cynicalbastard

Sorry have I missed something in this story? Iranian guards take prisoner fifteen sailors and Royal Marines. The latter are usually as hard as nails. And the Brits go meekly, submissively, into Iranian custody.

Why weren’t they authorised to use force to protect themselves? Why didn’t the ship they were from threaten to blow the revolutionary guard out of the water? Why aren’t we threatening a bombing raid on southern Iran? I can’t imagine the ‘merkins letting their guys be taken in the same way, can you? Shit, what’s the point of having nukes if we’re not dropping them somewhere? I mean, we’re renewing Trident, and its always best to use up your old stocks before buying in new (environmentally sound, one might say). Tehran’s a shit-hole anyway, could do with a clear out.

Fuck ‘not inflaming a tense situation’. You take our guys prisoner, you pay the price.

This has been Fox News, UK style. I say ‘bring back Lord Palmerston’.

Wait a minute. Prescott condemns the ‘Saddam killing’?? Or so says all the meejah that matter (BBC, Metro, Guardian, google news sources).

Sorry, but maybe I didn’t hear it right. What he said was

‘I think the manner was quite deplorable really. I don’t think one can endorse in any way that, whatever your views about capital punishment. Frankly, to get the kind of recorded messages coming out is totally unacceptable and I think whoever is involved and responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves.

It’s not the execution itself he’s condemning (contrary to ALL the reports) but the fact that someone was allowed to film it and then release that film on YouTube. It’s that action that he thinks people should be ashamed of.

It’s typical NuLab–don’t care what people are doing as long as no one knows.

Or have I got a stick at the wrong end?

Journalism is so easy these days. A pressure group comes along, makes a few mocking noises about someone or something, and it gets coverage as news. Hence ‘Sense about Science’. All over the press this morning (here, the TOday programme, here, T’Grauniad), mocking celebrities for their lack of knowledge about science.

Now, this is probably all very good. Though I can’t help thinking that anyone who follows Chris deBurgh’s advice on spiritual healing or ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith’s on nutrition deserves all they get. But then I started to wonder. Why criticise celebrities who simply want not to eat too may pesticides?

Well, how about because your lobby group is funded by agri-chemical industries? Or biotech industries? Or is connected to the somewhat odd Living Marxism cult? Contrary to the news reports, ‘Sense about Science’ isn’t an objective pressure group. It’s virulently pro-GM, and the current reports seem to be part its long-standing campaign to deride opposition to GM-trials as ‘anti-scientific’.

Oddly, however, the BBC has frequently chosen to work closely with the pressure group (stories here and here) without explaining its actual beliefs and role. So let’s list those funders (inter alia) once again–

Amersham Biosciences
BP
GlaxoSmithKline
AstarZeneca
Pfizer

And remember people, you can never believe a word you hear or see on the meejah.

Blair’s setting out a new social contract–things one must do in order to get education, NHS service, etc.

No, mate, what I have to do is PAY TAXES. If you don’t deliver the services I’ve paid for, then I get to sue you. Why doesn’t the Sale of Goods Act apply to government services?

Schopenhauer anyone?

So we once again prove our hatred of people claiming Islam is violent (or quoting people claiming it) by, uhhr, burning down churches and shooting nuns.

Logic? Hey? Over here!

Yup, once again, we have murder committed by the interweb. Uhhr, no, hang on a moment. Surely a man murdered a woman here? Something that is, of course, sadly all too common. But, no, apparently, the interweb was to blame. Must be all those tubes.

Be interesting how they try and enforce this one–

“acts that appear to be life threatening or are likely to result in serious, disabling injury

Remove that ‘disabling’ and most piercing sites would come under scrutiny. Actually, bme would anyway.

That ‘appear’ leaves open the application of the law (as currently with kiddie porn legislation) to completely fake images. Ie. you make an animation of someone murdering someone, its just as criminal as if you film someone murdering someone.

Oh, and ‘likely to result in…’ Hmm, the jackass boys better not be filming round here.

File under ‘completely unenforceable pandering to the tabloids.”

Oh look, I can’t be expected to do puns all the time. And make them work. What else would you have me do, what a farag(o)e/farag(e)o? I dunno.

DK has nailed his colours to the UKIP mast (indeed, so happy is he about it his nailed them twice in quick succession). The problem, he says, though is that:

UKIP suffers from the perception that many of their members are old, racist, reactionary and insane or all four. They also suffer from their perception as a jingoistic one-issue, parochial party. If UKIP really wish to become a credible force in national politics, they need to take several steps.

And then goes on to list some. The major one he leaves out, though, is ‘not to be so thoroughly infiltrated and run by the security services, that it seems new graduates at Thames Bank enter the party for a bit of basic practice in manipulation of the British political system.’

