Category: Politics

It may be boring, but someone’s got to do it.

First time in ages…

~ Inquisitor

Manhunt 2 has been refused a certificate by the BBFC. Rockstar get a chance at an appeal.

To be honest, is anyone really surprised by this? I’ve been expecting it since Rockstar revealed that they’d removed the coercion aspect from the game – basically, removing all the context – and it seems the BBFC feel the same way.

[David Cooke, the BBFC’s director, said that] “the game’s unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying and the sheer lack of alternative pleasures on offer to the gamer, together with the different overall narrative context, contribute towards differentiating this submission from the original Manhunt game.”

Have Rockstar finally gone too far? Well, put it this way, if Jack Thompson hadn’t been sued into oblivion he’d be crowing about this right now as proof that he was right. Shame really.

Penny for your martyrs

~ Inquisitor ~ 1 Comment

There’s an infuriatingly misreported story going around now about metrification which is implying in many cases – especially on BBC TV news, the Mail and the Guardian (via PA) – that imperial-only measurements will be allowed from now on and this is some sort of victory. They’ll spin it that way but in fact this isn’t true – it’s not a victory for imperial at all (and quite rightly so), it’s simply continuing the mandate that all tradeable goods must be either metric or dual-measure, with metric primary, beyond 2009.

That’s it. The BBC news story showing some fool of a greengrocer who sells only in imperial and then tries to say that “99% of my customers ask for measurements in imperial, so why should I go metric?” (gee, maybe because you don’t have any metric signage and probably have a metric-“martyr” sign in the window) in fact is simply pointing Trading Standards his way just as much as it would have done before this ruling.

What I found even more annoying, however, was this rather credulous quote from the Guardian’s PA reprint:

Mr Chichester said: “After saving the crown on the British pint, I am happy the Conservatives have persuaded the Commission that it is good not only for international business but for the British people that traditional measurements are kept.

“I just hope there won’t be any more need for Metric Martyrs and that the Government will avoid forcing metrication down the public’s throat.”

Mr. Chichester is, of course, a Tory MEP, so we need to translate this into English. “International business” means “the USA” (who actually use a different imperial system to ours, which they hilariously call the “English system”); “the Conservatives” means “fear of the Daily Mail”; “traditional measurements” means, well, anything; “saving the crown on the British pint” means “allowing to fill up to 568ml with foam” (Euromeasures don’t include the head, so a half-litre in most of Europe has liquid filled up to a half-litre level and then head above that; so often you’ll get more beer than a “pint” over here); and “metric martyrs” means “people stuck in the past”.

(Is it just me, by the way, or doesn’t the term “metric martyr” really grate? After all, it’s what they call themselves, which by rights should disqualify them from using it. In any case, they weren’t threatened with death, just asked to buy scales which had kg printed on them – if you were really interested in providing customer choice rather than just arrogantly imposing your ignorance, you’d have dual-measure scales anyway.)

In fact, metrication is happening anyway over time. Electronic appliances print degrees C rather than Fahrenheit or gas marks and supermarkets have switched completely for the most part (with the exception of Tesco’s 454g mince, but even that only prints the amount of grams) because most people born after the 60s actually don’t understand very much imperial – certainly I don’t, I work in metres, degrees C and Kelvin, litres and ml and kg, I print on A4. I use decimal points and scientific notation, which gives enough accuracy for anyone. I only use inches for measuring computer screen diagonals, and that’s just because it’s still printed on the box; I drink in pints because that’s what my pub sells.

Working with scientific data as I do, I don’t see how the imperial system would make any sense for anything, but it’s what people were taught for a long time and I accept that; but people haven’t been taught it for a while. This EU decision is the right one; by not forcing the time of imperial’s death, it will in fact allow it to happen quietly, as opposed to noisily when the deadline comes. It’s just a shame it’s being reported as yet another yah-boo-Europe-sucks story instead of what it really is, but then the EU is always so prone to misinterpretation.

