gwot1 Originally uploaded ‘in the wild’ by brucesflickr.

You can always rely on Bruce Sterling to spot and photograph items of surreal interest - and this is no exception. I wonder if there’s any plans for a ’stupid draconian security measures’ expansion pack?

I figure most of you have read Accelerando by Charles Stross*. Remember Spring-Heeled Jack and his rocket boots? Stross didn’t just make them up out of thin air, you know - they were a genuine invention, a product of Cold War Russia’s military technology industry that never made it into large-scale production. Pity, that - I’d quite like a pair.

*If you’ve not read Accelerando yet, what the hell are you waiting for? It’s not like you can’t download it for free with the author’s blessing or anything …

It was, with no doubt or hyperbole, a day that changed the world. I didn’t see the television pictures, because I don’t own a television, but I was at home with the radio on that day, and remember wondering if the reports that suddenly came through were some sick version of Orson Welles’ ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast. Continue reading “September 11th remembered”

Second Life is really starting to hit the news properly now - it’s been a 1337-geek blogosphere darling for a little while, but some of the more mainstream outlets are picking it up. And as usual, they’re blowing it out of all proportion as it stands at the moment. But what about in a few decades’ time? Continue reading “A second chance at life”

PZ Myers at Pharyngula, after a succesful campaign against a certain other horrendously over-commercialised and ultimately false and silly Christian festival, has decided to go for the throat of Easter. This guy is a strict rationalist, and brooks no religious mumbo-jumbo of any type. He rather enjoys baiting the Bible bashers. And why not? Continue reading “Declaring war on Easter”

It’s a little over three years since the ‘liberation’ of Iraq began. It’s run on a trifle longer than we were told it would, hasn’t it?

Picture link liberated from BoingBoing.

At least according to a US General, that is:

“Ultimately it comes down to the free flow of goods and resources on which the prosperity of our own nation and everybody else in the world depend.”

It’s almost a relief to hear one of them say it out loud. But not really.

Link ‘liberated for democracy’ from Metafilter.

They want nukes, y’know. That’s what we keep being told, despite protestations from a nation in no position to lie, thanks to the might of the West breathing down their necks. Continue reading “Smoke and Mirrors…the real reason the US are setting Iran up for a fall”

It’s a weird world we live in, isn’t it? Continue reading “Rumsfeld wants more propaganda”

Surely not…but a post at PhysOrg.net would appear to support this ‘crazy’ idea. Continue reading “US Middle East Policy based on outdated fears?”