No Overall Control

“The Climate Rush is a group of gallant women and intrepid men who will act now to save the world.” This is anarchism for the middle classes, or at least those that don’t want too much risk when out protesting. This group came to popular attention last year with a take-over of Parliament Square celebrating the centenary of the Suffragette Rush and campaigning in support of three demands: No new coal power stations, an immediate stop to all airport expansion, and 80% reductions in carbon by 2050....

Merry Christmas everybody. I’ve got my decks out and spun round a few new tunes for a merry mixxmas session 2008. It’s all about playing track 10. Seriously. You’ll understand when it drops (about 40mins in…) Tracklisting: Plump Night Out ‘Elektonaughts Bumper RMX’ Brothers Bud ‘Remedy’ Plump Night Out ‘Pucker Up! Pucker Up! RMX’ Brothers Bud ‘The Sting’ Beat Assassins ‘vs’ Ludacris ‘Stand Up’ DJ DefKline and Red Polo ‘Can I Dance’ (The Like A Bear Mix) - Ghetto Style Guaranteed Crisp Biscuit ‘Brooklyn Banger’#18 Dreadzone ‘Once Upon A Time [In Jamaica]’ (Brothers Bud Mix) 3DB ‘Baader’ (Dreadzone Mix) Bassbin Twins ‘Woppa’ [Cool And Deadly] Son Of Kick ‘Bad Groove’ Twin Motion ‘Scream!...

Earlier this week 50 or so Plane Stupid activists managed to breach Stansted Airport’s perimeter security fence. Idiots. If someone really wanted to shutdown an airport and cause over a week of disruption, all they would have to do is get enough people to sit down. Last month anti-government protesters in Thailand where able to close the country’s major international airport for over a week. Hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of flights were disrupted and rerouted where possible....

So, some digital informationhas leaked from its home. Its been played with by an excel monkeyand plottedon maps. It shouldn’t have happened, but it has. Doh! doesn’t quite cover it when I think of the stupidity of some people. While there are many political uses of the information, the lists of names of membership of any organisation should be kept private. Lists of names, as Tom Steinberg (MySociety) said, start us down a path best not begun....

It’s been a busy fortnight for open-information projects and campaigns. Widely announced and re-announced were the winners of the Show Us A Better Way (SUABW) competition, sponsored by the Government, which sought new solutions to perhaps unknown problems. SUABW asked people what web-based tools they would build from public data-sources that would improve the way public information is shared and presented. The winners are: Can I Recycle It? UK Cycling Catchment Areas Location of Postboxes Loofinder The BBC PM report referred to a court case being thrown out because a piece of law that the case was built on had been taken off the statute book....