I’ve only written a couple of small pieces on this blog about gay marriage, for example around Proposition Eight, but have written scattered pieces around the net for ages on message boards, Facebook walls, Twitter etc. I thought it might be time to pull some of these things together.

Why now? Well the Equality Network have been lobbying the Scottish Government on the issue (you can take part in the lobby about gay marriage here). Secondly the posting of that video on a friends wall led to a 46 comment thread where someone made a pitiful answer to the question/challenge I posted previously:

Can anyone point to an argument against gay marriage not based on religion. I have looked and looked but can’t find one.

Thirdly I had some examples to use as part of the discussion and I wasn’t completely comfortable using them. I hope that if I refer to anyone I know they won’t take offence at the reference as it’s not used to judge them, just to illustrate a point.

I have yet to hear a coherent argument against gay marriage. Most resort to terrible comparisons which don’t work or just reading out of some bronze age book (whilst ignoring any examples in the book of marriage not of the traditional 1 consenting man + 1 consenting woman model).

So in an effort at avoiding any questions put to him and ignoring massive flaws in his argument, one of those people prompted me to write down some coherent arguments for the position I took, which simplified was: A gay couple getting married doesn’t affect you so it’s none of your damn business and leave them to do it without trying to stop it.

So what were some of the arguments used against gay marriage?

Well I will try to list some of the reasons given to oppose it and show the counter argument. Over the course I hope to then flesh out a more concrete argument for gay marriage.

1. Where does someone get the right to get married from? Who gives them it?

The answer to this is pretty obvious. The state you live in. You apply to them for a marriage licence and they grant one providing they can find no reason not to do so based on that particular states laws on marriage.

No idea what point was trying to be made here. Was it that it is God who grants that right? If so you might want to check the bible.

See for example

• Genesis 4:19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. (polygamy)
• Genesis 20:12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. (incest)
• Jeremiah 3:1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. (remarriage == bad)
• 1 Kings 11:2 Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. (marrying someone of a different religion is bad)

Of course most religious people won’t have read their holy book so will be unfamiliar with such verses. Those that are will probably claim these are in the Old Testament so don’t count. You can then enquire as to where in the New Testament God condemns homosexuality. They’ll struggle because they use such verses in the Old Testament to justify their bigotry.

2. Should adults be allowed to marry children? How about animals? How about their sister or brother? Surely it would be discrimination to say no.

The slippery slope fallacy. And one that was probably invoked during every change in the law relating to marriage in the last century. Utterly irrelevant. It is based on the flawed argument that if gay marriage is legalised then incestuous marriage will be legalised. Well that is assuming some massive campaign with the public support for gay marriage takes place for each of those too then?

In a ridiculous tangent the questioner also ignored the flaw in each of those arguments.

Incest is a taboo because of the genetic problems that can result from procreation in particularly close incestuous relationships. The other angle of course is the high probability of some abuse, certainly of power, if not sexual or physical which has made someone think such a relationship is acceptable.

Bestiality is a poor comparison as unlike gay marriage which involves two consenting adults, bestiality involves 1 consenting adult and 1 animal incapable of providing consent.

Strangely they then spent quite a lot of posts trying to talk about incest and come up with justifications for it if gay marriage was legalised. So ironically he himself slid down his own slippery slope whilst all those supporting gay marriage were arguing against incestuous ones.

3. There is a difference between denying someone a religious same sex marriage and a civil partnership.

The religious marriage is a slight diversion as this is not the same as as a marriage as most people have them. Some religions involve having a religious marriage as well as a traditional marriage. They then also have religious divorces, or not in some cases where strict religions refuse religious divorces even though a civil one has been granted.

So someone arguing for religious marriages as well as civil ones doesn’t see the hypocrisy in not even considering a gay marriage as well as a civil as a valid option.

Either that or they were meaning a ceremony inside a religious building conducted by a religious figure inside of a religious building. But then, if those are ok there was no condemnation of those religious figures who conduct mass religious marriages inside religious buildings.

To keep up you might want to forget looking for consistency or coherency in the anti-gay-marriage camp.

4. A whole host of other issues arise from this. What if someone refuses to marry two same sex people, do they lose their job? Isn’t that discriminating against them? What about adoption? A child will be denied a mother or father if adopted by a same sex couple.

This is two issues, firstly about someone refusing to conduct a particular marriage. Well let’s extend it to currently accepted forms of marriage. If someone was to refuse to conduct a marriage between two people of different races would they lose their job? If they worked for the state in some fashion then they would certainly be in some form of trouble. In a religious role in some religious group? Who knows, depending on how batshit insane the organisation is they might get promoted. Would such a couple go to one of these religious organisations hostile to their life choices to get approval though? Probably not.

Looked at that way how is gay marriage any different. Anyone who works in a registry office or similar should be willing to conduct any marriage which is legal. Anyone in a religious organisation would be bound by their internal rules.

The second part’s discussion ended quite soon. Arguer did not wish to argue if a recently bereaved/separated father should be forced to remarry so as to not deny their child a mother. Apparently having two daddies must be worse than 1 daddy and a mummy who has a different uncle every month.

5. If you are an atheist seeing as homosexual people would tend not to reproduce then shouldn’t their genes be selected against and eventually become extinct?

This led to a giant thread where the proponent exposed their complete ignorant of genetics (when coupled with the incest section). What relevance it has to gay marriage is a mystery,

6. If you are an atheist then you are merely an animal and it’s survival of the fittest and you don’t have a “right” to anything. You are just atoms. If you get killed or don’t get your marriage tough luck, you obviously weren’t fit enough.

