John Mortell’s blog

Man, this show looks SO shit but this clip is just hilarious! Also, the Wikipedia page for this is absolutely brilliant, as it’s really badly written:

Usually, when the man is shown to be the father, the woman gets up, chases the man, victoriously declares that she told him so, and does the “give me yo money” dance which includes cash hand gestures. Then she challenges him to follow through on his claim that he will provide support to the child; there is usually no follow-up to see if this actually happens, possibly due to the rather large number of cases that appear on the show monthly. Upon such confirmation, most men accept the fact that they are the father. Conversely, when the man is proven not to be the father, it is common for the men to celebrate by performing dance steps or running in to the audience to high-five audience members while the women walk or run backstage crying, often collapsing (or sometimes even diving) to the floor into the fetal position. In such cases, the man rarely receives an apology.

Ideologically rather corrupt and shallow, this film doesn’t really make much of a point beyond ‘extremists are bad’ which one would imagine is rather self-apparent. While it has some impact, mainly through using footage from some real-life executions, any person with a brain should be able to see through the blatant racism and short-sightedness of Geert Wilder’s film. There’s an intersting article about it on the BBC here and it certainly shows what the BBC is talking about in terms of his ability to generate interest – as I write this, the film has been seen 410,211 times on the host website alone. And that doesn’t take into account other language variations.

Just to be clear, I’m posting this out of interest in the topic and the controversy it has generated. Not out of any belief in Mr.Wilder’s ideas. I’m also doing this because I think that silencing talk becuase religious extremists don’t like the content of a video is a bad thing and should be opposed on principle if nothing else.

Surprisingly good documentary on horror movies and supposed ‘snuff’ movies. Granted, at the start it’s more of a history of certain types of ‘video nasties’ than about snuff itself but as it goes along it shows how there have been ‘possible examples’ of snuff. Interesting also is the ‘chicken or egg’ question. Does demand creaty supply or supply demand? The moors murders example was one I hadn’t heard before.

Interesting documentary detailing the final part of Bret Hart’s career in the WWF and such. Maybe a little to close to its subject but well worth a watch, especially for its dealing with the ‘Montreal Screwjob’ & Bret’s inability to deal with the ‘Attitude’ era of pro wrestling. Addendum: Though the documentary seems to be aiming for some sort of ‘balance’ its interesting to see how much of what happens backs up Bret Hart’s version of the ‘screwjob’. A lot of Vince’s actions seem rather petty and mean-spirited…
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Unbelievable:

PALs (Permissive Action Links) were introduced in the 1960s in America to prevent a mad General or pilot launching a nuclear war off their own bat – the Dr Strangelove scenario.

And this was apparently all you needed to do if you were any British soldier wanting to set off WW3:

To arm the weapons you just open a panel held by two captive screws – like a battery cover on a radio – using a thumbnail or a coin.

Inside are the arming switch and a series of dials which you can turn with an Allen key to select high yield or low yield, air burst or groundburst and other parameters.

The Bomb is actually armed by inserting a bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees. There is no code which needs to be entered or dual key system to prevent a rogue individual from arming the Bomb.

One of the most entertaining things I’ve read in the economist in a while…

Constant warfare was necessary to keep population density down to one person per square mile. Farmers can live at 100 times that density. Hunter-gatherers may have been so lithe and healthy because the weak were dead. The invention of agriculture and the advent of settled society merely swapped high mortality for high morbidity, allowing people some relief from chronic warfare so they could at least grind out an existence, rather than being ground out of existence altogether.

A short audio interview given about ‘hells angels’;

and the problem between the blurring of fantasy and reality:
gonzovision:

Recently ‘had’ to watch this as part of an International Relations course. Very enjoyable though it does take about 30 minutes to get good:

Rather interesting (if somewhat long and occasionally disjointed) hour’s worth of talking heads…

Interesting stuff: