Labour's 'oh no we aren't having a class war' memo has not reached Telegraph commentator Andrew M. Brown. He's been counting the buttons on Cameron's cuffs, while wearing a tinfoil hat you could use to roast an emu.
The number of buttons means something, apparently. It's a social status symbol. It's a secret Bullingdon code thing or something. Which is odd, because having a status symbol that nobody knows is a status symbol seems rather futile. It's odder yet because he names two others in the five-button conspiracy - Prince Charles and Tiny Blur! Bullingdon boys?
The Labour class war has now descended to cuff button counting, and Andy is basing his theory that Cameron considers himself as important as Prince Charles on the number of cuff buttons they have (five, same as Tiny Blur, who passes uncriticised).
I don't care if Cameron has cuff buttons up to his shoulders. I don't even care all that much if they were taxpayer-funded cuff buttons because that would be a small price to pay for a Prime Monster who looks as though he likes a laugh. In fact, get Cameron a Pearly King outfit if only because the sight of all those buttons will make Andy's tinfoil hat spin fast enough to generate electricity. We could link him in to the Grid and just keep showing him buttons. At peak demand, we could show him shiny gold ones.
I don't care about the fashion statements or the status symbols or whether Cameron has his hair combed by vestal virgins and his eyebrows trimmed by trained hedgehogs with miniature lawnmowers while his suits are ironed to perfection by a team of engineers who use laser sights to line up the creases. I don't care.
What's he going to do if (as seems likely) he wins? He's been telling us what he plans and frankly, I don't like all of it. Some of it I don't like at all. However, he is telling us.
Labour are also telling us... what they think the Conservatives will do. Perhaps they'll rank us all by cuff button number. What Labour are keeping quiet about is what they'll do in the unlikely event they manage to win votes from the BNP. Unlikely, because they are trying to win votes from the Tories who are not the party they've lost their core to. Wrong target. As usual.
Well, better get sewing. Just in case Tinfoil Andy is on to something, my jackets will all need at least six buttons per sleeve. Then I'll outrank Prince Charles on the Andy Brown scale of button importance.
Today, cuff buttons. Tomorrow - the world!
Monday, 4 January 2010
What's in Yemen?
In the comments to this post, there was mention of the buildup to invading Yemen. One suggested that it would complete a circle of American troops around Iran, but Saudi Arabia is between Yemen and Iran and the Americans have been busy there for a long time. They don't need Yemen as a base to attack Iran. They already have forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. So that's not what they want it for.
The Dry Roasted Nuts amateur terrorist was allegedly trained there. If that's the training, there's nothing to worry about. All he managed to do was flare his trousers, and not in the Sixties manner. Let them train terrorists like that and we can all relax and watch the firework show as another Alky Ada operative demonstrates his amazing exploding underwear.
Rather like all that concrete-block airport security after the Keystone Kriminals tried to blow up Glasgow airport but managed only to blow up themselves and then get beaten up by a baggage handler, we are now faced with more and deeper security because of a spontaneously combusting knob-end. Our leaders are gibbering cowards and are utterly ill-equipped to lead anything more than a Girl Scout cookie-sale stall. They are running around with their hands in the air shrieking "Terrorist! Terrorist!" when all that really happened was that someone who apparently passed university level engineering made a less effective explosive than we used to make at school, before we'd even passed O level chemistry. One kid managed to make nitroglycerine but then he had very few friends.
If there are camps in Yemen where they train suicide bombers to blow themselves up without hurting anyone else, that's fine with me. Why interfere with that? Why invade Yemen? Which is clearly what's coming.
What's in there? Oil? With peak oil either approaching or passed, the West will want to secure the remaining easily-accessible supplies before the Arabs realise what's happening and put the price up. Does Yemen have oil? Even if it does, Saudi has much more.
So if it's an encircling action, it's not encircling Iran. That would be futile anyway because not even the Americans would consider moving in on Turkmenistan. That place is seriously nuts.
Are they encircling Saudi?
Or maybe they want Yemen as a base to deal with Somalian pirates. That would be plausible, as would the idea that the UK and US would just move in rather than ask Yemen for help in that respect.
But really, trying to convince us that a graduate engineer, trained by Al Qaida, managed no more than a sparkler in his shorts after sneaking past all that security, is just silly. We've had to deal with the IRA here. We expect a better class of terrorist. Nobody went into panic-stricken clampdown when the IRA were planting proper bombs yet we are expected to go through electronic strip search because of these rank amateurs? The hooded teenagers on the streets are scarier than this. Grannies in mobility carts cause more damage than this. Crossing the street is more dangerous and the current cold snap has caused more deaths. There is no justification for invading Yemen on the basis that Mr. Fiery Trousers might have spent time there.
So what's it about? Any ideas?
The Dry Roasted Nuts amateur terrorist was allegedly trained there. If that's the training, there's nothing to worry about. All he managed to do was flare his trousers, and not in the Sixties manner. Let them train terrorists like that and we can all relax and watch the firework show as another Alky Ada operative demonstrates his amazing exploding underwear.
Rather like all that concrete-block airport security after the Keystone Kriminals tried to blow up Glasgow airport but managed only to blow up themselves and then get beaten up by a baggage handler, we are now faced with more and deeper security because of a spontaneously combusting knob-end. Our leaders are gibbering cowards and are utterly ill-equipped to lead anything more than a Girl Scout cookie-sale stall. They are running around with their hands in the air shrieking "Terrorist! Terrorist!" when all that really happened was that someone who apparently passed university level engineering made a less effective explosive than we used to make at school, before we'd even passed O level chemistry. One kid managed to make nitroglycerine but then he had very few friends.
