Thanks to The Rittenhouse Review and Sasha Castel for linkage...
10:48 PM | link
Fuck off, Ann Coulter. Extraordinary outburst from the paper that is now refusing to give any more space to sister Ann.
10:06 PM | link
Iraqi air defence site attacked. Here we go... Indeed, according to this, at least some people in the US gov't have been ready to blast Iraq since Sept. 11 2001:
Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.
"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
It remains to be seen, of course, whether that will go down in history to later inspire quite the same horror as "Kill them all. God will know his own", but for now it must be said there's an at least interesting resemblance...
9:58 PM | link
Study finds college men are having problems using condoms. Um... isn't the idea to get wood, remove the little round thing from the packet and unroll it onto the shaft? Even I know that little...
8:25 PM | link
Idiot from boy band loses fingers in accident.
Ricardo Abarca was getting off the aircraft at a Guatemala City airport on Saturday. In raising his hand to greet fans, he put it into the still-whirling rotor.
"The index finger and middle finger are completely recovered," surgeon Gustavo Lopez said Wednesday. "We only have some problems with blood circulation in the little finger."
Methinks there's other parts of the body not getting enough blood either.
8:11 PM | link
Doctors create new mental illness.
In a monograph being circulated by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the doctors recommend that a category called "Relational Disorders" be added to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is the psychiatric profession's official guide for defining emotional and mental illnesses.
Unlike every psychiatric diagnosis so far, this new type of disorder would identify sickness in groups of individuals and in the relationships between them. This is a profound conceptual shift from the medical model of psychiatry, in which illnesses are diagnosed solely in individuals.
In the proposed class of illness, an individual might be diagnosed as healthy except when it comes to certain relationships. For the moment, the new category of mental illness would apply only to family relationships. If the new category is created, couples who constantly quarrel and parents and children who clash could be diagnosed with mental illness and treated, possibly with drugs. Troubled relationships between siblings could be the next large group.
I can just imagine the pharmaceutical companies going to the White House and saying "You see, Mr President, there aint nothing wrong with fundamentalist Islam that Prozac can't fix." I'm going to love springing this piece of quite magnificent, perfectly fantastic stupidity on my Effective Workplace Relations class next week.
8:08 PM | link
LA Times decides it knows who killed Tupac Shakur. Perhaps they'd now like to explain where all those posthumous Tupac albums keep coming from, too.
7:57 PM | link
Icelandic artist can't please anyone.
The first exhibit Mr. Hallsson assembled — a compilation of other artists' work — did not stir much reaction. His second, four graffiti-style sentences scrawled on a wall, created an uproar.
"The real axis of evil are Israel, USA and the UK," Mr. Hallsson, an artist from Iceland, wrote in English and Spanish. "Ariel Sharon is the top terrorist. George W. Bush is an idiot. And Iceland is banana republic number one."[...]
He then proposed a second part of the exhibit, which was unveiled on Aug. 28.
"The Axis of Evil is North Korea, Iraq and Iran," he wrote this time, painting over the original statements. "Osama bin Laden is the top terrorist. George W. Bush is a good leader. And Iceland is not a banana republic."
He said of the change, "I just wrote what people want to read."
But Mr. Hallsson said he thought the more palatable message might still lead to discussion of the issues and hoped that the second opening would draw a crowd. Instead, he said he got apologies from the smattering of artists on hand, while few townsfolk showed up.
How does caving into pressure create dialogue? Cos basically that's all the bloke's done, however cheesily and obviously he's done it...
7:51 PM | link
Swedish politician calls for more porn on TV. Somewhat in contrast to the killjoys wanting to take the porn off French TV, as I reported recently.
7:27 PM | link
Turkish couple facing legal challenge to name their child Osama bin Laden. Given that the couple are living in Germany, I don't know why they don't just name the kid Adolf Hitler...
7:25 PM | link
BMW drivers declared the world's rudest.
Nearly half of those questioned in the study commissioned by Mitsubishi Motors found ''not being thanked when appropriate'' the most infuriating aspect of driving.
Wonder where Mitsubishi drivers rated in this survey thing.
7:24 PM | link
The museum said the statue fits into the Italian Grotesque art genre and that Cattelan intended to bring the viewer face-to-face with "the personification of evil."
"By confronting this loaded theme with irony, the historic and ethical importance of this extremely dark period of our existence becomes clearer," the museum said in a statement. "It is particularly important to display this type of work now in a time of fear."
Damn straight. In times of international crisis, we can always do with some fuckwit with a nice line in contrived shock tactics.
7:23 PM | link
Tim Dunlop's pissed off. I'd tell him to cheer up, but I fear he'd bite my head off.
7:17 PM | link
Bruce Elder ponders the Long Way to the Top shows. He's not 100% convinced by the idea, despite the musicians' commitment:
Still, for all this enthusiasm, there is an overriding truth about this kind of show. While these multi-act shows undoubtedly work on a commercial level they rarely work on a musical or aesthetic level.
Having seen, over the past 15 years, performances by an enormous variety of aging acts from the Easybeats to the Everly Brothers, the Loved Ones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Manfred Mann, the Hollies, Chuck Berry, Bobby and Laurie all I would say is, "don't tamper with my memories".
Wonder if Bruce saw The Animals' performance for the ABC's Studio 22 a couple of years ago. That was an absolute shocker of the sort he describes. And like he says, the roster of bands left out is worrying.
7:09 PM | link
Big bomb scare at the airport this afternoon. I don't know much about it, only heard bits at the end of the news on Ch. 10, but apparently it's just the international terminal. The domestic one's operating as normal.
The spokesman said passengers on several outgoing flights that had not yet departed were evacuated from their planes.
As a result, there were likely delays as there would be a "knock on effect on international departures''.
"Fortunately it's a quiet time of the afternoon,'' the spokesman said.
