I didn't quite catch that...

It’s a dark day for t’internet, so it is.

Kim du Toit is leaving.

He’ll be missed, I think.

I don’t think I’ll be on t’internet too much today. First of all, TLG is over, so I may be actually talking to someone face to face rather than through the medium of blog software. And then poor, poor TLG gets thrown in with a load of my family for a big birthday for one of them. What fun.

It does mean that I’m missing the return of the Stray to these here parts, which is always a shame. And I’m missing out on the chance to go on an organised walk to see some birds would I may actually have been interested in. Apart from the ‘organised’ bit. And the walking aspect didn’t really grab my attention…

But instead of either of those, I shall be surrounded by family. Gawd help them. And me.

Note to thon Blunkett twat: if you have to be made, bribed or coerced into volunteering, then you are not volunteering. You are being dragooned.

It’s a simple difference, I feel, but then when did ex-government ministers ever get their heads round the meanings of words? They can’t even get their head round the idea that none of us like them or trust them as far as they could be thrown. By an enfeebled dwarf. With one arm.

Everyone between the ages of 16 and 25 should do at least six months of “intensive” voluntary work, former home secretary David Blunkett has said.

The Labour MP said such a scheme would foster a “sense of belonging” among young people.

Obviously there is the a certainty that I’m about to FAIL under Godwin, but seriously, is Blunkett suggesting a sort of Hitler-Jugend for the 21^st century? Where low key public works are carried out by uniformed and unpaid kids, just to get them used to doing what they are told to by officials of the state?

Because that was the sort of thing that he was talking about on the radio interview I heard: enforcing hand washing at the doors of hospitals and that.

But it’s all OK, he realises that young people can’t be forced to do it:

When asked whether the scheme should become a form of compulsory national service Mr Blunkett replied: “It’s been reinforced to me in the last year that you can’t have volunteering unless it’s voluntary.”

Instead, he called for a system of incentives to attract young people.

A SYSTEM OF INCENTIVES = BRIBERY. Which means that it’s not volunteering either, it’s employment.

Jaysus. Will that daft twunt never learn?

When large parts of the UK populace is concerned about their data being shared across government departments, most of whom have no need to see it and even fewer of whom have any right to see it, what does Her Majesty’s Government do?

Yes, you guessed it: they hold a review.

And then they use that review to give themselves the power to ride roughshod over the few protections in place. Because, y’know, sometimes just popping everyone’s details onto a CD and throwing them in the post because a different department asked nicely isn’t sharing enough.

Good job we don’t trust the government with any sensitive data, isn’t it? Oh wait, that would be a lie. Because we’re told many times that if we don’t share all with the government, then we’re liable to be punished. Nice.

Not that I’m a tad annoyed. No, not I…

Stolen from the Register

So, what would that picture suggest to you? Perhaps that Tiger Beer is a better export than Thai ladyboys?

Because that’s what it says to me.

However, to the eight people who complained, and the Advertising Standards Agency who agreed with them, it’s all about people being moved from their native country to another country to live a life of sexual slavery.

No, really.

“We understood that the ads image was intended to represent a ladyboy cabaret act. We considered, however, that by presenting the character in sexual clothing and a provocative pose alongside the implication that she was rated the Far Easts third most desirable export, the ad appeared to link exports with the sex trade and, potentially, human trafficking.

“We also considered the ad suggested beer and sex were two of the best exports of the Far East, which was disrespectful to Eastern culture. We concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.”

Whoa. That’s quite a logical leap.To go from ‘appears’ and ‘potentially’ to banning it because it ‘suggests’ something is a little bit of an overreach, wouldn’t you say?

You know, I’m not surprised by the mistake in VAT strategy releases recently. It’s been a busy couple of weeks, things will change, and if ministers don’t make up their mind until twenty minutes before legislation hits the presses, how are civil servants supposed to keep up with that?

On top of that, once an organisation gets as big and as responsibility-shy as the civil service, the number of mistakes that creep in will be immense. Mistakes happen everywhere, and you can’t ensure against them. You can make them less likely by spending time to double check things, and by disciplining the worst offenders, but that couldn’t happen in this case.