Yet another strange diversion in the list arguments against gay marriage.

7. Alternative explanation is that there is God and there is such a thing as right and wrong and these decisions and choices do actually mean something.

Refused to explain why God is so lazy now that he doesn’t perform miracles any more. It’s a shame that in the world of near instant worldwide communication and ubiquitous video recording technology the number of talking burning bushes in the last century is surprisingly low.

How not to argue

What was most amusing was the complete inability to form coherent arguments and respond to direct points and questions whilst spitting them out and demanding answers from others that was displayed.

After being told my position of supporting gay marriage whilst opposing fathers marrying their daughters was inconsistent I spelled out my position as such :

Consenting adults should be able to enter voluntarily into whichever form of relationship with each other as they wish. Where there are issues of abuse or negligible effects on others then that is the point when it becomes anyone elses business. Gay marriage between two consenting adults does not. Incestuous relationships for the most part may do, and certainly enter the territory of negligible effects on others if they plan to have children. Bestiality does as animals cannot consent. Relationships with people with some forms of mental disability may if there is thought to be a lack of ability to consent even if the person is over the age to legally consent. When those people wish to formalise their personal relationship in front of friends and society then the state should either not take any part in recognising any of them or should recognise them all.

I then requested that they provide their position for supporting/opposing some forms of marriage. Obviously this couldn’t be provided as it would probably have no rational logical basis.

What now?

Well, I’m still waiting on seeing a coherent argument against gay marriage. I would award bonus points if it didn’t have it’s roots in some holy books.

I would urge you to go take part in the consultation on gay marriage here. Obviously I want people in favour of it to take part but anyone opposed should also take part (maybe from a different link) so that we can find out why they are opposed. These can then be collated into a single answer of I’m a bigot so have picked some verses out the Bible to justify it times the number of negative responses.

If you are on Twitter you should also follow these good people.

@EqualMarriage
@TomFromBrighton
@LGBTNetwork

Added After original article

And what do you know, the next day this article appeared in the Hootsman Gay marriage could wreck independence, claims ex-SNP leader

A rally 200 strong gets this much coverage in a national paper?

As expected all the spurious arguments are about religion. Take for example this completely untrue nonsense spouted by Bashir Maan a former Glasgow councillor and Muslim community leader

Marriage has always been, right from the dawn of history, between a man and a woman.

Amusingly as a Muslim community leader (elected by whom and when?) he should be aware that certain countries use Islamic rules as an excuse to allow Polygyny

In Islam, polygamy is allowed and practised under certain restricted conditions. Muslim men are allowed to practise polygyny, that is, they can have more than one wife at the same time, up to a total of four. Polyandry, the practice of a woman having more than one husband, by contrast, is not permitted.

Some Muslim-majority countries have Islamic law (sharia) which permits polygyny, although there is internal debate regarding the role of women in Islam. See this discussion on the extent to which states can and do recognize these forms as valid.

Polygamy for Muslims, in practice and in law, differs greatly throughout the Islamic world, where polygamous marriages constitute only 1–3% of all marriages.[1] In some Muslim countries, polygamy is relatively common, while in others, it is rare or non-existent. Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia and Turkey, for example, are predominantly Muslim countries that have not adopted Islamic law for marital regulations, where polygamy is not legal.

I thought being religious was supposed to make you more moral? Why do religious community leaders repeatedly lie in public?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When you read a ridiculous article in the crap tabloid press about tabloid health and safety gone mad the majority of the time it’s nothing to do with health and safety it’s bureaucrats trying to issue diktats. On the few occasions when something is related to health and safety legislation it’s usually blown out of proportion or misreported completely.

But every time you read one of those articles trying to undermine health and safety legislation the purpose is to try and create an opposition to health and safety legislation brought in to prevent tragedies like this. The reason being these events are preventable, but they cost money and greedy bastards can’t stand losing a bit of money to ensure the people who work their ass off so they can make that money in the first place do so in safe working conditions that ensure they will go home at the end of the working day.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A couple of months ago I went to a show by Mark Thomas, he decided to walk the wall Israel is building around Israel (inside the West Bank). Along the way he spoke to people on both sides of the wall. Ultra Orthodox settlers, secular Jews, peaceniks, IDF soldiers, Palestian politics, children and workers and anyone else he met along the way.

He recorded his trip in a book called Extreme Rambling and then had the show around the trip too.

What he details is utterly horrific. I had read about the wall and though it must be bad but kind of suffered from Bad Thing Overload and it became just another terrible thing happening in some corner of the world.

The fence as Israel calls it, wall as the Palestinians call it and Apartheid Wall as it is more accurately described is a naked land grab. An attempt to steal what little land and resources are left in the West Bank, in places diverting dozens of Kilometres into the West Bank to surround illegal settlements.

Workers are herded like cattle through gates at particular times of the day whilst others are refused permits to cross the wall. Even if their ill newborn child is on the other side. In some places cars must drop their passengers off, drive through and pick the passengers up once they have trecked through the barrier themselves. Including young children and the infirm.

Children cannot cross a road, so have to go through a tunnel under it, which flows with sewage. Meanwhile the school they arrive it is having it’s toilet block demolished as it doesn’t have the impossible to get permit. Leaving aside that having building permits doesn’t stop the Israeli state bulldozing homes or surrounding them with walls anyway, whether this wall cuts through football pitches or farms is irrelevant.

Of course, this only applies to Palestinians. Israeli citizens can travel back and forward with impunity.

