Eff off and mind your own business Mr. Obama!!!

Huffington Post today seems to have dedicated itself to deifying Barry “Barak Obama” Soetorto. At least a third of America is eager to join in if the number of commentes on each nauseatingly sychphantic post are anything to go by.

Erm – sorry to spoil the party but those HuffPosters are all lavishing praise on Obama because of the colour of his skin and overlooking the man’s glaring inadequacies.  Example:

This morning we in the United Kingdom are informed that “President Obama” has said if  our government does not close the tax havens of Jersey and Guernsey in the Channel Islands he will close them.

Does he realise:
He will be but is not yet president of The United States Of America
The United Kingdom is not part of the United States
The Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom, they are Sovereign territories which means The Queen of England is head of state but the islands are independent states with their own Parliament.
Tax havens such as The Channel Islands, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc. play a vital role in world trade. Close them, you piss off Russia, China, most of the oil producing nations, most of the African tyrants Mr. Obama numbers among his friends (or blood relatives in at least one case) and of course Britain and the other EU nations. Most of the world in fact.

Instead of inflating Obama’s ego which is already out of control citizen journalists should, should they not, be reminding him that he is elected to run the USA not the rest of the world?

And given Mr Obama’s ignorance of geography, diplomacy and international law I think the Democrats are being very foolish in pillorying Sarah Palin for a slip of the tongue, especially when we remember Obama’s forged Birth Certificate (the one he had made up this summer) gives his father’s nationality as “African.”

We British satirical bloggers are sharpening our claws, knives etc. If we were not all atheists we would be thinking Obama was a gift from God.

Will the Real Pro-life Party Please Stand Up?

Another Obama supporter who is not l,ikely to be setting foot on this planet any time soon. Forgetting that he is a deluded fantasist who has not yet stated a policy on anythin, lel alone the tough issues, how can Barak Obama formulates a policy that will reduce abortions without upsetting the religious right.

Look, the fundies hate recreational sex as much as they hate aboutions. The only way to reduce unwanted pregnancies is to offer free contraceptives, condoms, pill, morning aftrer pill. The pro-lifers abhor all of these, their position is abstinence only. The Republicans have failed to reduce aborion is because abstinence doesn’t work, never has, never will.

So what has Obama to offer? And would he want to offer anything, after all his ex best buddy Jeremiah Wright preaches that Planned Parenthood is a WASP conspiracy to exterminate the dark skinned races.

If you want to abort any further idiot articles on this topic you have gestating, read my article A Short History Of Contraception (Part 4) which deals with the modern era. (1 to 3, linked from the article deal with earlier periods of history. ) http://www.greenteethmm.com/aborcon4.html
More on Democratic Convention
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Does The internet Really Shink Your Brain.

In one of those articles where a right wing wonk tries to show he is really on the case, David Aranovitch here attempts to rubbish the case that the internet is having a dumbing down effect of the English speaking democracies.
The Internet Shrinks Your Brain

The writer tries to appear cool by suggesting that the web has a positive effect in society.

Well apart from the kind of people who needed to get out more and make some friends before the web came along what can we say. The internet is not a thing, it affects nothing one way or the other.

It is the dross people find on the web that is fucking their heads up.

Tell Me Again, Why Is Obama Being Popular With Our Allies a Bad Thing?

Arianna,
You have to stop encouraging Americans to delude themselves about Obama. It’s to be expected that his campaign manasgers will big up everything he does, and obviously the Presidentia election is of enormousr interest as the outcome will affect everybody on this planet (even if Obama gives little indication that he actually lives on this panet. But…
Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, Michael Tomasky was ranting about the significance of Obama’s meeting with Maliki as if these two nonentities had solved all the problems in the middle east in one short conversation. Maliki have never actually been in control of anything in Iraq, he is seen by other regional leaders as America’s puppet. Obama is a faily low ranking Congessman in the USA.

Similarly the Brandenburg Gate thing is pissing off a lot of people. Obama will not speak from “in front of The Brandenburg Gate” as his campaign, he will actually speak from in front of a monument remodelled by Hitler to celebrate the glories of the Third Reich. All this proves of course is Obama is so far up his own arse he will not see the light unless his throat gets cut.

