I got this attack leaflet through my door yesterday:

I know it’s an election, and all parties do this sort of thing, but I really with they wouldn’t. Anneliese Dodds is a good candidate, and while I’m unlikely to vote for her, this sort of mud slinging only makes me less likely to.

A while ago, as part of a 38 Degrees campaign, I wrote the the four candidates for the Reading East constituency in the upcoming election, asking their opinions on improved lobbying transparency, and urging them to pledge support for a mandatory register of parliamentary lobbyists. This was in-​part driven by my conviction that the recent Digital Economy Act was pushed through parliament largely due to intense lobbying from the music industry, and other “rights-​holder” groups, of which we, the electorate, have no oversight, or even visibility. It was also in-​part driven by my firmly held belief that secretive and unaccountable lobbying harms democracy and lowers confidence not just in our government, but in our system of government.

This is the mail I sent:

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GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson is back in the legal firing line, this time for spamming one of his supporters — the President of the Utah State Senate, Michael Waddoups — with “offensive” images from GTA4. Needless to say, Mr Waddoups is no longer quite so supportive of Mr Thompson and not only has he vowed not to support his anti-​game legislation again, he’s attempting to have him sued for misuse of email.

This sort of thing really makes Jacko no friends, and it’s tempting to think that he’s just a mad old fool who doesn’t realise he’s fast running out of them. My take on it is somewhat different though; if you actually look at how the man acts it’s clear that he’s not actually interested in making friends, or advancing his cause, or even in making money. What he craves is attention. It’s that simple; he wants people to notice him, and he’s realised the best way to manage that is to piss them off. He’s basically a troll, except that instead of hanging around on anonymous message boards annoying Star Trek fans, he’s quite successfully trolled the entire computer game industry, the US legal system and is moving on to their government. Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you that Jack Thompson is not an idiot at all; he’s the most successful troll the world has ever seen.

You have to respect him for that.

I was going to make some quip about Sarah Palin here, but really, I guess I just did. :)

So, it went through the Commons, after some wheeler-​dealing, and now has to get through the Lords.

At the risk of sounding like someone writing to The Times, I am appalled and disgusted that it’s got this far. There is no justification for holding members of the public for so long. A week sounds about right to me, any more than that is simply wrong. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?

Right now, I’m ashamed that I ever voted Labour, and I never will do again.

Excellent news! The Commons has voted in support of research on hybrid embryos. Needless to say, the uninformed are up in arms about the “army of Frankesteins” about to be unleashed, but I think everyone who understands the issues knows this is the right outcome.

So, the votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill are taking place over the next couple of days, with the big one — hybrid embryos — happening today.

The BBC has summarised the key points on both sides of the debate:

What are the arguments in favour of this process?

Scientists who advocate the work say the cells would allow them to study how genetic defects, which cause diseases such as Parkinson’s, develop.

They also say that stem cells’ ability to develop into different tissues mean it could be possible to use cells formed in this process to cure diseases.

Using animal eggs would enable scientists to overcome the problem that human eggs are in short supply.

What are the arguments against?

Opponents say it is tampering with nature, and is unethical.

On the one hand we have a set of reasoned arguments detailing specific predicted health benefits for thousands of people, and on the other we have “eewwww!”.

I really wish people would stop conflating their own squeamishness with their ethical position; it clouds important issues, like this, where the ethical position is surely the one that saves lives.

This is excellent news. I’ve always voted Liberal Democrat anyway (well except that time I helped vote Tony Blair into power¹,) but now there’s another reason to do so. Their new party leader, Nick Clegg, has come out in a radio interview and confirmed himself as an atheist. “Do you believe in God?” was the question, and “no” was the answer.

