Armageddon Theory

Fatally Clean

2010-02-22T09:57:00.005Z

Well, its been awhile since I have had the time to place fingers on keyboard but sometimes an issue raises its ugly head that just needs to be commented on.

This weekend while watching the one eyed god in the corner I was stunned to see an advert for a washing powder that not only blasted stains and impregnated clothes with floral smells, but also killed the crap out of any micro-organisms that resided there. All this at an economically sensible low temperature that not only saved you money but saved the world as well.

It was as they say the final straw that has led to this article.

Every day we are bombarded with adverts trying to persuade us to purchase a kaleidoscope of chemical weaponry to remove every living thing from our homes bar us and higher life forms such as pets.
Air fresheners, bleaches, disinfectants, cleaning products that not only remove stubborn stains but also kill all carbon based organisms forms as well.
Couple this with the other substance in our homes such as plastics, food additives, polishes, soap, deodorants, window cleaner etc, you begin to wonder why mankind is becoming so ill.

Think about this.

The human body cannot build up immunity to something unless it is exposed to it. The human immune system cannot get stronger unless it is exposed to contaminants. So how does it benefit our children and us if we bleach the living daylights out of everything, removing that exposure.
Seriously, you can tell the difference in our local school between the children who live on farms and those that live on a local estate. When a bug goes round as it inevitably does in these plague pits, the farm kids rarely if ever suffer. Spending your youth up to your elbows in crap has its benefits it seems.

You have to ask yourself why the medical profession hasn’t made its voice heard concerning advertising companies peddling paranoia about the unseen. A paranoia that is 99% counter productive to health of the nation.
There is a vast difference between a bar of soap and the chemical flame-throwers that we now use.
Also, on a side note, what happens when what we are trying to kill becomes immune to what is being used against it? NHS and MRSA anyone?

Secondly and most importantly is this.

When you buy a cleaning product it is tested and found safe for domestic use within reason. When you buy an air freshener, it is tested and presumably found to be safe for the home environment. All these products must go through these procedures before being allowed on a supermarket shelf.
Yet, what is not made publicly available is how these products will react with each other.

If you buy all this crap you are turning your home into one big chemical reactor.

You do not know how the chemicals in your surface cleaner will react with the fumes from your air freshener. You do not know how the chemicals given of by your carpet and plastics around your home will react with the components in your deodorant. I bet you do not even consider that what comes out of a spray can, or perfume dispenser must settle somewhere such as on plates, cups and food in the process mixing with all the other toxic garbage you’ve used.
Each week millions of people purchase millions of chemicals, go home and mix them all up without thought for the consequences.

As food for thought.

From Wikipedia.

“plasticizers like adipates and phthalates are often added to brittle plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to make them pliable enough for use in food packaging, children's toys and teethers, tubing, shower curtains and other items. Traces of these chemicals can leach out of the plastic when it comes into contact with food. Out of these concerns, the European Union has banned the use of DEHP (di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate), the most widely used plasticizer in PVC. Some compounds leaching from polystyrene food containers have been found to interfere with hormone functions and are suspected human carcinogens.”

This http://eetd.lbl.gov/IE/pdf/LBNL-57038.pdf also makes interesting reading.

This country and others are now becoming more and more concerned with the increasing number of allergy sufferers and asthmatics. I think ‘How Clean Is My House?’ is a really big clue.

MMR

2009-03-13T13:47:00.002Z

Where to begin. Pinches bridge of nose, rubs tired eyes.

At the beginning would be as good a place as any I suppose.

As anyone who had read my previous posts would know I have a baby daughter. As anyone else with kids would know, around about the age of 18 months, in the U.K. and elsewhere you get a summons to go and have your child vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. The MMR for short.

Unless you have been living on another planet you will also be aware of the controversy surrounding this particular vaccine.

It is this, which has kept me awake at night.

Now before I go any further, I would like to point out that I am not anti vaccination and I would also like to point out that I am not blind either. My daughter has not been vaccinated because I believe there is something fundamentally awry with this particular vaccine and the people behind it.

I do not refer to autism, the main talking point of this particular product and I don’t put this down to its make up, components, wide spectrum of possible side effects, the duration of its overall effectiveness and potential long-term harm.

I refer to the lack/complete absence of the information that is to my mind critical, and the complete loss of reality and/or perspective of 99% of the adult population, medical profession and the media.

I like facts, the truth and a neutral perspective, especially where the MMR is concerned. My daughters well being is at stake at the end of the day. It’s just that when it comes down to it I can’t find any.

Lets start with this. This year the press reported over 1300 cases of measles which had two or more deaths, along with associated hysteria and castigation of those parents who refused to join the herd immunity culture. I personally have never seen anything like it. The only thing missing in some cases was a mob with burning torches and pitchforks. It was as though a childhood disease had suddenly become Ebola to the exclusion of everything else in this world that can harm or kill our children.

To continue…

1300 is what percentage of a population of 60 + million? Plus, two deaths is what compared to deaths from asthma, road traffic accidents, the flu, allergies, tetanus etc etc. We as parents are given no sense of scale with regards to measles.

The following are question I would like answered:

1) How many out of the 1300+ were children below vaccination age?

2) How many out of the 1300+ were adults?

3) How many of the 1300+ were already vaccinated?

4) How many of the 1300+ were visitors to this country?

5) If there were 2 deaths from measles then how many deaths have there been in the same time period from a reaction to the MMR?

6) For the two or more that died, how old were they?

7) For the two or more that died, were they killed by measles alone, or was it due to underlying complications such as a weakened immune system?

8) Why are we not getting the same hysteria with mumps and rubella?

9) If mumps and rubella are not worth the same attention/hysteria as measles then why are they part of the vaccine?

10) If girls are vaccinated against rubella and are therefore immune why are boys being given the same when they obviously can’t get pregnant?

On top of this I would like to ask with regards to this Holy Grail of herd immunity, why aren’t adults being vaccinated?
If you were vaccinated as a child then by the time you hit your twenties the immunity would have more than likely worn off.
It is an accepted fact that the duration of the immunity provided by the MMR is different for each individual. For some it may be 15 years, for others it doesn’t work at all.

So answer me this.

How can you have herd immunity when over three-quarters of the population are no longer immune. C’mon, think about it. When little Tarquin was taken for his jab, did you get offered or ask for a shot as well. No. If there is going to be an epidemic it isn’t going to be among our children now is it.

Plus, if it is not being offered to adults then you have to ask why. If the adult immune system can cope with measles therefore not warranting vaccination, at what age does this start? When is the immune system considered mature?

Finally, and most importantly, what is the cold, hard, neutral truth about measles, mumps and rubella. I would like an open document published with the facts about these diseases that incorporates the answers to the questions raised above.

I am sick to death of the contradictory opinions and supposed facts that anyone in the media or medical profession feel necessary to peddle.
Parents now feel like they are playing Russian roulette with their childs future. Vaccinate, you risk autism (????) ADHD (?????) etc. Don’t vaccinate then its encephalitis and other complications IF they catch measles. The proverbial rock and hard place.
It seems to me, at the end of the day, that profit and professional credibility have taken the place of logic, reason, the truth and my childs welfare.

I hope we don’t all live to regret it.

House of Cards

2008-11-07T10:25:00.006Z

From the Telegraph newspaper

Obama and McCain computers hacked by foreign entity.

"The computer systems of US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were targeted by hackers this summer from an unknown "foreign entity," Newsweek magazine has reported.

Newsweek said a federal investigation was opened after the campaigns were "victims of a sophisticated cyber attack".

"FBI and White House officials told the Obama campaign that they believed that a foreign entity or organisation sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy issues – information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration,"

Newsweek said.
"Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese," the magazine said, adding that the FBI had assured the Obama team that the attack had not been carried out by its political opponents.

Newsweek said technology experts at the Obama headquarters discovered the cyber attack in midsummer and initially thought it was a computer virus.
But the FBI and Secret Service warned them the system had been compromised and a "serious amount of files" had been stolen. They said the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised.

Newsweek said the Obama campaign retained a security firm following the attack and ended the intrusion."

Now considering the fact that the British government, using the excuse of scary men with rucksacks and beards, wants to track everything you and I do from cradle to grave on a daily basis, this does not fill me with confidence. It should also be mentioned that the above attack was publicised. How many have not been. For all we know, those that work in the shadows are fighting an invisible war on a daily basis.

If the most advanced and powerful nation on the planet cannot protect presidential candidates how can the British population have faith in governmental bodies that have a propensity to leave vital information on trains or just outright lose it.

This year the British government has looked into the well-publicised possibilities of identity cards for one and all as well as a massive computer system that will record all emails, telephone and mobile phone calls. I think the response I am looking for is LOL.

For those of you out there that play computer games, online or otherwise, you will be aware of how quickly the youth of today produces hacks and cheats. They are only doing it for giggles. Imagine what a professional organisation could achieve if they really set their minds to it and objected strongly to such methods of surveillance.

What concerns me though is this modern day psychosis which has a fanatical faith in technology.

Back when everything was on paper finding something admittedly was a complete arse and losing files must have been fairly common as well.
To steal information required photography and briefcases followed by clandestine meetings in Hyde Park or smoky back street pubs.
To destroy the information required petrol and a match.
If a hostile agency wanted to steal personal information it was generally limited to data on a few people etc. To take any more would have required a forklift and shipping crates.

Now though, all it requires is a modem and a laptop and a person with knowledge can steal/delete information concerning an entire country. I think the government has an undying faith in its own cleverness and I think that out in the real world somewhere a teenager with a keyboard has an undying faith in the governments technical ignorance and stupidity.

As stated in a previous post, all it needs is for someone to pull the plug and were all stuffed. This is because we no longer keep hard copies anymore. Our bank details, medical records, criminal files etc are all on computer. Turn them off or hack and wipe… well I don’t think it takes much imagination to think of the results.

Can you imagine what Hitlers regime would have achieved with modern technology? The victor would have been the first country to destroy the others IT infrastructure bringing the target country to a grinding financial halt.
Plus we would have no records now of what went on because at the point of the allied victory the Nazi’s would have typed format C: or taken a lump hammer/magnet to the hard drive. The Nuremberg trials would have been based on pure hearsay.

To finish, and to get to the crux of this post, mankind’s growing dependence on the technological now, and complete abandonment of the past concerns me.

It is a social/structural weakness that is easily disrupted and potentially destroyed by anybody, be they curious teenager or hostile nation/ideology.
It is a house of cards that if knocked down effects everybody, not just the people in the 1960’s say, who had savings in a bank that burnt down and all the records were reduced to ash.
In short, we mustn’t forget that paper never got accidentally deleted, filing cabinets never got accidentally formatted, and office records never suffered the blue screen of death.

We have no backup.

Now I am not saying that one-day someone will log on and wipe everything out but the potential is there. It has surprised me to date that terrorists/rebels have not succeeded at least once in this kind of attack.
It is always a possibility and one that grows stronger with each passing year and new conflict.

With this in mind I will finish by saying that I am loath to trust my personal details and the story of my life to this new technological imperative. I don’t trust human competence or nature that much.

The American Revolution

2008-11-05T09:10:00.009Z

So, America has voted in its first black president. Well done. I mean that most sincerely. In terms of race and equality, subjects close to every coloured minority’s heart, this is a great event. To the rest of the world, it is potentially a vast improvement over the last arse that warmed the presidential seat in the Whitehouse.

But…

While everyone is singing his praises and looking forward to the ‘yet to be seen’ massive changes for the better, he hasn’t actually done anything yet. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong, he doesn’t actually take over from good old George until January.

Another point to consider is the fact that he had better not screw up… ever!

In the UK we voted in Maggy, the antichrist, the devil herself. Hailed as a breakthrough in politics, we the people of Britain elected our first female Prime Minister and much rejoicing was to be had. A decade later the Prime Ministers greatest achievements came down to making the Conservative part unelectable for decades to come and putting everybody off the idea of ever voting for a women PM ever again.
Breaking the Unions by force, destroying our industry, while seemingly making the rich richer and grinding the poor further into poverty, her legacy is one that most people who lived through it remember with a shudder. If a woman ran for parliament today that part of our political history would be like a mantle of lead about her shoulders and a hard one to take off to boot.

In Barracks case there are going to be a sections of the American community who will be waiting eagerly with baited breath for him to fall because the idea of a black president is repugnant. These I am sure are a minority and by far are the smallest of problems.
Those who have pinned their hopes on him however, the coloured community in the main, and the rest who are fed up with the previous administration, are the ones who will be the greatest threat.

They have great expectations, some might say beyond the realms of possibility, but it is those hopes which may never come true which will potentially do the most harm. In watching the news this morning Barrack Obama has come to be seen as a saviour, the superman who will drag America out of recession while healing all its social and economic ills. This is not just an American view, but also seems to involve the rest of the world as well. To me personally, this is verging on expecting the impossible.

I do not envy him, his choice of career. To walk into the presidency with both eyes open, knowing that the people expect him to wipe away the years of George Bush while making things better for one and all must take the greatest of courage. But more frightening still and more importantly is the fact that the people’s confidence in future coloured presidents now rests firmly on his shoulders. Like Margaret Thatcher in the UK, one wrong move on his part could ruin the chances of future coloured presidents for generations to come.

I wish him all the luck in the world and will watch his career with interest.

Immigration

2008-07-08T08:30:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks ago me and mine spent two days at a festival in Oldham. The Chinese apparently have a curse that goes something along the lines of,

"May you live in interesting times."

The Oldham weekend was nothing if not interesting.
The festival ground was plagued by gangs and at one point a skirmish started by one of the inflatable bouncy things that are always at these events. Police and security homed in on it with a professional speed which it has to be said, was something to be admired.
We had security everywhere and toward the end of the first day, we also had a strong presence in the shape of police officers and tactical response units. All the fun of the fair.

It was the journey to the festival however that has prompted this post.

The journey to Oldham itself was fine; motorways are well sign posted after all. Once we were there however, that was when we got lost. One wrong turn and that was it. The only way I can describe the area we wound up in is Tatooine. You hear about enclaves and ghettos but it is something else entirely to actually pass through one.
The sudden loss of one colour, one hue of skin, is the weirdest thing if you have never encountered it before. This is compounded by the fact that you have a little voice in the back of your head saying,

"But this is Britain. Where have all my people gone? When did we change country?"

It is this observation, this bump in our journey and the strange way my mind works that has led me to the following thought.

