Don't be scared of intelligence ( Updated)

As I look at the news today I see trouble erupting in the US of the shooting in ferguson, and of the boy with a BB gun, now I am not going to give my view on the situation, because like a friend of mine did, saying something unpopular or different to the norm is a bad idea.

The subject of this post is more about how social media has become more of a social judiciary, I was watching the newsroom the other day, they were mentioning the Boston bombings and how one person on reddit, put 2 and 2 together and made 5, but because he had shiny photos and what was perceived to be fact, there was a witch hunt for a prospective bomber named Sunil Tripathi who was never a subject to the FBI enquiry, who never showed signs of being a bomber apart from his last name and the fact he had been missing. It got to the extent where his sister would get horrific abuse on facebook and twitter, because one guy with a computer thought he knew who the bomber was.

When did we start believing faceless online profiles over highly trained professionals, the FBI at the time had to disclose vital information before they were ready just to keep Tripathi family safe, and then people of twitter still didn't believe what the FBI said.

It's the same with vaccinations! thousands of articles support vaccinations, yet some one on the internet said a vaccine gave their kids autism! There is no proof that this is true apart from a pushy parent saying "oh Oscar has autism now, it has to be down to the vaccinations", not the fact he lives in a difunctional family who spend more time trying to fight doctors who have years of experience, then giving little Oscar the attention he needs. Also Id much rather my kids have autism than fucking (sorry mum) polio! or any disease that will make them suffer a painful early death!

Britain First is another example of people blindly seeing stuff on the internet, and thinking yea that must be true. Text in front of a picture, has now become the criteria for fact. They post a picture of a muslim with a story saying something like "In Lincoln this muslim told some BRITISH kid that he must kiss her toes" or some bollocks like that! I will openly unfollow anyone on facebook who post Britain first comments.

Another thing that angers me about Britain first is that they and many of the Far right parties and organisations have stolen the Union Jack, it is now seen as a symbol of hate. Im proud to be British like i'm sure many are, I love the fact we are a tiny island and yet one of the biggest cultural influence in the world. Sherlock, Doctor Who, Coldplay, The Premier league, Royal Family, The Mini (concept, I know the modern one is german), Whisky, all globally known and yet we can't represent them with a Union Jack because Nick Griffen uses it in his sodding leaflets.

But that is not the point I'm trying to make, what I think is the problem with twitter, facebook, reddit etc is that it encourages rash decisions, yes it was instrumental in the Arab Spring, but I have met many academics that still question whether they were beneficial. Before you retweet something, or believe a tweet to be gospel. Just think there is more to a story than 140 Characters.

P.S I could have written alot more on this issue but I didn't wan't to bore you.  

It's not all about the penguin

With christmas coming up I have been reminiscing of previous christmas' my family have had. Probably the earliest one I can remember is when the green house blew away and the power went out, or the time when it actually snowed and it was awsome. 

I always remember christmas from my early teens as a time when everyone in the family got just a little bit to merry, we would all go the pub on christmas eve, my brothers would drink beer, and my parents would drink whiskey and wine, and I being 13 would drink lemonade or the worlds weakest shandy.

I should probably explain now that I'm the youngest of three brothers, my closet brother chronological is 8 years older than me. They both have wives and children, and live in two completely different worlds. 

So when it comes to christmas, gone are the days when we can go the pub or drink and laugh into the night, because either we will wake up one of my niece  or nephews, or someone is left out. 

Now I have finally caught up with my brothers in age, I'm no longer the little brother they have to look out for, or the one who gets bought pork scratching in the pub to stop me from moaning about wanting to go home, but my brothers are now another generation above me, they are more interested in just keeping their kids occupied whilst they can have an injection of caffeine. 

