Vista plus Norton equals CHAOS

I have just purchased a new computer. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium (all hail to the god William Gates) and Norton. The computer says it will run at 4 gHz. OK, great.
BUT . . .
Mr Gates over-wordy software plus Norton's interfering checking, and the stupid laptop-style keyboard on this computer all combine to make this the most user-unfriendly system I have ever used (or abused).
Sod Mr Norton and Mr Gates! I have achieved greater speeds from an Amstrad 512 Word Processor!
Come the revolution Mr Gates will be the first to be put up against the wall.
And I claim the right - after 30 years of suffering his software - to be the first to pull the trigger!

Who will be President?

Who's going to be the next President of the United States? McCain seems to have secured the Republican nomination - or has he?
Clinton and Barak are neck and neck in the Democrat camp - both wanting to be first. First woman President. First black President.
Who - outside of America - gives a shit?
Whoever gets in it'll be the same old USA thinking it owns the planet.
Look over your shoulder Mr or Madam President - Asia will soon be taking away your mantle of the world's greatest economy. And be sure they won't give a shit about a failed Western economy like yours!

Nothing to say

It strikes me that I have not made an entry for more than a month.
It also strikes me that nobody has noticed this - not even me!
It could be that nobody reads my blog!
I don't believe it . . .

Happy Christmas!

Just in case anyone reads my blog - I wish you all a very happy Christmas.
And if you don't read my blog - then you should!
It's important to me.
But it's only important to me - nobody else.
So what the hell - Merry Christmas anyway:-)

Nuclear Bullshit

Robert Gates, US Defence Secretary, has defended Israel's nuclear armaments at a Middle East security conference attended by most of the Arab world.

He does not see the comparison between Israel's nuclear arsenal and a possible Iranian nuclear capability. He stated that Israel does not train terrorists to disrupt the Lebanese government.

This, understandably, brought wry smiles to the faces of government representatives from the Arab states in the region.

Of course Israel does not train terrorists. It has no need. It has a legitimate military to do its dirty work.

Like suppressing the Palestinians.

Like taking the Golan Heights from Syria.

Like invading Lebanon on several occasions, killing thousands of innocent civilians over the killing of a few Israeli soldiers.

But all this is legitimate because it is the army, not a bunch of terrorists.

Yeah, right.

Who was it who helped build that army?

Who gave the Israelis the know-how to make nuclear weapons - which could be called "weapons of mass destruction" (where have I heard that phrase before?) and the means of delivering them?

The Yanks!

No wonder the other governments taking part in the conference thought that Mr Gates was the comedy act in between the real discussions!

With statements like those from Mr Gates who can believe anything that the US government says? But then, the US government is so tied to the Jewish vote that it dare not do anything less if it wants to survive.

There will be elections next year to see who is President of the US. It doesn't matter to the Israelis which party gets in because they have the monetary leverage to make sure their desires are fulfilled whether the President is a Republican or a Democrat.

Shit happens . . .

Unfortunately American shit costs lives.

Free Speech?

The Oxford Union, that august body which supposedly represents the epitome of free speech, was on a loser to nothing.
They had invited David Irving - famous for his denial of the Holocaust - and leader of the British National Party Nick Griffin to a debate.
The President of the Union is quoted as saying he wanted to be able to demolish their arguments in open debate.
How naive.
Needless to say the gates to the building were besieged by protesters who opposed giving these people a platform to state their views.
Words like "fascist" were bandied about. Voices were raised. They were determined not to let the two men through - or any of the other people who had tickets to be there.
Personally I abhor Mr Griffin's party and all it stands for. As for Mr Irving - I don't know enough about the Holocaust to really know what happened. But in truth millions of innocent people were incarcerated, tortured and killed in the name of the Nazi state.
But is it democracy to shout down all with whom we disagree?
Aren't we supposed to be able to debate and decide?
I think that these two men's cases are strengthened by the protest. A much better way of dealing with them would have been to have listened in total silence to their cases and then voted them down unanimously. In a democracy all sides of the argument must be considered and then the voice of reason will really be seen to prevail.
THAT would have been real free speech.

The Last Explorer . . .

The MV Explorer is no more.
It hit an iceberg.
Water got into it and it slowly sank.
Thankfully, all the 150-odd passengers and all the crew were able to evacuate the ship and get into lifeboats. They were picked up safely and taken to King George Island.
MV Explorer was not a brand new ship but it was designed to withstand the rigours of Antarctic voyaging. It had been sailing these waters for many years, latterly packed with tourists who came to see the wonders of the Southern Continent.
Now I may be a killjoy but why do these people go? They know they are not doing the planet any good by wandering round the Polar seas in a big, fuel-hungry ship. They feel safe because they are in an artificial environment - safe and warm within a large floating metal box. Looking out in wonder at the ever-diminishing ice that is all you can see of Antarctica.
And contributing to its demise by even being there!
I'm glad that no-one was hurt.
But I hope the incident will make others think twice about the unnecessary intrusion into what is the planet's last really wild place.