During the current governments’ occupation of 10 Downing St, those who have had the courage to open their mouths have raised concerns about the great social experiment entitled multiculturalism are normally shouted down as racists and xenophobes and become more members for the likes of the BNP.
To my mind however, these voices of concern have missed a certain point which, by rights, would have the minorities as well as the do gooders in question paying a bit more attention and less time screaming.

For years now the government has interfered with and manipulated social structure and cohesion in an attempt to create God knows what out of our society. They have tinkered with education, with religion, with the law, with immigration, with the media, with employment law, and only MI6 knows what else. Anything to get people to go against an in-built tribal instinct and a pride in their own history and culture.

What you have to pay attention to though is what they have not messed with.

When people enter this country as either immigrants or asylum seekers the one thing the government has not been very reticent on is where they go to live. You would have thought that with the much sought after Holy Grail of integration that the migrants would be dispersed evenly the length and breadth of this country. Diluting the indigenous population with the new. Getting each used to the other.

No.

The people new to our shores have been allowed to form miniature versions of their homeland. Enclaves being the politically correct term, although others would use the word ghetto.
In a lot of instances, not only have certain areas become practical no-go zones for other nationalities but they have also become dangerous for the police and emergency services as well. Some enclaves have become so isolationist, that laws and courts not of this nation are being used. Little countries within our own if you will. This is the complete opposite to the governments’ plan of a multiracial, integrated utopian society. In fact it is singly the one issue that fights against it and will be its ultimate downfall.

During the Second World War Hitler had a "Jewish problem" and attempted to solve it by rounding them up and putting them into ghettos amongst other things. Keeping them all in one place so they could be easily located, rounded up and dealt with. The world will probably never forget that period in history and never should. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it after all.

To do that today, to round up and imprison a section of the non indigenous population, which is perceived as a threat to national security or any other reason, would cause such an international outcry that it would be heard on Mars. If, on the other hand, the people in question did it voluntarily then it would, to all intents and purposes, go practically unnoticed.

Strange how quiet the government has been on this particular subject.

Just to finish off. If it did ever hit the fan and social order broke down, history has taught me that ethnic cleansing is the first monster to rear its ugly head. All the conflicts before and after the Second World War have had this element. Currently, if at any time a section of our wonderfully multicultural society proved to be, how should we say, problematic, a solution would not be difficult.

The government in its silence has allowed invisible prisons to be built willingly by the prisoners themselves. In the event of trouble the government and the people of this country know exactly where the immigrants live and they all live in little enclaves according to nationality or belief.

Plus, just for something to think about, if enclaves prevent integration, then the indigenous population forms no attachment to the newcomers. They are seen as alien. Remember how I described the strangeness of it all above. Propaganda for or against a particular section of society loves this fertile soil. With the distance between peoples and a lack of familiarity between cultures, a good spin-doctor could tell us that Islam thinks cheese should be banned and a lot of people would believe it regardless of the truth of the matter. A purge by civil unrest or government design would not be problematic and a good propagandist would find it easy to turn a nation to atrocity if so required. Again, look to history.

To repeat what I stated above, It is not "what the government has tampered with" that is the problem, it is "what they have left alone".

Just a thought.

Law Of The Jungle

2008-06-05T13:33:00.006+01:00

After its recent pasting in the local elections, old Gordon Brown has decided to buy a new bandwagon, (dutifully pulled by a high horse), to jump on.

This wonderful idea, radiating such coruscating brilliance, is to make it possible for children between the ages of 16 and 17 to feel the full weight of the law if found in possession of a knife.

As pointed out in The Telegraph, laws regarding possession of an offensive weapon have been around since 1953 in The Prevention of Crime Act. This act to be followed by, The Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959, The Criminal Justice Act 1988, The Offensive Weapons Act 1996, The Knives Act 1997 and The Violent Crime Reduction Bill 2006.

Errrm, wouldn’t you think that it would be obvious to the so called intellectual elite that run/govern this country that if the above laws weren’t working, then one more would only make a difference to the poor buggers that would have to enforce and prosecute it?

The reasons why this marvellous piece of political offal on the part of the government is doomed to failure are numerous. The following would, and probably is only a minuscule part.

1.) If the kids for some reason suddenly decided to obey the law and not carry knives, then razors, screwdrivers and anything else that could put a hole in a human being would be carried instead. A ballpoint pen or a toothbrush can be used as an offensive weapon for crying out loud. Films and documentaries about life in prison, especially the institutions in America, are gold mines of information about how to kill someone.

2.)If it is illegal for shops to sell knives of a certain type and blade length, then what about Chefs knives and those that are used everyday in houses around the world? The governments’ lack of thought on this matter would, by rights, have us using only spoons and that would only last until someone put an edge on one to cut someone’s throat. Anything can be a weapon if the desire to kill or do harm is strong enough.

3.)How is this going to be enforced? The police and the courts are already bogged down in paperwork and bureaucracy as it is. For it to stand even the remotest chance of success it requires police on the streets and places in our prisons. None of these are currently available.

4.)How are the police and courts going to prove intent? If you live in the major towns and cities in this farcical multicultural society, there are, despite what the official line would have us believe no go areas for people of particular nationalities and/or faith. Even the police and emergency services are cautious about entering these locations. Self defence and personal protection might possibly hold up in a court of law if you lived in one of these so called enclaves. There are exceptions to every rule and today’s laws are mainly made out of rubber when in the right hands.

5.)What about all the kids below 16. Just because you are younger than the decided age range does not mean you will not kill someone. In fact it probably means that you are more likely to be in a large gang for personal protection, and due to lack of maturity and common sense, have a greater propensity for spontaneous and unreasoned violence. Has the government even looked at this?

6.) Banning a method of causing harm does not remove the intent from the mind which is through lack of education, fear and morality, bent on committing it. Attempting to remove the weapons of choice from our society does not change the fact that the arsehole that was going to wield it still exists.

7.)We just know that the government will launch a campaign and a knife amnesty. The campaign and subsequent documentaries are more than likely to be ill advised in much the same way as the terrorist programmes informed everybody how the perpetrators made their bombs and what components they used. The amnesty will only be used by adults wishing to get rid of old tat and naff war memorabilia.

8.)How are they going to prevent internet purchases from fishing/craft and hobby sites?

9.)Have they even considered, I wonder, the person who takes a knife for fishing etc one minute, then carries it as an offensive weapon next. If caught, I can think of at least two excuses they will use as to why they are carrying it and several more reasons as to why they will get off in a court of law.

At the end of the day, the police need their hands untied so they can deal with these little gits. They need to be given back the right to give a short sharp shock and a clip around the ear.

The legal system doesn’t need thinning down it needs to be ploughed under and re-built from the ground up. Why cant the above laws be combined into one?
What other laws that carry prison sentences can be removed or changed on the grounds that they use an A Bomb to crack a peanut? There is no room to house criminals as it is unless we turn this island into one big correction facility.
Why can we not free up more court time by getting rid of ambulance chasers and idiots who are suing because the coffee they bought was to hot or because they fell down a hole they didn’t see?

The other thing the government would be better off spending its time on is the education system, which as it stands at the moment, is a joke. Kids rule the roost in these places. They are not taught honour, duty and obligation. They are taught that if they misbehave, they will get a nice little chat off someone they have no respect for, or a holiday because they have been excluded/suspended. Both of these being status symbols in the eyes of their peers.
Bring back the cane.

As I said before, knives aren’t the problem, the mind behind them is. Unless the government deals with that first, all the laws in the world aren’t going to change squat.

On a final note. Poverty and environment are no excuse either. The lack of incentive to strive to be better is the problem. Why struggle to improve yourself or your environment when the nanny state will look after you and it is someone else’s job i.e. the councils, to make sure you area isn’t a shit hole.
I work full time yet the unemployed earn more for doing nothing. I don’t throw rubbish in the street or vandalise my estate because I live there, yet the mentality that the street cleaners will pick up the crap and the council will repair the damage is rife in the younger generations.
If you teach the young nothing of social value then the government shouldn’t be surprised when society means nothing to them.

Education Eductashun Edjication

2008-05-20T12:47:00.012+01:00

Sometimes I encounter media trends which, putting it bluntly, really get on my tits. Currently, education is the flavour of the month and it is really ‘beginning to do my ed in,’ as they say around these here parts.

To start with, and I have encountered similar exercises on T.V. three times now, while watching the BBC this morning, the two presenters fielded the question,

Are our nations children more intelligent than their parents?

This was followed by a question where two people go out for a meal with one eating considerably more than the other person. The bill was to be divided up on the ratio of 11:4 and the amount each person spent to be calculated.
Other programmes of this ilk have included putting stars through current GCSE exams and quizzes with adults against children.

Well guess what?

Parents are thick. That always seems to be the conclusion anyway. Our teaching and exam system is great because, unlike parents, the kids can find solutions to algebraic equations and multiply two matrices together.

What a load of crap!

The reason the kids do better than the parents/stars/other media wastes of oxygen is because they have just had five years of intensive training in preparation for exams. If you asked a 16-year-old when they last used ratios, the answer would probably be last week. Ask the same question of their mother or father, you would probably get the reply 1985.
I hate this kind of thing with a passion because it is used a cheap, farcical excuse to gloss over the fact that our education system is shit.

That’s right, SHIT!

From the Independent Newspaper A fifth of 11-year-olds have failed to learn basic English and maths

Oooh! I can just hear it now,

"But the exam pass rates increase with every year."

Really?

And that is OK is it?

Not that any kind of dumbing down of the exam questions so the school league tables look good has anything to do with it. Oh golly gosh no. Heaven forbid.
Before, as in before approximately 1985ish when the government really started screwing around with the exam system and syllabus, an A/B pass at ‘O’ or ‘A’ level was worth something. If you had a degree, you could practically write your own wage check anywhere in the world. Now everybody has them. They are worth diddly squat.
Let’s put it this way. A diamond is of value because it is rare and hard to come by; therefore it is worth acquiring. If you could find them littered about on riverbeds everywhere then they would be nothing more than pretty gravel. The same now goes for exam results.

"Exams haven’t been dumbed down, our education system is better and our children brighter."

See if you can get your hands on a pre 1985 maths ‘O’ level book and tell me that. I still have mine. I doubt most kids these days would make it past chapter two.
I believe a book titled ‘To be or not to be innit’ has also been published in which Shakespeares plays have been translated into urban slang so that kids can understand it. I don’t know if it will become part of the syllabus, but if it does were screwed.
Oh, and league tables have had no influence on exam difficulty and pass rates either (my arse they haven’t).

Apparently kids have to go through 100 tests/exams before they leave school. Doctors and psychologists are now becoming aware of stress related illnesses in children as young as 8 if not younger. Yet, on the world stage, what they are learning in substandard and will not benefit the majority of them to any recognisable degree. Is that sacrifice of personal wellbeing in a child really worth it?

In an effort to justify the alleged usefulness national league tables, the education system has been forced to sacrifice substance, quality and innovation for the sake of an easy pass for each and every pupil under their wing.

The future, which resides in our young, is ignored at our peril.

Food For Thought

2008-05-07T11:23:00.002+01:00

Have you ever though about how much you spend on food and what is actually in it? I mean, really sat down and pondered it at length?

The reason I mention this is because I recently discovered much to my horror that I am dairy intolerant (possibly eggs as well. Still working on that one). Anything that comes from an udder has me swelling up like a balloon and rolling around in agony. Oh what fun. I really liked cheese, cheese sauces, ice cream, dips, chillies stuffed with Feta cheese etc etc ad infinitum. The result of all this, is the sudden necessity to examine, in microscopic detail, the ingredients of anything that you buy and as a by-product, how much it actually costs. Revelation is a good word about this time.

Firstly, I discovered that dairy is in sodding everything including products that you would never have thought would have it as an ingredient let alone need it. Baked beans, tomato sauce, sausages, sliced ham (the plastic crap not the stuff that actually comes from the butcher and has meat in it,) noodles, bread, burgers. The list goes on and on.
Now the upshot of all this is that when I stopped eating dairy I lost a ton of weight, and for the first time in I don’t know how long I could actually see the ‘old fella’ when I went for a pee. It also made me ponder, with regards to obesity in this country, how much of that problem is due to the addition of products such as dairy (amongst other additives,) to foods that do not need it. In short, if I only ate dairy that came in products to which it legitimately applied and removed the rest, I would have still lost weight. That is how much of this stuff is in our food. We look for additives, colours, artificial flavourings etc, but we turn a blind eye to that which we consider natural and okay.
Another thought on this matter relates to the cost. Milk is a product that has to be shipped in and paid for and as such must surely add to the cost of the product once it hits the shelves. In buying processed ham for example, you are basically paying for an ingredient that isn’t necessary because you can buy packet ham without it.

Secondly, how many of you, when you have cooked meat from a packet, find that after a short period you might as well be making soup because of all the water that has suddenly drained out of it. Burgers that are the size of saucers shrinking to the size of ten pence pieces after five minutes under a grill. Mince that winds up floating on a sea of fat and water after a few minutes of frying. Chicken that wont brown in a frying pan until you drain off a couple of pints of liquid.
Now considering that you buy meat by weight, how much of your hard-earned money is paying for nothing more that water (I think its water). Think about it. How much a year do we spend on nothing more than injected fluid when it should be meat. This really pisses me off. If I go and buy 500g of chicken breast, I expect to be paying for 500g of chicken, not 450g of meat and 50g of water. If I wanted 50g of water with my food I would use the tap.

Finally, and this is more of a straight up question. How come, that when I go to the supermarket, chicken breast/legs etc shipped from Germany or elsewhere in Europe, costs less that meat produced in Britain? How does that work then? I personally can see nothing good in this with regards to this country and the people in it who produce our food.

Anyway, the next time you go shopping, apart from the cost, look at the ingredients in the food you buy. Not just the noxious additives but the acceptable stuff as well. Milk, salt, sugar, egg and a whole host of other ingredients can be found in the most surprising of places. If you are concerned about your weight/health, remove the products from your diet that contain unnecessary dairy, as well as the sugar and salt.
Buy your meat and vegetables from your local butcher and greengrocer, you will at least have a better chance of knowing what is in it and get better value for money (yet to see a butcher inject water into anything before selling it). Plus, not only will you be supporting your local community if you do this, you might actually become a part of it as well. A good thing to my mind.

Litigation Culture

2008-02-06T13:25:00.002Z

Yesterday in the UK it was Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day, as it is more commonly known. A day where people celebrate with sport (pancake races,) dancing and other revelries. A well-established tradition with some events having a history as long as your arm and then some.

So it was with a complete lack of surprise that I watched a news article on BBC1 that, with associated interviewees, basically described the creeping death of the festivities around this day. Now some out there might think,

"For craps sake which religious/racial minority did we offend this time?"

Although this assumption is understandable, for the first time in a while, they would be wrong. No, the reason why events across the country were cancelled was because of litigation culture. From the Press Association I quote,

"A traditional pancake race has fallen flat after it was cancelled due to health and safety regulations and red tape.
The Shrove Tuesday race in Ripon, North Yorkshire, was revived 10 years ago and is usually started by the ringing of the city cathedral's ancient Pancake Bell.
But this year, organisers tossed tradition aside because of the time and costs involved in having to put the necessary precautions and regulations in place."

It should be noted that the race in Ripon started over 600 years ago.

This is not an isolated incident by a long shot. With risk assessment forms to be filled in, insurance to be paid, emergency services to be hired, all with the sole purpose of covering ones arse in case a punter cuts their finger or grazes their knee, nobody is bothering to organise events anymore.

On the BBC1 News programme, the lady being interviewed informed us that school trips are also disappearing because of not only the costs now involved, but the fear of being sued as well. We can only assume therefore that sports days must be at risk and playtime must be heavily paid for out of the schools budget as well.

Where I used to live, once a year we had a two-day hot air balloon festival. When it first started it was fantastic and worth every penny. It had fair ground rides, beer tents, exotic food stalls as well as the normal burger vans, a multitude of shows as well as the balloons themselves, all finishing late at night with a massive firework display.
As the years passed though, the stalls disappeared to be replaced with garden furniture outlets, insurance firms and charities and the shows dwindled from stunt bikes etc to a few dancers and a falconry display.
Being local, we knew the guy running the beer tent. As an example of what a stall holder had to go through, apart from any documentation necessary, he had to be insured for the two days to the tune off six million pounds in case someone tripped over one of the tent ropes. It was his first and last show.

So what I want to know is, and forgive my language on this, WHAT THE CRAP IS GOING ON?

The festivals, fairs, parades and all the other events that are tradition are what gives this country colour, depth and culture. They are the part of the glue that holds communities together, something which the political parties are eager to reclaim we are told. Losing them because of the current pandemic of claims made in court is beyond belief.

Yes people should be held accountable for being irresponsible, lazy and incompetent where the safety and well being of another human being is concerned, but this has gone too far. It is now a licence to print money. People are deliberately going out of their way to injure themselves so they can make a claim for crying out loud. T.V. advertises that ‘where there is blame there is a claim’. Blame can be found anywhere it seems.

A local lad tried it on with the council by throwing himself into a hole dug into the road after removing the safety barriers. He even had a friend there to witness this tragic accident, a result of the incompetence of the road workers and the council that hired them. If there wasn’t CCTV cameras there, he might have got away with it.

My old local council doesn’t even contest claims anymore because it costs more to go to court than settle out of it. Nobody has yet seen fit to calculate how much an individual council loses each year because some twat wasn’t watching where they were going and tripped over on one of the council maintained footpaths. I wonder how much my council tax bill would drop if these gits couldn’t claim.

The world is an unsafe place and we should at least count our blessings in the UK, that bullets and bombs aren’t part of our daily lives. In fact we should be grateful that we make it home every night and wake up again in the morning. People who don’t realise this should see their doctor about getting some medication to stop them seeing fairies and pixies, and come join the rest of humanity in the real world.

What gets me though is that along with the ‘there is a paedophile around every corner and hooded gangs roaming the streets,’ mentality. The school trip/sports day, and the (insert name of event here,) day/festival/event are also being cancelled for insurance/safety reasons. Our society, our communities and our children who would gain immensley from these events are going to suffer.
We are already seeing the benefits of closing down youth clubs and organised after school events (again for insurance reasons,) standing on our street corners, pissed out of there minds and getting away with murder. Literally!

As it stands at the moment, the best place for little Tarquin is in his own room in front of a console, playing specially chosen sanitised games getting fat and unhealthy. The complete opposite of the governments wishes concerning public health and obesity, despite the fact that they let this cultural development happen.

To put it bluntly, I think it is about time things changed.
It is about time that we stopped listening to the ‘do good’ minority that seems to have gained the power to decide how safe our lives should be and it is about time we prosecuted ambulance chasers instead of allowing them to prey on the weak minded for their own gain. Door to door salesman aren’t half as bad as these parasites.

I think it is about time we gave judges the right to tell the pillocks that don’t watch where they walk, drink coffee without checking the temperature first, use hair dryers in the shower, to fuck off and re-asses their lives! I am sick to death of Darwin Award candidates being the primary cause of all this bureaucracy. If they weren’t there to make the claim then there wouldn’t be the industry to help them.

I think that ‘ where there is blame…’ adverts touting for business should be banned. Adverts about formula milk for infants are, so why can’t this be?

I think it is about time that the whole insurance industry is re-assessed so they can exclude petty accidents and potential acts of rank stupidity. If someone is by a beer tent and trips over one of the ropes then tough tits. It is a tent; therefore it has ropes. Look where you are bloody going.

I think the whole health and safety structure should get a bloody grip on reality and concentrate on the more serious issues instead of adding rafts of paperwork just so little Suzie grazing her knee at a folk festival is taken into account.

Finally, I think it is about time that this country as well as others should switch back to majority rule. I don’t want some arsehole who thinks hot cross buns are offensive to Islam telling everybody else including Muslims that they are banned. Especially when they are not even Muslim themselves (Liverpool Council 1990’s I believe).

I would like to have my child do cartwheels, play leapfrog, do hand stands and everything else a child used to do. If necessary I will sign a legally binding document to say that I give my consent. Children should grow up experiencing and preparing for the world, the good and the bad, not be bloody shut away from it and learning to fear through lack of said experience, what is outside their front door because litigation culture and media hype make the risk of any other option not worth it.

I would like to see the people of this country turn round and say,

"Oops, accidents happen,"
instead of,
"Your responsible for my accident. I’m suing!"

The Story Of Stuff

2008-01-24T08:58:00.000Z

Ever wondered where our products come from. This short film describes it from start to finish and if accurate, is quite scary. Click on the link below.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

How Old For Sex Education?

2008-01-14T16:44:00.000Z

It was Sunday morning just before New Year and I had just sat down with a cup of black tea (2 sugars,) and a mild hangover. Turning the TV on was just a feeble attempt at taking my mind off the nasty little bugger trying to drill through my forehead. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to the programme content. It was one of those high and mighty discussion programmes where everybody is right and the only thing stopping a fist fest is the presenter, a raft of cameras, an audience of unknown size and the fact that it was Sunday.
Later on in the day, one of the subjects discussed raised its ugly head from the depths of my memory and its been an annoyance ever since.
The topic up for discussion was,

‘Should sex education be taught to children of 5 years and up?’

The reason for this were the statistics that stated Britain had the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and in so many words, the worst case of clap in the under 16 age group. Basically, once kids have found out that what’s between their legs isn’t for stirring the tea or holding letters, then wey hey, horizontal jogging is the order of the day.

Some of the points raised on the subject were that the nitty gritty would not be taught, but social awareness and responsibility. Also, the current trend of teaching girls and boys of 12 years and up how to put condoms on and all the other graphic instruction should cease as it was deemed beyond the pale and uncalled for.

Now for the things that bother me.

Social awareness and responsibility is NOT sex education. To believe that a 5-year-old mind is capable of understanding, let alone being interested in, or remembering anything like this is just plain ridiculous.

If the statistics are to be believed, then the underage sex laws have failed spectacularly and are not fit for purpose.

Teaching sex education to pupils aged 5 and up will do nothing to curb the problem. If anything the statement ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ is valid except it should be ‘curiosity got the cat pregnant and a dose of syphilis.’ Maybe they should waste some time on coming up with statistics that indicate whether or not pregnancy and venereal diseases become a risk shortly after sex education.

Sex isn’t the problem. The society we live in, its structure and its moral values are. We in the UK have engineered for ourselves an apathetic, don’t give a shit, the government will look after us, society. If you want to find the source to underage sex amongst other problems in this country, you couldn’t go wrong by starting here.

Personally though, I don’t think there is a quick and easy solution to the problem and the inclusion of children five and over to my mind is not a step in the right direction.
The age group these do gooders are aiming at is the only time in anyone’s life where they are free from care or worry. It is the short period in your life that is free from the crap this world, and the arseholes that inhabit it, can throw at you.

Leave the children alone!

Let them pretend to be Power Rangers or David Beckham or a character from Bratz. Leave them to believe in Santa Clause and the tooth fairy. It is bad enough at the moment with the restrictions on the types of games they can play without trying to socially programme them to be good little citizens as well.

If there is any solution to be had with our feral teenagers, it is with the past and with tipping the balance of power in schools.

Give the power to the girls, they mature earlier than boys according to the professionals. Let them decide what happens socially and with their bodies. Make the male the inferior on the social level.

If a teenage lad tries to get a girl drunk and naked, as seems to be the common tactic these days, the shame of his act should mean that all the other girls in the school will look on him as a scumbag and by that act all the lads as well. The same could go for the girl that crosses the line, after all we shouldn’t discriminate should we.

Make the school yard a matriarchal society and give the girls a concrete sense of pride and self worth.

Secondly, it should be noted that teachers have never been a strong guiding moral force in schools. They weren’t in my day and I doubt they are now.

The kids at the end of the day are a herd animal and are governed by the alpha males and females within that social structure.
Remember from your school days the cool kids who had the clothes, the hairstyles, the right music etc? Society should use this to influence those teenagers at the top so it filters down to the rest. Let them police themselves. They think they know it all anyway, hence the constant failures to instil some kind of moral grounding. After all, what the hell do adults know? If they think its all their idea, it might just work.

At the extreme end, if all else fails, add a new lesson to the list. Use the Japanese Samurai as a reference point and beat/instil into our lost youth the concepts of HONOUR, DUTY and OBLIGATION. Then, before they go to college or university, make them do 1 years national service.

I think I will go with my second suggestion.

Conspiracy Antitheorist

2007-12-06T11:43:00.000Z

I must confess, I have always had a soft spot for conspiracy theories. I find them fascinating, the imagination used in constructing them worthy of the praise given to the best science fiction or fantasy authors.

Recently I discovered the site http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/ , and on here are some of the more skilfully crafted and erudite conspiracy theory documentaries that you can watch over and over again for free.

At the moment, the subject that interests me the most is the "World Government" theory. Two of the programmes I have viewed so far are 'Was David Icke Right' and 'Endgame'.

The programme concerning David Icke raises some interesting points about our surveillance society, governmental control of the people through the media and the gradual move towards a one world government by covert means. It sort of falls down on the espoused premise that the people at the top are Lizards, but you sort of get the impression that it may be either nothing more than a gimmick to attract people to his talks, or that it is the product of a card carrying nutter who occasionally spouts words of wisdom. In one part of the programme David and his wife read extracts from his books, of which he has written several, passages that predict 9/11,the flooding of New Orleans, the vilification of Islam etc. These on their own are quite spooky as they were penned in the 90's, but if you think about all the predictions in his books that haven’t come true (which is a fact omitted from the documentary,) then they sort of lose weight. If you keep throwing darts at a dartboard, at some point you will hit the bullseye after all.

The second documentary Endgame is quite lengthy and has got to be the most tele-visual fun I have had since my friends and I went through a phase of getting blind drunk while laughing our backsides off at naff films such as Demolition University or I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle. It concerns the origins and rise of a single world controlling society/organisation called the Bildeberg Group, starting with the Rothchilds rise to power during the Napoleonic wars to the present day.

In summary, mainly because it rants on for about 2+ hrs, a group of people wish to remove national boundaries to create a one world power that has all of us enslaved. Oh, and become immortal by using eugenics and incorporating technology with their physical bodies.
Hey ho.

To start with, the commentator is one of those guys that probably did the film adverts in the 80's and 90's. I kept hoping he would say,

"He was a conspiracy theorist on the edge."

Secondly, the whole documentary shoots down the credibility of its own conspiracy theories by having glaring omissions in the evidence it is trying to put forward. On the whole it tries to copy Michael Moore and falls short by a long way.
Dont get me wrong, it does raise some interesting points with regards to globalisation, but it also makes unfounded assumptions with no credible evidence and uses shock footage to detract from more spurious reasoning behind points such as eugenics, chemical/viral tests on local populations and mass sterilisation.

By way of explanation, Alex Jones the maker of the documentary is detained for several hours at an airport while en route to a Bildeberg conference. He states that it was Bildebergs instructions to have him detained and that he was informed that this was so. There was no footage of the people informing him of the covert Bildeberg request and there was no mention of the fact that airport security around the world had been tightened because of terrorism, the documentary being made in 2006/2007. People travelling through customs with a ton of electrical goods might raise a few eyebrows after all.

Another persuer of the not so secret society waffles on about how Bildebergers pass each other, shake hand, raise trouser legs etc. How does he know? Its a secret society. No evidence was given as to how this knowledge was obtained.

They state that the Bildeberg group is a secret society with world domination in mind yet, they know where the meetings will take place, they have pictures of most of the attendees, and in one instance they even obtain a list containing the names of the people at the meeting from a source unknown on headed paper. Why would a secret society straight out of a Bond film have its own headed paper for crying out loud and wouldn’t they be better conducting their meeting using web cams over a secure network rather gathering all in one place to be photographed and possibly assassinated? SHEEESH!

The American government is recruiting into the armed forces immigrants who have no allegiance to the U.S.A so that suppression of the American people by the military will be easier. Again, no solid evidence of this is provided. What total retard creates an army of potential enemies with access to military tactical information, state of the art weaponry and advanced technology within its own borders, especially these days what with terrorism and all.

Anyway. The reason for writing this is not to break down each programme into its component parts and find flaws. Anybody who finds this stuff interesting can watch it for nothing and make up their own minds at the end of the day.

My reason for commenting is that I find what is missing from conspiracy theories fascinating. The missing component being US. Conspiracy theorist always like to scratch the surface to see what is underneath, yet they always seem to omit the surface itself. Go figure.

Just say these two documentaries prove to be true. Whoever would be in charge of the New World Government would have missed out on two fundamental reasons as to why it wouldn’t last.

There are two things I personally can identify as examples of chaos theory. The first is the weather, the second is humanity. To poach a phrase from child rearing, to try and control a human population for any length of time would be like trying to keep an octopus in a string bag. You can never please all of the people all of the time.
Think of all the petty reasons we have today for not getting along. Religion, money, political/financial corruption, skin colour, race, even which village you come from or your neighbour will promote conflict either verbal or physical. Its human nature and has been like that since the dawn of time. There has never been a Star Trek utopia on Earth and there never will be. To achieve utopia through either social programming, creeping suppression or drugs, removes the need to strive, struggle and evolve in the attempt to achieve it. To achieve utopia will result in stagnation and extinction because the necessity to improve would no longer be there. For a one world government to function as these documentaries would have it, there would need to be uniformity in the human make up rendering everybody the same mentally, a bland uniform utopia with as much vibrancy as a stagnant pond. The total elimination of sin if you will. No more conflict, no more free thought, tomorrow will be the same as today and today is great. In short everybody on this planet who wasn’t of the elite would have to be unthinking sheep. Not gonna happen. There will always be an anomaly, a dissenting voice and that voice would be lethal to such a political body even if it was only one person with purpose.

How can one person with purpose cause havoc? Well if the above was achieved, propaganda and direct political or military opposition would be out of the question. The government would see all and would know all, apart from the thoughts in your head. What that one person could do though would be based on what I would call the 'Dependency Theory' and the right opportunity.
Each civilisation through history has had its ruler maintain power through whatever structure they have erected for themselves, that is to say the maintenance of their position depends on certain key elements. Remove these key elements and the whole system collapses like a house of cards.
Say for example, a king rules by fear and as the years go by his harsh dictatorship makes life so difficult his population no longer fear death but welcome it as a release. With the removal of that dependency, not only do the people not fear him, but they do not fear his lords, their wrath or his army. History is full of examples where a ruler or ruling body has suddenly lost what it depends on to maintain power, often with messy results.
With this situation however, the government would not have to depend on fear or coercion to maintain its control of the people. In fact to a certain degree it would be a self-governing system. As long as tomorrow was the same as today most of us would not ask questions and would believe what we were told, no questions asked. In fact most of us probably wouldn’t even care. We would accept RFID chips under the skin as defence against terrorism. We would accept DNA databases to fight crime (which by rights shouldn’t exist anymore). We are even now ambivalent to the increasing number of CCTV's. And therein lies the flaw in the system.
A world government requires control over the people and this is done electronically. Everything about us and everything that tracks us, even now, is held on numerous databases. Our financial details, our money, our taxes, everything be it personal or business, is held on a computer somewhere. The governments and civilisations of today and tomorrow all depend on electricity. Paper faces extinction.
Pull the plug and all the information, surveillance and finance is for nothing.
Gone, useless, kaput.
What can one person do to cause havoc? Hit the electrical supply and Blackout a major city. Whenever there has been a disaster in a city or country that has been severe enough to knock out normal services for longer than a day, society breaks down to its basest level, that of personal survival. Despite all the suffering cause by the disaster that hit New Orleans, there was still looting, destruction of property and violence. Why? Because the security systems didn’t work. The police couldn’t co-ordinate properly because surveillance was dead, so crimes took place unseen. Humanity suddenly didn’t give a rats arse about people in the same boat because me, myself and I came first. Plus, they new that unless a copper or witness was nearby and spotted them, they would never be caught. On a final note, I doubt that any government in the world would be able to guard every power station, every substation and every cable that sprouted from either. The days of fighting an opposing army on a field of battle are long gone, urban warfare rules the day. The next war may be against an army of one.

On a final note, how come conspiracies are always negative. How come a planetary government is never beneficial. How come these secretive people want to restrict our freedoms when, if you think about it, we dont really have any in the first place. In the Endgame documentary the aim was for one world religion and a population drop of about 80%. Apart from the methodology portrayed in the film, which was backed by no concrete evidence at all, one world religion (yeah right,) would solve countless conflicts and a drop of 80% of the world population would admittedly be a good thing. Also, considering how polluted this planet is getting, raising oil and gas prices, along with carbon tax might actually force the release of hidden patents and development of greener technologies. For every argument put forward for an evil dictatorship there is a counter argument for something that may just work for once. After all, everything is just peachy at the moment isn’t it?

Beyond Words

2007-11-02T20:40:00.001Z

It has been a while since my last post so I thought I would write something concerning the reason why.
Four months and a bit ago I became a father and this post is for the men out there who, like me, are going to go through the same experience for the first time.

With regards to my own situation, and for a bit of background, my partner opted for a home birth for which we prepared a special room. Gas and air was optional, but not used and the whole event took about 15 minutes. We had two midwives and one trainee present who it has to be said were absolutely fantastic even though they didn’t get a chance to finish their cups of tea. It should be noted therefore that my comments are based on the above personal situation and do not involve hospital births or random location/taxi deliveries.

Now then. Where to begin.

You should be aware that from conception onwards that the women in your life is the centre of all professional/family attention and rightly so. She is the one carrying your child/children and at the end of the day, she is the one who has to deliver it. Do not feel sidelined or left out.
With this in mind, as men there are certain aspects of childbirth that, much like sex education in school, we are not told about. We are reliably educated in what to do in the event of problems, given emergency numbers and informed comprehensively about all the horror stories just to make us feel involved. What will happen on the great day on the other hand is a bit thin on the old info front.
Another point, and my reason for writing this is that most subjects involving men and childbirth do nothing more than take the piss, offering nothing to aid awareness or give us a greater incentive to get involved. In short we are there for something anecdotal to talk about with friends at a later date.

“Oooh and then he threw up. Bless him!”

or

“He passed out and the doctors spent more time with him than they did with me…..”

Followed by hoots of laughter and one single red face. Yours. You catch my drift.
This of course omits the jokes, books and other media that portray the man's part as comical or farcical.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

Before the main event I was fortunate to hear one of my partners friends extracting the urine out of her husband because he was telling her when to push and when to breathe. Apparently his timing was off. Her statement ended with ‘bless him.’ This was followed by great merriment from all within earshot. Being part of the audience I took it as valuable advice to ‘shut up.’ The women giving birth knows what is going on in her body. Leave her to it. Offering support, comfort, whatever, is a good thing but I personally found it better to be quiet, relying on touch more than anything else.

Blood! This one I wish I had been informed about earlier. It is one of those things that, unless you have sat through a documentary on childbirth which shows the delivery in full, takes you by surprise. It is not the blood itself which is the problem, but the quantity. I swear that when it all started I though she had ruptured an artery. This leads to the 3rd point.

Pay attention to the medical staff. In my case I found this the best bit of advice I could give myself. My partner was making noises I found distressing. There was to my mind a massive amount of blood everywhere, and all I could do was massage her neck or hold her hand. In short, a very stressed and concerned spare prick in a bottle. Then I looked at the midwives. They were relaxed and behaving in their usual professional manner at which point I was able to relax if only a little bit. In short, I found keeping one eye on the midwives through the whole process helped a lot.

Another one that got me was vomiting. A minor thing some might say, but when junior does their impression of the exorcist after feeding, it can scare the hell out of you. Apparently it is in the main, normal. Messy but normal. I would say though that if it wasn't for my partners previous experience I would have phoned a doctor. It pays to be safe at the end of the day.

Baby pooh and wee will not bother you. Trust me on this. Other babies doings might, but your own for some reason doesn't. My daughter explodes like an Iraqi IED. She craps with a blast radius. Once when my partner was changing her, my daughter coughed. I would say the potential range was about three feet. Suffice to say a change of clothes was in order.

Change a baby side on in case the above threatens.

You will think about them every hour of the day and put them above all others. This is not a bad thing. You will also develop a propensity for mindless physical, brutal violence towards anything that threatens their safety. This too I consider normal.

A real biggy this. As long as everything has gone well prepare yourself for a massive mind job.

Firstly, the fact that my daughter was okay was a huge weight off my mind. It was shall we say almost externally perceivable. For months all that went through my head was ‘what if.’ I couldn’t help it.
Secondly, from this point on every child tragedy, every cot death reported, every story of abuse will relate to your son or daughter and it WILL affect you deeply. You will mentally put your child’s face in all these situations every time you encounter them and it WILL be upsetting. Personally I would be more worried if it wasn’t.
Finally, cot death and every other horrible possibility will now be on your mind. If you’re like me you will scour the Internet for information as well as talk to friends and relatives. Once you discover the MMR/vaccination controversies and other such worrying topics you will become a man possessed. On that point I would have to say you’re on your own. Depending on the people around you, you could find yourself swimming against the tide with your hair turning grey over night.

Baby Gurus. Doctor Spock, The Continuum Concept, Truby King etc. My personal opinion is ‘FUCK THEM.’ We had the misfortune of sitting through Bringing Up Baby by Channel 4, a four part pile of visual excrement that turned potential child abuse into entertainment (edutainment). If you want an example of the damage a so called baby guru can do look up Claire Verity on Google. She was one of the experts on the programme. With no children of her own and now it seems false qualifications, she preached that from birth there was to be no eye contact, no cuddles, the child (referred to as it,) left to cry untended in its own room until feeding time which takes place once every four hours, left outside untended for hours etc etc. This women based her methods on the teachings of Truby King who based his methods on observations of cattle in New Zealand. My personal view is that where advice/help is concerned, this is what grand parents, cousins, aunts, friends, and community are there for. It is not that these so called experts give bad advice, it is the tendency to put their teachings on a pedestal and not trust our own instincts that bothers me.

Finally, if you think you are going back to the life you had before, forget it.

Watching the Watchmen

2007-09-21T21:42:00.000+01:00

For the past week there have been a number of news reports concerning the effect paperwork and bureaucracy has had on policing in the UK. The world of blogging has allowed a number of police officers to post their concerns on the web and the result is the problem coming to light outside of the service and into the public domain. It makes you wonder what prevented them from doing so before and if it wasn't for blogging what they could have done about it anyway.

Michael Howard's (Conservative M.P.) speech on law and order, delivered in Middlesbrough on 10 August, 2004 shows the governments thinking on the matter.

“The police can only do their job properly if they are able to intervene, to confront and to take action against crime and anti-social behaviour.
They cannot police our streets if they have one hand tied behind their back, or if paperwork keeps them chained to their desks.
So great is the deluge of paperwork that, for every extra police officer Labour have recruited, almost one extra bureaucrat has had to be employed.
So great is the number of pen pushers that they will not fit into the new Home Office that Labour are building.
Mismanagement is rife in both the Crown Prosecution Service and our courts.
Seven per cent of cases are now abandoned because of errors by the CPS.
In London alone 1,400 defendants went free last year because of delays in gathering evidence.
A fifth of all trials don't start when they are meant to.
Labour have downgraded prison as a punishment with the introduction of their early release scheme.
Since it was introduced in 1999, more than 3,500 crimes have been committed by prisoners on early release - including nine serious sexual crimes.
And finally we have failed to invest in new prison capacity, thereby constraining the ability of our courts to send persistent, serious and dangerous criminals to prison.

This is the politics of the mad house.”

That was back in 2004. It is funny how now in 2007 we not only find MPs such as Richard Bacon raising the issue again, but police officers adding their voices to join the protest. Labour is obviously the listening party and is in touch with the real world.

Bit of a waste of bloody time if you ask me. I mean why protest about 10% of the problem.

Credit where credit is due with regards to the officers that used any means necessary to air their grievances but lets be honest it is only the tip of the iceberg.

As for politicians, well fuck their opinions. The day you meet a politician that isn't magnetically attracted to every passing band wagon, high profile story and has a large chunk of personality that is altruistic will be the day that Adolf Hitler is canonised.

Why is it only 10% of the problem?
Look at it this way. Just say that a fairy godmother waves her magic wand and all paper work and bureaucracy is reduced to the bare minimum. So what!

The first arsehole they approach is going to scream “HUMAN RIGHTS!!!”
The second idiot will scream “RACISM!!!”
The third “ASSAULT ON A MINOR!!!” or “SEXUAL ASSAULT!!!!”

The police are rarely allowed to use more than the barest minimum of force to take down a criminal and if they do go above that level and suffer an unfortunate event such as being caught on camera or witnessed, they might as well hand in their notice. Not because what they did was unjust, just that nobody likes or respects the police any more because they are perceived as ineffectual and any opportunity to get back at them will be jumped at. I am waiting for the backlash against the two bloggers who brought this subject to light.

Then there are the courts and the prisons. The courts don't work probably because the bureaucracy is such a tangled web with so many loopholes that a good lawyer could get Genghis Khan off, and the prisons are all full, so even if found guilty the judge would sentence him to community service as there was nowhere to put the bugger.

Finally, there is our wonderful litigation culture. Where there is blame there is a claim. Like doctors and nurses the police are supposed to be infallible. One wrong step on the arresting officers part and the criminal could have that person in court being sued so fast it would make their head spin.

Getting rid of the bureaucracy and paper work is a good start but as I said before, it is the tip of a massive iceberg.

In summary a policeman, sorry....policeperson (fucking pc bollocks) paper work or not, has to walk on bloody rice paper just to get said perp from point A, criminal act, to point B, prison. Meanwhile, just to boost moral, Joe public is foaming at the mouth about all the scum bags getting away with murder and the lack of police response, and the media are making money from exaggerated reporting about how substandard the service is.
Why the hell would anyone join?

Personally, I think it is about time that Joe public shut the fuck up and realise that the police are an organisation that is dictated to by politicians who in turn react blindly to public pressure and media extremism. They don't make their own rules and they don't create laws. If they did they would all be carrying guns and tazers for a start. If you don't like the way things are then apply pressure to your MP and back the police in any effort they make to get things changed.

Finally. Anybody who criticizes the police, calls them Nazi's, fascists, pigs etc. should just remember that these people deal on a daily basis the worst humanity has to offer. They sit across tables from people who may have just sexually assaulted and killed a small child or something as equally nasty and interview them calmly so they can be prosecuted according to the law. Not rip the twats throat out and leave the corpse for the crows as the rest of us would do.

The Thing About Forums

2007-09-11T08:15:00.000+01:00

If a picture speaks a thousand words, for those who use forums, chat rooms and message boards, with regards to certain personalities we encounter on our travels, this is 'War and Peace'.

The Kids Aren’t Alright

2007-08-23T13:28:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday night another child became a victim of gun crime. He was 11 years old. I will not attempt to write anything regarding this. As a parent myself, well…………….

It seems that this type of crime is on the rise in Britain and heaven knows how many programmes and reports we have had on the subject. Every recess of professional society has been scoured, dragging into daylight experts in psychology, sociology and law enforcement to try and find answers as to why this evil is on the rise. The media has taken the usual routes in much the same way as they did with celebrity sex offenders and pitbull dogs. Hype, hype, and more hype. Again, they are treating it as though it has never happened before. In much the same way as the recent terrorist attacks are the worst that have ever taken place in this country (completely forgetting the IRA and other Irish terror organisations,) we are yet again on the receiving end of reporting which is sensationalist and barely on topic.

