And Then A Mobility Problem

Firstly, as must be apparent, this being the top of the page an' all, may I offer my thanks to a great friend, Wayne, who mailed these sad pictures to me. Thanks old friend.

We've probably all seen most of these over the years but to see them all glued together is, to me, really scary. Hope you enjoy{?} 'em.

Quote;  Stanley Victor Paskavich.

“Look at the world and think about a catastrophic disaster where the cell phone towers went dead. How would you ever be able to 'TEXT' your next door neighbor to see if they were okay?”

And Then, A Green Manifesto….

I had the misfortune to catch Mr Neil interviewing that Natalie Bennett person, her of the green persuasion, regarding the Green Party election manifesto. I really have nothing else to say.

Okay, just one thing. Why didn't Neil nail nattily dressed Bennett with the one obvious question? The one obvious question should've been obvious to nail 'em Neil after Natty had responded to  the first two manifesto questions with such ludicrous answers that  his next obvious question, obvious to us anyway, just had to be;  "Natalie, are you completely nuts?"

Staying with politics, am I alone in suspecting that Dan Hannan, MEP,  is attempting to brake into a career in advertising?  Or street dancing?

Quote;  Radiohead.

“Most people gaze neither into the past nor the future; they explore neither truth nor lies. They gaze at the television.”

And Then They Be Back….

A little bit after a while ago I put up a post entitled The Beggars Banquet which related to various charities TV theft campaigns. Over the past couple of weeks I've noticed that ol' Mr Ursus Maritimus has made a come-back along with penguins and the old Number One, the snow kitten.

Guess what, despite all the money they've hauled in for their species and their environment protection racket, the current stock of polar bears, penguins and snow cats are still rapidly depleting owing to their still rapidly melting habitat. Is this not, at best, a breach of advertising standards or, at worst, fraud as it's continually been reported that ice extent has been at or above average through all recent seasons, polar bear numbers are, reportedly, on the up big time and there has been no recordable increase in global temperatures for eighteen years and three twelfths of a whole one. Not sure about penguin numbers and not sure how you'd count those fellows.

Overheard at a WWF get together somewhere posh and expensive.
"Ah, WWF counting person. How are you now? Almost fully recovered?" enquired the head of propaganda.
"Well, despite being reassured that those cats would be happy to see me and treat me like one of their own once I got that snow blower blowing, the mauling I got from those fangy furry feet of theirs is taking some time to heal." replied the downcast counting person.
"Well, sorry about that but now we need you to go down amongst the ice and various other locations and count the penguins."
"You are kidding right? There's millions of those suckers!"
"There may well be millions of those suckers, as you put it, but that's not a figure we wish to see in your final report. Got it?"
"Oh, right! It needs to be a scarily low begging figure. Got ya!!"

And I reflected, after refusing to drop money in the begging bowl, as ever, how would I react if I woke to the news tomorrow that polar bears and/or penguins had become extinct? 'Ah well, that's a shame' would just about cover it and my life would go on. Are they essential to every day life? I feel we humans are in far more danger of becoming extinct than a whole hell of a lot of stuff out there and let's be honest, when was the last time you were in the garden, the kitchen or anywhere, and you thought, "Damn! If only there was a penguin here to help."

Think about this – Think how blessed we are that the dinosaurs departed this world before we and WWF arrived.

Quote;  P. D. James.

“Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.”

And Then The Surgeons Speak….

With thanks, yet again, to Rickey for forwarding this to me. Thanks buddy.

Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on.

The first surgeon says, "I like to see accountants on my operating table because when you open them up everything inside is numbered."
The second responds, "Yeah, but you should try electricians!  Everything inside them is colour coded."
The third surgeon says, "No, I really think librarians are the best!   Everything inside them is in alphabetical order."
The fourth surgeon chimes in. "You know, I like construction workers. Those guys always understand when you have a
few parts left over."
But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he said, "You're all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There's no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine. Plus, the head and the arse are interchangeable!"

In other news I note there's apparently nothing of import  that needs governmental attention going on in the world or, indeed, the country other than…… yup, the critical matter of plain packaging for cigarettes. What springs to your mind? Too many ministers – too little sense? See above again.

Quote;  Ronnie Shakes.

"After twelve years of therapy, my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said: 'No hablo inglés.'"

And Then We're All Children….

Legiron has a lovely post relating to our infantilisation and a few commenters point out the medias 'assistance' in dumbing us down.

On Monday morning I tuned the radio into the BBC local radio station and was rewarded with radio reportage at its very finest and bestest.

There was a sprinkling of snow on the Sunday evening and as temperatures through the night remained well below zero the snow was really, really stiff come morning.

So what did BBC local radio manage to make of this not unsurprising winter event? They got a young lady reporter positioned by a traffic roundabout through the early morning breathlessly recounting the number of cars passing through with completely de-iced windscreens verses those still showing ice residue. Why? This wasn't made very clear {Oh dear.} other than her observation that some drivers had either come from an area that had had no snow Sunday, or had got up earlier than others and had a jolly good clean.

There was, of course, an alternative reason totally missed by the buckess reporter; the clear cars may have come further so got warmer and shed the ice naturally.

This riveting 'information' was updated every fifteen minutes through the morning and I have to admit to being captivated by this brilliant use of broadcasting and money. Until, that is, my head just caved in.

Quote;  George Carlin.

“When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to hear '27 months.' 'He's two' will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.”

And Then, Food For Thought….

Andy, 'Eye Liner' Burnham has some healthy plans for us if he gets his hands back on those power levers.

                                  
He and his party will target high-strength alcohol and bring in plain packaging of cigarettes straight away. He/they will also limit the amount of salt, sugar and fat in foods and promote physical activity. {Will this be in the form of compulsory neighbourhood morning exercise sessions?}  All of this is to improve our health and improve life expectancy.

However, over the past few months we've been continually told that the health service is approaching meltdown. The reason? They're full. Not, surprisingly, treating the immigrant elephant who must not be named, but rather those pesky old folk who just keep on living longer and longer.

This is the older generation that grew up in freezing bedrooms, coal-smoke filled living rooms, smog bound streets, at a time when cigarette, cigar and pipe smoking was accepted any and everywhere by pretty much everyone, drinking was a 'get it necked quick' sport to arrive at that happy state  before the pubs shut, and a healthy diet, owing to monetary and availability constraints, consisted of all the sugary, salty and fatty food you could get your mouth round. And here we all are, after that supposedly un-healthy early life, still cluttering up the place and refusing to die.

Think about that for a few minutes then think again about what Andy, 'Eye Liner' Burnham wants to do to make future generations healthier and live longer. Yup, he wants to ban everything that this older generation lived quite happily with and thought nothing of it and refuse to die.

We have to assume Andy, 'Eye Liner' Burnham isn't as stupid as we may think he is which only leaves one possible reason for the ban it all bit. It's actually a cunning plan to, over a couple or three generations, get life expectancy back down around the sixty to sixty-five year mark. You see the savings? Pensions an' other stuff?

So possibly the grand plan is plain pack smokes so's they're easy to fake so's people could be smoking heavens knows what. Meanwhile, the brother of the guy faking fags is knocking out ten bottles of hooch doctored from one legit bottle. "A little more anti-freeze anyone?" And for good measure, let's work towards a total ban on salt, sugar and fat – three essentials for a healthy life, and as our bodies get ever weaker, exercise us to death.

Quote;  Johnny Carson.

"I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself."