Why do Police sometimes shoot unarmed citizens?

'In this video I explain the reality of reaction time and the OODA loop in police shootings as well as demonstrate the speed at which a threat can get off a shot while you are trying to decide whether they are armed. Many people doubt the logic behind Police training. I have attended many police funerals of those officers who were killed by suspects bringing a firearm out of a vehicle.'

Absolutely fascinating and the anti-police 'journalists' at the BBC should be made to watch it before they next opine about trigger-happy police.

Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

"...Get them to investigate me and others and publish a Hutton style report.”

"...Get them to investigate me and others and publish a Hutton style report.”

That was one very odd line from an email sent from Rebekah Brooks to James Murdoch re a long telephone conversation Rebekah Brooks claimed to have with Tony Blair.

"... publish a Hutton style report." Whatever does that mean?

Oh hold on... there's more:

"... Publish part one of the report at same time as the police closes its inquiry and clear you and accept short comings and new solutions and process and part two when any trials are over."

Make sense yet?

More at Guido Fawkes 

But always remember that despite the anti-Conservative slant that  the BBC have very carefully placed on the phone-hacking story, it happened in mostly Labour supporting papers, when Labour were in power and when much of the Labour leadership were best of friends with Murdoch, Brooks etc. Who is as godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch's children? Not david Cameron, but Tony Blair.

In the words of one John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

The oldest subway in the world

A fascinating story...

' The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel holds theGuinness world record for "oldest subway tunnel," predating the Tremont Street subway in Boston from 1897, the 312-foot Beach Pneumatic Transit tunnel in Manhattan from 1869, and the first subway in the London Underground, which was built in 1863. "Trains actually passed through it, preceded by a man on horseback," wrote the Brooklyn Eagle in 1911'

More here http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5280920/tunnel-vision-bob-diamond-fights-for-the-atlantic-avenue-subway

Watch this video and it will change your life, it's changed mine - OK in a very small way

Admit it, you didn't know about the tabs on cling film and aluminium foil dispensers...

Lost your corkscrew? All is not lost.

A nifty way of opening a bottle of wine if you're minus a corkscrew.

The oldest living Holocaust survivor speaks, and plays the piano

The Lady in Number 6 is one of the most inspirational stories ever told. 109 year old, Alice Herz Sommer, the world's oldest pianist and oldest holocaust survivor, shares her views on how to live a long happy life. She discusses the vital importance of music, laughter and having an optimistic outlook on life. This powerfully inspirational video tells her amazing story of survival and how she managed to use her time in a Nazi concentration camp to empower herself and others with music. See the entire documentary at:
https://twitter.com/AliceTheFilm

Trippy watching fireworks in reverse...

This video is of the fireworks in melbourne for New Years Eve.

150 years of lesbians

From 1855...

To 1998...

For the intervening years take a trip to Autostraddle

It wasn't me it was Jew

I have just found an interesting website - It wasn't me it was Jew - which lists 'All those absurd stories blamed on the Jews' . Take a look, it is fascinating how much we Jews are to blame for.

How different would British politics be if we had this Greek electoral rule? (Updated at 20:50)

I note in the Greek Parliamentary elections that the largest party, by however small that margin be, gets a bonus of 50 seats. In a parliamentary chamber of just 300 seats in total that means a 20% bonus for being the largest party. If the extra 50 seat rule had applied in the UK at the 2010 general election then the Conservatives would have had not 306 seats out of 650  but 356 out of 700, a small overall majority. If the rule had been a 20% bonus then the conservatives would have had 436 seats out of 780, a comfortable majority. In the former case the Conservatives could have chosen to operate as a small minority government, may be with some sort of support agreement with the Northern Irish Unionists, but at least without the dragging baggage of the Liberal Democrats. In the latter case the Conservatives would have had a comfortable majority and could have settled into a guaranteed five year mandate.

How different would the electoral scene have been if either of these scenarios had come to pass? Would David Cameron have enjoyed being a Conservative Prime Minister or do you think he actually enjoys being the head of a coalition and having the Liberal Democrats as his excuse for not governing as a Conservative but as a Liberal Conservative?

Update:
@badassday has tweeted a very fair point re 50 seat bonuses...

Question: Whose last words were "drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub"?

Answer: Admiral Lord Nelson

Christchurch, New Zealand just after the earthquake hit

Thanks to here for the image.

A very special time

At 6 minutes and 7 seconds after 5 o'clock on September 8th 2010, the clock will read was 05:06:07 08/09/10. This won't happen again until 3010, but other sequences will!

Another older woman story

Sean Linnane relates the story of Christine Shreeve Hubbs, a 42-year-old Livermore woman who was arrested on Thursday on 67 sexual assault charges against two teenage boys. A discussion as to the rights and wrongs of 'Cougars' and 'statutory rape' ensues; most interesting.

Loving the bomb?

American Thinker lists 'Ten Reasons to Love the Bomb', that's the nuclear bomb. It's an interesting read and not one that fits prevailing opinion...

