life, liberty and the pursuit of geekiness

If the politicians faff about in Westminster for much longer, the country is going to realise that it's chugging along quite nicely without a government, and throw the whole lot of them out on their ear.

I've agreed to do the marathon leg. Now I need to train a bit and extort money from people.

I kind of love JK Rowling: I’ve never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why.

The Digital Economy Bill passed last night. Hello, government powers to disconnect users and block websites that host or link to or intend to host copyright-infringing material (I believe this clause is still under negotiation/debate). This could include, oh, YouTube. LJ/DW. Google cache. Wikileaks. Something embarrassing to the government goes up on wikileaks? Infringing our copyright! Blocked!
I know this is probably the parliamentary equivalent of estimating 4 days instead of 2.5, just in case, but I've known 3-day estimates to turn into 5-week ones (looking at you, Typical Boydev).

You can use http://www.didmympshowupornot.com/ to find out whether your MP bothered to attend the debate or not. Neither mine nor my parents' did.

The government are trying to rush the Digital Economy Bill into law before they have to announce a General Election. It would put the onus on ISPs to prevent customers from downloading copyrighted material -- this would likely involve deep packet inspection, the digital equivalent of opening your letters. The cost of doing so will inevitable raise the price of internet access, and the wrong people will no doubt be disconnected. The fact that it came about in the present format by Mandelson cosying up to Big Media only adds nausea to indignation.

Write to your MP to ask them to have the bill properly debated.

Just when I thought my opinion of the DUP couldn't sink any lower, they go and vote for the 42 day detention, helping it scrape in.

Does nobody remember how wonderfully internment worked last time?? Obviously the DUP were on the side that wasn't getting locked up without trial, but you'd think they might possibly have caught a clue looking at the results.

Of course, I doubt very much the vote was from conviction. Whatever they were bought for, I hope it was something good. I'll just be off to rearrange my proportional representation order for the next election.

For crying out loud, even the BNP are against 42 days! You know there's got to be something wrong whenever your MPs are less in favour of civil liberties than the neo-Nazis.

So.

Ian Paisley is giving up leadership of the DUP.

It's not like I liked the man. And I think the DUP sold out. Nevertheless. It's like getting up in the morning and seeing that Cave Hill has shifted into the lough in the night.

For what length of time is it permissible to keep a borrowed book? The book in question is a mass market paperback of about 350 pages. I've had it for about 10 days already and I haven't had time to start it.

Ton that subject, is it just me, or are American mass market paperbacks of poorer quality than British ones? I've bought American editions of SF books off amazon, and nearly all of them have ink that smudges like newsprint (Baen Books, that's you I'm looking at), or text that is misaligned so that it's running down into the spine or off the edge of the page.

Somewhat to my surprise, it appears that the Assembly is actually going to assemble.

I was flicking through Michael Moore's Stupid White Men today. He takes a chapter off from Bush and Co to discuss global problem children...sure enough, the craziest corner of north Europe's in there.

His contribution to the solution of all Northern Ireland's problems? Convert the Protestants to Catholicism by force.

You know, he should have pitched that to the writers of Give My Head Peace instead.

First, Protestant does not equal Loyalist or even Unionist. Ditto Catholic and Republican/Nationalist. There's a very strong correlation, but it's not 100%.

Secondly, I know it's a joke. Lighten up, and all that. But you can only laugh about it if you've lived in the mess. How come the Palestinians got passive resistance, which might have a minuscule chance of making things better, and Northern Ireland got a sneer?

Than man spent pages and pages complaining that Bush is presiedent even though he had a minority of the votes. This seemed to get him very angry. So why is he even mentioning the equivalent of waving a sparkly wand at Democrats and crying 'You're a Republican'? So what does he mean, Britain has no right to Northern Ireland? Majorities win, NI has a Unionist majority, that's why it's part of the UK.

The problem with Northern Ireland isn't the Protestants; it's the inability of people to stop hating The Other Lot, the horrendously disadvantaged areas, the bastard gun-runners who are in the drugs these days, the economy that took off (goodness knows how when 65% of all jobs are in the public sector) and left the bottom section of the population behind, the paramilitary control of communities.

You know, I'd really like to see Mr Moore, a priest and a bucket of holy water in tow, set off up the Shankill to pacify Northern Ireland. On foot, if you please. I hope he isn't overly fond of his teeth. Or his kneecaps.

The council has put up Christmas lights. Gah.
I passed a woman in the street today selling little bunches of white heather. I didn't know anyone still did that nowadays.
So the American election is over. It always seems weird to me to have only two parties so if you don't like one there's only one alternative. Perhaps they need a Monster Raving Loony Party? In Northern Ireland we have 9 or 10 parties that run, though most of them are raving loonies. My voting doesn't have any effect on who's in power at Westminster, so it's mostly concentrated on Not Sinn Fein Or The Other Lot.