Currently Ill!

Bloggings been lighter than usual due to lack of sleep finally catching up to me. Shaking like someone doing cold turkeys, eyes like pissholes in the snow, vertigo and zero appetite, loads of fun.

Queens Speech: Legally Binding Is Bullshit

Within the Queens Speech we got a couple of legally binding announcements. That legally binding sounds like they mean business, that these things will get done - or else!

Problem is, the government was taken to court about their failing to eradicate fuel poverty by 2010 earlier this year - the basis being the governments own figures indicate it has failed badly to achieve it's aim. It's legally binding aim.

The court found in favour of the government. In other words, when they say legally bound what they mean is they've added a couple of funky sounding words to indicate how golly gosh darn serious they are about it, and if they fail, tough titty.

So lets see who's taken in by the empty rhetoric of those two words in a government policy.

Education! Education! Education! In Crime?

My local rag has put out an interesting little story - over 1200 crimes have been committed by under-10's over the last 5 years. Such crimes as:

• A three-year-old who carried out a racial assault occasioning actual bodily harm in Salford
• A five-year-old who caused or incited another child, a girl, to engage in sexual activity in Bury
• A seven-year-old who caused arson with intent to endanger life in Wigan
• A nine-year-old raped another child in Manchester.

Lovely. I'm certain they'll grow up to be benefits sponging criminalsperfect citizens.

We all did some wrong stuff as kids - it's how we start to build up a moral compass, we do something, either realize it's wrong by ourselves or get punished in order to explain to us that we did wrong. The psycho's were easy to spot - they didn't 'get' that it was wrong. Ever.

There's plenty of things I did that I regret, and things I almost did - at around age 8 I recall chasing after a girl after discovering you could stick your fingers in girls bits. Do that at 18 you're a sexual predator, at 8 it seemed like an innocent game, and a few years later I realized just what I could've done and felt ashamed of myself.

These kids are doing it a lot younger though, and it's at a whole new level - around age 9 I discovered about sex, but would never have thought of raping someone. Sex yes, but only if she wanted it. As kids we burnt stuff, fascinated at the dancing flames - actual arson though? Hell, we childishly discussed burning our enemies, but it was just out youthful stupidity and anger, and would never have been actually done. It was all talk, now though?

And the law just gives them a wrist-slap. That'll be enough for some, but not all - the psycho's won't bother about that, but in addition there will be those who'll keep along the wrong path even though some harsher punishment would set them straight.

As ever, it won't be the socially conscious in their suburban havens that'll be at the sharp end of these feral kids as they grow into feral teenagers, no it'll be Joe and Jo Bloggs. More presents for the poor from Labour!

The Law Being An Ass. Again.

Whilst chilling out in the arse-end of Yorkshire, I noted a story on Charlotte Gore's blog, with Constantly Furious pursuing more detail on it. Basically, it's a tale of a man who finds a gun, takes into the police station and subsequently gets arrested for it.

Now as the tale unfolds it becomes clear that Paul Clarke isn't going to be winning any Nobel prizes any time soon, and his past seems a little suspect, but quite how that evolves into him getting arrested for doing, in a rather cack-handed manner, the right thing is beyond me.

There's either more to this than meets the eye, or the law has fucked up in a pretty spectacular way. Once the former was more likely, but under Labours tutelage both the police and courts have turned into a real life Ealing comedy, only not a very funny when you're the one getting roundly fucked over, so there's the real chance of this being the law being a total fucking donkey. And to get 5 years+ in jail for that?

British Justice: Rape One Young Boy, Rape Another One For FREE!

Really, the British Justice system is like DFS for people whose peccadilloes include sexual assault.

First we had the news that rapists can be left off with cautions, and now we have the 16 year old whose wrist-slapping for raping a 7 year old boy was so effective he repeated the offence on a 5 year old.

The attack happened eight days after he was given a three-year community order on June 26 for the rape of a seven-year-old boy in Tameside, Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

Judge Adrian Smith opted for the light sentence in the original case because the victims family, being the turn-the-other-cheek brand of Christian, had forgiven him for giving their son a forced cock colonic. Judge Smith, or maybe Judge Timetofuckingretire, has perhaps forgotten his remit is to punish criminals to protect society? If he wants kudos from Christians he can go arbitrate their civil cases, a la Beth Din or Sharia courts, otherwise he needs to rediscover an ability to throw the full force of the law where appropriate.