This is 4.30pm he's talking about. Interestingly, when there was a threat of a walk-off by air traffic controllers there last week, they said they were going to do it between 5pm and midnight on Friday because that's the busiest time of the week. Mixed messages, much? Anyway, I didn't know Kingsford-Smith had quiet times, least of all during the day (the fucking planes are audible enough flying overhead at the moment)...
6:53 PM | link
Via Robert Corr: Rocket Posters. A mightily amusing collection of politically photoshopped film posters, mostly Australian-themed, but there's some good international ones there. I'm particularly fond of these two.
6:43 PM | link
Via Ken Parish: Another church abuse thing... this one with an interesting twist.
THE Sisters of Nazareth wrongly claimed in a document filed in a Queensland court last year that Sister Bernard Mary, the central figure in child abuse allegations at a Brisbane orphanage, was dead.
Sister Bernard, who is in her 60s, is very much alive and is now based in Christchurch as head of the Sisters of Nazareth in New Zealand.
It is believed that on July 25, 2001, the date the document was filed in the Queensland Supreme Court, she was living in London and working as the order's worldwide leader.
Ken finds this appalling enough to finally renounce his own Catholicism. Personally if I were a Catholic I'd have renounced mine some time ago, but I suppose everyone has different breaking points...
6:35 PM | link
Gaddafi Jr reckons Libya deserves to run that human rights thing.
Colonel Gaddafi's son defended the move for Libya to head the commission.
"We have a bad record regarding human rights in this region in general... not just Libya but in all the Third (World) countries and in particular in the Middle East," he said.
"It's a good time now to have a country from this region in that position because... it's an embarrassment to those countries because they are violating the human rights.
"We can work with this commission to enhance the situation of the human rights in the Middle East," he added.
So, what you're saying is, Libya should run the UN human rights commission because of its shoddy human rights record? OK, then. I hereby announce that as of Monday I am this country's permanent dictator, despite the fact that I am the last person who should ever be allowed to run a country. If it's good enough for the younger Gaddafi, it's good enough for me, and it will be damn well good enough for all of you too.
6:18 PM | link
Australian pay TV industry to expand to nearly 500 channels. What the hell are they going to show on 500 TV channels?
6:12 PM | link
Hello to Dave Meck of The Sabertooth Journal, thanks for the link...
11:37 PM | link
I have just discovered I am 5th on Anzwers' list for the search term "death". And I'm top of the list if you search for buttered. I don't know which of these two facts disturbs me the most.
11:28 PM | link
Via Mac Thomason: Tim Burton to direct stage musical version of Batman. With music by Jim Steinman. Batman Out Of Hell?
10:50 PM | link
Paranoia over OK words that sound like bad words strikes again.
Last week, Stephanie Bell, a teacher at Williams Elementary School, said she used the word "niggardly," which means stingy or miserly, during a discussion about literary characters. Parent Akwana Walker, who is black, protested the use of the word, saying it offended her because it sounds similar to a racial slur.
Bell said the N.C. Association of Educators has told her not to discuss the situation. But her son, Tarl Bell, 17, said a letter from principal Susan Hahn stated that his mother used poor judgment.
Way to stand up for your own mother, Tarl. Obviously you never read the fucking dictionary either.
10:11 PM | link
Larry Clark freaks out Venice Film Festival.
"I'm showing everything. For every vagina, there's a penis," he recently said about the movie.
Clark says his movie is not pornographic but "honest" and reveals the kind of things that happen in real life but that no one talks about.
Of course, if that convinces you that Larry Clark is not just a sleazy old pervert, then you probably deserve to watch his films. By the sound of it I think I'll pass, if you don't mind.
10:02 PM | link
Right Wing News presents wacky environmentalist quotes. Yawn. If you're trying to discredit the entire environmentalist movement, John, could you not have found a more interesting way than merely parading the most idiotic statements of their more extreme idiots?
9:53 PM | link
Does the idea of eating spiders for a snack grabs you as much as it does the people of Cambodia?
9:31 PM | link
A La Plata County sheriff’s candidate says he shot dead a teenage gang member who kidnapped him last week as the candidate left an Albuquerque adult bookstore wearing women’s clothes. And if that opening paragraph doesn't grab you, I'll be damned if I know what will.
9:26 PM | link
Marc Weingarten curses Deadheads for being the death of the Grateful Dead.
It wasn't just the fanatics; every fan (myself included) bought into the "satori through space jam" myths, wore the same tie-dye, danced the same wiggle dance. What had begun as an inclusive rallying point for outcasts became a provincial closed society. Deadheads were supposed to represent enlightened musical inquiry, but instead, as McNally points out, they ignored adventurous opening acts and lifted lyrics out of context. In the early '90s, according to McNally, Jerry Garcia became annoyed with the fact that the line "when it seems like the night will last forever" from his bleak ballad "Black Muddy River" invariably was greeted with lusty cheering.
French cult leader insists suicide is not on the cards... they're just going to Venus. God, who gives a fuck with these people, really? As long as they're not taking anyone else with them, if they've got mass suicide in mind, let them do it and clear them out of the gene pool...
9:20 PM | link
Apparently you can lose your job more easily for surfing porn than for doing anything actually bad.
9:19 PM | link
Belgium the focus of horror rape story again.
"This was clearly an exceptional case," Marie-Noelle Rouard, the state prosecutor, said after the judgment. "It was so sordid and so many members of the same family were involved.
"However, you can't just say that this kind of thing only happens in Belgium. It happens everywhere."
Which lessens the ghastliness of it how? Rape happens here. Rape happens there. It's still rape, and simply saying "it's not our exclusive problem" doesn't make it any better...
9:14 PM | link
Why big box-office hits don't necessarily mean big profits.
