Friday, November 30, 2012

Technical Help Please

Sorry been busy lately.

Could anyone help me with the following pieces of technology.

Printer:

I want a new printer as I currently have a crappy Epsom Stylus that breaks down frequently, especially when it has generic non-Epsom ink and the ink costs a fortune. So what printers are reliable and aren't rip offs in terms of ink costs? It cannot be an Epsom as they are shit and make cheap printers with the intention of ripping off customers with extortionate ink costs.

Mobile Phone:

I have an HTC phone and the memory has been playing up for months, so most of the Apps have had to be removed. How do I change this, does it happen with all phones and get the phone working properly again?

Sat Navs:

Need a new one. Any recommendations on what is good. I need it before Monday so any comments before Sunday afternoon will be appreciated.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Fat Man & Little Boy

Some say that Fat Man and Little Boy were crimes but I say we have to remember that at this stage nothing has been proved about Cyril Smith's sexual proclivities.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Toynbeeising Soaps

Polly Toynbee's call for soap opera's to become more politically engaged has inspired me to have a go at writing a Polly approved script for Coronation Street:
Betty: Pint of your usual Ken?

Ken: How can I drink when child poverty is increasing by 13% a month according to an Institute of Studies report and the Tory government are determined to throw the poor onto the bonfire?

Betty: Oh I know luv, I've tried getting a grant to turn the Rovers into a Sure Start Centre but it was impossible thanks to vicious Tory Cuts.

Ken: I don't have time to drink anyway, as I've got to get home to watch Ed Miliband's speech to the TUC now.
If anyone has any other ideas for Toynbeeising the soaps please feel free to offer your contributions.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Tom Watson- Crusader Or Sleaze Monger?

The retracted Newsnight allegations about a paedophile ring involving senor Tories followed on from allegation made by the MP Tom Watson in Parliament.

During the Damian McBride affair- in which Gordon Brown's aide was outed plotting to smear various Conservatives, usually by making up sexual rumours- some attention was paid to the role of Tom Watson.

Watson shared an office with McBride and was on good terms with the other man involved in the scandal- Derek Draper- but no emails emerged to prove Watson's involvement and he got a bit litigious when it was suggested that he was part of the scheme.

Yet it has to be said, his "exposure" of a paedophile ring linked to the Thatcher government does seem to have had a very similar effect to that which was intended by the McBride plot. A number of senior Conservatives have had false rumours spread about them online as a result of dark hints dropped by Watson (with the help of Newsnight) without any actual evidence.

It does make you wonder whether Tom Watson actually believed that there was substance to the paedophile ring which he referred to or whether he was using the Jimmy Savile scandal and parliamentary privilege as an opportunity to slime those on his enemies list.

The Guardian & Paedophiles

A few stories from the Guardian over the years:

Sun shame after paedophile mix-up

 

Tabloid's naming of paedophiles condemned by police chief

 

After the vigilantes

 

The paper's decision to drop its drive to "name and shame", announced last night, gives us all a chance to reflect on what can be done to reconcile these conflicting emotions. Clearly, random vigilante publishing was not the answer. If its objective was the protection of children, then it simply failed. In fact it served the opposite purpose, driving paedophiles underground, where neither police nor probation services could keep track of them. Already the relevant agencies have told of convicted sex offenders, once under their watch, who have now moved off-radar. That has increased the risk to children, not reduced it. It is only a pity the News of the World took so long to realise it.

Well that was then and back when the terribly vulgar red tops were doing it. When a progressive hero like George Monbiot smears an innocent man as a child rapist that's fine and dandy.


 

Monday, November 05, 2012

That Critical Endorsement.

With the American election looking like it is on a knife edge, it is clear that the voters are waiting on the thoughtful utterances of some random foreigner before making a final decision.

The candidate I am probably closest to is the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson, but would only vote for him if I lived in a state where my vote doesn't matter. So on balance I want Romney to win.

He's not perfect and my endorsement depends largely on the assumption that some of his worse policies are merely campaign fodder not to be taken seriously- like his rhetoric on trade with China.

But he does have a track record of competence and that is the most important aspect of the job.

Also the Obama administration is not one that deserves reelection- the vast increase in spending even above the levels of the profligate Bush administration is dangerous for the world economy and although it's not my primary concern as a foreigner his domestic policies on things like education and welfare reform are rather destructive.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

HA Ha ha ha...... OK More about Macshane.

After 12 solid hours of manic laughing, I thought I should write something else about Denis Macshane.
  • Firstly, as has been pointed out, his apology wasn't to the tax payers who he ripped off but to the Labour Party.
  • He also claims that he was doing it in the line of combating fascism- an cause he deploys in the same way Jimmy Savile used his charity work. It is hard to believe that someone who genuinely cared about fighting fascism would throw smears at legitimate political opponents with as much glee as Macshameless did.
  • He still has apologists, like the Telegraph's Blairite Dan Hodges who argues that he did it because MPs are underpaid. I mean if you're earning less than £100 000, then you are bound to lie and steal. However it ignores the fact that Macshane's history of being a mendacious shit did not always involve monetary gain and long predates him becoming an MP. He was sacked by the BBC in the 1970s for pretending to be a caller to a phone in show for political gain, he put out an article "The Five Myths Muslims Must Deny" under the name of a Muslim colleague, he regularly invented links to neo-nazis among his political opponents, he used bogus statistics to denounce people traficking then slandered those who called him out on it,
He was a cancer on public life.