Archive for the ‘Consumerism’ Category
Who Is The Unfairest Of Them All?
Amidst the roar of gunfire from the deliberate, calculated massacre by evil Israeli stormtroopers and the tragedy of a crazed lunatic in Cumbria, there is yet another political scandal that cannot be allowed to pass.
Overpaid, Incompetent And Unfair
John Fingleton, Chief Executive of the Office Of Fair Trading, the man who let the British banks off the £40 billion they stole from British consumers, turns out to be the highest paid civil servant in the country. See here. This is the most unfair trading of all and makes a mockery of any concept of “fairness”.
He is responsible for the disastrous failure to protect British consumers from the greedy banker robbers who plundered their accounts with outrageous and illegal charges. He led the badly organised legal challenge to the banks thievery which the Supreme Court turned away as misdirected. The Supreme Court then invited the OFT to revert to them on a different basis but for reasons that have never been properly explained, Fingleton just gave up. See here for the full story.
This man is not only unfair but incompetent. No one is responsible for more unfair treatment of British consumers than he. It is a scandal that he is even still in his job let alone paid at such an exorbitant rate.
Cameron Stumbles Over Kerb Crawlers
Oh dear! Here comes the first knee-kerk reaction. Next thing we’ll be hanging and flogging them. The law against kerb crawling is of very dubious value or common sense anyway. It’s the oldest profession. Men want to pay women for sex and women want to sell sex. It’s been going on since time began and silly, pointless little laws aren’t going to change it.
Can I Put You Down As A Researcher?
Fair enough, stop drivers kerb crawling in residential streets and harrassing your daughters but if you don’t pair such laws with legalised brothels or designated red light districts you are just making the problem worse.
I understand David Cameron’s desire to want to do something to declare his horror at the Bradford murders but I thought we were supposed to be past this sort of politicking now? I thought legislation was now going to based on a rational, properly researched approach to problems.
What we need to do is make it safer for women who want to work as prostitutes and call a halt to the pressures that force women into prostitution. That means some sort of regulated sex industry and the legalisation and regulation of drugs.
It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense. It means you may have to face down the self-righteous, moral crusaders so it takes a modicum of courage but I thought that’s where we are now. This is the first crack in the veneer. Let’s hope it’s quickly mended.
It’s Not Drugs, It’s Drug Laws That Killed the Bradford Girls
Forced Here By The Law
If heroin was legally available on prescription the three Bradford prostitutes would be alive today. It is our discredited, ludicrous policy of prohibition that has led these women to their terrible deaths. Cowardly, self-serving politicians who will not address the real issues about drugs policy have blood on their hands.
Today we also learned that the sensationalist, exploitative treatment of the death of two young men in Humberside “linked with mephedrone” was nothing but hysteria. See the story here. Humberside Police shares responsiblity with the media for leaping on a bandwagon, seeking kudos or some unknown advantage through lies, propaganda and misinformation. Trying to look tough.
It’s not a good idea to use heroin or mephedrone but criminalising users and creating a lucrative black market for criminals to exploit is an absurd idea. It’s exactly what America did with alcohol in the prohibition era when, in fact, it created organised crime.
Created By The Law
For those who become addicted to illegal drugs there is very little help available. Almost all street crime is related to feeding a drug habit. If, instead of the unwinnable “war on drugs” we put our money into a regulated supply and treatment facilities we would massively reduce the harm that current laws cause.
The girls in Bradford, the poor people of Jamaica, our young heroes who are dying in Afghanistan, the young man who is selling his body right this minute in Manchester, Baltimore, Hamburg or Singapore, the downtrodden people of Columbia. They are all victims of our absurd, self-defeating drug laws. When will our politicians and leaders stop chasing cheap political points (and expensive bribes) and face the facts?
Fighting For The Law
Legalise, regulate, tax – you pull the rug from under organised crime, you eliminate the need for most street crime, you have the resources to address the issue as a public health problem.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation has the answer.
I Weep For Jamaica
Ocho Rios
The events unfolding in Jamaica are disastrous for the country, its reputation, tourist industry and economy. They give an impression that is completely false. In reality it is a wonderful place, full of kind, warm, generous people. I was astonished on my first visit to find the countryside lush and green, rather like Cornwall or Wales and the people more friendly than anywhere else I have ever been.
I was very privileged to be introduced to Jamaica by a Jamaican. It was no all-inclusive tourist resort for me. There the poor Brits hunker down and never move anywhere. They seem to believe that right outside the gates are a bunch of Uzi-toting crack dealers but it’s simply not true. I’ve been back several times and I love the place. I recommend Ocho Rios on the north coast of the island.
True, the murder rate is one of the highest in the world but it all happens in a very small area of Kingston. The rest of the island is peaceful and probably safer than London. I have been through the Tivoli Gardens and Trench Town districts where all the trouble is. It’s not a good place. You lock the car doors and windows and you don’t stop but it is tiny. According to my memory it’s not much bigger than, say, Regent’s Park so it’s easy to avoid.
My Local
Undoubtedly at the root of these problems is high level corruption and I wouldn’t be surprised if that extended to US officials as well as Jamaican. The cocaine trade is a huge curse on the country but while the world continues with its ludicrous, discredited policy of prohibition it will never solve the problem. Drug laws support and encourage organised crime and corruption. If we stay on our present course things will only get worse.
I weep for Jamaica and its wonderful people. Without radical international action, I have no idea how this problem can be solved.
Facebook – It’s A Snide, Snide World
I don’t know the name of the geek from Facebook who said that he wanted everyone on the planet to become a member of his website but he follows Adolf, Joseph, Benito, Francisco and other tyrants in having ambitions that must be thwarted at all costs.
Let me be clear, yes, you can find me on Facebook. It’s true, with nearly half a billion members it is difficult to ignore it. I use it to publicise this blog to as wide an audience as possible. You can call me a hypocrite if you want but I don’t and won’t participate in the snide, puerile and thoroughly unhealthy relationships and lifestyle that it promotes.
Is This The Real Life Or Is It Just Fantasy?
If there are nearly a half a billion members on the site there must be at least a billion virtually identical photographs that consist of two or three faces (usually inane blondes at a party) pressed together cheek to cheek with vile grimaces or smiles. If it’s supposed to be about individuals why does everyone look exactly the same, talk exactly the same and behave exactly the same?
There are now an extraordinary number of sad, dysfunctional people who live their life, vicariously and actually, on Facebook. This, I believe, should be of great concern to all of us. More than that, the site encourages behaviour that is dishonest, underhand and snide. It’s not a force for good. It’s a force for evil. It’s a perversion and abuse of the internet, probably mankind’s greatest ever invention.
You know the sort of person who’d rather text than make a phone call? It’s often very dishonest communication, the ideal way for a coward to make excuses, lie or deceive. It’s said that 80% of communication is non-verbal and you certainly get a lot of that extra meaning over the phone. You get none at all by text. It’s just the bare, badly, carelessly or deceptively chosen words. Facebook goes even further, it encourages members to post messages and pictures so that they’re seen by third parties as well. In fact, often the message or picture is posted mainly for their benefit, to embarass or annoy. This is the real wickedness. It’s already led to murders and countless, countless, arguments and disputes which have ended in violence. Of course, it depends on you. You or your friends can behave badly through any medium or face to face. The point is Facebook encourages you to be snide. It’s not nice.
I don’t know what the answer is. I certainly wouldn’t be encouraging children to use it. For many it’s already become a substitute for real life. Its most well known deficiency is the way it makes you collect an ever greater quantity of friends with no regard whatsoever for quality. My sons and all their real world friends have in excess of 1,000 Facebook friends. I have 24 so that must make me – what?
There’s no doubt that there are business opportunities presented by Facebook. With that many members there’s bound to be. In that context it’s not surprising that Cheryl Cole has 1,698,477 friends. Mind you, Paul Macartney only has 11!
So I’ll be staying on Facebook but I won’t be participating in it. I think it should have a big warning flash up on the screen every time you log in: “GET A LIFE”
Wenlock Mandeville Disaster
Child's Play
The most obvious explanation is that someone at the Olympics Committee has been horizontal jogging with someone at the design company.
What else?
