Gordon gives the thumbs-up to people power

In the 1980s, Maggie Thatcher emasculated the unions (that’s fancy talk for “She ripped their balls off”).  Bans on flying pickets and secondary striking, stringent requirements for ballots on industrial action, the abolition of the right to strike so employers could sack workers for striking for better conditions - and of course, once the unions had been reduced to toothless pussy cats, she set about wrecking employees’ rights to fair working conditions.  By the time she was carted off, the British workforce was the hardest-pressed, poorest paid in Western Europe.

When the Labour party came to power in 1997, they made a show of “righting wrongs” but didn’t really do too much to change the status quo.  Tony Blair introduced a minimum wage to Britain, but it was a paltry amount that couldn’t support a family - it was barely enough for a single person to live on!  Blair had done as much as he could to cut the ties between the Labour party and the unions.

But he couldn’t finish the job to his satisfaction thanks to the fact that his party depended on the unions for funding.  And now, here they come again! Thank the Lord!

There’s a big Labour policy forum coming up, and, as the Guardian reported yesterday, the trades unions are taking advantage of the current economic crisis and Gordon Brown’s unpopularity to force through a number of demands.

But they are not the awful socialistic demands that right-wing commentators would have you believe.  What the unions want to do is restore some of the social justice that existed in the UK before Thatcher waged her war on the working class. Here are a few of their terrible demands:

The right to take supportive strike action; scrapping NHS prescription charges (bringing England into line with the rest of the UK); bringing all hospital cleaning back in-house to combat the rise in “super-bugs” that came with the privatisation of NHS sanitation; extending the adult minimum wage to cover workers aged 18-21 and apprentices; a change in the law so that councils will be able to demand that companies tendering for their contracts will have to treat their employees fairly; free school meals for all primary school children (an important issue when record numbers of British children are obese and healthy eating is a priority).

As rail franchises start to expire, the unions want the “not for profit model” to be extended across the rail network, so the trains are run for the benefit of the passengers not the shareholders; they want to break up the monopoly held by the six major power companies so household fuel can become affordable again; and they want to place a duty on company directors to take all reasonable steps to ensure health and safety in the workplace - so workers won’t have to worry about being killed on the job.

On union rights, they want the right to strike, internet balloting, tax deductions for union membership subscriptions, and an extension of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to construction.  The right-wing press and the government will bleat about this, but it’s only a small step towarsd rectifying the damage Thatcher inflicted on the working man.

On equality, the unions propose extending a duty to promote equality to the voluntary and private sectors, reducing the lower earnings threshold to £30 a week to allow low-paid workers access to sick pay, a tightening of the equal pay laws, and a new right for unions to collectively bargain on equality issues. On parental leave, they want an extension of the child’s age limit from six to 16. All fair, measured and sane proposals.

Gordon Brown is going to fight each and every one of these proposals.  He has already tried to say that they are a throwback to “the worst of the militant 70s”.  But the unions are organized to fight this battle.  They are believed to already have ministerial support for many of their suggestions.  And they command enough voting power in the upcoming policy meetings to ensure that there will be a democratic vote on their proposals by rank-and-file Labour party members.

So it’s time for Gordon to accept that in the 21st century, British workers and the people of Britain in general will have the right to decent working conditions and a reasonable standard of living. And it’s time for us to accept that the unions are not the monsters they were portrayed as for so long - they are for us, and of us… hell, they are us.  So let’s support the unions.  Let’s stand up for ourselves.

Linux has a well-developed graphical user interface - in fact it has several GUIs, the most popular of which are Gnome (on which Ubuntu is based) and KDE (Kubuntu’s desktop).  But Linux also has a powerful command-line interface - also known as the console or terminal - and a great many commands to use in the CLI.

Here’s a little “cheat sheet” of common, basic Linux commands - just to get you started - you’d be wise to study this subject further if you’re serious about administering a Linux box.

The self-dubbed “Lyrical terrorist”, the first woman to be convicted under section 58 of the Terrorism Act in November 2007 after writing poems celebrating the beheading of non-Muslims, has had the conviction quashed by the court of appeal.

