The Gary McKinnon case

I've been flicking through the news the last few days and I wanted to write about the Gary McKinnon case. This is the guy who some time ago hacked into some computers in the US looking for UFO and free energy info, and faces massive ridiculous and utterly inappropriate prison time for this if extradited.

I know some people won't like me saying it, but this is simply not a serious crime. And certainly he should not be extradited to face massive sentences.

I'm sure there's lot of kids who do this with no real malicious intent. McKinnon just got sloppy and didn't care anymore about being caught and the US presumably wanted to make an example of someone.

Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay has actually resigned, after his feeble vile backbench colleagues "fell in behind the Government, and failed to vote to block Mr McKinnon's extradition during a recent debate in parliament".

It goes without saying, on this case, good on Andrew MacKinlay.

And we've witnessed this kind of filth repeated from these people again and again on a number of issues of course.

Gary McKinnon's appeal against extradition is being assessed by The High Court this week.

Michael Jackson Memorial Service

I just watched the Michael Jackson memorial service via internet broadcast. What can you say ? Where you actually there ? Extremely emotional.

There was a range of musical and spoken tributes from people like Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey and Stevie Wonder, including a fascinating and passionate oration by the Reverend Al Sharpton and finally his brothers and daughter give an extremely moving speech.

And frankly, you get the sense this isn't over. The repercussions of this are going to go on for some time, and because of who Michael Jackson was, of course in other ways forever.

While we certainly don't really know why Michael Jackson died, and whether we will know clearly or not remains an open question so far, some of the controversies and allegations seemed to contribute to factors now being pointed to surrounding his tragic death.

Like a lot of you I've been listening to Michael Jackson's work over the last twelve days or so and going over the videos, performances, interviews and tributes out there either on the internet or in real life. Everywhere you go Michael Jackson's songs are on the radio, people are talking about this in the street, and so on. Make no mistake about it, this is a very big deal.

And as such, there's a lot one can say about this topic. With this particular star, as we said before, perhaps the biggest and greatest ever, many different forces coincide. There's a lot of different threads one can explore from an artistic, cultural, or political perspective.

Perhaps too many, and perhaps it's too soon for some of that.

It was a very moving service they gave for him, his passing has been a devastating loss, there is no question that Michael Jackson brought an incredible light to this world, and people are going to miss Michael just tremendously.