But here’s the thing: this was a supporting document on a website – no real harm, except to the governing party and it’s not like I’m going to mourn that. But the same circumstances happen every time the government rush out legislation – so there are bound to be such mistakes in the laws of the land. And since this government has produced more legislation than ever before (especially in complicated financial matters), that’s a lot of scope for mistakes.

Mistakes which result in confusion for the entire population, and likely other unimportant things like criminals getting off and innocent people being labelled as criminals.

So once again, I’m not surprised by the actual news story. But I’m concerned by the trends which it illustrates.

When it comes to some things, I’ve very easily pleased.

There’s the feeling of taking off in an aircraft, which never fails to put a smile on my face.

There’s the view over Belfast Lough and the city itself as you come down the M2 hill section on a sunny day, which has been known to make me almost smirk.

There’s the little bit of pride in the homeland that’s stirred anytime you hear a voice standing up to authority with a thick NIrish aye, dead on, which has been heard in the background of protests all over the world.

And there’s the view to be had over the Short Strand/Albertbridge Road area every autumn.

from news.bbc.co.uk

It’s nothing really exceptional, it’s nothing new, it isn’t really that pretty. But I find watching the flock of birds that congregates round there fascinating. Up to 30,000 individual animals, making up one massive seething mass of movement, and seeming moving with one mind.

Why yes, I am odd. I know this. Doesn’t mean that I don’t know what I like.

I dunno… You read a little article about the sad fact that lots of pubs are closing, and some bastarding Liberal Democrat comes out with one of the most illiberal things I’ve heard in a long time.

“Whenever a pub is proposed to go to a different use, be closed or demolished, the local community needs to be consulted.

“At the end of the day, who owns the pub? Legally it’s the pub operating company or the landlord. But morally, surely, a community, a village owns a pub that’s been there for hundreds of years.”

‘moral ownership’? What the fiddling fuck? Let me guess, that’s like the ‘moral ownership’ of a conservation area – where some local busybody can make sure that nothing they don’t like is built, but without compensating those who are losing actual money because of their interference.

Legal ownership means that if the owner wants out, they can get out. If they want to turn their pub into a giant jungle gym, they should be able to. If they want to tear out the bar and replace it with pictures of a 1947 Ford, they should be able to. If they want to close it and turn it into flats, then it’s a shame but they should be able to.

Under this proposal, will the community also own the corner shop? Or the tea shop at the corner? Both are important for a village, to be sure. Why not go the whole hog and collectivise the businesses in every village, just to ensure that nothing closes.

Of course, there may be some kulaks who disagree with having their legal property appropriated by a village council, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few skulls, can you?

Fuckin’ Liberal Democrats. We should really sic trading standards on them…

Oh dear. It’s even worse than I thought it would be.

The good point (and slightly better than I thought) – VAT down to 15% for a fixed period; I thought it would for a flexible period, subject to the whims of Gordon. Hell, it still could be…

The bad points: raising duty on alcohol, raising duty on fuel, raising taxes for the very well off, raising notional insurance contributions for everyone, increasing tax credits instead of lowering tax rates, increased borrowing, failing to get rid of the increased air travel tax, wasting more money on greenishness, more government interference (and thusly paperwork and wasted money and effort) in recruitment, and more constraints on banking.

So, that was the stimulus that was to cure the economy, was it?

Jaysus. What would the Alastair and Gordon show do if they wanted to damage the economy…

For the love of mike… Can not this government do something right? Ever? Please?

I mean, in eleven years in power they’ve tried one proper liberal thing, and cocked it up by introducing more state powers at the same time.

And now, they’re talking about cutting taxes, but doing so in a cackhanded way. And the cackhandedness of the act may well nullify any benefit to be had from it.

