Head Rambles

Grandad November 11th, 2007

Our K8 has come up with a new meme.

And, bless her little cotton socks, she has passed it on to me.

She wants me to write a post that uses every tag. It’s all very well for her - she only has a few. I have loads. The cow!

Now I may be getting old but I find these difficult. I had a hard days blogging yesterday, as I had a good rant on a podcast to America. That was after I did my post on Cully and Sully.

So today I went for a ramble around the garden, trying to think of a topic. No go. There was no inspiration around the house either, and I’m damned if I’m going around the village or around the town for something so trivial.

Back in the 70’s life was a lot simpler. There were no computers or Internet, or even television so there were no memes. I had no irritating daughter in the family either. We found our pleasures in simple things. I remember learning to drive so we could go on holidays touring in the West, with no worries about flying and Global Warming. We had such simple sports as children in times past, like watching spiders spin their webs, and the designs they’d make. We’d go for rambles through the woods and have picnics of tea and spam sandwiches. We were a lot healthier for it.

Nowadays, work is the new religion and people have lost the use of their imagination. People only get worked up over celebrities and smoking out corrupt politicians. They panic over property prices and have lost sight of the soul of life.

No.

I can’t think of anything.

I elect not to do it.

I’m going to file this under Uncatagorised.

Maybe Sixty should have a bash at this?

Or how about Kirk at Just Thinkin’? I haven’t tagged him before.

And it’s a while since I annoyed Grannymar!!

F*cking memes….

• America , Around the garden , Around the house , Around the town , Around the village , Back to the 70s , Cully & Sully , Election , Getting old , Global Warming , Health , Holidays , Internet , Learning to drive , On the road , Podcasting , Politics , Property , Rambles , Rants , Religion? , Smoking , Television , The Family , Times past , Tourists , Uncategorized , Web design , computers , spam , sport , work
• Comments(18)

Grandad October 12th, 2007

So Al Gore has won a Nobel Prize?

Why?

All he did was make a scaremongering film.

I have yet to see his credentials for making that film. He never studied science, physics, mathematics, geology, geomorphology or astrophysics? He studied English and became a failed presidential candidate. So how is he qualified to be the Worlds Leading Expert on Climate Change?

The jury are still out on this whole business. For every expert who says climate change is man made, there is one who says it isn’t. Yet it has become fashionable to talk about Carbon Footprints and all that crap. It is politically correct to “do your bit for the environment”. Like the Emporer’s New Clothes, one is ridiculed and pilloried if one speaks against the mass consensus.

I have been around a while. I remember the floods in 1952 that wiped out the East Coast of England and drowned half of Holland. They didn’t talk about Global Warming then. I remember the winter of 1962 [or was it '63?] when the Blessington Lakes froze solid and you could drive on them. They didn’t talk about Global Warming then. I survived the floods that devastated the south of England in 1968. They didn’t talk about Global Warming then.

So what is different now?

OK. So the climate is changing. Figures prove that. But the climate is always changing. The Earth is a vast machine. And I mean vast. It takes something equally vast to change things. There is a popular theory [backed by figures] that the current changes are as a result of solar changes. I can live with that. The Sun is big enough to affect Earth.

Before any of you jump down my neck, I’ll ask you one thing. Have you put any original thought into this yourselves? Or are you just going to spout the propaganda that you have been spoon fed?

I do my bit for ecology. That’s different. I use CFL bulbs. I drive as little as possible. I don’t use aircraft. I separate my waste and recycle. I even refuse paper bags in shops if I don’t need them. That all makes sense, because there is a problem with over use of finite resources. And CFL bulbs are cheaper to run. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to worry about my ‘carbon footprint’.

If there is a problem with upper atmospheric pollutants, then one of the biggest causes is aircraft. It stands to reason. A single transatlantic flight will produce more pollutants than I will in several years.

What is the betting that Al Gore flies to collect his trophy?

• Global Warming
• Comments(43)

Grandad July 2nd, 2007

I just lit the central heating.

It’s the 2nd of July.

Where’s this Global warming?

