Happy Birthday Periodic Table

Today is the 150th birthday of the creation of the Periodic Table and the last time i did a pun filled post about chemistry i didn't get a reaction so i have a few scientific type friends who i assumed would be in their Element so i emailed them for some ideas for a blog post to mark the event.
One said that pun filled posts about Chemistry would be Boron because all the best jokes Aregon and the science community has Sulfured enough so i should write about something else instead.
Another said that i should take my jokes and Barium while another said my posts were becoming negative and i should keep an Ion them which annoyed me so next time i saw her i threw some Sodium Chloride at her and now i'm in trouble with the law as apparently that's A Salt.
No sense of humour the Scientific Community.

America's Poor Record Of Regime Change

Article 1, International Covenants: ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. The populations of sovereign and independent states enjoy (as ‘peoples’) the right to determine the system of government and administration, and the substantive nature of their political regime'.

In short, it is against International Law for anyone but the people of a nation to change their own Government so the recent run of Western led Regime Change is not only illegal but has been a complete disaster.
Since 2001 the West has gone to war to remove the Taliban Government from Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gadaffi in Libya resulting in millions of deaths which depressingly continues to grow as the wars and the aftermath continues.
The West has also been either directly involved in conflicts or giving arms and money to rebel forces to try and bring around regime change in Syria to replace Bashar Al Assad, Egypt to unseat Mohamed Morsi and in Ukraine to overthrow Viktor Yanukovych.
The latest target is Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela with America making threats unless he resigns as President but the Americans have a history of an earlier botched regime change in this particular South American nation.
In 2002, the United States gave assistance and intelligence to coup organisers trying to remove the ruling President Hugo Chavez only for it to go wrong and leave a new American enemy in power on their doorstep.
That he went on to do amazing and brilliant things in Venezuela made the attempted regime change even more embarrassing so as America and it's western allies refuse to learn the lesson of a long list of recent regime changes that have gone horrifically wrong, we shouldn't be expecting too much this time around either and the Venezuelans should be petrified.

Sniffling And Sneezing Since Christmas

Some time around Christmas i began sniffing and by New Year it was a full blown cold with all the related bodily fluids leaking, headaches, tiredness, aches and feeling like somebody had swapped my regular shoes for divers boots.  
Then early January, just as I began to feel better, I got sick again and continued my quest to single handedly keep Kleenex in business and now it has happened again with a few days of feeling better, then another dive back into the Lemsip and paracetamol boxes.
The local Chemist, noticing that i was spending the GDP of a small country on cold cures mentioned that they were seeing this returning cold in other people too, that it was a bad year for it.
My mum always said that a cold was five days coming, five days with you and five days going although i would add the rider of a further 5 of a wrecking cough as a legacy of years of puffing on 20 Benson and Hedges a day.
The Chemist did mention that the occasional cold is good for our immune system so after six weeks of spluttering and sneezing i should have the immune system of a rhino.
To those, and there have been plenty, who mention to me that a sniffle, a sneeze or a sore throat isn't really being ill then i look forward to you showing me the right way to handle illness as for the past six weeks i have been kindly leaving an invitation to join me at the Chemist counter on door handles, work surfaces, keyboards and via the air that you have been breathing in since Christmas.
You are very welcome!

Feeling Cheated Yet Leavers?

With less than 65 Days to the March 29th deadline, the Brexit cheerleaders must be beyond excited, people like James Dyson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood, Nigel Farage and Nigel Lawson.
It's probably just a massive coincidence that on the same day that P&O announce that it will be re-registering its entire cross-Channel fleet of ferries under the flag of Cyprus due to Brexit being a 'fundamental risk our chance of becoming profitable', Dyson announces that he is relocating his headquarters from Wiltshire to Singapore who has just agreed a trade agreement with the EU.
Staunch Leaver Jacob Rees-Mogg, co-founder of Somerset Capital Management, has set up not one but two funds in Dublin while fellow arch-Brexiteer John Redwood, part time employee of Charles Stanley investment bank, suggested to their investors that following Brexit, those with money 'pull it out of Britain and look further afield'.
It isn't a great look when the pro-Brexit lot are waving the flag for Britain just when Brexit is going to happen while protecting themselves and their finances so we also see Nigel Farage applying for German passports for his children and Nigel Lawson, who lives in France, applying for French residency.
With every day the mess of Brexit is becoming clearer, and it will take more than a high-priced bagless vacuum cleaner to clear it up but the hypocrites are clearing out of the financial basketcase Britain will become post-Brexit but they will all retain their wealth.
So that's all right for them then and to be fair, themselves were all they were ever worried about.

