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At Argyll & Bute Council…

A man applies for a job at Argyll & Bute council and is invited in for interview. When he arrives he takes a seat in the interview room, while the head of the department leafs through his CV.

“I see you’re a Gulf War and Iraq War veteran?” The department head asks, visibly impressed.

“Yes – I love serving my country. That’s why I want to work for the council, now that I’m fit enough to return to work.”

“Oh, I see… you were invalided out of the forces?”

“Yes, unfortunately. I had both my testicles blown off after triggering a land mine in Iraq.” The applicant reveals. “I do hope you won’t hold that disability against my suitability for the job.”

“Of course not – in fact I’m humbled by the sacrifice you’ve made for your country.” The department head says, choked with emotion in the presence of one who had given so much. “As far as I’m concerned you’re exactly what we’re looking for – in fact, the job is yours if you want it.”

“That’s fantastic!” The applicant beams, “When can I start?”

“Well, Monday – if you’re available. We normally start at 9:00 and work until around 4:30 – it’s a short day, but you can come in about 12:00 if you like.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“Well, the thing is…” The department head lowers his voice. “Here at Argyll & Bute we normally just sit around scratching our balls until lunch time…”

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Comment, Journal

Indoctrination masquerading as education

Yesterday morning we took Elisha to John Logie Baird primary school in order to enroll her for the term starting in August 2010. I had wanted to go along to speak to the head teacher after he’d said in the introduction meeting the week before that we could then ask questions specific to our child.

On that day I’d seen displays hung on the walls of the assembly hall, created by classes from each year. What got my attention was not the colourful work done by year 2 – a mural showing Dumbo the Elephant flying over some clowns, but the work done by year 1 showing the Christian story of creation.

Religious theology seemed a bit deep for year one, when year two was getting taught about flying elephants and clowns, so I made up my mind that I was going to question the head teacher regarding the level of religious agenda pushed upon the children at our follow-up meeting.

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Linkage

Atwood nails Netbooks, deVilla vents verbosely

Jeff Atwood nails the whole point of the Netbook form factor.

…netbooks are more than just PCs. If the internet is the ultimate force of democratization in the world, then netbooks are the instrument by which that democracy will be achieved.

Joey deVilla verbosely misses that point by such a large margin, I’m not sure whether he’s just trolling for traffic.

Slightly more capable than a smartphone; slightly less capable than a laptop.

I’ve worked on my year and a half old Asus Eee PC 1000H many a time and although it isn’t ideal for every day use, it’s still more than capable of handling development work. It also far outstrips my smart phone in terms of practicality – I don’t even bother replying to emails or forum posts a good percentage of the time unless I’m on either my netbook or my home PC, even if I’ve first viewed them on the phone.

When I read articles like Joey deVilla’s, I wonder what the agenda is behind them – it’s so unbalanced that I doubt I’d bother reading anything else he has to comment on. Somewhat of an own-goal if he really is just trying to stir up some controversy to create traffic.

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