BIG FAT HAIRY SPIDER.

I walked face first into one of these the other day...felt like Indiana Jones. The entire web flexed as my face pushed it backwards. I swear I felt the Big Hairy One scurry away.
For my part, as the threads of super-strength silk began to impress on the skin of my face like elastic, I froze and immediately backed off.
Disaster averted (more so for the spider than me it has to be said - fair bit of work in constructing one of these webs actually - I know, I watched once).

Up close he (or she) was working his/her mandibles, as if eating, however, it could have been grooming. Perched head-down on its eight perfectly formed legs.

Impressive spider - no doubt.

I walked through a couple of these webs tonight, early into their construction as I think they were only support cables - foundations if y'like, but they wrapped around me and I had to pick them off me for minutes after - unsuccessfully I discovered whilst sitting on the sofa.

As I proceeded to remove the silk, it was like pulling a thread of cotton from a piece of clothing. I could see the clothing pull with the silk as its terrific adhesive qualities resisted; could hear the faint noise that came with it.

I gathered it all up in the same fashion one would when rolling up a piece of cotton thread - rolling it between thumb and index finger.

Now I have a small ball of pure spider silk. This from one or two threads. Amazing stuff.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Banks eh, don't you just love 'em?

They are known as "the Big Four", here in Oz. And they are all - not to put too fine a point on it - fucking ruthless!

In fact, it's now the Big Three as, like a creeping oil slick, one of them has absorbed a smaller, less hardy in the current conditions minnow.

Their power increases while consumer choice narrows. And a consequence of these changes is the recent advisement that the strapped for cash leviathans are increasing ATM fees, by about 300% or something equally as extortionate. Going so far as to charge for checking account balances.

And at this point I've had whats known in the business as - enough. And I'm taking my money off them. Granted, I don't have a lot, but still...

Let me tell you about banks. In short, banks take your money and use it to make more. In itself, that's fair enough, but because they are lazy/incompetent/Devil's Spawn, they obviously don't make enough to satisfy their needs (overseas trips, yachts, penthouses etc.) and so apply those nefarious account-keeping fees - fees for your money which they use to make more money. We all know of these fees. They disgust us.

Therefore, it follows that if they have less to begin with, the less they can make (Dorothy! Better sell the yacht!).

Now, of course, they'll get wise to this eventually should people en masse start withdrawing all their money. And then it'll be, "sorry, you can't have your money - we're going to keep it. In fact, be advised, it's no longer your money - it's our money and we'll use it as we see fit until such times our future earnings are secure".

The secret obviously is to either a. sneak it away surreptitiously before they notice or b. not give it to them in the first place.

Either way, only rich people need banks. The tiny interest rates banks provide are worthless to sums less than 100,000 so if you're an ordinary Joe and have, say, 10,000, the interest per annum, providing you don't ever touch that sum is about 600 bucks. Whoopee-fuckin-doo! Just let me go out and buy a...TV, half a sofa...?
And you think it's safe?
I'll just keep my money and manage it myself thank you very much, and probably make more off 10Gs in a year than 600 poxy bucks - and no fees either.

So what I'm saying is...everybody whip out their money at the same time, sit back, and watch the fatcats scramble to jettison their ill-gotten gains whilst they fight amongst themselves like rats in a bag to avoid being clobbered by the falling rubble.

Now, THAT would be entertainment!

VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES: WHO'S TO BLAME?

By now, pretty much the entire world has heard of the all-consuming bushfires that tore through several small towns, some not more than villages, in Victoria, Australia.

However they started (and I by no means have accepted that they were deliberately so) they ceased after razing 413,000 hectares of bush, and almost everything within - a total of 800 or so homes. Some homes were spared - by a mixture of accident and design.

So far, 181 people have died, and let's face it - they burnt to death, roasted alive in pure, shrieking agony.

The most intense period has now passed; smaller areas still burn but none are a threat.

Now the focus turns to how it happened. Fingers shot up and out as everyone pointed en masse. And most accusations are valid.

Ineptitude,
complacency,
Stupidity.

One man has been arrested and charged with several offences, including starting a bush fire. Causing death by fire and a few more the prosecutor can think of. An electricity company is also facing a class action suit, after it emerged one of their power poles collapsed and allegedly started one of the fires.
It must be said, though, that somewhere in the region of 40 or so fires raged around the Melbourne area. Are we to believe they all were either deliberately started or as a result of electricity poles? A bit of a stretch wouldn't you say?
And consider this: in temperatures sitting around 50 degrees celsius, all it takes to ignite bone dry tinder is a simple piece of broken glass at just the right angle to direct and intensify the blistering heat. Once started, as has been proven, it won't stop until the fuel runs out.


This is the reason this horrifying act of man and nature occurred.

The authorities were caught napping. A warning system trialled in Victoria wasn't implemented for reasons of privacy and the eventual victims were unaware of the danger approaching. In fact, of the 181 killed, the vast majority died whilst fleeing the flames, because they were driven by 100 kph winds and came up on homes rapidly. Leaving them with the only option to stay or flee and as people do - they panic. Panic kills.
This "napping" is similar to the American's Hurricane Katrina response. Currently our intrepid heroes are "backburning", a classic case of "closing the stable door after the horse has bolted", hence the allusion to Katrina.
Typical bloody experts.

The homeowners, for their part, enjoyed a self-imposed blissful ignorance. Like a mantra, they silently thought, "it'll never happen to me". All Australians think this at one time or another. They built their homes, or moved into one, virtually IN trees; the foliage so close as to touch the structure. Very beautiful indeed - until the worst happens then...
(FYI: Eucalypts, or Gum trees as they're otherwise known, have an oil in their leaves which roars like a blowtorch when consumed by fire). They sat silent, in the peaceful surrounds of their mountain bush paradise, while the trees shed. Gum trees, shed their bark every year. Resulting in this thick carpet of material roasted by the fierce heat of a summer Australian sun, and as flammable as petrol. To give an idea of how dry this material is, it's akin to walking on cornflakes. Everything is brittle, completely devoid of any moisture.
(Let me put it this way: ONE match - just one, could - and did, we're told, start this fire).

The local council, backed by Peter, "I used to be a rock star" Garrett, and his cretinous greenie mates in Parliament, refused to permit adequate clearing of risk material at a high risk distance from the given property. One homeowner, whose home it must be said was protected from any danger on account of the clearing the man had done, was fined 30,000 dollars by his Gestapo-like council for committing said clearing. To be fair though, if every man and his dog were to move into an area, and each cleared the requisite amount, then the bush itself would disappear (affecting soil structure, animal life etc.) Nevertheless, if it comes down to a few trees or my home...the jumped up little Hitlers at council can get fucked, frankly!

Ultimately...you're responsible for your own home. If you choose to move and/or build in an area that clearly constitutes "high risk", then it's on you to have an escape or defence plan if ever a blaze does erupt. A case in point has emerged where a man stayed with his home and armed with just wet towels and buckets of water, prevented it from being burnt down.. But for the main - people froze. And looked to their government to protect them. Are we learning yet, people? The above "ineptitude" and "stupidity" refers to the best efforts your government were able to provide. But man, do they have their hands on that stable door now!

Australians, white Australians, have lived on this continent for 200 years. Captain Cook, in his journal, made mention of the fires he saw from his ship off the coast, and in those days, fires of unimaginable magnitude raged through the continent. So in fact, before white man set a single foot on the continent, the existence of these fires was known.
After 200 years, one would imagine they would have figured a way to prevent or harness them. Actually, they will never be prevented. Fires are all part of the regeneration process. Postpone them this year and next year they'll return with a vengeance. Postpone 10, 20, 30 years...and we have the recent bushfires.

Ineptitude,
Complacency,
Stupidity.

Of course this will happen again. If they can't learn in 200 years, what makes anyone think this latest inferno's going make any difference.

And hey - the media's having a field day with it. A veritable smorgasboard of heroes, and tragedy; heartwarming fluffy animal stories; the mob raging for the hide of the alleged arsonist.

IT'S NOT ABOUT MONEY

Peter Singer is an author. He's also described as, "one of the most influential thinkers of our time".

His most recent offering is entitled, "The Life You Can Save", is about saving money, essentially. And putting that money to a more magnanimous cause, such as saving a life. (Pass the bucket...).

