He’s not the Messiah….

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And so the Left and progressive movement in the UK and further afield rip themselves apart over Julian Assange.  I’d repeatedly said to myself ‘Don’t blog on this, you’ll annoy people, get your blood pressure up, and waste a good hour of your life’.  But, I can’t help it, after seeing ‘old heroes’ of the left supporting a bloke who has taken residence in a foreign embassy to avoid answering allegations of serious sexual assault, and hearing on the TV news people cheering him as if he’s some sort of hero.

Wikileaks started off with some good ideas, but I started falling out with it big time when it made some serious errors of judgement or process and ended up publishing secret information that made it more likely for folks who’d acted as interpreters or informers to Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to be identified.  All of a sudden the business of providing ‘Heat magazine for the chattering political classes’ was also making it possible for folks to be shot, bombed or tortured to death for giving information to Western forces.  Whether some folks on the left actually applauded this accidental release I don’t know – but any blood spilt because of these leaks has to lie at the door of Wikileaks and it’s team.

When Assange got himself in to trouble with allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, it was immediately leapt upon by many of the left as a set up of some sort.  Stories abounded about whether the events had happened, whether the women were CIA agents, all sorts of stuff.  the bottom line, though, was that Assange was wanted for questioning about these allegations in Sweden, ended up in London, then went to the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden as he and his supporters felt that he would be extradited to the US to answer potential espionage charges.  Which is ironic in itself, given that a journalist in Ecuador picked up 3 years in jail for ‘defamation’ of the Government of that country…. http://www.hrw.org/americas/ecuador

Which is where we are today, with long time doyens of the left like Tariq Ali, Ken Loach and John Pilger bending over backwards in support, and the progressive and left movement in the UK tearing itself apart over the whole issue.  I hate being able to say ‘I told you so…’ but I’m afraid that I’ve been warning anyone who will listen about the dangers from Assange for at least 3 years.  Here are a few points for my left wing friends supporting Assange to bear in mind.

If the US wanted Assange, I’m quite sure that between 2010 and now, it defies belief that the evil US Government wouldn’t have snatched him off the streets of wherever he happened to be.  The fact that they haven’t means that either they don’t want him badly enough, they don’t want him at all, or the US Government isn’t quite that evil….

It would be easier for the US to request extradition directly from the UK than go through this malarkey of asking Sweden to extradite first.  In recent years the UK has agreed to extradite bankers, alleged terrorists and computer hackers at the drop of a hat.  Are you genuinely trying to tell me that the UK Government wouldn’t agree, if asked, to extradite someone who the US want to talk to over leaks that may have impacted on UK military and diplomatic issues?

The likelihood of Assange being extradited from Sweden is low; why won’t he answer questions about the alleged allegations?

The whole issue looks like it reinforces a lot of rumours about just how mysoginistic the British left and it’s supporters can be when ‘the cause’ is viewed to be under threat.  By refusing to even consider whether or not the sexual assault allegations have any ground to them at all, supporters are denigrating the stories of women who have been assaulted.

Is the blind support of Assange and Wikileaks worth the massive rift that is being caused in the left and progressive movement?  Or is it a traditional knee jerk reaction as described by Nick Cohen in ‘What’s Left’ in which anything that gives the opportunity to hit at the US or UK must be right?

Come on folks, think this out – the Wikileaks material is what I’d expect to see in secret documents.  There’s little, if anything, in there that hasn’t been brought to the attention of journalists through other means. Just how many of the supporters of Assange have read the Wikileaks stuff?  Did it enlighten you about anything?  Is it worth the risk that by splitting the progressive movement around Assange and Wikileaks we damage the chances of change in the future?

Think carefully – the folks who’re suffering hard under Government policies in the UK right now may be very unforgiving if this demonstration of how ‘right on’ the left can be wrecks the chance of change.

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.

