Slightly delayed (sorry Mr Man's Wife) but here are the results of the music meme that I was tagged with whereby you have to put your iPod onto shuffle and list the first ten songs that are played. I solemnly swear that these are the actual results :o)
I tried to weave these into some sort of narrative but it's bloomin' difficult.

"So are you seeing Lucy today?" asked Beth.
"Yeah, I'm going to meet her at the Love Parade in town." said Tom.
"Ooh, is that the one with the poster of Lothlorien in the window?" asked Beth. "Someone keeps promising to buy it for me."
"Women! Always wanting stuff." laughed Pete.
"One day, brother, you'll learn that you have to treat these women with love and understanding," said Tom playfully punching Pete, "otherwise you'll
experience the unfortgettable fire of an angry woman!"
"It's so easy for you to say, I just seem to meet nut cases and feminists." moaned Pete.
"Oi," said Beth, earning Pete another not-so-playful punch on the arm.
"Sorry darling, you're good for me, you know that." Pete squeezed his girlfriend tightly.
"So where are you going afterwards?" asked Beth.
"We fancied trying out that new place near the beach, Cafe del Mar. It's supposed to do some really good sea food." said Tom.
"You two leave me breathless with all the running around you do." yawned Pete.
"Well I think you're crazy wanting to sleep the day away. Beth, can't you stick some dynamite up his butt and get him out more?"
"I don't think that would be a wise idea," said Beth seriously, "creatures of the night don't like the sunshine!"


Hehe. Ok, so it's not exactly Booker Prize material but my eclectic tastes threw up some interesting titles. Did you get them all? Full details are in the comments in case, like me, you'd be driven nuts by not finding one! ;o)

Whatever happened to Habeas Corpus?

The BBC is running an article today entitled Terror detention to be reviewed:
'Home Secretary John Reid has outlined a raft of proposals to toughen counter terror laws - including reviewing the 28-day limit on pre-charge detention.'

The government has previously tried to get a three month period in which to hold suspects without charge when suspected of terrorist activity. Proponents said that it was to give the police and intelligence agencies time to gather evidence and prepare a case. Three months?! I'm sure that it's not as straight forward as knocking on a few doors and looking at a bit of CCTV footage but c'mon! I've got an idea - how about cutting down the amount of bureaucratic forms the police have to fill in, then they might have the time to gather the evidence quicker?

Last time, the period was eventually reduced to the current 28 days after people expressed concern that it was going against one of the tenets of our justice system, namely Habeas Corpus.

For those whose latin is rusty, a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a court order for a prisoner to be brought before the court to determine whether or not that person has been illegally imprisoned. If the charge is valid then the person faces trail, if not the person is freed.

I'm sure most people would agree that holding someone for a few days or even a couple of weeks, is a reasonable time in which to prepare a charge; three months is in line with some prison sentences. And that's not mentioning house arrests and other dubious things.

I know it's a difficult area. No-one would want to let a suicide bomber go free but I think the likelihood of that happening is less than the chance of imprisoning an innocent person (and the detrimental affect that could have on their mental wellbeing, family life, employment, social standing, etc).

The movie, Taking Liberties, appears to address this and other issues in an albeit sensational way but I feel that it is something that we need to be aware of.

On the one hand, there is the school of thought that if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to hide. Now that holds true for CCTV cameras which (rightly or wrongly) happen to make me feel a tad more secure; and maybe ID cards if the government could assure me that their IT infrastructure is sound and the collection, use and range of date is tightly regulated.

On the other hand, there are the worrying restrictions on Rights to Protest and Free Speech, and increase of detention without trial. I do think everyone goes on too much about Rights and not enough about Responsibilities these days. Having said that, peacefully protesting against perceived inequities, injustices and grievances is both the right and the responsibility of citizens of a democracy.

Anyway, there's a few thoughts for you to be going on with :o)

Bad Science

I'm speechless ...

'The new $27 million creationist theme park has opened this week in Kentucky. It is described as a “museum” which seems to indicate it has some kind of academic validity ... The “museum” maintains that the book of Genesis in the Bible is literally true and creates an animatronic world that shows just how it was only a few thousand years ago, when Adam and Eve fell from grace and Noah built a small ship that carried two of every species that ever existed on earth in order to survive a flood that covered the entire surface of the world.'

The full article can be read here.

I have previously tried to engage creationists on the subject of evolution, usually my arguments have been met with the hackneyed, "my grandfather's not a monkey!" ... argh! Apart from the fact we are mostly closely related to apes and not monkeys (a comment designed to induce apoplexy in us heathen types, I'm sure), this sort of response makes further intelligent discussion impossible and pointless.

This sort of thing astounds me. The beauty and diversity of nature as arrived at through millions of years of the evolutionary process are far more awe inspiring than the idea that some guy in the sky designed it all.

Darwin says it slightly more eloquently,
"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. ... whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."