who do i have to kill to find some news?

So ... it's been cheap movie week and I've doused myself in a potent mixture of Dragnet, Under Siege, True Lies, and Robocop 1 & 2 and then lit the match. The things I've learnt:

1. In the 80s it was compulsory for every cop movie to have at least one scene in a strip club. This may say something about the Reagan/Thatcher psychosocial infection (thank you Dr Bartholomew Wolper) ... or it could just be that 80s directors realised that men get painfully confused unless they see breasts are regular intervals (no, no, it's true. Would I lie to you?). Tom Hanks should go back to making fluffy comedies.
   
2. Steven Seagal unfortunately has all the acting skill and emotional range of Stephen Hawking's voice box, but by heck it's a fun film anyway. There's oodles of fighting, AND breasts. Well, just two breasts, but I never was very good at counting my oodles. And for a movie that looks like it was bought and paid for by a Republican black ops team, it has a surprisingly subversive conversation at the end ... when I get a chance I'll transcribe - no bugger seems to have put the script on the net.
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the creepiest goddamn husband I've ever seen. The man diverts covert intelligence resources from hunting for a terrorist who is smuggling ex-soviet MIRV nuclear warheads into the USA hidden inside 3000-year old Persian statues for some fiendish terroristic reason, and instead he devotes those resources to following his wife, whom he suspects of having an affair with a used car salesman (Bill Paxton, channelling Hudson). Said terrorists end up nuking an island in Florida. Arnie blackmails his wife into dirty dancing for what she thinks is a voyeristic spy (instead it's voyeristic Arnold, face hidden by an incredibly dark and convenient shadow, even though the rest of his body is perfectly recognisible). No wonder his daughter is a budding thief ... And, in a cruel twist of fate, we never get to see Tia Carrere's breasts. Still, the scene when the Harrier Jumpjets blow up the Florida causeway is pretty nifty.
4. Robocop is a comedy. A violent, dystoptian comedy, but half a laugh riot nonetheless. C'mon, I dare you not to laugh when, after ED209 has pumped 60 high calibre rounds into a luckless executive's twitching and mutilated body, Dick Jones (my god, they called the guy Dick Jones!!) says "I'm sure it's only a glitch. A temporary setback." Classic. Heck, every scene with ED209 is played for laughs - he's a direct descendent of every drunken falling robot from the AT-ATs in Empire Strikes Back to the ... um, AT-STs in Return of the Jedi. Which just shows you where the 3 prequels went wrong - a distinct lack of drunk, falling robots. Except in the beginning of Revenge of the Sith with the ball-bearings, but man, that was just plain silly. If you can't take your comedy seriously, you shouldn't be out playing with an inflatable bobble stick.
   
5. Speaking of The Empire Strikes Back, who the hell knew that Irvin Kershner, the man who made Lucas's script human, directed Robocop 2? Or that Frank Miller wrote the screenplay? Well, now you know.
   

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
What's the deal with stigmata?
Do copper bracelets ease pain?

Slimey Lawyer: Attempted murder? It's not like he killed someone ...

- Robocop, 1987

NB: Title of this post shamelessly stolen from Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan. When I steal, I steal from the best. AND the least likely to sue me!

the frogs of war

Puppets Who Kill

Yep, I had to go change my pants too.

Bill the bloodthirsty ventriloquist dummy, Buttons the sexually hyperactive corporate mascot, Cuddles the foul-mouthed comfort doll and Rocko the con-artist plush puppy, all being looked after in a half-way house by a (human) social worker named Dan.

I mean, c'mon, how can I lose with quotes like this?

Rocko: I'd have to say I'm a breast man, myself.
Buttons: Ohhh, c'mon, it's the ass all the way.
Bill: I've always been partial to the torso and if there's a head attached, so much the better.

Inevitably when I actually get the DVD I'll be horribly disappointed, but in the meantime I bask in the warm glow of foolish hopes.

oh the humanity!

I really should be excited about Transformers. Okay, I'm not a true believer and my transformers-loving phase as a child was relatively short, but the simple fact is: Giant Robots rock. Giant Robots that Transform into cars and trucks and planes and shoot each other with large laser cannons are even better than rock. And CGI as at the point where it is definitely feasible to have a live action Giant Robot film without it looking stupid.

So why aren't I excited?

Well, I took a look on IMDB - and warning bells started going off, followed by a four-alarm klaxxon, the one you usually hear just before Soviet paratroopers start falling out of the sky because those limp-wristed liberals kowtowed to the Satanic Russkies and took their finger off the nu-kleeer trigger.

Director: Michael Bay. Director of The Island, Bad Boys I & II, Armageddon, Pearl Harbour, The Rock ... and Lionel Richie's "Do it to me" music video. Now, I liked the Rock, and The Island was okay in bits (those bits weren't necessarily coherent mind you), and Bad Boys might be okay on a rainy day ... but Armageddon and Pearl Harbour were both shit of the highest order. In Pearl Harbour I was rooting for the Japs, and not because I'm a rabid America hater (I start feeling patriotic during the President's speech in Independence day for Christ's sake! I'm a sucker!) - they just seemed competent and smart and motivated ... compared to the good guys. But I maybe I could look past Michael Bay, it is a Giant Robot movie after all, not high art. But then we come to ...

The Writers:
John Rogers. Who wrote the screenplay for Catwoman. And The Core. And episodes of ... the Cosby Show. Sigh.
Roberto Orci - all he seems to have written is episodes of Alias. He also gets a credit for Mission Impossible III, which was a reasonable film (not as good as MI 1, ten billion times better than MI 2). But he's also down for The Island, so something can't be right ...

