England on fire, will there be Ashes?

Wow. 77 for 7 before lunch. I can't remember when last I saw the Strine reeling like this. Well done, chaps!

That is all.

Tax the rich! Tax the rich!

Timmy explains why you can tax the rich to buggery and it won't work:

Hmm, average income in the top decile is around £90,000 (no point in being more accurate than that throughout). Cut out everything they get from the State and everything they pay to the State and you get £65,000 a year. There are some 2.5 million households in that top decile.

So, total income of “the rich” is £225 billion a year, of which they pay £63 billion or so a year to the State (nett of course, taxes out and benefits in) leaving them with about £163 billion a year to wave in the faces of the downtrodden poor.

How much does the whole system cost a year? Around £660 billion isn’t it?

So, we could take all the money off the rich, every penny (and of course we could only do this once as the next year they’d all bugger off) and we’d be, umm, lessee….£660 minus about 60 they already pay minus another 160 ish that we let them keep so far….what, £440 billion short of what government costs us?

And that’s why we tax the poor, because the rich simply don’t have enough money to pay for the State we already have.

If you want to have a State that the poor don’t have to pay for, but the rich carry all the burden, then you need a smaller State than the one we have.

Simples!

Motorvation: an occasional series

Irony

Via the Tedious Old Godbotherer, I find this curious snippet:

'This has given me my life back'

She's just be told she is allowed to kill herself and it's made her this happy. Extraordinary! How miserable must her existence be?

I fully expect heads to pop tomorrow

Let me make it clear, I stand second to no man in my opposition to ID cards. But if we're going to have them by hook or by crook, then I really consider this to be a bit of a fucking insult:

Instead the ID card design unveiled by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, features a tasteful floral pattern made up of the shamrock, daffodil, thistle and rose alongside the Royal Coat of Arms.

A Home Office spokesperson saidtoday this was because "the card represents all the nations of the United Kingdom and the design reflects themes of Britishness and aspects of UK history".

All fine and dandy, but what's wrong with the Union Flag?

A recent Identity and Passport Service impact assessment of the next phase of the ID card scheme says it is important that it is designed in a way that is open to everyone who has the right to live in the United Kingdom – whether they are British, Irish or a national from another country.

Jesus, what? So we're fucking taking the flag off an official document to appease fucking non-British citizens? These cunts really are having a fucking laugh!

Why don't they just hand the keys for the country over to the fucking BNP now? This is going to give the BNP another fucking month of free publicity!

Useless cocksuckers.

Last chance!

At midnight, you have to stop telling Total Politics how much you love my blog.

So get on with it!

WHAT?

Non-geeks should look away now. Really. Just ignore this post.

One of my RSS feeds is a DB2 feed. It's called the DB2 feed, although it has Informix stuff in it as well. Way to go, IBM, the world's largest technology company. But that's not the point. The point is this amusing little article:

DB2 9.7: Autonomous transactions

Now, I know this is extremely sad, but I thought about the title for a second and made a stab at this idea: you open a transaction, and half-way through it, you kick off an autonomous transaction which will succeed or fail and have no consequence for the original transaction. And I'm a lot smarter than I thought (or IBM is a lot dumber than I thought!) because that pretty much exactly what it is. Which is nice.

But:

Note that the calling session is suspended until the called session returns control.

Er, what? Why the fuck would you want to do that? Why is it that programmers and database geeks collude in finding ways of keeping transactions open for as long as possible?

GET A FUCKING GRIP YOU CUNTS: YOUR AUTONOMOUS TRANSACTION IS A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A FUCKING PROBLEM!!

The only upside is that mercifully I don't have to touch DB2 with someone else's dick.

Indoctrination: Epic Fail!

Oh dear, Trevor isn't going to be very popular with the right-on crowd for this:

I cannot stress strongly enough that I do not feel that I was rejected from Bristol because I am attending Westminster School, which, despite its substantial fees, honestly produces some of the most well-rounded, interesting and diverse people I have met. Admittedly, it is only when surrounded by large numbers of such individuals who are receiving more rejections than offers, that I have doubted the proficiency of the admissions process.

How very dare she! Standing up for private schools!? The shame! She then goes on to say:

Ultimately however, I have saved myself much frustration and self-criticism by adopting the view that while we may not always understand or agree with the universities' definition of a "desirable" candidate, we must place a degree of trust in those institutions at which we hope to pursue our education and develop our interests. Essentially it is the duty of universities such as Bristol to ensure that their departments remain attractive and accessible enough to continue drawing in as many as 1,500 applicants-a-year and they alone must take responsibility for judging the criteria by which they hope to achieve this.

Good grief! Trev, mate, you really need to take care of business at home, you're letting the side down.

Motorvation: an occasional series

A bona-fide Labour achievement

It's not often that I, as a corrosive right-wing capitalist fascist blogger*, have something kind to say about the Labour Party, but I do believe that fair is fair, so I will compliment them on having achieved something of use:

Allister Heath has just sent me over some stats which show that the poor pay more of their income in tax than the rich. Allister reports that “the bottom fifth of earners pay 38.7 of their gross income in total tax, the next fifth 32.7 per cent, then 34.6 per cent, 35.4 per cent, falling to 34.9 per cent for the top fifth of higher-earning households.”

Absolute result: the very poorest people in Britain pay a higher percentage of their meagre earnings towards the upkeep of the bloated, profligate state than the very rich, or indeed, anyone else!

Yes, Labour is the party of the poor and the downtrodden and boy, it's doing everything in its power to keep them there! That's what we like to see, folks! Keep punishing those poor people and let the rest of us get on with spending our money on ourselves.

(I'm guessing those who are 32.7% amount to roughly 20% of the population, somehow.)

*This is irony, just in case it needs explaining.

The cost of the drug war

Further to my previous post, the ASI has a fantastic tidbit here:

The authors go on to compare this with a regulated legalization model under which heroin and cocaine would be freely available to buy from licensed pharmacies, with 10 percent of users (those with the most serious addiction problems) receiving diamorphine and cocaine by medical prescription. Depending on whether you assume that opiate and crack cocaine use would (a) go down by 50 percent, (b) stay the same, (c) go up by 50 percent, or (d) go up by 100 percent, the net cost of legalized heroin and cocaine under this model would be £3.2bn, £6bn, £8.8bn, or £11.6bn.

To put it another way, if opiate and crack use fell by 50 percent, we would save £14bn. If it didn't change, we would save £11bn. If it rose by 50 percent, we would save £8bn. And even if opiate and crack use doubled, we would still save £5bn, according to the authors' calculations. It is worth noting that this does not include any potential tax revenue that would be generated by drug legalization – something the authors believe would be small anyway, since drugs would be so much cheaper if the 'illegality premium' were removed.

