This is a wind up -yes? Please tell me it's a wind up!
/Daily Star: IT'S NHS BEDLAM
Maybe someone should teach the Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust about the workings of the Muslim faith. It is customary but NOT obligatory to face Mecca during prayer and there is no obligation on any Muslim too sick to pray to do so. The sick are also exempt from compulsory Friday group prayers. So it is perfectly possible for a bed-ridden Muslim to satisfy his or her religious obligations without the need for the hospital to play musical beds.Overworked nurses have been ordered to stop their work five times a day – and move Muslim patients’ beds to face towards Mecca. The procedure is creating turmoil among staff on NHS wards already struggling through a lack of beds. But Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be implemented whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital”. A taxpayer-funded training programme for hundreds of hospital staff has already begun to ensure they are familiar with the workings of the Muslim faith. The scheme is initially being run at Dewsbury and District Hospital, West Yorks, but is set to be expanded to other areas.
I bought 
(Madeleine Bunting calls for)...a low-consumption economy oriented towards facilitating the real sources of human fulfilment. Most of us dimly recognise that huge lifestyle changes are necessary, but we're waiting for someone else to initiate the process. It's a question of "I will if you will" - the title of a thoughtful report last year from the government's Sustainable Development Commission. Hearteningly, we know it can be done - our parents and grandparents managed it in the second world war. 
This useful analogy, explored by Andrew Simms in his book Ecological Debt, demonstrates the critical role of government. In the early 1940s, a dramatic drop in household consumption was achieved - not by relying on the good intentions of individuals (and their ability to act on that coffee-stained pamphlet), but by the government orchestrating a massive propaganda exercise combined with a rationing system and a luxury tax. This will be the stuff of 21st-century politics - something that, right now, all the main political parties are much too scared to admit. 
By rolling this progress back, by allowing the likes of Biggins and Graham Norton to be the main face of British gaydom, we actually make it harder for gay kids to understand their sexuality. The vast majority of gay boys grows up without any more ‘effeminacy’ than their straight brothers, and yet the only gay people they see represented are mincing queens, and they think: well, I’m not like that, and I don’t want to be like that, so I can’t be gay. 
These are the weirdest, most ill-conceived toys from around the globe. If you're about to say that they're "weird" only because of our own xenophobic ignorance of other cultures, well, we have two words for you: Poop toys. Why not cheer up your children with this Playmobil toxic cleanup team? The perfect present for the environmentally aware child.
Dumped into the Friday afternoon cycle is this cryptic post on National Review Online from editor Kathryn Jean Lopez concerning material that appeared on their military blog, preposterously named "The Tank". 
