A highly detailed, and very expensive, 10-year study into the effectiveness of killing badgers to prevent the spread of bovine TB has concluded that the cull would not only be ineffective but could actually make matters worse. In response to their own report the Government, under pressure from the Farmers (the paramilitary wing of the Tory party), has decided to completely ignore the science and allow 'licensed culling' of a normally protected species. This madness has irritated various groups of animal rights activists to disrupt the culls. Meanwhile the supermarkets are also under pressure and Tesco has come out in support of the crazy cull - a move it may regret.
In a contest where I would normally want them all to lose, a glimmer of hope has appeared. Yes, we could have an Archbishop of Canterbury called 'Archbishop Cocksworth'! The big cheeses of the established C of E are presently gathered at a secret location (possibly to avoid a drone strike?) for 3 days to pick the new AB of C. However, my prayers are unlikely to be answered and if I was a betting man my money, sadly, would not be on the Bishop of Coventry...
'Who will succeed Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury? The Crown Nominations Commission is meeting to decide who will take his place, and at the end of its deliberations the 19-strong committee - which includes bishops, priests and lay people - will give the prime minister the name of its preferred candidate and a second choice. Here are some of the contenders to lead the Church of England.' (BBC News article).
Poor old Baroness Warsi. She's just been booted out of the cabinet in the recent reshuffle only to be resurrected as "Minister for Faith and Communities" - a position only slightly less demeaning than Chairperson of the Tory Party. Still, I am trying to understand why the Government (and the opposition for that matter) is playing the faith card so vehemently of late, when all the indicators are that most folk these days would rather pray at the temple of Tesco's on a Sunday morning. Whatever the reason, the sound people over at the National Secular Society are on the case...
'Many will write it off as red meat being thrown to the raving fundamentalists on the back bench of the Tory Party, but the appointment of Baroness Warsi as "Minister for Faith and Communities" is potentially threatening for secularism.
'She recently held a meeting with the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, in which he took the opportunity to repeat to her the patently untrue mantra that "faith plays a central role within society and in building a cohesive society."' (National Secular Society article).
Once again our unelected and allegedly powerless (if you believe the monarchists' guff) Head of State is caught out meddling in the political affairs of our country. This time the Old Lady was waxing lyrical to a BBC journalist about a terrorist suspect over tea and crumpets. The other disturbing side to this story is the BBC's grovelling apology. Why is it that the BBC, usually sound on most issues, just collapses into fits of deference when it comes to all things royal? Of course there is a simple answer to this problem: let us elect a proper Head of State and give them proper powers so they can do a proper job for our country...
'Republic has today called on the Queen to keep out of politics and has criticised her comments on Britain’s extradition laws as a cynical PR ploy.
'The Queen has waded into the debate on extradition laws by making it known to the BBC that she raised doubts about the legal process for extraditing Abu Hamza to government ministers.' (Republic article).
For the ever dwindling band of German Catholics the harsh truth of this increasingly corrupt organisation has been brought into sharp focus. If a German Catholic opts out of paying their 'Church Tax' (at an amazing 8% of their tax bill) then the good old Catholic Church - ever quick to take a dump on any dissenters - will withdraw the 'benefits' of being a Catholic. So, effectively the Catholics are now running a protection racket (alongside child exploitation, gay-hating, etc) presided over by Mr. Ratzinger playing Godfather in The Vatican. Its a funny old world, unless of course you are misguided enough to still believe that the Catholic Church is anything other than a sinister business...
'Germany’s Roman Catholics are to be denied the right to Holy Communion or religious burial if they stop paying a special church tax.
'A German bishops’ decree which has just come into force says anyone failing to pay the tax - an extra 8% of their income tax bill - will no longer be considered a Catholic.
'The bishops have been alarmed by the number of Catholics leaving the Church.
'They say such a step should be seen as a serious act against the community.
'All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax of 8-9% on their annual income tax bill. The levy was introduced in the 19th Century in compensation for the nationalisation of religious property.' (BBC News article).
'Hounded by police and bailiffs, evicted wherever they stopped, they did not mean to settle here. They had walked out of London to occupy disused farmland on the Queen's estates surrounding Windsor Castle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that didn't work out very well. But after several days of pursuit, they landed two fields away from the place where modern democracy is commonly supposed to have been born.
