Archive for the ‘Current Affairs’ category

ID Cards in the UK

Thursday 25th September, 2008 @ 8.40am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

According to this story about ID cards by the BBC, the government is going to make foreign nationals carry an ID card before everyone else. They are going to make students and people with marriage/civil partnership visas have them first because they are apparently more likely to abuse them; I can see their point on that, but still. The whole system seems undermined by one minor detail, however, as this sentence from the BBC’s report states:

The card cannot be issued to people from most parts of Europe because they have the right to move freely in and out of the UK.

On a different note, there’s a new verb been invented by Phil Booth of the No2ID campaign:

Phil Booth, head of the national No2ID campaign group, attacked the roll-out of the cards as a “softening-up exercise”.

“The Home Office is trying to salami slice [sic; I'd have hyphenated it] the population to get this scheme going in any way they can,” Mr Booth told the BBC. [italics added]

To salami-slice; I wonder if you can only salami-slice non-salami things or if you can salami-slice salami as well.

Update: apparently salami tactics have been around for a while now, and were explained in Yes Prime Minister, as discussed on Simon Cozen’s blog. It’s damn sneaky, that’s for certain!

Still no mention of actual sausages, though.

Link sent by Colin.

posted in Current Affairs, Language and Linguistics | Tags: politics, telly, words | No Comments »

What’s the matter with Sunderland? | ukwatch.net

Tuesday 23rd September, 2008 @ 9.35pm BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

What’s the matter with Sunderland? | ukwatch.net

I haven’t got anything to say on the matter, I just thought I’d log it for future reference.

posted in Current Affairs | Tags: politics, Sunderland | No Comments »

Democracy?

Monday 22nd September, 2008 @ 10.56am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

Like the USA’s brand of democracy? Still like it after watching John Pilger’s film The War on Democracy? It’s disgusting, that’s what it is. Disgusting.

And Britain isn’t much better, with its constant pandering to the USA. I’m sickened and ashamed.

posted in Current Affairs | Tags: politics | No Comments »

No change there, then

Tuesday 8th July, 2008 @ 6.47am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

G8 summit: Gordon Brown has eight-course dinner before food crisis talks - Telegraph

Reassuring to see the politicians are being as hypocritical as ever.  Now excuse me while I chuck out a load of wasted food.

posted in Current Affairs | Tags: politicians | No Comments »

Scanning your privates

Wednesday 11th June, 2008 @ 9.07am BST Europe/London by Pandammonium

Security scans will show sex organs | NEWS.com.au

This is shocking! I hope it’s not true, or if it is, that it doesn’t catch on.

posted in Current Affairs | No Comments »

White Easter

Sunday 23rd March, 2008 @ 12.52pm GMT Europe/London by Pandammonium

I’m dreaming of a white Easter…

Just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? Still, that’s what we woke up to this morning. Snow, on Easter Sunday. I know Easter’s early this year, but it’s still not supposed to snow at Easter. It’s supposed to snow at Christmas, but it didn’t.

So, I spent Easter morning having a snowball fight, which I lost on hits because my throwing is dreadful, but won on stamina (because I had a sneaky method of keeping my hands warm and dry and my opponent, the Hubster, had bare hands) and building a snowman.

posted in Current Affairs, Life(style), Weather and seasons | Tags: Colin, Easter, snow, snowmen | No Comments »

Earthquake!

Wednesday 27th February, 2008 @ 10.14am GMT Europe/London by Pandammonium

Earthquake felt across much of UK - BBC News

Earthquake tremors felt in East - BBC News

I’ve never felt any of the earthquakes to hit Britain. Now I have.

It was weird. We were in bed, what with it being almost 1 a.m., but still awake, then the bed started swaying and the house swayed a bit as well. I thought it might be an earthquake, but nobody believed me. Not even myself.

Now, it turns out I was right!

posted in Current Affairs, Nature, Science and Technology | Tags: earthquakes | No Comments »