[blogfocus saturday] controversial opinions

1. David Farrer gets half the issue right on warming:

This week's newspaper reviewers were Carol Thatcher and "Comedian and Actor" Patrick Kielty. I took an instant dislike to Mr Kielty because he spent the programme squatting on one of his legs so that his shoe looked like it was scuffing the license-payers' sofa. Straightaway I had him marked down as a leftist.

Sure enough my intuition was proven correct when the subject of Al Gore's Nobel Prize for Fiction Peace was discussed. To be fair, Kielty wondered why Gore was getting a Nobel Prize for Peace. (Kielty is from Northern Ireland.) But he spoiled it all by saying that Gore was merely stating the obvious - that the world is heating up. But that's not what Gore is on about. Gore claims that global warming is primarily caused by the actions of humans - and that's certainly not accepted by all scientists.

The thing is that it is actually happening but it has been cynically seized on to the point that detractors of the cynics swing wildly the other way and deny anything is due to human agency. Remember, David, that Them is "human agency" too - not just the common man.

2. Matt Sinclair is writing about political bias at the LSE but as I commented, it has always been the way at universities, particularly if the opinion is leftist. Impartial is not a word which comes into student politics very much:

Also, the LSE is a very international university and, although I can't find statistics, I know that Israeli students do attend. This kind of massively biased language coming from Students' Union officers who are supposed to be looking after students' interests could contribute to creating a real climate of fear. We've all grown accustomed to students saying crazy things but the manner in which this extremism was expressed makes it worrying in the way a lone crank sounding off is not.

3. The Morningstar challenges lovers of good armchairs to rethink their values:

Armchairs really are the problem, I need an armchair that will keep me upright and stop me from slumping to one side while it supports my back, it also need solid arms at the right height to help me stand up. Most modern armchairs fail as they are more like bean bags with vestigial arms, I might as well sit on a bin bag filled with jelly. A lot of the fancy recliners fail for just being too low or they swivel in a way that means I can’t use them to support myself as I get up.

4. Julie is perhaps taking this obesity permission a bit literally:

Obesity 'not individuals fault' - BBC - so straight down to Greggs the Baker for me in the morning, then, it is. Yipee!

..except it appears to be a disappointingly misleading headline which is not supported by what follows - an outline of a report calling for more wide-ranging government initiatives to help in addressing the issues of obesity rather than merely assuming that people will be able to look after their own health and weight in view of the bad food stuffs which flood the market, and today's sedentary lifestyles.

I really am fancying one of those cream doughnuts by now, though...I do love cakes...and biscuits...and chocolate. I am sure half the people in this town have put on an extra stone since Greggs the Baker opened here a couple of years ago. :-)