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11th September 2013: The world's gone mad and I'm the only one who knows
13th August 2013: Black is white. Fact. End of.
11th August 2013: Electric cars, not as green as they're painted?
18th June 2013: Wrinklies unite, you have nothing to lose but your walking frames!
17th May 2013: Some actual FACTS about climate change (for a change) from actual scientists ...
10th May 2013: An article about that poison gas, carbon dioxide, and other scientific facts (not) ...
10th May 2013: We need to see past the sex and look at the crimes: is justice being served?
8th May 2013: So, who would you trust to treat your haemorrhoids, Theresa May?
8th May 2013: Why should citizens in the 21st Century fear the law so much?
30th April 2013: What the GOS says today, the rest of the world realises tomorrow ...
30th April 2013: You couldn't make it up, could you? Luckily you don't need to ...
29th April 2013: a vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE, because THE ABOVE are crap ...
28th April 2013: what goes around, comes around?
19th April 2013: everyone's a victim these days ...
10th April 2013: Thatcher is dead; long live Thatcher!
8th April 2013: Poor people are such a nuisance. Just give them loads of money and they'll go away ...
26th March 2013: Censorship is alive and well and coming for you ...
25th March 2013: Just do your job properly, is that too much to ask?
25th March 2013: So, what do you think caused your heterosexuality?
20th March 2013: Feminists - puritans, hypocrites or just plain stupid?
18th March 2013: How Nazi Germany paved the way for modern governance?
13th March 2013: Time we all grew up and lived in the real world ...
12th March 2013: Hindenburg crash mystery solved? - don't you believe it!
6th March 2013: Is this the real GOS?
5th March 2013: All that's wrong with taxes
25th February 2013: The self-seeking MP who is trying to bring Britain down ...
24th February 2013: Why can't newspapers just tell the truth?
22nd February 2013: Trial by jury - a radical proposal
13th February 2013: A little verse for two very old people ...
6th February 2013: It's not us after all, it's worms
6th February 2013: Now here's a powerful argument FOR gay marriage ...
4th February 2013: There's no such thing as equality because we're not all the same ...
28th January 2013: Global Warming isn't over - IT'S HIDING!
25th January 2013: Global Warmers: mad, bad and dangerous to know ...
25th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
19th January 2013: We STILL haven't got our heads straight about gays ...
16th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
11th January 2013: What it's like being English ...
7th January 2013: Bleat, bleat, if it saves the life of just one child ...
7th January 2013: How best to put it? 'Up yours, Argentina'?
7th January 2013: Chucking even more of other people's money around ...
6th January 2013: Chucking other people's money around ...
30th December 2012: The BBC is just crap, basically ...
30th December 2012: We mourn the passing of a genuine Grumpy Old Sod ...
30th December 2012: How an official body sets out to ruin Christmas ...
16th December 2012: Why should we pardon Alan Turing when he did nothing wrong?
15th December 2012: When will social workers face up to their REAL responsibility?
15th December 2012: Unfair trading by a firm in Bognor Regis ...
14th December 2012: Now the company that sells your data is pretending to act as watchdog ...
7th December 2012: There's a war between cars and bikes, apparently, and  most of us never noticed!
26th November 2012: The bottom line - social workers are just plain stupid ...
20th November 2012: So, David Eyke was right all along, then?
15th November 2012: MPs don't mind dishing it out, but when it's them in the firing line ...
14th November 2012: The BBC has a policy, it seems, about which truths it wants to tell ...
12th November 2012: Big Brother, coming to a school near you ...
9th November 2012: Yet another celebrity who thinks, like Jimmy Saville, that he can behave just as he likes because he's famous ...
5th November 2012: Whose roads are they, anyway? After all, we paid for them ...
7th May 2012: How politicians could end droughts at a stroke if they chose ...
6th May 2012: The BBC, still determined to keep us in a fog of ignorance ...
2nd May 2012: A sense of proportion lacking?
24th April 2012: Told you so, told you so, told you so ...
15th April 2012: Aah, sweet ickle polar bears in danger, aah ...
15th April 2012: An open letter to Anglian Water ...
30th March 2012: Now they want to cure us if we don't believe their lies ...
28th February 2012: Just how useful is a degree? Not very.
27th February 2012: ... so many ways to die ...
15th February 2012: DO go to Jamaica because you definitely WON'T get murdered with a machete. Ms Fox says so ...
31st January 2012: We don't make anything any more
27th January 2012: There's always a word for it, they say, and if there isn't we'll invent one
26th January 2012: Literary criticism on GOS? How posh!
12th December 2011: Plain speaking by a scientist about the global warming fraud
9th December 2011: Who trusts scientists? Apart from the BBC, of course?
7th December 2011: All in all, not a good week for British justice ...
9th November 2011: Well what d'you know, the law really IS a bit of an ass ...