I’m going out to burn some tyres to hurry things on a bit.

• Global Warming
• Comments(8)

Grandad April 4th, 2007

Dick Roche has seen the light.

Well, actually, he’s seen the lightbulb. And in one fell swoop he has solved our Global Warming problem.

Who would have thought it? Light bulbs are the cause, all along! All we have to do is switch to CFLs, and the world is safe.

This is great news, because it means Minister Roche can now carry on driving around in his Mercedes or whatever fuel-inefficient car he drives. He can carry on flying to his expensive junkets around the world at our expense.

The government is talking about forcing the switch by putting a levy on ordinary lightbulbs. The fact that they will make extra cash has nothing to do with it. It is strange though that he isn’t introducing a subsidy on CFLs to make them cheaper?

It doesn’t bother me anyway, because I have been using CFLs for years. It’s nothing to do with Global Warming. They don’t blow as often and my ESB bills are very slightly lower.

What does piss me off is that he is talking about higher taxation on bigger cars. Now, I have nothing against that in principle. In principle, that is a great idea. But in practice, it means he is going to put all car tax up. Now if he said he was going to reduce tax on smaller cars and raise it on bigger ones, that would be a different matter. But he won’t.

I have a small[ish] car, but doubtless I would come out worse off. I need that car for health reasons. I would say I do about 2000 miles a year, and most of that is holiday driving, so I’m not exactly killing the ozone layer. But a higher tax will mean I will pay anyway.

If he wanted to be fair and equitable, why not reduce taxation on cars and slam it on petrol instead?

Suppose for some reason of eccentricity, I wanted to buy myself an SUV and just stick it in the front garden as a status symbol? It wouldn’t damage the environment. But I would pay the same extra taxation as some bloke who drives his SUV all day and every day and does about 100,000 miles a year. Now, if the taxation were on petrol…….?

I have known for years about the energy efficiency of CFLs and so have you. We also have known for years that bigger cars are worse for the environment [and just about everything else]. So why is Roche coming up with these plans now? Why didn’t he do it 10 years ago?

Could it be something to do with an election?

Am I being a cynic again?

• Election , Global Warming , On the road
• Comments(7)

Grandad April 2nd, 2007

Greetings, Grandad.

I was browsing the Tim Berners-Lee Museum Archives and I came across the original Head Rambles site from the early 21st century. We have the technology now to insert items into historical sites, so I hope you get to read this.

First of all, we [all your descendants] owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. You foresaw exactly where the sea level would rise to, and as a result of your foresight, we now own most of the north of the Island of Leinster. This is one of the largest islands in the Irish Archipelago, so we are quite well off.

Irish Archapelago

I am living in a lovely seaside chalet on the beach at Tibradden not far from the port of Grandad that you founded near Ticknock. You would love it here. We are surrounded by coconut palm groves, and the view is magnificent across the Dublin Sea to the Down Peninsula in the north and the Isle of Snowdon to the east. The house is partly built into the mountain to help shelter us from the hurricanes and to keep us cool at midday. You would find the 40 degree heat a bit much.

I’m attaching a view from the house. You can just see the Down Peninsula in the distance. No one quite knows what that stick thing is to the left. Archaeologists say it is part of the old Dublin, but I can’t think what it was supposed to be for.

I suppose you would like to know what happened in the future?

As you know, Goerge W went against all advice and launched an attack on Iran. Of course they nuked the US and the North Koreans joined in for the fun. Bush and his cronies were lynched by a hysterical mob and the Radical Militia tried to take over. The Islamic Fundamentalists saw their chance and stepped in. We don’t hear much from the Islamic Republic of America these days.

Of course, they were right about Global Warming, and you will be pleased to note that you were right that it is a natural phenomenon. But before the people realised that, we had the mass riots in the middle of the 21st century. All SUV drivers were lynched and their vehicles burned. All air travel was banned and all aircraft destroyed. It didn’t matter much anyway as at that stage most of the international airports were under water anyway.

