Political Penguin

The last six months or so have been marked by the constant drip of criticism from the Tories that following Governmental departments having lost various pieces of people’s personal information that this leads directly to the ‘Labour can’t be trusted with your data’ mantra.

How apt then that it should be that on the eve of polling for what’s probably one of the most hotly contested by-elections in years that the Tories should manage to e-mail off the personal data including names, addresses, telephone numbers, voting intentions and socio-economic groups of 8,575 key voters in Crewe and Nantwich to some foreign journalists.

Apart from the obvious breach of data protection legislation of taking such sensitive data outside of the internal political party structure it does beg the question why they would see fit to simply e-mail such information around in th first place? Were they using encrypted e-mails or was it some whipper snapper sitting in front of their Hotmail account?

There will of course be some very serious questions that need answering to the Information Commissioners office tomorrow morning of which I’d just like to add this extra one.

Although not all of the recipients have been named, one that has is the Isle of Man based Manx Radio. Now for those not disposed of the knowledge of the geo-political status of that little island between us and Ireland it has an almost unique status being a rather nice cushy little tax haven for certain individuals.

To achieve this status it has to lie outside of both the EU and the EEA.

Now for those who know their onions regarding data protection registration there are some important clauses (actually they’re called ‘prinicples’) in the registration that is filed with the Information Commissioners office.

We of course need the answer to a question first. Under who’s jurisdiction in terms of the data controller for the Tories is said data?

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office there is no registration for anything like a local Crewe and Nantwich Conservative Association and this being a by-election where national parties step into the breach we can only assume that the national Tory party is in charge and here’s their registration:

Registration Number: Z5909711

CCHQ
25 VICTORIA STREET
LONDON
SW1H 0DL

While we’re at it, here’s the statement of purposes for the use of data under their control, long I know but the important bit is at the end of each statement of purpose:

Purpose 1

None outside the European Economic Area

Yes, that’s right. ‘None outside the EEA’ which is rather a bugger when you send your data to someone in the Isle of Man isn’t it?

I think a nice little e-mail to the Information Commissioner’s Office is in order. Just being helpful like…

Sometimes you can get a bit jaded by politics. The party political knock-about takes its toll on occasions but from time to time something happens which restores your faith that we, despite what some people may think, and what some elements of our media might want people to think; live in a country where reason can prevail.

I’ve not been involved but have been following the ongoing saga that is what a complete nut-job Nadine Dorries and at least to some degree having a wake-up call as to just how close we always are to the prospect of legislation being forced upon us by those who seek to make judgments, not from the position of informed reasoning but because it fits nicely with their own religious position.

I’ve been reading a bit lately about the historical relationship between religion and law in British history. If anything, what struck me most was that I’d always considered we have moved steadily away from belief based legislation towards a more enlightened position.

Even I had somehow accepted that this was a steady one-way street away from superstition towards logic and rationality but it isn’t. The threat from those who would stoop so low as try and stir emotional responses to further their own position is ever present despite what the science actually is.

Are these intellectually lax tactics inherently the of the ‘right’? If years in politics is anything to go by then the answer is probably yes. Have I been in the position where someone on the right has gone down the route of ‘well everyone knows that’ and utilising the wonderful (I’ve lost the argument phrase) ‘well there’s lies damned lies and statistics’ while blatantly quoting a party line based on use of statistics? Yes I have and it’s disconcerting not only that this approach to political discourse is not only considered to be acceptable by some but that people might give it credence in the first place.

The worst kind of legislation is that passed purely on the basis of belief. Where there is no intellectual grounding or verifiable evidence to support the position. We’ve seen that in the past few weeks and in cases such as this, with absence of an actual substantive support for their position they choose instead to rely on pseudo-science and play to people’s emotions.

If nothing else it has made me realise that we are not on a one-way street towards greater rationality, that along the way we risk taking that step backwards if the views of people like Nadine Dorries are not challenged and shown for the shallow disingenuous nonsense that they are.