Let us take off our rose tinted glasses for a minute and look at things again.

When I was in school in the eighties we had metal work classes that gave the kids access to every type of tool used in the art of crafting trowels, nutcrackers, jewellery etc. If the teacher ever left the room however, suddenly it became a weapons factory that would have made Saddam proud. Knives, sharpened screwdrivers, throwing stars, darts and any other device that could carry an edge or a point were manufactured.
After school the kids would meet at a certain lane in town and use them against a nearby rival school in running battles.
I sat next to a lad called Tony in maths who carved a swastika into the palm of his hand with a compass and then watched as he filled it in with a ball point pen. He wanted a tattoo.
Another idle fancy was to tape two Stanley knife blades together so that when you sliced someone’s face it left two parallel cuts too close together to stitch, thus leaving a thick scar when it healed. Rival football fans preferred this weapon as it could be easily concealed. They also used to play OXO, which involved pinning someone down and playing noughts and crosses on their chest with a blade. Crushing testicles between two bricks was also in, as well as the infamous Chelsea smile. Oh, and lets not forget darts, which were used outside as well as inside football grounds.
The most popular pastime however was dismembering fireworks to make charges that would knock a wall down or pinching vacuum cleaner tubes to make shoulder mounted rocket launchers.
With regards to underage drinking, friends of mine were in the pubs from the age of 14 or 15 and I was making homebrew from the age of 13 because they didn’t ask your age when you bought the kits. Homebrew which is a damn site stronger than anything you can buy over the counter and costs bugger all to make. Why risk the embarrassment of being refused in a pub when you can brew 60 pints at home for the price of a good night out.

In the seventies it was customary to sew fishhooks or razor blades into the lapels or collars of your clothes so that anyone grabbing them would be caught or cut. Motorbike chains were the new black as well as hatchets, machetes and flick knives.

This was the behaviour of children. Children I knew who lived in a small city. It was even worse in places like Manchester, Birmingham or London.

Today though, the difference and underlying cause for what is going on is politics. At some point the powers that be decided to take a hand in parenting and social engineering. Much like that massive jelly mould, the millennium dome, they fucked up. Unlike the mischief of the past where if you got caught you got thrashed, once by the police if they were involved and probably several times by your parents, today the power to punish and control is no longer in the hands of the adults.

Firstly, political correctness, the press scaring parents into thinking that there is a child molester around every corner as well as the ever growing litigation culture means that for all the freedom children have today, they might as well stay in the womb until they are 21.
We have had stories of hopscotch, conkers, tree climbing, hand stands, cartwheels, and leapfrog being banned (these activities are banned from our local junior school.) Youth clubs and activity centres have been closed down because of the insurance needed to protect them from litigation. Our local youth club is now closed and the site is to be used for housing. In short there is nowhere “safe” for them to go and there is no activity that is deemed “safe” enough for them to do.

Secondly, the gradual erosion of responsibility of parents for the rearing of their children and the children knowing it was just asking for trouble.
We now have so many government organisations as well as charities aimed at the protection of children that the kids have a list of threats to use against their parents a mile long and they know it. Yet none are responsible for setting or enforcing social or moral boundaries.
“Touch me you fuck and I’ll call child line!”
Along with the governments policy of always putting the child first the parents don’t stand a chance. Much like sex offences, in the eyes of the public and the media, you are guilty until proven innocent.
Parents no longer bring up their kids, other kids do and quite a few don’t care because it is easy. Parental laziness.
Try and keep a teenager in when they want to go out. You can’t even touch them unless you want to be charged with assault. Couple this with the youth culture, which currently involves American rap artists and gangs killing each other for entertainment on the net, you would have to be living on another planet not to realise that more and more children are becoming feral.
It has now swung so far the other way that adults are now valid targets for physical assaults and as seen recently, there have been a number of deaths. Respect for ones elders is no more. Respect from your peers is paramount.

Thirdly, the ban on smacking and physical punishment in the home, at school and by law enforcement officers is something that was unlikely to be missed by kids. Along with child protection and the human rights act the little darlings now hold more power than any adult in the country. The Prime Minister could be bought down just by one well-worded accusation of child abuse.
I have witnessed at 1 o’clock in the morning, a 12-year-old child, fag in one hand and a can of lager in the other tell a police officer to “fuck off! I’m not going with you cunts until I’ve finished me fuckin fag!” to the applause of all his mates who were of similar age. The officer could do nothing other than use persuasion.
Teachers cannot apply sun block to a child playing outside as it is seen as suspect and if one of the little darlings plays up in class (in one case physically abusing a teacher by head butting them,) the most they can do is ask them to leave the room. To have a child removed from a school takes so much time and involves so much bureaucracy that you can almost hear the prayers for the return of the cane.

With regards to violence and alcohol, nothing has really changed only the reasons and what is seen in the eyes of our young. Look into the eyes of the feral children today and at best you will see is selfishness, arrogance or hate. At worse you will see nothing.

In summary the government have engineered a society where the parents and official bodies hold no power. Where the children are raised by other children, influenced by music icons, video games and the un-restricted crap as found on the Internet. Where the strong children have the freedom to prey, not only the weak of their own generation, but weak adults as well. Where there is nobody with the power to set any firm moral or social boundaries as the young grow up. At best the kids view them as purely optional. Where the law and other agencies will side with a child over its parents no matter how evil a little shit it is. Where conscience, consideration, respect for one elders and empathy are fast becoming extinct. Where the government, in viewing all children as thick and innocent of what goes on in the adult world have underestimated juvenile intellect and savvy, and have put society on a path for family and social breakdown when these little darling become adults.

With the current rise of child murder among other offences I think it is about time to refer to the recent past and reinstate some of the old rules.
Bring back the cane. Free the police to give clips around the ear. Get rid of the human rights act.
Allow parents to physically chastise their children (don’t give me any of that child abuse shite. If you are a violent abusive parent, no law in the world is going to stop you.)
Allow people the right to equivalent levels of self-defence. If you are attacked by a teen with a knife you should, in the eyes of the law, be able to respond in kind.
Get rid of this litigation culture and accept that the world is an unsafe place. Judges should have the right to tell people to fuck off and look where they are going instead of paying them money because the tripped over a raised stone on a council footpath.
Allow kids to play their games as we were allowed. Give the kids back their youth clubs, their after school clubs, and their activity centres. They might just get it into their heads that it is more fun to go outside and play rather than sit inside and play on their games console or PC.
Tell parents what the “real” crime figures are for sex offenders and publish the register instead of leaving it to the press to make shit up. We might find that it is not necessary to be as pathologically paranoid as we are now and our children can have that much more freedom.

I also think it is about time we lined up all the people responsible for political correctness and other ‘children wrapped in cotton wool’ laws and shoot them with balls of their own shit.

Political Profit

2007-08-10T10:39:00.000+01:00

A colleague of mine pointed out something today concerning the recent floods. I personally never realised how cunning a government could be and credit where credit is due, if it is true, this is outstanding. I really must pay more attention to politics.
Now the figures are only theoretical, as I don’t think any accurate figures have been calculated yet, but it is the method that astounded me. Ten out of ten on the shenanigan’s meter and zero out of ten on the humanity scale for this one.

It basically goes something like this:

The damage caused by the floods may cost Britain up to 2 or 3 billion pounds to repair.

The people and businesses in these areas will spend billions of their own money, and money courtesy of the insurance companies, on builders, plumbers, electricians and materials etc, all of which is TAXABLE.

Now the figures my friend quoted (which we will take as approximations and with a pinch of salt,) were that the government would have to spend about £40 million plus in building flood defences, yet they would raise approximately £140 million plus in taxes raised from the repairs. The key point he was making was that from all the disaster and mayhem the 'powers that be' would actually make a profit from the tax revenue raised. Not only that, the people who were promised these defences previously and didn't get them are actually paying for them now with money raised from being flooded out yet again. If they don't get the barriers this time I think questions need to be asked.

In summary, it would appear that it behooves the government not to build any kind of permanent flood defences to quickly as currently they actually make a profit each time something nasty happens such as flooding. Short of cash? Pray for rain.

If this is true I will have to re-asses the cunning of the government. It might also explain why they have been so tardy with regards to previous incidents of natural disaster and have come out with all the financial excuses under the sun as to why the flooding problem hasn't been dealt with.

It would be interesting to find out the truth. I might become an MP...................

One Down.....................

2007-08-09T08:15:00.000+01:00

Last night on the 10 o’clock news it was announced that the Chinese Yangtze river dolphin was EXTINCT. No more. Gone. Bit the big one. An entire species of mammal wiped off the face of the Earth because of industrial pollution. The need for washing machines, cars, paint, petrol etc being more important than a living thing. Another animal that future generations will only see in books, museums and depressing documentaries that catalogue all the other creatures lost at the hands of man.
On the way into work this morning I had the following conversation with the three other people in the car.

Me: “Did you see the news last night about the dolphins?”

Retard 1: “No. Why?”

Me: “They said the Chinese river dolphin was extinct.”

Retard:1 “Oh, they probably ate them all.”

Retard 2: “Hey! There is a guy in the paper who is 8ft 5” tall……….”

I am aware that there is not a lot we can do about it. Not now anyway. I am not expecting people to jump out of their seats and join an extremist cause. But it is the reaction of people that gets me. There is no light behind the eyes. Storm troopers could goose step down the local high street and nobody would blink. Brain dead it seems, is the new black. Apathy the height of this centuries fashion.

Voice of reason: “Hey people, the world is going to end tomorrow and it is all your fault. We told you about this over 40 years ago. We started by warning you about the damage to the ozone layer. You should have listened. You shouldn’t have destroyed your environment and yes global warming was true. Arguing the toss over the cause didn’t stop it, did it?”

Humanity: “Hmmmm? Oh right. Yeah. Fine whatever. Did you see Pop Idol last night?……………”

Do you know sometimes I hope that the H5N1 virus jumps species and knocks us back to the stone age or better yet renders us extinct, because most people on this planet don’t fucking deserve to live on it. I guess this is how angry and frustrated it makes me. We are sacrificing our world for cheap commodities and greed and the people who give a shit are in the minority. Our children are the inheritors and the majority are doing their best to leave them a sterile shit pile as long as they have their car, flat screen T.V. and money in the bank.

GOD HELP US ALL.

Something To Ponder

2007-07-28T20:32:00.000+01:00

Apparently, according to statistics (as far as they can be trusted,) the average relationship in the U.K. lasts about six years before it falls apart. It might survive slightly longer if the couple is having their first child .

Why?

Back in the day people stayed together through thick and thin, in some cases spending their days in a living hell with an abusive partner. It was the way society worked. To do anything else was scandalous. Abortion delivered down a back street or in a hot bath with a bottle of Gin and a coat hanger was more preferable to having a bastard child. Being a single parent was the same as having the word 'SCUM' or 'SLAG' tattooed on your forehead, the only exception was being declared a widower.

At some point though the pointer on the scales began to move. Divorce became easier and society became more tolerant of the people who now had the right not to have the shit kicked out of them by their partners. It became acceptable to call it a day on a relationship that wasn't working. For single parents the boundaries moved but even today you will not find much in the way of positive comment concerning that issue.

Society though, started to have a problem. Weddings were fun and divorce was easy. You could, if you had the money, have fun over and over again. Famous Hollywood stars collected husbands and wives like stamps. Imperfect role models for an imperfect world. To this day I don't think anyone has tried to find out the impact the stars of the 60's, 70's and 80's had on social relationships and family values.

As time has passed the situation became worse until you reach the present day, which was where this article started and it is at this point I will give you something to ponder.

In the U.K. the average working week is 45 hours. Ideally, unless children are involved, both partners must work to be able to make it worthwhile not being on benefits. If young children are involved, then wherever possible, a nanny or daycare is used to free the other partner to work.
So! For 40 to 45 hours a week you and your partner are apart. There are exceptions to every rule but this situation is so common it is worthy of attention. Apart from the hours worked there is travel time which adds to this and in this age of commuting this might involve a number of hours to and from work.
Looking at it this way we can quite easily see that home, for the small number of hours spent there, becomes somewhere to eat and sleep, nothing more. I bet that most couples when they come home would rather do nothing more that eat, watch T.V. and sleep. If children are involved the free time becomes minuscule.

So what you have to ponder is this:

Who do people socialise with the most? Their partners or their workmates? After all people spend the greater of their time at work.
Who do people know the better? More time is spent interacting with people at work than is spent talking to a partner or children at home.
With the modern day heavy workloads now necessary just to get by, it is well known that fatigue affects the more physical aspects of a relationship. If someone is getting sexually frustrated at home, a place where they spend little time, is it not reasonable to assume that it is likely a person at work will fill that gap. After all, these days you are more likely to know someone you are attracted to at work more thoroughly than your own partner with the advantage of being with them more as well.
Is it not possible that society has engineered a situation where business and industry are our new homes? Little societies in microcosm. That advice to the next generation should be “settle down with someone you work with as to do otherwise is to live with a stranger.”
Is it not possible that the breakdown of the family unit is because we are moving blindly to a point where the family unit is no longer important as the struggle to survive becomes paramount? That it will become “something we do because it is what we have always done,” despite the fact it will no longer work.
We now work more hours than ever before, despite all the labour saving devices, and take home less. What a wonderful state of affairs!
Just a thought.

Swimming In Incompetence

2007-07-24T12:57:00.000+01:00

In the light of the flooding that has hit this country recently our hearts must really go out to those caught in it. We have, shall we say, no right to moan about not being able to have a barbecue or take the kids to the beach because the weather is cack. We should count ourselves lucky that we don’t have to scrape the contents of overflowed sewers and God knows what else from the insides of our houses.
On top of this homeowners are going to have problems not only with replacing what they have lost but with the insurance companies who I suppose quite rightly are now going to take issue with a properties location and its risk of flooding.

But who if anybody is responsible?

Obviously, nobody can be held accountable for the weather, but an organisation, government body or someone somewhere is.

But who?

As a bit of background I would like to put forward:

Reports from news teams and papers have basically echoed or visa versa, a report from the Northern Echo, which states:
“THE worst storms for half a century left some of Britain's major cities under water last night.
RAF helicopters were called in to rescue dozens of people from rooftops, as areas of Sheffield were submerged under several feet of water. Hundreds more were taken to safety by the emergency services in other parts of the city as the River Don burst its banks.”

