Turn It Fucking Up!

13th October 2005

Deep Shine's Everyday Heroes

A little story for you from my favourite inside source. Traveling on a bus the other day Deep Shine was peeved to find he was traveling with one of the loud obnoxious drunks with which Transport For London have replaced conductors. Russum russum, thought he, oh for one peaceful journey. A group of Muslim women in hijabs then got on the bus, to which the drunk responded by continually shouting "I'm part of Al Qaida! I'm part of Al Qaida!" Yes, thought Deep Shine, the alkie part. Was it meant to offend these ladies? If so wouldn't "I'm George Bush!" have been more effective?
With his vision of and way through to the incident partially obscured, and hearing no response from the ladies (as obviously no one wants to talk to a drunk or a member of Al Qaida) Deep Shine was wondering whether the ladies were attempting to ignore the guy, or if they were in fact asking the guy to shut up and he was refusing. Should he stay put or go and batter the guy? Then a dwarf got on the bus. Unlike all the taller people up near the incident, the dwarf was having none of the alkie's offensive mouth, and promptly told the drunk in no uncertain terms that he should shut up and why, thus proving himself the biggest person on the bus.
The drunk, now bored of hollering at the ladies, started on the dwarf. Deep Shine began internally debating whether wading in at this point would be taken amiss by the only person on the bus who'd so far been bothered to call the man to task, when a fairly substantial builder rather closer to the action stepped in and told the drunk to shut it.
"Wah blether blether ya snughing brik manaya!" or something equally clever, said the drunk. "Saynar whassit likeses wotyer doobarteet?"
"This is me," said the builder, indicating his several dwarfsworth of bulk, "telling you to shut up."
The drunk shut up.
So this is post-terrorism London. On a whole busfull of people the only one not too afraid or too "Oh sod it, what's the point?" to tell a drunk that it is unacceptable to harass ladies or make poor taste remarks about terrorists on a bus, was a dwarf. The only person who would stand up for the dwarf, when he previously had not stood up for the ladies, was the builder.
What do we learn from this? I suggest that it shows the only people who know that all persecution or harassment of a minority is a serious issue are other minorities, and that a proportion of the population see a difference between the kind of minority that were "born that way", like the dwarf, and the kind of minority perceived to have some choice in the matter.
I've heard shades of it before on the gay debate, that people should be aware that people have prejudices, and if they "choose" to live a gay lifestyle, they can like it or lump it. It was bollocks then, and it's bollocks now. I give fair warning that if I just once hear from anyone that going around "obviously displaying" that you're a Muslim is "asking for it" it will be very very much the worse for them. Every part of what makes us who we are deserves the same respect, because we don't choose to love who we love, believe what we believe, or feel how we feel, we just do, and those ladies could no more switch off believing in Allah than the dwarf could grow two foot taller. Think you're immune? Grow a spine, people, there won't always be a dwarf about when you need one.

"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

Pastor Martin Niemoller

Bible 3- The Diary Of God

Book1, Chapter 1, Verses 1-2

1)Sunday: I said unto thee 'day of rest', 2) What's with the bells?

Cheer ap, Keptin; n' baw ya flahr orf a pore gel.

Here comes the bride, all orange and wide... And here comes the partially decomposed corpse of the bride and groom's father. While the police puzzle over how long Den's been dead, the rotting having rendered his zombieflesh more like that of a human than when he was alive, upstairs the fallout begins.
Observe the happy couple. Observe Dennis pace the floor obviously straining to demonstrate what a hard man he is by ranting about how he doesn't care, but keeping his "marf" shut for Sharon's sake. Observe Sharon trotting out all the old lines about losing her father twice. See how devastated she is.
But what is this? Dennis suggesting they go on their honeymoon to get away from all the horror, Sharon mutely shaking her orange jowled head and gripping an old picture of Daddy and Princess from the mid-eighties, looking at Dennis like he's just suggested they serve the corpse at the wedding reception. Can this be the first sign of trouble in Incest Paradise?
And as the days and weeks pass, what then? Can it be that Sharon is scarcely any less catatonic than when the body was discovered? Can it be that her failure to recover in any way is beginning to grate upon her new husband? Is it in any way possible that Dennis can't begin to understand why she's so upset, given that Den drove her mother to drink herself to death, abandoned Sharon and let her think he was dead for years, then did his level best to split Sharon and Dennis up?
Do you think there's even the slightest chance that we shall soon hear Dennis cry out "Even dead he's coming between us!"?
Is there remotest possibility that Sharon will be forced to choose, let go of Den or let go of Dennis?
In an infinite universe is there maybe a theoretical probability that Sharon lays a single flower on Den's grave then leaves the square alone in the back of a black cab?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Train Your Own Police Dog

