Poppers banmongers
Have you noticed anything wrong with poppers recently? A couple of years ago, all brands in the UK announced a 'new' formulation; with impaired, short-lasting effects and a nasty sharp smell. 'Real' amyl nitrite (NOT amyl nitrAte, different chemical altogether*) poppers were banned from non-prescription sale in 1996. The second-best type, isobutyl nitrite was banned in 2008. All 'poppers' sold in the UK are now isopropyl nitrite, the nasty sharp stuff.
You may well ask why, considering that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs considers poppers to cause very little harm, and they continue to be perscribed to treat heart conditions such as angina. I think I've found out why...
An organisation called "Positively Healthy UK" proudly proclaims on their website:
Popperstoppers was originally a campaign in the UK led by HIV positive gay men to achieve the ban on the retail sale of poppers and was managed and directed by Cass Mann, CEO of Positively Healthy (POSH). It is now incorporated into the main stream work of POSH, following approval and support for this work from the Secretary of State for the Department of Health.
POSH has worked in close collaboration with The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in the successful prosecution in 1996 at Crown Court, in front of a judge, of a retail outlet selling the poppers derivative amyl nitrite. This resulted in the UK-wide ban of amyl nitrite and its disappearance from sale
We also worked in tandem with The Department of Health's Medicines Control Agency from 1996 until 2001 to secure a prosecution of manufacturers of the remaining two poppers derivatives, butyl and n-isobutyl nitrites. A prosecution was eventually brought in March 2001 at Crown Court, before a judge and jury, against two manufacturers, but this proved unsuccessful.
'WHY?', you ask?
There have also been suggestions that KS might be linked to the recreational drug poppers (nitrite inhalants). KS is an AIDS-defining symptom largely restricted to gay and bisexual men, the most frequent users of poppers. A number of studies found that gay and bisexual men who have used poppers are much more likely to have developed KS as an AIDS-defining illness than non-users, but other studies have shown no clear relationship. Cases of KS have been reported in HIV-negative gay and bisexual men who were heavy users of poppers. However, more than a dozen HIV-negative cases have also been reported in gay and bisexual men who never used poppers.
[FNS: Link]
('KS' being Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer normally affecting the skin, strongly associated with AIDS.)
So, you and me are not permitted to buy amyl (or isobutyl) nitrite because one study showed a possibility of an increased risk of developing KS if you already have AIDS.
Now I agree with informing people about the potential risks of drugs, but banning a fairly safe and popular drug because one study shows a possible correlation between the use of it and a complication of a specific disease goes a bit far. It's like banning wearing black clothes altogether, because if you were to walk on an unlit road at night wearing black you are at increased risk of being ran over.
* Amyl Nitrate is a completely different chemical to Amyl Nitrite, does not have the same effects on humans and is used as a diesel additive, amongst other things.
Conservatives’ bad tax idea
Accoding to The Daily Telegraph today and also covered by Guido Fawkes' blog; The Conservatives are working on a plan where employees pay will automatically have any income taxes etc automatically deducted by their bank, rather than the responsibilty falling on their employer as it does now under the PAYE system. The 'selling point' is that "The administrative burden on businesses, especially small businesses, should be significantly reduced".
Now, speaking as someone in small business, payroll isn't any particular headache; for our 7-or so staff we spend about 0.5 man-hours per week processing pay; of which very little is actually involved in calculating tax (our payroll software does that automatically. We spend an hour here and there (up to say 8 man-hours in a year) sorting out any problems that arise with HMRC, inputting new tax codes etc. It generally wouldn't be any quicker or easier to do without deducting tax.
The other implications of the government having direct access to one's bank accounts are rather worrying*. I forsee situation where tax disputes are 'resolved' by the disputed monies being drawn directly and instantly, leaving the person in question skint while trying to prove their tax case to an uncaring HMRC who already hold the money anyway! No doubt this is where mch of the '£1bn' of increased government revenues under the scheme would come from.
Personally I'd rather have a little bit of extra bureacracy than the ever-creeping increasingly powerful state having a direct line to my bank, and thats even speaking as a proposed 'beneficiary' of this scheme.
*This already happens; people have had their bank accounts frozen or drained by the government pendng tax or criminal investigations, leaving them with no funds to pay for legal representation in the cases in question. Institutionalising government access to bank accounts can only make this situation worse.
High Speed Line to -somewhere or other-
According to The Times today, plans for a 'high-speed' rail network in the UK are currently on hold because of disagreement about the precise routing into London.
The so-called 'Labour plan' being promoted by the incumbent government involves the line (from the north) having a major 'hub' station at Old Oak Common (west London) before terminating at Euston Station in central London. An 'ordinary' rail loop from Old Oak Common would feed Heathrow Airport.
The so-called 'Conservative plan' promoted by the probable next government favours the line instead serving a major hub at Heathrow Airport (extreme west London), with a spur terminating at Euston and the main line passing through Stratford International (east London, where the Olympics will be) as the existing 'HS1' high-speed line to the Channel Tunnel.
