Open Mind Surgery

10:38am: Survey indicates that Britain is the world's most secular nation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3518375.stm

Oddly, my reaction to this is positive.

12:48pm: This is dynamite.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3489254.stm

"Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has said the decision to drop the trial of GCHQ whistle-blower Katharine Gun was taken for legal, not political reasons.
Mrs Gun was accused of leaking US spies' request for UK help to bug UN delegates ahead of the Iraq invasion.

Lord Goldsmith said they could prove the Official Secrets Act was breached.

But lawyers did not believe it possible to disprove Mrs Gun's defence of "necessity" - that she felt a duty to act to prevent an unlawful war. "

(bold tags added by me)

This isn't just someone deciding to drop a case. They could have dropped the case because official secrets might come out in court, and that would have been quite believable and understandable. (I was actually hoping they were going to go ahead with this and expose the intelligence that had led them to believe war was a necessity). Oh no. Instead, we have a case being dropped because it was impossible to prove that Mrs Gun was not exposing an illegal war.

Therefore, lawyers working for the Government don't think that it's possible to prove the legality of the Iraq war in court.

Let me repeat that. Lawyers working for the Government don't think that it's possible to prove the legality of the Iraq war in court.

I'm aware this is not the same thing as the war being illegal, technically speaking. But if the government of this country has led us into a war that they can't even prove is legal, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY STILL IN CHARGE FOR?

1:58pm:
Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

5:36pm: Burns
While hunting for some meanings for a friend of a friend, I found the following Robert Burns poem.

Cock up your Beaver
This fragment, from Herd's collection, was much improved at the hands of Burns. The second verse is Burns own work.
When first my brave Johnny lad
came to this town,
He had a blue bonnet
that wanted a crown
But now he has gotten
a hat and a feather
Hey, brave Johnny lad
cock up your beaver! (meaning - beaver hat)

Cock up your beaver
and cock it fu' sprush (meaning - spruce)
We'll over the border
and gie them a brush
There's somebody there
we'll teach better behaviour
Hey, brave Johnny lad
cock up your beaver!

The original which Burns completely changed was as follows

Cock up your beaver
cock up your beaver
Hey, my Johnnie lad
cock up your beaver!

Cock up your beaver
and cock it nae wrang
We'll a' to England
ere it be lang.

Er. Yeah.

Burns was, of course, a member of the Beggar's Benison club. Hmm.