Android apps that suck
Of late, I’ve noticed that the Android apps I’ve been using aren’t performing anything like as well as they should be. I got a Samsung Galaxy S phone in May, which I paid up-front...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
The small creditors
In the days since Col Gaddafi was killed, I have noticed that the western media are obsessed with ensuring that Libyan officials answer to western courts for things the régime did in the 1980s...
Why some people find the “mong” joke funny (and some don’t)
This past week, Ricky Gervais offended an awful lot of people with a joke about a "mong face" on Twitter. "Mong", for those who still don't know, originally meant someone with Down's syndrome, back...
PCC throws out complaints over ME reporting
Over the past summer, a number of newspapers and broadcast outlets claimed that some so-called ME researchers had been receiving death threats from so-called militant ME sufferers, such that some had abandoned the field,...
Likening ME to AIDS is irresponsible
I recently received my copy of the conference DVDs from Invest in ME, which had its annual conference in London in May, but held up distribution of the DVDs because one of the presentations...
BBC management to gut local radio
My favourite radio station is BBC London. I’ve been listening to it for years, and while there are a fair few presenters I don’t like, there are some highly interesting programmes about local issues...
Young adult marriage visa ban: unjust, now unlawful
Supreme Court overturns non-EU young spouses ban (from BBC News) The UK Supreme Court has ruled that a government ban on British citizens bringing spouses under the age of 21 from outside the EU...
Some impressions of the new Ubuntu
Recently I installed the new version of Ubuntu (actually, it’s still in development as the final version is only due out on the 13th). It was sort of forced on me in one case,...
Can we stay in Afghanistan for the women?
Raising hope for women in Afghanistan | World news | The Guardian This article, by Samira Ahmed, is about how the war in Afghanistan has been framed as a “feminist experiment” and the plight...
Steve Jobs’s death leaves me cold
So, Steve Jobs, the man who invented the Mac, the NeXT box and then merged the two together, is dead. Actually I’m sure a few people helped Jobs on the way, like actual programmers...
British schools: the leaving age and “Apartheid”
Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of British schools, has been in the news twice this week, the first occasion when he proposed that the school leaving age should be 14, so as to...
Free Kimberley Robbins!
While I’ve been following the case of Ayn Van Dyk, the autistic girl seized from her father for ridiculous reasons in British Columbia in June and still in care (see earlier post), there has...
Feel the autism?
OK, so after posting that long article criticising disabled and/or autistic self-advocates for forgetting how hard it was to raise a profoundly disabled or severely autistic child, I had this tweet today: Yesterday,a daycare...
Can anyone speak for all disabled people?
Many years ago, there lived a scholar who asked an old rabbi what could be learned from the Talmud. The rabbi told him of two men who fell down a chimney. One arrived at...
Remember Kercher, prosecutor tells jury
BBC News – Amanda Knox appeal: Jury told to remember Kercher Italian prosecutors have urged a jury considering an appeal by two convicted murderers of British student Meredith Kercher to remember her family. …...
The human and financial cost of ME
Last week, the University of Bristol published a study partly funded by Action for ME which highlighted the economic cost of ME and "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" (more accurately, the cost of illness to service...
Flather’s attack on Muslims is not brave
UK immigration: Polygamy, welfare benefits and an insidious silence | Mail Online This article by former Tory peer, Baroness Shreela Flather, appeared in the UK Daily Mail on Friday, and consists of a broad-brush...
Government planning individual voter registration
Shocked MPs told electoral plan could remove 10m voters | Politics | The Guardian The Government is planning to introduce voluntary individual registration for coming elections alongside massive changes to electoral boundaries, to replace...
Is £500,000 worth it for Dahl’s hut?
A shrine for Saint Roald and Saint Rowling (from today's Guardian) Roald Dahl's family is seeking £500,000 (US $790,300 at current rates) to transfer the hut in which the late author wrote some of...
Facebook troll jailed — why can’t people be adults?
BBC News – Reading man jailed for dead girl 'trolling' insults A man has been jailed for 18 weeks for posting insulting messages on Facebook pages dedicated to young people who had died, in...