State Opening of Parliament, Recession Edition

This would almost certainly be cheaper than the current palaver, what with all the horses and uniforms and things. Efficiency, people… EFFICIENCY.

“We welcome the news that some 4.6 million immigrants will be sent home so that we can begin looking after our own people. It is a pity that very few of the bankers who caused the global economic crisis are immigrants – unfortunately we’ll have to keep them.”, said Pinch Wyvern – head of the BRIP.

Building firms were also on the alert, as homes will now be needed for a further 27.5 million American residents whose ancestry has been traced back to the UK. Likewise 6.3 million Australian residents, and another few million from around the globe will be relocating into the country.

A home office spokesman made a statement this morning:

“We’re not quite sure how our hospitals, schools and charities will cope with the sudden influx of population – none of whom will have jobs, homes or any visible means of support. With the population of our country now due to almost double in five years, resources will certainly be stretched.”

To coincide with the announcement, a new initiative was launched to research the building of habitable floating platforms in the sea for those of mixed race.

Right-thinking individuals of the world have six weeks to lodge a complaint with UNFUBAR, the United Nations committee responsible.

Firstly, it allows your ISP to disconnect you if they think you’re illegally downloading copyright works. That’s a little harsh, but fair enough.

BUT and it’s a big BUT… it also introduces powers to steal your photos from you. If someone finds your photo and likes it, and can’t trace you through a “diligent search”, they can pay the government a licensing fee and use the photo. Worse than that, even if they can find you, they can opt to go to the government’s licensing board instead of finding out what your fee would have been – pay that fee and it’s theirs to use.

So they’re protecting the copyright of the massive media corporations, while taking a bite of the money that independent media creators could be earning in license fees (for their hard work, I should add – a license fee for usage isn’t free money).

This bill has to be stopped. Seriously. Or at the very least given due debate and consideration in parliament instead of being rushed through.

Full details here.

And 38 degrees has made it simple to write to your MP right here.

As you have probably heard, Britain is now coming out of recession.

I’m pretty sure this will be comforting for the 2% of the population of Loughborough who have just lost their job.

Let’s face it, they don’t know what terrorists are up to. The terrorists will wait until the threat level is moderate or low before attacking, that’ll make their lives easier.

Raising the level just allows them to make more laws or conduct more stop and searches without having to justify it so much.

Gah.

/me goes off for a lie down

On [December 3rd], Google made the biggest change that has ever happened in search engines, and the world largely yawned. Maybe Google timed its announcement that it was personalizing everyone’s search results just right, so few would notice. Maybe no one really understood how significant the change was. Whatever the reason, it was a huge development and deserves much more attention than it has received so far.

full story here

It seems that I see my own site as the first entry because I click on it quite often. Other people don’t see it on the front page. How misleading! But what’s interesting is the number of queries coming in – that suggests that a lot of people are also seeing it on the front page (three weddings, two family portraits, one commercial and two fashion/headshot). But now we can’t be sure what anyone is seeing.

So I just have to keep up with taking good photographs, and providing a service people will come back for and hopefully recommend.

An interesting development for sure!

Two ex-cabinet ministers are calling for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown’s leadership.

Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon have written to Labour MPs calling for the leadership issue to be sorted out “once and for all”.

This is great news! We could have two consecutive prime ministers that the general public have not voted for.

He said being white, it will be assumed the Chandlers, from Tunbridge Wells, are rich.

“These guys don’t understand about mortgages and having to pay rent and, of course, comparatively, the hostages will be wealthy from their point of view,” Dr Alvarez added.

I would have thought the fact they were swanning around the Indian Ocean in their yacht would suggest they’re rich.

I really hope they have a safe return but I can see why pirates may think they were good pickings.

This might be a good opportunity to have a rant about the news, too. May have been kidnapped. Ransom would have to be paid. The news so far is that a couple have gone missing. That’s it. Anything else is conjecture, as beautifully conveyed in “How To Get Ahead In Advertising”

Businessman 1: (reading the newspaper) One discovered naked in the kitchen…breasts smeared with peanut butter. The police took away a bag containing 15 grams of cannabis resin… it may also contain a quantity of heroin.
Bagley: Or a pork pie.
Businessman 1: I beg your pardon.
Bagley: I said the bag may also have contained a pork pie.
Businessman 1: I hardly see a pork pie’s got anything to do with it.
Bagley: Alright then, what about a large turnip. It might also have contained a big turnip.
Priest: The bag was full of drugs.
Bagley: Nonsense.
Priest: The bag was full of drugs, it says so.
Bagley: The bag could’ve been full of anything. Pork pies, turnips, oven parts… it’s the oldest trick in the book.
Priest: What book?
Bagley: The distortion of truth by association book. The word is “may.” You all believe heroin was in the bag because cannabis resin was in the bag. The bag may have contained heroin, but the chances are 100 to 1 certain that it didn’t.