This is a great little piece on why the NASA budget was cut after the man on the moon mission Apollo 11, and why we should be exploring space.

Op-Ed Contributor – One Giant Leap to Nowhere – NYTimes.com.

I’m a great believer in space exploration and agree totally that it’s fairly unbelievable that we haven’t made any steps to manned space exploration beyond the moon since the 1960s. So much of science fiction writer’s fantasies have come true – look at the mobile phone, the way we travel and prepare food – but the actual space travel? No, not funded by our governments.

This story is about how little the UK trusts adults to be around children. Allready, the UK has a system in place where you have to register and be vetted in order to be in contact with children (for example to drive them to sports events). Now they want a much larger system of vetting for people who visit schools. Vetting costs GBP 64,- and will include rumors and hearsay about your behavior.
The implication is that adults are somehow out to get children, and children simply can’t be in contact with them without the adult having sinister ulterior motives. The UK needs to get it’s shit together.

Would you leave your child alone with a cabinet minister? • The Register.

This week, the two big political parties ruling Germany in a coalition held the final talks on their proposed Internet censorship scheme. DNS queries for sites on a list will be given fake answers that lead to a page with a stop sign. The list itself is maintained by the German federal police (Bundeskriminalamt).

They have a huge protest movement going, but of course, the Nazi’s don’t listen to their populace; only to the whims of their leaders!

via Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | A Black Day For Internet Freedom In Germany.

So this guy gets a house from parliament: yes, UK MP’s are allowed to live in a tax payer paid house. NL MP’s are too.
He likes his garden, so he does it up – on tax payer’s expenses. Because he gets them as per the law. He owns ducks, so he makes an island for them. Not only will it look nice, it’ll protect them from foxes. This costs £1,645. Because the media hits it with ‘duck island’ he’s forced to resign.

This witch hunt has got to stop!

Croats are supporting a man running for town mayor under slogans such as “all for me, nothing for you”.
They find his honesty refreshing.

That and offering free health care support to get off the drugs has lowered the useage of drugs dramatically as well as turned Portugal into a much safer place.

… but only if it is the same as ours!

Seig Heil to the One Opinion

Sometimes the EU just gets it right. Telling the Telco Carriers they can’t be anti-competitive dicks and filter out applications like Voipbuster or Skype is a great move that lets you think that sometimes – yes – they think about consumers as well.

This is a heartrending story of a stupid woman who thought an all-woman company would be a good idea. In great detail, she shows how badly women get along with each other, ending in the sordid downfall of her company.

Apparently, in a bid to really lower morale on the International Space Station, Russia and the US are forbidding their astro/cosmonauts to use each other’s facilities, extending to sharing food, using the toilet and gym.
Because obviously it’s a politically very very important issue who uses what crapper up there.

Apparently these followers of the paedophile prophet are so worried about people blackmouthing them, they feel that the UN needs to encourage its members to outlaw free speech.

Most surprisingly – the resolution passed.

For the land of the free, it’s a bit strange that the US has 25% of the global prison population – whilst only having 5% of the total population. Where Stalin had his gulags, the US is doing much much worse with its prisons. It has more of its own population behind bars than any other country!

Thankfully there’s a politician in there – Jim Webb – who thinks this is ridiculous and might actually stand a chance of doing something about it.

Yup, the Australians have a censorship list of websites that they’re blocking. The actual list is secret, but has now been unearthed! And – surprise surprise – it contains a whole load of sites that aren’t supposed to be on the list, such as legitimate businesses (who must have gotten on the wrong side of some politician there). Apparently the watchdog that runs the list is accountable to no one and can put whoever they don’t like on it. Well done the “free” world!

As if privacy isn’t enough of a bother for the people of the UK, the government now wants to kill net neutrality: ie the choice to connect wherever you like to on the internet. This bill would allow ISPs to say which sites you can and can’t connect to, a bit like TV stations. One of the reasons TV lost to internet is because you can choose your own content. People are adult enough to make their own choices and don’t need them spoonfed to them, thanks.

SS general Jaqui Smith has found that violence against women is unnaccaptable at any time and is shocked to find that 1 in 5 men find it acceptable if there is sufficient cause for it. She is also surprised to find that 40% of British men think that if a woman has been flirting heavily she’s asking for sex.
Violence against men, however, is so inconsequential, she doesn’t find it worth spending her time on.
Sexist bitch.

It seems the only ones with their heads screwed on straight in the UK are the Lords – a non-elected body of oversight on government that are appointed by the queen or by right of birth. It ain’t such a bad thing, having other people checking up on the elected twits.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee has warned that increasing use of surveillance by the government and private companies is a serious threat to freedoms and constitutional rights. The Committee s report said “The expansion in the use of surveillance represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War. Mass surveillance has the potential to erode privacy. As privacy is an essential pre-requisite to the exercise of individual freedom its erosion weakens the constitutional foundations on which democracy and good governance have traditionally been based in this country.”

Lords say surveillance society erodes foundations of UK %u2022 The Register

The European Human Rights court in Strassbourg has decided that the UK DNA Database, which keeps the DNA data of people in it regardless of whether or not they have committed a crime and won’t let you out once you’re in, is in contravention of the basic right to privacy. Too right! You can’t just tape people’s lives without their consent – it’s one of the things that’s supposed to differentiate us from the totalitarians!

Why? Because they own youtube. Which posted a video of a kid with Downs Syndrome being pestered. Why those four execs? No idea, really. Why they think the execs who provided the youtube service are liable for the content on it? That’s like saying knife manufacturers are personally responsible for every stabbing that has ever occured. Or car manufacturers for every driving accident.

Apparently he was stabbed 4 times in the back and twice in the front, once in the heart, posthumously. Way to keep him dead! I wonder if they buried him in a concrete vault with a stake in his heart and huge signs in various languages telling people to KEEP THE FUCK OUT!

As the president of EstDomains has been convicted of fraud, money laundering and document forgery, as well as apparently being notorious for registering domain names used for phishing, spam and other internet scams, ICANN has said enough is enough and has kicked them out. They are now looking for someone to take over the 281,000 dubious domain names.

Labour is a big fan of huge, vulnerable and downright dangerous centralised databases. The Tory party: less so. Especially when it’s their kids being centralised for an unencrypted USB device to give all the data to someone.

Well, there you go. Proof that speeding camera’s are basically only another way for the government to shake us around upside down and catch the money that falls out.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.

EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Whilst I wish the EFF all the luck in the world, justice in the States is not a function of right or wrong, but in these cases a function of money. And I have a slight suspicion that these guys have a whole load more money than the EFF. Good job on at any rate making it look like the US wants to hold their leadership accountable for their actions.

This is obviously a big deal in France.

Turns out that the Christians have been performing same-sex marriages for ages and ages up to at least 1587.