Canada Bob

HT and it couldn't be more exciting !!! Joe's game is 0-0 and CaleyD's game is 0-0, I wouldn't like to be on this knife edge !!! Having said that, I reckon Raith must be favourites to score hey ? while a goal either way buggers Joe up

I have an interesting choice at the next election (which should be this year, ****, it should have been last year). Labour are a massive no-no nowadays, but the problem is do I follow my heart and vote SNP or Lib Dem, or do I make a tactical vote and go Tory to help stop Labour getting back into power. A void ballot is a massive no in my opinion, as that is the only way that Labour will regain power. Decisions decision. Well, FWIW, my Dad used to say that Governments aren't voted in, they are voted out. Even though I've always been left wing {but never a brainless card carrier}, I'd vote for the devil himself if i thought it would damage these b*stards who have conned the working class out of representation. Just reading some of Saturdays revelations, but there's one expense claim here that I can't see a problem with... Surely cnuts need panty liners !!! The link below shows their lack of integrity, not to mention the disrespect and disregard they have for the rest of us... Folks have gone to jail for less... Canada Bob.

I mean, there are polish in this country who are menipulating the system and get away with it, yet Joe Bloggs who doesn't pay his TV license for 2 months so he can feed his kid is done for fraud. The muslims who are followed for years on susspition of terrorism are only interviewed and released (not deported), yet Mrs Bloggs down the street looses out on her child benefit cash as soon as she enters a working environment, thus leaving her only a few pounds better off for a much more difficult lifestyle... The who lots stinks!!!! I'm with you on the above, where's Guy Fawkes when you need him !!! It's a crying fekkin shame what going on, those who contribute to society, the blokes who get up in a morning and go to work, many for less than a tenner an hour can count themselves lucky if they manage to keep up with their bills right now. While all this thievery is going on, a Million home owners in the UK are 3 months behind on their mortgages, on their ONLY house, not their second ot third homes, funded by the rest of us. The way things are now some blokes in their 50's who get laid off will never see regular work again, where's their "pension plans" how will they manage for the rest of their lives, the only perk they get for decades of work is a fekkin Bus pass !!! Do you know that less than 5% of the people in the UK ever manage to scrape together 100,000 quid {in actual cash in the bank} yet MP's get that per year ! NOT PER LIFE TIME !!! To add Insult to Injury the UK run right now by a so called Labour Government still has 30% or so of it's people living at or below the Poverty Level !!! Is this what generations of working class folks sacrificed for? not to mention the man and women who fought and fell for King & Country in the last 100 years. It's all a bloody illusion, they'll let you do the donkey work, let you make the sacrifices, the "Blood Sweat & Tears" are all yours, while those who have conned the Nation steal every penny they can lay their b*stard hands on... One of the things life has taught me is, "the harder you work the less you get paid for doing it, those who do the least work, get the highest wages" how fekkin' perverse is that !!! Bleedin' diabolical aint it, but this will all end in tears, when we can't trust any of the mainstream Political parties people will migrate to the extremists BNP and the like, who knows what happens then, but it would be nice to see some old women knitting while the heads of the prevailing regimes fall into baskets, I'd take up knitting myself if I could be there to see that...

I'll have Clyde @ 4.50 By the way, do you think we should handicap the winners next season ? We could limit Clachers bets to 7 point stakes each week, Joe would be betting to 8 points, and CaleyD to 9 points. Wadderyerfink ? Canada Bob.

Well it took a few phone calls, but the concerns I had about Jacqui Smith didn't fall on deaf ears at the Sun et-al. It's all starting to fall apart... The News of the World are also digging into what's been going on, look for an article by Philip Whiteside sometime soon... From what he tells me, some MP's have had their names registered on more than one electoral role, so that they can vote for themselves in their own constituency and then vote for a colleague in their second home constituency, and there was me thinking it was "one man, one vote", what happened to that, FFS !!! As mentioned before, "we are all equal, it's just that some are more equal than others !!! There's more to come yet, I hear there's an ongoing investigation into MP's et-al by HMRC's Intelligence Office in Cardiff. Looks to me as though the whole lot of them are rotten to the core. I just can't wait until they all come unstuck, the only pity is they probably won't be charged with fraud, be nice to see some of them "Serve Her Majesty" in a "second home" with a locked gate and big walls around it...

