Prodnoses

The campaign to outlaw alcohol appears to be gathering pace, rather than deal with irresponsible drinkers using existing laws, successive governments have taken to increasing the duty on alcohol (leading to smuggling and fake products) and talking about minimum pricing. They've used various fake charities and medical groups to support their methodology until we've reached the situation today where anything unusual involving alcohol immediately draws a response from so called do-gooders.
Express.

A LANCASHIRE school has been slammed for commissioning and selling a beer for two extra-curricular events as part of its centenary celebrations.
The Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School (BRGS) commissioned the special scholastic-themed brew to sell at a fireworks celebration and alumni reunion marking 100 years of the institute's history.
But a concerned resident lodged a complaint to the Portman Group, Britain's independent body in charge of promoting responsible drinking regulations.

No, they weren't selling it to pupils, but had aimed it at real ale enthusiasts who it was hoped would buy the bottles during school events. Instead some bigoted prodnose decided to complain that the school crest which was on the bottle was sending out 'the wrong message' they didn't complain or take it up with the school but complained to the Portman Group who then attacked the school for doing so...
Fortunately the school headmaster has taken the correct attitude...

"One unnecessary complaint - under a code which is not legally enforceable - will not be allowed to undermine the success of the year."

In other words he's telling the busybodies of the Portman Group where to get off, which is a good thing, though I suspect the Portman Group is just another fake charity using public funding from the government to tell the government what it wants to hear so they won't go quietly into the night. Expect more of these sort of stories as social engineering goes on apace with more and more attempts to get us to be good little drones.

Always someone else's fault

There's a stupid game out there which involves necking down a strong drink in one gulp whilst on webcam on a dare from friends. It's called Neknominate and as with over indulgence with a lot of things can lead to problems for those doing it, sometimes lethal ones...
Mail.

The mother of one of the girls involved in a drinking game that left a nine-year-old in hospital has blamed Facebook for the shocking incident.
She said the three girls, aged eight, nine and 11, stole drinks from her cabinet after watching videos of so-called Neknominate stunts on Facebook.
They then went to a shed where Rhiannon Scully downed a dangerous mix of vodka, whisky and orange juice.
The woman, who is the mother of the 11-year-old girl and gave her name only as Mrs Leader, called for Facebook to ban videos of Neknominations. Three people have died taking part in the drinking craze.
‘The NekNomination videos should be banned to protect the children,' she said.
‘It is not appropriate for Facebook to have these videos on the site when children can access them, especially if people have died as a result. I think it is ridiculous.
‘In reality children as young as eight are on Facebook and they can see these videos which inspire them. Facebook should stop allowing them from being shared. As a parent it does worry us that they can see these things so easily.
‘While I try and monitor my daughter’s Facebook I can only delete things my daughter writes, not what she sees.’
She said she allowed her daughter on Facebook, where users should be at least 13, to keep in touch with friends after moving to County Durham from Portsmouth.

So the woman allowed her daughter to use facebook despite being 11 and the girl egged on a friend who was 9 and also using facebook and this is facebook's fault somehow? From what I can tell the girls were also unsupervised at the time too and clearly had free access to the internet at the time. You'd think anyone with even a modicum of sense could spot that this was a disaster waiting to happen? Granted there will be youngsters about on facebook, but you'd hope at least that a responsible parent would only allow them access when they are in the same room?
Naturally there are calls for facebook to do something about it, deal with a problem for those who shouldn't be on facebook in the first place.
Naturally there are no calls to actually deal with the parents who allowed the situation to develop in the first place...

Easier to ban children

There is a bit of a political furore over a plan to ban people from smoking in cars with children in them.The problem with this sort of law, like the speeding laws, the mobile phone ban, even the seatbelt laws is that they are basically unenforceable. People will often ignore laws that they do not think are relevant, useful or fair quite routinely, yes a few get caught, but that doesn't stop the basic ignoring of laws that bansturbators have put up no matter how hard they try to promote them.
Mail.

Two more Cabinet ministers have raised doubts about plans to ban smoking in cars carrying children.
MailOnline has learned Business Secretary Vince Cable is to vote against the new laws while Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is understood to have concerns about how the ban would be enforced.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says there is a compelling case for outlawing smoking when youngsters are in a vehicle ahead of a planned free vote, but he faces growing opposition from senior Tory and Lib Dem ministers.

