Today I'm angry about.....

[Bruce Rioja]

See, I did that once by complete accident. I pulled over and apologised. I felt absolutely dreadful as soon as I saw what had happened, the woman was really ok about it though.

[Dujon]

That's a novel way to break the ice, Bruce. I must remember to add it to the list of chat-up lines I keep at the back of my little black book.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Back in 1969 or 70 I was driving to work in a spring thaw through the city of Westmount to downtown Montreal where the University stood. This was/is the city where the rich lived and I saw, waiting for a bus, the Director of my unit (I being the lowest man on the totem pole at the time). So, thinking I could make a few brownie, point I swept in to offer him a ride. Naturally I had failed to note the massive puddle near the curb and, to my horror, I made him, without any previous training or experience, the Wettest Man in Westmount (apologies to PG). I suppose I could have done a Bruce but panic seized me and I booted the car out of there, escaping undetected. 25 years later, when he was retired and I had tenure, we met at a party. I finally confessed responsibility and apologized. He accepted graciously but I could see by the glint in his eye that he had remembered the incident. Oh well.

[thebish]

went to collect middle child from doing his last A-level exam over in Grays..

put on radio - oh bollox - it's Richard Bacon... what can be more irritating than listening to Richard Bacon droning on...

but - then I realised - double bollox - he's interviewing Richard Dawkins in a sycophantic love-in...

[Sponge]

went to collect middle child from doing his last A-level exam over in Grays..

put on radio - oh bollox - it's Richard Bacon... what can be more irritating than listening to Richard Bacon droning on...

but - then I realised - double bollox - he's interviewing Richard Dawkins in a sycophantic love-in...

Yep, that'd tip me over. Dawkins. What a smug c*nt.

[malcd1]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

[William the White]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

With you on both those... Dawkins only upsets thebish because he makes a lot more money denouncing god than thebish does promoting him...

[TANGODANCER]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

With you on both those... Dawkins only upsets thebish because he makes a lot more money denouncing god than thebish does promoting him...

But he can't take it with him when...Oh, hang on, he isn't going anywhere is he?

[Prufrock]

I like him. Only today I ordered two of his books from the library. His media personality is deliberately controversial but his writing is much less confrontational, and as such, much more persuasive, if less *showbiz*.

[Sponge]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

Dawkins's "sense" is scientific reductionism – a type of faith in itself. A scientist with intellectual integrity is a scientist who ackowledges that a vast portion of the human experience cannot, and will never be, reduced to scientific explanation. Erwin Schrödinger, for example, who won the Nobel prize for physics, and compared to whom the likes of Dawkins are exposed as the hacks they are.

Schrödinger:

“Let us assume that in a particular case you eventually observe several efferent bundles of pulsating currents, which issue from the brain and through long cellular protrusions (motor nerve fibres), are conducted to certain muscles of the arm, which, as a consequence, tends a hesitating, trembling hand to bid you farewell—for a long, heart-rending separation; at the same time you may find that some other pulsating bundles produce a certain glandular secretion so as to veil the poor sad eye with a crape of tears. But nowhere along this way from the eye through the central organ to the arm muscles and the tear glands—nowhere, you may be sure, however far physiology advances, will you ever meet the personality, will you ever meet the dire pain, the bewildered worry within the soul..."

I have no religion myself—at least no religion that can be placed within a particular creed—but I despise the kind of smug atheism represented by Dawkins et al.

[thebish]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

With you on both those... Dawkins only upsets thebish because he makes a lot more money denouncing god than thebish does promoting him...

if you say so...

[Prufrock]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

Dawkins's "sense" is scientific reductionism – a type of faith in itself. A scientist with intellectual integrity is a scientist who ackowledges that a vast portion of the human experience cannot, and will never be, reduced to scientific explanation. Erwin Schrödinger, for example, who won the Nobel prize for physics, and compared to whom the likes of Dawkins are exposed as the hacks they are.

Schrödinger:

“Let us assume that in a particular case you eventually observe several efferent bundles of pulsating currents, which issue from the brain and through long cellular protrusions (motor nerve fibres), are conducted to certain muscles of the arm, which, as a consequence, tends a hesitating, trembling hand to bid you farewell—for a long, heart-rending separation; at the same time you may find that some other pulsating bundles produce a certain glandular secretion so as to veil the poor sad eye with a crape of tears. But nowhere along this way from the eye through the central organ to the arm muscles and the tear glands—nowhere, you may be sure, however far physiology advances, will you ever meet the personality, will you ever meet the dire pain, the bewildered worry within the soul..."

I have no religion myself—at least no religion that can be placed within a particular creed—but I despise the kind of smug atheism represented by Dawkins et al.

