Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act
Mmmmm. I missed the news on this during the day it was happening. But it's all part of a very worrying trend. We've reached the point where the Government's own paranoia and fantasy-land view of reality is tipping over to a point where we're all going to be seen by it as being terrorists...
With the TV currently having a Thatcher retrospective - I'm reminded that hers was a government where a MP was murdered in a car bomb and herself and her cabinet where all nearly killed in a hotel bombing, and there where many incidents where people were killed - and as authoritarian as the Thatcher Government was - they never saw the need for all these extra new laws that are only going to prove a great threat to civil liberties of many a innocent person.
BBC NEWS | UK | Photographers angry at terror law
Photographers protest against Section 76
With the TV currently having a Thatcher retrospective - I'm reminded that hers was a government where a MP was murdered in a car bomb and herself and her cabinet where all nearly killed in a hotel bombing, and there where many incidents where people were killed - and as authoritarian as the Thatcher Government was - they never saw the need for all these extra new laws that are only going to prove a great threat to civil liberties of many a innocent person.
BBC NEWS | UK | Photographers angry at terror law
Photographers protest against Section 76
Charlie Brooker: Television has the perfect answer to credit crunch despair - full-frontal nudity
I've actually sat through a couple of these programmes now and haven't been able to believe what I was watching. It's truly baffling to me how BBC three ever came to commission this in the first place. The only sane and sensible people on the show are those that walk out - refusing to take any further part in it. There's absolutely no real reason why anyone should appear naked in public if they don't want to and having a camera crew following you around recording your distress - and these utterly bizarre 'self-help' people coaching you through it...
It's all just pervy and sick - and not in a good way.
"Television has the perfect confidence-boosting answer to credit crunch despair - full-frontal nudity" Charlie Brooker.
It's all just pervy and sick - and not in a good way.
"Television has the perfect confidence-boosting answer to credit crunch despair - full-frontal nudity" Charlie Brooker.
Just rewards?
Darling bids to stop Goodwin's £693,000-a-year pension.
(Considering the lengths the DSS and local councils go to to claw back overpayments to the unemployed for relatively minor sums of tax payers' money [as part of their state-sanctioned long-running 'let's punish the poor' campaigns] - they should pull their fingers out and get this stopped right now.)
Fred Goodwin's pension: It won't make him happier. (Although I doubt he's crying himself to sleep every night.)
The Spirit Level
Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
(according to the website this book is not yet published.)
Wow. You don't say. Golly, but we can't stop now -not just when the 'trickle-down effect' of the past 30 years have served us so well. *cough*
(Considering the lengths the DSS and local councils go to to claw back overpayments to the unemployed for relatively minor sums of tax payers' money [as part of their state-sanctioned long-running 'let's punish the poor' campaigns] - they should pull their fingers out and get this stopped right now.)
Fred Goodwin's pension: It won't make him happier. (Although I doubt he's crying himself to sleep every night.)
The Spirit Level
Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
(according to the website this book is not yet published.)
Wow. You don't say. Golly, but we can't stop now -not just when the 'trickle-down effect' of the past 30 years have served us so well. *cough*
US Bankers scamming the newly unemployed
Let me get this right - after a colossal screw up of the economy - the bankers still get obscenely huge bonuses even though they've brought about a global economic crisis and their banks necessitating being flooded with quite obscene amounts of taxpayers cash to keep them afloat, they've already led to the ruin of hundreds of companies and to many people losing their jobs yet after all that now they're scamming the unemployed out of a chunk of their payments.
Roll on the revolution... it's what we need right about now.
Jobless hit with bank fees on benefits.
Roll on the revolution... it's what we need right about now.
Jobless hit with bank fees on benefits.
well, well, well...
Straw vetoes Iraq minutes release.
Mmmm. Like us, the general public, don't already know that the invasion of Iraq - effectively merely supporting a whim of Prez Bush's - was all uber-dodgy. I mean, hello - it would have been as if England had invaded and bombed the shit out of Scotland because of a IRA terrorist attacks on London. The whole enterprise was clearly insane.
[I still hold to my belief that the only reason Bush invaded Iraq in the first place was because he wanted to do one better than his daddy - thinking it's all be terribly easy and he'd get a lot of kudos for winning a 'war'. Of course it all went terribly wrong. But shame upon Blair and his spinelessness that he went along with it all.]
Mmmm. Like us, the general public, don't already know that the invasion of Iraq - effectively merely supporting a whim of Prez Bush's - was all uber-dodgy. I mean, hello - it would have been as if England had invaded and bombed the shit out of Scotland because of a IRA terrorist attacks on London. The whole enterprise was clearly insane.
[I still hold to my belief that the only reason Bush invaded Iraq in the first place was because he wanted to do one better than his daddy - thinking it's all be terribly easy and he'd get a lot of kudos for winning a 'war'. Of course it all went terribly wrong. But shame upon Blair and his spinelessness that he went along with it all.]
Surveillance society
CCTV cameras on every street video-logging your every move. The Government planning to keep Records of all phone calls, emails, web pages visited, and now...
Government compiles travel records database.
