If you haven’t then the following links may be useful:

BBC News

The Guardian

The Telegraph

From what I have read and seen, the only people supporting these bills are two groups – the people that are buying senators to get it through and the senators taking the money.

These bills will not stop piracy: the pirates WILL get round anything the US government puts in their way. All this will do will allow the likes of Rupert Murdoch to have more power – the same Rupert Murdoch that calls Google a “piracy leader” whilst running a bsuiness guilty of illegally hacking people’s mobile phones. Great irony eh?

Chris Dodd, the chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), has slammed the move calling it a gimmick and wrote:

“A so-called ‘blackout’ is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals,”

Would that be “elected officials” paid for by the likes of Mr Dodd? So companies like Google and Wikipedia are not allowed to express their free choice because it upsets his plans?

Maybe there is a touch of concern over what huge benefits the Internet and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have had with the Arab Spring? Whilst the Occupy movements have sprung up and are nowhere like their counterparts, there is a risk. And what better way than to minimise that risk.

It’s also been – dare I say it – a bit concerning.

Firstly there was the reactions to Luke’s leaving. He felt the party he joined had changed – his politics had stayed the same but the party he was with had taken a different course, and not one he was comfortable with. So, instead of sticking with a party he felt were not doing what he felt were in the country’s best interests – he left and joined one he thought were.

Cue vitriol and bile from Labour activists and the Left.

Luke managed to appear as a trending topic on Twitter twice – once when the new broke and once the next morning. Instead of saying “okay fair enough, you don’t share our view anymore, thanks and goodbye” there were many from Labour activists attacking him and many saying they’d never heard of him. If that was the case, why the abuse…and why all the posts?

Luke Bozier announces he’s joining the Tories? Who does he think he is? Other than a complete tosser.

Tony Blair was the vanguard infection of Labour’s Yuppie Entryist Tendency. Luke Bozier’s the excrement pouring out of The Blairite corpse.

There was also Kevin Maguire – he of the Mirror – who said:

Never heard of this Luke Bozier, swapping Lab for Cons. Nor had 3 hacks I asked. Love how political parties hype recruits

Frankly I’d suggest either Maguire is being economical with the truth or – as best mates with Ed Balls – he really needs to be doing his research more.

There is almost a football team mentality with many Labour activists and the Left – but the extremist type and not the friendly local rivalry type. And whilst I’m sure there’ll be accusations of bias, I don’t see it so much from the Tory side – the so called Nasty Party.

Next, Tom Harris is sacked / leaves / is asked to leave as Labour’s Social Media person in Scotland. Why? Because he posted a Hitler “Download” video about SNP members. To be honest, I thought it was funny – maybe the SNP don’t have a sense of humour? I’ve seen a lot worse aimed at Gordon Brown.

The concerning thing with this is that Diane Abbott and Paul Flynn were not handled in the same way for what I feel were worse issues.

Then there is the outcry and calls for sacking from Labour over Aiden Burley dressing up in a Nazi uniform whilst nothing is even said about Ed Balls.

Double standards in Labour? Hypocrisy? Abuse at former members? Maybe Labour are the new Nasty Party…

So why did Ed Balls and co sign us up the year before?

…by telling the public sector unions that he endorses George Osborne’s public sector pay freeze until the end of the parliament, and that he accepts every spending cut being imposed by the Conservatives

The Guardian – Friday 13th January 2012

Ed is trying to tell us that Labour have economic credibility by doing this. Really? Are you sure it’s not just because he’s seen the latest polls saying the public are more in tune with the government than Labour?

How can we believe (and trust) a man that snipes at people he has worked with yet does nothing whilst working with them?

• Ed Balls plotted to overthrow Tony Blair
• Ed Balls accused Gordon Brown of playing to Daily Mail readers

And now he wants us to believe him? Sorry Ed, not from here we don’t.

The real worry thing is, what if Balls had the CoE job? What then? Would we now be worse than Greece? Our credit rating at ZZZ status? Bankrupt?

Maybe not, but it says something about his judgement for the country when he now effectively says he had it wrong for the last 20 months. What’s also concerning is that it was partly down to Ed Balls and Gordon Brown that we are in the financial mess we are in.

• Pensions? Yes they depleted them
• Gold? Yes they sold it too cheap
• Bank Regulation? Yes, they had too little touch

The biggest issue to me was their spending. Yes they did put more money into schools and the NHS, but was it wisely spent?

Let’s say you inherit a house and it needs a bit of work doing to it. Do you:

1. Cost everything out and make sure you can afford it and then get quotes from builders with good reputations to do the work and insist on checking the work before they get paid
   or
2. Grab the first builder that knocks on your door and pay him whatever he asks for

The end result if the building looks nice but with Ed Balls and Gordon Brown running the project we are severely behind on our mortgage and having to cut back on decorating the kids’ rooms.

If that’s what they did to your house, would you risk letting them back in?

In order to reduce posts from these spammers, this blog now automatically marks posts about xrumerservice.org as spam – and it’s really easy to do on a WordPress blog:

1. Log into your account
2. Click on “Settings“
3. Click on “Discussion“
4. Scroll down to “Comment Blacklist” and add “xrumerservice.org“
5. Click “Save Changes“

The next time one of the xrumerservice.org spam posters or bots tried posting a link back to them, auto spam filing. There are ways around it, but this should help stop the majority of xrumerservice.org spam.

Ed Balls appears to have been spotted with Mirror hack Kevin MacGuire. This is even more amusing as Balls has also accused Cameron and Osborne of being distracted by the phone hacking crisis. Obviously Ed Balls hasn’t been speaking to Ed Miliband who seems to be thinking of nothing BUT the phone hacking.

On honour of this “left hand doesn’t speak to the far left hand” we’ve brought out some more t-shirts. Well we would wouldn’t we

Meet Jonnie Marbles!

Sizes available: One Brain Cell Fits All 

We hope you like it

Sizes available: Small Brain / Medium Personality / Large Ego / Prescott

Being the optimistic sort (really, I am) I was hoping things would get better over Christmas for the UK as a whole. Well, it has and it hasn’t with trade being 0.6% down but manufacturing up. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

There was the expected from Ed Balls – laughing at the coalition for blaming the bad weather whilst his memory afflication made him forget how Labour did the same about 12 months before. And you wonder why I have no respect for the ****.

Therein lies the problem. Balls and co are making out that they wouldn’t do anything like the coalition yet they won’t detail what they will do.

There is also the problem of what do you cut? If Labour won’t cut education, or health or defence where will they cut? Arts? No, as they are defending that as well now. But they won’t tell us what they will cut.

The Police say there should be cuts…but not from policing. Doctors say there should be cuts…but not from health. Army chiefs say there should be cuts…but not from defence. It appears the only people wanting cuts across the board are hairdressers!!

Okay so I know this won’t happen, but wouldn’t it be good if the 3 main parties got their top 2 guys each and they all sat down and sorted out a policy? One that benefited as many people as possible?

Whatever happens nobody will be 100% happy but we need a) an overview of the economy now; b) what may happen if we allow things to carry on; c) what is the way forward.

Maybe we should all come up with ideas ourselves…