Ray of hope: I can't see any big names in the cast list so far, which is a good sign. The only names I recognise: Bernie Mac (??), John Turturro and Jon Voight. John Turturro, for one, is classy actor, by any measure a busy man (72 acting entries on IMDB, 95% movies, starting with Raging Bull. He was "Man at table"). Most people probably remember him from O Brother Where Art Thou, or Secret Window, or even Do the Right Thing. But I remember him best for playing the alternately sneaky player/pathetic weasel Bernie Bernbaum in Miller's Crossing. I know I've waxed lyrical about the film before so I won't bore you again. But if you haven't seen it for sweet zombie jesus's sake tell me and I'll lend it to you.

Coitus Interruptus over: We've got a year to hope they'll get Transformers right. In the meantime, sate your Giant Robot hunger with The Iron Giant. Possibly the best work ever from each of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr and Vin Diesel - and even I've been known to get a lump in my throat at the ending, which means the rest of you pansies will blub like fire-hoses.

EDIT: The venerable Monkey-Fluider and Brain Stabber Josh just helpfully let me know what a colossal pillock I am - John Rogers is the same John Rogers who writes Kung-Fu Monkey. So if Transformers goes completely aubergine we'll know how to blame - that's right, MICHAEL BAY! That bastard.

EDIT THE 2ND: John Rogers talks about Catwoman (briefly). Heh.

EDIT THE 3RD: John Rogers makes no apologies for The Core. Fine, you bastards, I'll withhold judgement until I've watched the whole movie through. Sheesh! Oh, and check out The Biology of B Movie Monsters. Some people will take the fun out of anything ...

EDIT THE 4TH: Okay, after starting listening to the beginning of the commentary by Michael Bay on Bad Boys, maybe, just maybe he isn't the anti-christ. I have new respect for a guy who can admit in the first 2 minutes that he did the best he could with a bad script (rather than trying to claim, in the face of the evidence, that it's a great movie and everyone loved making it so much, and it has such an important message ...), and who made a reasonable popcorn action movie for a ridiculously low amount of money ($17 million, which I'm assuming is production only - so ex promotion costs). And who reveals that the fast cuts in one scene were partly for pacing but mainly to cover up that the set was pretty much made of cardboard.

Verna: What you doing?
Tom Reagan: Walking...
Verna: Don't let on any more than you have to.
Tom Reagan: ...in the rain.

- Miller's Crossing, 1990.

we are amateurs

From Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit and Conflict by Edwin Black. Excerpts from pages 41-47.

The Mongols waged organised terror as a war tactic to inspire surrender. When they approached they, they often did so in a great tumult. Sometimes they simply beat drums outside a walled city for days before an onslaught. Or they hurled incendiary missiles, or bombarded the the city walls in a perfection of siegecraft. Even as terrified inhabitants did not sleep, the Mongol warriors rested and dined on the stores they had carefully pre-positioned.

Unliked other invaders, their goal was not conquest and domination but utter destruction. Typically, an overrun city would be completely dismembered and rendered useless. Every living thing had to die - men, women, children, even cats and dogs. Death to opponents was a cruel, panful exercise - the more gruesome the murder, the greater the Mongol vindication. The Mongol custom was to report body counts by chopping off ears of their victims. Bag after bag was filled and delivered to ranking offiers as proof. This was more than warfare, more than plunder and subjugation, more than mere triumph - this was extermination.

... At Nessa, 70,000 people were ordered to bind each other's hands behind their backs. Then each one was systematically slaughtered as the masses awaited their turn ... At Merv, a major commercial hub in northeastern Persia, the population was cunningly convinced that they could safely exit the city in an orderly fashion, taking their most valued goods.It took four days for thousands of families to frantically gather their possessions and then nervously pass through the gate. They expected the promised safe passage. Instead, the 200 wealthiest men were identified and heinously tortured until they betrayed all their commercial agents and revealed their hidden troves of wealth. Then all the families were brutally torn from one another and and hideously butchered.

... At Nishapur, everything was burned, crushed, and pillaged, and all who lived were savagely murdered. The city disappeared. It was leveled to rubble, reduced to a space - except for three pyramids. To prevent any survivors from hiding among the heaps of corpses, orders went out to decapitate everyone. Those heads were towered into three ghastly monuments of extermination: one pyramid of male heads, one female, and one comprised of children. They stood as grotesque beacons and warnings.

... On February 5, 1258, after a six-day siege, the eastern fortifications [of Baghdad] were won. Entourage after entourage tried to reason with Hulagu [Khan], who would not life his siege or the invasion. Escape was impossible. The rivers were blocked. The roads were choked off. The mountain passes occupied. Finally the people of Baghdad obeyed an invitation to peaceably file out of the city gate. They were promised safe passage to Syria. But first, a census. Normally Baghdad's populations was hundreds of thousands, but with the swell of terrified refugees from the surrounding suburbs and village, it may have exceeded a million ... [they] filed out to the field, defenseless, their weapons left behind as instructed. Then, one by one, family by family, thousand by thousand, the Mongols did what they always did ... It is thought that Hulagu himself later bragged to King Louis IX of France that more than 2 million were killed. A Persian historian of the period stated the number was closer to 800,000. Others have estimated much more. The city's normal bustling population of nearly a million was swelled by multitudes of fleeing Moslems from the suburbs and surrounding villages. The higher death tolls are probably more accurate.

I would like to think that we are a more enlightened species than the Mongols were 800 years ago. At least these days have the good grace that when we lie, we lie about how few civilians we killed rather than exaggeratedly bragging about it ...

the electric frying pan of love, Part III

• steam up a batch of sliced carrots, beans, and broccoli.
• get one of those 3 minute macaroni cheese packets - one of the ones where you chuck the cheese-sauce powder into milk and then pour over the cooked macaroni.
• assembled packet macaroni.
• dice 1/3 to 1/2 half of an onion.
• mix thoroughtly the macaoni cheese, steamed vegetables, diced onions and 1 can each of sweet chilli and lemon pepper tuna in a reasonable sized oven dish.
• shake over a generous amount of wholemeal breadcrumbs, then follow with a generous amount of grated cheese.
  