One of the things taught in military schools and pounded into officers both commissioned and non-commissioned  is that you never give an order you know will be disobeyed. It's something that do gooders and government ministers ought to take on board when planning intrusive legislation. Even the case made about fumes in cars seems a little exaggerated due to most modern cars having air-con and filtration in their venting systems, indeed diesel fumes are a far higher risk of cancers than cigarette smoke.
What will happen if this law is passed will be the usual mass disobedience by those who simply don't give a damn what the government want and will take a chance (a pretty good one) on not getting caught.
It would actually be easier for the state to ban children from cars than enforce this law but as with a lot of things, this is probably only the thin edge of the wedge and if it becomes legislation then it will no doubt be expanded to homes, fizzy drinks, fatty foods and whatever the cause de jour of the do gooding bansturbators are fretting about this week.
Oh I'm sure there are some out there perfectly prepared to rat out friends, family and strangers due to their own inbuilt intolerance, but I bet you that this ban will be mostly ineffective as there won't be enough people around to actually enforce it and speed cameras will not work with this one...

Not allowed to make our minds up...

There are those out there who are determined to censor what we can hear, say or do, they range from the petty bureaucrat who misleads people over reports to the Prime Minister who approves various laws to infringe freedoms. However the biggest culprits and hypocrites are those of the left who are quite happy to have muslim hate preachers come into the country without a murmur but will stir up a lot of wrath and hot air if a speaker comes whom they do not approve of. They call it hate speech when denouncing them, though most of the hate appears to come from the left.
Express.

MORE than 12,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Government to ban this weekend's planned UK visit by a prominent far-right Hungarian politician.
Gábor Vona, is leader of the Jobbik Party - Hungary's third largest political party which has been accused of promoting anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic views.
He is due to arrive in the UK on Sunday to encourage Hungarians living in Britain to support nationalist parties such as Nick Griffin's British National Party (BNP).
A petition calling for him to be excluded will be presented to Home Secretary Theresa May this afternoon by anti-fascist group Hope not Hate.

Now whilst I agree Jobbik are not nice people and are basically the inheritors of the Nazi mantle in Hungary, I believe banning them or attempting to ban them usually ends up giving them more in the way of publicity than perhaps they warrant.
Hope not Hate of course have form in trying to get those whom they see on the 'right' (whether they are or not) banned, although they take a far softer approach on islamic hate speakers in mosques. They managed to get Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller banned, they've attempted to silence the EDL and were instrumental in assisting in the banning of Geert Wilders. Essentially they only target their own limited blinkered view of a hate speaker, one that ticks all the right boxes of the left, rather than dealing with hate speech as a whole.
However my view is that these people should be open to be heard and if necessary criticised. You can't do that if you silence them and it only makes them look good and you petty. However the leftards are very heavily into the 'no platform' style of debate where they will attempt to ban or violently silence debate which goes against their corrupt useless dogma, after all if you don't know the alternatives, you can't adopt them.
The one problem the left have with freedom of speech is that they only want people to have the freedom to hear what they have to say, no one else.

It's for your own good

'It's for your own good' the cry of the bansturbator, along with the perennial 'Think of the children' memes which haunt the places of influence that these odious people frequent in order to force us to abide by their decisions. Essentially they treat us like children with blanket bans rather than tackling the real problems...
Telegraph.

Betting machines in book makers which let punters bet hundreds of pounds every minute are to be banned if Labour wins the next election.
Ed Miliband said he would pass a new law giving councils the power to ban so-called Fixed Odds Betting Terminals if he is Prime Minister after 2015.
The Labour leader said the terminals, which allow punters to bet £300 a minute or £18,000 an hour, were turning bookies into “mini casinos”.
Mr Miliband said the machines were being targeted in poorer areas, which people could ill-afford heavy losses on the machines.

I'm sure there are problems with gamblers not knowing when to stop, it's the same with any pastime or enjoyment, we see it with people who like a drink and get violent, sports fans, union activists, politicians etc. Some people just don't know when to stop.
The problems start when idiots like the current leftards in the Labour party or the self righteous Daily Mailer's of the Tories decide that 'something must be done' and their solution is not to apply specific solutions to a problem but always to opt for the blanket ban. So they penalise the person who spends a little time playing a slot machine and not a fortune to save us all from those who do. In a similar manner they ban ordinary folks from having a drink outside a pub in the summer rather than go after those causing a problem. They'll hike the price of alcohol through the roof and penalise all rather than simply use existing laws to round up drunken troublemakers. They then panic when counterfeit (cheap) booze suddenly comes onto the market because the real stuff is too expensive. They banned smoking in pubs and hid the results of a survey which told the world passive smoking actually does not increase your chances of getting cancer.
Bansturbation or taxation is all these people know and use the foolish to force their views on everyone else and it's all about power and control to those trying to treat adults like children with their 'we know best' attitudes which more often than not have unforeseen consequences which shows that they definitely don't know best.
The list of people we're going to have to hang in order to bring sanity back to this country grows ever longer.

