Tuesday 11 May 2010

Read this.

This guy makes so much sense it hurts. Warning: techy. Nothing to see here if you don't know what a DBA is. Mark Rendle's Blog

PS I used to work with him. He's an arrogant, self-satisfied cunt with the biggest heart in the world (although he'll deny it) but prodigiously intelligent. I might even forgive him one day for smoking Gerald, my doobie plant, while I was in Malta.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

A brief ditty on the Palace of Westminster

Knocked this up in half an hour or so - I was listening to the inimitable Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" song.
Needs the rough edges knocking off it but it's a start; more verses to be added if the muse takes me (ooh Matron!)

There's lobbying and bullying and thieving and there's avarice
There's haegemonies empire building little hitlers, cowardice
There's back-stabbing and dirty deeds and people filling dirty needs
and money changing hands behind the doors within the palace.

There's blockheads and there's dunderheads and absolute stupidity
There's fawning and there's toadying and out and out vapidity
There's members building empires and there's some with mansions in the shires
and some who make you gasp aloud with stagg'ring vacuosity

There's squabbling, fighting, name-calling and acts which bring opprobium
There's internecine plots which cause a modicum of odium
There's nose-pickers and lardy-arsed old poofs who'll try to make a pass
and orators who never can be dragged from off the podium

There's some who's progeny don't know by which sod they've been fathered
There's some who only want your cash so their nest can be feathered
And those who have no spinal nerve and salaries they don't deserve
and that's as much as I can do - I really can't be bothered

Monday 29 March 2010

La Toynbee talks sense shocker

I rarely do political posts. There are others far more perceptive, perspicacious and downright *bothered* than I, and do it better than I could ever manage to. Possibly because I have a life and no anger management issues hence don't spend most of my working day venting my spleen all over the blogosphere (oh god did I just say "blogosphere"?).
Anyway.
I heard Polly Toynbee say something sensible this morning on R4. No really.
She said (something along the lines of) the Gordon Brown factor no longer being a millstone around the Labour Party's neck; because "the public already hate him and it's impossible to hate him any more than he is hated already. So it's no longer an issue in the runup to the election".
So anything else (DC being a tit, for instance) can only be a bonus.

Friday 26 February 2010

Myth Busted!

...pretty rough stuff:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm

1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change.

6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific 'self correction', which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process



...in the words of the great philosopher Jimmy Cricket, "and there's more".

A scientific consensus? I don't think so. The truth is coming out, slowly and painfully. The mythxxxxxscam is, in the words of the equally great philosophers Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, "busted".

Tuesday 5 January 2010

WTF?


Google autocomplete - errrr?