When did it become someone elses fault?

This trend hasn't been creeping up on us, its already here.  My parents, bless 'em taught me to stand on my own two feet by making my own mistakes and I made a lot of them.  From what type of food I chose to eat - liver - just the word turns my stomach.  To the friends I hung out with - to what time I went to bed.  Phrases like 'on your head be it.' or 'are you sure you know what you're doing' to 'watch where you're going' and Mum's personal favourite 'you've made your bed now you can lie in it.'  All of these contained the word 'you' in some form or other.  They taught me to take responsibility for my actions and deal with the consequences when I made choices which weren't smart.

But this is 2011 where personal injury is an industry.  Our sense of self preservation seems to have withered just as our ability to lay blame on someone or something else has grown.  Here in Utah I'm amazed at the things people blame, the weather, the pavement, the barbed wire fence they were trying to climb over, snow, hot coffee, the list goes on and I won't bore you with more stuff you can blame.  Of course there are acts of god, like lightening strikes, no one has yet tried to sue God (if there is one and that's a topic for another day) and some things come out of the blue which no amount of forward planning could stop but most events are the culmination of a series of small events that altogether cause a problem.

I witnessed an example just a couple of days ago.  We were driving out of a busy car park, not going very fast because it's pretty much impossible with all the cars bumbling around looking for the space closest to the store they want to go into.  So we get to the exit which opens onto Highland Drive and this bunch of six or seven people are wandering along - to the side of the path of our car, when one of them just wanders across in front of us, never even looked behind him, we weren't going very fast and sat stopped while he meandered around.  We couldn't move until he was out of the way and my husband - who doesn't list patience as one of his virtues - honked the horn to get him out of the way.  The response was immediate, that horn is loud and it certainly got his attention but what he did next was mind numbing, he got angry and slapped the back of hubby's car and shouted something with dude in it - he wasn't surfer dude material.  Of course my husband doesn't like anyone touching his pride and joy let alone slapping it so he stops and the bloke starts shouting that we almost ran him down - we shouldn't have been going so fast.  Our speed at the time zero miles per hour.  See there you have it, rather than look stupid or -  god forbid -  apologize for wandering into traffic he gets angry and blames someone else for his stupidity. 

One other example I can think of is the woman who was so busy texting that she walked right into the fountain.  She of course now has a lawyer and I'm guessing they'll have to take the fountains out after she gets a massive pay out - for being an idiot.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8268547/Dangers-of-texting-while-walking-woman-falls-into-fountain.html

Who benefits when the clocks go forward (and then back again) ?

Last week - up until Saturday night in fact I was starting to ease into Spring mode - waking up when it is light outside was making my mood as sunny as the skies and then - forward go the clocks and now getting up is a chore again, because I can't see where I'm going and stubbornly refuse to flick on any lights, I run the risk of stubbed toe or a cat/foot connection.

Daylight Savings Time or DST as they call it over here is something my generation grew up with but it wasn't always like this.  If you look back far enough you find that DST was introduced as a cost cutting measure during WW1 and dropped not long after the war ended.  If you ask most people they'll tell you that it's good for the farmers (actually they hate DST)  Some will quote safety reasons but whereas the kids at the school two blocks over could see where they were going last week, this week you could argue they are less visible to our crazy Utah drivers and therefore far less safe.  At the other end of the scale we are supposed to be able to stay out later in the evening.  At the moment it's too cold and gloomy to do that.

Oh and that extra hour of daylight plays havoc with your natural circadian cycle.  Your body is programmed to wake when it's light and go to sleep when it's dark.  I'm tempted to just say screw it and leave my clocks the way they are but like the rest of the sheep I did what I was told and changed them all - except the one in my car.


So again I ask myself who benefits from this?


Your local electricity company - that's who.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html
http://www.standardtime.com/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/110313-daylight-savings-time-2011-what-time-is-it-spring-forward-nation/
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/daylightsaving.htm

Why the legislative session in Utah is so short

Only a few weeks to go before the legislative session ends.  What the??  It only started a few weeks ago.  What do these people do for the rest of the year - are we paying them for this.  These are all questions I was asking  my television last night in a rather loud voice (I wasn't shouting but well ok I was shouting)  And to cap it all the important stuff, the state budget, immigration (Utah needs a guest worker's program imho) hasn't been finalised yet.  Here are some of the frou frou bills that have passed into law.  We have a state gun (HB # who the hell cares it was one of Carl Wimmer's the man who wants the U to allow open carry on campus)  Landowners in rural Utah can now kill feral cats (that one died in committee - thank goodness), new rules on blood collection and procurement (for the vampires amongst you), new boating regulations, wolves have been delisted as an endangered species etc etc.  Sure every representative thinks their bill is important but in the grand scheme of things is it.  Is it really?

And then there is HB477 - this means we the public can't request our (or any) representative's electronic communications.  So transparency in Utah government just took a turn for the opaque.  The cheek of those so-called representatives one of them appeared on TV last night - fat - well-dressed - smug - republican - to express surprise that his constituents should be able to know every aspect of his life on the hill (not his private life)  Um Duh!!   He said that those who believe this bill  is a bad thing are the people who believe in the black helicopters.  If you hide your communications then hello bribes, back handers, back scratching - all the things that give politicians a bad name. 

http://le.utah.gov/asp/passedbills/passedbills.asp

Thankfully after a massive public outcry HB477 has been repealed.

