Leanne Wood: Wales will be independent in a generation

"Wales will be independent within a generation and part of a British "neighbourhood of nations", according to Plaid Cymru's leader.

Leanne Wood says the UK's nations share a common language and cultures shaped by their relationships with each other."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-18642373

Rowan Williams dismisses Big Society idea as 'waffle'

"The Archbishop of Canterbury has dismissed David Cameron's Big Society initiative as "aspirational waffle".

Rowan Williams said the idea was "designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most
vulnerable"."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18570664

The Unmitigated Awfulness of Ayn Rand

"Ayn Rand's sensibility may have been adolescent, but the sensibility of the Tea-Party types who now fetishize her work, & to whom these filmmakers are presumably playing, is a good deal more infantile. The signature moment of the movie, perhaps, comes when industrialist hero Hank Rearden explains why he won't share "Rearden Metal" to one of the story's many trumped-up mealy-mouthed bureaucrat villains: "Because it's mine. Can you understand that concept? Mine." Behind the handsome, smooth-voiced actor in the suit, you can see the stamping feet & clenched fists of the two-year-old who can't understand any concept except "Mine.""

http://barrygrahamauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/unmitigated-awfulness-of-ayn-rand.html

I Pay Road Tax

"Road tax doesn't exist. It's car tax, a tax on cars and other vehicles, not a tax on roads or a fee to use them. Motorists do not pay directly for the roads. Roads are paid for via general and local taxation. In 1926, Winston Churchill started the process to abolish road tax. It was finally culled in 1937. The ironically-named iPayRoadTax.com helps spread this message on cycle jerseys. Car tax is based on amount of CO2 emitted so, if a fee had to be paid, cyclists - who are sometimes branded as 'tax dodgers' - would pay the same as 'tax-dodgers' such as disabled drivers, police cars, the Royal family, and band A motorists, ie £0. Most cyclists are also car-owners, too, so pay VED. Many of those who believe road tax exists, want cyclists off the roads or, at least registered, but bicycle licensing is an expensive folly."

http://ipayroadtax.com/

May setting out plans to monitor internet use in the UK

"Details of internet use in the UK will have to be stored for a year to allow police and intelligence services to access it, under
government plans.

Records will include people's activity on social network sites, webmail, internet phone calls and online gaming."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18434112

The Public Whip

"Find out how your MP votes on the issues you care about."

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/

Suze Rotolo

"The sixties were an era that spoke a language of inquiry and curiosity and rebelliousness against the stifling and repressive political and social culture of the decade that preceded it. The new generation causing all the fuss was not driven by the market: we had something to say, not something to sell."

-- Suze Rotolo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suze_Rotolo

Cardiff City State - The Solution To Nothing

"Something that has long vexed those with Cardiff's (and only Cardiff's) interests at heart is that the real EU funding was going to the Valleys . . . but EU regulations ensured they could not get their hands on it. Now, because some 6 per cent of the region's population (outside of Cardiff) commutes daily into the city, they feel that a combination of City State and commuters gives them the 'lever' to reallocate Valleys' funding down to Cardiff"

http://jacothenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-solution-to-nothing.html

Celebrating the rejection of ACTA

"With fellow MEPs who have been sent flowers to celebrate the rejection of ACTA"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jillevansasemep/7544236206/

https://twitter.com/jillevansmep/status/222746903056617473

http://dolennididdorol.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/send-flowers-to-european-parliament-for.html

Bishop of Liverpool on protecting England's forests

"Our forests and woods are nature's playground for the adventurous, museum for the curious, hospital for the stressed, cathedral for the spiritual, and a livelihood for the entrepreneur. They are a microcosm of the cycle of life in which each and every part is dependent on the other ; forests and woods are the benefactor of all, purifying the air that we breathe and distilling the water of life."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/04/bishop-liverpool-protecting-england-forests

Send flowers to the European Parliament for rejecting ACTA

"For months, we have pestered the Members of European Parliament with calls, mails, street protests, visits, and even faxes. On July 4, they killed ACTA decisively in a 478-against-39 vote. Now comes the next step: showing our love for doing the right thing. That part is easily overlooked, and almost always forgotten. ..."

http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/04/send-flowers-to-the-european-parliament-for-rejecting-acta/

Richard O'Dwyer and the new internet war

"O'Dwyer created a website, called tvshack.net, that acted as a search engine for people to find out where they could watch and in some cases download popular TV shows, typically programmes not yet available outside the US. Some of the links led to legal sources, others to unauthorised sites. In that respect his site was no different from hundreds of thousands of services where the general public gathers to talk.

