In Summary - This Sums up Summer!

Even the cat doesn't want to venture outside!

For more Skywatchers visit the Skywatch Blog

Pure, Unadulterated GREED!

My energy company announced a massive hike in profits a few weeks ago - I'm talking billions in PROFIT - not turnover. A few days later it also announced some 'cost efficiency measures' to further strengthen its position in a competitive marketplace. Basically this meant they were looking to reduce their wages bill by laying off a few hundred people.

Today they also announced that they were hiking up my electricity and gas charges by 21% and 29% respectively. How nice of them.

Why are they doing it?

Simple answer: GREED. The greed of the big fat cat shareholders, looking to further line their already richly lined pockets.

Oh how I miss the days when the Gas and Electricity 'Boards' as they were known, were controlled by the state. At least then an unpopular government could gain some ground by freezing price hikes, or cutting charges.

Bring back state ownership of the utilities. The competitive marketplace in essential utilities is a complete farce - there's no such thing as competition - they're ALL raking in millions and millions at our expense.

Rather than taking over troubled banks, the government should be investing that money into our utility infrastructure to rid us of the scourge of greedy private shareholders.

Rant over. Happy weekend. Stay warm - but don't put the heating on!!

ABC Wednesday - C is for...

Cats.

This is Pepper, she's eight years old and we rescued her from the streets as a kitten. I can't imagine our household without a cat. Ever since I can remember we have always had at least one ( and a maximum of three) I have a special affinity with them, and they seem to understand me more than the other members of the McArthur household. When she's hungry and other McArthurs get up as if to go into the kitchen she stays where she is, but if I so much as move my foot or make to get up from my chair, she's squirming round my legs in a flash. So for this ABC I thought I'd enlighten you with some interesting cat quotes I found at CatsInfo.com

• "In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat."- Warren Eckstein
• "A home without a cat- and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat- may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?"- Pudd'nhead Wilson
• "If animals could speak the dog would be a a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."- Mark Twain
• "A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime."-Mark Twain Notebook, 1895
• "I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course."- Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field, Fisher
• "Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat."- Mark Twain Notebook, 1894
• "You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals."- George Mikes from "How to be decadent
• "Dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you."- Mary Bly
• "For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat."- Anon
• "I love cats because I love my home and after a while they become its visible soul."- Jean Cocteau
• "There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats."- Albert Schweitzer
• "There are few things in life more heartwarming than to be welcomed by a cat."- Tay Hohoff
• " God made the cat in order that humankind might have the pleasure of caressing the tiger."- Fernand Mery
• "There are few things in life more heartwarming than to be welcomed by a cat."- Tay Hohoff
• "Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. "- Jeff Valdez
• "Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them."- Jim Davis
• "There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person."- Dan Greenberg
• "The smallest feline is a masterpiece."- Leonardo da Vinci
• "In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats."- English Proverb
• "Beware of people who dislike cats."- Irish Proverb
• "You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats."- Colonial American Proverb
• "With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?"- Fernand Mery
• "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill
• "I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."- Hippolyte Taine
• "A meow massages the heart."- Stuart McMillan
• "No matter how much cats fight, there always seems to be plenty of kittens."- Abraham Lincoln
• "Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God."- Unknown
• "Time spent with cats is never wasted."- Unknown
• "Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."- Unknown
• " No heaven will not ever be Heaven be; Unless my cats are there to welcome me."- Unknown
• " How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven."- Robert A. Heinlein
• "Dogs have owners, cats have staff."- Unknown
• "Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this."- Anonymous
• " There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats."- Anonymous
• "No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch."- Leo Dworken
• "One cat just leads to another."- Ernest Hemingway
• "The cat has too much spirit to have no heart."- Ernest Menaul
• "As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat."- Ellen Perry Berkeley
• "People who hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life."- Faith Resnick
• "One reason we admire cats is for their proficiency in one-upmanship. They always seem to come out on top, no matter what they are doing, or pretend they do."- Barbara Webster
• "I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food which they take for granted--but his or her entertainment value."- Geoffrey Household
• "As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind."- Cleveland Amory

For more interesting 'C's visit ABC Wednesday's New Blog. and sign in on Mr Linky

Cat quotes courtesy of Cats Info.com