Tuesday 15th July, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
I saw an interesting article on BBC News today, I encourage you to read it before continuing.
Maybe it’s just me but when I was 15 I did some very stupid things. Some involved girls, some involved computers and some involved fire. I was a bit of an idiot.
Thankfully I was never in the wrong place at the wrong time and never did anything as stupid as throwing a grenade at an American soldier.
Even if this kid did what it is claimed he did, he was 15 at the time. 15! 3 more years of being a child. 8 more years before he can drink in the US. This Canadian citizen has been held for 6 years now and awaits the potential of life in prison. He is being held in a camp that seems to live outside international law and claims to have been tortured, something I don’t think many would be surprised by, given past reports.
After watching stuff like this I feel physically sick. It genuinely terrifies me that the US feel they have any even slight moral authority over any other regime with this torture camp still running. It sickens me to the core and I’m glad it does too.
Is it just me or should children be cut more slack than grown adults? They screw up and one (albeit huge) screw-up shouldn’t destroy their life.
Residents of the US, I really hope your next leader closes this camp down before the rest of the world becomes more disgusted that we already are at your flagrant abuse of human rights.
Posted in Politics
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Tuesday 4th March, 2008 @ 12:56 am
I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is Barack Obama.
I am, like a lot of people in Europe, strangely attracted to the US primaries and the Democratic race in particular (as it is actually still a race).
Hearing Barrack Obama talk is pretty inspirational and I’m not even vaguely a US citizen. He seems one of the few politicians who seems to truly believe in what he says and Marc Andreessen’s blog has some really good insights into why the man is capturing the hearts of so many of the young voters in the US. Ron Paul was a pretty inspirational guy also and I know the Internet loved him but sadly this doesn’t seem to have actually translated into a huge amount of votes.
Personally, I hope he wins as it would be nice to have a US President with a less aggressive foreign policy.
I leave you with a quote from Marc’s blog that I think is particularly relevant:
[Obama] said — and I’m going to paraphrase a little here: think about who I am — my father was Kenyan; I have close relatives in a small rural village in Kenya to this day; and I spent several years of my childhood living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Think about what it’s going to mean in many parts of the world — parts of the world that we really care about — when I show up as the President of the United States. I’ll be fundamentally changing the world’s perception of what the United States is all about.
Posted in Politics
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Friday 18th January, 2008 @ 1:17 am
The title is from the “Live Organ Transplants” sketch on Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life“. I’ve seen this referenced a fair bit recently about the British Prime Minister’s plans to make organ donation opt-out rather than opt-in.
Some people seem to be in uproar about this but I can’t really understand why. At the moment many people die waiting for organ transplants. Many people die with perfectly good organs and no problem with organ donation but never got round to getting a card to signify their consent. This is, in my humble opinion, stupid and unjust.
Moving to an opt-out system would save many lives so if people have religious/moral/whatever reasons for not wanting their organs removed on death they can stop it happening. The proposed legislation also says that the family can object and stop the donation going through so I’m surprised by peoples’ opposition. Personally I’d like to be able to still have a donation card so my family can’t object as I don’t think it is their right to do so.
What do other people think? The state over-reaching again or doing something good? This seems to be working in Spain with organ donation up 250%. Does anyone know any more details of the situation there?
Posted in Politics
17 Comments »
Saturday 5th January, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
We’re on the 5th day of 2008. It’ll probably take me till the 300th day before I remember to write “2008″ instead of “2007″…
Like most people I’ve made a few New Year’s resolutions this year whilst trying to take on a few bits of advice on how to make them and keep them.
Anyway, here goes:
- Hack more on KDE. I think the combination of starting a new job and not running KDE4 as my desktop (until recently) has made me slack from working on KDE. Once I actually am using it daily then I reckon I’ll be able to do more work and help with KDEPIM for 4.1.
- Practise my bass more. Playing every two weeks with a bunch of music teachers and session musicians is making me feel a little insecure about my playing! I need to practise more, especially working on my soloing and probably buy a Fake book.
- Study rather than just reading my Bible. I’m normally alright about reading my Bible regularly but I’ve just been reading it like a novel rather than actually using commentries and then like to properly study the passages. I’ve done this a few times lately and it is far more beneficial, I need to get up earlier and try and do it more often
- Play less computer games. I do enjoy gaming but it is one of these activities that really benefits no-one except myself so I want to try and divert more time into things like hacking/music where I can benefit others whilst enjoying myself.
- Be a better friend/boyfriend. Just generally take more of my time to try and focus on others and help them with their problems.
- Become a better software engineer. Improve my knowledge of my main languages, maybe try and pick up some more and improving my algorithmic math skills.
- Take more of an interest in politics. Now that Nick Clegg has been elected the leader of the Liberal Democrats I’ve felt myself want to try and get a little more involved and interested in British politics in the gradual run-up to the next UK elections.
I’m sure there are more but that’s all I can think of for now!
Posted in Computer Games, Music, My Life, Politics
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