G8/G20 The gift of spin that just keeps on giving

The problem with starting something spinning is that it will occasionally go out of control. Anyone who has tried to maintain a perfect heading on a gyro-compass knows this. Interrupt the source of energy and the damn things topple. Don't correct for latitude and you get a phenomenon known as "Earth Drift". Move the compass, as ships have a tendency to do, and you'll get a thing known as "Transport Wander".

You have to constantly pay attention to that spinning thing because the "North" it's pointing to is completely imaginary. Let your attention move off the gyro mechanism for too long and it's pointing to an imaginary point of its own - not the one you initially picked.

That's why ships always carry a back up magnetic compass. A magnetic compass always points at a real position on earth - Magnetic North. You can mess up a magnetic compass, but when you take away temporary influences, it will always return to Magnetic North.

The problem with the Harper conservatives is that they've been doing everything based on that imaginary point. Nothing is real. They're so into spin that they didn't pay attention to the laws of gyro-dynamics, probably because they don't understand such things anyway.

Thus, when their compass card, pointing to an imaginary position, started to wander a little, they didn't notice. When the need for a latitude correction arose, they ignored it. Arrogant people regularly do that. The result is that their gyro has toppled, leaving them wallowing around with no idea where they really are.

They could grab a magnetic compass, which is always telling a single truth, and apply known variation along with Harper's particular deviation to come up with their imaginary point again... except that they don't have one.

Now, even if they get their gyro up and running again, it's going to take a significant amount of time to find its rigidity and precess into its focus on that imaginary position (known as Harper's truth).

So, when the Conservative spin machine tries to point at some artificial object, calling it an "environmental legacy" intending to show everyone how green they are, they shouldn't be surprised at the calls of bullshit! from those of us in possession of magnetic compasses which are pointing at an urban privacy hedge.