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2011-05-10T14:15:00.000+02:00

Bloody hell, it's been 2 months since I last posted and I'm not entirely sure where the time went. In the meantime, the fantastic Orphans of Liberty site is up and running, and if you're not already following it then you should. Is a very exciting venture with the majority of my favourite bloggers contributing, so congrats to LongRider et al for putting that in motion.

Otherwise, not much to report. My wife's started a business, which is exciting but incredibly time-consuming, off to a flyer though so hoping it keeps on.

Anyway, better keep this short as it's quite warm today so not sure how the internet is going to hold up...

Kate Moss reads blogs it seems

2011-03-09T15:49:00.000+01:00

Kate Moss apparently takes double-up Wednesday very seriously, so kudos to Dick P, Grumpy Old Twat for Old-Rightie and Leg-Iron for getting on the supermodel's reading list.

*From the Telegraph.

Where we are vs. where we should be

2011-03-08T08:44:00.000+01:00

On the Telegraph I spotted this article, and thought to myself "Thank God for that, finally a bit of discipline"

How stupid I am. Because in fact, this is just another way to freak out young children in the name of sex education:

"Primary schoolchildren could be taught the importance of “no means no” in new sex education lessons, the Government will say today."

Wow. I can see how that is a more important lesson to teach 5-11 year-olds than how to read and write when you're dealing with kids that potentially don't even know their own names.

Then I read this appalling shit propagated by OFSTED, and I think, fuck this.

If I ever move back to the UK and can't afford to go Private, I'll become a Mormon and get my kids excluded from "personal, social, health and economic education". When I want my kids to know about "no means no" in regards to sex, as opposed to having a sweet for example, I, their father, and my wife, their mother, will tell them.

Not some sandal-wearing feminist telling my sons they are by default bastards because of their gender.

Keeping the sheep quiet, Saudi-style

2011-02-23T17:28:00.000+01:00

I think someone's had a look at which way the wind's blowing, and decided he doesn't like it much.

So, he's keeping his people quiet and attached to the yoke of the State with "free" money. In case there is any doubt, he's buying off the people with $37bn of their own money, and it's going to work. Again.

"There will be extra funds for housing, studying abroad and social security, according to state television."

Generous. Goodness only knows where they'll find that.

Bet all the lady Saudis are delighted, as long as their male guardians allow them to have the money of course.

Coalition control freakery

2011-02-20T11:22:00.000+01:00

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again:

Fuck off

So tired of the State telling everyone what to do.

Yasmin ain't got no Alibhai for this piece of nonsense

2011-02-18T15:38:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the shit title, but I do like a good pun.

YAB's latest piece of desperate racial shit-stirring is on Beyoncé's mysterious skin-lightening. First of all, I would be very suspicious of these photos - photographers use light in cunning ways, they could be shopped, so frankly YAB may have been rather quick to rush to judgement. But, in the interests of further delving into YAB's article, let's assume Beyoncé has deliberately lightened her skin, Jacko style.

YAB's contention is the following:

"...I believe Beyonce is betraying all black and Asian women"

Always looking for an issue is YAB, she is Darcus Howe in female form. There's a lot of bollocks in this article, and to prove it, I'm going to quote YAB a few times, substituting "woman of colour" or "black" for "white woman" or "white". Let's see how it looks (bold and italic denote a change).

"...When white celebrities appear to deny their heritage by trying to make themselves look black, I despair for the youngsters who see those images.

Funnily enough I wouldn't entirely disagree with this, a lot of white celebs do seem to do this (not via skin tone, but via clothing certainly), and a lot of kids as well. Still, pretty much irrelevant.

"White women across the world spend a lot of money, time and emotional energy on treatments to achieve an appearance which the Western world defines as perfection: usually blonde, thin, light skinned and with European features. "

Yes, yes they do. Loads of white women do that, although the light-skinned thing is shite, most go for orange nowadays. The narrow definition of perfection is BS but it's NOT a black thing.

"The answer is that every white woman has an important social and cultural history that cannot simply be bleached away or denied by the use of hair straighteners. That’s why I passionately believe that insert white female celeb here's ignorance of how this betrays her heritage is so insidiously damaging to all white people.

No-one would ever say that, would they. It would be "racist".

OK, enough substitution, it just gets too wacky now

"So why do all these women want to be whiter? The warped values they subscribe to evolved out of colonialism: white people were not only powerful but like mythical gods, physically superior and invincible."

What the fuck? Mythical gods? Chris must we apologise for colonialism AGAIN?

And finally, this.

"Beyonce’s unique, sensual beauty owed much to her racial and ethnic background."

Like every single woman in the world really. But obviously this is more important because she's black.

A tiresome, tedious article from a tiresome, tedious, tub-thumping racist who I can only assume the DM employ to balance out some of their other ravings. Just because she's black doesn't make it any better though.

Aid to India...

2011-02-15T14:41:00.002+01:00

...why indeed?

Hamsters

2011-02-15T08:52:00.000+01:00

A great wheeze from East Carolina University, supported by what looks like a fake charity (could be out of date, but if it isn't now it certainly used to be).

Portable pedal machines could be used in every office to improve the health of workers, according to scientists in the US.

Now I can immediately think of a number of problems with this.

1. I'm not the fittest, but I play football and walk to work so not too bad. But I sweat when I exercise, and judging by my football companions I'm not the only one. So this isn't hugely compatible with wearing a suit. And I've worked in an American office, ten years ago, and there were some BIG units there. The idea of that office also being a gym makes me shudder to my core.

2. This will generate a lot of excess heat. Not just from raising people's body temperatures, but the bikes themselves. Where does this heat go? Are firms expected to pump up the air con to the max every day? Not great for the famous carbon footprint really, or indeed the bottom line that will apparently be improved by this activity.

3. People won't use it.

"In a questionnaire, the workers said they would use the machine regularly at work if they were offered one by their employer."

Of course they said this, it doesn't mean they will. Even the charidee man realised this.

"However, it's not for everyone and I was concerned that, not surprisingly, use of the pedal machine decreased gradually over the one month trial period as enthusiasm waned."

Duh.

On a less flippant note, and maybe I'm being dramatic, I can see where these sorts of ideas end up. If this were to be adopted, some bright spark would realise he could power his office using these hamster workers. Good for the AGW scammers, and a nice opportunity for Government to push a whole bunch of agenda in one go.

Ashton takes a pasting

2011-02-11T09:02:00.000+01:00

Some happy news at last, although it will of course come to nothing for obvious reasons. Baroness "Capability" Ashton has come bottom of a rating of all the European Commissioners, to which I say firstly bwahahahahahahaha.

"Sixty nine per cent of 324 Brussels "policy-makers", with EU and national officials constituting the largest group, ranked Europe's first foreign minister as "disappointing" or "below average"

Now, two caveats to the hilarity here. The first is, as a Brit she was always going to do badly. However, in this case I suspect it's on merit rather than nationality (or indeed looks), The second, sadder caveat is of course that, as she has never been elected to anything in her life, not a single fuck will be given by her this day. I found this quote amusing:

The Daily Telegraph understands that one senior EU official has given the Labour peer until the summer to improve her performance or face an ultimatum for her to resign.

I'm sure she will be very keen to impose a deadline on herself, be less embarrassing than waiting for re-election, oh hang on, I forgot, no elections, silly of me.

Meanwhile, Hannan has stuck the boot in over at his blog. Ridiculously (in my view anyway), he claims that Egypt's attempts to prevent her from visiting mean that:

The days of the autocrats are numbered.

To which I said in his comments section:

Balls. Once the new leaders get stuck in they'll hook up with whoever can funnel them the most money, and that'll be the EU. Meet the new boss.

Once again, not a single fuck shall ever be given by Ashton, Von Pumpoy or their ilk, they are untouchable and the farcical attempts by Parliament to deny UK prisoners the vote will prove this definitively. The EU will win and show beyond all doubt that sovereignty is dead.

The only good way this ends is Captain Ranty's golden scenario of the EU kicking the UK out for non-compliance. It won't happen though. Everyone likes the money too much.

Sally "Shrinking Violet" Bercow

2011-02-04T17:19:00.000+01:00

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

That is all.

Behind every dictator lies a strong woman apparently

2011-01-24T15:13:00.000+01:00

Some wonderfully panicked twisting and turning in this BBC article, as a Ghanaian journalist flies in the face of the facts of her own article, it's really rather funny...

The first few paragraphs summarise a list of horrific "first ladies" of dictatorships, and the accompanying suggestion that they are often as responsible as their dictator husbands for the suffering inflicted.

"Every revolution, every hated dictator, indeed, it seems every leader must have its femme fatale, the Lady Macbeth figure who is held responsible for the problems of the regime. "

However, Ghanaian writer and politician Elizabeth Ohene evidently realises she's forgotten to blame society and men for all this, so panics and slips in a major non-sequitur:

"I wonder why we always seem to need to find a powerful woman behind every strongman."

Ah, so it's in fact the finding of the woman that is the issue. And by the way, "powerful"? Really? Is that a good word to describe Leila Trabelsi, who stole 1.5 tonnes of gold from the Tunisian central bank, leaving her beloved country even more fucked, as if Tunisia needed the help after her husband's efforts.

But I digress. Back to the BBC, where we learn some interesting facts about the Mugabes.

Apparently, Robert Mugabe has an "intimidating intellect", and "has been known to reduce his opponents to silence in arguments".

I'm pretty sure that his arguing style is much on a par with Kim Jong-Il's! I don't think opponents are stunned into silence by Mugabe's verbosity and vast knowledge of political history. No, I'm pretty sure his army of thugs have a similar effect.

Not only that, but he is apparently "under his wife's spell to such an extent that he would do anything she asks him to do".

Fascinating. What is the conclusion to all this?

I wonder if it is possible for a man to become autocratic without a strong woman by his side?

A strong woman? This isn't a Destiny's Child song FFS, we're not talking Oprah here, these are the wives of Dictators, men who have thought nothing of starving and murdering their people in order to line their own pockets. The women that Ms. Ohene mentions are at best complicit and at worst encouraging of this behaviour.

And all she can think of is to wonder if an autocrat needs a "strong woman".

Ten ideas for a crapper Britain

2011-01-24T09:47:00.000+01:00

Komment Macht Frei carries a 10-point plan to make the UK even worse than it already is, from the notorious Will Hutton. They are in fairness not all totally wrong, but some of them are truly idiotic.

1. Break up the banks
I can live with this actually, in principle, but it would help if there was an acknowledgement that the ridiculously complicated regulatory environment has forced banks to become larger and larger in order to cover these costs and keep up with it all. Reduce the regulatory bureaucracy and barriers to entry and you would indeed improve the banking sector. Not convinced these are his motives.

2. Build Great Companies.
This is a stinker, and worth quoting in full:

Too few British firms have good owners. Two more important companies – Smith and Nephew, and De La Rue – are fighting to retain their independence from foreign takeovers. Their shareholders do not care about innovation, their staff or customers; their priority, and thus that of the directors, is only next month's share price. Increasingly Britain is a hollowed out economy for hire rather than a centre of business decision-making and wealth generation in its own right. There has to be root-and-branch overhaul of the framework for owning, directing and launching takeovers of Britain's companies.

So basically foreign ownership is bad, Will has no solutions, so we should start with roots and branches. Really, this is 6th-form stuff, blindly blaming shareholders. Shareholders do care about "innovation, their staff or customers" because that is what drives the share price. Shareholders tend to want their companies to be successful and well-run. That is why you invest in a company.

3. Bust the Monopolies
Meh.

4 Abolish Redundancy Payments
Why do I sense in this some sort of increased state intervention coming up?

5 Livelihood Insurance
Whoooomph there it is! Surely this is a bit like National Insurance, except I guess everyone will still pay National Insurance, right?

6 A Citizen Grant of £50'000 for every 21-year-old
Oh no, sorry, whoooooooooooomph THERE it is. Now that is special. And where pray tell might this money come from? Oh, you planted some beans? Should be fine then.

7 Payback time for babyboomers
Some interesting thoughts here actually. Probably the least bad of his ideas.

8 An end to parents-pay education

Private schools should ... be compelled to admit, through competitive examination, children from households with less than £40,000 a year. Their fees would be paid by the government.

Ah yes, the problem is private schools, not the parlous state of the state school system. Why not just bring back grammar schools, if you want competitive examinations?

