Here piggy

piggy (NSFW). Is that Piggy (Not Suitable For Anything)?

Fluff

Just a load of links that I can't be arsed to build individual posts around so I've lumped the whole lot together. Some are interesting, some are cultural, some are weird, some are shit. Do I care?

http://mindbluff.com/askread.htm - how fast do you read
http://web.syr.edu/%7Ebwlee/fun_stuff/shii_song.swf - Shii is a lonely little flash kitty living in a cardboard box who sings the most heart wrenching song ever. The song is called 'Winds Nocturne' and originally comes from the Japanese game Lunar.
http://www.newsandentertainment.com/zfalienh.html - Alien hominid, shootout game
http://www.zefrank.com/matches/index2.html - matchstick puzzles
http://www.teddyscares.com/ - teddy scares, buy one for the ex-girlfriend
http://lowbrowlowdown.com/punkrockkitchen/ - punk rock kitchen
http://tattoosandtoys.com/ - fan based tattoos, includes star wars, transformers and gi joe
http://homokaasu.org/gasgames/ - small games to keep you occupied
http://www.onlineconversion.com/ - convert just about anything to anything
http://www.learnersonline.com/weekly/index.htm - weekly online lessons
http://www.sfskids.org/templates/splash.asp - San Fransisco symphony site where kids can learn about classical music through fun and games. They can even compose their own music with the "Composerizer"
http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/ - mapping project of findings in Egypt
http://www.buddhanet.net/ - The ultimate cyber sangha (Buddhist assembly) has to be Buddhanet.net. Among the coolest features are tons of free mp3s with Chinese Buddhist Songs as well as web based meditation classes. Use the "World Buddhist Directory" to find specific buddhism information for your area.
http://www.hotscripts.com/ - web based script resource site
http://www.in-the-spirit.co.uk/index.php - definitive guide to cocktails
http://www.pantheon.org/ - Encyclopedia mythica, mythology from around the world
http://www.pixelgirlpresents.com/ - free icons and desktops
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ - algebra made easier
http://www.jref.com/ - everything you want to know about Japan, English language site
http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm - online resource for free images
http://www.biblical-art.com/ - biblical art
http://web.dachser.com/deu/service/global_player/spiel.htm - logistics game
http://www.funbrainteasers.com/ - brain teasers
http://lightertricks.com/index.php - zippo lighter tricks
http://games.ztor.com/tang/ - piece together old Chinese puzzles from the available triangles and squares.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ancientobs/chichen/flash.html - Take a virtual tour of the Mayan observatory of Chichén Itzá. Learn about the sky watching expertise of the ancient Mayans and be awed by their knowledge.
http://www.gamesarcade.net/curling/ - puppy curling
http://www.centuryinshoes.com/ - 20th century shoes
http://www.onlinecomics.net/pages/ - online comics
http://www.crashbonsai.com/ - bonsai crashes.
http://www.whereisjesus.com/index.php - Where's Jesus - find jesus in pics
http://www.head-hunter.com/ - history of the Shuar shrunken heads
http://www.gutenberg.org/ - free books. Mostly classics
http://www.makaimedia.com/games/game_frame.aspx?gid=96 - Sea dogs, pirate game
http://www.storyabout.net/typedrawing/ - type drawing, draw using text for the lines
http://soyouwanna.com/ - so you want to learn something new
http://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com/ - satirical art updated weekly
http://www.jaguarurbangolf.co.uk/ - online games
http://www.bobbyneeladams.com/age.html - young and old pics of the same person spliced together
http://www.idiomsite.com/ - idioms
http://www.adesblog.com/?p=46 - button makers
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-07/uoc--ucc071505.php - nano valve
http://www.deadbrain.co.uk/news/article_2005_07_18_3851.php - spoof council tax article
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/blog/lohan/blogger.html - Spoof stars blogs, starts with Lindsay Lohan, others are linked
http://www.geekblue.net/archives/2005/07/badonkadonk_mou.html - nice mouse

Cornerpockets

MJ has been posting about bollocks lately and despite her pleading I am not going to send her a picture of my sack. So to keep her amused I found a site full of bollocks for her.

