Pete Ashton's Weblog

As you might imagine I'm not particularly overjoyed by the smoking ban in pubs and clubs but it's not going to be enforced for a good 15 months so there'll be time to adjust. Or emigrate.

What's really bugging me is the free vote. For the unaware, it's not normal practice for MPs to vote on an issue according to their opinions, beliefs and with regard to the wishes of their constituents. What usually happens is the government will propose a bill and the Whips force their members to vote for it through bribes, threats and so on. (You want that Junior Minister position? better toe the line.) Meanwhile the opposition MPs will be forced to vote against the bill no matter what it is in an attempt to embarrass the government. In situations (such as now) where the government has a significant majority this means pretty much every government bill gets past unless it's utterly stupid.

Yesterday, however, the whip system was lifted, not because it seemed like a good idea to allow MPs to really think through the issues and come to their own conclusions but because the government feared they might loose (and couldn't really decide where they stood on the issue to begin with) so they opened it up to save face. This is seen as an embarrassment, a failure to develop a coherent policy and revealing splits at the highest levels of government.

So let me get this straight. The free vote encourages debate, forces the MPs to think and produces a result that is representative of the opinions of our representatives in parliament. A whipped vote doesn't. And a free vote is a bad thing? Surely every vote should be a free vote? Wouldn't that be, y'know, democratic?

And more to the point, why aren't the press making a bigger deal about this?

Ok, the Mohammed cartoons. As Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter puts it, "probably the biggest international news story with cartoons at its center in the history of the medium" which makes the relative silence on the issue from comics nerds, who have over the last couple of decades been rabbiting on about the power of cartooning and the effectiveness of the medium in communicating ideas, somewhat ironic methinks. Here we are with half the world in uproar over a bunch of gag cartoons and everyone's gone silent.

(At least I haven't noticed anything, but granted I'm not exactly in the middle of the comics community at the moment, so maybe I missed Team Comix getting all vocal on this issue. Feel free to point me in that direction if I'm wrong.)

But still, this is the comics/cartooning medium, of which I'm on record as "caring a bit about", and the world of religion, of which I'm on record as "thinking a bit stupid", so it should be pretty clear cut where I stand on this.

Except it's all a bit complicated. Unfortunately the cartoons (which if you haven't seen them already are on this page about 2/3 down) are kinda shit. Not only that but they were published in what I understand to be a right-wing newspaper on a par with the Express in a country which doesn't have a particularly good track record on dealing with its darker-skinned immigrant population. Parallels can be drawn with pre-war caricatures of Jews in Germany along with the depictions of orientals in 1940s American comics. There's no place for this kind of thing and it deserves to be shouted down.

(Although it must be said that the "Stop! We've run out of virgins!" one is kinda funny.)

On the other hand, the argument that these cartoons shouldn't have been printed soley because they depict Mohammed and for no other reason is... well...

Religion, eh?

I mean, you've got some seriously meaty issues here. Racism, tolerance, imperialism, terrorism, war, economics... But the thing that gets people out there setting fire to embassies (and let's not forget the importance of an embassy in political terms - you might as well invade the country itself) is the visual representation of a man who some people believe to be a prophet.

I'd like to think these cartoons were just the spark that set off a powder keg that has been ignored for far too long. A handy scapegoat for both sides that avoids the bigger more complicated issues, rather like chat rooms being blamed for paedophilia and heavy metal for teenage suicide. I'd like to think that, but unfortunately I think this is a case of stupid bigotry meeting stupid religion and we're just going to have to reap what has been sown.

Here's a simplified example. If Muslims (or more accurately people living in the Middle East in countries that are predominantly populated by persons of the Muslim faith) were to object to these cartoons on the basis that they're racist, inflammatory nonsense then they'd have to put their own house in order and stop printing the same about Israel but objecting on the graven images of Mohammed basis means they can avoid that. On the other hand the Europeans avoid the cancer of racism in their countries by citing freedom of expression, neglecting to remember that with freedom comes a shitload of responsibility and doesn't include shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

Idiots, the lot of them...

[Update: Wikipedia on the controversy including the cartoons themselves. | The Comics Journal message board where comics luminaries swerve around the point a bit, only occasionally hitting it.]

In 1999 the cartoonist of some note Ed Hillyer did a comic called End of the Century Club. The second volume, Countdown opened with a big party celebrating the demise of Margaret Thatcher - ding, dong, the witch is dead, and all that. Reading it I reminded me of that legendary day on November 22nd 1990 when she resigned as Prime Minister. I was at 6th form college at the time and the school was torn between the majority dancing with joy and a the minority stomping around with indignant horror, that their glorious leader could be betrayed in such a fashion. But regardless of how you felt about the woman (and it's safe to say I was happy to see her go) you couldn't help be affected by her. For anyone who came of age prior to or during her reign (and it was a reign) Thatcher and all she stood for is a powerful focal point.

And at some point, probably fairly soon, she's going to die.

I have to say I'm not chomping at the bit to dance in the streets but I'm very curious to see what does happen when she passes on. There really hasn't been a public figure that evokes such strong feelings of loathing since Thatcher. Yes, people say they hate Blair but their hatred always seems a little bit shallow, like they really want to hate him but there isn't much there to hate, and it just reflects badly on the wannabe hater. Pity him, dislike him, worry about him, yes, but such a strong emotion as hate? He doesn't really deserve it. Thatcher, however, she was someone to hate. She reveled in it. And I wonder if those emotions will still be strong enough when this old lady shrugs off her mortal coil. I wonder if level-headed people who pondered Edward Heath or shrugged at Lady Di will find their fists pumping in the air when it happens. I wonder if pints will be raised and Billy Bragg songs played in jukeboxes throughout the land. Or has enough time passed that memories been softened and since the young people don't really know what she's about it doesn't really matter in this day and age.

Part of me (I'll admit, a fairly significant part of me) really wants there to be some kind of spontaneous celebration, not so much to piss on her grave as to reaffirm to our glorious leaders that whatever the long term benefits of her rule (and I accept, grudgingly, that there may have been some, even if the costs were somewhat high) a part, possibly a significant part of the British public weren't too happy about it and still bear a grudge.

But it's still kinda weird. There's "Thatcher" the icon, there to be loved and despised as you see fit, and there's Margaret the old, frail woman. Is it socially acceptable to still hate her after all these years?

I guess we'll find out sooner or later...

Around lunchtime today I wandered down the two flights of stairs from my "office" to the "canteen" and stuck some eggs to boil on the hob. Normally I'd set the alarm on my mobile, go back to work and come down when they're done, but since the kitchen is such a distinctly detached part of the flat it felt like a refuge, especially as I had none of my usual entertainment gubbins in there - no music, no books, no comics, no computer. Just a crappy alarm-clock-radio. So I tuned it to Radio 4 and listened to The Archers for the first time in, ooh, 18 months? In fact it was the first time I'd listened to Radio 4 live in ages - there was never any point when I could pick and choose through the listen again thingy. As I sat there, drinking my tea while my eggs boiled and Joe Grundy moaned about something unintelligible, it all felt very civilised.

