Hey, dumbass, step away from that ballot box.

There are minds far greater than the general population can muster when it comes to major decisions such as the EU referendum – a decision that will impact the entire globe.

Giving the decision to the public (or even the government) is like asking a child if they want 5kg of jelly beans and 5 litres of Coca-Cola. Of course they want it, but it doesn’t mean it’s good for them.

Currently I foresee tears before bedtime, vomit, headaches, tantrums and regrets.

Reading and hearing a great number of comments and views on the referendum, I can’t help but think that the majority of people don’t have enough of a clue as to what’s going on, what will happen and what won’t happen, to be allowed to make such a decision.

Too many opinions, I believes, I thinks, what ifs…

I hear ‘I believe Britain will be better off if we vote leave, and in my opinion the EU is bad for us…’ (also the same for ‘remain’ and ‘good for us’).

Really?!?

You get someone saying that they believe in *insert deity here* and that *insert religion here* is the one true faith. It doesn’t make it real or true. Good for them though, believe what you will about religion or the EU, but don’t force you’re factless opinion and belief on the rest of us by making it into a cross on a ballot paper.

There are highly educated people who study, live and breathe these type of world influencing scenarios whose educated reasoning I’d rather trust on this topic before trusting my own findings.

You wouldn’t trust a newspaper story, or the views of a TV presenter, or an Internet meme, or a famous singer or actor when it comes to fixing your gas boiler, carrying out brain surgery, managing your finances, fixing your car, looking after your baby, neutering your pet… and yet you quite happily follow them on the choices they tell you to make about things they have no more knowledge than you about. Choices that, as I said before, will have global impact.

Democracy has its flaws. Allowing non-experts to make these decisions is one of them.

EU – IN or OUT?

One EU comment I see Brexit people make is that trade won’t suffer, because Norway isn’t in the EU and it has great trade deals, so that’s brilliant.

Another comment I see is that leaving will give us control of our borders and get rid of immigrants, and we’d have more jobs etc.

Back to the Norway thing… Yes, they have a sweet deal going where they can trade and not be members.

Part of that deal is that Norway allow free movement of immigration, the same as the rest of the EU.

Oh… So… Free trade, but with immigration?!?

You mean both things go together, and not just one banner waving example to bias my decision based on a blinkered segment of information?!?

It’s about time some people left racism and knee jerk comments and banner waving at home, and looked at the bigger picture instead of focusing on one key thing that they *think* will change.

I see and hear too many people ranting, swearing, abusing, pros and cons based on heresay, poor or no research or simply because ‘BRITAIN!!!‘.

Others voting to exit because of WW2. Seriously, people don’t want to be close to Germany because of what Hitler did a lifetime ago.

Some want in/out because of what has happened (for example) to our diminished numbers of military personnel (or NHS or whatever…). You must be crazy to not realise that these things would’ve happened regardless.

Blaming the EU for things just because you need a scape goat. Ridiculous. It’s the same for people giving false credit to the EU for other things. Differentiate, people.

Others are looking to vote simply to spite or support what the political parties say, rather than what’s actually best. People not voting one way because ‘fucking Cameron‘ is voting that way, or ‘commie Corbyn‘ wants this way…

Who cares which way a political leader votes? I care about the outcome more than I care about some knuckle dragging thick-headed moron thinking I must be a supporter of Mr X because I voted one way or the other.

Looking and hearing some of the racist, hate filled and bigoted comments of people about this topic makes me think ‘does Europe even want us, if that’s the image we portray?!?‘

Some say who cares what Europe thinks of us? Fuck ’em! We’d be independent! BRITAIN!!!

Yeah, great attitude. We’d be right on the top of Europe’s ‘let’s trade with them‘ list, wouldn’t we?

‘Fuck off EU!!!….By the way… Do you want to buy some British cars, you bunch of immigrant loving foreigners?!?….  What do you mean ‘no’…?’

You know how we picture Trump and America…? We laugh at the idiot sheep that blindly follow him and his hype. Oh, how stupid Americans are! Look how they all rally around like idiots, Suckling on the teat of what that idiot spouts! Ha ha!

Yeah… Take a look at yourselves.

I despair at the increasingly misinformed, bigoted, rage fuelled reasons that people give for voting in or out.

Do yourselves a favour and actually do some proper research.

If we’re in or out, let’s be in or out because of intelligent fact based and fact checked knowledge, and not because a bunch of ignorant pricks voted due to whatever misinformed bandwagon they are hitched on to, or because a tabloid newspaper wrote some poorly thought out banner headline.

And that’s it.

Vote In or Out, but at least do yourself a favour and do some bloody research (that isn’t a tabloid, your mates or a politically biased website).

