One stabbing too many

Recently in the news there has been much debate about stabbings and killings as the deaths from stabbings has risen. This has been a particularly sensitive issue as most of the victims and perpetrators have been black. Prime Minister Tony Blair a couple of day ago decided top speak on the matter and urged the black community to stop 'pretending ' that black youths were not responsible for the recent spate of shooting and stabbing plaguing London in the last couple of weeks. His comments were greeted with anger from the black community leaders who charged that he had not once mentioned the actions that were already going on within the black community to denounce the violence and tackle the issue.

The real question though is who really is to blame for the waywardness of young black youth of today? Is it the parents who a mostly kids themselves when they had kids and live in mostly single parent families? Is it the absent fathers who shirk their responsibilities with no remorse or consequences? Is it the community the lack the cohesiveness and caring about each other to raise the youths and provide leadership and role models? Is it the government who don't provide the necessary environment for the kids to take up after school activities and give parents the ability to discipline their own kids?

The simple answer is that we are all to blame. In some way we all play a part in the life of every child born irrespective of race or colour. And if we all shirk our responsibilities then we create a society that flourishes with negativity. So let us top blaming each other and work together to great a better society, that our children and grandchildren can grow up in without the fear of violence.

New Year New things?

Okay so I have been away for a while. It a new year with three months already gone and new years eve shinanigans already a distant memory.

The 2007 budget has just been digested but for most there is no significant change. The concensus belives that the chancellor has given with one hand and taken with another.

4 years later Iraq is still in a mess. Yet still there are people still believing that it was right to invade.

Zimbabwe is in an even worse mess with oposition leaders being beaten to a pulp however the rest of the world turns a blind eye or just give a small quote for the press. Is the democracy of Iraq worth more that than of Zimbabwe? Or is it because we dont gain anything from Zimbabwe that we shall leave the status quo?

London is in a state of flux. The murder rate is rising. The gangs seem to have taken over and the police seem to be done very little. The hooded teenagers are creating havoc on the buses playing music loudly. No one can react for fear of assult.

The UN reveals there is no clean water for 1 billion people yet in some parts of the world like the west the wastage is unbelievable.
New year..nnew things? I think not...

50 Cent vs James Bond

A concerned reader wrote into the paper a couple of day ago comparing the posters of 50 cent's movie 'Get rich or die trying and the new one for Casino royale. Her beef was that both posters contained images of a man and a gun however 50 cent's poster was banned for promoting violence. Whereas she decided to take a black vs white angle on it, its was difficult to see how this was a racist issue. 50 Cent in his film, music, game and other forums glorifies violence and a violent way of life and this was why his movie and posters were criticised. As for James well how can you critise Bond!!!

I want one of those

Nikon D40

Snoop's new Album

Natural High

One has always suspected that women got a natural high from gossiping and now researchers have finally proven the point. One Researcher Professor Louann Brizendine of University of California claims that females, due to the programming of their brains, get this natural high from gossiping and thus can deliver over 20,000 words in a day as compared to 7,000 for men. He adds that as men do not get this natural high from gossiping their brains are setup to think about sex. He further claims that women's brains are better at remembering argument. Now that I can agree to.

Tall Men

All my life, I thought being tall was cool. Some would claim that size or height doesn't matter but we all know that's not strictly true. Being tall had more advantages than disadvantages or so I thought. So imagine my shock when I opened the paper this afternoon to see the headlines "Tall men face twice cancer risk'. According to a Maryland team that did a study on almost 1700 US servicemen under 45, to investigate links between diet, body size and testicular cancer; men over 6ft tall face a greater risk of getting testicular cancer. So where does that leave us tall men???

Ethical concerns of development Assistance

Every day we are bombarded with news and images of a war torn, poverty infested Africa. Reports upon reports from far and wide; Oxfarm to Red Cross show that most pledges among the G8 countries have gone unfulfilled. In real terms aid budgets are not increasing and the situation is getting worse.

