Heads I win, Tails you lose.

Give me your savings & I will place them in risky investments. When they fail its your loss but I’ve still had my pay & bonuses & lose nothing.

Give me your pension pot. Again I will risk your cash but pay myself huge wages & bonuses before I top up your pension pot.

You take out a business loan & pay me lots of interest. When the economy gets tight I will pull all those loans & sink your business. But at least my capital will be safe.

Take out an account & give me your earnings, I will invest that money & use it to underpin my business. Hit hard times or make a mistake & I will bill you huge amounts for computer generated letters.

If things really go pear shaped I will go to the government & get them to underpin my pay & bonuses with your taxes.

I want to be a banker.

- EricC, Manchester, UK

According to Wikipedia:

Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one’s competitors.

Now taking a look at the disallowed Lampard goal, did Germany’s goalkeeper Manuel Neuer act in a sportsmanlike way? The answer is a resounding NO! In his own words:

“I tried not to react to the referee and just concentrate on what was happening,” Neuer said on Sunday in remarks quoted in the British press. “I realized it was over the line and I think the way I carried on so quickly fooled the referee into thinking it was not over.”

Now I understand that he lied to prevent England from getting the goal, but it is lying none-the-less and by doing so he acted in a very unsportsmanlike way. If he had come clean, he would have been a hero around the world. Now he is merely seen as an underhanded liar and a poor sportsman.

But he is not the only one at fault. We just need to take a look at the Ireland vs France match. Ireland lost their place at the World Cup because Theirry Henry scored a goal through a handball which he later admitted! In his words:

“I will be honest, it was a handball,” Henry said. “But I am not the referee.”

And who can forget Diego Maradona’s famous ‘Hand of God‘ handball in the 1986 quarter-final in Mexico between Argentina and England, a game Argentina won 2-1.

In nearly every game, many of the player ‘play act’ to try and get a penalty against the other side. Just watch how a slight touch reduces the player to rolling around in a pretence of agony, only to jump up and run off a matter of seconds later. It is disgusting to watch.

What are these actions telling the youth of today? Are these supposed ‘leaders’ of sport being good role-models for future generations? The answer is no. This lying and cheating is now seen as a part of the game and it is this that the youngster learn.

It is little wonder that our society is rapidly going down the plughole, when the role-models of the youth are portraying everything that society deems as negative as a positive thing.

FIFA are just as much as fault. Play-acting should be immediately dealt with. I would even say as far as giving a red card for blatant use of play-acting. As mentioned previously, FIFA should be using cameras or some other technology to check on goals – because the players are liars and cheats and can’t be trusted to come clean.

It is about time that sports authorities clamp down on this un-sportsmanlike behaviour. Not only to protect the integrity of the game, but also to give our children good role-models to look up to!

This is not the only time. In the Mexico v Argentina match, a clearly offside Argentine player was given the goal. This also happened in the South Africa v Mexico match where a Mexican goal was denied by the linesman. And who could forget Ireland being denied a place in the World Cup because of a handball goal by France’s Thierry Henry.

In most of the major sports, the use of video playback, sometimes called the third umpire, is widely used in difficult decisions. It is a very simple matter to do it, so why does FIFA not institute it. Until now, they insist that another human judge near the goal is all that is needed.

The problem with this is the human-error factor again. There will ALWAYS be controversy until FIFA moves with the times and allows a more modern method. It is not diffcult, it is not expensive and contrary to FIF’s statements, it is not too slow either!

Another problem that this technology would solve is that of players pretending to be fouled by rolling on the ground in apparent agony. I am getting really sick of this play acting which is also ruining the game. To my mind, it is 100% cheating.

Football is a multi-million dollar earner, for players, promoters and anyone even loosely associated with the game. When it comes down to it, the paying public are being cheated by having an unfair game when the technology is there.

That said, the scenario I read today has been reported on repeatedly over the past several months and it sickens me almost as much as rape does itself. In this case a woman was drunk and wanted to get rid of him, so she made up a story of being raped by two men while she was walking home from a pub.

Now here is the part that pisses me off!

This woman gave the police the descriptions of two men she had seen at the nightclub. After looking at surveilance video of the club, the two men were arrested and dragged off to the local station to be questioned. It was only FIVE months later that they were told that they were cleared and this was only after the woman finally admitted that she had lied.

So due to this woman crying rape and lying, two innocent people’s lives were ruined by the allegations. But this is not the only thing…

For the past 35 years the victim of a rape case is not allowed to be publicly identified, however anyone merely ACCUSED of the crime CAN and IS named in the media. Often this media automatically gives them the label of ‘guilty’ – even if the case hasn’t even got to court!

Many people have argued that the names of the defendants should only be made public on conviction. I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment, after all is not a person assumed to be innocent until PROVEN guilty? This precept is the cornerstone of most democracies and civilised societies, so why is this allowed?

I am sure that you have heard the phrase ‘There can’t be smoke without fire’ or similar. Well this is the case with these defendants. Just the allegation of rape is enough to destroy their reputations and public lives. Also, very often the public are not made aware that the defendant has been found to be innocent, so they keep on thinking the worst. This thinking often lasts a lifetime, unless the person moves to a new city and attempts to get a new life.

Then to rub salt into the wounds, even though the defendant is found to be totally innocent, the case is still kept on record. These records are made available to potential employers through criminal bureau checks. So even though innocent, just the allegation of rape will still hang over them!

