[General] Africa aint that big...is it?

Hi kids!

Haven’t done this in a while. Some people were worried that I had become quite angry.

There were reasons for this. Work related ones. Those close to me have all had to sit through the long whinging session that I created after just a few days back at my old work. (I have just finished a secondment for those not in the know). But a lovely weekend filled with All Black goodness has cheered me up no end.

What shall we talk about then? How about George Bush? I swear no throat punching will occur in this post.

We are currently 184,400 or so days away from when the end of the world will conceivably come about. Seems like a long time but it’s not. We could all jump to help out but I have a feeling that this won’t work either, no matter how much fun it looks.

Well, what does this have to do with GWB? He has told Tony Blair that although they were big buds during that whole Iraq war thing, now that they have both been re-elected (Bush by more, Blair by less) he won’t be scratching Tony’s back. Basically, if I may paraphrase R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, George Bush is the kind of guy that’d f**k a person in the ass and not have the goddamn common courtesy of giving him a “reach around”.

The sticking point? Naturally, the environment (pun intended). A new study has found that pollution is spreading. North American pollution is now polluting the air in Europe, European pollution is polluting Asian air and Asian pollution is just starting to cloud the skies of America. Campbell: Live had a nice, if dumbed down, article on e-trash (computers etc) which is great for leeching heavy metals into the ground.

Mr Bush is in that group of global warming deniers who has turned a blind eye and now will not support the embattled Blair over environmental issues. “Screw Kyoto” I believe, was his actual quote. Thanks Bush, for vindicating my position that we should just sit back and enjoy the end of the world because no amount of evidence will help. By the way the AA suggests keeping your petrol tanks full because prices are going up again.

Sticking with the environment for a while: Ever heard of “peak oil”? It kind of needs to be called “oil peak” instead. Here’s a run down.

Bush may be lucky. The whole Live 8 thing may have taken a lot of the attention off the environment and onto the human atrocity in Africa. Africa is a pretty bloody huge place but we always refer to it like it was another country and not the second largest continent behind Asia, (just a small piece of trivia, Africa and Asia combined make up half of the world’s land mass). Good on Geldof and friends I suppose, but let’s wait and see. I imagine we will see a lot of these: “we promise to double our aid to $20b by 2020”. Which means: “we are going to do jack all but look at the large amount of money we will be giving in 15 years time!”

America has already done this. They set up a fund in 2000 to send money to Africa (again Africa is a big place, so where in Africa exactly?). By 2005 they had sent roughly 1% of what they promised (I’m sorry I can’t find the link to this info). Don’t hold your breath Africa.

By the way calculate your fat National Party tax cut here. Then you can use the same (fun and work-friendly) tool to calculate what government spending can be cut to fund it [Note: this tool does not take into account any overseas borrowing (ie become in debt to other countries) that would be necessary to fund the cuts as well]

Have a good day.

PS. I got the new Gorillaz album Demon Days on the weekend and it’s really good for those who were wondering.

PPS. I saw a little bit of Independence Day the other night on TV and in it there is a newscast showing the movement of the spaceships before the attack. The map showed ships over "London", "Moscow", "Bombay", "Paris" and "Germany". Couldn't the film makers think of a single German city?

PPPS. I had to do my taxes last night. Never again. I am going to hire an accountant. The form said things like “fill in the value in the ‘non-deductable tax’ box”, but there was no ‘non-deductable tax’ box! I have created an armoured compound in which I intend to hole-up (hold-up?). Come and get me IRD! I’m ready for you! Hahahahahahahaaaa aa aaa aah