Don't think I'll be doing that

I got an email from Microsoft asking me to verify my age in my X box account, in order to keep using all features

I'd forgotten I had an X box account

I only use an X box 360, which is quite old and there are really no online features left to use on it, that I'm aware of

 

I also have Playstations from 1 to 4, and don't bother with internet on those either. I wonder if I have a Playstation account?

So the Hated Online Safety Act covers gaming too? As I understand it (and my knowledge here could be sketchy), games have ratings on them like videos and DVDs, and the law already covers their physical purchase by underage players

You can access the regular internet through a games console, but if you try to access adult content, you're still covered by the websites own Hated Online Safety Act age restrictions 

 

So I don't see how verifying your age to Microsoft or Sony would do anything more

 

Anyway, I'm not about to tell Microsoft or anyone else, that I'm 49 years old and still spend hours playing Lemmings

 

Don't need the account anyway 

Giant Flying Rats

I was driving to work this morning when a seagull took off from the road and flew over my car carrying a dead rat in its gob

Ignore the time stamp

Due to the quality of my sixteen quid dashcam, this was the best picture I could get of it. I'm just hoping he didn't get tired and drop the thing on some unsuspecting bugger down below. He did seem to be struggling to gain height, carrying that load

 

Anyway... 

It's news to me

Bang on 5am is a little too early to be hit with a bulletin from a chirpy newsreader, but my clock radio hates me. I normally snooze the first half hour or two, but I was sleeping a little too far from the snooze button this morning, so had no alternative but to listen

 

There was some whiney woman complaining that x percentage of children have viewed porn on the internet, by the age of six. Shocker!

 

But even worse, apparently 70 percent of kids aged 17 have seen porn on the web. So what are the other 30 percent playing at? 

 

Kids aged 17 have seen porn since porn was invented. It's what kids aged 17 do. Not so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, kids aged 17 or younger, were routinely getting married and making their own babies (Yes I know, it's different when mummies and daddies love each other, etc), and it's still legal to do so, although these days they don't seem to bother with the married bit, and move straight on to the babies 

 

So my first reaction on hearing this revelation was to panic and wonder how we're ever going to survive as a race. But still being sleepy, it took me a few seconds to remember that we now have the Hated Online Safety Act, which prevents all children (and adults) who don't know what a VPN is (30 percent of them, maybe) from accessing porn online due to the age verification laws

 

And relax! The Hated Online Safety Act will save us all, correct? So I fully expected the whiney woman to tell us that these figures will now start to rapidly decline and we've nothing to worry about.

 

Imagine my surprise when she said,

"Online porn needs to be regulated in the same way as physical porn. We have the opportunity to do this with the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now" 

Eh?

 

Firstly, why hasn't the Hated Online Safety Act solved this problem, like it was specifically designed to do?

And secondly, what fresh hell is the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now? Why is this the first I'm hearing of it, and what new pointless and restrictive laws are going to be thrown at us this time?

 

It never ends

 

Other than kids seeing boobs, there was also a bit on the news about Trump and Putins conflab regarding the war in Ukraine. A English politician (some berk who's name I didn't catch) was saying there's no point trying to get guarantees from Putin, as he won't stick to them

 

Now I'm no Chief negotiator, but my first thought would have been that if that's your opinion, you keep it to yourself until you are sat round the negotiating table. You don't go on Sky news and call the principal party in the talks, a right bulshitter

 

I've really no idea why Two Tier and his useless hangers on are involved in this. They're irrelevant. They're like the kid who wants to be popular, trying to hang out with the bigger boys in the schoolyard 

 

I'd say that the upside is, the longer Starmer is out of the country trying to play statesman, the less harm he can do here, but 'the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now'... 

 

The taxman commeth for Ebay

I've been using Ebay pretty much since it started. I buy a lot of stuff on there that I need, but I also do a lot of buying and selling of entertainment stuff

 

For example, I buy a lot of  VHS tapes and computer games for various consoles. After I'm done with them and not going to watch / play them again, I re-sell them on Ebay

 

I've always worked under the assumtion that if you're just offloading unwanted items, you don't need to pay tax. Correct or incorrect, and I think it's correct, that's why when I've made the occasional profit, I've not bothered telling HMRC

 

(That and other reasons, obviously)

 

Well now they want my national Insurance number

 

Now to be honest, I don't think HMRC are going to bother themselves with finding out how much people like me sell on Ebay, and trying to take a few pence tax here and there. It would likely cost them more than they gain

 

However, our new Government are financially illiterate enough that they might even try it

 

It's not about the tax though. I never make a profit on Ebay. If I buy a game for a fiver and sell it for a fiver in six months time, I've actually lost a couple of quid in the postage I paid to get it

 

The problems would arise if I have to prove to HMRC that I'm not making a profit. If it's not worth their while to find out who owes them a couple of pence here and there, it may be worth their while to make us prove to them that we don't owe a couple of pence here and there

 

There's a link in the email imaged above: If you're unclear about whether you need to report income

 

 

 

I don't know enough about tax to be sure, but I think you still need to report sales if you're a business, even if you're not making a profit. If that applies to folk selling tat on Ebay, I'd have to start keeping records of everything I buy and sell to prove I'm not fleecing HM Government

 

I tell you, filling in a tax return would not be worth it just to pass some used media on to the next person who wants to enjoy it

 

In the unlikely event that I do have to start fannying about with tax returns, our local Help the Aged may see an upturn in donations of games and films I've bought on Ebay

 

I say unlikely. Who knows what Labour are capable of... 

As long as they pretend to make good laws...

 ...we'll pretend to follow them

 

Chris Snowdons latest bit just got me thinking. It's all about the creeping criminalisation of society, and begins with the new 'Online Safety' censorship laws, then moves on to other aspects of the nanny state

 

And he couldn't be more correct. I've had a VPN installed on my PC and laptop for quite some time, but never used it. I remember going through this phase of thinking I should do something about Government intrusion and matbe protect myself from them online, but it never amounted to anything more than installing the software

 

This weekend, I hit a snag while searching the web, realised this stupid law had now come into force, and finally decided to set up and configure this VPN. And it worked perfectly

 

The VPN is now my online safety bill that protects me from the Government 

 

(Oohh, what were you searching for, I hear you ask. Well I'm not telling, so ner)

 

Using a VPN is not yet illegal, but I'm sure it soon will be. And I'll probably still use it

 

In fact... No I won't go into the list of laws I routinely break, or simply ignore. That could get me in trouble. Have a think about it though. How many laws are you breaking as you go through life minding your own business, doing your own thing and causing harm to nobody whatsoever?

 

It isn't none 

 

 

Face like the back end of a rail replacement bus

Something, something, supreme court, something, men cannot be women, something, something, stay out of the female bogs

 

And rejoyce, the problem was solved!

 

But of course it wasn't. Left wing activists will not give up and bugger off, for something as insignificant as a supreme court ruling, and left wing activism is much too far entrenched into every institutions for the ruling to be enforced

 

Those fighting for the rights of men in childrens bikinis will always find a way to muddy the waters

I’m just ugly not trans, train driver told colleagues

I do remember a saying doing the rounds once, 'You're not trans, you're just ugly and have no friends'. Maybe we've come full circle?

A train driver insisted they were not transgender but “just ugly” when challenged by colleagues after the Supreme Court ruling on gender.

There have been many scare stories about how the court ruling will eventually lead to real women being asked to prove their gender before going for a pee in public, maybe through some form of one minute DNA test, or even being asked to get their knickers down

 

So is this a real world example of that actually happening?

 The “just ugly” comment was quoted in a submission made by Aslef, the train drivers’ trade union, to an Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) consultation.

In its submission, Aslef said: “Since the ruling, there have been examples of our members being questioned about their biological sex by colleagues to the level where one member felt the need to explain to their colleagues that ‘they are just ugly’.

No. It was part of a submission by the train drivers union to the EHRC, as part of an attempt to push back on the, 'no knobs in the ladies' ruling. And therefore, can be taken with a pinch of salt, in my opinion

“We are seriously concerned that similar situations may arise where women in particular are queried about their biological sex to the extent that a birth certificate may be requested and the certificate itself even then queried further.”

They are seriously concerned about a seriously unlikely scenario, that seriosly hasn't happened and is very unlikely to do so

 

Notice how they wrap their serious concern in a blanket of caring about women? Well they don't seem seriously concerned about mentally ill males getting their dongs out in female toilets and harassing the actual women therein. A seriously serious problem that seriously has happened before and seriously does happen on a regular basis

 Aslef appears to have joined the ranks of those pushing back against the ruling.

“As a trans woman could breastfeed it is not clear if they would be protected from discrimination,” the union continued in its submission to the EHRC consultation.

The train drivers union believes that men can breastfeed. So I wonder how many breast feeding men they actually represent?

Just under one in every five railway workers is a woman, according to the National Skills Academy for Rail’s annual survey of train staff. No data is available for the number of trans-identifying workers in the industry.

I'm guessing none then 

 In April, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that trans women are not legally women.

We live in a time where that court case was necessary. The furure is going to judge us harshly