Today.   Let’s see…

Got up and dragged a last spoon of coffee into my mug, washed the jar out ready for recycling and then went into the store cupboard to get another… Had a minor meltdown when I couldn’t find one and realised a trip out would be required… but sat and drank and loaded up my computer and a reminder went off that today was Dr Horrible day!  No, not the visit to the rudest doctor in the world but something I have been looking forward to for a very very long time!  Unless you have been living under a rock (or, you know, you have a life) you may have already heard about Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog - the latest Joss Whedon attraction.  Being a fan of… pretty much he’s ever done and it having Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris in it… well, you get the picture.

Now, the thing is. Being quite the rubbish at working out time differences I had no clue when midnight EST was going to be here so just jumped on hoping for the best and, yay, everything was perfect and wonderful and funny and Whedon.  Loved it, watched it twice, cannot get the Freeze Ray song (link to the only place I’ve found video) out of my head and cannot wait until Thursday for Act 2.  The thing is the site has been down for about 9 hours now so if you were hoping to get on there and have a peak yourself I would say… follow their Twitter for news of it’s re-emergence.  But until then you can read Captain Hammer’s comic or press refresh until you get fed up and need a cup of something.

There’s another thing where I get quite ranty so…

Prison.  It costs a lot and doesn’t seem to be a deterrent. I argue this because people are breaking in because it’s so cushty. I have a plan.

Make prison… a prison.  Let’s take it back to the old ways.  They go to jail.  Stay in jail for a long time.  And get no luxuries at all.  One TV in the whole jail.  On news channels permanently.  No more luxury meals.  No.  They get the bare minimum to keep them alive.  Porridge in the morning, a cheese sandwich at lunch, and the very very basic at dinner.  They wouldn’t need to hire cooks anymore as the prisoners would do it themselves.  What else?  No more internet access, no more radios or stereos, or computers, or video games, or any of that.  They can have a book each a day, a selection of newspapers, and some paper and a pencil to keep them occupied.  They can go for a walk round a very small yard for exercise.  No more fancy gym equipment.  This goes for youth offending prisons too.  Except they have to complete school work… and if they fail, they stay in jail.

What to do with all the equipment they’ve just got rid of?  Sell it and make our schools and hospitals better.

Repeat offenders?  They go to the really tough jails run by ex-Army Sergeants… who decide the end of the sentence, after the alloted amount set by the judge.

Oh, and no more parole.

And on the subject of kids that commit crime?  No more of this ‘we cannot name the little bastards because of legal reasons’.  No, they and their parents full names and photos, along with the crimes,  get splashed up on billboards in their local area and on the local news.  They have to be homeschooled by the parents - any drop in grades - parent goes to jail, or gets heavilly fined, kid goes to Army jail… but while they are at home they are allowed no further than, say, 50 yards from their frot door or an alarm loud enough to wake the dead goes off on the little scroat and at home screaming, ‘I’m a total wanker and my parents are idiots’… or similar.  And they have to be home before 9pm… which is already being done.

Oh, any maintenance that needs doing in these places?  To be done by the prisoners themselves, under the watchful eye of a professional.  And they can have a work shift doing something useful for their local community - litter picking, painting schools, that kind of thing.

I know that a few people will say that I am impinging on their civil liberties, that prisoners and criminals have rights too.  Do you know what I say to that?  Balls.

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Yeah, I know.  Stop watching the news.