I was recently involved in a bit of a twitter spat when I ‘came out’ as an atheist in a religious thread. I was agreeing with a sentiment that a religious moderate put out (except for the “god bit”).
In response, I had two religious fruitcakes going on about how I would find god if I suffered enough.
No, I won’t.
And how condescending is it to assume my unbelief is only skin-deep, and at the first sign of trouble I’ll start asking for help from an infectious imaginary friend?
Put the boot on the other foot: Do christians give up their god at the first sign of trouble? Do muslims? Imagine ‘coming out’ to an atheist that you’re a christian, and the response: “Never mind; maybe sometime you’ll regain your sanity and become god-free”
There is a quite amusing social media feed shaming the poor behaviour of airline passengers which is fair enough – some of the behaviour is quite nasty and shaming it is quite reasonable.
But they also seem to have a foot phobia – naked feet are themselves considered sufficient to be worthy of public shaming. Why?
Now I am not talking about sticking your naked feet in someone’s ear, or anywhere else that closer to someone’s nose than necessary. But on the floor? Why not?
Well there are those who are horrified by the sight of naked feet, and without a good reason there is no harm in not horrifying them.
But there are sometimes good reasons – I have psoriasis and wearing socks and shoes in a warm environment results in sweaty feet. Which in turn results in socks feeling like a cheese grater on my suppurating sores on my feet.
So screw your anti-foot fetish; I’m getting my feet naked whenever I feel the need for it.
There are a bunch of people out there who jump on every single piece of ‘evidence’ they can find or construct that supposedly contradicts the evidence that the climate is changing for the warmer (and that it is mostly human activity driven).
Why?
In the beginning, some of them may have been honestly dumb, and objected to the notion of global warming simply because it challenged some of their favourite activities. After all who could believe that people could influence the climate?
And after all, what do climate scientists know? They’re just book smart and everyone knows that common sense beats book smart every time.
But over time, something else creeps in (and in some cases is there from the beginning) – a tendency to abuse the human liking for controversy to get more “hits” and a higher profile than would otherwise be the case.
And money of course.
So when you find random people on the Internet throwing rocks at the experts, bear in mind that they might just be innocently dumb or they might have an ulterior motive.
But let’s face it: They’re not after the truth no matter how much they claim otherwise.
It seems Piers Morgan has got in all of a lather about vegan sausage rolls being introduced to a well known pastry shop :-
The funny thing is just how pathetic he is with this comment. Personally I’ve never been to a Greggs simply because the vegetarian selection was so rubbish (it’s been a while since I checked). So that’s one customer that Greggs have missed out on, although now I may pop in for a vegan bloody sausage roll just to annoy Piers (although I somehow doubt they’re actually bloody).
Piers is an example of the kind of person who shouldn’t be put in charge of a waste-paper basket never mind anything more important. He’s under the impression that his choices in life are what everyone should be doing, which can be very dangerous indeed.
Greggs are perfectly free to change their menu at will and offering choices to vegetarians and vegans seems a perfectly sensible thing to do. It increases their potential customer base, and frankly the only meat-eaters who complain are the kind of stodgy thinkers that Piers is.
After all Greggs isn’t going to stop stocking “real” sausage rolls whilst they still have plenty of customers buying them.
It is quite astonishing just how much stupidity appears during an incident such as the drone “attacks” on Gatwick airport. Here is the answer to just a few of them …
Shoot It Down
Any scheme to shoot down a drone will have to bear in mind that this drone at least is flying on, buzzing around until it gets noticed, and then going away again. Any sharpshooters are going to have trouble because it will be a fair distance away – after all the drone operators are hardly going to buzz the airport with sharpshooters just a few meters away.
And bullets go places; Gatwick is mostly surrounded by dwellings so the risk is high of causing an injury or a fatality (the probability may be low, but the impact is severe so any risk analyst is likely to veto any gun fans).
If they do get the go ahead, sharpshooters are not going to spray and pray but are going to wait until they have a clear shot they are confident of making before pulling the trigger. This will of course reduce the risk considerably, but also be why the drones have not yet been shot down.
It’s A Conspiracy; There’s No Drone
This one is often tied to the next subject. But really?
Unless this disruption goes on for days or weeks, this is all just a flash in the pan. Most of us who do not have a direct connection to Gatwick (such as being there) will forget this as soon as it is over and something else captures our attention in the news.
At best it would serve as a temporary distraction – which is possible – but in no way would work on a permanent basis.
A few conspiracy nuts have suggested this might be May’s way of distracting from the problems Brexit (and she) is currently enduring; it just wouldn’t work for that because the Brexit problems are ongoing, and won’t disappear if we forget about it for a day or two.
Why Aren’t There Photographs of The Drone?
Such comments come from those who have never tried photographing anything like this or the equivalent (probably something like bird photography).
The drones are only going to be flying for a relatively short amount of time, and are going to be very distant from any cameras. No smartphone is likely to capture anything other than a black dot (smartphone cameras typically have wide-angle lenses).
DSLR shooters are likely to have all their equipment packed, and those that don’t are quite unlikely to have the right lens to hand; in fact most won’t own the right kind of lens (I’d choose an 800mm which would be many thousands).
Looking at the likely (as described) behaviour of the drones, the closest match to photographic “genres” is as mentioned bird photography (there’s a reason why the picture in this posting isn’t a flying bird). This is hard; you’ll be stuck in a blind for hours waiting for just the right moment with an enormous lens that weighs as much as a TV.
In addition I suspect that people just don’t appreciate just how big airports are – it would take many hours just to walk around the perimeter.
The Swan
It’s Obviously ${X}
Whilst it may be fun to speculate on what motivates the drones operators – “having a laugh”, protesting at the presence of the airport, or full-on terrorists.
But being realistic for a moment, there is no way we will know what the motivations were until the culprit(s) are identified and caught.
So it’s not obvious that it’s this, that, or the other.
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