• Stick on the lid, then grill the sucker until the top is moderately crunchy without burning it.

If you like you can switch on the frying pan for continuities sake.

For those late to the party:
Part II
Part I

the calliope crashed to the ground

Before you read this post you might want to read The Dangers of Bread. It might put you in the right frame of mind ...

Today's NZ Herald had a story entitled Research finds more people indulging in party pills than expected. Or, as I'd like to call it, "a whole bunch of statistics that don't tell us much conclusive, but we'll sure as hell spin them for all they're worth".

Let's start with the first useless statistic: "of the one in seven who had tried them [legal party pills] in the past year, 15 per cent said the experience had a poor effect on their health". Which is very interesting. Except no attempt is made by the Herald at this point to define what "a poor effect on their health" means. Maybe they threw up? Or had the runs the next morning? Bleed from their eyes and then drew pentagrams on the bathroom floor in their own blood? Well, to find out we have to find the original report (which is somewhat more informative and helpful than the Herald), which can be downloaded from here.

When we read deeper into the report we find that the question asked "whether their use of legal party pills had harmed eight areas of their life in the preceeding year". The eight areas were Energy and Vitality - 19.3%, Health - 14.6%, Financial position - 8.8%, Outlook on life - 6.3%, Home life - 4.7%, Friendships and social life - 4%, Work and study life - 2.9%, and Harmed children's health and well-being - 1%. Hardly stunning stuff. But we'll get back to this in a minute. Let's see what rent-a-moral-panic has to say:

The debate over party pills - legal highs that can have similar effects to amphetamine or Ecstasy - has intensified over what critics say is a growing problem.

Paul Gee, of Christchurch Hospital, said the emergency department dealt with about one BZP-influenced patient a week.

Dr Paul Gee, an emergency room doctor in Christchurch, seems to be quite the crusader against party pills. One wonders whether it is a coincidence that the other big crusader against their incidious effects, Jim Anderton, is also a native of Christchurch? But conspiracy theories aside, Dr Gee contradicts the idea the we have a "growing problem". How? Well he helped to write a paper last year that tracked admissions for party pill "adverse effects". A summary of the paper is here, and a Stuff.co.nz article on it is here. Dr Gee's paper states that the emergency room at 80 incidents presenting because of party pills. The study period was 22 weeks in 2005, so we get a rate of 3.6 people a week in Christchurch with adverse effects during the study period. But now, according to the quote above, it's only 1 a week. Wow. Quite a serious problem then.

Dr Gee doesn't stop with his doom-mongering there. He goes on to say:

We have encountered people under the influence of BZP who have threatened family members with weapons and in one case set fire to their house while barricaded inside.

and,

Dr Gee said 98 per cent of users could feel "a bit washed out for three or four days".

Good fuck. And this guy's a doctor? I hope I'm never hospitalised in Christchurch. 98% of users? Not according to the MoH survey. Loss of energy topped out at 18.4% amongst the psychological problems reported by users. Higher still was users reporting trouble sleeping, at 50.4% (frustratingly this is not further elaborated - was sleep profoundly disturbed for a lengthy period, or was it the equivalent of drinking too many cups of coffee?). Amongst physical problems, the biggest problem was poor appetite at 41.1%, followed by hot/cold flushes and excessive sweating, weighing in at 30.6% and 23.4% respectively. Well, that is a lot of users. But go back to those stats I quoted earlier. Despite users reporting all these symptoms, only one in five thought their energy and vitality had been affected, and one in six thought their health had been harmed. When you actually look at the number of people going to hospital things fall a little further into perspective: 1.2% thought they were in trouble enough to call an ambulance, 1% visited an emergency room, and only 0.4% were actually admitted (it would be helpful to know whether these actually all the same people but the study doesn't elaborate, sadly).

Dr Gee's 98% of users is utter bullshit, but that's not surprising because he is seeing his sample population in fucking emergency rooms; by definition he is only seeing the people with problems with party pill use. And this survey proves that the people he sees are overwhelmingly the unusual cases. As for his people under the influence of BZP who threatened people with weapons and burned down houses ... well, golly, were they under the influence of anything else? Did they have a previous history of violence maybe? Or possibly psychological problems? Had they eaten any bread lately? Dangerous shit, bread. Murder! Insanity! Death! You get the picture ...

At the end of the day this was a phone survey, not a clinical study, and the respondents were self-reporting. This is definitely a useful tool, but you get into difficulty when trying to extrapolate harms from such a survey - how does a user distinguish feeling dizzy caused by BZP, feeling dizzy because you downed too many RTDs on an empty stomach, and feeling dizzy from spinning around in a circle on a dance floor in a crazy fashion? Are you tired and washed out because of BZP use or because you didn't get home from partying until 5am in the morning?

But the most telling statistic was the number who had given up - 60.8% of the survey population. A third gave up because they didn't like the hangover, another third stopped because they didn't party as much, and the rest cited a range from health to expense. But the important thing is that a significant proportion of adults tried party pills, decided they didn't like them and so stopped using them. And another group of adults have tried it, liked it, and - despite the downsides to use metioned above - have made a reasoned and rational to keep taking the pills. And why the hell should they be stopped?

The smartest quote I've found on all this is from Ross Bell, from the NZ Drug Foundation. Last year, when commenting upon calls form Dr Gee for party pills to be banned, he remarked:

Of course, it would be interesting to know how many people are presenting to Dr Gee's emergency department with alcohol-related problems and whether he thinks alcohol should be banned accordingly ...