In Portugal, when they decriminalised drugs, I believe use fell slightly, albeit not significantly.

So let's say we decriminalise drugs and provide it free on prescription to anyone who can't afford to buy it, then: we save £10billion a year; petty crime falls because druggies aren't stealing or mugging to feed their habit; police resources are freed up to combat other crime; the tax take goes up very slightly; we engage in free trade with the Afghans and cut the Taleban off at the knees and finally we get ready access to a scarce natural resource.

So ... why are we still fighting the drug war?

Aaaah, bless!

Poor old Kezza, the nasties have upset the poor little mite:

I think the Telegraph has a cheek to ask such questions. It's up to my constituents surely to decide whether they think I'm doing a good job and putting in the hours, and seeing as I have a blog and a website and am fairly often in the local media I think they're in a pretty good position to judge whether I am actually working during recess or sunning myself on a beach somewhere from July 22nd to October 12th. And of course people soon realise whether you're turning up to events or not. But -what next? Publishing our time sheets online at the end of every week? Clocking in at the beginning and end of every day? Electronic tagging?

Well, I guess it's handy that the only time we see the Commons is at PMQ's. And isn't that a vibrant, buzzing sample of how enthusiastic and committed our MP's are? It's just a pity that the rest of the time, the Commons is practically deserted. So yes, you arrogant cunt, I for one would be delighted to have each of you tagged with a GPS sensor and have you log (and have audited, weekly) timesheets to show what you do with your days, not just during the recess, but during the whole year.

Because I don't think you fuckers work nearly as hard as you claim to. Ever.

Yammering cunts

I went out for dinner tonight, nice little bistro down the high street. Nothing fancy, simple tasty food. It was quite busy, so I was close to the kitchen in a little alcove with two other tables, one of which was empty. But that was fine, because the two women at the other table
WERE MAKING ENOUGH FUCKING NOISE TO FILL UP THE ENTIRE FUCKING RESTAURANT WITH THEIR VACUOUS, FLATULENT WITTERING!!!!

Listen, you fucking spacktards, nobody gives a flying fuck about the worthless drivel that constitutes your miserable, bitchy, retarded fucking lives. And we certainly don't want to hear your vacuous opinion about "Mark in accounts" or "that ginger one with the pretty wife."

AND WE SURE AS FUCK DO NOT NEED TO HEAR ABOUT THEM AT A VOLUME THAT WOULD DROWN OUT THE CONCORDE TAKING OFF, YOU FUCKING CROSS-EYED COCKSUCKERS!!!

I now have a blinding headache and my fucking ears are ringing. I hope the pair of you die painfully in a fucking car crash, you annoying, insulting, offensive, rude, wittering CUNTS!!

I'm already hugely unpopular ...

... so I'll go ahead and say it. I was / am a huge fan of Michael Schumacher. I've no idea why, because I thought the last amoral, vicious, mercurial bastard to run in F1 (Senna) was a complete prick.

But I have to say, I thought Schuey timed his retirement from F1 to absolute perfection. He left his fans wanting more, he was at the top of his game, and after he left, well, let's face it, Fezza weren't quite the team they were (especially after Brawn buggered off!)

So I'm ambivalent about his potential return to F1. I'd love to see him win even more races than he already has, but I'm worried that he'll find the game has moved on and he's no longer a player. That would be a terrible way for his career to end.

But if he can pull off even one more win ... jeez ...

Motorvation: an occasional series

How to end the Afghan war

OK, here's a idea: we currently spend billions on a (trust me on this) entirely unwinnable war in Afghanistan. We will never win this war, the very best we can hope for is an honourable draw and graceful disengagement, and how fucking likely do you think that's going to be?

So here's the plan, endorsed by those fuck-off important and smart guys at B&D: stop spending the money on war and spend the same amount of money (or probably less) buying the poppy crop. Then bring the drugs home, burn them or turn them into BP-grade drugs and sell them on the world market.

The Afghan people would get a massive boost to their economy, the Taliban would be marginalised, greed would lead to a semblance of order and development.

Ideally, we could decriminalise drugs as well, but even if that's politically unacceptable, there is apparently a huge shortage of raw material for medical morphine, etc.

So where's the problem?

The things you read

Via Events, this gem from Lord Mandelbrot of Fondling-in-the-Rear:

Of course it's difficult, and of course we're coming from behind.

Oo-er, missus!

Dear God

Carswell is one of the "good guys" of Parliament, but Jesus, how fucking stupid can you get:

Just been reading his explanation of how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not really a science body, but influenced by activists and politicians. Really surprised. I'd always assumed the IPCC could be taken at face value

No, really?

The Benefits of a Small Team

Yes, it's true that those who aren't in Cameron's clique will feel excluded and it's true that he may well miss something important by relying on too small a coterie, but the occasionally frustrating Howard Denton is spot on here:

Cameron is successful because he has surrounded himself with people he can trust and depend on. These are the tried and tested methods that any successful leader will use. Both Thatcher and Blair had small teams they depended on as did Harold Wilson before them. All were successful leaders.

(Note: I don't agree with pretty much anything Bliar did, but he was successful at being a leader.)

The only problem with this is that politicians are, pretty much to a cunt, self-important, overweening, jumped-up, cock-sniffing arse-biscuits who feel that everybody, including the Alpha Male, has to listen to their words of wisdom. So in politics, eventually this perfectly sound and effective policy will lead to briefings, whispers, rebellion and an increase in "inclusion". And then, as we saw with Blair most recently, it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

Politicians, eh? Loathe them or kill them, you can't do anything useful with them.

I don’t believe choking is the word you’re looking for

Wrong in just so many ways!

I could really use a pint of the black stuff now

Tip of the clown wig to Angel.

Once again

TDM is beyond satire today, in a place that leaves you feeling uneasily like the Labour Party would really like to do this:

The Labour manifesto is likely to propose a programme of ritual humiliation for injured soldiers in what opposition parties condemned as 'naked populism of the worst kind'.

Hahahahaha!!!

Via the deliciously lovely Trixy.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Fick dich durch technik

I was idly thumbing through an old copy of Private Eye when I saw an advert for something called the Driver Information System from Audi. Apparently, if you're in the wrong gear, or the window is open or the rear screen heater is on for too long (in the fucking car's opinion!) you will be told nicely to cease and desist, in the name of Gaia.

Well, Audi, all I can say is shove that fucking nannying shit right up your arse.

