| Wednesday, December 29, 2004 |
 | For anyone who feels there are more pressing recipients of charity than the vast numbers of people currently suffering death, disease, hunger and homelessness, both in the wake of the tsunami and elsewhere, how about endowing a hobbit hole?
This is actually quite a sweet idea, in many ways, although by "hobbit hole" they actually mean "geekbunker". However, there's a tiny submerged thread of misanthropy to the site that gives it that little bit of edge - that makes you wonder whether a dream worth having is a dream worth helping.
Because our next-door neighbors on both sides came straight from Hell. They have this little girl that runs around incessantly, sounding like a 3 year old Goliath training for the Olympics. We are also quite familiar with their musical tastes, as we can hear each piece quite distinctly, especially in the early hours of each Saturday and Sunday morning. Even coffee begins to lose its flavor on five hours sleep after awhile. The silence, seclusion, and privacy of a Hobbit Hole would be a true dream come true.
The neighbours have a child. Also, they play music late at night at the weekend. They don't fight, they don't discharge firearms, they don't sell crack. It is unclear whether the hobbits have spoken to their neighbours about the noise levels, but I like to imagine that they have not - that digging an enormous hole in the ground and moving into it is the most logical response they can muster to the whole ghastly concept of other people.
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| For anyone who feels there are more pressing recipients of charity than the vast numbers of people currently suffering death, disease, hunger and homelessness, both in the wake of the tsunami and elsewhere, how about endowing a hobbit hole?
This is actually quite a sweet idea, in many ways, although by "hobbit hole" they actually mean "geekbunker". However, there's a tiny submerged thread of misanthropy to the site that gives it that little bit of edge - that makes you wonder whether a dream worth having is a dream worth helping.
Because our next-door neighbors on both sides came straight from Hell. They have this little girl that runs around incessantly, sounding like a 3 year old Goliath training for the Olympics. We are also quite familiar with their musical tastes, as we can hear each piece quite distinctly, especially in the early hours of each Saturday and Sunday morning. Even coffee begins to lose its flavor on five hours sleep after awhile. The silence, seclusion, and privacy of a Hobbit Hole would be a true dream come true.
The neighbours have a child. Also, they play music late at night at the weekend. They don't fight, they don't discharge firearms, they don't sell crack. It is unclear whether the hobbits have spoken to their neighbours about the noise levels, but I like to imagine that they have not - that digging an enormous hole in the ground and moving into it is the most logical response they can muster to the whole ghastly concept of other people.
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| Apparently, there is a two-year waiting list to be in the audience of A Question of Sport.
Who are these people?
I have turned on the TV randomly, and was shocked and ashamed to discover a tribute programme dedicated to a Question of Sport. This seems to me tantamount to Florentine local TV doing a documentary called "Savonarola - Great Bloke, eh?". Sweet Jesus. Yet more confusingly, the pictures of dufferish sportsmen on the golf course are being acccompanied by the theme tune from the original Get Carter. Are they trying to make me fantasise about taking out Henry Cooper in the bath?
Having said which, there is something glorious about archive footage of a panel game with ashtrays on the tabletops. If I ever achieve my destiny as the poor man's Stephen Fry, I am so going to do that. Also possibly a minibar.
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| Tuesday, December 28, 2004 |
| Just concede already, there are bigger things going on. I know, the whole point is that politicians have no sense of proportion or grace, or they wouldn't be politicians, but right now I want every eye in the internatiional community looking at Asia and wondering what it can do to help, and it's amazing how problems in Europe can seem bigger, because closer, than vast suffering in warmer climes.
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| Friday, December 24, 2004 |
| Well, the food has been purchased, the presents are (largely) awaiting wrapping - very few this year, which has also massively dialled down the amount of money I've spent on myself (but the sales are Pwn3d). A couple of minor elements tomorrow, and Operation We Don't Call it Christmas Around Here will be good to go. I'm looking forward in particular to wandering with a small band of friends around a deserted Central London, pretending to be on the run from zombies. No, seriously. How else would I be spending it?
Meanwhile, let's not forget the true origins of the commercial Christmas, which, according to this barking lunatic, rest with the Jews - sound file, probably not safe for work, rude word in URL. It takes a lot to make me root for David Baddiel, but this managed it.