The UK is considering changing the law to allow anonymity to the accused until after they have been found guilty. Feminists and campaigners have protested that the anonymity offer will hinder justice as publicising their names allows other potential victims to come forward.

Personally I think that this is a very weak argument and typical of the feminist agenda (more of that in a later post!). As one famous feminist, Wendy Kaminer, stated “it is a primary article of faith among many feminists that women don’t lie about rape, ever; they lack the dishonesty gene.” (Kaminer, W. (1993, October). Feminism’s identity crisis. The Atlantic Monthly, p. 67.)

English jurist William Blackstone famously wrote: “”Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” To my mind, being named BEFORE being found guilty is making that person suffer. There have also recently been a number of high profile cases where a person was found guilty and sentenced for rape, only later to have DNA definitively prove that they were innocent.Sixty-three percent of the more than 200 DNA exonerations in the US involve false rape allegations. But this is a slightly different issue I guess.

This increase of woman crying rape to get what they want MUST stop. And it appears on both sides of the pond. Does anyone still remember the Duke Lacrosse rape case? A study by women’s advocates discovered that up to one in four claims of rape is false.

Lying about being raped dimishes the seriousness of a proper rape case. It also scews the statistics for successful convictions in rape cases. A U.S. Air Force study, “The False Rape Allegation in the Military Community (1983) investigated 556 cases of alleged rape, and found a 60% rate of false accusations.

This makes it that much harder for women who have actually been raped to be believed due to a perception of low conviction rates.

The problem is compounded because in many cases the woman actually gets away with a mere slap on the wrist. In the case above the woman got 18 months in prison, but what is that compared to the 5 to 10 YEARS that the innocent man would have received if he had been found guilty.

So how do we deal with this? Actually the answer is pretty easy:

Women who are found to have made a false sexual assault complaint should receive the same jail sentence as the male victim would have received if he had been convicted.

In fact I feel that this same solution can be extended to ANYONE who is proven to make a false criminal accusation about another person. That is justice and hopefully a severe punishment will make people think twice before falsely accusing and ruining an innocent persons life and will allow the law to deal with those who really have suffered at the hands of real rapists.

Just today there was an article about an 8-year-old boy who was banned from wearing a hat because the hat happened to have a small toy soldier on it holding a gun.

Here is another story:

“The school and juvenile justice system sent my 13-year-old daughter to jail for 30 days for unintentionally bringing two pocket knives to school and voluntarily turning them in. No harm was done, nor was there any threat to another person yet she has to suffer, and apparently so are many other young people I’m finding out, as well.”

Time and again we hear of utter stupidity coming from teachers, principles and law enforcement because of ‘zero-tolerance’. Children being suspended and/or arrested for having a single aspirin at school. Children being interrogated because they drew a picture of their marine father holding a gun. The list is endless.

Any little mistake means automatic conviction, fine or jail time with no room for common sense. This has led to a number of cases where even judges have been found guilty of profiting from ‘zero-tolerance’. Just go and Google “kids-for-cash scandal” for that story.

The main problem with ‘zero-tolerance’ is that the system fails to differentiate between the good kids who make a simple mistake and those hooligan delinquents that cause trouble.

A new study by two Michigan State University researchers, revealed that zero tolerance had in fact failed in its mission to make students feel safe at school. Thats says something, doesn’t it?

Possibly a better way is to look at gross negligence, willful intent and damage.

Bringing a plastic knife to school to eat your lunch isn’t negligent, there is no intent to harm and there is no damage. The result: No violation. But I guess that is asking too much from these people in this day and age.

Innocent children’s lives are being wrecked by this absurdity. They are getting criminal records and are being taught that the law is seldom fair. This is blurring the line between good and bad, justice and injustice, mercy and ruthlessness.

Are these the things we should be teaching our kids? I think not.

It is about time that these ‘zero-tolerance’ advocates start using their brains and temper ruthlessness with reason and good old common sense!

My first and major, gripe is the deal about Flash not being allowed on these devices.  I love Flash and it is EVERYWHERE on the web. Practically every web site has it. When I am surfing the net on my mobile device, I expect to see websites displayed properly, with all their functionality working. I do not want to see little blank spots all over the page where the flash is embedded.

Like it or not Apple, Flash is way more prevalent than you are on the net. People WANT to view Flash on their devices and it seems as though you are just plain ignoring what your customers are asking for. Is this how you treat your valued customers, by ignoring what they are saying they want?

I don’t give a flying faloot whether Flash is a resource hog, unstable or unreliable on your device. What I expect is that you LISTEN to what we are saying and fix it. This doesn’t mean that you go and bad mouth Adobe. What it does mean is that you go to Adobe and work with them on a workable solution. That is good customer service that anyone knows.

My second gripe is about the price of these devices. Why do they have to be so outrageously expensive? In China you can buy a clone for a third of the price and they are still making a big enough profit. There are also now a slew of Android devices coming out to challenge not only the iPhone, but also the iPad. These are also more reasonably priced (and run Flash!).

Yes you are paying for the brand name, but it is really not worth it to me and my friends – especially when it is crippled intentionally!

Until Apple starts to listen to what we the consumer wants, I am certainly not going to buy their products, or recommend their products to anyone I know. I will tell them exactly what I feel: Apple does not listen to it’s customers, sells over-priced products which are crippled and the competition (namely the Android devices) offers so much more for so much better value for your buck.

I have one last message to Apple: You have lost a previously loyal customer in me and will lose more as I make recommendations to my friends and family.

Just thought you should know!