Bansturbation

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason, why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Bonfire night as it's sometimes known as, a celebration in the UK of a plot foiled to destroy our Parliament and possibly herald in a different regime more friendly to Catholicism. Or in my eyes a reminder to Parliament that next time they might not be so lucky.
Still, as ever there's someone out there who wants to ban it, but not for the usual 'fireworks are dangerous' meme that comes around at this time of year.
No, they want it banned because it's anti-Catholic.
Express.

BONFIRE Night should have been stopped years ago ­because of its anti-Catholic overtones, campaigners say.
Burning an effigy of the Pope at Lewes, East Sussex, is especially offensive, they insist, and setting fire to a likeness of Guy Fawkes is just outdated.Bonfire Night commemorates the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605, when ­Catholic rebels tried to blow up Parliament and kill the Scottish Protestant king James I.
They were caught, tortured and put to death, but Fawkes ­declared: “Our intention was to blow back the beggarly Scots to their native mountains.”
Now Edinburgh Secular Society chairman Gary McLelland wants to purge Bonfire Night of sectarian links. He said: “I think we should have stopped years ago. Bonfire Night should become a purely secular event.”

Well, I have news for Mr McLelland, bonfire night is pretty much a secular event as even Catholics take part in it and thoroughly enjoy setting off fireworks like the rest of us.
Again though this is simply just another case of someone (or society) with an agenda looking to generate headlines at a particular time of the year. The various Secular Societies are not particularly nice people in that they believe that those who are religious should be treat differently from the rest of society, not just the dangerous religions though, all religions. It is these killjoys who would ban Christmas and Easter,  something even Cromwell tried and failed at. Naturally though the Secular Societies usually pick on religions they know will shrug and get on with things, you rarely hear of them having a go at islam for instance which shows that self preservation rather than actual commitment is at the source of their litany of complaints.
As it is, Edinburgh Secular Society chairman Gary McLelland has his fifteen minutes of fame and the rest of us know what a tosser he actually is.
There is nothing religious about Bonfire Night any more, hasn't been for several generations. I know that, you know that, the Roman Catholic Church knows that.
Shame Gary McLelland doesn't appear to know it...

Bollocks

As in talking bollocks.
Apparently the people who can't mind their own business when it comes to what we do with our bodies have told the government that a 20% tax hike on certain soft drinks might make some people less fat.
Mail.

Slapping a 20 per cent tax on soft drinks would cut the number of fat Britons by more than a quarter of a million, claim experts.
Researchers say a price hike would drive down sales of the sugary beverages and therefore benefit the nation’s health.
A new study claims a 20 per cent tax on sugar-sweetened drinks would reduce the number of adults who are obese or overweight by 285,000.

In other words preparing the grounds for the government to raise revenue, the evidence is out there that raising taxes simply doesn't work and people will either carry on the same or find something else that they enjoy drinking/eating. It didn't work with cigarettes, it didn't work with alcohol and it won't work with fizzy drinks, it's simply an excuse to raise revenue. Indeed there's a direct correlation on the price of something going too high and people switching to illegal and untested substances when cigarettes became expensive. It even drove people into the hands of criminal gangs and I rather expect the man in a van who sells cheap ciggies and booze from France will add another sideline to his trade.
No, in this case as with most other cases involving the government raiding our pockets, the experts involved will simply be telling the government what they want to hear.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Discrimination

Discrimination is everywhere, it's essentially what people do. However when it comes to what the state offers, then discrimination is a problem as smokers are now finding out.
Mail.

Patients are being denied minor treatments because they smoke, The Mail on Sunday has found.
In one case a healthy middle-aged man was told he could not have a ten-minute operation to cut a small benign growth off the side of his head, because of his habit.
Paul Merrett thought it would be no problem to get the inch-long fatty lump, called a lipoma, removed.
But when he attended King George Surgery in Stevenage, his GP said he could not have the minor operation – which doctors often do under local anaesthetic in their own consulting rooms.
Mr Merrett, 46, said: ‘I was told, in no uncertain terms, that unless I gave up smoking or signed up to a quitting clinic they would refuse to treat me. I was gobsmacked.’
He claims the doctor told him: ‘These directions are not mine. It’s not me refusing this treatment, it’s the NHS trust.’
Mr Merrett, who smokes ten roll-ups a day, said: ‘It makes me livid. I can count how many times I have needed to rely on the NHS in the past ten years on one hand. I pay into the system and it’s my right to be able to use it when I need it.’