Those of us that value the rational over the superstitious, that value how far we as a country have come and surprisingly how far behind even some of our close neighbours are should never take this for granted while there are those who wish to drag us backwards.

I have to admit though that I do agree to some extent that in a perfect world there should be no abortions other than those for specific clinical or medical reasons. In a perfect world contraception would never fail, in a perfect world we wouldn’t have unintended pregnancies because people are ill-informed or lack the knowledge of how to avoid them. In a perfect world every child would be wanted and loved but we don’t live in a perfect world.

What troubles me the most is that these same people taking a religious position against abortion are the same religious people who seek to rob our children of the information to prevent them in the first place.

When I was at school the sum total of all sex education consisted of a single two hour session at age 14. I remember it quite distinctly because of the alarming lack of knowledge shown by my fellow pupils and my school was not a religiously aligned one but the lessons that we’re supposed to carry on suddenly stopped for no known reason apart from some rumour that a vicar had complained (whether that is true or not I do not know but for some reason the classes did indeed suddenly stop) and at least two girls to my knowledge in my year at school were pregnant before they left at 16.

It strikes me that if these people really do care about wanting to reduce the number of abortions in our society then instead of seeking to restrict young people’s knowledge or spouting claptrap about some mythical ‘abortion industry’ and shove the ‘just say no’ matra down their necks then they should actively to promoting better sex education in our schools. accepting that yes, shock horror teenagers do have sex with each other and no amount of moralising is going to change that.

That said, far better commentary on this whole debate can of course be found by Unity over at MoT and as the saga closes the best laugh can be found here.

I’d like if I may, to tell a little tale about the conscientious environmentally aware parent and their hunt for a more environmentally friendly method of poo disposal for their little one.

When Little Penguin came along I’ll be the first to admit that we as parents probably did exactly what the vast majority of parents do. It was a whiz around Mothercare for various items followed by the steady routine of purchasing the various paraphernalia of associated accessories that go along with the rearing of small persons in modern day Britain.

Part and parcel of these is the procurement of nappies. I’ll be the first to admit it was a straight choice between disposables and terry towels of which Mrs Penguin certainly didn’t fancy the prospect of the terry towel option so like millions of other parents it was off for some disposables. Sometimes Huggies, sometimes Pampers but there really isn’t a great deal of choice out there spare the few own-brand versions.

About 18 months down the line having contributed no end to our countries ever increasing landfill problems I by chance came across the the Real Nappies Campaign and I started a bit of a personal crusade. It wasn’t going to affect Little Penguin but were a Littler Penguin to come along then the desire was definitely there to do something different second time around.

When Littler Penguin popped out last month there really wasn’t much choice, being premature and relatively tiny there was only the option of those ‘size 0′ disposable nappies which worried me that we were going down the same path once again.

So a couple of weeks ago I took it upon myself to undertake a bit of a mission. Checked out the Real Nappy Campaign website for local stockists of reusable nappy solutions and headed off to Wolverhampton. The likely contenders listed were the obvious Mothercare, Boots and Waitrose.

First stop was Mothercare who do their own line in reusable nappies. It’s a complete system but having done a bit of totting up in my head the prices didn’t seem any more favourable than using disposables and much as I’d like to think it was purely an environmental concern at heart, I’d rather have preferred there to be a financial payoff as well. That said and this purely my own personal opinion, I didn’t much like the look of the Mothercare system either but it was all they had to offer.

So off I trundled to Boots who had nothing more than a couple of terry towels which wasn’t going to fly with the missus. Thinking that my last option was Waitrose and not being particularly up for a hike up the Penn Road I decided to get on the phone.

There are times in life when an internet enabled phone coupled with Google Search/Maps comes in very handy and this was one such time.

I spoke to a few of the other people listed on the Real Nappy Campaign site who mainly seemed to be home based suppliers but got some good advice, some of which was not to bother hiking to Waitrose. I talked a bit and finally came up with the kind of system I had in mind and was advised that the Bambino Mio range was probably my best option.

Sadly though no one knew a local outlet but going through the list I came across a store in Walsall called Kiddisave which for those with local knowledge is the place behind Woolworths with all the prams in the window.

