Turning Up The Heat

Here is an idea for Britain's Traffic Taliban to get their teeth into.

Drivers in China are being forced to eat raw chilli by police to stop them falling asleep at the wheel.

What would be the UK equivalent, one wonders? Being compelled by mobile plod to digest a Zinger Tower Burger at Leicester East services perhaps?

Arch driver-hater, Richard Brunstrom, Chief Cunstable of North Wales Police, may prefer a more robust approach. I reckon he'd plump for mandatory administering of a Dorset Naga the moment you drive into Cymru, isn't it. Look you.

China's roads are among the most dangerous in the world due to overloaded and speeding trucks.
Drivers switch lanes without signalling and often ignore traffic lights.

Cos we never see that over here, do we?

Sick

The IRA bastards back in Norn Iron and now, this and this.

The world is a very sick place to be today.

Smoking Ban Amended In The UK

... only for some, though.

From The Sun's political gossiper, The Whip, today:

The Whip is contacted by a source who works for the company involved in the G20 Summit being held at Excel in London's Canning Town next month. "Although smoking is banned within work places in the UK and has been a vigorously enforced Labour policy, it is being allowed at the G20 summit - indeed, there is a smoking lounge," he reports.

Oh, I see. If this is the case (The Sun?), we can't make up our own minds about the lethal health risk, but our masters can.

The hypocrisy is truly jaw-dropping.

I wonder if it will be like this one in the EU Parliament building.

Biting And Chewing: Entirely Different Skills

Could the Righteous have chomped on more than they can digest?

Play games and die!

A new Department of Health advert shows a child holding what appears to be a PlayStation 3 Sixaxis pad and bears the unequivocal warning “RISK AN EARLY DEATH. JUST DO NOTHING”. Shocked? You surely should be…

Further cementing the apparent link between videogames and a premature demise - i.e. yours! - the ad is backed by the heavyweight likes of The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research and Diabetes UK. So there must be something in it, right?

Err ... no? They are always there, they're a collection of ludicrous bansturbating fucknuts. If they said that today is Tuesday, I'd check the fucking calendar first.

Nope. Games, in spite of the great strides the industry has made to get its consumers, singing, dancing, exercising and flexing their grey matter, are an easy target, plain and simple.

You're learning quick. Welcome to our world. One day, CAMRA might join in too.

And now it appears playing them could lead to some properly life-threatening diseases!

Of course it won't. And they probably won't need to say much more for now, you know why? Because it's been published. It doesn't need to be justified anymore. It is, as we speak, flying around the world quicker than the International Space Station. Parents will already be clipping their kids' ears and telling them that if they get their Nintendo DS out, they will get cancer.

It's how it works, this science by press release stuff.

The UK games industry has rallied to its own defence, with trade magazine MCV lodging an official complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, and Sony stating that they are considering legal action, but it remains to be seen whether it’ll change any deeper-held prejudices. Put another way, we doubt it’s the last time we’ll see games scapegoated like this.

That's more like it! First whiff of a threat from these fuckers, and immediate action. Let's see how the fucktard who thought this campaign up will cope with a multi-national like Sony, or Nintendo, or both in cahoots, shoving some huge legal books up their smug puritan backside.

This could be fun.

Myth To Reality

Yes, I know the liars at ASH are an easy target, but I couldn't resist this one.

Remember those top nine myths about the smoking ban that ASH trumpeted? You surely must. They were the ones that were either not myths at all, or made up ones. I mentioned them here.

Well, number 4 has been comprehensively proven to be fact this week by no less an authority as LACORS (the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services).

Here is the ASH myth again:

4) Myth: There will be heavy handed enforcement with undercover officers and covert filming

The LACORS advisory document begins by saying how very very successful the ban has been and how there is 98% compliance. It reports on page 4 that the legislation is overwhelmingly supported

high rates of self enforcement are evident and that there is therefore only a minimal need to employ enforcement measures.

Not a lot of point in more enforcement then, wouldn't you think? Job done.

Not a chance.

Covert surveillance should only be used when a council is satisfied that it is necessary and proportionate.

Covert surveillance? Wasn't that what ASH said wouldn't happen? "Pah!" they said, it's all a myth. LACORS have gone into it in great detail though. RIPA gets a mention, as does Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.

LACORS believes that directed surveillance in a smokefree premise would not generally be an invasion of a person’s Article 8 rights

98% and they are still not happy. Remarkable, isn't it? They want the lot (by the way, have I mentioned before, drinkers? This is coming your way soon.)

It gets better (or worse), too. The inside isn't enough anymore. They're getting their tape measures primed for outside as well.

Similarly where planting is employed so as to form an outer face of the structure, or it is in such close proximity as to be effectively contiguous with the face of the structure, then this will need to be taken into account. In cases of doubt measurements will be required.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if part of your smoking area includes a plant, LACORS advises that your friendly neighbourhood smoking inspector should come down there and measure the leaves to ensure you are adequately frozen.

62 pages of this shit, paid for at our expense, just so that 22% of the public should be as inconvenienced as possible. I don't know about you, but that amounts to bullying in my book. I thought we were against that sort of thing.

Let's revisit the ASH 'myth' again. Remember that bit about heavy-handed enforcement? I give you page 22.

