It's your last chance

SUNshine in the Brighton bunker

Harriet hoisted with her own Petard

Harriet Harman says she has asked California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut down a website containing reviews of prostitutes.


Here is the letter from the site owners:

Dear Mrs. Harman,

I have a few points to make regarding your recent remarks regarding my website and your fantastic demand that the Governor of California close it down.

Firstly, PunterNet is not violating any laws. If it were, then surely the many websites catering to the US prostitution scene (where sex for pay is almost completely illegal) would already have been closed down.

In the USA, there is a concept called "freedom of speech" which is considered the most important personal right guaranteed by the Constitution. It exists specifically to prevent the sort of abuse of power that you are attempting. The Governor (indeed, even the President) has no authority with which to shut down a perfectly lawful enterprise such as PunterNet.

PunterNet was not the first, and is certainly not the only, website in the UK with the same subject matter. Rather than creating the demand for commercial sex, sites like PunterNet are a response to that demand, which has existed since the dawn of mankind and certainly long before the advent of the Internet!

One of the missions of PunterNet is education - to provide information and guidance in hopes that the commercial sex scene is limited to consenting adults and those who choose of their own free will to engage in it.

If sites like this one did not exist, and if prostitution were outlawed, then it would effectively be handed to organised crime on a platter - just as happened with liquor during Prohibition. If, on the other hand, sexwork is recognised as a legitimate, honourable profession, then there will be no market for the criminal elements, and the truly despicable aspects of the scene such as sex slavery and trafficking will die out. Surely that is a far more desirable goal than driving it back underground where it will then consist only of criminals and victims?

In closing, I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.

Stupid Po faced cow got her comeuppance.

H/T to Manwiddicombe

Marine Engineering 101

You may or may not have read a previous post, where I jokingly described part of my day as a marine engineer.

I'll now tell you the true tale

Glossary:


FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.
Bilge....................A sort of drain trap for fluids.
UMS....................Unmanned space.

0645. Alarm goes of and theFilthy Engineer leaps out of bed. (That bit was utter twaddle).

0700. Make a cup of tea.

0715. Down to the poop deck for a fag or two.

All true so far

0745. Down below to the MCR to get ahead by accessing the planned maintenance programme.

0800. Bugger, I'm duty Engineer today.

0815. Handover from yesterday's duty Engineer complete.
a) One of my diesel generators had to be shut down during the night as the intercooler was about to fall off.
b) The running RO plant also stopped mysteriously.

0830. Off for a fag

0832. Start of a set of rounds. This consists of going to all spaces on the ship that contains machinery, and believe you me, that is a lot of distance to cover. I'll just give you a small sample of typical spaces.



Steering gear compartment.
Main machinery space.
Port generator room. (Port is left when looking towards the bow)
Starboard generator room.
Shaft tunnel.
Refrigeration machinery room.
Air conditioning machinery room.
cargo pump room.
Forward pumproom.
Forward stabiliser compartment

etc, etc.

When you consider the vessel is 350 ft long and ten stories high, then you may appreciate how long this can take. About an hour and a half if you don't find anything wrong.

1000. Smokoe at last. Time for a cuppa and a fag.

1005. Pager goes off. Dash to the MCR, look at the alarm panel and note that the fuel pressure to the Port main engine is low.

1015 Finished changing over the fuel filter, old cartridge in the ultra sonic cleaning plant.

1030. Down to the RO plant to see why it stopped. Ah Ha, the SW supply pump has seized up. However we have no spare, so will have to remove the one off the other RO plant, ( That plant doesn't work as a pipe has split and we are awaiting a new one.) and fit it.


1300. Finished changing pumps over and the RO plant is at last making water. What no lunch you say? An engineer's life. At least it keeps me slim.

1310. Commence paperwork that should have been done before lunch. (Yes even marine engineers have paperwork)

1400. Pump out the bilges.(See glossary if you haven't already done so)

1430. commence afternoon rounds. Quick cuppa and a fag first.

1630. Completed afternoon rounds.




End of part one.

Next episode: "What went bump in the night"

Eire. Say no to Lisbon

H/T to Subrosa

Lets have higher drink prices. (NOT)

"Alcohol focus Scotland", has a poll asking us to vote Yes or No to the proposition “Cheap alcohol is damaging health and society. I support minimum pricing.”

You know it makes sense.

Go over here and fuck up their poll by voting NO. 66% have already.

H/T to Red Nev & the Pub curmudgeon

Oh so plain

They're still banging on about how plain packaging of cigarettes will stop youngsters smoking.

As many commentators on this article stated, "This will just mean that many customers will ask for the cheapest, thus starting a price war and driving down the price."

I do not think this is a good idea, if all cigarettes came in identical packaging it wouldn't make me stop smoking. I also think that taking brand loyalty out of the equation will cause a price war between the tobacco companies. I would no longer go and ask for a specific brand but for the cheapest. This would cause the price of cigarettes to plummet and young people would by them because they are so cheap. Sorry ASH i think your shooting yourself in the foot here!

Time for a fag.

Game

I just came across these paragraphs on another site. They seemed most apt.

I was more than slightly amused the other day to hear a 'loyal' Labour MP referring to the Prime Minister as 'a man on top of his game'. It smacked of the syndrome decribed in the piece below, but more than anything else it made my head start playing with the word 'game'. The word has several meanings, but three above all: a type of meat that is still hunted; a team activity in sport; and a distraction played for amusement, of little or no relevance to big life issues. These are listed in order of seriousness.

Gordon Brown has a powerful whiff of game about him at the moment. Already shot several times, he is hanging upside down until such time as another, better bird can be found - at which time he will be eaten....or thrown away. And yet despite that, you could never describe him as 'a game bird'. Mr Brown is, as everyone but him now realises, a dead duck.

H/T to Not born yesterday

Mmmm. Police.

The world has gone barking mad.

Eleven G20 campaigners are being prosecuted for impersonating police officers despite some being half-dressed and wielding toy machineguns.

Apart from the sheer cost of all this idiocy, by the prick who authorised this prosecution, anyone can see that they're not plods.

Then of course. it's this man again.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer decided they must face a four-day trial despite critics describing the charges as “a terrible abuse of power”.

I'd like to be arrested by her.

H/T to the Evening Standard

Let them try

They really don't know when to stop digging.

Police are threatening to report motorists to insurance companies if they leave valuables, CDs or even old coats on show in their cars.

They are planning to sneak around car parks and streets checking vehicles for anything that could catch the eyes of thieves.

When are the Police going to go back to the old fashioned notion of catching the offenders? I can't for one minute, see how this is going to get the law abiding citizen on side.

I'm also wondering if in giving the info to insurance companies might be a breach of the data protection act.

No wonder the complaints are up by 25% this year.

Police target the innocent

I've been around for a while in this sceptered Isle and I'm afraid to say that my opinion of the police, as a force for good, is no more.