watch tHe skies

Man alive, it comes to something when the atrocities in Lebanon and the enormous typhoon ripping in to China are incidentals on the BBC news.

On wednesday I flew to Edinburgh and back on BA flights. No hold baggage, just a briefcase with my iPod, a book, a couple of documents, my phone and my keys. Based on the current rules, that briefcase will have to go in to hold, meaning a 4am start on monday and an extra hour or so added to my day waiting around for my briefcase to arrive at a carousel. All because a bunch of so-called Brits wanted to martyr themselves by killing hundreds of innocent people?

I remember that being a kid involved scrapes with lots of other kids, creating enemies and getting in to fights, until our respective parents told us off, smacked us and made us say sorry to each other. After that we more often than not ended up best friends.

So it seems to me that this is exactly what the human race needs, someone to come along and make us be friends. After all, we all have to live together, and we will never achieve Gene Roddenberry’s vision of humanity unless we all stop trying to kill each other. However it must be noted that in his vision, we did go through a third world war before realising the error of our ways. It should also be noted that having a “parent” to make us all be friends could perhaps be called a dictatorship, something that Anakin Skywalker never got his head around until he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Now i’m sure some of you (assuming that the readership is more than me) are bound to be saying “yes Matt, but we have been fighting each other for hundreds, maybe thousands of years”, and to that I say yes, indeed, but is it healthy to have any habit that long? Surely it’s time to break the habit and all be friends, to be nice to each other and all go on a picnic or something. Religious hatred, when you think about it, is a bit daft considering that nobody knows who is actually right, i mean who can be sure that the omnipotent one is buddha, allah, god or Dennis Bergakamp?

Back to my original point or thread. Thank you to the security services for averting such an evil plot to kill more innocent people. Even though my trip to Edinburgh on monday will be an even longer day than it was going to be, I am happy knowing that there are people out there protecting me from nastiness.

As you will have probably seen the situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate rapidly. Hundreds have already died and an estimated 500,000 people have had to flee their homes, forced to shelter in buildings with little or no help to meet their basic needs.The situation is unacceptable.

Please take urgent action now by urging Tony Blair to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East, before he meets President Bush this Friday for talks on the crisis

Although the Prime Minister has recognised the catastrophic impact the crisis is having, and has publicly shown his desire to see an end to the fighting, this is not enough.

By failing to back the United Nations and the international call for an immediate ceasefire, the UK government’s policy risks putting more civilians’ lives at continued risk.

Please urge Tony Blair to add his government’s weight to calls for an immediate ceasefire, before he meets President Bush this Friday for talks on the crisis

Such a move could still help to reduce the horrific toll the conflict is having on ordinary people across the region. If you have already sent this message to Tony Blair please forward it to people you know and ask them to do so too.

Please, if you can, spare some money to help those affected, by donating here.

Another anniversary of a terrorist attack. More innocent lives lost and more families losing loved ones. My thoughts are with all of the people affected by the events a year ago and I hope that we are one year closer to winning the war on terror.

You would never guess that I’m stuck in a hotel tonight, given my blog posts. Thank the lord for wireless LAN in hotels, it seems that even Bristol has finally joined this millennium.

Whilst watching the footie, I’m browsing the trailers on the apple site, and I came across Who Killed The Electric Car? A documentary investigating the conspiracy behind the failure of the electric car. Is it slow? Is it uneconomical? Well by the looks of the trailer, it is the saviour of the environment (maybe).

But for the oil companies and the motor industry we would all be driving Sinclair C5s (again, maybe), but this documentary looks like it has some explosive statements to make, so I hope that it is both interesting and as successful at making changes as Supersize Me.

Checkout the website for more information.

Damn it’s hot, 8.45 in the morning in the middle of England and already the fan is on max and i’m sweltering the office. The product of global warming? Probably. Although when they told us about global warming they omitted to tell us that we would get more of every type of weather. And quite often it seems, all in the same day.

It is quite sobering to think that whilst the tabloids will be choc full of British lovelies mostly naked on Brighton beach, the upshot is more and more of the planet is turning in to Mars.

Oh well, a little bit of positivity on a monday morning! At least we don’t have to listen to the England team complaining about the hot weather any more… Come on Germany!

So the NHS are going to make the fat pill (rimonabant) available for prescription. Trials suggest that obese individuals taking a course of the drug lose 10% of their bodyweight. At £60 a month, this is an expensive treatment.

The recent report on the BBC suggests that there is also evidence that people coming off the drug have a tendency to put the weight back on. There is a good reason for that: these people still have the same unhealthy relationship with food that got them obese in the first  place. Remove the chemicals and that problem is there, and if anything it will get worse because we are talking about people who don’t accept accountability for their problem. By pinning their hopes on a wonder pill they are removing themselves further from the fundamental issue that who they are is a result of what they have done.