If there are camps in Yemen where they train suicide bombers to blow themselves up without hurting anyone else, that's fine with me. Why interfere with that? Why invade Yemen? Which is clearly what's coming.
What's in there? Oil? With peak oil either approaching or passed, the West will want to secure the remaining easily-accessible supplies before the Arabs realise what's happening and put the price up. Does Yemen have oil? Even if it does, Saudi has much more.
So if it's an encircling action, it's not encircling Iran. That would be futile anyway because not even the Americans would consider moving in on Turkmenistan. That place is seriously nuts.
Are they encircling Saudi?
Or maybe they want Yemen as a base to deal with Somalian pirates. That would be plausible, as would the idea that the UK and US would just move in rather than ask Yemen for help in that respect.
But really, trying to convince us that a graduate engineer, trained by Al Qaida, managed no more than a sparkler in his shorts after sneaking past all that security, is just silly. We've had to deal with the IRA here. We expect a better class of terrorist. Nobody went into panic-stricken clampdown when the IRA were planting proper bombs yet we are expected to go through electronic strip search because of these rank amateurs? The hooded teenagers on the streets are scarier than this. Grannies in mobility carts cause more damage than this. Crossing the street is more dangerous and the current cold snap has caused more deaths. There is no justification for invading Yemen on the basis that Mr. Fiery Trousers might have spent time there.
So what's it about? Any ideas?
Product placement.
Apparently, the advertising breaks in TV programming are set to bleed into the programmes themselves. I don't watch enough TV to care about this all that much, but it sounds like a bad idea.
Critics claim the move, which broadcasters say will give them up to £140m a year in extra revenue, will fuel childhood obesity,
No it won't. If they're mesmerised by the goggle box for hour after hour every day, they are already on their way to the body shape required for admission into World of Warcraft forums. If they are out jumping around and playing sports, they aren't watching. That's not why I think it's a bad idea.
exacerbate the problems caused by alcohol and gambling,
Uh... again, if they're at home watching TV, they are neither in the bookies nor in the pub and if they want to get bladdered in front of Coronary Street, who can blame them? That stuff could drive anyone to drink. So this is rubbish too and it's not why I think product placement is a bad idea.
and distort storylines by rewarding programme makers for deliberately giving certain items high visibility.
There it is. That little add-on line at the end. Drop all that 'for the cheeldren' crap and the 'if they see drink, they'll want drink' nonsense. I think product placement is a bad idea because the advertiser's money will cause storyline deformation. Characters will visit particular car showrooms or coffee shops and buy particular things for no story-based reason whatsoever. It will become blatant and it will be lousy TV. Imagine Daleks with 'Bosch power tools' printed across their heads. Columbo flaunting his cigar pack to show they are King Edwards'. Father Jack raising a bottle of Bells and making sure the label is clear. The Rovers' Return offering Pimms' No. 1 on a promotion to all customers. It's not going to make me rush out and buy those things. It's going to make me switch off the TV and do something else.
Most TV is already crap. The X factor would not be degraded by product placement because it's already as degraded as it can get. Big Brother, 'I'm a celebrity', the same. There are a few good programmes left.
This will finish them off.
Critics claim the move, which broadcasters say will give them up to £140m a year in extra revenue, will fuel childhood obesity,
No it won't. If they're mesmerised by the goggle box for hour after hour every day, they are already on their way to the body shape required for admission into World of Warcraft forums. If they are out jumping around and playing sports, they aren't watching. That's not why I think it's a bad idea.
exacerbate the problems caused by alcohol and gambling,
Uh... again, if they're at home watching TV, they are neither in the bookies nor in the pub and if they want to get bladdered in front of Coronary Street, who can blame them? That stuff could drive anyone to drink. So this is rubbish too and it's not why I think product placement is a bad idea.
and distort storylines by rewarding programme makers for deliberately giving certain items high visibility.
There it is. That little add-on line at the end. Drop all that 'for the cheeldren' crap and the 'if they see drink, they'll want drink' nonsense. I think product placement is a bad idea because the advertiser's money will cause storyline deformation. Characters will visit particular car showrooms or coffee shops and buy particular things for no story-based reason whatsoever. It will become blatant and it will be lousy TV. Imagine Daleks with 'Bosch power tools' printed across their heads. Columbo flaunting his cigar pack to show they are King Edwards'. Father Jack raising a bottle of Bells and making sure the label is clear. The Rovers' Return offering Pimms' No. 1 on a promotion to all customers. It's not going to make me rush out and buy those things. It's going to make me switch off the TV and do something else.
Most TV is already crap. The X factor would not be degraded by product placement because it's already as degraded as it can get. Big Brother, 'I'm a celebrity', the same. There are a few good programmes left.
This will finish them off.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Blogroll - a work in progress.
I continue to add blogs to the sidebar and have so far done nothing about categorising them. It won't happen this month because at some point I'll have to fill in an online tax return and I can't put it off forever, even though it's utterly wasted money. The additions are random because I channel-flip on blogs like a chav with a sky remote and once in a while realise that a regular read isn't in my list.
If you're not in there, let me know.
If you're not in there, let me know.
Profiling won't work.
The photo I am about to link to might cause you to spill something. Put down any drinks and swallow before clicking.
A Muslim MP, Khalid 'Gnasher' Mahmood, thinks it's perfectly fair and reasonable to single out Muslims for special attention at airport checks. Not surprisingly, many Muslims disagree and perhaps surprisingly, so do I.
