They gave me a bell (call) but the answer was no. I really don’t want to be dabbling in other people’s gene pools. I’ve worked with many so-called famous people over the years but it’s never been for any deliberate financial motivation. If I did it wouldn’t be a business phone call followed by a management agreement and then for an album manufactured and marketed as to what the current popular trends were.
Having trouble paying the mortage? Your little one album wonder band didn’t make you as rich as you hoped? That’s ok, it happens to all of us. When we turn old and get forgotten by the people who once loved us. Cunt.
I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t like it when personal issues become political footballs. Gay marriage is a good issue, as is gay blood donations.
Special squatting toilets have been installed in a Greater Manchester shopping centre after its bosses went on a cultural awareness course.
Rochdale Exchange Centre has introduced the “holes in the ground” otherwise known as Nile pans.
Ghulham Rasul Shazhad, who gave the course, said there was a large Muslim Asian community in Rochdale who preferred to use the squat toilet.
I give it about a day before this is taken as some horrible symbol of political correctness, or “pandering” to minorities. No doubt some BNP type will call for these toilets to be banned. The reality, of course, is very different.
Two of the 14 toilets have been converted to nile pans.
Two. Fucking two. It’s not as if you won’t have a free choice of where to empty your ass.
A spokeswoman for the centre said: “It is just about doing what any business would do.
“If there had been a decision to provide only eastern European toilets I would really have expected some sort of backlash.
“They are trying to meet the needs of the community they serve and this is part of it.
“They came up with the idea, it would be really good to provide toilet facilities that were desirable by that particular part of the community.”
A private business trying to make life more comfortable for a section of their clientele. How horrific!
Can you see what I mean when I say that some things (eg, everything) are best left to voluntaryism?
This is an utter non-story that’s going to get a lot of attention from the wrong circles. This, I promise you.
Or: “Subtle xenophobia: It’s not just for UKIP anymore”.
This is a burka.
And this is a berk.
Yes, this old chestnut again. France has gone and, paradoxically, extended the rights of women in France by enacting new rules they must follow. Now, this tory MP (Look, he has a British flag and government propaganda on his wall, what a patriot) wants to see them banned in the UK too. The text of Hollobone’s Face Coverings Regulation Bill isn’t online yet, which is a shame since I needed a good laugh. This means I don’t know what exactly it covers, but judging by this video on the BBC, Burkas are Hollowhead’s main priority.
Once again, the solution, as it is to all complex social problems, is voluntaryism. What we are seeing here is what happens when the State decides that its coercive measures are more effective than the ones society can come up with on its own.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s gay marriage, drug use, pornography, race relations, or whatever, but whenever these issues are no longer seen as social issues for the individuals concerned to solve, and instead become politicized and turned into political footballs, what happens is the inevitable. As Policymakers turn to looking to one “consensus” policy, that will in turn be enforced by law, the tensions between the social groups involved grow too. It’s not exactly secret why- By enforcing one policy or set of values upon everyone, those who don’t agree with the chosen policy will feel persecuted. This isn’t how you integrate societies, it’s how you create castes.
I mean, how else can it possibly turn out, when you force on social policy on everyone? There is no “consensus” view that it’s ok, or “middle of the road” to enforce, simply because you’re dealing with controversial issues. And, this being a “democracy”, the first thing that happens whenever some aspect of life gets politicized is that special interests from all over the spectrum of views rush in to convince the policy makers why their way of life is ok to get forced on everybody who disagrees. Not exactly good for social cohesion.
No, politics is not the answer to these types of social problems. In fact, politics is poison. All it does is divide people up.
Until now I’ve had a very laid back comments policy, I allowed anonymous commenting, swearing, and general shitbaggery, but now I’ve decided to have enough. Taking inspiration from The Sun Chronicle, Richard Murphy, and Blizzard, in order to tell me how fucking wrong I am, you will now have to take the following steps:
1. Email me scanned in copies of your birth certificate, passport, driving license, and personal planner for the next 6 months.
2. Send, by unrecorded mail, a minimum of £20 cash to an address that, for privacy reasons, shall only be given to interested parties (cus, only my privacy counts, innit).
3. This allows you commenting permissions, as long as you agree with me on all issues stated. You will be explicitly liable for any legal ramifications, and all your disclosed information will be publicly viewable in your public profile.
In all seriousness, though, what the fuck is happening to blogs and the media when you can’t even leave a god damn comment anymore without jumping through hoops? The Sun Chronicle wants to make you pay to fucking comment, under your credit card’s name, Blizzard recently had their ass handed to them by their customer base with their idiotic “Use real names to prevent trolls” idea, and Richard Murphy is Richard Murphy. If this attitude takes over blogging at large, there’ll be absolutely no point in blogging at all anymore.
As far as I’m concerned, a blog with no comments isn’t a blog at all. It’s a god damn glorified newspaper column.
Obviously still fuming from having her ass handed to her on a silver judicial platter, our favourite blogger-bashing, er, blogger is once again bashing bloggers, this time in the form of moral outrage. The target is not vidya gayums or rap music or any of the usual target, but rather a quick and nasty photoshop of Jack of Kent.
Just found this latest post of machine-gun loving John Gray, Defendant in case HQ08X00922, whilst he once put the RAF logo with machine gun on a blog about me, he now puts a Jack of Kent with Machine gun on this blog, phew. If I was Jack of Kent I would protest being depicted in that manner.
