Min-Data UK

(MiscArts) dragon sculpture

2010-03-09T10:31:00+00:00

I'm not convinced [news.bbc.co.uk] about the design [telegraph.co.uk] of the tower but overall it looks as if it would be much nicer than the hideous angel-of-the-north.

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(BaMSoF) hospitals kill people

2010-03-09T10:28:05+00:00

... in particular, they kill people who didn't want to die (for lack of care and a drink) rather than those who do! Eg Kane Gorny: LES [thisislondon.co.uk], Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk], DailyFail [dailymail.co.uk], BBC [news.bbc.co.uk]

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(BaMSoF) iffy excuse

2010-03-08T10:44:13+00:00

If [google.com] you're putting someone out of their misery rather than yours, abducting [news.bbc.co.uk] and knifing [news.bbc.co.uk] them is not the way you go about it [walesonline.co.uk]. It's hardly a humane method and looks more like one of the many techniques used by evil "honour" killers - who really have no honour and care only about themselves and not their victim. Genuine mercy killings look entirely different (eg drugging and smothering).

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(BaMSoF) mouldy money

2010-03-07T11:33:24+00:00

It seems [telegraph.co.uk] to be a case of easy come easy go for these villains [news.bbc.co.uk], who acquired [timesonline.co.uk] so much cash through their illegal activities that they didn't know what to do with it and either forgot all about some of it (as the news reports claim) or were ignorant of how to look after it properly [guardian.co.uk] (highly likely for the typical human).

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(BaMSoF) Catholics!

2010-03-06T10:40:02+00:00

What are they like?! Evil:

� another vatican scandal [scienceblogs.com]: Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk], Grauniad [guardian.co.uk]

� another evil catholic school [scienceblogs.com]: Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School [9news.com]

� Catholic paedophile priests are everywhere [scienceblogs.com]: Netherlands [nrc.nl]

and stupid and dishonest:

� popes (and their imaginary gods) don't have supernatural powers - dead or alive: Grauniad [guardian.co.uk], Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk], Independent [independent.co.uk]

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(NatSci) cat guard

2010-03-05T15:13:24+00:00

At times over the past couple of days, there's been something of an absence of birds on my feeders and in the most exciting tree. It nearly always turns out that there's a cat lurking underneath in an optimistic fashion. One of today's cats seemed to be after my back-door vole instead though when I scared it (the cat!) off merely by moving the door handle.

Meanwhile, I just found out that I'd lost another of my precious female frogs to the harsh winter weather. There wasn't enough skin left on the back for me to tell which one.

On the plus side, the dark purple crocus flowers are now out alongside the wilder, pale purple ones.

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(BaMSoF) evil law ...

2010-03-05T13:32:14+00:00

... protecting religion.

Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk]
BBC [news.bbc.co.uk]
Liverpool local rag: a [liverpoolecho.co.uk] or b [liverpooldailypost.co.uk]

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(BaMSoF) ex checks

2010-03-04T10:47:52+00:00

Checking up on an ex's new [timesonline.co.uk] partner [guardian.co.uk] is the most obvious use of a new law allowing people to find out [independent.co.uk] if someone involved with children is a registered paedophile [news.bbc.co.uk] (note that it does nothing to detect all the dangerous people who haven't been labelled as such!). So it's ridiculous for the authorities to be feigning(?) surprise at the stats.

When a couple splits up, it's still nearly always the mother who ends up with custody of the kids. And, if she's in love/lust with someone new, she's the last person to have the sense to check up on her lover (especially with the vice of faith/trust being touted as a virtue). Hence, it's no wonder that exiled fathers (and grandparents) make more checks - even without acrimony being involved. However, there can easily be a jealousy and revenge factor too.

Meanwhile, it's also nearly always males who commit such crimes (and crimes in general too). So an incoming male is intrinsically more likely to be suspect than an incoming female, even for the rare cases where the father has gained custody. This should be reflected in the instances where grandparents initiate the check on a new partner. (The reports didn't say whether there's a difference between maternal and paternal grandparents.)

The more interesting situation would be for couples of the same sex. I'd expect hardly any checks initiated by resident or exiled females but also nothing much from resident males, only the ousted males, because it won't be that males have more sense while they're in love/lust with someone new. However, there probably aren't many same sex couples with children at all to be able to get decent stats on those who keep swapping partners.

