AARDVARK

Every Friday night I'm DJing at an 80s & 90s retro night at a pub in Lichfield called The Crown (used to be called The Hogshead). The night is called Friday Says RELAX (see what they did there?). It's been...

2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. Schmidt Pain Index (Retrospectacle, via TMN)

Maggie Estep, “Hey Baby” (YouTube) Find Maggie here.

1866: Erik Satie is born 1935: Dennis Potter is born [singing detective] 1954: The US Supreme Court unanimously rules for school integration in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; the ruling declares that racially segregated schools are inherently unequal 1978: Charlie Chaplin’s stolen body is found

Did the budget do enough to help NZ's burgeoning hi-tech startups and existing players in what is becoming a key export earning sector of our economy?

I'm a bit of a Site Statistics junkie. At times I've had up to 5 site counters running on this site. SiteMeter is a given. It's free, it's easy and it's reliable - it's been running consistently for as long...

Dead Kennedys, “Moral Majority” (YouTube) Or, if you prefer, see the live studio version. “What is this, take three?”

Man accidentally shoots himself without a gun

Interactive bunny surgery (via richK) My bunny died on the table. So sad. If you prefer your imaginary medical interactions with stuffed animals to be less surgical, try this game in which you must psychoanalyse four of them. (Warning: time sink!)

East Prawle, population 200, has never had network coverage and the nearest mobile phone mast is 2.5 miles north of the village at Scoble Point near South Pool. It was a holiday maker who eventually discovered that if you stood on the bench and faced west you could make a call. Soon afterwards, queues began [...]

1868: The US Senate fails by just one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” as he was charged under the articles of impeachment 1912: Studs Terkel is born 1990: In an attempt to reassure the British public that beef is safe to eat, Minister of Agriculture John Gummer invites newspapers and camera [...]

Absolutely ages ago, I signed up to the FeedBurner service for my RSS feed. But I've done bugger all with it since. Somehow, other than my own subscription through Bloglines (just to check it's working - obviously), there's another subscriber....

During the raids last week, agents recovered 130 homemade hand grenades, a grenade launcher, about 70 hand grenades rigged to be fired from a rifle, a machine gun, a short-barrel shotgun and 2,500 rounds of ammunition, authorities said. Scary! Will the jihadists stop at nothing? Agent: Men planned to attack Mexicans (Huntsville Times, via Narciblog) Oh, that’s different. [...]

The Islamic State of Iraq has just released a brief statement responding to the Reform and Jihad Front. The statement has an unusually defensive tone. How could we kill Muslims or mujahideen, it asks almost plaintively, when these are our...

A Gasmask Becomes the Most Terrifying Showerhead Ever (Gizmodo) It’s not nearly as scary as the happyface clown. Thanks, Kevin!

The newest addition to the Blogging Blokes webring is Sensei Katana. Go check it out....

My goods friends Barry & Rich at Gifted Video Productions produce, amongst other things, short video adverts that can be used for advertising programmes such as Google's Adwords. This is an advert they've just created for the Fidget Dance Music...

I'm taking off back down to DC again, mostly for personal business. I do plan to attend the Brookings event with Amr Khaled tomorrow morning, which should be interesting. Blogging likely won't resume until next week....

I find myself really bemused by the latest round of controversy over al-Hurra. I've long been a public critic of the American Arabic-language television station, and have no particular interest in defending it. On the other hand, the current wave...

Anyone interested in the Sunni insurgency developments which I've been focusing on lately will want to check out this absolutely fascinating account of the formation of the Reform and Jihad Front from the unidentified Baghdad correspondent of the Conflicts Forum....

Last week, al-Jazeera aired a long interview with Abdullah al-Janabi, the former head of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Fallujah. Janabi played a major role in both 2004 battles over Fallujah. He eluded capture at the end of the second...

Just a warning to regular readers... expect a serious slowdown in posting over the rest of the month. In addition to the usual end of semester grading crunch, I'm getting ready for the move down to DC and am going...

