Well Salt My Peanuts

I'm pro-choice

2011-06-19T00:00:00+01:00

I often have to fight the urge to write a post about how much I agree with what somebody else just wrote. Since this is one such post it's quite evident that the urge won out. Yesterday I read an article by Ross Clark in The Spectator prompted by the recent events surrounding care homes in Britain. The article was talking about the dogma that exists between privatisation and nationalisation in British politics.

The debate on public services reform has degenerated into a deafening slanging match between unreformed socialists who won’t countenance a single employee leaving the state payroll and dogmatic privatisers.

As tempting as it is at this point to delve into my deepest thoughts on the issue of privatisation Vs nationalisation it would betray the point of the post, so I'll be brief. I am it must be said more fond but I believe it is not the solution to every problem and I can appreciate the arguments against it. Concerning education & Health care for example, most would argue that access to these things are fundamental to every one of us, and as such, all should help provide them ensuring a minimum standard to each citizen regardless of their means. I sympathise with this view, I just wish this minimum standard wasn't so minimal. In short: I'm for privatising but it's not always the right path and even if it is, it's not always done properly.

You're doing it wrong

If we take an industry that doesn't channel quite the same emotion as health and education such as the rail network. In this case we have something that was badly run by the government and bankrolled by the taxpayer. It was privatised in the hope that standards might increase and costs would go down but, even if they don't, it would mean those who pay the costs are only those taking advantage of the service. Sounds fair but course it wasn't to be. The service is still a shambles and the taxpayer still funds it.

What good has come from privatising the railways now that fares have soared and they are swallowing four times as much subsidy as in the last years of British Rail

The obvious point being that even assuming that privatisation can be potentially a good idea in some situations, if the transition is mismanaged it can quite obviously do more harm than good. If governments know how to do one thing well, it's how to balls something up good and proper.

Private provision of public services often fails because the commissioning is so lousy. It isn’t enough to dispatch some service to a private company and hope that all will be well. Sending middle-ranking civil servants to negotiate with CEOs of private companies is asking for trouble.

Choice: The elephant in the room

However there is a far bigger problem that afflicts many privatised industries just as when they were state provisioned. One of the keys to providing people with a nationwide service is, in my view, giving them choice. Public or private, I really don't care so much, so long as I can take my business elsewhere if I'm getting a shoddy deal. For end users it's not always about who's running the show but about allowing them to find a better deal. Imagine, because of where you live, being effectively forced to send your child to a school that is widely known for being horrifically poor. You can't take your business elsewhere because they say so. If XYZ Supermarket was allotted 100,000 people of the town as customers who weren't allowed to shop anywhere else would the supermarket be so concerned about price and quality. I'd wager not.

the matter of who owns the hospitals and the dustcarts should come a rather poor second compared with whether they actually get their knees sorted out and their bins emptied.

The customer satisfaction for my local train company is in the drain (less than 50% I believe). Can us customers of this truly awful company get rid of them for an alternative? Can we hell.

The problem with private provision is that in so many cases bureaucrats remain the direct customer. It isn’t passengers but civil servants who decide who runs their local trains.

The people that use the services should have a say in who provides the service. It may be more complex in semi-monopoly situations like train providers but with schools, hospitals and care homes I should be able to avoid the ones I know are bad. Poor institutions no matter who owns and runs them will not survive if their customers are allowed the freedom to seek out a better alternative.

Just imagine if the families of Winterbourne View’s residents could have taken them out as easily as they could sign out of a hotel. It wouldn’t be a case of ‘tightening procedures’, as officials tend to say on these occasions — its last guests would have left last week and its gates would be chained shut.

Damn right, who in their right mind would choose to send their loved ones to that place no matter what new procedures are put in place. It would be a piece of history.

And late one accursed night, I compounded the elements

2011-06-17T00:00:00+01:00

So I finally cracked and moved my blog to a new platform. I was happy with my wordpress blog, it never gave me any bother. From Wordpress.com to my self hosted install. It treated me right. I must admit there was one thing that often bothered me. While many people dislike the dashboard, specifically the new post section, I find it completely fine from a interface point of view. The output however often had me vexed. Even in raw HTML mode it would often fiddle with the finished article. I wanted more control. I had overheard conversations amongst friends about something called habari and I thought it about time I tried something a little more unusual to serve up my inane drivel. At first I did nothing, but it is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.

A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, Norman gave one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all intelligent, reputable men and all judges of enjoyable yack shaving techniques.

Here, the conversation turned to markdown, makefile blogging and the Jekyll static website generator. I had recently been working a lot more with stylesheets and wanted to write blog posts and not have to worry about altering formatting for each one. I often couldn't help moving this paragraph that way a bit, that image t'other. It was inconsistent and a waste of time. No shit you might say but I catch on slowly. I was also drawn to the notion of having my blog articles in a version control system like git. My curiosity was well and truly piqued. I was worried about ending up with a broken website but the temptation of a discovery at last overcame the suggestions of alarm.

The important thing to remember is that this was all the fault of Norman. Even this very post.

Story of the door

Enough tomfoolery, down to business. Jekyll needs Ruby. So on my CrunchBang desktop:

sudo apt-get install ruby1.8-dev

After this I needed to install RubyGems (They really don't pull any punches with the shitty names these folk). So I followed these instructions. What fun. I was starting to think about turning back at this point but I think mostly because I was tired and Ruby is horrid. That aside, I was now able to follow the Jekyll install instructions

gem install jekyll

Then I turned to the rest of the reasonably good documentation and did a little googling around, reading some blog posts [1] [2] [3] [4]. I downloaded a sample jekyll site from git, take your pick, and played with it for a while.

