Radiation alert! (Booga booga booga!)

According to the BBC, there is a radiation alert in an Edinburgh school...

"Emergency services were called to the Regent Language Training School in Chester Street at about 1900 GMT after the discovery."

So, it's a school... I suspect it may have been a school before it was a "languages school", whatever in the hell that is...

"The packages were found inside a cupboard, which was being cleaned. They had markings indicating they contained radioactive materials."

Riiiiiight. So we have clearly marked containers of something radioactive. What's the problem? Pop out yer Geiger counter, and see if there's an increase in background radiation, if it's safe, get it signed over to someone who can use it or dispose of it.

"The fire service and police have launched a procedure called National Arrangements for Incidents Involving Radiation.

Eight fire engines and 28 fire service personnel were attending the incident. "

We're paying for this, and they are taking the piss. Again. It's not a full scale radioactive (booga booga booga) incident, it's likely a couple of old physics related sources for showing kids Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation in the lab. If it was something untoward, do you think they'd be clearly marked as radioactive? How the hell did this become a full scale newsworthy incident? Who are these people?

No place for violence in the workplace...

The Metro, this morning, had an extra cover, telling us about violence in the workplace being unacceptable.

The Safer Scotland ad, has two mannequins with T shirts, one of which says "Where's my change you dummy?" and the other with "This service is fucking awful" (Well, as best as I can make out the squint writing). (That, and it actually read ****ing, so it may have been cunting).

Whilst physical violence against bus drivers, cabbies, ticket dudes on the train and so on is utterly wrong... Are we seriously being told we cannot remonstrate with them in a most severe verbal manner when they make a cunt of things? (As they so often do!)

This is as bad as air travel, where the first sniff of you telling the staff they're being obtuse gets you grounded.

We're constantly being fucked by these people, and here we have yet another body that we're paying for telling us we should accept shite service, and not tell the pitcher of shite service that they need to get their head fuck-started.

I demand a recount!

Booga Booga Booga

In London, Manchester, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands, people are being encouraged to grass folk up for having more than one mobile phone.

The Metro reports that in those 4 areas, a counter terrorism campaign has been launched, and apparently having more than one phone, or swapping SIM cards is seen as suspicious - and worthy of having your arse felt under the suspicion of you being a terrorist!

Never mind the number of people I work with who have a work phone and a personal phone... Next thing you know, they'll be calling the armed cops if you use your MP3 player in public. Oh wait... That already happened.

We're going to hell in a handbasket, and all in the name of prevention of Terrrrrrr.

Telemarketers

A novel way to deal with telemarketers brought to you by Calls for Cthulhu:



You might like to watch the rest of the Calls for Cthulhu videos on youtube, since they are rather amusing...

Cthulhu fhtagn.

A bridge too far

Well, a tollbooth too far anyway.

The booths on the approach to the Forth Road Bridge are being demolished, at the estimated cost of £2,000,000. Sorry? What? Are these the same booths that were only constructed in 2006, at the cost of £4,000,000.

Who are these utter bastards who are pissing £6,000,000 up the wall like this?

Even with the removal of the toll charges, there is no need to physically remove the booths. Indeed, they could be useful - when it comes to shutting the bridge in high winds or if there's an accident (like that HGV the other week...) or for simply controlling traffic flow as the 4 or 5 lanes of traffic are merged in to the 2 that cross the bridge.

Who has taken the decision to remove the booths.
Who is paying for this?
Why are these fuckers doing this work in peak times (people at my work are constantly whining about the crap traffic now!)

Surely I am not the only person who thinks leaving the booths there would be a great idea, and save £2,000,000! The folk who are pissing this money up the wall would do well to remember "tollbooth" is an auld Scots word for the jail!

Glasgow's Commonwealth Skills

Auntie Beeb reports that Glasgow hosting the Commonwealth Games could lead to skills...

• Athletics - Perhaps the hurdles will allow neds to jump fences when running from the police?


• Sprinting - again, from the police after engaging in some breaking and entering.


• Boxing - as if I need to make any comment.


• Shooting - they just write themselves, don't they?


• Gymnastics - gives greater flexibility in breaking in to houses through tight spaces.


• Weightlifting - to carry away all the swag from your housebreaking exploits...


• Swimming - probably not, since it might be confused with having a bath.

