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 [...]

French Resistance: de Gaulle in London. (This posting originally released on 16 Dec 2007.  Reposted and edited because of the subject’s death.) This is a BBC News article on the women of the French Resistance who worked with De Gaulle in London and then went to Paris with him for the Liberation. Claire is one [...]

It’s Just Like Bladerunner, And Not Just the Weather! Tears in Rain Bladerunner, the movie, based on an old Philip K Dick science-fiction story, was made by Ridley Scott from North-East England, someone I’m distantly related to.  Made in 1982, it presents a very grey, wet, bleak future, heavily referencing Scott’s (and my own!) upbringing [...]

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 [...]

Coroner and Law I’m often struck when reading the papers or news, to see the coroner’s verdict on someone’s death as: Ending his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed Well they have to say something, it’s their job, but the phrase is very peculiar. Take this couple, the Milners, who were [...]

I’ve been thinking about the perilous mentality of the 52% of Americans who think torture is all fine and dandy.  And then I saw a neat little video piece on the BBC this morning which casts a few French people in the exact same spots in June 1944 and now.  It’s here: D-Day in France: [...]

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 [...]

Jillian has made an excellent post yesterday that marvellously ties in with the heavy-handed police tactics in London at the weekend G20 protests – whose chickens are now coming home to roost; and also, it ties in with our (the West’s) recent (and continuing) history, AND a bit of encouragement, calendared for today, by Daisaku [...]

Highlighting the Differences in Public Health provision, the Attitudes to Death and Responsibilities of the State and the Individual to Public Welfare. The title is the biggest bit – trust me. Introduction This takes us from today’s news from America and the Duffy’s Cut project to a tiny hamlet in Northumberland, England, called Throckrington. Duffy’s [...]

Public Trained in Anti-terrorism Not content with charging us for our ‘freedom’ to have ID Cards and CCTV on every corner, not content from stopping us take photographs in public, our UK Government in the shape of Home Secretary wacky baccy Jacqui Smith now wants everyone to spy on everyone else ‘in case they’re a [...]

WARNING:  This Posting Contains Illegal Pictures I Can Be Imprisoned for Publishing Them. A little realised consequence of Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and the ramping up of common hysteria across the English speaking western world is, bizarrely, that it’s now illegal to take pictures of people commemorating, in a patriotic symbolic way, the lives and [...]

British Torture and Denial of Human Rights On the day that some Serbian leaders were convicted and others released as free men following charges for war crimes, (see Kosovo trial clears Serbia leader ), a UK minister, John Hutton, has “apologised for previously incorrect answers to MPs” (I’d call that lying in a normal language), and [...]

Bishop Richard Williamson says No Gas Cambers existed.. As time passes and memories of mass slaughter diminish, many people start to doubt that people could do such ghastly things to others.  They think, ‘can it really be true?  Surely not?’.  And so it is with the nutty Bishop. Don’t let his bumbling aristocratic ramblings fool [...]

Today is the anniversary of the founding of Soka Gakkai in 1930 and also the anniversary of the death of first president Mr Makiguchi in prison at the hands of the corrupt and fascist Japanese government during WW2, only 14 years later. This is the front page of our newspaper, Seikyo Shimbun.  The headline reads; [...]