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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty
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051226 Make sure you have not missed the previous edition Check it out And the one before that? Other recent topics highlighted here
Week 52 Boxing Day Boxing Morning
I am challenging the "Erbil Evictions" in Swansea. It is now considered safe for all Iraqi asylum-seekers to fly back to the capital of the Kurdish Zone, Erbil. And to achieve that, at minimum cost to the Exchequer, hundreds of failed asylum-seekers are over Christmas being evicted from their homes and deprived of the meagre support provided (food-vouchers only, no cash..) Some 250 asylum-seekers in Wales are this weekend receiving this harsh "coercion by destitution" treatment. I say that these evictions are breaches of the "right of home" conferred by Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
NB New Year Resolution I know already, what my New Year Resolution will be. It is to make time to connect, to formulate my thoughts about the world, and to communicate them. Right here on this website.
How others see us
Editorial opportunism
The delivery of a perceptive Indy has changed my day...
I suggest that the natural condition of the adult human is one of anxiety and pessimism. We spend our lives seeking ways to counter that prospect - check out a quick sketch of my theory.
Drop me a line
Marketing gone mad
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Readership falls I am in for a hammering this month, having been away from the Editor's desk for so long. Up to midnight on Christmas Day, just before "going to press", my December hit-count was just 825 - with only five odd days of the month to go. In 2002, the December hit-count was 364, in 2003 it was 495 - but rising to 1,348 in 2004. If I am to recover my position, I have a mountain still to climb... Roger WE Webmaster Christmas Fear
These tactics, which are wholly unnecessary, have the sole purpose of spreading fear and anxiety throughout the newcomer community generally, to frighten others to leave "voluntarily", without requiring the Home Office to spend money on the further forcible removal. And it is certainly creating great fear, particularly among families with children.
New History What were we thinking about, at Christmas time - last year, two years ago, three years ago - FOUR years ago? With modern web-logging, you can check that out - a new form of modern history becomes possible. These extracts are newly-mined on 17 December 2005. This is how the world looked to me, at this time of year, in - *Recent topics Asylum Management my reforms >>> Turkey should join Europe >>> What New Orleans means for UK >>> Josef Stalin and Flat Tax >>> Corporate Theft by Proxy >>> What do interest rates mean? >>> Labour Party my resignation >>> New principle Public Primacy >>> The Power of Private Property >>> Drop the school-leaving age >>> Against Unreasonable Inequality >>> Abolish Wrongful Dismissal >>> Adjustment Pay for every worker >>>
Britishness?
Identity is a matter of individuality, an attribute of the natural person, a matter of precious human experience. It is not some compendium of collective generalisations which in the end apply to nobody. In race relations too, community is a fallacy - all the paraphernalia of multi-culturalism (or any culturalism) is destructive and distracting. Every individual seeks to be valued on a personal, individual basis - that is a constant affirmation of identity, and we all need that. That is our human birthright, the essence of the Human Rights philosophy (or religion...). There is no such thing (pace Durkheim) as a collective consciousness, une conscience collective - that way lies dictatorship, even fascism.
"As long as drugs are illegal This was Polly Toynbee's headline in The Guardian. Hers is a courageous and principled position. If you want the opportunity to make your own public declaration in support of the decriminalisation of drugs, check out and sign in at the Angel Declaration.
Polly Toynbee is in good company,
the world over: many thousands of the world's leading citizens have
called for the decriminalisation of "drugs"...  Having
discovered this remarkable NASA website, linked with the Hubble Telescope
and the NASA Mars exploration vehicles, with its current photographs from
outer space, I am reluctant
051226 Make sure you have not missed
Week 52 Boxing Day
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Created by GMID Design & Communication ... in a manner of speaking... COPYRIGHT
NOTICE |
I have spent the early hours of Boxing
Day morning drafting and faxing-off an appeal to the Asylum Support Adjudicator, sitting
in Croydon this coming Friday 30 December. 
My only contact with the New York Times
is browsing
through the world's great newspapers 
And
And why not
take a look at The Hindu,
while you're about it? When did you last read an Indian newspaper? It seems that the Chinese traders have also
taken over the Indian Christmas trade, with millions of
My web-editing has become opportunistic.
By that, I mean that I must seize every passing spare moment to bring you
up-to-date. It is Friday morning, 23 December, and a newsagent's
misdelivery has brought us The Independent, instead of
The
Guardian. I am bowled over by the quality of their three major
"political" features this morning. I was stimulated and
"provoked" by every one of them.
Steve
Richards writes a masterly analysis of the destruction
which is being
The institutions of Government themselves
should not be "spun". It is demeaning to Government, and
disrespectful to the citizen. Every Government Department has now
got its own slick, brainless strapline, demonstrating the paucity of
official thinking. 
For many thousands of failed
asylum-seekers, the key emotion this Christmas will be fear. Every
morning brings the fear of the knock-at-the-door, and of forcible
immediate removal, by armed officers, with no notice and no chance to say good-bye.
I am deeply ashamed of my country, and of my Government.
And read my Big Theory itself, at 
I value the Fabians. And
I encourage you to go to their open annual Conference in London, on
Saturday 14 January 2006. The theme is
Who do we want to be? The Future of Britishness.
And the keynote speech will come from Gordon Brown..