Another UK crisis - MPs pay

The UK Government has imposed a 1% limit on the increase of salary for public sector workers for the next three years, having already frozen pay for the last two years.  (At the same time thy increased pension contributions by 1.28% this year, leading to a net decrease in take-home pay while inflation is obviously raging.)

Some people find that outrageous.  Others consider it to be an fair and inevitable way of balancing the books.  But whichever camp you might be in, I suspect that we are almost all in agreement that it would be grossly unfair if Members of Parliament (MPs) are awarded any increase in salary higher than that.  And yet, this is what they tell us we should expect.  In fact they might be awarded an increase of more than 10%, because (at the second attempt) the independent body that reviews their salaries has deemed that they are underpaid.

Neglecting the fact that many of them have second and third paid jobs, along with fairly generous expenses allowances and long periods when Parliament is not sitting, which world is this independent panel living in?

Somehow, it appears that the government is powerless to prevent this inevitable increase.  Exactly why that might be the case is completely unclear to me.  In my view, the MPs should:

• Do the job that they are paid for - full time, like the rest of us - and yes that sometimes means working late with little appreciation and for much less money than MPs already receive.
• Not have additional salaried posts.
• Definitely have their salary increases capped - as after all, they are public sector workers too.  

Its easy isn't it?  It is just like telling another public sector worker that they have achieved the highest level of achievement in their role which might give them a rise of a few percent in normal times, but that in spite of that their pay rise is capped at 1%.


Failing that, I can see the potential for one of the biggest protest marches ever seen in London.  I will be there, whatever else might be happening that day.

Will you?

Further comment:  38 Degrees is obviously lining itself up for a goo campaign on this topic.  Participate in their consultation by following this link.

Lennox's non-fairy tale?

Oxford University Professor, John Lennox mumbled some incoherent nonsense (it is reported, e.g. here and here, and much better here) at the 'National Prayer Breakfast'.  Presumably Lennox is quite good at mathematics.  If not, he would not be a professor at Oxford University.  Nevertheless, if the reports of the event are to be believed then he seems to grasp very little of logic.  Isn't that surprising?

Apparently he 'preached' that atheism was a "delusion" and a "fairy tale for those afraid of the light".

Can anyone explain to me how this can be true?  Surely atheism is the lack of all these religious fairy tales, not specifically the Christian fairy-tale that Lennox happens to like.

Perhaps Prof. Lennox has been an outspoken critic of "God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins, but if that is the only thing that makes him famous then perhaps he should be called 'a-famous'. 

As for blaming atheism for the "moral drift" in society, (as is reported), I would just point him to accounts of the activities of Roman Catholic Priests over recent years and indeed Muslim men who have married child brides over many centuries (collectively, at least).  Where is the moral drift now?  Has it been led by religious men, perchance?

Dismissing the common assumption that science and religion are not compatible, he said  "There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between world views, atheism and theism".

If not, why is he picking this particular fight? Moving on, we hear that:

"God is not the same kind of explanation as science is. 

Now . . . on this point we can agree.  One is a delusion and one is not. But then:

God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done."

Lennox might tell us this.  But after all, this is just a fairy story!

Isn't it?

Dr Lennox was addressing over 600 people at the Bible Society-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament.
As Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Dr Lennox has frequently spoken out against modern-day atheism, calling Richard Dawkins 'wrong'.
He said that the new atheism is responsible for 'the moral drift' in today's society. And he added that science and religion are not opposed.
'There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between worldviews, atheism and theism,' he said.
'God is not the same kind of explanation as science is,' he added. 'God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done.'
He warned that, 'The playing field is not level since atheism has become so dominant ... and is often regarded as the default position in the media.'
The risk of this is, he said, that society would forget 'the contribution of Christianity to the moral foundations of our society'.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpufvvOxford University Professor John Lennox told over 600 people at the National Prayer Breakfast why he is not convinced by atheism.

The math professor told guests at the Bible Society-sponsored event that atheism was a "delusion" and a "fairy tale for those afraid of the light".

He urged Christians to have "the courage to create public space" for the discussion of "a biblical worldview", as he pointed to the example of Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English 400 years ago and would eventually be executed.

Dr Lennox, who has been an outspoken critic of "God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins, blamed new atheism for the "moral drift" in society.

He also dismissed the common assumption that science and religion are not compatible.

"There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between worldviews, atheism and theism," he said.

"God is not the same kind of explanation as science is. God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done."