'At first this group of mostly young, dispossessed people, who (after the 17th century revolutionaries) call themselves Diggers 2012, camped on the old rugby pitch of Brunel University's Runnymede campus. It's a weed-choked complex of grand old buildings and modern halls of residence, whose mildewed curtains flap in the wind behind open windows, all 'mysteriously abandoned as if struck by a plague or a neutron bomb.
'The diggers were evicted again, and moved down the hill into the woods behind the campus - pressed, as if by the ineluctable force of history, ever closer to the symbolic spot. From the meeting house they have built and their cluster of tents, you can see across the meadows to where the Magna Carta was sealed almost 800 years ago.
'Their aim is simple: to remove themselves from the corporate economy, to house themselves, grow food and build a community on abandoned land. Implementation is less simple. Soon after I arrived, on a sodden day last week, an enforcer working for the company which now owns the land came slithering through the mud in his suit and patent leather shoes with a posse of police, to serve papers.
Already the crops the settlers had planted had been destroyed once; the day after my visit they were destroyed again. But the repeated destruction, removals and arrests have not deterred them. As one of their number, Gareth Newnham, told me: "If we go to prison we'll just come back... I'm not saying that this is the only way. But at least we're creating an opportunity for young people to step out of the system."
'To be young in the post-industrial nations today is to be excluded. Excluded from the comforts enjoyed by preceding generations; excluded from jobs; excluded from hopes of a better world; excluded from self-ownership.' (Guardian article).
Saturday afternoon and I’d been sitting in my local pub for at least an hour drinking the remains of my second pint of beer. The local clientele were doing their usual: scrutinising their hand-held devices as though they were personal life-support machines requiring constant tweaking and attention.
Meanwhile, on the pub TV, the sordid details of News International’s phone hacking scandal were unfolding live before my very eyes.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I exclaimed out loud. “This isn’t just affecting a small cross-section of the population, this is a goddamned epidemic of massive proportions!”
The fat lawyer sitting in the corner briefly glanced up at me from his iPhone with an expression that suggested a mixture of contempt and confusion, before taking another quick swig of his drink and refocusing his attention on his brightly lit touch screen.
“Whatever happened to coming to the pub to engage in social interaction!?” I exclaimed.
There was no response.
I looked out of the window at the multitude of passers-by, all of whom seemed to be preoccupied with whatever was on their cell phones.
“Another beer?” asked the barmaid as she punched in a few characters on her smartphone.
“What exactly are you all fucking doing?” I asked somewhat irritably.
“I’m on Twitter,” she said without even looking up.
“And I’m on Facebook,” remarked the fat lawyer – his beady little jaundiced eyes looked up again briefly, as if attempting to burn holes in the back of my inner skull.
“Yeah,” I remarked sarcastically, “cos, so much interesting shit is going down in here right now that all your friends need an update.”
“Do you want a beer or not?” asked the barmaid impatiently – her podgy little pink thumbs sliding over the touch sensitive device.
“No thanks,” I said getting to my feet, “I’ve got walls at home I can stare blankly at.”
Suddenly I felt a vibration in my pocket as I vacated the pub.
Christ, I thought whilst taking my phone out of my pocket to check it, this state of constant connectedness is even starting to affect me now.
I glanced at the screen.
Nothing.
A phantom phone vibration I realised. A condition brought on by modern living. A syndrome I had heard media theorist Douglas Rushkoff talk about, where our nervous systems have maladapted to expect real-time communication at any given moment. An electronically induced nervous tick, if you like, that doesn’t even require the device to do anything electronically other than just sit in one’s pocket awaiting an incoming announcement of no or little value.
It was the final straw for me and a much needed match tossed into the proverbial gunpowder barrel. Whatever happened to using a phone as just a phone?
With all the current sordid revelations emerging concerning the appalling criminal practices conducted by Rupert Murdoch's News International, I am reminded of an account my late friend and mentor, Gerald Suster, gave about the deceitful way in which a News Of The World "journalist" ruined his career back in 1989.
Suster, who was working at the time as a history teacher at Boarzell College in Sussex, had been approached by a NOTW hack called Chris Blythe about his life-long interests in the occult and, most notably, his book The Legacy Of The Beast - The Life, Work & Influence Of Aleister Crowley (which had just made the front cover of Publisher's Weekly).
What transpired back then is very much comparable to the kind of practices that we are hearing about today, and whilst there were no mobile phones around to get hacked into back then, it is clear that the methods and motivation News International employ to get a sensationalist story have changed very little in the last twenty-odd years.
