A fascinating story is on BBC News just now that a man suffering what is known as locked-in syndrom (essentially paralysis of pretty much everything except the eyes) is seeking clarification on the guidance for mercy-killing prosecutions. Potentially likely to bring the whole right-to-die argument back into the media once more, this time with a different tac to it. The claim here is that others are able (physically) to commit suicide should they decide to. This chap is not, because of his condition. So does the existing law over mercy killing infringe his rights?
I would find it hard to argue against him. He’s clearly sound of mind and has been able to express his wishes. A quirk of law prevents him achieving his objectives. Should society force him to stay alive? I for one am not convinced that it should.

PC Pro website has an article on a scam that’s currently targeting UK residents.  The scammers cold-call unsuspecting marks and claim that “Microsoft” has found a virus on their PC, and they’ll help to fix it.  Mark is told to download some software.  At this point the article is a little hazy, but it would seem that the downloaded software probably is a virus, and the chap on the end of the phone will then “fix” this problem.. for a small fee. 

As usual, this scam requires the marks to be generally ignorant or, at least, pretty trusting of the random guy who has just called (who also has somehow magically determined their phone number based on their computer and has the ability to remotely determine that you’re affected by a virus, but can’t fix it for you.) so generally it’s praying on the weak, but then that’s what sorry-ass scammers do, isn’t it?

So be careful out there, and if someone phones you claiming to be able to sort out a computer problem that you don’t even know you have, well, play them at their own game and cost them a bit of money by leaving them on hold whilst you make dinner / go to a movie / play your favourite game.

I found this story about an attack by a fox on two babies to be a bit odd.  It just doesn’t sit right to me.  I mean, there’s the info from the pest control consultant at the end, for a start, where it describes the alleged attack as completely a-typical fox behaviour, there’s the notion that such attacks are incredibly rare, and there’s the other stuff that this happened before the parents were able to react and get to the room, at which point the fox had – for another unknown reason – given up on the assault and was preparing to exit the building.  None of it makes any sense.

And in the way of things not making any sense, there’s the news that a further two new series of Red Dwarf are in the planning.  I find this distressing.  Red Dwarf was a classic series, and yet it had ran its course.  It’s hard to say that the last real series was of the same calibre as the ealier stuff, and – though I’m yet to see them myself – the anniversary special episodes “Back To Earth” were not amazing either.  If they do another 2 series, they’d better make them good, make them worthy of the originals.

After a few days of political wrangling, Prime Minister Brown has resigned, and is off to see the Queen to suggest that Mr Cameron forms the next government.  So looks like the country is tory again. (With possible lib dem coalition as yet undecided.)

Today I shall rant about responsibility, or the refusal to accept it.  Today, for example, Maclaren (the buggy maker) agreed to pay compensation to [the parents of] children injured by its buggies’ closing mechanisms.  Hmm. Ok, I can just about get by with that, though I don’t really agree with it, it represents the continuing slide towards compensating for everything, but that’s not what annoyed me.  What annoyed me was that on the TV news reports of this, parents were shown whose children had been injured by the buggies.  These parents were (paraphrasingly) saying that they were pleased that they could now stop feeling guilty about harming their children.  I find this attitude of the passing on of responsibility exceptionally sucky.  Maclaren may be compensating, but they are not accepting liability, and that’s the key thing here – it’s still the responsibility of a parent to look after their kids. 

Yes, it’s horrible when you do something or omit something that means your kid gets hurt.  But you have to accept it as being your fault.  You close a door on your child’s hand, it’s not the builder’s fault for putting the door there.  Your child gets hurt on something hot in the kitchen, it’s not the makers of the hot device that are at fault.  Your child gets their finger trapped in a buggy mechanism… Do you see the pattern here?  I really hate this culture that exists of late whereby everything is everyone else’s fault but yours. 

You make a mistake, you suck it up.

Argh.  Rant over.