Bristol City Council even treats its employees like idiots

Thanks to the person who mailed me the current front page of "The Source", BCC's intranet site for employees - they were indeed correct that I would find it amusing (or should that be bemusing?).



Have you ever seen anything so condescending in your life? I'd imagine the average age of the Bristol City Council employee is not that of Primary School children, so why on earth are they targetting their campaigns as such? Ooh, let me guess, it's to make it "fun". Fucking cretins. At least we know it's not just the public they treat with disdain, it's themselves as well.

The "dynamic digit". For fuck's sake.

Carter Ruck still being cunts

As reported on wikileaks.

Following parliamentary condemnation, Carter Ruck agreed to amend the order so it would not apply to the parliamentary record, but would, in all other ways, continue to gag the press.

This updated variation was then faxed the Times on 16, October 2009.

The injuction, in all other respects, remains in effect.

Free press? My fucking arse.

MPs want MANDATORY "Nanny" filters on mobiles & PCs

Reports El Reg:

An all-party group of MPs has recommended mandatory nanny filters for all mobile devices and data devices that can access the internet - and wants the UK's Internet Watch Foundation secretive censor system extended to the whole world.

God all mighty. God. All. Fucking. Mighty. I'm literally speechless at how brazenly statist and authoritarian these cunts are now.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications (Apcomms) today recommends: "A global 'notice and take-down' regime is required, and if the IWF cannot provide it then someone else should."

As the Reg quite rightly points out, the MPs might be getting a bit carried away here. Nevertheless, it shows how fucking terrifying their goals are.

And guess what the justification for this is? Have a guess. For me. Go on.

The reason for given for mandatory net filters is "that the default child protection settings are different on different mobile networks and different devices. This is unnecessarily confusing for parents, and so the report recommends that the industry move to a consistent, and 'safe', arrangement."

But of course. Think of the fucking children.

ISPs will be pleased to learn that they are expected to foot the bill for cleaning up all the malware on British PCs. ISPs should establish a voluntary code and if it fails to clean up our PCs, Ofcom should impose one anyway: "A reduction in compromised end user machines is essential to make the Internet a safer place," they write.

This is the start of forcing ISPs to limit access to certain sites.

You don't think the Chinese-style firewall is coming? Think again.

Yet another reason to join Old Holborn on his walk.

Bristol's Traffic Lights

I see the Evening Post have started a campaign about Bristol's traffic lights.

Fair play to them, frankly. I've always been of the opinion there are too many traffic lights in Bristol, and that many of them are deliberately set to cause maximum queues and congestion, firstly to garner public/media support for a congestion charge, and secondly to try and "tempt" people onto the busses.

It's clear to me that the council haven't got a clue what they're doing with traffic lights. Bristol City Council use a system called SCOOT which they use to manage the traffic light system. It is touted as being used for "Bus Priority" (which BCC definitely make use of) as well as "traffic gating" (ditto). However, is this automatic? Going on how poor the traffic light design and operation is in Bristol I'd wager it isn't. And if that's the case, and BCC are setting the timings etc themselves, then who's to say some random jobsworth Traffic Officer sitting in Wilder House has picked the most effective timings?

There are loads of traffic lights around Bristol that are implemented appallingly, and frankly the Traffic Signals department should be fucking ashamed. Take the area of the Temple Circus Gyratory roundabout - fuck me, it's a wonder any cars get through there at all. Why? Because not only are there traffic lights on the roundabout itself, but there are also lights set further back on most of the approach roads too! One of the worst for this is Redcliffe Way. There is a completely fucking pointless set of traffic lights halfway along this road between the Redcliffe Way roundabout by the church and the Temple Circus Gyratory. What these lights are supposed to do is divide the flow between the bus lane and the non-bus (normal) lane. However, instead of having a sensor in the bus lane which would allow the normal lane to be on green until a bus arrives and it is let through (the obvious choice), it is on a fucking timer, where it indescriminately changes the normal lane to red and the bus lane to green, even if there's no traffic in the bus lane. How fucking STUPID is that? Well, very, you might agree, but BCC haven't seen it, as they've gone ahead and implemented it.

There is nothing more fucking annoying than sitting on Redcliffe Way at a red light, when the lights 50 yards in front of you are on green, but you can't go because the bus lane next to you is on green, and no fucker is using it.