With the recent anniversary of Hiroshima in mind, here's the two reasons that spoke to me the loudest:

'1) The A-bomb Shut Down WWII

It's not necessary to reopen the perennial argument as to whether the atomic bombings were necessary to defeat Japan to acknowledge that they brought the war to an abrupt halt. On August 6, it was going strong. By August 14, it was over.

WWII had been in progress for six years (closer to eleven, if you were Chinese). It had killed something on the order of 65 million people, a bloodletting unmatched in recorded history. Killing was still going on throughout the territory still occupied by Japan. As August 1945 began, people were dying at the rate of 20,000 a week.

There was no sign that it would stop any time soon. The Japanese refusal to surrender is a historical fact. Their commitment to fight to the last drop of blood is undeniable. (Anyone who doubts this is advised to read Something Like an Autobiography, the memoirs of the master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who was told, along with all other Japanese, that when the U.S. invasion came, they were to march to the sea and fling themselves on the advancing troops in the "honorable death of the hundred million." Kurosawa loathed Japanese imperialism. He hated the militarists. He was sick of the war. But still, he said, "I probably would have gone.")

The atomic bombs ended this -- not through destructiveness (the March incendiary raids against Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined), but by shock. The Japanese military was in the midst of explaining to Emperor Hirohito why the U.S. could have built no more than one bomb when word of the Nagasaki strike arrived. "How many bombs did you say there were?" the emperor reportedly asked.

In the stunned silence following the atomic raids, the voice of reason could be heard at last. No other weapon could have accomplished this.'

'7) Nuclear Weapons Reveal Left-Wing Hypocrisy

The left loathes all nuclear weapons -- as long as they belong to the United States.

Throughout the lengthy history of left-wing antinuclear activities, which stretches from the late 1950s to our day, a single target has existed -- the United States. All protests and efforts are aimed at the U.S. and no other country.

The Nuclear Freeze movement of the early 1980s can serve as an example. The USSR had fielded two new nuclear missiles, the SS-19, a weapon useful only as a city-destroyer, and the SS-20, a mobile system targeting Western Europe. The Reagan administration planned to deploy the Pershing II mobile system along with ground-launched cruise missiles to Europe, as well as an advanced new silo-based ICBM, the Peacekeeper (known at the time as the "MX").

As was true of virtually every Reagan initiative, the plan sparked massive protests, demanding the implementation of a "nuclear freeze" -- a formal promise not to construct or emplace any further nuclear systems. This was backed by the standard run of college students; politicians such as Les AuCoin, who repeatedly misrepresented the status of Soviet weapons; and Dr. Carl Sagan, a well-known scientist, who constructed an entire bogus theory, "nuclear winter," to back the campaign. It was understood at the time (and even reported by The New York Times) that the entire movement was financed, coordinated, and overseen by the KGB.

Nuclear freeze required absolutely nothing of the Soviets. The SS-19 and SS-20 systems would remain in operation. Only U.S. weapon systems would be affected, giving the USSR a permanent advantage and possibly ending NATO as a meaningful political and military entity.

Fortunately, Reagan let the air out of the nuclear freeze wagon by introducing the Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as "Star Wars," a national defensive system against nuclear attack. The utterly horrified Soviets immediately shifted their resources to meet this new threat. Deprived of Soviet money and guidance, the freeze movement collapsed, its only accomplishment a vastly increased level of mistrust and contempt for left-wing activities among the general public.

The same attitude survives today. While Barack Obama is eager to eliminate the sole nuclear weapons within his power -- those of the U.S. -- his efforts against the infinitely more dangerous threat of an Iranian nuclear force can be defined as futile to nonexistent at best. '

What if an ant gets thirsty?

An ant drinking from a drop of water, just an interesting piece of video.


Thanks to BoingBoing for the spot.

Is it coz I is black?

James Delingpole in The Telegrpah wonders if the snubs to Gordon Brown were down to Michelle Obama and reports on her state of mind when a student.

Alaska some facts - interesting or not

With John McCain's appointment of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate, the spotlight has been shone on Alaska, so I thought the time right to bring up one of my favourite quiz questions.

A great quiz question is to ask:
1) which American State is the most Northern
2) which American State is the most Eastern
3) which American State is the most Southern
4) which American State is the most Western

Virtually everyone plumps for Alaska as the most northern, California or Florida as the most Southern, Maine as the most Eastern and California or Hawaii (if being smart) as the most Western.

In fact the answer to Northern, Eastern and Western is the same - Alaska. Northern and Western, people will normally believe, but Eastern? It's all due to Alaska's Aleutian Islands which stretch right up to the edge of the Western Hemisphere at the 180º line of Longitude, thus making Alaska the most western state in the country; but they also stretch across the 180º line of Longitude, into the Eastern Hemisphere, and up the edge of the Russian Federation, making it the most Eastern state as well. The most Southern US State is Hawaii.

Just as interesting is if you just count the contiguous American States; then:
The most Northern State is Minnesota
The most Eastern State is Maine
The most Southern State is Florida
The most Western State is Washington State


Tomorrow I may blog about where the geographic centre of America is, or I may not...