First off, they want to increase taxes on those earning the most money. Now, I’m pretty far from that tax bracket, and I very much doubt that I’ll ever reach it. But just because it won’t be stealing more from me doesn’t mean that I’m for it; saying that tax increases are grand because they’ll never effect you is fucking wrong. That’s like saying that burglary on council estates is fine, because I don’t live in a council estate. Or that we shouldn’t have an ambulance service because you happen to live across the road from A&E.

Plus, those on £150,000 a year can afford good lawyers; they can afford to move money about; and most of all, they can afford to move. They can take their millions and move somewhere where they won’t be arseraped for the crime of having a few quid. I read the other day that 25% of California’s taxes are paid by 144,000 individuals: do you think that the UK is much less dependent on that sort of ‘inequality’? And how do you think that the UK would cope if even 5% of those taxpayers jumped ship?

Secondly, Mr Darling is bringing out a temporary cut in VAT, to help small businesses. Wonderful, that is. Honest. Not cackhanded at all.
Oh wait…

Here’s my concern: it’s a temporary cut, so it’ll be reversed as soon as Gordon thinks he can get away with it. Which means that today, VAT is 17.5%; tomorrow, it’ll be 15% and the day after it may be 17.5% again. Three distinct VAT ‘windows’ within a fairly short amount of time, and with little or no notice.

I’ve worked in a few small businesses, and what I’ve noticed is this: nigh on all of them run their accounts on simple MS Excel spreadsheets with a fairly simple formulae on the invoices sheet: =(A36 * 0.175) to work out the VAT. Yes, it’s bad practice and yes it shouldn’t be done. But small businesses already have enough of a compliance burden without having to worry about flexible VAT rates. Now that’s going to have to change, but only for a small amount of time. And the dates are going to have to be carefully watched to see what VAT rate applies where and when. The amount of work that will need doing will rise, even if only a little bit.

Larger companies and organisations will be in a better position, because they’ll have dedicated accounting bods to sort it out. But I think you’ll be hearing a lot of cursing in the back offices of small businesses throughout the land.

They could have done it better; they could have cut a percentage point off NI and it would have been easier. They could have cut a penny off income tax. They could have cut the VAT and made it permanent. But no, they pick the complicated and annoying option that nobody had really thought of.

Fairly typical…

They say that a child will learn by observing what its elders do, not by what it is told to do.

How then, do you think, are we to act in the face of ongoing discrimination by the political classes.

They say that it’s totally unacceptable to discriminate. And then they go ahead and discriminate by barring certain occupations to those who hold a certain political belief.

As Barry says:

here’s my problem. The BNP is a legal political party. Anyone who wants to be a member can be, without fear of prosecution – never mind persecution. And that’s the way it should be in a democracy. Yes, you’d have to worry if your children’s teacher was on there, and we already know that the police are banned from being members for fear of accusations of racial discrimination. But what about soldiers, and prison officers, and social workers? Since when have they been disenfranchised?

Yes, the BNP is a pretty abhorrent organisation. Yes, it believes things that are patently rubbish. Yes, if it gained power anywhere it would likely clamp down on freedoms across the board.

However, it will not gain power anywhere where it is fought openly. It will not grow unless it is made out to be a victim. It will not gain influence when people can point out in logical terms the shortcomings in its views.

It may, on the other hand, gain influence when it is victimised. It may grow if it can point out that a modern democracy will throw aside its lofty ideals when dealing with fucktards like the BNP. And if it cannot be discussed rationally between equals, then it may well gain power somewhere.

By throwing aside the basic tenets of a free society (freedom of belief, freedom of association, freedom of political views), we are only making the fucktards look like we’re scared of them.

Are we?

Sayeth TLG: “Come along to The Valley; yes, Charlton aren’t exactly the best club in the world, but they were in the Premiership a couple of years ago – how bad can they be?”

How bad?

How bad?

Losing 5-2, that’s how bad. And losing 5-2 to a team that were pretty poor themselves, and being lucky to escape losing 7-2…

So, while the opinion of TLG is to be taken seriously on many subjects, it would appear that the relative skill levels of Championship teams is, sadly, not something of which she is aware…

Oh well.

