Dickie By Name Dickie By Nature

In a bit a news that will make all Scotsmen swell with pride, it appears that scientists have confirmed that the first shaggers were in Scotland!

The international team of researchers have reported in the journal 'Nature' that a fish that glories in the name of Microbrachius dicki, is apparently the first-known animal to stop reproducing by spawning, and instead mate by copulation via sexual organs.

They practised this new found fun about 385 million years ago in the waters of some ancient lakes, in land that are now Scotland .... although these fishes were missionaries for the new methods they didn't follow that style as "The very first act of copulation was done sideways, square-dance style." said Professor  Long the lead scientist involved in the discovery .... "They couldn't have done it in a 'missionary position'."

Sex Ancient Scots Style ... Still Looks The Same In Glasgow.

These fish, at only about 8cm long, were small pioneers but they were prophets without followers, because as fish evolved, they reverted back to spawning for reproduction, and it was few million years for copulation to make a come-back, reappearing in ancestors of sharks and rays.

But before all the Scots get too big headed .... if you use a sort of pig Latin/English translation Microbrachius dicki, could be translated as 'little dick arm'.       

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

The BBC had a dress malfunction on its website the other day, and put up its emergency 'Simplified' web-page.

Simplified BBC Homepage

What caught my attention was that the only two faces displayed were two distinctly old, 1960's icons Tony Blackburn (aged 71) and Terry Wogan (aged 76), advertising a current music event .... laughable really.

It is quite stunning that the BBC can't actually replace these ancient performers, and indeed still relies on both them, and the even more venerable Bruce Forsyth (aged 86), to try and keep its ratings up. Whatever happened to the ethos of 'Hope I die before I get old - My generation baby' ... a song that was a hit when these three gentlemen were all entering, or already in their middle-ages.     

Now ironically this web page malfunction came in the same week as the BBC Trust's review of BBC One, Two, Three and Four, concluded that the BBC should become more distinctive, and take more creative risks, as the trust believed that viewers feel that the BBC tends to "play it safe", and rely too much on trusted staples, and that the BBC must try and reverse its fall in the young viewing audiences.

For example the average age of BBC1 viewers has grown to 59 years, from age 56 in the period  2010/11 (so its probably worse than that now), while the average age of people watching BBC2 had also grown, from 58 to 60 years in the same period.

Oddly, BBC3, the BBC's only youth orientated 'risk' TV channel (and incidentally the only BBC channel I regularly watch), is to be removed from terrestrial TV, and placed solely on the Web, via the BBC iPlayer.

I don't think its hard to see where the BBC's problems may stem from .... if Arthur Askey or Harry Secombe were still alive, they would probably still be presenting on the BBC.

But suffice it to say that both these comedians, now long dead, had worked with Bruce Forsyth. In 1964 Forsyth presented the Baird Festival of Television show at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring the likes of Kathy Kirby, Arthur Askey and Gracie Fields. In February 1965, at the same venue, he presented ‘Welcome to the Golden Ball‘, starring Harry Secombe and Sandie Shaw.

Bruce Forsyth, Harry Secombe and Gracie Fields

It kind of puts the BBC's 'Star' policy into a time perspective, when you consider that you have have been born in the late 1950's or earlier to be able to recall TV shows from the mid 1960's, and yet Bruce Forsyth was the mature compare and host on shows at that time .... but he and others of similar vintage are still BBC mainstays.

The BBC policy on selecting 'the talent', is nearly as sclerotic as its stars ....     

Who Wants To Live Forever

It appears that the alleged vampiric activities of Countess Bathory were on the right tracks, if a little crude in their application .... scientists have found that injecting the blood of young mice into older rodents boosted their brainpower, thus reversing some of the processes of ageing. There has also been a related discovery of the effect of the growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11), which is a protein that has been identified to promote rejuvenating effects in heart, brain and muscles, and that occurs in greater concentration in young than on old, and which was reported in the journal Science.

Countess Bathory - Early Gene Replacement Therapy

However I am sorry to say that in my view, unless the quality of life is maintained, then a long life per se is actually more like a curse ... you can become a prisoner in your own body. I once, in what now seems like another lifetime, used to go and visit people approaching their personal century, to ascertain if they or their families wanted to receive the congratulatory 'telegram' (although it was not actually a telegram message) from the Queen. This was to try and prevent Her Majesty being embarrassed by someone rejecting her congratulations, an event I had never witnessed, but apparently quite common with old revolutionaries and communists in some industrial areas such as the Clyde etc.

