Random politically motivated blog

I'm starting to worry what this world is coming to.

Last night I watched a program on BBC news 24 about how America is getting paranoid about terrorist attacks, and heard of shocking abuses of power by the government all in the name of preventing terror attacks. Wooden bullets being fired at peaceful protesters against the iraq war. Peace activists getting on FBI 'no-fly' lists, and only being able to get on planes after repeated searching and humiliating questioning. Apparently the patriot act rushed through after the incidents of 11th of September 2001 (i refuse to call it 9/11 anymore) means that people on this list are not told why, how, when or even who maintains this list, understandably these people are taking the government to court. More worryingly, the patriot act II which is under construction, will mean that people are encouraged to spy on their neighbours, and also people can be detained without being told why, additionally, relatives will not be allowed to know if or why that person is detained.. is this the land of the free?

As the commentator they had brought in said, "the sort of police state America that will help prevent terrorism will not be the sort of america that americans want to live in."

And here, across the water, I feel that we are slipping the same way, and are not immune to the abuses of power by the US police/government. This morning i was reading Richard Stallman's website (not normally a man that i aggree with as he has quite wacky ideas about free software, and quite frankly i think he's a nut) and he had a link to the following article about shocking treatment of Innocent BRITISH nationals so much for President Blair and Prime Minister Bush's special relationship. (did I get that the wrong way around? not sure...)

To quote stallman:
"The choice of citizens of various allies as the first batch to be threatened with execution seems to be a calculated gesture of contempt towards those countries, a demonstration to them that they have to take a kick in the teeth from the US. I hope that the pressure in the UK builds up to the point that Blair will be unable to keep supporting Bush. "

Chilling stuff.

And now, from my view it looks as if the suspicious death of someone involved with the Iraq dossier "sexing up" has been brushed under the carpet by Blair with what amounts to him saying "I'm your prime minister how dare you question my rule"

Fatherland security... Homeland security.... what's the difference?

Week in, week out

Well, there goes the end of another week, it's far too bloody hot today!

Meal out on monday was very nice, had duck in some really nice sauce hmmmmmmmmm, can really reccoment "ostlers" in Worcester, and considering the quality of the food, it's reasonably priced too i suppose.

Wednesday was a bit of a news day for my broadband campaign which i have been trying to set up, finally, our exchange got an ADSL trigger level! and only 150 at that, and we already have 90-odd pre-registrations so only 50 or so to go! Put up some posters around the two villages covered by the exchange, and visited a couple of local businesses, will contact the school next week, and BT will have hopefully sent me some free leaflets by then to distribute.

Otherwise the week hasn't been that productive, had a pre-run-through for the big presentation at the end of the month, and it seemed that me and my colleague were the best prepared for out part, dispite me having only written the slides while the person beforehand was presenting their material!

Got my results on thursday night (early, as the published date was friday) and got an average of 65%, so hopefully if I can get my finger out i have the potential to get a first, but am on-track for a 2(i).

Speaking of the final year, I have made some contact with a tutor about a topic for my final project, and he seems initially keen with the title I have suggested, and there is also a prospect of some invlovement with work, which could potentially mean that they can supply some kit for me, splendid.


Can't wait to be back in aber now, want to get the third year underway.... Planning a trip over there at some point, but with a few commitments around here, I am not totally sure when that is going to be now, hopefully this coming weekend, but i'll have to enquire about who's going to be there, and also floor crashing availablility.

Well, quite a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, and I've not really had the time nor inclination to get around to getting this up to date.

After a lot of mulling over the options, I decided the most useful thing to do with birthday money would be to put it towards a new PC, so I splashed out (possibly irresponsibly) on a whole new PC, complete with splendid 17” TFT :) It arrived on friday well in time for my birthday today (I'm writing this at 2am).

We opened presents earlier tonight, got some nice things including a really cool glass cube with a 3d image somehow inexplicable etched in the middle of it :) Tonight we are going to really nice little restaurant in Worcester for dinner (nothing like playing happy families eh?) the same one that we went to for my 18th all those many moons ago.

Strangely the first birthday greeting i got today was a spam from “mypoints” hehe. Anyway, got to get some sleep.