You cunts.

Missing the point spectacularly

You know twatter? That thing that allows sad fucks to dribble on in 140 characters about how they're having a cup of tea to their equally no-mates saddo fellow twats? Well, the government has decided to start twattering. And needless to say, they've released a 20-page tome on how to fucking use twatter, complete with nonsense like "thought leadership" and "qualitative assessment".

And not only have they utterly missed the issue of brevity, but they actually go on to say:

use holding replies where answer will need research; (only if swamped) respond to "themes" not individual replies

In other words, treat twatter like it's a fucking parliamentary question and when you don't feel like listening to the proles any more, go into write-only mode.

Jesus, what a useless bunch of fucks.

New Tech Blog

I've just blogrolled a new tech blog. How can you not follow a blog called "SAP: Loathe it or ignore it, you can't love it"?

My heart just bled for the blogger when I read the first post. I hear stories of such monumental stupidity on a daily basis. Ah well, onward and upward, indeed!

The delights of "regulation"

Contrary to what some people evidently believe about me, I do approve of a degree of regulation. Anything that involves a business lying to a customer should be severely punished (with the usual caveat that if you don't read the fine print, that's your problem.) What I don't approve of, is reams and reams of pointless red tape. That leads to higher barriers to entry in markets, which means consumers suffer because the markets aren't free.

And contrary to what people might believe about regulating with loads of red tape being a good thing, I'd like to point out that our banks are regulated to death and were already regulated to death before their so-called "free market collapse". Financial institutions were heavily regulated when Equitable Life mis-sold like bastards. Barings was under the same massive weight of regulation. The regulation hasn't helped all those customers.

What the regulation does do, is create barriers to entry. Look at, for example, massive capital reserve requirements. It sounds fine, but a) they didn't fucking stop the banks from hoovering our wallets to a level never seen before in UK history (which is pricisely what they were supposed to stop) and b) they make it practically impossible to start a bank ever again. So the regulations failed to protect anyone (least of all the banks) and they also stop anyone from stirring up the cosy banking cartel.

So, what I am in favour of is a smart, vicious regulator that can turn around complaints quickly and effectively and punish miscreants with suitably painful fines or other penalties. A sort of meta-OFT with teeth like a tyrannosaur and balls like a rally driver.

Regulations, processes and procedures rarely prevent criminal misbehaviour. They only cover the arses of the people who would otherwise carry the can for their incompetence. And so, it is with no small degree of irony that via Timmy, I present this tale of what happens when you put your faith in regulations, procedures and processes:

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) spends hundreds of thousands of pounds each year urging consumers and businesses to be on their guard against scams. But the taxpayer-funded body failed to notice an alleged major fraud going on under its own roof until £250,000 had gone missing.

How, in the name of all that is holy, can the very body that is supposed to protect us, fail us in this way?

In small print accompanying its annual report, the OFT admitted that the alleged fraud had not been detected because of a “control weakness” in the accounts payable department. The problem saw the OFT lose £97,000 last year and £153,000 the year before.

Them's weasel words, them. Somebody was dependent on process and procedures, rather than using their judgement. And when you have blind faith in regs and processes, this will always be the outcome when someone gets greedy.

Feynman Lectures

Microsoft are hosting videos of some of Dr Richard Feynman's lectures on physics here.

Feynman was a really great speaker, so give them a go even if you're not into physics, you may learn something.

VendorRated again

The latest report is out. Informix is, once again, very highly rated.

Got my mojo workin'

Dunno why, but the last couple of days, I've felt like I'm getting over this blogging malaise.

Hope it lasts.

B3tabox

Genius!

Before I even read it, I knew what was coming

Headline:

Call for action to cut pensioner poverty

Let's look at that for a second: "call for action to cut pensioner poverty". Why not just say "give pensioners more money"? That's what you're asking for, isn't it? Why the spurious "action"?

Anyway, before I read the article, let's make a guess: a fake charity is leading for some Labour "vote-winning" soundbite initiative. There'll almost certainly be some nasty statistical flummery in there, too.

So, what do we have?

Reform of the pensions and benefits system is urgently needed to tackle pensioner poverty in the UK, which is among the worst in Europe, campaigners said today.

Among the worst in Europe? UK pensioners get a pretty shit deal, but among the worst in Europe? And who are these "campaigners"?

Michelle Mitchell, charity director for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said the report demonstrated that even in the years of growth before the recession, many older people were being left behind.

Ah! Age Concern. Hmmm...

And what is the deal here?

The call for action came after European commission statistics showed that 30% of over-65s in the UK were living on incomes far below the national average.

Income below the national average? Well, OK, but those of us who are still working have got mortgages to pay and stuff. If you took responsibility for your own life, you'd be looking at having your house paid for and stuff. Wouldn't you? So you'd need less money, wouldn't you? Anyway.

But it's all a can of fucking bollocks anyway, because ... it's this relative poverty crap again.

The EU study found pensioners in the Czech Republic were least likely to be living in poverty, with 5% below the threshold of an income of 60% of the national median.

So, if the Czech median national income is £5,000, and you earn more than £3,000, you're not "in poverty". If the UK median national income is £20,000 and you only earn £10,000, you're "in poverty". But if you took the same income and went to live in the Czech Republic, you'd be absolutely minted. However, as far as the EU is concerned, you'd be poor.

And really, the ONLY WAY you could eliminate relative poverty is if every single person earned the exact same amount of money. How fucking horrible would that be? And it gets worse, if everyone did earn the same money and you were ultra frugal and somehow saved up, your interest earnings would cause you to earn more and you'd put everyone else into relative poverty.

Can you see how stupid and pointless this relative poverty crap is yet?

Motorvation: an occasional series

I hope Labour supporters are paying attention

Oh noes! More expenses! So, who is Lord Bhatia?

Bhatia is a 77-year-old Labour party donor who sits as a crossbencher. He is a successful businessman who has been prominent in several charities. After being made a peer by Tony Blair in 2001, he went on to lead the Edutrust Academies Charitable Trust which was formed to open and run city academies. He quit the board of the trust after a government inquiry found evidence of financial and governance mismanagement at the charity.

Doesn't sound promising. So, what is he alleged to have done?

Lord Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist, has lived with his wife in a £1.5m home in southwest London for 20 years. Almost two years ago he decided to “flip” the designation of his primary residence to a two-bedroom flat in Reigate, Surrey, which has been his brother’s home for three years. The town is a mile beyond the M25 motorway, a boundary used by peers to define whether they live outside London for expenses purposes.