Packing up the now for the road trip to London on Friday and then the flight back to Canada on Sunday morning, so... Put me down for Stenhousemuir v Annan to draw on this weeks Naps, I think it's a 3.50 chance...

LOL, what a Pillock hey...

Hmmm, thanks for that, just added my name to it the now... Bugger, Gordon aint popular is he, within 3 minutes of me putting my name on the list 294 other folks had signed on !!!

There's one thing you can say for sure about this flu thing, it's an answer to prayer for Gormless Gordon, it's taken him out of the headlines at least until his next blunder, which unfortunately could be his comment that... "The UK is one of the best prepared countries to deal with swine flu" " The trouble is, aint that what he said about the Banks and the Recession ? It's a bit like having a bet on a horse and then finding out that the local Jonah is napping it to everyone...

I'm sure Bishop Ussher, who came up with the 4004BC idea, has been well and truly savaged by everyone from Huxley to Dawkins. I guess the guy was just was trying to explain to uneducated folks the best way he could things that they hoped to comprehend. By the way, I think the idea of the expanding universe is that it started off around 13bn years ago as something quite compact which blew outwards and has been expanding ever since. Yea, it's just like a football being inflated... The rate of expansion is quite slow relative to the speed of light 93 x 10 (8) m/s) Can't be though can it ? if light traveling from an infant universe it can't have had {let's say} an "age / dimension" greater than 2 Billion light years. That's the size the ball would be limited to, the distance that light can travel in 2 Billion years, so the size of the Universe can't have been more than 2 Billion light years across. That being the case, the furthest that any point in the Universe would have been no more than 2 Billion light years away from us. So let's say some {light emitting} point/image was at the opposite end of the Universe we would see that light approximately 2 Billion years later {not 13 Billion years later}. This presumes your premise that "we" {or bit of the Universe} wasn't travelling faster than the speed of light, if we weren't then the "image" would have flashed past us around 11 Billion years ago... OTOH, if that point of light/image was heading our way at the speed of light, but we were out pacing it, then we would never actually see it at all ! unless of course we dropped a gear and slowed down. If that happened then the light/image would start to gain on us, and eventually be observable by us. It's like being on the Motorway when an car just behind us is going at 70 MPH {the legal limit of light let's say}, but we are super fuelled and going at 80 MPH, the car/event won't catch us up, but if we eventually slow down then the car / light will catch us up, and eventually pass us. I guess that the faster we were going the more distant the image fell behind us, so if we were going super fast even for a relatively small amount of time, we would zoom way ahead of the image travelling at the speed of light. When we start to run out of what ever propelled us to travel faster than the speed of light our speed drops and the image becomes observable... but enough to shift light coming from distant parts towards the red end (longer wavelength) of the spectrum by what is known as the Doppler Effect. The shift is small but measurable and depends on the ratio 1/(square root of 1 minus v-squared /c-squared) where v is the speed of expansion and c is the speed of light. Yea but, No but... that's what Einstien thought but it buggered him up, spent years trying to measure things by redshift, only to have Hubble explain it to him as follows... At the time of discovery and development of Hubble’s law it was acceptable to explain redshift phenomenon as a Doppler shift in the context of special relativity, and use the Doppler formula to associate redshift z with velocity. However, this approximate relation between velocity and redshift is accurate only for values of z somewhat less than 1. Today the velocity-distance relationship of Hubble's law is viewed as a theoretical result with velocity to be connected with observed redshift not by the Doppler effect, but by a cosmological model relating recessional velocity to the expansion of the universe. Even for small z the velocity entering the Hubble law is no longer interpreted as a Doppler effect, although at small z the velocity-redshift relation for both interpretations is the same. In 1968, the first good estimate of H0, 75 km/s/Mpc, was published by Allan Sandage,but it would be decades before a consensus was achieved. Redshift velocity The redshift z often is described as a redshift velocity, which is the recessional velocity that would produce the same redshift if it were caused by a linear Doppler effect (which, however, is not the case, as the shift is caused in part by a cosmological expansion of space, and because the velocities involved are too large to use a non-relativistic formula for Doppler shift). This redshift velocity can easily exceed the speed of light.[16] In other words, to determine the redshift velocity vrs, the relation: v_{rs} \equiv cz \ , Could it be that our little bit {and other bits} of the Universe flew off faster than the speed of light, and as Einstein sort of proved, the faster you go, the faster time seems to pass outside of your "domain". So, maybe our bit of the Universe is {say} only 3-5 Billion years old {on our slowed down time scale} whist the bits outside our domain seem {to us} to have whipped through time {and therefore become older} than us ? The bottom line being, time isn't a constant for everything everywhere, and maybe, just maybe {I think it's odds on} the speed of light can, and has been exceeded, by us !!!

