Archive for August 2008

Small World

Took Mrs Sane out for a meal last night to our favourite Italian restaurant, Osteria da Paolo in Shrewsbury.

Shrewsbury was a bit manic because the Flower Show is in full swing and the restaurant was busier than usual but the service was great, as was the food (although it did take two attempts to get Mrs Sane a steak that wasn’t still mooing).

After the meal we went and picked up a friend and met the ginger one in a pub.  Which is out of character for him.  Ahem.  Sadly, there was no music and the ladies wanted music so we went on a pub-with-music hunt.

We plumped for Ironbridge in the end which has changed a bit since my binge drinking youth.  I wouldn’t recommend the White Hart – as soon as we’d got our drinks they rang the bell for last orders and wouldn’t serve anybody once the bell was rung.  So not actually last orders, more sort of “surprise, we’re closed”.  Even more bizarrely for the 15-20 people sitting outside finishing their drinks, 10 minutes after calling “surprise we’re closed” orders, they shut the door and switched the outside lights off, leaving everyone in the dark!

We strolled down the road to the Swan which had a live band on, even at 11pm and promised to stay open until 1am.  I never rated the Swan in my binge drinking days but we had a good laugh, even though I appeared to be the only sober person in Ironbridge.  We were standing next to a group of very drunk Londoners on a stag night.  One of them – a little asian guy – started chatting to me, asking me about the night life in Telford.  Then the groom introduced himself and it turns out he grew up in the same town as me and went to the same school (he was 10 years older than me so I didn’t know him).  Not only that, but his sister is about to get married to my old geography teacher.  Small world.

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Shropshire Star: Why can’t we all just be Brits?

This letter was in the Shropshire Star last night.  The title wasn’t my idea …

Why can’t we all just be Brits

Great Britain won its first gold medal of the Olympics on Sunday.  The BBC were beside themselves and delighted in telling the world that the medal winner was Welsh and it was the first Welsh Olympic medal since 1972.

Fast forward one day and two more medals have been won … by “Britons”.  These “Britons” were English but there was no mention of this on the BBC – on the BBC, English means British.

The BBC may be the worst culprit but it’s not just them that do this – on the back page of the Shropshire Star on Monday the Olympic coverage refers to the two English medal winners and British and Andy Murray as a Scot.

Is it too much to ask for some consistency?

Stuart Parr
Telford

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How to make a stupid idea stupider

Birmingham City Council has sent a leaflet to 720,000 households to thank them for helping them hit their recycling targets early.

Printing 720,000 colour leaflets and posting them to every household is a pretty stupid thing to do in itself – it cost the taxpayer £15k and how many of those leaflets will end up being recycled?  I wonder what the carbon footprint of 720,000 leaflets is when you take into account the printing and delivery and all the other associated tasks involved in the activity.  Not very eco-friendly is it?

Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that sending the leaflets was a bloody stupid idea in the first place but to make it truly farcial, the city skyline printed on the leaflets was of Birmingham, Alabama!

It’s not as if it’s the first time someone’s used a picture of Birmingham, Alabama by mistake this year.

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Java Installer – another bag of shit installer

Back in May I blogged about the shitty Adobe Acrobat installer that gets in a huff if you don’t allow it to insert its accelerated startup thingy into Windows’ startup items.

It seems that Adobe isn’t alone in writing shit installers that won’t take no for an answer – I’ve just installed an update for Sun Java which wants to insert its Java Update Scheduler into my startup items.  I’ve told it no and it’s been trying now for about 15 minutes …

java.jpg

I’ve killed the jusched process but it looks like it’s insinuated itself into a system process somewhere.  I can’t recommend Spybot Teatimer enough for stopping this kind of crap.

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Eco-terrorists planning another camp

Earth First, a militant group of eco-facist anarchists, are planning another eco-terrorist training climate camp in Norfolk.

According to Communist Socialist Unity, the camps “have the climate camp vibe and lots of good workshops for political education”.

