Dance, Monkeys, Dance!

How Many Surrealists Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb?

Wot Issa Pistolwimp?

I do know wot issa wimp, and I hearda offa de pistol. Now wotta de heck issa pistolwimp? I watched dissa movie (The Art Of Motion) but it didn't enlightensen meneme. Aw.

Why izzit I keep stumbling across these little movies and finally end up posting them here instead of picking my nose and minding my own business? What makes me think that videos like this one are actually made up? Hm. Got to meditate over it...

Job Application II.

17-year-old applies for a job at Mc D. Almost hilarious...

Ad Lad.

mightaswellclickit

In The News Today.

Vatikan thinks about allowing condoms for HIV-infected, Cardinal Javier Lozano Baragàn told Italian newspaper "La Repubblica". A couple of days ago, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini hit the headlines by stating "Everything must be done fighting Aids. In certain situations the use of condoms constitutes the lesser evil." Welcome to the real world?

1.6 billion people still without electricity. Imagine...

China and India growing explosively. Yeah, we heard that already. That's what - over one third of the world's population? Imagine (again) - every Indian and Chinese household equipped with an SUV as well as something to do the shopping with. Greenhouse on steroids. Worldbank and IWF also reflect on energy demands of so-called poor countries: those countries will be responsible for two thirds of the energy consumption increase in the next 25 years. So, WB and IWF suggest, it should be invested in conventional energy supplies oil and gas, as well as in renewable energies. Say what?!? OIL and GAS?!? What part of shortage didn't they understand? Let alone climate change. Remember - China and India are no poor countries, so they aren't even part of that scenario...

In 2005 there were 137 incidents subject to registration inside German nuclear power plants. If something "serious" happens, people are advised to stay inside, intake iodine tablets and listen to the radio. Can I listen to my iTunes instead?

Watch This.

Hey you, don't watch that - watch this! T'ain't the heavy heavy monster sound, the nuttiest sound around, but anyway: if you've come in off the street and you're beginning to feel the heat, well listen buster - you better start to move your feet. And that is exactly what is going to happen in this little video. It's not the first guy, nor the second. It's the third one... aller guten Dinge sind drei. Oh, and they also have this cute little flash animation here... and another one over here. Just make sure you don't miss it.

Now, if you're tired of watching... what about a little listen busta? (I can't believe you guys did that...)

Seeing Is Believing.

Or so they say. Travelling without moving...

Same Old New Horizon.

Cut & paste panoramic view from my infamous kitchen window.

Happy Happer.

I hope you're enjoying whatever you lot are doing these days, be it celebrating, ignoring, break-dancing or staring holes out of socks. I really do hope so. And to show you how much I care, I tell you what's on miTunes today. It's Paul Anka. Really! The album is called Rock Swings, and all tracks are cover versions of (more or less) well known rock songs. Actually, that label doesn't apply to all of them songs, but that's probably a different story. The collection sports songs like Jump, Everybody Hurts, Wonderwall, Black Hole Sun, True (Spandau Ballet), Smells Like Teen Spirit, Love Cats (The Cure), and a couple of others. All performed in a Sinatra / Las Vegas style with a swinging jazz arrangement. Simply brilliant. Some songs may take a bit (since I don't like the original - Eye of The Tiger / Hello), but the thing is that all these songs suddenly have a new dimension to them, and even if they didn't do much before suddenly sort of make sense. Good singer, cool band, great arrangements. It needs an open mind though to not switch off immediately when you hear the opening chorus of 'Jump' played by a horn section...

SUD WOTD.

Suburban dictionary word-of-the-day:

5. shizzle: Word most often abused horribly by inexperienced suburban white douche-bags who wish to give themselves some falsified counterfeit form of street-cred. Also used by the oreo cookies who stoop low enough to keep the company of these pathetic weasels.

"Say, Toby, would you like to purchase that new funky fresh cd by Ruben Stoddard?"
"Why sure, Justin, fo' shizzle my nizzle".

Links For BOFs.

As mentioned earlier, I'm trying to improve my Karma by providing links that make this world a battered place (and no, this ain't a typo*). For example:

Gallery of the absurd.
Schlafgrass.
Conan O'Brian - Indian Helpdesk.
You think you're having a bad day?
46 Things that never happen in Star Trek.
Bush's plans for Iran (couldn't resist).

*well, maybe it is.

TCSHYNG. Really.

