Savage Popcorn

Like the great majority of the rest of the world, I am both relieved and optimistic at the US election result. As the campaign – for nomination and for president - Obama has increasingly come to represent everything positive about America and I think that, as long as he maintains his momentum, he will be able to make a real difference both economically and on the world stage. It’s with that in mind that I’m swiping Charles Stross’ shopping list of ten things that Obama could do in his first hundred days of his administration.

1. Shut down Gitmo. Try any of the inmates who face outstanding changes in front of a civilian court. Release (and if necessary, pay compensation to) those who are categorically not guilty of anything and who were swept up by mistake. Grant political asylum to the Chinese muslims and any others who are (a) not accused of anything and (b) can’t return to their homes for fear of persecution.

2. The whole torture thing? You know what needs to be done, and there’s a lot of it — from reverting US interrogation practices to pre-2000 norms, to identifying those who ordered harsh measures and determining whether grounds exist for prosecution, to seeking and compensating the victims of torture. Oh, and end extraordinary rendition and wiretapping without warrants.

3. Dismantle the DHS — it is an out of control bureaucratic Frankenstein’s monster. Separate divisions can go back to doing what they did before they were stitched together. Leave in place communications channels between such divisions so they can share data, but destroy the unitary chain of command. You don’t need a Gestapo.

4. Ratify the Kyoto Treaty, and/or put the wheels in motion to participate in international talks aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

5. Start a public Congressional enquiry into the systematic injection of politically partisan appointees in the civil service and judiciary over the past 8 years, with specific reference to politically biased prosecutors and judges, administrators in scientific agencies (NASA, NIH, Environment, and others), and election officers.

6. Find three young, energetic, liberal supreme court justices to replace the elderly, terminally ill supreme court justices who are going to retire as soon as they can do so without handing the supreme court to Scalia on a plate.

7. Start a public Congressional enquiry into election practices, with the objective of moving towards a bill (or if necessary draft constitutional amendment) setting out acceptable standards for the conduct of elections.

8. Start a public enquiry into the misuse of intelligence agency resources in the run-up to 9/11 and the conduct of the war on terrorism since 9/11. Remit to include the allegations of collusion between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaida, and the embarrassing question of why the USA has been unable to find Osama bin Laden for the past seven years.

9. Start talking to the Russians about (a) gas and oil security (this includes South Ossetia), (b) Ballistic Missile Defense (and their allergy to it), (c) NATO expansion, and (d) any other grievances that must be aired in order to stop Cold War 2.0 from escalating. One cold war was quite enough, thank you (I still remember the nightmares).

10. Start talking to the whole of the G11 — no, leaving Spain (the world’s 8th largest economy) out in the cold because Dubya is having a snit at the socialist PM is not acceptable — about a global plan for rebooting the planetary economy without overheating the money markets or triggering further energy spikes. An exercise in multilateralism and soft power that will (a) achieve something useful and (b) start to convince the rest of the world that sanity has resumed.

Clearly these are merely the start of cleaning up the huge mess that Bush has left behind. But it would be a good start.

And, if nothing else, the election of Barack Obama does mean that the US has not lumbered itself with a Vice President who doesn’t know that Africa is a continent.

Whatever the result of the US election one thing is certain: George W Bush will finally be voted out of office. Some felt that the day would never come, so io9 reminds us that two years ago, a team of filmmakers decided to bring Bush’s presidency to a premature end with Death of a President.

Much controversy surrounded the film for depicting the assassination of George Bush and it suffered distribution woes in the US, Italy and elsewhere. But what made this SF mockumentary interesting was what came next.

Set in 2013 - six years after the assassination – the film uses a combination of archive footage and interviews with those involved in the investigation to slowly unravel the story of who shot the president – and why.

The film is still available on DVD and is worth checking out. Alternatively, if you want a more UK oriented political film, you could do a lot worse than taking a look at Taking Liberties.