Oh, and funniest statistic goes to the methods used by respondents to "recover" from party pills: 50.2% used Recover Pills (whatever they are), 10.7% used alcohol ... and 1.3% used crack cocaine. Are these the same guys who used hammers to cure headaches?

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
Six outrageous-but-real lawsuits showcase the need for tort reform Once you've read that, you should pop over to The McDonalds Coffee Case.

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
In "Blinded by the Light," what exactly is the lyric following the title phrase?
Best. Damn. Song. Ever.

Why do one's loins ache after a session of nonclimactic arousal?
Or, how not going all the way could give you cancer.

Alrighty, now before you go take a good look at this photo of Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abul Koyair, the two gentlemen recently convicted of the crime of being recklessly and persistantly being Muslim while in possession of large beards. Have you had a good look? Then tell me this: screw being Muslim, with beards like that shouldn't they be forming the very first hill-billy death metal band in East London? Seriously.

... and finally, Monkey Fluids proves, once and for all, there ain't no thing funnier than sex with horses.

I'm gonna go build my own theme park! With blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the park ...

From The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group, by Dan Briody, page 10:

... in July 1971, operating under instructions from President Nixon, [Frederic] Malek had compiled figures on the number of Jews working within the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS). Nixon, than at the height of his paranoia, believed that a "Jewish cabal" within the Bureau was undermining him, releasing unfavorable and inaccuate data to the public to damage his approval ratings. Malek, in a memo dated July 27, 1971, reported that 13 of the top 35 BLS officials were indeed Jewish, and provided their names to Nixon. In the months following, Chief Economist Peter Henle and Director of Current Emploee Analysis Harold Goldstein were reassigned to lower level postions within the BLS. At the time these events occurred, nothing was known of Nixon's anti-Semitic sentiments. It wasn't until 17 years later that the incident that the incident came back to haunt Malek, when Washington Post reporters uncovered the fateful memo while digging through old files from the Nixon administration.

Three points:

1. This is why you should never trust your goverment further than you can throw it, because it is made up of people and most people are bastards. Just ask Apathy Jack, he's teaching their bastard children.
2. You have to be especially worried about people so unselfconsciously evil that they write memos asking other people to do evil shit on their behalf.
3. Never forget that everywhere in the world there is an otherwise good person willing to do the bidding of an evil person without question. See point one.
4. From now on all the bad things in my life - you know, kidney stones, car accidents, a suspicious lack of rich, attractive women insisting that I become their toyboy - will be blamed on "a Jewish Cabal".
   

In retrospect, evil is probably the wrong word. But I'm having trouble coming up with a single word that encompasses "nasty", "stupid", and "ever so slightly insane".

truth in advertising

My work email address gets phenomenal amounts of spam each day, usually concerned with touting cheap viagra or pirate software. Occasionally I also get stock tip emails - you know, chinese company X is just about to conclude a profitable merger which will see its stock price soar in the next couple of days, etc. Usually I ignore these emails, but today one caught my eye, or at least the disclaimer at the bottom did. Emphasis is added:

Information within this report contains forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the SEC Act of 1934. Statements that involve discussions with respect to projections of future events are not statements of historical fact and may be forward looking statements. Don't rely on them to make decisions. The Company is not a reporting company registered under the Exchange Act of 1934. We have received one million two hundred thousand free trading shares from a third party not an officer, director or affiliate shareholder. We intend to sell all our shares now, which could cause the price to go down, resulting in losses to you. This company has: a reliance on loans from officers and directors to pay expenses. It is an operating company. The company is going to need financing to continue as a going concern ... A failure to finance could cause the company to go out of business. This report shall not be construed as any kind of investment advice or solicitation. You can lose all your money by investing in this stock.

So now not only are they going to scam you but they're also going to give you fair warning in advance?

The utter bastards.

a handshake of carbon monoxide

Now isn't this an interesting thing ... BNZ, one of the banks whose ATMs fell foul of the card skimmer recently, is replacing the machines it thinks are most at risk. The maker of those risky machines? Diebold, inc.

Diebold has a subsidery called Diebold Election Systems; DES came to prominence a few years when Bev Harris, researching the links between Republicans and electronic voting machine manufacturers, same across the source code to DES's machines on an unprotected website. Analysis of that source code revealed that the software was easily hackable and lacked robust auditing functionality (something that would be quite handy if you wanted to double-check whether anyone has stolen your election). It seems that any 3-toed moron could fiddle the vote tally, which means that Republicans and Democrats could be behind the conspiracy ...

Of course Diebold isn't the only electronic voting company with potentially twitchy software ... but I'm not terribly surprised that their ATMs have also been fingered as security risks.

More links -
Corpwatch: November Surprise
Seattle Weekly: Black Box Backlash

dead but dreaming

Yes, there is a God - a 28in high plush dark elder god.

If you want more information about your favorite high priest of the Great Old Ones, then you need to visit the Home Page for Evil, and then you can pop across to the 2004 Presidential Campaign page. Finally you can finish up with (oh flaming zombie christ no!) the Sex Magazine - tagline? "For connisseurs of sensual horror".

Good lord.

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
A tooth left in a glass of Coca-Cola will dissolve overnight

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Could you jump off a bridge or a tall building and survive the fall?

cannot stop the thought

For various reasons this week I have been thinking about death.

I don't have a terribly good relationship with death; and by that, I mean I have a hard time thinking about it. It's one of those that if I let it run around my head for long enough I'll have difficulty sleeping (in a cruel twist of fate, if I'm having difficulty sleeping in the first place, then I'll start thinking about death at which point I might as well give up and go watch Letterman).

While the actual process of dying (let me count the ways - drowning, falling from a great height, being stabbed, heart attack, etc, etc) is pretty scary all by itself - I'm by no means a man of great courage or fortitude - the prospect of ceasing to exist in a meaningful way absolutely terrifies me. I find it hard to conceive of. Of course, on one level I can imagine my non-existence; on quite another level I can't. It's like the difference between knowing that people experience love, and actually falling in love yourself.