Now I don't smoke, never have, though it's never bothered me in the way that some people get het up  about it, there are far worse things out there than smoking after all. Still, if you pay into the NHS via your National Insurance ponzi scheme then you'd expect the same benefits to be available to all, not on a selective basis. That's not how the righteous see things of course, they only want healthy people to have access to the NHS... healthy meaning that no one is using it at all. They want lists and exclusions that fit their own particular prejudices and if they get away with one thing, then you can be damned sure that these lists will be expanded, you can see it in their current pogroms against smokers, drinkers, the obese (by their standards not the actual one) those who eat too much sugar, high in cholesterol, high blood pressure etc.
Not that they aren't prepared to take your money, just prevent you from using it as it was intended, rather like an insurance claim being rejected due to some small clause that you hadn't noticed, with the added insult to injury of not being able to opt out.
Mr Merrett is probably the first of many, he managed to get it overturned, but sooner or later it will be the norm and then they'll move to other targets until only the healthy have access to the NHS, basically those who don't need it...

A dangerous measure

At the moment it's only in the 'could' stage, but the EU are threatening to make driving extremely dangerous for the UK.
Telegraph.

All cars could be fitted with devices that stop them going over 70mph, under new EU road safety measures which aim to cut deaths from road accidents by a third.
Under the proposals new cars would be fitted with cameras that could read road speed limit signs and automatically apply the brakes when this is exceeded. Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, is said to be opposed to the plans, which could also mean existing cars are sent to garages to be fitted with the speed limiters, preventing them from going over 70mph. The new measures have been announced by the European Commission’s Mobility and Transport Department as a measure to reduce the 30,000 people who die on the roads in Europe every year.

One of the biggest dangers facing drivers who have speed limiters on their cars is that at the top speed, they cannot accelerate out of danger. There are often times when braking or remaining at the same speed will cause an accident, particularly if you're being tailgated (which still happens new law or not) Sometimes the only solution is to accelerate out of the way and get past the problem. Sure it's not all the time, but having driven a van owned by the company I work for which has a speed limiter set to 68mph I swiftly discovered that the extra burst of speed necessary to get out of the way of a problem was only available if I reduced speed to 60mph and played with the big boys (lorry drivers) and so made a nuisance of myself on the M25 by constantly weaving around trucks by accelerating and decelerating rather than deal with the nuisances in one fell swoop. Now imagine a situation where everyone was doing that on England's crowded roads where road deaths are at an all time low anyway? Indeed UK drivers are rated as the third best in Europe, after Germany (which has no speed limits on the autobahns) and Sweden, which has far fewer cars on the road.
Perhaps the EU would be better off bringing their drivers up to our standards before imposing a dangerous measure on us first.
This is however the EU we're speaking about which means that control, rather than compliance is the rule...

My God a Tory gets it...

About legalities and lecturing hectoring the public about something that is no concern of the government whatsoever because it's 'legal' and remains for the moment a part of freedom of choice.
Unfortunately it's about porn, not taxation, alcohol, ciggies, health...
Telegraph.

Tories should not lecture adults about their "private enjoyment of legal pornography", one of David Cameron's ministers has suggested.
Nick Boles, a Tory planning minister, intervened in the debate about pornography in the wake of the Prime Minister's crusade against children accessing sexual images online. The senior Conservative MP strongly backed Mr Cameron's crackdown, saying the Government needs to help parents who seek to stop their children being exposed to "appalling risks and horrors" online. However, he suggested Tories should not go so far as to sound disapproving about legal pornography for adults. "As a Conservative, my starting point is that people should be free to live their lives as they choose," he said. "And I am not going to start lecturing consenting adults about their private enjoyment of legal pornography."

I don't know why politicians seem to feel they have a mandate to lecture those of us who simply wish to be left alone to enjoy our legal pastimes without having it taxed or made difficult to accomplish without jumping through some cretins hoops to obtain. I'm 54, I get asked by spotty teens in shops if I have proof I'm over 25 occasionally, because it's the 'rules' innit. It's usually the last time I visit said shop, anyone under 25 looking like me has had a hell of a hard life and would have my pity.
Yet not a day goes by without some sort of soundbite from a politician telling us what we should be doing, ban this, ban that, regulate this, regulate that. It's removing step by step personal liberty and personal choice. The fact that they are lecturing the wrong people never seems to occur to them either, they always opt for collective guilt/responsibility rather than target those who do abuse the pastime. Want to deal with drunks? Make it expensive for everyone to buy drinks. Want to prevent child abuse? Ban the internet rather than target pervs.
Whatever fixes politicians come up with it's always a blanket one and it always removes rights rather than enhances them.
Yet people still vote for the bastards...

