Taking Out The Trash

Orwell online

I posted about this previously but Orwell's diaries have now started as a daily blog post.

Everyone loves pocket guides

I thought it was just protestors who carried little guides around with them telling what to do if nicked on a march.
According to documents posted on Indymedia; now the police have their own mini-guides.
This guide was recovered from the climate chaneg camp in Kent which has been the seen of some pretty dodgy policing so far. The NUJ made this statement on it.

Pesticides report

Interesting study from the Centre for Public Integrity in the US about poisonings from household chemicals. It questions whether manufacturers are doing enough to make their products safe.
You would think this report would have a bearing over here.
Even with our FOI laws and some sterling efforts one wonders if we could a get access to similar data in this country.

And this is leave?

Since self-employed men don't get paid paternity leave I've still got some writing to do while I take a couple of weeks 'off' welcoming daughter #3 into the world.
So it's 1,200 words on a renewable energy research centre, 1,700 words on a firm which manufacturers bomb-proof glass, a feature on the future of wind power and one on the changing technology of making films.
But what I'm really excited about is a trip to Salisbury Plain next week to see half a dozen companies compete in a competition to design a robot for fighting urban warfare.
Sad? Purile? Unhealthy?
Quite possibly - but you've got to love that variety.

A Good Bunch

Like Gavin Whenman, I'd seen the reports on Tory PPC Ian Oakley who was convicted of a campaign of harassment against political opponents.

The issue of councillors out of control came up in the pub recently after one of our parish meetings. Some of us idly discussed if we were vulnerable to fraud.

It seems our local school has spent £75,000 on some new play equipment. It's nice equipment, but £75K is an eye-watering amount. Especially as it appears the money was spent by the outgoing headteacher without the governors properly authorising it.

Could one of our councillors access such money and not have to account for it?

You can read the rest of my latest post on the Total Politics site here.

It's all in the breeding

Just caught this little gem from David Willetts, Conservative Shadow Higher Education Secretary, who has been furrowing his brow about the problem of marriage and the working classes.

Of course, he thinks, young men need to become apprentices to help them attract women! Willetts explained that apprenticeships should be 'part of a far bigger ambition to produce more marriageable working-class men, more stable families and less crime.'

'Women,' he claimed are: 'not feeling that they need to marry men because men are not earning enough to support them.'

I could take this apart (the sexism, the patronising class attitude) but the fword does it so much better.

Suffice to say that this is another example of how the Today programme exists in a temporal bubble all of its own. Someone from the 1950s could tune in to the programme and (apart from a few references to mobile phones) would feel perfectly at ease with it all. The chancellor gets interviewed, there is a feature on bird song, something about a social issue inspired by a story in The Archers and a debate over whether modern classical music is any good.
It's not hard to do contemporary and intelligent: Newsnight manages that on a daily basis.

Now we are five

Daughter number 3 arrived at 5.10pm at the materinty unit at Chippenham hospital. Weighing in at a healthy 7lb 15oz she and mum are fit and fine.
But I'll probably be a little light on the blogging for a few days.

Banged up

News of Barry George's acquittal of Jill Dando's murder should be of no surprise to anyone who has looked at the woefully inadequate evidence.
He seemed like another oddball who had been carved out as the patsy.
Mike Naughton and colleagues at the UK Innocence Project have done some good work on this case. Their work and of aligned groups is due some better recognition.
The silver lining is that the jury system once again showed it can work. I know it was a jury that convicted George in the first place but, generally, I think 12 people picked from the community have got the nous to understand evidence and sieve the motives of witnesses.
I back them against proposals to cut juries and leave justice to our 'betters'.

York Notes for nutters

Thanks to donpaskini for spotting this summer madness . . . an article that seriously poses the question: Will a Conservative government bring about a change in English literature for the better.
It includes such well-sourced and open-minded arguments as:

the current generations of leftist writers producing mindless drivel of cultural pap have put many more people off reading than they have attracted.

and

the UK literary industry (both state-funded and private) has long been (mis)managed by leftists

I think a Conservative government would spark an avalanche of creativity - but not one they will enjoy. Once the Cameroons get their teeth into the social security budget, education and the health service they'll be plenty to inspire artists. Anger is good for the creative juices; just look at the Iraq War. Do they expect a Dance To The Music of Time for the 21st century to come out of it? I think we'll get updated versions of this.

Democratic Society

Came across this blog from the Democratic Society which:

"exists to support political participation and improve democracy."

They've turned up some interesting items (I liked this on the chicken and egg debate about journalism and political coups). Well worth keeping an eye on.