I get the impression that our country is being run by a cabal of OCD afflicted bean-counters and database operators - mindlessly collecting and compiling data - but with absolutely no idea what they're going to do with it. Well, apart from putting it onto laptops or burning to CD-ROMs and leaving them on public transport etc. Oh well. At least criminals have a better idea of what they can do with all this information than the Govt. does.
[Aaaargh!]
Government compiles travel records database.
I get the impression that our country is being run by a cabal of OCD afflicted bean-counters and database operators - mindlessly collecting and compiling data - but with absolutely no idea what they're going to do with it. Well, apart from putting it onto laptops or burning to CD-ROMs and leaving them on public transport etc. Oh well. At least criminals have a better idea of what they can do with all this information than the Govt. does.
[Aaaargh!]
Mmmmm
Truthdig - Reports - Who Knew Bankers Were This Stupid?
I don't know about America - but for the life of me I don't understand why the streets haven't been filled with mobs of middle class people baying for banker's blood here. Maybe it's yet to come - as the recession bites and things get harder for everybody. After all the UK there's been a long standing disgruntlement about top executives of various companies awarding themselves massive bonuses and golden handshakes etc. when the companies they've resided over have actually fowled up and made masses of losses. Of course nothing was ever done about it. Maybe we're all just too soft and apathetic here.
Later:
Bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland bankers set for millions in bonuses.
So we can see here - even in extremis - there is STILL absolutely nothing being done about the situation. Mind you , even if the Govt. made the slightest noise about doing something -I bet if these people had a quick whip round among themselves and came up with a suitably-sized party donation out of those same bonus payments - then suddenly there still wouldn't be anything done about it... if this hasn't already happened, which could explain a lot.
[I mean - it's ever so curious that the former chief executive of RSB Frederick (Dick) Anderson Goodwin was presented with a knighthood before RSB nearly went belly up... I can't help but wonder if he made any contributions at any time? Is there any way of finding out?]
Meanwhile (as a taste of things to come - because the general population here are so pathetic and dim witted that it's pretty certain they're going to vote a Tory Govt. in next time):
The Times has learnt that the Conservative Party accepted £200,000 from a slot machine tycoon’s businesses shortly after calling for softer rules on arcade gambling.
Wow, that sounds familiar...
I don't know about America - but for the life of me I don't understand why the streets haven't been filled with mobs of middle class people baying for banker's blood here. Maybe it's yet to come - as the recession bites and things get harder for everybody. After all the UK there's been a long standing disgruntlement about top executives of various companies awarding themselves massive bonuses and golden handshakes etc. when the companies they've resided over have actually fowled up and made masses of losses. Of course nothing was ever done about it. Maybe we're all just too soft and apathetic here.
Later:
Bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland bankers set for millions in bonuses.
So we can see here - even in extremis - there is STILL absolutely nothing being done about the situation. Mind you , even if the Govt. made the slightest noise about doing something -I bet if these people had a quick whip round among themselves and came up with a suitably-sized party donation out of those same bonus payments - then suddenly there still wouldn't be anything done about it... if this hasn't already happened, which could explain a lot.
[I mean - it's ever so curious that the former chief executive of RSB Frederick (Dick) Anderson Goodwin was presented with a knighthood before RSB nearly went belly up... I can't help but wonder if he made any contributions at any time? Is there any way of finding out?]
Meanwhile (as a taste of things to come - because the general population here are so pathetic and dim witted that it's pretty certain they're going to vote a Tory Govt. in next time):
The Times has learnt that the Conservative Party accepted £200,000 from a slot machine tycoon’s businesses shortly after calling for softer rules on arcade gambling.
Wow, that sounds familiar...
So let me get this straight...
Now if memory serves - isn't the Labour Govt. recently all for bringing in new welfare plans to get the long term unemployed, lone parents and the sick back into work - and if the DSS decides they aren't trying hard enough - they'll get their benefits cut and/or be forced to do menial work for their benefits (which are considerably lower than minimum wage levels). Um. Well, OK. So how does that square with Gordon Brown now saying that Union Workers shouldn't be striking over the issue of Oil Refinery jobs going to foreign workers. Seems to me - if you're properly serious about creating jobs for the unemployed - you should well, be doing something to actually create real jobs for the unemployed and that should be for the people who need work in this country - not for those in Italy and Portugal.
[This of course should highlight another thing what's been going wrong for a long while in the UK - and that's just how much of the country's industry is now owned by foreign companies and interests. It should concern us mere mortals because these being foreign companies - the bulk of the money they're making is going abroad - and a lot of them don't pay taxes! And why do the politicians (it doesn't matter what 'side' any more - they've long become indistinguishable from each other now) let this happen? Oh, you just have to take a look at who's giving them contributions for their campaign funds etc. There's a clue or two right there.]
[This of course should highlight another thing what's been going wrong for a long while in the UK - and that's just how much of the country's industry is now owned by foreign companies and interests. It should concern us mere mortals because these being foreign companies - the bulk of the money they're making is going abroad - and a lot of them don't pay taxes! And why do the politicians (it doesn't matter what 'side' any more - they've long become indistinguishable from each other now) let this happen? Oh, you just have to take a look at who's giving them contributions for their campaign funds etc. There's a clue or two right there.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)