...comes courtesy of SCHNews, yer friendly neighbourhood, easily digestible, alternative news source:

"With army recruitment at an all time low and a people used to easy living, conscription is politically impossible and the army just hasn't seemed such a groovy or necessary lifestyle choice since slacking was invented in the sixties."

TFA is about the proliferation of private mercenaries in Iraq. It's an interesting read, but then so is virtually every article they publish...

More news on my so-called life when I get a chance, but first this:

I was absolutely outraged to find this on the *front bloody page* of the BBC News website just now:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4630938.stm/

For a moment I thought the BBC were publishing Daily Mail content. I was so digusted in fact that I was driven to write the following reply (and I'm really not the most vocal of people, as you can probably tell by my journal), I publish it here because I know I am pissing into the wind by sending it to the BBC, but at least I've got it off my chest. I do hope it's not the shape of things to come:

******

"First of all let me say that I have the deepest sympathies for the anonymous writer whose son descended into psychosis (drug-induceed or not).

Secondly, I would like to say that I am disgusted that this reactionary opinion/propaganda-piece has been published on the *front page* of the BBC News website. I find it to be completely unblanced, lacking in scientific rigour and has an emotional tone that is completely out of place on what purports to be a news website, and particularly one whose bottom line I contribute to with my licence fee.

The most telling passage is this one "Some experts claim that for many younger people who have "drug induced psychosis", like my son, this sort of mental illness would have happened anyway. That is total rubbish. He was a perfectly normal boy, until this happened.". Well, let me also say that I have known many people who have taken large amounts of cannabis, and while they may not be the most useful members of society, they most certainly are not psychotic. This poor man has been bereaved and shocked by the loss of his son's mental health and is casting around for something or someone to blame it on.

It also seems that this young man ended up taking a rather large amount of the stuff, £5000 a year (around £100 a week) is, I would suggest rather more than the average dope-smoker spends on this particular drug.

To balance this story, I would like a front page story from one of the millions of people, young and old across the country who have had no ill-effects from cannabis and who have gone on to lead happy and productive lives and may even have benefited from taking this drug"

******

Looking at it now, I wish I'd taken a bit more time to write it, but hey...

What irks me most is that this tripe has been published for all the world to see, on the front page of what is possibly the UK's biggest news website, and it's been done (at least partially) with *my* money. To a large extent I agree with the licence fee, even if I did spend years avoiding paying it, but if this kind of thing goes on, I might have to think twice.

BAH!

Well, I'll be.

It appears that there are Brightonian Slashdotters.

My home of over ten years has made the front page of Slashdot on the same day that I've confirmed that I'll be moving out. I moved there somewhat unwittingly in 1994 to go to University, and grew to love it. I've had many first experiences there (apart from the obvious). All of my erm..psychoactive experiences have taken place there (or near there), I met my future wife there and, best of all,my daughter was born there just under two years ago

We're moving west of there to a lovely little town called Arundel in about six weeks time. This is mainly due to having taken another job in Chichester (here) to replace the woefully underpaid one that I had in Brighton (here) about six months ago, and partly because we'll be moving out of a 1-2 bedroom ground floor flat, in what could be called the arse end of Hove, to a 4-bedroom house for an increase in rent of a scant £95. It may work out a bit more expensive actually as the housing benefit in Brighton is quite generous and pays just under half our rent, but then I'm that much closer to work.

It's not without a pang of regret, mostly for many good time past, that I'm upping sticks and moving, but hopefully the grass will be greener in Arundel. Wish me luck!

Well, here we are nearly six months later :) I'm a little bit older, but not, I fear, any wiser than I was last September when I last wrote anything in here.

I'm in a new job. One which pays qute a bit better, but actually means I have to commute. Hmmm, still not too sure about that, but as we're coming out of winter now, this is a better prospect as I get to come home when it's light.

This job is also quite a bit different, as instead of running around a building supporting lots of Windows machines and 150-odd employees, I'm supporting Linux servers running a bespoke piece of software, mainly over the phone. OH, the company only has around 10 people in it, total. So a bit of a change there as well.

Lots of shit going on, a bit too much to put down right here, right now, but keep an eye and I might just pour some other random scribblings down on here. If ya lucky :)

One day I'll learn how to use the paragraph tags

Honest : )

I've just gotten mod points for the third time in as many weeks. Fortune must be smiling on me in some small way.. I've been reading people's journals for a while now, valuing the insight into a little of the lives of various geeks (most recently Alioth's). And I've now decided to keep one myself. Over the coming months I'll probably regale all two of you reading this with many boring facets of my life, but hey, that's what these things are for, isn't it?