"There are now more arguments about making movies because the budget is too high," said Tom Sherak, a partner at Revolution Studios, whose movies are distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment. "There are more conversations that start, `You really want to make a movie for $130 million?' "
Such rumblings are familiar in Hollywood, particularly at times when studio executives are trying to rein in big-name talent. But as studios add up this summer's receipts, the issue of cost control has taken on greater urgency. It is no surprise that many studio executives, who earlier this year hailed blockbuster franchises as the panacea for profitability, are now cooing over the low-budget "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which cost a mere $5 million to make, but is expected earn $100 million at the box office, making it one of the most profitable independent films ever.
And why does one film cost $5m when the other needlessly costs $130m? Answer: greed.
A case in point is Disney's newest live-action film, "The Alamo," which will begin filming next year and was supposed to be produced and directed by Ron Howard and star his leading actor in "A Beautiful Mind," Russell Crowe. Mr. Cook declined to discuss the film. But two people close to the studio said it clashed with Mr. Howard and his producing partner, Brian Grazer, when the two demanded an estimated 30 percent of the movie's box-office revenue. The studio, after failing to find a partner, balked and is making a cheaper version without Mr. Howard and Mr. Crowe.
There really are some insane sums of money involved here. There's no earthly reason why a film should cost so many tens of millions of dollars, and were it not for the unwarranted and unconscionable greed of the people making the fucking things. Really, what is someone like Russell Crowe doing to actually deserve $20m per film, or whatever it is he makes now? Cut back the absurd paypackets and you'll cut back the budgets and hopefully the profits will go up too...
8:55 PM | link
Good grief. I honestly don't know what else to say about this:
A man who fainted whenever he was woken by his alarm clock or heard a doorbell has been cured.
Specialists have just found the shock of a wake-up call turns off his heart and leaves him brain-dead for up to 30 seconds.
It's taken them no less than forty years to discover what was actually going on with him. I don't think they've actually determined why it happens. Extraordinary, one way or the other...
8:40 PM | link
Bosnian beggar demands minimum donation.
He said: "Life for us beggars has become even more difficult with the introduction of the euro. People are not willing to give as much anymore."
Yeah, well, excuse for contributing to your starvation cos you wouldn't be getting a fucking cent from me. Want to know why I'm the uncharitable bastard I am? It goes back to high school... we used to have morning assembly before class outside, and one day we were informed there would be some charity or other at school that day, so would we please donate if we had anything to give. The next morning our beloved headmaster, good old Bob Outterside, sternly advised us that the donations received were not exactly as high as they'd hoped... so there would be a compulsory donation of at least 50 cents per student. Obviously this was unenforceable, but I was appalled at the notion of being forced to donate a minimum amount. Didn't that go against the very notion of charity? So I gave nothing. It wasn't enforced anyway, and if they'd tried I would've vented at them, and the whole thing just outraged me enough that I almost never give money charitably to this day.
8:37 PM | link
Talentless people get a chance at stardom.
Channel 4 breakfast show RI:SE plans to turn a talentless nobody into a popstar.
The show is looking for people who can't sing or dance and look like a dog's dinner.
RI:SE hopes to transform the worst entrant into the next big thing in pop.
Fantastic. Not content with the Popstars-type shows turning utter bores into stars, they now have to turn bores without talent into stars. Can't someone prefabricate a pop act which is both interesting and talented, just for a change?
8:24 PM | link
Why there are some activities you should frankly just leave the rest of the family out of.
8:21 PM | link
French stage version of The Full Monty closes after stars fight on stage. Here I thought it was just French audiences that behaved like that...
7:45 PM | link
Sarah Michelle Gellar marries that Freddie guy. Funny, cos I thought they already were hitched. Oh well. That's another crush of mine doomed to never be requited. Still, I can always hope they divorce or something...
7:43 PM | link
Via Peter Kerr of the Bitchin' Monaro Guide:
"The general idea of this application is the automatic recognition of the language of the entered text.
This program quite successfully tells the difference between dutch, englics, german, french, italian, spanish, portuguese, hungarian, swedich, finnish, fries and latin."
I tested the above two paragraphs, which come from the site promoting this amusing language-testing tool. It decided there was a 76% chance it was written in English (or englics).
7:34 PM | link
Via Ken Parish: "Daddy, there's a monster outside my window. Can I have a glass of scotch?" Amusing bit of Shockwave animation.
7:20 PM | link
Bruce Hill thinks the left is using language to prevent war against Iraq. As if describing said war as "thoroughly necessary" (Bruce's words) is somehow not using language to promote same?
6:45 PM | link
What's got Matt from ABCDIA unnerved about this bloke? What's so serial killer-ish about him?
6:39 PM | link
Norwegian whale expert advocates killing Keiko the orca from Free Willy.
Keiko turned up in a fjord in western Norway this past weekend, six weeks after being released from his pen in Iceland, where experts had spent years helping the orca make the transition from life in captivity to life in the wild. [...]
But a leading whale expert, Nils Oeien, claimed that Keiko—used to life in captivity—had little chance of surviving a winter in the cold western Norway fjords.
"Then it would be better to put him to death," Oeien said in an interview broadcast by NRK, Norwegian state radio. He could not be reached for more comment.
I doubt whether you'd survive winter in the fjords either, Nils. Should we kill you out of kindness as well?
6:35 PM | link
Judge stands down from trial after defence barrister calls him a cretin.
Magistrate Bruce Zahner's voice broke several times as he told a packed courtroom he would be forced to disqualify himself from the summary trial being held in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
"It has come to my attention that comments were expressed to television and print media which cast doubt on my performance in this matter," Mr Zahner said, his voice breaking with emotion.
Sounds like a weepy little bastard, eh? "Mummy, the bad defence man called me names!"
6:33 PM | link
I got this in my referrers today. Proof that people on the Internet are not only deranged but desperate.
10:34 PM | link
Jason Soon sent me a couple of interesting links to do with Ray Hanania, the Arab-American comedian recently brushed off by Jackie Mason.