And then when the Israelis retreat, Hizbullah re-house Lebanon’s people. Hmm, now which of these two organizations–Hizbullah and the Israeli state–would you choose to support if you lived in southern Lebanon? The one the bombs you, or the one that gives you a year’s free rent?

Congrats to Israel, the US and the UK on driving yet more muslims (and a significant number of christians—weird how such faithful xians as Blair and Bush were happy for their co-religionists to be bombed over the past few days by non-co-religionists, sort of the crusades in reverse) into the arms of Hizbullah. The only better outcome for them and for al-qaida and co. would have been continued bombing. Then everyone’s aims of armageddon would have been enacted.

Wonder what would have happened if, in 1973, after quite justifiably beating up all their neighbours, Israel had not taken the course of stealing all the water from the West Bank aquifer, destroying the Palestinians’ land and homes, and destroying their culture. Instead if it had embarked on a policy of investment, aid and kindness, well, maye they’d have had less trouble over the past thirty years. And it might have cost rather less on the defence budget too. Oh, and it might have given them some more people well-disposed enough to inform on the tiny minority of terrorists.

I know, its a dreamland I live in sometimes isn’t it?

Look, does anyone believe any of this stuff anyway? (isn’t that a song?)

It’s all put on for show…otherwise why the obvious idiocy involved in the confiscations?

(note to self: no more flying on BA, EL AL or any US airline, its aer lingus from now on…no one bombs the Irish).

Must be a sign of age when war in the middle east provokes not outrage but rather the idle thought that it’s probably worth investing in oil company shares.

Oh, and the less idle thought that I hope Gaston Hochar’s estate is okay. Life without Chateau Musar? Unthinkable.

Sorry, but with Israel bombing Lebanon back to the later bronze age (a good age for the Lebanese), why is it the public of the west who has to pay for the ensuing humanitarian crisis?

Fuck that. Israel’s doing it, with US aid. One of those two should pay.

I’ll happily pay to supply arms, but not to cover up the results of someone’s barbarity.

I notice the passport site has been re-named identitycards.gov.uk. And I thought they were stil talking about it.

Glad to see, after tackling 100-year old crime, the Police are tackling some other difficult targets.

Yes, those toddler muggers are a real problem.

(but, seriously, get the State out of my fucking life please. Now).

It’s a bit earlier than usual this year, but all the news services are carrying stories about the identity of Jack t’Ripper finally being solved. One would think, what with international terrorism, knife crime and various other little problems going on, that the Scotland Yard announcement might not have been such a great idea.

The Swanson Marginalia at the heart of this have been known about for years. They’re in Begg (who broadly favours the Swanson suspect, Kosminski), they’re in Sugden, they’re well known on the most authoritative online source, the Casebook.

So why the hoopla? Something nasty coming out of the woodpile again? Or just that the Met are so incapable of solving modern crime, they’re desperate to trumpet the fact they can solve something from 1888?

(not that they have of course, they want to look at William Bury)

I don’t know very much.

No, don’t stop me…

Oh, you weren’t.

But I know two things. Call them lessons from history.

1) England don’t win on penalties. Ever. And therefore should never play for them.

2) No one, but no one, invades Afghanistan and wins. Just not possible. Just don’t even think about it. You might look like you’ve won, but give it a few months, and you’re trapped in the mountains while some christian-god-forsaken-goat eater runs rings round you. How the Ruskies must be laughing now.

I’ve complained before of the tactics of the TV licensing people.

This morning the press was full of the news that watching the world cup on your home or work computer means you have to buy a TV licence. The story from The Sun is straight-forward (with the note that you don’t need a license to listen to their audio coverage).

The Guardian typically tries to follow what has always been the previous understanding of the law regarding the need for a licence–that TV receiving equipment is needed (ie. a decoder card), and no licence would be required if one is simply watching TV over broadband.

However, and this is where it gets interesting, others have actually asked. Out-law.com carry the story and have a quote from a rep of the licensing authority making clear that a special card isn’t needed:

“We make no distinction between those watching TV via PC-TV, broadband or any other way,” said the spokeswoman. “If you are watching TV at the same time as it is being broadcast in the UK you need to be covered by a valid licence

This is based on a statutory instrument issued by the secretary of state in 2004–

“‘television receiver’ means any apparatus installed or used for the purpose of receiving (whether by means of wireless telegraphy or otherwise) any television programme service, whether or not it is installed or used for any other purpose.”

Out-law suggests that the law would probably accept that a computer would be included in that definition. Not that this is a new story—TV licensing made the same announcement back in February when TV on mobiles was the target.