I had a discussion with a friend of mine while waiting for our Burger Fuel order to arrive. The good Lord only knows how it came about, but basically we had opposing view points. I am afraid of death so I expressed a desire for immortality, or an afterlife - whilst I am an atheist of some description or another that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a pleasant surprise if there was a life after this one. As long as it was run by one of those blind watchmaker Gods who isn't too judgemental (christ only knows I'm a dirty sinner) I think I'd quite like it. My friend however, would not have a bar of it. Turns out he's not too fussed by the whole death thing and suspects that immortality would be more trouble than it's worth.

Of course it helps if you define what you mean by an afterlife. Your bog standard conception of heaven seems to be boil down to be just like here only nicer - you know, whole bunch of nice people (nice like you presumably - everyone else is downstairs being tortured for their sins - you know, like sleeping with women who are menstrating and eating pork and cutting your hair) ... nice people with halos, sitting on clouds in worthy contemplation of life, the universe and everything, occasionally tut-tutting at the antics of the living.

But this seems unlikely. I mean, what do you do all day? Contemplation only takes up so much of the your time, especially if you're like me and get distracted by pretty lights and those hot female angels (white gowns and wings. Oh yes). Other afterlifes have similar problems - I mean an infinity of Valhalla, fighting all day and then going up to the hall to eat roasts off the bone, quaff obscenely and wench with abandon would have to grate after a while surely?

Furthermore, if the afterlife turns out to be just like life only nicer then you suddenly have to ask the embarrassing question well then why the fuck did we have to go through all those years of hell on earth to get here - why couldn't we have just started with heaven in the first place? What kind of fucking sadist are you? Those of you who are familiar with the Argument from Evil will know one of the Free Will defense - i.e. that God would tolerate Evil as a natural collorary of accepting the Good of Free Will. But what about in heaven? Either the "better-than-life heaven" disproves the "to have free will you must have evil too" theorem, or in heaven you lose free will, which then begs the question about just how good heaven really is then, now that you are will-less drone.

But that's a simplistic view of the Judeo-Christian afterlife. Another conception is that we become one with God - merging with him in some happy-clappy hippy oneness with the Universe thing, presumably becoming one big orgasm of joy. And that's still not terribly satisfying. It seems that in becoming this big luminous being we would lose part of what is essentially us - our individuality. I'm not sure it's the afterlife/immortality that I desire.

There's more to this but I'm feeling pretty drained from the stuff that's happened today, so I'll try to finish this discussion off tomorrow night after South Park.

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
Has anyone vanished in the Bermuda Triangle lately? Actually, it's not a Snopes but a Straight Dope article. I have the book they reference, rescued from a school fair I suspect. Kusche isn't the most exciting of writers, but he did approach the subject of the Bermuda Triangle with a unique methodology - he actually went looking for source material, instead of what most Trianglists did, which was read the books of other half-baked, crackpot Trianglists and then go and make up some new shit. Result? All the "disappearances" in the "Triangle" are either entirely explicable, non-existant, or, rather amusingly, didn't actually occur anywhere near the supposed area in question ...

Thanks to the Coriolis effect, toilets flush clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern. Bugger, another thing I believed implictly based on a Simpsons episode

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
What exactly was the sin of Onan?

Twisted minds distort the picture books of our childhoods
Monkey Fluids
Ho boy. Don't say I didn't warn you ... personally this one is my favorite.

If you're anything like me you'll have to go and change your pants:
Miami Vice - release (US) summer 2006?

more interlude

There's a post about abortion out lurking out there, but tonight is not the night. Instead, I'm off to watch Mythbusters.

So it's all linky stuff: Take a look at the Unanswerables page on snopes - the page where all the really strange questions go. My favorite entry:

They say that if a person has a pet cat and dies, if the person's body is not found fairly soon after death, the cat, having not been fed, will become ravenously hungry and eat the dead person's face off — JUST the face!

Is this true? My cat often looks me in the face. I used to think he was just being friendly. Now I know he's just sizing me up, like a chef at a butcher shop, waiting for "the big day". Since hearing this rumor, every time my cat licks his chops it gives me the willies!

... although it's hard to beat this one ...

A friend of mine asked me if I've ever hear of invisible witches or ghosts that suck the blood out of a person's arm while they are sleeping. Apparently, she saw "marks" on her boyfriend's arm and this was the story that he told her.

... yup. That's going to be the excuse I use next time too.

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
The average person swallows eight spiders per year

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Are twin-blade razors better than single-blade ones? This Straight Dope article from 1983, but I thought it topical since Gillette has just released the 5-bladed razor (it's called Fusion, but that's just because "why yes, my penis is bigger than yours" had already been trademarked) . Personally, I'm waiting for one with lasers).

In a falling elevator, could you save yourself by jumping up at the last minute?

Daily Onion fix:
Conspiracy Theorist Has Elaborate Explanation For Why He's Single

No, you don't see dead people. You're just stone-cold crazy.
John Edward's Cold Reading Gig
Crossing Fingers Over Behind Your Back

down in the trenches of hell, digging madly: Part 2.

I'd like to blog a little about how fucked up my work is at the moment, but I'm working on a little ulcer to go with my 2 week old flu, so I'll hold in the bile for another night.

Tonight it's all about the census.

Or, more specifically, that question. You know, the controversial one.

Many, many people have lain on their backs and batted this around like a cat-toy; Tze-Ming's posts I thought we ethnic minorities were the ones who were meant to have the identity problems and Re-name in vain are required reading. Hell, I even tackled it a while back with the horribly mis-named speaking of sexual perversions ...

