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The Sporadic Chronicle
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31 Jul 2005
According to some, not only were the London bombings carried out by the government to boost their support and usher in a police state, but Fathers4Justice is an integral part of that plan.
30 Jul 2005
Assorted collections and museums:
30 Jul 2005
Some sort of sales record achieved:
Michael Jackson's latest greatest hits album has sold just 8,000 copies in the US in its first week of release, reaching number 128 in the chart.
Impressive. His father, Joe, has been doing promotional work but seeing as how Joe looks like a B-movie monster I don't think that's helping much.
24 Jul 2005
I notice The Truth Seeker has a couple of new contributors - perhaps stepping into Joe Vialls' empty shoes - federal whistleblowers (and Presidential & Vice Presidential Candidates) Tom Heneghan & Stew Webb:
French Intelligence and The U.S. Marshall Service Monday night July 18, 2005 caught eight of Tony Blair's British MI-6 Agents trying to bomb the Chicago Subway system. A shoot out killed 4 British Agents. Four were captured in the act of Terrorism and arrested. The British Agents part of Bush & Blair's Al Quaida network were charged in Federal Court today with explosives. The British MI-6 Terrorist Cell Operated out of Laidlaw Corp in Chicago. ...
I'm glad I read The Truth Seeker, because I haven't seen any of this in any press report - presumably because of the Omnipresent Coverup. More under-reported news is available at Toms & Stew's web site, along with seemingly random typesetting. They continue:
Also today British Stooge MI-6 Agent Linda Fanton Pike of Iowa tied to Hillary Rodenhurst Clinton, today made death threats against a Investigative Journalist on behalf of Department of Defense agency operatives under Criminal Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Journalist was told to stay away from Tom Heneghan & Stew Webb.
Riiight. Now by this stage you might be thinking that the Bush junta can't get any worse, but it gets much more sinister:
Federal Whistleblower Tom Heneghan's tires were stolen off his car today in broad daylight, by Bush Goons.
Bush goons stole his car tyres? Is there nothing to which Bush goons will not stoop? Keep up to date with Bush goon news at their Bush goon news page. And be careful not to miss the lucid, clearly laid out, highly informative Bush Crime Family Flow Chart.
25 Jul 2005
Letter writers to today's Independent identify a key reason for the London bombings... our First Past The Post electoral system. No, really:
Perhaps the current lack of Muslim MPs indicates the answer: electoral reform. ... In the next general election, we should provide electors with a second vote for a community-based constituency of their choice, enabling directly elected MPs to provide an accountable democratic voice for ethnic minorities, and also for universities, sport, business, religions, the voluntary sector, the arts and those other communities to which large groups of electors identify strongly, but which have no voice.
...
These young men do not feel represented or listened to by the politicians in Westminster. Surely these recent events can only add further weight to your newspaper's campaign for greater electoral reform, and the introduction of a fairer system of representation?
...
There is a clear link between the need for a fairer electoral system and the recent bombing in London.
It's quite a compelling argument: our voting system is imperfect, which leaves some people with little choice but to engage in acts of random mass slaughter. Almost as compelling as the data about the lack of pirates causing global warming.
23 Jul 2005
Just catching up on yesterday's news, I'm trying to get my head around the legal concept that you can describe Roman Polanski as a convicted fugitive child molestor but it lowers his reputation to say that he had inappropriate sex with a consenting adult. That's the law, and I respect the law, so would like to make it crystal clear to any readers: Roman Polanski did have "unlawful sexual intercourse" with a 13 year old girl in 1977, but he most assuredly did not attempt to seduce anyone around the time of his wife's funeral. It's an amazing thing, law.
22 Jul 2005
It's amazing what you can see at Google Maps:
21 Jul 2005
After being taken ill shortly after the London bombings a couple of weeks ago, conspiracy moonbat extraordinaire Joe Vialls died a few days ago. Just before today's attempted London bombings, in fact. If you listen carefully you might almost be able to hear Joe's ghost pointing out how convenient this "coincidence" is for Ariel Sharon, or something. Fellow moonbat John Kaminski writes the obituary:
Joe Vialls may well turn out to be the most important writer who has yet written on the Internet. Thanks to his astonishing intelligence connections and the depth of his knowledge about the worldwide Zionist menace, Joe was able to incisively analyze and predict the likely course of world affairs in these troubled times to a startling degree that both terrified corrupt government officials and shocked compromised journalists all over the world. ... I salute you, Joe. Thank you for your guidance. I hope some of us can live up to the standards you set, because most surely can't.
Ahh, bless.
20 Jul 2005
The Russian government's come over all nostalgic for things Soviet, with a 5 year plan called the State Programme for the Patriotic Education of Citizens. Meanwhile, Germans yearning for the sweet days of collectively-owned traffic fumes are well-served:
Those with fond memories of East Germany are being offered a new product designed to give them a whiff of the defunct communist state. They can buy online canned exhaust fumes from the cult Trabant car.
Go, capitalism!
19 Jul 2005
Odd Books has some truly odd books, including some very odd ones indeed. Odd books are still being churned out at quite a rate, as a quick visit to the slightly disturbing Northern Voice Book Store shows. After finding out the horrid truth about NutraSweet and mind control, and anti-gravity craft from the 1920s to today the Northern Voice customer can learn about everything from that ungodly music to how to attract women. Then, if the real world still proves too much for them, they can go and hide in a cupboard.
19 Jul 2005
Have you ever wanted the power to predict the future and alter reality by pure mental power? Well now you can, thanks to the "scientifically proven mind technologies" (ahem) taught by the Academy of Remote Viewing and Influencing through Time and Space:
You will soon be walking around in a permanent state of increased bilateral Theta or Delta brain waves alike a Zen or Yoga Master...
Warning: Please do not listen to the courses while driving a motor vehicle or operating any machinery. Due to the power of our training methodology to suddenly shift your level of mind, expect to loose conscious awareness, at the beginning, as you listen to the recordings. This is a definite sign of the efficacy of our training protocols ...
For a mere $524 (plus shipping and handling) you can buy the entire set of luridly illustrated course materials and rewire your brain. Don't take their word for it - read the indisputably honest and reliable student testimonials.

