Friday, May 26, 2006

POSH KNOB SHOWS TORIES NEW COLOURS

"Jessie" Norman, Director of the think tank Policy Exchange, who support David Cameron's Compassionate Conservatism, on Sky News:
"We need to look at the relationships that are important in people's lives, whether it's Newcastle Football Club," - that was his "ordinary people" pitch, then he stumbled a bit, and said, "um, or, their local, um, church, or bridge club, or golf club".
Hmm, so after football the only things that really matter in peoples lives are the church, playing bridge, or golf.
Good to see the Tories are getting real.
Even if you are a Tory, there's some breaking news about Wayne Rooney you may just be interested in on www.worldcupranter.blogspot.com
Right, I'm off to watch some dodgy music in Lisbon.
Stheeya.

Just because I'm in Portugal...

...doesn't mean I didn't piss myself laughing when I saw those Enron tossers could spend the rest of their life in jail.
Greedy fuckers.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

E.R. ON TOUR MAY 25 - MAY 29

Some people would call it work.
Anyway, E.R. hopes to still be blogging from the Portuguese capital, and a laptop is coming with me, but if you don't hear from me, you know that I've ballsed-up getting online in the land of the sardine. Or sea of the sardine.
There's definitely a sardine involved at any rate.
Anyone know any handy Portuguese phrases? (Remember, it's not Spanish).
Like "where's the computer shop?" or "How much exactly is considered personal use?"
At least I should get a tan...

AUDITIONS FOR "CHINESE IDOL" BEGIN


Not sure that's quite what Simon Cowell had in mind....

PERSONAL DETAILS OF 26.5 MILLION US ARMY VETS "GO MISSING" ON SINGLE DISK

Bureaucratic bungling and digital armageddon took a step closer to meeting each other today as 10% of the US population had its personal details "lost" by the Veteran Affairs department and could now be victims of financial fraud.
26.5 million US veterans and their families have been sent letters telling them to watch out for financial irregularities in their bank accounts after information went missing. The VA Department is allegedly responsible for the welfare of veterans and their relatives - but let one of its employees take home records containing the names, addresses, and social security numbers of 26.5 million people even though he was not authorized to do so.
The house of the employee was then the subject of a burglary, and all details were stolen, including disability ratings.
What an almighty fuck-up.

UK HOME OFFICE CHIEFS MEET FOR CRISIS "TALKS" (ID CARDS WILL BE BROUGHT IN BY THE ONE ON THE RIGHT)


That's the head of immigration on the left, the bloke in charge of prison security is in the middle, and the one on the right is dying to tell someone not to put him in charge of the introduction of ID cards and the digital data collection of 56 million British citizens, but just can't quite get the words out.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

INTRODUCING A MAGICAL NEW PAIN KILLER FREE TO EVERYONE ON EARTH: THE BRAIN


A petition from senior British doctors and scientists to stop funding alternative medicines with NHS money is in part a good one. Anyone who has followed the studies of the effect of placebos in recent years will see there is a gaping hole in the proof of alternative medicine's success stories.
The placebo effect isn't a popular cure because, well, despite making us feel a bit better, it makes us feel a bit stupid.
As though there was nothing wrong with us in the first place.
But this isn't true.
Remember when you were a kid and you fell over and your parents told you to "rub it better"? It wasn't the rubbing that worked - it was the attention from your parents that helped with the pain.
Recent studies have shown that the placebo effect not only makes people feel better - it can actually make the brain respond to the body's illness, and produce chemicals that ease the symptons.
Mental, but true.
Last year, doctors in Italy found that the placebo effect stopped sufferers of Parkinsons diseases from shaking and feeling so much pain. It didn't cure them, but it helped the symptoms, despite the fact they were given tiny pills with no more medical power than a polo mint.
In America a placebo cream helped the brain produce actions that reduced pain in patients given an electric shock, and at the University of Michigan doctors estimated that 80 - 90% of pills prescribed could be replaced with placebos and still help with pain.
And here's the rub.
While alternative medicines, whether they work or not, indulge and involve the brain in the cure, as, no doubt, do most of the placebo experiments linked to above, the experience of seeing most doctors do nothing of the sort.
Most traditional doctors have the personal skills of a camel.
Patients feel like they are on a conveyor belt, rushed in, rushed out, given a prescription they can't read, told a load of gobbledegook they don't understand, made to feel guilty they might be taking up time that could be used on someone else.
If there's something that's going to make you feel worse if you're feeling unwell, it's a visit to an NHS hospital.
Most private doctors are NHS doctors too, so this isn't a rant at the NHS.
It's just part of the conventional treatment.
Compare this to the hour-long consultation at the start of any homeopathic treatment, something to be supported by Prince Charles in a speech this afternoon. It's no surprise Charlie loves it - alternative medicine is loved by the middle and upper classes with time on their hands to feel unwell.
Doctors sit there and listen, ask about your lifestyle, your emotions, your fears. Many give you lifestyle choices, therapeutic complimentary solutions, all massaging your sick little self.
Then they talk about how a tiny microscopic amount of a magical plant, one millionth of a millionth of a gram of which will be put in water by you and taken three times a day.
Constantly reminding you you'll be cured each time you drink your water.
You get a follow up meeting, usually once a week, whether you feel better or not.
And surprise surprise, after a chat, a little care, some sympathy, some pills, some explanation of why you will feel better, many times, patients do feel better.
Unfortunately though, the traditional NHS doctors involved in today's petition aren't asking for more time to spend with patients, or training to make them better carers rather than, on the whole, pig-faced stuck-up arrogant know-it-alls that enjoy making you feel small every time you step into their office.
They want the cash to prescribe more drugs.
Which of course have a placebo effect themselves, but with none of the care and sympathy handed out with alternative medicine.
Maybe if they took the time to learn why alternative therapies work for some people - without having to believe that it's anything to do with the "treatment" itself - they might themselves have to prescribe less drugs, rather than more, and there would be more cash to go around for everyone who needs treatment.
Picture shows my brain, yesterday.

JESUS DUG UP IN SOUTH EAST LONDON GARDEN


Holy asparagus!
Gardener Martin Gregory saw this face looking back at him when he took an asparagus plant out of its pot in his garden in Abbey Wood, South-East London.
"It hasn't made me religious," added 52-year-old Martin, though his local vicar told him maybe someone was trying to send him a message.
Maybe the message was he'd look good in a beard.
For all Jesus look-a-likes (and some that look like celebrities), see the Easter special in the archives under the "April" link on the right, post date: Friday April 14.
Many thanks to the lovely Louis - a fine connoisseur of London trivia, among other things - for the tip.

393 INMATES "WALK OUT" OF ONE OPEN PRISON IN 7 YEARS

Leyhill prison in the UK must be on every convicted criminal's "Preferred Prison" list.
Since 1999, about one inmate a week has walked out of the open prison, that has no perimeter walls.
This might not be so bad if they were among the 30,000 inmates in our prisons serving sentences of under 12 months, presumably for lesser crimes than rape or murder.
But 22 murderers and seven rapists have left Leyhill without a guard dog barking or an alarm being raised.
300 of the 393 have left in the past three years.
While the Home Office claimed 75% of them had been subsequently caught, they did not say which 75%.

NEW IDEAS ON THIS BLOG: LATEST STATS


Ok I'll stop with the graph now.

BUSH APPROVAL POLL: LATEST FIGURES


The American people have this month given President Bush their lowest approval rating since the war-mongering fuckwit came to office.
His lowest ever approval rating - 31%, and his highest ever disapproval rating - 63%, came despite attempts to massage down American casualties in Iraq by cutting US tours of duty in the embattled country by two-thirds, despite escalating violence.
Which is why the % of British soldiers injured in recent attacks has risen.
Figures available at www.cbsnews.com, but the above graph is pretty accurate.

Monday, May 22, 2006

SHARE PRICES LATEST...


Stock exchanges across the world continued their slide today.
The Hong Kong index had its biggest fall for five years, while in India the stock exchange was suspended after a massive 10% one day fall. Indian police officers were put on watch over nearby rivers and canals for fear of trader suicides (seriously).
The FTSE and Wall Street continued to fall further after last week's drop.
To understand why, see this blog for last Thursday, May 18, "Bush Runs Out of Funny Money (so now it's time for us all to pay up)".

HALF-PRICE MICRO-SOUND TOOTHBRUSH MADE IN CHINA AND BUZZES LIKE FUCK


Bought this at the supermarket today.
The little bugger wouldn't sit still for the photo.
Nice to think it was probably made in the Chinese vibrator and dildo factory.

FIVE FACTS ABOUT BRITISH ASYLUM SEEKERS

Since they are getting a bit of a hard time, I thought I'd mention these...

* Asylum seekers are NOT ALLOWED to work in the first 12 months after they arrive in the UK.
* Benefits for asylum seekers are 30% below those of unemployed Brits.
* Asylum seekers are not given preference in finding council accommodation but mostly put in properties deemed unfit for people born in Britain.
* Asylum seekers are twice as likely to be the victims of crime but no more likely to commit crime
* 83% of female asylum seekers do not go out at night in the UK for fear of attack

Welcome to the UK, where in a recent survey of what being "British" meant, one of the most popular responses was "welcoming and understanding of other cultures".
Indeed.

WANKER-IN-WAITING REID PLAYS THE HATE CARD

British Home Secretary John Reid is a man with his tongue so far up Tony Blair's arse that it has it's own passport when the prime minister travels abroad.
In return for this constant rear-end passage cleaning, Mr Blair has done a deal with him that if Gordon Brown - the promised successor to Blair - fails to play ball in the handover of power, Mr Reid will receive the PM's support to take over.
After doing his dirty work in Iraq as Defence Secretary, a job suited to the hard-nosed Scottish cunt, Mr Reid stepped forward for the job as Home Secretary when Blair needed an immoral fuckface to take over the problems of overcrowded prisons, an immigration department in tatters, and of course the surveillance of individuals who have committed no crime.
To take away the spotlight from a bureacracy in disarray, including the revelation yesterday that almost 3,000 people are wrongly listed as criminals by the Home Office, and could have been turned down for jobs because of being on a blacklist, Mr Reid has played the primeval trump card in all things crime - revenge.
He's going to make a speech today suggesting victims of crimes should set the penalties for the criminals that attack them.
While it is COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS that dangerous criminals should not be released early if they are going to commit more crimes, it is also COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS that the best people to decide this aren't the victims.
While one rapist might be locked up for 30 years, another could be let out in a week. That's why we've got laws, and judges, and courts, and a jury.
So that there is some fucking consistency.
This plan just puts the decision (and hence the blame if it goes wrong) onto the victims. It doesn't give them power, it just takes the pressure (and the press) off the backs of people who haven't been doing their job properly.
Maybe, just maybe, what we need, is a new approach to treating people who commit crimes.
But under Labour crime has gone down, and down, and down. Under the Tories there was consistently more chance of your car being nicked or your house being burgled - the two biggest crimes in the UK.
But to look at the papers, you'd also think the streets were packed with asylum seekers raping and murdering passers by in every street in Britain.
It isn't true.
Rape has continued to rise, but not as steeply as in recent years, and everyone is aware that the changing attitudes to reporting rape mean it is an impossible figure to trend.
While violent crimes have risen in the past couple of years, this is low level and associated to alcohol and drug use - neither big issues with asylum seekers.
The other big growth is in identity theft on the net. I haven't seen that many asylum seekers turning up with laptops at Heathrow Airport, have you?
Not good, but hardly a society in chaos.
Over 1,000 asylum seekers are now doctors in the NHS - and doing a very good job, thanks very much.
Don't hear much about them, do we?
Mr Reid is just trying to grab a populist headline to hide all the other shit that's going wrong with his department.
E.R. suggests he go fuck himself.
Since he's managed all that acrobatic stuff with his tongue and Tony's arse over the past three years, it shouldn't be too difficult.

