Google analytics

Wednesday 31 March 2010

Climate change.

I f you, like me, think there is more to the subject than meets the eye. Then go and read here.

What really happened

 

It's a long read but gives the History of scares and their reasons.

A bit Smellie to me.

Remember watching this.

Well it would appear that he has got away with it. Although there maybe  disciplinary action against him.

A Metropolitan Police officer accused of striking a woman with a metal baton at a G20 demonstration has been cleared of common assault.

Sgt Delroy Smellie denied attacking Nicola Fisher, 36, of Brighton, at the G20 protest in London in April 2009.

To me this was beyond belief.

Judge Wickham added: "I am satisfied he honestly believed it was necessary to use force to defend himself."

Watch the footage again and just look at their relevant sizes, for Christ's sake.

This is what happens when there is no jury.

The country really has gone to the pigs dogs.

Source

Any Police actually out on the streets?

Do you actually consider that any of the groups below couldn't be axed after the next election? I mean why do we need a "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Action Group" and a "Gender and Transgender Action Group"?

Citizen Focus Performance Gold Group

The Diversity and Fairness Strategy Board, responsible for setting the strategic direction of Kent Police for race and diversity, is now part of the new Citizen Focus Performance Gold Group.

Equality and Standards Board

The Diversity and Fairness Delivery Group is now part of this new board, which the Assistant Chief Constable (Human Resources and Learning and Development) chairs.

The board reports to the Citizen Focus Performance Gold Group.

Minority Ethnic Action Group

To raise awareness of race relations, racism and cultural diversity throughout the force.

Disability Action Group

To make sure that Kent Police is fully compliant with all aspects of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and meets the general duty to promote disability equality and the specific duties contained in the act.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Action Group

To assist Kent Police in an advisory/consultative capacity on matters affecting lesbian, gay and bisexual staff and be a dynamic forum for positive action.

Immigration and Asylum Action Group

To advise the Equality and Standards Board on diversity issues relating to immigration and asylum.

Hate Crime Action Group

To liaise with external and partner organisations, specifically Victim Support, to make sure holistic awareness is maximised and opportunities for making a positive impact on hate crimes and incidents are identified.

Age Action Group

Advise the Equality and Standards Board on issues of age relating to the working environment, employment and potential employment and service delivery

Gender and Transgender Action Group

To drive the implementation of the Gender and Transgender Action Group Plan.

Fairness Action Group

To advise the Equality and Standards Board on fairness issues relating the working environment, employment, potential employment and service delivery.

Gypsy & Traveller Action Group

To assist the force in making sure its policies and procedures take into account the needs of Gypsy and Traveller groups.

Religion and Belief Action Group

To monitor and provide advice on the investigation of religiously motivated hate crime and strategies to assist its reduction.

Diversity Team

The Diversity Manager provides support and guidance to deliver a service which abides by fair practice in equality and diversity.

Diversity Training Team

The Training Team is responsible for reviewing all learning and development taken by Kent Police officers and staff to ensure it meets the requirements of our Equality Scheme. The team also produces and delivers a range of equality and diversity training for external customers.

I'm sure I could do most of this work on my own. Maybe some part time staff.

It seems a staggering waste of money to me.

Oh, and by the way. They have £11.1 million in Icelandic banks out of the Kent total of £50 million. They really don't seem to be good with their money

Electric Crap

Paul Withrington from Transport Watch writes ...
How can anybody think that the electric car is the solution to any problem? The belief that it will emit 40% less carbon than conventional vehicles is based on the Arup/Cenex report with the natty title "Investigation into the Scope for the Transport Sector to Switch to Electric Vehicles and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles", dated October 2008.

Unfortunately its conclusions depend on the wild claims of manufacturers, rather than upon sensible tests. Not surprisingly the gap between those claims and the anecdotal performance of the vehicles is so large as to beggar belief:

• An electric car provided to a journalist for tests was alleged to have a 70-mile range. The journalist decided to be safe and planned a 50-mile trip only to find the specially prepared car failed at 37 miles.

• A user of a G-Wiz found that the battery expired after two years and three months, instead of after the hoped-for five years.

• Jeremy Clarkson found that the Tesla ran out of power after 55 miles on his test track, rather than after the 220 miles claimed by the manufacturer.

• An electric Ford Transit-sized van provided to a manufacturer, who wants to remain anonymous, was alleged to have a range of 100 miles. The manufacturer found that on the level, and with no load, the vehicle managed 60 miles but that on hills in Wales it managed just six (yes, six!).

• Adverse weather conditions are said to reduce battery performance by 40% to 50%.

Furthermore, section six of the Arup/Cenex paper 'demonstrates' that the cost of running an electric vehicle will be less than that for an internal combustion-powered vehicle. However, the costs assigned to petrol and diesel include tax, so exaggerating the economy of the electric vehicle by a factor of at least three. Against that background we regard the paper, a paper upon which national policy hangs, as worthless.

What better illustration do we need of the poor quality of the advice given to Government and of the naivety of those who receive it?

H/T to the GOS

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Never be an Executer

I never realised how much was involved in being an executor for someone else's estate.

Even with a solicitor there is a vast amount of work involved. Death certificates obtained and sent to all relevant parties. Ie. Inland revenue, utilities, and banks, etc, etc.

Then, as I've posted before dealing you have to deal with the Numpties in the Utility companies that don't talk between their own internal departments. Like having to deal with dodgy debt collection agencies that have the facts wrong and refuse to discuss them. (I also wonder how honest they are?).

Then there is the reams of paperwork required for the Inland revenue in order that they can get there pound of flesh from death duties.

Then to sell the property you have to submit documents to prove that you are not an international money launderer. The estate agents are required to ask for these, even when they know you.

Then there is HIPS. You know, that stupid document that no buyer in their right mind would trust. Any sane buyer makes sure that a full survey is undertaken by a qualified surveyor. Not someone who has done a 4 week course.

Energy proficiency certificate. FFS how many of the numpties carrying this out have a qualification in thermodynamics? All they will do is a quick visual inspection. That means bugger all.

And in the end I don't even get paid for it. What's more the beneficiaries are two spendthrift relations who have all ready spunked previous legacies against the wall and expect me to work unpaid in their best interest.

Note to me: I shall not rant, I shall not rant. I shall...........

Now I really have gone bonkers.

old bailey

 

I've just found myself agreeing with George Monbiot.

Why do our paranoid, anti-fun police seem to think they run the country?

In his article he rips into the anti fun police over cancelled festivals and the treatment of lawful protests.

Over in the Guardian.

