Ed Dowding

Month: May 2013

Does your MP think a vote on Europe is the most important thing right now?

More than 100 Tory MPs ‘express regret’ at lack of referendum bill. Well well well. Do they, now? This is what I’m expressing regret about to my MP. Hi Caroline I just wanted to say thank you so much for expressing regret about the decision to leave an EU referendum out of the Queen’s speech. ...

The Scale of Genuine Civilisation

A postcard to Michael Gove.

Accept what you can not change, change what you can not accept.

By all means, follow the advice of the Desiderata and “accept what you can not change”, but only so that you have energy and sanity left to change what you can not accept.

At-a-glance: Queen’ Speech 2013

You’re only allowed to stay if you were on the guest list we wrote 18 years ago. You are to clean up after your dog. You will work harder, longer, and when you die you’ll be able to know exactly how your privatised hospital is failing. We acknowledge that prison is a crap solution, so ...

In historical terms, today is absolutely incredible. In terms of the world we’re going to create in your lifetime, today is rather embarrassing. Get to work.

The Bottled Water Challenge – your opinions sought!

Public opinion needed here, please help! There’s a charity water company which raises £10k/yr from bottled water sales. This funds 3 clean water projects in India. The person running this activity costs £10k/yr in salary. Externalised costs include extraction, bottling, labelling, transport, and refrigeration. Costs: £10k + externalities Yield: £10k + cascading benefits So by ...

Petition fatigue: in defence of clicktivism.

Every. Single. Day. Every single day there’s another damned petition to sign. Is it about anything sensible or reasonable? No. It’s about trying to prevent only the most stupid / villainous / malicious / self-serving people from doing the most ludicrous and outrageously stupid things they could ever possibly dream up to do. It makes ...