What a cutie! You wouldn't think he'd grow up to be a vicious Police attack dog, would you? Well now you have a chance to help him be so much more than that. The Police are looking for people willing to bring up Alsatian puppies for ten months in order to 'socialize' them. Great, you're thinking, a totally untrained Alsatian puppy loose in my house, that's exactly what I need. But pause for a moment and consider the wonderful range of possibilities if you can get in there first and teach the little sweetie a few tricks before the police trainers get at him.
Our current favourite is 'Green Retriever'. You train the dog to recognise the smell of weed, and whenever he smells it to grab it in his fearsome jaws, run off with it and bury it where no one can see, then return calmly to his handler. You then take a second dog, who you have trained to follow the scent of the first, and take him for walkies with a spade, digging up and retrieving all the herb (Copyright Deep Shine).
Other suggested 'new tricks' include running slower when chasing skateboarders (unsurprisingly also copyright DS), pissing on flash bastard motors, violently attacking the source of the sound when hearing the 'Crazy Frog' ringtone, slobbering affectionately all over the uniforms of senior police brass on public occasions, and regarding all those wearing hoodies as puppies to be wrestled down, gripped by the scruff of the neck and dragged back to base.
The Police will pay for the vet's bills and food etc, and as we all know they really need our support at the moment, so lets all pull together and help train the Police force we all really want.

You have to go down to thier level...

FORBIDDEN

It's been blind panic here at ISTBO this morning due to disturbing rumours passed on by our Mad Lesbian Correspondant (You know who you are. "Hello mum! I'm on the telly!"), recently returned from an Anti-Bush rally with her friends from the Brazilian Wax Foundation. ISTBO felt it would be irresponsible to expose you to this rumour until we could disprove it, as our usual policy of shutting our eyes and pretending it's not happening ("There's no such person as Kinga, there's no such person as Kinga...") wasn't gonna cut it on this one. So get a cup of hot sweet tea, get safely sat down, and imagine how horrible it would have been if this was true:

BAD

'Tebbit Cricket Test' For Immigrants Should Become Law

"Right Mr. Begum, you get one over, if you hit him you can stay, if you get him in the balls you get a place on the England Cricket Squad and your whole family can come and live here too. What me and the lads like to call a double rollover....! Just our little joke you understand. Ok, Sir, when you're ready..."

Mo! Mo!

Mo Mowlam
1949-2005
Thankyou and Goodnight.
Henceforth St.Mo, Patron Saint Of Those Whose Sword Is Truth.

ISTBO Cut-Out-And-Keep Bleeding Obvious Collector Cards

#1~ Children Should Be Seen And Not Heard

The Road To Purrrdition

Before
After

The Stealth Passenger Plane- You wont hear it coming till it crashes into your buliding

The BBC today reported plans for a passenger plane with roof mounted engines and a 'Delta Wing' design, for a quiter, more manoeuverable, more stable and comfortable plane. Hmmmm....... so the airlines can send up more flights becuase there wont be complaints about the noise, and the plane can execute rather tighter manoevers so Air Traffic Control can juggle more of them in the air at once over the airports . I believe the collective noun for these planes will be 'skyfull'.
Assuming they show up on ATC radar at all, obviously.
It'll all end in tears I tell you.

HOWZAAAAT!

No Cricket On Terrestrial TV For At Least 4 Years!

If only St.SirSir Richard had lived to see the day...

WITCH-Shove! Push! Mosh! Shop! Stop Bush!

