mockney piers

Accusation withdrawn. Apologies proffered and accepted. Happy happy happy, everybody happy.

editing cross post

To be fair, if it is school policy is it so very wrong? My parents chose to send me to a school with a fairly lax school uniform policy. More disciplinarian mums and dads sent their kids to the ersatz grammar school on the other side of town where a skewed school tie would have resulted in detention. Not sure I see the difference, especially as these are private schools. It seems they've only been criticised from a desire by muslim community leaders not to seem to be offending the nonmuslim locals, which says more about them than it does about the school's policy surely. Edited one time(s) at 03:20

Steam trade-ins rumours, an attractive idea. http://kotaku.com/5663410/steam-to-introduce-digital-trade+ins

Waynetta, I'm increasingly convinced that you're just a trojan on someone's PC, which unbeknownst to them is posting every tired 'amusing' email viral from their inbox that we've all had to put up with over the last 15 years. I'm also interested to see whether your programming can pass the Turing test ;-)

It would seem it's not just faith schools. Bad science schools are trying to get in on the act Steiner Waldorf schools apply for free school status i love his list though Homeopathy: giving patients medicines that contain no medicine whatsoever. Herbal medicine: giving patients an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety. Acupuncture: a rather theatrical placebo, with no real therapeutic benefit in most if not all cases. Chiropractic: an invention of a 19th century salesmen, based on nonsensical principles, and shown to be no more effective than other manipulative therapies, but less safe. Reflexology: plain old foot massage, overlaid with utter nonsense about non-existent connections between your feet and your thyroid gland. Nutritional therapy: self-styled ?nutritionists? making untrue claims about diet in order to sell you unnecessary supplements. Spiritual healing: tea and sympathy, accompanied by arm-waving. Reiki: ditto. Angelic Reiki: The same but with added ?Angels, Ascended Masters and Galactic Healers?. Excellent for advanced fantasists. Colonic irrigation: a rectal obsession that fails to rid you of toxins which you didn?t have in the first place. Anthroposophical medicine: followers of the mystic barmpot, Rudolf Steiner, for whom nothing whatsoever seems to strain credulity Alternative diagnosis: kinesiology, iridology, vega test etc, various forms of fraud, designed to sell you cures that don?t work for problems you haven?t got. Any alternative ?therapist? who claims to cure AIDS or malaria: agent of culpable homicide. Libel: A very expensive remedy, to be used only when you have no evidence. Appeals to alternative practitioners because truth is irrelevant.

"socio-economic cleansing" I'm hoping this is a tongue in cheek reference to ibo's assertions many moons ago.

Firstly, military force won't be removing any threats, it'll be maintaining instability, and secondly I think you credit agencies with too much influence. And just how do you go about encouraging a population to adopt liberal parliamentary democracy, that's a bit back to front as it's a top down thing, not a bottom up one (at least without a genuine popular revolution). We've installed an ikea parliamentary democracy, and huge chunks of the population were actually pretty hopeful initially and still try to engage in the democratic process, but it's too corrupt and too tainted and seen (probably quite rightly) as a tool of foreign powers. Quite where the aid agencies fit into all of this is anyone's guess.

anything, and I say again, ANYTHING has to be better than the Vale in it's current incarnation.

Also there is the politics of aid. Food and funds inevitably get siphoned off by the men with guns and the infrastructure of aid can entrench the bad people in the positions where they're continuing to cause harm to those the organisations are trying to help. It's a tough choice and inevitably most make the difficult decision that regardless of the long term harm that may be being caused it's important to provide the short term relief and medium term investment with the hope (usually false) that there will be long term benefit/change. And by and large, not only do I agree, but I have huge admiration for those who get off their backsides and do something to make the world better in the face of very real dangers and grey moral choices; they contribute a fuck site more to the world than I ever have with my proverbially fat arse wedged into my judgmental armchair. Interestingly of the nation building going on in Afghanistan, 10% of the entire country's GDP consists bribes to allow supplies to flow and housing and infrastructure to be built and for aid workers to travel, a good chunk of the rest is drugs facilitated by the loss of (relative) central authority, and pretty much the rest is the usual warlord feudalism given a veneer of legitimacy by the fact most of them comprise the current kleptocracy. Santerme's assertion regards the boat being missed is not only masterly understatement, it seems pretty likely that the boat in question only ever existed on paper and the buyer is feeling pretty cheated about now but is having to pretend to everyone about the wonderful fishing on the lake to be had, in order to save face. [just a thought, is there a quantity theory of anger? If so is my current distemper a result of Charlie Brooker's mellowing and subsequent retirement?]

Charlie Brooker's imminent screen burn retirement has him dishing up old columns nostalgically. This one on Pop Idol proves the old plus ca change adage http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/interactive/2010/oct/16/charlie-brooker-screen-burn-popstars

And I loved the fact that the senior policeman from Scotland Yard said (more or less) 'frankly we haven't got a clue, never met an Armenian but they seem nice'. Days before spin and carefully crafted press announcements eh?

There is indeed. A lovely shot by my friend Kathy

Sounds to me like the thinking of someone who believes in the exceptional status of mankind, conferred on us by our loving God perhaps. We're just primates you know, I'm not sure what the difference is between the baboon's stick and man's flint tools. Especially as it is taught behaviour passed down generations of the troupe making it quite specifically a skill not instinct. I love your hints that something esoteric transcends the nonsense actually being written down, but yet further lack of clarification only serves to detract from the argument. I sense in there the idea that it is a divine strength that gives mankind a will to live, and the existence of the will to live is evidence of this. Sounds like begging the question if you ask me.

More Daily Mash genius "Even the people you like are still technically 'work friends' and therefore impossible to sustain a conversation with for over 45 minutes without resorting to forthcoming holidays or the fascinating patterns in the tablecloth." Office Christmas Meal Unavoidable

weirdly, whilst interweb trawling as I see out my days waiting for my redundant life to begin, I found this little gem. It's a chap selling his own book admittedly, but there are some interesting ideas. He's basically playing with the idea of 'technology as an autonomous system', bestowing science with the sort of personality that Silverfox seems to be doing. A couple of his conclusions (or at least playful theories) include: "Our genes have co-evolved with our inventions. In the past 10,000 years alone, in fact, our genes have evolved 100 times faster than the average rate for the previous 6 million years. This should not be a surprise. As we domesticated the dog (in all its breeds) from wolves and bred cows and corn and more from their unrecognizable ancestors, we, too, have been domesticated. We have domesticated ourselves. Our teeth continue to shrink (because of cooking, our external stomach), our muscles thin out, our hair disappears. Technology has domesticated us. As fast as we remake our tools, we remake ourselves. We are co-evolving with our technology, and so we have become deeply dependent on it. If all technology-every last knife and spear-were to be removed from this planet, our species would not last more than a few months. We are now symbiotic with technology." "Technologies are like organisms that require a sequence of developments to reach a particular stage. Inventions follow this uniform developmental sequence in every civilization and society, independent of human genius. You can't effectively jump ahead when you want to. But when the web of supporting technological species are in place, an invention will erupt with such urgency that it will occur to many people at once. The progression of inventions is in many ways the march toward forms dictated by physics and chemistry in a sequence determined by the rules of complexity. We might call this technology's imperative." Slightly bonkers, but interesting. You should have words with him Silverfox, he's teetering on the brink of belief (though possibly of a machine god, the Loa of William Gibson fame perhaps?) I reckon ;-) http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/004749.php

He he, indeed Keef, indeed. 'he lacks class' is understatement of rare beauty. Likewise I've not much time for him either, but his footballing ability (when firing) is undeniable.

...and while I'm at it, these interesting figures, I'd love to see a similar study done here. I realise it's at least an election out of date, but given the apparent shift of popular opinion to the right, I can only guess that the reality - perception disparity has widened in the intervening years.

Do you agree with Mr Hansen that 'Utd need Rooney more than Rooney needs Utd' however? EC, have you read Private Eye's review of Match of the Day? Music to your ears (or eyes?) I reckon.

Oh how lovely. I've just learned that 'Trickle down economics' the great cri de coeur for those advocating tax breaks for the rich was coined by an American entertainer called Will Rogers, who observed of President Herbert Hoover's 1928 tax cuts:

I'm really not sure how to take you silverfox, are you just messing with us and I'm missing your tongue firmly in your cheek? If I'm not then can I actually get a definition of science from you? It's not a force in and of itself or a rival god of some sort. You seem to be mistaking it for such; a modern day Baal if you will. If I am then I apologise for being a bit slow and humourless, lets blame it on my headcold.

You'd have thought in the interest of his wage negotiations alone he'd try to play a little bit better! Whereto then? Real, Inter, Arsenal, Tranmere?

"Still, hearing X-Factor announcer Peter Dickson attempt to apply his trademark showbiz gloss to the name 'Grimshaw' is well worth tuning-in for." Ha ha, yep, had the same thought. I find it amazing that Irish viewers can vote this year and by amazing coincidence there's a strong candidate from Dublin in the finals. Weird, almost as if it were designed that way...

I must say Trinity, you've piqued my interest. I here link an article from the New York times on Nov 5th 1903 about the murders you refer to, fascinating stuff and thanks for pointing out all this interesting history we have local to us. It's in PDF format. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0F11FA3B5D16738DDDAC0894D9415B838CF1D3 Whilst I'm here I'll be hideously pedantic and say that Armenia isn't in the Balkans but the Caucasus, and though it's sort of related to Balkan troubles in that its related to the last days of Ottoman rule, the Caucasus wasn't a powder keg for the Great War, we have trouble in Serbia and environs to thank for that little number (I went to Sarajevo in 2004 and stood on the very spot as it happens, an amazing city and well worth a visit). The Genocide of Armenians by the Ottomans however, witnessed and documented by German officials at the time, would go on to have a formative influence on Nazi policy makers in the Second World War and the far better known Holocaust.

I'm forced to do so because it was impossible to discern what point you were trying to make with the baboon/pen analogy. As regards the miners point, indeed I saw that the original intention brought up was that in times of adversity people turn to god. Fine. The old truism 'there are no atheists in foxholes' would probably have sufficed, but like all cliches, though it may be grounded in much truth it isn't the whole story by any means. To attribute the ability to mentally triumph through adversity exclusively to the religious is disingenuous, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of atheists in foxholes, though I doubt many of them are especially happy about it, but then I doubt anyone would be.