Chip the lot of them

Isn't it typical of us British that we love our pets so much that we will hapily go along with a law to help us manage them better. If we've lost our dog, or it's been injured in accident, or whatever, then we want the vet to be able to contact us and get hold of their records. And, of course, we want to be able to track miscreants.

Owners will be forced to install the microchip containing a barcode that can store their pet's name, breed, age and health along with their own address and phone number.

[From All dogs to be microchipped with owner's details to 'help track pets' - Telegraph]

Surely it would make more sense to insist that these chips are installed in the feral children of the underclass that roam freely along our highways and byways. We could put detectors in all public places and then we could easily solve crimes like this. I doubt we would go so far as to actually punish the offenders, but at least we would know who they are.

This is important because one of the government's newest mental schemes is to set up public league tables of yobs. Their idiotic notion is that the underclass would somehow be shamed by having their names published.

Every yob handed an Asbo will be named and shamed online under radical plans outlined last night. All local councils will be told to publish names and photographs of louts.

[From People.co.uk - Asbo yobs shamed in web move]

They won't, of course, since in our new responsibility-free Britain they will only be interested in getting themselves to the top of the league. I bet they'll link their Facebook pages to the councils' online hall of shame, and firmly predict an immediate rise in anti-social behaviour once the system goes live.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Token gestures

Waitrose are running a promotion that means that every time you buy something they give you a small green plastic token. On the way out of the store there are three large perspex containers with a slot in the top. Each container advertises a different local charity. You put your token into the container of your favoured charity. At the end of the month, Waitrose give money to the charities in proportion to wishes of the people and then changes to another three charities. The charities are supports groups for senile dementia, a drop-in centre for troubled teenagers, something for stroke victims, and so forth.

This being England, the animal charity always has about twice the tokens of any human-oriented charity, no matter what it is. At the moment, the animal charity is the local RSPCA centre, and it has more tokens than the other two put together. It makes you proud to come from a country which had a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals some years before it had a society for the prevention of cruelty to children. To be fair, children's work in mines was limited to a mere eight hours per day in 1833 -- only 11 years after the precursor to the RSPCA had been formed -- and it was only another decade before the subsequent Coal Mines Act of 1842 made it illegal for girls, boys under 10 and women to work in mines.

So, just to remind you of this critical measure: society for the prevention of cruelty to animals 1822, society for the prevention of cruelty to children 1884.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Comrade Katz

Specially for GSE, but for everyone else as well, it's time for Eastern European Lolcats:

Kapitan, there was an accident in the research facility! It’s imperative we reach the acid baths…

[From Яolcats]

Another few years of Brownonomics and we'll all be living on potatoes and cheap alcohol, so might as well practice the Internet humour while we still have electricity.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Iced, iced, baby

You think your job is tough? I suspect the head of PR for the Icelandic Tourist Board would be happy to swap with the Corporate Social Responsibility guy at Al Qaeda right now. As you may now, they (together with the Norwegians) have been going out a limb (well, fin) a little with their sea-farming:

The United States on Tuesday urged Iceland and Norway to cease exporting whale meat to Japan, which they have resumed for the first time since the early 1990s despite a United Nations ban.

[From US urges Norway, Iceland to end whale meat exports | Reuters]

Oh no, what now! Well, not long after they outraged just about everyone -- except the Japanese -- by starting to kill whales again, the hardy folk of that beautiful, remote, volcanic world found the first polar bear seen in Iceland for 20 years. And shot it. Way to go sagadudes! Take my advice and put the kitten-throwing competition on hold for a while...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

I saw one! I saw one!

According the U.K. newspapers, the American grey squirrels that have been driving our own British red squirrels to extinction are now about to get their come-uppance from a new master race of mutant black super squirrels.

Scientists say the testosterone-charged black is fitter, faster and more fiercely competitive than both reds or greys.

[From The pack of mutant black squirrels that are giving Britain's grey population a taste of their own medicine| News | This is London]

I nearly fell off the couch when I read this, because I saw a mutant black squirrel in New York two weeks ago, in Central Park. I'd never seen a black squirrel before so I stopped to look and take a picture to show the folks back home...

Even more amazingly, not 20 yards away I saw the dead body of grey squirrel! Seriously! They're here already! You're next! You're next!

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.[posted with ecto]