Practical Useful

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, is today promoting the case for more nuclear power build in Scotland, arguing that it is vital for our future energy requirements whilst reducing the massive carbon output from our current energy generation systems.

Now, and it’s been a while since I’ve said this about a New Labour minister, I completely agree with him.

Of course the SNP have quickly lambasted him with the Greens not far behind and Scottish Labour aren’t rallying to his defence because here in Scotland there is a widely held belief that Nuclear power is dangerous.

This belief is wrong and due only to ignorance brought about by unjustified fear.
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Obviously I’m a woolly liberal but is it just me who finds the following step-by-step plan for dealing with social problems troubling?

1. Identify a social problem.
2. Criminalise it.
3. Be surprised that there are suddenly more people spending short amounts of time in prison.
4. Be further surprised that this has caused more social problems.
5. Be completely surprised that the original social problem has not been solved.

Prison should be for criminals, parent’s who cant keep their kids in school need help, not porridge.

Welcome to the Panopticon. Originally a concept created by a philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, in 1785 the Panopticon is a prison where every corner of the designated space is covered by a camera so prisoners feel that they are being watched all of the time and thus are more likely to behave. In the UK the principal was used to build Milbank Prison on the bank of the Thames where now sits Tate Britain – a building whose function is to provide a space for us to look at reflections of ourselves, an art gallery.

The pleasing synergy of the first UK panopticon becoming an artopticon merits further examination as we become more obsessed with the voyeuristic tendency to watch each other as a form of entertainment and march headlong into turning every inch of this benighted isle into a prison.
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So how easy is it to short sell?

Pretty easy.

1) Watch BBC news to see the result of the vote on the bail out.
2) When news arrives that it has not gone through, log on to Paddy Power.
3) Bet ten pounds the DOW will close below 10566 at 5-6
4) Profit. DOW closes at 10404 10365.45*. Collect £18.33, gain of £8.33

Not bad for ten minutes of no work.

* The DOW was even lower after wrap up calculations.

Alyn Smith, Scotland MEP for the Scottish National Party, has replied to my letter about MS OOXML.
Update 8 May 2008 22:08
Alyn’s policy adviser has now sent a letter on his behalf to Meglena Kuneva, the European Commissioner for Consumer Protection essentially cc’ing my email and asking if the commission is aware of the issue and what they are doing about it.
Update 14 May 2008 14:47
I have received a reply from Struan Stevenson of the Scottish Tory MEPs which has been added as a comment on the original thread. They are also asking the commission for more information on why this has been allowed to happen.
Update 15 May 2008 09:56
A further email from Struan Stevenson has arrived, appended to the comments; The Directorate General for Competition has this matter on their daily agenda and has written to all EU National Standards bodies, the investigation is open and on going.