Well, obviously

Back in March I posted about my latest motorcycle accident:

So there I was this morning, overtaking one of our lovely London black cabs, when he decided to execute a summary U-turn (as they are wont to do).

As it turns out out, the cabbie says it was my fault and is counter-claiming against me. His statement says, to paraphrase, that he checked his mirrors and began his U-turn, and that I "came along and hit" him. (presumably he means I came "from out of nowhere" and hit him). Well obviously. I mean look at the photo. Obviously this was a safe U-turn and I callously came along and hit him, right? I wish I'd put a bigger dent in his door, the fucker.

He told me, on the day, that he was on his way to court for a speeding ticket. I hope they nailed his ass, really and truly.

There will not be a negotiated settlement (shared fault and whatnot). I just lost my mood of congeniality and forgiveness. Every penny or bust.

British liberty Pt. V

We will no longer have the right to remain silent:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to push through a new anti-terrorism law before he steps down next month giving "wartime" powers to police to stop and question people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The "stop and question" power would enable police to interrogate people about who they are, where they have been and where they were going, The Sunday Times said. Police would not need to suspect a crime had taken place.

If suspects failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a crime and fined, The Sunday Times said. Police already have the power to stop and search people but have no right to ask them their identity and movements.

Wow. Wartime powers? Did I fail to notice we're at war? Or is it just the permanent, global-war-on-terror, Orwellian kind of war?

So now this, in a supposed liberal democracy. Has it ever been more obvious that a government needs a constitution to keep it in check? Isn't it bad enough that they can stop you on the street without cause and search your pockets? Isn't it bad enough that they'll soon have portable fingerprint scanners to identify us? And how about shouting (and otherwise) CCTV cameras to watch us and give us orders, and biometric ID cards, and a huge national DNA database, and computerized tracking of vehicles and public transport passengers?

And now a policeman will be able to spot-interrogate you, and if you don't give him the answers he (presumably) expects to hear, you can be prosecuted -- and don't forget you'll be giving a DNA sample down at the station, too.

Does anyone think that a terrorist, on his way to a terrorist meeting or whatever, is going to confess because he's afraid of a fine? Of course not. This law is aimed at the rest of us.

Okay, so maybe we can vote. Aside from that, has a human population the size of this country ever been so watched and controlled? I guess we just have to hope we never elect anyone with a hidden totalitarian streak.

A little slice of Egypt

Got this from the hotel people last night and thought it was worth sharing:

PS:Please avoid Airport hustlers and hotel touts on your way to Luna.((airport Travel Agents Rep & Be ware from the tourism people at the airport, they will offer there help to you, they will not help you, they will try to change your hotel direction that you booked to another hotel that they can get commasion, as example they will tell you about your booking in this hotel: The Hotel is closed, damaged, burned .etc, so do not trust the tourism people at the airport because at the end they will raped you off. )).

[ View of Cairo from the Cairo Tower ]

Goin' back to Egypt

Kim and I are going to Egypt June 14th, for 8 days. I don't know why, but receiving our visas today was pretty exciting -- even for me, and I've been there before. I visited about 11 years ago. The photo, left, is mine.

The visas themselves are cool, whole-passport-page deals. The Arab Republic of Egypt. It's sounds exotic, and it is. So far it's one of the most challenging and rewarding places I've ever been. Like anywhere in the Muslim world, for a western person to wake up to the sounds of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, it sure reminds you that you aren't in Kansas anymore.

The Egyptian people are some of the warmest, most curious, most welcoming, and annoying I've ever visited. It's all good. I loved it last time and I'm sure we'll love it this time. And kudos to Kim for courageously agreeing to visit the Middle East on an American passport (I'm using my British one this time, too, since I've yet to renew my Canadian one). Still we'll probably tell everyone we're both Canadian. And married. 'Cause they will ask. And it's easier that way.

Responsibility

American baseball pitcher Josh Hancock was killed in a motoring accident recently. His vehicle struck the back of a flatbed tow truck. He was drunk (nearly double the legal limit), speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, and talking on a mobile phone at the time. They also found marijuana in his rented SUV. To paraphrase Wikipedia, the reason the SUV was rented was that he'd been involved in another accident a few days before, and was likely drunk then, as well.

Sounds like a case of recklessness, and self-destructiveness that unfortunately caught up with him. Right?

Well, his father is suing the restaurant where he was drinking, the towing company, and the driver of the stalled car who needed towing:

"It's understood that for the entire 31/2 hours that Josh Hancock was there that he was handed drinks," Keith Kantack, a lawyer for Dean Hancock, said. "It's our understanding that from the moment Josh Hancock entered Mike Shannon's that night that he was never without a drink."

