So when I saw bored and apparently unwashed people sheltering under insalubrious doorways on wet weekends, shouting for trade as they damply failed to shift copies of Socialist Worker magazine, my impressionable mind somehow associated them with my fear of punk. Maybe it was their utilitarian clothes, maybe some of them were socialist punks, it’s too long ago for me to remember accurately, but the punk manifesto was to shock, and it altered the perception of a small boy in Wales. Subsequently he learned, I learned, that the scary punks were mostly exceptionally nice people, but socialism somehow remained stuck with all kinds of negative baggage. Perhaps it was reinforced by the general public repeatedly voting for Conservative governments; I don’t know. It wasn’t until I’d left secondary school that we saw Margaret Thatcher leave 10 Downing Street (and I vividly remember Chris walking into the computer lab, arms aloft, beaming from ear to ear, proclaiming “Maggie’s out!”), yet even then it was another Conservative, John Major, who became PM and then won the 1992 election. 1992 was the first year in which I was eligible to vote in a general election and I didn’t bother, it seemed of no relevance to me.

In 1996, by happy chance, I stumbled onto a TV programme called The Mark Thomas Comedy Product. The blend of self-deprecating humour and sharp social observation (of how we all seem to fail despite our good intentions, and how our elected representatives and corporate leaders fail with far greater regularity and impact) had me enthralled. This was comedy at it’s best – Thomas acting as court jester for the British populace, speaking unsightly and apparently uninteresting truths; using comedy to bring them to virgin ears.

Back then I was still young enough that I really didn’t care about stuffy old politics, but this bloke was talking sense.

I’ve enjoyed many of his programmes since then, and in advance of his current tour he’s released a series of interviews as podcasts. So engaging and engrossing are they, that there’s been nothing else on my iPod for the last week. The topic at hand is the economy, including banking, tax, the credit crunch, the sub prime market, RBS, Northern Rock, corporate tax avoidance, international money movement and many other related things that are, when presented with a pinch of mirth, both interesting and entertaining.

The interviewees are a diverse group of unrelated socio-political campaigners who all share a common vision of “something better than the status quo”, including: Sargon Nissan & Josh Ryan-Collins of the New Economics Foundation, Austin Mitchell MP (Lab), Dr Paulo Dos Santos (lecturer in Economics), Paul Kenny, John Christensen, Prof. Prem Sikka (Essex), Faisal Rahman of the Fair Finance Campaign, Vince Cable MP (LibDem), Nick Dearden of Jubilee Debt Campaign, Richard Brooks, Paul Mason of Newsnight, Nick Hildyard of The Corner House, Prof. Richard Wilkinson (Em. Nott & Hon. UCL) and Gerry Gold of A World To Win.

The podcasts can be downloaded from Mark’s website, or for those with an iPod, free from the iTunes store.

And for a generally interesting read, try http://markthomasinfo.com/. It’s reassuring to know there are people like Mark, and his interviewees out in the world. Socialists really are a heartwarming and idealistic bunch (they’d have to be to survive a right wing Conservative government, followed by a right-of-centre Labour one) and they’re not in the least bit scary.

President Bush now warns his citizens that they are “in an urgent situation and the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act.” Bearing in mind the scale of the problem, and the urgency which President Bush describes, I started to wonder if there is a point of no return where he would be advised to declare a state of emergency. When martial law would enforce a period of reflection and allow the economy to steady itself (or allow any shape of rescue bill might to be pushed through, or around the House).

President Bush has previously joked that things would be a lot easier if the USA was a dictatorship, providing he was the dictator. So, just how bad would it have to get, for democracy to be suspended at the core of the capitalist free world?

(Lets not find out, eh?)

What do the petitioners think they are supporting?

The petition subtext highlights that there is already an effective travel tax administered through the cost of fuel: “The more you travel – the more tax you pay” it explains helpfully.

Next it goes for the heart strings, calling the proposed monitoring system “an unfair tax on those who live apart from families” and it pours pity on the “poorer people who will not be able to afford the high monthly costs“.

It rounds off with a stirring and simple plea: “Please Mr Blair – forget about road pricing and concentrate on improving our roads to reduce congestion.”

So that’s:

1. Standing up for poorer people,
2. Reuniting estranged families,
3. Caring for the commuter who’s stuck in congestion.

This is a petition (and therefore a million petitioners) with heart and compassion: it’s very warm and fuzzy, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

An Existing and Necessary Tax

The petition calls for road improvement but roads are not created or improved without investment. Funds don’t magically appear at the Dept. for Transport without tax, so the petition is implicit in it’s agreement that a travel tax is necessary, it’s just misguided about the most fair means of delivering it.

As the petition points out there is already an effective tax on travel, through fuel, but it neglects to mention that:

1. Poorer people are already affected by a high travel tax.
2. Families that live apart are already taxed when they travel to see each other.

So the warm and fuzzy words about “poorer people” and “families” obscure the real issue, that the petition is merely opposing is an alternative mechanism for taxation; not an additional tax.

Our Electric Future and the Green Tipping Point

Electric vehicles create less atmospheric pollution and less noise pollution than their combustion engined counterparts. At present, there are large tax incentives for people who switch to electric or hybrid vehicles in the combined form of a reduced road fund license fee, and a reduced need to purchase heavily taxed fuel.

There will hopefully come a time when a green tipping point is reached, where the number of alternatively powered vehicles is large enough that the fuel tax is no longer a viable mechanism for funding road maintenance.

This green tipping point cannot come soon enough, in my opinion, and it’s the reason why an alternative mechanism for travel tax is a necessity. Electric vehicles cannot travel without roads, so a travel tax will still be necessary, however, in urging the Prime Minister to abandon this line of investigation, the petitioners are supporting a taxation system that is becoming obsolete.

Diminishing Returns and Fairer Taxes

In recognizing that revenue from the existing fuel tax will diminish, we must also accept that a government that did not investigate alternative sources of funding should be accused of negligence and short-sighted governance. The government is only a representative of the people, so demanding the cessation of research into those alternatives is short sighted by the people who signed the petition.

An important aspect of a journey-based tax was overlooked in the simple text of the petition and it is this: once travel-tax is decoupled from fuel, it can be applied to the journey and the traveler directly, so if somebody who’s “poorer” is traveling, they may be able to travel at a lower tax rate.

Journeys to and from job interviews could be subject to tax incentives. Journeys during peak times could be charged at a higher rate, meaning those with good jobs who choose to commute in busy times every day would pay more. Family gatherings would end up costing less because they tend not to require peak period travel. In fact, all kinds of journeys could become subject to either incentives or penalties which overall would make travel taxation more fair.

The people who signed the petition didn’t see that – what they saw was an emotive plea that was not backed up by any real consideration for the facts.

Improved Planning

Todays monitoring systems can tell us that n-hundred-thousand vehicles pass a particular point on a particular motorway each day, which is quite useful for road planning. Knowing the entire journey of each of those vehicles will give a far greater insight into where and how specific roads should be improved (through the application of techniques such as Ant Colony Optimisation).

Conclusion: There is No Alternative to Journey-Based Tax

Road usage, and thus, congestion, will continue to increase. Without an improved mechanism of taxation on travel, the gradual switch to electric vehicles will result in reduced funds being available to the DfT for road maintenance. Poorer people will still be taxed as they are today, and families that live far apart will continue to be taxed at the same rate on journeys that take longer as peak time congestion increases because of an overburdened road infrastructure.

Road congestion will not just affect private citizens, the goods vehicles get stuck in jams too, which increases the delivery cost of whatever they’re carrying, which in turn is passed on to the consumer, a few pence added to an expensive item like a TV makes very little difference, but for companies that are hauling basics such as grain, fruit & veg, this puts a significant extra markup on everyday items that “poorer people” cannot afford not to buy.

An alternative journey-based taxation system, could encourage more flexible travel practices by all and enable travel by “poorer people” through targeted tax incentives and journey-based insurance policies. The empirical knowledge of the road network and it’s use would lead to more effective improvements that are targeted at the problems of congestion (rather than the symptoms, which are all that can be monitored by measuring traffic flow and choke points).

So looking at the subtext of the petition again and see how it stacks up:

1. Standing up for poorer people – failed – with high fuel-based taxes they’re no better off when traveling, and with increased freight costs, the basic cost of living will increase.
2. Reuniting estranged families – failed – with high fuel based charges and increasing congestion they’re worse off: it will take longer and thus cost more in fuel to get home.
3. Caring for the commuter who’s stuck in congestion – failed – with increased congestion and high fuel charges they’ll switch to an electric vehicle, but still be stuck in traffic, on a road system that is not properly maintained, so they’re worse off too!

One million people can be wrong. One million people put their name to a solution which only exacerbates the problems that they are hoping to solve.

Update: The Email Campaign & The Anti-Petition

Apparently the one-million mark was passed thanks to an email campaign that (for want of a better description) scare-mongered about the hardware costs for such a system, yet none of the figures suggested were verifiable, or very realistic. Then scare-mongered about the loss of civil liberties that the system might represent.

Looking around the web several people are commenting on the story, some highlight the hardware cost issue. Roo from The Book Garden pondered the foolishness of the whole petition. Conversely Gavin Ayling described it as “proof of a backlash against government misuse of power“, though I think a more realistic description is:

a worrying example of how people can be persuaded to do anything if you push the right emotional buttons and provide them with imbalanced information.

Derren Brown eat your heart out.

Sanity: An anti-petition!

Thankfully, there is some sanity and balance in the world.

Thank you Tim Lewis for starting an anti-petition to the above nonsense. Tim petitions the prime minister; “don’t scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.” His supporting text is rather eloquent, and makes for a far more convincing petition:

Having recently received an email asking me to sign the a petition to scrap the vehicle tracking policy, I’d like to propose the opposite. I strongly feel that driving is a privilege and not a right. There are simply too many cars on the road and too many people making journeys by car when they could simply walk or cycle. Thousands die every year in road accidents and many, like myself, are forced to risk our lives in trying to get to work in a sustainable manner. We are dependent of foreign oil and the wars to secure such resources will only get worse if we don’t curb our driving habits. Driving started off as a freedom but as we’ve redesigned our land around the auto mobile, rather than the pedestrian, it’s become nearly a necessity. It is, however, perfectly possible to live a successful, car-free life. I would like to advocate that this become the norm and if this law helps driving to become even less attractive than it already is, I’m all for it.

I am delighted to sign such a sensible petition.

Other voices…

People are starting to speak up about the road pricing scheme.

1. Paul Kingsnorth takes a more direct route than myself, lambasting the “petrol heads” supposing that “the next thing we know they’ll be campaigning to ban zebra crossings, ambulances and traffic lights on the grounds that they slow them down unacceptably.”
2. Clive Bates has some interesting thoughts on the numbers involved, and discusses why the many counter petitions are at a disadvantage.
3. Richard Dows wonders if the proposed system could help build “a truly worthwhile, cheap, eco-friendly, and on-time national transport grid?“
4. Brendan of the excellent PetrolPrices.org asks If the proposed system is a bad idea then how do you think motoring should be taxed in the future?

Reviewed at
Amazon.co.uk
In a society where the religious spectrum comprises atheists, agnostics, believers and fanatics, it’s the the atheists and agnostics that are often under represented in government due to a lack of union-style lobbying power that large religious organizations wield.

The pledge is therefore interesting because it may provide our elected representatives with a reason-based frame of reference against which to consider the demands of religious organizations, helping them be assessed equally on merit.

1. Will it make the necessary 625 pledges?
2. Will any MPs reject the book?
3. Will they have to declare it as a gift?

This raises many so many interesting questions!

1. A list of MP’s and their benefactors is being maintained on the web.
2. Find out more at PledgeBank: Church and State.

Jedi leaders from Coruscant to Endor say its teachings prevent its masters placing children with lifeform collectives that only comprise one or two genders and have threatened to close their adoption centres if bound by the Imperial Senate’s rules.

The Equality Act, due to come into effect in all star systems this April (no matter how far they are from the bright centre of the Universe) outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on any basis to any lifeform (excluding droids); so families with any number of genders will be able to adopt, even those with only one or two.

Jedi Master Leia Skywalker and a counterpart in The Empire, Grand Admiral Nooka, have written to Galactic Senator Shubi. They say “rights of conscience are insignificant compared to the power of the force, however well-meaning”, citing the late Lord Vader’s tragic personal story of poverty and neglect at the hands of a supposedly loving humanoid family comprising only two genders, which has resulted in the channeling of his anger for dictatorial gain.

Much of the evidence supporting the Jedi/Sith case was gathered by Jedi Master Kenobi during long term field research where he monitored the cognitive and emotional development of Lord Vader, who was then known only as “The Boy”.

Matter of conscience

The former arch-enemies point out that Lord Vader’s wayward tendencies can be directly attributed to his adoptive family having only two genders.

They also highlight that exceptions have already been made for those whose conscience dictates they cannot take part in certain work, such as doctors unwilling to perform surgery on gungans. There is the famous case where Jedi Master Kenobi himself refused to take part in the culmination of a duel with Lord Vader, becoming more powerful than his foe could possibly imagine as a result.

In a holo-chat earlier today Grand Admiral Nooka suggested that “when you over legislate and intervene too much in people’s private lives, in the long run you end up with a Death Star being used to cure all ills which it cannot”. Leia concurred, observing “the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

Han Solo could not be reached for comment, be we assume he might have said: Hokey religions and ancient prejudices are no match for good legislation.

Source: BBC News – Churches unite over adoption row
Image: Lucasfilm
See also: Richard Dawkins

Shortly after, I found myself thinking the unthinkable. I found myself thinking Republican thoughts.

A Loyal Subject

Immediately I glanced at the framed picture of Her Majesty above the fireplace and apologised – such pictures are common in every British household because they remind us of our place as loyal subjects of the realm.

I grew up in the knowledge that if you work hard, have a good career and try to make a really positive difference, then you’ll be happy, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a nice gong from the Queen that shows how much your effort is appreciated by the country.

Thinking the Unthinkable

My grandfather was honoured by the monarch twice – the DFC in 1945 by King George VI, and the MBE in 1976 by Queen Elizabeth II, so republican thoughts were unthinkable because they might somehow diminish the value of his contribution to the country. This is nonsense, of course, but it’s a thought pattern that I was allowing myself to lazily hold. My grandfather taught me better than that, he taught me to speak up.

Then yesterday the human rights thing hit me: I do not have the right to be monarch.

That simple fact is what made me realize I’m a closet republican; so deep in the closet that I had no idea. Of course, being British, I’m not in the closet, I’m in the cupboard. So I’ve decided to come out of the cupboard.

Retire The Monarchy

Since the existence of the monarchy is incompatible with Article 1 of the International Declaration of Human Rights, perhaps the monarchy should be retired.

Members of the royal family can continue to make a living doing public novelty appearances and in time, they’ll just become like everybody else: equal.

Thinking Ahead: The First British President

The Queen can (and I think should), enter herself as a candidate for the first British Presidency; but who else might run? Perhaps Tony Benn. Just the concept opens up so many new possibilities for the country, I can’t believe I was in the cupboard for so long.

Those users are primarily discovering public service information and not having an active say in government, but something is changing in a small but significant way: you can now petition the UK Prime Minister online. The dawn of digital democracy is upon us.

A beta test of the system has gone live on the UK government’s web site today, and it’s already attracting petitions on some controversial topics; everything from “Launch an independent public enquiry into the decision making process which lead to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.” to “Replace the national anthem with ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet”.

What’s particularly interesting about this site is that, because these are officially recorded petitions, they cannot easily be ignored, so if the UK gets a bee in it’s collective bonnet, this exists as a stark and instant way of making the powers that be sit up and take note.

Either that, or it will be so massively over-used or abused that the petitions will be ignored. Lets see how this one develops!

Try it: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/

The computer system that drives the test has been developed by mysociety.org and is freely available under the Affero GPL.

On 22nd March 2003, US President George W. Bush stated that the purpose of prosecuting the war in Iraq (aka “Operation Iraqi Freedom“) was: “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”.

The first two of those objectives can be classified as self defence, and have subsequently been the subject of much debate when no WMD’s were discovered and and no significant support to “terrorism” was shown to exist.

Arguing over these two points could continue all night, so having paid lip service to them, I shall instead focus on the third objective which is far more important for humanity. It is a noble and just objective to bestow freedom upon the people of a whole country.

In closing that same speech, Mr. Bush reinforced his message saying that the war was “a fight for the security of our nation and the peace of the world, and we will accept no outcome but victory.”

So, if the objective is to “free the Iraqi people” then “victory” can only be claimed when all Iraqi’s are offered complete and untainted freedom by being granted their Human Rights, without limitations.

Human Rights are not a utopian goal to be aimed for. They are the starting point for any democratic society; the absolute bare minimum.

Imposing the death penalty on any Iraqi citizen (including the former dictator) is a breach of Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

This therefore, is a problem, because it can be argued that any state which takes life, is no better than any individual or head of state that takes life; so the new regime is no better than the old one, which has been accused of myriad similar human rights violations.

If Saddam Hussain is executed, then victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom will be a long way off, because freedom for the Iraqi people will have been dealt a visible setback through the withholding of human rights for all Iraqi citizens.

More information on this subject can be found on the Amnesty International website.

Kudos must go to the big brains in Essex County Council; their recent decision to switch off street lights between midnight and 5am makes clear economic and ecological sense.

They’ve stated that in some places the lights will have to remain on, but hopefully the continuing commoditization of infrared movement sensors can enable Essex and (more impotantly) other councils to adopt more aggressive energy saving measures in the not too distant future, allowing us to have dark (or at least much dimmer streets) in places where animals aren’t moving.

So, that’s lower council tax, and the ability to see the starry night. Essex house prices just inflated again.

This morning on the BBC’s Breakfast Television programme we were treated to an interview with Alan Johnson MP, the Trade and Industry Secretary. The interview follows coverage of the the announcement that the government has ordered the Health and Safety Executive to assess all UK nuclear reactors.

In the interview Mr. Johnson ignored the questions and instead answered several easier ones that he felt the interviewer should have asked. During this dalliance into happy nuclear thoughts, Mr. Johnson repeated two statements that are so unbelieveably incorrect that I felt compelled to make a note of them, so that when he (and his political and business associates) at some point in the future venture that “nobody ever said X“, I will remember that he did indeed say it most emphatically.

Mr. Johnson’s incorrect assertions are:

1. Nuclear energy is carbon-free.
2. Nuclear energy is secure energy.

Later, Keith Parker (of the Nuclear Industry Association) was shown in a recorded statement saying that

Nuclear contributes to the long term security of energy supply as part of a diverse mix of energy sources, and it’s also a clean source of electricity generation, it doesn’t produce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

It looks like our elected representative for Hull (Mr. Johnson) has been fully briefed by Mr. Parker; both are indefensibly wrong.

Keith Parker and Alan Johnson are spouting fallacies in advance of a public consultation, in order to sway the public to their way of thinking – they’re attempting to influence the consultation. From Mr. Parker’s perspective, it makes sense, he’s representing the nuclear industry which has a rather definite vested interest in the continued usage of nuclear power. But to hear these fallacies argued so strongly by an MP was utterly repugnant.

Nuclear Energy is not Carbon Free

I’ll tackle the “nuclear carbon free myth” with a small analogy.

Twins Bob and Jimmy are chatting in the pub and agree to enter the local 10Km fun run. Several weeks later the day of the run arrives and Bob takes his place at the start. Jimmy joins him shortly afterwards and explains that he needed to fill his water bottle up. Bob teases Jimmy that they’re not running a marathon so water will be unnecessary. The race begins, and every kilometer, Jimmy takes a swig of water. Bob and Jimmy run together, and finish together. Bob and Jimmy’s family are waiting at the finish and are surprised at how Bob gulps down the water that they have with them. Jimmy, in comparison, appears fresh and needs no water at all.

The fact is both runners need water, but only Bob’s water usage is conspicuous because it occurs at the stage where it can be noticed.

Similarly, only one part of nuclear energy production, the part that is most visible to the public is “carbon free”. The process as a whole which involves the manufacture of enriched uranium is anything but “carbon free”, but industry representatives like Mr. Parker conveniently ignore this issue in their televised filibustering.

Mr. Johnson should know better. It’s certainly the case that the amount of CO₂ generated in the process as a whole will differ for each source of energy, but to present nuclear energy as a carbon free solution as Mr. Johnson did this morning, and to do so with a blatant disregard for valid questioning on national television, is wandering into the realms of negligence.

Nuclear Energy is not Secure Energy

The second major point that both parties covered was the fairly straightforward issue of energy security. The UK’s requirement is an energy industry that is capable of scaling it’s output to meet the needs of the public. The industry must therefore have a surplus of energy, or we will face the rolling blackouts or brownouts that have recently affected North America. To achieve this kind of surplus the UK must either generate or import energy.

