Posted by Ben @ August 6th, 2011 8:07 am. Filed under: I'm serious!,Just Crazy Enough To Work,My Other Car Is Another Car,Nanny Knows Best,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Only joking!,Unreasonable Demands,Unworkable Ideas — Tags: Ian Henderson —
by Ian Henderson2000 people are killed every year on our roads, and another 20,000 are seriously injured. This is a particularly common cause of death and serious disablement for younger people. This petition therefore calls for safety hats to be made compulsory for all car drivers and passengers. Cars are heavy-duty, high-speed machinery, and despite modern innovations such as seat belts and air bags, brain injuries are still a leading cause of death and injury. A study by the University of Adelaide has even shown that a simple bicycle-style helmet would cut brain injuries by 50% and save 1 in 5 crash victims. What are we waiting for?
On balance, this sounds a rather sensible idea. However the logical progression from this is that everybody wears a “safety hat” all the time forever because, I don’t know, someone somewhere might get home from work one night, slip on a bit of carpet and fall over and crack their head open on the radiator. After all, most accidents happen at home, or so an episode of Red Dwarf once told me.
Posted by Andrew @ December 28th, 2010 5:09 pm. Filed under: Anything I Want Is A Human Right,Exclamation marks!!!!,Gibberish,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,spelin an grammer — Tags: Lawrence "Larry Cavelle" Cavill —
I got this message on Facebook a while back:
Larry Cavelle 21 December at 23:29
do you run www.wetheundereducated.com?
What’s happening? We’ve certainly never posted a petition from a Larry Cavelle. We posted one by Angela Cavelle once, could it be about that? Best get to the bottom of this.
Anyway, the conversation is long and ongoing, and therefore hidden behind the fold. (more…)
Posted by Ben @ December 14th, 2010 10:28 am. Filed under: Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Wait a minute... this isn't a petition! — Tags: Mr Francis Guidera —
You’ve got to hand it to Mr. Guidera – he just doesn’t give up, even when he says he’s giving up. Shortly after posting our most recent conversation with him he decidedly get back in touch with me, once again threatening to bring down the fury of God’s own thunder. Which is unsettling.
Once more unto the breach, eh? (more…)
Posted by Ben @ December 8th, 2010 7:17 am. Filed under: Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Wait a minute... this isn't a petition! — Tags: Mr Francis Guidera —
Remember Mr Francis Guidera? No? Maybe this will refresh your memory – in July he contacted us demanding we remove this post where he demanded that the government arrest people who objected to the Pope visiting the UK. We responded with his request with the due care and attention we felt it deserved – namely, we made fun of him.
At the end of November, he reemerged from the murky waters of internet vilification and continued his campaign of scaring us with big legal threats, and so we continued to make fun of him.
I will be honest: I felt a little out of my depth responding to these emails as I wasn’t entirely certain about our legal grounding. With that said, some of my responses to Frank’s emails lose their comedy edge very quickly into the conversation replaced instead with genuine seriousness. Andrew, on the other hand, was far more confident about the whole thing, and in retrospect I wish it had been him who had continued the conversation – he’s much better at this sort of thing.
Let’s read on. (more…)
Posted by Ben @ September 14th, 2010 8:35 pm. Filed under: I Accidentally The Whole Thing,I Must Be Of Something,I'm Religious So You Have To Do Everything I Say,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,spelin an grammer,Thank You For Coming -- It's Been Very Useful,What Would Idiot-Jesus Do? — Tags: angelsforce —
ALL of it and return
to God’s LawWhy the contribution is important
Because if everyone followed the 12 Commandments there would be no need for any legislation and in fact God’s Commandments specifically prohibit us from making our own laws or adding to them so that by making any legislation you are breaking God’s Commandments — think about it
I have thought about it and I’ve concluded that you are a crazy person.
Posted by Ben @ July 9th, 2010 2:00 am. Filed under: Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Unreasonable Demands,Wait a minute... this isn't a petition! — Tags: Mr Francis Guidera —
What is the world coming to when a couple of Honest Joes like me and Andrew can’t even mock someone’s intellectual level without being threatened with lawsuits, eh? Last week I received a wonderful email from Frank Guidera, whom you may recall objected to people objecting to the visit from the Grand Master Paedophile himself. Here’s the email:
To: Ben Paddon
From: Frank Guidera
Subject: Your remarks on your But Sir website.I just googled my name, for fun, only to find you have my name on your website, remarking on my rejected petition.
I demand that you remove my name from your website, because your website claims by it’s title that I, as someone listed on your website, am under-educated, which in more simple terms means you are accusing me of being not educated enough to form a valid opinion, essentially saying I am stupid.