His masters voice...

Another day another U turn by the government. First it was plain packaging for cigarettes, now it's minimum alcohol pricing (Though only in England and Wales as the Scots have their own puritans to put up with) I'm sure there will be a lot of talk about why the measure was dropped, but the real reason is that Cameron's masters said no.
BBC.

The government has shelved plans to introduce a minimum price for a unit of alcohol in England and Wales.
Minister Jeremy Browne said the policy would remain "under consideration" but there were fears the change would hit responsible drinkers.
A ban on multi-buy promotions has been rejected but sales will not be allowed below the cost of alcohol duty and VAT.
Labour said the government had done a U-turn on a flagship policy that both the PM and home secretary had backed.
Mr Browne said problem drinking turned towns and cities into effective "no-go areas" for many people, was seen as instrumental in many violent attacks and cost the taxpayer £21bn a year in crime and health issues.

Usual bollocks by Labour, the real reason most people drink and get into bother is the fact that politicians have made us so bloody miserable. There are laws to deal with drunks and drunken behaviour, might make a change to actually apply them rather than dance around the edges.
Anyhoo... The real reason Cameron dropped the measure is that what was proposed was against EU laws and we all know despite what he says, Cameron is in love with the stinking corrupt edifice. So having been unable to find a way around EU law, he was forced to drop the measure. Not that I'd expect you to read that in the MSM but as far as I can tell that's the real reason.
That the measure was manifestly unfair to responsible drinkers made not one jot of difference to the control freaks who infest parliament and if you read the full article you can read the dribble they come out with though it is nausea inducing.
Interfering with freedom of choice is always a risky business for any organisation, unfortunately, politicians cannot seem to learn this lesson and find more and more ways to interfere.
Then they wonder why they lose power...

Freedom of speech?

Now just who would you say deserved a ban from entering the UK, a Saudi Imam who has anti-Semitic and anti-Shia muslim views plus a very different view of domestic violence in that he argues that a man "may use beatings to discipline his wife", but he says, "he must beat her lightly".
Or would you say that someone who uses verses from the quran to justify their opposition to islam should be banned instead as their presence in the UK would not be conducive to the public good?
Well you probably guessed it, if you oppose islam, you don't get in very easily if at all.
Yahoo News.

Two US anti-Muslim activists who hoped to join an EDL march in Woolwich have been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has confirmed.
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who set up Stop Islamization of America and run the website Jihad Watch, have been forbidden from entering the country on the grounds that their presence would "not be conducive to the public good".
The far-right EDL is planning a march to mark Armed Forces Day on June 29, ending in Woolwich, south east London, where soldier Drummer Lee Rigby was killed in May.
Ms Geller and Mr Spencer were both set to attend.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We can confirm that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are subject to an exclusion decision.
"The Home Secretary will seek to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good.
"We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form."

This is the same Home Office who had no problems allowing in a Hate Preacher Muhhamed al Arefe who was banned by Switzerland from entering their country because of his extremis views.
There's the usual MSM caveats about the EDL being a 'far right' organisation despite it being no such thing as it's a code word for 'racist' and appears these days that 'far right' simply means anything the left, MSM or politicians do not like.
Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz (muslim leftist Labour) welcomed the decision to keep two people who have never called for violence against anyone out of the UK. But has yet to comment on Muhhamed al Arefe in any shape or form.
Can't you just smell the whiff of hypocrisy in the air at the Home Office.

Bansturbation

No, not about the attempt by politicians and the higher ranks of the armed forces to try and prevent its members from being part of the EDL. Though if it were me I'd be more worried about serving members who are muslims...
No, this is about the lunacy of Alcohol Concern a fake charity funded by the taxpayer via the government to try and stop advertising of alcohol at sporting venues and cinema's showing films which aren't 18 rated.
Sky News.

A charity has called for a complete ban on alcohol advertising at music and sports events.
Alcohol Concern wants the action to protect children and young people from what it describes as "excessive" exposure.
The drinks industry disagrees however, and says the advertising of alcohol is already heavily regulated.
Alcohol Concern claims the current regulatory system is failing young people, citing high levels of alcohol brand recognition and "numerous" examples of inappropriate advertising.
It is recommending new rules that restrict adverts to referring only to the characteristics of the product, such as strength, origin, composition and means of production.
The charity wants a ban on alcohol advertising in the trailers of films shown in cinemas with less than an 18 certificate.

For the cheeldren? Tick.
For our own good? Tick
Because they know best? Tick.
Because they are meddlesome prodnoses given power way beyond sanity? Tick.

