Sorry. I wrote the Chuck Norris post without realising there was link to a really good rant on Nullifidian’s site.
This leads to the original article on the Institute for Humanist Studies It is really funny. And it has pictures that show the nature of the man better than any words could.
Spotted in The Register was an article on Virgin’s secret/open fair use policy, which came up in the context of Virgin demanding other DSL providers are more “open” about their bandwidth limitations. This piece is well out of date but still worth noting (Note to self: Keep up with the Register)
Virgin is trialling bandwidth throttling in the north west, which it prefers to call traffic management. It would not say when the trial is set to finish, or whether the system would be rolled out nationwide, but said the aim is to rein in very heavy users during peak times. More stable access speeds would then be available to the majority.
The comments on this article is bursting with enraged Virgin customers, one of whom makes pointed use of the “pot calling kettle” metaphor.
One customer contrasts the satisfying service from Telewest (of sainted memory) with the current botchery. No argument from me, I just didn’t realise it was a deliberate policy.
Paying pretty large monthly sums – well more than someone on unemployment Benefit is expected to live for a week on – for a supposedly “Unlimited” service, to find out it is limited is somewhat confusing. Especially given the recent haemorhage (sp?) of cable customers, you’d imagine that there was more empty bandwidth than Virginmedia knew what to do with.
It’s not just Virgin, of course. It’s more or less every service provider that thinks they can get away with it. (So much for the mysterious laws of the market, then. Surely, the company offering the better service should get more customers? Oh, you naive fool.)
I was looking at Tiscali’s “fair use” policy, coincidentally. They tell heavy users that they will be capped, only in the evenings. Hmm, so they will only be choked in the times when people actually use the Internet? So they can use as much bandwidth as they want when they are asleep or in work. …..
Obviously impressed by how far she has raised her previously minimal public profile by pandering to racism. the barking Margaret Hodge has sounded off again in the Observer.
Enough said.
The review for the new Police and Criminal Evidence Act includes a plan to capture the DNA of millions more people, by taking DNA from people accused of the most minor offences, according to the Observer.
Unsurprisingly, this is worrying civil liberties groups. In particular, there is a fear that there will be so many people’s DNA on file that it will seem unfair to miss off the rest of the population, so there will be a strong argument for getting everybody’s.
Of more immediate concern is how much the present system is collecting and how biased in its range.
Liberty claims that, per head of population, the UK has five times as many people on the DNA database as any other country. The government estimates that even if the database is not expanded to include the details of minor offenders, some 4.5 million people will still be on it by 2010.
The expansion of the database is prompting fears that people from ethnic minorities are being stigmatised. According to research by the Liberal Democrats, under the existing system within three years the details of more than half of all black men will be on the DNA database.
Do I really need to even comment on this stuff? It sets off too much knee-jerk 1984 incoherent ranting in me.
5 times as many people’s DNA as any other European country? More than half of all black men on it in 3 years? What a proud national record.
There will apparently be a few month’s public “consultation”. The road-pricing and ID petitions give you a fair idea of how far the government will diverge from whatever path it is set on, even if the whole country rises up and says mildly but assertively, “Hang on a minute. We’re not completely convinced that totalitarian control of every aspect of life is the only way to run a society…..”
Well, this is a short one to say I am almost back online now, although the process has been far from easy. It is entertaining that in today’s modern world, having a short spell offline can cause more problems than you can shake a 32gb memory stick at.
It it hard to work out where to start with my ranting over this recent debacle, so I may be disjointed (no change there though). Some recent examples of the “traumas” (which are, admitedly mostly trivial!), have included such things as working out when the rubbish bins will be emptied. My house now has two types of bin (recycling and landfill), with a note saying they will be collected on alternate weeks. Nothing else. No idea which day of the week, or which week is which. Wonderful.
What the note did say was that to find out the day of collection, and which week was landfill and which was recylcing, I was told to “log on to the councils website and enter my address details.” Brilliant, except I didn’t have an internet connection. Continue reading
Was enticed to visit WorldNetDaily via a post on Richard Dawkins which reproduced their article on teachers who felt they were being forced to promote atheism.
The article turned out to be as silly as you’d expect. Even more hatstand but with more intrinsic comedic value is Chuck Norris’s article on this very topic. (You can get there from the WND homepage by clicking on his big dumb face in the right column.)
Title:
How to outlaw Christianity (Steps 2 & 3)
So even good old z-list action movie stars can see the wisdom in banning religions? Well. that seems a bit extreme to me but I am not gifted with the action hero’s can-do spirit. So, I am prepared to be persuaded, although the Roman empire’s failure to manage this example suggests it may not be the way to go.
No wait, fool. This is a warning of the powerful atheist conspiracy to do just that. Bah. This blog wasn’t even invited. Word must have reached Atheist Conspiracy Central of our weak revisionist tendencies.
Some representative content:
Step 2: Target younger generations with atheism
Atheists are making a concerted effort to win the youth of America and the world. Hundreds of websites and blogs on the Internet seek to convince and convert adolescents, endeavoring to remove any residue of theism from their minds and hearts by packaging atheism as the choice of a new generation. While you think your kids are innocently surfing the Web, secular progressives are intentionally preying on their innocence and naïveté.
What’s preposterous is that atheists are now advertising and soliciting on websites particularly created for teens. The London Telegraph noted that, “Groups including Atheists for Human Rights and Atheist Alliance International – ‘Call 1-866-HERETIC’ – are setting up summer camps and an Internet recruiting campaign.”
YouTube, the most popular video site on the Net for young people, is one of their primary avenues for passing off their secularist propaganda. Another antagonistic and self-proclaimed “blasphemous” site even beckons youth to record their anti-Christian beliefs on it.
Blimey. You think your kids are innocently surfing the web for goatporn or anorexia-promotion sites. You find that they are being suckered into rational philosophy sites. What parent wouldn’t be worried sick?
Thanks for the tip off, Chuck. Chuck Norris! I’m so pleased he has managed to crown his distinguished movie career with a new role as the moral watchdog of the religious right.
My god, the man has pretty well defined z-list acting since the 70s so I had to consult the biog on the IMDB to get the full flavour of his achievements.
Both his parents were half Irish and half Cherokee
Oh come on. Both? Surely the entire current Irish-Cherokee gene pool must consist of him and his bothers. (Wieland and Aaron, since you asked)
His real name is Carlos Ray. This is already a mystery. Why would anyone change the inoffensive Carlos to the ludicrous Chuck? Or Ray to Norris. Norris, ffs. It’s a mere step away from Norbert. Carlos Ray is Charles King in Spanish almost – if you ignore the spelling. He could have chosen that as a nom-de-action-movie if he thought his given name was too Hispanic. (Or Man-who-fights-bad-guys O’Shaughnessy, reflecting his background.) But he went straight for an English-sounding name that seems to have any residual human intelligence sucked out of its very syllables. The human equivalent of the Mazda vehicle called the Bongo Friendee. (Google it if you don’t belive me.)
The only watchable film that he was ever in, to my knowledge, was the one where he fought Bruce Lee in the Colliseum (watchable because of Bruce Lee rather than Mr Norris) This is called Meng long guo jiang, with what I consider excessive pedantry, by IMDB. And he was comically chest-and shoulder-hair-covered in that.
Everything else in the list of his movies brings the old phrase “straight-to-video gem” to mind.
Let’s see the upside here, fellow evil conspirators. If Chuck’s illustrious film career makes him the best-known celeb that the religious right can field to be the star face of a major blog, they really have had to scrape the barrel.