reputation's changeable

Not Bad. Not bad at all.

I was a late comer to Harry Potter (I saw the first two movies well before I read any of the books), and while I'll be the first to point out that they are not high art, they are definitely a jolly good romp. If I had kids I would definitely make them read them, if nothing else because they are the one true path to Satan, and much easier to read than the Necronomicon, which, to be honest, I found uninspiring and in fact rather a bore.

The problem with reading the books, though, is that you instantly start picking the movies apart, and whining miserably about the bits the movie left out. Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets are still rather pristine in my memory, but Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire are forever sullied by small annoyances: would it have killed the director to put in a scene telling us the derivation of the names Moony, Padfoot and Prongs? Or for Dumbledore to have explained why Harry and Voldemort's wands acted the way they did at the end of Goblet of Fire? One wonders why the makers haven't taken a leaf out of Peter Jackon's book and released special editions with a half hour of extra footage - is it just that HP fans are far less fanatical than Tolkienites?

On this score Order of the Phoenix comes out actually rather well. At a guess this comes down to that particular book being badly in need of a good pruning. It is by far my least favorite book being quite damned dreary and overly infected with Harry's whining teenage recalcitrance. The movie improves matters to no end, without cutting out too many important scenes. Thankfully the acting from the youngsters is also definitely improving. They also quite arfully manage to wrap up the Cho Chang affair quite nicely, even if they do depart quite spectacularly from the book.


Speaking of acting, Evanna Lynch (as Luna Lovegood**) will be one to watch for in the future. She nails the character as delightfully disconnected from world in her own serene reality, which as a first time actor is fairly impressive. It helps that the character is one of the stand-outs from the book - and that she has a fantastic irish lilt, which could potential cover a multitude of acting evils. I've always said that if I was to be reincarnated I'd like to come back as an African-American man, because black guys just naturally look better than any other race (just think about it - old balding white guy vs old balding black guy? No freaking contest. I'll take your Sean Connery and raise you one Samual L. Jackson. Or Morgan Freeman even). In light of Evanna Lynch I'd have to say if I had to be reincarnated as a woman then I would like to come back Irish. Perhaps this is not so surprising, the Irish being the niggers of Europe - everyone has treated them like dirt, even though they're so much cooler than everyone else*.

(Of course, one would hope no God would be silly enough to reincarnate me as a woman because if you gave me two breasts of my own I'm sure as hell not going to get very much work done).

But I digress. I was slightly surprised how much Luna features in the movie - I wonder whether Rowling has told that filmmakers that she plays an important part in the final book? (for my money I reckon she and Neville hook up. And I'll put money on an outside chance that it turns out the Neville ends up killing Voldemort as well - oh come on, it fits the prophecy doesn't it?).

For more musings and predictions check out Span's thread on this.

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Are the Smurfs anti-Semitic Communists? - Why yes, Jimmy, yes they are.

What's the fastest-acting, most lethal poison? - I only ask because out of innocent curiousity you understand ...


* ... except when it comes dancing. Sorry, dancing is at heart a mating ritual, and Irish dancing is about as sexy as a polar bear. And not one of those pretty polar bears, either. I see you people from the North American Man-Polar Bear Love Association out there in the audience. And you're all sick, sick people I tell you.

** Okay, Luna Lovegood - excellent name for a character in a book about witches and wizards? Or something you would expect as the name of a girl in a Bond movie? It's not Plenty O'Toole, but still ... what was Rowling thinking?

"You don't appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle aged woman: Stuff you pay good money for in later life." - Emo Philips

trade all your heroes in for ghosts

Gentlemen - it is good.

Not Donnie Darko, Fight Club or Heat good, but good enough for an event movie, and all that that entails - explosions, fast edits and kinetic action. The dialogue is on occasion quite ropey, but mostly it knows that any movie involving giant robots fighting over something called "The All-Spark" - especially giant robots named things like Bumblebee, Ironhide, Starscream, Ratchet and Megatron (that's just a sampling, folks) - is going to be fighting a losing battle when it comes to credibility and suspension of disbelief. They make the movie work by (generally) not taking themselves too seriously.

Funnily enough it's the humans that get the best exposure - Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox do pretty well as the human leads, and the supporting cast is uniformly good as well - except for the NSA analyst/hacker subplot, which is quite frankly a waste of good space.