I am going to speak to a union solicitor on Monday, and will find out if I can sue you for deformation. I am happy not to take this course of action if you have removed my name and links to my rejected petition from your website by 23:59 on Friday 9th of July 2010. If not, I will attempt to take legal action against you and will seek damages.
Fun fact – I live in the US, which is also where this website is hosted. I forget about the specifics of the UK’s archaic libel laws, but here in the US you can’t claim libel based on someone else’s opinion, whether the opinion is factually based or not. So when I express my opinion that Mr Guidera is a slaw-jawed dunderninny and that this email only serves to underline his inherent dunderninnity… well, there’s really not a lot he can do.
Still, I decided to talk some reason into him. Sort of.
To: Frank Guidera
From: Ben Paddon
Subject: RE: Your remarks on your But Sir website.Hello Frank.
The title of our website is “But, Sir…”, which to me doesn’t seem to be implying or suggesting anything. Yes, alright, our slogan is “We the undereducated petition the Prime Minister…” which is a sort of a pun, or play on words.
You’re also rounding down “undereducated” to mean stupid, which is a little bit silly. I mean, I myself am comparatively undereducated when you consider the jobs I’ve held over the last few years. I mean, Project Coordinator for the broadcast division of a large multi-billion dollar entertainment company? I got a D for my Mathematics G.C.S.E, for Glod’s sake. Such things should not be allowed to happen, but there we are.
While you’re at it you may want to consider talking to your solicitor for me concerning McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” slogan. I’ve been to McDonalds and I didn’t “love it” at all. Indeed, I found their food to be barely tolerable. If you’d run that by him to see if I have a potential case I’d be very grateful.
Turrah!
~Ben
He wasn’t happy with that at all.
To: Ben Paddon
From: Frank Guidera
Subject: RE: RE: Your remarks on your But Sir website.Your URL is wetheundereducated.com
Your statement at the top of the webpage says, we the undereducated petition the Prime Minister to…
And your ‘about this site’…
The British Government, bless their little cotton socks, have a website where any member of the public alert enough to operate a computer can start an online petition to the Prime Minister. This blog charts the dumbest of them, as they are submitted.
All of this indicates that you have picked out what you feel are petitions by people who are ‘alert enough to operate a computer’ and have submitted the dumbest ones.
I have asked nicely. I am now contacting your hosting provider, to complain that your site that they are hosting attacks me personally, and many others too. The last time I had to do this for some colleagues that a customer decided to publicly insult, the website was down within 24 hours and the user was banned.
You can always beat me to it and take it down yourself, You may not think this is serious, but hopefully your hosting provider will see things differently.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Oh, shit. Frank has actually had sites taken down before. He means business.
To: Frank Guidera
From: Ben Paddon
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Your remarks on your But Sir website.Hey Frank.
I have to ask: Did you watch last week’s Doctor Who? It’s airing two weeks behind here in the US but everybody back home who’s seen it tells me it was the dog’s bollocks. WHich is good. I had my doubts about Matt Smith but he’s been fantastic this series and I can’t wait to see what else he’s capable of.
Anyway, back to business.
I’ve been doing a little research in the ladybird Big Book of Law, and it turns out that what we’re doing on our precious little website is based on what lawyerticians like to call “opinion”. The great thing about opinion is that everybody is entitled to one. So if I think, for example, that your petition about giving Christians the right to discriminate against homosexuals is dumb then I’m well within my rights to say so! Isn’t that grand?
That said, I did get that information from a book. I inherently distrust books (did you know books outnumber us 35,000-to-one? It’s true! I read about it in a… waaaaait a minute…) so I’m inclined to want to run this one by our legal council, Sgt. Andrew Theodore Taylor (Retired), whom I have copied in on this email. He’ll probably be asleep right now as it’s the start of July, but he’s usually awake by the 5th or 6th. Then begins his grueling hike up Ben Nevis to plant a single flower for his fallen comrades in World War II, which he claims ended in 1957. That always seemed odd to me, but then he does have medals, and he tells some strange, oddly-specific stories about the war that don’t quite line up with reality. Although, he was born in the 70s. I’ve never really asked him about that, nor about that strange device he keeps locked away in his legal cabinet…
…Anyway, I’m sure you’ve got a lot more Googling to do, so I’ll leave you to it.
Take care!
~Ben
Andrew’s still a lawyer, but now he’s a time-travelling soldier. It’s true! Or maybe I made it up. Honestly, it’s difficult to keep track. Despite that wonderful email, Frank was undeterred:
To: Ben Paddon
From: Frank Guidera
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Your remarks on your But Sir website.Done and done.
