• Firstly, my beloved explains why Dreamwidth is so awesome and why we are both so stoked about it. Another clue is in their diversity statement, which reads like the preamble to the constitution to me...


• We are having a Beltane Beer Festival at work, and you're all invited, if you can get to it!


• Perse posts a nice discursive post about the writing of New Who in dw_academy. Also, Daddies Richard and Alex might want to nosey at this post ;)


• Mr Quist strikes again in his puncturing of government.


• And finally, Lidl's most tempting offer yet - via huskyteer. Suspect hairygit will be especially interested in that one.

If you say all politicians are the same, that ANYONE who goes into politics is therefore the same… then no one is going to go into politics to CHANGE things. And that only helps the BAD ones.

The politicians have finally shut us out of their game for good and we have nowhere left to turn. We're not part of their world any more. We don't even speak the same language. We're the ants in their garden. The bacteria in their stools. They have nothing but contempt for us. They snivel and lie and duck questions on torture - on torture, for Christ's sake - while demanding we respect their authority. They monitor our every belch and fart, and insist it's all for our own good.

1. Chris Huhne launches the Freedom Bill, with the comment that Nineteen Eighty-Four was a warning, not a blueprint.

   Our first draft of the freedom bill contains 20 measures to restore the fundamental rights that have been stripped away in recent years. We would:
   
   • Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
   • Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
   • Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
   • Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
   • Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
   • Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
   • Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
   • Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the information commissioner and reducing exemptions.
   • Stop criminalising trespass.
   • Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
   • Prevent allegations of "bad character" from being used in court.
   • Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
   • Prevent bailiffs from using force.
   • Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
   • Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
   • Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
   • Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
   • Scrap the ministerial veto that allowed the government to block the release of cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
   • Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
   • Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.

   I agree with everything in it bar 1: 14 days detention without charge is far too long. There's lots more I would like to put in it as well, though. For instance, I think the first bullet needs "and the attendant database" inserting. How about you? What would you add?


2. Ground Zero. Use googlemaps to see what would happen if you dropped various sizes and styles of nuke on your house, or your workplace, or the houses of parliament

andrewhickey

Lib Dems disagree with each other openly, and put forward the evidence for their positions, and sometimes even change each other's minds. This sort of open communication is the political equivalent of the scientific method, and is the only way to get close to 'truth' in a political sense.

• Mat trying to start a fight with the local branch of CAMRA (who had pinched got our room by virtue of there being more of them)
• The gorgeous and Libertarian-esque Charlotte Gore turning up and being herself
• A very exciting and interesting legal discussion between myself and Hywel which did not result in everyone else turning away and discussing other stuff at all
• The local CAMRA leaving a large quantity of buffet (which they paid for and we ate)
• lots of lovely BEER
• ... and a rather nice single malt

Cancelling Labour party membership (re: #MPexpenses). Screw you guys, I'm joining the Lib Dems.

Fantasy Island

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

Start Trek: Space Seed

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

You can name the character Ricardo Montalbán played in:

Ricardo Montalbán was best known for playing:

1. It reinforces the idea that men don't need to worry about these issues, when in fact, they do


2. It makes sure that these issues are sidelined as unimportant in a party and a parliament which is still dominated by men, albeit mostly the kind of men who are quite open to women's issues


3. It gives the party's implicit approval to the classification of parenting and caring as women's work - especially in the use of the term maternity rather than parenting