Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog

A wonderful story on several news sites highlighting how oblivious the powers that be are to technology. Apparently, paedophiles are using Bebo, Myspace, Facebook and so on as areas for “grooming” kiddies for evil sexual use. And *gasp* some of them are pretending to be ickle kiddies themselves to make themselves seem friendlier to the little tykes.

Erm. Isn’t this kind of old hat? The bit they’ve added is that convicted paedos will have their email addresses registered and passed on to all the social networking sites so they can be refused entry.

Wow, what a stunning idea. Because everyone only has a single email address and you can never get another. You know, like Social Security numbers, passport numbers, DNA and so on.

No. Wait. Sorry. I’m thinking like a government minister. In the real world, you can **** off to GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail or one of a hundred other places and get a completely new, untraceable email address.

Sky’s version of the story includes a statement from a chap at Sophos which does raise some interesting points, such as misidentification of paedos if the email addresses leak out. After all, we’re talking about trusting the government with personal data. Something that they don’t have a great track record of. Then there’s the cost in cash and man-hours (sorry… person-hours) of checking through internet logs to make sure these filthy ******* are sticking to the rules.

Simple solution. If you’re caught with child porn, you have your eyes burned out with a hot poker and your fingers amputated with a mallet. That way you can’t access the internet without third-party help and even if you could, you’d not be able to see the kiddie-porn anyway. Quicker, much more of as long-term solution and substantially cheaper for the taxpayer.

Image from WikipediaA lot of the newspapers this morning are reporting that Robert Mugabe could finally be on his way out of power as the elections turn against him. Of course, just losing an election wouldn’t normally bother a dictatorial, violent piece of filth like Mugabe. However, this time it seems the world’s looking on just a little too closely for the dodgy bastard to get away with anything.

**** off, Mugabe. You pathetic, evil son of a bitch. I only hope that Zimbabwe can somehow pick itself up and recover from the mess you’ve put it into for your own gain. You sick sack of ****. If there is indeed a hell, I hope you rot in it for all eternity.

In the news today, a story about a woman taking BT to court for charging her a handling fee for cash. In a way I can see her point – most businesses will actually offer you a discount for paying in cash, while BT will charge you more. Also for paying by credit card, debit card, cheque etc.

Thing is – and I hate to say this as I’m not BT’s biggest fan – for once I think they’re right. You set up a direct debit and BT then has to do pretty much bugger all to get your cash each month. If you pay by cheque, credit card, cash in an envelope, babies’ fingers or whatever then they have to process it.

Should her case come through with her victorious then – after lengthy appeals, I’m sure – BT may be forced to drop the charges. Along with every other company that has a similar fee structure in place. This includes most utilities companies, insurance brokers, finance / loan agencies…

So great. Savings all around, yes? Erm. No. All that will happen is that the fee will be removed and everyone’s basic bill increased to cover the cost of getting money from people who don’t use DD.

The poverty argument used in the article is completely moot. “Many people, especially those on the margins of society and who are on low incomes find it very difficult to find any increase for any bill” it says. Simple solution – organise a direct debit so it’s paid from your bank account. Don’t have a bank account? Well get one. The UK is one of the few countries I know of where banking is – if you don’t go overdrawn etc – essentially free.

Her argument that “On a 10 pound note it says ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds’, not ten pounds plus a £1.50 handling fee” is bollocks. It’s true – it doesn’t say there’s a handing fee. But she’s not paying a handling fee, she’s paying for the time spent by BT on sorting out her payment which they’d not incur if she used DD.

Buy a book from Amazon and they charge you delivery if you spend less than £15. Is that fair on people who don’t want to spend that much? Why should a person who only wants to buy one paperback help reduce costs for someone who wants to buy three? Because it’s cheaper for the company to ship three than ship one. Likewise for BT, it’s cheaper to collect fees by DD than any other method. Rather than the DD users being charged for everyone else, the ones who create the charge pay for it.

Given that any person in the country can get a bank account (illegal immigrants aside) and set a DD up, she hasn’t got a leg to stand on as far as I can tell. The option is there for her to avoid these charges. It’s an option she can take and has the facility to do so.

Unless I’m mistaken? Are there grounds where someone could be refused a bank account / direct debit? And if this is the case – perhaps based on a poor credit rating – wouldn’t they likely be refused a phone connection anyway?

In fairness, my argument falls apart if the charge levied for non-DD payment is out of proportion to the amount it costs the company to retrieve the cash. Then again, BT could always put this down to the fact that it "costs more to chase people who do not pay". A kind of insurance for itself.