In the Autumn 1996 edition of Talking Stick magazine, Gerald gave an account of how a News Of The World article cost him his job, home and salary in the blink of an eye.
For those of you who still doubt the level that Murdoch and his ilk will stoop to in order to line their pockets and manipulate public perception, I have scanned in the relevant documentation here for your own scrutiny.
Looking over this material again today, and viewing it in the context of recent events, I am reminded of the final interview that dramatist and playright Dennis Potter gave to Melvyn Bragg just before his death in 1994.
He said: "As a writer, you will know that one of the favourite fantasy plots is where a character is told: you've got three months to live (which is what I was told) - who would you kill? I call my cancer - the main one in the pancreas - Rupert, because Murdoch is the one. I've got too much writing to do, and I haven't got the energy, but I would shoot the bugger if I could. There is no one person more responsible for the pollution of what was already a fairly polluted press, and the pollution of the British press is an important part of the pollution of British political life, and it's an important part of the cynicism and misperception of our realities that is destroying so much of our political discourse."
I just invested in another Aladdin Blue Flame Paraffin Heater. So the power companies can fire up the price of gas and electricity all they goddamned want. Come the winter, they ain't getting a penny extra out of me. In fact I hope there's a major power cut and gas shortage! With all the paraffinalia I've amounted over the last few years, I'll be the warmest, most illuminated, smuggest bastard in town.
So take note, things are gonna get grim. But the future is bright. The future is paraffin!
Check this fascinating documentary about a guy lighting his Primus 5 Classic Stove. Trust me, every bit of this is fascinating, and the money shot at the end is well worth the wait...
I wonder if Harold Camping has killed himself yet. In fact, if he hasn't already, I would suggest that his next plan of action should be to kick start the rapture himself by sticking a 9 mm in his mouth.
How embarrassing to be living in the 21st century with this kind of superstitious claptrap still going on.
I reckon that if Camping had promised the ZZ Top car to show up and that hot chicks were going to get out and whisk them all away, there'd still be idiots standing in their driveways with suitcases clutched tightly in hands.
That, at least, might be a nice delusion, although undoubtedly way more disappointing when you realise the girls aren't gonna show.
'Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
'At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor - NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace - is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
'But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.' (CNN article).
Does anyone else feel the same way that I do about the internet?
Basically, I'm bored shitless with anything anyone writes on it.
Okay, so I turned 40 a couple of days ago - so I guess I'm supposed to be disillusioned what with a mid-life crisis setting in - but I think my contempt has more to do with how the internet has mutated over the last ten years.
Don't get me wrong, the web has way more to offer today than it did a decade ago. For example, I can just about download any album or movie I want without forking out a single penny, and I can avoid watching TV entirely by going online and selecting the programmes that I want to watch when I want to watch them. At the moment I'm learning how to play the banjo and the quality and variety of online help and free video tutorials is so impressive it has eliminated any need for me to seek out a private tutor. In fact, there's all kinds of amazing funky things I can do online which has enhanced my life and fast-tracked me through pursuits that would have been laden with obstacles ten years ago.
'The murder of the Gulf of Mexico by BP shouldn’t surprise us. It is precisely what industrial capitalism does. Years ago I wrote of the catastrophe in Bhopal: when you intentionally fabricate bulk industrial chemicals, many of which are toxic, it should not qualify as an accident when some of these chemicals kill people. Likewise, the spill in the Gulf should not be considered an accident. There are 10,000 oil spills per year. Oil has devastated the Amazon. It has devastated the Niger Delta. It has devastated the Gulf of Mexico.
'Likewise, after the catastrophe at Bhopal, it was discovered that there was no antidote for the poison. One advocate for the victims noted sensibly: “No one should be allowed to make poisons for which there is no antidote.” The same is true for the other destructive activities of this culture.
'And corporations will not voluntarily rein themselves in. Limited liability corporations exist in order to limit liability. Their function is to privatize profits and to externalize costs.' (Press Action article & WMNF audio stream).
'The "nascent recovery" continues to be nascent a year later. Why? Because it's constructed on sand and hyped by smoke and mirrors. The "nascent recovery" will soon be revealed as "failed" rather than "nascent". How long can "nascent" be deployed as cover for a "recovery" constructed of propaganda, manipulated statistics and "confidence-building" spin?' (Charles Hugh Smith article).
