eurealist.co.uk

Defence of the Realm

I must say I was a bit puzzled to understand how on earth a radio could have save a parachutist. Many thanks to Defence of the Realm for the explanation. That it probably would not have but training probably would have.

Yellow Swordfish

Macedonian beekeeper Zoran Kiseloski, has successfully prosecuted a bear through the courts on the charge of theft and criminal damage to his hives.

PJC Journal

Culled from two different posts to give an overview of

The Infrastructure of Mass Surveillance

Have you been wondering why our government want to gather all our data together?, the NHS spine, the ID cards, the National Identity Register, Biometric Passports, the PNC, the DNA register, Fingerprinting, RFID, Car tracking, and to share the data with everyone.

“Congress shut down TIA because it represented a massive and unjustified governmental intrusion into the personal lives of Americans,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU. “Now we find out that the security agencies are pushing ahead with the program anyway, despite that clear congressional prohibition. The program described by current and former intelligence officials in Monday’s Wall Street Journal could be modeled on Orwell’s Big Brother.”

Global security and the “war on terror” now dominate the global political agenda. Driven largely by the United States, a growing web of anti-terrorism and security measures are being adopted by nations around the world. This new “security” paradigm is being used to roll back freedom and increase police powers in order to exercise increasing control over individuals and populations.

Cranmer

Cranmer brought to the attention of his readers and communicants the plight of Iraq’s Christians some time ago, not least because their systematic extermination was scarcely registering on the radar of the mainstream media. While the Iraq focus has been on a botched peace and the occasional atrocity committed by the odd deviant soldier, thousands upon thousands of Assyrian and Chaldean Christians have been ‘cleansed’ from the lands in which they and their forebears have dwelt for almost two millennia

Wonkos World

A member of a Shropshire political group has criticised the “health apartheid” of the NHS, which he claims is responsible for county patients receiving poorer services that those in Scotland and Wales.

NoseMonkey`s EUtopia

The strapline claims non partisan European Politics: Debatable: as Clive supports the EU

Tells us that two nutty anti-EU myths dispelled in one day: Debatable: as neither of the myths are myths and neither have been dispelled on the evidence offered.

GlobaL Warming Politics

Well, well, well! In this poll, “The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ or Global Warming” comes a lamentable 9th out of the 12 listed concerns. But, what is even more interesting is the fact that, for the ten environmental items that were raised in both Gallup’s 2007 and 2008 Environment Surveys, the percentage who report worrying “a great deal” about a problem is down in 2008 on 2007 for all ten issues. Valium maybe?

EU Referendum

As the credit crisis engulfed the 85-year-old Bear Stearns investment bank and the Federal Reserve with JP Morgan Chase combined to provide emergency finance, there are very real fears of an economic meltdown engulfing the global financial system.

Unfounded or not, we would still like to think that there is someone in charge on this side of the pond, with sufficient gravitas to handle any emerging crises, and to reassure us that the best possible action is being taken.

EURSOC

Every nation has its eternal students, but France seems to specialise in their production. Observers of student protests will notice scruffy thirtysomethings marching alongside fresh-faced youth. Not teachers, as you might expect, but fellow students, who entered higher education a decade or more ago and remained there long after it became undignified to do so.