Sunday, June 27, 2010

Is 28.34 grams of prevention worth 0.45 kilograms of cure?




If anyone needs more of a clue-hammer to the forehead as to the dangers of a One World Leftist Nanny State Government taking away your sovereignty and national identity, look no farther than yesterday's edition of the UK Daily Mail, and this article by Christopher Leake:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

British shoppers are to be banned from buying eggs by the dozen under new regulations approved by the European Parliament. For the first time, eggs and ­other products such as oranges and bread rolls will be sold by weight instead of by the number contained in a packet.

Until now, Britain has been exempt from EU regulations that forbid the selling of goods by number. But last week MEPs voted to end Britain’s deal despite objections from UK members.

The new rules will mean that instead of packaging telling shoppers a box contains six eggs, it will show the weight in grams of the eggs inside, for example 372g.

Or that a bag of white rolls has 322g inside instead of half a dozen. The rules will not allow both the weight and the quantity to be displayed.

Last night, Britain’s Food Standards Agency said it was opposed to the move, putting the UK on a potential collision course with Brussels. It could be the first test of David Cameron’s pre-Election promise to stand up for Britain’s interests in the EU.

Eggs have traditionally been sold by the dozen or half-dozen, because the old imperial measurements such as inches or pennies were calculated in groups of 12.

Early in the 20th Century, eggs were sold from trays on shop counters and carried home in paper bags. But between the two world wars, it was discovered that eggs kept longer if they were left standing on their ends, so the cartons of 12 and six were developed.

Last night, an FSA spokeswoman said: ‘This proposal would disallow selling by numbers. Retailers would not be allowed to put “Six Eggs” on the front of the box. If it was a bag of rolls, it would say “500g” instead of "Six Rolls."

"It is important that information is provided in a way that is meaningful and beneficial to consumers. This issue is still being considered by EU member states and it will be some time before the regulation is finalised."

The move could cost retailers millions of pounds because of changes they will have to make to packaging and labeling, as well as the extra burden of weighing each box of food before it is put on sale.

The cost is likely to be passed on to shoppers through higher grocery bills.

Experts say it will be next year before the EU is able to pass the controversial measure, which bureaucrats say is designed to help consumers make an informed choice when buying their food because it will require suppliers to provide more comprehensive information.

But last night, food industry experts said the EU plan was ‘bonkers’ and ‘absolute madness’.

Federation of Bakers director Gordon Polson warned that it may be too late to change the rules, even though they will be debated further in the European Parliament.

He revealed that lobbyists had already tried to rectify the regulations, discovered in the 174 pages of amendments to the initial 75-page proposal, but there was not enough time to convince MEPs before the crucial vote.

The British Retail Consortium, which represents 90 per cent of UK shops, will ask Government Ministers to press for the decision to be reversed.

Andrew Opie, the consor­tium’s food director, said: ‘This is a bad proposal – we need to help consumers, not confuse them. We’ll be talking to the Government to encourage them to make sure these plans don’t come into force.’

One major food supplier said: ‘This is hindering rather than helping the consumer, taking away one of the key bits of information. If this goes through it would demonstrate how far removed the legislators are from the real world. It’s bonkers.’

Another industry source added: ‘It’s absolute madness. You can’t make any argument that consumers are being confused by labels for six eggs or four bread rolls.’

Adam Leyland, editor of The Grocer trade magazine, said: ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you? It would be funny if it were an April Fool’s joke. But it’s not and it will potentially cost the industry millions, while confusing customers no end.

‘The EU’s attempt to simplify labeling has created a multi-headed monster.’

The new labeling row is the latest in a long line of European Union food policy scandals.

The EU passed a directive in 1994 ruling that top-of-the-range bananas had to be ‘free from malformation or abnormal curvature of the fingers’. The directive was ridiculed as a symbol of bureaucratic excess in Brussels.

In 1988, it ruled that top-of-the-range cucumbers must bend by only 10mm per 10cm in a directive designed to help packaging and transport.

In 1979, another directive ruled that carrots should be termed as fruits, as the Portuguese made jam out of them.

In 2003, a threatened European ban on smoky-bacon crisps was averted at the last minute when MEPs forced through amendments after a backlash from the British ­public.

Neil Herron, campaign dir­ector of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, said the EU directive was ‘absolute nonsense’.

He added: ‘If I was a farmer I would get my customers to throw eggs at any official trying to enforce this. It is dir­ectives like this that give the European project a bad name.

'It makes the British public want to just pull out of the whole thing altogether.’

