Tag Archive for 'children'

Random fire 11

Published on 17 August 2008 in Random Fire and Uncategorized. 21 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

1) Drunken beasts

Having returned from a boozy alpine holiday Geeklawyer was amused by this Times report of Club 18–30 Brits abroad. Apparently we are vile drunk and embarrassing: nonetheless the Greeks and other resorts like our money so much they won’t stop it happening. Frankly, there is nothing wrong with drunken misbehavior just so long as it is Geeklawyer and his peers doing it. When we get rat-arsed we have the class to do it behind the walls of our Tuscany holiday villas without offending the locals. The problem is that the Ruinair generation (thank you O’Leary, you paddy potato eating cunt) can fly anywhere in Europe for nothing. In the good old days it was only well heeled chaps such as Geeklawyer, with a good profession and a private income, who could play away from home. Nowadays prices are so cheap that every chav scum can save up his dole money, or his MacDonald’s wage, and humiliate his nation abroad. Geeklawyer remains of the view that the proper solution is to give passports only to the upper middle classes and the gentry: or failing that to introduce hunting permits to allow decent people to hunt those impertinent chavs who venture outside the UK cage. Mmmm, roasted chav.…

2) Stasi 2.0

One of the glorious things about capitalism is that it encourages innovation and technical efficiency. Geeklawyer was terribly impressed with the idea that with modern technology any recorded minor ancient indiscretion or unproven unsubstantiated allegation could wreck a mans career if an employer chose to do a vetting check. Now this technological promise has been realised and pesky ‘criminal friendly’ limitations have been cast aside.

One of the good points about the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 was that it encouraged the ‘clean start’ idea minor of medium offence could be expunged if a man turned to the straight and narrow. Forgiveness. Now anything however minor tittle tattle or not will be passed to an employer who use it as they will. New employees are rejected and old loyal ones dismissed on the basis of 30 year old allegations that never even went to court. This was, of course, all to protect the children and an employer would never be unfair would they? So one can defer checking to them rather than adding to the tax consuming burdens of civil servants.

3) The Bar: it’s a profession not a job.

Susan Cartier runs a very useful website for lawyers interested in solo practice rather than being associate “#AZ203_Chigago_associate_sucker102” at Somethingovitz Feinstein LLP. In her post on being a lawyer she talks of the law as being a profession rather than a merely a job. The distinction being, in her thesis, that in this one has an oath to adhere to. Those such as Dan Hull at WTF? would presumably take odds, what with their bizarre views that lawyers are merely mere mortals with a supporting role to business. Geeklawyer prefers Susan’s view; although were he to be picky he would say that the mere taking of an oath is not sufficient, since that would also include prison warders, the Filth, soldiers and other low-level violence grunts. Nonetheless an oath combined with training, professional regulation, a high barrier to entry, an ethical corpus might well cut it as a definition.

4) Speed Cameras

Geeklawyer drove to Swissieland in his Nissan Micra along with some chums. This was vastly entertaining if a little tiring. While hammering through France he was flashed by a speed camera. this was a bit surprising as he was only doing a piffling 85 mph in a 75mph zone. The question then arose: “can a French speeding ticket follow Geeklawyer back home and be successfully enforced?”. Geeklawyer’s brilliance does not extend to criminal law, let alone international criminal law and EU covenants, but he will have a go at resisting this ticket on jurisdictional grounds alone and see what happens: just for a laugh, not because he is innocent or any crap like that. Regular blog updates to follow.

Random fire 10

Published on 21 May 2008 in Random Fire. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

1)

Fundamentalist christian nutjob loses dictionary and cannot define “Public Servant”: wants to impose her view of morality on gay couples & bugger the law. You don’t like the job or the rules? Leave. What next? Ambulance men refusing to treat Jews because “they killed our Lord”?

2)

US softens vegetables for later Chinese takeaway: the present evil empire doing the next evil empire’s dirty work? Nice, we love Western values too.

3)

Have you got that extra strong (Eye Bleach [tm]) handy? The stuff Geeklawyer sent you last xmas? Good. Apparently some twatty Muslim objected to a tranny giving his wife driving lessons. It seems muslim men don’t allow their property to be alone with other men. Achmed had a bit of a fit when he saw (WARNING: OFFENSIVE IMAGE) this thing (AKA “Emma” Sherdly) in the driving school’s car.

