The Sun Lies: A sensible point of view

I've got a new post up on the Sun Lies.

Brace yourselves...

I support the Sun! Tweet

The Sun Lies: War on Traditional English Liberties II and Gays

I've put a new post over on the Sun Lies.

This one's about the Sun hating our freedoms - which is to be expected - and being anti-teh Ghay - which is less expected. Tweet

Political Spectrum test

Thanks to Tygerland, I've found this: a US version of the political compass test:

My Political Views
I am a far-left social libertarian
Left: 7.54, Libertarian: 6.33

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -8.39

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Culture War Stance
Score: -9.64

Political Spectrum Quiz


For comparison's sake, here's my score on the UK version:



I'm more libertarian in the UK version and more left-wing in the US version. Is this due to the questions that are asked and/or each country's political background?

In any event, I'm a terrorist-supporting, bleeding-heart, culturally-corrupt liberal! Tweet

The Sun v the Criminal Justice System

I was gonna post this in my favourite tabloid on the Sun Lies, but didn't want to as it would knock a more pressing matter off the top of the site.

First of all, there is this article. The Sun and a victims' charity are condemning the "insult" of some sentences that have been handed down for what admittedly sounds like an horrific incident: a woman with the mental age of 8 was attacked with caustic soda and then raped. I'm unable to find a transcript - so I do not know the actual facts of the case - so I cannot comment on it, not that that stops the Sun.

Anyway, the Sun has one of its usual rants - missing a trick by not tying in its "Broken Britain" campaign - which as per usual is a load of bollocks.

Criminal justice - despite the best efforts of successive Home Secretaries and the demands of authoritarian tabloid "newspapers" - isn't there to "send a message", i.e. appear hard. The aim of the criminal justice system in the UK is to get the correct sentence based on the facts of the crime - taking into account the Defendant's previous criminal record, any early admission of guilt, pre-existing case law, the criminal statutes themselves, any aggravating circumstances, etc - and to ensure that the convicted will have the chance to be rehabilitated.

Then again, this is an article in the Sun so accuracy is not to be expected...

There's also this article: a woman whose daughter was murdered for dressing up as Goth says that people who do dress like that should be protected under hate crime laws. She demands it should apply on the grounds that it's a "different culture"!

While I completely agree that people shouldn't be attacked for the clothes they wear, this is a complete joke. Dressing up in dark clothes is completely different from being part of a minority group - it's akin to the laws against religious discrimination because it's a choice, a belief - it's nothing at all like race/sex/sexuality. Like one of the comments says "Would this mean we would no-longer be able to call Chavs, Chavs? Although abundant throughout the country they are different" [corrected for typos].

What's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh yeah: IT'SPOLITICALCORRECTNESSGAWNMAD!!!!!!!!!!!! Tweet

News round-up (again)

Here's another post giving a round-up of various items which I've not had time to cover separately, because I'm busy house-hunting:

• The block on the t'internet Wayback Machine appears to have been lifted;
• Our lords 'n' masters are trying to exempt themselves from publishing their expenses. On the plus side the Lib Dems' Jo Swanson has tabled a motion against it;
• You can vote for the Worst Corporation of the Year!
• Obama: World's #1 Terrorist!
• Women are programmed to be gold-diggers... At times like this I like to play Evolutionary Psychology bingo (via PunkAssBlog): N1!

Oh yeah. Once more Blogger have labelled me as a spam blog... wankers!

UPDATE: Here's another one - doughnuts = abortion! I always wondered what the red filling was... Tweet

News round-up

Here's some bits 'n' pieces you may have missed over the past few days, which I haven't had time to cover separately.

I've split them into bad news followed by good news to make it easier:

• In support of its claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel has banned its Arabic political parties from running in the up-coming election, apparently to help make it easier for the government to maintain a coalition...
• Australia seemingly has declared a "War on Chocolate Liqueurs";
• The Daily Mail has apparently been threatened by the Church of Scientology regardng its coverage of the death of John Travolta's son
• The UK's Internet Watch Foundation seems to have struck again. People are reporting that the Wayback Machine is being blocked and the Register confirms that the site has been added to its "blacklist". I can currently access it, but seeing what happened with Wikipedia just before Christmas it can only be a matter of time before it is blocked. Sigh...
• The 1911 Census has gone on-line for public access... if you pay for it.
  

