Author Archives: Polly Unsaturate

About Polly Unsaturate

A lady of leisure. Working interferes with my hobbies, so I dont do it.

Teachers stand up for kids

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Teachers are voting on boycotting SATS at the national Union of Teachers (NUT) conference this weekend.

If you have kids, the teachers are fighting for their education and future. There’s no benefit to the teachers. They are just concerned with your kids.

I just met some teachers who are attending this conference and discussed the issue with them. They were very clear about the importance of protecting kids from the SATS nonsense.

One said ro me “What does it say to a 6-year old boy who’s not very good at tests when you tell him his future is going to be set by them?” The answer is embedded in the question. He has no future if he’s not good at tests. At 6..

Total respect to the teachers who love the subjects that they teach, who really care about learning and who are willing to stand up for their professional standards and the kids in their care.

Boycott SATS. Nuff said.

Fool for carrying on

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The Metro alerted me to a music genre improbably called “Donk.” This seems to be a house-based descendant of the Wigan Casino Northern Soul line (related to Northend Scouse House and with a similar dress code.)

(Bow before my effortless cultural referencing. One of us was trained to do this….)

The Guardian was way ahead of the Metro on the donk-knowledge curve, describing it as

“Bouncy techno meets terrible rapping? Welcome to Donk”

OK, it sounds pretty tasteless to me. But not quite as tasteless as reading a Guardian writer and several commenters expressing a kneejerk sneering and bigoted response to any northern working class artform.

The same Guardian writer has introduced some truly improbable musical styles. Japanese dancehall is my current favourite.

So – in your face, music snobs. Here’s my April free gift to the world.

The bluffers’ tool that you can use to look effortlessly hip.

Invent a genre that you alone know about. Or, if you are musician, looking to corner the market in a new genre, this is the app for you.
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Simon Singh gets result

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Simon Singh has won his libel appeal against a case brought by the British Chiropractic Association.

Take pleasure in the instance of the right thing being done but the case cost the defence £200,000.

So just to be on the safe side, not having £200k to spend on legal protection, I want it on record that this blog will never “question claims made by companies or organisations “……..

That leaves us with loads to blog about. Erm.

To start with, all alternative medicine works. Oh yes, the Rapture is imminent. ID cards are a brilliant idea that the UK population is crying out for, except of course the bad people who have something to hide. Political correctness has indeed gone mad. etc

Well, that should guarantee our future.

Requiem for a Dream

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“I can’t be doing with these new metric politicians, like the Millibands.
I much prefer the old Imperial measure ones, like Michael Foot”

(Andy Hamilton on QI, from memory, so paraphrased)

Distressing to see that Michael Foot has died. It’s close to impossible to think of any living politician who could match his integrity.

Amazing that he ever became the leader of the Labour Party, in the face of a barrage of media hostility. Amazing indeed that the Labour party once contained members who didn’t consult the Murdoch press and the Daily Mail before they made policy. In living memory, even. That used the word “socialism” as if it wasn’t a curse.

He almost never put a Foot wrong. (Yes, I’m sorry for the terrible pun. It had to be said somewhere.) He was a co-founder of CND. He was an MP during the 1945 Labour government. He was also “an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.” according to the Wikipedia profile.

One of Foot’s policies – nationalising the banks – seems to have taken place, although it’s hard to imagine that Foot would have done that without having any actual control over them….

It is genuinely unthinkable that Foot would have ever become leader of a government that pisses all over civil liberties, that seems willing to randomly invade anywhere the US chooses, that maintains privatised “immigration removal centres” comparable to concentration camps, and so on… Ad nauseam.

He was brought down by a “donkey jacket” that wasn’t even a donkey jacket. Of course no modern politician would attend a Remembrance Day event at the Cenotaph without consulting a team of stylists and PR advisers. And visibly sobbing when they got there.

The Guardian has pictures and a straightforward life story which is distinguished by the comments that express the great respect and affection of people from all political viewpoints.

Popular, not populist. Almost the mirror image of the current Labour Party in fact. Wail.

Quantum physicality

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Quantum physics has become the new handbag-dog accessory for actors and tv presenters.

You think I’m making this up. Here are some sources:
Courtney Love
Anne Hathaway
Takulah Riley
Anne-Marie Jordan, Actress.
Josie Lawrence
Flux Theatre Ensemble

and so on beyond the point at which I can bear to google any more.

