Grafitti for/from idiots

Really clever photo

This is on a poster at work, and I find it really amusing.

Why is UFO footage always rubbish?

... actually, what I like best about this item is the letter. :-D

UFOs over Merseyside

The Curse Of The Beijing Olympics

Bad Luck for China

Perhaps it's the absence of organised religion, but the Chinese are quick to link natural disasters, accidents and violence to a combination of divine intervention and heavenly anger.

Now China's online soothsayers are linking Beijing's Olympic mascots to a string of misfortunes in the run-up to the Games.

Four out of the five "fuwas" - literally friendly toys - are being tied in to the natural and human disasters visited on China during the turbulent build-up.

Jingjing - the Panda - an animal closely associated with Sichuan Province, epicentre of last month's terrible quake.

Huanhuan - the Olympic torch - the round the world torch relay was a PR disaster of awesome proportions.

Yingying - the Antelope - native to Tibet, the location of the March riots and the military crackdown.

Nini - the Kite - the kite city of Weifang is located in Shandong, scene of April's deadly train crash that killed 72 people.

Beibei - the Fish - a Chinese sturgeon found only in the Yangtze River. Is this the location for China's next major disaster, ask cyberspace doom merchants.

:-O

Priceless...

Three names = Assassin!

Someone really needs to lighten up. :-D

During an appearance on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman," Jerry Seinfeld said Lapine was accusing his wife of "vegetable plagiarism" and compared her to the three-name killers of John Lennon and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"If you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins," Seinfeld said. "Mark David Chapman. And you know, James Earl Ray. So that's my concern."

His lawyers said in court papers filed late Tuesday: "No reasonable viewer could have thought that Seinfeld really meant that Lapine ... might become an `assassin' simply because she has three names."

Great idea

Let's get rid of all the paramilitary murals, and replace them with stuff like this instead. It's good to see a celebration of a Belfast born celebrity of merit.

CS Lewis mural

Filmed in Belfast - sci-fi epic!

City of Ember

Just watched the trailer, and I think this looks like one to watch on release in October. When I learned it was filmed in Belfast I have to admit a little twinge of concern, but looking at the set and imagery in the trailer, it looks at least as good as anything from Hollywood.

The film, co-financed by Northern Ireland Screen and produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, features a stellar cast including Academy Award nominees Saoirse Ronan and Bill Murray, Harry Treadaway and Academy Award winners Martin Landau and Tim Robbins.

Martin Landau said: "It's amazing. It's quite an amazing set, extensive and tall and comfortable. I would say it's quite remarkable."

At the end of the last financial year City of Ember delivered an estimated £9.2m to the Northern Ireland economy. This was against an investment of just £800,000 from Northern Ireland Screen.

Cool hobby - pencil carving!

Thanks to -Fran- at the JREF Forum for posting about this. I felt I had to share it!
Some of these carvings are pretty cool, and make my teenage 'efforts' of artistic nibblings seem pretty feeble.

Lame Government Cop-out

Petition presented to the government

Without compromise to freedom of thought or expression, the teachings and beliefs of Scientology, Dianetics and science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard must never be legally be accepted as a religion – regardless of any recent EU decision to the contrary.

We consider the ‘Church’ of Scientology is an exclusive business venture that by prohibiting access to scientifically-proven psychiatric therapy and medicine is effectively enslaving its believers.

Government Response

In our approach to religious groups, the Government must seek to balance its responsibility to protect vulnerable individuals with the UK's long held commitment to freedom of worship and belief.

The Government does not consider that it would be feasible or appropriate to introduce specific legislation or regulation of religious groups, their activities or their beliefs. There would be considerable difficulty in drawing up legislation in a way that did not interfere with the individual's right to choose their beliefs and lifestyles so long as they do no harm to others. There is also no obvious way in which legislation could deal with cases where adults participate in activities of religious organisations entirely voluntarily.

I definitely support freedom of worship, although I have no form of deist beliefs at all. However, the point that was being made, that the government ignored, is that Scientology is not a religion. It's a cult, and a cult with dangerous beliefs regarding health care. It's a business, and a business that promotes ignorance and sucks up the resources of its members.

The government has dropped the ball here, in my opinion.

Happy Father's Day dad!

We found some old films when we moved, which explains the speckling in this picture. We really thought you'd like to see it, 'cos we think it's a great photo.

All our love,
CZ and your granddaughter.

Unicorn in Italy

and it's so cute!

A deer with a single horn in the center of its head -- much like the fabled, mythical unicorn -- has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.

"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."