Blogging may be a bit light for the next few weeks since my Glaswegian colleagues who read this blog will have lynched me. (No doubt getting some Judo or wrestling practice in).

The scourge of civilised society...

I am referring to the deactivated weapon, not the large, angry, man pictured. (That's a Mk II Bren, by the way.)

The politicos and pantywaist whiners want to ban deactivated guns, to somehow protect the public... Protect the public from what exactly? Being beaten to death by an inert firearm? That's all the above Bren is good for...

The BBC helpfully reports that:

"Deactivated guns are not capable of firing live ammunition, but criminals often alter them for re-use."

The BBC don't cite any figures for how many of these deactivated guns are being converted.

Why bother converting a deactivated gun anyway? I would expect it's cheaper to buy a fully working firearm on the qt than have a replica converted, and risk being called "lefty" when it blows up in your hand.



A fully working Mosin Nagant rifle can be bought in the USofA for $100 (here) and a deactivated version can be bought in the UK for £155 (here)
The fully operational firearm is a third of the cost, excluding conversion costs etc. I expect that deactivated pistols are similarly priced...

"Tackling gun crime is key to making people feel safer and more secure in their communities. We already have the tightest controls in Europe but there is more we can do to remove the threat of gun crime."

That's our Home Secretary speaking. With some of the tightest firearms laws in the world, why are law abiding citizens still being shot at by head-bangers? Would that be because criminals don't give a fuck?

These same politicians tell us that "Firearms are not an acceptable means of protection in Great Britain and authority will not be granted to possess a firearm for this reason." Yet they have protection from armed police officers. Will they tell the police to hand in their Glocks? I don't think so!

(It's worth noting that in Northern Ireland, you *are* allowed a firearm for personal protection).

Anyway, back to crime sprees committed using deactivated weapons:

"the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were recorded as being used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084."

Not much of a spree, is it?
That's less than 0.1%

"Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network said: "We are delighted, this has been on our agenda for a long time. It is a big loophole in our firearms legislation."

And she can fuck right off. Big loophole? <0.1% Big loophole my arsehole.

Gill Marshall-Andrews appears to be well known for spouting such claptrap.

Where's our referendum?

Where's our referendum? I am, of course, referring to whether The City of Edinburgh Cuntcil has actually asked the people who live here, and are paying for this shit, whether we actually want trams or NOT!

The Hootsman tells us:

"A PUBLIC meeting on the city’s tram scheme has called for a referendum on the future of the tram project."

No shit!

"A poll of attendees at the Edinburgh Railway Action Group meeting found three-quarters of them were in favour of a public vote on the future of the tram project."

Funny that. Could it be that they were looking at their cuntcil tax bills and looking at the congestion caused by the pre-tram roadworks and asked themselves what the hell was going on? Shame the cuntcillors don't do the same.

Tax dodgers?

The Hootsman reports that The City of Edinburgh Cuntcil are going after tax dodgers who are "losing" the council £9.25 million - apparently this also includes outstanding debt from statutory notices and so on...

The money shot is that some arse from the cuntcil says this:

"By reviewing our policy on debt recovery we have the potential to recover large sums of money which can be ploughed back into council services."

Tell you what... Why don't you stop pissing money up the wall on things Edinburgh doesn't want or need - like trams, excessive traffic calming, excessive public "servants" and try paying for your own lunches for a change - and then we can take a reduction in cuntcil tax, and the world will be a better place.

Until we pay tax for what we actually use, people will take the piss - on both sides. I expect that the cuntcil takes the piss a bit more....

Groundhog Day

According to Groundhog.org:

Here Ye! Here Ye! Here Ye!

On Gobbler's Knob on this fabolous Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2008
Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators,
Rose to the call of President Bill Cooper and greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.

After casting a weathered eye toward thousands of his faithful followers,
Phil consulted with President Cooper and directed him to the appropriate scroll, which proclaimed:

"As I look around me, a bright sky I see, and a shadow beside me.
Six more weeks of winter it will be!"

As someone on The Register commented, there is a reasonable explanation for Phil's prognostication:



Although I fully expect this will all be blamed on global warming.

Best video of the year so far...

I'd hate to pay the electricity bill for this, but I want one!



The Register reports that the muzzle energy of this weapon is 10.6 megajoules.

Now, roll on the hand-held rail gun a la Quake...