[grendel meme] seven good things in life

Sorry it took so long, Grendel, old chap - seven good things in life. You want a serious reply or a funny one?

1. Finding the truth vis a vis my Maker before it was too late.

According to a literary anecdote, the author Nancy Mitford had asked Waugh how he could behave so abominably and yet still consider himself a practising Catholic. "You have no idea," Waugh had replied, "how much nastier I would be if I were not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being."

There is a Comforter, He [She?] exists and is free online for all.

2. A special woman/girl.

My mate phoned me yesterday and was suspicious. "Is it snowing? No? Er ... am I interrupting anything?" He knows the two things here which put me into a jolly mood.

Why not? Might be wrong about it but I enjoy this maybe more than the average man.

3. Snow.

Lots of it, in huge droves, walls of the stuff, all year round. Sun shining, minus ten - heaven. Let me slip nature generally in here too, particularly the forest in summer and particularly if N2 is involved.

4. Real life and blog friendships.

Communication and intellectual stimulation plus touching base are assuming greater and greater importance. I don't rate what I write as all that important but the communication is. Just adore the way a blogger posts about a prat like Darling, broods, then runs another post on the theme just for good measure. In the end, we're all BS-ing.

5. Sailing.

It's my sport and as I wrote to an Indonesian girl, it's the second best feeling - the sound and feel of the spray is blissful and the whole motion is both harsh and beautiful. Skiing is very close too.

6. My work.

It's certainly varied and from the sweet part of it [uni] to the tough part of it [trade], it's never, ever boring and I give thanks for that. Also that I'm semi my own boss and that I work the hours I choose to.

7. Variety.

Everything from 1 to 6, excluding N2. The buzz there is one at a time. I was playing ICQ once and two girls made contact at the same time. So I was running a split screen, one in Russian and one in English. Both were impatient why I didn't reply. Both turned out to be from the same city. That was the city I was in. Both were online from the same computer room, sitting beside one another. Never tried that again.

Unable to fit these in

* Travel - tired of it now.

* Trenchermanfests - used to enjoy them.

* Football/rugby/cricket - love them but not in the seven.

* One's family - well you know, that's a long story and not for the blog.

* The Novels, creativity - up there but not in the seven.

* Music - adore it and can't live without it but can't fit it in the seven. All cultural pursuits - theatre, ballet etc. are in here.

[alcopop test] as useful as the mcdonalds test

Iain Dale asks the question, appropriately on his current poll on the best and worst chancellors since 1945, "Should alcopops be taxed more."

I'm going to extend that to a wider poll below:

Should alcopops be:
	Banned from sale
	Taxed higher
	Taxed lower
	Provided free
pollcode.com free polls

The Economist's Big Mac Test was, of course, as a comparative determiner of the state of countries' economies.

[mutual understanding] first lock the militants up

Over the weekend, if you'd read the posts and comments at this site, there was some pretty useful mutual understanding shown between our genders and the mood was quite upbeat and positive.

I ended the weekend more pro-women than ever before and as a male, wanted to look at the real rights and wrongs of the issues confronting women.

It was a lovely weekend, especially on the personal front.

Then the Feminists kicked in today, destroyed all the good work and the result is my post further down the page which has gone right back to the "you know where you can stick your equal pay" style. Am I so fickle as to be pro-women on the weekend and yet against them today? No, I'm even more for women, as I said above but this:

Ignore us and neglect us. Keep your societies pitiful, needy, and backwards. If we are not loved, we will not love back; and if we are not nurtured, we will neglect. If we are not valued - we have no values to instill. Women who are treated with cruelty give birth to murderous intolerants and oppressors. If we are destroyed, we destroy too.

... just re-polarized a debate which was going nicely and in these words, the woman showed about as much negotiating ability as a Rottweiler. So let's first get it clear what this blog actually believes and stands for:

I personally believe in equal pay for equal work and despite the post below, I do believe that women are still short of this. I believe the men in a position to do so should address this question.

Now if the Feminists would stay the F out of it, then this could possibly be achieved far more quickly because most reasonable men would agree.

However, if you're going to assault men with completely one way, oh how we're so oppressed, misandrist, men are bastards material, then the male reaction is predictable. We'll stonewall, pay lip service, oppose and quietly stymie anything the blinkered Feminist demands. We'll write posts like the one below which we don't completely believe in but post anyway to stick it up the Feministi.

I see no mention of oppressed children or the totally iniquitous and laughably named Child Protection Agency or the anti-father family laws in their diatribes. I see no mention of the difficulty men have of adjusting in this new society where respect for men has flown out of the window and only hatred remains. You won't find a post for men on this site of mine either. I've never bothered fighting for men and heaven knows we've needed it in some ways.

Kelly Mac can be my champion:

Hope chests spring eternal

According to those paragons of all that a woman should be, wanting to make a comfortable home for your family means that you don’t value education, or accomplishing anything on your own. It seems that if you don’t fit their narrow definition of what a woman should be, ladies, you should be belittled and criticized.

