Really brings home how much of a privilege it is to not be actively oppressed. This is well worth reading and sharing.

I've been watching this series on IPlayer. It's excellent, and I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in politics, as it's exploring how the leaders lied to and manipulated the public.
The bit where a veteran expresses his outrage that the President and his advisers knew that they were going to lose three years before he was sent to Vietnam is quite powerful. The briefing document from the mid 60s which states that the aims were 70% avoid humiliation, 20% resist communist expansion and only 10% improve the lot of the Vietnamese people is also particularly telling.
Watching the situation snowball and more and more people get killed because the politicians were protecting themselves rather than making decisions on the basis of what they knew the situation was is really depressing.

So I'm watching the Tour coverage on ITV4, and therefore having to endure ad breaks for a change. On comes a McDonalds ad which is soundtracked with the Buzzcocks' "What Do I Get?" - not surprisingly they don't play the "Nothing at all" line!

So, I have just indulged myself by investing in some of the Drive By Truckers' back catalogue. I was amused by the fact that Gangstabilly is packaged as an LP to the extent of the cd label being a picture of an LP and the track listing covering "Side 1" and "Side 2" but I was delighted when I put it in and the first thing I heard was "Click! crackle crackle crackle..." They've sampled a tone arm hitting an LP and put it on the start of the CD! And it is split into two sections, with another sample lead in!

The music's pretty good too!

Mr. Wolffia sporting a fresh mustache and beard of hair lichen.

From this page.

I know you're not a lichen fancier any more but....

Amusing translation of what those phrases that get trotted out time after time actually say about the club.

( Cut cos it's longish )

( Larger version behind cut )

A photo nickys took of me at the Ring of Stenness on Orkney.

( Map of area behind cut )

Giant Vulva Bicycle Taxi Is Freudian Wet Dream

Not safe for work, or delicate sensibilities.

"Thrice weekly cruising the streets of Helsinki. inviting its inhabitants to take a ride by slipping inside her giant disembodied vagina mounted on top of her bike taxi."

It's a Rickshaw, modelled on a ladies's vulva. There are pictures. You have been warned!

An unwitting passenger arriving at Japan's Narita airport has received 142g of cannabis after a customs test went awry, officials say.

A customs officer hid a package of the banned substance in a side pocket of a randomly chosen suitcase in order to test airport security.

Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in.

Anyone finding the package has been asked to contact customs officials.

According to this article in the guardian,"While humans have two sex chromosomes, the X and Y, the platypus has 10, with five of each kind." "In theory it means there are 25 possible sexes, though in practice that doesn't happen." When discussing this with zotz tonight he said "That makes them even wierder than Goths!"

So now I have an image of a platypus in a corset and silver jewelry in my head. Any artists out there want to realise this?