"Around the world", he says, in response to a bottled water comment, "a billion people struggle to live each day on less than you paid for that drink".

Sure, I'll tell you what, Mr Singer, I'll just give all my money to the poor Africans and go live on the street. Find myself a nice brudge (hehe - that was a typo but then I thought I'd just leave it there for my Kiwi reader...) and live like a troll. Will that make you happy.
Notwithstanding that money, IS all that matters in the modern world (is there a better example of this than what's occurring now...?), throwing it at poverty isn't the answer. Socialism, as heart-warming as it may be, doesn't work. These people need to stop breeding like rabbits. Either that or accept that they're responsible for the life of that child - not some do-gooder on the other side of the world.

Take this American woman, whose IVF treatment resulted in eight more offspring - this on top of the six she already has. Are we seriously to believe this (unemployed) woman will cover the cost of bringing 14 children to adulthood, a cost currently standing at approximately 250,000 dollars a year?

Yeah, right on. You're not going to be scabbing of the system.

So, Mr Singer, I will continue to buy my tin of Coke and respectfully decline to save my 2 bucks in a wee tin to be sent dutifully to little Um Cawaba whose mother and father never once considered the ramifications of their rutting. And I'll give your book a miss, too.

FROM THE SUNDAY RAG

"WOMEN ARE DRIVING THE DOWNSHIFT IN CAR SIZE"


This is news apparently? Not to me - I've been saying this for years now. That women are running the world. Maybe not at CEO level, but undoubtedly at "grass roots" level. And it's not just in terms of cars. Where families live; what they eat; wear, go on holiday - these are all determined by the females in families (presumably while the "male" (snigger snigger) is down at the hairdressers with his girlfriends getting his hair done.

Here's something else too. The article that follows the above headline comprises 8 columns. Not one mention of the point is made until the 5th. The writer just waffles on about who's selling the most and how the industry has collapsed in the wake of the downturn. Blah, blah, blah, spacefiller.
This alteration in decision making started long before the current crisis; in point of fact, this shift in control began some 10-15 years ago.

Actually, in a related matter, NDT (Nasal Delivery Technique) is an impotence prevention medicine for those "men" who are having trouble "keeping their end up" as it were.
The manufacturers of this product, when it first emerged, directed the ads at men. Presumably men, for whatever reason (embarrassment, denial, whichever) ignored them. So the ad companies have now switched their focus to the ladies, saying things like, "would you like a deeper more complete orgasm? Tired of waiting for your man to be a better lover? Try our new Nasal Delivery Technique and achieve the orgasm you've been searching for!" LOL Oh man. Hoho.

Men eh? Hahahahaha!

Funny thing is ladies, this is all your own doing. All these years of female empowerment have gelded your stud. Well done. No, seriously, lol, top marks! Hoho.

Oh man. Stop it, you're killing me with this shit.

FOR KB

The Boys buggered off into the bush this morning. You'll probably be aware of the heatwave NSW is currently experiencing. Mid to high 40's in degrees. Brutal.
Anyway, they eventually reappeared about 2 hours later; Scoob first, puffing and panting but not overly so followed by Mutley about 15 minutes later...

...And he was fucked. I mean really knackered by the look of things. So much so that his panting had an "edge" to it - a hoarseness I've never seen nor heard before and his heart must've been working at 200 beats a minute.

Here we get to the point; his tongue was noticeably redder than usual (usually it, and in fact his gums, is a healthy pink). It also was lolling out of his mouth further than usual and had expanded at the end to approximately twice the normal width. In doing so it had reduced its thickness by half so in effect it was a wide, thin sliver. It was red because it was engorged with blood trying to cool near the surface of the tongue and the change in size and thickness increased the surface area and decreased the distance the blood vessels were from said surface.
All combined in cooling the blood.

All the while he's panting like his life depends on it. So hot and bothered he appeared, he couldn't even drink from his bowl for more than a few laps at a time, just enough to take on some desperately needed fluid while cooling the tongue, then would return to the verging on apoplectic panting (I really thought he was going to expire so frantic was he. Shit, I know if I was breathing like that, a heart attack would have eventuated).

After about 20 minutes of this, his rate began to slow, his tongue shrunk back to it's normal size and returned to the normal pink.
Was he walking around leaving small damp patches on the floor from his "sweating feet"? No - don't be absurd.

