Archive for November 2009

Switzerland votes to ban pointy towers

Switzerland has voted to ban the construction of Minarets in a national referendum.

They have an excellent system in Switzerland – one that Lord Pearson has made a key policy for UKIP – where a petition with 100,000 signatures calling for a referendum has to be acted on by the government.  This particular referendum was arranged by the Swiss Peoples’ Party.

The Swiss government is opposed to the ban, mainly because they’re shitting themselves that the “muslim community” is going to kick off.  The Swiss Justice Minister, speaking on behalf of approximately nobody but herself, said it’s “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture”.

Bizarrely, Amnesty International said that the ban on minarets is a violation of muslims’ rights to freedom of expression.  Presumably Amnesty International can point to the bit in the Koran that compels muslims to build big pointy towers painted in garish colours?  Or alternatively they could just shut the fuck up and stop interfering in the democratic process.

A self-appointed muslim leader in Switzerland, Tamir Hadjipolu, claims that the ban on building pointy towers will lead to the “muslim community” living in fear.

There are 400,000 muslims in Switzerland and Islam is the second largest religion in the country, yet there are only four minarets in Switzerland and almost every application to build a new one is rejected.  The ban is unlikely to achieve much other than a ban on something that is already effectively banned anyway but the important thing is that it’s what the Swiss people want.

The bad news is, you’re going to have to wait until we get a UKIP government to get the same access to democracy that the Swiss get and unless people start voting for who they believe in rather than the party they think has the best chance of beating the party they most want to lose we’re going to be stuck with the current shamocracy for some time.

West Midlands NO!: Coventry leaves City Region

Please try not to laugh because this is very serious.  Coventry has left the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country.

Since Telford & Wrekin parted company with the city region, it’s become more and more irrelevant as its focus narrows to providing the same Birmingham-centric services as the plethora of regional quangos infesting the euroregion.  In other words, a pointless duplication.

They had to change their name from Birmingham, Black Country & Coventry City Region after West Midlands NO! registered the name to the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the City Region.  They can’t call themselves the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country now that Coventry is no longer part of it so I wonder what they’ll call their quango now … has anyone though about Greater Birmingham?

Anyway, I’m sure the City Region’s unelected leader, Dr Simon Murphy, will appreciate any helpful suggestions you might have.  His email address is simon.murphy@birmingham.gov.uk and his phone number is 0121 464 8168.  Let him have your suggestions, I’m sure he’ll appreciate them.

Biased BBC: no mention of climate change fraud

Don’t you just love the BBC?  Balanced reporting?  Na, that’s something for amateurs.

The BBC News website is reporting that “three UK groups studying climate change” have pronounced that “the science underpinning climate change is more alarming than ever” and are warning that carbon emissions must be cut.

These three groups say that persistent droughts in Australia – you know, that huge continent in the southern hemisphere that’s been mostly desert for the last few thousand years – are because of man-made climate change.    They also warn that the Maldives – the island chain that is asking for billions of pounds in international aid to combat climate change because it is sinking – could soon disappear under the sea because of man-made global warming.  They go on to say that evidence for “dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change” is growing.

So who are these three groups?  Well, there’s the Met Office – a British government department with a huge climate change budget that was part of the IPPC report on climate change that has been proven to have been based on fraudulent data and predictions.  Then there’s the Royal Society, also with a huge climate change budget, that has been criticised for bullying and unscientific behaviour in closing down debate that doesn’t support climate change theory.  The third is the Natural Environment Research Council, a British government funded quango with a huge climate change budget and is responsible for advising the British government on crackpot climate change policies.

So no vested interests there then.

The science if fraudulent and the only thing that is growing more alarming is the way the lies and fraudulent data and predictions these “scientists” are paid to make up are actually still being taken seriously, even when their own words have exposed them.

Balanced reporting from the BBC?  Don’t make me laugh.  There’s not one single mention of the fact that the “science” these British government funded global warming propaganda merchants are quoting is a fraud.

