STONE COLD HAVEN
-
Just Do It
Posted: December 30, 2009, 3:08 pm by Darius Stone
Air travel isn’t what it used to be. If I’m really honest, it’s probably the bane of my life (or at least it ranks somewhere out there with the things I hate most). The long stretch of flight time 39K ft up there I can probably handle by watching a movie, listening to music or working. The worst part is most definitely the insulting security and pre-boarding checks that take place in the name of guaranteeing our personal safety.
Abdulmutallab, the Arsenal hating virgin who couldn’t even do a competent job as a suicide bomber has just made things overly complicated for hundreds of thousands of air travellers around the world. It’s bad enough to go to any airport and watch passengers being prodded around like useless cattle while being told to remove shoes and go through the most humiliating security checks that are legally sanctioned. But this 23 year old punk had to go try redefine the meaning of a Christmas cracker.
The removing the shoes thing started after some freak tried to blow up a plane with a device implanted in his sneakers and failed. What are they going to do now? Ask everyone to strip and flap their underwear in front of the security guards to make sure that only remnants of pubic hair drop out?
Conventional wisdom suggests that only securing the cockpit door of an aircraft with a Fort Knox style of security system will stop a hijacker taking control of an aircraft and using it as a loaded weapon. However, this ”just do it” mentality is starting to really piss me off.
All this reactive ‘extra security’ nonsense is only designed to make passengers feel better, but it does fuck all (forgive the industrial language) to deal with the issue of terrorist threats. It’s the old classic ideology of Problem, Reaction, Solution. Create a problem, cause a reaction and implement the solution you’ve always wanted because no one can really bitch about it.
They’ve now introduced thermal imaging machines at UK airports to scan through your clothes. Notwithstanding the fact that the guy at the other side of the TV monitor will pretty much be watching X-rated images of passenger’s genetalia, it still doesn’t stop another underwear bomber anyway.
So the politicians sign off another ”Just do it” initiative to pretend to do something about global terrorism. How about dealing with the Palestinian Israeli conflict for one. You’ll be surprised how many fundamentalist nutters will down their tools if the biggest miscarriage of justice in the middle east is resolved – or at least is seen to be dealt with fairly.
Meanwhile, the latest version of ‘Just Do It’ will see passengers being treated in airports around the world like concentration camp prisoners being queued up for slaughter. Airlines will continue to spout nonsense like “you need to check in 3 hrs before your flight”. What nonsense! I’ve never ever tried to appear at an airport 3 hrs before a flight. Why would I do something crazy like that?
If all 290 passengers turned up 3 hrs before (and combine that with all the other outbound flights) that’s just a nightmare in itself. I think it’s all a conspiracy supported by the airport management who want to keep you locked up in their airport for the longest possible time so that you can spend money as a captive customer.
But seriously, enough with this heightened security nonsense. Can someone in America or the UK (anywhere really) start dealing with the reason why people are so pissed off with them they’d want to use a fully fuelled long-haul aircraft as a live explosive device. We can start with prosecutors at the Hague indicting George Bush and Tony Blair for war crimes against the innocent citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Related Articles:- None Found
-
When Facebook decides your job prospects
Posted: December 12, 2009, 10:54 am by Darius Stone
For most people, losing out on a job opportunity is quite a depressing affair. When you get that world famous “Unfortunately on this occasion, you were not successful…” letter, self doubt and low confidence invariably creeps in – even before insult is added to injury with the pretence of the letter’s author wishing you all the best in your job search.
Imagine then when the reason for you not getting a job is self inflicted. And it has nothing to do with your performance on the day of the interview. Well, it was only a matter of time before employers resorted to using Facebook for intelligence gathering about current or prospective employees. It’s like everything else in life, we don’t think it’ll ever happen to us and demons from our past come back to haunt us like a nonsense.
I bumped into a casual friend who was still job hunting and he was lamenting how times are tough out there. We occasionally have a drink at the local watering hole and have a good chin wag. His latest disappointment was that a prospective employer admitted to him that he had to make a tough decision on who to appoint and the young man lost out because this employer decided to look at the Facebook profiles of the last 3 candidates in question. Let’s just say, his own Facebook profile left a lot to be desired and he admitted that if he was the employer, he wouldn’t employ himself based on the shenanigans on his profile.
I sometimes wonder why people assume that their online persona’s are a plug and play component of their life that they can switch on and off when it’s convenient. It’s even more damaging for those who don’t realise the intricate electronic footprint that they leave behind with every single action they take on an electronic network – whether it be the office network or the internet. The register of mortified parents is littered with those who are shocked beyond repair when they find out that their kids as young as 12 are taking nude photos of themselves on cell phones and posting them on YouTube – simply because they think it’s cool and everyone is doing it.
Years ago in a job that I did in a previous life, I was nicknamed the ’Network Hitler’. This was because of my no nonsense ruthlessness when dealing with misguided colleagues who thought the company network was their pissing pot. Instead of carrying on with their job like the rest of us, they spent most of their working hours visiting some unsavoury websites that would make anyone’s mother blush and die in embarrassment.