I also caught the news, and as you'll know a significant chunk of the BBC was on strike today. What struck me was how balanced the reporting was. Not really surprising given that those making the news were reporting their own situation, but quite different to how industrial disputes are usually covered. Whenever there's a transport-related strike much is said about potential disruption and the measures being taken to minimize it but very little is said about why the strike has been called. And if it is revealed that it's all about pay and working conditions nothing is said about the fact that that's the only thing unions are allowed to strike about (I could be wrong about this - if you know better please leave a comment).

I remember during my time in London seeing signs outside tube stations by the management apologizing but not taking responsibility for the strike, implicitly putting all the blame on the staff for making our journey to work more interesting. It would have been nice to see a notice in the same spirit as this Q&A on the BBC News site. Since London Underground passengers effectively pay the wages of those striking it would be the honorable thing to give them the whole story. I guess that's the difference between the public service mindset and the private corporate way.

(Of course it could be that the BBC wasn't actually able to gather any other in-depth news today so they were forced to pad things out with what was going on on their doorstep.)

See also Martin Currybet on why he was on strike.

Well, another election, another all nighter. I realise most people have normal jobs and lives and can't stay up all the way through, but there's something about that stage around 5.00am when the result is in, everyone's knackered and guards come down. The odd thing was this year you could see politicians struggling to keep going, as if the next election campaign had just started and this was just a staging post. Which in a way it is. Nothing much has changed and yet everything has. Labour still have a significant majority, again with a relatively small share of the vote, while the Tories have less seats than Michael Foot managed in Thatcher's heyday. But the landscape has shifted tremendously. For a start we pretty much have a three party political system but more significantly there is no national pattern. So many battles came down to local issues and quirks in a stark contrast to the strict whip system and single party domination we've become used to of late.

It could be said that the British people are fed up with being patronised by monolithic political parties and are striking out randomly, but the British people are always fed up about something. I think this fracturing has more to do with the convergence of the main parties which previously I would have considered a problem but the effects of this are looking interesting. If you cannot choose between Labour and the Lib Dems, or the Conservatives and Labour or the Lib Dems and the Conservatives and you don't want to vote for a single issue minority candidate then you're forced to actually look at the candidates as people, judge them for what they actually believe in and, if they're incumbent, what they've actually done. And thanks to services like They Work For You (remember when they only place you could read Hansard was in the reference library?) you can get at least a sketch of what they're like. I could be wrong but I sensed this was having a small effect last night. Politicians seemed genuinely aware of what their constituents were saying and that they were being watched, and not just Labour politicians either. After the first port of call - finding out where your MP stood on Iraq - people seem to have dug deeper.

I'm probably being overly optimistic and forgetting that this is an election so politicians naturally give excessive lip-service to the electorate, but if I'm even a fraction right this is a good thing. Our electoral system might be terribly flawed, our system of representation not very representational and the quality of our leaders somewhat on the megalomaniacal side, but like some rapidly evolving beast with 30 million heads we're figuring out ways to make the best of a bad situation. Which is terribly British of us, I must say.

So, given my usual unremitting cynicism about the British political system, I'm feeling oddly positive this morning. For the first time in my life we have a political landscape where, within reason, level headed democracy can actually happen. The balance of power seems to be that Labour can get on with running the country but can't necessarily implement their wacky jazz-hands ideas while the other two can finally start being a proper opposition, since they all seem to want the same things anyway.

And while the victory of Galloway in Tower Hamlets was rather annoying (as an ex-resident I'm with Diamond Geezer on this), allowing for the hospital guy and the no-all-women-shortlists guy, most of the single issue candidates were wiped out. (Yes, the BNP got 3% of the vote which is 3% too much but it's still only 3%.) And I think this is a good thing. Why I think it's a good thing will have to wait for another time.

And as for how I voted... well, since it was the first time in thirteen years that I actually voted for someone rather than spoil my paper (or go to spoil my paper and discover I wasn't on the electoral roll anyway), I think I'll keep it to myself.

Having confirmed my move to Borneville with both the old and new landlords I set off to the pub on Saturday evening thinking about how I wouldn't be making this journey come June. As I approached the bus stop I was greeted by this sticker:

Which kinda put the BNP stickers into some perspective. Since folk are posting a load of election posters and leaflets to the Flickr General Election pool I took and shot and later uploaded it.

However, on coming home drunk at 2am I tore the sticker, not completely, just enough to remove the URL but leave the swastika. I mentioned this on the Flickr post and it's started an interesting debate both on Flickr and on Stef's blog (which I've been reading for a while). So, should you wish to join in...

When I was younger, growing up in Croydon during the late 80s, I didn't feel particularly patriotic. As ever the reasons are complicated by the naive idiocy of youth along with a hefty dose of nihilism but one of the main reasons, or at least the reason that still stands up to scrutiny, was that people I didn't like tended to be patriotic, ergo I wasn't patriotic. Thatcher covered herself in the Union Jack for a start, and then there were footballs fans. There wasn't some complicated socio-political thing going on - I didn't like the Tories and I didn't like football. Since the teenage way of expressing your distaste with something is to reject everything everything associated with it, I rejected patriotism.

Then when I was 16 I went to the States to visit my dad for the first time in years (messy divorce, ask me another time) and I remember being very aware of my Britishness, which isn't hard as Americans, and particularly Texans in my experience, are endlessly fascinated by us. As, I should add, are we of them. But anyway, I started noticing things about me, things I liked and things I believed in, that could only be explained by the country in which I grew up. Did this make me patriotic? Is there any real difference between identifying with things this country had infused me with and loving this country?

Skip forwards a fair number of years and bring the internet into play. Since it's inherently untrustworthy and full of errors, one has to develop a system of filtering in order to get the most out of it. Who has written this? Who linked to it? Who links to the person who linked to it? What else do they write about? What communities to they belong to? Why should I listen to them?

Another way of sorting it all is to make snap judgments based on appearances, just like in the real world. I'm guessing the what we're looking for when we do this is someone who is kinda like us. So since I'll be holding myself in very high regard when judging others I'll be looking to see if they write well in a slightly self-depreciating, witty and insightful manner, read what I consider good books and comics and listen to what I consider decent music, have their own domain rather than a LiveJournal or BlogSpot blog, have designed their site themselves rather than using a default template and, this is probably the most crucial point, provide a well constructed full RSS feed for their blog. And then they turn out to be a twat, but I digress.

Possibly the most important thing in this woefully inaccurate judgment game is where they're from. The areas of the web I tend to surf around tend to be dominated by Americans, usually from the States with a decent smattering of Canadians. When a British voice pops up on, say, MetaFilter, I notice it and pay attention. Conversely when I discover that some blogger I had assumed to be British due to their dry wit and effective use of sarcasm turns out to be a Yank I feel a palpable sense of disappointment. Similarly, when British bloggers win US-centric awards or get published by US based publishers I feel proud of them.

I even go so far as to consider some Americans honorary Brits which I'm sure would weird them out if they knew or cared about it. Maybe, if I'm not the only one who does this, we should start a directory or poll of honorary Brits from the western colonies? I wonder if they'd consider it a compliment or not...

