You see me, I see nothing.

And when I woke up I was sure that I was Winston Smith, cowered in the alcove to avoid the telescreen. You see, the government have decided that, if anything, the plan to record every phonecall, e-mail and text message didn't go far enough, and they needed to snoop in on Facebook, myspace and bebo, so the have a list of everyone's friends, blogs, sexual and religious orientation, wall posts and messages.

This is, of course, to fight the ever growing threat of a terrorist attack.

But what exactly do they think terrorists do? Log on to twitter an say "Praise my distorted and twisted understanding if Allah, for I go now to blow up a pub, the Wetherspoons on the corner of high street and warwick avenue, in Stoke. I shall be entering paradise wearing my green knee length coat, a blue hat and sunglasses, at exactly 16.03 tomorrow.." ?? because I don't think that fits in the characture count.

The notion that with tens of thousands of encryption methods, secure messaging sites and secure phone lines, people log onto facebook to become friends with bin laden is so retarded I expected even the government to know better. You can read more at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/now-big-brother-targets-facebook-1653407.html or, if you think the indy is too liberal, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7962631.stm But still, it's not like the government ever loose any data they have, right?

I quote: ''; Home Office spokesman said it would consult shortly "to ensure that we keep up with technological advances''''

But one must counter, then, that surely there was no big database recording every letter ever sent from one address to another? Surely the pub landlords were not required to fill in forms detailing who met together for a pint of ale back in the 60s? What they are doing is blatant scaremongering, fear-baiting, and invading privacy on a level never before seen or heard outside China (or maybe Russia).

There is no feasible way this can combat terrorism any more than the time they made postmen catalogue all the letters in Northern Ireland to see who was a ... oh, hang on a minute, I've just remembered that they never did that because it would achieve nothing. This is a shambolic attempt by the incompetent government to drum up fear, to invade your privacy and start the most expensive snooping program in the Western World. Oh, did I mention that the home office is training 60,000 members of the public to report when they see suspicious people? http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/23/jacqui-smith-terrorism-civilian-force

Yeah, this sounds about right for a government whose leader is travelling round the world advocating spending money when his bank manager says he can't afford to, whose 10 years of financial mis-management has led us into this recession and who still don't understand that spending money we don't have isn't a solution to anything exept destroying peoples lives. You want to monitor something, you can monitor this.

So, I advocate to you all, readers of the internet, you may want to check out safe-mail.net, and you might want to think about pulling the plug on facebook if this bill gets through. I know I will be.

I'll take the threat of a few people who think God wants them to blow themselves up over a government who think they are God.

Yes folks, it must be a day ending in a "y", because the enlightened government of her majesty's people have decided there is something important they need to make against the law.  I speak, you may be surprised to know, of a recent article in the independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/graphic-artists-condemn-plans-to-ban-erotic-comics-1652270.html - concerning the government banning of "pictures" depicting "children" and "sex".

Now, first of all, I am abhorred by anyone who takes pleasure in child pornography, or anything of that ilk.  Obviously, that goes without saying.  But there are so many horrendous problems with this government bill because it shows, once again, that they are incapable of thinking through any legislation in favour of a blanket ban which doesn't stop the criminal activity and criminalises the rest of us.  (Go and research the uses of the terrorism bill and add up how many times it's been used to prevent terrorism compared to infringing the rights of law abiding subjects.)

You see, the government has decided that a "picture" (which is effectively defined as any graphical material, from a hi-res photo to a doodle in a margin of a book) which has a child (by which they mean anyone who appears to be under the age of 18) present in it whilst a sexual thing is happening, could now be illegal to own.

So the Watchmen, the novel, will now be on the governments banned list because the kid walks in on his parents... (I'll let you insert your words into the end of that sentence).  As will many more comics suffer the same fate.  Indeed, I imagine that thanks to Rule 34, there is plenty of pixie/dwarf/midget/fairy/etc pictures out there in the world wide web who appear to be under 18.  And also, as I probably should mention, given the age of consent is 16, what on earth?!?

Also, I can't see peadophiles who steal children, download images of unspeakable horror and sneak around school play areas are going to think twice before they browse in amazon a copy of The Lost Girls, and think "Wait, I think this is against the law."

Sometimes I dispair for the country.  The other times, I'm generally asleep.

Anyway, it's good to know the members who are called to represent us are so good at fixing the economy, sorting out jobs for the unemployed and education for those who don't have enough that they have the time, after solving world peace, world hunger, championing free trade, fixing the schools and sorting out the environment, to impose a new law infringing free speech.

Bravo, idiots, Bra-freaking-vo.

The MPC meeting shows a clear lack of joined up thinking from the experts.  First of all, we see a cut in interest rates.  The idea of which is to generate cheaper debt.

Now step off your “debt got us in this mess” soapbox a moment, right though it may be, because we have to come to grips with the notion that this isn’t just personal debt we have to deal with here, it’s corporate.  If companies have been encouraged, through poor legislation and a complete lack of control from government over the last 10 years (but don’t worry, Mr Brown is genuine in his belief it’s not his fault, so we can trust him to get us out of it), to borrow up to the hilt, then any reduction in income is going to affect their ability to pay back the mountain of debts they have taken out.  So, they either need to cut costs (i.e. lay off staff, reduce purchasing and/or investments), increase income, or they need to cut the cost of their debt.