We also have from the BBC Weather Centre:
“The UK has experienced devastating floods throughout the last five years, which have affected thousands of people and caused millions of pounds worth of damage. Can we really cope with similar flooding incidents in the future and is there anything we can do to prevent it or deal with it?

Five million people in England and Wales are now at risk from flooding every year and two million homes have been built in the natural floodplain of rivers or the coast and are vulnerable to flooding.

I would also like to point out from Online Dictionary:

Plain:
1. Without elevations or depressions; flat; level; smooth; even. See Plane [1913 Webster]

Flood
Flood \ Flood \, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Flooded; p. pr. & vb. n. Flooding.] 1. To overflow; to inundate; to deluge; as, the swollen river flooded the valley. [1913 Webster]

My thoughts are these.

If these are the worst storms/floods for half a century, excluding all the other floods in between then that must mean there are people still alive who remember it flooding in exactly the same places it is now.
If these locations are known to be flood plains and there are people still alive who remember these past disasters, not to mention weather records showing such extremes of weather, then why the fuck would someone build there in the first place. Why, if they were going to build there, wouldn’t they construct decent flood defences. You would think the words FLOOD and PLAIN would be a big bloody clue as to what was going to happen.
With all due respect, these places disappearing under water isn’t exactly a surprise is it? You could say it is a recurring theme.

So who should be held accountable?

For a start it appears that the government cut the funding for flood defences considerably even though quite a few of these places had been flooded out only a few years ago. I think it needs to be asked, in the face of all the evidence and recent events, "WHY?" and "WHERE HAS THAT MONEY GONE?" Town planning could also be investigated just to see which molluscs didn’t take regular submersion into account. Finally, I think a word needs to be had with the local councils, after all is it not they that give planning permission for new constructions? Maybe they should be asked (bluntly) why they approved new buildings that hadn’t taken flooding into account and didn’t push more vigorously for help with protecting ones already in existence.

It is my fervent hope that the residents of these places join up with the insurance companies and start a witch-hunt. If this was America or Japan and these homes/buildings were constructed in an earthquake zone without taking the possibility of natural disaster into account there would be hell to pay and prison sentences to hand out.

Ignoring the patently obvious at the risk of the many is a crime in my book that should see someone put behind bars.

They knew these locations had a history of flooding.
They knew that the flooding became extreme every so many decades.
They new that the sewer systems and any previous defences were grossly inadequate and couldn’t cope a normal flood let alone something as extreme as we have now.
They, whoever they may be, deliberately through callousness, corruption or gross incompetence put people’s lives at risk. Not once or twice, but every waking day. Every time it has rained in these areas there has been the potential for the loss of life and property. Only good fortune has kept most of these areas fairly dry. I think the populations of these areas have just run out of luck.

The B to C of Drugs

2007-07-19T13:51:00.000+01:00

Gordon Brown our un-elected PM and his party have decided to make drugs an issue for debate. Specifically cannabis and its classification within the law. At the moment I believe it is Class C, a mainly non-arrestable offence, and they wish to upgrade it to Class B, a more serious offence. It is one of those hoary old chestnuts that political parties like to drag out from time to time when they think they are becoming a bit unpopular.

The main issue with drugs though, basically boils down to the question of legality. Should they be illegal? Should they be decriminalised?

In the past we have had televised debates in which the team against legalisation has included noted scientists, doctors and politicians. While the pro legalisation side has included reputable members of society such as Dave, his schizophrenic mate called Frank and a doctor from Bradford who was struck off in 1975 for an incident involving an industrial sized tub of Swarfega and a Corgi called Roy.
Suffice to say, watching these debates always cheered me up.

The other issue frequently involved in these discussions is the impact on society, decriminalisation of illegal drugs would have.

Would there be a fall in drug related crime? Would the number of addict’s rise? Would drug related traffic accidents increase? Would hospitals have to deal with more overdoses and would more psychiatric hospitals have to be built to cope with the rise in mental damage? Would social services have an increased workload due to family breakdowns and other abuses? The list of ‘possibilities’ is endless.

Now, before I throw my hat into the ring, let me make a few things clear.

In my distant youth I smoked dope, was arrested for it, fingerprinted, photographed and let go without charge.
At the time, people I socialised with used mushrooms, speed, E, cocaine, acid, opium, heroine and cannabis.
At the same time they also used alcohol, nicotine, cough/flu medicine, lighter gas, poppers, morphine siphoned off the top of Kaline and Morphine used for upset stomachs, and petrol of all things.
To top this list off it was also not unknown to indulge in Broom, Fly Argaric mushrooms, Wild Lettuce, Poppies, mistletoe and Thorn Apple (Datura).

I lived in a village of about fifteen houses in the back end of North Wales.

The result of all this youthful immortality was that a good friend of mine couldn’t cope anymore and committed suicide. The way he did it made the national news. Another good friend of mine was unbeknownst to us, to have the potential for schizophrenia. He was a heavy cannabis user and the potential became a reality. A guy who moved in the town’s social circle sold off his medication to people who wanted to try it out, the result was, he lost mental stability and hung himself in the woods. His headless body was found some time later. Finally, someone who was also a very good friend of mine got behind the wheel of a vehicle, tried to roll a joint while driving and killed someone on the side of the road. He spent eight years in prison.

Also……

My grandmother died of sclerosis of the liver after drinking two bottles of Gin a day. My grandfather died from alcoholic dementia. He couldn’t even wipe his own arse when he died. My father used to come home pissed and beat the shit out of my mother and me with feet and fists. I was only six. My aunt is a recovering alcoholic. My mother spent years battling with the drugs prescribed by the doctor for depression and to this day I still don’t know if she has won. When we fill out insurance forms, the section for inherited complaints and illnesses doesn’t get filled in as nobody in my family has lived long enough to find out.

So if anybody doesn’t think I have a fair idea about the subject or that I may be biased, may I suggest rereading the above paragraphs again.

Now then should drugs be decriminalised? Why not eh?

Prohibition seems to have worked doesn’t it, and before anyone starts shouting about Amsterdam, the reason why it is having problems with decriminalisation is because it is fucking unique. It is the only place the whole of the world/Europe can go to have a coffee and a joint, then go bang a whore for desert.

If prohibition in the 1920’s was responsible for the rise of organised crime and did sod all to reduce alcohol consumption, why the hell would it work now for drugs? What total retard took something that failed spectacularly in the 20’s and thought it a good idea to try again.

Drug users have been with us since Ug the cave man got in touch with his gods by eating funny mushrooms. No amount of legislation short of a bullet in the head, is going to make these people go away and they can probably get better guns.

Making drugs and their use illegal is the paper equivalent of sweeping a problem under the rug. Statistics about rehab and drug related crime figures, seasonally adjusted to show a decrease/increase in arrests and prosecutions are total Bollocks because, apart from being spurious in the first place, they don’t show an eradication of a problem. All they show is a constant battle against an ever-increasing enemy using a system that doesn’t work. If the system worked then there wouldn’t be a “DRUG PROBLEM.”

It should also be noted that criminals make drugs. Criminals smuggle drugs. Criminals have wars over drugs. Criminals deal drugs to kids and adults alike to increase the size of the market. Criminals kill people who don’t pay for their drugs on time. People turn into criminals to fund their habit. Criminals cut their drugs with all kinds of shit to make it go further regardless of the effect it will have on the user. All because there is profit to be had from products that have the user coming back for more because it is addictive chemically, socially and mentally and because the massive amount of profit made isn’t taxed by the government. If the drugs in question were legalised and regulated, it would chop the black market industry off at the knees.

Then to top it all off you have the hypocrisy.

I was the only member of my family to take illegal drugs. Yet, members of my family have died horribly at the hands of alcohol, I personally have scars which will never heal, all over a legal drug that can be bought over the counter or brewed at home.
Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man and also a potent poison. Smoking kills or cripples millions of people world-wide every year, yet it can be bought over the counter without prescription.
Then you have facts such as, doctors can prescribe heroin and cocaine for medical reasons as they see fit, yet you cannot make a decision concerning yourself to take the same drugs through personal choice. Maybe it is because doctors are intelligent and were retards. Perhaps we need people to tell us when to eat and when to piss as well.

It is harder and potentially more lethal coming off prescribed antidepressants than coming off heroin yet my mother’s doctor had given her so many drugs ending in ‘ol’, ‘an’, and ‘ium’ it would have made a chemist green with envy. Our kitchen cabinet was a drug addicts paradise.

They neglect to mention as well, that you can get more wasted of cough medicine or anything with ‘Do not drive heavy machinery.’ on it than you can off the stuff you buy from some dodgy bugger in a pub.

Now the points above are my own personal view and I can add and add to the list. But there is one final personal statement showing how ridiculous current laws are. It is a viewpoint encountered in my youth. A viewpoint of most of the recreational users I knew. It basically consists of:

“Who gives a shit! Legal, illegal, I can still get it.”

This is the fundamental truth of it all. No matter how much society screams yells and legislates against drugs, even going so far in some countries to impose death penalties, people who want it can still get it. I lived in a tiny village in the arse end of nowhere and I could get anything I wanted. What is it like in larger urban areas?

At the end of the day, no matter how much we hate them and their users, drugs are here to stay. If the current laws are not working maybe it is about time someone had the balls to try something different.

Religious Opinion

2007-06-11T14:27:00.000+01:00

Religion, religion, religion.

It seems to be everywhere these days. There isn’t a news/political forum, news article or war that doesn’t include it somewhere. If it isn’t the most hated family in America or right wing Christian fundamentalist, it’s Islam.

Frankly, I am getting sick of it.

In my youth, a member of my family had a spiritual crisis and as such my brother and I had the dubious pleasure of experiencing the diverse teachings of the Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We even had the privilege of going to see Billy Graham rant.
If there is one thing that will make you an atheist quicker than the speed of light, it would have to be organised religion.

But that is not what this is about.

As I have said, I have had enough and as such I am now going to have my say. After all they have had theirs for long enough. You can also be confident that if you don’t agree with me, you will not be shot, beheaded, hung, burnt at the stake or tortured until you do.

Firstly, if I were going to describe myself it would be agnostic. I do not know if god exists and I do not know if he/she/it doesn’t. It is one of those questions whose answer is beyond human comprehension. The type of question that keeps you awake at night, in bed, in the dark, with only your thoughts for company. The question about what happens after you die. The question that scares you shitless.

Secondly, if anything I say causes offence to someone of faith as it probably will, then do something that seems to be a major problem in religion and ‘forgive me’. The multitude of faiths out there don’t seem to give a monkeys left testicle if they offend me or anyone else after all, they just demand our acceptance or obedience. I will therefore claim the moral high ground on this one and apologise now for any offence caused.

Now to the matter at hand.

Why would the creator of everything, an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent being feel it necessary to correct his/her/it’s own teachings? The Torah, New Testament, and the Koran. You would think that a creature/entity of such power and intellect would get it right the very first time.

Why would the creator of everything, an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent being actually leave mankind three options in the first place? On one hand you can choose ‘God is love, turn the other cheek’ or you might feel like a bit of ‘An eye for an eye,’ or if you’re really bored you can go and kill a few idol worshipers.

Why would the creator of everything, an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent being dictate or pass on to his/her/it’s creations a work so imperfect and open to interpretation as to be no better than something written by man. He appeared to Moses and carved the Ten Commandments onto tablets of stone. Why then are there different interpretations of them. ‘Thou shall not kill’ is also ‘Thou shall not commit murder’. ‘Thou shall not commit adultery’ in some texts is ‘Thou shall not mongrelise’. It is not as if there are pages and pages of instructions, there are only ten after all, so the excuse that Moses smashed the tablets does not really wash.

Why would the creator of everything, an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent being dictate or pass on to his/her/it’s creations a story of how the universe and man were created, a story completely at odds with reality? A reality that is Gods creation? Would the truth really have caused problems?

Why would the creator of everything, an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent being create a race that can be homosexual or lesbian, then leave texts so ambiguous that killing homosexuals and lesbians might even be allowed despite the fact that one of the ten commandments might actually mean thou shall not kill?

Then you have things like:

Jesus went into the desert for forty days and forty nights. While there the devil tried to tempt him and failed…………..Prove it! Did anybody have any way of verifying this? No! Considering all the wars and murders committed in the name of these faiths, I am surprised no one actually thought about this.

How did being crucified actually save our sins? Seriously! How did having him nailed to a piece of wood help us? As far as I am concerned it made him a martyr, ensuring that his teachings continued to be passed on. Nothing else. The fact that he came back to life later smacks of a professional grift, a bit like the film ‘The Sting.’

Why did God leave the teaching of his laws to Jesus, his son? After all, he/she/it turned up for Moses.
Jesus by all accounts was a human being with a humans failings. It is possible therefore, especially when you take the comments above about the desert into account, that what was actually being taught was not Gods word at all.

Why does the preacher of love and compassion feel the need to threaten with eternal damnation and Armageddon?

If idol worship is a sin then why do certain faiths have statues of Mary, Jesus on the cross and the saints?

If all these holy texts are the word of god then why are they written in such a way as to incite violence against people who believe in the same deity but read a different teaching? Catholics kill Protestants. Protestants kill Catholics. Muslims kill everyone who isn’t Muslim and everyone tries to kill the Jews. Thou shall not kill/murder seems to be one of those optional commandments.

Why hasn’t the Book of Judas been added? Is that not also the word of God/Jesus.

Why was Gods first creation Adam, a male? In nature (Gods creation,) females have been known to reproduce asexually if the need arises. Therefore it would make more sense to create the woman first. Not to mention society naturally leans towards the matriarchal, it’s just that men fight tooth and nail not to let it happen. Would it be cynical of me to think that Adam was the first human created because the Bible was actually written by blokes?

In summary, it is my personal opinion that the last time the creator had anything to do with his creation was when he kicked us out of Eden. These holy texts are so open to interpretation that they have been responsible for world-wide misery, suffering and death for over 2000 years. They are devisive and seem to be deliberately structured so as to cause disharmony and conflict. It is more than likely with current events as they are, that it will do its best to drive us closer to hell for another 2000 years.

I cannot and will not believe that these texts are the word of god. They are too imperfect and the circumstances surrounding their creation are suspect. The fact that they are the creation of God through the penmanship of imperfect man leaves a lot to be desired. Look at the filth the Phelpes family of the Westboro Baptist Church in America spout in its name. Their interpretation.
It has been used as an excuse for crimes against humanity by some of the most evil people this world has ever seen

It is my belief that at very best these works were written by man for the benefit of a corrupt and manipulative minority.

