Daily Archives: November 27, 2009

It pays to have as many life options available as possible

confusedstudentMy son is at that stage where he really has to start taking his school studies a lot more seriously than he has in the past. The time flies so fast; one moment they are choosing their subjects with one or two ideas as to what they want to do after they leave school, the next they are hit with the realisation that the results of those subjects can make quite a difference to their plans.

My son wants to go to university and study astronomical science and he is learning fast that astronomers do not just sit gazing at the stars through a telescope – well, they might in some respects but to get to that stage they have to put in a hell of a lot of other work first including the dreaded mathematics and various areas of science such as physics and chemistry. He does love doing those subjects at school but oh the pressure there is on him to excel all the time in them so that his grades are up to scratch. I have been watching him worry about these things that make up the life of a university student; study, lectures, more study, exams and of course the inevitable student loans that they all seem to need.

My job in all of this is to make sure there are the funds for him to do whatever he eventually decides to do and that I never have to say we cannot afford it – how many parents hate having to utter those words…? I have told him to not focus so much on one path in life with regards to his future – it pays to stand at the crossroads of several and have the opportunity to make a choice. How many people wish with hindsight that they had had such a luxury…?

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While terrorists like Abu Hamza enjoy their human rights in the UK, British Gary McKinnon will be handed over to the Americans for a computer crime

garymckinnonThe British Government has proven once again what a cowardly. gutless administration it is and how far it will stoop to grovelling to keeping the Americans happy. Gary McKinnon, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, has failed in his attempt to stop his extradition to the United States to be tried for hacking into nine Pentagon computer systems. His legal team worked tirelessly to convince Home Secretary Alan Johnson that it would be detrimental to his physical and psychological well being for him to be subjected to the level of persecution that the US officials are aiming at him – with a very real possibility of decades in a US prison as a penalty.

Alan Johnson turned down his bid to remain in the UK and face trial on home soil – remembering that his so-called ‘crimes’ were committed on British soil and so he should be tried in the UK – and has refused to stop his extradition to the United States. This man, who has a form of autism, hacked into defence computer systems in his hunt for information about aliens and UFO’s and is hardly representing a major danger to the public and yet his crime will be tried as something on par with espionage and terrorism.

Where are Gary McKinnon’s Human Rights…? where is the Home Office’s responsibility to protecting an extremely vulnerable British citizen who is still living on British soil…?

This man is a European citizen and he HAS rights as such. This has to be considered as an ultimate betrayal of a British citizen in his own country when you consider that the likes of the one-eyed, hook-handed Muslim hate preacher Abu Hamza has successfully managed to remain in the United Kingdom for years despite efforts to deport him and using taxpayers money to fund his legal expenses. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, was tried and sentenced in Scotland even though he blew up an American aircraft – he was not extradited to the US. It seems that British citizens matter the least to their own government these days – and it aims clearly to keep the Americans happy and placated at all costs.

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