 

 
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You have to hand it to our favourite charity, the RSPCA, don't you?
 
They really are the most reliable organisation. If there's an opportunity for them to get their name in the newspapers, they can be relied upon to take it. If there's a chance of bullying defenceless members of the public - particularly if they are children, disabled or elderly - they can be trusted to do so. If there's a wrong or foolish or cruel or callous decision to be made, they're your man every time. I mean, all respect to them, this is an organisation with real balls. No compassion, no common sense, no kindness, no realism, no balance, no sense - but colossal balls. Oh yes.
 
The Manchester Evening News reports that a 71-year-old woman has been fitted with an electronic tag for "neglecting" her pet labrador.
 
Pauline Spoor, 71, was the owner of chocolate brown labrador Dexter, who had to be put to sleep after he was found with multiple medical problems including arthritis, lameness and conjunctivitis. Odd, that, isn't it? Quite a few 71-year-old humans suffer from arthritis, lameness and conjunctivitis but I don't see the RSPCA trawling the streets and taking them away for "disposal". Perhaps it's just a matter if time. Actually, come to think about it, it's almost definitely just a matter of time.
 
Pauline appeared before Tameside magistrates with her son John Robinson. Both pleaded guilty to the same charges in relation to Dexter and John's Staffordshire bull terrier. RSPCA storm troopers sorry, inspectors first saw the dogs through a window at Spoor's house. Unable to contact the owners, they returned (the newspaper actually said "were forced to return" but that's not true: no one forced them, they decided to do it. Leapt at the chance, probably, relishing the opportunity to bristle with macho and make themselves look really important) with police to break in and "rescue" the pets.
 
Dexter was described as dull and lethargic with ear and eye infections and had difficulty standing up. Just like many old people, really. I'm not so far away myself. Of the other dog, the court was told "The inspector watched the dog running across the road in front of a bus and missing getting run over by inches." Now that's really cruel, isn't it, making a dog not get run over?
 
The court was also told that the defendants made a habit of taking in unwanted dogs, some of which were so forlorn that no one else would have them. One had been rescued from a dog fighting ring. This, of course, is something the RSPCA can't tolerate. They hate it when other people try and do the job they should be doing themselves. In their vicious little world, ordinary people shouldn't be allowed to keep pets and only they should have the disposal of all animals. Because, of course, they know best. Some of them even went on a twelve-week training course once, so they know all there is to know about animals.
 
You might think, might you not, that the obvious and appropriate course of action for a bunch of people who describe themselves as a charity would be to act in a charitable fashion? Why didn't they simply talk to the owners and offer to take the animals away and dispose of them humanely? What was the point of a court case, of the punishment and humiliation of a couple of inadequate people (I'm guessing here)? Why not just do the obvious, simple thing, and everyone would have been happy?
 
And let's spare a thought for the magistrates. What punishment did they give the old lady? A community order with a curfew which means she will be electronically tagged and must remain at home from 9 in the evening until 6 in the morning for the next twelve weeks. I'll just repeat that in case it wasn't clear: an infirm 71-year-old lady has to stay indoors after nine in the evening, until six the next morning. Wow, that's really going to slow her down, isn't it? No more dancing until the small hours, no more necking fifteen pints and reeling round the streets singing old Abba songs, no more wandering hand-in-hand, love-struck and star-struck as the sun rises over the old canal. That's really going to put a crimp in things, that is.
 
And the final irony? Both she and her son have to pay £250 each in court costs. One of the main reasons they hadn't taken the dogs to the vet was that they had no money. Nice one, magistrates. How does it feel, toeing the RSPCA's line for them? Wouldn't you like to try a little independent thought for once? You know, making your own minds up instead of being told what to do by a rat-like little jobsworth in a police-lookalike uniform?
 
No, I thought that might be an ask too far.
 
Bastards.
 

 
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