Another muppet in charge

Recently the culture secretary, a muppet by the name of Andy Burnham has been talking to the papers about inappropriate content on the internet. I'm just going to copy and paste a few things he's said (via the BBC, the Telegraph and The Register).

Because I believe the man should be stripped of any power - and for that matter, clothing - locked into a public stock in London and publicly humiliated for failing to understand a problem that's intrinsically related to his job.

Quote 1: "There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people."

Translation: There are somethings the public shouldn't be allowed to view, read or say. Because it may harm or upset people.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that IS a freedom of speech issue. But a freedom of speech issue that's already addressed. There are laws against the related harm - child abuse, incitement and liable laws.

So what he wants to do is...ban things that aren't illegal. He later gives an example of "...which I would say is unacceptable. You can view a beheading."

Right, now correct me if I'm wrong, but what's the alternative? The beheading he's almost certainly talking about is something that happened in Iraq - a hostage was beheaded.

Such a thing is a gruesome act that will offend - in fact, this event was a message intended to upset. But in banning it what do we achieve? We can't hope to remove it from the internet and the only person it harms is the viewer.

Oh, wait, I forgot. Think of the children...

Quite: "Leaving your child for two hours completely unregulated on the internet is not something you can do. This isn't about turning the clock back. The internet has been empowering and democratising in many ways but we haven't yet got the stakes in the ground to help people navigate their way safely around."

Why in the name of green tomatoes are you leaving your impressionable children to browse the internet on their own?? Would you leave your child in the hands of strange people for 2 hours?

Nope - it's called supervising your children. Making sure they don't run into dangerous things is a part of responsible parenting.

More to the point, how are your precious little angels supposed to find this material? *Accidentally* search for "beheading infidel"? It's not something I'd imagine most children would look for.

The odds of children accidentally stumbling on something unsuitable is slim to none. Further more, the odds are that anything they stumble on will be passed by as boring.

We view things as unsuitable for children. But children...filter out things they don't find interesting. Actually, to be honest, most of us do. Which is why unless they're looking for something they're perfectly safe just web browsing.

The other side - how do we stop them looking at things. If a child wanted to get online and look at unsuitable things....do we think we could stop them?

Even if we had a "perfectly secure system" - we locked down the DNS system, prevented proxies, limited direct IP address lookups - it still wouldn't work.

Lets be clear - there is no practical technological fix to prevent access. Why do I say that? Because even outside the huge techie issues, there's a massive classification issue. What is a child allowed to see?

Quote: According to the Telegraph, Burnham's main goal is to compel ISPs to offer "child-safe" services.

Now, what's the problem with this? There are two main ways of filtering. You allow everything except things that have been complained about...or you allow only things that have been checked.

Now, the problem is simple. He wants the ISPs to pay for all this. Now, how many people do you expect this would take? People to check every blog, picture, site and video file. Oh, and remember that the content keeps changing.

Daily.

The answer is - lots. Paid for by ISPs. Now, since they are all private companies that means that the people who pay for it are us, the customers. So that isn't going to happen, because it can't. The one body that already does part of this job - the Internet Watch Foundation - yep, that should familiar - does what it can, but as recently shown is fundamentally incompetent.

A big enough staff to filter the internet is simply impossible.

So what we have here is a complete moron wringing his hands and saying "Oh, something must be done! Won't someone think of the children!!"

What he really should be doing is promoting the idea that parents should be careful in how they allow their children to be exposed to the collected thoughts, desires and idle mumblings of the human race. Because the internet isn't a pretty place.

Because humans aren't a very pretty people.

Once again, the bombs fall

Once again in the land with the city holy to the three largest religions, bombs fall. Missiles whine and people die.

But here in the UK there seems to be a small, tiny - nay, microscopic bias in the reporting.

Yes, Israel are again bombing the life out of Gaza.

But Hamas launched rockets from the gaza strip first.

Now, it's not as clear cut as all that - it never is. They attacked us, we attcked them back. Remember that the attrocity we commit now is excused by what they did to us last time.

But what is clear is that this could all be ended very, very quickly. It's depressingly simple - if they would stop for 5 minutes to think about it.

Hamas can't win with military might. They launch rockets, Israel has nuclear weapons. (Probably.)

But if the rockets and the attacks stopped, so would the retaliation. Follow this up with non-violent protest. Ghandi had the right idea in India and its hugely difficult to fight - because there is nothing to fight.

