[may 17th] who'll take the cup

Pompey with their chimes

Cardiff with their imminent UEFA entry

On May 17th:

Who'll take the cup?
	Pompey
	Cardiff
pollcode.com free polls

[loo roll crisis] economy too far

There are some excellent things about the Russians - the warm-heartedness, the way everything is negotiable but there are also some not so good. One of the worst is when they try to emulate the west in ripping people off.

They've learnt the art of curtailing services "for your convenience" and now they've hit the loo roll.

Now just look at the pic above - do they look the same size? Do they really look comparable? For a start, look at the:

1. overall size - hardly equal, wouldn't you agree;

2. squidginess - look at the firm, hard roll on the right, lovingly packed with paper and then the wobbly abomination on the left;

3. the outrageous claim - the one on the left trumpets "65 metres" and the one on the right has the maker's name. Ha - the one on the right is shorter, yes - I just measured them - and you know why, reader? Because the one on the left is half the bl--dy weight of the other and you don't need to be a genius to know what that means when that moment is reached.

This "tormoz" [local name for limited intellect] thought it was oh so clever to sell the new one on the left and no one would notice. Well I did - the moment I tried to take the wrapper off, half the roll came away [see photo above for evidence] and now I have half a soggy roll.

The word "Kalashnikov" hovers perilously close to the tongue and the trigger finger is itching right now.

What is particularly galling is that if you fronted the Receding Brow with said Kalashnikov, he'd claim it was market forces made him do it. He can have a couple of rounds in his market forces then and see how he likes these new times we live in.

Now I wouldn't want you to get the idea I was a little less than gruntled of course. It is Sunday after all and we're meant to forgive and forget.

Hot damn - some more just came away and my fingers went through it. Right - I'll be back in a few minutes - spot of culling needs doing downstairs. Will you excuse me?

Many thanks to Nunyaa who sent the comment below - a carton of local loo roll is on its way to you right now.

The Dale Cleggover Sex Survey

Get ye over and vote in Iain Dale's Cleggover Sex Survey where you'll be asked which pollie you'd sleep with and how many partners you've previously had and whether any of them were MPs, amongst other questions.

This is not an invasion of privacy by any means - it's just an invasion of anatomy.

[alimony] and the child support agency

Not saying my own views are as extreme as this but the following is quite understandable. Why it is understandable follows all the quotes:

Anti-male judicial bias by courts places more than nine out of ten of these children of divorce into the custody of their mothers, precisely where the government knows from the NIS-3 Study that they are more than three times more likely to be fatally abused [read: murdered]. Before this money grab by feminists was called "child support", it was called "alimony".

And before fathers were financially penalized for the privilege of having their children removed from them, less than six percent of the nation's children lived in fatherless households. Women entered law and became the majority voter in the 1960s, "child support" was created, and two out of five of our nation's children will be sleeping in a fatherless household tonight.

Because fatherless children have a forty percent higher premature mortality rate than children raised in families, independent of the fact that children of divorce are more likely to divorce themselves, seventy two thousand of these twenty three million fatherless children will die prematurely each year, year after year.

It is conservatively estimated that the negative economic incentive to twenty million fathers paying "child support" reduces their average incomes of $43,000 by twenty five percent, which reduces GDP by $215 billion. Total government costs are forty two cents of each wage, so this $215 billion reduction in GDP reduces tax collections by $90 billion.

The legal fees, counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other costs paid directly by fathers is estimated by Bill Harrington, US Commissioner on Families, to be $200 billion per year.

Or ...

Shared parenting and reasonable support of children will never take place so long as governmental focus is solely on extracting the largest possible sums of money by making children fatherless. Last month, British ministers announced their intent to demolish the national Child Support Agency (CSA).

They have realized it is an overbearing, expensive failure hurting marriage, driving divorce, and placing the government in the middle of never-ending power-squabbles over money and children. They plan to return responsibility to parents who (for the most part) will be expected to work out their own support and parenting arrangements.

Or ...

So the Child Support Agency is to be scrapped. Sounds like good news for all those people - men and women, 'caring' and 'absent' parents - who have been let down or persecuted by it. Problem is, it looks set to be replaced by something even worse.

Governments always announce their latest measures on child support by declaring that the prime interest is that of the child. Quite right. But could someone please explain to me how a child would benefit from having one of its parents electronically tagged or having bailiffs sent round to flog their possessions?!

The core problem with all of this government's, and previous governments', policies on child support is that they are based on a stereotype of a father who has walked out on his offspring and done nothing other than try to evade his responsibilities and live the life of Riley while his kid and his/her mother struggle by.

Or ...

Feminism has NEVER been about equal rights. Nowhere is this fact more clear to me than in the family courts system which of course has been entirely infiltrated by feminists and their many sympathizers. Fathers are these days being treated very badly indeed in pretty much all western countries. If it were mothers being systematically treated in such an inhuman way there would have been a revolution by now.

Or ...

Even though the amount of the average “child support payment” due from women is half the amount due from men, and even though women are twice as likely as men to default on those payments, fathers are 97% of “child support” collections prosecutions [Census Bureau]

Or ...

Australia's Child Support scheme, however well intentioned, has lost its relevance to families and can no longer meet its objectives.

OK, enough quotes to get the general idea. Now to personal experience:

I made an agreement with my two exes when the lie of the land was becoming clear and it involved a lump sum arrangement. It devastated me financially but in the end I recovered. If there was any special need over and above from then on, I was and still am quite happy to pay. This is how it can be done if the two people are going to be reasonable. But the two people are usually not going to be reasonable, are they?

So here is the current scenario set up to counter this:

Set up a Feminist riddled, man-bashing agency [and this is no straw man, in terms of the evidence above] with token male staff and go all out to track down recalcitrant males. This then spawns numerous men's groups who provide help in avoiding the ravening monster and defaulting fathers find even more ingenious ways to avoid their responsibilities.

Lord Nazh puts the American solution, the prenup:

With the luck of this family so far, a prenup is actually a very smart move. I don't think this marriage would last long either heh.

I take issue with this. The prenup seems such a calculated move before the marriage even takes place that it must surely put pressure on both parties to emote freely within that marriage.

The material in the quotes above is extreme but it is the polarized position men are pushed into when an aggressive lobby like the Feminists gets it's hands on things and feeds women's angst. Of course men will take that position under such assault.

More rationally, I have been on both sides and would like to put a different solution to the problem.

Enact a law which requires any separating couple, de jure or de facto, when property is involved, to sit down with an independent arbiter-at-law and thrash out an agreement using guidelines previously thrashed out by all interested organizations, including men's support groups, to find a fair and equitable formula.

Then the signature of the two parties is binding and it becomes a matter of law if one or other party defaults. This method has the advantage in that it secures the agreement in writing of both parties.

If both parties agree to waive this in favour of their own agreement, then let it be so.

I was "the other man" in my first "marriage" and saw the ex's cynical manoeuvres to avoid payment - one trick was by remaining a student well past his 42nd year. Therefore he pleaded no money and lived in a garret which supported this contention.

He took the point of view that if she was going to p-ss him off and shack up with another guy - me - then I could pay for her. I agreed that I should do this but paying for his kids was another matter. Though they came with the territory, he still shouldn't have abrogated his entire responsibility for this.

What was more aggravating was that he would take the kids away for the weekend and they'd come back restless, loaded with presents which the mum could never afford and with a view of the mum as some sort of ogre.

I think women tend to pick up the pieces and move on but men, psychologically, just can't. Maybe we're more territorial, I don't know. But I do know the male just wants "out" once she's cut the tie.

That's why I think an obligatory agreement struck early in the piece by both parties gives a much greater chance to the party who has the children at home. It removes the onus on a witchhunting, Feminist infested agency to chase up defaulters and becomes a straight matter of law and breach of contract.

The legal side of it seems far more straightforward this way.

I think mens' attitudes would be far more reasonable too. For example, if I knew there was a signed agreement and I knew the money was earmarked for the kids by law and wasn't being channeled into her herself, if I knew that the kids were benefiting directly, I'd be more than happy to even pay over the odds and even more if finances stretched to it [in real terms].

But she can't expect I'd give anything to her herself. That would be asking too much.

The counter argument is one I also know well - the absconding father and I can understand a woman's feelings in this matter - she'd want the full force of the law brought down on him and who'd disagree with this? But again, if he'd previously signed an agreement, she has far greater chance in real terms of getting an equitable and ongoing arrangement going.

In other words, it would not be just the discredited Child Support Agency but the whole mechanism of society at hand to enforce this.

I wrote previously on the matter here and here and a series on divorce here, here and here.

[freddie] toddle on over to steve's

Congrats!!

[sunday roast] blogfocus on issues

Sally loves wellies.

Bendygirl writes a rivetting piece on walking along with her headphones on and feeling the presence, behind her of what turned out to be two males in hoods:

I felt their presence before I heard them. I was sure there was someone coming up behind me. My right hip feeling as though it was on fire with acid hot pain I knew my gait was particularly poor but could only concentrate on keeping going.

This piece highlights the fear of the unknown - I could feel those footsteps behnd me.

Wonko on free transportation for pensioners:

Free public transport is only one area where English pensioners are disadvantaged compared to the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish (free central heating, free elderly care, for example) but it’s one that has the potential to make a real difference to their lives, particularly those with mobility problems.

I'm not a complete conservative - there is one area the state must stay invovled in and that is free everything for pensioners, with extra for the armed forces retirees.

The Quiet Man points out, on "the appearance of doing something":

It's a trap all politicians fall into, having to produce kneejerk reactions to perceived public concerns. Otherwise they believe we'll think they aren't earning their money.

The Cityunslicker also alludes, tangentially, to this matter of appearing to do something:

With the greatest respect, it cannot be so, Grendel:

In the study undertaken led by Amit Kagian a computer has successfully been taught to interpret and recognise interpret attractiveness in women. As Kagian explained "Until now, computers have been taught how to identify basic facial characteristics, such as the difference between a woman and a man, and even to detect facial expressions. But our software lets a computer make an aesthetic judgment. Linked to sentiments and abstract thought processes, humans can make a judgment, but they usually don't understand how they arrived at their conclusions."

Surely it depends on so many nuances, this attractiveness. I know many so-called beauties who are haughty shells and the opposite too. How can a computer detect that?

Young Duncan is "getting responsible" in his old age. Have to smile at his "progress report":

I had a new year’s resolution this year. As part of my current crisis (i.e. having to become responsible), I am trying to get my notoriously bad sleeping pattern in order. Amazingly, I have stuck to the first part of the resolution.

For the past three months, I have been keeping a log of my sleeping patterns. It’s quite detailed. Every morning I open up my big Excel spreadsheet and record the time I went to bed, when I think I fell asleep, when I woke up and when I actually got my lazy arse out of bed. I also note when I set my alarm for. From all of this I work out how long I am unable to sleep, how long I sleep in and… well, how lazy I am.

Last but not least, the stupendously brilliant 1st Lady and Lady Muck are at it again. All aboard the bus and off we go ...