Saturday Evening Posts Worth Reading and the 25 Hour News.
Paedophile Panics – an unhealthy obsession. Barbara Hewson, Frank Furedi and Luke Gittos.
Sceptical Thoughts on the NSPCC and mandatory reporting.
Ben Cobley on how the ‘Left’ has fallen in with the wrong kind of Feminism.
‘Schools Improvement’ on the irony of the headmaster who couldn’t tell the difference between homophones and homosexuals…
‘The Heelers Diaries’ on the Daily Star’s investigative skills…
Ban the BBC on how a botched TV licence investigation descended into farce.
and finally…to send you off to sleep with happy dreams…a Reddit thread on the 25th Airborne Division of Black Widow Spiders…do not read if you are arachnophobic, which is not the same as annaraccooniphobic…that’s a homophone…or is that homophobic?
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August 2, 2014 at 10:56 am -
Indeed. After perusing your links, I am no longer innocent. My world view has lurched in a fundamental way and my cynicism quotient has increased from 1.95 to 2.0. Ms Raccoon you are directly/indirectly responsible. My advocate, Mr Teapot Mugumbo will be serving you with a writ, in the snug, soon after he is released from the nick.
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August 2, 2014 at 11:31 am -
Anna , particular thanks for the reference to the Spiked podcast —I am not much in agreement with the solutions proposed in the podcast which are practical solutions to dispose of rather than rectify something that is an important issue but the critique of the present developments by the contributors and the risks posed by it are to my mind spot on –and can be extrapolated beyond the single issue addressed. I think Furedi’s expression of ‘Moral Entrepreneur’ holds the key to understanding many of the movements in Society and if one looks at say the NSPCC as a ‘Brand’ one can understand that for the social entrepreneur it is more a matter of developing the Brand ….selling the ‘Brand’……rather than it is developing and delivering a good ‘Product’. It appears on examination so many ‘good works’ are more form than substance. It explains perhaps the lengths to which moral entrepreneurs will go (much as their commercial counterparts) to defend their ‘Brand’ in particular rubbishing anyone who questions the value of the’ Brand’ . Furedi makes some excellent collateral points including the delegation (essentially Privatisation) by Government of certain functions to NGOs –possibly nothing in theory wrong with that idea save that it involves the transfer of state power to an organisation that is less accountable than Government (not that Government is particularly accountable in practice) …..it might explain why someone such as MWT has seen and taken the chance to spot the opening and develop his own ‘Brand’. The other great point Furedi makes is the inability for Society to form any moral consensus save around the most heinous of behaviours and in so doing form a purely emotional reaction to them into which they can devote all their emotional energies. Quite where it all ends up I haven’t a clue save that it is likely to end badly —though I dare say a social historian might hazard a guess since there must be some historical precedent.
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August 2, 2014 at 11:31 am -
Love the homophones, especially as it’s from idiocy at a “language school”.
Next it’ll be homogenised milk – drink too much and it’ll “turn” you!
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August 3, 2014 at 8:00 am -
A US language school, no less..!
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August 2, 2014 at 12:19 pm -
“Ban the BBC on how a botched TV licence investigation descended into farce.”
Sending a Withdrawal Of Implied Right of Access (WOIRA) letter would have avoided the intrusion.
Customer Relations
TV Licensing
Darlington
DL98 1TLDate:
Removal of Implied Rights of Access – Your Address
TV Licence Number – **********.This instruction is made in accordance with the BBC TV Licensing Withdrawal of Implied Right of Access (WOIRA) Policy (“the Policy”).
As the Legal Occupier of the above mentioned property I hereby remove TV Licensing’s implied right of access to the property, in accordance with the terms of the Policy. By TV Licensing I mean any employees, agents or contractors acting on behalf of the BBC as Television Licensing Authority.
The Policy is quite clear that I do not need to give a name for my instruction to be legally valid, so I will not be doing so. You can verify my status as the Legal Occupier by matching the reference number above to the address of my property.
This instruction comes into effect immediately. Should TV Licensing personnel trespass on my property after receipt of this instruction, I reserve the right to eject them from the property and seek legal redress through the courts.
Please confirm the receipt of this letter and acknowledgement of its terms by writing back to me.
Yours sincerely
The Legal Occupier
[It is not necessary to provide a name.]
http://tv-licensing.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/stopping-tv-licensing-trespass-in-words.html
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August 2, 2014 at 2:17 pm -
I now have no doubt that tonight, I’m going to dream about spiders. Hundreds of them.
Thanks, Anna.
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August 2, 2014 at 3:10 pm -
I’d be careful about the homophones story: there’s been a lot of digging on the Net and it seems it might be a version of “The EU want square bananas”.
That’s what we have to live up to as sceptics: question everything, even – and especially – the stories which seem to reinforce our own scepticism.
Coming from a “scientific” family – and being the Black Sheep who couldn’t even learn my times tables properly
– I always recall a scieno-sibling telling me “The whole point is not to prove something – but to disprove it. When we have a theory, the first thing we do is set about seeing how it might be falsified. That’s the scientific method.”Wasn’t I lucky to have such a great family?
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August 2, 2014 at 7:56 pm -
@Eyes Wide Shut —Pure Popper and the starting point of all good analysis of the material world
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August 2, 2014 at 9:32 pm -
Yup, my family are such a sound bunch of materialists they let me off my religious faith on the Wittgensteinian principle: “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.”
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August 4, 2014 at 3:19 pm -
I always recall a scieno-sibling telling me “The whole point is not to prove something – but to disprove it. When we have a theory, the first thing we do is set about seeing how it might be falsified. That’s the scientific method.”
But surely a “consensus” trumps any scientific method?
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August 2, 2014 at 4:01 pm -
I have no objections to homophones as long as they sound like they are over the age of consent.
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August 2, 2014 at 4:12 pm -
25-hour news very good. Nice to come home for the weekend and catch up on what is going on in the world presented commercial free and without the usual spin or hand off to the weatherman. Nice to hear that feisty red-head Ms. Brookes was able to find a new job so quickly.
I hope she continues to go riding at the weekends with her neighbours the Camerons, because there is nothing like the feel of a sturdy mount between one’s thighs and gulps of freshly polluted country air to help one forget about politics and stuff.
– I always recall a scieno-sibling telling me “The whole point is not to prove something – but to disprove it. When we have a theory, the first thing we do is set about seeing how it might be falsified. That’s the scientific method.”
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