Unfortunately, the banks aren’t, as seems to be the thinking by the MPC, a bunch of brain dead, central bank following morons.  They are fully aware that companies and people have over borrowed for around a decade, and now times aren’t so rosy it’s getting tricky to pay back all the costs that have been accumulated over all this time.  That means they are fully aware of the fact that the money they think they are owed is only worth what people can pay back.  Which is why all of a sudden there are massive write-downs of the stock and balance sheets of banks.

To counteract this, they are going to charge for the risk of losing all their money in the event that people/companies won’t pay it back.  The worse the economic situation gets, the more they are going to want to charge, protecting their own backs. 

In addition to this you’ve got to remember that there are savers who invest their money into the banks, which the banks then loan out to people (and they also invest some of it, or loan to other banks) to make their money.  Savings accounts therefore will always have lower interest rates than a mortgage; otherwise the bank pays out of its own pocket.

Given a savings account with 0% will attract no customers whatsoever, the rates paid to savers need to be around about in line with inflation, at the minimum.  Otherwise by keeping your money in a bank, it’s worth less the next year than it was when you paid it in.  Better to buy anything that’s likely to keep its value, artwork, antique furniture, and even vintage Turkish Zildjian cymbals than stuff it in a bank.

So inflation hovers around 2.5-3.0%.  So interest rates, where you can find them, are about the same amount.  Therefore there is no point in further reducing interest rates because it won’t cut inflation, so savers rates can’t go down, so lending rates can’t go down.  In fact, cutting inflation causes investors in Stirling to pull out knowing the yield (return) will be lower, so Stirling drops in value against other currencies (like the Euro and the dollar) and because we import practically everything, costs get driven up, and so inflation goes up.

Add to that the problem of personal debt, where people are mortgaged, credit card-ed, and loaned to the hilt to pay for things they couldn’t afford, which means they can’t take out any more money, and the little cash they do have should be frantically going towards paying off any excess debt, so that when (I mean if, right?) they lose their jobs, they don’t get the repo men and the banks taking everything they own and still being in debt.  If there is no spending, the companies aren’t making any more money, so they have to lay off people, so they have less money, and the cycle of recession completes another turn.

Quantitative easing, the genius second string to the bow of the MPC, is not technically printing money, because the money is added to the electronic bank sheet and never exists in the physical world.  But to you and me, it is making money exist where it didn’t before, and if the people who write duck tales (see video on my facebook profile) can understand what that causes then why the hell can’t the MPC.

The fiat money (that is, money created without a gold reserve to back up the wealth) will almost certainly be used to buy the government bonds, because, err; no-one else is (see the ft website for the downturn in bonds sales).  Which is great, because then the government can use the money to fritter away on retarded bailouts or even more retarded expenses claims for their own MPs.  At least they’ll have a pension to draw on.

But the problem is when you create money from nothing, all the rest of the money becomes worth less.  And that means higher prices, higher inflation, and the last time it got really bad with hyperinflation coming out of a depression we needed a world war to right the economy.  The other problem is it tells the world “the UK are up to their necks in a bad way” and so everyone bails out as fast as possible, leaving the problem much worse, and the delightfully short-sighted nature of economics means we’ll probably keep printing money until the only thing that will fix our problems is invading Poland.

So, if we’re not careful, the pound will plummet, hyper inflation will spiral, and we’ll have our life savings incinerated by the lack of interest accumulated.  Of course, it could be that the QE doesn’t achieve anything, in which case we just have a regular depression on our hands and we can look forward to rioting and soup kitchens.

Yes, I know they are two extremes, but we have to remember that there is no quick fix now, not when you’ve spend a decade binging on cheap credit thinking there would be no end to it.  Tie in the global population explosion, lower crop yields and people are going to have to get back to a time where food shopping and bill paying probably is the biggest expense from your pay check.  The only sensible thing the government can do is trim its own outgoings, cut jobs, get rid of retarded waste of money schemes (trident, ID cards, tax credits), and pay off as much of its own debt as possible. 

It’s a hard storm, and we aren’t even halfway through yet.  You can’t set up a tea party on deck to convince the cruise passengers that there isn’t a hurricane over the starboard bow.

Then **beep** off.

Yeah, I went there.  Because there should, in no part of the world, be a people who single-handedly oppress those who offend others.  Now let’s just get a few things straight.  First of all, I'd want to draw the line between offence and inciting hatred.  Example - "Jesus was a loon" - offensive - "We should ship all the immigrants home" - inciting hatred (unless you're a BNP party conference speaker, in which case it's called "key-notes speech".)

But what on earth is the problem with a little bit of tolerance, you may well ask... along with thousands of other people, bleating out the same tune (yes, I am being deliberately offensive here, get over it).  And you'd be right to ask such a question, and it deserves an answer.  But let's get one thing straight before we bother sabre rattling.

tol⋅er⋅ance  /ˈtɒlərəns/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [tol-er-uhns] Show IPA –noun   (dictionary.com)

1.	a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

 

2.	a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.