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bloody hell, people. I was a kid when that meteric BS came about in the US schools. Hey, wasn't that under CARTER? Funny how this crap happens when you have too many progressive libs around....

Sammy Hagar didn't sing "I Can't Drive 88" as in 88km/hour (55mph).

The British monetary unit will have to become to .45 Kilogram Sterling.

The phrase is "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a yard", not "Give 'em 2.54 centimeters and they'll take 2.74 meters"....

You can't judge a man till you've walked 1.6 kilometers in his shoes, right?

It's The Whole Nine Yards, not The Whole 8.22 Meters.The thousand-yard stare is really just a 914 meter stare.

Americans might just riot in the streets though if they try to turn NFL football metric.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Making Some Political Endorsements for the Run-Off


So far, it’s not been a pretty political season in South Carolina.

I guess it started when Governor Mark Sanford coined the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” as a euphamism for committing adultery in South America. It has since degenerated into :

· Two lackeys associated with the sitting Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer, claiming to have had relations with front-runner candidate Nikki Haley. Last-place Bauer, who was getting the crap kicked out him, challened Haley to take a lie detector test in a playground move one step removed from Nanny Nanny Boo Boo.

· Unemployed, drummed out of the Army, facing a felony sex crime charge, and not very good with forming coherent sentences, Alvin Greene still won the Democratic primary for the honor of losing to Jim DeMint in November.

· State Senator Jake Knotts calls both the President and gubernatorial candidate Haley “ragheads” and publicly embraces being called a redneck.

· Various rounds of mudslinging and accusations about who did or didn’t create jobs, who did or didn’t raise taxes/lower taxes, who’s qualified and who’s not, ad infinitum.

For the most part, much of the dirt didn’t reallt start to fly until a couple days ago. Most of it is easily overlooked but….to tell you the truth I’m about sick to death of two particular phrases in this campaign. Much in the way that the Hope & Change crap mantra was thrown about to “elect” The Annointed Holy One Barack Hussein Obama (Blessed Be His Name) Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm, the conservatives are now throwinbg about the key words Tea Party. Damn near every single Republican running out there is bending over 8 ways to Sunday to identify themselves as The Tea Party Candidate and get the annointed blessing of every local Tea Party organization in South Carolina, from Charleston Tea Party to Columbia Tea Party to Greenhville Tea Party to the Dogpatch (population 25) Tea Party. The term “Tea Party Candidate” has been thrown around so much that it really has almost lost any sort of legitimacy, the same as Hope & Change was bullshit long before the election in 2008.

The other annoying phrase running around is “Family Man”. Case in point, now that Tim Scott has received an endorsement from Sarah Palin among other notables and his opponent in the First Congressional District, Paul Thurmond, is lagging in the straw polls, I keep hearing Thurmond ads proclaiming that he’s a family man, like that’s a criteria item for being a good Congressional Representative. Earlier Thurmond ads featured him & his wife parading around the kids (Thad & little Fletch). Dude, I don’t care if you have kids, nor do I really care what their names are. The unspoken part of your ads are “Tim Scott is a bachelor and therefore something must be wrong with him.”

Oddly enough though, pretty much all the major political sex scandals that I can think of involved married guys, self-professed Christian Family Men……go figure. Bill Clinton, Mark Souder, Mike Duvall, David Paterson, John Edwards, Jim McGreevey, Elliot Spitzer, etcetera ad nauseum.

Anyways, tomorrow is the runoff election here in South Carolina. And for what it’s worth. I have my own endorsements to ladle out.

For Governor, I’m still endorsing Gresham Barrett. It’s not that I have anything against Nikki Haley and should she win tomorrow I would throw my full support towards her. However, I really like Barrett’s conservative voting record against Obama in Congress and truth be told, I’m worried that some of the good ole’ boys of South By God Carolina might not be willing to vote for a female Governor.

For Lieutenant Governor, I’m still supporting Bill Connor.

For Attorney General, I’m still with Alan Wilson. His opponent Leighton Lord tried to smear Wilson by revealing that Wilson had once failed the bar exam. So what? Kennedy got a D in college and became President. You, sir, have never been a prosecutor and don’t think that prosecutorial experience isn’t needed to be the head prosecutorial figure in the state. Sorry, your Lordship, but I do.

For Treasurer I’m staying with incumbent Converse Chellis. I just had a bad taste in my mouth after all of Curtis Loftis’ negative ads.

Although I am not in District One, I support Tim Scott.

I am, however, in District Six, and I support Nancy Harrelson to be the one to knock Jim Clyburn into unemployment.

