Sim-O

Chris Applegate on the Downfall/BNP mashup vid he created:

The video did get complaints. I got the odd bit of hate mail from BNP members, but all they could do was menacingly tell me: “You know where I live”.

Heh.
The rest of the post isn’t so funny, but it is quite inneresting. Go read.

Iain Dale:

The Comment threads on this blog have not quite descended to Guido-esque levels yet, but it seems to me that’s where they are heading […] In addition, the number of anonymous comments on some threads make it impossible to follow who is saying what. Indeed, sometimes, I wonder if some of the anonymous commenters aren’t in fact the same people, pretending to be different people.

Comment registration is now on, so at least if you disagree with Iain you’ll know which of his/his fanclubs’ alter egos is attacking you.

But remember…

Strong views and strong language are fine, but insults and intimidation are not.

Unless…

From D-Notice:

From Daily Kos, on the on-going fallout from the passing of the homophobic Mormon-supported and funded Proposition 8 in California:

As you know, Mormons have a practice of converting dead people from other religions into Mormons through a practice known as posthumous baptism. Ordinarily, this might just seem a silly act of disrespect towards the individual’s personal beliefs and convictions.

However, the Mormons have made an overt effort to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims. That is not merely silly and disrespectful, that is superfluously offensive. An agreement between Jews and Mormons limited the practice thirteen years ago. But the Mormons returned to the practice recently.

Well, then of course, many of us rightly took offense for the heavy Mormon influence during the Prop 8 vote in California. Well, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I am converting dead Mormons into homosexuals.

My first Conversion is Joseph Smith.

That’s a fantastic idea!

Via

The Police Regulations 2003:

1. A member of a police force shall at all times abstain from any activity which is likely to interfere with the impartial discharge of his duties or which is likely to give rise to the impression amongst members of the public that it may so interfere; and in particular a member of a police force shall not take any active part in politics.

There has been a lot of talk about the copper who is a member of the BNP and why it shouldn’t matter, that what is the difference between a policeman and a teacher being a member of the BNP.

The above excerpt gives the rules for the police with regard to politics, quite plainly.
The police service are not just going after the people on the BNP list (I am not calling it a members list as it is unclear as to whether it is actually members, contacts or what) because they may members of the BNP, but because they may be members of a political party. The fact that the party in question happens to be a repugnant fascist party is besides the point. I do think, however, if it were the one of the three main parties involved instead of the BNP then maybe the list scouring may not be so thorough.

But why should a teacher and not a policeman be allowed to be politically active? I don’t know, to be honest.

ISP Review:

BT has removed a significant number of major Phorm (BT WebWise) related topics from its customer focused beta discussion forum (bt beta forum), including some from as far back as February this year and one that was nearly 200 pages long.

The reason for removing the posts?

Our broadband support forums are designed to be a place where customers can discuss technical support issues and offer solutions. To ensure that the forums remain constructive we’re tightening up our moderation policies and will be deleting threads that don’t provide constructive support. For example, we have removed a number of forum discussions about BT Webwise.

If you do want to find out more about BT Webwise, we provide lots of information and the facility to contact us at www.bt.com/webwise.

So, the forum is only for technical support then. If you want information about Webwise, BT will happily provide all the propaganda information you could ever need.

The Reg:

A first thread on WebWise extended to almost 200 pages, before being closed in late September when BT’s third trial of the system began. It was still available to read however and a new thread was started by BT Beta moderators, which continued until yesterday. All record of either has now been removed.

Adam Liversage, BT’s chief press officer, told The Register: “The reason why we’ve done this is that the point of the forums is technical support and the WebWise threads weren’t appropriate.”

He said the fact that BT had chosen not only to close the threads but delete them entirely was insignificant. “It doesn’t matter either way because the people who are following this will have the threads backed up in multiple copies,” he said.

Not appropriate because people were say bad stuff and the poor little company was feeling a bit picked on, was it?
Can I have a show of hands of people that regularly keep multiple copies of forum threads. Ordinary people that is, not tech ninjas, because it’s ordinary people that would find this information most helpful.
And if keeping to technical support of BT product and services was so important then why do other areas extend beyond that criteria?

Forum: Online Security.
For help with BT’s online security products and everything else related to online security.”

Transparency? Reassuring? Open? Bollox is it. No wonder so many people are worried about it.

Update:
The title of the post is rubbish. It isn’t that the censoring starts. It has probably just got less subtle.
One of the distinguishing features of this blog is my inability to come up with appropriate or imaginative titles for the posts’, dontchyaknow.

I saw the headline “Police want to ban motorcycles” on the front page of the MCN this morning.
I can’t remember the exact wording of the subheader, but it made me think that a copper had called for the banning of minimoto bikes. I was going to write a little post about minimotos already being illegal unless on private property with permission and the MCN exaggerating its’ arse off like it’s the Sun but then I did a little googling this is what I found…

The Telegraph:

Ban motorcycles, safety expert says

Motorbikes should be banned as part of a plan to eliminate road deaths, a safety expert has claimed.