By saying the Reigate flat was his main home, Bhatia was able to claim lucrative “overnight” allowances from the Lords. Peers whose main home is outside the capital are able to collect £174 a night as reimbursement for the cost of a hotel or maintaining a second home while attending parliament.

He must be struggling to go to all that trouble. But I'm sure he acted with the utmost probity, after all, he is a Labour supporter, and we all know their shit doesn't even stink.

Bhatia could not remember the address of the flat when repeatedly asked last week. He had to look it up and even then misspelt the name of the block. A neighbour could not recall him living there, but Bhatia insisted he had spent many weekends at the flat and said he intended to move there with his wife when he sells his family home.

Oh, look. Another flying pig.

Certification versus education

I came across this, rather thought-provoking post on the value and importance of certification. Although it is focused on MCSE certification, it did resonate a little for me regarding non-Microsoft certifications as well:

Commercial certification is now, very visibly, beginning to replace the older academic routes into the IT industry - so why has this come about? Industry now acknowledges that for an understanding of the relevant skills, certified accreditation from the likes of CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA is closer to the mark commercially - saving time and money. The training is effectively done through concentrating on the skill-sets required (alongside an appropriate level of related knowledge,) as opposed to spending months and years on the background detail and ‘fluff’ that degrees in computing are prone to get tied up in (to fill up a syllabus or course).

I remember when I started in IT, there were no certification course at all. Degree courses were pretty focused on the conceptual side of IT and I was very lucky to start my career with a bunch of people who were very good at implementing stuff because a) University taught me fuck all of use in the real world and b) I could easily have wound up working for incompetents, which would probably have set my personal standards a bit lower.

But when certification came along, we were all pretty jaundiced about it. And when I was employing people, I was much more interested in people who wanted to be good at what they did than people who had a bunch of letters, whether degrees or certifications behind their name.

And I still feel the same today.

However, I'm probably in a minority here and for all sorts of reasons, I reckon it now probably better for you to have both a degree and some kind of technical certification under your belt. It gives your employer some confidence that you have both a theoretical and a practical grasp on technology.

It sucks, really. I really don't believe in certification, but I know that in the highly competitive job market out there, having some certification is almost mandatory.

Somewhere beyond appalling

So, let me get this straight: the government send soldiers into war, ill-equipped and without the necessary support. They get injured. There are medical consequences of those injuries. The government is now prepared to compensate the soldier for the injury, but not the consequences of the injury?

How the fuck does that work? Does the fact that someone got hurt in the line of duty, directed by the government, not leave the government with a duty of care? Even if they were properly equipped and protected, these men and women have taken one for the team.

It's not a one-way street, you fucking cunts.

Update: Timmy is pithy as usual.

Informix Roundup: 26 July 2009

11.50xC5 is out.

IDS Fundamental certification.

New webpage on embedding Informix.

Article on compression with SAP.

ER enhancements in 10.0.FC9.

Migrating from Oracle to IDS Redbook.

The world's fastest DBA competition, part two.

Job in Jeddah.

New Informix Case Study.

Job in Market Harborough.

Microsoft shit, Informix great.

Ex-Informixer gets a namecheck.

MonkeyBread supports Informix. (I know, who cares?)

Informix logo?

Motorvation: an occasional series

See, this is more the technique I'd expect

Over at Labourshit, Dan McCurry starts off a ludicrous post with:

I’m never short of admiration for David Cameron as a campaigner. He has no policies, but he is a brilliant man for the way he has pulled his party around and made them so electable.

Starts off with an apparent compliment, then slips the knife in while deftly ignoring the Tony Blair-shaped elephant in the room.

He then launches into a bunch of speculative innuendo and spooky whispers implying that Cameron may be up to something dodgy. Well, of course he's up to something dodgy, he's a fucking authoritarian politician: he's at the very least out to steal your liberty and your money with menaces. Just like New Labour do.

He then waffles on until he comes up with this hilariously ironic ending, which he delivers with a po-faced complete lack of self awareness:

Maybe some policy and ideology will suddenly appear before him once he’s in office, but I don’t think so. Policy is created before entering government, while you’ve got time to think. Once in, the daily grind of crisis after crisis makes it extremely difficult to form new ideas.

I think it’s just a game. I think that David Cameron has never been interested in what to achieve in office. It’s all nothing more than a great big tribal game, and winning is the only goal. There is no integrity and only one rule: never get caught. The problem is, of course, that everyone gets caught in the long run, and it may well be his downfall.

Absolutely breathtaking hypocrisy, isn't it?

I am NOT making this up

Via Timmy, I see the CoE is working hard to encourage people into the church:

Churches should try harder to make bald and overweight people feel welcome, according to new guidance that is being issued to clergy.

A Church of England book published this week says they should be regarded as worshippers with "special needs" alongside the blind, the deaf, breast-feeding mothers, very short people and readers of tabloid newspapers.

Dude, seriously, WHAT THE FUCK??????????

No, really. What the fucking fuck?

Hm.

I was just over on the LPUK blog responding to a comment about the faux Tom 2.0 scandal when I had a thought: why, in Britain, is the "solution" often even worse than the problem?

Look at the BNP: even if you discount their racist policies, they are still, at best, knuckle-dragging Labour Party fascists out of the 1970's. But their opponents, and there are many, are just as overbearing and intolerant (and, ironically, also appear to be knuckle-dragging Labour Party fascists out of the 1970's!)

And then we have "Common Purpose", allegedly a shadowy organisation that brainwashes people into being pro-EU and acts as some sort of behind the scenes orchestrator. And their opponents are "Stop Common Purpose", a bunch of lunatic Icke-alikes who have so much instant credibility that I'm happy to just ignore both sides of the debate.

Why is it that people are so obsessed with single issues? Obsessed to the extent that they start frothing at the mouth and become just as bad as the obviously bad thing that they are opposed to?

My guess is that it's the malaise that hits a society that has no real challenges left. People have nothing left to live for, so they become obsessed about things that, in the grand scheme of things, really aren't that important. Ironically, I suspect that in many cases, it leads to the relatively trivial issue becoming important, precisely because so much needless attention is focused on it. A key example of this is the BNP, who I am pretty sure, have picked up at least 50% of their new-found support precisely because everyone is talking about them.

Stop obsessing, you fucking nutters, and get a grip. Go trek in Africa or help starving Bangladeshis or something. Go live. When you come back, having survived attacks from snakes or predators, you will have a much better perspective on things.

In the meantime, do us all a favour and shut the fuck up about your monomania.