The problem of importing energy is that that if you become reliant on it, market forces will drive the price up, a scenario which is increasingly likely as North Sea Gas fields are depleted. The Russia-Ukraine gas pricing row is a perfect example of this. The UK government is therefore forced to look to insular energy generation, and thus, the supposedly clean nuclear power is presented as a solution to our energy requirements.

Thus if importing energy is so insecure, generating it at home in nuclear power plants is the secure solution. This incidentally is a non-sequiteur.

There is an angle in the energy security debate that cannot be avoided due to our unavoidable involvement in international military operations through UN commitments. The arrest of ten terrorist suspects in Australia last November who, it was suggested, were planning to attack Australia’s only nuclear power plant, highlights the fact that such installations are certainly on the list of targets that “bad people” might select.

Distribution is Key

Knocking out a couple of nuclear power facilities is certainly unthinkable for normal people, but it is potentially possible for a few well equipped nutcases to achieve. Knocking out a distributed network with multiple energy sources is far more difficult however, and therefore far more secure.

This is the underlying theory behind the Internet, it was designed by DARPA to be a resilient network that could continue to function at near full capacity if one, or multiple nodes were to be destroyed through thermonuclear war.

So, if Nuclear Energy is not carbon-free, and not a secure energy source, what is in it for our government representatives? Does Alan Johnson MP know something we don’t or is he being deliberately naive?

What’s important for the UK right now is that people engage in an informed debate about how we want to live our lives and the legacy we aspire to leave our decendants.

If, at this juncture, we (the collective British democratic consciousness) opt to create more nuclear plants and they turn out to be global polluters, then several hundred years from now everything else that we stand for will appear irrelevant because our legacy will be an uninhabitable planet. We cannot even hide behind the ignorance of those who went before us, because thanks to the World Wide Web the information that is available to the general public is now infinitely richer – more is known, more is understood and with this increase in knowledge comes a greater collective social responsibility.

I’m certainly not saying Nuclear Power is entirely bad, it’s just that there are too many negatives associated with it at present for it to be a viable global option. Of course, if nuclear power is the wrong answer, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an obvious right answer that doesn’t have it’s problems or detractors.

So, debate is good, and debate now, whilst there is not a power crisis (unlike North America) is especially good, because we can take the time to consider and hopefully opt for, a fundamental change in the way we generate, share and use our power.

I’ll be wearing the yellow badge.

Update
A few people have asked if high resolution badge images are available for print purposes. Please contact the copyright holder OOA Fonden, who’s task is to make the logo available for use by the antinuclear movement world wide and to protect the integrity of the logo.

The fact that supporters of intelligent design are casting doubt on evolutionary theory is fine, it’s an important part of scientific method that our theoretical models are challenged; however, I must register my strong disapproval that the board has deemed it necessary to redefine “Science” in order to shoehorn justify their decision.

the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

Does anyone know where the new definition lives? I ask because it must be the same place that stores the new definitions for “bungling, botch, floundering, idiot, ignoramus, incompetent, inadequate, incapable, inept, negligent, unqualified, unobservant” and the phrase “Board of Education”.

The issue was discussed on BBC Radio 4 yesterday [requires Real Player].

Emeritus Professor Derek Denton (Biology, Univ. of Melbourne) presents a wonderful biological counter argument to the theory of intelligent design, suggesting that if it’s designed, then it wasn’t particularly intelligent.

Perhaps the Flying Spaghetti Monster will be pleased that His design is being critiqued in order that He may create a patch for Humanity 2.0 when He arrives on Earth.

Bearing in mind this attribution comes from two people (Prime Minister Mazen and Foreign Minister Shaath) who spoke directly to President Bush, who in turn spoke directly with (his) God, this appears likely to be a far more accurate transcript than any historical religious texts of similar conversations, which were typically written long after the events had occurred, and often recorded only hearsay.

What’s more, we are lucky enough to have a verbatim quotes from The Lord Himself, who apparently spake unto Mr. President thus:

• “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.”
• “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq”
• “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.”

Remember when the the buck stopped in the Oval Office?

The words of President Truman in his farewell address seem wonderfully fitting: “The President; whoever he is; has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”

The White House has, of course, poured scorn on the allegations.

