This Week I've Mostly Been Playing... (part 2)

...Read Dead Redemption



In a sporadic, spume of consciousness kind of weekly series about what I am doing to feign off boredom and donate my time to something other than filling Osbourne's swag bag, I hereby talk about the awesomeness that is Red Dead Redemption.

It's actually a bit of a lie; ive mostly been killing 12 years olds who's parents had no problem buying them Call of Duty: Black Ops for Christmas. But as this would be a very short lived series if I did a weekly and it was proportionally based on my playing habits.




So all that said Red Dead is the focus.

Set in a rapidly changing old west you are John Marston; thrust back into your old life of gun slinging and cowboying you've been blackmailed by a government agency holding your family captive into hunting down your old gang and bringing them to justice.

You achieve this by entering what must be one of the most open-ended universes yet in a Rockstar game; not quite on the same par with Bethesda's Fallout 3 or The Elder Scrolls but definitely as inviting an arena as any.

What is striking is how the environment interacts with you; I spent several hours navigating a particularly hostile area of land fighting off bears and bandits alike - other more gentile appearing areas can suddenly erupt into gang warfare, dragging you in.

What is most striking about it above all is the storyline: the twists and turns take you through stirring up revolutionary uprisings in Mexico to quelling the same amongst Native Americans in the old west, all the while weaved into a story of loss and redemption mingles with a lot of anti-government sentiment.

Overall this is one of the best games of last year, featuring mountains of versatility if your willing to step outside of the main storyline for a minute.

Score: I'd be willing to part with £25 for it still.

Quote Of The Day

"Anyone with good intentions is the traitor because being evil is the norm."

- Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing executive behind a Facebook page widely credited with starting the Egyptian protests.

Treason

Wasn't there a time when this would be considered high treason?

A definition:

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps the best known examples of high treason. High treason requires that the alleged traitor have obligations of loyalty in the state he or she betrayed, such as citizenship, although presence in the state at the time is sufficient.

Now whether you believe Al-Megrahi is guilty or not the fact remains that the Scottish and UK government conspired to have a convicted mass murderer of British nationals released on behalf of a foreign state power.

Now, they may not hang you for this any longer but suffice it to say Brown, Blair, Mandelson and Macaskill should all be put away for a very long time.

Isn't This A Stronger Arguement To Abolish The Minimum Wage?

The Prince’s Trust and other charities will set up stalls in Jobcentre Plus offices after agreeing a deal to be rubber-stamped by ministers today.

The move comes after youth unemployment leapt by 32,000 to 951,000 in November – its highest since records began in 1992.

Critics said the scheme could merely ‘massage’ jobless statistics while distracting from the creation of muchneeded new jobs for young people. Britain’s jobless total is 2.5million – an unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent, rising to 20.3 per cent among those aged 16 to 24.

Currently people have 2 choices at the lower end of the job market.

They either vie for a toilet cleaning or pot washing or some other menial job paying ~£5.80 an hour or they stick on the dole and do nothing, replete with all bills paid in the process.

IDS is trying to get the latter to do the former for free, as paying half the above amount

So why can't their be some happier medium? Say like a negative income tax scheme, or better yet to avoid those eeeville capitalists taskmasters from taking advantage of the good graces of a benevolent state (sarcasm aside - Ed) why not this?.

More Telling Than He Probably Realised

David Cameron has ruled out 'significant' tax cuts while the Government is cutting spending to reduce the deficit.
...
But Mr Cameron insisted there was no 'Plan B' on the coalition's deficit-reduction strategy and said tax cuts would only undo the work of painful curbs in public spending.

"Curbs" not cuts - the difference should be noted in his phrasing.

I happen to agree with Mr. Cameron; deficit reduction is now effectively a tax on our children and grandchildren - inter-generational state terrorism if you will - we should put the 11% overspending down; that should have been a non-negotiable start and done this year.

The Fabian left and Progressively Labourious would no doubt argue that a vast proportion of the present deficit was due to the bank bailout - and they would be right.

However, when state spending has reached an unjustifiable, nigh on 50% theft of total GDP slowly decoupling banking liabilities makes for a very useful start to cutting the overall tax take.

For a start.