I think I love that woman.

It's as clear as the nose on your face - if you're going to be strident, shrill, all one way, intolerant - forget feminism just now and let's use a different issue, maybe "smoking" - then people will quietly and angrily oppose you, especially when you try to bludgeon legislation through.

My father and mother both died from smoking related diseases and I have the beginnings. I don't smoke myself so here is a prime candidate to join the anti-smoking lobby. And yet I'm at the forefront of the anti-anti-smoking lobby because the other side polarized the debate and used heavy handed tactics.

That's all.

I had some quite deep discussions with women on the weekend and was in a pensive mood. Enter the bloody Feminists this morning and I've angrily typed up the post below.

Kelly Mac again:

The feminist movement had and has very little to do with how I as a woman live my life. Women and men have always had rights, and they have always had responsibilities. You’re only supposed to know the part where women got shafted.

To paraphrase British journalist Julie Burchill - any woman who says she isn’t a feminist should be summarily stripped of her right to vote (since this right was won for her by feminist activism)...

This actually isn’t true, about women’s right to vote. As gwallan pointed out, women were voting in this country (US) as early as the 18th century. Also, it’s not like every man could vote here either. From what I understand, each landed family had one vote – and it went to the head of the household, whether that person were a man or a woman.

Gwallan also mentioned Emily Pankhurst, one of the more prominent suffragists, and her “White Feather” campaign. You said that she was misguided in her patriotism, but that it didn’t negate the suffragist cause. I say if she were such a patriot, instead of shaming men into fighting and dying for her, she should have taken up a rifle herself, and recruited other women to do so. You can’t pick and choose where you want to be “equal” and where you want chivalry. Let her earn that vote.

Another lady, Michelle S:

Now, because of the bra-burning women's liberation movement, girls are routinely slovenly and ill-mannered (though I think people in general are ruder now than they have ever been) and the phrase "that's not ladylike" is all but extinct.

And as far as the impact on the nuclear family: households are now more likely to have two-incomes from both parents being in the workforce, leaving no one at home to raise the children. Couples are more likely to divorce now, further fracturing the family (for the first time, there are more single/divorced ladies then there are married ladies in the U.S.).

I think core family values are disintigrating, and I think the pebble that started this landslide is the feminist movement.

Nunyaa, who incidentally features a pic of Germaine Geer nude [aaaagh]:

Women like Germaine Greer haven't done me as a woman any favours and I dare say I am not the only woman in the world to think same. In an ideal world we would learn to accept that not everyone shares our ideals and that is their given right , so why place scorn and contempt upon those just because they do not agree with us.

This from KatrinaB:

I think male and female motivations are quite different (thank heavens) and the fact that we often use salary as an arbitrary indicator of gender value (or discrimination) incenses me. Clearly, *individuals* should be paid equally for identical jobs.

However, there is nothing in the literature that suggests the distribution of talent for a particular job will be split evenly between men and women.

This from a girl who blogs as Purple Fire:

In my opinion 21st century feminists are a dying breed and those that do exist are simply trying to cause trouble. Everyone has a right to their opinion, the right to speak out against what is wrong; but who has a right to say that just because we are women, we are weak, or overly emotional, or constantly searching for a way to reach the same equality level as men?

It may be my unique school, or great variety of friends but I have never felt oppressed or treated unfairly by others simply because I'm a girl.

From Grace Chong:

I had difficulty writing my speech as I don't usually define myself as a woman. I define myself as a person, more particularly a creative writer dependent on God's grace.

Now surely, surely, the Feministi might pause to consider what's gone wrong with their movement. One of them today accused me of having issues and that they were the sane ones. Other way around, in fact. I have no issues being with women and having them as my mates.

Is that insane?

Finally - the Post Below

Is this report on Wimbledon equal pay or over the odds and inequitable? The women's event is not equal, i.e. they are not the top competition, i.e. they'd lose in a final with the men. So this is pay over and above equal.

This, in the NYT illustrates the [alleged] 77% dilemma but nothing is necessarily as it seems..

Strangely, in this patriarchal society over here in the former SU, where the women are not Feminists, there is equal pay for equal work, e.g. tram drivers.

And in the west, teachers' pay scales are gender neutral, i.e. they depend on years of service and brownie points. We paid our teachers equally, given the equal work, i.e. a third year primary teacher did not earn as much as a male Headmaster but did earn the same as her male counterpart.

So, reviewing the efficacy of militant Feminism, in Feminist besieged countries there are only two conclusions - either they've succeeded, vindicating Feminism and all is equal or else it's not equal and the Feminists have shown themselves to be largely irrelevant and quite possibly detrimental to the process.

After all, it's the unions who go in to bat for the equal pay and they contain men too. Which brings us to the question of "equal work" and how it can be measured:

As reported by money.cnn.com, Warren Farrell, author of Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap – and What Women Can Do About It, believes this is a case of comparable pay versus equal pay, or apples and oranges. He says men are more likely to make life-decisions that will lead to a higher annual salary.

He says males are more apt (than women) to relocate or travel for work, take on more dangerous jobs (over 90 percent of workplace deaths are reportedly men), work in the difficult (read boring) sciences, seek jobs that require financial risk and work jobs in unpleasant environments.

In contrast, he says, "women commonly prefer jobs with shorter and more flexible hours to accommodate the demands of family. Compared to men, [the majority of] women generally favor jobs that involve little danger, no travel and good social skills. Such jobs generally pay less.”

For women who earn over $100,000 per year, Farrell says they are more likely [than men at the same pay] to give up a portion of pay to spend more time with their families. Of course, not all women choose to forgo pay, as my post on top paid female executives discussed. In some careers, Farrell says women actually earn more than their male counterparts do, and he's not just talking about the field of modeling.

According to Farrell, the median salaries of women exceeded that of men's by at least 5 percent, and in some careers, up to 43 percent in 39 occupations. Some of the 39 professions include: sales engineers, statisticians, legislators, transportation workers, automotive service technicians and mechanics, speech-language pathologists and library assistants.

However, to play fair:

A Carnegie Mellon study found that female job applicants were less likely to be hired by male managers, if they tried to negotiate a higher salary, unlike men. Some years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that female scientists were paid less than men are.

And so on. Where the women do become CEOs or are in the more dangerous professions, they do earn male salaries - e.g. Carly Fiorina and the like. Just how much money did she need for bringing down a company?

One of the commenters on the Dr. Salary article said:

I have been fortunate enough to have worked in several fields, including the military, police, and now in the private software arena. In the military and police I saw equal pay for equal work, but based on merit (job performance and testing). Yet in the military and police work women candidates physical fitness standards were half of what was expected of a man.

Further reading here and here.

[tri-nations] three losses

Now I wonder if the Scottish bloggers would have run the photo if the result had been different? Do they also have a magnificent sense of fair play?

France

President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP conservative party is trailing in the first round of French local elections. However, the socialists' lead is smaller than some predicted, and the outcome in some large cities in particular remains finely balanced.

Spain

With nearly all the votes counted, the Socialists had won 169 seats, short of the 176 needed for an absolute parliamentary majority.

Disunited Kingdom

We've played pish all this tournament but it seriously wouldn't matter if we didn't win another game again because today we trampled the English - well that is of course until next time we play the English, then we'd better win there too.

National differences are alive and well, I see. Interesting how a Scot can be induced to say the words England or English under certain conjunctions of circumstances. :)

I was at a Rugby dinner once on the same day England played Scotland at Murrayfield so naturally we watched it. The instant the Scots turned out onto the park, it was as clear as day who was going to win - there was a mania in the Scots' eyes, quite different to the grim determination of the English.

[telemarketers] how to deal with them

Get thee over to Colin Campbell to find out how:

Click on pic

There's plenty of advice today on how to deal with these pests but in Britain there's another type of pest as well - the double-glazing salesperson:

The Double-Glazing salesperson along with the life insurance salesman, estate agent and used car salesman has often been the 'butt' of a comedian's joke and the general public's 'loathing'.

Or how about the Jehovah's Witnesses? How do you deal with those suits and ties?

[birdman rally] wings across the water

There's a bridge across Melbourne's upside down river and off that bridge fly the intrepid Birdmen, the event a televised highlight of Melbourne's annual and very parochial festival, Moomba.

Every year, madmen fling themselves off this bridge for the honour of having taken part in the Birdman Rally.

There are always party poopers though like the hang gliders who fly 17 metres and win the trip to to Thailand but generally it's people like the "mild-mannered 36-year-old banker from Hawthorn", Simon Spinks, who flew as Super Unicorn Man.

In my years in Australia I always wanted to ahve a go at this but was more interested in being the party pooper and winning that trip to Thailand with my own kite design. Alas, it never happened.

There are always people doing these things. You remember Eddie the Eagle of course.

Were you for him at the time or did you think he was making a right prat of himself?

He came last, of course - too heavy, short-sighted and self-funded - an amateur in a professionally amateur world:

His lack of success endeared him to people all across the globe. The worse he did, the more popular he became. He subsequently became a media celebrity and appeared on talk-shows around the world. The press nicknamed him "Mr. Magoo", and one Italian journalist called him a "ski dropper".

The widespread attention that Edwards received in Calgary turned into a large embarrassment for the ski jumping establishment. Many athletes and officials felt that he was 'making a mockery' of the sport.

Shortly after the Olympics finished, the entry requirements were greatly toughened, making it next to impossible for anyone to follow his example.

At the closing ceremony the president of the Games singled him out for his contribution: "At this Games some competitors have won gold, some have broken records and one has even flown like an eagle."

At that moment, 100,000 people in the stadium roared 'Eddie! Eddie!'. It was the first time in the history of the games that an individual athlete had been mentioned in the closing speech.

Excuse me but I find that simply fabulous.