Sunday 31 January 2010

Real life takes far too much time.

I'm busy with real life today, which means I can't join in all the fun with the ever-accelerating lunacy of government. I expect there'll be plenty more tomorrow. So a few quickies:


Ed Moribund has been defending climate change. You remember Ed. He used to have that show on TV, as Mr. Ed the Incredible Talking Arse. His sense of timing isn't very good these days. He's trying to convince the public that the world is warming up while outside, there are glaciers in the streets and a long queue of brass monkeys outside the welder's shop. Really, Mr. Ed, try it when the sun is shining. And try talking out of the other end. In fact, try not talking at all. Ninety percent of the noxious gas and hot air production of this country comes out of one building in London, you know. It should be hermetically sealed. With the lot of them inside.


A scoop for scientific research - kids get fat when they eat too much. Well, that was research money well spent, eh? On the other hand:

The report said that while eight out of 10 obese adults were not overweight as children, “a high proportion of obese children are the offspring of overweight/obese adults. Maybe the focus of childhood obesity prevention should be on parents-to-be”.

So, rather like blonde parents having blonde children and tall parents having tall children, fat parents tend to... nah, they'll never consider that. Instead, the fatties will join the smokers with their names crossed off the list of foster parents and, like smokers, will soon have their children taken away because their lifestyles are 'bad for the cheeldren'. Although if they're focused on parents-to-be, what's coming? Enforced sterilisation? There's a long post in this one but it'll have to wait.


The lunacy at the heart of government is gradually working its way to the surface. One day soon it will burst like a well-festered abscess and coat everyone around it with the dreaded Mind Pus of Madness. Hopefully just before the election.


Finally, some potentially good news. I've always thought that those who choose to live outside the law and make their living by preying on others should, having made their choice, forfeit the protection of the law. Labour have always thought the opposite - that those who live by the law should die by the law.

It seems Dai Cameroid agrees with me. Not quite to the same extreme but in principle at least. But will he really do it? I hope so. It could be the spark of actual Conservatism rising at long last. I'm not saying it'll be better but at least it would be different. It would give all those voters something to choose between the parties and that might get a few of them out to the ballot box.


Okay, back to work. Two items to finish, both bound for the States by Email tonight and since their time is hours behind ours (hah! Do try to keep up, Yankees!) I have more time than I thought. Unfortunately, not much.

The Boobs of Doom.

Or the Buttocks of Doom. Or my favourite, the Beergut of Doom.

There used to be an urban legend about silicon breast enhancement units exploding in aeroplanes due to the low pressure. I doubt it ever happened, but Alky Ada has evidently take the idea on board.

So, now that governments are wasting money on expensive nudie-pic generators which produce inferior images to any porn site on the net, the terrorists have worked out a way around it.

Oh, come on. I recall reading the obvious solution all over the place as soon as the Cheap Thrill Scanners were announced. Now it seems it's so widespread that even the security services have realised.

They are going to implant the bombs inside their own bodies and inject the detonator.

Look. These people are the logical end point of Righteousness. They don't care about human life and they have reached the point where they don't care about their own either. You cannot buy them off. They'll take the money and buy weapons and come back and kill you harder. The Cause is All to these people. Reasoning with them does not work. Bribery does not work.

They will blow themselves up with a belt of dynamite. Who imagines they'd balk at sticking a needle into an implanted bomb? They are using a different mindset to the rest of us. Totally different.

Does anyone remember hearing about the Celtic fighters in history? Blued up with woad in the interests of diversity, they fought without armour and without ever backing off. They did this not simply because they were bonkers, but because they believed - absolutely believed - in destiny. If today was your day to die, no amount of armour would save you. If it wasn't your day, you didn't need any armour. If you died, you were reborn in another life. They believed this absolutely and they didn't care at all if they were killed in battle. That sort of mindset is at work here and it's not something the West has seen for a long, long time.

What do we do now? We have X-ray machines and all liquids in little bags and laptops scanned separately and people going through security without most of their clothing and then they step into a machine that makes the rest of it vanish, all at vast expense and none of it any use at all now. So, what to do? Easy, right? Ban needles and syringes from public transport. Ah, but...

Security sources fear the body-bombers could pretend to be diabetics injecting themselves on airliners, Tubes or buses in order to prevent anyone stopping their suicide missions.

So in order to stop one bomber, how many diabetics are we willing to allow to die?

I suspect, with this government, we are about to learn how many diabetics are worth one terrorist. And it will all be wasted, innocent lives.

Take the needles off them and they'll make a hole with a cocktail stick. At a pinch, they'll do it with a spoon. Read up on the Celts. They are the closest in Western history to the loonies we face now.

We don't have any left, unfortunately.

Saturday 30 January 2010

They are never satisfied.

Home early from Smoky-Drinky and relatively sober but I have just poured another one. Well, the snow is building and it's a bit dodgy moving around out there even when sober, and I have to work tomorrow, so a curtailed evening is probably the safest option. Anyway, it seems the madness has accelerated in the last few hours...


Disney have brought out a new cartoon, the old 'princess and frog' story but in this version, the princess is black. There has been much hoo-ha over this, as you'd expect in these Righteous times, and Disney must be wishing they hadn't bothered. The frog is still green, so they are still discriminating against rainforest tree frogs and I'm actually surprised nobody has pulled them up on that yet.

Let's get one thing clear in our minds. This princess is not really black, nor is she female. She is a drawing. She could equally well be green or blue, or have fifteen arms and three heads and scales and feathers and it wouldn't change the storyline at all. She. Is. A. Drawing. Not real.

Disney have not oppressed or taken advantage of her, they have not given her an inferior contract to the frog, they have not discarded her and left her to suffer, penniless, in a slum somewhere. They can't do any of that. She doesn't actually exist. All those people who have taken offence about it, have taken offence on behalf of a cartoon.

There are real people going through real problems out there, of all creeds and colours, and I am sure they will be delighted to see all the energy expended to save the imaginary hurt feelings of a bit of celluloid and paint. They won't mind waiting. A Disney drawing's happiness supercedes their own.

So, are we clear? It's a drawing. It's not real. It can't be hurt, and it can't hurt anyone. Okay? So we can drop it now, yes?

Enter Oona King:

"You never see disabled people," the former Labour MP complained to Mandrake at a screening at the Mayfair Hotel in London. "When are you going to see a Disney film with a disabled character in the lead role? Tell me that."

Oh for fu....

Look. We'll draw Robin Hood with one leg. How's that? IT'S A DRAWING, WOMAN. That's how come Peter Pan can fly, dogs and cats can talk and a wooden puppet can walk around and be friends with a cricket in a top hat. Clue: You don't often see any of that in real life, do you? Unless you have a stash of something really special somewhere.

She'd just watched a film in which one of the two main characters had been turned into a frog. You just can't get much more disabled than that, unless you set the story in a French restaurant.

King is clearly on a mission in her new role as Channel 4's head of diversity. "I think all of the media has a problem," she said.

If they didn't before, they do now.

King, who was defeated at the last general election by George Galloway, added: "Where we have made progress is having black people and other under-represented groups on the screen, but we still don't have black people making films. I can't think of the British Spike Lee."

If I'd been defeated in an election by George Galloway, I'd be keeping very quiet and saving up for plastic surgery and a name change. Reading her words, I'm not surprised she lost.

She is planning to demand that black people make films whether they want to or not - and if you're black and a filmmaker, practice gritting your teeth. The level of patronising smugness you are about to encounter in any dealings with Channel Four would try the patience of a saint. Just smile, take the cheque and run.

If you're any other colour and a filmmaker, don't bother with Channel Four. Their head of diversity has a focus and wants to see films in which all the characters are completely and permanently in a coma, made by a black director and containing representatives of every member of the animal kingdom, each with a bit missing. If you can do that you'll make a fortune - but use a pseudonym because you won't want it following you in your career.

I haven't heard such a load of rubbish spouted by mindless idiots since Fritz the Cat came out. That was a drawing too.

Offended on behalf of a drawing. Really, there is no point in making any attempt to please these people. It simply can't be done.

The Smoky Vote.

I've spent most of the afternoon shovelling snow (yes, it's back. Not as bad as last time but there's more forecast. Damn that global warming!). This means I am short of time for those deadlines and I'm not skipping tonight's Smoky-Drinky. I'll have to restrict the Drinky part though, because I'll need to be up early tomorrow. Have to make the most of smoky-drinky while it's still possible.

An anonymous commenter (DP) on the last post tipped me off to the latest plans of the ironically-named Smokefinder-General Burnham. The Government plans to cut us all in half.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham is pledging to help half of Britain's smokers quit by 2020.

