Oh, and here's a head-up for Darwin punk boys Plonker... thanks to Sean from the band for emailing me the other day, and apologies for taking as long to respond.
12:39 PM | link
Couldn't leave without noting this, though. The Democrats are keeping us on our toes even as they go massively downhill.
11:39 AM | link
Just taking advantage of quiet class time to log in and say hello. I don't know if I'll be doing much blogging today, just advising of that fact.
11:28 AM | link
Something that just amused the hell out of me, though likely no one else will care: I'm playing "Yu Gung" by Einstürzende Neubauten as I type this, and some email just arrived at the same time. Eudora's new mail sound went off in perfect time with the music on the CD. Magnificent in its own strange, small way...
9:34 PM | link
Search requests in the past day or two seem to have mostly been for the eternal Pauline Chan and George Pell, also quite a number looking for that Padre Amaro film, but there's been a few outside of those... "brisbane archives junior certificates" for one, "amphetamine stats Australia" for another, not to mention "Archbishop Alberto Suarez Inda", and with "World War I Germany Lenin agree" and "goldman maharishi leonard" being much less comprehensible ones. I would suggest, however, that whoever came here in search of "60 year old woman large gang rape porn" get themselves some professional help. Same goes for "jelena dokic spanking stories" and "Natasha Stott Despoja nude". All three of you have problems.
9:31 PM | link
Saudis plan to sue US over September 11.
A group of Saudis plan to sue the U.S. government and media organizations for the alleged psychological and financial damage they suffered in the aftermath of Sept. 11, their lawyer said Wednesday.
"Tens of Saudi nationals seriously plan to file lawsuits against U.S. government, civil and media entities, the majority of whom are students who had been attending American universities and were forced to leave,'' Saudi lawyer Katib al-Shamri said.
Leaving aside the question of the rightfulness or otherwise of the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, I find it strange that the Saudis obviously can't understand why they're so unpopular. Honestly, if a bunch of Australians flew planes into buildings, I wouldn't be overly surprised if the US turned sour on Australia... so why are they surprised that, when fifteen of the nineteen Sept. 11 hijackers were found to have come from Saudi Arabia, people in the US have gone sour on them? Whether or not the US is right to do so is, again, another matter, but shit, don't act so surprised...
9:16 PM | link
GlaxoSmithKline ordered to stop claiming one of their antidepressants is not addictive.
9:00 PM | link
NASA denies it can read minds. Which means someone else is transmitting those thoughts which my aluminium hat keeps blocking out.
8:53 PM | link
State of Florida declares 600 "impaired" water bodies clean by redefining the meaning of the word "impaired".
8:21 PM | link
Soul Train decides it can treat its fans like shit. There looks like there's some interesting racial chip on shoulder stuff going on here; I'm surprised the kid involved hasn't started some sort of lawsuit against them...
8:05 PM | link
Combating baby dumping with "No Baby Dumping" signs. Personally I think they'd be about as effective as signs that say "No Murder", but still, it's their stupid idea, not mine...
7:51 PM | link
Japanese museum insists the Emperor is still divine. That bit where Hirohito said he wasn't divine in 1946? He didn't really mean it! Oy. Maybe Orwell had something when he showed all that revisionism happening in Nineteen Eighty-Four...
7:48 PM | link
Greenpeace caught short over missing glacier.
The picture series, which compared the size of a glacier on Svalbard in 1918 with its size in 2002, was published across the world alongside a Greenpeace warning that global warming caused by man-made greenhouse gases was causing Arctic glaciers to melt.
"The blame can be put squarely on human activity," Greenpeace said.[...]
But Prof Ole Humlum, a leading glaciologist in Svalbard, 500 miles north of Norway, said yesterday: "That glacier had already disappeared in the early 1920s as a result of a perfectly natural rise in temperature that had nothing to do with man-made global warming."
The BBC's list of the 100 Top Britons. I've seen a couple of blogs get into a kerfuffle over the presence of Thomas Paine, who was in fact American; personally, though, I'm seeing that as the BBC's admittedly rather abstruse revenge for the American Film Institute claiming a number of British films in its Top 100 American Films list of some time ago...