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Dr Lennox was addressing over 600 people at the Bible Society-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament.
As Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Dr Lennox has frequently spoken out against modern-day atheism, calling Richard Dawkins 'wrong'.
He said that the new atheism is responsible for 'the moral drift' in today's society. And he added that science and religion are not opposed.
'There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between worldviews, atheism and theism,' he said.
'God is not the same kind of explanation as science is,' he added. 'God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done.'
He warned that, 'The playing field is not level since atheism has become so dominant ... and is often regarded as the default position in the media.'
The risk of this is, he said, that society would forget 'the contribution of Christianity to the moral foundations of our society'.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Right Royal Shame!

In this week's news we hear once again that the Queen is going to get a 5% pay rise next year, while everyone else working for the government has their increase capped at 1%.  This is on top of the 16% that she gained this year, as I mentioned in early April.

The excuse is that the royal estates are bringing in more income than they used to and that there is an agreement that the Queen gets a proportion of the income. Don't forget that she also got a boost to cover the extra costs associated with the jubilee last year, and she has been allowed to retain this year even without a jubilee to pay for.

Isn't it time for the country to put its collective foot down?  Of course that won't happen with our current barely-elected government, even though they must realise how unpopular the news has been.

Naturally royalists tell us what good value for money we get from the royal family, but with the further news that the Duke and Duchess of York's apartment is getting a £1 million makeover, I would ask how that case can possibly be defended.

Bring on the republic!

How many pies for £5.6 million?

I see in the news today that Stephen 'too many pies' Hester (see here and here for history) has 'generously' agreed to give up his overpaid job in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).  Some interesting points arise.

• RBS is/was Scottish - perhaps - and yet the debts are British?  Hmm!
• Hester is a public servant in that over 80% of RBS is owned by the UK Government, and yet he is not subject to the rules that apply to other public servants.  It seems that the government can pay him what they want, whatever his levels of success - or otherwise.
• Hester couldn't bring himself to commit to working for RBS for a few years more, after a potential privatisation and hence . . .
• Hester generously agrees to give up his job, on the basis of a payment (eventually) of £5.6 million.

Given the choice of working for that (undeserved and obscene amount of) cash or accepting it for doing f**k all, what would you choose?

After all, how many pies could a corpulent t**t buy for that much money? 

Furthermore, how can governments create contracts that are so generous and yet trample on ordinary people - and still expect to be re-elected?

Small note:  T**t could stand for 'twit'

The bigger IF

The Archbishop of Westminster was leading a service this morning as part of the 'protests' in London called "The Big IF".  For some inexplicable reason, The Methodist Church allowed him to use Westminster Central Hall for this purpose.

Apparently he was preaching about tax avoidance and how it affects the poorest people of the world.  Suprisingly (??), the big companies that have subsidiaries in tax havens are somehow involved in the starvation of the people (whereas their own corrupt governments are not.

Now I care a lot about tax avoidance, whether it is by members of the UK Government or by big companies.  But there is one obvious organisation that avoids taxation wherever it goes, and indeed reclaims taxes at the expense of the rest of the citizens.  This organisation is (as Richard Dawkins has said) 'one of the greatest forces for evil in the world' and the Archbishop of Westminster is its representative.

Not only does that church augment its fabulous wealth at the expense of the rest of us, but it is responsible for the deaths of plenty of people too.  I need hardly mention the AIDS crisis or the failure to allow abortions to save the lives of the mothers.  Why stop there?  But I will.

The pot is calling the kettle black!

One rule for the rich

Today we have heard in the news that three members of the House of Lords are being investigated for alleged wrong-doings.  They might (or of course might not) have offered to accept payment for services relating to the business of government.  Of course that would have been illegal . . . (if indeed they had done it).

Two of them are just 'ordinary' Lords, presumably accustomed to being well rewarded for doing f**k all.  It might be understandable (but still unforgivable) that they had got into bad habits.

But the third surely has no excuse for failing to understand the law of the land properly, as he is a former senior policeman.  As the BBC web site says here . . .

Lord (Brian) Mackenzie, a former chief superintendent for Durham police and president of the Police Superintendents Association, said he could arrange parties for paying clients - including on the terrace of the House of Lords - after being asked if this was possible.

Lord Brian MacKenzie of Framwellgate: ''I have not broken any of the rules'' "There is a rule that you shouldn't host a reception in parliament where you have a pecuniary interest. I thought that's bloody nonsense. [Whereas to me that makes perfect sense, since I don't see why the Houses of Parliament should be confused with a Gentleman's Club]  Nonetheless... how would you get round that?

"I just say to a colleague who has nothing to do with it, 'would you host a function for me?'" he said. 

But Lord Mackenzie told the BBC he was "quite happy" that he had not broken the rules.

