Author: Mike

Following on from the Nurse who was suspended for saying that she would pray for a patient. We now have a situation where a foster mother has been sacked for ‘letting’ one of her charges convert from Islam to Christianity, despite the fact that she was sixteen and made the choice herself.

Of course I  can fully understand that the foster mother and the child’s identity be protected. However, as in many cases today the local authority also wants anonymity!

If the local authority has the courage of their own convictions, they should then have the guts to stand up and face the public and say why they decided to do this, instead of skulking behind the walled silence that is engulfing many of our local authorities today. I truly believe that many of them have forgotten who they serve and more importantly why they serve!

Local Authorities seem only too willing to spy on us. Secrecy in this case will only increase all of our concerns about what is being done in ‘our’ name.

I recently came across an only invoice for some PC hardware I purchased in 1999!

• 64MB strip of RAM for £57.00
• CDROM Drive for £36.00
• 10.2 GB Disc drive for £129.00

How different the prices are today, I think the only item you could still get would be the CDROM drive, found one here for £6.75! Though I have not checked with eBay!

Jacqui Smith (her name – now spelt correctly – seems to appearing in my posts a lot lately!) recently visited a Wythenshawe school to tell the pupils how much of a positive change to their lives ID Card will make. Despite the upbeat message, it turned out to be… Well read it for yourself.

Maybe this is yet another government IT project that just won’t work! Thank goodness!

I came across some interesting posts [1], [2] yesterday about the harassment that many photographers are suffering in the face of a growing ignorance of the law by the Police and other authorities.

As the UK moves more and more to a Big Brother state, even Jackie Smith the Home Secretary seems to want to crack down on ordinary photographers! After a series of high profile incidents last year [1], [2], [3], [4] a No. 10 e-Petition was started to raise the case in the public domain. You can see No. 10’s response here, as well as comments about the response.

I got stopped a while ago at Paddington mainline station by some upstart of a ticket guard, thinking that he had the rights to confiscate my camera! He walked off quiet red faced when faced with a number of other passenger protestations!

Yes, I suppose it was private property, but they had better start getting their act together as I am sure many more people will be taking pictures when they travel to visit the 2012 Olympics.

Here’s a copy of the latest The UK Photographers Rights Guide.

With the announcement that the UK government will start compiling yet another huge database to track its citizens travel movements, there seems no end to what this Labour Government wants to know about us.

Already the most CCTV covered country in the world, you can bet that this government will be only too happy to share all this personal data along with the other databases that it has compiled.

How much more are we going to put up with this government further intrusion into every aspect of our lives?

I get the feeling that a lot of this move to a full Big Brother state is as a direct result of Jackie Smith becoming Home Secretary, I don’t trust this women, there is something about that smile that hides a very devious mind!

I forgot to add a link to an earlier post about the UK’s move to Digital Britain.

Sam Knows provides a great site where there is an abundance of information about Broadband Britain and has compiled a report that looks at the performance of Broadband Britain.

It’s well worth a read and will tell you a great deal about why we are where we are with Broadband Britain today.

What is it about government IT projects? So many of them seem to be doomed to failure and never really deliver of their promise.

Here’s an interesting article that reviewed a number of IT projects last year that have suffered a number of failures.

However, it seems that government IT failures are not limited to the UK as this report from California seems to indicate.

I’ve been doing some work recently for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (used to be the Dept. of Education) and through some peripheral conversations came across the latest government thinking about Early Years development for children from pre-birth to the age of five.

I remembered reading about this in the general press when it was first discussed but had not realised how much the thinking had developed.

It makes interesting reading and although much of it is common sense, I suppose it doesn’t do any harm to get it down on paper.

However, as with so much good information today; I do wonder how many of the people that really need this sort of information actually manage to get hold of it?

Some more background information can be found here.

I was reading an interesting article over the weekend about the Arctic and who has rights to it’s vast mineral reserves that are supposed to lay under its surface.

It’s an interesting question bearing in mind that Russia successfully planted a flag under the surface in 2007 laying claim to part of it.

There is an updated report by Durham University’s International Boundaries Research Unit here about who has laid claim the the various part of the Arctic. Might this be where the next war starts?

Another ridiculous start by England in the Six Nations Tournament, no wonder Martin Johnson was shaking his head so many times during the match.

England despite their tries seemed to be all at odds with now real plan as how to play attacking rugby against Italy. However, I was equally disappointed in Italy’s performance, why Nick Mallett did not change the scrum half before half time is beyond me!!

However, the Irish once again showed how good they are by beating the French showing some of their old style and flair.

Can’t wait for tomorrows 1st meeting of Wales and Scotland!!!