It's been a while since I've posted about "The Game". So here's a round up of the most popular sites dedicated the annoying viral aggravation that is The Game. It looks like those who were advocating the deletion of the...

Guess who took her first steps all by herself on Saturday night!!!???!?!?!? Scout! She isn’t running around just yet…but she can climb the stairs and she can walk across the room (if she chooses to do so).

And so a 97-win season comes down to two must-win games at home. If the Mets manage to beat Chris Carpenter tonight, I'll be at the game tomorrow. Win or...

I'm off to DC, where I'll be through Sunday with intermittent internet access. Friday I'll be at an academic workshop on Islamist Political Movements in the Arab World: Contentious and Electoral Politics at my soon-to-be home, GWU's Elliott School of...

Today is World Press Freedom Day, which for students of the Arab media is a depressing day indeed. In its honor, I contributed this short essay to the Palestinian-Israel weekly web journal Bitter Lemons, which should be posted later today....

The trumpet that Robert Bachner lent me is, at this stage, emitting two sounds when I blow into it. I'm convinced it was designed to emit more than two sounds, especially as Robert, when blowing into it himself, produced what seemed to be a myriad of sounds, but in my present stage of not yet having started to take trumpet lessons and therefore not practising because (for lack of lessons) I do not yet know what exactly to practise, all I get out of it is two sounds. And assorted noises, but I guess these do not qualify as music. Nor do my two sounds I guess, but they somehw seem closer to the concept of music. After all, given the required dexterity, by pressing the valves two sounds can be multiplied into several. What really matters for trumpet playing though is strong lips. It's quite amazing how many muscles are involved in moving your lips (assuming this wikipedia article is correct), and it seems that for playing a brass instrument, all of them must be well trained and strong. Now all I need to find is a fitness club where they have adapted these machines that you normally use to strengthen your biceps so that you can work on your zygomaticus major instead. I'm sure that once I'm able to lift a 16-ton weight with my levator labii superioris alaeque nasi I will also be a virtuoso trumpet player. Probably with a rather disturbing expression on my face, but I guess that's the price you have to pay.

I've just seen a statement announcing the creation of the Jihad and Reform Front, encompassing part of Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army of Iraq, and the Mujahideen Army. The announced goals: expelling the occupiers, establishing religion, government by sharia, and...

It’s another one of those bands, only this one’s from Japan. The Cherry Cokes, “Ill Weeds Grow Apace” (YouTube) Here’s another of their videos: “Bullet For Vapid Beer” And here’s their website. (Thanks, Daddoo!)

Click here to add your name to a petition demanding that CBS fire Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay along with the producer of “The Dog House.” Fallout Central reports that Anheuser-Busch has withdrawn sponsorship of the show. Earlier ‘varkage on this: What We Talk About #23

CNN Arabic commissioned a public opinion survey on the al-Adhamiya wall and found that 76% of Iraqis reject establishing isolation walls...to reduce sectarian violence. I would guess that David Kilcullen and other American strategists might respond that this is just...

1902: Le Voyage dans la lune premieres [streaming video] 1929: Link Wray, father of the power chord, is born [rumble] 1933: In Germany, Adolf Hitler abolishes trade unions 1957: Joseph McCarthy’s liver rebels and kills him, and there is much rejoicing 1963: 959 children are arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for participating in a civil-rights march 1972: J. Edgar Hoover finally [...]

Today's the day we get FTA digital satellite TV but I won't be rushing out to plonk down $300 on a set-top box because it's an investment that hs zero return. But here's how folks like me could be encouraged to make the switch...

Bill Buckley: The political problem of the Bush administration is grave, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The opinion polls are savagely decisive on the Iraq question. About 60 percent of Americans wish the war ended — wish at least a timetable for orderly withdrawal. What is going on in Congress is in the nature of [...]

IraqSlogger is reporting the death of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayub al-Masri at the hands of Sunni tribesmen (al-Jazeera has the story, but no additional information; more here). The story is based on a statement from an official in...

