Ephemeral Isle

When Worlds Collide

2012-02-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Scratch green, find red

2012-02-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

Lord Summerisle demonstrates an effective environmental policy

Gernot Wagner the go-ahead economist of the Environmental Defence Fund says that things like recycling and using your own bags isn't pleasing enough in the eyes of Blessed Gaia:

Environmentalists, all too often, think that the best way to go about solving the problem is to get everyone to do as they--we, I included--do. I don’t eat meat. I don’t drive. But individual do-gooderism won’t solve global warming.

And it may actually be counter-productive, for two reasons. First, there’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon called “single-action bias.” You do one thing, and you move on. You carry your groceries home by foot, in a cotton canvas bag, and you think that single act of environmental kindness makes up for other sins.

So, does this mean he'd prefer a no-growth Socialist state complete with a command economy? According to Wagner,

No! It means moving to a smart growth economy. We know that infinite material growth on a finite planet isn’t possible. By some measures, we are already using 1.5 planets or more to support our current lifestyles--and that’s in a world where billions still live in abject poverty. So yes, dematerialization is the word of the day.

Translation: "Yes, absolutely; right down to building wicker men. But none of this will apply to me or the Elite, of course." And why is he a would-be green commissar?

I just never grew up.

Thought so.

Avengers Casglu!

2012-02-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

A delightful headline from defencenews.com referring to Prince Harry qualifying for Apache helicopter duty:

Captain Wales completes Apache training

"Captain Wales": It sounds like some third-string Marvel Comics hero.

Future Food 1900

2012-02-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

Bon appetit

Click to enlarge

Civilisation Part 9: The Pursuit of Happiness

2012-02-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

Future banking: 1969

2012-02-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

London by Gondola

2012-02-09T00:01:00.001-08:00

An 1899 look at what London would be like if the capitol was rebuilt along the lines of Venice.

Aside from everyone in the Underground drowning, all the electrical and telephone cables shorting out and the sewage having nowhere to go, it's really quite charming.

Quota Tory

2012-02-09T00:00:00.001-08:00

Idiot & traitor

Telegraph headline:

David Cameron may set targets for women in boardrooms

The article then goes one to say:

David Cameron warned that the UK’s inability to exploit women’s full potential as entrepreneurs was “failing our whole economy”.

What a phenomenally sexist thing to say. Do women have special entrepreneurial powers that poor, benighted men lack? Is Britain lagging behind because those feeble creatures known as (pardon my French) "men" are in executive positions? Heaven forfend that the nation should be at the mercy of masculine inferiority.

Dear, God, What a blithering ass of a traitor this country is lumbered with.

The real twist of the dagger is that there isn't any alternative unless we toss the entire political class out en mass.

UFO: Ordeal

2012-02-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Galatians 6:7

2012-02-08T00:03:00.000-08:00

Hit 'em with yer hand bag

Headline:

Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla

~~Britain~~ The illegal junta that occupies Britain had to "beg" the US to allow the Royal Navy to be part of a task force to the Persian Gulf. The American's contribution is a nuclear carrier group with a heavy cruiser, destroyers and full fighter cover. This is only one of three groups the US Navy have in the area

Britain's mammoth contribution? HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate.

That's right: One frigate.

What a stinking end consecutive British governments and the current junta have led us to. In my father's day, we had the largest, most powerful navy in the world. In my day, it was still a respectable second. Today? It's damn joke. Now that traitor Mr Cameron is acting all surprised when Britain isn't being taken seriously any longer.

Well, sunshines, you had a choice between defending the realm and paying a load of chavs to sit on their backsides all day drinking lager while jumped up town clerks draw down fat pensions for the last three decades of their lives and you chose the latter.

I hope you're all proud.

Update: Now we couldn't even fight Libya. Pathetic.

Automodule

2012-02-08T00:02:00.000-08:00

"The car of the year 2000"

I had a car that could tilt like this, though that had more to do with knackered suspension than futuristic design.

Computer pub

2012-02-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

God only knows what I'd end up drinking after trying to dial this thing five pints into the evening.