9 An Honest Media
I agree, but bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha good luck with that.

10 A written constitution along with proportional voting
I don't think this would make a blind bit of difference but there you are. This is instructive however:

In particular, there should be an entrenching of local government's power: it should have the constitutional right to raise up to half its revenue from local taxation.

That is the extent of Will's ability to imagine what local government power should look like - how much tax they can raise. Sad.

And to avoid accusations of being negative for the sake of it, here is my 3-point plan for a better Britain.

1. Get the fuck out of our lives, just stop bloody interfering and remember that you work for us.
2. Stop fighting pointless, never-ending wars to distract from what is going on at home.

Actually, that'll do for starters, there you go, a 2-point plan!

Michelle Obama Killing Pedestrians

2011-01-21T16:10:00.000+01:00

I'm not the biggest fan of the Obama administration, and I do think that spouses of leaders should mainly STFU and stop interfering, but this is just ludicrous:

"Governors Highway Safety Association Director Barbara Harsha blamed Mrs Obama and was quoted as saying in the Washington Examiner: 'There's an emphasis these days to getting fit, and I think people doing that are more exposed to risk [of getting hit by a vehicle].'"

Apparently, the First Lady's "Let's Move" campaign is responsible this increase. I wonder how many thousands of pedestrians have been mowed down by this cruel campaign?

In the period between January and June last year there were 1,891 road related deaths, which - while being only seven more than during the same period the previous year - bucked a trend that had been going down for four years.

Seven? Seven? WTF?

Still, it is clearly this campaign as there are no other factors, right?

Alcohol is also factor in increased pedestrian deaths.
'We've done a good job of getting people, after a night out of partying, to leave their keys behind,' continued Mr Adkins, 'but just because you are walking does not mean you are not at risk.'

Ah. People getting smashed and driving is a very bad idea, but unintended consequences are a bitch right?

Pedestrians are also increasingly distracted by iPods and smart phones.

So, these extra 7 deaths are in fact attributable to alcohol, technology AND the First Lady's campaign. Wow. I wonder what the split is, because I think policies should be formulated and utter dickheads like Barbra Harsha employed for a kind of crisis like this.

And I know this is the Fail, but even so, is a journalist really incapable of thinking about this? I suppose at least the "Daily Mail Reporter" had the sense not to put his or her name to this piece of trash.

BBC's AGW Reporting Bias

2011-01-18T10:15:00.000+01:00

Spotted at Delingpole's blog here, tells you all you need to know.

Booker's Lonely Furrow

2011-01-17T11:18:00.000+01:00

Christopher Booker has been writing about the appalling family courts and its accompanying social workers for some time now.

His latest article is another extraordinary and heartbreaking tale of a child being taken away from her parent or parents for no good reason, by an entity (the family court) that is answerable to no-one. Subrosa has an eloquent post, under which there is an interesting debate about the idea of "the risk being too great" for social workers not to act, and for social workers to be damned if they do and damned if they don't.

There is some small merit to this attitude, although it grates heavily with me, in the sense that when they don't act and are wrong, they get slammed, and when they do act and are wrong, they get slammed.

However...

All this falls over for two reasons. The first is, if when they were wrong they reacted swiftly to rectify the situation, then their errors would perhaps be understood if not forgiven. However, this is not the case, see the despicable piece of victimhood pulled by that utter bitch Shoesmith following the Baby P fiasco for more details.

Secondly (and related to the first point), the family courts are shrouded in absolute secrecy. Booker's latest article is as always short on details, as he says:

"As usual, I am legally barred from identifying the mother at the centre of this case or giving many other details..."

As such, clearly this is a system with zero accountability, and as such inevitably overrun with cruel, illogical decisions that are virtually immutable without very deep pockets and boundless patience. For a really good illustration of the system, I am forced once again to link to Booker, as virtually no-one else writes about it. The idea of council "adoption targets" are hair-raising.

Read this.

If it bothers you, write about it. Maybe we can drive this issue screaming out of the shadows. Because the way the family court works now helps no-one except those in its pay, not those that it should protect and support.

Union Hypocrisy

2011-01-03T17:30:00.000+01:00

It's nice to see that rabble-rouser Len McCluskey's New Year's resolution was to hit new heights of hypocritical arseholery, criticising George Osborne for taking his family to Klosters for Christmas.

Frankly, Osborne can do what he wants with his money, although if he had watched the Thick of It he might have known how this holiday would go down. I'll judge a politician on what he does, not how he spends his money, and for me his cuts are inadequate, but I couldn't give a shit about his holiday choices.

But Len McCluskey? Len McCluskey, head of the Unite trade union, a man who earns over 130k per year, plus no doubt all manner of wonderful perks not available to the common man, is going to tell someone else how to spend their money? This utter hypocrite is going to accuse others of not feeling the pain? What a prick.

I am glad that 2011 is going to be exactly the same as 2010, what a surprise.

Tag! You're it...

2010-12-31T10:37:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by JuliaM in old school meme fashion (for more recent meme-age see here) to give an insight into where I do my blogging from.

Unlike the other bloggers revealing themselves so far, I actually do the majority of my blogging at work. There are two main reasons for this:
1. I have two small children, and when they are awake there is no time, and when they are asleep I have neither the will nor the energy.
2. My job provides periods of insane busyness followed by quieter times. Often I formulate a post in my head, and the actual posting bit is done at work. I may also experiment with my new iPhone, but typing a whole post on a touchscreen is I suspect a little tedious.

So, for obvious reasons no picture will be forthcoming.

I have four computer screens, and I use the right-hand one when I blog as my boss sits to my right and he cannot see this one! My desk is relatively tidy, with various work-related papers lying around. Invariably there is an empty coffee cup and a large quantity of empty water bottles. In the recent Xmas season there have been boxes of chocolates all over the shop, helping to maintain a constant feeling of mild nausea, as I have no self-control.

So there you have it!

I tag Anna Raccoon, Leg-Iron and, to go a little further afield, Hyperbole and a Half to show their blogging world to us.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T17:01:00.000+01:00

That is all.

I am Pornacus

2010-12-20T09:24:00.000+01:00

This amazing piece of illiberal bullshit has already been beaten within an inch of its sorry life here, here, here, here and here.

So I won't go over the ins and outs, as it were (hur hur), or depriving adults of the right to look at whatever they want to look at, in the name of thinking of the cheeeeldren.

However, the question of what will constitute porn is an interesting one, and it occured to me that a tricky challenge for the Government would be if every website were to include one "pornographic" image, starting with bloggers putting one on their blog. It strikes me that there would be some interesting freedom of speech issues created, not that the Government give a shit about that.

Hence, the title of the post. I had "I am Spurtacus" initially but Pornacus sounds to me like he could have been around in Roman times, selling carved images of "Senators' Wives" from inside his toga.

So here it is. Pretty mild really, but I suspect it would be enough.

Does this now categorise my site as adult?

Seagulls following the trawler

2010-12-07T10:36:00.003+01:00

Cantona has taken a break from shrugging, having a cool beard and "philosophising" to propose an audacious attempt to destabilise the banks.

You know what, part of me wants this to work. Especially when the French Finance Minister and the head of the useless BNP Paribas are saying that state bank bailouts did not "cost the taxpayer anything." I mean, how cretinously stupid do they think people are (not sure they're wrong mind, but would be nice if they attempted to hide it).

I'm sick and tired of money being poured into a failed experiment (the Euro/Eurozone), and I'm sick and tired of the banks being helped over and over again, to the detriment of everyone else. I was against the bailouts at the start, and I'm against them now. Moral hazard is now everywhere, and we have the ridiculous situation where Allied Irish Bank bondholders are threatening to sue if they take a haircut on their investments. They're right to do so in one sense, but the Government and EU have created a situation where bondholders who have basically taken state money are going to sue the same state, for fuck's sake.

It's got to stop. I always thought Cantona was about as much of a philosopher as Les Dennis, but it appears I may have misunderestimated him.

Just fuck off. Seriously.

2010-11-30T11:27:00.000+01:00

The Coalition really are just another bunch of nanny-state wankers aren't they. I was cynical about them, but I thought we might see some small changes. But no. Now we have "nudging", because some twat has read a book and decided this is how to run a Government. So today we have this:

How much for this initiative, you may ask? 250 million pounds. £250'000'000. A drop in the ocean compared to the monumental debt mountain of a trillion (can't be arsed to write it out, it's a lot of zeroes), but still a lot of wonga.

Andrew Lansley, who is rapidly becoming the Comical Ali of the Coalition (although it actually isn't that funny), is also expected to

...announce moves to stop sales of cheap alcohol, to launch a consultation on the introduction on plain tobacco packaging, and draw up measures to encourage businesses to do more to allow women to breastfeed at work.

So, the parlous state of the UK economy will be fixed by making booze more expensive, making smoking even cooler (and these more popular) and finally making women unemployable and/or small businesses bankrupt.

A source said: “The Government's tack on public health will switch from 'nannying' under Labour to 'nudging' under the Coalition, with the idea of encouraging people to make healthy decisions on their own without lots of regulation and pressure from Whitehall.

So, it's the same, just a slightly different and arguably more pernicious method. At least Labour didn't ever really try to hide their desperation to control every part of your lives. The Coalitiamong however think people are so stupid that they can be conned into changing behaviour. They're probably right, but there is nothing remotely Conservative about this coalition, and truly nothing Libertarian, despite having an "instinctive libertarian" at its head.

The Myth of Contagion

2010-11-24T09:33:00.000+01:00

Another good article this morning from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph. He actually seems to have a reasonably good grasp of what is going on in Europe at the moment, which makes a change from most of the commentary I read.

However, I want to specifically address the idea of "contagion", which anyone that has followed the Greek and Irish bailout stories will have heard as a key reason for the bailouts. Here is a good example, I have pulled out they key quote:

The problems of Ireland's banking system pose a risk of contagion to other Eurozone countries, European Central Bank Governing Council member Yves Mersch warned in a newspaper interview released Wednesday.

(...)

To banish this contagion risk, other governments must make the reforms needed "to gain market confidence," and appropriate structures must be set up for the Eurozone as whole, Mersch said.

This "contagion" is not something that can be averted with the application of more money. In reality, the bailouts are fuelling the crisis, because now the market knows that by exerting enough pressure on the bond market, credit spreads will widen to a point where the EU/IMF will intervene, pouring liquidity into that economy via the bond market.

This is not a malicious attack on a currency or economy, but rational behaviour. The fact is that the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish economies are all in serious trouble, and while Portugal might conceivably be saveable with a third bailout, you can forget it with Spain, it is FAR too big to bail. In fact, as Evans-Pritchard points out:

Saxo Bank said the EU's €440bn (£370bn) bail-out fund would lose its AAA credit rating if Spain needed serious help.

This would require Germany & France to put more money in, which for Merkel in particular would be very hard to explain to voters. She is already rowing hard in the other direction, with her insistence that Irish bondholders must pay for the Irish collapse. Morally she is right perhaps, but it is a very damaging thing to say and suggests to me that she has already given up on actually saving the Euro area as it stands, and is positioning Germany for the future.

The "contagion" is unavoidable, it is a consequence of a single currency and single monetary policy, neither suit any of the countries in the Euro. The bailouts, just like the whole Quantitative Easing debacle, are making everything much, much worse.

No, Facebook is not the problem here

2010-11-18T17:09:00.000+01:00

A very sad story in the Mail (yes I know, a dangerous game taking things out of the Mail, but it seems to be in quite a few other places with pretty much the same content) about a 13-yr-old boy receiving death threats from fellow pupils for posting a facebook tribute to fallen soldiers on Remembrance Day. The offenders have now been suspended and are threatened with expulsion (what exactly do you have to do in order to be immediately expelled, by the way?)

I won't dwell on the horror of what these kids wrote, it's pretty appalling and I would hope the Police do prosecute them. However, the principal of the school made an incredible statement utterly missing the point of what is happening. Here it is:

Sidney Stringer Academy’s principal, Wendy Thomas, said Facebook was an increasing concern for schools. She said the children have been told to remove the comments from the site.

She said: ‘Darius is the victim of bullying. All the students involved have told me they did not mean what they said but they will learn a hard lesson from this.

‘Facebook is a big concern for schools and we urge all parents to monitor what their children say on the site. As soon as the school was notified about the comments on Monday we interviewed the pupils.

