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Human Rights Act
The UK's Human Rights Act 1998 embeds the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Given that the Convention was largely written by British Conservative lawyers, in the aftermath of WWII, it's rather disappointing that the current Tories want to remove these human-rights protections.
Amnesty International is campaigning against this: http ( Read more... ) -
What3Words is amusing.
http://what3words.com/ is a way of designating any point on Earth with three words, and a website to look them up. My front door is in square hats.brand.chimp, which I'll settle for, given how many hats I have on the coat-pegs. Thanks to gerisullivan -
The Open Rights Group
Is an independent pressure group campaigning for openness and freedom on the Internet. I've belonged to it for a couple of years. They're mostly funded by members' subscriptions, and are having a membership drive to enable some campaigning for the general election, mainly against the government's message of "Privacy means the terrorists win."One can use too much brandy, actually
When flaming a Christmas Pudding, 15cl of brandy is too much. It takes ten minutes to burn out, and the nether regions of the pudding become overly crisp, although their flavour is fine.My 2014 in 100 words
FrameMaker; Wendy; Citrus; MS-SDL; Windows 8.1; The Cardinal's Mistress; Embedded XP; Chicago; SHA-256; Rabul; Peenemünde; RHEL7; Daphne Oram; VC14; Reality quakes; JavaScript; Bethnal Green; John Lewis; Radio 3; Woolwich; Sea Serpents; Juliet McKenna; Princess Charlotte; Dr Bob; Anna; Frogmen; Mount Etna; Salamanders; Podcasting; B-axis; WinRT; ( Read more... )Tony Blair
I get quite a few "please sign our petition" e-mails, and I sign some of them. They all want you to pass them on, and I'm much more restrained about that. But the idea that Save The Children, a charity I had thought to be reasonably worthwhile, is giving Tony Blair an award for saving children is ... beyond polite description. There's a petition to ( Read more... )11th November 2018
Is, of course the centenary of Armistice Day, the end of fighting in the First World War. It's a Sunday, which means that the Remembrance Day ceremonies (always on a Sunday nowadays in the UK) will take place on the correct day. There are normally parades, the laying of wreaths and a two-minute silence; I expect that there will be extra elements ( Read more... )Sale of Tax Records, part 2
I had a response from my MP. He was noncommittal about LibDem policy, since he's in no position to make rulings, but he's not in favour of this.
Here's a petition to the head of HMRC about it:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/hmrc-petition
Sale of Tax Records
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/dont-sell-our-tax-data
Here's the letter I've just written to my MP:
Guardian ArticleThe government is intending to provide "anonymised" access to tax records. A senior Tory MP has described this as "borderline insane". I'd go considerably further than that. It will mean that people don't reveal their ( Read more... )Tories really not trying hard
Grant Shapps, Conservative Party Chairman, has said it's time to draw a line under the issue of Maria Miller's expenses, and the apparent attempt by one of Miler's staff to intimidate a newspaper that was investigating the story. Miller is the Culture Secretary, the minister responsible for regulation of the press ( Read more... )