They don't just do training. The company's dynamic founder and the rest of the team are available for consultancy work at negotiable hourly rates. Note that psychic fraud investigator Jacqueline Rockfelt managed to locate a turtle which was lost on a multi-thousand acre ranch.

Best disclaimer ever:
It is only when one has completed the training that one learns to fine tune its level of awareness towards the fine line between conscious awareness and deep merging with the highly vibratory ecstatic brilliance of the higher mind.
Riiiight.
15 Jul 2005
Via Crypto-Gram: MD5 is now hopelessly broken, with different documents with meaningful contents being produced which have the same MD5 sum. SHA1 not far behind? Disconcerting.

Don't worry if that meant nothing to you - it's a techy thing.
15 Jul 2005
Display technologies that make you go "oooh"...
15 Jul 2005
Ooooh, scary: Joe Vialls has been taken suddenly ill with total adrenal exhaustion:
Coming shortly before the recent bombings in London, we cannot help but feel more than a little suspicious that the one man, who could have shed further light on the mystery surrounding these events, should be so suddenly incapacitated.
Was his incapacity the result of an attempt to shut him up? We cannot say for certain but we have our suspicions.
Surely his incapacity is the result of zionist alpha rays poisoning his adrenal glands!
13 Jul 2005
Via Smuffler's World, some beautiful and quite surreal photos from near a Russian space launch facility where the locals scavenge fallen boosters for scrap metal.
We've got... incoming! You get the lorry, I'll make sure nobody runs off with it. Discarded booster stages: 100% recyclable
12 Jul 2005
Tariq Ali is of course being wheeled out to spout wisdom about the London bombings. 18 months ago he wrote in the Guardian about the merits of bombing over British and American political opposition parties:
Meanwhile, Iraqis have one thing of which they can be proud and of which British and US citizens should be envious: an opposition.
I can only suppose Tariq must be cock-a-hoop with joy now we've had over 50 people blasted to death. This means Britain's got a proper opposition at last.
12 Jul 2005
Feel compelled to do an update on London bombing conspiracy prattlings.
"Tony Blair Ordered the London Bombings", says one Michael James in Frankfurt, as he presents no evidence of any kind but does write in a stilted fashion about people glancing at their watches and out of windows.
The reliably illucid Henry Makow Ph.D goes on about... I don't know exactly, but he mentions the Rothschilds, Israelis, freemasons and cites the repellant David Irving as a source.
A numerological analysis mentions "globalist lizards" and reminds anyone who might have forgotten that "God assigns the Number `11' to Antichrist in Daniel 7:7-8. How does this relate to London? The date of course was 7/7. Also the year is 2005, 7/7/2005: 7/7/2+0+0+5: 7/7/7 = 777. Also the number the Bible gives the beast from the pit is 666. If you add: 666+111=777. All of this fits far too neatly into their satanic number code. If you recall it was flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon... Of course the objective here is to ramp up the wildly unpopular waste of lives and money called the 'War Against Terror'". Riiiight.
And I haven't even looked at Indymedia today.
12 Jul 2005
Letter rattled off to Peter Horrocks, Head of TV Current Affairs at the BBC:
Dear Mr Horrocks,
Are there any immediate plans to repeat the 'Power Of Nightmares' series about how the terrorist threat we are told we face is in reality greatly exaggerated and largely mythical? And when will the feature film version, which so recently screened at Cannes, be broadcast? I am keen to know.
Really, I am keen to know.
[Update: a reply]
12 Jul 2005
Keep up to date with those those pesky aliens at UFO experiences. Recent news includes: More on that Prophet Yahweh chap, including this summary of key events:
Vietnam was started by President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was a proud member of the Merovingian bloodline, being descended from the Stewarts of Great Britain. Kennedy was a willing member of THE ILLUMINATI CONSPIRACY as are all members of the Merovingian bloodline ...
At about the same time [as John McCain was being brainwahed into paving the way for a Second Great Depression], a young man named Bill Clinton was roaming Europe as a Rhode Scholar. While on his way to what he thought was a sexual liason in Amsterdam he was seized by Chinese agents operating in the Netherlands with the assistance of the KGB. ...
Ah yes. Suddenly it all makes sense.

