Pure Fortean gold:

Merseyside Police told the community on Monday to “stop grieving, it’s only a chicken”.

Link: BBC NEWS | England | Merseyside | Tributes left for a dead chicken

On the fence
Originally uploaded by BinaryApe.

We recently went to Heaton Park to see Autumn properly, and took a few nuts for the squirrels. It’s only polite.

There was a fascinating variety of fungi in the park. I’m tempted to become a mushroom-spotter next year and start taking mushroom photos as a hobby. I’m going to run out of Space Invaders soon in any case.

Link: Many blurred photos

This is an interesting survey, but rather flawed in places: It sometimes assumes that people feel a particular way about a country, in a simple, nationalistic sense, but I think most people are more subtle than that.

Attitudes to the USA are often the most complex, and very difficult to push into a simple of answer of ‘favourable’ or ‘unfavourable’. Who or what is being judged - living conditions, foreign policy, culture? A lot of people will consider the USA’s foriegn policy to be obscene but quite like the place, and it’s people. The question assumes a simplistic prejudice, that people think in terms a “country” as one homogenous unit, and as a result, it gives an answer that presents a prejudice that probably isn’t there.

I read an interview somewhere (possibly a book extract) with a leading Jihadi terrorist, who was dedicated to the overthrow of the US but who loved US food, TV and music, and quite fancied living there one day.

The report gets better when it moves on and asks more precise questions, about ‘national characteristics’ (still somewhat dodgy…)

“Americans generally rate themselves better than does the rest of the world, but there are a couple of exceptions. Strikingly, Americans are more inclined than any other public in this survey to say their fellow Americans are greedy.”

and, of course, foreign policy.

The ‘Bad Vibes in the Neighbourhood’ section is interesting, and ‘Where to go to lead a good life” is very interesting indeed: Canada and Australia do best, and even the UK pops up as #1 choice in Poland (?) and Spain (where many British people want to live). I do wonder what the full results were for this question, as the leading choices have rather low percentages.

Most significant, I think, is ‘Better if another rivalled US Power?’: it seems most people surveyed want another military superpower to keep the USA in check. I’d quite like a socio-economic superpower (more than one, preferably) to balance US influence, but the question sounds a like “Do you want a cold war again?”, and returned a worrying answer.

Link: Pew Global Attitudes Project

I’ve been glued to this all weekend, even when it’s dark at the pond.

Link: National Geographic Magazine - WildCam AFRICA

Zelda: The Wind Waker in Lego. Well, some of it anyway.

Link: Brickshelf Gallery

Bring the Dogcow back to Mac OS X.

Link: Interealm

“You can’t get a chimp to hold its breath”

I knew that the Savannah Theory (once the conventional wisdom) was looking weak, but I hadn’t realised that the Aquatic Ape theory was doing so well. Excellent!

We clearly didn’t develop to live on the open plains of Africa (our really dilute urine is more than a hint) and we’re packed with features closely associated with life on the coast. The idea that recent human ancestors lived in the sea is rather silly, but the idea that we were primarily a shoreline animal has a lot to support it.

My own pet extensions of this idea are:

• Mankind spread around the earth by following the shoreline first, then moving inland as populations increased.
• We are strangely attracted to the sea even now. Give people a choice of where to go to relax, and most of them will choose the sea.
• Dogs love beaches too, and they evolved with us. As ‘Science’ this one is rubbish, but it’s my idea and I like it. So there.

Of course, that’s just stuff I thought of while soaking in a bath, so I was quite pleased to see that coastal migration is A Proper Theory :-)

Link: BBC - Radio 4 - Scars of Evolution (Narrated by David Attenborough!)

Wearing a coat “too warm for the season”? Carrying a bag? Got a phone? Be careful: the Police might need to borrow your possesions for a month or so. After a bit of arrest and intimidation, of course.

There again, the Police didn’t execute him, so he should look on the bright side.

Link: Innocent in London

It’s all clear to me now! The British Government has a plan to save us all from Terror. Their position is this:

• Human rights can be denied for the security of the the majority. Ben Franklin said what? Airy-fairy liberal!
• It’s OK to hand over suspects to be tortured and imprisoned abroad, for the security of the majority. It’s not as if we’re responsible then, is it?
• Evidence and trials aren’t needed. All the authorities need is a suspicion that you could be involved, somehow. Probably.
• The government will kill the occassional innocent person, but it’s a price worth paying for security
• Security is more important than liberty. But not in China, or Malaysia, or Zimbabwe. That’s different. They understand that different rules apply to English speaking countries.

So, here’s an idea, fitting neatly into the New Ethics of New Labour:

• Tony Blair, through his incredibly stupid actions, has aided ‘Islamic’ terrorism more than anyone else in the UK. The invasion of Iraq has ruined any good PR he got from trying to help with the problems in Palestine. You’d have to be stark, raving mad to believe otherwise.
• If he carries on like this, he’ll make things even worse. He’s like a boy who throws rocks at wasps nests.
• As he’s aiding terrorist recruitment and is therefor threatening the security of the people of Britain, his human rights are no longer important (according to New Labour, at least)
• The British legal system can’t do much to control him, but remember: it’s OK to deport people to torturers and murderers, if it avoids those pesky laws in the UK that protect people!

So the solution is clear: send Mr Blair to an Al Qaeda franchise somewhere, maybe with a hopeful note saying “Here he is, we know you won’t hurt him (wink wink). Lets just call it quits for now, OK? Have fun with Tony and stop the exploding train stuff, and we sort out our foreign policy”.

You might think this is cruel, repressive, hypocritical and ineffective. It’s giving the terrorists what they want!

But it complies with the morality of the UK Government. It’s unpleasant, but it has to be done for our security. Surely Blair’s New Ethics apply to everyone, everywhere?

And that’s why Blair is really a danger: Not because of the war, or his lies. His language, his logic, his morals, his attempts to undermine human rights and fair legal process, all of these are poisoning the politics of the entire world. I’m not serious, but other people will follow his lead, and follow his reasoning. He’s damaging human rights everywhere, because the rest of the world is watching us. He’s turning the UK into what the ‘islamic’ terrorists already think it is, he’s destroying any moral high ground we had, and he’s setting a very bad example to the rest of the world. The arguments he’s using now in ‘The War On Terror’ won’t go away, they’ll fester elsewhere and then return to plague us all.

Rats again.

Link: Rat Behavior and Biology