Let me tell you about sweat, KB. We (humans - for the purposes of this explanation. Horses as well - and no doubt other species) sweat to cool down. We do this by sweating obviously; the fluid lies on the surface of the skin and acts very like ether (if you remember your schooling, the ether experiment was where a small amount of the liquid was placed on an area of skin which would immediately feel cool...).
Human sweat works in the same fashion - i.e. cooling the skin, and the blood rushes to the surface of the cooling skin to take advantage. Similar to a car radiator where the water circulates and is cooled by the wind.

This is why animals with heavy, uniform body hair don't sweat. I will concede, however, despite having no evidence per se, that there may be sweat glands on the feet but they are so insignificant as to be pointless in terms of heat control.

So, your source? Go up to him/her, slap him/her about the head - one of those "THWACK" glancing blows that leaves the hair sticking up in an odd fashion, and say, "see next time you think about opening your mouth - don't!"

Be good KB - don't believe everything you read - or hear (except of course here, where you'll find the Gospel!)

MICHAEL PHELPS AND THE BONG

Michael Phelps, the American Olympic swimmer who won something like eight gold medals and set as many records at the 2008 Olympics in Bejing, has been caught bang to rights smoking a bong. The picture was published in Britain's News of the World newspaper which frankly is a hair's breadth above toilet paper. But anything for a scoop, right?

I have to say though, the entire phrase, "smoking a bong" brings a smile to my, and most peoples' if they're honest, face. I mean, how can anyone take such a chucklesome statement seriously? Smoking a bong indeed, hoho.


Well someone has. In fact, several someone's has, not least of which, Kellogs, the cereal company and Phelps' multi-million (reportedly) dollar sponsor. They have decided Phelps' actions are not consistent with the image they present and are not renewing the swimmer's contract after it expires at the end of February. (Mind you, come the next Olympic Games and considering how much money Phelps makes them, money, as per usual, will talk and no doubt he'll find his way back when the suits at Kelloggs realise what they've done).

Swimming USA have also slapped a 3 month ban on him. However, several of his other sponsors have stuck by him presumably treating it as it is - that being, just a bong. It's hardly mainlining heroin.

Phelps himself has come out and shown the appropriate amount of contrition, admitting, under obvious yet unspoken duress, that he made a bad decision and that he nevertheless intends to continue training during the forced exclusion.

The funniest part of it all - other than the whole "bong" thing (hoho), is the one person he is most terrified of facing - his mother.

Hey Mike, give your Ma a full and unfettered explanation, I've no doubt she'll understand. Kelloggs? Tell them to get fucked! After you've set another plethora of world records, they'll be on their collective hands and knees begging to sponsor you again.

HAVE A GO AT THIS CRAZY BITCH

Dominique Fisher and Wayne Robinson hooked up in a bar in a bar in Blackpool, England. As one does, they partied into the night, went back to her place, and spent the night together, snorting coke along the way.

All good.

They went their separate ways the following morning and later that day bumped into one another again.

More of the same ensued; more coke - with added valium chasers, hit the sheets and pass out.
Except this time when Wayne awoke, he found Dominique, while he was wasted, had taken a Stanley knife and cut her name into the flesh of his arm. Reasonably tidily too, I'd have to say - remember, the nutbag is off her head! (And Dominique, frankly, is no short name either, it's worth mentioning, I mean, it's hardly Kate or Emma or Jo, for example, and lots of curved letters...).
Seemingly on a roll and stirred on by her handywork, she proceeded to cut a tribal pattern on his left arm and a star on his back.

At this point I feel compelled to ask - exactly how wasted was he? Sounds like she could've had his nuts and he wouldn't've awoke. So there y'go kids, another reason not to take drugs!

Mr Robinson says he awoke to find himself covered in blood with Dominique snoring away next to him (no mention is made of the whereabouts of the "tool". (I'm not sure what would upset me more, the slashes on my body or the woman who the night before in my addled state had seemed like a goddess, snoring away like a fat trucker!)

Needless to say, our "body artist" was arrested and is currently on bail pending her trial. She claims he consented. He, obviously, denies such claims. (Well, he would, wouldn't he?)

Crazy, crazy woman.