Oversensitivity

Have a read of this story - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7077934.stm and tell me what exactly was wrong with the poor guy's comments?
OK, it may not exactly be constructive to say that immigrants are given the world while local residents are left to rot, but he is voicing the opinion of the man on the street - and isn't that his job? Don't we pay the wages of our MP's to represent our views in Parliament? Apparently I am mistaken!

And to lambaste someone for agreeing with comments made by Enoch Powell which have proven to be true, seems like pandering to political correctness. If he had quoted a similar sentiment from someone who is not seen as a racist figure, would he have had to justify himself?

This country is slowly growing mad - we fight against ID cards, CCTV and yet stand by as our freedom of speech is slowly taken from us - in the guise of 'isms' whether by sexism, racism or any other 'ism' - and don't seem to bat an eyelid... Just expressing an opinion that may upset someone is now forbidden under the law of 'isms' and quite frankly, as ling as you are not offensive in your expression of your opinion, and you accept others may not share your views, then you should be able to express your opinion about anything at anytime.
Stop the Madness - before it's too late and we are living as Communists!

Ian Blair versus Jean Charles de Menezes

Picture the scene - 7 days ago 4 psycho freaks blew up 3 trains and a bus killing dozens of people in the centre of London. We are still in the midst of mass hysteria and the majority of people in the country are jumping at their own shadows - paranoia is rife.
Our thoughts drift to a suspected suicide bomber who is under surveillance. Armed police follow this suspect to Stockwell tube station and fearing he will detonate a bomb, shoot him.

Now, I agree it is a tragedy that it turns out an innocent person was killed, and I sincerely feel for his family. However, we do tend to forget the context. I am not trying to claim I know what happened - I don't know why he wasn't stopped before he entered the station and I don't know if he was asked to stop. The bottom line is that the police HAD to treat him as guilty as they would all suspected bombers as they couldn't risk another massive loss of life.

It seems to me that in this situation it is wrong to try and apportion blame. It was the first terrorist attack on London since the IRA ceasefire (for which the police generally got warnings) and the terrorist attack on the WTC. It was a new procedure and all new procedures are prone to mistakes.

Let the police learn the lessons from the incident - and yes, if they are repeated in the near future, by all means sack someone. But give them the chance to learn the lessons first!

The upshot of all this is really to beg the media and the public to ALWAYS keep events within the context in which they occurred.
We were all scared of anyone who looked a bit Muslim at the time - and what if the police HAD been right? They'd all have got medals... You can't have your cake and eat it! Sorry!!

Internet Explorer is a VIRUS in itself...

That may be a little harsh, but as 99% of viruses/trojans out there on the web are targeted at Internet Explorer and are activated by using Internet Explorer, but are harmless (at the moment) if using a different browser.

Have a little read of this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7067962.stm - the captchua security stops programs from automatically submitting forms and creating forum accounts.
Most of you will probably wonder why that is a problem - if an automated program creates user accounts on forums, it is generally because they want to post spam or material of an adult nature.
It is dangerous and does have the potential to affect you.


PLEASE GET INTO THE HABIT OF USING AN ALTERNATIVE BROWSER TO IE.

Try different browsers:
http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/ - Firefox
http://www.opera.com/download/ - Opera

Euthanasia - my right to die

I want parliament to seriously debate the question of Euthanasia.

Question: Why do we see fit to put animals 'out of their misery' but fail to accept the same could be true of humans? We put animals down because it is in their best interests - they have no say but they still may wish to live.

I accept that Euthanasia is open to misuse - that is why it needs to be debated. There are a lot of people who agree in principle but are worried about it being misused. Fair enough.
I am not religious and if I decide while I have all my faculties that if I then get brain damaged or a degenerative disease that I want to be 'put out of my misery' when I reach a certain point, where's the harm?
The system as it stands is horrible - you are basically starved to death as we can't cope with the thought of killing someone - starving someone is obviously far more acceptable in the eyes of the law. It we can devise a system where you are given a lethal dose of something that kills in seconds then it needs to be discussed.