One country that seems to be taking an contrasting view of Africa is China. As we all know China is tipped to be the next super world power and as we in the west look towards china for cheaper labour and raw materials so will China to Africa once it economy moves to a knowledge based one.
And thus China has increased its trade with Africa to a large enough scale that African governments are looking towards China as alternative partners in development of their economies rather than the West. The added bonus that the Chinese deal comes with no political strings attached makes the deals even sweeter. Nevertheless, one has note a word of caution. With no criticism of domestic policies within African economies, the Chinese can be seen to support the idea of ignoring accountability frameworks. Infact leaders like President Mugabe are welcoming the Chinese as they can carry out deals enriching themselves whilst the rest of the population suffers. Whereas the conditions the West puts on aid and development assistance may be too burdensome for most African countries we have to make sure that we don't just move to other end of the scale and ignore accountability frameworks

Security blunder

So this morning headlines was filed with the story of how London Underground's maintenance contractor hired the son a convicted terrorist Abu Hamza. Mohammed Mostafa himself a convicted terrorist served time in Yemen over a plot to bomb British and American terrorists. He was sacked when his identity was found out however one has to wonder how he started working in the first place. See here for more on this story.

After 7/7 bombing security on the underground should have been stepped up and everyone working in the underground vetted but it seems one slipped the net. The crazy thing is that it only takes one to slip through the net and we can have a repeat of 7/7. One has to wonder what is our security services doing about this? How comes know criminals can come into the country and work? Yet innocent refugees get sent back to face presecution?

News bites

The debate about the veil rages on with several politicians adding their own views. Some have strong views and are calling for sacking of people for not taking off the veil and others claiming that veils are putting women down making them symbols of subjugation. The key point within all of this si that there is a debate about the issue and all can comment. It is not just swept under the carpet.
Roman Abramovich is in a spot of bother. If rumours are true his wife Irina has hired lawyers to start divorce proceedings. Now seing that they have been married for over 15 years and they met when neither was rich she is not going to go down without a tough fight for his £10.8billion fortune. And all of this over a 23 year old model. Lets just hope she is worth it (rumours are that she is also very wealthy).

Un PC

Once in a while you come across something thats riding a very fine line between acceptability and non comformity like teh show little britain. This website saydist is one. Here there is a daily picture and all you have to do is add a caption. However the captions can be crude and some down right offensive but there are some good crackers...enjoy...

Issues

Two issues caught my attention this week:
Firstly North Korea decided to test a nuclear weapon which they claim went successfully. The whole world is crying out in outrage. How can the this happen the world powers are asking themselves? Lets firstly ask ourselves why is it a problem that North Korea has nuclear weapons? After all several other countries posses nuclear weapons yet still we don't cry out in shock and horror. Okay so the fact that millions of North Korean have been killed and tortured for speaking against the leader and million more live in dire poverty lends some credence to the discussion.
The UN is trying to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and its efforts have been mainly focused on Iran . One has to wonder though that even though you can never rely on what the politicians say, Iran has always denied it wanted nuclear weapons whereas North Korea has never denied it wanted weapons. So why was all eyes on Iran? I don't even think there is anything we can do about. I mean we cant just invade North Korea and hope it doesn't use its weapons?

The second is about the issue of the Muslim women and the Burka. The BBC has a graphic illustration of the different types of head gear worn by Muslim women here. It maybe worth reviewing this to get a broader picture of what the discussion is about. This discussion has boiled over for a couple of days now and there are many facets to it. On the one hand is the need to preserve religious integrity even if you are abroad. This is understandable as Britain is multicultural society where different faiths are encouraged. In other Muslim countries where the state is secular things are different and thus foreigners have to conform to laws and customs. This does not mean we can take this and argue that because we have to conform in other countries that Muslims should loose their religious integrity in Britain. On the other hand is the security risk issue which I don't see as an issue at all. There are rules that mean women should take off their veils if their identity becomes a issue. This can be done discreetly in a closed room with female attendants preserving the integrity of the woman/women in question. This also is ensures that our security at airports and ports is protected. So one has to ask what really is the issue is? Is it really about the veil/burqua or is it a wider state of panic where we have a knee jerk reaction to anything Islamic?

Your name

Ever wondered how popular you name was? Well no need to woner no longer. Our friends at Yournotme have kindly put together a website where you can check how popular you name is. Sorry only limited to the UK.

Tesco Moves into software

On the back of annoucing that it made £1billion profit in 6 months, Tesco the supermarket giant has set it eyses on Mircosoft and Symantec. Read about it here. One tends to wonder though that we all love to hate Microsoft because there is no serious alternative and it has a monopoly. However if as we know, every £1 in £8 is spent at Tescos do we really want to transfer from one monopoly to another?

