News this week (12w19)

Egypt holds its first ever presidential debate. This is great news, it means things are changing, and for the better. For the Egyptian people anyway. A government should represent the wants of the people it represents. Whether this is better for Western nations is to be seen. For example, polls taken show an anti-american opinion in Egypt. Further most Arabs appaer to be happy for Iran to gain nuclear weapons. I'm not sure if thats necessarily a good thing.

The judge who ordered links to the Prate Bay be censored by the Dutch Pirate Party is apparently corrupt. Though it must be pointed out that this is simply allegation at this point. This isn't an official ruling by a court of law. A nice dose of political corruptness always goes down well. There's a similar situation going on in my home nation, the U.K., where major ISPs have been ordered to block The Pirate Bay. If you use one of these ISPs and find yourself unable to reach TPB, simple go to https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/ and enjoy your internet freedom again. The block has literally achieved nothing. The Guardian have a good opinion piece about internet censorship. That we shouldn't be forcing anything major through as legislation. That the responsibly lies with the parents if they don;t want their kid seeing questionable material, don't stop the rest of us.

Columbia passes 1st draft of legislation that would allow illicit crops to be grown, such as opiates or marijuana. The fight against prohibition is growing stronger! This draft however, doesn't have the current Columbian's presidents support, but things are moving in the right direction. At least people are being more open about these issues. Making something taboo, censoring ideas and speech is not the solution. It won't solve anything. Similarly, their is legislation being discussed in Holland about selling weed to foreigners. But if people can't get weed in Amsterdam, where can they get it? This hopefully won't happen, but the article raises an interesting idea that other cities might try and profit from the situation, which the could. People will always want a toke, and just making it illegal won't do much to quell the demand.

A public school girl who died at age 13, has saved 13 lives already through organ donation. This just shows the benefits of organ donation. I'm a registered organ donor, if your from the U.K. you can register with the NHS.