The show’s quick fire interview format forces short, unequivocal answers like that, so we shouldn’t read too much into the brevity of the answer, but it’s reassuring to note that he hasn’t gone back on the position when questioned about it afterwards. Unfortunately, he has said that he has enormous respect for religion (which must, surely, be a lie to soothe the religious voters — how can he respect such a vast, byzantine social construct, with all of it’s rules and regulations and restrictions of liberty and downright wackiness, when he doesn’t accept the one fundamental assertion they use to justify the whole sorry mess?) and, more worryingly, that since his wife is a Catholic, their children will be raised as Catholics. I don’t understand how anyone free from the mind-​virus of religion could willingly allow their own children to be infected with it.

But never mind; I can draw some comfort from that fact that if my vote ever leads to a landslide victory again (which is, admittedly, a very long shot with the Lib Dems,) that I won’t be handing power to someone who’s so far from my mindset that he’s actually afraid the country at large will think him a nutter if he’s honest about his degree of religiosity.

[^1]: I was a student, and only just old enough to vote when the 1997 general election came around. I can vividly remember sitting around with all my friends as the results came in, all of us buzzing with excitement as the Labour landslide became apparent. We’d obviously all voted for them, because students tend to vote left and because after chafing under 18 years of Tory rule, we just knew that a Labour victory would change the country for the better. When we saw those results come in, we really felt that our generation had made the difference, that we’d done what our parents never could; we’d kicked out the corrupt, right-​wing, authoritarian Tories and given power to a more honest, democratic alternative. We felt like we’d changed the world, and that it was a change for good. Ironic, really.

1. I was a student, and only just old enough to vote when the 1997 general election came around. I can vividly remember sitting around with all my friends as the results came in, all of us buzzing with excitement as the Labour landslide became apparent. We’d obviously all voted for them, because students tend to vote left and because after chafing under 18 years of Tory rule, we just knew that a Labour victory would change the country for the better. When we saw those results come in, we really felt that our generation had made the difference, that we’d done what our parents never could; we’d kicked out the corrupt, right-​wing, authoritarian Tories and given power to a more honest, democratic alternative. We felt like we’d changed the world, and that it was a change for good. Ironic, really. [↩]

Why is it whenever I read the name Halliburton it’s never because of some great philanthropic work they’ve done, or because of their contributions to charity. You never see anyone coming onto the news and thanking Halliburton for sorting their life out, do you? No; it’s always something like this.

I honestly don’t know what to say. It’s a good job my faith in basic human decency is more or less unshakable.

Thanks to Denialism for the link.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently; I’ve been busy enjoying a veritable cornucopia of symptoms for the past couple of weeks, and haven’t really been up to writing about much, even though there’s been plenty going on:

• The Texas Education Agency has fired Chris Comer, a staff member of nine years, for sending an email announcing a talk by a Barbara Forrest, a prominent critic of ID. The internet has been buzzing, and Forrest herself has written on how this proves her point that ID, rather than being a scientific position, is an attempt to force the religious right’s agenda into the classroom (and the public consciousness) through power-​politics and outright bullying. Just remember kids; it’s the Darwinists who have a shady global conspiracy to suppress the opposition and get people fired just for supporting ID.

• The British government has given up all pretense at seeking consensus and is forcing through legislation that will increase the time “suspected terrorists” can be held without charge. If you’re a UK citizen, you can register your displeasure by signing this petition. Please take the time; this is a hugely important issue that bears directly on our most important human rights.

• Some poor teacher was arrested, tried, jailed and then deported for calling a Teddy Bear Muhammad. Local people took exception to the fact that she wasn’t executed and took to the streets in protest. Governments the world over seem not to notice that whenever a group of people go batshit insane and start demanding innocent people are beheaded for some utterly trivial slight to their culture, those people always seem to be Muslim. The British public seems not to notice that the laws Gillian Gibbons were arrested under bear a striking resemblance to the laws our government put in place a few years back with the express purpose of arresting Muslims for making utterly trivial slights against our culture.

That’s probably enough for tonight. I should be back to a more reasonable posting-​schedule now, so if I think of anything else I missed, I’ll sneak it into a future post.

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