Splendid Isolation

Category: Law and Order

Added Snoopery?

Government Thugs, Surveillance Society, Two-Minute Hate

I started reading this article in the DM  more for entertainment value than any other reason:

I do not have a TV license as I only watch Netflix and Amazon. However, I’ve heard I will now need to buy a license. Is this true?

I know, I know:  the premise of the question is puzzling to my Murkin Readers, in that the very concept of a “TV license” is unfamiliar not to say abhorrent.  But leaving that aside for the moment, I found my amusement turning into something else altogether as I started reading the answer:

The general rule is that under UK law you need to have a current TV license if you, or anyone within your house, flat or premises, watches live television on any channel or service, record television programs as they are being broadcast live or watch anything on BBC iPlayer.

So when you tune in to watch ‘on demand’ television, such as Netflix, Amazon and other similar streaming services, no TV license is needed.

This is because here you are not watching ‘live’ programs – i.e. shows that are being broadcast when you watch or record them but, instead, choosing from a catalogue of options.

So far. so good (well no, not at all good, but whatever).  Here’s where I started to feel a familiar itch in the old trigger finger:

What you have heard about relates to Netflix, the US streaming giant which has 17.1 million UK subscribers and has launched a new service where it broadcasts ‘live’ events – for example the former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul boxing match being broadcast on Friday.

This is therefore ‘live’ television, meaning if you watch this, or any other Netflix live event, as it is broadcast, or even if you record it to watch later, you fall squarely into the territory of needing a TV license.

To clarify, you can continue to watch Netflix without a TV license if you chose not to watch the live events.

Which begs  raises the question:  how EXACTLY does the BBC licensing Stasi know whether you’re watching a movie or a live show?

It seems quite a simple deduction that that the answer is twofold:  either Netflix is sharing the viewing choices of the subscribers with the BBC, or the BBC is able somehow to monitor the channel feed, whether terrestrial or wireless.  Either answer is fucking terrible.

I should point out that the only way the BBC can enforce this ridiculous license fee nonsense is because Brits are largely disarmed.  If some Lizenzinspektor  came to the average Texan’s door and started with the strong-arm bullshit, there’d soon be murders.

And just so we know what this is all about:

The standard TV licence now costs £169.50 per year.  If you are required to have a license but fail to buy one, you risk being fined up to £1,000, plus any legal costs and compensation you may be ordered to pay. 

Let’s hear it for the Surveillance Society.

FAFO

Crime, Law and Order, Morons & Idiots

I’m not a huge fan of the term “fuck around and find out” (or its past tense equivalent), meaning you wanna play games, you might not end up with the consequences you wanted.  I don’t know what the Brit expression of the above might be, but here’s a real-life example:

A marked police car was chasing after a [car driven by] men who were driving at high speeds through London before crashing outside Central Middlesex Hospital this morning.

Now that’s a lucky place to crash if ever there was one.  However:

A 17-year-old boy has been killed and a second is fighting for his life after the car struck a kerb and flipped over. 

The 17-year-old was pronounced dead shortly after the collision on Park Royal at around 5:25am. Two other men in the car at the time were rushed to hospital for treatment with their injuries first believed to be life threatening. One remains in a critical condition with the other now said to be stable but still receiving medical help.

A fourth passenger was not seriously hurt in the crash.

So the Gods of the Copybook Headings came through, in this case, because TANSTAAFL/Ride  (said Gods generally being the nemeses of the ungodly, as the ones dealing out the consequences.)

Of course, this being Britishland, there has to be An Inquiry, but I can’t see what for.  Little shits were driving a car (probably stolen, 2:1) and that recklessly through an urban area.  Had they collided with a pedestrian or another car, some innocent lives might have been lost.  As it was, nobody dead except those that should be.

Just this once, I’d like to be heading up the inquiry.  It would take about half an hour, and only that long because I’d order takeout pizza for everyone as we discussed the (very few) details before sending everyone on their way with no consequences for any of the cops, who were only doing their job, after all.

Of course, the parents of the deceased scrote(s, I’m hoping) will be all Weepy And Waily because their little Precious was a good boy who sang in the choir and they can’t imagine how he got involved in such Bad Company, and all the usual twaddle.  They should be billed for the replacement value of the wrecked car as a consequence for not supervising their still-minor child.  That they won’t be will just encourage similar negligence among other parents, unfortunately.

In case anyone has missed it, I’m not feeling in a very charitable mood today.

Big Auto, Big Brother

Drive Time, Surveillance Society, Technology, Two-Minute Hate

Yesterday, I talked about wanting to own a pre-digital car — i.e. one that doesn’t fucking spy on your every move.

I often wonder what car or cars I’d get to replace the Tiguan, and what’s interesting is that I’m having precisely the same feelings that I have with guns and watches: nothing of recent manufacture at all — especially given that they’re all without exception loaded with electronic gizmos I don’t care for, or else gizmos that spy on you and/or could possibly be used to control your driving. In fact, the more I think about it, I’d probably have to go back to pre-1970s cars — fully resto-modded of course — to find a car that has not a single computer chip in its driving operation.

Here’s a business opportunity, because this is America.  (I don’t have the technical skills or capital to follow through on this but I’ll just throw it out there.)  Is it possible to turn your car into a mobile Faraday cage?  And would it be possible to turn the feature on and off?

I know, car companies and / or the godless insurance industry would probably use their lawyers and lobbyists to outlaw this, just as law enforcement tried to prevent speed-radar scanners, but it’s worth a shot.  With a switchable cage, the insurance companies couldn’t exactly deny you coverage or raise your rates if all the data showed was you doing trips to the supermarket once a week.

It’s time for us to fight back against this nonsense, and to borrow an expression:  rage against the machine — the machine, in this case, being Big Brother cars, the cunts who make them and sell your data, the even-bigger cunts who strip-mine your personal data, and and the last category of cunts who use your personal data against you.)

I feel a mega-rant coming on, but instead I’ll just go to the range.

And just to make you feel better, if my car was spying on me it could report said destination to… well, anyone who might be interested in such data.  Makes you think, dunnit?

Dept. Of Righteous Shootings

Asshole Cops, Bad News, Righteous Shootings

…except, it seems, in Honolulu.

Three people were killed and two others injured in a shooting at a home stemming from a dispute between neighbors on Saturday night in Waianae, a west Oahu community. The shooter was also fatally shot by a resident…

So far, so good.  But

…who was then arrested on a second-degree murder charge, police said.

And the cops’ response?

“In Hawaii, we are a non ‘stand your ground’ state. Even if you have a license to carry, if you’re an individual that discharges a firearm that is involved in injuring another person, … you’re going to be arrested.”

As RedState’s Jim Thompson points out, that’s not what Hawaii’s actual law states.  Looks like this asshole cop needs a swift ball-kicking  some education on the law.  Or maybe he just thinks he’s British.

At least Our Hero has since been released, but there’s no telling what will happen to him next.

Where’s the Imperial Japanese Navy when you really need them?

Quote Of The Day

Government Thugs, Marxists, Surveillance Society

From Insty, referring to this post:

“Let’s be honest, the people running the world are not only corrupt, but spectacularly incompetent.  For their lousy performance alone they should be tarred and feathered;  for their “impudence” in attempting dictatorship they deserve worse.  But it really seems that over the past few years the ruling class of the West has been preparing for war against its owns citizenry.  Again: Why?”

Because, Professor Reynolds, the socialist state has always been better at waging war against its own people than against foreigners.  The French Revolution’s Reign of Terror was not directed at the Germans, Spanish or the Italians, but against the very French citizens the Revolution had purported to liberate.  The Communist Revolution in 1917 Russia ended up slaughtering and imprisoning far more working- and middle-class Russians than had ever been killed under the Romanovs.

And it will be far easier for the West’s ruling class to oppress the populace than t would be to, say, oppress foreigners.  The ubiquitous surveillance cameras are in London, Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin — not in Bangalore, Rio de Janeiro or Manila.  And the coming clampdown on free speech will affect Musk’s TwitterX, Bill Whittle and me and the Readers of this website, not Burmese peasants or Masai cattle herders.

Not only was it untrue that Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia;  there’s a distinct possibility that Oceania had never been at war with Eastasia — the war being simply a propaganda concoction to justify the repression of the inhabitants of Oceania.

So when the lackeys of the ruling class — that would be, say, the police forces of Britain and the FBI here in the US — start muttering darkly about the “hard-Right” or “MAGA-followers” as they prepare for mass arrests and imprisonments, it’s us they’ll be coming for.

As for Glenn’s why? the answer’s simple:  because they can.  Glenn is a thoughtful, intelligent and civilized man, and he simply cannot comprehend the feral nature of those who would rule over us.

They — to a man —  are amoral cocksuckers.  And the sooner we recognize that and start treating them accordingly, the better.

Looking Guilty

Law and Order

Here’s one powdered wig that went askew:

A Mississippi attorney is accused of smuggling cell phones and drugs into prison.

Officials said Attorney Daniel Dale allegedly smuggled cell phones, cell phone chargers, drugs, and other items into the jail during what was believed to be meetings with clients.

He was arrested days after a video showed him allegedly giving a cell phone and a brown envelope to a client.

Dale was found with two cell phones, a digital scale, four vacuum-sealed packs of cigarettes, four vacuum-sealed packs of what is believed to be marijuana, two cellphone charger blocks, two cell phone chargers, and multiple cigar wraps.

And his mug shot:

As I replied to Reader Mike L. (who had sent the link to me, thankee squire):  “Fuck me, that mope could be accused of ANY crime and I’d believe it.”

Sometimes, ya just gotta shake yer head.