Gave them a call and they had the Bambino Mio range in so off I toddled to Walsall very much to the annoyance of Mrs Penguin who I’d promised I’d only be out for an hour or so but t’was a trip worth making it was.

In the end I opted for one of the packs that contain three nappy outers, 12 cotton nappies and picked up a pack of the wraps and anti-bacterial washing stuff to boot. Cost about £50 all together which is a bit of a psychological barrier but when you consider the only part that needs buying again, the wraps, which are a fiver for 200. (the washing stuff will also need purchasing again but by the looks of it will last for a year).

The wraps also comprise the only disposable element of the system and are fully biodegradable and toilet flushable which is what we wanted.

So now we’re on to Bambino Mio’s which despite the name sounding decidedly Italian are actually a company from Northamptonshire so we can be equally content that we’re buying British as well. (to be precise the outers say made in the EU, and the wraps say ‘converted in the UK’ but to be fair, we don’t exactly grow much cotton in the UK so somewhere along the line something comes from afar but that’s good enough for me as it’s a UK based company that’s making the profit)

We’re not totally converted as of yet, it took a bit of learning and trial and error to get the folding and wrapping right and at nights we’ll still use some disposables for reasons that fellow parents will now but the principle is there and the bin is considerably less full on collection day than it was a few weeks ago.

If anything though, this little episode has taught me something. We’re using this kind of reusable system, not because there was a big fanfare of marketing aimed at us. Not because there was information about it in those packs that they give you at hospital when you’re going through the whole pregnancy thing (although there’s plenty of marketing in those packs for Pampers) but because out of pure bloody-mindedness it was something that we wanted to try. The problem is that to get to that point it took effort, research, asking around which I’m going to hazard a guess that most parents won’t be bothered with on the arrival of a little one as there’s far more important stuff to do.

When local authorities consider the cost of landfill tax then it would surely follow that they would have a strong vested interest in trying to make people aware of how they can use something other than disposables and it also figures that as at some point every parent has to visit said local authority to register the birth then some sort of information pack or even voucher scheme handed out at this point seems the most logical.

I’ll just add that yes, some local authorities do runs schemes along the lines of giving one-off payments of anything up to £70 on production of receipts for the purchase of reusable nappy systems. The only local one to these parts is Wolverhampton although we’ll see how long that lasts under the new Tory/LibDem alliance.

As I sit here, dutifully waiting for the four horsemen of the apocalypse to come charging over the Tividale hills ushering in the end of humanity and the subsequent reports in our staunchly independent mainstream media that it’s all Gordon brown’s fault. I thought I’d shy away from my usual in-depth approach and jot down a personal perspective on life as it stands at this current point in time.

I’ve learned from passing the news stands in the supermarket and corner shops around these parts over the past six months or so that our country is so over-crowded with immigrants that no one can get a doctor, dentist, delivery suite for giving birth or a place for said offspring when they reach school age.

On top of that the economy is tits up, our houses are going to be worth less than the price of a Pot Noodle by the end of the year which of course due to soaring inflation in the cost of food will stand at somewhere around £5,000 come the time the big red suited one descends for his annual distribution of Chinese manufactured toys – should said toys get here because oil will cost $10,000 a pint and the freight companies will have all gone bust.

OK, a little exaggeration there but you get my drift. Everything is getting worse and in case you didn’t know, it’s all Gordon Brown’s fault because he’s Scottish.

So for a little perspective here’s my rundown of various personal experiences of late which either means that 1, all this stuff in the media is rubbish, or 2, the little bit of the world I inhabit (Willenhall, little town in the Black Country) has broken with the old space time continuum and shuffled off to a different dimensional plane.

Getting an NHS dentist isn’t hard, I’m about to change mine, no hunting around, calling up numbers from the Yellow Pages like J.R Hartley only to be told sorry. There’s plenty of availability.

My GP surgery at least the last time I went there a few weeks ago had a sign up inviting new patients to sign up with them.