Facebook was an increasing concern for schools? Qué? What about 6 illiterate, hate-filled children threatening another child with knives? That would be my primary concern.

Facebook did not threaten this child. I remember at school a massive older kid organising a fight with the smallest kid in my year. We didn't have mobiles, but the small kid was bricking it by the time the fight came around that afternoon, he'd got the message about what was going to happen to him loud and clear (he actually acquitted himself pretty well in the end but that's by the by).

Facebook does make it a little easier to send the message, as do mobiles, but bullying was just as pernicious and nasty 20 years ago as it is now. The difference is that no-one takes responsibility for it, neither parents nor teachers. Wendy Thomas has found an out, a way to escape facing the appalling behaviour going on at her school, and she's jumped on it. You could not send a worse message.

The worst thing is, 98% of people don't give a shit

2010-11-12T09:22:00.000+01:00

JuliaM got there first with the first bit of my post, which was Britain needing a reboot. Yes it does, and badly, although I'm not sure she quite expressed the reasons I see for this (although I agree entirely with hers).

The stories she catalogues are just a tiny slice of the things that occur daily in the UK, and the worst and most egregious is of course the extraordinary decision to find Paul Chambers guilty.

This has been covered by people that have more closely followed the story, see here and here.

But what really fucks me off is, no-one gives a shit. No-one. It's only had any coverage at all because of the sterling work of Jack of Kent (amongst others tbf), and I know if I mention this to anyone I'll get a blank look. Because people do not understand the wider implications.

Although I have no plans to, I do understand the motivations of those bloggers that have recently quit. I do see how shouting in what feels like a massive vacuum becomes tedious.

So, what to do? Getting people to care is not easy, but this seems to be a good start. The reviewer is a bit of a twat clearly, but getting a documentary about the real scale of wasted money and UK debt might kickstart something. If people can stop seeing the Government as a cross between nanny and all-knowing uncle, and instead as a thieving, parasitical waste of space and money, maybe it will all come tumbling down and we can have some sort of a reboot, even just a political one.

Sarah Palin's Video

2010-11-05T11:18:00.000+01:00

Sarah Palin has produced a campaign video on the back of Republican and Tea Party success in the recent US mid-term elections. You can see it here, it's pretty rousing stuff and short, which is always a good thing.

The BBC ran a short piece of comment on it, which was relatively balanced, such as a BBC article on Sarah Palin can be. However, one bit really struck me:

Sarah Palin's public appearances are ruthlessly controlled, consisting mainly of set-piece speeches and slickly-produced commercials.

Well, I cannot think of one single politician about whom you could not say that. Obama? Check. iDave? Check. BoJo (despite what he pretends)? Check. In fact, my impression is that Sarah Palin is more than capable of engaging with people spontaneously. This lady was very hostile, and Sarah Palin was polite and courteous throughout.

If she ever launches a formal bid for the presidency, she will probably, at some point, have to engage more seriously with what she loves to call the "lamestream media".

Well, if she calls the Mongstream Media the lamestream media then that again suggests to me that she is much smarter than people realise, because the MSM and especially the BBC is a pile of shit, as well we all know.

AGW - is the tide turning? Probably not

2010-10-27T10:53:00.000+02:00

This article seems to me to encapsulate the climate change "debate" so perfectly.

On the one hand, a group of 166 scientists have called for the repeal of the Climate Act, on the quite correct grounds that it is a colossal waste of money, thanks in no small part to wind farms. (See DK's excellent blog for a thorough dismantling of the wind farm idiocy). They also ask for some kind of proof for the following ten statements:

1. Variations in global climate in the last hundred years are significantly outside the natural range experienced in previous centuries.
2. Humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG) are having a dangerous impact on global climate.
3. Computer-based models can meaningfully replicate the impact of all of the natural factors that may significantly influence climate.
4. Sea levels are rising dangerously at a rate that has accelerated with increasing human GHG emissions, thereby threatening small islands and coastal communities.
5. The incidences of malaria and other infectious diseases are now increasing due to recent climate changes;
6. Human society and natural ecosystems cannot adapt to foreseeable climate change as they have done in the past.
7. Worldwide glacier retreat, and sea ice melting in polar regions, is unusual and related to increases in human GHG emissions.
8. Polar bears and other Arctic and Antarctic wildlife are unable to adapt to anticipated local climate change effects, independent of the causes of those changes.
9. Hurricanes, other tropical cyclones and associated extreme weather events are increasing in severity and frequency.
10. Data recorded by ground-based stations are a reliable indicator of global surface temperature trends.

It seems to me that more and more people are turning to the possibility that AGW or whatever you want to call it is a myth, or at least unproven. Fingers crossed.

On the other hand, you have the predictable response from a special interest group:

Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said the group misunderstood the point of science, which is to disprove theories.

Which seems to be exactly what they are attempting.

He said the UK legislation was overwhelmingly backed by Parliament and is leading the world.

Politicians think so? Well then, job done. What with all their qualifications and their track record of not fucking things up over and over and over again.

“Nobody thinks climate change is not a problem. The discussion has moved on to what is the best way of tackling the problem and making a transition to low carbon growth,” he said. “These guys are a remnant group of dinosaurs trying to argue something while frankly the public and political debate has moved on.”

Nobody? What not even these 166 scientists? Or me? Or DK? Or James Delingpole? Or Anthony Watts? Or maybe Hal Lewis?

What Bob Ward thinks we don't realise is this. His job exists because of a £12million grant from the Grantham Foundation. If the Climate Act were to be repealed in the UK, I suspect Jeremy & Hannelore Grantham would have a long hard think about the effectiveness of this grant, and maybe cut the funding off.

The final gem is this:

Meanwhile a complaint against an Oxfam advert warning of the risk of climate change was not upheld.
The advert read: "People dying thanks to climate change is a long way off. About 5000 miles, give or take.”
The complainant claimed that it had not been proven that people are drying (sic) as a result of climate change.
However the Advertising Standards Authority did not uphold their complaint.

Well, I suppose global warming would cause people to dry, good news for Nivea. But assuming they mean dying, it isn't "proven" at all. It doesn't matter though, because since "the discussion has moved on" I guess proof is no longer required. Mr. Ward must be pleased the media at least is still on message.

Personal Responsibility? Anyone? No?

2010-10-26T13:26:00.000+02:00

Welcome to another nauseating display of weasel words and dodging of respsonsibilty.

I first saw this Daily Fail article, so I was sceptical, but then I found it written more or less the same in the Telegraph. It seems the mother of Chanella "Sasha" Jones, who was stabbed to death by her father, warned the police on 102 occasions about her worries.

"But despite Fisher’s history of violence going back to his teens – and him being wanted for a serious assault by another police force – officers failed to take the reports seriously. Four officers are now facing disciplinary action within the force."

Let's have some guff about best practice shall we? Tee up some diversity refresher training eh? Should help.

Tom Davies, the IPCC commissioner for Wales, ...added that the officers had not accorded with “best practice and policy” for dealing with reports of possible domestic abuse.

Some fairly large-scale incompetence going on here.

One Pc who did take the allegations seriously failed to notice that Fisher had a police record and was wanted for a serious assault by another police force.

It's OK though.

Despite the numerous failings, the IPCC concluded that no individual errors “had any impact on Fisher’s later actions when he murdered Sasha”.

Right, so him being arrested for the pending assault charge would have made no difference? Thank God. Otherwise how would those poor officers sleep at night?

I wonder what a senior figure thinks of all this?

Ms Jackie Roberts, Deputy Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys Police, said: “Firstly I would like to express my condolences to Sasha’s family for their sad loss.

Note the choice of words. "Sad loss". That's like when your fucking puppy gets run over. Not when police incompetence means a 15-year-old is stabbed to death by her dad.

“We have noted the findings of the independent IPCC investigation and acknowledge that there are areas in relation to the historic involvement with the family which could have been dealt with better. The IPCC acknowledge that the historic individual errors are not suggested to have influenced the tragic outcome in this case.

Ass well and truly covered, moving on.

“We are committed to follow up the recommendations made from both policy and operational perspectives which will assist us in delivering a high quality of service and making improvements where necessary.

Whoo, buzzword bingo, someone's got her eye on the Chief Constable's comfy chair. "High quality of service?" You're not running a call centre for Christ's sake.

"The officers identified as having dealt with previous incidents will be supported in terms of advice and guidance on dealing with such matters and the lessons learnt communicated accordingly.”

I am speechless. No taking of responsibility, no actual apology, just a sorry for your loss platitude and move on. I hate litigation and I know the taxpayer pays but I hope she sues the ass off of everyone she can.

Incredibly Depressing

2010-10-25T17:07:00.000+02:00

This has knocked the wind out of me completely. I just don't think people like him will exist once the veterans are all dead, because it's just too fucking dangerous to try and help people.

Bloody hell.

I cannot think of one single thing to say, except I hope whoever did this falls down a manhole cover, breaks his legs, and isn't found for days.

Common Sense in Unlikely Places

2010-10-22T12:22:00.000+02:00

A few cast members from Glee have apparently caused somewhat of a storm by posing as raunchy schoolgirls for GQ. So far so irrelevant.

However, I was struck by a surprising nugget of common sense and personal responsibility hidden away:

She questioned the fact that young children might have access to the magazine and the raunchy photos saying: 'If your eight-year-old has a copy of our GQ cover in hand, again I am sorry. But I would have to ask, how on earth did it get there?'

Well indeed. Bravo to you Dianna Agron, not just a pretty face perhaps.

It's OK though, there's a pressure group to right ship:

The Parents Television Council released a statement condemning GQ for publishing the pictures.

The what? Maybe if they spent more time parenting and less time worrying about what's on TV they might have fewer ishoos?

'It is disturbing that GQ, which is explicitly written for adult men, is sexualising the actresses who play high school-aged characters on Glee in this way. 'It borders on paedophilia. Sadly, this is just the latest example of the overt sexualisation of young girls in entertainment.'

It borders on pedophilia to show girls in their 20s wearing revealing outfits? In a mainstream adult men's magazine? So Peter Phile will be looking at this rather than staring into playgrounds at actual, er, children?

Bollocks. Still, well done Ms. Agron for at least attempting to suggest that parents might take responsibility for what their children look at.

Leg-Iron's Booky-Wook

2010-10-22T09:24:00.000+02:00

Massive congratulations to Leg-Iron for the impending publication of his book.

His collection of short stories was outstanding. Buy them both!

Why the cuts won't be enough

2010-10-20T10:06:00.000+02:00

This is a superb article from Simon Heffer, on why today's cuts simply won't be sufficient. He picks up on two major problems, namely:

1. Certain budgets are ring-fenced. The NHS and Education, two of the most wasteful black holes, are too sensitive to be touched, showing that the Coalition are indeed pussies. Furthermore, the ludicrous decision to ring-fence overseas aid is truly without merit at a time when the UK debt mountain is piling up by the day.

2. There is no room whatsoever for tax cuts at any stage. If the Chancellor is serious about stimulating the economy, he needs to get people spending, not take money out of the economy in order to reduce its impact with bad decisions by taxing the "wealthy". Angry Teen has posted on this element many time so I direct you to his house for further musings.

However, Mr. Heffer misses the Belgian mammoth in the room. His Grace has eloquently posted on this topic today, borrowing some words from Dan Hannan in the process. Hannan sums it up, so I shall do the same:

Britain’s net contribution to the EU is rising from £6.4 billion this year to £8.3 billion in 2011-12 and £10.3 billion in 2015. But, of course, the net figure is misleading: the EU may spend some of this money in the UK, but rarely does so on things we would have chosen for ourselves. Much of the moolah goes to a privileged class of EU contractors and consultants; some goes on straightforward propaganda. Our gross contribution is rising from £14 billion to £19 billion – enough to cut council tax by half, take fourpence off income tax or pay of our Olympic debt in a single year. Here are some vivid ways of visualising the sum.

The Coalition do not give a shit about you, anymore than Labour did. Until this torrent of money flowing from the UK to the EU stops, you can count on that. This is what happens when Cast-Iron Dave makes a promise.

How much meat to eat?

2010-10-19T08:29:00.000+02:00

You know what I'd like this morning. I'd like to know what Friends of the Earth and the Soiled Association think about eating meat. What's that? They think I should eat less? Wow, that's come out of left field. Let's go deeper shall we (dream within a dream within a dream).

I wonder if it will save an arbitrary amount of lives?

Cutting meat to 3 meals a week 'will save 45,000 lives'

Hurray, box ticked. What about an arbitrary amount of money pulled out of a researcher's arse?

...and save the NHS £1.2 billion each year

Sweet. Should pay for a whole bunch of middle managers. I'm excited now. But I do wonder if perhaps it's not better to eat more expensive meat, since the Soil Association do after all basically represent organic farmers?

The University of Oxford study said processed products, such as cheap burgers or sausages, were particularly bad for people’s health because of high levels of salt and fat.

Ah-hah, salt and fat. Shouldn't eat those. Bad. I know this because someone told me. Can't remember who. But it is true.

This would all be so much easier if I had some awesome celebrities to guide me. Perhaps that actress that had a cameo in Friends might have something to say?

Helen Baxendale, the Friends actress and mother of three, said she has already changed her family’s diet. She called for new legislation to encourage more people to cut down on meat and cut subsidies to ‘factory farmers’ in favour of farms where animals are put out to graze. “We’ve switched to less and better quality meat since we heard about the damaging impact factory farming is having on the planet – now I want the Government to play its part," she said.

Well done love. Reduce subsidies to cheaper food, and make expensive food slightly less expensive, thus fucking poorer people over. You thespians are so right-on.

One thing that's beyond doubt though. Those eeeeevil corporations actually enjoy raping the world's resources. Capitalism provides no incentive for big business to address these "issues".

PepsiCo, that produces Walker Crisps and Quaker Oats, is already bringing in a number of new farming techniques to cut carbon emissions by half over the next five years on the 350 farms they use around the UK.

Measures include using computer programmes known as ‘i-crop’ that mean only a certain amount of water and fertiliser is used.

I'll be damned. Helen Baxendale said we needed the Government to be involved, and yet it seems that large corporations are innovating all the time to make farming more efficient. I don't get it.

Who should I believe?

Director of Climate Change

2010-10-18T11:26:00.000+02:00

Here is an ad for the post of Director of Climate Change at the World Economic Forum.

Aside from the fact that it might as well be for the Director of Flat Earth and Fairy Dust, just read it. It's gibberish. There is such a slurry of cliches, such a cesspipe of management-speak, and in my view the more management bullshit something contains the less likely it is that a) the person that wrote it knows what they're talking about and b) that it will be important.

I was going to pull out some key phrases, but fuck it, here's the whole thing:

You will be responsible for the ongoing delivery and future development of the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiative. In doing so, you will provide content direction and leadership to an existing team and project portfolio, and you will develop and evolve the work to ensure sustained impact and relevance in the wider low-carbon and green growth agenda.

You have an advanced university degree and extensive senior management experience in a relevant corporation, government and/or international organization. You have an exceptional understanding of the global climate change and low-carbon growth agenda, particularly in infrastructure investment and related finance matters. You also have a strong understanding of the key strategic and geopolitical issues relating to climate change, and know how to work with multiple stakeholders to address them. You are comfortable engaging with business leaders, government officials and leading experts involved in climate change and related matters, many of whom would consider you a peer.

You have a strong focus on delivery to tight deadlines, coupled with excellent leadership, interpersonal and networking skills. You are an energetic, hardworking and positive team player who can inspire an exceptional team. You have excellent communication skills and a perfect command of written and spoken English; other languages are a plus.

If you possess the relevant qualifications and background and if you thrive in a highly demanding environment, please apply.

Wow.

Moral Vacuums

2010-10-15T09:50:00.000+02:00

A comment on Dan Hannan's latest post triggered a thought for me, as it was perceptive but should be extended much further.

Here it is:
"Yes what exactly are Conservative MPs supposed to believe ? The answer appears to be NOTHING..."

Well yes. Having said that, what politician does seem to believe in anything other than self-interest and working out which way the wind blows? It was always like this, you might argue, but I think there are a couple of big differences which make it so much worse now.

1. Everyone has moved towards what they perceive to be the Centre. Blair started this by detoxing Old Labour, and CMD has jumped on the bandwagon. Tribalism used to mean supporting your party's policies in the face of any evidence to the contrary. Now it means supporting the colour of your party's rosette, while ultimately doing the same thing as everyone else.

2. The death of quality journalism. Journalists used to hold politicians to account. Now they just vomit up whatever press release their MP chums have sent them, while whining about how crap bloggers are. The BBC has a lot to answer for here, I came across this nugget this morning:

In 2007, a BBC Trust report called Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century said: “Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular … The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate.”

Words fail me.

3. Science and the reporting of science following journalism down the toilet. Here's a great example. This article suggests cancer is a modern invention as little trace of it can be found in ancient mummies. Nowhere does the report say something like "Of course, this could be due to the lower life expectancy of 25 to 50, since the median age of cancer diagnosis is in the 60s". I'm not saying this proves that the report's conclusions are wrong (although that is my opinion), but there is no rigour anymore, no balance. Facts are manipulated to fit theories, and to chase money.

Which brings me to the end. No-one seems to believe in integrity, fairness or balance. Politics (including the quango and EU farces), science and journalism have become a chase for funding at all costs. It's exactly the same in the US, anyone who has any interest in where we're headed should listen to Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcasts. This is exactly how I feel about UK politics, just change the names.

A Short Story - Sleep Asylum

2010-10-14T08:45:00.000+02:00

Sleep Asylum

This story is based on an incredibly vivid nightmare, with a few additions. I needed to write it down to get rid of it. Your feedback is very welcome!

I never should have followed the little boy. He just looked so sad, there was so clearly something wrong. He was rushing into a building, tears pouring down his dirty face, clothes torn, it just didn’t look right. No-one else seemed to notice him, but I did.

When I got inside the building, it turned out to be a bank. Horrible colours, orange walls. People milling around, all seemed normal. The boy rushed across the foyer, people around him ignoring him, as small boys are so often ignored. He charged up the stairs and vanished from view.

Since the Bank only had 2 floors including the ground floor, I decided to take the lift to follow him up. The lift was old and worn, and to my surprise had buttons for 5 floors. I supposed this must be the staff elevator, would explain why it was in such poor condition. On impulse, I pressed for floor 2, guessing that if the boy wanted to hide he’d keep going past the 1^st floor where I imagined there would be lots of people.

The lift door opened again on floor 2. Same horrible colours, but this floor was in real disrepair. I saw a flash of movement up ahead, and heard a door slamming. I jogged down the corridor past the peeling walls and flickering lights. I could hear distant voices, women laughing, and I suddenly realised how ridiculous this whole thing was. I was running round some sort of disused maintenance floor of a bank chasing after a little boy I didn’t know and had maybe even imagined. I turned round to leave when I realised I could hear crying.

I turned back towards the noise, which appeared to be coming from the end of the corridor, where I’d seen the movement earlier. As I walked down the corridor, my feet slipped on the thick layer of dirt and damp on the floor. Suddenly, the door at the end of the corridor opened and the little boy from earlier appeared. He was about 6, with an old-fashioned haircut and a grimy, ripped shirt and shorts on.

“Hey! What’s your name? Are you lost?” I asked him. He looked at me blankly, and then coughed into his sleeve, a harsh, hacking sound. The boy took a slow step towards me, then another. Unnerved, I backed off at the same pace, unable to tear myself away from his gaze.

“Who the hell are you?” I flinched at the man’s voice behind me, and span around to see who it was, my heart pounding and bile rising in my throat. A dark-haired man in his 40s stood 3 paces away from me. He was filthy too, and his lumberjack shirt so dirty that the pattern was barely visible. “Are you Peter?” he shouted at me, spit flying from his lips. He seemed agitated and terribly nervous.

I took a step back and bumped into the small boy. I jumped again, and found myself flattened against the wall, utterly terrified without really knowing why.

“Are you Peter?” the man asked, this time more calmly. “No, my name’s Steve” I replied, in what I hoped was a calming voice.

“Well where the fuck’s Peter then?” he yelled back. The man screamed then stormed off down the corridor. The little boy looked at him blankly then turned back to me. I swallowed, trying to compose myself, and asked the boy “who are you? What are you doing here?”

The boy took a step toward me, then another, and reached for my hand. I watched as my hand moved towards his, it seemed as if it wasn’t my hand at all as I felt as if I had no control whatsoever. He took my hand in his, and his fingers were ice cold. He slid his hand up my bare forearm, and as his arm brushed against mine, it was cold too, like meat in a freezer.

Suddenly, everything seemed to clear, as if I had been drunk and was suddenly sober. The boy smelt terrible. Not like he needed a wash, but rotten inside. His lips were blue and bloodless, and I knew deep down that a corpse was holding my hand.

I bolted in panic, yanking my hand away from the boy’s and bursting down the corridor where the man had run off what seemed like an eternity ago. At the end was a red door, and I ran into it at full speed, expecting it to be locked now. To my surprise and relief it flew open, but as I ran through it I realised it was a dead end. The only thing in the room was a mirror and a light hanging from the ceiling.

The door closed behind me, and the little boy stood there, somehow utterly innocent and horribly menacing all at once. A strange idea hit me. If he really was dead, maybe if he saw himself in the mirror, he would realise. I grabbed him and lifted him up in front of the round, cracked mirror.

The boy shut his eyes. I shouted in his ear “you’re dead! Do you hear me? Look at yourself! Look at yourself and see what you are!” He wriggled in my arms, but his eyes popped open and he looked straight into his own eyes.

Nothing happened. I put the ice cold, dead boy down. He stood looking at me blankly again, and behind him the door opened. In walked the man from before, this time with two women in nurse’s uniforms. The nurses were stunningly beautiful, with long black hair and young, firm bodies. Yet they were dead too. The smell drove into me, and the cold icy skin seemed to glisten under the harsh, flickering lights.

“It’s Peter. Look, it’s Peter” said the man to the nurses. “Bill, it’s not Peter, Peter’s gone, you know that”, replied the taller of the two. She turned to me, and her breath seemed to freeze my skin as she spoke. “You’ll have to excuse Bill, he’s not really quite right. He wouldn’t be here otherwise though would he?” At this she cackled, as did her companion, while Bill looked uncomprehending.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I yelled at the nurses.

The second nurse, whose grimy nametag read Claudia, shook her head and said, “It’s always the same. Denial is so wearing.” She moved closer to me and put her hands on my shoulders.

“You’re dead like us Steve. You’ll live here now. It’s not much, but it’s what it is.”

Bill giggled dumbly, a sound like fetid water bubbling up from somewhere deep inside him.

My paralysis broke and I ran like never before. Charging past the group of dead, I ran back down the corridor towards the stairs. I knew that if I could just get back to the bank, this would all stop. A giggle from behind made me gag, and I looked over my shoulder to see Bill running behind me, as if this was some bizarre game.

I shot down the stairs, taking them 3 or 4 at a time, and in no time I was back in the bank with its orange walls and warm people. As I charged through the foyer, no-one paid me any attention at all.

“You can’t stay awake forever you know”, came a woman’s voice from behind me. I looked back to see the first nurse stood a few paces back, and I skidded to a halt.

“What do you mean?” I screamed back at her. “What will happen to me?”

She shook her head. “You know,” she said sadly.

She was right, I do know. I type this in my room with shaking hands, with Bill, the nurses and the little boy watching me. No-one can see me, so I don’t know if anyone can read this.

Maybe if anyone can, it means they’re like me already. I don’t know why this is happening, but my eyes grow heavy, and soon I will fall asleep.

13^th October 2010

More HMRC Failure

2010-10-13T15:04:00.000+02:00

The rolling, relentlessly ugly car crash that is the HMRC just keeps embarrassing itself more and more.

This, bear in mind, is the same organisation that felt it would be a good idea to collect gross income and distribute the net, post-tax amount, as a way of "simplifying PAYE".

Here are some choice nuggets to feed your ire, emphasis mine:

Millions more people could be caught up in the HMRC tax chaos than first thought, its chief executive admitted yesterday.

Ah yes, the chief executive. Because HMRC is a company accountable to, wait, wait, no sorry I can't find anyone.

Dame Lesley Strathie warned the PAYE problems could continue for at least two years, with hundreds of thousands more people falling victim to mistakes. She revealed the whole fiasco had cost Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs almost £170million.

Clearly not made a Dame for her grasp of simple facts. This hasn't cost HMRC anything, because HMRC do not have any fucking money! It's taxpayer money that you are wasting, losing and fucking up with. Which is why your position of CEO is utterly irrelevant.