Diagrams of the respective plans here
Now in my opinion, there are 2 major objectives for any high-speed line; from the point of view of someone such as myself residing north of London. For any 'high-speed' line to be any use there would need to be:
1) Direct trains to central London (read 'Euston')
2) Direct trains to mainland Europe (read 'Channel Tunnel')
Each of the proposed plans at present allow one and not the other of these objectives.
There are similar problems in siting any high-speed station in Birmingham too; there are proposals for HS lines going through the existing New Street Station, plans for the major terminal to be placed at Birmingham Int'l Airport instead, and plans for the line(s) to bypass the city entirely.
Previously a new 'Birmingham Grand Central Station' was proposed, on the site of the former Curzon Street Station immediately east of the city centre; on land now allocated by the council to parks, government offices and the like. This proposal would have bypassed the continued capacity problems at New St while providing HS links (almost) right into the city centre. Alas; this plan was rejected and now New St Station is going to have an entirely cosmetic makeover.
All of these disputes reveal a lack of direction about what these HS lines are actually for. Are they intended for domestic intercity rail travel? As massvely overengineered airport links? Are they intended as direct links to Europe? Seemingly nobody knows, and until that somewhat important point is decided any further 'planning' is pointless. Trains, especially high-speed trains need to have their routes set in stone at a very early stage. A 200mph train is utterly pointless if it needs to stop at various stations along the route because nobody could decide where best to place the major terminals. They need to travel long distances in one shot to be worthwhile, and the UK is already 'small' in relation to the distances covered by other countries' high speed trains.
I personally like the idea of sleek trains bombing around at 200+mph, but the fact that nobody knows what the point of them would be makes me wonder if there is a point to them at all.
Bullshit of the week: “Oil shortages by 2020 due to Western ‘profligacy’”
As seen in The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/oilprices/7206410/Oil-shortages-by-2020-due-to-Western-profligacy-says-energy-boss.html
"Drivers need to start treating oil as a scarce commodity and switch to green transport to avoid shortages by 2020, according to the chief executive of Scottish & Southern."
So; we need to stop using oil now, to prevent us from having to stop using oil in the future..
""It's GCSE economics that if production is constrained and demand increases from emerging countries, the price will go up and up and up," Mr Marchant said."
It's also GCSE economics that the price rise itself will curb the rise in demand
"One car in China adds far more value than a second car sitting in the driveway of some house in the UK."
Newsflash: An unused car uses no fuel
"Mr Souter, the transport boss, has proposed more radical solutions than incentives to buy green vehicles. He called for the abolition of the lowest bands of tax that hit those with problems paying their energy bills and the establishment of a tax on carbon emissions. "This would help redistribute wealth and the people using carbon would be paying for it," he added."
So now he wants to increase taxes on energy (increasing the price) to make energy more affordable? Is this the same logic that says we should deal with rising oil prices by artificially inflating the retail price of fuel using fuel duty?
The industry group [the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security] wants the government to explore electrification of the railways and overhaul the transmission and distribution network.
Does it now? Would this be the 'industry group' that consists of Ian Marchant, head of Scottish and Sourthern Energy; Sir Richard Branson, head of amongst other things Virgin Trains; Brian Souter, the chief executive of Stagecoach, and Philip Dilley, chairman of engineering group Arup? Are they trying to say that rail magnates, electricity companies and civil engineers want government investment in civil engineering projects to benefit railways and electricity companies? Whatever next!
As a forklift dealer and part-time radio DJ I think that the government should invest billions of pounds in buying lots of new forklifts and subsidising internet radio stations, paid for with a new "not using forklifts or listening to internet radio" tax. If they don't do that they are condemning the UK to certain economic and environmental doom.
XP update can cause Blue Screen Of Death
From The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/11/ms_bsod_update_glitch/
Seemingly applying the latest gargantuan wad of updates to Windows XP can cause some systems to crash when they are rebooted. Starting Windows in Safe Mode has no effect, affected machines will reboot constantly.
Apparently what you need to do is boot any affected system with a Windows CD, start the 'recovery console' and uninstall the 'MS10-015' update.
Bad updates have happened before, and will happen again, so be aware...
EDIT: It transpires that the issue is probably caused by infection with a rootkit; more here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/15/rootkit_blue_screen_culprit_probably/
Something may increase risk of Bad Things
A study published yesterday shows a possible link between Something and Bad Things. Researchers at the Institute of Somewhere found that Something is often associated with Something Else, which shows a correlation with Bad Things.
Bad Things are considered undesireable by most of the population. Death, cancer, obesity, pollution, ugliness and boredom have all been considered Bad Things by many people. Over 80% of the population do Something each year.
Steve Smith, 14, died last year in an incident that can only be described as a Bad Thing. He had recently been doing Something. His mother, Janet Smith, said last week "Our Steve was a loving, popular boy; with his whole future ahead of him. His life was snatched away from him horribly. I had heard of him doing Something, and I tried to tell him to stop. he wouldn't listen.." [Mrs. Smith weeps] "I worry for all the other mothers out there, how many children have to die?"