Now, if I'm not mistaken, most of us who go out drinking generally have a drink in front of us the whole time. It's not like we say to our server, "you know, I'm going to take a break for the next half hour, without a drink". So should a drinking establishment be required to ration our drinking time? As for the tow truck driver:

Police said Hargrove noticed the stalled vehicle and stopped to help. The report said he told officers he was there five to seven minutes before his truck was hit by Hancock's SUV.

The lawyer said:

"Were the police contacted?" Kantack asked. "Why weren't flares put out? Why was the tow truck there for an exorbitant amount of time?"

Exorbitant. And on to the driver of the stalled vehicle:

The lawsuit claimed Tolar was negligent in allowing his Geo Prism to reach the point where it stalled on the highway, and for failing to move it out of the way of oncoming traffic. A police report said the Prism became stalled when it spun out after being cut off by another vehicle.

Hokay, so everyone's at fault here except the drunken, speeding, seatbelt-less driver talking on the phone. Perhaps someone's father needs to do his grieving in private, instead of lashing out at everyone who was unlucky enough to encounter his messed-up, spoiled athlete son. I noticed that he's failed to sue the car rental agency, the dope dealer, the makers of the mobile phone, and most surprisingly, the person he was chatting with when he died. No, but perhaps his employer should be responsible:

Kantack said others could be added later as defendants in the suit. He declined to speculate on whether the Cardinals or Major League Baseball could be added to the suit

How about accepting that Josh Hancock was more than a little bit responsible for his own predicament?

And in a separate case, a former employee of IBM is suing the company for wrongful dismissal after being fired for using adult chat sites on work time:

James Pacenza, 58, says he was addicted to online chat rooms and that IBM should have offered him sympathy and treatment instead of firing him.

The Vietnam War veteran says he has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since 1969.

He argues that he used the internet to control his psychological problems.

Hokay, so if I'm a self-diagnosed porn addict it should be okay for me to, say, browse porn at work? And say that I'm self-medicating? And the company should offer me sympathy, instead of handing me my walking papers?

How about a little responsibility here, too? If you do dodgy stuff on work time, and get caught, why not take your punishment like a man instead of blaming it on addiction and Vietnam? Nah, sue for $5 million. Some people are amazing.

Bad bad religion

A new album on the way! "New Maps Of Hell". Wikipedia has the poop. The band's myspace page has a couple of new tracks to listen to. I do like "Honest Goodbye" pretty well.

And the cycle continues

There goes America again, arming people in the Middle East:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Military aid began arriving Friday after the United States said it will rush supplies to the Lebanese army fighting al Qaeda-inspired Islamic militants barricaded inside a Palestinian refugee camp in the country's north.

Hey, now they're arming the Lebanese government, after arming the Israelis so they could bomb the whole of Lebanon last Summer. Whatever the US is trying to accomplish here, it isn't peace.

"I certainly hope that the Lebanese government will be able to deal with these extremists," Rice said. "It's just another example of extremists in the Middle East who are trying to destabilize democratic governments."

Rigghht, and the US didn't destabilize the same government by letting Israel pound the crap out of the country (whose government is democratic and US-friendly) all within the last year? Of course they did, and moreover they knew they were doing so. Israel didn't just bomb Hezbollah guys in foxholes, they took out most of the major infrastructure -- and America supported that. Now this. What kind of careless games are they playing with peoples' lives?

And furthermore, the next time America is attacked (whether a military attack like the Cole or a terrorist attack like 9/11) maybe people in the US would be so good as to refrain from pleading "why do they hate us so much?". Given the years of "involvement" in the region's conflicts, perhaps Americans should consider that allowing their government to arm factions, take sides, and invade countries in the Arab/Muslim world is bound to result in a few enemies -- ones who don't hate you for your freedom fries, or because you're beautiful, but because you destroyed their lives. Just something to think about really.

[ I visited Lebanon in November, 2005 ]

Pardon me, are you going to throw that?

Back when I regularly used public transport here in the UK, sometimes I felt like rioting too:

A riot by commuters enraged over delays, who destroyed part of the busiest train station in Buenos Aires, has drawn attention to the profound crisis afflicting Argentina's privatised railways, which have severe shortcomings despite the huge subsidies they receive from the state.

The private UK rail companies run a shoddy system with even shoddier employees, suffer constant delays, tell you obvious lies, and do it glibly, and typically won't give you your money back even when you can't get to the destination you've paid for. And you've really paid for it, too.