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The title of this piece is a quote from the late, great American brainy bugger Gore Vidal.  I’m not sure how seriously I actually believe it, but a little pang of…something…went through me yesterday when a friend contacted me to tell me that a novel he’d written (and that I was lucky enough to read in manuscript form) was now fully completed and ‘out there’.  So, before we go further – check out ‘The Ironlane Detective’ by Paul Witham.  Congratulations Paul – you deserve it and I wish you many sales and the beers will be on you!

Don’t get me wrong – I’m lucky to know a lot of very creative people – film makers, craftspeople, writers, musicians, software developers, radio presenters, gardeners, woodworkers, painters, actors, comedians – and I love hearing from them as to how they’re getting on.  It’s just that….well….I don’t seem to have the knack myself.  I have the odd creative splurge every now and again, but it never seems to blossom in to the creative outpourings that many people I know achieve.  Which is odd because in my 20s I turned out books by the box full and articles for the technical press by the dozen – of course, that was in those glorious, pre-Internet days when there were definitely fewer distractions for those of us with butterfly minds!

I think that that is my problem – focus!  I know that when I do set my mind to something I can get it done.  I’m often reminded of Dr Johnson’s comment “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” with regard to my way of managing myself.  I need to be prodded!

Whoops…no Apocalypse!

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So, all you Olympic / Illuminati / Alien Conspiracy theorists….how’s that ‘The 2012 Olympics will herald the end of the world with nukes, interdimensional portals and alien invaders’ idea hanging this morning?

A few weeks ago I posted this item – https://joepritchard.me.uk/2012/07/oops-apocalypse-or-get-a-friggin-grip/ – and as we’ve now crashed back to earth on the Monday after the Olympic closing ceremony, I think I can safely say that given 3 possible ends of the world, 2 opportunities for these events to happen (opening and closing ceremonies) and 2 weeks of primetime TV coverage in case the bad guys were late in arriving – it’s not going to happen.

The use of the Clash in an advert was just marketing gonks not listening to the words, the triangular lighting towers at the stadium were just….surprise….triangular lighting towers, the ‘Shard’ is just a rather big glass and steel penis substitute and not a landing platform for Goa’uld style pyramid shaped mother ships.

The closest that we got to an interdimensional portal releasing hordes of creatures from another dimension was when the Octopus appeared in the closing ceremony, and for a brief moment it did look like “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” was about to give way to ‘Cthulhu has been woken up by the din and fancies a light supper’…..

OK.  Enough jokes. like I said previously – what really scares me is that there are quite a lot of sane, otherwise sensible people who publicly (well, behind Internet aliases) stated that all this bollocks was going to happen, and larger numbers of people who believed it.  Given the state of the world I guess that if I was feeling generous I could attribute this sort of rubbish to some sort of late Millennial or pre-Mayan Endtimes panic or a spillover of stress from the economic and environmental problems facing the world, but when I’m feeling less generous I have to regard the people pushing this tripe as rather nasty, evil little trolls.

So…to all you conspiracy nuts. Anyone I know on Twitter or Facebook will be purged the first time that you post ANY sort of apologetics explaining why the end of the world didn’t happen.  Just ‘fess up and admit it was bollocks.  There’s good folks.  And get back to playing Dungeons and Dragons.

And for the worried and the anxious – there are enough real world problems out here to deal with.  Engage with a few and try and make the future for yourselves and your family what you want it to be, rather than being anxious about a future that will never exist outside bad science fiction or a psychiatric ward.

How Danny Boyle accidentally saved the Coalition

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On Friday, 16th November, 2012 the General Election results reflected what had been the mood of much of the country since July of that year; increased support and continued mandate for the Coalition Government of David Cameron.  The early election had been called in early September by the 2/3 majority in the House of Commons required by the Fixed term Parliaments Act, with both the Coalition and Opposition generally feeling that they had it in the bag.