Samina Malik was found guilty of “collecting personal information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” - she possessed various documents including the al-Qaida Manual, the Terrorist’s Handbook, the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook and several military manuals - but it seemed at the time that the jury was more concerned about her poetry.

One of her poems, called How to Behead, said: “It’s not messy or as hard as some may think, It’s all about the flow of the wrist… You’ll feel the knife hit the wind and food pipe, But Don’t Stop, Continue with all your might.”

Malik called herself the Lyrical Terrorist because she thought it sounded “cool”.  There was no suggestion that she actually was a terrorist.  But the Daily Mail at the time made loads of fuss about the fact that she worked in an airside newsagents at Heathrow Airport… like maybe she was going to hijack a plane or something.

The Terrorism Act made the possession of “terrorist handbooks” and military manuals illegal.  But the court of appeal has since ruled that possession of such material is a crime only if it can be linked to an actual terrorist attack.  Which is just as well - a government that bans books deserves no respect.

Beaver & Steve is (c) Copyright  James Turner

Read Beaver & Steve every week at www.beaverandsteve.com

Hi!! Long time no post, eh? That’s cos I’ve got loads of shit to do irl at the moment. But I don’t want to disappoint my loyal readers so here’s an article I’ve “syndicated” from wikiHow. Enjoy… and normal service will be resumed when I can get round to it…

How to Get Free WiFi from Your City or Town

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Free citywide and municipal Wi-Fi is growing faster than ever with new downtown hotzones popping up every day. While these networks provide a great public service, coverage typically extends only a limited distance beyond Main Street. Learn how to find and connect to your local free wifi networks.

Steps

1. Find out if your city has a public wifi network by checking Wi-FiHotSpotList.com.
2. Download a free wifi finding software such as the one at NetStumbler.com.
3. Make or buy an inexpensive directional wireless booster cantenna and connect it to your computer’s wifi card, pcmcia card, or your access point.
4. Scan the horizon with your antenna and look for the free network you found in the directory. It is best to point the cantenna out a high window with a clear line of sight to the public network
5. Once you find the network, connect and set up your antenna in the position that gives you the best signal strength.

Related wikiHows

• How to Police Your Kids on the Internet
• How to Use Wifi
• How to Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications
• How to Connect Tivo to a Wifi Network
• How to Improve WiFi Reception

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get Free WiFi from Your City or Town. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Interpol have released this photo to the world’s media in an effort to identify the pedophile pictured.

The creep is wanted in connection with multiple instances of abuse of boys from South-East Asia.

So take a good look, and see if you can answer the question: Who is this nonce??

So get this: prime minister Gordon Brown wants cannabis to be reclassified as Class B again, even though his “experts” have advised him not to do it. What an ass!

Cannabis was a Class B drug in the UK for years, legally considered on a par with amphetamines for God’s sake! But in 2004, the government saw sense and reclassified it as Class C, the same as tranquillizers like Valium.

Unfortunately, some idiots in high places (no pun intended!) started to spread the story that “new”, “extra strong” strains of cannabis, for instance skunk, made users turn into schizophrenics. And other idiots, in the government, fell for the propaganda!

Brown called for an investigation into these claims. And now, even though his inquiry has concluded that the schizophrenia-link is bullshit, he’s determined to press ahead with the reclassification.

Some pro-prohibition voices have always criticized the declassification to Class C, on the grounds that people were confused by the law - apparently some people thought that dope had been legalized. Well, making cannabis Class B again is just going to confuse the issue more. And it will make the penalties for possession severe, when even the most harsh observers would agree that possession of cannabis is an honest-to-goodness victimless crime.

Oh, if you don’t agree with the government’s experts who have ruled out a link between cannabis use and schizophrenia, check out this study from psychiatrysource.com - its authors note that schizophrenics are more likely to smoke (tobacco or dope), but deny that smoking in any way causes schizophrenia. Schizophrenics just like smoking.

The government’s willingness to ignore its experts proves that its plan to reclassify cannabis as Class B is driven by political considerations, not medical reasons.  The government’s entire drugs policy is political, not medical, legal or societal.

TELL THE POLITICIANS TO SHOVE THEIR SENSELESS LAWS!! SMOKE DOPE!! AND TO HELL WITH GORDON BROWN!!