Some of my immediate favourites include:

1. Earth
2. Kyoto
3. Fence Mending
4. Gas Can
5. Nonproliferation
6. Conserve

… and of course …

1. Do-Not-Call List (see also)

In his message Chris discusses the BBC Domesday Project that was compiled 15 years ago; and highlights the huge task that was required in order to rescue the data from digital obsolescence. The rescue is documented here. Chris argues that such obsolesence is built in to all digital content that is not stored in open document formats, and points out that hundreds of years from now, this content will be an archaeological goldmine, if it is accessible.

For governemnt documents, this may be particularly important, and Chris likens the process to reading the handwriting and decyphering the language written in archaeological documents that have been found that date back many hundreds of years.

There are two critical differences between open and closed standards from an archaeological point. Firstly, there is a greater likelyhood that the specifications will survive along with the documents, because copies of the standards are disseminated worldwide. Secondly, because more people have to work with the document standards, there is more likely to be open discussion about how they work – as opposed to the more limited discussion that may be contained within the opaque corporate walls that govern proprietary standards.

Recalling the BBC Domesday Project

I recall the Domesday Project very well because my sixth-form college was fortunate enough to have one in the library. In the days before the Web, in the days even before CD-ROM encyclopedias, when the floppy disk was still more than enough for holding several school assignments at once (including code, libraries, and the essay), the Domesday Book, with it’s laserdisc crammed full of explorable data was the ultimate in interactivity.

My college was a 2 hour walk from home, so I used to catch a bus. The picture here (which is extracted from the online Domesday Book project) shows the village of Dunvant, and the postbox where we used to stand whilst waiting for the bus to arrive as it snaked it’s way from Bishopston to Gorseinon. In the background of the picture is the Ebeneezer Congregational Chapel, the birthplace of the Dunvant Male-Voice Choir.

The fact that we could sit in the library and see the place where we caught the bus to get to the library seems commonplace today, but back then there was nothing like it. The BBC Domesday Project was the future, it suggested how amazing and information-rich that future might be. It’s now almost 20 years since the project began and it’s sometimes a little hard to grasp how far technology has developed.

The internet has provided an information source that’s millions of times times more complex, with millions more authors than the domesday book could have ever dreamed of, but what’s beautiful about the domesday project is that it is a snapshot in time, and (thanks to a lot of work converting the data to open standards) it is today, as Chris alludes, available online for everyone to enjoy.

Unlike commercial adverts there seem to be fewer restrictions on what political parties are allowed to do. So rather than promoting their own visions, the Labour and Conservative parties are spending money attacking each other.

The Conservative party in particular is scoring repeated own goals in this respect. One of their billboards attempts to attack the current Labour government’s handling of the National Health Service; but it merely succeeds in:

1. highlighting their naivety on bacteriological matters and
2. insulting the majority of hospital staff.

The second own goal by the tories is their stance on immigration. The “it’s not racist to impose limits on immigration” poster, and Michael Howard‘s accompanying filibustering cause me particular annoyance.

The immigration that most people are aware of is either the newsworthy illegal immigration, like when lorry loads of people die because they are so desparate to lead a life outside of squalour that they take any and every chance they have – or the similarly newsworthy stories of detained foreign nationals or social services scroungers. The overwhelming majority of immigrants get jobs, work hard and integrate with society – slowly at first perhaps, but within two generations the integration is complete. This doesn’t get reported on because it’s a slow burning, large scale success. It’s the rare cases that get picked upon by politicians seeking to further their own aims, and the tabloid press seeking to sell more papers by sensationalizing irregularities.

On it’s own, the poster is correct. Imposing limits in itself is not racist, because people of all races outside the country are similarly affected. Britain is already a mongrel nation in a mongral world, so the Conservative argument comes down to one of “we were here first so although we think it’s right to help immigrants enter the country, we will only help a set number of people from our collective tax pot in each year.”

On it’s own, this argument is likely to be defensible to the extent that newspapers and television programs will cover it; but this is not an isolated issue and it is only in isolation that the argument remains valid.

The Conservatives have justified their decision to focus attention on immigration by describing alarming statistics about population increase: if this is the case, then in isolation, the statement on the poster is alarmist and misleading for one very obvious reason: to impose limits on immigration, without imposing equally strict birth control for the existing population is hypocritical.

The right of entry into any country should be the same for all people irrespective of vessel: land, sea, air or birth canal.