vhcle-2010:global notes
Obesity (UK)
 
By Jamie Thunder
 
May 2009
 
 
 
America might be the obesity capital of the world, but here in the UK we’re doing our damndest to outflab you. We’re incessantly told that obesity is a...
  
vhcle 09:global notes
 
NHS By Jamie Thunder June 2009 ‘Before Congress rushes to overhaul healthcare, listen to those who already have a government-run healthcare.’ So intones the bald, vaguely medical-looking Rick Scott at the start of one of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights... vhcle09:global notesNHS.htmlshapeimage_4_link_0
 
 
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Notes from a Small Island
By Jamie Thunder
August 2009

Ah, the British summer: the melancholy drizzle; the baggage handler strikes; the imminent spread of some deadly contagious disease or other. And, of course, the traditional British holiday.
 
There are two basic types of traditional holiday. The first is the British seaside resort holiday, where you drink warm lager on the beach while wearing appalling Union Jack shorts and remain stoic even though you’re getting rained on. This sort usually takes place in towns like Blackpool, Scarborough, and Margate, and is accompanied by rubbish fairground rides and forlorn ice cream vans squatting in the downpour... Read more
vhcle 09:global notes
 
McKinnon
By Jamie Thunder
August 2009

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In Britain, but perhaps not for very much longer, lives a man named Gary McKinnon. He is 43 and currently unemployed, although he used to work as a hairdresser. He is also at the centre of one of the UK’s most controversial stories of the year.
Gary McKinnon is a British man facing extradition to the USA on hacking charges. This summer a judicial review upheld his extradition, and it looks like only a matter of time before he’s sent off to Virginia for trial.
The media campaign to ‘rescue’ Gary has been massive in the UK – it’s been spearheaded by the Daily Mail... Read more
vhcle 09:global notes
 
Independent Safeguarding Authority
(ISA)
 
By Jamie Thunder
October 2009
 
Imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
 
1984’s most chilling, disturbing, enduring line has inspired many people to resist fascism and authoritarianism in all its forms. It has also inspired many people to mindlessly shriek ‘STALINIST’ at any notion of a government database or list.
 
The latest to draw their ire here in the UK is the new Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). This has been in the pipeline for several years now, and will soon be (rather slowly) rolled out across the country.
 
Read more
 
 
vhcle 09:global notes
 
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Issue One Writer Jamie Thunder On the 28th of September 2009 in Coventry, UK, a 14-year-old girl died. Two hours earlier, she had received the controversial human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine at her school. What happened next was an abject lesson in how the media can and does distort and lie in pursuit of an agenda. The HPV vaccine protects against infections that can cause cervical cancer. In the UK we use Cervarix, but in the States it’s Gardasil, which also protects against genital warts. Since September 2008 all 12- and 13-year-olds have been vaccinated in the UK, and there’s a catch-up campaign to vaccinate 13- to 18-year-olds. Read moreHumanPapillomavirus%28HPV%29.htmlshapeimage_28_link_0