You’re letting them win.

When an Internet troll starts posting rubbish, or you get spam emails etc, the best advice is to ignore them.

They just seek attention and/or recognition. By ignoring them, blocking them, paying them no attention, you render their actions powerless.

They may keep trying, but after a while they generally realise that it’s not working, that their actions are being seen as background noise rather than the focus of attention they desire.

So?

Whilst it is very sad that there have been more deaths in the recent ‘terror*’ attacks (*terror my arse. It’s plain and simple murder), the constant media frenzy (that goes beyond simply reporting the facts), the social media outrage and anger, the ‘solidarity profile pictures’ and support statuses, are feeding the attackers ego.

With all the good intentions in the world, your flag colours on your profile picture show both support to those involved, and that the attackers have got the message out. What they are doing is working. Look how many people know about us!!!

They incite hatred, they fuel anger, and they do it by using the news and social media.

‘There was an explosion in Brussels which lead to deaths and serious injuries. The incident is being investigated by the relevant authorities.‘

That’s all you need to know.

I’m not being cold hearted about this, and I’m not suggested a media blackout, but if you have anything to do with anyone involved, you’ll be kept informed any way. The rest of us should just leave well alone and stop fuelling the ‘advertising‘ of what happened.

If you know people and you want to let them know you are thinking about them, then do it privately, call them!

Hell, if I’d been injured or something terrible had happened to me, I’d want to either shut myself away or physically talk to someone, not openly chat about it on Facebook or Twitter.

So whilst I can only imagine the pain, suffering and loss from such attacks, I believe the majority of people should quieten down and stop feeding the trolls.

Donate money. Do something to help, just don’t shout about it.

Whilst on the ‘so called terror‘ subject, If you don’t think the terrorists are winning, then think about this…

I never had to worry about carrying a bottle of shampoo and some water in my carry-on case when flying abroad in my younger days. I never took my belt off and I kept my shoes on as I walked through to the aircraft.

I could drive right up to airports and park out front of them. You had lots of access to areas   to view the aircraft flying about – just as a visitor, not a passenger.

You could visit the flightdeck with your kid (or visit it yourself, you big kid!).

There weren’t parking restrictions and entry restrictions around public displays or gatherings.

A policeman with a gun?!? In public?!? In ENGLAND?!? Never saw that.

They aren’t winning though.

Man Buns

Hurrah. The fixed gear bike riding, speciality pumpkin spice coffee supping, hackie sack and mandolin playing hipsters and fashionistas are dropping big beards!

They can now sod off and leave the beards to people who have beards simply because they want them, and not because it’s the new cool.

Now it’s Man Buns. Jesus H Christ, you hipsters are real douches.

Not man’s buns. Many people like a blokes arse. All men have them. Can’t be without mine.

I mean the head hair type bun.

Mind you, at least I won’t be mistaken for a Hipster now they’ve moved to a top knot instead of face fur.

That’s all I have to say about that, as Forest Gump would say.

Fallacy of the Gods

Thank goodness people are praying for the victims.

For a moment I thought people weren’t going to do anything.

More killings in the name of religion…

Let us spare a minute or two and pray for them.

But who are you praying to?

To the almighty supreme being who let these people get murdered in horrendous circumstances in the first place?

To the almighty supreme being who instructed people to carry out the shootings and bombings?

If you’re praying to the one who let those people die, then I hope you realise that you are second guessing the almighty ones ineffable plan. That God let those people die… and you have the audacity to be angry and upset? You pray to him to end the terror?

If you’re praying to the one who instructed people to go off and murder men, women, children, in his name, then you’re just as deluded as the killers who say they do it for their God.

Looking through the old writings, gods were all powerful, all knowing. Creators of universes, planets, life…. Us.

Bringer of famines, floods, pestilence, disease, destruction… The one who has the power to bring people back to life, to cure blindness and leprosy, to make cripples walk again.

Powerful, all seeing, almighty.

And yet the omnipotent master of all he surveys, this supreme creator, this supreme being, has in modern times forgotten all of these amazing feats he can pull off himself, and instead uses puny humans to do his dirty work for him…

Why would a world creator send humans to murder other humans when he could just rain brimstone down on the sinners himself?

Why would an all powerful being let his people die today, yet he quite happily parted the seas himself to help others escape back in the good old days?

Why do you think their God is wrong? Why do you think they are bloody idiots for following such a stupid religion?

You know they think exactly the same of you? Why is their religion wrong yet yours is right?

People want weapons of mass destruction banned. They want smoking banned, they want guns banned, they want an end to violence and war, yet they don’t want to look at the biggest killer we’ve ever had on this planet…. Religion itself.

