“Speaking on US network CNN’s State of the Union, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Mike Mullen said: ‘This is obviously a political decision. On the same programme, influential Senators Joe Lieberman and Ben Cardin questioned whether the move had been made to improve British-Libyan trade”.

There has indeed been a lot of anger from politicos etc in the USA about the release of this person on the grounds that he is expected to die within three months, and us British people have the notion of ‘compassionate release’ built into our justice system.

I trust, though, that there isn’t going to be any backlash from people in California:

“California lawmakers are to vote on a plan to release 27,000 prisoners early. The proposal is part of a solution to a $26bn dollar budget deficit and the problem of chronic prison overcrowding”.

Because that would be hypocritical of them – wouldn’t it?

“The international cocaine market is ‘in retreat’ after a year of successful operations around the world, the Serious Organised Crime Agency claims. It says its undercover work has helped send wholesale prices soaring.Prices per kilo have risen from £39,000 in 2008 to over £45,000 (50,000 euros), but street prices have remained stable. Prices per kilo have risen from £39,000 in 2008 to over £45,000 (50,000 euros), but street prices have remained stable”.

I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing or a success at all, really – completely the opposite, in fact.

The cocaine producers and wholesalers (I have visions of dealers piling down to Makro to get their stock in) have seen a 15% increase in turnover, whilst at the same time the retail price on the street has remained the same; this isn’t like O’Neill’s absorbing the cost of the last budget’s duty increase on the price of beer to keep the price at the pump the same, instead the dealers have included even more cutting agent – rat poison, worming powder, cancer-causing phenacetin etc – in with the cocaine itself; recent seizures of street cocaine have seen purity levels as low as 9%, the lowest ever.

So this ’success’ means increased profits for the producers, increased profits for soap powder suppliers, increased demands made on the health service due to the increased amount of insecticide people are snorting up their hooters. And, of course, increases in the statistics for SOCA making them look good at a time when it is under increasing pressure to demonstrate its effectiveness. So that’s alright, then.

The big internet story over the last few days has been how the Internet Watch Foundation has effectively restricted UK access to Wikipedia by putting it on its blacklist of alleged child pornography hosts, which most UK ISPs subscribe to, on account of it showing a 30-year-old album cover which has been available in shops worldwide – and continues to be available – without attracting any legal attention even if it has always been controversial.

As I was busy elsewhere whilst things have been unfolding I was too late to add my own comment, but Andrew Lewin has written about as balanced and informative a piece as possible – link above.

In the olden days, it was an online axiom that “the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”; when an entire country can now be blocked off from certain pages on certain sites, or certain sites as a whole, simply by diktat by a government department or non-governmental organisation, that axiom is clearly no longer true.

Whatever your views about the specific image in question, one paragraph of Andrew’s article bears specific attention:

“The Government probably thinks it can get away with it as long as it doesn’t look as though politicians’ fingerprints are anywhere too close, but the IWF will respond to government edicts about what’s right and proper with alacrity. We’ve already heard Hazel Blears attack political blogs as ‘a dangerous corrosion in our political culture’ so how long before the IWF decrees those to be against the law or corrupting our morals and do a blanket ban of any such blogs? Sounds like a perfectly proper, moral argument being presented to do just that, after all. Which could be any blog disagreeing with the party of the day … Now is it starting to sound just a little bit like China?”

And as Andrew concludes:

“So I ask you: think of the number one thing you would hate to lose online. And now realise, there’s a very good chance that it can and will be taken away because of the situation we’re sleepwalking into.

Want to wait till it happens? Or do something about it now?”

But of course, “it can’t happen here”.