Archive for March, 2009
Kicking off
So appropriately enough tomorrow’s April fools day and the powers that be have declared it to be the day when troubles should begin. After all with so many important people around and security being so very the flavour of the day, any response at all to so much as a gnat farting in the general direction of the great and good must be both appropriate and proportionate no matter what form it takes. There’ll be the usual suspects of course, and no doubt a few people there to ensure that some trouble happens. Just in case people aren’t suitably scared, businesses that might just about be considered somewhere near one of the decreed trouble spots have been warning/ordering staff to stay home or wear disguise. (I’m one of the ordered to stay away)
Fortunately the weather forecast is good which should help make for a lively turn out, and it’s near enough to Easter that I’m sure some students will be able to drag themselves away from dusty libraries to protest about – well what ever it says on the placard the SWP hand them.
For me despite the various pro-capitalism demonstrations adding to the patchwork, it’s seeming all far to directed to lend any support to. It will though of course justify some good headlines, maybe a few news laws or the use of an old one. Mainly though I suspect it will serve to drive ministers expenses from the headlines and bury the almost guaranteed abject failure of the summit to achieve anything other than a few photo ops.
But for all that I wish those that go to make their voices heard well, and hope at least some of them present a clear and coherent message of their own. For me it’s quarter end and this bit of business would be as good a use of my time as claiming for an 88p bath plug (Seriously what’s with that? I value my time too much to even contemplate such a thing is Jacquis time so cheap? On the other hand this pay be why I only have one home.)
So good luck to all those attending on which ever side of the thin blue line they may be. But remember kids don’t take banners from strangers, and don’t forget your latte.
Footnote: Image provided by the lovely people at http://www.sendamessage.nl/.
Ducking big brother online
This post is taking rather longer than I expected to write and is sort of a follow up to both “Internet freedom and you” and more specifically to “Anonymity through generosity“, following in the same general direction to those I doubt I’m going to say anything new. However with laws being proposed to let Councils snoop on phone calls and emails and more worryingly the EC data retention directive coming in to force on 6th April 2009, that revisiting what “normal” users can do to protect themselves might be worth while.
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Passing thought
Watching the Guido Vs Drapper debate on youtube, it seems rather telling to me that when asked what criticism labourlist had made of the Government Mr. Drapper very quickly started talking about what he felt the party should do. Now I could well be wrong but I’m fairly sure they’re not the same thing.
Interesting times
A rare occurrence honesty and forthrightness being spoken in the European parliament:
Also also reported by:
Samizdata , Douglas Carswell, The Salted Slug, Guido, NightJack, Pox Angolorum, More to life than shoes, Iain Dale and Cranmer also on the front page of the Drudge report
(A transcript can be found: here) and finally some words from the man himself.
It’s well worth spending three and a half minutes listening to and then sharing far and wide. Apart from the excellent speech Brown’s behavior during it (only shown towards the end) also seems quite informative to me at least.
Meanwhile reportedly the Queen is having private chats with the governor of the bank of England (see also here). Mr King has subsequently warned that spending more may not be the best idea, which I’m sure is a shock to no one.
Photography – a further followup
Just came across these two articles which I thought needed sharing. For anyone that thinks that the counter terrorism and other acts won’t be used to harass photographers and prevent them from carrying out their legitimate work, I’d suggest reading this little list of incidents where that has happened, and the number of commentators complaining about the same sort of thing in response to this article about a photographer lodging a complaint against the police for such behavior.
Civil contingencies unlikely
If you’re reading this, chances are you already read the Libertarian party blog, but on the off chance you don’t go and read this.
A very compelling argument for why the use of the civil contingencies act is most unlikely at this time. I find myself pretty much unable to argue with a single point of it. Most compelling of course is that Gordon Brown has a well proven track record of bottling it.
Photography followup
Whilst this has been extensively covered elsewhere I thought it worth mentioning that the work done by FitWatch has been picked up by the mainstream media in the Guardian. Unequivocal proof that the Police even before the new counter terrorism laws were monitoring and recording the activities of people, especially photographers and journalists, whom have done nothing more than be in the vicinity of legal demonstrations.
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Bandwagons and ill thought out protesting
I’ve always considered that any article which starts out with a disclaimer, or sentence which contains a phrase along the lines of “I’ve nothing against… but…” to be inherently suspect and likely to indicate a certain weakness of argument. Which is why I’m somewhat hesitant in writing this as it can to an extent be boiled down to: “I’ve nothing against people protesting but I do wish they’d think about it and do it well”.
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Obviously no connection to real events
Quiet a few people of late have been wondering if the government might be getting rather eager for riots to happen this summer, in what they’re already calling a “summer of rage”*, so that they can play with the little reported Civil Contingencies Act 2004. This act basically gives high ranking politicians and officials the power to do whatever they like in the event of an “emergency”, where in its broadest reading an “emergency” is whatever they decide it is. It is in many ways quite a plausible idea, whilst also being somewhat close to the “tin foil wearing” end of the spectrum. I would like to think it’s quite a way from the “likely to happen” end of the spectrum though some of the things being reported do make one wonder. With such wondering in mind a small article in one of the London free rags caught my eye:
Hospitals alert on scarlet fever
London hospitals are on alert today over a severe outbreak of scarlet fever.
…
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Malevolent voices revisited
It seems that Mr Pullmans article is now back on line at the Times with not a word changed. Which would make me suspect it’s vanishing was merely due to technical issues with the publishing system used by the Times, except for the way it also vanished so quickly from the Google cache ( as others also noticed). Though whilst one should always remember the rule that given a choice between cock-up and conspiracy 99% of the time it’ll be cock up, sometimes conspiracy is the right choice and only by watching for patterns can one after a while make a better guess as to which is more likely. whilst there were some rumours that Mr Pullman wasn’t actually the author, he claims otherwise and had no idea why it vanished either. Still it’s back now so if you’ve not read it go and read it, even though its style isn’t to everyones taste and keep a copy just in case it gets lost again.
further commentary from: Heresy corner
UK terror threat status
- Severe 2010/01/25