But in the end it's the robots whose characters are not developed enough - when one of the autobots die at the end it's kind of hard to care, which is a little unfortunate. But they leave the door wide-open (in a non-groan-worthy way - stay for the credits, folks) for a sequel, so maybe that will be an chance to flesh everyone out a little: cf X-Men 2 - and hopefully not X-men 3.

you know the secrets of the universe

Funny pictures, just because I can.




I may be thinking of particular people I know with that last one.


... especially here for the people I was thinking of with the Cat Proximity picture. And finally, it is traditional to end with this:

Indeed.

"One day I had an asthmatic attack. These three asthmatics jumped me. I know, it's my fault... I should have heard them hiding." - Emo Philips

but your love alone won't save the world

Despite appearing to commit the heinous sin of wearing skirt-over-trousers, in the Maniac Street Preachers song Your Love Alone Is Not Enough Nina Persson reminds us that her swedish-scented voice can on occasion rent holes in bloody carcass of my heart, like a succubus on heat. She ain't half bad looking either.

The incurably heart-broken should also look out for her singing The Bluest Eyes In Texas, off the Boys Don't Cry soundtrack.

I got no time for private consultation

I seem to have collected several hundred links to articles of momentary interest during my travails upon the silicon paths, always meaning to tag them onto the end of my blog entries; but since my blog entries have been a little light recently, I guess I'll have to salt a few random ones here instead:

The USB Missile launcher - now, I've got one of these. It's fun for 5 minutes or so, but desperately needs the following:

• A camera. For aiming, and possibly recording your hits. If you want to go real crazy, a mini-camera in the head of the foam missile.
  
• A wireless controller. Because a.) the usb cable only reaches so far, and b.) it would be so much easier to ambush people if you could hide them randomly round the office.
• A better power supply (it takes 3 AA batteries and they last no time at all).
• Actual explosive tips.
• The ability to control more than one at once.
  

Besides all that, I now desperately need to find one of these. Unfortunately it's ridiculously expensive at the only place I can find it for sale, ThinkGeek.

Beating Guns into Guitars - Well, I suppose it's better than beating guitars over the heads of guitarists ... no, wait, it's not.

Conspiracy theorists must face the truth of Mars hill - Let me put it this way. How many faces have you sculpted hills out of in the hope of attracting aliens? No, while drunk doesn't count.

LEDs could start replacing lightbulbs soon

quadtec: A new way to tell digital time - personally, I'm not sold on the concept, but golly, don't it look snazzy?

Lack of sleep may impact upon moral judgement - not to mention making me cranky as hell.

Sex workers report high job satisfaction - dammit, is nothing sacred? But at least the survey does prove that a BA doesn't doom you solely to a job in McDonalds.

Torture and '24' - because it hurts us less than the real thing?

Religious video game leaves spyware behind - Seriously, why am I not surprised?

Laws for sale! Astroturfing and citizen apathy on the rise

For God's Sake, By Paul Krugman - Well, when I finally get to hell, at least I'll be in good company.

Sudanese goat wife pops her hooves - Words fail me, much.

Makes me happy
Attempts to introduce Intelligent Design in Europe spark backlash

Makes my angry
Banks demand a look inside customer PCs in fraud cases

Makes me angry, and Satan happy
Copyright coalition: Piracy more serious than burglary, fraud, bank robbery

"You meet saints every where. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society." - Kurt Vonnegut

"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming...They don't know I'm only using blanks." - Emo Philips

... and what else could I go out on, but Headless teddy wins weirdest USB drive.

in Jersey everything's legal, as long as you don't get caught

Well it's official: if Seth Green liked Transformers, it must be good. I'm off to see it Sunday, with a spring in my step and a small child in my tummy.

... obviously I'm kidding. I couldn't fit a whole small child in my tummy.

I'll put the rest in the fridge for later.


... I'm no expert obviously, but doesn't Optimus Prime look kinda young in that poster? Weird.

cut out of the sun

It's official - after watching the latest Doctor Who episode (Blink - episode 10 of series 3 *cough* utorrent *cough*), there is a new Hottest-Girl-In-Teh-World, finally dethroning The-Mysterious-Redhead-At-Teh-Bus-stop. Her name is Carey Mulligan, playing Sally Sparrow, and here's some more photos from the BBC's Doctor Who site:


The fan-boy and fan-girl discussion has already started here. Also, Blink was hands-frinking-down the best episode this season. Stone angels aren't quite as scary as 6 year-olds in gas masks, but they come pretty damn close.

