Sunday, July 29, 2007
another nail in the coffin of nationalism
The UK is far from a being a mdoel democracy, our health services are amongst the worst in Western Europe- and deteriorating- and our rail network is a joke. Still proud, are you?
Saturday, July 28, 2007
falling birth rates are no comfort
Following this comes an observation that the neo-classical economic model has led prices of commodities to fall during the last century, indicating that raw materials have become more abdundant. At last we see a glimpse of rationality as the author observes that the commodities consumed are not the problem, but the emissions associated with their production are, however the following sentence is so counter-intuitive that it defies logic:
The two numbers referred to- the consumption of fossil fuels per head and population levela, are the two key factors in determining the survival of our civilisation. Too many people consuming too much and we all drown or burn or fight to death. On the other hand, a lot of people consuming minute quantities of resources and producing a small amount of pollution and you have a very frsutrated and bored bunch of people. My preference, and I think many people will agree with me here, is of a world where consumption is not limited but population is so that the quality of life of the population is maximised but pollution is limited to a level that allows the biosphere to flourish- further enriching our existence. Why have a population of 6.5 billion where 2 billion have no access to electricity and 1.1 billion currently have no access to safe drinking water? Why not have a stable population of 500 million people all with the quality of life currently enjoyed by the Western World? Falling birth rates could lead to immigration from more developed countries and population control in those countries would then lead to a global trend toward falling population. Population centres would shrink but quality of life would progress. Its a combination of the humanitarianism, rationality and responsibility.
Anyway- I got distratced there. The rest of the article is a big whinge and contains many snipes at phenomena that I consider to be good things, eg:
The remainder of the article is fairly level headed and contains endorsements of sexual equality in the workplace and maternity legislation to allow mothers to avoid suffering for the gap in their careers that results from childbirth.
Brendan O'Neill is a fuckwit
Why does no one in power get this? Duh?
more tax abuse from the corporations
Its all still an extension of the social injustices imposed upon my generation by my parents'.
Blut und Boden
Cunts.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
ARM THE HOMELESS
Yeah!
why I feel that my parent's generation treats mine as 2nd class citizens
the ecotopian idyll
This all sounds delightfully quaint until I realised that I am a lazy bugger and will do absolutely anything, including lying brazenly to my wife's face, to avoid having to do the washing up.
Incidentally, in direct contrast to public opinion and common sense (big fucking surprise), the government appears to be hell-bent on making it impossible to even attempt to live in such an idyllic setting. £2000 per acre of land! I could happily make do with half an acre, given the opportunity to construct and reside within my own bender. As I observed above, it would be a trial to make it through your 1st winter but I'm certain that I could make it comfy enough to survive. Compare the cost of that to the £85000 price tag of a grotty 1 bedroom flat that is the alternative!
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
ignorance and power
Monday, July 23, 2007
floods of tears
Hear, hear!
I only wish the rest of the piece were as strongly worded. In fact, after bewailing the British resposne to "the (climate-change-caused) bad summer by getting into (climate-change-causing) jets and flying to the Mediterranean - where, by the way, global warming is causing innumerable heatwave deaths?" she then goes on to brand us all hypocrites before stating unabashedly that "I hold my hand up too. Our long-planned week's holiday to a Greek resort will go ahead if the airports are open."
I'm sorry? Did I misunderstand you there, Jackie? You think that climate change is bad and a real problem but you aren't doing anything about it? In fact, you are wilfully making it worse! The conceit and arrogance of this little gobshite truly becomes clear in the penultimate sentence: "I need to be cajoled, led, provoked and taxed into changing my ways, as do we all."
Only if you're a lackadaisical fuckwit with the moral compass of Pol-Pot, you do. Fucking whinging, liberal toerags waiting for someone to come along and legislate them out of trouble. I fucking hate people like this.
RRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! !
On a less ranty and more holier-than-thou note I would like to announce that I am going to the South of France in August by train. Yes, not by plane or ferry but by good old choo-choo. Admittedly I am going wakeboarding on my friend's fat boat for a week but I still reckon that's half the CO2 of the flight.
Smugness is me.
The Threat to Reason by Dan Hind
Sunday, July 22, 2007
an example of how not to set housing policy
He seems to think the housing associations can build houses out of thin air and dreams.
Hint to Gordon: Stop spending £1 billion a year on an illegal war and put the money into something beneficial to society.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
beauty in a physical form
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
eating meat fucks the environment royally
If only I had the willpower to give up meat.
Tried it.
Failed.
plutocracy . . . yada yada yada . . . cock-weasel . . . . . British public transport is shit . . . etc . . .etc
So why, dear listener (I'm listening to the radio and it appeals to me to address you so), why is it that we tolerate being treated as serfs? I must take a bus to work today at a cost of £1.45 per trip. An interesting observation is that that £2.90 would allow me to travel an impressive 25 miles (ok, so that's shit fuel economy but I drive a 1.6 Nissan Bluebird- you try and get a decent car for under £500). I can assure you that the trip to town is barely 2.5 miles, so why the extreme expense?