The Bible

Seems that the Bible has fallen foul of the censors.

Is this

Steve? Found at Is this you which is a site of photos found on British Streets.

Bizarre Porn Titles

Charlie in my Chocolate Factory

The Constant Hardener

The Dykes of Hazzard

Miss Genitality 2: Armed and Flexible

Mr. & Mrs. & Mrs. & Mrs. & Mrs. Smith

Star Whores: Revenge of the Sluts

Whore of the Worlds

Have you got some bizarre Porn titles you've thought of?

Travel Tax Petition Response

Thank you for taking the time to register your views about road pricing on the Downing Street website.

This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network.

It made clear that congestion is a major problem to which there is no easy answer. One aspect of the study was highlighting how road pricing could provide a solution to these problems and that advances in technology put these plans within our reach. Of course it would be ten years or more before any national scheme was technologically, never mind politically, feasible.

That is the backdrop to this issue. As my response makes clear, this is not about imposing "stealth taxes" or introducing "Big Brother" surveillance¹. This is a complex subject, which cannot be resolved without a thorough investigation of all the options, combined with a full and frank debate about the choices we face at a local and national level. That's why I hope this detailed response will address your concerns and set out how we intend to take this issue forward. I see this email as the beginning, not the end of the debate, and the links below provide an opportunity for you to take it further.

But let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so. We are, for now, working with some local authorities that are interested in establishing local schemes to help address local congestion problems. Pricing is not being forced on any area², but any schemes would teach us more about how road pricing would work and inform decisions on a national scheme. And funds raised from these local schemes will be used to improve transport in those areas.

One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad. It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. It affects people's quality of life. And it is bad for the environment. That is why tackling congestion is a key priority for any Government.

Congestion is predicted to increase by 25% by 2015. This is being driven by economic prosperity. There are 6 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997, and predictions are that this trend will continue.

Part of the solution is to improve public transport, and to make the most of the existing road network. We have more than doubled investment since 1997, spending £2.5 billion this year on buses and over £4 billion on trains³ - helping to explain why more people are using them than for decades. And we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015. We're also putting a great deal of effort into improving traffic flows - for example, over 1000 Highways Agency Traffic Officers⁴ now help to keep motorway traffic moving.

But all the evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse. So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. For example, road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes. Towns and cities across the world are looking at road pricing as a means of addressing congestion.

One option would be to allow congestion to grow unchecked. Given the forecast growth in traffic, doing nothing would mean that journeys within and between cities would take longer, and be less reliable. I think that would be bad for businesses, individuals and the environment. And the costs on us all will be real - congestion could cost an extra £22 billion in wasted time in England by 2025, of which £10-12 billion would be the direct cost on businesses⁵.

A second option would be to try to build our way out of congestion. We could, of course, add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside. Certainly in some places new capacity will be part of the story. That is why we are widening the M25⁶, M1 and M62. But I think people agree that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity.

Tackling congestion in this way would also be extremely costly, requiring substantial sums to be diverted from other services such as education and health, or increases in taxes. If I tell you that one mile of new motorway costs as much as £30m, you'll have an idea of the sums this approach would entail.

That is why I believe that at least we need to explore the contribution road pricing can make to tackling congestion. It would not be in anyone's interests, especially those of motorists, to slam the door shut on road pricing without exploring it further.

It has been calculated that a national scheme - as part of a wider package of measures - could cut congestion significantly through small changes in our overall travel patterns⁷. But any technology used would have to give definite guarantees about privacy being protected - as it should be. Existing technologies, such as mobile phones and pay-as-you-drive insurance schemes, may well be able to play a role here, by ensuring that the Government doesn't hold information about where vehicles have been. But there may also be opportunities presented by developments in new technology. Just as new medical technology is changing the NHS, so there will be changes in the transport sector. Our aim is to relieve traffic jams, not create a "Big Brother" society.

