Blah Blah Flowers

Geoffrey Perkins, HHGttG producer, creator of Mornington Crescent, director of Spitting Image and producer of the Fast Show, has died far too fucking young.

Brown-skinned fellas accused of terrorism despite having no plans in place. It's only brown-skinned people that do terrorism.

Labels: Al Qaeda, terrorism, The War Against Terror

Labels: Flickr, Folkestone

Labels: Flickr, Folkestone

You should know you're in trouble when you make even the Daily Show team stop pretending to be brain-dead Republicans.

Labels: Barack Obama, Clinton- Bill or Hillary, Daily Show, Democrats, humour

It's not new by any means but sitting in a cinema this afternoon I realised how much I enjoyed the Radio 1 advert, even if I don't really listen to the station any more.

Labels: BBC, radio, Radio 1, YouTube

Kate Bornstein has a blog. I have yet to work out whether she also has a posse but I wouldn't be surprised.

Labels: blogs, sex/gender, transgenderism

Britney Spears Admits "My Vagina Made Me Shave My Head Bald"

Labels: spam

Y'know, I really did not see that coming in any way.

All together now...

It's dead, made of plastic....

Labels: skepticism, stupidity

Yoda's House, who have the distinction of being one of the few bands that Warren Ellis has mentioned that aren't rubbish, have a free album to download, here. [via Warren Ellis]

Labels: music

If, like me, you've spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning as you ponder whether a cybernetically-enhanced dog with near-human intelligence would put his desire to mate with female dogs in heat over his natural inclination to see the law obeyed and evil-doers brought to justice then you'll be glad to know relief is at hand. How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice by Jonathon Sullivan was broadcast on Escape Pod a few weeks ago tackles this difficult subject with a tender, caring hand, before tackling it more firmly with the clown glove of comedy. If nothing else, it's worth it for Steve Eley's enthusiastic reading of the main character. Go suck it into yer ears, it the funny.

Labels: podcasts, science fiction

The so-called "librarian" of a global internet child abuse ring has admitted a range of paedophile offences. Oh that's right, call him a librarian because he has a lot of pictures (I must say though, 241,000 images? What kind of cataloguing system did he use? Ahem...).

Labels: children, United Kingdom

Labels: art, Flickr, Folkestone

Labels: art, Flickr, Folkestone

Labels: Batman, humour, movies, YouTube

Noisy row breaks out in libraries over fines

< sigh >

Well, I suppose I should be grateful there's none of those oh-so-funny references to severe old ladies in tweed and half-moon spectacles at least.

Library fines could become a thing of the past if a group of librarians get their way. A fiery debate has been raging for the past week between librarians, with anti-fine campaigners describing the charges as punitive, old-fashioned and creating a negative impression of libraries.

That first bit is a slight exaggeration. On a small email list for librarians, which most of the year just has spam for management courses, a discussion has sprung from something I can't even remember on to the subject of fines. Less fiery, more aromatherapy candle-y, but that doesn't make a story does it?

"Libraries are facing competition from television, magazines, the internet, e-books, yet they have this archaic and mad idea of charging people money for being slightly late," said library consultant Frances Hendrix - a loud voice in the debate which has been taking place on an online forum for librarians. "It's all so negative, unprofessional and unbusinesslike; like any business, libraries need not to alienate their customers."

Well, that seems reasonable, who could disagree with that?

Librarian Loz Pycock

< David Tennant > What? < /David Tennant >

asked how libraries that want to ditch fines would go about retrieving their books from negligent readers. "We never have enough copies of Driving Theory Test manuals or the Life in the UK citizenship books on the shelves. How do we stop borrowers from keeping the books for the months up to their tests and depriving other users? I don't believe the public are all selfish but it only needs a very small percentage of bad apples to cause problems."

I am very amused to find myself quoted in the article as Alison Flood e-mailed me clearly hoping I'd be willing to lead the charge in favour of burning late-returners in a wicker bibliography. This was due to a negative response I sent to Frances. However, I'm also not a huge fan of fines, though I'd rather make libraries free at the point of access to reserve books and keep fines for people who can't organise themselves to return material on time. When I didn't play ball in her attempt to write an article that has as much of a relationship to reality as a David Batty article about transgendered people I naturally assumed I'd be deleted out of the picture.

I don't think charges in libraries are something that will ever be sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. The charges you can expect to find in libraries these days are mainly those that the original Government Acts didn't proscribe, which is why books are free but it's not free to request them (usually) or take out a DVD. Things are quietening down on this discussion forum again but expect it to flair up again wherever you find more than three librarians in a room.

Labels: CILIP, libraries

Lord Sandy Bruce-Lockhart has died at the age of 66. We'll have to see whether any of the obits mention that under his leadership Kent County Council brought in their own version of Clause 28 when it was abolished nationally.

Labels: Conservatives, homophobia, Kent

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to urgently review the way LGBT asylum seekers are treated.

Labels: asylum seekers, bisexual, gay, Government, homophobia, immigration, lesbians, LGBT, petitions, transgenderism, transphobia

That's if you misspell 'Jesus' by using a random collection of numbers and letters, but we're in the silly season and I have to fill this blog somehow. Much in the same way as the usual offenders but primarily the Daily Mail (because The Sun is still watching Big Brother in the hopes someone flashes a body part of some description). It seems that Madeleine has been kidnapped to order by Belgian paedophiles or taken by some distraught hippy and is now in the European Union or possibly OUTSIDE the European Union. She has truly become Schrödinger's Kidnap Victim, a waveform of probabilities encompassing the globe which will stay that way until someone collapses the waveform and finds the body, pulse optional.

Septicisle presents a warning from the future of what could lay ahead if the media continue down the path of filling column inches with the most meaningless gibberings of drunk holidaymakers. [via Bloggerheads]

Labels: Daily Mail, Madeleine McCann, media

I've seen at least two news reports in the last twenty-four hours (Newsnight last night and one of the daily papers this morning) that seemed to express amazement, AMAZEMENT I say, that China hasn't become a democratic paradise with the opening of the Olympics. Drawing a discreet veil over the U.S.'s continuing cute belief that they have the right to talk about human rights to anyone anywhere, is anyone really surprised? Was anyone thinking that the 1936 Games would be a chance for the countries of the world to persuade Germany to move aside from their policy of being Nazi fuckheads? No-one was asking if the 1996 Games might encourage the United States to throw it all in and give Communism a try.

Still, who knows, maybe in 2012, with a little encouragement, the United Kingdom might be finally ready to join the ranks of the civilised nations, if there are any other countries worthy of the name by then.

Labels: China, freedom, human rights, Olympics, United Kingdom, United States

Labels: Alan Moore, comics, humour, The Simpsons, YouTube

OK, you lot are fast proving yourselves unworthy of the gift of Free Will, when it leads to such ridiculous fuckbakes as this which then leads on to disgusting situations as described here. Please feel free to exit the human race and leave your hall passes and locker keys at the desk on your way out.

Labels: authors, hate speech, Islamophobia

Stephen Green, the solo Christian protester who masquerades under the name 'Christian Voice', an imaginary coterie of charmless bigots, takes time out of his busy schedule of looking in gutters and down the back of chairs for loose change to pay off his massive legal costs to call for the restoration of the death penalty. Yep, he's one of those Christians that pay more attention to the Old Testament than the New.

'In the Christian understanding, upon which our laws are or should be based, the death penalty was given to mankind for perpetuity under God's covenant with Noah. That covenant was sealed with the sign of the rainbow (Genesis 9:12-13). 'The Bible verse says: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" (Genesis 9:6, AV) and it goes on to explain why: "for in the image of God made He man."

As ever, the strain of making a logical argument proves too much for Green:

'In fact we set the value of a human life even lower. In the sixties, with the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967, our politicians took away the death penalty from the guilty, by the state, where it belongs, and imposed it upon the innocent, within the family, where it does not. The result is a society with no compassion for the victims of crime and their families or for the weaker members of society. We see this today in the callous nature of crimes committed by teenagers on each other and in the increasing brutality of Britain.

Yes, we need to get rid of women's access to safe abortion services and bring back the death penalty to make the United Kingdom a less brutal place.

'The death penalty should not be available to judges for all convicted murderers, just for those convicted by overwhelming evidence: that is on the testimony of two or three eye-witnesses, or the equivalent in forensics.

Why do judges need 'two or three eyewitnesses' before Green lets them do what his God is so keen for them to do? And what about soldiers or police marksmen?

It's worth reading to see how Green doesn't really understand the legal system, which possibly explains why he's in the mess he's in at the moment.

'The Governments' proposed 'seriously wronged' defence will not command public confidence, as most people would agree that the commission of adultery is a serious wrong; yet that is to be specifically excluded.

As I understand it, should someone kill their partner due to discovering they were being adulterous, they will not be able to use the 'seriously wronged' defense to get a lesser charge. So this would be a good thing.

However, it would be right to abolish the defence of diminished responsibility - no-one has the right to diminish another's responsibility.

A plea of 'diminished responsibility' is usually used by someone pleading guilty in the hopes of receiving a less severe sentence. I've never heard of someone diminishing another's responsibility and would love to hear Green's explanation for this.

It all just shows how wrong we can get it when man presumes to make laws which should be made by Almighty God.'

Hmmm, sounds like this Jehova chappy should be arrested and prosecuted for Incitement if you ask me.

Labels: Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, law, Stephen Green

Sean Tevis for State Representative! [via Bloggerheads]

Labels: Government, humour, United States

Labels: art, Flickr, Tate Modern/Britain

Labels: art, Flickr, Tate Modern/Britain