As reported in the Guardian today, paragraph 64 of the coalition government’s white paper on proposals to reform voter registration, Individual Electoral Registration, states:
While we strongly encourage people to register to vote the Government believes the act is one of personal choice and as such there should be no compulsion placed on an individual to make an application to register to vote.
Is it really not the case that voting is part of one’s responsibilities for living within a democratic country? Democracy is a contract between the government and the governed, and this feels dangerously close to allowing opting out of this contract.
Cameron at odds with Cable over banking reforms
David Cameron has warned against “taking risks that put jobs at risk” as he highlighted the crucial role banks need to play to help economic growth.
The prime minister made his comments after the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, lashed out at the big British banks whom he accused of being “disingenuous in the extreme” in their claim that sweeping banking reforms could damage the economic recovery.
Why the Firefox rapid release schedule matters
The open web is the most amazing, universal communication and distribution platform ever built. To win, the web needs to be agile and responsive. To help it, we need to be agile and responsive, too. That’s why rapid release matters.
The simplistic moralising from both the left and the right has an almost self-congratulatory tone to it. Each side paints the cause of the U.K.’s recent riots in their own image. But while the left’s has at least a patina of hope, the right’s is one of demonisation.
Sometimes it takes an outside observer to speak bluntly, as in this NYT editorial, Wrong Answers in Britain:
Crimes are crimes whoever commits them. And the duty of government is to protect the law-abiding, not to engage in simplistic and divisive moralizing that fails to distinguish between criminals, victims and helpless relatives and bystanders.
HP’s homepage currently has a banner:
YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR IT…
Be one of the first!
HP TouchPad rocks like nothing else.
Order it now.
In terms of user experience aspiration, WebOS seems the only real iPad competitor right now. Which makes it so sad that this should perhaps read, “Be one of the only!”:
HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.