Let me be honest: when someone says that they should be able to put down New Zealander as their ethnicity I feel that it is kind of like saying "I'm not racist - some of my best friends are niggers/ chinks/ wops /dagos /democrats". Ethnicity these days takes on the appearance of a zero sum game - revenge against all the slights us white people have to endure everyday for everyone else flaunting their non-whiteness with impunity. Christ, even I'm not immune. I dearly wanted to put down my ethnicity as Pakeha but because the "We're New Zealanders" campaign had slacked me off I used the New Zealand European box as a gesture of defiance. Sad, I know.

But I still feel that the whole question is a little old fashioned; and if nothing else it's just not terribly precise. If you are going to put me in a box I'd like one that fits like a glove, ta muchly. So next census I'd like questions like this:

• What country/region did you go to school (or were you home-schooled?)
• Where were your parents born?
• Where did you spend your formative years?
• Were you raised by two parents, one parent, extended family (or combinations thereof)?

... you get the picture. Let's really build a picture of our people. An immigrant from Mainland China is different to an Immigrant from Hong Kong, is different from an immigrant who came here at 3 years old from Mainland China, is different to someone who was born in China, lived until they were 10 years old in UAE, and then came to live here.

And while we're at it, why not take a snapshot of our views as a society? Death penalty, abortion, tax levels, GE crops ... okay, phrasing those sort of questions would take great care, but wouldn't it make the census a more valuable data source?

Or are we afraid of the answers we might get?

Fuck it. Next census I'm going to stick it to the man and put down my ethnicity as Jedi.

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
The average person needs to drink eight glasses of water per day to avoid being "chronically dehydrated."

Daily Science Fix:
Fat and Happy: Why Most People Don't Diet and Voice of Reason: Fact vs. Fiction on Obesity

Daily Onion fix:
White House Had Prior Knowledge Of Cheney Threat - Aug. 2005 Briefing Warned, 'Cheney Determined To Shoot Old Man In Face'

Daily Matthew Dentith quote fix:
Conspiracy!

Stolen from Broken Planet News:
Group challenges science on 'biblically correct' tours; or, why you shouldn't sleep with your sister.

Abortion debates are like watching a car crash in slow motion:
S.D. House approves sweeping abortion ban I'm warning you now - they're up to fricking page 20 on this discussion.

down in the trenches of hell, digging madly: Part 1.

Before I lapse into yet another rant about what's yanking my chain this week, check out this article, Make-it-all Machine for Do-it-yourself Homeowners. If you're a fan of Transmetropolitan (by the venerable Mr Warren Ellis, who helpfully today has a link to a site that tells you exactly how to have sex with a dolphin. Seriously. You can't make thus stuff up. Best quote: "Q6) Where can I find a dolphin to mate with? A6) Aquariums are a bad choice, for many reasons ...") .... anyway, if you're a fan of aforesaid Transmetropolitan you'll be familiar with the Maker - a machine which you shove a bunch of raw materials into and which cheerfully spits out whatever item you need.

This is the future.

You don't buy products. You buy raw materials and designs, which both should, quite frankly, be dirt cheap. Hand in hand with your Maker is a Deconstitutor - where all your rubbish goes to be recycled into new raw materials for your Maker. Entire layers of the supply chain are wiped out - no more retail drones; no more couriers playing football with your $4000.00 LCD holo-TV; no more 4 year olds making Nikes in 3rd World sweat shops.

Nope, now the little bastards can work downt' mine.

But seriously folks, the internet has managed to bring about the efficiency of distribution - products go directly to the consumer and don't waste time sitting on shop shelves, possibly in entirely the wrong area relative to your customer. But we are still faced with the tyranny of distance and the uncertainty of demand. The Maker eliminates both those problems by taking manufacturing out of the retail equation (in so far as finished product is concerned - raw materials still have to travel, until such time as we develop our atom-strippers)

You still have the problem of design impetus (what the hell do the people want?), a problem that is greater or lesser depending of the cost of design. A design has to tell your Maker how to make the product, which could be no mean feat. The cost of programming this design could be what sinks the Maker as a product in it's early stages (that, and the overpricing of designs). Oh, but think of the possibilities: you go to bed at night. Your Maker connects with it's manufacturer and receives the latest firmware upgrade. Quietly the Maker builds the latest version of itself, plugs it in and then as a final act builds itself some legs and walks over to the Deconsitutor for recycling.

For the true believers: Self Replicating Systems and Molecular Manufacturing, by Ralph C Merkle.

In fact, while you're on LiveScience you should probably check out this story. One word: Plasmons. Now why the hell weren't they a monster in Doctor Who?

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Is it true what they say about gerbils? ... yep, that dolphin thing is going to be theme tonight...

You always wanted to know, and now you're going to have nightmares about it:
Why do we have wax in our ears? Do roaches ever crawl in there?

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
We use only ten percent of our brains.

A number of amazing coincidences can be found between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

bad guys get the best quotes

"We thought it would be between us and the US, but it looks like the souls of the British buried in the Helmand after they were killed by the Afghan warrioer in the 19th century may be felling bored. Now they are calling their grandchildren to be reunited with them in hell."

- Mohammed Khwaja, a Taleban organiser (and with a name like that, probably part-time member of Jabba the Hutt's entourage). It's from Tuesday's Herald, but I can't find a link on their site.

Speaking of people who are going to hell, read Wired's Building the Internet Toll Road. And then say after me - "Those complete and utter toss-monkeys!"

slander

I'm sure you're like me, and instantly saw the comedic value of the Herald article titled: Green party 'doing Devil's work'. Said article begins:

The Greens are a tool of the Devil, says a pastor opposed to MP Sue Bradford's attempts to stop reasonable force being cited as a defence in child abuse cases.

