The Wardman Wire

Human Rights

The New York Times has an interactive map of Olympic Medal History, which is really very nifty, however…

The Olympic movement stands for Peace,
but it’s all Greek to some people.

The best posts in the British blogosphere have been rounded up by Mr Eugenides this week.

Featured posts include this Sino-Sceptic Beau Bo D’Or cartoon and a report on the 437 BBC personnel visiting Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, which compares with 300 British Competitors and “several” politicians and their retinue. Oh - and 39 policemen.

One Million people on Terrorist-Watch in the USA.

There are one million on the USA Terorist Watch List.

One million was also the USA prison population in 1990. It became 2 million in 2002.

Meanwhile, back in Blighty

One million was the number on the UK Police’s DNA Database in March 2003 was 2 million. By 2005 that figure was 3.4 million - 1 in 20 people.

Perversely, our Home Office seem to view that as a matter for pride. We have a Bigger Brother than anybody else, and should pat them on the head for a job well done. Hmmm.

The UK’s database is the largest of any country: 5.2% of the UK population is on the database compared with 0.5% in the USA. The database has expanded significantly over the last five years. By the end of 2005 over 3.4 million DNA profiles were held on the database – the profiles of the majority of the known active offender population.

Penny Red is doing some empire-building for her own particular variety of Feminism at Liberal Conspiracy. I usually don’t get into this, but this one is completely off the wall … sorry … “provocative”.

I was raised by a single mother who was also a part-time lawyer; it did me no harm whatsoever, and I fully intend to be one myself one day.

OK.

Sorry about your balls, guys, but these babies are “ours”, and they will remain ours whilst they are born from our bodies.

Ahem.

Surely you mean “mine”. Any evidence of another 30 million women agreeing with you?

A painless experience, and I’ll comment in more detail later.

The audio of me and Peter Black AM. is a little further down.

We were talking about the restrictions on blogging Civil Servants in Wales, in the light of Miss Wagstaff’s expulsion from Facebook.

I’m delighted that Peter Black was more controversial than I was. Welsh Assembly Government “stalinist” indeed - ouch !

A painless experience, and I’ll comment in more detail later.

The audio of me and Peter Black AM. is a little further down.

We were talking about the restrictions on blogging Civil Servants in Wales, in the light of Miss Wagstaff’s expulsion from Facebook.

I’m delighted that Peter Black was more controversial than I was. Welsh Assembly Government “stalinist” indeed - ouch !

There have been a few posts in a few places over the week about the Dave Walker situation. I thought it would be a good time to remember the objectives as I wrote them down on 25th July:

1 - We wish to make it very clear to Mark Brewer and everybody else that trying to shut down comment, critique and reporting in the way he has is not acceptable, and just will not work. We aim to ensure he gets more publicity than he ever had before this point.

2 - We want to make sure that the material Dave Walker published remains in the public domain, to help address the SPCK case.

3 - We want to try and make sure that the SPCK case is properly documented and investigated.

4 - We wish to strengthen the movement to reform the UK Libel Laws.

I have 2 thoughts for a Sunday morning:

• What is the difference between a Flash Mob and a Lynch Mob?
• Q: What sort of “free, democratic” country is it where political websites (including this one) are hosted abroad - not because that releases us personally from any legal actions (it doesn’t), but because it keeps non-defamatory material available to the public when webhosts in this country may well pre-emptively remove it to “play safe”, just because someone pays a lawyer to write a letter containing an allegation?

  A: One that has become a little tarnished at the edges.

What do you think?