Tip: dilute the eye bleach 1:1 with water: you’ll lose 80% of your vision but it will be worth it as the image of whatever it is will be removed forever. Sorry about the eyes. Really.

4)

Social notworking site: Faceparty is, it tells us, “the biggest party on Earth”. Apparently you should “Log Ur Ass On”. The last time Geeklawyer heard crap like that it was from some sad old man pretending he was a decade younger. Ahem. Well, it seems they have a paedophile problem: lots of dirty old men trying to pull hot young chicks. Solution? Ban anyone over 36. Mercifully someone is thinking of the children. Geeklawyer will worry when this affects him in 10 years time.

Oh just fuck off, OK?

5)

The shifty, evasive & suspicious editor of Blawg Review, who — Dan Hull assures solemnly — wears silk women’s underwear, has just IM’d Geeklawyer to tell him that English court transcribers cannot understand Scottish, and as a result they render the transcripts into gibberish. To Geeklawyer’s US readers who might scoff, he would say that one merely has to discard the sound of “Scotty” from Star Trek and instead watch the hilarious Rab C Nesbitt — the greatest living Scotchman — to understand why this is not only forgiveable but entirely reasonable.

6)

Apparently, fucking weird pint sized definitely-not-homosexual shit actor Tom Cruise’s money making hobby Scientology has persuaded the corrupt City of London police to shut up its critics because even though $cientologists “value free speech” they feel insulted by being called a “cult”. A timely lesson to politicians about the pernicious unintended consequences of free speech being constrained by laws introduced to attract cheap votes. Blair, you were an asshat & your wife is a minger.

Random Fire 7

Published on 7 January 2008 in Random Fire. 17 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Geeklawyer has been busy today (rather than working he spent the afternoon watching “I am Legend’, the ho-hum OK-ish remake of the impeccable 1972 Omega Man with Charlton Heston) so he doesn’t have much time to rattle off sweary posts and biting invective. But, here are some things that caught his attention:

1) Geeklawyer was off getting hammered in Bavaria and so unable to vote for or promote WAC?‘s entry for the American Bar Association’s ‘Best Business Blog’ award. So mad props to Dan Hull and his alter-ego Holden Oliver for winning despite that. As entertaining collateral damage they gave the blogs of the Wall Street Journal and Forbes one up the arse. Nice. Remember Geeklawyer’s saying kiddies:

“it isn’t enough to win: the path to the podium must be littered with the dead and dying bodies of one’s competitors children.”

2) Buffoon motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson, whose extravagantly laboured metaphors are as lardy as his arse, had his Gluteous Maximus handed to him on a platter. He demonstrated that he knew as little about data protection as he does about dieting by publishing his bank details in a press story to show that the HMRC data fiasco was nothing much to worry about and how no-one could abuse the data to his disadvantage. Result? Someone set up a direct debit to a Diabetes charity using those details. Ha ha — stupid cunt.

3) Apparently someone hasn’t told the filth that being drunk isn’t per se a crime. And certainly not one for which an entire pub can be hauled out into the street and made to perform demeaning sobriety tests on the pavements. Even if to do so would help prove publicans were serving drunk people. Imagine, people drunk in pubs?! Whatever next, “something must be done”. West Midlands filth, famed for endemic corruption torture and perjury are now now facing the consequences of enforcing Gordon Brown’s hatred of insobriety and pleasure. They are refusing to comment following a formal complaint. Geeklawyer hopes that those embarrassed in this fashion will sue the police for whatever human rights claim will stand under Article 8: trespass assault or whatever. Mind you, now that crime has been eradicated in the West Midlands the filth must find something to fill their timesheets with.

4) Geeklawyer would normally ascribe the collapse in legal aid to Machiavellian intriguing by the Illuminati but in truth it looks like good old fashioned incompetence and penny pinching by the government. I suppose we will eventually decay into a society where the accused will be aided by US style public defenders no-hopers paid £100 to defend a murder charge or where battered wives can’ get protection. Yay! Go libertarianism.