Contacted your hosting provider with my complaint.
Now, you have a top 10 list of people posting petitions. Some might say that is stalking… I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with someone monitoring my postings to a government website purely to take the proverbial out of me on another website. Stalking is definitely is against the t’s and c’s of IX Webhosting. And then there is the defamation. That is also against the t’s and c’s of IX Webhosting.
You have posted many defamatory remarks… and I quote your website…
One word: Vigilantism. That one word (five syllables, eleven letters) is reason enough not to put this information out in the public.
I think the government should give out the details of everyone who posts a stupid petition on the ePetition page, for “lawful safety reasons”. I mean, what if they’re going to do something stupid that could cause me harm? By putting these palpably idiotic peoples’ details out there I can be sure to avoid them and thus avoid injury.
Mmm… so the petitions you select are some of the dumbest, therefore the persons posting them are ‘palpably idiotic people’.
Now, it’s late here in blighty, and I can’t spend the rest of my evening chit chatting with you on here. I am sure you are busy too, managing trillion dollar projects whilst entertaining the masses at the expense of others.
See, you forget, we British folk are ALL masters of sarcasm. And whilst it is the lowest form of wit, for some reason, we all seem to get a kick out of it, don’t we?
It was great chatting with you, but from this point onwards, let’s not waste each other’s time any further. I have asked, you have replied with sarcasm, I have contacted your hosting provider, now it’s up to them.
Yes, it is up to them. And considering Frank emailed them on July 3rd (the date the above email was sent) and they’ve yet to contact me about it, I’m going to go ahead and assume that our wonderful hosts – IX Webhosting, should you be curious – have decided not to uphold Frankie’s claim on the grounds that he is quite evidently two letters short of a Countdown Conundrum.
Still! I had one more reply for him:
To: Frank Guidera
From: Ben Paddon
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Your remarks on your But Sir website.Sarcasm? I think you’ll find what i was doing was banter, sir. As a Brit myself, I was trained from the age of 2 to spot the difference.
Incidentally that list is a number of the Top Ten people we’ve mentioned on our site. It’s automatically generated based on the number of times a post is tagged with a person’s name. If that’s stalking then what do you call it when I peer through the window of the people over in apartment 309?
Enjoy your weekend. It’s July 4th tomorrow and my building is right next to the park where they’ll be doing a fireworks display, so I don’t expect to get much done.
Love and kisses,
~Ben
It’s been nearly a week and I’ve not heard from him. Presumably his team of Big City Hot Shot Lawyers™ are putting a case together as we speak.
Posted by Ben @ March 31st, 2010 5:01 pm. Filed under: It's Not Gay If Your Balls Don't Touch,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,We Don't Take Kindly To Your Type Rahnd These Pahts — Tags: Steve Vince —
by Steve VinceThe wording of the petition should be self-explanatory.
Oh, it is. I’m sure you would’ve asked for the right to decline “people of colour” as well were it not for the fact that it’d make you sound even more ignorant than you already are.
Posted by Ben @ March 23rd, 2010 1:11 am. Filed under: I'm serious!,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Rejected Petitions — Tags: Keith Jones —
Keith Jones is thirsty. Thirsty for power.
by Keith Jones of Taxpaying Pensioner without political affiliation (rejected)It is plainly obvious that the people who are currently responsible for checking and approving claims are unable to read the book of rules and MUST be removed from the task. As a tax paying pensioner I have a vested interest in ensuring that the money is properly spent. I absolutely guarantee that there is no individual nor organisation nor amount of money can hold sway over the way I would exercise my responsibilities in this post.
by keith jones of taxpaying pensioner without political affiliation (rejected)Now that the recently appointed Chairman has said he may not be able to fulfil the role, Gordon Brown has an opportunity to move away from the ‘establishment’ and to appoint someone who has no interest in become lorded, nor in making a fortune. Keith Jones will do the job diligently, always in favour of the taxpayer, honestly and with transparency and probity AND he will do it without being paid for it. His only fees will be travel costs between his home in South Wales and his office in Westminster, though why he has to have an office in Westminster is the first item on his review agenda.
Y’know, I’d kind of like to see this, if only to see how much Keith manages to balls up both gigs at once. Not entirely sure why he chose to refer to himself in the third person for his second petition though. I mean, his name on the thing. People already know he wrote it.