As Ed Miliband prepared to step down as leader of the Labour Party, and hence kick off a further period of in-fighting and introspection, he must have wondered how it had all gone so badly wrong.  As did ex-Chancellor George Osborne, who had been fired from his post in early October – quite a daring step for Prime Minister David Cameron but later regarded as a cost that that party had to pay.  New Chancellor Danny Alexander had spoken with the IMF and agreed that the stringent austerity policies of his predecessor would be slackened off.  The Coalition had some how survived – the next election set for 2017.

How had this come to pass?  The answer lay with a peculiarity of the British Electorate and the astonishing Olympic Opening Ceremony that the world had witnessed on July 27th.  It may also have been slightly helped by the antics of US Presidential Mitt Romney who, on the 26th July when visiting the UK, had managed to insult his hosts in quite a public manner.  And it certainly wasn’t hindered by a reasonable sporting performance during the games and the publication of a set of financial results in August that suggested that things were possibly coming along, even if many people in country were suffering badly.  And a couple of highly public firings of Tory MPs with extremist views, and their replacement with ‘party liners’ was highly regarded in the press.

The Games gave Cameron his Falklands moment; just as his predecessor Margaret Thatcher had been able to return to power on an increased majority on the back of a successful patriotic war, Cameron had been able to marshal the hype around the Olympics to his own advantage, making good use of the Olympic ‘feel good’ factor and taking a massive chance that the slight improvement of published financials and the October reshuffle would bring him votes.  Labour had failed to get traction as an opposition party; their own leaders realized that they would be forced to make some unpalatable decisions themselves and appeared to be almost paralysed by their honesty, as spokesmen repeated that ‘things  were not going to be easy’.

But that Friday morning, as Cameron started to plan for this new Cabinet, he knew that his victory started the instant that the spectacular Opening Ceremony hit the screens and fired up in the watching public that very peculiar form of national pride that has carried more than one Prime Minister to election victory by the ‘feel good’ factor.  Even the pointedly critical  ‘NHS’ segment was put to good use when, in late August, Cameron gave a speech in which he stated that he and his Government would take on board the Olympic Spirit and start by listening to the people; the outpouring of public support for the NHS triggered by the ceremony had made him rethink policy and in a massive U-Turn the NHS reforms would be reversed.

In the weeks up to and during the election campaign, Cameron deftly reflected on the Olympic ideal in virtually every speech he made; the fact that Britain had once again managed to produce a wonderful event in a time of austerity; that once again we had shown our abilities to the world.  Some early orders to business based on the Olympic Business Summit in the week before the games were heavily publicised, and various pundits of the left and ‘progessive’ movements in the UK were indirectly bought in to the campaign, as positive comments they had made about the Olympics were re-used widely in the media.

As the time approached for him to visit the Palace, he took time out to write a memo to his Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood.  It was short: “Would it be too wicked to offer Danny Boyle a knighthood for ‘Services to the Conservative Party’?”  Cameron smirked and started thinking that some of those NHS reforms were pretty damn good and would have to be reintroduced….

Oops Apocalypse….or…..GET A FRIGGIN’ GRIP!

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According to some folks, the Olympic Opening cermony on Friday night is going to go with a bang.  Not figuratively, but literally.  Apparently a bunch of ne’er do wells called the Illuminati are going to detonate a nuclear weapon at the Stadium which will open up an interdimensional portal and flood the world with… well, you get the picture.

Just as the Overlook Hotel in ‘The Shining’ was built on an Indian Burial Ground, the Olympic Stadium in London was apparently built on an area steeped in Satanism and nuclear waste.  I would have hated to have been the Health and Safety at Work officer signing off on that one….”Look, we have protocols for dealing with low level radioactive waste, but 3 legions of Demons and Azrat the Merciless, well, you can’t just put THEM in landfill….” I’ve visited Stratford – not my cup of tea but by no means the Hellmouth.