For the most part {even today} that might be the only metaphorical explanation that folks are able to relate to.

Hitchhikers said it was 42, but actually the answer is 71. The Hubble Constant explains it all !!!

Yea, but there by hangs the crux of it all, how fast does time really fly !!!

From what they say we could well be like a bubble in Aero, one of many Universe's but the thing is, how can they see something that's 13 Billion years back in time ? At that point in time my guess is that 13 Billion years ago the Universe wasn't 13 Billion light years across, in fact how could it have been IF they say that our Universe is only 14-15 Billion years old ! If we could roll events back 13 Billion years, everything would have been in a time and space that couldn't be much more than 2 Billion light years across {hope yer following me on this}, so if light from any object shone at that time it couldn't take 11 Billion years to reach us could it, unless we {our bit of the Universe} were {initially} travelling faster than the speed of light. If we did exceed the speed limit and from what I hear recently we could do, then the light wouldn't be able to catch up with us, but if at some later point we dropped down a gear or so, the light that started out 13 Billion years ago would start gaining on us, sort of "coming out of the dark" and appearing to us as though we were "looking back in time". Fair enough I'm no Stephen Hawking, yet you don't have to be a jockey to know a horse when you see one, but the only way I can get my head around is if when the Universe was a couple of Billion years old we sped away from some other bits of the Universe faster than the speed of light, and then {more recently} slowed down a bit... Makes sense to me, and the lads in the White Lion, {there's a certain clarity afforded via 4-5 pints of Mild}... I reckon we're on a soccer ball that's still being inflated, one where the wall of the ball is made up by the depth of Galaxies, a thick walled ball. But... the only part of the Universe that we can see is the "patch" that we are on, the other bits can't be seen or detected because we are heading away from them, and they for their own part are heading away from us at combined speeds well over the speed of light. This "theorem" would account for the "missing matter" that they say can't be accounted for, I reckon it's there but we will never be able to see it or detect it, it's on the other side of the ball... If my theorem is right, there could be a Nobel in it, but I couldn't claim all the credit as the lads and the ale have helped clarify this revelation, so it would have to be "Canada Bob, et-al". Seriously though I'd appreciate your thoughts on the above, 'specially as to the size of a 2 Billion year old Universe, it can't be bigger than 2 Billion light years {in any direction} can it ?

So many questions... but the two on my mind are: 1. Whats beyond the ' football' ? It'll probably morph into a Rugby Ball... 2. How long can it expand before it shrinks again? I can only speak from personal experience, so I'd say about 8 minutes... further to that, if it starts to shrink, will we get closer to Dingwall? No need to worry on that score, everything will shrink at the same rate, so things will appear to stay the same, the only difference you might observe would be the bus would get there quicker...