We need to devise a system that means that doctors who do not agree with euthanasia do not have to practice something they do not believe in.
We need to stop wasting money on prosecuting people who fly to suicide clinics in Switzerland with family who help them to commit suicide - and then get chucked out of court.

There will always be a debate about ethics - there still is about abortion. The bottom line in this country is that everyone should have the choice. As medical research progresses then yes laws are changed and adapted. But we can't legislate for things that may be discovered in 100 years time.

I do not believe in a God and so religious views should not be imposed on me.
I have the right to decide how and when I die - I can choose to let my God take me or I can make the decision myself. The right to make my own decision should not be taken from me just because I am physically or mentally unable to complete the process at that time.

GIVE ME THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHEN MY LIFE ENDS.

Madeline - update

Has anyone bothered to think that the media may have sealed Madeline MaCann's fate?

Regardless of who took her or why she was abducted, let's just assume it was a random kidnapping. If you were a kidnapper and trying to sell a young kid into the sex industry or slave trade, and her picture was all over the news, you know that no-one is going to touch them with a barge pole. The cheapest and safest thing to do is to 'dispose' of them. So the media involvement may have actually caused her death - if she is dead. Something to think about...

On another Madeline tack...even if the parents are guilty, they will never be found guilty in this country as the public (advised by the media and the police) seem to think it is impossible.
There are many things that don't add up and should be investigated with an open mind - the twins were sedated - why? There was a babysitting service available but they chose to leave 3 kids under 4 years old alone - why? There was a 2 hour gap between checks on the kids, then 2 checks in 20 minutes (if news reports are to be believed) - why?
On their side, the DNA evidence the Portuguese police is weak - the blood spots in the car are an 82% match - for DNA that is weak - you would expect it be high 90's.
Then you have the 'feeling' that you get about a case. Something just doesn't seem right...

I am happy to keep an open mind - for the moment. As long as ALL authorities do. So if a council tenant goes our for dinner one evening and checks on their kid every 2 hours, that should be fine then.

Formula 1 - exciting?

Is it just me or does the situation at Maclaren, with Alonso and Hamilton remind anyone of Ferrari, Senna and Prost? Now, I am no expert and F1 bores me to tears these days - in fact, it always did! It was just that I was forced to watch races by my evil babysitter (my brother) and recognise drivers from their helmets and name their team-mates... Anyway, I digress! I remember the last race of a season sometime where Senna took Prost out at Suzuka to make sure he won the Drivers Championship! Wonder if Hamilton will do the same to Alonso? After all, Ron Dennis and Maclaren have nothing to win or lose in the Constructors Championship after being chucked out...

The thing all Hamilton lovers seem to forget is that the reigning World Champ SHOULD get preferential treatment from the team...in fact, don't all teams have a number one driver? The fact that Alonso is saying everything is equal in the team is actually him pointing out that he should be given a better car and a better shot at retaining his title - yet he is being given the same chance as a rookie - or to phrase it better, Hamilton is being given the same chance as a reigning Champion. Ask yourselves a question...would Alonso have gotten involved in the whole Ferrari spy scandal if he felt like the number 1 driver at Maclaren. Hamilton is Ron Dennis' pet and will always be treated as such.
If I were an F1 driver, I would steer clear of Maclaren - at least until Hamilton has forgotten his roots and who he owes his success to...

My brother would have been better than Lewis Hamilton given the same chances...it's all down to money at the end of the day. No F1 driver has ever had to work for a living and they are all ungrateful arses at the end of the day!

F1 rant over!

Stay away from VirginMedia! You have been warned...

"Instead of being charged per second for your phonecalls, we will now round up to the nearest what?" J asks me.
I reply "five minutes" says I, thinking that would just be ridiculous.
"Correct" says J.
"You are having a laugh aren't ya? You serious?" says I.
You get the gist anyway.
Yes, today J received a letter from Virgin Media (despite having cancelled his contract) stating that for a phonecall lasting 4 mins 50 seconds, you will be charged for 5 minutes - meaning a 10 second call will be charged as though you had been on the phone for 5 minutes.

Virgin are taking the piss and everyone should move away now - they have terrible customer services (bar 1 nice woman) and they are about to rip you all off.

Driving Disaster

Why oh why oh why do car accidents cause the rest of us such stress? Surely a car crash that happens in 2 lanes of a 3 lane motorway is easily confined to those 2 lanes and if not serious, easily movable to the side of the road - why did a 4 car accident on the M11 yesterday cause a tailback that was only just easing 5 hours later? We were lucky as we were relatively close to the front of the queue - we saw the 7 fire engines and 1 ambulance race up the hard shoulder (although I think some of the fire engines were for someone a bit further on whose car had overheated - at the side of the road). After having to negotiate our way around Peterborough as the A1 had been shut due to an accident (where we were stuck for about an hour), a minor shunt caused over 5 hours of tailbacks on the M11. 2 of the cars seemed to have no damage and the worst was a caved in back wheel arch.

Then to top it all off, you should have seen the queues coming the other way - just caused by Rubberneckers. We need to sort out a way to keep traffic moving and either divert people earlier or at least let us know about trouble earlier.

We left York at about 12:30pm and got home at at about 7:15pm - it was not a good journey...

Money Madness

With the news that Northern Rock has obtained a loan from the Bank of England, people are pulling their savings out faster than you can say "next round's on you"!
This is proof that the majority of people in this country have absolutely no idea about how financial institutions are run and the effect that taking all their money out will have...

Firstly, the Bank of England is not in the habit of lending money - have you ever heard of them issuing a mortgage? They are the lynchpin of all financial institutions in this country and they would not lend money unless it was almost guaranteed to be paid back. If people bothered listening to what they were being told they would understand that Northen Rock is not actually in financial distress. If you look at the business model of Northern Rock, it will show that they actually borrow a lot more money to fund their mortgages and loans than most other banks and building societies. Most banks/building societies fund their lending through their savers and this is why Northern Rock have requested help.
The fact they have asked for help and received it is almost proof positive that they will not go down the toilet...
That was until yesterday when mass hysteria took over and people started pulling all their money out of Northern Rock...this action in itself COULD be the downfall of the company. If there are no savers, then all their money needs to come from the money markets.

So why does the fact that Northern Rock borrows a lot of money a problem?
It is to do with the US Mortgage saga - it has become apparent that mortgages have been given to high risk customers in the US and that there is a risk to a lot of non-UK companies losing a lot of money. This has an effect on the Global money markets as there is less inclination to lend and borrow, and lenders will probably put their interest rates up.
However, as constantly stated, this is a temporary glitch - the money market will sort itself out and when it does, Northern Rock will be back on an even keel!
Therefore, it actually appears that Northern Rock are acting in a completely up-front and responsible way as they are trying to safeguard their current savers and borrowers.
The Bank of England obviously agree as they have agreed the loan.

The Northern Rock customers now withdrawing their money could actually trigger financial instability within the whole UK financial market as people WILL lose faith in the banks and building societies.

There is always the possibility that another institution will take over Northern Rock, but they will have to agree to pay back the Bank of England so there are complications there.

Dodgy Websites

Actor Chris Langham has been sentenced to 10 months in prison for downloading child pornography. While I don't condone his actions for a minute, I can't help wondering why the police keep prosecuting the easy, high profile targets rather than requesting the government make new legislation.

I believe it is really easy to get rid of child pornography from the internet...pass a law that prohibits any ISP from showing that content and fine them or stop them operating in this country. The UK Police are constantly looking into this to try to find where people are finding these pictures, so they can provide a lot of websites to ban.

It may not be as easy as this, and I accept that, but there must be some kind of control that we in the educated UK can implement. If countries such as China can limit the content of the web available to it's population, then we know it is do-able!

