There is another way. Look to the Scottish Parliament for inspiration. Support the issues, not the party. It doesn’t matter to you which of the major parties is holding the reigns of government. You have preferences, sure, but those preferences surely must be subordinate to exercising the mandate of the electorate. They didn’t vote for deals.

This route has other advantages. You’ll be in the media all the time, and we now know you can do well there. Without unconditional support, the (admittedly remaining) excesses of either party’s political agenda won’t be able to be pushed by them. Your party’s opinion will count on every issue.

The last thing the UK needs right now is strong government. Don’t get sucked into giving us it.

From American Museum of Natural History News

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Over the past several years, security compliance requirements have become more restrictive, while the technology infrastructure necessary to meet these requirements has expanded greatly. Despite our strong desire to continue providing the Thawte Personal E-mail Certificate and Web of Trust services, the ever-expanding standards and technology requirements will outpace our ability to maintain these services at the high level of quality we require. As a result, Thawte Personal E-Mail Certificates and the Web of Trust will be discontinued on November 16, 2009 and will no longer be available after that date.

This is a real shame — I’ve had one of these for ten years, and have been verifying other peoples’ identities for them for eight.

I’m in San Francisco at the moment, but will be motorbiking through California over the next couple days. More photos soon — I’ll not have my laptop with me, so I’ll be updating my twitter feed first.

You’ve asked us not to send you any information about the other products and services RAC could offer you.

Indeed I did.

Normally we wouldn’t, but we’ve made some important changes at RAC that could benefit you. So, as a valued member, we wanted to make sure you were aware of them.

Translation: Because we actually don’t give a fuck about you, we’ll ignore your stated instructions and tell you anyway.

Did they even look at the chance this would piss off more people than would buy from them? Idiots.

Inachis Io, the peacock butterfly. Sadly out of focus, but it was a grabbed shot with the iPhone.

Even if Al Megrahi is a mass-murderer, the fact remains that he is dying. It is long-standing policy in Scotland to exercise the prerogative of mercy when possible; in general, if an imprisoned criminal is terminally ill, a request for release (for hospice care, basically) is usually granted unless they are believed to be a danger to the public.

That’s because the justice system isn’t solely about punishment. It’s about respect for the greater good of society, which is better served by rehabilitation and reconcilliation than by revenge. We do not make ourselves better people by exercising a gruesome revenge on the bodies of our vanquished foes. Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, did exactly the right thing in sending Al Megrahi home to die.

I’ve been watching the war of words with increasing disbelief for the past month, trying to get my head around the reason why so many loud, vocal citizens seem to be so adamantly opposed to something that’s in their own best interests — the US healthcare system is utterly dysfunctional, even for those with health insurance costs are spiraling out of control, and the current system is becoming a major drag on economic productivity — many business start-ups abort because the founders can’t obtain healthcare, many novelists of my acquaintance are in serious financial trouble or are terrified of giving up the day job (that comes with insurance), and so on. The current mess is responsible for 22,000 avoidable deaths per year — a 9/11 scale catastrophe every six weeks.

The subjects vary — crime and penal policy, healthcare, don’t get me started on foreign policy — but there is an ideological approach in America that is distinguished by one common characteristic: words and deeds utterly lacking in the quality of mercy.

This is very true amongst the suburbanised middle class of America. It’s worse than just a lack of mercy – it’s an ingrained conservative selfishness — all I care about is that I get what I believe I deserve.

Unfortunately, I’m hearing this a lot again from people here who don’t remember the Thatcher years. Listening to a party in the garden two doors up from me last night, there was expressions of exactly the same selfishness. Expect the four to twelve years after the next election to be frightening, people.

Hollinwood sign apes LA’s rival:

A recreation of the iconic Hollywood sign, which nestles in the Californian hills, has appeared on a grass verge by the side of the M60 – in Hollinwood.
No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the sign, which at 3ft (0.9m) high is dwarfed by its famous cousin.
An Oldham Council spokesman said it was “definitely not a council initiative”.

(Via BBC News Online.)