There seems a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about how they can see what the Universe looked like some 13 Billion years ago, I just can't get my head round that. How can you see something that happeded 13 Billion years ago, unless we were initially travelling away from it faster than the speed of light, but now we have dropped a gear of two, and the light from that event is now catching up to us ? 13 Billion years though, don't seem much in the scheme of things, if we'd saved just a quid a year we'd have had enough money to bail out HBOS. Second question, what shape is the universe, I reckon it's like a soccer ball, one that started out the size of an atom, but due to the Big Bang became hollow in the middle and went bigger {like a soccer ball} as the released energy pumped it all up. I reckon the Universe is like the wall of a soccer ball, sort of thin but thick enough so that galaxies near us are in the same stuff, but as the ball/universe expands most of us move away from each other. That begs the question, is there time and space, or anything at all in the core of the ball/universe. Third question, what's on the other side of the ball ? is that where the images of the historic events of the universe are displayed for us ? is that what we see when we think we're looking at events 13 Billion years ago, events "recorded" in the inside skin of the other side of the soccer ball ? cause I don't think there's anything 13 Billion years old on our side of the ball... makes you think don't it, I'll ponder this over a pint this afternoon, maybe the lads at the Whetherspoons have it all figured out... By the way, "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" got it wrong, the answer isn't 42, it's 71 {yea, really}...

Certainly puts it in Laymens terms, and shows the con trick for what it is... The trouble is, few people ever think it through

Bonds don't create any "new" money. They simply move "the cash" from private hands into government hands. That's entirely my point though Don, what they are doing is no more than a Ponzi scheme... All these millions/billions sitting in private individual/company savings/current accounts aren't helping the countries situation, so the government eases that money in to circulation by offering these "guaranteed" bonds, Agreed... and with interest rates so poor and confidence in the banking system so low then it makes it a relatively attractive proposition unless you believe the economy/country will never recover. I think there was some evidence of that when Bonds offered in the last auction went unsubscribed... So yes, they are increasing the countries debt....but we knew that was going to happen anyway. And when just about every major financial force on the planet is in the exact same boat as you then you're only left with one way to turn to raise the cash that's needed. With all due respect Don the above doesn't relate to the trick that the Government and the Bank of England is trying to pass off on us. Here again is my concern... The Government prints Bonds and asks the Bank of England to auction the Bonds, the Bank of England is almost the sole purchaser of the Bonds, paying for them with the quantitative eased money that they are printing the now. The end result is, the Government can't print up money, so it gets the Bank of England to do it for them, and then the Bank hands the cash over for worthless fekkin' Bonds !!! This trick gives the Government enough money to gasp for a few more breaths while it figures out what to do next... at the end of these days the pigeons will come home to find the Nation Bankrupt... This Government bankrupt of sanity, morality & ethics not to mention money, is engaged in an enormous con trick !!! A Bond issued by a company or a Government has to based on something of value, something tangiable, that used to be Gold, now it's "Promises", gawd help anyone trying to cash in a promise... The ONLY collateral that the Government can give is that, when the Government can't pay the debt the Tax Payer will ! That's the only collateral these Bonds have, not Gold, just sweat and tears for many years to come, correct me if I'm wrong on the above, but facts and statements from the Bank of England say I'm right... This one's a bit technical, but... You'd be better off with Brooke Bonds... Alistair in Blunderland...

