All things Must Pass

Time for a change.  Black is boring.  And for you Holden lovers this is what an FJ (my first car in Melbourne, the World’s Most Liveable City) would look like if it were built today.  Please GM, pretty please….

A New Primate

Rejoice! Another new primate has been discovered, this time in an unexplored part of Brazil.

It is described as a type of the exquisitely named titi monkey.  What other new species lurk in darkest Brazil?

DC has Fun in the Desert

David Coulthard shows that an F1  car plus an American dirt road equals the ultimate fun

Welcome Back RCAF and RCN

 

Canada has just announced that it will restore the names Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air force and Canadian Army.

The traditional names were originally dropped by Trudeau in a petulant display of anti royalty.  All true Canadians will rejoice at common sense breaking out.  No longer will the Canadian military create collective sniggering from others.

Modern militaries are now all joint services and as the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Yanks have shown traditional names in no way hamper this and indeed provide a source of inspiration and pride to veterans and serving members alike.

Welcome back Canada, we’ve missed you.

The Next Innovation is Here

And you thought the technology of Minority Report was way in the future.  Well you were wrong.  It’s here now and looks incredible:

Astonish Me

From WWF.  Cute.

Here Come the Cops

Sick of getting pulled over in your Evo VIII with a boring whoop whoop then you need to emigrate to the good ‘ol US of A where the cops beat box:

Ken Block’s Maximum Hoon Machine

I’ve blogged about the legendary Ken Block before.  Now he’s conjured up the ultimate hoon machine

Don’t try any of this at home!

Toyota’s Window to the World

Is there no end to the ingenuity of Japanese engineers

Amur Leopards

 

This wonderful footage of the terribly endangered Amur Leopard was shot in the Kedrovaya Pad nature reserve in Eastern Russia using a remote HD camera.

The Amur leopard is on the brink of extinction and footage like this can do a great deal to expose the fact and help its survival

Your New Boots Sir

It has been revealed that the MoD spent £714.18 getting a pair of non-urgent boots to a soldier in Northern Ireland. 

See http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/%C2%A3700-bill-to-deliver-soldier-boots

A bit steep really.  Surely it would have been cheaper to fly a civil servant to Ulster and deliver them by hand!  At least the MoD can account for them unlike the £6Billion of unaccounted for kit!

I wonder what other gems of procurement are waiting to be exposed?

I WANT ONE!

The first real turbine powered Batmobile in the World (not on the planet!)

 

That is so cool!

Rainbow Toad Rediscovered

The Rainbow Toad of Borneo has been rediscovered after 90 years.

Who knows what else may be lurking believed lost.

Who Owns the Countryside?

 

OR                                                           ??

            

The BBC is carrying an item on complaints by salmon fishermen about commercial rafting companies on the Tay disrupting their fishing.

This raises the interesting question as to who owns the countryside.  Not who has legal title but which of the many stakeholders has the most say in what happens to the the countryside and how it should be utilised.  Traditionally game interests, particularly in Scotland, and farmers have been the most powerful voices in this debate.  But as new ways of commercial exploitation have evolved, such as tourism and recreation, many of which are becoming more economically important, so the old assumptions about primacy give way to today’s debate about who can benefit the most.

Although I don’t know the figures it is conceivable that commercial rafting does or could generate more economic benefit on the Tay than fishing.  In which case, given that the two activities appear to be mutually incompatible who should hold sway?  And if it be the rafters should they tell the fishermen to bugger off which is what the fishermen seem to be saying at present to the rafters!

Truly a knotty issue. I don’t envy the local authority rule makers!

Help Save the World

Have you noticed that, of late, the literati and public celebrity know alls have starting using the expression “on the planet” rather than the much loved and traditional term “in the World”.

E.g..  The Blue Whale is the largest animal on the planet.

As a by-line this is probably logically incorrect as the only Blue Whale on the planet is a dead one, a deceased one and so not one at all.

Mass movements like this are usually driven by fashion and initiated by, yes you guessed it, political correctness.  But I am puzzled as to why “in the World” would be politically incorrect.

Our Earth is but one of the planets in the Solar System so to say “on the planet”  is not only imprecise but suggests that the matter relates to the Earth as a planet where it is at best primus inter pares in relation to the rest of the Solar System.  Using the term suggests we are but one amongst many and so not really all that important (maybe that’s the political incorrectness; thinking that we are important).

When I last looked I don’t recall that there was actually proper evidence that life exists anywhere else in the entire Universe.  Admittedly there is much speculation and wishing and hoping it might be true by many, and solemn declarations by people who should know better that life must exist elsewhere because there are billions of bits of elsewhere.  But no evidence.

Only Earth is “the World” so we should celebrate its, and our, uniqueness by getting rid of the vacuous phrase “on the planet” by summarily executing all television presents who mouth it without thought (pour encourager les autres).

And by doing so restore the Blue Whale to its rightful place as the biggest animal in the World.

So if you want to save the World tell everyone you know, including politicians and media types that up with this we shall not put.

Filming a shock Wave

The amazing thing about this is how it        makes       Hammond            talk                really               s   l   o   w   l   y.

What Monster Saw

Monster Tajima is the first person to do Pikes Peak in under 10 minutes.  This is what he saw…a really scary hill climb.  Forget the ‘Ring this is absolutely the outer edge of reason for road cars:

Pikes Peak in Under Ten Minutes!

 

Pikes Peak hill climb is still one of the most challenging events in motor racing.  No one has ever done it in under 10 minutes until now.  The legendary Monster Tajima finally did it after trying for many many years;  in a  900hp beast bearing the most passing of resemblances to a Suzuki SX4.  Here’s the preamble video:

Ningaloo Coast Gets World Heritage Listing

The Ningaloo Coast in NW Australia, one of the longest near-shore reefs on Earth has acquired World Heritage Listing

Amongst the wonders of Ningaloo is the best Whale Shark viewing area in the World.

Paris Air Show

The bi-annual Paris Air show is one of the premiere aerospace events ……in the World (as Jezzer would say).  Here are its highlights in a minute courtesy of Defense News.

And here’s an F-16 beat up:

Military chiefs' clash with politicians over Libya and Afghanistan

This is a headline being trumpeted by the Telegraph.  Judging by some of the quotes in the article it’s a fairly mild clash.  Military rebellion isn’t just around the corner.  The PM can sleep comfortably in his bed without fear of a visit by the SAS or whoever is currently tasked with what the KGB used to refer to as “wet work”.

The substance of the “military chiefs” concerns is entirely reasonable but the public airing of them is not.  These disagreements should be resolved in private.  Making them public suggests that the service chiefs are entering the political arena, one they should and must keep clear of. 

Once serving generals become political our trust in their neutrality and objective reasoning withers. Unlike places like Libya we live in a democracy where war is an extension of policy by other means, not a way of  life.  The government makes the decisions and where necessary the military acts.  My country right or wrong – that is one of the facets of the Faustian Bargain entered into by all warriors. And besides generals, admirals and air marshals make great military leaders but usually lousy politicians (The Duke of Wellington notwithstanding).

Now before you dismiss me as a bleeding heart liberal I would remind you that I am one of the greatest supporters of the military having been a soldier and an airman too.  In fact my friends ridicule me for it. But I am an even fiercer democrat by instinct.

Stirling Retires

Sir Stirling Moss has finally retired

What can I say about the Greatest Living Motor Sportsman that hasn’t already been said?

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

WWF - Illegal bear bile trade rampant in Asia

WWF - Illegal bear bile trade rampant in Asia

This WWF report highlights the illegal trade in bears and bear parts in Indochina and how vested interests are driving it out of control
This dreadful trade provides raw materials for (mainly) Chinese “traditional medicine” a euphemism for impotency treatment.
The trade which is internationally outlawed and proscribed by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wilde Flora and Fauna) involves mostly Asian Black Bears Ursus thibetanus although any old bear will do.
It goes like this: young bear cubs are taken from their mothers in countries such as Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia and are either killed and their body parts removed and rendered or are either farmed in the country of capture or trafficked through Vietnam and Laos to China.  In China they are farmed for their bile, the key constituent in the bogus “treatment” for mainly Chinese men to improve their  erections.  Needless to say the market is almost limitless and the product extremely popular.

If you are outraged by this barbaric trade you can do something about it by joining Free the Bears, an international charity devoted to saving bears by providing rescue, shelter and where possible, reintroduction to the wild. Based in Australia Free the Bears operates worldwide and has made a significant impact on the preservation of wild bears and the stamping out of exploitation of bears such as dancing bears in India.
You can find them here http://www.freethebears.org.au/

New Look

Trying a new look called “Awesome” which seems a bit of a hyperbole.  But it fits my present mood exactly. 

The only permanence is change.

Internet Explorer Always Disappoints Eventually

AS you know I have been a great fan of IE9 which seemed to have the right balance of speed, functionality and looks.

But alas it always seems to turn to tears in the long run with MS IE.  Of late I have found, for absolutely no apparent reason, that there is a most vexing situation where IE9 won’t render videos correctly, throwing them off axis to the left and unable to be controlled and filling up the left hand side of the screen with rapidly flashing ads that appear when the mouse is scrolled.  After much deep thought and empirical analysis I discovered that there is a fundamental incompatibility between IE9 and the Flash Player v10.3 but only on my laptop.  The other computers in the house (three) are all fine.

Totally unable to rectify the problem with the usual system restores, uninstalls and reinstalls I have given IE9 away and gone to Firefox 4.0.1 which seems to have done the trick.  Chrome lacks the functionality I want although it is quick and Opera is utterly incomprehensible!

I had used the Beta version of FF 4 but that had all sorts of problems (as one would expect with a beta build – doh!).  The release version seems [so far] to work fine, is compatible with Adobe Flash 10.3 and solves all the problems.

You can download it here

What is it with Microsoft?  Why can’t they have stable products resistant to the vagaries of ghosts in the machine?

BBC News - Ratko Mladic declared fit to face Hague tribunal

Why does the BBC persist in honouring Ratko Mladic by continuing to call him General.

BBC News - Ratko Mladic declared fit to face Hague tribunal

Mladic is simply a thug and does not deserve the title.

Two Down, Lots to Go

Its been a good month for tracking down the evil people of the world.  First Osama bin Laden and now Ratko Mladic who is currently being extradited to the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

The killing of Bin Laden, in circumstances which only those who were present know, denied the full course of justice but did have the effect of removing  a dreadful terrorist, responsible for thousands of innocent deaths.

The capture of Mladic, the Bosnian Serb architect of the massacre of 7,500 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica  will enable justice to be done and be seen to be done.

Unfortunately there are many others in many countries still at large and perpetrating their own brands of evil

Fiat justitia ruat caelum

Hybrid Helo

 

 

How’s this?  Like having your own mini MV-22 Osprey without having to tilt the wings.  Is that cool or is that cool?

PistonHeads Headlines - Chrysler Engines For Maserati Saloons?

For all the gory details see:

PistonHeads Headlines - Chrysler Engines For Maserati Saloons?

A Maserati with a Chrysler engine…surely not!  (calling it a cinquestella doesn’t fool anyone Mr Mopar). But wait it’s worse…a Maserati with a diesel ?  Could this really be the end of civilisation as we know it?  Not so much Stealing Beauty but rather Flushing Beauty Down the Toilet.

Musical Robots

 

What can you say?

Where else than California!