O'Dwyer respected the rules – deleting content when he received properly formatted take-down notifications. Given the state of US internet law, it is extremely difficult to see how he can be convicted of copyright violation. But that is what he is now threatened with, a conviction that could carry a sentence of 10 years in a US prison, after the British home secretary, Theresa May, signed an extradition order in March."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/24/richard-o-dwyer-my-petition

http://www.change.org/petitions/ukhomeoffice-stop-the-extradition-of-richard-o-dwyer-to-the-usa-saverichard

Where the UK's electricity comes from

"Our research has found that the majority of fuel used to generate electricity in the UK is imported from a wide variety of countries across the globe. According to our figures, the UK relies on almost 40 countries across the globe for fuel to produce electricity, with only 43% of fuel coming from the UK's own resources."

http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/get-involved/connect-with-energy/where-the-uks-electricity-comes-from

Public Whip : Find out how your MP votes

"Your MP votes on changes to British law on your behalf. When parliament is in session, they may do this a dozen times a week. In order to know whether your MP is representing your views on the issues, you need to know how they’ve voted. The Public Whip lets you see all their votes so you can hold them to account. "

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/

The NHS - a stunningly cost effective supplier of high quality healthcare

"I suggest that the longevity problem is not a health issue: this is a societal issue. It’s the consequence of poor housing, inequality, poor health education, and many more such factors reflected in issues such as high obesity rates related to poor diet: a peculiarly British problem. The NHS cannot solve such problems. It’s not reasonable to berate it for failing to do so.

That aside, care is great in the NHS. OK. it’s not as patient focused as desired, but as the report says this is an issue where all countries could improve. No doubt that’s true, but we trade something important here: price for patient focus. Of course people can be at the core of the NHS, but you seriously increase the cost if you double the time seeing the patient: most of NHS cost is labour. The choice is a straightforward one: you can have a patient focused NHS so long as you’re willing to pay for it. If you are not willing to pay for it the patient focus will come at the cost of significantly reduced health outcomes. It’s a trade-off that I think most would not make if they were given the choice. I think the NHS has got this right."

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/06/06/the-nhs-a-stunningly-cost-effective-supplier-of-high-quality-healthcare/

Bills before Parliament

A nice display of the Parliamentary workflow


http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/freedomofinformationamendment.html


http://services.parliament.uk/bills/public.html


http://www.parliament.uk/business/bills-and-legislation/

British American Tobacco's Influence on the European Union Treaty

"Our findings suggest that BAT and its corporate allies have fundamentally altered the way in which all EU policy is made by making a business-oriented form of IA mandatory. This increases the likelihood that the EU will produce policies that advance the interests of major corporations, including those that produce products damaging to health, rather than in the interests of its citizens. Given that the public health community, focusing on health IA, has largely welcomed the increasing policy interest in IA, this suggests that urgent consideration is required of the ways in which IA can be employed to undermine, as well as support, effective public health policies."

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000202

Using Fax Machines to Route-Around Internet Censorship in Libya

"French Data Network is offering free dial-up Internet for Libyans. But, if the Internet is offline, how are Libyans supposed to learn how to connect to the Internet? It turns out landlines are still up, so one group is using faxes to pipe information into the country."

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/02/using-fax-machines-to-route-ar.php

Visualizing how Taxes are Spent

"While the "Where Does My Money Go" project, initiated a few years ago, might already be well-known for some readers, it is still useful to note it is regularly updated with some new visualization techniques."

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2011/07/visualizing_how_taxes_are_spent.html

Republic

"We want a democratically accountable head of state and an end to any constitutional role for the royal family.

We advocate keeping our parliamentary democracy but replacing the unelected monarch with a directly elected, ceremonial head of state - much like the system in Ireland. "

http://www.republic.org.uk/