Yeah, good luck with that

I’m not going to make a habit of this, don’t worry, but I’ve read something on Socialist Unity that I actually agree with.

A London couple is applying to have a civil partnership.  Nothing unusual in that, thousands of couples have entered into civil partnerships.  Iain Dale has done it, Matt Lucas did it (and got “divorced”), even Elton John has had a go.  But there is something unusual about this couple from London – they’re straight.

Just as gay people are banned from getting married, straight people are banned from entering into a civil partnership.  It’s all a bit daft really and these two are aiming to highlight how daft it is.

Best of luck to them.  They’ll need it because the law doesn’t protect anyone who isn’t part of a minority.  If they chop their legs off, convert to Buddhism and claim to be albino transexuals from Burkina Faso they’re probably in with a chance.

Top 10 film meme

I’ve been tagged by Toque on a top 10 films meme, in the hope that he’ll find some inspiration for his LoveFilm rentals.  In no particular order …

  • Final Destination
    A kid has a premonition that the plane he’s on is going to blow up, panics, gets thrown off with some school friends and … the plane blows up.  Death has been cheated and claims them one by one in the order they should have died.  It was the first of its kind and, the scene where the girl gets hit by the bus is classic.
  • Saw
    Again, first of a kind and really gruesome.  Some bad people are abducted and locked up and forced to maim/kill themselves/each other to same their own lives.  Whoever wrote the script should probably be on a list of people to be very worried about.
  • Whoops Apocalypse
    Not the (relatively) recent one, the old one with Rik Mayall and Alexi Sayle in it.  Hilarious spoof with Rik Mayall as a bungling special services commander and Alexi Sayle as some communist leader.
  • Italian Job
    The old one, not the new one.  If you don’t know the story, what planet have you been on?
  • Star Wars
    All six of them.  I know it’s controversial but I like them all and I wish they’d remake the original three so they fit in properly with the three newer films.
  • The Matrix
    Yet another “first”.  I get bored easily by films unless they’re really funny or different and the Matrix falls into the latter category.  You have to watch it a few times to figure it all out.
  • A Clockwork Orange
    Because sometimes you just want to see lots of shagging and mindless violence.  There’s probably a plot but I’ve never noticed one.
  • Death Race 2000
    The film that inspired the Carmageddon series of games.  A film set in the future where a trans-continental race takes place regularly in America (officially sanctioned and blessed by the Pope!) where drivers score points for every pedestrian they kill.
  • The Exorcist
    The original scary poltergeist film in which a priest tries to exorcise a posessed girl.  “What’s wrong with me mommy?”
  • Kill Bill
    All of them.  Gratuitous violence and excellent special effects.

I’ll pass this on to …

A very inconvenient truth

So, the wheels are coming off the global warming bandwagon at last and not a moment too soon.

With the Copenhagen Climate Summit almost upon us, some enterprising hackers have managed to find their way into the University of East Anglia’s network and copied over 1,000 emails, data files and code from their climate change propaganda department.  And they make interesting reading …

One “scientist”, Tim Osborn, told his colleagues to delete data rather than release it under the Freedom of Information Act.  Another “scientist”, Phil Jones, explained how he used a “trick” pioneered by another “scientist” to hide cooling trends.

Michael Mann, another “scientist”, said he would be contacting the BBC to find out why a journalist was allowed to write a vaguely sceptical article.  Another one, Kevin Trenberth, admits that they can’t explain why there is no global warming.

The Information Commissioner has apparently advised “scientists” on how to avoid releasing information under the Freedom of Information Act.  Tom Wigley, another of the “scientists” admits that “scientists” have been dishonestly claiming their predictions fit the IPPC climate model.

We’re being taxed and regulated into the dark ages in the name of climate change and here we have evidence that it’s nothing more than a scam motivated by hundreds of millions of pounds of government funding available for “scientists” that come up with the right answers.

Some excellent reading on Climategate:

Petitions

UKIP has launched a petition calling for a referendum on our continued membership of the European Empire.