It goes hopefully without saying that this is all very stupid of me. At the end of the day it doesn't make any difference where someone is from as long as what they're doing is good in some way. The beauty of the net is that I can have a communication with someone on the other side of the planet as easily as I can with someone down the road. So why, even though I know it's idiotic, do I do this? Could it be the net has made me more patriotic than I would have been otherwise? Does exposure to a wider range of "others" make you more protective towards those who are more like you? All I'm doing is whittling it all down to something manageable, but why on this criteria?

It's an interesting one, I think. Xenophobia and racism usually comes about in communities that don't have any contact with or understanding of people outside their self-contained and self-sufficient little world. This is different to becoming more aware of people outside your physical community, but how different? I don't think other cultures and countries are worthless but I do give people, ideas and notions from my country more weight and importance. How does this differ from the flag-waving BNP moron down the street?

What I think I'm driving at is can I be patriotic and not be a wanker?

I've recently discovered that my mother has started complaining. Specifically she's had two letters printed in the Hampshire Chronicle relating to traffic flow changes in Winchester and has written a letter to Feedback about the disturbing dumbing down of The Archers and Radio 4 in general. Which is all gloriously middle class of her and I'm somewhat cringingly proud.

The Radio 4 stuff is amusing but the Winchester stuff is a bit more interesting. Being a very old and relatively small city Winchester has a traffic problem in that it was originally designed for horses. The current system is a one way inner ring-ish road which passes my mother's house before looping back up through the centre of town (here's a handy map) which constitutes the only way of getting from one side of the city to the other. Between her road and the middle thoroughfare are a few small roads chock full of traffic calming measures. One of these, Parchment St, has always been used as a "rat run" for people wanting to shave a few minutes off their journey. Six people living on Parchment St kicked up a fuss and the council has reversed the flow, dramatically reducing the traffic going down there and naturally pushing it back onto the main route, past my mother's house.

The issue isn't so much a Not In My Back Yard thing, although accusations of NIMBYitis are flying all over. It's more that six people who knew exactly what they were getting into when they bought their houses are able to get the council to make a dramatic change to the workings of the city with little or no consultation of the hundreds of other nearby residents or the thousands of not-so-nearby residents who make up the traffic, not to mention the pedestrians who suffer the extra danger and pollution as they walk into town.

And there's nothing unusual about this. As we know, consultation documents are always "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'", but I do sympathise with the council on this one. For them, six actual real people coming together with an opinion about a problem they've been trying to solve for years must have been amazing. Six people who actually give a shit? Wow! Implement it now! Ask questions later!

Because if the other thousands of people who are affected by this actually took part in some kind of dialogue with the people they've entrusted with the job of running their city (ensuring as fair distribution of NIMBYness, if you like), or even bothered to vote for them in the first place, these six people would not have had such a great influence.

Of course when I'm hearing all this I immediately ponder how the internet could help. It's not like geographically specific forums and mailing lists are a new idea - they were a storyline on the Archers a couple of years back after all - but they don't seem to be working. Or rather, like every social internet thing, they only work when enough people get involved, or when there's some specific topic or interest tying people together.

I'm thinking the problem is that people don't actually want to deal with the organisation of their local area. That's why they elect counsellors and pay taxes. So an online forum for discussing traffic flow is going to be as effective as the public consultation meeting Winchester council held at 9am on a Monday morning.

I'm not sure what the answer is to all this, but if anyone is involved in a solid, effective and busy local community site that deals with local government issues, I'd be intrigued to hear about it.

"You can't expect to work for the Daily Mail group and have the rest of society treat with you respect as a useful member of society, because you are not."

According to Jeremy it's Gay History Month which I inadvertently celebrated last week with a binge of gay history related media consumption. First up was another re-reading of Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby, his coming-out story set in the deep south at the height of the civil rights movement and one of the best graphic novels ever produced ever. The introduction is by Tony Kushner, writer of the play Angels in America which was adapted, by Kushner, into a 6 hour HBO TV movie a couple of years back with an all star cast and quality director. I spotted the DVD on Sam's shelf and, having a long night ahead of me, decided to check it out. It's also very good, set in the mid eighties with Reagan at his apex and AIDS ravaging the gay community. For a very very long film about death, angst, lies, betrayal, regret and more death it's a quite funny movie with wonderfully surreal moments. I highly recommend it.

While perusing the DVD box, however, something struck me. There is no mention whatsoever of the content of the film. If you picked this up in ignorance you would not know it's a gay film by an acclaimed gay writer about AIDS. That's a bit odd, I thought. Then inside the box is one of those leaflets advertising various HBO DVDs. Angels in America is described as exploring "the politics, morality and search for hope in the story of six interconnected characters and an Angel in the complex and turbulent world of New York in the late 1980's. Spanning the extremes of tragedy, love and betrayal, and life and death, Angels in America in a journey through the landscape of despair and hope that defines America at the end of the 20th Century." Can you say "don't mention the gayness"? In the same leaflet the Tony Soprano is identified as a mob boss with a mid-life crisis, the Six Feet Under folk are undertakers and Band Of Brothers is is clearly about soldiers in World War Two. Yet Angels in America doesn't seem to have anything to do with homosexuals. The web site is the same.

From a media ownership point of view, HBO is part of Ted Turner's media group which was bought by Time Warner. Maybe there's some right-wing political stuff going on. Except Time Warner also publish Stuck Rubber Baby. And HBO, while popular and successful, is not mainstream. It's audience is every so slightly more high-brow than standard US TV and quite used to controversial themes. In other words, they can deal with the gayness and probably expect it.

Maybe it's a trick on the part of the producers to get what they consider an important work into the hands of people who might, consciously or not, reject a movie about fags. But, according to Wikipedia, this was the most watched made-for-cable movie of its year, won a Golden Globe and an Emmy and was internationally acclaimed. Anyone who hears about Angels in American from a source other than HBO will know what it's about. So why are HBO so reticent to go with the gayness? Is homophobia and the ghettoisation of queer culture really still so rife in our modern, enlightened age?

Of course it bloody is.

The dispute between Pakistan and India over Kashmir is, in part, over resources, namely a river which provides water to a significant area of Pakistan. Control over the source of this river is tantamount to control over the lives of millions.

From the same guy, living under a military dictatorship in Pakistan is not that bad and actually preferable to democracy. The political class has an international outlook and is more easily influenced by outside interests while the military is composed of ordinary Pakistanis who have the welfare of their country at heart. When they've dabbled with democracy life hasn't been that great. Concession that their dictatorship is a nice one and should a nasty one come along democracy might be preferable, but in a new country like Pakistan (only 40 years old) maybe they're just not ready for democracy.

From a different bloke, women just aren't to be trusted, and a woman told him this herself. They can't help themselves and don't realise they're doing it when they marry you for your money and take it all away. Case proven by his son, in his 20s, who isn't interested in getting a girlfriend because all his mates have been fucked over by their birds. Long story followed about him helping a mate with his HND maths module and when his mate passed his dad bought him a Porsche. Mate goes on holiday for three weeks and lends son the car as thanks. Son decides to prove something to his mother who's worrying about him not meeting girls and goes out with car bringing back three women over three nights. Announces to mother than they weren't interested in him, only the car and the assumption that he was loaded.