1) Hanania's blog.
2) This post by Stefan Sharkansky, which in turn links to
3) This exchange of correspondence between Hanania and blogger Al Barger.
I'll let you read these yourselves, you're all big boys and girls, so I won't say much more, partly because I don't entirely know what to make of it. Jason suggests, though, that Mason (or his people, depending on which story you believe) may have dropped Hanania not so much for his racial background as some of the ideas expressed by Hanania at various points. At any rate, let's just say I've looked over the guy's blog, and though there's some amusing content and stuff in there, there's also this:
A lie detector machine test for US Congressmen? You mean, we need a machine for that? Another waste of money.
Just examine the word "politician."
"Poli" -- means multiple. "tic-ians" means a lot of people who bug you and get under your skin. "Bugs that lie" would be a better name for that. But, we'd have to checkw ith the Israelis before making any changes. Afterall. Congress is Israeli Occupied Territory.
Um... right. Would you like some Freemasons to go with your Zionist conspiracy, sir? As for the bit in the Barger correspondence where he says "the Middle East is like no other conflict in the world ... no other conflict has the emotion levels that have been ingrained in our two communities for more than 100 years", perhaps someone could point him at Northern Ireland. If that's not ingrained emotional shit, I don't know what is...
10:02 PM | link
I have a sneaking suspicion my Yahoo account has been hacked for spamming purposes. All day I've been getting "message undeliverable" notices in the Inbox along with the welter of spam I usually get there, all for messages purportedly sent to Taiwanese addresses that don't exist. I've been wondering why these have been sent to me, cos I never sent any of the messages in question, and it's only just struck me some ratbastard's possibly hacked the account to send spam. Goddamn it. I've had that account for over four years and I don't want to lose it. I mostly use it to divert newsgroup spam and to protect my real POP email address from same (I still get hit with some, but not the astonishing volume that passes through the Yahoo address), but I check it daily to see if any real mail gets through, which occasionally happens. I've been thinking about setting up a special Hot Buttered Death address, but I get so little mail I don't know if it's worth it. If this is a hack job, though, I may have no choice...
9:31 PM | link
VeganErotica.com manufactures hand-crafted vegan bondage gear, whips, belts, harnesses, and other vegan leather (a.k.a. "pleather") items. We also sell vegan condoms and other sex products.
Non-leather bondage gear? Where's the fun in that? And it sure as hell isn't any cheaper for being animal-friendly either...
7:57 PM | link
Via Gary Farber: Comics author Warren Ellis has a blog if you're interested. Looks like some good stuff there.
7:54 PM | link
Too much caffeine really is bad for you.
A south Wales chemistry student who killed himself by overdosing on caffeine may have been lying dead in his flat for six days before being discovered. [...]
David Semp contacted security staff on 31 January at the halls and Mr Bird's body was found on the bed in a decomposed state.
Sgt Poole told the inquest that several handwritten notes were found in the room.
One of the notes showed calculations working out how much caffeine would be needed to kill someone. [...]
Recording a verdict of suicide, Cardiff and Vale coroner Dr Lawrence Addicott said that while James had wished to die, there did not seem to be a clear reason why.
Who cares why he topped himself? Surely the real question is why he chose caffeine to do it with...
7:45 PM | link
As he lay on a stretcher after being struck by a pickup truck, a teenager says he recognized a member of the ambulance crew that took him to the hospital as the driver who hit him.
"I looked at him; I think he looked back at me. I was scared. I didn't dare say anything," 16-year-old Morgan Taylor reportedly said after being released from the hospital.
Yikes. A little hint of I Spit On Your Grave in that one...
7:42 PM | link
Man injures penis in weightlifting accident. What the hell was he doing, auditioning for the Jim Rose Sideshow Circus as a replacement for Mr Lifto or something?
7:36 PM | link
Were the dinosaurs already dying out before that asteroid, or whatever it was, hit 65 million years ago?
7:33 PM | link
Teheran Times editorial smacks down Iraq.
The crude and nonsensical words of Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan on Saturday show once again how unpredictable and unreliable the Iraqi leadership is. They are also vivid proof of Iraq's insistence and persistence in following the disastrous policies of the past in its relations with Iran.
Consulting the Propagandistic Bullshit-to-English Dictionary, we find this translates roughly as "Look, Americans, we don't like them either. When the crunch comes you'll be sure to remember we're on your side, won't you?"
7:33 PM | link
Drug scandal rocks world of bridge.
Disa Eythorsdottir, an American professional, was stripped of her silver medal for refusing to take a drug test.
The World Bridge Federation was forced to hold an unprecedented emergency meeting to determine how to discipline her.
Random drug testing for bridge players at world championships was introduced in January 2000 as part of the WBF campaign for bridge to become an Olympic sport.
Hell, why stop at bridge? Why not make poker or blackjack Olympic sports too? Or snap?
7:24 PM | link
Via Dave Trowbridge, on a related note: Can your website be seen from China? Enter any URL in the provided box and it somehow manages to check whether or not that URL can be viewed on a computer in China. Amazing. Hot Buttered Death, incidentally, is apparently viewable over there; the site also provides an interesting list of blocked sites (including, surprise surprise, a whole bunch of sites related to Tibet, Taiwan and Falungong).
7:13 PM | link
China blocking Google, apparently. Despite which the good revolutionary citizens of China can still access Yahoo, which uses Google as its own search engine. Someone needs to think a little harder, perhaps. Meanwhile, Vietnam's cracking down on inappropriate material on the Net too:
"Of course we cannot stop 100 percent of the bad sites,'' said Phan An Sa, acting deputy chief of the Culture and Information Ministry, who coordinated the recent inspections. "We need to set priorities.''