 

3.	interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.

 

4.	the act or capacity of enduring; endurance: My tolerance of noise is limited.

Now I don't know about you, but I think that fair, objective and permissive are all good ideals to strive towards, as long as they don't contravene a higher moral code.  By which I mean, I'll be fair objective and permissive of you as long as you don't go killing people, or anything equally retarded, because then the only objective decision I'll be making is how long to look you up and whether or not to throw away the key.

But take, for example, a seasoned drummer coming across a newbie, arms flailing, sticks flying and the only job he's doing well is destroying his drum kit.  Would you prevent the drummer from explaining to the newbie why his technique was all wrong on the grounds it might offend him?  Surely it would be far better for the newbie to swallow the bitter pill and move on, improving the technique and himself as a player.  Was the seasoned pro being fair and objective?  Of course he was, but it didn't stop a situation arising from which someone could have been offended.  But taking offense here gets you nowhere other than to the drum shop having to buy a new kit.

But let’s replay that scenario once again
"Say son, that's not a very sensible way to drum!"
"Yeah?  But my teacher taught me to play like this."
"Well then, if that's true, your teacher is either misguided or an idiot."

This situation could bring offence to the teacher, although surely it would be right to criticise him if he's teaching other people to drum like a seal on a river bank.  But the student shouldn't really be taking offence, surely.  I suppose he could have you-tubed, seen concerts and realised he was doing it wrong, but some teachers are pretty strict, and, sadly, that can go hand in hand with being wrong.  After all, you wouldn't want your student more enlightened in the ways of drumming than you, right?  But in any case, offense would have to be actively taken, and that means, as it always does, people who are offended are putting effort into doing it.

I have no right to live my life free from being offended.  In fact, a situation that arises where I could take offense generally means I can also go the other way and improve things.  The student above would be a wiser drummer to listen and improve, but if he only takes offense at some point he'll have to square with the fact he's a worse drummer than Meg White.  Putting his hands over his ears and screaming to himself will get him nowhere at all.

It seems to me that society has reverted to the infantile age of a human, running round screaming about what is "mine" and how "I'm right" and not allowing a foothold for criticism.  But criticism is the very catalyst for progress, and we should embrace it wherever we can.  Of course there are nice and horrible ways to be criticised, but of what use is if we all just pretend everything is fine and then wonder why nothing works.

So why, instead of going round trying our best to ban criticism on the grounds it might cause offense, can't we just ban taking offense on the grounds it achieves nothing but halting progress.  If you read here often, you'll know I'm a Christian, but I'd be an idiot if I didn't listen to the criticism of my faith to see if it has any grounds, and if so, perhaps there should be some time to figure out whether it's the human interpretation of the message that's causing the criticism, or the message itself.  Because if it’s the message, then there's something wrong with my faith.

Saying that you don't want your religion to be offended, in my eyes, is pretty much saying you have no answers to the criticism levelled against you, so why not dig deeper into your religion, learn about it, become able to think for yourself, and either refute with learning, believe that there are answers that you don't understand, admit changes need to be made, or get yourself a new religion.

To see the article that prompted this tangled mess of thoughts the author calls a blog, click here - http://www.slate.com/id/2212662

Can we please start programing a default list into military machines, so that when they can go back in time, they can do the following:

1) Terminate the woman who sued McDonalds about the coffee and started this insane blame culture.
2) Terminate the guy who thought it was a good idea to play music on phones without enforcing headphone use
3) Take power over Parliment in 1997 and pass the following laws:
     - No leader change can be approved without a general election
     - Banning fox hunting itself is illegal
     - Selling the gold that backs up Stirling is retarded and any man who proposes the idea must be shot
     - Blowing up Iraq is not a good idea regardless of what George W says, and anyone who disagrees needs to spend a week in a prison somewhere
     - Any laws passed under the excuse of "terrorism" which is blatantly erosion into Civil liberties is null and void
     - ID cards are a waste of money.  If any government wants to bring them in they must pay for them with their own salaries.
     - All MPs who need an extra house in London stay in a youth hostel and are damn grateful for it.
     - The millenium bug, the millenium dome, and the millenium fireworks don't really achieve anything.  Stop wasting money.
     - Regardless of a persons country of origin, if the work is done within the UK they must be paid UK minimum wage
     - Peter Mandelson is incompetent and must not be employed.  Perhaps his spin will help him in another occupation where he isn't rewarded for failure.
     - Fitting anything onto a scooter to make it louder is punishable by being banned from the road for life.  The same applies to motorbikes less than 125cc
4) Hack the votes in Florida in the Bush vs Al Gore election in favour of Al Gore.
5) Ban mobile phone ownership for under 12s.  And come to that, ban them going to see 12As.
6) Terminate whichever person came up with the first "Accident laywers for you" advert.  If another one is made, terminate them too.
7) Terminate whichever Civil Servant is responsible for tax credits.

Any other ideas?