Normally, I wouldn't suggest reading an article in the Daily Mail as a thought for today, but I think this article is well worth reading by anyone who still considers themselves to be a Christian.
The author, Andrea Minichiello Williams, is the founder and director of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, an organisation that I never thought would be required in Britain.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Saturday, 23 April 2011
St George's Day
Today is England's Saint's Day
Today is St George's Day
So we've Hung out the Flags
Large and Small
Not a mention of St George on the BBC, or even in my Newspaper
(but then what should I expect!)
And if the flags upset the people living opposite, who are of non-European descent,
that's their problem, not mine.
that's their problem, not mine.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Another Mine Clearance Expert Killed
South Africa has produced the Matador, a vehicle designed to resist the impact of land mines and maximise the protection of the occupants.
Yet our soldiers are still getting killed clearing mines manually.
In all walks of life these days, we are forever hearing the phrase "If only one life is saved it will be worth it", but it seems that this does not apply in the case of our armed forces.
There is an argument that these methods of clearance don't work against remote controlled mines; it is fallacious because neither does manual clearance work, as the person operating the remote control explodes the device just as clearance is about to start, killing the soldier who has located the device.
It is ludicrous that our military should still be using such antiquated clearance methods in this modern age.
As an afterthought, does anyone know whether the US military in Afghanistan still use the same method of mine clearance as our troops?
My sympathy goes out to the family of the latest victim, Captain Lisa Jade Head, 29, of Huddersfield who was the 364th member of our military to be killed in Afghanistan and the 6th member of her regiment killed clearing mines.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Computer Aided Waste!
My wife had heart surgery some years ago, and at her annual check up, a couple of weeks ago, her consultant suggested that she had an echo-cardiogram.
Last Friday she received a phone call from the local hospital saying that they had a cancellation and offered her an appointment for Monday morning, which she accepted. As arranged she attended and was obviously pleased to be told all was well.
Today (Wednesday 20th), she received a letter, first class mail, informing her that an appointment had been made for to attend the hospital on Monday 18th, etc.
Now I know it is only the cost of a first class stamp, an envelope and a page of computer print-out, by why waste even this amount?
But then I suppose, because of the ignorance of those who placed the contracts for the NHS IT system, it would now cost a fortune for a line of code to be added to the program to prevent this happening.
Last Friday she received a phone call from the local hospital saying that they had a cancellation and offered her an appointment for Monday morning, which she accepted. As arranged she attended and was obviously pleased to be told all was well.
Today (Wednesday 20th), she received a letter, first class mail, informing her that an appointment had been made for to attend the hospital on Monday 18th, etc.
Now I know it is only the cost of a first class stamp, an envelope and a page of computer print-out, by why waste even this amount?
But then I suppose, because of the ignorance of those who placed the contracts for the NHS IT system, it would now cost a fortune for a line of code to be added to the program to prevent this happening.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Make Up Your Minds!
The media has been reporting today that, according to Government figures, more than a quarter of children aged 16 and under today can expect to live to see their 100th birthday.
The Daily Mail reports it here and the Evening Standard here.
Wait, hang on a bit, surely it was only a couple of weeks ago that the Media were reporting Government figures showing that obesity and excessive alcohol consumption were going to result in many of today's youngsters not living as long as their parents.
I do wish they'd make up their minds!
The Daily Mail reports it here and the Evening Standard here.
Wait, hang on a bit, surely it was only a couple of weeks ago that the Media were reporting Government figures showing that obesity and excessive alcohol consumption were going to result in many of today's youngsters not living as long as their parents.
I do wish they'd make up their minds!
Wales - "One in Four work for the State"
Listening to the coverage of the Welsh Assembly elections on TV this morning, one of the statements made was that one in four people in Wales works for is employed by the state.
A good job the country gets buckets of money from the English Taxpayer! I can't imagine real workers in Wales being very happy with the thought that a third of the money that they earn has to go straight to the government to pay the wages of these stateworkers employees!
The sooner Wales has full independence, the better!
A good job the country gets buckets of money from the English Taxpayer! I can't imagine real workers in Wales being very happy with the thought that a third of the money that they earn has to go straight to the government to pay the wages of these state
The sooner Wales has full independence, the better!
Monday, 18 April 2011
Computers - User names and passwords
Why does life have to be so complicated?
Why is it so difficult to log-on to an internet account?
I can understand why banks and the like need to have very secure systems, but surely there is not the need for this level of security to post questions on internet forums or to ask a question of a manufacturer's technical support department.
I can guarantee when trying to open a new "account", I can get more error messages than anyone I know!
User name? This usually produces a response from the simple "invalid name" (no clue why), through "invalid characters" to either "too long" or "too short" and "must include a figure".
Passwords are just as bad, producing all the above responses, and probably some that I've forgotten.
Then, even if I manage to complete this phase, there seems to be an odds on chance that I will fail to manage to actually log onto my new account.
This happened this morning; I wanted to join a particular forum dealing with a subject in which I have an interest. I went through all the hassle and in due course received an e-mail advising me to confirm my registration by clicking on a link. What did I get but
Of course the e-mail comes from "no-reply@" the organisation concerned, so a dead end as far as I'm concerned..
The same has happened recently with the Hewlett-Packard web site; I'm busy accumulating new user names and passwords as the same one never seems to work twice. Here there is an added complication that they need your e-mail address and you can't have more that one Username for the same address; fortunately I can have as many as I like on my domain, so I'm working my way through HP1@, HP2@ in order to communicate - they all go into my "postmaster box".
And of course there is the question of why they all demand my age! Except for my bank and the like, everybody else gets the earliest date that their system will accept, usually 1/1/1900. I suspect that statistically there are quite a lot of 111 year olds with "accounts" on the web as it seems to be standard practice adopted by most of my friends.
Why is it so difficult to log-on to an internet account?
I can understand why banks and the like need to have very secure systems, but surely there is not the need for this level of security to post questions on internet forums or to ask a question of a manufacturer's technical support department.
I can guarantee when trying to open a new "account", I can get more error messages than anyone I know!
User name? This usually produces a response from the simple "invalid name" (no clue why), through "invalid characters" to either "too long" or "too short" and "must include a figure".
Passwords are just as bad, producing all the above responses, and probably some that I've forgotten.
Then, even if I manage to complete this phase, there seems to be an odds on chance that I will fail to manage to actually log onto my new account.
This happened this morning; I wanted to join a particular forum dealing with a subject in which I have an interest. I went through all the hassle and in due course received an e-mail advising me to confirm my registration by clicking on a link. What did I get but
The same has happened recently with the Hewlett-Packard web site; I'm busy accumulating new user names and passwords as the same one never seems to work twice. Here there is an added complication that they need your e-mail address and you can't have more that one Username for the same address; fortunately I can have as many as I like on my domain, so I'm working my way through HP1@, HP2@ in order to communicate - they all go into my "postmaster box".
And of course there is the question of why they all demand my age! Except for my bank and the like, everybody else gets the earliest date that their system will accept, usually 1/1/1900. I suspect that statistically there are quite a lot of 111 year olds with "accounts" on the web as it seems to be standard practice adopted by most of my friends.
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