Gaddafi: 'He died an angry and disappointed man'I'm going out on a limb here, but if an angry mob dragged me out of the sewer pipe I was hiding in after my convoy was bombed and then they shot me in the head, that would put a damper on my mood as well.
Monday, 31 October 2011
No ****, Sherlock
BBC headline:
Caligula in pinstripes
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| Mr Cameron's role model |
Needless to say, what he doesn't mean is cutting off aid to Jihadist countries that execute homosexuals as a matter of routine. That would be crazy.
At the very least, this shows a man who has absolutely no idea of where his priorities lie. If he had any integrity or even sanity, he would spend every waking hour reversing the "reforms" inflicted on Britain by his predecessors going back to John Major as well as repealing every bit of legislation passed since 1997. Instead, he indulges in fits of madness such as demanding more female executives in private firms where it's none of his damn business, crushing a non-binding bill calling for a referendum on the European Empire and then claiming that he will "claw back" power from Brussels when he has no ability whatsoever to do so and wouldn't if he did, and saying that criminals on benefits should face stiffer fines.
The last one left me, for want of a better word, gobstruck. Stiffer fines? Here's an idea; how about removing the criminal from the public teat and never allowing him back on? Sorry, I'm wandering back into the realm of sanity again. He'll be declaring war on the sea next.
I can't wait for the Christmas honours list when Mr Cameron elevates a horse to the peerage.
What's for breakfast?
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| A proper breakfast |
Now the question of what Chinamen eat for breakfast is answered as well as for 49 other countries around the world.
However, they still fail to answer why 49 countries still refuse to tuck into a full English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, chips and a fried slice as God intended.
Nonne hic parco
Police in Sicily issued a whopping 32,000 euros ($44,500) fine for an illegally parked car after totting up 2,000 years of interest by mistake, Italy's Repubblica newspaper said Wednesday. The interest due was calculated from the year 208 A.D. after a policeman dated the fine back to the year 208 instead of 2008.
It seems to me that the lady in question should have had the ticket revoked on the grounds that after 1803 years parked in the same spot without previous fines she's established an easement.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Successful Progress spacecraft launch is good news for the ISS
The future of the International Space Station (ISS) became more secure today when the Russian space agency, Rosocosmos carried out a successful launch of an unmanned Progress spacecraft. The 15,718 lb (7,130 kg) cargo ship carried its three tons of supplies into orbit and successfully deployed its solar arrays without incident. This launch confirms that the Soyuz-U launch vehicle is once again safe to carry the manned spacecraft needed to ferry crews to the ISS. Read More
New paper-based explosives sensor is made with an ink jet printer
Detecting explosives is a vital task both on the battlefield and off, but it requires equipment that, if sensitive enough to detect explosives traces in small quantities, is often expensive, delicate and difficult to construct. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute have developed a method of manufacturing highly sensitive explosives detectors incorporating RF components using Ink-jet printers. This holds the promise of producing large numbers of detectors at lower cost using local resources. Read More
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Friday, 28 October 2011
Prime Minister commits treason
It also means that he is in violation of his oath and a traitor. More than that, by this act the government of the United Kingdom ceases to have any legitimacy and can no longer command the loyalty or obedience of any subject of the Crown. They are no longer the Queen's ministers. They are an illegal junta.
For me, this is the last straw. New Labour has already shown itself to be unfit for ever under any circumstances holding power because they fomented and abetted an invasion of Britain while doing everything they could to undermine the nation and its sovereignty. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have now joined them in putridity.
Britain is now lumbered with something worse than a one-party state. We have a one-policy state. Red, blue or yellow; it doesn't matter what the rosette, they all share the same ends and the same means and all of them are opposed to Britain, her people, their history, their institutions, their monarch, and even their very civilisation. They are the tentacle of a self-serving, self-perpetuating euro-oligarchy that covers the European Empire like a blanket and pretends to be the technocratic revival of the old continent-wide aristocracy that held sway before 1914–only shabbier, stuffed with utopian dreams like it was Socialist crab meat, and utterly oblivious to the wants or needs of the people they fatten off of. They aren't just out of touch, they have deliberately cut themselves off behind their security doors and armoured limousines in a way that even the most insular lord never could. They are worse than tyrannical, they are parasitic.
Now they have crossed the Rubicon. The political class of Britain have made their governance illegitimate. Yesterday, what I am about to say I would have qualified as hyperbole. Today, I am serious. If the British Army were to mutiny and send this lot to the Tower, I would support it.
As for her majesty, if she gives the royal assent to this, she should abdicate.
