True bicameralism, landmarks, and speed cameras
A true landmark vote in the Commons tonight gave a result that surprised many – including Iain Dale, Dizzy, and (errr) me. A vote in favour of a 100% elected House of Lords. Of course, quite how (if?) that’ll work remains to be seen, and it’s not quite what I would’ve gone for, but it’s probably a positive move. Are we on the brink of true bicameralism?
An interesting, but much more parochial landmark also passed tonight – over 100,000 spam comments caught by Akismet on this blog alone. Again, I’m not quite sure what that means for the future of humanity, but it’s interesting. On the one hand, it shows that spam is well and truly alive – but the fact that the filter caught it shows that their tactics aren’t quite so strong any more. It’s an interesting dichotomy – an increase in spam being used to mark its decline.
I’ve uploaded more stuff over on the Work pages for the first time in a while. I think it’s worth highlighting this piece, about the public health effect of speed cameras, which I think from previous posts that some of my readers might find interesting. It’s hardly crucial seminal research, but I think some people might find it an interesting read.
So there you go – three utterly different topics in one barely coherent post. It’s a while since I’ve done that.
Your Comments and Responses
Comment from Mort Karman
I just got the HP computer which did not work replaced by Walmart with one that does, even though it is another HP. This one has the new Vista.
The old Windows had better screen savers and background pix. The ones on Vista are not at all as good.
As I reprogrammed everything I noticed that Firefox has zonked a bunch of the tool bars, including the BBC bar and Reel New Media. I miss that and hope Firefox brings them back. Most of the tool bars are still available on IE. Perhaps someone can say why Mozilla did this?
As far as Vista goes, there is nothing really good or really bad about it. I would not go the extra several hundred dollars to put it on my Dell, but I would not pull it off my HP and put XP on that computer.
I am not impressed. I think Windows Vista is much over rated.
Rather Microsoft should work on improving the reliability of existing programs then trying to bring star wars style stuff to every household.
I will let you know after I have spent some time with it, but I say again, I am not very impressed.
» This comment was received at 00:16 on 10 March 07
Comment from Coire
from what I heard, the vote on the house of lords was more a vote to ‘test the water’ rather than decide anything. Even those against voted for it, cos (i really didn’t listen properly, but this is what it sounded like), it has to be voted for by the house of lords if it goes thtough, and they’re obviously not going to want it – so it get stopped there, much easier than fannying about in the house of commons. Don’t know if that’s correct, or makes sense, but there you go. Apologies for crap punctuation. i can’t be bothered.
» This comment was received at 18:56 on 11 March 07
Comment from the original poster,
sjhoward
Mort – I’ll avoid upgrading to Vista, then!
Coire – You’re right, the vote was largely to test the water. But the breakthrough is that the water has been tested and come up with the result we wanted – for the first time ever, it has finally been recognised by the bods in Westminster that reform needs to happen. The actual type of reform that happens is still very open, and (as you say) unlikely to be of the form which MPs voted for, as the Lords would never agree. But the need for true reform has been recognised for the first time, which is impressive.
» This comment was received at 20:18 on 11 March 07
