This isn't my rant...

But it's still one I thought worthy of mention...

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) today asks why both the UK Government and Scottish Government are proposing a 50% cut in water quality testing when official figures for 2007, also released today, show a ten-fold increase in official UK coastal bathing sites failing legal minimum standards compared to 2006.

MCS believes that the number of failures will rise still further when unofficial sites are included in its Good Beach Guide 2008, published next May.

Government figures released today on UK bathing water quality for Summer 2007 show that the number of official coastal bathing sites failing legal minimum standards rose from 2 in 2006 to 20 in 2007.

- Thomas Bell, MCS Coastal Pollution Officer

There you go. There's no doubt some more blurb on this at the Marine Conservation Society's webby site if you need more information.

For those of you concerned that I'm going to turn into a hippy - don't worry, I'm just off to watch bambi's mother die on a 72" widescreen telly. That always perks me right up.

Medal of Honour 6: Private contractor

So you may remember that earlier in the year there was a bit of a fuss when some security guards from the American firm Blackwater (which is a pretty awesome name) killed 17 people.

So let's see what some of the news sources around the globe have picked up about this story then. ABC News ran with news that a Blackwater guard said he returned fire at Iraqis dressed as civilians.

Now maybe it's just me, but could an Iraqi dressed as a civilian actually be an Iraqi civilian? Way to go ABC News for running with that piece of Orwellian language.

The Washington Post quoted a US official as saying that at least one Blackwater guard drew a weapon on his colleagues and shouted at him to "stop shooting". Sounds to me like Blackwater need to change their server settings to ban friendly fire!

Iraqi eyewitnesses have said that guards moved into the roundabout stopping the traffic. They then fired on a white sedan that had failed to slow down. According to those accounts, the car burst into flames killing the occupants. One eyewitness said Blackwater operatives had fired a rocket or grenade into the car.

The reports continue, and say Blackwater guards then fired without provocation into the surrounding area as civilians and Iraqi officers tried to flee. They say the officers did not return fire.

So apparently - failing to slow down when some mercenary with a gun starts waving at you is the action of an evil terrorist. I'm pretty certain that's not entirely true. I'm also continually frustrated that we're not calling this as it is - the American government are using mercenaries, and giving them immunity from any crimes they may commit while under contract to the United States. If ever there were a set of circumstances guarenteed to lead to a fucked up situation - this is it. Take a bunch of cold blooded, financially motivated killers. Arm them, and tell them that they won't be held accountable if some brown people turn up dead. Well at least we all know why the population of Mississippi has dropped - they're all on a hunting trip.

The New York Times are quoting 'unnamed US officials' and printing that a premliminary FBI investigation found that at least 14 of the 17 shootings were 'unjustified'.

I don't know why we're worried though. The US State department is on the case. They've got an inspector general - Howard Krongard. He's investigating Blackwater, and their employee's actions and has been doing so for the last 2 months. Thank god for Mr Krongard and his investigation. He's totally excellent at investigating. For example, yesterday he discovered that his brother was part of Blackwater's advisory board. 2 months. 60 days. 1440 hours of investigating and what has Mr Krongard discovered? That his brother's a part of the company that he's investigating.

I have to say, if you ever want to get away with something, ask for Howard Krongard to investigate it. He hasn't got a fucking clue.

American's aren't just litigious

They also have no sense of perspective.

Certainly, the actions of Judge Roy Pearson suggests as much.

When his local dry cleaners lost his trousers, he sued. For $54 million.

My favourite bit - included in the lawsuit was mental anguish. For a lost pair of trousers.

Now he's lost his job, he'll probably want to sue someone for loss of earnings.

Great caesar's ghost!

You know, it wasn't until I started trying to think of a title for this post that I realised that Marvel's side characters don't really have the soundbytery that DC's do. Just thought I'd mention that.

Of course, what I could've titled this was Marvel give you 250 comics for free. Because at the moment, that's exactly what they're doing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have 248 comics to go.

Some pun about oil

Well it's been a while, but I very nearly just shouted at my computer when I read this.

Exxon are appealing against having to pay the $2.5 billion fine that they received for devastating 1300 miles of Alaskan coastline. Now while that may seem excessive, let's look at some of the facts.

The Valdez spilt 11 million gallons of crude oil. It killed an estimated 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 Otters, 300 seals, 250 bald eagles & 22 killer whales. This was a disaster of epic proportions. Communities have been devastated, whole ecologies have been wiped out and still Exxon say that they don't think that they should be fined.

So is it because that if they pay the fine they'll be bankrupt? No. Exxon's net profit for last year was $39.5 billion. So if they payed their fine, then they'd still have had a profit of $37 billion. Which is more than the GDP of Bulgaria.

