miss_s_b | Entries tagged with rants

I'm feeling pissed off

Some successful people really annoy me. Quite a lot of them don't, but a sizeable majority... Take Ricky Gervais. He is a man of some (but not massive) talent, who because the stars were right and there was a gap in the market briefly became a massive success and is now riding the long tail of that.

He fully believes that his talent and work are the only factors in his success. He also believes the corollary of this - that anyone who is NOT as successful as him is not as successful as him either because they are not as talented or because they didn't work as hard or both. This is why he makes tweets like the ones he regularly makes, which I have no doubt he thinks are funny, and which dismiss people he sees as lesser than him.

The belief that people succeed ONLY on their own merit is utter bullshit.

Now I'm not saying that successful people aren't talented, or that they don't work hard. Clearly there is a requirement for some talent and some work involved. What I AM saying is that there are huge numbers more talented people, and immeasurably huge numbers more hard-working people than there are successful people, so there must be some other factor. Some very talented people are going to work their arse off their entire life and not get anywhere. It's harsh, but it's life. There is only limited room at the top, sadly, and for every person who gets the breaks there's going to be several who didn't. Being one of those who didn't isn't fun. But you know what makes it ten times worse?

Smug deluded arseholes like Ricky Gervais rubbing people's faces in it and telling them that the only reason they aren't as successful as Ricky Gervais is because they're Not Good Enough.

Fuck off Ricky Gervais, and the idiots who believe your bullshit.

I'm feeling infuriated

Yesterday, Chris Williamson MP tweeted:

Lib Dem membership in freefall. I'd urge all Lib Dems who want progressive social change to back #Labour

Now, I know that some of you reading this have left the Lib Dems. At least one of those has joined the Greens, and several have joined the Pirates. Maybe some of you have joined Labour, and you know what? I'm a Liberal, and I am happy to see the exercising of personal choice even if it's not a decision I would make myself. But the idea that Liberals should leave the Lib Dems en masse and join Labour just because a Labour MP says so? THAT got my back up. So I replied. Possibly slightly less than respectfully:

AHAHAHAHAHAHAA the day authoritarian #Labour are the agents for real social change is the day Satan skates to work

Now, to give him his due, he didn't just ignore me. Unfortunately, some of the examples he replied with are.... well, shall we say "suspect"

But Labour introduced NHS, welfare state, equal pay, race & gender equality acts, min wage, civil partnerships, legalised abortion

So, I'm not the political historian that

matgb is, but even I know that David Steel introduced the Abortion Act, and it was a free vote issue, and lots of Labour politicians opposed it. To try and claim that as a Labour measure just because Labour were in power when it was passed is disingenuous to say the least. And I know for a fact that they introduced civil partnerships because they were too cowardly to introduce equal marriage, which Lib Dems in government are doing RIGHT NOW! (Hi Lynne! *waves*) This makes me suspect that some of his other examples might not be as clear-cut as he is presenting them either, although I suppose I can give him minimum wage. So I go to reply to him to say that "just because something happened when Labour was in government doesn't mean it was instigated by or supported by Labour" and notice that he's also having a twitter conversation with Douglas... In reply to

What about those of us who value civil liberties, constitutional reform & not pandering to the media?

he says

Your point is? Remember Labour introduced biggest constitutional reforms, FOI Act & it was Ed Miliband who took on Murdoch.

So, chickening out of proper Lords reform (which, again, Lib Dems are doing in government), backing away from electoral reform when you got a big enough majority to snub Paddy, and opposing AV and boundary changes mean Liberals should trust you on constitutional reform, does it, Chris? And Ed Miliband is better than, ooo, say... VINCE CABLE on Murdoch?

So, my question to you, loyal reader, is this: is this man misinformed, deluded, or simply lying? And why does he think that spouting untruths directly at Lib Dems will get them to join his party? I mean, if you are a person who thinks the Lib Dems lied on tuition fees (which I can understand, even if I don't entirely share that view) or is dismantling the NHS (which, again, I can understand, even if I think what we're doing is preventing the tories from doing so) then WHY IN CTHULHU'S NAME would being barefaced lied to by a Labour MP entice you to join Labour? I know we have a reputation as masochists in the Lib Dems, but surely we're not all that masochistic?

