SuperInjunctions -Taiwanese Style

The depiction of John Hemmings MP defying the super-injunctions is just bizarre. But fantastic.

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Stiff Upper Lip

Not sure whether this is the genuine article but really enjoyed it anyway.

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Enviro-Llamas

Just because there hasn't been any "global warming" since the 1990s is no reason not to carry fish by llama into the mountains where they'll be safe from it.

Thousands of rare fish have been given a lift up a mountain on the back of llamas in an extraordinary move, led by the Environment Agency, to help the species survive climate change. 

The endangered vendace, that has been in Britain since the Ice Age, is in danger of dying out as lakes and rivers warm up because of man made global warming.

To ensure the species survival, the UK's environmental watchdog took eggs from Derwentwater in Cumbria, thought to be the only remaining site where the fish are found in England and Wales. … 

Lord Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency, said British species have to be protected from climate change.

"In addition to the anticipated warming of lakes and rivers, we may also see an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves."

"Anticipated warming" means the warming hasn't happened - but given that climate always fluctuates, it will at some point.

Andy Gowans, fisheries technical specialist for the Environment Agency, said the fish are now safe from global warming.

At least we'll now be able to sleep at night.

Apologies for missing this story; it's a few days old. 

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Who Said There Were No Jobs?

From a recent posting in the Situations Vacant ads in the city of Xinyang:

West Jiuhua Mountain scenic spot is hiring full-time tea-leaf pickers.

A prospective employee has to be a woman with no sexual experience, has a bra size of at least C, and has no scar or wound visible on her body with a uniform.

Ten C-cup virgin tea-leaf picker candidates helped kick off the traditional tea culture festival on April 16, which continues until mid-May.

If you're thinking of applying, there are some specific duties:

Tea-leaf pickers will be required to collect “mouth lip tea” during the harvest season. They must clean their mouths and bodies on time every day and work out often. The daily pay is 500 yuan, or $75.

More generally...you know, as a bit of background...

The so-called “mouth lip tea” comes from a legend that tea leaves used to be picked by fairy maidens with their mouths. When boiling water is poured onto these tea leaves, fairy maidens will ascend amidst steam into the sky. Tea made from these leaves has refreshing aroma and taste and can even cure diseases.

It is also said that at the beginning of the last century, some Chinese tea sellers experimented with the idea of “tea in front of breasts.” Virgins at the age of 16 were asked to start picking leaves in the middle of the night and put leaves into their clothes between their breasts. When they finished their work before sunrise, the leaves should have absorbed enough of the virgins’ body scent, and could make great tea.

You don't get jobs like that down the local dole office, do you?

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Belly Button Biodiversity

To be filed under You've Got To be Bloody 'Avin' A Larf. Cutting edge research from one of nature's true biodiversity hotspots:

You are alive, but just how alive? We know that species live under our beds or in our backyards. But how many living organisms are on a square centimeter of your skin? What do they do, and how they differ from those of your neighbor? Very little is known about the life that breathes all over us. Each person's microbial jungle is so rich, colorful, and dynamic that in all likelihood your body hosts species that no scientist has ever studied. Your navel may well be one of the last biological frontiers.

That's right...there really is a website called Belly Button Biodiversity. It's a collaboration between the North Carolina State University and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, so our US readers here will be delighted to see their Obama stimulus dollars at work.

The sample illustrated here (yes, they have a Gallery. Did you have to ask?) is from one Meg Lowman, NC Nature Research Center Director...who is now right off the Christmas card list.

For really rather scary discussion about where the data could lead, visit Rob Dunn's (one of the researchers) website. His post, including the comments, hint darkly at how much there is still to learn about this final frontier.

Also straight off the Christmas card list (and indeed any form of contact) is "Nicole" from the comments who muses "I wonder if there is a correlation between population size (or content) and belly hair. I’ve noticed that some of my hairier friends are more likely to get belly button lint… would that be a contributing factor?"

One of the more disturbing finds has been a resident beetle.

Enough, already.

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Nick Clegg The Musical

TheEye is not making this up. It's only an hour old from the Press Association. It's real.

Weep, you fools, weep! Read and despair...

Nick Clegg will be portrayed as a tragic hero with hip hop swagger in a new musical play. The Deputy Prime Minister is the main character in Nicked, which opens on April 29. Using a book with some 18 rap and urban music songs, it charts the creation of the coalition Government after the 2010 general election up to the referendum on the Alternative Vote.

The play’s artistic director, Steven Atkinson, 26, said: “There’s almost something Hamlet-esque about Nick Clegg, he’s trapped in an impossible situation and that makes for great drama.”

Atkinson said hip hop tunes are a good way to tell the coalition’s story because the verbal sparring of rappers is similar to Prime Minister’s Questions.

And he believes political leaders keen to play down their public schoolboy background would naturally turn to urban sounds if they were musicians to prove they are cool.

Are taxpayer funds being used to put this on? Enquiring mobs with pitchforks and burning torches demand to know...

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Protest Banner O' The Day

Free medical advice from AllSeeingEye: 

If you've got cockburn, don't cover it in lime. It'll sting.

[Cheerfully lifted from the always unread Freemantle-Cockburn Gazette which was really hinting at Fury at discharges from cement plant]

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Guilty Of Jealousy

Mexican men beware – if you seem jealous, show “indifference” toward your wife, or don't perform in bed, you might just find yourself behind bars:

Mexican men who display extreme jealousy or avoid sex with their wives could be tried in court and punished under a new law, the special prosecutor for crimes against women told a local newspaper on Friday.

Men who phone their wives every half hour to check up on them, constantly suspect them of infidelity or try to control the way they dress are committing the crime of jealousy, special prosecutor Alicia Elena Perez Duarte told Excelsior newspaper.

Those who stop talking to their wives, avoid sex or try to convince suspicious spouses they are “crazy” even if they are caught red-handed having an affair, are guilty of indifference, she said.

Men found guilty of jealousy or indifference could face up to five years in prison, the newspaper said. Mexico’s individual states will determine the punishments, it said.

As is usual with stupidity like this it only works in one direction. Control-freak women appear to be exempt.

It seems as though this law is designed to reduce domestic violence by criminalising sometimes associated behaviours, but actually results in enshrining in law what everybody has known for years....that anything a man does is immediately suspect.

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Clowns

Pure genius from San Francisco, where extortion is done with a style that we seem to lack in the UK.

Consider the case of one Frank Salvador Solorza, who has just been convicted of conspiracy, attempted extortion, and impersonating a federal officer. He was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in jail.

Prosecutors said Solorza was trying to extort $50,000 from a Bay Area family. He made calls and sent letters purporting to be from a U.S. immigration agent, accusing the family members of lying on their applications for permanent residence and threatening to have them deported. The messages told them that if they paid $50,000, their papers "would be good forever." The family contacted actual federal agents, who then recorded subsequent calls providing instructions in how to hand over the money.

"The family was told in one call," the report says, "that a man in a clown suit and riding a small bicycle would be coming to pick up the money."

And that, of course, is the brilliant part of the plan. If you spot a man in a clown suit riding a small bicycle you aren't likely to think "Aha! There goes an extortionist."

Agents watching the family home in February 2009 watched Solorza ride up to it on a tiny bike, wearing not just a clown suit but "a clown suit, a clown glitter wig, a Pirates of the Caribbean hat (complete with dreadlocks), and sunglasses."

He was arrested when he tried to collect a briefcase supposedly filled with money...carrying the mobile phone from which the calls had been made, and "a receipt from the House of Humor costume store in Redwood City."

And why was he disguised in a clown suit, makeup, glasses and hat? He needed to hide his identity because he's actually related to the people he was trying to extort. Not that it made much difference - they suspected him from the start because about two weeks earlier he had been asking them when their green cards were going to expire.

You couldn't make it up.

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Doubles All Round!

Congratulations to the executives of Transocean Ltd., who have just given themselves six-figure bonuses for 2010.

The bonuses included large amounts for meeting safety goals that year, described in the SEC filing as "the best year in safety performance in our company's history." According to the filing, in 2010 the company had an "exemplary" safety record and had met or exceeded certain internal safety targets concerning the frequency and severity of its accidents.