There has to be a rational explanation for one of most ridiculous, badly-judged communications campaigns I have ever seen. The Wenlock and Mandeville mascot idea is third-rate, junior (bad) art school nonsense.
I first worked on ideas like this more than 30 years ago. I stake all my experience on this, I stand by every ounce of this assertion – it is NONSENSE, shocking NONSENSE and I am dismayed to see it. If it gains any traction then it will only be because of the money spent on it. Almost anything else would be better!
Lord Coe and other talented individuals on the Olympics Committee have made a mistake here. This is a serious error of judgement.
Unite Against Unite
Punks
Isn’t it wonderful to see the preposterous Unite and its two Marxist agitators, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, getting smashed back by the Courts?
This is exactly why we elected a Tory government.
But is it justice?
Eenie, Meanie, Minie, Mo – Drugs Policy? That’ll Be Lib Dem!
Only now is the depth and breadth of David Cameron’s coup becoming clear. He has swept aside all the old politics and we voted for exactly what he has given us. Hail to the Chief!
It’s true that now he can dump those old Tory policies that no one really wanted and we can take the good ones from the Lib Dems –
God's Herb
none more so than their drugs policy.
The Lib Dems are very, very close to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation which, however it describes itself, promotes a radical right wing solution to the drugs problem – legalise, regulate, tax.
This might seem a second tier, lower priority issue until you consider that most organised crime and virtually all street crime is caused, promoted and maintained by the illegality of drugs.
Legalise all drugs, regulate and tax their supply. You pull the rug from under organised crime and you take away the need for nearly all street crime. You massively reduce the harm caused by drugs. You take perhaps £10 billion out of the black economy. You save several billion more on law enforcement costs.
It’s a no brainer for anyone who has the courage and common sense to think about it. I hope Theresa May is listening – and thinking.
Goldman Sachs – Pure Evil In Our Midst
Chief Executive Thief
If anyone is watching the riots in Athens and fearing for their own safety it should be Lloyd Blankfein and Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs.
It’s very rare that I would advocate violence. Only in self-defence or against great evil such as the Nazis is it justified but it seems to me that here are two individuals who deserve to be dragged into the streets by a baying mob, stripped, castrated and lynched. My only doubt is that perhaps this is too good for them.
Deputy Thief
Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, said last week that the bank was under no obligation to advise its clients that it was also betting against the very investments it was selling them. This is unequivocal proof of the depths of venality, fraud, deception and immorality that this disgraced institution has reached. Surely these two individuals should by now be under arrest, their assets confiscated and facing long terms of imprisonment.
The Obnoxious People Of Bovingdon
My parents live in a small Hertfordshire village not far from Watford. It’s commuter land, only 45 minutes by train to central London but on the edge of the delightful Chilterns countryside. It’s not quite as gorgeous as Dorset but the dogs and I enjoy the change of scenery when we visit about once every month.
The nearest place to find anything more than a village shop is the small town of Bovingdon. Every time I visit there I am dismayed, horrified even at the boorish, selfish and obnoxious behaviour of the local drivers.
There’s nowhere to park in Bovingdon but that doesn’t stop them. They park half on, half off the pavement in the most dangerous and inconsiderate places, often right opposite each other. The town is full of ostentatious, gaudy four-wheel drive Toyotas, Mitsubishis or, God preserve us from even more oriental invaders, Kias. Does no one buy British any more? These tasteless and clumsy status symbols are thrown about with abandon, aggression and a complete absence of any manners. My 17 year old nephew was literally forced off the road last week by yet another woman who simply cannot judge the width of her vehicle and so drives in the middle of narrow country lanes.
Of course, I am sure that there are many very nice and responsible people in Bovingdon but you can drive through the High Street at anytime of day to see recurrent displays of the most selfish, inconsiderate and dangerous behaviour.
There is one other observation though that, for me, condemns these unpleasant people out of hand. As I walk the dogs around the local countryside I am disgusted at the fly tipping and the disgraceful amount and variety of rubbish in the hedgerows. It’s difficult to understand why this wealthy and privileged part of the country is full of so many nasty, selfish and dirty people.
Peter Reynolds 