Explorer
I’ve had several emails recently saying that some of you have been having problems accessing this blog through Internet Explorer. We’ve not been the only site that’s been effected though, as Internet Explorer generally has been hanging, freezing, failing to find web pages, failing to log on to email accounts, etc., amongst other problems. Interestingly, this problem only occurs if you’re also running Skype on your computer.
Well, it seems that it’s all to do with a little critter called Skype IE addon. This bit of code modifies every web page that you visit in order to highlight phone numbers, even if the web page contains no phone numbers at all! Most of the time these modifications are not visible so you don’t even realise it’s going on. This apparently has been what’s causing the problem. All of these Internet Explorer problems disappear if you disable this Skype IE Add on (in other words dump the little bugger!).
This is what you have to do: In Internet Explorer select Tools -> Manage Add Ons -> Enable or Disable Add ons. In Enabled Add ons, select ‘Skype Add on’ (NOT the other Skype file shown), highlight it and then select Disable. Re-boot Internet Explorer and it should have sorted things.
I’ve tried it and it works fine, although I’ve gotten to like the Firefox system that I changed to when Internet Explorer almost drove me to throwing the computer out of the window, so I think I’ll stay with that! ( http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ will get you to the free download if you’re interested).
The blues
According to the daily Torygraph Disabled people are selling their blue badges on e-bay for as much as 5,000 pounds. Apparently in London, the badges exempt motorists from the capital's congestion charge, a concession worth about £2,000 on its own, before parking is taken into account.
In another article they also claim that: ‘up to 700,000 motorists are fraudulently using disabled badges to obtain parking privileges all over Britain – this is according to evidence presented to the Government by disability organisations’.
They add that: ‘one third of Britain's 2 million disabled badges are being wrongly used, say the charities’. And that: ‘many non-disabled drivers "borrow" the badges from relatives, while others use computers and scanners to forge them.’
(It’s interesting to note that they never actually say which disability organisations or charities provide them with this information.)
Damn Disabled people. Not content with living in luxury on the state, they’re running scams that are netting thousands of pounds. We should be ashamed of ourselves!
Told you so!
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has estimated that for every million pounds spent on the Pathways to work programme, which has now been rolled out across Great Britain, £1.5 million is returned through reduced benefits and increased tax contributions.
OK everyone, after me … Told you so! Told you so!!
Communication
And it’s good to see that the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN) is still alive and kicking. It all went a bit quiet after Alan Holdsworth (Aka Johnny Crescendo) departed for the States a few years ago.
My sources tell me that about 25 Disability activists and their PA’s entered the foyer of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) building and demanded to meet James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary. This was in a protest against ‘the use of negative propaganda against disabled people to justify benefits cuts’ (surely not?!). They also handed in a letter to staff in which they accused politicians of ignoring disabled people’s poor prospects for employment and equality in the job market.
Apparently the only official statement to come out of this from the work and pensions department was (wait for it!): ‘This is not the way to arrange a meeting with the secretary of state. It is more usual for people to write to him’.
I can imagine the correspondence before the next action … ‘Dear Mr Purnell, we would like to meet you at our next unannounced action on …’ and his reply …’Oh what a shame. I’ll be out of the office on that day visiting anybody, somewhere else!’