Mat Bowles

I'm awake, honest. I've had enough coffee to get me going again anyway. Doing some tidying up to my LJ, renaming tags, etc. This seems like a good enough reason to rename one of them, plus 2008 has ended so it's time to start a new 'life' tag for this year.

Appears I've posted less about what's been going on in my life this year than any other calender year that I've had the LJ. I guess being happy gives me less to write about, right? Completely skint, but there y'go, can't have everything.

I don't do new years resolutions, and, well, predictions are a bit of a mugs game, but, well, might as well.

( UK: politics will dominate, likely election, bit of history explaining why )

( Obama's honeymoon, potential pitfalls, hope he holds it together )

( Europe, Referenda, Libertas and elections )

Meh, 7pm. Time to go pick the Shrub up from her Dad's.

Scarily, I agree with every damned word:

The Government has been saying, in a catchy, misleading piece of spin: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” This is a demagogue's trick. We do have something to fear - the total loss of privacy to an intrusive state with authoritarian tendencies.

This is not a United Kingdom that I recognise and Parliament should not accept it.

Why is it scary? Because it's bloody John Major, he who was Prime Minister when I was 18, he who I campaigned against in '92 and '97, he who resigned and put himself up for re election when I was at Glastonbury (and Jarvis mentioned it on stage to a massive cheer). It shows how far this Govt has gone from it's early promise that a liberal socialist like me can end up agreeing with a former Tory Prime Minister on a key plank of Govt legislation. Lest we forget, this is a man who was chairing a Cabinet meeting when the IRA mortar bombed his home & office, a man whose party and friends had nearly been destroyed by terrorists when they blew up Brighton. When he says this is an unnecessary step too far? For fucks sake Gordon, wake up and smell the coffee.

Jennie has more:

The debate before the house is not referring to the total period a person can be kept inside before they have to be released. This is, in fact, about whether or not we should have 42 days of imprisonment for people before they are even told what they are supposed to have done wrong.

42 days detention for being an alleged terrorist. Note the definition of terrorism includes a lot of animal rights activism and similar these days as well.

Gah!

You have one week before the deadline to sign this petition on the 10 Downing Street website:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stand on his head and juggle ice-cream.

Just, y'know, a reminder via bloggerheads

OK then; I've got so behind posting stuff that hald the links I stored are done already. Meh, have some of the best/more recent while I keep sorting things out.

Softpedia reports that Windows Vista is essentially spyware and Microsoft will be able to track a big chunk of what you do; yes, they're unlikely to pick on individuals, but the EULA gives them carte blanche to give everything away.

Cthuugle--the H. P. Lovecraft search engine. Do Werewolves Roam The Woods Of England? Probably not, but some interesting stuff, even if the guy writing it is a bit, shall we say, touched? How about instead a bunch of 3-D Starmaps? So very very cool.

Reading this Register article on Conservapedia I discover the wonder that is RationalWiki, a slightly satirical riposte to the loons and their delusions. Conservapedia has managed to clean up all the blatant vandalism that it got hit with soon after it launched. Now the edits are much more subtle.

On the subject of wikis, anyone fancy a game of Wikington Crescent? Very very silly way to kill time, but you never know. sunflowerkits recently attended a Gothic Bellydance workshop and has videos of some of the teachers dancing; it is actually very impressive, and I'm not just saying that because they're also quite hot.

On to a bit of politics. My old friend paulatpingu compares Gordon Brown's position to that of Londo Mollari. Yes, that Londo Mollari, the one with the silly hair and the tentacle penis. Scarily, he's actually got a point, although as I commented there it's not going to happen any time soon.

Silliness. Turn the subjects from any feed (including your public LJ posts) and burn them into Lol!cats. Results can vary between the impressive, the funny and the downright stupid. And of course there's an online macro generator, which even works from LJ userpics. Yes, I've ued it, and it's actually not a bad overall tool for quick-and-dirty actual design work.

Lastly? How about a survivors guide to Doctor Who fandom? So very true, especially the Rose-fen; I only really started follwing the online fans since Torchwood started, and seriously, they scare me. Especially the Jack/anto shippers. SRSLY, they're warped. Not interested? Ok, how about an economic argument against the smoking ban combined with an assertion that passive smoking isn't actually dangerous. Ok, that last comes from the Torygraph, and is thus a little sus, but not hugely, the science he researches is real, and I remain of the opinion that car exhaust fumes do more damage than someone else's smoke ever will.

Not bad that, cleaned 16 links out of the folder. You really don't want to know how many there are in total. Trust me on this. Oh, look at that, I've managed to do that silly Doctor Who quote meme without even trying. Bargain.

Righty ho--I said I was going to do this, but, y'know, life got in the way. So, of the current Cabinet, Blair and Prescott are retiring, and Reid says he doesn't want another cabinet job. Leaving a huge list of other people, of varying degrees of talent. Some of them I have a grudging respsct for, some I think are crap, some inspire intense loathing on site and a few, well, I'd not even heard of them--if I've not heard of a Cabinet level minister, let's hear it for Nonentities R Us, right? Following on from Paul Linford's list of a real "government of all the talents?", I give you a poll^[1].

Remember you can not tick a box for someone if you've never actually heard of them or have no real opinion, and this is a question of who's likely to be there, not who we want in/out. For example, I suspect Blears has secured herself a plum job, despite the visceral hatred many of us have for her, and I'm guessing Ruth Kelly will survive despite obvious unsuitability for her various recent roles--I really hope Brown moves her to a job without a clear conflict of interest though:
( Gordon Brown's Cabinet- who'll be in it? )

I'll pimp this poll about a bit, let's see how good LJ is at predicting El Gordo's actions...

---

[1] If you don't have a livejournal account but blog elsewhere, you can log in to LJ using any OpenID, including your technorati or typekey profile or your wordpress.com account and still vote in polls &c--not a bad little trick