I've been added as one of a handful of bloggers helping out at Liberal Conspiracy with their daily "NetCasts", and Thursday (for now at least) is my day in the sun. You can check out my offerings on the last 24 hours best blogs over at Liberal Conspiracy.

However I also wanted to mention a few blogs here that didn't quite make it in to my list of 6 or 7 items, and intend to do so each week here (if the quality of articles is out there!).

Lib Dem Voice - Mark Pack questions the way the Tories are picking their next Henley MP. Read the comments for the wider argument about how the Lib Dems do it too!
Political Betting - In an issue obviously close to Mike's heart, he wonders why it's taken so long to get the transparency needed for a controversial Ken Livingstone poll.
Alisdair's Blog - Get past the garish header and you have a 15 year old that manages to sound sensible on the subject of the new cluster bomb treaty.
Dizzy Thinks - Dizzy takes a look back at the websites of the main political parties as far back as before the 1997 general election. How times have changed...

You can also click below to continue reading and see the full list on this site if you so wish!

We are telling our kids they can't hang around shops because of some middle age fear of all kids being out to attack us, children are now going to be forced how to be cultural and be forced to learn how to be a productive member of society for longer than ever before. They are going to be given unique numbers for lifetime records to be kept of their achievements and faults, their liberty enshrined within law ignored for the "greater good" in spite of any reality. Their parents won't even have a say in the future of their upbringing, the choice about how they will be conditioned is no longer in their hands, government retaining more and more control over censorship until it dictates what your children will see, what they'll eat, what they'll drink. Sounds familiar to me...

Another day another party deciding there is something else that needs banning or enforcing through extreme prohibition. I thought Labour could get no more idiotic after last week's series of woeful announcements on housing, dental health and internal investigations...yet here we are again, this time with kicking "illegal file sharers" off of the net.

Initially this throws up several questions; How does the government and ISPs intend to tell conclusively that someone is file sharing illegally or legally? What assurances can the consumer have that ISPs won't just "play it safe" when it comes to high bandwidth and kick off anyone with high usage no matter how legitimate? How is this truly enforceable with so many unsecured networks around the UK, and indeed internet Cafes, without truly spying on what every person is accessing on the net? Do we really need to resort to French policy to solve our own issues?

Probably not safe for work, here is our third effort. As always we welcome comments on the style and content in an effort to improve! Transcript below...

If you were to believe everything you read in today's news about Jacqui Smith's railing against families and youths that don't do enough to curb under-age drinking then you'd think that families are to blame for mass under-age drinking and that under-age drinkers are all yobs causing chaos and destruction. My first instinct was that the nature of the statements she's making show a lot of ambiguity and potential here for some kind of spin. So let's look in to this report and what she's said, from the Times...

A "tipping point" has been reached where more 13-year-olds in Britain have drunk alcohol than those who have not, the Home Secretary said yesterday.

It started with patio-heaters and air conditioning units, it has resulted in ex-Shell boss saying that inefficient cars should be banned, but it is interesting that in between these two wishes stands another Lib Dem gem, contravening just about all employment law you can on the subject and banning so many "foreigners" from coming in to our football teams.

The next episode of Politalks is now here, with thanks to Gavin Whenman who will for the foreseeable future be partnering me on the project. Video below is probably NSFW!