This is the “Real Deal”

Which Dating Site is featured in J-Lo’s Video Papi? Planet Love Match actually.
Anyone who has watched the new Jennifer Lopez video “Papi” may have noticed at 1:50 into the video there is a guy sitting in a cafe, on a laptop, viewing a dating site.
Right after that, he gets up and leaps through the window. The blogs and forums have been going wild speculating which dating website it actually is that features in the J-Lo video. Well, as usual here at Real Deal, we have the scoop straight from the horses mouth.
Yes, the site featured is indeed Planet Love Match. Here is the still from the video.

Planet Love Match is set to become the worldwide dating site over the next two years. It has already taken off in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. It is spreading across the UK already and is crossing the USA like wildfire collecting new members!
How cool would it be to tell folks you met your next love on the site that was on J-Lo’s video?
In case you are one of those who haven’t seen J-Lo’s video, you can watch it right here before you rush off to join Planet Love Match.

In the Daily Mail today, a sycophantic Sean Poulter screams: “Get it while its hot!” and goes on to talk about the new Dyson Hot electric room heater.

Essentially a Dyson fan with some heating elements attached, the new Dyson Hot (badges as the AM04) fills a gap in the Dyson range in that it is a blade-less fan heater that doesn’t collect dust all over the elements like old-style fan heaters of yore.

However, some guy called Stephen Bayley, a design expert and founder of the Design Museum in London, thinks that the success of Dyson’s products lies not just in the technology, but from hot air blowing out of the PR department.

He told the Daily Mail:

‘No-one is going to get hysterically excited about a new fan-heater. But surround its launch with secrecy, non-disclosure agreements and the charlatan’s legerdemain of a carefully managed “reveal” and you might, just might, have a news story.

‘In the age of the “pseudo-event” when things are real only if they are reported in the media, managing the launch of a fan-heater is as important a business as designing and manufacturing it.
‘Thus, Dyson has made as big a contribution to the history of public relations as to the history of design or technology.’

Gosh, what a cynical fellow. But, he may have a point. A fan heater is no big deal. When it costs £269 it becomes less of a priority.

However, overenthusiastic Sean from the Mail went on to say:

The device relies on Dyson’s patented Air Multiplier technology, which massively amplifies the hot air it can create.

The net effect is that the amount of warm air generated is some six times greater than the amount drawn in at the bottom in a process known as inducement and entrainment.

The heater has its own thermostat which allows it to heat a room between 1 and 37 degrees Celsius. It will click on, should the temperature drop below the set figure.

The material used – Acrylontride butadiene styrene – means the heater is also cool to the touch, while it will automatically switch off if knocked over.

Nice bit of science; it obviously originated at Dyson’s PR office. Really, can these people not write their own copy and not rely on press releases from products they never saw?

Anyway, if you get all overheated at the prospect of a Dyson fan heater, I can direct you to further sources of information. Check out the article on the Dyson Medic website here: Dyson Launch the AM04 Fan Heater – The Dyson Hot

If you are so inclined, you can join the discussion on the unofficial Dyson forums here: The AM04 Dyson Hot Electric Heater

I was recently waxing lyrical about honey from Russia and Estonia. A guy said to me: Odd.  Please explain why.  Apis mellifera is an Apis mellifera in the UK or Russia.  Honey depends primarily on the flowering plant from which the nectar is gathered.  Usually the local vegetation is so diverse that honey is honey.  [...]

Let’s talk about Greater Manchester Police’s camera cars. These little buggers have recently sprung up all over the place. They are growing like cellulite on a fat girls thighs.

Very often on my drive toward central Manchester down the A57 Hyde Road, I see one of these parked up. They are very often to be found lurking on the pavement at Reddish Bridge snooping on the oncoming traffic. Going the other way, they lurk on the pavement on the M67/M60 roundabout at Denton (Sorry Rozzers – I feel the public should know).

This must be the new sharp end of policing in Greater Manchester. Pay a guy to sit on his fat arse half the day and snoop on passing traffic. Really, do the police have nothing better to do than cough up thousands of pounds each (of our money) for these things? They must generate more money than they cost or else we would not be seeing them everywhere. That means, you and I dear reader, are paying our local taxes to be snooped upon by the Old Bill so they can harangue us through the mail for money for various non-offences.

Observe the sneaky camera located on the roof of the car. It is helpfully highlighted above by an arrow in case your peepers are not too keen.

So what are these latest manifestations of the Big Brother State all about? Well, of course, they are about raising some cash for the Old Bill. I am not 100% sure which dreadful crimes against humanity these things are designed to capture. No doubt they will be ANPR enabled, which means they check your number plate against the DVLA database and that allegedly tells them if you are insured and taxed. Probably they have the capability to detect such heinous crimes as not wearing a seatbelt, which I got a demand for recently for sixty quid having been photographed by some covert police operative. You even get a photo of yourself through the mail to prove to you what a danger to society you really are.

Does it stop astonished-looking and totally clueless Nigerian asylum seekers drifting from lane to lane aimlessly in an old dented Rover? No, not at all. That would take actual Rozzers in a real traffic car. Not these little pen pushers in their low-budget “Smart Cars”. Those things have lawnmower engines are and not capable of a hot pursuit. The real cops are stuck at the station filling in 276 health and safety forms – in triplicate – for the EU, rather than doing some actual policing.

How embarrassing must it be at a barbecue to have someone ask you “What do you do?” and you reply “I sit in a Smart Car all day photographing people to raise money from hapless motorists” I wonder? Probably those guys prefer to use a macho term like “traffic enforcement” to make themselves feel better about what they do. Saying, “I sit with a camera all day on a verge hoping to catch Mrs Mablethorpe with a two day out-of-date tax disc” is not too ego enhancing.

What does this stuff cost us? Well, the guy in the car must cost us £25k a year (perhaps more with pensions and other stuff). Add to that the £10k or so for the Smart Car. What must the camera and equipment cost? Ten grand? Then there is all his insurances and associated costs. On top of that will be a multitude of Quango outfits that will need to “certify” the camera at regular intervals. Servicing and uniforms…. triplicate EU form filling…..other stuff I forgot…..lets add £10k for all that. These things must cost us £55,000 a year each. At least.

Now these guys have generous holidays no doubt; being in the public sector. So minus weekends, paternity leave, holidays, classes as to why you should give a black man with a wrap of crack outside a school the benefit of the doubt, sick leave, team bonding weekends, ethnic diversity education seminars, etc., they likely only really work half the year in reality. That means each of those cars has to earn £300 a day just to break even. Now, out of this revenue they collect, there will be a deduction for the Central Ticket Office to myther people for the money, a cut for the courts, probably the council, defaults and non-payers to consider, various other deductions for numerous other government departments you never knew existed……… so, we can safely double that. So we are at £600 a day.

Now, they need to make a profit. Anything less than 100% wouldn’t work. It is more likely 200% or 300%, but lets run with a mere 100% for arguments sake. That means each car must generate £1200 a day. If the average fine is £60, that means only 20 tickets a day. Actually, it more likely means 20 tickets a shift. The Rozzers work on eight hour shifts, so that means only 2.5 tickets an hour. That means one every 24 minutes. And you can bet your arse that these guys will be targeted for something well beyond that. So that means that little Jackass sat in that comedy car on the pavement must find something to fine someone for every fifteen or twenty minutes or he misses his target and doesn’t get his invite to the policeman’s ball this year.

Isn’t this country a sad place to live in if we are reduced to this? I think so.

What do you know about these camera cars? Do you have them where you live? Lets talk! Use the comment box below to tell the world.

I read an article today about S.968 which is the proposed Protect IP Act introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy. It was designed to “provide the Justice Department and rights holders with important new tools to crack down on rogue websites dedicated to infringing activities,” Senator Leahy said during his introduction of the bill.

However, the tools suggested are directed not against the illegal sites, but against “specified U.S. based third-parties, including Internet service providers, payment processors, online advertising network providers and search engines.”

It allows a court to decide which websites can and cannot be accessed and which results Google (and others) is allowed to return.

Lets get that right. The government wants to control the internet, yes? Naturally, associated financial transactions are included.

As the commentator William Jackson observed recently:

“All well and good. Few are likely to come out in favor of trademark and copyright infringement. But this does not justify the totalitarian approach taken in his bill. In essence, Leahy is repeating the oft-heard refrain of law enforcement and government officials: “My job would be so much easier if I didn’t have to worry about civil liberties and personal rights!”

He is spot on.

Reading between the lines on that article, this is the start of the US trying to control what people can and cannot see on the internet. Its not altogether surprising, and it will take many years to come to its real intended purpose. But as with IMBRA, it will be ushered in to “protect” people, and then seeds will float off from it, and some will take root, as they have done with IMBRA by using its offshoots to attack the mail order bride industry.

Ultimate control of citizens is many governments’ aim. Some do it by dictatorships and communism; some do it by stealth, incrementally, under the guide of “protecting” someone or something. Intellectual Property is a good enough place to start. The IRS cannot tax free downloads so lets hit the “pirates” first eh?

The internet is relatively free and uncensored at the moment. Or so we think. Sites that want total free speech must host in Russia, Sweden or certain Asian or South American countries. In other words, the last bastions of the free world. However, the US controls much of the world’s DNS and can switch sites off at random (as we saw with Wikileaks). It takes dedicated techs to keep a site like Wikileaks afloat.

There was a time, several years ago, when this site was under threat of lawsuits from the US because of content hosted here. We were all poised to move hosting to Russia and/or host at multiple locations simultaneously, but the situation was diffused at the last minute. That said, we still get frequent legal threats from those who are not happy with something or other that is written here. My policy of not deleting stuff others find inconvenient, and digging my heels in when challenged, has not helped us stay out of trouble, but it has helped us gain and maintain credibility.

However, the internet wouldn’t function properly without Google. Google is a US company and that means it is subject to the whims of the US government eventually. The government has more money than Google, so they will win eventually. But it will take time.