Whilst we're in the area, the pedestrian crossing RIGHT after the Temple Gyratory roundabout (can be seen here on Google Maps). What the fuck is the point, where there is another pedestrian crossing a matter of yards down the road, outside Temple Meads station? The ONLY thing this pedestrian crossing does is stop traffic leaving the roundabout, causing more congestion.

There are countless other examples of this, and there's no way anybody could be qualified to do a job of traffic signals designer, and fuck it up that badly, unless they're deliberately trying to make it worse for drivers.

Go figure.

Here is an excellent comment from Bob de Bilde on the evening post article, which pretty much sums up the situation:

Previously, in Bristol as much as possible was done to slow down traffic and generate congestion - this was done to justify a CONgestion Charge.

Now that CONgestion Charges outside of London have proved to be political suicide - look at the Manchester and Edinburgh CONgestion Charge debacles - the authorities now realise that they will have to reverse their congestion causing measures.

Notice that we've not had a peep from the council, the West of England Partnership, the Government Office of the South West, or any of the other multitude of quangos that rule us about CONgestion Charging or an application to the Government's Transport Innovation Fund (TIF). The TIF would have released additional funds for transport to councils prepared to implement CONgestion Charging.

It's all gone very quiet about Charging since Labour were booted out. The Lib Dems want power and they know that if they tried to introduce CONgestion Charging in Bristol, they'd be booted out of the Council House faster than you can say 'Demand Management'.

Back in 2006 we were told that CONgestion Charging would be implemented around 2013, after massive improvement in public transport. Obviously, we've not had our massive improvement in public transport (quelle surprise!) and we're not going to get it anytime soon - therefore it's now politically impossible to implement a CONgestion Charge.

I'm looking forward to the congestion causing measures being withdrawn - starting with all those extraneous traffic lights, so that traffic, both private and public can start to flow again.

However, none of this addresses the important question of when we will get a decent - non-FirstBus-based- mass transit system.

It's as far away as ever - to Bristol's and the Government's eternal shame.

What's going on? EDIT: Answered

Apparently The Grauniad have been gagged from reporting parliament.

Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

Ye fucking Gods. Anyone know what's going on?

EDIT: Answered - just found this.

The latest example of greenwash

Here's yet another example of how companies are taking advantage of all the climate change alarmism, and believe me, this is only going to get worse.

Carrier bags.

Loads of shops now - Marks & Spencer, some Asda stores - fucking Halfords, I've noticed - are no longer giving out free plastic bags, due to the "environmental impact". What environmental impact? You can compress a carrier bag in your fist, it hardly takes up a lot of space. And what if I re-use that carrier bag for something else (which I frequently do, e.g. more shopping trips)? The "environmental impact" is so neglible it's not even worth devoting any precious time to thinking about it.

Let's be clear here - companies give about as much of a fuck about climate change as I do. Companies are charging for/refusing to give you a carrier bag

TO SAVE MONEY.

It has FUCK-ALL to do with the "enivronmental impact" (because there isn't really one). You might say that this is stating the bleeding obvious, which I'd agree, but look at where this could end up:

* Companies massively increasing delivery charges to cover the "cost of the carbon footprint". Like every other eco-charge, this would be an arbitrary amount pulled from their arse
* Supermarkets and other shops charging for parking (the ones that don't currently anyway) to cover the "environmental cost of you driving to the supermarket" (even though that's covered many times over by Fuel Duty if nothing else). Interestingly those people who condemn driving have never suggested how I get my shopping home from the supermarket - maybe I could float it home on a carpet of environmentalists hot air, or sail it home on a river of their bullshit?
* Supermarkets charging you more for non-recyclable packaging, but not providing goods without it so you're forced to pay

The list could go on and on and on. Their are countless fucking opportunities for companies to make extra money on the back of "climate change", and you're simply naiive if you think that in the future they won't grasp them with both hands - some are already doing so.

Fuck you, enviro-loons, for giving them this opportunity.

Brown "optimistic" over economy

Well, fuck me, that's a relief. I guess we can all stop worrying, right?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has painted an optimistic prediction for the economy, saying it was "simply not true" that tough times are ahead.

He really is clinically deluded, isn't he?

"We've said that the economy will grow by 1.5% next year and more people are moving towards our position," he said.

Who? Even the IMF predicts growth at 0.9% - and they're probably being overly optimistic to encourage growth so we don't go to them next year with a fucking begging bowl.

Just fuck off, Brown.