'Well may the pope defy "the petty gossip of dominant opinion". But the Holy See can no longer ignore international law, which now counts the widespread or systematic sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity. The anomalous claim of the Vatican to be a state - and of the pope to be a head of state and hence immune from legal action - cannot stand up to scrutiny.
'The truly shocking finding of Judge Murphy's commission in Ireland was not merely that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions but that the church hierarchy protected the perpetrators and, despite knowledge of their propensity to reoffend, allowed them to take up new positions teaching other children after their victims had been sworn to secrecy.' (Guardian article).
'Last month, Lord Martin Rees, the president of Britain's Royal Society and "astronomer to the Queen of England", hosted the National Science Academy's first conference on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, which was attended by such scientific illuminaries as physicist Paul Davies, SETI founder and astrophysicist extraordinaire Frank Drake. And the resulting sound bite of the week is "World-Leading Physicist Says They Could Exist in Forms We Can't Conceive"?
'Really? That's it? That's news? That's what we get from the world's leading thinkers on cosmology?
'Sorry for my tone, but it's about time these guys got caught up with science fiction writers from 50 years ago. Check out a 1959 movie called Invisible Invaders. Or at a minimum, take Carl Sagan's brainchild from the late 70's, Contact (film treatment in 1979, book in 1985, and movie in 1997) featuring a highly advanced extraterrestrial race who can appear to us in any form they want. I'm sure there were many other writers who considered that a civilization advanced enough to cross millions of light years of space, might be advanced enough to learn how to cloak. I certainly pondered that idea as a kid.' (The Universe Solved weblog).
'Any nation which borrows/prints 20% of its GDP every year is essentially a debt addict on welfare.
If you depend on borrowed money which will never be paid back and freshly printed notes for 20% of your expenses, you're on the dole. Since we will never pay it back, the borrowing of the money is just a sham; stripped of deception, it's welfare, a "gift" from future taxpayers to the current beneficiaries of Federal largesse and swag.' (Charles Hugh Smith article).
At the time of writing this, Google News lists exactly 620 articles telling us that the UK is out of recession.
And what amazing figures does the Office of National Statistics have to back up this claim?
0.1%
Yeah, that’s right folks. It’s over! Woo hoo! Pop open the champagne and go back to spending like there’s no tomorrow, because according to some boring old fart called Joe Grice from the ONS, the GDP is up point one of a percent, meaning that all the billions of pounds the tax payer has forked out in bailing out this fucked up system, 0.1% clearly indicates an amazing economic recovery.
Let’s put this in perspective people. If my boss came to me tomorrow and told me I was getting a 0.1% pay rise, I’d tell him to shove it up his arse or put it in the charity box for children with bloated head syndrome or something.
How about another analogy? If someone told you there was a 0.1% chance that you’d die tomorrow, would you be overly concerned about smoking that last fag or drinking another pint of bitter before dinner?
What utter bollocks! Here’s what I think of the ONS and their spastic statistics.
She also appears to be using this image on a limited edition t-shirt with all the proceeds supporting relief efforts in Haiti. Perhaps this isn't the best way to quell those “pact with the devil” rumours that are being spread by the lunatic Christian right.
I must confess that I stopped listening to Douglas Rushkoff’s Media Squat several months ago when it cut back on original content and started broadcasting talks from "media squatters" of the past. Not that these talks weren’t of interest, you understand, it’s just that I’ve heard most of them before and would rather hear the opinions of people living through the crisis of today.
That said, a few days ago I listened to the most recent episode of Media Squat prior to their current hiatus and Rushkoff brought up a number of thought-provoking concepts that seemed to ring true with a lot of what I’ve been thinking myself recently. Notably his comments on where technology is taking us and how there doesn’t seem to be anything new any longer - whether it’s music, film or youth culture.
I think he hits the nail on the head when he talks about the “feedback loop” explored in his excellent documentary The Merchants Of Cool (click on the link to watch it online). I mean, nothing seems to get an opportunity of coming to fruition any longer, and the present culture of being plugged into the net 24/7 - where people blog their every thought or, worse still, text pointless and uninspiring messages to their Twitter account - has given rise to a society that seems to need the approval of the collective before anything can be deemed of value (I could be more critical with my comments here, but for once I’m trying to be constructive).