UR MHD
Not only is it an early take on the Hunt for Red October's caterpillar drive, but they've even have DIY instructions for building your own.
Nuclear submarine not included.
Book tour
Nice one, Barry! Does Bill Ayers get a cut for doing the ghost writing?
Elder Things, call your service
You fools! Those are baby shoggoths! Leave them alone or you only future is madness and, if God is merciful, death!
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Vodka: So much more than a breakfast drink
Apparently, vodka makes a good chrome polish.
I'm not surprised. I once had a bottle of "genuine Scotch whisky distilled in Bombay" (true!) that could eat the enamel off of a car bonnet in seconds flat.
Strange times
I'm missing something here.
Occupy then home for tea
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| An empty occupation |
First they declared that they are "99 percent human". Then they went about peacefully raping one another in more than one location. After that they desperately tried to bring back the heyday of 1968, but failed miserably. And then they adopted cartoon writer (sorry "graphic novel author") Alan Moore's dated, paranoid inversion of the world as their standard. All good stuff.
Now they've hit as new low as infra-red video demonstrates that these stalwarts of the revolution, these defenders of the proletariat, these stickers of it to the Man, these dedicated defecators in public spaces are actually commuting to the "occupation" while leaving empty tents behind to hold their places in the off hours.
It gets cold at night, you know, and besides, they might miss Midsomer Murders.
Update: At least they're not rioting as in Oakland, California.
Slacker declares war on Oakland police! So, what's it like on your planet?
Potholing
We didn't get into the mess we're in because the government spent too much on fixing roads. And it isn't even that money was spent in geneal, though that is the end result of the problem. The real, fundamental issue of the day is pointed out by the prevalence of potholes. There are very few things that a government must do to justify its existence. On the local level, this can be summed up in a simple phrase: Your government exists to do mundane things like filling potholes.
The political class has forgotten this. They have come to the conclusion that their function is to Save the PlantetTM, usher in the secular millennium, treat the polity like children, inspect every plate of food for badness, every utterance for offence, and every thought for heresy. They build huge, whirling monuments to themselves across the countryside and call it "alternative energy". They "outreach", promote "diversity", "multiculturalism", "cohesion", "community" and a brand of "tolerance" of the sort that only a Commissar would appreciate.
What they don't do is fix potholes.
It is, in other words, a class that has completely inverted the priorities of the social contract that allows the state to govern the people. Fixing roads, keeping the peace, settling disputes, defending the realm, maintaining parks; these sort of things are treated by everyone from local councils to national governments as if they were luxuries while fripperies like foreign aid, entitlements, "green" rat holes and gruesome social engineering programmes are shoved to the front of the queue with bushel baskets ready to receive the largesse of the State.
I often wonder what can be done to change this. An electoral upheaval? Reclaiming the institutions we've lost since that vile surrender of our culture that began in 1968? Revolution? No. What I recommend as a starting point is something much simpler: The pothole initiative.
The idea is very simple. The people must become like a four-year old who wants Daddy's attention and starts prodding him in the shoulder with his finger and keeps on doing so because he knows that he's going to live longer than the Old Man, who must eventually give in or die of old age. Instead of getting into constant, ridiculous arguments about budgets, taxes and so on, go for the most fundamental approach. At every opportunity, through every venue, via every medium, constantly and continually remind the political class of why they are allowed to exist. No matter what new "crisis" they bring up, no matter what new crusade they raise the banner for, no matter what makes their eyes sparkle as they hear history's bugle calling them to battle, point to the real and metaphorical potholes in the High Street and say "fix it, then we'll talk and not before".
No matter what they say in reply, no matter what excuse, if they reach for the public purse while a core duty remains neglected, while a pothole remains unfilled, demand that they "fix it" before anything else is considered.
It's not the solution to this mess, I'll grant you, but it's a start.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
True3D Head Up Display keeps drivers focused on the road
Developed by the California-based company Making Virtual Solid, True3D is billed as "an augmented reality navigational display engine designed to provide non-distracting, translucent location guidance." That's another way of saying that True3D takes the head-up display (HUD) to its logical conclusion - it uses a 3D projector to beam the display across the entire front window of the car, therefore keeping the driver's eyes on the road by unobtrusively blending in with the real world beyond the windscreen. Read More
Future Travel: 1965
Paleo Future looks at 1955's vision of travel in 1965.
A little optimistic, but who wouldn't want a car with afterburners?
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Bike Wars
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| Seattle's answer to the Golden Calf |
Given his honour's policies, it seems that his idea of de-escalation is to demand that motorists agree to unconditional surrender. Even the Leftist Seattle Times (what's left of it since the print edition went south) calls it "a recipe for disaster". Actually, it's more prescription for economic suicide as families and businesses flee the city. But what can you expect from a city where the mayor dreams of building 118 miles of bike trails and making the metropolis "carbon neutral" but can't be bothered fix the potholes?
This is why I don't go near the place unless I absolutely have to.
Airborne Metro
Unfortunately, that just imposes the problem of giant nuclear-powered aeroplane airport congestion.
Monday, 24 October 2011
Leduc 0.22
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| Pull the ejector seat release and get sucked straight into the intake. Learn how the pigeons live. |
I found this on Dark Roasted Blend, who'd posted it for the the joy of it. You have to love the Leduc 0.22; not so much an aircraft as a ramjet with a cockpit stuck inside it.
A recipe for failure
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| Not buying it, Barry. |
I have seen a lot of tin-eared, cack-handed moves, but even for Mr Soetoro this takes the biscuit. He's desperately trying to spin this as a triumph and the Guardian is boasting that this puts paid to the Neocon strategy, but that will only work if Mr Dunham and company have total control of the media, which they don't. The fact is that the US commanders asked to keep at least 14,000 troops in the country and that any withdrawal would be offset by maintaining US bases in country. However, an inexperienced US president and his inexperienced Secretary of State executed negotiations with the Iraqi government that were so inept that the Americans were lucky not to lose the homeland in the bargain and were asked to leave in toto.
None of this is surprising. In fact, it's quite to form for Mr Obama. He's already played the same song in Libya. Look at his record: Refusing the go after Colonel Khadaffi, then trying to hide behind the pack, violating US law by refusing to seek congressional approval, failing to provide any US interest to justify his actions, claiming that it was purely a humanitarian mission and that removing Khadaffi was never the goal except that it turns out that it was, having "days, not weeks" become eight months, and then ending up with NATO acting as the air support for a load of rebels we know nothing about–except that they've just adopted Sharia as the law of the land. Now that Khadaffi ends up with the 9 mm pension and Iran has the Best Christmas Present Ever to look forward to, The One has the gall to strut about with his a tinfoil sword and a cocked hat three times too large as if he was the Duke of Wellington. More than that, his supporters have abandoned any pretence of legality and declare that Might Makes Right.
I was never too fond of Mr George Bush's penchant for nation building. I thought it was an unnecessary distraction from the more vital task of destroying the enemy. It would have been far better if the Coalition had appointed military governors, gone after Iran and Syria in force, and told the Iraqis and Afghans in private that, as with the Germans and Japanese, they'll get self rule when we're convinced they can be trusted and not before. For all that, Mr Obama makes Bush's strategy look Churchillian by comparison. If I was this lot, I would stay very quiet because this is all going to come back to bite Barry very hard in some place very soft and sensitive.
Update: Smart diplomacy reaps its dividends.
How's the revolution going, Barry?
Never bring a nappy to a gun fight.
Microbial Home
Yanko Design (The DREADCO of the design world) rolls out another of its world-beater ideas with the Microbial Home. Unlike the usual Yanko line, which usually consists of one-offs of oddity, this one is an entire suite. More like usually, it is "green", which means that they were so fixated on the concept that they never bothered to consider such minor factors as practicality or feasibility. Their motto: Why bother to reach for the slide rule when you're too busy Saving the PlanetTM while looking chic.
Billed as "a cyclical biological machine where wastes like sewage, effluent, garbage, wastewater are filtered, processed and recycled to be used as inputs for the various home functions", the Microbial Home boasts a neat set of prep island and larder/dining room table where the former takes your kitchen scraps and digests them into methane (the "good" Gaia worshipping kind) and the latter, which boasts terracotta evaporation cooling pots that keep your food "alive" rather than "dead" like in your fridge. How is never explained. But what both bits of the ensemble have in common is that they are much too small for their tasks and will almost certainly stink of rotten eggs inside a week. Just the thing to complement your trendy loft flat.
But my personal favourite is the Urban Beehive, which is supposed to allow you to keep bees in the centre of a busy metropolis. This isn't that daft an idea. In fact, there are quite a few bee keepers in places like New York and London, but they restrict themselves to traditional hives on rooftops. I don't know what they'd think of this fragile glass egg thing that ignores the practical reasons why an apiary is the shape it is and that apparently requires having a custom hole cut in your picture window to mount the heavy object. Don't think about either shattering. It's a toss up whether they'd be more perplexed by a) how do you get inside the thing to harvest and clean, b) why there isn't a proper landing platform for the bees, c) how you are supposed to water the flower pot when it's four stories up with no way to reach it from the inside or d) what the blazes that little string is for.
