What’s Up
Rave: XKCD Comics
Recently, we were given a board-game version of the World of Warcraft. It looked interesting and we decided to give it a go over the Christmas break.
Jaysus! It took us almost 2 hours to set the damn thing up and an hour or so later, I was mightily relieved to be eliminated from the game as my last hero bit the dust. I’m the first to admit that I’m hardly Mr Patient and the game is obviously complex, which means that it takes a while to get used to, but even so…
+25Another year passes…
Well, that’s 2008 finished. For many folks it’s not been a good one and I suspect that they are glad to put it behind them.
Beyond the impact of the credit crunch, the Russians and Georgians scrapping and the inevitable Christmas kickoff between Israel and Hamas, 2008 did have a few highlights. The election of Barrack Obama heralded the end of the Bush era and there’s not many of us outside the US who are sorry to see THAT happen.
+15Rant: And the hits keep on coming
Jaysuz! Ya couldn’t make it up could you? Just when you think that the finance watchdogs of the western world couldn’t fuck up any worse, along comes the story of Bernard Madoff and his 50 billion pyramid scheme.
Not only did the SEC fail to perform even a spot inspection of this geezer as a matter of routine, they appear to have entirely ignored / failed to act on information received from an apparently reliable source, advising them of the large-scale Ponzi fraud being perpetuated by Madoff for years!
+14An early Christmas present to myself
I’ve been thinking about buying a collapsible guitar that is suitable for stuffing in a large suitcase for some time now. After looking at what was available and chatting with a few enthusiasts of various models, I settled on the Yamaha SLG100S.
Collapsible guitars are suprisingly hard to get hold of; I looked at buying one from an online retailer, but couldn’t find a supplier that either a) was based outside the UK but willing to deliver to a UK address or b) was based in the UK, had one in stock, with a decent reputation and was able to deliver one in a reasonable time frame.
+14DNA Database Ruling: A Victory for Liberty
Yesterday’s news about the DNA database was most welcome to those of us concerned about the growing infringement of civil liberties here in the UK.
In one of the most decisive rulings to ever come out of the European Court of Human Rights’ (a unanimous ruling by 17 judges), the current policy of the Home Office to store DNA data of over 800,000 innocent citizens has effectively been shown to be what it is; a breach of civil liberties, which cannot be reasonably tolerated in a democratic society.
+26Hopeless Home Office Harasses Hookers’ Habitue’s
After months of head-scratching, endless policy committee meetings and (no doubt) lots of expensive conferences and retreats at the taxpayers expense, Jacqui Smith our latest “Home Office Hero” has presented plans to further criminalise men who pay for sex.
And no surprise that after all the hoo-hah we find that the half-baked proposals, presented to the public are pretty much exactly like Smith herself; well-intentioned…but entirely unfit for purpose.
+18US Election: a ray of hope
The US election results announced today are a significant milestone in many respects.
Beyond the obvious landmarks such as Barrack Obama’s ethnic background and the strong shift in voting trends from Republican to Democrat, today’s events herald a resurgence in many of the fundamental ideals and beliefs that the US has purported for many years, but has failed to live up to. Concepts such as freedom and liberty have throughout most of the post-war years been subverted by a series of administrations for the purposes of US hegemony, to the detriment of people the world over.
+10