The other week, I journeyed to the land of the invader on the weekend of the usual celebrations for Guy Fawkes night.

That meant watching the fireworks on Blackheath, drinking heavily from the cup of mulled wine, and flying thirty thousand feet above other fireworks. All very impressive.

But not quite as impressive as this:

Dubai has thrown a spectacular light show to celebrate a new $1.5bn marine-themed resort built off the Gulf coast on an artificial island in the shape of a palm tree.

Organisers claimed that the fireworks display for the $20m party could be seen from space.

Now, that’s a display…

Oh look! More horseshit from the Identity Card wingnuts.

Twenty pages it is, and only three of them (1, 2 and 20) don’t contain misinformation or outright lies.

A sample of such misinformation/lies:

• Page 3: Apparently an ID card will “make it harder for criminals to use false or multiple identities and thus protect us all from crime and terrorism”; never mind that every terrorist strike in the last five years has been done by someone in their own fucking name… – OUTRIGHT LIE
• Page 4: apparently passports, driving licences and birth certificates aren’t actually identity documents. Only because the government has decreed that the ID card is to be the only official identity document MISINFORMATION
• Page 5:However you will not be required to carry or produce an identity card – yet. LIKELY LIE in the long term.
• Page 6: case study: She is relieved that she no longer has to hand over documents with her address on them to prove her age MISINFORMATION, since a passport doesn’t have an address on it.
• Page 7: There’s mention of electronic readers and unmanned gates at point of entry. MISINFORMATION since the card cannot be secure enough to allow this.
• Page 8: When data is checked your information won’t leave the register, apparently. LIKELY MISINFORMATION because there’ll be an effort eventually (probably for the children to allow ‘trusted individuals’ to view such information on request.
• Page 9: Private companies will take the word of the National Identity Register as gospel and issue mortgages on it. OUTRIGHT LIE since even the dumbest of companies know that the information on the NIR will be as good as the information on other government databases. That is to say, shite.
• Page 10: Not so much misinformation as mistakenly assuming that something is a good thing. Knowing how most people feel about the photos on their passports/driving licences, I can’t imagine that there’ll be a boatload of teenagers wanting the same picture on everything…
• Page 11: ‘It is standard practice for a new employer to check your identity and your right to work in the UK’ MISINFORMATION since that practice has only really become widespread under this government, as part of its plans for the ID card.
• Page 12: MISINFORMATION on the description of ‘private sector partners’ – the generally accepted terminology for such people is actually Quisling.
• Page 13: the interview before being issued is not a test. OUTRIGHT LIE – it is at best a test, and at worst an interrogation.
• Page 14: The UK is committed to EU standards to make EU passports the most secure in the world. OUTRIGHT LIE, since the RFID on EU passports is able to be read wirelessly from yards away. Even the US passport is more secure.
• Page 15: The PIN number provides you with a simple way to ensure that nobody else can use the card. OUTRIGHT LIE – Er, not so much.
• Page 16: Your information will not be passed to private sector organisations without your consent. OUTRIGHT LIE – the database will be designed by an outside organisation, probably maintained by an outside organisation, accessible to hundreds of outside organisations and likely communicate over private sector communication networks. And that’s before you get to the inevitable CD left on a train somewhere…
• Page 17: If you lose your card you will be able to inform us…MISINFORMATION – if you lose a card you will be legally obliged to inform the IPS.
• Page 18: A new National Identity Scheme Commissioner will be independent and look after your interests. OUTRIGHT LIE They may try to look after your interests, but prior experience shows that such commissioners are either pretty toothless or simply yes-men.
• Page 19: The IPS is committed to ensure information and support is available to everyone MISINFORMATION – they’ll only provide information if it suits them, given the whole fuss about releasing actual costs…

If you’re interested, the only reasons that pages 1, 2 and 20 escape without lying are that none of them has more than 20 words on them and just exist to space out the leaflet…

Oh goodie. Everybody’s favourite big-state cheerleader does an article about the mother of all big-state boondoggles: that is to say, the BBC talks about the Common Agricultural Policy.

Buried in among all the other things that could just be replaced by four words that would best set forth an optimum future for the CAP (Get rid of it!) is a little paragraph from (who else?) the French:

Speaking before the deal was reached, French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier said he would “not allow the milk quotas to be scrapped without accompanying measures, precautions being taken”.

“Some would like to lift all restrictions on milk production. We know perfectly well that if we produce a lot more, the prices drop, and everyone loses.”

Really? Who is this everyone? Is it the average EU citizen, who will end up paying less for milk? Is it the average EU government, which would spend less on a subsidy? Is it the productive dairy farmer, who would be able to ramp up production more effectively to meet demand?

Or is it the unproductive dairy farmer, who only continues to exist because the productive ones are being hamstrung? Is it the governments of the countries with unproductive dairy farmers, who are in thrall to the unions of said farmers?

Personally, I can’t see why the milk quota exists at all. But then I’m just a shameless capitalist about some things…

Following a link at Dummies 4 Destruction, I found myself at a Grauniad article entitled Commercial radio needs to fix its own problems, not moan about Radio 1.

Now, I’m fully aware that I have a long and vocal history of berating the BBC. And I have been known to say, on occasion, that commercial radio sucketh mightily. And furthermore, I may have mentioned from time to time that I listen to Radio 1 rather more than I listen to commercial radio.

Oh, and I’ve been less than subtle about my dislike of the Guardian mindset.

So there are a lot of my biases coming together in one little article.

My issues with the article are legion:

1. Yes, Radio 1 has a much more open style. But it only has this because it forcibly takes money from television viewers, and thusly doesn’t have to worry about ever funding itself. It isn’t forced by common sense to have a small number of news rooms broadcasting to a larger number of radio stations. It doesn’t have to break for commercial breaks.
2. Yes, it would seem that commercial radio is far too structured, but it has to be that way to maintain advertising income. And it has to maintain advertising income to pay big salaries. And it has to pay big salaries because the BBC, on its own initiative and with our money, pays way over the odds for big names. The BBC has to take at least some of the blame for commercial radio being so rigid.
3. Says the article: Moyles doesn’t sound like any other show available, while commercial radio imposes countless restrictions in how their presenters sound and behave – that may be so, but Moyles didn’t come from the BBC. He came up through commercial radio, and then the BBC threw shitloads of (our) money at him to bring him to them. He’s only there because the BBC have more money than the commercial sector.
4. And now, the thing that really pissed me off: Newsbeat is a pitch-perfect service for a younger audience – broad in scope, light in detail and never patronising. Newsbeat is never patronising? My arse. It couldn’t be any more dumbed down if it was hit with a dumbing stick. And even when I was a yoof I thought as much – my radio at uni was tuned to proper news stations because I couldn’t bear the patented Newsbeat and America is the big country on the far side of the big wet big over there style. Now I’m no longer a yoof, I find myself changing over to Radio 4 for news – yes, it’s the same lefty slant, but it’s using grown-up words and doesn’t assume that the audience needs the concept of a ‘Prime Minister’ explained to them…

Oops. It would appear that I got a little bit worked up over that… Who’d have thunk it?

Anyway, I’m cutting down on my Radio 1 listenership; I find myself flicking through stations much more these days. Moyles is getting more annoying, and the idiot Radio 1 schedulers have turned Annie Mac into a less annoying Edith Bowman, instead of a proper DJ. So there isn’t the same draw anymore…

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed some rather unusual search results pointing to the site. Ones for all the traditional drugs and genital enhancements that you’d expect from a place laden with spam comments. But there were no such comments, so how were they getting here?

I had a wee look about, and discovered to my annoyance that there was an addition to my source code listing a whole lot of links. So I deleted it, and moved on.

Then, on a hunch, I checked the following week, and it was back. Delete it again, move on.