Ignoring the fact that the petition says Great Britain when it should say United Kingdom (another of my pet hates!) it’s one worth signing. This petition is going to be a big one, a lot of resources are being put into it.

The mild irritation caused by the British government and the European Empire calling the EU “Europe” finally reached tipping point the other day.

Europe Minister? No, EU Minister. European Commission? No, EU Commission. European Parliament? No, EU Parliament. European president? No, EU president.

The Europe Minister isn’t responsible for British government policy for the whole of Europe, just for the EU. The European Parliament isn’t a parliament for the whole of Europe, just the EU.

This irritating conflation of “Europe” and “EU” has prompted the first Bloggers4UKIP Number 10 petition: stop referring to the EU as “Europe”.

Other petitions that may be of interest …

The Future’s Bright, the Future’s … expensive

I was on the phone to Orange customer services today to see if there was a cheaper way of getting my son a small amount of internet access.

I was disappointed to find that not only was £5pm the cheapest option for data, but new customers would only receive 250mb for their £5pm, rather than the 500mb limit that has been available until recently.  I was considering adding the data to Mrs Sane’s phone package but 250mb for £5 is even worse value than the already poor offering of 500mb.

I assume that Orange is aware of other networks’ offerings and how Orange compares to them.  Let’s have a look at what’s available elsewhere:

Vodafone charges £5pm for 500mb – double the new allowance you get for the same price with Orange.

O2 charges 50% more than Orange but in return for the extra £2.50 you get unlimited data unless you have an iPhone or a 600 minute package or above in which case you get free unlimited data and unlimited access to their network of wi-fi hotspots.

T-Mobile offers unlimited data for £5pm and Three even gives 100mb per month free with a £10 pay as you go top-up as well as free Skype to Skype calls!

This is a backward step from Orange and as I said, disappointing.  I’ve been an Orange customer for 13 years and recommended it to many, many people over the years.  I even had a job selling Orange mobile phone contracts a few years ago!

The high cost of data on Orange is a real let down and after visiting a Three shop yesterday and seeing how cheap their packages are I think I know where I will be going when my contract is up.  With a roaming agreement with two networks, their poor coverage isn’t a problem any more and most new phones are available on Three so it all comes down to price.  For a £10 pay as you go top-up you get free Three to Three calls, free Skype to Skype calls and 100mb of data as well as 50 minutes of voice and 100 texts.  Contracts are even better value.

Orange has the resources to match that offering but refuses to do so.  It’s a shortsighted move that’s cost them an extra bit of business from me yesterday and when my other 3 contracts with Orange are up next year it’s probably going to cost them those too.

Queen’s Speech a load of bollocks again

The British government’s Queen’s Speech will be read out today in what is becoming an increasingly ridiculous tradition in which the Queen reads out a carefully prepared script witten entirely in the bullshit dialect of management-speak.

Most of the content of the Queen’s Speech is, as usual, on devolved matters over which the Scottish Prime Minister and his British government has no moral or democratic mandate.

The Queen’s Speech is expected to include:

  • A bill to legally oblige the British government to halve the budget deficit – a Canute-like instruction to the budget to halve in defiance of the laws of nature and pointless in that no parliament can bind a future parliament (Whole of UK)
  • A bill to allow the FSA to ignore employment contracts and change the bonuses paid to bankers (Whole of UK but mainly affecting England)
  • A bill to give English local authorities more powers to prevent floods (England only)
  • A bill to give elderly English people care in their home (England only)
  • A bill to tinker with the police and private security and put more people in the DNA database (Mostly England only)
  • A bill to allow OFGEM to set prices gas and electicity companies can charge (Whole of UK)
  • A bill to make bribery of a foreign official illegal (Whole of UK)
  • A bill to make broadband internet available universally (Whole of UK, mainly benefiting Scotland and Wales)
  • A bill to ban cluster bombs (Whole of UK)
  • A bill to change school league tables and literacy and numeracy strategies in English schools (England only)

As much as it pains me tosay this, I have to agree with Nick Clegg-over that the Queen’s Speech is a farce and that the bill to cut the budget defecit in half is a joke.  As Clagg-over says, they may as well say they’re going to pass a law to make the sun shine next Tuesday.

