Joe's Jottings

Tagged: politics

Is this a valid test of Social Media Newsgathering?

· censorship, facebook, twitter, personal-stuff, politics, the-media

A few days ago I came across this news story, in which a group of French journalists are to be holed up in a farmhousesomewhere with no access to normal news media but with access to Social Media - Tw…

ACTA - Why is the Government not informing MPs about this Agreement?

· acta, civil-liberties, copyright, globalisation, privacy, personal-stuff, politics, privacy-issues, technology, the-media

Have you heard of ACTA?  How about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement?  No?  Well, you're probably not alone.  After all, here in the UK the Government won't even put documents regarding the Agre…

Burying the bad news - it's what Terror Alert Statuses are for!

· personal-stuff, philosophy, politics

I appreciate that I may be being overly cynical here, and will certainly feel a total idiot if the recent escalation of the UK's Terror Alert Status actually was based in one of the threats reported h…

Why this US Supreme Court Ruling affects ALL of us.

· politics

Sometimes the stuff that changes the world starts quietly.  On September 9th, 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, was assassinated in a suicide bombing.  A few months …

Obscene - selling useless bomb detectors to Iraq

· personal-stuff, politics, technology, the-media

Today is a bad day for anyone who likes the idea of  integrity and common decency.   Take a look at this news story from the BBC about the ADE-651 bomb detector.  This baby sells for up to $40,000 a p…

Is 'elf and safety' destroying community responsibility?

· personal-stuff, politics

The other day I was browsing the online edition of the Sunday Times and came across a brief quote from Jeremy Clarkson : "I mean, if you really want to serve the nation, you could stop whining about t…

Bust the brainy kids - you know it makes sense!

· science-education, personal-stuff, politics, science, technology

Although this little gem of a story happened in the US, I have no doubt that given a few more months it's likely to happen here.  Well...I don't know...at least the Yanks encourage science and technol…

Myleene Klass, 'PC' and PCs

· celebrity, political-corrcetness, personal-stuff, politics, the-media

This is a long story in celebrity terms...but stay with me.  It's one of those tales where we can't tell who's version of what happened is actually the right one - so many versions of what happened it…

Google does the right thing (for Google, that is)

· censorship, google, personal-stuff, politics, technology

For a long time I've taken the mickey out of Google's famous slogan 'Do No Evil'.  I mean, most companies and individuals go through life with their ethical and moral compass intact and manage to perf…

Over-reaction or Appropriate Response?

· politics, privacy-issues

The recent arrest of 2 men on an Emirates Airlines flightfor making a verbal bomb threat and for being drunk and disorderly is really nothing new; it's happened a few times since 9/11.  Up until about…