Billhook

A weekend documentary to peruse

That really is a super article and I only glanced through both parts. I need to set aside more time to read and re-read it. I did not see music and art mentioned and the ability to create inventions by pure inspirational thought, nor did I see the main factor for wanting to keep on existing which must be love.

Great chance for history repeating itself After World War One Germany on its knees due to severe reparations forced upon it by the allies A generation of young Germans with no hope or money We could well have a similar generation here in another 20 years with jobs taken up by machines or cheap immigrant labour, having to pay vast welfare taxes to keep the NHS going which costs will by now include home care for all us oldies. Along comes a new young charismatic leader who brings hope and jobs. But first we need to be rid of the people who are taking a lot from society without contributing anything. Hitler started by killing the mentally handicapped albeit quietly inside asylums. That went on to the very old and demented followed by the terminally ill. All that having been accomplished with little disagreement he moved on to the next group. Gypsies are not any use to society, let's do away with them, who else is taking from society and not giving. Oh yes the money lenders, the Jews, let's do away with them too. You can see how a charismatic leader could start all this off again sometime in the future, especially given the surprising rise of antisemitism at the moment in certain places. Luckily the current leaders are the opposite of charismatic

I agree that there is no way you can introduce compulsory birth control without being labelled a Nazi so in the end the planet will adjust. Euthanasia for us old'uns would not be very popular! Really the World is only big enough for a quarter of the current human population. We will have to leave the problem to Gaia to solve, probably by war, plague or asteroid impact.

I was of course referring to our old inglenook fireplace, nicknamed nookie. Doesn't seem to work anymore due to low moisture in the chimney. Perhaps it needs a good rodding!

Or addressing human over population with birth control to combat all of the world's problems, energy conservation, pollution, habitat destruction, global warming etc

When we were first together (some time ago) a suggestion of a bit of nookie would soon warm things up. Doesn't seem to work any more!

The things that really put out black smoke and particulates, such as diesel buses, lorries and older cars would need to be banned first logically.

This is something else!

Harry Chapin wrote it in 1974, but I do not remember that version, only the Ugly Kid Joe version. I think I was only interested in heavy stuff in 1974 like this. Saw Trower live in Bristol.

Stubby, I always knew that you read my threads carefully and took note!

Cloud cuckoo land I am afraid. Many farmers are hardly making a living with a subsidy. it would be great if everyone lived in wooden houses with a turf roof and we sawed the timber by hand with no noisy chainsaws and their fossil fuels. Make all our own furniture, grow our own vegetables, abandon cars. one of the ways that an organic farmer can exist is because the farm is usually surrounded by conventional farms which insulate the organic farm from diseases, weed seeds and pests. You have never seen a field of potatoes wiped out by blight, (see Irish potato famine) or a field of wheat wiped out by cozvered smut or choked by weeds Tom Lehrer had the great line which would apply to the organic farmer in the cases mentioned " You begin to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis "!

Here are some of the facts and figures for the uk https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/614552/organics-statsnotice-18may17.pdf only about one per cent of organic land is down to cereals and most of that will be Spring sown. 40,000 hectares You would be lucky to yield four tons a hectare so 160,000 tons at most compared to sixteen million tons of conventional You have over seventy million mouths to feed A perfect storm is brewing. Too much land taken up with housing and roads and energy crops Average age of a farmer is about sixty and most of those cannot wait to retire, few sons are interested Glyphoshate ban would be the straw to break the camel's back

I think that you can leave out the word "plenty"

It is all relative. Most things will be dangerous to life in the wrong doses. Salt being a prime example. Too much salt will kill you, too little salt will kill you. Relative to the use of Chlorine in our swimming pools and lavatories, Roundup is very safe and has been used by the environment agency to kill weeds in rivers without harming wildlife. I do not see the average housewife wearing full protection suits when they slap Domestos down the loo in random quantities, usually far more than necessary. And yet that chemical is a hundred more times dangerous than Roundup. if any of you have spilt neat chlorine on your skin you will know what I mean. However banning it might cause a huge loss of life from disease. From a farming point of view ,banning it would lead to Winter Wheat being nearly impossible to grow, (I presume that those who want the ban would also ban all chemicals given the chance since Roundup is about the safest chemical) due to weeds like blackgrass. In these days of abundant food it seems difficult to imagine food shortage, but there is a massive human population to feed and the tiny risk of cancer from this product is better than the risk of starvation. You can make a scare story about any chemical. I know the Bi- Hydro-oxy group of chemicals have caused millions of deaths over the centuries. Too little of it will certainly kill you, drinking too much of it will also kill you and swimming under it for a very short space of time will also kill you. We should all be scared! Do not go near it!

The other thing which I do not think has been mentioned is the question of retribution. You may win the battle and send the attacker away with a sore head or even a permanent injury and feel victorious, but his mates may return in force and set your yard/ woodpile/ house on fire or worse. and this may continue after you have rebuilt everything. As Skyhuck says, why start the thread if you are not going to listen to good friendly advice?

I think the legal phrase is something like "A person of sound mind has to be reasonably sure that he is in imminent danger of being seriously hurt or killed, or his immediate family and he can then use proportional force to prevent the attack. If the assailant had a gun and you managed to knock it out of his hand and pick it up and he still came at you then it would be reasonable to shoot him in the eyes of the law. Not if he was running away though I cannot seem to rid my mind of the image of Forestboy definitely doing something dodgy by shooting at an assailant's knees while eating a banana. Would it be impossible for the judge to find him guilty?

Good advice, see what happened to Stokes just to demonstrate how a silly little confrontation can become a massive court case. You would just need to look at what happened to the Wisbech farmer Tony Martin who shot dead a thief running away. The real reason he was jailed, quite rightly, was because the thief was running away and he was not in immediate danger and it was premeditated in that he had cut halfway through the cellar steps and been bragging down the local about what he was going to do if he caught them. On the other hand, a week or two later in another incident a man was woken by a noise in the kitchen, went down to investigate leaving his wife and children upstairs. The burglar attacked him with a knife, he managed to grab another knife from the drawer and killed his attacker. He was deemed to be of sound mind and to have acted reasonably and with proportional force , the jury found him innocent and he was allowed to go free. By posting your intentions on this forum you have already shown premeditation, (and the police would find out if there was a serious incident) so the best advice is do as LeeGray said and also be well insured and enjoy the shopping trip with a load of fresh new tools.

Just found this which is interesting https://www.pestpurge.co.uk/2012/03/21/wasps-and-bats-unlikely-bedfellows/