In other news, Candians have green blood (would I make this shit up?). And get in line for the new Steampunk monitor and keyboard - for the totally incurable.

Addendum: It strikes me that those pictures make Ms Mulligan look kinda younger than real life - she is in fact 22, and so I am not quite the dirty old man you bastards all think I am.

Addendum the second: I should probably stop being so surprised about how crap the political discourse is in this country, but this whole "banning junk food in our schools" furore gets my goat (you might ask how many goats I have, considering how often it gets got. And the answer is: one. But it gets quite a workout, let me tell you). For those who consider it bureacratic, nanny state, anti-freedom-of-choice-commie-satanism ... well, I guess you'll be supporting my proposal to sell pornography, cigarettes and solvents in school tuckshops. After all, if they aren't buying it in school, they can just go out to the dairy down the street.

There's also a whole screed in here somewhere about the Muliaga/Mercury energy snafu, but Mutopia condenses pretty much my feelings on the matter, so bugger off and read him instead, you dirty oiks.

with magic soaking my spine

On the subject of our "Christian Heritage". Well, heck it's true. We're fricking soaked in unconscious christianity in this country, like most of the Western World that we receive the majority of our cultural influences from. How many of us, everyday, invoke the christian deities accidentally when we make an exclaimation - "My God!", "Jesus Christ!", "Sweet Zombie Jesus!", etc.

What is less clear is why this heritage should be deemed important, or indeed what we are obliged to do about it. Conceivably this could get quite complicated, since, to be entirely true to our heritage we would have to acknowledge all of our heritages - Judaism for a start, since Christianity is at least 50% jewish. We would need a bit of Mesopotamian heritage in there too, since the Jews probably stole their flood myth from there (not to mention our way of telling time - thank you Sumerians for the 12 month year and 60 minute hour). Add on top of these we also overlay our Greek, Roman and English heritage (English heritage further splitting into the thousands of different groups that at one point or another invaded the English, or who the English invaded and then stole their words in an effort to make English the hardest damn language to learn) ... you'll see where his might get a little confusing.

Then comes to problem of how we go about reflecting our combined heritage. Christianity seems pretty easy, we just retain the prayer opening in Parliament, although we might want to insert something in there about how we deplore all those dirty heathens that seem to be infesting the place these days (yes Catholics, we mean you. Bloody papists). But how do we adequately reflect our Roman heritage? Conquer most of Western Europe, build some roads, and cap it all off by having a bunch of orgies? Tempting, I know. But there are also some darker periods in our history - cannibalism anyone? I don't just mean among Maori - go back far enough and I suspect everyone's ancestors have partaken of a slice of juicy long-pig. But let's look on the bright side - at least we would finally be able to put to rest that age-old question that has stumped philosophers far, far wiser than I: to wit, do we taste like chicken, or pork?


Hands up who's surprised?
Movie piracy claims more fiction than fact Well I, for one, am shocked.

there's a light in the valley

Brian Tamaki sees the dark shadow of Satan, in the form of secularism, looming across New Zealand ...

... meanwhile, Satan is sitting at home on the couch watching South Park and drinking a beer, because while the dark shadow of evil - in the form of Brian Tamaki - looms across New Zealand, his work here is done.

In other news ...

• The Transformers movie looks like it actually might turn out to be good, based on the trailers they've released so far. I'm guessing die-hard fans will hate it, since they seem to have ditched half the original premise and just kept the transforming robots and the names.
  
• A Nancy Drew movie should be a good thing, but won't be because they're making it for 3-year olds. Heck, in this day and age resurrecting a tough, independent, teenage girl detective should be a no-brainer, god knows there's enough decent TV shows based on similar premises. Instead, it looks like they are making something that you half expect Hilary Duff to star in. Bastards. And where the hell is our Famous Five movie already? In fact, fuck the Famous Five, where the hell is our Three Investigators movie?? Actually, it turns out it's here. There is even a trailer. In German. Which won't even load. Goddamn.
• Heath Ledger as The Joker? Who'd a thunk it, but he actually looks half decent (you'll have to scroll down a little to find the picture). And of course, check out I believe in Harvey Dent and I believe in Harvey Dent too. I still wish they'd made Batman Year 1, but the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale interpretation is turning out rather well ...
  

you wear nothing, but you wear it so well

Things that irritate me #4627:

"Tax cuts will act as incentive for people to work more"

This is one of the those supposedly intuitive ideas that I could never for the life of me understand. If you cut taxes, workers have more incentives to work as they receive more money in the hand, since less of it is going to our fat, old, nanny-cow of a government. Or something.

