Currently watching England -v- Croatia via Sopcast from somewhere out in the far east – China or somewhere like that by the looks of the presenters.
Few too many adverts but it’s free. 🙂
Update:
England won 4-1, well played.
Archive for September 2008
Oxfam accuses us of killing poor people
Another day, another bullshit propaganda report into climate change.
Oxfam says that climate change is killing poor people because of failing crops and losing water supplies to droughts.
Climate change was first seen as a scientific problem, then an economic one,” explained report author Kate Raworth. “Now it is becoming a matter of international justice.
Erm, no – first it was seen as bollocks, then it was seen as utter bollocks, now it’s being seen as a fucking big pile of horse shit.
Litigation is seldom the best way to solve a dispute.
I don’t know, it was the only way one scientist was able to get his name taken off the crock of shit IPPC report on climate change which he had resigned from because it was unscientific and politically motivated.
However, vulnerable countries do need options to protect themselves. Rich country polluters have been fully aware of their culpability for many years.
Damn those rich capitalists, they represent all that is evil in the world. Sorry, since when did Oxfam become a mouthpiece for the global socialist movement?
In April 2007, a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), consisting of hundreds of environmental experts, published a report warning that people living in poverty would be the worst affected by climate change.
The lead author of the IPCC report is a lying propagandist and since that report was published, 500 experts have signed the Manhattan Declaration and 31,000 have signed the Oregon Petition disagreeing with the concept of anthropogenic climate change and stating their opposition to the IPCC report.
Oxfam has called for a twin approach of mitigation and adaption to ensure human rights formed a central pillar of climate policies
The only climate change policy should be to prepare ourselves to adapt to a different climate if that’s the way things go. The billions being spent trying to stop climate change from happening, just like it has for millions of years, could be spent on erradicating disease and povery.
How much did Oxfam spend on this bullshit report? How much of the money intended to feed, clothe, educate and provide medical care to the worlds poorest people was pissed up the wall producing this piece of political propaganda? Is it any wonder charities find it hard to convince people to donate money when they produce shit like this?
There is no consensus on climate change and there has been no global warming since 1998. A whole industry has grown around peddling climate change propaganda with “scientists” having access to billions of pounds of funding to produce even more propaganda and drown out the voices of common sense.
Well fuck you Oxfam, I’ll make sure that you never get a penny out of me or my family.
Technorati Tags: Oxfam, Climate Change, Propaganda
More on the Telford Town Park facists
Telford & Wrekin Council have tried backtracking over their plans to question adults without children in Telford Town Park after receiving widespread condemnation, claiming that the Shropshire Star exaggerated the story and that there were no plans to routinely interrogate people.
This is despite a letter from the Sport & Recreation Manager at the council saying, in a letter to a resident:
From our previous correspondence with you, you will be aware that our town park Staff approach adults that are not associated with any children in the Town Park and request the reason for them being there.
That doesn’t need any exaggerating, it’s already pretty diabolical as it is.
The backtracking will no doubt turn into a climbdown pretty soon. The Home Office have waded in to say that it’s not their idea and that the council has no right to interrogate people in a public place. The Shropshire Star aren’t letting it go, Telford Council Watch has organised a protest for 10:30am Saturday morning and the story is in the Metro, the Daily Mail and the Torygraph. There’s also blog coverage on the Devil’s Kitchen, Liberal England, Why England Needs a Parliament, Lib Dem Voice, Views from the Asylum, Connecting the Dots in the New World Order, Crimes and Corruptions of the New World Order and Legally Kidnapped.
Technorati Tags: Telford, Park, Facism, Paedophiles
Jonah Brown Strikes Again
No Mandate Brown brought his rump cabinet to Birmingham yesterday for the first exciting installment of his tour of what he refers to as “the regions”.
Is it a co-incidence that the Met Office subsequently issues the following warning?
There is a moderate risk of a severe weather event affecting Wales, Southwest England, parts of the West Midlands, Northwest England, Southwest Scotland and Northern Ireland
Perhaps we should start calling him Arthur Dent (see Agrajag) …
Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown
Diddums
Andy “Anyone but England” Murray lost his first ever grand slam final to some dirty diego by the name of Federa. Shame.
When the BBC wet themselves with excitement over him getting to the finals he was the Scotsman, Andy Murray. When he lost he was the British hopeful, Andy Murray.
Technorati Tags: Andy Murray
Telford tries its hand at facism
You would be forgiven for thinking that Telford & Wrekin Council had decided to revive the Imperial Fascist League given their recent pronouncements on the town park.
Telford Town Park was given to the people of the town with covenants protecting it as a park with free and open access for all in perpetuity.
A few weeks ago, a well-known local protester was evicted from the park for dressing up as a penguin and handing out climate change propaganda. Now, this is someone I’ve locked horns with on more than one occasion and of course I don’t agree with her views on climate change (she believes in anthropogenic climate change, I have common sense) but on this we agreed – she has every right to stand in a public place and hand out leaflets as long as she doesn’t harass anyone. The council officers who evicted her from that public place had no right to do so and several people told them so. They even told her that you are only allowed to hand out leaflets in the park if you have had a Police CRB check and signed a declaration agreeing to all sorts of restrictions. This is, of course, a load of bollocks – they cannot impose these conditions on anyone wanting to use a public place.
