What news, what a joke! Gordon Brown suggests the losers may form a coalition to form a government to keep the Conservatives out.
How far will this go though? There were many losers. What if the smaller groups are included? The Monster Loonies could be considered ‘progressive’.
God help us.
Who wrote the books of the Bible has long been a subject of study and debate. One thing that has been tantalisingly out of reach is understanding the personalitie of the writers.
Now though we have the revelation of Polish pop star Dorota Rabczewska. Where would we be without such wisdom and insight?
This week the controversial 26-year-old dismissed the Bible, saying “It is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes”. Angry Catholic groups have asked prosecutors to charge her for offending the religious feelings of Jews and Christians.
I just wonder where she got that ideas from.
Should I be enraged? I just find it funny.
See this link for more.
If you were looking for instructions on how to install Ubuntu on the Samsung NC10 netbook (or similar) you can go to my previous post, just put ‘NC10′ in the search box in the right sidebar.
Upgrading my netbook from 9.10 (karmic) to 10.04 ‘Lucid Linux’ was simple. and largely trouble free.
In my previous post I explained that after installation you need to add a new software source, otherwise known as a repository. This is a simple task and it will mean that the NC10 will apolitically install, and keep updated, the extras that it needs to work the blue function keys.
To upgrade the first thing to do is to do a normal software update by going into System > Administration and choosing ‘Update software’. When the update is complete you will see a box at the top of the update window telling you that an upgrade is available. Click on that and you are away. The whole process will take a few hours depending on you broadband speed so be prepared to be able to get on with something else when it works away.
If you upgraded like me you will see that the software source you had for you NC10 has now been disabled. This is because that old one will not work for ‘Lucid Linux’ the new Ubuntu. You will need to add ppa:voria/ppa to your Software Source list.
As I write this the ppa:voria/ppa has almost completed the fixes but not quite. My NC10 works well as it is though. I think it is only the back-light control and am waiting for now.
The quickest way to update to update your netbook is by doing a clean install of Linux. The process is quick compared to the sort of update I mention above. The reason the above update is so slow is that once the new software is downloaded it takes a long time to install due to the slowness of the netbook processor, one of the few times it is noticeable.
A school receptionist who was suing her employers for religious discrimination following a dispute over a prayer email has secured an undisclosed payment and settled out of court.
I had not checked on this despite writing a post about it a while ago.
This is good news. Is it great news? I am not sure. Because Jenny Cain settled out of court no principle in law has been set. And the school head teacher and governors have saved themselves - they have not been sacked.
In their joint press release dated Wednesday, 14 April 2010 it says:
The parties have agreed to disagree as to whether Mrs Cain has been discriminated against on the grounds of her religion by either staff at the school or the Local Authority.
All parties jointly acknowledge that all faiths, including Christianity, must be treated equally and with sensitivity. All parties also recognise the freedom of individuals to hold, talk and write about their beliefs.
The parties have agreed to disagree!? I think that is appalling. The school seem unable to admit they acted disgracefully.
The dispute began in January last year when Mrs Cain’s daughter Jasmine, then aged five, was reprimanded by her class teacher for talking about her Christian faith to another child. On hearing that her daughter had been reprimanded for expressing her faith, Mrs Cain sent a private email to church friends and family asking them to pray about the incident.
The email was sent from Mrs Cain’s home computer, outside work time, using her personal email account. This was no business of her employer.
For some reason the email ended up in the hands of head teacher Gary Read. Instead of realising that it was a case of a person of faith at the receiving end of Christophobic behaviour who needed supporting, he launched an investigation against Mrs Cain for professional misconduct. Yes, against Mrs Cain! She was then told to stay away from her job for nearly four months before receiving a written warning over the affair.
In August it was reported that Mrs Cain was launching an Employment Tribunal claim for religious discrimination, harassment and victimisation – backed by The Christian Institute.
The claim was brought against the governing body of Landscore Primary School and the school’s head teacher, Gary Read. A claim was also brought against Devon County Council for aiding the discrimination.
Speaking in August, Sean Kehoe, senior partner of the law firm Advance Legal who represented Mrs Cain, said: “No one ever seemed able to answer the simple question of what exactly Jennie had done wrong.
“We say there is an undercurrent of anti-Christian sentiment which she has come up against. If she had been from another religious background, nothing would have happened.”
The Chair of the Governing Body, David Smith, said: “Mrs Cain has undertaken her role as the receptionist at the school very well. We are drawing a line under this matter.
“As a result the school and the Head Teacher will be able to concentrate all their attention on providing the best possible learning environment for the children in our community.
I do not understand how the Head Teacher has kept his job. If he had been homophobic instead of Christophobic I think he would have been sacked. I think it would have been him and the chair of governors suspended pending an investigation. They should both thank God for the mercy Jenny Cain has shown them.
Muslim doctors and nurses have been allowed to opt-out of NHS hygiene rules in a move that has been blasted by critics as double standards. Critics compared the opt-out given to Muslims to cases of Christians being marginalised by the NHS.
That is my gripe. Christian nurse Caroline Petrie was suspended for offering to pray for a patient in 2008. She only offered!
Mrs Petrie, a committed Christian and married mother of two, insisted that she never forces her religious beliefs on anyone. Yet she was investigated by North Somerset Primary Care Trust after offering to pray for one of her patients at the end of a home visit. The Trust invited Mrs Petrie back to work after widespread media coverage of her story. I doubt they would have done otherwise.
NHS guidance to curb the spread of superbugs in hospitals states that staff must be “bare below the elbow”. But Muslim staff have been given an exemption to the rule and will be allowed to wear disposable over sleeves instead.