Male Grooming

2012-02-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

We apologise for the inconvenience

2012-02-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

If you've been visiting the site today, you may have run into a malware warning. With Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoning and a lot of clicking, I identified the source as a recent post that's since been deleted and normal service will now resume.

Rubbish

2012-02-07T00:25:00.000-08:00

Presenting the new London rubbish bins that will cost the taxpayers only £1,100 a pop. They have wifi, they have an LCD screen begging to be vandalised and they're bomb proof. The one thing they can't do is accept rubbish unless it's the size of an envelope to get through that ludicrous little slot.

My head hurts.

Rules of engagement

2012-02-07T00:05:00.000-08:00

I've been re-watching the 1973 documentary series The World at War (the finest documentary of the war ever made, in my opinion) and it gives one a wonderful sense of perspective. Watching the events of 1939-1940 unfold and then seeing this story about the current war against the Jihadists, I cannot help but think that the illegal junta that occupies Britain is composed entirely of maniacs.

A few more insane prosecutions like this and we won't have an army because no honourable man will serve in it.

R J MacReady, call your service

2012-02-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

This will not end well

Russian scientists breach an Antarctic lake that has been sealed for 14 million years. So far, that makes for a passingly interesting story until these sort of bits show up in the Popular Science story (emphasis added):

The team is apparently alive and well despite a week of suspicious radio silence,.

And,

Last week we thought that might happen again–if anyone could even hail the scientists–because conditions are getting worse, but no one heard from the team in several days. Then on Monday, the Russian news agency announced the team's success.

Then,

But scientists want to reach it because it could hold weird forms of life that survive in deep cold and with no sun.

Sealed for 14 million years? Weird life forms? Base cut off by bad weather? Lost radio contact? Then the team calmly says that everything's fine?

Send in the flame throwers!

The Master Mystery: Part 10

2012-02-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

SpaceX Dragon's ultimate mission is Mars colonization

2012-02-06T00:03:00.000-08:00

The private spaceflight company SpaceX declared that 2012 would be the "Year of the Dragon" - a play on the current cycle of the Chinese calendar and the upcoming tests of SpaceX's Dragon space capsule. For a time, it seemed as if SpaceX was regretting that slogan. Dragon was chosen as one of five competitors for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contest to develop a cargo/passenger craft to service the International Space Station. The Dragon program had enjoyed considerable success and was scheduled to be the first private spacecraft to visit and, if all went well, dock with the International Space Station (ISS). Unfortunately, with the need for more testing of the Dragon capsule delaying the launch from its original February 7, 2012 date to late March or even into April, it looked as though the Year of the Dragon was starting a bit late. .. Continue Reading SpaceX Dragon's ultimate mission is Mars colonization

Still here

2012-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

Visitors have been wondering why the postings have been so sparse lately. It's a good question. Fact is, I'm still here, but the past two months have been a succession of setbacks that we're just crawling out from under. We've been through blizzards, power outages, a week-long Internet outage, visiting relatives, one car scrapped when the big end went and the other in the shop with a cracked fuel pump due to the"green" government's insistence on putting ethanol in the petrol leading to lovely ice in the fuel line. Oh, and there's been a bout of sinus, a bit of minor surgery–not to mention car hunting to replace the dead Blazer. The latter was particularly bothersome as being down to only one car meant that I had to play chauffeur for up to twelve hours a day. Add on a load of lost deadlines because of all of the above and the postings had to take a back seat for a bit.

Anyway, the light's at the end of the tunnel or the eggs on the boil or whatever metaphor is apt, so these ramblings will get a bit more regular.

Knock wood.

Jeremy Clarkson's Greatest Raid of All Time

2012-02-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

At the Earth's manga core

2012-02-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, they ripped off the feature version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Crack in the World, but at least they finally made geology interesting.

North Brother Island

2012-02-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

As an archaeologist, this fascinates me; a former leper colony in the heart of New York City that's been left to decay back into nature.

I'm particularly interested in the way the plaster crumbles off the walls. It reminds me of some Roman villas I've excavated.

UFO: A Question of Priorities

2012-02-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Compliments

2012-02-01T19:34:00.001-08:00