Not because of some oversensitive loony 'racism' nonsense. Not because it might cause all those Muslims to rise up and be awfully inconvenient until they realise that there are two million of them and 58 million non-Muslims in this country, and that 'rising up' might not be such a good idea after all. Not out of any sense of fairness or equality but for one simple, logical reason.
It will make it far, far easier for a suicide bomber to get past security.
Islam is not a race, despite Righteous pronouncements to the contrary. Profiling that selects Muslims is therefore not racism. It's also not possible. You might as well profile on the basis of people who shop at Tesco. You can't tell who they are by looking at them and you can't tell someone's religion by looking at them unless they are wearing religious artefacts or clothing.
Pakistan is a Muslim country so most Pakistanis are Muslim, but not all. Most of those of Arabian/Persian stock are Muslim, but not all. Indians tend not to be Muslim but some are. Chinese Muslims exist, as do black Muslims, and also white ones with Home Counties English accents. So who are you selecting here? What are the criteria?
If a mad Islamist lunatic wants to blow up a plane, he's hardly going to turn up in full Islamic dress shouting 'Allahu Akbar', now is he? He's going to turn up in a pinstripe suit with a laptop in a briefcase because the profilers will wave him through. He might even choose to wear overt religious symbolism, perhaps a cross, or maybe a Sikh turban, or as Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (oh, I have to resist a serious digression here) suggests, as an orthodox Jew. Nobody is going to suspect someone dressed as an orthodox Jew of being an Islamic bomber in disguise. It's about as unlikely as it gets.
Profiling can only work if based on race but Islam is not a race. Profiling will select Pakistani or African Muslims. The lunatic fringe that is radical Islam will simply enlist a Chinese or white sad loner with no future as their next vehicle of destruction. He'll be dressed as a member of a different religion and the profilers will wave him through with no more than a cursory inspection.
That's why I think profiling is a bad idea. It'll make it easier for the bombers, not harder.
Besides, even when the bomber's own father reports him to the authorities, they take no notice. It's almost as if they want them to succeed. But then, that would be absurd.
Wouldn't it?
A Muslim MP, Khalid 'Gnasher' Mahmood, thinks it's perfectly fair and reasonable to single out Muslims for special attention at airport checks. Not surprisingly, many Muslims disagree and perhaps surprisingly, so do I.
Not because of some oversensitive loony 'racism' nonsense. Not because it might cause all those Muslims to rise up and be awfully inconvenient until they realise that there are two million of them and 58 million non-Muslims in this country, and that 'rising up' might not be such a good idea after all. Not out of any sense of fairness or equality but for one simple, logical reason.
It will make it far, far easier for a suicide bomber to get past security.
Islam is not a race, despite Righteous pronouncements to the contrary. Profiling that selects Muslims is therefore not racism. It's also not possible. You might as well profile on the basis of people who shop at Tesco. You can't tell who they are by looking at them and you can't tell someone's religion by looking at them unless they are wearing religious artefacts or clothing.
Pakistan is a Muslim country so most Pakistanis are Muslim, but not all. Most of those of Arabian/Persian stock are Muslim, but not all. Indians tend not to be Muslim but some are. Chinese Muslims exist, as do black Muslims, and also white ones with Home Counties English accents. So who are you selecting here? What are the criteria?
If a mad Islamist lunatic wants to blow up a plane, he's hardly going to turn up in full Islamic dress shouting 'Allahu Akbar', now is he? He's going to turn up in a pinstripe suit with a laptop in a briefcase because the profilers will wave him through. He might even choose to wear overt religious symbolism, perhaps a cross, or maybe a Sikh turban, or as Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (oh, I have to resist a serious digression here) suggests, as an orthodox Jew. Nobody is going to suspect someone dressed as an orthodox Jew of being an Islamic bomber in disguise. It's about as unlikely as it gets.
Profiling can only work if based on race but Islam is not a race. Profiling will select Pakistani or African Muslims. The lunatic fringe that is radical Islam will simply enlist a Chinese or white sad loner with no future as their next vehicle of destruction. He'll be dressed as a member of a different religion and the profilers will wave him through with no more than a cursory inspection.
That's why I think profiling is a bad idea. It'll make it easier for the bombers, not harder.
Besides, even when the bomber's own father reports him to the authorities, they take no notice. It's almost as if they want them to succeed. But then, that would be absurd.
Wouldn't it?
Saturday, 2 January 2010
The Ban Plan
When the Righteous find a method that works, they stick with it absolutely. That is both a strength and a weakness.
Strength, because once they embark on the plan, they stick to it absolutely. They cannot be diverted or distracted from their step by step progression. All of them follow the same steps and in the same order. Inconvenient facts are adjusted or ignored in favour of their goal and their really big strength is that they can convince their followers to actually believe their goal is right. The facts must be wrong. Reality must be spun until it conforms. If enough people believe something then it must be true. Reality by democratic decision, not by physics or chemistry. Once the Righteous plan is started, it's very hard to stop.
It's also a weakness, because they will use the same step by step plan again on an entirely different target. And again. And again. After a few such implementations, it becomes easy to see the plan in its early stages but it's still difficult to stop it. There are just too many who will fall for this plan, no matter how many times it is implemented.
The Ban Plan must surely, by now, be obvious to everyone and yet it still works. Smoking was an easy one to start with. There were already plenty of people ready to fake a cough or do a bit of theatrical hand-waving if a smoker approached within a hundred yards of them. I've even had someone fake a cough at me while I was rolling a cigarette. They couldn't wait for me to light it. Oh, the Ban Plan was easy to implement with a ready-made army of indoctrinable suckers.
You all know the tune by now. One, make it socially unacceptable. Two, make up some very large figures preferably involving deaths, costs to the taxpayer, NHS collapsing under the load etc. Three, when you have an army of outraged idiots, start imposing controls. Just little ones at first, just to get the rest of the country used to the idea that the Thing to be banned is a Bad Thing.
Then ban it.
The ultimate aim of the Ban Plan has nothing to do with health or environment or anything that people might really want. It's a means to exert control and as the Ban Plans continue, pretty soon you have a population who aren't sure what's allowed and what's not and will agree to anything just to be left alone. Even things that have gone unremarked for generations, like taking a photo in the street, are suddenly viewed with suspicion by minds that are conditioned to think 'Well, I don't do that, and if I don't do it, it must be illegal'.
We saw the whole thing through with smoking. The same technique is now being applied to alcohol and it's already well advanced. Overweight? You've seen the plan progressing too. Filament light bulbs were billed as evil polar bear killing machines and their end is imminent. Batteries are now in the sights.
"Batteries?" you ask. "Leg-iron's lost it this time. Why would they ban batteries? It's absurd."
Yes it is. While government installs massive computer facilities that consume huge quantities of power while achieving nothing, your filament light bulb has to be removed because it's killing the planet. If you drive, you are the sole cause of pollution even though six of those huge container ships wandering the high seas produce more pollution than all the cars in the world - and there are hundreds of those ships. People can stand on a busy street and inhale exhaust fumes all day long but they only cough and splutter when someone lights half a gram of leaves wrapped in paper. We have more CCTV cameras than any other country, you can see most of the country with Google Streetview, yet people believe that anyone taking a photo must be breaking the law even though it's been repeatedly stated that they are not. Of course a ban on batteries is absurd. It's all absurd. It always was.
Because it's not about making life better for the likes of you and me. It's about control and the more absurd the subject of the ban, the better. Ordinary things become objects of terror. People are really convinced they will die if a smoker lights up in the same hemisphere as them. People are really convinced that all photographers are terrorists and that anyone who so much as glances in the direction of a child is a paedophile. People are really convinced that anyone who drinks more than the government-alloted ration must be a violent thug who goes home and nails his children to the wall every evening.
People believe it is right to punish car drivers at every opportunity. It is right that smokers, drinkers and the overweight are treated as subhuman. It is right that photographers must be stopped from taking pictures in CCTV-covered streets. It is right that filament bulbs must be eradicated.
In the comments to the original Mail article, there is this...
We should recycle batteries as they contain rare precious metals. Take zinc which can only be created when a Red Giant sun dies in a particular way; when the earth formed we got some of it from the debris. We take this rare metal, formed by cosmic accident, make batteries out of it and then just chuck it in a bin to go to landfill without further thought. There is no endless supply of zinc. Recycle now or your grandchildren will be mining landfill sites for materials.
...it is right that battery users and suppliers should pay for special measures to recycle them. They are hazardous materials (funnily enough, they're not hazardous when you buy them. Yet) and contain the stuff of stars which is precious and rare. Zinc? Rare? You can roof your shed with sheets of the stuff and buy zinc-based creams by the gallon. It's in pig diets as a pathogen control agent. We use it all the time. It's cheap, and rare things tend not to be. Yet this idiot believes the hype and he's far from alone.
Yes, a ban on batteries is absurd but then classifying used batteries as hazardous waste is absurd too. It's only the first phase of the Ban Plan. Once the 'hazardous' label is ingrained in people's minds, it's a small step to make the unused ones hazardous too. Then, warning labels, age restrictions, and so on. Just like before. Every time. Soon they'll be classed as 'not Green' and we'll be 'encouraged' to use rechargeables instead. Then it's bye-bye Duracell.
Why? What's dangerous about batteries? Nothing at all. It's not about protecting you, it's about controlling you.
What is dangerous is the Ban Plan. Very dangerous indeed. For example - what causes lung cancer? Go on, think hard. What causes lung cancer?
Did you think of blue asbestos? No? Did you think of thorium from granite? No? Hot showers? Exhaust particulates? Human papilloma virus? Pure genetic bad luck?
Your first thought was 'smoking' and if you ask anyone what causes lung cancer, it's the response you'll get. Ask for a second cause and you'll usually be hard pressed to get one. It's so ingrained that any doctor, on diagnosing lung cancer, will put it down to the patient's smoking or if they don't smoke, to contact with smokers. No other cause is considered and no other cause is investigated any more. Other causes of lung cancer just don't exist in the Righteous-indoctrinated mind. So there will never be a cure. Nobody is looking.
Throat cancer is now caused by drinking. Other causes are being quietly forgotten. Diabetes is caused by being overweight. No other cause is possible. Research into these diseases is crippled because anyone suggesting that they might not all be caused by the Bad Thing won't be getting their grants renewed.
It's not just climate science that's been reduced to a laughing stock by the Righteous. All science is going down the tubes because of the Righteous single-issue mindset. The Righteous don't care. Reality is shaped by concensus, remember? If enough people believe it, it must be true.
And people who believe what they are told to believe are under control.
That's all the Righteous want.
Strength, because once they embark on the plan, they stick to it absolutely. They cannot be diverted or distracted from their step by step progression. All of them follow the same steps and in the same order. Inconvenient facts are adjusted or ignored in favour of their goal and their really big strength is that they can convince their followers to actually believe their goal is right. The facts must be wrong. Reality must be spun until it conforms. If enough people believe something then it must be true. Reality by democratic decision, not by physics or chemistry. Once the Righteous plan is started, it's very hard to stop.
It's also a weakness, because they will use the same step by step plan again on an entirely different target. And again. And again. After a few such implementations, it becomes easy to see the plan in its early stages but it's still difficult to stop it. There are just too many who will fall for this plan, no matter how many times it is implemented.
The Ban Plan must surely, by now, be obvious to everyone and yet it still works. Smoking was an easy one to start with. There were already plenty of people ready to fake a cough or do a bit of theatrical hand-waving if a smoker approached within a hundred yards of them. I've even had someone fake a cough at me while I was rolling a cigarette. They couldn't wait for me to light it. Oh, the Ban Plan was easy to implement with a ready-made army of indoctrinable suckers.
You all know the tune by now. One, make it socially unacceptable. Two, make up some very large figures preferably involving deaths, costs to the taxpayer, NHS collapsing under the load etc. Three, when you have an army of outraged idiots, start imposing controls. Just little ones at first, just to get the rest of the country used to the idea that the Thing to be banned is a Bad Thing.
Then ban it.
The ultimate aim of the Ban Plan has nothing to do with health or environment or anything that people might really want. It's a means to exert control and as the Ban Plans continue, pretty soon you have a population who aren't sure what's allowed and what's not and will agree to anything just to be left alone. Even things that have gone unremarked for generations, like taking a photo in the street, are suddenly viewed with suspicion by minds that are conditioned to think 'Well, I don't do that, and if I don't do it, it must be illegal'.
We saw the whole thing through with smoking. The same technique is now being applied to alcohol and it's already well advanced. Overweight? You've seen the plan progressing too. Filament light bulbs were billed as evil polar bear killing machines and their end is imminent. Batteries are now in the sights.
"Batteries?" you ask. "Leg-iron's lost it this time. Why would they ban batteries? It's absurd."
Yes it is. While government installs massive computer facilities that consume huge quantities of power while achieving nothing, your filament light bulb has to be removed because it's killing the planet. If you drive, you are the sole cause of pollution even though six of those huge container ships wandering the high seas produce more pollution than all the cars in the world - and there are hundreds of those ships. People can stand on a busy street and inhale exhaust fumes all day long but they only cough and splutter when someone lights half a gram of leaves wrapped in paper. We have more CCTV cameras than any other country, you can see most of the country with Google Streetview, yet people believe that anyone taking a photo must be breaking the law even though it's been repeatedly stated that they are not. Of course a ban on batteries is absurd. It's all absurd. It always was.
Because it's not about making life better for the likes of you and me. It's about control and the more absurd the subject of the ban, the better. Ordinary things become objects of terror. People are really convinced they will die if a smoker lights up in the same hemisphere as them. People are really convinced that all photographers are terrorists and that anyone who so much as glances in the direction of a child is a paedophile. People are really convinced that anyone who drinks more than the government-alloted ration must be a violent thug who goes home and nails his children to the wall every evening.
People believe it is right to punish car drivers at every opportunity. It is right that smokers, drinkers and the overweight are treated as subhuman. It is right that photographers must be stopped from taking pictures in CCTV-covered streets. It is right that filament bulbs must be eradicated.
In the comments to the original Mail article, there is this...
We should recycle batteries as they contain rare precious metals. Take zinc which can only be created when a Red Giant sun dies in a particular way; when the earth formed we got some of it from the debris. We take this rare metal, formed by cosmic accident, make batteries out of it and then just chuck it in a bin to go to landfill without further thought. There is no endless supply of zinc. Recycle now or your grandchildren will be mining landfill sites for materials.
Yes, a ban on batteries is absurd but then classifying used batteries as hazardous waste is absurd too. It's only the first phase of the Ban Plan. Once the 'hazardous' label is ingrained in people's minds, it's a small step to make the unused ones hazardous too. Then, warning labels, age restrictions, and so on. Just like before. Every time. Soon they'll be classed as 'not Green' and we'll be 'encouraged' to use rechargeables instead. Then it's bye-bye Duracell.
Why? What's dangerous about batteries? Nothing at all. It's not about protecting you, it's about controlling you.
What is dangerous is the Ban Plan. Very dangerous indeed. For example - what causes lung cancer? Go on, think hard. What causes lung cancer?
Did you think of blue asbestos? No? Did you think of thorium from granite? No? Hot showers? Exhaust particulates? Human papilloma virus? Pure genetic bad luck?
Your first thought was 'smoking' and if you ask anyone what causes lung cancer, it's the response you'll get. Ask for a second cause and you'll usually be hard pressed to get one. It's so ingrained that any doctor, on diagnosing lung cancer, will put it down to the patient's smoking or if they don't smoke, to contact with smokers. No other cause is considered and no other cause is investigated any more. Other causes of lung cancer just don't exist in the Righteous-indoctrinated mind. So there will never be a cure. Nobody is looking.
Throat cancer is now caused by drinking. Other causes are being quietly forgotten. Diabetes is caused by being overweight. No other cause is possible. Research into these diseases is crippled because anyone suggesting that they might not all be caused by the Bad Thing won't be getting their grants renewed.
It's not just climate science that's been reduced to a laughing stock by the Righteous. All science is going down the tubes because of the Righteous single-issue mindset. The Righteous don't care. Reality is shaped by concensus, remember? If enough people believe it, it must be true.
And people who believe what they are told to believe are under control.
That's all the Righteous want.
This... is an ex smoker.
Vicki Woods is an ex-smoker. One day I'll do a 'Dead Parrot Sketch' version of that. This smoker is no more. He has stubbed his last dog-end. Bereft of baccy, he's learning to smell again. This.. is an ex-smoker.
It needs a lot of work. However, to get back to the point, Vicki Woods is an ex-smoker but without the piety and superiority that ex-smokers too often acquire. She is against the smoking ban because while she smokes no more, she still likes to visit the local pub once in a while. Oh, but the smoking ban must mean it's easier for an ex-smoker to stay an ex-smoker while still going to the pub, surely? Ah, no, because the pub has closed.
