devolute.net

A grassroots movement are pushing to rename a water treatment plant in San Francisco after George W Bush. The Times reports that over 8,500 signatures have been collected; something that probably wouldn’t happen anywhere else in America but San Francisco. I think this would be a fitting tribute after the last 8 years, but I feel a little sorry for the sanitation workers. Perhaps a ceremonial pile of burning tires would be even more fitting? Still, best of luck to the aptly named Presidential memorial foundation who put it like this:

“On matters ranging from foreign relations to fiscal and environmental stewardship, no other president in American history has accomplished so much in such a short time, We believe this is an appropriate honour for a truly unique president.”

Amen to that.

Yeah yeah yeah, It’s all very complicated.  I think I want Obama to win personally, but after a mere 219 years of all-white presidents, I’m not holding out that much hope. So as I can’t vote (what, being a British citizen and all), I’m forced to point and laugh from afar. I could join the ‘Brits for Obama‘ facebook group I suppose, but lets face it; the guy doesn’t need someone like me supporting him from over the pond.

This video makes all the salient points and stars McLovin (from Superbad) and professional Steven Colbert impersonator Ed Helms. I suddenly feel enlightened since it’s been explained so firmly and passionately.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler campaigned for power under one of the most ridiculous manifestos of all time. Despite the fact that his conspiracy theories regarding the Jews were patently ridiculous, the student population found him irresistable with his ridiculous hair and laughable mustache. When Otto Krinkhoven, one of the fashoinistas of the time, was asked who he was voting for, he drily replied; “Hitler’s got my backing”. The Nazi party was born, largely due to the written medium’s failure to convey sarcasm.

The landslide victory Hitler recieved was largely due to the German student population’s heroic capacity to invest in a jape; so was the great Night Of Ironic Broken Glass, as all over the country, uniformed goons broke into Jews’ houses and places of work. This was hilarious at the time, since they were all so obviously not racists. It was trumped only as the axis forces fell to allied troops, giggling at how Crazy they all were.

As the Allies drove into Berlin, they were greeted by public derision, as the Germans proclaimed “Herauf Sie Kerle, können nicht erleichtern Sie es sehen sind alle ein Witz?” (”Lighten up you guys, can’t you see it’s all a joke?”).

To this day, it remains an offence in Germany to deny the holocaust, or to tell a joke. Lest we may forget. This unpublishable history lesson was brought to you by Rich’s “Stop voting for Jeremy Clarkson or you’re worse than Hitler” campaign. Yes, he knows he’s a hypocrite.

Clarkson shown in picture may be different to that in text. We can be ironic too.

Not me. And no, not that Obama girl. I keep meaning to write my take on the Facebook phenomena. When I do; this is definitely going to get a mention. Apparently on Caroline Giuliani’s (daughter of terrorism-obsessed mega-bore Rudy Giuliani) Facebook profile, she’s backing Barack Obama. This has to be pretty embarrassing for the Republican candidate. Kids ‘eh!? I guess even she got fed up of him going on about 9/11.

I had what could be the ideal politics-geek day-trip last Wednesday. I awoke at ridiculous O’clock to travel from Sheffield to Westminster for the first Catch21 Productions conference since I joined them as ‘New Media’ bod. This was held in the Houses of Parliament itself. I was excited to get bumped to the front of the security queue and through St Stephen’s entrance. Inside we held the conference which involved a number of college/6th form kids asking questions to us and our guests. Guests included delegates from Operation Black Vote, The Electoral Commission’s and the UK Youth Parliament and also we were able to have a question and answer session with Charles Kennedy MP, Ann Widdecombe MP, current Education Minister Alan Johnson MP and Daisy McAndrew - Chief Political Correspondent of ITN. The audience asked some good questions which yielded some interesting answers.

Catch21 will be displaying highlights from this event on our YouTube channel. Personally, I enjoyed opportunity to meet some very significant MPs from the three main partys and we all got some ideas of where Catch21 can go as an organisation from a seemingly pretty keen audience. Besides, I get down to London so infrequently the Tube is still a novelty. I wonder how long that will last?

(picture courtesy of the lovely people at OBV)

I watched about as much as I could stand on television last night. Did anyone else find even mildly amusing to see bands playing to a crowd of thousands and a message scrolled behind them on a video wall that gave advice on saving energy around the home. This on a stage backed by a enormous wall of dazzling lights (the sun was still out) and amplifiers. Highlight of the whole thing was definitely Metallica playing ten-year old songs (because everything they’ve done since the turn of the century is pretty much unlistenable to) backed by imagery of an elephant and then a Jumbo jet. JUMBO jet. Get it. ahahah oh wow.

God help us if our idea of helping climate change is listening to Keane tell us about keeping a low carbon foot-print at a concert that “will produce about 74,500 tons of the gas“. I’m not sure if that includes the carbon produced by the movement of everyone driving and flying to and from the concerts. All I know is that someone, somewhere, has completely missed the point.

About time. Great news that it was done by Palestinians themselves. Great news that he’s okay. Great news he’s got a sense of humour: “He appeared with a cleanly-shaven head, saying one of his first acts after his release was “going to the barbers and getting rid of that just-kidnapped look”.”

Pissing off the BBC is the last thing Palestinians should be doing. Compared with the other Western networks, the BBC is their friend and an asset. There you go. The past two blog posts have been very balanced!

It’s been low-blog count limbo round here for a while. I’ve been over-rung with websites to maul at work so I’ve been somewhat terrified to even look at a TinyMCE text entry box. What else have I done? Well, I’ve been all the way to Westminster in London Village to try and help raise some more funds for soon to be internet-sensation Catch21 Productions. Well, we hope. We’re certainly going to try. I reckon we could do some pretty exciting stuff with it anyway. More on that, hopefully much more, later in the year.

I’ve also been to a wedding, a stag do, paintballing (ouch), go-karting (crunch) and to see some downright awesome bands like 65daysofstatic (for the 4th time!) and A Silver Mt. Zion (for the second time, but this time wasn’t half as good - slackers). I went to watch ‘28 Weeks Later‘ which was disappointing, but not surprisingly so. I just loved the prequel far too much and naturally the usual disappointment in a sequel followed. I also watched the start of Big Brother UK Series 384, but I’m too ashamed to talk about that…

BBQ this weekend down ’sarf. Maybe next week I’ll reveal some shiny new website designs I’ve been working on. Oh larks oh lawdy! Hurrah!

The answer, quite blatantly, is yes. Stephen Colbert is the Greatest Living American. This has absolutely nothing to do with his current attempt at a bit of Google bombing, it’s just a statement of fact that occasionally needs stating now and again. I know I’ve written about Mr. Colbert before, but I’ve been paying even more attention to his shows recently and he’s really making sense of the world. He just won’t shy away from real controversial viewpoints like some of those cowardly lefty pundits; take Anne Coulter for example. His truthiness knows no bounds.

So we pray that, like an eagle soaring through the sky in the bright mid-day sun, Colbert continues to fly high over us all.

The guy everyone loves to hate; Bill ‘Papa Bear’ O’Reilly finally gets shouted down big-time. On his own show. By fellow sensationalist Fox ‘news’ muppet Geraldo Rivera. Great to see it when their own kind viciously turn on each other. Beats anything Attenborough has ever shown on television anyway. Still, in this case Geraldo easily has complete moral supremacy.

More of this sort of thing, please! [oliverwillis.com]

I’ve been listening open-mouthed as Frank openly mocks and stereotypes most of my friends on the radio. God, now I know what it’s like being a black muslim lesbian. Frank’s one of those two faced people who will lie to your face, and when he’s found out will say no, okay, I’ll tell you the truth now. And when he’s got your trust he’ll lie to you again, and piss in your mouth. Frank is a government anti-drugs information campaign, and my much-maligned friends are pot smokers.

The Talk To Frank campaign has been running for several years now, and has stepped from a friendly helpline service to an all-out televisual propaganda festival. From the first, Frank’s been all about matey advice and informed decisions. He’s also been about misinformation and eroding the last remnants of trust the perpetually disgruntled youth have in the British government. Frank doesn’t give a shit, he was hired to scare the crap out of kids TODAY, what happens tomorrow when they find out he’s been feeding them a crock is someone else’s problem.