Question For Those In The Know

Further to my post earlier today, Mr. Tebboth has directed me to this Private Members Bill from last year and I noticed this:

This Bill will be on the Order Paper for a Second Reading debate on 30 March 2012, although the House is not expected to sit on this day.

From a bill put forward 5 July 2010; is this what is known as "kicking it into the long grass" or are our MPs really that busy discussing other matters?

Beggars belief.

Self Control's The Way To Go

That, or we start handing these out at chemists.

I once went to University and studied chemistry which I enjoyed, but quite frankly, was rubbish at; where you to ask me about some deeply complex chemistry theorem I would most likely look agog at you.

Despite this a fine blend of hubris, ego and lack of self-awareness (or honesty perhaps?) led to me taking my 2:1 Masters degree as evidence I was capable of a PhD; I was to move onto asking new questions rather than answering older ones.

Whether this would have proved I was the idiot I know I am now or not will never be answered, because it was during my first year that my parents teetering marriage finally went overboard and my entire family went mental (a story for another time), not least myself , newly married being unable to cope with becoming father (I'm the eldest) to my siblings whilst the original buggered off to mid-life crisistania whilst Mumra took off to De-Nileism.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, fearless reader I believe there is some relationship between what is happening in scientific "research" today in many fields and how my family behaved (behaves).

Lately science has become less about discovering new things and more about avoiding tricky questions that challenge old rules; my folks tried this for years to everyones detriment and it was once reality finally settled in that things that could've been cordial and polite became destructive and heartbreaking.

This looks like one of those questions scientists have been trying to avoid:

The drive to give free morning-after pills to teenage girls has failed to cut underage pregnancies.
Schemes to offer over-the-counter emergency birth control to girls under 16 have simply encouraged youngsters to have more unprotected sex, damning research found.
In doing so they have fuelled a rise in sexually transmitted diseases.
The findings are a blow to public health chiefs who have argued that handing out the morning-after pill cuts schoolgirl pregnancies.
Family campaigners seized on the research as more evidence that the problem of teenage pregnancies needs a ‘moral solution’ and not one based on dishing out drugs.

Now trying to at least retain some vestige of the scientist within
I decided you use some academic contacts to get a copy of the unreleased paper; this was a Fairly Pale story afterall, only to find that the authors had tried their hardest to back up their claims with several layers of statistical formulae - none of which really detracted from the overall picture the results painted; the evidence may not be on a par with truly empirical observation due to the small numbers involved, but it is compelling.

And it makes sense; people respond to incentives and if you offer them the opportunity to experience something in a little more pleasurable a manner to which the uninformed (or, if Dwayne really was lying to you and did sleep with the town bike, Dwaynerita, the lied to) see as having little cost associated with the action but to take 10 minutes out of their Trisha and Jeremy Kyle watching and pop down to the chemist's.

Knowing several teenage single mums I can see why the results are not as black and white as the Fail would wish (if not for their desire to beef up the rhetoric in the article mind); some rise to the challenge of parenthood admirably and make good with their lot - others not so much. How these 2 groups measure up is beyond me and I will leave it to Proffessor Paton, his group and others to ascertain.

One thing I am convinced of; these children ultimately have no father; they are the States progeny - having torn out the heart of personal responsibility by effectively subsidising baby-making they are now reaping all the unintended consequences.

And once one uncomfortable question is asked, the rest come tumbling out.

No Mr. Raab; MP's Are Out Of Control - Ours.

European judges have turned Britain into a ‘safe haven’ for foreign terrorists, the independent reviewer of anti-terror laws warned yesterday.
Lord Carlile said rulings by the European Court of Human Rights had undermined efforts to deport dangerous individuals intent on causing mayhem.
...
Last night Dominic Raab, Tory MP for Esher and Walton, said European judges’ law making was ‘out of control’.
He added: ‘It is not the job of an international court to re-write British laws on deportation, parental discipline or prisoner voting. It is high time we drew a line in the sand.’

But it is their job; the Westminster clique abandoned it's primary function - to make and amend law as the need arose - to technocrats, QUANGOs and the EU; the result has been empowerment of the unelected chattering classes, the professional lawyer and the politician who chooses soundbites over substance and the resultant levels of debt, public service stagnation in all but price and crony capitalist bailouts.