The 1-year-old Roe Deer -- nicknamed "Unicorn" -- was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.

He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.

If you go doon to the toon today ....

You could be in for an odd surprise

Stormin' Norman is a 10-year-old African sulcata tortoise who is turning heads by wandering through the streets of Aberdeen.

Owner Dianne Melville - who runs a reptile shop - walks with him, but she said Stormin' Norman decides his route.

He goes out several times a day, and is photographed by bemused locals and tourists who see him.

I shall be keeping an eye out, and bring you pics if I see him.

Anyone lose a plane?

Plane unclaimed at Hanoi

:-D

Vietnamese authorities say they are mystified as to who owns a Boeing 727 which has been abandoned at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport.

Skepchick Calendar available

Details for purchase

Get them 'cos they're hot! ;-)

Sample gorgeous skepchick

The calendar is designed to promote skepticism, intelligence and beauty, and the photographs in previous calendars have been amazing. I think my favourite so far has been the one of the wonderful astronomer Phil Plait which you can see here:
Skepdude

but I can't wait to see this year's chosen images.

Good move... Internet providers agree to block child porn

ISP s take action

Internet providers Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography and eliminate the material from their servers, New York's attorney general said Tuesday.

The companies also will pay $1.1 million to help fund efforts to remove the online child porn created and disseminated by users through their services, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said. The changes will affect customers nationwide.

Investigators said they found 88 newsgroups devoted to child pornography in an investigation over six to eight months. More than 11,000 images were collected using software that identifies child pornography by tracking patterns in the pixels of the images, Cuomo's office said.

Making death .... sexy?

Coffin Calendar

hmmm...
'Femmes fatales' indeed. :-)

What's your definition of 'naked'?

Penn Gillette clarifies his definition.

I found this clip quite interesting, and not least as I have a vested (sorry, no pun intended) interest in the SkepChick calendar he is discussing.

I agree with him that if you have any articles of clothing on that you cannot call yourself 'completely nude'. I disagree that using your hands to cover yourself somehow negates your nudeness, however.

What are your thoughts?

The reason for my new banner

Support Free Range

(For some reason the banner keeps disappearing. Most odd)

The Chicken Out! campaign is demanding higher welfare conditions for chickens farmed in the UK, and fairer conditions for the farmers who rear them.

I actually intended to blog this later in the week. Unfortunately...
Hugh needs help now

A few weeks ago I submitted a resolution to Tesco plc with the support of 102 shareholders representing some 3.7 million ordinary shares. The resolution challenges Tesco’s claims about poultry welfare, and urges them to set new minimum welfare standards, including lower stocking densities and more environmental stimuli for the birds.

Now Tesco have told me that they will only take our resolution to the AGM if I meet the cost of distributing the relevant papers to their shareholders. They are entitled to waive this fee, and we have requested that they do so, in the interest of shareholder democracy, but they have declined. In other words, the resolution is dead in the water unless I pay them £86,888 to print and post the papers out to all 269,000 Tesco shareholders.

Tesco is the biggest retailer in the country and they can make the biggest difference to the lives of hundreds of millions of chickens. And so I’m determined, along with my fellow supporting shareholders and Chicken Out campaigners, to pursue this resolution. So I’m putting my money where my mouth is to take this issue all the way to the Tesco AGM on June 27th.

I’m going to start the ball rolling by putting £30k of my own money into the pot. And, with your help, I’m hoping to raise the rest of the money by selling myself, and my services, as well as by appealing to other Tesco shareholders and supporters of our resolution.

We need to raise the remaining £56,888 by noon, this Wednesday 11th June.

Fact-free call to action, and a look at the extended benefits of the Pill

From:
Misinformation spread to induce emotion based support

we read:

Everyone should know the deadly consequences of the pill and similar contraceptive products- they cause chemical abortions.

This is blatent rubbish.

Explained wonderfully here:
The above is untrue

Know any women who give birth and then give birth again 2 months later?

No?

The only explanation for this is that fetuses will actually devour the blastocysts of fertilized eggs as they drift into the occupied womb once they have been inseminated by people having sex during pregnancy, making just about every baby on the planet a monstrous cannibal. Or because the woman doesn’t ovulate when she’s pregnant because the hormone known as progesterone (which the body begins to kick out in quarts upon pregnancy), suppresses ovulation.

The American Life League is running on the supposition that suppressing ovulation is the same thing as abortion.

Because that’s what the pill does.

It suppresses ovulation because it’s progesterone.

Anyone who took a non-abstinence-only high school health class knows this.