7:31 PM | link
Italian government wants to legislate Italian restaurants outside of Italy. Normally I think Glenn Reynolds' constant harping about the Europeans borders on the xenophobic, but for once I'd be tempted to agree with him. I know the various European countries have got snippy in the past about naming rights (e.g. insisting that stuff like Parmesan cheese can't be sold under that name unless it actually comes from that region), but this is just getting absurd. I don't care if Pinocchio's, the Italian restaurant we enjoy at Randwick, is authentically Italian or not (it actually probably would get the seal of approval); surely all that matters is how good the food is (in their case, excellent). Are the Americans going to get huffy now and demand that the food served at McDonalds or Burger King be of a minimum Americanness too?
7:23 PM | link
Marshal Tito: demonstrating that being dead for 22 years needn't harm your political career.
7:16 PM | link
Queens Of The Stone Age discover the confusion a simple album title can unwittingly create.
7:05 PM | link
Holy shit, there's agreement across the political spectrum of OzBlogdom about something. Tex calls it "classic Jesus-freak gay-bashing paranoia". Robert Corr calls it "strange bullshit". The fuss is all about this. For those of us who seem to remember Miranda Devine being a bit more open-minded once, this'll make them sad. Actually, thinking about it a little later, though, it strikes me that maybe when Devine shifted allegiances to the Herald from the Telegraph, she was given the brief to present herself as a right-wing arseclown in order to counter any perceptions that the Herald might be biased to the left. "We're not left-wing as long as we let that conservative freak appear in our pages!" Just a thought...
6:35 PM | link
Nigeria will bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games despite crippling problems with infrastructure and facilities.
Their record for justice and human rights isn't so sparkling either. Still, that never stopped the IOC giving Beijing the games, so Nigeria's probably in with a good chance...
6:21 PM | link
Fetish shop owners acquitted of hosting wild sex parties.
Although Hong Kong has a thriving sex trade and some newspapers even offer brothel reviews, the Chinese territory is still largely conservative and sex is seldom discussed openly.
The case has sparked a rare debate over modern morality and whether the public interest can be harmed by what goes on between consenting adults behind closed doors.
Man killed in stupid accident; mother sues stacks of people for not keeping him alive. Absurd grief-motivated lawsuit #1738908...
6:09 PM | link
Aden Ridgeway reckons he's ready to be Democrats leader. Yes, I think you've been ready for a while, haven't you, Aden? I'm sure I'm not the only person now suspecting Aden's had more than a few fingers in the recent shit that's been stirred up around the party...
6:04 PM | link
New OzBlogger: Ken Parish, blogging live from Darwin. Discovered him in my referrer logs earlier today; seems to be more or less brand new, too, the earliest entry I can see comes from just last Sunday. He has, of course, already linked to me (could be a sign of innate good taste, or could be a sign that there's just not that many other OzBloggers out there), so I now return the favour.
5:43 PM | link
Tax revolt targets libraries. I can't believe there's actually going to be a referendum on this; hopefully the people having to vote on it will have more sense than to side with it. For some reason I'm astonished that people actually obviously think so little of community services like schools and parks and libraries that they'd vote them out of existence...
4:51 PM | link
Expert on media violence claims he was ambushed by Phil Donahue.
The first thing I told my wife after I got off the phone from my first conversation with the "Donahue" producers was that I was flying to New York to get beaten up on national television. She asked if she should have my head examined.
But the producers were so, so reassuring. They wanted to have an intelligent discussion, to avoid sensationalism, to give me a chance to make my arguments. They would have some representatives of the games industry and someone from one of the media reform groups. One producer almost convinced me that "Donahue" was a serious news discussion program.
Well that'll teach you to follow your first instincts, then, won't it. If you thought any good was going to come of a tabloid TV talk show, you need to watch a few more to see what they're like...
4:30 PM | link
God planted this woman as a nuclear suppository up the Devil's colon. Her words, not mine. Weird.
4:26 PM | link
India pissed off by another ad.
The newspaper campaign featured a map of India showing the war-torn area of Jammu and Kashmir shaded over. Written in bold across the shaded area was the message "Too good to share" - the advertising slogan for Cadbury's Temptations brand of chocolates.
"I'm good. I'm tempting. I'm too good to share. What am I? Cadbury's Temptations or Kashmir?" ran the catchline.
The campaign—the Indian equivalent of comparing a chocolate bar to the conflict over Northern Ireland—has caused a national outcry, with politicians from all parties demanding an apology from Cadbury's.
Disappointingly, that tombstone ATM story may have been a hoax. I don't think this story is a hoax, though. I'm not sure if I hope that it is or isn't one.
4:05 PM | link
The RealJoe Affirmation Bullshit Generator. Now pardon me while I engage my cyclical powers.
3:59 PM | link
Now this is a righteous old geezer. I'm 60 years this man's junior and I'd be too scared to do that sort of thing now.
3:56 PM | link
Amidst the fallout from l'affaire Pell, which is indeed all over the papers, I was particularly struck by Piers Akerman's screed in the Telegraph today, whose near-hysterical tone demonstrated definitively that Sneers will never be described as a balanced, objective journalist. Sadly it's not online (actually that may not be a bad thing entirely), but it raised a couple of interesting questions for me.
1) How did Sneers come to know so much about the man making the pedophilia claim? All reports are still saying he's anonymous, yet Sneers rattles off so much information about him that about the only thing he didn't do was name him. Where did he get this information, or in his rush to defend Pell has his imagination got the better of him?
2) Sneers was baying for the head of Peter Hollingworth just a few months ago over abuse allegations in the Anglican church, yet Hollingworth was never accused of committing abuse himself. Pell has been accused of the by far greater crime, and yet Sneers is faster to denounce his accuser. Inconsistent, much?
3:46 PM | link
A site that looks like a useful place to start looking for Australian political news.
3:15 PM | link
Good article on the Kokoda battle by Bernard Slattery, whose dad fought in the battle. Like him, I'm surprised no one's made a film of it yet.
3:12 PM | link
Village Roadshow got a bomb on its hands.
Pluto Nash, a sci-fi comedy starring Eddie Murphy, reportedly cost $US100 million to shoot but made just $US2.2 million at the box office last weekend when it debuted in North American theatres.
The dismal opening, according to analysts, has put the film on track to make just $US5 million in cinemas.
Ouch. That goes well beyond the average stinker. This is not the sort of bomb Village needs right now...
3:05 PM | link
School caretaker charged with killing those missing girls in England. A mere formality, of course, I think they knew they were going to pinch him for it. I'd have been mightily surprised had he been let go...
2:59 PM | link
Did Natasha Stott Despoja just quit as the Democrats' leader or what? Gareth Parker says yes, but the papers are still saying no...
2:56 PM | link
Should you be interested, that review of Concrete I wrote the other day is now available here at Blogcritics. I don't know if I'm entirely enthused by that Movable Type contraption, though. I see a lot of blogs using it, and I know it has certain advantages over Blogger (no outages, ability to catalogue posts, etc)... I don't know, maybe it just needs a bit more practice than Blogger or something, but it seemed a bit complicated to me. Still, many people swear by it, hence why Eric's using it for Blogcritics; I actually probably would do too except you need to host it yourself and I don't really have the space necessary for it (10Mb from my ISP). I'm impressed with how the site's sprung up, especially now that I'm there, of course. The subcategories still need a bit of work, I think, but on the whole 'tis good...
9:15 PM | link
A bit more about George Pell. Didn't that come online quickly.
The Archbishop of Adelaide, Phillip Wilson, will co-chair the church's National Committee for Professional Standards, after announcing the inquiry today.
Brother Michael Hill, who will co-chair the national committee with Archbishop Wilson, says the person who made the complaint against Archbishop Pell was encouraged to take his allegations to the police.
"He chose not to do so, so that put us in the position where there's [the church's program] Towards Healing, [which] states that if an allegation is made against a religious leader, then the chairs take up the situation and find a way forward, a pro-active plan of action to deal with that."
Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has released a statement saying his counterpart has his total support in the face of the accusations.
He says justice will now be best served by a speedy completion of the inquiry.
I see that happening all right. The Church in the US has been caught basically whitewashing abuse allegations in the past and somehow I'm not convinced the local branch will necessarily do any better. Of course it'll be harder to simply ship Pell off somewhere else on the quiet, as reportedly happened with some priests in the US, but I really can't see this inquiry's "proactive plan of action" coming down against him. I fear the only way this'll ever be resolved one way or the other is actually in court, which is not looking likely at the moment. I'm actually saddened by this. I don't like Pell and I don't like some of his principles, yet I did kind of admire him for sticking to them, and I'd have thought he'd be decent enough not to do anything like this. So I actually don't take any pleasure from him being toppled this way. If it's untrue then I feel sorry for him, and if it's true then he's disillusioned me very greatly indeed.
8:27 PM | link
Lynn has the best idea of what to do with the hijackers' remains. I must admit I've been kind of bothered by some of the suggestions I've seen posted about the place (an example here) which, although they're meant humorously and sometimes actually are humorous (not to mention in bad taste), also have an unpleasant flavour of xenophobia to them. As Lynn says, we should be above that sort of thing; consequently her solution, while also ultimately kind of nasty, is far more subtle.
8:06 PM | link
Even more on reviewing books, albeit from a different angle this time: i.e. from the perspective of a black poetess who slammed Maya Angelou's latest book and paid the price accordingly:
ALL LITERARY CRITICISM, AT ROOT, IS BIASED because each reviewer must bring to the act his or her individual world-view and aesthetic sensibility. Each must decide if the social values of a text as a political record are more important than its literary values, which is often the choice with books by African-Americans. But fostering an illusion of excellence where none exists, regardless of the writer or subject matter, is to do a democratic readership the ultimate disservice. Saying amen to the going cultural directives, minus a true analysis, is as morally suspect as any bigoted criticism—whether done out of guilt, fear, or the desire to compensate the author for the social ills that shaped his or her existence. It is with this understanding that I write whenever I assume the role of reviewer.
Mob attacks man trying to kill child.
He identified the suspect as Carlos Martinez, 23, of San Francisco.
"There were no indications that (the suspect) was deranged or under the influence or crazy," Cagaanan said.
Police said they would not release the suspect's statement until the investigation is complete. But Cagaanan said the attack "might have been a case of mistaken identity."
I don't know, I have a slightly difficult time imagining someone being in their right mind and doing that... and mistaken identity? The hell? What does that mean, not only was the guy straight but he planned to do that to someone?
6:44 PM | link
Grieving mum wants Hawaiian blowhole covered over.
According to witnesses, Daniel walked up to the blowhole from Sandy Beach and may not have known of the area's hazardous conditions.
At the blowhole, he leaned over the opening, forming a bridge with his body. About 30 seconds later, a geyser of water shot through the hole, catching him square in the chest and sending him 8 to 12 feet into the air. He somersaulted and disappeared head-first into the blowhole.
Because, of course, it's the state's fault your son was an idiot. I mean, shit, there are some natural features which you just assume are potentially dangerous; you don't need to know the specific hazards...
6:19 PM | link
Well, did my jaw just hit the floor a moment ago. Just then near the end of the Channel 10 news they mentioned George Pell is standing aside indefinitely as Catholic Archbishop of Sydney over allegations he molested a 12 year old boy when he was a trainee priest.
George Pell. Of all people.
Good fucking GOD.
Honestly, I don't know what to say about that. The news has only just broken but give it until tomorrow morning and it'll be all over the newspapers. Pell. I don't believe it. I can't even make a crack about it like "the smell of freshly chopped hypocrite" like I did the other day. This is just a little too headspinning to take in at the moment. Pell's announced he's stepping aside to preserve the dignity of the office, or what's left of said dignity, so someone actually is making these allegations... for Pell's sake I hope there's no substance to them, cos if they are there's going to be hundreds of people wanting his blood...
6:06 PM | link
An interesting alternate look at the new Wilco documentary. I've only heard about the film here and there, but I'd love to see it; at any rate, the author here thinks the commonly accepted line of thinking regarding what happened to the band with their last album and the philistine nature of record companies is not exactly correct.
5:57 PM | link
There is sharing grief, and then there is weird, obsessive behaviour. I'll let you decide whether this story's subject inclines more to the former or the latter.
5:39 PM | link
Matthew Bates comes out as a Trekkie. Eh, nothing wrong with liking The Wrath of Khan. I like the Trek films (at least the original ones—I've only seen the first five) as much as any jumped-up B sci-fi film of the 1980s...
5:07 PM | link
Colonel Gadaffi to head UN human rights body. I'd make some smartarse remark like "oh the irony" if this weren't so desperately sad and wrong.
4:55 PM | link
It's the 25th anniversary of Groucho Marx shuffling off his mortal coil. I didn't realise his anniversary was even coming up, although I suppose that's the point of the article, no one does remember it too well...
4:45 PM | link
RIP Abu Nidal. There's one less terrorist maggot in the Middle East tonight.
4:40 PM | link
Canterbury Bulldogs chief resigns over salary cap breach.
The National Rugby League was investigating the club's books today after it admitted breaching the salary cap by $1 million in the past two years.
Hagan said that he was not forced to go and had offered his resignation to the board as a sign that the club was taking action over the issue.
Other board members, including Canterbury League's Club chairman Gary McIntyre, remained in their positions.
Hagan was unsure whether his resignation would have any effect on the penalties the NRL imposed on the Bulldogs which could include expulsion from this year's competition.
I feel sorry for Bulldogs fans, who must be feeling horrendously let down by this. I thought when the accusation of salary cap breaching was raised the other day that the timing was a bit suss; the Bulldogs are at the top of the premiership just now, so it did look a bit like something said out of spite. Unfortunately for that theory, the club admitted the accusations were in fact true. As this other article notes, the other clubs have been slow to suggest what should happen to the Bulldogs, possibly because they don't want to look like hypocrites. It'd be sad if they did get barred from what little remains of the competition, but at the same time I don't feel sorry for them. I think the rest of the management needs to follow Bob Hagan out of office, frankly...
4:39 PM | link
The latest book by someone who knew the late Princess Diana "betrays her confidence". Nothing new there, then, as I'm pretty sure that could be (and probably has been) said of just about everyone who knew Diana and purveyed the acquaintance into a book deal. By the looks of things it doesn't even look like there's much new stuff in the book anyway.
4:28 PM | link
Melbourne police make massive ecstasy haul. $10m worth, apparently. That report came suspiciously well-timed given the hysteria the Daily Telegraph was trying to whip about ecstasy just yesterday. Surely the two couldn't be related?
4:25 PM | link
"What Goth are you?" quiz
massive cunts
dino cazares
hot porn
"celebrity fakes" pee
blogging site:au
hot british women
"jonathon brown" buddhist
"Susan Sarandon" "Ireland"
korean airlines anchorage hoax
fuckfrance
"blank death certificate"
Korean Airlines transponder hijack
+"Jonathon Keats" +"ayn Rand"
"eight legged freaks" complaint arachnophobia
ashcroft camps
As per usual, your guess is as good as mine. And I obviously need to stop using the word "cunt" so much if all it's going to do is bring people here looking for porn.
4:13 PM | link
The literary delights of Harry Stephen Keeler. About the only thing I can say is "Jesus fucking hell Christ". The site I've linked to has a few complete texts of some of his books, which I clearly absolutely must read.
5:41 PM | link
Dubya promises to "clearly explain" his decision to go to war with Iraq. Something along the lines of "America good, Iraq evil", no doubt. That's about as clear and detailed an explanation as we're likely to get.
5:31 PM | link
Columbine High losing staff. Well duh. If my place of work had been the site of a monstrous shooting rampage, I'd have doubts about wanting to work there again too.
5:25 PM | link
General claims recent war games were rigged to let the US win.
Gen Van Riper, who was in command of the Red forces, meant to simulate the enemy, said exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against the Blue, or friendly, forces.
The Red forces were often directed not to use certain weapons against the Blue forces.
Wouldn't it have been nice if in real life Al Qaeda had instructions not to fly planes into buildings? I can see the folks fighting in these games having some really interesting expectations of how war should be conducted when the US moves into Iraq (and yes, I say "when" advisedly)...
5:15 PM | link
Serial killer forced to leave jail.
He was sentenced to 60 years, and prosecutors, police and the judge thought that was enough.
Now, a quirk in the Texas legal system may short-circuit their intentions. Mandatory release laws aimed at relieving prison crowding require Watts' be discharged on May 8, 2006, unless he loses good behavior credits that he has accumulated in prison. He will be 52.[...]
Bryan Collier, director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's parole division, said that if Watts gets out in 2006 he will be watched closely from his release until his 60-year sentence expires in 2042.
Wouldn't it just be easier, then, to keep the guy in jail?
5:10 PM | link
Old war wounds reopened for Kokoda Track anniversary.
Sixty years after they fought on the infamous track, Australian veterans say cannibalism was common among enemy troops after their supply lines were cut. [...]
Former RSL state president Bruce Ruxton confirmed the allegations of cannibalism, but said many people would not want to believe the Japanese had eaten the flesh of Australian soldiers.
Bruce didn't explicitly say Australian soldiers would never do such a thing, being more civilised than those Nip bastards, but I'm sure that was just an oversight. Apart from anything else, this is apparently not a revelation at all; someone else in the article says the cannibalism story has been circulating since a report was published on the Kokoda incident in 1944.
4:52 PM | link
Retailer wages poster campaign against child. Um... if you have a beef with someone who you allege is committing crimes, shouldn't you be telling the police rather than potentially defamatory things like this?
4:44 PM | link
The latest Al Qaeda videos. I'm surprised Brendan O'Neill hasn't picked up on the bit with the dogs. He seems to think killing animals for fun is OK.
4:41 PM | link
I can't imagine this McDonalds replacement catching on.
He's also told McDonald's it won't be allowed to open any more restaurants. He says hamburgers are unhealthy.
Senior official Nikolai Yerokhov said: "Doctors consider this foreign fast food to be unhealthy and even risky." [...]
The proposed new chain would also serve greasy sausage and fried mashed potato pancakes.
Greasy sausage? And they're bitching about McFood being unhealthy?
4:27 PM | link
The mysteries of television programming.
"If you start programming for the lower North Shore or the eastern suburbs you can expect trouble because they're not big television watchers ... they're more ABC or SBS viewers. They are, however, the ones that write and ring up ..." (John Stephens, Nine)
The last time I looked, John, the ABC and SBS actually were television broadcasters. The word "television" does not apply exclusively to the commercial networks...
4:12 PM | link
The Prodigy's music kills mice. Well, sort of.
As well as the Prodigy fatalities, four mice made to listen to Bach also died.
Dr Morton later insisted the study was fully justified and conducted responsibly. The experiment was part of a wider study looking at the affect of amphetamine on the striatum, a brain region which degenerates in Huntingdon's disease.
I just find the whole experiment a little weird to read about. As long as they didn't play that new song by the Prodigy to the mice, cos that'd REALLY have been cruel...
4:06 PM | link
On the odd chance you ever wondered what happened to the guy who wrote The Graduate, this is it.
3:42 PM | link
Mexican religious groups offended by film.
The movie, whose Spanish title is El Crimen del Padre Amaro, tells of a young priest who indulges in carnal pleasures despite his vows of chastity and service to the church. [...]
In the city of Morelia, in western Michoacan state, conservative Archbishop Alberto Suarez Inda said yesterday that he would prefer death or imprisonment to having to view the film.
Well I'm sure death or imprisonment could be arranged if you insist. However, I doubt whether anyone's insisting you see this film, so surely what you prefer is irrelevant.
3:38 PM | link
New Ned Kelly film faces unexpected hassle... apparently it can't actually be called Ned Kelly because the American distributor of the 1970 film of that name won't let them use it. Marvellous. Hey there Hollywood cunts, want to copyright the names of any more of our fucking cultural icons now that you've got this one? I hear Captain Starlight's going cheap, him and Mad Max... only way we can get the latter in this country is by fucking dubbed imports from the US anyway, you may as well go the whole hog and have the character too...
3:34 PM | link
Searches today so far: along with the raft of requests for Pauline Chan and Judge Michael Finnane items, not to mention someone else looking for Jelena Dokic fakes, we find these:
barrister blog
"part of the word" lyrics by disney songs
mojica marins long nails
"Pieter van Zyl" video rugby referee
doctors gettin [sic] sued by patients
james of murder by death
3:24 PM | link
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO PAULINE CHAN? I just got a raft of hits in my referrers looking for her. Who is she, what did she do, and why do people think I might know anything about it?
