• New Statesman – Watching the Arctic melt, I realise apathy must be frozen out- The greatest threat to the future of humanity is now not political brinkmanship, but paranoid indifference: the certainty that the future is both finite and short and that all we can do is burn what little of the remaining money we have and hope civilisation outlasts us.This is a terribly foolish way to live. The anarchist thinker David Graeber writes in Debt: the First 5,000 Years that in response to the blinding obviousness of economic and ecological world buggeration, “the most common reaction – even from those who call themselves ‘progressives’ – is simply fear. We can no longer imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse.” Graeber adds: “About the only thing we can imagine is catastrophe.”
  Tags: climatechange environment futurism activism
• Yahoo! YSlow for Chrome – YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages.
  Tags: web tools useful wordpress
• Fright Night (2011) – Even The Straight Boys are Queer « Ruthless Culture – By confusion the mainstream with the marginal and the queer with the straight, Fright Night communicates a profound cultural uncertainty about maturity; what does it mean to be a grown-up? What does it mean to be a man? According to Fright Night, we are nowhere near to having clear answers to either of these questions.
  Tags: teenagers queer cinema vampires adolescence comingofage malesexuality
• Science In My Fiction » Blog Archive » “Are We Not (as Good as) Men?” – Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Hollywood, hard science, uplift, and a lack of female characters. Sounds like an SF review of an SF movie!
  Tags: sciencefiction sf film uplift
• Astrogator’s Logs » Blog Archive » Snachismo, or: What Do Women Want? – About thirty years and fifty men later (counting short-term encounters), I think I’m finally ready to answer Freud’s burning question: What Do Women Want? I do not purport to answer on behalf of my entire gender. But I can unequivocally say what I want in my men and to put it in a soundbite, the answer is: Snachismo.
  Tags: gender sex relationships funny interesting machismo snachismo
• Science In My Fiction » Blog Archive » To the Hard Members of the Truthy SF Club – Being a research scientist as well as a writer, reader and reviewer of popular science and speculative fiction, I’ve frequently bumped up against the fraught question of what constitutes “hard” SF. It appears regularly on online discussions, often coupled with lamentations over the “softening” of the genre that conflate the upper and lower heads.
  Tags: sciencefiction hardsf science sciency ish
• 8 Simple Questions You Won’t Believe Science Can’t Answer | Cracked.com – The field of science is capable of some amazing things, mostly because it’s filled with all the Albert Einsteins and Doogie Howsers the world has produced over the centuries. But it may shock you that some of the most mundane, everyday concepts are as big a mystery to scientists as they are to the average toddler.
  Tags: science amusing interesting
• To My Someday Daughter, by Geordie Tait – a Magic: the Gathering Miscellaneous Article – “This letter is mostly about some stuff that happened recently, but it’s also about me, your dad, and how I’ve changed as a person over the years. It’s an open letter, so I’m going to let all my friends read it, too. By the end of it, some will be mad at me, perturbed and energy-sapped because I’ve made them feel guilty and asked them to question things that seem natural to them. Some will dismiss me, too entrenched in the perceived righteousness of their ways. They will tell themselves that I am expressing a progressive viewpoint for the express purpose of ruining their fun.” Fucking fantastic.
  Tags: feminism sexism misogyny respect understanding beingadecenthumanfuckingbeing
• Playing God « Second Person Shooter – When I grew up, some games were off-limits. Diablo was a no, because Satan was right there in the title. Grand Theft Auto was also disallowed when my parents caught me mowing down police officers and lines of Elvis impersonators with a machine gun. Mortal Kombat was banned for obvious reasons—you can rip out a man’s ribs and them stab them through his eyes—but even Golden Eye was mysteriously “lost” one day after a particularly hilarious match of only shooting each other in the knee caps. I can understand the logic behind all of these decisions, but I’ve always been confused about why I wasn’t allowed to play The Sims.