He plans no such thing. If you want to stop smoking, just stop. If you don't think you can, there are already more ways to help you than you know about. He does not plan to 'help' us stop. He plans to force us to stop.

This is the recurring theme in the antismoker rhetoric. They put across the view that all smokers are addicts in thrall to the weed, and all need help to escape its clutches. Not for a moment do they consider that most of us smokers actually smoke because we like it. It's an impossibility in their minds.

Is it bad for us? Well, of course it is. Just like inhaling traffic fumes is bad for you and consuming too much of any food, even water, is bad for you and drinking continuously until your liver turns yellow and screams in the night is bad for you and lifting heavy things is bad for you and prolonged exercise (such as shovelling snow) is bad for you and watching TV is bad for you and... well, you get the idea. We know it's not good for us. We dispute quite how bad it is. We flatly refuse to be taken in by the lie that is 'passive smoking' no matter how many made-up numbers they throw out. Ever seen two numbers the same in relation to that? Ever wondered why not?

There is no question of degree in the antismoker's mind. Smoking is deadly, being in the same country as a smoker is deadly, and two cigarettes a day is just as deadly as a hundred. They believe this! They actually believe it.

It's carried over into all the other banning zealots too. Cakes make you fat, ergo one sticky bun is as bad for you as three full sized chocolate cakes with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles (pause to wipe the drool off the keyboard). Too much salt is a bad thing so all salt must be removed from food. Too much traffic? Ban it all. Paedos using the internet? Ban everyone from it. One man gets drunk in the street and throws up over a nun? Ban drink entirely.

There is no question of degree in any of it. One incident is enough to demonise an entire population and to make Granny with her once-a-month bottle of sherry appear just as bad as Rabid Angus McPlastered with his daily shopping cart full of Gold Label and Tennent's Super.

One whiff of cigarette smoke will not kill you. If you are one of those who likes to go on about the pubs being cleaner now (they are certainly a lot quieter) think back to when you stood all night in a room full of us filthy smokers. Did you die? No? So why do you believe a single molecule will kill you now? Have you really become so weak in such a short time? Who did that to you?

Anyway, back to the Smokefinder-General's latest game of Find the Witch.

Burnham wants to reduce the number of British smokers from 21 per cent to ten per cent.

You will note that he has not bothered to ask the smokers if they want this. Well, we're used to that. Nobody asked us if we wanted to be banned from every public place in the country either. He has not asked the smokers if they actually want to stop. He is simply going to order it. The eyes of the Antis will be all a-swivel at the news, I'm sure. Smokers can vote, you know. If you smoke and vote for the parties that support this, you have completely lost your mind.

Gateshead are way ahead on the 'smokers are not human' game (tipped by PJH). It'll spread and it'll suffer from mission creep, in which the council will phone two hours before they visit and order you not to smoke until they have been and gone. In no time at all they'll be making random spot checks to see if you're smoking in your own house. Don't laugh, nonsmokers. They'll be checking your house too. You might have lied on the form, you know. Smokers do that.

The plan includes cracking down on cheap illicit cigarettes and preventing 200 million cigarettes entering the UK illegally every year.

Right. That will stop smoking how? It won't have any effect on the number of smokers at all and the Burning Man (savour the image) knows it. It is not intended to have any effect on the number of smokers. It is intended to make us all pay the UK duty. The trouble is, if he blocks cross-border trade, the EU will have something to say. So it's not going to work. Those foreign smokes might be illegal in the Burnham's mind but as far as the EU are concerned, there's no problem. They have their own plans for we smokers and they don't care what Burnham wants. The opinions of a minor official in an outlying province don't register on the EU radar.

Other potential policies include plain packing for cigarette packets,

Ha ha ha. We're not buying those packets anyway. You can do what you like with them. Hide them (h/t Big Yin), make 'tobacco' one of the Words You Must Not Say and we'll source it elsewhere. The EU have a 100% total ban planned. That'll work. Like it worked for guns, knives, heroin and all the rest. The smoking will continue, the tax take on smoking will stop. I don't see a downside.

Except for shops that sell tobacco. Even before the EU ban it completely, smokers won't know that you sell tobacco and will go to the places certain to stock it. Supermarkets. If your income depends in any way on smoking, whether you smoke or not, and you vote for any party that supports this, you need your head examined.

banning vending machines,

Oh, very nice. Put a whole industry out of business overnight just to score points and look smug. Those vending machine companies are not staffed purely by smokers, you know. If you work in that industry, whether you smoke or not, and you vote for any party that supports this, you are certifiable.

and making homes and cars smoke free zones.

That's right. No more smoky-drinky. No more private residence. Your home and your car are the property of the State now and you will do as you are told while in them. The Antis will be chuckling and hugging themselves because all they see is smokers being victimised and they love it. What they don't see is the implication.

Once this is done, the State has legislated how you live, how you act and how you behave in your own home. Don't think it applies because you don't smoke? Think they'll stop once they have established the precedent of legislating one lifestyle choice? Oh dear. it will soon be time to vote. Are you really sure you want to vote for this?

An extension to the public smoking ban could be implemented too, meaning people will not be able to light up at entrances and walkways of public places.

Well that was always coming. That should be the last nail in the coffin of the hospitality industry. If we have to go half a mile from the pub every time we want a smoke, we won't be going to the pub at all. Or the restaurants. Again, the antis will be ecstatic. The vile smokers can't go anywhere near them with their little tubes of instant death. The hospitality industry might not be so pleased. To them we are not smokers. We are customers. Sorry, pub and restaurant owners. Andy Burnham and his army of gullible drones has ordered us to stop using your service altogether. There's an election coming up. Choose your vote and place your cross.

In some cases nicotine replacement therapy for an extended period of time could be introduced.

What? If you don't want to stop they'll come round and stick patches on you? Is that what he's implying here? Re-education, huh?

All these bans and the responses of the useful idiots are based on a yes/no argument. They cannot cope with degrees of change. They will say that smokers cannot be allowed in pubs because they want them smoke free. They will not consider having smoking and non-smoking pubs. It has to be all of them. Now they don't want us smoking outside the pubs either. We have to get right out of their sight. Then they will call smokers selfish. And they will believe it.

Well, I'm off to the Smoky-Drinky place tonight while it's still legal. When it's no longer legal I'll stop talking about it. I'll just say I'm going 'out'.

You'll know what I mean.

They want your cheeeldren.

If you have children, they are about to be used against you. Again.

Five-year-olds are asked about things they don't understand and about which they have no reason or ability to suspect any ulterior motive.

Defending its actions, the council said -

Daniella Yeo, of Erewash council, said the after-school clubs were very popular and that the questions followed guidelines set by NICE, the NHS's regulatory body.
She added: 'They will help us target families at risk of obesity. We can then encourage parents to attend sessions with social services or GPs.'

If they think you might be on the chubby side, based entirely on an interrogation of your child, they will 'target' you.

I'm a smoker. I've been 'targeted', shot, downed and they are still firing. Trust me, it's not pleasant. I'm a drinker too. I was 'targeted' for that and they're still firing too. That's not pleasant either. When these people target you, it is not to help you. It is to demonise and destroy you.

If you have children, consider homeschooling or private schools. Or set up a private school of your own, if you know how.

Whatever you do, get your child out of the state schools. They are not there to teach. They are there to indoctrinate.

Friday 29 January 2010

The Law is now a revenue generator and irritant silencer.

Not much time this weekend. I have two deadlines left to complete and two days to do them in so I'd better get started. I know it's technically three days but tomorrow night is booked as a Smoky Drinky and I have a bottle of Glenfiddich 12-year-old to take along.

The Count of Mandelsonia has a spiffing wheeze that will help him shut down those naughty people who call him names and point out the idiocy in his government's systems. It's all based on the filesharing nonsense that they've been harping on about for ages. I couldn't see why the Count would care but it's perfectly clear now that the pieces are all in place.

It's simple. If you are accused of filesharing, your internet connection is shut off. Not filesharing and want it back? Well, nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? Just go to that Ofcom place and tell them you aren't filesharing and there's been a mistake. A quick look at your internet records will clear you. No problem.

Well, there is a problem. You now have to pay for asking for your connection back, whether the accusation is true or not. How much? That's not specified yet. Will you get the money back if you're innocent? No.

So, to shut the likes of me up, the Count merely has to phone my ISP and say 'That little bugger is filesharing' and they shut me down. They won't check first. They're so scared of being implicated they'll just cut the wire.

I'm not involved in any filesharing. This computer is over five years old and the stress could kill it. I don't play online games either and with my gift for procrastinating, I'm better to keep well clear of anything like that. Most of what I do involves text and numbers so I don't need a fancy machine. This one works fine but won't be doing anything impressive. It already whines like a bitch if there are too many ads on a webpage!

But all the Count needs is the accusation. He can then make it expensive for me to prove my innocence. Maybe I can afford it the first time. Maybe the second. The third? Fourth? Each time, guilt is presumed and the punishment applied at once. If you want to prove your innocence, it'll cost you. That's how British law works now. That's how Labour governments always work.

Forget paying for your defence. It would be cheaper to buy one of those wireless dongle thingies and go online with that. Don't put too much money on it because you never know when it'll be cut off. Then buy another one. Cash. Different name every time, if they ask. Don't refuse to give a name, that will simply draw attention to you. Most supermarkets have a good turnover of till staff so it'll be easy to find one who hasn't heard your 'name' before.

Why am I banging on about this now, when it's not law yet?

Well, once it is, it'll be too late.

Thursday 28 January 2010

A message and a bottle.

I haven't been to the doctor for a very long time. Occasionally I get 'Are you dead?' letters and invitations to have my blood pressure and cholesterol checked. I ignore them. At my age and with the current fetish for treating every deviation from perfection as an illness, it's certain they'll find something wrong with me. If I get sick I'll call in. Otherwise I see no reason to occupy the doctor's time, nor do I have any desire to sit in a waiting room full of sick people.

Today, a letter arrived.





Oh, a questionnaire. I assumed it would be along the lines of 'Are there any hereditary diseases in your family, a propensity to heart attacks, stroke, or cancer perhaps?'. You know, the sort of things doctors used to ask about in the old days.

Maybe it would be along the lines of 'You haven't been ill for years. What's wrong with you? Are you some kind of freak? Get out there and fall over something or catch something. Are you trying to put us out of a job?'

It was a single sheet of paper so I'd never have found the questionnaire if it hadn't had that handy PTO and arrow printed large there. So, my intelligence already insulted, I turned it over.



It should enlarge if you click on it. There's no need, really. It has two questions - do you smoke, and what kind of ethnic are you. That's it. As I read it, I can opt out of answering the ethnic question, which just leaves one question.

I'll answer that question and send it back. I am going to lie. I am going to tick 'ex-smoker' and if I should have the misfortune to have to visit a doctor, I will always say I have stopped smoking.

In a sense, that's always true. I can't smoke indoors except at home and at the Smoky Drinky places therefore every time I enter any other building, I stop smoking. I start again after I leave but since I'll only ever discuss my health with a doctor indoors, at that point in time I am not able to smoke and have therefore stopped smoking. Not 'given up'. Stopped. It's different.

They will always ask 'Do you smoke?'

My answer: 'I have stopped. I have an Electrofag. Would you like a demonstration?'

'Do you drink?'

'Not for some time now' (where 'some time' is defined as 'not in this waking period. Yet').

Assuming I don't die before he gets around to asking why I visited, he might even get the chance to do some actual doctoring. You never know. Although judging by Mummylonglegs' experience, it isn't likely. I wonder if, in among all the training in social engineering, medical students get the chance to learn about medicine too? I hope there's at least some of the original course left.

What I'd really like from the doctor is my death certificate so I can send a copy to the taxman. They're a bit strict on that one, unfortunately. You have to really be dead. They can spot it if you're faking, too.

The prepaid envelope goes to the 'data collation department' of the small health centre here. A Righteous title for the receptionist who has to sort the answers. Add to that the letter's claim that the information is added to your record and then 'held in the strictest of confidence' (oh, ha ha ha) and I think it's clear why I have no compunction about lying to these people.

The absolute killer is the first line of the letter. 'The Government requires...' I should be rushing to provide the government with information irrelevant to the function of government? I should consider my answers carefully and not lie to the government? Why? They have no problem lying to me.

They have made my life a misery for years. Now they are tracking smokers, and I, for one, have become too suspicious of their motives to put my head out with a target on it.

Besides, if every smoker took the same line, what justification would there be for funding ASH? The government's own figures would show we don't exist.



That's the message. Now for the bottle.

It contains - or to be more accurate it now mostly contains - Aberlour 10-year-old. It was, after all, a successful day.


Update: I've only just noticed something. The letter has my name and address on the front. On the back, at the top of the form, is a space to write my name.

And my date of birth. From the doctor's office. Of all the people who should already know that, surely the doctor's office has to be top of the list?

I think a little test is in order. Will they notice if I fill in the wrong name and date? Risky, mind, they might just send the padded van.

So many queens.

I don't mean the pop group, nor do I mean the royal Mrs. Queen (Gawd bless 'er, as they say in Garnett land), nor am I making a disparaging anti-gay remark. However, if any passing Righteous wish to take offence, be my guest. I don't like you anyway.

By queen, I refer to the traditionally-gay but not-necessarily-so type who minces, flounces, stamps their little feet and beats ineffectual fists on the chest of whoever has upset them while crying hard enough to raise sea levels. You know the ones. Weak, wailing, worthless crybabies. The world is filling up with them. They are less manly than Quentin Crisp but they're not gay. They can't be, or they wouldn't be breeding so fast. In fact they're breeding so fast they must be laying eggs in clutches of a hundred at a time. Perhaps that Icke bloke was on to something.

So, sorry to the gay guys but you no longer have the monopoly of the 'Camp' camp. There are millions of them now, male and female, ready to take an attack of the vapours and swoon away in a dead faint whenever someone so much as alludes to something they might imagine as a slight on someone else entirely.

They populate Ebay, who consider a 1970's 'Dad's Army' boardgame to be Nazi memorabilia. Well, it was produced a mere 25 years after the Nazis were defeated so Hitler must have had it retrospectively, now that Labour have abolished time (see previous post).

They clutch their handbags and purse their lips in every Racial Equality Council, where their jobs depend on continuously finding ever more trivial things to be offended at.

Peter Oteng, chief executive of the Worcestershire Racial Equality Council, said that there are strict laws about advertising discriminatory material and eBay, as the advertiser, was protecting itself.
He said: “You can’t joke with this because you are joking with millions of people killed. It’s not a laughing matter at all.
“It’s very serious.”

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Oteng? It's a board game produced 25 years after the war. A war in which the people of this country charged down the Nazis and who regarded the swastika merely as a handy target. They were not in the least scared of it when it was backed up by guns, tanks, rockets, planes, railguns, battleships and submarines. You really believe the people of this country will cower and cry at the sight of it now? It's a symbol of a dead regime, a regime we played a large part in crushing. We won that symbol from them and we will laugh at it now. We will make up board games depicting a bank manager, a butcher and assorted misfits standing against that symbol and winning. We will not quake at a symbol we've already defeated.

Sadly, there are many who will. There are many feeble and sickening people who the likes of Hitler could overrun nowadays and all he'd have to do is wave his flag at them. They'd faint in shock and then phone a blubberer's hotline somewhere.

Even Wales, that place of dour people and square old ladies that look like they'd pummel you if you get to the last bag of sprouts before them, is full of them now.

In Wales resides the Horrible Member of Parliament, Paul Flynn, who makes much on his blog of the courage of soldiers but who wants the handshake banned because it hurts his poor little fingers. I can't link to him directly because I promised on his blog, a long time ago, that I would occupy no more of his time, and also because it sickens me to think that someone who appears to be human is too weak for even a handshake.

Once, the British Navy hunted down pirates and slave traders and put them out of action whether they were in British waters or not. Now, with Somalian pirates holding British hostages, the British Navy gives the pirates fuel, food and water if they run out while at sea. There was a time when the captain, faced with a disabled pirate boat, would simply have cut it in half with his bows and sailed on. In these enlightened times, of course, defending yourself and your country is seen as evil and 'right-wing' while handing out supplies to those who want to kill your countrymen is 'progressive'.

It's not the Navy's choice. It's Labour's decision and the Navy have no option to refuse. The captain no longer rules his ship just as an Englishman's home is no longer his castle.

It's the same story over and over again. Labour and the Soft Socialist Sobbers send troops into battle but don't give them any bullets in case they hurt the enemy. Murderers and rapists are to be 'understood'. Victims of youth yobs are to be castigated for hurting the poor little freaks' feelings by reporting them to the police. Burglars must be allowed to go about their business unhindered, and they can sue the householder who tries to stop them. Terrorists must not be identified because they might be upset if everyone knew they wanted to blow things up.