Dame Lesley disclosed that the fiasco had lost the HMRC £167million – and she admitted that the organisation had known about the problem before the election but had not said anything.

Why am I not even surprised. It's beyond the tail wagging the dog, it's like the turd wagging the tail wagging the frigging dog.

But she added that it would not be until 2012 that ‘we still see a stable system’ – meaning that wrong codings could still be being sent out two years from now.

No, we won't. No govt department will ever have a stable system because procurement is such a cluster-fuck and everyone working there is so wilfully ignorant.

And why the fuck is it still called Her Majesty's anything? Can we not just be honest and accept that they are the collections agency for the Government and name it more honestly? Any suggestions?

The pointlessness of judges

2010-10-12T09:27:00.000+02:00

Fuck this.

With this decision, and the hundreds of other appallingly inadequate sentences and prosecutions that are doing all kinds of damage to parts of the UK, the judicial system has jumped the shark.

If this was my son, then very bad things would happen to these three savages. I don't say that lightly. I don't believe in vigilantism or an eye for an eye for its own sake. However, when an old lady needs the support of a brilliant, determined blogger and a journalist to avoid prosecution for dropping cigarette ash, and three thugs walk free with a suspended sentence for torturing an autistic boy for 3 days, something is badly broken.

"Judge Geake said he had taken into account the attackers’ ages, remorse and the fact they had pleaded guilty."

Remorse? You can't show remorse for something carried out over 3 days. Remorse is lashing out and wishing you hadn't. This was a sustained attack on someone who couldn't defend himself. And as for pleading guilty, they had footage on their own mobile phones of the attack. What were they going to do? Deny it?

Judge Geake, I would not usually wish ill on anyone, but I hope something similar befalls your family. Then we can see how important remorse and pleading guilty really are for sentencing.

Condom Win

2010-10-07T17:49:00.001+02:00

Quote of the goddamn year here!!

Fennell was also questioned about reports of condoms blocking toilets in the athletes' village.
He replied: "If that is happening, it shows there is use of condoms and I think that's a very positive story, that athletes are being responsible."

Mike Fennell, I salute you.

Drinkunaware

2010-10-06T10:14:00.000+02:00

Nanny-statism in action, as the "Chief Executive", whatever the hell that means in a charity, of Drinkaware leaped into action to make sure an opportunity to show his contempt for other people was seized with both hands.

The article is fairly innocent, with research suggesting that light drinking by a pregnant woman has zero impact on the unborn baby. Seems pretty sensible to me, getting hammered every day probably not a good idea but a couple of glasses here and there not a major issue. Certainly did my kids no harm, but then I wasn't the pregnant one ho ho ho.

However, up pops Chris Sorek from Drinkaware (emphasis mine):

He said: "Despite these findings, it is important to remember that 'light drinking' can mean different things to different people.

Ah-hah, so perhaps you should spend all your time telling pregnant women exactly how much they should drink. Oh wait, you do? On teh interwebz and everything? So what's the problem?

"There is a risk that if pregnant women take this research as a green light to drink a small amount, they could become complacent, drink more than they think they are and inadvertently cause harm to their unborn child.

Yes, pregnant women are famed for their complacency. I had to keep reminding my wife she was pregnant, as the responsibility of carrying a tiny person around inside you for 9 months really meant nothing. You twat.

"Excessive drinking during pregnancy can carry serious consequences and lifelong damage to children and should be avoided."

Which is of course irrelevant to this article, which is very clearly stating that light drinking is not harmful. Bugger off Mr. Sorek, you add less than nothing to the debate.

Sport & Trafficking? Again?

2010-09-30T10:27:00.001+02:00

A terribly familiar tale of eeeevil traffickers and eeeeeevil men profitting from the misery of innocent women at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Forgive my scepticism, but we were given these scare stories for the South Africa World Cup, and in the end absolutely nothing happened. Unsurprisingly, as a quick Google search shows, these stories were wildly inflated by pressure groups whose funding no doubt depends on the problem existing in the first place.

So, who funds the Impulse NGO Network? Well, a quick skim of their annual report from 2008-209 shows that, of their 14mios Rupee income, about 700k came from contributions/donations. 5mios however came from the child rights anti-trafficking initiative, which I assume is actually the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking.

Admittedly, 14million Indian Rupees is bugger-all in real money, but it is good to see that the world over, NGOs are inflating statistics in order to keep receiving grant money for inflated problems.

Common Sense from Canada

2010-09-29T08:38:00.000+02:00

Not much to add to this article really.

"Ontario judge overturns Canada anti-prostitution laws"

It's ludicrous that these laws were passed, and depressing that it takes the sex workers themselves to stand up for themselves against people who supposedly have their best interests at heart.

Harperson, take note, not everyone is as stupid and easily fooled as you seem to think.

Bank of England's Arrogance

2010-09-28T10:02:00.000+02:00

Here is a particularly outrageous piece of arrogant, "let them eat cake" style bullshit from the inept Bank of England, headlined "Savers told to stop moaning and start spending".

The whole thing is worth reading, but to pick out the most offensive parts of the Deputy Governor's views (emphasis mine):

"Older households could afford to suffer because they had benefited from previous property price rises, Charles Bean, the deputy governor, suggested. They should "not expect" to live off interest, he added, admitting that low returns were part of a strategy."

That's right, the Bank of England's strategy includes keeping returns on savings low, so the responsible ones get screwed and the profligate mongs are rewarded.

Mr Bean said he "fully sympathised".

No you don't, you couldn't give a shit as you've already made clear.

But he continued: "Savers shouldn't necessarily expect to be able to live just off their income in times when interest rates are low. It may make sense for them to eat into their capital a bit." He added: "Very often older households have actually benefited from the fact that they've seen capital gains on their houses."

So they must be punished for benefiting from a housing bubble created in no small part by, oh that's right, the Government and its lapdog Central Bank.

Mr Bean said that encouraging Britons to spend was one reason why the Bank had cut interest rates. They have been held at 0.5 per cent for 18 months, hitting rates offered on savings accounts. The strategy had led to Mervyn King, the governor, receiving many letters of complaint. But it was designed to return the economy to a reasonable level of activity as quickly as possible, he said. "The faster we can achieve that, the sooner interest rates will get back to more normal levels."

Ah-hah, I believe this is what Al-Jahom would call cognitive dissonance.

So, Mr. Bean, what you are saying is, if everyone spends instead of saving, that will enable the Bank to raise interest rates, making saving more attractive, reducing how much people spend. What about the older people who have spent all their money? Now they can benefit from the higher rates they have helped generate.

Fail, Mr. Bean. Fail.

Reflections on Obo

2010-09-27T11:37:00.000+02:00

As everyone already knows, Obo has hung up his blogging and tweeting boots. I am gutted, and this is why.

A year or so ago, I stumbled across a couple of blogs, which really caught my interest. One was Old Holborn's, and one was Obo's. I'd never really seen anything like these before, a mixture of excellent writing, a clear viewpoint on the world, and in Obo's case some extraordinarily amusing language. I got hooked, first passively and eventually enough to start my own blog, such as it is.

From these two blogs, I have learnt about being a libertarian, and that I am one. I learnt about anarchy. I now have 50 blogs in my feed burner, most of whom have directly or indirectly come from these two. In short, I learnt a huge amount.

So Obo, I for one am very sad that you're stopping. But if it's any small consolation, you inspired me to start, and in a very small and much less impressive way, I shall carry on learning and writing.

Thanks very much.

Cable's Idiocy - Part errr...I've lost count

2010-09-22T10:49:00.001+02:00

Vince Cable is an idiot. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that I write these words. Once again he shows himself to be a grandstanding nutter with virtually no understanding of business, banking, economics or indeed anything.

Here he is, ranting like a good 'un.

This quote is worth showing in full, emphasis mine:

"The Government's agenda, is not one of laissez-faire. Markets are often irrational or rigged," he will say. "So I am shining a harsh light into the murky world of corporate behaviour. Why should good companies be destroyed by short-term investors looking for a speculative killing, while their accomplices in the City make fat fees? Why do directors forget their duties when a fat cheque is waved before them? Capitalism takes no prisoners and kills competition where it can."

Ah-hah. Capitalism kills competition. So, what do you suggest then Vince? Oh, nothing. Just ranting then.

"Mr. Cable will tell the conference that he believes bankers pose more of a threat than trade unions."

This is the Business Secretary speaking. Words fail me.

As an aside, this whole episode also proves beyond doubt that no tax is ever repealed. EVER. This bonus tax will stay forever, and the Coalition will show themselves to be every bit as anti-business as their predecessors. Any politician that says a tax is temporary is a liar, and should be called out as such.

Missing The Point

2010-09-03T11:10:00.000+02:00

Once again, technology has served to confuse people as to the real issues.

This guy is a sick bastard, no doubt about it, but the comment at the end of article by the police detective in charge of the case, is illuminating. "He said: 'This is terrible, and this is what I'll say about the Internet and cell phones and texting and sexting and Twittering and blogging - this is very, very dangerous.'"

The guy sexually assaulted his girlfriend, who was passed out from too much booze. While doing so, he broadcast it via a webcam. From reading the article, and the statement from the detective, you might think the webcam piece was the issue. But in reality, all the webcam did was get the guy caught, and presumably make a conviction a lot easier.

There is nothing inherently dangerous about the Internet, or sexting, or blogging even (god knows why that is in there). It's like saying "talking to someone you don't know in a bar is very, very dangerous". It's not, unless you are careless or extremely unlucky. This man is dangerous, that's all, and the Phoenix police should be pleased that his idiotic broadcast of his crime enabled them to catch him without the victim even knowing what had happened.

Once again, technology takes the blame, rather than this pervert simply using technology to express his perversion slightly differently. It's very ignorant.

Coalition fiddling while the UK burns

2010-08-23T11:54:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I wonder if I've just made up in my own head the disastrous state of the UK economy, the monumental debt burden the country is labouring under, the straining welfare state and the unsustainable and unfillable black hole in the state pension.

I wonder because I keep reading shit like this, where the Coalition show their true socialist colours.

Or perhaps this, which Al Jahom tears apart here.

Then there is this colossal pile of horseshit, which Dizzy has already shovelled into the toilet where it belongs.

I could go on and on, check out AmbushPredator's daily demolition of local news idiocy as well, it never ends.

However, the point is, there are some really serious concerns around the future of the UK. Anyone who has children should be genuinely worried about what world they are growing up in. Yet all the Coalition can manage is a relentless slurry of ill-thought out, pointless ways to further harass the UK population.

Meanwhile, the lapdog media provide the mouthpiece for this flow of turds, without ever really posing any difficult questions, like exactly what the fuck are you going to do about the UK deficit Cleggeron?

This article may be the next shoe to drop, and if it does, then the UK really will be in the shit.

Part of me almost hopes it does, so people might actually wake up. However I fear this will just be yet another opportunity for the State to expand and take more control of people's lives and money.

The Fairtrade Delusion

2010-08-17T17:09:00.000+02:00

The Adam Smith Institute have an absolutely brilliant report on the failings of Fairtrade on their website. It's a couple of years old, but seems to be doing the Twitter rounds today, and I'd not seen it before.

Since this is a massive bugbear of mine, I direct you to the report and encourage you to read it in full.

Report is here.

Stealing Photos

2010-08-13T08:22:00.000+02:00

Looks like the French Army have been looking to the British coppers for inspiration

Murky Waters

2010-08-10T09:44:00.001+02:00

Sion Jenkins has been refused compensation for the time he spent in jail for his step-daughter's murder. The rationale that the Ministry of Justice has given is that "For the purposes of paying compensation, the applicant must be shown to be 'clearly innocent'."

I'm not sure that I'm very comfortable with this. Ultimately, guilt or innocence should be black and white. If you are guilty beyond reasonable doubt, then you are guilty. Otherwise you are innocent. It seems here that the Ministry of Justice are saying - "he's innocent, but we don't think he is so we're not going to compensate him for 6 lost years of his life".

I don't want to speculate on his guilt by the way, not my place as I haven't followed the case, but this to me seems like a slippery slope. It's the same logic of using ASBOs to jail people without trial - someone other than a jury finding people guilty or innocent. He may be a shit. He may have killed her. But since he has been acquitted, he should be compensated for his time spent in jail for something the court has decided he did not do.

