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>
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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