Weaklings. Feeble little people who quake like jellies at a hint of a bad word. Trivial, worthless creatures not fit to be called human. They hide under the table rather than confront any real problem. They save themselves from bullies by siding with the bullies. Too weak to stop the bullying and too weak to save the victims, they turn on the victims so the bullies won't hit them.

In the past, deserters from the armed forces were shot. Were they cowards? They knew they risked death by their actions even though they ran from war. Cowards in one sense, but not in another.

The true coward is the one who will take no risk at all. The one who will not desert but who will hide behind others when the fighting starts. Those are the weaklings who run the country now.

If you vote Labour, you are one of them.

The laws of Time run in reverse.

A good meeting today. a couple of projects to put together, both quick enough to be billed at the end of March and the cheques won't go in until April 6th.

Last year I paid my tax bill on time, by cheque, which they managed to screw up so my payment was considered 'late' and interest added. This year I paid online by debit card and... it's still not showing on the website and no Email receipt has appeared. Well, not this time, matey. This time I took the precaution of printing the webpage showing that the payment was accepted. You're not pretending it was overdue this year.

I was amused by the new section of the tax form that asks if you were involved in any tax avoidance shemes. This popped up after I told them how much I'd made this year and if they linked it to that number, it would be immediately clear that I'm not in the 'offshore account' league so they could have safely skipped it.

The reason they ask that question now is clear. There has been a perfectly legal tax avoidance scheme running for years. The tax office knew about it but couldn't do anything until government finally closed the loophole that allowed it. It's closed now so that scheme is no longer legal.

So, anyone using that scheme in the future would be fined. In accordance with Labour's Tardis Legislation System, anyone using it in the past - when it was legal - will also be fined. One businessman tried challenging it in court but no, the judge ruled that it's perfectly fair and reasonable to punish people for doing something that wasn't at all illegal when they did it.

So even though you're doing something legal now, if Labour decide to make it illegal in the future, you can be retrospectively punished. The Time Lords have nothing on these people. Whatever we do now can be ruled illegal at any point in the future and they'll send the boys round to sort us out. Well, unless you're an MP and have been on the fiddle. Then, making rule changes retrospective is 'unfair'.

There will be a few lurkers who will whisper the 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' mantra but with this system, you don't know whether you have anything to hide. Perhaps driving a car will be made an arrestable offence backdated to 1910 and they'll dig up Herr Daimler and fine him. Perhaps flower arranging will carry the death penalty, backdated. Nobody has any idea what will next be deemed illegal and backdated. You, literally, could be next.

I'm okay this time. I've never made enough money to even consider a tax avoidance scheme so this one won't affect me.

But if they get around to banning smoking in the street and make it retrospective, they'll be coming for me. If they make the brewing of beer and wine illegal and retrospective, there'll be a lot more of us.

It is not possible to trust any administration that exercises this power. You might consider yourself living perfectly within the law, living a clean and wholesome life and behaving impeccably now but anything you are doing now - anything - can be made retrospectively illegal and off you go to the Big House.

Just imagine, for a moment, what a real fascist party could do with this. Is it really safe to have this on the books?

The Tories must put a stop to retrospective punishment if they want any trust from the public at all. Not on the first day. On the second.

On the first day, they should declare the Labour party illegal, retrospective to 1940, and fine every member of it for enough money to clear the current debt. That seems only fair.

Wednesday 27 January 2010

Looking as cool as mustard.

Big meeting tomorrow at which I hope to pick up some new work. So I went for an emergency haircut today. I've been putting it off while the weather was cold but the Neanderthal look doesn't usually impress the corporate sector. How bad was it? Well, when the barber (can we still call them barbers when they're female?) asked what I wanted done, I said "Just keep cutting until you find me. I'm in here somewhere".

She did a good job. I look almost human.

Anyway, big meeting means no booze and offline to prepare, to avoid distractions. So a quickie only, on Labour's methods to attract the middle class vote.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families declined to comment.

I think the only comment they could have made was "Ooops!"

Right - to work. No more from me tonight unless I get bored.

Salt: Another thing you must not have.

I haven't seen salt on the supermarket shelves for well over a month. Not a grain. I know there was that panic buying episode due to the 'Aaaagh, there's no road salt' scare and most of that table salt is now soaked into, and cracking, drives and pavements all over the country.

There's not much snow around now. A few lumps of it where it was piled up but the roads, pavements and driveways are all perfectly clear and have been for over a week. Yet there's still no salt on the shelves.

The cynic in me is wondering if the road salt scare was manufactured as a method to rid the shelves of bagged salt, using the excuse that 'someone was in earlier and bought it all'.

Why? Well, because salt costs the NHS billions, you know.

You didn't know? Don't worry. You will.

An American study found that Americans eat twice the recommended amount of salt every day. Leave aside that Americans tend to be twice as big as the recommended size, that the recommended amount is another of those 'one size fits all' diktats and that most of that salt comes from processed food, not the salt shaker, and just believe. Believe that it's costing the American healthcare system billions. Now they are moving to an NHS model, they'll find all sorts of bans can be justified because the Terrible Thing costs the taxpayer money. They'll soon find that it's easy to get the mob onside if they think it's costing them personally.

This study has not been carried out in Europe, and yet...

Commenting independently on the study’s findings, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) welcomed the results as underlining “the urgent need for public health measures to substantially reduce the population’s salt intake across Europe”.

There has been no study claiming that Europeans eat twice the daily made-up number of salt grains. There won't be. It started in America, you know.

Professor Frank Ruschitzka, a cardiologist from the University of Zurich and spokesperson for the ESC said: “This study provides excellent ammunition both to convince patients about the benefits of reducing their individual salt intakes and also to persuade the EU of the urgent need to introduce legislation to restrict the salt content of processed foods.

Next time you visit the doctor, arrive early. He has a whole speil to go through before you get anywhere near discussing what's wrong with you. How much you smoke and/or drink, how much fat you eat, your waist size, how much exercise you do and now how much salt is in your diet. Then he'll take your blood pressure, which by this time is guaranteed to be too high. Try not to grind your teeth too hard or he might section you.

“This study represents the evidence that a reduction of salt intake not only lowers blood pressure but also prevents cardiovascular events. The case for population-wide salt reduction is now compelling, he added.

Population-wide salt reduction. Another population-wide control which will also apply to those who cook fresh food and don't add salt when cooking. Based on a study carried out on a different continent, with a different food culture entirely, we are to reduce our salt intake or else.

It's not salt that puts up blood pressure and causes heart attacks. It's the unrelenting nagging from unelected little Righteous dictators that does it.

Best look up the symptoms of salt deficiency and watch out for them. It'll be joining rickets and scurvy as the next thing doctors will be surprised to see making a comeback in an allegedly civilised society.

Oh, and if you see a bag of salt, buy it. It doesn't go off. Keep it dry and you can store it for decades.

UPDATE: Longrider has another source. Apparently the American study on which the calls for restrictions are based was... a mathematical model.

In other words, no actual people were studied anywhere. The entire research project was based on a computer-generated simulation. Yet this is hailed as Great Science and will be used to push for controls on our lifestyles.

We've been here before...

The deadly thing that isn't.

Chickens are not clean creatures. If you visit a pig farm you'll think it smells pretty bad. If you visit a chicken farm you'll long for the gentle scents of the pig farm. Chickens, in short, stink.

Chickens, like most birds, carry a bacterium called Campylobacter in their guts. It doesn't bother them but it makes us pretty sick. It's in bird crap everywhere and it's in the chickens you buy for roasting.

It doesn't matter. Cook it properly and wash your hands and work surfaces after handling the raw meat, and it's dead. No problem at all. I've never experienced a Campylobacter infection despite eating chicken in many forms and despite working with the actual bacterium and deliberately growing lots of it. It's easy to kill.

Ah, but the sight of government is shorter even than the average IQ of parliament. You buy the chicken from the supermarket, therefore it's the supermarket that has to deal with the problem.

The morons of the FSA cannot grasp that Campylobacter is a natural part of chicken gut microflora and has been for a very, very long time. That's why Granny cooks chicken until the skin shatters when you stick a fork in it. Heat kills it. Ah, but we are all stupid, you see...

The concern is not limited to eating under-cooked chicken. When you bring it into your kitchen, you may be cross-contaminating your hands and transferring campylobacter to salads and fresh produce.'

Well, Granny and her ancestors managed perfectly well, using complex arcane rituals such as cooking it properly, washing their hands and washing down preparation surfaces. If people don't want to bother with all that, well, Darwinian selection beckons and that's natural and for the good of the species. Let the dopes die.