I’m not going to link to this garbage – at one level I find it incredibly funny, but at another level I’m sort of concerned that a lot of people are taking it at least semi-seriously, and some are really giving it the works; whilst the choice of the Clash’s ‘London Calling’ by BA for their advertising campaign is bizarre to say the least, the way in which people have freeze-framed and analysed the advert to ‘prove’ that it’s actually a warning of impending doom is reminiscent of the ‘Paul Is Dead’ business with the Beatles ‘A Day In The Life’.

I suppose it’s some form of Millienalism – I’m sure that it will get VERY crazy as the end of the ‘current’ phase of Mayan calendar approaches in December, but that’s another story – but I honestly wish these dingbats would shut the fuck up about it.  People.  It’s not going to happen.  If the Illuminati were so smart, how come it’s taken them 300 years and we’re still not all enslaved?  Why advertise the fact that they’re going to do this?  Are they some sort of Bond Villain who gives away their plot so they can be defeated and then have to go and create a new one to keep them busy for the next half century?  Why am I even trying to be logical about this?  Even if bugger all happens except what’s supposed to happen, the conspiracy theorists will have a brilliant explanation as to why Stratford isn’t a glowing crater surrounded by H P Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones.

The Internet seems to have allowed us to rapidly create instant mythologies, and then spread those mythologies far and wide.  Our leaders and Governments and institutions have failed miserably and ever since Kennedy was assassinated it seems that we’re happier to believe in conspiracy rather than cock up, in mind control rather than mindless violence.  Please folks, let’s just get a grip here; we’re in a big enough pile of pooh right now – just how we’re going to afford to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies in a year’s time is a bigger concern than a load of sub-X Files conspiracy fiction triggered by folks treating the Illuminatus! trilogy as historical fact rather than second rate, mildly pornographic science fiction.

And if I’m wrong, I’ll see you on Saturday in the Illuminati Death Camps that await most of us, and I will strangle any smart arse who says ‘I told you so….’

 

Denver and the progressive knee jerk point-scoring…

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I rarely write about serious stuff like mass murders here on this blog.  It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I regard it as pompous and pretentious for me to pontificate on the bleedin’ obvious disasters that befall this world unless I’m somehow involved.

The Aurora cinema shooting is just another tragedy in America’s long and difficult relationship with firearms and the Second Amendment of the US Constitution (for those who don’t have a copy : “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.“)  It’s a combination of multiple personal tragedies, cultural and governmental failures to legislate and one person’s evil or psychosis. I guess that we may get some idea of why this young man did what he did – whether it will make any sense is another matter.

I’ll come straight out – I love a lot of Americans.  Their governments may make me weep on occasion, and they have some religious leaders that make we wonder whether we read the same Bible, and they also produce the Khardssians.  But – on the whole, I like ’em.  I like to think of myself as a left-wing libertarian in political terms, so I sometimes find myself dealing with a lot of people from the left who disagree with my views of the American people, and a lot of people from the US who think I’m a particularly weird type of Libertarian.

What I have found is that hatred of the US is one of the last remaining acceptable bigotries.  So I wasn’t desperately surprised to see this little gem pop up in my Twitter stream – still not sure whether it’s serious or a ‘joke’:

“What American’s don’t understand is that they’re insane.”

Now….let’s pretend I tweeted…”What Greeks don’t understand is that they’re insane.”  I wouldn’t do such a thing – they’re exhibiting some of the sanest behaviour in the world right now – but listen carefully….hear that low rumbling, that sound of wailing and gnashing of teeth, the sharpening of disembowelling cutlasses?  Good.  Because that’s the sound of ten thousand people who’d support that sentiment about the Americans on Twitter getting ready to turn around to me and yell ‘racist’.

I can’t see the difference in comments, but one would be acceptable to a lot of people who consider themselves to be liberal, free-thinking, non-bigoted progressives and one wouldn’t.

To my friends on the left – this isn’t the time for cheap political point scoring based on the actions of one lunatic, no matter how often this particularly American tragedy is played out. The shadow of the man with the gun is long in US culture – it will not easily go away and I’m sure that we’ll see this sort of thing happen again.  But I’d like to think that we could all have the decency to get through these dark times without point scoring and cheap jokes.