Bad Moon Rising (In The 12th House)

As an Aries my characteristics include being arrogant and stubborn which is probably why i refuse to believe that astrology is anything other than weird nonsense although the pseudo-science of being able to tell how a particular day will go for 1/12th of the entire population seems to have gained a new audience in millennials.  
Princess Diana was a star sign convert and Ronald Reagan was famously a fan of consulting astrologers regarding key White House decisions but once where it was hidden away in the back pages of newspapers and women’s magazines, picking lucky numbers and promising the intervention of tall, dark, handsome strangers, now it seems to be undergoing a more serious revival.
The President of the Astrological Association of Great Britain, Roy Gillett, says there has been a stark uptake in millennials seeking out a deeper understanding of Astrology as younger people are feeling a sense of betrayal by conventional knowledge and a lack of values everywhere they look.
I guess if you are a reserved Taurus rising with your moon in the 12th house then that makes sense on some level but i always say that if you happen to read your horoscope and it seems to only sort of fit then read another sign and you'll find one that fits better.
Gillett says that he is not very good at arguing the benefits of astrology to those already set against it but i guess there is a good reason for that....him being a Sagittarius with Mercury ruling his ascendant Virgo and therefore not very persuasive.
Either that or it's all rot but the i'm an Aries after all and we are disbelieving goats.

Move Over World Leaders, Lucy's Taking Over

In my naive way i assumed that a democratically elected leader was left to do their business for better or worse until the people of that nation decided to remove them, after all, we go around the World trumpeting Democracy but seems i have been wrong.
In Venezuela, Juan Guaido has declared himself President and won the support of several nations who like him better than the current President Nicolas Maduro so if it is as easy as that then i am going to declare myself leader of several dodgy nations with leaders i don't like.
I hereby declare myself the Prime Minister of Israel so move over Benjamin Netanyahu and my first pledge is to stop stealing land off the Palestinians and generally being the murderous dicks of the Middle East.
Then it's off to Saudi Arabia where i am now Queen and it's leave Yemen, give women the vote and stop chopping bits off people.
I'm also the new Supreme Leader of North Korea where i declare the abandonment of the nuclear program and will use the money to feed my people and make nice with Japan and South Korea.
I declare myself Prime Minister of Cambodia for no other reason than i can make the Dead Kennedy's 'Holiday In Cambodia' the National Anthem and of course it goes without saying that i am also the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom and Brexit and the Royal family have been binned.
Finally, Donald Trump and his ridiculous wife are out and i'm the new President of the United States and i'm reopening the Government and making your gun laws less bat shit crazy.
Being the leader of six countries will make things easier at the UN meetings so i'm off to fill out the form at the Post Office to get the post for these countries redirected to my place.

Abbott Doing Herself And Labour No Favours

As a Labour supporter i'm worried that Jeremy Corbyn, as much as i agree with his policies, hasn't got the support in the country to win any upcoming General Election and we will be lumbered with a Conservative Government for another five years and as the previous eight years haven't been a success, another half decade of the Blue side in power and even more ideologically driven austerity cuts should scare us all.
What doesn't help Labour is people like the Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbot, who has come out and blamed the BBC for making her look bad on Question Time on Thursday and: 'legitimising mistreatment, bias and abuse against Ms Abbott as a black woman in public life'.
It's absolutely ridiculous that Fiona Bruce made Diane Abbot look bad because Diane Abbot did a good job of that herself.
As any half decent journalist would do, the host kept interrupting Abbot and tried to get her to answer the question the studio audience had asked.
If Abbot had set out Labours plan for Brexit rather than trying to answer the uncomfortable question by avoiding answering it at all then she would have not been interrupted for an answer at all.
That Labour and the Conservatives are equal in the polls despite the absolute debacle of the Conservatives Government reflects badly on Labour but whining and moaning that you are given a rough time because you are a black woman rather than because you were caught out being ill-prepared and unable to steam-roller the new host in front of the Television camera's does nothing to help.

Super Blood Wolf Moon And Perigee Syzyg

You don’t have to do much to prepare for the Lunar Eclipse just before dawn on Jan 21, just be awake at 5.15 am and look up at the full, red Moon although if you sleep through it bear in mind that the next one is not until January 2037.
This is not just a Super Blood Wolf Moon but also a Perigee Syzygy if you please but just what is all that?
The Super bit is because it's a Supermoon which is when the full moon coincides with a perigee which is the point at which the moon comes closet to the Earth during its orbit which makes it look 14% bigger.
The blood part is the reddish tint of the moon during a total lunar eclipse and a Wolf Moon is a full moon which occurs in the dead of winter when it’s coldest so when they all occur together we get a Super Blood Wolf Moon
A Syzygy refers to an alignment in a straight line, of three celestial bodies and on January 21 we have the Sun, Moon and Earth all in line (which is why we have a lunar eclipse) and as the moon is at it's Perigee (closest point to earth), it’s called a Perigee Syzygy.
Just set the alarm for 5am, make a coffee and stick your head out the door and gaze in wonder at a spectacular astronomical event, then go back to bed because 5.15am is ridiculously early.

Brits Freeze As Aussies Bake

Winter has well and truly arrived in Britain as blizzards blow in and temperatures plunge below -9°C in parts of the UK.
The MET Office has said that the current cold spell will continue into February with most places seeing sleet and snow and the reliable weather singularity has February 8 through to February 16 as the coldest period in the UK so it looks like scarfs and bobble hats will be the fashion item for a few weeks yet.
Somewhere that doesn't need gloves or thermal underwear is Australia which has just started a forecasted 10 days of above 40°C temperatures and already a daytime 48.9°C has been recorded in South Australia with night-time high of 35.9°C.
As someone who swoons like a Victorian lady when the mercury nudges the mid twenties, i can't imagine what 48.9°C feels like but i know i wouldn't like it much.
One Aussie said: 'You’d be crazy to sit outside on a day like today' although she was being interviewed while sat on the beach which undermined her statement slightly .
New heat records are being broken almost daily and the Australian MET Office recently had to add an additional colour to their heat index for temperatures above 50°C which they expect to hit in the coming days.
Seems strange that as the Australians bake we are shivering in -9°C and buying snow shovels but i know what i prefer and it doesn't include the lingering smell of sun screen.

Trump Literally Has A Lot On His Plate

Donald Trump has tweeted that he is the most unfairly and worst treated President since Abraham Lincoln which is a bit of a stretch as three other Presidents were killed in Office since Abe which is slightly worse then being mocked for being a racist idiot but there is so much to mock about him it would be criminal to not make fun of him.
Something which doesn't seem to get as much mockery as his hair, temper tantrums and small penis hands is his weight, especially as he is the third fattest President ever to sit his wide load behind the oval Office desk. 
The fattest President was 340 pounds or 24 stones of William Taft followed by Grover Cleveland who broke the scales at 280 pounds or 20 stones and then comes Trump at 239 pounds which is 17 stone although looking at his pictures i think that may be fake news right there.
Although he has a long way to go to catch up with the Tubby Taft, if we suspend sense and take the 17 stone figure as true, Cleveland is an achievable 3 stone away and if he keeps tucking into the burgers and cola's like he does, then he may be able to add second fattest President to his already impressive CV of seconds including second dumbest after George W Bush, second most perverted after John F Kennedy and very soon if the rumours are true, he will be the second President to resign in disgrace after Richard Nixon.