Please God don't let any Managers or Environmentalists Immigrate to my Country!

I saw an advert on TV yesterday which left me rather bemused. I can only assume the idea came up at some stupid management meeting; loads of people "skilled" in the art of working out what "everyday" people's "purchasing criteria" were decided to be "pro-active", "touched base" together, "brainstormed", and came up with a "top-down", "user-centred", "outside of the box" idea that "ticked all the right boxes". They recognised that for a "retail-phenomenon" to have maximum "impact" and to be "taken to the next level" required it to be practical and useful and that aesthetic appeal was important. So they "threw all their ideas into the wok and saw if they got a stir-fry", "ran them up the flag-pole and saw if anyone saluted", and "nailed them to a wall and saw if anyone developed a religious belief about them" (I made that one up).

And they came up with slightly-scented tampons. Now why, in the name of all that is holey (pun intended, hence the spelling), would anyone want slightly-scented tampons? I can think of only 2 reasons, and they should both be illegal (I believe one of them is in Watford).

Hm, starting on management speak; talk about a soft target, I'm getting really lazy at this blogging lark. Let's try something else: Immigration. There are many ideas on immigration from shutting the borders, through only letting in highly qualified people, to letting everyone man Jack and his mother-in-law in. Britain has one of the highest rates of immigration per head of population in the world (disclaimer: this figure is a guess and any resemblence to true data is purely coincidental) from all over the world, and yet we still can't win any sporting events!

Think about it, we're swamped with people from the commonwealth, yet all those countries seem to kick our arses at cricket. African imigrants are here en-masse yet we never win long distance running (ignoring Paula Radcliffe who is, let's face it, not exactly sub-Saharan). There're now thousands of Eastern Europeans, and yet we can't win any of the throwing events at the olympics. And now the damn Chinese are threatening to take over the snooker!! We can't even win the curling!!! We should be targetting people who can play sport and then only let them in.

Brazilians to play football and beach volleyballs for us.
Aussies for cricket.
Kiwis for rugby.
Any Americans (with their coaches and "medicine packs").
Canadians for ice hockey.

Now for something that really fucks me right off: Man-Made Global Warming (MMGW). You know all about it, it's the religion of the 21st century (sorry Islam). Despite the fact that it doesn't stand up to the simplest of scientific tests (proof to follow), it's been taken as fact by almost everyone; mostly because they're too fucking stupid to understand that the mass-media, who provide all their "sciency-information", know fuck-all about science and disproving stuff. Right, by now I've probably attracted the (environ)mentalist's version of an inquisition or a fatwa; probably involves feeding me nothing but organic carrots for five years (rectally), or some such. For anyone who hasn't devloped a frenzied hatred of me for having a differing point-of-view, here's my evidence (something the other side have nothing of) that MMGW is a load of balls:

1) Over the last 100 years, man-made carbon emissions have increased monotonously (I don't know if it's linear, quadratic, exponential, or wobbly and frankly I don't really give a fuck; it's going up).

2) Average global temperature (contrary to newspaper/BBC/Reuters etc. headlines) has not monotonously increased in the same period (source: Scientific American). It increased gradually from 1900-1970, then dropped back to almost 1920's levels by 1975, and has increased ~linearly since (still well below 1960). So the "hottest July day on record" in Britain this year may have been true in Gatwick, but wasn't for ANYWHERE else. Oh, and it wasn't the hottest day on record as some reporters claimed; there was a hotter day in August 2003 and a whole hotter week in August 1983, plus several other examples I can't be arsed to list.

3) Since 1975 (the only period for which accurate measurements are available), solar output has increased linearly (by ~0.05% per year: source NASA).

Now, it is normal scientific practice that, if your theory (MMGW) doesn't fit the data (average global temperatures) that should support it, then your theory is what we scientists call F-U-K-T fucked (yes, I've nicked that from a film; cup of tea to the first successful answer); or, amongst more diplomatic circles "in need of ammendment". But this is not the mentalists's approach, they prefer 'if the data doesn't fit, ignore it'; and they have the fucking cheek to call themselves environmental SCIENCE.

But don't take my word for it, there's a new space mission been/being (can't remember) launched to study solar output and compare the results with average global temperatures. It's called STEREO. Ever heard of it? No? Neither have most people. Despite the fact that this mission could go a long way to determining if global temperature variations (I refuse to call it warming when we're talking about fluctuations over periods of a few decades max.) are due to the Sun (which outputs more energy in 1 second than we use in 1 year, approximately), or the actions of a few hairless apes, all of whom could fit on the Isle of Wight, hardly anyone knows about it. Such is the hold the MMGW lobby have over the media. With the amount of money being spent and promised to be spent on tackling the causes of MMGW, I really believe that STEREO should have been the big news of the last few months. But no, 1 editorial in the Times is all I've seen in the mass-media, and some announcements on the net.

Anyone who thinks of themselves as intelligent and/or someone who likes to base their opinions on all the evidence really should remain highly sceptical of MMGW until the results of this mission are in. But my hunch is that you'll never hear about them, because they'll probably conflict with MMGW, so they'll be ignored or discredited by everyone who makes their name giving soundbites to the press about dire man-made consequences to come. Ah, look at me, predicting the results before they're in; I'm as bad as the mentalists. Or maybe not, I'll change my mind if the data is convincing.

Right, been a bit serious today. Next time, more on the comic stupidity of mankind (well, the previous discussion could fall into this category, but wasn't exactly laugh out loud).