But they don’t let the little matter of acting without authority get in the way. No, rather than apologise for harassing someone going about their lawful business they have announced that anyone seen in the park without a child will be challenged by their agents who will want to know who they are and why they are in the park without a child.
I’m a father of four and I want my children to be safe. What I don’t want is the type of society where everyone is assumed to be guilty. Have they never heard of the phrase “you can’t see the wood for the trees”?
The council’s pronouncement has gone down like a lead balloon locally and a protest has been organised for Saturday morning by Telford Council Watch. I’ll be there sans enfants to show the facists at Telford & Wrekin Council what I think of their new rules and to exercise my right, as per the legally binding contract that transferred ownership of the park to the Telford Development Corporation (now susbumed into the council), to free and open access to the park.
Update:
See also:
Devil’s Kitchen
Liberal England
Why England Needs a Parliament
Lib Dem Voice
Farage is on the right track
UKIP bashers have seized on Nigel Farage’s words at the UKIP conference this week and have decided that he’s no longer a eurosceptic.
What he actually said makes perfect sense:
I think we have got to change some of the things that we have been saying and some of the things that we have been doing.
Because I think too often it’s been easy to characterise UKIP as people who just knock and knock and knock and knock – we say this is wrong, we say that’s wrong.
We have not been offering good positive alternatives and what I want us to do is to paint a vision of a 21st Century relationship between Britain and our European neighbours.
To attract more mainstream voters, UKIP needs to offer an alternative to the eurofederalist Liebour, Lib Dum and Conswervative Parties. Not just an alternative party to vote for but an alternative to eurofederalism.
The vast majority of voters are opposed to our continued membership of Federal Europe but they continue to vote for the big three, all of which support a federal union in Europe. Why? A lot of it can be put down to the way people vote for a particular party without even knowing what their policies are simply because they’ve always voted for the same party, their parents voted for the same party and/or because they don’t like Liebour/Conswervatives (whichever is the opposition). But some of it has to be put down to the kind of people who say “yes, I agree we need to be out of the EU but …”
We can’t ignore Europe, it’s the continent we’re part of and we do a lot of trade with the rest of Europe. This does not mean we have to be ruled by an unelected foreign quango but it does mean that we have to be realistic about how far we can distance ourselves from Federal Europe. UKIP can’t just say “we want out of Europe”, they need to be able to tell people what kind of relationship we’re going to have with Federal Europe when we get out. Will we aim to cut as many ties as we can with Federal Europe and concentrate on trading with the Commonwealth and the US? Will we aim to do more trade with Federal Europe? Will we have a customs union?
Instead of saying no to ever closer union, no to the euro, no to the European arrest warrant, no to an EU Olympic team, no to an EU armed militia; UKIP needs to offer an alternative. We don’t need ever closer union because our society, constitution and values are incompatible with those of our neighbours. We don’t need the euro because our economy is different to the rest of Federal Europe and we have already seen how damaging it is to the eurozone economies. We don’t need a European arrest warrant because the continental legal system is inferior to and incompatible with our own legal system and we can sign extradition treaties with those neighbours who we trust to treat our citizens fairly. We don’t need an EU Olympic team because only countries compete in the Olympics and Federal Europe isn’t a country. We don’t need an EU armed militia because we can police ourselves with our own civillian police force.
Farage is on the right track. UKIP does have that air of negativity about it because, let’s face it, the central theme of UKIP policy is negative – opposition to the idea of being part of a Federal Europe. If voters perceive UKIP as negative then their opinion of UKIP will be negative as well and that will be reflected in the ballot box.
Update:
DK said much the same thing …
Technorati Tags: UKIP
Global depression, here we come
As far as economics goes, America sneezes and the world catches a cold.
America has the flu, the world is about to contract pneumonia.
The two biggest mortage lenders in the US which, between them, have either loaned or guaranteed half of all American mortgages are being temporarily nationalised.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have underwritten around six trillion dollars of mortgages between them and have $1.6 trillion of debt outstanding. They made a combined loss of around $14bn in the last 12 months.
This will hit every economy on the planet. We are all, in a word, fucked.
Technorati Tags: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Economy
America? Fuck no!
Why are the BBC expending huge amounts of money covering the US election circus, over 3 months before the election actually takes place?
Let’s face it, no matter which side wins, America will be run by a fundamentalist christian nutjob. Which fundamentalist christian nutjob happens to win is largely irrelevant and that’s why I stand by my previous pledge that Wonko’s World will remain a …
Word Cup Qualifiers
England plays Andorra tonight in the World Cup qualifiers. Will I be watching? Will I buggery – it’s only on Setanta and there is no way I’m subscribing to a bloody sports channel just to watch one football match and I’ll tell you why …
Firstly, I don’t have that much interest in sport. I like to watch international football and rugby matches and on the very rare occasions that Shrewsbury Town are on telly, I watch that. I like to see the English-hater, Andy Murray, lose and of course I cheer on anyone but Scotland or Wales. Would I watch £13 worth of sport in a month? No.
