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Rant

The Kids Are In Charge

Ho-hum. Opening of Parliament today, I see from the spectacle on TV. Isn’t this a summation of everything that’s wrong with politics? A grotesquely opulent, debauched waste of taxpayers’ money just to mark the mundane event of our overpaid politicians’ expensve holidays being officially over, and the reading of a speech by our outdated, superfluous, pointless, costly ‘monarch’ that she didn’t even bloody well write herself.

In a word: disgusting. I say this every year.

And worse than disgusting, fucking childish. Here we have a fellow given the nom de plume of Black Rod. Dressed as Widow Twanky, he goes up to the doors of the house, which, of course, ‘symbolically’ slams the door in his face (as he represents the monarchy) to declare their independence.
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The Internet is Fucked Up

Major annoyance of recent weeks: spammers using this domain as their return address, meaning I get all their bounces. It’s happening to quite a few people lately, apparently. I had it once before about a year ago, but on a much smaller scale (i.e. fewer bounces, for whatever reason).

I don’t know what the point of spam is. No one I know gives it the time of day. It’s a festering, parasitic nuisance and, I tend to think, a singularly ineffective method of advertising. More than anything else, you have to figure the people doing this are the saddest bastards on the planet—so much effort for shit that no one ever reads.
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And The Lost Plot…

Hmmm. Just watched Lost. Did see all of series one and found it reasonably entertaining, but only about four episodes so far of series two. (I missed the Doctor Who finale too! Not watching nearly as much TV lately. Maybe not a bad thing.)

Anyway, Lost is worrying me. Some of this episode was getting a bit preachy. I think it’s an aspect that’s always been kinda there, but not annoyingly so. What I’m starting to think, though, is that if this slow-moving show ever reaches some point of conclusion, the obvious potential outcome—they’re all really dead and stuck in some limbo; they finally get free and head off for Heaven/Hell—will be the one they go for.
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The Product

Society is an illusion, an artifice: a construct. It is the lever that keeps those in power comfortable. It creates order, it creates (or at least encourages) homogeneity, to keep its unstable mass neatly boxed and packaged. It sells luxury, novelty, entertainment and a myriad of non-essential trivialities upon which its users become hopelessly, unwittingly dependent, the administration of which lies with the organisations in power (be they government or financial/corporate).
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A Guarantee of Nothing

I did call about my computer on Monday. And… uh… the company we got it from has liquidated, and the takeover people aren’t honouring old warranties! What this means to me: (a) I will probably need, at some point, to pay for a new 160gb hard drive and either figure out how to fit it myself or pay someone to do it for me; (b) I’m stuck on my old computer for the time being.

Hey, I knew there’d be a good reason for not dumping this old thing on a nearby tip! 😉
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Say No to Patriotism

Last week we had Saint George’s day, apparently. It always seems to cause a lot of fuss. On one side, people saying it ought to be a national holiday to ‘celebrate’ being British; on the other, people complaining that the patriotic sentiment might upset ethnic minorities.

Me, I think both arguments are without merit.

I don’t believe there are many Asians (or Italians or Lithuanians) out there who could give a toss whether it’s a holiday or not. Why should they?

As to celebrating being British, well, hey, if anyone wants to do that—whatever. I see patriotism as a pointless and sometimes harmful mindset based on no fact other than: ‘This is my country, ergo it’s brilliant!’ I certainly don’t want to hear rubbish about how great the British Empire was—I mean, yeah, we invaded a lot of other countries and took them over. We won a few pissing contests. Whoopee doo.
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Ditch the Habit!

Just watched a fairly interesting TV documentary on all this Mel Gibson/Passion business. I don’t know if interesting’s the right word, really. Hmmm. I’ll give that some thought.

60% of Americans are Christians, apparently. I don’t think this figure surprises me—I’d be curious to hear the comaparitive statistic for the UK. I’d imagine it would be significantly lower, but perhaps I’m wrong.

I wonder how many of these people could articulate a coherent/credible reason for their faith, as opposed to it being something they take for granted, having been indoctrinated from an early age and not having the presence of mind to ask the right (or wrong) questions? Is the dynamic really so different to the acceptance and reinforcement of bigotry (because your parents were, yada yada yada), the status quo, etc? ‘My family/tribe’s dogma/system says thus—who am I to say otherwise [bleating sound]?’
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Your Legal Daily Entitlement to Oxygen is…

So now Blair is banning Happy Hours in pubs? Have I heard this right? My reaction: at least, for once, this new initiative isn’t one of the endless stream of ploys to screw more money out of people (to consolidate some of Brown’s humongous debts)… but it’s still another instance of asserting a growing degree of control over people’s lives. *sigh*

Can I just briefly say that Tony Blair is a bastard and all politicians are scum? I’ve said it before, but I’m worried I might not be allowed to do it before long. Thanks.
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Report Schmeport

I’ve been tempted to write a lengthy ramble about the so-called Hutton Report, it being one of the few things sparking my attention in the news… but, nah, I’ll be brief (I think).

What does this report mean, anyway? Are people getting confused about the Lord in Lord Hutton? It doesn’t mean Lord as in God, you know. In my opinion, for a report of this kind to carry any kind of weight, it needs to be the result of analysis by panel (in the same way that a trial verdict is reached by jury). Even that hardly ensures true objectivity—whatever that is—but it’s probably the best we can hope for.

One man’s allegedly objective analysis simply isn’t good enough, particularly when he admits the ‘scope’ of the report is so limited as to rob the process of any genuine context. Aw, who needs a context anyway? Hilarious.
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