May 31, 2010
The Hobbits are just rustic English people
English Russia calls it a Russian Lords of the Rings. It is actually a Russian translation of The Hobbit. Mikhail Belomlinsky's illusrations are the draw for those with no Russian; his adapted map is particularly charming.
May 30, 2010
Education
John Noonan explains the need to modernize America's nuclear forces is pressing.
May 29, 2010
Approaching space object 'artificial, not asteroid' says NASA
"Too small for a proper mothership at ~10m, though."
Object 2010 KQ was detected by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona earlier this month, and subsequently tracked by NASA's asteroid-watching service, the Near-Earth Object Program headquartered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
I won't spoil it for you.
May 28, 2010
The ante
South Korea may be considering a naval blockade of North Korea. Though I am not certain The Chosun Ilbo quite understands the ramifications of the term in English.
Teen Werewolves
And speaking of hideous, soul-scarring nerd shame.
Some distancing behaviour from the comments.
It will be funnier 20 years from now when these kids will vehemently deny they were ever into this. Its this generations bellbottoms and platform shoes.
Posted 05/25/2010 at 07:24:09 PM
Reply
telezombie replied to skrag2112:
I don't deny being a punk during the 80's and 90's. It's something I'm proud of to this day.
Posted 05/25/2010 at 08:50:08 PM
Reply
ZeroCorpse replied to telezombie:
Me too... but then, I think there's a big difference between punk/alternative/goth style of the late 70s to early 80s, and walking around in Hot Topic rip-offs of that style while adding fake dog tails to the mix and declaring yourself a "werewolf".
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I feel the same way about these kids that I did about the "vampires" who co-opted punk/goth style and ran around drinking V8 and playing "Vampire the Masquerade" as if it were real to them.
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Posers with no creativity. Come up with your own style, kids. Don't keep borrowing from the true (1st generation) hippies, punks, and goths who are all at least 36 years old right now.
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I hate disco, but at least the disco generation came up with their own (ugly) style. Gen Y and later seem to be caught in a loop where they keep borrowing from punk, goth, and hippie styles. (But at least they're not borrowing from disco).
Posted 05/27/2010 at 05:57:55 PM
Josh Dubovie: That Sounds Good To Me
Bookmakers have branded Josh Dubovie’s That Sounds Good To Me the worst Brit entry in Eurovision history. I am not certain this celebration of nothing deserves the kudos.
May 27, 2010
Not nuked enough
Clinton offers China proof the North Koreans attacked and sank South Korea's warship. I would ask "why bother" but that would not cover the mind rending futility of the gesture. You will understand why momentarily.
Meanwhile, my point. That being this Japan Today poll: Who do you think was behind the sinking of a South Korean warship on March 26?
From the most recent comment:
And this from a guy who thinks the U.S. government knew in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
We are playing chess, they are playing go
I am not certain what I meant by that but it sounds cool. In any event, mainland China's control of a number of strategic mineral resources has become obvious.
The US and the rest of the world have relied on China for nearly all of their rare-earth supplies. But China has been curtailing its exports in recent years, conserving the elements for its own manufacturers. That has prompted fears of an impending shortage in the West.
Rik Mayall: Noble England (World Cup Anthem 2010)
The last refuge of English patriotism is found in sentiment.
May 26, 2010
If you don’t like my education budget, find a new job
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
The difference between tolerance and surrender
Rick Barber for U.S. Congress.
May 25, 2010
Blogger admits affair
I guess it is time to come clean about me and Belinda Stronach.
It's a conflict of interest/editorial honesty/mea traffica culpa kind of a deal.
Except for all the others
Elizabeth Scalia describes the Left's enthusiasm for dictatorsip. In the United States.
It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on “remaking America.”
Here's a thought: The worst generation in the history of the world is about to retire. Now they need the retirement benefits "they paid for" I wonder how much of the bloated helping state they are willing to part with in order to fund their twilight years. Thinking of just one example among many here, if the Baby Boomers are true to form - and you know they will be - it is all too easy to imagine countless Grievance "Studies" departments shut down in the name of economy. Having gutted the natural sciences and any teaching of classical values, fat tenured salaries in the Studies departments are the only low hanging fruit remaining in the universities. Well, that and a (not so small) industry of counselling and support services. By contrast, those departments teaching skills sought by employers - and therefore by parents and students - should weather the last great crest of Western demography. Somebody has to pay for all the rest.
Those who cannot remember the past
Would be bloody lucky if this meant a repetition of the Protectorate. A couple decades of Cromwell could sort out England for the next few centuries.
The poll of 18- to 24-year-olds found that 45 per cent of young Britons did not know Nelson led the British to victory at the Battle Of Trafalgar, and 28 per cent thought that Trafalgar was part of the English Civil War.
Indeed, 15 per cent thought that Oliver Cromwell led the British forces against the French and Spanish navies during the Napoleonic Wars.
By contrast, many young "Britons" know Uthman was murdered while at prayer.
If there must be trouble
Let it be in my day that my child may have peace (via Vlad Tepes).
May 24, 2010
A cunning linguist
Now considering the etymology of the word "philology". But not very carefully.
Thanks to Community Channel's "Clip Art Makes Everything Sh*t", I am now familiar with Hot For Words, not your ordinary philologist.
Severed Heads: Hot With Fleas
Hat tip to Ben.
In 1994 a 3D version was made on an Amiga using Imagine. Since then the video has featured knives and forks travelling through a reflective space. Every few years another version was made for live shows at the time and each slightly improved the rendering quality. This version was made for a live show in Brisbane in 2007 and was rendered in Cinema4D. It's near identical to the version shown in Belgium in 2005 - just recalculated for 720p.
The raytracing here takes a very long time as there are apparently infinite reflections inside the space. Actually there's about 8 bounces - even then each frame took as long as 12 minutes to create.
May 23, 2010
May 22, 2010
Static Revenger & Richard Vission ft. Luciana: I Like That
Crank 'er.
May 21, 2010
The commodification of tragedy
Toward the end of an extensive interview with Vice magazine, Bret Easton Ellis offers details about his forthcoming collaboration with Gus Van Sant on The Golden Suicides.
Not my take on the story but then I don't know any more about the truth of the matter than does Ellis; his version is at least sympathetic to Theresa for all it makes her out to be a bit crazy (which, in fairness, at least in one sense was my impression).
Here is the revolting part. Sadly, Hollywood will only love when you are dead and beautiful. Yes, Theresa was beautiful, but there was so much more to her beauty than being "hot".
[Ellis] The Scientologists. And then she began to build this huge narrative as to why she wasn’t successful in the film industry. I’m haunted by it. I don’t know why it resonated with me so much.
You explained it pretty well. It was the relationship that you’d been having, and your experience with The Informers. That could really put you in a place where the Blake-Duncan story would hit you hard.
And they were hot.
They were hot. Yeah.
Literally, this is how it sold with one of the producers, to get financing for it. “Who wants to see a movie about two people who kill themselves?” And then the other producer said, “Well, they were hot.”
Oh, fuck.
And he said, “Really? Well, where’s the pictures of them? Ah. Yeah.”
May 20, 2010
Cyclopean
The London Olympics mascots are revealed.
(Hat tip to Bill, describing them as the "final nail in the coffin of a once-proud British Empire").
2 Thessalonians 2:15
A top Arizona utilities official has warned Los Angeles it risks having its electricity cut off if it wants to boycott Arizona.
Driving in the third person
Rooster Teeth make their lives more like GTA IV.
Embedded video after the bump.
May 19, 2010
No sympathy
Spiegel carries images from the Trolley mission, six days of aerial reconnaissance documenting the effectiveness of the Allied bombing campaign in Germany.
Missing from Spiegel: Any sense Germany brought this ruin upon itself.
Facebooks
Death masks of the rich and famous.
May 18, 2010
Miss Oklahoma USA supports the rule of law
Miss Oklahoma USA Morgan Elizabeth Woolard: "I'm a huge believer in states' rights. I think that's what's so wonderful about America. So I think it's perfectly fine for Arizona to create that law."
May 17, 2010
Optimism
Theodore Dalrymple offers a strategy for the resurrection of German nationalism.
Russian navy captures and destroys a pirate mothership
Memo to Somali pirates: Stay away from the Russians.