This may sound like a moan, but its not it more of a musing about how christmas changes over the years, yes id love to have a Christmas where everyone is under one roof and we can stay in the pub till last orders with out asking " is it alright to bring the buggy in". Being kicked out of my room because my brother and his wife cant share a single camp bed in the study for two weeks

But christmas of today in my family is something id never thought would happen. I get that magical feeling you get as a kid, purly for the fact that Im not the youngest! I have three nieces and nephews who over time will get more and more excited about seeing someone who  is a serial burgler (santa). How christmas will become a much more family affair with kids ripping open presents whilst I probably nurse a hangover, and try and get excited over a christmas card made of dried pasta. Im wafferling

Yes im sad that I missed adult the Christmas stage of our family, but im happy that I now have a huge family which im sure will only get bigger. So I too can make the jokes about people sitting on different size of chairs and trying to find batteries on christmas eve, because my brothers are idiots

Merry Christmas cheers

Net Neutrality

Yesterday President Obama put his support behind the idea of Net Neutrality. All of 3 hours had passed before Ted Cruz, a Republican Senator from Texas, (who at every moment he can will slag of Obama even if he saved him from a burning building) responds with the Tweet below.



I should probably mention what Net Neutrality is before I start getting angry. Net Neutrality is the idea that everything on the internet is equal. As long as you have an internet connection you can go on any website you want, you can watch cat videos or look at instructions on how to make a flute out of a used toilet roll. It basically means that no one controls what you look at on the internet, or internet providers CAN'T charge you more for using premium site such as YouTube or Netflix.

So back to Twat Cruz. Money plays a major part in US politics, money that is spent on campaigns is huge, often bigger than what some countries spend on education. Ted Cruz gets campaign contributions from most of the major cable providers (internet provider), in return he has to denounce the idea of Net Neutrality.

Cable companies get big dollar signs in their eyes when they realise that they could charge people for specific sites. Then those specific sites may pay to get to the top of the lists, meaning small sites like mine or small companies could fail at the first hurdle. You will be given packages like with sky tv, of available website you can choose from, but if you want to go on to a website that isn't in your price plan then well cough up the money to pay for it.



But how does this affect us in sunny old blighty? Our second largest internet provider is Sky, run by Rupert Murdoch, I don't need to make an argument there, he is as good to mankind as leaded petrol. So if you want to help with the worthy cause spread the fact that companies are trying to do this. Spread that politicians who take money from cable providers can't be trusted. You wont hear this story in the paper, you wont see it on the news (apart from maybe BBC). Talk to people about it, spread not just my words but others too. If you find an American who think Net Neutrality is a good thing just remind him or her ( He is probably called Ron) is taking he FREEDOMS away, they will love that.

I could go on and on about how fucked up US politics is on this issue, I could say it wrong for Obama to denounce it when more than half of the country hates the guy and will go against anything he says just because they are ignorant, and that is what Ted Cruz is trying to do.

I'm going to leave link at the bottom of a cartoon that explains it lot better than I can, but I ask of you please write, tweet to your MP's about this issue, share every post that supports Net Neutrality. Please share and I will read comments on this issue

http://imgur.com/gallery/WIX5h 

We will remember them.

As I ran around town tonight, I saw the flashing of fireworks over the tops of the houses. Bell practice was being preformed in the church. The town was alive with bright lights and loud noises.

All I could be reminded of during this was a article I saw in the times. About troops coming back from Afghan who are suffering from PTSD. How fireworks would send them in to uncontrable wrecks. Sounds of church bells would remind them of explosions and their "brothers" funerals. 

I have always thought that having rememberance day around the time of bonfire night was slightly stupid. But thats a story for another night.

What I want to focus on tonight is to remeber all the people who never came home from fighting other peoples wars. we should not think of remembernce day as only our troops (british). Our allies and our "enemies" at the time. The young men of the great war who marched off to war because it was cool, becuase they wanted to look butch infront of the ladies. In todays teenage standards it would be the equiverlent of smoking around a bus shelter. 

So I ask you to put your politics aside, the ideas of whether war is right or wrong, today is not about victory or defeat. Today is about men and women, who were not able to see their loved ones again.