... and I can just see the headline on page 1 tomorrow:

prince of lies denIEs links with Green Party, threatens defamation action: 'We only had one meeting where we may have discussed a leaflet', Satan says.

it's Ralph Wiggam crazy

It's the question on everyone's lips: Just exactly how much is the Catholic church being handed in a brown paper envelope by a CanWest operative wearing a trenchcoat and a black fedora in a dark and smoky bar on Thursday morning? It's the only reason I can think of for them starting this ridiculous campaign over the Bloody Mary Episode on C4. Those sneaky, sneaky, pin a tail on them and call them a weasel CanWest buggers. I can just see them sitting around the conference table a few weeks back in the middle of the Danish Cartoon furore cooking this whole cunning plan up; "... and then, once the Catholics have whipped themselves into the height of a martyred lather we'll reschedule the episode to play that very same Wednesday! It'll be priceless! Think of all the moooonnnneeeeey ...". The episode is guaranteed a large audience and the Boycott CanWest campaign doesn't get a chance to build, which is good, because advertisers and Churches have the same natural audience: the insufferably credulous.

Satan will be so proud.

Seriously though, the Catholic Church needs some decent strategists. Hell, I could have told them for free that trying to play the "Respect our Religion" card like the Muslims did was doomed to failure.

Firstly there is a natural tendency for a lot of people to feel sorry for the underdog - New Zealand Muslims can pull that off (pop recorded 2001 census: 23,631); The Catholic Church (pop recorded 2001 census: 486,012) ... weeeell, they have a little more difficulty. That, and we're still bitter over covering up your priests abusing children. And that whole Spanish Inquistion thing. And nuns, oh man some us still have nightmares about the nuns. Fuck it, while we're here, the Crusades pissed us off too.

Secondly, New Zealanders are conditioned to believe that Muslims a slightly backward; medievil in outlook; prone to suddenly explode in crowded marketplaces. Yes, I know that's unfair. I don't make popular prejudice, I'm just letting you know. Even liberal people aren't immune; yeah, we might make encouraging noises about tolerance and respect, but those are the same noises we use to placate children. God save us from the liberals. So, because a lot of New Zealanders think of Muslims as the equivalent of children (it's just a phase, they'll grow out of it. We did worse things at their age) we forgive a lot more. Catholics, on the other hand, are the equivalent of crotchety old people in diapers who complain about how Asians are ruining the country and how things haven't been the same since Muldoon stopped being PM. We aren't sympathetic, we just want to put you in a home.

Thirdly, it's a different medium. Print something in a serious newspaper and people will take it seriously. Print in a filthy right-wing neo-nazi rag read by 15 skinheads and their gimp and no one gives a rats ass. A serious news TV show (god knows we have none of those in New Zealand) will get attention and maybe piss some people off. C4? C4 is a home for the refugees of Generation X and Y who never could bring themselves to grow up. We don't take anything seriously, although you'd never guess from the length and vehemence of our arguments. We know everything that's wrong with the world and we're not entirely sure we care enough to do anything about. South Park normally washes over us and then disappears with the tide. Only now you've piqued our interest. We're going to paddle around in this one a little more.

Fourth ... well, South Park is funny. Danes aren't.

If nothing else the Catholic Church needs to be a bit more discriminating in choosing it's followers. Like David Pond, who in the letters to the NZ Herald asserted that "Women are being degraded by this type of garbage". Uh, no David, statues are being degraded. But maybe all those years in the Church have meant you can't tell the difference?

Then there's Leon Schollum. Leon says "As a Catholic I am appalled that Canwest Chief Executive Rick Friesen plans to run this South Park episode which I understand portrays Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, menstruating. Catholics and most other Christians believe Mary is the mother of Jesus and that Christ is the Son of God. Therefore an insult aimed at Mary is an insult aimed at God." Right, lets stop right there. Let's gloss over the logical error (let's get this straight, if I insult you, I'm also insulting your parents? Well, maybe if I call you a son of a bitch, but otherwise ...) - portraying Mary, Mother of God menstrating constitutes an insult? Holy fuck. Something that a goodly proportion of the world's population do once a month is an insult? Then why in hell did God design women's bodies to do it in the first place?

Look, I'm sorry to break it to you but Mary menstruated. I know, I was shocked too. But you know what? Mary also shagged a bit too. Horror. Mary, Mother of God, made the beast with two backs. God forbid, she may even have enjoyed it (one can only hope they were civilised about it all and maybe placed a sheet between her and Joesph). But that's not the worst of it ...

... Jesus masturbated. Yes, it's not mentioned in the bible, but let's face it - according to Luke 3 Jesus was 30 when he had his Holy Spirit incident and went walkabout in the desert. Do you seriously believe that he went all that time without spilling his seed? For God's sake people, he would have had nads the size of baseballs. So you'd better believe the Son of God spanked the monkey. Jesus came.

And if you believe the Catholics, He will come again.

List of religions offended gratuitiously so far:

• Catholics
• Muslims

Now I just need to do the Jews and the Scientologists and I'll have a full set!

While We're on the Subject:
Are bears more likely to attack menstruating women?

On a different topic: No Right Turn talks about the sentencing to jail of holocaust denier David Irving here. I tend to agree with NRT: Irving may be a lying, cancerous polyp on the flaccid penis of humanity, but the Austrian law is outdated even if it ever was defensible.

The Lost Posts: I'm trying to clean our some of my old unfinished posts. Blogger, helpfully tags your old drafts with the date you started the post rather than when it actually gets published. So, in case you miss it, here is Normal Transmission.

Quick question: Does anyone else yearn for the days when police would investigate a package full of white powder and immediately suspect it was cocaine?

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.

... said Abbie Hoffman. Unfortunately, he hadn't really counted on the recent rise of the First Militant Church Of The Blood-Crazed Cannibal Christ (This is my body, this is my blood, this is my eleven secret herbs and spices).

