2010 will be a big year, eh Phil?

Happy New Year to the extended Crumble family…

Given that Manchester will be the first city in the United Kingdom in which citizens can sign up for an ID card;

Aware that the aforementioned represent constituencies in Manchester;

Postulating that their votes in favour of ID cards means that they think that possession of an ID card is a good idea;

Suggesting that supporters of ID cards believe that if one has nothing to hide, one has nothing to fear;

Demand that they should lead by example and be among the first to sign up for a biometric ID card in Manchester in the autumn of 2009.

Folders,

Idiots.

Our journey on the monstrous Airbus A380 - the largest passenger airliner in the world – was uneventful and unremarkable, just as it should be: you don’t want your Big Holiday outdone by the journey.

The plan for today involves a ferry around Port Jackson (aka Sydney Harbour) and heading north to some of the beaches on the Pacific Coast.  Weather forecast: fine & sunny, highs of 25.

At approximately 1:00 AM Central Time on February 3, the plane took off from Mason City Municipal Airport. Around 1:05, Jerry Dwyer, the owner of Dwyer Flying Service, could see the lights of the plane start to descend from the sky to the ground. At the time, he thought it was an optical illusion because of the curvature of the Earth and the horizon.

The pilot, Roger Peterson, was expected to file his flight plan once the plane was airborne, but Peterson never called the tower. Repeated attempts by Dwyer to contact his pilot failed. By 3:30 AM, when the airport at Fargo had not heard from Peterson, Dwyer contacted authorities and reported the aircraft missing.

Around 9:15 in the morning, Dwyer took off in another small plane to fly Peterson’s intended route. A short time later Dwyer spotted the wreckage in a cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl, about 5 miles northwest of the airport. The manager of the Surf Ballroom, who drove the performers to the airport and witnessed the plane taking off, made the positive identification of the performers.

The Bonanza was at a slight downward angle and banked to the right when it struck the ground at around 170 miles per hour (270 km/h). The plane tumbled and skidded another 570 feet (170 m) across the frozen landscape before the crumpled ball of wreckage piled against a wire fence at the edge of the property. The bodies of Holly and Valens lay near the plane, Richardson was thrown into a neighboring cornfield, and Peterson remained trapped inside. All four had died instantly.

So pour one out for Ritchie Valens (13 May 1941-3 February 1959), J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson (24 October 1930-3 February 1959), and Charles “Buddy” Holly (7 September 1936-3 February 1959) for today was the day that the music died.

I can still remember how their music used to make me smile.

Please note that “child pornography”, “child porn” and “kiddie porn” are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts to legitimise images which are not pornography, rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually abused and as such should be referred to as child sexual abuse images.

The image in questiom is of a naked ten year old girl with a imposed “glass crack” over her groin. The law on “child sexual abuse images” is, again according to their website, clear:

The law on images of child sexual abuse is clear. It is an offence to take, permit to be taken, make, possess, show, distribute or advertise indecent images of children in the United Kingdom.

As a guide, the word ‘indecent’ means any images of children, under 18 years of age, involved in a sexual pose or activity.

I bring this up because what the presence of this image has resulted in is the channelling of all UK users of wikipedia through a proxy of two IP addresses. This has the result in preventing anonymous editing of Wikipedia entries and the prevention of viewing the Wikipedia page in question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer – for those of you who live in a free country). Further information is here (ZDNet)

Any Scorpions’ fans out there with this album in their possession had better destroy it lest some zealous law enforcement officer and CPS staffer decides that they are in possession of an indecent image of a child.

There is soon to be a public vote on the scheme, and the “YES” and “NO” camps are increasing their publicity on the locality.

Let’s compare Manchester with London.

London’s public transport network is the largest in the country and comprehensively covers a wide area.  In London, there can be little excuse for wanting to cross the chargeable zones in a motor vehicle, and so I wholly support their congestion charge.

Manchester’s public transport is bloody awful.  The idea behind the congestion charge is that the income it brings in will pay for improvements to the public transport network.

What absolute rubbish.  Why on earth should people with no alternative means of commuting or going about their daily business have to foot the bill for building infrastructure?  I would gladly use public transport if it were a viable transport option for the journeys I have to make – petrol, insurance and vehicle maintenance: give me an Oyster card any day!  The people who should pay a congestion charge are, like in London, those who won’t use public transport rather than those who can’t.

If the money is going to be brought in from congestion charging, then the local government should borrow the cash, build the infrastructure and then introduce the fee.  Of course this won’t happen because there is no real intention to spend the money on improving the public transport network – not when this may reduce the cash cow that is congestion charging.

This is why I’ll be voting no.