Also spare a thought for the those who came back with scares, some visable some not. Scares that may never heal.

We will remember them

First of many essays

I have finally finished my first essay, although it is meaningless as it is my first term, Id like to think that it is to a high standard. 

Well that was until I asked my friend who shall remain nameless, (but it rhymes with chalice) to check over the spelling and grammar, as she is studying English literature. 

Well after about 20 minutes of her reading the essay, I have turned her into a shrivelling wreck who has now denounced english as a form of language.

I didn't think it was that bad, it made sense to me, it even made sense to my dyslexia tutor, but I now think she was just being nice. 

Which leads me to think how the idea of writing long text to show arguments is out dated! How many people on Jeremy Kyle having written essays ? But they still seem to be good at arguing. 

I will end it here as my friend has started to burn copies of pride and prejudice in protest of my destruction of the english language.

The comic has no reference, I just thought it was funny. 

Please share

Me no write good!

Handwriting is possibly the worst thing in the world for the majority of a dyslexic. I just had one of my draft essays back with writing all over it detailing what is good and what is bad. It is not bad handwriting, yet I still can't read it. I had to embarrassingly asked a friend to read it for me.

You might be thinking to your selves how can this guy in his twenties and not able to read other handwriting get in at least manage university? It will make it even more interesting to tell you that I can't technically read. Most people who can read, see words as they are phonetically spelt, our how they are shown in a dictionary like li·brar·y.

Well because I have a selectively stupid brain I see words for what they look like. When I type, its like I'm painting a picture in my head. If I spell a words wrong I know I have spelt it wrong because it doesn't look right, but I have no idea how to correct it, or to spell out a word phonetically. 

What makes it even worse is when I see words that looks similar but sound, and mean completely different things my mind explodes or I end up embarrassing myself. Now good bloggers would think of some examples but well I'm to lazy.

This one is only short I'm afraid in the middle of essay season. But my next blog will be more interesting...maybe. 

Game day

I can imagine from an outsiders prospective football rituals can be quite strange. I have been a Stoke City season ticket holder for over 15 years. I was there when they were shit so I am able to call my self a true Stoke fan.

My game day rituals have always been the same, I have always lived quite close to the ground so it was never hard to get to games, it didn’t take up the whole day. When we were shit we knew that game day was Saturday, and we knew kick off was 3pm. When we got promoted to the glittering heights of the Premier league it all changed.

For those who don’t know the technicalities of a Premier League schedule, it is dominated by TV. So on any given weekend there maybe six different time slots that we might play in.

That being said the timeslots are often filled with big games or attractive football, so Stoke rarely get much attention.

I digress the point I wanted to make was that on game days, until this season, were all the same. Do something in the morning, have lunch then drive to the ground with my Dad and one of my Brothers. I would say that even though I have been going for so long I still don’t know what time we leave the house. I normally just waited for Dad to shout “Are you ready”.

But now I live in Buckingham things have changed, I’m currently on a train hurtling at 125mph through the English countryside. This game is going to take up the entire day.  To which I’m genuinely happy about, I never get this excited before a game, I feel proud to say that I spent £30 on a train ticket just to see a tiny club in the west midlands.

Over the summer I was lucky enough to go to a couple of Denver Broncos games (American Footbal). For those who don’t know anything about American Football, games can take up an entire day, not just because the game is stop start and lasts around 4 hours. Before the game many people host tail gate parties, which are held in carparks near the stadium, they grill, drink and have a good time. Even when it’s 10 below! The entire town turns to the colour of the home team. In my case that was bright orange, people have their own outfits that they wear all day. The unity that a city has on game day is something else.

Although I’m the only Stoke fan on this train it is littered with other fans all doing the same as me. They grew up watching their teams, now they have left their hometowns. They still trek across the country to see 40 minutes of sport. Unless they are Manchester United Fans, then they are just glory hunters from London, trying to find the next prawn sandwich ;)

I have to end it here; train is pulling into the station. COME ON STOKE

Please share