Gordon "Hannibal Lecter" Brown

Heh:

Apart from benefiting Sarah, the splint could be a daytime blessing for us all if he forgets to remove it. That way he can say little and will not be able to put on that false smile. There will not be any further YouTube delights. His poll ratings may even improve. Alan Johnson will not be needed after all.

Curious?

Via Thomas Byrne, I find this nasty bit of gutter politics:



It looks really unpleasant, and it looks right out of the Damian McBride playbook. And I think lots of people are all to happy to believe the worst of the Labour Party.

But I don't believe Tom made any such post.

Tom is a Labour man through and through and I'm sure he would gladly knife the Libertarians for the hell of it, but I can't see him using language like that in public. I think he's too smart. I also can't find the original quote on the Lancaster Unity website and some light googling hasn't shown it up anywhere else either. And finally, the template for the comments doesn't match the template Lancaster Unity use either.

I reckon it's a fake, designed by someone to try and stir up animosity and name-calling. So, in order to keep the perpetrator happy, I have a name to call the perpetrator: you're a cunt.

Truly, the end of an era

The last remaining British WW1 veteran has passed on.

I wonder what will happen in years to come when all the WW1 and WW2 veterans have passed on ... will the passing of the memories leave us open to another vicious and terrible world war?

It seems to me that already people have forgotten enough of the horrors of WW2 and pretty much all of the horrors of WW1 ... and European and American governments are quite happy to pursue violent conflict all the time. At some point, one of these could easily escalate and once again all hell will again break loose.

None of this is a happy prospect for me.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Ouch!

Well, that wasn't a good result for the LPUK, was it? My (cold, black) heart goes out to Thomas who fought a good fight and must feel really disappointed. On the upside, it's very early days, we managed not to come last and we have actually learned something from this.

Congratulations to Chloe Smith, let us hope she serves Norwich North well!

And now we need to move on to the next battle.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Things you see on twatter

A 76-year-old man is helping police with their inquiries after a 90-year-old woman is hit by a mobility scooter.

Say what?

Good point!

Heh:

Incidentally to those complaining that their comments are in the moderation queue. They will probably stay there until late August. Haven’t you got something better to do than monging on a moribund blog when the sun is out?

Prophetic

Many, many years ago, before I even heard of blogging, I said that Gordon's smoke and mirrors management of the economy would lead to a really nasty correction when the wheels came off.

Looks like I was right.

Apparently, this is racist

See, now I'm quite confused by this accusation of racism. As far as I can see, this picture says that Barry O'Barmy is in the process of instituting something as useless in purpose and malign in intent as witchcraft, i.e. socialised medicine.

This is an honest request: can somebody please explain to me how this picture is racist?

Update: Amusing serendipity: currently on the podcast "Witch Doktor" by Armand van Helden

An "infinite number of monkeys" moment

He's Scottish.

He's Labour.

He's an MP.

But this is a) funny, b) vicious and c) absolutely spot on.

Enjoy!

Often aspired to, but still the best!

Saying so much in so few words again:

Ed Balls, secretary of state for children, said: "We are one step closer to having a clean, pure society where the government fulfils its natural role as a stern but loving parent to all of its subjects.

"We must now turn our focus to removing all trace of the gypsy from our nation's bloodline."

As ever, I am in awe.

A fun game that anyone can play!

Inspired by the venerable Bob Piper, who was dismayed with dizzy



who took the piss out of Ed Balls



may I present my own humble offering?



Update: I see Knob Piper isn't approving my comments on his blog for some reason.

Will I survive?

Motorvation: an occasional series

Seminal videos*

*Not like that, you pervert!

People are strange part 2

Why is that people feel compelled to stop in shop doorways to fondle their genitals, have an extended conversation with a passing mate or slap the kid in the pram? RIGHT IN the fucking doorway, mind.

And why the fuck do they get a hair up their arse when I shove past them? What the fuck do you want me to do, you cunt? If you want me to have some fucking manners, set a better example yourself.

Cretins.

Oh dear, oh dear

Strangely fascinating

Tip of the clown wig to the qikipedia elves.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Pardon?

Huh, what?*

Nearly 100 town halls ordered secret searches of their residents' rubbish bins last year.

The official aim was to find out who was throwing out what to help councils encourage recycling.

OK, let's stop RIGHT there. The reason there is such a push on recycling is because the EU demands it, nothing else. They are going to levy more and more swingeing taxes on us because we don't meet some utopian ideal.

So pull out of the EU and the council will have no reason to go through your bin at all.

But some staff examining the contents of bins also classified residents as well-off or poor.

You what? What fucking business is it of yours, you jumped-up, overweening cunts?

It seems to me that as central government becomes ever more powerless and flailingly ineffectual, councils are becoming the hectoring nannies of choice. And, even more worryingly, Conservative councils seem to be right up there among the worst of them.

FUCK OFF OUT OF OUR LIVES, YOU OVERWEENING FUCKWITS!

*Yes, I know it's the Daily Fail.

Tip of the clown wig to ASI.

LPUK in Norwich

Charlotte Gore has another typically thought-provoking post about the future of Libertarianism in the UK:

Still, another question hovering over Norwich is the fate of LPUK’s first ever election test. What is almost certain is that LPUK won’t be returning an MP this time - sorry guys. In By-Elections there are nearly always tiny fringe parties that ‘no-one’s ever heard of,’ and it seems there’s a sort of voter blindness when it comes to any party they’ve never heard of.

Yep, I agree with that entirely: not only is it our first by-election, and the "unknown" issue is a massive mountain to climb on its own. But typically, she's right on the nail with this point:

Research done at the last general election pointed to high approval of Tory policies - until people found out the source of the policies. What this says to me is that image is still everything in politics - and that it’s going to take a lot more than blogs to break the monopoly of Social Democracy on British Politics.

Not only do we have to convince people that we are a viable political party, but we also need to convince people that there is more to life than "social democracy". The only thing that gives me hope is the number of people I speak to who actually agree with the tenets of libertarianism even if they don't consider themselves libertarian (mostly because they've never heard the word "libertarian" before!)

I think that even if the LPUK never make it to government (but I hope they will, and soon!) they have an important role to play in breaking the social democratic stranglehold on politics in the UK.

Even the much-maligned BNP isn't really all that different at its core from the current LibLabCon gang of thieves. They are just more so.

But every step we take forward, every time we can speak to a new voter, we will be in a position to make another chip or crack in the social democratic consensus. Every time a soc-dem party steals a libertarian idea and makes it more acceptable to the masses, everybody wins.

So yes, we have mountains to climb, but I really think that we will help to build a better country, one small step at a time. And at least the process has started.