Yep, they've managed to tick all the right boxes to make themselves look important and tell the world that their reality is in a totally different place to the rest of us.
Why won't these wankers just leave us alone?
Oops yes, gave the answer myself in the second paragraph, they have to justify their existence by hectoring us because the government uses our taxes to pay them to do so...
This is one of the results of voting for a mainstream party, they use our taxation in ways to suit themselves, not anyone else so indulge in social engineering to make us pliable to their wishes.
That's why I recommend that if you do vote, you don't vote for the Lib/Lab/Con it only encourages the bastards to set up organisations like this.

Must!

Two articles caught my eye today, both in the Daily Mail along with the usual hysterical headlines and justification for yet another government intrusion into our lives.
Both are calling for the banning of something and demand legislation from the government to 'do something' rather than accept that people ought to run their own lives to suit themselves...
Mail 1.

Hate preachers will be banned from British television, Theresa May signalled last night.
The Home Secretary condemned the BBC and other broadcasters for interviewing ‘disgusting’ extremist cleric Anjem Choudary after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.
A Mail probe revealed that hundreds of videos encouraging extremism can be found on YouTube using Google searches, and Mrs May threatened internet giants with legislation unless they removed them; 

Anyone remember the Gerry Adams fiasco when instead of his words on the screen, an actor read them out instead?
 Mail 2.

Charities have demanded urgent action to prevent access to illegal and ‘disgusting’ child pornography via Google and other web browsers.
A coalition of organisations is arguing for the introduction of blocking software and on-screen warnings to deny internet users access to the material.
The group includes the NSPCC, Barnado’s, Action for Children, BAAF, Beat Bullying, Children England, Children’s Society, ECPAT UK, Kidscape, and Stop It Now.

Ah yes, the infamous 'for the cheeldren' meme in action.
Now despite the claims of these charities, the vast majority of people who look at porn do not turn into child molesting perverts. Nor do I suspect that Google could prevent people from accessing child porn via other means, it's only one search engine amongst countless others (if the most famous) and I'm pretty sure that the real perverts out there have their own network and don't use any sort of mainstream search engines, well the smart ones anyway.
Yet both articles are calling for the same thing, that people should be banned/prevented from making their own minds up and sorting out their own lives, whilst forgetting that there's already legislation in place to deal with such things anyway, it's just that law enforcement for one reason or another fail to use it. In the case of hate preachers it's fear of accusations of racism, with child porn it's because the real problem is the authorities themselves appear to be up to their necks in it. Just check out John Ward in the Slog if you have any doubts on this.
Don't get me wrong, I believe hate preachers and child molesters should be strung up by the gonads until they drop off pour encourager les autres, but I do not like government or anyone else telling me or preventing me from viewing what I want for my own good, mostly because once they start, they never seem to stop.
The legislation is already in place, the government do not need encouraging to take more of our freedoms away.

Just common sense really

There's been a poll (yes another one) in which the public were asked about press regulation (how come no one ever asks me?) the answer was pretty unsurprising, well unsurprising to me and probably you.
Mail. (The Ukip smear press)

A clear majority of the public wants politicians kept out of a new system of Press regulation, a poll suggests.
It showed that only 16 per cent believe that MPs and peers should have the power to change the terms of a Royal Charter enshrining a new watchdog that will have the power to issue £1million fines and require prominent corrections.
Sixty-seven per cent – a huge margin – said the new system should be set up in a way that does not give politicians the final say, the basis of an industry proposal put forward to rival a cross-party plan.
The Royal Charter agreed by politicians in a late-night deal in Ed Miliband’s office would allow changes to be made in future only if two-thirds of both Houses of Parliament agree.
The public also believes that there should be a public consultation on proposals to establish a new system, something the Government has refused.
Only 12 per cent agree that the public should be denied a say, while 76 per cent believe ‘the Royal Charter should be subject to consultation’.
Voters also agreed by a large margin – 64 per cent to 36 per cent – that they were proud that the UK is currently regarded around the world as a model of Press freedom.

It's not that the public don't want to see some form of regulation, probably based on self regulation. It's that once again the public are announcing to the world that they simply do not trust politicians to have any say in regulation, based mostly on the suspicion that sooner or later politicians would try to hide behind some form of press regulation by adding amendments to any regulatory body laws.
After all, MP's have form on trying to use the law and legislation to hide their misdeeds, it's doubtful we'd hear anything about their arrant gross thievery if they did have a say on whether or not the charter could or should be changed.
So, the people are saying that politicians are simply not to be trusted with regulating the press. Hard to argue really, it kind of fits my view too. Though unlike most people I wouldn't want to see any press regulation. We actually have laws which could (and should) have been used in those cases which came up in certain pressure groups demands to regulate the press. Phone hacking is a crime, prosecutions could and should have been made without a lobbying circus demanding regulation for something which was a crime anyway.
Still, at least the majority agree with me about the need to keep politicians away from any levers of power...

