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redfiona99Football: It looks like friend L might be right and Balotelli might be emanating from Turin by the end of the transfer window. Well Conte, or whoever is his deputed stand-in, can't claim they don't know what they're getting. (I love Mario, but he's chaos personified.)
Next time people insist I can't be Austrian because I'm not 9 foot tall or blonde, I am going to show them the following photos of two gentlemen who are both in the Austrian National Team. Emanuel Pogatetz (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21240154) and Paul Scharner (http://tyneandwear.sky.com/sportsnews/article/54450). Actually dear old Mad Dog doesn't just have a similar haircut to me, he also plays like me.
The Marco Materazzi vs Rafa Benitez thing is getting even more childish. In response to Rafa calling him a liar, Materazzi said (mild paraphrasing) "if I'm a liar, he's thin." For all that Marco is a prat, he's the one I believe in this situation.
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F1: First car of the new season is out ... and it looks exactly like last year's Lotus except for the added red flashes on the livery. However, Lotus have been very careful not to have their diffuser clearly shown in any of the photos so my guess is that if there have been any changes, it will have been there.
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Politics:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nwhyte posted a link to "Seven EU Myths You Should Never Believe" - http://londyn.msz.gov.pl/pl/aktualnosci/artykul__seven_eu_myths_you_should_never_believe written by the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister. Now first things first, it's really well written, and a lot of English-as-a-first-language politicians could learn from it. It also makes the economic conservative case for the EU rather well, without insulting any opponents. See people, it can be done.
Anyway, because I liked it so much I shared it on Facebook (mostly because a lot of my more Eurosceptic friends are economic conservatives and, you know, anything to make them understand that a lot of their rants have no basis in fact). For something I shared, the thing's gone round like wildfire. And it's rabid little Englanders who've done a lot of the sharing, while saying approving things. It's most peculiar.
On to things that are not politics - the weekend before last, while dozing on the friend's sofa, the Sunday Politics show was on. After Andrew Neil and Labour bod (sorry, no idea who it was, ex-minister for Europe or possibly shadow secretary for Europe) had gone round the same argument three times, I groaned and demanded a channel change. Apparently I'm all that's wrong with people today, because I don't care about politics. I pointed out it wasn't bloody politics, it was a journalist trying to get a scoop and a politician evading said attempts. It's also exactly the kind of nonsense that turns people off real politics.
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Health - Interesting article on the BBC about the BMI index - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21229387
People finally seem to be getting the message that it sucks. Which is good. I do love the medical doctors trying to defend it. Yes, it's quick, yes, it's easy, because God forbid we make MDs think (sorry, one of the principle pleasures of any biologist's life is mocking the medics). I'm always highly suspicious of anything that takes something very complicated and turns it into very simple. Deconvolution tends to lose information.
Also, when women with a BMI of between 25-30 (i.e. overweight, get finger-wagged by doctor) live longer than women with a BMI of between 20-25 (i.e. allegedly correct), then there is something wrong with your system and it's your model that has to change, not the world.
Next time people insist I can't be Austrian because I'm not 9 foot tall or blonde, I am going to show them the following photos of two gentlemen who are both in the Austrian National Team. Emanuel Pogatetz (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21240154) and Paul Scharner (http://tyneandwear.sky.com/sportsnews/article/54450). Actually dear old Mad Dog doesn't just have a similar haircut to me, he also plays like me.
The Marco Materazzi vs Rafa Benitez thing is getting even more childish. In response to Rafa calling him a liar, Materazzi said (mild paraphrasing) "if I'm a liar, he's thin." For all that Marco is a prat, he's the one I believe in this situation.
~~~~
F1: First car of the new season is out ... and it looks exactly like last year's Lotus except for the added red flashes on the livery. However, Lotus have been very careful not to have their diffuser clearly shown in any of the photos so my guess is that if there have been any changes, it will have been there.
~~~~
Politics:
nwhyte posted a link to "Seven EU Myths You Should Never Believe" - http://londyn.msz.gov.pl/pl/aktualnosci/artykul__seven_eu_myths_you_should_never_believe written by the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister. Now first things first, it's really well written, and a lot of English-as-a-first-language politicians could learn from it. It also makes the economic conservative case for the EU rather well, without insulting any opponents. See people, it can be done.Anyway, because I liked it so much I shared it on Facebook (mostly because a lot of my more Eurosceptic friends are economic conservatives and, you know, anything to make them understand that a lot of their rants have no basis in fact). For something I shared, the thing's gone round like wildfire. And it's rabid little Englanders who've done a lot of the sharing, while saying approving things. It's most peculiar.
On to things that are not politics - the weekend before last, while dozing on the friend's sofa, the Sunday Politics show was on. After Andrew Neil and Labour bod (sorry, no idea who it was, ex-minister for Europe or possibly shadow secretary for Europe) had gone round the same argument three times, I groaned and demanded a channel change. Apparently I'm all that's wrong with people today, because I don't care about politics. I pointed out it wasn't bloody politics, it was a journalist trying to get a scoop and a politician evading said attempts. It's also exactly the kind of nonsense that turns people off real politics.
~~~~
Health - Interesting article on the BBC about the BMI index - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21229387
People finally seem to be getting the message that it sucks. Which is good. I do love the medical doctors trying to defend it. Yes, it's quick, yes, it's easy, because God forbid we make MDs think (sorry, one of the principle pleasures of any biologist's life is mocking the medics). I'm always highly suspicious of anything that takes something very complicated and turns it into very simple. Deconvolution tends to lose information.
Also, when women with a BMI of between 25-30 (i.e. overweight, get finger-wagged by doctor) live longer than women with a BMI of between 20-25 (i.e. allegedly correct), then there is something wrong with your system and it's your model that has to change, not the world.
