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The lubberly Mr Muffin fixed my blog and now you can see the template. Ta muchly

No Bluetitch 5? She's getting lazy in her old age.

Happy Christmas Saddam.

What a surprise, George has rejected Iraq's dossier on its weapons production and is going to give that nasty man what for! Of course he wants to avoid war and really really wants to be friends with Saddam, but he's been a bad lad and needs to be taught a lesson, or so George tells us. "Tragedy is not a conflict between good and evil but between two claims to the good" I reckon he wants to emulate his father, but being a hack shrink never was my thang.

Nestlé recently demanded $6m from Ethiopia because, it was claimed, Ethiopia seized one of its subsidiaries 27 YEARS AGO! For those of you who don't know, Nestlé makes about $6bn PROFIT a year. The Guardian's article, which informs us that Nestlé have since retracted its demand, quotes the company spokesperson (very PC is the Guardian!) as saying "it's a matter of principle". So is forcing some of the poorest people in the world to buy its products it seems. The excellent Mark Thomas did a show on the plight of the people affected by Nestlés marketing techniques and it's attempts to get cows to give human milk. Nestlé, for some strange reason, didn't want to discuss this with Mr Thomas.

Our wonderful Nanny State has struck again. It seems us bikers are too dumb to know when it is daylight and when it is not. The Government decided to consult various people about dark visors. At the moment, it is legal to wear tinted visors, which block out about 20% of light, or you can wear sunglasses under your visor. You do not have to wear a visor if you don't want to. Now the sunglasses under the visor might sound like a good idea, but you can't take them off when you enter a tunnel at 70 mph. Most bikers wear illegal visors. These visors block out between 50-80% of light and users don't lie when they refer to them as life savers. Now everyone on the panel said that dark visors were a good idea, including the police and the other emergency services, Aston University (who specialise in, amongst other things, light penetration, development of photo-sensitive equipment and research into damaged eyes) and those representing bikers.

Guess what?

The government rejected the proposal

Why?

Because bikers might wear them at night and hurt themselves! This is from MCN's report:-

Transport Minister David Jamieson has just announced that he won’t be making dark visors legal, despite admitting their benefits in reducing glare from sunlight.

The sticking point appears to be the potential for us to wear our visors at night, ride around like blinded fools and run over pedestrians.

He said: " The large majority of motorcyclists were in favour of dark visors, which they regard as the best way to reduce glare. But road safety organisations who have expressed concerns about the safety of other vulnerable road users, given the potential for misuse of dark visors at dusk or at night. "

His announcement comes after a three-month public consultation earlier in the year on whether the law should change.

Campaigners who have supported a change in the law say this could be the end of the fight.

Alan Goodman, who sits on the British Standards committee that sets the laws regarding visors, said: " This is an unbelievable decision. The minister has ignored everybody. I don’t see what we can do now except carry on wearing illegal, untested visors to try and ride safely. "

That means the darkest visor we will be allowed to use legally is still one with a 50 per cent tint – considered by most of us to be not tinted enough to block out bright or low sun.

Let's hope the police continue to turn a blind eye. If you'll pardon the expression.

Good old Japan. They got some of Romanias best gymnasts banned, for posing nude. They weren't pee'd off with them dropping their leotards, "Federation head Nicolae Vieru says the athletes could use their own images but had no right to use the emblems of the national federation". I'm off to find some piccies ;-)

posted by kwacky at 9:03 pm