My advice to you, if you're a Lib Dem leaver who still wants to remain politically active? If you're technologically inclined, join the Pirates, because they love freedom as much as we do, and they're a rising star. If I were ever to leave, that's where I'd go. If you're less technologically inclined, join the Greens and try to change some of their more ridiculous anti-science policies. And say hi to Liz. And if neither of those appeals, then join a single issue group. Perhaps the electoral reform society. But for pity's sake, don't join Labour. They'll betray you like they've betrayed everybody else since about 1998. They lie about how we got in the mess we're in now, they lie about what they did in power, and they won't even tell us what they're going to do if they get back in. If you want the definition of an untrustworthy politician, I'd say look for one in a red rosette.

I'm feeling irate

Dear Nick,

I realise that coalition government is not the same as a party governing on its own. I realise that when one signs up to a coalition agreement, one has to make compromises. But when one has signed a pledge giving a cast iron guarantee one ought to stick to it.

When you signed the pledge to vote against tuition fee increases, lets be honest, you could not have known the circumstances you would be asked to do so in. But that does not alter the fact that you signed the pledge. Perhaps by doing this you have learned a valuable lesson not to sign such an open-ended pledge, and you've certainly learned a lesson to make damn sure that when you negotiate coalition agreements you should bear in mind what pledges you have signed. But none of that alters the fact that you, personally, signed the pledge.

There is no point in whining and misdirecting by saying that other parties have broken pledges too. We are not other parties. You were supposed to be countering the bloody politicians, they're all the bloody same meme, not feeding it.

There's no point in saying that we have to cut higher education funding if we're cutting everything else, because we're not cutting Trident, and if we can afford to spend money on stuff to blow up half the planet, we can afford to educate our children.

There is also no point in wittering on about how this and that safeguard is being put in to make sure that poor people will not suffer. Poor people won't suffer because the idea of spending that amount of money on university will put them off going in the first place, because they can't imagine possibly earning enough to pay it back. It'd put me off going. That's a HUGE amount of money to me. I know it's small change to you, but it's not to me, or millions more like me.

At the end of the day, though, it doesn't matter that I think the tuition fee increase is unjustified and unjustifiable. It matters that you made a pledge, and you made it in the hopes that you would never get called on it, in order to tout for votes. Well, you are being called on it. And if you don't answer that call, you are no better than the Labour politicians you lambast for their broken promises, and if someone asserts that to me on the doorstep I don't know how I will answer them, because I will think that they are correct in their assertion.

I voted for the coalition because on balance I thought it was the lesser of a number of evils. I still think that. But my patience and tolerance are wearing thin. Very thin indeed. I thought we were an honourable party, and striking an honourable course, for the good of all. There is nothing honourable about signing a pledge to grub for votes, and then going back on it the second it becomes a bit uncomfortable.

I thought we were better than that.

yours in disappointment

Jennie.

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I'm feeling infuriated

I know I'm a bit of a stuck record on this point, but here is some concrete evidence of how the blokosphere works against women, all the while pretending not to:

Mark Pack blogs that the majority of UK bloggers are female. Someone asks him how he knows that; he replies that he got it from the ONS.

Mark would never have known about that ONS data had I not told him about it, but it never enters his head to credit me with the information. It's just information, it's in the public domain, it doesn't really MATTER where he got it from... Right?

I mean, the fact that when blogosphere stories enter the mainstream, the MSM normally credit Guido or the Egregious Tory Tosser, even when the story was almost always broken by someone else and they just picked it up off their RSS feeds or Twitter... as long as the story gets out, it doesn't matter who the source was, right?

Even more obviously: all those black people whose songs Elvis ripped off... As long as the music gets out there, who cares who wrote it?

Even when female bloggers DO do something worth noticing, we never get the credit. And we're told we should be grateful, because at least the information is out when the men deign to notice. I'm sure that this was not a conscious snub by Count Packula. I'm sure he's very wounded that I am even typing this. But you know what? Women are conditioned from birth to know our place, to not speak out in case we upset someone, to keep our heads down and just be grateful... Well fuck that. Sometimes someone needs to have their cage rattled.

If you're seriously about solving the problem of women being excluded, Mark, you might want to stop perpetuating it. Just a thought.