More people have been killed in the name of religion, or pretence of religion, than by anything else.

It’s all about whose imaginary, impotent God has a bigger dick than the other persons equally imaginary and impotent God.

Ban the God. Ban the religion. Take away the fuel and the fire will burn out.

Grow up and ditch the fairytales.

We could be visiting other planets on holiday, we could be driving around in flying cars, we could wipe out cancer and be living in peace with each other if we’d just drag ourselves away from the mythical gods of the dark ages.

We could have hoverboards, dammit.

Jimmy Kimmel on the Killing of Cecil the Lion

Absolutely this. Spot on Jimmy.

Hunting for food and/or for animal husbandry is acceptable (when done humanely), but hunting just for the kill? Hell no.

Don’t go grouping all gun owners or hunters  together. I know no one in competition target shooting or animal husbandry that thinks shooting a lion is acceptable. It isn’t, and it doesn’t help those of us who shoot with legitimate reasons (and there are legitimate reasons – but this lion hunt is so far removed from legitimate as to be sickening and disgusting).

My recent hunt post, for one legitimate reason;
http://wp.me/piqeC-QI

Gun accident as do-gooders shoot selves in feet.

I do charity stuff. To be honest I don’t have lots of spare change so I go and do things & collect sponsorship. I donate me to help raise money – and yes, I do sponsor people in their endeavours too. I put a percentage of sale profit into charity on auction sites. I always sign that tax waiver for organisations/museums so they get a bit more back.

It’s been over a year & I still have a broken ‘fund raisers leg’ for my efforts – and I’d do it again.

I do it for charities close to my heart.

Here goes…

I like big BUT(ts)

Too many charity posts are appearing on the ‘social media’ sites.

It’s like the boy who cried wolf… I’m starting to just flick past them. They’re self defeating.

Game invite, game invite, food photo, charity, charity, game invite, charity, selfie, charity, charity, charity.

I just saw a bike ride from London to Paris in aid of Alzheimer’s Research, and rather than think ‘I should donate’, my charity numbed mind just thought ‘I hope they use GPS Tracking’.

These ice bucket challenges are kind of bullying too. People are doing them not because they want to raise the cash, but because the peer pressure is so fucking high. It is internet bullying wrapped up in ribbons – and everyone tries to out do each other.

I’m off to donate to an Alzheimer’s charity to make up for that.

What annoys me are people complaining that Macmillan have ‘hijacked’ the ice bucket challenge. You’ll find some people did the challenge for Macmillan because they have more of a connection in their life with cancer than ALS, and other people followed that idea.

Hell, the ice bucket/ice bath fund raiser idea was around way back when I was at school in the early 1980’s, and way before then to.

What next? You can’t sit in a bath of cold baked beans to raise money for disabled kids, because sitting in beans is only for raising money for the blind?!?

Get some perspective here: IT’S ALL FOR CHARITY.

I think Macmillan have raised 5% of what ALS have taken, so that’s £50 thousand for every £1 MILLION ALS get.

To put that sum into relative values: 5 thousand people die from ALS each year, yet over 14 MILLION die from cancer.

At the end of the day though, as I’ve said before: it is all going to charity. If people want to get bitchy about what charity gets what, then maybe they need to look at the 25,000 people who die DAILY from malnutrition.

BUT in the first world, we don’t care so much about malnutrition deaths. We care more about the causes of death closer to our own lives & hearts – and those causes are what people want to give to, and for some damned good reasons.

If my house was on fire & my family was inside, I’d be way more concerned with that than cancer or ALS. It’s what is closest to you that counts – and that doesn’t mean some people dying from AIDS, ALS, Cancer, house fires, for our freedom in conflict zones, from natural disasters, are any less or more important than the others.

So – if you want to raise money & awareness for charities, then you are a true blue died in the wool hero, and I salute you. Just don’t expect everyone to jump on your charity when they have causes closer to their own hearts.

And don’t go bitching about people stealing ideas to raise money to save the lives of *this* bunch of people instead of *this* bunch of people, because that’s fucking weak.

Spock out.

Falling off of the Wagon with Robin Williams

The ‘Band Wagon’ that is.

We are a weird lot.

A man funny man with depression dies: The World and an ape go nuts in mourning.

20,000 children die of malnutrition/starvation each day and we post selfies, Instagrams of our restaurant meals or moan about the fucking weather.

For a second I was suckered in to the Williams/Ape story.

I got angry that they even made the ape sad by telling it about his death.

‘WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!? THE APE DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW!!! WHAT POSSIBLE GOOD DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!?!’