I spent some time familiarising myself with markdown (of which I am now quite the fan), liquid markup and how Jekyll generates the site by taking each file it finds with a YAML header and applying the specified layout file in "_layouts" to generate the finished article. All very good, if but a bit confusing at first. I messed around with a site design using dummy content and, once I had developed some delusions of adequacy, set about importing my Wordpress content.

Inane drivel

There are a handful of tutorials for how to get your inane drivel from Wordpress to Markdown or Textile files by connecting to and querying the Wordpress MySQL database. This seems like overkill to me when you can export an XML file of all your posts. There are a couple of Ruby scripts kicking around that will parse this XML file into an individual Textile file for each post. Unfortunately there aren't any for Markdown. It wouldn't be too difficult to create one but with the amount of posts I have (~20), it hardly seemed worth it. So I... I manually created the Markdown files (-10 geek points).

Tweaking under the bonnet

All seemed to be going to plan so I went about making my design work correctly with my content. Firstly, I needed to alter the YAML header to include a category to use for my URLs and tags because... well just because (I remain undecided on if there will be any tag pages). I then added my own "thumb" variable. My blog design has a small thumbnail to go with each article and the liquid templates would need to know which image goes with which post. My YAML headers were now like this:

--- 
layout: post
title: and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements
published: true
postdate: 2011-06-15 00:00
categories: [technology]
tags: [technology, blog, markdown, ruby]
thumb: jekyll.jpg
---

Then within any liquid layout where I had access to a post I would insert the image like below (I've thrown in some extra spaces inside the braces to keep you on your toes):

{ % if page.thumb % }
    <img src="../path/to/images/{ { page.thumb } } " />
{ % endif % }

I'm still learning. This code snippet has revealed an annoyance with how Jekyll plays with markdown the braces seem to be getting interpreted as liquid template items. Hence the extra space. Rats

It was at this point that I installed rdiscount as an alternative markdown parser as I found a few annoyances with the default e.g. If you want italics inside parenthesis, writing (_it like this doesn't work by default_) but it does with rdiscount. Also, I should mention that I had trouble with the £ sign displaying properly. I made peace with it and figured I'd have to use ampersand pound. However, the next time I tried it, it worked fine. I could look into what was going on but I don't want to and you can't make me.

As well as the thumbnail I also wanted a way to include some licence information about any content that was borrowed from other sources. I wanted this information to appear in a footer in each article and didn't think markdown would allow me that sort of control. I toyed with the idea of having this text in a separate file and include it in the layout but this became tricky. I took the lazy man's route and I added another custom YAML variable.

licence: Headline image licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 provided by...

I accessed this variable in the same way as the thumb variable to insert the text at the foot of each article.

I also wanted to have an atom feed for the site so I created and atom.xml file in the root directory. Giving it an almost empty YAML header just defining the layout as nil. The file is then built up as a liquid template. I found an example of this and adaptedit for my site to look like this (again with the spaced out braces):

---
layout: nil
---
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">

    <title>Well Salt My Peanuts</title>
    <link href="http://saltmypeanuts.com/atom.xml" rel="self"/>
    <link href="http://saltmypeanuts.com/"/>
    <updated>2011-06-19T15:01:38+01:00</updated>
    <id>http://saltmypeanuts.com/</id>
    <author>
        <name>Basil</name>
    </author>

    { % for post in site.posts % }
    <entry>
        <title>{ { post.title } }</title>
        <link href="http://saltmypeanuts.com"/>
        <updated>{ { post.date | date_to_xmlschema } }</updated>
        <id>http://saltmypeanuts.com{ { post.id } }</id>
        <content type="html">{ { post.content | xml_escape } }</content>
    </entry>
    { % endfor % }

</feed>

Plug-in baby

Next I turned my attention to how to retrieve a excerpt of an article. Specifically I wanted to be able to place a "<--more-->" tag in my post and be able to access the text preceding it from my layout files. One possibility would be to truncate the post at an arbitrary word limit like this:

{ { post.content | truncatewords:80 } }

This does work but I had 2 issues.

Whilst truncating at a fixed point was ok for most of my article previews I wanted my most recent article to be more neatly and deliberately snipped.
Cetain unwanted elements such as headings and images are included in the retrieved content and made quite a mess on the home page and archive page.

I did a bit more googling to find out what was possible and discovered that Jekyll can use plug-ins. You basically write some Ruby *shudder* and put the script in the "_plugins" folder in the root of the blog (the folder wasn't there already for me but it depends on which blog you use as your starting point). I looked around for anyone who's attempted what I wanted. Since I never like to let people get away with not doing my work for me. Sure enough, I found something that would parse an HTML document and split it on the "<--more-->" tag. I altered it slightly and I made it strip out any images and headings.

require 'htmlentities'
require 'nokogiri'

module PostMore
    def postmorefilter(input)
        if input.include? "<!--more-->"
            coder = HTMLEntities.new 
            doc = Nokogiri::XML::DocumentFragment.parse(input.split("<!--more-->").first)  

        end

    end

    def stripstyle(input)
        coder = HTMLEntities.new 
        doc = Nokogiri::XML::DocumentFragment.parse(input)  
        doc.css("img").each do |img| 
            img.replace "" 

        end 

        doc.css("h3").each do |h3| 
            h3.replace "" 

        end 

  end

end

Liquid::Template.register_filter(PostMore)

It works a treat and it is simple to pass the post content to the functions from the layout.