To help undo the damage Bush is doing by funding abstinance education programs in Africa rather than sex education, condoms and drugs for HIV/AIDS sufferers, join Alicia Keys' Drug Dealer Campaign at:

http://www.keepachildalive.org/

And buy a wristband at:

Drug Dealer

To help raise money for research into the stem cell cures for degenerative diseases and paralysis that Bush wants to deprive people of the chance of, support the son and widow (who is currently fighting lung cancer) of Christoper Reeve at:

http://www.christopherreeve.org/

And buy funky 'Go Forward' Superman dogtags at:

Superhero

Are you taking the piss mate?

See the original at http://kearse.blogspot.com/2005/07/arf.html

P-Oh-Shh

Responsible mother of three and role model to the young (hem) Victoria Beckham today revealed that she had never read a book. Although I'm choosing to believe this wholeheartedly, a small part of me wonders if what actually happened was someone they were having dinner with asked her while she was perusing the menu if she liked a good potboiler and she said "Yes, but i couldn't manage a whole one. "
Well, as her career dwindles out of sight nearly as fast as her flesh, here are a few suggestions for what she should pick up when she does have the time to learn to read:





Invaluable advice for those who have absolutley no idea how stupid they look.













It's ok Victoria, reading burns calories. Especially when it's so much effort. We recommend the paperback version of this, in case your arms snap picking it up.
















For when the inevitable happens...

















See above.

















Does David know you haven't read this? Has he?

















So just to clarify, Victoria, have you ever read a book?
"I haven't read a book in my life. I haven't got enough time. I prefer to listen to music, although I do love fashion magazines,"

Haply Some Poison Yet Doth Hang On Them

Oh brave new world that has such spoilers in it!

Demi's not dead, but Leo thinks she is, so guess what Leo does and guess when Demi wakes up.

Kat and Alfie get back together (boo!)

Den's body is unearthed from underneath the Queen Vic on the day of Sharon's wedding.

Chrissie tries to frame Sam.

Chrissie makes a run for it from the polis with Jake Moon (who is presumably back then) but gets nabbed at the border.

Frank's coming back for Janie's trial!

Janine's not!

Peggy and Grant are- at about the same time as Frank...

Which is just about when Kat leaves.

And I think to myself, "What a wonderful world...."

But I still can't find out why Emma dumped Minty...

My Left Ear, My Right Ear.....

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a disctance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descende life-forms are so amazingly primitve that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

A certain 'forty2' has picked me up below for my pessimism. Moi? Nahhhh..... But I must say I object to the word "needless". The rest of the world would be in dire trouble were it not for the likes of me. If we were not thinking of a million ways something could go wrong, you optimistic people wouldn't have the luxury of saying how unlikely it is that any of them will happen. We are a valuable check and balance I'll have you know. We say "I can envision a future where pop star managers create a line of clones with ten year age gaps in order to have continuity over 100 years." (You laugh- Madonna says 'new image', I say Version 6.0. It's like the evolution of car design in reverse, every time the it gets more boxy...) And respected important medical ethics people boff and waffle and then go and draw up legislation to make sure something a tenth as silly never happens just to be on the safe side.
Now that we're done on pessimistic silliness, lets talk about the current optimism about going to Mars. Why go to Mars? They're sending another probe up today which should tell us far more about the surface of the planet, possible existence or previous existence of water and so on. Sounds good. It's an orbiter too, so there's less chance of them losing it. That's the thing, so far we haven't managed to get an unmanned rover down on Mars with anything like a decent strike rate, let alone send and retrieve an unmanned craft. But scientists (let's hear it for the "what happens when....?" brigade) seemingly want samples from Mars. These would tell them what bits of Mars look like, feel like, smell like, and crucially if they're like other bits of rock they've got. Now the way I see it, you have two options. You can either try to make better unmanned craft, something that detatches itself from and returns to a re-launchable craft and is operated by glorified remote control. This will doubtless be very expensive, and probably wouldn't work the first couple of times. Or you can throw everything behind a manned mission to Mars, requiring all sorts of new technology. This will doubtless be very expensive, and might not work the first times. The major difference is what doesn't come back.
Accepting the darn thing gets off the launchpad and into space without blowing up or sloughing off its skin, what would the journey to Mars be like? www.space.com Says "on long missions, what would otherwise be minor threats could become at best serious limitations or at worst deadly disasters." They list:

Lack of a medical facility could turn a mundane injury into a life-threatening situation;
"Psychosocial" pressure will be high in a small group isolated for months or years;
Zero or reduced gravity causes bone and muscle loss;
Dangerous radiation particles are abundant beyond Earth orbit.

Discounting the psychological angle on the basis that anyone prepared to go on this mission is clearly insane already, consider the interaction of the other three. Weakened physically by the effects of reduced gravity, and assaulted by radiation, the astronauts will be more vulnerable to injury and illness, including serious illnesses like cancer. A likely minimum of two and a half years for a mission means that the astronauts will be without the sort of routine medical monitoring and treatment that we take for granted, such as dentistry, proper diagnosis of and prescription of appropriate antibiotics for such things as ear infections. Imagine having an untreated dental abscess for 18 months. And what if one of the astronauts developed cancer from the radiation?
Space.com says "Any trip beyond Earth orbit will involve radiation threats not faced by residents of the International Space Station, which sits inside the planet's magnetic field."
Assuming we've got people all the way to Mars and they're not dead or too weakened from muscle loss, radiation and untreated minor ailments to walk at all, let alone in an extra tough space suit on rocky ground, they'll have to survive 18 months parked on the planet waiting for the earth and Mars to align correctly for the return journey. And another two years if they miss that one far any reason. While on Mars, as well as the radiation, there are basically unknown weather conditions, the attendant hazard of equipment failure as there is no was of testing the new technology in the environment it will be exposed to, so they'll find out if it works if it works. Oh and solar flares.
Back in the days of one small step for man "Mission planners knew the Apollo astronauts would be at grave risk if a strong solar flare occurred during a mission. The short duration of each trip was a key to creating favorable odds." Even between here and the moon "A big solar event during one of those missions could have been catastrophic... The risk was known. They gambled a bit." Solar flares can damage spacecraft in flight, or cut communications with anything on Mars. Solar storms, massively increased levels of particles of radiation like the a cross between a sand storm and a nuclear explosion, may well even kill instantly. The chances of getting caught in one are increased by the fact that the astronauts will be required to roam all over the surface of the planet, and the fact that any warning sent from earth about increased solar activity would take between four and twenty one minutes to reach Mars.
And all the time one rip in a suit, one deteriorated seal, one tiny little hole in the habitat, and everybody dies. This is not a Class M planet.
And for what? We keep hearing scientists think Mars may one have been like earth, and hope it will hold clues to climate change etc etc. Clearly not. Either the two planets are similar, and we'll eventually lose some of our atmosphere and dry out and become barren rock, and there's nothing we can do about it. This will give scientists the clue that climate change is constant and happens regardless of what any life forms on the planet do. There is no evidence of a now dead civilization on mars, so clearly the planet did not go the way of the fossil fuels. Alternatively the planets turn out to be substantially different, and we find out that they're substantially different. Either way it fails entirely to matter.
We can't build there, we can't stay there, we quite possibly can't survive there at all. There is no point. You can forget the moon too. Closer, yes, but no atmosphere, so even more dangerous than Mars radiation wise. And as for space tourism, if there were as many shuttle flights as plane flights the accident rate means we would be losing over 250 passengers a week. With no possible proper crash investigation to tell us what went wrong as the wreckage would be dust in space.
So, yes, optimism. We are getting better and better at utilsing the space around our planet for communications satellites, we are getting better at building probes and telescopes to see incredibly far into space. We are getting better at robotics. We can find out so much without risking lives. If there is intelligent life out there, we are more likely to find it and less likely to accidentally start a war with it if we are talking in terms of radio signals than if we rock up on some planet giving it "Hello, are you the people of Gaul? Well we're the Roman army, and this is our leader, Mr.Dog." We should revel in what we can achieve and look forward to better telescopes, robots that can be sent and bought back from the surfaces of other planets, scanners that can give us geological data on planets light years away.
We can't be trusted with space. Commercial companies who want to be allowed to pop up and play are suggesting orbiting rubbish heaps, orbiting 'graveyards' of coffins (presumably ones that can steer round satellites), and giant advertising signs that can be seen from earth. It's be the first time in decades anyone in London could look up in the night sky and see 'Mars'. But why stop there? Why not giant screens so the Bushmen of the Kalahari can watch Big Brother? Of course big powerful men are attracted to space, not because it's the last uncrossed barrier, but because it's the last place where the whoever gets in there first can take possession of and do whatever they like. If NASA fucks up much more often the Americans will get tired of paying for it and either allow private companies to go up on trust (cos it'll be a bit hard to stop anyone doing anything once they're up there) or integrate it into the Intelligence agencies and we wont have a scoob what they're up to. It will be a lawless fight for whatever can be exploited, the Wild Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy. The final fronteer.
Front Ear.... geddit?