Since that was the same year Transocean's Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up, killed 11 people and dumped 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, those other years must have been absolutely bloody horrible.

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Headline O' The Day

It may be only April, but the BBC are putting in early entries for Headline of the Year.

Great stuff.

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Once A Terrorist....

Menachem Begin was a terrorist and we should have hung him for his crimes at the time - as he deserved. But no, we miss our chance and like every bastard who puts on a suit and becomes a "revered international statesman" we're stuck being polite to him for a few decades.

This is what comes of it...as usual.

Israel secretly supplied arms and equipment to Argentina during the Falklands War due to Prime Minister Menachem Begin's personal hatred of the British, a new book discloses.

"He [Begin] hated the English above all; everyone had forgotten the British occupation, but not him" according to Lotersztain.

His colleague Jaime Weinstein agreed, saying: "He did all that was possible to help Argentina, selling her weapons during the Malvinas [the Argentine name for the Falklands] conflict." Israel needed a third party to help with the deal so that the British would not know that it was helping Argentina and this is where Peru, despite the fact that it had tried to broker a peace plan which Argentina rejected, came in.

Fine. That's one to remember when the chips are down next time in the Middle East.

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Happy Birthday Ma'am

Happy 85th birthday, Your Majesty; and may you have many more.

.....plus as a side-benefit it also keeps the jug-eared plant talking mad-as-a-box-of-frogs eco-nutter out of the Big Chair.

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Negligence?

Legal action o' the day (from the WSJ):

John B____ v. Vasamth Bethala, Manager; LQ12 LLC dba LaQuinta Inn & Suites; James River Ins. Co., No. 2011-12066 F (22d Dist. Jud. Ct. La., filed Apr. 7, 2011).

Negligence action. While the plaintiff was staying on the third floor of the defendants' hotel, a wasp flew into his room. While the plaintiff was attempting to kill the wasp, he fell out of the window.

Shame it was only the third floor and he survived. Some people don't deserve oxygen - much less the ability to sue.

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Royal Virility Performance

Get ready for a performance fit for a king....and 20,000 other bloody awful puns.

The limited-edition beverage has been rustled up using 'various well-known aphrodisiacs', according to its manufacturer.

These include chocolate, horny goat weed and ‘a healthy dose of sarcasm’ in addition to the famous blue pills.

Drinking three of the beers is apparently equivalent to taking one Viagra pill, with the bottles' label featuring the words 'Arise Prince Willy' and 'Celebrate Big Willy Style'.

'With this beer we want to take the wheels off the Royal Wedding bandwagon being jumped on by dozens of breweries; The Royal Virility Performance is the perfect antidote to all the hype,' BrewDog say on their website.

Ugly girls will be buying this by the case.

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Live To Die

Here's a video by JoeDanMedia which has been pulled by YouTube twice already...apparently it's a bit upsetting to the Religion of Peace.

So here it is in a third YouTube incarnation (might as well use their bandwidth, not mine) but backed up here on EyeTube for when it gets knocked off again.

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Those Crazy, Crazy Germans

Daftness from TheLocal as we find that people are doing what people always do with office furniture - except now with stopwatches. The newspaper even files it under their "Sports" section which seems unnecessarily like taking the piss.

Luxembourger Pierre Feller beat out the homegrown talent to win the downhill speed discipline at the third German office chair championships in the town of Bad König-Zell in Hesse on Saturday.

Feller set a new course record for his win by covering the 200-metre downhill stretch in just 26.95 seconds, reaching speeds of up to 35 kph (22 mph).

"His lying-down technique was sensational!" gushed organizer René Karg of Feller's winning run, before pointing out the strict regulations in place for the third championship of its kind: the chairs are allowed to be fitted with inline-skate wheels and handles, but no kind of motorized aid is permitted.

"We check each chair in advance," said Karg.

Racing in pairs and equipped with helmets and kneepads, the 58 participants then launch themselves onto the course head-first from a ramp.

Not surprising that the squareheads need "strict regulations" to make it happen though. Even having fun must be by the rulebook, ja?

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Question Time LiveBlog 14th April 2011

Question Time tonight comes from that famous bastion of middle-of-the-road politics...Liverpool.

On the panel tonight we have Baron and part time vampire Michael Howard, adulterer, windmill fanatic and expenses fiddler* Chris Huhne, Pantone #1235 (Saffron) coloured bank robber Peter Hain, Alex Wee Eck Salmond and former New Statesman deputy editor Cristina Odone.

*As a bit of random trivia, Huhne claimed £85.35 on expenses for having a picture of himself framed and inscribed.

Those hoping for a double-bill of idiocy will be disappointed - there is no This Week this week.

Your long-suffering brace of Moderators; TheEye and David Mosque, will be tilting at windmills here from 10:30pm.

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¿Qué pasa?

For non-Spanish speakers, ¿qué pasa? is roughly "how's it going?" or "what's up?". Which about sums up where this post is headed.

Always-interesting commenter 'thespecialone' left a reply on the previous thread about visits to the Rock in years gone past which got TheEye a'thinkin'.

There are thousands of photographs of everywhere that are of parochial interest - but some of them deserve a slightly wider audience too. So in the interests of, well, interest...AllSeeingEye offers you from his collection the first of a possibly continued (but if so only very occasionally) series. Gibraltar through the ages.

First up: some dramatic shots from 1940.

And from inside the harbour...

Things weren't always so peaceful...

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View From The Window (of a series)

Considering the depleted state of the Armed Forces these days, Gibraltar is currently the busiest we've been for ages hosting Royal Navy ships. In fact this year has seen more naval activity so far than in the whole of 2010.

The US nuclear submarine Florida (pictured right against the South Mole by the Chronicle) left two days ago after a weekend visit to Gibraltar, and was promptly replaced by HMS Cumberland (below right, also by the Chronicle), fresh from taking part in the evacuation of refugees from Libya.

Cumberland has since been joined by Type 22 Frigate HMS Sutherland, the landing platform dock HMS Albion and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Cardigan Bay for the upcoming Exercise Cougar II in the eastern Med. Despite typically off-beam UK media reports that the ships are specifically bound for Libya, the deployment is part of the Royal Navy's Response Force Task Group [RFTG] which was announced in last year's messy Strategic Defence and Security Review. The ships will head through the Med via the Suez Canal for further exercises in the Indian Ocean.

Spread across those vessels are 650 soldiers from 40 Commando Royal Marines. They marked their arrival in Gibraltar by holding a Top-of-the-Rock run, which set off from the Tower at seven o’clock yesterday. Pure stupidity. Maybe if TheEye was 5 years younger... They were all out and about (or it certainly felt like it) in Town last night, largely without incident; although TheEye was annoyed to find out by late evening that Gilbert's Takeaway had run out of...well...bloody everything.

For those who follow the really parochial news - nineteen year old local AB Lisa Ryan, not so many years out of Westside Comprehensive here, was aboard as part of the Albion’s crew. And there are wedding bells too - an officer from the Albion was met by his fiancée to be married in the King’s Chapel before he sails again.

The twenty-two year-old Cumberland, as has been extensively reported in the UK papers, will not be seen on the Rock again - she's heading back to Devonport for paying off and the breakers. Cumberland was the first British warship to go into Libya, from where she made three trips to Malta carrying a total of 454 people, including 129 Britons. In recognition of the final voyage, Admiral Sir Trevor Soar, commander-in-chief of the fleet, has flown out here last weekend to join the ship for her final voyage. She sails for the UK on Saturday.

So in total, four Royal Navy ships are berthed in the dockyard tonight. Numbers like that are a depressingly rare sight these days.

TheEye feels it's a good night to avoid the standard matelot and bootie bars in Town though....

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Dumbing Down Of Exams?

And who says exams are getting easier, eh? The New York Times has just published a pdf of the Harvard Entrance Exam for 1869

Now TheEye must confess to a bit of an advantage with the Mathematics questions, and most of the History and Geography question look achievable; but Latin, Greek, Virgil, and Caesar's Commentaries? Not a chance.

