Kids on planes

It is always entertaining to read the comments of outraged parents at being expected that their offspring should behave on a plane.

Or anywhere else for that matter

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So, to redress the balance here are some thoughts

If a child is badly behaved or noisy in public or on a plane it is because the parent has raised it poorly.

Bluntly stated the parent is incompetent. 

It is not the child's fault.

Perhaps sadly, no-one has to pass a fitness-for-parenthood exam before breeding.

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For example, foolish parents energize their children before flying.

Allowing them caffeine and sugar stuffed sodas along with junk food and sugar filled soft drinks.

A sedative would be more appropriate for flying.

Foolish parents do not think to bring games or video viewers on flights.

For a flight, your child should be tired; not "hyper". 

It's your fault if they are not.

Or if they are bored.

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Few sights are sadder than new parents on a plane utterly bewildered as to why their child is screaming with no clue what to do about it. 

Learn before you fly please. 

Naturally sedate.

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New parents may not realize that many babies die every year in typically exotic holiday destinations.

Babies can get very poorly very quickly and such places may be many hours from proper medical care. 

Think about it is your trip really necessary now?

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Your child will have a happier flight if it has a more competent parent.

So will all the other passengers.

Even if you have no interest in that.

So do us all a favor and try to become more competent parents.
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Please!

Puns

I changed my i Pod name to Titanic. It's syncing now.

I tried to catch some Fog. I mist.

When chemists die, they barium.

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Than it dawned on me.

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity . I can't put it down.

I did a theatrical performance about puns . It was a play on words .

They told me I had type A blood , but it was a Type- O.

A dyslexic man walks into a bra .

PMS jokes aren't funny, period .

Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory . I hope there's no pop quiz.

Energizer bunny arrested. Charged with battery.

I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!

Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

What does a clock do when it's hungry? It goes back four seconds.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!

Broken pencils are pointless.

What do you call a dinosaur with a extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

All the toilets in New York's police stations have been stolen. Police have nothing to go on.

I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

Velcro - what a rip off!

Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.

Venison for dinner? Oh deer!

Earthquake in Washington obviously government's fault.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Be kind to your dentist. He has fillings, too.

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Coins and cash

Unlike the US or EU the Indian and Chinese governments do not release vast sums of coins and notes into the hands of the people.

1,347,350,000 Chinese have only $2 per head worth cash and coins in circulation.

While 1,210,193,422 Indians have only $5 per head worth of cash and coins in circulation.

127,610,000 Japanese have $564,219 per head worth of cash and coins in circulation.

313,802,000 Americans have $3,534 per head worth of cash and coins in circulation.

501,259,840 Europeans have $1,400 per head worth of cash and coins in circulation.

143,100,000 Russians have $27 per head worth of cash and coins in circulation.

62,262,000 British have $819 per head worth of cash  and coins in circulation.

Now what does this tell us?

Quantitative easing maybe?

Just another game our politicians like to play with us.

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One liners

The Grim Reaper came for me last night, and I beat him off with a vacuum cleaner.  Talk about Dyson with death. A mate of mine recently admitted to being addicted to brake fluid. When I quizzed him on it he reckoned he could stop any time.... I went to the cemetery yesterday to lay some flowers on a grave.  As I was standing there I noticed 4 grave diggers walking about with a coffin,  3 hours later and they're still walking about with it.  I thought to myself, they've lost the plot!! My daughter asked me for a pet spider for her birthday,  so I went to our local pet shop and they were £70!!!  Blow this , I thought , I can get one cheaper off the web. I was at an ATM yesterday when a little old lady asked if I could check her balance,  so I pushed her over. I start a new job in Seoul next week.  I thought it was a good Korea move. I was driving this morning when I saw an AA van parked up.  The driver was sobbing uncontrollably and looked very miserable.  I thought to myself that guy's heading for a breakdown. Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarves are not Happy. Paddy says "Mick, I'm thinking of buying a Labrador.   ”Bugger that" says Mick "have you seen how many of their owners go blind?" I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice!!   At least I presume she was poor - she only had £1.20 in her purse. My girlfriend thinks that I'm a stalker.  Well, she's not exactly my girl friend yet. A wife says to her husband you're always pushing me around and talking behind my back.  He says what do you expect?  You're in a wheelchair. Two Muslims have crashed a speedboat into the Thames barrier in London.  Police think it might be the start of Ram-a-dam. They've had to cancel the panto 'Jack & the Beanstalk' in Birmingham,  Bristol, Oldham, Bradford, Burnley, Leicester, Luton and London:  Apparently the giant couldn't smell any Englishmen. The wife was counting all the 1p's and 2p's out on the kitchen table when  she suddenly got very angry and started shouting and crying for no reason.  I thought to myself , "She's going through the change." Bought some 'rocket salad' yesterday but it went off before I could eat it! A teddy bear is working on a building site. He goes for a tea break and when he returns he notices his pick has been stolen. The bear is angry and reports the theft to the foreman. The foreman grins at the bear and says  "Oh, I forgot to tell you , today's the day the teddy bears have their pick nicked." Murphy says to Paddy "What ya talkin to an envelope for?"  "I'm sending a voicemail ya thick sod!" 19 paddies go to the cinema, the ticket lady asks  "Why so many of you?" Mick replies, "The film said 18 or over." An Asian fellow has moved in next door.  He has travelled the world, swum with sharks,  wrestled bears and climbed the highest mountain. It came as no surprise to learn his name was Bindair Dundat.