People in glass houses, etc.

Predictably, some very up themselves people are taking the piss with Palin's resignation speech. I stopped reading the edited version almost immediately, after the collective editorship of Vanity Fair failed to replace "my family and me" with "my family and I".

It's bad enough that a professional editor should miss such an egregious error, but for an entire team of them to miss it is unforgivable. Conde Nast should sack the lot of them.

Twats.

Pikeys in taxis

Why do these cunts feel the need to share their life stories with me? Can't they just shut the fuck up? It's like being on the train with some loud-mouthed cuntweasel shouting at his fucking mobile.

Public transport sucks donkey cock.

In fine form as usual!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Holy ... fuck?

Fuck me sideways:

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin

Sounds good, doesn't it? Go read the rest then.

Lovely weather we're having

Even the local pikeys are bitching. That's if you can find a local pikey, everyone seems to have a fucking Polish accent.

It's true what they say about the Germans

Thanks to Warsteiner in the comments for the new, working link.

We're on the fucking moon!

Jesus wept ...

... albeit quickly.

Ominous

As in the sense that it was an omen. After my run in with a fuckwit pikey in a chic Leeds hotel last week, I find myself in fucking Cork. Surrounded by Polacks.

But no, there are some pikeys here. And let me tell you, for every Steven Gately or James Joyce there is at least one old piss-riddled lurching mumbling drunk with shit-stained trousers demanding money with menaces; for every fey and wistful strawberry blonde colleen there is a bleached-blonde old hussy with the body of a number 19 bus and a face like she ran into the back of it.

This place has all the grot of Reading with none of the fucking class. What a fucking tip. The hotel is another boutique shitpile with crap food, but at least the staff are all eastern Europeans, so they pull their finger out and smile while doing it.

My life sucks donkey cock.

Even worse than the Welsh

So, I'm in the land of shamrock and clover. And possibly the worst, most ignorant, most unobservant drivers I've ever seen outside of the third world.

Beyond cunts.

Rickrolled?

No, Rickrocked!



From the comments:

THE RICKROCK!

The most significant advance in the Rickroll since Astley was weaponized! They'll never see it coming 'til it's too late, which is par for the Rickroll course, but now THEY WONT BE ABLE TO STOP IT! Targets will find themselves ENJOYING the Rickroll! The "Teen Spirit Guidance System"™®© will ensure the futility of any evasive manoeuver, resulting in 100% astleyfication of every target!

THE RICKROCK

Smells like Rickroll - feels like RICKROCK!

And:

Kurt Cobain isn't rolling in his grave right now... he's RICKROLLING!

The words of a real man

And there's a clap going around Lord's as Ponting comments on the umpiring: "It's all irrelevant. We've been beaten by over 100 runs in a Test."

I know the some Strine have been uncharitable about England's victory, but they're all fucking keyboard warriors who should hang their pathetic heads in shame as a MAN who (in my opinion) was on the receiving end of some shit decisions shows his sporting mettle.

And can I just say, as a proud supporter of England, that the Aussies showed real class right through the match. Their supporters should still be proud of their team.

It makes me rock back and forth, keening ...

Doomed.

We're fucking doomed.

In a highly unusual move, Sir Gus said that he had also held separate discussions with Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, about a revolution in the way that money is allocated across Whitehall. It would mean that issues spanning several departments would for the first time get their own budgets. They would include specific issues such as global warming, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease.

You know what that means, don't you? More unaccountable waste. Departments fighting over more budget pies. Less and less getting done.

How much would 650 rounds cost? I don't want to see the fuckers suffer any more. I don't want the punishment to fit the crime.

I just want this useless fucking government out of my misery.

Hell on earth

Well, apart from "other people", I reckon it has to be Stansted Airport. From the egregiously overpriced parking to the shell-suited pikey fuckers screaming "Darren, LEAVE IT AAAAAAAAAHHHT!" at their feral spawn, via the overpriced food shops and the thieving "duty-free" cunts, this just fucking sucks rancid moose cock.

Luckily the flight is not a long one.

It took less than 10 minutes for Stansted to bring me down from Ashes Heaven.

Cunts.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Labour: the smell of desperation

Via Mrs Dale, I see that Labour have come up with another brilliant election-winning strategy:



Someone should tell these fuckwits that every time they do something this fucking stupid, God kills a kitten.

Idiots.

You have to wonder, don't you?

Seriously. I mean, here we have a bloke who, by all accounts, is a fucking madman and criminal: he's happy to advocate the murder of his political rivals, happy to advocate the murder of white people, happy to encourage having a shower as a cure for AIDS, a rampant communist, an alleged rapist, an alleged racketeer ... the list of his misdeeds and peculiar ideas is immense.

But ... !

The appointment has been closely watched. With the country in recession, the president has come under pressure from unions to loosen monetary policy, and focus more on job creation.

But, for now, Mr Zuma seems to be resisting such calls.

"She's not new... let nobody wonder what's going to happen. She was there when the policy was made, so there's nothing really new," he said.

... it seems he has more economic nous than the saviour of the world, Gorgon Brownshirt and his badger-browed puppet, Alasthefuckwit Dork-king.

Jesus. When a fucking mentalist lunatic communist dictator from the third world shows more common sense than the Prime Minister of the UK, you know you are fucked.

Plus ça change ...

From the comments here:

I lived in Dubai for a year (2007), enough time to have observed at first hand virtually everything in the article when things were still going full throttle. It is little different in all of the GCC states really, but Dubai being Dubai always has to be the biggest and best, so you see the most excess there. It is nice to see something this accurate and honest in print. It is actually an offence to print anything that isn't a ra-ra-ra Dubai cheerleader piece in the UAE itself, and any dissenting comments in online blogs and newspaper comment sections never pass the strict controls in place. So, Dubai is wonderful, Dubai is fantastic, the downturn is really minimal, honestly......you get the picture. Emiratis are completely feckless and arrogant, but are actually beaten by the Kuwaitis and Saudis, who are so lazy and useless they make a 3-toed sloth look like the Tasmanian Devil.

Yep, nothing's changed.

Motorvation: an occasional series

You have to ask ...

... why it is that all these fucking genii have plenty to say when they're out of positions of authority, but never fucking do anything useful while they're in a position of power?

I've lost count of the number of times a retired military bigwig has let loose with both barrels after they are retired, but don't have the same courage of their convictions while they're in the job.

And today, via the Speccie, I see the Labour greengrocer is making some interesting comments:

Ministers and civil servants are, he believes, too locked into their departments. 'Government isn’t joined up because it’s no one’s job to join it up,' he says. 'If you want to have a policy on low-carbon cars, that involves four departments and you end up with 100 people in a room. In business you would appoint a production director to run a project.'

In his view senior civil servants should be blamed for departmental failures. 'It’s an absurdity that a minister who’s been in the department for three months is held responsible if the department loses all the high-security files. He’s probably never run any big organisation,' he says. 'I would give more power to the head of the Civil Service he then becomes accountable in a much clearer way to Parliament for running things properly.'

It is, he thinks, 'very unproductive' to keep changing departmental names and responsibilities. The Prime Minister 'puts things together in a new department on the basis that that will solve the co-ordination problem, the trouble is you open up new ones'.

There are, he adds, 'far too many reshuffles. The average length of time ministers stay in post is about 18 months. In my experience it takes about a year before you really understand all the issues, whose advice to listen to. One of the real bonuses for me was that I did my job for eight years. But I went through five secretaries of state'.

There's not a lot there that I disagree with. But why the fuck are you only saying this NOW, you flatulent cuntwaft?

Motorvation: an occasional series

Update: Via Fidel Cuntstruck in the comments:

It's all so unfair ...

Fuck. The missus went to the doctor yesterday. Got the status report (all fine) and texted back a reply.

Or so I thought.

This morning, I get an earful for my lack of caring. Protest that I had replied. "Well, I didn't get a reply." Check my phone. True as fuck, there it is in my Drafts folder. My fat fingers obviously did something I didn't expect.

Now I'm in the dogbox again for no fucking reason at all. And it's going to cost me an obscene amount of money, because I've now decided that I can't put off replacing my phone any longer. I'm going to have to buy something with a more usable keypad.

Fuckweasels.

Vote early, vote often!

Mrs Dale is on the mooch again:

Email your ten favourite blogs (ranked from 1-10) to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com

It's that time of year again, when Total Politics asks you to vote for your Top 10 favourite blogs. The votes will be compiled and included in the forthcoming book, the Total Politics Guide to Blogging 2009-10, which will be published in September. This year the poll is being promoted/sponsored by LabourList and LibDemVoice as well as this blog.

The rules are simple.

1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include ten blogs. If you include fewer than ten your vote will not count.
4. Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
5. Only vote once.
6. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible.
7. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
8. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2009. Any votes received after that date will not count.

Motorvation: an occasional series

BBC cunts

Before I left the "hote-hell" yesterday I was watching that juicy early-morning news tart, the speccy one with the lips that are designed primarily for blow-jobs. My idle ruminations were severely undone by my unfortunate mistake of listening to what she said for a few seconds. The thrust of the issue was that "drinking is a problem and some people want the price put up and others want the drinking age to be raised."

As though these are the only two options. Listen love, you're well tasty and I'd gladly bend you over the sofa and give you a good seeing-to, but leave the thinking to the grown-ups, OK?

In the meantime, may I suggest another option that BBC news-twats might do well to think upon as a default position for all their statist pandering?

Why doesn't the government just get the fuck out of people's lives for a change? Let people who want a fucking drink, have a fucking drink. It's none of your God-damned motherfucking business if people want to drink.

Dozy cunt.

Best pisstake of the Obama poster I've seen yet

Sheer genius via Ms Laudanum

North Wales this time

Fucking, fucking CUNTS. Does anybody in this fucking pissflap of a cuntry actually have a driving license? I don't think I've ever seen a more useless bunch of cockbiters on the road ANYWHERE!

Update: Relevant.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Thank fuck that's nearly over with!

So, after nearly a week of verbal from disgruntled fuckwits (why are they never gruntled, anyway?) I get to leave the delights of Leeds tomorrow.

Which means I get to swap one load of incomprehensible gibbering shaved chimps for another.

W00t.

Motorvation: an occasional series

There is something soul destroying ...

... in the cheerful beeping of a portable alarm, isn't there?

More petty revenge

Have placed all my recyclable waste in the food waste bin. Will empty my breakfast leftovers in the recycling bin in the morning.

Twats.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Ugh

I hate early starts, especially after a day full of driving.

A couple of frivolous victories

So, I braved the centre of Leeds for dinner, so that I didn't cough any more money into this cuntard hotel's coffers. And I had a damn fine dinner.

But more importantly, I got two keys for my room, so I could leave every fucking bit of electrical kit running while I was out.

Suck my balls you "green" cockblockers.

Supercilious little leprechaun molester

So, I'm in Leeds for the night. And I'm checked in to very boutique-y hotel, where, for some reason, the guy manning reception is sporting a very fetching brogue.

To be sure.

Unfortunately, he is also a cock-sniffing fuckmonger of the very highest order. While I was checking in, he harangued me about how much my carbon footprint is and what all the clever things are that this fucking hotel is doing to save electricity and stuff. Listen, fucknugget, I don't give a fuck. I'm tired and I want somewhere to sleep.

So I get into the room and what do I find? A pamphlet asking me to put only recyclables into one bin and food waste into another.

What the fuck?

Then I went to get my parking ticket pre-approved because I have a very early start tomorrow. And I get this condescending arsemunch laying it on with a trowel how their system would not keep track of the validation across a date change. Well, fucking thanks for telling me how fucking useless your software vendor is, but how the cunting fuck is that my problem?

What happened to a big of courtesy and trying to hang on to customers in these trying times, you goat-felching jizzwaft?

I'm tempted to start smoking just so I can smoke in the room, just to fuck them off.

Cunts.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Sticking up for the Screws

Yep, I agree:

So let us remember that it was the Guardian that knowingly, deliberately and illegally forged a cabinet minister's signature to get an exclusive story.

It was the Guardian that cynically abandoned one of journalism's most fundamental and sacred covenants by revealing the identity of a confidential informant.

As a result of that betrayal, a Foreign Office civil servant - a 23-year-old woman - was sent to prison.

So, if the Guardian has any fresh evidence to support their claims against us, we invite them to pass it on to the police without delay.

Yesterday, in their editorial column, they proclaimed: "Decent journalism has never been more necessary . . . "

We couldn't agree more. It's time they practised what they preach.

You know things are bad when the News of the Screws feels it has the moral high ground.

Actual work

It's such a cunter having to do it. Do these fuckers not realise this fucking blog doesn't write itself?

Motorvation: an occasional series

WTF?

Who to believe, Graun or Indy?

Gordon Brown plans troops surge in Afghanistan

vs

Revealed: Brown's secret plan to cut Afghanistan force by 1,500

Fuck's sake, is this "joined up" government, lies or bad journalism?

