Friday 12th March 2010
My girlfriend.
Time to break out into song…
»Simon Jenkins: The bankers lied. And Darling, a mere puppet on their string, knows it | The Guardian
Still no inquiry. Still no answers. A trillion pounds has been devoted over the past 18 months to protect Britain’s financial system from alleged Armageddon, with not a murmur of value for money. This stupefying sum is more than has ever been spent on any project by any government in British history.
We know where the money came from but we do not know if it was necessary, nor who now has it. We know only that, a year on, Britain is experiencing a worse recession than any comparable country. The lack of accountability, the sheer lack of curiosity from the political community, is amazing.
Thursday 11th March 2010
you can now get mad men barbies. this makes me want to get around to watching it even more
Mad Men Barbies!
I’ve never watched it, so am I correct in assuming that they took the woman with the incredible and curvaceous figure (often praised for being a deviation from the body shape typically championed as the only shape a woman should be) and gave her Barbie’s figure? Because that would seem like a bit of a dick move.
Wednesday 10th March 2010
meta-tumblr
Hey y’all, remember when we could filter our dashboard by post type?
Wasn’t that nice?
Only helpful if you’re using Firefox, but if you install the Greasemonkey add-on and then this script, you can filter by post type. Choose a post type and hit return in the search box.
Denny Crane: Oh, you should’ve seen Shirley. If anyone wonders how she got to be Shirley Schmidt, the evidence was on full display today. She was as strong and as powerful and as dignified as any woman I’ve ever seen. Made me wanna… flip her on her back and have sex with her.
Alan Shore: Do you think you’re a racist, Denny?
Denny Crane: Oh! God… I don’t know. Do you think it’s racist to say a man sounds black?
Alan Shore: I think it’s more offensive to say ‘street’ or ‘urban’ when the inference is you mean black.
Denny Crane: So, what do you say?
Alan Shore: Well, Barack Obama referred to the black sound as a black idiom, more like jazz and less like a set score.
Denny Crane: They let him get away with that?
Alan Shore: Evidently.
Denny Crane: I might vote for him, you know.
Alan Shore: Obama?
Denny Crane: Anybody in America can grow up to be President, that’s what I say. Except Hilary! She wins I puke.
Alan Shore: Barack Obama…
Denny Crane: Yeah. Handsome, great photo op. I don’t know what he stands for. Be a perfect President. He speaks perfect white, as well as black. You never heard me say that.
Alan Shore: What about McCain?
Denny Crane: He speaks Bush now. Can’t win.
Alan Shore: Obama’s against the war you know now.
Denny Crane: So am I. Boring. I’m ready for a new war. Time to blow up Iran. We got Saddam. Now we gotta get, err, Amina… douchebag. And that nutjob in North Korea? They both gotta go. And not because they’re not white.
Alan Shore: Okay. Denny, does it bother you at all that America’s so hated by the rest of the world these days?
Denny Crane: Well of course it does, Alan. Just can’t please everybody. Better to just…
Alan Shore: Blow them up?
Denny Crane: Exactly. And not because they’re not white.
Alan Shore: No.
Shirley Schmidt: My name is Shirley Schmidt, I’m a senior partner at Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Thank you all for coming. It’s nice to see you all turn out when there’s hard news. Yesterday, my partner, Denny Crane, made some regrettable statements, the most offensive being when he told an African-American law student that he ‘didn’t sound black’. I know Denny Crane. He is not a bigot. When he used the word ‘articulate’, as I suspect Joe Biden used it, as I suspect our President used it, what he was attempting to convey was that he thought Mr Givens would play well with white corporate America. The simple but ugly truth is we all look for that. Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not, but we do. We have a primarily white client base, we hire associates we feel will best appeal to that base. Before you point your finger at us, I would invite the media to look at its own industry. Consider the criteria by which you choose your anchors. Denny Crane’s statement speaks not to his own racism but to a much more insidious one that exists in a white-collar society that prefers to take its blacks as it takes its coffee. With a little cream and sugar. I’m not proud of it, but until we confront that truth we will not change it. Thank you all for coming.
Generic terrorist
This was noticed by London comedy person, James Ross, on his facebook, and re-posted by another London comedy person, Kate Smurthwaite, on her blog, and now I’m re-re-posting it here, on my blog.
It’s a news story that ran in the Northern Echo under the headline ‘Terror poison racist’ and on the BBC website under ‘County Durham man admits ricin terror plot’.
After comparing these two reports, James Ross posed this question:
Dear BBC,
Do you think that the fact a chap caught with ricin in a jam jar was a white supremacist is:
a) very important. In fact, central to the story.
b) somewhat important. Let’s give it a good level of prominence.
c) neither important nor unimportant. Let’s at least mention it though, some people might find it interesting.
d) somewhat unimportant. But hey, let’s mention it, we’ve got a whole page to fill.
e) not at all important. How could a motive be relevant to a crime? I, for one, have no idea.
Tuesday 9th March 2010
CAT PLAYS THEREMIN.
This is perhaps the best thing I have ever seen.
autoreblog
The end was the bit that got me. I chuckled audibly.
Monday 8th March 2010
»Lena's Law Petition
In a nut shell, once the train is in motion and the doors are locked, rail companies use good old fashioned extortion to extract the maximum amount of money from law abiding citizens by not accepting rail cards and ignoring valid excuses.
Fare dodging is of course illegal, and should be correctly punished, but the system as it stands is too inflexible to allow for honest people who boarded the wrong train in error, missed their intended train through circumstances beyond their control or couldn’t buy a ticket at the station. Once you’re on a train, the operators have a license to print money. Or at least relieve you of yours.
Sunday 7th March 2010
‘Simple says we believe in goodness’? I think Simple says ‘we’re a bit simple and probably belong to a cult’. You need a sick bag to watch these adverts.
I love how the Cheshire Cat in the 1903 Alice in Wonderland is grinning like any thoroughly unimpressed cat would. I’m never sure how there’s an endless stream of lolcats when this is about the only expression my cat is capable of.
Saturday 6th March 2010
The British had their own list of people to be arrested if the Germans invaded. Among the 82 names of suspected collaborators was the writer on military strategy Maj-General J. F. C. Fuller, who was Mosley’s military adviser.”
BBC News - Lost Jewish tribe ‘found in Zimbabwe’
In many ways, the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa are just like their neighbours.
But in other ways their customs are remarkably similar to Jewish ones.
They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones.
Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.
It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which confirm their Semitic origin.
These tests back up the group’s belief that a group of perhaps seven men married African women and settled on the continent. The Lemba, who number perhaps 80,000, live in central Zimbabwe and the north of South Africa.
I remember watching the Channel 4 documentary about this, The Quest for the Lost Ark. Incredible and fascinating stuff.
