Saturday, February 28, 2009

Imagine If

Just think about it:
  • Every time you turned on your oven, you were forced to listen to a 2 minute diatribe on the evils of fast food.
  • Every time anybody got on the bus, the driver was forced to remain stationary until there had been a 2 minute diatribe on the damage personal car ownership caused to the environment.
  • Every time you started to pour a glass of orange juice, you couldn't open the container until you had listened to a 2 minute diatribe on binge drinking.
Sensible?  I don't think so.

Then why, every time I start to play a DVD, am I forced to listen to a 2 minute diatribe about copyright infringement?

Utter fucking cunts, the lot of them.

Reference my Previous

I see that the outstanding hypocrite of our times is showing, once again, why he was appointed to the 'leadership' of the Labour Party:

Brown renews banker pension plea


The prime minister is expected to renew his appeal for Sir Fred Goodwin to hand back part of his £16m pension at a meeting of Labour activists.

Gordon Brown has threatened legal action against the ex-Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) chief over his pay-out.


Come on, Gordon, sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, remember?

And I see a somewhat higher circulation periodical made a very similar (though, I think - Ed notes: but you would, wouldn't you, less elegant) point:

GORDON Brown last night dismissed calls to surrender his £123,000 a year pension when he is forced to stop being prime minister next June.

Mr Brown was defiant in the face of City outrage despite the UK government's annual operating loss of £100bn, rising to £1.5 trillion when the write-down of its banking assets is taken into account.

The prime minister said: "I've been building up this pension since I became an MP, it's all completely legal and now you want to take it away because I've been catastrophically bad at my job and you're looking for a scapegoat."

Friday, February 27, 2009

To Sir Fred, A Modest Suggestion

Well, it has been an unpleasant week and a half for you.  The publication of what you thought was a private conversation, a stand-up row between you and politicians of all stripes.  And popularity has never been your strong point.

Well, please remember that the fundamental stripe of all politicians is a broad yellow one, straight down the scar where their backbones were removed before they first ran for election.

I would also like to remind you, although I doubt you need it, that the sum of the profits of RBS for the years you were CEO is still significantly positive.

Anyway, to the point.  Gordon Brown is clearly far more responsible for the mess the national and global economy is in than you are (even though he bears less direct responsibility for RBS).  You are, in no wise, a poor man and unlike our ungallant leader, have the skills and experience to earn more once the economy recovers.  You could make a lot of friends and influence by suggesting that you would forfeit, under the same terms and conditions, £2 of annual pension payment for every £1 similarly (if not identically) forfeited by the monocular clown.

That would put the ball straight back in their court.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Is it selfish to have more than two children?

No, it isn't. 

Just fuck off and mind your own business, Porritt and your "Optimum Population Trust". And fuck off the BBC for giving him the oxygen of publicity.

You bunch of statist illiberal scumbags.

Contributions may later be sought for non-reversible neutering for Sir Jonathon and his lady wife.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

What an excellent idea.

Pity it is from the (US) Air Force:



Now in the UK, we have "Simple Simon" (now replaced by Nick Gurr, apparently) and the arbitrary banning process.

Today's News

It has been an interesting morning for people I know to be commentating in the news - Sally Lievesley on "Good Morning Scotland" and Bob Ayers in the Scotsman.  It is a pity that they were both so badly misled (or, worse still, maliciously misleading.)

Sally was opining (here just before 2:09 to about 2:14) on Dame Stella Rimington's comments about the appallingly statist nature of recent law and of the creeping extension of anti-terror legislation into public order and minor crime investigation (although I must stress, hopeless pedant that I am, that RIPA is not and never was anti-terrorism legislation).  Sally is a specialist in risk analysis for catastrophic incidents and regularly applies this to anti-terror issues (I have said before, here I think, that if you want to know where to put your nerve gas or cyanide bombs on a tube train to cause maximum damage, she's the woman who knows :)  However, she makes some errors on the Human Rights front.

Human Rights law is not there to protect us from criminals - it is there to protect us from the overwhelming and potentially oppressive power of the government and its agents.  Terrorists are just a highly motivated subset of criminal.  And there are already distinct graduations in Human Rights law - in the European Convention on Human Rights the right to freedom from torture is an absolute, the right to life is qualified - originally also including allowing judicial executions.  The prohibition against slavery permits conscription and jury service.  The Article 9, 10 and 11 rights of freedom of thought, expression and association are so hedged with get outs, conditions and exceptions to be almost worthless in modern Britain (as some consider Articles 5 and 6.)  