All-time best example of the emerging celeb-quantum physics crossover must be this one: Peaches Geldof in conversation with Fearne Cotton. Kathryn Flett provides an accurate transcript there. The most appealing quote is

“I’m really interested in quantum physics. Which is how I got involved in, like, spirituality and stuff, and, like, the religious path I choose to go down, and stuff.”

An odd aspect of a professed interest in quantum physics is the way it’s so often part of a worldview that involves “spirituality and stuff”

Here’s a youtube video where the fruit-flavoured Geldof offspring explains her scientology beliefs.

I have to admit that I don’t understand quantum physics. In my school Physics lessons I couldn’t master Mechanics, ffs. So maybe quantum physics does prove that any bullshit crap must be true. (There’s a good example on Ben Goldacre’s BadScience.net)

However, lLooking into it any further to check this out would involve me in having to do hard maths. Which I already know I couldn’t manage. So I may have to yield and accept the Z-list-Celeb Model of quantum relativity as the long-awaited new Theory of Everything.

Speaking in tongues

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English speakers are notoriously bad at speaking any other languages. When travelling, we tend to treat anyone’s inability to understand what we are saying as a form of deafness, so we just speak English very LOUDLY.

I’ve even come across an American variant of this, which involves the assumption that anything said in English will be understood just as long as you don’t use any contractions: so saying “I will not” will get you understood where “I won’t” won’t.

I’ve just (accidentally) discovered a BBC site that could singlehandedly end the international muteness of the English speaker.

It is wonderful. It covers a dozen languages well enough to take you quickly to a reasonable level of practical fluency. It also gives you key phrases for 36 other languages. It is entertaining and easy to use.

More BBC website genius. I stand in awe of the BBC for producing this. It’s free. It’s as useful as most commercial courses and probably a good bit more effective than any language lessons most people had in school. (If they had language lessons… I believe these are becoming the educational equivalent of an endangered species. like any non-utilitarian subject in British universities, now I come to think of it.)

Wouldn’t this be a good resource for schools? Imagine if English-speaking people left school with a useful smattering of a dozen languages rather than our present incapacity to even say “Hola!” on Spanish holidays.

As an aside, the print Guardian gave out little booklets with a few phrases in the world’s fastest-growing languages. No rival to the BBC’s mastery in the area but they did offer a few unique joys, such as the gestures. These were illustrated with drawings that made you think of the non-existent cartoon “Family Guy Does Russian.”

Blasphemy

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No doubt due to an understandable confusion between laws that might be appropriate for 1st April with legislation that comes into force on 1st January, the Irish government has introduced a law against blasphemy. With fines up to E25,000.

I can’t explain the year date so easily. There’s obviously been a mistake in the year part of the date of several hundred years.

I can sympathise, given that my PC has been under the impression that I was still living in the 12th December 2009. If it were to decide that I’m really living in the 14th century, I’d have to blame in on having accidentally bought Irish computer parts.

I doubt that the Irish government reads this humble blog with the same attention to detail as do branches of our own but if you are reading this, Taoiseach, please get some underlings to update your system clock.

( Happy New Year.)

@MinOvTroof twitfeed

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TheMin: Changed my plans for this week to attend more XFactor negotiations.

@RoZEE, Nothing is more important for our children than bigging up the XFactor winner– I will fight hour by hour for it

TheMin: am officially an x factor convert.big up joe, big up simon, big up boyley…

@supremes: u are my fave US group. Could teach our brit judges a thing or 2 about fronting me bessie m8

TheMin: Just back from helping me bessie m8 Milly wiv his court case. Judges are dissing him but he’s staying strong. Big shout out to Milly.

TheMin: All the goss

……

Dickensian Christmas

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Long-gone victorian values – of Christmas in the workhouse – are being brought back to life in the 21st century, as described in this Observer piece.

Nice one Anglicans, for making an effort on behalf of these kids. (See, I CAN say good things about religion. Must be the Christmas spirit.)

Evolutionary agony

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The Guardian has an “evolutionary biology agony aunt.” This doesn’t appear to be a deliberate joke.
The agony auntiness is basically standard newspaper-standard morality, dressed up in an evolutionary biology overcoat.