Yeah . . . right!  In the light of these allegations, do you suppose he might have behaved perfectly well when he was a copper?  A policeman breaking the law?  Surely not.  Perhaps we might begin to doubt the propaganda that we get about our perfect police, if we didn't already suspect that things were not perfectly in order.

Of course these three will escape any risk of a custodial sentence for their misdeeds.  Even if there is a theoretical risk, I expect they have friends - oh no, 'colleagues' - who can arrange things for them.

Meanwhile everyone else who works for the UK Government seems to be required to take training on corruption - as in avoiding it.  Do members of the House of Lords have to take this training?  Or do they do their training in their subsidised bar, advising each other about what they can get away with? 

It is beginning to seem that way isn't it?  This is the kind of thing that really raises the morale of public sector workers!

Being fair to the Thatchers

The final demise of Margaret Thatcher has been a hot topic for discussion this week.  Opinions are divided and there is little doubt that some are taking their celebrations to a ridiculous extreme.

However, having admitted that she might have been right about a few things, I noticed some people telling me that they were appalled by the way that she is being pilloried by press and people alike.  It was gently pointed out to me that Margaret Thatcher has a family, and that people are not being respectful to them.

But didn't she once say of her son Mark "Mark could sell snow to the Eskimos and sand to the Arabs"?  Of course she neglected to mention his ability to sell arms to the Saudis (of which, naturally, he was innocent anyway) or his inability to find his way through sand while pretending to be a rally driver.  The latter resulted in a large bill for the British tax payer and the former to considerable embarrassment and frustration for the same people (even though it didn't officially happen).  And to make up for it he now has the title 'Sir Mark', thanks to the beneficence of his parents.

Even his twin sister, Carol Thatcher, publicly disapproved of Sir Mark and she aspired to make her own way in the world as a journalist - an honourable profession if ever there was one!   This is a woman who referred to the tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as a 'golliwog'.  What a nice lady.

I'm sure Mrs Thatcher has some perfectly pleasant relatives as well, but her children don't get much sympathy from me.

So while I felt a measure of disinterest for protests against a state funeral and for the rise of a song about the death of a witch in the charts this week, that one comment about her family might have made me feel more radical than I did before.

But who cares about a bill of over 10 million pounds for a funeral when living, breathing, public servants are being treated so well (!!) by their employer! 

I care!

Can the UK government afford niceties like this? If so, why can't it care for its employees properly?

Being fair to the Thatchers would include provision of a nice prison cell and the withdrawal of a title and the burial of a cardboard coffin in a privatised municipal dump!

Sympathy for the queen?

In this week's news we hear that the barely elected UK Government has voted for a pay rise for our dear old queen.  Unlike the situation of virtually everyone else who works directly or indirectly for the government, her income rise is not capped at 1%, nor even at the 0% that we have had to tolerate for the last 2 years.

No no, the Queen is a special case, or so it seems.  Last year we gave her an extra million pounds to subsidise her for the Jubilee Celebrations, so this year presumably we would reduce her income accordingly.  That would only be fair wouldn't it.

But no - fairness is far from the thoughts of our government. They have generously and magnanimously given her an extra 16% on top of the extra million that she received last year.  It is not exactly clear how they settled on this amount but I doubt that many will feel sympathetic for anyone who has to get by on a mere £36.1 million for this year.

As the government says, we are all in it together! But as with everything else they say you have to invert the meaning of the sentence to get to the real truth.

Caste discrimination is not illegal??

What a shock.  In this age of human rights where convicted criminals are entitled to a life of luxury (etc.) I discovered today that it is not illegal for Hindus to discriminate against lower castes!  See the report from the National Secular Society here.  Would it be illegal for me to do the same?  Of course it would!

So what is the difference between my rights and those of a low cast Hindu?

How can this be the case in present day UK law?  Well, when you think about it, it is interesting to see that the barely elected UK government is very much into class discrimination and that caste discrimination is only another low-key version of their own policies.  For some odd reason, the 'compliant quisling', Nick Clegg seems to have nothing to say on the topic in spite of the expectations of the people who voted for his party at the last election.

Since Clegg has complied with the Tory government for several years now, isn't it time for him to impose some LibDem policies?  Many of my readers have hoped for evidence that he actually does have a backbone in spite of the present evidence.

Maybe support is at hand from the United Nations. Earlier this year the UN Human Rights Council increased the pressure on the British Government by calling on it to "develop a national strategy to eliminate caste discrimination, including the immediate adoption of the clause in the Equality Act … in accordance with its international human rights obligations".

So why hasn't it happened yet?

Nick Cohen has some views on the subject here at The Guardian.

What do you think?

Top-battery.co.uk's excellent 3 year warranty

If you want to buy a replacement battery for a laptop or netbook, why not buy one from a web site?  After all, internet buying is easy isn't it - I buy a lot from Amazon and get great service.

Given the choice of web sites, when I happened to discover that the best price for a high capacity battery was from another company using a UK domain name I was quite pleased.  No worries about import duty or how to return it in the event of a warranty claim or faulty delivery.  And on top of all that, the battery came with a 3 year warranty.  Too good to be true perhaps?

It arrived a few months ago.  It weighed more than the netbook, but at least I didn't have to carry a charger with me.  Its capacity was absolutely prodigious.  The netbook had a battery lifetime of over 10 hours - enough for a return trip from Oxford to Paris by train!  But being aware of looking after batteries, it was rarely discharged below 70% full.

But of course it was not a case of 'happy ever after'.  Quite soon it started to show signs of problems.  Sometimes the netbook wouldn't start up unless I took the battery out and replaced it.  Sometimes even that wasn't enough.  I had to plug in the charger for a few seconds and it would start.  Having started, it would run fine for hours without the charger but odd battery-related lights would flash at me ominously.

During a long conversation, my 'dear friends' at top-battery.co.uk usually replied promptly and courteously, but I don't think they understand English very well.  Or maybe that is just a tactic to avoid answering difficult questions.  They ask similar things all the time, take little notice of your answer and finally when I asked for a warranty replacement they asked me to send them £15.  You see, they are not in UK at all.  Who knows where they really are, but they claim China. 

What?  £15 in order to claim my statutory right to a warranty replacement - no chance!  Their excuse was

"As yo [sic] know, our battery is so competitive.The battery is used for some times,We will resend you once get the payment."

I'm sorry to say that it all reinforces my view that (at least some) Chinese companies have a different view of contract law and indeed common decency.  They make promises that they have no intention of keeping.

e.g.  http://top-battery.co.uk/, says "We promise all the products sold are 100% brand new and free from defects in material and workmanship. Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction."  That is, unless you make a warranty claim.

They masquerade as something that they are not - namely a UK company - and their excuse "our battery is so competitive" is quite pathetic.  The battery is not at all competitive because it doesn't work properly!  In fact, in the following disclaimer you can see how they are playing with the law in innovative ways. 

Disclaimer:

The batteries supplied by our Company are [replacement for] sold for use with certain products of computer manufacturers, and any reference to products or trademarks of such companies is purely for the purpose of identifying the computer manufacturers with which our products [are replacement for] may be used. Our Company and this Website are neither affiliated with, authorized by, licensed by, distributors for, nor related in any way to these computer manufacturers, nor are the products offered for sale through our Website manufactured by or sold with the authorization of the manufacturers of the computers with which our products [are replacement for] may be used. 

And yet they claim

• ACER Laptop Battery
• APPLE Laptop Battery
• Dell Laptop Battery
• HP Laptop Battery
• LG Laptop Battery
• SONY Laptop Battery

You see how they flaunt the names of top brands to sell their dubious products?   You might be lucky if you buy something from top-battery.co.uk, so it is (of course) up to you if you want to take the risk as I did.  The ironic thing is that I was about to buy another battery for another laptop and I would certainly have bought it from them if they had been the reputable supplier that they claimed to be.

But now they can f*** off, and they are not getting another £15 or another order and I write this in order to warn other potential customers who they are dealing with!

I have no way to know how many UK domains they own with credible-looking web sites, but since my correspondent has always signed off with the name 'Sunny', I'm wary of any companies with the word Sun in their name, especially when they also come from Shenzhen province.

I think I'll stick with other traders via Amazon (who don't have the word Sun anywhere in their name)!

Small note:  I haven't actually given up on the prospect of a refund via Paypal yet.  They should expect the possibility of a long-lasting dispute to occupy them for a while.  But I offer a limited warranty on that claim.

Libel reform set to founder . . . unless . . .

Unless our barely-elected UK government takes some positive action in the next few days, all the work that has been done to reform the UK libel laws will have been wasted.  Sadly they haven't shown a lot of interest in doing anything sensible and I fear the worst.

I received an e-mail from the Libel Reform Campaign (having previously and currently supported them).  It was rather disturbing, when I had naively thought that we were on the home straight.  It included this introduction:

Dear Friends

We need your urgent help this week to get the libel reform bill back to the House of Commons. There is the real risk that unless we act it will be dropped.

We have all worked hard to win the case for reform – to show the chilling effects of the current law on citizens, to secure commitment from the three main parties and to get a bill that ends bullying and protects the public interest. We did all of this and politicians rose above the fray to work together on it.

But it is now threatened. As you may have read over the past week, the bill has been hijacked by a group of peers who have inserted amendments to introduce press regulation proposals from the Leveson debate ‘by the back door’. The bill needs to go back before the Commons in the next two weeks, but the Government has not tabled it. It has to do so, because if the bill does not complete its passage before the parliamentary session ends in late April or early May it will be lost.

Then it implored me to write to my MP, which I promptly did.  You have my permission to borrow some or all of these words if you would like to write to your own MP and can't decide how to phrase it.  If you can do better, please tell me how.

Write to an MP from this site theyworkforyou.com/

I chose a fairly direct approach with my MP.  We are not ideally politically aligned but I try to remain neutral on that.

Dear Mr *******,

I'm writing to express my deep concern about the chance that the Libel Reform bill might be lost.  I understand that several peers are using the bill as a way to introduce items recommended by the Leveson Report.  This leads to an intolerable risk.

After making such good progress towards the reform of our archaic, embarrassing and risible libel legislation, the government should  feel nothing but utter shame if it fails to complete the process.  A huge amount of work has been put in by many dedicated people.  Now it is your turn, as a member of the government, to make the required effort for the good of all of us.  The Government should put the bill back into the Commons within the next two weeks, so that the amendment can be removed, and the law changed.

British libel law has been the laughing stock of the world for as long as I can remember.  Please can you assure me that you you intend to support the re-tabling of the bill ? Time is of the essence.

Yours sincerely,

Me

Only two countries . . .

Did you know that there are only two countries in the world that do not have laws permitting divorce?

One of those isn't actually a real country, but more of a small patch of Italy which has a special dispensation to avoid paying tax on its obscene wealth.  It is The Vatican.  (It is also the 'country' with the highest crime rate per capita, and that figure even excludes the predatory activities of the priests who the Roman Catholic church has failed to surrender to the proper authorities.)

The other country, perhaps the only real country involved, is The Philippines.

Bloody Post Office ... and Building Societies, and Christmas!

I have always been a fan of UK's 'Building Societies' - in general - but in this case they have annoyed me!  In this day and age, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect to be able to transfer MY money from one of MY accounts to another of MY accounts quite quickly?  Within one country I think it should be more or less instantaneous, shouldn't it?

If it took a whole day that would be understandable due to bureaucracy and general banking greed, although not really acceptable.  But when it looks likely to take three weeks to get money from an instant access account into my bank's current account then that starts to annoy me.

Let me first praise my bank, First Direct, who have been unbelievably helpful in all my years with them.  They are the recipient of my frequent phone calls and their staff are unfailingly cheerful and helpful.  I can transfer my money to another person instantaneously, and without stress.

But the Building Societies seem not to have moved into the current century.  I'm trying to transfer money from two of them to my bank account for an important transaction at the end of the month, and for two different reasons this has been difficult, and at best annoying.

The first is a local company.  I have dealt with them for 26 years and on balance they have been excellent.  On requesting them to transfer money they very nicely explained that a direct transfer would cost me £25, but they could write me a cheque free of charge.  Given that the transaction is in the range of 5 figures I should have simply paid them the £25, but being an honorary Yorkshireman (wanting to save £25), I decided to post the cheque to my bank.  One week later it hasn't arrived.  How odd that the whole banking system is trying to move people away from writing cheques, and yet in this case I was encouraged to use one.

At this point the Post Office takes a lot of the blame.  Even considering that this is a busy time of year due to some sort of semi-religious festivals, one week is much too long for first class mail.  I could have delivered it by hand in less than three hours and for only £50 worth of fuel!  Christmas/Honecker mail is a nightmare for anyone who needs the mail service for something that is important and urgent.  It is clogged up by unimportant non-urgent Christmas nonsense!

But the Chelsea Building Society deserves special mention.  On (eventual) receipt of a clear first-class letter  (thanks again to the Post Office) requesting that they transfer the contents of one of their accounts to First Direct, with the address, sort code and account number clearly defined, they took it into their own minds to send a cheque.  No, not to the clearly defined bank, but to my own address.  I guess that will take a week.  [Small edit - it arrived in two days after all, but now needs to survive the post to my bank]  And then Christmas holidays and another week to get the cheque to the bank and then four working days to clear the cheque . . .

I want to scream!!!  Actually I have screamed at them, albeit in writing.  I expect that they will treat this request with the same contempt as the last one.

So I will just mention the Chelsea Building Society again.  This is a company that paid good interest on an account for many years, and then suddenly dropped the interest to virtually nothing without telling the account holder.  Companies like this deserve special mention for their services.

Meanwhile I blame myself for failing to start this process in motion a week or two earlier.  There I go again - "indulging in another bout of self-deprecation" as a friend tells me sometimes.

Everything everywhere or nothing nowhere

Customer focus is not the order of the day for most mobile phone companies.  (Apologies for another UK-centric post, but I imagine this happens world-wide.)  T-Mobile and Orange seemed to have combined their business into a new one called Everything Everywhere - or Nothing Nowhere as I like to think of it.

During the last year, the cost of sending an SMS message has been increased by a factor of four, when it is perfectly obvious that the actual cost of sending data has dropped.  For that reason, I jumped ship a few months ago and joined another network called Giffgaff, whose charges have been much more reasonable.  So far it has been a much better service both for my phone and for my mobile internet dongle and I have been sufficiently pleased with them to transfer another family to them, with a third and fourth to come soon.

So I wanted to get the PAC code to transfer the third over while keeping the same phone number.  All I needed was 25 pence credit to pay for the call to customer service (plus probably the same again to call for a second time after being cut off because of a weak signal).  But you can only top up with a minimum of £5, which would annoy me.  Therefore I decided to pay the 25p by calling from my land line.

45 minutes later, after listening to highly irritating canned music which was almost certainly designed to persuade me to ring off, I got through to an actual person, gave them all the details that I had already entered using the keypad, then was transferred to a second person who wanted the same.  I might have been getting a little irritated by then.  So was it reasonable to be lectured with 'don't use that sort of language with me sir' for simply saying that I was quite pissed off?  I can't help but feel even more annoyed by this.  Furthermore, after making an abject apology to the smarmy git it appears that he had not been particularly offended by it - he told me so. 

So perhaps they are trained to try to make customers feel guilty too!

But at least I've got the PAC code!

Blood-sucking lawyers

How hard can it be to say . . .

"We'll sell this bit of land to you, for this price, on this date, as long as such and such an event happens, and another bit later on the same terms".

Would you expect this to need 59 pages of abstruse, obstructive, barely-intelligible and unhelpful nonsense?  Does it fail to fill you with confidence when the author of the said document can't spell the people's names correctly, can't get their postcodes right, and fails to fill in the timescales.

Then when challenged on the quality of the document, the solicitor claimed that it was only a draft, and advised that we left the contents of the document to him because he was an expert in this sort of thing. It is his job, and this particular transaction is very difficult.  A younger and less experienced lawyer than him would not have been able to do it.  This I find difficult to believe.

I'm struck by the difference between his profession and mine.  If I wrote a scientific paper that was as abstruse as the document that he has produced, it would be thrown out without question.  Admittedly the language of science is not easily obvious to all readers, so perhaps my own bias is showing.  But I think anyone reading this blog would do fine with anything that I have ever written, and that almost nobody reading this blog would understand what our solicitor has written.

There are two other differences between scientists and lawyers.  Lawyers are probably more respected, although for the life of me I can't work out why.  And lawyers are paid more per hour than scientists tend to be paid per day.

Why do we tolerate blood sucking lawyers?

Abu and Hamza - What's in a name?

After the recent glorious extradition of 'Abu Hamza' to USA, I dared to ask a couple of Muslim colleagues for their views.

One of them surprised me and then even armed with the learning from that experience the other surprised me again.

The first didn't answer the question.  He thought I had not noticed that he had essentially changed the subject by telling me that Abu really means 'father'.  This is classic taqiyyah at work.

Now . . . having heard that, I thought I was ready for the second encounter.  But I was surprised to find a Muslim who would (albeit gently) criticise Abu Hamza.  Further than that, I found that Abu really means "father of" rather than "father".  Usually the name of the eldest son follows this title, and by that system I would be called Abu Chris.  (Before he was born I would have been called something else.)

But then we find that the name can be metaphorical.

The Arabic word "Hamza" is a masculine name properly pronounced as "Humzah",  which means "the one who is strong and steadfast".  The name clearly originates from the Prophet Mohammad's Uncle who was killed on a battlefield.

So the name Abu Hamza suggests that its bearer has great character.

Does he?  As Wikipedia tells us,

On 16 May 1980, Masri [aka Abu Hamaz] married Valerie Traverso, a Roman Catholic convert to Islam, and had a son, Mohammed Mustafa Kamel.  Masri later separated the boy from his mother when he was four years old. His son did not see his mother again for another twelve years.  Masri acquired British citizenship following three years of marriage [how convenient] and, according to the Sun newspaper, acquired a job as a bouncer for a peep show in Soho [high morals in action - not that I'm judging!].  In 1984, he divorced his wife and married Nadjet, with whom he has seven children [several of whom have been convicted of serious crimes related to terrorism]. 


Strong . . . and steadfast!  Or just a cheat who used his first wife to gain a privilege that he abused for nearly 20 years, and a father of a band of criminals?

You have to decide for yourself (just as I did).

Redditing revealed - Iesvs the spoil-sport

In the last post I wrote about taking steps to help people to establish new blogs.  Something Surprising has now been running for a good while, with a new post every day, and with a dedicated band of regular followers whose comments and help I greatly appreciate.

One of the ways to help people to get traffic has always been to post their work to a link sharing site like Reddit, but it seems increasingly obvious that this is not worth the trouble.

It seems that /reddit/atheism, for example, is mostly followed by people who simply enjoy silly pictures or cartoons.  The evidence for this claim can be seen by visiting their site and looking at the links with the highest number of positive votes.  Almost none of them are worth the effort, and a few minutes of browsing is likely to make you feel quite cross.

On top of that, the moderators and admins seem to ban posts to Reddit for the strangest reasons.  It seems that it is bad form to post your own work for review by the rest of the Reddit community, even though (I believe) democracy was the original strategic aim of the site.  It is tempting to believe that many Reddit users are incapable of reading well reasoned articles by well established bloggers, and that although Reddit brings in a quantity of visits, it rarely brings in good quality readers who will join in the discussion.

Reddit has various cunning ways of blacklisting people and I wrote about this topic before in Why this might become a Reddit-free zone.  Finally, you will notice that the reddit boxes have all disappeared, from this blog.

The Reddit admins never have to give their reasons for their decisions and it is not overwhelmingly obvious that their actions are completely rational.  Even whole domains can banned for the most peculiar reasons, as you can read in this interesting article from Forbes.com, Reddit Reportedly Banning High-Quality Domains, exposing leaked information about reddit admins.

This domain has not yet been banned (at least at the time of writing), but frankly I won't surprised when they do ban Something Surprising for the opinions shared here.  This would be consistent, just as they banned my Reddit account for asking the following question of a redditor who has been particularly active at persecuting excellent free-thinking bloggers like Rosa Rubicondior.

So which part of this is the offence?  Is it the offence of putting the letters iesvs into a username?  I don't see why there's anything wrong with that unless you are an irrational self-centred idiot.  Or is it posting two items from the same blog?  Or is it that iesvs is a closet christian who doesn't like the views that Rosa expresses?  Or is it that /r/atheism really only likes silly pictures and not thoughtful posts?  And no I am not Rosa in another form.

Anyone even suspected of being a clone of Rosa gets immediately banned, and anyone who dares to include the characters 'iesvs' in their name gets the same treatment.

The only contributions to Reddit by a troll-like admin, Iesvs,
banning other users for no reason at all.

You might notice that the comment itself has been deleted from iesvs's post here where it says that there have been three comments but only two are visible.  Here's a screen shot just in case the evidence gets deleted.

Three comments?  But one is invisible.
So Iesvs has a great sense of humour and justice!

Besides that, if they specifically forbid people from posting their own work on the sub-reddits, why do they not simply say so and make a rule about it?

As you can see, the only contribution made by this 'iesvs' is to report other users to spammers, and since he can't cope with anyone taking the p**s I can only conclude that Iesvs is a megalomaniacal spoil-sport with no sense of humour.

The Watson inconsistency and the real outrage!

(For background, see the links below)

I have little interest in 'the Rebecca Watson/Skepchick controversy', mainly because I don't care much about her personal opinions.  Unfortunately I do care how these opinions divide the so-called 'atheist community' even if I personally think that to call it a community is something of a misnomer.  I also have a particular aversion to the word Skepchick, and the egregious use of a rising tone at the end of every spoken sentence.

Watson is particularly good at sounding off about things without considering whether her public opinions are consistent with her own public behaviour.

For example, she famously complained about being propositioned by a man in an elevator at a conference, but even her own claim never suggested that she was in any danger.  (The man in question has wisely kept out of the argument.)  Richard Dawkins was drawn into this argument after making a parody of her whinging and regrettably has lost some supporters as a result (although not me).

At other times she herself can hardly be accused of being whiter than white.  A seemingly endless stream of suggestive sounding, innuendo-laden comments come from someone sounding just like her on the SGU podcast, and on her own blog and Youtube videos.  And then there was the matter of her provocative appearance in the Skepchick calendar - in the name of art and protest of course.  When it suits her, she flaunts her femininity.