She also mentions Identity Cards with the suggestion that they might contribute to the fight against terrorism.  I strongly disagree.  At least, at the end, she is encouraging public participation rather than direction by the nanny state. 

Bob, on the other hand, seems to have been reading too many Tom Clancy novels or, at least, too much into "The Sum of all Fears".  The Harry Ricks character who, in the fiction, plays tracking games in the USS Maine with Captain Dubinin's "Admiral Lunin", or as Bob alleges Vanguard and Triomphant were doing:

"They were playing games with each other – stalking each other under the sea," Mr Ayres said. "They were practising being able to kill the other guy's submarine before he could launch a missile." 

was overtly considered a dangerous lunatic (by Clancy and the plot) for doing that with a ballistic missile submarine .  Hunter-killer (or, to use the Americanism "attack boat") captains do track other boats, absolutely - that's their job.  Neither Vanguard nor Triomphant are hunter-killer boats.

Just to round things off - a couple of stories that have nothing to do with anybody I know:

Max Mosley, from Law in Action:
"At the moment you have a tabloid 'judge' taking the decision about whether he's going to ruin someone's life, and I don't think he should be allowed to."
No, the person who took the life ruining decision was the one who decided that an S&M 'orgy' was a good idea, not the creeps who reported on it. They were merely marginal contributors.

Then we have more police abuse of powers, from those guardians of our freedom in the Met. For our own good, of course.

Error in the Liberal Test

Thanks to bella, shortly and unfortunately to depart these shores as a result of the dog-bark antics of the egregious fools who oppress us, the LPUK Liberal Test:


Created by LPUK



They need to do some more error checking on their thought processes, however (I'll assume that the test correctly reflects their opinions -they're welcome to comment if this is mistaken):

It is wrong for the police to retain the DNA of anyone not serving a prison sentence?
Your answer was illiberal

There is no reason why in a liberal society that the state should be allowed to steal the property of a person when they have not been convicted of any crime or are currently serving a prison sentence.

Clearly, I answered 'no'. I appreciate that I become (Ed notes: 'even more of') a tedious twat when it comes to investigations and the law but let us assume that the alleged offence is one for which the taking of DNA evidence is both relevant (potentially probative or exculpatory i.e. the identity of the offender rather than the nature of the offence is a fact in dispute - this would interestingly suggest that from a utilitarian point of view, taking DNA evidence in typical non-stranger rape cases - 'He raped me. No, I didn't, she consented' - is pointless. Ditto fraud. But I digress.) and reasonable (severity of the offence - as opposed to the blanket approach taken by the ACPO-Stasi). Then retaining the DNA evidence for all suspects until the completion of the trial process (which with trial, appeal, House of Lords, ECHR can be forever - look at Gary McKinnon - 8 years and counting and 'we kno he dun it, giv' - Ed notes: but for a hotly disputed value of 'it') is not just 'right', it is essential.

Come on, let's start getting things correct - it is the woolly ambiguities that allow for mission creep in the application of the law.

Edited to add: 'steal' and 'property' are hardly relevant points when it comes to DNA retention either. You are hardly being 'permanently deprived' of your DNA (the Theft Act test for 'steal') even by its massively illiberal retention by the current regime and treating as 'property' something you discard unwittingly every day is self-committed 'reductio ad absurdum'.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Just a little evil ...

You don't often catch the guys at Google out but here is a little snippet from my "iGoogle" screen earlier in the day:

if (1) {_gel("GM39threads").style.display = "block";}var GM39 = {req_count : 0,MSG_show_preview : 'Show preview',MSG_hide_preview : 'Hide preview',TPL_label_no_unread :'Inbox',TPL_label_unread :'Inbox (%NUM_UNREAD%)' +'',TPL_label_suffix :' ' +'' +'%SHOWHIDE_MSG%' +'',TPL_compose_mail :' ' +'Compose Mail',TPL_thread : '
' +'

' +'%DATE%
' +'' +'%SENDERS%%MESSAGE_COUNT%' +' - %SUBJECT% - ' +'%SNIPPET%' +'' +'
',MAP_CONTAINS_UNREAD_MESSAGES_ : 'b',MAP_DATE_ : 'c',MAP_ERROR_MSG_ : 'd',MAP_HEX_THREAD_ID_ : 'e',MAP_MESSAGE_COUNT_ : 'h',MAP_NUM_UNREAD_ : 'i',MAP_SENDERS_ : 'k',MAP_SUBJECT_ : 'l',MAP_SNIPPET_ : 'm',MAP_THREADS_ : 'n',msg : function(txt) {if (txt == 'promo') {_gel('GM39noaccount').style.display = 'block';_gel('GM39msg').style.display = 'none';} else {_gel('GM39noaccount').style.display = 'none';_gel('GM39msg').style.display = 'block';_gel('GM39statusmsg').innerHTML = txt;}_gel('GM39display').style.display = 'none';},init : function(opt_force) {var gmailjson_url = _gmail_json_url || '/ig/gmailjson';_sendx(gmailjson_url + '?hl=en&' +'et=q12L78FH&' +'url=http%3A//www.google.co.uk/ig%3Fhl%3Den&' +'cnt=' + GM39.req_count + '&' +'val=5',GM39.render);},togglePreview : function() {var threads = _gel('GM39threads');var visible = (threads.style.display != 'none')?1:0;_gel('GM39showhidemsg').innerHTML =GM39[visible ? 'MSG_show_preview' : 'MSG_hide_preview'];threads.style.display = visible ? 'none' : 'block';_xsetp('m_39_sv='+(1-visible));},render : function(data) {if (!data || data == '' ||data.length <= 27 ||data.charAt(27) != '{') {GM39.msg('Information is temporarily unavailable.');return;}var obj = eval('(' + data.substring(27) + ')');if (obj[GM39.MAP_ERROR_MSG_] &&obj[GM39.MAP_ERROR_MSG_] != '') {GM39.msg(obj[GM39.MAP_ERROR_MSG_]);return;}_gel('GM39msg').style.display = 'none';_gel('GM39noaccount').style.display = 'none';_gel('GM39display').style.display = 'block';var tpl = (obj[GM39.MAP_NUM_UNREAD_] > 0) ?GM39.TPL_label_unread :GM39.TPL_label_no_unread;tpl += GM39.TPL_label_suffix;tpl = tpl.replace(/\%NUM_UNREAD\%/g,obj[GM39.MAP_NUM_UNREAD_]);var threads = _gel('GM39threads');var hidden = (threads.style.display == 'none')?1:0;tpl = tpl.replace(/\%SHOWHIDE_MSG\%/g, hidden ?GM39.MSG_show_preview :GM39.MSG_hide_preview);tpl += GM39.TPL_compose_mail;var div

I don't actually see anything particularly sensitive in there but somebody who actually can spell DBA might know better.

Monday, February 09, 2009

More piss-poor journalism

This story is (al-Beeb, Torygraph twice, Scotsman, Gruniard) somewhat worrying - as it involves a relatively senior officer, leaks of classified information, and smears and innuendo. I will point out that I know nothing about this case so will just cynically suggest that the Met will undoubtedly discover that the inept initial investigation by the RMP SIB will have resulted in procedural flaws that would, expensively and publicly, probably see him cleared of all charges.

But this is what I object to, from the Beeb of course:

He joined the Army in 1977 as a private, was commissioned as an officer in 1995 and is said to be one of the service's most high-ranking former non-commissioned officers.

He might be "said to be" in the meeja circles around Notting Hill. But he isn't. Straight off the top of my head, I give you Major General David McDowall, GOC 2 Div and Governor of Edinburgh Castle.  Now, do I remember seeing something about him in the press recently ... Ahh, yes, the BBC:

A soldier from a harbour town in south west Scotland is to advise the UK Government on social mobility.

Maj Gen David McDowall MBE grew up in a council house in Stranraer and started his military career as a private with the Royal Signals.

He will represent the armed forces on a panel set up to help remove obstacles to accessing professional jobs.

Of course, a Major General is 3 very significant ranks senior to a Lt Col.  Now, I appreciate that knowing anything accurate about the military is a thought-crime under the new regime but if they can't even check their own archives (less than a month old.)

Update: The Jockman are at it too:

who is thought to be one of the army's most senior former non-commissioned officers, has been returned to the UK on suspicion of breaching the secrets act.

Here is their 29 Jan article about Gen McDowall, "The class warrior".  Bunch of preening journo tits, the whole bloody lot of them.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Global Warming Denier! Defenestrate him!

BBC Radio 4 weather report, 12:55pm,  Saturday 31st Jan 2009.

This has been the coldest start to the winter for a decade ...

Your job's toast when the Notting Hill mafia get back on Monday, mate. 
 
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