How do you solve a problem like Mary-Jane?

October 30th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink

BBC

The UK’s chief drugs adviser has been sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, after criticising government policies.

Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C.

He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said drugs classification was being politicised.

The home secretary said he had “lost confidence” in his advice and asked him to step down.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is the UK’s official drugs advisory body.

Following his sacking, Prof Nutt told the BBC he stood by his claim that cannabis should not be a Class B drug, based on its effects.

He described his sacking as a “serious challenge to the value of science in relation to the government”.

Problem solved.

What a waste of money…

October 30th, 2009 § 3 comments § permalink

This link, courtesy of Luna17, takes you to the billion-dollar-gram on the information is beautiful website, check it out:

informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-gram/

Some highlights:

The OPEC climate change fund is only 0.06% of total OPEC earnings

The value  of the Internet Porn Industry is almost as large as the amount of foreign aid given by the World’s Major Nations

The US defence budget is nearly large enough to feed and educate every child on earth for 5 years

The amount of money that the UK government spent on bailing out the banks would have more than covered the entire debt owed by African Nations to the West…..

Part of me, unfortunately, is not very surprised at the sheer scale of waste and inequality.  What is clear is that the necessary resources exist for us to transform the world – we don’t need huge leaps in technology, or to rely on developing countries to grow their economies for the next 50 years  -we need permanent  Redistribution…

Dangerous grannies

October 28th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

There’s a report out today that shows how important grandmothers are in the early lives of children. I’m not sure about you, but it sounds complete bollox to me…

The importance of grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren is underlined in a study published today.

But the research showed that it was only granddaughters who were likely to do better with their paternal grandmothers involved in their early lives. In contrast, the presence of paternal grandmothers had a detrimental effect on the survival of their grandsons.

The discovery supports the idea that grandmothers have played an important role in human evolution and could explain why human females – alone among the animal kingdom – live well beyond their reproductive age.

See what I mean? Just in that first bit there are a couple of things that raises suspicions.

  1. The presence of a certain person that has no physical connection to a baby girl has a positive affect on the baby girl
  2. The same person with the same relationship to a baby boy has exactly the opposite effect. Not just no effect, but the opposite.
  3. The results differed concerning paternal and maternal grandmothers (this is the only mention of maternal grandparents in the Indepedents’ article).

How can this be? The researchers don’t know…

“We’ve only looked at infant mortality, and the mechanism itself remains mysterious. Other studies have given evidence against conscious favouritism towards one grandchild or another,”

They don’t know why, but grannies are either a help or a hinderence. It couldn’t be some other factor that they, implicitly admit, don’t know about?

The study looked at birth and death rates from populations in Africa, North America, Europe and Asia, a total of seven populations in all, and also going back to the seventeenth century. Now stop me if I’m wrong, but I would imagine that the birth and deaths recording, at least in some of the chosen study areas, in the 1600s’ would be limited and maybe not entirely accurate enough to be used in a study of this type.

Another thing to be taken into consideration is what about when the paternal grandmother is not geneolically related to the baby, due to sperm donation or plain old extra marital affairs? Is the supposed grandmother still a help/hinderance? Is this kink in the grandmother/baby relationship going to be known from records 400 years old?

It is common knowledge (common knowledge doesn’t neccerssarily make it true) that babies babies from large extended families do better because of the extra care and energy that is able to be committed to the baby. Who that care comes from, does it really make a difference?

I’m not a scientist, but I’ve read enough of Ben Goldacre, the Lay Scientist and the Canard Noir, to know that this…

The presence of a paternal grandmother in all seven of the populations had a harmful effect on grandsons because her presence was linked with an increase in mortality,” Ms Fox said.