Posted by Andrew @ March 10th, 2010 10:01 pm. Filed under: Anything that passes the spellchecker must be what I meant,Gibberish,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Really Epic Duplicate Petitions,Rejected Petitions,spelin an grammer — Tags: Johanna Yohara Robby —
by Johanna Yohara Robby of Piano World (rejected)In Southwark and Lambeth constituecies we are questioning the rules and ownership of Grand / Upright Pianos in public spaces as churches, pubs schools and halls in Southwark and Lambeth that are not beign used at all in any activity specialy concerts, recitals, marathons, lessons, choir -song accompaiment.
Owners of public spaces with an Upright or Grand Piano will consequently find performers willing to perform and able to accept commissions and so they will be compelled to feature a proportion of standard repertoire.
The Owners may be inviting the audience to engage with Piano activities. Promoters / Publishers must be taken in association with the Piano owners and the Piano performers. We have established that the direct costs to a performer of preparing a new repertory is very considerable, in some cases astronomical, while performances of serious contemporary works are few in comparison to performances overall. Generally Piano Concert will have four categories of performances. Ones in whom they believe in absolutely for the quality of their work, even knowing that they will become commercially or contemplative
Posted here:
Posted by Ben @ February 23rd, 2010 6:00 pm. Filed under: I AM TALKING!,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,Please State The Nature of the Medical Emergency,spelin an grammer — Tags: SHEILA of OURLOVEDONESTOOKTHEIROWNLIVES —
And now, a suggestion that, if implemented, cannot under any circumstances be abused:
by SHEILA of OURLOVEDONESTOOKTHEIROWNLIVESPlease make sure that with regard to Mental Health services the parents/ next of kin or loved ones that know the patient should always be listened to and referred to. If a parent or loved one feels that their child needs to be sectioned under the mental health act then they must be listened to..they know the child better than anyone. If they are not listened to then they should be given a very good reason why and the professionals should accept the responsibility of events that could occcur by way of ignoring the request
“Oh yes, my mother is definitely unhinged. Can you put her somewhere else? We’re planning on converting her room into an office, you see.”
Posted by Ben @ February 11th, 2010 9:01 pm. Filed under: Anything I Want Is A Human Right,Commas,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition! — Tags: Kalvis M. Jansons —
We’ve had a couple of petitions from Kalvis Jansons, and each time adds something to his name. Last time he acquired a middle initial (I’ve chosen to believe it stands for “Marmaduke”). This time he has apparently acquired a doctorate.
by Dr Kalvis M. JansonsBeing allowed to vote is a basic human right, and should, therefore, extend to prisoners.
Should it? I’m not entirely convinced. What do you think, gentle reader?
Posted by Ben @ February 4th, 2010 8:37 pm. Filed under: I'm serious!,Oh Yeah? Let's See You Write A Better Petition!,These Kids Today With Their Modern Haircuts And Hippetty-Hop Music,Young, Dumb, And Online — Tags: Master Connor Betts, Tobias Holbrook —
Tobias Holbrook would like to talk to you logically for a moment.
by Tobias HolbrookCurrently, the voting age is not set on a rational basis. It is set at 18, despite a lack of evidence that 18 is a logical age to set it at. I propose to lower the voting age at a local level as a pilot, to see what effect allowing people as young as 12 to vote and stand for election would have. The results from this can then be used to determine a logical voting age for national elections.
Yes! This is clearly the logical choice! Let’s see what 12year-olds, who have little or no understanding of how the world works, have to say! Or better yet let’s see what the 12 year-olds’ parents have to say as they’ll be the ones telling their kids what to vote for!
But young Master Betts (I shit you not) has another suggestion:
by Master Connor BettsI am writing this petition for my Citizenship GSCE Coursework. The more signatures, the better. I know there are alot of people who share the same views as I do. In my opinion, If sixteen year olds are allowed to risk their lives for their country, Then why can’t they be given the ability to vote for who they are fighting for? If they can devote their lives to another person (Marriage) and sign a marriage certificate, Then why can’t they sign a less important and more simple document being the ballot paper?
This does present us with a conundrum. Tobias wants to knock the age all the way down to 12. There’s a gap here of four years. What shall we do?
Fortunately, Tobias is willing to compromise:
by Tobias HolbrookOne of the issues our democracy is facing is the voting age. There are many arguments both for and against lowering the voting age, but they tend to miss an obvious compromise – a tiered system, where town parish council elections would have an age limit of 12, district council elections and age limit of 14, county council elections an age limit of 16, and a national age limit of 18.
The advantages would be numerous. It would give people a chance to become more involved in the political process as they grow older, while also serving to gather useful information that would inform further debates on the voting age.
We hope the government considers this idea carefully.
Yes! Such a brilliant idea! And this despite a lack of evidence to support that 12, 14 and 16 are the logical voting ages for these regions.