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Manned version of X-37 space plane in the works?
When the Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down for the final time on July 21, 2011, it looked as if the notion of a manned spacecraft capable of going into orbit and then landing like a conventional airplane had been abandoned. The US government appears to be in favor of returning to Apollo-style space capsules with anything like the Shuttles being relegated to the private sector. But at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) recent Space 2011 conference, Arthur Grantz, chief engineer of Space and Intelligence Systems' Experimental Systems Group at Boeing, delivered a paper indicating that the U.S. Air Force and Boeing are already on the way toward developing a manned Shuttle replacement based on the X-37Brobot space plane. Read More
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Friday, 21 October 2011
BAe Systems to provide new helmet display for F-35 pilots
When it enters service, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter will lay claim to the title of the most advanced warplane in the world. Its pilots will have the most advanced helmets as well ... and there's more to it than protecting the pilot's head against knocks. Unfortunately, the gap between designing the helmet and building it has proven wider than originally thought and issues such as poor image quality are so severe that the F35's testing program faces serious delays, so F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin brought in BAE Systems to provide a substitute. Read More
Marching to the Dark Ages
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| How's that carbon restriction working for you? |
Average electricity prices for households and businesses would rise “strongly up to 2020-2030” under all scenarios, the document says, and the highest prices would occur after 2030 if renewable sources of power, such as wind and solar, make up a large share of energy production. For example, average prices for households could jump by more than 100 per cent by 2050 if this were the case but only by 43 per cent under a scenario that assumed more nuclear power and carbon capture and storage were used.The governments of Europe and Britain have a clear choice:
a) Drop this insane "green" fantasy, recognise that cheap energy is the fuel of civilisation and start a proper programme of encouraging private investment in shale gas and nuclear power.
b) Step out into the street so the mob won't have to break down the door to tar and feather you.
Vive la révolution!
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| Occupy Baltimore Security Committee at work. |
Violence in Boston, threats and racial slurs in Oakland, theft in New York, perverts in Seattle and rape in Cleveland.
Good thing these
Is it just me or does Security Committee sound a bit too much like Comité de salut public?
Baseball... of the FUTURE!
Paleofuture looks at a 1912 vision of the future World Series.
If only there was some electronic medium for broadcasting sporting events.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Misfortune cookie
Demonstrating how valuable the European Empire is, the German finance minister recently doled out 16,000 fortune cookies containing stirring pro-EU slogans that would have made a Soviet Commissar proud.
The cookies cost €4,000. That's €4 a cookie or £3.53 in real money.
The EU: Inventors of the solid-gold life belt.
They're hiding something
The Centre for Disease Control put out a comic book about a zombie outbreak as a way of teaching the public about epidemics and public health.
Or so they claim.
Breaking: Khadaffi dead?
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| Looks like he went the full Mussolini |
If true, it means that Saddam Hussein has a new bunkie in Hell.
Update: Killed by a NATO air strike?
Update: He wasn't dead when they found him.
Update: According to the New York Times, he is now.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Instant fortresses modified for instant demolition
The manufacturer of a quick-assemble system for constructing military fortifications in the field has found a simple solution to the problem of how to deny these fortifications to the enemy once friendly forces have withdrawn. By making a simple modification to the systems design, the dismantling of the fortresses becomes literally as simple as pulling out a pin. Read More
Zombie Safe Homes
It's good to see that someone is finally taking this impending threat seriously. I've been looking at the 2011 Zombie Safe Home competition and while I do find many of the designs intriguing, I'm disappointed that so many rely on either fortification or escape.
Personally, I prefer defence in depth so that the ranks of shambling ghouls are decimated before they even reach the outer perimeter and then unleashing my counter-attack measures to reclaim lost territory before they can establish themselves.
One question that I've had from watching too many zombie films: Has everyone forgotten how to combine barbed wire and machine guns? It always seemed to me that some concertina wire and a Bren gun would do wonders.
It gets worse
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| HMS Bulwark |
It was already embarrassing enough that there isn't a capital ship to carry the flag, so it fell to an assault vessel. The government had to rub salt into the wound by effectively decommissioning her. How could it get any worse?
Here's how: The RN announces that her replacement as flagship is HMS Bulwark; another assault craft.
On stand by.
Not surprised
Having decided that his job is too tough, President Barack Hussein Obama quits and hits the road and a snag when his "not really a re-election campaign" campaign bus was burgled and his Teleprompter stolen.
Mr Obama was left speechless.