  Tags: gaming personal religion anxiety escapism faith
• Autonomism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist (operaismo) communism. Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the Situationists, the failure of Italian far-left movements in the 1970s, and the emergence of a number of important theorists including Antonio Negri, who had contributed to the 1969 founding of Potere Operaio, Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno, etc. It influenced the German and Dutch Autonomen, the worldwide social centre movement, and today is influential in Italy, France, and to a lesser extent the English-speaking countries. Those who describe themselves as autonomists now vary from Marxists to post-structuralists and anarchists.
  Tags: politicaltheory autonomy socialism anarchism

• LENIN’S TOMB: Still blaming Muslims – Anders Breivik, though not a Third Reich enthusiast, is obviously a fascist of some description.  His manifesto, his activism and his links to the UK far right scene, talked down by the Norwegian police, are evidence that he didn’t seek to be simply a lone ranger.  He has made it clear that his massacres were an attack on the political system, and he clearly intended that they should be followed by others.  But the ideas that led him to fascism are not at all marginal.  The Islamophobia that has been energetically disseminated by the belligerents of the ‘war on terror’, the view seriously entertained by many that Europe’s Muslim minority constitutes a threat meriting legal supervision and restriction at the very least, has provided the intellectual and moral basis for the mass murder of Norwegian children.  No one who is not prepared to countenance this can have anything morally serious or even creditable to say about this slaughter.
  Tags: norway murder farright fascism islamophobia europe
• Former News Corp. Executives Dispute James Murdoch’s Testimony – NYTimes.com – LONDON — Two former News International executives publicly contradicted James Murdoch’s testimony to a parliamentary committee, saying Thursday that they told him of evidence in 2008 that suggested that phone hacking at one of the company’s tabloid newspapers was more widespread.
  Tags: newsinternational media journalism corporatism capitalism
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) – The Ambivalence of the Metallic Sublime « Ruthless Culture – Indeed, for all of their artistic accomplishment and mad experimental brilliance, Bay’s films encourage us to find the sublime in images of racism, sexism, nationalism and violence. Combine this with the fact that Bay’s experimentation is prompted by the desire to make more and more money for multinational corporations and you have a recipe for a distinctly unpleasant viewing experience.
  Tags: michaelbay film cinema transformers experimental
• Hot Water Music “The Fire, The Steel, The Tread” by Reybee on SoundCloud – New HWM tune.
  Tags: band music
• Weakness, the Catalyst of Survival | Nightmare Mode – Gamers need to know what it’s like to be weak because it’s in times of hopelessness and darkness that people have struggled and overcome adversity. The whole point of introducing peril, fear and weakness in games is so that players may overcome them through their own ability, simultaneously improving their skills and building the good kind of confidence, the kind that is aware of its faults but overcomes them, instead of the kind that thinks it’s invincible and invulnerable.
  Tags: gamedesign weakness strength fear
• Unite launches cut price membership for students and the unemployed | Politics | The Guardian – Britain’s largest trade union, Unite, is launching cut-price memberships for students and the unemployed as it attempts to boost its ranks and counter David Cameron’s “big society”.
  Unite will offer students, single parents and the jobless 50p per week “community memberships” as it focuses on neighbourhoods as well as workplaces. Trade unions are battling falling membership numbers and government spending cuts that will put their finances under further threat by eliminating public sector jobs – their most fertile recruiting ground.
  Tags: unions britain recession anti-cuts
• For News Corporation, Troubles That Money Can’t Dispel – NYTimes.com – Time and again in the United States and elsewhere, Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation has used blunt force spending to skate past judgment, agreeing to payments to settle legal cases and, undoubtedly more important, silence its critics. In the case of News America Marketing, its obscure but profitable in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, the News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away.