(Short interlude: In the book Fuck the System, Abbie Hoffman describes two diseases you can catch in New York ...

Clap (syphilis and gonorrhea) and Tasmanian Pig Fever (TPF) are two diseases you can easily pick up for free on the Lower East Side. One, the Clap, you catch, and the other, TPF, catches you ... Tasmanian Pig Fever is a disease common to the Lower a variety of reasons. Let's face it, the Lower East Side is a ghetto and getting busted by a cop is common in any American ghetto ... The TPF is the riot control squad in New York and is called out to handle many street demonstrations.

Charming ...)

Anyway, the discussion for today is war, or more specifically New Zealand at war, or even more specifically The Invasion of New Zealand. In the next 50 years who is likely to attempt to invade us and why? The US? Australia? Indonesia? The Ravening Islamic Hordes? The Ravening Christian Hordes? The Ravening Jedi Census Phenomenon Hordes? Which will it be, Resources or Religion?

Or has economics superceded politics by other means? Is the US just a slow learner?

Expand and Discuss (25 points)

"A man's greatest moment in life is when his enemy lays vanquished, his village aflame, his herds driven before you and his weeping wives and daughters are clasped to your breast."
- Gengis Kahn

history never repeats

From Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit and Conflict by Edwin Black. Excerpts from pages 214-217.

As an occupying power, Great Britain declared it had come to liberate Mespotamia from the Turks. "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerers or enemies, but as liberators," proclaimed the generals upon entering Baghdad. Instead, Great Britain suddenly found itself almost at war with the local population. Once again, [Civil Administrator, Arnold] Wilson was the central character, wielding oppressive civil regulations. Under Wilson's direction, families were routinely evicted and their homes requisitioned by occupying forces and administrators, with the token rent often less than satisfying. Piped water was restricted to the burgeoning administrative and military sectors, depriving even established merchants of Basra and Baghdad of their established basics. Large numbers of ordinary residents were dragooned as minimally paid compulsory laborers for British work projects, often pulling them away from fields, flocks, or shops. Freedom of movement was greatly curtailed, purportedly to preempt Turkish spies, but this practice continued long after the Ottoman threat had been purged. The local population bitterly resented these instrusive measures, which redefined their daily life.

The British found numerous sheikhs willing to be co-opted to prop up their unpopular occupation. They were empowered to collect taxes in their area and to settle disputes with the force of law, not according to tribal traditions but based on an imported Indian code, which itself adapted from English legal precepts ... Petty abuses and high-handedness by Wilson's new strongmen were common. Both the populace and the British openly considered these new boss sheikhs to be little more than stooges. One prominent reform-minded British official of the Indian government who later joined the Baghdad administration readily explained in 1916, "Once a sheik has to rely on [the] government for support, he has lost the sympathy of his tribesmen." Refeudalizing Mesopotamia effectively restored the corrupt ways of the sultan that had prevailed prior to the young Turk reforms.

.. when the power of the purse retreated, seething outrage erupted. For example, on January 28, 1918, Captain W.M. Marshall was installed as the new governor of Najaf. During preceeding months, the city had been mutinous. British patrols had been shot at, an airplane was almost downed by gunfire, and government offices were attacked ... On March 19, timed with the Moslem Nawruz festivities, assassins dressed as policemen entered Marshall's home and killed him. Punjabi guards were summoned to hunt down the assailants, but insurgents fought them as well. When the central killers could not be found, the British blockaded Shiite Najaf - nothing in, nothing out. Wilson and the military demanded the surrender of the murderers ... until those conditions were satisfied, Wilson ruled, the residents would suffer a total "food-and-water supply cut off" ... He wanted the killers - or everyone could just starve. With food and water dwindling, many local sheikhs and ordinary citizens joined the rebellion, or strongly considered it, out of a sheer survival instinct ... After weeks of seige, Najafi food supplies held, but the water was almost gone - this approaching a summer that would reach 112 degrees. Finally, by May 4, 1918, quarter by quarter, the town had been starved into submission. Najaf surrendered the culprits.

In recalling the episode, Wilson wrote these words: "Najaf has never again been a source of serious anxiety to the government of the country."

what the hell's a "meme"?

... it sounds like a communicable disease, and really Span should have paid more attention in Health Classes (didn't they teach you that boys are dirty?).

Anyway ...

Four jobs I've had:

1. Newspaper delivery slave
2. Cleaning slave (and goddamn some of you people are seriously unclean. Especially doctors for some reason)
3. Bureaucratic overlord
4. ... actually, that's it. I guess I tend to stupify easily ...
   

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Fight Club (Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.)
2. Miller's Crossing (Up is down, black is white, and nothing is what it seems)
   
3. Donnie Darko (the original, not the Director's Cut that completely butchered the soundtrack)
   
4. The Thing (Man is the warmest place to hide)
   

Four places I've lived:

1. Southside
2. South-Centralside
3. Centralside
4. Westside
   

Four TV shows I love:

1. Doctor Who
2. Firefly
   
3. South Park
4. X-Files
5. Blake's 7
   

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Anaheim
2. Pauaniu
3. Pahia
4. Wellington
   

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Sweet & Sour Pork on fried rice. Except no bastard makes good SSP anymore.
2. Lamb shanks.
3. Roast Pork Loin, with the crackling, sans apple sauce.
4. Garlic Bread. It's not a dish you say? That just shows you lack fucking initiative.
   

Four sites I visit daily:

1. YoJoe Forums
2. Public Address
   
3. Snopes
4. No Right Turn
   

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Ohio
2. New York (I haven't been to either, but I'm tentatively planning to visit)
   
3. Wellington
4. The bach of the guy who just won Big Wednesday (oooh, that bastard).