Last year I had a minor op, removal on ingrowing toenail. Waited 5 weeks to have it done. Bit of mild discomfort while I waited but nothing too bad that required anything like regularly taking pain-killers. Back in the early 1990′s my second-cousin-in-law waited nearly two years in agony for kidney stones to be removed which led to over dependence on pain killers and substantial time off work. Yep, health service has obviously got worse under Labour.

Apparently expectant mothers are being turned away from maternity wards because they’re full or understaffed. Well, I can highly recommend Wolverhampton New Cross hospital as a place to give birth. The wards were half empty, service was great and Mrs Penguin was well impressed by the food. Far better than anything you’d get in the pseudo-private-insurance funded system in Germany – which incidentally cost a damn site more to run than our own good old NHS. On a side note to that, the neo-natal facilities have all been done up since we had Little Penguin and are a darn sight better now than even two and a half years ago but shush, don’t tell anyone, things getting better in the health service, we can’t have that now can we?

When the little Penguin’s are due to start their academic career there’s plenty of school places knocking around. The most likely destination for them, the newly built (with lots of investment dosheroonies from the Labour Government) but admittedly built in the most stupid of places thanks to the local Tories and LibDems’ has, the last time I checked only about 70% of it’s capacity filled. Much like most of the schools across the borough to the extent that you can bet the newly wishy washy Cameroonian Tories will find a way of closing a few to save money. Not that they’re penny pinching bureaucratic minded micro-managerial types of course.

I’ve never quite understood the British obsession with house prices. I’m assuming it’s a British trait and perhaps would make a good question for one of those nationality/citizenship tests. “Will you worry constantly about the capital value of your house?” Answer yes, you’re in, answer no, well you’re not really British enough, please sod off.

For the last few years we’ve had a media banging on about how house prices are so high young people can’t get on the ladder. Not to mention it’s all Gordon Brown’s fault for letting in all those Polish people in the first place. Now prices aren’t rising at rates vastly above the rate of wage inflation and Ministers get spotted with papers indicating they might fall by between 5-10% by the end of the year which you never know, might actually make them a bit more affordable to first time buyers, and the world’s gone to pot.

My house is my home. I actually don’t care if my little two bedroom Victorian terrace is worth £50,000 or £100,000. It’s irrelevant if said other persons comparable property is worth the same and if the differential between property prices narrows it actually makes it easier and more affordable to upgrade, not that I’m planning to.

Apparently there’s a credit crunch going on, its impossible to get loans for mortgages or anything else and our whole economic system built on the procurement of debt is going to grind to a halt.

This is weird to me. I’ve been inundated with offers for loans and credit cards the last few months, far more than normal. Every time I go to the bank, building society or post office I get the question have you got a mortgage, would you like to switch to us or take out a loan?

As it happens, I am planning on switching my mortgage, have to sort out a few things but all told I should be shaving about 13% off my monthly payments which is nice. What was that about credit crisis again?

I’m torn but as far as I can tell, ably abetted by large swathes of the media we seem to be talking ourselves into a recession. Employment is higher than ever, unemployment continues to fall, the currency is pretty steady, interest rates are low. I may have missed something, and this is probably all Gordon Brown’s fault that he simply can’t do a recession properly but what happened to the good old days when the Tories were in.

They knew how to do a proper recession. Millions on the dole, interest rates at 15%, the pound collapsing in value overnight. Now that’s how to do a recession properly. Never mind, let’s hope the Tories get back in, after all they’ve got David Cameron who was an apprentice to Norman Lamont (the true master of buggering up economies) so I feel rest assured that when the Tories win the next general election we’ll have a proper recession and none of this wussy New Labour imitation stuff. Did I mention it’s all Gordon Brown’s fault, he can’t even get recession’s right.

So there we have it. This is not dismiss that there are real issues at the moment, many of which are hurting some of the most vulnerable in our society. Energy costs and as a direct consequence of them the cost of food. These are rising above the rate of inflation and those on fixed incomes like pensioners and people of benefits will be hit. Of course the rising cost of energy has nothing whatsoever with rip-off wholesalers like Centrico, conflict in the world, or the general inability to keep up with demand while supply gradually runs out. It is of course all Gordon Brown’s fault, I don’t understand why people don’t get that?

