Asylum Seeker Terror Attacks Hit House Prices

Although quite *what* is a long way from clear.

There’ve been some explosions on the Underground, and at least one (up to four, although I think this involves some double-counting) on the buses. TfL and BTP initially suggested the former were due to power surges (wisely – this is exactly what I would have said, irrespective of the actual cause, to avoid mass panic during the evacuation), but it now seems pretty clear that they were bombs.

If it is terrorists – what, is that the best you can do? We live here, we don’t give a fuck about your stupid bombs, and we’ll survive this without changing the way we live our lives. Nor are we going to let you be used as spurious grounds for surrendering our freedom…

Or, in the words of an excellently British commuter featured on the BBC website, "people didn’t really know what was going on, they were just huffing and puffing and saying how annoying it was".

Incidentally, some wankers are already trying to blame this on G8 activists. Yeah, right – Aznartastic.

This post is dedicated to the paranoid Daily Mail-ites who think Edinburgh is being besieged by crazed, violent fascists (well, I guess there *is* an argument for describing some of the English police that way, but this is rarely the angle taken…). Take it away, Jim:

"Indeed when the news filtered through yesterday that "The Anarchist Ring-Leaders" had been arrested, it was met with a great deal of mirth at the Stirling Rural Convergence Centre (RCC).

"For anyone interested, the "Ring-Leaders" were all released without charge within a couple of hours of their arrests (news which strangely never made it to the mainstream media). It turns out the Ring-Leaders were a van-load of medics (shock! horror! even some doctors and nurses are self-styled, so-called "anarchists") on their way to the protests. They were carrying maps of the area and had made a number of ‘X’ marks on the maps in the locations that they felt would be the best places for medical stations."

Sheer evil.

Oh, and just to make things even better, the coppers today decided to prevent medical staff from accessing the protesters’ campsite. Better dead than anarchist, right?

Please can the Republicans just install the proper totalitarian regime they clearly want and love right away, rather than pissing about by doing it gradually? The latest innovation is jailing journalists – almost like they’re *trying* to follow in Fidel and Saddam’s footsteps…

Europe will not follow America’s insane lead in allowing software patents. This should ensure a faster relative rate of technological progress for Europe – which is nice.

Oh, and in non-EU news, we got the Olympics! I approve: it’ll lead to minor sortings-out of the transport system; it’ll posh-up horrible bits of the East End; it’ll annoy the French; and for approximately the first time ever it’ll involve London getting some cash out of the rest of the country, instead of subsidising their cloth caps, fox hunts and haggises.

We salute the Chinese producers of pirate DVDs, despite their terrible and debilitating effect on content providers. And despite the way they come and annoy you while you’re having a drink, a meal or a haircut.

Conjecture: anyone who writes an article on energy policy that suggests we could cut carbon emissions through investment in ‘hydrogen technology’ knows not that of which they speak. Rosemary Righter, this means you.

The Times really are letting any idiot write opinion columns these days, aren’t they…?

Computer viruses are great: if you’re not an idiot, you don’t get them at home; if your employers are not idiots, the impact on your worklife is zero; and if your employers are idiots, then you get to spend time doing fuck-all instead of working while they fix the systems. Meanwhile, they create ‘work’ for IT sysadmins, keeping them in beer, porn and things to whine about for the foreseeable future.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Samizdatisti suggest executing their creators, while suggesting that releasing computer viruses is tantamount to killing people. Bleedin’ mentalists…

(and yes, I know a large part of the law is about the necessity of protecting idiots from their own stupidity, and that virus creators therefore do need to be punished. But quite how anyone can get so excised about it is beyond me.)

Sure, you know about the Welsh communities in Patagonia. But did you know about the Cornish communities in Mexico? Sean Thomas is the new Bruce Chatwin, although rather less gay.

1) Go to Cardiff (someone like Dave may be able to skip this step);

2) Find the Asda supermarket at Pontprennau;

3) Determine whether the pharmacist on duty is an deranged religious fanatic;

4) If not, come back after the next shift change and repeat;

5) If yes, politely suggest to the pharmacist that she’s an evil witch who should be fired.

As I’ve said before, it’s appalling and wrong that pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense emergency contraception, effectively fucking up other people’s lives for their own nebulous ‘moral values’ (yeah, ever so moral).

The argument that people’s religious beliefs should be respected is a complete non-starter in this context, unless you believe Christian Scientists (most of whom refuse to take or prescribe any artificial drugs) should also be allowed to be pharmacists. Prescribing contraception is an essential part of being a pharmacist, and someone who refuses to do so is just as incapable of being a pharmacist as a Christian Scientist would be.

Meanwhile, should you not already be boycotting Asda on general principle, the fact that they haven’t sacked this particular employee (despite sacking plenty of others) is an excellent reason to start.

(via Anthony, whose views on the subject are a little more measured…)