Anyway, on one of these visits I met a 99 year old man, who was particularly alert, and we talked for about an hour - unusually he was on his own sat in a chair when I visited, normally a relative and or a nursing home owner would be with them, but this was a home visit. However all was explained as we talked, apparently his home help had left after just 30 minutes, and he would be on his own until an evening visit to get him to bed. It then came out that he had not only out lived his own three children, but two of his grandchildren, and he didn't actually know his great grandchildren as people. All his contemporaries were dead, and even his near contemporaries, and to top it all, despite his great lucidity, he was effectively housebound due to frailty, and that as far he was concerned, he was now a 'prisoner in a time not my own, as well as my body' .... he said that he wished he hadn't lived to the great age of 100.

Needless to say I was very much affected by this opinion, coming as it did from the horses mouth, and came to the firm opinion that the age range of 70 to 75, in good mental and physical health was by far a better option to hope for.       

So, sorry to say this again, but this obsession with eternal youth seems to me to get in the way of living what we've got well, in a few decades time people will be able to sit and watch drivel on their TV, while eating fatty burgers and processed food, and grunting their limited vocabulary for even longer .... the prophetic film 'Idiocracy' nicely fits the bill

Konspiracy Korner: There are some strange theories doing the rounds about all these medical advances. For instance apparently in 2013, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the USA, managed to place false memories into a mouse, and have now been able to alter existing mouse memories ..... and this, in conjunction with these abilities to reverse aging have fueled conspiracy theories that all these medical developments are a part of some US military project .... a bit like that one about all the fluoride which is accumulating in our brains, like lime scale inside taps (to be fair, recent long term studies appear to show that the claimed water fluoridation benefits, may not be that great, and even be harmful) ... although a conspiracy to achieve what, apart from brain altered old people, its hard to determine.

Oh well, if I keep having these sudden urges for cheese sandwiches, and to squeak, I'll know the treatments working .....

Being A Forgotten First

There has to always be a first at anything, from first fish to breathe air on land, to first 'black' (well half white and half black ... so in the strange way these things work, not 'mixed race' but, 'black') President of the United States, we count these firsts and give them a significance that they don't always merit. However, normally they are immortalised, in a temporary kinda way ....

 

Jesse Owens On Winners Podium

 

So in this manner we kinda have it in our minds that the 'first' black Olympic gold medal winner was Jesse Owens - haven't we? Or so we may think we have.

A Heart In The Darkness

'A Kiss is but a Kiss' so the song says ... well outside of the heart of darkness, where its apparently a sackable offense.

We have recently posted about cultural imperialism on this blog, where different examples, from the holiday Brits in the Mediterranean to the sexual holidays of some groups of western men, and this prompted comment that when discussing these issues in a comparative manner, we should be promoting promoting human values, and condemning those laws which discriminates against people for the way that they were born.e.g. anti-homosexuality laws.

Now I don't know about you, but I hadn't really thought about the African country of Tanzania much ... well not at all actually ... but certainly if I had thought of it, I wouldn't have  thought of it as one of the heart of darkness states, and certainly not in the same category as some states such as the 'Democratic Republic of Congo' ...

But in fact they exhibit many of  the problems that plague the rest of the continent, and recently they even had a spate of 'witch killings', with 23 people arrested and charged with murder, after seven villagers were burned alive on the suspicion of practicing witchcraft. This kinda propels them into the same league as the other socially and educationally backward states of the region - and into a special group, including Brazil and Saudi Arabia, where people still believe that witches are more than just old women with no family protection.

So the idea that they actually had a police code of conduct (apart from making bribe taking compulsory), seemed incongruous - certainly one that would cause the dismissals of three police officers for a harmless act, was a novel thought.

But recently three officers (two men and a woman), lost their jobs because a couple in uniform kissed in public (whether off duty or not, it seems was irrelevant), and another officer secretly photographed them, and then posted it on-line. Apparently both the kissing in uniform, and the posting it on-line, broken the Tanzanian police code of conduct.

