Hazel Blears vs Hazel Blears

In a fight to the death....

I've never held this person in much regard, but this is a new low even for this micro-brain. From the BBC:

"Cabinet minister Hazel Blears has joined a protest over plans to close part of a hospital in her constituency. The proposals for Hope Hospital in Salford, Greater Manchester, are part of the controversial NHS shake-up"

This is a quite staggering abandonment of collective responsibility. As a cabinet minister, you support government policy or resign. In recent years there has been a creeping policy of letting cabinet ministers be “absent” during votes they are known to disagree with. This is shameful enough. But to actively oppose your own government’s policy, seems to me to be facing both ways at once on an issue.

She should surely be sacked at once.

And the reason for this split personality? A glance at the election result for 2005 should answer that:

Hazel Blears, Labour 13,007
Norman Owen, Liberal Democrat 5,062
Laetitia Cash, Conservative 3,440
Lisa Duffy, UK Independence Party 1,091

Her majority: 7,945
Turnout: 42.4 %

Simple self-preservation. She knows that hospital closures are hot issues, and on a very low turnout, she probably fears the Lib-Dems could run a local campaign and knock her off.

It doesn’t justify hypocrisy.

(Yet again) think for yourself

The BBC for some reason seems down on satellite navigation systems. I don't know why, but scarcely a week goes by without the channel carrying some story from a hapless drone who cheerfully announces "I used SatNav and ended up in a river"

I always seem to find myself thinking 'too bad you didn't drown' but anyway, there's never any investigation if they actually used it right, or installed it properly, just a general kinda 'mock the technology and those who use it' type approach.

So this Christmas I decided to buy a kit, but the significant other wants to buy me a gift so I say okay, SatNav. Now the system I wanted was basic. It needed two key features, to have a postcode search facility and not to have any installation of software, or consult our website or speak to asshole customer services, just plug-in and go. This is also the cheapest. I don't need speed camera warning, or indicators I'm exceedng the speed limit, or restaurant reviews (!) just the basics. I even told her "TomTom 1 or SatMan 1" the two entry level kits.

What do I get? A viamichelin X-950-T ???

So I say, does this have post code search facility then? "I don't know" she cheerfully announces. So the primary criteria for purchase is in doubt. So I open it and it's all "Install this CD into windows and download this, blah, blah" So the second criteria ~ gone. Oh yes, and she bought it from a fucking website, so there's no-one you can actually talk to face to face.

And all because her asshole workmate, who had obviously been listening to the BBC says "TomTom aren't any good, it says so on the TV"

So we have an argument ~ help me, how much more direct can I be?

Hot, steamy sex

Yes, I thought that might get your attention.

I sometimes look at the website dedicated to a sci-fi come sci-fantasy show, and like most of these things they have a forum to discuss various issues. Anyway one poster was making a comment about how he suspected women to have had more sexual partners than men. I didn’t think this was so, and hence did a simple post asking contributors how many times they’d gotten down and dirty with the opposite sex.

To my utter amazement, two of the posters, that I believe to be middle aged reported, zero (why I was surprised that a middle aged sci-fi obsessive was a virgin I really don’t know). Anyway I drew quite a bit of flack for the post; sometimes I’m deliberately provocative and anyway they are mostly lefties, so fuck ‘em.

But ZERO ? I mean if you are ugly and can’t get girls, then there are hookers, and anyway, cut your hair, get contact lenses, work out, buy some new clothes, learn a few jokes and pretty soon you’ll have a girl. (Indeed, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised just how easy dating is, especially, for me anyway, if you are confident bordering on arrogant).

I mean, I honestly can’t see how life can be anything but “alcohol
- free wine” without the thrill of dating, the excitement of first time sex, the joy of regular sex, the closeness with a woman it brings, the ups and downs, the passion.

Why would anyone deny themselves such a thing ?

There are still one or two women in the world I would really, really like to sleep with, apart from the obvious actress types, there are two women from that very board, who I’ve never met, but they seem awesome. One is an British Indian girl who seems just to drip sex from every pore, the other an American, who tragically now has a kid with someone else, but she’s beautiful and cool and smart, literally everything you could want (who I actually did consider going to the States for ~ not mad or anything but that’s the passion thing!), so surely, if you were stuck on zero, you could date them or someone else from the board?

I’m not saying everyone finds it easy, but it seems like these guys have quit trying, that has to be bollocks, doesn’t it.

New British nukes

Tony Blair announced yesterday that Britain would replace our fleet of Trident nuclear submarines when they reach the end of their life.

Now you may wonder why a politician with only months left, feels the need to comment on a procurement issue 20 years hence, but that’s a side issue.

For the life of me, I cannot see any strategic or tactical reason to possess these continent-busting weapons. The argument for renewing the system as I understand it is as follows:

- we don’t know what risks we may face and therefore we’d better retain the ability to utterly destroy all of mankind, just in case.

This is insane logic. If you don’t know what risks you face, you must surely predict an them, otherwise you wind up in a state of total paranoia. In addition, if it follows that Britain needs nukes, then surely Germany, Italy and Spain also need nukes, along with Poland, the Czech Republic, Canada etc, etc Yet no-one wants this proliferation. In addition, it seems to me that if you are say, an Iranian, with war on your immediate border and a nuclear armed foe, then your needs for nukes must be immediate and pressing?

I don’t see how we can lecture Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about developing nukes, when he lives in a dangerous and unstable part of the world, whilst at the same time, cheerfully announcing, we are getting much more potent ones, when no threat is on the radar. Then there is the argument

- a rogue state might give a terrorist a nuke, and we’d need the return address to frighten them against doing so (along the MAD principle)

This is also incredible. Are we honestly saying that if a leader gave a terrorist a nuke (I really, really can’t see this, because you don’t give someone the means to destroy you, but anyway) and God forbid, London was nuked, and we traced it back to Tehran, we’d really murder 12 million people (i.e. do a double holocaust) in an afternoon? This is total bollocks.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the Americans should disarm, because as no1, you are always “on offer” so to speak, but independent British weapons? I can’t see the point. Then there is the small matter, that say £20B or whatever it finally costs, would pay for a quite useable armoured division or two with rapid deployment capabilities and self-contained transport to anywhere in 72 hours. Now that would be much more useable.