What an awful development… Shannon Matthews’ stepdad, Craig Meehan was today charged with 11 counts of possessing indecent images of children.  In total, he’s alleged to have had 140 child porn pictures stored on computers at home.

This comes in addition to Shannon’s mother being charged for child neglect and perverting the course of justice in connection with Shannon’s disappearance last month.  And Meehan’s mother Alice, and her daughters Amanda Hyatt and Caroline Meehan, were also arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

There’s been no suggestion that Shannon was in any of her stepdad’s pictures, nor that Meehan has abused her.  But it’s extremely disturbing that the girl has been living with an alleged pedophile. Add to this the suggestion that her family were all in some way involved in a conspiracy around her kidnap… the possibilities are stomach-churning.

Thank the stars that the police put Shannon into care rather than return her to her parents.

The Liberal Democrats are predictably liberal in their stance on cannabis.  But I was surprised, and pleased, to discover that even the Conservatives are in favour of legalizing medicinal marijuana - David Cameron has said that he’d be “relaxed” about legalization if there was evidence of cannabis’ clinical efficacy. But the bloody Labour Party won’t go for it.

Not too long ago, things looked more hopeful. Mo Mowlam, the former cabinet minister in Blair’s government who died in 2005, supported the campaign to legalize cannabis for medical use; the Home Office started to investigate whether cannabis was medicinally beneficial, but that hasn’t gone anywhere - and now the government is strictly anti-cannabis, harping on about its “dangers” and pushing for it to be made a Class B drug again. There has been development of a “cannabis-based” pill for sufferers of multiple sclerosis… but the damn thing contains no THC, the Puritan authorities don’t want anyone to get high, and THC is very likely the active ingredient that makes cannabis a beneficial drug.  So the pill doesn’t work.  Idiots.

What really pisses me off is the fact that even the USA, the most anti-drug nation in the world, accepts that marijuana is an effective medicine.  Okay, so the federal government is anti-cannabis still; but a great many states have medicinal marijuana policies. Laws that legalize growing and/or possessing medical marijuana are in place in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon,  Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Twelve states have medical marijuana research laws, and only fifteen states have never had a positive medical marijuana law.

MS and glaucoma sufferers get great relief when they use cannabis.  Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy find that dope eases their otherwise debilitating nausea. AIDS, epilepsy, depression, chronic pain, are all ameliorated to some extent.  So why won’t the UK government legalize medicinal marijuana? Why are patients in Britain forced to live in fear of prison?

SUPPORT THE LEGALIZATION OF MEDICINAL MARIJUANA!! CHECK OUT THE CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS ASSOCIATION AND THE  “BUD BUDDIES” MARIJUANA COOPERATIVE FOR THE SICK.

Well, well!! It seems that Shannon Matthews wasn’t really kidnapped at all… her mother, Karen Matthews, has been arrested - apparently after admitting to police that she knew where her daughter was hidden all along!!

Matthews, aged 32, is charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice. Serious stuff.

In case you didn’t hear about this case at the time, here’s a recap: Shannon Matthews, aged 9, vanished on 19 February and was found 24 days later after one of the largest missing person hunts ever conducted by West Yorkshire Police. She was found hidden under a bed at the home of a relative, Michael Donovan. (He’s the uncle of Shannon’s stepfather.)

Craig Meehan’s sister, Amanda Hyett (Shannon’s step-aunt), and his mother, Alice Meehan (Shannon’s step-grandmother) have also been arrested in connection with this: Ms Hyett was questioned “on suspicion of assisting an offender”, and Ms Meehan was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Both women were released on police bail.

This complicated case has got me baffled. It looks like Karen Matthews faked her daughter’s kidnap. But if it was a fake, how come Michael Donovan is still facing charges of kidnap and false imprisonment? Surely the police can’t have it both ways?!

As to why this crazy business happened: since Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal, her parents have accrued quite a lot of money. Did Karen Matthews think she too could make some cash if her daughter went missing?

I can remember Matthews making appeals on the TV for her daughter’s safe return. And her fellow inmates in prison will also remember it. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes right now!! Oww!!