{ { post.content | postmorefilter | stripstyle } }

For the older articles I decided to just truncate the words but still wanted to strip the unwanted elements. This has flaws but I haven't bothered myself to do it properly and probably wont until it gives me grief.

{ { post.content | stripstyle | truncatewords:25 } }

Bish, bash, bosh.

Comments with Disqus

Jekyll defaults its URLs to be constructed using the post date. It's a good default but I'm not keen as I don't have many posts and I like to have them show the category of the post similar to this: http://saltmypeanuts.com/technology/why-think/. To change the URL style I simply changed the "_config.yml" file to include:

permalink: /:categories/:title

The title that it uses isn't the YAML variable but from the name of the markdown file itself.

Doing the URLs this way kept parity with my Wordpress blog which is probably a good idea if you have... well... readers. I'm not overly concerned with link rot so I did change a few that contained previously unseen mistakes that bugged me. From my point of view, the only reason to worry about altering the URLs was maintaining existing Disqus comments. I needn't have worried because moving the comments is a snitch. For any posts that have new URLs you just make a CSV file containing Old URL, New URL and You upload the CSV in the Migrate Threads section of the dashboard. From there I just copied the various snippets from Disqus and pasted them into the layout files and then did a bit of style tweaking.

Less is more

The end was in sight. I added all of the files to git and pushed them to a Gitorious repository and use rsync to publish the "_site" folder to my web server. Less is more.

As I lay down the pen

This was an interesting exercise. It wasn't completely straight forward and Ruby smells of poo but it wasn't too taxing for a run of the mill (though exceedingly cunning) geek. There are still things to tidy up and think about. I can't decide if having tag pages are worth the effort and I'd like to flesh out some of the design but it's pretty much there.

Running the jekyll command to completely regenerate the site takes about 1 second. This is hardly surprising because I have such a small number of posts and I'm led to believe that having to generate lots of tag pages and archive pages is something that slows the process down. I also opted not to bother with any code highlighting which is another area that retards generation time. Another complication that I avoided was creating a site map and other SEO shenanigans. I have no need for such trinkets.

I'm more than happy with the results of this little sortie. Had a very pleasing feel to the notion of generating my site rather than have an application connected to a database. A hark back to simpler times (save for the disqus javascript *cough*).

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

The Progressive Atrophy of Common Sense (part V)

2011-04-01T00:00:00+01:00

In 2008 Roger Kreutz was standing in line at Starbucks when 19 year old Aaron Poisson grabbed the tip jar from the counter and fled the premises. Mr Kreutz gave chase. Following a struggle Mr Poisson gets into his car to escape, and in doing so, knocks Mr Kreutz to the ground. Mr Poisson was later caught and arrested.

Mr Kreutz later died from head injuries.

Mr Poisson served year in jail after pleading guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

The family of the deceased have since met with Mr Poisson and seem to be dealing with their loss in a very balanced way. That is until they file a claim for wrongful-death against Starbucks. The claim states that Starbucks "did not employ security to prevent the perpetration of such crimes" and that they "invited the act of perpetration of said crime".

They are essentially claiming that Starbucks having a tip jar in plain sight without security protection makes them responsible for his death.

Restraint

There are 2 things stopping me from going completely nuts over this one. Firstly there has been no ruling on this jet and I can only assume it will be dismissed as folly and secondly the family seem to be reasonable folk, judging by their treatment of Mr Poisson. I can only hope that they have been lead astray by a poor excuse of a lawyer and a powerful need for money.

I would be horrified if my family behaved in this way following my death, well I wouldn't, because I'd be dead but you get the gist. I hope this legal action gets dismissed and I hope the family put it behind them.

Link to the full lawsuit

'Big Society' and the pitfalls of centralised measurements

2010-09-26T00:00:00+01:00

I have always had an eversion to the idea of a large state. The idea that citizens of a nation are controlled by the state repells me. That said, I also try to fight the temptentaion to believe that a nation with little to no government interfearence is the pefect solution, the one true way. I like very much the idea of a "for emergancy use only" government but at the same time I can see the pitfalls with this.

This is why the idea behind the 'Big Society' proposal strikes a chord with me, regardless of the stupid name. I like the sound of a measured approach that marries together the global and local economies; that communities are responsible for their own direction; that charities and social enterprises, run by people who understand the needs of the public best, are given the freedom and support to serve their communities. As with almost any proposal of this kind, there are massive problems to be overcome and huge pitfalls to be addressed. From how to prevent cuts in government spending killing off the very charities they claim to champion. To the strength of big business swallowing up local economies.

Another less evident challenge however, is one that strikes at the very heart of the idea. The idea that the people are best served by their community than by Whitehall. That help is best provided to those that need it by local groups because they are better able to innovate, to adapt, to recognise what needs to be done quickly and to do it. This act of moving services from the centre to the periphery of society, I believe, makes a lot of sense but the issue of how resources are allocated could destroy the notion before it even gets off the ground.

Free To Do What We Tell You

If these services are indeed moved to a local level yet the decisions about what services should be provided and what money should be assigned to each area of need are left to central government, then the strategy, will be doomed to fail. You cannot claim that local social enterprise know best how to help their communities and then tell them what they should be doing. You end up with the same work being carried out but with different people performing the tasks. If the government truly believe that these groups, given the freedom to operate independently, will be able to proved a more innovative and efficient service then they have to give them that freedom. Without this freedom, the idea falls flat.

Jules Peck (chairman of the Bulmer Foundation) poses the question:

"Extra powers and funds for community groups will be welcomed. But will this come with strings attached and a demand that the Government has a say in what is specifically intended to be a grassroots deliberative and democratic movement co-created by citizens themselves?"