Then I wondered if they were worried that the ape might find out anyway via Twitter or a passing chimp or something, so thought it best to tell the ape straight. Avoid the awkward ‘Oook! Ooook! When were you planning on telling me this pivotal news about the loss of this dude?!? Ooook’.

But then I snapped out of it, because an ape being unnecessarily sad over the death of a show biz celebrity just isn’t news, considering everything else going on.

One person stands out in his views of how ridiculous our priorities are. His wit & social comedic commentary in his stand up acts focused on this quite a lot.

He’d be rolling his fucking eyes at all of this right now.

I imagine he’d word it a little like this:

‘… and in a world where in one continent 20,000 kids die each day from starvation, and in another continent they have kids armed with AK47’s fighting wars against each other because one side dislikes dicks in turtleneck sweaters, we find a big monkey being upset by the untimely death of an alcoholic comic is the big news story… And they think I had a problem?’

Rest in peace, funny man. May many more people discover your stand-up and realise how fucked up we really are.

Crap!!! Crap EVERYWHERE!!!

Has anyone else notice the huge number of dog walkers now that the sun is shining?

It makes you wonder what these people do with their dogs during the rest of the year. They probably just let them run around their gardens.

Those gardens must be FULL OF SHIT though. The number of these fair weather walkers has increased, and with it the number of dog shit left all over the woods, lakes & nature trails has increased. Worse still are the wankers who bag the turd up… AND LEAVE IT THERE!!!

On top of all this, the current heat wave mixed with the amount of dog eggs left festering at the path sides or on playing fields, is kicking off quite a stink.

I own animals. They take exercise and looking after. When we walk the dog we bag the poo & bin it (you can use any roadside bin, not just poop bins).

So these wanker’s gardens must be knee deep in shit from the evidence that they don’t clean up after their dogs. OR maybe they are sociopathic dicks who only clean up in their own homes, but fuck everyone else.

These fair weather walkers are ruining it for other dog walkers & general walkers. Our local lake & heath is being looked at in regards to banning dogs due to the cunty shit leaving low life sociopathic fuck witted walkers who think that THEIR dog crap is not THEIR responsibility.

If I catch you, I’ll rub your pathetic faces in it. Maybe that’ll teach you to pick it up.

Excuse me whilst I don’t shed a tear.

Excuse me for not toeing the line here, but we’re all entitled to an opinion.

A guy died who was an actor. So did many tens of thousands of people on that same day, all over the world. Those people are less worthy though.

The show he was in is a very good show. It helps lots of people & is entertaining. I don’t care for it myself, but it seems to make people happier with themselves & is a refreshing upbeat show in times where things are getting too heavy on TV. I’m no fan, but I can see why people like it, and have no problem with that at all.

Although the cause of death is yet to be officially attributed to anything at this time, it is widely known that he was into substance abuse. Young rich star found dead in a hotel room aged 31…

EDIT: CAUSE OF DEATH NOW RELEASED:
Glee star Cory Monteith died from a heroin and alcohol overdose, the coroner’s office has said.

The findings come after a post-mortem examination and toxicological analysis in British Columbia, Canada.

Monteith, 31, was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room on Saturday.

Sadly that wasn’t much of a surprise at all.

He was also a role model for kids, in a show very much aimed to draw in younger audiences. In fact many fans are of a more impressionable, even fragile nature, styling themselves after the characters in the show. Substance abuse doesn’t lend itself well to a worshipped star in a show like this (or any other, let’s face it).

It doesn’t really pull me onside. I’m not buying in. It may be just me, but I reckon many others feel the same way. Could be because I’m a dad & don’t like the idea of people like this being role models.

As it is substance abuse related, there’s such a public history of other stars going the same way on substance abuse, it’s hard to understand why people still do it.

Rich, dumb & under sooo much pressure..?
Sorry, but there are countless people out there under real pressure on a daily basis, from everyday folk to professionals in their own fields. You’re not going to kill people by not acting very well at them (although some ‘actors’ do come close…), and you’re not putting your own life on the line in such a way that a missed dance step or retake is going kill you.

Most people have as much of a connection to him as they do the thousands of kids who starve to death every day, yet I don’t see them being mourned for, for deaths they were born into, yet self abuse is worthy?

Ahhh, some people identify with his character, and that’s who they are mourning. The thing is, he isn’t his character. Look at Jimmy Savile… Fun loving child friendly TV celebrity who was a serial abuser of young kids. On screen & off screen these people are very seldom the same person. It’s why it’s called ‘acting’.

Nope. I really can’t start believing in the hype.

NOTE: I fully appreciate that substance abuse is a very serious issue, and some people who get into it are unfortunate enough to get hooked, or have a compulsive nature and can’t stop. It is very sad when people die this way, but they do generally bring it on themselves.