  Tags: newsinternational media corporatism crookedcapitalistscum corruption bribery espionage
• The rape of men | Global development | The Observer – Sexual violence is one of the most horrific weapons of war, an instrument of terror used against women. Yet huge numbers of men are also victims. In this harrowing report, Will Storr travels to Uganda to meet traumatised survivors, and reveals how male rape is endemic in many of the world’s conflicts.
  Tags: war violence rape power africa gender

Del.icio.us links for May 9th through May 29th:

• SchNEWS 773 – 27th May 2011 – No Spain, No Gain – We’ve got the Arab Spring – what about a European summer? It’s a week since thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators pitched up in central Madrid (see SchNEWS 772) – and revolution fever is spreading across Europe like nits in a playground. With the Spanish sit-in still going strong – and intending to remain until at least the 29th – street demonstrations have also hit Greece, Georgia, and, er, Bristol. Protests are spreading to Italy, France, Portugal, Austria even German – could it be that last year’s initial protests against austerity measures are maturing, one year on, into a broader demand for political reform?
  Tags: democracy protest recession europe
• I live sweat… – “My gender role, as defined by me, is an equal one. I can do anything a man can and I can’t imagine it any other way.” – Lisa Garelick from Kind of Like Records on women in the independent music industry. – Some people may argue that more women aren’t involved behind the scenes because there aren’t a lot of women into the music or who go to shows. I’d cite the bigger shows (Bouncing Souls, whatever passes as The Misfits these days) as a prime example where I’d look out at a vast crowd and see an even ratio of men to women scattered throughout. A few days later, I’d go to a DIY basement show and see those numbers tip drastically. I’d be one of three girls in the room and I would be so upset. Why was it that the other girls didn’t want to be a part of this? Was it me? Was it them? What was the problem?
  Tags: punk feminism empowerment diy
• 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor | Cracked.com – Cracked comedy, obv., but also a fair few reasons why being poor isn’t just a case of inadequate bootstrapping.
  Tags: poverty economics classwar richpoordisparity usa
• Kill Screen – From Chalks to Blocks: Minecraft in the Classroom – Joel Levin plays Minecraft. That would be an unremarkable fact, considering that he’s one of about two million people that play the indie sandbox game. But instead of constructing 1:1 replicas of the Starship Enterprise or functioning 16-bit computers, Joel has crafted an entire class curriculum in and around a Minecraft world. Levin documents his radical approach to teaching computer literacy at a private school at The Minecraft Teacher.
  Tags: minecraft education learning children
• LENIN’S TOMB: The Tories and (the ideology of) crime – The Tories, we know, are the party of order. They stand for decent, law-abiding tax-payers, and would like a little less solicitousness toward the criminals if you don’t mind. But not these days – or at least not at this precise moment, for our affairs are highly volatile. The Tories are allowing themselves to be out-flanked to their right by Labour on this issue. How could this be?
  Tags: recession crime liberals racism reactionaries tories
• Counterpunch | MySpace – Glossy Chicago pop-punk.
  Tags: band music
• THE HUMAN PROJECT | MySpace – Leeds punk band with a good sense of fun.
  Tags: none
• RADICUS | MySpace – Awesome Peterborough punk group, could be ones to watch!
  Tags: band music
• YouTube – Fucked Up – “David Comes To Life” – Trailer for Fucked Up’s forthcoming concept album.
  Tags: band music video
• Darko – Sweet throaty UK punk band.
  Tags: band music
• Laughing in the Face of – Birmingham punk on Lockjaw records.
  Tags: band music
• TURN AND RUN | MySpace – Another Peterborough hardcore band.
  Tags: band music
• WE ARE FICTION | MySpace – Peterborough rock band.
  Tags: band music
• WITHOUT FIRE | MySpace – UK pop punk band.