Ooh er. I've just admitted to reading the Guardian.

That's my money you're giving away.

laptop

 

Another Iniative:

A secondary school has become the first in Britain to issue every pupil with a personal laptop they can use at home.

All 1,400 students at Writhlington School have been given a Dell Netbook worth £400 which they use in lessons and take home with them.

It's bad enough that they're giving them away for free. Another is that they could have purchased the laptops considerably cheaper elsewhere. See here for example.

Of course they won't be used for logging onto Facebook or Bebo I trust.

I liked this though:

Their laptops are automatically backed-up on the school's main hard drives every time they are connected to the network.

I wonder what the IT department are going to find when they delve in to their server. Expect it to be full of Porn, viruses, and malware.

 

Source

Monday 29 March 2010

Oi you lot.

I'm a crap Blogger. Therefore will you all stop reading my drivel as it's costing me money to Statcounter to keep up with the passing trade.

Only joking. Thanks to Everyone who visits. I love the comments. Especially the humorous ones. Keep them coming.

I never realised how incredibly difficult it was to Blog. I often get halfway through a blog and then give up. I will try and do better.

Thanks all.

I'll go to hell any day.

Censorship. The Christian way.

christian

Add-on for Firefox

H/T to the All Seeing Eye

Saturday 27 March 2010

I went to London

And nearly had my day ruined by London transport.

It was pissing down with rain so the sensible way to travel you would think is to go by Tube

Wrong. Doubly wrong. The authorities had seen fit to close three of the main lines all at the same time. Now I've used the Tube in the weekday rush hour and know what it's like. This was, unbelievably, worse. Trains were coming in full, and the platforms were a seething mass of tube train "displaced persons".

Get a grip Boris.

I did enjoy Phantom of The Opera though (third time).

Friday 26 March 2010

She's worth it. (And I'm not)

pen

 

When I retired after 44 years of loyal service to the crown (3 wars experienced). I received a two minute phone call thanking me.

The OH completes 15 years service and receives the following:

Dinner at Claridges

An £850 Mont Blanc pen set

An £830 Mont Blanc briefcase

and a £230 Mont Blanc Note book

Wimmin!

Yes I know that Subrosa will villify me. However I'm going to nick the fountain pen as my wife's writing is utter shite.

Casualties of.......

A U.S. army platoon was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi insurgent, badly injured and unconscious on the left-hand side of the road.

On the right-hand side was a British soldier in a similar, but less serious state. The Brit was conscious and alert. As first aid was given to both men, the American platoon leader asked the injured soldier what had happened.

The soldier reported: “I was recce-ing the highway here when suddenly, coming towards me from the south was a heavily-armed insurgent. We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road.

“I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein had been a miserable, lowlife scumbag who’d got what he deserved. The insurgent yelled back that Gordon Brown is a fat, useless, lying, one-eyed porridge wog. And furthermore, Lord Mandelson is a pillow-biting gay bastard!

“So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and ponces about like a frigid, hatchet-faced lesbian.
He retaliated by saying that so does Harriet Harman.

“And, there we were – in the middle of the road – shaking hands, when the f*****g bus hit us.”

 

H/T to The Daily Politics

Politics made easy. The Labour way.

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, 'What is Politics?'
Dad says, 'Well son, let me try to explain it this way:

"I am the head of the family, so call me The Prime Minister".

"Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government".

"We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People".

"The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class".

"And your baby brother, we will call him the Future.
Now think about that and see if it makes sense".'

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.
Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his nappy.
So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny..
He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy say's to his father, 'Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now. '
The father says, 'Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.'

The little boy replies, 'The Prime Minister is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit.'

7000 words

plodbanks

 

Further to my post Yesterday concerning computer illiteracy.

It would seem that our beloved Police Farce Service cannot use their computers properly either.

A police force has issued officers with 22 pages of guidance on how to write e-mails and use the internet.

I'm not surprised as most of them are shaven headed louts in fancy blue/black urban warfare suits.

In two documents, totaling 7,000 words, staff at Nottinghamshire police are warned of the "risks" associated with the world wide web and the importance of addressing e-mails correctly.

At least some other farces can manage with less.

Other forces have managed to get the message across in a more concise fashion. Cumbria Police wrote just 600 words of guidance for police about what they do online.

To have to write 7000 words either implies that the Plods  have no commonsense OR that the author of the Guidance is not gainfully employed. If the latter, can we please have him sacked. A bit more money back into our broken economy would be nice.

H/T to The Telegraph.

Nope. Wont be going there then.

 

The Times and the Sunday Times are to start charging for content online in June.

Must be desperate

Thursday 25 March 2010

Aaaargh. Euthanasia for the computer illiterates.

Will relations and friends of mine please get into the computer era? If as a pensioner, I can find my way round a computer, why can't you?

I seem to spend half my life these days on the phone trying to sort out computer problems of people at least a decade or two younger than me.

The usual excuse is "No-one taught me". Well to these Luddites, my reply is. "No-one taught me either".

I've just spent two hours on the phone trying to sort out why this Fuckwit relation couldn't access her Hotmail. In the end, after accessing it for her, I finally convinced her to open a new one. Mind you that was a saga in itself. (Mind you I must admit I found her dating habits on the old site a tad interesting).

Why can't people try and learn about new technology, rather than expect others to sort it out for them.

Then of course the explanation is:

She's a Teacher and votes Labour. Nuff said

Booking fatigue.

1549_08_6---Scaligero-Castle--Malcesine--Lake-Garda--Italy-Castello-Scaligero--Malcesine--Lago-di-Garda--Italia_web

 

The whole world is going to Lake Garda it would seem.

I've just spent the last two days trawling websites trying to book hotel rooms for 10 people. As fast as I tried to book, some other bugger beat me to it. As the hours went on the rooms dwindled, along with my sense of humour. It was like being stalked. It was as if people were waiting till my mouse was poised and then clicking a fraction of a second before me. It was like bidding on E bay.

If it's going to be the same when I try booking flights, I'm going to hurl my keyboard into the bin.

Wednesday 24 March 2010

The Budget.

All I'm going to say is:

I've been shafted in every budget since time begun. So what's new.

Please Gordon, If I voluntarily re-classify myself as lower class, can I be let off this time?

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Webeurope/Easycms/Pumpkinmedia. Or whoever you're called now.

It doesn't appear to have very good Employer/Employee relations it would appear.

From the comments on my Blog comes this. I hope XWEBEUROPE EMPLOYEE that you don't mind me posting it for the edification of the readers.

I used to unfortunately work for webeurope!


BIG MISTAKE!!!


