random stuff

[El Pibe]

a nick robinson blog post on rumours about the next president of the commission.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27668142

very much worth it for the IDS speech in video at the bottom

[Salsaboy]

Excellent speech by Hague.

El Pibe Wrote:

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> a nick robinson blog post on rumours about the

> next president of the commission.

>

> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27668142

>

> very much worth it for the IDS speech in video at

> the bottom

[El Pibe]

ha ha, yes, it was the lack of baseball cap and ten pints that fooled me!!

[El Pibe]

For weirdos like me this is class!

Drop your google marker somewhere of interest, choose kiloton yield and height of burst, then count the casualties.

Surprisingly East Dulwich relatively unaffected by a hiroshima bomb on the queen!!

Trident, and you're all goners i tell ya!!

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

[david_carnell]

I can't open that at work but am already mentally stocking up on tinned goods and planning a retreat to an una-bomber style mountain shack.

[El Pibe]

I'm pretty safe where i am, even a ludicrously large 50mt device on the nearest airbase in Wales is going to do little more than give us a weirdly warm breeze. Prevailing winds should even have sent the radiation off towards birmingham and on to Norway!!

[El Pibe]

and here you go, 70s gov't analysis on what the soviets were thinking of doing.

http://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1401981345665/UK_USSR_Targets_WEB_060614.pdf?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/uk-government-top-secret-list-probable-nuclear-targets-1970s

"the Soviet Union could launch an initial nuclear strike against Britain with 150 land-based missiles, plus an unknown number of submarine-launched missiles. "They are unlikely to be inhibited by the question of overkill," it warned"

analysts in nuclear-war-would-be-bad shocker!!!

[david_carnell]

On the basis of that map, I'm staying the f**k away from East Anglia. God knows how many fingers people from Norwich would have after nuclear fallout.

I reckon the Ruskies would have seen Cork and Dublin as bastions of Western imperialism.

The lemonade in Moscow was also red but not on purpose.

You'd have been a goner.

It reminds me of the Yes, Prime Minister sketch:

Sir Humphrey: With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.

Hacker: I don't want to obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.

Sir Humphrey: But it's a deterrent.

Hacker: It's a bluff. I probably wouldn't use it.

Sir Humphrey: Yes, but they don't know that you probably wouldn't.

Hacker: They probably do.

Sir Humphrey: Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn't. But they can't certainly know.

Hacker: They probably certainly know that I probably wouldn't.

Sir Humphrey: Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would

[El Pibe]

I always assumed I'd be evaporated as we had Chicksands early warning station a mere stonesthrow, i could see it out of my window in history lessons at school.

But it's not down as a target on that map.

I guess once its done its detection and everythings been launched it continued existence is kind of irrelevant....along with just about everything else....

We jest, but it's actually pretty frightening isn't it when you cast your mind back.

[Jeremy]

Just been looking at the BBC news piece on the latest land speed record attempt, and it struck me how utterly pointless it is. Building a rocket-on-wheels which can reach 1000mph does zilch for the advancement of the human race, and has absolutely no practical application. There's no entertainment value in it, and even as a feat of engineering I don't find it particularly inspiring. Waste of time and money... the whole thing just seems like a hangover from the 80s.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Seagrave, Campbell, Noble ...

Great chaps. Bit like Everest - it was there.

(I did work for the RAC at one time, so these men are gods.)

[KidKruger]

I worked with Noble on Thrust I/II on the IOW (it was built in Fishbourne) when I was an apprentice photographer and while I found the whole "Oooh I'm faster than you" thing a bit dull, the dedication and sheer effort in man hours the team put into it was bewildering. Absolutely obsessed.

[the-e-dealer]

Yet someone who kicks a bag of air between two sticks is sainted,

[maxxi]

the-e-dealer Wrote:

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> Yet someone who kicks a bag of air between two

> sticks is sainted,

Three sticks. That's why it's called a cross bar - 'cause people keep forgetting it!

I'll get my fleece.

[the-e-dealer]

Forgive me Ive never watched it that closely. But Im sure in the park its just two.

[maxxi]

the-e-dealer Wrote:

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> Forgive me Ive never watched it that closely. But

> Im sure in the park its just two.

That's jumpers.

[uncleglen]

Boy's Toys

The world is mental

[El Pibe]

am down to one t-shirt, bells tolling, a smothered clang competing with the portentous insectile drone in the blighted, lifeless air.

I could be in Santa Rosbercon frankly!!

Roll on global warming.

[El Pibe]

is it just me or is charlie brooker hitting a bit of a purple patch of late.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/16/david-cameron-britishness-charlie-brooker?CMP=fb_gu

"Sometimes [at school] I watched through the windows as the local vicar, a uniformed officer of the Lord, Trojan horsed his way into the classroom to indoctrinate the locals.

This was all OK because it was happening in a leafy English village with a duck pond, thatched cottages, and a cricket pavilion. But today the government is concerned about more sinister Trojan horse schools, apparently more sinister because they're located in cities and involve different religions."

and in a similar vein http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/15/david-cameron-british-history-values

"Where the government's agenda becomes dangerous is if one side claims its values are those of the nation as a whole. This is an age-old strategy of authoritarian regimes and movements, used to exclude, ostracise or suppress dissidents. The instrument of McCarthyism to persecute the US left, after all, was the House Committee on Un-American Activities. But we've seen this at work in our own country recently. The Daily Mail declared that Ralph Miliband was the "man who hated Britain" because he was a Marxist who opposed institutions such as the monarchy, the Church of England and the army. Not deferring to the status quo, in its view, is not just un-British, but anti-British"

[steveo]

Didn't David Icke have a thing about lizards?

[El Pibe]

he still does. and is extremely wealthy touring the world to people who listen to that sort of thing and nod sagely, safe in the knowledge they're superior to us sheeple.

[david_carnell]

You've done it now EP.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wake_up_sheeple.png

[Jeremy]

Well there's a clear difference between a visiting vicar, and an attempt to convert a school into a strict faith school by the back door. In fact the analogy beggars belief.

Secondly there's an implication there that all faiths are equally representative/misrepresentative of a western way of life, which is surely also flawed.

Of course the simple solution is to scrap faith schools, and to ban religious worship in schools altogether (no hymns/prayers/readings at all). Study of religious texts should be limited to RE, which should cover all major religions equally including the case for humanism/atheism.

[El Pibe]

I'm not sure I agree with your point, he was saying that indoctrination was once de rigeur (imposed by law) for state schools, and yet a visiting vicar would sit quite nicely in Cameron's cosy idea of Britishness.

It was more an atempt to point out inconsistency and hypocrisy than to analogise the two situations per se.

we're certainly in agreement on your last point. In fact the whole 'trojan horse' nonsense is because it happened in a non-faith school, whereas indoctrination and religious conservatism is rife in many, many faith schools. They should be the real issue here.

[david_carnell]

You think the Ralph Miliband issue caused a stink about British values. Watch the popular right wing press work itself into a lather if Miliband or Clegg made that proposal.

Although interesting the Guardian carried a poll the other day saying the majority of people didn't want their taxes funding faith schools - though I wonder if, when answering, CofE schools weren't really what they were thinking of.