I think I’ll pass.

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Spooks: Code 9

Just watched the first episode of Spooks: Code 9.

The programme itself was moderately entertaining – not a patch on Spooks – but my god, Freud would have creamed himself over the propaganda and subliminal messages in it.

Whenever one of the bad guys was shown, their face had a British flag superimposed on it.  Every plot change was seperated by a fluttering British flag.  The series is about MI5 after a terrorist attack on London with a  nuclear bomb.  There are child assassins working for the bad guys, checkpoints manned by stern policemen (the only one that spoke was Scottish of course).  Everyone carries an ID card with fingerprint readers at checkpoints linked to a Citizens Identity Database.  One of the bad guys was tracked down because he’d been using someone elses ID card.

Just how much Liebour propaganda do the BBC thing they can get into one episode of a drama without it descending into a farce?  It is not the BBC’s job to try and promote Britishness through subliminal advertising, nor is it the BBC’s job to try and sell ID cards, a national identity register or police checkpoints as a good idea.

For me, the programme was spoiled from about 5 minutes because once I’d noticed the propaganda, I couldn’t stop seeing it and that’s a real shame for me because I’m a big Spooks fan.

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Over 100 eco-terrorists arrested at Kingsnorth so far

The police have now made over 100 arrests at the eco-terrorist camp outside Kingsnorth Power Station.

The eco-terrorists actually had the nerve to complain last week that the Police were being heavy handed and that there was no need to raid their camp, even though they admitted that it was no secret they intended to take direct action and the Police found several weapons on the camp.

Since then riot police have had to intervene to stop multiple, simultaneous attempts to break into the power station and over 100 people have been arrested.

I think it’s safe to say that the camp is infested with troublemakers and criminals and should be broken up for their own safety before one of them does something stupid and seriously injures or kills themselves or someone else.

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Boris over-rules the eco-loonies

Boris Johnson has over-ruled the eco-loonies in London and cancelled the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square and the purchase of hygdrogen-powered vehicle for use in the public sector around London.

Ken Livingstone, the odious turd that preceded Boris, approved plans for the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square which would have involved paving over the grass and banning cars from the surrounding area (Although presumably MPs would still have been allowed to send their chauffeur-driven cars up to the front door).  Boris says he has cancelled the plan because he doesn’t think Londoners would want to spend any more of their stretched transport budget on reducing the capacity of London roads.

Red Ken also approved the purchase of several hydrogen-powered cars, vans and motorbikes for use by the public sector in London.  Boris has cancelled those because Transport for London says they’re not viable yet although they will still go ahead and purchase 10 hydrogen-powered buses and construct fueling facilities.

The red-cheeked, tweed jacket wearing Green Party assembly member, Darren Johnson, said:

Mayor Johnson has just scrapped the biggest hydrogen vehicle project in this country.

It is one thing for the London mayor to talk green, but he is clearly turning into a one man environmental disaster.

He has scrapped the £25 charged on gas guzzlers and dropped plans for a pedestrian friendly Parliament.

What’s the point of spending taxpayers money buying hydrogen-powered vehicles that, according to Transport for London, are not viable?  What’s the point in charging £25 for the privilege of driving a 4×4 into London?  Does it produce 3 or 4 times as much congestion?  And the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square will not make Parliament more pedestrian friendly.

It’s good to see some common sense coming out of Boris Johnson, it’s a shame we can’t expect more of the same from “Call Me Dave” Camoron after the next election.

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We don’t need another Bill of Rights

A group of MPs have told the Demon Headmaster that we should have a British Bill of Rights to give extra protection to children, old people and people with learning disabilities.

Has nobody told these cretins that we’ve already got a Bill of Rights?

The Bill of Rights was passed in 1689 in the English Parliament and gave many and varied fundamental rights to all citizens, including the right to trial by jury and freedom from arbitrary detention.

