Total rubbish

Hand over your rubbish...or else...

From this story:

concerned neighbours saw mysterious men emptying their bins into black sacks and loading them into an unmarked white van.

When homeowners questioned the official binmen an hour later they learned their council was conducting a survey of what was being thrown away.

Now, try as I might, I can't really link this in to The Warming hysteria, although the current Western obsession about all things environmental probably has something to do with it. The UK does seem to be leading the world in spying on their own citizens to ensure, amongst other things, efficient energy usage. And like every other viewer of CSI, I know that garbage left out on the street can't really be 'stolen', however I don't see the need for unmarked vans, hoodies and all the secrecy.

It's just a little...weird.

Escaped Libyan jailbirds - redux

Following up on my previous post of an 'escaped' convicted mass murderer, it's not like this is a surprise to anyone.

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

With any luck, this particular incident will bring down two corrupt governments, however the more things change....

Bacon Butties

From this story.

“Emma, said: "I'm a student and don't have time to exercise" she said "We all want to lose weight to stop the abuse we get in the street, but we don't know how."”

Here’s a thought...eat less, exercise more.

And the thing is, they're complaining that their welfare payments don't allow them to get enough food.

Offending Language

So I might have been a bit facetious about the removal of latin words from an English council communications, however this one just goes beyond the pale.

Imagine that, they're actually afraid of offending the Welsh. To put it in Australian terms, that's like Victorians being afraid of offending Tasmanians.

@#$! sake....

That "per se" is illegal

Re: this

(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller )

First they came for prima facie, but I thought nothing of it because it was first, and I said nothing
Then they came for status quo, but I thought socking it to "The Man" was OK, and I said nothing
Then they came for ad lib, as it was a bit spontaneous, so I said nothing
Then they came for pro rata, and I wasn't worried because it was only part of the full thing, and I said nothing
Then they came for et cetera, and it was all blah blah blah and so on, so I said nothing
Then they came for my bona fides, and there was no latin left.

A powerful Dame

From this story in The Age on Sunday 19th October:

"A FORMER head of Britain's security service, MI5, yesterday described the response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US as a "huge overreaction""

I would argue that a "huge overreaction" would have been the appearance of a mushroom cloud over a city (or cities), and anything else responding to a direct attack on a countries soil is, well, up for debate.

She goes further to say that:

"the invasion of Iraq influenced young men in Britain who turned to terrorism"

Ah yes, that old chestnut. Root causes, blah blah blah. Remember kiddies, once the Obamamessiah takes the whitehouse, this silly thing call "Islamic Terrorism" will just disappear, having exposed itself to be just a right-wing conspiracy operation under the evil supernatural powers of Bush, Blair and Howard.

The actual article appears to cherry pick statements by Dame Stella so I'm not 100% convinced she is in fact against the "war on terror" rhetoric that the paper makes out to be, but a quick Google shows that the first female director of one Britains super secret organisations, is really not media shy in the slightest.

In fact, she's bringing out a spy novel, and has no problem doing many interviews, some of which are really hard hitting:

"With her pastel pink jacket and a demure single strand of pearls, Rimington might look like a typical society matron in Masterpiece Theater"

So as much as I should defer to the opinion of someone who ran an intelligence agency, which clearly The Guardian and The Age would like us to listen to, it's a bit hard for me to take seriously someone who has to face down religious fanatics daily and protect the West doing puff-piece interviews wearing a "pastel pink jacket and a demure single strand of pearls".

At the very least she should be wearing a dark colour business suit....

Extraditing Speech

Re: this

This is not a good thing. Raiding a plane, arresting, and then extraditing someone on the basis of online expressions of view (now 3 years old) is an unfortunate picture of the future.

That his views were reprehensible, wrong and stupid is beside the point. Some European countries have laws against Holocaust denial, and paradoxically, laws against the expression of certain points of view do not protect free speech, they endanger it. The argument goes if only there was "more" limits to free speech, then the Nazis could not have come to power and the Holocaust would have never happened.

The Nazis did not need to suppress free speech, because when they were elected, they inherited a whole bunch of laws that the previous (Weimar republic) government had passed in relation to restraining free speech:

"The uncomfortable fact is that the Nazis didn’t invent the apparatus of power or culture of repression in Germany, they merely took control of, and perfected, an apparatus and culture that had already been created and used by “liberals” to combat extremism."

The fact that Mr Toben can be extradited from the UK to Germany under an EU arrest warrant should concern everyone. Today it is Holocaust denial; tomorrow, it could be "insulting religion" or "denying the Space Monkey", or "quoting an imam".

Free speech is perhaps the most important right we have inherited. The idea that that a transnational body can make and enforce speech codes is a grave concern to anyone that has ever expressed a point of view.

Big Brother is watching everyone

This is a reason why every one should educate themselves on the use of encryption and to be aware of their digital privacy.

Following this story, the implications, nay the actual reality is scary enough.

From the article:

"a UK citizen had been talking in an internet chatroom about self-harming, when local police tracked down his address via his IP number and ISP and intervened to save him."

Whilst I'm happy for the UK citizen not to have "been saved", I'm not sure allowing the Government full and restricted access to all electronic data on all private citizens was worth the price.

Imagine a day, not too far in the future, where the cops knock on your door because they felt that email you sent to your mum wasn't thankful enough for the chicken roast she made last night, or you get a visit from the Victorian Human Rights Commission because your anonymous comment on the Herald Sun blog was anti public breastfeeding, and we all know that's an incorrect opinion to hold.

The sheer volume of electronic footprints we generate every day is not such a concern, however the ability for the State to aggregate it and cross-reference it harkens a very dark and long night for individual rights.