OpenDemocracy.net employees given teleportation abilities

I know! I know! There is probably a very sensible REAL understanding of the below quote taken from Open Democracy's weekly e-mailer but honestly, I just find this slightly entertaining.

openDemocracy is recruiting. We have a current vacancy for a full time senior editor/journalist to run a new Russian section. London based, with frequent travel to Russia and some tele-commute possible.

[my bold]

Really! I expect that teleportation would be a REAL recruitment plus!

Blogging Vs. Mr Usmanov

GO and have a look at this post from Wardman Wire blog.

It has a great (less than 2 minute) snippet from parliament where MEP Tom Wise states out some of the problems not only with joining up our entire energy policy with the EU, but also the characters we will be forced to deal with.

Unsurprisingly it doesn't look good. Mr Usmanov for example isn't one for the right of free speech and (as you hear in the audio clip) was the one that (it is believed) ordered the shutting down of Georgian gas supplies not too long ago.

The plight of Iraqi interpreters

It is terrible, we should never do something as terrible as this to our allies. And these people are our allies in War and should be held as heros.

I want to add I found this on a random blog that I lost the page for... I think it is originally from Bloggerheads.com but as you could see, that site is down for the moment for reasons explained below and in many other areas of the blogging world.

New Computer

It seems as though my computer is on the way out... Its a shame but its totally breaking in every way on a regular basis... And frankly i can't be arsed about sorting it out so it lasts that little bit longer...

For those that know. How does the below budget computer sound for £355?

Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-12) Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty
GECUBE X1950Pro 512MB GDDR3 DVI PCI-E
Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB SATAII 16MB Cache 7200 RPM - OEM
Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3 nForce 550 Socket AM2 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz -L2 2MB (2 x 1MB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor

Tie-Dye Heart

Just a quick post to note the slight change to the lineup of this blog. You may have noticed that to the right there is a new section for Tie-Dye Heart that is a wonderful concoction of creative cartoons which are reputed to actually make you (yes you!) smile.

The Ultimate Steal!

Seems as though Microsoft is actually doing something nice for us that are Students.

The Link: www.theultimatesteal.co.uk/?cid=174

The Offer: Office 2007 Ultimate for £38.98

Niiice!

May have to get this when my loan comes through... or maybe tonight... Humm...

Grab it whilst you can!

Uk seeks new sea based resources in Atlantic

Apparently we (being the UK) are creating a new empire for ourselves.. Well according to the Guardian Today.

Plans are afoot to lay claim to extend territorial boundaries around our dependant colonies such as Ascension Island and the Falklands.

The Guardian in its traditional (ha) leftist, guilt ridden manor simply does not want our country to increase both its wealth and ability to ride any future impending fuel crisis that may or may not be effecting the world as fossil fuels run out.

Instead they weakly entitle the article with references to a new Empire - which will obviously be exploitative simply by the coining of the phrase - and ending with a comment about how Greenpeace sees the situation as a land-grab in the ocean. See the negative connotations they imply there? Well the rest of the article is nothing of the sort, a basic comment on the situation that even then forgets to comment on the possible benefits of such an increase in territory.

Shame that. It might actually good for us. I hope no-one else reports this story in a similar way.

British blogging in trouble.

It seems as though British blogging (at least of the political persuasion is mobilising to fend of the attack from an Uzbek businessman Alisher Usmanov. With multiple websites being taken down by the web hosts based not on truth, or proved libel but on simply the allegations of such. As a result within certain circles this story has begun to circulate and gain momentum and I would recommend having a look at both Mr Eugenide's post and the one on the Devil's Kitchen.

This story is seemingly scaring political bloggers silly. It shows how fragile this form of medium is to attack from anyone with both the money and bloodymindedness to believe they have the right to stifle free speech in another country.

