OHGODWHAT?

My new friends at work. They eat my lunch with me…

I’ll start with a disclaimer. I neither endorse, support or like racism. It’s an awful thing that can affect people on many levels etc etc, now to the good bit.

I’m looking at joining our local Police force soon as they will be recruiting and got the chance to speak to a current serving officer ‘off the record’ as it were, regarding recruitment. There are 60 available places for new Police Constables. Of the 60 places 37 are promised to Specials (Volunteer constables) and to candidates from the previous recruitment that met the grade but there weren’t spaces for. That’s all fair enough really. The next part is a direct quote (As accurate as I can remember it anyway)

“Unfortunately you have three very big disadvantages. You are young, you’re white and you’re male. There will be a quota for minorities and females, leaving only around 10 positions available for white males such as yourself.”

Now this is all in the aid of equality which I have no issue with. The issue I have is that there are places reserved for minorities. To me this is simply not equality. This is racism. I believe that equality means that everyone has an equal chance of attaining a position on merit only, not that everyone has an equal chance except there are places reserved for some people because of their race. If this was reversed there would be uproar and quite frankly I find this fucking disgusting because once again, in the unrelenting quest for equality we have simply created but more racism.

I don’t particularly feel like writing a massive argument about this, however the net point I am attempting to make with this is that it’s all a little bit shady. If you do some poking around (And read other people’s poking arounds) you’ll realise it’s not all as clear cut as it attempts to be. Unfortunately people take things at face value, especially viral videos. Try not to, do a bit of background research instead.

Financial breakdown of the Invisible Children: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12429

An interesting blog from 2006 on the Invisible Children: http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/

Another tumblr post on the Invisible Children: http://ermped.tumblr.com/post/18899693575/visible-children-kony-2012-viewed-critically

These are a good start and there’s more out there to find too. I think the fact that the second suggestion on Google’s predictive search, after typing in ‘Invisible Children’ is ‘Invisible Children Scam’, says something too.

Last one, I promise. It even has deer in it.

And again…

I went to Scotland and managed to take a few alright photos.

sneapy:

ohgodwat:

Along with the fact that the amount of energy produced is inconsistent, they’re unreliable, mess with birds and bats, look like utter shit and to top it off we can’t put them out when they catch fire as they’re too high for all our shit to reach, so we have to sit and watch them burn. Good. Fucking things.

1. They don’t mess with birds and bats, I did a literature review on this and the number of birds killed by wind turbines is practically non-existent compared to sky scrapers, cars and cats. Ok fair dos, there are not many wind turbines compared to sky scrapers, but it’s probs 1 bird killed a year on a small/medium wind farm compared to 100s on the A road next to it. They only cause a problem to birds if placed on a migratory route - like any sort of development, it needs to be placed appropriately where it will cause minimal effect. Even the RSPB are pro wind turbine as long as they are placed in areas that are not rare habitat/migratory routes.

2. A wind turbine catches fire - a nuclear power plant exploding would wipe out half of England. The waste takes 1,000s of years to disintegrate and if we all start using nuclear power we will eventually run out of uranium. What’s sustainable about that!?

3. If placed in an appropriate place (e.g. not a national park) they do not look like shit, NIMBYs say this! They are a hell of a lot nicer than a housing estate/sky scrapers. At least they don’t cause a concrete jungle. (JORDIE EDIT: NOT ALL SKY SCRAPERS HAVE TO BE POORLY DESIGNED CONCRETE TOWERS AND NOT ALL HOUSING ESTATES HAVE TO LOOK LIKE POST-WAR COUNCIL BUILDS JUST SAYIN’, BUT I LIKE THE REST OF IT)

Finally, any method of power will have it’s faults, I am not disagreeing there, but wind power seems to be the one with the least disastrous faults and the most sustainable. Of course, idealistically, a variety of renewable power methods would be best.   

My major issue with them is the money we waste on them. I mean you say they’re not perfect but goddamn they can be practically useless sometimes; if it’s too windy we have to shut them down because they’ll break, even then they can overcome the brakes and rip themselves to pieces. In a world where we have increasingly unpredictable weather, surely this is a bit silly? We need renewable energy sources that are predictable, things like anaerobic digesters, pump storage hydro-electric and tidal, things that are worth investing in. The uneducated masses see these great white monstrosities as our solution to the energy crisis when they aren’t. Maybe if we stopped with this wind and solar bullshit we could save some money and invest in some real renewable sources.

(Source: world-shaker, via architectureofhappiness)

My latest batch of boring garbage.

Ballin’