And you may be wondering what on earth is going on at Denver International Airport. Wonder no more:
The Queen of England has reportedly been buying up property in Colorado under a proxy. ... Another Mural depicts a green giant "Darth Vader" like figure wearing a gas mask destroying a city ... The LUFTWAFFE has long had an EXTENSIVE base in New Mexico complete with towns where all signs are in GERMAN ...
Hmmm.
07 Jul 2005
Meanwhile, in North Korea, the great leader Kim Jong Il is a genius of arts.
The great leader Kim Jong Il is a genius of arts and it was a great honor and pride for the company to be highly appreciated by him, said Elena Scherbakova, director of the State Academic Moiseyev Dance Company of Russia...
Creep. I bet she's just rushed out to get the 59th volume of Kim Il Sung's Complete Works, too.
07 Jul 2005
Cospiracy loons such as the inpatients at The Truth Seeker are of course making hay with today's bomb attacks in London:
The near simultaneous explosions that rocked London today look more like the handiwork of the Zionist, British intelligence services ... Even the IRA never managed to execute such a complex terrorist attack on British soil.
And this piece is popping up like an unwelcome fungus:
The similarities with the Madrid bombing of 3/11/04, which we have persistently highlighted as an inside intelligence operation, are stark ...
Oh just fuck off back into your padded cells, you little retards.
07 Jul 2005
Lindsay's passed along those music questions to me.
  1. Total volume of music files on my computer: 4 Gigabytes.
  2. Last CD I bought: 'Hound Dog' - Elvis Presley live at the Louisiana Hayride in 1955.
  3. Song Playing Right Now: 'Heartbreak Hotel'.
  4. Five Songs (or Albums) I listen to a lot or that move me:
    • 'Like Swimming' - Morphine.
    • 'Fragments of Freedom' - Morcheeba.
    • 'Ma Vlast' - Smetna.
    • 'Gospel Favourites' - Elvis Presley (very cheesey but sounds great).
    • 'Automatic for the People' - REM.
  5. Tag three others:

04 Jul 2005
The Labour government and its members continue a post-election slide towards cartoonish absurdity. Vexed by low voter turnout? Concerned that people aren't interested in politics? Force people to vote!
Compulsory voting should be introduced to "breathe new life" into the political process in Britain, the leader of the House of Commons said today. ... Penalties for not voting would be enforced in the same way as seat belt legislation, where only a few cases a year would need to be brought to ensure everyone participated. Alternatively, those who voted could receive a discount on their council tax bills, he said.
It's an obvious connection when you think about it. Exercise your vote... receive a discount on the money you pay the council to empty the bins and fund the police. But of course if the council gives loads of people refunds the council will run out of money. This means they will have to either set council tax artificially high so they can refund voters, or claw the money out of people somehow when the coffers run empty after giving voters their delicious refunds.
Mr Hoon said British people could expect a "modest fine" for failing to vote...
Mr Hinkley says that Mr Hoon should expect a "modest punch on the nose" for proposing such a scheme.
Mr Hoon also wants to move towards electronic voting, including by text messaging.
Arghhhh. And this guy spent five and a half years as Secretary of State for Defence? I dread to think what state the forces are in after suffering his enlightened administration.
03 Jul 2005
Oh. My. God. Somewhere in the rarefied heights of government and quangoland there are thoughts of introducing rationing to crack down on energy consumption.
The British government is considering issuing each citizen a "personal carbon allowance," or a form of energy rationing, within a decade.
Of course, they call it an "allowance" instead of a "ration". Give praise: the government would allow you to fill your fuel tank or heat your home. How generous of them.
The energy card would have points deducted every time non-renewable energy was purchased, whether at the gasoline station or buying airline tickets. High energy users would have to purchase points from low users, or from a central "carbon bank."
Government 1940s retro chic reaches new heights Mr Blair announces new cabinet
So high users of energy would have to pay more than low users - thereby rewarding people for using less energy. Oddly enough, the existing market achieves this without any need for the whole ghastly mass of administration and intrusive enforcement which rationing would need. Imagine the joy of having to present your ration book Citizen's Energy Allowance Card when you buy petrol or a bottle of camping gas, and the gas company and electricity company having to tell the Ministry Of Rationing Energy Entitlement Agency how much fuel you've used at home. And of course there'd have to be a new parasite army of pissant jobsworth inspectors and "compliance officers" making sure people aren't cheating on their quota or committing the heinous crime of engaging in an unregulated fuel transaction.
A government spokesman said plans were at the earliest stage of consideration. Environment minister Elliot Morley told the Daily Telegraph the government could "think the unthinkable".
I still don't like that. Stupid ideas at the "earliest stages of consideration" or which are "only one option being put out to consultation" have a horrible tendency to be taken seriously.

