Saturday, April 21, 2007

[blogfocus saturday] entertaining and provocative

Foreword: I'm not running UK Daily Pundit this evening for the simple reason that he's the next victim in the "Watch" series [Tim Worstall's the current victim]. So, straight down to it:

1 Highly entertaining post by L'Ombre on "tagging the senile":

Another one of those "Huh" moments. Some bright spark in HMG thinks we should tag our senile old grannies and grandpas and let the poor dears wander around the place on their own … I'm not a GPS expert but I can tell you that GPSes are not exactly pin-point accurate, especially in urban areas, and are total pants if you go inside buildings or enclosed metal vehicles.

Is she in the pub's beer garden having a snooze or 5m north on the other side of the wall by the rubbish bins? Is she walking across the highstreet using the bridge and stopping to admire the view or did she just step out in front of a car? … And that assumes she's remembered to put the thing on, has had the battery charged up etc.

But I have a concrete suggestion. Tag our politicians and civil servants and let them see how well the system works first. For extra fun and games make sure the tag has a high voltage shocker for those periods when the scum need a bit of a reminder and let random members of the public decide when to set them off.

2 Trixy reveals something just as entertaining:

Driving to the office this morning on the M25 motorway, I looked over to my right and there was a woman in a brand new Audi A4 convertible' doing 90 miles an hour with her face up close to her rear view mirror putting on her lipstick! I looked away for a couple of seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane still working on the lipstick!

It scared me (and this coming from a bloke....) so much that I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the bacon roll out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten up the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my mobile from my ear, which fell into the coffee between my legs, causing it to splash and burn BIG JIM AND THE TWINS, causing me to scream, which made me drop the cigarette out of my mouth, ruined my shirt and DISCONNECTED A VERY IMPORTANT CALL.

Women Drivers!!!!!!!

3 Tom Paine says "hold on a moment" to the Brits who rushed to judgement over the Virginia killings:

Britain's anti-American media were all over the sad story of the V-Tech killings. They tore gleefully into America's "gun culture" and its people in general. Let's get this straight. This horror didn't happen because the killer was American. It didn't happen because he was ethnically Korean. It happened because the poor young man was mad.

Some Britons seem to enjoy it when something like this happens in America, but Britain has no moral standing to judge America harshly. Violent crime is declining in America and rising in Britain. The risk of being violently attacked in England & Wales is already higher than in America and rising. In Scotland," the situation is worse.

4 Toque's come up with an idea:

"Health and social work; Education and training; Local government and housing; Justice and police; Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; The environment; Tourism, sport and heritage, and; Economic development and internal transport."

Unlike the Scots the English will not be voting to elect MPs to represent them in these devolved areas because England does not have its own parliament. Instead British MPs in the UK Parliament will continue to decide upon these matters for England.

But what if England had its own parliament?

5 It's not just Fabian Tassano's post but the comments which follow it which need to be read on this issue:

One of the supposed aims of the socialist project is to replace "privilege" with "meritocracy". (Except that lately meritocracy has fallen out of favour with the Left — Anthony Giddens, for example, claims it is "socially destructive".)

But the original aim was seriously misconceived to begin with. As history has shown time and again, a system which claims to be against elitism merely ends up with a different elite. Or sometimes simply with the same elite, under a different name.

6 Vox Day can certainly write - it's not for his shock-power he has his readership. This is one of his more uncharacteristic self-examinations:

While it's extremely unjust that Cho chose to unleash his revenge on those who didn't mistreat him, it's not hard to understand that source of inner rage that years of constant abuse at school produces.

Being nearly a year younger than most of the people in my school class and too socially clueless to hide my intelligence, I was unlucky enough to be one of those on the bottom of the social totem pole for most of elementary school and junior high. It was a combination of three things that changed my social fortunes and my subsequent outlook:

1. Because I developed open contempt for my teachers before anyone else did ...

2. Scoring six goals in one game against our archrivals ...

3. The kindness of one of the most popular guys in our class ...

7 Not a great deal of doubt about what Gates of Vienna is about and that's in keeping with the "outspoken" theme this evening. Baron Bodissey:

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is the generous fellow from Saudi Arabia who offered New York City ten million dollars after 9/11. The money didn’t come without strings — New York was to help promote greater understanding about Islam — so Mayor Rudy Giuliani told the prince that he could take his money and go home.

But not everyone in America is as principled as Rudy, and the Saudis have been busy over the last few years endowing chairs and establishing study centers at universities across the length and breadth of the Great Satan.

Georgetown University has been one of the beneficiaries of Prince bin Talal’s largesse, and the institution that was once a light of Jesuit learning has become a propaganda arm of the Umma.

8 Long, long time since Bryan Appleyard was quoted. He needeth not the hits, he needeth not the mention but mention him we must:

So, I conclude, it is time to say something about philosophy itself. I don't go all the way with my friend - a distinguished thinker who would probably not wish to be named in this context - when he says philosophy is just arguments about arguments or that it is little more than a way of finding good reasons to hold utterly conventional views. But I do go quite a long way. I don't think Daniel Dennett, for example, is a philosopher at all, but merely a flunky at the court of secular, materialist scientism.

He's just there to assure Dawkins and friends that they are wonderful in every way. I find no sense of exploration or meditation in Dennett. Much academic philosophy is like this and I am constantly disappointed when, having read the works of hyper-intelligent philosophers, I find they are, in the real world, amazingly, well, unamazing.

That's it until Tuesday, when I have Blognor Regis in my sights.

[atlantis] the bimini and other questions

As it's nearly impossible to approach any topic with an open mind, for a long time my research method has been to approach a hypothesis with a desire to believe it from the very first, to run with the idea, to adopt it, research it and argue for it, then see how the idea holds up over time.

If the idea proves truly insupportable on current evidence, e.g. the world is flat, then it dies a natural death and isn't mentioned again. But if it really does have something about it, then it never dies a death but continues to challenge.

Here are four hypotheses:

1] Tony Blair's government and the EU are destroying Britain as we know it;

2] Jesus Christ has the capacity to save you from hell;

3] Climate change is happening;

4] Atlantis certainly existed as a civilization.

Reactions like "well, you got one out of four right" or "it's been scientifically disproved" or "that's simply rubbish" or "N1 and N2 are two completely separate issues" - these, I'm afraid, cut no ice.

They're not proof, they're only opinion.

A considerable number of people have put all four forward as valid hypotheses and all have documentation to support them. You can say: "Prove them," and I say: "Disprove them."

No takers.

No one has definitively disproved any of these four. Therefore, for now, the weight of truth is on their side. I'm not being deliberately belligerent or provocative here but I am searching for the truth. Let's go with Atlantis, for example:

In support

Dr. Heinrich Schliemann ran some tests on some Central American vases and some from Troy and concluded that they had been made from the same peculiar clay, not existing in either place.

Dr. Paul Schliemann [the grandson] was advised to break a Trojan clay 'owl' vase by his grandfather and he found a square of metal inside, too big for the neck of the vase, engraved in ancient Phoenician.

In 1958, Dr. William Bell took photos on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean of a six-foot spire. There were light emanations from the bottom of the shaft.

In 1968, pilot Capt. Robert Brush and co-pilot Trigg Adams, spotted a rectangular feature in the shallow waters off Andros. Avec la découverte, en 1968, de ce qui sembla être une gigantesque route formée de rochers polygonaux dans des eaux peu profondes au large de l'île de Bimini, beaucoup pensèrent être très proches de la découverte imminente de l'Atlantide.

On September 2nd, 1968, M. Valentine dived and discovered "The Bimini Road". The 'road' is found about 800 metres out from Paradise Point, Bimini North Island, in five metres of water, and its length is of 638 metres, in a J shape. Fallen monoliths and a three-metre ring of large stones were also discovered.