Meanwhile the child conscripts in the IDF snatch children, keep them in prison for days before dropping them off miles from home to get back themselves. Others are repeatedly beaten.

And after all this, people can still get through the barrier if they know the right people or can grease the right palms.

And apologists for this country which is committing state terrorism on a daily basis defend it because of made up stories in a book by bronze age goat herders about a sociopathic mountain war god!

Israel has essentially turned the West Bank into the worlds largest concentration camp. Meanwhile in the Gaza strip A4 paper and corriander are banned from importation by a sea blockade whilst the ingredients for rockets are all allowed through. Never mind that the threat from armed militias letting off these rockets is the premise used to blockade corriander but let petrol and metal tubing through.

To the west of these countries of course, the masses in Northern African countries like Libya and Egypt get full support from the West in taking up arms against despots via the UN whilst sanction after sanction against Israels behaviour in Palestine is ignored.

Until the Israeli state ceases to treat Palestinians as chattel it is difficult to take on board any of the bleating from it’s apologists. It’s hard to take the moral high ground when you invade and occupy the high ground.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

To quote the Hives Hate To Say I Told You So. Tommy Sheridan has been convicted of perjury. To his acolytes this is a surprise. Even the ones who know he did and also committed perjury on his behalf. To anyone paying attention this was inevitable. To those involved in these issues at the start of them, it was inevitable at the time and he was told it was so. Reckless doesn’t begin to describe his chosen course of action.

A lot has been typed in day following the court case analysing, spinning and putting out the party/ies line on the issue. The SSY have written about some of the facts/logic of the case in their own yoof style.

And to tangent already that gives a great example of the kind of stuff written about the issue.

The SSY in the second paragraph of their 10,000 article state we have no desire to see him punished by prison. People who have read this and are unhappy can be spotted saying The SSY blog is just the endpoint of this kind of scabby logic – outright celebration that “mad shagger” Sheridan is off to the nick..

Given these demonstratable lies and inability to read/understand what has been written in public space, the general public are out of the loop as to the kind of bile being spewed in semi-public lefty discussion space etc by his fan club.

This includes lumping abuse on some witnesses and accusing some of discracefully lying in court and discracefully telling the truth!

Note: I did intend to write more on this but the vile abuse and logical fallacies being spewed by Sheridans sycophants all over the internet reduced my interest in even engaging with them enough to collect some of their nonsense. The post so far is probably enough of a taster on it’s own and I may return to this topic later.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

After the student protests last week there were a couple of gems in the news. The most indicative single article though is this one from the Guardian.

There are two statements of note in this article.

From the Met

The legal challenge came as the Met said more than 180 people have been arrested concerning the student protests. Senior officers said most of the 182 suspects were aged between 17 and 25 and had no records of violence or crime.

According to Theresa May though

the home secretary blamed violence on “an organised group of hardcore activists and street gangs”

So there are a three statements you can take from these if you take them at face value.

1. The police arrested a number of people
2. There were a number of members of street gangs there intent on violence.
3. The majority of those arrested had no criminal record

So this leads to a number of conclusions you could draw

1. There were violent thugs there, but the police did not arrest them and are therefore incompetent
2. There were violent street gangs there, none of whose members had any criminal records
3. There were violent gang members there but people with no criminal record were behaving in such a way that they were a higher arrest priority than the gangsters.

Of course the other stories from the protest are Jody McIntyre being dragged from his wheelchair for the second time on the day by police and then being interrogated by Ben Brown about what he had done to provoke it. The most disgraceful line being that he had menacingly rolled his wheelchair at the police throwing things. He cannot move his wheelchair on his own and due to Cerebral Palsy the chances of him throwing things at the police are remote. The other being Alfie Meadows being given a brain injury by the police

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

She was not happy. They then called again repeatedly. They managed to catch her on an off day for a variety of reasons and after around 40minutes of harassment she gave in. Almost as soon as she hung up she realised her mistake and tried to back out. They immediately responded that she was out of luck, to contact the Federation of Small Businesses and they would confirm that there was no cool off period for self-employed people trading under a business name.

I was pretty pissed off and advised her to put it down to experience. Mainly at how much their advertising was, mainly based on the expectation of their readership etc. Secondly as she had been quite upset at the number of persistent calls she had been getting from them.

They then kept contacting her. She demanded they stop and they only started contacting for payment. After a load more calls touting for sales they have now started contacting her claiming she hasn’t made the August payment. She has. She told them she has. They told her she would have to prove it to them using copies of her bank statements etc (get to fuck!). They have now started contacting her demanding the July payment. Again not proving they haven’t been paid but demanding she prove she has paid them.

From their deceptive sales techniques to their refusal to stop harassing telephone calls to now claiming that payment haven’t been made I am pretty convinced that Insight Magazine are running some sort of scam.

The reasons for this conclusion are numerous:

Persistent calls using pressure sales techniques
Discrepancies about where they distribute
Preference for giving information verbally rather than by email or letter
Persistent calls after being told to stop doing so.
Claiming payments have not been met
Immediate parroting of laws related to areas genuine companies should rarely encounter.

My advice: if you have been contacted by Insight Magazine for advertising – reject it!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

For god sake just let it fucking go so that sane people with more than 3 braincells can turn over to your stations without wincing due to your show plus 24 hour feed of show and daily half hourly analysis of the hour broadcast etc.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

This can range from some local authority sending all staff on a course to learn how to lift boxes properly (so staff don’t knacker their back at work, go off work for ages on the sick and potentially sue their employer) to some school deciding that the latest fad sweeping the playground can potentially result in one child getting hurt and banning it.

