Once again, I’m watching the BBC News, and once again, they are revelling in someone’s misery. This time, it’s a long, drawn out look at the families of some American miners who were mistakenly lead to believe that their loved ones had survied a mining accident, when in fact they hadn’t. And that’s now the entire story – the misery of the families – in minute by minute detail, illustrated in excruciating close-up for all to see.

In the reporting of any tragedy, there will be misery, but the BBC seem to be continually focused on it. They even have a section of the Breakfast program, at 8.20am each day, which seems strangely pre-disposed to getting on some members of the public who have something distressing happen to them – generally the death of a relative – and interview them about it. But why? Generally these people have nothing else to narrate to the world other than to delve into their personal misery. It’s not as if the story is of a courageous bounce back from tragedy to do something remarkable, they’re just victims.

And the BBC revel in it. You can feel them drooling over another story full of raw personal misery, just desperate to get them on air in all it’s glory. I wish they would stop.

“Intelligent Person in Thinking Clearly Shocker!”

Well, yes. Once again, someone who has their head firmly on their shoulders makes a case against ID cards. The flaws in the idea behind ID cards can be easily pointed out – such as the fact that they wouldn’t have helped prevent any of the terrorist attacks so far – but they do need repeating.

I hope Lord Mackenzie is a “former government crime advisor” because of his rubbishness of his advice:

“Let’s look at the Soham murders. If Ian Huntley had had an identity card, would he have got the job at Soham school which allowed him to commit the murders? I think not.”

Of course not. Let’s not point out the flaws in the way Police handle data (if indeed there were any problems), let’s blame the lack of ID cards. After all, never mind what else they’ll have stamped on them, I’m sure they’ll have “Possibly a Potential Murderer” written nice and bold across them too.

I’m with the naysayers on this one. The scenarios where ID cards will be of any use are when every person has only one card, and they can be used as absolute proof of identity. But that’s just not going to happen, not now, not anytime, so you may as well work from the assumption that some people won’t have them, and many people will have fake ones. So what’s the point in having them at all?

Last night at the bar, I was talking with some current union hacks (albeit one was an elected hack) about various things. Things such as space charging, the Royal College of Science Union (now that the RCS has been un-split-up by the Rector), and of course, disposing of dangerous materials. It’s amazing that the same things come up over and over again, year after year. What’s not so amazing is that nobody realises it’s all been discussed before, and they just keep rehashing the same rubbish solutions to the same problems as the last group of people.

Also, my favourite politician resigned (again) today. I’d love to say “good ridance”, but I know he’ll be back.

Politicians occaisionally go around wringing their hands, bemoaning the fact that the general populace don’t hold them in high regard (usually just after nobody bothers to vote at European elections). They usually flail around, looking for reasons for our general contempt for them, blaming politics for “not being exciting”, the media for portraying them in a bad light, and so on. But recently I’ve realised what makes me dislike politicians more than anything else – their complete impunity. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s front page news every day now, and it’s really starting to piss me off. The H5N1 strain of avain flu has now been found in Europe – big fucking deal. It was devastating poultry farms in Thailand when I was there back in January 2004 – almost two years ago – and poultry farmers were dying every day. But only poultry farmers. Everyone else just got on with it.

Think about this – it will eventually jump the species barrier, but where is that more likely to happen – here, where poultry farming is highly industrialised, or where people and animals share houses and streets with one another? And so if it’s going to jump the species barrier somewhere in South East Asia, what does it matter if migratory birds have flu in Greece? If there’s going to be a pandemic, then it’ll start somewhere, and arrive at Heathrow a day or two later. The newspapers seem to be making it out that we’re be doomed once it reaches our shores, and only when it reaches our shores, which is utter nonsense.

Moreover, why is this suddenly such a big deal? Has it escaped everyone’s notice that it’s been going on for years now? Has it become something montrously different now that some birds are dying – (gasp) in Europe?

Generally, we’re all pretty pathetic. Under-educated, over-sensitive, easily agitated, lacking in common sense and needing to brush up a bit on our sense of fatalism.

I know that society has a short-term memory problem, but this is getting ridiculous. Think back; long, long into the past; dredge through your oldest memories, and you’ll remember the story of Walter Wolfgang. Yes, just last week, an elderly pensioner was manhandled out of the Labour Party conference for heckling, along with another man for daring to suggest that the guards were being over the top. Now a party conference is, as far as I’m aware, a private event, so I guess it’s up to the Labour Party to decide how much of an ass it makes of itself. As far as I’m concerned, the fuss should be about police behaviour:

After being ejected Mr Wolfgang’s pass was seized and he was detained under the Terrorism Act when he tried to re-enter the conference on Wednesday.

Now colour me daft, but I thought that giving the police draconian powers under anti-terrorism laws was “OK”, because they’ll only use their powers for fighting terrorists, not pension-collecting hecklers at a private function.

Today, the home secretary is again drafting yet-more anti-terrorism laws (I guess the previous legislation was comprehensively well-thought out?). He wants to give the police even more draconian powers – namely to hold suspects for long enough that they’ll definitely lose their jobs, possibly their flats or homes, and generally fall out of society completely – without even having enough evidence to contemplate any charges. But it’s all right, he reassures us;

“The police use their existing detention powers cautiously and in moderation, and I am confident that they would use an amended power in the same careful fashion,”