Indeed, one of the main problems I have witnessed first hand with state provided social programs is the constant and overwhelming obsession with targets, measurements and rankings. They are investing significant amounts of money into a project so they want assurances it will succeed before they start and they want hard numbers showing it is going to plan at every step of the way. There are government employees all accross the land who's sole job is to measure the success of their project and report the statistics up the chain of centralised bureaucracy. If this burden is transferred to local groups the result will be a fragmented bureaucratic mess as appose to a centralised bureaucratic mess.

This kind of expectation and results based funding will choke the innovation that the government claims 'Big Society' will provide. If local charities are not able to try out new and untested schemes for fear of losing funding then they will have no choice than to provide the same old government approved services year after year. Moreover, if charities are burdened with having to bid for backing and funding it could prove too expensive for small organisations. This would leave larger national organisations providing a pseudo local service.

Samuel Middleton (researcher at ResPublica) asks:

"How should funding be allocated if not by measurement? Evaluating the impact of solutions and accurately conveying this to people who lack firsthand experience of the solution in action is fraught with pitfalls. But is there a viable alternative?"

I believe this is an important question and unless the government can find a suitable answer the 'Big Society' will be nothing more than a pipe dream.

The Progressive Atrophy of Common Sense (part IV)

2010-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

On the 11th of February in Atlanta the CEO of MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) announced they were changing the name of their 'yellow line' to the 'gold line'. Sounds like some dull uninspired marketing ploy by the latest soulless intern doesn't it? If only that was the depth of bullshit involved. The actual reason for the pointless act is because the line in question runs into Doraville, a very large Asian-American community.

It would seem some community representatives have decided that the colour yellow is offensive to the Asian community. At this point I'm tempted to ponder if it's the colour that offends them or the word of the colour being written down. It turns out it's mostly the phrase. Helen Kim, director of advocacy and education at the Center for Pan Asian Community Services (the number of words in her title alone speaks volumes) explains why the word yellow is so unspeakable.

"Yellow" has historically been used as a derogatory term for Asians, such as "the yellow peril" or "the yellow hordes." Our thought is, why don't you change it to gold? It's really more of a 'why not?' question. Why not change it?
- Helen Kim

While pushing for the change Kim put forward the steller argument of "Why not?". Lets assume for a moment that such an argument is ever a valid reason to change something.

Minority communities and the members of them have a lot of challenges to face in any society. Members of these communities have had a long and difficult struggle against oppression and for acceptance and equality in society. Though it is becoming easier all the time, I'll be the first to admit they are far from over. Racism still exists, there is still large amounts of fear, uncertainty and doubt expressed towards minority communities. Discrimination still goes on in employment and society as a whole. These are big issues and require huge amounts of work to tackle them.

Self Defeating

This cause will never be helped by a charade such as this. A community or their spokesmen should not be getting their knickers in a twist because of a primary colour. What will be next? The yellow warning signs on platforms, are they a descrete reference to the "yellow peril"? This sort of behavior only goes to expose such communities as up tight and inflexible. The continuation of such actions can only lead to further derision and schism in society.

Ignoring the annoyance that money will be wasted on this re-branding, this sort of hyper over sensitive political correctness is extremely tiring and unsettling to observe and the lack of common sense, ever startling. These people like Helen Kim should have far more important things to do with their time. There is a generation of people going through the US school system who could be learning about the benefits of a unified and understanding culture. Instead they will get to observe how as long as you tread on eggshels in public life you can keep those pesky minorities at arms length.

This was not a victory for racial sensitivity, it was one more crushing defeat for equality and common sense.

Why think when you can just click?

2010-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

As the internet becomes ever more popular and ever more useful those that make use of it are no longer limited to the "Tech Savvy". A large amount of internet users today may even consider themselves technophobes, people who struggle with technical jargon and computer concepts. This is not news to anyone.

This in itself is not an issue but does provide challenges. It is a challenge for the IT industry to create new and feature rich products that both appeal to the geek but remain accessible by the technophobe. The challenge of balancing powerful features with ease of use is not a new one but when the software in question is online it becomes magnified.

In my experience technophobes do not like change. They want a computer set up to perform the tasks they need. They want to click in the same place to achieve the same result time after time. They do not want or need new and improved features, such things only confuse them and slow them down. This kind of environment has been relatively easy to achieve with a windows desktop. Throw some shortcuts for Microsoft Word, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer onto the desktop and job's a good'en. Every time they turn on their PC they know what to click, they are not always sure why they have to click what they do but if they always click the same things in the same order it works the same as it always has.
I have no issue with people using technology in this way. They want the technology to work for them, not the other way around.

The World Wide Web, on the other hand, is much more difficult place to tame. Unlike their desktop experience, ultimately, things change: services have downtime, websites get redesigned, features get added, companies go bust. Add to this there is a whole new world of jargon and concepts and you end up with some very twitchy users.

Let Me In

A recent beautiful example of this was when a technology blog posted a now famous article about facebook. The article in question ended up appearing at the top of Google's search results for "facebook login". This coupled with the fact that users can comment on this article by pressing a button labeled "Login with Facebook" lead to numerous users believing this was the new facebook home page and expressing thier contept for the situation in the comments.

In the aftermath of this event many people suggested that this was a huge failure on Google's part to direct the users to the correct page and indicative of a greater failure of the industry to make things easier for Joe User. This I take issue with.

