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

Suicide Bombing was a far and distant terror for most people until the 9/11 attacks. Recently though it seems to have dropped from the news, but in reality there are still a huge amount of suicide bombings occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The difference is they are now targeting civilians in their own countries. I really despair as to what they hope to achieve by bombing, for instance, a market filled with women and children, barely any men and no security forces.

How can someones mind be twisted to a point where they not only believe this is a good idea, but that the senseless slaughter of the children of their own country will somehow guarantee them a place in heaven.

It seems however that this will not stop occurring in the near future, and there is not really any possible way we can prevent it ourselves, after all how do you reason with a person so undeniably insane that they will blow themselves up around children and women with the sole goal of hatred and revenge and the belief that they will go to heaven afterwards.

It saddened me to think that in today’s day and age there are people out there who can seriously bomb the weak and think they are doing the correct thing

written by Oli \\ tags: Afghanistan, Iraq, Suicide Bombing, War

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

Bacteria are the life force of this world, they help us digest, they breakdown our waste and of course they create our alcohol.

But Genetic experimentation has taken things just one step further this week.  Scientists have made and tested a bacterium that will eat a common produce, possibly even garbage,  and excrete pure petroleum.

Not only that but for all you Carbon footprint nuts out there this bug actually has a negative carbon footprint, that means that when these bugs are working they will infact consume more carbon than they excrete while creating the petrol. So could this really be a carbon reducing, garbage reducing, environmentally safe way to create petrol and remove America from foreign oil dependence?

Well yes, currently, ermmmm…. one catch though…

You would need a factory the size of Chicago to do so.

The good news is that the scientists who created the fuel pooping bacteria are working hard on refining the bug to increase its productivity and growth.  Who knows in a couple of years we could have home garbage disposal units that make petrol for us!

A man can dream…

written by Oli \\ tags: Environment, Future Technology, Gasoline Excreting Bacteria, Global Warming

I have been following the push of Carbon Credits quite closely.  Carbon Credits basically are an extra tax on any business that goes over a certain level of carbon emissions, based on things such as electricity usage and so forth.

What amuses me slightly is that

The Green Party are pushing for the Carbon credit tax and have arrived at a value

The industrial lobby have been lobbying for business rebates to avoid bankruptcies due to high energy bills.

People are complaining because their energy bills are already high enough, and there is a very real possibility that they will be hit hard by this (Energy producers create a great deal of carbon, the cost of paying this would be passed onto the consumer)

The Government has suggested that out of the estimated 7 trillion dollars raised, 1 trillion is sent to government debt, some is spent on energy efficiency research and the rest is sent back to the tax payer as a rebate.

Ok, so I look at this and what do I see, half the money going back to the industry, half the money going back to the tax payer, a whole load of red tape and extra burden on industries who will have to employ people to figure out their carbon usage, survive the gap before they get their research and so forth.  Meanwhile the taxes will increase by around the extra amount the energy companies have to pay (around $22 a tonne) but that alright because the consumers will get a regular rebate giving them their money back.

Does anyone else see the complete pointlessness of this latest environmental debacle.  I cannot believe there are serious political contenders out there who would consider such a farce in the current recessive economic climate, let alone a strong one.

I think I may move to Australia, last time somebody tried to introduce a red tape tactic there they were sent to jail for a minor offence of treason and damaging the economy, why does that not happen here or in the US?

Politicians are destroying our economy for their own selfish and misguided ideals which they have shrouded by their own self illusion.  Yet even when incompetence is proven there is no backlash, no fines or punishment, half the time jobs are not even lost.

It scares me.

written by Oli \\ tags: America, Carbon Footprint, Europe, Global Warming, Political Fiasco

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7421045.stm

I read this story on the BBC news site today, it raised one of those good ol’ moral dilemas.  This woman has HIV and will most likely die if returned to her home country.  She has already been treated here in the UK several times on our NHS at tax payers cost, despite being an illegal immigrant.

Now how do you weigh a persons life against your own cash?

The fact of the matter is that millions of pounds of tax payers money is spent treating people who have come to the UK for that sole reason, the NHS is a very large, complex and overall easily abused system.

The problem is if you treat one person, why not treat them all?

Every year we send back thousands of people who have come to this country to abuse our system, as nice as you make it sound they come here illegally simply to take what they want.

Others of course come here because they want to live in Britain, to contribute and to become part of our society.  There is a clear, if unmeasurable difference between the two.

How can we keep out those who are abusing the country and let in those who want to join England?

And how do you turn someone away who so desperately needs medical attention, whatever their skin colour, creed or religion?

While it would be nice to treat the world we simply cannot afford it, hell we can hardly afford to treat ourselves with the NHS’s drug boards regularly cutting important medication and treatments from what we get on the NHS.

I have to admit it is a subject matter I would not want to be the policy owner on.  Do you bankrupt the country or stand to be hit by claims of racism and hatred?

Maybe we should look more to other countries, ones that protect their own heritage?

