The Alan Bown Set Before and Beyond
No, no, no, no, no, no, No!
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft, Driving at 10:27 AM EDT
August 26th, 2003
Aaaaaaaargh!
August 24th, 2003
Michael Moore
People keep telling me how much they enjoyed or are enjoying this or that Michael Moore book. And I keep having to educate them. Most of what he says in his books and documentaries is rhetoric. It’s all about effect. It’s either not researched or deliberately distorted. But don’t just take my word for it.
Bowling for Columbine debunked:
Documentary Or Fiction? by David T. Hardy.
Michael Moore’s Columbine Gutterballs by Larry Pratt.
The Moore The Scarier by Debbie Schlussel.
Viewer Beware by Ben Fritz.
A Times article about Michael Moore detractors.
A review of Stupid White Men:
One Moore Stupid White Man by Ben Fritz.
As Michael Jennings wrote, “If you have enjoyed Michael Moore, then try Brink Lindsey. He’ll help you get over it.”
Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 12:27 AM EDT
August 21st, 2003
How To Annoy Me While Driving #4 - Try to Kill Me. Twice.
This technique was admirably demonstrated by Mr Red Golf Man on the M27 today. It was just past 6pm and still quite busy, so all three lanes were in use. I’m in lane 3 passing some cars passing a lorry when Mr Red Golf Man pulls up behind me, getting a bit too close for comfort. I would go faster but there’s a car in front so I can’t. I sit there.
I’m coming up to my turn-off, so I’m thinking of making my way over to lane 1, looking for gaps in lane 2. As I reach such a gap, I signal left, check my blind spot, and start to move over. But what’s this - Mr Red Golf Man is trying to pass me on the inside. I’m half way through changing lanes and he’s still coming towards me. Somehow we miss each other and now we’re both in lane 2, and he’s right up my exhaust pipe. I flash my brake lights at him to ask him to drop back a bit, and all he does is flash his headlights at me.
I start signalling left as there is a gap approaching that will let me into lane 1 just before my turn-off. I wait until I’m about three car lengths into the gap before pulling into it. But what’s this? Mr Red Golf Man is passing me on the inside again! While I’m signalling left! Again! I honk and shake my fist at him, but he sails past, and turns off. I just manage to make the turn-off myself.
So I have two peices of advice for Mr Red Golf Man: 1) Don’t tailgate people, especially in busy traffic. 2) Don’t pass people on the inside, especially when they’re signalling left. They get nervous about it.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Driving at 10:24 PM EDT
TV License Update 2
The Present Occupier’s address is on TV Licensing Enforcement Extraordinaire John Thompson’s, “priority list” according to a new letter he has received. “We are planning to take further action,” the letter brays. “Our records show that despite our previous correspondence, there is still no License for this address.”
Funny that, considering there is no TV at this address. An enforcement “Officer” is planning to visit The Present Occupier shortly.
Watch this space for updates, but don’t hold your breath on an enforcement employee actually appearing. Similar threats have been made in the past, but they have so far been just threats.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft, TV Licensing at 2:20 PM EDT
August 20th, 2003
Stupid Laws
If you haven’t realised yet that the government is meddling in aspects of our lives where it has no business meddling, it’s time to WAKE UP! Here’s an example:
I don’t think many people realise it, but there is a contraband war going on in this country. It is a war which has spawned a clandestine ring of illicit and secretive dealers and buyers operating their own black economy and doing their best to steer clear of the agents of the state.
And just what are these shadowy merchants trading in? Is it narcotics? Is it guns? Is it prostitution? Gambling dens? No, it’s tomato seeds.
Yes, there are even laws telling you what varieties of vegetable seeds you can sell. To sell your vegetable seeds, you have to have them certified and registered, and it costs £1000 plus an annual renewal fee. The result is less choice for consumers and a black market in seeds.
If you want to market your variety of seeds, Guy Herbert lists three sets of regulations that you must become familiar with first, in addition to the 1964 Plant Varieties and Seeds Act. As he says, “After you’ve wasted 3 months of your life doing this is a good time to reflect: not just on the vileness of it all, but on just how many interests are there vested, how uninteresting it is to the general public, and how difficult it is to get from where we are to where we might want to be.”