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Osama Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in a fortified mansion on Kakul Road, Abbottābad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Pakistan was not informed until after the operation because during previous operations, the targets were caught running due to warnings from somewhere high up in the Pakistan government some claim. A senior US official said that no intelligence had been shared with any country, including Pakistan, ahead of the raid. “Only a very small group of people inside our own government knew of this operation in advance,” the official said.

General Barry McCafferty just said he was astonished that OBL was living in a luxurious mansion outside the capital of Pakistan rather than a hole in the mountains on the Pakistan side of the border. The repercussions against the government of Pakistan will be significant some claim, as this is being claimed as proof that the Pakistan intelligence services were protecting Osama Bin Laden.

Were the Pakistan government and intelligence services complicit? Maybe they will say they just didn’t notice the $1m mansion with 18 foot walls, no telephone or internet connections, where the residents burned their refuse, lurking in a suburb. Houses that are eight times the size of the surrounding ones with multiple gates and security installations must be easy to miss there.

Osama Bin Laden’s house is located near to the Pakistan Military Academy (also known as PMA or Kakul). Abbottabad is a city located in the Hazara region of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan. The city is situated in the Orash Valley, 50 km northeast of Islamabad and 150 km east of Peshawar and is the capital of the Abbottabad District. The city is well-known throughout Pakistan for its pleasant weather, high standard educational institutions and military establishments. And we all thought he was hiding in a cave in the Tora Bora mountains.

Bin Laden was living there with several family members, including his youngest wife.

Not the type of place where you would expect to find America’s most wanted man.

The size and complexity of the structure in Abbottabad had shocked officials in the US. It has 12ft-18ft walls, was eight times larger than other homes in the area and was valued at over a million dollars, though it had no telephone or internet connection.

US intelligence had been tracking a “trusted courier” of Bin Laden for many years. The courier’s identity was discovered four years ago, his area of operation two years ago and then, last August, his address in Abbottabad was found, triggering the start of this mission.

A small US team had conducted the operation to neutralise Bin Laden in about 40 minutes. After a firefight, Bin Laden was killed and his body taken by US forces for formal identification.

One helicopters used by the US forces was lost due to “technical failure”. The team destroyed it and left in its other aircraft the BBC claim. Pakistan news reports a military helicopter crashed near the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. They report a man injured in the accident and cite “police sources”.

Loud sounds of gunfire and blasts were also heard before the air crash. Pakistani news and some blogs are currently saying it was a Pakistani helicopter.

Three other men were killed in the raid – one of Bin Laden’s sons and two couriers. One woman was also killed when she was used as “a shield” and two other women were injured the BBC reports.

The people of Abbottābad seem unruffled by the incident in their locality. Raza S Janjua in Abbottabad, wrote just now: “Abbottabad is normal as a regular day, the roads are fine. My mother is out to get groceries, father’s in his office. Only the Bilal Town area is in complete military control – no one is allowed in.”

Syed Riaz Hussain in Abbottabad, wrote: “Last night, at around 0100, there was heavy gunfire about 300 metres from our house, which was followed by a huge blast. There was little in terms of military activity during the day to suggest something even remotely close to what happened.”

Life may continue as normal in Abbottābad today, but the rest of the world is a slightly safer place thanks to the US seals.

DIY TV repair is not often something many people contemplate. It may be simpler than you think.

Repairing your own Plasma or LCD TV: Many people think “Oh my god! I couldn’t do that”, well think again; TV’s are made a lot simpler than they were 20 years ago. And now, rather than having one big main board, they have several.

Let’s break these down, for LCD TV’s we have 5 boards maximum:

1. POWER SUPPLY
2. MAIN AV BOARD
3. T.CON (SCREEN CONTROL)
4. INVERTER BOARD/BOARDS (SOMETIMES SINGLE OR TWO)

How many people signed the Downing Street petition to ask the government to look into Tameside General Hospital?

The answer is six hundred and four! Six hundred and four people who were so concerned by the alarming death rates and poor care at Tameside General Hospital that they wanted a government investigation.

Here was the petition submitted by Mr Paul Gallagher of the Manchester Evening News:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to order an independent investigation into a catalogue of failings at Tameside General Hospital.

The hospital has one of the highest death rates in the country. It scored just 4.8 out of 100 for patient safety in a report by Dr Foster – an independent body which collects information on health services. An unannounced inspection by a Government watchdog recently found two breaches in the hospital’s infection control. Patient groups say they are being inundated with complaints about failings in basic care on the wards – particularly for older people who don’t get the help they need to eat, drink, wash and go to the toilet. We believe an independent investigation is necessary to restore public confidence in the hospital services.

If you have landed here, you were probably wondering who the people are in the Audi (in and around Manchester) with the registration AX07 KOJ. You were probably Googling the registration number and landed here.

Maybe you know who they are and you can tell us? Maybe it is your car — you can tell us what you were up to? Maybe they have been parked up near your house and you can add some information? If so, use the comment box below to let us know who they are and where they were when you saw them.