Gikii conference — Society for Computers & Law

Published on 12 September 2007 in blawg conference. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Since he is participating in a round table panel Geeklawyer feels that he should punt the Society for Computers and Law’s conference. Billed as a “conference without the boring bit” the programme and the speakers & topics look very very interesting indeed. It’s geared towards looking at the issues of law facing the newest web technologies;

  • New forms of property in data eg virtual “property”, reputations, and “mash ups”
  • New forms of identity eg identities in social networking worlds such as Facebook
  • New forms of speech eg collective content produced by wiki; user-generated content such as blogs; “open content”

We will look at issues like

  • How do web 2.0, the “Semantic Web” and distributed computing interact?
  • What are the commercial and business model implications of web 2.0?
  • What are the social implications of social networking software and the “open access” paradigm?
  • What are the intellectual property and data protection laws impacting on these technologies and their exploitation?
  • Should public sector geospatial data be bought, sold, and “mashed up”, and if so, on what conditions?
  • How can identity and reputation be managed on the new Web?
  • Does Europe need to rewrite the laws of privacy and data protection in a web 2.0 world?
  • What dangers are we exposing children and the unwary to in a world of ubiquitous disclosure?
  • What laws govern virtual worlds? How do we do business there?
  • How do control mobile and distributed data in a connected world?
  • Should platforms like Facebook and You Tube be legally liable for user generated content?
  • Is Google legal?
  • What next in the music download wars in a web 2.0 world?

Geeklawyer will be participating in the roundtable debate about the disruptiveness or otherwise of blogs and Wikis.

date: 17th 18th September 2007

time: Monday: 9.30 am — 5.30 pm Tuesday: 9.30 am — 4.30 pm

members: £352.5
non-members: £470

venue: Herbert Smith, Exchange House, Primrose Street, London, EC2A 2HS.

Thanks to Alex at Impact for pointing out that Gikii is a separate conference organised by the university of Edinburgh and happening the day after. Doh, if I was any stupider I’d have to become a solicitor-advocate :P .

If you are at the Lamb pub in Lambs Conduit Street on Monday evening you can buy him a beer. Or several, ideally. Don’t sit next to him at the Herbert Smith dinner the following night though, he has very poor table manners and is prone to get excited in polite company.

What do they put in the afternoon tea, oop North?

Published on 14 August 2007 in MysteryQC, legal profession and the Bar. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The Bar is often regarded, as Geeklawyer has observed before, by the public as a public school playground. Smug, self satisfied and aloof. Fortunately only the proles think that, so it hardly matters. But if it were a bad thing our Northern colleagues are doing their bit to etch away this image of the Bar.

And heavens, what a ‘bit’ they are doing in Leeds these past few weeks. Everyone has blogged about the peculiar activities of Northerner Lord Chief Justice of Mr Justice Peter Smith. A complex man it would seem and one Victorian Maiden has, in happier times, received kindnesses from, though of a salubrious and appropriate kind obviously.

There is also feverish speculation that the eccentric MysteryQC is from the North, and has peculiar hobbies such as breeding whippets and bare knuckle boxing in disused factories.

And Simon Myerson QC is from Leeds where he practices law from Park Court Chambers (16 Park Place Leeds) collects bad jokes and does ladies hairdressing on slow days (no appointment necessary on Thursdays).

But all of these inestimables are topped easily by one Christopher Dunn of Sovereign Chambers (46 Park Place Leeds — hey! wait…). As the best man at a wedding he not only gave the speech but provided additional entertainment by exposing himself to women and children, and then beating another guest senseless and inflicting serious injuries on him when the latter complained. What a scamp.

Mr Dunn is apparently a martial artist an ex-copper and in his younger slimmer days was a member of the Royal Marines Reserves and a “Weekend Walt” with the 23rd Territorial SAS. Mr Dunns’ practice includes “murder, serious sexual offences, and serious assaults”.

Evidently.

Clearly however Leeds is a dangerous place to be. Gangs of marauding feckless criminal barristers hanging out on street corners in Park Place. If the consequences of the decay of legal aid were ever to be amply demonstrated then this is it. All of this could have been avoided by proper rates, and by confining Solicitor Inadequates to their proper domain. Oh, and not giving tenancies to polytechnic graduates :wink:

Update: props to young Mary Julian for alerting Geeklawyer to the news that Dunn has now been cleared of all charges. Geeklawyer is a bit surprised, but then not knowing all the facts has never impeded him from having an opinion before :P

It isn’t just about T-shirts — it’s about respect.

Published on 13 August 2007 in Civil liberties & human rights and The filth. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

The decent folks of Peterborough can rest a little easier tonight. The recent spate of horrifying incidents of people wearing mildly rude t-shirts looks to be being brought under control.

