Monday 4 February 2013

Cheap power from revolting Tories

I think David Cameron should have pushed ahead with immediate measures to allow both gay marriage and tax breaks for married couples. I haven't been swayed by the paltry few quid I might potentially gain now that I'm wed, but by the potential for huge amounts of cheap energy that would be opened up by promoting both measures, thanks to a variation on the famous Buttered Cat Paradox:
So we can say that dropped toast almost always lands butter side down, and dropped cats always land on their feet under under most conditions. But in 1993, artist and quantum thinker John Frazee posed the question in OMNI magazine about what would happen if you were to attach toast to a cat's back -butter side out, of course...

 ...What would happen in such a scenario? Both the butter on the toast and the cat's feet would be attracted to the floor -or possibly the opposite side of both objects would be repelled by the floor. This conundrum became known as the Buttered Cat Paradox...

... Those who have tackled the problem as a thought experiment (meaning, no cats were harmed) have come to the conclusion that the buttered cat would stop falling at some point above the floor. Then, as the cat tries to orient its feet against the attraction of the butter to the floor, the cat would begin spinning -and never stop. The result could be called a true perpetual motion machine. 
 Summary courtesy of Mental Floss.

We could apply the same principle to reactionary Tory back benchers who are strongly attracted to the Kinder, Küche, Kirche ideal of the nonthreatening, conformist nuclear family and simultaneously repelled by the idea of gay people being allowed to get married if they want to. Institute tax breaks for married couples and gay marriage at the same time, then watch 'em spin.

Tax breaks for normal, decent 2.5 kidders? Mmm ... lovely! Tax subsidies to help subversive perverts undermine the very foundations of Christian civilisation? Yuck! I think I'm going to throw up into my Daily Telegraph!

Spin, my pretties, spin! Once the Tory back benches have entered a state of permanent revolution, we just hook 'em up to the National Grid and Bob's your aunties' significant other. The lights need never go out in our time.

Low carbon, no hazardous waste, more sustainable than simply harvesting the energy from the meltdown of Mel Phillips' brain, no further case for wind farms and, therefore, a fifty per cent reduction in opinion pieces by James Delingpole...  ¡Viva La Revolución!

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