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(BaMSoF) wasting money

2010-03-03T12:18:28+00:00

Public money is being thrown away on people and policies/services which aren't fit for purpose (to their very core). Eg bad and corrupt [news.bbc.co.uk] local government [dailyrecord.co.uk] officials [shetland-news.co.uk] and bankers, incompetent hospital admin [guardian.co.uk] and inept [news.bbc.co.uk] interference [telegraph.co.uk] in schools [guardian.co.uk]. The mismanagement (incompetence and dishonesty) seems to be endemic as much as epidemic - with the worst possible people always tending to end up in charge.

Trying [inthenews.co.uk] to hold one hospital to account [telegraph.co.uk] is like attempting to melt an iceberg by licking its tip. The problem goes much deeper and is far more intractable than that. They just keep cheating [telegraph.co.uk] on fixing things.

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(BaMSoF) being inhuman

2010-03-02T03:13:40+00:00

The religious are bad enough already, with the BBC suggesting to them (via Being Human) that to perform an exorcism they need to kill somone (to "open a door"). Religious people really do believe in all that sort of nonsense - and kill people over it. Though it's notable that the real life ones tend to kill the victim they are (mistakenly) trying to exorcise of a possession rather than killing some extra person beforehand.

I haven't been following along, so I don't know what the supposed justifications were for the other blood baths mentioned in the bit I did see. But it's very irresponsible of the BBC to make up new bad ideas/rules for the religious nutters to follow - as if they didn't already have enough bad ones of their own.

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(NatSci) hollow plunk

2010-03-01T18:56:54+00:00

Another knocking noise, with a very hollow ring to it, seems to be caused by birds in the guttering (hence the echoing effect). I've only seen their shadowy outlines (through the knobbly glass of the bathroom window) while they were flying up there. So I don't know what species they are or what they're after. However, I'd say it was too much pecking for them to be trying to drink water and more likely for them to be seeking insects in the crud and moss.

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(BaMSoF) Feb. 2010 spam

2010-03-01T18:37:47+00:00

Only 28 days but also only 16 spam emails.

Nearly half of those (7) were for the dkpanwar pest. A further 5 were for sex drugs. The remaining quarter (4) were split between businesses who imagine it's acceptable to spam people - 2 banks (or fakers) and 2 online sellers.

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(BaMSoF) MPs and GPs

2010-02-28T20:46:38+00:00

It's hardly surprising to find various MPs [edmi.parliament.uk] and GPs in favour of woo-soaked nonsense such as homeopathy. Neither bunch is made up of particularly intelligent or honest people - more those with ambition, a certain amount of initial privilege and willingness to con others for a living (lying to the electorate and to patients etc). MPs are almost entirely ignorant of science (eg typically not even knowing the difference between science and technology) and GPs (and other medics) are disgracefully ignorant of science too (having mis-learned by rote memorisation most of what they "know"). They like to pretend to know by authority and they can easily be clueless about their cluelessness.

What's interesting, given other examples of them arrogantly ignoring the scientific evidence and shooting the messengers of it, is for any MPs at all [guardian.co.uk] to be backing the current [timesonline.co.uk] call to weed out the cranks and quacks who are profiting [ft.com] from the con-trick of homeopathy (under the false legitimacy of NHS inclusion [news.scotsman.com] and dodgy regulation). Some of the people involved in conning the public don't even have the feeble excuse of being self-delusional though. Eg the Boots bod who doesn't believe homeopathy works but is happy to make money off the mugs who want to buy it - stealing from the desperately stupid [news.bbc.co.uk].

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(BaMSoF) home school abuse

2010-02-27T19:05:58+00:00

It's not exactly surprising to find a connection [timesonline.co.uk] between home-schooling and child abuse [news.bbc.co.uk]. Despite the misleading advertising of "stranger danger", most child abuse is in the family (close relatives and trusted friends). Meanwhile, abusive families are likely to want to keep their children at home and away from outside attention - and home-"schooling" is an ideal way to minimise the number of people who might notice they are abusing their children. It also matches up well with the repressive proclivities of the religious (which runs in families much like abusiveness does).

Of course, it doesn't help when all the people [guardian.co.uk] who could and should have spotted the abuse and acted to stop it failed to do so!

Telegraph: a [telegraph.co.uk], b [telegraph.co.uk], c [telegraph.co.uk], d [telegraph.co.uk], e [telegraph.co.uk]

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(BaMSoF) Belgium, man!

