Monday, May 21, 2007

god causes cancer!

Scientists have recently found strong evidence that God causes cancer - prolonged exposure to God over a lifetime leads to a significant increased risk of dying, especially of cancer of the brain. Professor Richard Dorkins and Lord Robert Winsome said in a press release associated with their paper in the world renowned Nurture&Seance Jounal that their findingers were beyond a shadow of a doubt - "95% confidence limits were used, and there was a 3% increased risk of death by God than for atheists, and a 1% increase for agnostics", claimed the famous pair.

Fellow scientists quickly rushed to defend the pair saying "we do not know which God is the principle cause yet - whether it is Yaweh, Allah, or indeed God in generally Abrahamic Gods, or if it is perhaps the theistic tendancy that is the underlying root of this scourge". Further research is required

In the mean time, the Health Projection Agency has issued a warning that people that worry about this a lot should stay away from Mosques, Churches and Synagogues until
further results are confirmed, and a cure or treatment are found.

One preacher was found who said "I've known this ever since I discovered a funny callous on my knees from praying".

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

celebrate what's good

Just went to see Loz Speyer's Time Zone at the Pizza Express on Dean St - excellent band, excellent CD, excellent venue - people should celebrate the fact that we have such excellence in the world! Cuban Rhythms meets cool tunes and great arrangements, with very fine set of musicians able to play ensemble and impro with brio!

Friday, May 11, 2007

misery guts books

I just read these three tomevs this weekend:
Burning Bright by tracy chealier (the gurl with the purl earing) - what a load of sentimental tosh and manipulative childish rubbish!

On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan, how miserable does this man have to get!

Tomorrow, by Graham Swift, tak about a suspension without cause - stephen king, for all his (many faults) could have written this book better in 3 days.

shocking - i want my money back:)

Thursday, May 10, 2007

be careful wat you wish for now blair is out

the effect will no doubt not be what you expect, even allowing for the effect of blair's departure not being what you expect, especially if you don't expect anything at all, or something in particular.

brown noses ahead?

Q: What's the difference between Blair and Brown?
A: The Ayes are too close together.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

anti-americanism for USA-philes

the beeb reports on the OU debate on regrettign the existence of the USA

a lot of the backchat is about antiamericanism. one of the things that is most annoying about americans is that they assume criticism is anti-americanism - something a lot of Israelis dotoo by the way - you are not allowed, apparently, to like America conditionally, like you are not allowed to like Israelis without disagreeing, even though a lot of the things non american's say when criticising america are said by americans themselves (ditto Israel). For example, when most people attack "america" over (say) Vietnam, Iraq (or other middle east policy) they are explicitly disagreeing with american forein policy, which they have as much (or more) right to do as americans, and they are explicitly disagreeing with what the US Federal Government is doing "on behalf of american people" - yet most of these areas are also ones in which many many americans either massively disagree with their own government (a Good Feature of america is their innate distrust of government), or else one where the vast mass of people don';t care (how many can find Palestine on the map ? :-)

The debate at the OU wasn't about the existence of North America as a contenient. It was implictly about who governs it, and by implication, what the policies are of those who govern it. This is a legitimate cause for debate as much outside as within the borders of the USA. As to whether people in the mid west should use Aluminum siding (and learn to spell Aluminium properly) or folks in Louisiana use white picket fences, well that would be something that is None Of Our Business.

Electronic traffic War Den

so yesterday as a nice May Day holiday present, I came out of the house to find
a parking ticket on the car - ticket said "failure to display a valid parking
permit"
so we have a residents parking permit, which is an electronic (RFID?) tagged
blank card that you stick o the windscreen.
the traffic warden (who was still there and was very nice) said "oh, its expired,
the computer says so". we said "but we don't have that computer, and there's
nothing printed on the card, and we didn't get no notice to say it expired". and
he said "ah, well you may be OK, and i didn't tell you this, but the council
appears to have forgotten to continue to remind people when it switched last
year to electronic parking permits so just pay the fine and then appeal...
personally i think the idea that we didn't "display" a valid permit is wrong and
that the ticket is dodgy even if we had been reminded (which we weren't -
i went to the town hall and their record was of an e-mail reminder, but the email
address they had was wrong:) - doncha love modern technology !

actually, to be fair to the council, their system was pretty damn cool - i was v.
impressed that i could see scans of all the docs I'd used to register originally
for the permit, and they came up on displays(real displays) in the town hall with
almost realtime response...plus the people were all rather nice, which was a bit
of a surprise... oh, and the new permit (now i have one) was issued electronically,
but with a peel off sticky on the receipt that has the expiry on as a reminder to put
on the back of the electronic tag in the car! really quite thought out now (they now
post a reminder as well as emailing and fixed the email address too!!!)

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

may day, may day, blair didn't resign

why not? surely he's got other phish to phry now that the geese have come home to roost on the NHS, MI5, Iraq, Schools, Europe, the "special relationship" we don't have with America, and so on. If it wasn't for a vaguely ok economy, I think one would take a dim dim view. Oh to live in scotland (except for the weather, mostly).

Things can only get battered.