I completely accept that people can be confused by the world wide web and by busy websites with links and login buttons sprinkled all over the place but there comes a point when the responsibility falls to the user to just work some things out for themselves. This situation came about because a vast number of people either don't know what the address bar is for or how to use it. They open their internet and start typing. More often than not this typing happens at Google, they click search and they get taken to where they want to go.

Now, as a self confessed computer geek this situation is a little alien to me. However, having tried to look at this from all sides I still cannot fathom how people can lay scorn at the feet of Google. The Google web page is incredibly simple and bare. There are hardly any graphics and there is nothing fancy or distracting about it. I imagine this is one of the factors behind its success.

I can understand how someone who habitually searches "facebook login" and clicks the first result would be hugely confused by arriving at this article. I can also see how they would scan the page and I understand how seeing a "login with facebook" button would catch their eye and also confuse them. Where my understanding falls down is that after trying this button and seemingly getting nowhere they didn't go back to the beginning of the process and pay more attention.

As far as I'm concerned there is no getting away from it. If any of these people would have slowly read the search results and thought about it for 10 seconds they would have been happily playing FarmVille within seconds.

Not Computer People

Software designers don't get it right nearly as often as they should with regards to making things easy for users but they could do with just a little bit of help. The laziness is overwhelming. In this age you should not simply say you're "not a computer person" and believe it excuses you from concentrating. When you get stuck go back to the beginning, pay attention, take your time, read what is on the screen, consider the words and what they could mean and base your actions around that. Isn't this a good way to act when faced with the unfamiliar.

How do these people function in the real world? When confronted by a new road junction do they just blindly accelerate through it without considering the signs or observing their surroundings? When in a new supermarket do they notice the produce is in a different order they are used to and run screaming from the store?

There comes a point when you have to expel a little effort even when you are lost and confused. Software designers need to do a better job at making their final product more intuitive but users are going to have to meet them somewhere in the middle.

Time to Face the Music

2009-09-30T00:00:00+01:00

I'd like to give my 2 pence on the Roman Polanski affair. For those unfamiliar see this for an account of his recent arrest and this for the transcripts of the trial in the 70s.

The facts are as followed: (For a more complete time-line see this)

Roman Polanski was arrested in 1977
Polanski pleads guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor
Guilty plea was part of a deal to have 5 other charges dropped
Deal meant being sentenced to time already served
A Judge rejects the agreement and issues 50 year sentence
Polanski flees the country
Polanski is arrested in Switzerland September 2009

For the purposes of my argument I'm going to look at the incident in 1977 as a regular assault rather than one of child rape as I don't want to lose any perspective because of knee-jerk emotional reactions. The way I see it is this. A man was arrested and pleaded guilty to a crime and he should face sentencing for that crime. I think it was right that he was arrested and he should be extradited and held accountable.

Case For The Defence

People who disagree have several arguments which I'd like to address:

The Judge in 1977 reneged on a deal he had made.
This does seem odd. I don't know if that was legal and/or legit or the reasons behind it and I probably never will. I can understand why such a situation would make him flee, it's perfectly understandable. In my view however that doesn't mean he should never have to face sentencing if apprehended in the future.

The victim wants to drop the charges against him.
(link) Good for her, she is trying to move on and put it all behind her. I don't know if it's because she has forgiven him or just wants the whole affair to be confined to the history books. Either way, I don't see the relevance to his arrest, he should still be brought to trial and the presiding Judge should consider the opinion of the victim and act on it as they see fit. The victim's forgiveness is not a "get out of jail free card".

Film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely.
see petition
I don't know if I should even take this seriously or not but hey, the likes of Salman Rushdie and Martin Scorsesethink it's a valid point so here goes. The freedom and safety of which they speak, I am quite sure, is supposed to be the freedom and safety to show any film they have made, regardless of how politically or morally controversial it may be perceived to be. This should not be taken as some sort of immunity blanket. How dare you take something intended to protect the freedom of expression that allows you all to go about your business in safety and twist it for selfish needs. I can't describe how appalling I find this argument.

I am amazed at the amount of support that the above petition has generated and the high profile backing he has received. I am, however, not surprised by the public backlash said support has received.

"I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape."
- Whoopie Goldberg

To conclude my opinion on the matter I would say that I believe he should be extradited and be made accountable for his actions. If a Judge decides that taking into account the history of the case, the wishes of the victim to drop the charges and the support he has received from some of his peers warrants a sentence of time already served or the dismissal of the charges altogether then so be it, but he should stand up and be counted either way.

The Progressive Atrophy of Common Sense (part III)

2008-07-21T00:00:00+01:00

PINK magazine editor Cynthia Good has managed to persuade Atlanta city council to part with $1,000 in order to change 50 'Men at Work' signs. Public Works Commissioner Joe Basistatold FOXNews.com

"It seemed like the right thing to do"

City union leader Gina Pagnotta claimed female public workers had complained about the signs years ago.

"It is a little bit biased to say 'Men Working', Women are working, too."

Herein lies another example of political correctness gone mad. For anyone to feel a 'Men at Work' sign bears any kind of significance and to take offense to it, flies in the face of good sense. I have always considered the term man to be synonymous with human. I can imagine a feminist reading that will be baying for blood but frankly these people need to get a grip. This is not one more small victory in the endless struggle for gender equality, it's weak minded pettiness that has been pandered too by politicians afraid to stir up a group of voters.

I would much rather the Atlanta city council put the money towards something worthwhile like helping victims of domestic violence. Moreover, I would much rather Cynthia Good spent her time campaigning for something worthwhile like equal pay for women.

