Strangely Perfect

Guidelines for a Better World Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.  Perhaps I should re-phrase this as: The Rules of Law and International Diplomacy are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made It’s a strange world out there.  Two recent political events [...]

Metropolitan Police Wear Examined The appearance of “our” police is becoming more and more like some hellish dystopian vision of oppression from all the best science fiction of the last century. Compare and contrast the two shots below; one from the finale of the BBC series Blakes Seven, the other from the Whitehall kettle during [...]

What is the Best Backup for Windows in a Small Home or Office? Which Windows Backup?  A History. Over the years I’ve tried many systems for backing up crucial Windows data.  Currently for small-scale backups I use the ubiquitous and almost bullet-proof flash drives, my current one tipping the scales at 8Gb.  But for major [...]

Healthcare Woes Lying sick in bed this morning listening to a Radio 5 phone-in about the “state” of our Accident & Emergency (A&E) healthcare system here in the UK, I was struck by the failure of the radio show’s producers to engender the expected flurry of tales of woe and poor service. Happy and Immaculate [...]

I’ve been on holiday for a while.  Today’s encouragement from Sensei I thought wonderfully appropriate for us in Britain, given the imminent general election and the hunt for a supposed centre ground. Quite simply, there can be no true democracy unless the citizens of a country realize that they are sovereign, that they are the [...]

How Summer Camps Could Change Britain by Christopher M. Green (Convenor of the Summer Camps Forum and Founding Director of The ATE Trust) Download Links to Original Chris Green Articles: Letter to MPs February 2010 Suggested letter format to lobby your local MP on behalf of Chris Green’s summer camps’ initiative. How Summer Camps …inline [...]

Obama President Obama was elected under the banner of change. Change for the overall health of his nation Change in economics and finance Change of a re-assertion of the higher ideals of his nation expressed in the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Rights. In this last, he even promised this change in his [...]

CIA Guilty of Torture and Kidnap – Damages of 1.5 Million Euros Amazing news today.  An Italian court has bravely taken on the leader of the Western World and convicted 22 CIA agents of kidnap and torture. (see CIA agents guilty of Italy kidnap). The man on the left with the wacky beard and hat, [...]

Alan Johnson Sacks the Messenger This, of course, relates to the recent sackings and supportive resignations of Government Scientific Advisors (see More advisers may go in drugs row) . The home secretary faces the threat of more scientists resigning after sacking his chief drugs adviser Prof David Nutt for his comments about cannabis policy. Two [...]

I can’t vouch for the information as I don’t live in Turkey, but I’ve just found out that Turkey has blocked Google.com Google Groups from internet access for it’s citizens.  See: Turkey & My Foreign Perspectives with Bea Vanni: Goodbye Google Alert: Hello More Bans for Turkey While my Turkey blog is less frequent these [...]

Freedom and the Law In stark contrast to the US which still insists on draconian measures against people thought to be bad (the lowest of the low Rumsfeld called them), the UK has had a landmark ruling for common sense in a democratic, freedom-loving country. Nine Law Lords have unanimously ruled it was unfair for [...]

Sex and Death, Death Sex, Death and Sex, AND the Death of Democracy. I’m yet again struck by the rampant hypocrisy from America.  It’s citizens seem to think that everyone in the world has to follow their peculiar mores and morals to the letter, conveniently forgetting that they won’t abide by their own rules written [...]

MP Expenses and Privileges Scandal Let’s make one thing absolutely clear: Apart from 635 MPs and the somewhat fewer UK MEPs, NOT ONE PERSON IN BRITAIN THINKS ANY DIFFERENTLY FROM ME! *** We all think that they’re all a bunch of spivving crooks who’ve let everyone down.  To compound the felony, they will even get paid [...]

Introduction This is a small investigation into mail lists and scammy companies.  Some companies are fine, but I always go by the adage to judge a man by the company he keeps.  This shows how lists spread far beyond their initial purpose when you sign up for something.  It also shows how the privacy policies [...]