This is something we’ve thought a lot about, but we’re really interested in hearing your thoughts — take a read and let us know your thoughts on Twitter…