Wednesday 01/04/09

Yesterday’s flurry of Creationist blogging resulted in some AdSense adverts for a thing called the Atheists Riddle, which purports to prove creationist thinking. However, as I said in one of my comments on readers’ comments, if it were that simple, then why has a scientific paper not been produced, peer reviewed and published and the theory promulgated as scientific fact? I’ll tell you why, because it’s bunkum and pseudoscience which shows a paucity of intellect on par with Paris Hilton.

The favourite argument of creationists is that you can’t create something from nothing, but that’s assuming that nothing is the default. Here’s a little experiment: try thinking of something – anything. Easy, isn’t it? Now try thinking of nothing, and by that I mean nothing at all – no thing. No space, no time. You can’t, it’s beyond your comprehension. Perhaps ‘something’ is the default and not ‘nothing’. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say.

Did you know that a quarter of UK colleges who want to enroll overseas students have been denied a licence by the Home Office. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said from her porn den that she would not tolerate fake applicants or "dodgy colleges that facilitate them". I’m just glad that the Old Sodbury Institute of Advanced Learning did not appear on her list, as otherwise my 3 week total-immersion PhD correspondence course in applied blogology would be worthless. It’s a relief to know that Dr. Dangerous Dave runs a reputable institute from the local greasy spoon café on Grunge Lane and it’s not some fly-by-night operation.

Hay made me go for a spirometer test yesterday to check whether my COPD had improved since I gave up the pipe and moved into vapeing. Strangely enough the nurse was not interested in the examples I brought along and instead made me blow into a small machine till my lungs practically collapsed. I had to do it three times and nearly passed out.

An example spirometer chart I took with me.

As it transpired, on the basis of my test results (which surprisingly didn’t involve coloured pens or a spirometer in any way, shape or form) the nurse said she would no longer even diagnose me as having COPD.

Seems the e-cigar is doing its job. The only negative side of vapeing is that since I started Hay has been complaining that when I go to the loo I ming like a polecat. However, I’m prepared to put up with the inconvenience, as I can’t smell it, which kind of puts paid to the ‘he who smelt it dealt it’ theory of Brownian motions.

I have a funny personal anecdote about going to the loo, but I’ll save it for another day. Suffice it to say I was a bit worried I might be incontinent, but I wasn’t.

There are reports that police have used CS spray and arrested a man after a fight in the Houses of Parliament during a Commons party hosted by Conservative chairman Eric Pickles on Monday night. One man was extremely aggressive. He was arrested and taken to a nearby police station for questioning. John Prescott vehemently denies he was anywhere near the area and was in Hull talking to poor people. Apparently he goes to Hull to do that when he’s feeling depressed and it doesn’t half cheer him up.

The US has just finished constructing the US National Ignition Facility, a huge physics experiment aimed at recreating conditions at the heart of the Sun designed to demonstrate the feasibility of safe, industrial scale nuclear fusion that can provide limitless power. It will also shed light (if you’ll forgive the pun) on the origins of the universe. Professor Mike Dunne, who leads a European venture that is also pursuing nuclear fusion with lasers said that if the NIF was successful it would be a "seismic event". Texan Creationists took heed of the cataclysmic warning and are hiding in earthquake shelters.

Gordon Brown has called for banks and financial markets to adopt "family values" as world leaders gather in London for Thursday's G20 summit. Which family would that be then? The Goodys/Tweedys? How about the Osbournes? The Windsors? Oh, can’t have the Windsors – they have to lock up two of their members every time a non-Anglo Saxon plenipotentiary calls for dinner for fear of them making offensive racist remarks or stomping up and down in Nazi costumes. Eureka! It’s just struck me that we can use Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s family values as the basis for how banks should operate. She’s under investigation for expense irregularities and her husband runs a porn video service from their home.

What’s obvious is that heretofore the values seem to have been those of the Khan family – and before anyone accuses me of racism, that’s Genghiz Khan. Today’s stupid task is for you to suggest a family or two whose values should be adopted within the banks.

The owners of Southampton docks (ABP) are to make 60 dockers compulsorily redundant at their container port terminal. To be honest, with all the productivity increases containerization has brought, I was shocked to hear they had as many as 60 workers left; I thought that by now the whole place would have been run by robots. Apparently the redundancies comprise 10% of the workforce.

It seems that the current euphemism for being sacked is now being told that you ‘no longer need to turn up for work’. Very British! No wonder English is now the international language of diplomacy – you can tell someone to piss off in 20 different ways and they still think you’re being nice and thank you for it, only realising they’ve been shafted when they get home and find their P45 in the post

I left a comment on the BBC ‘Have Your Say’ page yesterday. I love reading some of the remarks – it’s the computer equivalent of the spoof radio phone-in show Down The Line. Readers were asked ‘What have British troops achieved in Iraq?’ I said, “Aqueducts?” Couldn’t resist it. Don’t know if it was published.