December 2008
Driving - left or right
I noticed in the reblogs of Top 10 most annoying Americanisms that some arsehole made the comment “..they drive on the wrong side of the road and eat blood pudding” and this annoyed me so much I felt that it was time to put the record straight.
First the blood pudding thing - most countries have something similar and have you ever had ‘grits’ (I have, wtf are they?)
Now,...
Top 10 most annoying Americanisms →
robot-heart:
furryrabbits:ledenes:
I’m totally on board with number one, but aside from that one, I completely disagree with this list. Still, it’s interesting to see a Briton’s point of view.
Also, I’m reasonably certain that I’ve never used nor have I ever heard anyone use number five.
(via sraz)
I start saying Happy Holidays in November, because for me, “Happy Holidays” is your...
Student's £100bn overdraft shock →
The real cause of the global financial crisis
Dear Tumblrs,
robot-heart:
andtheyflew:
My lease is up at the end of May, and I don’t really have anything holding me in this town. No significant other, no school, no permanent job opportunity… Basically, I feel like I can move wherever I want. I just don’t know where to go. My only real requirements are that it’s a big or semi-big city, the cost of living is not astronomical, and I can get a job relatively...
How do we know that no two snowflakes are exactly the same when there are billions of the little bastards out there?
Please, tell me, it’s driving me crazy!
A train station
squashed:
This morning, I was very much looking forward to getting on a train and sitting for about thirty hours with no responsibilities save enjoying the train ride. I anticipated the lack of responsibility coupled with travel to be quite relaxing. Perhaps motion and progress and a sense of space and a connection to history are particularly appealing. The line is even called the Empire...
“Saying there’s too many children would be like saying there’s too many flowers....”
– Jim Bob Duggar (via birdgirl)
Except that if the whole world reproduced the way that you did, moron, there wouldn’t be any flowers left because the planet could no longer sustain the ridiculously large and utterly useless human population. Something to think about next time you and your wife do...
Mice suspected in deadly cat fire →
A sad story but the best headline of the year.
Dealing With Relatives | The Frisky →
robot-heart:
If these are the worst questions your family asks you at the holidays, you really, really don’t have problems. Try having your mother and grandmother hit you up with these: “When are you going to stop being an awful daughter/granddaughter, stop abandoning us out of hatred and spite, and move back to Texas like a dutiful and loving child should? Don’t you love us anymore? Do you like...
Apologies to all my followers for not having contributed anything sensible or useful for the past several days but last week, right in the middle of my debate with Robot-Heart about death and suicide, my Mother (who had just arrived in Cyprus for a holiday) suffered a complete respiratory and cardiac failure, thus bringing the issue of death very forcibly to my doorstep.
Thankfully the Cypriot...
“In addition, the C.I.A. is able to guard the secrecy of foreign-liaison...”
– Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer - NYTimes.com
It’s guys like this that give me a bad feeling about my country. He’s arguing that respecting human rights and not sending people to Jordan to be tortured is all well and good—unless things get sort of tough. Then...
What Was The Best Year Of Your Life? | The Frisky →
robot-heart:
So far, my best was 2005. I was 20/21. I had a lot of friends, I partied a lot, I fell in love for the first time. Lots of crazy awful shit happened, too, but it was exciting. I’m only 24, though, and The Frisky says it will get better as I get older…so I trust The Frisky that in five years or so, I’ll be rolling in the happy once more.
The worst year of my life was either the year...
Russian hopes to cash in on ;-) →
Hey Boris
I’m very :-( that you’re not very :-) about people using using ;-) without :-$ but quite honestly I’m :-0 that you’d try
My lawyer is awaiting your call
Video Suicide
It appears I may have been right and I am alone in my opinions regarding this.
Robot-heart has made a very eloquent and thoughtful response and I agree with almost everything she says, however I don’t think she’s right to say “A person’s last wish is not subject to the judgment or standards of other people” for the simple reason that there are some actions and choices...
I passed my drivers test
insertname:
I am now legally a danger to society :-)
Wow, that’s great, well done
BBC NEWS | Health | Assisted suicide broadcast on... →
Am I alone in finding this somehow obscene?
One cannot help but feel deep sympathy for any victim of a terminal illness but leaving aside the moral rights or wrongs regarding the act of suicide, to me, putting yourself in front of a world wide audience and offering the spectacle as if it was entertainment is abhorrent.
I found this headline but stopped the video from loading as I couldn’t...
OK, I’m just an old fashioned ex-pat Brit, can someone tell me please what ‘BENTO’s are?
Unreasonable political arguments
squashed:
I posted earlier this week on the limits of rational argument. Here is a concrete example of a group of people who insist that their arguments are reasonable—and will never be persuaded otherwise. For whatever reason, an inexplicably large set of people have decided that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. The argments as to why are myriad, inconsistent, and rubbish. But these guys...
Guilty until proven otherwise....
If we as a society can justify depriving someone of their liberty for an indefinite period, without trial, without production of evidence and without any form of representation then how are we different from the ideologues that we claim to be fighting? If we accept this as the norm then what are we fighting for? Let’s stop pretending that we are in some way morally superior to whoever the...
Man killed for 'hogging karaoke' →
How many times have we all felt like doing this…
The excitement surrounding Obama's inauguration
But we have to ask “would they be complaining if McCain had won?
I think not.
DNA database 'breach of rights' →
As posted earlier - now the European Courts have agreed with my assessment. A victory for democracy over a police state.
Ruling due on DNA database case →
This is an example of the British government at it’s ‘Big Brother’ worst.
“The government claims the DNA profile from people who are not convicted may sometimes be linked to later offences, so storing the details on the database is a proportionate response to tackling crime. “
In other words, if the police arrested you then you simply MUST be a bad person and just...
marco:
The Band — The Night They Drove Old Dixie...
Obama shelves oil company tax after price fall →
squashed:
Apparently I’m the only person on Tumblr who thinks a windfall profit tax is both justifiable and a decent idea. Southpol, streetsofchicago, and muppetpants all seem to oppose it, though they’re doing a lot of arguing for three people who essentially agree with eachother.
So what could a windfall profits tax look like? Put simply, it would be a tax on windfall profits. A windfall is...
World 'must tackle space threat' →
There is no doubt that this is potentially a catastrophic threat to life on Earth, but lined up against all of the other threats we currently see (terrorism, financial meltdown, global warming etc) I can’t see much international consensus for action just yet.
However, one lives in hope.
Bush regrets Iraqi WMD failure →
Well that makes everything OK then! I’m sure the families of all of the dead Servicemen and Iraqi civilians feel so much better now. “Woops, my bad!”
How he can say he leaves the White House with his head held high is beyond my comprehension.
Asked what his greatest accomplishment was, Mr Bush replied: “I keep recognising we’re in a war against ideological thugs...