But it's ridiculous.

The majority of workers in this country have bugger-all control of how many hours they work. Or they're on a fixed salary, and get nothing if they work harder except a limp handshake and maybe a couple of movie tickets.

Who the hell, except economists and the OCD, sits down and works out how much tax they're going to pay if they do overtime this week (christ, does overtime even exist anymore??)? Who turns down a promotion because they'll suddenly be earning 39c for every dollar over $60,000? Personally half the reason for my job moves during my career has been about 60% money and 40% pride/prestige. Reducing all human activities to money is the greatest failure of economic theory, if you ask me, which you don't, and that quite frankly is why you have so many damn problems.

Hell, let's argue the other way - if you raise taxes people will work harder, because now that I have less money in the hand, I need to earn more to pay for my house, that LCD tv and the second helipad I've been meaning to build. With the government taking 50% of my income, I'll need to work 15 more hours a week! Instant growth!

Sweet zombie jesus, I'm a fiscal genius.

I'm actually agnostic about whether tax cuts in general stimulate long-term sustainable growth (as opposed to short term spending splurges. Arguably the best time to cut taxes will be straight after the next real estate crash). Show me some pretty graphs and long-term research and I could fall either way. I respect (even if I disagree) with the idea that you should cut taxes and government spending purely because people are a better judge of what their money should be spent on. But feed me up with stupid arguments and I'll just be inclined to think you're just a blithering moron.

bare-boned and crazy

Linky-linky

Sexy Vader - So, so wrong.

Army Tests Fighting 'Bot - some people obviously need to watch Terminator again. This particular droid of death has the relatively unthreatenging name of MULE (Multifunction Utility Logistics and Equipment). Slightly less cuddly is it's big brother - Crusher. Obviously they ain't no pansies at DARPA. One thing is for certain though: giant, killer robots will always be cool.

Fighter-controlled jet is tested - More Skynet-esqe silliness.

Breast cancer not linked to abortion - 'nuff said.

The poverty/terror myth - interesting article from Fortune Magazine

The HD-DVD crack furoe:

• BBC summary
• ValleyWag summary
• Wired Summary

Man I'm starting to hate copyright laws ... do us all a favour people, and pick up a copy of Dean Baker's The Conservative Nanny State. It's even downloadable on the internet for free (free as in the author is happy for you to do it), though I'm too lazy to chase down the link for you.

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Can urinating on your feet in the shower cure athlete's foot? Oh come on, like you weren't curious.

What happens if a werewolf bites a vampire? What's the minimum daily requirement of blood for a vampire? Can you get zombified by having sex with a zombie? Hmm. When exactly was the last time you were turned on by a zombie?

if I've gone overboard: letters to the ether

Fuck it, the Herald might be smart enough not unleash my passions upon the unsuspecting public, but you poor bastards will not escape my wrath. Below then, is my last unpublished letter to the editor:

When the opening headline in the Herald proclaims "Jealous gunman who massacred 32 ... was a new immigrant" one wonders how much further into the gutter journalism can fall. What was so important about the gunman's immigration status or what kind of visa he had? In the context of this particular story it would make exactly as much sense to highlight his height, or the colour of his hair, or what kind of aftershave he habitually wore. By making his nationality a defining factor you manage to impute that somehow the massacre was caused by it.

To add insult to injury you can't even get your facts correct - unless, of course, by "new" you meant "had lived in America since he was eight years old, fifteen years ago", and by "Chinese" you meant "Korean".

about a lucky man who made the grade (the orphan posts series)

Right, so downloading intewub pron one million times faster is getting a little boring, so I thought I should once more return to enlightening you dirty little savages with my erudite pontifications and breathtaking wit. To start me off, here's an unfinished post from long, long ago. Do me a favour and suggest some extra paragraphs I can insert to make this post make more sense (and if anyone has any links to more bitching about Deborah Coddington over that N&S article way back then, please oblige). Best submission gets a rare, candid picture of Apathy Jack not berating his students about the fact that they are a rancid pack of scrofulous turds.


First, a rant.

One of the things that rips my nightie is how people talk about evolution as if it is an entity in it's own right, and the allied discussions about how our bodies are "designed for x", "not designed to deal with y".

