Samuel Shiro

News in Briefs 17/06/12

Well this week was a week for keeping fear alive. I haven’t seen this much scaremongering since 9/11, and even that wasn’t talking about the global meltdown of the capitalist world. But it’s not a very good campaign of fear as I don’t really feel scared. I sort of feel like ‘meh’. And even in the face of all of these carefully constructed arguments for why we are on the precipice of destruction, I still find that I’m not that scared.

Political Oops of the Week

This week it has to be that old bitch Theresa May who has now unveiled plans for web monitoring. To put it simply, she wasn’t content with making the police force want to hang her from the Tower of London so she now decided to annoy every taxpayer. The plans will involve internet companies holding onto all email messages, web histories, and basically everything else that goes on on the internet for up to one year. In other words, she is part of the move for the state to take over the freedom of the internet.

The only defence she has given for this is that it will help stop crime. What a load of putrid donkey vomit! Those who carry out crime on the internet will easily find a way around it, and even those who are not dealing in crime will still find a way around it. Take a look at the ban they put on The Pirate Bay in the UK. I was around that ban within five minutes and I can still access that site now. All it will do is damage the privacy of the novice computer user. And in all honesty this obsession with crime is going too far as now we are sacrificing all privacy and all freedom in the name of the law. It’s just not worth it.

With any luck there will be such overwheming opposition when the bill eventually goes to parliament that it will be rejected like America’s latest SOPA act. Oh, and did I mention that these plans will cost the taxpayer £1.8 billion to implement?

The Painful…

There was a show called The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 this week, and my god it just showed how deluded the large majority of people really are. Now, I’m not saying that you should start by going off to watch it and then you should come back and tell me what you think; there would be too much blank space on this blog whilst I wait. Just look at the title. It’s already blaming others for the fact that people are so fat these days. If everybody was fat then that would be perfectly acceptable and it would be somebody else’s fault, but it’s not.

The fact is that lots of people managed to stay fit and healthy, so why not everybody else? We really have to start taking some responsibility for ourselves as we have blamed others for too long. A few years ago we blamed McDonalds for making our kids fat. No, it’s your fault your kids got fat because the only way they can get that food is if you got it for them. “Oh but what if my kids got it on the way home from school?” Well they obviously got the money from you in the first place. If your kids are fat then it’s your fault because you’re a bad parent. End of discussion.

It really is painful to still see the media and so many others blaming the people who make the food. Haven’t they heard of supply and demand? If there’s a demand then they’ll keep making it, and that’s what they are doing. You don’t have to buy it.

…And the Pointless

This week Tony Blair came back into the news whilst he was in Hong Kong giving a lecture on faith and globalisation at the Hong Kong University. He made the news because Tom Grundy, a 29-year-old Briton living in the country, attempted a citizen’s arrest on the former PM. Of course, he only really managed to heckle him as his men and a crowd of photographers kept him a few meters away from the stage, but he said the move was symbolic.

Regardless of how you feel about the Iraq War, you can’t help but think that it was a completely pointless and half-arsed attempt at doing something. People won’t remember this move a few weeks from now at all. In fact, he (Blair) probably couldn’t care less either. People need to start letting these things go because no government has declared him a war criminal and he’s not a wanted man. If he’s not a wanted man then that’s the end of it. It might not be a popular decision, but that’s how it is no matter what anyone else thinks.

Although he did bring up a point about how his faith is meaningless since he angered the whole Muslim world. If he’s a Christian, which he is, then if he angered the entire Muslim world then surely history tells us that he should be made a saint?

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

It has to be Euro 2012 and the fact that UEFA still think that holding the tournament in Ukraine and Poland was a good idea. Ok, I admit that the problems have mainly emanated from Poland, but neither country is free from blame. Let’s list just some of the problems that we have seen so far.

Before the tournament began the Dutch team were racially abused during their training session in front of 20,000 people.

Mario Balotelli racially abused in both of Spain’s games, as well as having a banana thrown onto the pitch.

Russian supporters attacked stewards and sent a few to hospital after their win against the Czech Republic in their first game.

Russian and Polish supporters fought running battles through Warsaw during Russia’s national day, as well as a flag that said: “This is Russia” somehow making it into the ground during the game.

Multiple flares thrown onto the pitch during Croatia’s game against Italy, which actually stopped the game for a few minutes.