I'm feeling annoyed
My location is in bed, nursing my sore back
I can hear radio 4

The fact that one of the Milliblands has got headlines for jumping on the Save Our Pubs bandwagon that Greg Mullholland and other Lib Dems have been successfully piloting for years, or the fact that Mike Smithson, famed sage of politicalbetting.com thinks that my livelihood and the lifeblood of many communities (not just rural ones) is trivial and laughable.

OK, so Millibland's "bold" plans are nothing more than to appoint a minister for pubs, and not to do anything about the beer tie, or the stupid over-regularion of the market, or the ridiculously complicated duty regime (here's an idea: differential taxation on cask and bottle/can), or any of the other issues that plague my industry. But that does not mean that the issue is not a serious one, affecting not just the lives of barmaids, but the fabric of our communities.

To dismiss this as so much sausages is, I venture to suggest, slightly short-sighted of the seer.

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I'm feeling infuriated
My location is in bed
I can hear From our own correspondent

As is my wont on a Saturday morning, I am listening to The Week in Westminster. One of the items they have had on it was about rumblings of discontent in the party that we are not having enough influence on the coalition. Stephen Gilbert, of the whip's office, tried to counter this by listing policies which we have had influence on which are currently being enacted... and the first one he came up with was also a Tory policy.

HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARE?

The thing about being a Lib Dem is that you have to fight tooth and nail for every vote, and the thing about fighting tooth and nail for every vote is that you know the manifestos of your oppponents as well as you know your own. HOW DARE YOU try to hoodwink us? How dare you try to spin doctor those of us who campaigned like hell to get YOU elected?

Sandra Gidley was right, you cannot ignore the rumblings of discontent from within the party, or dismiss it by telling us we are not being grown up. I was one of those who voted enthusiastically for the coalition, I am fully aware that coalition involves compromise, but compromise, to my mind, does NOT involve pretending to be ecstatically happy about a desperate fudge that nobody actually wants (AV), and nor does it involve being an uncritical fawning abused partner in a marriage with very unequal power footings. I've seen where that leads, thank you, and I'm not going to participate enthusiastically in the macro version.

If you keep trying to dismiss and ignore the feelings of the grassroots of the party, you are going to reap a whirlwind in Liverpool, you smug, arrogant, dismissive tosser. And that's a long time before we get wiped out at the next election, which it's looking more and more like we will...

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I'm feeling infuriated
My location is in bed
I can hear Friday's Today in Parliament

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I'm feeling infuriated

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I'm feeling infuriated

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I'm feeling annoyed

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I'm feeling infuriated

I've noticed a couple of bloggers (not just you, Mark, lest you think I am picking on you, but you are the only one worthy of linkage ;)) tonight moaning about how some woman was refused service in a supermarket because there was a suspicion she might be supplying some alcohol to a person under 18. A lot of the commentary on this seemed to be aimed at the supermarkets, and there were threats of violence against the checkout operator from a number of quarters. What the blue buggery fuck do people think shoving the bottle of wine up the operator's arse would achieve?

Yes, the law is illiberal, ill-thought-out, and stupid. But taking it out on some poor bugger who is being paid minimum wage, is terrified that (s)he is going to get fined £5000 and lose his/her job, and probably thinks you are one of the many mystery shoppers (s)he knows are circulating to make sure (s)he is doing everything correctly and parroting all the stupid lines (s)he has been given by management? How the monkey buttocks do you think that is going to help? If anything, it will be utterly counterproductive, because it will confirm in the minds of legislators that anyone (apart from themselves, obviously) who ever drinks alcohol (or consumes any other age-restricted product - fags, knives, whatever) is dangerous and needs to be controlled.

If you get IDed for an age-restricted product, it's a minor inconvenience to you. If you DON'T get IDed, and you turn out to be one of the ~~stooges~~ Mystery Shoppers who are purposefully selected by the rozzers because they are underage and don't look it, or to test if you are going to serve someone who looks like they are buying for an underage person (which MIGHT be legal in the home, but is increasingly illegal in many other areas, and the police drum this into the stores) then the person serving you loses their job, a vast wad of cash, and the likelihood of future employment as well - because what shop/bar is going to employ someone who serves underage people? For fuck's sake show some perspective and stop flaunting your privilege, people. Because frankly, the sight of Entitlement Queen white boys going on about how disgusting it is that the peon behind the till doesn't know her place and isn't bowing and scraping to their every desire is more than a little nauseating.

