Gay Marriage (or as I prefer to call it “Marriage”)
Lots of the normal cockwaffle from the religious right in the UK (mostly tories but with some fellow travelers from around the house) about how marriage is purely a thing between male and female, ordained by their version of god. (The numbers aren’t in yet on the Public Whip site).
The gem of the debate as far as I’m concerned comes from former Conservative defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth who believes there is a “aggressive homosexual community” out there. I assume they’re badgering him to get out there for a bit of cottaging and demanding that there are compulsory lessons in various “deviant” sexual practices from the day kids start at school.
So here’s a thing, there’s nothing in any law which says “you must be gay” or “you must fuck people of the same sex”, in the same way there is no law saying that sexual intercourse must occur only at home, with the lights off and then without any contraception with the aim of creating lots and lots of babies for god and country.
Apparently Sir Gerald fears that “there are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who see this as but a stepping stone to something even further”. No details on the “something” of course, allowing him to slur anyone who supports the bill as supporting all sorts of possible evils.
Let’s have a look at some of the things which have been hinted at in the past.
- Pagan Weddings – Where’s the problem, seriously…
- Polyamourous (multiple partner) weddings – Again, seriously where’s the problem. Ok the pension and other aspects will be a bitch but is this about tradition (I’m sure there are plenty of traditions out there which can be called on to support this one) or jealousy
- Beastality – Errr, even if you believe the “aggressive gays” are in support of this it’s not going to happen if only because various other animal protection laws and “consent” kick in.
- Child weddings – Age of consent / Various UN and EU controls etc etc, again not going to happen
So, Sir Gerald, please go back to the 14th Century where you belong.
Eurovision
Non-Europeans appear to have some trouble understanding the concept. A comment I read today sums it up perfectly, in much the same way as karaoke bonds Japanese businessmen through mutual embarassment Eurovision bonds the countries who take part.
Seriously, who would take any threats from the Ukraine seriously after seeing this
Moving on to last night we must hand out the awards
“Best” Dress and “Is that hair or a replacement for the Sydney Opera House” : Moldova
The dress, dubbed the “Volcano” last night on irc.
“Needs more coffee” : Hungary
“Was robbed!!” : Romania & Greece
First we have the Ming the Mercilless, seriously voters, were you watching the same show this should have won both on singing capability and sheer Europop camp.
Followed by the Greek Ska band
“Boy inna box does strange things” : Azerbaijan
“Contestant enjoying himself the most” : Malta
Just look at that bloody grin
And the actual winner who ticked the “Political vote” / “Brought up by the faeries” / “bouncy tune” boxes, though it is a solid “Eurovision” tune so it was a good winner. Oh drums and a tin whistle.
Yet another arrogant bastard in power
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22397672
There’s something about politicians (and the rich / powerful) that they believe the rules do not apply to them, doubly so if they actually create the rules. So, Barnet Councillor Brian Coleman you are officially ‘tosser of the day’, violence against another person is not acceptable except in self defence.
You decided that attacking another person because they were capturing your image from public land doing something illegal. Though I rather suspect that you strongly believe in the right of the council to deploy CCTV and the police to film everyone attending any form of gathering for later checking.
I wonder if you’ve ever said “If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear.”
Please do the honourable thing (if you don’t understand the word please buy a dictionary) and resign.
All your photos belong to everyone
So, the previous bunch of bastards (Labour) tried to get through clause 43 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 which would open up orphan works to the world removing the need for those wishing to profit off them to do anything other than pay lip service to finding the copyright owner.
My MP at the time (David Heathcoat-Amory) couldn’t be bothered to vote on the third reading. His party worker during the election failed completely to even know the voting record of his candidate or explain why he was voting in the way he did.
Tessa Munt, note that your voting record is under the spotlight for me as well, particularly your habit of being “absent” for anything contentious.
The tories at the time decided that Clause 43 was a bad thing, and agreed with the other lot to support the bill in return for the clause being dropped.
Which makes today’s news surprising, or possibly not, in that they’ve now pushed through the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act which contains clauses which do exactly the same thing, yet more proof if we needed it anymore that the big three will pass the same laws regardless of promises made during elections.
Oh and guys, don’t any of you dare claim you had or didn’t have a mandate for something, we’ve seen with the NHS and Gay Marriage stuff that you’ll claim both depending on which way you want the argument to go.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Act_2010
[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/29/err_act_landgrab/
UK Local Elections: UKIP Nuttery
Now, I’m not going to claim this this guy is representative of the whole of UKIP, and there is going to be some bias coming from those who oppose them as a party in that they’re digging as hard as possible to find the extreme nutjobs.
However, this guy is a piece of work, exercise to be less gay, yeah right.
Oi!, Nutella are you crazy
So, there’s a fan / grass roots thing organised each year called “Nutella Day”, organised since 2007 and no harm to anyone combined with a side order of free promotion for the product and it’s producers.
Their response?
A cease and desist letter demanding that it stops.
Excellent move guys, you’ve just stamped hard on someone who spent the last seven years promoting you and your product, and created a whole pile of really bad publicity.
I wonder how that will be reported at the annual meeting and in the P&L statement.
Copied below is the statement from http://www.nutelladay.com/so it’s archived before the site goes dark.