Posts by Roger Paul

Newt Gingrich wants Moon to be 51st US state

When a ladder was stolen from a store the manager said that further steps would be taken.

Vote Lib Dem, doom humanity to extinction

Easy now...

Don't take the article at face value, a lot of the content is blown out of proportion. Nick has said he'd add Trident to a defence review, that's all. If the review came back saying 'we need Trident or a replacement' then that's what he'd do.

Don't let looney articles like this sway you, and for god's sake don't take this reply at face value either. Have a look at what Nick has actually said and interpret it yourself.

I hear Lewis is an escaped mental patient. I don't know where, it's just what I heard.

Woah...

I'm glad that was marked as opinion, because a lot of it seemed to be making some pretty big assumptions. Like everyone else I'll just put in my worthless two penneth and sacrifice it to the internet gods.

I think the commitment from the Lib Dems is that the Trident system will be added to the list of things discussed in the next strategic defence review, something all parties believe needs to be done I might add, and have merely suggested that there may be alternatives. No commitment to scrap, but equally no commitment for a like for like replacement.

I also find it difficult (not impossible mind,) to imagine a genuine need for an exchange of nuclear arms on any kind of scale. Lets take the implausable scenario of a radical state developing a nuclear capability and producing a lone long range nuclear weapon. Lets further assume they detonate it over Birmigham. Would we retalliate? Realistically? And assuming we did, I think its safe to say that the UK's nuclear arsenal would be fully to committed to retaliation. Even if this system had been downgraded to cruise missiles and similar systems I think there'd be more than enough firepower to effectively delete a country.

Again, I just don't see it as a likely scenario anyway. I certainly can't envision a scenario when a nation with a nuclear arsenal would start firing weapons off willy nilly as there are no illusions as to the consequences that would hold for their own nation.

I'm trying to think of a nation with that kind of capability and the will to do it. Iran and North Korea are the obvious choices but their programs are very much in their infancy, despite what they want the world to believe. If someone knows better or can think of another nation with any sort of capability and the political will to cause problems for the UK please say.

Personally I think nuclear power is the way forward so the Lib Dems and I disagree wholeheartedly on that point, but I think the automatic assumption that an unwillingness to invest in it will lead to power shortages and some kind of Heath Robinson-esque power system from overseas are a bit far fetched. It's easy enough to play the 'Bah, they're all pliticians' card, but I think common sense comes into play at some point, even for those with moat cleaning bills.

If internet had existed before we were born would we be here now?

*Applause*

The first hit on my April news trawl.

Well done Reg, well done.

Federal boffins: 'Giant invading snakes' will soon rule USA

Giant Enemy Snake?

Presumably one could hit its weakpoint for massive damage?

PC tune-up software: does it really work?

I'm curious...

What's the improvement when you give someone who has a fair idea of what they're doing half an hour to make improvements without using 3rd party software?

Beer drinking model to get caned in Malaysia

Funny...

I presume this is peninsular Malaysia and not Borneo? Whilst there I got the feeling they were fairly tolerant of such things. Certainly the area we were in was happy to provide drink to foreigners at least.

Bearing in mind that Malaysia is a mish mash of religeons, she was probably in a prodominantly Muslim area and should have known better. Not that I'm condoning it, but personally I'd choose the lashes over 3 year imprisonment.

At the end of the day, she was caught taking illegal substances. If you do that in this country you'd expect to be punished for it. The method may not be what we would find acceptable, but I personally fell that, in the UK at least, we spend far too much time worry about criminal's rights and not enough time questioning what is actually just.

If you're caught taking drugs in the uk (which you funded by stealing) you seem to get off with a warning and people queuing round the block to rehabilitate you. Kudos to a country prepared to enforce their law, no matter how barbaric it may seem to us. She'll recover quickly with no lasting damage and the point will have been made not only to her, but I would imagine most people who read Malaysian papers. 1 good example is better than 10 good laws.

Time for a bottom line. Don't agree with the punishment, but can't sympathise with someone who knew full well what the consequences of her action could be.

Midwife's lost diary sparks mums and baby alert

There's nothing to worry about though...

The data was encrypted...

Street View spycar prowls Inverness

No ta...

