Sunday, May 31, 2009

There is a reason the law was written that way!

Bloody hell, first the French, now I'm agreeing with the fucking unions.  It must have been that extra sausage at brunch!  (Ed notes: Neither gibbering insanity nor a potty mouth being recognised symptoms of swine flu!  Nor is overcooked pork sausage a recognised way of catching it.)

Under the new rules universities are expected to monitor whether overseas students really attend their courses.

The Home Office said such things were part of their normal duty of care.

Indeed and undoubtedly. In fact:

Educational institutions have a duty of care to all their students and checking that they are attending and making progress in their studies is part of that responsibility.

The records we expect education providers to keep are those which most will keep for their own purposes anyway.


Which is exactly why the Data Protection Act 1998 states (Schedule 1, s2):

Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.

So uni's can check whether you are attending lectures for the purposes of laughing at you when you fail your exams.  I'll even allow them using the attendance register to check on people who are claiming grants, student allowances or loans.

So would you just fuck off and watch your boss's hubby's p0rn collection, you bunch of fascist cunts.


Gordon Brown is a sanctimonious, hypocritical cunt.

And ill-educated to boot. The nerve of the pointless blob of cowardice:

The event was intended for prime ministers and presidents rather than royals, Mr Brown added.

"But if the queen wanted to attend these events or if any member of the royal family wanted to attend these events, I would make that possible," he said.


So what the fuckup meant was that the event was intended for Heads of State and Heads of Government.  Oh, and I wonder who the Head of State is in Brown's Britain.  Actually, I'm scared to ask, just in case the answer comes back "Peter Mandelson".

I really hate to agree with the French, in fact, I think it may be "dereliction of duty" but:

French officials said the Queen was welcome and the UK government was responsible for deciding who should attend what was "primarily a Franco-American ceremony"
.

Friday, May 29, 2009

An Utterly Stupid BBC News Headline

Here.

Mosquitoes 'resist malaria drugs'


Well, now.  Let's see.  Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the actual story - drug resistant malaria spread from Cambodia - mosquitos aren't (deliberately) targeted by malaria drugs.  Ed notes: We did try DDT on them once but that has been fairly uniformly condemned as a "bad thing™".

Anti-malarial drugs target the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, which happens to spend part of its life-cycle in the digestive systems of female Anopheles mosquitos.

Now, I am no biologist or medic, so if I knew this (although I'll admit that I did have to google the name of the parasite genus), why didn't the BBC?

BTW: Still on hiatus!

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Oi, Hang on a Minute

Okay, so the Church of Jock has finally admitted that some of its ministers are of the homosexual persuasion and has openly supported one in Aberdeen.

The certainty is a good thing - the lily-livered wishy-washy mumbling of the Church of England is definitely a bad thing.  I am not saying that any of the open-promotion of homosexual clergy as in the Episcopal Church of America, the simplistic bigotry of Gafcon or the "don't ask, don't tell" attitude of the Episcopal Church of Scotland are right - I personally think they are all wrong (Ed notes: but you are just a contrary bastard).

And some of the Jockanese laity are upset.  Well, most church-goers in the UK are older, many are conservative (note size of "C") and it's their right to be upset and even to protest about it.

But - here is the "WTF" moment:

The demonstration at The Mound in Edinburgh on Saturday was led by Pastor Jack Bell of the Zion Baptist Church in Glasgow.

"We are absolutely opposed to that on the basis of what God has to say about homosexuality in the Bible," he said.


The Zion Baptist Church - "an independent church based in the south side of the city of Glasgow".  So not part of the Church of Scotland, then.  Or even, I suspect, formally in communion with it.  And, as their website makes it clear, the sort of fundamentalist evangelical Christians who make me cringe.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were "young-earth creationists".  Anyway, clearly not the sort of people you would expect to approve of poofs and their disgusting goings-on.  But about as much direct connection with the Rev Rennie's appointment as I will have with the election of the next Pope.

Oh, BTW: 
On Saturday night the 8th December, Zion Baptist Church lead by their Assistant Pastor Mr Bell, conducted a protest against the satanic influence and music of Marilyn Manson at the Braehead Arena, Glasgow."

Smirks!

BTW2: Still on hiatus - really.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Hiatus

I know you haven't noticed but this blog is having a temporary break from both profanity and its occasional attempts at profundity. 

Expect the usual whitterings to reappear in early July. 
 
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