I’m a Pundit

I have often commented on the insanity of the British legal system, murderers get put in jail for 2 years while people who are too poor to afford taxes get 10, people who beat people in drunken brawls in city centre, trash peoples cars or break into peoples houses get off scott free, while someone defending themselves gets a sentence.

Therefore it was refreshing to read a story regarding a man, who after splitting up with his wife five years ago became an alcoholic, spending around £500 a week.  He was recently convicted of his seventh driving offence, but spared jail on the offence that he did not touch or drinking alcohol for 12 months.

This isn’t however what made me laugh, as part of the judges verdict, he said,

‘(That is) poor judgement on two counts there — drinking that much and drinking Melbourne Bitter,”

This coming from a country where personal choice in beer is sometimes fought for as aggressively as their support for football teams I could not help but laugh at the judge bringing this rivalry into the courtroom, something that would see a judge suspended in the UK.

God bless Australia.

written by Oli \\ tags: Australia, Crime, Drinking, Driving, Funny, News

I have just read a story on Fox News about how the Canadian Government will be giving out free heroin to addicts.  Now from a generic viewpoint this has been put in place to reduce HIV, overdoses, death and crime. 

Ok I can see where they are coming from, give them free clean heroin and you remove the problems.

I have another idea, for every convicted felon for burglary we should give a government stipend of $5000, this way they wont need to rob people and they wont injure themselves when they are ‘working’ 

Maybe they should set up an online application for people who were thinking of becoming criminals ‘sign up now and we will send you money not to commit crimes!’

You could have options to change your stipend, 

‘Will you or do you

a) Rob houses for upto $10,000 dollars per month 

b) Rob or steal Items of upto $5,000 dollars value per month

c) Mug homies of other gangs yo innit for a poppin $1000 a mo in that right mutha f*ker’ 

Do you kinda see what I’m getting at here?

Of course the guy leading this campaign seems absolutely oblivious as to how ineffective this campaign will be, and even more worryingly the Vancouver chief of police no less is supporting this because, and I quote 

“I’m not a medical expert, this is not my field. I’m an expert in public safety,” Graham said. “And if this will help reduce the crime rate — I’m all for it.”

If I may say so someone who is meant to be in charge of public safety has a very short sighted view of what will happen if the number of heroin addicts increases. (Which will happen if there is no removal of dependancies, fewer deaths etc, Darwin explains the survival of the fittest scenario!)

This program is in my eyes abominable, I do not know how any government, let alone the fairly level headed Canadian government can condone it.

written by Oli \\ tags: Addiction, Drug Use, Government, Heroin, Methadone, Mistake

I was reading yet another story today on the myriad of Suicide Support Websites out there. These are not websites which try to stop people committing suicide, but infact encourage them.

From a personal standpoint I think it is everyone’s right to take their own life. So when the government announced it was going to make sites supporting suicide illegal I decided to look, and shocked though I was, the government was infact Right.

I took a look at several sites claiming to be there to support people who were thinking of ending their life. However a quick look at the members of these sites showed a much more sinister side to human nature.

These websites each had three distinct types of people.

Those Truly Seeking Help – There were some people who had suffered so badly that they were thinking of ending it all

The Predators – These came in several forms, none of them good.

The Attention Seekers – We all have one of those people in our lives somewhere which have threatened to kill themselves in a desperate bid for attention, the words ‘breeding ground’ come to mind here.

The most interesting to study here would most definitely be the predators. Many of them seemed to be living out their ‘suicide fantasy’ through either an attention seeker or a real suicider. They would first gently and then more forcefully shove people to what they should do to kill themselves in a rather perverted way.

They also sent hate mail, in rather vast quantities. These ones were not trying to fulfil a suicide fantasy, they were simply sad people seeking the feeling of power. As soon as I joined the website I was hit by a barrage of abuse that was obviously designed by these people to drive me over the edge.

The third type was sexual. Yes even by posting my real profile of 23 year old male, not the young schoolgirl type profile I got hit with an unexpected amount of emails coercing me to have sex, send nude pictures or perform an artistic show on cam, these tended to come from men in their forties of Arab origins, and was to say the least very concerning since a large number of site members were underage girls.

The Attention Seekers were the least interesting, they get shoved out of social circles in everyday life and it seems like they congregated here to try one last ditch at grabbing someone’s focus for a few minutes. These were fairly easy to spot due to their bi-weekly suicide ‘attempts’ and how publicly they announced what they were doing.

