Well the EP has gone to iTunes.

First a giant squid goes on display here in London and now they find a “lost civilisation” in Sumbawa in Indonesia. Its on an island in the middle of the sea. Guess they ticked off Cthulhu; after all that is his part of world isn’t it?

My comments later.

He has said the following:

...MoToons “worse than the 11 September attacks in the US and the 7/7 incidents”

Harry’s has got all the details.

And where is the MSN reporting on it? No where to be seen. I mean if they can get reports out Iraq you think they could manage Tajicistan. Spread the word.

Via: Simple Jews

Jon P does a bit o’ first hand reporting about the recent IEA Flat Tax event. He took notes; allowing me to scurry off and have a weeknight with my beloved.

Jyllands-Posten. You deserve the award you have been given.

Ken Livingstone is not a fit man to be Mayor of London in my view. He is too chummy to terror-supporting organisations, such as Sinn Fein in the past, and his introduction of the Congestion Charge, while it might have been done in a free market way (road pricing is an idea of Milton Friedman, if my memory serves) is more about collecting cash and being nasty to car drivers than anything else. So he is not my favourite politician by a mile.

But this decision to suspend him from office for a few weeks because of nasty things he said to a reporter shows how freedom of speech is under the cosh. As with the jackass historian David Irving, the best way to deal with bigotry is contempt and ridicule, and in the case of Livingstone, the ballot box. He has not assaulted anyone or stolen their property (well, unless you are an anarchist and regard all tax as theft, one might quibble), so it seems dumb to suspend him in this way.

I know it may seem strange for a libertarian writer like me to defend Livingstone in this instance, but then defending freedom means defending those who you don’t necessarily like or admire. That is what freedom means. I am afraid I cannot agree with my fellow scribbler Andrew Ian Dodge on this occasion (see below).

Chapter 25

Rob sat in Mrs Davies’ room with a plate of biscuits and a cup of tea. She insisted that he be properly provisioned for his important tasks. He ate and drank his tea as he manually cruised some of the more nefarious sites. This activity was interrupted from time to time by one of his buddies calling him to tell him the status of their searches. Rob and several of his on-line friends had developed an information co-operative. When one or other needed some info on one subject or other, the rest would tuck in and help. It was a sort of a mid 21st century version of an Amish barn raising. The pub Rob frequented in the net was built quickly and painlessly by several hundred coop coders. These very independent types banded together in response for mutual protection when Pius took over as Chief of Union Security some three years earlier.Rob feared that he was rapidly approaching a point where he was abusing the co-operative. When he did need their help, the task was broad and complicated. His latest request was to locate, identify, and suss out a neo-luddite puritan terrorist organisation whose purpose was to wipe out technology in the Union. Then, to find the exact location of their headquarters.
Their very fanaticism that would be their undoing. alt.conspiracies.union.luddite was buzzing as soon as Rob called out his virtual posse. Rob was convinced someone, probably one of the nerds who inhabited the fringes would have heard something. They peddled info to anyone who could give them the money to support their tech habit. Still, their paranoia was working here and Rob would get all the information he needed with some help.

For four weeks! If it had been anyone but Ken is virtually any other situation he would have been sacked. Its a damn disgrace…but then again what about Ken isn’t a total utter disgrace?

More in the Standard.

Totten has visited the Yazidis in Northern Iraq. One of them had this to say…

72 times Muslims tried to conquer us, he said. Christians never once tried to conquer us. The Christians are wise, not like Muslims.

I have always been fascinated by the Yazidis; even going as far as to stick them into my Sage of Wales series of tales in a story called Yazidis Needed. (An expanded version of the tale appears in Gathering Dark & other tales.)

Needless to say the Totten piece is well worth reading if you are interested in the history of religion.

We Make Money Not Art is a very good blog by (mainly) the indefatigable Regine. She covers a wide range of topics, with an emphasis on contemporary, technologically-based art.

As you might expect, she, and much of the art featured, tilts politically to the left. Which doesn’t bother me—if something’s interesting, I’ll link to it. Sometimes, though, the socialist weenies get a bit overweening (the italicized sentences are quotes from some documents):

Wishing to reintroduce Chechnya to an international audience while reacting to the proliferation of international biennales, the Emergency Biennale has been conceived in a geopolitical context which has become so complex that it seemed urgent and necessary to mobilize the artists. The show is stopping from February 24 to March 12 in Riga, Latvia (after Paris, Brussels, Bolzano, and Milano). A part of the concept involved a call to the artists to create works in a double exemplary likely to fit in a suitcase for Grozny (cared by a local partner), the other one for a touring exhibition around the world. (via e-flux.)

Among the works selected is the Human Rights Memory Stick by Jota Castro: Originally, the idea of this USB memory stick was to allow an easy, discrete and rapid diffusion of confidential and censured information on Chechnya.

(However, before sending this work to Chechnya, we discovered that there was only information on Jota Castro : press releases and articles on his shows, images of his artworks as well as pictures of himself (portraits). We chose not to send it.)

The line ”. . . urgent and necessary to mobilize the artists” was funny enough; what really made this special was Jota Castro’s touching solicitude for the people of Chechnya.

Castro (no relation to Fidel, as far as I can find) was in his former life a diplomat to the UN and European Union. Somehow this does not surprise me.

the blog québécois

Via: Sir Humphrey

Why the hell aren’t we standing up for Denmark? Amen to that Hitch. Or to put it another way…viz this blog.

Update: Not to be outdone Tim Cavanaugh has produced an excellent piece as well.

Should he be Prime Minister or not?

This lot are doing word clouds of blogs to slap on T-Shirts.

Found via: Hit & Run

That would be Mohammed pictures and she plans to do it every day. These are not cartoons either but artistic depictions of Mohammed.

I came across this game a couple of weeks ago. It’s a well done Sims-style simulation of a McDonald’s franchise. I figured the lawyers would be all over it in a few days, because it isn’t sponsored by McDonald’s and uses its familiar Golden Arches trademark. Checking out the link earlier today, I thought I’d been proven right, as the page had disappeared.

It turns out, though, that they were just having server trouble. They’ve set up a temporary page for it here. If or when that closes down, the original link is here.

Update: I’ve only played it for a few minutes and I first assumed that the game was benign and neutral; browsing the site, I came across statements like:

For decades McDonalds corporation has been heavily criticized for his negative impact on society and envinronment.There are inevitably some glitches in our activity: rainforest destruction, livelhood losses in the third world, desertification, precarization of working conditions, food poisoning and so on [The designer is Italian, so his English skills are a bit off.]

And links to reviews like this:

The game requires the player to learn and master all the complex techniques of a big international corporation like McDo. You’ll bribe South American officials for the rights to clear rainforests for cattle and soy; you’ll plump up cattle with additives; you’ll coerce and influence government and scientific interests back home; and you’ll manipulate your employees to achieve the highest profits.

So who knows what kind of horrors lurk within the game? Maybe McDonald’s lawyers will find more things of interest than a simple trademark violation.

the blog québécois

Neither of which I am a part of this week. First we got Guido’s British political hack talk and second we have Shire News Network

The Bestof is up as is the cordite collection.

Oh yes Britbloggers have got their stuff together too.

Oddly named but interesting nonetheless…Ovi

There is a Bonfire to be admired. as well as a new CoV.

The hard-done-by Howard Flight has joined the Globlisation Institute. Its good to see Alex Singleton has more brains than Michael Howard MP last election.

I keep forgetting to direct you to my pieces on TCS. The latest one appears here and is on Blair. Will he have a 4th term?

I have a piece on the Danish Mohammed Cartoon fallout and how it concerns me as a writer and creative type.

Um, look what else got published and I missed telling you about! A Mac game review of Commados Battle Pack; it ended up here as well.

The latest Marty Music Meltdown is on Blogcritics.

the blog québécois

In this case it was me!

The Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon contest is start to get entries; go to Boomka.org for some amusing examples. Over 98% of the responses to the contest have been positive and supportive. Keep checking back at Boomka for more entries to the contest.

Oh and Hamas is getting into the spirit of things by show a flash movie of Israel getting nuked. Via: LGF

Those classy actors Gary Busey and Billy Zane have starred in a film that is both anti-Semitic and anti-American.

Via Kathy

And just in case you thought some were over-reacting to this weekend’s Muslim poll results; take a gander of this piece by Scott Burgess.

One is tempted to say “don’t make me laugh”, but the Gray Monk seems to have got quite passionate aboiut the fact that Mr Reed, our erstwhile Secretary of State for Dwindling Defence, has come out of the wood work to suggest that the press should be reporting the positive work of the troops rather than constantly raking up the actions of a few mavericks. Guido feels he must agree with both the Secretary and the Monk on this, it is time the troops were given much more positive coverage – after all the latest bit of scandal is more than a year old – as they are doing far more good than one would understand from the reportage of their actions suggests.

But Guido also finds sympathy with the Monk’s view that much of this negative attitude towards the military arises from the government’s own anti-military stance over many years. After all, it was these self same Minister’s who, as students, led the Peace Demonstrations and demanded unilateral disarmament chanting “better Red than dead” at demonstrations against our defence policies for decades. Obviously they are finding the fact that they are now responsible for this “mindless killing machine” and disrupter of the world’s peace as they once portrayed our armed services, that their own negative views are now so entrenched that recruiting is at an all time low and they are having difficulty in meeting the commitments they have made for miltary support in various theatres.

It seems a short sharp lesson is beginning to take effect, but it will take decades before the anti-military attitudes which have produced this state of affairs can be reveresed – even if the left-wing sympathising press and media can be persuaded to take a more positive view. Somehow, Guido fears that the Monk is right, it may already be too late!

So instead we went to this park where I smoke another cigarette while he digs another hole. I didnt time it but I think it was about 45 minutes before he finished. He was crying the whole time also and would periodically look up at me and mumble how it was all his fault. I said a couple things about how I needed to be getting back but he was oblivious, I just decided to wait it out. Finally he finishes, dumps the raccoon in and stands up, hes still crying. I light another cigarette and try not to look at him. Well? he says. I look up. SAY SOMETHING!! hes crying harder now. So I mutter something about God please guide this raccoon to your heavenly bosom etc, he begins to fill in the whole and who should show up then but two police officers.

A collection of Dates From Hell by (mainly) Chicagoans. It truly is “the toddlin’ town.”

No, I have no idea what “toddlin’” means, either.

Warning: Language, and if you’re at all like me, the danger of laughing out loud at some of them.

the blog québécois

This looks like a wonderful site for aviation and space flight nuts, although it certainly helps if you have a spare million to spend. Ah, we can all dream. Space flight might be just about affordable by the time I am due to pop my clogs.

A Jew is tortured and murdered in Paris…but its but its not a hate crime. Don’t you just love the French attitude towards Jews? Nice to see they haven’t moved on from their age-old hatred.