I’ve just seen this film for the first time, and it was largely as I expected. It missed most of the real points, and padded out with general silliness. It was distressing to see that bereaved parents were being abused to make a weak political point. There were some point where I shouted at the screen in protest at completely unfair and stupid accusations, and several points where I actually laughed out loud at some observations (one of the most memorable being that the Saudi Embassy was at the heart of Washington’s decision making process because it was located opposite one of the most important government buildings – the Watergate Hotel).

The BBC series The Power of Nightmares was far better, soberly and sensibly exploring the background issues that Michael Moore tried to sensationalise. And, judging by the US Election results, failed.

According to my lecturer this morning, my politics will move ‘further to the right than Attila the Hun’ after my Accident and Emergency rotation, because I’ll be able to see how stupid people really are. I can’t see it happening, personally. But stranger things have happened…

So keep watching the blog for a major political shift. It’s still more likely than one at Number 10, though.

As even the least observant of my readers must have noticed, I’ve moved over to a new blogging system (WordPress). There were a number of reasons for the change, the foremost being the ability to host absolutely everything on my own server.

The new design has now finished being implemented (though not through the static part of the site, only as far as the blog itself), and the whole post archive has now been uploaded. There should, therefore, be no major interruptions to service from this point onwards. Touch wood.

But notice all the advatanges of the new system – the search engine automatically searches every single post (no more waiting for re-indexing), and posts appear instantly instead of being delayed by a couple of minutes. This version also has better cross-browser compatability, and built-in Trackback.

I hope you enjoy the new system, and will keep on visiting the site regularly; if you have any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch in the usual way.

Update: 29th January 2005
The new design is now implemented on the static pages as well as the blog.

This is one of those bizarre stories, where you begin reading and sympathise with the poor people featured:

…in the past six months alone, more than 63,000 mobile phones, nearly 5,000 laptops and 5,800 PDAs have been left in the back of London’s black cabs…

That seems an awful lot, but you can understand that it’s fairly easy for a phone or PDA to slip out of your pocket. Not so much with a Laptop, but still fairly understandable.

But then you get to this bit:

cabbies have also found left on their back seats a dog, a hamster, a harp (a harp?) and even a baby

Somebody left their child in the back of a cab? And how exactly do you manage to forget a harp? It doesn’t exactly just slip out of your pocket, now, does it?

There certainly are some strange people in London!

Dick & Dom in Da Evening (Guardian)

If Dick and Dom were even close to the ‘standard’ of Ant and Dec, then maybe this would work. But they’re not, so it won’t.

‘Violent crime increases by 6%’ (BBC News)

This is the kind of silly political argument that voters so strongly dislike, as it makes all politicians look dishonest.

What I would love to see tomorrow is for either Mr Blair to admit that rising violent crime is a problem, or for Mr Howard to congratulate Mr Blair on the falls in crime in other areas. If Mr Howard took this course of action, it’d blow the wind out of Mr Blair’s attacking sails, and also give Mr Howard a greater sense of credibility among voters, who are intelligent enough to know that statistics like these can’t be boiled down to “Crime getting worse” or “Crime getting better”.

It wouldn’t work so well for Mr Blair, because he seems so manipulative and arrogant, and wouldn’t be able to make a statement like this without adding ‘…but it’s not nearly as bad as under the party opposite’, probably making a direct reference to Mr Howard’s time as Home Secretary, too.

If I was on Mr Howard’s staff, I’d have him doing the above, and also asking a question along the lines of ‘Does the Prime Minister feel that Members who have misled Parliament should resign and stay out of Government?’. Which would be very damaging to the ‘whiter-than-white’ Prime Minister, as he wouldn’t be able to answer ‘yes’, as he has so many once-retired ministers in his Cabinet. With the right follow-ups, Mr Howard could do some serious damage… but, come tomorrow, I bet he won’t.

Guantánamo prisoners return home today (Guardian)

Detention without trial is wrong.

I have yet to meet anyone who can make a convincing argument against the above statement. The right to a fair trial is a fundamental right of modern civilisation – and, for that matter, ancient civilisation too. So why, in the light of a few high profile terrorist attacks, are we denying people that right?

Don’t misunderstand me here – The terrorist attacks against America and other countries have been terrible atrocities, but terrorism isn’t new. Foreign terrorism is a fairly new concept to a young country like America, and it is a major step in the development of a nation. They must decide how to deal with such provocation, and this may well determine the future of their country as a whole. At the moment, I think they’re taking the wrong path.

The Bush administration has violated more international laws at Guantánamo Bay than I can begin to count. The very fact that the American Constitution forbids this kind of treatment on American soil should put up some red flags. They have created a situation whereby the Presidential Administration could, if they wished to abuse the system, detail whoever they wanted and torture them. Is this really the foundation the American people want for their country? Is this not the very kind of Government that they tried to eliminate in Iraq?

I am in no way accusing Mr Bush of taking this kind of action. I’m confident that he is convinced that there is a need to detain these people, and that there are valid reasons in his eyes for not giving them proper trials. But we’ve seen the danger of this kind of approach in Iraq: Mr Blair had what he saw as high quality intelligence, which he trusted and believed, on the existence of WMD in Iraq. He was wrong. What’s to say Mr Bush isn’t wrong? Isn’t the fair trial the protection against this kind of error, just as publishing full information before a vote in the House of Commons is the protection against Mr Blair’s error? Just as Mr Blair failed to publish an authoritative Iraq dossier, Mr Bush is failing to provide trials for these people, and mistakes will inevitably be made.

As for the poor prisoners themselves, I cannot even imagine being locked in solitary confinement for three years. It would be mental torture, and would leave someone with lifelong mental trauma, and would probably have a similar impact on their families. Torture is completely wrong, and has no place in a modern society. The fact that these prisoners have been tortured, and the fact that the British Government has failed to condemn torture (by admitting evidence from torture, so long as it wasn’t torture by British people) shows a deep problem in our society. Cracks of this magnitude in the very base of our society need patching up quickly, or it could lead to a serious collapse.

The news of four British detainees being released is clearly a welcome development, but we should be appalled at their detention rather than celebrating their release. How anyone expects that a society with such a loose moral grasp can ever hope to ‘spread freedom’ about the world, I just cannot begin to understand.

Your Newsnight 25 slogans (BBC)

Newsnight – Real news, comfortably seated behind a desk
Simon Howard, Stockton-on-Tees

I’ve always said I should be on Newsnight (or, erm, not) – I’ve made it to the website, only a short step to the programme… 😉

Oxford attacked over plan to cut UK students

It seems somewhat foolish to criticise Oxford university for seeking more profit-making international students at the expense of loss-making home students. Surely it is more appropriate to criticise the politicians who have let the university system degrade to such a level, whilst trying to encourage an absurd quota of 50% of young people to attend university, effectively devaluing the degree and increasing drop-out rates.

Gates’ $750m vaccination pledge (BBC News)

Whatever your personal opinions of Bill Gates, you have to get behind this massive gesture. There are many very rich people who do little work like this, and the fact that Bill Gates is exceedingly rich should not take away from the fact that he’s spending an awful lot of money to help others.