Now I don't disapprove of any of these behaviours individually, nor do I say that provocative behaviour in any way invites unwanted sexual advances, but I have an uneasy feeling that her behaviours are not exactly consistent with each other.  If I spoke to my female colleagues at work in the way that she speaks, there could be a flurry of complaints.  It is a simple matter of professionalism.  Similarly, my most respected professional female colleagues make progress in life in spite of their femininity - in the sense that they would rightly be outraged if I suggested that they had gained some advantage by being female.

The problem is that being white and male, my opinion does not count for much, but after keeping quiet for so long I feel that I have to say what I think, in response to the ridiculous emergence of Atheism+.

Of course it should go without saying that I agree that it is outrageous for women in atheism and skepticism to be targeted and threatened with rape or murder by some tiny minority of lunatic extremists.  But this isn't a matter of personal opinion.  It is unequivocally a matter of law and order!  Those who threaten violence should be dealt with appropriately by the police and the court system.

Nor do I agree with any form of discrimination, positive or negative, for or against any subset of the human race. 

But it is even more outrageous that this small vocal bunch of atheistic zealots who have their heads too far up their own arses effectively accuse the majority of men of being guilty of all the above.

Isn't it?



See also:
Which Atheism plus is the right one?
Not what you say but how you say it!
Atheism is not a religion, but perhaps Atheism+ IS! 

Atheism is not a religion, but perhaps Atheism+ IS!

Following on from yesterday's post about the new vile and divisive Atheist+ movement, someone asked the reasonable question "What is the difference between Atheism+ and Secular Humanism?"  From the definition given yesterday there appears to be no big difference.

The charming, respectful and compassionate Richard Carrier says:

The problem with “Secular Humanism” is that it is an umbrella term that includes more than just “Atheists” in the Atheism+ sense: it also includes humanists of other varieties, whom we do not identify with (see related comment). And Secular Humanism as such does not specifically endorse all the elements of Atheism+ but rather a more vague and ambiguous set of values, which we might all agree with, but we happen to embrace more than that, and are less vague about it. Hence, we are Atheists plus. And we are atheists above all because we are principally (just not only) combating religious belief, identifying it (along with secular irrationality as well) as the primary threat to human happiness the world over. This is something that people who self-identify as “Secular Humanist” often don’t endorse or agree with; and even when they do, as many don’t, the label is unclear when adopted, as to which you are. Atheism+ is clear.

And of course he is right on his last point  Atheism+ is clear enough.  It represents exactly those values that we all associate with religious bigots.  I will just whisper one word . . .

Tolerance

and then shout the words of Richard Carrier himself

Reasonableness, compassion, and integrity

All of these are missing from Atheism+.  It reminds me of a religion!



See also:
Which Atheism plus is the right one?
Not what you say but how you say it!

The Watson inconsistency and the real outrage!

Not what you say but how you say it!

A new movement is appearing in what is sometimes called 'the atheist community' in spite of the fact that it is no more a community than a group of non-stamp-collectors.  Atheism+ is causing quite a stir and it is tempting to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Apparently the movement stands for these values:  

• Care about social justice,
• Support women’s rights,
• Protest racism,
• Fight homophobia and transphobia,
• Use critical thinking and skepticism.

Not many of us would disagree with those, although I would personally change the second to say "Support human rights" which, unless I'm mistaken, includes all women and does not discriminate against the often pilloried white, middle aged male demographic.

Richard Carrier goes on - and believe me he really can go on - in a blog post** at Free Thought Blogs, to expand on those values to include

• Reasonableness, compassion, and integrity

And then in the (frequently offensive and far from compassionate) replies to the comments on that blog post he says:

Do you reject any of the values stated in my article? If so, which ones, and why?
If not, in what way aren’t you a part of Atheism+ movement?
Either you reject some basic human values here, or you are irrationally denying what you are, like someone who said they were sure there was no god but aren’t an atheist. As if they didn’t understand how words work.
So which is it? Are you ... [editorial yawn! I've heard enough.] . . .[basically, with us or against us]
Be honest and say.

OK - I for one will be honest and say.  I don't reject any of those 'basic human values' but I don't want anything to do with Atheism+.

Why not?  You only have to listen to the vituperative outpourings of Richard Carrier and some of his colleagues to realise that compassion is not in their nature at all.

As my mother always told me, "Its not what you say but how you say it!".

More on this topic tomorrow.

See also:
Which Atheism plus is the right one?
Atheism is not a religion, but perhaps Atheism+ IS!
The Watson inconsistency and the real outrage!



Small note:  I was actually planning to buy one of Richard Carrier's books about the Christ Myth theory.  Having read his blog, I have almost been converted back to believing in Jesus!  (Not quite!)

**Smaller note: I refer to http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2207/ but refuse to make this address a hyperlink, as they do not deserve to have their Google ranking increased - however marginally - by my criticism!