A Kiss Is But A Kiss ..... Normally

So what are we to make of this .... most Tanzanians apparently would agree that on the one hand, rules are rules, while saying on the other, that it seems a draconian punishment, especially in view of the fact that the police in Tanzania have a massive public creditability problem, as they are notorious both for taking bribes and not catching criminals. So although technically its a series of sackable offenses, if there had been conduct warnings issued, most people would have thought that was enough punishment.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Zimbabweans have also joined in the fun and games, as the University of Zimbabwe has also imposed a student kissing ban .... to a predictable storm of condemnation on social media.

However the interesting thing for me from this story, was that like most of Africa, the population has simply bypassed the old telephone land line system (which had never been rolled out in Africa), and skipped straight to mobile phones. This is possibly unique in our history, because in one bound, the Africans, whose communication infrastructure was still in the colonial era, jumped into the 21st century.

They already have 80% market penetration of mobile phones and this is expected to grow again ..... They are even driving the very low costs down further. So the fact that in the middle of nowhere, two police officers kissing could end up on the Internet and become a story in the world news, is solely down to the fact that African mobile phone usage has become a modern technology phenomena ....

... One which might finally drive the superstition that supports 'witch killing', into the darkness of history where it belongs.

Red Haired Prejudices

I have always been partial to redheads, so have never understood why apparently some of them are subject to what could be called  'gingerism'.

Queen Boudicca Was A Formidable Redhead ... and Not A Whinger.

 

Being called 'carrot top' or 'ginger', 'copper-top', 'ginger-nut', 'ginger minger', etc doesn't seem too bad but is obviously distressing to the victims .... although being called 'a ginger tw*t' is possibly a different matter.

Stonehenge Revisited

I know from the number of hits these posts receive, that people are interested in how things looked in the past ..... although at least one commenter on an earlier post believed that contrary to all the evidence and skills of archaeology etc "the idea of "repairing" ancient structures like this is hilariously dumb, for the simple reason that we have no idea what they would have looked like originally and any attempt to rebuild them will only ever end up imposing the style and taste of the current era on it." .....

 

Working Benefits

Despite our similarities with Australia etc, we live in a very different culture. I remark on this because of the different treatment of prostitutes around the Anglo-Saxon world ..... supposedly the second oldest profession in the world, but in many places not accepted as being part of society even now.

For instance, despite its historical connections with the free love movement via the the early socialist groups such as the 'Fellowship of the New Life', and its more socialist offshoot, The Fabian Society, many of whose members were followers of the free love movement, the UK Labour Party has never embraced the idea of 'working girls', preferring to think of them as exploited women instead. The other political parties have to some degree or other taken a similar stance, with a set of polices to limit prostitution by making soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, pimping and pandering, crimes. But left the act itself legal .....

The Worlds Oldest and Most Honest Profession?

However in Australia, they have taken a different view and prostitution is legal in the most populated states in the country ....

Australian Prostitution

But what brought the difference in treatment of prostitutes to my mind, was the news reports coming out of Australia this year that hookers who lose their jobs ~ by which I have to assume those in organised brothels, and not the 'freelancer', although reports didn't specify ~ can now claim unemployment welfare benefits if their sex work dries up, welfare officials have decided.

Now. liberal though this may seem, for the life of me I don't see how the ladies concerned are going to prove that their sex work has dried up? I speak with some authority on this, as a long time ago, and in a different career, I worked as a visiting officer for the Department of Social Security (DHSS), and many of the ladies I visited turned a trick or two when they needed shoes for their kids etc. I couldn't prove anything, even if neighbours complained (anonymously), and simply advised the girls in question to either ply their trade away from home, or be discrete and not do many clients or I would be forced to cancel their benefits. Which of course would have simply forced the girls back into the sex trade full time, and put them at risk of harm.

The Australian welfare officers will face the same problem ..... proving a girls work is 'drying up' can be a very tricky business.

Creations That Will Never Make It To Primark

When fashion students put on their Graduate Fashion Week, they are usually a bit odd, but sometimes they are also striking images. So its possibly no surprise that when Sho Takemura from Nottingham Trent University, presented her graduation show at Graduate Fashion Week in London, it attracted much press coverage ....

