Before she was famous?

Just throwing it out there...

*Update* Hmm, feeling a bit bad about that now. Just a bit. I'll get over it, I'm sure.

Oh come on

A trailblazing pioneer of piss-taking, yesterday

Tory paid daughter to rent flat

That's it, fuck it, I've stopped listening. Each emerging outrage has numbed me to the next, so that now I just don't care anymore. Well actually that's not true, I do care, but am now desensitised to the point where I can no longer be shocked or even slightly surprised.

So with that in mind, I'm going to stop reading these stories and propose the reversal of the burden of proof in these matters- i.e unless they can resolutely prove that they have not done something reprehensible at some point, from now on I will assume that they are guilty by default and have at some point used my money to pay for the disposal of dead hookers and have personally sold orphans for spares. Whilst avoiding taxes.

Would be a broad brush strokes job to be sure, and no doubt the resultant lynch mobs would also seize whomever passes for an innocent person in that benighted house, as they were feeding the lot of them to pigs, but we'd get all the worst troughers too.

I think Jacqui would approve of the spirit of my solution, if not perhaps it's application.

Woo Woo

For anyone numb to any further revelations regarding our MP's increasingly unbelievable expenses, I wish to turn today towards the subject of Woo (AKA Complementary and Alternative 'medicine').

First off please read the delightful questions put to Alchemists-at-large Neal's Yard who foolishly agreed to present an open forum to the readers of the Grauniad about their product line. They then decided that they wouldn't actually partake in the debate when it became obvious that their audience was not one of credulous earth-children bedecked with healing crystals and chewing Goji berries; and that the amassed ranks of bods with even the most elementary science knowledge would tear them a new arsehole and reveal them for the quacks that they are.

Secondly, I'm going to steal Prof. David Colquhoun's CAM glossary from this great article in the FT magazine:

Homeopathy
Giving patients medicines that contain no medicine whatsoever.

Herbal Medicine
Giving patients an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety.

Acupuncture
A rather theatrical placebo, with no real therapeutic benefit in most, if not all, cases.

Chiropractic
An invention of a 19th-century salesman, based on nonsensical principles: shown to be no more effective than other manipulative therapies, but less safe.

Reflexology
Plain old foot massage, overlaid with utter nonsense about non-existent connections between your feet and your thyroid gland.

Nutritional Therapy
Self-styled “nutritionists” making untrue claims about diet in order to sell you unnecessary supplements.

Spiritual Healing
Tea and sympathy, accompanied by arm-waving.

Reiki
Ditto.

Angelic Reiki
The same but with added “angels, ascended masters and galactic healers”. Excellent for advanced fantasists.

Colonic Irrigation
A rectal obsession that fails to rid you of toxins which you didn’t have in the first place.

Anthroposophical Medicine
Invention of the mystic barmpot, Rudolf Steiner, for whom nothing whatsoever seems to strain credulity.

Alternative Diagnosis: Kinesiology, Iridology, Vega Test, etc:
Various forms of fraud, designed to sell you cures that don’t work, for problems you haven’t got.

Any Alternative “Therapist” Who Claims To Cure Aids Or Malaria
An agent of culpable homicide.

Oh and he's seperately added another with regard to Simon Singh's libel case with the British Chiropractic Association:

Libel
A very expensive remedy, to be used only when you have no evidence. Appeals to alternative practitioners because truth is irrelevant.

We all know the issues with the NHS, but why -even in countries where the local health system isn't substandard(In India for example, homeopathy is popular because it's cheaper than real medicine. But then it would be, wouldn't it?)- is this magical, stone-age thinking so popular?
There are subtle reasons, no doubt, but I'd guess that the primary one is the simple fact that physicians practising standard medicine are quick to admit their ignorance and, indeed, their ineffectiveness in certain situations. Quacks, on the other hand, always offer a magic bullet, along with the flattering implication that their clients are courageous rebels rather than weak people frightened into gullibility. How often does a devotee of "alternative" medicine take the trouble to elicit a body of relevant fact and to submit it to a meaningful statistical analysis before abandoning orthodox medicine for what is effectively superstition?

Critics of Alt Med/CAM/Magical Fairy Dust/whatever are inevitably accused of being close-minded by it's fans. But the truth is that the scientific community is completely open to the idea that something new might be possible. In fact your average scientist dreams of the day he can disprove the established order of things with a new theory. But you have to prove it. You have to attempt to falsify your hypothesis by experiment, and then someone else has to do replicate your results, and then you have to throw your idea out for the collective to tear it to pieces. And then if it comes out of the horror of peer-review -where even your best mate wants to prove you wrong because that's science, boyo- you may have something. (I'm expecting someone is going to mention the pseudo-religious nature of climate change around about now; but that is tainted by the politics of it so let's talk about it on a different post , OK?)

My point is that most of these theories are preposterous and have nothing going for them apart from anecdotal evidence and fallacious reasoning, and the ones with some merit (i.e Herbal medicine) are just primitive, dirty(literally) versions of existing remedies. I'm all for freedom of choice, and if you wish to put your health in the hands of the local witch-doctor, that's your call. But I consider the kinds of misdirection, weasel worded advertisement and false promises put out by the CAM crowd to be fraud, and it should be labelled and treated as such - especially when the stakes are potentially so high.

Totally Outraged.

A face needing a shovel, yesterday

Via Counting Cats, I learn that our froggie chums have decided not to invite any of the royals to the 65th D-Day commemorations in favour of entertaining some clueless, strutting, money-spunking "community organiser" from across the pond.

They said President Nicolas Sarkozy was focused on the 'main event' of hosting U.S. President Barack Obama.

The 'main event'?
How the hell does that tool rank above Liz and Phil - people who, regardless of your opinion of the royals, actually served during the war? Oh no, he can't let them overshadow the heralded entrance of the chosen one as he deigns to grace them with his exulted presence. Meanwhile actual veterans might very well be unable to visit the area due to 'security concerns'.
Oh, and they DID invite Gordon Brown. This is a perfect storm of cuntitude.

Mr Brown will attend events on June 6, but is not expected to be at the main gathering of British veterans at Arromanches beach - the last time the dwindling band are expected to march together.

Peter Hodge, secretary of the Normandy Veterans Association, said having the Queen present would have been 'the icing on the cake' for his members.

He said: 'The veterans have immense respect for her and feel a very special bond. The fact that she took the salute at Arromanches at the 60th anniversary was very special to them.'

But he said it 'wouldn't make a scrap of difference' to most veterans whether the Prime Minister turned up or not.

I didn't think politicians could sink any lower in my opinion. I can barely give voice to the sheer magnitude of my disgust for Sarkozy right now. He and the whole foetid, corrupt lot of them.

The revolting, brown-nosing bastard.

A Slug's sciencey work in the spotlight

Right, am just finishing off my part in the ISIS TS2 phase 1 beamlines, and they're just about safe to set some spotty Phd types loose on. Meanwhile, I've just noticed we've been getting some press.

First off, my boss had a write-up in the Torygraph.

And then Metro ran this feature on the lab (click for readability):

That's some real science shit right there, yo.

Oh that’s right; I have a blog……

Haven't posted much of anything recently, this is because the beam is back on and I have to earn the salary which your taxes pay for. I've a couple of things stacked up, so bear with me.

Incidentally, someone take a memo:

Things that are electronic don't like neutrons. Oh no they most definitely do not.

Message ends.

 

Tagged

Snowolf has given me the filthy tag pox, and as such I have to write 8 random things about my good slimy self.
So here yer go:

1. I once had occasion to blow up a Russian T34 tank.
2. I spent New Year 2007/8 at a Las Vegas Blackjack table singing Johnny Cash songs with a Nebraskan Soy bean farmer.
3. People who conflate being pedantic with making an intelligent observation drive me nuts.
4. At school, I once wrote to the Chinese embassy to ask for a copy of Mao's red book; my Dad did the same thing when he was younger (and in the Army). He got a visit from Special Branch, though.
   
5. I have an impressive collection of cocktail ingredients, and often go shopping and buy limes and ice but forget to buy actual food.
6. I cannot remember when I last had hiccups.
   
7. I can sleep on anything.
8. I think the music that I find most emotionally evocative are Commodore 64 game soundtracks.
   

Right, now I give the dirty tag to Dick Puddlecote and Martin, and to toss it the way of the Antipodes by way of Ayrdale and Barnsley Bill.

WTF?

Today's Swine Flu surreality courtesy of The Cartoon Network



Well, that's that cleared up.

Dependant on the State

On the back of the thorough public reaming which is hopefully descending upon our esteemed parliamentary representatives, it will be interesting (and probably depressing) to see the response of Call-Me-Dave. I predict he will be cagey around this one because, despite the focus mainly being on the cabinet right now, ultimately they're all at it. They've all had a say in setting the 'rules' by which they decide how much of our money they reckon they can get away with spending on themselves, and they've all –to a greater or lesser extent- had their place at the trough. They are also essentially self-regulating in that they are supposed to subject their expenses to a committee (made up of MPs) to make sure all is above board, according to the 'Rules', that is. They have developed their own thinly painted veneer of truthfulness and respectability with which to insulate them from criticism when the subject of their expenses comes up. From Auntie Pravda:

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman said no resignations were likely as all claims were within the rules.

It can't be wrong because it was within the broad boundaries of The Rules. This requires such awesome bureaucratic mental gymnastics that I think at least some MPs actually believe it. They have convinced themselves of their forthrightness and their scrupulous adherence to the guidelines and are utterly oblivious to the fact that they are embezzling our hard-earned cash. It doesn't matter how much of a sanction you have off your chums, it doesn't make it right. And you can see it in their face when quizzed on television: "It's none of your business what I do with MY money" that look says.