I don't want Google taking pictures of me or my property. My reasons are my own.

You can question all you like, but that's all you're getting. The reason being that it's my right to keep it to myself. I publish my name above by choice, and there's the crux of it. I show what I want to, I hide what I want to. Choice.

Undercover teachers to track gang members online

Just plain stoopid

So what exactly are parents for? Isn't it the ultimate responsibility of they who spawn to monitor their spawn's behaviour?

I hereby motion for the word 'Government' to be replaced with 'Team Retard'.

UK postal vote system 'not fit for purpose'

What time are they open until?

Well... I work 8.30 until 5 and it takes around an hour to drive to work in the morning and I'm still finding the time to vote. The booths are open until 10pm which kinda gives me bags of time.

Shift worker you say? My next door neighbour is a chemical engineer, works 12 hour shifts and suprisingly he still finds time either before or after a shift to vote...

Don't give me that rubbish. If you don't have time to get back to vote then you need to register in a different constituency.

On another note, I'd welcome a 'vote against' box on the sheet. We had a BNP candidate stand for local government last week, and although I wasn't inpressed with the alternatives I had to choose one just to keep that fecker out. If I'd have had the option I'd have simply voted against the BNP candidate.

Healthy? You're a burden on the state

Ummm...

I'm suprised no one has commented on the amount of time it takes to accrue this £210'000 bill... Unless I've just missed it during the skim read...

If you live 40 or 50 years, die fat and rack up a 180 grand bill, you're costing (the health service at least) more than the person who racks up 210 grand over 70 or 80 years.

Don't smoke, go for a walk.

Megan's Law snafu fingered in rapist's murder

Terrible law...

Megan and Sarah could very easily become synonymous with vigilante. If a person is no longer in jail then the law deems that they have paid their debt and are no longer a threat. If this is not the case, then the system needs to be changed.

Creating a database with the names of these, now released, people undermines the penal system by not allowing people to make a fresh start once the debt is paid, and as demonstrated here allow people to make their own judgements of what is just.

If the database should be created in the UK then I would ask for, nay demand, that car thieves and burglars be added so I can 'protect' myself. I'd want anyone convicted of assault, battery or GBH... In fact, thinking about it, I don't give a monkeys about the child molesters, because I'm not a child or a parent. I'll just see myself safe, bollocks to the rest of you.

Listen to swirling of the ever approaching plughole...

UK ID card service mounts birth, marriage, death landgrab

A question of choice

I think the most annoying part of all this is that we're not being given a choice. I'm on the DVLA database, MOD Personnell database and a pile of others. I chose to be entered on each and every one, partly on the understanding that they were indeed seperate databases unable to be accessed by the same people.

Rather than repeating what everyone else has said I'll lower the tone. They can fuck off. The lot of them. Bastards.

Chuck Norris has two speeds: Walk and Kill

Chuck Norris...

...can divide by zero.

Innocent 'terror techie' purges DNA records

Tell you what...

Once every member of the Police force including Community Support Officers and Street Wardens, every member of the Fire Service, every Doctor, Nurse and Porter, every Judge, every Council worker and every Politician has been sampled and tagged, once all these people with nothing to hide have been added to the database...

Then, and only then, will I even consider submitting to a DNA sampling without protest.

Czech falls off motorbike, wakes up with British accent

Head Injury...

Hmmm... Could have stimulated the language centre of the brain. Or rather, the foreign language centre?

NASA inks deal for Shuttle replacements

Segemented boosters

The other trouble with the solid fuel boosters is that they're bolted together bits of piping. NASA signed the shuttle booster contract over to the present supplier despite the fact there was a company that could supply a single booster tube which would have been far less likely to fail and kill the crew of Challenger.

But that's irrelevant, the solid fuel boosters should have been abandoned long ago.

Police want DNA collection superpowers

Excuse me...

Am I the only person who thinks this is an absolute ******* outrage? I'd happily drag any attempt to take a DNA sample through every level of court imaginable, local, national and international.

Who the hell do they think they are? My blood boils...

e-Borders to cost £1.2bn

Hate to sound like a broken record but...

Thats 1000 arrests, how many convictions? Each of those people are innocent unless a court determines otherwise...