Quite ironically of course these same papers will happilly support whatever ludicrous scheme dreampt up by the government because will no one think of the children!! etc.

Of course the real reason for their opposition to Health and Safety is never revealed, it mainly came about because of workers trying to imprive the working conditions of their workplace. Some employers were quite happy to cut corners putting peoples lives at risk to save a few bucks.

Well I quite expect them to be quiet on the health and safety front for a bit as a major story has shown just why such policies exist.

The Buncefield Oil Depot went on fire a few years back destroying dozens of buildings and injuring 43 people. The cause of the fire: several companies cutting corners and breaching Health and Safety regulations.

Full disclosure: I ordered Gennas Christmas present that year from a company located on the estate – who were due to ship it out the day of the fire. I then had to panic and rush round finding a replacement elsewhere a couple of weeks before Christmas.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

They claimed that they were from Google and could get her site to the first page of Google for £99 per month.

Having dealt with this sort of thing before she responded that this sort of claim was a scam and that her site was already on the front page of Google. Additionally companies claiming to be Google were scammers.

The response from the Sales Drone That’s not right you can’t get on the first page of Google yourself you need to pay a company to do that

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Doing a compare between an old and new version of two versions of a piece of software.

This is the last minor release before the next major version number release.

The developer has decided to update his address in the copyright section of almost 300 files. I am now having to go through each of these to find any real changes.

Questions:
1. If you have an address change why do at 1.9.9.9 when you are currently testing 2.0.0.0?
2. Why not just say Copyright as per file /copyright.txt if you are making this change?
3. Why not release a version of the update with actual real changes instead of cosmetic details which is in a comment?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A few weeks ago I get a knock at the door and it is someone from an energy company touting for business by trying to convince us to switch suppliers.

I forget the exact figures but he asked me what my energy bill was. I said £90/quarter for electricity and £10/week for gas during last quarter (winter). He pulls up his tablet PC and tells me I currently spend £360/year on electricity and £520/year on gas. This adds up to £880/year on energy costs. If I switched to his company then with their £50 duel customer saving it would only cost £850 per year.

I looked at him.

He looked back.

Me: Those were the figures for the last quarter – winter, where we clearly spend more on heating

Energy man – glazed look.

Me: You multiplied my Winter quarter fuel costs by 4 to get my yearly bill.

Energy man – Yeah there are 4 quarters in the year

How many people fall for this. Not only would this not be a saving without switching both energy supplies, it is only a saving if the figures used were correctly used for a comparison, which they clearly were not.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I recommend reading it. Ryan also says he has a recording proving the claim made by a number of people online and my partner that they say they can guarantee first place in a search on Google. This is of course not possible to do and any company claiming so would be obtaining money from customers by deception.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Jim McGovern was too lazy to show up to the debate or vote either way. The vote had a 38.2% turnout. Look out for he and others lecturing in the media about vote apathy in the near future.

Speaking of Jim McGovern I had a letter from him.

A quick timeline
22nd March I write to him asking him to oppose DEB and what he intends to do.
7th April he doesn’t show up to debate.
7th April I get letter from him.

This letter was not to do with the DEB (still waiting Jim) but was his Election called, I’m not MP *cough* vote for me *cough* excuse to use up his branded stationary to all constituents. Pretty insulting right?

The content of the letter was even more so:

I will not be able to ..deal with constituency casework over the election period.

Liar

MPs are able to work on cases for constituents if the constituent understands they are not doing so as an MP and agree for them to continue on work.

So not only does he ignore my letter, he doesn’t turn up to the debate I was asking about and on the day of the debate writes to me with incorrect information.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Having spent several years as a member of the payroll vote he eventually started being a constituency MP.

He voted for authoritarian measures like storing massive amount of information on citizens and then tried to block information about where he has been on taxpayers money using privacy as his excuse.

He gets caught in the expenses scandal by spending £200 on a DVD player (having already bought a computer), £900 on a desk and putting in £500 for petty cash whilst also claiming 20p and 30p for rubbers and pencils.

He hasn’t responded to my mails about the Digital Economy Bill and last night couldn’t be arsed turning up to hear the debate or vote.

I can’t remember if he voted to extend the time to imprison people without charge but he has just not voted against a bill to cut people off the internet on accusations of breaching a minor criminal offence.

The only thing I can remember him doing of note was call the Royal Family parasites.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

To celebrate, rather than record the usual show of about 1hour the hosts organised a 12 hour spectacular pulling together some of the brightest and most interesting people in the web industry. There were experts on coding and design, CSS and CMS, useability and social networking etc. There were also girls. OMG!!!!!

Suffice to say the mouth breathers in the shows chatroom went ballistic. These women couldn’t have been invited on because they were experts in their field, oh no. They were invited on because they were women. The fact they dared to be attractive women, intelligent women, confident women was just too much for them to bear.

IT is a bad enough field as it is for being male dominated. From university to workplaces the vast majority of people involved are male. If you want to question if this is self-perpetuating or not you only have to have seen some of the reports of comments being made by these people.

Two of the women involved in the show Sarah Parmenter and Rachel Andrew have written brilliant pieces laying into these Neanderthals which I would highly recommend reading.

Take small comfort from the thought that this morning most of those who disgraced themselves will be waking up and falling asleep alone, with only Warcraft to take their frustrations out onto.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I can log into the Live mail account associated with it and am online doing other things.

What am I trying to do? Play Dawn of War 2 Campaign.