And this is just the group stage of Euro 2012. We haven’t even made it to the end of that yet and only four teams have been officially eliminated so far. Surely this tells you that Eastern Europe isn’t yet fit to be hosting a major tournament. This is not racism on my part either, all of these incidents have been caused by supporters from Eastern Europe. It makes you wonder why so many Western supporters have refused to attend the tournament doesn’t it?

Anyway maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…

Bank Cards a Thing of the Past?

Yes, I know that we can just use phone banking or internet banking to get things done, but you can’t withdraw cash into your hand like that. The only way to do that is to go to an ATM/branch and use a bank card. But now banks are attempting to move away from plastic and on to something more electronic. The answer? Smartphones.

Smartphone

New technology has been unveiled that will allow people to use a banking app to withdraw cash from their smartphones. At the moment this service is only available to those who bank with NatWest or Royal Bank of Scotland, but if it all goes well then expect more banks to take the initiative and implement these banking apps for all of their customers.

This is simple to use as all it requires is a password and a withdrawal code. In an attempt to prevent thieves looking over somebody’s shoulder the withdrawal code will remain hidden until the user taps the screen. The inspiration for this is from an emergency cash service. This emergency cash service enables users to withdraw a certain amount of cash from an ATM without using their bank cards.

As we can all see, the number of new initiatives designed to cut down on plastic and paper are all working to turn money into a digital commodity. Is this a bad thing though? Probably not. If we take a look at physical money then it can easily be lost. All it takes is a stumble and some coins can fly down a drain. For the banks it’s even better as they don’t have to deal with getting lots of plastic to their customers. It also means that it’s not an issue if the card isn’t brought in as the phone can be used instead. And people always seem to remember their phones as they are eternally texting or making pointless calls on it.

On the other hand, it could be argued that it will increase the chances of theft and fraud. It takes a lot of bravery to go out and hold up someone for their wallet, and that’s exactly why most people won’t do it. But if it can be done through a bit of watching or from computers then more people are going to do it. Furthermore, if this can be done from a computer, which online transactions are already at risk of, then how can we stop fraudsters if they are abroad? Simply put, we can’t. It might be more convenient but the risk of fraud does increase slightly.

Do I think it makes any difference though?

Not at all. Digital money is the future and it’s something that people have predicted many times before. If I had to make a prediction then I would estimate that it should take about 20 years for us to see the complete elimination of plastic bank cards, and that’s a generous amount of time.

Why Does Nom Nom Time Turn to Hospital Time?

There are many reasons why that great looking tin of sardines would be good to eat, but there are also many reasons why the emergency room is a good possibility. That’s right, the Food Standards Agency has conducted a study that has shown that more and more people are getting food poisoning due to food that was consumed when it should have gone in the bin.

But why did they do this? Well it’s not because they were suddenly exposed to radiation that caused mass brain damage. It’s because they decided to make food go further by utilising leftovers and the power of smell. In other words, the date on the packet was completely ignored; although the people who wrote about this seemed genuinely surprised.

Anyway, the Food Standards Agency is expecting the number of food poisoning cases to peak this summer so we don’t actually know how bad it will get yet. According to them, though, it will get much worse.

If I had to give my opinion I can tell you exactly why more and more people are now taking a risk by just smelling food instead of obeying the date on the packet.

1. People just can’t afford to buy so much food these days. Food prices are going up all the time and it’s getting to that point where lots of meals just aren’t worth creating anymore. The government always moans that we should be healthy and we should spend hours cooking these elaborate meals, and yet what they don’t seem to understand is that the bad food tends to be the cheapest food, and that’s all that many people can afford. Lower food prices and this wouldn’t happen as much.

2. The unemployment rates. Regardless of how expensive food prices are, it doesn’t matter if there’s no money coming into a household. People are still losing jobs even today and it only looks to get worse as Spain announces that it needs a bailout. So if people can’t afford good food then they are going to take a risk. We have a free healthcare system so it’s cheaper to actually get food poisoning. Start getting people back to work and the numbers will go down.

3. Travel costs. If you look at those who commute to work in this country then you will quickly discover that it’s one of the biggest expenses around. The buses and the trains are an absolute joke in this country. We have to pay some of the highest prices in Europe for trains where we might not even get a seat. Here’s an idea. I would rather have my taxes raised if the government could nationalise both of those industries and lower the prices.

Empty fridge

All of those reasons contribute to the rising number of food poisoning cases, and the Food Standards Agency will be recognising this. What people need to accept is that if you are going to implement austerity in a country then you are not only making the people depressed but you are also making them unhealthy. It just seems to be incredibly unfair that everybody else has to suffer because a few prats at the top won an election every five years and now think they can play in the Casino of Capitalism.

News in Briefs 10/06/12

One story has dominated the news this week: Syria. So that means we had to dig under the media hype to find some other story to find some good content this week. The only thing I’m thankful for is that the Leveson Inquiry stayed away. Seriously, when does that damn thing end?

Political Oops of the Week

There’s only one winner this week. It has to be Syria. Ok so we’ve now had another Syrian massacre. Unsurprisingly, the government blamed armed terrorists for the plot, when really they should have been referring to themselves. However, this is not about the fact that we’ve seen another massacre, it’s everybody else’s attitude to it.

The UN once again demonstrated how inept it is by refusing to actually do anything more than monitor the situation and send the Syrian government angry letters. The only reason that they are not doing anything is because China and Russia don’t want to lose one of their major allies in the region. So why don’t they just do it anyway? Since when has the US cared about things like international law or doing what somebody else tells it to do? If the US decides to go into Syria then Europe will follow. What do they think is going to happen? Russia and China won’t start a war with the West over this. All they will do is send some angry letters.

Yes, China and Russia have massive armies but they’re inferior to the armies of the West. They know that and so does the West, and that’s why they won’t go to war over this. If they truly care about the Syrian massacre or anything else then they will grow some testicles and get in there. You can’t just join in as and when you feel like it, in the same way as they did in Libya. The UN really is like the old League of Nations organisation.

And before some smart-arse tries to tell me that this is a different Syrian massacre, I know.

The Painful…

For some painful news it has to be the racism storm circling the Euros. According to Dutch captain Van Bommel and a number of other players, there were monkey chants coming from the stands as they trained in front of a crowd of over 20,000 in Krakow. The painful thing is that some people in those countries were obviously dropped on their heads at birth. I’m especially surprised at Poland as you would think that after the Holocaust they would have had enough of racist views in society.

To make things even worse UEFA initially denied that there was a racism storm at all. They actually denied that any racism had occurred and that it must be the supporters voicing their displeasure at the fact that Krakow didn’t get any major Euro 2012 games. Now, although I can understand why such a major city would be upset, I don’t recall monkey chanting acting as a form of protest. But UEFA just made things worse when later on they admitted that it did happen and they were going to look further into it. So in other words nothing is going to happen at all.

…And the Pointless

Did you watch the Diamond Jubilee celebrations on the River Thames on Sunday? I did and I have to say what a massive disappointment it really was. I would have thought that the BBC would have tried to capture the essence of the event and explain actually what some of the boats were. Instead we got a load of airhead reporters talking to lots of irrelevant people watching it. It’s ok to talk to a few of them but why all the time? There’s nothing that they could possibly say that particularly adds to the coverage, and we were proved right.

“How do you feel, random bystander?”
“I’m so happy to be here, I camped out all night…blah…blah…blah.”
“Great, that means a whole lot to the people at home.”

Yes, we get it, some people are obsessive.

The reporters obviously had no idea what they were doing. They knew nothing about the boats or the history of them. In fact, the smartest person who appeared was an expert on London, and he only appeared for a few minutes. Either most people are now at the pinnacle of human stupidity as to warrant such dribble or the BBC thinks that people are now at the pinnacle of human stupidity. I’m not sure which one is right, however I do hope for the sake of the country that it’s the latter.

Queen Elizabeth — That about sums it up.

Although the Diamond Jubilee pageant did fizzle out about half way through as the Queen clearly became bored, it would have been better if we actually had some entertaining coverage. What shocks me is that all the people involved were praised by the company for their hard work and world class reporting.

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Have you heard about the Golden Dawn (Greek Nazi party) member who punched a communist politician on live TV this week? Well if you haven’t then to sum it all up the female communist politicians brought up the fact that he was accused of an armed bank robbery in 2007. At this he flipped, threw a glass of water over one of the women, and then gave the old one-two to the other one. I know that street thugs tend to always be street thugs but this is ridiculous.

Nazi flag — I joined Golden Dawn and all I got was this retarded swastika.

If you are a politician you have to learn to ride things out like that. Of course the women were trying to rile him by bringing that up, but that’s what politics is all about. The opposition will always try to rattle you. If you are so immature as to not be able to cope then you should go back to playschool as you are clearly not cut out for that sort of industry.

More importantly, why didn’t he simply say that he wasn’t convicted and that’s the end of the matter? He might have incredibly narrow-minded views but he’s not a convicted criminal, or at least he wasn’t until now.

