Another One Bites The Moon Dust

It is a sad fact that the first man to walk on the moon was 1969 and the last was in 1972 and we haven't been back since.
Edgar Mitchell was the 6th man on the moon and his death means that of the 12 humans who have set foot on another solar body, five have died and the remainder are all in the eighties so there could soon not be anybody alive who has walked on anything but the Earth.   
Unfortunately, once the moon was landed upon the space program cooled and the next giant step of a moon base or man on Mars, never materialised and due to financial constraints, is unlikely to be revived in our lifetime.
'There are not compelling publicly-held reasons for doing it' a NASA spokesman explained, 'Without a rationale that everybody understands and can buy into, it's a very hard sell to get the resources to do it'.
The question, 40 years later, seems to have become less 'when are we going back' and more 'why should we go back'.
There is no shortage of people suggesting we have better things to spend our money on here on Earth but exploring is what us humans do we, we go looking for places to investigate and attempt to establish a foothold.
How can anyone look up at the night sky, see the beautiful moon and stars and wonder are we alone, what else is there in the inky blackness of space and if we have the technology and know how to do it, why are we not doing more to add to the very limited knowledge we have about our nearest neighbour.

Booby Sands

Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, have long been making tits of themselves and now they have confirmed it by making a hilarious typo on their campaign leaflet.  
Mary Lou McDonald, the deputy leader of the party wanted to be quoted invoking the spirit of one of the figureheads of the Irish Republican movement, Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who starved himself to death in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in 1981 however, somewhere along the way Bobby became Booby and nobody noticed until the leaflets were printed and were distributed.
The leaflets have know been withdrawn so i assume Sinn Fein are now keeping abreast of the situation and hope that it is soon forgotten and fades from peoples mammaries before the election.

Arsenal v Leicester Dilemma

I face a bit of a tricky dilemma next weekend because my team Arsenal are playing the top of the league team Leicester.
Arsenal still have an outside chance of winning the title but in my hearts of hearts it's pretty unlikely
while Leicester are six points clear at the top with 13 games to go.  
To put it into context Leicester were almost relegated out the top division last season and had odds of 5000-1 in August to top the league this season and when you see the bookies are offering 500-1 for Northern Ireland to win this years Euro's then it shows what a magnificent feat they have achieved this season.
My problem is that i obviously want Arsenal to win the league but if they don't, i'd would want Leicester to but if Arsenal beat Leicester this coming Sunday then it would not only dent Leicesters chances but open the door for Tottenham and Manchester City who are presently second and third.
A Leicester win would pretty much finish any chances Arsenal have of adding to the Emirates Stadium trophy cabinet and a draw would put it on life support.
While Arsenal can still win it i will be willing a gunners victory and with 36 more points after this game to play for it could still all change but i do wish it wasn't Leicester that Arsenal have to beat this weekend.
Of course we are all looking forward to Tottenham choking and ending up in the usual UEFA Cup place they always grab at the end of the season but ideal would be an Arsenal win and then Leicester, Spurs and Manchester City all drop points and it's the Gunners holding aloft the big cup in May but if they don't then the romantic in me wants it to be Leicester.

Dangerous Creations Blog

How ironic that the Dangerous Creations blog, which Daniel spent so much time on dispelling the myth of God and all things Holy has gone and been replaced by links to creationist sites.
The Dangerous Creation blog was always very left wing whose views crossed so much with mine and Daniel the author was never slow to rub up anyone who held an an opposite view to him, the arguments he became embroiled in on this blog are testament to that.
When i came to this blog in 2007 Dangerous Creations was one of the first blogs on my blogroll and it is quite sad to see yet another long term blogger who has decided to end their participation but as anyone who has blogged for any length of time will tell you, it can become quite a commitment to keep up.
So i raise a glass of something fizzy to Daniel and Dangerous Creations who was one of the original bloggers and i hope that whatever he is doing now in the Land Down Under, he is enjoying it.
In honour of the Australian who did so much to anger Americans and gave me an outlet to wind up our Aussie cousins, i dedicate the following post: Whinging Pom Eggs

Library Day

Today marks National Libraries Day, one of the most important institutions that we have and according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) 240 million books were borrowed from the 3,450 libraries left in Britain.
The most borrowed authors of 2014-15 were James Patterson, Juliia Donaldson and Daisy Meadows. Roald Dahl was the most borrowed 'classic author' with Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie making up the top three.
The title that was most checked out by the British public was the 'Personal' by thriller writer Lee Child, 'Never Go Back' also by Lee Child and the crime mystery 'Abattoir Blues' by Peter Robinson.
The most borrowed audio-book was Lesley Pearse's 'Without a Trace' read by Emma Powell.
I seemed to have spent a good portion of last year plowing through the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, a great accidental discovery about a female bounty hunter who mixes it in a world of supernatural characters and as there are 22 novels, 2015 was certainly a Stephanie Plum year although i also managed to squeeze in a handful of Ben Elton books and re-read 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', a book so far removed from the 'Blade Runner' film it spawned that to say the usual 'loosely based on the novel' isn't loose enough.

Assange Arbitrarily Detained

British arrogance is renown but as the saying goes if you lay with dogs then you get fleas and Sweden seems to have caught something nasty from the Brits because the usually laid back Scandinavians are embroiled in the nasty smell over Julian Assange.
The United Nation have found that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being 'arbitrarily detained' in the Ecuadorian embassy for the past 3 and a half years but the British and Swede's shake their heads and call the United Nations 'ridiculous' and say 'no he hasn't'.
To make it worse the Brits and Swedes are acting on behalf of the United States as Assange had shown the World the awful things the American military were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and rather than go after the people doing the murdering, they went after the messenger and Britain as always was happy to be the lapdog and drag Sweden into out murky World.
The findings that state Assange’s 'deprivation of liberty' must end should mean it's time for him to walk free and to be compensated for the lengthy period he has been holed up in the Embassy but tonight he remains in his embassy room and Britain and Sweden remaining adamant that the report changes nothing. 
The CIA's 'Rendition Airlines' and that cell beside Bradley/Chelsea Manning will just have to wait and Sweden should choose it's friends more carefully.

I Wanna Be Elected

The best thing about other countries elections are that they won't effect us so we can be as blasé as we like about them so it is fun watching the Americans tie themselves up in knots about who will take the keys to the White House front door.
Will it be the racist with the mad hair or the wife of the man who famously managed to soil the interns blue dress while not having sexual relations with that woman.
It could yet be the Socialist who wants to turn America into Europe or even the Canadian who end up with their feet under the Oval Room table.
One person who seems to be shamefully overlooked is the brother of the man who is widely regarded as the dumbest US President since that one who kept falling over steps and was described as being: 'so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time'.    
George W Bush's little brother, Jeb, has hardly registered on the radar and apparently so low key has been his campaign that he had to remind his supporters to clap after a particularly dull speech on National Security. 
We could yet see someone break out of the pack who isn't any of the above but it doesn't look as though the next Middle Eastern country to have American bombs dropped on it will have the pleasure of it being done by a Bush, that particular hat-trick seems very distant at this moment.

Our Pet Asteroid

Look up to the sky in March and you may just see another flaming ball of matter as well as the Sun because an asteroid is scheduled to fly by but NASA can’t quite tell how far away it will be with estimates ranging from 9 million miles to 11,000 miles, approximately 95% closer than the moon.
Astronomers have only just been able to track its path and they will narrow down the trajectory the closer it gets.
The asteroid, called 2013 TX68, is 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter but astronomers studying the space rock are almost certain that it is not on a collision course with our ball of rock so i am hoping that it is closer to the 11,000 miles than the 9 million.
In 2020 the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) plans to grab an asteroid, tow it along and place it in orbit about the moon so shame we did not have the technology already in place because we could have a asteroid literally fall into our lap save us having to go find one.

Show Us The Biblical Evidence

Christina Wilkinson, head at St Andrew's CE Primary School in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, took to social media to air her views about the earth's beginning and posted that 'evolution is not a fact' and that that is 'more evidence that the Bible is true'.
As expected she was then mercilessly mocked and has since taken down the post and replaced it with a less contentious one that explains that the school teach the full national curriculum in school and that 'our pupils receive a fully rounded education'.
Not if she is teaching them you may say but i would be interested to hear what evidence she has that the Bible is true.
Has she finally found the elusive talking snake or even the unicorn the Bible talks about or maybe the ark that was large enough to accommodate either two or seven of every animal in the World?
Possibly we can finally explain how God created light on the first day but didn't magic up the Sun until Day 4 or exactly how the stars will 'fall from the sky' when Jesus returns or that the Earth is at the centre of everything and the Sun has been actually going around the Earth all this time.    
Considering that the Bible is full of stories stolen from other earlier religions surely if there is any evidence then it rather disproves Christianity in favour of the religions that it replaced.
Maybe Mrs Wilkinson should stick to showing her primary school kids how to stay inside the lines when colouring in and leave the big stuff to the other teachers.

Yee Haw'ing For Donald Trump

Adele has joined fellow musicians Neil Young, REM and Aerosmith who have asked presidential hopeful Donald Trump to stop using their songs in his bid for the White House.
The strange haired racist one has been using Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep' and 'Skyfall' in his campaign but the British singer has told him that he does not have permission for her music to be used.
Steven Tyler has already told Trump to leave his tunes out of the CD Player as it: 'gives the false impression that he is connected with, or endorses, Mr Trump’s presidential bid' which of course nobody in the public eye would, or so you would think.
Hulk Hogan and Lou “The Incredible Hulk” Ferrigno have nailed their colours to the Trump mast as have a couple of little known country music singers who probably mean more to an American audience who for some reason like all that 'my dog died and my pick up truck has a flat tyre' kinda thing. Kid Rock has also announced himself as a Trumpton.
Everyone's favourite Socialist Bernie Sanders has Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Vampire Weekend in his corner along with what looks like a 90s reunion tour with Dinosaur Jr, The Dead Kennedys, Belinda Carlisle, Faith No More, the Foo Fighters, Babes in Toyland and Sonic Youth.
Simon and Garfunkel have also given permission for their song 'America' to be used on the Sanders campaign ad.
In the Hillary Clinton corner is Kanye West, Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, Katie Perry, Christina Aguilera, Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Cher, Kelly Clarkson, Ellie Goulding, Ice-T, Ja Rule, Quincy Jones, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Janelle Monae, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Barbra Streisand, James Taylor, Usher, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder which ought to do it when it comes to choice of Hillary's campaign song.
The right wing has always been short on musical talent, the left, like the devil, always had the best tunes so it shouldn't be any surprise that the Trump campaign is only attracting singers who are  wearing boots and a cowboy hat and but as Kid Rocks biography shows he once had a song titled 'Cold and Empty', the Trump campaign may have found a song that sums him up perfectly.
That is of course unless they find a Country and Western singer who has a song called 'Hitler Loving Racist' they could use instead.