The Hull Daily Mail reports: Sir Bob Geldof was today throwing his celebrity weight behind former East Yorkshire MP David Davis’s decision to highlight the issue of civil liberties. Sir Bob – a close ally of Prime Minister Gordon Brown on tackling poverty and repression in Africa – was joining Mr Davis on the campaign trail in [...]

Here's something many people never expected to see; Gordon's told the Blairites that he wants to be friends. Including Peter and Alistair. how much trouble must the man be in for this?  

Africa Confidential has a fascinating round-up of events in Harare and beyond: The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had formally withdrawn but his name was still on the ballot paper (AC Vol 49 No 13). Few people bothered to vote. Even so, in some constituencies in Matebeleland, the combined number of spoiled ballots and votes for Tsvangirai outnumbered those for the unopposed President, Robert Mugabe.  

The Economist covers the bye-election campaign in Haltemprice and Howden: … thanks to its MP, David Davis, the seat has become a forum for the vexed debate on the trade-off between liberty and security that has gripped Westminster. On June 12th, the day after Parliament voted to extend maximum detention without charge for terrorist suspects from [...]

Dan Milmo writes on the Guardian’s web-site: Britain’s leading airline bosses have accused the government of using their industry as a political pawn in the national identity card debate by forcing aviation workers to join the scheme next year. In a scathing letter to the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, the chief executives of British Airways, easyJet, Virgin [...]

Ah, the reliable old African Union. Is there anyone out there who is surprised by their support for Mugabe and his election? The AU is the successor to the infamous Organisation of African Unity and that must have been in the running for the most odious organisation on the planet. No matter how disgusting you are, the OAU will open its arms to you. Members have included mass murderers, genocidists, cannibals, child rapists, the completely insane and the nastiest despots. Their annual conference was marked by two events every year: 1. A punchup on the conference floor2. Armed guards patrolling the hotel and conference floors to stop the delegates from killing each other. The thuggish behaviour of Mugabe's goons at the conference shows that a mere change of name hasn't really altered the brutal culture that the organisation either finds acceptable or is too supine to do anything about. One only has to look at Mbeki, the Neville Chamberlin of the continent, to see the continent wide failure of leadership the organisation represents, a failure his predecessor accused Mugabe of. It that all, Nelson? Is that all you noticed about Mugabe? Is that all you have to say? Still at least Mbeki was able to swap tips on curing AIDS with President Jammeh, who had a cure revealed to him in a dream and now treats people himself, but only on Thursdays.

STV reports a NO2ID protest at the final Home Office “ID card delivery consultation” in Edinburgh: Dressed as East German secret police officers and wearing bar-coded face masks to depict what they say are the de-humanising effects of ID cards, opponents of the government’s plans who gathered outside this Edinburgh hotel were determined to be noticed. [...]

posted by garrettc at 2008-07-01 12:35

1. garrettc: Also contains the antiparticle annex

I just read this “I still use Windows” statement. It hasn't always been pretty (see: Windows ME), but through it all I've figured out every little trick there is to know about running Windows. I'm a monster on Windows. Many times in the last ten years I've been told to switch to either Mac or Linux, and look!, I'm still using Windows. One day I'll do a list of my grudges, one of which is why on earth does Ubuntu run so nicely on my laptops from a live CD and fails miserably to do the same when installed (special keyboard keys, anyone?). And every time I get a “Did you download the latest and greatest version?” from one of my geeky friends or the other. And every time I get grumpy: I did download and burn a lot of distros in the last ten years, none of which did the trick. I gave away 25 distros on CDs a few months ago. That's right, twenty-five! And I tested them all in all those years! And I know all the ethical DRM problems with Windows etc., and I do agree with open-source people that the Windows way is not the right way. (By the way I'm all for open-source, basically the only main non-open-source software I'm using is my OS.) Don't bother replying if it's just to flame me or tell me how much better those other OS's are. Ten yeas ago I would have listened, because I wanted to learn and hack things together, now I don't have the time and energy for it. I want things to work for me, and Windows does the trick. I want to do web stuff and listen to my legal MP3s and view my photos and answer my email. And I want to be able to use all the Windows shortcuts that are now second nature to me. We'll see, one day. When Vista is the only breed of Windows available, I may reconsider. (Via the Standblog)

On the plus side, didn't the Eiffel Tower look great! Another good sign was Sarkozy's hour long address to the French people on television about his ambitions for the French Presidency. Can anyone imagine Gordon doing that? or even anyone watching? One thing is for certain, they won't cock it up as badly as Blair did to the UK Presidency - still regarded as one of the worst efforts in all time, so you can imagine there are some pretty strong contenters for that miserable title. Naturally he's opening with the "I will restore trust in the EU" line, an ambition more than a promise but it does show that he realises that the disconnection between the EU and its citizens is a huge problem. Has he any answers? "We have to profoundly change our way of building Europe." You bet. But that is going to need a back to square one approach and not a series of patch-up treaties. It's going to need fundamental reform, not just of EU institutions but of how the member states run Europe AND use it as a convenient excuse for any of their negotiating failures or similar. How can Sarkozy 'profoundly change' whilst keeping the agricultural subsidies the same? And as for the 60,000 EU Defence Force, I hope they've learned something from this little incident.

Adrian Ramsay writes in The New Statesman about David Davis and the Haltemprice and Howden bye-election: An even more systemised form of intrusion is the proposal for ID cards, and in particular the information database that sits behind them. David Davis is now voicing opposition to the scheme, but in 2004 he voted in favour of [...]

Spud joins Jake on a mission where they have to go undercover as students at the Huntsman's secret Huntsclan Training School, but when they stumble upon Rose, Jake tries to convince her to leave the Huntsman forever and come back to New York with him.

Tony Benn, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, lists the reasons why he supports David Davis’ re-election campaign: There are two other critical ways in which liberties are being eroded, both highlighted by Mr Davis. The first is identity cards. I have no objection to them in principle, because in the course of my life I have held [...]

Hugo Rifkind writes in The Spectator: Well I never. You think the government has taken its eye off the ball. You think they’ve got nothing to do except rear up in the Daily Mail to tell us how lucky we all are, or pen little slurs in political magazines because they are jealous that they never [...]

The home page of the Austrian government’s e-government web site shows the sort of excitement they hope the people of Austria will have for their ID scheme. Their banner (shown below) is emblazoned with the slogan: “Get yourself activated … get an electronic ID card!” Meanwhile the UK ID web site has gone with a much more [...]

We earlier reported an initiative about the EU certifying bloggers. EU Observer has an interesting report about the outcry from this, correctly noting that this is just a proposal at the moment. However, further down the report they do quote the proposal's originator, Ms Mikko MEP (Who hasn't replied to our email) saying Ms Mikko clarified her intentions: "We do not need to know the exact identity of bloggers. We need some credentials, a quality mark, a certain disclosure of who is writing and why. We need this to be able to trust and rely on the source." "The Economist is a valuable brand, its articles are trusted by readers without contributors having to reveal their names," she said. "If there is a way to validate the best bloggers the same way that publishing in the Economist validates its writers, it should be done." "It is clear that a Harvard professor of international relations is likely to treat, for instance, the Middle East peace process or European integration in an educated and balanced manner," she added. "The same trust cannot be put in a radical high school student from Gaza or a Eurosceptic who has never been out of his village" "The reader should know why this or that blogger should be trusted on a particular issue."  So, there you have it; there is a plan to have bloggers 'Officially Certified' by the EU. Lets hope sanity throws this idea onto the dustbin of history where it belongs. In the meantime, Ms Mikko can find our response by referring the reply given in Arkell Vs Pressdram.

posted by garrettc at 2008-06-26 20:29

Meet Meredith Grey, a woman trying to lead a real life while doing a job that makes having a real life impossible. Meredith is a first year surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital, the toughest surgical residency program west of Harvard. She and her fellow first-year interns were students yesterday; today they're doctors in a world where on the job training can be a matter of life and death. Such is the world of "Grey's Anatomy," ABC's midseason medical drama about young people struggling to become doctors and doctors struggling to remain human. It's a world filled with intensity, humor, sex and pain, in which the interns discover that neither medicine nor relationships can be defined in black and white -- real life only comes in shades of grey.

Dora has tried and tried, but she's never been able to climb all the way across the monkey bars. Dora and Boots set off for Play Park so Dora can give it another try.

posted by garrettc at 2008-06-26 11:54

1. garrettc: The simultaneous quadratic face nutrition delivery system
2. garrettc: Hat tip mefi