Too good to be true for sure! I could tell many a fascinating story regarding Mr Karl Winn (aka Brick Top, Snatch) and his beloved WEBEUROPE/EASYCMS/PUMPKIN MEDIA (ran under Mark Peach), awesome stuff! I love the fact they are still using agencies under many names to get employees... In 2 days 3 seperate companies have called me regarding a position in Taunton for £30k etc, im like "PUMPKIN, or webeurope by any chance?!?!", LMAO!!!


Well this is known as KARMA WEBEUROPE for stiffing me out of a months wage and just "letting me go" for no reason! they are lucky that i had no money because I was at the final stages of an employment tribunal but needed to fork out for the courts, and i was skint! so they got away with it.


K A R M A its a bitch! hahahahhaha

And if there is anything else you can tell me..............?

Monday 22 March 2010

Byers. You are toast

The petition to remove Privy council status from "The Right Honourable Stephen Byers is gathering momentum.

This is the man that was caught out trying to sell influence to a "sting" Lobbying firm. He doesn't deserve to be called "Honourable". Indeed he should be prosecuted.

Sign the petition

The Power of the Blogosphere.

God forbid I've just strayed onto Left wing turf.

Over at Left Foot Forward there is a guest article by a Andrew Regan(???).

Here is a snippet or two of what he has to say.

Anyone who follows the BBC News site, or who reads a newspaper, will be familiar with a good few interest groups and think tanks. Where their news releases aren’t the entire basis for the story, they are invited to comment at length, in the name of political “balance”, or on the basis of an often-undeserved authority.

He singles out The Taxpayers Alliance as corporate shills trying to influence governments.

Mind you he refrains from talking about the fake charities/Quangos that are in large funded by the Government to get the Government  message across.

Here's where he doesn't get the real reason, why people blog.

What I propose is a collective – and non-partisan – organisation of political bloggers, which will challenge the interest groups in the name of honest and open politics, and provide newspapers and online news sites with a central resource that allows them to dispense with the services of self-interested think tanks and self-styled experts.

In my case the reason I blog, is that I want to expose any wrongdoings of anyone, when I want. I don't wish to be in some self congratulating "Labourlist". Blogging is about being "Individual", not part of some Borg collective.

That's why Left leaning blogs are so dull. Groupthink is all.

Petition to strip Stephen Byers of his Privy council membership.

It's over here. The count is up to 1906. And that's in only a couple of hours from a count of 160.

H/T to the Sunlight centre for open Politics

 

UPDATE: Nearly 3000 petitioners now. Keep up the good work.

Car for sale.

I just had to post the link to this. The owner should be snapped up by a prestigious marketing firm.

Ebay Advert

H/T to the Clown

Who said this, and why?

xxx xxxxxxxx grabbed her mobile phone from her handbag.

'I wasn't on hands-free, but I figured I wasn't really driving the car,' she said. 'I just screamed at the operator, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die! Can you do something?"

Answer

Sunday 21 March 2010

Weddings. How much should I have to fork out?

Considering the last daughter cost me £27,000. Would anything less be suitable for the other daughter?

Answers required.

Replies like: "you stupid twat",

"Who pays out that sort of money?", and

"tell them to bugger off". All are welcome.

Ideas will be considered.

Oh and bye the way. You have to justify your answer to my wife.

Welcome to the game of Marital chicken.

This might be the venue

Motoring today.

noddy

 

Why is it that Sunday brings out the worst drivers onto the Roads?

1. The old man in his Nissan Micra. Why do you need to wear a coat and hat in a car that has climate control? More importantly. Could you please for fuck's sake drive more than 25 Mph on the open road? Surely the clue was the thirty cars behind you. (At least my 220 BHP got a workout when overtaking him).

2. The M25 driver in the outside lane pegged to exactly 70 Mph and refuses to move over.

3. The woman at the Dartford crossing ahead of me. Before you set off next time. have the Toll charge ready. At least have your handbag in the front of the car.

4. I can't go on. My blood pressure is too high.

 

And that was only the outward journey. The return journey was worse because................. It was dark.

Chimps

PCSO_1600474c

 

I always said they were a waste of space. I'm talking about PCSOs here.

Supporters say they offer a reassuring uniformed presence on the streets, but critics – including many regular officers – have branded them "plastic policemen" or "CHIMPS", which stands for "completely hopeless in most policing situations".

It would appear that some of them are not too honest

There have been at least 2,233 investigations into PCSOs for alleged misconduct. By comparison, a total of 16,300 PCSOs are now serving nationally.

Now I'm off out to lunch. You can read the whole article here.

Friday 19 March 2010

Bring it on John Mann

Tell me about the money, John

John Mann MP gets a bit touchy when he asked about an expenses repayment he made of £2,395.02


He says he claimed it on the wrong forms, and can't be arsed to reclaim it.

Every time somebody asks him about it, they're threatened with a libel action.

So, how about it, John, sue me if you like, but tell me what the money was for.

--------------------------------

note - To my fellow bloggers, cut and paste and put on your blog! He can't 'sue' us all.

 

H/T to Ranting Rab

Pumpkin Media

How many Web design companies are there at 17 Cornishway, Taunton?

 

http://www.pumpkin-media.co.uk/contactus.php

http://www.webeurope.co.uk/

http://www.easycms.co.uk/

And they've all got the same telephone number.

Karl Winn. You can run but you can't hide.

And your new site is still crap.

And from Google

Webeurope is a busy website design company based in Taunton, Somerset. We are fast becoming the largest web design company in the South West area, ...

How do you all fit in to the same building?

Aaaaaaargh (Again and again)

Any of you that are regular readers of this Blog will have noticed that I have had trouble with the Utility Companies,  serving my deceased Uncle's property.

Just when I thought it was all cut and dried I find lying on his doormat, this:

CCS changed

I really despair. This time it was TalkTalk. Just getting through to them was bad enough. The customer services number on their web site has four options. Guess what? Option 4, which I needed, didn't work.

The next number I found produced a very unhelpful lady from abroad who tried to make out it was all my fault in someway. I hadn't followed out their procedure. I tried to explain in simple words that as I wasn't their customer, how could I possibly know their mores and customs? (Oh and needless to say, her Supervisor was conveniently out.)

Found another number The Cones cancellation hotline, and after eventually fighting my way remorselessly up the queue, and being told every step of the way "that my custom was important to them", I finally reached someone who could actually do something.

Even then after explaining to the young Scottish Lassie that it really was their ineptitude that had caused all this in the first place, she had the cheek to suggest that I do all the leg work in setting it straight. I "politely"* declined.

The worst thing about it is they never apologise.

* Only slightly sweary language used. No "C"words were harmed in the making.

Thursday 18 March 2010

Ooh Err

Looking through my stats I find this search:

"pictures of hairy cunts wide open"

I'm now a world famous porn site!

Another reason to not vote conservative.

I was appalled to read this at Conservative Home. And I thought they might, just might be on the side of the little people. No. just like their Statist friends in the Labour Party.

They're going to raise the tax on Cigarettes by 5%. As they put it:

So following earlier Policy Exchange research that indicates that tobacco taxes are the most popular way to raise additional revenue, we suggest that tobacco taxation should be increased by 5% in the next Budget.  This would see the price of a typical pack of cigarettes rise by 23 pence from £6.13 to £6.36 per packet and generate over £400 million for HM Treasury.

Not withstanding that they want a minimum price for Alcohol, what other pleasures in life are they going to tax to the hilt?

Cunts.

H/T to

Friends of Forest

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Mrs Thatcher could do it, so why can't Gordon Brown?

mrs T

 

Mrs T realised that she had to save money by pruning the non-productive sector. So she did so ruthlessly as soon as she became Prime Minister.

One of her first moves on taking office in May was to start cutting Civil Service jobs. The Government machine needed cutting by at least 5 per cent, she insisted, but ideally closer to 20 per cent.

And she certainly was not to be turned by anyone.

Any minister who tried to block her was given short shrift. “This paper is much too sketchy and cannot possibly be included,” she wrote on a draft paper in which Christopher Soames, the Lord President of the Council, suggested that the mass redundancies planned by the Prime Minister were less than prudent. “What are we doing with 566,000 that can’t be done with 500,000?”

I wonder how she would treat the EU nowadays if she had only known what an Edifice of corruption and power it would become. Maybe she would have remembered this affair :

Mrs Thatcher’s forthright, if pragmatic, style was also evident in her dealings with Rhodesia after the April 1979 election, which resulted in a power-sharing arrangement that involved neither of the main nationalist parties. When it was suggested that Lord Harlech, emissary to Rhodesia, should meet the Patriotic Front there, she scribbled: “No! Please do not meet with the ‘Patriotic Front’. I have never done business with terrorists until they become prime ministers.”

But then again she didn't have to satisfy any Union Paymasters and their old style communist ideas

Thankyou to The Times

Just Change the name to prevent failure.

Just by changing your name from Webeurope is not going to get you off the hook so lightly.

You're still in the frame as Easycms

PS Your Website design is still crap and you Mr Karl Winn, are still a cunt.

Bloody Hell.

He must have seen it? Surely?

 

H/T to

Dizzy

Webeurope - fail

When you get crap like this it makes your blood boil.

Karl Winn of Taunton, 60, is the boss of a net design company named Webeurope and he employs 16 people. He was contacted by Forces Recruitment Services who asked if he would consider taking on ex-soldiers. His response was:

Personally, I'd rather recruit ex-drug dealers, convicts and even child molesters rather than consider anybody who has been in the pay of the British Government.'

'Anybody who has been in the pay of such a military force, and by their silence and complicity has condoned such illegal and immoral actions while accepting a monthly bloodstained pay-packet , certainly won't be considered for employment by us.'

'The reality for the families of their victims is that there will never be any justice, and there never will be any closure, for the loss of a son, a husband, a child, or a family member who has fallen victim to British Military personnel who are going beyond 'just doing their job'.

'Please remove us from your email list. Regards, Karl.'

What a nice man.

UPDATE: Solution is to change the name 

Source

Tuesday 16 March 2010

In Memory of the 300 who have fallen

poppy

 

The death toll since the war started has now passed 300

THE  FINAL INSPECTION

The soldier stood and faced God,  
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.


'Step forward now, you  soldier,
How shall I deal with you ?
Have you always turned the other cheek ?
To My Church have you been true?'


The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
'No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
Because those of us who carry  guns,
Can't always be a saint.


I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.


But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.


And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.


I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.


If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand.


There was a silence all  around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.


'Step forward  now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens  well..
Walk peacefully on Heaven's  streets,
You've done your time in Hell.'


Author Unknown~

It's the Military, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the Press.

It's the Military, not the poet who has given us the freedom of speech.   
It's the Military, not the politicians that ensures our right to Life, Liberty , and the pursuit of Happiness.

It's the Military, that salutes the flag, that serves beneath it, who's coffins are draped by it.    

Monday 15 March 2010

A law a day keeps me..... Furious.

 justice

 

4,300: How Labour has created a new crime every day since 1997

The slew of new offences produced by this government has its comic touches, but also wider implications for civil liberties


Imagine arriving home after a fortnight’s holiday in the sun to find a deluge of mail and your burglar alarm going off. There is no sign of a break-in but an offence has been committed — by you. Under laws introduced by Labour, if you have failed to nominate a keyholder who can switch off your alarm you are guilty of an offence. You could be liable for a fine of £1,000 and could have to appear in front of a magistrate if you fail to pay a fixed penalty on time.

 
This is just one of 4,300 offences created by the Labour government since 1997 — an avalanche of legislation. It equates to an average of 28 offences every month since Labour came to power and it is getting worse. Under Gordon Brown, the Liberal Democrats say, the creation of offences has risen to 33 a month.

 
By contrast, the Conservative governments between 1988 and 1996 produced 494 offences in total. Since 1997 Labour has introduced more than 50 criminal justice bills to parliament — to the dismay of many lawyers, who believe much of it is more for show than real effect.
Richard Garside, director of the centre for crime and justice studies at King’s College London, said: “For the period since the war to around the 1980s you saw one major criminal justice bill each decade, but since 1997 we’ve seen more than 50. There has been an enormous cranking-up of activity in this area.”
Archbold, the barristers’ handbook, describes the government’s approach as a “disgrace”. The book has condensed its typeface to cram in the laws, which its publisher describes as an “explosion of activity”. The preface to the latest edition complains that there is “far too much criminal legislation” and attacks the government’s habit of “legislating by trial and error”.

 

Ed: usually by trial fixed penalty.


Such is the output that the government appears unable to keep track of its own measures. In response to parliamentary questions, various Whitehall departments have said that the cost of compiling a list of all the criminal offences they have created in the past two years would be “disproportionate”.

 
Chris Huhne, home affairs spokesman for the Lib Dems, who has mounted a campaign against the “legislative diarrhoea”, said: “Most crimes that people care about have been illegal for years. Cutting crime should be about catching and reforming criminals, not creating law.”

