A Triple googlewhack post

Usmanov Coprophage - that's a googlewhack!
Usmanov Coprophagy - that's a googlewhack!
Schillings Coprophage - that's a googlewhack too!

Note to bottom feeding lawyers: these combinations are not to be taken as an allegation of coprophagy. If you think they do then you really can eat what coprophages eat!

Schillings still trying to gag bloggers

You would have thought that Jabba the Uzbek and his pack of shysters (trans. Alisher Usmanov and Schillings) would have realised that issuing take down notices to internet service providers to silence allegations about his criminal past were counter-productive. The ham fisted attempt to gag Craig Murray and Tim Ireland united Arsenal fans and people of all political persuasions. Rather than suppress the allegations they were spread across the blogosphere. They were discussed on the national news and were even repeated in the European Parliament,

This is probably old news but Schillings were still trying to gag allegations in February. On 22 February South African blogger Pickled Bushman received a letter from Schillings in his inbox – Usmanov’s bottom feeders had sent a take-down notice to his ISP demanding that a post restating Craig Murray’s allegations be taken down. Pickled Bushman has removed the post from his site but has reposted it and the letter from Schillings on a site hosted in South Africa. Schillings and Usmanov can huff and puff but they can’t blow the posts down.

Good for Pickled Bushman. It is absolutely ridiculous that Shills, sorry Schillings, are still trying the same tired tactics to defend the reputation (hahahahaha) of a very ugly character (and I’m not referring to the fact that he is pulchritudally challenged).

Europe’s oldest trees?

At an age of anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 years old, the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire, Scotland was believed to be the oldest tree in Europe (It is likely to be nearer 2,000 years old rather than 5,000. The age of yews can’t be measured by counting tree rings). It would seem that it has lost this record: scientists have found a cluster of spruces in western Sweden which, at an age of up to 8,000 years, may even be the world's oldest living trees.

The Norway spruces were found in a mountain range that separates Norway and Sweden. Carbon dating of the trees carried out at a laboratory in Miami showed the oldest of them first set root about 8,000 years ago, making it the world's oldest known living tree, Two other spruces, also found in the course of climate change studies in the Swedish county of Dalarna, were shown to be 4,800 and 5,500 years old.

"These were the first woods that grew after the Ice Age," said Lars Hedlund, responsible for environmental surveys in the county of Dalarna, Sweden "That means that when you speak of climate change today, you can in these (trees) see pretty much every single climate change that has occurred."

California's "Methuselah" tree, a Great Basin bristlecone pine, is often cited as the world's oldest living tree with a recorded age of between 4,500 and 5,000 years.

Summer Fun - The Barracudas

Scroll down for WW

Slow Death - Flamin' Groovies

WW Follows

WW - Toadflax

The tiny flower of Cymbalaria muralis, the ivy leaved toadflax. The flower is about 6mm (less than 1/4 inch). This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday edition of Wordless Wednesday.

The problems of parenthood

Since time immemorial parents have argued over what is best for their children. It does not matter whether the argument is about choosing Eton or Harrow or Coco pops or Frosties parents have their child’s interests at heart. Sometimes, however, such arguments can get a little heated.

So it was that an argument between Joseph Manzanares and his girlfriend over the future of their four year old became somewhat lively. Sandoval was arrested in Commerce City Colorado after he stormed into the video store where his girlfriend worked, threatening to kill her and knocking over several video displays and a computer. He subsequently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to a year of probation.

Arresting officer Joe Sandoval explained that the couple had been arguing about the upbringing of their son and which gang he should belong to. The teen mother is a member of the Crips. Manzanares on the other hand belongs to the Westside Ballers gang. "They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised. Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would 'claim,'" he said.

Choosing a gang is one of the biggest choices a child can make and it is simply not acceptable for a parent to turn violent over the matter. If the parents cannot agree to initiate the child in one of their “alma maters” then they should consider a suitable compromise. Better still they could teach the child about the relative virtues of the Crips and the Westside Ballers and let him make his own mind up.

Another story culled from the Breaking News section of the Fortean Times.

No FT, No Comment!

And while I'm at it here's kitten Ted warholized

And now off to rest my back. I should have learned to get smaller bags of compost by now....

Jams O Donnell Warholized

Lots of other people are doing this so I thought I'd give it a go too!

Things are bad when the Mayor suggests abandoning a town.

In the episode Trash of the Titans, Homer Simpson is elected Sanitation Commissioner for Springfield. Needless to say his actions make the town uninhabitable so the population re-establishes Springfield a few miles down the road..

Chapayevsk is a town of about 70,000 inhabitants in European Russia not far from Samara. It was founded about a century ago and was named 1929, after a Bolshevik Civil War hero. It was the site of a chemical weapons factory that churned out mustard gas and other deadly weapons in industrial quantities. Safety was not even a secondary concern with toxic chemicals frequently spilling over into factory drains and out into the environment. Over time the city's water became contaminated with dioxins and other poisons. The factory now produces herbicides but the pollution in the air and the ground is there to stay

The situation is so dire that the Mayor, Nikolai Malakhov, feels the best option is to abandon the town completely. At a round table meeting on the environment in Samara he said that resettling the town's residents would be an "ideal solution" to Chapayevsk's problems

A study undertaken in 2005 found that not only was the air in Chapayevsk contaminated with dioxins, but also locally produced fruit and vegetables, as well as the meat from locally farmed animals. The more local produce that people ate, the more likely they were to get ill. According to the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the fatality rates from throat, liver and kidney cancer in Chapayevsk are three times higher than in nearby cities. The American study found a whole range of sexual abnormalities in Chapayevsk boys, who typically have a late start to puberty.The town also has a high level of unemployment, and one of the highest levels of heroin use in the country, which is contributing to the start of an HIV epidemic.

While a spokesperson at the local parliament denied that there was any serious talk of relocating the town's inhabitants, abandoning the town might be the most economically viable option. "For 100 years, factories in Chapayevsk have been producing weapons, powders and chemical components," Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of Russia's official environmental watchdog, told a Russian agency. "There are several cities like this in Russia. But we can spend 50m roubles (£1m) on recultivating the stream that runs through the village that has been contaminated, and nothing will improve. To do it right, we'd have to dig a new channel, redirect the stream there, and remove all the soil. Can you imagine how much that would cost? The only sensible way to solve this problem is with resettlement."

Sometimes Life imitates art (or at least suggests the imitation). Sadly life is rarely as funny as the Simpsons in its prime. This case is far from a laughing matter.