If you want to change the law, aim your ire at the bloody government, who can do something about it, not the checkout girl who can't.

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I'm feeling cynical

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I'm feeling annoyed

Lib Dem Voice is sponsoring this year's Total Bollocks Blog Awards. Stephen Tall has to write the article which Daddy Richard and me will giggle drunkenly over at the Lib Dem Blog Awards like we did over Nich Starling's article last year, while we loudly heckle from the Serial Runners-Up table as Costigan Quist and Mark Reckons collect all the awards.

Except, rather than write it himself, he's asked other Lib Dem bloggers to write it for him.

Stephen, you're sponsoring the Total Bollocks Blog Awards. You've GIVEN MONEY TO IAIN DALE. And you're asking where the Lib Dem Blogosphere is going wrong? I despair, I really do.

The Lib Dem blogosphere is very insular, and needs to start connecting with people outside the politics geek blogosphere. The way to do this is not to cosy up to the Egregious Tory Tosser. The way to do this is to talk to people from OUTSIDE THE POLITICAL BLOGOSPHERE COMPLETELY.

FWIW, I think we punch way above our electoral weight in the politics blogosphere. We're known to bloggers from other parties, and some of us (i.e. Costigan and Mark) are even respected by members of other parties. But those comments could equally apply to the Libertarian Party, and look how far that gets them in elections. But the politics geek blogosphere is a tiny, miniscule, insignificant part of the blogosphere in toto. And it will remain so the more insular and navel-gazing it becomes. Talking to Iain Dale is just gazing at a bigger navel.

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I'm feeling depressed

Last night, as part of the FFW, there was a screening of a film called The Scar Crow, and a Q&A session with cast and crew afterwards. The film had great effects and was beautifully and creatively shot, especially given the tiny budget and shooting timescale, but it just REEKED of misogyny. I can't give specifics without spoilers, but I had many, many problems with the film. Now, you can say this about a lot of films, including many that I really love. But the classic Hammer/Amicus/etc. films get something of a pass due to being made 30, 40, 50 years ago. This film was made last year. The ONLY named female characters were "evil", apart from the "sympathetic character" - i.e. the one who deserves a Well Done For Not Being A Rapist Cookie - 's girlfriend, who was merely peripheral AND stupid. There's an incestuous "lesbian" kiss, which the director stated in the Q&A he had put in because his 12 year old son had asked for some hot lesbo action.

And you know what?

Even as I type this I can feel the internet's reaction to me criticising the film for these reasons. It's just one film - it's not systemic. Not all films are like that! - just like not all men are like that. Well, YOU might have been offended, but I wasn't, and therefore it's not a problem. So you're saying we ought to ban films with hot lesbo action/films with female bad guys/etc. I thought you were a liberal?

etc. etc. et fucking cetera.

It's not just systemic in horror (and yes, I DID have an audible intake of breath when the director claimed to have been subverting expectations by shooting a gore flick with evil women and hot lesbo action in it). It's not just systemic in films. It's not just endemic in entertainment. It's endemic in life.

Are we all ready for the chorus of Oh, you're exaggerating! I don't know anyone who finds this a problem, girls? Boys, I hate to break this to you, but perhaps nobody has told you they find this sort of shit a problem because they know what your reaction will be. Do you ever find yourself thinking well harrassment/sexual assault/rape can't be that much of a problem because I don't know anyone who has been harrassed/assaulted/raped? I bet you a tenner that you do. For starters, if you know me, you do.

And do you know what? Even with all that said, I wouldn't want to ban films like this. I'd just like to live in a world where I can make this sort of criticism without having to pre-emptively defend myself against accusations of being a strident whinging harpie. I'd settle for that, but it'd be even nicer if I could go and see a gore flick where it's the men who are relentlessly objectified, and the women who are held forth as praiseworthy for not being rapists... Not because I think reverse discrimination is in any way the way forward, but just because it would be SUCH a fucking novelty.