Oh, but how can we rid ourselves of this easily solved problem?

Other countries, notably New Zealand, have reduced campylobacter contamination by disinfecting chicken meat with chlorine washes before it reaches the shops but this method is banned in the EU.

Campylobacter is eradicated by heat. Chlorine is not. I know which I'd rather have on the raw chicken, thanks. Chlorine washes? What the hell?

The British Retail Consortium said: 'This is a complex issue. The biology of campylobacter is not yet fully understood and, so far, there is no proven single solution.'

Sigh. The biology of Campylobacter is understood well enough for now, thanks. We know how it infects, we can grow it, we know how to prevent infection and it's easy. Just cook it like Granny did, and clean like Granny did, and you'll never catch it. People are just too damn lazy and frankly, they deserve all they get.

As for 'single solution', there is no solution at all at present. I heard from a poultry industry guy that the first person to find a way to eradicate Campylobacter from poultry will make enough money to retire a week later.

Am I looking for a way? Damn right I am!

In the meantime, just make extensive use of soap and cook that chicken until it screams for mercy.

Oh, and be wary of any pre-cooked meat. The people preparing it might be lazy too.

There can be only one.

Man Widdicombe is where I found this little toy. He found it at Constantly Furious so it's been going around and I thought well, give it a go, you know?


HowManyOfMe.com
LogoThere are
1
or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

So there might, or might not, be one of me in America. I'm a quantum blogger over there. There are only 360 with the last name Iron (perhaps they're all as ugly as me) and less than 1500 with the first name Leg. If there's anyone with that first name, you have my sympathies. And my name. Don't drop it.

It only applies to America. When the NWO take over it'll apply to the whole planet. You'll even be able to see how many people have the same DNA as you, what they were convicted of, and when the police are coming for you.

Five minutes after you enter the search query, most likely.

Predicting a riot.

Over at Captain Ranty's place, he has a link to an article on one of those New World Order conspiracy sites. It's a long article but worth a read even if you think it's all hogwash.

I haven't researched any of that stuff myself so I can't say whether it's all true or not. Some of it rings true, or at least likely. Some of it sounds a bit far-fetched to me. Although I admit a lot of it does sound exactly like typical Righteous behaviour, just on a grander scale. Whether it all connects into a global conspiracy or not I can't say.

One line that particularly caught my eye was this one:

...you raise up a revolution and you sacrifice the men who truly want to resist.

The article refers to the Bay of Pigs and similar instances where a rebellious group were encouraged to fight, with the promise of outside help, and then the outside help was withdrawn and they were left to be wiped out. The Bay of Pigs is not theory. It's history.

The key is that in doing this, you not only identify those who most want to resist, you isolate them and defeat them and in so doing you make clear to the rest of the population that rebellion will not work. Those who were not courageous enough to fight the first rebellion will certainly not risk it after the more courageous have been eliminated. Subsequent control is much easier once the troublemakers have been dealt with.

Could this be in the minds of those who provoke us daily and who wonder why we didn't revolt as expected last summer?

It's another factor to add to the list of why a rebellion would be in the Gorgon's interests more than ours.

- Any rebels would be instantly branded 'right-wing extremists' by the press, who can't be trusted to report even the simplest story without just making it all up.

- The Civil Contingencies act would come into play. Then those Guardianistas will find out what 'fascism' actually means.

- Rebellion must, of course, mean the identification of the primary malcontents who are stirring up the people. They'll be on some database somewhere, nobody can escape them all.

- The ringleaders would be contacted by someone who will claim to be able to help them and who will stir them into action. Might already be happening within groups like EDL.

- Wait for the rioting. Not the mini-ones. Wait for a really big one. One where most of those who are determined to resist are present. The outside 'helper' fails to show and the authorities crush the rebellion easily.

The population now sees that rebellion is futile. Some will thank the State for saving them from the terrible Right Wing even though there really isn't one these days. It's socialism or middle ground now. There'll be no more rebellion for at least a generation, and the next generation doesn't know any other way to live.

If you're planning rebellion, forget it. All the bases are covered and rebellion will provide an excuse to clamp down hard. If you're hearing about some outside agency promising help, forget it. It's a setup. Don't riot no matter how hard the provocation. Once that riot is quashed (and it will be because it's expected and prepared for) we're done for.

Open fighting won't work this time. The next battle will be won with words.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Boats aren't toys.

Many years ago, I went on a barge holiday around Stratford way. It was a pleasant, slow-moving holiday and oddly enough, we always seemed to moor up near a pub. What a lucky coincidence.

The main point of such a holiday is that it is taken at a slow pace. It's not a suitable holiday for anyone in a hurry or for anyone who wants to rush things. Your boat cannot break a wash (the ripples from behind the boat must not 'foam') because that puts a lot of wear on the canal banks - so your speed is very limited. It carries some risk, surprisingly, in fact it carries some big risks. Especially at locks, where you move up or down levels on the canal. You do need a little bit of boat knowledge before you start.

The locks involve some very big gates but these are well balanced and easy to move. If you're going up a level, you sail into the lock, close the gates behind you then go to the gates in front of you. The gates have sluices which you open and close with a winding handle. Someone needs to be at the helm to control the boat or it can have a tendency to wander and batter against the sides and gates of the lock.

The dangerous parts are on the gate (whoever is up there is on a 4-inch beam and if they fall into the lock while the boat's moving, there's not a lot of room to get back out). Those on the boat are safe as long as those on the gate know what they're doing and as long as they don't do anything stupid.

So it was with some surprise that I read of the fatal boat accident where the helmswoman fell under the boat and into the propellers. The helm shouldn't involve any risk of falling at all. What went wrong?

As we had experienced before, as the first water fell into the lock, it bounced off the back lock gate and pushed the boat forwards,' he said.

That happens but it shouldn't happen too fast unless you do something like - fully opening the sluices immediately, rather than gradually.

'We had to put quite a lot of revs on because there was quite a lot of water flowing into the lock.'

You really shouldn't need 'quite a lot of revs' unless you've cranked those sluices in a hurry.

But he said moments later he turned back and noticed the boat moving backwards.
By this point his wife had moved forwards from her position, possibly to pull in one of the narrowboat's fenders, he said.
At the same time, she also realised the craft was moving backwards and began to make her way to the helm to put the boat in neutral or reverse and steady the craft.

She left the helm with the engine running. That's equivalent to putting a brick on your car's accelerator and climbing into the back for a snooze. With one exception. Boats don't have brakes. To stop it moving you need to reverse the engine and even then, there is no such thing as an emergency stop. Someone has to be in control at all times.

It was a terrible accident, but preventable with remedies that were available decades ago when I went on such a holiday. The boat we hired had a 'dead man's handle' system on the controller. If you let go, it sprung back to a neutral idle. I wonder why they don't have those on all hire boats by now? It's a simple enough device. Then again, an experienced boater would regard it as an insult.

Back then, as (it appears) now, the boat hirers tended to assume anyone hiring a boat had some idea what they were doing. In our case we had a few who had been on these barge holidays before, so we had some experienced ones among us.

The hirers didn't make us sit through a training course. Is that wrong of them? When you hire a car, are you expected to take a test, or simply show your licence? Would a plane hire company expect their customers to know how to fly a plane? I've hired tools in the past including a four-inch coring drill for putting in a tumble drier vent. The tool hire company assumed I knew how to use it. I did, but would they be at fault if I didn't and hired it anyway?

In the comments to the article -

I have been thinking about hiring a boat for a very long time. This has put me off completely. As someone who has never had any experience whatsoever, it could prove very dangerous. I think they give you a 10 minute instruction on how to manouver/negotiate locks and general functions and that's about it.

I am relieved that Nina of Birmingham has been put off. Rather like I would be relieved if those who have taken no driving lessons decided to make no attempt to drive.

Boats, especially these canal boats, are big, heavy vehicles with no brakes. The best way to learn about driving them is to take your first few trips with someone who already knows. Just like when you learn to drive a car. They are not for those in a hurry. Traversing a lock takes time and care and if you just haul open the sluices you'll get exactly the effect described here. If you open them slowly you'll have no problems unless your helmsman decides to take a walk.

It is not the responsibility of the car hire companies to teach you to drive. Nor is it the responsibility of the boat hire companies to teach you to operate a barge. If you're going to rent a big and dangerous machine, it's your responsibility to know how to use it.

I don't want to see a campaign for 'boat licences' because that will soon get ridiculous - you'd need to take lessons before taking a rowboat to go fishing on a pond, or to take out any kind of mini-boat on those pleasure-ponds that are only a few feet deep.

What I want to see is people taking the time to learn how to use the things they hire. People taking responsibility for their own education.

Not likely, unfortunately, so there'll be more cases like this. And then, regulations, which will do nothing but generate revenue.

Monday 25 January 2010

Election problems?

No, it's not one of 'those' Spam stories.

The Brown Gorgon's vacuous little helpers have been accidentally dropping a date of May 6th as the day on which he is due to experience his first election since taking over from the bulldog as the Face of Britain.

Blob Jobsworth dropped it most recently, but Bandy Burn'em dropped it last week and someone called Chris Bryant (who?) dropped it before that.

There are two possibilities here. One is that they really are all as totally useless and incompetent as they appear. A view I can readily accept, I admit.

The other possibility is that the Gorgon is frantically pumping to get an election sooner than that and the date is misdirection to make the Cameroids think they have plenty of time to campaign.

Sooner, please. Next week would be fine with me.

Prodicus is of the view that the Gorgon will keep his sticky fingers on the rods of power for as long as possible and won't let his election go off until the last minute.

The problem I have is that all three views are equally plausible. Then again, I'm not sure the final decision rests with the Gorgon. He might think it does, but I don't.

The Gorgon probably doesn't want an election, but there's a man behind him who might just force an election upon him.



(I'm channelling Benny Hill tonight, I think)

Dirty.

Nasty, smelly, dirty farms are to be punished. Only clean, wholesome, glittering farms where the staff wear starched and pressed wellies and the toilet-trained pigs all have little boots and shower every day are to be favoured by Labour.

Alternatively, Labour are going to use the flimsiest excuse they can get to avoid paying compensation for the last foot and mouth outbreak. That's right. They haven't paid up yet.

It's now been long enough since the last outbreak for the government to pretend that it was all due to dirty farms and nothing at all to do with any government lab staffed by the chimps Longleat declared too dim for pubic display. Blame the victims. It's the modern way.

I've spent quite a bit of time on farms and if you have a thousand head of pigs on your farm or worse - several thousand chickens - well, life is going to be generally dirty and smelly pretty much all the time. There is a lot of shit to shovel. Every day. It just keeps coming.

I've also been to piggeries that require everyone to shower on the way in and change into farm clothes, then shower again on the way out. That is 'biosecurity' and it's supposed to protect the pigs from horrible diseases carried by people who aren't sick. The rats and sparrows were always exempt because as biosecurity experts know, these are fastidiously clean creatures whose farts smell of lavender and fresh-ground coffee and who always travel at least five miles from the farm before taking a dump.

You've guessed, haven't you? Yes, it's a total waste of time. Other measures are sensible - trucks transporting animals are limited in how far up the track they can travel, people who've been to another pig farm can't visit this one for three days, and so on. The showering units are expensive to set up and achieve nothing.

If you don't have the Government approved form of biosecurity then the farm will have 'Dirty!' written on it in red paint and will be blamed for the release of dangerous pathogens from any government labs within two hundred miles.

Someone from the government will decide whether there's any dirt on the farm. Presumably by comparing it to a local hospital ward. Some farms would still pass.

Most farmers won't be getting any compensation for the government's bioblunder because now, it's the farm's fault.

Labour: Cut intelligence, not spending.

The next election song for any main party.



Just replace "rock and roll" with "politics" and it's done.

Priorities.

The police are going to watch us with drones. These will catch those vicious terrorist flytippers and bin fillers and bad parkers and people with a bottle of wine with their picnic in the Puritan Zones. Rapists and murderers need have no fear. They aren't looking for you.

You don't need an airgun. The drones work well in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and northern Pakistan because there's little to no RF interference. A long time ago I admitted to hanging around with radio-control aeromodellers. You can bugger a radio-controlled model with a RF wideband broadcast. It's harder to spot than any kind of gun because you can press the buttons while it's still in your pocket. Find a spiteful aeromodeller, they'll already have made one.

The police are busy chasing down Al Crochet operatives who have been plaiting horse's hair. These devilish knotters have sneaked into horses' stables and done no harm at all to animal or owner but they are Deviants and therefore justify the expenditure of enormous amounts of police time and taxpayers money in finding them and bringing them to what is laughingly termed 'justice'.

Meanwhile, psycho killers are released among us.

I wish we really were heading back to the Middle Ages. At least it made some kind of sense back then.

I also wish I hadn't started writing a dystopia novel. There's just no point in trying any more, is there?

Smoky-drinky update.

It was a late smoky-drinky. Four a.m. I arrived home, somewhat 'tired' due to weight of Isle of Jura in me but at least the snow that fell on my way out hadn't taken hold. I didn't need the spiky stick after all.

The child stolen from the parents who want him is now back with the foster parents who don't want him. He's approaching three and is probably, by now, sufficiently confused and deranged to be electable. His disability means he still can't walk yet and despite the insistence of Socialist Services, the absence of his parents has made no difference to this.

Meanwhile his parents have been moved to a new, bigger council house in a different town, further from where their son is located because they have a family.

Now, we pay the council a lot of money in council tax. You'd think there would be enough in the coffers to employ at least one person with an IQ in double figures, wouldn't you?

I'm going to have to send them a diagram showing arse and elbow, I think. With instructions on telling the difference.

Sunday 24 January 2010

Patience, people, patience.

Corrugated Soundbite has an excellent roundup of many of the reasons for the people of this country to rise up and burn parliament to the ground along with everyone in it. If they still taught proper history in school, this lot might know about the reasons for Charles the First being about eight inches shorter at the end of his reign than he was at the start. They were pretty much the same reasons.

As CS says, don't do it. These are all provocations to riot because once we start, the civil contingencies act comes into play and we'll never be rid of the Gorgon and his crew of dysfunctional Bedlam rejects.

Get them out first, give the Cameroids a week and if they prove to be the same - then burn them all.

CS's roundup is depressing enough but it doesn't mention the war on smokers that's about to extend into our homes, or the war on drinkers that means you can be lifted on your way out of the offlicence because 'you might drink it in the street' or 'you might give it to the cheeeeldren'. Oh, and there aren't enough suspected paedos yet. They want more.

For the non-drinkers and non-smokers out there - do you drive? Happy with the upcoming backdated road tax? How about paying the green taxes on petrol to combat global warming while you freeze in the snow around the pumps? How about the Tory idea of taxing motorists more to give money to married couples, almost all of whom are drivers and so will be paying to pay themselves. Once more, the money just goes in a circle but comes out light at the other end. Oh, but it's only just started for you folk.

All you petrolheads are Keeeling the Cheeeldren!

Must be you lot. We smokers are already banned from anywhere, especially if there's a chiiild about, and all adult males are keeping well clear of them. So it must be the smoke from exhausts on a road 100 yards away that's killing them.

Now, I know those who view the world in a stark monochromatic us-and-them way will have immediately jumped to the conclusion that because I think this story is unscientific, that must mean I think traffic fumes are harmless. You are wrong and I'd explain why if I thought your limited cognitive ability could cope with it. But I don't. So skip the rest of this. You won't like it anyway.

Kids are staying indoors more and more, which is why they're coming down with bulgy bellies and bendy legs. They don't play outside anywhere near as much as they used to in case some pensioner in a shiny suit tries to get them to join his gang. Houses have been hermetically sealed for Green reasons so not much of outside gets inside in most homes.

Traffic fumes are toxic. Not as much as they used to be in the days of leaded petrol and before catalytic converters but they are, nonetheless, toxic. I smoke and I don't like Union Street in Aberdeen because the fumes are choking. The volume and toxicity is far more than a whole army of smokers could produce.

Even so, unless the kids are playing beside the motorway and there's no wind, the amount they'll experience isn't really all that much. If it gets too stinky they'll play somewhere else. There are no playgrounds on Union Street.

It's the old 'single issue science' trick. Find a cause, just one, and make it the only one that matters. Then you can make a case for banning it.

Central heating with inadequate ventilation makes the air very dry, this makes the breathing passages very dry and makes them more prone to infection. That used to be a fact, you know. Forgotten along the way. Anyone remember humidifiers you hang on radiators?

Breathing trapped air, in, say, a house with all the windows permanently closed and stuff around the doors to prevent draughts, increases the amount of dust, spores, and exhaled nasties from other people, that float around and get breathed in. That used to be a fact too. Brushed aside.

Yes, traffic fumes are nasty but they are far from being the only nasty out there and in most cases, not the prevalent nasty in a child's breathing environment.

