In Defence Of Nick Griffin
"Oh let him in. He's harmless really!"
I am not a supporter of the BNP but I defend their right to campaign for their policies, especially those individuals who have been elected to office.
Despite his crass, discourteous behaviour, it was a mistake to have Nick Griffin barred from the Queen’s garden party. He was invited there as an elected MEP and he should have been welcomed in accordance with his office.
A bad mistake. Far too clumsy to have been made by any member of the Royal Family itself.
The Right To Bear Arms
Truth, justice and freedom are dead in the United Kingdom.
Our Freedom
We now live in a police state where brutality and murder is sanctioned by government institutions.
In the USA a citizen’s ultimate defence against state oppression is the second amendment to the Constitution and the right to bear arms.
We need this protection in the UK now.
Keir Starmer Must Go
Failure
There can be no excuse for his gross dereliction of duty. He has totally lost sight of the purpose of his job. Whatever it takes to get rid of him, he must go.
Ian Tomlinson’s Death Puts the Final Nail In the Coffin Of British Justice
The Man Who Destroyed Justice
Keir Starmer’s decision not to prosecute PC Simon Harwood, who clearly assaulted Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest, while concealing his identity, is an outrageous scandal. It is perhaps the most shameful episode ever in the history of British justice, a system which has long held a much higher opinion of itself than it ever deserved. Today it is proved to be utterly useless and Starmer’s conduct proves him to be both incompetent and entirely unsuitable for his responsibility.
Starmer’s weasel words in his statement are truly pathetic and demonstrate weakness, a complete inability to see beyond legalese to the truth and are a clarion call for his dismissal.
We the people of Great Britain care not one jot for the disagreement between medical experts. We want this matter put before a jury.
We want PC Simon Harwood’s head. He is a murderer.
We want Keir Starmer’s head. He is an apologist for police brutality and an incompetent Director of Public Prosecutions.
Conrad Black. Surely This is Fiction?
He Walks On Water
Every day I sit in this very spot and wrestle with what’s believable, what’s credible, how much can I get away with in the pages of my current novel. Indeed, one of my characters is a disgraced banker sentenced to not enough years at Her Majesty’s pleasure. It would suit my plot perfectly if he could be released and get to play his part in the thrilling climax which I am fast approaching. Maybe he could even meet a grisly fate in the last few pages gaining a richly deserved reward for his crimes of fraud and avarice.
Now I have my inspiration from true life. There are no limits.
If Conrad Black can be released on bail pending appeal then my imagination must in future know no bounds. Anything is possible. Truth really is stranger than fiction. In a few months Lord Black could be donning ermine and regaining his seat in the House of Lords, once again directing editorial in The Daily Telegraph.
Unbelievable but true.
Gary McKinnon
Leaders We Can Believe In
I am intensely moved by Barack Obama and David Cameron taking the time to discuss Gary McKinnon’s case yesterday. See here for the story. Also by his mother Janis’ gratitude and gracious behaviour in response. As she so eloquently put it, these two men represent a new beginning in our world. I am full of admiration for them both.
What Gary is alleged to have done was wrong. He now needs to be tried by a British court. If he is found guilty then the punishment must suit the crime taking into account his mental capability.
Big Pharma Plugs Weed
God's Herb
The news that Sativex, a whole plant extract of cannabis, was approved as a medicine in the UK was welcome, of course.
But £125 for 10 ml, two teaspoons – please!
According to Sativex’ prescribing information, each 1 ml contains 27mg of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), that’s the magical ingredient. So in each spray that’s £125 for 270mg of THC.
At today’s extortionate street price of £10 per gram, good weed contains about 12% THC. So that’s £10 for 120mg of THC.
At Big Pharma prices you get stoned for 46p/mg. On the street you get high for 8p/mg.
Draw your own conclusions but please, do check my figures. Let me know if you disagree.
Peter Reynolds 
Massive Outcry For Legal Cannabis On Your Freedom Website
with 5 comments
Your Freedom
The coalition government’s Your Freedom website has, according to Nick Clegg, been “helpful and really exciting”. It’s been going nearly a fortnight now and anyone who has tried to visit it will have their own experience of how popular and therefore slow and busy it is.
The single most remarkable thing about it though is the massive outcry for the legalisation of cannabis and an end to the war on drugs. I don’t believe that people’s opinions have suddenly changed. It’s just that they’ve been given a forum in which to express their views. If the government doesn’t do something about this issue now they’re going to look pretty stupid.
Your Choice
Mind you, during Obama’s transition, after the election but before the inauguration, he introduced the idea on his change.gov website. Legalisation of cannabis was the winning idea but it wasn’t adopted.
However, it is true that Obama has made big changes in favour of medical marijuana and that the war on drugs is clearly over.
The site itself is an object lesson in how not to set up an internet presence. The chosen technology is absolutely useless. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so bad. HMG could have achieved a much better result with an off-the-shelf WordPress blog just like this one. This is just another example of the now proven theory that anything the government does with IT will go wrong and cost a fortune. Who are the idiots who were employed to set up this site?
It is completely overloaded and incapabable of handling the traffic it generates.
The software used for adding comments is the worst I have ever seen anywhere on the web. When a commenter presses the “add comment” button there is no positive response. Given how totally overloaded the site is it can take several minutes for the post to appear. In the meantime, the commenter has pressed the button another four or five times before giving up. Multiple copies of comments appear and the system slows down even more.
The moderation policy is bizarre to say the least. It’s glaringly obvious that no thought at all was put into how to organise suggestions. Consequently, there are literally hundreds of ideas that are almost identical. Some of these are closed by the moderators and referred to another similar idea – but some aren’t. They’ve learned nothing from the petitions section of the No 10 website. It is just crazy!
There’s a strong suspicion of gerrymandering or tinkering with the posts, the votes and the comments. It may just be the chaos of the site itself but it feels wrong. There are dodgy things going on behind the scenes and protest is snuffed out.
Overall, I’d rather we had the site as it is than not have it at all. It’s just embarrassing though to see how bad it is.
It remains to be seen whether the government will take any notice. If not though they’ve made a rod for their own back.
Written by Peter Reynolds
July 14, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Posted in Consumerism, Politics, technology
Tagged with bad, blog, cannabis, change.gov, chaos, coalition, commenter, comments, crazy, dodgy, fortune, forum, gerrymandering, government, HMG, idiots, incapabable, internet, IT, legalisation, massive, medical marijuana, moderation, Nick Clegg, No 10 website, Obama, object lesson, off the shelf, opinions, outcrym, overloaded, popular, posts, protest, slow, snuffed out, software, suggestions, technology, tinkering, traffic, transition, useless, votes, war on drugs, web, website, winning, Wordpress, wrong, Your Freedom