Is it really too much to ask for parents to take responsibility for what their children eat? Not according to campaigners who want to ban advertising of junk food to children.
Why does legislation have to be the solution to every problem? In this case a publicity campaign pointing out the virtues of a balanced diet would suffice. But the government, in trying to be seen to Do Something About everything, is more than happy to take on the role of nanny, and campaigners are more than happy to collude by pressing for ever increasing regulation.
The losers, as ever, are businesses trying to make an honest quid.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 10:37 PM EDT
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And they wonder why the British are sceptical about Europe.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 10:18 PM EDT
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Tonight is a night of special programmes on the BBC about asylum seekers. I watched two of the programmes. The first was a debate in which we were blackmailed by the emotional stories of real asylum seekers and then asked to vote on whether or not we would have granted these people asylum. There were also people in the studio representing various groups, including refugees and asylum protestors. Remarkably, most of the telephone voters were against letting asylum seekers in.
The second programme was an undercover documentary in which a journalist posed as an asylum seeker and tried to see how far she could stretch the system. She was turned onto the streets, unable to either claim welfare benefits or work, and ended up working illegally and successfully fiddling the system by claiming asylum multiple times.
It seems to me that the main reason people protest about asylum seekers coming to this country is that they are upset about the money that is being spent on them by the government. Money that comes from taxes they pay. People don’t want to pay for the health care, accomodation, and legal aid of foreigners who just turn up to milk the system. And rightly so. I don’t want to pay either.
On the other hand, I don’t want to send people back to countries in which they might face persecution.
There is a solution that is so obvious I am amazed it hasn’t already been implemented. It should be obvious from the plight of the reporter posing as an asylum seeker. Let’s see: at first she could neither work nor claim welfare benefits. Then later on the government switched policies, and now asylum seekers can claim benefits, but they can’t work. Is there perhaps another combination of these things we could try?
How about if we let anybody into the country, allow them to work, but don’t give them any welfare. As the documentary clearly showed, it’s very easy to find work as an illegal immigrant anyway. There are plenty of jobs for these people - jobs that native Britons don’t want to take. By removing the welfare incentive, people who want to come and get free health-care and accomodation will know that it’s pointless to come here. At the same time genuine refugees will be able to come and be productive members of society. As an added benefit we get to save the money that is spent on the pointless beaurocracy that so ineffectually tries to keep false asylum seekers out.
I would even go so far as to suggest that this policy could be extended to include the natives - there are plenty of freeloaders among them.
Now some people may be unable to support themselves or find themselves in desperate need of health care. For these people we have charities. Charities are a form of democratised, privatised welfare system. As such they can be more efficient than any government run organisation and can compete for our generosity, allowing us to choose between charities we judge to be most effective. And of course money is given to charities voluntarily.
As Eric Raymond wrote, “The kind of charity you can force out of people nourishes about as much as the kind of love you can buy — and spreads even nastier diseases.” Taxing people to pay for asylum seekers leads to all kinds of nasty diseases.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 10:40 PM EDT
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And now for some self-indulgent, self-opinionated drivel of the kind Ralph and Nick hate.
Plenty of people drive like pussies. Here is my handy guide to how to join them:
- Accelerate pathetically down motorway slip roads so that you don’t even reach 70 by the time you get to the end.
- Queue up behind other people accelerating pathetically, not bothering to overtake them in case your puny neck snaps from the G-forces.
- Queue up behind trucks and Nissan Micras at traffic lights even when there’s an empty second lane you could use to get past them all.
- Accelerate so slowly away from traffic lights that even trucks and Nissan Micras get past you. For best results, change up a gear whenever the engine reaches 1500 RPM.
- Drive a Nissan Micra.
- Slow down and/or stop at roundabouts even when you can see there’s no-one coming from half a mile back.
- Stop and pull in to let oncoming traffic past even though the road is clearly wide enough to let tank transporters through three abreast.
- Drive past small parking spaces looking for ones you can park in without straining your meagre skills.
- Start slowing down at least half a mile from your turn-off. This is especially effective if you only remember to signal six feet from your turn-off, after everyone else has figured out what you’re going to do anyway.