Given all the things going for the Democrats it is amazing they have managed to pick possiblt the only candidate who could actually lose this time. Blined by vanity and arrogance he runs around acting as if he is already President, not just of the U.S.A. but of the World.
More on Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Some Acceptable Jokes About Barak Obama

he reaction of BarakObama and his campaign managers to the cover cartoon of New Yorker magazine shows another serious deficiency in the Democratic candidate. As well as a lack of policies, lack of honesty and lack of experience he totally laks a sense of humour. Not only are he and his suppoters not going to get any jokes made about Little Black Barak, they are going to play the victim card every time someone makes a joke about him.

But some of us have a lighter take on politics and share the view that anyone who takes himself that serriously does not deserve to be taken seriously. Having said that, we do not want to spent the next three and a half months having our ears bent by Obama supporters every time someone makes a joke about fried chicken or comedy ears.

So for the benefit of people who think all politicians are lying shits, here are a few acceptable jokes you can do about Brak Obama.

An Arab, a Jew and Barak Obama walk into a bar. What a fine example of an integrated community.

On a routine flight, the aircraft carrying Barak Obama and his campaign team few into the Bermuda Triangle. When the plane crash landed nobody was hurt but they were on the beach of an Island in a Kafkaesque parallel universe. As the team searched for things that might help them survive walking around for many hours in the hot sun. At last the Senator found an old oil lamp. He gave it a rub to see if the metal was corroded under the seaweed. Suddenly a genie appeared and said, “You have called me and now I must grant you three wishes. What is your first wish?”
“I’d like a glass of cool clean water that refills itself when somebody drinks it,” said the Senator.
You sure you wouldn’t prefer beer, champage? the Genie asked.
No, water will be fine, said Barak.
BING, the glass appeared in his hand and sure enough filled up as quickly as he drank it.
“And what can I grant you for your remaining wishes”, the Genie asked, “Tasty food, secure shelter, a bevy of beautiful virgins?”
“I’ll have another two of those please,” said Obama, “one for the thirsty of Africa and one for the thirsty of Asia.”

Michelle Obama was seen today wearing combat fatigues and with her hair in an afro. What’s wrong with that, retro feminist is one of the hottest looks this season according to fashion experts.

What’s the difference between a 747 and Barak Obama? A 747 stops whining when it gets to Heathrow Airport…………………………..and Barak Obama is a successful African American politician with a good change of being elected President.

Stick with those and not even an Obama nut can complain.

Obama’s Missing Sense Of Humour

YouTube- Your Whacky Weapon Against Wikiterror

Being totally sceptical about the hype engine that drives the internet I always enjoy reading Andrew Keen’s very well thought through demolitions of self styled “Web Experts.”

The lastest fires a broadside at some crank named Krimmage (sound like the name of a cartoon character) who thinks You Tube is our best weapon in the war against terror, citing the absence of “censorship” (that’s quality control to those of us who love plain English) as a means of dishing the Islamist propaganda posted by Al Qaeda groups.

Poor Mr. Krimmage, typically of webheads he does not understand that Web2 or Wiki open sites are a great way to promote static “web 1″ pages where significant and carefully presented content has a much longer shelf life.

Read the full story on Andrew Keen – Wikiterrorism

Some Interesting Links

This article in HuffPost’s green page had people asking if it was serious or a joke but aparently the author is deadly serious. Is a gas fuelled BBQ more environment friendly that a charcoal one? If we are being picky then an open cooking fire is the best, especially if we factor in the emmissions caused in making the BBQ hardware. In the end it makes little dfference if you are cooking grain fed meat on your fire. That involves using 8 pounds of food to create one, tearing down rainforest which in turn leads to erosion of fertile land and expansion of desert. We all have to change our lifestyle.

McCain says Obama’s word cannt be trusted. News from the American election, John McCain who changes his position more often than a porn movie actor, has accused Barak Obama of untruthfulness, indecisiveness and hypocrisy because Obama seems to change his position on every big issue according to which audience he is adressing. Words like pot and kettle come to mind

Remember the scandal of Maidstone hospital, where the boss had to resign over dirty wards after an outbreak of MRSA. Well the hospital management has not learned its lesson as Iain Dale reports. On a visit to a sick relative, Iain’s partner noticed a complete absence of cleaing staff and evidence that janitorial duties were being neglected.

A Conservative blogger says he enjoyed Cherie Blair’s autobiography. That’s a sign of how bad it really is.

