I happen to think that forcing Internet companies to keep track of every Internet service, website etc. that people have been using, so that the police can interrogate said database on request is a bad idea, and not really going to work. Discuss ...

HyperHam and I were headed into Central London last night (for a thoroughly enjoyable Airplane! Q&A, as it happens) when our bus hit gridlock around Oxford Circus. I’d assumed it was general Christmas shopping traffic, until I saw the cars on the other side of the road replaced by a crowd of protestors waving placards and marching headed in the ( Read more... )

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So it’s been two weeks since my last update of what the election candidates seem to be doing in the 78th Tory target seat of Hammersmith. So this is what I’ve been observing locally at least:

Labour

Labour have definitely gone for a personal approach. Aside from a couple of flyers stuffed through my letterbox (one of them on the day of the launch ( Read more... )

So finally, at long last, America has joined the rest of the world in offering near-universal healthcare to its’ citizens, instead of relying on a hodgepodge of private health insurance coverage. And about bloody time too, if my brief peek into the world of American healthcare was anything to go by.

Last summer, shove-this-job and I were having breakfast with ( Read more... )

would they want to charge overseas tourists $10 to register for the privilege of visiting America. So they can fund a travel tourism promotion group aimed at … getting overseas tourists to come to America. And explain to tourists why they have to be fingerprinted and give away lots of their personal details.

Nothing like being scanned for ( Read more... )

Remember Drop The Dead Donkey, the seminal UK sitcom set in a news-gathering organisation? And in particular, unscrupulous cameraman Damian Day, who would go so far as to punch a child in a war zone to get the crying shot he needed?

Look at this Associated Press photograph from the site of the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash in Beirut…

Mirrored ( Read more... )

The Evening Standard carries a story about a black couple, outraged that their waitress scribbled ‘black couple’ on their bill, when they were the only couple dining.

The thing is, I’ve kind of done this myself while running my parents’ Chinese takeaway, scribbling descriptive notes on their order because I have a huge tendency to forget which ( Read more... )

BBC News: “Some Anglican clergy have said they are ready to accept an offer to join the Roman Catholic Church at a meeting of about 600 conservative priests. … Many who are considering conversion are unhappy at women bishops being introduced into the Church of England.”

Mirrored from almost witty.