There is no point, however, in creating a new Bill of Rights if it gives us less rights than we already have and if it will just be ignored like our current Bill of Rights is.  You no longer have the right to trial by jury in complex fraud cases, you no longer have freedom from detention without charge or trial and your money and property can be stolen by the state without a judge even knowing about it, let alone ordering it as the Bill of Rights says it must happen.

If we all have fundamental rights then they should be universal.  I don’t see why pensioners, children or people with learning disabilities should get any extra rights over what I get.  Positive discrimination doesn’t work, it’s been shown to be a fucking stupid idea over and over again yet here we have a group of professional politicians proposing that certain groups should be given more fundamental rights than others.  How much further from the concept of a charter on fundamental rights can you get?

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Gordo planning to bail out the entire financial sector

No Mandate Brown has a master plan for reviving the housing market and turning round the market.  You’ll like it, it’s a stroke of genius.

What he’s planning on doing is allowing high street banks and other mortgage lenders to sell their mortgages to the Bank of England who will pay them in guaranteed government bonds.  The banks, having irresponsibly and unsustainably loaned money at up to 10 times the borrowers salary, will then have a guaranteed income from the taxpayer instead of billions of pounds of high risk debts.  The liability will, instead, pass to the Bank of England where it is underwritten by the taxpayer.

This will make the liabilities the nationalisation of Northern Rock has left the taxpayer with look like small change.

The man’s a fucking lunatic.

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Georgia on my mind

Georgia has declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrawn its troops from the South Ossetia region after Russia invaded 3 days ago.

South Ossetia has harboured ambitions for independence for a few years now and has been given a great degree of autonomy in the past.  A majority of South Ossetian Georgians have Russian passports, a fact that Russia has used to justify invading Georgia.

Russian-Georgian relations have degraded severely as Georgia has turned away from Russia politically and turned more towards Europe.

The UN won’t be able to do anything about it because Russia has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a veto.  However, Federal Europe will probably say something in the next day or two to which Russia will no doubt reply that Federal Europe supported Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence without a UN mandate so they are doing the same for South Ossetia and when they do it will be yet more proof that Federal Europe has failed miserably in its aim of preventing war in Europe.

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Taco’s

We decided to go exotic* for Sunday lunch with Tortilla and Taco’s which leaves me with a burning question:

How the fuck are you supposed to eat a Taco?  You can’t fold them because they snap and they’re so wide the only people who can fit them in their mouth are Cherie Bliar and Janet Street Porter.

* I’m being sarcastic

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Link Removed: George Ashcroft

I’ve just removed my link to George Ashcroft’s website from my sidebar as it’s no longer worthy of a link.

George Ashcroft is a Conswervative councillor in Telford and was the first Conswervative councillor to take a seat in the Stirchley & Brookside parish.  When he set up his blog he was the first councillor in Telford to have a website but after going downhill recently he has rebranded it as “Liberty Talks”.

The one comment I have left on the new website – pointing out that if the British government decided to follow Spain’s lead and reduce the national speed limit, it would only apply to trunk roads outside of England – was deleted so I guess only comments agreeing with what George says will be approved now.

I was interested to know who had created the website for him – the previous one was pretty poor but this one is even worse – so I looked up the office address: BM Liberty Talks, London WC1N 3XX in Google.

BM Network seems to be some sort of umbrella group, mainly for gay and trans-gender support or campaign groups including the militant gay rights group, Stonewall.  It’s also home for an eco-facist network, Earth First Action, and a group for pagans and witches.  Ordo Templi Orientis, a masonic lodge, is also listed there along with the Animal Liberation Front animal rights terrorist organisation.  Interestingly, it’s also home to the British First Party, a neo-Nazi party that makes the BNP look like Guardian readers.

A strange mix of people for a Conswervative councillor to be associating with.

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Olympics: yawn

Am I the only one that has absolutely zero interest in the Olympics?

The BBC have devoted BBC1 to covering the games, even the Breakfast programme has been relegated to the News 24 channel.

I might be more interested if there was an English team but I just can’t get excited about Team GB, even when I know that the competitors are English.

The only real interest I have in the Beijing Olympics is the fact that they’re actually being held in China.  Human rights abuses, a totalitarian dictatorship government, widespread censorship and the continued illegal occupation of Tibet should preclude China from holding the Olympics on the basis that it goes against the aims of the Olympic Charter.

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Funny

Courtesy of Tommy English

An Englishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman drinking beer in a country pub.

That night as they are leaving a huge truck thunders through main street and kills all three!

The next day the publican is surprised to see the Englishman walk back into his pub.

The Englishman tells him that yes, all three of them were killed but when they got to the pearly gates St Peter said they could come back to earth if they each paid him £20.

“Well obviously you paid up” said the publican “but what about the other two?”

The Englishman replied, “well the Scotsman is trying to haggle him down to £10 and the Welshman is trying to convince him that the Government will pay!”

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Common Purpose admit to illegal disclosures

I have just been contacted by my Common Purpose informant who tells me that Third Sector magazine has a very interesting interview with Common Purpose.

Common Purpose have admitted in Third Sector magazine to illegally passing on information of members of the public which they have themselves obtained illegally.

Third Sector is a magazine for the voluntary and charity sector and despite Common Purpose fleecing the taxpayer out of millions of pounds for its anti-democracy training courses it somehow manages to cling on to its charity status, presumably through its network of agents that they have used to infiltrate vast swathes of the public sector.

Common Purpose has told Third Sector that they are being picked on by right-wing groups who are deliberately harassing them and then goes on to admit that:

Common Purpose now forwards its list of 130 previous FOI requests, including names of applicants, to help local authorities decide whether new requests about the charity are vexatious.

As Common Purpose is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act they can only have obtained the names of people making FOI requests about them through an illegal disclosure by the public body that has received the request.  After receiving the illegal data they have then processed it illegally and then illegally passed it on to third parties.  A fundamental concept of English law is that ignorance is no defence – by obtaining, processing and then divulging illegally obtained information, Common Purpose has committed a criminal offence and the trustees could face a custodial sentence if there is any part of the judicial system left that hasn’t yet been infiltrated by Common Purpose.

According to the article, Common Purpose are still seeking legal advice – as they have been for at least 2 years now – on their phantom victimisation.  The words “people in glass houses” spring to mind.  Along with other words such as “crooks”, “traitors” and “ha ha, you’re fucked”.

I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that first thing tomorrow I will be asking the Information Commissioner to investigate and prosecute Common Purpose for this offence, particularly as I have a copy of the list of websites Common Purpose has forwarded on and this one is listed.

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Last Orders!

Iain Dale has had to bring forward the deadline for voting in his annual blogging poll by a week.

The poll now closes tomorrow so if you haven’t already voted, get a move on!

As the Witanagemot Club‘s 3rd most desperate blogger to win an award, I would be letting the side down if I didn’t suggest you vote for me. 😉

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Shropshire Star: Website has shades of Orwell’s 1984 about it

This is in tonight’s Shropshire Star …

Website has shades of Orwell’s 1984 about it

I was pointed in the direction of the npower website and was both shocked and disturbed by their low carbon economy section.  In this section npower encourages children to keep a diary of “climate crimes” committed by their parents and to challenge them to change their ways.

They even have a Climate Cops pack for schools to indoctrinate our children in the ways of eco-extremism.  Anyone who has read George Orwell’s 1984 will immediately recognise the tactic of recruiting children to spy on their parents.

Orwell intended his book as a warning, not an instruction manual.  The day my children come home from school and tell me they’ve been told to keep a diary of my “cliamte crimes” will be a very unfortunate day for the teacher that told them to do it!

Stuart Parr
Telford

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Hello, I’m from the ministry

English PCTs are to send parents letters telling them if their children are overweight.

According to the British government, most parents of fat children don’t think their children are overweight and sending a letter from the local NHS trust using data collected by schools will prompt them to take action.

However, the NHS have told PCTs not to use the word obese or tell parents the BMI of their children because it will confuse them.  Condascending arseholes.

The problem with the BMI measurement is that it’s just another arbitrary one-size-fits-all measurement and as such, is fairly meaningless unless you are at the extremes.  According to the BMI guidance I am somewhere between class 1 and 2 obese and am at risk of heart disease, infertility, arthritis, stroke and cancer.

My heart is fine, I certainly don’t suffer from fertility problems, I have had chronic juevenile osteoarthritis since I was a (thin) child, I can’t comment on strokes but I’m more worried about the number of people in my family who’ve had cancer upping my risk than I am over being fat.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that being fat is unhealthy and it certainly doesn’t do my dodgy knees any good and I’m losing weight slowly.  But the BMI isn’t an accurate measure because it doesn’t take into account your natural build.  Thanks to my paternal gene pool, I’m 6’1″ tall and if I wasn’t fat I’d be “stocky”.  My old man has got barely an ounce of fat on him yet he’s as wide as me.  He’s 6’4″ tall and falls into the overweight category on the BMI.  If he got to a weight that fits the “normal” range on the BMI you’d see his ribs.

By contrast, my youngest son is horribly thin but he’s tall for his age.  His BMI probably puts him in the underweight bracket but he’s perfectly healthy – he’s just tall and thin.

I remember visiting the doctor a year or two ago who decided to do a spontaneous asthma check up.  My peak flow was above average for someone without asthma yet when she used a different method of calculating my body mass she told me I was border-line morbidly obese.

Anyway, this isn’t about my medical history, it’s about these letters to parents telling them that their kids are fat.  As I’ve hopefully demonstrated above the BMI is flawed and it’s quite possible to get it wrong.  A lot of parents are going to be getting letters from their local NHS trust telling them that their child is “very overweight” or underweight and this letter will be sent by a computer somewhere analysing a set of data that actually needs to be interpreted by a human being or at least be complimented by additional information about the child.

The parents getting the “very overweight” letter will presumably put their child on a diet and the parents getting the “underweight” letter will presumably start trying to fatten their kids up.  Both sets of parents, you would hope, will be fretting over the health of their child.

But what if the BMI is wrong and the child isn’t obese or underweight but is a perfectly healthy child that simply has a large or small frame?

Too much faith is put in statistics and arbitrary scales and targets and not enough in common sense.

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Eco-terrorists think they’re above the law

Eco-terrorists causing an nuisance at a “climate camp” at Kingsnorth power station have had some of their cars towed away by the police.

Kent Police said they asked the eco-terrorists to move two cars from the entrance to the power station for safety reasons because they were blocking the only gateway onto the camp site but instead of moving their cars they brought more along to block the entrance forcing the police to tow them away.

Environmental extremists seem to think that if they call their flea-ridden tents a “climate camp” they are entitled to pitch them wherever they want even if that means, for example, cutting a hole in the perimeter fence around an airport to gain illegal entry or setting up camp on private property.  They think that because they’re doing it in the name of saving the environment they can break the law, ignore the police and put lives at risk.  They think that because the British government is legitimising the eco-terrorist agenda as an excuse to raise taxes and destroy the economy to pave the way for a pan-European soviet republic that they are above the law, just like the politicians that have been feeding them lies about climate change.

Kent police have 1,400 officers on standby from 26 police forces at a cost of £1m just to police the eco-terrorists protest, which is against E.ON demolishing the dirty coal-powered station and replacing it with a cleaner coal-powered station that they claim will be 20% cleaner.  The plans have been approved by Medway Council and are awaiting final approval by the British government.

I wonder what would happen if those of us who beleive that the climate change propaganda is load of bollocks set up a camp in favour of cheap, safe and reliable power instead of unreliable and expensive “renewable” energy?  I don’t expect we’d last five minutes before the police moved us on.

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