What does Henley Mean for the Lib Dems? So was the by-election a disaster for the Liberal Democrats. Opponents are quick to write off the third party but though unspectacular their vote could point to a positive trend.

A career for tossers?

A few weeks ago I was involved in a bit of a kerfuffle with the boy scientists from The Bad Science forum. One of the more intelligent and articulate commenters eventually asked why science gets such a bad press?

Well it could be something to do with the way, when their certainties are challenged they tend to respond, You’re not a scientist, you don’t understand scientific methods.” Such a response puts “scientists” in the same category as those religionists whose response to any challenge is, “Anything is possible for God.”

Or it could be because we see so many stories like the two below.

Researchers at Herriot Watt University and Strathclyde University claim to have proved older people have difficulty using new technology because physiological deterioration in connections between cells in the frontal lobes of the brain causes them to be easily confused by unfamiliar things.

Typically the “scientists” involved in this study forgot to look at the most obvious thing. So we oldies can watch movies or play games on our mobile phones. Are we bovvered? Many of us who have been rounded out by leading full and interesting lives can think of a hundred better things to do than watch a movie on a three inch by two inch screen.

I cannot take pictures or record video clips with my mobile phone. Is my brain going or is the case simply that my excellent digital camera and state of the art camcorder perform those tasks far better than the phone ever could. So I cannot do those things simply because I am never likely to want to.

Similarly neither I nor my wife ever learned to set the VCR to record a week in advance. Are we sliding into dementia or are we simply not the type of people to get withdrawal symptoms if we miss an episode of a favourite program. They will be repeated in a few months anyway.

It is not a question of neurological degeneration because everybody is different in that respect, it is a question of how interested we are. QED. And that is how to do the science, just think things through and a lot of time, effort and expence can be saved.

The second story has slightly more sinister connotations. Scientists (again – its never philosophers or artists or historians causing trouble) at the University of Kentucky, Louisville – now keep in mind this is in Kentucky, think fried chicken, bluegrass and red necks – claim to have found a link between eye colour and intelligence.

Blue eyed people, amazingly, are found to be more intelligent, ambitious and focused. Brown eyed people can run faster.

Nobody thought to mention in the context of this study that brown eyed people tend to have darker skin and curlier hair than blue eyed people.

My entirely unscientific observations on this issue, made throughout a long career in management consultancy is that if you tell people they are intelligent, thoughtful and capable of more than they have ever given themselves credit for, they tend to aim higher and as a result grow in confidence and status. This approach works regardless of eye colour.

So let’s throw this one back at the boy scientists who have been trying to give me a hard time (and actually themselves being on the receiving end of a harder time.) What is it exactly that us alleged non scientists don’t understand? That ageism and racism are OK so long as they are backed up by properly conducted scientific studies?

I’ll bear that in mind when advising young friends on whether they should follow me into a science related career. (Clue: proper scientists tend not to refer to themselves as “scientists” but by the specific discipline. I am (was) a systems analyst, later an Information Technology Consultant. 

Visit the funniest blog on the web

 

Who Needs HDTV

Who Needs HDTV
Have you noticed how the electronics industry is pushing necessity of owning a High Definition Television set at us. Anyone who does not own a HDTV by 2010 will indentify themselves as anti – social, hopelessly off message, a misanthrope and curmudgeon and very probably an anarchist, Al Qaeda sympathiser and very probably a smoker and trainee alcoholic.In other words the HDTV refuseniks will be downgraded to second class citizens. The reason for this of course is that in spite of the bletherings of government and big business about saving the planet, the global economic model is built on the assumption that the world’s economy will indefinitely grow at two and a half percent or better. For that to happen we must all be persuaded that we are somehow letting down the human race if we are watching a TV or driving a car that is over five years old. We must throw out perfectly serviceable appliances, furniture, clothes and electronics because they are no longer either fashionable or “state of the art.” If consumerism was a religion (and I often think it is to many people,) the stuff we throw away would count as sacrifices at the altar of Mammon.The HDTV push is a particularly fine example of the shoddy way we are treated by the world’s most powerful industry, Public Relations.The great advantage of High Definition screens, we are told, is that we see things in absolute reality. “Watch a football match and you will be able to see individual blades of grass on the pitch, watch a wildlife programme and you will see every hair on an animal’s hide,” the sales pitch goes.But hold on. Even at the front of the stands in a stadium do you see every blade of grass? If a family pet is sitting six feet away from you do you see every hair of its coat. And more importantly do you want to. A short while ago I heard a radio presenter who is a self confessed technology nerd waxing lyrical about his new forty – six inch High Definition television.

“You can see the layers of makeup on the actors’ faces,” he burbled.

Well wow, wow and thrice wow. Is that what we have come to. Drama is about suspension of disbelief. Do we want to see the actor’s bad skin or do we want to see the character as depicted in the story, rogueishly handsome or flawlessly beautiful. Are Jade Goody’s zits entertainment.

What we get from High Definition screens is hyperreality which may bring computer games addicts to the brink of orgasm but which most people counld easily find disorienting. And forty six inch screens? Fine in American homes perhaps, but the have lots of space to build big houses there. The furthest one can get from the TV in the main room of our largish modern house is twenty five feet. And at that distance the picture on my 12 year old, twenty four inch TV gives me excellent detail and razor sharp images.

High Definition sets will sell of course, the lies about how much better it is will sink in eventually and enough of us will buy to allow the suppliers and the subscription channel broadcasters to make their profit and move on to the next generation of TV sets, rendering our expensive purchases obsolete.

If it was just the equipment manufacturers we had to resist, we might have a chance. The truth is however, the government has weighed in on the side of its owner Rupert Murdoch. The Digital switchover is all about pushing us onto Sky subscription sevices. We are hammered with spurious public information data proclaiming the benefits of digital TV and reminding us all that all the main channels can be had free. If you want to know how true this is just talk to anyone who has Freeview in an area of less than excellent signal strength. They will tell you how in poor weather the screen pixillates, there are losses of picture and sound, alarming clicks while text serrvices look as if a projectile vomiting chamaeleon has wandered acrodss the screen.

Not only that, BBC1 and Channel 4 suffer for being on the edge of the analogue bandwidth spectrum while Channel Five is just a rumour to those without digital.

The Digital switchover is not for our benefit, its sole purpose is to free up capacity so that digital broadcasters can deliver High Definition services. And those services will be aimed at premium subscribers and pay to view services.

There are a number of issues that have not been addressed and any number of difficult questions that our Parliament of Poodles have not asked.

Should we be encouraging manufactureres to lauch new generations of technology when discarded electrical products are responsible for so much pollution and environmental damage?

Ought there not to be a higher VAT rate for environment hostile products such as plasma screen TVs which consume more power that a conventional cathode ray tube TV set.

Why are opposition MPs not demanding a public enquiry into the way we are being railroaded towards digital when the analogue system works well and new cable TV (not owned by the Murdoch family by the way) is more than capable of delivering a range of services including telephone, internet access and Multi Channel subscription TV?

Why have successive governments stood aside as News International and BskyB have manipulated the market to eliminate the competition from cable operators?

No doubt those of us who do not wish to buy a digital TV or a set top box will be forced to eventually, the only choice offered us by a government that proclaims its commitment to choice and market forces will be very undemocratic “comply or give up watching television.” This will result in millions of perfectly serviceable televisions being dumped in landfill sites, thousands of tons of increasingly rare raw materials being mined and used in the manufacture of new television sets that are not needed and millions of poundsworth of cash and credit being redistributed from the pockets of people who have to wonder where next month’s mortgage payment is coming from, or more urgently how they will pay for next week’s food shopping.

No doubt my critics will suggest I am just a tightwad who would rather obstruct progress than part with a few pounds. But I have choices as the affluent always do, being able to choose eating out, a visit to the theatre, a pub or club or a concert or to buy a DVD to fill my evenings. In addition to that, there are always books to read and a thousand ways to fill leisure time. And anyway I already have a Freeview set top box. Doing without television is not a choice for many people, the old, disabled, socially disadvantaged. Again they are being abandoned and marginalised.

The preceding paragraph illustrates the point though. Those who speak out against they was society in constantly manipulated risk being turned on by the compliant majority, those who want nothing in life but to be told what to think and do.

It is time we all started asking “what is really in it for me, how do I benefit?”

Is The Web making us all stupid

Disgusting But True (humour)

iPhone – eyewash

iPhone – EyewashAmid the usual hype and razzmatazz the Apple iPhone was launched yesterday. The marketing will ensure this pointless gadget does well of course but really there should be a limited market for a device which really has no innovations and does not even offer any significant improvements on the tools we already have to do the same job.