Secondly, on principle I will not pay to watch England on TV. We fund our football team through our taxes and it costs us millions. It’s not unreasonable to expect to be able to watch your national team for free on the telly. You wouldn’t, after all, buy a season ticket for your team of choice and then expect to pay to watch them play, would you?
As a happy aside, the sweaty socks lost 1-0 to (don’t laugh) Macedonia.
Update:
If you want to watch the match you can watch it for free on Andorra TV over the internet. The feed quality is awful but it’s better than nothing. The commentary is in Spanish but I’ve just muted the ATV audio and I’m listening to the commentary from BBC Radio 5.
More Climate Change propaganda
The climate change propagandists are flapping about the North West Passage and holding it up as a shining example of how the evil capitalist human race is destroying the planet.
The North West Passage is the stretch of sea where the Arctic ice meets North America. Usually the only ships that can navigate the North West Passage are big ice breakers and only then during the summer melt. However, the Vikings are known to have made use of part of the North West Passage, around a couple of Canadian arctic islands which demonstrates that the North West Passage has been navigable by simple wooden ships in the past and that being permanently blocked by ice isn’t the natural state for the North West Passage.
When I read the propagandists claim that the North West Passage opening up again was down to anthropogenic climate change the first thing that came to my mind was not “we’re doooooooomed” but “ok, it’s been open before then it was blocked and now it’s opening again – so what?”. Surely anyone with an ounce of common sense would look at the fact that the North West Passage has been open in the past when the only polution humans put into the atmosphere was from the odd blacksmiths furnace or a particularly rancid fart and come to the conslusion that this is just a natural event?
Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Propaganda, North West Passage
Browser Whore?
How many browsers have you got installed on your computer? One? Two? Er … five?
I’m writing this post in Google’s new Chrome browser which I’ve just downloaded and installed for a test drive.
So, what do I think? Well … the interface is nice. I like the way it turns over most of the screen to the page itself, popping up a small status bar at the bottom of the window whenever it’s needed and putting the tabs into the title bar. The toolbar is chunky and the buttons are very simplistic with a nice big font for the address bar. It also greys out the parts of the URL that aren’t the domain; not so that they can’t be read but so that the domain is immediately obvious – handy if you’re the kind of person likely to be fooled by a phishing scam. The address bar also doubles up as a search bar like Firefox and (in my humble opinion) handles it better than Firefox.
Textareas are resizeable, even if that wasn’t intended by the author of the web page. That’s something that web designers should bear in mind although this isn’t a new innovation so it should already be something you think about. The Webkit engine renders a very nice, clean page and support for CSS3 is superb, passing all 578 tests at CSS3.info compared to Firefox 3’s 373 out of 578 although it doesn’t support shadowed text and transparency can be a bit iffy. Apple’s Safari browser also uses Webkit and handles shadowed text but has some other rendering glitches, particularly when redrawing the screen.
Is all of the above enough to tear me away from Flock 2? No. I like the Flock interface even though it takes up, relatively speaking, a lot of available screen space. The sidebar and integration with the web services that I use means it’s perfect for me. Chrome also suffers from the same TinyMCE bug that Safari does – the toolbar doesn’t display so you have to write all the html yourself – hardly ideal for someone who spends so much time blogging. This only happens in older versions of WordPress with TinyMCE but some of us are too far behind in the versions to be able to do a simple upgrade.
So, how do the myriad browsers installed on my laptop compare? I like Flock 2’s togetherness – the way it integrates lots of web services into a common interface. I also like the speed of Flock 2 and the stability of the browser. The same goes for Firefox 3 although it’s not as fast as Flock 2, even though it’s essentially the same browser. I like Safari’s CSS support, it’s the dogs dangly bits. But it has some rendering issues and it looks a bit … blobby. I like Internet Explorer 7’s familiarity – it looks and feels like part of Windows instead of trying too hard to break the mould. I like Chrome’s uncluttered interface and it’s rather nippy. If only the best bits of all the different browsers could be rolled into one …
Technorati Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Google, Safari, Firefox, Flock 2, Internet Explorer
The government will only help decent families
Harridan Harperson has been telling the BBC, in her usual condescending manner, what a simply marvelous idea it is to spend £200m of taxpayers money paying deposits for people who can’t afford to buy a house and bailing out people who can’t afford to pay their mortgages while we’ve just entered into a recession.
Of course, the money won’t go to undeserving people who borrowed irresponsibly – it will go to “decent families” who need help. The “decent families” is a very important part of this latest social engineering exercise, she said it about 5 times. There’s no word on what a “decent family” is just yet but I’m sure Harridan Harperson will tell us what qualifies you for being a “decent family” rather than an indecent family so we can all strive to meet her exacting standards.
Technorati Tags: Harriet Harman, Recession