Why they were so happy

This might be one reason why our Great Grandparents were So Happy. Have you ever wondered why our great grandparents all had such fond memories of their youth? Well... I'm surprised they remembered anything at all !! Forget Tums & Tylenol.

Forget Aleve & Benadryl. Look at the cool stuff they had back then!

A bottle of Bayer's 'Heroin'. Between 1890 and 1910 heroin was sold as

A non-addictive substitute for morphine.

It was also used to treat children suffering with a strong cough.Coca Wine, anyone?

Metcalf's Coca Wine was one of a huge variety of wines with

cocaine on the market.

Everybody used to say that it would make you happy and it would also work as a medicinal treatment. Mariani Wine. Mariani wine (1875) was the most famous Coca wine of it's time.

Pope Leo XIII used to carry one bottle with him all the time.

He awarded Angelo Mariani (the producer) with a Vatican gold medal. Maltine.

Produced by the Maltine Manufacturing Company of New York .

It was suggested that you should take a full glass with or after every meal.

Children should only take half a glass. A paperweight: A paperweight promoting C.F. Boehringer & Soehne ( Mannheim , Germany ).

They were proud of being the biggest producers in the world of products containing Quinine and Cocaine. Opium for Asthma: At 40% alcohol plus 3 grams of opium per tablet.

It didn't cure you...

But you didn't care! Cocaine Tablets (1900). All stage actors, singers, teachers and preachers had to have them for a maximum performance. Great to 'smooth' the voice.Cocaine drops for toothache. Very popular for children in 1885.

Not only did they relieve the pain, they made the children very happy Opium for newborns. I'm sure this would make them sleep well. (not only the Opium, but also the 46% alcohol) It's no wonder they were called, "The Good Old Days."

From cradle to grave... everyone was STONED!

Your food prices

They are being driven upwards by the climb in grain and oilseed prices as US crops weather the country's worst drought since 1936.

While the farming belts of Russia and South America suffer through similar water shortages.

What we are seeing represents the third major rally in global grain and oilseed prices in just half a decade.

Worse is to come, new research warns. 

World food prices look set to hit an all-time high in the first quarter of next year.

And then keep rising, according to the analysis from Rabobank, a specialist in agricultural commodities.

By June 2013, the basket of food prices tracked by the United Nations could climb 15pc from current levels, according to the bank's analysts.

The coming year will see the world economy re-enter a period of agflation as grain and oilseed stocks decline to critically low levels, pushing the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organisation] Food Price Index above record nominal highs set in February 2011.

The index offers a useful proxy for the prices paid by world consumers for food.

Indicating how agricultural commodity price movements are likely to translate into prices of shop shelves.

For policy-makers, the pick up in food inflation signals problems, as high food prices tend to magnify social unrest.

Politics and economics are inextricably linked as exemplified by the Arab Spring.

Which was preceded by a rise in food prices, note Hermes fund managers in a recent report.

But no crisis looks quite the same as the last. 

Rabobank thinks the consumer impact could be less painful this time around compared to 2008, when there were severe shortages of wheat and rice.

That is because today's shortages are being seen more in crops used as animal feed, such as corn and soybeans..

In contrast, back in 2008 falling wheat stocks and various bans on rice exports capped the amount of grains available for direct consumption by people.

