[blogfocus monday] three issues in one

1 Jobsworths


MJW brings us the harrowing tale of station attendants who had officiously closed all doors then let the train stand idle. Then:

Suddenly a woman and her young son, who had obviously been trying to board at one of the doors locked out made a desperate dash for the remaining open door, the platform staff shouted at her to stand away and attempted to block her path, whilst the guard attempted to close the doors before she could board, but he was too late and the doors closed on her before automatically springing back open.

With doors open, the woman stepped into the entrance way, and then it happened, a reprehensible act from the guard, instead of letting her board, he blocked her path and started to bundle her back through the open doors on to the platform. He was unable to prevent her son from boarding (the young boy actually stood next to me), but he managed to manhandle the woman back on to the platform and refused to let her enter, so she called her son off the train.

As he closed the doors on the poor woman and her son, I said to him “you didn’t need to do that, did you?” prompting him, in the tradition of a million petty minded jobsworths before him to snap back “don’t you tell me how to do my job”!

2 Flaming and the quality of debate


Doctor Vee berates moronic commenters which is interesting because that is what Anon and Simon recently did here before storming off in a huff. Here's part of what the good doc said:

The first time I truly realised that comments on MSM sites were almost universally awful was when Scotsman.com introduced them. I wrote about it at the time. The comment box obviously just attracts loudmouths and morons. Anyone looking for good debate would be sorely disappointed.

This isn’t just a problem with the media. Anyone who has read the comments on huge websites like Digg or YouTube will have probably found their inner misanthrope jumping out and despairing about the state of humankind. It seems as though the bigger the website is, the worse the comments are.

To support this contention, I offer, from a Sydney national news website, the question "How to make someone love you". Here's a cross-section of the responses:

Lol that cynical tumor is seriously malignant ;) Posted by: M on February 11, 2008 9:15 AM

I think it is also contagious. Posted by: Dragonforce on February 11, 2008 9:21 AM

It is called early- to mid-30's can't be botheredness. Posted by: M on February 11, 2008 9:27 AM

how does a chick make you fall in love with her ##### she gets knocked up/ and within no time at all you got yourself a fullhouse with a couple a deuces i tell all you dudes on here playing with a shortstack sometimes its easier playing the slot machines than playing pokher with a slot Posted by: Pokher on February 11, 2008 10:17 AM

Ruthie offered her thoughts on the quality of debate here.


3 Sex and the appreciative woman


This is exactly the sort of thing I'm putting in the 2nd book right now and Lady M is the type of woman I'd gladly bed but her standards are so high that I doubt I could meet them. Sending a plane seems a bit of a tall order at this point in time:

I like men. I like the way they smell. I like the way they think - solution over debate, facts over speculation. I like the hair on their bodies in places that can keep a skinny woman warm. I like the way they like women. I like the way they can talk with their eyes even if they can’t dance. I like the way they laugh. I like the way they continue to make me feel sexy and desirable, even though I am now a woman of a certain age – I appreciate that chaps - I thought it would be all over by now.

I love flirting and I appreciate a man who does it well. I like a man of few words and I like a man who can engage in conversation as a blood sport. I like men who send flowers, and I like men who send planes. I like men who are warriors, and I like men who are poets and philosophers. I love a man who loves his wife/girlfriend/fiancée’ and talks about it – nothing sexier. I love men who love children and animals. I appreciate a man who can sing or dance or both, but I love a man who loves opera. I really like sex, I do. I like the entire package ...

[incest] third cousins breed most

Update for this post.

Hot from Iceland, even if seriously flawed:

Couples with the same great-great-grandparents have more children than those who aren't as closely related, according to an Icelandic study.

They'd know up there in those winter months, wouldn't they? So the message is clear - get out there and get breeding.

By the way - do you actually know your third cousin? Also, maybe you should read this first. Also, how did they gather the data for this study? 'Excuse me- have you bonked a close relative lately?' And is the study really necessary for our further understanding?

This was also interesting:

Incest in the United Kingdom is governed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In France, incest laws were abolished by Napoleon some 200 years ago. Incestuous relations between a parent and minor child are prohibited and punished by law in France, but not between adults.

How could the same thing be wrong in one country but not in the other [despite the law]?

[quickies] good news monday

1 Excellent!

2 Also excellent:

Senator Barack Obama tallied his fourth decisive victory this weekend in a state nominating contest on Sunday, winning the Maine caucus, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton replaced her campaign manager and longtime aide in the biggest shakeup of her campaign to date.