  Tags: band music
• The Spanish Tahrir – There is no doubt that Sunday 15thMay 2011 has come to mark a turning point: from the web to the street, from conversations around the kitchen table to mass mobilisations, but more than anything else, from outrage to hope. Tens of thousands of people, ordinary citizens responding to a call that started and spread on the internet, have taken the streets with a clear and promising demand: they want a real democracy, a democracy no longer tailored to the greed of the few, but to the needs of the people. They have been unequivocal in their denunciation of a political class that, since the beginning of the crisis, has run the country by turning away from them and obeying the dictates of the euphemistically called “markets”.
  Tags: spain protest cuts recession europe resistance directaction occupation
• The Bakersfield Sound | Music | Gateways To Geekery | The A.V. Club – Country music conjures up an unfortunate set of imagery for many: pick-up trucks, Confederate flags, mullets, and tallboys of Bud Lite for starters. The intelligentsia has historically found the genre easy and fun to ridicule, dismissing it as the soundtrack of ignorance—hillbilly idiocy in musical form. Country can be a daunting field for neophytes to get into because it brings so much cultural baggage with it, most of it negative, and because the homogeneous pabulum you hear on contemporary country radio doesn’t provide much incentive to go beyond the stereotypes or preconceptions.
  Tags: music country history
• War is Over Article | Eurogamer.net – Towards the end of this year, the PlayStation 3 will celebrate its fifth birthday, with the Xbox 360 blowing out six candles on its cake about a week later. By this stage in the lifespans of their predecessors, these consoles would already be well on the road to replacement – five years after the launch of PlayStation 2, Sony was talking openly about the PS3, while five years after the launch of Xbox, Xbox 360 was already on shelves.
  Tags: gaming hardware consoles
• Public sector pay – the myths exposed | Richard Seymour | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk – According to a Policy Exchange report highlighted by the Telegraph, public sector workers are 40% better off than their private sector counterparts, if wages are taken on an hourly basis and pensions are included. This is a longstanding claim on the right, used to justify attacks on public sector pay and pensions. The problem is that neither the numbers, nor the narrative, are on the level.
  Tags: economics rightwingbullshit mythbusting pay employment
• Fucked Up for Spin – Drawing of Fucked Up for Spin magazine… totally awesome.
  Tags: band artwork fuckedup system:filetype:jpg system:media:image
• Punchbag Artists | Resolution Magazine – Now it’s no big surprise that on the internet anyone can be a critic. While professional reviews can be brutal and punishing, down at the anonymous, anarchic end of the scale, criticism can mutate into public humiliation and denouncement of not just a game but also its architects. APB is not an isolated case. Zombie Cow’s Privates is a “game for perverts”. Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV is a “faux 8-bit piece of crap.” 2K Marin’s in-development XCOM is “like wanting a puppy for your birthday but getting dogshit.”
  But what does this do to the developers on the receiving end?
  Tags: angryinternetmen criticism gamesjournalism
• Amateur Dramatics « Electron Dance – The audience of our game theatre, though, is not the same as that of literature and film. They are a vital piece of the theatrical puzzle, the ones who get to play the lead in the drama. The problem is that every player is different. We each have a different twist to our imagination, a different fantasy to fulfil.
  Tags: gaming videogames playeragency immersion
• I live sweat… – “…we fall woefully short in practice.” – Aaron Scott, aka. Attica! Attica!, on punk, sexism, and how men can help. – I am a straight male who loves punk music. By pure chance of my sexuality and gender, I am a person of immense privilege. I am also a member of the demographic that comprises the majority of the punk scene. I’m writing this in the hope that fellow members of our demographic will take a deeper consideration of our role in sexism within the scene. While we supposedly value ideals of inclusiveness and egalitarianism, we fall woefully short in practice. And we, as males who love punk music, can and should take an active part in dismantling sexist norms and coming closer to realizing those ideals.
  Tags: sexism punk maleprivilege
• I live sweat… – “I didn’t want to be the weird muslim kid, I wanted to be the weird punk kid.” Donna Ramone on Islamophobia in punk. – I didn’t want to be the weird muslim kid, I wanted to be the weird punk kid.
