The Museum Of Modern Thinking

Just spotted this on Guido’s blog, well worth a look:

Benefit fraud or just a fraud?

It’s a very clever comment on the Government / Blair (same thing?) scuppering the SFO’s investigation into BAE’s dealings with Saudi Arabia…

A nice summation from the Independent yesterday on the Big Brother state in Britain today: govt. departments sharing data insidiously, more CCTV cameras than any other country in Europe (yet won’t save you from a violent attack, merely provide evidence if you’re still alive), the white elephant that is the ID card scheme, the disgusting “vehicle-tracking for road fund licence” scheme, etc.

 It’s a good read, and a primer for what’s going on – wake up, folks!

PS: If Gordon Brown is elected Labour leader, a general election soon after would be a great idea – as would devolution. There, I said it

Disagree? Comment!

I’m still having a lot of fun playing Dead Rising on the XBox360 – it’s a very deep game, with lots of different ways to tackle a task or two. I’ve finally taken care of some pesky snipers after some trial and error: rather than mix up a QuickStep juice, or arm myself to the teeth, I just hid in a store, waited until the snipers came in (stupid snipers!) and had at them with my baseball bat

 (Note: I’m fully aware that this is a game, I will not be battering people to death with a baseball bat in a shopping centre, though most people do appear like zombies in them, dawdling along with no purpose, hope or clue. I’m looking forward to the day when using cattle-prods on people like that will be ok )

 Anyway, I’ve just tried another mission (A Strange Group) where you have to go and sort out the leader of an apocalyptical cult, but I’m having trouble getting through his minions - I’ll just have One More Go ™

Peter Roberts has created a petition against the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy, and as of writing it has garnered over 275,000 signatures – roughly 75,000 of those being added since I signed it yesterday.

In a nutshell, the proposed scheme would monitor people’s cars and their journeys, and charge them per mile. An in extremis (rush hour, city centre) cost could be as much as £1.34 a mile. Even at £0.30, a round trip to visit my mother would cost me £120, more than 3 times in what I pay in petrol in total (not just tax, which is still a disgusting 75% or so of fuel cost).

The horrendous cost of travelling for pleasure or work aside, the truly insidious nature of the scheme is this: to work out how much you’ll be charged, a “black box” will be installed in your car to monitor where you’ve been (and how fast you were going, I’m sure). Are you happy with the Government, police and third-party monitoring company knowing where you’ve been, how fast, at what hours of the day?

Ah, but I forget: “If you’ve not done anything wrong, you’ve nothing to fear”; bullshit. Whatever happened to guilty until proven innocent? A right to privacy?

And just because we can be tracked by Automatic Number Plate Recognition, and our mobile phones does not imbue the government to foist yet another intrusive surveillance system on us.

So, find out more about road pricing from the Association Of British Drivers, and don’t forget to sign the petition!

Just a quick picture courtesy of Signs Of The Times:

Plenty of excellent news stories on the site…

“People should not be afraid of their governments; goverments should be afraid of the people”…

Well, I had a belter of a Christmas, very relaxing, not too much to drink, too much to eat (gained about 4 lbs), saw my family and spent time with the very hospitable in-laws as well. I didn’t find a suitable recipe for a Pina Colada, which I blame solely on the lack of Coco Lopez in this country I gratefully received some corking presents (Need For Speed Carbon, rather nice wallet, a donation to the new car), and I hope I gave some good presents as well.

New Year’s Eve was a bit busy, tidying the house, making trifle and cheesecake for the in-laws, finally sat down at 11.30pm with a bottle of bubbly to watch the countdown on Beeb 1, very enjoyable – anyone know how we can get tickets to Somerset House for next year?

 Not too many resolutions this year:

• Stop biting nails
• Settle debts
• Become more flexible in my training

Care to share your resolutions? Comment away, and a happy new year to you all

So, there I was, transporting my wife and son up to the East Midlands Outlet for a last-minute bit of Christmas shopping. It was quite foggy, foggy enough to warrant having the ol’ fog lights on. Suddenly, I get flashed by the car behind me, for no good reason. The guy then moves from flashing to just driving with his full beam on, still behind me (it was a single carriageway).

After a while, I get a bit annoyed and flip him the bird, only to be shouted at by my good lady wife. A few minutes later, after this plum is still behind me with his full beam on, my good lady wife is ready to take a picture of this berk. I brake (safely) and let him overtake, and he – wait for it – flashes his fog light on and off! I KNOW MY FOG LIGHT IS ON – IT’S FOGGY!

The guy continues on his way, merrily flashing all drivers who have their fog lights on, even though it was foggy, gahhh…

Ah well, I’m sure someone else will punch his clock for him… If you get flashed by a Volvo, reg OY04 WKA, tell him I said hi

The government is finally beginning to realise that having thousands of revenue-generators speed cameras does not really educate drivers. The new suggestions (from a think-tank, of course) are:

1. lower the age at which you can start driving to 16,
2. increase the number of lessons to around about 100 before the driving test can be taken,
3. include night-time and motorway driving in the lessons.

Whilst I disagree with the number of lessons (100 x £20 = crapload of money for a 16 year old), I certainly agree with the principles. There are an obscene amount of drivers on the road who do not have a grasp of of even the basic principles of diving, e.g. indicating, lane positioning on roundabouts, hogging the middle lane, ad nauseum. Increased education can only be a good thing: lack of education is a cause of many ills in the world, but more on that in another post…

Unless, of course, the idea is to deny the use of cars to those who can’t afford it, but surely not