Internet Broken … arrrrrrgh!

It’s amazing how much we’ve come to rely on t’interweb in our household.

Mrs Sane phoned me at work yesterday to say she couldn’t get on the internet so I popped home at lunchtime to see what the problem was.  I checked the modem status page and it said the ADSL link was down so I phoned Sky Broadband up to report the fault.

The flunky on the phone insisted on me powering off the modem and powering it back on again for the 5th time on the basis that it was on her list as the next thing to do.  She then asked me to check the wire from the micro filter to the modem was in securely so I unplugged it and … the phone went dead.  Which shouldn’t happen.

The phone would only work again if I unplugged the micro filter and plugged the phone directly into the phone socket so I called back and told them it looked like the micro filter was faulty.  So, after work, I went to PC World and bought a spangly new micro filter that had been reduced from £20 to £15 and got the manager to give me a 10% discount because the packaging had been opened.  This micro filter isn’t your normal dangling bit of wire from the socket, it sits flush to the socket, has two phone sockets as well as the modem socket and it has a surge protector so it should be reliable (it also has a couple of blue LED status lights that flash when it’s connected which is a nice touch).

Anyway, I plugged in the new micro filter and got the same problem with the phone.  Unplugging the wire from teh modem to the micro filter gave me the phone line back.  Unplugging and plugging it back in to the modem a few times cured that problem so it evidently wasn’t the micro filter that was at fault but still no internet.

Another phone call to Sky Broadband and after a lesson in teaching my granny how to suck eggs, I was transferred to the department that deals with technical problems for people who have Sky phone lines.  Half an hour on hold listening to the same 3 minute loop of terrible hold music and an irritating Scottish voice inviting me to take up all the wonderful services that I already have and I eventually got through to someone who told me that they will check the line to make sure there isn’t a problem with it before they start looking at whether it’s the router that’s at fault.  Fine by me as it’s quite likely to be a line fault but not fine is the warning that it can take up to 48 hours to diagnose a problem with the line so we could be without internet access for over 2 days.

I did pop on the internet a couple of times by hooking up my mobile phone to my laptop but as well as being unbelievably slow (we’ve been spoilt with 20mbit broadband that’s capable enough to handle 2 laptops and a desktop connected to the internet at the same time without any drop-off in speed) it was eating through my 500mb monthly data allowance like nobody’s business.  So I’m reduced to retrieving my emails and checking Twitter on my mobile phone while Mrs Sane can’t do her online banking or online bill payments which needs to be done around about now.

Cheap, fast broadband has made life so much more convenient but at the cost of making living without it so much more inconvenient.

Liebour holds onto Glasgow East

Liebour has managed to hold on to the Glasgow North East seat vacated by the disgraced ex-Speaker, Micheal Martin (now Lord Martin but, like Peter Mandelson, entirely undeserving of the honorific), albeit with a reduced majority.

Liebour won with 12,231 votes, followed by the SNP with 4,120.  The Tories just managed to keep their deposit with 1,075 votes (5.22%) closely followed by the BNP with 1,013 votes (4.92%) who were a few votes short of keeping their deposit.  The Lib Dims came in sixth with 474% of the vote, behind the Solidarity Party who got 794 votes.

One commentator yesterday said that if Liebour put a donkey up for election it would win and they weren’t wrong but elections are won and lost in England and Liebour is about as relevant as the Monster Raving Loony Party south of the border.

Is it cos I is white?

The Demon Headmaster Jack Straw has backed down on trying to remove the defence of freedom of speech from a new law making inciting homophobic hatred a criminal offence.

The Lords prevented the Ministry of Injustice from removing the right to freedom of speech four times before Jack Straw finally gave up.

