Vox Polis

Last week’s talk like a Pirate day has convinced me that it would be a good idea to keep an eye on all those meaningful weekly campaigns that take place throughout the year. Many of them completely pass me by, but this (hopefully) weekly guide will help us all to keep tracks on them.

In case you missed it, last week was European mobility week, where more of the taxpayer’s euros went on a campaign to encourage us all to use sustainable mobility. The week culminated in Car Free Day. Incidentally, it was also Welcome To Walking Week- a well timed Rambler’s Association annual festival - see you could have supported two campaigns in one week by giving up the car and walking.

This week it’s the start of British Food Fortnight and the European Day of Languages - so you can eat British beef whilst talking in a French accent.

Next week is by far the best one - 1982 beer price week - beer for 62p!! I thought I’d mention it now whilst I’m still sober.

It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day and there’s lots of pirate movements that need your support - support them or I’ll make you walk the plank - arrrh!

On Sunday the Swedish Pirate party (campaigning on copyright reform not better rights for pirates) only managed about 0.62% (not even enough to get state funding). Clearly they didnt give away enough pirate hats.

But the pirate political movement is spreading, with new outposts being set up in Germany and Austria - Hopefully they’ll have more luck finding treasure than the Swedes!

And this week, Iain Dale has revealed that there are in fact some people reading Vox Polis where Pirate DogPatch contributes - Arrh…Subscribe to this blog or I’ll give you the black spot.

The news that Starbucks is to be sued for fraud after withdrawing an over-successful free coffee offer prompted us to come with a top five of bad lawsuits.

1. Woman sues McDonalds after scalding herself with hot coffee (vanosteen.com).
2. RIAA attempts to prosecute a dead man for music piracy. To be honest there were almost too many RIAA cases to choose from; 12 year old girls and grandmothers without PCs have also being targeted (recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com).
3. Jonathan Aitken sues the Guardian for libel and is subsequently found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice. Take note politicians - if you’re guilty of lying don’t draw attention to yourself (wikipedia.org).
4. Woman sues hairdresser for emotional distress, depression, loss of income and counseling after receiving a bad haircut (power-of-attorneys.com).
5. Sadly apocryphal this one but too good not to mention: man sues car manufacturer after leaving his car on cruise control and going to make a cup of coffee (snopes.com).

Thank heavens for lawyers and the stupid eh?

According to the Iain Dale-o-meter of the top 100 non aligned blogs, Vox Polis is 82nd! - And I didnt even think anyone had noticed us.

If you add together all his top 100s to include those aligned to Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems, then we’re about 340th out of 400! - Plenty of room for improvement…better start blogging more.

Seems the EU are looking for a new slogan so they’re launching a competition to get “young European designers” to do the work for them help out.  We can’t resist competitions (or big cash prizes) here at Vox Polis so here are a few suggestions -

• Now with 10% extra Eurocrats!!!
• Forward into complexity
• Just say yes (new logo being some kind of swooshy design)
• United in homogeneity
• Better than Kilroy
• States, United (new logo - some arrangement of 6 stars and 25 stripes)

As for a serious suggestions I’m not feeling particularly inspired right now.  ‘United in diversity’ is actually pretty good and is the kind of not stupidly over confident thing that I’d come up with myself.  The best thing I can think of right now is ‘Freedom together’.  Suggestions (especially of the prize winning kind) from our loyal cadre of readers are welcome.

One of the fun bits of running a website is poring over the stats for hours on end - work avoidance at it’s finest. The best moments are when it throws up a gem like this:

#reqs     search term
1         ox sex with girls
1         polis sex

Errm, completely the wrong site for either of those, sorry to disappoint anyone. Of course, by posting both terms I’ve just made sure that we get more matches. Oh well, it’s a broad church here at Vox Polis.

This is another great example of how ridiculous the World Cup is. A Dutch inventor decides to cash in on the World Cup (like everyone else it seems). Acknowledging that it is taking place in Germany he decides to go for Nazi-like helmets which he called Helmpje (Dutch for small helmet). This was after deciding that Hitler-like moustaches were too offensive!

Why of why??!! Here’s a picture of it just in case you can’t imagine what a Dutch inspired Nazi-like World Cup head gear might look like.

What I hate about the World Cup:

• Amount of tack it produces - you can even “Englandise” your car with this (it includes a flag, stickers and even an air freshner- I wonder what the smell of England is?)

• The ironic sponsorship deals - What the hell has a “bigger” Big Mac got to do with sport? Then don’t forget the likes of healthy Coca-Cola and Budweiser.

• The way everyone jumps on the bandwagon - you name it, it’s suddenly got something to do with the World Cup.

• Plans to make the World Cup every two years- as if every four was not enough

• Violence and petty nationalism (I wish I could join in the inevitable running battles with the police that’ll take place in Germany this year)

• Incoherent footballers being interviewed on the news (yes, I know this happens all the time, but it’s intensity increases during the Cup)

Voters of Great Britain: please, please, please do not re-elect George Galloway wherever he stands.  The end of Celebrity Big Brother brought some relief, but just when you start to relax he’s back again in a court case with the News of the World.  Before I get accused of launching a campaign based solely on my personal preference have a look at his voting record.  20% of votes - come on!  He’s worse value for money than the royal family.  That’s it - no real story - I’m just sick to the back teeth of his blustering self-aggrandisement.

It’d be fair to describe Bolivia’s cocaine output as a source of some friction in their relations with the USA.  Certainly it’s unlikely that Condoleeza Rice would be there in person for negotiations if Bolivia’s main export was cheese.  In light of this what would be the best gift for the visiting secretary of state than a guitar inlaid with coca leaves?  Sadly we’ll never know Rice’s reaction when she took a closer look at the gift on the plane home.

Via Music Thing.