[blogfocus saturday] some new faces this evening

No linked theme this evening - just some excellent blogging, including some new faces. Some have asked about my e-mailing policy now and I have to admit it's difficult with a list of over 100 but I hope to get back to it soon. Meanwhile, I'll inform those in the Focus and hope the others forgive me and still give it a look:

1 After my outburst over Blogger, it was clear I needed Dr. Michelle Tempest's services, so let me introduce her to those who've never seen 18 Doughty St. Here she stays awake long enough to give some good advice:

I am sure the BBC news came as no surprise to any parent, as they reported that "lack of sleep can impair many functions, including concentration and memory." It was reported in the latest edition of the US sleep journal that researchers found soldiers struggled to make snap decisions in emotionally charged situations after being deprived of sleep for two nights. The authors suggest this could be important for other professions, including doctors, who have broken sleep and need to make quick decisions in a crisis.

2 Forty seven years old and divorced - that's my kind of mate. Bag's at it again, scrutinizing the lucicrous carbon eco thingy:

There is even the obligatory carbon message. 'one-fifth of our carbon emissions are related to the production, processing, transport and storage of food.' Thus 15% of that is 3%. So they are saying 3% of our carbon emissions are wasted. Plus that makes some massive assumptions. The main one being that food waste is across the generators of the carbon equally. As before i find food waste is bread, veg, etc. all the inexpensive local stuff really. So as it's not been flown in from Swaziland or wherever it's carbon footprint is much less.

3 Not strictly a new blog but new to me and to many of my readers, the Lighthouse is crammed with intelligent and not so restrained comment, for example:

I'm a bit ambivalent about this postmodern usurpation of Western civilization. On the one hand it's thoroughly pernicious and all pervasive; it's undermining and destroying from within the type of society we hold dear. It acts as the 'new communism' in more ways than one. Droves of naive people only wish to see its benign, idealistic guise, unwilling to accept proof to the contrary: that multiculturalism is totalitarian in character, is against the individual, is anti-realism and collectivist.

Nine more bloggers here.

[teddy bear hospital] just create an illness first

Now here's a great idea:

The Medical Student Association in Iceland launched a project this week by opening a “Teddy Bear Hospital” in Reykjavík suburb Kópavogur with the aim of making children less frightened of doctors and hospital staff.

“Children can bring their teddies to us ... and we will use all the necessary equipment so the teddies can return to their home in good health,” Stefán Ágúst Hafsteinsson, one of the project’s organizers, told Fréttabladid. The Fruit Truck will offer children who visit the medical students with their teddies fresh fruit.

Wonder if it works with pollies? For example, new NHS junior doctors will be ready and waiting and all you have to do is 'create' an illness for Tony, Gordon or the Chipmunk, say anthrax or the bubonic plague, and the NHS will do the rest. After the funerals, the new PM and Deputy can have their turn.

Good game, yes? By the way, you have to be careful with those wild teddies. A teddy bear was implicated in 2,500 trout deaths not so long ago:

State officials [in New Hampshire] say a teddy bear that fell into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery late last year clogged a drain. The clog blocked the flow of oxygen to the pool and suffocated the fish.

[the great live on] malcolm denzil marshall

Botham caught off Marshall

Born 18 April 1958, Pine, Bridgetown, Barbados;
Died 4 November 1999, Bridgetown, Barbados.

I was at the MCG one hot day in the summer of a year I can't recall. I saw Malcolm Denzel Marshall, ball in hand, stutter at the top of his run up then charge in at breakneck speed and at that characteristic angle then, at the last second, the arm whipped over and a blink of an eye later, two of the Aussie wickets were ricochetting across the turf.

Jaws dropped all round.

Later we found that behind this prodigious talent was one of the finest and most compassionate men this world is likely to see. He was short compared to Garner, Roberts and Holding but he truly was quick, and his most feared weapon, the sudden bouncer, had all batsman shuffling at the crease.

Able to create late swing due to his grip and strange action, he was gnawingly accurate as well. They couldn't get him away. His swing and cut with the ball and that subtle change of pace were further weapons in his armoury which lifted him to the realm of 'awesome'.

Ricie Richardson said of him: "He is a great thinker, he knows the game, he was able to analyse every single batsman and I would like to say that I think he's probably the greatest artiste that we would have produced."

Malcolm Marshall was reasonable as a batsman, with a nice style and he held up his end, particularly the day he batted with one hand against England after injury, allowing his partner his century. Clive Lloyd said that the key to Marshall was that he never gave less than 100% following in the footsteps of his own hero, Sir Garfield Sobers and the great man's New Zealand stint in 1972 was the knock which set him on the path upwards.