The chilli so hot you need gloves. Everyone who knows me knows I just luuuuurve chillies (though it doesn't work the other way round...). Just so you know - I'm talking about those little red (or green) vegetables many people find too hot to handle. They're not just hot. They have a distinctive taste, but you have to get used to them to explore their potential. Usually, one would associate places like India or SE Asia with them. I had to learn, though, that the world's hottest chilli pepper does not come from a tropical spot but a small holding in deepest Dorset. Which is located in Britain... read on.

Happy Easter, You Lot! Wot? Give It All You Got.

Mousing Around.

Ain't it amazing? There's so many people out there having done all the cool things I don't need to come up with once again. I just need to post the links. And you just need to find them. HeHeHere you are.

Size Does Matter.

Minestrone (Life is a ~)

Howdy! Did my stumbling routine tonight and came across something I'd like to share with you. Just make sure you're seated properly and your environment won't mind you bursting with laughter. The aforementioned doesn't apply, though, if you're a BOF. And now, go here and rotflyao. Oh, and once you're there - check out these recommendations: The Penguin's Back, Booo! and finally, You Get What You Deserve.

White Collar Crimes.

Donald Rumsfeld with ally Saddam Hussein, 1983.
(-> The National Security Archive)

Dwight D. Eisenhower - the only five-star General to become President of the US - warned against an increasing entanglement between military and industry. In his 1961 farewell address to the nation, he regarded the increasing influence of this industrial-military complex as a major threat to the American democracy as well as world peace.

I was watching the documentary "Why We Fight" by Eugene Jerecki just the other day. This film, produced by arte TV, CBC Canada and the BBC, premiered at the 2005 Sundance film festival and was awarded the Grand Jury Price Documentary. I highly recommend it to anyone alive with a couple of brain cells still intact. The following is a transcript of parts of Chalmers Johnson's comments during the program (Ch. Johnson was working as an outside consultant to the Office of National Estimates of the CIA from 1967 to 1973). Early into the film Johnson explains the term 'Blowback': "It's a CIA term. Blowback does not mean simply the unintended consequences of foreign operations, it means the unintended consequences of foreign operations that were deliberately kept secret from the American public, so that when the retaliation comes, the American public is not able to put it in context, to put cause and effect together that they come up with questions like 'Why do they hate us?'. Our government did not want the forensic question asked 'What were their motives?' and instead chose to say "They were just evil-doers".

Later on, Johnson says: "The United States is the world's largest consumer of fossil fuels. Oil is what drives the military machine of every country as it provides the fuel for the aircrafts, for the ships, for the tanks, for the trucks. Control of oil is indispensable: when you run out of it your army stops. There is a direct connection between events that happened more than fifty years ago and the war in Iraq today. In 1953 the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadek, became extremely irritated. The British were ripping off his country's national resources and he wanted a greater share in it. The British came to the new President Eisenhower and asked for help on this. Eisenhower very conveniently declared Mossadek to be a communist and we then set the CIA to overthrow him. The result was we brought the Shah to power and he created an extremely repressive regime, that within twenty years had led to a revolution against him. The Ayatollah Khomeini creates a government that is violently anti-America. In the after action report by the CIA on what they had done in Iran in 1953 they said "We're going to get some 'blowback' from this". We then made a puppet out of Saddam Hussein in Iraq who was a friend of ours - he was an asset in the CIA's computers. We did so because he was anti Iranian, he was very fearful that the revolution in Iran would spread into his country. He therefore went to war with Iran. The war was extremely bloody, went on throughout the 1980's. Unfortunately for Saddam Hussein he began to lose the war. At that point, in comes the United States in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, sent to Saddam Hussein by President Reagan to tell him "We will supply you with intelligence, we will supply you with the weapons you may need" - this is why cynics in Washington say 'We know Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - we have the receipts!'. This is what we mean by 'blowback'. He remained a friend of ours right up to his invasion in the summer of 1990 of Kuwait. We became alarmed when he invaded Kuwait that he could also go on and invade Saudi Arabia itself, the largest reserves of oil on earth. We stationed troops in Saudi Arabia - it was a mistake in every sense of the term! Remember, Osama Bin Laden had said: 'I resent the government of Saudi Arabia for using Americans to defend Saudi Arabia against Iraq!'. We began to fear that we were going to lose our position in Saudi Arabia where the second largest source of proven reserves on earth are in Iraq. This leads us now to demonize our previous ally and to prepare the American public for the thought that we must take him out."

Links: The American Empire Project - Why we fight (stream on Google video) - BBC Storyville