So why don't they want to pay the fine? I'll quote Walter Dellinger, Exxon's lead lawyer - "This record punitive award unquestionably raises important issues of constitutional dimension." So apparently paying a fine for putting a drunk in charge of an oil tanker is in fact anti-american.

So it's not that Exxon are a greedy, soulless bunch of fucks who don't want to pay a fine, it's that they're preserving America's freedom.

Nice one. Apparently next week, they're going to protect my freedom even further by organising a sponsored shoot an endangered species week. The board of directors have even bought state of the art machineguns for the occasion, and the CEO is looking forward to testing the integrated grenade launcher functionality on a family of meerkats.

Skip to the end

Warner Brothers TV are going to make an American version of Spaced. Twats.

Now, if you read the Variety article on the news, then you (like me) would probably end up with the impression that Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright are rather on board with the whole thing.

Of course, that isn't quite the truth. If you'd like a more accurate version of what's been going on - you can check out Wright's myspace blog. It makes interesting reading.

So I'll leave you with this point - Americans remaking Spaced - almost as good an idea as trying to rape the pope.

How to tell you are under the yoke of dictatorship - a handy guide.

I figured that what with us living in an uncertain world, this'd be a useful little guide to keep handy so that you can tell when your country becomes a dictatorship...

1. The head of your country has a snazzy title like 'General' 'El Presidente' or 'Grand Vizier'
2. The only newspapers and/or television stations start the day with the national anthem, feature shows on about how awesome your country is, and how terrible everyone else is.
3. Anyone who disagrees with how awesome your country is is either a criminal, an exile, or strangely ends up poisoned by a nuclear isotope.
4. American is either your best friend or your most hated enemy. It's strange, but I don't think I can remember a dictatorship that is indifferent toward America (have a think about it).

So there you go - four quick points to help you work it all out. I figured that it'd be useful seeing as we have a new dictatorship in the offing (the name begins with a P and ends in akistan if you haven't worked it out yet).

Good things come to those who...

Follow a series of clues on the Guinness website apparently!

So there's a new Guinness advert tonight (you can already find it online). Guinness however have decided to get in on the viral marketing buzz and if you go to Guinness.com, you'll find a bunch of puzzles that you have to go through to get to see the advert before everyone else does (which is tonight - so you don't have that long to wait).

This one's been done by the same guy who was behind the Sony Bravia adverts, and you can see the same themes being revisited. I like it though. Certainly better than that fucking Barry Scott.

Actually - this is a point - it's not Barry Scott, it's an actor. His name is Neil Burgess. His other claim to fame is that he was on the Bill as an axe murderer. But at least the crime scene was nice and clean.

I am somewhat loathe to do this...

But I'm going to link to a story from the Telegraph's website. I'm sorry to have to do this, but some things just have to be commented on.

I mean there's no denying that this guy's a bit on the weird side, but I'm not sure he deserved to go to court over it - he was in his hotel room, enjoying some 'private time' by himself and 2 maids used their key to enter. So is this a documented case of schrodinger's crime? You can't tell if he's committing a crime unless you watch him, and because you're watching him he's committing a crime?

On the other hand - how the hell do you have sex with a pavement?

I had an awesome Friday

Just wanted to mention it really. I made a trip down to Gennith for some surfing, and had an absolutely awesome time. I used my wetsuit booties for the first time and had some of the best waves I've ever had in my short surfing experience.

So there.

HBO make with the awesome.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that HBO have a tendency toward making awesome TV. These are after all the guys behind the Sopranos, Sex in the City & Band of Brothers.

What they're also responsible for is a 12 part series called - "From The Earth To The Moon".

The show focuses on the Apollo missions, on the people involved, on the technical and political challenges they had to face and the setbacks they hit along the way (unsurprisingly, there were quite a few).

The exploration of space holds a strange fascination for me. It always has. For me, there's something about it that just captures and holds my imagination so this show really appeals to me. What makes it even better is that the entire series is currently available on Virgin Media's on demand service.

So if you're reading this Mr Murdoch - From the Earth to the Moon - 500 times better than repeats of Stargate. Even if it doesn't have Macgyver in it.

Buy the guardian...

For this week at least.

Every day this week, the guardian are giving away supplements which feature reprinted articles from the Guardian's history. Today's supplement focuses on political articles between 1821 & 1975.
Without giving too much away, here are a couple of the headlines that caught my eye...

From March 28th, 1829 - Prime Minister fights duel over Catholic remarks.
From September 5th, 1957 - Homosexuality should not be a crime, Wolfenden report says.
From December 17th, 1969 - End of capital punishment - the right decision for society.

There are more - the end of slavery in the colonies, the introduction of voting at 21 for women, the Easter uprising in Dublin and even an the obituary for Karl Marx. All in all, very good reading.

Of course, all this is just the Guardian's way of pimping the fact that they've got a new online archive, but when the content of the pimping's as good as this - I don't really mind getting pimped.