'Rants & Raves'
According to BBC News, the Lord Chancellor when talking about the new terror laws said that people ‘attacking the values of the West’ would be imprisoned for ‘long periods’.
Would be interesting to know, what the Lord Chancellor and this whole British government mean by “values of the West”. On an almost daily basis we recognise manifestations of these “values of the West”, such as privatisation of the commons, protection of globalised corporatism, a democracy of the white male upper-class where minorities are denied their democratic rights, and the not so subtle brainwash of consumerism to name only a few (and not to forget Britain’s “right” for a rebate on EU contributions and the millions of taxpayers’ money spent for the royals).
If that’s the “values of the West” I’d rather be somewhere else … soon!
(Via BBC News.)
New laws will make it hard for urpight British Citizens to get their Terror Training Certificates: “Providing or receiving terrorist training could be outlawed under planned new anti-terror laws.”
“But Ms Blears said the new offence would only cover those given training in the future rather than being used retrospectively.”
So it is hight time to get your terror training now, because in the future you could only be trained on how to handle an acute terrorist threat (like how to dispose of bomb making material in the most booom manner), but not how to do terror.
(Via BBC News.)
400 complain at Live 8 swearing: “The BBC receives about 400 complaints about swearing after outbursts by artists performing at Live 8.”
(Via BBC News.)
And the BBC use the other most abused and meaningless word in English language: “We are sorry”.
Four Scottish Socialist MSPs have been banned from parliament for the month of September. The reason: They marched to the front of the chamber with posters: “Defend Democracy”. They demanded the the right to protest at Gleneagles.
All the Scottish Parliament’s Presiding Officer could do was suspending the sitting and suspending the group.
This is what the people in power call “Democracy” in Scotland — and throughout the UK.
In fact it is making the Scottish Parliament even more UN-democratic than it was in the first place — a bunch of capitalist, imperialist, nationalist particular-interest-mongers, without a sense of humor, without a feeling for the silent and oppressed minorities in this country — and in fact the majority who will protest against this sort of Holyrod wannabe grown-ups and their G8 establishment.
(Via BBC NEWS | Scotland | MSPs suspended after G8 protest and Scotsman: Four Socialist MSPs ejected from Holyrood after protest.)
The Times, The Times Higher Education Supplement (June 10) reports, that “UK campuses don’t rate”, i.e. that bright (and money-carrying) Singapore students don’t notice that there are other Unis in the UK apart from Ox, Bridge & ICL, because these other Unis don’t rate high on international comparisons.
Usually the British are among the most obsessed with league tables — except when this weapon turns itself against them. Whatever the argument, Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking has its methodology — and its impact: Here, Andrew Oswald, correctly notices: “these world rankings will do us painful good because they focus back on a university’s core business: ideas.”
So it’s not so easy “to demonstrate the range of world-class research undertaken in UK institutions”, as Brian Ferrar, the first secretary for science at the British High Commission in Singapore, is reported saying, if they’re not able to track that world class research down.
What then will happen is what recently a UK University put into a job ad: “The kind of people who have the courage to uproot themselves are often more interested in their intellectual environment than the particular city they live in.” And while this particular University tried to attract people, the add could easily have been read the other way round — particularly since said Uni of X did its utmost to stress that “the quality of life (in X) is unusually high” …
http://www.thes.co.uk/story.aspx?story_id=2022500 and http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2022224
