Sarah Palin: The Facts

So it turns out that Sarah Palin is running for President of the USA in 2012.

Coincidentally, it seems experts from around the world are predicting that the world will end in that same year. So yawl, here's a list of completely, absolutely, honest-to-goodness, true facts about the woman who aspires to be the next (and apparently last) US President:

• Sarah Palin has pledged that, if elected, she will construct a giant death-ray to 'burn the devil' out of all the evolutionists
  
  
• Sarah Palin only knows two facts about ducks and one of them is wrong
  
  
• On the night that Sarah Palin was born, every single child in the world stopped whatever they were doing, stood completely still, and screamed.
  
  
• Sarah Palin's glasses are made of solid titanium and contain enough plutonium to construct a sizeable nuclear warhead
  
  
• For her high school science project, Sarah Palin constructed a 100 mile oil pipeline out of juice-box straws
  
  
• Sarah Palin once killed a moose by praying
  
  
• Sarah Palin's hair is made from the souls of dead wolves
  
  
• Sarah Palin once joked that she could see Russia from her house. In reality she can see the Kremlin from her closet
  
  
• Sarah Palin's favourite color is Nuclear Armageddon
  
  
• Sarah Palin won the beauty queen competition in her hometown Wasila by narrowly beating the reining beauty queen; a potato that resembled Mother Teresa
  
  
• Sarah Palin comes from the town of Wasila in Alaska. The town motto is: "We can see Russia from our houses"
  
  
• Most children have nightmares about monsters in the closet. Sarah Palin had nightmares about Reds under her Bed
  
  
• When asked to point out the location of Asia on a map, Sarah Palin described it as being the "the Old Eastern Europes that's not the USSR"
  
  
• Sarah Palin once decribed George Bush as having "a gee-wilikers level of speechmaking that I can only aspire with, yawl"

• My Aunt once touched Sarah Palin; she is now made of stone

• Sarah Palin once suggested that global warming could be stopped by cooling down New Mexico with ice imported from Alaska
  
  
• Sarah Palin can walk over water, provided that it is 99% cement
  
  
• Sarah Palin's heroes include Barbie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wonder Woman and Dick Cheney
  
  
• If elected President, Sarah Palin has pledged to reduce the number of witches on America's streets by 3.5% over the next four years
  
  
• Sarah Palin believes that Einstein and Newton are types of shotgun
  
  
• Sarah Palin's hobbies include, hunting, dog sledging and speaking incoherently

• After accepting the oppotunity to be John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin travelled from Alaska to Washington D.C. by crowd surfing an endless angry mob of Hockey Moms

• Sarah Palin's house is made entirely from moose
  

British In Space

Exciting stuff on This Post on Science blog the BBC News Website. The British National Space Council (BNSC) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have decided to provide joint funding to the Skylon project by Reaction Engines Ltd. And what exactly is the Skylon Project you ask?

SKYLON is an unpiloted, reuseable spaceplane intended to provide inexpensive and reliable access to space. Currently in proof-of-concept phase, the vehicle will take approximately 10 years to develop and will be capable of transporting 12 tonnes of cargo into space.
- Reaction Englines Ltd.

How cool is that? Until recently there were only two space vehicles, the American Shuttle and the Russian Soyez, but suddenly there seems to be a plethora of new spaceships being built.

Could it be that as the general level of technology has increased the barrier for space flight has now lowered so that it is realistic for more countries to develop manned space programs? The construction of private spaceships like SpaceShipOne suggests that this may be the case.

All of which raises a much more challenging and important question: if Britain does build and operate a fleet of spaceships what will be the name of their Space Organisation? Could there be a Royal Space Force (RSF) to compliment the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy? And what would be the preface of the ships? Perhaps HMSS (Her Majesty's Space Ship)?

I submit that this is too cool for school

In the Movies!

There have been some great movies lately yeah?

I remember when I was a kid good movies were rare. You waited and waited and treasured them when they appeared because the Early-to-mid-nineties were a kind of celluloid wasteland.

Not-so-anymore!

Here are two upcoming movies that look cool: District 9 and Tron 2.

I'll deal with the District first; its a Peter Jackson movie, and based on previous form we would expect something big and dramatic (a lá Lord of the Rings and King Kong) but lately Jackson has been getting a little bit quirky (Cloverfield) and this latest film looks extremely quirky. The premise is intriguing; Humanity has made contact with Extraterrestrial life and waits, expectantly for the giant flying saucers of benevolent aliens or bloodthirsty conquerors to appear, but nothing happens. It turns out that ET has seen it all before and doesn't much care. Then after a decade or so, a steady stream of alien refugees start to arrive, unsurprisingly no national government wants to take responsibility for them and so they end up in slums primarily in South Africa. So our set up is basically "What if illegal aliens were actual aliens?" Isn't that just a neat idea? The film looks set to tap into the best traditions of Science Fiction as a method for analogy by using fantastical aliens to make a film about the grim realities of apartheid.

Tron 2, on the other hand, appears to have no such depth; it just looks cool. The original was famous for its then-revolutionary use of computer generated graphics but the comparatively low-budget for its sequel means that this is unlikely to be the case this time round. Instead this movie relies upon the gorgeously sleek but gritty style of its neon world to impress its audience. The script is likely to be typical popcorn stuff but the visuals are stunning.

I declare that Movies= Awesome

So what..?

So anyways...

A startling fact: This is not my first blog.

Over the years I've started a couple of blogs and each time with a sparkly enthusiastic idea that slowly fades away. I am a serial blogger and a trail of discarded and unloved blogs lies in my wake, which raises the question; why do I abandon my blogs?

Top Five Reasons for Abandoning a Blog

1. No-one else reads them. Ever.

I'm publishing this on the mighty and celebrated internet, which is rightly lauded as The Place where minds and cultures meet. I want it to be read. I want a loyal band of commentators to compliment my obvious wit and superior blogging prowess but it will never happen. The nature of the Net is that its so huge that its become an inpersonal chasm. Writing a blog is like screaming into the void.

2. Isn't it all a bit pompous?

This pretty much follows on from point 1. Obviously I'm writing a blog because I believe that O have Important Things that Must be Said. In reality its unlikely that I will say anything remotely profound here (or ever). Perhaps I'm just a victim of fame culture; fooled into thinking I'm something special whereas I'm actually very ordinary.

3. Too much like hard work

What's the purpose of a blog? To entertain! What you're reading now is essentially free entertainment. There are people who are paid to provide this sort of stuff. There are people for whom this is a job and once the inital novelty of writing wears off this will probably feel like one too.

4. What to say?

A good blog relies upon a stream of fresh ideas and where do those come from? I remember reading an article by Douglas Adams in which he revealed that he hated when his fans asked him that question, because when you stop and analyse it the ideas really do ocome out of thin air. And what if they stop coming? What then? Will the readers (if there were any) depart? There is a certain pressure to write and that drives me away.

5. Real Life

Ever hear the phrase 'real life got in the way'? Writing is a solitary and often lonely pursuit. For some reason I find that feeling of melancholy lonliness is greatly magnified by sitting here tapping away at a keyboard, pointlessly writing something that no-one will ever read. There's something about the slightly too bright light from my computer screen and the rushing wheeze of my computer's fan that reminds me that the human condition is one of inescapable aloneness.

Post-Zero

First Post! (Wooo!)

So what is this blog about?

It is said that after losing the post war election Winston Churchill took to writing. The subject of his book was titled "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples". In theory this would cover the entirety of American, Australian, British, Canadian, Irish, New Zealander, etc... history. In reality it was confined to a few key battles. Some American reviewer snarkily suggested that it should have been titled "Things that Interest Me".

That's what this blog is about. I do not have an over-arching theme. I intend to ramble. I intend to be esoteric, polymathical, and obscure. This blog is about things that interest me.

Enjoy!