Feb 14th

International News

MPs have expressed concern about the “tone and timing” of comments from Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Yes, the “tone and timing”. That’s the kind of thing you say when you know you’ve lost an argument. “It’s not what you said, it’s that voice you said it in and why did you have to say it now when you know I’m having a bad day?”. Apparently they thought the appropriate timing would be “When we’re not in power any more” and the appropriate tone would be “below the audible decibel range of the human ear”.

What Karzai said was that having British troops in Afghanistan was only making things worse. Now you know you fucked up when you invade a country, stick in a puppet leader of your own choosing and then he turns round and tells you to fuck off. If the British prescence in Afghanistan isn’t helping the Afghanis, why are we there? Is it helping us in some way? Do our brave boys and girls in uniform like getting shot at?

Crime

Five Muslim men have had their convictions quashed after they were convicted of reading extremist literature. The defence have argued that reading a book does not constitute intending to act on the information in it. Otherwise there’d be several million people commuting to work on broomsticks now and Man Utd would be playing quidditch.

Health

A study for the Journal of Clinical Nursing suggests that post-natal depression is much more common in mothers who have male children. The study was carried out in France however and a UK-based analyst said the data could be affected by cultural issues in male-female relationships as well as the fact that delivery is more painful when the infant comes out with its hands in the air waving a white flag.

Science

A group of US-based scientists have developed brush-like fibres that generate electrical energy from movement. They hope that these can be incorporated into clothing that powers the wearer’s electronic devices. I’m looking forward to the day when we’ll see people at bus stops shouting into their mobile phone “I’M LOSING THE SIGNAL, I’LL HAVE TO DANCE”.

Space

The government is to launch a formal review into whether British astronauts should take part in the international exploration of space. What the hell are British astronauts doing now? Drinking tea and eating biscuits while the review is done. What’s the point of astronauts if they’re not going into space? They should be re-named staff-room-o-nauts. If they are going to send British citizens into space however I do think it should be done with a reality TV show “I’m a really annoying quasi-celebrity, get me off this planet” and a follow-up show “What not to wear in space where we vote whether or not to give them helmets”.

Crime (again)

Detective Superintendent Steve Richardson, who has led a series of drugs raids across London has said that the seizing of 111kg of cocaine was a “huge success”. He also said he was the supreme overlord of the universe. Then he sniffed a bit and said he was going to become a rock star.

500 police officers were involved in the raids, which means actually they’re only getting about 200g each. They would have taken more cocaine off the streets if they’d just given them all an early Christmas bonus and told them to take the night off and enjoy themselves. In one of the raids a JCB digger was used to smash through a wall. So the police deliberately drove a huge piece of industrial equipment in to a wall and then started telling other people not to have such a reckless lifestyle.

Travel

BAA has begun a six-month trial of a new baggage tracking system. They’re trialling a never-before-tested idea where they actually put the bags that belong to you on the plane that you’re on. No, they’re going to use radio frequency identification tags. They hope this could “significantly improve efficiency” by letting passengers find out online which land-fill their baggage has been dumped in.