It's pretty much the basis of capitalism. Aye, so it seems, but what's going on is ludicrous, yet folks seem to be clapping rather than howling in derision... I'm lost for words at how the Nation can't see {or doesn't want to know} what's going on. When the ship's sinking I guess we put our faith in the Captain, hoping that he knows what to do. The worst thing in this case is, it won't be the Captain who goes down with the ship, it'll be everyone in steerage. I'd still like to know "where the cavalry {the money} will come from" ! Bonds issued, again as though Debt is a commodity by a bankrupt Government, passed off as though of value to the Bank of England, who then take a commission for auctioning off these Crazy Bonds, to themselves FFS !!! Am I misssing something here ? I really want to know how this can be passed of as a credible solution to the shyte that we're all in... Has everyone gorn mad ??? yet IF this strategy works how do we get a piece of the ACTION rather than becoming the holders of the DEBT !!! I don't know if any of you watched Dispatches on CH4 tonight, they were going over how the melt down started, and how Glorious Gordon {thinking he knew what was going on} made one blunder after another, having to retract his statements and intents from one day to the next. These events were just a few months ago, does anyone think he's any idea of how to cope with what's to come in the next few years. Here's the link to tonights Dispatches program, you can watch the program on line, at least in the UK that is... How long will it last... One thing you can be sure of, this recession/depression or what they'd have us call "a Credit Crunch" will hit us more than it will hit the cosy lifestyles of the double dippers in Whitehall. Where's Guy Fawkes when you need him...

I understand the general theory of Bonds Don, but I can't follow the logic of how someone in Debt {the Government} can raise money by going into more debt. From what I can see, the Government prints off Bonds which they then auction off via The Bank of England, who for the most part turn out to be the buyers of the Bonds, paying for them with all this quantitative eased money that's being printed off. So... how can this help, it's like me printing up IOU's to the wife which she then raises money on by selling them back to me, that's obviously absurd, but that's what the Government and the Bank of England is doing right now. How can you buy yer own Bonds with money that you don't have, until you've sold the Bonds to yourself, FFS... The fact is this seems closer to a Ponzi scheme than anything I've ever seen a Government attempt, add to that if we tried this on with the Banks we'd be locked up for a long time. Not only is it fraudulent but it's criminal as well, but if it's the Government doing it, it must be OK, long as we don't notice {or understand} what they're doing. They can't magic money out of thin air, even though this seems to be an attempt to do so, nor can this "magic money" credibly bail out the Nations debt. The only thing I can see it doing is destabilisng sterling which if all the other ships weren't sinking almost as fast would be funny money already... I'd really appreciate it if you or anyone can explain how this "scheme" works, it seems a closed circuit event to me, a Con if ever there was one... As far as the Government "guarantee" the only guarantee is that workers will always work, and from the sweat of their brows and their backs broken by carrying this debt, they will carry on paying extortionate taxes for the foreseeable future, that's the "guarantee" that "we" will pay the interest for the next 20 years at least, or 50 years if Alistair really is in Blunderland...

Two cases of Swine Flu have been found in Scotland. Bugger, "two cases found already" I hope they weren't found in Glasgow, they'd have supped 'em by now...

