Our Bovine Foreign Secretary has given a speech in Berlin which has me banging my head against the desk. I'll give it a proper response soon but can't resist sharing these gems with you as a taster.
Margaret has decided that the climate must stop changing. As people are fond of saying "...it's really happening you know.." Of course it bloody is - It always has been!
I quote (my emphasis)...
"I call it achieving climate security – a new strategic international priority for the United Kingdom"
and hilariously..
"Our obligation to our citizens is to put in place the conditions for security and prosperity in a crowded and interdependent world. An unstable climate will make it much harder for us to deliver on that obligation."
Oh God Beckett - you stupid stupid cow. Do you seriously believe that climate has ever been stable? It's what climate does you know - it fucking changes!
Then there's a huge amount of guff about climate change being responsible for all the ills of the world and if only we can put £10 on a ticket to Benidorm, the weather will stop being so beastly and changeable and all the nations of the earth will suddenly stop killing each other. In fact she says..
"In short, a failing climate means more failed states. And that has implications for everything we want to achieve from conflict prevention and resolution to counter-terrorism."
Really - a FAILING climate - Ha Ha Ha... Bit like a FAILING school I suppose, or maybe a FAILING Government? I want to say it's pitiful that the representative of Her Majesty's Government is really saying things like this but of course it's actually terrifying to think that the audience are probably all nodding sagely in agreement instead of smothering howls of laughter into their handkerchiefs as they should be.
More soon...
PS Yes Yes I know that Canute was demonstrating that he WASN'T capable of holding back the tides. Just could resist the CNUT joke. All right?
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Cash for Fairy Tales
I suppose I should have known, but it comes as a shock to discover that my taxes are currently used to fund 560 "Faith" schools, and more are on the way.
How dare these peddlers of drivel and brainwashing take any of my hard earned money? What on earth suggests that I consent to subsidising these barmy people to raise more indocrinated, intolerant and opinionated adherents to their stupid and dangerous beliefs?
If they want to run schools (and I'm really not sure they should be allowed anywhere near children at all), they can bloody well ask the previous generation of gullible twats to fund them.
Whilst we're on the subject, what exactly are 26 Bishops doing in the House of Lords? They should fuck off back to their Palaces and count the donations from their poor misguided followers.
How dare these peddlers of drivel and brainwashing take any of my hard earned money? What on earth suggests that I consent to subsidising these barmy people to raise more indocrinated, intolerant and opinionated adherents to their stupid and dangerous beliefs?
If they want to run schools (and I'm really not sure they should be allowed anywhere near children at all), they can bloody well ask the previous generation of gullible twats to fund them.
Whilst we're on the subject, what exactly are 26 Bishops doing in the House of Lords? They should fuck off back to their Palaces and count the donations from their poor misguided followers.
Do as I say
Arundel Fire Station burns down destroying the fire engine inside.
Chuckle...
Asked why it didn't have a fire alarm fitted, a 'spokesman' said "A fire alarm system is designed to save lives, whereas this building was unoccupied most of the time".
I should have a word with your insurance company before you are so sure about that mate.
Unless the poor old rate payer's going to foot the bill for the new fire engine?
Chuckle...
Asked why it didn't have a fire alarm fitted, a 'spokesman' said "A fire alarm system is designed to save lives, whereas this building was unoccupied most of the time".
I should have a word with your insurance company before you are so sure about that mate.
Unless the poor old rate payer's going to foot the bill for the new fire engine?
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Wheres my funding you arseholes?
What? WHAT!? WHAATT????! I hear myself shouting at the radio... Apparently "Moderate Muslim Groups" will lose their funding unless they help to root out extremists.
What bloody funding is this? Who are these "Moderate Muslim Groups" and what the fuck is the Government doing giving them my money?
I'm a "Moderate Atheist" who will most certainly 'root out' any extremism I come across. Can I have some money please?
No?
Why the fuck not?
What bloody funding is this? Who are these "Moderate Muslim Groups" and what the fuck is the Government doing giving them my money?
I'm a "Moderate Atheist" who will most certainly 'root out' any extremism I come across. Can I have some money please?
No?
Why the fuck not?
Friday, October 06, 2006
When we were 6
I like this...
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding three on a bike was always great fun.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate bread pudding, white bread and real butter and drank lemonade with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because…
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go karts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels satellite, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given pellet guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
School sports teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them!CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding three on a bike was always great fun.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate bread pudding, white bread and real butter and drank lemonade with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because…
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go karts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels satellite, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given pellet guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
School sports teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them!CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Slurpy's first
On a lighter note, my girlfriend Lucinda (otherwise known as Slurpy) caught her first trout on Sunday.