Over the pond, among a welter of teeth-gritted "Merry Christmas"es, now that Blunkett's gone I can no longer operate my Blunkett/Rumsfeld no-shame sweepstake. The families of those who died in Mosul can be consoled by the knowledge that their letters of condolence will be personally signed by the Donald, but it seems the previously bereaved got the rubber stamp treatment. It's fair to say that signing these letters in person is the least that can be expected of a Secretary of Defence. The very least. He doesn't even have to be competent, or have a realistic strategy for dealing with Iraq, or be more than mildly interested in the absence of armour on the vehicles carrying the troops whose families he will be contacting later - he just has to have a working hand and a cursory knowledge of his own name. This absolute bottom-line expectation - the one part of the job I could do - has not been fulfilled. So, suggestions, please - what exactly does one have to do to lose your job in the Bush cabinet? The nastiest suggestion I have received so far is "spit". Frankly, I didn't need those nightmares.
Let's try to blank them out with another Winterval tradition - telling stories.
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| Wednesday, December 22, 2004 |
| Shhh
Then, it was natural,
to hear the sea remembered in those airlocks and chambers
though I soon knew it might as well
be anything - forest fires, landslides, hurricanes
falsified by distance
or amplification; the white noise
of the wider elements
or the mild chaos
as she puts her lips to your ear
and you cock your brain to catch
her general drift - her blandishments,
the breath drawn at your touch:
I no longer believe what I hear
- Don Paterson (again)
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| So, what do you think David Blunkett will have on his ID card under "occupation"?
Disgraced ex-minister?
Dodgy sex man?
Panopticonimaniac?
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| Tuesday, December 21, 2004 |
| Bill O'Reilly: Christmas is under seige. To which we must respond falafel-falafel-falafel-falafel-falafel-falafel gloria, hosannah in excelsis.
Christmas in the trenches. It has been suggested that the memories and recollections of the Christmas truce and the apocryphal footbal match tend to come later among the soldiers who were actually present. Which is strange - like the Angels of Mons, is the story about what is supposed to happen - the angels showing, at the time, that God was on the side of the British, the football match in the trenches showing that the war was a conflict with workers at both ends. The idea that the men shooting at each other across the mud had more in common with each other than with their superiors seems like common sense now, but at the time it must have been dangerous, poisonous. There's more on Sir John French's attempts to maintain combat readiness here. If the account of a truce lasting to New Year's Day is true, think how that must have seemed to the leaders keeping nervous eyes on Russia and their own men. If I recall correctly, artillery bombardments were scheduled on Christmas Eve on the Western Front for the rest of the war.
Back at the modern front, still stuck for Christmas gifts? How about a selection of albums by the most accurately-rated artists of all time?
Or a gift for the completist? C30, C60, C90, go!
Just remember - Mogwai fear Santa.
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| Monday, December 20, 2004 |
| Oh thank God. I have finished Half-Life 2. After a while, obsession set in - it's narrative. The narrative conclusion has to be reached, or else what is the point of entering the narrative in the first place?
The careful reader might conclude from that that Half Life 2 is in essence more akin to a novel or a film than the kind of open-ended gaming experience, and he or she would be largely correct. Most of the time, you are moving in essence along a rail, at times literally, and, although action within the environment is highly flexible - you can explore freely, and the physics engine is astonishing, allowing for almost any object to be poked, prodded, eaten or sexed up - well, OK, pushed, dropped, hurled or bounced off each other, really - there remains only one way, generally, to trip the switch, turn the valve or press the button to allow entrance to the next level. That's not really the point, though. The sense of regret you experienced when another security guard bought it in the original Half Life - that's the point. Beautifully scripted interactions between characters, enhanced by massive advances in facial mapping, has created the possibility of something heading for the other side of the Uncanny Valley. Obviously, this can be found in characters like Alyx Vance (my. Girl. Friend), but it's elephants all the way down. When I set fire to my first zombie, the basic cannon-fodder baddie from the original game, it screamed and begged for help. That is, the game told me that, in its universe, the humans taken over by bargain-basement facehuggers and turned into lumbering monsters were on some level still self-aware and, which means in turn that every zombie I chewed through with buckshot in Half-Life was going through Hell. Definitely a shudder moment, and I think one of the best uses of in-game dialogue for atmosphere I've seen since Deus Ex.
The art direction is fantastic, as well - it's a coherently-imagined world, beautifully realised. If anything, too many environments are realised. Although the sense of mysterious technology and of races with incomprehensible motivations is a part of the charm, a little more explanation would, I think, have created a more satisfyting experience. Maybe I was overthinking, but even by the end of the game I still wasn't clear on whether I had actually been doing the right thing; just being a rag-tag army of rebels does not necessarily make you the good guys. Of course, I may have missed some Easter eggs, which sounds like me tempting myself to go back into the Matrix.
On a more pacific note, new Dykes to Watch Out For. Bet you don't get that and flaming zombies in a single post too often...
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| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 |
| Today, just like yesterday, the trains were unhappy, and unhappy in the same way. The first train is too packed to consider. The second train, overtaking the train that is supposed to precede it, looks like Salo. All but for one carriage. We take side bets on whether the large man blocking the way further into the carriage will move. Eventually he wanders halfway down, then stops in place for no immediately discernible reason. Smaller people squeeze awkwardly past him. Everybody will be late. Nobody will be in a good mood. the driver will apologise for the shortness of the train. The train is, indeed, short.
Still, it's not all gloom. Yesterday morning, standing outside the terminal stop, one of the passengers, blessed with one of those London accents employed primarily in the polishing of diamonds and atomisation of tungsten, was explaining at some length first to Jim that he should stay at home if he was ill, and then to Vicky that Jim was ill, but that there was no need to worry, there would be no delivery that day, and that she, the speaker, woudl be in around 8:45. Notwithstanding the fact that it was being delivered at a volume more generally associated with requesting a velociraptor not to take the other arm as well, it was a very solicitous, friendly exchange. At the end of which our heroine fair bellowed, "Bye!"
"Bye, Vicky," the rest of the carriage chorused, almost as one. Just for a change, the whole carriage had made its connection.
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| Monday, December 13, 2004 |
| To descrbe this man as Any Company's strongest asset is hideously unfair. He is clearly the World's strongest asset.
Reg Bettridge, come on down.
The web designer who did this must be either a) laughing his tiny frame-friendly bottom off or b) deeply, deeply ashamed, but pressingly aware of the need to feed his kids. Could he not perhaps have suggested getting a mate in to help with the PowerPoint? A design guru who could have suggested dialling back the clip art? And maybe a copywriter? God, I would have done it. For free.
On the whole, I am going for the weeping with shame option, not least because of this frankly superb piece of Google-fu. Is bettridge.info spiderproofed? Inquiring minds want to know...
It's enough to make you want to dance.
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| It could just be my ongoing abuse of Half Life 2, but thinking about the US now makes me think of sinister, masked stormtroopers directing a bewildered populace through mazes of fences to some cloudily unpleasant end. Rarely has an administration worked so swiftly - the election was less than two months ago, remember - to impoverish its own citizens.
Of course, there's always Rummy. Stuck out on a limb with Defence, Rummy doesn't usually get actually to unzip and give the American citizenry a taste of the magical firehose. As such, the opportunity to express indifference, face to face, to an army specialist forced to forage for scrap metal and shattered bulletproof glass to bulk up his vehicle's inadequate armour must have been like Christmas.
That is, of course, unfair. I'm sure Rummy sincerely believes that he is working hard in the best interests of his country, and, as he says:
It’s necessary for the Army to hear that, do something about it and see that everyone is treated properly.
This is well and good, except for the part where he is the Defence Secretary. Ultimately, what the US Army does or fails to do is happening on his watch, and this faintly avuncular approach to the job seems a bold move away from accountability. This is old news - I've mentioned it once before myself - but the fact that Rumsfeld looks like he's going to Blunkett his way onwards suggests that loyalty is not only necessary to have a seat at the Bush table, it may be the only relevant qualification.
Meanwhile, back at the old homestead, plans are afoot to protect Americans from time-distort Tennessee Williams sex-abuse.
What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke.
I think our big question on this one has to be whether burying books is better for the environment than the more traditional burning. I know you can burn stubble to refresh the soil, but it has implications for air quality, and I suspect a mass conflagration of The Invisible Man, Giovanni's Room and shortly thereafter Clock Without Fucking Hands might lead to fears of being turned gay/black/abolitionist by inhalation. Burying is quieter and probably provides nourishing food for worms, but leads to the risk of gay crops.
We must not talk to goblin men,
We must not eat their fruits.
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry, thirsting roots?
Note also that Allen is portraying "American family values" as endangered on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. If the Devil's greatest triumph was convincing man he did not exist, the greatest triumph of the politically dominant, massively wealthy, influential and well-organised American right wing was convincing itself that it was some sort of heroic, oppressed group fighting an uphill battle for what is in absolute terms right.