Why do sick people think we all want what they've got

When it comes to illness I'm downright selfish, this cold/flu/thing that's going around the Salt Lake valley right now is mine, I hold the exclusive rights and no one else shall have it.  I stay in bed and take my medicine and come out the other end refreshed, recharged and back to my old self.  Other members of the public are more generous, they haul themselves around, sneezing, wheezing, coughing, and infecting the rest of us.  I'm pretty lucky, I don't tend to catch much and I have a battery of defences including vitamin D, and home made ginger tea.but what I don't have is the authority to send a complete stranger home.

Picture the scene a quiet Sunday morning, in a coffee house.  Half the booths are full and then this guy comes in and from the moment he sits down he starts to sneeze and not dust up my nose sneezes either.  These are full-on my lungs are going to come out of my nose shortly sneezes.  I've seen Mythbusters - I know how far and how fast a sneeze and its associated lurgy can travel.  Apparently so did the rest of the room,  the people sitting next to him moved as far up the room as possible.  It's one thing when you don't know you're carrying anything - like the woman who arrived in New Mexico last week and was promptly diagnosed with measels.  But when you can hardly stand the only place you should be heading is to the doctors - wearing a face mask.

Have I indentified a new species?

This post is slightly tongue in cheek and while my exposure to this species is rare once back in Control Section in the 90's

It's been rumoured for some time that there lurks among us a new breed of human.  Predominently male - they have a wide range of habitat but their behaviours are similar and easy to recognize once you've established their genus.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you - the teflon.

The teflon is always very well dressed and if you are up wind of him you can scent the powerful aroma of deadwood.

Teflons are powered by copious amounts of alcohol and junk food.

The teflon feigns intelligence,

The teflon hunts those alongside and below him, he will sacrifice them to the people above him,

The teflon gives destructive criticisim never praise.

Teflons have a hero complex they break things so they can rush in and save the day.  Teflons also have the reverse midas touch so someone else will have to clean up the mess they have created.

You can injure a teflon but it only takes three months for them to heal.

The teflon has a chocolate coloured nose.

And as his name suggests he can deflect blame from himself onto hard working co-workers.

Teflons destroy morale.

If you discover a teflon, do not approach them, teflons hate to be ignored.  Ignore a teflon today you'll be glad you did.

No Valentine left behind

Valentines Day, after Christmas the most shameless example of consumerism.  Did you know that Saint Valentine was an early Christian martyr (and there was more than one Saint Valentine)  so hearts and flowers and martyrs (people executed for their faith) do have something in common, red .

I see nothing wrong in a day that celebrates love but when did it lose it's exclusivity?

Valentine's Day is for lovers, you get that card from a secret admirer and spend the rest of the day trying to work out if it came from Dan in accounting or the really cute guy who delivers your mail or a n other.  You give your husband/wife a card because you are still in love with them and there might be roses or dinner for two in the mix. 

So I'm looking for a card for hubby and guess what? there are Valentines that sing at you, Valentines from your kids, or the dog or the cat, every kind of sweet that can be moulded into the shape of a  heart. Packs of 20 valentines!  Please, anyone with that many boy/girlfriends would be labelled promiscuous and it kind of takes the edge off that 'special someone'.  Then we come to the gifts, you can buy anything from a bunch of roses, to a diamond necklace, to a car, to - my personal favourite - a sofa.  That's like giving a woman power tools, you'll be the one who gets drilled and not in a good way.

So by all means celebrate Valentine's day but do it thoughtfully and responsibly, you're showing the one you love how much they mean to you.  You don't have to go into debt to do it.

Why is my country up for sale?

When oil and gas where discovered in the 1960’s in the North Sea while politicians paid lip service to the idea of using UK reserves to bolster our energy policy that rapidly went out of the window.  Unlike the Norwegians whose government kept a tight rein on their reserves and has profited massively as a result the UK has gone from being a net exporter of crude oil to a net importer.  Our oil and gas leases are being sold off by the BP’s and Shell’s to smaller companies hardly any of them British.

One of the downsides of becoming Europeans is that other countries can come in and buy up the infrastructure of their neighbours, effectively owning them.

Spain's Ferrovial has bought airports operator BAA, and German rail group Deutsche Bahn bought the train and bus company Arriva. The npower company has been snapped up by another German group, RWE, and ports company P&O was bought by Dubai's DP World.
France's EDF energy group has been involved in electricity generation in Britain for many years, along with the sale of gas and electricity to households and businesses.
The OFT states: 'From our own data, we found that approximately 38% of infrastructure is held by foreign investors.
Boots the Chemist now owned by Alliance (GmBH articled in Switzerland), their website says they are “international”
Rolls Royce, they kept the name but the marque like the iconic Mini is owned by BMW.
The Spanish, US, Australians are swooping on our banks, the ones we the taxpayer don’t own that is.
Kraft have bought Cadbury and are asset stripping it to death and killing the taste of the chocolate I grew up with by moving the production to Poland.  The icing on the cake, this week Deutsche Post are the main contender to buy our privatized Royal Mail so no more queens head on the UK’s stamps.
For a start a country’s infrastructure shouldn’t be for sale.  In an ideal world everyone gets a fair share, but what happens when the gas supplies run low and the French company decides their citizens get what’s left.  Or the Germans cut our power because they can.  England, which am I ashamed to say has been brought to a grinding halt by snow that the average Utahn would consider ‘light’ is never going to be part of Great Britain if it doesn’t start rediscovering some backbone and telling foreign investors where they can stick their money.  I’m not suggesting they nationalize everything it’s been tried and it was a complete disaster.  I think we can save ourselves if we put our minds to it and our cupboard of British owned companies is pretty nearly bare.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/United_Kingdom/NaturalGas.html

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=519416&in_page_id=2#ixzz18bgMDlJt

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340093/The-Queens-head-set-saved-stamps-revealed-foreign-firm-remove-image.html