In short: I wish people would get a grip of what's important and stop wasting time and money.

Sport: A Eulogy

2008-06-01T00:00:00+01:00

Last year Oscar Pistorius was refused clearance by the IAAF to compete in the 2008 Olympics. This was one of the very few triumphs of common sense last year. However, roll on 2008 and on the 16^th of May the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned this ruling. One can only assume they were overcome by a heart-warming story and the burning desire for an 80s Montage Moment.

I am finding it difficult to put into words how angry this makes me. Athletics should be a pure sport in which the worlds best athletes push their bodies and minds to the limit. It should not be a school sports day where the fat kid gets a head start and there are no real losers. I may come across as crass and cruel but it's what I believe to be right. This is a slippery slope: What happens is Oscar fancies taking up swimming? Can he detach his blades and strap on some flippers?

I have said it before and I'll say it again. He is clearly an amazing bloke and should be very proud of what he has achieved but I don't see the logic of giving someone a leg-up on the competition because they are at a disadvantage. This is a contest between the very best athletes in the world and if you aren't good enough then I don't care why you're not good enough. You just aren't.

I will concede that there are many complexities with regards to athletics and the rules of competition and I agree it's tough to figure out where the line is to be drawn on technological advancements. Where do supplements become drugs? Where do advanced training shoes become unfair aids.

I don't know the answer to those questions but I do know this: whatever is allowed for one should be allowed for all, so unless the CAS wish to see all runners going round the track wearing carbon fibre stilts I think they should take a long look at this decision and their need for an engineered fairy tale.

They have effectively taken away the level playing field that makes sport possible. To quote Arthur Caplan:

"He may not have a marked advantage, but his artificial limbs make him too different from those he competes against, and too unlike those who have raced before. It's not about giving him an opportunity. The issue is that Pistorius risks destroying exactly what he wants to do - compete in a sport."
- Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Can you hear me now?

2008-04-10T00:00:00+01:00

Here is your good news story for the day... I think... sort of.

An 80 year old man continually called his wife's mobile phone after her death in 2005 so that he could hear her voice. However, after a system upgrade by Verizon, the voice mail message was lost.

Charles Whiting was distraught.

"Now they took her voice away."

Here comes the good part: Verizon managed to restore the message from a backup archive so Mr Whiting can once again hear his late wife's voice everyday.

"I'm glad they rescued it, I'm very happy."

Well done Verizon and hooray for backups!

The one and only.

2008-04-04T00:00:00+01:00

Amongst the farce that was the Heathrow Terminal 5 opening there is a story about a dance musician that lost his laptop.

Calvin Harris was returning from America when his laptop bag went missing. What makes this especially troublesome for Calvin is that said laptop contains the only copy of his new album... Ooops.

This is what a Columbia Records Spokeswoman had to say on the matter:

"He has lost the only copy of the new album."
"It is a big cause for concern - months of work have gone into that."
"They have offered about £750 in compensation."
"You can't really put a price on something like a new record."

Yes you can love, my friend that works at HMV does it several times a day.

I'm amazed at how stupid this guy is. I know if I had worked on a project for 7 months I would have more than one copy of it, especially if I was carrying it around the world with me.

I appreciate that the people in charge of the Terminal 5 opening couldn't organise a pissup in a Brewery. However, for this guy to be pining for compensation based on lost data seems crazy. You have been compensated for the loss of your physical items, anything else that you cannot retrieve is down to you being a moron.

I guess what you really can't put a price on, is good sense.

Robin Hood

2008-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

I wont go on a typical scatter gun rant like I can often do. I'll just take a quote from Heather Mills 'victory' speech and poke some gaping holes in her rhetoric. I would also like to note I have no concern with either parties perceived personalities as I presume to know nothing real about them.

"First of all I just want to say I'm so glad it's over. It was an incredible result in the end to secure mine and my daughter's future and that of all the charities that I obviously plan on helping and making a difference"

I have 2 issues with this statement:

The man was never going to leave his own daughter wanting for anything in future so the 'I did this for her future' argument holds no weight
The fact that you do charity work does not make it ok for you to fleece someone of wealth. You are not Robin Hood!

Cunning Racists

2008-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

I tried to approach this post in a way that wasn't sarcastic and full of vitriol but I just couldn't do it.

It has come to light today that the only people that are allowed to do bad things on TV are Middle Class Caucasians. It is utterly offensive and distressing for anyone to comprehend the concept of someone from any other background possibly doing anything dishonest.

A complaint has been made to the BBC about alleged racism in a scene in Basil Brush in which a gypsy woman is selling heather and wooden pegs. Can you believe the nerve of the producers? Showing something that clearly never happens, I mean come on, a gypsy, selling heather, it's clearly ridiculous.

Here is an excerpt from a BBC article on the story:

Bridie Jones, of the England Romany, Gypsy and Irish Traveller Network, accuses the UK media of double standards when it comes to racism.

"I find it very upsetting and distressing that in this day-and-age the media will use a puppet to get their own negative views and opinions across of a group that is struggling to survive," Mrs Jones told the BBC.

"They are not allowed to joke about blacks or Asians any more because they would be taken to court, but when it comes to Gypsies or the Irish travelling community they mock us - and to them it's not racist."

A gypsy was depicted doing something that some gypsies do. Of course not all gypsies go round selling lucky heather but I bet there are considerably more gypsies do so than Asians or WASPs.

