I rather thought that Hillary Clinton has an almost impossible task to beat Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination however, Andrew Stephen in his article The fight is far from over for the New Statesman and Anatole Kaletsky in his article They must go for Hillary Clinton for The Times, both think otherwise.
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Phorm II
Yesterday I expressed concern regarding the internet advertising company Phorm. Today Privacy campaign group Privacy International director Simon Davies says
“We were impressed with the effort that had been put into minimising the collection of personal information.”
“Phorm does advance the whole sector of protecting personal information by two to three steps.
“The problem is that may not be good enough for consumers.”
“Behavioural advertising is a rather spooky concept for many people.” Source: The BBC.
Back to my original thoughts on this – nothing to worry about.
White Season
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When I first saw the BBC White Season TV advert, I thought, racist. The advert shows a white man whose face is slowly coloured black by people writing in differing languages across it, whilst in the background Billy Bragg sings Jerusalem, as the advert ends the text “Is white working class Britain becoming invisible?” appears. It seems like an election advert for the BNP, with the obvious suggestion that immigration is swamping Britain. What on earth possessed the BBC? As for the series itself, here’s a list of shows currently highlighted on the White Season website.
Last Orders – One the few remaining outposts of white, working class life opens its doors in this revealing documentary from Bafta and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Henry Singer.
Rivers of Blood – Forty years after Enoch Powell’s infamous speech predicting that mass immigration would lead to violence on our streets, filmmaker Denys Blakeway explores the impact of the maverick Conservative MP’s words and legacy.
White Girl – This provocative and emotive drama from the Bafta Award-winning writer of Sex Traffic tells the story of the clash of cultures that occurs when a white family relocates from Leeds to an otherwise wholly Asian community in Bradford.
The Poles are Coming – According to some of the locals, Peterborough is being stretched to breaking point by the influx of Eastern Europeans, attracted to the area by the promise of high wages and decent living conditions in exchange for manual labour. Employers are delighted with their Polish recruits, but some residents want the Poles to go home.
The Primary – While it’s situated in one of the most racially diverse and troubled areas in Britain, Welford Primary in Handsworth, Birmingham, is a thriving school that brings together pupils from no fewer than 17 different ethnic backgrounds with apparent ease.
All White Barking – Filmmaker Marc Isaacs’ funny and illuminating documentary gives a voice to people who feel that they are at the sharp end of multicultural Britain. Take a trip to the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, an area which has some of the highest levels of immigration in the country and where residents are struggling to come to terms with their new arrivals.
After reading that I’m not sure I’ve got the wrong idea.
Padded Lampposts
Channel 4 News reports Padded lampposts are being trialled in Brick Lane, London to prevent people who walk into lampposts whilst texting injuring themselves. Padding! How about spikes and do the gene pool a favour.
Iraq War Cost
Some things bear repeating so I’m shamelessly repeating Harry Hutton’s post on the cost of the Iraq war, which Joseph E. Stiglitz estimates at Three Trillion Dollars in his latest book.
If Bush had spent that $3,000,000,000,000 on shoes, no American child would ever have to wear the same shoes more than once. Or he could have bought everyone in Iraq an Aston Martin. Those would be the actions of a madman, of course, yet still more sensible than what he actually did do.
Phorm
I’d sort of seen posts around the net regarding the evils of Phorm. I took a quick look and thought, well so what, I take no notice of adverts and anyway, Phorm are wasting their time with me.
What’s Phorm you ask? At its simplest, Phorm is an internet marketing company which sells advertising on web pages, which sounds innocuous enough if somewhat unsavoury. However, it’s not so much, what Phorm does but how it does it that has people up in arms. Now I’d try to explain how it works, but details are vague, and anyway, I probably wouldn’t understand, so couldn’t, however The Register has some diagrams from BT.
What seems to be the consensus is that Phorm would receive details of every page you visit. If BadPhorm‘s correct then we have a lot to worry about.
Phorm doesn’t just see the URL of every page you visit, they see the entire content of every single web page (with the exception of encrypted pages). That means they can read your mail if you use most types of webmail, view all the posts you make or read on web forums, obtain the content of most webforms you complete, in fact just about anything you do on the web that is not encrypted can be hoovered up by Phorm. Phorm claim they do not store this information for more than 14 days.
Why should I worry? Surely, my ISP wouldn’t do this. Wrong, these IPS have sighed up Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk.
But, look I can opt out it says so on their website. Well I wouldn’t be too sure of a company believed by some to be related to the Russian secret services. Still, I’m starting to have a David Icke moment and starting to see all sorts of conspiracy theories.
Look at the end of the day don’t do anything on the internet you wouldn’t stand in the street and shout out loud about. Sad in many ways, but true.
If you’re concerned or just want to annoy these people then install TOR a system that helps defend against traffic analysis.
Oh, one last thing a Wired FAQ shows what AOL was up to back in 2006, remember two years is a long as far as technology is concerned.
Source: Postman Patel.
MEPs Continue to Shoot Their Feet
There’s been a highly damning secret internal audit on MEPs expenses, which is reputed to reveal widespread malpractice and outright criminal activity with the audit purportedly unable to account for £100m. A few MEPs, notably Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies, have seen this report under surveillance and without taking notes or copies.
With this in mind, MEPs have rejected a draft ruling that they should publish how much they pay their staff and claim on expenses. Source: Financial Times.
Don’t MEPs realise that the perception of nearly every citizen in the EU is that MEPs are bust stuffing their pockets with millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money. If they don’t address this then citizens will have continue to have little faith.
Some MEPs are hiding behind the fig leaf of privacy but as Nikiforos Diamandouros, The European ombudsman, rightly ruled privacy considerations outweigh the publics right-to-know. Corruption in the EU has to de addressed and soon – no now!
24-Hour Licensing Review
I’ve always been a supporter of 24-hour licence laws. A government review will also back the laws, with ministers pointing to the latest figures, which suggest a fall of 1% in overall crime and of 10% in violent crime committed since licensing laws changed. Critics will point out that the continental-style cafe culture that the laws were supposed to encourage has failed to appear. After just three brief years, I don’t know why anyone expects a culture change – try again in 10 years.
Killed Over a Chocolate Bar
Imagine the scene, you’re sat in your sister’s car, waiting at the traffic lights when two youths walk past, one of whom lobs a half-eaten chocolate bar through the open window, you get out of the car and remonstrate with the youths, before you know it you’re fatally wounded, fall into a coma and die just eight days later. Sounds like fiction? No, that’s what happened to Evren Anil. I know it’s one incident but it makes you stop and think? Soure: BBC.
Education’s Not the Lottery It Was
Whilst as a parent myself, I understand the disappointment of you child failing to get into the school you’d like. Still let’s not give any credence to such comments as Tory shadow minister Michael Gove
The increasing number of parents not getting their first choice underlines once again that at the moment there simply are not enough good school places to go round. As ever, it is the poorest that are being hit the hardest, with the most acute problems occurring in inner city areas. Source: The Guardian.
Whilst there’s still room for improvement lets make no mistake education has improved under Labour. As Conor Ryan, former adviser to Tony Blair states, “admissions are less of a lottery now than they were when Labour was elected”. Pupils are achieving better results than ever and than chances of children ending up in sink schools are less. There’s no room for complacency but let’s not forget our achievements.