One final fact. Pneumonia is an infection. You don't get infections from exhaust fumes. You cannot get any infection from anything that's been burned. Anything that has been burned is sterilised. You can trust me on that one. It's my job to know things like that.

You get most infections from other people.

Although these days you don't need to go to the trouble of finding someone to catch something from. The NHS will do it for you, for free, and you won't even need to look at a smoker while they apply the nasties to you.

Remember- don't riot! They can't bring in their act just because of keyboards with teeth marks in them.

Saturday 23 January 2010

Smoky-Drinky time!

Off to the Smoky-Drinky place for the evening so there'll be no more rants tonight unless something terrible occurs and I'm still in control of my fingers when I get back. Electrofag is coming along but unless we decide to visit the pub, I won't be using it. The whole point of the Smoky-Drinky places is that I don't have to.

Via Frank Davis, I came across a bunch of what can only be considered 'fundamentalist smokers'. A blog asked for experiences of Electrofag users, some answered, and were derided roundly for not being real smokers. Some were accused of being ASH trolls trying to force Electrofag on the proper smokers. Quotes out of context, insults, the old 'if you think that, then you must be a...' lines - it started to look like a typical den of Righteousness and here I was thinking that smokers and the Righteous must be mortal enemies. Seems we have a few too. I suppose it was inevitable. Electrofag users are now seen as second-class smokers by smokers. The divisions get ever finer, day by day. Soon Marlboro smokers will have nothing to do with Benson and Hedges smokers and ASH will love every minute of it.

Well, now, what on earth happened to the concept of personal choice? Isn't that what opposition to the smoking ban is all about? So some people actually prefer Electrofag to tobacco. Personally, I don't. It's a fun gadget and it's the only way to combine a beer in a pub with a nearly-smoke. It's also fun to watch the Righteous recoil in terror and complain to the bar staff, only to be told I'm not doing anything illegal. It's not the same as tobacco but I can't have a tobacco smoke indoors and I can't take the pint outside. It's the best available option for combining them in the pub.

It's also handy at the lab when it's bucketing down outside because there's no shelter out there.

There is no 'force' coming from Electrofag users. Mine has been passed round the pub once or twice. I'm not selling them and get no commission so it only gets passed if someone wants to try it. Some think it's okay, some don't like it at all. That probably depends on what's in it - usually mine contains cigar or virginia flavour. The tobacco flavour tastes like a readymade, nothing like a rollup, so smokers of readymades won't like the virginia flavour.

Electrofag is an option, nothing more. For the moment. ASH are already pretending that a non-smoker will die from one whiff of the steam from one of these things even though there's nothing but steam, nicotine and a pharmaceutical grade thickener to make the steam look like smoke. Nobody will die or suffer any harm at all from standing next to an Electrofag puffer any more than they will from walking past a smoker in the street (and if you want to complain about smokers in the street, think for a moment about who forced us out there).

There is some concern that Electrofag could be used to enforce a ban on real tobacco. To which I will echo the only quotable thing Ed Balls has ever said - so what? Few of us are buying tobacco in the shops anyway. Hide them, make the packs plain, we don't care. Our packs have health warnings in German or Portuguese and we don't know what they say so we don't worry about it. Ban tobacco entirely and 100% of tobacco sold in this country will be black market. No more tax.

They won't ban tobacco because they need the money. ASH won't ban tobacco because if they do that, they're out of a job.

They will try to ban Electrofag 'for the cheeeldren' because it looks like smoking. They'll push those patches that bring me out in red welts and the gum that tastes like a tramp has peed in your mouth. Until a child gets hold of some of the funny-tasting chewing gum, which they are more likely to try than an Electrofag and which will do them far more harm than a real cigarette. Especially if they swallow it.

Electrofag users are smokers. They aren't burning tobacco but they are still smoking and many would love to go back to smoking real cigarettes indoors. Some now prefer Electrofag and there are many reasons for this beyond getting past the ban. You can take one puff and drop it back into your pocket. There's no ash at all. It won't make your fingers yellow. There's no worry about a dying lighter or running out of matches - although a dying battery can have the same effect. I can see why some prefer it to real smoking.

But not me. If the smoking ban were repealed tomorrow I'd be smoking the real thing in the pub. Currently I can't, but Electrofag at least keeps the idea of smoking indoors alive. That's why ASH will try to ban it and will probably succeed using lies and fake data. As they did before.

Electrofag comes in a zero-nicotine option, you know. Non-smokers can try it too. It also comes with non-tobacco flavours so you can take a puff of banana-flavoured steam with no nicotine in it and no real smoke - nothing harmful, no lasting smell and no nicotine. Just flavoured steam. ASH must be scared to death that that idea could get out.

Anyway, real smoke and whisky awaits. Better go and get some food first. It's often a long night.

Here come the God Blogs.

The Pope has instructed priests to blog. Soon you'll be able to fall asleep in front of your onscreen sermon instead of having to get up early on Sunday and trek to church to do it.

Some religious people already blog. They don't sermonise (at least, the ones I visit don't, but that could be a self-fulfilling observation). They write about current events from the perspective of someone with a religion. Different viewpoints are interesting so make the most of them before the government shut us all down in the name of social homogenisation.

The Pope seems to have taken his cue from Labour's methods. He has instructed the priests in how they should blog. That, Mr. Pope, isn't going to work. You'll get blogs filled with Bible quotes which those who are Christian already know about and which those who are not won't care to read. If your priests make no attempt to become 'media stars' as you put it, then nobody will know those blogs exist - other than the already converted - and preaching to the converted isn't particularly helpful.

You can't preach to the heathens through a blog. We terrible barbarians simply won't read it.

If you asked me to name a Christian priest, well, there's Mr. Pope of course, and that one who acts like Mr. Bean and has a similar name to the comedian who plays him, but one priest I can name is Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe. I've never heard him give a sermon but he's an interesting individual and I'd listen to what he has to say. It's too late to convert me to religion - I'm far too old and cynical - but if you want to get people to listen, simply transferring 'the message' from the church the unbeliever doesn't visit to a blog they won't visit isn't any use.

Mr. Pope has it the wrong way round. You can't instruct someone to blog. That makes it a chore when it should be a hobby. You can't tell anyone how to blog or what to blog about. That makes it into an online parish newspaper which only those who already believe what you're saying will read. That's what is wrong with Labour's central-office approach to the internet. The interesting Labour bloggers are those who are not under central control, who blog as and when the mood takes them and about whatever they like. The Bloggers with a Budget are uniformly dull, allow no dissent from their message and are preaching to the converted.

The blogs Mr. Pope wants are those centrally-controlled blogs. They'll get a ticking off if they stray from the message, if they start to become too popular or if they allow heathens to hijack the comment threads. They will be sermons to sleep through.

No, Mr. Pope, you have it wrong. Allow your priests to blog. Don't order them to do it. Allow the interesting ones to become popular. Don't control them. Let them discuss devils and demons and witchcraft and ghosts and things that go bump in the night. That's the stuff we heathens are fascinated by and that's what will bring the heathens to your door.

You might only get one convert out of a hundred regular priestly blogs but hey, blogging is free so your outlay is zero.

If you control the blogs they'll never see a heathen to convert.

Friday 22 January 2010

Flash!

The continued insane harassment of photographers has spawned a website dedicated to pointing out to the uninformed in uniform that photography is not illegal. There are no laws against photography. None.

If you go up to your neighbour's window and take photos of them indoors, that's illegal - but it's the peeping tommery, not the actual photography, that is illegal in that instance. You'd be breaking the same law if you did it without a camera and just stared. If you set up an easel and painted them watching TV you'd still be breaking the same law.

Some private buildings don't allow photography. They are private buildings and they have the right to decide what they allow and what they don't. Some places, such as museums, don't want flash photography because repeated bright flashes will accelerate the fading of old colours and will disturb other visitors. So there are places where photography isn't allowed, but it's not illegal. They can throw you out for breaking their rules but they can't arrest you.

Out on the street there are no laws to prevent you photographing or filming any damn thing you please - except now, you're not allowed to photograph the police. This allows them to harass you while making it illegal for you to collect evidence of them doing it. There's no other reason I can think of.

Terrorists will not be taking photographs of their intended targets. Never. They will be looking them up on Google Streetview and studying access points and side roads at their leisure without going near the place. They will not brazenly stand in front of their target with a camera.

Tomorrow, there is to be a mass photography session in Trafalgar Square to protest about the idiots who, despite being derided in every newspaper every time they do it, still insist on confusing 'terrorist' with 'tourist' and harassing people for something that is not and has never been illegal.