The whole thing reminds me a bit of the civil case following the OJ Simpson trial. No doubt that if the police had done things differently, OJ would be in jail, if not already executed. But they didn't, and as such the court was obliged to acquit him. Subsequently, a civil court ruled against him and he paid a massive compensation claim to the victims' families. This again sits badly with me - if you're ruled innocent by a court of law, no other court should be able to dispute that verdict. It's not about whether he did it. It's about the principle of guilt and innocence being decided by a jury alone.

Weakness Personified

2010-08-04T11:09:00.000+02:00

No doubt the story about Social Housing no longer being "for life" will have people up in arms about "rights", and the nasty party trampling on the poor and needy once again.

However, the key element in this piece is the following:

The Prime Minister said that any changes would not, however, apply to people already in social housing. The Conservatives pledged in their general election manifesto to protect the rights of existing tenants.

What. The. Fuck?

I've struggled to find exact numbers for the amount of people in Social Housing, but it seems about 18% of households are classified that way. I suspect Social Housing would hold more people on average than Owner Occupied housing, but let's say for the sake of argument that every household has the same amount of people. UK population is roughly 60 million, so that's 11 million people already in Social Housing. All of whom will have that housing for life, and indeed are allowed to give this unlimited tenancy to their children when they die.

So what on earth is the point of this policy? The relatively tiny amount of new people demanding social housing will have fixed contracts, while 11 million people get to keep it regardless of status and salary.

This coalition is so pathetic, so terrified of offending anyone and actually making any changes. Obo's right, they're utterly useless and no better than the last lot.

Vince Cable is wrong and dangerous

2010-07-26T11:47:00.000+02:00

A lot of people have gone from seeing Vince Cable as the messiah to seeing him as a charlatan that predicted 14 of the last 3 recessions. However, I think people see him as mostly harmless. This is wrong, he is a dangerous idiot who simply does not understand anything about finance or economics.

This latest piece of lunacy proves it.

To summarise what this madman believes:
1. Banks are not lending enough, or as he puts it, "acting in the national interest".
2. Banks must lend more.
3. In order for them to lend more, bonuses should be linked to lending levels.

Now, there is little doubt that one of the many reasons for the economic crisis we are in was utterly irresponsible lending by the banks. There were more egregious sins, mostly committed by the Government, but the banks got themselves into an awful hole by lending carelessly to people that could not pay it back. Much of this was also forced upon them by the Government, much like in the US.

As a direct result, banks are now being ordered to shore up their Tier 1 capital ratios, which has the knock-on effect of reducing the available pot for lending.

Yet Vince Cable wants banks to lend more, and to be paid according to how much money they pump into the system. This is the same Vince Cable that railed against bankers' bonuses - "I think the bonus culture which continues is unacceptable. The coalition agreement makes it very clear that unacceptable bonuses are continuing and that is something we want to try to stop and that reflects the lack of moral compass."

Can anyone see a wee contradiction here? Bankers' will lend to unsuitable people again, in order to boost their lending levels. This lending means they will get bigger bonuses. These loans will default, fucking up the banks' balance sheets and probably leading to more Government intervention, given the wobbly nature of these banks' finances anyway.

And which incompetent Lib Dem cretin will be the first to shout at the banks for paying bonuses for irresponsible lending? I wonder...

Fairtrade - The Problem

2010-07-20T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, sweet-toothed trader Anthony Ward bought pretty much the entire European market in Cocoa beans, in the largest Cocoa trade for 14 years.

How boring, you may think. But there is a comment from a FairTrade representative at the end of the first article, which is I think sums up the problem inherent in the FairTrade concept. Here it is in full (emphasis mine).

Barbara Crowther, a spokesman at the Fairtrade Foundation, said that no farmers in West Africa would benefit from the higher prices. She said: "This speculation only serves to increase volatility and uncertainty. Part of the problems in rent years have been the lack of investment in improving cocoa farms. But the farmers have already been paid a set price – none of this money will filter down to them."

All that she says is true. However, in theory, the purchase of these cocoa beans should ultimately benefit these farmers. They wouldn't benefit this year of course, but next year they should be able to command a higher premium for their beans, or produce more, as evidently there is a mild supply shortage. This additional money would then provide the investment required.

The problem is, of course, the FairTrade intermediary will prevent any of this happening. Ironically, FairTrade has no real desire to help farmers invest and grow, as they have this romantic idea of subsistence farming that bears no relation to the reality of hours of back-breaking toil actually required.

Perhaps allowing a free market to set a fair price might allow these farmers to speak for themselves rather than being ripped off by an organisation answerable to no-one except themselves.

Employers in "Looking for 2:1 Degree" Shocker

2010-07-06T08:29:00.000+02:00

So the BBC ran this little nugget this morning - it seems that "Three quarters of employers 'require 2:1 degree'".

My first thought was actually "what are the other employers looking for?", because frankly if you don't require a 2:1, then why ask for a degree at all? I got a 2:1, and it really is not that hard, I was incredibly lazy at uni, as were most of my peers. The ones that managed a first worked pretty hard, but everyone else just arsed about mainly.

Bear in mind as well that two-thirds of students get a 2:1 apparently, so employers are actually only ruling out 1 out of every 3 applicants, which is bugger-all really. Particularly since apparently 69 grads apply for each post on average, so that still leaves 46 applicants in the game.

Yet according to the Association of Graduate Recruiters, "While this approach does aid the sifting process it can rule out promising candidates with the right work skills unnecessarily". Well, evidently the right work skills do not include being able to work at all or indeed learn anything. This is the bottom third of a massive pool of people who did something (get a degree) that is for the most part very easy.

The BBC's spin is predictably entitled and leftist (emphasis mine) -
"so this means the remaining third, who will still have passed their exams and paid their tuition fees, will not even be considered by these employers."

So because someone wrote his name on some exam papers and handed over some cash, he should automatically be considered for a job. Otherwise it is unfair.

The unintended (if incredibly predictable) consequence of Labour's obsession with everyone going to university is a whole bunch of people with a worthless piece of paper no-one is interested in, who are worse off than if they had gone straight to work. They are also saddled with unrealistic expectations borne out of entitlement shown beautifully by the BBC above.

Hike tuition fees, slash the number of available places by 25%, and spend some of the savings making sure that bright poor kids can afford to pay these fees. It really isn't very complicated.

Friday Funny

2010-07-02T16:31:00.000+02:00

Brilliant comment below this ridiculous story in the Daily Grail.

"So his bogus magic water was illegal because it wasn't really bogus magic water from Lourdes, as endorsed by a man in Rome wearing a frock?"

ROFL

Someone's been watching too much X-Men

2010-06-28T12:22:00.000+02:00

But Professor, their DNA may become unstable and what if the mutants can breed?

Dear God, it's an abomination, a frankenfish, it's, it's, hmmm quite tasty actually...

Lord Melchett, policy director at the Soil Association, said the new technology is not worth the risk.

"Once you have bombarded an animal with other genes, the DNA is unstable, and there is no guarantee these fish remain sterile. It poses far too great a risk to wild salmon. A fish that grows that quickly is likely to lose some of its environmental benefits. There is no such thing as a free salmon lunch and we will pay the price," he said.

You can't say that

2010-06-28T09:33:00.001+02:00

Here's an article that beautifully encapsulates several things that really wind me up.

Firstly, as a father of two, I'm sick of being preached at by breast-feeding Nazis. My eldest son is almost two now, bottle-fed from 6 weeks, a picture of health and happiness. My second is two months, bottle-fed from 4 weeks, ditto. So leave us the hell alone.

And what is this shit about an apology? Here is a lovely quote by a level-headed individual:

"She said: ‘There is no evidence that breastfeeding causes a woman’s boobs to sag. This (article) insinuates that breastfeeding is sexually perverted and that it is preferable to use breasts sexually rather than for their biological function of feeding babies. It also implies in a general way that breastfeeding is weird.
‘It is highly irresponsible to print it. I believe that (Blundell) has breached the Code by using inaccurate facts as well as opinion.’"

Breached the Code? It's an opinion piece you cretin. But god forbid people should be entitled to an off-message opinion, we can't have that.

And finally, this (emphasis mine):

"The furious response to the article has resulted in almost 600 people joining a Facebook page dedicated to forcing her to apologise.

Oooooh, a facebook page. Maybe they could go and steal some cows from her frigging farmville farm, how would she cope? Or perhaps poke her over and over until she just couldn't stand it?

People are so stupid.

Get a Grip

2010-06-25T12:27:00.001+02:00

This from the Daily Mail caught my eye:

Contains a rather amusing picture of a baby supposedly smoking a bong. This has bizarrely triggered Child Services involvement. Note that there are no pics of the baby puffing out smoke, or trying to eat his own weight in Wheat Crunchies or Pepperami, or perhaps trying to put his hair into dreads, just a pic of him basically chewing a bong. Probably safe to assume he wasn't getting a smoke on.

My mate has a young daughter, and he often "offers her" his beer bottle, which she tries to eat. Makes for a comedy photo, but surprisingly enough he doesn't let her drink the beer. Probably also not a case for Child Services, although who knows nowadays.

Just get a bloody grip, for the love of God, and fuck off out of people's lives.

Airbags on Airplanes?

2010-06-23T08:09:00.000+02:00

In the Geneva local paper, 20 Minutes, there is an amusing article about fitting airbags in Business Class on Swiss flights. Apparently new planes used by Swiss have airbags installed in Business Class, which seems to me a bit like putting airbags in your shoes when you use a parachute. If it goes wrong, a little cushion probably isn't going to make much difference I imagine.

Of course Economy Class passengers are furious that their safety isn't being taken seriously, like passengers on the Titanic demanding their lifejackets.

Anyone in the aviation industry care to explain why airbags are useful on a massive piece of flying metal?

Hypocrisy & Sex Tourism

2010-06-21T15:22:00.000+02:00

The article is bad enough, the nauseating true life story from "Lucy" really is self-serving bullshit, if a man wrote anything like this he'd get torn apart.

A couple of choice quotes, with my additions...

"The words "sex tourism" make me think of City boys who go to Thailand with their mates for seedy conquests to boast about."

Ah yes, boasting. Sort of like an article in a newspaper about shagging a local lad for money.

"It's different for women."

Only in your head.

"When they go abroad for sex, it's about wanting to feel special and escaping the boundaries at home."

And those lucky men probably love it as well, just like those hookers.

"There are very strict rules at the hotel about staff and guests..."

Hmm, sounds like a brothel

"...so I knew I had to make the first move."

The first move? You're paying him for sex, what "moves" exactly are required?

"I told him I was going for a walk on the beach - and we spent our first night together. It was very romantic."

Using code? Still sounds like a brothel.

"Sandi and I had a great time."

Ah yes once again, he loved it, how could he not? The money was incidental.

Compare with this in the Daily Mash. Which one is satire again?

Announcing Death via Twitter

2010-06-21T13:29:00.001+02:00

Not convinced this was the right medium:

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced to the world he had signed off on the execution via micro-blogging site Twitter.
"I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution," Shurtleff tweeted shortly before Gardner was shot through the heart by a five-man firing squad at Utah State Prison.
"May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims."

He then got annoyed by people objecting to the death penalty:
Shurtleff, in the tweet, said it was “astonishing that no retweet whiner express [sic] outrage that Gardner shot 2 men in the face, & a cop; nor one word of empathy for their families.”

Seems a bit wrong, but it could have been worse I suppose:
"Lol jst told my homiez to pop caps in Grdner, dat's wot I call corrections ROFLcopter, #deathpen #waxbullet #bang_ur_dead"
Followed with
"all u hataz wnt to think bout families ov victims, he got wot he deserved all u RT pansiez can fk urselves #hippyfags"

Where to start?

2010-06-17T08:13:00.001+02:00

This article manages to include not one but two fairly major fails.

First of all, WTF is up with an 11-yr-old getting taken to the "prom" in a helicopter? Why is there even a prom at all? When I was 11 (and that's less than 20 years ago) the end of primary school heralded potentially some chocolate, an activity of some kind and there might have been a disco, to which I imagine I wore a shellsuit, things being how they were back in the day. But a prom? Ferraris? Limos? What a bunch of spoilt little pricks are going to come out of this school.

Secondly, isn't it amazing how some fecking charity manages to muscle in on the article. Kids at Mearns are clearly not short of a few quid, and yet we have some worthy from One Parent Families Scotland (less than 1% funded by donations, fundraising & membership, can I hear you say fake charity?) explaining that "schools need to be sensitive to the financial circumstances of all parents".

So this is the school's fault now? Well in one sense it is, in that they should probably just tell the parents to stop being such fuckwits, but ultimately it's neither their problem nor their fault if parents decide it's a good idea for their offspring to learn about pimping out in a limo at the age of 11. To be clear, this is the parents' problem, or in the case of the families this "charity" looks at, the parent's problem. But of course that wouldn't fit in with whatever bullshit cause they are pedalling, so better blame the school then.

No More CRB Checks? In My Dreams Apparently

2010-06-15T15:40:00.002+02:00

Please let this be true, this really would be a proper step forward for the coalition.

The Child Protection Checks are to my mind one of the most insidious, divisive pieces of legislation to come out of the Labour Government cesspit. Starting from the appalling premise that everyone was a child abuser until proven otherwise, the ugliness of these checks was matched only by their clear ineffectiveness in stopping offenders. It was of great concern to me that the Coalition had not specifically mentioned repealing these checks, but now it seems they will. Not a moment too soon.

UPDATE: Thanks to @UncleMarvo for drawing my attention to the last paragraph of the article, which I had missed. In fact, the existing CRB checks will stay in place. Utter bastards, I am hugely disappointed.

Depressing

2010-06-07T16:42:00.000+02:00

An intelligence analyst in the US has apparently been shopped by a "former hacker" because he sent Wikileaks the video from the Afghanistan Apache air strike last year. Now, clearly it's a bit ask to base a post on an article this thin, but a few things occur to me.

First of all, I'm sick of hearing about national security. If ever a phrase was mercilessly abused it is this one, and it pisses me off. It's a catch-all nonsense that is impossible to argue with sensibly and can only end badly.

This quote is ludicrous (emphasis mine) - "A lot of people have labelled me a snitch," Mr Lamo told BBC News. "I guess I deserve that on this one but not as a generality." This is so idiotic, and just underlines how people really do not understand morality anymore. He is a snitch, because he snitched. He should stand by it. You can't be a snitch once and then stop, you either are or you aren't. His quote could have come out of the mouth of any MP caught with his/her snout in the trough, with troughing shitbag substituted in for snitch.

I got interrupted halfway through this post (bloody work) so apologies if it's a little disjointed. But fuck it, not like this blog pays my wages anyway (and frankly neither should it!)

Rearranging the deckchairs or business as usual?

2010-06-07T09:47:00.002+02:00

This, kindly pointed out by Obo, is amazing on several levels. First and most obviously, do they really think one single person will change one thing they do during the World Cup based on this advice? Not only is it joyless bollocks, but it will be so utterly ignored it'll make my Religious Studies teacher seem like Mr. Chips.

Beyond that though, are these people just not even getting the hint a tiny bit? Maybe tone down some of this nonsense. Or are their hands so firmly over their ears, and their "la-la-la I can't hearrrrrr youuuuuuu" so loud that they really do not realise the end is nigh?

Or more worryingly, is DK right, and is all this Great Repeal stuff just a Great Repeal Swindle? I really hope not, but it is interesting that these organisations feel they can just push on with no concessions to the apparent new climate of no-more-quangoes.

Negotiation, French Style

2010-05-14T13:09:00.000+02:00

Le President de la Republique, Nicolas "I heart Carla" Sarkozy, apparently threatened to pull France out of the Euro during last week's negotiations on the EU rescue plan, if the other EU countries did not sign up to the deal. This was aimed particularly at Merkel, as German citizens are less than impressed at the idea of hurling yet more money into the black hole of the EU.

Sarkozy demanded "a compromise from everyone to support Greece ... or France would reconsider its position in the euro," according to one source cited by El País.
"Sarkozy went as far as banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the euro," according to one unnamed Socialist leader quoted, who was at the meeting with Zapatero. "That obliged Angela Merkel to bend and reach an agreement."

Hmm, "bend and reach", hey? "Bend over and hold onto something" may have been a better description of how that situation unfolded.

Two comments:
1. The Euro really is not that stable. Even if it was just posturing, the fact he would say it all shows he feels it can be done. If France can, why not Greece, or indeed Germany.
2. Zealotry is alive and well in the Eurozone. Sarko was willing to sacrifice everything to save Greece, while Merkel sacrificed her political career by agreeing to these terms.

It strikes me that the Eurozone has a real problem at the moment. They believe they are "above the market", and should not bow to speculators. However, so many of the barometers they use are entirely market-driven - the strength of the Euro, the Bond markets, even the stock markets as an indicator of economic recovery. They seem to have forgotten that the "market" is just a bunch of people, many of whom are based within the Eurozone and thus are not disinterested, Soros-style investors crushing the Euro for personal gain.

Gold is now at over 1,000 Euros per ounce, an insane level, and if the Euro falls below 1.24 against the USD then it really could go all the way down to 1.00.

It's all very far from over.

The Fall of Farmville?

2010-05-14T09:10:00.000+02:00

Please let this be true, this rampant goonery just has to end.

These are my friends, because I am a tosser

Mixed Feelings

2010-05-12T08:50:00.001+02:00

A strange day today. Part of me feels very excited about the whole thing - I can sort of see the merits of a Libservative coalition, and I must concede parts of the manifesto are appealing. It would seem the Lib Dems are relatively keen on repealing some of the damage done to civil liberties in the last few years, while the Tories seem to have kept in place their ideas on schools reform, and knocked on the head the silly idea of losing Trident and thus our sway with the UN. No arguments with the 10k personal tax allowance either, and I believe ID cards will die a quick and painless death. So part of me understands where Charlotte Gore is coming from here.

However, part of me also knows where Herr Clown is coming from here (and he's not the only one).

I believed before the election that all three parties are fundamentally pretty much the same. I do not believe that this coalition will make any meaningful efforts to reduce the role of Government in day-to-day life, which is a huge problem for me. The Tories are apparently pleased to have kept their "£6bn cuts this financial year and a reversal of some planned rises in national insurance contributions" (from this article). Well, pardon me for not getting too excited, but last time I checked, the National Debt was £912,123,669,658, but that was 3 seconds ago so it is probably a few grand higher.

This debt is the defining issue of the next 5 years. As AngryTeen said, and he should know since he is a yoof, "their bailouts will leave me with an unbelievable debt to pay". His generation will be saddled with a humongous debt burden to pay. Christ, if we're not careful, my two sons, whose combined age is 19 months, will be saddled with this debt. It needs sorting, and until I see some honest figures and a plan of action, my joy at Brown's departure is heavily tempered by the concern that not very much will change.

I am stoked about Brown going though, I can't deny it. Time for a new tag I think...See Ya!

A tiny sliver of joy

2010-05-11T17:15:00.000+02:00

Seems Brown is finally packing his bags. Believe it when I the locks are changed, but my word, it is nice to have something positive out of the shite of the last few days. Still not convinced much will change, but at least the scorched earth policy Brown seems to have operated, either intentionally or by accident, may be reduced.

Cameron, your time is now. Step up and prove us all wrong. Prove you have the stones to slash public spending. Prove you really will tear up the quangos. Prove there is some spine lurking there somewhere.

Gordon Brown's Legacy

2010-05-11T14:16:00.000+02:00

Sure this will get taken down before long, so to be sure it is captured for posterity, here is the BBC view on Gordon Brown's legacy.

That is all.

"The guy can't even resign properly"

2010-05-11T08:56:00.001+02:00

Unbelievable. Being as I am fairly busy in the evenings with a new baby, I didn't have the chance to watch or read any news last night. I did see something about Brown resigning that warmed my heart, but it was all too hectic to I thought I'd read it at my leisure at work.

So here I am. First warning sign is the pound below 1.48 against the USD. What's going on, I wondered? And then I opened my Google Reader. Fuck me, what a shitstorm this is! The egregiously unpleasant, power-obsessed fabian turd has actually managed to do the worst possible thing for the country, with a bizarre half resignation. And the frigging spineless, unfit for purpose Lib Dims are seriously getting into bed with Labour?

I said this a couple of days ago, and I'll say it again. What exactly do these fuckers have to do in order to stop people voting for them and working with them? Do Labour actually not only need to shit on the carpet of every voter in the country, but also the carpet of every single Lib Dim MP as well, just to make doubly sure that people get it?

I'm actually slightly despondent this morning about it all. I thought the result might be the death of British politics, but I was wrong. This is. The political classes are so out of touch with anything that, while the country's economy is melting down under a colossal debt mountain, they are stamping their feet about reforming the electoral system. It's just awful.

As the Clown said:

Watch the markets. This isn't going to be ugly.

This is going to be Greek.

We will be cap in hand to the IMF, it'll be the late 70s all over again, before we see the back of Brown. Every politician (and I do mean every single one), every Labour voter, every pathetic journalist incapable of doing any work, understanding economics or searching out the truth, hang your head in shame. The UK is going down the toilet, and it is your fault.

What he said

2010-05-10T12:17:00.000+02:00

Mr. Eugenides has it right

Put us out of our misery Cleggeron, please.

Gordon Brown as Arnold Layne

2010-05-07T14:51:00.000+02:00

Gordon Brown,
Had some strange habits,
The bizarre gurn,
Makes your stomach churn
It suits him fine.

On the wall, hung a tall mirror
Distorted view, Mandy says they love you
He dug it

Oh Gordon Brown,
Get out of town,
Why won't you go?
You should go.
You should go.
Why can't you see?

Now he's caught, in the Queen's court.
Panic.
He begged to Clegg,
Too late, piss off mate
He hates it

Oh Gordon Brown,
Get out of town,
Why won't you go?
You should go.
You should go.
Why can't you see?

Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown,
Don't do it again.

The public wants what the public gets

2010-05-07T09:33:00.001+02:00

Apologies in advance for swearing and general rage, not impressed.

What a monumental failure on the part of everyone, and I do mean everyone. Let's look at the list of failures shall we:

1. The British Public. 235 Labour seats at the last count. Ed Balls still has his seat. Ed fucking Balls. Hazel Christing Blears as well. What do these people have to do, actually come round to each voter's house and shit on their carpet before these pig-ignorant tools decide to vote for someone else? Seriously, you idiots in those constituencies, enjoy these devil children looking after your area. And by the way, if Labour somehow wangle their way into a minority coalition, enjoy that too. That's on you. When they destroy the country and the UK goes begging to the IMF, remember that you voted for that.

2. CMD. I know that Labour have gerrymandered the boundaries, bought a load of votes with benefits etc. but seriously. You couldn't beat Gordon Brown? You useless, spineless jellyfish.

3. Cleggmania and the Lib Dems. Don't, don't, don't, don't believe the hype.

4. The BBC. If there is one area of sympathy I have for the Tories, it's this. When the major state broadcaster turns against you for 20 years, and when many people believe that this broadcaster is impartial, it's hard to come back from that. So BBC, you can have a piece of this as well. I hope whoever does get in takes your licence fee away so all your Guardianista idiots can try the real world for a change.

5. I could go on and on, but I won't. Enough bile for a Friday.

Notice who I have left off the list? Labour and Brown. Gotta say credit to them, they really didn't underestimate the public. Hey fuckhead, I just spent 13 years ruining your country and saddling you and your children with ludicrous amounts of debt. Hey look, a squirrel. What was I saying? Oh nothing, just Vote Labour, here's a lollipop made of shit. Yeah, you like that, don't you. That's right you do.

Sorry Charlotte, I really do agree with everything you said here, but sometimes it's just too much.

The Pound as a Safe Haven

2010-05-06T14:42:00.000+02:00

Here's an interesting quote from a Foreign Exchange analyst at some Tokyo firm I've never heard of (emphasis mine)

"The pound is now considered to be a safe-haven currency from the euro zone, which is suffering from concerns over a contagion of sovereign problems," said Toshiya Yamauchi, a senior foreign-exchange analyst at Ueda Harlow Ltd. in Tokyo.

The Euro is truly up the creek if people are buying pounds against it for safety. This does not bode well...

Interesting Facts About Greece

2010-05-04T09:38:00.000+02:00

In the light of the bailout package being more or less confirmed, I thought I would share with you some interesting facts about Greece and its economy.

A little reminder about the 110 million Euro bailout package first here

Fact 1: Greece has the lowest retirement age of anywhere in the EU at 61, this will be increased to 63 by 2015 apparently.

Fact 2: Greece imports 13% of the arms exported by Germany. Not a lot of people know this, but after the US and Russia, Germany is the third-largest exporter of arms in the world, at 11%, so that's a pretty massive expenditure. Incidentally, Turkey imports 14% of German's arms exports, so make of that what you will.

Fact 3: 95 percent of taxpayers declare annual income of less than 30,000 Euros. That's tax evasion on an absolutely monstrous scale.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The austerity package the Greek Government are forcing through (see here) is both crippling and laughably inadequate. Furthermore, every other austerity package of this nature has been accompanied by a sharp devaluation in the currency, which helps to soften the blow. There are problems with devaluation, most notably the risk of inflation, but it does reduce the debt burden. Greece of course can't do this, so they really will be on the hook for the lot, which is ridiculous.

Either Spain or Portugal will be next, and the EU have set a very dangerous precedent with this bailout. The market is unimpressed, which is why the Euro is below 1.32 against the Dollar, and even falling a bit against the very weak Pound. If the market believed the bailout package was anything more than a finger in the dyke, we'd see the Euro higher, but it doesn't. Neither do I.

A Few Facts About Gordon Brown - from Subrosa

2010-05-03T09:16:00.000+02:00

This is an absolute superlative article from Subrosa, everyone should read it, and BevaniteEllie and all the other drones should have a copy stapled to their foreheads so they can read it in the mirror every day until it sinks in.

The Death of Politics

2010-04-30T11:49:00.005+02:00

That debate was an absolute disgrace. If this is the intellectual capacity of the three men who will be charged, either jointly or individually, with leading the UK out of economic crisis, then you may as well tow it out to the middle of the Atlantic and sink it.

I turned it off after half an hour, because not one of them has a grasp of even basic Economics, and not one of them can suppress the populism coursing through his veins like fire. Brown YET AGAIN gets away with this ludicrous statement about the Tories taking 6bn out of the economy. Why? Because CMD doesn't understand how to counter the argument. I have gone through this before and won't waste time repeating myself.

Not one of them can answer a question properly. Not one of them can debate properly. Nick Clegg's pathetic re-use of his "I didn't hear your name. is it? Well , you're absolutely right" goes unpunished. Brown just appears to have no idea what he is being asked, so utterly indoctrinated in his own nonsense is he. CMD is just so utterly weak and feeble when faced with frankly terrible opposition, that he is actually going to balls this election up, and if he does win it will be despite his myriad failings not because of his leadership.

So what next? I have no idea, but it's pretty bleak. They can talk all they like about restarting the manufacturing industry, but this isn't a planned economy and they don't work anyway. They can talk about getting the Banks to lend again, but if you tax them AND regulate them at the same time that won't work. Cutting benefits is a step in the right direction I suppose, but it won't be enough as long as there is this obsession with frontline services and a refusal to consider reducing foreign aid.

Thursday 6th May will be remembered as a terrible day for the UK, no matter what happens. It will be the day politics finally came off life support, and couldn't breathe on its own.

King Canute

2010-04-28T10:24:00.003+02:00

There was much excitement in the financial world yesterday as the Euro collapsed following a relentless stream of negative news on Greece and Portugal. Things are a little brighter today (ish) after the IMF talked about increasing the bailout size, however Germany is clearly still not overly keen on helping the Greeks out, and who can blame them.

There is a monumental amount of denial going on here though. Even if Greece is bailed out, it won't solve any structural problems, but merely buy some time. This time will be used to spend the bailout money, and we'll be back in the same boat as before, but this time 60bn Euros poorer, and with Portugal and Spain also on the brink.

The whole thing looks to me like trying to push the tide back. Eventually, no matter what you do, you'll be like King Canute, up to your neck in it. Better not to spend the money in my view. It's actually quite hard to see how we're going to get out of this one really. I just hope there's some bailout money left for the UK!

Fatherhood

2010-04-26T09:40:00.002+02:00

I became a father for the second time on Saturday, another little boy. Really puts all this election bullshit in proper perspective. Feel much less angry about it, I just can't get excited about three charlatans pissing about each pretending that their the only one to save us from the perils of a hung parliament.

I also realise that my job is to make sure my kids are well educated, independent and cynical enough to ask the right questions. I can't do much about their future, but I can prepare them well for it.

He's uber-cute by the way, like his brother.

Six Thousand Million Pounds

2010-04-23T17:17:00.002+02:00

Why is Brown allowed to get away with statements like this?

"So the dangers of the Conservative policy of cutting ten time this amount - six thousand million pounds - out of the economy as they propose for an emergency Budget in June are as grave as they are misjudged," he said.

For God's sake, why doesn't Cameron explain that this is NOT money out of the economy? We are the frigging economy, not the State! The 6 billion (and Brown's patronising explanation of how big the number is annoys me as well) came from the economy. This is basic stuff, and begging for Cameron or Osborne to just crush this nonsense.

Not only that, but Brown is using the fear of a double-dip recession to try to win votes. Again, why he is being allowed to get away with this? He should be torn to pieces, crushed like an ant, taken down to Chinatown in a rickshaw driven by Tory Bear for this crap (sorry, got carried away, amusing mental image though).

No wonder we're heading for a hung Parliament when CMD ignores a gold-plated opportunity like this time and time again. Time is ticking, and Dave's time is now, unless he wants to be remembered as the Tory that couldn't beat Brown.

From the Times

Happy St. George's Day

2010-04-23T10:14:00.002+02:00

I hereby recommend you:

Look at this (for a fine patriotic picture) on Guido's blog
Read this from Billy Bragg - Being patriotic doesn't make you a fascist
Absorb this from the mighty LegIron, who nails it as usual
Be reminded of this excellent old post from RantinRab

Here in Switzerland, I shall be celebrating by:

Reminding everyone I work with that it is St. George's Day and they should all speak English to me today (amusing)
Have lunch with two Englishmen (and an American)
Having a barbecue this evening with my English pal, whereby we shall drink French lager and eat Swiss beef at an English pace

Have a good day all!

Cameron misses the point

2010-04-22T08:38:00.005+02:00

In an interview with the Times today, CMD misses the point horribly with the following statement:
"We need to win a whole series of arguments about the problems of a hung Parliament".

Wrong.

You need to win the election by explaining to people why they should vote for the Conservatives.
You need to win a whole series of arguments about why the Conservatives should lead this country.
You need to win a whole series of arguments about why we can expect anything different from you.
You need to appeal to people who are thinking "stuff this, I'll vote BNP/UKIP/LPUK/Green/Monster Raving 'cos the big three all look the same to me"*.

The argument can't just be "vote for me, otherwise we'll have a hung parliament and that's no good."

The lack of ambition is palpable, and a huge disappointment.

*Not lumping together or dismissing these parties, or commenting on them per se. Just illustrating my point that a lot of disillusioned people may well vote elsewhere than the big three not because they want a Hung Parliament, but because they want something else. This is the point that escapes Cameron (and the other two).

Immodest Women & Earthquakes

2010-04-20T14:22:00.003+02:00

Those harlots, synchronised adulterous bonking is what it is!

On Portugal

2010-04-20T09:48:00.004+02:00

Engaging Finance Hat...

Much fuss has been made about Greece being bailed out recently, and rightly so. Bailing out a country whose national pasttime is tax evasion, in which "95 percent of taxpayers declare annual income of less than 30,000 euros", is a lunacy. However, Greece is the least of our worries.

Portugal may well be the next shoe to drop. The Portuguese entered the Euro at too high a rate, and this has shafted them well and truly. They are also a poster child for the impact of the economic largesse of the EU on a previously relatively well-run country. As the Telegraph article points out, Portugal was run much better than the UK in recent years, and yet they have drifted into crisis due to the pain of maintaining an overvalued Euro and an explosion of private debt.

The most disturbing issue here is that the IMF probably can't bail out Portugal, a much larger economy than Greece. If Portugal falls, there may be major pain in Europe, and a Euro break-up would look very likely indeed.

Read This

2010-04-16T16:29:00.001+02:00

Powerful stuff, needs a wider audience.

Great Debate

2010-04-16T08:46:00.003+02:00

Pretty tedious really, found it so hard to concentrate. Agree with Dizzy though, Clegg came over really well and looked worryingly like a leader. Brown was actually not as car-crash like as I might have expected. His first answer was mystifying but after that he warmed up, tough for the incumbent even if he is an idiot. Repeated himself too much though.

The big failure was Cameron. The Tories are so bloody terrified of putting people off, they shy away from every single opportunity. When Brown was banging on about taking 6bn out of the economy, over and over again, Cameron had a golden opportunity to explain that no, the money wouldn't leave the economy, it would leave the Government's coffers. As any fule no, privately spent money is usually better used than public spending, so the 6bn would probably be used better. Instead he hemmed and hawed and didn't really get anywhere.

CMD will need to step it up for the next one, because if he doesn't own these debates, then hung parliament all the way, and with Brown's "Nick and I agree..." parroting in evidence, that is something to be scared of.

Freedom to Chewse

2010-04-15T07:49:00.002+02:00

In the US, it seems the Major League (of Baseball) want to ban players from using smokeless tobacco while playing. To be clear, they are referring to chewing tobacco. The reasons? Health risks and a bad influence on the children.

So a grown adult will now be banned from using a product that is completely legal and has absolutely zero negative impact on anyone other than the user. This adult is not allowed to look after his own health, and of course we have the "won't anyone think of the cheeldren" argument.

“The highest prevalence of smokeless tobacco use in recent years has been observed among young adults, especially males,” Pechacek said today in prepared testimony. “Few adults 26 years or older reported initiating smokeless tobacco use,” he said, citing data from 2002 to 2007.

The key word there is "adult". So now, a man under the age of 26 is so impressionable that he will start chewing tobacco purely because a baseball player does it.

The utter contempt with which we are treated (and it's the same in the UK, although not in Switzerland yet thank god) is truly depressing.

Had a funny thought

2010-04-14T10:49:00.004+02:00

I had a strange half-awake dream this morning. It's the Cameroid, about 3 days before the election coming out and basically saying:

"Labour keep nicking our policies, or lying to undermine them, so we've kept these beauties under major secrecy until the last moment", then laying out a proper badass manifesto involving an EU referendum, savage spending cuts, a proper quango bonfire that doesn't involve another quango to manage, a single tax rate and various other bits that I can't remember because I was half asleep. Naturally he went on to win by a massive landslide, as about 20% of the country who weren't planning to vote said "sod it, I think I will".

I know it won't happen, but I can't think for the life of me why not. He could crush NuLab this way, they just would not have time to respond at all.

Man in doing expected thing shocker

2010-03-24T11:06:00.003+01:00

Big surprise - someone abused the scanner at Heathrow and was given a warning. Glad this is how airport security staff are fighting the mythical but ever-present terrorist threat.

Idiocy

2010-02-19T11:12:00.003+01:00

This dickhead was so dangerous that we chucked away 100s of years of trial by juries, but not dangerous enough to stop him buggering off at lunchtime of his trial.

It beggars belief. It's absolutely mental, words actually fail me. We've fouled up the judicial system, setting a terrible precedent, for a trial that has now ground to halt because plod can't keep their eye on the defendant.

Thaddeus at AR said it better than me, but I had to let it out anyway.

Ummm, didn't it sink?

2010-02-15T14:51:00.005+01:00

The Greek Finance Minister just said "we are trying to change the course of the Titanic - it cannot be done in a day".

I assume he really means "we're busy lining our own pockets so we can get the hell out of here and go to Aruba when the shit hits the fan." That is after all how the gentry on the Titanic rolled when it all started going a bit wrong. Man the lifeboats Stavros, let the poor people sort themselves out.

Oink

2010-02-11T08:26:00.004+01:00

This does not bode well at all. It must be heartbreaking for Brown to be so torn between his desire to bugger up the UK economy and his desire to pretend to be electable and therefore not completely and overtly pro-Europe.

A golden opportunity to really fuck the Tories over here, deftly committing to a horrific and ever-expanding PIGS bailout, calling a snap election and losing it. Call me Dave knows he couldn't renege, he'd never become the President of the European Council that way.

The Press Conference announcing the continuing horror is at 1545 GMT, watch and shudder as Van Rumpy goes for the power grab.

You're my wife now

2009-12-02T09:31:00.000+01:00

'Ello Dave.

That's what Darling can expect to hear from le petit Sarko, every day until Labour are booted out. Then it'll be Osborne's turn.