I know many people's biggest worry about road pricing is that it will be a "stealth tax" on motorists. It won't⁸. Road pricing is about tackling congestion.

Clearly if we decided to move towards a system of national road pricing, there could be a case for moving away from the current system of motoring taxation. This could mean that those who use their car less, or can travel at less congested times, in less congested areas, for example in rural areas, would benefit from lower motoring costs overall. Those who travel longer distances at peak times and in more congested areas would pay more. But those are decisions for the future. At this stage, when no firm decision has been taken as to whether we will move towards a national scheme, stories about possible costs are simply not credible, since they depend on so many variables yet to be investigated, never mind decided.

Before we take any decisions about a national pricing scheme, we know that we have to have a system that works. A system that respects our privacy as individuals. A system that is fair. I fully accept that we don't have all the answers yet. That is why we are not rushing headlong into a national road pricing scheme. Before we take any decisions there would be further consultations. The public will, of course, have their say, as will Parliament⁹.

We want to continue this debate, so that we can build a consensus around the best way to reduce congestion, protect the environment and support our businesses. If you want to find out more, please visit the attached links to more detailed information, and which also give opportunities to engage in further debate.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Blair

Notes
1 - Hmm, fingerprints taken for ID cards are to be checked against outstanding crimes. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
2 - Really? So why has the Department for Transport has established a £1.4 billion fund for investment in local transport but has told councils that any bid for a share of the money must include congestion charging?
3 - And what did you do with the rest of the £50 billion of motoring taxes?
4 - I'd rather they were proper traffic police as we used to have.
5 - And how much is road charging going to cost them as the money paid will already have been taxed?
6 - Where? Round by Heathrow? That's already been done.
7 - So why don't we try the other changes first?
8 - It'll just be another tax on the motorist.
9 - Which we'll ignore, just like Iraq, the extended congestion charge in London, ID cards, the NHS system, etc.

You should be informed that the reason the British Government is so for road charging is that it is tied to an EU decision to implement it Europe wide.

Uniformed G.I.rl

Knowing how much Sniffy likes rocket launchers and big guns, not forgetting fit women, I found something to indulge both her interests.

Michelle Manhart was demoted when she posed for Playboy.

Exam answers

I'm pretty sure that Piggy's are in there somewhere.

Badges

Pick one, print it and wear it.

Fucking wanker

Despite over eight hundred thousand signatures on an e-petition to scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy on a site set up by the Government to enable disenfranchised voters the means to communicate with the Government the fucking wanker Tony Bliar has turned round and given them the finger.

Mr Blair told the MPs that people needed to realise taxpayers could not continually fund new roads.

The arrogant prick! Motorists pay extortionate amounts of tax through VED (car tax) and the tax on petrol which is almost 80% of the price and that is without the tax that has already been paid from their salaries.

What galls me is that the blurb on the site E-petitions states:

Downing Street is working in partnership with the non-partisan charitable project mySociety to provide a service to allow citizens, charities and campaign groups to set up petitions that are hosted on the Downing Street website, enabling anyone to address and deliver a petition directly to the Prime Minister.

This is not the first time that the government has responded with a lengthy, verbose fuck you. Oh, no. The Home Office sent a letter to MCN stating that it hadn't tested speed cameras on motorbikes so MCN set up a petition on the E-petitions site asking for a freeze [on] all speeding fines levied against motorcyclists until such time that the Government tests and approves all speed detection equipment for use specifically on motorcycles.

Yesterday, though MCN posted that Frank Garrett, an ex-policeman who has since turned his hand to speed camera partnerships, admitted under oath that the LTI 20.20 Ultralyte, a popular hand-held speed camera, is not as accurate as claimed. You can read the transcript of the court case where Frank Garrett admits the LTI 20.20 Ultralyte is flawed here. It's a big transcript but worth the read.

My frustration with this government is increasing with all the new "policies" they are coming up with to watch and control the populace. Biometric ID cards where the microchips have only a two year warranty, street lamps with x-ray cameras, vehicle tracking systems for which you will be fined/go to jail if they are found to not be working, RFID chips in bins to see how much rubbish you chuck out; the list is ever growing. Even the Archbishop of York has warned that Britain is becoming a police state and he fled Uganda when Idi Amin ruled!!