Using the icon I have is a defensive action too. It's saying I know that women are objectified on the basis of their bodies, and I know it happens to me, and I can cope with it. It's saying I realise that I am part of the problem here. It's saying look, even though I have been raped, I have a sense of humour about stuff like this.

Yeah, I'm in a really good mood today.

Thanks to

puddingcat for pointing me at most of the articles I link to.

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I'm feeling infuriated

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I'm feeling incandescent
My location is mah desk
I can hear Any Questions on Radio 4

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I'm feeling i am woman hear me roar!

So Mark Reckons posted a couple of very interesting posts.

I linked to him on my own blog, and then I linked to him on the LC netcast, because they WERE very good posts.

andrewducker picked it up, and linked to it, and discussed it with his f-list... And thanked

matgb for the link.

I didn't bother saying anything to Andy because, well, Mat and I ARE practically the same person, and it doesn't really matter, and he must have figured that Mat would be the one to link to it, being the psephology geek of the two of us.

Today, Mark Reckons posts again, thanking ALL the people who have linked to him... Mr Quist, Andrew Ducker, Malcolm Clark, That Tory Blogger, Claude IF Carpentieri, even Millennium... oh, and of course Professional Journalist Polly Toynbee - who isn't male, but IS a paid journo!

Where are all the female bloggers? Where they have always been. Here, blogging, and being ignored by the men, or even when they do notice us, being passed over for credit because people with our little fluffy female brains can't POSSIBLY be serious political bloggers.

You're damn right I'm bitter.

((Thanks for the ETA, Mark, it's very sweet, but I think the ~~Matrix~~ patriarchy has you))

I'm feeling pissed off

Remember this rant about truncated feeds? Since I posted it, the award-winning Alix Mortimer has STARTED truncating! FFS! Still, it's better than Paul Walter and Five Chinese Crackers. You just get a bare url from THEM in the feed. Well, this is your warning, you three. Either institute proper feeds, or next Monday, when I do my Monday inbox clearout and checking of feeds, I'll remove you from my reading lists.

Don't think I don't mean it.

I'm feeling pissed off

There is a setting on some blog platforms which means that you can set the RSS feed of your blog to be just an extract, or even worse, just a url, rather than the whole post. I would like to KILL whoever invented this setting. There is nothing more frustrating when doing the netcast than clicking through from what looks like an initially promising first paragraph to find that it is, in fact, the ONLY paragraph, or that the post descends into lunacy shortly thereafter. If this happens once, I am much less likely to bother clicking through to see if your post is interesting again.

If you truncate your blog post for RSS, that is entirely your right, but do bear in mind that it will have the following effects:

It will make me pissed off with you, so if I DO click through I am much more likely to leave a nasty comment
It will make me less likely to read your posts, and thus less likely to link to you
In extreme cases, it will make me drop the feed from my list

Lest you think that this is just me moaning, studies show that this is how most other people react to truncated blog feeds too. Do yourselves a favour, truncators, and STOP IT.

About This Blog

Hello! I'm Jennie (known to many as SB, due to my handle, or The Yorksher Gob because of my old blog's name). This blog is my public face; click here for a list of all the other places you can find me on t'interwebs.

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Automated Attack Monkeys, Scalpel Mines, & Acid

(AKA Miss S B and The Yorksher Gob)

Entries tagged with rants

The Platitudes of Successful people - WARNING, contains swears.

Chris Williamson MP: sadly misinformed, or a liar? @chriswmp

An Open Letter to @nick_clegg

Where are all the Women Bloggers? Right here, as always

I Don't know Which is More Depressing...

Note to Lib Dem Parliamentarians: We Are Not Stupid. Please stop treating us like we are.

IPSA and whining MPs

Janet Street Porter's Views are Invidious, but widely held

OK, I am officially FUCKING SICK of this now.

Friends Don't Let Friends be iPricks - warning, contains rant

Newsflash, Arseholes: Getting Angry With Checkout Operators Doesn't Change the Law

I am Woman, Hear Me Roar

The Lib Dem Voice Weekend Meme

One for the Boys - The Scar Crow #ffw09

PSA: Colourschemes. Tick tick tick tick BOOM.

A Random collection of things which have made me angry today.

Where Are All The Female Bloggers?

GODDAMNIT PEOPLE!!

Truncated Blog Feeds - a Rant

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