There is nothing worst for law and order and peaceful democratic societies than people who needlessly promote violence. It’s pretty over the top that an elected Labour councillor uses persons that swing machine guns around to communicate with his electorate. It doesn’t seem to matter who it is as long as they have a violent flair, John Gray adores them. In another post he even uses a picture of the Kray twins to rant on about housing policies. How odd is that.
It is possible that many of his voters do not have internet access.
No word on whether John Gray made his post using T Mobile or Virgin internet yet, though.
Johanna Kaschke is batshit. Everybody say it with me.
2) Jon Gaunt has been Ofcom’d today, as the court decided that, in fact, being a dick is illegal. I listened to the interview in question, and came to the conclusion that Jon Gaunt is a stupid, pig headed, ignorant, arrogant failure of a man.
But then, the same could be said of Sunny Hundal, but I don’t see any reason to kick him off teh internets. The problem here is with Ofcom itself in regards to TV and radio. In theory, it’s supposed to make sure that the media is kept to a “high standard”, which, it seems, means shutting down anyone who’s a bit rude or offensive. Like this:
By section 6(1)(a) of the Broadcasting Act 1990, broadcasters were regulated so as to require them to comply with a requirement that nothing would be included in their programmes which “offends against good taste or decency or is likely to encourage or incite to crime or lead to disorder or to be offensive to public feeling”. This has been replaced by section 3(2)(e) of the Communications Act 2003, which places the duty on OFCOM to secure the application by all television and radio stations of standards that provide adequate protection to members of the public from the inclusion of “offensive and harmful material”.
Well, ok, perhaps in law Ofcom are totally in the right. However, that just goes to show that Ofcom have a bit too much power on their hands- in the name of “regulating” an industry, we- no surprise- see censorship instead. What is, by the court’s own admission “a rant” (para 4), has, amazingly, been turned into a political football. It’s all in the name of democracy, of course.
Mr Millar QC, on behalf of the claimant, submits uncontroversially that legitimate restrictions on freedom of expression must be prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society (in this instance) for the protection of the rights of others and they must be proportionate. He accepts that the provisions of the Broadcasting Code are prescribed by law and, in general, necessary in a democratic society.
Uncontroversially? Sure, I can see why those in the judiciary would “uncontroversially” see the need for the judiciary to be involved in regulating the media, for the same reason I can see why MPs would “uncontroversially” see the need to set their own pay.
Not only do I not agree that the regulatory system enforced by Ofcom is not necessary, I’d say it’s down right incompatible with freedom of expression. Despite what the European Convention of Human rights and the Human Rights Act says, which is probably the most half hearted attempt at a bill of rights in recent years, Freedom of speech is not limited to what a select few decide is “appropriate”, be they MPs, a number of quangocrats, or even ECJ judges, but rather is best judged by the individual standards of every person, by themselves. After all, if our goal is to prevent content which is “offensive”, then offense, being an emotion felt towards different things by different people, can only be decided by individuals speaking for themselves, and can’t possibly be enforced by one set of standards being assumed by a small oligarchy, who are, we are to believe, finely tuned into the non-existing “collective consciousness” of the population. Erm. No.
Here’s a much better idea: We allow anybody to broadcast whatever they want, and maybe there’s a just reason to prevent actual incitement to violence or what have you- maybe- and then allow people to decide what they actually do pay attention to.
Now, I can see the allegedly liberal Guardian reader response to this: “But, people like Gaunt will spread hate!” To which the correct counter argument is “Yes, they will. Next question.”
Or, they may say “Surely the media has a responsibility to be impartial on sensitive issues?” But a neutral media is a myth. No matter what broadcaster or news service you chose, there will always be bias and predetermined judgements involved. Let’s face it, our newspaper industry does not exactly pride itself on impartiality. It silently shouts its political affiliations from the rooftops. The Telegraph like the tories, the Guardian likes Labour, and the Sun likes 18 year old titties. Media impartiality is a fiction by which the regulators get away with censorship.
Or, maybe they’ll say “Well, surely in a democratic society, it’s ok for there to be some restrictions to placed in the name of protecting minorities?” Sure, under a democratic society, where it’s ok for 51% to trample over the other 49%. But we’re concerned with the media of a free society, not one of a democratic society. And the two are very different beasts, and usually mutually exclusive of one another too. In a free society, even if there are a few shock jockeys broadcasting hate, given the fact that people in general are not hate filled racists (evidenced by the fact that such racism DOES shock us so much) ensures that they, as today, are either not taken seriously, or are generally thought of as being what they are.
The simple fact of the matter is that regulatory bodies such as Ofcom are a mild flavour of statism, and under such a system, the very concept of freedom of the press is a gigantic joke. I say that there’s no difference between the media giants (even though they do have government intervention to thank for some of their success) and a crappy loser’s blog that no one reads. Voluntary organizations have the same rights and freedoms as an individual does, and that includes the freedom to speak one’s mind, no matter how full of fuck it is.
Does Jon Gaunt offend you? Be offended. Nothing happens. Turn on BBC news instead. And government: Stop censoring people on the false basis that you’re protecting us. You’re not.
My respect for the freedom of the press (what little is left), which includes the right to be retarded like this, is the only thing stopping me going batshit crazy right now.
Quite frankly, if more “ethnics” displaces the white trash that write this stuff, then I’m all for more immigration.