Here's what I've just got from {as they say} a reliable source... Page 1 Swine Flu ? Advice to Clients 27 April 2009 The Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, has confirmed that the latest outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico and parts of United States is a new strain of a humanly transmissible influenza virus, A/H1N1, and has the potential to trigger an influenza pandemic. The virus is the result of a re-assortment of components from other types of swine flu, bird flu and human flu viruses creating a new version of the influenza virus for which existing population immunity against other strains will be ineffective. The WHO has convened its Pandemic Task Force. They will advise on whether it should raise its pandemic alert level from 3 to either 4 or 5. If the level is raised many nations will then implement pandemic health security measures. These would include travel restrictions, border closures, banning of public gatherings and issuing drugs to front-line healthcare staff. The WHO has not raised this to a level 4 or 5 alert although it would appear from the available information very likely that significant human to human transmission is occurring. A decision to move to this level is serious with enormous social and economic implications. WHO will therefore be cautious but has already acknowledged human to human transmission. Our advice to our clients at the present time is as follows: CDC Atlanta ? www.cdc.gov WHO - www.who.int are reliable sources of updated information of this emerging viral threat. We suggest that our clients monitor these sites and that they register for CDC updates. The number of deaths in Mexico, given the mild nature of the disease where it is being monitored outside the country suggests to us that it is likely that the prevalence of swine flu in Mexico is much higher than has been notified by the authorities. This would be consistent with a comparatively low death rate for this condition and the milder symptoms that are being seen so far in cases picked up in travellers who have been to Mexico. Our current advice to our clients is to monitor the situation closely. Restricting travel has not been recommended however you may wish to consider restricting all but essential travel to Mexico itself. Anti virals, both Oseltamivir (tamiflu) and Zanamivir are both considered to be effective for this strain. Page 2 Any traveller returning from an area in which swine flu has been reported and who displays flu like symptoms should not come into work nor attend the doctor but should contact medical services by phone immediately and seek rapid access to anti viral medication. As the situation develops companies may wish to consider asking travellers returning from the highest risk areas in Mexico to work from home for seven days regardless of symptoms. General measures include meticulous personal hygiene and maintaining a distance of 6ft from other people. These measures should be observed by anyone in high risk areas who may also wish to consider utilising a face mask which must reach FDA or comparable standards. We will continue to provide updates. Key messages for businesses: ? There is no vaccine for this type of flu as it is a new virus. Vaccines are not likely to be available for several months. ? The virus appears to be sensitive to antiviral medications and early treatment is effective. ? Travel restrictions are not currently formally recommended but should be considered at a company and individual level. ? Anyone returning from an area where swine flu has been reported should contact health services if they have any symptoms of flu such as fever, headache, cough or cold like symptoms or gastrointestinal disturbance.

CaleyD... a serious one for you here, I'm not being flippant... Can you walk me through this scenario, I really can't get my head around how Alistair expects to float us out of debt by adding more to the debt ? surely that sails us into deeper debt and more dangerous waters ? It just don't make any sense to me, sounds like Alistair's in Blunderland to me...

Just reading a bit more about it and I'm not as confident as CaleyD that its just another round of press hysteria, as it now seems that the Mexicans have lied about the number of people who have died and the demographics involved, just like in 1918 most of the worst cases are males between 20-30. The less I say about Mexico the better, to me it's the Pakistan of North America... Not time to start stocking up on food and water just yet but it could kill a few people this one, SARS never caught on because it was difficult to contract, this swine flu apparently is very easy to contract, thus easy to spread. Yea but, No but, it don't matter "how many people get it" it's how many it kills, and so far {when its caught us with our pants down} it hasn't killed that many, most by far have recovered from whatever it is, so the chance of us being wiped out is remote, and the chance of us being thinned out is almost the same... Oddly enough, IF it did wipe millions of folks out then excepting for the personal tragedies the overall effect on those who survive could actually be beneficial... Wish you'd been in the Linden Tree a couple of hours back, the place was packed, just a couple of seats near to us left, when a couple of women from Fife ask "anyone sat here" so I says "no love, have a seat, I'm just having a minute, I'm knackered since I came back from Mexico", wish you'd seen their faces, after a moment the penny dropped, grin...

I guess youre right Bob, if any of us do catch this swine flu then we should be able to deal with it. Don't bet yer life on it, they way my judgement is the now we'll all be deed in 12 months... Theres other differences between now and then, on the negative side we all travel alot more, if a deadly virus really was to start spreading (maybe not this one) then itd take about a day to get around the world, it took 20 years for the plague to reach the UK from the middle east ffs. On the positive side we're all better informed and educated, in 1918 how would any of us know about Mexican swine flu? It'd trickle into the papers after a week or so but then half of us would be illiterate! Much to be said on the upside as above Clacher, but maybe, just maybe "mother earth" has had enough of us, and it looking for a way to either thin us out, or wipe us out. Look at it this way, there were more dinosaurs than people, they ruled the planet for Millions of years without doing any harm to the environment, then along come humans and before you know it we've buggered near everything up.