Category: annoying people

Lantern ban in the offing?

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Sky News today is reporting that there are moves afoot to ban “Chinese” Lanterns in the UK because of their potential “deadly impact”. Apparently, these lanterns can drift for miles and land on farmland, where their metal frames can be devoured by livestock:

Agriculture Minister Jim Paice has urged people to think twice about letting them off at celebrations this summer.
“Anyone who’s seen sky lanterns at night knows how spectacular they are, but they probably don’t know how they can cut a cow’s insides to ribbons and be devastating to the countryside.”

Unpleasant indeed, and a compelling argument for banning them rather than:

The lanterns have also caused the death of a foal, which was put down after injuring itself on a fence after being spooked by the mysterious floating light.

Which would also necessitate the banning of planes, cars and celestial bodies such as the spooky moon and the extremely environmentally unfriendly sun.
Also, did the foal (awww. baby horse. heartstrings tugged.) tell the farmer that it was spooked by the lantern? Or was this just a handy excuse for the insurance claim over this tragic equine incident involving some poor quality fencing?
Apparently:

the lanterns are frequently mistaken for UFOs as they drift across towns and cities.

If you think about it though, if the lanterns are airborne and people don’t recognise them as being lanterns, then they are, by definition, Unidentified Flying Objects. So there’s no actually mistaking involved at all.

But I digress. Often. The fire risk from these things along is surely reason enough to ban them – as they have already done in Germany, New Zealand, China [cue irony klaxon] and Australia (mind you, they recently banned swearing there too).

And, as ever, there are calls in the comments to ban fireworks as well, because they scare cats and dogs. Well, hard luck.
While “Chinese” Sky Lanterns may be a relatively new phenomenon in the UK, fireworks have been around for hundreds of years. And therefore, instead of getting all uppity when your pet gets scared by the bangs (one whole night a year), perhaps you should have thought about that at the time of purchase rather than complaining now.
It’s like buying a cat when you live near a busy road: and then whining about banning cars in case your cat gets run over.

Killjoys.

If you should be feeling particularly creative here’s a great post on how to make your own sky lantern. Don’t let it land near any cows or float near any baby horses though, obviously.

Important Youth issues tackled

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With yesterday being Youth Day here in South Africa, youths have been very much in the news. It’s only right that the Youth should have their own day when one looks at the sacrifices made in Soweto in 1976. And the Youth of today still face a huge number of challenges, so what better plan than to focus on these issues on June 16th each year? Step forward then, Simon Molefe: Gauteng Chairperson of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), who called on Provinical Premier Nomvula Mokonyane to address the most pressing of problems facing the Youth of today: unemployment, crime, lack of education and educational opportunities and HIV/Aids. Well, no, actually, first of all he had a bit of a pop at taxi drivers who play loud music in their vehicles:

The agency’s Gauteng chairperson, Simon Molefe, called on Premier Nomvula Mokonyane to deal with the issue of taxis playing loud music before next year’s Youth Day because of the negative impact some of the music played in taxis has on the youth. Speaking at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto, Molefe said, “This thing of taxis transporting students from Soweto playing “Imoto entshontshimali” (“The car that steals money”) loudly must be history. The driver of any taxi playing music while taking pupils to school must be arrested.”

OK, but then he called on Provinical Premier Nomvula Mokonyane to address the most pressing of problems facing the Youth of today: unemployment, crime, lack of education and educational opportunities and HIV/Aids. Right? Wrong. Then he got annoyed about churches only being used 14.29% of the time:

Molefe called on communities, especially the youth, to create partnerships with faith-based organisations. “For six days a week the churches are empty. Each church space must be a youth centre focusing on technology and science skills,” he said.

Where’s the Women’s Institute supposed to meet on Thursday mornings now, then? Honestly, sports stadiums are empty most of the time too: must we set up art colleges in them? The Karoo is empty – really empty – all of the time: must we explore for shale gas deposits there? And what are we going to do with all the free space between Simon Molefe’s ears?

Blade’s Big Words

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You know how it is. You emerge from the lab, having metaphorically flung all that you possess at the TB growing in there and you need a coffee. And while the kettle is boiling, you glance at Monday’s newspaper, dozing casually on the tea room table and you catch sight of Blade Nzimande’s outburst which was “not directed at anyone in particular”, but actually was.

Blade talks mainly sense, but I had to sit down with an oat crunchie and work my way through these two lines in the middle of his emotional monologue:

We are dealing with an anti-worker, anti-left, pseudo-militant demagogy that betrays all our long-held ANC-alliance traditions of internal organisational democracy, mutual respect for comrades, non-racialism and service to our people.

It has created space for the anti-majoritarian, conservative reactive groundswell that seeks to tarnish the whole movement, portraying us all as anti-constitutionalist and as narrow nationalist chauvinists.

So many ists. That can’t be good.

Blade’s concern is seemingly for the ANC-alliance, but the divisions he speaks of here are being created across the country “not by anyone in particular”. I almost feel sorry for Blade and his chums. He’s correct that the entire Alliance is being tarred with the same brush, through no fault of his own.
At what point those “in charge” of the ANC finally find the guts (or indeed the ability) to prevent “anyone in particular” from causing more hurt and harm, I don’t know.
But like not learning someone’s name at a party, the longer the conversation goes on, the more difficult it becomes to ask.

