In the news

So will the corporal punishment the Government is inflicting on poor people be outlawed, too? It leaves marks.

What if someone wanks off watching a boxing match? It's a minefield.

Euros

Good report tonight on the institutional homophobia in the Met which stopped them from properly investigating the murders of multiple gay men in Barking.

The clues they didn't follow up, and the fact that they basically only made the case when it had been handed to them by victims' friends is shocking.

As one guy on BBC News said, "It's like they think that's what gay men do. Take drugs and then die in cemeteries."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38045742

Damn the hamster is looking old, and not sure about James' new haircut.

Shocking. A very good and thorough piece of reporting by the BBC though.

Something about that case didn't sit right when it first came to court, the bodies being found so close but so far apart chronologically - it all makes sense now.

I know the Met aren't exactly Poirot but fuck some of those oversights are mind boggling. It's pretty hard to draw a conclusion other than institutionalised homophobia.

Not sure it's homophobia. I just don't think they could give a shit about anyone. Investigating crimes is too much like hard work. Now a nice easy on the spot fine, on the other hand...

Not checking the hand-writing in the suicide note even after the coroner asked them to.

The note which said "don't blame the guy I was with last night".

There definitely seems to have been an assumption that the deaths were drug/lifestyle related. I'd agree that the whole case was so ineffectually handled that it's definitely not the only factor, but presuming that the deaths of young gay men is related to their lifestyle is intrinsically homophobic. Even if their wasn't active homophobic intent from individuals the system is homophobic.

The Sun are reporting that there could be more:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2245834/cops-fear-grindr-killer-stephen-port-murdered-more-as-they-probe-58-unsolved-deaths-linked-to-date-rape-drugs/

There's going to be an investigation into whether institutionalised homophobia was an issue in the case, so I guess we'll find out.

I sleep easier at night knowing that Food Standards Scotland is looking at my browser history.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-act-snoopers-charter-browsing-history-what-does-it-mean-a7436251.html?cmpid=facebook-post

Is there a warrant required for this information or can anyone above the required grade just access the information freely?

warrants are needed.

Section 2 of the act

Meh. It will be automated, like a moderation queue... a judge will just click lots of buttons and bulk approve once the burden gets too much. The burden will get too much, because those who want the information know that if they make a lot of requests it will be automated.

Full text in here.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2016-2017/0066/17066.pdf

I don't have time to do more than skim read today but it looks like the agency will need sign off from the head of the agency who then needs the warrant approved by a friendly judge.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2016-2017/0066/17066.pdf

No warrant required. I think there is some form of "internal" process that has to be gone through, but no oversight or transparency

It's an incredibly stupid idea. Encryption using a VPN is trivial. Anyone who doesn't want to be tracked can easily hide it, it will be those who don't have anything important to hide who will end up being done for trivial offences under this. Like the application of anti-terrorism laws by councils for bin crimes http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3333366/Half-of-councils-use-anti-terror-laws-to-spy-on-bin-crimes.html or school places http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2248295/Second-council-admits-using-anti-terror-surveillance-over-school-places.html

Bin crimes or Bin Laden crimes? Eh? It's all connected.

Laden bin crime: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/girl-9-shames-council-refused-8383007

This was fun tonight:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/soho-power-cut-parts-of-central-london-plunged-into-darkness-after-electricity-outage-a3405391.html

I enjoyed seeing Piccadilly Circus in the darkness, and where I was in Soho the place was lit by candlelight.

ball tampering in football , another fucking nonce scandal

The BBC seems pretty glad Castro is dead.

I did hear a tough interview with Ken Livingstone, pressing on the issue of human rights abuses, lack of freedom of speech, and entrenched poverty. Livingstone's main argument in favour of Castro was that there were other dictators in South America who were worse. They also had Carlos Acosta on who thought Castro was lovely, he knew about the abuses, interments without trial etc but thought on balance the revolution was a good thing because his personal experience was fine. They also covered the celebrations among a million exiled Cubans in Miami, so on balance many more voices against Castro got air time I suppose. It's a very good thing for Cubans that Obama made steps to end hostilities between the two countries.

At least they got round to inviting someone on who knows what they're talking about:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1780349142229357&id=100007628650696

Experts eh.