Nov 05
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Today Americans go to the polls to vote in a new president.

Now it is a completely fair call to hear comments from Americans such as Who cares? Its our president we’re voting for, not yours. However, for better or for worse, the United States pretty much the only superpower left since the end of the Cold War.

By basically ignoring the will of the United Nations (who unfortunately are good at talking, but not at action), the USA pretty much sets the agenda for the world. For whatever reason, we all suffer when the US decides to set that agenda -whether its illegal wars in the Middle East, or dodgy economic practices and fraudulent activites in the financial sector, or blatantly ignoring the issues of global warming and the destruction of the natural environment; we all collectively have to suffer for the actions of their elected government. America sneezes, the rest of the world catches the ‘flu.

So … three Icelandic guys came up with a thought experiement. Today anyone can vote at iftheworldcouldvote.com. And it is very interesting the results so far. Wether this is a result of media portrayal (unlikely - given most global media outlets are not biased like the US ones are) or by a global disenchantment with the US Administration (which reflects on peoples views about the US in general), i don’t know. But as of the time of writing, and evene acknowledging that the result isn’t totally scientific, 97% of the world wants Obama to be the next president. Time for change.

I believe the world should wake up. The past eight years of a single country’s administration ignoring world opinion on a variety of issues and taking unilateral action. The United Nations needs to get more teeth, or at least another superpower to provide a balance. China in particular could become that superpower, but I personally don’t agree with the communist ideals. Russia seems to be going backwards into the cold war scenario under its current leadership (even if he is no longer the president).

I believe that if Europe could get its act together, stop the internal bickering, put the past in the past (the UK and France are the guilty parties here - move on!) and speak with a common voice, it would be the ideal counterbalance to keep the US in check. And hopefully, we don’t have to suffer the past eight years of agony again.

written by Simon Harvey \\ tags: , ,

Oct 30
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A few of my Pommie friends have whinged about some of my recent posts have involved highlighting how Australia is fantastic, or how England sucks. Which, I guess, is a fair call. So as a public service announcement I’ll relay the following announcement from the Queen of the United Kingdom.

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth  II

In light of your total failure in recent years to nominate anywhere near competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

(Note to G. W. Bush : It is OK for you to look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary if you have one. Whatever you do, please don’t try and ‘ad lib’ what you think this word might mean. It’s just too painful for everyone involved.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.  A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’  Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters,  and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’  Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels.  (look up ‘vocabulary’).

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.  The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of  ‘-ize.’

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists.  The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent.  Guns should only be used for shooting grouse.  If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler.  Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect.  At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.   Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon.  Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips.  Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps.  Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all.  Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of  known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager.  Australian beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer.  They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.  American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys.  Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.  Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed  with a cheese grater.

11. You will cease playing American football.  There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer.  Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball.  It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America.  Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.  You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

13. You must tell us who killed JFK.  It’s been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (ie. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream)  when in season.

God Save the Queen!

PS:  Only share this with friends who have a good sense of humour (NOT humor)!

written by Simon Harvey \\ tags: , , , , ,

Sep 27
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If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Kronenbourg 1664 Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

hmmm … you heard the man … but i would qualify this by recommending Guinness instead of Kronenbourg  … because the cans have higher aluminium content and the beer is so much better.

:-)

written by Simon Harvey \\ tags: , ,

Sep 01
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A Pommy “journalist” recently published an article about an alleged Googlebombing of British MP Hazel Blears without doing her research and understanding the technical facts behind the “internet craze”.

Of course, the Internet community has sought to help her understand the context and to correct a such an evil accusation as well as reprimand her for not correctly crediting the author of the image in her article. In a mature manner, of course.

Whilst I normally wouldn’t bother with this kind of thing, look at the other cra… erm …rubbish she has wriiten in works of fiction like The Sun and The Daily Mail over the years. Particularly this shocker about “nazi racoons” invading mother England.

So, just for you Julie, with credit due to Daniel Hoffman-Gill (as I can’t be fussed capping my own lolracoon):

What a tw@. :-)

written by Simon Harvey \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Jul 02
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A colleague of mine at work started blogging again last weekend, highlighting a very good point that if 2-Factor Authentication is being offered to online gaming players, they why the hell are there still governments and financial institutions across the world that still rely on basic UserID and Password authentication to their online services?

Although an interesting debate, I’m not going to go into a rant about this today. What has caught my eye though as an article in todays Australian IT highlighting that a survey reveals that the majority of Australian Organisations are confident in the security of their IT systems, have rarely had that tested and can withstand all types of attacks.

Although I would like to see the details of the survey, this statement scares me. The article describes how:

[…] organisations have reached a level of comfort with security, as most internal security projects have been completed.

Continue reading »

written by Simon Harvey \\ tags: , , , , , ,