Torrence Brown Jr - Shitbag Extraordinaire

In case you don't recognise the name, Torrence Brown Jr was an innocent bystander in the Aurora Colorado theatre shootings where a gunman named James Holmes opened fire in a packed cinema, killing 12 people and wounding a further 58. You will probably remember this story as the gunman appeared drugged in court, and there was controversy around various gagging orders placed around the case.

There was a lot of discussion in the truther/conspiracy community over whether James Holmes had been set up, Manchurian Candidate style, brainwashed and programmed to murder by the government, on the premise of giving just cause to tighten gun control laws. This may sound far fetched but I trust the American government about as far as I could throw it, so I'm keeping an open mind on that one.

However what I really want to talk about is Torrence Brown Jr. Torrence Brown Jr was one of those people unlucky enough to be in that theatre on that fateful day, he was forced to witness his closest friend shot and killed as well being witness to the many other people from his community murdered on that tragic day. No one should ever have to go through an ordeal like that and I pray nothing like this will ever touch the lives of myself and those close to me.

Torrence Brown Jr however, has decided to initiate a lawsuit over this tragedy. Torrence Brown Jr thinks the trauma he has suffered (never mind the people who DIDN'T walk away unscathed) is so terrible that only a payout of many thousands of dollars will soothe his pain. Torrence Brown Jr is currently pursuing 3 defendants through the courts - the Century 16 theatre where the shootings took place, James Holmes' doctors, and Warner Bros who made the film "Dark Knight Rises" which was being shown at the time.

First up the Century 16 theatre. Torrence Brown Jr and his attorney Donald Karpel believe the theatre was negligent by not having an emergency exit guarded as they believe James Holmes entered the theatre with a ticket, left through the emergency exit which he wedged open and re-entered with his weapons. So assuming the exit had been guarded - what then? Considering James Holmes was carrying a veritable arsenal at the time is it not plausible he would have shot his way in through the front doors instead and proceeded to massacre not only the people watching the film but those in the lobby as well? So how does the theatre avoid negligence? Armed guards? Metal detectors? How about complete lockdown of every building open to the public EVERYWHERE? How about TSA style searches and full body scanners on the way into Tescos to buy groceries?

What about James Holmes' doctors? Holmes was taking a variety of medications at the time of the shooting, and Donald Karpel and Torrence Brown Jr believe they weren't monitoring Holmes correctly and hence should have to pay thousands of dollars not to the victims and their families, but to Torrence Brown Jr who survived the ordeal unscathed but was traumatised to thepoint where only a cash lump sum could save him.

So taking this alleged negligence to its logical conclusion, if the doctors are indeed found negligent this will lead to a rise in sectioning of people with mental health issues (because how else can you be sure your patient isn't out on a killing spree), net result mental health patients are less likely to seek treatment that involves loss of liberty, and other real psychos go undiagnosed until they too decide to arm themselves and kill random people in the street.

Finally what about Warner Bros? Torrence Brown Jr and Donald Karpel are suing Warner Bros because they claim the film was too violent. Needless to say that having already passed the film classification system the fault if it even exists lies with the film classification board. Notwithstanding, there are far more violent films out there than "Dark Knight Rises", if we are to legislate for every lone nutcase out there who might go off the rails and emulate a violent movie the we are all going to be left with is the Tellytubbies (and then we'll still get the occasional psycho beating people to death with Tinky Winky's handbag). If a person is going off the rails and is going to kill then they will take inspiration from anywhere, whether that be Dark Knight Rises, The Human Centipede, or Barney the Dinosaur (or maybe Catcher in the Rye?). Clearly the answer is to ban all tv, film, music and literature, then surely we will all be safe?

Torrence Brown Jr has allowed himself to be seduced by a sharp suited, slick haired shyster of a lawyer who has exhibited the age old American mantra of never let a tragedy, decency or good taste get in the way of a big cash payout. Torrence Brown Jr is a charlatan, and a contemptuous cretin of the lowest moral fibre.

As for Donald Karpel - we all know the only good lawyer is a dead lawyer.

Why I'm Leaving Google Plus

Those of you with blogspot or youtube accounts (and possibly other services) may have been asked to create a google plus account to promote your posts and content. What they don't tell you is they want to take away your usernames for these services and replace them with your real name. I signed up for an account which has now been deleted after realising what they were up to. The EU wish to ban anonymous blogging quoting the age old mantra nothing to hide nothing to fear. Try telling that to a Chinese or North Korean activist posting blogs through a proxy.

Here is my reply when asked why I wished to leave google plus:

You are an Orwellian nightmare, and I object to the fact you are trying to railroad youtube and blogspot accounts into operating under peoples real names. I would rather keep blogging using my pseudonym - the mantra of nothing to hide nothing to fear is fatally flawed as it assumes a desire for privacy must have a sinister motive.

Some people just don't want governments and corporations sharing the minutae of their lives.

Retiring Head Of HMRC Dave Hartnett Gets A Surprising Sendoff

 Retiring boss of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Dave Hartnett got a nasty surprise at his retirement party this week when so called "black tie activists" gatecrashed his party with a special award for services to tax dodgers. This is the man who let Vodaphone and Goldman Sachs off paying billions in owed tax, so he and his fellow piglets troughing at the party were suitably redfaced when the penny finally dropped.

I salute these youngsters who managed to make a great point far more creatively than by sitting in a tent holding up a placard, and without having to resort to violence. May many more follow your example and really get in the faces of these people.

