19/02/2005
Um... kinda late here, but... Roundup time!
entry posted by Inquisitor at 20:30
(permalink).
edited on: 08/05/2005 18:55.
categories: Misc
, Music
Yes, there has been yet another long break in transmission, mostly due
to my laziness. Also, I only just installed Dreamweaver on my new PC -
there were much more important things to do with a system with a
powerful graphics card, like Doom III - so have finally got around to
writing.
So it's time for a Culture Roundup. New Order's new album, Waiting For
The Sirens' Call, has what looks like Peter Saville's worst cover ever,
and it's a shame since from the unmastered MP3 leak I've heard it's
really a rather good album. Who knows, maybe there's something special
on the actual packaging; I wouldn't put that past Saville and Associates
(the people that brought us the Blue Monday sleeve that cost more to
manufacture than the price of the record) at all. Bloc Party are being
called the new Franz Ferdinand by people who haven't heard the Bloc
Party record, and by NME critics with nothing better to do. Michael
Jackson is 'ill'. And Pete Docherty's out on bail. Again.
What is it with Pete Docherty? How many different times has he been in
rehab? How many times has he been in jail? How many of Sanctuary's
millions has he blown on speed, coke, smack, crack, media publicity,
Kate Moss, and drugs rehabilitation he hasn't got the slightest want to
do? And how many really shitty songs does it take for Q and the NME to
stop comparing him to Kurt Cobain? The answers, as Dylan put it once,
are blowing in the wind.
And when he does kill himself, as he inevitably will (the only other
option is turning into a Shaun Ryder/Shane McGowan figure, since he
doesn't have the talent or the luck to be a Keith Richards, and I can't
see him doing that somehow), what's going to happen? Are we going to
have a black-bordered NME? They did it for John Peel, which was rather a
surprise since the modern NME doesn't give a toss about the real
alternative scene that John championed throughout his DJing life, so
Pete Docherty definitely doesn't deserve one. He'll get one, though. And
someone will refer to it as 'The Day The Music Died', probably a Q
writer. Damn, I'm getting depressed already.
Q really has gone downhill, hasn't it? It's really been pronounced over
the last two years; from providing an entirely readable magazine, to
doing features on Christina Aguilera, to dumbing down the reviews
section to the point where Britney Spears got a four-star review, to
putting paparazzi photos in the news section (the point where I stopped
buying), to running incessantly similar top-100 lists in every single
issue, and most importantly where a staff top 100 list put 'Definitely
Maybe' as the best British album of all time when it isn't even the best
British album of 1994 (Blur Parklife, Pulp His 'N' Hers, Manics Holy
Bible, Massive Attack Protection, Portishead Dummy, Radiohead The Bends,
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works II, Prodigy Music For The Jilted
Generation, and Morrissey Vauxhall & I are just some I can name) and so
on. I'm terrified its stablemate, MOJO, will go the same way; it, UNCUT
and Observer Music Monthly are the only three decent remaining music
magazines, and one of them comes free with a newspaper. (Tomorrow, by
the way.)
Unfortunately, commercial pressures mean it probably will, like it
killed off Select, Melody Maker and the non-awful NME; can't piss off
the Big Four, can you?
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22/02/2005
Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Edinburgh just rejected the
congestion charging scheme. Damn.
Let me first say that I hope all the NO voters on the DVD Forums
discussion are happy now. It's unsurprising, really; most of the people
who take part in road-related discussion on there are the kind of "all
the cops do is catch speeders instead of real crime" idiots who
regurgitate what they've been told by the Scum, Star, Mail or Express,
with the occasional sensible person regularly shouted down (which is
why I don't take part in them.) It's a real, real shame that we've
been shouted down by people who actually think that driving your kids
into school is actually a good idea.
The plan was £2 for entering the zone. £2. The "outer
zone", covering most of the city, would only have operated between
7AM and 10AM weekdays, while the inner zone (basically just the
New Town) was 7AM to 6PM weekdays, so not exactly all consuming;
besides, you would only have paid once per day per vehicle anyway.
Car clubs, disabled and elderly people with blue badges (which is
every elderly person in Edinburgh), motorbikes and similar were all
exempt.
Considering Ken Livingstone is about to jack the London charge to £8 whilst increasing
the area covered, £2 is an absolute pittance for what could have
been the cause for a lot of serious local transport improvements -
park and ride schemes, more buses, reopening the Edinburgh suburban
railway along SPT lines, even the silly tram scheme.
The trams are going to get built anyway, but the Council will find new and entertaining
ways to screw up life for Edinburgh motorists from now on; as a poster
on DVF who failed to see the point pointed out, London's road quality
went up after the congestion charge came in. Edinburgh does have
a decent public transport system, but inflation and stagnation will
see to it in the end, just like it did the Tube; without the CC,
it has much less of a chance. LRT fares will have to go up, they're
subsidised enough as it is. And it will screw over people who intend
never to own a car, like me; I quite simply do not see the point
of owning something that, in a city where everywhere is
accessible by public transport, I do not need. But
the cars will give me, and the people of the future something
for nothing; CO, CO2, nitrogen oxides, particulates, global warming
and air pollution.
So, are you happy now?
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23/02/2005
Spyware-shilling scum threaten Spyware Warrior and others
Suzi at Spyware Warrior has
received a legal
threat from the people behind the iSearch spyware toolbar, spread-blasted
around a load of spyware information sources (note her letter threatens,
dumbly, her domain registrar, because they're offering a cloaking service
where her name doesn't show up on the domain). Nevertheless, it's a
fairly scary move - especially after both Aluria and Lavasoft's hijinks
with WhenU, who also have threatened people who claim their spyware
is.
iDownload/iSearch, of course, claim that their product is not malware,
despite the fact that the licensing
agreement (warning: link goes to iSearch, although the page doesn't appear
to contain an installer) contains this:
By installing the Software, you understand and agree
that the Software may, without any further prior notice to you, automatically
perform the following: display advertisements of advertisers who pay a fee
to iSearch and/or it's partners, in the form of pop-up ads, pop-under
ads, interstitials ads and various other ad formats, display links
to and advertisements of related websites based on the information
you view and the websites you visit; store non-personally
identifiable statistics of the websites you have visited; redirect
certain URLs including your browser default 404-error page to or through
the Software; provide advertisements, links or information in
response to search terms you use at third-party websites; provide search
functionality or capabilities; automatically update the Software and install added features or functionality or
additional software, including search clients and toolbars, conveniently
without your input or interaction; install desktop icons and installation files;
install software from iSearch affiliates; and install Third Party Software.
and this:
However, to enable iSearch and/or it's partners to provide and operate
its Software, iSearch and/or it's partners may collect certain types of non-personally
identifiable information about individuals who install the Software. This
information may include your Internet protocol (IP) address, your domain,
your operating system, your browser version, type and language and your Internet
Service Provider.
[...] iSearch and/or it's partners may also collect
and may use certain other types of non-personally identifiable information,
including: certain of the web pages that you view, the
amount of time that you spend on certain websites, your responses
to ads served by iSearch and/or it's partners, certain
software installed to your computer and software characteristics
and preferences [isx: like Spybot S&D, maybe?] ,
non-personally identifiable information on web pages
and forms, software usage characteristics and preferences, and
your ZIP code.
Gee, sounds like spyware to me. Sounds like a Trojan to
me. And, of course, with your IP, domain, webform entries and postcode,
you are personally
identifiable, so they're lying to you.
This
amusing thread at Wilders Security shows that Microsoft AntiSpyware
(actually a rather good piece of software - it's what used to be GIANT
AntiSpyware, it's going to be free, and it's permanently resident)
spots and stops iSearch installation, so iScum are going to have
to go up ahead the world's biggest software company if they want
to stop their piece of shit software being 'libelled', he he. So
instead they're threatening a blogger, one who doesn't even
make a software product.
Way to go, iSearch. Now, can you piss off?
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26/02/2005
Idiots Of The Week #3: Stephen Green ('Christian' Voice)
Remember the ignorant
bigots at 'Christian' Voice, the ones who posted the BBC executives'
home phone numbers on the web for all to see during the Jerry
Springer: The Opera fiasco? Well, they're even more ignorant than
we thought they were, and much, much more bigoted.
First, Stephen Green creates a publicity disaster for himself by phoning
a local-to-me cancer charity (Maggie's Centres) that was about to accept
£3000 from a special performance of Jerry Springer: The Opera,
and telling them that he and his pack of loudmouthed bigots would
protest outside their cancer centres about how they would be going to
hell for accepting the cash if they didn't refuse it, and then going and
crowing about it in the press when the charity (regrettably) followed
his advice. Of course, he
isn't replacing the £3000 out of his own pocket;
apparently, that's for "women and wimps". Blackmail is just so Christian
a virtue, isn't it? Well, only if Stephen Green does it, apparently.
The Murdoch Times this morning has an article on how he's been
copying his American fundamentalist brethren (who he is very much in
thrall to) and is about to start protesting
outside abortion clinics. The good news is that 'Christian' Voice
probably don't have all that many members, as proven by their somewhat
weak protests outside Television Centre during the JS:TO debacle. The
bad news is that they know how to work the news media, and as Marie
Stopes points out in the article there are already
anti-abortion protesters in the UK. Green's organisation will provide
them with their publicity.
So I have just visited their site, out of need to 'research', and the
first thing I see is a lovely little banner ad, telling me that I am an
"enemy of God" because I don't follow their teachings
(even though I think Jesus was a pretty swell guy, but apparently I'm
too strong on the whole equality thing.) Clicking on the 'About Us' link
gets us a series of teachings on stuff like how we have, in a line
stolen from Ian Paisley, "given away the Queen's sovereignty - owed to
Almighty God alone - to the European Union." So not really a fan of
democracy, either, is he?
Oh, and we've legalised trading on the Lord's Day, which gets almost as
big a bill as the gays on this page (although he gaybashes freely
elsewhere on the site: look at his amazingly distasteful parody of a
police anti-discrimination webpage, "The Site The Gay Police Association
Want To Ban!", which links to all sorts of American fundamentalist
'ex-gay' crap and overriden parts of Exodus.) He'd have a heart attack
if he came up here, which he might have done to 'protest' Maggie's
Centre - Scotland has liberal Sunday trading laws, where places like
ASDA are actually allowed to open 24 hours, all week. This
despite the Wee Frees. It's a law England should have had a long, long
time ago...
[If you want to explore further, I recommend Nick
Barlow's article on much the same subject.]
And I notice a link on the side entitled 'Our Own Holocaust'. Uh oh -
sounds like an abortion reference, it's the kind of thing the
fundamentalists love (see: their hitlist of abortion doctors, featuring
names, addresses and phone numbers and crossing out the dead ones in strikeout,
entitled 'The Nuremberg
Files'). Whaddya
know: [warning, link actually goes to 'Christian'
Voice]
In Britain today, to kill an unborn baby after 24 weeks is illegal,
unless the baby is diagnosed with a handicap, which as we have recently
seen, can be as trivial as a cleft palate. We compel the owners of the
smallest public building to construct ramps for the disabled, whilst
trying to eliminate disabled people before they are actually born.
Disabled people cost money to look after, and the Nazis would have
appreciated the logic of our position.
Um... Stephen? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a
24-week abortion in the UK? (Not to mention that the 6m number he quotes
is all abortions, not 24-week ones...) As you may be aware, the
criteria for allowing a post 24-week abortion are:
-
The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the
pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.
-
The termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the
physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.
-
There is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would
suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously
handicapped.
>
> (source: Woman's
Health, linked to from directgov. Also see here.)
In other words, he's talking bullshit. This is easily disproven, with
the aid of National
Statistics. Just taking one year, say 2001, post-24 week abortions
total 119 (mostly under the handicapped baby rule - and usually, this is
serious stuff), from table 8. Out of 176,364 other abortions. Talk about
corrupting the statistics or what...
Oh, and look under cleft palate, in table 23. The number? One. It
would have to be pretty serious in order for two doctors to sign off on
it, and that's even before the 24-week limit kicks in.
These statistics weren't hard to find, either. I searched for 'abortion
statistics UK' on Google. It's the first hit.
Why do I get the feeling that people like Stephen Green want Vera
Drake to be the future, not the past? There will be lots of Veras
if abortion gets banned, because it won't go away; and there will be
lots of people not nearly as nice as Vera is performing them.
Women could die because of Stephen Green, and people like him, and I
simply can not countenance that. It is, after all, to do with their
bodies; and no-one else's to have a say over.
But then, Stephen doesn't believe that, does he:
[Women] should be in the home. The man should be the leader in the
family and the woman should be the daughter or wife under the authority
of her father and then her husband.
> -- quoted in Times
article, above
Jesus Christ.
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