Now hang on a moment... ID cards, rationing... it's like the 1940s all over again. With luck I can profit from this new government retro fashion by cornering the local black market in nylons, chocolate and petrol.
02 Jul 2005
Via the somewhat strange weblog all about Uri Gellar: the deeply strange Uri Gellar Design Company.
Based on his experience of celebrity and successful business over the years.
Uri Geller designed Michael Jackson's inside cover of his new CD, Belinda Carlisle's smash hit album and T-shirts...
Clients include Roger Moore. I wonder whether the fawning and slightly creepy "ask Sir Roger" section is Uri's invention.
30 Jun 2005
What a peculiar picture. I assume it made more sense in context.
30 Jun 2005
Didn't Douglas Adams warn us about this sort of thing?
30 Jun 2005
Tony Blair to be interviewed by Destiny's Child at the G8. Satirists worldwide must be giving up in despair, realising they can't hope to compete with real life.
29 Jun 2005
Following a senior policeman's call for a knife register and controls on knife sales, the Scottish Executive is aiming to legislate against the joint menace of sharp pointy things and long blunt heavy things via new baton and knife control laws.
Proposals to introduce a licensing scheme for the sale of non-domestic knives and banning the sale of swords were announced today. In a related move, an order was laid before the Scottish Parliament adding knives and batons to the list of banned offensive weapons. [...]

Under the proposed scheme, licensed sellers would need to record the purchaser's name, address and age. [...]

This will make it an offence to manufacture, import, sell or hire stealth knives and batons. [...]
And to think people get paid to come up with this sort of thing.
26 Jun 2005
No, this cannot be. Richard Whiteley can't die... he's a national treasure.
26 Jun 2005
There are many great drawings and paintings and doodlings among Chad Mount's stuff.
People Great robots Wierd colourful creatures All lif is there
He does really good robots. And bunnies.
23 Jun 2005
BadMovies.net is devoted to, erm, bad movies.
Pulp of the day, meanwhile, concerns itself with science fiction, detective, horror and other lowbrow literature of decades past.
Green guy with a sword Brain in a jar The Maltese Falcon Into Plutonium Depths The horror! 'Lady, mind that corpse' Detective tales

23 Jun 2005
This open letter to the Kansas School Board is a work of genius.
But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. ... I'm sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory.
And the pirate evidence is quite compelling. These disclaimer stickers are good as well, though they cannot compete with His Noodly Appendage.
23 Jun 2005
Don't American legislators have better things to do with their time than try to trot out foolish and ultimately doomed constitutional amendments?
21 Jun 2005
Via Bruce Schneier: "King, who in civilian life is the Doraville police chief, rolled his eyes at the FAA regulation that requires soldiers — all of whom were armed with an arsenal of assault rifles, shotguns and pistols — to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters. ..."
20 Jun 2005
New for summer, the amazing and splendid summary page of all posts.
20 Jun 2005
Oh how I love a silly story. The British Potato Council (which insists it is not useless and no lesser figure than Food and Farming Minister Larry Whitty says "needs to build on and develop the valuable work it has undertaken since its inception in 1997") is launching a baffling and Pythonesque campaign to erase "couch potato" from the language. It's a slur on the spud to connect it with unhealthiness and inactivity, or something.

Of course the British Potato Council has done its bit to combat unhealthy diet, sloth and excessive TV-watching - notably with last year's National Chip Week during which it gave away "free portions of chips and the opportunity to win TV DVD home entertainment systems".
16 Jun 2005
Let me apologise for neglecting the Gallery Of Fools for so long. But I have been spurred into updating it by not one but two people e-mailing me asking to be included. The only other time that's happened it all went a bit awry.

