April 2009
“There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother’s keeper...”
– Eric Hoffer | The Passionate State of Mind (via retropolitics)
"cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith" Day →
bossa:
The government has unveiled plans for a private company to run a “superdatabase” that will track all our emails, calls, texts, internet use and so on. This is an immense infringement of civil liberties, not to mention a major risk to our private data - but it won’t make us any safer. The sheer amount of information that the Government intends to collect will be impossible to analyse...
Children in detention at Yarl's Wood | BBC →
shadowfirebird:
‘What sort of country sends a dozen uniformed officers to haul innocent sleeping children out of their beds; gives them just a few minutes to pack what belongings they can grab; pushes them into stinking caged vans; drives them for hours while refusing them the chance to go to the lavatory so that they wet themselves and locks them up sometimes for weeks or months without the...
… anyway, it’s midnight here, I’m pissed and my son has found something better to do than iChat with me so I’m off to bed.
G’nite all
Shoots self in head.
jmarie3:
terryblakey:
I’m deeply misunderstood
Hey, we all like what we like, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I like to be spanked too.
Next time I’m in America …….. ;-)
Shoots self in head.
jmarie3:
terryblakey:
jmarie3:
einsteinsgirl:
I’m a very, very, very bad girl.
I’ll spank you if you like, but prefer to be on the receiving end.
Not a bad girl at all, just having harmless fun.
ME, me, me. me. me……..please
You want to be spanked? I don’t see you as that type at all, but you never know….
I’m deeply misunderstood
“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so...”
– Terry Pratchett
Beer sales slump by 8 per cent →
Beer sales have fallen by more than 8 per cent in the first three months of the year, figures show.
The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) said 1.7 million fewer pints were drunk every day from January to March than in the same period last year.
Sales in pubs, bars, restaurants, supermarkets and off-licences were all down.
BBPA chief executive David Long said: “These figures...
Three cleared of helping July 7 bombers →
There is either something seriously amiss with the Crown Prosecution Service or the police but we need to find out what it is - and quickly!
Shoots self in head.
jmarie3:
einsteinsgirl:
I’m a very, very, very bad girl.
I’ll spank you if you like, but prefer to be on the receiving end.
Not a bad girl at all, just having harmless fun.
ME, me, me. me. me……..please
“Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals...”
– Animal Farm (via retropolitics)
life’s a bitch - ya gotta love her
More countries confirm swine flu →
New cases of the deadly swine flu virus have been confirmed as far afield as New Zealand and Israel, as the UN warns it cannot be contained.
The US, Canada, Spain and Britain confirmed cases earlier but no deaths have been reported outside Mexico, where the virus was first reported.
My guess! It’s a man made virus resulting from experiments between birds and pigs aimed at creating flying...
I’m having this recurring nightmare that my beautiful, scruffy, overcrowded bookshelves have been replaced by a single, shiny Kindle - AARRGHHHH!
marco:
Jeff Rock:
Emily is referring to it as ‘my Kindle’ now. Now what am I supposed to read? Real books?
Ugh.
Tiff stole mine, too. Join the club. Marc was smarter than us and just bought two from the beginning.
Sorry Marco but I still find the feel of real paper and the sight of real type quite intoxicating!
Apple's rumored talks with Verizon
marco:
USA Today reports:
Verizon and Apple are discussing the possible development of an iPhone for Verizon, with the goal of introducing it next year, people familiar with the situation say.
But last week, Tim Cook said:
From a technology point of view, Verizon is on CDMA, and we chose from the beginning of the iPhone to focus on one phone for the whole world. When you do that, you...
Skepticism Examiner: Some walk out on Bill Nye for... →
robot-heart:
Bill Nye “The Science Guy” was booed in Waco, Texas in 2006 for suggesting the Moon did not generate its own light, but reflected light from the sun… Trouble started when the children’s entertainer brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars,” and pointed out...
Rumsfeld: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is... →
jmarie3:
retropolitics:
via Murray Waas
It was a historic moment. On Dec. 2, 2002, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed a memorandum authorizing interrogation techniques against detainees at Guantanamo that the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, has described as “torture.” In a handwritten notation at the bottom of the memo, apparently believing that the U.S....
“the first [prime, only] principles of the universe are atoms and empty space...”
– democritus, circa -400WXX (iso-8601 dating). or: 400 BCE [gregorian]/-401 [julian]/-8249XX [modified julian day]/3360 [hebrew]/-1053 [islamic (a’salaam a’lakem no ham no bacon)]/6.17.12.X.X [mayan long count]/-7478XXXXXXX [unix time() value]
(just a kicker for you ppls: the human that first...
"who visibly does the drugs/who visibly gets the...
superdoofus-stratodrive:
wanna figure out what the next mainstream musical trend will be? ask the above of any emerging sound/resurgence. seriously, take one aspect out of the above equation and it’ll have a good run but will never take off.
haydays (and yeah yeah, i know, all of the listed movements had underground origins predating mainstream emergence. but that’s kind of the point here):
...
“When former vice-President Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and the...”
– Alonzo Fyfe (via retropolitics)
Without doubt!
Talk about Torture
squashed:
I’m a little worried that the discussion over harsh interrogation techniques has been bumped out of the newscycle by topics that are easier and more pleasant to superficially analyze like swine flu or whether or not Twitter is scary and unfamiliar. Frankly, torture is not a fun topic—but whatever your thoughts on it, it’s an important one. We’re talking about national values, national...
“God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam...”
– Carl Everett, noted thinker, philosopher, outfielder.
I DEFY you to find a hole in that logic.
(via)
(via themattsmith)
I love it. and it’s funny we have dinasour fossils but no bible fossils. that didn’t make sense. lol
(via thenewfilosofee)
No, no, if you click through, he explains that...
Concerts Held To Wish World's Poor Good Luck →
moderndancers:
jhnbrssndn:
ROME—More than 40 artists, including U2, Death Cab for Cutie, Rihanna, and Rage Against the Machine, performed at six simultaneous concerts across the globe Saturday as part of a new benefit show to wish the world’s desperately impoverished the best of luck. The $200-a-ticket event raised more than $80 million, which will be put toward thousands of good-luck cards and...
I have just received the strangest comment to an old post regarding a report about life in Dubai. I publish it without the author’s name as I’d like to give him a chance to respond to my criticism.
Mr Blakey, I have lived in Dubai and found the place simply monstrous but I am not going to come to the defence of Mr Hari; he’s perfectly capable of defending himself. I would like...
WatchTaliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery.
If any politician thinks the Taliban can be negotiated with - think again.
Pakistan assurance over nuclear weapons →
Pakistan’s president has given assurances his country’s nuclear weapons are not at risk of falling into the hands of the Taliban.
As the Taliban extends its influence closer to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington could not contemplate the possibility of a nuclear-armed Taliban.
President Asif Ali Zardari said “I want to assure...
UK swine flu cases confirmed →
Woman held for noisy sex 'breach' →
A woman has been remanded in custody accused of breaching an Asbo banning her from being noisy during sex.
Neighbours complained of hearing Caroline Cartwright, 48, moaning and groaning and her bed banging against the wall at her Washington home.
Ealier this month she was given a four-year Asbo banning her from making excessive noise anywhere in England.
But she appeared in court on Monday,...
Live feed of illegal aliens →
buttersandwiches:
This is awesome, but fuck that. I’m not going to do their job for them if they’re too busy smoking the confiscated weed bricks and not building a forty foot barbed wire electric blazing hot spiked steel wall to keep the Mexicans out.
That’s scary
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Plan to monitor all... →
Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.
The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.
The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.
Enhanced Teaching Methods
When I started my secondary education in the UK at age 11 we had a maths teacher who seemed to love beating kids. He would use a big, thick bamboo cane to ‘reinforce’ his lessons and no-one in his Monday afternoon class would get away without a caning.
We thought at the time that he was just evil, when I got older we re-classified him as a closet child abuser.
Now, thanks to Bush,...
It's a theory. It's probably wrong, but makes just...
chvnx:
lococommotion:
yourcrapsweak:
This is how I think religion started.
Back when people first starting emerging into the world, people were basically stupid. They didn’t have technology, science, anything. All they could basically do is have sex. So the elders in the town got together and tried to get these people to behave right, but nothing was working. So after many failed attempts,...
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts...”
– Buddha
Saudi Girl Rock Band, The Accolade →
New York Times, November 24, 2008
JIDDA JOURNAL
As Taboos Ease, Saudi Girl Group Dares to Rock By ROBERT F. WORTH
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia
They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom. But the members of Saudi Arabia’s first all-girl rock band, the...
Canada tourist video shot in Northumbria →
The sea was blue, the beach was gold and the children skipping through the sand dunes seemed a testament to the healthy joys of holidays in the Canadian province of Alberta.
Tourist officials and the national government in Ottawa were delighted with the promotional clip, part of a £14m attempt to offset controversy over oil extraction in Alberta’s beautiful wildlands.
But hours of...
Police caught on tape trying to recruit Plane... →
Undercover police are running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organisations who secretly feed them intelligence in return for cash, according to evidence handed to the Guardian.
They claim to have infiltrated a number of environmental groups and said they are receiving information about leaders, tactics and plans of future demonstrations.
The dramatic disclosures are revealed...
EU acts to save 'hungry vultures' →
Farmers are to be allowed to leave dead livestock in their fields in parts of Europe - to help starving vultures.
MEPs voted for a change in the law after the hungry birds, most often found in Spain, had been spotted as far away as Brussels, scavenging for food.
EU - The caring, sharing society
“One morning in 1705, an ape who had been the mascot of a ship that wrecked,...”
– Weird History 101 (via retropolitics)
And to this day the people of Hartlepool are known locally as ‘monkey-hangers’. (I was born and brought up near there).