Marshall left the bravado on the sporting field and off-field was one of the most thoughtful, caring and laconic of men, stubborn, never panicking, greatly enjoying the cameraderie, the dispute, the banter, the fast bowler's union and he was wont to dish out the advice. Other bowlers learnt from him as he learnt from them, particularly the leg cutter from Dennis Lillee. He was no arrogant snob.

What many did not realize at the time was that he was one of the bravest too, suffering a debilitating disease which eventually took its toll.

Peter Short brought him to Hampshire and he didn't disappoint. Quite often a bit lackadaisical getting to the ground on time, this added to his mystique and there's the story of certain opposition tailenders meeting his car and offering to carry his bags if he'd go a bit easy on them that day.

Finally he slowed and runs began to be scored off him and that's when he increasingly resorted to subterfuge, as Lillee had done before him. In the end, of course, it all had to end but no one wishes to dwell on that. Enough to remember the awesome, jet black [and that's no insult] bowler from Barbados and supporter of charity in later years.

One of the few players the opposition loved just as much as his temamates, though not on-field of course, almost all would say: "Long live Malcolm Denzil Marshall."

[rising sea level] blogosphere says it knows better

This Antarctic iceberg is not melting - truly it's not. The blogosphere tells us it's all a myth and they're oceanographic experts, every one of them. Similarly, this report is rubbish:

Combined global land and ocean surface temperatures over the northern hemisphere's winter were the highest since records began in 1880, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That included the hottest January on record.

Just a little fluctuation, the climate sceptics will tell you, caused by the carbon trading advocates. Similarly, the Tuvaluan people have asked New Zealand to accept their 11 000 people after being forced to evacuate their island:

Sea level is rising because of the melting of glaciers and the thermal expansion of the ocean as a result of climate change. This in turn is due to rising atmospheric levels of CO2, largely from burning fossil fuels.

… but Samizdata tells us this is not so. Samizdata are, of course, experts on oceanography, as distinct from the Earth Policy Institute, who know nothing about the earth.

[stop press] sargasso sea very mysterious

Rushed to you from the the offices of the Daily Higham, this special report from the Bermuda Triangle on the latest situation in the Sargasso Sea:

The Sargasso Sea is part of the North Atlantic Ocean, lying roughly between the West Indies and the Azores. Here, the heart of the Bermuda Triangle is covered by the strangest sea on the planet named for a kind of seaweed called sargassum, which lazily floats over its entire expanse.

Catching sight of these huge mats of seaweed have always marked the perimeter of this peculiar sea. Columbus himself made note of it. Thinking land was nearby, he fathomed the sea, only to find no bottom. The bottom is, in fact, miles below on the Nares Abyssal Plain.

The Sargasso Sea occupies that part of the Atlantic between 20o to 35o North Latitude and 30o to 70o (the horse latitudes), West Longitude. It is in complete contrast to the ocean around it. Its currents are largely immobile yet surrounded by some of the strongest currents in the world: The Florida, Gulf Stream, Canary, North Equatorial, Antilles, and Caribbean currents.

These interlock to separate this sea from the rest of the tempestuous Atlantic, making its indigenous currents largely entropious. Therefore anything that drifts onto any of its surrounding currents eventually ends up in the Sargasso Sea amidst its expansive weed mats of sargassum.

Because of the entropious currents, it is unlikely anything would ever drift out. The Sargasso Sea rotates slightly itself and even changes position as its surrounding currents change with weather and temperature patterns during different seasons.

This rivetting story continues here. For sargassfanats, click here.

[blogspot dot com] track them down and exterminate

I am angry, seriously angry, as in KILL angry.

Blogspot.com would have to be the worst programme/host/server, what ever you wish to call the cursed thing, which I have ever, ever, had the misfortune to have to deal with nad the idiots at the top the most incompetent set of prats ever to know nothing about programming whatsoever.

This morning I tried to post one post. Just one. It wouldn't let me even see the dashboard until I bombed it thirteen or fourteen times from different directions with clicks, closed it all, came back in, closed it, came back in, went out of the internet and back, did it all again and so on.

The bar graph thing which shows percentage loaded would shoot up to 50% and just stick there. Once I went to have a bath and a coffee, came back 20 minutes later and it was still stuck. After an hour and ten minutes, it finally let me post the Blogpower post but get this - it wiped out four of the links, including the Westminster Wisdom link, which made my stranded post nonsensical.

So just for that, Blogspot - Westminster Wisdom, Westminster Wisdom, Westminster Wisdom, Westminster Wisdom. There - let's see you try to wipe all those out, you bstds!!

Am I hot under the collar? Not at all - cool as a cucumber - not. Blogging is fun? Blogspot dot bloody com doesn't know the meaning of the word. I'm crazy, crazy to stay with these incompetents.

There, I feel much better now. Thank you. I'm off to see Dr. Michelle Tempest if she can find the time to fit me in.