  Tags: muslims punk racism
• Screen Machine – “According to a lot of film writers Scott Pilgrim was made for one or all of the following - gamers, comic book fans but, worst of all, for misogynistic (if geekier inclined) males. The misogynistic tag is what troubled me the most because even though I call myself a feminist – I really liked Scott Pilgrim a lot. I loved the pacing, the gags and thought the soundtrack was stellar. So I had another look.” Good review looking back over the accusations of sexism & MPDG-ism in SPvTW.
  Tags: review criticism sexism feminism scottpilgrim
• YouTube – Tropes vs. Women: #1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl – Good video on the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ cliche.
  Tags: film cinema writing characters cliches feminism
• China Miéville leads radical SF’s invasion of the mainstream – The radicalism inherent in the best science fiction is at the heart of Miéville’s work, and makes it perfect reading for our troubled times
  Tags: chinamieville sf fantasy radicalism
• Apple’s Chinese workers treated ‘inhumanely, like machines’ – An investigation into the conditions of Chinese workers has revealed the shocking human cost of producing the must-have Apple iPhones and iPads that are now ubiquitous in the west.
  Tags: technology capitalism manufacturing offshoring employment
• Were the Anti Iraq War Demonstrations of 2003 Too Good to Be True? by Paul Street | ZSpace – The marches of March 2003 were organized as much by the televised images of the boorish Bush and his loathsome, transparently arch-authoritarian Vice President (Darth Cheney) and Defense Secretary (Donald Rumsfeld)as by any sophisticated, impressive, in-place, and battle-steeled peace movement. And, as I worried at the beginning, it was all too partisan and Democratic, insufficiently able and/or willing to grasp the imperial and militaristic nature of the Democratic Party in connection with the Iraq War and more broadly. It was opposed not to much to criminal militarism as such as to the clumsy and boorish, translucently blatant cowboy imperialism of a Texas Republican president, leaving one to suspect that many off its members would be far less likely to be hitting the streets if the wars they claimed to oppose were being conducted by supposedly kinder and gentler imperialists like Al Gore or John F “Reporting for Duty” Kerry.
  Tags: electoralpolitics reformism war antiwar protest usa democrats liberalism
• Unusual software bug – Wikipedia – Unusual software bugs are a class of software bugs that are considered exceptionally difficult to understand and repair. There are several kinds, mostly named after scientists who discovered counterintuitive things.
  Tags: software testing
• Defend The Right To Protest – Defend the Right to Protest was launched in response to violent police tactics and arrests at the student protests of November and December 2010, with the support of activists, MPs, trade unionists, student groups and others. We campaign against police brutality, kettling and the use of violence against those who have a right to protest. We campaign to defend all those protestors who have been arrested, bailed or charged and are fighting to clear their names.
  Tags: protest activism police britain justice

• Fucked Up – Ship of Fools by Consequence of Sound on SoundCloud – Create, record and share your sounds for free – 3rd song from Fucked Up’s forthcoming new record… stoked.
  Tags: band music
• Junior Battles – Idle Ages – June 28 on Paper + Plastick – New song from Junior Battles. New album in June…
  Tags: band music
• New Statesman – This England, 29.04.2011 – So this is England, on the 29th of April, 2011. The marriage of the heir to an archaic and largely powerless royal dynasty is celebrated with pomp and circumstance, whilst dissent of any kind is suppressed on the smallest pretext, or none. If you step outside the system, if you refuse to stand and shout hurrah, if you question the narrative of easy privilege, if you offer an alternative or try to live one, you are a dangerous freak and you will be punished. The poor get poorer. The rich get richer. And England Prevails.
  Tags: britain bread&circuses democracy police
• SchNEWS 769 – 29th April 2011 – Tes-Cop-Oly – Tesco have been the masters of this technique, championing the complete corporate takeover of their consumers lives – out to sell them their housing, everything they ever need to put in it, providing their recreation facilities, the financial services to afford it all and, of course, stuffing them full of crap food.
  And yet they are still upping the ante. To the above list you can now add paying for the means to keep everyone in their place on the Tesco-treadmill: As part of the bribe needed to secure the rights to build the biggest Tesco in the country in West Bromwich, the supermarket is not only building a cinema, restaurants, a hotel, a petrol station, shops and a new ring road but also, for the first time, a police station.
  Tags: police britain corporatism capitalism
• SchNEWS 769 – 29th April 2011 – Georgian Facade – “The not St George’s Day march by the not EDL was, for a family event, remarkably short of kids. A hilarious attempt to liberalise their image by carrying a rainbow flag foundered after the mob began chanting “You lot take it up the arse!” The march was interrupted by anti-fascist demonstrations throughout the day and the MFE didn’t quite get the stroll in the sunshine they may have been hoping for.” What was this, an attempt to regain face and antagonise Brighton after that abortive march last year? Sad fucking bastards.
  Tags: fascists britain edl brighton
• Monsters – DVD review for VideoVista – We are a supremely competent culture. With universities desperate for any revenue they can lay their hands on, the last quarter century has seen an explosion in the number of people attending graduate school, business school, art school and film school. Year after year, these institutions turn out eminently competent individuals who have learned the tricks of their trade whilst having little or no idea as to what to do with these tricks. Film schools in particular seem incredibly adept at producing filmmakers who know the vocabulary of film, and know how to put pretty images on the screen, but lack the sort of vision that makes for great cinema.
  Tags: film cinema review criticism education
• Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Who is the Most Deserving? – Yesterday and today, the Telegraph and the BBC carry yet another DWP story trumpeting the great “success” of Employment Support Allowance. They are delighted to announce that of 1,175,700 new claims since 2008 a massive 887,300 failed to qualify for assistance. That’s 75%. Isn’t that wonderful? Hardly anyone was sick or disabled after all!
  Tags: disability benefits britain fuckingtoriesfuckofffuckoffdiediedie
• Charlie Brooker: The AV campaigners have created a stupidity whirlpool that engulfs any loose molecules of logic | Comment is free | The Guardian – Both sides are treating the public with outright contempt
  Tags: av democracy britain electoralreform
• Gamasutra – News – Interview: Making The Fun Meant Taking Out The Fun In StarCraft II – The lead designer, who previously worked on real-time strategy games in Electronic Arts’ Command & Conquer series, said he had to make creative adjustments when he joined the StarCraft II team. For him, the main hurdle was learning how to take some of the “fun” stuff out of the game.
  Tags: gamedesign esports
• Penny Red: Riots and romance: thoughts on journalism, revolution and the anti-cuts movement. – On the charge of romance, I hold up my hands, with the caveat that the struggle of citizen versus state is essentially a romantic one. If one cares about accuracy and linguistic craftsmanship, it is very hard to describe these active clashes in a way that does not provoke passion on both sides. This is because the events themselves are moments of high emotion and challenge. Whatever their affiliations, a person’s political passions are drawn with fierce accuracy when they are asked for their opinion on a given police ruckus- and every time it happens is another chance to take the political temperature of the nation.
  Tags: journalism writing reportage romance struggle protest activism

• Suspended-animation cold sleep achieved in lab – Top boffins in the States believe that they may be on the track of a way to place living human beings into suspended animation, allowing them to survive long periods effectively frozen before being “reanimated” with no ill effects.
  Tags: science sciencefiction suspendedanimation research
• rejectamentalist manifesto – A century ago it was already clear that international law was ‘a maze of plausibilities’. Ask a landscape gardener: the point of a maze is not to get out, but to get lost.
  So what if, in the face of Israel’s cruel flaunting, we scythe through the hedges? Refuse to bicker over precedent, interpretation, custom, & all the rest of the endless pantomime?
  What if, instead, we pursue other strategies to isolate the hijack state, & in response to its jurisprudes of murder, simply say: ‘Fuck your law’?
  Tags: internationallaw israel palestine activism protest justice
• Dance, Fight, Push People Over! | Red Wine Panther – Alec’s produced stuff.
  Tags: band music
• Hark! An Interview with Kate Beaton – Kate Beaton is the artist behind Hark! A Vagrant, the weekly webcomic whose popularity has exploded over the last year. Her clever mix of irreverence, literary references, and detailed historical mockery obviously strikes a chord with many readers, from the hundreds that lined up for hours at TCAF to get her new book signed to her admirers at the New Yorker. Be warned: visiting the archives of her website will cost you many hours in productivity—and, strangely, create a yearning to learn a little more about history, Beaton’s favourite subject. Beaton spoke with Torontoist’s comics columnist Dave Howard a couple of weeks ago about comic delivery, Canadian history, her own history, and her creative process.
  Tags: interview comics history art katebeaton
• Gideon’s trumpet – In short, the deficit is not the cause of weak private sector demand and investment, but the result of it. An attack on the public sector is an attack on one of the few sources of economic growth, and thus on the basis for future taxable income and profits. It may make the deficit larger. It may tip the UK into another recession, or depression. Moreover, there is no great urgency in the UK paying off the deficit, despite the sabre-rattling of the financiers
  Tags: conservativeparty liberaldemocrats coalition recession economics futurism
• Are Cameras the New Guns? – In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer. Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.
  Tags: privacy surveillance law USA police justice copwatch
• The 6 Most Insane Moral Panics in American History – What’s wrong with kids these days? Not enough, apparently, since grown-ups seem to feel the need to just make shit up. Even the flimsiest evidence can convince parents and lazy journalists alike that there is some new, horrible threat to our moral character.
  Often these turn out to be grossly exaggerated. Or, as in cases like the ones below, completely fucking retarded.
  Tags: funny stupid moralcrusaders usa history
• Ilan Pappé: The deadly closing of the Israeli mind – Nothing is further from the truth than this optimistic scenario. The only version of this solution that is acceptable to Israel is the one that both the tamed Palestine Authority in Ramallah and the more assertive Hamas in Gaza could never ever accept. It is an offer to imprison the Palestinians in stateless enclaves in return for ending their struggle. Thus even before one discusses either an alternative solution – a single democratic state for all, which I support – or explores a more plausible, two-state settlement, one has to transform fundamentally the Israeli official and public mindset. This mentality is the principal barrier to a peaceful reconciliation in the torn land of Israel and Palestine.
  Tags: israel palestine peace society oppression mindset socialisation
• Rooks on MySpace Music – New Brighton punk band, supporting OWTH later in the year.
  Tags: band music
• Overachiever For a Day – I noticed recently that Xbox 360 Achievements were starting to encroach on my gaming worldview. I have no interest in PS3 Trophies or the medals they hand out on Flash-game sites, but I’m a sucker for the allure of the Gamerscore. I found myself returning to mediocre games to scrimp an extra 50 points, or wasting time on joyless tasks like feather-hunting in Assassin’s Creed II.
  I intended to break myself of this predilection. (Let’s not call it an “addiction.”) I like Achievements, but I wanted them to be a sideshow rather than the main event. I figured that if I could boost my Gamerscore in one insane, all-out blaze of glory, maybe the points wouldn’t have such a hold on me anymore. It would be like smoking a whole pack of cigarettes at once to break your nicotine habit.
  Look, I didn’t say it was a good plan. Just a plan.
  Tags: gaming achievements psychology funny
• Rebel Frequencies: M.I.A. is right, NYT is wrong – “Lately it seems like the only thing following M.I.A. around more than controversy is bad journalism.” Interesting and spirited defence of M.I.A’s spat with the NYT.