With only days left until the Presidential election, street artist Shepard Fairey and director Melissa Balin have teamed up to try and create their own grass-roots movement in support og the Obama campaign by launching the Vote for Change Video Postcards. Truth be told, though, it’s less a grass-roots movement and more a series of sixty second celebrity endorsements, but some of them are pretty good and worth watching.

So here’s John C. Reilly on being white…

… and there are many more on the Vote for Change website.

The latest wheeze in the Labour government’s War Against Sanity is to decide that anyone carrying a pre-pay mobile phone must be a terrorist - or as good as - so they’re building another database of mobile phone owners. That’s all owners of mobile phones, regardless of whether they have regular contract or a pre-pay phone.

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

It can’t be long now until they realise that all crimes are comitted by living people and overreact accordingly.

A migrant, living in the UK, has this to say about the latest stunt dreamt up by the a government desperate to find a justification for their ID card plans:

[Y]our Labour Party has taken my biometrics and will force me to carry the papers my grandparents destroyed when they fled the Soviet Union. In living memory, my family has been chased from its home by governments whose policies and justification the Labour Party has aped. Your Labour Party has made me afraid in Britain, and has made me seriously reconsider my settlement here. I am the father of a British citizen and the husband of a British citizen. I pay my tax. I am a natural-born citizen of the Commonwealth. The Labour Party ought not to treat me — nor any other migrant — in a way that violates our fundamental liberties. The Labour Party is unmaking Britain, turning it into the surveillance society that Britain’s foremost prophet of doom, George Orwell, warned against. Labour admits that we migrants are only the first step, and that every indignity that they visit upon us will be visited upon you, too. If you want to live and thrive in a free country, you must defend us too: we must all hang together, or we will surely hang separately.

The migrant in question is Cory Doctorow, a Canadian author who is supporting himself but is no threat to anyone.

Much has been said about what is wrong with the government’s ID card scheme – it’s overly complex, unnecessarily intrusive, not properly costed and horrendously expensive. And for what? Why are the government so keen to introduce these things?

It’s a serious question, and one for which I have so far seen no answer: What does the Labour Party expect to achieve by introducing ID cards?

The Observer has quite a good article today charting the rise of Daily Show presenter Jon Stewart and asking what his success tells you about the dire state of journalism in the US.

His most effective move is to cull through the tapes of all the countless banalities, hypocritical contradictions and attempted snow-jobs executed in boundless profusion on our airwaves and on political podiums. He just puts them on the air and you watch with slack-jawed amazement.

And here’s an example (via) of him puncturing the sort of nice-sounding but utterly meaningless phrase so beloved by political types.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Looking back to the UK and the inanities being uttered by members of the two major parties (and I have to admit that I have found myself becoming increasingly unimpressed with the Lib Dems over the past few months), where is Chris Morris. Still, there’s always In The Loop to look forward to next year.

Via Pharyngula

Via Pharyngula

No End in Sight is an insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality that chronicles the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy.

This Oscar nominated, Sundance winning documentary hits DVD in the UK on 3rd November, but if you are too impatient to wait – or too cheap to splash out – you are in luck. No End in Sight will début, in full, on YouTube on Monday.

The film already has it’s own YouTube channel. Go check it out.

(via CHUD)

In March, Dr Tanya Byron published a review of the risks faced by children if exposed to “harmful or inappropriate material”" on the internet or in video games and recommended that the rating system for games be changed. She called for a new rating for games aimed at children aged 12 and over - greatly expanding the role of the BBFC in classifying games.

Ed Balls the Schools secretary called the report “ground breaking” and promised to implement all of the recommendations in full.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge has announced a consultation on whether the recommendations should be implemented in full.

The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (Elspa) is still in favour of retaining the industry-backed Pegi scheme became the only rating system. “The compromise that Tanya Byron recommended in her report was not a good one for child safety,” said Michael Rawlinson, managing director of Elspa.