Dave Pratt may be, it is hoped, the last foully attired chap in that poor benighted besieged town. The lethargic Police Community Support Officers seem finally to have been stung into action by the sight of crying children having their eyes covered by terrified cowering parents as the vile Mr Pratt sauntered down the street striking fear into the hearts of all around.

Why oh why could they not have more quickly followed the heroic example of Sussex Police in dealing with ‘T-shirt terrorism’? In 2005, at terrible risk to themselves, brave Sussex bobbies leapt upon an 8o year old ex-World War 2 RAF man, driven insane by his war experiences one imagines; almost certainly he was hell-bent on killing the Cabinet at the Brighton Conference, but he gave himself away by wearing an anti-Blair/Bush t-shirt.

No, the baby boom generation have lived soft lives and don’t know the value of service. But Thames Valley Police have the right idea: young people are the future, so recruit younger police. They have the hunger to serve the people and the obey the party and the Dear Leader.

It’s not about freedom of speech or proportionate policing: it’s about respect and loyalty the party.

Madeleine McCann: enough already

Published on 25 May 2007 in waaaaay off-topic. 28 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Geeklawyer knows he’ll get flamed for this but it has to be said: enough, please please please. “Our Maddy” stories have reached the point of terminal boredom.

Yes she is incredibly pretty and very sweet. And Geeklawyer concedes that having her on the front page of every newspaper in the Universe, every website everywhere and occupying 90% of all TV news coverage everywhere may possibly get her back. But Lord it is dull.

If she didn’t have such a hot mum and if her family were not articulate and middle class then the press coverage would have been of the standard “Chav family’s Home Alone outrage: this mum should be jailed.” variety.

Can we have a new excuse for national mawkish sentimentality?

Fat dogs

Published on 13 January 2007 in crime. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Down Geeklawyer, down boy…not an excuse for a weak pun about the size of Ruthie’s bottom, but rather a comment on the successful prosecution by the RSPCA of David and Derek Benton for causing unnecessary suffering to their 11 and a half stone Labrador, Rusty, by overfeeding.

Having already incurred the editorial wrath of Geeklawyer this month by agitating Christians, Ruthie is deliberately avoiding the attention of the Animal Liberation Front by specifically not commenting on whether overfeeding constitutes animal cruelty.

Her interest in the case instead relates to the development of the law. Surely if overfeeding your dog constitutes a criminal offence, what about overfeeding your child?

Continue reading ‘Fat dogs’

Halloween law change

Published on 30 October 2006 in humour. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Geeklawyer is privy to news of an imminent legal change. Since Blair wishes to ingrain the habit of financial self-reliance into children the repellent trend of them American ‘trick or treating’ is to be encouraged. The only impediment to this is the fear that children may unwittingly knock on the door of a paedophile: a chilling threat incapable of exaggeration or hysteria.

Currently most people seeking a job that involves interaction with children need to undergo Criminal Record Bureau checks. The government has decided that the scheme will now be modified so that anyone answering a domestic door, or other door that a child might reasonably be expected to knock on during Halloween, will be compelled to undergo a CRB check. Thank heavens at least the Dear Leader is thinking of the children.

Breaking news: insecure men marry poor stupid women.

Published on 26 August 2006 in Civil liberties & human rights. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A recent articles in Forbes magazine urges men to marry not to marry career women. (A career women being defined as any woman that has a university degree, works more than 35 hours outside the home and earns more than 20k). “Career women” are, according to the article, more likely to divorce, less likely to have children and be more unhappy when they do. i.e. less likely to put up with shit, because they have other options.

Ruthie knows a few men from law school who married women who would not challenge their masculinity. 6 years on, these women now having fulfilled their intended reproductive function, these men return home from court to a conversation about daytime TV and the antics of the knitting circle. They then take mistresses, and the limited pool of women prepared to fulfill that role can pack in 5 rich men a week who will spend lots of money and always be on their best behaviour. Unfortunately current divorce legislation means that when the wife finds out she’s in for a generous pay out and probably custody of the kids.

Surely so much easier and more fun to marry someone that is your intellectual equal and who stays with you because they want to, rather than because they have no choice.

The reality is that a woman’s chance of marriage decreases for every point increase in IQ. Odd, considering that intelligence is a desirable survival characteristic. It seems that male insecurity outweighs the biological imperative.