Friends Only

I think I have to go with Sideshow Bob - closely followed by his brother Cecil as he is hilarious and OH SO GAY. Groundskeeper Willie gets a special mention for "Bonjooooour, ye cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys!"

"You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly, and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by ladies around the court wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be."

If you see this on your friends list, and you can be arsed to, quote Blackadder in your LJ.

Smoking linked to hearing loss

Apparently, as well as causing cancer, premature ageing, anti-social behaviour and nuclear war, smoking makes you deaf and causes dementia. Obesity also causes deafness (in addition to heart disease, ugliness, excessive masturbation and Islamic fundamentalism).

"A separate research project involved more than 5,000 civil servants, who completed memory and reasoning tests and then repeated them five years later.

It found that smoking in middle age was linked to a decline in memory and verbal reasoning ability."

Or maybe, just maybe, GETTING OLDER causes a decline in memory and verbal reasoning as your synapses activate with more difficulty and your BRAIN CELLS DIE. Or maybe being a civil servant causes dementia. I've been on this planet for two decades now and have yet to establish exactly what a 'civil servant' is or does.

Next week: Researchers at Nottingham University find a 'convincing link' between smoking and badly written internet porn.

I'll stop reading BBC News now, I promise.

Reading the morning news, I came across this article. This is an insight into the appalling state of the UK secondary education system. The education system in the UK has traditionally been seen as one of the best in the world, and UK qualifications are recognised by employers and universities all over the world.

( A bit of background for those unfamiliar with the UK education system and its current standards )

Now for the statistics:

Percentages for 5 GCSE passes at grade C or above, including English and Maths, for state schools in England

National average: 46%

638 schools less than 30%
14 schools less than 10%

Of 149 local authorities, only 15 contain no schools with below 30%.
In Manchester and Bristol more than half of state schools have below 30%.

The report on the BBC says these 638 schools make up nearly 1/5 of the schools in England. The national average is 46%.

This means that the average level of achievement in England is that 54% of 16-year-olds leaving a state secondary school after 12 years of compulsory education, in the fifth-richest country in the world, do not have what is considered a basic standard of education in this country. There are 14 schools in England where the 'gold standard' pass rate is in single figures. Even factoring in the policies which mean that many children and young people who would previously have been in a special school (not included in these stats) now attend mainstream schools, this is still unbelievable.

Most private schools with any interest in academics pride themselves on getting 'gold standard' pass rates of 100%. Many have 100% pass rates at GCSE, and A-level pass rates in the high 90s. I took 10 GCSEs at age 16, and got 6 A*s and 4 As. I took another two the next year while doing AS Levels and got another A* and A. Apparently I am 'gifted', and I am not expecting every school in the country to produce those kinds of results, but a national average of less than half? And nearly 1/5 getting less than a third? What is WRONG with this place?

If anyone is still in any doubt as to why I will be homeschooling my children (if we are in England - I may be willing to give the Dutch education system a chance), I'm not sure how much clearer I can make the situation. If you want to know why I don't plan to send my children to a private school, I remind you that 'bullying and discrimination policy' in most schools is just a piece of paper.

References:
Schools told to improve or close, BBC News, 9th June 2008
Schools below 30% GCSE target, BBC News, 9th June 2008
Raising the bar on school results, BBC News, 9th June 2008

Stubbing Out Our Rights petition

If you haven't signed this yet, please do so. Join the Facebook group while you're at it and spread the word. Post the petition on your own journals, write the URL on people's feet, whatever you fancy.

If you don't remember what this is about, this is about letting people have smoking rooms in secure psych units where the patients are not allowed to go outside for a ciggie, as opposed to forcing people who are ill enough to require inpatient psychiatric treatment to quit smoking cold turkey with no preperation and very little, if any, support.

If you don't think people should be allowed to smoke in psych wards, fine. You don't have to sign the petition. I would however prefer it if you didn't comment here or on the Facebook group complaining about it. I can't be arsed with drama and arguing with people. Cheers.

NB: UK signatures only please

Just got my attention drawn to this at Bipolar Mo.

Some company have made what they claim is a genetic test for bipolar disorder. They also have a test which claims to show whether a person is more likely to benefit from SSRIs. These tests cost $399 each (about £200) and $750 for the pair (about £375).

This news article about the test on Yahoo News tells you a little more about these tests.

"Among hundreds of families Kelsoe has studied, one of the gene variations in the Psynomics test showed up in 1 percent of those unaffected by the disorder versus 3 percent who are affected. The other variation appeared in 7 percent of those without bipolar compared to 15 percent who have the disease.

This would seem to imply that the first test is 97% inaccurate (with a 1% false positive possibility, but that's not too bad) and the second test is 85% inaccurate (with a 7% false positive possibility, which is slightly more worrying).

In addition, "Psynomics will send patients' test results only to their doctors to avoid the risk of self-diagnosis." Apparently they're concerned about people making self-diagnoses after they've sold them a HOME TESTING KIT.