The Real Suicide members were those that really needed help. Many of them would shyly post about the pros and cons of a particular suicide method, while keeping the reasons for their intended departure well hidden. These are the people that really need someone’s help, someone to listen and someone to talk to. It’s a shame therefore that if these people suffered the same kind of abuse that I did then there is little doubt in my mind that they may be driven to suicide when they could have been saved and brought back on track to lead normal lives.

It is therefore my opinion that the government should ban the sites supporting suicide immediately, and also heavily regulate the sites that are set up for helping people who are on the brink return.

Currently the sites are filled with Sick Fucks and Attention Whores who need to be kept well away from those truly seeking help!

written by Oli \\ tags: Ban, Illegal, Internet, Murder, Suicide, Support, Websites

Just incase anyone has been reading the BBC site recently they have reported on the current legal battle being spearheaded by the Greek people of Lesbos.  They claim that a gay rights group should not be allowed to use the word lesbian because it is infact the name used for the people of Lesbos.

Now first off let me say I have a lot of respect for lesbians, especially the fit ones.  If women want to cop off with each other I think that is a great thing.

The legal action against the gay group is most certainly going to fail, after all lesbian is a recognised term for a female attracted to the same sex, most people trying to name the people of lesbos may guess at lesbosian before lesbian.

The Islanders aversion to the use of the name  Lesbian has actually effected them so much that they are now considering renaming their island after their capital Mytilini (Actually a fantastic place to visit)

But this has of course left us with a quandary, The Lesbian people of Lesbos have undoubtedly held the name for much longer than the lesbian movement, should the lesbian movement therefore have the right to take it away from the people of Lesbos?

The Lesbian Movement named itself after the goddess Sappho who expressed her love for women in poetry during the 7th century BC. However Dimitris Lambrou standing for the people of Lesbos said that the the goddess committed suicide over the love of a man and that she mothered a family,  therefore making the connection to lesbianism irrelevant.

Jesus it’s complicated!

written by Oli \\ tags: Greece, Lesbianism, Sexuality

Vivid, the group responsible for realeasing the Tommy Lee Jones/Pamela Anderson Sex tape have today released the Jimi Hendrix sex tape, which shows the iconic rock and roll legend cavorting with two gorgeous brunettes. My first instinct is to say, so what?

I mean this guy was a massive rock star, I am not in any doubt that he bedded more than his fair share of young starstruck women in his time. But Jimi Hendrix’s current publishers who have held the rights to his material after his death are claiming the tape is nothing but a fake.

Personally i am not sure how they are so certain, but to give them their credit they are calling in Jim Hendrix’s past lovers to verify details about the mans.. less public attributes.

I don’t think it makes much difference in the long run though, the man after all was an entertainer, its nice to see that even after his death he is expanding from his main genre.

written by Oli \\ tags: Controversy, Jimi Hendrix, Music, Rock, Sex Tape

Cannabis is one of the worlds most readily available and commonly used illegal drugs on the worldwide market.  Most people have at sometime tried it, and if they havn’t they will almost certainly know someone who has.  Last year cannabis was lowered from a class B to a class C drug at the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs or ACMD.  Their reasoning was that cannabis was a  relatively none harmful drug and that more concentration should be focussed on the more hardcore narcotics available.  This year Gordon Brown asked for a review of this, since he has always been against the drug, the ACMD reiterated their statement however and in a rash move Gordon Brown, someone who is meant to listen to the advice of the boards he set up, decided to ignore their recommendation.  This is coming from a man who has half a cabinet admitting they have tried marijuana.

Now who is the real dope.  Cannabis has a relaxing effect, and while scientists have claimed its use can incerease the chance of schizophreniaby 40% the total number of cases related to Marijuana smoking has not topped 800 cases in the UK, out of around 60.5 million people.

Now compare that to the number of drinking related incidents and issues caused by cancer, not to mention fatty food problems, and the estimated thousands of deaths of starvation in third world countries caused by loss of farmland to ethanol fuel consumption which is being mandated by US and European Laws and suddenly you ask yourself, is the risk really that high?

Put ontop of this the medically proven benefits of cannabis (Which they are constantly trying to recreate without the pleasure for medicinal purposes) and the health problem part seems to become a bit suspicious.   especially when you consider the thousands upon thousands who regularly use Cannabis as pain relief.  I personally didnt think this was such a big thing till my mothers doctor actually suggested she find a dealer to supply cannabis for her back pain.  The truth of the matter is that it is being suggested as pain relief because it is bloody good at it!