But no.

You homo sapiens and your guns...

--
Yes, I know, I want a rifle. So shoot me.

Why politics can make me angry

Broadly speaking I would hope that all politicians put their country first, then their party and only finaly themselves.

Ok, I admit if the last two were reversed I wouldn't mind to much.

Even so I accept that different political ideologies will do things I don't agree with - however, they are all doing what they think "is for the greater good".

This is why I'm rather angry with the current crop of labour politicians.

Right now we're going through a bit of a recession - as is much of the world. During this difficult time the labour parlimentry party hasn't been exactly...well...helpful.

But what really takes the biscuit is this sort of thing.

Rather then bail out a british company like woolworths, or spend a few billion reducing the employers contribution to national insurance - a tax on employing someone - they spend it on a car company.

A car company that was bought out by an indian firm a year or two back.

Not because it would be especialy bad for the economy - woolworths employs more people. Both have huge supply chains.

Nope - it's because the car company happens to have several thousand workers in a couple of margional labour seats.

Spending our tax money to buy votes.

But why is it needed? Surely the've already saved the world?

Promised things

As some of you might remember, I promised to post a few comments that were made while I was in Canada.

If this offends anyone - I've taken out the worst ones. And I firmly believe that if god exists, s/he's got a sense of humour.

Now, to set the scene...

It's a catholic church, with a christening service going on in the background at the front. All in french...

Two warcraft players hiding at the back of the church.

Some of the more printable comments:

"Can you get instant quest text here?"
--
"Rep grinding with the catholic church...is there a daily quest?"
-
"How many points is a service worth? Is it extra on Sundays?"
--
"Are christenings repeatable?"
"Yes...but you need a rare quest drop."
--
"What do you get for being exalted here?"
"Excommunicated."

While I'm ill...

When I'm ill I have a very clear view of what I want to do.

Very little.

I want to stay warm, I want to be distracted and above all, I don't want to do anything that will last. Because five days later I'll look back at it and think "I could do better if I was blond. Look at the lines on that!!"

But believe it or not, playing on the computer (which you'd imagine fills most of the requirements) isn't the first thing on my list.

It's about 5th.

Sleeping in a nice warm bed comes in at 4th - although, to be honest, sleeping is usually on my top 20 list of things to do. So that's not a huge surprise.

Third on the list might surprise. It's not very often that I look at porn - because, well, I'm not a fan. But 3rd is being wrapped in a blanket, with a cat curled up on my lap, watching Car Porn.

Yep - I'm a not-so-closet Topgear fan. Available on "Dave" - the one non-news channel on digital TV worth watching in the day time.

(You lot have FILTHY minds!)

Curling continues the theme with two, although not with a cat. Because they're are things cats won't do. Or can't do.

I've never tried to get kessy to cook - worth a try, do you think?

But the thing I'd rather be doing - the item at the top of my list...isn't printable.

Not printable because...well...ok.

It starts with curling. And I'm not talking about THIS.

It was a mistake...

Post edited to fix html like elements being hidden

Today I had the task of visiting a nurse we have based in a school - shockingly, she's the school nurse.

So I wondered over to reception and asked for her by name - and this is how the conversation went...

Me: Hi, I'm here to see Jane Doe?
Receptionist: I'll let her know you're here. What's your name?
Me: Me? I'm [My Name]
Receptionist: [phones] Heya....got some one here for you........I didn't ask...one min...
Receptionist: What form are you in?
Me: I don't go to school here.
Receptionist: Why don't you go to your own school's nurse?
Me: [blinks]
Me: Could you please tell her that the technician from [company], [my name] is her to see her?
Receptionist: [shakes head slowly]
Me: [hands over company ID]
Receptionist: Oh. I'll tell her. Arn't you a bit young to-
Me: No. I'm old enough to legally have a child in this school. So please, just get her.

The mistake I made?

Shaving.

I don't believe it...

While writing the previous post I used (or nearly used, but edited out - I'm not going hunting for it now!) a reference to a rubber duck fetish.

I did this by trying to think of the most unlikely thing I could think of.

However, on googling "rubber duck fetish" I came up with about 363,000 pages.

I really did choke on my tea.

The other potentially unlikely thing I mentioned was a women wrapped in Christmas paper.

I'm not sure I'm brave enough to look.

But think of the children!

I'm all in favour of protecting children from some things.

As far as I'm concerned a child should never have to fear abuse, unwelcome sexual attention or violence.