Now, I am not an advocate for abortion in many circumstances, however it is shocking that any organisation would make such blatently false claims in order to garner support for something not even related to abortion.

Protesting this nonsense is covered here: SkepChick
and
Feminist Gamers

I want to speak from personal experience about a different aspect to the Pill. The establishment of women's rights to contraception and privacy are massively important. My fellow bloggers do it much justice.

My take is this: the Pill is not merely a tool for contraception. My teens and twenties were incredibly difficult times for me; intolerable on many occasions. I was almost constantly in pain or ill, and this was an improvement of my quality of life after I was placed on the Pill. I thank the Pill for the fact that I was able to change a regular absence of around a week every month to merely a day or two every few months due to the severe pain and problems caused by undiagnosed endometriosis. I've used so many painkillers so often that they rarely work any longer, and I've trained myself so well to ignore pain that what I thought was a low pain threshold (thanks to doctors who told me I was just a normal female and cramps are perfectly normal to expect, what was I making such a fuss about?) is actually quite high. I endured a disease that basically fused together bits of my abdomen for two decades.

I found an old diary recently that brought back some scary memories of sitting in a doctor's office begging them to do anything they could to make the pain stop. I'm not alone either. Endometriosis and many other 'women's problems' are overlooked, or dismissed annually by doctors (male and female) who seem to think that women who complain about monthly problems are just wimps or hypocondriacs. Had it not been for the Pill, I know for a fact there were times when I would have rather killed myself.

My message to women in similar situations would be this - don't let anyone try to dismiss your pain. Don't ever let anyone diminish what you feel, and how you feel about it. I'm in the younger set of women to be 'permitted' a hysterectomy and finally feel like a real functional human being again. I know, however there are other actions that can be taken earlier, if you can find someone who will take you seriously.

And for goodness' sake... everyone... please refuse to support such unscientific, ridiculous organisations as 'The Pill Kills'.

Eagle gets a cool nose job

Bionic eagle nose

I think this is great, a nice ending to a sad story.

The bird was found in 2005 scrounging for food and slowly starving at a landfill in Alaska. A bullet had taken from her curved upper beak, leaving her tongue and sinuses exposed, with a stump useless for grasping food. Cantwell said eating with her beak was like using one chopstick.

She also had trouble drinking and couldn't preen her feathers.

Beauty was taken to a bird recovery center in Anchorage, where she was hand-fed while her caretakers waited in vain for a new beak to grow. Cantwell in 2007 agreed to take the eagle to her Birds of Prey Northwest ranch. Every day she used tongs to feed Beauty food, such as strips of salmon.

During a speaking engagement in Boise, she met Calvin, who offered to design an artificial beak.

Airline charges by the pound!

Derrie-Air Exposed

And it's not even in Nor'n Ireland! :-D

(I don't know what random ads you get when you view it.. 2 out of the 3 I got were for weight loss programs :-D)

The odds on beating cancer

An odd mix of information here.
I'm very sad to see that a delightful man I was pleased to meet in January has been diagnosed with cancer, and I wish him all the best for his treatment and hopeful recovery.
Blue Collar Scientist

I have a lovely photo of myself with him after I regaled him with bizarre stories of corn-dogs, Corn Gods and law suits. A genuinely nice guy.


The odd mix I mentioned comes from seeing this story:
Cancer victim beats the bookies, and the odds

Doctors told Mr Matthews if he lived until June 1 - he would beat the longest survival time for killer cancer Mesothelioma.

The Bedfordshire punter put down £100 at 50/1 that he would live until June 1.

William Hill's spokesperson Graham Sharpe said: "We had never been asked to accept a bet of this nature before.

"But as Jon approached us directly and was adamant that it would give him an additional incentive to battle his illness, we decided to offer him the bet he wanted.

"Never, in thirty years in the business, have I been so pleased to pay a winning client £5000."

Not only did he win, Mr Matthews has already placed a bet he will still be around this time next year.

He plans on giving half to cancer charity Macmillan.

I wonder how much she paid for it....

Painting returned to UK on sale for £95k

An unknown painting by a celebrated 19th century Scottish artist has gone on sale for £95,000 after being discovered in America.

The Shepherd, by Edward Arthur Walton, was returned to the UK after a city art dealer found it in the US.
...

Miss Walsh said: "I was on the internet casually looking for deals to buy at auction houses when I first saw a painting by someone called Walton.
"I thought it could be by E A Walton, so made some inquiries and hopped on the first plane to the States.

"I travelled to a small backwater town on the east coast of America and I couldn't believe it when I finally saw the painting because I knew it was one of his works."