Slipped Discs

HM Customs and Revenue, the Government department which collects our taxes, has lost a couple of computer discs in the post. Nothing unusual in that - big organisations lose little things all the time. It's no great hardship - just make another copy and do what you were going to do with it anyway.
Not so simple!
The discs in question contained personal details - names, National Insurance numbers, bank account details, possibly even bra sizes - of about 25 million people. That's not far short of half the population of the UK!
The top dog of HMCR resigned as soon as the news broke - even though he probably had no input into the operation in question.
The poor junior clerk who actually packed up and sent the discs by insecure means was also forced to resign - even though he or she was probably only following orders from above.
The people who actually decided that sending sensitive information via a private delivery service without even a means to track their progress seem to be getting off Scot free!
Banks and other financial institutions have gone into overdrive - probably at no small expense - in an effort to protect their customers from any fraud caused by the release of their customers' details.
Hopefully the discs will turn up in some obscure office in a Government department and it will be discovered that no harm was done. But the harm has already been done. Confidence in the ability of the people who collect our taxes has always been low - now it is non-existent!
Furthermore, a most important Government department could possibly face prosecution under the Data Protection Act. This Act is there to protect the ordinary citizen from the misuse of data held about them by banks, businesses, Government departments - in fact anybody who puts your personal details onto a computer or other means of storing information. Obviously losing data such as these breaches such legislation. So HMCR could face prosecution. A massive fine could be imposed, especially if - as they should - they treat each one of the 25,000,000 as a separate case.
But who would pick up the bill for the fines - and the expensive legal costs involved?
The ordinary everyday taxpayer in the UK.
In other words YOU and ME!
Shit happens . . . we're all on a loser either way!

The Fight for Democracy?

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in the hope of returning the nation to democracy. She had been warned that extremist elements would try to assassinate her. She resolutely ignored the threats saying that nothing should stand in the way of her democratic mission.
Miss Bhutto is the daughter of a previous president who, although he brought Pakistan into a democratic state, later in his tenure of office turned corrupt. He was finally hanged for all sorts of crimes against the state. Whether these were put-up charges we may never know. Then the present military regime took over and has remained in power in one form or another for many years - propped up by the Americans who look on the present regime as a bastion of defence against the Taliban in Afghanistan and are therefore prepared to overlook other misdemeanours like human rights abuses etc. (Shades here of previous American relations with Iraq, Iran, Korea, Vietnam . . .)
Back to Miss Bhutto. As I said she stayed firm in her resolution to try to bring back democracy - even to the point of making arrangements with the present regime to have charges against her dropped (don't ask me how - I don't have a clue).
So on arrival in Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile (because she would have been thrown in jail or executed if she had stayed) she staged a big rally. It was well publicised and at least 100,000 people turned up to line the route of her procession. She was carried in an armoured truck - just as well for her because, predictably, two suicide bomb attacks were carried out on her truck. The truck was disabled by the first. The second blast was even bigger and took the lives of at least 130 people and cause many more hundreds of casualties.
Miss Bhutto was interviewed after the event and told of the carnage.
I wonder if she stopped to consider the causes? She had been warned that attempts would be made on her life. She knew she needed the massed support of the people to carry her campaign. It was obvious that many thousands would be at any demonstration she organised. Yet she still carried on. She knew that there was a risk not only to her life but to those of her followers. I wonder if she really realised the true risks each one of her supporters was taking just by being in her vicinity? She probably did. She probably also calculated that such deaths and injuries would help rally support for her campaign against extremism.
Did those people who died or were injured really want to die or suffer for the cause?
I wonder . . .

The Fat of the Land . . .

A new survey states that Britain has become the most obese nation in Europe. We're a load of flat slobs. The average weight of a 12-year-old boy has gone up by 6.6 kilos and a 12-year-old girl by an astounding 7.4 kilos.
Daily in my place of work I see globs of fat sticking out over waistbands. To me it looks revolting. But then I am from a time when slim was the norm and fat people were looked on as abnormal, to be made out as figures of fun and derision. Not that the norm was "size zero" (whatever the hell that is) but most people had a waist that went inwards and hips that were wider than the waist.
I don't want to deride obese people. I just think of the few I have known in the past who have died far too young because their hearts have not been able to take the strain any longer.
Talk is of the Government having to do something about fast food outlets, excess drinking and eating and making our diet more healthy. For goodness sake, governments of all persuasions have been preaching - and legislating - about unhealthy foods for years. Still we, as a nation, consume.
And There is the answer.
CONSUME.
Our whole society now lives on consuming. If we didn't consume - whether it be food, gadgets, toys or almost anything - the whole fabric of our society would crumble.
While we live in the Consumer Society we will never curb our desires and live more healthy lifestyles.
So I will just have to remember the times when young girls and guys were slim and attractive - not just lumps of lard with globs of fat hanging out of their clothes.