3 Also, also excellent:

The unanimous approval of the deal by the governing bodies of the Writers Guild of America came a day after the union and studios finalized details of a settlement hinging on how much writers should be paid for work distributed over the Internet.

4 Also, also, also excellent:

They appear to be back.

5 Also, also, also, also excellent:

This might just see the Church getting the kick up the backside it's needed for many years now, especially in the U.S., over it's relativistic and equivocal positions on fundamental issues.

6 Also, also, also, also, also excellent:

Flip flop. The Hottie and the Nottie? Please!

Not a bad start to a Monday. Now watch someone come along and b-gg-r it up.

[divorce] the nastiness of it all

What a gold digger:

The musician, meanwhile, has vowed to stay cool - hoping to clear his name and keeping most of his fortune, estimated at £825 million.

Mills, who is defending herself after furiously sacking her lawyers, has reportedly demanded a settlement of £50 million in what could be the most costly divorce in British legal history.

I shan't be following this sordid affair. What is it about divorces? What makes them so petty and unjust? Such hatred comes out, often from one side. Accepting that he drank and was abusive ... why? Why not kind and loving? Could she have had anything to do with that by some chance?

The alien life form who finds a solution to the war between men and women and patents it will become rich beyond imagining. On the other hand, look at the McCartney history, from the Apple Studios days onwards. All the sycophantic hangers-on trying to fleece them for all they had.

Don't know, some of us just seem poor judges of character when it comes to ourselves. personally.

[blogger classic] last freedom in the sphere

Rob has just been having problems with control-freak providers:

I was trying to make some code appear on my site. Now this code has taken me ages to get right. Not because it’s complicated. Just because WordPress was playing havoc.

I typed out the code using some entities and normal quote marks. It appeared ok but it wouldn’t copy properly — rendering the banner useless. OK I thought, I’ll just use entities. And this is where things got annoying.

The problem with WP is that it likes to change things for you.

That's right, Rob - it does. Typepad and Wordpress are useless service providers because they insist you do it their way. Wordpress doesn't even let you justify text and prevents you doing a myriad other things you'd like.

Then Blogger got in on it with their ridiculous "Layout" widget rubbish until someone clearly told them where to put it and they allowed "Classic" again. Here's how easy Classic is:

1. Go to twenty pages of Classic templates [google Blogger Templates] available on the web;

2. Choose one;

3. Copy the html to Word and play about with it, throwing this out, writing this in, designing your header for yourself;

4. Paste in to the template and save.

Voila - nourishing insanity in its new version - I've just finished the initial site before tweaking. Now, if I'd like to tweak it, I go to Mandarin Design Color Chart and make some slight adjustments to taste. I'm not saying my design skills are anything to write home about but I do have the freedom to do as I wish.

Easy-peasy. All other providers - you can keep them.

[britain] time the traitors were charged

Right on. Carey!

There is no news in this post - you've all seen it in the Telegraph and elsewhere. I'm just adding my signature to it.

Enough's enough!

Writing in this newspaper, Lord Carey condemns multiculturalism as "disastrous", blames it for creating Islamic ghettos and says that Dr Williams's support for sharia law will "inevitably lead to further demands from the Muslim community".

He suggests that such a move could embolden some Muslims to try to turn Britain into a country ruled by Islamic law which, he says, contradicts principles of human rights and allows the persecution of Christians.

I live in a Muslim republic over here and good luck to them. It's their land and I'm living here as their guest. Therefore I observe their laws. What's the problem?

One can't even blame the British Muslims for acting as they have - after all, if the Musselmen here said to me, 'Let's be all multicultural and tell us how we can become Anglican,' it's sort of an open invitation, isn't it? But the Deobandi? On the plane, chums.

It's Blair and Brown who should be charged with High Treason and either incarcerated in the Tower or executed [we'll argue this one later]. But traitors they are, by any definition of the word. This is not rhetoric - they have clearly betrayed our land.

And if I might be permitted to be the one to waterboard Brown until he says the word "England", I'd deem it an honour. To quote Holmes, in His Last Bow:

The Englishman is a patient creature but at present his temper is a little inflamed and it would be as well not to try him too far.

And who does Brown think he's doing it for - some vague notion of the '45? Even his own countrymen detest him. Old news but the idea remains:

This weekend Brown has managed to destroy one of the most formidable reputations in British politics - his own; he has handed a political triumph to his only rival for the Premiership; and he has made Alex Salmond's day. Nice work, Gordon.

As for the Catholic/CofE thing - what a storm in a teacup. They're all Christian. As for the Scots, Irish and Welsh - they're my friends so there's nothing to be read into this.