Mohammad is a Cuddly Toy

This little news story caught my eye about a British primary school teacher in Sudan who has been arrested for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammad.

Now my first and only reaction is that this is a genuine mistake not worthy of the punishment that is being called for, imprisonment, a fine or 40 lashes.

After that, my reaction has to be the children. If Islam and the Prophet Mohammad that important to the primary school children, then they have willing to name a teddy bear after their religion. But if it is against their religion to name anything after Mohammad, or in his name, then surely it must be the blame of the parents of these children for teaching them the wrong meanings of Islam.

If, as we are told, that religion is part of their daily life, then great, but make sure you teach the right parts to your kids first.

Playing Games with Information

I am in an odd daze at the moment, even 24 hours later when we (the British public) were informed that our government had allowed the mislaying of vital and sensitive information (including names, dates of birth, parent names, names of children, national insurance numbers and bank account details) of every family/person receiving child benefit in the UK.

No excuse, no reason can be offered, no satisfactory resolution can come from this.

The information was held on 2 computer discs and was sent by an internal courier to another department. The package never arrived.

Vigilence. If you werent vigilent before yesterday, you damn well ought to be. Not just of spammers, and fraudulent bank activity and dodgy emails from your bank. But you had better start be more vigilent about your personal information, about who you trust in the government.

By a twist of fate, this data might have been your personal tax records, it could (with the intention of introducing National Identity Cards) have included biometric data. The list and possibilities are endless and are the nightmare of an Orwellian future, mixed with a Cyberpunk ethos. "Data doesnt want to be hidden, it wants to be free."

I feel forpete_darby seeing he has kids too!

2 Blogs for the Price of 1

I used to have another blog on Xanga.com, but I have decided to merge it together with this one. So over the next few weeks you'll see lots of weird rants, swearing (both big and clever) about gaming.

The reason Im merging them is (a) I dont have that ranting passion about gaming any more. I mean that I enjoy the games I play and the way I play with the people I play with. I dont need to say or do any more than that. and (b) with the forthcoming DM of the Galaxy webcomic, I dont want to stretch myself across 3 blogs.