In 1969, Robert Fero and Michael Grumley found pillars on the Atlantic floor. The rock from which parts of them were made was not found in that part of the world.

In 1970, Dr. Ray Brown, a naturopathic practitioner and lecturer from Mesa (Arizona), was diving in the Berry Islands, Bahamas with five others. They found a pyramid illumined inside, with rooms. He said that in the centre of the room there was a slab and on the pyramid slab was a crystal held by two hands. The hands seemed to be made of copper. A metallic rod was hanging down from the ceiling and its end was a multi-faceted red gem, pointing to the crystal.

He removed the crystal and still has it and shows it to lecture audiences. The crystal seems to have been tested by the University of Florida and the result was that the crystal amplifies energy that passed through it.

In 1974, Dr. David Zink visited and reported: "The ocean floor is essentially level, not sloping."

In 1978, Ari Marshall photographed a 650-foot pyramid at about 1500 feet underwater, off Cay Sal.

In 1982, Herbert Sawinski, explorer, diver, and chairman of the Museum of Science and Archeology in Fort Lauderdale, found and photographed stone pavements at a depth of 25 feet, in the North of Cuba. The main wall continued for a quarter of a mile out to sea, then it disappeared into 2500 feet of water.

In contradiction

Science gives this explanation: the formation is natural, a result of the water being supersaturated with calcium carbonate. A continual deposition of calcium carbonate sediment is responsible for the cementation process, which had actually built the whole Bahama Banks. This calcium concentration helps with the rapid formation of limestone beach rock.

Sea-level has been constantly rising since 15,000 B.C., and for 600-700 years it has witnessed a continuous fluctuation, that accounts for the parallel, linear 'road'. The different levels of water, the sun exposure, and the calcium carbonate are the true 'builders' of the 'road'.

Samples were taken from the core of the rocks, in a way to show the orientation of each block. [This] means that the rocks were once part of a"single ribbon of beach rock" (Eugene A. Shinn, geologist).

Decision

Today I asked a client to look at Photos 1 and 2 and asked her, before any explanations were given: "Were these underwater rock formations made by humans or by the natural action of the earth and sea?" She said "human" to both. Doesn't prove much but see what you think.

My own opinion, as of now, is that no one's yet disproved it but it looks mighty likely to be true.

[If you were to argue against the Bimini Road, this is a good place to start - the tesselated pavements.]

[worstall watch 3] when old firms finally expire

Tim writes of things which come to an end, like this:

The world's oldest continuously operating family business ended its impressive run last year. Japanese temple builder Kongo Gumi, in operation under the founders' descendants since 578, succumbed to excess debt and an unfavorable business climate in 2006.

Now, everything does indeed come to an end and yes, I'm certain that the founders didn't think it would last that long either. But has there been any country or political system that has lasted as long? I certainly can't think of any.

For me, this is kinda sad. Business has no compassion but still - couldn't anyone have clubbed together to keep this one afloat?

[manners] triangles are socially inept [part 2]

This seems to be worth a second post.

In a nutshell, Welshcakes was having a pleasant conversation with a flirtatious butcher, when two bimbos [my words, not hers] came along and took over from her.

JMB left a comment on my post about the matter and said:
I would have said something and then gone home and berated myself. Because the butcher is the one you have an ongoing relationship with, and it's what he thinks that counts. So if you speak up, he probably will tend to be wary around you next time and the whole dynamic of your pleasant regular encounter with the butcher is totally spoiled.
'Fraid she's right on this. My reply:

If it were going to continue happening, then maybe it would be right to put in a well thought out phrase but if it was a one-off, then maybe better to let it go. This is what my best friend here does better than I. He chooses the ground to join battle on himself, on his terms and lets all the rest pass by.
I've been learning to do this but I do have the problem of a sharp tongue. that comes through in the Humanism post, for example.
The moral seems to be to:

1] choose which battles you'll fight out;
2] assess the collateral damage first;
3] go hell for leather on the ones you decide to fight on.

And then there is the question of your own nerves and mental health. Much better to remain calm and pass things off as unimportant.