I decided to have a go at my useless local authority again. Basically the problem is that the obnoxious, incompetent fuckwits will do anything but provide us with a service. Check this link out.
This time I decided that it was the public that are at fault for being so complacent. After all, we pay the council for a service and they don't provide it. Logically, then, the solution should be to stop paying them until they do provide that service.
Not that my comments in this week's local press will make the damnedest bit of difference. People have short memories, and once the ice has cleared from the streets they'll happily go back to bending over and getting shafted up the arse again, like the subservients they clearly are. (Dunfermline Press article).
'Here’s where we’re at folks. The end of the line.
'“The end of free-market capitalism”
'I’ve heard it called.
'“The sub-prime mortgage crisis”
'Some blame it on.
'“A global economic meltdown”
'Time for some major change.
'So, our entire way of life is exposed as a rickety, weak, hollow, card house that collapses in a heartbeat, so what do we do? We throw money at it! We actually try and prop this mangled, pathetic card house back up with the exact cause of the collapse!
'Kind of like tossing a bucket of water on a tsunami.
'Kind of like throwing a candle at a forest fire.
'Sort of the equivalent of throwing a snow ball at an avalanche.
'Bail outs? Our solution is bail-outs?!?! And regulation? But please, don’t get me wrong, the other side of the coin is just as, if not more retarded. Tax breaks and the same freewheeling market that got us here? Those are the only two “solutions” on the table. Let me give you a hint. They are both wrong.
'Here’s my solution. It’s time to re-think where we’re at and where we need to be going and what we need to do to get there. It’s time to realize that money got us to where we are, and it was helpful in doing so. The market pushed us to produce, innovate and it kept us waking up in the morning. It served a purpose at a time, but that time has long passed. And no government or bank or wall street finance expert or CEO will ever realize that. They will fight with every fiber in their being to defend the only thing they know. They will scratch and claw to keep themselves important.
'They are all irrelevant.' (Danny Mendlow article).
'But let's suppose you get the mansion on the beach and national facetime on TV. The next day, you're still yourself, and your feelings about yourself remain unchanged. You still have the same patterns of thoughts and emotions, and you still have to live an ordinary life, even if you have a personal chef and personal assistant.
'It is my observation that the more that is done for a person, the more trivial and petty their concerns become.
'There is only one success in life, and that is being yourself. That's the only "career" no one else can pursue, and the only "success" no one else can attain.' (Charles Hugh Smith article).
“The first Paraffin Crusade starts here. We must banish the pernicious tyranny of the butane/propane canister.” (Text message from The Sergeant Matron, December 13th 2009).
It all started innocently enough with the procurement of a Tilley Stormlight. I’d seen my weird friend The Sergeant Matron tinkering about with one about a year ago and was impressed. Perfect for camping, I thought, ideal for winter trips to the middle of nowhere.
“It’s off-the-grid-tastic!” exclaimed The Matron, eyes wide and geeked out of his crazy mind with a flaming meths-soaked pre-burner in his hand. I pretended not to take too much notice - knowing how he tends to get carried away with such things - but inside I was bubbling with excitement. As the Tilley Lamp’s mantle ignited with an audible pop, paraffin - I quickly realised - could very well become the fuel of the future.
'On November 19, 2009, a 61 megabyte file called "FOI2009.zip" started to circulate on the internet. This contained a directory of over 1000 emails sent to and from people at the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK, plus supporting documents and software.
'CRU is one of the major climate research centers, and the people sending the messages are the biggest names in climate science. The revealed messages have been fairly embarrassing to the people involved. Phil Jones, the director of the CRU, has temporarily stepped down while it's being investigated.
'Right-wing global warming "deniers" are having a field day with it. Mainstream press and the lefty blogs are taking a "move along, nothing to see here" attitude. Many commenters don't seem to have read the emails themselves. They are just repeating the same fragments over and over in the usual echo chamber.
'I've been interested in climate issues for a while now, and have written a couple of long pieces on where I think things stand. If you had to describe my position in a single sentence, it would be "the current data, models and theories of climate aren't solid enough to say one way or the other if humans are warming the planet."' (Free The Memes article).
A while ago Ken Eakins of Right Where You Are Sitting Now asked me to contribute a regular column to his website whereby, each week, I teach you ways of keeping 'The Man' on his toes.