A canny purchase, it would seem. ;-)

Superstition amusement

Roger Whittaker banned

hehehe

A superstitious coastal town has imposed a month-long ban on whistling in an attempt to ensure good weather for its annual boating festival.

Portsoy, in Banffshire, has revived an ancient maritime belief that whistling at sea brings ill winds.

The tongue-in-cheek ban was imposed by the organisers of the port's Scottish Traditional Boat Festival.

The event, which runs from 20 to 22 June, fell victim to poor weather last year.

Festival chairman Roger Goodyear told BBC Scotland that everyone from dog walkers to over-enthusiastic builders admiring the town's young ladies had been asked to observe the ban.

Great news - Program helped find 17 people - Back on TV

Missing Live

Following a hugely successful first series, in which 17 missing people featured in the programme have been found, Liam Keelan, Controller BBC Daytime, has recommissioned BBC One’s Daytime series Missing Live. Presented by Louise Minchin (BBC Breakfast) and Rav Wilding (Crimewatch and former Metropolitan Police Detective), the series is a live studio programme, based on the previous BBC Daytime documentary series Missing. The series follows the work of the police and the charity, Missing People, in their efforts to discover the whereabouts of just some of the 200,000 people who are reported missing each year.

What a wonderful testimony to the efforts of Missing People, the BBC and viewers.

I watched every episode of this series on BBC iPlayer and found it interesting and informative. I'd encourage everyone to give it a view if possible - you never know who you might be able to help, or what you might learn.

Something positive... almost

Web Crime Kids

Normally I can find very little to say that is positive, when it comes to sites like MySpace, Bebo, and so on; particularly in the matters of children using them. As a parent I know there's a terrible difficulty in balancing your child's safety through anonymity with their need to fit in with their social peers who all interact on these sites. The ease of access to thesse sites, and lack of verification of members is a serious concern.

Recently a story caught my eye that made me think for a moment that the sites could be good for something.

Police swooped on the homes of more than 180 youths and children as young as 12 who use internet sites such as Bebo to exchange information about drugs and alcohol and boast about violent crimes.

Officers visited 183 young people – 80 in Falkirk, 37 in Clackmannanshire and 66 in the Stirling district – in an operation described by police as “intrusive and robust", and which lasted several weeks.

Central Scotland Police said many were forced offline at once by their “shocked and horrified" parents. Several were reported to the fiscal and the children's panel for offences, including assault, theft and breaking bail.

Nearly 70 children and a number of adults with learning difficulties were formally reported to social workers and the children's panel as being potentially at risk.

In all cases, officers identified young people aged 12 to 18 from their photos and videos posted on Bebo and other sites. It is understood some had posted videos showing them committing serious crimes.

I think this was a good project, and all the children were interviewed about their activities in the presence of their parent - many of which were unaware of the children's activities. While it's tempting to tut and shake our heads, and think they may be terrible or neglectful parents, just think for a moment about how this can be changed. Children have access to the internet at school, at their mates' houses, on their phones, at cafes ... the list is huge and there is no legitimate way that even the most vigilant parent can monitor or allow for them all.

Peer pressure to undertake the same activities is rampant among young teens, and this is hard for kids to ignore. It can also be seen in the horrible trend of 'happyslapping' that we often see reported - and may also be behind some of these incidents recorded for the social network sites.

I was glad to see that evidence of crimes was being uncovered and used appropriately. That was my positive take from this story. If these social sites didn't exist, the videos and photos may have been harder to trace, and may not have accompanied the boastful confessions apparently accompanying them. However, I wonder how much the existence of these sites has to do with the lure toward becoming such proud little criminals in the first place.

‘Deed, ye’re no doctor; ye’re just a wumman.’

A story that caught my eye today was this one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7432094.stm

It initially intrigued me because I wondered why "Scotland's Florence Nightingale" was being honoured all the way over in France. I was delighted to find a wonderful story about a woman who seems to have been not only intelligent and innovative, but also warm and humourous. She was an advocate for women's rights from a young age establishing the first female-run maternity hospital in Scotland, and helping to found the Scottish Women's Suffrage Federation. She also did much to improve the welfare of soldiers and availability of care for them in the war.

Elsie was undeterred by opposition from the War Office, who told her to stay home and knit, and despatched two units of the Scottish Women's Hospitals to France. Within months of the war breaking out, her Abbaye de Royaumont hospital, containing some 200 beds, was in place.