Whilst the pill definitely has a place in helping people improve their health, it should be used in conjunction with a programme to help them change their lifestyle and eating disorder. At the end of the course they should be back in control of their lives, their eating, and have cast away old habits. I fear that the real situation will be lardies thinking that they can have an extra slice of pizza thanks to the medication that they are taking.

It’s my own fault really. If I hadn’t gone and done that Social Science course with the Open University I would have continued to be blissfully ignorant of the damage that the human race continues to do to its own home.

Scientific and political consensus is coalescing around the need to reduce climate change emissions by about 60% over the coming 30 – 50 years. Later this century, we will likely find new technologies to help tame climate change – probably based on hydrogen power and nuclear fusion, supported by nanotechnology applications.

However – right now – emissions are actually growing at their fastest rate ever. Regulatory responses such as the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme are a start. But in the short term, irreversible damage will surely occur in the most vulnerable areas of our planet.This concern now plagues me daily and whilst I know that I should be more active in making the world a little more careful, I thought that the best place to begin change is at home. So I wandered upon the carbonneutral site.

The site includes a CO2 calculator to help you work out your emissions. Once you have done that, the site offers plenty of ways to neutralise your emissions by planting new trees, dedicating trees to people, you name it.

So, my plan is to work out how much CO2 I am generating, and neutralise it through the planting of trees. Could be cool, could be expensive, could be too expensive but in my eternal quest to reach the pinnacle of Maslow’s triangle, it may bring me one step up the ladder of self-actualisation. Watch this space.

Carbon Neutrality - it’s the new black!

“With great power, comes great responsibility”, said Peter Parker’s Uncle. Words that he and his alter-ego, Spider-man, live by. Good words to guide a good soul, I feel, and yet it seems that every member of our governmental cabinet have either never watched Spider-Man or they feel that pursuing the Green Goblin’s agenda would suit them better.

It seems to me to be perfect sense to act like a model citizen if you are in the public eye, and yet it would seem to me that the only people who actually aspire to being politicians are the perverted, drunken, drug-addict or incompetent minority of the country who are the very last people on the planet that we would actually want to have any power at all, let alone to decide on our behalf how the country should be run.

Perhaps there should be some sort of entrance exam to becoming a politician; Are you any of the following: alcoholic, pervert, junkie, bigot, easily led? If you ticked one of these then you cannot be a politician. If you ticked more than one then move directly to Parliament…

I just don’t understand why politicians don’t accept that their position comes at a price, to put aside their personality quirks and act in the best interests of the people that they represent. And if they fall by the wayside through indiscretions (cough Prescott) or sheer incompetence (cough cough Clarke) then they should be made to step aside and let someone with greater commitment to the needs of the country to have a pop at screwing up.

However, perhaps I am being a little mean. Was it Lord Acton who said Power tends to corrupt? Perhaps these people began as honest, hardworking people with a genuine drive to make Britain a better place, and that it is simply the process of attaining, wielding and abusing power that they creep slowly towards the dark side.

I was happily sat watching some crap on TV the other night, when a Bird’s Eye advert came on and told me that most salmon, one of my favourite foods, is often artificially coloured. So much so that there is even a “Salmon colour wheel” used to measure the pinkness.

You see, the flesh of wild salmon is naturally pink because the fish consume large amounts of shrimps. However, almost 90% of the salmon sold in supermarkets is farmed. So farmed salmon isn’t fed on shrimps, and guess how it gets its pink colour? Chemicals of course! Our friends in the industry are feeding the salmon canthaxanthin, which is also fed to chickens to give their skin and eggs a brighter yellow complexion.

This depresses me. Perhaps it would have been better for me to be blissfully ignorant of all this. It seems that more and more foods are being pumped full of toxins just to sell them without regard to the long-term effects. At a time where Tescos posts record profits yet again, perhaps Jamie Oliver needs to get back on our TVs and save the grown ups this time.

I heard an advert on local radio today from The Leicestershire Constabulary. Entitled “Too Much Bling, Give Us a Ring”, the concept is that if you know someone that is obviously living above their means then call the Police and they will be investigated.

The Proceeds of Crime Act, which came into effect in 2002, allows police officers to pursue known criminals through the courts and effectively snatch back any ill-gotten gains. Leicestershire Constabulary is at the forefront of using this legislation to strip criminals of their ill-gotten gains with more than £2.2 million worth of property and cash seized from criminals since the legislation came into force.

Now whilst I fully support the investigation and prosecution of people who are fraudulently sponging off the state, selling drugs etc., not everyone who seems to have more money than they should is actually a criminal and I don’t like the idea of being investigated just because someone in the street thinks that my car is too expensive!