Welsh drivers

Rest assured, there is a very special of corner of Hell, with particular little tortures, reserved just for you.

That is all. Cunts.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Who'd have thunk it?

Totnes, on the cutting edge of democracy!

This is the kind of experiment I'd like to see more of!

Pardon my cynicism

I see a whole bunch of media whores (yes, John Prescott, I am talking about you too) are up in arms about the NOTW phone hacking. Well, I have a couple of observations:

1. If you leave default passwords on anything, you're a fucking idiot and you deserve what you get.
2. Mundane stuff that happened four years ago is unlikely to damage your life.
3. This is a great opportunity for sad, has-beens and even sadder never-weres to boost their media profile for free.

I guarantee that there will be at least one media whore banging on about this even though it later transpires that no-one actually hacked them.

See if I'm right or if I'm right.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Where's the fun in that?

Tesco sushi contains no raw fish! Bastards!

And about time too!

Seems like Plod has put his thinking cap on again:

The Metropolitan Police has issued guidance to its officers to remind them that using a camera in public is not in itself a terrorist offence.

There has been increasing concern in recent months that police have been over-using terrorism laws and public order legislation to harass professional and amateur photographers. The issue was raised in Parliament and the Home Office agreed to look at the rules.

The guidance reminds officers that the public do not need a licence to take photographs in the street and the police have no power to stop people taking pictures of anything they like, including police officers.

That's better. Fucking rozzers have been far too fucking keen to try and suppress photo taking. And yet ...

The over-used Terrorism Act of 2000 does not ban photography either, although it does allow police to look at images on phones or cameras during a search to see if they could be useful to a terrorist.

Jesus. "Yes, it's a photo of the Houses of Parliament. That could be useful to a terrorist."

Cunts.

Dubious headline of the day

Russian snatches world's strongest 'intimate muscles' crown

The Jugend are alright!

Miniature police uniforms are being given to primary school pupils in Manchester for realistic role play.

What the FUCK?

"Engaging with children at an early age is an important aspect of neighbourhood policing as not only do they become used to a police presence but it also enables them to learn the difference between right and wrong at the very outset."

I'm sorry, did I miss an announcement? Have the Police suddenly become the arbiters of right and wrong? The only people who can teach kids the difference?

Fuck off, you arrogant cocksniffer.

Ouch!

Actually, if you take the last Budget into account – it ranges to 2013/14 – decisions taken by her government will have increased national debt by more than every government since the Norman Conquest. Put together.

Or "eek!"

Take your pick.

Am I missing something?

Everyone's banging on about Coulson all of a sudden. Even I knew about the allegations of the phone hacking years ago, and that was why Coulson resigned -- he was either complicit or he was stupid. I don't think he's stupid, but maybe he was. Or maybe he wasn't watching stuff closely enough. Anyway, shit happens, and it happened on his watch and he fell on his sword.

(Perhaps some of those sanctimonious Labour cunts wittering on about him today will notice that he actually did resign and, well, stayed resigned as well.)

Anyway, he's taken his punishment like a man, he was never implicated in the original furore, so why all the fuss now? This smacks of McBride-ness to me.

Fuck 'em all ... they're all cunts anyway.

Update: I like the Spartist take on this.

Motorvation: an occasional series

Frazzled and flustered

Having a shit day, lots of running around and painful spending of money. May blog less later.

Farewell Captain Chaos

RIP Dom De Luise

Motorvation: an occasional series

Le Hoon du Jour: David Kern

No, I never heard of the fucker before, either.

The British Chambers of Commerce has called the bottom of the recession.

Really?

David Kern, chief economist at the BCC, said: "The worst phase of the recession is over, but serious downward pressures persist across all sectors and regions. Recovery is now possible but it is not yet secure.

“Further corrective measures are still needed to support the economy. The marked improvement in confidence, albeit from exceptionally low levels, is welcome."

Kern said the benefits would only be maintained if short-term policy "stays expansionist" and "Quantitative easing should be pursued aggressively".

In other words, the improvement will last as long as the government keeps spunking money it doesn't have up against the wall in a fatuous attempt to prove that all is well.

Mr Kern: fuck off and die, please. Now would be good.

Cunt.

Saving the world: a reality check

Quelle surprise, really:

Six months after the U.K. government scrambled to launch new bailout measures for Britain's foundering banks and economy, several of those efforts are languishing with few takers.

No? Really? So what you're saying is that "things are getting better" and "markets are stabilising" ( (c) Gordon McTwat Broon, 2009 ) without recourse to all those eye-catching, world-saving initiatives that the towering intellectual genius of our times foisted on us?

Say it isn't so!

The flop is among several misfires by the U.K. government in recent months among programs that haven't drawn interest from the banks and businesses they were intended to help.

Really? The government's wild floundering lunatic ideas aren't even getting those mad greedy bankers excited? They must be supremely shit, then.

To address the credit crunch, the government launched two schemes to guarantee as much as 75% of bank loans to small and midsize companies.

Small companies, though, have complained that the guarantee was in fact not a guarantee at all, given that the business owner still had to put personal assets on the line as collateral.

Completely ignoring the fact that in the real world, small business owners are already often hocked up to the eyeballs and so have no assets left to put on the line. But of course, in Labour's La-La Land Ivory Towers, MP's only put other people's assets on the line, so how the fuck would they know?

Cunts.

Meanwhile, a £5 billion trade-insurance program -- in which the government provides supplementary insurance to U.K. manufacturers and suppliers in case their clients don't pay -- had seen only 13 firms participate as of June 9. As a result, the government backdated it to cover contracts made last fall.

But businesses point to further drawbacks. For one thing, the minimum amount of cover available under the program is £20,000, which is too high to be useful for many small firms, according to a spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses. It also doesn't help with coverage that has been dropped altogether.

You can just see the thought processes, can't you? "20 grand? Well, I wouldn't get out of bed for less, so let's use that as a baseline."

There are also questions about the effectiveness of another cornerstone of the U.K.'s January package: an ambitious plan to insure banks' bad assets in order to keep a lid on future losses without forcing the government to acquire the bad assets outright.

The plan is going ahead, and both RBS and Lloyds have insured a total of about £500 billion in problematic loans. But people close to the banks say it has been taking several months more than expected to sort through the loans and set up the program.

In addition, the insurance is expensive. For example, Lloyds must first absorb £25 billion in losses before the insurance kicks in.

£25 billion? Jesus ... how much fucking worse could it get?

Gordon McSnot-Gobbler-Twat: no grasp of business, no place for his stupidity in running a country.

Fuck off and die, you useless cunt.