ralpress.org

Dear Prime Minister,

Thank you for taking time out from saving our nation from the worst recession in living memory in order to complain about prank telephone calls.

Yours sincerely

From the ubuntu.com wiki: Intrepid Ibex release parties

Waxy O’Connors, just off Leicester Square - 14-16 Rupert Street, London, W1D 6DD. Map

We have the Dargle Bar booked. It’s located on the lower level and looks out onto the Tree Room. We will have our own private bar and you can also order food here. Nearest tubes to Waxy’s are Leicester Sq or Piccadilly

Spread the word!

So, the Republicans have begun what a Guardian writer referred to the other day as the “circular firing squad”. The cover-your-arse, public blame game that inevitably starts when a campaign starts heading south (or North-West, in the case of Palin’s own personal campaign). An article on CNN yesterday stated:

‘But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain’s record.

“Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic,” said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the “hardest” to get her “up to speed than any candidate in history.”‘

Palin’s ‘going rogue,’ McCain aide says

Amazing, isn’t it? Despite her obvious, unprecedented and now admitted to shortcomings, they’ve been quite prepared to install her as VP to somone who has, by all accounts, a one-in-three chance of dying during his term in office. That would surely be the political equivalent of allowing a young child to drive a JCB — and no less irresponsible?

UPDATE: It’s all becoing rather nasty now http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CtxDs3Rk_vE

I’ve realised that when viewed with Internet Exploder 6, my side-bar, which is supposed to be floating at the top of its containing element and to the right of this “column”, has in fact sunk to the ocean floor since I added the Ubuntu 8.10 badge.

If this website was a commercial affair I would scramble to fix it, but given that it isn’t and given that eveything displays fine in recent versions of Firefox, Opera and in IE7, I’m not going to spend any time hacking around in my WordPress stylesheet. If you’re viewing from a locked-down, “frozen in time” corporate Windows machine, then apologies. If you’re a home user using IE6 then I respectfully suggest that you have more pressing computing issues than the location of this blog’s side-bar

Reading Glyn Moody’s blog earlier reminded me to flag an article I saw last week. Stella Rimmington (former Director General of MI5) on the political response to the threat of terrorism:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/18/stella-rimington-9-11-mi5

“[She criticises] politicians including Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, for trying to outbid each other in their opposition to terrorism and making national security a partisan issue.

It all began, she suggests, with September 11. “National security has become much more of a political issue than it ever was in my day,” she says. “Parties are tending to use it as a way of trying to get at the other side. You know, ‘We’re more tough on terrorism than you are.’ I think that’s a bad move, quite frankly.”

The latest news regarding the Australian government’s decision to censor Internet content:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/technology/labors-web-gag-worse-than-iran/2008/10/23/1224351491889.html?page=fullpage

Information Commissioner’s Office statement on the Communications Data Bill

“This summer the Information Commissioner called for a public debate on government proposals for the state to retain citizens’ internet and phone records. The Commissioner warned that it is likely that such a scheme would be a step too far for the British way of life. Creating huge databases containing personal information is never a risk-free option as it is not possible to fully eliminate the danger that the data will fall into the wrong hands. It is therefore of paramount importance that proposals threatening such intrusion into our lives are fully debated. We welcome the fact that the government intends to fully consult the public on any scheme it brings forward. Precise details of the plans are unclear at this stage the ICO will be studying the proposals once published and responding to the Government’s consultation in due course.”

Source:
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/pressreleases/2008/ico_statement_comms_data_bill.pdf

Commentary:
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9533

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A belated farewell to the Feisty Fawn, the Ubuntu release that tipped the seesaw for me, finally persuading me to abandon Windows for my day to day computing. I noticed the support “end of life” notice on the ubuntu.com website yesterday and couldn’t help but sigh.

I joined the Ubuntu party with version 6.06, but it wasn’t until 7.04 that I felt comfortable making the jump. Feisty ran as well on my desktops and server as it did on our relatively low-spec family laptop. Of course it wasn’t perfect, but it was plenty good enough. I don’t mind admitting that I would get a warm, tingly feeling (put your mind back in the gutter!) whenever I saw the splash screen as the system booted. That boot logo had come to represent security, reliability, power, freedom, ease-of-use, and crucially, Ubuntu’s inclusive and tolerant community.

A big thanks to all who made it possible: GNU, the kernel maintainers, Debian, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical, the Ubuntu developers and community, and the tens of thousands of programmers, hackers, project managers, bug reporters, documentation writers, financial contributers, etc. etc. from the Free and open source software communities who have made and continue to make it all possible. What an awesome and worthy endeavour GNU/Linux is.

Here’s looking forward to Intrepid!