You've had well over thirty years to reverse these decisions at any point; an amendment tabled to the 1972 European Communities Act and democratic judicial reform at the UK level would make most judges think long and hard before making an unpopular decision like votes for rapists or pool tables for murderers.

So no more Mr. Raab, you did this by not challenging the status quo; you forget where power comes from - us.

On A Lighter But Still Important Note...

Aunty Beeb is reporting yet another group of malcontents moaning they won't be sucking at the government teat anymore:

More than two-thirds of councils in England are planning major cuts to their bus budgets, it is claimed.

According to the Campaign for Better Transport, which is launching the Save our Buses campaign, some councils intend to end all subsidised services.

The Local Government Association also warned many bus routes would disappear as a result of government cutbacks.

Unfortunately matey what we are seeing here is the realisation of risks and cost of living in isolated areas; the cost can no longer be mitigated against hard pressed groups in urban areas as they are already squeezed from elsewhere - the crunch has put paid to that idea.

Still, you might want to ask about the way bus services are regulated cross-country, or how councils dictate the route and timings in many cases, leading to skewed incentives; same thing goes for National(ised) Rail and train providers.

Deal with these problems of provision, freeing people up to plan the best routes possible and the timing they can afford and see this situation change; even in poor countries we see the markets finding solutions to these issues.

Enraged.

Were it not for traffic I woul have undoubtedly arrived at work in tears and with a murderous gleam in my eye:

A baby was found dead in his pushchair in front of a blazing gas fire – his body charred and burned – after social services missed 17 chances to save him.

Alex Sutherland, aged 13 months, had been dead for at least three days, according to a harrowing report published yesterday.

You need not read any more than that; the horror was almost too much for me this morning , I dare not share it with Mrs. Tomrat.

What is wrong with people? I see the exact same destructive tendencies in some of the "families" our youth group belong to - it is an abuse of the word in many cases, with the occasional heartening case where families are simply doing everything they can with the little they have.

He said there was a lack of communication and joined-up working between agencies and he highlighted problems, with under-trained social workers and a ‘tick box’ mentality.
...
‘No single agency was responsible for failing to protect Child T from the chronic neglect which he suffered at the hands of his mother, but rather he was the victim of the multiple failures of all those agencies … to recognise the risks to which he was exposed and to take appropriate action.’
...
Pauline Newman, the city council’s director of Children’s Services, said it was clear ‘there were areas where we could have done better’.

She added: ‘We have carried out an extensive programme of work since this little boy died to ensure that staff fully understand the lessons that need to be taken on board from this tragedy.’

I'm not trying to absolve the mother of her horrible crime which should see her in jail for much longer than she has been given, but isn't the "lessons are being learned" excuse just getting a little tired? In a personal capacity I see this exact same 'horse:bolted' attitude throughout the social services almost as much as I do in the papers and it wore thin some 30 excuses ago.

You want some real lessons learned? Amend the Childrens Act and related documents so that it doesn't protect the authorities, only the families involved; injustices like this don't help the cause of child welfare when the state is happy to challenge unconventional lifestyle choices but not the destructive ones of their own creation.

Immediately fire every social worker, child protection bod and anyone else involved in social services or is a member of one of these myriad organisations who never seem to be directly responsible for any of these events but are learning a lot from them in what must surely be a cross between car crash television and an open university show and immediately fold them and all-comers into one agency; the police - form a specialist group within a publicly accountable, elected chief-led, police service to deal with this with police powers; at worst no one can mitigate the blame for such events across the old, lame "no one agency was to blame" excuse; I'm sure in this age of austerity the co-attrition would be happy to save the cash on executive jobsworths' in multiple social services.

Finally recognise that these abuses occur, by and large, by families fathered by the state; they consist predominantly of groups who treat their kids like proverbial meal tickets and derive their economic and social activity directly from the state, and the sins of the father, it's abuses and it's lawlessness is rubbing off; removing people wholesale from the states coat tails and forcing them to take care of themselves would be a good place to start - perhaps here.

None of this will stop bad parenting; only bad parents can stop this, but ye gods is it really so much to ask that when the state dips it oar unto every aspect of our lives it takes some flaming responsibility for the fallout?