Gordon Brown (Prime Minister; latterly Chancellor of the Exchequer) has upped the basic rate of income tax from 10% to 20% for people earning less than GBP18,000 a year (About USD36,000).
If we were at war with the rest of the world; suffering famine, plague or pestilence; in a state of national emergency; facing the end of the world; melting down the railings to make Spitfires; there might be some justification.
But to make me give his bloody government 20% of my meagre income instead of 10%; to double the annual amount with which I have to subsidise illegal wars is, for a labour government - a *labour* government! - breathtakingly un-socialist!
He ought to be ashamed, and I hope he is.
About Me
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Iraq
Idon't wish Saddam was back in power; I don't know anybody who does. But I wouldn't have chosen to send my soldiers to shift him in that way at that time.
But if we *had* left him where he was,
1. Upwards of 2,500 fine young Americans would not have been killed there;
2. Upwards of 200 fine young Britons would not have been killed there;
3. Hundreds and thousands of Iraqi civilians would probably still have died, but the name on the orders that led to their death would have been Saddam Hussein, not George Blair and Tony Bush.
But if we *had* left him where he was,
1. Upwards of 2,500 fine young Americans would not have been killed there;
2. Upwards of 200 fine young Britons would not have been killed there;
3. Hundreds and thousands of Iraqi civilians would probably still have died, but the name on the orders that led to their death would have been Saddam Hussein, not George Blair and Tony Bush.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Chantelle and Preston and Celebrity Big Brother
Chantelle - a giggle on a stick; the only woman I've ever seen to affectedly brush her hair away from her face and then put it back in exactly the same place!
Preston - about as much presence and charisma as one of those pretend furry cats and dogs that are supposed to look lifelike and make a room seem less empty.
Together - two halves of one brain cell that have finally met each other and recognised that they share the same IQ - 1!
Even less punch than a nebbish! At least when a nebbish walks in, it feels as though somebody has just left. With these two, not even a ripple!
Preston - about as much presence and charisma as one of those pretend furry cats and dogs that are supposed to look lifelike and make a room seem less empty.
Together - two halves of one brain cell that have finally met each other and recognised that they share the same IQ - 1!
Even less punch than a nebbish! At least when a nebbish walks in, it feels as though somebody has just left. With these two, not even a ripple!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
VDO (Very Dangerous to Operate) Radios in Kia Cars
I've had two Kia Sedona cars, and three VDO Radios (the first one was stolen). First, and in general, they're the fiddliest faffingest fussiest eentsy-teentsy things to deal with while driving! The tiniest buttons in the most counter-intuitive places. If you and the radio were on a gyro-stabilised massive concrete block you could still quite easily press the wrong button.
The real problem, however, is that two of the three VDO radios were subject to channel-hijacking, requiring some quite nifty and dangerously distracting button-play to get back to the station you were listening to.
It's to do with the "TA ON" feature, where you can choose to be interrupted by traffic announcements from nearby stations. On a 'proper' car radio, designed by someone who's driven a car, there's a nice clear TA ON button. When it's on, any local traffic news breaks in as it happens. If it's relevant, you listen; if it's not your area, you press the TA button and revert to the radio station you were listening to.
When all is working well, it's great. On the two radios where it didn't work, you're driving along and suddenly the radio switches stations and gets louder - the sign of a Traffic Announcement.
- Sometimes it's a real Traffic Announcement, and you press TA to drop it when you want to.
- Sometimes it's not a real Traffic Announcement: somebody at the station has pressed the TA button by mistake. Again, press TA to drop it; no harm done.
- Sometimes it's a hijack - your radio has jumped to or been grabbed by another station. It's got louder, but no-one's doing traffic.
If you press TA on the third occasion (and you have to peer at the display to see if that's what it is) you'll drop the station but you'll also have inadvertently switched off Traffic Announcements. To get them back, you have to cycle the TA button through NEWS ON, NEWS OFF, then TA ON. All while squinting at the display and scything down a couple of bus queues.
Yesterday, 21JUN06, I had a double-decker - a first! Radio Leeds broke into my chosen Radio 4. I checked the display: a straight hijack; no Traffic Announcement. Before I could re-select Radio 4 (I now have all six presets set to my favourite station to give me at least a fighting chance of getting it back before I crash or rip the radio out), Radio Leeds' own Traffic Announcement came in on top and, when it was over, the radio dropped back to Radio Leeds. So I've now experienced a hijack with a Traffic on top!
If I wasn't trying to drive my car at the same time, I'd quite enjoy outguessing my car radio but (and there's a clue in the name) I'd prefer it if my car radio worked like a, well - er - like a car radio!