Yeah but 200 years ago you could say there is no reason humans should ever be able to understand what lightening is. That there is no reason we should be able to understand what goes on doesn't mean we wont be able to. I'm certainly on the side of those who try. If we had to pick sides, which we don't.

I know Dawkins' public persona rubs people up the wrong way, but it is that, an act.

[William the White]

I quite like Dawkins. Speaks an awful lot of sense.

Bacon however gets right on my nerves.

Dawkins's "sense" is scientific reductionism – a type of faith in itself. A scientist with intellectual integrity is a scientist who ackowledges that a vast portion of the human experience cannot, and will never be, reduced to scientific explanation. Erwin Schrödinger, for example, who won the Nobel prize for physics, and compared to whom the likes of Dawkins are exposed as the hacks they are.

Schrödinger:

“Let us assume that in a particular case you eventually observe several efferent bundles of pulsating currents, which issue from the brain and through long cellular protrusions (motor nerve fibres), are conducted to certain muscles of the arm, which, as a consequence, tends a hesitating, trembling hand to bid you farewell—for a long, heart-rending separation; at the same time you may find that some other pulsating bundles produce a certain glandular secretion so as to veil the poor sad eye with a crape of tears. But nowhere along this way from the eye through the central organ to the arm muscles and the tear glands—nowhere, you may be sure, however far physiology advances, will you ever meet the personality, will you ever meet the dire pain, the bewildered worry within the soul..."

I have no religion myself—at least no religion that can be placed within a particular creed—but I despise the kind of smug atheism represented by Dawkins et al.

Yeah but 200 years ago you could say there is no reason humans should ever be able to understand what lightening is. That there is no reason we should be able to understand what goes on doesn't mean we wont be able to. I'm certainly on the side of those who try. If we had to pick sides, which we don't.

I know Dawkins' public persona rubs people up the wrong way, but it is that, an act.

Lovely quote from Schrodinger - his opinion is one i share wholeheartedly... but it seems peculiar to advance it as a critique of Dawkins, who, i think, might even support it. Dawkins spoke out fulsomely in praise of the King James Bible...

Poets exist to articulate the dire pain and bewilderment of the 'soul' (a word that doesn't simply have religious meaning)... Dawkins doesn't pretend to do that job, does he?

[2399]

Angry that I just saw on the other Footy forum that Scum Range-ers want to buy bury

GET ****ed you SPL winning club! F)ck off and face Stranraer and get beat like the scum you are!

[Worthy4England]

Angry that I just saw on the other Footy forum that Scum Range-ers want to buy bury

GET ****ed you SPL winning club! F)ck off and face Stranraer and get beat like the scum you are!

Nooooooooooooooooooo. They can have the bucket shaking tossers. Who'll start the bidding at £5, do I hear five anywhere? No? Four pounds, who will offer me four....

[Worthy4England]

Today I'm angry about Tax. Not Jimmy Carr's or him from Take That, but Worthy's tax.

I'm sure I recall when doing my online tax form, that there was a section on there to fill in regarding your Bank Details for if they owed you money back...I took the entirely unreasonable assumption that having done so, if they were sat on a couple of grand of someone elses money (Worthy's), they'd dispatch it with a similar amount of immediacy as they want it off Worthy when it cuts the other way. But no. Bizarrely when they owe you, you have to log back on an tell them you want a repayment. Nowt more immoral that the state owing folk and not paying 'em out automatically, sez I.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Today I'm angry about Tax. Not Jimmy Carr's or him from Take That, but Worthy's tax.

I'm sure I recall when doing my online tax form, that there was a section on there to fill in regarding your Bank Details for if they owed you money back...I took the entirely unreasonable assumption that having done so, if they were sat on a couple of grand of someone elses money (Worthy's), they'd dispatch it with a similar amount of immediacy as they want it off Worthy when it cuts the other way. But no. Bizarrely when they owe you, you have to log back on an tell them you want a repayment. Nowt more immoral that the state owing folk and not paying 'em out automatically, sez I.

While I love to groan about the tax people, I have to say in Quebec (where we pay income tax to both the province and the federal government) refunds come within a week of (electronic) filing. What makes this odder is that they don't do direct deposit but both mail the cheque. The politics of this province are such that many governmental services are only available in French (even including health care outside Montreal), but not Revenu Quebec. They'll talk any damn language you want, provided you file on time and pay what you owe.

[Bruce Rioja]

Today I would be angry (does that count?) had I been a customer of either RBS or NatWest. It's pay-day here for some of us, but seemingly not for all!

[2399]

Who'll start the bidding at £5, do I hear five anywhere? No? Four pounds, who will offer me four....

I have $3.70AUD in my new Debit Account

[TANGODANCER]

If I really wanted an ornamental pond, I'd make one; but not in the middle of the path.
Garden's just like a giant sponge.