Thicker Skin Required

People need to step back and calm the fuck down. Accept that people of there own racial/religious/social/class group sometimes do things that are deemed as unusual or dishonest. If a young white Englishman is depicted on TV going abroad and behaving like a larger lout. Is that racist? Most defiantly not, because it sometimes happens and there is no need to make the leap of judgement that every one of us behaves in such a way. The same goes for many other situations it's not suggesting that they all do, it just that it happens.

White middle class English parents are shown going through a divorce.
A working class English teenager becoming pregnant at a young age.
Football fans causing trouble in a bar.

These things happen and should be allowed to be depicted in fiction without fear of some uptight activist bringing the lawyers to town.

Moreover if someone wants to poke some fun at someone else then please grow a sense of humour. If I see a TV show or Film or Comic take the mick out of an English stereotype then I just roll with it and more often than not, laugh along. It's just for laughs; yes sometimes it stings but just let it go. I recently travelled abroad to see some friends. I spent a large chunk of time having the piss taken out of my accent. You know why? Because it's funny, that's why.

Mrs Bridie Jones and all those like her need to remove that stick from their backside and get on with their life. And any gypsies that were equally as offended by Basil Brush feel free to make fun of people that live in houses we can't afford the mortgage for despite slaving away 9 till 5 in jobs we hate. I'm sure that's hilarious to people looking on from another way of life.

I'd be inclined laugh along with you, you know why?
Cos I'm not an up tight awkward time wasting arse.

Don't Mess With The Brush

There is however, despite all that I have said here a more important and overwhelming point:
I don't care who you are or what you do, no one, and I mean no one has the right criticise the legend that is Basil Brush.

Malta: Whole Lotta Churches.

2008-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Apparently there are 365 churches and chapels on the tiny Island of Malta. I'd like to quote some kind of churches per square foot statistic but I couldn't source the required info... the geek in me is upset. Here are some pictures I snapped of St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta. Quite a place.

Built in the 16th Century by the Knights of Malta. It's relatively plain exterior has a look akin to that of a fort due to it being constructed in the aftermath of the Great Siege of 1565.

Hidden inside the sober exterior is a lavish and expansive expression of Baroque extravagance. The detailed carved Maltese limestone walls were all carved in-situ. The Sanctuary and High Altar is the focal point of the church and is shrouded in gifts. The High Altar in the centre of the sanctuary is a rare marble and was the gift of Grand Master Carafa.

The solid silver Sanctuary lamp held by two angels is a reflection of the extravagant baroque style and the grandeur of the Order during the seventeenth century. This rare treasure was the gift of Bali Fra Vincenzo Rospigliosi in 1669.

The nave is 53 metres in length and 15 metres wide with side chapels on either side.

The Grand Masters, who all took great pride in their conventual church, wanted it to be decorated according to the new artistic baroque style. During the 1650s and throughout the 1660s a vast programme of decoration was set into motion. Significant works of art were introduced, for which no expense was spared.

I'm sure you'll agree that it's quite an amazing place. The interior is a little too garish for my tastes but this makes it no less awe inspiring.

To see more complete info on the church see these sites that I plagiarised:
stjohnscocathedral.com
Wikipedia - St._John's_Co-Cathedral

The George Cross Island

2008-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Just look at this place.

I am, it has to be said, rather looking forward to my upcoming holiday. 8 nights in Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean. If on the off chance any one reads this who has been, let me know how you found it.

I'll finally get to meet some of the famously friendly natives and meet up with my friends. Moreover, it's going to be great to get away from the sub freezing temperatures that have descended on the UK this week. I tend to get grumpy with wintry weather.

I'm gonna try a little of all the food this place has to offer. Not sure I have the right tastes for Maltese food but you have to try things don't you. I also can't decide whether I should take my camera and get some potentially amazing shots. Or if I should just soak the scenery in the old fashioned way and not be 'that guy' with a camera...

I can't wait.

The Progressive Atrophy of Common Sense (part II): Reprise

2008-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Not long after ranting about people taking responsibility for their own actions a shiny new example jumps up and says hello. 28 year old, Graham Calvert of Wearside has lost a bucket load of cash due to a gambling problem. Note a key point here: He has lost money because of his gambling problem.

So of course the obvious solution for Mr Calvert is to sue William Hill bookmakers for £2.1 million of losses. His legal team claim that:

"William Hill were negligent in allowing him to continue to gamble after agreeing that he would be self-excluded and that they should be held responsible for the consequences."

I however would argue that Mr Calvert was negligent in continuing to gamble. Nobody forced him to hand his money over now did they. This guy is a prime example of someone not willing to be accountable for the mountain of shit they have buried them self in.

Lets say that this excuse of a human being had gone on a lucky streak and had amassed £2 million winnings as appose to losses, do you imagine for a second he would have returned the cash. Would he hell, why, because he chose to make a bet of his own free will which the bookies took of their own free will.

People all through history and all over the world have made sacrifices that most people can't even comprehend in the name of free will. Only for this deplorable pissant and many others like him to erode it away by demanding people, companies and governments babysit our every move.

Agreeing Machines Vs Thinking Machines

2008-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Are we all becoming agreeing machines instead of thinking machines?

The late, great Kurt Vonnegut Jr once wrote:

"She was stupid on purpose, which was the case with most women. The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get.

So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was discover what other people were thinking and then they thought that, too."

Whilst Vonnegut was referring to women in his fictional city this can be seen as a commentary on todays western society.

I can't deny that despite trying to think for myself I spend a lot of my time as an Agreeing Machine. Reading this reminds to spend more time thinking.