To underline their seriousness, authorities recently sent one man to jail after he translated an essay he found on the U.S. Embassy's site titled "What Is Democracy?'' and posted it on a Vietnamese site. And earlier this month, they shut down TTVN Online, a popular general-interest site where chat room conversation had apparently veered in the wrong direction.
They don't like the porn either, of course, but you get a good idea of what they really seem to dislike.
6:48 PM | link
Diana Spencer's death declared the most important event in British history over the last 100 years. No doubt the recent fifth anniversary of that chance meeting between her and that French tunnel the other day had something to do with this.
6:27 PM | link
Japanese porn takes a genuinely weird new twist. I always knew the Japanese had bizarre porn tastes, but this is even stranger than usual.
6:23 PM | link
Talking up the new Rolling Stones reissues.
But as for brand new albums featuring never-before-heard versions of previously released material, don't hold your breath.
"The recordings exist, there are alternate versions, various takes, but at the moment there are no planned releases," said Klein, whose father, Allen Klein, owns ABKCO and once managed the Stones.
Guess I'll just have to hold onto my bootleg CDs of the mono pressings of the Stones albums with those bonus tracks they're currently refusing to release. Still, I'd be interested to hear how the new CDs compare to the old... those mono bootlegs stand up extremely well to the old official versions; I could actually make out all the words to "Midnight Rambler" on the boots, which I couldn't do before...
6:16 PM | link
Rolling Stone interviews that bloke from The Vines.
Maybe, just maybe, his demeanor has to do with the fact that he smokes an ungodly amount of pot. Nicholls carries his own bong around all day, wrapped in a plastic bag. He constantly packs the bong, lights up and slurps away. Forgetting his manners, he neglects to offer any to the hard-working journalist in the room. Spending time alone with him feels like baby-sitting my three-year-old nephew: I'm on guard, vigilant, watching to see that he doesn't hit his head on anything.
Ooh, we're pissy cos the would-be rock star won't share his drugs with us, are we? Can the new Rolling Stone management not procure its own better drugs?
6:10 PM | link
Another story sighing about kids these days, etc.
A survey published today by Classic FM magazine as part of its Instruments for Schools campaign shows 65% of children under 14 cannot name one classical composer.
Only 14% of 600 children nationwide knew Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven wrote music.
When children were asked to cite a classical performer strained concentration produced answers ranging from the French impressionist artist Claude Monet to the American pop star Britney Spears, the jazz musician Louis Armstrong, and Pop Idol's Will Young.
Yes, all very ghastly, but Jesus Christ, these are 600 schoolkids we're talking about. Which 600? Out of how many millions of schoolkids in Britain? Good god, I knew bugger all about classical music when I was that age too, and that was back in the 80s; about my only experience of classical music up to high school age was a list of composers in a children's encyclopedia I used to have. If this really is that much of a problem, it's not a recent one...
6:07 PM | link
Via Tim Blair: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on Muslim unease about the impending anniversary of you know what.
I have been dreading 11 September for a good two months. And now it is nearly upon us that weight has become almost intolerable. What happened to the 2,823 Americans and their families was unutterable and I hate the malevolent malcontents who perpetrate these acts—indeed the Tunisian-Swedish hijacker arrested on Friday may be one such plotter.
Yeah, poor bloody Americans. Not like anyone from any other countries died that day, after all.
5:20 PM | link
English girls' murder inspires parental paranoia. I mean, Christ, if you're seriously thinking of microchipping your child like a fucking dog, if you're that worried something untoward will happen to them, you probably shouldn't bother having kids in the first place. And if the kids do wind up being abducted by some pervert, the only thing the microchip will do is make it easier to find the body afterwards...
5:12 PM | link
Tim Dunlop thinks Tim Blair has a secret unrequited crush on Margo Kingston. I hope he's joking, cos that's almost too scary to think about otherwise.
5:07 PM | link
Ruddock going to appeal over detainee who's been allowed to stay, yawn. Predictable as clockwork, our Phil is. Does he really hate people as much as he often seems to? Cos if not then I actually feel faintly sorry for him; he constantly comes over as a hateful git in the media to the point where I often think he'd like to have even legal migrants to this country detained and/or kicked out, and whoever's doing his PR for him isn't doing a good enough job of making him look good. Of course, if he really is the noxious little turd he appears to be, then I've no sympathy for him...
4:52 PM | link
Pamela Bone bitchslaps Germaine Greer.
Instead, Greer preferred to talk about her view that men find a pregnant woman's body "grotesque" (a dubious claim in any case). Then, when a woman in the audience rose to make a serious statement - an impassioned plea for women to unite in protest against war - here was Greer's suggestion: women should show their opposition to war by taking to the streets wearing black burkas. The most famous feminist in the world is encouraging women to adopt the world's most potent symbol of women's oppression.
It's going to be hard wearing the black veil, sighs Greer, but then, she has not worn colours in the 10 years since the Gulf War, so she'll manage.
Is there something here that I don't grasp? Would we, by adopting the burka, be showing solidarity with the women who wear it? I don't think so. I rather think that by wearing the burka we would be showing solidarity with the men who force women to wear it. I think we would be showing approval for a culture that believes women should be covered up and hidden away.
I actually don't have anything against Mother Greer for choosing to not talk about world politics, which Pamela obviously considers more important than what she did talk about. I frequently do the same thing myself because I'd much rather do that. The unfortunate thing is that what Germaine preferred to talk about was ludicrous, which is where I do agree with Pamela's skewering. That bit about the burqa was just OTT, and personally I think not wearing one would make a greater statement about the sorts of freedoms women generally have in the West from being dictated to about their clothing...
4:44 PM | link
Gerard Henderson gets paranoid about the Masons. Next: John Howard is unmasked as the true leader of the Prieure de Sion. I don't know, for some reason I've always assumed the Masons were largely irrelevant these days. Gerard seems to have issues with the guys with the aprons, though...