By the way the man who ushers them out, calling them "tresspassing scum" and threatening to release the hounds like a Smithers to Hartnett's Mr Burns, is none other than Robert Venables QC - consulting editor of The Offshore Tax Review. Thats right, the man at the head of the field in barely legal tax avoidance and the man in charge of stopping tax avoidance for the whole of the UK sitting down to dinner together. Could our system get any more corrupt?

The point here is that no matter which government you vote for, the people sitting at this table and many others like it will continue to preserve the status quo, to protect their millions in offshore accounts, and keep you in that job you hate for 40 hours a week to pay the taxes they avoid. A million votes for the other party isn't going to move one flabby arsecheek from this table or a single greasy snout from the money trough. Maybe its time for people to start getting together to find a different approach.

Thrasher Gets A Thrashing

Many of you will have heard the news by now that (soon to be former) Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell has been involved in an incident with police. An incident I might add which would have landed you or I a free trip in a police van and a free overnight stay at the grey bars hotel. It is alleged that Andrew "Thrasher" Mitchell launched an angry tirade of abuse at a policeman over his not using the correct exit from Downing Street, which culminated in his calling the officer in question a "fucking pleb". This of course has started the usual calls from the usual voices for him to resign, using the word pleb shows his disdain for the working classes etc etc. Now I'm all for government ministers being forced to quit no matter what party they belong too, the only trouble is they are like rats, as soon as you get rid of one, ten more show up trying to take their place.

Andrew "Cunt" Mitchell

What is interesting here is different approaches to resolving the situation taken by the government and the police. David Cameron has publicly stated that an enquiry is not necessary, no doubt in an attempt to save the political career of his minister and avoid the negative press associated with a high level resignation. The police on the other hand have decided to launch a full enquiry into the episode, find out the facts, get to the bottom of it, in the full knowledge that it could net a high ranking scalp in the government. Could this be the beginning of the police removing their support for the government? Perhaps even for the whole rotten system? Once the police step out of the ring it only takes the military to follow and the government have no way of enforcing anything and are effectively powerless, and God knows the police and the military owe this government no favours. And then what? Noone wants to be governed by a Junta but when it comes down to it, police and soldiers are just working men and women like me and you. They have no links to big business, vested interests, perhaps they would be willing to work with real people to replace Parliament with a system that actually works for you and me. Perhaps.

In the meantime Andrew Mitchell is fucked. Andrew "Thrasher" Mitchell who got his nickname by bullying younger kids in public school, and many who have crossed paths with him in adult life will tell you, continues to bully and abuse to get his own way. Andrew Mitchell who has offered the most mealy mouthed apology to the police and has stated publicly that he now wants to draw a line under the episode because like a rat he wants to save his own political skin, will be the subject of a police enquiry. Couldn't happen to a nicer person.

A 34 Year Old Man Building Airfix Kits

In recent weeks I have developed a penchant for building Airfix model aircraft kits. It started with a challenge from a colleague who kindly turned up one day with two Airfix Spitfire kits, one for him and one for me. The challenge was who could build their kit to the highest quality, to date I don't think he has yet finished his Spitfire yet. I noticed a marked difference between this kit and kits I built in my youth, the most obvious being that the kit had everything, all the paints, glue, brushes I needed to complete the kit. In the olden days you had to buy all those bit separately. What hasn't changed is the kits not fitting together properly, I sometimes wonder if the tooling in the factory is deliberately slightly off in order to make you work that bit harder to complete your model. Thankfully what is different these days is I am an adult with a (fairly) steady income and an ebay account so getting hold of filler and any other bits I may require no longer involves pestering parents for money and two bus rides there and back to the model shop.

I watched James May's Toy Stories today, the episode where he builds a lifesize Airfix Spitfire and in it he talks about how children these days have no interest in model kits when there are x-boxes to play with. I think he's dead right and thats a real shame, its a symptom of our 24hr, instant gratification culture, the idea of carefully and patiently constructing something over several days and the sense of satisfaction of a job well done for its own sake has gone missing. It was quite heart warming though to see some of the kids in the show, having been forced to build models over several weeks, actually get into it in a genuine way and see there is more to the world than having the latest 3DTV and knowing which football team Cheryl Cole is getting spitroasted by this week.

 Perhaps there is hope for the human race after all.

 Anyway to see my latest build in pictures head over here.

 Going off at a complete parallel, Man Vs Food is currently playing on TV in the background and they have just described Chorizo as Mexican sausage so I'd like to point out to my American readers that Chorizo (correctly pronounced Shoritho) is actually Spanish in origin.

How To Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Another shameless plug. When I'm not writing on here I sometimes use the site squidoo to post random articles that take my interest, so in a shameless ploy to create backlinks here is my latest writing

How To Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

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The Idiots are Taking Over #ukriots

Words cannot describe my feelings on monday night,lying in bed watching 24 hour news as fires burnt to the east, west and south of me, wondering how I would protect Mrs Evil should the door be kicked in during the night, trying to decide which roads would be safest should we take the decision to get out of London during the night, wondering if we had to ring 999 whether there would be anyone on the other end of the line. This is the reality of life in the UK in the 21st century, the streets have been taken over by Blairs children. These are the result of years of idiot social policy, of everyone's a winner sports days, of government intervention in the simple act of parenting.

Now is not the time to pussyfoot around, never mind asking why these youths have become so disengaged, we should be asking why are these youths not on the ground having their guts stomped out by riot police, why are these youths not having their doors kicked in at 5am and being bundled into police vans? One only has to watch the heartbreaking scene of the father of one of the people killed by hit and run in Birmingham talking to BBC news (in a much more dignified manner than most of us could muster) to understand why this madness needs to be stepped on fast.

So deploy baton rounds, deploy water cannon, lets make these thugs wish they has never been born.