World events

Not really a "world event" but I couldn't think where else to put this.

There's a bit of a "craze" at the moment here in the UK of youths (probably) throwing bricks, rocks and concrete off bridges that cross motorways. Some incidents in England at the weekend led to some serious injuries of car drivers/passengers - luckily, no one has been killed yet. There have been a couple of incidents in Scotland as well over the last few days.

It baffles me why anyone would want to do this sort of thing: kicks, boredom, urges to kill? Who knows.

But I read today that the police advise drivers to be "alert driving under bridges". That's okay in principle, but how is that meant to work in practice? It usually happens at night and if you do see something suspicious when driving at 70+ mph what are you meant to do by the time you reach the bridge? Break suddenly, swerve out of the way into another lane? That may just cause other accidents.

Maybe this should have gone in the "annoying" topic!?

That's certainly possible. Someone called the police the other day because they thought they saw someone leaning over the railing of one of these bridges. They thought that they were trying to time a "rock drop". Turns out what they saw was one of those cameras that monitors flow of traffic. Nine times out of ten (maybe even 999/1000) it's going to be kids just waving at the cars hoping to get a wave back.

But it people start swerving out of the way or are not paying attention to what's happening on the actual road then accident will happen.

I seem to recall a fatal accident being caused on a motorway when someone swerved to avoid a swan flying across the carriageway. Swerving caused a pile-up that led to some deaths. All for the sake of saving a swan. (Though, sometimes swerving is just a natural reaction to s situation such as that.)

On that last point, when I had my head-on crash years back, when I saw what was about to happen I do remember thinking that I can't swerve out of the way because I had no idea what I would be swerving into. So I just had to brace. (Though I am not sure how much of that recollection is what actually happened and what is post-accident analysis on my part.) As it turned out there was traffic passing me on the inside so I would have taken them out if I had have blindly swerved.

Vote Timmer for Prime Minister.

...or a Timmer frame!

Here's a fast solution: throw the fuckers themselves off the bridge. Done.

I've held off on commenting as nobody is still clear on what it was that the f*ck happened!
Speculations range from a failed prison break to -predictably- a terrorist attack.

75 injured, 4 dead (including the killer) is what I'm reading here. Somebody threw a bunch of grenades at a bus stop, with plenty of people around.

That's pretty much what everyone else is wondering...

About the meat: I eat less meat for different reasons. Meat production is very intensive and why eat meat if we can eat what the animal is eating as well... Secondly, and that helps a lot, I don't like meat that much anymore. The only thing I cannot resist is a steak every now and then or carpaccio or roast beef. I do eat fish, while I realize there is far too much fishing going on... I think on a weekly basis I eat one thing of meat. One or two things of fish and the rest is vegetarian. Quinn decided to be a vegetarian last year so that helped me trying new recipes and cooking vegetarian several times a week. Her motivation is simply because she adores animals and thinks we shouldn't eat them.

What was the other thing? Right, the brick droppers. I remember one woman died in the Netherlands because someone threw a brick from a bridge. That was one or two years ago, probably two then.

That's my biggest grievance with meat, especially as it accounts for a very large majority of meat that is produced in the world. Seeing it first hand is not nice, I can assure you.

There will be a slight step forward in animal welfare once the ban on battery cages is enforced, but it's not quite as good as it might sound:



But there are also organic farmers who genuinely care for their livestock. The slaughter part is never going to be nice, but they do adhere to certain standards and the animals have at least been given a healthy way of living beforehand. Farmers like this should be recognised and praised for their work I think.

For me, in terms of meat production, the welfare of the animal is primary; everything else is secondary (though still important).

I'd quite happily shoot those who mistreat and torture animals.

I need my proteins! With all the other restrictions going on in my life right now, I'm certainly not going to add meat on top of it.

But of course, I have total respect for those who choose to have that lifestyle (whether 100% or severely reduced, like Bregje).

I try to do that sometimes, even though it's a bit too expensive for me.

Yeah, I've never been able to understand that angle either. I'm always a bit annoyed when they say how many Norwegians are affected by whatever accident on the news. I don't give a monkey's toss about Norwegians! I want to know the full impact of it, regardless of nationality.

Assuming that only British people privy to an article like that are concerned with British passengers. Sure, the odds are that they will be, but it's still strikes me as silly to single out one nationality.

They also refer to people by nationality far too often "This Korean man", "This Chinese family"... so what if they're Korean of Chinese!?