The bansturbationists...

What is it with people who seek always to prevent others from making informed choices in their actions by seeking legislation to ban everything they do not like?
BBC.

Advertising aimed at children of primary school age and younger should be banned, a group of authors, journalists and academics has said.
The group supports a new campaign called Leave our kids alone which says techniques aimed at manipulating adult emotions and desires are being used on children as young as two in the UK.
Campaign co-founder Jonathan Kent says the adverts are like "kiddie crack".
But the advertising watchdog says rules on advertising to children are strict.

Do these people not realise there is an off button (or standby button on the remote) and that parents really should not be allowing the tv to be the oblong babysitter? Oh yes I'm sure some advertisers believe that they can persuade kids to badger their parents into giving them what they want. However that's a reflection on the parents, not the advertisers or kids. Parents after all have the right to say 'no' no matter how hard their kids throw a wobbler at them. That some parents can't is probably a reflection on the infantilism that successive governments have made of our populace, certainly the pressure group is a reflection of a lobbying campaign that seems to be in danger of giving the government a new set of powers, something which will later come back to bite the buggers on the arse no doubt when the legislation suffers from some politician using it in a way that the group never envisaged, it's known as mission creep. After all, those in favour of RIPA never envisaged it being used to track down people suspected of school catchment fraud.
'Leave our kids alone' will hopefully drop the issue eventually, I do hope so as there's a real danger that they'll get what they asked for in the worst possible way...

I`ll sthrceam and sthrceam till I`m thsick and I can too!

As intoned Violet Elizabeth Bott in the Just William novels when she couldn't get her own way. As do the so called health campaigners (aka killjoys) who believe that the UK government should ignore EU rules and voter preference on minimum alcohol pricing.
BBC.

Health campaigners have reacted angrily to reports that plans for minimum pricing of alcohol in England and Wales may be dropped.
Splits within the Conservatives have also emerged, with ministers who are said to no longer back the plans accused of "political manoeuvring".
The government had planned to introduce a 45p charge per unit, but this is said to be facing strong cabinet opposition.
The Home Office said it was considering responses to its 10-week consultation.

Political reality getting in the way of those who believe we should do as we are told and shut up in the process of being reamed.

Labour said dropping the plans would be a "humiliating climbdown" and accused the government of "weak leadership".

Because Labour have never met a repressive intrusive measure they didn't like.
If it is dropped it's good news for the majority of us who do drink responsibly and don't cause problems. It's also a poke in the eye for the authoritarian bansturbationists who believe that what they believe is good for us needs to be enforced by law and cost. These generally are the people who can easily afford to pay the extra, rather than those who can't but enjoy an occasional drink anyway to take their minds off what the health campaigners are up too now.
Most of us just want to be left alone, we don't like being badgered and hectored by people who don't live as we do and don't have to put up with the shit we have too. We don't like the government interfering in our lives and if pushed too far will vote them out for anyone who will reverse the change. We are also very aware that the government funds a lot of these so called  health campaigners from public funds to tell the government what they want to hear so they can tax us on it. Same process goes on with the environmental lobby too.
They keep pushing and pushing then wonder why people become divorced from the political process, sooner or later they'll keep pushing and we'll push back, though I don't think we've reached that stage yet. I don't think it will be drink either, more likely immigration.
Politicians would be much more popular if they learned the art of doing nothing and leaving us the hell alone.

The most overused word in the bansturbators lexicon

And that word is 'could' it's frequently used in odd statistics to try and justify something being done which cannot be proven to be true under any circumstances.
Express.

25,000 lives could be saved if we cut salt
REDUCING the amount of salt we eat could save 25,000 lives a year, health experts said last night.
Deaths from heart disease and strokes would dramatically fall if shoppers checked the ingredients of everyday foods like bread and cereals.
Doctors blame the high levels of salt-laden processed foods we eat for pushing up blood pressure levels, raising the risk of heart disease.
They say most Britons have no idea how much salt they consume, or what the guideline amounts are.