Old Holborn and Constantly Furious intend to visit. I'm too far away, unfortunately. (update - many other bloggers are going too, but I suspect no Grauniad readers or red rosette voters will be among them)

So, tomorrow, the police will have a whole army of photographers to arrest for a non-crime.

Coincidentally, tonight, Al Jolson, the homeliest of secretaries, has increased the terror level threat to 'Swanee' - I mean 'severe'. For no apparent reason.

Be careful out there tomorrow.


There is one good case for banning certain photographs, I admit, and it's people who look like this. Don't photograph them. Please.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Rickets!

By now, we're all accustomed to the rise in tuberculosis, a disease that should be of the past but which is becoming fashionable once more due to imported carriers. But did anyone expect to see rickets make a comeback? Rickets? What's next - scurvy and leprosy?

It's a pity Henry North London has gone quiet because he'd have a lot to say about this. Rickets is caused by a lack of vitamin D, and by political correctness.

That's right. Political correctness has led directly to rickets. So, to some extent, has the insistence that we all contain as little cholesterol as possible.

Although white children can develop rickets, many affected children in the UK have Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Middle Eastern origins.

There is a very sensible biological reason for this but it's un-PC to say it. Nonetheless, say it I will.

Vitamin D is formed in your own skin, all by itself, whenever you go outside in the sun. It doesn't work too well this far north and in winter, it doesn't work at all this far north because the light passes through more of the atmosphere due to the angle of the sun. The UV component that does the job is filtered out. In summer it's mostly filtered out. In winter, if you're north of about Birmingham, there's just not enough coming through to do any good.

That is why the people who thrived here in the past had white skins. There you go, Righteous, time to pucker both ends of your digestive tract as hard as you can.

If you have dark skin, your skin blocks most of the UV in the sunlight so you don't burn. That's a good thing in very sunny countries because we whiteys just fry and our skin falls off. There's so much sun that you'll still make plenty of Vitamin D even though your skin blocks most of the UV.

When humans moved north, those with lighter skins survived better because those with darker skins were vitamin D deficient. So we turned pale.

Nowadays it shouldn't matter. You can just buy a packet of Vitamin D tablets and take one a day and you'll be fine. Everyone with dark skin should do that and in fact, it's a good idea for the white folks too, especially in winter. Alternatively, make sure it's in your diet. Fish is a good source, if the EU will allow us to catch any.

The Righteous have shouted down any discussion that suggests any difference at all between the races and so the dark-skinned people of this country now have children with rickets. All because the Righteous insist we are all the same. We are not. Ignore them, if you have dark skin, and get yourself and your kids some Vitamin D.

Kids are not playing outside as much as they used to because most games are now indoors on a screen. Their parents are also terrified to let them out of their sight because of the glitter-suited childcatchers, gun-toting gangsters and knife-waving madmen they have been told are roaming every street in the land. Nice job, Righteous.

In addition, children are not taking cod liver oil - a rich source of the vitamin - in the same amounts as they did 50 years ago.

Is any child taking it now? I remember it. It was disgusting. Now you can buy it in little capsules so you don't have to taste it, or just get vitamin D tablets which don't taste of much at all. But really, is there a child out there taking any form of vitamin D? It's not in burgers, crisps or fizzy pop. Since all parental responsibility was taken away by the State, is there any parent now taking responsibility for their child's health? Or are they leaving that to the NHS and the social workers? Nice job again, Righteous.

(Check the packet. I suspect some of those supplements won't be suitable for small children because they're as big as horse pills in some cases. Sorry kids, it's a spoonful of foul oil for you).

Two medical specialists today called for the vitamin to be added to milk and other food products - much like it was in wartime - to ensure children are getting enough.

Other medical specialists have recently convinced the gullible that milk and butter are deadly poisons. So, put vitamins in milk if you like. They're all too scared to drink it now. Nice one, Righteous.

So, the Righteous have taken parental responsibility from parents, kept both parents and children indoors where they can watch them by scaring them with Gary the Bogeyman, encouraged the kids to leave home with a child at an early age so they don't know how to cook with more than a microwave and then made them all scared of milk. They have also refused to consider that darker-skinned people might need certain dietary supplements more than lighter-skinned people.

Which just leaves the cholesterol. Your skin will make vitamin D on exposure to sunlight but it won't spontaneously generate it from nothing. It needs something to make it from. It needs something called 7-dehydrocholesterol. Which is found in the fat component of milk. Which the Righteous have been busy diluting out of milk for years. That precursor can be made from cholesterol which the Righteous have been busily diluting out of our bloodstreams for years. Too much cholesterol is bad for you. So is too little. The same is true for salt and everything else they want eradicated from our diets.

The Righteous have removed all sources of vitamin D from our diet in their relentless determination to stamp out British culture and to control every morsel we eat. They have not considered for a moment why our diet is the way it is. Sure, we don't toil the fields like we used to so if we eat to much of it we gain weight - but the diet has developed because that's the diet that keeps people alive in this part of the world. Fish and chips is not just a fad. It's a source of several important fish oils and also of vitamins, including vitamin D. Important in a country that doesn't get a lot of sunshine.

This resurgence of a disease that should put any allegedly civilised country to shame is entirely due to Righteous meddling in people's lives. It is a direct result of Labour's social control agenda. It will continue under the same agenda being pushed by the Tories.

They will not see it. Every isolated 'bad thing' is pushed down and controlled with no consideration of its effect on a biologically complex organism. No thought of 'maybe it's only bad in excess. Maybe it's actually essential in some quantity' ever crosses a single Righteous mind. Their only thought is 'Ooo, look, here's something we can ban'.

Ignore all government-sponsored dietary advice. Eat what your body tells you to eat. If you feel like you need some salt, add some salt. If you feel like a fry-up, have a fry-up. If you start to put on weight, just eat less of it. It's not what you eat that makes you fat, it's how much.

Rickets. I still can't believe they've brought the country back to rickets.

Oh, all right.


Well, everyone else has.

Have a go yourself.

Smokers and death.


Yes, it's an ashtray and yes they are skulls and yes the inscription does say 'see you later'.

It's my favourite ashtray, pictured after its annual proper cleaning (rather than just emptying). I've had it for years and I bought it because it was funny. If I recall correctly it was advertised as 'an aid to giving up smoking'.

Over at Dick Puddlecote's there are images of what cigarette packs would look like if they were 'made really scary'. I'd buy them. In fact I'd revel in them. Dick reports on the story Giolla mentioned in comments a few posts back. I was going to have a go but Dick's already said all there is to say.

Put more skulls and corpses on cigarettes. The more the better. We'll laugh at them and delight in them. They will not put us off buying tobacco, they will make us buy it all the more.

Does this mean that smokers are intrepid, heroic people who know not the meaning of fear? No it does not. It means that smokers don't care about the warnings because we know they are only put there by people who are permanently scared of everything. It means smokers don't spend every waking minute worried about dying of something. It is not that we want to die, it is not some kind of slow-motion death-wish, it's that we just aren't permanently terrified.

We are also not scared by odd and uncertain associations. There was a review, in last week's New Scientist, of a book written by a doctor in the 1950's who linked smoking with the sudden surge in cases of lung cancer. Sounds plausible until you stop and think for a moment. The surge in lung cancer happened in the 1950's. Now, by no stretch of the imagination could anyone claim that Francis Drake's voyages happened shortly before that. Nor that nobody smoked in the 1920's. I'm not saying smoking cannot cause lung cancer - any foreign chemical taken into your lungs has the potential to do it - but I am saying that most of the links are based on some pretty shaky science. There were many more pollutants in the air in 1950 than just tobacco smoke. There still are. Frank Davis covered this nicely, some time ago.

I smoke and I'm going to die one day. Every smoker is going to die. Actually, not all that many of us die of something horrible. Most of us just get old and die.

So is every non-smoker. Even those who have never breathed a single molecule of tobacco smoke. Some of them will die of something horrible too. Some will die of lung cancer and blame smokers. They'll blame the little roll of burning leaves, not the log fire, the bonfire, the traffic fumes or anything else. There's really nothing in tobacco smoke that's not also in all those other things other than nicotine - and nicotine at that concentration is not harmful. At all. If it were, then selling much higher concentrations in stick-on patches and gum would be illegal. Well, it no longer matters how the non-smokers die. They'll blame smokers for it anyway.

We all die. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it and nobody knows when it'll happen so just forget about it and get on with enjoying whatever time you have.

And while you're doing that, leave me alone to enjoy whatever time I have.

But please, put more skulls and coffins on the packets. They look great.