I did think about fining or banning providers that host the content, but as something like less than 1% of all child pornography is hosted by UK providers, this would not work as 99% of sites are not covered by UK laws.

Our freedom is being eroded at every turn now, and some will argue that making some of the web inaccessible is further proof that our freedom is gradually being taken from us. I am usually one of those people. However, this is such a big issue and is certainly not victimless, and I think these harsh measures are needed.
I will not stop children from being brought into a sick industry, but at least we in the UK will be leading the way in trying to help stop it's market.

Medical sensibilty

Have a read of this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6992945.stm and tell me how this will help?
Surely a better way of spending money is to test a baby at birth for known family problems, then test at a set age of 18-21 to check to make sure all young adults are OK.
After all, if at 18 you have high blood pressure you can do something about it at an early age.

We all pay for the NHS and I have barely used the service. High blood pressure runs in my family and I have no idea what my blood pressure is.

Isn't prevention cheaper than a cure?

Madeline

So the police have stated that the mother of Madeline McCann is now a suspect in her daughter's murder. Despite my feelings as to their treatment by the media, I wonder how many parallels can be made between this situation and the JonBenet Ramsey case back in the 1990's. It seems as though the Portuguese police have never really come up with a valid suspect, so now they go back to the parents and try to build a case there - of course, it is a well known trick to give a suspect enough rope to hang themselves as it were. The english police quite often get the main family suspect to speak at a news conference to guage their body language and reactions. And it has been stated that Mrs McCann did not seem that upset - but then we all deal with things differently.

My beef with this ongoing story, whether it turns out that the parents are involved or not, is that because they are respectable middle class people with good jobs, they have been excused for leaving their kids - all under 4 years old - alone in an unfamiliar place.
If they were council tennants with manual labour jobs and came from a less well-off area, the media would have been calling for their twins to be taken into care as they are unfit parents!
The bottom line is that they did not have to leave the kids on their own - there was a babysitting service. So it does pose the question, why didn't they use that service?

I suppose this is really going back to my problem with the media and is not the McCann's fault, but I am really upset at the fact that the McCann's lack of parental responsiblity has not been questioned in the way that other parents would be. If they had acted responsibly in the first place, they would not now be under suspicion.

Therefore, I find it difficult to sympathise - after all, is it not illegal to leave a minor in a house unsupervised under UK law?

Grr - is it so hard to give us all the facts?

Oooh here I go! I would never have made it as a journalist due to my desire to speak the truth and state all facts - that would never create a story that sells!

Have a look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/6978118.stm - now, if this couple's excess has risen to £10,000 after the floods - but for a start, it doesn't mention if it's building or contents! Experience would tell me that it's buildings and also that it's a grade II listed house or something - which is fair enough in my eyes.
If the risk is that the house is going to be flooded every couple of years and each time materials have to be sourced to comply with the grade II listed regulations, then it's a fair enough condition as far as I'm concerned.

If the BBC journos furnished us with the full facts, I wouldn't have to write this drivel!

If the house is your bog standard box however, I would consider the excess to be a bit OTT - but then we don't know how often they have claimed in the past as well!

Why is parking in town so difficult - and expensive?

Why do councils see fit to charge so much to park in their towns - do they not want to encourage traders to pay their extortionate shop and office rates? If you require long stay parking in particular they are a complete rip off. Brentwood in Essex charges £8.00 per day for all day parking - there's nothing there shop-wise so if I hadn't had to work there there's no-way I would have parked even for 1 hour - I think that's £1.50!! Complete rip-off.

I came across a fantastic website for people looking for long-stay parking and the best part is that it's currently free! All you do is register some basic details like your name, address, and contact details and then advertise your driveway or garage for rent at a price you set - on the flip side, you can look for a driveway or garage near where you work and get guarateed a parking space everyday! Have a look at www.rentanyspace.net when you get a chance and make the most of a great service!

To read a more in-depth rant, look at www.rentanyspace.net/blog.php!