Ones that are not afraid to stand and say, this is us, if you can contribute you can join but do not expect our country to bend to your will.

written by Oli \\ tags: Culture, Disease, England, Heritage, Immigration

For those people searching for the ‘right’ ISP to supply their Broadband Internet many will find the majority of ISPs offering Unlimited internet packages.   However many families are finding tehir internet access restricted, removed and even in some cases extra charges appearing on their internet bill.

This is all down to the ‘fair usage policy’. A fair usage policy is basically a small line in your contract that says while your internet is Unlimited you cannot use more than xxGB per month.

Suddenly things don’t seem quite so unlimited anymore.

The ISPs back this move saying it keeps things fair for all of their customers.  Some users abusing the system can slow down the network for everyone.

Now here I think is a very important point.  If I bought an unlimited usage product I should expect unlimited usage. The company should have the network to deal with this if it decides to advertise such a product.

If I hired a Builder to paint a mansion I would be very friggin upset if the builder only did half of it and then said He couldn’t paint anymore because then there might not be enough paint for the other houses.

If I went to an all you can eat resteraunt but was told I could only have half a plate of food so there was enough for everyone I would also be pretty damn annoyed.

So why the hell should internet service providers get away with unethically and misleadingly advertising products as unlmiited when they sometiems have usage limits as low as 5 gig.

Fortunately there is help available, there have been several casse where people have won full refunds and even damages for loss of connectivity because the Fair Use Policy was not well displayed and that the advertisements were misleading.

Lets take down the corporate bastards who decided to call limited unlimited!

written by Oli \\ tags: Advertising, Crime, Fair Usage Policy, Internet, ISP, Law

In the effort to progress human research into stem cells the Government is considering repeal laws against experimentation with a mix of human and animal embryos.

Now the religions and pussy footed human rights groups have been up in arms on this one, no surprise there. But the focus of this experimentation is a rather strange and mind boggling one.

Personally I am a bit undecided, Christian groups said this move strikes against the heart of human Morales, but wouldn’t something that gave the potential to save millions of lives be a good thing?

I think it is important to remember that this is not aiming to be an Island of Doctor Monroe scenario. These crosses would be grown in the hope that we could gain a greater number of stem cells for a single embryo.

This whole situation brings in a massively controversial angle to an already hotly debated topic. After all the ending of human life at an early stage for research is hardly a non-argument between pro-life and the scientific community.

From a more personal aspect I believe this research should go ahead, I will support nearly anything that looks like it has a serious possibility of improving human life. Stem cell research has already proven immensely effective on the treatment of previously fatal illnesses, the only reason such medication is not already in use is down to he morality issues put forth by pro lifers.

I can see their point in some respects, an embryo could grow into the worlds next greatest artist or scientist. How do we know?

To that I would always point out, it could also be the next Hitler. These things happen ey.

The mixing of animal and human genes does seem at a fundamental level ‘wrong’ but for something that could save millions of lives who am I to complain? After all people take an animals heart already, how is changing an embryo different?

written by Oli

I read this article on CNets Crave today and was glad to see that none other than Harvard University have found that Violent games really do not have that much of an effect on a childs behavior.

Personally I have stood by this belief for a long time. I think Violence in a person is formed from their upbringing, their peers and their lifestyle. I think I first realised this when I was very young.

One of my friends at the time was from a devout christian family, his parents were so against violence that they even went as far as taking Red Alert off him when they found out it was a war game.

Of course from the outset he had an unhealthy obsession with guns and violence. The very shield that his parents ahd set up to protect him had infact driven him to explore the world of violence.

I am not sure how things worked out for him, his family moved away a long time ago. All in all though I think the fact remains that by preventing someone from experiencing and learning about the world around them can only ever end in disaster.

I think this is highlighted by several of the school shootings that have happened in the USA. These children do not talk about videogames or even violence on the news. They talk about how they were repressed, how they were kept off the team, how someone else got the girl.

The truth of the matter is that the personailty of these children was such that no matter what they would have ended up in some violent crime.

The fact of the matter is that the popularity of violent games is very rarely down to the amount of violence in it. It is down to the challenge, beating those around you and so forth.

Of course violence ina game is a factor, but its teh same factor that drives people to join the army. Should we get rid of our armed forces because they encounter violence, even if the majority are balanced, caring individuals?

I worry sometimes that the western world will become too nanny state. The Government will maintain a drakonian control and people will lose the ability to experience, we would become effectively no more than ants. Unable to do anything more than work.

In the UK this is already becoming increasingly apparant, whether you look at the new smoking laws, crack down on drinking, or harsh drugs laws. Then it pervades into your everyday life, telling you that you can no longer do DIY electrics in your home.

This government needs to rememebr that it is here to serve the people, not make people lead the lives it thinks they should.

Personally I think most laws are there to make you think before you break them, but so many people in our government are so now distanced that they do not realise that a multitude of laws are broken constantly every day by your average law abiding citizen simply down to common sense, not including times when people simply do not care whether something is against the law.

written by Oli \\ tags: Computers, Video Games, Violence