A news article on CNN :-

SELMER, Tennessee (AP) — The father of a teenager who was among six people killed this month when a drag-racing car spun into a crowd sued the driver and organizers of the charity event Tuesday.

Bruce Replogle, the father of 15-year-old Scarlett Replogle, seeks $10 million in damages.

Authorities say pro drag racer Troy Critchley lost control of his dragster while performing an exhibition burnout — spinning the car’s back tires to send up clouds of smoke — during a parade at the annual Cars for Kids charity event June 16. Besides the six killed, 23 were hospitalized. (Watch car go out of control; hear crowd react. VIDEO )

I can hear the “journalists” rubbing their hands with joy that they’ve got a video of the mauling of people by a car! Wow! That’s news! Am I gonna watch it? You bet your sweet patootie!

And there’s a charity called “Cars for Kids”?? What next, “AKs for Taliban”? “Crack for Pete Doherty”?

of our times has been reported and gone unnoticed.

Some people somewhere have discovered how to reduce plastics back into their component hydrocarbons by simple microwave zapping. For those amongst you who are idiots (one step forward please) this means that non-biodegradable plastics, which are primarily hydrocarbons (that’s oil to you dumbo) no longer have to be dumped and left to choke poor little annoying seagulls and albatrosses and suchlike but can be zapped back into oil for fuel.

Read about it in the New Scientist. NOW!

This post is coming. Just couldn’t do it from home so it’ll have to wait>

Rats are getting drunk in India.
And attacking people.
Ratattack

Memorise and use as appropriate.

1. “Cover for me.”
2. “Oh, good idea, boss.”
3. “It was like that when I got here.”

Thank you Homer

I (amongst many other viewers) was informed by the news yesterday that a European company plans to have a jet for space tourism ready soon. In between all the exciting statistics was something I latched onto.

The reporter mentioned that it would only spew out 5% of the carbon that a transatlantic flight might. Now that sounds very rosy until you realise that the space jet only carries four passengers while a transatlantic jumbo packs in 400-500 grubby tourists in relative discomfort. Taking the lower figure this mean that a jumbo jet spreads the carbon cost x between 400 people, while the space jet spreads 5% of x between 4 people.

Guess who comes out worse?

Carbon cost per passenger for Jumbo = x/400 = y
Carbon cost per passenger for Space jet = x/ 80 = 5y

So it can be said the Space jet (we really must give it a proper name) is 5 times worse than a transatlantic jet. Never trust the stats!!

Yesterday I went-karting with colleagues from work and funnily enough I started the day with Gore Vidal saying this on my iGoogle page:-

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

I obviously went there thinking there’s no need to over-exert myself, but these chicken look ready for the plucking and I’ll pick these ducks off one by one as I tear round the track, wind in my hair and throaty engine roaring …….
And I obviously wasn’t the only one.

There’s something to be said about competing in a testosterone-charged environment. Namely, that there’s a lot of that testosterone about. An image from despair.com regarding goals kept coming to me, so I wisely stepped out of the way when the young ‘uns were barrelling around the circuit. I still got forced off twice.

A great evening out, and an unbelievable experience when the ground rushes past six inches below your nose. Everyone should try it. And I’ll be going back again.

I watched it yesterday on BBC.
Very rarely does a movie grip so completely.
Edward Norton managed to play a despicable character that you end up sympathising with somehow.
This is what cinema should be like.

Waiting to be released from the cage!!
Listening to “Ojos de Bruja” ( Eyes of the witch ) a group that play flamenco and new fusion music. Really good.
I hope I’ll catch my Friday evening song on the radio going home – “I can’t wait, for the weekend to begin”!!!
I need to crash.

Is it just me noticing this, or is everybody in business who watches “The Apprentice” slowly becoming a prick? Everywhere you turn there are people thinking they can do just as good a job as Sugar. And the funny thing is, Sugar isn’t even doing a good job. Any half-decent recruiter will tell you that an employer’s tastes are purely subjective. An employer may tell you they value honesty, but they’ll only be impressed by your tits. They might require financial acumen, but yet again it’s the tits that are the clinchers.

That may sound a bit cynical, but the point I’m making that there are no clear winners, except whoever Sugar thinks is a winner. And the contestants know that, so they toady up to him, which fact gives him immense power over them. You might argue the source of his power is his money, but it’s really the willingness of the contestants to take shit from him. Because they’d like a bit of his money.

I haven’t much experience of the catering industry but I imagine Ramsey’s ahem, “managerial style” has made proper dicks out of a lot of chefs as well, a fact confirmed by a friend who deals with chefs daily.

My kind of telly comedy just doesn’t get written anymore. Perhaps because there’s effort involved.

My kind =

Yes, Minister
The Office
Extras
Peep Show
Absolute Power

I know, this post is just a moan.

I have a record in office, as well. And all Americans have seen that record. September the 4th/2001, I stood in the ruins of the Twin Towers. It’s a day I will never forget.

–George w. Bush

Marlton, NJ
10/18/2004

A certain friend of mine has decided to open a business, based solely on the fact that he was interviewed by this half-Italian chick once who he fancied (and decided on the spot that this was reciprocated) and thought, “hey I could do what she does, I mean if this hot bird can do it….”

I have been very critical of his “business plans” so far, but when he left my place yesterday after a free consultation I thought to myself, “you know what, inspiration for success has come from far unlikelier places before.”

Then I guffawed, because so has inspiration for abyssmal failure. And its hard to tell the difference.