Blade Runner: Logos Prevails Over Pathos

2008-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

It has been reported today that the International Association of Athletics Federations have finally ruled to bar Oscar Pistorius a.k.a. The Blade Runner from competing at the Olympic games in Beijing. If you are Unfamiliar with this story see this BBC feature

The basic facts are these:

Oscar Pistorius legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old.
He has been competing in athletics with the aid of prosthetic blades.
He has until know been allowed to compete in both able bodied and amputee athletic events.
The IAAF have now ruled that he will be unable to compete in this years Olympics as it is claimed the blades give an unfair advantage.
I am 100% behind this ruling.

Harsh But Fair

It amazes me that this guy has been allowed to compete at all in able bodied events since he has 2 massive springs strapped to his legs for gods sake, they aren't called cheetah blades for nothing. Allow me to theorise... in an extremely flippant manner.

If a guy with only one leg wants to compete, can he use a bike? That's okay is it not, because it's not an unfair advantage if you're disabled. It just levels the playing field. How about someone who is born with another disability, a mild condition... lets say, he was born a slow runner. Should we let this athlete take some drugs that could give him a more even chance?

This guy is not the perfect athlete so why should he rely on mechanical aids to assist him? I know it's a shame about the poor guys legs and I'm glad I don't suffer like he does. He is an amazing character and his determination, drive and overall ambitions puts me and most of the people I know to shame. This however should not cloud the cold hard facts of the real world. Life is not a Disney movie, nor is it a modern day primary school, where everyone's a winner.

The Progressive Atrophy of Common Sense (part II)

2008-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Please join me in observing these three escalating examples of nonsense:

Don't Lend Me Money When I Ask For It

There has been a growing trend in the UK of banks receiving criticism for lending money to people who could not keep up repayments and in all likelihood were never going to. It is argued, and not by a minority, that it is the responsibility of the banks to ensure that anyone that they lend to will be able to handle the burden of this debt.

It is in the banks interest to only lend monies to people that can repay them, they will however, be willing to take risks. I would argue that the responsibility for deciding if the loan is appropriate lies at a personal level. You don't see these people complaining when the banks agree to lend them money, the complaints of irresponsible lending only emerge when the it's time to pay the money back.

I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen but if you are an adult with no mental health issues then you are quite capable of making your own decisions. If you want a loan and a bank is willing to take a risk on giving you said loan then you are solely to blame if you can't pay it back. News Flash: You are not a child.

Don't Sell Me Food When I Want To Buy It

Next we have the phenomenon of people claiming that major food companies have been behaving irresponsibly for ... shock horror... selling food to consumers. I know this seems terrible but it's just a sign of the times in which we live, people walking into shops, buying food... I'm almost ashamed to be human. There has been claims that fast food outlets and any producers of food with high salt, sugar and fat contents should place warnings on their products about the potential for addiction.

Moreover lawyers have been arguing cases for compensation for "pain & suffering". Here is a quote from John Banzaf a Lawyer from the USA often labeled as 'The man who wants to sue America'

"I would not be surprised to see McDonald's paying more than $50 billion over the next decade in punitive damages and compensation for pain and suffering"

The response to this appalling sound bite from newsreader Barbara Walters was:

"That sounds crazy ... whatever happened to self-control?"

Someone give that woman a carrot! She has truly hit the nail on the head: You are responsible for your own actions. Give your head a shake and grow up.

Even Drug Dealers Are Irresponsible

Now for the cherry to sit atop of the most delicious of cakes. Sandra Bergan, a 23 year old Canadian, has successfully sued ... brace yourself ... her drug dealer. Ms Bergan said that her dealer, Clinto Davey, had known the drug was highly addictive and dangerous but still sold it to make money. No shit sherlock!

"I sued him for negligence... for selling me drugs and getting me hooked when I was vulnerable"

I'm sorry love but that is what dealers do. Aside from the initial amusement about this story and the pleasing fact that a crystal meth dealer has been punished, there is an underlying reality that there is little difference between this and the 2 aforementioned situations. People everywhere are refusing to take responsibility for their own actions.

This woman has effectively profited from an illegal activity.

Happy days.

The Progressive Atrophy of Common Sense (part I)

2007-04-22T00:00:00+01:00

One of the things that concerns me most in recent years is the complete lack of common sense displayed by the general public and the institutions that serve them. Many examples are available and whilst most seem to stem from the US and the religious right, for example, school text books in Texas are prohibited from containing the word 'imagine' because it looks very similar to the word 'magic' which of course is blasphemes. It is all to easy however, to put it all down to 'them stupid Americans'. It doesn't take long to find occurences of mindless stupidity in any country in the western world.

A lot of this stupidity is due to the juggernaut of political correctness. Take for example the small shop owner that had to fight off a £1000 fine for selling golliwogs.

Or the more recent example of Sydney Mcgee, people so afraid by nudity, the human body, that a respected teacher was removed from her position.

That's right, a respected and popular teacher took her 5th grade class to the Dallas Museum of Art. The children were exposed to nude art whilst on the trip... shocking. Following the complaints of one of the child's parents, Ms McGee was suspended.

The trip had been approved by the principle and the children were accompanied by 4 other teachers and 12 parents. Even so, she was called into the principles office after the complaint.

Later she received a memo from the principle stating:

"During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations."

Why Me?

2007-04-22T00:00:00+01:00

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, enquired at last: "Why me?"

"That is a very earthling question to ask, Mr Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"

"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady bugs embedded in it.

"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, 1969

Listen:

2007-04-21T00:00:00+01:00

This may one day be a blog of substance that other people will find intriguing. Until then it will be a hotchpotch of random tomfoolery until my motivation dies.

So it goes.