Week of 23 Sep

To the citizens of the United States of America

...from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give
notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable
levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to
take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or
speaking to a therapist,then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all.
Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are
also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but
does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your
borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

[I'd be happier just to be Canadian.]

We all know what I think of studies & experts, but this one is just nuts: Men With Traditional Views on Sex Roles Earn More Money. What the fuck? Yet another boys club?

More bull shit from the experts: Botox can improve first impressions for attractiveness, dating success. Jeee-zus! Nothing like phonies & the morons who tell them these things.

I've had room-mates like this. Never again.

Update: In a previous blahg entry, I'd referred you all the the Grassy Knoll Institute. Alas, the site is gone, the link dead. Good news, though: The Grassy Knoll Institute is alive & well. You may now indulge in your conspiracy theories here.

Notice the teacher is oblivious.

Wiltshire's Secret Underground City. This time, it's Britain's tax dollars at work...for the elite, of course.


Anyone know anything about this Mystery In Laos?

I guess kids should be allowed the gender of their choice too.

Heh. Even astronomers have learned something new -- & they don't understand it. "Dark Flow" Discovered at the Edge of Known Universe I love this line: "...It's that the entire makeup of the universe as we understand it can't be right if this is happening.

Ah, my first car. I miss my bug.

Ever wonder about the history of the word cunt?

We all know that the owners of major news outlets control what can & can't be aired or printed, but how often do we hear from the censored journalists themselves? Leading Journalists Expose Major Media Manipulations.

Interesting short blog about McDonald's burgers. The only thing with which I disagree is this:

    I marvel at how McDonalds has infiltrated
  our entire world. A hamburger here tastes
  exactly the same in China or some around
  the world place.

Granted, it had been ten or fifteen years between, but the last McDonald's burger I'd had was a Big Mac in London -- a friend bought it for me, as I was broke. At least at that time, the Big Mac in London & the previous Big Mac somewhere in California, did not taste the same. The one in London actually tasted like a hamburger, as opposed to the cardboard-like disk I'd had before. The bun was pretty tasty too -- for low-grade bread, that is. Oh, and I was more surprised by the fact they didn't slather it with that disgusting "secret sauce" McDonald's is, or maybe was famous for. The burger came with mayonnaise -- without even asking for it. Yeah, I like mayonnaise. That was a nice touch. I have no plans to eat at a McDonald's again, but should I ever walk into one with the intent to order & eat something, it certainly won't be in a McDonald's here in the US.

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, "Well, what do you need?"

"You know how it feels when you're leaning back on a chair, and you lean back too far, and you almost fall over backwards, but then you catch yourself at the last second? I feel like that all the time...."
-Stephen Wright

Did you know little of this movie was scripted.

Surprised?

It's been quite a week.

Ah, marriage.

Week of 16 Sep

Either my mood, or that this has been a bleak news week, I've really not found much of interest. Enjoy what you find, though.

Looking for a festival? Maybe one of the ten World's Wackiest Festivals will suit you.

Some interesting innovations coming to digital photography in the near future.

More evidence room-mates are a bad idea.

So you know what to put in who's salad....

It's over.

What? You want to know what to add to dishes other than salads to spice up the unwanted guest's dinner? Why, just see Wikipedia's list of poisonous Plants.


Goodbye Richard. You will be rememberd fondly.

Ah, Ingrid.


They're all dead.

That's right. Now you can listen in on police, fire & EMS in most states via ScanAmerica. Now, we just need some riots to erupt, or alien invasion to occur somewhere!

Are you old enough to remember that once there were parks like this -- a bit over-grown & somewhat unkempt? Granted, most parks I've been in over these many years, have been clean. Fallen brances removed, & all was groomed. But I remember some more like this, where one could find a bit of privacy. NYC's Central Park has large stretches where one can, at least, feel alone (although I know nowhere in that city where one can go & not hear the traffic in the streets, inconsiderate twits who can't be bothered to ring the doorbell of the person they want & just yell till either that person comes to a window to yell back at them, or the first yeller finally gives up. But the parks, I miss big, old, sloppy parks.

Why, yes. I'll take one of those, but you can keep the oscillator.

...And twenty plus years.

And the instruction manual only comes in Korean.

Week of 9 September

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Week of 02 Sep

Check out this mysterious Incident in St Louis MO from Pandemic Chronicle.

Here are a bunch of vid's over the controversy of the dread marijuana. It's time to heed the words of Peter Tosh, in the final vid on the page: Legalize it.

This one's mostly for me, later, as I'm sure the majority of you have grown a bit tired of my harping on Judea & the Holocaust. IDEA Feature Articles on the Holocaust & other atrocities.

What a great idea. Wonder whatever happened to this....

Thanks to the luscious & lovely Liquid, I now have a new favorite band called Elbow. You must see this Elbow concert. As recommended by Liquid, go full-screen, if your 'puter can manage. You won't be disappointed.

Interesting exploration -- or fantasy -- concerning how advanced older civilizations might be: The Physics of Extraterrestrial Civilizations.

The truth revealed.

Too weird: The Telemegaphone.

This is certainly not license to run out & have all sorts of unprotected sex -- wonderful as that would be, &, of course, a study proving one thing today is often proved wrong by another study tomorrow, but this article (similar to anther I'd recently read & may have posted) is very interesting. Biologists Discover Why 10 Percent Of Europeans Are Safe From HIV Infection.

I love rebels.

Finally, an excellent company picnic.

  Terrorism is the war of the poor,
and war is the terrorism of the rich.
-Peter Ustinov

And she's done it again. Either Ms Liquid really knows music, or she's shimmied her way into the darker spaces of my mind & read the fine print of my very Self. Below are two videos from another incredible band out of England named The Doves. The first is a happy, little tune called Pounding from their The Last Broadcast release, & the second is (IIRC) There Goes The Fear also from The Last Broadcast.

Speaking of incredible music, many years ago I'd picked up an LP at a used record shop in the West Village which I'd lost in a move. I've tried to find it off & on again, but I'm having no luck. All this time, I've thought it was definitely entitled Dave Mason of Traffic fame, but I just looked at the Dave Mason official Web site to find that none of the covers look familiar. I know -- covers get changed. But the one track title (or partial title) I remember (& I think it was the last track) was either The Seven Sisters, or Seven Sisters was a secondary title of the track. The song, as with most every other track, was haunting & melancholy. This track told the story of the Seven Sisters, Orion, & Electra (who, if you don't know, is the seventh sister who was loved by Orion -- she hides from him, which is to explain -- despite this aspect of the myth isn't mentioned on Wikipedia -- why the Pleiades appears to be composed of only six stars). I imagine it also had some other significance, but I can't remember the other lyrics in the track.

Does this sound even remotely familiar to anyone? It was likely released either in the mid-80's to early 90's....

You must check out Vladimir Kush. These
images are fantastic.

First bird turns to a second & asks: So, what do you think?
Second bird says: Stupid humans.