[Sad] Comparing Christian Value Systems…

Christian Peace Witness for Iraq march down 16th Street on their way to the White House. Source: God’s Politics

Christian Voice hold protest outside BBC Television Studios against broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera. Source: BBC Comedy

One protest is inspired by deep moral conviction regarding a world event, the other inspired by a deep moral conviction regarding what’s on TV tonight.

[Wierd] Is Garfield Dead?

Prepare for something really depressing. You’re The Man Now Dog have produced a webpage dedicated to a cartoon strip of a Garfield storyline written by Jim Davis on 23-28 October 1989. These are the bona fide article! Set to the eerie music of The Twilight Singers track, “Bonnie Brae“:

Is Garfield Dead?

The strip starts with Garfield waking up in a dark, cold abandoned house and his realisation that he is alone. It ends with the inference that Jon, Odie and everything else in Garfield’s life is merely a mind trip brought on by denial:

“An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice…or terrify, all depending on how we conduct ourselves today… After years of taking life for granted, Garfield is shaken by a horrifying vision of the inevitable process called time. He has only one weapon…denial…”

It’s even discussed in the Wikipedia’s Garfield article:

“Garfield is playing out in his head to delude himself from realizing the dark turn his life has taken, as he slowly starves to death in an abandoned house”.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the background info on the music -which is absolutely mesmorising.

Tags: Dark Side of the Light Christian Satire Garfield Death of Garfield YTMND Twilight Singers Bonnie Brae

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[Police State] Killing Now a Breach of Health & Safety at Work Act

“Are the Met now going to issue us guidelines on how not to look like a terrorist, in order to prevent us coming to a similar fate?”

(Raw text, sorry but no links could be restored)

The killers of Jean Charles De Menezes in Stockwell Tube station last summer will not be prosecuted. Instead, their employers will be prosecuted for a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Reassuring for the employees of the Metropolitan Police Force I’m sure, not so reassuring for the rest of us.

We’ll never actually know what was going through the minds of the killers of Jean Charles De Menezes as he boarded the tube one morning in July, however what we do know is that they made there decision prima facie. They looked at his clothing, his ethnicity, his actions and determined that it somehow qualified for a potential terrorist and so had to be ‘stopped’ before he potentially blew anyone up.

The fact that there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to prosecute any officer involved in the killing should worry us all. What does insufficient evidence mean? It means that it cannot be proved that the officers who shot De Menezes committed an act of murder or manslaughter. For murder or manslaughter to be proved it would have to be determined beyond reasonable doubt that they did not believe they were killing a terrorist. In other words, they were unable to distinguish a terrorist from an innocent civilian.

“In fact, the evidence supports their claim that they genuinely believed that Mr de Menezes was a suicide bomber and therefore, as we cannot disprove that claim, we cannot prosecute them for murder or any other related offence.” – Stephen O’ Doherty – CPS

Therefore, if a police officer, prima facie, observes your clothing, your ethnicity and your actions and comes to a belief you are a potential terrorist, he can shoot you in the head, on site, then claim that he genuinely believed you were a terrorist. After all, how are you going to disprove someone’s beliefs?

Are the Met now going to issue us guidelines on how not to look like a terrorist, in order to prevent us coming to a similar fate?

“However I have concluded that the operational errors indicate that there had been a breach of the duties owed to non-employees under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, by the Office of Commissioner of Police and I have authorised a prosecution under that act.” – O’Doherty

Considering this ruling, perhaps the family of De Menezes will now have to take a different approach (no win no fee accident compensation) to getting justice.

Tags: Abandon All Fear T-Shirts

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[Management Theory] The Peter Principle

I’m struggling with a philosophical question. Do you have to be a dickhead to be given promotions to management level, or do you evolve into a dickhead after promotion? I’m pondering this because I’ve been considering my position over the last few weeks. Looking at how the department is, and how The Clowns resignation was handled, I don’t see any signs of promotions or openings for me.

My current mix of education and skills seems to far overshadow my job and my pay. I took the job I’m in now because the IT Market was in recession when I left university, but now the IT sector seems to be growing again and I’m really feeling the urge to move.

[Work] The Never-Ending Report

Every day I have to create an exceptions report for customers who are supposed to send billing data but haven’t for some reason. This data really is only for billing and in most cases simply requires contacting the customer and asking them to send the data. But because of factors beyond my personal control such as:

• Sometimes there’s an IT problem
• A spineless manager who will let other departments shift their work onto us
• The way our crappy [flux capacitors] are setup that can fail in so many new different and wonderful ways.
• This task falls to myself. We have around 6000 customers, every day at least 1000 do not send their billing data. With only 2 hours of my working day free to chase these customers, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that most of them are going to fail for a long time.

So my report always shows at the top end, customers failing to send their data over a large period of days and my progress of resolving that. The problem is, as with all exception reporting, is that once an issue has been resolved it falls off the report and is taken up by the next highest failure. To a sharp mind it is pretty obvious something is moving, something is happening as the report changes daily. However to a pretty unfocused, scatter brained individual it just seems like nothing is being done about those top failures.

And if that said individual has some sort of bonus coming for performance of the billing data exceptions before Christmas, then it’s important he sits with IT Monkey and makes sure something is done, because clearly IT Monkey is having problems if he can’t seem to clear the top failures and they are still going for 30+ days.

The person we are of course speaking of is my manager, The Clown. He now feels it’s necessary to sit with me for up to 2 hours next to my desk and “help” me to resolve some of the failures. What makes this patronising, baby-sitting experience especially excruciating is that he somehow seems to see this as a bit of a brunch, therefore he’ll bring a bag of peanuts and literally start munching away in my ear. How I have kept myself from exploding into rage I don’t know. To give you a taste of the experience, imagine standing on a busy London tube at peak time, with people so close to your face you can tell what they had for breakfast and your journey lasts for an hour. The person who has his chin rested on your shoulder now decides now is a time for a good snack. On the tube we might forgive people for invading our personal space, an unfortunate necessity we are not able to avoid. But to sit next to me, inches from my face and ear, munching a bag of peanuts and questioning my every action, like I am a 5 year old being instructed, makes me feel like smacking him in the face, very hard.

Tags: Dark Side of the Light Christian Satire

Sunday Mails Mega Christmas Album!

Today I bought a copy of the Sunday Mail (I wanted some easy reading and wasn’t up to the intelligent editorials in the Times or Independent). Enclosed in the magazine wrappers was a part one of a double CD: “The Mega Christmas Album”. I’m not that enthusiastic about the descendant of a pagan festival that is Christmas when the season is upon us, let alone middle of November. However I do enjoy listening to Christmas carols and their modern contemporaries.

So you can imagine my surprise and joy to find such festive hits as “Do Do Ron Ron” by The Crystals and “Build Me Up Buttercup” by the Foundations. Nothing better to get you in the Christmas spirit than a bit of Fontella Bass (Rescue Me). You can tell I’m already in the Christmas mood. Here is a run-down of the festive tunes as offered by the Sunday Mail:

1. YMCA – Village People – the carol singers favourite
2. Build Me Up Buttercup – Foundations
3. When Will I See You Again – The Three Degrees
4. We Are Family – Sister Sledge – great for that gathering to sing around the fire
5. Let’s Dance – Chris Montez
6. My Guy – Mary Wells
7. Do Do Ron Ron – The Crystals
8. Let’s Twist Again – Chubby Checker
9. Dancing In The Street – Martha Reeves – a Christmas classic
10. Rescue Me – Fontella Bass
11. I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor
12. She’s A Lady – Tom Jones – nothing can stop Grandma from singing this one

I can tell you’re feeling Christmassy already!

Tags: Dark Side of the Light Christian Satire