[employment] will balance ever return

There has been a trend towards the four day week gathering momentum and the schools are one area where this is manifesting itself:

Bucking a nationwide trend toward bulking up school calendars, dozens of rural school districts are actually paring back their work weeks, cramming more academics into four days. The trade-off: School days are an hour or more longer than in most schools.

In rural areas, where pupils are required to help out with the farm work, this might make some sense but for them to hang around malls, doing nothing? Especially with ASBOs and chavs on the increase? I wonder what justification is given for this:

The South Carolina Department of Transportation rolled out a pilot program this week that offers four-day work weeks in exchange for longer work days. "Secretary (Harry) Limehouse felt that this was a very important thing to do for employees because we have a number of employees that commute," said Mary Gail Monsts-Chamblee, the department's director of human resources.

The justification is that gas prices are now $4 a gallon. So, in an induced economic crisis, people are to work less? An eight hour day [including lunch] will now become a ten hour day? Or will it be a nine hour day, with the net effect a 32 hour week?

The point is probably moot anyway, as more and more firms are employing people as temps or part-time, with the slant towards women:

She added that women returners who wanted part-time work were preferable to those who were seeking full-time positions as they were more likely to remain in their job when the economy recovered.

There are more and more cases of overqualified people trying for less qualified positions but firms are wary of that, as they don't believe they will retain those people after times get better. Against that, the qualification hike [in the UK - NVQs] is getting to a ridiculous stage. The tick boxes are exponentially expanding, often demanding irrelevant skills for that particular position. This comes close to expressing it:

This comprehensive skill set, once required only of managers but now applying to all levels of employment, appeared in several employer surveys, with an additional emphasis on communication and computer/technical skills.

What will be the immediate and medium term future for employment? If things do improve, has the wheel of change irrevocably moved to a mobile, part time and temporary, expendable workforce? More than this, as an article in the Asia Times states:

President-elect Barack Obama is the only man in town with a checkbook, and by virtue of the Treasury's near-monopoly of financial power, will take office as the most powerful peacetime president in US history. Faced with the collapse of private pension, health care and financing systems, Obama will have every reason to use his mandate to socialize medicine, pensions and many other aspects of US economic life. The American economy may be hard to recognize afterwards.

I think not only the American economy will transform in this way.

[comment moderation] during the trolling hours

This post was modified at 23:39 by request and in the interests of goodwill:

I'll switch to comment moderation until the morning to avoid a repetition of last night.
Better be safe than sorry. Until tomorrow then, readers, sleep tight.

[shakespeare] five of the best

Couldn't resist the Telegraph's little exercise today - rating the "best" of Shakespeare's plays. In compiling it, I tried to take into account the writing quality, the issue, the popularity and whether I like it or not. Lear's a great play but I don't like it, so I didn't have it in the top five. So here are my five:

1. Hamlet

2. Romeo and Juliet

3. Twelfth Night

4. The Merchant of Venice

5. Macbeth

Hoping you'll be as opinionated as I was on the Bard, what would your top five be?

[blogfocus] a sunday scan

Teething troubles?

Methodius writes of moving back to Blogger from Wordpress.

Does Liz have hubby trouble?

Trixy shows that there is more to life than shoes. There are teeth as well.

Chris Dillow writes: "I’ve never seen the attraction of prostitution. If a man wants quick unfulfilling sex with a woman who despises him, he should get married." Read the rest of it, if you haven't already done so.

Mr. Eugenides informs us that Mr. Dillow's opening line blockbuster is no fluke.

Ross Fountain puts you straight about herpetology.

The Quiet Man thinks you should check your children's homework.

Hooky's at it again with this video.

Need to know about a US diner at Battersea? Charon QC fills you in on his new job.

Gallimaufry and Chips introduces an angry blogger who is making waves.

Angus Dei is a newer blogger to check out.

How about the Domestic Goddess's thick broth on a cold, blustery day?

... and lastly, the Valleys Mam writes of high heels and a woman's sex life.

[sunday calm] except for the weather

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It's a bit like this photo over our way today. It's howling in off the Irish Sea and the rain is lashing the windows. I went out for a boat trip a few minutes ago and this is the shot I took from the deck. Don't you just love wild conditions? Here are some more shots:

Above - the state of the sea at this moment

Above, a passing ship making heavy weather of it

Finally, me taking a well earned break on the way back to shore.

[sockpuppet] cedric surpasses himself

When I woke up this morning, I saw 92 comments on the rock post, which you can wade through by clicking on the above link or you can see the abridged version which gives you the general idea here. [And yes, I do have the isp addresses, despite it showing up in Sitemeter as "not known".]

I thought something was strange for a blogger who's never had more than 40 comments.

Reading down, the first thing which struck me was that it was quite funny at the beginning. Then it went on and on and on. Suddenly it turned nasty and I've left enough comments up for you to get the general idea.

If you read the unabridged version [click on the first link], you'll see it starts at 22:07 and ends at 02:14. That means that this man sat at his computer and left comments on my post for around four hours, commenting every few minutes, sometimes once a minute. I'm trying to imagine sitting at a computer for four hours commenting on someone else's blog.

Nah - can't imagine a sane mind doing that.

It's always possible I am wrong in this but the ladies seemed to be sure about it. In the interests of fairness though, it might have been the Fantasy Fight Club who did it, on his behalf. He is close to them apparently. This is a link to another site he set up in 2007. [Disclaimer: please don't click on the link unless you are absolutely sure you want to.]

I've deeply apologized, on his behalf, to the ladies he was saying those things about but perhaps now someone might take my warnings more seriously.

UPDATE 12:47: If you go to this archived post, scroll down to comments and look at the comment by Ms Smack. Now go to the original post here; you'll see it has been deleted this morning. Why would Ms Smack wish to go in and delete her own comment on a 2007 post on a Sunday morning in November 2008? Read the comment she deleted in the archived version again. Why would she be looking at a post of mine on a Sunday morning anyway when most people are just waking up? Check the time of my post below.

My brain hurts from all the thinking. :)

UPDATE 21:20: I understand that a certain gentleman is now claiming he was at the pub from 10:04 p.m. for one and a half hours but then realized it was between 10:04 and midnight. No doubt there are close friends to corroborate that exact time he arrived and swear on their grandmothers that it was so. Yeah, right. He just shouldn't let his isp address be used by others then, in his absence and continue the comments in exactly the same way when he returned. And then there is the little matter of his sockpuppet site.