Of course, some might say it's better to let it all out; it then cathartically releases the pressure and all is well.

Interesting dilemma.

Friday, April 20, 2007

[manners] triangles are socially inept

I'd probably react like Lisa Nowak, if I could find a diaper which would fit.

Welshcakes had a post today on an incident which happened to her:

There is a butcher in one of the supermarkets who really enjoys his job: he knows everyone, flirts with all the women and he always has a smile and a joke for you. Most days I find him a tonic but I'm ashamed to say that today I got the "grumps" with him …

Read Welsh's whole post and you'll get the idea. I really think she was justified in feeling hard done by. There's an incident I'd like to tell you about too now, if I may:

There are some of us over here in a consulting capacity. Sometimes they come to us, sometimes we have to go there. One such chap is a real ladies man and half the ladies who dress up to the nines [he calls it 'full warpaint'] and visit him, I suspect enjoy the ambience of his set up.

Some time back, one particular lady who was near the end of a consultation had to wait when the next lady arrived early. Of course our chap made light of it, introduced the two and got into some desultory banter with the new arrival, smiling across at the 'incumbent', who was less than amused.

Unlike the socially adept Welshcakes, this one was not adept and an incident ensued. Actually, a bad incident. Though the behaviour of the 'incumbent' was apparently well out of order, yet I feel she was a bit hard done by.

I know when I engage someone in conversation, I feel that that's my time with her. I don't expect, when someone else bowls in and ignores my presence that the other partner in the conversation will turn to the newcomer and take up with her.

Even less would I expect to be jollied along into accepting the situation. That's even worse than being ignored.

Yes, it's ego and why not?

In any one-on-one, there's a certain amount of feeling special, that the other person's eyes are for you, for that time. I do not wish to share that with anyone else. I know it's not really more than she does for anyone else she charms but still - it's nice for that time and it's mine.

So yes, I feel Welshcakes should have grabbed the guy's meat cleaver and done a bit of scimitar swinging, just to make a point, you understand.

[flowers] a language all their own [2]

Fifteen more for our erudition and delectation:

1] Aniseed - Restoration of youth

2] Bluebell - Humility; constancy

3] Camelia - Good luck gift to a man

4] Coriander - Lust

5] Dandelion - Wishes come true

6] Geranium (Scented) - Preference

7] Hydrangea - Thank you for understanding

8] Ivy - sprig of white tendrils - Anxious to please

9] Lily (yellow) - I'm walking on air

10] Mint - Protection from illness

11] Moss - Maternal love

12] Orange Blossom - Brings wisdom

13] Palm leaves - Victory and success

14] Primrose - I can't live without you

15] Rose(pink) - Please believe me

[traffic jam] sudden gridlock the russian way

I've driven from San Diego through LA to Santa Monica a few times and once made the mistake of being caught in LA peak hour. That's some traffic - seven or eight lanes crawling along in the summer heat and sickly yellow smog.

I've been caught in tailbacks on the M25 around London or else on the way to Heathrow. That's also not the best.

I've been driven from our hotel in Bangkok where even the simple act of taking the first turn right took us fifteen minutes in choking fumes.

I went to work today and it was worse than all of those.

Total gridlock, not only on the main arteries but on every sideroad, every little shortcut through the 'yards' and every lane and cycle path, as cars from both directions tried to squeeze through single lane archways through houses.

And we weren't talking cars - we were talking trucks, lorries and buses trying to squeeze through the equivalent of pock-marked and rutted country lanes with three metre clearances.

It was fun.

And when I finally arrived, grim-faced and apologizing, there were all the young ladies sitting up, asking: "Traffic jam or were you with a girl?"

Wish I'd had a witty rejoinder.

[confusion in terms] humanitarianism and humanism

Prayer for humanity

We have a university over here called the 'гуманитарный'. It translates as 'humanitarian' but many take it to mean 'humanist' or 'of the humanities'. I favour the latter translation.

As for 'humanitarian' and 'humanist', these are chalk and cheese and we confuse the two terms at our peril. The former is concerned with the ethic, incorporated in Christianity but not exclusively so, of charity, altruism, loving one's fellow man and aiding someone with no strings attached.

The latter is concerned with, firstly, placing man at the centre of the universe and suppressing any reference to his Maker:

Moses Mordecai Marx Levy, for example, believed the family should be abolished and that all children should be raised by a central authority and: "We must war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keynote of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed."

You get the general idea. Yet always, behind the egalitarianism are people with other ideas. John Ruskin, Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford University:

"My continual aim has been to show the eternal superiority of some men to others, sometimes even of one man to all others."

Or Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Humanists' High Priestess:

"The Christians and scientists must be made to respect their Indian betters. The Wisdom of India, her philosophy and achievement, must be made known in Europe and America."

The usage of "must" is a hallmark of marxists and other humanists. They believe in social restructuring around their ideal and the forced accession of the people to that ideal. A perfect example is Blair's Britain at the moment, although Nu-Labour was supposedly 'Socialist-Lite'.

Of course it wasn't and this brings in the next characteristics of the humanists - duplicity and deceptive images.

Norman Thomas, six times candidate of the Socialist Party for President of the United States, observed: "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism, but under the name Liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program until America will one day be a Socialist nation without knowing how it happened."

And in Britain?

"Marriage and the Family" was published by the British Humanist Association in 1868, stating that "some opponents of humanism have accused us of wishing to overthrow the traditional Christian family. They are right. That is exactly what we intend to do."

These people have insinuated themselves into the controlling positions of universities, the arts, medicine and all other spheres of human activity, in a position to alter curriculum and outlook and to destroy from within. I see these people everyday. Not all are like this but a significant number are.

Flo Wineriter, American humanistic educator, was quoted by the National Coalition for Democracy in Education, Saratoga Springs, NY, as saying:

Humanistic education teaches a wide variety of skills which are needed to function in today's world - basic skills such as reading, writing and computation, as well as skills in communicating, thinking, decision-making, problem-solving and knowing oneself.

Humanistic education is a humane approach to education - one that helps students believe in themselves and their potential, that encourages compassion and understanding, that fosters self-respect and respect for others.

This is the lie which the humanists peddle and the results can be seen in U.S. and British education today. You'd have to be off your brain to state that this is working well.

The reality is in the keynote address to the Association for Childhood Education International, [1972], by Chester M. Pierce, Professor of Education and Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University:

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our founding fathers, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being. It's up to you, teachers, to make all of these sick children well by creating the international child of the future."

This, in essence, is what a humanist is.

He or she harbours dreams of a re-ordered society, where humanity is forced to conform to and comply with, quite frankly, insane constraints, all the while proclaiming him or herself as a champion of the people.

These are, at best, kindly and accepting folk such as some of our fellow Blogpowerers, good people who are simply blind to the reality but at worst, they are the 'people', previously quoted, whose poisonous prescriptions have so blighted our society today, people with an agenda. And not a good one.

[fraud and abuse] former halliburton unit on the ropes

A small excerpt [unabridged] from the congressional report:

U.S. lawmakers on Thursday railed against defense contractor KBR Inc. for a string of fraud and contract abuses on a multibillion-dollar contract that provides food and shelter to U.S. troops in Iraq.

"I think profiteering during wartime is inexcusable," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "We've got a very serious problem. This is the most significant waste, fraud and abuse we have ever seen in this country."

KBR is currently the Army's sole contractor for providing food and shelter to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or Logcap. More than $20 billion has awarded by the Pentagon over the last five years for the services contract.

It goes on and on. Dick Cheney did well to disassociate hmself from the conglomerate, on the surface that is. The real head of the US government has other fish to fry these days.

[russia's richest] no great changes

From Mosnews [unabridged]:

According to the Forbes magazine’s annual survey of the wealthiest 100 Russians, which was published on Thursday, April 19, Roman Abramovich is still Russia’s richest citizen. He has a fortune of $19.2 billion.

