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Bastard computers

For the past several months, my laptop's sound has been fucked- no noise 90% of the time, static the other 10.

I phone up Dell, it takes over a month and around £200 to get an engineer out to fix it. After taking my laptop apart into a trillion pieces and installing a new motherboard (as well as a heat pad that Dell forgot to install when I bought the machine) he hands me...

"Yeah, that's your problem, mate".

This tiny piece of metal and plastic (a headphone socket that came loose from the motherboard) now sits upon my bookshelf as the physical formation of everything I hate in this world. Bastard computers.

Well, indeed.

Why can't more pressure groups be like this?

http://www.iamlola.org

The mission of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) is to build a community of liberty-minded women who are empowered to achieve their individual goals in the fight for freedom. This is accomplished through education and networking opportunities that are focused on inspiring and supporting all women who want to gain the confidence and support to fulfill their dreams.

I was going to write a post about this, but figured that one defence-of-free-speech-in-relation-to-the-BNP post was enough. So instead, here's something completely different.

Via Tom Paine, I find that guy off Dragon' s Den being an advocate for Mandated Lifestyle Modification.

As a non smoker myself, I find myself wanting to apologise to the landlord, as well as to other smokers, whenever I enter a bar. To the landlord, because the government have removed from him his right to run his business as he sees fit, and to the smokers for being forced to be a part of that. And all so some bureaucrats can feel safe that the customers aren't "forcing me to inhale second hand smoke".

Except, if I enter a building knowing that people inside have been given permission to smoke by the people in charge, I'm not being "forced" to inhale anything; I entered that pub/etc entirely voluntarily. The smoking ban is, to use typically libertarian terminology for a second, and aggressive act on the landlord's property which shouldn't be tolerated.

The smoking ban isn't enough for Duncan, though; he wants the habit banned outright.

Recently I spent some time in Mauritius; not the six-star hotel bit, but the parts where the poor people live where so many die of heart attacks because of smoking. The island's surgeon-general said that he wanted Mauritius to become the first totally no-smoking country in the world. I would like the UK to get there first.

I don't know if he's realized this, but drug prohibition has a long and rich history of not working in any useful way whatsoever. As a policy, it's a total disaster. All that an all out ban on smoking tobacco would do is either make people move to another not yet illegal substance, or give rise to a black market in the stuff. This guy is, even if he doesn't know it, saying "I feel tobacco is dangerous; let's enact the one policy to make it even more so!".

The government's "de-normalisation" of tobacco is welcome, but it's taking too long. The Health Bill proposes to restrict cigarette-vending machines in pubs. But they should be banned altogether. Even smokers don't like them, because they typically give you only 16 cigarettes instead of a normal packet of 20 and cost £6, about £1 more than in the shops.

a) this call for "de-normalisation" is a sinister move, not unlike the aforementioned called for "Mandated Lifestyle Modification". It reeks of the "I am superior, I know how to live your life better than you do" hatred that fuels all authoritarian politics.

b) Just because smokers don't like machines as they are overpriced is a reason to ban the machines? What? Well, if we're banning anything overcharged, the co-op down the road will be the first thing to go. This man makes millions in business deals; does he not understand the price mechanism?

But, the single most ridiculous claim of the article has to be:

Whether by accident or design, the primary colours used on both the outside of cigarette packets and the shelves they are kept on attract children. It's the same marketing technique that is used with confectionery.Tobacco companies can't be trusted to make cigarette packets a colour that doesn't work in this way, so they should be put out of sight.

The prosecution rests, m'lud.

I really don't think...

...that bombing the moon quite fits in with the spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize, does it now?

Still, well done to Obama, he didn't cure AIDs or stop Green Day polluting the planet with more records, but he did, er, use "his extraordinary efforts to blah blah blah."

Well done. Now, go do some work.

The BBC needs to read up on their Bastiat...

One of my pet peeves is when publicly funded services are referred to as "free". The BBC are terrible for this. "Free at point of use, but you've paid already and shall continue to pay by government sanctioned extortion" is not the same as free. By that logic, anything bought from Argos is free, as you've paid for it already, but when you collect your piece of crap, you pay no more money (H/T Constantly Furious).

Reading the BBC today I find this.

A sex-guide for the over-50s, created by Manchester City Council, has been condemned for being a "waste of money"...

...The free copies which cost £8,000, are about "sexual health and making the right choices" the council has said.

Hmm. Evidently, £8,000 is the new £0.

And don't ask me why I was reading that article... but there's a lot more wrong with it than that.

I hope your shower is set to cold...

Pam, 68, said: "We're more experience, more mature and more confident and we're able to talk about what we want which makes us better lovers."

The Bayeux Tapestry actually has value...

...unlike this piece of crap.

I don't remember any violent battles, but it seems we have been conquered by the ideology of people being able to attain the things that they not only need, but things of all shapes and sizes that they want to make their lives more enjoyable, easier, and generally better.

Everyone knows the ideal way of life is poverty. Equal poverty, of course; we may live in shit, but if we all live in shit, it's better than everyone having a constantly raising quality of life, even if some have a better life than others.

I had my first Forensic Science lecture today.

America: Fuck yeah.

I'm back home now. I did, as I was obligated to do, take my niece on the teacups. Twice.
I managed to catch up on plenty of Stephen Colbert whilst away. Nothing that good over here.

I also picked up Ron Paul's book on the Federal Reserve- may write about that when I'm finished with it. Along with a book that's just as educational, the Alphabet of Manliness.
The Chapter U is for Urinal etiquette should be be read by every man in the world. Just remember the "Fewest consecutive wangs" rule.

Still, at least I come back home and every thing's how I remember it: corruption, stupid taxes, and the most pathetic type of nanny statism.


...Can I go back now?