Okay, so it’s been a while since I wrote my last instalment, but I reckon enough time has elapsed to avoid any repercussions for this one. Besides, I’m not admitting guilt here, merely showing you how to exercise your rights as a citizen and correspond accordingly when confronted with a Notice of Intended Prosecution.
How To Deal With Speeding Offences
Firstly, it is my belief that there shouldn’t be any speeding restrictions on the roads, merely guidelines.
Okay, so that may sound somewhat controversial and irresponsible, but personally I think it would be a much more healthy society if people learned to take responsibility for their own actions. For example, imagine a world where speed signs such as “20” actually meant “it is advisable that you travel at 20 mph in this area, otherwise, if you go over that limit and accidentally kill someone, you’ll be taken away and executed.”
With that kind of law in place it’d be interesting to see how many people are brave enough to break the speed limit then.
'The trillions squandered on "stabilization" is not leading to "recovery" of the real economy; it is only life support keeping a sick economy from imploding. The stock market rally rests on rapidly crumbling sand.
'I'm not saying the stock market will crash, only that if it had any relation to the real U.S. economy that it should crash, and soon.
'The current politics of experience is so warped by misleading statistics and orchestrated propaganda that it feels strange to state the obvious and find it is "that which cannot be spoken": the credit-dependent, consumer-dependent U.S. economy is going down, and going down hard, and the trillions of dollars borrowed and spent by the U.S. government and Federal Reserve to crank up a recovery have failed completely, utterly and totally.' (Of Two Minds article).
'Overweight people are fucking abhorrent, which seems like an obvious and uncontroversial statement, but you cannot turn your head these days without gawking at the vile cascades of shapeless distended flesh that ubiquitously engulf your grotesque countrymen.
'The horrendous bovine masses cost the rest of us $147 billion per year, twice as much as a decade ago, which is more than enough to cover a universal health care system for people who do not plan on dying from a heart attack by the time they reach the ripe old age of thirty-six. These repulsive fat fucks require 41 percent higher medical costs on average, which screws everybody who does not get horny at the thought of KFC’s unholy Double Down sandwich. (No bread! Just fried chicken, cheese and bacon! As fatty as three Big Macs! This is exactly why George Washington and Thomas Jefferson risked their fucking lives to give Americans freedom!)
'We are squandering the precious remnants of our broken economy to keep these worthless sacks of shit alive; it’s not as if they cover their disproportionate share of the tab, which would require actually getting off their colossal asses. Public health experts have proposed taxes on soda and unhealthy food to curb this epidemic, but their “solutions” are a load of ineffective, half-assed bullshit. Zoning restrictions on fast food “restaurants” and mandatory nutrition labeling have likewise failed; you cannot save people from themselves, especially when they have zero respect for their physical appearance and estimated lifespan.
'We are Rome in decadent, self-indulgent decline. The corpulent hordes are never going to willingly sacrifice their extravagant caloric intake - even if it costs a few cents more - which leaves a solitary, mildly objectionable option:
'We need to kill the fatties. We need to kill the fatties as soon as humanly possible.' (Marty Beckerman article).
'Old people still write letters the old-fashioned way: by hand, with a biro, folding up the letter into an envelope, writing the address on the front before adding the stamp. Mostly they don’t have email, and while they often have a mobile phone - bought by the family ‘just in case’ - they usually have no idea how to send a text. So Peter Mandelson wasn’t referring to them when he went on TV in May to press for the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail, saying that figures were down due to competition from emails and texts.
'I spluttered into my tea when I heard him say that. ‘Figures are down.’ We hear that sentence almost every day at work when management are trying to implement some new initiative which involves postal workers like me working longer hours for no extra pay, carrying more weight, having more duties.
'It’s the joke at the delivery office. ‘Figures are down,’ we say, and laugh as we pile the fifth or sixth bag of mail onto the scales and write down the weight in the log-book. It’s our daily exercise in fiction-writing. We’re only supposed to carry a maximum of 16 kilos per bag, on a reducing scale: 16 kilos the first bag, 13 kilos the last. If we did that we’d be taking out ten bags a day and wouldn’t be finished till three in the afternoon.' (LRB article).
'It takes an infinite amount of resources to create a continuous reality, but a finite amount to create a quantized reality. By resources, I refer to bits, the information that it takes to model reality. In order to program a virtual reality, there must be quantization. It is impossible to develop a program with unlimited resolution. So the very fact that our reality is quantized may be considered strong evidence that reality is programmed.' (The Universe Solved weblog).