That, is a single player game which requires two online services to run – Steam and Games For Windows.

I will repeat – I want to play a single player version of a game and can’t as 1 of the 2 online services required to do so is bust.

This is a fundamentally flawed design from a gamers perspective. I am sure Microsoft love that they have you DRM’d up the wazzo and that you can’t re-sell the game. What they fail to remember is that gamers don’t care about the publishers perspective on these issues.

Your system is broken.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Daily mash as usual are pretty on the ball with the satire.

He apparently will be touring the country later in the year condemning homosexuals and anything else that pops from his arse to his mouth.

You know there was a book about some guy written a couple of thousands years ago and one of the thing this guy says in it is a pretty good quote to take on board.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

So here’s an idea for Mr Ratzinger.

When you stop your organisation covering up the systematic molestation of thousands of children over the course of decades (that we know of) then you can stick your nose into other peoples sex life.

Until then shut the fuck up or you taking part in ritualistic cannibalism and pretending to hear voices is fair game for everyone else to rip the piss out of.

And in the meantime, sign the petition to try to stop UK taxpayers footing the bill for the head of a foreign state to tour the country spreading hateful propaganda against minorities.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Apparently them phoning up people claiming to be from Google and people reporting this is grounds to send in legal threats.

In the actual thread a number of people posted their experience with the company (the post was third in Google when you searched for the company). These included people claiming to be former and current customers and former staff.

A boss then waded in claiming that their staff did no such thing. His rambling run on sentences were something to behold. Then a number of testimonials appeared from satisfied customers with a very similar writing style. He then posted again claiming people writing bad things about his company were all working for his competitors.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The newspaper headline section was hilarious with their shocking headlines and attacks on Brown. Given the Daily Mails usual line I was shocked that Frozen Britain wasn’t Browns Frozen Britain.

I’m no fan of the pillock but the tabloid attacks can be pretty pathetic sometimes.

It never happened under Blair was a jokey comment followed by Just call me Dave will sort it out. You could just picture a Dave sermon on waste

Under the former Labour Government, Labour councils were riddled with waste. For example: grit. They whinged and whinged they didn’t have enough of it, then when he splurged more on them it dissapeared immediately. None could be found it the depot, they were just chucking it away. As soon as it was gone they demanded more. Outrageous. Millions couldn’t make it to work, schools were closed, it was more damaging than a day of strike!! Our Conservative government stopped this by not shipping grit to councils who would waste it and moving everyone into workhouses so they wouldn’t have an excuse for being late. As for kids, education is a ridiculous expense they can sweep chimneys in my manor from the age of eight.

You get the idea.

With Tory or Labour cuts coming you could see a repeat of this only getting worse. If you are a council in the South East and get a wee sprinkling of snow every other year and an inch or so every 30 years it’s a short term gain to cut spending on grit supplies. In the next 4 years that’s a low chance of needing them. Look at all that waste you have saved, inefficiency solved. Never mind that to get it when you need it as your streets are locked up means the price is gouged and days of work have been lost for thousands of people including council employees. It’s the same short term policy planning that leads to quarterly bonuses for bankers etc.

I was reminded of this watching a video on Daily Mash of David Mitchell ranting about waste. He points out it’s like taking over a bar and saying you will eliminate waste by banning spillages and being really really careful. And just as likely to work. Unfortunately I can’t find the clip.

Maybe the councillors should find out more about the delays in getting salt and grit to their doors when it’s needed. They all seem in favour of a junket at our expense, in Dundee these have included trips to the middle east and trips to strip bars. Maybe a fact finding mission to the salt mines of Siberia is in order. Of course we should only look at the short term cost so buying a return ticket is out. Once there they can make a plan for the short term by trying to then get a single to return.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Banks had to meet the costs of doing business.

From a bank who had billions chucked at it after failing at business and then billions more in secret so that it’s share price wouldn’t plummet more. They then started discussing how many staff to make redundant.

The bare faced cheek of the man.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It is an outrage that your government have sacked Professor David Nutt. Surely the purpose of advisers is to give an experts opinion not to rubber stamp policy decisions by government taken not because of scientific evidence but in line with the opinions of the readers of the vile Daily Mail.

Perhaps your government can find a drugs adviser from the scientific school of Trofim Lysenko? It is bad enough that the government ignores the evidence from scientific study into the uselessness of the “war on drugs” and the huge positive gains to be made by prescribing heroin to addicts but to now sack advisers for stating that the facts are contrary to government policy is inexcusable.

Considering McGovern spent months on the payroll vote and his likelihood of being re-elected is zilch I doubt I’ll get anything positive back from him (as per usual).

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Friday

On the Friday we arrived in the afternoon so we only really ate out for tea. With the hotel we were given a voucher for various Hotel owned outlets. We opted for Poppadom Express having had a great meal there the last time. The receptionist said there was no need to book a table although the voucher said you did. We popped in and were asked if we had booked, no and we explained. After a short while we got a table.

We ordered drinks and went up to the buffet for our starters. I noticed the selection was well down on last time. Our drinks arrrived, well most of them, the bottle of wine did not. When we eventually spotted a waitress we pointed it out and she got the original waiter. We said we had also ordered a bottle of wine but it hadn’t come. He started arguing that we hadn’t ordered it. Bit bizarre, whether we had already ordered it or were making a new order we were still getting a bottle which was more than a place at the buffet. I had a curry Karachi Chicken which was ok, and the hottest they had. Then I tried their Korma which was pretty crap. Was disappointed as it had been great the last time.