Breakfast & Baboons & Buffoons at the Porter Estate Market

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It’s been a while since we headed down to Zwaanswyk and the Porter Estate Saturday Morning Market. Lots to see and do here, but first, it was breakfast time and while the kids amused themselves in the sandpit and on the jungle gym, I amused myself with bacon, egg, veal sausage and onion. Which was nice and exceptionally good value at R40.

Add to that an enamel cupful of the local Moer Koffie:

Now, Moer Koffie is a strong, dark brew. The kind of stuff you want to drink after you’re had a moer se nag out on Long Street, like we had. I’m not even sure what type of beans are in there and honestly, I don’t think anyone really cares because the senses are far too intrigued by the enamel cups and condensed milk condiments. Please promise me that you won’t try it with the illusion that Moer Koffie is going to effortlessly win any awards, because I really don’t think that’s the point. Even still, it’s still worth the experience of drinking something other than the usual brands that ferry their wiles through the mainstream.

You have to be a bit careful at fresh produce markets like these. The produce is good and rather difficult to resist – olives, bread, olives, sausage, olives and olives – but it’s also often expensive. The lamb chops at R98 a kilo are a good example.
Oh, and this morning, you also had to be careful to avoid mountain bikers cycling through the market. There’s actually no sign saying that they can’t cycle right through the middle of the couple of hundred people (and kids) there, but I think that’s probably because it should just be common sense. After all, it’s not like there are signs in multi-storey car parks telling you not to jump off the top floor or at Spur telling you to slap the kids in the playroom – it’s simply reasonable behaviour.

Cyclists claim that they get picked on a lot, but in my opinion, they deserve it.
This guy is the exception that proves the rule:

One further issue at the market this morning was the troop of about 40 baboons which was heading towards the market when we arrived. Fortunately, they stayed away, as they would surely have ransacked the place and eaten all the pricey lamb chops.

Do baboons like olives?

Was the E.coli outbreak started deliberately?

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Was the E.coli outbreak started deliberately? In a word, no.

But that hasn’t stopped the conspiracy theorists theorising in a conspiracic manner. In particular, Mike Adams, aka “the Health Ranger” and Editor of NaturalNews.com.

The evidence now points to this deadly strain of e.coli [sic] being engineered and then either being released into the food supply or somehow escaping from a lab and entering the food supply inadvertently. If you disagree with that conclusion — and you’re certainly welcome to — then you are forced to conclude that this octobiotic superbug (immune to eight classes of antibiotics) developed randomly on its own… and that conclusion is far scarier than the “bioengineered” explanation because it means octobiotic superbugs can simply appear anywhere at any time without cause. That would be quite an exotic theory indeed.

My conclusion actually makes more sense: This strain of e.coli [sic] was almost certainly engineered and then released into the food supply for a specific purpose.

He even comes up with a new word “Octobiotic”  that when subjected to some basic etymology (literally “Eight living component of a community”) doesn’t actually mean what he probably wants it to mean. What a tosser.

Adams’ argument is that there is no way that this could have happened accidentally.

There’s really only one way this happens (and only one way) — you have to expose this strain of e.coli [sic] to all eight classes of antibiotics drugs.

So Adams reckons that there must have been some “dark forces” at work to genetically engineer such a resistant bacterial strain. Now I don’t want to get all technical on you here, but theoretically, it could be done by subjecting the bugs in question to an antibiotic (let’s call it antibiotic 1) and by using natural selection to naturally select the resistant bacteria – ie. the one that don’t die – you have bugs that are resistant to antibiotic 1.
Then you expose them to the next antibiotic (2) and take the ones that survive. These bugs are now resistant to antibiotics 1 and 2. Then you to expose to antibiotic 3 and… look you get the idea, I’m sure.

And yes, to the uneducated, (like Adams) perhaps it does sound like this could never have happened accidentally. But (sadly) that’s actually exactly what happens in hospitals every day.
And thus, hospitals are breeding grounds for superbugs. Something Mike Adams might have known if he’d only read this 2009 post entitled Hospitals Are Breeding Grounds for Superbugs by… er… Mike Adams, aka “the Health Ranger”:

On the pharmaceutical side, superbugs are also caused by the rampant abuse of antibiotics by doctors, who seem to prescribe them for everything under the sun –  including those things that are completely unaffected by antibiotics such as viral infections.

Oh dear.

But despite his own damning evidence against his own preposterous claim, Adams brings another gem to the precious stone party:

For example, if this bacteria originated in the food (as we’ve been told), then where did it acquire all this antibiotic resistance given the fact that antibiotics are not used in vegetables?

Well, that’s bullshit, Mike. Not just your idea, but the answer to your question as well. Antibiotics, given to cows, excreted in their faeces, which are then used to fertilise our salad crops.

All of which pours cold water on Adams’ theory that:

Nearly all the deaths now attributable to this e.coli [sic] outbreak are deaths of ignorance. But even more, they may also be deaths from a new era of food-based bioweapons unleashed by either a group of mad scientists or an agenda-driven institution that has declared war on the human population.

Ignorance. It kills. Something Mike Adams might want to consider before ever writing anything ever again.