Cat Stevens was really popular before he went Muslim, not that going Muslim is a problem or anything, but he was. [The next day I'm presented with a CDR of his album "Remember". It's kinda shit.]

Car factories have closed and are in trouble because of a lack of investment which leads to inefficient practices like assembling a car in one place, adding a few final bits in another place and then bringing it back to the first place to dispatch it. The Japanese have the right idea. [I'm not sure what idea the Japanese have.]

Quality control is really odd but kinda makes sense. The assembly company, whose warehouse we're in, would like to do their QC in house but this would lead to them cutting corners to save money and their customers, the car companies, prefer that they outsource it to the company we're working for. It's in the interests of this company to be extra thorough and take its time in order to charge the assembly company more, which is why we're sometimes given 4 hours worth of work and subtly told to make it last eight, and we have to make it last as the supervisors of the assembly company are watching us what with their office facing directly at where we're working.

Some rugby player punched some football player and that was funny.

Like I said, things I've been told at work.

Watched part one of The Power of Nightmares this evening thanks to the marvels of BitTorrent. It managed to impress on two levels. Firstly it taught me something new about the origins of al-Qaeda and the Neo-Conservatives while tying together various facts and ideas about these dangerous groups into a coherent analysis. Secondly it was incredibly well produced, feeling more like a piece of classic factual television than something coming out of the modern BBC. The narrator was calm, clear and educated, there were no unnecessary flashy graphics and above all it wasn't dumbed down. The only point I felt uneasy was when Henry Kissinger was made out to be the good guy, but then if Hunter Thompson can paint Nixon as a liberal compared to Bush then maybe it's not so far fetched. If you can see it, do so.

I've found myself somewhat obsessed with the US election, which is no surprise as I tend to be something of an election junky, but this time it all feels somewhat critical, so much so that writing about it seems pointless. Everyone with a brain knows this is make or break . Even if they can't articulate exactly why there a palpable sense that if Bush gets back in we're all, in some way, fucked. In darker moments I reckon even if Kerry wins we're still equally fucked as the neo-cons will stop at nothing to undermine him. The only ray of hope is that should Bush loose the Republicans, who are on the whole decent people, will excise this cancer in their midst and get back to actual politics. I have, however, my sincere doubts this will happen while Fox News and the fundamentalist Christian right continue to be in ascendence.

One final blurt of obviousness into the ether: despite being a Guardian reading anti-consumerist lefty Brit I do feel an affinity with the US. Most of my culture comes from there, be it comics, books, movies, the net. A fair chunk of the people I admire are American. As I've said before, a good percentage of my immediate family have roots there. I get pissed off when people unthinkingly criticise the US or say all Americans are stupid. Yes, there are a large number of really stupid Yanks but then there are a large number of really stupid Brits too. The problem is there are proportionally more of them than there are of us so the stupidity seems more endemic. It's said that the world is scared of America hence the kid gloves and animosity prevalent through Europe and the Arab world, and this may well be true. Personally, though, I'm scared for America, like a good friend who's having serious mental problems bordering on the clinically psychotic. This friend has done great things but right now he's in danger of hurting himself and everyone around him unless he gets some help. And yet I'm powerless to do anything about it other than sit here and watch, hoping against hope that it'll get better before it gets worse.

Some guy from some power company came to the door today. He got three words into his script before I said no thanks and shut the door. Not interested in execising my right to choose where I get my electricity and power from. Since we're living in a vibrant market economy it's safe to say that (cheap + poor service) = (expensive + good service) and that (my time spent dealing with poor service) = (expensive - cheap). In other words there's no point. Bye-ee.

But it got me thinking about how you could introduce some choice into this farce. Howabout a power company that charges you a lower rate if you use less and a higher rate if you use more, rather like how the income tax system works. Say a unit of electricity costs 10p at the moment and the average household uses 150 units per month. (I'm making this up btw). If you use 100 units you pay 5p per unit, for the next 100 units you pay 10p per unit and any units above that 15p per unit. This would encourage people to insulate their houses, have shorter showers, turn off lights in empty rooms and (ahem) not leave their computers on all night ripping DVDs. Of course living in this modern age it's hard to economise on electricity so the power company shouldn't loose out too much. Maybe some kind of government subsidy might be in order.

And of course it doesn't fit in with the prevailing consumer culture where people are encouraged to buy more to earn discounts, but maybe that's the point. Choosing between a discount for using more or a discount for using less - that'd be real choice.

On the left, from my personal collection, the Daily Mail from May 2nd 2000, the day after the May Day anti-capitalist thingy in Parliament Square. On the right, today's Daily Mail after the pro-hunt thingy in Parliament Square.

[My photos from 2000 | Mail cover from MailWatch]

Just watched OutFoxed, a searing indictment of the Fox News channel in the US laying into its inherent right wing bias and fraudulent use of the term "fair and balanced". It''s quite an eye-opener, especially as we don't get Fox over here (it makes Sky News look like the Today program), and even though the documentary is obviously made with an agenda and does have some moments of factual sleight of hand (comparing Fox viewers with those of PBS is like comparing Killroy viewers with Radio 4 listeners. It'd be more interesting to compare them with MSNBC or CBS viewers but the graphics wouldn't be so dramatic) it's generally so out in the open that there's very little to fault it for. If you can watch it, and I got a copy via BitTorrent, do so, especially if you live in the States.

As an outsider I find these sort of documentaries interesting in that, as with Fahrenheit 911, it's easy to get all smug. I mean, this is Rupert Murdoch we're talking about! We've been suffering his machinations for over three decades! Has it taken you people until now to realise what he's up to? OutFoxed is clearly aimed at the educated middle class American who suspects something is wrong but can't quite pin it down (unlike Moore's work which with it's Oprah-style emotive content is strictly prime-time) and again I found myself wanting to shout "isn't this all blatantly obvious to you?"

But then I thought about it. We've been suffering Murdoch for over three decades. The Sun has been the bestselling daily paper for 26 years of its 40-year existence and where it leads others follow. Whether for financial or political reasons (or more likely both) Murdoch has made a concerted effort to influence and control our media and political landscape, creating a lowest common denominator in print and broadcast that allows the rest to fall while frightening our politicians into more and more draconian legislation. All this is blatantly obvious and yet we do nothing about it. Fox as a political force is a relatively new beast on the US media scene. News International has been fucking with us since the early 80s. I don't think we've got anything to be smug about here...

The proposal to tax people for not recycling enough comes at an interesting time for me as, for three weeks and for the first time in ages, I'm living on my own as an active consumer. Normally, with Sam here, we don't produce a lot of rubbish, usually filling maybe half a bin-liner a week depending on circumstances. Yes, we recycle paper glass and tins but the paper-box takes a good month to fill while the glass and tins only need to be taken to the tip every couple of months at least, and even then it hardly seems worth it. However, I was shocked to discover that in one week I personally produced enough rubbish to fill a carrier bag. I've been at home most of the time, eating normally and not making any special effort to economise (if anything I've been on a bit of a splurge since the rebate came through) and my refuse is minimal. And I'm not saying Sam produces a lot - she doesn't. It's just I produce fuck all.

Now, I have the advantage over most of the people complaining about this new "tax" in that I've actually work on refuse collection and seen how much waste most people from all social groups produce. Your upper-middles are the worst but they're all pretty bad. The council I was working for, Cherwell in Oxfordshire, had just implemented a new system where collections were fortnightly, one week paper, tins and plastic, the next everything else. Naturally some people were outraged as not only would they have to go through the terrible task of sorting their rubbish into two separate wheelie bins but if they didn't their everything-else bin would fill up too quickly. As it happened both bins filled up too quickly, both big enough that you can get inside and pounce out surprising your mates with a waterpistol. But I'm digressing.

My point, which I'm trying to make without sounding smug and probably failing, is that the tax should not be seen as being for people who don't recycle but as a tax on people who produce too much waste. Recycling still costs money and uses resources and one of the reasons it's not cost effective is that there's more stuff being recycled than the market can cope with. People should be encouraged to drastically cut back the amount of rubbish they produce and if a tax is the way to do it then fine.

Maybe I'm an extreme example in that through financial necessity I've trained myself not to buy stuff for the sake of it and have moved away (not completely) from pre-packaged food and maybe it's different when you're running a household with kids and little time, but if I can manage to produce a carrier bag in a week then it's possible for a house of four to manage on one or two bin-liners, isn't it? It can be done and amazingly you'll save money in doing it.

As for the fly-tipping problem, I don't have an answer to that other than most rubbish is collected from suburban areas where people don't fly-tip on the whole. Illegal dumping is something small businesses and the like do. If people find separating their rubbish too much hassle they're not likely to want to go to the trouble of sneaking out in the middle of the night with a carload of excess trash. Yes, there'll probably be an increase but the savings overall on processing less garbage should cover this (and make it more likely that I can get a job clearing fly-tips again, which was the best job I've ever had, ever.)

This Saturday I intend to binge drink. I will go to a pub with some friends and we shall drink alcohol with no concern for the consequences. We shall order pint after pint and consume them at a steady rate until the landlord requests they we leave. Im the process we shall converse, often loudly, about all manner of things, some intellectual in nature but mostly base and puerile. If there are no ladies present we may even talk about breasts. Those present will have their own reasons for being there, maybe to recover from a hectic week or, in my case, the desperate need for human company other than my housemate (who does an excellent job of being human company, lest you think otherwise, but can only do so much), but the overriding reason will be because getting pissed with your mates is a tremendously enjoyable activity.

And this is what the powers-that-be seem to be forgetting with this absurd crackdown on Britain's drinking problem. The problem is not that drinks are too cheap (on the whole we'll be paying £2.50 a pint and would drink the same if it were a quid), nor that the pubs and bars have late licenses (I've started getting to the pub at nine rather than seven as I used to). The problem is some of the people who drink are idiots, and correct me if I'm wrong but idiots have been drinking to excess as long as there have been idiots.

Then there's the historical precedent. As a teenager in the historical tourist destination of Winchester in 1990 I used to walk home from the pub through a veritable war zone. As a student at Birmingham Uni in the mid-late 90s there'd be fights for the three taxies that served the town centre after 2am. That's just in my adult life but I'm sure I'm right in saying that the pub brawl is one of those quaint English traditions that makes us what we are. In other countries the local idiots shoot each other or band together to invade their neighbours. Here they get pissed and stagger around looking for someone to punch. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is irrelevant - it's been going on since the invention of beer. It is not a new problem.

Going out and getting lashed is an intrinsic part of being British. It's what we do best and it's what makes us good people. If we stopped drinking we be a collection of reserved nerds. With alcohol we're confident, chatty, beautiful people who want to have a good time very loudly. Excepting the idiots, of course. All our national heroes were drunks, from Winston Churchill to Oliver Reed. It's the great leveler, the only thing that breaks through the class barriers and makes us equal. Nowhere else are social rules so upheld as in a pub, upheld by the implicit threat of violence. I've found the safest places to be are hard-drinking pubs where that threat is palpable. No-one's ever going to start anything there and so everyone has a good time.

There's an area of Birmingham, Broad Street, where the kind of binge drinking the government is so concerned about tends to happen. Here you will find the young and stupid all dressed up with plenty of places to go offering cheap drinks and late hours. Navigating this road after 10pm while sober is an eye opening experience as you literally swim through an ocean of female flesh. It's a mecca for the idiots and no doubt a nightmare to police, but it serves a very important purpose. It keeps the morons in one place where they can drink, fight and fuck well away from me. It's been like this since I first came to Brum in 1995 and was probably like this ever since it was redeveloped. As it happens, the rest of Birmingham is quite pleasant of an evening. Yes there are other areas that get a bit manic and it's still impossible to get a taxi out of town after midnight, but on the whole you can get pissed with your mates and have a good time.

What's my point here. Yes, I know it's not healthy, yes I know it causes problems, and yes I'm being slightly defensive. My point is that what is being described as the "British disease" of "binge drinking" is, on the whole, something we've been doing for a very long time and is, on the whole, not a problem. The problem is the tossers who use it as a means and excuse to cause trouble, and in my view they're just not doing it correctly. They're not obeying the rules of drinking to excess which ensure that everyone has a good time and no-one gets hurt. Perhaps this is the problem, that rather then teaching our children about the dangers of alcohol we should be showing them how it's done properly.

Ah, whatever...

For my next trick I shall attempt to defend the smoking of cigarettes in pubs as intrinsic to the fabric and well-being of society, and my argument will probably be "because I bloody well want to".

Long-time readers will know I haven't spouted politics for quite a while now but, despite leaving me somewhat unenlightened, Fahrenheit 9/11 does seem to have sparked some feelings of righteous indignation in me and my political synapses are firing more coherently than usual. So thanks, Michael Moore, for that at least.

One thing that's been bugging me for a while is the apparent divergence between what the Labour party does and what it says. Generally, and somewhat reluctantly, I have to say that Britain appears, from my perspective, and with a couple more qualifiers in there, to be doing fairly well under Labour. My experience of the NHS in the last few years has been positive both here in lower-middle middle class Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham and in the deprived Tower Hamlets, London. Other things, such as transport, crime, etc, while not perfect, don't actually seem all that bad. Gordon Brown seems to be doing a fairly good job of managing things, considering the expectations are unreasonable and the job very difficult. (I'm excluding Blunket's Orwellian Home Office from this because the position of Home Secretary, it would appear, would turn Ghandi into Attila the Hun.)

On the other hand Tony Blair is a cunt.

The obvious answer is to get rid of Blair and let Brown become the prime minister he already is in all but title and the big question is why the Labour party don't do this, now, before the next election. Then it occurred to me that were Brown to be PM he'd get slaughtered by the right wing press and in order to defend himself he'd have to become more like Blair. So while Brown gets on with making things better, quietly implementing just enough of the Labour vision without getting noticed, Blair takes all the flack, gets involved in stupid wars, spouts off bullshit to please the tabloids (that 60's liberals to blame for crime crap really got my goat) and takes the wind out of the Tories by coming over more conservative than them.

Suddenly it all became clear. Blair isn't a lame duck, he's doing his job perfectly. Of course this could just be my tortured logic enabling me to vote for him with a clear conscience...

Saw Fahrenheit 9/11 this afternoon with Andy G. Scribbled some notes on the bus home.

Impossible not to be affected by two hours of blatantly manipulative documentary yet despite expecting to be a key demographic for Michael Moore's work I felt oddly empty at the end. I'd learned nothing new, had no revelations, just been exposed to middle aged Iraqi and American women crying. But then I'm not the target - this film wasn't aimed at me and the most worrying conclusion is if Moore is preaching to the converted, how ignorant are the converted?

I remember when the film came out in the states reading a few blog posts by generally intelligent, liberal American bloggers who saw the film and felt their eyes had been opened to things that had never occurred to them. Isn't this stuff just fucking obvious? Moore's only crime is that his focus is so narrow. What Bush & co are doing is no different to the situation in Italy, Russia, any number of "civilised", "free", "democratic" countries. (Ironically I don't think it's happening here in the UK because Blair is more obsessed with ideology than money, but that's another story).

I was left thinking that if this is what counts for radical, dangerous, left-field political film-making in the US then America is in more trouble than I thought. Strip away the personal Moore stuff, and there wasn't that much of it to begin with compared with Bowling for Columbine, cut back the emotive tear-jerking interviews, and you're left with the kind of report that would sit fine on UK broadcast TV.

Powerful people run countries, whether in business or government or both, and network with each other to make money at the expense of the people who elected them. It's been going on for generations. Tell me something I didn't know.

But then I'm not the audience this is intended for because I've been paying attention these last few years. The thing is, I don't think I've been doing anything special. I don't think I'm some kind of genius or in some kind of elite because I can come out of seeing this film and not learn anything new. The information Moore has filtered into his US-centric, anti-Bush tirade is out there and has been for years. What's shocking is that people are being shocked by it.

I'd recommend people go see it, if only to judge how much is news to them. If a lot of it is news then y'all better start paying attention.

My Footprint calculates how many global hectares you use for food, transport, shelter and services. The average for the UK is 5.3 hectares. I came out with 3.3. "Worldwide there exists 1.8 biologically productive global hectares per person." Pre-packaged food seems to be my biggest problem here, which I knew. Must try harder.

Just had a piece of spam through from an set-up calling itself Quiet Riot who have no web presence and appear to be using an aol.com email. They're asking people to take place in "the countries [sic] biggest ever mass protest this Mayday" bu refusing to pay their TV licenses because it's not fair that TV watchers have to subsidise the BBC, or some shit.

Strikes me as a load of badly thought out bollocks done by the sort of people who think market forces can effectively provide culture and have no concept of pubic service or the benefit of commercial free zones.

The irony is I have some fairly major issues with the BBC as an institution but I appear to be ideologically aligned with them at present - my enemy's enemy is my friend, as it were. And, as I always say, I pay taxes on for my drugs of choice (except tea, for some reason), why shouldn't TV watchers pay taxes too?

Why I am responding to spam on my blog? In the vain hope that through the power of Google I can stop people forwarding this ill-thought out tosh, I suppose.

If you don't want to pay the license fee, stop watching television. And if you can't do that, £10 a month isn't much as mind numbing drugs go.

Just for the record, I really like USA, many of my friends are American. In fact a vast proportion of my immediate family is American. Most of the culture I'm interested in comes from the US or is directly influenced by it, be it comics, books, movies or music.

But if I could I'd be down in London this week protesting with the best of them.

This is not anti-Americanism. This is against the Bush administration and it's insidious effect on this country.

I could write more but I'd just get incoherent, and others are no doubt doing so elsewhere. Just wanted to say my piece.

(Why couldn't he have visited over the weekend?)

Jason Kottke has come up with one of the weirdest ideas that at first glance seems completely fucked but on reflection...

As the next step in the utilization of the Web in his campaign, Howard Dean should open up a b3ta-like forum for people who want to create digital media (photos, movies, music, Flash animations, etc.) related to Dean and the election.

The idea itself is sound but the image of a US presidential campaign overflowing with kitten, polar bears and animates gifs... Actually, maybe that would be a good thing.

Back in my day we used to have a big party in the road when foreign leaders came to visit but if flashing your anus is the current way forward them, quite frankly, I'm all for it.

Bare Your Bum at Bush: date unknown, time unknown, place unknown.

Great photos by G, a translator and 'fixer' from Baghdad, friend of Salam Pax and now blogger in his own right. As with both their blogs these photos show the bizareness of the situation along with a normality which shouldn't be suprising but is.

I find I go to Salam's blog ever time something mahor happens in Iraq. His furious comments on the UN HQ bombing are a must read:

there is a friggin' Iraqi idiot now on Jazeera saying that the security responsibility should be given over to the Iraqi Governing Council. Fuck off, this is not about American presence in Iraq. these attacks have nothing to do with the so called resistance. These are fucking idiots who destroying all the efforts to help this country get back on it's feet. the fucking Governing Council could not control this mess the moment the Coalition Forces move out we are plunged in chaos. We have entered a dark dark tunnel and we have no idea what will happen now.

...

I am plunging into a fucking depression, do we have a future? is this country going to be hijacked by shit extremists who want to prove a point?

Last week at Caption Bryan Talbot gave his very illuminating slide-show talk about the creation of The Tale Of One Bad Rat. In it he recounted taking reference photographs around Westminster Bridge in London and getting seriously questioned by the police because he obviously wasn't a tourist. We all laughed as he showed a photo of a police woman radioing his driving licence details to check he wasn't as terrorist planning to bomb the houses of parliament.

Same thing happened to me today. Well, kinda.

Salam "that Iraqi blogger" Pax has a photoblog. Interesting because he tends to look at the everyday.

It's been bandied about the place and it's here now. The mighty Alan Moore spends 4,500 words examining exactly what happened in those three weeks earleir in the year and why...

Link from LMG

Boing Boing points to an article on Salon about Re-Code.com, a service which lets you print out barcodes. Nothing strange about that. BugPowder pointed to a similar a legit service a while ago. What's controversial is Re-Code are 'encouraging' people to enter in barcodes of cheap products, print them out on sticker-paper, and place them over the barcodes of expensive products, thus paying way less. Because a barcode is a barcode, no-one is going to notice, especially not a tired, overworked and underpaid shop assistant (I should know). The point being, 99.9999% of people don't know how to read barcodes, yet they're ubiquitous. Wall-Mart are already pissed off.

Of course, this is just making shopping cheaper for people with computers, internet access, decent printers and the means to buy fancy sticky-paper, so not much of a social revolution there. I think the point (other than a good scam) is to address the fear of barcodes that started in the 80s - that we would all, in the future, have a barcode tattooed to our necks that would hold special information about us. This fear came about because ordinary people can't read them, so you don't know what's on your barcode. Re-Code lures people in with the promise of cheaper shopping but then educated them about how barcodes work. By showing how easy it is to subvert the system the fear goes away. Dunno how useful or effective this is, but interesting none the less.

Saddam has gone. Hooray! Good to see a nation free of its dictator.

It was easy. Well, no shit Sherlock. But it's also not over yet. I want to look back in 6 months time before I judge this moment. This is where it gets messy.

Surprisingly good linkage and discussion on MeFi at the moment.

As Salam Pax's Raed blog has been quiet since the 24th, Arte Paz has put together the Where is Salam? blog as a repository for news about him. All very meta but a nice idea.

As eyes of the world focus on Iraq, the rest of the world's hotspots get hotter - a good reminder and summary that there are other fucked up things going on the world. Remember Kashmir? It looks like it's all kicking off again...

The Guardian's Online section has a good selection of Warblogs today. I'm particularly taken by Stuart Hughes' Northern Iraq Weblog. As a BBC reporter in Iraq he not only writes about the events going on but links to articles he's reading and posts up photos taken on the ground.

Where Have All The Muslims Gone? asks Angieji, an American school teacher who's noticed her middle-eastern pupils and their families are vanishing without warning. Whether she's right or wrong to be worried, it's something that needs to be asked. After the US government rounded up Japanese-Americans in WWII for 'homeland security', what's being done this time?

via Andy R. Update: more background on MeFi.

Everything's okay on the Raed front. Interesting comparing his observations of Baghdad with the journalists'.

Here's a question: Should the "embedded" adjective serve as a disclaimer for possibly biassed coverage? Is it misleading for a journal or a broadcast service to say a reporter is "with" rather than "embedded with" some cavalry or brigade?

Okay, the TV is off, the dawn chorus is singing, and it's time to address a significant point.

Yes, Saddam is a bad man, one of the baddest, but we, meaning the US and the major European powers, put the fucker there and supported him because Iran was considered more of a threat. We sold him weapons and turned a blind eye when he murdered his countrymen because he was useful to us.

And so, yes, I'm happy to see him go. In fact, this is one of my biggest stumbling blocks in opposing the war. The no-fly zone over Kurdistan (or "the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq" as is should be known) is by all accounts a wonderful place with a democratic government, a free press and a remarkable recovery from a bitter conflict between the Kurds, let alone pressure from Saddam and Turkey on either side. So I should really support the removal of Saddam by whatever means possible.

But I digress. That's for a different post, or even the actual conclusion.

My problem is that the people who are currently trying to get rid of Saddam were, or are directly related to, the people who used to support him. These people being Rumsfeld and other members of the 80's American administration, including George W's dad as head of the CIA and vice president. I suppose the point of this argument is that if, in the interests of national security due to the threat of a rabidly anti-US Iran sponsoring terrorism, they can support and materially help someone like Saddam, who else are they likely to support in the future?

At no point has the current Bush administration apologised for their previous support of Saddam Hussein. If they were to do so and say they were clearing up a mess they themselves made then maybe I'd feel better about their actions. But they're not. Again, it's precedents, and I think it's dangerous.

After years of no broadcast TV, I've come to realise I've been watching TV news almost constantly for the last 48 hours. The repetition of BBC News 24, which is being relayed on BBC1 most of the time, is starting to get to me. I need to turn it off, but for some reason I haven't. All I can think is it'll be good to be on the streets tomorrow to get a clear head.

I have a problem with this concept of a pre-emptive strike against a country which you consider to be a threat to yourself. It sets a precedent, which seems to be being played out with the current "Turkish insurgence" into Northern Iraq. If the US can invade a country to remove a perceived threat, then the Turks, who have a big issue with the concept of a Kurdish state which they consider will add to their own terrorist problem, have every right to do the same. This is already happening two days after the precedent has been set and the US is unhappy. The Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan didn't end in all out war because neither wanted to be seen to cast the first stone. Now, it appears, they would be justified in invading and taking over their neighbour should they consider their security to be under threat.

Obviously the fact that the US is the sole superpower in the world affects this. There is a balance of power between India and Pakistan. But I remain worried about this precedent.

I've spent the last couple of days seriously thinking about my position regarding the war, and I'm still not quite ready to offer up an opinion. Yes, I've been on the anti-war demos and, yes, I plan to go on the demo tomorrow. And I have to say that, having been on many demonstrations and actions over the last few years this was the first time I really felt happy to join in and not just observe, and I consider that quite significant. But as to the hows and whys of my feelings I'm having difficulty articulating them.

And I think this is a good thing. This is a very complicated situation that is ill served by glib soundbites and black and white opinions, and aggressive statements of "facts" and counter-"facts" is of no use at all. But I refuse to stay on the sidelines on a subject that will have serious ramifications for the world probably for the rest of my life.

So I'm going to post up my thoughts on the emerging events on this blog bit by bit in an effort to try and come to a cohesive point of view. I welcome your comments.

Here's my photos from the all day Stop the War demo on Thursday at Parliament Square. I got there about 5.30pm and stayed for about an hour. The sun was setting hence the dark photos. I then went back at 10.00pm to see what was going on and took a few more shots.

This is the first gallery I've put up on Fotopic which is proving a bit better than I first thought. Still a very dodgy user interface but you can't really complain about 250 megs for free.

I knew this would happen and I'm kinda ready for it, but the fact that Salam Pax hasn't updated the Raed blog since the "Shock and Awe" started and that his pictures have gone offline is rather worrying. Of course, it's very likely his net access has vanished (aparently it's via the Iraqi state ISP), but given the constant 24/7 news we're getting a few hours of silence is still rather spooky.

The worst is seeing and feeling the city come to a halt. Nothing. No buying, no selling, no people running after buses. We drove home quickly. At least inside it did not feel so sad.

Somewhere in here is the New American Century document which I heard mentioned by a politician over the last few days. Written by Rumsfeld and Cheney back in 1998-ish it allegedly states that invading and taking over Iraq was the first stage in effectively taking over and controlling the Middle East for the benefit of the US. In other words the 'smoking gun' us doves have been looking for in the whole "this is a war for oil" thang.

I'm going to have a good dig through when I have more time / am not on dialup, but if you find it yourself, so link to it in the comments.

Update: found it

Thanks to Tom for this link - the full text of Robin Cook's rather good resignation speech of Monday. Kinda puts it all down straigh, I think.

Robin Cook resigns, Attorney General says war is legal, UN diplomacy collapses, and all this in the space of an afternoon. I'm off to meet a friend tonight and I suspect when I get back the world will be ever so slightly a different place. What's odd is I know it's all coming and can't see anything changing, and yet I'm gripped by it.

This is current affairs car-crash style.

"The first Saturday after war breaks out there will be a national demonstration in London. We will be assembling at 12 Noon at Embankment and marching to Hyde Park. The date for this looks like it is going to be 22nd March."

A couple of friends and I were discussing the whole Iraq thing and, since there's a general sense of resignation about the situation being way out of our hands, we slipped into the realm of stupid and came to the conclusion that the whole thing should be run on Warhammer table-top rules. Specifically, each side has so many points to spend on men and weapons and no more. So, if we calculate that Saddam has 10,000 points, the US / UK / anyone-receiving-US/UK-aid brigade can only spend 10,000 points. What this'll probably mean is the latter get two cruise missiles and a pistol.

The next logical step is to then transplant the whole thing into a branch of Games Workshop where George and Saddam can set their armies of lead figures against each other, and if one of them starts acting like a pasty, chubby 13 year old, shouting it's not fair that their beautifully painted elf got killed by a goblin, some hairy biker-type with a beer belly can lean over and tell them to fucking grow up and get on with the game.