“Meanwhile, in six out of seven populations, the paternal grandmother’s presence in her granddaughter’s early life had a beneficial effect in terms of the risk of mortality. This difference between paternal grandsons and granddaughters would explain a lot of the inconsistencies in previous studies, where the sex of the grandchild was not considered,” Ms Fox said.

is rubbish. The presence of A doesn’t mean it is the cause of B. There may be more detail in the report itself that the Independent isn’t telling us but from the quotes, I doubt it very much.

It is normally assumed that all grandchildren share about 25 per cent of their DNA with each of their four grandparents but Ms Fox, a doctoral student in Cambridge’s department of biological anthropology, pointed out that the female “X” sex chromosome of grandmothers is not inherited equally between their grandchildren, which could explain why some do better than others with each grandmother.

Ah, that would explain a lot, wouldn’t it. The older boys get the more immune they are to the girl chromosome. As a baby, the boys immune system is weak and so the X-germ is dangerous. At about the age of 6+ the X-germ merely smells and before the end of puberty, the lads immune system is fully protected and can now safely turn his parents into grandparents. What do you reckon? Sounds just as plausible as the dangerous granny thing, doesn’t it?

Another thing the Independent says is…

The study, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, could help to explain the evolution of female longevity: grandmothers live beyond their menopause to help bring up their grandchildren.

It is widely believed that the reason human females live well beyond the menopause is so that grandmothers can invest their energy in raising their children’s children rather than risking further pregnancies of their own.

The “grandmother hypothesis” suggests that all grandchildren benefit from having either of their grandmothers involved in their early upbringing. But studies have so far failed to support the hypothesis with consistent evidence.

If this study helps to show that females live beyond menopause to help with the upbringing of their grandchildren, why have they evolved to be a danger to boy babies? It doesn’t. It just adds to the inconsistent evidence.

In my view: Grannies, give grandson a big hug. You won’t harm him and you’ll both love it.

On the EU Presidency

October 27th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink

The Guardian has a piece about Blair and the EU presidency.

Our Tone might face some obstacles…

These are: a petition, which has so far attracted 41,326 signatures saying that it would be wrong to appoint a man who allegedly violated international law in the Iraq war; the implacable opposition of the Tories, who have warned EU leaders that appointing Blair would be seen as a hostile act in Britain; strong opposition from smaller EU member states, who fear that such a high profile figure would eclipse them; and a concern across the EU that it would be wrong to appoint someone from the most reluctant member of the EU.

But is still considered, by many, the favourite. Although he isn’t making life easy for himself by refuse to campaign. This refusal, the article says, is because he is worried about getting a humiliating slap down and also…

“It will be decided in horse trading over the coming weeks,” one Blair ally said. “This will all take place behind closed doors.”

Blair believes this is why it would be wrong to campaign. “This is a very odd election,” one ally said. “It will be decided by 27 people. This is not something that can be won by running a campaign.”

Not really an election, is it? More of an appointment, wouldn’t you say?

Is it really too much to ask for a little bit of democracy and, if we must have a president, let the people decide who it should be?

But it’s not about democracy, is it? I’m buggered if I know what it is about, but democracy it isn’t.

Random thoughts to put something fresh on the frontpage

October 25th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink

This blogs old home was called Sim-O’s Random Thoughts. It hasn’t been too random for a while, although you might disagree, but here’s three random thoughts…

  1. Why the fuck do people put why they bought something on a review?
    Ok, sometimes it’s relevant, like with a camera, “I bought it to keep in my pocket, not for serious stuff’, but why for a freeview box?

    I bought it for my daughter because she works shifts.

    It’s a freeview box = you want to watch freeview TV.
    It’s got a hard disk drive = you want to record freeview TV.
    It doesn’t add anything to the review. We don’t need to know and frankly, don’t give a shit. Just stick to how fucking well the fucking thing works.

  2. Women. They won’t walk around the town centre in just their underwear but will wear on a beach in front of hundreds of people, for all intents and purposes, just that.
    Why? What’s the difference?
  3. You can drive at 17. Something that can so easily kill people if you’re not careful.
    You are legally allowed to have sex, and so create a whole new life, with all the responsibilities and ramifications that that brings with it, at 16.
    You are not allowed to drink or smoke, which is basically poisoning yourself, until you’re 18.
    Why?

