In English...

Coursework... Yay!
Did you hear my sarcastic typing tone... No I didn't think you did...
Anyhoo... It doesn't matter that I Have a tonne of work to do as we have Tuesday afternoon and Wednesady off just because of Open Evening and UCAS Meetings for the upper sixth.
So by next Friday or earlier I have to complete the following...

1. English Commentry for cousrework, a snip at only 750 words
2. Psychology glossaries that were suppose to be done a week ago, about which I have no idea
3. Personal Investigation for art... Only due in, in twenty days... another quick job at 3000 words + and it only making up 30% of my final AS mark
4. Biology Coursework... Boring and confusing, a bit like the subject...

I think I can saftly say that my idea of posting on here 2 - 3 times a week is unrealistic... Either that or I will drown in a pile of notes and homework...

And for good measure, Charlotte's Youthspeaks Speech:

Individuals’ right to choose vs ‘nanny’ state
In Britain, we are part of a system that is based upon liberty; we are free to do what we choose. However it is a system of negative liberty, which means that there are certain limitations in the law. As our society develops, the need for more things to be forbidden by law or establishment policy arises. For example in Britain’s schools no longer are children allowed to play with conkers in case of injury but when I was young if you wee injured during a game of conkers you just had to be quicker next time. Is our natural right to choose being taken away or do we need to be told how to behave?
An example that has wide coverage in the media is the obesity epidemic. The government is constantly telling us to eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, take half an hour’s exercise a day and eat foods low in salt and so on. All of these things can contribute to maintaining a healthy weight but why should we listen; if we want to dine at McDonalds every day why should we be told not to? To answer this question, I think is first necessary to look at how big the problem of obesity actually is.
In the mid-nineties a reasonable, but not good, 16.5% of Britons were obese but at the moment around 25% of adults in the UK are clinically obese. This is a staggering increase and it is estimated that one in three Britons will be obese by 2020. As a nation we can’t morally allow this to continue.
If the percentage of obese people in the UK rises, more people will be at risk from heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer to name but a few. Aside from the obvious loss of life and severe disabilities this could cause, the impact on the NHS and the British economy would be huge; the NHS is already stretching for resources and this could cause money to be spent on conditions caused by obesity that could be avoided. Recently in the West Midlands an NHS trust spent £150 000 on equipment to deal with obese patients. This is in response to the concern that staff could not lift overweight patients without injuring themselves. The money was spent on reinforced beds to cope with patients of up to a colossal 70 stone and equipment to help lift and move obese patients around the ward. This equipment can take patients of up to 69 stone.
It has been recently suggested that to try and prevent future generations from becoming obese, that mothers should be taught how to combat obesity in their children when they attend ante natal classes and to make cooking lessons compulsory in the nations schools so that children can learn what is good to eat and how to prepare healthy meals. For example Jamie Oliver’s school meals campaign has received a lot of publicity recently and caused several food items such as ‘turkey twizzlers’ to be banned form school menus. But at the same time there are mothers turning up at school gates taking orders for fast food when children are in school. It has also been suggested that the ‘puppy fat myth’ is contributing to children as young as 11 gaining bad habits of weight gain and minimal exercise. A study undertaken in the past few years showed that children who were overweight at the age of 11 were not usually a healthy weight by the time they reached 16. This supports the idea that obesity in adulthood can be partly due to bad habits picked up in childhood.
I think in the case of obesity, it is right that the Government should be telling people how they can try and combat obesity because some people may want to try and lose weight but they simply do not have the knowledge of how to do this. However I think that while the Government should issue advice on this issue, they should not force people to exercise when they don’t want to and eat foods they don’t want to eat.
Another issue of whether or not the government should tell people what to do is the issue of fox hunting. Estimates calculated by the country alliance suggest that there are 67,300 members of hunts across the United Kingdom. It has also been suggested by a member of the House of Lords that there was not sufficient evidence that fox hunting is even cruel. In fact more foxes are now being killed by farmers shooting them as pest control. The deaths are also more slow and painful because a rifle shot can leave the foxes merely injured. Parliamentarians spent about 700 hours debating fox hunting but they still produced an act that is full of loopholes and inconsistencies. Compare this to the mere 7 hours spent debating Iraq and you realise how much time that really is.
Hunters avoid the ban by using a clause in the act that allows the ‘flushing out’ of a fox if it is to be killed by a bird of prey. Many hunts have now bought a bird of prey and occasionally the hounds do kill the foxes but when the hounds are out of control accidents do happen and the hunts can’t help this.
Many hunters take great offence at being banned from partaking in an activity that in some cases is a tradition dating back hundreds of years. They do not see the banning of the issue as an issue of animal welfare but one of power. They think it is merely the Government trying to prove that they are in charge. This has united the hunting lobby and they are still managing their infrastructure.
I think that the Government has not created a law of any value on the issue of hunting because hunts are still carrying on with only small adjustments and the law should be scrapped because evidence supports the opinion it is not a cruel sport, it supports the local infrastructure and it believe it should be up to the individual to decide whether or not they would like to take part in hunts. The Government does not have the right to interfere in this issue.
I have only touched upon two different issues of people’s right to choose, but it is clear that there is a lot of grey area in this issue. However I think that the ‘nanny’ state should maybe tone things down a little and stop trying to control every aspect of our modern lives and ban things that do not in the scheme of things do us any damage. Thank you for listening.