loving the alien.....

Dreams come true!

"Yeah, you're pretty much two for two."

Non-game-geeks ignore.

What would you like to see in the ultimate war game? :

"10. Geneva Convention be damned, I want to drop Anthrax."
"15. About every five minutes I want one of my helicopters to crash, completely on its own, for some fucking reason."

Smith has also posted some stuff about Lard. No, not the essential Northern cooking ingredient and anal lubricant, Lard, the fatter half of Mark and Lard.

He is now working on 6 Music for the BBC and looking at his track listing for last week I'll be listening this Saturday, online I guess as I am without DAB as yet.

Anyone who can mix the Trashmen, Portishead, the Manics and Corduroy must be worth listening too. I'm just sorry I've missed the earlier weeks.

I'm off now to find an illegal copy of @Motorhead' by Corduroy.

Technically it is Friday. Drum roll please...

Happy Birthday, Paul Smith!

And, as ever, not *that* Paul Smith. I would be knee deep in sharp suits if it was.
He is 32, and officially an old bastard.

He has also been listening to The Streets. Don't know what he made of track 8 yet, which is still in the running for Track Title of The Year.

Anyway, to bed....

iPod. iRaq

"Qaisar Wotwot":

NextFest: The Shape of Things to Come:

"2009: Digital identity cards are issued to all citizens - not as an antiterrorism measure but to fight spam. Email not linked to an ID is universally ignored."

Am I alone in thinking Lynndie England looks like a young Val Kilmer?

what really pisses me off, is that if anyone else does it it is torture, but if the US carries out the same actions it becomes 'abuse'.

If you think it isn't tortured I suggest you see what it feels like to have a broom handle shoved up your arse at gunpoint, then let me know if it felt like abuse.

This is the 'War on Terror'? Does the world feel like a safer place to you?

And, when you read the word 'contractor' in reference to Iraqi operations, don't be fooled, it means 'mercenary'. Armed individuals who do not have to abide by the Geneva Convention. Very conveniet, especially when some estimates put the number of mercenaries in Iraq at over 13,000, that's 10% of the occupying force.

What a fucking mess.

It looks like the US has fired on civilians, again.:

"The US military is investigating reports that a helicopter opened fire on a wedding party in western Iraq killing more than 40 people. "

Sivits jailed for one year.:

"An American soldier convicted of abusing prisoners in an Iraqi jail has been sentenced to one year in prison. "

No, not me, something I fall into now and again.

Go to Amazon. Go to books (or music, or DVDs) and search for a favourite author or artists.

Now, on the results page there will be a strange list down the right hand side, in it's own pane. This is a list of lists (does that make it a metalist? I guess so) which various people have put together, which have appeared because they contain one or more items by the author you have searched on.

So, forget the author you searched for, go and look at one or more of the lists. If they like your favourite author, maybe you'll like something else on their list.

Example, I do a search on Iain M. Banks, one of my favourite sci-fi authors. I ignore the results (having read everything he's ever done anyway, in fact *owning* everything he's ever done), and hit the lists on the right, including such lists as "Mind bending sci-fi" and "top ten non-trivial sci-fi books". On there I find works by Dan Simmons such as "Illium" (which I have since read and it is stunning) and "The stars my destination" by Alfred Bester.

So, you look at these and maybe even add 1 to your basket. Then you notice more lists have appeared on the right, new lists, which share one book with the list you are viewing. So now you go and have a look at one of these, and you have found even more books you might like and all the time are moving away from your original criteria and broadening your horizons (with any luck).
And of course, because people are weird (especially people who can be arsed to do a list on Amazon) you find the odd gem. 12 hardcore sci-fi books, then "A Fete Worse Than Death" - a trip through a British summertime, which you go to have a look at, think it's going to be funny and yes, add to your basket.

My basket currently stands at £75. It has been as high as £200 and I seriously contemplated 'pushing the button', just to get boxes and boxes of wonderful books to read.

If you like books its a wonderful way to spend half an hour, albeit and expensive one ;-)

OK, I'm off to buy a book on card tricks now.

(edit: It's now £81 after finding another book).

The Rafah demolitions: "people are scared to death":

"Most of the people are taking refuge with relatives, although this is extremely difficult as there are already 12,600 homeless people in Rafah alone. In Gaza as a whole, some 18,300 have been affected by the policy of house demolition.
In the first months of 2000, the Israeli Defence Forces were destroying 11 houses per month in Gaza. This rose to 35 per month in 2001, 25 per month in 2002, 65 per month in 2003, and so far in 2004 they have been destroying 104 per month."

Yet he gets billions in aid from the US every year and is appluaded in public by GWB and Tony Blair.

What the hell is that all about? Tyrants allowed to do whatever they want... and supported by the West.

U.S. issues delayed human rights report:

"Amid allegations the United States violated international conventions protecting the rights of prisoners, the U.S. State Department released a report Monday on what the country was doing to promote human rights around the world."

Stay home?

"The second annual report was to have been released earlier this month, but it was delayed in part because State Department officials believed it would not be taken seriously amid stories of abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq."

Ya think?

I urge you to go and have a look at the map.

World War Map:

"Every minute, two people are killed in conflicts around the world.
Often very little is known about the people who are fighting and dieing.
The BBC programme One Day of War follows individual fighters in 16 of these wars, over the same 24 hour period.
Use this map to find out about each of these conflicts. Why are people fighting? How long have the wars been going on? And how many have died? "

Not great, not bad, but very very interesting:

"Jani de Villiers: Are you a believer in astrology?
Jack: No. But then, I'm a Gemini, and Geminis don't believe in astrology. "

but the story seems to have been true?

News:

"Soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment will be charged this week in relation to the death of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist severely beaten while in British military custody."

AngryFinger.org: Nick Berg's Iraq Timeline:

"The more information that comes out of Iraq and about the slaying of Nick Berg, the shadier the whole deal seems. It's starting to seem that there was definitely something fishy going on."

This is just weird. Also, check out this list of 50 strange things about the Nick Berg video etc.

Then make a tin-foil hat.

The Rules...

CubeSolver

And it's going up, and up, and up.
So, Gordon Brown already takes 63p per litre, and now he wants another 2p as well.

Well, you could always protest, as long as you don't mind being arrested, and having your past investigated by the security services, and being shot.

Government plan to use Army to beat fuel revolt