This new law – along with the laws against inciting racial hatred – are wrong and unnecessary.  The divide the population into two – those who are automatically victims and must have special protection and the rest of the population who are automatically pigeon-holed as racists/homophobes/miscellaneous -ists/-phobes and have to prove their innocence if they are accused of offending one of the afore-mentioned “victims” because of their race/colour/sexuality.

Crimes such as murder and assault are instinctively wrong, it’s something built in as a species.  But crimes such as homophobia or racism are crimes of conscience, the imposition of a set of morals on the whole population with serious penalties for those that don’t live their lives according to the morals of others.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with homophobia or racism or other types of discrimination but I don’t think that we as a society have a right to impose that moral view on the whole population and punish people for not having the same morals.  If someone commits a crime, it doesn’t matter whether they were motivated by their victim’s colour or religion or sexuality – they have committed a crime and the crime isn’t worse because the victim was black or a muslim or gay.  If someone abused me in the street, I’m no less of a victim because I’m straight than I would be if I was gay.

This is a bad law, made marginally less bad by the intervention of the House of Lords.  We really have to put a stop to this ridiculous situation where more and more groups of people are identified as automatic victims who require specific legal protection.  It’s just wrong.

Free £200 school trip (terms & conditions apply)

#2 came home from school today with a letter offering him a trip to Arthog for a week.

Arthog is an outdoor adventure centre in Snowdonia owned by Telford & Wrekin Council (our local authority) that’s used mainly by schools in Shropshire.

This trip costs £200 for 5 days – not the cheapest school trip but #1 went last year and had a great time.  But what is unbelievable is that the letter says that any kids who are entitled to free school meals are also entitled to a free trip to Arthog, as are those whose parents are on income support.  And how do they subsidise the kids whose parents aren’t paying?  By charging more for the kids whose parents do pay.  This is what they do with every school trip – the last few have come in at £8 and some of them started off lower and then went up when they’d worked out how many parents were prepared to pay.

Of course, with unemployment the way it is, there’s an increase in the number of genuine cases where people have lost their jobs and are on income support but there are a core of parents that don’t work – the ones that are often carrying carrier bags full of beer when they drop them off and pick their kids up – and refuse to pay for trips because the letter says the payment is voluntary (even though it says the trip may be cancelled if not enough pay) and brag about the fact.

The other day one of the kids brought home a letter saying the British government were going to pay for a computer and 12 months of broadband for anyone who is eligible for free school meals.

It’s a great wheeze this free school meals thing, it’s just a shame people who work for a living aren’t entitled to anything.

Google mark Remembrance Day … eventually

After complaining on Sunday that Google decided to mark Remembrance Sunday with a picture of the Cookie Monster rather than a poppy, it was suggested that we should give Google the benefit of the doubt and see if they use a poppy logo on Remembrance Day itself.

Well, today was Remembrance Day and guess what?  Yep, there was no poppy logo on Google UK this morning.  Nor on the Google USA site, Google Canada, Google Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France or Belgium where the poppy is used to commemorate fallen soldiers on the 11th of November.  In France and Belgium it’s a public holiday, such is the importance they put on Armistice Day.

Suitably enraged, I decided to take some affirmative action.  I emailed another complaint to Google’s press office, started a “viral tweet” on Twitter and got BBC Radio Shropshire talking about it.  An hour or two later I got an email from a Google PR person saying they had put a poppy under the search box.  I pointed out that the only way to get a poppy logo on the Google UK site was to view it on a mobile phone and click the “Classic” link to get the proper site.  The PR man said he would get it looked into.

At about 11:40am the poppy appeared on the Google UK site and some time afterwards a poppy Google Doodle miraculously put in an appearance in place of the normal Google logo.  People power won the day, it seems, but it shouldn’t have taken this much effort to get Google to remember our fallen soldiers.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)

Three more drugs advisors resign

Three more drugs advisers from the British government’s Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs have resigned following the sacking of Professor David Nutt.

101 Downing StreetNutt was sacked by the British Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, after publicly saying that LSD was less harmful than alcohol, cannabis was less harmful than nicotine  and that the British government’s decision to upgrade cannabis to a Class B drug was politically motivated, not scientifically.

There are now 6 vacancies on the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs following Professor Nutt’s sacking and the 5 resignations that have occured in protest at the sacking yet Alan Johnson still won’t admit he was wrong and the British government refuses to put scientific fact before personal opinion and populist propaganda.

Just like the British government ignores the science that proves climate change propaganda to be false, so they ignore independent scientific evidence on the level of danger certain drugs (including alcohol and nicotine) present.  The British government isn’t interested in fact, they will continue to spread rumour and false information until the population accepts it as fact.

Wir sind die Leute

It is 20 years to the day since the Berlin Wall fell and East Germans were allowed to leave the country that was their prison.

I was only 12 when it happened and I didn’t really understand what was happening but the constant news coverage and sight of people dismantling the wall by hand as soldiers stood by and watched them meant that I didn’t need to understand the rise and fall of communism, the partition of Germany and the cold war.  I understood that history was being made and that a lot of people were suddenly very happy and bewildered.

It’s ironic that the 20th anniversary of the end of communism in Europe was marked by the signing, in the former communist republic of Czechoslovakia,  of a treaty establishing a new socialist empire in Europe and by the call for a communist redistribution of the wealth of banks by our very own marxist Prime Minister.

The people of Europe have short memories, it seems.

Queue? What queue?

One thing the English are famous for is queuing.  But someone forgot to tell that to the people at the petrol station today.

Every pump was taken with people waiting so I positioned myself strategically covering both sides of one pair of pumps.  Then a woman came out of the forecourt shop and got into her car and then pulled alongside the car in front of me that was parked up at a pump.  I assumed she was waiting for someone else to come out of the shop but she then pulled into the pump in front which had just been vacated by a motorbike!

A pump on the other side of the forecourt was vacated so someone else who was waiting alongside me pulled up and very kindly waited while the woman in the pump in front of him adjusted her mirror, did her makeup, tinkered with her hair, etc (I’m exaggerating) so he could pull alongside the front pump so I didn’t have to wait.  Which was very nice of him and much appreciated.

While I was filling up an old dear pootled onto the forecourt, drove in front of a waiting car and despite the waiting driver honking her horn at her, pulled up alongside a newly vacant pump.  She then proceeded to sit about 5ft away from the pump and presumably waited for the car in front of her to finish filling up and leave.  I say presumably because I had time to put diesel in the car, queue at the till, pay and drive off while the old dear just sat there blocking a vacant pump that she’d got to by queue jumping.

Bizarre.

Where’s the poppy, Google?

Google has had a Sesame Street logo on its site for most of the week to mark the 4oth anniversary of the show.

Presumably the makers of Sesame Street are presumably paying them to display the logo because not only did the Google UK site fail to mark the 5th of November, but they have also failed to mark Remembrance Sunday.

I can forgive them missing the 5th of November but failing to mark Remembrance Sunday is a disgrace and an insult to the memory of the men and women who gave up their lives during the two world wars and beyond.

Google should be ashamed.

El Gordo pressing for communist banking system

Gordon McBrown, the unelected Scottish British Prime Minister, has shown his commitment to inflicting global communism on the world’s population by using a meeting of Commie EU Gordothe G20 in St Andrews to call for a global “social contract” for banks and “just distribution of risks and rewards”.  He’s also suggested a global tax on bank transactions to pay for a global fund to bail out (nationalise) banks.

The British Bankers Association says that the transaction tax is a bad idea.  A spokesman for the communist charity, Oxfam, which receives millions of pounds of funding from the British government, says it’s “a major step towards clearing up the mess caused by their greed”.

Communism has been tried in many forms over the years and has resulted in economic devastation, starvation, war and millions of deaths.  Communism is evil and El Gordo, Obama the Marxist and the EUSSR must not be allowed to inflict it on us.