 

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-07-15

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  • G4S – Greatly 4uckedup Stupidity? Pathetic and embarrassing. Can't even guarantee guards they did get speak English. http://t.co/hZFCmvj9 #
  • #BankofDave if I were to be offered a banking licence, based on the current licensees I'd consider it a libel… Best of luck, Dave. #
  • The G4s theme tune. http://t.co/3u2Ei0Dc Dire and embarassing – at least it wasn't the tune from 'the Professionals'…. #
  • Lennox the dog killed by Belfast CC. Sad day for animal lovers, and shameful for Belfast CC and the shites within it. #

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There’s one thing we got to get, Heyes….

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…and that’s out of this business!”

One of the TV highlights of the week for me in the early 1970s was the TV series ‘Alias Smith and Jones‘, following the adventures of two outlaws on probation, Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, as they attempted to stay ahead of the law and out of trouble. At the start of every episode, we’d see the two being pursued on horseback, with Curry shouting the above lines to Heyes.

This week I finally decided that I need to get ‘out of the business’ of freelance web development.  I have a nice part time day job, involvement with a startup, and currently enough freelance work to keep things ticking over.  But teh freelance web work will never, ever, make me a good income again, and if I’m going to do anything with my freelancing time, I need to find something else.

What triggered this?  I quoted for a WordPress related job – install, configure, tweak the theme and apply a few small mods to the installation. Admittedly not one of the world’s great technical tasks, but a nice job.  I quoted at my ‘lowest rate’ – £20.00 / hr – this was a UK based customer, and I expected to take about 10 hours to do the job.  I replied a mail later in the day telling me that I’d not been successful as another UK based freelancer had come in at a lower rate.  Of £5.00 per hour.

A fiver an hour.  Less than I’d get sweeping floors in McDonalds. Rates like that are pretty common from suppliers of services based in the Far east, but from a UK based develoeper, it’s scary.  Because it means that the market for some types of development work has become commoditised, price driven and almost at the level of ‘will work for food’.

So…time to get out.  It’s no longer worth it.  Fortunately I have a few ‘specialist’ areas of software development I can fall back on, but am wondering now whether it’s time to take a while different approach.  With a flexible permanent job available to me, maybe it’s time to look at other things to do and leave software development work to the sweatshops of the far east and the UK?

I’ve been thinking of things that are not ‘commodity’ – maybe get my old woodworking skills back?  Or try something new? Art? Something to do with my interest in vintage radio? Who knows.  Perhaps focusisng on the permanent job and doing bits of freelance work or something new for ‘beer money’ is the way forward these days.

Very, very sad.  How long before other parts of our technology and ‘creative’ industries become sub-minimum wage sweatshops?

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-07-08

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  • Just testing! #
  • Billie the dog has been found on the other side of Sheffield – for a small dog she traveled far! Safe and well, owners collecting! #
  • My Godchildren have lost their dog in Hillsborough, Sheffield – please RT – http://t.co/ij5hnPCD #
  • If people have to build something like the #shard then they must have a really tiny todger… #
  • Hmmmm….#Sheffield to get access to lots of Government money to reduce youth unemployment and improve economy. What madness will emerge? #
  • Staffordshire Police no longer treating #terrorbus incident as terrorist incident but as a stupidity incident… #
  • Sykes – a show with gentle humour and lovely characters. So long Eric. #
  • Happy Independence Day to my US friends! #
  • Interesting program about eo Wilson on #PBS right now. #
  • If uk is as reliant on financial services as we're told then stories of incompetence and corruption will stuff our GDP beyond all rescue. #
  • Mark Lawrenson – the Victor Meldrew of soccer commentary… #euro2012 #
  • What does Diamond have on Agius if Agius goes and Diamond stays? #Barclays #

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