2010-02-26T20:46:51+00:00

Douglas Adams made "belgium" into an intergalactic swear word in The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. Now, mention of Belgium has caused terrestrial trouble [news.bbc.co.uk]. Nigel Farage of UKIP is being ridiculous though. Great Britian or the United Kingdom is surely just as much of a non-country (its contents notoriously difficult to define) and an artificial construction which is splitting and falling apart. Eg giving away Southern Ireland ages ago, still fighting over Northern Ireland even now, with Scotland getting its own parliament and repeatedly calling for independence and (following on from a fake unified Welsh language being promoted) Walse also getting separate provision.

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(NatSci) birds

2010-02-26T17:01:17+00:00

I've been seeing the greenfinches come to my feeders lately. Whereas previously they'd just seemed to be passing through a couple of times per year. So my finch regulars are now chaffinches (many), goldfinches (as of last year) and greenfinches.

The long-tailed tits have been back - but still only as a pair. However, they now look substantially more pink (which is how I expect them to be from my childhood bird book!). So my tit regulars are now great-tits (many), blue-tits (the first to arrive) and long-tailed-tits. I haven't seen anything I thought was a coal-tit for a long time.

A thrush has started being a regular watcher for the currants / sultanas in addition to the blackbirds who are still mad keen for them. The robins (now 3 of them) are not averse to making off with a few raisins etc either.

The most frequent visitors to the ground feeding cage are the dunnocks. There are still sparrows around occasionally though and even, rarely, a wren.

The pigeons and ring-necked doves are ever-present pests and a division of the starling army frequently descends upon my patch. The magpies seem to be keeping their distance though (as do the rooks/crows of the area).

There's also a woodpecker about somewhere. Previously I'd only seen greater spotted ones here but a neighbour thinks they saw green ones. I've heard occasional drumming outside already this year and I'm beginning to think that the strange plinking sound I've been hearing late at night (which happens to be tuned to an octave above the bedside lamp's ring) is really the subset of drumming freqencies to penetrate the double-glazing and counts as early morning for the birds!

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(BaMSoF) market share

2010-02-25T13:26:40+00:00

While [timesonline.co.uk] many religious bigots are now repelling people as well as expelling them, some [telegraph.co.uk] religious nutters are worried about losing control over potential victims (and their money). They recognise the danger (to their own parasitic lifestyle) of the population getting used to marriage really being a secular and legal thing rather than a sectarian religious [guardian.co.uk] one (now that religion's age-old thefts and misappropriations in all areas are becoming more and more apparent).

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(BaMSoF) caving in

2010-02-24T11:46:58+00:00

The craven [news.bbc.co.uk] scum [news.bbc.co.uk] in government have been giving in to religious pressure again [timesonline.co.uk]. They're just being self-serving as usual [timesonline.co.uk].

The whole point of making sex education compulsory in schools is to stop the religious nutters, and any other evil and stupid parents, from keeping children dangerously ignorant and more open to being abused and/or turning them into bigoted abusers themselves. Giving whole schools (which are full of year after year of children) a sex-ed opt-out [telegraph.co.uk] is even worse than giving it to individual parents - who would then each have to take the trouble to exclude their children and would leave a paper trail highlighting* their possible status as abusers or foolish enablers of abuse. The schools get to corrupt an entire population of children, without leaving such an easily identified trail to individuals.

Faith schools are fundamentally evil things, specifically designed to continue traditions of child abuse and to retard and corrupt education in a manner which suits the evil leadership. They should be opposed and banned not accommodated and humoured. [telegraph.co.uk]

* eg to social services, if those were any good at their jobs.

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(BaMSoF) faked comms

2010-02-23T11:46:00+00:00

Although they're a bit slow on the uptake [news.bbc.co.uk], at least it only took the medics [guardian.co.uk] a few months [scienceblogs.com] this time to do the obvious tests [scienceblogs.com] and work out [telegraph.co.uk] that the claims being made by the facilitated communicator were false. The authorities really ought to prosecute more of these frauds - to discourage the others and try to warn off the rest of the medical staff who are too stupid to work such things out for themselves.

Rom Houben may well be conscious (as per the brain scan) but he isn't talking - just having other people's words put into his mouth/fingers. Dr Steven Laureys is wrong (and dangerously so) - it's very important to make judgments and to take care that they are good/accurate ones.

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(BaMSoF) police woo

2010-02-22T11:41:17+00:00

The farce [dailymail.co.uk] is strong [express.co.uk] in them [metro.co.uk]. The bosses are being far too accommodationist about such nonsense.

The genuinely effective alternative to the stupidity and futility of prayer is having the police actually bother to do their jobs properly for a change, instead of being feckless [news.bbc.co.uk].

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