Unfair!

October 23rd, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Todays’ cartoon in the Sun:

griffin_sun_23102009

Nice, eh?

(via BigGusDEcosse)

“I’m scum and I’m a racist”

October 22nd, 2009 § 3 comments § permalink

Operation Freedom: Proof reader needed

October 20th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink

Operation Freedom, the new campaign for er, something by the BNP have just made another cock up.
The latest email update libelled Peter Hain with the headline…

FORMER BANK ROBBER ACCUSES THE BNP OF BREAKING THE LAW!

Peter Hain has stated he may (or he is?) take(ing) legal action to stop Fat Nick going on the BBC Question Time as the BNP may not be a legally constituted party.

Peter Hain was arrested in the past, apparently, but is not a bank robber, obviously.

The email with the libel was sent at 11:31am, with a follow up at 11:47 with the word ‘suspect’ added in the headline. Whether this correction will inhibit Peter from taking any action, I don’t know, but presume it does. Which is a shame.

Oh dear, BNP. You had better be more careful in future.

Operation Freedom: Operation Misrepresentation, more like

October 18th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink

Over the weekend something called ‘Operation Freedom’ was launched.

I have heard or seen no news over the weekend and being a lazy arse, I’m just gonna go straight into it.

Well, according to the BNP, for it is they who have sent it, Fat Nick and his ex-NF buddy (whatever his name is) are going to be banned from the House of Commons.

Under a headline, in big, bold red type, they procliam…

ELECTED BNP PARLIAMENTARIANS BANNED FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS!

…a bit like that, really, there is an awful lot of waffle about Marxist state and totalitarian experiment and a fucking big history lesson, which also includes Simon de Montfort, which according to my l33t Wikipedia skilz was either a French nobleman, a son of a French nobleman or the grandson of a French noble man.

Anyway, blah blah blah, EU, blah blah blah, dictatorship, waffle waffle waffle, only credible aternative, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

And then… BLAM!

Just recently, crooked diabolical MP’s led by the arch-traitor Harriet Harman voted in favour to BAN the recently elected BNP MEPs, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, from the House of Parliament!

Hahahaha! Cunts.

Aw, fuck it. I wasn’t gonna swear in this post.

As far as I was aware, MEPs’ had traditionally had access to the Houses of Parliament, or at least the commons areas, as a favour. Y’know, they’re all working to the same ends, making Britain better etc, but never any formal right to go anywhere more than a normal prole does. I am prepared to be corrected on this point.

This effectively means they have banned 1 MILLION British voters and two democratically elected parliamentary representatives from the highest democratic institution in the country! They have banned YOU!

A little bit of confusion in the teeny-tiny minds of the racist fuckwits.

Because Fat Nick and his sicko side-kick are democratically elected representatives, but not to the House of Commons. Those one million voters already have someone that they can go to, representatives that were actually elected to the House of Commons in the last general election. Their MPs’. (Once again, lazy shit that I am, you’ll have to find out for yourself who them MPs’ are, but rest assured, each and every one of those one million voters will have an MP that they can got to.)

Fat Nicks’ and what’s-his-names’ arena is the EU parliament, not Westminster.

One little bit of success, that wasn’t even down to the them, and it’s gone right to their heads.

The comments under Jan Moirs’ Stephen Gately column

October 17th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink

Just in case anyone wants them, and the Mail decides they’re not needed, all 8 pages of comments on Jan Moirs Stephen Gately column are here as of the time of this post. There’s nearly 800 comments and the Mail splits them in to pages of 100. The .jpg files are still quite big.

Help yourself.

page one
page two
page three
page four
page five
page six
page seven
page eight

The original article, courtesy of Jamie is backed up here, too.

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