Today's Independent cover story suggests an answer, this story inside has more.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Sian Berry calls for Brown to give TfL its money back
With a bit of tweaking to the contracts PFI might yet turn out to be a good idea but its implementation and the lack of knowledge of those who were given the task of negotiating the first deals has left us with a massive white elephant.
In other recent news, a representative of Brown's government- one Caroline Flint MP (voted strongly against transparent government; voted very strongly for introducing ID cards; voted very strongly for student top-up fees; voted very strongly for the Iraq war; voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism legislation; voted very strongly against investigating the Iraq war; voted very strongly for replacing Trident)- told all the poor people in the country to fuck off and stop whinging about how crap life is in a plutocracy.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
I want one!
This is totally gnarly:
Does anyone want to give me £3K so's I can buy one?
Or, if you're feeling particularly generous, how about £10K for one of these beautiful things:
That's a production car, kids! Fucking beautiful!
There's a couple more fascinating developments in automotive technology in this article.
Addition:
Ok, so actually its not a production car but I still want one when they go on sale.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
a little climate change philosophy
this is just fucking amazing
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
its raining again . . .
PAST UK WEATHER
Mean temperatures generally around 1 deg C above average across the UK, although maximum temperatures across parts of eastern Scotland were over 1 deg C below average. The majority of the UK having well above average rainfall, with rainfall anomalies widely over 300% across Yorkshire, with some areas having their wettest June on record. Sunshine generally below average across the UK, and exceptionally below average across parts of eastern Scotland and NE England, with some areas having their dullest June on record.
Emley Moor, Bingley and Fylingdales all recording over 400% of their average June rainfall. E & NE England climate district area having its wettest June, beating the previous highest of June 1997 by around 30 mm (areal series back to 1914).
Yeah! That did the job! Lets see some more!
So far the Westcountry has had twice its annual rainfall! That's a year's worth in the 1st 6 months. Thanks, George & Tony!
Friday, July 06, 2007
the European rail revolution - unless you live in the UK, that is
Yeah, I know. You can't.
Thanks, Maggie, John "Y-fronts" Major and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara!
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
The Great British Public is greatly ignorant. And Stupid.
Fuckers.
Oxford Research Group piss all over the nuclear fire
Pretty conclusive, methinks.
Welcome home Alan Johnston!
COngratulations to the Hamas Executive Force for not using overly heavy-handed tactics that might have endangered his life and a big "Fuck You!" to the Dogmush Clan, who captured and held him for so long in pursuit of their fundamentalist Islamist goals.
Wankers.
George Monbiot, Speaker of Profundities
Think about that next time you go to vote.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Monday, July 02, 2007
Goering and propaganda
Sunday, July 01, 2007
European's nuclear revamp on the rocks already
another piece of the Neo-Malthusian jigsaw emerges
I just came up with the "Neo-Malthusian" tag. Its, like, a cockweasels favourite ad-hominem attack on us eco-warriors but turned back on them. "Yes", we cry, "we're embracing Malthus predictions of imminent catastrophe but backing them with oodles of profoundly irrefutable scientific evidence".
The difference is, Malthus' scenario failed to take into account the technological developments that kept mankind growing until now. But now exponential population growth is taking over the linear progression of technology and we're back where he thought we were 300 years ago and there are good human beings out there working to explain why.
There's a fascinating critique of Malthus, by an anthropologist called Eric Ross, reviewed here. It sounds totally wicked and I fancy laying my filthy paws on a copy for enlightenment purposes. I must state here, however, that I am shocked by their connection of neo-Malthusianism, racism and eugenics. I don't advocate militant birth control and family planning because I want to improve the human gene stock or because I want to eliminate a particular strand of humanity. I am convinced that every single healthy human child has the potential to cure cancer or to kill a million innocents- its very much a matter of upbringing which decides which of these extremes they move toward. I just think there are too many fucking humans on the planet and we're not looking after the ones that are alive now. I think people should stop having kids until there are no more hungry or neglected children (hmmm- Annual births (eg. for Asia = 97560105) divided by total number of orphan children under 16 (again, for Asia = 253656272) equals 2.6 years (all figures torn from Wikipedia).
Two point six fucking years! That's a goddamn long time to stop a continent giving birth. But all then orphans in the continent would have families.
Frankly I wasn't even aware of the use of the term "Neo-Malthusian" in the review until I finished reading it; I'd started writing this post before I'd finished more than a couple of paragraphs and I'm now regretting embracing the term in my title. But I haven't removed my reference to it as I believe this post shows a progression of thought and understanding of the subject. The Znet article contains many indisputably alarming facts. Rather than being scared of being branded something I'm not I'd rather stand behind my convictions and clarify why they might sound inhuman but actually profess more concern for the future of humanity than they initially be obvious.