insomnia and blogsearches
The muscle strain that impeded my fencing is still hurting, but I'm determined to fence epee on Wednesday, so long as there are generous epeeists around prepared to put up with my incompetence. However, it stopped me sleeping again. So I started searching blogs.
Previously I've tended to search blogs using key words related to 'Quaker' and 'fencer' - not very original - but tonight I decided to look up two other concerns.
These are to do with Bills currently before parliament. (That's the British parliament - I'm in England.)
The first is the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, a boringly titled Bill that few people have noticed. If it goes through - and it will be back in the Commons for its third (final) reading soon - it actually could undermine parliamentary democracy. It's hard to believe, but this Bill allows ministers to invent new laws and slip them through parliament without debate. This could include the invention of new crimes or even the abolition of parliament itslef. And taken in conjunction with the Armed Forces Bill 2005, which abolished the annual requirement to renew the army (and which proposes some other dodgy measure too) we have laws going through which enable the establishment of a military dictatorship.
That's probably not the intention, but no-one should have laws like that among their statutes.
Governments can convince themselves that the strangest things are for the good of the people they govern.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how democracies end - quietly and with very little fuss.
But a blogsearch on the title of the first Bill showed me that there are bloggers out there alert to this danger. So perhaps there's still a possibility that the Bills won't become law, despite the government's majority.
And now back to bed in the hope to mend the muscle strain in time for fencing.
Previously I've tended to search blogs using key words related to 'Quaker' and 'fencer' - not very original - but tonight I decided to look up two other concerns.
These are to do with Bills currently before parliament. (That's the British parliament - I'm in England.)
The first is the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, a boringly titled Bill that few people have noticed. If it goes through - and it will be back in the Commons for its third (final) reading soon - it actually could undermine parliamentary democracy. It's hard to believe, but this Bill allows ministers to invent new laws and slip them through parliament without debate. This could include the invention of new crimes or even the abolition of parliament itslef. And taken in conjunction with the Armed Forces Bill 2005, which abolished the annual requirement to renew the army (and which proposes some other dodgy measure too) we have laws going through which enable the establishment of a military dictatorship.
That's probably not the intention, but no-one should have laws like that among their statutes.
Governments can convince themselves that the strangest things are for the good of the people they govern.
Sometimes I wonder if this is how democracies end - quietly and with very little fuss.
But a blogsearch on the title of the first Bill showed me that there are bloggers out there alert to this danger. So perhaps there's still a possibility that the Bills won't become law, despite the government's majority.
And now back to bed in the hope to mend the muscle strain in time for fencing.
posted by kathz | 2:06 am
2 Comments:
Too much pain to sleep - I know that well. I am not sure your belief on painkillers but I after fencing or fencing injuries, I tend to use two strong muscle relaxants, along with codine painkiller, then if it is still bad enough to keep me awake, some valium or wine usually helps. Hope you feel better soon.
Aprospos of nothing in particular... Me: "She fences and she's a Quaker." Wife: "Quakers rock."
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