the TBLF yesterday disowned one of its members for what it claimed was an insult to teddy bears throughout the world -- an outraged spokesbear demanded that the offending teddy be publicly flogged

the planned 104 acre US Embassy embassy in Baghdad is six times bigger than the whole UN complex in New York

(where there's muck, there's brass)

i've just come across a strangely evocative video, Robbie Dingo's "Watch The World(s).", showing the creation of a complete village in the virtual reality metaverse Second Life -- it's a village which many people will recognise -- except it's not a picture - it's a virtual reality -- or was... he did it on a temporary sim he had the loan of...

hmm.. a bit like Leonardo making a film of himself painting the Mona Lisa, throwing away the painting, and then releasing the movie

*** don't forget to have your sound on -- (there's a link to a high res version of the vid in the "About This Video" section)

<musing>
if only it had been kept and sold off in small plots, it would have been possible to buy one of the cottages and actually live there -- no doubt a nice neighbourhood, tho probably expensive, and the cottage would still need to have been furnished... i've seen classic jukeboxes for sale in some of the SL retro stores, so maybe i should look out for a virtual Seeburg Q160 -- the gardens don't look big enough for a swimming pool (so i could have put to use my recently acquired swimming animations) -- but maybe a small pond with water lilies, some circling goldfish occasionally coming to the surface, a couple of frogs splashing in and out of the water, a bit of bird song in the background, and how about a heron flying over as dawn comes up? (earlier today i spent 10p on a drinking fountain -- when switched on, it burbles away nicely enough in the background, and it doesn't run out of water... but it's not exactly a top of the range model) -- oh, to be a master builder!
</musing>

how to recognise spam (#273) -

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Subject: URGENT
From: MR THUGZY BUBBLE <mrthugzybubble@gmail.com>

This is Rev Thugzy Bubble and here interesting in buying flyers ..I will like to know if you do print flyers and if you do .... I want to Inform you that i will need the Following Type and size of the Flyers i am in need of:
<snip>
*********************************************

estimated cost to the US of the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions is $1.6 trillion

annual cost to ensure basic water supply and sanitation to all is $20 billion

but hey, this is the Viet-Rak era

IRAQI DEATH TOLL FROM OCCUPATION PASSES A MILLION

to paraphrase Josef Stalin -
"A single American death is a tragedy; a million Iraqi deaths is a statistic."

it would appear that the severity of global warming depends on me not using the central heating but putting on an extra jumper instead

the world is a kaleidoscope - we all have a different point of view

I have one question for Gordon Brown - if he had been Prime Minister in March 2003, would UK troops still have invaded Iraq?

most parents would not accept a 1 in 100 chance of being run over when crossing the road with their baby -- but they would accept a 1 in 100 chance of every man, woman and child on earth dying because of climate change

"A degenerate society is characterised by expansionism and imperialism"

(from "The Tao of Politics - Lessons of the Masters of Huainan")

the first thing that happens when US troops arrive, is the setting up of a local branch of al-Qaeda

There are good terrorists, and there are bad terrorists.
Our's are the good terrorists, and their's are the bad terrorists.
Every so often the terrorists swop sides.

waffle of the day (28th Aug 07)

"To be honest...." - David Milliband, UK Defence Secretary (BBC Radio 4)
(before talking a load of rubbish to avoid answering the question)

the USA has 16 intelligence agencies
hard to believe

UK road works to cost a thousand pounds an inch

the 51 mile M6 road widening scheme is estimated to cost twice the UK's total yearly aid budget to Africa

more roads - more cars - more pollution
good to see we've got our priorities right

"They will welcome us as liberators" - Dick Cheney

there are more English speakers in China than there are in England

"Our position is that there are two kinds of people in Iraq: not Sunni and Shia, Kurdish and Arab, Muslim and Christian, but those who are with the occupation and those who are against it."

- Abdallah Suleiman Omary (an Iraqi resistance leader)

the UK has 4.2 million CCTV cameras
this is more than the rest of Europe put together

why does the UK have the highest crime rate in Europe?

the first European country in modern times to ban smoking at work was Nazi Germany, as part of Hitler's campaign to eliminate smoking

now that the UK Government has got an opt out from the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, it can proceed with plans to bring in detention without charge and trial without jury

the really dangerous people, the ones who do the greatest harm, are often the ones who are convinced they are doing the greatest good

some say we are overdue for a major plague, but even if it killed 99.999% of us we'd still outnumber gorillas -- more positively, there'd be a sigh of relief from most of the other animals (except cats and dogs), and it really would help with global warming

how about a leaving present for soon to be ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair?
such as a one-way ticket to Iraq

the young dream of what they will do when they are older
the old dream of what they did when they were younger

JS Bach's Brandenburg Concertos were sold in 1734 for €1
they were not published until 1850 (100 years after Bach's death)
they did not achieve their current popularity until the 1930's

New Labour has created 3,000 new criminal offences since 1997

no wonder UK jails are overflowing

it's 18 years since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster and the company still hasn't paid the damages it owes

see http://www.exposeexxon.com

carbon trading? ha!

what is needed is not less people flying, but less planes flying

so why is New Labour planning to expand all the major UK airports?

Government climate control measures? ha!

just more spin from Blair

roll on Scottish independence - if the English are stupid enough to vote Blair back into office, they deserve all they get - but it's not really fair on Scotland and Wales

a UN study finds that the production of one complete computer and monitor takes 240kg of fossil fuels, 22kg of chemicals and 1,500 litres of water

(and that's before packaging and long distance distribution)

which is why each new operating system from Microsoft needs a higher spec computer

it's called planned obsolescence

a society motivated by profit is a society motivated by greed

liars, damn liars & politicians - example 37,752 - Tal Afar

March 2006 - President Bush: "a concrete example of progress in Iraq"

March 2007 - off-duty Shiite police slaughter up to 70 Sunnis in retaliatory killing spree

underlining the UK's committment to get rid of its nuclear weapons (as legally required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), £70,000,000,000 is being spent on replacing and maintaining the next generation of Trident nuclear submarines

so US goons torture this guy for 2 years, and then claim he's confessed to being a terrorist
- big deal -
torture me for 2 days and i'd confess to being bin Laden's mother

it is claimed that Exxon spent $16 million between 1998 and 2005 on 'disinformation tactics' to undermine climate change science

the UK's Health and Safety at Work Act came into force in 1974

since then 10,000 people have died at work but only 11 directors have been convicted of manslaughter

"It's not our fault" - Tony Blair (talking about the situation in Iraq)

well it's certainly not the fault of the two million people who marched thru Central London past Downing Street to Trafalgar Square in February 2003

"There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath."

- Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

about 40% of women murdered in the UK are killed by their current or former partners

96% of the the people arrested for terrorist offenses in the UK during the last 5 years have not yet been convicted

75% of the oil profits from Iraq are planned to go to foreign companies

every year 90,000 people die of infections picked up in US hospitals, and now joining in the fray is the new superbug hero -
Acinetobacter baumannii

It's not Bush and Blair's "war on terror" that worries me, so much as their war on truth

UK executive pay is increasing 17 times faster than average wage rises

trickle-down economics? sounds more like trickle-up to me

6,500,000,000 people wishing for peace on Earth
spend $1,200,000,000,000 a year on arms