I ordinarily wouldn’t mind, but when the alert console on my screen keeps popping up dialog boxes every 10 seconds telling me that someone is continuously trying to visit porn sites that the network has quarantined, then it becomes an itch that I have to scratch. My M.O was simply to freeze the account remotely and force the employee to explain to their supervisor why the guys in IT have blocked his network account and why he can’t work. Let’s just say I rarely bought drinks and dinner on nights out with colleagues…and only I knew why.
But my advice to all the transgressors was that the minute they logged onto my network – I owned their arse and could tell every single thing that they did and every single location on the internet that they visited and what they did there. I was sometimes shocked by the brazen and reckless attitude of most internet users, including company directors who were oblivious to the ability of a network to retain certain information. We of course acted absolutely professionally and without question – but if you gave me an itch, I would scratch it.
There was even an occasion while resolving a virus attack, I came across a series of emails that had two colleagues explicitly discussing their affair notwithstanding the fact that the woman’s husband worked for the same company and I knew all three of them. It was my job to fix the virus and not to be a marriage counsellor and the professional thing to do was forget every single thing I had just seen in the emails.
I’m still amazed today when I see how clueless some folks are when it comes to being careful with their internet footprint. The internet is a very small place and believe it or not, it’s possible to do something or say something that will come back to haunt you. Facebook seems to be the new frontier. Only recently in the UK, some woman lost her job because she constantly bitched about how her boss was a nasty piece of work and how she hated to go to work. Her only problem was that she forgot that her boss was one of her Facebook friends and could read every single thing she wrote on her wall.
The boss didn’t disappoint for he handed the woman her notice of a summary dismissal right on her Facebook wall telling her not to bother coming into work on Monday and that her P45 was in the mail.
Related Articles:- None Found
-
Free Sex for Copenhagen Conference Delegates
Posted: December 6, 2009, 6:04 pm by Darius Stone
Loss leading is as old as the concept of marketing itself. Whether it’s the freebies provided to promote a new lager at the local bar, or the free samples of cosmetics and fragrances dished out at beauty stores, or the good old fashioned buy one get one free – inducement to invite custom are part and parcel of our business world.
It’s unsurprising then, to find a storm brewing between groups of commercial sex workers in Copenhagen and the Mayor’s office who are determined that none of the working girls are going to have an early Christmas. What with the whole world descending on Copenhagen, it’s naive at best to assume that horizontal refreshments aren’t part and parcel of the ’entertainment package’ available to delegates at the climate and environment conference just beginning in the Danish capital. Just because it’s not on the official programme doesn’t mean that it’s not available.
So when the Copenhagen Mayor’s office issues a formal communiqué that blatantly says ”Be Sustainable, Don’t Buy Sex” and distributes it to hotels, the response from representative groups of the working girls is emphatic.
Conference delegates who show the official “Anti-prostitution postcards” being distributed at the conference and in hotels, in conjunction with their official conference delegates ID cards – are being offered free sexual services as a retaliatory measure against the move by the Mayor’s office.
A spokeswoman from SIO, a sex workers interest organization says:
”It’s completely discriminatory. Ritt Bjerregaard the Mayor is abusing her position when she uses her power to prevent us from carrying out our legal work. I don’t understand how she can be allowed to contact people in this way – we have to defend ourselves.”
It wasn’t so long ago that Jackie Selebi, the South African Police Commissioner urged the South African government to legalize prostitution for the duration of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Not surprisingly, Selebii’s ‘pragmatism’ as some would say was totally laughed out of the room into the media circles, despite the validity of the argument that the Police should be “policing” the crowds and not focussing stretched resources on vice duties.
Sometimes, morality has no place in situations where practical solutions are needed to manage unsolvable practical problems, and let’s face it, the Copenhagen conference, and the 2010 World cup for that matter is like Christmas, Easter, 4 leap year birthdays and the lotto all rolled into one for a commercial sex worker. There are some things that are simply unpoliceable when supply meets demand if you will.
You can understand why both sides fight their corner though – and why the police helplessly look on.
I’ve made a point though of maintaining my inherent cynicism about this week’s environment and climate conference in Copenhagen. In March, I wrote the article Environmental fascism in its element – Doomsayers are at it again.
In the March article, I conclude that if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand (and something that acts as another contributor to my cynicism) about this environmental fascism, it boils down to the ability to pay salaries and pay mortgages for all these environmental activists. 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 80s race relations was fashionable, in the 90s 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, bicycle riding, garbage recycling tree huggers.
For one, it’s hard to take anything that happens in the conference seriously if you consider that the Russian security services are being suspected for leaking ’toxic’ (forgive the pun) e-mails being bandied around – totally discrediting the whole environmental movement. Have all these scientist been lying to us about global warming all these years, or are the KGB back to their old tricks. It’s no wonder the sex workers in Copenhagen are seeing the event as pay day and nothing to do with our environment.
Related Articles:- None Found
Blah blah blah
Fish cakes
Alas a fish cake.
Yet more fish cakes
Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.
The end of the fish cakes
