Dean Sas’s Weblog

Engels Maiden Speech

// October 21st, 2005 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

My member of parliament Natascha Engel made her maiden speech today. She spoke about our area and of the good that Labour had done with regeneration efforts. She gave compliments to Harry Barnes her predecessor, who, despite being a labour MP actually managed to be pretty good.

She did pay tribute to socialism and trade unionism, saying that True socialism and trade unionism, [are] the very roots of the Labour movement…

They might be at the roots however I find it hard to believe that they are at the head.

There’s a “question time” style debate on tonight with her at in Tupton l, I can’t see me making it though.

London Shootings

// August 16th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Watching channel 4 news earlier, I was slightly gobsmacked to hear about the details and photographs that they have had leaked from the enquiry into this.

They reveal several things that was thought differently of, due to previous eyewitness and police reports.

1. He was not wearing a “bulky overcoat”, instead favouring a light denim jacket.
2. He did not run into the station and vault over the ticket barriers. Instead he walked in, used his Oyster card, and even had time to pick up a newspaper
3. He only started to run when the train pulled into the station – like thousands of other people do on a regular basis.
4. Apparently no witness has been able to confirm that the police gave any warnings. I’m sure I heard different on the day though…)

The police did let him board a bus too and enter the station, despite specific instructions not too.

Also the CCTV cameras in Stockwell Station apparently weren’t working, despite the fact that there’d been bombings eight days before, and also the day before the shooting.

All in all, it seems quite damning for both the Police and the Transport Police. Though I’ll wait till the final report is released before making my mind up too strongly about their ineptness.

P.S. Interestingly enough the beeb haven’t picked up on this yet.

Vacancy

// August 11th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I notice in the Derbyshire Times, that Natascha Engels (MP for N.E. Derbyshire) is looking for an “experienced consituency caseworker” to tackle her “busy caseload”.

Which has probably grown so high as she’s barely done any work since May…

For some reason she’s felt the need to put her picture inside the job ad as well, that’s the first time I’ve saw that done.

Religous Hate Laws

// July 18th, 2005 // 10 Comments » // Uncategorized

There are plans underway to create laws banning incitement to religious hatred – the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Which sounds all well and dandy…

However this bill infringes on free speech. I don’t feel any need to say hatrous words about any religous groups (and indeed, some of my friends are religious) but I should have the right to say it. Saying things and doing them are two different things anyway…

One flaw with the bill is that it explicitly allows reading from religious texts, which in some cases are some of the most violent, hate-mongering texts anyway..

kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the little girls among the women, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

It claims to protect the free speech of comedians, what would it say about Bill Hicks saying “I’m going capture gideons for a hobby”? Where is the line drawn? Who decides what is comedy?

If religous idealogies are to gain protection what about political beliefs? What about classes? Which way round you like your egg?

Londoninium

// July 7th, 2005 // 2 Comments » // General

No doubt, everyones read about the London Bombings and know plenty about it. Thirty-seven people have died and another 50 more “seriously injured”, so relatively speaking the attacks weren’t that bad – especially as four bombs went off, it could’ve been much worse anyhow. It’s incredible that only two people died after seeing pictures of that bus.

What I also found interesting was hitting flikr and finding that they had 80+ photos taken and uploaded. Gave a chance to find out what it was looking like, for those of us without T.V.

Edit:
Forgot this other bunch of stuff I was going to say – the chances of our civil liberties being curtailed again has just massively increased. It’ll also be interesting to note whether any of the perpetuators had some form of valid I.D. or not….

A Result!

// July 6th, 2005 // No Comments » // General

(of sorts), The Directive has been dropped after the two sides came to a near unanimous decision, after both feared pushing further would result in their loss. There are up and downsides to this though, the upside is “yay, no E.U. decision saying software patents are legal”, the downside is there’s not a directive saying they’re not. This means that each government is now responsible for their own software patent laws.

Unfortunately precedent says software patents are ok in the UK (although in a very murky, grey sort of area) and the UKPO’s software patent policy agrees, but qualifies it with the undefined ” only if a technological innovation is involved”. so I guess it’s back to writing to my M.P. to persuade her to try and get them definitely banned.

:/, I’d rather deal with M.E.Ps than Engels.

Software Patents Follow-up

// June 24th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve had further contact with William Newton Dunn reguarding software patents and it appears that this man is not for turning.

Because I am for freedom – the choice – for you – whether to patent or
not. And because successful SMEs told me that when they seek money for
expansion the first question asked by bankers or other financiers is
“Have you got anty patents ?” I want to help SMEs gorw bigger.
Bill Newton Dunn

The software patents issue is really heating up now, I’ve had the FFII contact me reguarding the issue and messages forwarded onto different mailing lists. The vote isn’t far away..