Abramovich’s No.1 spot was untroubled by his divorce earlier this year, which under Russian law could have cost him half his fortune and left both him and his ex-wife Irina in equal 11th place in the rankings.

Behind the 40-year-old soccer patron was a chasing pack of oil and metals magnates led by aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska with $16.8 billion, mainly the beneficiaries of Russia’s swift privatization of its huge natural resources in the 1990s.

In 55th place, with $1.1 billion, was Boris Berezovsky, a Kremlin power-broker under President Boris Yeltsin who fell foul of his successor, Vladimir Putin, and now lives in political asylum in London.

Berezovsky said he had sold all his former Russian assets and now kept his money in bank accounts and liquid assets.

Names from outside the natural resources sectors still made up only a smattering of entries on the list, showing that Russia has a mountain to climb if it wants to achieve Putin’s dream of diversifying the economy away from oil and metals.

As in previous years only one woman made the top 100 — Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow’s mayor. Her wealth, based on the Inteko construction company, is now $3.1 billion, Forbes said.

Forbes said the list included people who had accumulated most of their money through business and were not in government service. It did not elaborate.

[worstall watch 2] we all should watch this issue

Yikes! Sedition. You know what it means, of course. Interms of what they can do to you, I men?

How quite delightful. Our Masters in Brussels have decided that sedition should be re-introduced into English law. How kind of them, don't you think?

[T]he latest draft on the idea [is] that there should be a new pan-European criminal offense of denying the holocaust and also dealing with incitement to violence on racial, national and religious grounds.

And further on:

Because you fear those Frogs who will insist on smuggling garlic into your roast beef, you are therefore a criminal. Aren't we lucky that our law is being written by those who do not in fact understand our language?

Isn't it good that the 'full harmonisation of criminal laws is currently not possible' [EU]?

[How do I choose my victims for the 'Watch' series? He or she needs to:

1] be posting two or three times a day;

2] posting on a variety of subjects, not just parliamentary politics;

3] have a witty way of putting things.

That's all.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

[blogfocus thursday] strong opinions, mildly expresed

When bloggers are forthright and support their views, the results are usually more than readable.

1 Matt Murrell reviews the battle royal over the Virginia shooter:

Although the motivation of the Virginia shooter remain murky, with the initial reports of a single, emotionally-unbalanced killer, Scot Atram’s presentation on the consequences of group-dynamics (as reported by ‘Atheist Ethicist’) seems relevant to this type of situation.

And finally, Blogpower bloggers 'The Thunderdragon' and 'Lord Nazh' offer conflicting views on the solution to this type of problem. To restrict, or not to restrict.

2 Ian Appleby is the only blogger to notice this and therefore takes the prize:

I doubt I'll be the only blogger to note it's ninety-five years today since the Titanic went down. Although our collective memory has been cheapened by the sentimental manipulation of the Cameron film - tens of millions spent, and yet they couldn't find a few dollars to spend on a decent script - it remains an extraordinarily evocative myth. I don't know, for example, if I would be so fond of the tune "Nearer, My God, to Thee", were it not for the legend that the ship's orchestra played the hymn in the last moments of the stricken vessel.

3 Guthrum reflects on his son's opinion of living in the UK:

Went out for Beer last night with said son - he has decided there is no future in the UK and intends to go abroad to live and work. Feel partly responsible for the mess we expect our children and grand-children to sort out. A good few have decided that they are not going to sort it out, and are voting with their feet. Still he goes abroad with Republican sympathies intact.

4 Paul Linford puts the Lizard King under the microsope:

Over the years, a myth has grown up that if only Portillo had had the balls to challenge Major himself instead of letting John Redwood run as a stalking horse, he would have succeeded in dislodging the Prime Minister in the first ballot and gone on to defeat all-comers in the second.

It's a seductive theory, but it's not how I remember things. I recall a Tory Party that was split moreorless three ways - between those who wanted Michael Portillo to be Prime Minister, those who wanted Michael Heseltine to be, and those who couldn't care less who it was so long as it wasn't either of those two.

5 Shuggy makes some good points on freedom of choice in religion … or not:

Ian McEwan in his novel Saturday referred to the 'accidental nature' of the views we hold. How much more so when it comes to religion, or the lack of it, when people's identities are inextricably bound up with a belief system? The position I take, for example, surely owes no small part to the fact that I was raised by two strongly secular socialists.

This is not to suggest that there is no element of choice but the will is much more likely to be active when a man or a woman breaks from the faith of their parents and their community.

6 Cassandra gets stuck into Marxists in no uncertain fashion:

Education simply belóngs to the Left. In The Netherlands the Ministry of Education is where Socialists spend their hay-days - they go to die at the U.N., the World Bank or some other international forum which has been bribed for the privilege, years in advance.

Subjectivity is therefore a riot in education! Anyone who thinks that children get the grades they deserve, had better think again! There's an awful lot of proportional compensating for unequal difference being done there.

7 Wolfie has an intriguing tale of just how nice [or not] Kate Middleton is:

We bumped into Kate and Wills over dinner way back in 2005, just before their relationship was made public. I was of the opinion that she was a good catch for William but my wife (then my fiancée) disagreed, and to be honest I tend to listen to her on these matters because she has this amazing built-in bitch detector which never seems to fail in its accuracy. Apparently on a trip to the bathroom during the evening there was one of those “women sizing each other up”/”evil eye” moments between Miss Middleton and my somewhat amused wife, which seems quite bizarre considering she was clearly romantically involved with me and seven years her senior.

8 And finally - strong opinions, not by Bonnie herself but by Squirt:

And why do I bring up all this ancient history? Because Hubby thinks that on this blog, Squirt should no longer be called Squirt. He thinks I should refer to our youngest son as “Rock Star” because the boy currently hopes to become an professional rock guitarist.

Of course, “Squirt” is not his REAL name. And I do wish I had picked a name other than “Squirt,” because you should see the odd and somewhat disturbing search terms that bring people to this site.

Hope you enjoyed these. See you Saturday, yes?

[worstall watch] one worstallism a day examined

An exciting new series where one blogger is put under the microscope all week and one post is examined each day. Then another victim is selected and so on. First up - the Portugese Practitioner of Prose* on gender pay equality:

Err, helloo? If you leave one job for another, you are, presumably, doing so because that second job is more desirable. It might be location, or vacation, but who doubts that it's usually about more money?

So, the fact that men move jobs more often to go to other ones is actually one of the explanations for the gender pay gap, not something to be equated with taking a several year career break to have children. No?

The corollary presumably being that it's the onwards and upwards man who pushes the salary above the base level of the woman. At least, that's my reading of it. What you think yourself?

* Of course Tim would point out that he's not, in fact, Portugese but how else could I get the alliteration working?

[flowers] a language all their own

A Banksy pic with Higham embellishments

It's an ancient art which has almost died and if I hadn't been reading Miss Marple's Four Suspects, I should have missed it. Like hand-torn paper and quill pens, it's a joy we can always rediscover.

A small selection [more next time]:

1 Azalea - Take care of yourself for me

2 Bouquet of withered flowers - Rejected love

3 Carnation (pink) - I'll never forget you

4 Carnation (striped)- sorry I can't be with you

5 Dahlia - Treachery and misrepresentation

6 Hyacinth ( purple) - I'm sorry; please forgive me

7 Hyacinth (white)- I'll pray for you

8 Jonquil - Desire for a return of affection

9 Lily (general) - Keeps unwanted visitors away

10 Monkshood - Beware, a deadly foe is near

11 Orchid [purple] - I await your favours

12 Peony - Aphrodisiac

13 Rose(Black) -Death

14 Tulip(yellow) - Hopeless love

15 Viscaria - Will you dance with me?

You can speak to someone with flowers tomorrow.