Saturday

Breakfast was also a bit poor, the hotel appeared to have cut the offerings and it was always cold.

Saturday lunch time was at Covent Garden Piazza and I had a Lancaster Cheese Burger which was gorgeous. Teatime we tried to order pizza. Pizza orders go to same place as the Indian. We were told they just had a few people in so were too busy and hung up. I have phoned Dominos, Pizza Hut etc when busy and they have said It will be at least an hour is that ok? but never said too busy and hung up. Pretty shit service from the same place two nights in a row. We opted to go to the hotel and I had a half decent chicken curry (their other option didn’t look that good). It was actually quite tasty.

Sunday

Sunday we were down at Spitalfields so at lunch had food in a pup called White Hart where I tried a beef burger. It was fantastic, well above the usual pub standard. Place was pleasant, staff friendly. A pair sat at the table beside us and we got chatting for a bit. Anatolia from Russia, then Belgium, now London. They were looking for info on a Kevin Spacey play. Grabbed the Nokia 770 and they were really grateful.

For tea at night we went looking at some of the Italians etc near the hotel. Eventually setting for Cagneys in a side street. I had a really nice Barbecue chicken.

Monday

At Kings Cross we had lunch at a really nice French cafe along the Strand. Gorgeous Escalope chicken. Will definitely go there again.

Gabys Hot Stuff

At Spitalfields market there was a stall with Chili sauce. I tasted it and then grabbed a jar, gorgeous stuff. Family recipe from Central America, chilli sauce made from Habaneros. It was quite amusing watching the mortals wince after tasting a bit. Would have got a bottle but I still have some from Mexico but wanted to support them anyway.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

For £149 per year she can have a site with a shop. A quick scan of their site shows that that package is £199 per year. The £149 one is aimed at people with no website at all. On the phone the Web Consultant (sales rep) also asked her what her website address was. Nice research there bub. A quick search for teh number they were calling very quickly shows that.

A quick browse round their site was quite telling. News from 2007 (we are a popular company, see this non-existant report that you would have to pay for anyway), a blog (link dead) and vacancies. The vacancies at these places is always interesting, multiple telesales positions, 1 web developer position. The web developer ad language is amateurish at best, not what you would expect from a really big web design company which has been going for years.

A search on the company finds almost no mention of them anywhere, not helped by their name being made of two common words.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Firstly by claiming that other churches do it too (nice deflection)

Secondly by claiming that the majority of paedophile priests were gay.

Supremely ironic given one of the vilest homophobic attacks is to claim that gay people are paedophiles. See this article for example.

but lastly with this belter.

only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

So if you are in a room with 20 priests, one of them is a child molester, and according to the Vatican that’s no big deal.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I just watched the trailer.

What the hell is Burton doing with all this ridiculous CGI? It looked appalling and out of place. Never mind that most of it was completely unnecessary, bah. CGI works if it blends in to the film, if it adds details but doesn’t stand out. All the grognnards complain about the remastering of Star Wars, what made it bad wasn’t that it was restored and remastered and cleaned up but that CGI was dumped in (and that Greedo shot first, obviously). It jarred against the style of the film and also made the rest of the film look dated. The previous remastering where they mainly cleaned up the print was a welcome improvement.

I had been looking forward to it, but don’t know if I should even bother now.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I had heard great things about both Drupal and Joomla so figured they would be top of my list. Looked at the install for Drupal, looked simple enough. Tried to install on my machine and got no end of problems.

Hey let’s create an “install.php” but not make it do a complete install, sod that we want our users to learn loads of unix commands to set it up, too hard for the authors to script.

Fuck that noise.

WordPress and Cubecart being the two other applications I have installed both had this facility. I don’t mind editing a config file or anything but that was a step too far. When I install an application on Windows you follow the options and click appropriate sections. You don’t have to hand edit the registry. Why? Because you shouldn’t have to.

I then downloaded Joomla, waited and age for it to upload to server and then went to the directory. Redirected to installation directory where it checks my requirements. It tells me I have a problem, the help file with the handy screenshots tells me exactly what I need to do to fix it. It then checks again. It asks for FTP and MySQL usernames etc. Installs and is all set to go.

I have no idea yet if it does what I want it to do but unlike Drupal it has passed the first hurdle of making it possible for me to find that out. It could be that WordPress would do but I think the option to easily integrate forums etc is a good bonus. I have to have her shop in it too which will be another hurdle.

Lesson: you may have the greatest web application in the world but if you make users jump through hoops in order to test it you will get nowhere. If I cared enough to look into it I would have managed to set up Drupal, I just didn’t give enough of a shit to. My time is too valuable to me to waste learning how to do stuff your install should script for me. How you expect Joe Bloggs to do so is a mystery.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

protected void CheckBulletHits()
{
// Check to see of any of the players bullets have
// impacted any of the enemies.
for (int i = 0; i < iMaxBullets; i++)
{
if (bullets[i].IsActive)
for (int x = 0; x < iTotalMaxEnemies; x++)
if (Enemies[x].IsActive)
if  (Intersects(bullets[i].BoundingBox, Enemies[x].CollisionBox))
{
DestroyEnemy(x);
RemoveBullet(x);
}
}
}

Curly braces exist for a reason. (also WordPress displays code blocks crap, had to nest them, time to look for a plugin). Edit – found.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

£658 for a computer desk.
£4360 to set up his 10 page website – surely not.
£123 for a trouser press.
£950 for a sofa bed.

As well as everything from cushions to bath screens he also claimed £2 for a knife.

