Today is a day of hope for the USA (and, indeed, for the rest of the world). A large proportion of us are hoping for change in the USA. The three changes that I would most like to see are: A country that no longer believes that it should attack countries on the other side… Continue reading Hope
Tag: politics
Ministers Want To Conceal MPs’ Expenses
The government are seriously considering moves that will remove MPs’ expenses from the list of items that the public can demand to see under the Freedom of Information Act. I hope it’s obvious why that’s a terrible idea, but if you need convincing, please read Matt Wardman’s blog post on the subject. Writing on the… Continue reading Ministers Want To Conceal MPs’ Expenses
Happy Elections
Four years ago I drew a comparison between the US Presidential Election result and the 1992 British General Election. This year the comparison seems even more apt. The footage we saw of the celebrations in Chicago and elsewhere in the US as Obama was confirmed as the winner brought back memories of how we all… Continue reading Happy Elections
42 Days is Dead
It’s a strange world when you have to rely on the House of Lords to throw out ridiculous legislation from a Labour government. But that’s exactly what happened yesterday as the Lords voted against the government’s proposals for 42-day detention of suspected terrorists. Pretty much everyone in the country now agrees that the proposals were… Continue reading 42 Days is Dead
Is Sarah Palin a Wiccan?
This just came up in a discussion in the office. You read it here first. Sarah Palin claims to be a christian. If that’s the case then why are at least two of her children (Willow and Piper – I’m researching the others) named after teenage witches? I reckon she has wiccan sympathies. Does anyone… Continue reading Is Sarah Palin a Wiccan?
Showing Appreciation
I’ve mentioned here before that I run a small free software project which supplies simple web programs. The programs are quite widely used, but we generally only hear from the users when things go wrong. It was, therefore, nice to get a mail from someone who hadn’t had any problems and just wanted to say… Continue reading Showing Appreciation
Missing MPs’ Blogs
A while ago, I set up Planet Westminster – a pretty simple site that simply aggregates all of the MPs’ blogs that I could find. It was largely created to scratch a personal itch. I wanted a simple way to subscribe to all MPs’ blogs in my feed reader. And that’s really how I use… Continue reading Missing MPs’ Blogs
What I Did At Mashed 08
I was at Mashed 08 at Alexandra Palace yesterday. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to go back today, but I’ve made some progress on my project from home. It was a successful day all in all though. Here’s what I did. Watched Jonathan Tweed talk about the BBC /programmes api. If I hadn’t already had… Continue reading What I Did At Mashed 08
Political Web Sites
It’s the BBC Mashed hack session this coming weekend, so I suppose lots of people are trying to think of a project to work on. I have an idea that involves UK political web sites. I expect that most MPs have a web site. A far smaller number of them have a blog. Some of… Continue reading Political Web Sites
42 Is Not The Answer
Well that about wraps it up for the Labour Party as far as I’m concerned. Less than three years after they doubled the the amount of time that a suspect could be held without charge, they have pushed through a bill which increases the time by another 50%. If the bill gets through the Lords,… Continue reading 42 Is Not The Answer