Social democrats say no to children getting in debt

So the socialist democratic party, Socialdemokraterna, have hatched yet another brilliant idea: Providers of loans via text messages ("SMS loans") will be prohibited to provide loans to anyone under 18 years of age. Wow, that must have taken them a long time to agree on.

And here I was thinking that the law already protected people under the age of 18 against taking loans or any kind of credit really, whether it's approved via SMS, e-mail or in a store or bank. What's the bloody point of making these regulations depend on specific technology that exists today but might very well be gone tomorrow? When will Socialdemokraterna insist that we ban Facebook-loans for people under 18? Or MySpace-loans? Or iPhone app loans?

My god these people are dumber than breadsticks.

Reversed "pay per click"

When it comes to retarded suggestions on how to regulate the Internet in order to maximize the profit of the media industry nothing surprises me anymore. Not even the insane suggestion from the media industry in Germany who want to get paid from anyone linking to (meaning generating traffic to) their websites in "commercial use". A sort of reversed "pay per click" policy, where the websites generating traffic to the media websites will have to pay for the traffic they generate. Just like if the newspapers had to pay the advertisers money for every person who bought a product from these advertisers after reading the ad in the newspaper. Because, clearly:

"Intenet kan inte längre vara en upphovsrättsfri zon"

Yeah, right.

This ludacris suggestion is apparently backed up by severily technologically impaired German politicians.

Why road tolls are the work of the devil

I've already written about how the Swedish politicians are increasingly adopting the terrible Norwegian way of financing basal infrastructure, where billions of kronor are wasted every single year in administration of toll roads and interest on loans.

It seems Socialdemokraterna are prepared to take this even a step further, because obviously increased income and housing taxes and a new net wealth tax that they've already promised isn't enough:

Kongressen fattade på torsdagen beslut om att i högre grad än i dag låta
bilisterna själva betala nya infrastruktursatsningar med så kallade brukar- och
trängselavgifter.

We need more road tolls, and we need to finance the roads in the worst possible way, both from a social point of view and from an economical point of view. If you're still wondering why this is such a bad idea, let me explain:

Socially
Road tolls are anti-social in nature, as they are a flat-rate tax on transportation that will hit low-income citizens unreasonably hard in comparison to the wealthier citizens. Would any social democratic politician dare to suggest a flat income tax of 100.000 SEK a year, no matter how much you actually make? Probably not.

Furthermore the tax hits you not based on income or wealth but solely based on where you live in relation to your job, the kindergarten, shops and public services.

I have to say I'm particularly shocked that a party claiming to be socialist is proposing something like this.

Economically
Now this, on the other hand, isn't really the socialist democratic party's strongest skills, but still... Collecting road tolls costs a lot of money. In 2008 the road tolls in Stockholm cost 380 million SEK, approximately 50% of the total income. In Norway, a country where they have made the collection of road tolls into an artform, 15,5 billion NOK out of 46 billion NOK that has been collected in road tolls during 1990-2007 was spent on administration and interest on loans. That's more or less 30% of tax payers money wasted on nothing. In one particular example the motorists are forced to pay 3,79 billion NOK in road tolls on a road that only costs 3,5 billion NOK to build...

There is absolutely no good reason to remove the building of new roads from the national budget and increase the costs of these dramatically by turning them into toll roads.

Public enemy number 1

Enemy of the Internet and the free world, Monique Wadsted, is taking the absurd rounds in the Pirate Bay farce one step further. She's once again used her comradeship with some rotten apples at Stockholm tingsrätt in order to get what is arguably one of the most bizarre court rulings I've ever heard of here in Sweden:

Nu tvingar Stockholms tingsrätt Pirate Bay att stänga ner. De har vänt sig mot personerna bakom sajten och har bestämt att de ska betala totalt 1 miljon kronor i böter om de fortsätter driva sajten.

Mind you it has not yet been established whether The Pirate Bay is illegal or not, and there is no proof that these two gentlemen are actually involved in the website anymore. I guess if I had a friend in that corrupt institution called Stockholm tingsrätt (or a lot of money to bribe one to be my friend), I could accuse Svenska Dagbladet's website of being illegal, and force them to shut down way before the case had actually been settled. Also, I could just point out a random person who I believed was responsible for running Svenska Dagbladet's site and make this person legally responsible for shutting the site down or pay the consequences. For instance, this person could be my nosy neighbor that I dislike. He'll never know what hit him.