Casting upstream to a brown trout on the gin-clear waters of the River Test at Broadlands, she managed to take up just enough slack on the line as the fly drifted over the fish and he turned to follow it downstream.. After what seemed like an age he opened his mouth and sucked in the fly. Even then she didn't panic, but let him turn to return to his lie before lifting the rod firmly to set the hook.. The fish was beautifully played - just enough tension on the line to keep it from taking her into the weed and giving the fish the occasional gulp of air on the surface before yours truly slid the net under him and put him on the bank.
How perfect is that for your first fish?!
Casting upstream to a brown trout on the gin-clear waters of the River Test at Broadlands, she managed to take up just enough slack on the line as the fly drifted over the fish and he turned to follow it downstream.. After what seemed like an age he opened his mouth and sucked in the fly. Even then she didn't panic, but let him turn to return to his lie before lifting the rod firmly to set the hook.. The fish was beautifully played - just enough tension on the line to keep it from taking her into the weed and giving the fish the occasional gulp of air on the surface before yours truly slid the net under him and put him on the bank.
How perfect is that for your first fish?!
For once Tony - It isn't your fault
The God Delusion. Can't wait to read this one..
If only religion (believing in an imaginary friend) stayed in the nursery along with waiting for Father Christmas and other harmless childish fun. Hey ho... The respected journalist Muriel Gray, writing in the (Glasgow) Herald on 24 July 2005 puts it rather well:
Everyone is being blamed, from the obvious villainous duo of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, to the inaction of Muslim 'communities'. But it has never been clearer that there is only one place to lay the blame and it has ever been thus. The cause of all this misery, mayhem, violence, terror and ignorance is of course religion itself, and if it seems ludicrous to have to state such an obvious reality, the fact is that the government and the media are doing a pretty good job of pretending that it isn't so.
It's just so fucking obvious isn't it
The Sky is Falling!
Oh for goodness sake! When are the media going to start challenging this Global Warming tripe? Today we have the president of the Maldives, when asked if he had any evidence of a rise in the sea level, replied "Oh yes! Measurements have shown that there has been a rise of one millimeter a year for the past ten years". He then demands urgent action from the international community (my taxes) to work on some sort of solution to this pressing problem.
Look - my beef with this sort of crap goes something like this...
A MILLIMETER?
How the hell does anyone measure a millimeter of sea level? Given that the sea never stops going up and down (remember tides?), what we are talking about here is measuring the highest point of a tide every day for a year and then comparing it to last years measurement, and so on.. Even the most amateur sailor could tell you that weather has a significant effect on the highest point spring tides will reach - wasn't there a huge flood in the fifties in East Anglia that was caused by a storm in the North Sea that pushed huge volumes of water over the sea defences?
So we can measure a millimeter rise in sea level can we? BOLLOCKS!
URGENT?
Even if this shit was true -how do we get to URGENT? Let's just indulge the scaremongerers for a moment and assume that this 'measurement' is correct, and that it is a constant trend, and it is actually the sea that is rising and not the land sinking because they've built 20 more hotels by the seaside (has anyone weighed the concrete that's been imported by The Maldivians in the last 10 years?), then...
It will take 300 fucking years for the sea level to rise 30cm (1ft)!
And what was the Today Programme's next question?
DO YOU HAVE AN EVACUATION PLAN?
Dear God, am I the only one actually listening to what is being said here? For goodness sake stop wasting everybody's time with this tripe...
Oh - just found this PRICELESS quote..
"The most easily measured effect of rising sea level is the inundation of coastal areas. Donald F. Boesch, with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, estimates that for each millimeter rise in sea level, the shoreline retreats an average of 1.5 meters. Thus if sea level rises by 1 meter, coastline will retreat by 1,500 meters, or nearly a mile. "
Hahahahaha - Given that tides around Britain rise and fall by (let's be kind) 2 meters, the sea should be flooding 2 miles back and forth every day!
Wanker!