Readers send in their problems. So far, none of these have seemed to relate to the types of arcane technical or theoretical issues that you’d expect to worry evolutionary biologists.

The “problems” seem to be the dull wrangles between conscience and desire that we all experience, though you would hope that fewer of us share the problem-sharers’ capacity for self-justification.

To paraphrase one: “I am a good catch and my wife can’t breed any more, doesn’t evolutionary biology require me to get a younger model?”

Amazing that people with no capacity far self-knowledge can apparently survive into middle age. Obviously human intelligence wasn’t really that important to the survival of our species… (well, until now, anyway, what with climate change and ecological devastation, and all … )

Is this garbage there to give aid and comfort to creationists? It pretends that biology can somehow replace human morality. It misunderstands basic concepts of evolution, in ways that you would normally expect from the Discovery Institute.

I guess I’ll take it as a joke after all.

Akhenaton’s many identities

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Answers in Genesis has a new page entitled “Chapter 21: Akhenaten-and Nefertititi the Beautiful” . This is part of a series claiming to show “How Egyptian Archaeology confirms the Biblical Timeline.”

Naturally, the article doesn’t “confirm” anything of the kind, even for those who have never doubted for a moment that the Bible is a historical record of the early Jews rather than the writings of a god.

Indeed, it is rather cheering that AIG feel compelled to search out dull old scientific secular evidence. Blimey, it’s almost as if they suspect that all answers can’t be found in Genesis…..

My knowledge of the book of Genesis is close to absolute zero. Still, I would be surprised if it has a mention of Akhenaton and Nefertiti. My knowledge of Akhenaton and Nefertiti is hardly more comprehensive than my knowledge of Genesis, based as it is on Discovery Channel output and a liking for the beautiful sounds of their names.

Hence, I googled “akhenaton in genesis”, on the offchance that Google would come up with biblical Verse x that mentioned this specific Pharaoh. No luck with that project, as yet. But there are plenty of (hmm, what shall I call them, ah ..) original thinkers.

  • A book by Ralph Ellis claims that Adam and Eve were actually Akhenaton and Nefertiti.
  • Joseph Tasset claimed that Ahkenaton was Abraham.
  • Thomas Mann wrote a novel, Joseph and His Brothers, in which Abraham worked for Akhenaton. (Note that this has the decency to be a novel, rather than a wild claim, but the idea was apparently based on the work of 19th century German scholars)
  • In Moses and Monotheism, Sigmund Freud suggested that Moses was a follower of Akhenaton.
  • There’s a whole blog devoted to connecting Moses and Akhenaton. (I dare not mock, as it now seems that I am guilty of producing a blog post on the same demented topic) His or her theme is expressed in “Did Moses and the Ten Plagues Influence Akhenaten to Convert to Monotheism?” This certainly implies a belief that Akhenaton predated Moses.
  • The World of Jah has a complex comments discussion about whether Moses predated or post-dated Akhenaton.
    I am in awe at the detailed study of chronologies from thousands of years ago and am tempted to see this site as Answers in Exodus, which comes with the built-in advantages over its longer-established brother, AIG, of having a better soundtrack and no known currency with the religious right.

So far, Akhenaton has been revealed as Adam, Abraham, Abraham’s boss, a follower of Moses, and someone who was followed by Moses.

There may be a theme developing, here. All of Akhenaton’s noms de Bible start with A. Hmm. Might I lobby for Ajax, Alexander the Great, Aristotle and Archimedes? I know they’re not actually in the Old testament but they are really ancient.

I balk at reading the remaining 25,000 or so results. If you look for Answers in Genesis, it seems you may find many more than you bargained for, each one pretty well as valid as the next…..

Do they know it’s Christmas

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It’s tough enough working out how to pay for Christmas and choosing what to buy. So, spare a thought for the shoppers who also have to concern themselves with how Christmas-friendly are the stores they visit.

They can stop worrying now. The site Stand for Christmas rates retailers in terms of their Christmas-friendliness.

In my innocence, I assumed that any retailer would welcome the Christmas spending compulsion. But it seems that just being happy to take our money isn’t Christmas-friendly enough. For a good rating, a retailer has to weally, weally wub Christmas.

To be more specific, to meet the approval of Focus on the Family (” a California non profit religious corporation”) a top-rated retailer has to do things like specifically mention Christmas in its advertising or have nativity scene.