These are pretty much the same group of people who came up with the alcohol unit recommendation, by plucking figures out of thin air remember?
Salt is necessary, the amount of salt in our blood equals that of seawater and this is no coincidence as evolution should you believe it infers that we descended from marine life, it's pretty much the same for all mammals, too much, you might die eventually, too little and you die quicker. Reducing your salt intake to zero as some idiots will try will actually kill you. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (May 4, 2011), reported that among 3,681 study subjects followed for as long as 23 years, the cardiovascular death rate was more than 50 percent higher among those on who consumed less salt. So using an actual scientific test for comparison it appears that doctors and the government in the UK are recommending a course of action that will actually kill us quicker than hypertension which might (just might) be exacerbated by salt but which salt doesn't actually cause. (Stress and misery are far more likely along with a genetic tendency to hypertension)
I have high blood pressure, my doctor and her nurse continually check it and recommend ever higher doses of something which might bring it down (no luck yet) Yet I feel perfectly healthy if a little old these days and when checking my diet they found I'm actually eating far healthier than they apparently do.
So junk science is being used with the word 'could' to try and justify ever greater intrusions into our lives by legislation which the cost of which will be passed onto us.
Perhaps when reading the word 'could' we should substitute 'probably will not' instead...

Moronic

I have a friend who buys wine because she likes the look of the label, not because it's any good (sometimes it is) or because someone recommended it, she occasionally goes off the bottle shape too. Other people will choose a product for many different reasons, not all of them having to make much sense, it's simply a method of choosing. In the same manner that trying to hide cigarettes or put them into plain packs won't work, it simply gives the bansturbators something to do to justify their existence, nothing more, nothing less.
Telegraph.

Bottles of wine and beer could display how many calories they contain to discourage people from drinking too much, under new Government plans.
Anna Soubry, a health minister, said officials have been in talks about “the possible inclusion of calorie content on labels” with the alcoholic drinks industry.
Ministers are concerned about the issue as an official study has linked the high calories of alcoholic drinks to people being overweight and obese.
They are separately looking at how to reduce deaths caused by alcohol and tackle anti-social behaviour fuelled by drink.
It is thought displaying calorie content could encourage those who watch their weight to moderate consumption.
Lager can be as fattening as a slice of pizza at around 250 calories per pint, according to the Drink Aware Trust.

Meddlers and bansturbators all. I doubt many of us (if any) give a damn what's written on the label so long as it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. Still, if there's a way to stick it to the public whilst justifying taking our money off us to do it that's what these people will do. They don't realise truly what a waste of space they are, they get off on power, not alcohol.
In an ideal world the government would not bother to stick its nose into our business, nor give taxpayers cash to fake charities like the Drink Aware Trust. They'd simply do their job of making sure that we don't get invaded and that there were few barriers to trade as well as making sure a few basic laws were maintained. If people wanted to get drunk, that was their business, so long as they weren't bothering anyone else by doing so. If they were, well there would be drunk tanks and courts if necessary, no relentless propaganda to tell them to give up something that helps them ignore the constant propaganda.
Perhaps people would drink less if they were happier?
Happier being less government and state interference in their lives.
It's a thought...

Bansturbation writ large.

Politicians love to meddle, it's an inborn thing with them, sometimes it's for the good, more often than not it's because they can, they simply need an excuse, or a cover story to try to sell it to us as a good idea.
BBC.

Labour has urged the government to consider introducing legal limits on sugar, salt and fat-content in food.
The party says the coalition's emphasis on voluntary agreements with industry is not working.
It is starting a consultation on how to tackle obesity.
The Department of Health in England says its Responsibility Deal with food companies shows the voluntary approach can be successful.
At its core this is an argument about how best to reduce levels of fat, sugar and salt in our food - through regulation, or collaboration.
The coalition says working with industry through the Responsibility Deal has improved food content and labelling.
But Labour argues the government has failed to come up with a convincing plan to tackle rising obesity rates.

Now whilst I'll admit obesity is a problem, what the government and its opposition believe is obese often enough isn't. Nor would legal limits on sugar and salt help very much as a variety of starches in food convert to glucose and are stored as fat by the body far quicker than sugar itself. Nor would any form of regulation help with the quantity problem of people simply eating too much even if it's better for them (in the governments eyes)
No this appears to simply be regulation for regulations sake in other words bansturbation, a favourite pastime of political parties out of power and who can say pretty much anything outrageous to see what people think. If the reaction is negative then it's dropped like the hot potato it is and brushed aside as a personal view, or simply put down as out of the box thinking.
The only way you'll cut down on obesity and over eating is to educate and convince those who do it, not change what's in the food they eat. It doesn't matter if the salt and sugar content of a Big Mac is reduced if you're going to polish four of them off in a single sitting. Yes that's a bit of an exaggeration, but essentially it really is quantity not quality that is the real issue, by all means make foods healthier but don't expect it to fix 'obesity' that's down to the obese.