News

Looks like I was lucky with my travel dates, missing the big initial disruption of the latest terror fuss. Hopefully things will have settled down by my flights back, and I'll be able to travel sanely.

The workshop started yesterday, and I gave my talk. I suppose it went okay; I had laptop problems, and my presentation wasn't as clear as it could have been, but there did seem to be considerable interest in the work, which is rather pleasing.

I managed to use the hotel gym this morning, which for a moment made me wonder whether it is such a good thing there is nice beer available... I've been eating really nice food since I got here. Of course the seafood is good, and I had some excellent buffalo fajitas last night (far too much food for not much money). To go with the food, I cannot resist sampling the great range of local beers, with microbrews being served in resturants and brewpubs. It's possible to find such things in Scotland, but I never stumbled upon so many so easily, and in such a range of styles.

Paul Mason concludes a commendable foray into the world of blogging with a traditional metablogging post.

The challenge for broadcasters is not to produce faux blogs; ditto the challenge for journalists.

Much has been written about the contrast and interaction between—and relative merits of—blogs and the mainstream Media, but it is more interesting to read from someone who has been on both sides of the fence, and at the same time. Ow. Kudos for really making an effort, and for Getting It.

On a different note, the response to the revelation that the attacks on London were suicide bombings is fairly predictable. I feel I must link to thing about Londonistan nonsense (Britain had been too squeamish about respecting Muslims' rights). Some stuff on British response to the issues here. Not sure that a new opt-out from the European convention on human rights (regarding deportation)—and the rest—will count as unsqueamish enough for some; hurry up with those internment camps.

Meanwhile atrocity is a way of life in Iraq (about as many people blown up in two suicide bombs this week as were in London; alleged torture and murder by security forces, and others).

Well. Sorry to be so depressing.

Just seen War of the Worlds at the local cinema (note to self: avoid screen 2). As you might expect I'm not about to say it's the best film ever, but I'd certainly rate it as worth watching. Always going to be quibbles about a 'blockbuster' movie, particularly one made from a good book, which has been filmed before. And in this case made into a radio series which I must endevour to see at some point. Anyway, I'm glad that I went to see it.

Hopefully going to see The Descent next week.

Huh, they're evacuating Birmingham city centre. Hopefully just a jumpy reaction to run of the mill bogus information. The London attacks turned out to have been pretty bad. Here's one story. Gah. Incidentally, ID cards would not have helped, but we should have them anyway, and get ready to have our civil liberties curtailed.

For some reason a guy has just jumped the Great Wall of China on a skateboard. People are crazy.

Update: On the craziness theme, Woman who framed child is jailed.

Oh crap:

• BBC
• CNN
• Guardian

A double decker bus has exploded, and there have been explosions in the London Underground. Initially blamed on power surge, but now it's not really clear.

Update: BBC reports more than 30 dead and hundreds injured, with 4 explosions, one being on a bus and three on the underground. Rumours of an Al-Qaeda claim seem to be unsubstantiated for now, but the BBC have a statement from an Islamist website. Blair's flying down to London, coming back tonight to continue G8 talks...

To continue a spate of frequent entries in contrast with the usual fortnightly trickle.

In another deviation from character, I went to the gym today, as dearg reports. Just an induction today, the second part of which will be on Saturday, so I'm not feeling overly exercised. But I'm looking forward to going regularly; perhaps I will not be regularly looking forward to going, once I get started. Time will tell.

Apparently George Bush has fallen off his bike. No, really. I did wonder whether a bicycle was perhaps a little... enviromentical. Perhaps Bush lost a bet, or is this perhaps some form of alternative to signing Kyoto? In fact it seems that he cycles regularly (at least that's my interpretation of "seriously"). It must be a bit of a bugger when the whole world finds out every time you fall off your bike, trip up or choke on a food item.

I suppose I've got to mention that London got the 2012 Olympics, the main news story today. In G8 news, they eventually did march in the general vicinity of Gleneagles, and unsurprisingly there was trouble throughout the day (BBC story). Excitement of riot police in a Chinook. I got a phone call earlier from my mum who could see mounted police out of the bedroom windows. It's strange seeing Auchterarder on the news.

For all the violence we see on TV, I think the policing for this summit has probably been handled more sensibly than it would have been in other locations. Hopefully the rest of the week will go smoothly and we'll actually get some not overly weasly commitments from the G8.

Well. The BBC have a piece on the eco-village outside Stirling. Apparently riots in Stirling. Burger King and Pizza Hut get smashed windows. The M9 seems to have been blockaded; various other blockades have apparently been attempted, some successful. Including blocking and unblocking of the A9. BBC timeline. Indymedia timeline.

Apparently the protest march in Auchterarder to somewhere not particularly near Gleneagles has been called off by police, although I'm sure that BBC story said "March will go ahead" when I looked a few minutes before. I'm sure all those who have made it as far as Auchterarder will do something. Calling off a march at the last minute sounds a sure-fire way to turn a possibly rowdy march into a clash with the police instantly, although I don't know what sort of people, and how many, are there. Perhaps it's being called off so that the police can stop people moving towards Auchterarder, turn back buses etc. (it does seem that they are doing so).

My favourite picture so far is here.

Update: I find it amusing that there are protest blockades and police blockades... and when the police removed one blockade, it became a police blockade for the best part of an hour...

I love George Monbiot's phrase, The leaked drafts of the G8's climate change agreement have placed the future in square brackets. But apparently now the US is going to admit to ghe existence of climate change (but refuse to do anything meaningful about it). And of course we're talking big, but acting small. Incidentally, it seems that Monbiot is preparing for a possible future career in Kung-Fu films, or suchlike; never mind poor lip sync, the audio was a couple of seconds off when he appeared tonight on Newsnight. Newsnight's correspondent Paul Mason (with blog) still interesting (just now from the Ochils).

And we may or may not have a 100% (conditional?) debt cancellation. But it seems a lot more likely than real progress on trade and climate change...

Yesterday's trouble/protests/riots in Edinburgh were not unexpected, and so surprisingly being painted as the result of violent anarchists or charging riot police depending on who you ask. With some Neds thrown in. In any case, will be worth watching the news this week, and unfortunately more violence seems inevitable tomorrow.

You can chase your own links, I'm off to bed.

Okay, well, big protest march thing on Saturday. Lots of people, generally a good atmosphere with lots of drumming and whistling and amusing socialist factions. Strange silent march with no chanting or whatnot. Too many people for the actual march, I think there will have been many people in the Meadows who did not wait around all day to start marching.

I managed to meet up with my mum, aunt, uncles and cousin to shuffle around the city. Which was nice. I may put up a couple of pictures later if they are any good (not of anything interesting in any case).

Now some obligatory linkage. Newsnig8t has some good stuff. G8 Bloggers aggregates a bunch of G8 protest-related blogs. Lots of news on Indymedia.

Saw footage from the Faslane blockade on TV, looked nice and relaxed with plenty of drumming. Interested to see what will come of the rest of the week. Various not-overly-exiting things happening in Edinburgh today (supposedly clowns, hippies and anarchists). How long will blockades last around Gleneagles (my guess: they might get a couple set up, but nothing will last very long)? What will the autonomous golfing blocs get up to?

Bah. Sometimes I think I shouldn't read the news.

I have succeeded in not talking news here for quite some time. Since about the Iraq invasion. This is probably a good thing. Nobody needs to read yet another rant on how bad the world is, how stupid a certain President is, or whatever, and these things will only get me worked up anyway.

But. Surprisingly, most US federally funded abstinence-only programmes are full of lies. Our animal rights crazies increasingly remind me of US anti-abortionists. Oh, and there's the occasional typhoon, some dead and we got pictures.

Another one: I don't understand how a person or organisation contributing a small proportion of the costs of an academy should have any say over what goes on there. Reminds me of various fundamentally uneconomical privitisation schemes.

See? I shall try to avoid the news.

We see this essentially as a distribution of wealth. It has not been wild looting in terms of risk to life. The first time I have heard anybody talk seriously of redistribution of wealth in a while (here at the BBC). They're saying that any hospitals or warehouses being looted would have been for the Baath party members... I wouldn't be surprised, and if so all power too them. But peace and order are needed for aid...

The text on the front page for this story is "Planet hijacked". I had to read that twice...

Apparently the differing structure of primate eggs mean we are too hard to clone - though I am of course skeptical about any "may never be possible" statement. Sure, the weirdos who claim to have done it are even more likely to be lying, but if the human race should last for a while (not a foregone conclusion) who knows what technology will be around in hundreds of years? The space travel analogy is well-worn, but still illustrative.

Oh, and see this Guardian piece, please. Though I think Pyongyang is a red herring, nobody's going to actually "move on" and attack North Korea.

In contrast to claims in Basra that looting wasn't such a bad thing (!), supposedly embassies have been sacked in Baghdad. Including the German embassy and a French cultural center apperently, which I'm sure will please some of the "patriotic" Americans.

(Sometimes patriotism is a synonym for xenophobia, isn't it?)

The Iraqi ambassador to the UN apparently hasn't been able to contact Iraqi government officials "for a long time", and has just been watching TV like everybody else. He is quoted as saying The game is over. We hope that peace will prevail and that's all that we hope.. There was an image of youths "riding" the head somewhere.

Why is Rumsfeld rumbling at Syria (and making some comments against Iran, but mainly Syria)?

This particular armoured vehicle had a device that seemed tailor-made for removing colossal statues of deposed presidents. The removal of a monument to Saddam, started by Iraqis and finished by the US. Guardian story. Idiot American soldier proceeds to cover the head in a US flag, in another PR-blunder betraying the confusion between "liberation" and "conquest". Apparently an Iraqi flag was also put up then taken down in some sort of compensation.

Shame, as the Grauniad points out, that in Britain you can get 3 months in jail for beheading (a statue of) Thatcher.

Minor scrabbling about post-war Iraq government. The British appointed a sheik to temporaryily run Basra, which some have seen as the start of appointing Saddam's old lackeys, though the US will likely have their own lackeys suggestions. I wonder how sensible the Pentagon man is for now.

Isolated incident? Hopefully both sides won't be conducting terrist campaigns. Bad enough as it is.

Let's propogate from IRC.

21:59 <sand> "Geoff Hoon said Umm Qasr is a town like Southampton. A marine responded "He's either never been to Southampton or he's never been to Umm qasr. there's no beerin Umm qasr, no prostitutes, and people are shooting at us. He must've meant Portsmouth"

BBC coverage.

No hillwalking today.

Doing formal programming language semantics today. The reason for the quick changearound is that this is my preliminary week, surveying what I've got to do. I've been spending one day per course (that takes me up until tomorrow), then I'm going for more sustained bursts. I seem to try a different strategy every time; I'm not sure of the merit of this approach, but to be fair it hasn't served me too badly up until now.

Politicions seem surprised that there's guerilla warfare in Iraq. Hardly surprising. C4 news ran footage from before the current conflict started, of Rumsfield and various .us politicians. Interesting how they basically said it'd be a walk in the park. I'm more inlcined to think that they knew exactly what mistruths they were peddling, and believed it wouldn't matter once war started.

US making noises about Syria arming Iraq. I wonder if it's time for us to head to the hills; do you think Bush knows who armed Iraq before?

Amusing to hear the Syrian spokesperson respond generally to the concept of war on Iraq rather than the specifics of arming them.

Troops encouraging an uprising in Basra, precision bombs hitting their targets. Changing times? But yet more friendly fire, bombed market... Bush not convinced of the role of the UN in post-war Iraq. Har de har har.

Revising teapots today, apparently.

Is anything happening apart from Iraq? From the TV, it would seem not. Let's see.

As we are at war in Iraq, fascism thrives in Zimbabwe. Assaulting children, etc., etc. More fighting about oil in Nigeria.

At least something positive seems to be happening (Palestinian PM appointed) recently.

Kashmir is still violent.

Otherwise, it's Iraq. People protesting, a few countries lending support, and so on.

We are at war. How surprising.

We are at war at the behest of the USA without UN backing and apparently in a breach of international law. How surprising.

We are at war with Iraq. How surprising.

BBC reporters' logs are interesting. Also as ever I read the Guardian. Pieces like this:

To have reached such a position against an adversary who is demonstrably one of the world's most disgusting tyrants, to have transformed him into a hero figure, and to have transformed the American flag into a symbol of oppression, is not only unfortunate but reeks of political incompetence.

Robin Cook is interesting. Resigning from a New Labour ministerial position on the grounds of principal... He said today I want to make sure that we continue to develop a radical, progressive agenda. Is this a serious alternative voice in the Labour party?

I had quite some respect for Claire Short as she was actually doing good things which I could support. I can see why she would stay, to continue doing the work she was doing, which is not directly related to the current events, but threatening to resign is just silly.

Tidbits: Most British papers print images of American PoWs - even as they quote the Geneva convention's ban on depicting the 'humiliation' of prisoners of war. Quite. Also notice the depiciton of Iraqi PoWs until somebody wanted to say that Iraq was being naughty by showing American PoWs.

Piece about "the Iraqi blogger". We've seen web logs reporting from areas of civil unrest, giving real stories of protests, and various small scale things. But as far as I know this is the first actual war that this has played a part in.

Anyway, I've been mostly ignoring the war for my own sanity. It has been planned for so long that I've used up most of my supply of righteous anger.

Ostriches and Emus.

SMS spam :(

Mmm. Pool. I play better than I used to, but I've a knack for losing the endgame.

Complexity going fine. This assignment seems too routine. Is this a relaxing final piece, or am I missing a vital subtlety? Tune in next week.

Finals in five weeks. Scary.

On Iraq. Yes. Thank you, Peter.

Congress lashes out at 'old Europe'. Insane. Anything we can do to hurt them without hurting us, I will support. Should conscientious europeans boycott the USA?

Snow and ice bring Britain to standstill. Where Britain is approximately equal to London. Also, an unfortunate situation in the baked goods department.

One motorist told BBC Breakfast News that he had only moved two miles in 10 hours and had had just two pasties to sustain him.

BBC reports Slammer worm: (via ntk)

At the moment the internet is recovering from its sticky cheese fondue state and becoming the rapidly moving liquid we all expect it to be

US, UK preempt UN assessment. Why is nobody polite enough to wait until things happen to respond to them these days? It's bad enough when it's that the Government is "due to announce" something today, or so-and-so is "expected to say that" something or other. It really drives it home when it happens in worldwide politics, not that it's a new thing.

Oh, and non-permenant members of the UN Security Council only see an edited version. I'm sure that's sensible, but I'm always suspicious if the US, UK etc. governments edit things for the world.

I think I'm obliged to mention Dimitri/Elcomsoft. I won't go further or link, as it will be done to death today.

Positive noises regarding libel laws for the Internet. The Law Commission apparenlty talks of freedom of expression under the "European Convention of Human Rights" (see the register). Good to see at least some respect for the individual's rights. I'm too cynical to think that this will have any impact into thinking on copyright though.

Air Marshalls for UK flights. Hmm, not sure what I think about this. I suppose we are going with the US on the international arena, we have to take the consequences on the domestic front. Like loss of privacy and human rights, for example. My MP, Darling, is involved, so I doubt it's all rosy. ;)

This is pointless, why am I wibbling about the news? Do I just need something to write?

Working insanely hard yesterday, today. Pointless right now, as my laptop is refusing to boot again.

Fire mentioned on the register

North Korea hotting up. The "nuclear threat" issued is to restart building nuclear power plants, since the US is stopping oil going in. It's obviously an excuse, but "Nuclear threat" sounds like they're pointing ICBMs at somebody.

Wibbling severely today. My hands are actually rather cold for the purpose of typing properly, but that isn't stopping me too much. Actually, I didn't get up for ages this morning because it was so bloody cold. Freezing. And the flat is centrally heated.

Thatcher praises Blair. Mentions twin-headed monster. I would like a Labour government.

Well it's dark now. Still not done much today except spew rubbish on IRC. useless.

Should be getting new toy tommorrow. Digicam. Woo!

And my MP. Alistair bloody Darling apprently prepares to unveil a £2bn road-building programme later today (BBC story). The Freight Transport Association says We should not be distracted by arguments about the environment.

I feel this government has done more bad things than good to this country.

Save me! I'm a helpless puppet of the dominant culture!

Fact of the day: All spiders are called Boris.

Fire at our AI department.

Teapots spin.

Incompetence. Stupidity. Schoolboy as art. Life as usual.

From a BBC story: Dubya claims the signs are not encouraging with respect to Iraq's compliance with weapons inspections. The inspection teams have found no evidence of weapons of mass distruction. The signs are not encouraging for a war?

Anyway, apparently Iraqis have opened fire on a Kuwaiti coastguard patrol boat. I'm not sure what to think, though for some reason I'm reminded of the start of the Vietnam conflict. Does Iraq (or rather, some subset of the same) want a war? The US certainly does.

Interesting travel piece in the Guardian. Johann Hari goes on a package tour to Iraq.

CNN reports that the US supreme court is considering the legality of state sodomy laws in a test case. In 13 states homosexual intercourse is illegal. And in 1986 the supreme court ruled that consenting adults have no constitutional right to private homosexual sex. Makes the debates over the age of (homosexual) consent (and clause 18) seem positively enlightened, and the UK seem a bastion of human rights.

I'm looking at various news sites now. I find ABC news to be interesting, discussing the issues of Iraqi regime change here, among other things. They note, for example: Democratically elected governments were crushed and replaced by despots and killers — albeit pro-American, anti-communist despots and killers.

Reports of human rights abuses in Iraq are out again. A piece in the National Post, via the Guardian weblog. Amnesty International criticises the selective attention to human rights, and basically points out the war-mongering. Perhaps I would feel better about a war on Iraq if I felt that the process did not begin with a decision to have a war, and end with noticing the actions of Iraq (whether on human rights or weapons of mass destruction).

If a young woman is having trouble, this is one way she'll express her displeasure

Apparently 1/3 of all deaths of women in the Chinese countryside are suicides. BBC story.

The UK minister for higher education meets American experts to discuss how they fund university education.

From the BBC again. Why can't he meet European experts to discuss how they fund their education?

Today is Buy Nothing Day - a campaign from adbusters.

Angels we have heard on high,
Tell us to go out and buy!

Interesting piece about Iraq in the Guardian. CND are taking the government to court to stop them attacking Iraq without a UN resolution. Also casts doubt on any replacement government installed by the US (i.e. "a different dictator"). This puts my feelings more clearly than I could do, with reasonable supporting argument.