That's Just Peanuts To Space

My Name Is Ludd

I don't want be all 'downer' on a Friday, but those astronauts are all gonna die you know. There was a problem with the insulation tiles, big enough to cause the fatal failure of the last one, but they couldn't work out what caused the problem, so they sent the shuttle up anyway. So now they're hanging in space, and there are big holes in the insulating material that's meant to stop them burning up on re-entry. No one knows for sure if that means they will burn up on re-entry. NASA's official public view on the question seems to be:



We don't have a fucking clue. But that's science. Science is what you call it when you don't know what will happen if you mix this chemical with this other chemical, so you mix them together to find out. Sometimes I wonder how many things we only still don't know because of what happens when you try to find out...
But that's just the way it is. Airoplanes for example. You can design a plane, run the design through simulators, build it, test it with electronic instruments, test fly it, put it though maneuvers in the air that it'll never have to really do to push it to the limits of its design, but the point at which you find out that something is wrong with your plane is when it goes wrong. And the point at which we the public find out what's wrong with a plane design is when one crashes. That's the way the aerospace industry works. And it's all very very wrong.
The supersize Airbus Bigfataths is delayed because amongst other things the landing gear is unreliable. A gear-less landing is a pretty dicey maneuver at the best of times, and the best of times is in a very small plane landing on a huge flat expanse of sand. Not in goodness knows how many tons of untested behemoth on a concrete runway. A gearless landing in one of those would be at the very best dangerous and messy, at worst fatal to all on board and anything within a few hundred yards radius. Like other planes and the terminal. Mind you, the problem with being really high up has never been being really high up, it's always been getting back down again.
When I see the space shuttle and the International Space Station hanging in space with the planet earth behind it I get the fear. Every fibre of my being screams No! No! It's too horrible! Human beings are not meant to be in space. There is nothing there for us. No air, no food, no protection from the sun, NOTHING TO STAND ON. Floating in the void, having strapped yourself to an enormous bomb to get up there is the first place, with a toasting coming on the way back down. It's just STUPID. We should stay out of space. Either there's nothing there, or there is and we'll just spoil it.
The fact is that we daily risk lives to do the most utterly unimportant things. And it's not just poncing about in orbit, it's life. Our daily lives are vain and careless.
If you look at physiologies around the world, they vary enormously. The African distance runners that do so well are a good example of how people evolve to deal with their locality. They are built very very sparely, they're tall, but not very far across at the shoulder, and many of them can run comfortably without shoes. This is because they are a people who have evolved for their environment, and can thus walk all day across sand. They do not have too much body mass to fuel, they're not putting a lot of weight through their joints when the foot hits the ground, and they have incredible endurance. In the environment that physiology evolved in, the extreme situation you are best served in being built to deal with is having to walk all day across sand or dust with little food or water. That is the emergency you're most likely to have to deal with.
Because Moses Kiptanui and his long-distance running pals are so different to the average European bred person, it's easy for us to see how well evolved he is. It's not that we are less evolved than him. It's that we have evolved differently. Another extreme is found in the arctic circle. Way up out in the ice the diet tends to be very fatty red meat and fish. You just cannot get lettuce to grow in snow. If you ate that you'd get ill quickly and probably die far earlier than you'd expected. If you ran on hard ground all day with no shoes on you'd be utterly crippled the next day. You are evolved to eat what grows in the area your ancestors came from, to do similar physical activities to them, and to travel over the sort of landscape they lived in. You will be at your most healthy and long-lived if you do this. People are better who live in the country.
It's not a big surprise to me that so many people here and in America are fat. Virtually no one in America belongs there, and the diet both there and here is specific to nobody. It is interesting and enriching to our sensual experience of life to eat food from different cultures. However we tend to have pasta one day, curry the next, Chinese the day after. Those are very different types of food which have come about as a part of a diet. If you ate Indian food (home cooked obviously, processed food is processed food) in India every day, you'd be perfectly healthy. But the food of a culture tends to be what is suitable to the environment and type of activity that culture is mostly experiencing. It grows there because it can, you eat it because its there, by picking it and eating it you help it propagate itself, so it grows there... Also, your body is meant to be able to get used to the kind of energy you're giving it and the kind of matter you're expecting it to process. If it's not able to do that you get indigestion and general less than nice guts.
What do you think would happen if you put a mouse in a jamjar and shook it? Or strapped a baby to one of those paint-shaking machines in Homebase? They'd be physically mashed and probably die. These are extreme examples, but that just means it's the same only harder. We are not designed to be continuously vigorously shaken up and down. The kind of continual shaking that you get if you can't get a seat on the tube cannot possibly be good for you. You may not notice it being bad for you, but I, who have loose joints, notice it very hard. Even the bus is a problem. If I have to stand all the way home it is likely that when I finally do get sat down getting up again will cause my hip to dislocate. Even if this doesn't happen I can barely walk the next day. The damage is more extreme to me, but it's being done to you too. Day after day, little by little, you are being shaken and vibrated and gradually doing for your joints. On a boat you are being continually rocked from side to side. In a plane you experience G Forces, cabin pressure, vibration.
I am increasingly of the opinion that for our own good none of us has any business being anywhere we can't walk or swim home from without being fucked the next day. We damage ourselves getting there, aren't suited to the environment, and don't do well on the food.
So bollocks to space.