My stupid atheist misremembering of the new testament made me think it contained ideas such as it not being possible to serve both god and mammon.

I stand corrected. Focus on the Family make it quite clear that – if you own a shop and you DON’T name check the baby Jesus to up your profits – you are betraying Christianity.

Now, just in case you don’t much like the idea of shopping at places that Focus on the Family are talking up, I’ve assembled a list of shame from the ratings*:

These shops got the lowest Christmas-friendly rating, with more than half of respondents thinking their attitude to Christmas was “offensive”:

Xmas-hating Hall of Shame

Xmas-hating Hall of Shame

I suggest you take your cash there. 🙂
( If you have to buy any presents for children, you may be relieved to know that Toys R Us was only slightly less Christmas-hating..)

* Please note, ratings can go down as well as up. This is just today’s.

Scienz teeching

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This monumentally silly page on the CIF belief bit of the Guardian website was probably just there to stir up knee-jerk responses. (There are, naturally, thousands of comments.) But, hey, my reflexes are in pretty good shape. So, here goes.

Alistair Noble wrote that “Intelligent design should not be excluded from the study of origins”

As a former science teacher and schools inspector, I am disturbed that proposals for science education are based on near-complete ignorance of intelligent design. I also think the views of “most British people” in this matter should not be so readily set aside.

Even if it were true that “most British people” believed in ID, this doesn’t make it a valid scientific theory nor imply that “most British people” are qualified to decide what pseudo -science is taught in schools.

The fact is that that “most British people” (hmm, me included) don’t know enough about biology to get a GCSE in it. Choosing a theory of life is not like casting a vote on XFactor.

He argues that ID is nothing to do with religion; life is complex and beautiful; it seems designed so it must have been….

It is easily overlooked that the origin of life, the integrated complexity of biological systems and the vast information content of DNA have not been adequately explained by purely materialistic or neo-Darwinian processes. Indeed it is hard to see how they ever will.

But hey, this is not about religion….

It is an all too common error to confuse intelligent design with religious belief.

The intellectual dishonesty of this claim – that it’s not religiously based – is quite telling. What specific “science” did he teach?

If Intelligent design constitutes a good scientific theory, why draw the line at using it in biology? What about physics? What about cosmology?
“A magic man did it” applies even more aptly to these subjects, surely?

It’s certainly possible that our models of “evolution” will be proven to be false by some new and better explanation of biological processes. That’s science. ….. It is well nigh inconceivable that science will ever decide that the magic man is an explanation for anything.

Alistair’s Guardian profile says

Dr Alastair Noble is an educational consultant and lay preacher, and a former teacher and research chemist

Research chemistry? Why bother? Surely, the magic man made all the chemicals and chemical transformations. Why not just read Genesis instead of messing about getting research results?

Lay preacher? He argued that ID is real science, and can’t be confused with religion (see above) So his being a lay preacher is just a coincidence. Indeed a coincidence so uncanny that it can only have been designed by a superior being.

A few links, chosen randomly by my own intelligent design, to other blogs discussing this nonsense better than I have, and indeed, having done so in a rather more timely fashion.
evilburnee.co.uk
Wonderful life
Richard Dawkins, net

Ironic News International

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Rupert Murdoch and his son & heir and employees are getting a bit stressed about the world-wide-web as a threat to their unfeasibly large income stream. For instance, in today’s Guardian,

Rupert Murdoch: ‘There’s no such thing as a free news story’
News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch tells US regulators that users will pay for news – and aggregation is theft

He is terrified that the net is killing his print titles – like the British newspaper, the Sun (:-) What a loss to the written word that would be, not) by offering free news. He is so convinced that people will happily pay for trash content that he’s been busy trying to get every one who will listen – including a federal trade commission – to support this idea. Which rather seems to contradict the whole concept of people’s willingness to pay. If that were true, wouldn’t people just happily pay. Surely, he’s not demanding preferential treatment? Isn’t the untrammelled market the perfect mechanism any more? Gosh, you shock and stun me, Mr Murdoch.

I think the “News International threatened by technological change” think qualifies as being “hoist by his own petard” (whatever a petard is.)

For those of you with an interest in ancient history, Murdoch was at the centre of a bitter labour dispute in the 1980s, based on his determination to break the print unions through the use of new computer technology.

Whosoever diggeth a pit, etc….