The goal of stopping deaths on the roads has been set by a number of countries including Norway, Australia and Sweden, where the programme has been called “Vision Zero”.

But Norwegian safety expert Rune Elvik said for it to happen, policy makers should consider the radical step of banning motorbikes.

He’s not much of an expert, if he thinks that banning motorcycles will stop road deaths. He forgot about pedal cycles, horses, pedestrains, cars it’s even been known for aeroplanes to land on roads in emergencies. Should those be banned as well? That would have the added bonus of radically reducing fatalities in aircraft crashes too.

And also this from the MCN:

Is three-time convicted speeder behind ban motorcycles proposal?

A proposal from the Association of Chief Police Officers to ban motorcycles was written under the direction of a three-time convicted speeder, MCN can reveal.

Meredydd Hughes, who was last year banned from driving for his latest offence, has “overall” responsibility for the department that produced the memo, the association confirmed.

A spokesman said the South Yorkshire chief constable was “head of business area for uniformed operations including road policing”.

Hughes publicly stepped down as ‘head of road policing, business area’ after receiving a 42-day ban for reaching 90mph in a 60mph zone. The revelation he is still performing the same role suggests this was nothing more than a smoke-and-mirrors face-saving exercise.

Also:

ACPO had made an official policy recommendation to MPs in the influential Commons Transport Committee stating: ‘Production machines are readily available for use on our roads with top speeds in excess of 200mph. Motorcycles are seen in the UK to be, in the majority of instances, vehicles of choice rather than necessity and one might consider if our congested roads are any longer fit for purpose for these motorised toys.’

ACPO has since tried to play down its proposal. The association issued a statement claiming it was not seeking to ban motorcycles but adding: ‘Alongside a range of other road safety bodies in the UK and Europe, ACPO believes it may be appropriate in future to consider restriction on high-powered machines with extraordinarily high top speed capabilities.’

It claimed the proposal had ‘referred to consideration of restrictions on the use of off-road motorcycles’ – even though the memo had specifically asked whether high-powered bikes belonged on roads.

So, a form of transport that uses more efficient engines than cars or buses, takes up less space on the roads that any other vehicle and does less damage to the road itself is seen as a toy, just because some of them can reach over 200mph.
Actually for some years now there as been a gentlemans agreement between the manufacturers to limit the bikes to 185mph, as this is exactly the sort of thing they want to avoid.
But then for ACPO, to go back on what its’ said and statet hat it applies to off road bikes, is just astounding.
If they are off road, then as long as the user has permission from the land owner, it is nobodies business.

I’ll leave the last word to someone in the Readers News section of the MCN:

Just recently hundreds of hedonistic persons went joy walking across the lake district. They were people acting selfishly, without a thought for other persons that would have to pay for rescue services to help them out when their irresponsible activities caused them to get into great difficulties.

Is it not time ACPO suggested that persons wishing to access the fells held a full mountaineers licence and only used approved low level routes. Furthermore that any person rambling in an inconsiderate manner should be subject to stop checks to ensure hat they were in full possesion of all safety gear.

Also we need to look at women on horseback. Horses are the single greatest cause of death in young females. That horses can be used unlicensed on a highway is ridiculous. Furthermore are horses tested for their fitness to be on a road, a spooked horse careering down the road is dangerous to all not just the rider.

Then we have sports car drivers, these irresponsible persons drive machines weighing hundreds of kilograms which can travel at speeds, in some cases, at over 200 mph. ACPO surely should be looking to have such cars fitted with speed limiters that are connected to sat-nav to ensure that they always comply with the speed limit. However, it is a fact that a minority interest with a high percentage of working class and young males is a much easier target.

Oh and these people can just fuck right off, too.

The Guardian:

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama’s advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton’s foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

Pour 10 tons of concrete down a hole for three days. Wait a month and then start digging…

Via

If you came across this list of BNP activists, what would you do?

It would be bloody tempting to publish it, reveal the bastards to the world. Let the everyone see who is a fascist git.
But, someone is bound to take it too far and not stop at ostracisation and start with the physical stuff.

And that someone is bound to be a dim twat that gets the wrong person.

Update:
Matt Wardman:

Implications for the Database State

The BNP has strong encryption systems in place, as noted months ago by the Spy Blog. This membership list leaked due to human failure (betrayal – we are told).

Is that not another nail in the coffin of allegedly secure national databases by demonstrating a different failure mode for a database that *is* “secure”? The only answer is to keep as many of them as possible small to minimise the scale of the statistically inevitable failures, and hence increase the resilience of the system.

A Prototype for Attitudes to the Sexual Offenders Register?

Is this a good analog for what will happen when names from the Sex Offenders Register are parcelled out on demand as proposed in future – a widely reviled group published on a potentially unreliable database?