Starter for 10

Connie, aka Constance - the child who when asked by her nursery class teacher which name she would prefer to be called by answered 'banana' - is now 6 and in Year 1 at primary school.  It was Parents' Evening earlier this week and her mother asked Connie if there was anything she would like her Mum to say to her class teacher, or any question she would like her mum to ask.

 

Connie thought it over for a while and then said .....................

 

 Yes Mum, please can you ask her how do mermaids wee?

From the horse's mouth

A follow up to my previous entries on Rowan Williams' idiotic remarks about Sharia coming to Britain from women who know what they're talking about at first hand - women who once were Muslim but who now live in fear of fatwah for having renounced Islam.

The Council of ex-Muslims of Britain condemns the comments made by the Archbishop of Canterbury suggesting that Sharia law is 'inevitable' and may be welcome in civil cases.
The distinction that he makes between civil and criminal cases does not exist within Sharia law. Sharia law encompasses all aspects of the life of those deemed Muslim. Suggesting that the UK would not, of course, allow the more barbaric aspects of Sharia law, such as amputation or stoning, ignores the fact that it is the family/civil areas of law in the Sharia that are some of the most iniquitous. 
In the discriminatory personal family law, particularly in the areas of marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and so on, a Muslim woman cannot even contract her own marriage; the marriage contract is between her guardian and husband. A man can have 4 wives whilst a woman cannot. A man can divorce his wife without reasons by simply saying 'divorce' thrice, albeit with a gap in time, whereas a woman must give reasons, some of which are extremely difficult to prove. A woman only receives half that of a man under inheritance rules, and so on.
Clearly, Sharia law contravenes fundamental human rights, such as equal rights for women, and relegates those deemed to be ‘Muslim' to culturally relative rights and at the mercy of regressive imams and kangaroo courts.
In order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of all those living in Britain, there must be one secular law for all and no Sharia.

Tags: Rowan Williams, Sharia

Answer me this one then.....

A little conundrum to mull over..........

 

Two chaps spend an evening in their local and drink 2½ pints before leaving, each driving himself home in his own car. 

 

Bill drives home, has a cuppa, takes himself to bed and is snoring within 2 minutes.  In the morning he wakes up and goes to work with maybe a slight headache and has an uneventful day.

 

Ben drives homeward but en route a pedestrian who has taken illegal drugs suddenly trips over a banana skin and falls onto the road directly in the path of Ben's car and is hit by it.  Ben calls an ambulance but by the time it arrives the pedestrian has died. 

After making all due enquiries into the circumstances leading to the event Ben is charged with causing death by driving under the influence of alcohol and is sent to gaol.

 

What is the ethical basis for sending Ben, and only Ben, to gaol? 

 

And some responses.................

 

 Comment from jeadie05

Ben was the unfortiunate one who caused the accident ,????

 

I said:

Jan - did Ben cause the accident or was the pedestrian also partly culpable?  Bill broke exactly the same law a Ben remember, so did Ben simply have bad luck to have a drugged pedestrian fall in front of his car rather than in front of Bills's car, or even that the pedestrian fell at that time and in that exact place??  

 

Comment from sdrogerson

Well Bill didn't get caught did he. Therefore while breaking the law he escaped detection. There is no difference.

 

I said:

Stuart - the question was not about the law but about the ethical dilemma presented by the facts and the actors involved.  All 3 actors in this event were law breakers remember.  Another factor to perhaps consider is the arbitrary nature of drink-driving limits and of being apprehended for it.

 

 Comment from icklemisssexpot

Ethically it's really the pedestrians own fault they are dead...Legally it's a sod because Ben is deemed at fault

 

I said:

Cathy, you say the pedestrian is the author of his own misfortune, but he could have fallen 60 seconds earlier or later, or to his left instead of his right, and the result might have been no more than a banged elbow.  

Didn't bad luck play a part in the misfortune of both the pedestrian AND Ben?  

If you agree then consider -  should bad luck be punished?

Darling, you really shouldn't have!!!!!!!!

 

Can you hear that creaky cracking sound, and that slight but persistent whine?  Don't worry, it's not another earthquake or tornado approaching, it's the sound that results from one of my birthday presents. 

My husband decided that, as a low cost alternative to a retail visit to Chester, I could have a teensy boskey-copse-y extention of the domestic grinds beyond the orchard and into the paddock. 

 

This 'gift' includes somewhere close to 300 hedging hawthorns plus a couple of dozen other shrubby things like laurel, holly, willow and dogwood and about ½dozen proper trees.  I've spent a morning realigning the electric fencing which is keeping the horses off until our fence bloke arrives to shift it outwards from its current position to beyond the 'new' area, and marking out where the fence is to be put, and setting a marking line for the hedge.  That was the good bit even tho I got a little shock from the fencing and my hair now looks like a more frizzled and sticking out version of Lisa Simpson's style. 

 

4 hours later my back is a creaking misery, my arms bloodily scarified by thorns and my nail varnish utterly ruined.    Still, 12 hedgeplants down and only 288 to go. 

 

Do you fancy a day out saving the world and planting trees?  Be my guest!

A promising beginning, not.

I tootled off to get my new car this morning, a bit anxious about a scratch I'd not mentioned when talking trade-in turkey at the dealership, and even more anxious about a weird warning light that hadn't flashed before - or at least that's my story and I intended sticking to it.

When it came to it, even tho when I bought the new car and sorted the trade-in I'd gone in another car, so they bought the old one unseen, the saleman never even looked at it.  Didn't even go outside to make sure it was there.  Still, no skin off my nose, so off I drove in my new little pap pap to Sainsers to fill up.  Paid, got in brand new 12 miles on the clock car and...................... the bugger wouldn't start.

Irate phone call to salesman consisting primarily of me holding my mob near the engine and turning the key and shouting 'did you hear that?, no, you fekin didn't because it won't fekin start'.   10 minutes later I came out of Sainsers and there he stood, looking suitably shamefaced clutching a new battery.  I put on my snottiest tone and told him saying sorry doesn't cut any ice - I expect at least GOOD bouquet in apology and not something from the Sainsers forecourt!

Anyway, all's well that ends, and now it's standing outside looking for all the world like a lump of queasy yellow custard.  :O)

 

Happy Mother's Day

I know it's Mothering Sunday, but this is so over the top!  15 new piles of frogspawn in one day - at this rate by tomorrow I too shall be able to walk on water.  But then, what Mother can't? 

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_1

Gob smackin info!

OMG, at last I can see where I've been going wrong with my dieting.  I've just read an article on aol's welcome page - understanding the technical parts of the article were a bit of a struggle, my name not being on everyone's lips where clinical nutritionists foregather, but I've managed to glean the basic essentials.  It's going to come as a shock to you but brave up now as I share these diet secrets with you.....

Things which might make you fat: 

1. chips

2. booze

3. Processed food with a high sugar content

4. Burgers.

You know, I'm really not sure I believe this.  What the fek do skinny people eat then???