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a great big welcome to the multi-talented Rex Curry; a man so keen to be included that he pointed out to me I was "too intellectually dishonest to address this topic" when I said I didn't think his work qualified for inclusion.
16 Jun 2005
Oh look, a canoeist sliding down a dam spillway. That's not something you see every day.
16 Jun 2005
Crime news roundup:
14 Jun 2005
Woo-hoo, A L Kennedy's back in the Guardian. Her theme today seems to be that journalists were much better when she was a lass, that nice George Galloway really showed 'em up, Paxman's a brute, Bush is evil, Guantanamo, stolen elections, depleted uranium etc etc. On George Galloway:
Another Scottish firebrand, James Maxton, once lost his parliamentary privileges for calling Winston Churchill "a murderer".
Indeed he did, while displaying an innovative sense of proportion:
[Maxton's] forthright views often caused controversy, indeed his parliamentary priviledges were withdrawn on one occasion when he called Winston Churchill "a murderer". This, following the government decision to withdraw school milk.
Riiiight. Brave man speaking truth to power, that Maxton chap. I can see why Ms Kennedy admires him so. After complaining that journalists seem more interested in 'Celebrity Love Island' than telling us again that Bush stole the election again she suddenly goes easy on them:
Not that I blame journalists for being cautious - 28 were killed this year already, 53 in 2004. During our occupation of Iraq, where journalists may or may not be specifically targeted by US troops, 63 journalists have been killed so far.
I am quite impressed by the use of "journalists may or may not be specifically targeted by US troops" to mean "I have no evidence for this, and challenges to produce such evidence have been side-stepped, but I'll say it anyway". Let's see how easy it is to use this technique... A L Kennedy, who may or may not have written this article while snorting cocaine off her keyboard, may or may not entertain herself by boiling kittens to death. Wow, it's not just easy but fun, too!
14 Jun 2005
Early morning cat update.
Meg*: 1. Local wildlife: 0.
Victor and vanquished. The mighty hunter. Life at the business end of the food chain.
* The cat formerly known as 'Angel'.
13 Jun 2005
Ah, the Entente Cordiale, isn't it great? Predicted next steps: France's European affairs minister said:
"The reduction of this rebate and then its progressive disappearance is a necessity. The British have a point of view, but it is one thing to express a point of view. Everyone has that right. It is a completely different thing to justify it. The British position on the rebate defies EU logic and undermines EU solidarity."
EU logic - that's always the best sort of logic.
11 Jun 2005
MedievalArmour.co.uk: for all your medieval armour needs.
10 Jun 2005
I e-mailed Andrew Buncombe about the "rising tide of zealotry" article, and knock me down if he didn't reply:
Mr Hinkley, thanks for yr email. I think I am correct in saying that I had already seen yr comments on yr very fine website?
Flattery will get you everywhere with me. I'm a sucker for it.
I will accept whatever point you make about the 40 per cent and take an important lesson from it: I used the statistics about the report as reported by either reuters or the associated press and used the hour or so that I had to write my story to speak with some sociologists, religious studies professors, etc to try and get some perspective. Apologies if the figure is wrong. As a general rule I go to the raw material myself (9/11 report, etc) and plough through it.
Fair enough - I may well have accepted such a basic statement about the survey's findings as well. I only looked up the results first hand because I wondered if there was maybe some subtlety in the respondents' answers, like perhaps being graded from "agree strongly" via "agree slightly" to "disagree strongly" instead of a simple "yes/no". Today's lesson is the prime importance of source material.
As regards the headline, you are utterly correct. There is no mention of "rising zealotry" in my piece because from what I could see it is not true. What does this tell you? In this case it tells you that people who write stories that appear in the newspaper are not the same people who write the headlines. We reporters often complain about misleading headlines put on stories but in this case it was utterly wrong.
I sense that Andrew is not best pleased by the headline-writer's efforts in this case. I know headlines are typically written by someone who hasn't written the article, but you'd think they'd bother to at least read the thing. With luck, the young scamp responsible's been given a good slap and demoted to making the coffee.
As I said, apologies for anything that was my fault. Keep up the good work with yr website.
I shall try.