 
As examples of unnecessary micromanaging laws, Huhne points out that Labour has made it illegal to “disturb a pack of eggs when instructed not to do so by an officer”; and under a law updated in 2007 it is now illegal to “sell or offer for sale a bird of game killed on a Sunday or Christmas Day”.

 
Petty though many of these offences seem, they contribute to a growing sense of government restriction creeping into private life. In some cases they also involve a serious erosion of civil liberties.


How did this happen — and what do opponents suggest?
The Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act of 1998 illustrates Labour’s approach. Even before MPs and civil servants spent hundreds of hours drafting and passing the law, common sense would have told most people that it was not a good idea to set off a nuclear bomb.

 
Under the Explosive Substances Act of 1883 you already faced life imprisonment for causing an explosion with intent to endanger life, attempting to cause an explosion with intent or possessing an explosive substance with intent, or conspiracy to cause an explosion with intent. Under other laws you could be prosecuted for possessing an explosive substance and face 14 years in prison. Failing that, there are laws on murder and genocide.

 
Yet the government decided it had to create a law that states in its first section: “Any person who knowingly causes a nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for life” (at the same time, incidentally, section two of the act decrees that it is perfectly legal to set off a nuclear bomb “in the course of an armed conflict”.) The government argues that it brought in the law to comply with an international treaty. The Lib Dems, whose justice spokesman David Howarth is an academic expert on law, says the treaty did not require the government to pass a law to meet its obligations.

And those two thousand centrifuges in my shed spinning away won't be noticed

 
More reasonably, the government argues that changes in technology, business practices and lifestyles have had to be addressed by laws. It cites offences that were introduced as a result of the outbreak of “mad cow” disease and the foot and mouth crises. Others have followed advances in computing and telecommunications.
This may be reflected in the fact that the greatest number of offences — 960 — have been created by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, while the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has clocked up 647. No wonder businesses complain of red tape.

 
The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice between them account for 583 offences. “The government is not in the business of making new laws except when it is in the public interest,” the Ministry of Justice said. “Trivialising these laws ignores their significant benefits to the public. There is a range of reasons why such new laws are made; for example, technological advancement has created the need to protect the public through data protection legislation and by giving the police new powers.”


However, it is hard to discern such imperatives in some of the laws Labour has introduced. Specific measures have, for example, been taken to outlaw swimming in the wreck of the Titanic, obstructing work on the Docklands Light Railway in London and impersonating a barrister.


And remember, if you happen to come across an automatic rail weighbridge to which there is affixed a disqualification sticker — don’t use it. That might seem obvious but, just to make sure, Labour made it an offence under the Measuring Instruments Regulations of 2006.


Many of the laws come with serious penalties, including imprisonment. You can potentially be jailed for not having a licence for a church concert, smoking in a public place (Remember Nick Hogan), selling a grey squirrel or shipping unlicensed fish. In all, more than 1,400 offences can result in prison sentences.

 
Some laws can have drastic side-effects as in the recent case of Philip Bowles, a 60-year-old businessman with no previous convictions who was charged with Vat offences. Bowles protested that he was unable to mount a proper defence because his money had been seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and his tax records had been taken by administrators. He was refused legal aid to hire a forensic accountant to examine his confiscated records. He was found guilty of switching a Vat liability between two companies and jailed for 3½ years.
Just before his sentencing a firm of accountants, acting pro bono, produced a financial report that his lawyers say proves his innocence. He is awaiting an appeal hearing at which it can be submitted.

 
Lawyers, burdened with keeping pace with the flood of offences, complain of failings on the government’s part. Kirsty Brimelow, a criminal law barrister, said: “Some sections are never brought in and others have been introduced at one point only to be taken out again later.”

 
Civil rights groups worry that many of the laws represent an unhealthy extension of the state into our private lives. “There has been too much acting in haste and repenting at leisure,” said Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty. “Some of these laws are laughable, whereas others have seriously eroded our rights and freedoms. But among the many new offences that have flown onto the statute book in recent years, precious few have made us any safer.”

 
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 gave police powers to stop and search anyone inside designated areas without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Yet recently there have been complaints that the law has been used not to catch terrorists but to stop people who have been taking innocent pictures of tourist sites and other buildings, particularly in London.

Oh, and don't you dare raise your camera.

 
Huhne blames much of the deluge on ministers wanting to “mark their footprint in the legislative sand” and manipulate public opinion. Paul Mendelle QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, seems to agree. He has labelled superfluous laws as “glory legislation” and cites as an example the law of selfdefence. “They have simply put in statutory form what was already in the common law,” he said. “It’s purely window dressing.”
Chris Grayling, the Tory spokesman on home affairs, said: “What Labour has been doing is using legislation as a public relations exercise. As a result we have ended up with far too many laws and far too much complexity. What you’ve got to remember is that your new bobby on the beat has to know a lot of these things in order to be able to arrest people appropriately. So what we are expecting our new young police officers to do is to absorb a huge amount of extra information that has little operational merit. All it does is give the government a few good headlines.”


If the morass of laws is enough to make you want to escape for a long contemplative walk with the dog, just pause and check the length of your dog lead before you go. There is a law for that as well. It states: “It is an offence when in charge of a dog on land to which a dog control order applies, not to keep the dog on a lead or on a lead of a maximum length prescribed in the order.”

 
A selection of comical and duplicated offences created by Labour since 1997 ...
• Carrying grain on a ship without a copy of the International Grain Code on board
• Shining a light at an aircraft to dazzle or distract the pilot
• Unauthorised fishing in the Lower Esk River
• Obstructing an authorised person from inspecting apple, pear, peach or nectarine orchards for the purposes of ascertaining whether grubbing up has been carried out
• Failure to attend a hearing by a bus lane contravention adjudicator
• As a merchant shipping officer, falsely claiming a door is closed and locked
• Selling non-native species such as a grey squirrel, ruddy duck or Japanese knotweed
• Obstructing workers carrying out repairs to the Docklands light railway
• Keeping a dog on a lead longer than a maximum length in a designated area nUsing an automatic rail-weighbridge which has a disqualification sticker on it
• Not having a licence for a church concert

Do I need a blog license?

In Unison Now......

Here is a remake of Unison's video that is trying to spread fear amongst slaves members in the Public sector.

   

H/T to Constantly Furious

How times have changed.

When I started work:

You could smoke anywhere. (Even in the classroom at college).

Pubs were a haven of peace. You could drink and smoke. Both at the same time. Wow.

Police walked the streets and were pleasant to talk to. (Now the shaven headed, body armoured, thugs are only seen speeding past in cars)

There were no surveillance cameras. Now they are everywhere. (Do you feel safer?)

