A few quick links here…
Found via Douglas Wolk on Twitter – WFMU’s Beware Of The Blog have 11 CDs worth of rockabilly, garage rock and exotica, as chosen by Lux and Ivy of the Cramps, for download. Everything from Ersel Hickey to Jack Nitzsche to the Stooges to Jan & Arnie. I’m fairly up on this kind of music, but even I’d only heard of half the stuff there. Well worth getting hold of (but remember, kids, home taping is killing music…)
A great article on how the new Dalek War boxset was colourised – using BBC BASIC!
The Mindless Ones have moved on from pants, and are now discussing Spider-Man socks
It’s not often I have much in common with jet pilots, but for once I do – they’re refusing to take part in the next step of the stealth rollout of ID cards. Notice how yet again Manchester is the first place to suffer under a Labour regulation, yet we keep electing the bastards…
And in case I haven’t mentioned it, though I’m sure I have, we have a government that colludes in slicing men’s genitals with scalpels (and of course the US government actually *did* it, rather than just helping with the coverup). Even had this been the only thing that had been done wrong, it would still make the British government accessories to war crimes after the fact. If anyone reading this actually voted for this gang of torturers and murderers, how do you continue to live with yourselves? There are things that can be a matter of respectful disagreement between people of goodwill – you can argue for tougher or more lenient sentencing in prisons, higher or lower rates of income tax and so on and mean well. But *slashing at a bloke’s cock with a scalpel*?
Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! 
Because even liberty is subservient to the almighty penis?
;)
Not saying you’re wrong in any way here, just amused by the obsession people seem to have with the cock bit, as opposed to all the other torture and suffering Binyam has been through. Having his cock slashed wasn’t the only bad thing to happen to him, not by a long chalk. But it’s the only thing male bloggers seem to mention…
You’re right, of course, and I did think that while I was writing that. But at the same time, it’s something that is far more viscerally *WRONG* than some of the other things which are actually worse.
Personally, were I to have to choose between that and all the other horrific things that were done to the poor man, I’d take the penis-slashing. But people can and do trivialise other things – “Oh, waterboarding’s not dangerous, I could take that”, “Oh, it’s just a bit of noise. You can’t call that torture.” It’s something that is very, very obviously and immediately wrong, while those other things might require thought and empathy to see that…
Oh yes, but you don’t mention any of the other things AT ALL, and nor does anyone else…
You’re quite right.
I know
* smug mode *
;)
Though to be fair, knowing Andrew’s traumatic history with surgery on his delicate bits, I was not at all surprised to see he found this noteworthy. :)
Which is not to say phallocentrism is a) okay or b) not happening, but it does mean we can’t help some of the things that squick us, especially if we had a formative experience at a young age!
I was unaware that Andrew had had traumatic surgery on his manparts. I wonder if it’s similar to the experience Mat had…
Personally, were I to have to choose between that and all the other horrific things that were done to the poor man, I’d take the penis-slashing.
Victims of these forms of torture have said exactly that. And yet you’re right, Bush once infamously compared waterboarding to frat-boy hazing!