Towards a Federal Europe
When asked for my national identity on the 2011 Census form, I put European. Why? Because I am not proud to be a member of this state, specifically, but I am very proud to be a citizen of Europe. Europe, historically, has been at the forefront of technological and social evolution. Many of the world’s most important discoveries and inventions originated here, and many of our member states had huge empires to their name in the days when that was the done thing. But most importantly to me, we champion civil liberties before anywhere else. The abolition of the death penalty throughout the Council of Europe (of which the EU is a subset) and the advancement of LGBT rights are the two that come to mind immediately. If the EU is treated as a single federal nation,...
Fascism, immigration and the English language
The BNP and other right-wing groups I loosely term fascist (although some may, legitimately, disagree with my use of the term) are always talking about making sure Britain stays “British”, and keeping its population “indigenous” so that our culture is not polluted by those of the immigrant nations. Here’s a representative quote from the BNP web site1: Immigration is out of control. Britain’s population is now over 60 million and rising, solely due to immigration. Not only is Britain increasingly overcrowded, but the fact is that a country is the product of its people and if you change the people you inevitably change the nature of the country. We want Britain to remain – or return to – the way it has traditionally been. We accept...
NHS dentists; or, how I learned to start worrying and hate my teeth
I’ve just come back from having the second of two fillings put in at my new dentist. Why did I need two fillings, you ask? Well, this dentist is the first dentist I’d visited in over ten years. Why did I stay away for so long? I’m not really the squeamish type: I don’t have a problem with jabs, blood tests and so forth… I went ahead with a circumcision given an on-the-spot choice about having it that day, for heaven’s sake. No, I stayed away because the NHS dental system itself set the ball rolling on the cumulative fear process. The cumulative fear process, as I call it, is that process that occurs when you put something off because you’re scared of it, but the longer you put it off, the scarier it becomes, which of...
Why is bin Laden dead?
So. Osama bin Laden is dead. I think we’ve all noticed that by now. Thankfully some of the media and public figures have started to decry the celebration and chanting following his death. It is still the death of a human being and this is not cause for jubilation. What I’m more concerned about, however, is why he’s dead at all. We’re told there was a “firefight” and that “no Americans were harmed”. We’re also told that he “tried to hide behind women”. This doesn’t sound like an all-out battle to the death to me. It sounds like they cornered him and then killed him anyway. There’s a name for this: summary execution. It’s illegal under the Geneva/Hague Conventions. And with good...
The Yes vote needs you!
The opinion polls are showing the “No” vote in the upcoming referendum on whether to adopt AV for parliamentary elections as being a dead cert. The “Yes” campaign needs as many votes as it can possibly get! Please get to a polling station on 5th May and cast your vote. Don’t waste it because you think the voting system doesn’t matter. Here are the reasons you should vote “Yes”, in a nutshell: Under the current system, an MP can be elected when a huge majority of the voting population votes against that candidate. Here’s a perfect example using beer and coffee to illustrate this. In a real decision-making situation like this, people would say “well, 70% of us want beer so let’s pick the pub we most...
Leeds-based non-binary nerd and sewist. I won't break my streak on Duolingo for anyone. 
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