Today, prices for staple grains such as rice and wheat are currently 30pc below their 2008 peaks.

So while the pressure on feedstock supplies pushes up meat prices, consumers feeling the squeeze should be able to switch from animal protein towards staple grains.

Food prices are also rising in a very different global economic environment, with Chinese demand slowing and the debt problems of the West weighing on world growth. 
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That lessens wider price pressures in the system.

However the risks remain, as states try to appease citizens feeling the squeeze.

As in 2008, government stockpiling, trade restrictions and other forms of intervention remain a significant threat, says Rabobank. 

But it warns a pick-up in government intervention will prove counterproductive at an international level, as states engage in a "vicious cycle" of protectionist policies, aggravating the food price environment.

More specifically, the scarcity of feed crops is expected to have major repercussions for the meat and dairy industries, as the increase in the costs of feed stocks raises the prices faced by consumers and hits profit margins.

In the shorter term, higher slaughter rates as producers respond to rising feed costs should temporarily increase the meat supply. 

But the ultimate result is expected be smaller animal herd sizes, which will reduce meat and dairy production and ramp up prices.

The British public, which consumes high levels of meat and dairy products, will definitely feel the impact of this latest bout of agflation, says Rabobank. 

Nick Higgins, one of the report's authors, says UK food prices "are going to rise in the coming year significantly."

Still, while consumers in developing countries show "elasticity" of demand as prices move, people in the UK tend not to change their consumption patterns in response to prices, he notes.

In other words, even if meat gets more expensive, they will keep buying.

Want to be somewhere else

Most of us feel this from time to time

Just want to be out of here

To be somewhere else

To see new things

Eat different food maybe

More than anything else though to get away from here

This place I am in now.

Usually this is not possible

Just have to live in our dreams

Reality says stay here and deal with life around you

Not always so easy when the weather is is slushy

Dark and cold

Maybe the weather started it

Just another 'iffy' day

An iffy day for those who don't know is when you wake up and feel down

Negative about everything

Funny things iffy days

If you indulge them then you get more of them

Maybe it's the iffy day that gets you wanting to be anywhere else

Maybe just the idea of sun or snow or something else

Restlessness

Just restless

Wanting to leave everything

What is going on then?

Not really unhappy with my life

Not really too excited either

Just feeling restless

Not even down so much

Maybe it's the endless routine of it all

Repetition of everything in my life

Endless repetitions

Not that even

OK what then?

Need to break my patterns

Need for stimulus

Need for refreshing things

Yes all that's true

But underneath is something else

Shitty world so much wrong with it

Not the planet that was doing just fine until we came along

Maybe the utter corruption of so many things

Local corruption

Then all those greedy pathetic politicians

Bankers and business men

Consultants

Lawyers

Accountants

Marketing and advertising people

God the list could go on for ever

Just sick of the lies

Tired of the pretense

Surely time to say it as it is?

Maybe time for me to get involved

Doesnt have to be on the global stage

Just get involved in something you care about

funny thing when we do get involved those iffy days come along less often

Life is not a spectator sport even though you might be acting as if it is.

Play your part get involved

Banish iffy days!

More pirates.......

The west African coast has been plagued for 20 years with massive international trawlers that are able to scoop up hundreds of tonnes of fish a day.

This is then exported illegally to Europe, at the expense of local fishermen who use 8m open pirogues or small flat-bottomed boats. 

The foreign trawlers, that are meant to stay outside the 12-mile limit, come in much closer at night because few west African countries have the money to monitor or police their waters.

Along with the economic losses, pirate fishing in the region severely compromises the food security and livelihoods of coastal communities. 

In Sierra Leone, fish represents nearly two-thirds of the total animal protein consumed in the country.

Anger at the activities of pirate fishing vessels is now boiling over. 

According to the report, countries like Liberia, Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea and Ghana have the highest levels of illegal fishing in the world with nearly one-third of the total catch being taken illegally.

Earlier this year Senegal cancelled the licences of 29 foreign fishing trawlers, demanding that they offload their catches in the capital Dakar before leaving its territorial waters. 

The move followed threats of direct action by the country's 52,000 small-scale inshore fishermen against the owners of foreign trawlers.

EJF is calling on the EU to tighten up its regulations, blacklist companies that have been shown to have repeatedly fished illegally and prevent illegally caught fish from entering the European seafood market.

The EU is the world's largest importer of fish. 