On one occasion, I bought a Tube ticket, and started down the escalator just as they announced they were closing the station ('evacuating', because that's more dramatic) for an undisclosed reason. The ticket manager, faced with a small mob of people politely but insistently demanding refunds, simply closed the window and literally went to hide in the office. The British are generally just too reserved for spontaneous rioting, but that felt like a good time for it.

"This was a calamity waiting to happen; we are fed up with the constant delays, the cancellation of services, the mistreatment and disregard of passengers"

Sounds familiar. Hey, the occasional riot really gets things done. It motivates politicians.

I don't like your band very much

My workmate passed on this comment (edited a bit) from the MySpace page of "the bird and the bee":

I had to painfully sit through your set in Sacramento to see Lily & I liken it to having a f[]cking root canal in every manner. I couldn't leave & was forced to hear your repetitive, mind numbing, lame-ass background music the sort you have to listen to while being at the dentist for hours. Or whilst waiting in an airport for your lost luggage. By the Time Lily got on stage she was hammered; I'd be a f[]cking raging alcoholic too if I had to listen to that poo every f[]cking night. Stop touring & release your sh[]t straight to Musak for the elevator circuit or perhaps as background torture noise for prisoners. I mean really, your singer is lovely (not the two back-up hags) and the musicians could play well, it's just the material was dreadful and you have absolutely no stage presence. I don't think the guys looked up or smiled once. It seemed painful for them as well. How you got billed with a young, cute, bubbly, upbeat pop-ska-hop act is beyond me when you should be kicking off Bingo at Indian casinos or maybe a jazz-cruise ship tour. There you go! People can't leave there either unless they want to jump off the f[]cking boat!

Well at least, those are some constructive suggestions.

Iron chancellor awaits coronation

Our chancellor, future prime minister of Britain (with a newly-discovered, wild-eyed smile now permanently plastered to his "dour Scots visage"), today says:

"Today there are new priorities and I offer a new leadership for this new time," he said. Mr Brown insisted he would welcome a challenge from "any other candidate who wants to stand", and said he would "fight hard" for every single nomination and expression of support.

Translation: Would somebody please run against me for the Labour party leadership (and, obviously, lose) so I can look as if I earned this? And no, he won't call an early election so we, the British people, can have our say. He's got a couple of years to enjoy the power he's longed for and expected, during his long nightmare of Blairite rule.

Based on nothing at all -- at least nothing substantial -- I'll just say I don't like or trust this guy. But, I guess time will tell. Perhaps he's brilliant.

I'm glad to see the back of Blair, with the stain of Bush and Iraq all over him. The shame of it, for me, is that I otherwise like Tony, but can't forgive him for Iraq. So now we'll get this guy Brown. Be careful what you wish for?

Einstein, one not-stupid fellow

Never mind about about general relativity:

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Think of the little ones

Concern for the defenseless little ones in peoples' homes when the smoking ban goes into effect this summer. Smoke Ban Is A Threat To Pets:

Millions of pets are at risk from the smoking ban being made law in England in less than two month's time, an insurance firm has warned.

Unable to light up in pubs and restaurants from July 1, more smokers will puff more cigarettes at home, says More Than.

And that means putting pets at more risk of secondhand smoke, it claims.

Yes, it does. More pets are going to be at risk! We need a new animal charity to lobby for pets' right to a smoke-free environment. Something about this is niggling at me though. What could it be...? Oh, there it is on the last line of the article:

There are also fears that children could suffer if people stay at home to smoke and drink, instead of going to pubs.

Right, I forgot about those little guys.

[ Trivia: Did you know that in the UK, people give more money to animal charities than to children's charities? ]

Dirty little monkeys

From a Channel 4 promo spot this evening:

There is too much sex on TV, but let's face it: if we show some, you dirty little monkeys will watch it.

Good point mister.

Actual pesky terrorists!

I've written lots of posts about all the bogus terrorism busts here in the UK, which usually result in nothing more than sensational headlines. It seems that after the headline hoopla and speeches, most times people forget to notice when no actual trials result.

More usually, the only result is some new law, loss of privacy, or regulation. Remember the big airline plot from last summer? No convictions, but you still have to board the airplane with your toothpaste in a clear plastic bag.

Anyway, today it seems they actually convicted some pesky terrorists. Strangely though, I don't even remember any sensational headlines about this one:

Five men have been jailed for life for a UK bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda that could have killed hundreds of people.

Well blow me down. We're really are overrun with terrorists, and the police finally caught some.