The real problem, however, is that two of the three VDO radios were subject to channel-hijacking, requiring some quite nifty and dangerously distracting button-play to get back to the station you were listening to.
It's to do with the "TA ON" feature, where you can choose to be interrupted by traffic announcements from nearby stations. On a 'proper' car radio, designed by someone who's driven a car, there's a nice clear TA ON button. When it's on, any local traffic news breaks in as it happens. If it's relevant, you listen; if it's not your area, you press the TA button and revert to the radio station you were listening to.
When all is working well, it's great. On the two radios where it didn't work, you're driving along and suddenly the radio switches stations and gets louder - the sign of a Traffic Announcement.
- Sometimes it's a real Traffic Announcement, and you press TA to drop it when you want to.
- Sometimes it's not a real Traffic Announcement: somebody at the station has pressed the TA button by mistake. Again, press TA to drop it; no harm done.
- Sometimes it's a hijack - your radio has jumped to or been grabbed by another station. It's got louder, but no-one's doing traffic.
If you press TA on the third occasion (and you have to peer at the display to see if that's what it is) you'll drop the station but you'll also have inadvertently switched off Traffic Announcements. To get them back, you have to cycle the TA button through NEWS ON, NEWS OFF, then TA ON. All while squinting at the display and scything down a couple of bus queues.
Yesterday, 21JUN06, I had a double-decker - a first! Radio Leeds broke into my chosen Radio 4. I checked the display: a straight hijack; no Traffic Announcement. Before I could re-select Radio 4 (I now have all six presets set to my favourite station to give me at least a fighting chance of getting it back before I crash or rip the radio out), Radio Leeds' own Traffic Announcement came in on top and, when it was over, the radio dropped back to Radio Leeds. So I've now experienced a hijack with a Traffic on top!
If I wasn't trying to drive my car at the same time, I'd quite enjoy outguessing my car radio but (and there's a clue in the name) I'd prefer it if my car radio worked like a, well - er - like a car radio!
Paedophiles, Megan's Law, Susan's Law and 'popular' press
It's time for a rant! The News of the World, a news(?) paper is running a campaign to have the addresses of child sex offenders published, so that people can know if there's one living near them.
I've got two views:
[1] In a drumming community to which I belong, one person's name keeps popping up as "He's been convicted twice at 'X' court for child sex offences". I've tried to verify - or refute - this, and would find a searchable database of offenders useful. However, it's not really any of my business, and I'm not a concerned parent, so my reasons are mainly selfish and purely born of curiosity/nosiness/a vague sense of injustice.
[2] Most child abuse is done by people the child knows; people in the child's family. But the campaign by this rag is to target non-family sex offenders.
Papers like this are written and edited by articulate, erudite, educated men and women who use short snappy words to translate complex ideas into simplistic "These are the people we want you to hate this week" sloganeering to whip up what becomes a rabble if it wasn't before. It's almost the opposite of a previous 'keep the masses down' technique 'Bread and Circuses' (feed 'em badly but take their minds off it with distractions).
Even when the poor, whipped up mob, who can't spell the difference between paedophile and paediatrician, *do* gather outside an 'outed' offender's door,
I've got two views:
[1] In a drumming community to which I belong, one person's name keeps popping up as "He's been convicted twice at 'X' court for child sex offences". I've tried to verify - or refute - this, and would find a searchable database of offenders useful. However, it's not really any of my business, and I'm not a concerned parent, so my reasons are mainly selfish and purely born of curiosity/nosiness/a vague sense of injustice.
[2] Most child abuse is done by people the child knows; people in the child's family. But the campaign by this rag is to target non-family sex offenders.
Papers like this are written and edited by articulate, erudite, educated men and women who use short snappy words to translate complex ideas into simplistic "These are the people we want you to hate this week" sloganeering to whip up what becomes a rabble if it wasn't before. It's almost the opposite of a previous 'keep the masses down' technique 'Bread and Circuses' (feed 'em badly but take their minds off it with distractions).
Show them rich pampered people to make them *want* more, then give them someone to hate people whose fault it is that they haven't *got* more!It's a moving/revolving target: single mothers, blacks, immigrants, asylum seekers, paedophiles . . .
Even when the poor, whipped up mob, who can't spell the difference between paedophile and paediatrician, *do* gather outside an 'outed' offender's door,
statistically there'll be more child sex offenders outside the house than inside.But you're not going to sell many papers with headlines like "We know that one in four of you molests children in your own family - and we know where you live!", are you?
Sunday, March 26, 2006
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