7:52 PM | link
How Bipolar Are You? Eh. I could put a tick next to most of these boxes myself, but you don't see me reaching for the Lithicarb now, do you? I don't know, I'm a bit wary of diagnosing conditions like this in small children, who I personally suspect are more likely to simply be acting like little arseholes than mad...
7:43 PM | link
Richard Nixon seems not to have liked Italian people much either. Jim Capozzola from the Rittenhouse Review (I really need to get around to linking that site too) wonders why no one's picked up on these comments before.
7:31 PM | link
Judge rules out death penalty for murder suspect as being too expensive.
A judge in a small, poor Ohio county told prosecutors there this month that they could not seek the death penalty in the murder of a college student because the county's share of the defense costs would be too great.
The decision, which experts say is the first of its kind, is a rare judicial acknowledgment of the powerful role money plays in death penalty cases.
Presumably then, if the county had the funds for it, this bloke could fry in the electric chair if found guilty instead of just getting life. This makes me faintly nauseous for some reason.
7:21 PM | link
President of counterterrorism firm arrested over possession of millions of dollars worth of missiles.
6:47 PM | link
Leader of Florida child welfare agency says "biblically" spanking kids to the point of giving them bruises is OK. This is the same child welfare agency which can't find any of the kids under its charge. Surprise surprise.
6:44 PM | link
Another reason why I dislike militant atheists as much as militant theists.
Everyone has boundary problems, it seems, even atheists. The Council for Secular Humanism has questioned the qualifications of two groups backing the Godless Americans March on Washington scheduled for Nov. 2. [...]
Two of the many groups that responded, the Order of Perdition and the United Satanic Convenire, describe themselves as satanist; and satanists, in the view of the Council for Secular Humanism, are insufficiently godless.
"Satanism is a religion, with supernatural beliefs and a belief in the occult," said Tom Flynn, the editor of Free Inquiry, published by the council. "They should not qualify as endorsers of an event for Godless Americans."
Arseclowns. Idiots like these are the very reason I refuse to associate myself with this sort of militant atheism; once I realised so-called free-thought was as much a system of belief as any avowed religion, I just stood back from it.
6:29 PM | link
Man forced to leave School Board race after being caught masturbating in public.
Don Bates, who proclaimed himself one of the "God guys" in his campaign for School Board, quit the race Friday after the Times confronted him with his having been arrested and charged with masturbating in public at the Crystal River Mall in 1994. [...]
Bates' withdrawal from the race came just a day after the Citrus Times published excerpts from a letter he wrote to supporters. The letter, which was sent to those who supported his efforts to discredit Snyder for her stand that not all prayers opening board meetings should be Christian, stated that support for Bates would mean that the "God guys" would win again.
Ah, I love the smell of freshly chopped hypocrite in the afternoon...
5:31 PM | link
Indian author takes on sacred cows—literally.
As Mr. Jha's book was going to press last August, excerpts were posted on the Internet and picked up by newspapers. Within days the book had been canceled by Mr. Jha's academic publisher, burned outside his home by religious activists and—after a second publisher tried to print it—banned by a Hyderabad civil court. A spokesman for the World Hindu Council called it "sheer blasphemy." A former member of Parliament petitioned the government for Mr. Jha's arrest. Anonymous callers made death threats. And for 10 months Mr. Jha was obliged to travel to and from campus under police escort.
His offense? To say what scholars have long known to be true: early Hindus ate beef.
I'm glad they don't have inter-university rivalry like this here. Although now that I mention it, I'm having fun imagining hordes of USyd students marching down City Road and Broadway to conquer the heathens at UTS...
5:20 PM | link
Now here's a man who really deserved to be arrested.
Federal affidavits say an FBI agent was listening to a San Antonio radio station on the morning of Dec. 11, when listeners were asked to call in with stories under the topic "What's Your Biggest Lie?"
Officials said one caller, who went by the name of "John," bragged how he got a new truck and $7,000 cash after hiring someone to steal and burn his car.
