STONE COLD HAVEN

• Tax Payers Money for Porn - What a perk!

  Posted: March 30, 2009, 2:50 pm by Darius Stone

  It’s always difficult to tell which is the more stressful or humiliating – the fact that your hubby has been watching dirty old hard core porn, and probably playing with his tojjer, while you’re away working hard for the bacon, or the fact that the drama of him being a naughty boy is played out on a national and possibly international stage.

  I must admit, I’m not a fan of Jacqui Smith, the UK Home Secretary, but even a stone cold approach to some issues in life doesn’t stop me from empathizing with her, regardless of the spectacular stupidity of this matter. Deep down she must be wondering what the fuck hit her as she looks in the mirror and tries to contemplate whether to castrate her husband for the public humiliation, or whether to cry because of the heartbreak.

  
  
  Home Secretary Jacqui Smith leaving for a very long day at work

  Clearly, the irony of the timing of the leak about her expenses claim that paid for pornographic movies with tax payers money isn’t past the cynical mind of someone from the enemy camp with excellent sabotage skills. I don’t think its coincidence that the leak comes just before one of Jacqui’s biggest moments on the international political stage, as she prepares her security apparatus to host probably the most powerful 20 leaders in the world in London. Apparently, MP’s now want the Police to investigate who leaked her dirty old secret out - are they afraid their skeletons are coming out next?

  Gordon her boss must be thinking – “The damn bastards”. If it’s not enough that he’s gallivanting the world in an attempt to rally G20 folks into buying his global financial master plan, the enemy has to unleash this madness onto the stage.

  Gordon Brown’s job already looks like a lost cause that is tantamount to him trying to herd cats, but this Jacqui Porngate affair is just the stuff that comedy is made of.

  As for Jacqui’s hubby Dick, it looks like he’ll have to do with the sofa for a while as she cools off. I don’t know which is actually more stupid on his part – Watching hardcore porn on the family TV pay per view account, or getting caught by stupidly letting his wife claim the cost of the porn movies from tax payers, lest she asks why she shouldn’t be claiming it and he has to admit that he’s been a naughty boy.

  
  Jacqui Smith’s husband Richard Timney apologizing to the media for his moment of madness

  He’ll probably plead insanity and claim that she’s been starving him of his conjugal rights hence his creativity looking for alternative entertainment – but with a good stint on the sofa, chances are he’s not getting pussy for a while.

  Either way, the biggest question in Britain right now is “What were those 2 porn movies that he watched?”. Talk about free advertising handed to the producers of the movies on a plate.Related Articles:

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• Of civil liberty violations, police states, democratic dictatorships and 1984

  Posted: March 25, 2009, 9:02 am by Darius Stone

  Trick question: What do Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Nicolae Ceausescu, Gordon Brown, George Bush, Robert Mugabe and who else….Hmmm let me see…the military junta in Burma, the military junta who ruled Argentina in the 70s and Pol Pot have in common.

  Answer: For differing reasons, they have all been responsible for some of the world’s biggest and most severe violations of civil liberties of the poor old folks that they proclaim to lead or have led.

  George Orwell (if he could), must have a smug and uncanny smile on his face that has that characteristic “I told you bastards so” look. Look at any plot in his 1984 master piece and you get this queasy feeling that George was definitely onto something that will scare the living daylights out of any self respecting individual who values their privacy.

  
  I’m not particularly interested in this article to talk about or even argue the case and justification for the different ways in which the so called leaders above implemented their totalitarian dictatorships….far from that. Trying to compare and contrast the good guys from the bad guys in that list will give me a headache. What is a constant is that they all have, are, or are intending to take a place in history as those responsible for the massive and ruthless violation of the civil liberties of their citizens, in the name of a better and more grander cause for the good of the majority.