Still, on the plus side, red-blooded agronomists can be comforted by the knowledge that the influx of potentially dangerous compost is to be limited, as from now on US companies are prohibited from publishing works by dissidents in "countries under sanction" without the permission of the small, stripped-down, non-interventionist federal government so many of those who voted Republican profess to want.
What I like best about this - and there is a whole lot to like - is the punishment structure:
Violations carry severe reprisals -- publishing houses can be fined $1 million and individual violators face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
They're making this up as they go along, aren't they? That's a page straight out of the Dr Evil guide to policymaking...
- Hey, guys, you know that vague idea we had about how Iranians shouldn't be allowed to threaten the national interest with unexploded words? -
- You mean, when Bobby said he wished he could get Satanic Verses on the old Ayatollah's ass after the third pitcher in Hooters? -
- Yeah. That's a policy document now. How do we enforce it? -
- Wow, put me on the spot, why don't you? OK... how about... 10 years in prison for individuals? -
- Like it. Nice round number. -
- And for the publishers, a fine... a fine of... one meeeeelion dollars! -
- Bob, I love your impressions. You're so funny. -
- Why, thank you. -
(Pause)
- But seriously, why not? -
- Sounds firm but fair. Let's do it. -
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| Thursday, December 09, 2004 |
| I feel increasing sympathy with John Adams. The first president of the USA was George Washington, the third Thomas Jefferson. What sort of a chance did John Adams have? Possibly more chance if there had not three presidents later been another, better-known John Adams as President - John Quincy Adams. He wasn't just a president, he was also a pathologist, and he fought crime. The kids love that kind of shit.
Obscure presidents are great - it's the way they seem to act as a fallow period between proper, epochal presidents. Like Taft. Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Bug on the windshield.
I've been compiling a trivia quiz. Does it show? Does it show in the hate hate hate hate hate hate?
Meanwhile, Stewart Lee last night, whose special bonus show by popular demand was, as he observed lugubriously while peering over the empty front row, possibly a little overoptimistic. A lot of his act was explaining why various jokes didn't work, in a kind of masterclass (improvisation is difficult. It's much easier to write it all down beforehand and than go 'um' a lot), but he also handled why Mel Gibson is an insane bigot (well, how, really), why farting is always going to be funnier than the Graham Norton show (like a pink jackboot stamping on a human face forever), how we know William Wallace was gay (which is great. It's great that Scotland, which has always been a very progressive nation, should have a gay national hero. I wish English national heroes like Alfred the Great or Robin Hood were gay. But they weren't. Only William Wallace was), why Jimmy Hill is evil, why Gary Lineker is evil, why Ben Elton is worse than Osama bin Laden (Osama bin Laden lives according to a consistent ethical code). Pretty comprehensive and socially inclusive. Of course, it, like so much culture these days it took place in the shadow of terror:
On 911 - the ninth of November, we invented those dates, take back the language - I was in Grenada in Spain, in a bar, watching the news on TV. I asked the barman, in Spanish, using what little Spanish I had, where it was happening - donde esta?. He replied Nuevo Yorica.
And I thought, Oh, thank god, it's in Colombia or something, it doesn't really matter.
I realised, listening to what was in effect a disquisition on modern stand-up, why I like Stewart Lee. He rarely goes for the big laughs - he aims to create regular, consistent amusement. He doesn't go for thematic recurrence but formal recurrence. And we are in worldview quite similiar, which given that his is the efflorescence of a comic persona and mine is my personality does not bode well.
At one point he demanded, to demonstrate his love of the Hulk, that the audience ask him any question about the Hulk. I asked the name of the young man Bruce Banner rescued from the gamma bomb test site. He answered, confidently, Rick Jones. Then went on to detail that Rick subsequently became Bucky, Captain America's sidekick, and then hosted the reincarnated Captain Mar-Vell.
"The Kree warrior," I offered out of instinct.
"Yes. The Kree Warrior. And then he married Margo, and she died of cancer. But I think that's enough. We've proved our credentials."
I think he was a bit scared. I know I was.
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| Wednesday, December 08, 2004 |
| Last night, dazed with exhaustion, I realised that I still hadn't managed to collect the tickets for Stewart Lee tonight, and, not trusting myself one iota to deal on the night, headed into town to do it. This had the beneficial effect of forcing me to leave the office, eventually, of putting me directly into the path of a group of joggers running determinedly through Soho and whooping (I thought of apprehending one to ask what was going on, but decided on reflection that no explanation would improve the experience) and also of making me forsake a hot date with Alyx Vance to meet the well-rendered Matt, Es and Neil at an unofficial party to celebrate the launch of Mind Hacks, along with a very nice crowd which I suspect I ranted at in a mad way. I skimmed the first chapter or so in the pub, but not in sufficient detail to form anything resembling a critical opinion. However, Matt's thoughts are usually worth reading, and Tom seemed like a very nice young man also. There are extracts to be found here, and a supplementary blog here - I link in particular to that article because it's something close to my heart at present. I tend to base my sleeping hours from the last time I look at the clock, usually when I get into bed, to the first time I look at the clock in the morning - the idea of quality of sleep only comes into play if I can't seem to fall asleep or wake too early and feel (perhaps incorrectly) that I am awake until the alarm goes. a good night, by that metric, is six or seven hours, a bad night between three and five.
How do you sleep?
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| Movie pitch - 28 Months Later
The setup scene shows a group of animal rights activists going wildstyle on David Schneider for, like, twelve hours. During this prison-style lollapalooza, a loris, unseen by the celebrants, creeps very slowly out of the secret laboratory and out into Kent.
Cut to a hospital, where "Jim" (Peter Capaldi) awakens after a really very long coma, to find himself in a totally deserted hospital. Wandering the streets of a strangely empty city, he realises, to the strains of The Oliver Twist Manifesto, that actually he has been surrounded by people all this time, but they have been moving so slowly that his brain was interpreting them as part of the landscape.
Crash zoom onto a series of humans crouching between banisters, hanging from streetlamps, moving in infinitesimal increments towards sources of food. When they notice Jim, they freeze into immobility, and only when he has stayed still for a considerable length of time, making no sudden moves, do they return to their slow hunt for nuts and roots. Slow zoom onto Peter Capaldi's agonised face as he realises that London has been infected with Loris.
Honestly, I'm struggling with the second act, but I think we have potential here.
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| Tuesday, December 07, 2004 |
| An end and a beginning last week.
Finally, after a process long delayed by the problem of having my eyeballs itch, bleed and attempt to liquefy themselves in their sockets every time I essayed more than a page at a time, I have finished Avon: A Terrible Aspect, by the mighty Paul Darrow. There is every possibility that this is the worst book ever written, potentially worse even than Schrodinger's Baby, which for future reference sucks donkeys. Notionally a tale of the early days of Kerr Avon, cultest queer icon this side of the young Lex Luthor, A Terrible Novel actually concerns itself first with the misadventures of his father, the risibly-named Rogue Avon. Rogue Avon is a roiser-doister, a man of action, and a man who loves the ladies. Incredibly briefly.
She took him fiercely, as if she were a bird of prey and he was her victim. Her breasts were pliant beneath his hands, her lips moistened his, her legs and arms entwined him.
He burst inside her, emitting a long groan of pleasure. "What," cries that portion of the readership not struck blind by the sheer horror, "already? That didn't take long."
But she was not satisfied (the reader nods without surprise) and forced him to love her again.
When they had finished, she licked the perspiration from his neck.
"If you're going to die," she said, "I can think of worse ways to go!"
To describe this as fan fiction is unfair to the writers of Blakes 7 fan fiction, much of which is exceptionally good and certainly far better than this. Shortly hereafter, we discover that Rogue Avon's nemesis is his half brother. He is also a cyborg. And a dragon. And a werewolf.
Anyway, if that wasn't eye-poppingly awful, once Avon fils actually turns up Darrow sets about making things worse. Every relationship in the entire book is either utterly unconvincing or queasily incestuous. Considering how often we are told that Avon père and fils are cold-blooded killers with steel traps for minds, they are both incredibly stupid. Every other bit of oratio recta (and never was it more appropriately named) ends in an exclamation mark. Women are willowy and bosomy, men all come bearing a twin-bladed knife with serrated edge. Not a twin-bladed knife without serrated edge, nor a twin-bladed knife with a serrated edge. Every single bloody knife in the book is described with that exact phrase. It's as if one prolific but unimaginative bloke from Sheffield cornered the market during the Planetary Wars. Likewise, every gun is a pump-action gun. I know not whether the author found himself a few words short of contract and quickly inserted these epithets, or whether he honestly didn't notice. Given the generally execrable proofing, I suspect that author and publisher alike just rushed it out as quickly as possible in the anticipation of a brief influx of money, and then silence. The fools knew not what they were creating. When friend phoned me to tell me that she had found it in a charity shop and ask if I wanted it, it was as if I had been told that a mermaid had been discovered washing her armpits in a Holy Grailful of the blood of John the Baptist. It's the culmination of a life's ambition. I'm actually not sure whether, now that I know the series of events that quite clearly did not lead Avon to his fateful rendezvous with Blake because they make no cocking sense whatsoever, I can go on.
I'll go on.
Fortunately, arriving from Amazon just in time to fill the Darow-sized hole in my life (svelte young Darrow, obviously. A hole the size of the mature Darrow and I would have bled out) was Half Life 2. I had for a while convinced myself that this would simply not run on my desktop, and the dodgy video card on my laptop would kill my joy (which at least is somewhat true - early indication suggest that it is rather like negotiating a hunting trip organised by Jan Svankmajer in its fuzzier, jumpier moments). Regrettably, my eyes were dazzled with tales of scaleable delights, I recalled that I had never actually bought a computer game at full price before, I pondered whether this was what had actually driven me to install a DX9-compatible graphics card, and before you know it I was the Amazon.co.uk equivalent of naked in Tesco.
It's a regrettable fact that I lose the ability to resist computer games when I'm in troughs. I very nearly lost my degree to a potent cocktail of depression, alcohol abuse and Championship Manager. To think that my father thought he'd be helping my studies by giving me his old PC... When I count the hours I have wasted on computer games, I could weep, but I know that in the main that time would not have been spent usefully otherwise, because I would just have alphabetised my scalpels (s for sharp, p for pointy), laminated some old correspondence or copied all my emails into a single huge word document in case there was an... accident.
Except Half Life 2. From now on, I will be playing Half Life 2 when I'm awake. Some will say that this will interfere with my life. Fortunately, Half-Life 2 is more realistic than life itself, so that shouldn't be a problem. And that's just on medium detail. It's a bloody good thing I don't have a) a next-generation video card or b) a crowbar. Or a date for tomorrow, because me and Ms. Alyx Vance got a good thing going on... I know you'll say that bump mapping ain't no substitute for bumping lips, but I tell you - I haven't felt this way about somebody since everything went wrong with Anna Navarre. I'm ready to love again. If by "love" we mean "not get any sleep and smell funny". And when don't we?
Actually, maybe real life isn't so bad after all...
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| Friday, December 03, 2004 |
| Some things are pretty much as you'd expect:
Tracey Emin isn't the best at handling criticism.
The six girls in the film, who act out different episodes from Emin's life, were fed the lines by her rather than being given a written script. Ad-libbing was forbidden. When I mention how good they are, Emin gives me a pointed look and says: "Yeah, but they're MY words. Not theirs. They didn't make any of that up. It's me, telling them what to say." At 41, she is twice their average age.
I want to like Emin - for her recontextualisation of craft as art, and because anyone who really annoys Billy Childish can't be all bad - but she does make it difficult.
Often, people make it too easy.
Tom Ridge walks into a new job.
The poor kids get the good drugs first.
You should really prefer the taste of man-host if you want to be a US Methodist minister.
It's very hard to get a copy of the homosexual agenda, because the Republicans have grabbed every copy and are studying it avidly. Particularly delightful is the quote:
Kinsey's proper place is with Nazi doctor Josef Mengele
This from Robert Knight of the Concerned Women for America. You may note that Robert is not a woman. I suspect he is also not in any meaningful sense "for America", unless by that you mean he harbours a desire to see the place slide into dark age, but I am sure he makes up for it by being very concerned indeed. Concerned and classy.
Whether or not to execute people is a pretty emotional decision.
Accusing people of treason on doctored evidence is not really on. Mind you, neither is the fact that I read the judge's statement that George Galloway was a tough political operator who is used to hard-hitting criticism as saying he was used to hard-hitting eroticism, which is a world of wrong...
This, ont he other hand, I did find genuinely, off-your-feet surprising, for the five femtoseconds before my internal hard drive spun up and I realised that it wsa a big, honking hoax. It's one that causes conflict, also - I understand entirely what the Yes Men were trying to do, although it's not likely to have much of an impact, but this method means that for a brief period many of those who had suffered at Bhopal, and the people who have campaigned for their welfare, thought that it was all over.
Although... I don't know. At a guess, the mention of $12 billion (the value of the Dow/Union Carbide merger) suggest a coded message identifying it as a fake. Tricksy. Probably too tricksy.
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