Her article is a good one and well worth a read. At the time of typing, there are three comments and they are all Righteous.
Here's John.
I would also like to see the law updated. My suggestion would be to lower the price of drinks in non smoking pubs for example, 25p and increase the prices in smoking pubs by a similar amount.
The amount could be reviewed to get a balance between smoking and non smoking pubs. I would then have a choice.
Why does John require a 50p difference in the price of a pint between non-smoking and smoking pubs? Well, because otherwise the non-smoking pub will die from lack of customers. The non-smoking pubs are closing now because they can't make enough money, John. The smoking pubs, in your scenario, would make a fortune. The non-smoking ones would die faster. Idiot.
Then we have Clive Warner, who had a long comment so I won't use all of it:
If The Oak's takings dropped by 90% after the smoking ban took effect, logically, this implies that 90% of the Oak's customers were smokers?
No. That's simplistic logic. The smokers stopped going and therefore their non-smoking drinking buddies stopped going too. Their non-smoking buddies never objected to the smoke otherwise they wouldn't have been buddies, do you see? Now they all visit a local smoky-drinky place and are finding out that socialising does not have to involve pub prices and half the company going outside for a smoke. They might never visit a pub again. Any of them.
"foulest" Summer, "wettest" Christmas 2007 - isn't this a good reason why takings might have dropped? Along with the recession?
Sigh. Smokers have to go outside to smoke. The connection is there if you spend a moment looking for it.
How about the also-mentioned ". . . our real-world Oak is tied to a pubco (Enterprise) from which it must purchase its beer. Fewer pubs means less beer must be sold at ever-increasing prices."
Not to mention other factors such as supermarkets selling alcohol as a loss-leader.
Something supermarkets have always done. The local corner shop sells at below pub prices too. We went to the pub for the company and the socialising. It was always more expensive than drinking at home. Always. The only difference is that now we can't smoke in the pub and we'd rather set up our own socialising networks than stand in the rain. The 'supermarket cheap booze' is not an argument, it's a rather sad and feeble attempt at an excuse.
And finally, Steve Griffin appears, to trot out the standard ASH propaganda:
These smokers who feel their liberty is trampled on by dogooders preventing them poisoning the atmosphere of a persons place of work should try practising their habit at home -being sure to not subject their children to the noxious fumes they would like to foist on pub staff and the general pub alike.
Steve. You already have every public place to yourself. You can stand on a railway platform and enjoy the heady aroma of poorly-combusted diesel from a hundred-ton engine without worrying it might be contaminated with a milligram of burning tobacco. You are still playing the pompous bastard even though you have won every round. You are the sort of person who should be tied to a waterwheel for a week during grain-harvesting. You are the sort who will fully support a ban on smoking in people's own homes and you will support Stasi checks on those homes without realising that they will check you too. You, Steve, transcend the mere 'idiot'. You are a total and utter arse of a man with not the slightest redeeming feature within your character at all. You are a waste of space in the most literal sense.
Steve, I'm going to roll myself a big one now. Just for you. I will blow the smoke into the air in the fervent hope that at least one particle will reach you, lodge in your lungs and be the particle that causes you a slow and painful death. Because you, Steve, believe I can do that and have already blamed me for it, so I will put all my effort into making it happen.
It's what you want, after all.
I think I'll buy Grant's Ale Cask blend again. It's inspirational. Cheap, too.
It needs a lot of work. However, to get back to the point, Vicki Woods is an ex-smoker but without the piety and superiority that ex-smokers too often acquire. She is against the smoking ban because while she smokes no more, she still likes to visit the local pub once in a while. Oh, but the smoking ban must mean it's easier for an ex-smoker to stay an ex-smoker while still going to the pub, surely? Ah, no, because the pub has closed.
Her article is a good one and well worth a read. At the time of typing, there are three comments and they are all Righteous.
Here's John.
I would also like to see the law updated. My suggestion would be to lower the price of drinks in non smoking pubs for example, 25p and increase the prices in smoking pubs by a similar amount.
The amount could be reviewed to get a balance between smoking and non smoking pubs. I would then have a choice.
Why does John require a 50p difference in the price of a pint between non-smoking and smoking pubs? Well, because otherwise the non-smoking pub will die from lack of customers. The non-smoking pubs are closing now because they can't make enough money, John. The smoking pubs, in your scenario, would make a fortune. The non-smoking ones would die faster. Idiot.
Then we have Clive Warner, who had a long comment so I won't use all of it:
If The Oak's takings dropped by 90% after the smoking ban took effect, logically, this implies that 90% of the Oak's customers were smokers?
No. That's simplistic logic. The smokers stopped going and therefore their non-smoking drinking buddies stopped going too. Their non-smoking buddies never objected to the smoke otherwise they wouldn't have been buddies, do you see? Now they all visit a local smoky-drinky place and are finding out that socialising does not have to involve pub prices and half the company going outside for a smoke. They might never visit a pub again. Any of them.
"foulest" Summer, "wettest" Christmas 2007 - isn't this a good reason why takings might have dropped? Along with the recession?
Sigh. Smokers have to go outside to smoke. The connection is there if you spend a moment looking for it.
How about the also-mentioned ". . . our real-world Oak is tied to a pubco (Enterprise) from which it must purchase its beer. Fewer pubs means less beer must be sold at ever-increasing prices."
Not to mention other factors such as supermarkets selling alcohol as a loss-leader.
Something supermarkets have always done. The local corner shop sells at below pub prices too. We went to the pub for the company and the socialising. It was always more expensive than drinking at home. Always. The only difference is that now we can't smoke in the pub and we'd rather set up our own socialising networks than stand in the rain. The 'supermarket cheap booze' is not an argument, it's a rather sad and feeble attempt at an excuse.
And finally, Steve Griffin appears, to trot out the standard ASH propaganda:
These smokers who feel their liberty is trampled on by dogooders preventing them poisoning the atmosphere of a persons place of work should try practising their habit at home -being sure to not subject their children to the noxious fumes they would like to foist on pub staff and the general pub alike.
Steve. You already have every public place to yourself. You can stand on a railway platform and enjoy the heady aroma of poorly-combusted diesel from a hundred-ton engine without worrying it might be contaminated with a milligram of burning tobacco. You are still playing the pompous bastard even though you have won every round. You are the sort of person who should be tied to a waterwheel for a week during grain-harvesting. You are the sort who will fully support a ban on smoking in people's own homes and you will support Stasi checks on those homes without realising that they will check you too. You, Steve, transcend the mere 'idiot'. You are a total and utter arse of a man with not the slightest redeeming feature within your character at all. You are a waste of space in the most literal sense.
Steve, I'm going to roll myself a big one now. Just for you. I will blow the smoke into the air in the fervent hope that at least one particle will reach you, lodge in your lungs and be the particle that causes you a slow and painful death. Because you, Steve, believe I can do that and have already blamed me for it, so I will put all my effort into making it happen.
It's what you want, after all.
I think I'll buy Grant's Ale Cask blend again. It's inspirational. Cheap, too.
Fines for being a bit naughty.
I suggested earlier that the old 'drunk in public' crime could be resurrected and fined as an easy way to make money.
It didn't take long.
In fact, all fixed penalty notices are to be increased by £15 to 'help victims of violent crime' which really means that it'll all go into parliamentary pockets.
In the Parliamentary reply which revealed the Government's plan, Justice Minister Claire Ward said: 'It is Government policy that, where possible, offenders should contribute to victims' services as part of their reparation.
Victims? These surcharges apply to things like having dirty windows on your car, parking in the wrong place and the rather sinister 'setting off fireworks after curfew'. Curfew? When did that come about? Are there fingermen on patrol already?
There are no victims in any of the 'crimes' listed. Nobody gets so much as inconvenienced by most of them. These are not crimes in which someone gets hurt, they are crimes of non-conformism to regulations, some of which are sensible but most of which are arbitrary.
There'll be more of this. Will the Cameroids do anything to repeal it? Will they swear an oath, now, to demolish all the petty rules and spiteful fines of this Labour government? I'd really like to see them take a stand on this but I don't think they can without permission from the EU.
Show me someone thinking of voting Labour, and I'll show you someone who isn't thinking at all.
Late Extra: I missed this line on first reading.
'Proceeds raised from the surcharge provide a ring-fenced source of funding for a wide variety of organisations providing non-financial support to victims and witnesses of crime.'
The victims in this 'victim surcharge' idea don't get a penny. It's a tax to support another Labour fakecharity or two.
It didn't take long.
In fact, all fixed penalty notices are to be increased by £15 to 'help victims of violent crime' which really means that it'll all go into parliamentary pockets.
In the Parliamentary reply which revealed the Government's plan, Justice Minister Claire Ward said: 'It is Government policy that, where possible, offenders should contribute to victims' services as part of their reparation.
Victims? These surcharges apply to things like having dirty windows on your car, parking in the wrong place and the rather sinister 'setting off fireworks after curfew'. Curfew? When did that come about? Are there fingermen on patrol already?
There are no victims in any of the 'crimes' listed. Nobody gets so much as inconvenienced by most of them. These are not crimes in which someone gets hurt, they are crimes of non-conformism to regulations, some of which are sensible but most of which are arbitrary.
There'll be more of this. Will the Cameroids do anything to repeal it? Will they swear an oath, now, to demolish all the petty rules and spiteful fines of this Labour government? I'd really like to see them take a stand on this but I don't think they can without permission from the EU.
Show me someone thinking of voting Labour, and I'll show you someone who isn't thinking at all.
Late Extra: I missed this line on first reading.
'Proceeds raised from the surcharge provide a ring-fenced source of funding for a wide variety of organisations providing non-financial support to victims and witnesses of crime.'
The victims in this 'victim surcharge' idea don't get a penny. It's a tax to support another Labour fakecharity or two.
Friday, 1 January 2010
Permission to scan.
I know my way around the economy like I know the back of my - hey, what's that?The Brown Gorgon is having some friends over to play. Apparently he thinks a faraway place called Yemen needs a visit from his gang because they've been sending Nigerian people who once visited Britain to blow up Americans.
You or I might think that if the bombers are in this country at any point, we should just arrest them, or ideally tell them to go and do all their bomby stuff elsewhere and not get us involved. Ah, but the Gorgon is so much more intelligent, you see, and he knows that all problems are solved by having his pals round for some cheese and wine and by speaking in stern and serious tones. Then sending the Army in to attack some people who have never threatened us. Although to make it fair, he doesn't give our Army any bullets. They have to shout 'Bang' at the enemy and hope to scare them into having heart attacks. It's not working too well so far.
Subrosa has spotted the obvious reason for this meeting, to get us in the right mindset for another pointless war against another country that hasn't attacked us and shows no inclination to do so. Witterings from Witney bemoans the pointless spending just to bring in company from overseas to keep the Gorgon from getting lonely. Nobody here will speak to him, you see.
Reading further, past the ludicrous statements of the Gorgon's, we find mention of full body scanners at airports. The ones that let the operators see you naked. These are apparently already to be installed in some European countries, including Holland. But not here, not yet.
Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, had claimed that the introduction of full body scanners is not possible without the permission of the European Union.
Four £10,000 scanners are thought to be in storage at Heathrow airport following a trial, but staff are banned from using them.
Not possible without the permission of the EU. The government of this country has to ask Brussels if they can install these security devices. Now, I don't want them, but the idea that a country's government requires the permission of another government in order to install a security device at that country's own airports just doesn't sit right with me. Particularly since Holland is going ahead with them and doesn't seem to be bothering with all this 'ask the master' stuff.
If permission from Brussels is required on matters of purely internal security, what else is permission required for? If the Gorgon tells the Americans he'll join them in a trip to Yemen to shoot some goatherds, will he find the EU saying 'Tut tut, Gorgon, you naughty boy. You don't have permission. Off to bed with no supper and stop playing with the naughty boys from across the planet.'? I hope so, on that subject.
There are other subjects though. Important ones. Look at Greece for example. Debt spiralling out of control and locked into the Euro so they can't fiddle around with interest rates and devaluation to get out of it. They are screwed and their only possible way out is to leave the EU, but they can't leave without permission. Neither can we. Fortunately we're not in the Euro yet but it's just a matter of time as long as we're members.
How far does this permission lark extend? Are we going to need EU permission to hold a general election? If the result is not what the EU want, are we going to have to hold it again? They have form in that respect. Suppose the UKIP and/or BNP get a fair number of seats - what will the EU reaction be?
Dai Cameroid is happy to take the Gorgon's seat in No. 10 after all the Nokia-shaped holes in the walls have been filled in, but really, what would be the point? If he's going to have to ask permission from Brussels before doing anything, then he really has no purpose at all and is just an expensive figurehead. The government has become nothing more than a costly version of a reality TV show where the contestants are fooled into thinking their opinions actually matter and they get to sit in a big room and shout at each other. The pay's good, but the show has no more relevance to real life than Eastenders and is even less entertaining to watch.
Of all the bizarre pronouncements in that article, Lord Adonis' admission that Brussels is now completely in control is perhaps the most scary. I don't want those body scanners, but this idea that our government has to ask someone else for permission to act is far worse than being seen naked.
The next election will be interesting indeed. If we have one.
New year, new calls for control.
Many sore heads will agree with this morning's call to cut down on drinking. My head isn't sore any more, and I wouldn't agree even if it was. Not because drinking too much is a good thing - it's not a hobby for everyone - but because it's building up, just as with smoking, to a ban.
I think it's already illegal to be 'drunk in a public place' but not enforced unless the drunk causes problems. It could be though, and don't imagine for a moment that the Gorgon and his nosegoblins aren't rubbing their hands at the thought of all those fines. The police won't do it, it'll be handed down to more Council Stasi who will only accost harmless drunks and never, ever, interfere with the fighting drunks or the loud drunks. It's not for 'public protection'. It's for the money.
The NHS are now sending out iPhone apps so you can see how drunk you are (assuming you can still read the screen) which are supposed to make you go 'tsk' and put down your third half-pint of the evening. As always, the Righteous have not for a moment considered what the British drinking public will actually do with this app and are now horrified to find they have started a whole new game.
And now we have 'unwitting binge drinkers' who don't realise that the measure they pour at home is bigger than the one they get in the pub. Oh, I think you'll find we do know that. That's why we haven't installed optics in our houses and why those, like me, who once had a set soon stopped using them because they give out pub measures. Measuring the drink is only relevant when you're paying for a set amount of it. When I have a bottle of whisky, I've already paid for all of it so I'll pour as much as I please.
There's no mention of smoking killing huge swathes of innocent children today, for which I suppose we can be thankful for at least one day of not being the Evil Ones. It's all about drink because January 1st is Resolution Day (and January 2nd is forget-it day) so we're all expected to resolve to give up drinking today.
Not happening, not here. Since I went out last night, I still have that bottle of Grant's Ale Cask visitor whisky so there will be a small aperitif before tea and few more after.
None will be measured.
I think it's already illegal to be 'drunk in a public place' but not enforced unless the drunk causes problems. It could be though, and don't imagine for a moment that the Gorgon and his nosegoblins aren't rubbing their hands at the thought of all those fines. The police won't do it, it'll be handed down to more Council Stasi who will only accost harmless drunks and never, ever, interfere with the fighting drunks or the loud drunks. It's not for 'public protection'. It's for the money.
The NHS are now sending out iPhone apps so you can see how drunk you are (assuming you can still read the screen) which are supposed to make you go 'tsk' and put down your third half-pint of the evening. As always, the Righteous have not for a moment considered what the British drinking public will actually do with this app and are now horrified to find they have started a whole new game.
And now we have 'unwitting binge drinkers' who don't realise that the measure they pour at home is bigger than the one they get in the pub. Oh, I think you'll find we do know that. That's why we haven't installed optics in our houses and why those, like me, who once had a set soon stopped using them because they give out pub measures. Measuring the drink is only relevant when you're paying for a set amount of it. When I have a bottle of whisky, I've already paid for all of it so I'll pour as much as I please.
There's no mention of smoking killing huge swathes of innocent children today, for which I suppose we can be thankful for at least one day of not being the Evil Ones. It's all about drink because January 1st is Resolution Day (and January 2nd is forget-it day) so we're all expected to resolve to give up drinking today.
Not happening, not here. Since I went out last night, I still have that bottle of Grant's Ale Cask visitor whisky so there will be a small aperitif before tea and few more after.
None will be measured.
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