4:32 PM | link
Thanks to Tex for the link he posted boggling at my collection of weird search requests (trust me, there's already plenty more where those came from)... sign of what a good readership he must have, cos a good many of the hundred-odd hits I've already had today (record comfortably broken! yay!) have come via him. Since you asked, mate, actually, the sort of email I get is, well, next to non-existent. The number of emails this blog has generated could be counted on slightly more than one hand. Given the calibre of some of the people obviously visiting my site, that may be just as well, too...
4:19 PM | link
Via Lynn comes this quiz thing...
What is your Alter-Ego Personality?
That's supposed to be my alter ego? That's my daily personality for fuck's sake!
1:51 PM | link
Redefining the phrase "the show must go on".
Ray had been having symptoms for months, but one week into the run of the musical at Diamond Head Theatre, he got the diagnosis: a brain tumor. Ray got his doctor to agree to put off surgery until after the play closed.
The second weekend, he performed Thursday and Friday. At the start of the Saturday show, he says he felt fine, but as the night went on he started losing his sight.
"First there were these big floating spots that would erase whatever was in my field of vision," he said. The spots kept getting bigger. By the third act, Ray couldn't see anything at all.
None of the other cast knew, and no one in the audience could tell, but Ray made it through eight scenes, costume changes, several songs and a dance number by relying on the other actors' voices, remembering where things were on stage and a fierce dedication to "the show must go on."
He went to the hospital the next morning and was put in intensive care. The tumor had hemorrhaged on stage.
I don't find that particularly big or clever of him, I'm sorry. Brain problems is brain problems, and if the doctor told me I had a tumour upstairs I'd cancel everything and order him to have it cut out at the first opportunity. In situations like that, and indeed in most situations full stop, my first loyalty is to me, and I doubt I'd find a musical more important than my health...
7:03 PM | link
Gnod. It's a sort of artificial intelligence thing, apparently. Among other things, you can list three authors and it'll make recommendations for you, and you indicate whether you agree, disagree or don't know, which inspires further recommendations accordingly. I entered Chandler, Lovecraft and Nietzsche, and got the following:
Sigmund Freud
Arthur Schopenhauer
T.S Eliot
William Kotzwinkle
Jack McDevitt
Paul Watzlavick
Virginia Woolf
Ted Lewis
William Burroughs
Carl Jung
Freud, Schopenhauer, Eliot and Woolf... no thanks. Burroughs and Jung I agreed with. William Kotzwinkle wrote ET, Ted Lewis wrote Jack's Return Home which in turn was filmed excellently in 1971 as Get Carter. I know the films but not the books. McDevitt and Watzlavick I never even heard of. Gnod will have to try harder for me on that front.
6:54 PM | link
Via Mac Thomason: Alabama lawmaker wants to restrict governors right to commute death sentences. As it stands, governors can commute sentences to life with or without parole; this character wants the "with" struck off the list of options. Mac notes, however, that only one death sentence has ever been commuted anyway, so it's probably academic...
6:31 PM | link
I didn't get to blog the story of the Swedish hijacker, but there it is anyway. Oddly enough, he seems to have been a product of the US' flight training schools. Wonder where we've heard that before.
6:17 PM | link
Police shoot 81 year old man with bean bags and pepper spray.
Police said they shot an 81-year-old nursing home resident three times with bean bags and hit him with pepper spray when he became suicidal and brandished a small glass vase.
Willie D. Foster, who was in wheelchair and has a pacemaker, was holding the vase over his head and threatening the nursing home staff and police officers, a report of the incident said.
"It was the safest option for the patients and the man," said police spokesman Jack Gillen. "If this were my parent, I would be satisfied with the officers' actions."
Unfortunately, Jack, it wasn't your parent, and the woman whose parent he was is not particularly impressed. Damned if I'd be impressed at that either.
5:20 PM | link
American scientist wants to fit Earth with giant airbag. Yes, if an asteroid's coming hurtling towards us I can really see that stopping it.
4:55 PM | link
Sludge from sewage works can be used to bulk up ordinary house bricks, a team from Taiwan has found. [...]
But Weng admits that people might need a little convincing to live in such intimate contact with their own waste. "Legal approval and public acceptance" remain to be sought, he says. [...]
He also says such bricks might need to meet additional standards to guarantee they don't pose new health hazards.
I was thinking that myself. I can't imagine myself living happily in a house partly constructed from my vomit, or someone else's vomit, which would be even worse...
4:53 PM | link
Beata Dankowska-Szczygiel recently received a thick wad of court documents ordering the payment of about R3 400.
According to court authorities in Dziezoniow, south-west Poland, Beniamin drove away from a local wholesaler with a lorry-load of beer without paying a cent in October last year.
But Beniamin was born in November, as the infant's grandmother pointed out to SuperExpress.
Poll: support for free speech down.
Support for the First Amendment has eroded significantly since Sept. 11 and nearly half of Americans now think the constitutional amendment on free speech goes too far in the rights it guarantees, says a poll released Thursday. [...]
"Many Americans view these fundamental freedoms as possible obstacles in the war on terrorism," said Ken Paulson, executive director of the First Amendment Center, based in Arlington, Va., which commissioned the survey. Almost half also said the media has been too aggressive in asking the government questions about the war on terrorism. [...]
The poll of 1,000 adults was taken between June 12 and July 5, and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
I've always said these polls were unrepresentative shit, and more than ever I hope I'm right, cos if this is representative in any way, things are very fucked indeed.
4:48 PM | link
Pedophilia-themed books rocking the French literary world.
The second novel, Il Entrerait dans la Légende (He will enter into legend) by Louis Skorecki, risks causing even more of an uproar. In 2,323 horrifying scenes, including several dozen murders, it tells the story of a sadistic serial killer 'propelled into crime by his absolute love of women and little girls'.
2323 scenes? As my BA Honours supervisor said to me when I outlined my thesis for him, "how many volumes is this masterwork going to be in?"