A couple of days later, yesterday in fact, I checked again. And lo and behold, the damn set of links was back. So I put the thran head on, changed all the passwords and upgraded to the most recent version in WordPress

Except that I screwed up a little, and broke the damn thing. Took three hours and change to let me get back in again, or I’d be writing this from behind a mySQL terminal and dropping it straight into the database. Which would be messy, if you recall my last effort…

But, as I say, it seems to be back. Now I just have to keep and eye on things and make sure that a) no random additions to the code appear and b) that the new themes work as they should.

In the meantime, please to keep selves entertained with thoghts of just how much they could screw up a sequel to Tron…

Home Office Muppet in Chief Smith is once again on a little anti-citizen jaunt.

This time, she may have picked on the wrong group of people. Because the biggest reason that the Labour party isn’t yet bankrupt is because the unions give it a massive subsidy. And now, it’s a union that’s fighting back.

The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) is meeting this weekend to decide what action to take over the government’s decision to force airside staff at two airports to carry ID cards.
…
Now pilots themselves – who presumably have to pack plenty of ID already, as well as a shiny hat – have voiced their opposition to the plan.

A spokesman for Balpa said: “The government should think again on this. We’re talking to other airside unions and many agree with us that it is unfair, especially because Parliament originally passed this legislation on the basis that it would be voluntary but now it is compulsory for some groups to carry a card.”

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. As people may have noticed, I’ll take any allies that I can when it comes to getting rid of the god-awful ID scheme, and the sweetness would be almost painful if it was the unions that finally brought it down.

Plus, the strategies behind ID cards, and the lies that were told to get it passed (see the bold bit above), are becoming more obvious. Hell, Jacqui Smith just can’t stop herself lying about it. This isn’t a pilot, it’s a slow rollout. There’s no compulsory card, it’s all entirely voluntary. There are people begging, begging, for cards, no really there are.

The more the lies are shown, and the more the costs are shown to be both unnecessary and growing exponentially, the better. And if it takes some pesky unions (and pilots) to do the showing, the better. That’s what I say, anyway…

Norn Iron has, for the last 152 days, trudged on quite nicely.

Schools have remained open, hospitals have continued doing their things, roads have been repaired, health visitors have gone about doing their things, taxes have been collected, bins have been emptied, swimming pools have been monitored, flights have gone on time, oil has been delivered. There was a worry about the banks, but the governments in London and Dublin have been dealing with them¹

And all this despite (because of?) a lack of activity in Stormont.

Unfortunately, that is about to change.

Here’s the thing: those 152 days without a regional government didn’t do any damage at all. The politicians were free to get on with what they do best (snipe at each other and produce lots and lots of hot air), and the country kept on keeping on. Which only goes to show, to my mind, how useless the lot of them are. And how better off we’d all be if they just let Stormont keep going, but without any actual power. Let the politicians keep turning up, and keep talking, but don’t let them do any damage…

And chance of it happening, do you think?

–
¹ – for a given value, and success level, of ‘dealing with’. But either way, it’s not something that locals could deal with.

If it wasn’t dealing with minor things like the entire economy and borrowing massive amounts of money that we’ll have to pay for later, this little reversal would be funny.

David Cameron has told Gordon Brown to “be straight with the British people” and admit his plans to borrow more will mean “higher taxes tomorrow”.

The Tory leader said the PM was planning a “borrowing bombshell which will soon become a tax bombshell”.

Mr Brown said the Tories were “out of touch” as there was a consensus across Europe in favour of a fiscal stimulus.

The government is expected to unveil tax cuts, funded by extra borrowing, in its pre-Budget report next week.

Gordon Brown and Labour considering tax cuts, and the Conservatives trying to saw no to it? That’s all very backwards, isn’t it?

However, I’m pleased to say that I have a nice simple solution that’ll keep both sides happy – so Gordon can have his tax cuts (hooray!), and we don’t need to borrow it. It’s really almost insultingly simple.

You cancel the ID Card programme – then you have £5.5 billion.

Then cancel ContactPoint – £225 million.

Then leave the EU – £6.5 billion.

That gets to be a handy total of £12.225 billion. Which would be enough for a permanent tax cut of a little. You get a small amount of stimulus and leave this little part of the world considerably better off…