Reminds me a lot of The Trial.
Mrs. Wadsted herself is obviously happy as a clam, as she has once more demonstrated the absolute power of the entertainment industry over the court of law, and the complete and utter contempt of basic human rights that this industry stands for. Money über alles.

– I somras fick vi ett förbud mot Black Internet och nu har vi fått ett förbud mot Fredrik Neij och Gottfrid Svartholm säger Monique Wadsted, som företräder Hollywoodbolagen juridiskt i rättegången om The Pirate Bay.

Tuva Novotny on censorship

It's always refreshing to read a piece on Internet censorship that the author has clearly put some thought into. It's all the better when the author is a well known actress, as it lends a certain weight to it. As opposed to the not-so-intelligent rants of another female "artist", best known for her boobs, which seem to be out in the open more than not. Has anyone ever actually heard one of her songs?

Rip and replace

Socialdemokraterna, the social democratic party, are experiencing a fight of generations within the organization. The old farts, with Thomas Bodström as prime example of how much damage one person can do, destined to tear down every shred of personal integrity and civil liberties for it's citizens, and the young generation who are at least portraying an image of the opposite.

The problem is, even the young generation of social democrats are not really interested in freedom, integrity and civil rights:

– Partiet är helt fel ute. Ipred borde rivas upp och börjas om från början.

Right, so you don't really want to tear up this revolting new legislation, you just want to pretend to tear it up, to gather votes for the 2010 elections, and then replace it with something similar right after the elections, should you - God forbid - get the people's trust. You've already promised to tear up the FRA law (and replace it with a similar law...). How dumb do you really think your voters are? Presumably they're pretty damn dumb, but still.

Sverigedemokraterna - next in line to denounce integrity

Apparently Sverigedemokraterna, a political party mainly known for their hostility towards immigration (and immigrants), have included the installation of 285 new surveillance cameras in the city of Örebro, at a cost of 20 million SEK, in their shadow budget.

Centerpartiet politician Rasmus Persson claims on his blog that Sverigedemokraterna want to shatter the integrity of ordinary people by doing this.

Well, yes, obviously, and they better get in line, because all political parties in Sweden are at this point involved in what can only be described as a grotesque race to dismantle ordinary citizen's civil rights and integrity in the most bizarre ways. A race in the complete opposite direction of the voters, moving back into the middle ages at warp speed.

So, welcome aboard Sverigedemokraterna! You'll fit in just fine with all the other integrity-hating political parties.

"This item is available for shipping only"

Not that I'm in the market for a new OS, but I thought I'd check out Windows 7 anyway, just to see what the fuss is all about. And to be honest, I don't care how fancy schmancy it looks, an IT company that is not yet, in this day and age, able to deliver it's new operating system as a download on demand, but insists on shipping it to you in a big box with 2 DVD's, wasting it's own and my money, not to mention my valuable time and the environment, isn't worth it.

Luckily there's alway Ubuntu, that takes me an hour to download and install, without having to wait for days for the DVD's to arrive, and without any annoying registration processes. Oh yeah, and it's for free. Sure, it doesn't have transparent windows and features and functions you'll never use, but it's got something Windows has never had: Security.


"This item is available for shipping only" my ass. This is 2009, Microsoft!!!

You're corrupt. You're incometent. Congratulations, you've won the jackpot.

You're corrupt and you're completely incompetent. That would normally be a good reason for an employer to give you a dishonorable discharge, and even report you to the police.

Well, not when you've managed to kiss ass far enough up in the political system. Your reward for doing a completely worthless job and making a laughing stock of yourself and your department is a new job, in this case investigating the sex ethics of the various government offices. What an important piece of work that is. And of course the ridiculously high paycheck remains the same.

Way to waste taxpayer's money!

A ban is always best

So, the Swedish government has decided that cars on winter tires with studs can now be banned from entering certain streets in certain cities. Another brilliant decision by our finest.

This means everyone using studded tires will have to make unnecessary detours to avoid these regulated streets. It also means somebody will have to follow up and make sure that the ban is actually working, handing out fines to those who are caught driving in the "no studs" streets on studs. What an incredible waste of police resources.

Instead of this ridiculous ban, why not impose a charge for motorists who for whatever reason feel the need to use tires with studs during the winter? The driver could pay a fee of say 500 SEK per season in order to drive inside the Stockholm toll zone. This would definitely reduce the amount of people driving on studs, it would let those who still need the studs keep them, and it would generate money. But noooo, a ban is always best.