4:45 PM | link
So Britney Spears likes lesbian porn, does she? Yeah, that sounds likely to me as well.
4:39 PM | link
Psychoanalysis and creativity.
While it might seem that only a would-be Woody Allen would want to participate, 755 people responded to this ad, which appeared in newspapers, magazines and literary journals over the last 10 years: "The Lucy Daniels Foundation seeks poets, playwrights and fiction writers interested in receiving psychoanalytic treatment as part of a longitudinal study of creative individuals." That avalanche of applicants was eventually winnowed to 145 prospective candidates over several years and finally to just eight, said Donald Baucom, the research director at the foundation. In January the foundation will begin advertising for the next group of eight, this time visual artists.
Celebrating the 15th anniversary of Naxos.
In terms of sales, the opera, 20th-century repertoire, chamber music and Guitar Collection are top performers. “Our Don Giovanni and Wozzeck were hits. Newer music, such as Rautavaara and Lutoslawski, has been a surprise success. We sold over 20,000 copies of Boulez’s Piano Sonatas,” Heymann notes, concluding that Naxos’s budget price induces listeners to take a chance on unusual repertoire.
Works for me at least. I always used to be a bit sniffy about them because for so many years they were devoted just to standard repertoire, and said I'd only take them seriously when they started catching up with the 20th century. Which they eventually did, and my god how they did it. 20,000 copies of Boulez? Their historical stuff that I've got has been good value too.
4:27 PM | link
Jazz and its issues with homosexuality.
In jazz the rule remains "Don't ask, don't tell." This attitude is ironic because the jazz subculture has been notoriously free and easy, ahead of the beat on most social issues. Safety in numbers may have as much to do as sensibility with drawing gay men to certain professions, like hairdressing and floristry. In general, the performing arts are another area in which the news that someone is gay hardly comes as a shock. But there are ways in which jazz and all of popular music have more in common with baseball than with theater or dance. (Jazz even has its own body of statistics, in the form of discographies, recording dates and musical lineups.) Despite a growing number of female instrumentalists, the audience for jazz remains overwhelmingly male, which perhaps explains why jazz itself remains an enclave of machismo.
I must admit I've never even thought about this issue—I don't particularly care about other people's sexual orientations unless they make an issue of it themselves—though I've always been a bit fascinated by the number of people in the history of jazz with some sort of mental problem, from Buddy Bolden on down. I don't know if it's just me, but from having read up on the history of jazz performers in the past, I don't recall there being so many literally certified cases in, say, rock music as there have been through the history of jazz...
4:22 PM | link
Kentucky suspends Satanic worship services in its prisons. Witchcraft is apparently still OK, though.
3:40 PM | link
Pakistani men to be executed for court-ordered gang rape. I don't know if I blogged that story or not. Anyway, that was the case where this girl in Pakistan was basically ordered to be pack-raped by this tribal council, some sort of clan honour thing, and now the men responsible are apparently going to hang for it... the four rapists plus two of the people on the council jury that gave the order. Eight other men got let off for some reason. I'm surprised they don't hang the girl too for good measure or for the hell of it.
3:37 PM | link
What's up with Matthew Bates' blog? I keep getting "not found" messages any time I click on it.
3:22 PM | link
Thomas Friedman ponders Iraq without Saddam.
Is Iraq the way it is today because Saddam Hussein is the way he is? Or is Saddam Hussein the way he is because Iraq is the way it is? [...]
The answer is critical, because any U.S. invasion of Iraq will leave the U.S. responsible for nation-building there. Invade Iraq and we own Iraq. And once we own it, we will have to rebuild it, and since that is a huge task, we need to understand what kind of raw material we'll be working with.
If nothing else Friedman seems to presuppose that the US just has to stroll across the Iraqi border for the good people of that land to lay down their arms and accept them as their legitimate sovereigns instead of that guy with the moustache. I can't see the US winning quite that easily somehow. Meanwhile, Julian Borger wonders whether the US should go it alone in Iraq or not.
3:11 PM | link
Germaine Greer mouths off again.
GERMAINE Greer says she has not worn coloured clothes for 12 years in a silent protest against war.
The feminist author, clad in grey dress, vest and flat shoes in Melbourne yesterday, said she began wearing only black or grey at the outbreak of the Gulf War.
Well that silent protest has obviously been working, hasn't it? Refusing to wear coloured clothes really advances the efforts of peacekeepers around the world. Maybe your protest would've been even more effective if you'd actually said you were going to do it...
3:00 PM | link
John Howard promises Zimbabwe sanctions "soon". Like, what's wrong with "now"?
2:48 PM | link
And another Blogcritics review from me. I've actually been kind of semi-productive this afternoon, how unlike me. Regarding Blogcritics, Eric Olsen announced by email that it will shortly be expanding to include movies and videos as well, which will be good for me, I'll be able to post all the film reviews and things I do for Celluloid Dreams there as well. Also, I think he's decided to pull the plug on Tres Producers, as he says he'll now be posting all his new stuff to Blogcritics instead. Apparently, too, if you want to be involved, you better do it now, Eric's cutting off memberships at 200 and there's only about 50 spaces left...
2:41 PM | link
New review at Blogcritics: JAMC, 21 Singles.
12:29 PM | link
No, no posting yesterday or today. I was out all last night and couldn't be bothered while I was at home. Couldn't be bothered today either. However, I bring you what will become a sort of Sunday night special, a trawl through the dark recesses of my referrer logs. I'm going to do this on a weekly basis. Leaving out the repeated ones which have appeared before, we find the following from the past week (with bracketed commentary)...
bugs bunny vs the nigger [I was actually going to leave out overtly offensive things like this, but it was too bizarre to leave out]
tales on thai airlines
greenpeace glacier
Cadbury's chocolate brand in India
India's death stats
Wil Wheaton fakes
african american perspective devine secrets of ya ya ["devine" secrets? Miranda's in that film somewhere?]
charlotte church porn [god, talk about setting your sights low]
singleton marijuana site
cunt camera
melbourne vietnamese 2002 death [any particular dead Vietnamese Melburnian you'd like?]
counter strike porn tags
pictures "take+that" howard donald nude
night hot sex iran
"inflatable church"
pictures of a butt ["a" butt? Any particular butt you'd like?]
sex y photos of inda women ["y photos"? What does that mean?]
yosemite murders pictures photos [this is a snuff-free zone. Try rotten.com]
nsw department of community Services Site
naked amanda vanstone [OK, that's really sick]
solid tyre dealers in japan [try the White Pages, clown]
ted textor cnn weather
woman commits suicide with crocs [yes, yes she did]
Woman Nude Pictures
"gay bashing" "august 22, 2002" "san francisco"
nude school girls in hyderabad [don't have or know any, sorry]
Sony night shot pictures Mardi Gras
lawyer Katib al Shamri office [White Pages again, please]
Cuckold King competition
devine secrets of the ya ya review [I can't believe I've had two people search for that film who couldn't spell the title right]
david mcintyre bulldogs [do you mean Gary McIntyre?]
hawaiian newspaper australian soldiers 2002 rape
tommy hilfiger's attack on jews [he made one?]
BAKER CHEF STATUE
slobodan beer headstone
antonia kidman -nicole
"Elizabeth Whitehouse" "Rattle"
"Oldest Tortoise"
james black cuckold
Afghanistan AND Drugs AND Russell Trust
"village roadshow" dvd "doctor who"
cunt room [a room full of them or just shaped like one?]
porn free pictures boy love homosexuality in islamic countries [god, you don't want much do you]
2002 email of big boys Anchorage
morphine "State of Delaware"
pictures of bad american bulldogs having a fight [well, good ones wouldn't be fighting, I suppose]
burnt alive photos
hot personalised sex stories of indian females only [don't have any Indian chicks, sorry]
Nude pictures of Zimbabwean girls [now we're really getting specialised]
"blair delegate"
bush "obesity campaign"
death photos "trade centre" [begone, vomitous creature]
nazi tortured and fucking young gay boy gallery [what does this site look like, eh?]
steve earle john walker's blues free mp3s [not from me, sorry... try WinMX]
goat fuck unemployment daddy [I've been bewildered by this all week. For the life of me I cannot discern any reasonable or unreasonable connection between those words]
tunku varadarajan with wife pictures [why don't you ask Mr Varadarajan? I'm sure he'll tell you to go fuck yourself ever faster than I would]
James Russell killed
shooting torture death stories
rainwater tax winona
nus policy death penal
tv "indian author"
"josh davis" porn free
drug rape asian dvd
"turkey sucks" [it does?]
"danny headrick"
Amanda James
fake ID [oh go make up your own]
Uday hussein rapist
"jelena dokic" "right wing" political [she is?]
"john b. root" french cinema
argentine celebrity fakes
bandphotographie
Mayor sewage death [my other favourite incomprehensible request of the week]
LAST TOUR & FARNHAM [try Ticketek, for God's sake]
Mother charged with obese daughters death
diamonds strip club houston
nylon masked pervert [what exactly are you accusing me of here?]
fight death fetish pictures
limewire child porn arrest [there was one?]
abc story kokoda track
anthony tomassini
killing joke mojica
north shore goth sydney sex [they have Goths on the north shore? I'll be damned]
slipknot self harm [apparently they indulge in it, yes...]
korean air, whitehorse, hijacking ["whitehorse"?]
watch out for muggers in Jo'burg [good advice, no doubt. Incidentally, whoever looked in on this came from an army.mil address]
WW1 detainees Australia [they're all dead like most of the WW1 veterans, I'm sure]
report on youth gangs in suburban Western Australia
legal nude beach victoria
greenwood cemetery arcata
ann coulter is a cunt [no arguments from me]
hot buttered fucking
88 wal-mart target nazi
death backyard abortion australia statistics
roofless drug dealers [as opposed to drug dealers with roofs?]
Boy 6, Kills Drug dealers in australia [ooh, precocious child!]
Hirohito and Tex
fake nude photos ann coulter [I've yet to decide if this is more disturbing than the Amanda Vanstone one or not]
St Trinians charity
For added fun, see if you can guess how many of these search requests actually have anything to do with something I've blogged about at any point. Having done that, let me know, cos I'm too damn lazy to look myself.
11:00 PM | link
2SER's program of screen culture Wednesday 8pm AEST; repeated Saturday 12.30pm AEST In Sydney, tune into 2SER FM 107.3, or listen over the Internet from 2SER.com |
Operating out of Sydney, Australia since February 2002. Designed for viewing at 800x600 or more.
About this site
Amazon.com wishlist
Links
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.
1. Local heroes
The Age
Angela Bell
Bernard Slattery
The Bitchin' Monaro Guide to Politics
A Bright Cold Day In April
Catallaxy Files
Chris Textor
Don Arthur
Gareth Parker
John Quiggin
Ken Parish
Richard Baillie
Robert Corr
Scott Wickstein
Shannon Davies
Sydney Morning Herald
Tim Dunlop
2. Strange news from other stars
Ananova quirkies
ArtsJournal
Blogcritics
Daily Rotten: Weird News
Dave Tepper
Dave Trowbridge
Fark
Fortean Times
Gary Farber
George Kelly
Jason Rylander
Jeff Cooper
Jim Henley
Jim Schwab
The Lefty Libertarian
Lynn Sislo
Mac Thomason
Metafilter
Philosophy and Literature
The Rittenhouse Review
Sasha Castel
Ted Barlow
3.Non-blog/news links
I have a very extensive collection of links not specifically related to blogging. I keep them on an entirely separate page here.
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