His office expenses are equally bizarre with things as petty as 32p for a pair of scissors and 22p for drawing pins.

Almost every month he was putting down £400 for food (one month he tried for £500 and was knocked back), £250 for petty cash. How can you claim 32p for items in your office then £250 for petty cash, what the hell was the petty cash for?

Most amusing though was regularly paying a grand for leaflets then companies 4 grand to deliver them. Kind of shows the state of the Labour party membership in the city if they have to pay for leaflets to be delivered!

So given that the expenses cover council tax, rent/mortgage, food, household goods, phone bills etc.
The question remains: what is his salary for?

Mind you that is after the question what are the expenses for?. Well they are supposed to be essentials needed to be an MP. I don’t think cushions are essential. I don’t think a computer desk needs to cost over £600 and I am baffled as to why an MP from Dundee can claim for an overnight stay in a hotel in South Wales. Was that when he was visiting parliament or his constituency?

Jim Devine

Jim Devine is even more amusing a list of different dodgy expenses and every one of them was someone else cocking up in a completely different way. Occam’s Razor slices, it dices, it leaves it most likely he’s fibbing.

Eric Joyce squirming

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Now bear in mind none of these installers actually mentioned these as prerequisites in the installation process.

I started working on a little game about 2 years ago. I dug it out, spewed when I saw the state of the code and upgraded it to .Net 3.5. Once it was all updated in content and style I looked at it again and realised I should really split up into a data layer to properly use as a demo/project.

I realised I had removed SQL Server 2005 and the 2008 developer pack came with a trial rather than a full version. I remembered about Compact Edition which you are supposed to be able to ship with your code.

I go to install it and it fails as I don’t have Windows Installer 4.5 installed. So I go install that, and then Compact Edition.

Still can’t do anything, need the tools for it.

I go to install the tools and it barfs complaining I don’t have Powershell installed.

I find Powershell and install it.

I then proceed in the 10stage or so install, it seems happy enough.

Fill in all Database account details, carries on.

Boom – you need Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 installed.

This wasn’t pointed out earlier in the requirements section? I also thought I had it installed as it doesn’t appear in Windows Update.

I download the Service pack or should I say the installer for it. Run it and it complains as I have no space. I only have 2GB on drive C. Drive D has about 20GB free. It is also where I have Visual Studio installed. There is no option to change the download location.

What the hell is this crap.

After installing 4 things when installers barf it is still barfing and refusing to install. It shouldn’t be this hard to install a sodding database server. I tried looking for what other databases are usable in Visual Studio but had no luck yet. I was hoping to use Compact as it is usable by the database tools I am used to using in work and I wanted to experiment with Linq a bit.

In work I have the full service pack on a DVD, may have to copy that if I can’t find it online.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Californias Supreme Court rules that no more gay marriages can take place.

For an accurate summary of this insanity see this Center For Inquiry post.

Can anyone point to an argument against gay marriage not based on religion. I have looked and looked but can’t find one.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The first has been overlooked by the national news: Woman beat for seven hours.

A woman was beaten for seven hours by her partner, the neighbours at around midnight heard cries resembling shrieks from a horror film. Neighbours were wakened by her screaming No, no. Stop..

Thankfully one of them eventually phoned the police at 7:30am. Why the fuck it took one of them 7 hours hasn’t been explained.

The other has reached the national news. Some cretins objecting to a bike race around Pitlochry spread tacks over the road on a downhill stretch. Hundreds of tires were punctured, not only on bikes but on an ambulance and police car supporting the race.

The only local quoted in the Courier against the half day road closure.

We may not leave our homes for any essential items and, much more importantly, the whole community is prevented from attending the Sunday Christian services.

I wonder if the roads would be closed and the residents ‘restrained’ if we were of other faiths or nationalities.

I was under the impression that we were attempting to fight discrimination. Perhaps not if you are white and Christian and don’t cycle.

What a maroon.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Today she had one from Google.

Or at least a company impersonating Google.

The company was First Search Consulting (). A bunch of snake-oil selling cowboys.

I won’t link to their shit website as it:

• Plays music when you load it
• Doesn’t have valid HTML
• Will help them in search engines

Amusingly, like all SEO companies, their own search results are pitiful. The only search page keywords which get them on the first page of Google are the company name.

SEO isn’t the only thing they do though, oh no.

They also do Broadband and Web Design.

On broadband, they don’t actually have that yet, but they are taking orders for a too good to be true deal. Their expertise in the area shines through when they mention they need your MAC code, which changes on a monthly basis.

Fuck knows what they mean by that.

A MAC code in relation to broadband would be a code put on your network card when manufactured which stays the same forever unless you go into the guts of the software and intentionally change it. It certainly doesn’t change frequently never mind monthly.

But their web design side.

Holy crap what an abortion.

Their portfolio has 9 examples of their work.

None of which validate.

Nine of which have table based layout.

These fucking cowboys shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near computers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Please sign the online petition in favour of Scott Rennie the gay minister who is in danger of losing his post within Queen’s Cross Church due to his sexuality.

Here is what you have to do:

1) sign up to Facebook

2) go to the petition created by Anne Gourlay and sign

3) In case anyone needs some background then this is a useful article

4) pass on this to your pals

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I rarely text and when I do I try to, on a shit keyboard, use correct spelling. I understand that two differs in meaning from to and too. I don’t understand compromising a 2 or 3 character word into 1. Paying by the character are we? R is a letter, are is a word.