Don’t just sit on the sidelines, people…get out and VOTE.

Friday, June 18, 2010

The indoctrination continues....

Y'know, the guy started off okay. Get kids to believe in themselves and have goals and dreams....and then ruins it by brainwashing them into the Obama Youth. All that was missing by the end was a rousing rendition of the Horst Wessel Leid....

The Charleston 9: We Won't Forget


Three years ago today nine of Charleston's best & bravest gave their lives in the line of duty. Your memory lives on, brothers.

Attack of the Nanny State: Charleston SC


We seem to have hit a new low in today’s over-bureaucratized society, where we selectively enforce the rules we feel like enforcing while ignoring the inconvenient ones, and lumping more, newer laws on top of laws that already exist but are never enforced…….

A local business owner in lovely and quaint downtown Charleston, South Carolina was cited by a Code Enforcement Officer for having tossed an empty envelope that had his name & address on it into a City of Charleston trash basket. Seemingly, because he is a business owner he must use a business dumpster only for this solitary piece of refuse, else some taxpayer-paid city goon will rummage the trash bins looking for someone to bust.

In his own words:

“I received an "Official Notice" from the City of Charleston today. I have violated Ordinance 14-47-G. I dropped an empty envelope with my name and address on it in a City of Charleston sidewalk trash basket. I guess because I am a business owner I am not allowed to do this.”

Does the nany state really have nothing better to do in Charleston? When the streets are 100% crime free, no one’s getting shot at over by the bridge, no one’s getting accosted along the Battery late at night, then maybe we can rummage through the garbage to see whose name is on each piece of paper. And I love how this situation is to be rectified ASAP…how the hell do you rectify this ASAP? I guess this means that the officer will be back repeatedly to rifle the garbage.

I could see if there was a bin full of this business's trash, like packing boxes, bags of rubbish, and what not. This was a discarded empty envelope placed in an official receptacle rather than be tossed on the ground. This is asanine. What about tourists who toss trash in City bins? They don't pay City taxes so what right do they have to put trash in the City's bins? Oh wait.....ticket the guy who does pay City taxes for a single slice of paper....

Thursday, June 17, 2010

A followup to the tenek review

I meant to add this video to the review to "Blinded By You" so that ya'll could get a good idea of what tenek sounds like live. This is their song "Submission", recorded at the Summer Darkness Festival held at the Tivoli Oudegracht in Utrecht, Netherlands last year.

Peter Steer is on the left and Geoff Pinckney is on the right of the screen.

Submission was a single in its own right, released in February 2009 and taken from their "Stateless" album. Enjoy!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

First Listen: tenek--"Blinded By You"



Give me 30 seconds and I'll make you a tenek fan.

"Blinded by You" is the new single from tenek, the English duo of Peter Steer and Geoff Pinckney, and if you can make the 30-second mark of this song and you aren't nodding your head or tapping your foot/hand/pencil, then you've got no business listening to synth music. If you make it past 60 seconds and you aren't trying to clear some room to dance, then you may as well ask six of your mates to pick up your casket & carry you to the nearest hole.

This is the sort of pulsing, driving, infectious club track that takes me back 20 years to the heyday of my early 20's when I ministered to the masses from my dancefloor pulpit. And yet, the sound isn't dated; it's fresh and current while being comfortably familiar and instantly an essential part of your iPod's rotation. Taking a drive? Pop this into the car audio system and hope the police aren't running radar. Taking a run through the park? Listen to this and take a minute off your best time. Working out at the gym? This will burn a couple hundred extra calories for you.

And that's just the single mix. (But wait! There's more!)

The past few years, I've been increasingly disappointed with the sad state of remixes, with hastily thrown-together rubbish being churned out by the Flavor Of The Moment DJ and containing virtually none of the original track. Not so with tenek. The single contains the remix "Designed For Dancing", eight glorious minutes of beats put together by Shaun Brooks, the resident engineering genius at tenek's Toffeetones label. Brooks has singlehandedly revived the lost art of the extended dance mix, adding beats while still maintaining the body and sound of the original track.

Another treat on the single is an actual B-side track that's not some throwaway extra song that nobody wanted and relegated to purgatory on a single. "Synchronise" has a bass-heavy edgy energy guaranteed to garner club play on its own merits and will make a great crowd singalong anthem at a packed show.

Over all, if this is any indication of what we can expect when the full "On The Wire" cd drops in September, the next 3 months will be worth the wait. You can pre-order the single via the Toffeetones website right now or wait till the July5th release date.