from across the pond

Dr Menlo invited me to join American Sanzidat, so I have, and I wrote up my first post for them this morning. Unfortunately I can't seem to post there at the moment for some reason, so I'm posting it here first. It features links from a couple of previous posts.

--

I've often felt that the UK often acts as the USA's little brother, following him about with bright and curious eyes, holding his bigger brother in such esteem that he just can't help but want to immitate him in every way, following him into increasingly wacky schemes, no matter how ill advised, and occasionally sucking his dick when nights get lonely.

An example of this would be the new anti-piracy campaign launched by the government, in association with the British Phonograph Institute. Strangely enough, the focus seems to be on counter-feit goods being sold by pirates to unwitting consumers, and makes no mention of file-sharing. Is this focus an attempt to avoid the backlash the RIAA is suffering in the states, or is this careful use of a language a sign that they planning something sneaky? You have Jacqui Smith, the industry minister, saying stuff like "Intellectual property crime is not victimless," which in my eyes makes it sound like he is talking about filesharing and internet piracy and that we're in for a repeat of things in the states only wrapped up in conveniant New Labour packaging, and then going on to say that "As well as cheating consumers, the trade in counterfeit goods costs UK companies billions of pounds and thousands of jobs every year."

Personally, I think it's consumer culture that is cheating consumers, not piracy, and to be honest, what with the billions of pounds of debt owed by british consumers, I reckon it kinda balances out.

On the Iraq war front, things in the UK are definately coming to a head. After Greg Dyke was forced to resign from his post as director-general of the BBC over their reporting on the governments flimsy arguements for going to war (original BBC report can be seen here (real video) ). The source referred to in the recording is one Dr Kelly, weapons inspector, who commited suicide after being named as the source.
(get the skinny on the hutton enquiry here)

Greg Dyke's memoirs detail his side of the story on how and why he was forced out of his job, and who applied the pressure (lemmie give you a clue, he shares a name with a famous kelloggs cereal mascot)
( original lockedinabox post here )

And I can't say I was surprised when Tony came out as a devout christian.

( trans-atlantic christian conspiracy anyone? )