Ass people. Ass. We (and plants, and animals and the deep blue sea) are not designed for anything. We're not freaking designed full-stop. We are "designed" in the same way that a rocky outcrop in the sea is designed to have a hole in the middle just the right size to allow tourist boats to cruise through.

Evolution is the outcome of two things: mutation, and natural selection. As living beings reproduce, errors occur (error is probably a prejudicial word - do me a favour and suggest something better). The resulting offspring then get hit by natural selection (once again, people, natural selection is not an entity) - if the difference between you and your parentals doesn't lead to your death before you can reproduce, and you aren't unlucky enough to be killed by anything else in your environment, then your mutation survives to be passed on to your offspring (unless it's not part of the 50% of your genetic code that you contribute during reproduction. Yes, yes, asexual reproduction is a little different).

Extend the time period hundreds, thousands, millions of years and that mutation may have conferred an advantage that has kept your motley collection of genes alive. Or maybe other gene changes have proved more important and the original gene has been lost or is dormant or otherwise suppressed. Or maybe a comet came by and wiped the whole species out, something that seems to happen a little to quickly for most living beings to evolve a defense to - unless, of course, you have luckily evolved a 1000-feet thick shell without it otherwise adversely affecting your ability to survive in non-comet-strike environments.

The important thing to remember is that you don't get your thousand-feet-thick shell because of comets. You get a thousand-feet-thick shell by effectively random mutation and then you survive to talk about it later because everything else that might have competed with you for resources or preyed on you got killed by a comet. Evolution is, above all, the science of hindsight.

The upshot is this: you're an accident. Deal with it. But for christ's sake stop talking about evolution as if it is an entity in it's own right because you start making it sound like the equivalent of a certain white-bearded old man who lives up in the clouds, watching you all the time, and especially when you're doing that thing in the bathroom (you know, that thing that's going to get you sent straight to hell). It just gets the pCms excitable and they go off on a tangent about how evolution is just another religion and we all know where that leads. Here, here and here.

Second ... a rant.

Good lord, Deborah Coddington is a foul waste of breathing space. I don't pretend to be a good statistician or even a good journalist, and quite frankly, neither should she ... we bitch royally about how politicians never admit they fucked up and do the honorable thing (uh, that means resign, people - not seppuku. Although ...), it would be nice if we held journalists and their frigging editors to the same standard. How about Debs, you could take a nice break from those dreadfully confusing numbers and maybe work a little on not being such an asshole?

Mind you, you've got to love her justification for fucking up the article so royally: She was just opening the issue up for debate.

Bugger.
Me.

In this spirit I look forward to her next article on how Jews kidnap Christian children, slit their throats and bake the blood in their matzos during Passover ...

... on other misuses of statistics, Kung Fu Monkey has a little article on the latest urban legend about the murder rate in Baghdad being less than that of Washington DC (spoiler: he calls shenanigans)

... and in other news, The Fundy Post is off hiatus and has it's own shiny new blogspot address.

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Is it possible to have too much dietary fiber? I don't like to foreshadow these things, but it has the sentence "McClurken sliced him open and found 'a large amount of bran-like material with a dry, thick, toothpaste-like consistency' in the lower small intestine.", which may be all you need to know.

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
Women in Germany face the loss of unemployment benefits if they decline to accept work in brothels.

NASA scientists discovered a "missing" day in time that corresponds to Biblical accounts of the sun's standing still in the sky. Straight Dope tackles the same shit with Did scientists discover a "missing day" as predicted in the Bible? Best quote comes from Harold Hill, the most committed perveyor of the myth: "[M]y inability to furnish documentation of the 'Missing day' incident in no way detracts from its authenticity."

Goddamn Fucker.

paint it black

Good news! Black hole won't destroy Earth

Best quote:

... trapped black holes are so tiny, they could pass through a block of iron the distance from the Earth to the Moon and not hit anything. They would each take about 100 hours to gobble up one proton. At that rate ... "about 100 protons would be destroyed every year by such a black hole, so it would take much more than the age of universe to destroy even one milligram of Earth material,"[experimental physicist Greg] Landsberg concluded. "It's quite hard to destroy the Earth."

Of course, the rest of the quote should end with ... "not that it will stop us trying. Mooohaahahahahaha." Christ, when you get around to thinking up a name for a Death Star-like planet destroying weapon of choice for 9 out of 10 mad scientists, it's going to be something like a Large Hadron Collider.