What a very nice man.
09 Jun 2005
Assorted crankery:
09 Jun 2005
Attach mind control apparatus to left ear... For just $150 (plus shipping and taxes) you can stick one in the eye of big business and governments by ordering the full set of CDs of the inventions they want to suppress:
Many of these are inventions that have been suppressed by Big Business and Governments. They want to keep these Technologies secret because if they were made widely available it could threaten their power and control over the rest of us. It is a war that we are fighting, an Information war against those who would suppress the truth of these amazing devices from the public. Now you can have access to this amazing information and learn the truth for yourself!
It doesn't explain why, if they wanted to suppress the technologies, they let people patent them in the first place. It's probably all a part of the Illuminati plan somehow.
09 Jun 2005
The other week a group of doctors called for a ban on long pointy knives. Now a senior policeman in Scotland says that to make sure someone buying a kitchen knife won't go on a crazed killing spree with it they should produce identification, be put on a register and then wait a few days while the knife is posted to them:
"All we're suggesting is that if you go in to buy a knife, that we ask for an address and identification, and I would suggest further that we would then post the knife to you. That seems to me reasonable."
You couldn't make this stuff up. Quite apart from the intrusive bureaucratic mayhem produced, what possible purpose would a Knife Register serve? Imagine someone's stabbed and the police deduce the wound was caused by, say, an 8" carving knife. They consult the National Knife Register and discover that almost the entire population owns or has access to an 8" carving knife. Wow, that Knife Register really narrows the list of suspects.
[Update: Lawmakers respond]
09 Jun 2005
North Korea to build more nuclear bombs while letting the masses starve. In an attempt to boost food production, Indonesian diplomats are being deployed to weed maize fields.
07 Jun 2005
"In God we Trust: America's rising religious zealotry" runs the headline of a report by Andrew Buncombe in today's Independent on a poll about how people view religion in their lives. Cited as one of three "snapshots of religious zeal" is religion's creepy intrusion into the US justice system:
Alabama's most senior judge was dismissed for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from his court...
The removal of the judge and a religious text from the court somehow demonstrates "religious zeal in the US"? Surely it is a demonstration of personal faith meeting with official hostility. My confidence in the writers's grasp on the material being reported is dealt a blow later in the report:
Despite the separation of church and state being enshrined in the US constitution, more than 40 per cent of US citizens said religious leaders should use their influence to try to sway policy-makers. ...
No they didn't, Mr Buncombe. When asked the question "Do you think religious leaders should or should not try to influence government decisions?" 37% (which last time I checked is less than 40%) of Americans replied "should", 61% "should not" and 2% didn't know.
But unlike in the US, Mexicans were strongly opposed to the clergy being involved in politics
Quite rightly, 77% of Mexicans objecting to religious leaders trying to influence the government is described as Mexicans being "strongly opposed" to the concept. Then Americans (61% of whom are opposed) should be described as "mostly opposed".

Mysteriously lacking from Mr Buncombe's report, despite the headline mentioning rising religious zealotry is any evidence of an actual rise. Or a fall. In fact there's no mention at all of how religious feeling in any of the surveyed countries has changed over time. But it's in the Independent, so I assume it must be true. [Update, 10 Jun: correspondence with Andrew Buncombe.]
06 Jun 2005
The US Food and Drug Administration's gallery of patent medicines includes genuine snake oil, Doctor Bonker's Egyptian Oil, more snake oil, Mixer's Cancer and Scrofula Syrup (also cures piles), and Harper's Brain Food.
06 Jun 2005
Agh, this might be the most nonsensical cost-saving move ever: cutting pilots' training flights by 60%. Insane, reckless, short-sighted, counterproductive... I lack sufficiently scornful words. Others a tad better qualified than me aren't impressed either.

