Me thinks me know why Johann is a bit miffed:
But this is Steyn's way with evidence: the extremely atypical is presented as universal, and the urban myth is presented as damning fact.
Someone else has nicked his schtick.
09 March 2007
Hen Fight
Happens to me all the time....
Dear readers, we are cannon fodder in the food wars being fought by rival PR men, marketing groups and supermarket chains. And the icing on the cake is a whole lot of dubious "research" by scientists published in an arcane publication, probably funded by - you've guessed it - the people who grow, sell or package food.
Remember when low-fat spreads were just brilliant for lowering your blood pressure and warding off heart disease? I know that secretly you thought; "How come no one in Sardinia is offering me Flora when I sit in a gorgeous fish café in Porto Cervo"
08 March 2007
Yo, are these those eco-jobs I keep hearin' 'bout?
Child labor, no safety standards, handling hazardous material, picking through garbage, cholera .... sounds t-ight:
But for a growing number of environmental campaigners Dharavi is becoming the green lung stopping Mumbai choking to death on its own waste.
All along Apna St hundreds of barefoot street children, human recycling machines, scurry back and forward, hauling bundles of waste - plastic, cardboard or glass - retrieved from Mumbai's vast municipal dumps. From every alley comes the sounds of hammering, drilling and soldering. In every shack, dark figures sit waist-deep in piles of car batteries, computer parts, fluorescent lights, ballpoint pens, plastic bags, paper and cardboard boxes and wire hangers, sorting each item for recycling.
Workshops reveal everything from aluminium smelters recycling drink cans to perspiring bare-chested men stirring huge vats of waste soap retrieved from rubbish tips and local hotels. Walking through Dharavi, home to an estimated 15,000 single-room factories, it becomes difficult to conceive of anything that is not made or recycled here.
Sign me up boy .......
Yet survival in a slum rarely means adhering to the law. Barely 10 per cent of the commercial activity here is legal. Most of the workshops are constructed illegally on government land, power is routinely stolen and commercial licences are rarely sought. There is just one lavatory for every 1,500 residents, not a single public hospital, and only a dozen municipal schools. Throughout the slum filthy chicken and mutton stalls dispose bloody viscera into open drains thick with untreated human and industrial waste - cholera, typhoid and malaria are common. Taps run dry most of the time and tankers bring in potable water once in a fortnight.
Notttt
On the pull
a ShOuT oUt To ThOsE aNd ThEm In ThE a-M-s-T-e-R-d-I-z-A-m As ThE kInG aNd CoUrT wIlL bE iN dA hIzOuSe ThIs WiZeEkEnD. yUp, SpLiZiFiN aNd BlIzUnTiN aNd HiZoRiN. cOuRtEsY oF tHaT eZ-jEt.
I gIzOt YoUr CaRbOn FoOtPrInT hIzAnGiN. sTrIzAiGhT oUtTa StAnStEd.
You know what time it iz.......
Although a cheat.............
the man is also a chav ............
Old-school:
Former football star Diego Maradona is being investigated for possible financial irregularities in Argentina, reports say.
It is not the first time Diego Maradona's finances have come under the scrutiny of the authorities.
In June 2006, he was prosecuted in Italy for tax evasion and had two Rolex watches confiscated.
Cut a brother some slack.
St. Tiggywinkles
Just when I think I am getting my knowledge on about this whole environmental tip I end up with a spanner in the backside.
This I am cool with:
The behaviour of Britain's wildlife is raising alarm about the seriousness of climate change as animals' breeding patterns are thrown into confusion. The second mildest winter on record has resulted in mammals, reptiles, birds and insects emerging from shelter far too early.
Fine with this too, global warming is the (not so stone cold) killa:
The visible impact on Britain's wildlife has manifested itself in the form of earlier than normal breeding, egg-laying, nesting and flowering of plants and trees, observed in British wildlife for more than 15 years and now linked to global warming in a whole series of scientific studies. They have sparked huge new interest in the discipline of phenology the timing of natural events.
Then I get a lorry full of this shovelled down my gullet:
They are getting caught out by cold snaps or wet weather and the young of many species are dying. Baby hedgehogs, baby squirrels, even baby grass snakes are being found in distress in many places.
...
A typical inhabitant is Bushy, as he has been named by staff, a 10-day-old grey squirrel, still blind and about four inches long. He is being bottle fed and even needs human help to make his bladder work, a job normally done by his mother, from whom he was separated when their nest was disturbed by tree cutters.
"He really should not be here. He was born two or three weeks before he should have been,'' says Les Stocker, the founder of Tiggywinkles. " This is the busiest year we have had for these kind of animals being brought in,'' he added. "The animals are becoming active and mating earlier than normal, but you can still get sudden cold snaps to which they are vulnerable."
Cold weather can either kill young animals or prompt them into hibernation, from which they do not awake because they lack sufficient fat reserves.
Which is it out there? Warming, cooling, everything? These swampies seem to be pimpin' all sides. Usually a sign that somebody is getting paid, hard. A possible insight into my interest in the subject, yo-yo?
A decree from the King, any animals out there needin' some extra fat reserves should swing by the crib of my boy Caspah, his mum and sis got mad fat to spare.