My blog entry title comes from a story told here:
http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/gazette/elsie_inglis.html

Her next bit of experience was in a well-known hospital in Dublin, the Rotunda. From that she wrote to her father humorous accounts of quaint Irish ways and words. When an old woman, having sent for a doctor, was faced by Dr. Inglis, she said, ‘Deed, ye’re no doctor; ye’re just a wumman.’

Reading about Elsie Inglis was a delight. She was not militant, and yet achieved so much for the things she believed in. She seems to have been a wonderful, caring and warm woman who pushed herself to her limits. Even while held captive in Serbia she was able to see beauty, writing: "Never shall we forget the beauty of the sunrises, and the glory of the sunsets, with cool clear sunlit days between, and wonderful starlit nights."

A fine role model.

Supporting the 'home' entrepreneurs - I've been redefined!

chill

:-)


I've been wandering around the interwebz a bit more than usual, and from my dad's blog (Wind, Sand and Stars) I found an interesting article on one of his linked NI blogs (alaninbelfast)

To quote AlaninBelfast:
"Not sure if it's a bid to pay off student loans, but a couple of enterprising students have come up with a wheeze that will surely make their bank managers smile all the way to the swimming pool showroom."

Intrigued, I had a look at the site, and I purchased chill! :-D
The creators claim: "The project is aimed at changing definitions and creating a new tapestry of words, meaning altogether different things."

Now, I'm not sure about that, but £2.52 to support a few students from the home country didn't seem like a big ask.

Surviving without the JREF Forum - and - Project Jason in Second Life

So, the forum has been down for a few days, and may be down for a few more.

Now what am I supposed to do? Get a life or something? :-O

I've read all the excellent entries at xkcd
I've levelled up a WoW warrior character to level 14 (I know... I'm slow)
I've read through most of the threads at the UK Skeptics site.
I've got up to date on all the articles on the brilliant StopSylviaBrowne website.
I've checked up a few articles I'd missed on the SkepChicks site.
(I'm delighted to report that the Skepchick calendar will be out shortly, featuring a few of my friends as well as yours truly - book your copy next week!)

So, now what?
Well, something I neglected to mention above was the time I also spent in Second Life, learning about a very worthwhile project. Now, although I play and enjoy World of Warcraft, I'm not actually that keen on the concept of most online gaming, and particularly Second Life. I wouldn't have created an account there but for Project Jason, and due to the interface I wouldn't have returned much either but for the project I'm about to tell you about.

I've spoken before about Project Jason and the wonderful work they do to assist families of the missing. Well, now they have created an online presence in what I consider an innovative resource to reach out to people and spread information.

Project Jason is honored to be one of 44 nonprofit organizations and the first missing persons’ assistance organization to be selected as part of a new area of Nonprofit Commons, a section within the virtual world, Second Life.

The Project Jason office in Second Life has three purposes. One is to disseminate general information about the epidemic of missing persons – how many are missing and how difficult a situation it is for the families of missing persons. Another is to deliver presentations and other educational events and materials to participants within Second Life. Finally, Project Jason also developed a special theme for the office called “Every Face Tells a Story” and the site exhibits special posters of missing persons. These posters contain articles written exclusively for Project Jason in Second Life, and they are contributed by the families of each missing person featured.

Joining Second Life is free. To do so, go to http://secondlife.com/ and download the program. You will need to register your account and choose an inworld “name,” which is a nickname you will use when you are logged in to Second Life.

The address for Project Jason in Second Life is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aloft%20Nonprofit%20Commons/246/25/26

Unfortunately I missed the grand opening due mainly to time differences and too many hours at work (yes - I cram all that stuff mentioned above into weekends and a few hours in the evenings ... maybe a lunch hour as well! I am the world's best multitasker.). I'm told the opening was a great success with a wonderful music event, with bands playing live, and all sorts of presentations.

I have however been in and visited the Project Jason house, and the Garden for the Missing. I am in the SL Project Jason group, and will be glad to meet you there (as Chillzero Dawner) if you happen to be there at the same time I am. There is a lot of information available and ways for you to donate to the Project to help them continue to help others. Last month they announced the passage of the Jennifer Kesse and Tiffany Sessions Missing Persons Act in the state of Florida, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2008. Florida joins CT, IN, NJ, and OR in passing this law. It's about increasing the flow and availability of information, and you can read more about it here:
http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2008/Senate/bills/billtext/pdf/s0502.pdf

I look forward to meeting you in SL, and would encourage everyone to consider donating to Project Jason if you can.

Wow - that's a BIG beetle!

Elephant Beetle transported in fruit

But how cool!