It has a crucial responsibility to combat illegal fishing around the world, particularly in vulnerable countries where fish is a vital source of food security, employment and income.

Today many local fishermen along the West African coast have been given mobile phones with cameras, which allow them to photograph and identify offending trawlers.

A step in the right direction however much remains to be done before this rape of the sea can be contained or stopped.

Security update

With a Forrester Group survey of 10,000 information workers finding that a quarter of devices used for work are now smartphones or tablets, not laptops or PCs.
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 And that half of all workers are using three or more devices to do their job, the challenge is growing.
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Those trying to lock down every possible device, from a private smartphone to a company laptop, may face a losing battle. 
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Similarly, securing every network, from VPNs to WiFi hotspots is beyond the capability of a centralised IT department. 
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Security experts are therefore moving their focus away from the device and the network and on to the data.
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Encryption has been around for a long time, but it is usually reserved for special cases of data, such as sensitive medical records or financial transactions. 
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Applied more broadly, it can act as a catch all deterrent to hackers by rendering data worthless for re-sale, security experts argue. 
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This takes the pressure off securing networks and devices.
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However, an order of magnitude extension of encryption policy is not without its overheads. 
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At the moment encryption keys are managed at the application or server level, whether that is for email, database or on the laptop. 
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IT departments need to introduce a corporate policy to distribute escrow and revoke keys; otherwise the process could become unmanageable.
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Tokenisation offers a second option for companies wanting to protect data. 
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Here, all or part of the sensitive data is replaced by a token, which can be exchanged for the real data, held in a secure location. 
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It is widely and effectively used in the card payment industry, but relatively new to the wider corporate world.
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A third option, masking, hides real data by scrambling it to create a new data string, while retaining the properties of the original data, although it is only useful during development and testing.
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While there are strong arguments for taking a more strategic approach to protecting business data, it is not time to throw out the firewall and anti-virus software.
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Even without data theft, viruses can clog up infrastructure and consume IT resources, and hackers can cause untold damage to corporate reputation, as well as disruption to IT assets. 
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As such, renewed focus on data security becomes one more weapon in the fight against cyber vandals and criminals.

Loss in one, more in the other

Two weeks after a new record was set in the Artic Ocean for the least amount of sea ice coverage in the satellite record, the ice surrounding Antarctica reached its annual winter maximum—and set a record for a new high. 

Sea ice extended over 19.44 million square kilometers (7.51 million square miles) in 2012, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). 

The previous record of 19.39 million kilometers (7.49 million square miles) was set in 2006.

The map above shows sea ice extent around Antarctica on September 26, 2012, when ice covered more of the Southern Ocean than at any other time in the satellite record. 

The map is based on an NSIDC analysis of data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imagers flown in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. 

Land is dark gray, and ice shelves—which are attached to land-based glaciers but floating on the ocean—are light gray. 

The yellow outline shows the median sea ice extent in September from 1979 to 2000. 

Sea ice extent is defined as the total area in which the ice concentration is at least 15 percent.

There is a lot of variability from year to year, though the overall trend shows growth of about 0.9 percent per decade.

According to a recent study by sea ice scientists Claire Parkinson and Donald Cavalieri of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Antarctic sea ice increased by roughly 17,100 square kilometers per year from 1979 to 2010. 

Much of the increase, they note, occurred in the Ross Sea, with smaller increases in Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean. 

At the same time, the Bellinghausen and Amundsen Seas have lost ice. 

The strong pattern of decreasing ice coverage in the Bellingshausen/Amundsen Seas region and increasing ice coverage in the Ross Sea region is suggestive of changes in atmospheric circulation.

The year 2012 continues a long-term contrast between the two hemispheres, with decreasing sea ice coverage in the Arctic and increasing sea ice coverage in the Antarctic.

Both hemispheres have considerable inter-annual variability, so that in either hemisphere, next year could have either more or less sea ice than this year. 

On their Artic Sea ice News and Analysis blog, scientists from the University of Colorado wrote: 

Comparing winter and summer sea ice trends for the two poles is problematic since different processes are in effect. 

During summer, surface melt and ice-albedo feedbacks are in effect; winter processes include snowfall on the sea ice, and wind. 

Small changes in winter extent may be a more mixed signal than the loss of summer sea ice extent. 

An expansion of winter Antarctic ice could be due to cooling, winds, or snowfall, whereas Arctic summer sea ice decline is more closely linked to decadal climate warming.