Spontaneous Monotony

There were a lot of complaints from Celtic fans after the farce that was the game in midweek, and today’s result hasn’t made Gordon Strachan’s job any safer (at least if the board listen to the people who pay their wages, which we all know they don’t). But let me sound a note of common sense. Gordon Strachan is the best thing that has ever happened to Celtic Rangers. The problem is that given the amount of money he has spent on the likes of Mo ‘Scared of the ball’ Camara means that the club probably can’t afford to get rid of him- instead they’ll wait until the end of the season and just not renew his contract (he’s on the same ‘one year rolling’ thing that MONwas). Roll on the end of the season!

Apple has updated its iBook range (notebooks aimed at the consumer market)- apart from streamlining the ordering process (the larger 14” model now has the choice of optical drive as a configuration option rather than two separate models), it’s basically a speed bump.

But it’s quite a significant one- the standard amount of RAM has been doubled (256mb to 512mb), Bluetooth now comes as standard and it has a slightly better graphics card (Mobility Radeon 9500 instead of Mobility Radeon 9200, still 32Mb though).

Did anyone else watch the shambles that was Gordon Strachan’s first match in his (hopefully very short) tenure as Celtic manager? The players looked as if they were exhausted after a long hard season, Mo Camara was scared of the Artmedia forwards, in short the kind of performance that would have made Martin O’Neill sack every man on the pitch. Perhaps we should have been forewarned by the fact that the Unmighty Midget has only ever been manager of two clubs before he inflicted himself on us, and got them both relegated.

Hopefully there’s no danger of that (hey, this league has Livingston and Falkirk in it), but if we want to have any chance of trophies (or of finishing second ahead of a newly-resurgent Hearts) we need to get rid of Strachan sooner rather than later. Come back Josef Venglos, all is forgiven.

[EDIT] Just learned from the Daily Record that Motherwell currently only have nine players fit for the game on Saturday. We might (emphasis on might) manage to sneak a draw then, if we get a soft penalty or three.

Armed action in other countries is sometimes necessary. Giving someone a choice between surrender to the police and being shot is sometimes necessary. Holding an innocent man down and shooting him five eight times in the head is morally indefensible.

My only hope is that the current climate of fear surrounding London at the moment does not stop Jean Charles de Menezes’ killers from facing justice

The terrorist threat facing Britain (and London in particular) is real, but in fighting it we must not condone (or even encourage) similar levels of brutality from ‘the good guys’, as that will just make the terrorist threat worse. Even people who agree with the Stockwell shooting generally see the logic of this, such as Richard Allan (a former Lib Dem MP)

The question before us now is the extent to which that should change in the face of the new terrorist threats that we face. Terrorists aim to brutalise societies and provoke tit-for-tat killings. If the state response is excessive then this can feed the monster.

Basically what this comes down to is not ‘is the shoot-to-kill policy right’, as most people agree to some extent, but a decision by the Independent Police Complaints Commission as to whether a reasonable police officer would have considered John Charles de Menezes a serious terrorist threat (worthy of being killed eight times over) as he was being held to the ground by two other officers.

[EDIT] As you will see from the strikethroughs, it turns out that the victim was shot eight times, not five. Anyone still think it wasn’t excessive?[/EDIT]

[EDIT2]: Changed wording slightly as it was causing confusion for some readers (see comments)[/EDIT2]

See Also

• BBC News: Family condemns police shooting
• BBC News: Protest in Brazil after shooting

To avoid the 272% fee hike planned for 2006, applications for ‘deferred entry’ to university in England (which means you start in 2006 but avoid top-up fees because of your application year) increased by 10% on last year, and applications from English-based students wanting to study at Scottish universities were up 16.8%.

Despite repeatedly saying that there is no confusion over top-up fees, and that they will be ‘free before and during study and fair and affordable at the time of repayment’[1], the government is to spend £3.5m on propaganda to try and convince students that it’s true.