A Courageous Woman
Gill Hicks lost both her legs in the London Tube Bombings of the 7th July 2005. She has not embraced as many would hate but founded M.A.D. for Peace.
She is an example to us all!
Justice – Afghan Style
This case asks a lot of questions about Afghanistan. Surely though, there comes a time, when the country should be left to its own devices, Taliban and all. It has lots of mineral resources, so what will happen in the end is its neighbour, China, will make commercial deals to get it out and Karzai and his cronies will run to some tax haven and live in comfort for the rest of their days. We will just suffer more and more crime and corruption due to the increasing amount of drugs flowing our way. Somehow we must find some way of stopping people taking the damn things!
The sad thing about the country is that a friend visited in the 1960s. Then Afghanistan provided masses of fruit like apples for the whole of the region. Since then it has been one sorry tale after another.
Now we just get more and more grief exported from this sorry, perverted and corrupt country. We should get out immediately.
A Good Old-Fashioned Con
We complain about scams, but this one has little to do with the Internet. It just shows that there is at least one born every minute. There is so much truth in the old saying, that if something is to goog to be true, it probably is!
Computer Games For Stroke Rehabilitation
Researchers at the University of Ulster have been carrying out trials of specially designed computer games to help rehabilitate stroke sufferers.
Ulster’s School of Computing and Information Engineering in Coleraine has collaborated on the project with fellow researchers at the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at the Jordanstown campus.
The Games for Rehabilitation project, which has been funded by the Department of Employment and Learning over three years, focuses on rehabilitation of the upper limbs and involves the player using their hands and arms to touch targets which move around the screen.
Read the full article here.
I can see the point, but I’ve never been someone for computer games. On the other hand, I’ve had some good physiotherapy in both Hong Kong and Addenbrookes. The stuff that I liked had an element of play in it. Especially, when you were playing with an attractive twenty-year-old or so ypung Chinese woman. Addenbrookes were also using a Nintendo Wii.
Vuvuzelas and Parrots
Apparently, some parrots have learned to mimic the sound of a vuvuzela.
Jail For Noisy Sex?
Stories like this show why the prisons are full. Surely, there must be a better way of justice, than to give people ASBOs and then sentence them, when they inevitably break them? We need to recreate a decent socety, where people respect each other. ASBOs just seem to give people other reasons to get people they don’t like out of their lives. There must be a better and more cost effective way! In the end, we have a small island with limited space and housing and we can’t all behave selfishly!
Clarke Gets Tough On Prisons
It would appear from the BBC, that Kenneth Clarke is going to get tough on the costs of prisons.
In a speech later, he will say he is amazed at the growth in the prison population and he will demand a radical new approach to cut re-offending.
It will involve paying private firms and voluntary groups according to how many prisoners they rehabilitate.
Prisons must focus on “education, hard work and change,” Mr Clarke will add.
He is absolutely right, as it is not humane in this day and age to just lock so many people up and do nothing to stop their pattern of reoffending.
I have for many years advocated an on-line database of all prisoners, that can be read on-line. It would obviously not identify individual prisoners, but it would enable serious research to be done. We must reduce the cost of criminal justice and punishment.
For instance, the database might contain things like :-
- Sex
- Age Group – 25-35 etc.
- Nationality
- Country of Birth
- Literacy
- Health State
- Smoker/Non-Smoker
- Has father been to jail?
- Married/Single/Children
- Drug User/Clean
- Last Crime
- Sentence
- Number of times in custody
Whether you put race and religion in would be very controversial and would probably be best left out, as people like the BNP would use it to their advantage.
But the database must be able to answer questions like how many of those serving over 20 years in jail have conditions like Alzheimer’s. According to David Ramsbotham’s excellent book, Prisongate, there are a large number and they are a large drain on resources of the Prison Service. Surely, they should be somewhere else.
i also live near a large prison and in the local area, those who keep large numbers of horses also complain they can’t get staff to do manual work, so many bring in temporary workers from all sorts of places outside the EU. Couldn’t some of the inmates fill this gap? This has been done successfully before in places like New York State.
additionally, why not use prisoners to pick seasonal produce and other jobs for which there are a shortage of workers? Any money earned would go to their victims or to support their own families. Remember that supporting prisoner’s families is quite a drain on benefits and if they are not supported in some way, we’re just creating the conditions for a whole new generation of career criminals.
Crying Foul on Police Cuts
It was inevitable that the Police would say that budget cuts would mean less Police on the Beat.
I can’t see how they can actually achieve that round here, as you never see a policeman. And when you report something, like I did when an idiot nearly caused a serious accident, they refuse to turn up.
I remember when C was a governor of a University, a high profile policeman was also one. He turned up at dinners and meetings with his driver. He was one of the few who could drink. Who paid for that driver?
\And then take Police IT systems. Most are over-budget, every one is different, so they can’t talk to each other. We’ve seen the consequences of that!
Just imagine if say M&S used different methods in different towns and cities.
Before they cut visible policing, the police must get their systems into the twenty-first century.
They should also stop the scandal of early retirement on pensions way in excess of any, that most people will ever see.
And as we’re all in this together, shouldn’t all of their vehicles and equipment be British-made where possible?
Should Tractors be Allowed on Trunk Roads?
I travel the A11, A!4, M11 and A12 quite a lot. One of the hazards is people driving slow-moving farm tractors, on these roads that really were designed for a higher minimum speed.
Yewsterday, a serious accident between a track and trailer and a lorry caused a lot of delays and nearly killed two people.
Isn’t it about time, that slow moving vehicles are banned on trunk roads?
Darrell’s Day
If you read my last post, you’ll read a little of the story of Nathaniel Darrell, who saved Britain from the Dutch. I just thought I’d search for Darrell’s Day in Google. I then opened a site, which because it had an embedded QuickTime video in it, locked up my computer. I’m running IE8 in Vista and there are many forums that say that QuickTime and Vista are like oil and water. So I then tried to uninstall QuickTime and the uninstall software seemed to get in a pickle.
If I’d written software with those number of problems, I’d have been very ashamed of what I had done!
It’s only when you have had a stroke or have suffered serious injury or disability, that you realise how truly crap some programs are. Perhaps, such people should do most of the program testing. Preferably with the programmers in the same room, so that they could vent their feelings properly. Sometimes, I think various other instruments should be available for use in the testing process, but then I’m against violence and capital punishment.
Just think of the times recently, where software has been released without adequate testing and it has caused true distress and even possibly loss of life.
The Anonymous Widower 