Saturday 16 October 2021
Consider this piece of NHS behaviour
Friday 15 October 2021
“I’ll pick up my Tie Pin upon my return from Germany.”
Late July, I wrote a post condemning the spending of some £100 millions to excavate and build yet another Holocaust Memorial, slap bang in the centre of London. My opinion, stated at the base of my writing, was to ditch plans to build this excavated monstrosity, and go instead with the visionary idea of:-
“What we do need is to send copies of ‘The Scourge of the Swastika’ to every school, college and University, and make them part of the Syllabus, along with a devastating video named ‘Holocaust: Night will Fall’, and the instruction should be that EVERY student should watch it, in class or hall.
In sending those two items, a simple, terrible, truthful book and a truly authoritative video, to every educational establishment in Great Britain & Northern Ireland; the youngsters who would read those truly terrible yet dispassionate words are the ones who need reminding that a modern European Nation State, along with the vast majority of its inhabitants, both civilian and military, knew what was happening, and did nothing.
I read this morning of the opening of the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust Gallery, and read of the Tie Pin which sounds a louder warning tone than anything possibly planned for the new Holocaust Memorial, to be sited right next to Parliament.
The Tie Pin is accompanied by the sad, terrible but truthful words from a Barclays Bank branch where a man named Marek Kellerman had deposited the pin for safe-keeping in 1939:-
Marek Kellerman was a brush merchant from Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.In 1939, he deposited this tie pin in a branch of Barclays Bank while in London on business. He never returned to collect it. Nothing is known of what happened to Marek, and all attempts to trace him have been unsuccessful. There are many like him.
We Thought Lockdowns Would Be 'A Tough Sell' Once...
...the news that China is taking on the job of limiting gaming time caught the attention of so many parents I know. According to state news outlets, online gaming companies will be required to limit under-18s to just three hours of playtime a week, between the hours of eight and nine in the evening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The regulation has teeth: companies will be required to ensure they put in place real-name verification systems or go further and take their cue from companies such as Tencent, which recently implemented a facial recognition system that asks users to play on camera to prove they’re over 18.
Well, *shrugs*, that's China for you!
I know some western parents found themselves looking at the new rules wistfully. Imposing limits on surly children is hard and being able to – truthfully – tell a kid to stop playing video games on a weekday night because it’s against the law can sometimes feel like it would be a parenting superpower versus simply cajoling, pleading or threatening.
Sure, because as Longrider pointed out in comments on one of my posts, there are always rabid authoritarians out there who will seize any opportunity.
And parents who think telling their children something's against the law will stop them doing it, against all evidence to the contrary...
I’m a huge gaming fan, but even I get uncomfortable when I look at the business models – and revenue – of some of the industry’s largest players.
Why? Do football fans say 'Oh, I hope my team doesn't make too much money from ticket sales, or win too many matches'..?
The video game world’s understanding of regulation was shaped by bruising conflicts in the 90s and 00s over whether violent games begat violent children. As clear a moral panic as one would ever see, the experience has taught too many in the industry that all concerns over its effects on children are overblown and all approaches to regulation are to be fought tooth and nail.
Maybe they are, though?
Western nations won’t follow China’s lead too closely and as much as some western parents might wish they could, such a tight restriction would be a tough sell in a youth culture where games have a much stronger hold on the attention than anything so pedestrian as broadcast TV or music radio.
It would have been, yes. But nearly two years of the majority accepting that the governmennt has the right to order us all to stay behind our front doors may well have changed that...
The core issue the whole of society must urgently address
Thursday 14 October 2021
Wednesday 13 October 2021
St. James Park. The new Shrine for Blood Money
My late brother was a Newcastle United fan all of his adult life. Based in London, he would travel all over England to the ‘away’ games; and the journeys up to the ‘Toon’ for a Saturday match were taken with the fervour of visiting a shrine. He was, in the words he used, “just another Newcassel fan; nothing special”.
But I wonder if my brother was still alive, if he would have been, in spirit at least, cheering the result of the Saudi Arabian buy-out of his treasured club? We all saw the pictured fans, one even wearing a black-and-white checkered tea towel as a headdress, as a tribute to the new owners: we saw the cheering drunken shower parading at the stadium: all laying homage to the piles of Saudi cash reputed to be heading towards St. James’ Park.
And that last sentence really says it all. A football team, living on the thinning shreds of a past glory, losing consistently with little investment on either the grounds, or the team. A billionaire owner who just wants to recoup his outlay,and maybe make a few more millions; ties up with the leader of a Nation which goes against so many of the ideals which we in the West consider normal that Saudi Arabia appears to be almost alien. The new Leader, Mohammed bin Salman, the head of the Sovereign Wealth fund which has provided 80% of the £300 million purchase price, is supposed to be moving his country towards the West.
I wonder if “Moving towards the West’ means dropping plans to murder any more journalists who disagree with MBS, as he likes to be known? I wonder if the average Geordie ‘Toon’ fan knows or even cares that MBS planned the abduction, murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey’s Istanbul? He was persuaded to enter that building to obtain a document confirming his divorce, to that he could marry. He was drugged, suffocated, then his body was dismembered by the use of a bone hacksaw, the remains smuggled out for dispersal.
The buy-out was confirmed by the Premier League, with MBS being confirmed as being a ‘Fit and proper person’ to head the buy out consortium. I just wonder if the Premier League has ever read anything apart from the Sport back pages, and their bank statements?
Mankind Trans Activists Cannot Bear Too Much Reality...
In her sole public appearance at Tory conference, the prime minister’s wife, who works as an environmental campaigner, said it was a “fact of life” that LGBT+ people experienced hate crimes due to their gender identity and sexuality.
I think that word 'works' is probably not quite accurate there...
The chair of the LGBT+ Conservatives group, Elena Bunbury, hit out at delegates to the conference whom she claimed had “brought into question” trans rights.
No-one's doing anything like that, though. Unless you feel that recognising biological facts is somehow doing th...
Oh, wait. Of course, you do:
The issue was compounded further when the health secretary, Sajid Javid, last week insisted that “only women have a cervix”, a statement which was criticised for failing to acknowledge the existence of transgender people.
Well, tough! It's a fact.
They still aren't women, and they will never possess a cervix unless it's on a jar by their bedside table, which frankly would never surprise me, some are clearly unhinged enough...
Several Tory MPs have spoken out in support of Javid’s statement...
What a depressing state of affairs, that it's not all of them. Certainly not our PM, who's proven himself a rank coward on this matter, as on so many others.
Johnson expressed her support for trans rights, telling a fringe event in Manchester on Tuesday: “Whether you are LGBT+ or an ally like me, we are all committed to equality and acceptance for everyone, whoever you are and whomever you love.”
I've no problem with acceptance. So long as you are OK that I'm accepting you for what you are, and not what you think you are.
Introducing Johnson to the stage, Bunbury said: “Trans people are not dangerous, they’re not scary, and they’re certainly not a threat to women and children – although the other event titles [at the conference] might think they are.”Unfortunately, some have proven themselves to be just that. But it appears that - even in the areas where they should be safest from predators - women remain at risk, and our government and judiciary doesn't care.
Monday 11 October 2021
"Let Me Through, I'm An Employment Tribunal Judge..."
"That's nice, madam, but this person needs a doctor..."
A factory worker who was sacked for attacking a colleague has won a disability discrimination claim after a tribunal ruled he was suffering from 'diabetic rage'.
Wait, that's a thing? Really? Well, I guess he had a doctor to prove his...
Oh, maybe not:
At the tribunal, Mr Dytkowski was 'very frank' that he had sought but failed to get evidence from his clinicians which supported his view, explaining doctors 'could not say for sure'.
Yeah, I guess that doesn't matter though, because who needs medical experts?
But Employment Judge Joanne Dunlop agreed with him and ruled that he was discriminated on grounds of his disability and unfairly dismissed.
'He is not a medical expert but, at least to some extent, we are entitled to treat him as an expert on his own condition and how he experiences the effects of it.'
/facepalm
Sunday 10 October 2021
That old free enterprise chestnut
Consider this old post from 2006:
https://nourishingobscurity.blogspot.com/2006/08/economy-walmart-meets-opposition-in.html
The main article on Walmart from long ago I can't find. It stated and quoted various people that wherever WM went in those days, it was a scorched earth policy, i.e. no business within the town could survive against their sourcing, stocking and selling. Further, they infiltrated local politics and made various agreements about the local opposition businesses.
That's a logical position, a logical conundrum and parallels that of the late 1800s anti-trust laws. To expect Walmart to come into a local community and play fair, play nice, is quite ludicrous, theirs was an openly ravening policy, laying waste anywhere they went. That was underscored by footage of a Walmart team meeting which was almost religious in fervour. So there's the dilemma of capitalism, which can be anti-free enterprise just as much as any nationalising communist.
It also raises the question of globalisation and outsourcing, plus the ethics concerning workers in other countries. I for one have never resolved that in my head. My fave detractor was at it again yesterday with the old chestnut of Blgr being a free platform so I should be grateful, just as Walmart offered people in towns impossible to match deals. They never said they played fair, they have a specific view and no other view is tolerated. Just as with Ardern downunder, there is a single source of truth, and it is theirs.
The argument though that because of this, any who freely use the platform must not have any view independent of the conglomerate on any point whatever, makes a mockery of the various constitutional provisions and amendments, of all the human rights bollox - bollox in the sense that it only defends one view again, never ours.