No speed cameras, taxing you for minor infringments. Where are the traffic cops who gave you a stern ticking off? But allowed you to keep your license and maybe your job.

No compulsory seat belts leglislation. It was accepted that if I wanted to die horribly, that was my choice.

The weather in the UK was bloody awfull. It still is. But now it's down to AGW.

We never locked our doors. Now I've got security locks everywhere.

Children could play outside alone. Not now that there are millions of Paedophiles on the rampage. (or so you would think)(Think of the Cheeeldren).

We could feed the ducks. That's verboten now

Taking photographs was fun. Bloody hell. They lock you up for that now.

Travel was an adventure. Now it is a nightmare. Three hours of security nonsense on the planes. Commuter trains that would make India blush.

Have I left anything out?

Oh yes. Political Correctness.

I can't even have a simple conversation without rehearsing it in my mind, in case it offends anyone within a 100 miles.

Need I go on? No.

You Terrorist

Like to draw your curtains, pay by cash? Then don't.

 

 

Whose that knocking on my door?

H/t to Big brother watch

Saturday 13 March 2010

And a touch of culture to end tonight

Well you Philistines need something.

A Pittance of time

Someone read one of my old blogs and it brought this to mind. Although this was written for Remembrance Sunday I thought this was apposite to our troops who are being killed or wounded almost daily in Afghanistan.



I have been in more wars and conflicts than I wish to remember. Can we stop now? We are losing too many of our youth to satisfy the ambitions of those in Government who have no idea of the horror. Has Gordon Brown ever seen a headless corpse inches from his eyes? I have. It still gives me nightmares after 40 years.

That Climate change advert.

A slight twist. Oh and how can that dear cherub have such a foul mouth?

Saturday light entertainment

I'm bored but you don't need to be:

One Liners

    

I get on extremely well with the lesbians next door.
They asked me what I would like for my birthday.
I was stunned when they gave me a Rolex.
It was very nice of them, but I think they misunderstood me when I said, "I wanna watch."
---
Why is it when your wife becomes pregnant, all her female friends rub her tummy and say "congratulations"
but none of them rub your d1ck and say "well done"?
---
Honestly some folk will take offence at anything.
I met a bloke with no legs this morning while at the bus stop and all I asked was "How are you getting on?"
---
Paddy was in the delivery room when the midwife handed him a black baby "Is this yours?" she asked.
"Probably." said Paddy "She burns everything else!"
---
My missus has just gone into hospital with two black eyes and a broken jaw.
It seems we were on different wavelengths when she said she wanted decking on the patio.
---
Sex therapist claim that the most effective way to arouse your man is to spend 10 minutes licking his ears!!

Personally I think its bollocks!!
---
They reckon that Beer contains female hormones and I think they are right.
After 8 pints I talk shit and can't drive!
---
What's the difference between Basil Brush and a Terrorist with a rucksack?
The Terrorist with a rucksack only goes "Boom" once.
---
Vicar booking into a hotel asks the receptionist "Is the Porn channel in my room disabled?"
"No," she replies "it's just regular porn you sick bastard."
---
A mate of mine has just told me he's shagging his girlfriend and her twin.
I said "How can you tell them apart?" He said "Her brother's got a moustache!"
---
A biker goes to the doctor with hearing problems.
"Can you describe the symptoms to me?" asked the doctor.
"Yes. Homer is a fat yellow lazy bastard and Marge is a skinny bird with big
blue hair."

I think I've just broken every rule in the PC book. If my blog goes off line unexpectedly..............................

Spin the bottle

An excellent article over at the devil's Kitchen, penned by the Filthy Smoker.

It's all about the debate on minimum pricing for Alcohol.

 

Go and read it. Den of liars

Keystone cops anyone?

You really couldn't make it up.

It would appear that Thames valley Police are even more incompetant than their Home Office rating of "poor".

Maybe their could be a level of "Abysmal" added?

Officers were alerted to an armed raid at a Lloyds TSB branch in Henley-on-Thames, South Oxon, but instead scrambled to another bank more than 14 miles away in a different county.

Meanwhile, the armed thief walked out of the bank with tens of thousands of pounds.

"It's not us. It was the alarms fault Guv".

Thames Valley Police chiefs said an automatic alarm had sent officers to the branch in Pangbourne, Berks.

Come on. Pull the other leg it's got bells on.

Police are appealing for any information about the robber, who is described as Asian, about 30 years of age and 5ft 8ins tall.

At least they have given up being politically correct by naming the robber's ethnicity.

 

The whole story is from The Telegraph

Friday 12 March 2010

From a publication that knows it how it was.

I was pointed to a well known publication and read an article that summed up the condition of the EU.

Take this little bit.

Take “human dignity,” for instance. As a result of the benefits Neoliberal Capitalism has been showering on Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall, by day the streets of most European cities have become a living room for increasing numbers of homeless. At night these streets are transformed into open-air bedrooms, with the homeless making themselves comfortable on mattresses made out of flattened cardboard boxes. The streets seamlessly convert into dining rooms whenever the homeless are hungry. Then they go about scavenging for leftovers among the rubbish in dustbins and garbage containers.

And finally it finishes with:

All talk about human dignity, physical and mental integrity, and liberty and security of person is empty. It is empty because the security of the state (the EU and its member states) is deemed to have priority. You can find proof in the Lisbon Treaty, Title II, article 67:2 “ The Union shall endeavour to ensure a high level of security through measures to prevent and combat crime, racism and xenophobia, and through measures for coordination and cooperation between police and judicial authorities and other competent authorities, as well as through the mutual recognition of judgments in criminal matters and, if necessary, through the approximation of criminal laws.” The clause seems bland, but it means state security (however defined) takes precedence over the rights of individuals.

Have a guess at which national Newspaper this is from.

If you haven't worked it out then look here.

 

slogo

H/T to

Uncle bill

Face/Palm

beebfb

 

It really is time to end the BBC license fee, if this is the way they throw it away.

The BBC has lavished thousands of pounds teaching staff how to learn to use social networking site Facebook, despite its simplicity.

The corporation has been holding day long classes called Making The Web Work For You, for large numbers of its 23,000 workforce.

I'm sure that if a private company wasted it's money like this, the shareholders would be baying for the directors blood. If those at the Beeb are to thick to find out how to use something that a child manages easily. Then they should be fired.

One worker said: 'We're meant to be belt-tightening. It is an astonishing waste of money. Teenagers who can barely read or write have managed to teach themselves.'

Others have pointed out that most BBC staff already know how to use these sites.