Quoth The Raven

"Whereas what we see in the newspaper, 'Man Killed By Falling Tree' for example, is not a tragedy."
"It is for the poor sod under the tree."

Yesterday I spoke of making good things come from the awfulness inflicted and intended upon us. It seems that when someone manages to bring good out of something generally seen as negative, everyone is surprised that such a thing is possible. "How marvelous that lady is," we say "who has lost her child to violence/disease/disaster, and now runs a charity to help others thusly affected." What we are seeing in cases like this, though, is not the defeat of something negative but a human expression of one of the main principles of the natural world.
Chaos theory states that the pattern will be identical regardless of the scale at which we look at it. The mother of the murdered child starts a charity supporting other families of murder victims. A gardener spreads the rotten remains of dead plants onto his garden to make new plants grow. A forest gets dry in the summer heat and a forest fire starts, clearing the dead wood and leaving space and sunlight and fertile ash for the new growth to begin. Tectonic plates push up against each other and create mountains on one side, and trenches on the other. At every level of reality what we see as destruction is the world providing the fuel and substance for change and new creation.
Human beings find it hard to see these workings of the world as part of how life must and should be. When people see forest fires they think of the damage to property or the little burning animals (who are very often far too fly to get caught up in it, and frequently are only thwarted in their attempts to hop it in time by intrusions such as roads where there oughtn't be one), when they see a volcanic eruption or an earthquake they feel for those who lose their lives or families and homes. We try to 'manage' forests to keep them how they were in the days of Robin Hood or other daftness. We panic when the predominate species in a forest changes, or a group of animals changes its feeding grounds, or a species becomes extinct. But looked at in terms of the planet, these things are natural. Do you think we'd have had much joy in becoming the dominant species if the dinosaurs hadn't died out? They'd have eaten us for breakfast, opposable thumbs and all.
It may be hard for us with at best eighty years of hindsight, and really no reliable record of the history of the last hundred years, let alone the last hundred million, to see what seems to be massive change as anything other than worrying. However what we do know tells us that the temperature of the planet has fluctuated massively within even the time humans have walked the planet. We know that countless species failed to keep up the evolutionary pace and were Darwinned into the fossil record. We know the amount of the surface of the planet covered by water or ice or land has changed to and fro. We also know about the water cycle and the nitrogen cycle. We know that there are some species of tree whose seed pods need fire to crack them open. But somehow, because we're here we think it must mean something.
It doesn't. It's just the earth carrying on. Species are becoming extinct, yes, but others are evolving. And some of these species are becoming extinct because of what we do. This is no different than one species becoming extinct because another is better adapted at exploiting the same habitat. Some species are becoming extinct because of the usual non-human factors, like a predator getting that bit faster or smarter, or because increasing biodiversity has cut into their share of the pie.
We also don't seem to grasp that we are a species. If there is no food for a bird in one area, it moves on to another. For is it not written "Why should the bird swoop to earth where there is no gin for him?" The same is true of humans. Within your lifetime you will look for different things in a place to live. Early on you want whatever you can afford, preferably with a pub nearby. Later on if you have a family you want to be in a safe area with good schools. Later still you go for areas with as few drunken young people and screaming kids as possible. I myself have tired of the pubs and clubs and general scrum in London, and now feel more at home in the small towns of the West Country, where there is more gin for me. Society works the same way. The London Docklands were a centre of commerce, then a run down grimy wasteland, and now they're very very expensive property.
So what am I saying? Sod Greenpeace, buy an SUV? Nope, sorry. I'm saying there is nothing new on earth, just matter and energy recycling and taking new forms. That is true in physics, biology, geology, geography, society, personality, all things, as above, so below. And it is true that over many things, especially the large scale 'disaster' stuff, we have little or no control. But in some things, we do. The view on dealing with forest fires is moving away from preventing them and putting them out as soon as possible, through controlled burns to the far saner approach of having small localised fire defenses for property, then getting as far as possible out of the way and just leaving it to it. If you choose to live in an area prone to forest fires, you have accept large fire insurance premiums and the possibility of being evacuated for three weeks at a time, or go and live somewhere else. The planet needs to regenerate, so it will.
The lesson here is that if we try to stop the natural rhythm of the planet, or try to be outside the rest of the world controlling it, or believe ourselves to be an exception to the rules that make the planet work, one of two things will happen: either we get the evolution we deserve, or we fail entirely and go the way of the T-Rex. Human beings can adapt, the conditions our forebears have lived through prove that. We can survive breathing air we can see, we can take higher levels of UV than we're currently used to etc. etc., but would we want to? Do you feel better standing at a bus stop next to a row of traffic, or on a clifftop breathing sea air? Do you want to be whatever we'd have to evolve into to deal with a planet where the systems that used to recycle water and energy are pumping poisons round and round the systems?
Our adaptability is meant to carry us through the natural fluctuations of the biosphere. It is there precisely because the planet needs to freeze, thaw, flood, burn and rearrange its crust in order for it to provide what we need to live. What we need to do is to try our best to learn about and understand the natural behavior of the planet, and seek to adapt ourselves to working with it, not trying to work against it. Most importantly we need to learn when to back off and leave nature to it. The planet has ways of cleaning and purifying itself, and if we allow it to, it will heal from the damage we have done to it. If there was a nuclear holocaust and all the humans died the ants and cockroaches would get fat off our bodies, mutate, evolve, and eventually make a movie where bold earth insectoids fight a galactic war with evil unthinking bipeds from another planet.
So don't cry for the natural disasters that are natural but not really disasters. Care, yes, for the people affected, and help in the regeneration that follows, but it's not a tragedy, it's not an omen, it's not the end of the world, it's just a continuity thing. Do not worry if the farmed fields of corn encourage a species that pushes out one that was there before. If we were not here the temperature and climate of the planet would fluctuate, in certain times the conditions would cause one plant to flourish, which would cause the population of one or two insects to expand, which would allow certain birds to raise more chicks to adulthood and so on. It is acceptable for us as a species to change the world, for us to expand our numbers and move into a variety of new habitats. Every species changes the dynamic of the world around it. That's the way the web of connections between predator and prey, plant and animal, soil and that which lives in it, have always worked. So our choice as a species is get good at being part of that, or risk not being part of it any more.
That's planet earth for you. If I hear of any more desirable real estate, I'll let you know.

Do Irish Gifthorses Have Green Teeth?

I am a cynic, I really am. You know what I'm like, no subject to sensitive to make jokes about, no heresy too heretical. One might say being born in Walthamstow might have something to do with it. There was I with no doubt the last lingering memories of my previous life dancing across the synapses of my brain, taking a look out of the window and thinking "Oh no, here we go again. What a bloody mess, honestly you turn your back for five minutes...Does it always look like that or do the windows have grey glass in? Oh Bugger. Well what year is it, who's prime minister? You've got to be bloody joking..." It's no wonder I screamed my head off and didn't sleep for five years. Yep, badly timed, battle scarred, hard bitten cynic.
I will, however, be having absolutely none of it when it comes to the IRA declaring their armed struggle over. Not a bloody word. "Oh but what about all the terrible..." Sh! "We've heard it all bef..." Zip it. "They're only doing it to remind us they're still there..." Mouth is open nursie should be shut. "Northern Bank robb...." Sh! Sh! SH! Whole bag o' Sh! with your name on it.
I condone nothing. I am taking nothing on faith. I am making excuses for nothing. This should all go without saying. But I am BEGGING the country to please please not say anything BLOODY STUPID and spoil this for everyone. Don't talk them out of it!
What has been achieved here is that we have created a country where bomb and bullet tactics are absolutely not considered the way to make a point. We used to get sidetracked into discussing the pros and cons of the Irish situation and who's done what to whom. Now for whatever reason, maybe something as militaristic as uniting against a common enemy, maybe because the IRA looked at the terrorists responsible for 9/11, Madrid, 7/7 and thought "We do not want to be like these people, and at the moment we are.", maybe because the savvy operator knows that in the current climate the people who can help them achieve what they want cannot be seen to even listen to them as long as they're part of the problem, maybe because when the 'lay supporters' of the IRA saw 7/7 they realised how much better it was when we thought those days were over, whatever the reason THERE IS NOW ONE LESS TERRORIST ORGANISATION TO WORRY ABOUT. This is a GOOD THING. And given that as far as the history of this country is concerned the IRA were the biggies, it's the single most useful thing that could have happened in Ireland. Now every other group there must answer as to why they will not declare their armed struggle over too. At least part of the reason for their continued existence before was retaliation against the IRA and affiliates.
We used to start with "Not that I'm condoning terrorism but..." and then debate the issues like they were good points made by reasonable people. When Al-Qaida and chums came along, we pretty much ignored the IRA, and given the current climate it seems they knew that the only thing they could not do to gain our attention was blow something else up. This feels like a lesson, doesn't it?
It is. We must talk about what it is to be not a good Muslim or a good Catholic or a good witch, but to be a good member of society. We must use what has happened to generate as much good as we can. Clearly history will tell us if this really was the end of the IRA. And may it remind us too that while the IRA fought, they achieved not one good thing. But to respond to other terrorists attacking us by giving up terrorism was to take a hell of a lot wind out of their sails, and totally deprive them of any vicotry they might feel. It was the First Good Thing, and may it be the first of many. If the big bad of British history could become a legitimate political institution working for harmony, that would tell this new batch of terrorists something. They wanted us to break apart and attack each other. We instead can now include people in 'us' that we haven't been able to for decades.
And you know what? People aren't using the tube, so they're walking and cycling! And whereas we previously maintained a tolerant ignorance of each others' religions, the likes of you and me are asking each other questions and really listening to the answers. And at the moment we have the police presence on the tube we've needed for years to combat things like the daughter of a friend of my mothers being surrounded by five blokes on the tube and wanked on while the rest of the carriage sat and did nothing. And more police on the streets. And relations with the police at an all time high as people thank them for being there and commend the speed of their investigation and the way they have been behaving. And the tubes are less crowded, and people are more aware of each other. All good things.
It may be that some of us look at each other on the bus and wonder what's in that bag. That might be a bit sad. But it might be what saves lives. And we're not only more aware for that reason. I've heard plenty of people say they're more on the lookout for anyone mistreating others for racial/religious reasons, and that they're now far more likely to step in to help a fellow traveler getting any kind of hassle. We're walking around, talking and listening to and looking out for each other, happy to know there's a couple of Polis a hundred yards away if we need them. We can take this horrible thing that's happened and use it as a basis to do good. We might even make London a better place...
Who'da thunkit?