For those who care: I just recorded a segment for NPR's All Things Considered on the Sunni insurgency and al-Qaeda; supposed to air at 5:00 Eastern time....

Because it made me giggle: “Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu” (YouTube) From Howrah Bridge (1958), via Ultrabrown.

On Saturday, as I rode my bicycle to work, I witnessed another person on a bicycle, as we call it, "descend over the handlebars". I knew this was something that could happen if you applied only the front brakes, but until then I had never actually seen it happen. It was fascinating in a strange way, and slightly frightening. The person did not seem to be very hurt; lucky he was wearing a helmet. I then encountered one of those motorcyclists on one of those extra large motorbikes on which they are sitting with their legs spread widely in such a way that you don't know whether there's no other way of sitting on these things, or whether it's a kind of covert sexual harassment. At any rate he was wearing one of those crash helmets that people on such motorbikes usually wear, the kind that looks like a chamber pot without a handle. It also looks somewhat like a Wehrmacht helmet, but really more like a chamber pot without a handle. It also looks as if it could withstand a ricocheting bullet from an assault rifle, but not really the effects of a motorcycle crash. I wonder if those helmets are legal or if the police just don't say anything because they feel threatened by the sexually implicit pose of the rider on the motorbike. Nothing serious happened until much later, when I closed a window and the glass pane broke right there and then, without any intervention on my part. It cut my left hand, not seriously, but enough to bleed a bit. Then on my way home my rear tyre got caught in a tramway rail as I was crossing it. No idea why and how this happened, as the angle should have been safe. With an extreme amount of luck I managed to get out of the rail without falling off the bike, only slightly dislocating the seat in the process. I had had plans to go inline skating later that day, which I postponed because I felt like I had been close to enough near accidents that day. Yesterday morning I had a strange dream about a minor train accident in which a defective railway carriage became uncoupled from a train, coasted on at some distance after the train from which it had been uncoupled, and then crashed into the train at low speed when the train stopped, causing some, but not much damage, and causing no injuries (this is, by the way, technically impossible, because any carriage becoming uncoupled causes the immediate application of the brakes on both the train and the carriage itself). A few hours later I read in an online newspaper that earlier that day there had been a minor train accident at one of Vienna's railway stations when they had tried to uncouple a defective carriage from a train and collided with a shunting engine in the process. It would be really helpful if these omens and visions occurred in such a way that it would be easy to determine whether I am a psychic of some sort or whether all of this is just coincidence. As it is, I remain totally clueless.

Today Scout and I went to the store. Be patient…it gets better. Frequently people assume that Scout is a boy…it seems to be based solely on the fact that she still has no hair. She is always dressed very much like a girl…but for some reason when people see a bald baby they assume [...]

Remember the al-Adhamiya wall? Al-Adhamiya is where Sunni protests broke out against the American construction of giant concrete barriers around Sunni neighborhoods. Some debate about gated communities and Balkanization of Baghdad ensued, and people seemed rather upset. Residents felt less...

No use trying to fight it, you’re an eight-sided die, a d8. A fine example of simple elegance, the d8 is one of the least appreciated types of dice, and is often neglected. You are known to be quiet and shy, outward traits that conceal viscous sarcasm and mean wit. You are very smart, yet [...]

1. Sarah is pregnant - Due Date:Dec. 1 2. Nina is pregnant - Due Date:Dec. 8 3. ? is pregnant - Due Date:Dec. 28 no it isn’t me….BUT I am so excited for all three of them!

White-On-White Violence Claims Life Of Accounts Receivable Supervisor Herbert F. Kornfeld, 34, was an alleged accounting gang leader considered by law enforcement to be a key player in a series of ongoing office worker turf wars. He was found dead Monday morning in the third-floor copy room of Midstate Office Supply, his employer of 12 years. “We [...]

MAY DAY MISSION ACCOMPLISHED DAY Loyalty Day Law Day (wtf?) 1776: Bavarian Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt 1931: The Empire State Building officially opens 1946: Joanna Lumley is born [TV interview] 1952: Mr. Potato Head debuts