These Creations May Not Make It To Primark

The Japanese Crisp (Chips to Americans) Packet Seems To Have A Navigation Flaw

.... I know that the aim isn't to necessarily produce practical clothing, more to produce ideas that can be toned down for high street clothing. However, I have to question how a packet of crisps over your head will ever be practical .... or even the other 'Gimp' masks.

If it ever made it to Primark's, then it would make my complaints about Burkha's seem a bit daft ....

Talishopping

Who would have thought that the Taliban were avid shoppers of male grooming items?

Whites Are Popular With Some Taliban

Apparently, in the areas that they control in Pakistan (North Waziristan etc), the biggest customers for male grooming products are, or rather were, the younger male Taliban members.

 

Last Man Standing

This year saw the 25th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square protests that led to the biggest crackdown by the Communists in the decades since the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. An anniversary that was commemorated by the house arrest of every human rights supporter in Beijing to stop protests, even though most Chinese people never got told what happened in 1989. Thousands were killed, and many more were arrested and sent to re-education and labour camps .... but even in protest, the rich or connected have it better in a corrupt Communist society. Only Hong Kong in China still remembers (and recent events show that they know they have to resist now) ......

Hong Kong Still Remembers The 'Tienanmen Square Massacres'.

Its alleged that the only Tienanmen protester who is still in custody is a Mr Miao Deshun .... who was a lowly factory worker from Beijing, and whose only charged crime was throwing a bakery bread basket at an already burning tank in Tienanmen Square. For this he was sentenced to death, later commuted to a life sentence of labour and re-education .... kind of a 'Education through Work' punishment (where have I heard that kinda thing before?), but many others got the same sentence.

Now you might expect that in a society in which everyone is equal, that in fact all the protesters would get the much the same sentences, but apparently those with 'connections', such as Wang Dan, one of the protest organisers, were given a mere four years in prison ....while Miao Deshun, whose part in the protest was minimal is still imprisoned, and believed to be the last man still imprisoned.

He is possibly never going to be released, even after his 25th year in incarceration this year, in fact its not even clear that he still lives, because he has apparently shown tremendous courage and refused to apologise for exercising what was nominally his constitutional rights. He has apparently gone even further, and in the face of what we can only imagine included much physical maltreatment, he:

• Refuse to admit any guilt, or sign a 'confession'.
• Refuses to carry out any assigned prison work, he just sits in his cell.

He is now in a psychiatric prison in the middle of nowhere, where he refused visits from his family, and so hasn't been seen for years ..... in this treatment he reminds me a little bit of the Israeli prisoner of conscience Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 yrs in an Israeli prison (mostly in solitary confinement), for telling the world that Israel had a not so secret nuclear program and had made bombs.

In Defence Of The Trojan Horse

After the 'Trojan horse' scandal in some schools in the UK', where some secular state schools were found to have been subverted into following Islamic practices, I expected that, knowing how the BBC can't stand it if Islam gets 'attacked' , they were bound to have a twist on the events .... So I was waiting for the 'empire' to fight back and the only issue was what form would it take?

Well they took me by surprise by casting around for some 'other' (meaning 'white') group, who have somehow committed the same 'sin' as the Muslims (meaning 'victimised' non whites, preferably of south Asian heritage, by forcing them to practise Christianity) .... it took a week or so, and they couldn't actually find any minorities being persecuted by Christian fundamentalists, but then they hit a sort of pay-dirt. So without even pretending that this story is anything but a biased retaliation they launched off with ..

"The Trojan Horse investigation has focused on an alleged plot to take over some Birmingham schools and run them according to Islamic principles. But while the role of Islam in education has come in for scrutiny, across the UK many students also follow a strict "fundamentalist" Christian curriculum."

Welcome To England - English Language Optional ....

 
.... and with those words they opened into an attack on 'Christian fundamentalist schools' .... completely missing the point entirely, about why the issue of the 'Islamification' of secular state schools was a problem.

The Road To Kazakhstan

We at PC Towers are no friends of potholes, having highlighted the terrible state of Britain's roads, and locally complained to get my own road resurfaced.

So we can only applaud the efforts of the 'Guerrilla' creative house group of artists in Kazakhstan .... who like the Iranian 'Black Hand collective' or the UK's 'Banksy' create street art to publicise or entertain or protest ....

They have opted to tackle the potholes of Kazakhstan in an eye catching and point making manner ...

Kazakh Potholes Are Dangerous

.... placing fake papier-mache legs sticking out of 10 holes around the city.  

"We approached the issue with irony. Rather than make the usual hue and cry about holes in the roads being bad, we simply highlighted the problem and showed it needs sorting".

An earlier campaign, had some success when they drew 'bulls eyes' around street litter bins, which encouraged the public to dispose of rubbish accurately, so apparently they are hopeful this campaign will do the trick ... eventually.

"People are paying attention, and writing in social media to thank us. This should solve the problem after a while" .... well lets hope so, I have seen uncovered drains like this before, and they are no joke on badly lit streets after a few drinks.

Accidents Do Happen

Filed under the "Strange But True" drawer was a story from Tokyo, Japan. An unnamed woman but apparently aged in her 30's, somehow fell down a 8 inch (20 cm) gap between a train and the platform, and was trapped at JR Minami-Urawa rail station, just north of Tokyo in July 2013.  A public announcement that a passenger was trapped was relayed across the station.

Passenger Squeeze Measures Reached New Heights In Tokyo

This prompted about 40 people to join with train officials, to attempt to push the 32-ton train carriage to one side, and free the woman.

 

Which Yardsticks

I was listening to a radio programme the other day in which a man was reading the book "A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari ....

 

A Brief History of Humankind

 

..... and something the reader said made me think.

 

Western Cultural Imperialism

Sometimes the arrogance of Westerners is astounding.

Ray Cole Freed

Recently Ray Cole, a 69 year old man from the UK went to a country, where homosexual acts are legally forbidden.

Where Killer Tortoises Are King

African Lions, Elephants, Buffaloes, Crocodiles and Hippos .... 

 

 

 .... there are plenty of large animals to worry about in Africa, and that's not counting poisonous snakes and insects etc.

Armed And Doddery

Sometimes our ambitions outstrip our abilities .... take for example Mr Russell Cooper, armed robber. He held up a bank in Boynton Beach, Florida. 

Russell Cooper Aged 77 - Armed And Doddery

Firstly, his robbery method lacked a bit of thinking through ..... he pulled a pocket knife, which he then waived at the cashier after first threatening the assistant branch manager. This was because apparently the bank had told him that his account had been closed because of a consistent lack of funds in the account. Cooper then pulled his pocket knife, and the manager fearing he would be stabbed told the cashier to give Cooper $130.

Then there was his age .... at 77 he was not the man he had once been.

Then there was the fact that he had no mask and the whole episode was filmed.

And finally there was his escape method .... he hadn't brought a car or hot rod ......  no he had his Zimmer Frame, and had to go to the toilet before leaving .....

Of course, it wasn't quite as funny as it looks. According to police, Mr Cooper had told the manager that he was going to be his hostage, or he would "slit his throat". So it was probably good that he didn't get far after his robbery, but give him some credit for bravery, or probably in his case stupidity, because when the police turned up and attempted to arrest him while he was still in the bank, he resisted, the 'hostage' got away, and Mr Cooper threatened a police officer, and had to be tazered.

Given his age and condition, it seems likely that he's not likely to need a bank account again, as he faces a lengthy prison sentence for armed robbery.  

Political or Religious Differences

What a strange and deeply disturbing justice system Britain has developed ...

 

Rapist Animals - But not racists according to crown prosecution service.

Pakistani men can form gangs, rape, drug beat up and threaten thousands of white girls in just one town ~ with grave suspicions that this is just the tip of the iceberg (if other convictions for similar crimes are a hint of what's been happening). Media stories suggest  Muslim child rapists are due to be arrested in Greater Manchester, but they get sentences as low as 4 years for crimes, for which a white or black male would get life for, partly because the Crown Prosecution Service refuse to charge them with racial and religiously motivated crimes, despite the overwhelming evidence that this was a huge factor. 

 

For instance in the only people prosecuted for child rape in Rotherham, Zafran Ramzan, 21, was jailed for just nine years after being found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl in her own home, and two counts of sexual activity with a child. The other four men were convicted of sexual activity with a child. Razwan Razaq, 30, was jailed for a total of 11 years. Umar Razaq, 24, for four and a half years. Both Adil Hussain, 20, and Mohsin Khan, 21, were sentenced to just four years in prison.

However matters are different in the main community. For instance, Neil Masterson, an apparently Catholic man (as he describes himself on his Facebook page), attacked the MP George Galloway, whose religious affiliations are not entirely clear. But who was brought up in a Catholic area of Dundee (which is known as 'Tipperary'), and is from an Irish background, which suggests that he was at least nominally of that faith. NB: Mr Galloway has denied that he ever converted to Islam (despite other claims that he did so... this tactic of neither denying or confirming if he is Muslim seems calculated to have some impact, but I couldn't speculate on whom).    

Political or Religious Differences?

The assault left Mr Galloway with a possible broken jaw, and broken ribs and bruises to his head .... and perhaps unsurprisingly this didn't garner much sympathy in the press, but was apparently because Mr Masterson disliked Mr Galloway's anti-Israeli stance, and his opinions on the holocaust ... referring to Galloway as "a Hitler." However what made me pause, and showed how twisted our justice system is, was that the 'common assault charge' was also accompanied by one of 'religiously aggravated assault'.

So a white male assaults another white male, and both are possibly of the same religious background, and with no reports stating that the attacker made any reference to Galloway's religion, the attacker is  charged with 'religiously aggravated assault'.

So in summary. Organised racially and religiously targeted child rape gangs do not warrant any 'religiously or racially aggravated' charges, while an assault between an aggressor and victim from the same race and religious background, and apparently prompted by differences of political opinions attracts a 'religiously aggravated assault' charge??  

This reminds me of when Sacha Baron Cohen put a woolly hat on and called himself Ali G, and middle-class white males treated him as being 'black', despite the fact that he was not blacked up in anyway .... here Galloway talks up Islam without ever saying that he is a Muslim, and somehow the CPS decide that an attack on him by another man, who is not a Muslim, and who makes no reference to Galloway's religion, is somehow a religiously aggravated assault.

If ever there was a sign of how Political Correctness actually blinds its adherents, this must be it .... so by CPS logic, if Galloway had been attacked by a Muslim, I assume that this would not have been a religiously aggravated assault, even though Galloway may not be a Muslim.

Like I said ... the worlds turned upside down ....

Correction 09/11/14:

Mr Masterson is now being described as 'Jewish' in the press:

A Jewish man who is a full-time carer for a middle aged woman denied repeatedly punching George Galloway in the face because he "was an enemy to Judaism."

Neil Masterson who was "employed at manager level at the BBC between 2004 and 2007" is alleged to have shouted about the holocaust. Mr Galloway was interviewed by police under caution in August after he said Bradford had been "declared an Israel-free zone."

Masterson told the police: "I didn't want him to think I'm scared, Galloway is Anti-semitic and I am Jewish."


This confusion as to his faith and motives is still being displayed (he apparently converted to Judaism ~ an event which isn't always recognised in some instances), which may reflect the state of mind of Mr Masterson. Strangely, now that he is in fact described as being of another faith (Mr Galloway may be coy about his religious affiliations, but we can be sure that he is not 'Jewish'), the charges of  religiously aggravated assault against him was dropped .... WTF?

So apparently, when it was being reported that Mr Masterson was Catholic, he faced charges of  religiously aggravated assault against another man of the same faith, but when Jewish, he doesn't face that charge ... which entirely supports the thesis of the post that this is all PC driven. Minority v Different Minority = No Race Crime. Non Minority v Anyone = Race Crime

Oh and by the way, Masterson has now pleaded guilty to causing the Respect MP actual bodily harm .... which also backs my theory that 'Converts are the most dangerous of people' 

Odd Man Out

Odd how attempts to address historical wrongs can result in the opposite occurring ....

Obama And Holder Had An Agenda -
Some Whites Believe It Is Not Racially Even Handed.

 
Eric Holder was the first black Attorney General in US history. He was put in place by the first black President in US history. Hand in hand they were going to right the lingering wrongs of US racial history, and lead the US into Martin Luther King's 'dreamland', where black and white could be brothers, and the colour of the mans skin had no bearing on a mans progress in life.