10:52 a.m., Friday, March 1, 2002
I have a new guestbook. Immeasurable gratitude go to Loria and Antonio for not only hosting it for me but spending their valuable time setting it up, and to Tricia for the time she hosted it for me. You are all fantastic.

Now make it worth my while! If any of my posts mean anything to you - if you agree or disagree, think I'm a genuis or insane for having views like that - tell me.
[by Beth] comments?

05:25 p.m., Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Hmmm. The Pentagon appears to be backing down. Apparently only a few of the Taleban prisoners being held in Cuba - if any at all - will be tried in the US. Most will be returned to their home countries to face trial.
[by Beth] comments?

05:16 p.m., Wednesday, February 27, 2002
This is the kind of thing I'd like to see in place instead of the tagging mentioned below. It seems to be working far better. And especially as this article throws up the worrying possibility that teenagers could see the tag as a mark of criminal honour.
[by Beth] comments?

05:11 p.m., Wednesday, February 27, 2002
I mentioned a few days ago that I have little faith in custodial sentences as having very little effect as either a deterrent or a punishment, but I have even less faith in this suggestion - that 12 to 16 year olds should be electronically tagged if they are on bail for other offences. Tagging them is going to make very little difference if they have so little respect for the law and authority already.
[by Beth] comments?

05:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Did you know that the American Government is holding up to 2,000 people without trial or charge? The case described in this article is shocking.

'They came for Rabih Haddad in the afternoon, as his family was getting ready to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Three men from the Immigration and Naturalization Service took him away from the apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that he shared with his wife and four children. His wife frantically shoved a few dates into his pockets so that he would have something to break his fast as he headed off to jail.

'That was 14 December, more than two months ago. Since that time, Haddad, a widely respected religious leader and founding member of one of the United States' largest Muslim charities, the Global Relief Foundation, has been held in solitary confinement, first in Ann Arbor and then at a federal facility in Chicago. He is in his cell, alone, for 23 hours a day. Every time he leaves, either to exercise in a special high-security cage or to take one of his thrice-weekly showers, he is handcuffed.

'At first he was allowed to see his family for four hours a week; now that has been reduced to just four hours a month, and on one recent occasion his wife and children were turned away without explanation. Personal phone calls are restricted to 15 minutes per month.

'And yet Haddad, a Lebanese citizen who was educated in the United States, has been charged with no crime. According to the Treasury Department – the only branch of government to give any explanation whatsoever – he and his charity are suspected of links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida organisation. But no evidence has been publicly forthcoming to substantiate the claim and no formal accusation has been made against him.'

I write to developing countries led by dictators at the behest of Amnesty International about cases like this. And yet this is happening, now, in America. In the land of the free.

And the question is, what are YOU going to do about it? I know what I'm going to do. I hope you take more action than to just tut and shake your head.

They've given themselves the power to do this, because not enough people fought hard enough. Are you going to believe that they'd never use it against you?
[by Beth] comments?

04:44 p.m., Monday, February 25, 2002
Always the same - here's an article on how obese women can cause health problems for both themselves and their children by being obese. No mention of fitness and an implication that obesity is as simple to control as restricting food intake and maybe adding in a little exercising, with the addded guilt built in of harming your children's health if you can't manage this.
[by Beth] comments?

11:44 a.m., Monday, February 25, 2002
I can't believe the Government's latest stroke of insanity for asylum seekers. 20,000 of them are going to be stripped of their benefits because they want to live with relatives or friends rather than live in specific government-approved accommodation. This accommodation is generally outside London, away from relatives and friends already here, often in rough areas, and there is huge pressure on it as there is. It makes no sense to punish people like this who want to stay with their support systems in cheaper places.
[by Beth] comments?

11:40 a.m., Monday, February 25, 2002
The situation in Zimbabwe seems to be getting worse.
[by Beth] comments?

11:23 a.m., Monday, February 25, 2002
I thought that this article about the prisoners being held in Cuba was very interesting.

The calls from legal experts and family of the prisoners seem to conflict with Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary's claims that he sees no reason that the British prisoners should not be repatriated. And although the US denies that those being held are prisoners of war, mail received by the family of one such prisoner was marked "Prisoner of war mail" - which implies that whatever the US says in public, in private they believe these men are PoWs - and this means they should be released.
[by Beth] comments?

10:57 a.m., Monday, February 25, 2002
Let me say first that I am all for measures to get people to reduce car usage, use public transport, car pool to work, walk or cycle or generally use other means of transport. However, I really don't like this scheme, whereby car users will have a 'black box' fitted onto their car that is monitored by a sattelite tracking system and they are charged for their use of roads. As a perk, road tax and duty on petrol will be reduced.

It sounds to me like it will be expensive to implement, risk abuse by corrupt officials, and shift the problem round. I suspect people will shift from motorways designed for heavy usage to quieter smaller roads less able to take the strain, causing a higher risk of accidents and inconvenience to local people. I would far rather see heavy investment in public transport to make it cleaner and cheaper, rather than the public-private partnerships so loved by this government. Many places on the Continent have got this right - why can't we?

I did some sums recently to work out the cheapest way around when I move to Newcastle and it turned out that buying a travel pass for unlimited travel round the whole of the district would be nearly a third of the cost of running a car for a year. Now that's an incentive not to run a car.
[by Beth] comments?