(more…)

There’s a lot of talk in the news today (even in grown up papers) about racist taunts being used against Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in this years ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother. This isn’t especially surprising and is a result of the following two factors: Firstly, Shetty is better spoken than the rest of the screeching banshees that make up the house, she’s blessed with good looks, is wealthier and comes across as reasonably intelligent. Naturally, some jealousy has set in. Secondly; The show is composed mainly of self-obsessed, not especially bright and very, very bored people. What should we expect when they are living alongside someone from another country? These aren’t going to be highly-tolerant Grauniad-reading libertarians, desperate to learn about another land and a different culture are they? No. They’re type A thick ignoramuses making snide childish remarks. Big surprise.

However, what’s really saddening about this is not how it reflects on society (seriously; who gives a damn about Big Brother contestants?), or on the media or anything else. What’s really sad is that MPs have seen fit to make statements about it. This includes Gordon Brown. It’s all a little ‘old men trying to get down with the kids’, like watching grandad trying to skateboard. Why do they care? Well, a more sinister view might be that it follows what Chomsky-types may suggest: Bullshit like this is fielded so that the real stuff, the stuff that matters, is drowned out by this petty unimportant crap. Remember; these are the leaders of our country! We’re embroiled in wars that aren’t going especially well right now, surely they’ve got something more important to talk about? Or do they think we should worry about more important stuff like the words of a couple of knuckle-dragging non-entities on some silly tv show?

It’s been ageeees since I’ve posted here and I’m not even sure Ian still wants my light-hearted bitterness spilt freely over his mighty blog like Jif Lemon sprayed over a filthy toilet in an embarrassing yet understandable confusion. But fuck it, new year’s as good a time as any to start blogging again and my blog seems to have been bummed in the gob.

Well, January’s traditionally a time for looking back over the previous year, if not the previous night, with a sense of faint regret. I for one regret that it looks like Dan Brown’s going to get away with The DaVinci Code, since the Catholic church apparently “don’t do fatwas”. But let’s not be so negative. There’s been lots of good things happen, for one Ian’s job’s taken him to the other side of a country I often feel is far too small, and I mean that in a nice way, darling. I’ve also discovered Doctor McNinja, the finest webcomic I’ve read since Dragonball was translated into farts and homosexuality on a website I can’t be bothered to look up. And in what seemed suspiciously like a rush on Bush’s part to make good on some of last year’s resolutions before Auld Lang Syne, we’ve seen a middle - eastern dictator hanged - on cameraphone, no less - and turned into what is surely the world’s most widely distributed snuff film. I can’t help but think it’s a shame we didn’t have camera phones to record Clinton’s major achievements, I think they’d be in much better taste.

And after scientific trials, I can honestly say Monica Lewinsky’s easier to masturbate to than Saddam’s execution.

So, it’s been a while. I just spent 3 weeks without a home PC; pretty tough for a geek. Brought my IBM laptop with me, but the undulations on the roads to Sheffield destroyed the HDD. Pah! I’ll get over it, it was 2nd-hand anyway.

So? What’s the haps? Well, I’m well into my new job. I’m learning new skills and actually feel like I’m helping to produce stuff of some importance, which is great. I’ve finally moved into a shared house with a couple of pretty decent folk, which is good; I feel settled now (hence a return to bloggin’!). I’ve already been into town to see a band whose name I can’t remember, but that probably says more about me than it does about them (far too much new stuff to take in right now). The city hasn’t been checked out properly so that’s something for this weekend (along with a rather fine looking record shop I’ve spotted nearby). It’ll be my first weekend since moving here that I don’t have anything major (i.e. moving, packing, visiting folk elsewhere, etc.) going on.

In the world (read: outside of Yorkshire) there have been some mid-term elections in the US. I’ve yet to take in the complexities of it all, but it seems like Bush & Co have received at least a mild bruising. Rumsfeld even resigned! (link to nerd-friendly explanation) Perhaps young Marines in body bags are starting to niggle at many in middle-America. I figure the US being the US, the real effect this’ll have on the planet won’t be as great as many would of liked, but at least we can console ourselves by laughing as ‘Comedy Racist’, Rick Santorum’s family breaks down in tears on CNN. Hell, I’m looking forward to 2008.