Mind you it does reflect in some of the dross they produce.

Lastly, comes the justification.

Yesterday the BBC defended the web courses. It claimed the courses helped journalists to 'develop effective and comprehensive internet research and social media skills'.

*Head/Desk*

Read it here if you must. I'm losing the will to live (Again).

ASH sets the Budget

smoking

 

It's really all about the money isn't it. This little snippet from the ASH site.

We also believe that the Government should, in addition, increase tobacco prices this year by 5% above the projected rate of inflation through taxation. The attached report for ASH models the impact both in terms of the impact on public finances and economic benefit from such a tax increase and finds that government revenues will increase by over £500 million a year, amounting to £2.6 billion over five years. These benefits arise from the following revenue streams set out in the table below:

Increased revenue from tobacco taxation;

Reductions in healthcare costs;

Increased tax receipts from additional years of working life;

Increased tax receipts from reduced absenteeism;

Reduced spending on benefits relating on benefits related to sickness and disability; taking into account

Increased spending on state benefits for retired people.

Here is the link. Don't go there if you have high blood pressure.

Insufferable prigs

CUNTS

Thursday 11 March 2010

Nick Hogan case picked up by the MSM

They really are a bit slow. Do keep up.

 

free Hogan

Freedom arrived earlier than expected for smoking ban martyr Nick Hogan yesterday... courtesy of a briefcase full of cash carried by a man in a green Guy Fawkes mask.

Former pub landlord Mr Hogan became the first person to be jailed in connection with the smoking ban when he was sentenced to six months for refusing to pay a fine imposed for flouting the legislation.

His plight inspired a campaign on the internet to raise funds to pay off his outstanding fines.

It reached its climax yesterday (national no-smoking day, no less) when a mysterious blogger called Old Holborn delivered the money to Forest Bank prison in Salford - 11 days into Mr Hogan's sentence.

The arrival of the self-styled ' libertarian vigilante' at the Category B prison in his mask, full black costume and hat left other visitors amused or bewildered.

In the prison car park, Old Holborn, who wore his costume to hide his identity, flipped open the metal case to reveal enough bundles of used fivers and tenners to pay the £8,445.15 needed to secure 43-year-old Mr Hogan's release.

 

Source

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Nick Hogan is free!

OH NH

nick-free_thumb

Today Nick Hogan was released.

See the full account at Old Holborns Blog

Thankyou to Old Holborn and Anna Raccoon for making it happen.

And also a hearty thanks to all of you who contributed to his release.

Original story here

The Mathematics of Queuing

queue

 

It is not certain when queues were invented, or by whom, but it is most likely to have been an Englishman of some description who originally laid down the foundations of this great art.

While on the surface a queue might just seem like a line of bored people, it is only when you delve deeper into the physics behind a queue that the true magic makes itself apparent.

The point of queuing varies with different countries, people and climates, although it is fair to say that the main point of a queue is to stand still for as long as possible without either:

  1. Talking to yourself,
  2. Letting anyone in front of you, or
  3. Quitting the queue altogether.

It can be seen, with a little observation, that each individual has a different tolerance level to queuing. A rough estimate for how long, in minutes, someone is likely to wait in a queue without having an emotional breakdown can be expressed in terms of the following formula:

T[breakdown] = 3 ( T[sigh] + (5 x Q[behind]) - (2 x Q[infront]) ) x I

where T[sigh] is the time in minutes the subject will stand on his/her own at a bus-stop before sighing, Q[behind] is the number of people behind the subject in the queue, and Q[infront] is the number of people in front of the subject in the queue. I is known as the 'Interest Factor' and changes depending on the reason for the queue being there in the first place. For instance, the Interest Factor for something as interesting as the British Crown Jewels is 5.23; whereas for something like Hand Crafted Sheep Dung, it is 0.0057. The index value is that of a bus, which is set at 1.00.

There is, of course, another side to queuing, which has not yet been mentioned, and that is the art of 'Ritual Queuing'. It is a pastime practiced little outside England, but in the land of hope and glory it is something of a national institution with people 'above a certain age'. There is no real reason behind Ritual Queuing apart from the queuing itself. The optimum times for Ritual Queuing are weekdays from 10 am to 2 pm, where hordes of old ladies can be seen practicing the art at bus stops in every town and village in the land.

This is not the end of the story though. Whereas in England queuing is a sanctimonious pastime that should not be mocked or taken lightly, the Americans have adapted the art form, added a musical score and created Line dancing, which is the art of forming queues in time to music.

I couldn't care less

It's national no smoking day. Hurrah.

national no smoking day

Just finished my tenth one. Bollocks to Deborah Arnott and ASH.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Hypocrisy explained to the BBC

Graham Stuart MP hits back at the BBC about their bias on the "Donorgate" affair.

“Imagine a Tory donor who’d bought a company, run its pension fund into the ground, bought the assets back for pennies in the pound, who became a privy counsellor even though he wasn’t qualified while personally funding the leader’s leadership bid – they (sic) would be a massive story and yet somehow the BBC runs day after day on Lord Ashcroft, who as far as I can see has done nothing wrong, and gives Labour an easy ride. It takes me back to the tales we had of the champagne bottles in 1997 and I’m afraid the BBC remains biased and fails to ask the proper questions of those who are currently in power.”

Listen to it on BBC iplayer HERE Just over 10 mins in.

Too late Obama, we got there first

LETTER FROM A PROCTER AND GAMBLE EXECUTIVE TO THE PRESIDENT

THE LAST SENTENCE IS THE MOST CHILLING

Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America 's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management.. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering."

Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail..

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaugh's, Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing. Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it.

Big surprise. Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.. It's happening right now.

Well at least we've beaten the Yanks at something. We got to that position in 1997.

More Knee jerk legislation

poodle

 

It would appear that every dog is dangerous, and we are about to be savaged by one, every time we venture out.

Dog owners may be forced to pay for insurance to cover damage or injuries their pet causes, ministers will propose today.

They may also be required by law to have a microchip implanted on their pet under Government plans to curb the use of dangerous dogs.

Another measure being considered is the use of Dog Control Notices for misbehaving animals - known as 'Dogbos'.

If you can be bothered to read about this fuckwittery you'll see that all political parties are jumping in to have their little soundbite of publicity.

And then again money is involved.

The price of microchipping and insuring a dog means that families could face bills of £100 and more to legally own a pet under the new rules.

For families on the bread line it's going to be "A dog is for Christmas, not for life"

The RSPCA is going to be busy rounding up the packs on our streets.

