Mogwai J. Cat has emerged from her last vet’s appointment and is recovering well. She’s pretty well much back to her feline self other than the clouded left eye which has gone from black to red to this state and may at some point clear, how much sight she has in it only she can tell, and she’s not telling. She kept up her dirty protests at being shunted to the vets, this time throwing up her last snack and -killing two birds with one stone, not literally, she kills birds with her fangs & claws & I try to prevent that- a huge length of fur ball into her cat transporter. But she’s all chilled & happy back home and I guess this is two lives down now, I hope she does not continue to test the extremes of her nine lives, I prefer her happy & furry & alive.
The prime minister will go further in defence of the government’s work experience schemes on Thursday. “We see this in the debate on education, put a young person into college for a month’s learning, unpaid – and it’s hailed as a good thing,” he will say.
“Put a young person into a supermarket for a month’s learning, unpaid – and it’s slammed as slave labour.
“Put a child into a great school run by a local authority – cause for celebration.
“Put them into a great school backed by a bank – and that is a cause for suspicion.”
Hmm, well let’s go one at a time:-
“We see this in the debate on education, put a young person into college for a month’s learning, unpaid – and it’s hailed as a good thing,”
Yes, because providing education is a good thing.
“Put a young person into a supermarket for a month’s learning, unpaid – and it’s slammed as slave labour.
Yes, because forcing someone to work for free at a profit making corporation (who may just happen to pay money into your party’s coffers) with the threat of absolute destitution hanging over them is akin to indentured servitude or slave labour.
“Put a child into a great school run by a local authority – cause for celebration.
Yes because again proving education is a good thing.
“Put them into a great school backed by a bank – and that is a cause for suspicion.”
Hmm, gosh why might people be suspicious of a bank running a school? Erm, maybe, just maybe Davey boy because banks have shown by erm, I dunno, centuries of history to be concerned with making money with little regard to the social context of their activities (whoa there bankers crying foul, you may have your business confused with a charity, suck it up chumpos). Therefore providing a social good is at odds with that centuries of behaviour (most recently to be seen by the total global collapse of finance & trust). Therefore, Dave me old clammy faced ex-PR man, it is entirely reasonable to be suspicious that a bank (with hitherto no experience or interest in education whatsoever) is running a school.
So you are either this dumb & blinded by your ideology OR you are laying out some PR schtick in the hope enough rubes buy this shit (hey, works for elections so why not?). Or put another way- you are either stupid or evil, you might even, if a supremely talented neoliberal Prime Minister, be both.
PS. And again I am struck by how the argument for workfare places zero importance on consent, that forcing people into work or face destitution is an approbate thing for anyone, let alone the state to be doing. I do wonder what formative experiences people making this argument had and how much value they place on consent in their interpersonal relationships and how that may alter depending on whether they view person as equals or subordinates and what informs that judgement. I would suppose that they are judging unemployed people to be subordinate, they are making a negative moral judgement and thus abusing them is justified in their thinking. This is a very predictable mechanism for the rationalisation of abuse and domination. Good job they are not in high positions of power with the ability to affect millions of people’s lives down to the tiniest detail, oh, …wait…
A guest post from Dr. Mona Aerfield recent recipient of the Nobel prize in Physics for her work in Scientific Cinema.
It’s tempting in times of global turmoil and the fight against the Austeritons to forget the important advances in our knowledge of exobiology, thus it is time to talk about Moon Spiders. Now it would be unfair for me to reference directly the recent cinematic depiction of Moon Spiders as it represents a huge spoiler for said film, suffice to say if you google Moon Spiders you’ll quickly find the movie in question.
Now some have said the film depicts a fictional situation through means of fabricated found footage and this is true. There was no such Moon mission, however it would be a mistake to think this also erases the existence of Moon Spiders.
But what, you may ask- if such a lunar situated lifeform existed, would they eat? Well the Moon is not primarily a food producing satellite, while Helium 3 might be the tempting bait for the next series of explorations it is of little interest to Moon Spiders. In fact many have theorised that Moon Spiders excrete Helium 3 therefore accounting for its lunar ubiquity, personally I am unconvinced of the evidence presented so far, but retain an open mind.
Nevertheless, the lazy arguments around the existence of Moon Spiders are based on the ‘lunar nutritional fallacy‘. While we may imagine creatures that could survive on the Moon, spiders and their need for sustenance would seem to indicate they would not be the favoured species from a Natural Selection standpoint.
But.
This forgets the basic scientific reality of the Moon’s composition: 100% Cheese.
Moon cheese, a naturally rich and flavoursome savoury delight formed 4.5 billion years ago yet even today not inedibly mature or overly ripe. Yes it’s strong certainly, not for the fainthearted who blanch at the whiff of anything beyond a mild cheddar, but the airless environment & pitiless cosmic radiation lend it a certain malleability of taste that pleases most palates (and as it is a astro-geologically formed cheese it delights both vegans & non vegans alike)
So.
It is clear from a food standpoint the Moon Spider faces no serious shortages. What though of the atmosphere?
Thin.
To describe the Moon’s atmosphere as thin is to be somewhat overgenerous at best. It can be regarded as hardly there at all, as close to a vacuum as the toasters are to the Dysons in Currys. So what then could a Moon Spider do in order to respire? It’s fair to assume they do not possess rudimentary breathing apparatus manufactured out of Moon minerals, even if they did they would not have had them originally so where do they come from? Alien (to the Moon that is) supplied aqualungs? A kindly God? Who being incompetent enough to create a lunar indigenous spider that could not breathe then created little spacesuits for them? This seems an unlikely possibility, even when our knowledge pre-Moon missions allowed certain religious figures and scientists to profess this theory as reasonable and correct. However now with such an increased level of data afforded by lunar exploration we can conclude Moon Spiders survive perfectly well in the near vacuum by means of space trachea that allow radiation to nourish their living processes.
Sex.
Moon Spiders reproduce much as terrestrial spiders do, though will a penchant for grand romantic gestures & dancing to spider techno, qualities their Earthly cousins have yet to develop.
Threat.
What then of the threat posed by Moon Spiders to human settlement of the Moon? Perhaps though we should be asking what threat is posed to Moon Spiders by human intrusion? Certainly the pro-colonial politics of the recent Moon Spider cinema exposé represent an opening salvo in an ideological fight over lunar rights & the framing of historical hegemony. Do we have the right to disregard the territorial integrity of Arachnid Lunaris simply because we assume or perceive them as being inferior?
Intelligence.
This is the most controversial area of current Moon Spider discourse. It has become increasingly clear that national space agencies have engaged in a massive programme of propaganda to portray the Moon Spiders as inferior and hostile, thus priming the public to support a campaign of violent colonisation. Independent studies have found Moon Spiders to be operating at the level of intelligence of a human 5 year old, albeit an intelligence focussed primarily on the acquisition of cheese and the brutal murder of astronauts/cosmonauts. Provoked, the Moon Spiders defend their territory with malign efficiency, or haphazard illogic depending on how you want to look at it and who’s paying your salary. Thus some rapprochement may be possible with Arachnid Lunaris rather than a concerted strategy of hitting them with hammers.
The Future.
Humankind covet the Moon’s precious cheese, Helium 3 & minerals. The Moon Spiders call those things their home and warned of our intentions in the 70′s they must surely be ready to repel further illegal mining activities. While military & space agencies prototype spider proof suits and bigger hammers, some with spiky bits, it is for us to demand the political will instead be directed towards a trade agreement with the Moon Spiders. In return for rights to cheese, helium 3 & minerals we can offer the one commodity we know the Moon Spiders greatly enjoy yet suffer a severe shortage of- scuttling boots. Yes, while they have uniquely evolved to prosper on the Moon they do however suffer from appalling podiatric ailments. Moon dust, cheese and sharp rocks combine to wreak havoc on their fast scuttling feet & legs, the provision of 4 pairs of Grade A Moon scuttling arachnid boots to each and every Moon Spider would go a long way to opening negations towards a peaceful and mutually beneficial Moon future.
The excellent Stephen Jones with a splendid video based on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, directed by some geezer called Johnny Depp, never heard of him mind.
If you’ve not read this yet, you really must, it is unlikely we will know the a truthful and full picture of the Iraq war for many decades despite what casualty deniers wish to believe. You may also wish to read the BBC College of Journalism on reporting the military, which will help contextualise how easy it is for the govt to lie us into war.
RAF helicopter death revelation leads to secret Iraq detention camp: Death in RAF helicopter and secret prison camp in Iraq desert raises questions about legality of British and US operations
The certificate recorded Sabri’s cause of death as unknown. It also showed that the whereabouts of his grave, far from being uncertain, could be pinpointed precisely. The American officer who completed the certificate had gone to considerable lengths to ensure it could be found, beyond the airfield perimeter: “700m out front gate to first culvert, 191 degrees for 50m, next to grave with stacked stones in same location …”
But of greater significance was what the death certificate revealed about the location of the airfield. It showed that the 64 prisoners had not been flown to the prison camp at Umm Qasr at all. They had been taken an airfield codenamed H1, described on the certificate as the forward operating base of a US special forces unit known as Task Force-20. H1 was an airfield built next to an oil pipeline pumping station.
It was 350 miles north-west of Umm Qasr, in the middle of Iraq’s western desert, a vast and desolate expanse of sand and scree. The nearest settlement was many miles away: it is difficult to see how there could have been a “local imam” whose permission needed to be sought before exhumation, or how anyone in the vicinity who could pose “serious security concerns”.
The holding facility at H1 was not inspected by the Red Cross. Moreover, its existence was not disclosed to Lieutenant Colonel Mercer, the UK’s most senior army lawyer in Iraq at the time. Mercer says he was “extremely surprised” to learn of its existence.
He said: “This matter potentially raises very serious questions. Strenuous efforts were made at all times to ensure that all prisoners were accorded the full protection of the Geneva conventions and vigorous objections would have been raised if there was the slightest possibility of a breach of the conventions. It appears from the information disclosed that some prisoner operations were being conducted, deliberately or otherwise, outside of the chain of command.”
The holding facility appears effectively to have been a secret prison – a so-called black site. It is entirely possible, according to international law experts, that taking prisoners to H1 could amount to “unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement”, and that the prisoners were subjected to “enforced disappearances”, both of which are war crimes under the Rome statute of the international criminal court.
One former RAF Regiment trooper who was based at H1 for several months has described being involved in a number of similar missions in which prisoners were collected from coalition special forces. This always happened “under total darkness”, he says. On arrival at H1, the prisoners were handed on to people whom he describes as “other authorities”.
Could this explain why the police investigation into the alleged killing of Tariq Sabri ended with some of the most basic facts – such as his name and the the cause of his death – remaining unknown?