The boy has been detained indefinitely, although the minimum of 2 years, 359 days looks awfully short should one of this worlds fuckwit dogooders - you know the type, Suburban Semidetached Sara with Sociology degree and frightening lack of anything related to common sense - decide the poor widdle lamb is just misunderstood, and hence should be placed back into society.

I've mentioned before that we're inching closer to mob rule, and yet - on a day when we find out Cambridge Police arrested a 67 year old for swearing in his own home, this is the Cambridge police who don't exactly inspire confidence anyway - we keep plodding down that road.

Jack Straw seriously needs to stop fucking about trying to create secret courts and start fixing the broken policing and justice system. That, or he needs to admit he's a fucking joke of a minister and step aside for someone capable. Although Labour are hardly awash with quality, so that may be easier said than done.

If he doesn't, then one day he, or one of his successors, will awaken to find out they, their ministry, their policing system and their justice system are surplus to requirements, and the people will go back to the equivalent of witch-hunting suspected criminals.

A Quick Note on Nukes

So Labour have finally, finally, managed to have a crack at energy policy and declared that 10 new nuclear reactors are to be built.

Now I'm interested in what kind of reactors we're getting - we currently mainly use AGR's, and these use enriched uranium. Which could be a problem. Known uranium reserves are likely to last another 50 years or so, of course there's a good prospect of new finds, but basing your energy policy on maybes is like basing your capability to pay your bills on what you find behind the sofa.

There are other options of course, both plutonium and thorium can be used as fuels, as can nuclear waste itself. Fast breeders (we shut ours down in 94...) can actually generate more fuel and power. I just wonder if anyone has put any thought into this, we really need to start putting plans into place now if nukes are going to be a major energy source for the UK for the next century.

Personally I'd rather have seen us take a punt at an alternative or two as well as the nukes, solar updraft towers would make a better investment in Africa than some of the things the CDC and DfID spend taxpayer cash on, as well as providing some renewable fuel that's actually quite cheap (towers have minimal maintenance), of course there's the challenge of taking that energy from where you place the towers and placing it on the UK's grid... But such a plan would be for the future, and actually display some foresight as well as helping up make more friends on a continent with still quite a lot of riches to plunder.

The greens are partially correct, we do need to invest in renewables - but not at the expense of the here and now. Energy prices will rise - people like to decry Hubberts Peak Oil theory, however they apply it to the world when Hubbert's theory was only for the US, and was shown to be fairly accurate - so at some point in next few decades renewables will become feasible at their higher unit costs.

If governments going to interfere in the market, I'd rather it interfered in something it could sell off in the future.

Perhaps Cameron's 'Cast Iron' Promise Should've Been A Stainless Steel One

As his cast iron one, to hold a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty, has tarnished.

Iain Dale is busy defending Cameron's decision, but as Dizzy shows, the treaty has within itself the ability for signatory nations to exit it. So why not have the referendum on that? That's not gesture politics, that's giving the people the very voice on the treaty that Cameron was so concerned about.

And Camerons new, shiny, and made of even more iron-y and cast-y cast iron, promise to 'repatriate powers' really is full of the finest shit you can find - he plans to, what, negotiate with all 27 members of the EU to find a way of gaining powers sequestered to the EU? Does he think they'll do that out of the goodness of their hearts? Does he think they'll go 'sure Dave!' and change various treaties and rules just for him? Even if they can be bothered sitting at the table with him, they're going to want to extract some value out of it for themselves - there will be a price attached for the support of each of those 27 nations. Hefty prices. I doubt France will be satisfied with a new sofa from DFS in exchange for helping us out.

I'm sure with the UK being just such a well-loved, and highly popular member of the EU, they'll all be doing cartwheels in order to help Cameron achieve his aims. Perhaps they'll chuck in a Blankety Bank chequebook and pen in as well.

The odour of rat pervades Camerons decision, it could well be viewed that he knew damn well Lisbon would be ratified long before he got chance to enter Downing Street as PM, and that he knows damn well that Europe will laugh in our faces when we try to renegotiate. What he gets is a stick to beat Labour with during the election (Never Again!), and a stick to beat Europe with whilst in power (Nasty France Says Non!) and to keep the Eurosceptics chasing after whilst he gets on with business.

Really, it's the precise sort of thing Blair/Mandelson would cook up - keeps the EU sweet, provides ammo against the opposition, gets to say lots of empty rhetoric over sovereignty whilst achieving pretty much nothing.