Also on this subject: Europhobia’s fine piece.

A prediction based on the evidence

~ Inquisitor

So the election results are in and the only possible coalition seems to be the SNP, the Lib Dems and the Greens, and that gives a majority of two if you toss in Margo McDonald. (We’ll discount the Tories because, well, they’re the Tories and in reality they probably won’t want to help either Labour or the SNP.) The LDs have already rejected a SNP coalition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they turned turtle after a bunch of concessions; but even then, the Greens might be a very hard act to keep happy. So what are the rules here?

Scotland Act 1998 – Section (3): Extraordinary general elections

(1) The Presiding Officer shall propose a day for the holding of a poll if-

    (a) the Parliament resolves that it should be dissolved and, if the resolution is passed on a division, the number of members voting in favour of it is not less than two-thirds of the total number of seats for members of the Parliament, or
    (b) any period during which the Parliament is required under section 46 to nominate one of its members for appointment as First Minister ends without such a nomination being made.

Hmm. Looking at Section 46, we find

Scotland Act 1998 – Section (46): Choice of the First Minister

(3) The period allowed is the period of 28 days which begins with the day on which the event in question occurs; but-

    (a) if another of those events occurs within the period allowed, that period shall be extended (subject to paragraph (b)) so that it ends with the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which that other event occurred, and
    (b) the period shall end if the Parliament passes a resolution under section 3(1)(a) or when Her Majesty appoints a person as First Minister.

So this means that if no-one can get their act together by May 31st, we’re having the election all over again. And since this is Scottish politics we’re talking about, I think that’s actually quite likely unless, somehow, all goes well in the negotiations.

And combining this with the voting screwups, I think it’s probably the least worst option too, but what do I know?

Watch out for the slime

~ Inquisitor ~ 4 Comments

As you may know, there’s an election on and I’ve just received a massive pack of election communications through my door. Unfortunately amongst these was one for the BNP (oddly hidden inside one of the other leaflets, indicating that this was their one free Election Commission mailout.) I felt dirty just touching the thing.

The fact is of course that they have no chance of getting anywhere in Scotland, but they try: commendably the parents of Kriss Donald told Griffin and co. exactly where they could stick their anti-Asian propaganda when they tried to hijack their tragedy, and hardly anyone up here has ever voted for them.

But what of the leaflet? Well, it’s typical BNP propaganda. Home printer quality, twenty years outdated styling, crap about how they’re Scotland’s “fastest growing political party” (maybe from two members to four), grammar errors, almost all in bold fonts, randomly changing font sizes, self-aggrandisation (“likely to be elected to Holyrood” my arse) and much reference to the BNP national 0870 number (whilst printing their Scottish phone number in very small print elsewhere).

Interestingly, the amateurishness of the design of the one-sheet is in itself an indication of why the BNP will probably never have any serious power – it’s aimed at the true believers rather than Mr and Mrs. Nimby, which would be the most dangerous demographic for a group of fascists to get hold of. Le Pen and many others of the like are experts at dog-whistling, the art of saying something that sounds innocuous and “safe” to the ears of someone not attuned to the code whilst being a call to arms to anyone clued in – a good example is the phrase “international bankers” in the context of world domination (meaning of course “Jews”). The thing is, most British die-hard fascists are of the sort that the dog-whistle codes basically have to be spelled out in very big letters, which makes their true nature obvious to all those except the exceedingly dense.

And what of the policy? The usual bullshit: a combination of racism, philistinism and populism. There’s the usual bashing of the “flood” of “immigrants from the EU” (it’s only 32,000 in a 5m population, excluding the self-employed, mostly in the service sector) who apparently in their tiny minds “squeeze” jobs out of locals and “push down” wages. The Poles and so on come here and generally end up getting pushed into menial jobs that no Scots actually want to do; are usually paid minimum wage; work entirely legally so contributing to our economy in NI, income tax, rent, food purchase and so on just like anyone else; plus unlike a lot of young Scots they actually want to be here. For one, I welcome them.

(What’s funny about Pole-bashing is that not only are Poles white, which should normally make them very amenable, Poland has a number of political groups which would be the BNP’s best mates if they ever got any European power – Wiki “League of Polish Families” and “All-Polish Youth” sometime. By the way, Googling for “Polish immigration Scotland statistics” gets you a neo-Nazi news aggregator as the top hit right now and a sane Times blog article with the real story at #7. Ugh. Hint hint.)

And then there’s their other policies. Motoring and police policy ripped straight from the populist “stop persecuting motorists” and “filling in paperwork” handbook. “Discipline” and “traditional teaching methods” (read corporal punishment and rote-learning) in education over “trendy PC nonsense” like actual learning. Bollocks about protecting companies (“and employees”, ooh sinister) from foreign imports. Some trad-socialist policies dressed up in fascist clothing: council housing in particular. No mention of course of some of the BNP’s more dodgy policies – oddly even their usual Muslim-baiting is absent from this one, obviously they think the Poles are a more acceptable target up here – plus no references to Nick Griffin or even the Scottish leader. Can’t imagine why.

What do I think of it? Well, put it this way, I’ve already ripped it up and stuck it in the recycler along with the rest of my political junk mail, a place where it can at least go on to hopefully do something useful. You can’t be too careful, but I think the evil has been pretty much vanquished for now.

If you’re interested, please do do read Unity’s very detailed deconstruction of a different, English piece of election slime. More is definitely better here.

Why, the incompetent…

~ Inquisitor

There’s been a long-running saga regarding the use of a website with which junior doctors are forced to apply for the medical specialisations they will remain in for the rest of their working lives. Not only has the government screwed up by actually banning the site from knowing, you know, the qualifications of the applicant, but this website is horrendously designed, known to be somewhat crashy, and it turns out is full of security holes. Channel Four have been revealing one a day.

So it’s only the latest in the long-running saga of this government using unaccountable independent contractors to do the IT work that the Civil Service should be doing and getting kicked in the balls again and again and again – as if the various disasters at the Child Support Agency, EDS’s NHS cash-sink, the tax credits system, the Passport Agency and much much more never counted for anything at all. The contractors responsible for this, according to the Google cache of the MTAS site, are “Methods Consulting Ltd and Jobsite UK (Worldwide) Ltd”; Methods’ website is, surprise surprise, flashy and devoid of content.

This is funny. The situation, however, is not – there’s no other way to apply for a training post now other than to use MTAS, despite the fact that it would probably be easier and cheaper for everyone to go back to writing a hundred different covering letters. Sad, isn’t it?

Update: And you can’t blame Microsoft for this either… Apache 1.3.37 on Linux. Just to show that you can screw up anything on any operating system. Oddly, the site appears to be hosted on the contractor’s own netblock rather than a UK government one, which I would have thought would be a no-no for anything sensitive like, you know, NHS job applications, but hey…

Just stop it

~ Inquisitor ~ 1 Comment

Every time you get a school shooting in the States that makes big news you get the Jack Thompson and worse “media experts” coming out of their swamps to opine on how video games/violent movies/role-playing games/comic books/the Internet/Satan caused the incident instead of the guy that fired the gun. This always seems to me to be a bit of an overreaction.

The current blame target in development is Chan-Wook Park’s brilliant “Oldboy“, a Korean thriller that won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes a few years ago and remains one of the best films I’ve seen at a film festival. Apparently since one of the photographs in said guy’s dossier resembles a promotional image for the film, that means the film must be responsible – never mind that he apparently doesn’t mention it anywhere else. This is on the AP newswire. This has been referred to by the New York Times.

And they haven’t seen the damned movie. The entire point of “Oldboy” is that violence doesn’t help anyone – it simply screws both the perpetrator and victim, which is demonstrated throughout the film. It is not a Steven Seagal movie for the arthouse crowd, it’s much more than that. But because most people seem to think that a film with subtitles isn’t worth watching for themselves, they’ll believe whatever their media outlets tell them about it, which is why they should actually be responsible. However, with outlets like Fox out there, that doesn’t seem to be very likely:

Fox News - as subtle as ever

Not a Photoshop. Real. Including the bit about how he was probably possessed by the devil. Wow, that’s really responsible reporting right there, although I think Fox is aiming at the wrong target – we all know from Mark Kermode (a truly reliable source) that the only thing that actually is possessed by the devil is Marlon Wayans’ Little Man.

No. Just stop it. Surely we can’t be that thick. Surely. Happily, most of the commenters on Fark are shredding the “Oldboy did it” crapola with relish – if only we can say the same for the rest of the population.

Nigel Humphries is an idiot

~ Inquisitor ~ 3 Comments

“In fact, it makes us feel a bit guilty that we haven’t campaigned hard enough on the legitimate front against the things that we oppose, to do with criminalising and bullying motorists, and because of our failure to campaign hard enough, somebody’s had to resort to this.”

[Nigel Humphries, Association of British Drivers. Quoted in BBC News Online, “Letter bomb injures DVLA worker“]

No-one’s “had to resort” to anything. Motorists aren’t a persecuted minority, they’re the majority; thankfully the true minority are pillocks like you who think that just because you’re in a car immediately absolves your responsibilities towards anything else, and scumbags like this letter bomber (whatever the aim may be.) The ABD, for example, campaigns against ANPR cameras – the entire aim of which is to make motorists safer by spotting uninsured and stolen cars and taking them off the road, since anyone who’s ever had their car stolen or been hit by a stolen or uninsured car will testify to the hell it is getting compensated.

Over 3000 people a year die in motoring related incidents, with the largest percentage being other car users. Honestly, it’s really depressingly like the US Christian Right’s claiming persecution by “liberal establishment” when they’ve got one of their own as President and Fox/CNN/et al; motorists already get far too little examination by the mainstream.

Google for their website and you’ll find global warming denial, doing the usual stupid quote mining. As an added bonus, they quote Kary Mullis, a creationist, astrology freak and HIV denier. Brilliant minds at work there. Honestly, why are they even getting airtime?

A “tribute” to Saddam Hussein

~ Inquisitor

“At night, he heard the sound of weeping from other parts of the building, and asked a guard what was going on. “Those are the Anfal prisoners,” the guard replied, “and they are leaving the prison.” Halabja, in other words, was not part of the Anfal operation. “Where are the Anfal prisoners being taken?” Faraj asked another guard the next morning. “That is none of your concern,” the man answered. “If you ask that question again, you will be sent off with them too, to be lost forever.”

[Human Rights Watch, “Genocide in Iraq: The Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds” (1993), ch. 8]

“…all persons captured in those villages shall be detained and interrogated by the security services and those between the ages of 15 and 70 shall be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them, of which we should be duly notified.”

[“Chemical” Ali al-Hassan Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Iraq Directive SF/4008, 20th June 1987]

Am I glad we’re rid of the bastard, the same way I was with Pinochet? Sadly, no.

This one is a bit harder than the Pinochet “tribute” because Saddam is a very different case, since we’ve killed him. Whilst the world is better off without him in power, this is only in that the world is better off with one less mass-murdering, genocidal despot. Unfortunately, we have managed to screw up so badly in Iraq that hundreds of murdering wannabe genocidal despots have taken his place, and this death will not change that one bit.

That report quoted above is 1993, describing actions that took place in 1987/1988, at a point in time where Western arms manufacturers were happily selling production capability for VX and mustard gas to Saddam’s Iraq (at the same time as surreptitiously selling arms to its main enemy at the time, Iran, perhaps purposefully in order to prolong the war.) We had a responsibility then to the world not to support Saddam, and we blew it big time. The Guardian’s obit makes clear the extent of his depravity throughout his career, all well known and televised; yet it was ignored until Kuwait made it impossible to ignore. The world should never let such a thing happen again, but it will.