Here's some good news:

• New Mexico has become the first US state to legalise marijuana dealers;
• In an encouraging development for freedom of information, the current UK law stating that government documents should be made public after 30 years may be reduced to 15 years;

Finally in order to cheer you up, here's the Buffalo Beast's list of the 50 Most Loathsome People of 2008. It's got a strong US-slant, but enjoyable nonetheless. The top two are some US politicians who kept us entertained in the late summer and early autumn.

UPDATE: I've tried two sites on the Wayback Machine - Amazon.co.uk and BBC.co.uk, but I get this message



Looks like the morans have struck again Tweet

D-Notice: D-Notice

It had to happen sooner or later.

I've had a D-Notice slapped on me!

This morning I recevied an email off Blogger which said the following:



If you click go the web address, you know get the following:



Ths post in question related to this article on Wikileaks regarding err... censorship:



What next?

UPDATE: It's still in the Google cache, which is odd seeing that Google own Blogger.

UPDATE (24/01/09): Let's see what happens when I add it in again...

Tweet

(Slightly more) Open Government

I've previously mentioned the government's resistance to letting the public know who and when it has meetings with, which had been requested under the FoIA.

In a shocking and rare albeit welcome turn of intelligent governance, the government has decided that it is in the public's interest to know who they have had dealings with.

The Guardian has details in its article and also has the full list of who Bliar met in June 2005. The odd thing is almost all of them are other members of the government and civil servants - with a few meeting with people from IBM, possibly related to their bid for ID cards - so there doesn't appear to be any reason for the government to be so reluctant to releasing the information. Tweet

E = A for all values of E

I've previously mentioned that the government's drug policy body has been looking into what Grade E should be and from the Guardian comes this:

The government's drug advisers are to recommend ecstasy be downgraded to a class B drug, in a report due to go before ministers at the end of the month.

The advisory council on the misuse of drugs (ACMD) is expected to urge the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, to remove ecstasy from the class A category comprising the most dangerous drugs, following an extensive review of the medical risks associated with taking it.

This is a good thing as it shows that E isn't as bad as it is made out to be and it proves what a joke it is for it to be ranked as dangerously as crack and smack (I also consider it to be a joke that LSD and mushrooms are also Class A). However, the article continues:

The controversial proposal is set to ignite a fresh row with the Home Office, which confirmed yesterday it intended to keep ecstasy a class A drug, alongside heroin and crack cocaine.

While it is no surprise to see the government not letting facts get in the way of its drug policies (or for that matter any policies), see for example, last year's debacle regarding cannabis, it's still depressing. On the plus side, it's more evidence to discredit them as they clearly put what is considered to be, or what could be classed as, appearing "hard" or "tough" ahead of acting intelligently.

By the way, is it me or is the government pretty much saying "We know we're gonna lose the next election, but we don't care and just want to piss off as many people as possible"? Tweet

Scientology kills people?

You may have heard that John Travolta's son Jett passed away a few days ago.

Thanks to the Torygraph, I refer people to this post on What Would Tyler Durden Do? about Jett's problems and how Scientology was hindering him. Tweet

Celebrity Big Brother's racism scandal!

I was going to write something about the News of the World (aka the Sunday Sun) trying to stir-up trouble regarding the new series of Celebrity Big Brother, but No Rock and Roll Fun has already done it. Tweet

Bargain Booze

From the BBC:

A pub chain is cutting the price of a pint to 99p to cheer cash-strapped drinkers - but the move has sparked criticism from an alcohol charity.

JD Wetherspoon, which operates 713 pubs across the UK, is offering "indefinite" reductions on some beer, bottled lager, wine and spirits, plus £2.99 meals.

Health campaigners fear other pub chains could follow.

Alcohol Concern says pricing drinks at 1989 levels could cause more people to drink too much and end up in hospital.

I know from experience that this claim is a load of rubbish.

About 10 years ago I worked in a working man's club in Blackburn. As it's a working man's club any profits have to be used to either improve the facilities or, as usually happened, used to subsidise the prices for a period of time.

When I worked there we usually had a week in which drinks prices were about 50p no matter what. People didn't drink any more than normal, they simply drank the same amount but paid less. Tweet

The Sun Lies: War on Traditional English Liberties

I've just put up a new post on the Sun Lies about the DNA database, the age of criminal responsibility and what appears to be a declaration of war on "Traditional English Liberties". Tweet