More shootings in schools more tears for parents

Another day another shooting in a school in the US. Last month it was a school in Colorado and another in Wisconsin. Today it is an Amish school in Pennsylvania. The question everyone is asking is why? However I feel a broader question has to asked of 'how can we stop this happening again'? It would be quick to jump on the band wagon as say oh yeah it is because the US has easier access to weapons but that would be totally ignoring the fact that in the UK last week there were 4 fatal shootings, some in broad daylight and the UK has stricter access to guns.
Let us all sit back and look at the wider picture, look at how our society behaves to each other and what sort of mutual respect we give each other and perhaps then we can understand the environment our kids are growing up in before we can start explaining why these shootings take place.

Interest Rates Gamble

This Thursday the bank of England will sit down and decide the interest rates once again based on some factors which will be revealed in their meeting minutes delivered two weeks later. I never considered myself a gambling man but increasing I find myself like most commentators trying to predict the outcome and hedging bets. The interest rates not only affects millions of us homeowners but also people with large savings and pensions. For us homeowners our mortgages will increase with rate rises whilst the housing market still continues it robust surge in prices. For savers its a higher interest rate for savings with rate rises but only if the banks pass the savings on to its customers. First time buyers are reducing steadily as they cannot get on the housing ladder and those on already on the housing ladder are finding it difficult to move. More and more people are struggling with debt problems and the papers are predicting the up to 1 million could join them if there a rate hike. On the other hand the housing market is surging and inflation due to higher tuition fees and to a less extent (due to recent price cuts) the price of oil is also higher than expected. So there is pressure for the bank of England to increase rates.
So as we sit back and hedge our bets as to what decision the bank of England will make we will slowly realise that the odds are not really in our favor and hedging both ways is our only hope.

When sharing becomes a burden?

Well I always thought most of the time sharing was good that is until the cell phone industry though it was a great idea to combine a phone with an mp3 player. The logic was simple no need for two devices during your daily commute all you needed was your phone. What this has led to though is a new toy for idle kids to create a nuisance on the daily commute. No longer is one just exposed to the loud music screaming out of headphones and irritating ring tones but now we have to contend with kids putting phones on loud blast playing uncensored song wherever they are. This not even limited to kids but even adults that should know better have headphones on full volume. To add insult to injury Samsung one of the first to put mp3 players on phones have now released an mp3 player the K5 (see photo) that has a built in speaker. Why MR Samsung? Why make the daily commute for us much more of a misery that it is? Must say though that the K5 does look really good.

Starving...ah but at least I can have coke

So Afghanistan has been in the news once again as the both NATO and the British troops are suffering loses even though there are claims they have killed over 500 Taliban fighters in the past week or so. Some newspapers are claiming that the Taliban (thought to be long gone) have regrouped and is coming out guns blazing.

The reality in Afghanistan's is that all is not rosy as some would like us to think. It is still the worlds largest supplier (around 92% UNODC) of opium because the local farmers have no incentives to grow anything else. According to UNODC this is increasing year on year. The warlords still rule most of the country making money of the opium trade and garnering loyalty as a result of this. In the south the coalition troops are battling the Taliban fighters and in the north innocent Afghans are starving as a result of the lack of harvest due to lack of rain last winter and spring. Water, food and livestock are in short supply and so it would seem the likely candidate for aid to be delivered to assist the situation so it doesn't become much worse.
In the capital, The western backed government of Hamid Karzai, delivers speeches of fighting "holy wars" against the opium trade but his rule doesn't extent much out of the capital and so one wonders how he is to wage this war. Then again he is influenced by Tony Blair and George Bush who think that the war against an ideology the so called 'war on terror' is being won. So imagine my utter surprise when there was news that a major business was to open in Karbul. A £13 million business that would inject some needed aid to communities I thought. Oh no my friends it turned out to be a franchise for the production of Coke taken out by one of the country richest men. This factory will produce coke, fanta and sprite to supply to the population that have no food to eat or livestock to support. How much of the population will be able to afford the drink? virtually none. Whereas the rich expatriates will be able to afford this, those with few possessions will be forced to try as apsire to lifestyle of drinking and buying things they cant afford. The rich will be getting richer and the poor poorer.Hamid Karzai was of course on hand to open this bottling factory. Is this the best way to spend £13 million to support a country that is one of the poorest in the world?