Sort it out, meathead!

Anyway you never know, maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…

The Super Di Duper Magical Cat Flying Machine

I think that all of us will have heard about the helicopter cat created by the Dutch artist Bart Jansen. So far we have had reactions from outrage, to shock, to rambunctious applause. But what do we think of the cat really?

Animal rights protest — What some people thought he did.

First of all, let’s get the story out of the way. The story is that Mr. Jansen’s cat was run over by a car. So naturally that made him into a pancake cat. So the pancake cat would have normally being buried with much sadness and despair. Instead of this, Mr. Jansen had a wonderful idea: he decided to make his cat into a flying helicopter by stuffing him and attaching motors. He can now be controlled by remote control, as well as being able to fly around the room and scare small children.

So this was then posted onto the wonderful world of the Internet and then it went viral and here we are. Major news stations like the BBC and CNN, as well as newspapers like the Daily Mail, are picking it up and there are now talks of selling it. In fact, there’s a bid of 100,000 Euros on the table for the whole thing; although I wouldn’t touch it personally as knowing my luck I’d end up buying it and then the Euro would collapse making it completely worthless.

The Dutch government hasn’t taken helicopter cat as well as everybody was hoping though, as it has written to a number of arts fairs in protest. A number of irritating activists have also put graffiti over some art buildings that says: “Kill the animal killers!” (in Dutch obviously) Now, I can’t help but see the logical flaw in this statement. Firstly, he didn’t kill Orville the cat, he merely did what any taxidermist did, and then arguably went too far. Secondly, what are they going to do? Are they going to start attacking drivers of cars who accidentally run small, furry animals over? I highly doubt it.

Daffy Duck

Idiots aside, is helicopter cat ethical? My answer is that it’s ethical because what we have to remember is that the cat was dead. He didn’t kill his cat or damage it in any way. He merely had it stuffed then altered it. Stuffing a family pet is common practice all over the world and few people complain about it. So what’s wrong with this? Is it due to the fact that Orville had a motor added to him? Or is it due to the fact that some people are just jealous of success in this sort of thing? I believe that it’s a combination of both.

Whenever something becomes really successful there are always those who complain about it. These people are miserable and just love to complain about nothing. They are always there and they should be completely ignored. Now, the subject of adding a motor to the cat is a little more genuine. I can completely understand the view from animal lovers that it’s a bit disrespectful to the cat. Completely understandable and I’m not going to fault people for that.

Whatever you happen to think about Orville the cat, on a motor, you all have to agree that it’s pretty damn creative and is an amusing distraction from the monotony of daily life.

Why Would Anyone Want to Care for the General Public?

This is a question many people in the National Health Service (NHS) must be asking themselves after a leaked document revealed that staff in the south-west of England will have to work more, get less, whilst still adhering to those strict targets set up for trusts all over the country.

I believe everybody understands that there will be pay cuts/freezes for people in all sectors, but those in the NHS are seemingly being hit over and over and over again. The latest comes from a leaked document which reveals the following. Staff will have to deal with:

Salary reductions across the board.
Even more cuts to their allowances.
Considerably more hours.
The amount of leave they have per year reduced.
Mass changes to their sickness benefits.
And to put the flies on the pile of faeces, they will all be dismissed and will have to reapply for their own jobs.

And this is ignoring absolutely everything to do with NHS pensions. So if they are earning less after these changes whilst still having to pay more then what’s left? Why would anybody want to work for the public healthcare system in this country? Let’s get one thing straight. The health system is one of the toughest to work in as hours are long, targets are strict, and it gets battered by disgruntled members of the public and the media on a consistent basis. It’s like they are trying to destroy the whole thing and turn us into an Americanised copy.

Let’s look at one area of the health system that’s tiny these days. The dentists. Now, have you ever tried getting an appointment with a dentist in this country outside of the private sector? If you haven’t then I assure you that you certainly won’t find it easy as there are so few dentists. Yes, it’s true that all dentists in this country have to go through a few years of training in the public system before going into private practice, but how many of them are going to stay? You get less than private practice and you are under the control of somebody else, what’s the point?

Dental floss

All these changes are going to do is continue to push the brightest and the best out of this country and into the waiting arms of another country. Alternatively, if they decide to stay then they are probably either going to create or join a private practice instead. So tell me one thing, exactly how does the government hope to keep a fresh and competitive health system when they are constantly throwing people out of it with their ludicrous changes? I hope for the future of the NHS that their answer is a pretty damn good one.

Give a shit