An interesting article on the ridiculousness of Britain's libel laws:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/31/simon-singh-science
Recently in Politics Category
I just read this wonderful article by Andrew Rawnsley in the Guardian. It's truly tragic that our national debate is dominated by grubbiness on the part of our elected representatives. As Rawnsley says, more tragic still is the repeated, hollow cries of 'it was all within the rules'.
I do not believe for a second that our MPs, many of whom are very highly educated, believe for a second that the public's issue is whether or not they acted within a set of self-imposed, poorly-enforced rules. The issue is that what they are doing is clearly wrong.
A non-MP defrauding the taxman in this way would be jailed. MPs set their own guidelines, stretch them far beyond their spirit and to the very limits of their letter, and then complain when the taxpaying public and their other representatives, the media, take the time to notice. It's absurd, and I think that most MPs know that very well.
I'm all for MPs being paid better. We'll get better MPs that way.
The laser printer gets it, apparently.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/apr/24/gordon-brown-angry
I'm with Broon on this. Laser printers always deserve it.
I'm not an American, and I have nothing remotely profound to say about the wonderful spectacle of Obama's inauguration. Instead, I'll just quote this extraordinary passage:
As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
The article title speaks for itself.
America votes. It feels like the campaign has been running forever. At last it's here.
Good luck, friends. Pick a good one; we're counting on you.
SpaceShipTwo is nearing completion (reports The Register), and the era of commercial spaceflight beckons. I've tried to be cynical about it, but I just can't. It's a huge step in the right direction.
Anything that inspires people to look beyond the last 30 years' dreary lack of ambition in space is welcome. I live with my partner's two teenage children, and it's not exactly easy to prosthelytise the dream of space travel when all you have to offer them is a flying bus that occasionally explodes, and a space station that does, well, nothing really.
NASA have managed to make space travel less interesting than the Schumacher/Ferrari era of Formula One. I realise that they are bounded by funding, but the International Space Station is just the most boring and pointless object. We wanted a moonbase, we got an exercise in international diplomacy poorly disguised as a science and engineering project.
We're seven years past 2001, and Arthur C. Clarke's vision looks pitifully optimistic - an embarrassment, since predictions in almost all other technology areas have been so spectacularly exceeded.
I pray that Project Constellation pans out. I doubt that it will; certainly it will be delayed if Obama wins the presidency. (For the record: I want Obama to win; I just wish he'd get the money for his worthy programs from somewhere else. I'm not anti-McCain, but I am anti-Republican on their recent record.) I lack faith in the politicians to spend that much money something as intangible to voters as 'inspirational value'. 'Scientific benefit' has been oversold by NASA for decades and is even more laughably unlikely to win votes. People vote for money in their pockets, and anything above that requires Kennedy-like vision. An Obama victory would be a good thing, but JFK he ain't.
So bless you, Richard Branson. Make some money. Open people's eyes. I don't care if it's a tardy for-profit reenactment of Al Shepherd's spam-in-a-can ballistic flight on Mercury-Redstone 3 - Send 'em high, bring 'em back, make 'em beg for more. Anything, anything to reignite people's imagination.
An article in the Times today (as linked by slashdot) describes how an aide to Our Beloved Leader appears to have had his Blackberry stolen in a Chinese honeytrap.
It pleases me that, in this age of high-tech espionage and counter-espionage, the most effective way to steal secrets is still the oldest profession.
It pleases me that, in this age of high-tech espionage and counter-espionage, the most effective way to steal secrets is still the oldest profession.
