METAL DISABILITY

Hey America, this is socialism in action. Don’t knock it.

“Roger Tullgren of Hässleholm, Sweden needs to listen to heavy metal music while he works. Mind you, that’s not wants to, but needs to. It’s such an essential part of his life that it’s been classified as a disability, entitling him to special dispensation by employers. The ageing rocker claims to have attended almost three hundred shows last year, often skipping work in the process. Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts. But his sessions with the occupational psychologists led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre. “I signed a form saying: ‘Roger feels compelled to show his heavy metal style. This puts him in a difficult situation on the labour market. Therefore he needs extra financial help’. So now I can turn up at a job interview dressed in my normal clothes and just hand the interviewers this piece of paper,” he said. The manager at his new workplace allows him to go to concerts as long as he makes up for lost time at a later point. He is also allowed to dress as he likes and listen to heavy metal while washing up.”

Click here for Painkiller

The secret word is Bipolar

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

As Owen Frozdick moved through life, he left a sad trail of jilted sheep.

…WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS

(While we’re tagged as offensive anyway.)

Click here for Gene

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR OVERLORDS...

LET SLIP THE ROBOTS OF WAR (Part 2)

We advance deeper into the murk if the future.

“The Pentagon released a long-promised cybersecurity plan Thursday that declares the Internet a domain of war. The plan notably does not spell out how the U.S. military would use the Web for offensive strikes. The Defense Department’s first-ever plan for cyberspace calls on the DoD to expand its ability to thwart attacks from other nations and groups, beef up its cyber workforce and expand collaboration with the private sector. Like major corporations and the rest of the federal government, the military “depends on cyberspace to function,” the DoD plan says. The U.S. military uses cyberspace for everything from carrying out military operations to sharing intelligence data internally to managing personnel. “The department and the nation have vulnerabilities in cyberspace,” the document states. “Our reliance on cyberspace stands in stark contrast to the inadequacy of our cybersecurity.” Other nations “are working to exploit DoD unclassified and classified networks, and some foreign intelligence organizations have already acquired the capacity to disrupt elements of DoD’s information infrastructure,” the plan states. “Moreover, non-state actors increasingly threaten to penetrate and disrupt DoD networks and systems.” (Click here for more)

Click here for “Stairway To Heaven” – but not what you might expect.

The secret word is Davros

WE WERE ALL SUPPOSED TO HAVE THESE BY NOW

WATCH SEAN BEAN DIE OVER AND OVER

Click here

SOMEONE’S BEEN BORROWING MY LYRICS...

...and he didn't even ask.  
Click here for a partial explanation

LET SLIP THE ROBOTS OF WAR

Okay, so Reuters report that the Pentagon is starting to figure human grunts are less than cost effective and maybe remote controlled combat is a pretty swell idea. Which it might be, taken in isolation. Unfortunately few things can be taken in isolation these days, and if you factor in Ray Kurzweil’s prediction of the Singularity, when the machines become smarter than we are, and the fictional speculation of The Matrix, Skynet, and HAL 9000, the time may come when the robots decide they’ve seen the enemy and it is us.

"As the United States draws down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and cuts back on defense spending, its reliance on technology will only rise, benefiting a clutch of companies specializing in intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance. The U.S. military will need more equipment like infrared sensors, jammers and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems to counter threats to its troops, with the Obama administration planning to cut troops in Afghanistan by a third by 2012, and exit from Iraq by the end of this year. "(The United States) will have to continue to keep an eye on what is occurring in these countries. So, we will invest in intelligence gathering equipment to complement the decrease in actual forces on ground," Lazard Capital Markets analyst Michael Lewis said. Defense technology companies such as signal intelligence systems maker Mercury Computer Systems , night-vision systems specialist FLIR Systems and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) maker AeroVironment are expected to benefit from this shift in defense spending priorities." (Click here for more)

Click here for Marianne

The secret word is Terminator

…AND SOME DAYS THE HOG EATS YOU

A tribute to the late great Vaughn Bode (who also gave a lot of consideration to robot wars in his Junkwaffel comics.)