In the US you have a First Amendment right to free speech. This has the effect, among other things, of making it rather harder to bully the little guy into silence. In Britain we have no such protection. As most of us use US-based blog platforms such as Google-owned Blogger, it’s unlikely that a thug like Usmanov would succeed in shutting us down if he didn’t like what we were writing (he could still sue us for libel, of course, but that’s a slightly different matter). But if a foreign businessman can have a whole network of blogs taken down in their entirety with just the threat of legal action, we're all in trouble. Next time, who's to say it won't be a politician? And then where does that leave us?
Taken from Mr Eugenides's post on Jewcy.com here.

One thing I am going to add here is not that we need any form of constitution within this country - such a written codification of rights is just as easily (or indeed more) circumvented by the powerful and the wealthy - but we need some sort of correcting institutional strength that can react to this form of new (at least the format is new) attack.

That is not to say that as the DK points out in the above article that the libel system is not flawed, but that a written constitution of any form is not the correct way in which rights should be defended in this country. It never has been, and (i hope) it never will.

OpenDemocracy.net

Just a quick post, mostly because I can't be arsed. but I have rediscovered a wonderful site for topical in-depth political review called Open Democracy.

At the moment it has articles at this moment in time touching on the Russian succession, the impending...issues surrounding Iran and things more closer to home with a look at Gordon Brown and the recent Northern Rock (near) collapse.

Anyway, go and have a look if you have an interest in politics of all natures!

Talk about a slow news day....

Talk about a slow news day, my usual 'I am bored at work, absent browsing of the internet action' of looking at my pageflakes site is just failing to come up with results. All my usual feeds are shockingly absent of news. Oh well.

Even so I would advise people to use Pageflakes as it is a great way to at a glance see al the news you may (or may not) want to see. My personal site is here. And is ace!

The pint is saved from Europe... Shame about the Foreign Policy

Look as though the pint is saved!

"Many traders and consumers might choose to celebrate the lifting of the threat with 0.57 litres of beer - better known as a pint."[see Guardian link]

EU plans to force the United Kingdom onto the metric system have ended, as the Guardian online reports.

Shame about our passports, which are now seemingly going to include aspects such as referring to us as 'EU Citizens' and the like. Something which I don't quite understand as we can only be citizens of a sovereign country and as far as I know the United Kingdom is still (officially at least, though that is a whole other discussion) sovereign over the British Isles. [Initially reported in the Yorkshire Post, but then reproduced on the Devil's Kitchen].

I can't help but agree with the hostile response that DK gives to the way in which the EU manages to surreptitiously attack at our sovereignty with the full knowledge that there is no way in hell this would be allowed if they didn't use such clandestine methods as described in the article. The best in my opinion is the intrinsically obsolete European Embassies that will be created that member states will be encouraged to sue as their own personal embasies in many areas of the world.

Sneaky buggers.

Lancaster UNI's sucess?

It seems as if Lancaster University can celebrate, as Forbes has it within it's top ten of institutions for 1 year MBAs in Business.

I suppose this is a good thing, but it also ignores a lot of what is happening at the University. Mainly that many of the other areas and subjects are wholeheartedly not being given the expected amount of support for what is becoming a prestigious University, not only on a National but also (as the above article shows) an international footing.

Perfect examples for this as I think are across the board. From the basic facilities of computers available seems to be much reduced as the tumultuous changes that are sweeping across campus and its collages is enacted. If this will ever be returned is anyones guess.

The collages themselves are being pushed from pillar to post with concerns about the viability of the Bars and regular nights out they run.

The Art department has in recent years has its very existence in doubt, with costs being cited as the reason. But this does seem to avoid the realities of University life as old of an experience of collective advancement in all areas of life. Without the Arts to go alongside the business school, Music orientated subjects or any and everything else the University will be a lesser institution than it is now.

This idea of money being a major focus within the University is deplorable on its own but its not even the worst of it. There is a wholehearted change from a Student focused approach within Universities to that of an 'Organization'. And 'Organizations' have no interest in the experience of the individuals involved. As a result the issues what now hold true are Money, resources, legislation, dry internal political fights and little else.