a lot of stuff and nonsense from eclectech

Unfortunately I'm not talking about electricity bills here, but rather the exceptionally dull sounding Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. Except it's not really very dull. It's actually quite worrying.

In a briefing to clients the Clifford Chance law firm points out that the Bill "usurps the power of Parliament". It gives ministers power to amend, repeal or replace any legislation simply by making an order and without having to bring a Bill before Parliament. Forgive me for my suspicious nature but that seems to be moving us rather further away from a democracy than I'm happy with.

It really doesn't seem to getting the media attention it deserves, but here are a few articles for those of you who can't believe what I'm saying, just pick your source.
BBC | The Times | The Times (letter) | The Guardian | The Telegraph | Bloggers | Parliament

Whilst on my news trawl I also came across this article, suggesting that creationism is taking hold in UK education establishments; it concerns me that we're going to end up with attempts to teach Intelligent Design in science classes as has been happening elsewhere. If you have faith then that should be enough, please don't try and pretend that it's science.

One final link, this story about a trading standards employee having trouble coming to terms with the concept of open source amused me, and reminds me that there are nice things in the world too, even if they are considered abnormal.

Labels: disgruntled, news links, silly joke