This actually makes me quite angry. If it was more accurate I'd be substantially more impressed with it, although even a 100% accurate genetic test can only show a predisposition, not that you actually have a mental illness, because mental illness is not wholly determined by genetics. But this is just a way of taking money off gullible hypochondriacs. It claims to help treatment - how, precisely? Does it take away the bipolar? Does it tell you exactly what type, brand, dose and delivery method of medication you need? Mental health treatment is more an art than a science, and the real trouble with dealing with the illness often comes after the diagnosis when you start on the med-go-round, a process that usually takes years at best and possibly even a lifetime. It also only works for white North Europeans who are already showing symptoms. The word 'pointless' springs to mind. It also takes responsibility for diagnosis away from psychiatrists, as it gives them something else to blame if they're wrong.

I could compare this test to the first release of Windows Vista, but that would be crass as Vista is an OS and this test could actually seriously fuck with people's lives, and even at best it will just leave them considerably poorer. Psynomics, come back when you've got a clue what you're talking about.

#1: A dual-boot system is relatively easy to configure. A triple-boot system is not. Do NOT attempt to configure a triple-boot system unless you are absolutely certain you know exactly what you are doing.

#2: Do NOT delete stuff if you don't know what it is/what it does. It is probably vital and its absence will bugger everything.

#3: You cannot have more than four primary partitions on a single hard disk. Try it and nothing will work. You will then have to do a lot of messing about before you can get anything to work again, if it does at all.

#4: Do NOT mess around with the Master Boot Record, GRUB etc unless you are absolutely certain you know exactly what you are doing. You will bugger your computer.

#5: Always back up your data. This goes without saying, but people don't and if you're going to mess around with the essentials of your computer you may very well lose something along the way - so make sure you don't risk anything you don't mind losing.

#6: Windows Vista is next to useless. If you want to install a multi-boot to test out Vista, just don't bother. It's not worth it and you'll save yourself days and avoid the possibility of bricking your computer, or bricking your other OSs and being left with Vista alone, which you will then discover is shite.

#7: Yes, you CAN make a triple-boot system with XP, Vista and Linux and maintain everything in working order, but for the love of G-d, DON'T.

My petition is being removed from the government website. This is not because I have given up the fight, but because apparently someone else is taking it up for me who has a lot more weight behind them.

I recieved a message from someone working for WISH (Women In Secure Hospitals) who are doing a similar petition as part of a campaign, along with a paper petition to be issued to people who are sectioned and thus cannot access a computer.

I have requested the text of this petition and will be publicising it heavily once it is available. Anyone who has already voted for my petition, could you please sign the upcoming one and we'll get as many people together as we can for it.

Remember: First they came for the smokers, and I did nothing, because I was not a smoker. Then they came for the kinksters, and I did nothing, because I was not kinky. Then they came for the fat people, and I did nothing, because I was not overweight.
Then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak for me.

Merry Christmas (to the Xtians), Happy Holiday (to the Pastafarians), Happy 16th of Tevet (for teh j00z), Happy 25th December (all the rest of you atheist bastards). ^_^

I got a BSL dictionary, a guitar songbook and a bottle of blueberry vodka. Roo got a watch and a phone which we have been playing with all day. It does video (only 5 second clips) so we recorded a couple of clips and I found some freeware that converts 3GP to AVI so I can post them on YouTube. The first is up but needs to be recoded because for some reason in YouTube it has come out upside down so out comes VirtualDub.

I'm working on some video editing which will also be uploaded when I'm done, so expect a post later or tomorrow with some more YTube vids.

Hope you're all having a great day! XD

Anonymous commenting is turned ON. What I want you to do is a post a confession in a comment. It can be about anything at all. Even me, but post anonymously. It can be a deep, dark confession, or something just completely random. Has there ever been something you've always wanted to tell me, or anyone else? Now is the time. Post as often as you want, and I will most likely reply, so you may want to check back.

Go spam me, people. It's raining and I have nothing better to do. Make it juicy!

I HAVE STOLEN THE PLOT AND ALL HUMANITY SHOULD PH34R ME!

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GAT d- s-:+ a--- C+++ UL P L+ E-- W++ N*+ o-- K- w O-- M- !V PS+++ PE- Y+ PGP- t-- 5- X- R tv++ b++ DI+ D- G e* h! r y+*
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Since it's now 25th December in the UK, Merry Christmas to all! And Happy National Present Day to anyone not celebrating the Christianness. XD

Just shoot me. Right now.

I am posting this only because I know if I link to it then a lot of people won't click on the link. This needs to be fucking SCREAMED from the rooftops, and I am ashamed that I only heard about it on a webcomic.

Here's the link: http://venusenvy.comicgenesis.com/

And here's the comic (copyright Erin Lindsey 2006):



Here's what the White House says about the criticisms:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060906-5.html

This is the BBC's take on it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5391314.stm

And this is a blog which shows you exactly what it says and what that means:

http://www.taac.us/wordpress/archives/603