Monday 8 March 2010

Gagging at the MOD

top secret

 

It would appear that our lords and masters (Gag) in the Government, want to airbrush any mention of bad news about our armed forces during the election campaign.

Nick Gurr, the MoD's director of media and communications, says 'embeds' for all British news broadcasters and national journalists will be prohibited during the election campaign, expected to begin later this month.

Mr Gurr's memo, written last week, is entitled "Purdah (the period generally known to be between an election being called and taking place)* - Key Principles for Defence Communicators."

It details a string of steps the MoD is taking to minimise the chance of embarrassing disclosures. Information on MoD and armed forces websites, it says, must be 'cleansed.' Official blogs and website must 'report factual information only.' Even internal MoD and service journals must be 'submitted for approval before publication' with 'controversial issues avoided' because 'these get into the public domain'. Another order is that 'Any activity that can be delayed should be.'

Well lads and lassies in government, the media, and especialy the armed forces (I've been there). If you disagree and need a voice contact me here (Either in the comments or via my Email) and I will post it here for you. The Blogosphere will not be silenced just because the government wants an easy ride to a labour victory.

 

H/T to Subrosa

ASH v Forest

This hideous woman, Deborah Arnott has the temerity to state that Forest is funded by Big tobacco. What she doesn't let the viewer know is that ASH is in the main, funded as a lobby group by the government, and by Big Pharma.

The figures for Ash's funds over at the Fake Charities site are as follows.

Its 2008/09 accounts show a total income of £742,562, of which:

  • Department of Health: £142,000
  • ---
  • Total £142,000 (19.1% of all income)

The remainder of its income comes from ASH International (part-funded by Pfizer), and supporting charities, principally Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation.

It received just £4,975 in voluntary donations from the public, plus a £10,000 legacy.

Surely if the public were so against smoking the private donations would be flooding in.

Amazingly Smokers and anti smokers were able to collect twice as much in the campaign to free the Publican Nick Hogan. IN 4 DAYS.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you overpaid Harridan.

Sunday 7 March 2010

Jeremy thinks the country is going to the dogs.

Jeremy_Clarkson_137842a

 

Just read his article in the Times. He's just saying what we all think. The country has gone barking mad. (Pun intended).

He starts his rant with this:

As we know, one man once got on one plane in a pair of exploding hiking boots and as a result everyone else in the entire world is now forced to strip naked at airports and hand over their toiletries to a man in a high-visibility jacket.

In other words, the behaviour of one man has skewed the concept of everyday life for everyone else. And we are seeing this all the time.

Go and read it. He ends up with commonsense which the righteous abhor.

Article is linked here.

Love Never dies. The verdict.

 

love never dies

Lover never dies. The verdict.

Tough shit, You'll have to wait till a later hour. Ie when I'm sober.

Saturday 6 March 2010

Entertainment time

love

 

I'm going to the Theatre.

 

Love never dies

I'll let you know what it was like Tommorrow.

Friday 5 March 2010

No smoking. (Or anything else)

Sums it all up

 

smoking

 

H/T to 13th Spitfire

Nick Hogan Update

hogan

 

The target figure of £10,000 has been reached. The announcement is over at Old Holborn's Blog .

Happy Birthday to me

birthday

 

 

I'm going out for a meal with my family tonight. However I wonder who will be paying for it? I think you've guessed it.

Thursday 4 March 2010

Drinkers guide to looking sober

red wine

 

Alcohol drinkers fall into two categories regarding self-consciousness - those who become embarrassed by their drunkenness and those to whom nothing and no one matters as soon as they chuck the first pint of Guinness down their gullets. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to belong to the former category, then here are a few strategies which may or may not make you appear less inebriated than you actually are.

Conversational Tips

  • Talk intellectually. This tactic should be attempted only after the consideration of three criteria:

    1. Do I have anything intellectual to talk about? Politics, film directors and books may be acceptable subjects. Whatever you do, don't go over the top - discussions focusing on Aristotelian ethics may make you look like a prat.

    2. Will this be so far removed from my normal style of talking as to make me look even more drunk than I already am? If so, move on.

    3. Can I cope? Here you will have to honestly assess your state of drunkenness, taking into account the stumbling blocks of pronunciation associated with words such as 'conspiratorial,' 'revolutionary,' and 'hullabaloo.'

  • When questioned about your level of intoxication, do not reply 'I'm fine. I'm not drunk. See?' - then stand rigid with a blank expression on your face. This rarely works for more than four seconds, at which point giggling begins.

  • Don't pester the waitress. It is a well-known fact that waitresses are only pestered by the highly intoxicated. If you leave her alone, you'll seem normal.

  • Loudly accusing other parties of drunkenness helps: 'I'm not drunk! You must be drunk.' (It often helps if one is not wearing the lampshade at this point.)

  • Be a good listener: occasionally say things to encourage the person talking (who in all likelihood will be drunk as well), like 'Hmmm' or 'yeah, yeah' or 'you're dead right' or 'they're not laughing at you, they're laughing with you.' The bonus of this approach is it works even if you're too drunk to understand what they're saying.

Actions Speak Louder than Slurred Words

  • Appear reluctant to dance. If you see dancing as the last resort of the foolhardy and desperate, this may be the right tactic. However, sitting aloof in the corner watching others have fun may not be the best way to go about making friends.

  • Appear reluctant to engage in 'childish' pranks and games. This may emphasise your maturity. However, considering that everybody else in your party will have to be pretty far gone to take part in activities like the 'South Park whisky drinking tournament', then it may well be pointless.

  • Maintain reasonable eye contact with everyone. This is good if this is your normal behaviour, but liable to make you seem a bit weird if not. If people start to avoid you, stop this.

  • Flag down taxis on the way home. This will make you very popular. Just make sure that light on the car's roof isn't a flashing blue one.

  • Restrict your toilet visits. Everybody knows that your need to use the lavatory rises exponentially with your drunkenness, so why not make it look as if the sound of flushing water is the furthest thing from your mind. Beware, though, unpleasant smelling puddles under the table will indicate that this plan has backfired.

  • Keeping a low profile and not making a noisy a**e out of yourself is a good way to go. The trouble is, this path more often than not leads unavoidably to catatonia.

  • Relativity - get everyone else around you more drunk than you are, and you will seem less drunk.

  • Avoid performing REM's 'Losing My Religion' as beat poetry - for one Researcher this is an early indicator that they're getting squiffy.

  • When you are drunk, people will often suggest that you do things. At the time, these things seem sensible and funny. The following morning they do not. Kids, just say 'No!'.

Don't forget you can still Donate to the Nick Hogan fighting fund.