Then we wouldn't have to worry about sodding mini-nukes...

The anti war demo here was pretty cool. There were 1.5 million people I think. I heard London had 2 million. I don´t know about Paris. They sort of continued into yesterday with a huge street parade of dancing dragons that had catherine wheels and rockets attached to them. There were sparks and explosions everywhere. The parade went thru the narrow streets of old city. There was so much smoke from the gun powder that you could hardly see the figures at times. It was actually quite scary... but fun.

Later: fixed them. All nice and higher-res now!

What interests me is how many people there were first time protestors, and how many of them have now gotten the bug. As politics in this country get less accountable and more fogged by propaganda it's great to see "ordinary people" getting out there for something they believe in, and something that doesn't involve their own wallet.

I hope you understand my view, we simply don’t trust the motives of your government. And if that government is going to war with Iraq we are not naïve to think that they are doing it because they want to spread love and freedom. I am not even sure peace and freedom are going to be among the side effects of that war.

The new enemies of America, and of the west in general, believe that these countries promote too much autonomy, freedom and justice. They are the opposite of socialism even more than they are the opposite of capitalism. They are against light, love, life - and to attempt to pass them the baton of enlightenment borne by the likes of Mandela and Guevara is woefully to misunderstand the nature and desires of what Christopher Hitchens (a life-long man of the left) described as "Islamo-fascism".

Lord Falconer says that in one of the widest ranging consultations conducted by a government, they've been fair swamped with positive endorsements of the Government's Entitlement Card plans. With just a few days to go before the end of the consultation, the Home Office is saying that overall the public's reaction is hugely positive.

I'm aware that so far I'm looking like a pro-Iraq type and that I could enter into some kind of bad warblogging situation like what Tom did so to try and stave that off, let me just say that I was receiving emails from Serbian cartoonist Sasa Rakezic (pen name Aleksander Zograf) during the NATO bombings a few years back and they shed a whole new light on the situation. I'm very glad to have the same opportunity for news from the ground here.

(I'm going to mirror their particular posts on this site for posterity. the posts, the comments)

Problem: Operating under NATO auspices, the U.S. military begins a bombing campaign against Belgrade.

McSpin: Franchise repositions McDonald's as a symbol of anti-NATO protest. Hands out free burgers at rallies and adds a Serbian nationalist cap to the Golden Arches icon under the slogan "McDonald's is yours."

I got one of his "Fuck Work" stickers sent to me (by some zinester or other) a few years back so it's nice to finally make the connection here. He's done bloody loads of them!

Scary thing number one - this poster is appearing all over London reassuring the population that they're safe, specifically on public transport because of all the CCTV cameras around the place. It's not just the idea as much as the iconography, but then I guess the TV show Big Brother has got the population comfortable with the concept and helped usher in the real Big Brother.

Scary thing number two - despite seeing the poster a number of times over the last couple of weeks I didn't realise how scary this is until Tom pointed it out.

Discussion (and source of the image) on Samizdata.net

I'm an American tired of American lies - Another piece from the Grauniad I enjoyed recently. This column by Woody Harrelson made a lot of sense to me and I was intrigued that many of my friends mentioned it that night in the pub.

I give in to Woodman, and we stop for a few beers. He asks me what I'd do in Bush's shoes. Easy: I'd honour Kyoto. Join the world court. I'd stop subsidising earth rapers like Monsanto, Dupont and Exxon. I'd shut down the nuclear power plants. So I already have $200bn saved from corporate welfare. I'd save another $100bn by stopping the war on non-corporate drugs. And I'd cut the defence budget in half so they'd have to get by on a measly $200bn a year. I've already saved half a trillion bucks by saying no to polluters and warmongers.

Then I'd give $300bn back to the taxpayers. I'd take the rest and pay the people teaching our children what they deserve. I'd put $100bn into alternative fuels and renewable energy. I'd revive the Chemurgy movement, which made the farmer the root of the economy, and make paper and fuel from wheat straw, rice straw and hemp. Not only would I attend, I'd sponsor the next Earth Summit. And, of course, I'd give myself a fat raise.

There's been enough sensible stuff written about the Eldred v. Ashcroft case so I think I'm able to be frivolous. Doesn't this sound like a Goth taking on the indie music community? Okay, I'm sorry...

New in Photos: Reclaim The Streets - Mayday 2000 A photo essay by myself, written two years on.

"I wasn't facing the police line but as soon as people around me started the move I ran as fast as I could away from them. Waving the camera over my shoulder I got this shot of a girl behind me. You'll notice she's smiling. I was too. As I ran the adrenaline pumped through my body and I started laughing, a big grin over my face. I suddenly understood why people come to these things purely for a ruck with the police, why people go to football matches purely for a fight. I felt more alive than I'd ever felt before. My life was in danger, at the very least I could be cracked over the head with a truncheon or dragged off an arrested, but I fucking loved it. For one moment I was truly a human being."

Saturday was the anti-war demo in London. Ostensibly a demonstration against the hawkish threat of a second gulf war against Iraq and a chance for the public to show their non-acceptance of the government's dossier on the need to attack it was, as these things often are, taken on by a mass of other causes and opinions. Most notable was the Palestinian cause with many Muslim groups present, plus the usual Socialist Worker types and some very old looking socialists, veterans of the 60's one suspects.

I went along for an hour - I had a prior engagement at 3.00pm - to add my number. Why? Other than the fact that I live 10 minutes away from the start of the demo there are a few reasons.

• I've read the dossier and I'm unconvinced by it as a reason to go in and bomb a foreign power.
  
• I've become increasingly uncomfortable with the messages eminating from the Bush pro-war camp, specifically from Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. And I'm worried by the way the UK seems to be following blindly into this situation for the sake of international diplomacy.
  
• The sense that this is inevitable regardless of what facts emerge worries me. As does the abandonment of elements of democracy by two supposed leaders of the democratic world.
  
• Yes, Saddam is an evil man and one of the worst dictators around and the world would be a better place without him in power but:
  
  • Didn't the US put him in power and arm him during the Iran-Iraq war? After all, he's better than those damn fundamentalists, until he gets too big for his boots.
    
  • The notion of a regime change is nice but if you get rid of Saddam, what do you replace him with? The Kurds would be unacceptable to Turkey, a NATO power, while the Marsh Arabs are aligned with the dreaded fundamentalists of Iran, which is presumably not an option. That leaves the remaining Arabic population who (and I should say I'm not 100% sure about this) are Shah Muslims and quite different to the Shiite Muslims of Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. They are quite likely to carry on where Saddam left off, especially with all that oil there. Even if I'm completely wrong about this, fact remains that getting a regime change is not as simple as it might appear.
    
  • I can't see a link between Saddam and international terrorism other than the fact that he likes the idea of it. Al-Qaeda have more links with the Saudis than the Iraqis. But then we like the Saudi rulers.
    
  
  
• Blood for Oil is never nice. Be honest about it, please. We're planning on invading Iraq because he has a lot of oil and we want it.
  
• There's quite a lack of debate going on here and going on a march and being counted strikes me as something worth doing. So I did it.
  

Here's the photos I took on the march.