The iPhone claims to be a fully functioning mobile communications device with “touch screen” internet browsing, a built in MP3 player capable of holding up to two thousand songs and incorporates a digital camera. Wow.

So you are expected to part with $500 for the entry level model and also throw away perfectly good cellphones, MP3 players, Digital Cameras and PDAs in favour of this little usurper which according to reviews does all things but many of them not very well.

The “touch screen” functions more like the annoying and inaccurate scratch pads on modern laptops, a definite retrograde step from the scrollerball on my old 386 Laptop which was totally controllable. Back in the early 1980s , before IBM had used financial clout to make their flawed and clunky PC architecture the de facto standard, Hewlett Packard launched a touch screen PC with a proprietary WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer for the benefit of the young) Operating System with the slight but revolutionary difference that the mouse was a human finger. Touch an icon on the 14″ screen and it would open up, either going straight into an application or open a menu of files. That HP system was one of many, including desktop systems from Xerox and Digital Equipment (DEC) that were many years in advance of the IBM / Microsoft products of the day. But the eighties were the decade in which hype triumphed over judgement.

Fingers are ideal for hitting a specific spot, after all we have a million years or so experience in pointing at things (I want THAT one.) Fingers are not so accurate when used to scratch a piece of plastic in order to move a little arrow around a screen.

The point is Hewlett Packard’s operating system was designed specifically to work with a touch screen. The iPhone OS has to be compatible with Windows and with Internet Browsers.

Typing on the iPhone is by touch rather than key. This is going to cause a lot of heartache for many users as will the slow and clunky internet access. There is a wireless interface but unfortunately more and more wireless users are learning how to secure their networks and prevent freeriders grabbing their bandwidth.

The hype that will sell this new Apple cash cow is the implication that it has found the philosopher’s stone of personal communications, integrating into a single device web browsing, e-mail, phone, text music and DVD and makes them useable while on the move.

This does not stand up to examination of course, firstly Music and DVD are not really communication. Those still cursed with the power of independent thought will at once se that Music and DVD are not truly communication and that reading web pages and watching video are not really an enjoyable experience when done on a three inch by two inch screen.

When I was in hospital a few years ago and bored out of my mind with counting the ceiling tiles my family bought me a mini TV with a five inch screen. It saved my sanity but also made me aware of the inadequacies of a small screen. News, talk shows and soaps were fine but sport, epic dramas like Sharpe or nature programmes were not very watchable at all. So who would really want to watch Lord of the Rings on a PDA screen.

Similarly with MP3s. MP3 players may be cool or even “kewl” but they do not deliver the sound quality of a Walkman or discman. Added to this, the very high compression ratios used by commercial digital music vendors lead to a very poor sound quality. An MP3 player cannot deliver the quality of a Walkman or Discman. but they do deliver quantity. And again enough people will fail to ask “how much music do I need to carry with me?”

Added to all this is the ridiculous obsession with being “connected” while on the move. Does anybody really think it is possible to e-mail, browse, or watch a video while driving, walking or riding a bike? A laptop is a much better tool to take on a train journey, nobody goes by ship now and digital communications devices are not allowed on aircraft. And then factor into the equation the sheer intrusiveness of mobile devices on our quality time.

The nerds, geeks and webheads will be queuing up to tell me I am a dinosaur now but they would be wrong. I worked in technology and as a consultant a large part of my job was to ask “where is the benefit?” DVD technology is a big improvement on VHS for many reasons, just as VHS video recorders were a huge advance in home entertainment. E – mail got us communicating by writing to each other again until spam spoiled it. Mobile phones are very useful for home and business and a must for disabled people like me when we are out and about. We must not forget that there is no law forbidding us to switch them off however.

The inclusion of a digital camera in a mobile phone is good. Picture quality is not as good as a digital SLR but is adequate and of course you always have a camera with you. But a mobile that sends texts and takes pictures is as far as that technology can usefully go.

There will be those of us, the truly cool who don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us, who will not be taken in, but of the people who have to pursue “kewl” through acquisition of the latest fad gadgets the iPhone will just be another opportunity to max out their credit cards.

Apple’s survival against the bullying might of Microsoft has always been due to the way it produces a mix of style and hype to blind people to the ordinariness of its products functionality. This in turn has bred an almost religious level of zeal into Apple fans. Let’s hope their fanaticism does not blind them to the failings of the iPhone.