Anyone else having flashbacks to The Quiet Earth?

A Snopes a Day; or, Shit You Should Stop Believing:
Book Excerpt: How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf - scroll down to the section called "Suffer the Little Children". Goddamn bastards. I'm all for territorial integrity and not letting nations get away naked aggression, but that shit is cold.

CSI for skeptics:
Houdini's Impossible Demonstration

You-have-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me time:
The Orgone Howitzer (link stolen from Mutopia). Normally I'm all for things ending in -howitzer, but this really takes the cake. And oh god read the testimonial. Makes a man wish for humble 'ol Black Helicopters.

I see you under the midnight

Freaking hell, David Gemmell died 2 months ago and nobody told me? Holy crap. Best quote from Wikipedia:

"I tried to quit smoking and found that the years of polluting my brain with nicotine meant that I couldn't string a reasonable sentence together without filling my lungs with smoke. I went three months without a drag, took a good look at the crap I was writing and lit up."

Lengendary.

David Gemmell I've always seen as the Agatha Christie of the Fantasy world - someone who could spin a damn good yarn, and even though it was essentially the same yarn as the last book he kept interesting enough that you didn't care. And he never jumped the shark, unlike some of his contempories **cough** David Eddings **cough**. Anyway, I think the reason I like Gemmell (aside from his writing about when men were Men and women wore chainmail and leather) is he wrote explicitly about honour; about people who were honourable not because they were inherently good, but because they weren't but they made the effort of will to be good inspite of their nature.

Isn't it shit that the moment you talk about "honour" or "heroes" you start to feel twee? Damn.

Anyway, if you're a fan also you might want to pop over Legend of the Silver Slayer and check out some interesting articles (I'm a fan of the timeline myself).

One of my favorite quotes is from Morningstar (1993):

The enemy is always reviled, pictured as the despoiler of women, the eater of babies, a living plague upon the earth, a servant of Satan. Wars are never fought for plunder or gain. Oh no, they are always depicted as ultimate battles between good and evil. But then, looking at the nature of Man, that is understandable. Can you imagine the scene, the great King gathering his troops before an epic battle. 'Right, myy lads," he says, as he sits upon his great black stallion, "today we fight for my right to steal gold from whomsoever I choose. The enemy are men much the same as yourselves. A good bunch, probably, with wives and children back home. And at the end of the battle, when I have more riches than I'll ever spend in a lifetime, many of them - and indeed many of you - will be wormfood, or crippled. Better to be dead, really, because I'll have no use for you once you can no longer raise a sword. All right lads? Let's be at them!

What if they called a war, and nobody came?

now I'm hiding in Honduras

Frank can't help it, he just likes oversized rocket launchers.

As always, if you ever see this, or anything like it, freaking drop me a line in the comments. I mean, for zombie-christ's sake, do you think I like ransoming your children?

keep the vampires from your door

If you read the Register story in my last post ("Mass murder in the skies") then you should also skip over to Wikipedia and read the story of Flight 434. This could be seen as the prototype for the recent British plot (and also was to be the precursor to Oplan Bojinka, an altogether more disturbing scenario), except instead of the TATP binary explosive that The Register is so skeptical of, the bomber used nitroglycerin - kept in contact lens solution bottles.

This all comes to mind because of The Path to 9/11 controversey. I saw the beginning of it whilst channel surfing on the Sunday night the first part screened. I came in just as the truck bomb was being positioned under the World Trade Centre. It was a slightly disturbing moment because I knew exactly what was happening within seconds of seeing the truck (without knowing what the programme was); you see, I'd just picked up The New Jackals on sale that Friday which starts with a description of the events of the first WTC bombing and then follows the careers of Ramzi Yousef and Osama Bin Laden up until the time the book was published in 1999. And the TV show followed the book pretty faithfully for the events of the WTC bombing. I stopped watching soon after because I pretty much knew what was coming and to be frank the docudrama format was kind of irritating for it's faux-24-ness. And there was one other thing that disturbed me. On The Path to 9/11 there was a scene where the detectives discover the differential housing with the legible VIN number that practically cracks the case. They remove the housing for analysis and are later berated by an FBI agent for disturbing chain of evidence in their zeal to get the housing back before the bombsite collapse (the implication being that the Federales were more concerned with bureaucracy and who got the credit) ... but the book, despite describing events in much detail, has no such scene with a tightwad FBI agent, or any such controversy over moving the evidence. It was just a small thing, but if they were prepared to lie about that small detail, what else would they fuck up? And guess what ...

Now for a mid-blog round-up: Posts of mine I actually like, in chronological order:

Alternate history of the world #1

Nice company you keep, terrorist; or, I'm just like the fetuses, Chuck, I wasn't born yesterday ... okay, actually I just like the title.

Give me a minute; i just need to irony my shirts

Terrifying space monkeys

God does not play al-zār with the universe I've said it before, I'll say it again. You protesting my speech does not mean you are against my freedom of speech. It means you disagree with me (I'm still on the fence as to burning down my embassy counts as speech, or perhaps "performance art").

It's Ralph Wiggam crazy Hey; I was raised Catholic so I'm allowed to be disrespectful.

Down in the trenches of hell, digging madly: Part 1. More the second, FutureWorld part. Althought the dolphin sex bit is also pretty funny.


The calliope crashed to the ground I'm proud I actually read some research before going apeshit about it.

News Round-up:
DVD chips 'to kill illegal copying'
Somewhere, Satan is laughing his ass off. You mean to tell me any mildly tech-savvy thief is going to be able to walk past the front of my house with a RFID reader and see at an instant exactly whether my collection is worth stealing? Are you fucking nuts? And don't get me started on the regional coding thing. It has nothing to do with piracy you cocknobbling parasites. Arrrggghhh!

RIAA copyright education contradictory, critics say
Satan's having a coughing fit.

Headmaster justifies fingerprinting pupils
Satan just fell off his chair.

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Hold it! What happens if you don't urinate? Ow. Just Ow.

An Onion a day ...
Report: Majority Of Americans Unprepared For Apocalypse

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at trader Vic's ... and his hair was perfect

Compulsory reading:
Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?

... or were we all scared over something that would never have worked? Then, for a laugh, read the Terror-Junkies getting worked up in Reg hacks eat babies' souls.

And if that got you wondering how about Amazing terror weapons: the imaginary suitcase nuke?

On a lighter note, read this story about famed spoon-molester Uri Geller. Then ask yourself this: if he's a frigging psychic shouldn't he have seen this coming? Yeah. Case goddamn closed.

Bob Clarkson is a fat fucking fascist pig

Bugger, I managed to prove Godwin's Law in my title, but good god the man is a complete tosser. Anyway, NRT puts it more eloguently than me, and Bomber says it as offensively as he possibly can, although I'm sure he could have slipped a reference to beastiality in there somewhere, but I'd like to add a few points:

1. There seems to be a pervasive, Protocols of the Elders of Zion-like myth that right-wing shit-monkeys like to promulgate: to wit, that gay people want to turn us all into homerseck-shuls by the cunning and yet inscrutible method of existing, and calling attention to themselves by holding hands in public and having parades. You know, just like St Patrick Day parades try to make us all into Irishmen. It's a fucking lie Clarky, and either you're too stupid to know it or you're a gutter pig. Or both, I'm a liberal man after all.

2. Any attempt to disagree with a RW shit-monkey is instantly branded an attack on their freedom of speech. Bullshit. You have a right to say what you like. I have a right to say what I like and even disagree with your position. It's called dia-logue. There are two sides, although I'll understand if you can't count beyond 'one'. You keep spouting shit Clarky, we'll keep digging ditches.

3. There's a popular view that we need to make Muslims respect our culture of freedom and tolerance .... by telling them what they can and can't wear. Hmm. Perhaps we should get them all to wear a symbol so we know they are Muslim and therefore possibly dangerous? But what could we use? I know, how about a yellow crescent? Yes that should work.

I'm sure followers of Islam come to New Zealand for a variety of reasons, just like any other immigrant. Heck, 9 times out of 10 if it is a voluntary decision (i.e. not a refugee matter) then I betcha most people look at New Zealand like most present residents do - a good place to raise kids. Job prospects, quality of life, money will motivate others. But what I'd really like to think was a good motivating factor is New Zealand is a free country. We aren't Singapore, or Saudia Arabia, or China. We don't have restrictive cultural or religious laws (or at least we don't use them often). There's a reasonable sense of live-and-let-live. You want people to shuck off their old medieval customs and prejudices - then lead by example. We just a short step away from the Enlightenment ourselves, and neanderthals like Bob Clarkson seem all to keen to snuff out even that brief candle. Mandating what people can, and can't wear in public is one small step down the dark pathway.