Update: Maybe they should look here for the culprits.
Update: While we're on the topic of those archetypes of civic virtue, Mr Soetoro, maybe before you endorse them, you should see who else is on their side. I guess our Barry is a uniter after all.
And who are they when the MSM isn't sanitising their image?
Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.And, of course, there are gems like this. And this. Not quite the Tea Party.
This is what the Political Class has sunk to supporting. Is Mr Dunham so desperate and out of touch that he truly believes that he can march to re-election by running out ahead of a load of Marxist hippies and pretending that he's their leader? While being the biggest recipient of Wall Street donations? That his backers won't notice?
We are deep into Downfall video territory here. I give it a month before the first one hits Youtube.
Update It looks like his support isn't appreciated.
Update: Gah! They got the wretched things back!
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Poobot
They could sell a squadron of these down the local dog park.
Taxing the monarch
The Sovereign Grant Bill replaces the Civil List, which means that those evil, lazy parasitic Royals who live off the public teat will only be taxed at a rate of 85 percent.
How generous.
Coyote cloning
Disgraced South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who fabricated research on human embryos, claims to have cloned coyotes for the first timeReporters were not impressed when he followed his announcement by cackling manically and shouting "Fools! I'll destroy them all"!
Monday, 17 October 2011
G-Wiz owners thrilled
It isn't often that one sees a cabinet minister go stark, staring mad before your very eyes.
Lost at sea
Why not? It's not like wars pop up unexpectedly, is it?
Oh, wait...
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Friday, 14 October 2011
Shale of the century
a) An energy technology that is cheap; abundant; environmentally friendly; hides away easily behind a hedgerow; is readily available in the West; drives the Arabs, Russians, and Greens to distraction, and can run our civilisation for so far into the future that finding new sources of energy is no longer our problem.
b) An expensive, unreliable technology that raises eyesores across the landscape, requires a duplication of the entire power grid to make up for its shortcomings, uses scarce resources, kills birds by the thousands, has killed more people than the entire nuclear power industry in the West's entire history, is completely unable to meet the energy needs of any nation, cannot even deliver on it's "carbon" promises, and is beloved by those who would like to send us back to the 12th century.If you chose b, congratulations; you are the head of every major government in the West.
未来過去の物語
Dark Roast Blend looks at Future Past Japanese style.
It's a lot like the Occidental version, only with a few more missiles tacked on.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Priorities
The BBC claims that Coventry council is trying to decide whether to fund child care or fix pot holes.
This is an easy one. Fixing roads comes under the core functions of local government, therefore that's what gets paid for first. Proper roads also means that the economy can grow and with more money sloshing around, people can afford to pay for their own child care and the government can get out of the business they shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
But before any of that, has Coventry council looked at alternatives? Is the City Clerk called the Chief Executive? Why doesn't he go back to being the clerk and get paid a clerk's wages? Is there anyone whose job title includes the words gay, lesbian, transgendered, women, minority, outreach, community, cohesion, green, carbon, arts, culture, Euro, multicultural, assistant, deputy, recycling, under, diversity, enhancement, adjunct, or co-? If so, why are they still employed? And why doesn't their job involve a shovel and a pot hole?
Badger vaccine
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| We don't need no stinkin' badgers! |
The UK's first independent badger vaccination project has proved that the technique is "viable and affordable", according to the charity running it.Thank heavens for that. Now that we have a viable vaccine we can rid the countryside of those furry little burrowing... Oh, you mean it's for badgers and not against them.
Sorry.
The last straw
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| For a mess of potage. |
This sort of idiocy has become the touchstone of all three major parties and makes me despair for the future because throwing one lot out means merely putting another in who are just as mad. I loathe the idea of revolution, which 99 times out of a hundred is far worse than the alternative, but unless there is some major upheaval that tosses out this toxic Political Class in favour of something resembling the sanity of the defunct Establishment, we are all in very deep trouble.
The 400 mph passenger train
A 1965 vision of how to revive passenger train service in the US through high-speed rail networks, which are a bit like opera; been around for a long time, but never catches on.
The apology that never was
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| Not so much bowing as mooning his own country. |
Mr Barack Hussein Obama not only bowed to the Emperor of Japan in flagrant violation of diplomatic protocol, but it turns out that he also wanted to apologise for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What's interesting here is that since 2009 we have learned how little Mr Soetoro thinks of his country. At least he didn't try to apologise for the US Navy shooting back at the Japanese during the Battle of Pearl Harbour.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
The Big Germ
Doctors recommend that the public take a refresher course in hand to hand combat in the event of an outbreak.
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