Thing is, when you've been in the MP job for a while, I'm guessing what smidge of guilt that might be gnawing at what passes for your conscience when you first sign those expense forms fades away to casual acceptance as 'part of the job'. And then when enquires start coming in from the unwashed serfs about where you spend YOUR expense money, you start to get defensive, to get resentful of the ungrateful masses and their insubordinate bleatings.

"Don't you know who I am?"

Ultimately, it becomes not a perk or necessary business expense; it becomes a Right. "It is my Right as MP that the taxpayer pays for everything that I want, in the manner to which I am accustomed". They've become another facet of the ubiquitous entitlement culture, no different then the feckless sink-estate asbo who is so certain it is his Right that someone else picks up the tab for his way of life. Which is apt because there isn't a useful and productive human being on the entire cabinet; they can't even hope for a piece of the speaking circuit cash when they get shitbinned next year, á la the Tiny Blur, because they're no fucking use at speaking either.

My spirits are raised; the time of reckoning is at hand. Maybe nothing will come of it in the overall scheme of things, but I'm just happy right now to see this particular crew of scaborous whores dragged over hot coals.

It's on

Political Redevelopment

The Torygraph has acquired unredacted copies of MP's expenses, which they are to run the story on tomorrow. A delicious taste of what is to come is here and here on Pravda.

Gordon Brown claimed back £6,000 after paying his brother for cleaning at his Westminster flat, it has been reported.

Jack Straw used his expenses to claim back the entire council tax on his second home despite already having a 50% discount on it.

Ms Blears claimed for expenditure on three different properties during the period including a hotel where she stayed after selling a Manchester home.

Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, splashed out more than £3,000 on a new hot water system for his second home, explaining in a letter to the parliamentary fees office that his water was too hot.

It's like fucking Christmas. Join the festivities at OH's place.
.

Without a doubt, the best album cover EVER

I challenge you, what does this not have?

Update: well OK it has no naked women. It's no Bitch School for example:

I still have flash burns from teh awesome, however.

You've probably all had this email at some point, but THESE covers are something else:
Worst Album Covers Ever

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Sheet Music & Lyrics Books Fiction Culture-Music Humor-Humor

What's good for the goose....

Via Tom Paine: Lady Irony bullseyes another one.

Tom Riall, the chief executive of Britain's largest speed camera firm, has been arrested for driving at more than 100mph in Norwich.

Apparently, he was 'unaware of how fast he was driving'. No doubt; and I also doubt he thought he was driving in an unsafe manner, it being a clear and open A-road and all. Almost as if the rule being broken was completely arbitrary, with no objective basis whatsoever. If one was of the cynical mindset, one might think that these cameras aren't about stopping accidents and making the roads 'safer' at all, sited as they are on clear roads where drivers are more likely to drive fast. DK has a decent screed on the matter.

The nannying is unrelenting. Why can't any prospective government realise that they would be cementing themselves in the good books of many voters by just binning the fucking lot?

Cthulhu fhtagn!

Cthulhu = Capitalist (picture unrelated)

Whilst ranting in a semi-coherent sleep deprived fashion in a comment over at Leg_Iron's place, I think I may have happened across something profound.

You see, my reading habits of late have involved a combination of Ayn Rand and H.P.Lovecraft, and the pieces have been falling into place.
The utter madness which has gripped the leaders of the developed countries can only be explained by the machinations of the Great Old One Cthulhu. What we are experiencing is an object lesson in objectivist/libertarian appreciation, with Cthulhu (with the possible help of Gol-goroth and perhaps also X'chll'at-aa) pulling the world's social and political strings with his gnarly face tentacles.
You see when he's not being an inscrutable cosmic horror whose fleeting thoughts are beyond even our most fevered imaginations, Cthulhu is a venture capitalist based in the notable tax haven of R'lyeh. The gradual rise of government interference and moves toward planned economies angers Cthulhu, and he has taken action to resolve things. He has visited those wielding the most influence over the lives of us mere mortals, and driven them utterly insane. Now they are in his thrall, he is using them to teach us -in the most direct and tangible manner possible- never to let these kleptocratic fucknuckles anywhere near a position of power again.
Greatest among his worm-thralls is the Brown Gobbler, who has surpassed all others as an agent of chaos and destruction. He has been useful, but his enthusiasm for the dark task at hand disgusts even the Old Ones; and so his fate is to be fed to the many mouths of Bugg-Shash (He Who Comes in the Dark).
Ultimately we are all doomed, as the Elder Gods are going to consume all eventually, but we can postpone the inevitable by pleasing Cthulhu with commerce and enterprise. I understand He's big on laissez faire.
So, the take away lesson from this is:

Vote Labour, and Cthulhu eats your fucking soul.

No pressure.