Why large databases on private citizens are a bad idea:
Oz ID card database racked by identity fraud claims. Or, yet another reason not to move to Australia.

All we need is a Miracle:
Littlewood's Law

Edit: Why yes, Mr Stupid cannot spell fascist on his first attempt. Screw you too, hippy.

Mama always told my not to look into the eyes of the sun ...

Well, Monkey Fluids linked to me, so I guess I have to write something ... but what? I know, I'll break my blasted habit of writing half a post, getting tired or distracted, promising to post the rest of it tomorrow (or next week) and then never mentioning it again.

Just to confound you all.

Does it matter whether the United States saved our bacon in WWII?

So let's ignore the preceeding post and take it as read that the US were the good guys who saved our pasty white asses from the [insert suitably jingoistic description of the Japanese] hordes. Does that mean we automatically have a reciprocal duty to support them in their future military endeavors? In my opinion the answer is an unequivocal "it depends".

Now my approach to the question is moral; there is of course a whole other argument based on realpolitik which basically says do whatever is in your best interests - and whatever you can get away with - and to the casual observer that is how international politics seems to work 99% of the time. But that's not today's discussion. Today we are asking, "what is the morally correct path when deciding whether or not to support the US, given that the US supported us in WWII?"

To answer the question, let's start with an tree analogy (the analogy isn't about trees, but I'm going to add some branches, hence ...):

You are walking along a dark alley on your way home from a long bout drinking with your buddy Winston. You are approached by several gentlemen of unpleasant countenance and an ugly disposition, who suggest to you that a failure to hand over your wallet would lead to an unfortunate accident with a broken bottle. You, being drunk and a 98-pound weakling, decide to give up without a fight - when, Praise The Lord!, your neighbour Bob rushes into the alley with his .45 and shows those ruffians that a large handgun, a twitchy eye and a lifetime membership of the NRA trumps a broken bottle in 9 out of 10 dark alleyway confrontations. You, of course, are extremely grateful for Bob's timely intervention and swear undying friendship to him.

Next week, Bob comes over to your house and suggests one of the following:

1. That you both go out to the dark alley and mug the next drunken, 98-pound weakling that passes. After all, he saved your ass last week, so you owe him.
2. That you both go out to the dark alley and lie in wait for more muggers who might be preying on drunken, 98-pound weaklings. After all, he saved your ass last week, so you owe him.
3. That you go over to the next street where Bob believes the muggers live in their crack house, so you can indulge in some vigilante justice by torching the place, thereby killing the muggers, their families, and burning down the house next door when the fire gets out of control. After all, he saved your ass last week, so you owe him.

... I'm sure you get the picture. The obligation owed is relatively insignificant when weighed against the moral weight of the actions requested. The argument for obligation has it's most weight when you have already decided the rightousness of the action. Saddam Hussain is a bad, bad man, and has WMDs, and we need to free the Iraqis, and it will kick sand in the faces of all those terrorists ... and we saved your ass, so you owe us. If you believe that Saddam doesn't have WMDs (or cannot conceivably use them if he has them), or that invading won't free the Iraqis, and will just serve as a sop to terrorists ... then "we saved your ass, so you owe us won't hold much water.

Now if the US was to ask us to do the geopolitical equivalent of helping to build their BBQ pit and maybe join the neighbourhood watch group ... maybe the argument from obligation is more persuasive.

Golly, all this seriousness is getting me down.

I fricking knew it! Those bastards!
America's plan to invade NZ - courtesy of Anth.

You always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:
Would Vietnam war money have been better spent bribing the enemy to stop fighting?
How do Porcupines mate? Oh come on, like you never wondered.

Why the goddamn hell have I never heard of this before?
The USS Liberty Incident

Guardian.co.uk pick (courtesy of Span):
Harry Potter and the mystery of an academic obsession. Two words: Potter Porn. Best quote - "the speaker does a quick poll to see who present writes narratives involving bestiality. Hands shoot up."

The full lyrics to the Best. Song. Ever:
Blinded by the light. It would have been by popular request but you bastards are all cultural philistines so I'll just have to ram it down your throat for your own good.

The full lyrics to the Other. Best. Song. Ever:
Lawyers, guns and money. Warren Zevon is my hero.