A pungent mix of programming, philosophy, pedanticism, procrastination, perplexity, peripheral political polemic, and platters of preposterousness.
Woah, shit, someone’s been having too much fun with Amazon. Seriously, this is some spooky stuff. Of course, in saying that anybody who reads On Liberty is suspicious indicts everybody who has taken a political philosophy class - including many, many politicians. Wait, that’s a good thing. “;->”
Just found these excerpts from On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Excellent advice. Reminds me of the advice given by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his superb lectures on his appointment in 1913, to the University of Cambridge, called On the Art of Writing which I read while zooming down Oxford Street sitting on the upstairs back seat of a number nine bus a few months ago. I spent about three days digesting the lot. The result is an appreciation of when not to write. I have to prepare an essay and a lecture based on it for this Monday and next Monday respectively. I must have written three times the amount of material. Now I need to just print it out, remove all the rubbish, piece it all together like a jigsaw, then print it out again and remove all the rubbish. A few more iterations, and maybe two or three taped trial runs and I’ll be polished.
BBC News are reporting that the government are being asked to end school milk subsidies. This is an example of politics eating itself. Margaret Thatcher got holy hell from the left when she suggested getting rid of school milk subsidy back in the seventies. Now the same people who got stroppy with Maggie are doing exactly what she suggested. Gotta love those crazy beans in Westminster.
I just took the Web 2.0 Quiz. Got 9 out of 10. Not bad.
Ed Brayton thoroughly fisks Phyllis Schlaffly on ID. Someone has got to, I suppose. And considering the fact that nothing but shit comes from her mouth and her pen, I’m glad I’m not the one doing it. “:->”
Media Guardian are reporting that Fox are considering a revival for Futurama. Gee, isn’t that a good idea, considering that along with the Simpsons, it’s about the only good show that Fox has commissioned in the last few years.
Oh, DeadBrain is funny today. “It’s great to have Sir Bob on board, though not as you might have expected because of his possible appeal to the younger electorate - to be honest, 99% of them see right through his self serving antics… But having him around, with his incredibly grandiose delusions, colossal ego, and his hand wedged firmly up his own backside, does serve to bring back such happy memories of my days at Eton.”
BBC News are reporting that David Cameron is planning to introduce a policy of community work for school leavers. A compulsory scheme. Kind of like getting a job, but you don’t get paid. Kind of like studying, but you don’t learn anything. Fantastic idea, Dazza. I’m just trying to think of a country which had mandatory community involvement for youngsters to produce a “new National Movement” and “[a]n essential part of growing up to be a British citizen”. It was in Germany, and was very popular. Still can’t remember what it was called. Perhaps this’ll refresh my memory.
That said, the Tories now have RSS feeds and links to blogs by MPs, Councillors and other chunks of the Conservative movement. The Lib Dems also have RSS feeds but they don’t really advertise them too well (Google for rss site:libdems.org.uk to see them - even searching on the Lib Dem website brings up no results). Labour, of course, have no syndication at all. Guess that pretty much sums up their attitude to things like Freedom of Information.
BBC News are expecting that the cannabis reclassification decision will happen shortly. There’s only one good outcome: they’ll leave it how it is. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is bad. But it’s better than them doing anything. The only problem with cannabis is the possibility of getting locked up for using it. The best thing this government could do would be to legalise it completely tommorow. Any politician standing in my local area who promised to legalise cannabis completely - and signed a legal document stating the fact - would get my vote, and the vote of everybody I herded to the voting booth. Instead, anybody who wants to change their consciousness has to risk their liberty doing so.
The Government have waffled on, since the Licensing Act, about wanting to cultivate a “cafe culture” rather than a happy-hour culture (I’ll ignore the fact that, like community, the word culture is vastly overused). They want people to drink responsibly. You know what would make a big dent on that? Legalising Mary Jane would do a hell of a lot to help that. How many fights do you think the Amsterdam police have to break up in the coffeeshops?
David Cameron ought to get on with his promises. A Tory party who wanted to legalise drugs and cut back public spending. That would get me to the polls. We should totally ignore the UN and the WHO and traditional opinion. Cannabis must be legalised.