Sikh doctors and nurses have also been told they can wear a bangle around their arm, as long as they push it up when treating a patient.
Former Conservative Minister Ann Widdecombe said: “Minority groups are unquestionably getting more sensitive treatment than Christians and this is yet more proof.” And Dr Andrew Fergusson of the Christian Medical Fellowship, which represents 4,000 doctors, said that “Christians in health care seem to be particularly vulnerable at the moment”.
The move was also slammed by an anti-superbug campaign group. MRSA Action UK’s chairman said: “My worry is that allowing some medics to use disposable sleeves you compromise patient safety because unless you change the sleeves between each patient, you spread bacteria. “Scrubbing bare arms is far more effective”, he added.
Since 2007 many hospitals have insisted that staff involved in patient care wear short sleeves at all times.The move came in an attempt to combat superbugs, such as MRSA. However, following reported objections by Muslims, health officials drew up revised rules on the advice of Islamic scholars and a group called Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS (MSCP), which is part of the Muslim Council of Britain.
A working party was set up comprising two Health Department officials, a member of the Health Protection Agency, two female Muslim hospital chaplains, an Imam and two members of MSCP.
The revised guidance was issued on 26 March.
The Department of Health said: “We recognise that elements of the additional guidance could be seen to be introducing differing requirements for those to whom ‘baring below the elbows’ presents no significant problem. “We have considered the implications of this possibility but concluded that the overall purpose of the guidance, to ensure patient safety by adherence to good hand hygiene, is not prejudiced by the additional dress options that have now been identified.”
See Christian Institute for more.
See also re nurse sacked for wearing a cross.
Some are claiming that the votes of Christians will swing this election. Others hotly deny that such as thing is possible.
I suppose someone who wants to believe that the church is small and irrelevant will not want to consider that the Christian vote has any weight. And how would we know anyway, as voters do not indicate their religion?
I do think Christians should be well informed though about the various parties and their stance on moral issues. I read the election briefing from the Christian Institute and was horrified by some of the things I discovered. I recommend it to all Christian voters. It has certainly influenced my voting intentions.
I have used various to-do and note applications over the years. I used to have a very sophisticated one on my Palm years ago. Now though, as I use a mobile phone, netbook and two desktops, I want something that is common to them all.
Google Notebook used to be rather good and I can still use mine, though I have to Google for the site as Notebook is no longer in their list on the home page.
I have been looking for a new way to track my work tasks and my actions list (and associated notes) using something online so I can access it from any computer. I already use Google Docs so do not need something that duplicates that.
Before I mention some of the on-line notes applications, just a note about Tomboy Notes (similar to Zim). This comes as part of Ubuntu and can be synced over Ubuntu One to be the same on all computers I use. It is powerful but not exactly what I want.
I think I have found the solution for me. I found that the only way to get a real way of comparing them was to sign up for many of them and have a play about trying the features.
Sticky Note Style
Jjot is like having a collection of sticky notes on a board, as is Posti.ca. I want more than that.
Simple
Notebook G is rather minimalist, it looks like a blog with each post being a note. Searching for notes is through their ‘Powertags’ in one of four categories; people, places, things, dates. SnapBits is even more minimalist, though you can also add new items via email. See also Mojonote that allows you to set email or SMS reminders things on your to-do list. 3banana otherwise known as Snaptic is good for sharing stuff including pictures.
Student
Notely seems more for student class use, as is NoteMesh. Not for me. Some of the power and collaborating features I would use are already in Google Docs. Others in this range are Grade Genie, NoteCentric,
Bells and Whistles
Stixy seems designed for collaborating. It is strong on document and photo handling, whereas I mainly want to manipulate text. Stixy would be ideal for a family wanting to share stuff with relatives. I suppose Facebook does that though. It is like a bulletin board that you can stick all sorts of things to such as documents, sticky notes, to-do lists, photos, etc.
Evernote is hugely popular and has a lot going for it with the ability to receive stuff from a mobile, including photos. See here for a review. A premium membership costs but the free subscription has a generous free monthly upload limit. I like it, but not enough.
Zoho Notebook is just a part of the Zoho cloud office suite and is excellent. It can import Google Notebook content and a Google user can sign in from their Google login. It has a very good very good feature-rich text editor. Notes can include images, video, audio, and hyper-links. There are even basic draw functions for your note making. There is a good browser extension available to save clipping quickly.
Helipad integrates well with Mac and iPhone. Helipad will receive your notes from your mobile phone, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 and PSP.
For me Springnote (2GB of free storage - and that is a lot of notes!) and Ubernote (unlimited note storage) were almost neck and neck in the race. Springnote is a neat and attractive interface. It is so feature-rich some people will find it a bit overawing. Don’t be put off though, you can ignore the features you don’t need to use. The basics are intuitive. See here for a detailed review. I sometimes find it a bit slow, not as snappy as Ubernote.
UberNote is the winner for me - I think. It is not the prettiest but it is very versatile, powerful, quick and - very important for Netbook users like me - it crams a lot of content onto the page, making good use of the small screen (the reason I rejected iKnolio.com). I like the left side panel which is GoogleMail-like in style. In fact the whole interface is very ‘Gmail’. It integrates well with Firefox. It has unlimited storage. UberNote allows you to share your notes and permit others to edit them. As with some others, notes can be added via email from a mobile - you can even add using Twitter for mobile note taking. Notes are continually auto-saved so there is no need to worry about lost work. See here for the full list of features.
I may use both Springnote and Ubernote for a while before finally deciding but I do like the clever ways that Ubernote’s tickbox can be used.