But then, I'd say the same thing about adults as well.

Lets be clear - for the record - that no child should ever be sexually involved with an adult, willingly or not - who is more a couple of years their senior.

A willing sixteen and fifteen year old? It's impossible to stop - and not something we should try to stop. That sort of age gap appears within a school year. Seventeen and fifteen....hmmm... - but you see my point.

However, where I differ in opinion with some others is the issue of images. Take for example, this.

In this case an encyclopedia has been censored for perhaps 90% of UK internet users - wikipedia, the 4th most visited site on the planet - censored.

Not because of a new image, but an old one. A thirty year old album cover.

For those who haven't seen it, it's of a naked girl in (what in an older, more developed person) would be considered a provocative pose. Naked - but with a broken glass type effect concealing certain things.

It's certainly indecent, uninteresting and in very poor taste - but if the Internet Watch Foundation hadn't done anything then it would have been consigned to the dustbins of history. Instead it's now wikipedia's most popular page.

But no. Instead, they classified it as an "potentially illegal indecent image of a child hosted outside the UK". Which I have a problem with.

You see, there have been laws in the UK for a long time - a very long time. For the last couple of hundred years there have been assorted crimes and penalties for obscene publications.

This album cover was released in the UK and is still available.

So let's get be clear - this picture, taken with consent of the child (And I would imagine the parents!) has had 30+ years to upset people. It did manage to upset people.

In a couple of countries it was re-released with a different cover - but not because of legality. Because it's tasteless.

This album cover was taken to the FBI back in May - but they did nothing. Because there's nothing bad about it. No child was hurt in any way, doesn't really depict anything.

It's not an illegal picture. Or hasn't been so far.

But no. The IWF put it on the banned list, causing a host of other problems...because it Might Be illegal.

This angers me for two reasons. Firstly, because if you start banning encyclopedias from showing things it's easy to start with things like this picture...then where do you stop?

The very far end of this would be banning any picture of women, dressed, undressed or wrapped in Christmas paper. Why? Because there's a religion (Islam) who believes that the sight of a women who's not drapped in thick, shapeless cloth is Indecent and Might Drive Men Into Wild Rape Rampages.

(Oh, just think of the poor women, attacked by these provoked men, Hide them, for their own good!)

And the other reason? To find an image like the one recently banned sexually interesting requires a very sick mind. To someone like that, walking past a school, looking at the pictures in a teenagers magazine or watching children's TV could be as exciting.

You can't stop that.

They need help.

Banning cover art from an album from thirty years ago really isn't going to do it. It was still available (with a better, higher quality image) on amazon and the band's website, as well as hundreds of other sites, mirrors and caches.

Do something about people who actualy abuse children to create images. Track down and throw the book at anyone who pays for this sort of material.*

But address the problem we have NOW. Help children NOW.

Don't take action about a picture that even the girl involved with was happy about, then and 15 years later.

Protect children - not "The Children".

--
1) Let the flaming commence
*) I could make an argument against this. But another day.

Shattered Dreams

I dream of stars
But in winter ice only,
Freezes my poor heart.

Why child protection laws don't work

Tonight, I ended up drifting over to my not-so-local cadet group that I'm loosely attached to. (Don't ask why....)

Anyway, turned out there was a Surprise Child Protection Inspection.

Yay.

Now, it's the last week of rehearsal for a pantomime they're putting on for the parents, friends and others - anyone they can drag there. So it was the dress rehearsal.

The panto is beauty and the beast - and Beauty was there in her dress. Now, I know I'm a sucker for a girl in a dress - always have been, probably always will be.

But my favourite cadet - (yep, I have a favourite - so shoot me. She reminds me in a way of me - that same ability to jump around and have three different conversations at the same time with the same person. ) - turns up looking Good in a dress.

If the child protection people were not there, I'd of told her that she looked good. Because, well, she did. (Yes, she's 10 years younger then me - I'm just saying she looked good. Shhessh, you lot have dirty minds.) And none of the cadets complimented her.

But the rehearsal came to an end, and she walked home in the rain in that dress.

If it wasn't for the child protection people, I'd have arranged matters so that she'd be driven home. Me, mother, another parent - because while the Village is mostly safe you never know who's out there.

And a dress like that pulls the attention of most males over the age of 15.

I'd have escorted her home myself, if needs be. In the rain.

But, no. Child protection.

Grrrr.