Vocal Assassin back......

The vocal assassin has been away for a while but he's back and rearing to go dispensing his opinion on events.

This week in London, a rival free newspaper the London paper joined the rebranded mid afternoon freebie by the standard the london lite. On really wonders if this will spell the end of the morning paid for newspapers. A lot of us watch the news in the morning so don't buy the paper however because the metro is free we pick up a copy. After work if there are two free newspapers why pick up a copy of the evening standard for 50p?

On other news Tony Blair's future looks bleak. According to the BBC,17 labour MPs including a minister signed a letter that urged him to quit. There is a famous saying "Quit whilst you are ahead" but it seems the control and power is proving a hard addiction for Blair. Whereas he has refused to give a time for his departure in order to be able to finish his legacy on a high, he is so far removed from the electorate to understand that his policies are not working in most cases and have not lead us anywhere. His blind following of George Bush in foreign policy has left not only Afghanistan and Iraq but now Lebanon in a serious mess and local policies at home are faltering. Both the Torys and Liberal democrats have surged forward in opinion polls. When he finally departs his legacy will be remembered for the lame duck that he was rather than the hero he claims to be. Steve 'Crikey' Irwin passed away after being stung by a deadly stingray. He was know as the croc hunter for his love of animals whether be they crocs, snakes or other dangerous animals. What a shame that he was the one that passed away an not soham killer Ian Huntley whose live was spared by prison offers after taking a massive overdose. Then again after all the suffering that the family of his victims have gone through it seems fitting enough that he live in shame for the rest of his natural life.

Funnies

Photos speak louder than words as demonstrated by the recent case of the reuters journalist who doctored some photos from the chaos in the middle east. And sometimes they say exactly what words cannot express. So I've added captions to these images to give it some more meaning.

Condi Rice on a missionCourtesy of Mike Thompson, Detroit Michigan US

Heathrow Airport Monday morning

Courtesy of Thomas Boldt, alberta, Canada

Condi gets both side talking

Courtesy of Thomas Boldt, alberta, Canada

Bush sends flowers

Courtesy of Larry Wright, michigan

The Virus

Last week I started up the computer and noticed that the task bar had warning balloon telling me my computer was infected with a virus. What!! I exclaimed noting that I had not upgraded nortons anti virus or the virus definitions. However I do have the Microsoft firewall and update my patches on a daily basis. How could this happen I wondered. So I click on the balloon and it opened my browser to an anti spyware page that gave me loads of options for spyware remover. I downloaded one and after installation, the program ran and identified 135 errors with my computer. Wow I thought where did those come from. I tried to run the quarantine function and that took me to a payment page? A payment page? It didn't say this when I was installing the program. So I cancelled that as it looked really dubious and downloaded another spyware remover. This time I only had 121 errors but it also went to a payment page. That was when it occurred to me that I may not even have a virus but a spyware that pretends that I have one whilst doing some other stuff in the background. My suspicions were confirmed when I went online and realise that my browser had been hijacked and the antispyware software page was now my new homepage. I tried to change this manually without success. I remember I had downloaded some antispyware software from BT so I ran that and it found 20 errors. It deleted all 20 and I thought good thats it. But oh no my balloon soon came up again telling me I had a virus. I repeated the delete and after the fourth attempt decided that it definitely was not working. I hopped on the mircosoft security page and downloaded the ***NEW*** windows defender. I installed it and scanned the computer. Your computer is fine and working smoothly came the reply yet still I could still see the balloon and couldn't change my homepage. So much for microsoft security.
So I searched on line and came across spybot. Guaranteed to kill a website claimed; excellent for antispyware said another. So once again I downloaded and installed. Spybot didn't even find this spyware but found some others that it deleted. The only good news after this was I had removed some spyware and still had some but know I knew their names. After a day of searching and trolling through user forums I finally came across a posting of someone who had the same problem and installed a program called SuperAntiSpyware. Not another dud I thought but tried it anyways and it worked. It found 641 errors on the computer and deleted every single one. I now run this on a nearly daily basis and it still picks up one or two adware programs that sneaked their way into the computer.
So I would recommend SuperAntiSpyware for your needs and it is free... Still back that up with an Antivirus program and a firewall for ultimate security. And lastly keep virus definitions up todate...