Number of the day: 200 million

Number of people in China that own their own house and a car.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

NO NEED TO SCREAM MATE. AT LEAST YOU'VE GOT A PENSION COMING...


When North Sea Oil was discovered above the UK and to the left of Scandanavia in the 70s, there was talk that the UK would never be poor again.
We had visions of become the new Sheikhs of Europe, lighting giant Cuban cigars with ten pound notes, and instead of learning how to cook decent food, we'd simply buy France and get them to do all the cooking for us.
And the cleaning while they were there.
How wrong we were.
Instead, most of the income from North Sea Oil was used to give the rich tax cuts by Thatcher so that a small proportion of Brits could drive around in Porches for a decade, commonly known as the 80s.
Other triumphs include spending the money on getting the police to fight the miners, introducing and then scrapping the poll tax, giving discounts on council houses, and privatising the gas, water and telecommunications industries at vastly cut-down prices so that the rich got richer and the rest of us paid higher bills for the rest of our lives.
Not so, in Norway.
When the Norwegian Government got their share of the North Sea Oil, they thought: "Why not save it for a rainy day? One day, this cash will come in handy."
And so they ring-fenced it and put it in what is now the world's biggest pension fund, despite the country having just 4.5 million people. It has overtaken the $200 billion Californian Public Workers Fund in value, and is still rising..
Norway is now the world's richest country per head, with a GDP of around £35,800 ($60,000 US) per head, higher than the USA, Switzerland, and a mile ahead of the UK's £21,000.
And while the UK and other countries fret about pensions, the Norwegians sit back, eat a pickled herring, and relax. Even if they do live in a country that lives in darkness for half the year.
It is a bit grim in Norway.
I love the country, and the art, and the people.
But it is, to be honest, a bit grim. Like a closed Ikea store on Christmas Day.
But at least they have a retirement to look forward to.
A retirement so lavish, they can move to somewhere warm and sunny when they get old, and not die in poverty like the rest of us.
Picture: "The Scream" by the brilliant and tragic Nowegian Edvard Munch, who left his work to the city of Oslo. And the city of Oslo let it get nicked half a dozen times. He painted a lot of other stuff too.

WHY NORWAY ISN'T WORRIED ABOUT PENSIONS

When North Sea Oil was discovered above the UK and to the left of Scandanavia in the 70s, there was talk that the UK would never be poor again.
We had visions of become the new Sheikhs of Europe, lighting giant Cuban cigars with ten pound notes, and instead of learning how to cook decent food, we'd simply buy France and get them to do all the cooking for us. And the cleaning while they were there.
How wrong we were. Instead, most of the income from North Sea Oil was used to give the rich tax cuts by Thatcher so that a small proportion of Brits could drive around in Porches for a decade, commonly known as the 80s.
Other triumphs include spending the money on getting the police to fight the miners, introducing and then scrapping the poll tax, giving discounts on council houses, and privatising the gas, water and telecommunications industries at vastly cut-down prices so that the rich got richer and the rest of us paid higher bills for the rest of our lives.
Not so, in Norway.
When the Norwegian Government got their share of the North Sea Oil, they thought: "Why not save it for a rainy day? One day, this cash will come in handy."
And so they ring-fenced it and put it in what is now the world's biggest pension fund, despite the country having just 4.5 million people.
This fund, still bouyed by rising oil prices, has meant Norway is now the world's richest country per head, with a GDP of around £32,000 per head, higher than the USA and a mile ahead of the UK's £21,000.
And while the UK and other countries fret about pensions, the Norwegians sit back, eat a pickled herring, and relax. Even if they do live in a country that lives in darkness for half the year.
It's a bit grim in Norway. I love the country, and the art, and the people. But it is, to be honest, a bit grim. Like a closed Ikea store on Christmas Day.
But at least they have a retirement to look forward to.
A retirement so lavish, they can move to somewhere warm and sunny when they get old, and not die in poverty like the rest of us

NO, WE HAVE NO BANANAS (OR SHOULD THAT BE YES?)


See my banana on the left? It's the same as my banana on the right.
If you've got a banana, my bananas are related to them. In fact, all bananas are the same. All brothers, or sisters if you like.
Except they're not either.
Bananas are sexless plants, and you can only get another one by cultivating a stem of a plant already in existence. Which is fine in some ways. It makes 90 million tons of similar tasting, similar sized fruit every year for the world to munch through, giving us potassium, thick smoothies, cakes - as well as giving some of the worlds poorest economies a living.
Some republics were indeed built on bananas. And quite right too.
Only trouble is, the banana, the Cavendish banana to be precise, is unwell.
A fungi is attacking it, and only unsustainable amounts of chemicals are keeping it going. Prices are going up, harvests are coming down.
50 years ago there wasn't a Cavendish in sight. We ate Gros Michel bananas, but a fungus took them the same way. So, you may think, time to look for a new breed of banana... except there aren't any.
There might have been somewhere, but most scientists fear that most have been chopped down in deforestation projects around the world.
So the Cavendish is living on borrowed time, and so, sadly are the people that work on the banana plantations around the world.
Bananas are Britain's most popular fruit - with 95% of households buying them every week. Including E.R., who enjoys them sliced up on a bit of yoghurt.
So enjoy the taste of these little yellow clones next time you have one.
It may just be your last.

SMARTER BY PLAYSTATION


Despite carrying the headline "Murder By Playstation" after the tragic murder of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah two years ago, don't expect the same prominence from the Daily Mail given to the results of a two year study into the effects of video games on children.
It just doesn't make good headlines.
The fact that after two years of tests and research, including results from studies in the US, it appears that video games, even violent ones, are good for kids.
While parents are quite rightly being encouraged to keep an eye on the stuff their kids are seeing (just as they should for DVDs, TV, and the kind of crap spewed out by the Daily Mail), that is about it really.
I played Manhunt - the game blamed for Stefan's death - and it's a fucking sick snuff game.
But the Mail's campaign even ignored the fact that you score points by turning your murders into movies - something that didn't happen when Stefan was killed by a mate who went bonkers.
I'm not very good at Playstation games and I get bored easily, but I played it for a while. I haven't been stringing people up and filming them while I cut their heads off. Not unless my sleepwalking has livened up a bit, but I'm sure I would have noticed the mess.
In fact, the study says playing video games helps kids with decision making, gain confidence in their individual identity, and, generally, improves their development.
But will we see "SMARTER BY PLAYSTATION" over the front page of newspapers today or tomorrow?
I doubt it
Don't get me wrong, most Playstation addicts should get out more, and if I had kids I wouldn't want them watching this kind of crap. Some games are clearly inappropriate for kids - just like some movies are.
But players are probably less likely to commit murder or carry a knife than the ones that don't. Just like Monopoly is unlikely turn you into a property owning tycoon, Manhunt, and other games, just don't turn kids into psychos.
So relax if your kid is really good at blowing apart zombies in his favourite game. Just like playing cowboys and indians, or war games, or even bleedin' Dungeons and Dragons, he knows it's only a game.
Maybe it's time, as adults, we realised that too.

MONSTERS ROCK EUROPE

Lordi - undoubtedly the scariest band since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - pissed all over the Eurovision Song Contest and trotted home with the trophy.
Their song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" romped home to victory as European countries decided shit, ironic, over-the-top-rock from Finland (think The Darkness meets the Orcs from Lord of the Rings) was better than a bunch of Shakira-a-likes or multi-cultural bands with all the integrity of a Coke advert.
To see a clip of Lordi, and believe me, it's almost worth it, click the title of this post and check out the link top right of the bbc page called "See Finland's Masked Metal Band Lordi Performing", recorded before the band made the final.
There were calls from European politicians for the band to be removed from the contest because they worshipped Satan. This, despite their number one Finnish hit "The Devil Is A Loser".
Not tonight, obviously.

"THEY ARE PISSING IN OUR BOOTS AND TELLING US IT'S RAINING" 

-------MY COPY IS YOUR RIGHT E.R. 2006------- 

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