In a different vein, but similarly unimpressive, some people deserve to go to jail for a long time.
04 Jun 2005
Quick, everybody dash to the bookshop and snap up the works of France's new improved (and wholly unelected) Prime Minister! If "Fire Stealers' Eulogy" and "The Gargoyle's Cry" can't knock Harry bloody Potter off the bestseller list I don't know what can.
04 Jun 2005
Oh this is amazing: "The Weirdest Book I Ever Got", featuring dinosaurs attacking Noah's ark in a creationist comic book graphic novel.
(Via Lindsay).
02 Jun 2005
Guaranteed to break the ice at parties At last an end to social awkwardness, with the guide to How To Perform Strong Man Stunts:
Strength is the biggest hallmark of manhood. It demonstrates true he-man masculinity.
Ah yes, I've often said the same thing.
The following are a series of the most popular strong man stunts. Most of them can be performed at the parlor party, using your friends as weights.
How convenient!
Use your badly drawn friends as weights Bowing for beginners
Of course my William Shatner fighting skills render such showy acts practically redundant.
02 Jun 2005
Helicopter lands on summit of Everest. Well done, Didier.
01 Jun 2005
Yay! First the French, now the Dutch:
Voters in the Netherlands have overwhelmingly rejected the proposed European Union constitution. Exit polls suggest 63% voted "No" in the referendum. ... Turnout is reported to have been as high as 62%, more than the double the level politicians said was needed for the vote to be accepted as the public's verdict on the treaty. ...
Oh, you beauties. Of course, by breakfast time tomorrow we'll be told how the Dutch were really expressing discontent with purely domestic issues and their decision wasn't really about European integration at all.
31 May 2005
The Nome Nugget: Alaska's oldest newspaper. Nome also has webcams looking towards the sea and onto Front Street. Tom has much more, including a lot of photos of walls, which I really quite like for some reason.
31 May 2005
I've been off in the Lake District for a few days - hence the lack of posts. When I've been out of touch for a while I always like to catch up with life via the invaluable North Korean Central News Agency:
25 May 2005
Amazingly, a study has shown that the children of psychopathic parents are likely be worse behaved than the children of non-psychopathic parents.
22 May 2005
The Complete Sherlock Holmes stories, including illustrations by Sidney Paget and others:
I had let myself go, and was hanging by the hands to the sill, when his blow fell... Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with his cane at the bell-pull... Holmes’s hunting crop came down on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor...
(Via Exclamation Mark, who found it at The Crime In Your Coffee.)
22 May 2005
Woman's runny nose turns out to be leaking brain fluid.
19 May 2005
Medical science in North Korea continues to leap forwards, as the North Korean Central News Agency reports:
A blood-purifying finger ring is attracting great interests of visitors at the ongoing 8th Pyongyang International Commodity Fair. The patented ring has been put on show by the Samhung Koast Joint Venture Company of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea... It is made with the application of the bio-physical action of sun-rays or light of incandescent electric lamp passing through a specially processed natural jewel...
It's quack-tastic. Sounds to me like they've blatantly stolen this guy's research.
18 May 2005
No, Mark, that's not research. This is research:
The most disturbing story to emerge from the survey concerned a woman who used her brother's electric toothbrush to clean her exposed belly button, causing him to develop a fungal infection in his mouth.
Nobody ever said unlocking nature's mysteries was painless.
16 May 2005
We're doomed: celebrities are full of poison. Clearly, some kind of ban on celebrities in public places is needed to protect us from these people. Of course it's junk, relying on the fact that modern chemistry can detect things in vanishingly small concentrations and then having a bunch of B-list types say how concerned they are that their bodies contain scary chemicals. Crucially they don't tell us how contaminated the tested people were, except for Sarah Beeney's 3226 nanograms of a DDT breakdown product per gram of fat. And is this level (3.2 millionths of a gram per gram of fat) remotely dangerous to her health? They don't say but I suspect it isn't. If it were dangerous they'd hardly be slow to say so.

Fiona Phillips "contained 26 man made chemicals", though whether any of them might be connected to her having smoked from the age of 11 until a few years ago is not revealed. I'm just saying it might be a factor.

David Baddiel spends his time "sitting on the sofa, watching TV and eating huge amounts of junk food" but is worried by the damage an unspecified concentration of scary-sounding chemicals are doing to his health. Hey sofa boy - get some exercise and eat more fruit.

And Sam Roddick, daughter of Body Shop's Anita: ha! Have you seen the ingredients list on Body Shop stuff? Oh yes, the big label on the front says "organic fluffy natural plant extract natural organic essence of natural purity stuff" but the small print list of contents reads like ICI's catalogue.
16 May 2005
Over at Club Conspiracy, they've been talking about how "The Earth is NOT Moving!" because "if you go up in a helicopter in New York and hover for 4 hours" then, amazingly, you're still in New York. QED.
If Copernicanism can be proven wrong, that the universe is geocentric or geostatic and not heliocentric then Darwinism will fall, then Marxism will fall and then Freudism will fall. All Satans lies will fall like dominoes one afer the other.
Or, as poster 'nohope187' sums it up:
Okay, everyone, gather around for the simple answer. When you see the sun RISE or SET, that's exactly what it's doing or do ya'll not believe what you see with your own eyes?
Now with that kind of reasoning, you must come to the conclusion that saying,"the earth revolves around the sun" is like saying,"2+2=5". end of case.
Oh deary me. The renaissance just passed some people right by.
14 May 2005
For just $8.95 plus shipping you can be the proud owner of an item which fuses political protest with novelty tat gadgetry like they've never been fused before.
14 May 2005
The cats were let outside today for the first time since they arrived.
Cat on a warm shed roof.
That concludes this cat bulletin.
12 May 2005
Alan Johnson of Labour Friends of Iraq in today's Guardian letters:
Phil Lenton says Britain is "no model" for Iraq. Well, we don't have mass graves or genocide. Videos of our tortured children aren't left at our front door. And we can laugh at our leaders without fear and are free to write idiotic letters to the Guardian.
Hear hear.
11 May 2005
India Daily has a Sci/Tech section with the most amazing articles, such as: A certain "reverse engineered from Extraterrestrial UFOs" theme emerges. Sadly, all the articles are penned by an anonymous staff reporter, no doubt depriving someone of a well-deserved Pulitzer.
11 May 2005
A L Kennedy, fresh from demanding coherent debate and concentration on the facts, flails off into the deep end of September 11 conspiracy theories in today's Guardian about how it was a covert op by the Bush junta, or something. Her research is up to its usual standard:
It would, of course, be easier to know what happened to Flight 93 if there weren't - according to educated estimates - three minutes of the cockpit recording missing. ...
Alas she does not tell us whose "educated estimates" show three minutes of missing voice recording from Flight 93. But let us assume for a moment she did her research on the web. At time of writing the top result for a google on "flight 93" "3 minutes" recording is this educated page ("United Airlines reported that Flight 93 Landed In Cleveland!") from 9/11 Review, which also features much (ahem) educated (ahem) commentary about how the Twin Towers were really demolished by hidden explosives rather than any crashing airliners, how no Boeing hit the Pentagon and the shocking revelation that the airliners were fitted with remote control aerials and video of the attacks is faked.

