The religion of Conservatism

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Especially animals who aren't conservative or Christian.

Would a Lava Lamp work on Jupiter?

This man has too much time on his hands.

Impressive Meccano set, though.

This one has potential

New Labour Chapter 13 Verse 3

And Mrs Harriet Harman said unto the people of Airstrip One Britain, "Thou shalt not mock Vegans, for that is an abomination unto me."

And the people of Airstrip One Britain said unto Mrs Harman, "If we didn't mock Vegans we wouldn't have anything to say to the hypocritical, self-righteous, little nut burgers."

Second class is for little people

From The Times:

MPs have demanded the right to first-class train travel in a new system of allowances drawn up in the wake of the expenses scandal.

It isn't often that one sees a dead-flat learning curve.

ZR-1 Land

What did airship expeditions to the Arctic expect to find? Why, lost colonies of Vikings thriving in warm fertile volcanic caldera the size of Pennsylvania, of course.

A bit of a reach, but it could be worse. At least they were doing better than their colleagues in the Antarctic.

Interlude

And now. let's all take a breather. We've earned it.

Martin Jetpack

The Martin Aircraft Company announces that it will be selling its personal helicopter "jetpack" for $75,000 a unit.

It doesn't seem very practical for day to day use, but I think I might buy one to keep in the secret room behind my office in case that whole death ray project goes sour. It'll mean installing explosive bolts in the roof, but it's good insurance.

The Foundation Trilogy Part 2

Radar Men From The Moon: Chapter 6

Puma Man

Ptolemygate

Copernicus: Geocentric denier.

Update: Meanwhile, the Met Office, which has decided to stop pretending to have a crystal ball, says that the science isn't just settled, it's really, really settled.

Not that it has anything to do with this, of course.

Behind the building curve

Man in Argentina builds house out of beer bottles.

Sorry, me old china, but Heineken beat you to it by nearly half a century–and they made a business strategy out of it as well.

A matter of perspective

The BBC looks at "the world's longest suicide note" and concludes that, "See, it isn't so insane after all" instead of, "My God, have we gone so insane that we actually ended up implementing most of this drivel and added on a couple more levels of daftness for good measure?!?"

I particularly like this little gem:

(S)omebody calling for the government not to renew the Trident missile system, might not be viewed as a left-wing idealist.

True, "irresponsible, possibly pacifist, but more likely self-loathing Marxist nutcase who wants to work out his issues with his father by placing Britain at the mercy of her enemies" is more likely.

Killed by the safety regulations

From The Times:

An injured woman lay for six hours at the foot of a disused mine shaft because safety rules banned firefighters from rescuing her, an inquiry heard yesterday. As Alison Hume was brought to the surface by mountain rescuers she died of a heart attack.

A senior fire officer at the scene admitted that crews could only listen to her cries for help, after she fell down the 60ft shaft, because regulations said their lifting equipment could not be used on the public. A memo had been circulated in Strathclyde Fire and Rescue stations months previously stating that it was for use by firefighters only.

New Labour may not have achieved much in thirteen years, but they have managed to badger the British people so badly that they'd let a woman die in slow, lonely agony rather than cross their masters' insane whims.

Don't hold your breath

Remember last year when reports circulated about HP face recognition software having trouble with darker faces under certain lighting conditions? How this sparked cries of racism? Now Edinburgh University claims that voice recognition software has trouble with male voices.

Stand by for cries of sexism in 1, 2, 3..... 482964, 482965.....

Save the... Never mind

Michael Foot (1913-2010)

Mr Michael Foot, former leader of the Labour party, has gone to his reward.

I never cared toffee for Mr Foots politics. I regarded them as wrong headed, inimical to human freedom, a threat to any hope of national prosperity, and a disaster for his own party. They didn't call his 1983 manifesto the "world's longest suicide note" for nothing. Worse, he was either a Communist fellow traveller or the most unobservant man in history–one who couldn't possibly have remained oblivious as Labour was infiltrated by the KGB and its leaders went to Moscow cap in hand to have their policies vetted by the Kremlin. Not to mention that in matters of party discipline he was as effective as Helen Keller at a skeet shoot. On the other hand, Mr Foot was a man of convictions who could always state them clearly, a master of the English language, and was never willing to sell out his principles in order to merely win an election, which even in his most ignominious defeat gave him the air of a man who would have charged the guns at Balaclava without hesitation.

Compared to his successors, a self-serving rabble who utterly lack principles or even respect for the Britain itself, this eloquent, well-read, tragically deluded, slightly comic man comes off looking like a pillar of respectability.

Sleep well, sir.

Peace in our time

Mr Barack Hussein Obama is really trying for the umbrella award.

Yup, that's the way to earn that Peace Prize; set up the pins for a new and bloody war by creating a world safe for tyrants.

Wish fulfillment

PETA wants Knut the polar bear castrated.

That's only because they can't do it to the rest of us. Mind you, since animal rights activists also want animals to have the power (right makes no sense here) to sue human beings, maybe we have something interesting brewing. Since the animals can never sue anyone, it will be their activist proxies who will do the suing, so maybe Knut can be the epicentre of an internecine court battle that will bankrupt these human haters for good.

Correction: Sorry, "human haters" is unfair. Since they want all domestic animals to be driven to extinction, that should read "human and animal haters."

As to the whole dog in a manger animals-suing-by-proxy thing, let's hope it never comes to pass, because we are not that rich to be that stupid.