  Tags: music journalism popstars protest controversy provocation media
• The Brothers Bloom (2009) – The Failed Re-Enchantment of the Postmodern World – …while cinephiles speak of the truth and beauty of film, the reality of the modern cinema is a gauntlet of bad faith and protective cynicism.  A cynicism born of the fact that, before you even decide what film to see or what screen to go to, you are assailed by empty promises.  Promises of new technologies and more comfortable seats.  Promises made by aggressive marketing campaigns and trailers designed to raise expectations to the point where no human-made work of art could ever possibly satisfy them.  Arrived at the cinema you must then navigate a flood of yet more adverts and yet more trailers for yet more films demanding yet more money and yet more of your time.  To face such an onslaught without cynical detachment would surely be to go mad but this protective detachment is also the enemy of art as it seeks to protect us from that which defines a great work of art: emotional transport.
  Tags: culture cinema art psychology

• Interview: Alan Moore talks about Watchmen, Hollywood and pornography – Novelist, magician and “guru of the graphic novel” Alan Moore talks to Steve Rose about Watchmen, the dark side of Hollywood and the morality of pornography.
• Sexy Videogameland: Tunes For Thought – I continue to believe that games have far more in common with music than with any other media, in terms of how the biz is experienced and discussed — regardless of how useful the film and game connection can sometimes be.
• Nostalgia for the Future » Sleep Dealer – Trailer for a Mexican independent film. Looks like a cutting-edge post-cyberpunk SF tale.
• Why Is Her Paycheck Smaller? – Interactive Graphic – Nearly every occupation has the gap — the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between the size of the paycheck brought home by a woman and the larger one earned by a man doing the same job.
• i wanted to be a junkie but Buffy wouldn’t let me « the m john harrison blog – “Urban fantasy: the domestication of a few images & behavioural tics which were barely unacceptable in the first place.” … “Every generation invents a threat posture which has to be acknowledged & made safe.”

• totalitarianism today: The Russian government rewrites history. Again. – Censorship continues to pose problems for historians and academics in Russia.
• STA Public Service Blogcast Episode 22 – The 22nd in Smalltown America’s ongoing series of blogcasts.
• Outdated music industry deserves no Govt help | TechRadar UK – Dubber describes how, in 2006, he asked Universal Music – one of the world’s biggest record labels – how much of their music was currently available for sale. The answer? Two percent. Ninety-eight percent of Universal’s music was locked in a vault somewhere.
• SchNEWS 667 – 6th March 2009 – Secret Policeman’s Bill – There’s yet another piece of government legislation sneaking its way through parliament that will give the state even more privacy but strip away what remaining few rights to privacy you have left. The Coroners and Justice Bill 2009 contain clauses that will give formal cover to perpetrators of state violence and will blow a hole in what little data protection there exists for the public.
• Watchmen | Noise to Signal – “There’s very little that’s “grey” about Watchmen – elements that work perfectly sit side-by-side with those that edge close to disaster.” Very good dual review from a huge fan of the comic and someone who’s never read it.

• The Genesis of Darwinia+ – Self-styled ‘last of the bedroom coders’ Introversion may have preached an independent mantra in the past, but its latest title sees them getting in to bed with one of the biggest corporations in videogames – Microsoft. In a regular series for GamesIndustry.biz, Introversion intends to lift the lid on the secretive development process behind Xbox Live Arcade, as well as revealing it’s own business practices and honest observations on the industry.
• Pukekos: The Hold Steady – Rare old single by the Hold Steady available for download. :D
• Locus Roundtable: Adaptation – Graham Sleight reports back on and discusses ideas raised during an interview with Nick Lowe (for the BSFA).
• Dark Roasted Blend: Epic Abandoned Substations and Power Plants – Very cool photographs from abandoned power stations.
• Technology Review: Growing Nanotube Forests – “Carefully grown carbon-nanotube arrays could be the basis of new energy-storage devices and chip-cooling systems.” Some seriously cool images here.