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Showing posts from July 1, 2007

Lets try that again.

This time with no tell-tale mp3 tag to look at :-) Artist(e), title, year ...

Music time again.

Artist(e) , song name, year please. Song 1: She had sulky smile She took her standard pose as she presented herself She had sultry eyes, she made it perfectly plain that she was his For a price Song 2:

The garage roof project seems finally to be over.

It dragged on a bit, but it looks like we're done with the garage roof now. The roof was actually finished last week, but the contracters fucked up the gutter when they placed all their ladders against it. The owner of the roofing company came out and agreed it was unacceptable, and agreed to replace the gutter with a new one. They came out yesterday afternoon and put the new one up and all is well with the garage now. I still need to pay them for the work that's been done though. Not that I'm worried about it raining any time soon though. I was out on the motorbike yesterday afternoon and it was like riding on the surface of Mercury. It was 42°C

Now THIS is Big Brother...

How creepy is this? Here in Utah it's now written into the law that if you want to trade or sell used CDs, DVDs or videogames, you must give a complete set of fingerprints to the shop you're trading with. A colleague of mine had this happen to him yesterday and essentially told the store that they'd made that policy up, and that it was total BS. I'd have done exactly the same thing. But I looked it up. Apparently it came into law this year and it's allegedly supposed to stem the trade of stolen goods. Problem is that nobody in their right mind is ever going to volunteer a complete set of prints just to sell a $5 CD. To put that into perspective, you can sell a multi-thousand dollar car to somewhere like CarMax with nothing more than the title and your driving license. Not a fingerprint in sight. Dig a little deeper and you'll find the two government agencies behind this are the RIAA, and the FBI. In fact it turns out to be the Patriot Act doing its thing. Esse

Tube train derails, CNN mentions terrorism.

Well done CNN. A tube train derailed in London today - nothing unusual about that. A couple of people hurt. The CNN report however, puts terrorism into the story almost immediately. Why? What possible reason could there be to mention terrorism in a story like this, other than to provoke fear? CNN's take on it. You know what? I burned my mouth on a pizza slice a couple of nights ago. I wonder if I should call CNN so they can publish a story about how Al Qaeda have infiltrated Papa John's pizza chain and are burning the nation's mouths with an insidious plot to deliver hot pizzas? If you've still not watched the BBC documentary "The Power Of Nightmares", do it now.

Colonial Insolence Day!

It's the 4th of July again and that means barbecued e-coli and freshly-tossed salmonella in the back yard again. We'd been planning on a small do this year with only three or four people but somehow we've ended up with 16 coming which is more than we've ever had. Our poor cat is going be beside herself with panic.

The corruption moves deeper.

Hot on the heels of Cheney claiming he's not part of the Executive branch because for half a day a year he casts a tie-breaker on the supreme court, comes the news today that Bush has commuted Lewis Libby's jail sentence, calling it "excessive". It's amazing just how corrupt Bush's regime is. Valerie Plame's name is leaked to the press by Cheney and/or Karl Rove, both of whom lawyer up and hide behind Bush. Bush points the finger at Libby who becomes the fall guy and gets convicted for obstruction of justice, making false statements, and perjury. When the sentenced is announced, Bush commutes it claiming it's "excessive" and thus nobody is held accountable for anything and Valerie Plame's life is ruined.

Zoom zoom.

Image
Neato. Bob bought himself a new car this weekend - a Mazdaspeed 3. It handles like it's on rails and goes like stink. It's got a 2.3l 4 cylinder turbo, sports wheels, sports suspension and a stiffened chassis. Nice.

So here's a question...

Given that the police and security forces in the UK, armed with one CCTV camera for every 20 citizens, had no clue about the "alleged" "plot" to blow up cars in London, nor the "attack" in Glasgow, how can they raise the threat level and make the claim that "another attack is imminent" ? Are they planning it themselves or something? After all, fear is a bloody good way to control the population.... "It may be argued that the existence of 'terrorists' in the film and various 'terrorist' acts are deliberately made ambiguous - it is very probable that the central threat of terrorism is the government's way to silence deviation, provoke fear, cover up its multiple errors, and provide a scapegoat enemy. Viewers must interpret this central theme of the film for themselves - and recognize the fact that there may in fact be no terrorists at all." - Tim Dirks, reviewing 1985's "Brazil" for filmsite.org

Gordon : just stop it.

I'm sorry but this is just fucking ridiculous. Two days ago an "alleged" "plot" to blow up two cars in London was thwarted. Yesterday a flaming Jeep was driven into the terminal building at Glasgow. Today the threat level in the UK is raised to "critical" and people are being told to expect more attacks "imminently", and the threat level here in the US has been raised too. No. Just no. Listen people - this mass hysteria has to stop. Can you not see the plainly obvious? This is an elaborate covert plot - sure - but it's not terrorists you need to worry about. It's the goddamn government. They're the ones doing this shit to get everyone scared again. I mean come on - it's just far too coincidental. I'm sorry, but Bush and Blair, and now I suspect Brown, have cried wolf so many times now that it's just not believable any more when they tell us this stuff. Just like the "alleged" "plot" to "blow u