Category: in the news

It’s all going off on the Manx border

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I’ve said before that there’s a whole different pace of life on the Isle of Man. And that’s a good thing. All too often in this world, we’re rushed and stressed and pressured, and so I think that preserving that more gentle way of life in places like the IOM (and maybe , more locally, like Cape Agulhas, too) is hugely important to preserve.

But while there might be weapons and methamphetamine seized all over Cape Town, over on the Manx border, it seems that there have also been some heinous developments.

11 packets, you say? Unbrielievable. And not grate for the owner who was from continental Europe. And who tried to import meat as well: a deli-cate matter, but really a wurst käse scenario for him. Clearly, there was no whey they were letting it through. And when he asked for it back and was told “no, it’s nacho cheese anymore”. No wonder he went a bit emmental. He was lucky that they chose not to Prosciutto him.

But of course, there is a serious side to this. These products are illegal to import for a reason – to protect the island from also inadvertently importing Foot and Mouth Disease. And if confiscating 800g of cheese and 5kg of ham (what sort of charcuterie ratio is that, by the way?!?) stops the virus from getting in, it’s got to be worth it.

Unexpected weather

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It’s wintery today. The frogs are going mad out there.
The rain arrived early this morning, surprising absolutely no-one who had been keeping an eye on the developing forecast over the weekend.

I was shocked.

Shocked because I thought everything was arriving tomorrow and I was going to do today’s post about it. And indeed, there are plenty of warnings out for “disruptive rain”:

…but just not for today.

But the rain tomorrow is coming and it does look suitably biblical. Probably at least one inch or 25mm, which the dams (59.1%) and the gardens certainly need, but which is going to make for a(nother) rather unpleasant day.

And so it turns out that all the prep I had in mind to get ready for the rain tomorrow now has to be done in the rain today. Bugger.

And so much for that blog post forewarning you all of the nastiness.

Not much point in doing that now, is there?

Opponents and internet hypocrisy

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So, thanks to a 120+2 winning goal, it’s Sunderland that get through to face United in the Playoff Final next Saturday. Got to love that last minute winning feeling. As the “Football Away Days” FB page shared:

And it is a great photo, depicting a great moment. I’ve spotted at least two phones, but let’s not let that detract from the image and the impressive description.

No, let’s allow… er… the “Football Away Days” FB page to do that for themselves, by suggesting that the last minute winning goal (see above) should never have been allowed to happen:

Extra points for using an image taken a whole 2 seconds before the one at the top of this post.

Got to keep all the fans happy? Easy!
Simply use the narrative that Sunderland fans are amazing, and that Coventry City were cleared robbed. Just don’t do it in the same post. Separate them by at least a couple of minutes.

Well done. I’m sure that no-one has noticed.

America continues to America

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Great news this week. The group Veterans on Patrol, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as “an anti-government militia organization” are out to destroy the Doppler radars used to detect and track tornadoes and other weather phenomena, all across America.

You might not think that you know what a Doppler radar looks like, but you’ll probably have seen one. They’re basically the big balls that you might find on a tower near an airport or on the top of a hill like Constantiaberg.

There it is on the left. And on the right is the mast that no-one really knows the height of.

But I digress. Often.

No-one – as far as I am aware – is going after our local ball, though. But in the US, there’s a concerted campaign by the VoP group to destroy all of these facilities to prevent them from being used as “weather weapons”.

“This group is advocating for anyone and everyone to join them in conducting penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses which can be used to ultimately destroy the sites,” the email stated, using an acronym for the weather radar network. The group referred to the NEXRAD system towers as ‘weather weapons,’ and claimed there were no laws preventing American citizens from destroying the ‘weapons’”.

Much to the bemusement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But, of course, there’s a serious side to this:

The NEXRAD, or “next generation radar,” network has been in place since the 1990s and detects precipitation in the atmosphere. It can also help pinpoint tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, prompting timely, life-saving warnings. 

This comes just ahead of the (May and June) tornado season, and at a time when – thanks to the Orange Shitgibbon and his Loud Mouth Space Wanker – there are fewer than ever engineers and staff at the National Weather Service to repair any damage that does get done.

And then when people die because there are no tornado warnings because the Doppler radars have been destroyed by right-wing loonies, and there’s no-one left at the NWS to repair them, it’ll all be Joe Biden’s fault.

Obviously.