There was a strange twist in history at the end of the 21st century. We had a visit from the Xyzzy spacecraft. They dropped off on their inter-galactic journey to a party in Alpha Centauri to say hello to the world. Apparently they have dropped in a few times in the past and were somewhat surprised that we were revering them as gods and prophets. Of course, this put paid to religion, but there are still a few die-hards. The Pope still lives in the Italian Alps with her husband and four children but no-one pays them much attention now.

Of course, with the decline in religion, there was a corresponding decline in wars, so the World is quite a peaceful place now.

Your idea of abolishing elections was finally taken up and worked extremely well. Everyone was happy because they all had a say in things. Unfortunately, that more or less ended with the demise of the Interweb, when all the networks got flooded. However, we have the NeuralWeb now where we communicate directly via thought transference. I don’t know how you coped with all those keyboards and screens and things I’ve seen in the museum.

Television died the death around the middle of the 21st century. It had gotten to the stage where programmes were being stopped every five minutes so people could phone in to vote on what happened next. When this spread to the news channels, and people were voting on how many casualties they would like to see after an accident, the World decided to call a halt, and all channels were taken off the air. The world is a better place for it.

The weather has changed a bit since your day. The winters are the most spectacular with the tornadoes and hurricanes hitting on a regular basis. That old stick thing in the Dublin Sea attracts a lot of lightning so we get some great displays. Maybe that is what it was built for?

The summers are nice. We just laze around supping our Vino Kippure produced from our own vineyards.

Life is good. Life is very very good.

Your Great-great-great-great-great-grandson

Grandad VII

• Global Warming , The Family
• Comments(15)

Grandad March 10th, 2007

I watched a programme last Wednesday.

It was a documentary about Global Warming.

Yes. I know you are all sick to the teeth of the subject. I know you are all doing your bit by switching off lights and driving less and cancelling jet flights [but I bet you're not!].

This program was an eye opener.

Global Warming is not man made. It has nothing to do with carbon dioxide. It has nothing to do with industry. It is entirely natural and normal. We can do nothing about it.

Before going any further….

Watch the Documentary

It is over an hour long, but it will change your mind. Unless you have been totally brainwashed, of course.

I know this sounds politically incorrect, but we have be fed a load of bullsh*t going back to the Thatcher era. Governments, scientists and journalists are propagating the idea for their own ends.

We see the Sun as being a little white ball in the sky, 93 million miles away. Wrong. That little white ball is only the visible part of the sun. It is much much more. It is x-rays, and particles and solar wind. In fact, technically, we are inside the Sun, as it’s sphere of influence extends way beyond us. It affects every aspect of human existence. It is infinitely more powerful than anything that we can do as mere mortals.

Scientists have produced graphs that show a close relationship between ‘Global Warming’ and CO2 levels. But scientists have also produced graphs that show an exact relationship between ‘Global Warming’ and Sun activity. And what’s more the latter graphs show an exact relationship going back thousands of years.

The Earth is warming. But it has been a lot warmer in the past few thousand years. Long before there was any pollution.

The whole thing is cause by a natural variation in Sun activity, which has been going on for millions of years. And there is nothing we can do about it.

So why do the governments, the scientists and the journalists insist that there is ‘Global Warming’?

Governments like the idea, because they can use it to get the popular vote. It is politically correct. But also it is a very nice argument in favour of Nuclear Power. They can also use it as an excuse to keep the Third World from developing and becoming a threat, economically.

Scientists like it because they can get funding. If a laboratory looks for government funding for a project “examining the socio-economic effects of nose picking” they won’t get a red cent. But if a laboratory looks for government funding for a project “examining the socio-economic effects of nose picking and it’s impact on global warming” they are virtually given a blank cheque.

Journalists like it because it is popular news. They are effectively driving the whole issue. It is no longer news to say that sea level will rise by 5cm, so they start warning about levels rising by 5m. Much more newsworthy, and scary. And there is a whole new breed of eco-journalists whose job depends on our fears.

And they all produce fancy mathematical models to scare us and predict catastrophe in the near future. But those models are based on incorrect data.

There is a link to the programme here.

Take a look. It is an eye-opener

• Global Warming , Politics
• Comments(23)