I was recently asked what party I will be voting for when the next general election comes, my answer? None of them. None of them have got sensible policies and so I will be voting for an independent; I should stress that is not the UKIP. If everyone was to do so then no major party would get in and the current voting system would need to be overhauled.

The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights
and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed - Adolf Hitler

Lucky

A bloke bought a barn which had locked doors. Just look at what he ended up buying.

You need to scroll down to the pictures.

I got peas in my head

and I'm looking for a date.

Something wrong with that guy.

In the woods

The SAS, the Parachute Regiment and the Police decide to go on a survival weekend together to see who comes out on top. After some basic exercises the trainer tells them that their next objective is to go down into the woods and catch a rabbit, returning with it ready to skin and cook.

Night falls...
First up - the SAS. They don infrared goggles, drop to the ground and crawl into the woods in formation. Absolute silence for 5 minutes, followed by the unmistakable muffled "phut-phut" of their trademark silenced "double-tap". They emerge with a large rabbit shot cleanly between the eyes.

"Excellent!" remarks the trainer.
Next up - the Para's. They finish their cans of lager, smear themselves with camouflage cream, fix bayonets and charge down into the woods, screaming at the top of their lungs. For the next hour the woods ring with the sound of rifle and machine-gun fire, hand grenades, mortar bombs and blood curdling war cries. Eventually they emerge, carrying the charred remains of a rabbit.

"A bit messy, but you achieved the aim; well done", says the trainer.
Lastly, in go the Coppers, walking slowly, hands behind backs whistling Dixon of Dock Green. For the next few hours, the silence is only broken by the occasional crackle of a walkie-talkie "Sierra Lima Whisky Tango Fanta One, suspect headed straight for you..." etc. After what seems an eternity, they emerge escorting a squirrel in handcuffs.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" asks the incredulous trainer, "Take this squirrel back and get me a rabbit like I asked you five hours ago!".

So back they go. Minutes pass. Minutes turn to hours, night drags on and turns to day. The next morning, the trainer and the other teams are awakened by the police, holding the handcuffed squirrel, now covered in bruises, one eye nearly shut.

"Are you taking the piss!!??" asks the now seriously irate trainer.
The police team leader nudges the squirrel, who squeaks:
"Alright, alright, I'm a fuckin' rabbit!"

Speeding - What's your excuse?

Made me laugh

Speed cameras are mainly inaccurate

BBC TV local news programme "Look East" reveals today that Gatso speed camera calibration procedures raise an anomaly that casts doubt on the evidence from around half the cameras.

The problem is that when cameras have been sent for routine annual calibration, about half of them had to be repaired before the calibration process was completed. This provides documentary evidence that around half the cameras became faulty at some point during the year before calibration. Since we cannot know when the faults first appeared it does mean that any camera so affected cannot be relied upon to provide accurate legal evidence to the standards required by our courts.

This came to light when Sally Chidzoy of BBC TV Look East obtained camera calibration invoices under the Freedom of Information Act.

The invoices so far obtained apply to Essex and Hertfordshire cameras. It's likely that a similar situation applies to all Gatso cameras in every area.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign (http://www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "Nothing about the incompetence of speed camera operations surprises me any more, but this particular blunder is certainly of epic proportions."

"This information casts very substantial doubts on the safety of evidence from thousands of cameras used against hundreds of thousands of motorists."

"Confidence in speed cameras is already at rock bottom, but this information will drive it down further. I can only imagine that hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of motorists are going to be asking for their money back."

Now I'm no solicitor, but run this past yours if you have been caught by a Gatso recently. Immediately ask for a copy of its maintenance log including any invoices for repairs for the last annual maintenance along with its calibration history. If it is due for its annual maintenance then you could probably challenge the penalty in court.

Apiswea ib seyf

Shit, I meant spiders on drugs