LACORS believes that the smokefree legislation specifies a suitable range of enforcement options, from FPNs through to prosecution, and that therefore officers should be considering these for use first before looking to any other options such as simple cautions. Councils are also advised against creating additional quasi-legal procedures such as ‘warning notices’ as these have been previously discredited.

Why bother with all that caution stuff when you can go all out for the fine or prosecution? Too messy. Too light-handed, one might say.

Myth number 4 from ASH. Another that is not a myth at all.

Next!

CAMRA: Will They Wake Up In Time?

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) are running a campaign to save pubs. Whilst we all wish them well, when are they going to realise that this is a real battle, and that they are, thus far, about as useful as a plastic sword against a tank.

The graph above shows the gut-wrenching naiveté of these (admittedly well-meaning) guys. Times Lab were confused by the differing stats from pub-lovers and did a little investigation.

CGA’s figures (commissioned by the BBPA) differ markedly from CAMRA’s - the Campaign for Real Ale (shown above in green), but by CAMRA’s own admission, its survey hasn’t been going as long, isn’t as formal, and relies on reports from volunteers at its 200 branches around the country.

Relies on reports from volunteers? How scientific is that? Alcohol Concern is government funded, they will be looking at CAMRA and laughing their righteous socks off. AC have figures coming out of their ears, CAMRA have a load of guys in sweaters. Who were wrong. They are toast.

None of this is a surprise seeing as CAMRA rolled over and died at the mere whiff of a smoking ban. Their considered and intensive research was that their volunteers thought it was OK as long as they got their Old Peculiar from the old peculiar barmaid. Nothing to see here, and the missus likes it too as it doesn't make her beard smell.

Will CAMRA wake up in time to fight the bansturbating Pros that seek to denormalise them? The early evidence isn't encouraging, their leader is still in the appeasement stage.

The eagle-eyed will have spotted the (deliberate?) mistake in the Times graph, by the way. For the X axis, read 2007 for 2006 and so on. Figures for 2006 should have been four a week. It only leapt to 27 per week after a certain piece of legislation. Can you guess what it was?

Hint for CAMRA: It was the smoking ban. Now fucking wake up, or you're next.

An Epidemic Of Arrogance

Forget HN51, a far worse disease has gripped our politicians. Their minds appear to have been infected by a strain of the dangerous FU-ALL-24/7 virus.

Take Michael McGimpsey, for example, the seriously sinister-looking Northern Irish Assembly Health Minister. This is him.


Only having come across the guy today, I'm already of the opinion that McGimpsey is a pedigree dictatorial ringpiece. And it wouldn't be surprising if you were to feel the same way.

How else do you describe someone who, in replying to valid concerns from assembly members speaking up for their constituents, dismisses them thus?

Mr Ross also said that it is not up to Government to tell adults what to do. Well, listen: people cannot just do what they want. That is why, for example, when I bring forward termination of pregnancy legislation, I will be telling adults what to do.

If I were to follow Mr Ross’s logic, people could simply do what they want.

It is a similar situation with pornography laws — one cannot simply let adults do what they want.

McGimpsey is a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, who boast on their web-site that they are ...

... working for an honest sharing of power and a fair, inclusive agenda for all.

But not if you wish to do what you want in a 'free' country, of course.

I imagine that, given half a chance, the rancid provincial felcher would describe himself as democratic. He may well be the product of a voting process, but there his democratic credentials end. Listen, Uncle Fester, you're an authoritarian cunt who seems to have completely forgotten the role of an elected representative. It's not to stop the public doing what they wish to do, simply because you don't like it.

Good fucking grief. You're voted in to protect our interests and do exactly what we tell you to do. How the fuck do you get something as basic as that so very badly wrong?

He's not the only one though, they're all at it, irrespective of party. How about this holier-than-thou bullshit from Glenis Willmott, Labour MEP and leader of the reds in the Euro Parliament, just over a week ago. In response to a commenter who believed "that the number of hours I can work should be my decision according to my circumstances and priorities and [I] see no need for regulation restricting this", Willmott replied:

... the Working Time directive is health and safety law designed to protect workers and consumers from the dangers that working excessive hours can bring. Working more than 48 hours per week on a regular basis can pose significant risks to health. Excessive working time is linked to stress, depression and heart disease.

That's Labour MEP-speak for "It may be your life, but we know better than you how you should live it. So we're going to force you to do as we say ... or you will die".

Then there's Scotland's SNP quaker-in-chief Shona Robison forcing through laws that no-one wants, on the basis that 255 'medical professionals' think it's best for 5 million voters; ASH and Alcohol Concern running the Department of Health without a single democratic vote between them, and supported by so few voters that their donations wouldn't even buy them a Ford Mondeo. The list seems endless.

MPs Reneging on manifesto commitments without shame, dreaming up authoritarian legislation on the hoof, rigging 'consultations' to ensure agreement with their plans, bastardising science to create threats that don't exist, twisting statistics to create non-existent public support, and, as we see yet again from Michael McGimpsey, sticking their fingers in their ears when anyone dares to question them.

"It's for your own good", you see.

And they wonder why the electorate are increasingly apathetic and politicians are treated with contempt.

It's because you're a collection of self-serving, sneering, egotistical, ignorant and incompetent bastards, that's why. Every last stinking one of you. And because of your perverted view of democracy, we are all fucked.

Cunts.