Scott has more.

Two questions occur to me:
  1. Is Ms Kennedy getting the psychiatric care she so clearly needs?
  2. Why does a national newspaper publish this kind of stuff?

07 May 2005
Revolutionaries still living in a past age, be sure to mark your diaries:
Spartacist League Dayschool to be held on May 21, 2005 at 12 noon at the Royal National Hotel ... For new October Revolutions! The ICL's fight against capitalist counterrevolution ...
It should be a hoot, to judge by their articles which seem to have fallen through a time vortex from 1918, with titles like "Down With U.S./Japan Counterrevolutionary Alliance!", "Communist Policy in Bourgeois Elections", "Defeat Imperialist Drive for Counterrevolution!" and "For a Leninist Party in Greece! For a Socialist Federation of the Balkans!".
07 May 2005
Up in my folks' neck of the woods, this guy was standing from the Imperial Party (also known as the "Make Kilroy-Silk Look Moderate And Sensible Party").

Note the use of tasteful yellow-on-purple colour scheme (shamelessly stolen from UKIP).

Quality health policy:
"We will reverse the governments obsession with junk food and margerine and revert back to butter"
Ah yes, which of us can say the government's obsession with margarine hasn't annoyed us?
07 May 2005
Overheard in New York...
Dumb teen: Hey, look at this! It says "Train for jobs in beeyotch."
Smarter teen: Fool! That word is biotech. Why you gotta be ignorant all your life?
And
Yuppie: I don't think he's working now. All he ever talks about is monkeys and robots.

06 May 2005
The Kansas state school board has begun four days of hearings into whether to make everyone think its citizens are even more like ignorant yokels than they currently do.
06 May 2005
That's me in the letters page, writing in response to a letter here, which in turn was a response to a letter here.
06 May 2005
Oh, bugger - of all the crap news to wake to... agh. Now he's going to be even more insufferable. Arse.

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to have my breakfast and a seizure.

Oh, a change in my neck of the woods.
05 May 2005
As politician vs politician plays out in the nation's polling booths it's kitten vs kitten on the web.
04 May 2005
While "The Curious Case Of Napoleon's Trousers" may sound like the title of a Sherlock Holmes story, the truth is almost as intriguing.
04 May 2005
There's stiff competition for the prestigious Silliest Use Of Fingerprint Technology Award. Should it go to the fingerprint-recognising washing machine ("It's an invention that has a philosophy behind it"), or to the school which has installed thumb-scanners (a bargain at just £50,000) to bill children for school meals?
03 May 2005
Cat update: Felix came out of hiding on Sunday morning and seems quite happy. They both clonk their heads when walking under the bed.
03 May 2005
Yesterday's earth-shaking developments suddenly seem pale, as the Lib Dems deploy a truly epoch-making celebrity endorsement.
02 May 2005
Drop everything, hold the newspaper front pages, this news of monumental electoral importance is just breaking: Yawn.
02 May 2005
Any news article which the powers-that-be don't want you to read must have some merit.
01 May 2005
I'm trying to think of the last time I saw anything quite so inaccurate and straightforwardly patronising as the Lib-Dem election broadcast (which will probably be up here soon enough) this evening, featuring Tony Blair and Michael Howard as little boys scaring everyone by crying wolf and then the wolf turned out not to exist (at which point, just in case you hadn't got the message, the Blair child is driven away in a limo with the number plate "WMD 0").

In the Lib-Dem version of Little Red Riding Hood no doubt Charles Kennedy jumps out of the cupboard as the woodcutter enters the house to chop of the wolf's head and gives him a smug lecture about how the case for wolf-decapitation hasn't been made, the child the wolf's about to eat is really none of our business, killing the wolf could destabilise the entire forest, the wood-cutter has no business wandering into people's homes like this and doesn't he realise that carrying a bladed instrument in such an aggressive manner is utterly illegal?
01 May 2005
Assorted camera output to add some colour:
A tree in snow, the Cairngorms. Warning sign - man sinking.
Penguins. Hawker Cygnet.

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