- Drive slower than I would in the same situation.
Suggestions for other examples of pussy-ish driving behaviour welcome.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Driving at 10:33 PM EDT
6 Comments »
According to a BBC News article, blogging is entering the mainstream consciousness. Which, according to critics, means the quality of blogs will sink to all new lows. Some such whiners feature in the readers’ comments section of said article.
“Never managed to get past the first sentence of a “blog”. Boring self indulgent drivel”, complains Nick Studley.
“The bloggers I am already aware of seem to have all the time in the world to sit and write their hubristic and self-opinionated garbage”, bemoans Ralph White.
But they are wrong. Anyone who thinks blogs are garbage is just not reading the right blogs. With a little bit of digging around it is possible to find some very high quality weblogs that you can enjoy reading regularly. Blogging is inherently meritorious because the best blogs will get linked to more and attract more visitors. These same arguments apply to the Web in general.
There are many kinds of blogs but the most worthwhile are those that espouse non-mainstream views that would be unlikely to be published widely in printed media. For instance it is hard to deny the high quality of the writing (and commenting) on Samizdata, even if you don’t agree with their libertarian politics. And how else would a vicious, yet insightful, atheist get published?
If you don’t like these, go out and find some you do. Better than reading some boring establishment newspaper columnist every day.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Introspection at 7:41 PM EDT
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Not all French people are happy with the way their country is being run. The Dissident Frogman is one such, and his weblog makes interesting reading. One article describes how he resisted getting an ID card instead of a passport, because although the ID card was “free”, it would have involved having his fingerprints taken. Another describes what he sees as the moral bankruptcy of France’s position on the Iraq war.
Some of it is a bit too vitriolic for my taste, but it’s an alternative viewpoint and it’s well written. As an added bonus, the site is written in both English and French.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 4:18 PM EDT
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Rocky Rawstern of Nanotechnology Now left a comment linking to their page on nanotechnology ethics.
Their list of principles seems complete and concise - and much of it applies to all scientific reasearch. I think the most immediate threat to nanotechnology research is a legitimate fear of the toxicity of nanometre scale particles. For this reason It is indeed important that teams have, “a solid grounding in ecology and public safety”. Good research is needed into the effects on the human body of, for example, carbon nanotubes.
The whole site is worth a look. It is a portal containing original articles, news and links.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Nanotechnology at 8:10 PM EDT
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Privacy International have published awards detailing the year’s most stupid security measures.
Laugh at the hilarious tale of San Fransico Bay Area Rapid Transport which, having closed all its loos for security reasons, is now suffering a new form of biological terrorism - people pissing on the trains. Their solution? A warning cone that says not, “wet floor” but, “urine”.
Be amazed at the story of the woman forced to drink her own breast milk to prove to airport security staff that it wasn’t a lethal weapon.
Gasp at the stupidity of airport X-ray operators who refused to let a man take his Gunpowder Tea on the plane in its original packaging.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 9:46 PM EDT
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Recently my 19 inch Iiyama monitor made a series of alarming crackling noises and ceased to function. Imagine my surprise when a human answered the customer service line. Yes, that’s right, I was not put on hold, there was no queueing system, and there was no menu system!
Not only that, but the only explanation I had to give was, “my monitor went bang.” From previous experiences with other companies I was expecting to have to work my way through an inane flow chart script consisting of questions like, “did you plug it in to the mains outlet?” to prove that I wasn’t a complete idiot.
Remarkably, Iiyama took me on faith, and a courier turned up two days later with a new one, and took away my old one. Now that’s service.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Reviews at 9:34 PM EDT
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I just managed to catch an episode of Dead Ringers, the latest comedy show to make the transition from Radio 4 to BBC2. The impressions were great, but more importantly, the jokes were sublime. Highlights from this week’s episode included a send-up of Ricky Gervais’ David Brent as God, and Tony Blair searching through a bewildered passer-by’s shopping bags telling him, “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.”
Catch the repeat on Sunday on BBC2 at 22.45.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Reviews at 9:57 PM EDT
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The Alan Bown Set Before and Beyond