The terrorists I party with

TCG - Telling it like it is

Thanks for another super article chap!

Ladies and Gents, yes there are nasty people out there, but keep a level head. Don't get washed away in the hysteria.

Brit spooks: Yanks are frightful cowboys

Thank you

Thanks again for reaising these issues, keep it up.

There's a damn good reason why there are laws of due process and limits to times of detention. We all know what they are yet there are people, some of whom have already posted, who are prepared to pick up their pitchforks, light torches and burn the legal system from the ground up. It boggles the mind.

There are huge mistakes being made, people are being released after years of inprisonment without charge and that appears to be ok. These people then become prime recruits for the very terrorist organisations that they were accused of belonging to. Measures like this create terrorists. The moderate become vocal, the vocal become extreme and the extreme become active.

It is the duty of every American, Briton, Iraqi, Afghan, Pakistani, Brazilian, Belgian, every human being alive to stand up what they know to be wrong. This is the very definition of wrong.

A brief note from history.

They came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a communist;

They came for the socialists, and I did not speak up because I was not a socialist;

They came for the union leaders, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a union leader;

They came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me ....

- Pastor Martin Niemöller

MP slams school biometric guidance

Missing the point

I think any question of reverse engineering is entirely beside the point. this data collection is not neccessary. Registers tend to work pretty well and act as a time for bonding between form tutor and tutor group. If you want something similar for lunch queues then fine, but why use fingerprints? Whats wrong with a student ID number?

I agree with 'Name'. By the time these kids grow up it'll be too late to teach how wrong it is for this data to be collected.

When 'God Machines' go back to their maker

Well Played!

Well done Andrew and indeed all Reg hacks, it finally dawns on me... Picture the scene in Vulture HQ.

"Hey guys, people seem to be getting pretty wound up about this iPhone thing, have you read the comments?"

"Yeah, look, I got more than you!"

"Oh yeah? Well lets see what they say after _this_ piece!"

And so the office competition was born. Prizes for most comments, best flame, most number of commentors who didn't read the article, most iFans, longest post... The list goes on!

Keep it up Reg, these sections always make me chuckle!

Comments are disabled

Grrr...

If you have a loose licence why don't you tighten it?

[/pet peeve]

Great article!

Crazy cyber-jihadi emails planned death for Mayport, FL

Read the emails in full

After the last one I was expecting something like "All we need from you brother, is $1000 to open an account with which to buy supplies..."

Leaping sturgeon menace 'Swanee'

Badger Parade

Last I heard there was a problem with the Badger Parade...

Reading: UK's epicentre of va-va-voom

Another not a city

Neither is Middlesbrough and really, Sunderland shouldn't be...

Tories offer record industry cash for righteousness

Watch out for Bill...

Anyone else noticed William Hauge hovering around behind Cameron recently? There's a look of "come on, that's silly, give me another go" on his little face... Watch that space...

Teens using M-rated games to vent anger

Whey!

I've been telling my Dad this for years and finally, over a decade later, I have a source that agrees!

I still think that the ratings system for games is something that many parents are either ignorant of or choose to ignore. The ratings are there for a reason and if parents allow young teens to play them they should be brought to account. There are plenty of fun games to vent your feelings through which don't require stepping into the unholy realm of M/18.

Police officer arrested over IT abuse

The entire Police Force does not need to be corrupt

If even a handful of Police Officers abuse their power that is completely unacceptable, especially given the information that the Government wants to collect.

The public perception of the Police Force where I live in Cleveland has been pretty low since the reign of that wonderful man (ehem...) Ray Mallon. While I believe the Police on the whole mean well and try to do right by everyone, I could not say that I trust any individual Officer. I have seen a handful of minor petty abuses myself, nothing major, but as they build up and stories come through the press it paints a grim view of the Police. The fact that they clearly think these petty abuses are ok is a telling sign I feel.

These people have access to your DNA and soon enough, the details on your ID cards. That worries me.

Lords investigate 'unconstitutional' surveillance society

Hear hear!

My sentiments precisely. The government would rather assume the entire population is guilty of something until we can adequately prove otherwise.

The government doesn't trust us, we don't trust the government. The police don't trust us and vice versa. Why should we trust each other?

Sad and tragic.