Now the government, anti drug lobbys and those with an analy high moral code can all complain as much as they like about how bad cannabis consumption is.  But I will, and always will maintain that the average bod on the street needs something to escape, be it be a cigarette, alchol, low key drugs or even, heaven forbid, religion.  People are willing to risk a little bit occasionally for a bit of fun, you could risk a broken ankle playing football or a broken neck off-piste skiing, but without these things life would be boring.

So why is Cannabis banned apart from the health side effects?

The two main reasons are crime and its role as a step onto harder drugs.  Both I think can be argued.

Crime.  The crime part of this has two aspects, first the money made goes to crimanals (Which wouldn’t happen if it was legalised) and second it drives people to steal for their fix.  Now this I would argue against, sure some people get heavily hooked on cannabis, but I would say the percentage of people stealing for a cannabis addiction is significantly lower than that of alcohol.

Then there is the step onto harder drugs question.  Now this is in some cases true, but in my experience the people who go from cannabis to harder druggs would have done so soon enough with or without cannabis.  While it certainly increases a persons exposure to the world of drugs this would become much less apparant if it was legalised.

It has been announced in France that they will not arrest or even caution anyone smoking cannabis in the upcoming football games. They will however be out in force actively breathalising fans and reusing them entry if they are believed to be drunk.  This to me is a clear indication that neither health nor crime is the real issue, since here marijuana is being used to reduce violent crime in the streets of Paris.

God damn the English system is screwed!

written by Oli \\ tags: Cannabis, Drug Laws, Drugs, Gordon Brown, Marijuana

The US Government has announced it will be more than tripling its investment against HIV to 50 billion dollars over the next five years

Currently the US governmetn suports life saving treatment for 1.5 million HIV Sufferers a year, this should become 2.5 Million with the prevention of 12 million new cases with the new funding according to government reports.

I applaud the money being put into this, saving the lives of millions is a cause that cannot be denied and difficult to put a price on. Whether or not it will be effective or not hower is a different matter. Since they are claiming to prevent 12 million new cases they will obviously be taking the contraception and marketing approach, but Africa and Vietnam are very primal places. Despite the attempts to promote condom use in Africa it is still a fairly rare occurence, and many people there are still uneducated as to what HIV and AIDs really are.

Either way now would be an outstanding time to buy shares in condom companies,$50 billion worth of rubbers, thats a lot of fun!

written by Oli \\ tags: Africa, AIDs, America, Donation, HIV, Vietnam

The Government released a report this week that stated

“Teenagers are drinking 44 bottles of wine or 177 pints of beer a year each, a new study into under-age alcohol intake and violence shows.

The figures relate to 15- to 16-year-olds in the North West of England and stem from a study of 9,833 such youngsters.”

It’s nice to know that the government was shocked by the results, even nicer to know is that the idiots who have been looking into this failed to realise that your average 15 to 16 year old is going to massively overstate his achievements.

However binge drinking in the UK is apparent in many situations, whether it is actually a problem is debatable.  The level of drinking in the UK has remained steady for a hell of a long time.  We drink pints, we drink tehm fast and we have a great time.  And yet according the our newspapers it causes violence and antisocial behavior.

While I would agree that people lose their inhabitions after several pints  I dont think taxing alcohol is going to reduce the problem, since  lets face it, most of the nob ends who start fights in town tend to have something wrong in the head, they don’t need alcohol to start trouble.

The government has responded to this threat by raising the tax on beer by 4p, and it is going to reduce this duty by 6% above the rate of inflation every year for 4 years.

Jesus christ I hate our government.  Not only are they heavily taxing one of the few luxuries we enjoy in our repressed and recessive nanny state, they fail to realise that the trouble is more likely to come from the cider drinkers, especially with the young binge drinkers.

Beer - £2 - £2.50 a pint ($4-$5 )

Cider - £1 ($2) for two litres (Around three to four pints)

The ones who tend to cause trouble on a night are from low income families, they drink the cheaper drinks.  the governments new tax on beer willbring in over half a billion pounds ($1,000,000,000) per year from this yeas tax increase alone.

Go figure why the government decided to tax beer drinkers over the cider drinkers.

written by Oli \\ tags: , Beer, England, Politics, Tax