Free Speech?

The Oxford Union, that august body which supposedly represents the epitome of free speech, was on a loser to nothing.
They had invited David Irving - famous for his denial of the Holocaust - and leader of the British National Party Nick Griffin to a debate.
The President of the Union is quoted as saying he wanted to be able to demolish their arguments in open debate.
How naive.
Needless to say the gates to the building were besieged by protesters who opposed giving these people a platform to state their views.
Words like "fascist" were bandied about. Voices were raised. They were determined not to let the two men through - or any of the other people who had tickets to be there.
Personally I abhor Mr Griffin's party and all it stands for. As for Mr Irving - I don't know enough about the Holocaust to really know what happened. But in truth millions of innocent people were incarcerated, tortured and killed in the name of the Nazi state.
But is it democracy to shout down all with whom we disagree?
Aren't we supposed to be able to debate and decide?
I think that these two men's cases are strengthened by the protest. A much better way of dealing with them would have been to have listened in total silence to their cases and then voted them down unanimously. In a democracy all sides of the argument must be considered and then the voice of reason will really be seen to prevail.
THAT would have been real free speech.

The Last Explorer . . .

The MV Explorer is no more.
It hit an iceberg.
Water got into it and it slowly sank.
Thankfully, all the 150-odd passengers and all the crew were able to evacuate the ship and get into lifeboats. They were picked up safely and taken to King George Island.
MV Explorer was not a brand new ship but it was designed to withstand the rigours of Antarctic voyaging. It had been sailing these waters for many years, latterly packed with tourists who came to see the wonders of the Southern Continent.
Now I may be a killjoy but why do these people go? They know they are not doing the planet any good by wandering round the Polar seas in a big, fuel-hungry ship. They feel safe because they are in an artificial environment - safe and warm within a large floating metal box. Looking out in wonder at the ever-diminishing ice that is all you can see of Antarctica.
And contributing to its demise by even being there!
I'm glad that no-one was hurt.
But I hope the incident will make others think twice about the unnecessary intrusion into what is the planet's last really wild place.

Slipped Discs

HM Customs and Revenue, the Government department which collects our taxes, has lost a couple of computer discs in the post. Nothing unusual in that - big organisations lose little things all the time. It's no great hardship - just make another copy and do what you were going to do with it anyway.
Not so simple!
The discs in question contained personal details - names, National Insurance numbers, bank account details, possibly even bra sizes - of about 25 million people. That's not far short of half the population of the UK!
The top dog of HMCR resigned as soon as the news broke - even though he probably had no input into the operation in question.
The poor junior clerk who actually packed up and sent the discs by insecure means was also forced to resign - even though he or she was probably only following orders from above.
The people who actually decided that sending sensitive information via a private delivery service without even a means to track their progress seem to be getting off Scot free!
Banks and other financial institutions have gone into overdrive - probably at no small expense - in an effort to protect their customers from any fraud caused by the release of their customers' details.
Hopefully the discs will turn up in some obscure office in a Government department and it will be discovered that no harm was done. But the harm has already been done. Confidence in the ability of the people who collect our taxes has always been low - now it is non-existent!
Furthermore, a most important Government department could possibly face prosecution under the Data Protection Act. This Act is there to protect the ordinary citizen from the misuse of data held about them by banks, businesses, Government departments - in fact anybody who puts your personal details onto a computer or other means of storing information. Obviously losing data such as these breaches such legislation. So HMCR could face prosecution. A massive fine could be imposed, especially if - as they should - they treat each one of the 25,000,000 as a separate case.
But who would pick up the bill for the fines - and the expensive legal costs involved?
The ordinary everyday taxpayer in the UK.
In other words YOU and ME!
Shit happens . . . we're all on a loser either way!