[Insert compulsory whine year review and optimistic lies about the future]
Category Real Life
2008 & 2009
The Real Problem With Brits
The problem with Brits, especially Brit gitrls, is not their lisp or their binge drinking, nor their apparent fear of fitness centers. No, the real problem is a lot deeper.
They do not understand the value, importance of lime. No you don’t put lemon in a G&T.
The fact that the Tanqueray is brought to you by a Brit girl, with the accompanying bottles of Tonic and _lemon_ don’t make this lack of knowledge more acceptable.
Finally Getting In To The Console Gaming Thing
Due to rasons soon to be disclosed, recently I finally have started using my PS3 for more than just watching movies, which was the actual reason of the purchase, a cheap but decent Blu-ray player. I never really was a gamer, eventhough my PC had always a decent graphics card. The only games which over the last years got any attention from me were the Gothic and Spellforce series and some NfS titles, but this in infrequent batches. And most titles I never finished.
Libertarians In The UK: A Scary Thought Or A Sensible Alternative?
Warning : Political topic, click away if I’m going against any personal dogma about blogging and politics.
Ever since Ian Parker-Joseph, leader of the UK Libertarian Party commented on the 1984 entry, I have been reading about Libertarians in the UK and the Libertarian Party .
Having lived in Germany, but also as a qualified police agent in my home country, the 1984-issue is a sensible one for me, but also an issue of mixed feelings.
I actually do have NO problems with the gouvernment collecting my data. Get over it, but there’s no issue with a compulsory ID card, nor is there with handing over all my internet logs to the authorities. The problem only arises when this huge data collection can create paranoia, when there is no law protecting the privacy of citizens.
I must admit that when I came to the UK, the thought of being almost 24/7 on CCTV was a scary one, but soon I got used to this new form of Big Brother spying upon me. Especially since I had just left Germany, a country where it is NOT allowed to log IP addresses. The same country where a law regulates that internet providers log the login to the internet, emails and VOIP calls. This combined with a stringent set of laws on regulating the protection of personal data. The UK is not alone, Big Brother is watching you all over, in any country, and I seriously doubt that most so-called privacy anal-retentists browse online anonymously or avoid cloud based services such as GMail and Google Web History and consequently block cookies from third parties such as ad providers, statistics programs and many more. Probably most of them have at least one credit card, and maybe even participate in several bonus card systems in their favourite shops, thus allowing everyone and their neighbours to analyse their spending patterns.
Your privacy is an illusion. I’m drifting. Back to the Libertarians.
Wikipedia offers, via the Internet Encyclopedia of Psychology, following definition of Libertarianism:
Libertarians are committed to the belief that individuals, and not states or groups of any other kind, are both ontologically and normatively primary; that individuals have rights against certain kinds of forcible interference on the part of others; that liberty, understood as non-interference, is the only thing that can be legitimately demanded of others as a matter of legal or political right; that robust property rights and the economic liberty that follows from their consistent recognition are of central importance in respecting individual liberty; that social order is not at odds with but develops out of individual liberty; that the only proper use of coercion is defensive or to rectify an error; that governments are bound by essentially the same moral principles as individuals; and that most existing and historical governments have acted improperly insofar as they have utilized coercion for plunder, aggression, redistribution, and other purposes beyond the protection of individual liberty.
Noble words, as is the case with almost any ideology. The principle of liberty has been forgotten in most parts of our world and has become the same illusion that your privacy is. A visit to the UK Libertarian’s website makes the ideology sound even better:
At long last there is another way forwards for our country; one which puts you, rather than the corrupt politicians at Westminster, firmly in charge. Our policies provide real-world solutions to the real-world challenges that we all face today, and do so whilst putting government and the State back in their rightful place as the servants, rather than the masters, of us all.
Who would not immediately want to become a member of this Party?
When you start reading their manifesto, feelings might chance be reinforced even more, depending on what your favourite movie is. Did you take the Red Pill and do you believe in The Matrix?
If you answered both questions with Yes go now and apply for your membership.
If you also are a firm believer in the morals of the movie Fight Club, you will have even more sympathy for the LPUK:
We will amend the Firearms Acts to repeal the pistol ban, which has both completely failed to reduce armed crime and crippled our country’s ability to compete in the pistol shooting events in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, while depriving law-abiding householders of the ability to defend their homes with one of the most suitable weapons available. [From the LPUK Manifesto, topic Law and Order]
Things become interesting here, especially when we hit over to The Devil’s Kitchen, a funny and well-written thought-provoking blog, started by one of the LPUK co-founders (Warning: common offensive language). Actually a political blog right down my alley.
Today’s entry seems to fit the provoking, but also _scary_ mentality of the LPUK:
We might instead say that if we impose systems under which children are only forcibly separated from their parents under the very worst of circumstances, and under which parents are not always and unequivocally treated as evil abusers if they fail to live up to ideal standards of parenting, then sometimes this will mean that children will suffer horribly and die – but that it will avoid a far larger number of children suffering horribly by being taken into council care without good cause.
And fuck, if we’re libertarians rather than just blathering cunts, we might say that this is the *right thing to fucking do*.
A very powerful but dangerous message, prone to be understood wrongly. Ad rem and also bordering the style of propaganda which always will be listened to when countries experience negative economic downturns. The same style of propaganda alike style, which made the secessionist Vlaams Blok popular in the Belgian 1991 elections. The style of propaganda which could lead to a bump in popularity, because in a country driven by binge drinking a petty crime, isn’t it true that everyone has the right to defend themselves? And we admit:
Allowing people to carry firearms certainly will lead to the death of several people on the compulsory Friday after work binge drink, but at least the victims will have had the opportunity to shoot back.
Libertarians of the LPUK, let’s rehearse the populist blogging style once more please.
The ‘Harsh’ Facts
- I like thought provoking, harsh and highly aggressive opinions if based on factual truths.
- I must admit that The Devil’s Kitchen could quickly become my favourite UK blog
- DK has the potential to bring the highly offensive blogger madbull back.
- I consider myself a Libertarian.
- I like to provoke and select quotes just to ridiculize things. Fisking?
1984
The UK government is planning to track everything you do on-line and on the phone. Even if you have done nothing wrong, every e-mail you send, every website you visit, every text you send and every call you make will be tracked, logged, categorized and stored for years.
Through an innocuous sounding “Intercept Modernisation Programme”, the government wants telephone and internet companies to send all their logs to a centralized system where it will be made accessible to law enforcement and military agencies at will.
Read more about the threat here, here and here.
Now that your car numberplate is scanned daily and CCTV tracks you up to 300 times per day, the government wants to invade the final bastion of privacy – the sanctity of your own home. In an effort that mimics George Orwell’s dystopian book 1984, it now wants to log all electronic communication between everyone.
Neither terrorism nor crime poses a threat big enough to warrant such sinister intrusion into the daily lives of innocent citizens. While targeted monitoring of potential criminals can be justified in many cases, instantly turning 61 million citizens into suspects is not British, not moral and not befitting for a democracy no matter the threat. Irrespective of the moral implications of this proposed tracking, do you really trust the government to keep all this information secure? How many times have we heard about supposed private information being dropped or intentionally leaked in the last year alone?
We do not want to live in a society where innocent people have to worry about what they say, what they do and how they act. If the Intercept Modernisation Programme, or any programme like it, goes through, it will kill the democracy it is trying to preserve. Even the Information Commisioner, Richard Thomas, has described this as a “step too far“.
Please sign the petition against these plans on the Prime Minister’s website.
If you feel strongly about this, please consider forwarding this information to your friends or tell them about the threat in some other way.
Thank you.
Via Michael Heilemann.
Not Knowing Better
When I ordered a new MBP last week I knew problems were bound to arise. It’s called buying a Rev.A from Apple. I still haven’t received mine, but the complaints are there already.
iCult, I love you.
Unrelated: my work Vista PC still hasn’t crashed, frozen or whatsoever. Since November 2006.
Internet Fatigue, The Need For An Outlet
Blogging. The epitome of an introverted person enjoying the living spotlights.
The internet the best thing since sliced bread and before The Fifth Element on Blu-Ray.
The will to share, the possibility to share. The ease of sharing.
The eternal chase for that special invite to a closed, private beta. The fear of missing out on the next big thing, only accessing a new service when they launch publicly.
Charity Engagement: New Job Taken at Emmaus Preston
After a long period of deliberation and I have taken a new job and joined Emmaus Preston.
Careful thoughts have been put in to an eventual future online but I can think of many reasons why not to go into ework. One of them being the desire of making a difference and working with people, homeless people. Hoping to help them rediscover the values of life, the real values of life and not some daily online wankery about whose service is most valuable and what acquisition was justified or not.
The online world is a nice scene and one I’ve enjoyed for a long time, but I think there are many more important things in life than discussing pixel anality, although I finally found use for a heavily customized remake from Darren Hoyt’s Mimbo theme.
I will continue to follow the development of online applications and annoy my colleagues with my best friend, friend, but for now my task lays somewhere else. Obviously, me being myself, I will be the biggest online nerd within the Emmaus UK mouvement and Emmaus Preston will be present on the the usual platforms. And we will blog à gogo.
The Emmaus Preston Superstore opening is on Saturday 20th September 2008 and will be live broadcasted on Ustream.
If you’re local, why not join the Emmaus Preston Fantasy Football League and win some Emmaus Gift Vouchers?
Social Networking IRL
Over the last two days I had the joy of both meeting one of my favourite photographers on flickr and helping him with a removal.
The beauty of social networking finally has come to reality: I have met someone I first met online in real life.
The irony: we only lived about 700 yards away from each other.
It was a pleasure to finally be able to connect the virtual world with reality.
Sadly my thighs and legs don’t agree though. :)
But now, I’m back online.
