Random Scribblings in the Margin

After 76 years' hard work and dedication, and much sexism, Sensei Keiko Fukuda gets her 10th dan at the age of 98.

What a woman. Words... I don't even... *seiza rei*

(Via innerbrat, I think)

Yes, indeed, when you are using faint orange font on a white background, you have certainly made every effort to make the Bikeability website accessible and easy to use for everyone, no matter what browser you choose to use, and whether or not you have any disabilities.

My bleeding eyeballs would like to offer you a cookie. A cookie flavoured with purest STUPID.

But he really has perfectly summarised the problem with the right-wing objection to funding public services. (Most worryingly-for-the-squeamish seen in plans to privatise the National Blood Service. Because letting gay men donate blood is insanely dangerous, but leaving it in the hands of people who'll cut corners for profit cannot possibly go wrong.) They say "Big Society" but they actually have no sense of the bigger picture, no sense that sometimes you have to suck it up and make a loss and even give money to horrible chavvy people if it makes the world a better place. No sense that there might be motivations more noble than short-term profit.

Anyhoo. Charlie Brooker on tuition fees:

Which leaves us one final option. Let's simply give up. You know, as a species. Put an end to this weird "progress" experiment we've all been taking part in and actively revert to the level of farmyard animals. They look happy, don't they, with their tails and their mud? Let's join them.

This needs to be required reading in every workplace.

Things Real People Don't Say About Advertising

Now they've changed their logo, the brand values make so much more sense to me!

Maybe I just need a t-shirt. "I am highly intelligent with a wide vocabulary. I understood every word you said and noticed every psychological trick you used to make me believe them. Unfortunately, they have just made me angry."

OMG FUCK YES.

Steve, Don't Eat It: The blog that makes me make noises that probably scare and upset my new housemates.

I was feeling pretty good about how many of the entries are meat products, being vegetarian and all, but then I found the one on fermented soya beans:

What I find most hilarious is that there is an expiration date on the package. What could they possibly expect to happen to the product on this date THAT HAS NOT ALREADY OCCURRED?!!!

Yeah, yeah, okay. And I quite like tofu.

(This entry brought to you by In An Attempt To Sleep Off My Cold, I HAVE COMPLETELY FUCKED MY SLEEP PATTERNS.)

Awesome post by laughingrat, via nilchance:

another librarian asked, "Why do we give them* so many allowances when the real world isn't like that?" to a general round of muttered, half-ashamed agreement. Being too terrified in groups to gather my thoughts well, and too afraid I would scream at them for being so god-damned entitled, I refrained then from saying the obvious: that the unfairness in the world is created by humans, and that it's humans' job to rectify it. That school is "the real world." That every moment we live is "the real world." There is no practice round. That the law says everyone needs to be accommodated in the workplace as well as school. That just because others are vicious bullies doesn't mean we need to be that way too. That people with disabilities are human beings. That the speaker, and the people nodding and clucking in agreement, might find themselves mentally ill or physically disabled any day. That disability is not a moral failure.