Too little, too late
Posted: Thu 1 October, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »There’s a story on the BBC today – a headline story, no less – that extra police patrols have been placed on the street in Leicestershire where Fiona Pilkington lived with her daughter before killing them both after years of taunts and intimidation.
Ms Pilkington killed herself and her 18-year-old daughter when she set fire to her car in a lay-by in October 2007.
So it’s taken two years for those extra patrols to be put in place – conveniently (from a media and PR perspective) just after the inquest verdict came out that the lack of action/response on the part of police was at least partially to blame for the deaths.
Talk about locking the stable door once the horse has bolted. In this case that horse has run away, broken its leg, been put down and turned into glue before Leicestershire police have got round to doing anything about it.
Way too little, way too late.
Priorities
Posted: Wed 30 September, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »Today I’ve found myself repeatedly annoyed by news coverage.
There appear to be two main stories today :
- Tsunamis kill at least 90 people in Pacific
- The Sun newspaper changes allegiance from Labour to Conservative
Yet every media outlet I’ve seen today has those stories in the opposite order, and that annoys me.
Somehow, UK politics appear to have taken precedence over (at least) 90 people being killed.
Mind Crime
Posted: Fri 18 September, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, General, News, Thoughts 4 Comments »Over the last week or so, I’ve been churning this post around in my head – and it’s still a work in progress. I’ve written about it before on a couple of occasions, but in the last ten days there have been two big – and well-publicised – court cases based around conspiracies, and planning to commit offences.
In one case, two boys in Manchester were supposedly planning to blow up their school – and have now been found innocent of all charges, and there’s a small ruckus going on about whether the entire thing was actually a total waste of time and money. The second one (although it actually came first chronologically) was of course the ‘liquid bomb’ plot to detonate bombs in mid-air on several flights. They were found guilty, and this week got sentenced to incredibly long terms ( between 32 and 40 years each)
Now I can’t deny, I find I have a real problem with people going to court to answer a case that they were thinking about doing something bad.
Obviously, I haven’t been in the court hearings on either case, so I don’t know the true weight of evidence in either case. I just find myself uncomfortable with the concept of having people get taken to court and going through epic legal proceedings for an offence that has been talked about, but not actually committed.
Mind you, in my opinion terrorism is the ‘child porn’ of the 2000s, it’s the Big Bad Thing where people appear to say “Oh, well if [the accused] was into that then they’re beyond the pale, just lock ’em up and throw away the key”. It’s the “Ultimate Offence”, or whatever.
I suppose that the difference between the cases is that with the aeroplane bomb plan the people had actually put together the things they needed, whereas the Manchester one appears to have been more about talk and ‘let’s do that’ discussions, rather than serious preparation.
Even with that though – and I totally acknowledge the difference between ‘planning’ and ‘making the things necessary in preparation’ – I keep coming back to the entire concept of being able to be tried for an offence that hasn’t actually been committed. After all, isn’t that pretty much what Orwell described in “1984” as “Mindcrime”?
Cycle Hire
Posted: Wed 16 September, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, People, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel 6 Comments »I noticed yesterday a piece on the BBC about cycle-hire programmes being introduced in some places in the UK.
And while I think it’s A Good Thing™ to bring cycle-hire etc to the fore and work on making it into a sustainable concept, I’ve got to ask what kind of Twunt puts a cycle-hire facility in fucking Blackpool? Yes, it’s fine as a UK tourist spot – but on windy days (and there are more of those than sunny ones in Blackpool, in my opinion) it’s hard enough to walk into the wind, let alone cycle into it. (And while it’ll be fine cycling with the wind behind you, in my experience the wind is always against you as a cyclist)
The bit that really makes me laugh, though is this :
According to tourism body Visit England, the number of UK holidaymakers visiting the resort in 2008 was down 26% on the previous year. Tourism bosses hope the scheme will be another attraction for people visiting the resort.
Tourists don’t (in general) cycle around cities like Oxford and Cambridge, where cycling is already de rigeur. So why the hell would they bother in effing Blackpool, for fuck’s sweet everloving sake?
Blind teaching the Blind
Posted: Mon 14 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Education, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I noticed this story today while reading over the shoulder of someone on the Tube – and then had to search it out online.
So – how many things can you spot that are wrong with this concept? The headline : “Primary schools bring in bankers to teach the credit crunch children”
Oh yes indeed – get children taught how to be fiscally responsible by the fucksticks responsible for the current situation. Awesome plan.
Although in fairness, I do think it’s a good idea to teach children far more about money, how to calculate interest, understanding APRs, and basic fiscal stuff. I know that I wish I’d had something like that in my education, anyway…
Three Nines
Posted: Wed 9 September, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Security, Thoughts Leave a comment »Of course, you also have to bear in mind that 911 was the main emergency number in the US well before the advent of 9/11, (or 11/9 – whichever you prefer) and there was always speculation that the date was chosen for exactly that reason.
As a result, I suspect there might be a few security agencies wondering whether 9/9/9 might be planned to be of similar significance/utilityin the UK…