Oh and it isn't true anyway (or at least someone who could be bothered to do the work instead of spouting the same old rubbish, reckons). See this from the International Union for Quaternary Research (a member of the International Council for Science)
In summary:
The Maldives have a uniquely position in sea level research (as discussed in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, No. 1, 2000, p. 17-20). In the last decade, they have attracted special attention because, in the IPCC-scenario, the Maldives would be condemned to become flooded in the next 50-100 years. Our research data do not lend support to any such flooding scenario, however. On the contrary, we find no signs of any on-going sea level rise. Our results comes from visits to numerous islands including extensive work on Hulhudoo and Guidhoo in the north, in Viligili and Loshfuchi (the site of “the reef woman”) in the middle, and in Addu in the south. This includes coring, levelling, sampling and dating (35 C14-dates). Present sea level was reached at about 4500 BP. In the last 4000 years, sea level oscillated around the present in the last 4000 years. At 3900 BP, there was a short and sharp sea level high-stand at about +1.2 m. For the last millennium, a detailed sea level record is established: +0 m 1000-800 BP, +60 cm 800-300 BP, 0 to just below 0 in the 18th century AD, +30 cm 1790-1970 AD, fall to 0 in ~1970 up to today. At about 1970, sea level fell by 20-30 cm (presumably due to increased evaporation). This is recorded in storm level, high-tide level, mean sea level and in lake and lagoon levels (from the north to the south). In the last decade, there are no signs of any rise in sea level. Hence, we are able to free the islands from the condemnation to become flooded in the 21st century.
Co-authored with the Maldives Project Team Members.
Look - my beef with this sort of crap goes something like this...
A MILLIMETER?
How the hell does anyone measure a millimeter of sea level? Given that the sea never stops going up and down (remember tides?), what we are talking about here is measuring the highest point of a tide every day for a year and then comparing it to last years measurement, and so on.. Even the most amateur sailor could tell you that weather has a significant effect on the highest point spring tides will reach - wasn't there a huge flood in the fifties in East Anglia that was caused by a storm in the North Sea that pushed huge volumes of water over the sea defences?
So we can measure a millimeter rise in sea level can we? BOLLOCKS!
URGENT?
Even if this shit was true -how do we get to URGENT? Let's just indulge the scaremongerers for a moment and assume that this 'measurement' is correct, and that it is a constant trend, and it is actually the sea that is rising and not the land sinking because they've built 20 more hotels by the seaside (has anyone weighed the concrete that's been imported by The Maldivians in the last 10 years?), then...
It will take 300 fucking years for the sea level to rise 30cm (1ft)!
And what was the Today Programme's next question?
DO YOU HAVE AN EVACUATION PLAN?
Dear God, am I the only one actually listening to what is being said here? For goodness sake stop wasting everybody's time with this tripe...
Oh - just found this PRICELESS quote..
"The most easily measured effect of rising sea level is the inundation of coastal areas. Donald F. Boesch, with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, estimates that for each millimeter rise in sea level, the shoreline retreats an average of 1.5 meters. Thus if sea level rises by 1 meter, coastline will retreat by 1,500 meters, or nearly a mile. "
Hahahahaha - Given that tides around Britain rise and fall by (let's be kind) 2 meters, the sea should be flooding 2 miles back and forth every day!
Wanker!
Oh and it isn't true anyway (or at least someone who could be bothered to do the work instead of spouting the same old rubbish, reckons). See this from the International Union for Quaternary Research (a member of the International Council for Science)
In summary:
The Maldives have a uniquely position in sea level research (as discussed in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, No. 1, 2000, p. 17-20). In the last decade, they have attracted special attention because, in the IPCC-scenario, the Maldives would be condemned to become flooded in the next 50-100 years. Our research data do not lend support to any such flooding scenario, however. On the contrary, we find no signs of any on-going sea level rise. Our results comes from visits to numerous islands including extensive work on Hulhudoo and Guidhoo in the north, in Viligili and Loshfuchi (the site of “the reef woman”) in the middle, and in Addu in the south. This includes coring, levelling, sampling and dating (35 C14-dates). Present sea level was reached at about 4500 BP. In the last 4000 years, sea level oscillated around the present in the last 4000 years. At 3900 BP, there was a short and sharp sea level high-stand at about +1.2 m. For the last millennium, a detailed sea level record is established: +0 m 1000-800 BP, +60 cm 800-300 BP, 0 to just below 0 in the 18th century AD, +30 cm 1790-1970 AD, fall to 0 in ~1970 up to today. At about 1970, sea level fell by 20-30 cm (presumably due to increased evaporation). This is recorded in storm level, high-tide level, mean sea level and in lake and lagoon levels (from the north to the south). In the last decade, there are no signs of any rise in sea level. Hence, we are able to free the islands from the condemnation to become flooded in the 21st century.
Co-authored with the Maldives Project Team Members.
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