  Why am I writing about this? Well, for a long time now, it’s been common knowledge that big brother Britain was slowly descending down the slippery slope into a 21st century police state. You can’t go anywhere in this country without being in range of a CCTV camera which will catch anything from a bemused smile as you indulge in self wonderment of an individual kind, or the quick adjustment of your dodgy underwear that is violating the sacred crevasse in between your bum cheeks, to the violent criminal activities that go on in every street corner.

  The National Health Service has been trying for years (thank God for the incompetence in technology implementation to put in place a global central database of patient’s most intimate medical and psychological issues apparently to streamline the system and make medical support at the point of contact more accessible and a more efficient experience…at least that’s what they say – though the thought of every Thomas, Dickson and Harriet knowing that you have mental health issues or genital herpes before you even say hello at the GP’s reception doesn’t amuse any 3 dimensional individual.

  A few months ago, a stealth law was introduced in the British parliament under the guise of “Anti-terror” legislation that every single email, sms text and phone call was going to be recorded and monitored as a strategy to defend the citizens of the country against acts of terror. It’s amazing that there wasn’t enough time given to debating this law and letting folks really understand how ridiculous it is.

  Gordon’s government hasn’t had enough….now they want to monitor and record every web site and social networking activity that internet users make. Recording our email and phone calls is not enough – Nooo! Let’s go ahead and record every single thing they do or say on Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites. Frankly speaking, I’ll be amazed if they get anything from the crap that’s written on folks walls on Facebook, but that’s not the point here…

  The thought that it won’t be long before you’ll have to ask the government for permission to take a piss, or apply for a licence to have sex, or have your friends on Facebook or those who e-mail you be under surveillance because of what both of you were supposed to have said makes my stomach turn. And for what? Supposedly to save us from the imminent threat of a terror attack?.

  This smirks of a classic case of “Problem, Reaction, Solution”, a strategy that has been used to oppress masses for time immemorial. Create a problem (usually calculated but can be opportunistic), create a massive reaction and outcry from the populous, and then provide a solution that stamps your authority on a desired political, social and financial order that satisfies your agenda.

  All this nonsense about fighting and winning the so called Dubya’s war on terror is becoming blatantly annoying. If there’s an enemy out there, they must be laughing their arses like nobody’s business. Look at how terrified and clueless citizens have their liberties violated in places like airports where they’re herded like the sheep they are, barefoot and forced to hold clear paper bags for inspection like those suspected of exceeding their food rations in a prisoner of war camp before they board a flight. Some airports are even trialing thermal imaging x-rays that see through clothes as you pass security – now this is not even funny….and passengers don’t even have a clue.

  …And all this for what? To save us from the big bad ugly terrorist. You know, folklore has constantly shown that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Take Charles dGaulle for example. This dude was at one time seen as the nemesis of all things civilized in France and actually branded a terrorist. Now look at what they call him. Besides, who gets to decide who is a terrorist…what’s the difference between those supposedly living in caves and using crude methods of destruction and those wearing Savile Row suits, sitting in plush offices in the safety of a security blanket and sanction the killing of hundreds and thousands of civilians using an expensive pen to sign a decree.

  You know, if I was cynical, I’d actually suggest that Gordon’s government need a serious smoke screen and side show to change the agenda from the fact that Britain is running bankrupt and its a result of spectacular incompetence over the last 10 to 15 years in fiscal management that saw the City and Wall street get away with Casino style gambling of the economy. No prizes for guessing who was in charge of the coffers then.

  If all fails, scare the shit out of the public with immanent threats of terror (by the way, whatever happened to that traffic light system in the states where people were shafted around based on someone’s decision to change the terror alert by traffic lights – green for somewhat OK, amber for vigilance….you catch my drift, but I digress) – and once the public are shit scared, take their liberties from them and tell them it’s the only way to save their lives.

  And all this from a government with the worst record in the storage and security of sensitive public data (or if you prefer, the best record in losing sensitive public data). Those in charge of data security don’t even seem like being capable of hitting a barn door with a shotgun and they want to record every single email, phone call, sms, where folks go on the web and what they do or say on social networking web sites.

  I wonder which is worse…someone violating you and they make no effort in hiding the fact that they’re violating you, or someone who violates you when they’re pretending that their reason for doing so is solely to protect you from the big bad wolf outside.Related Articles:

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• Cynicism in its true colours - Well, they’ll say they’re saving the world

  Posted: March 24, 2009, 9:11 am by Darius Stone

  There are fewer things in the world more cynical than a bunch of…let’s say, pin stripe suited men sitting in a board room (without any women present of course –,well, tell a lie, except for Mildred in the corner taking minutes or Deidra the tea lady who pops in once in a while to top up the biscuits and make sure the tea pot is fresh) discussing solutions about how to fight gender discrimination in the work place.

  Or maybe, a conference about “The Kenya we want” that is fronted by the old school establishment of unsavoury, incompetent and outright dodgy characters who have had over 40 years to provide the Kenya folks needed in the first place but failed spectacularly. (Speaking of which – what was the point in holding a conference when the answer to the question of “What Kenyans want?” is succinctly captured in breathtaking precision in the Kenyan national anthem).

  Anyway, it was interesting to note that once again, there was a “high profile” (this word is as abused as the word normal coz’ clearly, it’s a relative state of affairs) conference bringing together the good and the great who classify themselves as world experts on poverty alleviation and eradication.

  
  If there’s one thing that I have a problem rationalizing, it’s the fact that there’s an actual discipline that is taught and theorized by elite folks out here in the west, that purports to know how to eliminate poverty for the world’s poorest folk. I suppose my view is somewhat compounded by the misguided self-righteousness of some folks in this poverty and aid industry who see it as their destiny and God given right to go out and save the people of the world. William Easterly couldn’t have put it any better in his classic book “The White man’s burden”.

  The aid and development industry is a self fulfilling prophecy and in a ruthless and cynical way, its survival depends on the continued existence of poverty. There are folks in this industry who have mortgages, bills to pay, kids to go to school and you know, day to day obligations that need to be met. That really isn’t an incentive to run themselves out of a job presumably by eliminating poverty, is it?

  So the British government in a desperate bid to show that they are actually taking the lead in global matters decide to hold a global conference to bring together the world’s top experts on global poverty. The “let’s bust poverty around the world” elite spent two days in the plush surroundings of 5 star lobbies and conference rooms in central London discussing short and medium term strategies to support the poorest countries in the world who will be worst affected by the global economic crisis.

  Funny, it cost them over £527,000 to host the conference, which is a touch ironic considering the grand purpose of the big picture they’re constantly telling us about….”over x and y number of people in Africa live with less than a dollar a day….yada yada”. £527,000 could have paid for 127,000 anti-malaria nets and is actually more than Britain’s annual aid budget to Namibia.

  There was a chance I could have actually taken this more seriously if they held it say in Ouagadougou or the far reaches of southern Asia where the realism of what they’re purporting to do could be the back drop of the discussions….but of course they’ll say, our conference in London was representative and had delegates from the poorest countries in the world. Of course, let’s wheel in the token poverty struck Chair of a so called partner NGO, put him or her in a suit bought somewhere in Shepherds Bush, fast track their visa application through the embassy and parade them to the British media and say – see, we have poor people with us. We even let them speak on stage.Related Articles:

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• Environmental fascism in its element - Doomsayers are at it again

  Posted: March 11, 2009, 9:40 am by Darius Stone

  I could have sworn it was only the other day that thousands of tree hugging, Guardian reading, bike riding, fair trade consuming mercenaries for the cause of mother nature got together in Portugal. It can’t have been that long ago (I’m talking a matter of weeks or at the extreme, a few months).

  The reason why this is pricking my stone cold conscience is that I distinctly remember the environmental doomsayers breathing fire and brimstone down our throats that if we don’t do something about the environment pronto, the world is inevitably going to suffer the worst death of its kind (speaking of which – I’d like someone to validate this claim with a plausible comparison of any other kind of bad death of human kind).

  I note that over 2000 of our beloved tree hugging friends of the earth are meeting again this week in Copenhagen. See, I’m one to be cynical about these types of events. 2000 people in one event are way way too many to get anything of substance done. I’m talking here from the experience of attending a couple of conferences of this magnitude for my sins.

  Such events are notorious for the difficulty of locating a clean toilet where you don’t have to tip toe while pulling up your trousers to avoid a disturbing cocktail of water and bodily fluids of all manner taking residence on the floor (you get the picture) before executing a fine acrobatic act of peeing without soiling your immaculate suit – speaking of which, at one such event, I had to force my female colleague to take a taxi back to the hotel to use the toilet in her room. The girl was clearly suffering and her bladder was in distress, but her martyrdom for the cause of clean toilets around the world was clearly putting the long term health of her internal wiring at risk. In more familiar surroundings, she is the sort of hard nosed girl who is comfortable in desperate times to look for an alley while shouting back “Darius just keep watch while I take care of business here” – but clearly, some locations don’t give you the option of an alley conducive for squatting in times of emergency….but I digress.

  My point is that it’s difficult to see how to get anything decent done at such an event following hot on the coat tails of another similar event weeks ago. In fact, most productivity is normally achieved at breakfast get-togethers in the hotel or in the evening at the hotel bar. Roll call is impossible and you’ll be surprised at the number of joy riders to such events who just go for shopping and spend the whole day down town, some even still wearing their event name tags and carrying the paper bags of exhibitors crap that they’re pretending to take back home and put in the staff common room as if it were evidence to justify the cost of their attending of the event.

  So when I see that there’s another environmental get-together not so long after the Portugal one, where supposedly scientific experts, environmental lobbyists, professional event attendees (aka joy riders) and any number of so called environmental NGOs are again hooking up to shove the perils of our disregard to the environment down our throats, several questions start disturbing me.

  1. What has changed since a few weeks ago when the same number of environmental mercenaries got together in Portugal?
  2. For folks who preach about carbon footprints and unnecessary air travelling, why isn’t anyone bitch slapping them for this sort of nonsensical travel for information that can be posted on the internet?

  It would be even cheaper for Al gore to make a sequel of his Inconvenient truth power point presentation and post it on YouTube.

  This constant mantra of ”You will perish and die if you don’t stop polluting the earth” smacks of more arrogance than fundamentalist right wing movements that operate unsavoury tactics to get their ideologies across. Folks are not stupid and shouldn’t be treated as if they are with the constant bombardment of the same information laced in different ways.

  So I ask again – What has changed since the last meeting a few weeks ago in Portugal so as to warrant scaring the living shit out of folks about the world coming to an end faster than we thought?

  If there’s one thing Abraham Maslow did, its injecting a reality check with his theory of the hierarchy of human needs. I suspect that for most folks around the world who are being credit crunched at the moment, and for the majority of the world’s population who were economically screwed anyway before the credit crunch, global warming and the need to worry about the environment is kicked into touch for a while. Folks are more concerned with the small matter of putting food on the table for their families.

  As a side note, one of my clients does a lot of environmental work. I have spent a lot of time working with them and if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand (and something that acts as another contributor to my cynicism), it boils down to the ability to pay salaries and pay mortgages for their staff. All the focus and enthusiasm and passion and whatever you can call it about the cause for environmentalism, is simply a cover for a direct route to government funding and donor funding for the environment. The environment and lobbying about global warming is a fashion statement for the next decade. In the 70’s women’s liberation was fashionable, in the 80’s race relations was fashionable, in the 90’s it was all about the gay and lesbian movement, this decade disability rights has become the new gay, and next decade, watch out for the fair trade consuming tree huggers.Related Articles:

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Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes