Chrome's Commissars

I once asked the question  .....

"Are Google Bad Guys, Or Good Guys?"

Well today I got the answer, when once again as a blogger, I opened up to edit a post, only to be greeted by the message

Isn't this An Evil Thing?

 

So in the last 12 months or so, Google Bloggers have been expelled from 'Internet Explorer', and now pushed off the worlds best browser, 'FireFox'. All in the name of Google trying to force users to take up their rather over hyped 'Chrome' browser.

This is flatly contrary to Googles informal 'Motto' of "Don't be evil" ....

Of course I will have to use Chrome for editing my blog (for the time being), or risk losing my blog after all these years .... but I can tell the commissars down at Google, that as a result of this communist tactic of forcing people to have no choice, I will never ever use Chrome for browsing or any activity other than blog editing.

Chromes Commissars

So in answer to my original question, I am now forced to declare that

Google Is Evil

 

........... possibly. It could be that I have to just update FireFox.

Update: Normal service resumed when Firefox patched an update a few days later. As to to content scraping issue mentioned in the comments. I have just lived with it ... that particular scraper has gone.

 

'Sorry, the blog at nato6.blogspot.com has been removed.'

The Court Of The Mad Hatter

In a sign that South Africa really is now just another Black African nation, it announced that Zenani Mandela-Dlamini (a Daughter of Nelson Mandela), has been been appointed as ambassador to Argentina.

Practising For The Court Of The Mad Hatter

Nepotism is running rampant in South Africa these days .... the new royalty is being created as we watch.

 

Still she will be in good company, with El Presidenti Kirchner ruling the roost, in a manner that an African politician would be proud of ..... the court of the mad hatter is being assembled.

The Road To Sickville

The USA has set a lot of trends over the last century, and California was often the place where these trends started ...... sadly, these trends have changed over the last 30 years, and now Stockton in California, is part of a new trend: When it became the largest city in the US to go broke ..... yes it became part of a modern phenomena, of American cities that have gone broke and declared themselves bankrupt.

The affects of this are catastrophic, firstly Stockton has earned the title of "America's most miserable city", with an unemployment rate twice the national average, and a murder rate that allows it to be considered amongst the contenders for being declared "America's murder capital", with gangs battling it out for control of the cities streets.

This is in direct response to police numbers having been cut by one-third (along with their pay) ....with the city not even able to afford to prosecute many offences. Many of those who have been arrested have been let out of jail early .... in fact many US cities are on the verge of collapse, and another California town, 'Mammoth Lakes', has just filed for bankruptcy.

It'll Take More Than An Enema To Cure US Cities

A lot of this can be laid at the door of the (admittedly extremely expensive) health care, and decent pensions that public sector workers used to be able to expect as part of their conditions, for working in the public service. But the US mania for cutting taxes using such devices as Proposition 13, which swept across the US from California in the 1970's and 1980's, meant that the many cities and states in the US no longer pay for their public sector by the income from property taxes. The belief that decent affordable health care is 'socialism' is patently stupid, but many Republicans in the 'Tea Party' believe that 'freedom', is paying no taxes and having no government.

But the real result of this idea, once put into practice by bankruptcy, is crime, squalor, and violence, with dirty streets and no social cohesiveness. 'White flight' from cities and towns like Stockton is a reality ... The ideals represented by "Bedford Falls" and "Mayberry" in the media, weren't built on the Tea Party principles, but rather on Presidents Roosevelt's ideals of a public conscience, where each paid his due. The US seems a long way from the dream now ...

Wasn't it Kris Kristofferson who wrote: "Freedom is another word for having nothing else to lose"? Well there are a lot of people with freedom at the moment in towns like Stockton California.

UK Self Defence Force

The world must be a safer place than ever before, and the UK safer than at any time since Wellington was supreme commander. That's the only conclusion one can draw from the fact that every UK 'defence review' (usually at the behest of the 'Chancellor of the Exchequer') in the last 60 years has concluded that the British Armed forces would somehow be better for being pruned, and would always result in a "forward-looking, modern fighting machine", or words to that affect.

The Army has been cut decade after decade.

We now have been left with a 'self defence force' rather than an army .... as its been cut to its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars, with most analysts considering that at least 100,000 men is the minimum size for a national army.

The shame is great, and to think it was a Conservative government that dealt the British Army the mortal  blow that Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler and Stalin couldn't.

Summer Madness

Following on from an earlier post on Health and Safety madness in the UK, there has been a story from the USA which matches, or even exceeds, the PC lunacy that has infected us in the UK. In that post, I half jokingly suggested that it wouldn't be too long "before the firemen refuse to enter buildings to rescue people because of Health and Safety concerns, or police let criminals escape because riding a motor bike was too dangerous?".

Tom Lopez - Lifeguard

Well, little did I realise that it would only be a month ....