Bob Fluster, of Action Against Bad Things said "this study is just another in a torrent of evidence against Something. When will people wake up and realise that Something causes Bad Things?"
Many previous studies also show the correlation. A report by SomethingWatch found that over 75% of people who will eventually experience Bad Things have done Something, or been near someone who has done Something.
Jack De'Ladd has a different view. He claimed "everybody does Something at least every day- banning Something could end up with banning everything". A SomethingWatch spokesman said "Jack De'Ladd is proven to financially benefit from industries that produce Something. His wild claims are discredited by every scientist working to prove the danger of Something".
It is estimated that last year 839 million people suffered from Bad Things, including constipation, blindness and not being able to find a seat on the train. MegaCorp PLC made profits of £49 Billion last year from the sale of Something. The Chairman of MegaCorp refused to comment.
Things that have pissed me off today: 04-02-2010
This post was originally intended to be about something else, but in true attention-seeking blogging style, it will be about things which have today pissed me off.
1) Drivers who hog the fast lane of a motorway (or similar road, I'll get to that in a minute) at an unreasonably low speed, and the minute they're off the motorway and on other roads they are tailgating, cutting people up and suddenly in a massive rush. Yes, Mr. twat-faced driver of a black Vauxhall Vectra who pulled into A-Plant's yard this morning, I'm talking about YOU.
2) Passwords. You can't have passwords that are both easy to remember/use and secure. Every single website in the world seemingly now requires you to either generate a new password, or re-use one that you already have. If you have a new password, you'll forget it. If you re-use a password, the admin of that site can use your details to log on to other sites. A certain online banking service requires a new unique password every damn month, which can only mean that every single user has a post-it note somewhere with their banking password on it. Yeah, really secure.
3) Website registration forms that don't mark the 'required' fields, or specify what they require of your proposed password (eg 'must include numbers', 'must be more than 8 characters') until you click 'confirm'. Then, when the form re-appears with the 'errors' the cheeky bastards re-tick the 'please send me all the spam in the world' box. Yes, Ebuyer and the 'Livejournal' login required to comment on The Independent, I'm looking at you both.
3.1) Online shops that don't tell you that something is out of stock until you try to order it.
3.2) Verified by Visa and MasterCard Securecode. They are both intended to protect everybody else at the expense of the cardholder, give you even more passwords to write down somewhere and are implemented in a piss-poor way that creates security holes you could lose a ship in.
4) Roads that aren't officially motorways, but are in almost every way; like the A5 through Tamworth, or the A42 (M42 in disguise) north of J11. This is done to save money by cutting back on safety standards, and to avoid 'outrage' by the local press and green activists when a new 'motorway' is announced. Build the same road without hard shoulders and with green signs instead of blue, and seemingly nobody cares. Idiots. the result is you get a motorway-style road, with most people doing 70+mph; with cyclists, tractors, people broken down in lane 1 (no hard shoulder, you see) and general morons doing 35mph, just to add a little inconvenience and danger to your day.
5) Flaky internet connections that don't like more than one computer using them at one time, even when they are only doing a little light web browsing. I don't know whether its router issues, or something about the connection itself; but either way it pisses me off.
6) Over-inflated product specifications, such as LCD monitors with a "1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio" (1,000:1 when tested by anyone other than the manufacturer) and stereos with "600W 'music power' (5W RMS)".
7) Spam e-mails that advertise e-mail spam lists.
Mobile phone resellers. The fuckers who phone you up saying that they're 'affiliated' with your/another actual phone network, and they can offer a billion minutes per century and a dozen texts per trimester for a low price of £36 per month, with a free Nokia WTF and blah.... fuck off you useless parasites.
9) Apple, for their seemingly limitless ability to generate vast media hype by releasing products that already exist out there, but hey, Apple will put it in a shinier case! Made much worse by their association with 'creative' types, who are all so bloody creative and free-thinking that they all have the same go-to brand for computers and gadgets. Wankers.
10) 'Creative' people. In my experience, the people who would describe themselves as 'creative' are NOT, they are just talentless churnmongers who read about what all the other 'creative' people are doing and copy it, whether it be the shitty tune they made on their PC, or their derivative graphic design, or whatever. Normally these people bank all of their self-esteem in the 'creative' pot because they have no other redeeming features, talents or abilities whatsoever that they can use to describe themselves. Quite often they have no job as well, so they can use the 'creative' label that they've applied to themselves to justify this fact, claiming that they're a 'freelance artist', or they are 'working on a project' or something, while all the while they are arsing around pausing only to suckle on the taxpayer's teat. Twats. Utter despicable twats.
11) WordPress, for converting no.8 on the list into a fucking smiley.
12) People who sit at home in their heated and lit house, on 200Watts-worth of computer, posting messages onto the internet about how somebody-or-other is 'wasting resources' by driving a car, not re-using supermarket carrier bags or doing something else that they disapprove of.