At worst, if God does exist, then they are the creations of the antichrist. All the acts of unmitigated evil committed in the name of religion would make this single point hard to contradict.

Yes people have performed good deeds in the name of their faith. But how many haven’t.

Just on the single instruction of ‘spread the word of god’, how many tribal cultures have been lost or destroyed in the name of ‘converting the heathen to save their souls?’

Errrrrr?

2007-06-06T07:57:00.000+01:00

Over the past couple of days it would appear that Russia and America have decided to start up a cold war re-enactment society. M.A.D. here we go again.
So it is with eyebrows raised that I listen to the conversations around me. Conversations about Big Brother and how crap the new Olympic logo is.
......................................Words fail me.

The Stone Cutter

2007-05-24T09:56:00.000+01:00

I thought I would have a change and post one of my favourite Taoist stories.

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life.
One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant.

To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"

Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!"

Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!"

Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!"

Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!"

Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

Courtesy of Zen and Taoist Stories

Why?

2007-05-17T13:49:00.000+01:00

Why does a person have to be 18 to watch porn yet does not have to produce any identity to watch gang violence, executions, shootings etc on certain other sites I could mention.

Why can a person have sex at the age of 16, get pregnant and start a family, with all the responsibilities that come with it, yet not have the right to vote?

Why can a person be trusted to have the mental maturity to start a family at the age of 16, yet not be allowed to buy alcohol from a shop or a drink in a pub?

Why are you asked if you are 18 if you go to buy alcohol from a shop or a pub, but you are not asked your age if you go to buy Old Ma Murgatroyds Mind Melter homebrew kit?

Why do you smell of fish on the following morning after a night of farmyard gymnastics?

Why dont they tell lads in sex education class that what they leave up there doesn’t stay there.? That one good cough leads to arguments about who is sleeping in the wet patch.

Why dont they tell kids in sex education that a spare towel or a roll of toilet paper by the bed is really useful?

Why dont they tell kids in sex eductaion that crisp packets do not make good condoms especially if its salt and vinegar?

Why do people who believe that 40% of Muslims want sharia law realise that 60% dont?

Why do people believe statistics? 10 people out of 100 who like Marmite does not indicate that 6 million people feel the same way.

Why can we not automatically mark SPAM as return to sender and post it back before it hits the inbox?

Why, now that we have banned fox hunting with hounds, do the people who go out and kill even more of them with guns and poison, bitch about the fact that there are shit loads of rabbits? I mean really. The fields near me are either a sea of fluffy ears in the evening or look like the Somme in 1918 the rest of the time.

Why do bills from the Inland Revenue arrive so quickly they land on the mat yesterday, but if they owe you money it is like snail racing on cellotape.

Why do you need license to catch fish and do a driving a test to drive a car but anyone can have children.... Courtesy of Little Aussie Cynic

I think I will be adding to this. If any visitors wish to contribute feel free. If the questions are any good I will add them with an acknowledgement. Try to be original, unless it is pant wettingly funny or makes you think.

Carbon Solution

2007-05-16T09:27:00.000+01:00

Carbon offsetting is the latest buzzword amongst the environmentally conscious. To me it simply means that if I get someone else to reduce his or her carbon emissions then I can carry on polluting at the same level I always do. Makes sense in a spurious kind of way………….I think.
So! In a moment of pure genius, I came up with a way of carbon offsetting that would not only help the environment, but also be a benefit socially and polish your conscience at the same time.
Fat people.
Not the people who are of large frame, but the ones with two/three seat arses. Allowances have to be made of course for people with mental health issues, but in general any fatboy or his missus would do.
Now then. My reasoning behind this is the carbon footprint that people of girth create. If you take into account all the manufacturing of the packaging on the food they eat, the cost of transportation of said food, plus processing all their rubbish afterwards then that on its own is a sizeable deposit of CO2. This of course. does not include the extra fuel used by vehicles in transportation, Hercules transports use loads, or the fact that in taking up extra seats on public transport means that some poor bugger has to use a car to get to places thereby not reducing their footprint. On the whole, excessively rotund people create a lot of pollution even though they don’t move about much.
Take an old girlfriend of mine. She used to be a comfortably covered woman whose only vice was smoking. Then, for reasons still unknown, she got mugged by chocolate. She achieved her own gravitational field in less than a year and could leave footprints in dry concrete in two. The knock on effect of all this was that to get her chocolate she used to drive to the local shop. Not unusual I hear you say. It is when it is further to the car park than it is to the shop. At the end of the day though, apart from health issues, her carbon footprint was and still is quite high for one person.
So! To carbon offset using fat people, get them to diet. Simple. They reduce their emissions by several tons a year, methane included, get healthier and make more room on public transport. In the meantime you can still drive a 4X4 with a knackered engine and go jet skiing at the weekend in France, all with the knowledge that you have improved the health and life style of a fellow human being and helped improve the world for future generations.
Anyway, its either that or we render them down for soap.

In The Land Of The Blind.......

2007-05-15T10:25:00.001+01:00

Someone once said do not go on forums, it will destroy your faith in humanity. This to a certain extent is true apart from the fact that most posters at these sites are fake. Internet forums are a place where the bullied and the mentally weak can be born again hard and express themselves in such a way that to do so in the real world would have them eating soup through a straw for the rest of their lives.
It is a pseudo society with fantasy people and fantasy attitudes. Mindless fun that changes nothing, but is a good way of blowing off steam.

What can really destroy ones faith in your own species is the media and the scrapings of humanity that they can dredge up for so called entertainment.
Last night I had the misfortune of watching two programmes. The first on the Muppet’s that drive 4X4 vehicles in an urban environment. The second on teenage cosmetic surgery.
The 4X4 programme in itself was not bad. In fact you could say it was quite enlightening with regards to safety or lack thereof, the vehicles impact on the environment and the general inconvenience of trying to drive one around a British city where the term gridlock applies more and more with each passing day.
What got me though was the general lack of awareness from the owners about the world around them and their impact on it. Self imposed delusion springs to mind.

The expressions of surprise when they found out how much their vehicles polluted the environment.

The expressions of horror when they were shown footage of a 4X4 hitting a vehicle side on at 60mph and practically cutting it in half, potentially killing all inside.

The blank looks when it was mentioned that they were paying extra for off road technology that they were never going to use, the equivalent of paying for a fitted kitchen for no particular reason and sticking the parts in your shed.You have to ask yourselves, where have these people been for the last five years.

They were surprised by the effects of global warming for crying out loud and you the viewer got the impression that they never even heard about it.

At one point they managed to line up nine children behind one of these vehicles before the driver saw the furthest one. Yet the main reason for purchasing such a massive vehicle was for the safety of their children. Catch 22. The children inside the vehicle would be safe, the ones outside under threat.

The point I am making though is that despite the multitude of reasons and corroborating evidence for not having one of these tanks in an urban environment, you could see that it wasn’t even sinking in. It was like watching rain on concrete. The information and data pooled on the surface then quickly evaporated as the programme progressed. I doubt that a single participant sold their 4X4 after the programme had ended let alone considered a change seriously.

The second programme was the biggest piece of visual excrement loosely painted as a documentary I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. Yes, I could have turned it off, but it was like seeing a train crash. Morbid fascination. A Rabbit in a cars headlights.Basically, the question was should under-age girls, those 16 years old or younger, be allowed breast implants.

Errrrrr…….no!

End of programme.Medical and biological reasons aside, cue the introduction of every Sharon/Tracy that comedians and comic strips have taken the piss out of since the creation of Waynetta Slob by Harry Enfield.

If these people are the future were fucked. Conversations which contained words of more than two syllables were as rare as rocking horse shit and personalities were so shallow that they wouldn’t hold water.

Now don’t get me wrong, the girls in the programme were nice people but I really do take issue with whoever educated them. Positive re-enforcement is a good thing along with acting on improving a child’s strong points and strengthening the weak. The size of person’s tits before they have stopped growing shouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately the media and the crap education system have made it so.

Society is, and can never be, perfect. It now seems that we are no longer even bothered to make the attempt. The two programmes listed above are what prompted me to write this diatribe, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.
For years now, I have watched programmes turn into vacuous, mindless shit that wouldn’t make a retard sweat.
I have seen magazines for the young make the important trivial and the trivial important.
I have seen our education system turn out children who, on the world stage, can barely compete with someone educated in the third world.
Our young are no longer able to think for themselves, to adapt, to improvise. What they see and hear is taken as gospel truth and they are told what they should find important.

What do our young believe in?

They believe that if they don’t look like the latest stars they are defective, sub standard, wrong, a lesser human being in their friend’s eyes. They believe that they have to have the latest fashions as worn by their icons or they are lesser people in the eyes of their peers.
They believe that some stars boob job or mental problem is more important that the homeless on our streets or the filth that pollutes our environment.
They believe that money is their god and that is as far as their concept of it goes. All hail the credit card.
Worst of all, they don’t care who is in charge and they are not taught to.

In summary, I personally believe that our nation now has the problem of endemic retardation of the populace. Dumming down as it was once termed. A plucking out of its intellectual eyes.
In such a situation nobody will ask questions of those in charge and as such, in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. Lets hope it is a good king.

I’ve Got A Degree

2007-04-13T10:29:00.000+01:00

For many years now, when socialising, I have encountered the pseudo intellectual.
To me, these people are defined by the simple reply to any question placed by you as,

"I’ve got a degree. I should know!"

I have only ever met two university-educated people who have not used that response.
Let me explain by the use of two examples. Now the conversations that follow actually took place. Although they are not word for word accurate, they are true nonetheless.
The first conversation took place between a degree-educated psychologist and myself.

"Has anyone ever performed research to find out at what point a human being loses the ability to say no? I mean, most people know that to kill another person is wrong and yet they still do."

"Yes"

"Are you sure? It’s just that I have never heard of any such research myself and I have tried to find out for a project I am doing."

"Yes I’m sure. I should know, I have a degree."

The conversation ends there with that comment coming down from on high weighted with a ton of arrogance.

The second conversation highlights another problem with the over educated and was one in which I found it hard to keep my temper. It was a mildly drunken philosophical conversation with eeerrrr, well ….. Philosophers (allegedly).
The conversation begins here, after a rather lengthy diatribe based on Socratic ideas.

"I know Socrates said that but what do you say?"

Blank stare

"Look. All you do is quote someone else’s work. All you know is what they have said. What do you think? Is it possible for you or anyone else in this room to come up with an original thought?"

"Well anything we come up with has probably been thought of already."

"So? If you had never encountered the work of another philosopher and yet came up with a similar concept at least you could be proud that you got there without any help and that it was your own work."

"Errrrrrrrr."

The conversation moves on to deep questions such as "What goes through a Pigeons mind when it is attacked by a Hawk?"

Now my problem with it all is in two parts.

The first, is the arrogance that a degree or higher qualification imparts. I have three O levels and that’s it and in most conversations with new people I know without a shadow of a doubt that if they went to university, at some point I am going to be asked if I went to college or university myself. Oh, how the attitude changes when they find out I haven’t. Suddenly I know nothing and statements such as
"I think you will find you are wrong…." and,
"I’ve got a degree. I should know."
fill the air. Statements don’t even have to be qualified with any kind of evidence because, hey, I’m too thick to understand any answer anyway. The thing is though, these bastards look down their noses at the lesser educated yet they cant plumb a house, fix a car, build a wall etc. You just want to smack them until it sinks in that they are the same as everybody else, they just have different skills. Skills that are no greater or lower than anybody else’s.

The second problem I have, and this excludes what I term bedrock knowledge such as maths, physics and chemistry for example, is that what they are being arrogant about is someone else’s work/discovery. They have their heads so far up their own arses with how clever they are, but all they have done is remember someone else’s results. Not an original concept has ever entered their head. A parrot could learn the same shit and sound just as intelligent. Yet if you have no knowledge of say, philosophy, your thoughts are irrelevant because they are not based on someone else’s work. Even though you idea is original and all your own work it is invalid because you are not educated and have not studied the great masters. Bollocks.
I encountered this with twats in English literature classes in college. Macbeth killed the King because in John Does dissitation he states………
Unless you quoted someone else’s work on the subject your opinion was shouted down or deemed highly suspect.
Now I understand the need for education and society needs the gifted and the bright to move forward and improve, but I believe that what is now taught is not of any great benefit. It is promoting the ability to memorise and imbuing a false sense of superiority. It no longer, in the main, promotes inventiveness, adaptation or improvisation that leads to great people and great discoveries.
What a waste.

Armageddon Part 1

2007-04-03T13:56:00.000+01:00

In the year 2005 the population density for the United Kingdom was 246 people per square kilometre. In that same year it was calculated that the population density for London was 4700 people per square kilometre. It would be safe to say that these figures are not going to decline. It would appear that things are becoming a little cramped in the U.K. But, apart from the politics and economics of population growth, there is one other topic missing from the discussion list. Contagion!

Now take into account that the population density in Britain is not unique. You could safely say that it is on the increase world-wide. The result being, that what I am about to say is not just isolated to this country.

In the modern world, distances between places grow smaller. Here today, New York in a few hours. Planes Trains and Cars. Modern invention means that large groups of people can travel together in comfort from point a to point b.
In the working world we have factories housing hundreds if not thousands of employees, and upper management can sit in air-conditioned comfort while they rule over their tiny empires.
Concerts and films and plays now have audiences in their hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands.
Supermarkets, shopping malls, high rise flats, public transport, the main streets, pubs, clubs and a whole host of other venues compress and compact a population of 60 million.

Now, just say, for example, that H5N1 (bird flu) jumps species. John Doe on his way to work in London is feeling a bit under the weather. He is standing on the platform in the London underground surrounded by hundreds of other stressed workers all tightly packed. All in a hurry to get to where they are going. John Doe coughs, then sneezes. He coughs and sneezes all the way to work right up until an ambulance rushes him to hospital after collapsing in his air-conditioned office.

How many people has he contaminated?

How many of those people are travelling to another part of the country?

How many of those people are going abroad to work or on holiday?

How fast do YOU think it will spread?

Spanish Flu - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1

H5N1 BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5327204.stm

Spanish Flu History - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Spanish Flu 1918

http://virus.stanford.edu/uda

Critical Vote

2006-11-13T21:30:00.000Z

So. On the 10th of November the BNP were on the receiving end of a not guilty verdict. Hooray.
No, seriously, I mean it. As an individual I can honestly say that I have no leanings one way or the other when it comes to politics. This is because they are all crap. With regards to the BNP though my response is based on the fact that a guilty verdict would have literally sounded the death knell for freedom of speech in this country.
For those of you outside of the UK the British Nationalist Party are to some, the closest thing we have to a Nazi party. They are accused of being card carrying, xenophobic racists who want nothing more than to remove every non British white person from these shores. This is pretty damn far from the truth. It, unfortunately for the BNP, is a hangover from the eighties and nineties when its opinions were a bit more extreme and exactly like those listed above.
People back then thought BNP stood for the British Nazi Party.
Anyone who actually does a bit of investigating with an open mind though will find a political party that stands for national pride and identity. Our history, our identity and our traditions are their main battle ground.
To some this might sound like I view them favourably and want to see them in power. Not really. I don't trust any of them at the moment. What I do accept is that I may have no choice.
You see, everything the government and the mainstream media does plays into their hands, and as much as I hate to say it, if the BNP stick to their guns and are trustworthy then they are right.
My opening refers to the freedom of speech. After the BNP won their court case Gordon Brown basically stated that the law would be reviewed and if necessary changed so that this kind of thing couldn't happen again. He states:
"Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country and I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out, from whatever quarter it comes."
The thing is Mr Griffin and Mr Collett of the BNP were in court for something they said in a private meeting behind closed doors. They did not go spewing hatred like some sections of our community I could mention. The key words are "behind closed doors." Think about that for a minute, then think back to all the conversations you have had in your own home that you could possibly be arrested for. Frightening isn't it.
Gordon Browns statement played right into their hands. He might as well as said "no more freedom of speech if we can help it."
The BBC have provided reasonable air time to all official, legally registered political parties apart from the BNP showing political bias. This has been a subject for one of their editors blogs. Another point to Mr Griffin and associates.
Parts of our culture and tradition are being changed or banned so as not to offend minorities. Point to the BNP.
The press lambaste the BNP one minute, then have articles in their papers on subjects that the BNP warned them about. 1 point
Muslims riot over cartoons, burning flags and spouting hatred towards the people of the country they live in. 1 point.
Whites are regularly accused of racism but coloureds are not even though all statistics state that the greatest number of racist attacks are against whites. 1 point
Positive discrimination towards minorities with regards to job vacancies. 1 point
All that crap about veils. 1 point

It goes on an on and each time the government opens its mouth, passes a new law, raises taxes or creates new ones, it plays into the BNP's hands.
Each time the press and TV media have a go at them or show bias against them, it scores them points.
The point about this rant at the end of the day is. Who do we vote for? The communities in this country are being wound up tighter and tighter. I think you would have to be really blind to think everything was a bed of roses.
At some point in the not to distant future, unless someone comes into power who can release the pressure, this country is going to go up like a powder keg. In short I suppose you have to view all parties with an open mind, the ones in parliament at the moment don't inspire hope after all.

Surveillance Society

2006-11-03T10:45:00.000Z

Apparently, Britain comes top of the charts for surveillance of its own population. It is implied that from the moment you wake up in the morning until last thing at night, the government knows where you are.
So?
The majority of you watched this happen over the years and ignored the Orwelian prophets, saying that they belonged with the silver foil hat brigade. In fact the majority of you requested it (and some still do,) because of the scumbags that lurk in the shadows.
Yesterday I looked at the news forums and comments sections concerning the subject. It now seems that the majority of you are up in arms about it, screaming police state, human rights and other mindless crap.
I have just one thing to say. Shut Up!!!.
It is not the surveillance cameras that are the problem. It’s the shitty society we've created for ourselves that requires them.
Another report yesterday that is relevant but may have been lost in the general news melee, was that, the family unit no longer exists to the point where a teenagers role model is normally another teenager, not their father or mother.
A big thank you to Tony Blair and his sycophants for the nanny state. People now expect the government to not only look after them, but to think for them and make sure nothing bad happens as well. The result is that parents no longer look after their children because they expect the state to do it for them. They no longer even attempt to assess the government’s policies to determine whether they are right or wrong. If Tony says it, it must be obeyed without question. Lazy, ignorant, mindless sheep.
You can add to this the fact that the government thinks that anyone below the age of 16 is thick. According to them:

A) A child only thinks of, and performs acts of sex after their 16th birthday. At the age of 15, at 1 second before their birthday the thought never occurs to them.

B) A child will not have any comprehension or understanding of the law and how it relates to them with regards to school.

C) A child will have no understanding or comprehension of the law and how it relates to their parents relationship with them

D) A child will not have any comprehension or understanding of the law and how it relates to them with regards to the police and police powers.

In short, teenagers. No! I will rephrase that. In short children know that their parents, teachers or the police cannot, and will not, physically punish them. It’s against the law. They know that in a court of law that they hold all the cards. They also know that if they lose in court, it is more that likely they will gain status in their own peer group. It is now accepted that the Antisocial Behaviour Order, or ASBO, is a badge of honour and is to be collected like Pokemon cards.
I’m sorry. I’m a parent and I will not let this happen with mine. The government can go to hell. They have no right to tell me how to bring up my children to that degree, especially since most people running this country couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. Where my family is concerned “I am the law!” and if my children get into trouble the buck stops with me. The threat of phoning Childline every time they don’t get their own way does not work with me. If a policeman caught one of mine breaking the law and offered a short sharp shock instead of prosecution as they did when I was a kid, I would give him permission in writing. I have seen a 12 year old at 1:00 in the morning, in our town centre, smoking a fag and giving a police officer so much verbal abuse it would make a squaddie blush. The police officer could do nothing. He has my undying respect for having enough restraint not to take the little bastard somewhere along with his arsehole parents, and beat the shit out of them.
I don’t think I even have to comment on what teachers get.
When I was a kid in Liverpool, you wouldn’t even dream of doing that. The thought of a copper looking at you funny was enough to make your blood run cold. If you were caught and taken home by the police, you thought you were dead.
The other thing back then was “What, at the age of 15 or lower, would I be doing out after 10:00 let alone midnight.” A police officer would have a long serious talk with my parents. I know, because my brother was on the receiving end of it and my mother beat the stuffing out of him after the policeman had left. This was at 11:00 at night and he was 14.
Just in case people have forgotten. In school you got the strap, slipper or cane. A friend of mine got the cane for jumping up and touching the doorframe. He was in the dinner queue and people around him had trays with hot food on. You just didn’t go beyond certain limits in school. You didn’t even contemplate swearing at a teacher. The punishment put the fear of god into you.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not looking at the past with rose tinted specs. There was, and always has been, bad buggers with every generation. This one is different though. It is colder, more selfish, more violent and has no regard for anyone or anything. It has no empathy for another human being and seems to have a mentality more suited for a mob. People like this existed in the past but not in such quantities as today.
If you want a reason for surveillance cameras the above is one of them.

On top of all this you have then got multiculturalism. Different cultures, with different religions and rules living in little enclaves. Each enclave with its invisible border and each border a war zone. Another topic for another day me-thinks.
With the police bogged down with paper work each time they arrest someone, not to mention all the politically correct crap they have to be aware of did it ever occur to anyone that all the CCTV footage is in the main nothing more than archive material.
All these cameras do is record crime and store it for future reference. A police state is going to need a hell of a lot more coppers and a lot less bureaucracy.
Surveillance cameras are today’s policemen. Don’t knock them. At least they don’t need to do paperwork.

One final comment for all you do gooders out there that got the cane and smacking banned. That said you could bring up children correctly by being nice and sweet and kind. That kids would respect boundaries and limits because, hey, they’re kids and will respect their parents demands out of love. That harsh language would be all that we would need to turn them into acceptable human beings. Thanks a friggin bunch you mindless retards. Thanks for turning town centres and parks into no go areas. Thanks for the foul mouthed, ignorant, violent little scumbags that pollute every neighbourhood and estate today. Thanks for persuading another bunch of mindless idiots in parliament to take away any right we as a society had to deal with it. At least I have the consolation of knowing that you bastards are in hell with me.

The Fat Of The Land

2006-10-30T19:49:00.000Z

One of the major problems with society today we are told is obesity. It is apparently one of the biggest threats to societies health and well being to date. Smoking related illnesses by all accounts can take a back seat on this one.
Sur-bloody-prise!
I am part of a family of four. I am proud to say that we try and buy healthy food. We support our local greengrocer and butcher rather than the supermarkets and cooking involves ingredients rather than a packet solution.
It costs a bloody fortune.
It would be cheaper all round if we went out and bought 24 packs of cheap burgers, nasty no flour baps, processed cheese and a fecking big bag of oven chips.
No wonder were turning into a nation of lard arses, its to bloody expensive to do otherwise. Couple the cheaper food alternative with some of the longest working hours in Europe and a tendency to cross the road in cars rather than walk, you can see why most people are physically unfit and therefore to knackered to cook and would rather resort to the chip shop or quick and easy processed lard. On top of this, just to add insult to injury. Life is now so stressful that to cope most people drink (alcohol) and this too adds to the waistline.
If the government wants a thinner nation then help support the produce that is healthy and bring the bloody price down. It might also help if they stopped taxing the shit out of everything as well and tried to save money instead, by removing all these unnecessary pen pushers who seem to have nothing better to do than ban the game of conkers on the grounds of health and safety, ban hot cross buns (Liverpool council if memory serves,) because it might offend religious minorities and change the name blackboard to marker board because blackboard might be construed as racist. The list of these anal retentives achievements goes on and it cost us to keep them doing it. I wouldn't mind but I like hot cross buns and when I was a kid conkers was a bloody good game. If they did this we might actually have a bit more money in our pockets, a healthier meal on our plates, and a less stressful life because we would no longer be the victims of retards.
I never thought that living off the fat of the land would become the cheapest option available.

Concrete Conscience

2006-10-28T16:52:00.000+01:00

As much as I hate to say it I don't care anymore.

Poverty, war, famine. All the worlds ills. I really don't give a rats arse. Somewhere in the back of my mind though is a little voice from the person I used to be screaming that I should. It horrifies me that I find myself sick and tired of listening to it.

Once I did, a long time ago. Back then after showing the nation the horrors of mass famine, they had Live Aid and everybody gave what they could. Someone somewhere thought "what a bloody good idea," so year after year another charity concert/marathon bla bla bla etc etc involving celebrities in one form or another took place. On top of this more pictures/footage of horror and despair.

How long does a human being need to be exposed to destruction, horror, despair before it no longer has an impact? Try not bloody long.

Honestly. Hand on heart. After the 500th image/footage of the aircraft hitting the twin towers did YOU really care about the story anymore, or were you tempted to change channel to see if there was anything interesting on.

Do you know what did it for me?

A national newspaper, after Saddam went playing with his chemical weapons, showing in full colour across two pages, a dead baby lying in a gutter. The first thing that occurred to me then was,

"is this what it takes to get a reaction out of people these days?"

What will it take now? On the Internet you and your children have access to pictures and footage of the worst ills of mankind, and its for your entertainment. Public brawls, horrendous accidents, domestic violence, executions, dead bodies, the list is endless. All for your viewing pleasure without restriction. How long before someone else's suffering means absolutely nothing to everybody. I don't mean the national conscience, but the genuine feelings that a human being as an individual is supposed to have.

How does it feel to be comfortably numb.?

The other thing that bothered me was, "how much does it take" to solve a countries suffering?

Really?

Ethiopia. Give the world a ball park figure as to what it will take financially to change the country. To me it seems to be a bottomless pit. No matter how much the world gives it is still not enough.
Why cant they be honest with us and just say that to change things for the country we need to:

1)Write off its national debt. Its not as if your going to get the money back is it!

2)Stop the civil war, if there is one, by executing (amazing what can be achieved with a few snipers these days), if necessary, the buggers that perpetuate it. I'm sorry, but the needs of a few million civilians outweigh the needs of a handful of despots.

3)Stop selling the arseholes weapons or giving them money so they can buy them (money siphoned from charities more than likely). If some cold blooded SOB keeps selling them this stuff, put the buggers behind bars or have them disappear.

Do those three things and I guarantee you that it wont take five minutes before burger joints are everywhere and half the first worlds industries and call centres are setting up shop.

Seriously though, how can you help people when they keep killing each other and the news keeps showing the death, destruction and resultant famine so much that we no longer care. I will put money on the fact that most people will only give to charity to get rid of the small change in their pocket or because they don't want to be perceived as uncaring when accosted in the street by someone with a money box and a 'help the something' shirt on. If you do still genuinely care, then I wish I was you. And if you still want to have that feeling then get rid of your TV or whatever else shows you this crap before it numbs your heart.
What a wonderful world were building.
Oh. No one can be held accountable by the way. The buck stops with you, and because this state of affairs bothers me and what I may have become, ME.

Religious Rocket Science

2006-10-27T12:25:00.000+01:00

If you want to pick an organization/group of people that are totally removed from reality, then apart from politicians please feel free to throw a dart at the board of religions and pick one at random.
Actually that's not fair. Christianity in all its forms and Islam should be the only ones on that dartboard.
My gripe though is with Islam. Not the religion or the scriptures they hold dear. Just the idiots that every other mental gerbil follows. I mean, these guys are not exactly the sharpest tools in the box and they are definitely not playing with a full deck.
Let me explain.
If I wanted to convert a country to my religion and its associated laws I would:

A)Take into account that the most persuasive method would not include blowing shit up. Especially women and children and beheading prisoners for the hell of it.

B)Not tell my supposed enemy (any non Muslim) in their own country, on any national broadcasting media, or paper, that my minions and I are going to blow shit up in said country.

C)Not let myself be filmed or photographed having said rant because the enemy would know what I looked like. I do not want my face on wanted posters later on thank you very much.

D)Not go out of my way to form enclaves in the enemy's country because if the enemy gets pissed off they know where you and yours live.

E)Not annoy my hosts to the point where they say "sod it!" and kick off because they also know where I pray and at what times.

F)Acknowledge the fact that if any hostile activities take place in my host country that from previous actions listed above, my house is going to be the first port of call for any of the security services. It would be deemed wise therefore not to be the perpetrator.

G)Not kill other Muslims because they view things slightly differently. Its bad press and people will have a harder time thinking Islam is a religion of peace.

H)Read Tsun Tzu and The Art of War. It might stop me doing the retarded things listed above.

I)When in Rome do as the Romans do. Nothing is more annoying than a minority that tries to dictate to the majority through violent actions and public teddy chucking. The backlash can be horrific.

Look to history. In these sort of cases it really really does not pay to repeat the past.

Not exactly rocket science is it.