US Universities such as Harvard and Columbia advertised for students steadily through August and September and right up to opening day in October. Entrance exams were even offered the weekend before classes resumed to give students every chance of taking and passing them. Unheard of these days, and it's a thought that would send a shudder down the spine of anyone filling out an UCCA form now (or whatever they're called these days; uttered with a Wasn'tlikethatinmyday DailyMailesque frown).

Still, give it a scan, see how you do. TheEye could well use some of it as the basis of the next pub quiz I've got to write...so for those readers who come to that regular event here is your chance to preview next weeks questions :-)

Hint to start you off: the answer to No1 is "Me non refero quam divitem esse Gygen"

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Sesame Street

Soooo, okay then. This is an interesting idea reported by the BBC on Friday.

The United States is funding a Pakistani remake of the popular TV children’s show Sesame Street.


In a new effort to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, USAID – the development arm of the US government – is donating $20m (£12m) to the country to create a local Urdu version of the show…


The remake will star a puppet called Rani, the six-year-old daughter of a peasant farmer, with pigtails and a school uniform, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Presumably for realism purposes their heads are detachable, and Miss Piggy will be forced to marry her 57 year old uncle. But how does the whole Miss Piggy / pork thing work then? Or the Bert and Ernie are gay line?

This post, incidentally, was brought to you by the letter “I” and “J” which stand for Islamist Jihad...and the number 72...as in 72 virgins waiting in Heaven for all suicide bombers.

This idea is so stupid you'd be amazed to learn that the UK Foreign Office isn't chipping in money too. How did we avoid funding this one?

..and randomly...here's Robert DeNiro pretending to be Elmo. Enjoy...

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Legal Action O' The Day

Bernadette M_____ v. Northern Trust, National Association, et al., No. CGC 11-510013 (San Francisco Super. Ct. filed Apr. 7, 2011).

Employment complaint for sex, age and race discrimination. The plaintiff, an Irish citizen, suffered through a Mr. Potato Head contest organized by defendant Cameron in which potatoes were decorated to resemble drunken Irishmen.

Hat-tip to the WSJ

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Global ID Cards

And so we have the scary news that the head of Interpol has called for a globally verifiable electronic identity card (e-ID) system for migrant workers at an international forum on "citizen ID projects, e-passports, and border control management".

Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said: "At a time when global migration is reaching record levels, there is a need for governments to put in place systems at the national level that would permit the identity of migrants and their documents to be verified internationally...

You'd think that we already had this - called passports. The clue being in the word. But no, this needs to be a bigger, universal and all-encompassing scheme apparently.

And who would run all of this?

...via INTERPOL."

Ah, right. Figures.

Issuing migrant workers e-ID cards in a globally verifiable format will also reduce corruption and enable cardholders to be eligible for electronic remittance schemes that will foster greater economic development and prosperity in INTERPOL member countries.

But "enable cardholders to be eligible for electronic remittance schemes"? So, Interpol wants unhindered access to all your international bank transfers? Oh I see. Luckily nobody will have the motivation or resources to crack them and make fakes, eh?

People with 'good ideas' like this should be tied to stakes and used for bayonet practice.

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Video: Elliot Morley Pleads Guilty To £32k Theft

....and that's bound to be just the tip of his own personal thieving iceberg.

Unfortunately the criminal justice system doesn't contain judicial powers to force-feed someone their own scrotum. Which is a shame, really.

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Question Time LiveBlog 7th April 2011

Question Time tonight comes from Oxford.

On the panel tonight we have Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt MP, Caroline "female window dressing" Flint MP, Jo Swinson MP, Labour "Lord" Robert Winston and gay luvvie Simon Callow.

The LiveBlog will also cover the demented This Week, with Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo and Jacqui Smith - with guests David Schneider and Jay Rayner, and the round-up from BBC Deputy Political Editor James Landale.

Your cheerful brace of Moderators; TheEye and David Mosque, will be looking to keep order here from 10:30pm.

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O tempora! O mores!

Once again, apologies for lack of posting this week. We'll be back this evening as usual  for the Question Time LiveChat.

In the meantime, this must be the most effective Age Verification page around. Makes you feel old, eh?

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Apologies

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last couple of days. Normal service will be resumed...hopefully tomorrow.

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