Remembrance Sunday is not just about those who died, and are dying in the armed forces, it’s also about those who survive. There are an awful lot of people who rely on the work of charities like the Royal British Legion, Help For Heroes and BLESMA. If you can, please stick the price of a pint or a latte in a charity box for these guys.

Army Benovolent Fund
British Limbless Ex-Serviceman’s Association
Help for Heroes
Royal British Legion
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association

With a tip of the hat to Wat Tyler & Mr Eugenides

From the excellent Great British Nutters comes this tale of Colonel Fred Burnaby. Victorian and Edwardian England was a time of heroic exploits but Burnaby stands comfortably head and shoulders above most.

A 6′4″ cavalry man, an expert swordsman, runner, rider and boxer and fluent in several languages he was also an irascible adventurer. Click through to read all about this magnificent chap.

Skepticat has blogged a number of very important links about the cervical cancer vaccine scare cooked up by the press. The death of Natalie Morton was a tragedy, but was caused by the large undiagnosed tumour in her chest. Not the vaccine that will save the lives of a significant number of her peers.

Sadly, a rather foolish headteacher and some very irresponsible journalists have made sure some parents are too frightened to have their children vaccinated.

Some useful links with more information can be found here, here and here.

With a hat tip to desjardin of Metafilter, comes this Photo Essay.

4 people spent at least 8 minutes grappling with a thief, getting bitten, kicked and bled on. 8 minutes is a pretty good response time, but a hell of a long time to be fighting.

My friends Oz and Sammie were married recently in a beautiful and simple ceremony on St Mary’s, the largest of the Scilly Isles. I was honoured to be invited and I got some wedding snaps, some I am rather proud of. Have a look and tell me what you think.

The BBC has an account of an 18 year old girl and her brother fighting off an attack from multiple armed home invaders. Their bravery and ferocity seem to have saved their family from a rather unpleasant fate. Sadly it seems they now fear retaliation.

Via the delightfully snarky PZ Myers

Courtesy of Knirirr came this link, from which I discover I am a right wing Libertarian. Apparently.

My Political Views
I am a right social libertarian
Right: 7.48, Libertarian: 8.58

Political Spectrum Quiz

It’s largely correct, although I think it would be much fairer to describe me as socially and economically libertarian.

Courtesy of Gizmodo, news that Microsoft has had a small skunkworks-esque team bashing away at making a tablet type design. It looks fascinating

The UI looks really very interesting. A mix of stylus and finger gestures, it could be confusing, but the released video makes me think it will work well. I was a big fan of the old Palm stylus UI, and I love the finger gestures on my MacBook and iPhone, so this could be right up my alley. If it has wi-fi, 3G and a port to drive a projector (mini-displayport?) then I could probably stop lugging around laptops to visit clients. Which would be awesome