THE YOUNG ELVIS – ARMED AND WITH EARMUFFS

I FIND THIS JUST PLAIN PUZZLING

EXCUSE ME, OFFICER, BUT YOU FORGOT YOUR MACHINE GUN

Protect and serve -- when you can remember where you left your weapon.

“A Seattle resident named Nick snapped the photo above in late June, passing it on to The Stranger, a weekly newspaper. It shows an empty police patrol car with an unattended semi-automatic rifle sitting on the trunk. A SPD spokesperson professes to being "very embarrassed" on behalf of the force. "The department is very embarrassed that this happened," says Seattle Police Department Sergeant Sean Whitcomb. "We're incredibly grateful to the person that flagged down the bike officers and the woman who followed the patrol car driver around to let them know there was a rifle on the back of the car." But were SPD officers driving around with an AR-15 rifle on the back of their squad car???? "I'm not going to comment," says Whitcomb, adding that the West Precinct has launched "an investigation into the circumstances that allowed this to happen."

Click here for LW

The secret word is Mariah

THE JELLYFISH ARE UPON US

Yes, my droogs, we’ve warmed up the oceans and now the invertebrates are turning on us.

“They have no backbone and their slimey bodies are made up of more than 90 per cent water but they threaten to turn beaches into no-go zones within two decades. Huge amounts of jellyfish have forced the shutdown of nuclear power plants in Japan, already hit by the earthquake and tsunami, Scotland and a coal-powered plant in Israel in the past few weeks. And a sustained explosion in the population of jellyfish throughout the world's oceans has the potential to be "quite catastrophic" if it is not checked, said jellyfish expert Dr Jamie Seymour from James Cook University in Queensland.” (Click here for the whole story)

SPACE OPERA

Nothing improves a cathedral like an Imperial Star Destroyer.

GRATUITOUS BARDOT

CLIMATE CHANGE DRESDEN-STYLE

Seemingly the thousand bomber raids on Germany during World War II actually produced temporary climate change. The story comes from Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG

"Allied bombing raids during World War II "inadvertently experimented on the weather" in England by creating massive concentrations of artificial clouds as the planes roared off toward continental Europe. Researchers quoted by New Scientist claim that "where the aircraft circled and assembled into formation," on one particular day back in 1944 for which military, meteorological, and even anecdotal eyewitness records are available, "it was significantly cloudier and 0.8°C cooler than the area upwind of the bases." In many ways, this is both obvious and uninteresting, as, of course, any uniquely large-scale act of artificial cloud-production-such as aircraft contrails-would have at least some effect on local weather. But what, to me, seems most remarkable about this story is the darkly poetic idea that war brings with it its own meteorology, its own skies, storms, and atmospheres, literally altering the very firmament beneath which human affairs take place. World War II becomes an even more frightening event, as sun-obliterating cloudfronts of mechanized combat roll eastward over the ruined cities of Europe."

Click here for Nat King Cole

The secret word is Liberator

THE FROZDICK FAMILY (A Two Part Special)

Olga Frozdick’s generosity to the Red Army knew no bounds.

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

While Bettie Frozdick had a soft spot for the Yanks.

JAMES BOND NEEDED RUBBER BANDS?

MOMMY DEAREST…

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

No brothers and sisters, that’s not me. Just a generic mad poet, but it does kinda reflect my momentary mood because – sometime in the wee hours of this morning – I completed my brand new collection of original poetry, and after one final agonizing read-through, I’ll email it off to the guys who intend to publish it. But, even after all these years, now running into decades, I still find myself awash in anxiety, shaking my head and worrying that it is altogether too self-revelatory. (First night nerves every one night stand?) The material is all brand new and was pretty much all written in the last year or so – very much from the heart, or maybe the psychosis. No one has heard or seen it except when I test drove a couple of pieces at a poetry show in Brighton a few weeks ago. The working title of the collection is Machines & Beautiful Women and I’ll keep you all posted as and when it will be unleashed on the world.

Click here for me

The secret work is Nervous

Wurzel – RIP

MARILYN SEZ...

“I hope this isn’t going to be the excuse for a bout of violent absinthe-fueled dementia.”

AN UNUSUAL APPROACH TO FARTING

DON'T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?