The BBC is reporting that Channel 4 has defended the decision to reintroduce an evicted Big Brother housemate into the game with the line "all profits from the phone vote [for the reentry vote] are being donated to charity." This is particularly in response to the fact that ICSTIS have announced they are investigating the possibly misleading advertising of the premium rate numbers used to cast votes.
Talk about missing the point - the issue is not where the profits from last weeks vote as to who to put back into the house went, but the fact that many people (including my wife) voted earlier in the series to evict these losers. Having voted to evict Nikki from the house, who is an appalling, self centred, vicious, spoilt, whiney brat, my wife is understandably annoyed that she's not only potentially back in, but has the chance of winning the money. There appears to be an element of "you didn't really mean to evict her". When you get 37% of the votes in a field of ten, it's fairly clear the Great British Public did.
It's not far off the situation where if Labour doesn't like the result of the next election ("you didn't really mean to elect a Tory government") they simply change the rules and have another one.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
More on Dispatches
One of the biggest things that can get confusing when discussing Islam is the failure to realise the common identity in the Islamic community is a religious one, not an ethnic one. Which is what made Monday's Dispatches program completely unsatisfactory.
A quite significant proportion of the program was devoted to Islamic attitudes to sexuality, and discovering that they held relatively conservative views on the area.
What was particularly idiotic and unsatisfactory about this is that the views expressed (no sex outside marriage and marriage is for heterosexuals), while not shared by society at large, would be shared within other groupings in British society who would also have religion at the core of group identity. Catholics for a start, but you'd probably get even more extreme opinions if you interviewed attendees at a large number of Evangelical Christian Churches as well. I was not surprised by the results, nor was I particularly bothered by them. My darling wife stated her agreement a number of times with the views on sexuality attributed to Muslims.
It also raises the question of why the liberal media is always so obsessed with religious groupings teaching on sexuality, but that's a different issue.
A quite significant proportion of the program was devoted to Islamic attitudes to sexuality, and discovering that they held relatively conservative views on the area.
What was particularly idiotic and unsatisfactory about this is that the views expressed (no sex outside marriage and marriage is for heterosexuals), while not shared by society at large, would be shared within other groupings in British society who would also have religion at the core of group identity. Catholics for a start, but you'd probably get even more extreme opinions if you interviewed attendees at a large number of Evangelical Christian Churches as well. I was not surprised by the results, nor was I particularly bothered by them. My darling wife stated her agreement a number of times with the views on sexuality attributed to Muslims.
It also raises the question of why the liberal media is always so obsessed with religious groupings teaching on sexuality, but that's a different issue.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Education Education Education!
Last night's Dispatches on Channel 4 was Jon Snow interviewing young Muslims to assess their views on modern Britain. At one point he interviews a group of young men who put forward the conspiracy theory that Princess Diana was murdered to prevent Britain having a Muslim King as the result of her liason with Dodi Al Fayed.
This is a sad reflection on the state of modern British education, which has clearly failed to teach these young men some basic facts on how succession and monarchy works, or the ability to apply knowledge and critical thinking. Or both.
Surely they don't need to be told that any child Diana had with Dodi Al Fayed had no claim to the throne. And I wasn't even educated in England.
This is a sad reflection on the state of modern British education, which has clearly failed to teach these young men some basic facts on how succession and monarchy works, or the ability to apply knowledge and critical thinking. Or both.
Surely they don't need to be told that any child Diana had with Dodi Al Fayed had no claim to the throne. And I wasn't even educated in England.
Monday, August 07, 2006
So apparently I'm Bartlett.....
Powerful. Intimidating. Trivia Nazi. President Bartlet is all of these and more. A super-nerd who's into chess, National Parks, and rambling off things in Latin, POTUS is the 'real thing.' Not being completely upfront with the American people may cause him re-election headaches, though...
:: Which West Wing character are you? ::
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Better late than never....
John Reid is quoted today as saying the country needs a debate about immigration and "We have to get away from this daft so-called politically correct notion that anybody who wants to talk about immigration is somehow a racist."
So was that why the Labour party spent the last election campaign criticising the Tories for saying the same thing?
So was that why the Labour party spent the last election campaign criticising the Tories for saying the same thing?
Friday, August 04, 2006
Proof that Symantec is the tool of the devil
I've always had my suspicions about anti virus and anti spy ware software, but here, finally, is proof that it is in fact the devil's work.
The BBC is reporting that their security suite is identifying a software package that vicars use for planning services as spyware.
The BBC is reporting that their security suite is identifying a software package that vicars use for planning services as spyware.
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