Significantly more loved by the BBC than by Google...

Compare if you will this with this.

Notice I am results one to four for the search on the BBC, whereas I've still not found out where I come in on Google for just that search.

The BBC loves me. Google thinks I can go to hell. Gotta love search engine wars.

Bad people - no no no!!!

I've already mentioned on the front page about the "interesting" websearches that have brought people to my site. But I'll repeat them here, firstly because that front page will change in time, and secondly because I've just had a new and worrying search string bring a visitor to me.

There was this search, by someone looking for the news story about BNP members who were discovered in possession of bomb making equipment. I have an entire blog entry on the subject. So quite understandable that I would be one of the hits on this story.

Then things took a turn for the disturbing. This search was carried out by an employee of Sky Television who, at two in the morning, was either looking for some feline companionship, or the village bike. The search came to me because I live in the area mentioned, and I have an entire blog post which heavily uses the second word.

Please, please, someone tell me. What the bloody fuck was the person who conducted this search looking for???

You sick little monkey. I am disturbed that it brought you to me, I am even more disturbed you conducted that search.

Please, can someone tell me, is there an innocent explanation? Or is the search as icky as it looks?

Good morning, Department of Pre-Crime, who would you like to denounce today...

Tags: law potential criminal thought police Home Office

If someone was waving a gun about, threatening to shoot someone, would you call the police? Of course you would (I hope you would).

If that same someone was unarmed, and threatening to cause serious harm to someone at a later date, would you call the police then? Is it hyperbole (I'll kill him), or a genuine threat to someone?

The question comes down to one of imminence. Do you believe that a crime is about to take place, and that events have been set in motion which mean that, without intervention, that crime will in fact take place?

We have a slight problem with imminence as a concept in this country. Internationally, our adoption of the doctrine of anticipatory self-defence shows that we are not only content to act on an imminent threat, but on conceivable threats, no matter how remote, or unlikely. This global oversensitivity seems to have trickled down to our criminal justice policy, if this Home Office document leaked to The Times is anything to go by.

As reported on Radio 4's Today show this morning, the concept of "capacity for violence" comes into play in deciding who may be a violent criminal.

Capacity for violence? We all of us have capacity for violence. Should we all therefore be branded potential criminals? This is not to deny that someone with an extreme and proven tendency towards violence, who has acted on these impulses in the past, should not be deemed with a measure of suspicion. But criminality for actions not yet taken, or even contemplated? And what of those who have never committed a violent act, but show a psychological tendency towards violence, a tendency that may never be acted upon. Are we to criminalise urges, thoughts, rather than treat them?

I am particularly disturbed by the proposal, not simply to monitor people, but to create actual agencies, one charged with monitoring "potential" criminals, and the other to monitor "potential" victims. I dread to think how they are going to decide who a "potential" victim is.

As ever, heartstrings are tugged at to get us to accept this potential criminalisation of thoughts, urges, and people who have not committed a crime. The Soham murders, we are told, would never have happened if information about Ian Huntley's violent actions in the past had been passed on to the relevant authorities. Perhaps. If the complaints against Huntley had been passed on to the authorities in Cambridgeshire, he may never have gained his position in the school. That represents a failing in a system which at the moment is meant to screen out people who are not suited to working with children and other vulnerable people.

When the system fails due to incompetence, the correct course of action is to tighten up on the existing procedures, not to introduce a Minority Report-esque policing system where the darkest impulses of the human condition, the one's we are all heir to, the one's that we would never act on, make us guilty in the eyes of the law before we are even aware of them.

This proposal offers no chance of redemption, and excises the concept of personal responsibility from the criminal justice system. To have the potential to kill someone makes you a potential murderer. Whether you would have acted on the impulse, ignored it, or even been aware of it is irrelevant. You could have done it. So you are guilty.

Kill your babies...

Not nearly as evil as it sounds...

You may (or possibly may not!) have noticed that the blog has undergone a slight cull. And if you've subscribed by RSS, then you probably had every single entry show up on your feed. And possibly more than once.

This has something to do with the fact that I got slightly pissed off with the way in which Blogger was displaying some of the posts, and with the fact that importing my RSS feeds into Facebook resulted in all the entries from April and May appearing twice, and no further entries appearing since August 2006!

In the end I wound up deleting, reformatting, and reposting to such an extent, that some entries were damaged irreparably. Others were just shit. So I got rid of them.

So if the feed went screwy this past weekend, don't worry - it wasn't anything you did. I just took a hatchet to my website, and feel a lot better about it now!

Another year...

Michaelangelo had carved his Pietà when he was 24, and by the time he was 28, David was almost ready to be unveiled. According to this month's Men's Health, 28 is the age at which a man reaches his intellectual peak.

This makes for depressing 28th birthday reading.

However, there is hope, for I have not reached another important milestone. The Jesus Birthday.

Basically, this involves looking at what other men have done before you, by the time they were at your age. And most men under the age of 30 can, if they have achieved nothing else in their lives, say that Jesus didn't start his work until he was 30, so whatever you want to achieve, you've still got time.

And in fact, I'm ahead of the game with Jesus, because I don't live with my mother...

What my birth date means... allegedly...

As a rational human being, I give no credence to the idea that my destiny is determined by when I was born. But then again I'm a Taurus, and we tend to be stubborn like that... That's as good as the humour is going to get today people, live with it...

Your Birthdate: May 10

Independent and dominant, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations. You're very confident, and hardly anything ever shakes you. Mundane tasks tend to drain you - you prefer to be making great plans. You are quite original. When people don't "get" you, it bothers you a lot. Your strength: Your ability to gain respect Your weakness: Caring too much what others think Your power color: Orange-red Your power symbol: Letter X Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Reprieve

Big sighs of relief all round. I do not require surgery, my cartilage is fine, my ligaments are intact.

I've got fairly heavy impact damage on the bones around the knee joint and have been advised to not run or do anything more strenuous than walking on it for the next 2 months, so we shall wait out the time, and see what this does for me.

Bang goes my two weeks paid holiday, I mean recuperation, and of course the snazzy crutches that would guarantee me a seat on the Tube...