However, OFCOM has, in the past, said that the law does not apply to broadband connections. And the DCMS (the government department responsible for TV licensing) has said likewise. TV licensing’s own webpage still only mentions PCs with a broadcast card (presumably they don’t care about Macs).

With regard to mobiles, the TV licensing site is also explicit that TV sets using their own internal batteries do not require a license. Presumably a mobile could be so defined?

Basically, the authorities are trying it on. TV licensing have expanded the definition of TV equipment to include ‘virtually live’ thanks to government support, which gets round the time lag on streaming, but the regulations still await testing in court. When OFCOM believes there’s a loophole, you’ve got to wonder who to believe.

Of course, they also have no way of knowing who is using broadband to watch TV (unless BT hands over their subscriber list), so the whole thing is rather moot.

Luckily, they have a solution in the long term: a tax on computer equipment itself. Now there’s a way to end the digital divide. .

Elsewhere Jonathan Miller (no, not the Beyond the Fringe guy) is challenging licensing in court using the Human Rights Act, which guarantees individuals the right to receive and impart information and only allows the state to license the broadcasters rather than individuals receiving the broadcasts.

If the inspectors do come to call, some information on your rights may help. They can’t enter your home without a search warrant, and they can’t get one of those without evidence.

Actually, the underlying story of the elections is once again not quite the one the media is portraying. The meejah is concentrating on London, London and, uhhr, London.

Using the lovely BBC election map, Labour has been doing pretty well in some of its old heartlands.

Manchester gain four
Sheffield gain one
Liverpool gain three
Bolton gain two (though The Guardian has Labour losing control of the town, which is odd as it just remains NOC)
Hartlepool, Doncaster, Wigan one each
Rotherham gain two

(edit and Bradford gain six)

Still waiting for Leeds and Bradford to come in. Both are non-Labour councils though, so you’d expect Labour gains.

I still have a job. Labour made gains in Manchester. But, thankfully, got beaten up everywhere else.

Hey, that’s a clever title. I wonder if it’s relevant?

You know what the government and the feminazis always like to tell us about pr0n? How its run by organized crime, and how, any investment in masturbatory aids is just giving money to evil. How, sinc 9/11, porn (like other immoral activity) is aiding terrorism.

Well, once upon a time there was an interesting website called insex.com. Founded in 1995, it was certainly an ‘acquired’ taste. Featuring as it did the most extreme S&M. All consensual, but sometimes closer to endurance experience or Metzger style performance art than to anything sexual. Even I, who take an especial interest in pain and violence being inflicted on human beings, found it more ‘interesting’ than erotic.

Late last year, the owner was forced to sell. Prurience? Moral Majority? No. As he explains here, changes in the US banking regulations thanks to the Patriot Act. Warning banks and credit card companies that processing payments for adult websites was likely to be aiding money laundering for terrorism, the banks were forced to close the accounts down.

Very clever, if an interesting by-product of the war on terror. The corollary is obvious though. As the US porn industry shut down (at least in its more extreme variants), it relocated its bank accounts off-shore. To Russia. To the Ukraine. Yes, to all those countries where there is no adherence to money-laundering legislation. So well done Mr Bush and the crazy Republican right. You’ve brought into being the very problem you set out to tackle.

DK blogs about the recent fall in the cost of medical insurance and what this might mean for the NHS. I’m surprised by his concern for the poor.

Surely the major reason the NHS is in the state its in (aside from rampant managerialism and consultant-itis thanks to the wonders of our business schools, thank you very much Mrs Thatcher, Lord King and Gordon Gecko) is because Doctors and Nurses spend so much of their time treating poor people. And poor people have bad diets, tend to smoke and drink too much, don’t join proper gyms, and very rarely have ayurvedic treatments. Which means they’re more likely to get ill. It’s their own fault for Kali’s sake.

In fact, without the poor, Doctors would have a lot more time to spend with proper middle class patients who have probably done all their work for them already over the interweb. Patients who might have investments in pharma-combines that would mean both sides of the Doctor-patient relationship would have a vested interest in which drugs are prescribed rather than just the medical end of the arrangement.

If we stopped treating the poor, let them die, then we wouldn’t need the money from fags which is used to support the NHS. Which would be good, because, well, we’d be getting a lot less of it. Then there would be enough resources to go round, and if those of us remaining had a cocaine overdose or two, well, we could afford the treatment and we’d probably only been borrowing the local GP’s supply anyway.

Actually, thinking about it, given its only the poor who go to NHS hospitals these days, perhaps its why the medical profession created MRSA. This is their hidden agenda. Well done Patricia Hewitt, it IS the beat year for the NHS after all. AT least since that nice Dr Shipman retired. Soylent Green anyone?