May 16, 2010
The swerving logic of the English mind
Surplus to requirements and more Monty Python than James Bond - despite the Ian Fleming connection - but World War II strategic headfake Operation Mincemeat still stirs in me a sense of loss and nostalgia where once there was patriotism and a love of my fellow Englishmen.
Too much to excerpt properly. The following is for flavour.
Extinction event
If any other tribe were being hunted to extinction, I would have something to say about it. I can hardly remain silent now for all this particular genocide is popular in Canada's polite company.
Negligent
I gather there are people shocked to learn the Soviet Union planned a nuclear attack on China in 1969. Swayed by the Americans, they didn't attack China.
But this is the actual shocking news.
They could have stopped the spread of atomic weapons and chose not to. So much for civilization. We will get precisely what we deserve; millions dead in a fire lit by chanting Persian maniacs.
Shagged by a rare parrot
In which at least two traditional English virtues are demonstrated.
May 15, 2010
Mikhail Gorbachev
Another murdering fuck celebrated by the left.
Lukyanov reports that the real number of casualties on Tiananmen Square was 3,000.
Gorbachev: We must be realists. They, like us, have to defend themselves. Three thousands . . . So what?
More atrocities we aren't meant to care about at the link.
May 14, 2010
Condemned
Peter Hitchens explains Britain's new Con-Dem government is to the left of New Labour.
...
But what of my cavilling foes - whose case always seemed to be based on the idea that a Tory victory at all costs was both possible and desirable, without any reference to what sort of government it would bring? Did they either want or predict the Cameron-Clegg civil partnership? Are they pleased at what has taken place, now they have got it? Are they pleased by the enthusiasm that Mr Cameron shows for lashing his party to the Liberal Democrats, quite possibly forever?
Fine young cannibals
New Zealand's Prime Minister makes a joke, offends all the right people and inspires the following reaction from the negotiator representing his opponents.
Good. Nor should he.
Information wants to be free
Epic Boobs Girl's latest attempt to end her meme has been quashed.
May 13, 2010
Kanellos
Kanellos the Greek protest dog makes another appearance.
Chung Kuo
Commander James Kraska, JAGC, U.S. Navy, serves as the Howard S. Levie Chair of Operational Law at the U.S. Naval War College and Senior Fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute claims China is set for naval hegemony.
Sobering: Commander James Kraska's "How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015" (pdf).
I am still pro-carrier, mind you.
Elsewhere in Middle Kingdom news: China's first man in space has said that Chinese astronauts eat dog meat to keep their strength up as they orbit around the earth.
Lady Sovereign: My England
The education system has failed Lady Sovereign. She has no notion the English drink spirits, apparently.
May 12, 2010
Let's face facts
Gabriel Malor: Let's face it; Leftism has always relied on a certain ignorance.
* 51% believe that mandatory licensing of professionals (i.e., reducing the supply of professionals) doesn’t increase the cost of professional services.
* Perhaps most amazing, 79% of self-described Progressive believe that rent control (i.e., price controls) does not lead to housing shortages.
May 11, 2010
Frank Frazetta, R.I.P.
The most influential fantasy artist of all time, Frank Frazetta has died at the age of 82.
Also: Guillermo del Toro, Neal Adams and John Milius remember Frank Frazetta.
"There is no one who can fill the space left empty by the passing of Frank Frazetta," Adams said Monday. "Few have studied Classic Renaissance oil painting, and applied it so successfully. Few can draw outward from deep within their gut; very few can actually paint and draw man/woman sexual allure; nearly none can tell a story with oil paint that lets you know what is actually in the muscle and sinew of the artist."
And: Check out some of Frazetta's artwork.
Selected not elected
Mark Steyn on the British electoral system.
If all the above doesn't sound terribly democratic, well, at least, Mr. and Mrs. Bloggs of Little Stitch-Up-On-Thames can still elect their Member of Parliament and know who they're going to get. As it happens, that's what the LibDems want to change — to some Continental-style "proportional" system. The way things are going, giving every voter a blindfold and a pin would make as much sense.
RTWT for the Sovietization of the Celtic economies.
May 10, 2010
A majority of one
By way of complaining about the Porsche 911 GT3, Jeremy Clarkson expresses a number of opinions that used to be blindingly obvious. But cultures change. Or atrophy and die.
May 09, 2010
The year of the vampire
With "Cullen" leaping 300 spots in the charts, Stephanie Meyer has changed the fashion for baby names.
These are baby names for white people, you understand, and so of diminishing statistical consequence. Flea-favs Sheniqua and, of course, Mohammed will most likely remain unaffected no matter the popularity of the Twilight franchise.
He never let friendship take precedence over his first love
In which Kathy explains something about writers by way of Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis.
May 08, 2010
Developing
As part of a brief but wide ranging question and answer session with the Financial Post, Niall Ferguson makes an important observation about Africa. And, not incidentally, about socialism vs capitalism.
Chinese capitalism is working better for Africa than decades of Western socialism.
A In the eyes of the Chinese, it is a place with a lot of commodities and very poor infrastructure, and the Chinese have figured out they can access the commodities if they provide the infrastructure. So, they have a pretty instrumental view of Africa. Given the West has a sentimental view of Africa, which is they want to [help with] water, give it aid, help Africans by giving them free malaria meds. And China, of course, thinks that’s absurd. They want to come in and buy stuff, give them highways in return. And right now that model is working better.
Q Working better for China or Africa?
A Working better for Africa. Just look at the growth rate. Africa is enjoying … rapid growth, and it is mostly on the back of sales of commodities and the improvement of infrastructure. By comparison, we’ve had 50 years of development aid and achieved less.
May 07, 2010
Helen Reddy: I Am Woman
The Flea: In solidarity with womanitude since 2002.
If you want peace
Oil has been discovered in the Falklands.
Shame about dismantling the Royal Navy. It might have come in handy.
Rockhopper Exploration today announced that it has made an oil discovery in the North Falkland Basin - the first oil find of an exploration programme in the Falkland Islands that has already pushed relations between London and Buenos Aires to breaking point.
Good musicians borrow
Great musicians are thieving bastards.
But sometimes, it's even more blatant than that. In fact, some of the most successful musical acts in history based huge chunks of their careers entirely on plagiarism. Like...
Disappointment in humanity at the link. The musician part of humanity at least.
Christina Aguilera: Not Myself Tonight (Official Unedited)
Hat tip to Jeff.
May 06, 2010
Just disgraceful
The budget deficit of the United Kingdom is set to overtake Greece as the worst in the European Union.
May 05, 2010
The apotheosis of posthumanism
Japanese engineers say they would prefer to send a humanoid robot to the Moon rather than, say, a Japanese person.
It's the future of Japan, really.
Attractive robots can be fascinating and stimulating it's true. For making babies, not so much.
The War on Freedom
Daniel Greenfield argues the only people who want the freedom to keep what they earn, write what they think, choose their own health care, elect their own leaders, read what they like and live lives apart from the great machinery of the state—are the White Male Oppressors.
What he says rhetorically I am quite happy to say literally. The rot set in with the Reform Act of 1832 with all too predictable.
Medical ethics in Ontario
Under Canada's provincial variety pack of state mandated medical insurance, you will not be shocked to learn it is often difficult to find a family doctor who can admit a new patient to the roll of their medical practice. In the United States it has been supply and demand, in Canada it has been and remains rationing and waiting lists.
With this in mind (and with apologies for my continued use of the passive voice), does anyone happen to know if it is legal - let alone ethical - for an Ontario GP to tell their patient that if he or she seeks a second opinion then he or she will be struck off the patient list at their practice?
If so, please feel free to comment or email. This is not an academic question.
May 04, 2010
May 03, 2010
Cordell Barker: The Cat Came Back (1988)
An inspirational for my brothers and sisters in the Canadian revolution.
May 02, 2010
Glee: Sweet Caroline
There is no good reason I should be the only one with this song stuck in my head.
May 01, 2010
M.I.A.: Born Free
Die, ginger! Die!
M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.
(Banned from YouTube, apparently.)
Capturing Somali Pirates: The First Person Shooter View
My favourite part is the way the gun tracks the shooter's head movements, a bit disconcerting considering my current Fallout 3 skewed worldview. Also, the hilariously simulated looking view of stair climbing.
I wonder if this is what reality looks like.
Tim Gunn on superhero fashion
"There is a problem by definition with fishnets."
"I would find especially in her nighttime prowling activities that to have this much volume of fabric behind you - I can understand the cape - it think it could be dangerous. It could get caught on an antenna."