While I was on paternity leave from the blog a couple of weeks ago a lady called Dolores contacted me. She does graphic design and particularly favours politically stroppy animals, hence the penguin link.

She asked if she could send me some and I was more than happy to take a look. They’re good and deserve to be in the public domain so from time to time I’ll be posting up some of her work and hopefully she’ll be getting her own site in the not too distant future because work like this deserves to be out there.

There is a side note. Most readers will know my position regarding usage of graphical images on this site. As far as I’m normally concerned all images are free to use and distribute although accreditation and a link back is always appreciated and this remains the case unless otherwise stipulated.

In this case these images remain the sole property of Delores and she retains full copyright. Please respect this and if you wish to use these images for any other purpose then I’m more than happy to put you in touch with her so that you can discuss it.

Without further ado, I have to admit this one is my favourite. I don’t normally go down with profanity on this site but in this case I’ll make the exception because it is truly funny.

To your left is a new Twitter feed added into the sidebar. I’m unconvinced at the moment as to whether it will stay there or indeed to what value Twitter is as a concept but I’m just playing around.

Pity the Flash object knocked out the CSS. I’m not a big fan of flash in general but it did look smooth. So for the moment we’re on plain old XHTML.

Presumably all bloggers will be to some extent familiar with the bane that is spam.

Thanks to a few little bits an bobs set up when this site was in it’s infancy as good as no comment spam has managed to make its way onto the site.

However, the last month or so has seen a distinct upsurge targeting my contact section meaning that for the first time I actually have a few spammy e-mail’s in my inbox.

This isn’t appreciated but from my own perspective, the nature of the spam is quite interesting.

Not your common old comment spam from (insert well known spamming server), nope, this is a full on botnet scenario. Not exactly an outright DNS attack but certainly one utilising plenty of zombie PC’s (all running Windows and Internet Explorer I might add). Quite why my site and Mrs Penguin’s have become the target of a botnet is not known, other sites linking to here who use exactly the same CMS structure haven’t been affected but there you go, must have miffed off some Russians or Chinese. (note, that’s a qualified statement as most of the worlds botnet attacks originate from either of those two countries and is no way to be considered a slur on wither nationalities).

It’s a bit of a problem and vast swathes of IP addresses have been blocked. Sadly these will be to real people who then will not be able to access the site (although they’ll get a polite message and instructions on how to contact me to rectify the problem).

I just thought I’d mention it.

In a similar vein, one particular IP address has been popping up very regularly, every ten minutes to be precise and it’s from FastHosts. Not exactly my favourite company given their policy of rolling over to rich people with well paid lawyers so they’ve been blocked too. In all likelihood it is some sort of aggregating website such as the the copious number of political feed sites that seem to be everywhere these days. I haven’t got a problem usually, the porting of content across the net is fundamental to the direction in which it is going but I’m sorry, every ten minutes is taking the piss. Not even Google pop by that often so whoever it is can hop it.

Life’s returning to normal, if normal can be considered to living on 4 hours or so sleep a night and copious quantities of coke and lucozade to get through the days and nights.

Been an interesting few weeks but it’s given me the opportunity to play around with some new things.

First up on the list of priorities was the installation of the Linux variant Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron that came out on 24th April.

For your delectation, here’s a bit of the old YouTubing of my new desktop.

(Note: this is running on a Targa laptop with an AMD Turion Dual Core 64Bit processor, 1024Mb of RAM and a Nvidia Geforce Go 7400 256Mb graphics card. It runs almost as well on my crappy old desktop which is a Celeron D with 512Mb of RAM and a 6 year old second hand Nvidia graphics card that probably has something like 32Mb of RAM)

Update:

Should also mention that any jerkiness, black lines in the clip are purely down to the recording process. It’s actually beautifully smooth and very fast.