Amazing Colour Changing Card Trick

Here is a video that is really, really worth seeing. I won't tell you anything about it other than you need sound and it's not rude or obscene in any way. You could watch it with your grandma. Oh, and it doesn't make you jump or make loud noises either. I may discuss this further tomorrow. Ort whenever I get around to posting anything again.

I'm sure I've ranted about homeopathy before now. I really don't care about people using homeopathic remedies, as long as they pay for them out of their own pockets. I do object most strongly to funding homeopathy on the NHS with my tax money. It seems however, that the NHS is finally seeing the light. More than half Primary Care Trusts have withdrawn or reduced funding for homeopathy and 40 have not released any data, so with any luck the number is much higher. This is very good news indeed. The problem only occurs because, unlike conventional medicine, homeopathic cures are not required to undergo clinical tests to prove their efficacy before being granted a licence. They only have to be proven safe, they don't have to work.

Of course, there are still some prats that think homeopathy actually does work, despite being debunked time and time again. Dr Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, has said this move by the NHS presents a serious threat to the future of his hospital (oh dear!) and urged the NHS to resist the attempts of scientists to discourage them from funding patients for homoeopathic treatment. He said: "I think there is a lot of evidence it works when it is integrated within the NHS." OK doctor, show us the evidence! You can even win $1 million from the JREF if you can prove it works in a properly run drug trial.

Another victory today seems to have ocurred in China. Since the Chinese authorities censor, well just about everything anti-government on the internet, the population uses blogs to spread news. This of course upset the administration and plans were launched to make it compulsory for all bloggers to register before they wrote anything. There was a storm of protest, and the government has backed down. I suspect it was not the storm of protest that forced the u-turn so much as difficulty in enforcing the regulation. The net result is the same however; you can blog anonymously behind the great firewall. It's always been an ambition of mine to be censored by China. It would make me feel I've said something really worthwhile.

Here's a great story. A rapist who was overpowered by passers by shortly after attacking a woman on a footpath, was jailed for life. In this case "life" appears to mean six years. This was for two rapes and an indecent assault. However, the lousy, pervert, scumbag has managed to get his sentence reduced to four and a half years on appeal because it was not a "campaign of rape involving several victims", and he was "drunk and angry", at the time. He will be eligable to apply for parole in 3 years. I'd be interested to see what the sentence would be for a similar offence in other countries might be.

Another rapist has today had his sentence slashed from 14 years and six months to just under eight years. James Lloyd was sentenced to life (14 and a half years) for raping four women and attempting to rape a further two. Apparently he gained some noteriety for abducting women and stealing their shoes. He has apparently tried to kill himself in jail. Apparently the reduced sentence was allowed because the original starting point of 35 years (life?) was too high before a guilty plea was taken into account. So, does that mean he saved himself 21 years by pleading guilty? How does that work?

I have a question, what do PR firms actually do? I know it's always posh women that own and work at PR firms. People like Prince William's ex-girlfriend, and Gordon Brown's wife, but they can't really make a profit from telling people which side to part their hair can they? Surely no one actually pays to be told, "wear the blue tie to the garden party, and for God's sake don't say 'shit' like you did last week at that charity dinner. Try and say 'oh bother'. And don't pick your nose." Come to think of it, the posh birds that work in PR are always someone's wife or partner. I can't think of a PR bird who is self made. It's crap isn't it. They don't do anything. They just send women with short skirts to tell men waht to do and we're stupid enough to pay them.