From the ever reliable Wikipedia

Communication is commonly defined as “the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs…”, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior … also: exchange of information”.

It is thus with disdain I read of the imminent re-branding of the SciFi channel.

SciFi is an abbreviation of Science Fiction. The new name will be SyFy, which is not. Additionally, it sounds like an abbreviation of a venereal disease. Apparantly this is what the hip kids would abbreviate Science Fiction to.

Nonsense.

SyFy barely comes up on a search and in fact doesn’t seem to appear before the last month or so.

Under what circumstances would you compress Science Fiction to SyFy? I don’t understand the International Phonetic Alphabet but would that not be a completely different pronunciation?

When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it … It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.

Let’s look at this:

Who are the techno savvy kids? Are they trying to appeal to dance music fans or something.

It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip

Eurgh!

And finally: which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.

This is marketing fuckwit for which was our aim. Maybe he wants to touch base with someone offline to collaborate on a making yourself look like a twat solution.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

If you needed a better reason to doubt that religion is the basis of morality and irreligion is the basis of amorality it is the recent case from Brazil.

A nine year old girl was systematically raped by her stepfather for a number of years. She eventually fell pregnant to twins. At nine years old.

Her doctors sensibly advised that she have a termination due to having the body of a nine year old and thus having a very high if not certain chance of death giving birth. Her mother supported the decision and the doctors carried it out.

Then along came the celibate ranks of the Catholic Church.

Shock and Horror, Hell and Damnation they spouted. Abortion is a sin don’t you know. Can’t have that sort in our church they proclaimed.

Cast them out like the imaginary demons they exorcise in Latin.

Excommunication for the child’s mother and the sinful doctors who save her life. The girl herself is fine, too young to be at fault – just like her foetus in heaven or Limbo or whatever the line is now. She can remain in the church. Her and her step-father. The multiple rapist (who also molested her mentally disabled sister).

Rape children or be a fascist dictator (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco) and you’re a-ok. Just repent your sins on your deathbed and it’s straight to heaven with you. You can also stay a member of the church.

Save the life of a nine year old rape victin – begone, out ye go and probably straight to hell when you die.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Orphanage, 2 years old and being remade because a section of the movie liking audience are too xenophobic to cope with subtitles and foreign dialogue. Fuck, em if they wish to miss this fine film out of their own pig-headedness and ignorance that’s their problem.

They Live, yes. The question is who can replace Roddy Piper and Keith David?

He-man. He-man is being remade, fantastic! I remember this as one of the first films I saw at the cinema. It was opening night at the ABC, where Yates etc is now.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

At 83 it can’t be long now surely? One of the days where I smiled most was reading that her dementia was so bad that she thinks her racist piece of shit husband was still alive. Having to be re-told every day that the person you love most in the world is dead is the best punishment she could possibly receive. It is the only small comfort in the knowledge that she is still depriving the rest of the human race of the oxygen she continues to use.

Costello said it best

Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
Long enough to savour
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

* He of Father Ted, Black Books and IT Crowd fame.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What has not been as widely reported are the demos in Israel against the action

One account described the slogans/banners and the hoops they had to jump through to be able to protest.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A multimillionaire politician and media tycoon responsible for the harassment and mass fingerprinting of the Roma population in Italy and trying to make himself immune to prosecution for his corrupt terms in power.

After taking a massive amount of cash for a huge spread in the Daily Record including half naked pictures it is unsurprising.

At the weekend I had better things to do, such as attend a protest against the slaughter in Gaza.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

96 years and 230+ wars (28 ongoing) after the war to end all wars.

Israel have been blockading medical supplies to Palestine for months and one of their ships rammed a vessel in international waters taking urgent medical supplies to help the injured.

Consider donating a small sum to Medical Aid for Palestine, one of the charities working to provide on the ground emergency medical aid.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

If Brown’s ridiculous use of anti-terrorism laws against Iceland have stopped this beautiful drink getting into the country it will be the straw that broke the camels back. I’ll oppose you privatising public services, march against the wars and bailouts you have bottomless pits of money for, but deny me good vodka and you’re beyond the pale sunshine.

In other news this week, a tanned celebrity going into Big Brother house has caused much mirth in lefty circles and an Iraqi with a pretty good aim has caused many cheers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I remember the day unfolding and posting in the thread on UGS being sceptical about the numerous claims made by the Police: he was running, was challenged, had heavy clothing to conceal a bomb etc, all of which turned out to be nonsense.

Where are the Tories bleating about the abuse of state powers and Stalinist government today? Or are Labour only stamping on civil liberties when Tories are the subject of their regime?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Various news agencies have reported on EC President Jose Manuel Barroso talking about Britain and the Euro.

I don’t mean this will happen tomorrow, I know that the majority (of British people) are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration underway and the people which matter in Britain are currently thinking about it

Democracy EU style as usual. No doubt if there was a vote against it another follow shortly after.

I don’t really care what currency I have in my pocket whether it’s Euros, Pounds Sterling or Scottish Pounds.

In other political news the Tories are spitting in their corn flakes about the arrest of Damian Green. They have now come to the conclusion that New Labour have a wee bit of an authoritarian streak about them and that the anti-terrorism laws are being abused. This from the self righteous hypocrites who were trying to decide whether people should be locked up for 28 or 90 days without charge, support locking up children in prisons before they are sent back to regimes where they face torture and excecution and stayed silent whilst the laws were used to attack Icelandic assets in the UK.

Yes it’s a bad thing but after the litany of attacks on democracy by both Labour and the Tories they are hardly able to complain.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites