Sim-O

Just as the Daily Mail is taking down istyosty.com for copyright infringement, up pops another story involving the Daily Mail and copyright infringement. This time, the boot is on the other foot…

A few days ago, I snapped a picture in The GAP on Oxford Street: their ALWAYS SKINNY mannequins’ legs are not only always skinny, but anorexically/starved so.

I tweeted it, and TwitPic’d one picture. Then Cory BoingBoing’ed it. Then the WashPo emailed, asking permission to reprint, and asked for a quote or two. I said yes. I sent them a further pic, too.

Then the Daily Mail got in touch. Could we use the photos, they said. I said, yes, if you donate £250 – a standard photo fee in my book, certainly less than what Getty charges, say – to a charity of my choice. I don’t like the Daily Mail, and didn’t want to give them commercial use of my pictures for free.

The Mail said £250 was not within their budget and so wouldn’t be using the photo. I bet you can’t guess what happened next.

Go read the rest of the post and marvel at the hypocrasy of Paul Dacres’ henchmen.

(Thanks to George in my previous post reminding me about this)

So, Legal Aid is being used pay for a Judicial Review on the decision by Vince Cable not to block an export licence for the UK company to export to the USA a drug used in executions.

The review is being brought o behalf of two death row prisoners by Reprieve who…

Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay.

We investigate, we litigate and we educate, working on the frontline, providing legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. We promote the rule of law around the world, and secure each person’s right to a fair trial. And in doing so, we save lives.

Without looking into them further, they sound quite an admirable organisation.

But, on the the point of using Legal Aid for this review, fair enough. The UK government, in allowing this export, is complicit in the execution of prisoners. These two guys on death row do not have the means to challenge Vinces’ decision. It is a UK company, enabled by the UK government that is knowingly providing the means for these executions to go ahead. It is only right that this should be challenged.

The UK doesn’t extradite to suspects to countries when, if found guilty, the result is execution. So what is the difference between exporting people to their deaths and exporting the means when it is known it will be used for executions? None.

The reason for allowing the export of this drug?

“Sodium thiopental is a medicine. Its primary use is as an anaesthetic … Legitimate trade of medical value would be affected by any restriction on the export of this product from the UK.” Any ban would be ineffective, he added, because supplies could be obtained from elsewhere.

Try changing what’s being exported from a drug to weapons. Would the government allow the export of weapons, whose primary and legitimate use is for defence against invaders, to a country that was shooting up it’s own people? (Ok, the government probably does, but you get the idea.)

And the reason that supplies could be obtained from eslewhere anyway is just risable that it hardly needs rebutting. The point would be that we, as a country would not be part of something that we are supposedly against.

This then, the actions that Reprieve are taking and how it is funded, I think is A Good Thing.

Just a quickie as I’ve got other stuff to get on with.

Gareth F Compton is, according to his Twitter profile, a Conservative activist and councillor for Birmingham Erdington.

He has some wise words about the violence at todays student demo…

Wise words indeed…

Just saying. that’s all.

*delete as applicable

Update 23:40
Oh, look. What a surprise. Gareth has now deleted his ‘stoning’ tweet.

Update 11/11/10
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is not happy and Gareth could be in the shit with this one…

The columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has said she will report a Conservative councillor to the police after he posted a message on Twitter saying it would be a “blessing” if she was stoned to death.

What a lovely aoplogy too…

Twitter is a forum for glib comment of the moment. It was a glib comment. Who could possibly think it was serious?

“Obviously I apologise. No offence was intended.

As ever with these things, it’s not just that Gareth would do something like that, I’m sure he wouldn’t, but that someone else might take it up on themselves to act on it however remote the chance.

If someone publicly, or privately for that matter, called for my death, I’d be bloody upset too.

You probably all knew it anyway, but here is a fine example of the hypocrasy of capitalism [click to enlarge]

£5 for 15 cans of cider. 34 pence a can.
£5 for 18 bottles of lager. 28 pence a bottle.

A pack of 10 cans of Coke will cost, from Tesco, £3.65. 37 pence a can.

The drinkaware.co.uk website says about themselves…

Drinkaware aims to change the UK’s drinking habits for the better. We promote responsible drinking and find innovative ways to challenge the national drinking culture to help reduce alcohol misuse and minimise alcohol-related harm.

Wow. Now that really is innovative. Selling alcohol cheaper than non-alcohol. I see, minimize the impact of drinking on the wallet. Very good.

N.B.
It’s not the selling of cheap beer that’s irked me, it’s the hypocrasy of pretending to care, saying one thing and doing the opposite.