You have to wonder why he didn't just go straight to the police, eh, if he was going to give away that much info on air, cos the police rightly just wound up checking it out and tracing him.
5:15 PM | link
Student completes essay on how he would spend his last 24 hours, dies two days later. Needless to say his last 24 hours did not go according to plan.
4:59 PM | link
The critics are confused. "Why does a show we love close early and a show we hate run for decades? Why don't audiences believe us?" Perhaps you should be asking whether or not the audiences even care about what you think, cos in the cases cited here it would seem they don't. Anyway, bad reviews have never stopped Andrew Lloyd Webber in the past...
4:58 PM | link
Bernard Zuel introduces us to more retro rock sounds. I've only heard of these in passing, haven't actually heard anything by any of the acts mentioned, but should evidently give them a go.
4:32 PM | link
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Rebecca Wells and was adapted by director Callie Khouri for the screen. [...] Bruckheimer admits there was concern about the film's title but, as the book has a huge following, there was no way the movie was going to be called Cajun True Grit.
Damn right they should've been concerned about the title. On principle I wouldn't go see a film with that name.
4:27 PM | link
Rapist "terrified" by death threats.
The prisoner, who has appealed his conviction and the severity of his 55-year jail sentence, is taking medication to relieve his depression.
"It's pretty horrific for him," the barrister said. "He's absolutely terrified, but he's stoic. He's constantly harangued by other prisoners ... it's a hardship over and above the normal prison life."
Hard to know what to say about this. On the one hand, I don't want to sound as automatically right-wing as some commentators; I've been worried slightly this past few days that some of my pronouncements have been a little further to the right of things than I normally like to think of myself as being, and something within me says X has a right to safety in jail. On the other hand, something else within me says this man is basically just a maggot and if he gets the crap beaten out of him or worse in jail then it's as much as he deserves.
4:24 PM | link
Well, this'll teach me not to talk about other people's problems with films, won't it.
4:07 PM | link
Susan Sarandon envies Ireland, England and Spain.
The actress said one of the positive results of the September 11 attacks was that it gave America something in common with other countries who have fallen prey to terrorism.
"Afterwards, I said to my kids: 'We've joined the rest of the world now'," she said.
"You're so lucky in Ireland, England and Spain. Everyone there already knows what it's like to have inexplicable terrorist violence."
I'm sure the people of those countries feel especially blessed at having terrorist groups running rampant about them as well. Clown.
3:50 PM | link
More search requests. Here's what's turned up in the referrers since the last lot I posted:
"tony vinson" + "selective schools"
fbi toledo child porn
pieter van zyl referee video
moviemask
"free flights on September 11"
fhm poll british women ugliest
dokic fakes
pack rape
ashcroft camps enemy combatants
teen cunts
Oddly, I got no fewer than four hits for that free flights thing. I should obviously be getting a commission from the airlines doing that deal. And "dokic fakes"? A second time? At least I hope they're wanting faked up shots of Jelena, not Damir...
3:36 PM | link
I've just read the oddest thing. The following comes from a user comment at IMDB:
A big complaint though is the spit. Gobs and gobs of saliva seem to accumulate in every scene. It's a real turn off. Mr. Robert Black, should you ever read this, please note that drool isn't sexy.
Now let's get this straight here... you were watching a film called Fuck My Dirty Shit Hole, and you had a problem with saliva? It may be just me, and it may be just because I'm very tired and it's late, but that struck me as strange for some reason.
12:45 AM | link
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I have various reasons for linking the sites below (a link rarely constitutes a 100% endorsement, of course). I'm usually happy to link to anyone who specifically asks, or anyone who links to me. I reserve the right to remove any link at any time for any reason.
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What the critics have said
"short tempered, rude, sarcastic and generally unable to cope with authority figures"
-Martin Forrester-Reid (former employer)
"formidable"
-Gareth Parker
"outstandingly quirky"
-Jason Soon
"prolific"
-Bernard Slattery
"pithy"
-Jim Henley
"excellent"
-Dave Trowbridge
"my Australian pal"
-Eric Olsen
"Who?"
-Glenn Reynolds
