HUBBERS DOT COM BLOG

Rachel and I went down to Russell Square to see the Olympic Torch march and associated protests. Hundreds of protesters turned up to make their voices heard.

Naturally the police were out in force to make sure the torch reached it’s goal and to stop any trouble.

What really surprised me was the large number of pro-Chinese people there.

Many of the China supporters were very vocal and more than happy to argue their case. Their arguments came down to a few main points:

• Sport and politics should be separate
• Tibetans kill Chinese people you can see it on Youtube
• You haven’t been to China so you can’t have an opinion

These seriously were the points made by many seemingly educated young Chinese men and women as a justification for the recent violent actions of the Chinese government. The irony of engaging in vigorous debate to support a regime that violently suppresses all dissenting views was lost on them.

Personally I think we are all lucky to be living in a country where people can have a vigorous and heated debate on the side of the road.

This is my favourite photo of the day. It makes me wonder if the huge number of police present are part of the Chinese dream.

It’s going to be an interesting year for all involved and sadly I don’t think we have seen the end of the blood.

Twice a day I ride past the Chinese embassy in London. It isn’t well marked so you would never know it was there if it weren’t for the permanent peaceful protest by supporters of Falun Gong. They are ticked off that their government imprisons them and sells their internal organs before they have finished using them. The other give away is the cop with a machine gun across the road.

Tonight the usual one or two man protest was slightly larger as about a hundred people turned up to protest the deaths of a number of protesters in Tibet. Naturally there was a much larger number of police with automatic weapons. The good news is that we live in a democracy where civil rights are protected by the law and the police don’t gun people down in the street who disagree with the government.

This came in on email:

The Japanese government must believe their people are very hungry, otherwise they would not be hunting whales in the Southern Oceans.

To assist our Japanese friends, we propose to send packets of instant noodles to Japan to save the whales from being eaten. To show the intent of these noodles, please attach a letter to the Prime Minister of Japan, Yasuo Fukuda, about the continued Japanese whaling in the south seas, and the world’s opposition to the wasteful and unneeded slaughter of whales.

Individual noodle packets can be sent to:
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda
1-6-1 Nagata-cho
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8968
JAPAN

The socialist who run the unions that work on the London underground went on a 72 hour strike this week. In the end the union called off the strike slightly early after accepting the EXACT package that the Tube bosses offered them in the first place.

Why did they strike then? I have no idea. Maybe just to flex their socialist muscles.

One crazy spin off of the tube strike is that London’s buses and roads became way more congested. One Tuesday and Wednesday on my rides to work I saw some crazy stuff. The significant increase in traffic caused loads of extra pressure and I saw several vehicles do crazy things that you would normally never see. The worst of which was a car that cut across in front of an oncoming car when they both got green lights to go straight ahead. Crazy.

There were also loads of extra cyclists who were riding for two days. All those people who bought bikes and have rarely or never used them were able to dust them off and ride to work. The finniest part was that a lot of the “strike riders” rode in ways that regular riders wouldn’t, like all over the footpath.

There were reports in the news that the queues for the buses were so bad that fights broke out.

I wonder how many people got hurt or ended up in hospital so the unions could flew their socialist muscle.

Earlier this year I wrote to a long list of local councillors about a stretch of cycle lane on the way to work that was blocked in several places by road works. In some places the road was genuinely dug up but in several other the cycle lane was blocked to provide storage space for road signs, equipment and – a portable toilet. I even took some photos (click on the image below to see more).I got a couple of responses about looking at danger areas etc a few weeks later but not much else.

Yesterday on the same stretch of road I took the photo below of a toilet blocking a cycle lane. In the couple of minutes it took me to take these photos I saw two cyclists ride into oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road to avoid the toilet blocking the cycle lane. While I admit this is an incredibly stupid thing for cyclists to do the fact that a high percentage of cyclists will do this makes the placement of the portable toilet here, dangerous in the extreme.

My proposed solution is that the local councils should outlaw using cycle lanes for storage by road workers.

I have added a link to the Amnesty International Irrepressible Info site for undermining unwarranted internet censorship
It’s the green box at the top corner of this blog.

Not totally sure how it will work as it only publishes a tiny snippet of each repressed/blocked story. So if you are in an oppressed country and you happen to see my blog (why?) and you see that link with something about your missing uncle -
Three bodies were found outside Opressorville today. One of them was that of Uncle

- and you want to read more so you click on the link … it doesn’t take you to a place where you can actually see the rest of the story. Instead it takes you to the Amnesty International site which also only shows you another tantalising snippet of the story about your uncle so you have to click on a link to the original story which if you remember correctly at the beginning of the post is BLOCKED. Don’t get me started on how the Amnesty International site is bound to be one of the first to be blocked by any oppressive dictator worth his weight in forged ballot papers.
The point is that oppressive dictators are BAD and censorship is BAD and I am doing something about it so take that, evil oppressive dictators!!! Block me if you dare!!!

Loads more walking in Manhattan. The highlight was the visit to the USS Intrepid a decommissioned air craft carrier. There were loads of cool planes and helicopters and even a concord and a nuclear submarine although the later was closed.

Had dinner at a Korean restaurant. Am guessing that it was a South Korean themed restaurant and not a North Korean one as there was actually some food on the tables instead of a proclamation from the restaurant that we are very lucky and there is actually loads of food while we starved. Also we didn’t have to sing constant songs praising the wise and fearless Kim Jong Ill who was the first man to walk on the moon and who hit 7 holes in one on his first game of golf. The best part was that we got to barbeque our own food after we cleared up the confusion about what the various bits of food were and what needed barbequing.

Went out in Greenwich Village which is totally not like Greenwich and certainly not a village. In truth it’s more like Soho only with less guys in tight shirts. Very cool with loads of bars and a great vibe.

There is a movement in the USA at the moment called ‘intelligent design’ that is having quite a lot of success getting schools to teach children that the theory of evolution is a load of rubbish. George Bush, a man who coincidentally bares a remarkable resemblance to a chimpanzee, has famously come out and backed the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ to American school children. This is despite the overwhelming majority of the scientific community saying ID is total fundamentalist bullshit.

It’s great to know that in one of the great debates of our time the piss takers have teamed up with the scientists against the religious crackpots.

For further information try Googling ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster‘.

MHNATY (May His Noodley Appendage Touch You)

This from The Guardian if you can believe it.