Laws like this and countless like them prove that anarchy is the best option. As James Hammerton points out, it is impossible to keep up with all the laws, and there are enough of them that we can be sure we’re all breaking some of them.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 1:09 PM EDT
August 13th, 2003
State Monopoly on Self Defence
David Carr writes an excellent article on Samizdata that explains how self defence has become not only illegal in the UK, but synonymous with, “‘vigilantism’ or ‘retribution’”.
The prevention of and resistance to crime was no longer the duty of the citizen nor even the right of the citizen; it was now seen as being wholly the function of the state to be exercised as a monopoly by its various agencies.
Thus, the citizen who ‘takes matters into his own hands’ is so deeply offensive. Aside from the question of any mischief he may or may not have inflicted upon his tormentor or assailant, his worse ‘crime’ lies in the usurpation of a power that the state regards as being within its sole competence.
The law is now in hands of the government. The citizen is merely required to obey.
I’ve always been uncomfortable with the advice of the police to not take matters into your own hands, while at the same time openly admitting that they cannot be everywhere at once. Of course they can’t be everywhere at once, no matter how much money is stolen from me to fund them. Therefore self defence will always be necessary.
The idea of leaving it to the police is a victim mentality. It’s not my fault; other people are responsible; if bad things happen to me there is nothing I can do about them; I am merely a victim of other people’s failings. In a positive feedback loop, state provision leads to diminished personal responsibility, which leads to ever more clamouring for more state provision. The result is an expensive nanny state with impossible goals.
The alternative is to return to a situation where it is a duty to prevent a crime in progress, and support people by allowing them the means to do this.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Self Defense at 4:01 PM EDT
August 5th, 2003
Feminine What?
Last night I saw a TV advert for a cream to treat, “feminine itching”, which is used by applying it, “to the intimate feminine area”. Talk about beating about the bush. Er, by which I mean, um, why don’t they just say what they mean?
It seems the folks who came up with the name of the product had no such inhibitions: Vaginol.
Update: Speaking of euphemisms, Archsweet provides a link to this wonderful euphemism generator. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just get back to baking the bald-headed dolphin…
Posted by Rob Fisher as Advertising at 1:22 PM EDT
The Problem With A Surveillance Society
Quite often, while defending the position that it is a Bad Thing to have govenment able to see everything we do through the use of such technologies as CCTV, ID cards and GPS tracking, one can be accused of being paranoid and asked to come up with a likely scenario in which such surveillance can cause problems for people who have, “nothing to hide”.
Perry De Havilland supplied one such scenario while defending his post about CCTV.
So lets say you are a ‘trouble maker’… someone like me, for example. Sometimes you go out of your way to force the local planning authorities justify every single decision they make as laid out by law but rarely in reality observed, and thus you are loathed by the local Gauleiters in the local town hall… and maybe it is a ‘fact’ that you are a married man who happens to repeatedly visit the house of a woman to whom you are not married, where her husband is not home, and all this is caught on CCTV.
These are facts, no doubt about it.
And lets say that the RIP Act is finally extended to local authorities, as they recently tried to do and will no doubt try again, allowing low level public ’servants’ to go on ‘fishing expeditions’ to see what he people they dislike are getting up to. Do you really think that will not happen?
And knowing that they can do that, do you not see the chilling effect it will have? Just like the Orwell quote earlier, the fact they might be watching is enough. They do not have to actually get the footage of my every movement, I just have to know that if i piss off the wrong people, that could happen to me. We all have secrets. Chances are I will just decide to stop being a trouble maker and let the people in the town hall do what they like. Is that really a fantastical scenario I am positing?
The emphasis is mine. We need people who make trouble for the government to sustain democracy.
Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 1:16 PM EDT
August 3rd, 2003
Under-what?
A question that lately has been occupying more of my brain cycles than it’s really worth is this: Was the word “underarm” ever used as a noun before the people charged with making the advert for Dove deoderant decided that the phrase, “soft and smooth armpits” wasn’t aesthetically pleasing enough?
Posted by Rob Fisher as Advertising at 11:20 PM EDT