Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Hi Southern USA, would you mind not cheesing me off today? Oh never mind, forget it:

US school cancels prom 'over lesbian date'

Fine. OK, China, you're still on probation. Don't let me down now… oh hell, why do I bother ungrounding you lot.

Eleven rare Siberian tigers die at Chinese zoo

Australia, Australia, I hardly dare even ask. Well wait a second, what do we have here?

Atheists meet in Melbourne to celebrate lack of faith

Sounds like lots of fun. I almost wish I could attend.

Female porn director to fight Parliament seat in Kent

It doesn't say if the films she directs make an attempt at being 'healthy', or are the usual creepy exploitative crap. Either way, well, if she wants to run, best of luck to her in evading the Daily Wail and not sabotaging the whole gig for Lib Dem voters country-wide… that's what I care about most here.

Escapologist's ferret escapes

In pictures: PUPPIES! Crufts 2010

I can't remember if I've linked this older story before. Japan's patient pets

This is one of those stories where you almost don't need to read the text, because nothing could outdo the headline. (Any suggestions for a snappy term for this kind of story?)

Mummified hand disappears from Wiltshire pub again

For some time I was wondering why E-Type's song "Fall from the Sky" was in my head, then I remembered I'd seen this story:

Mystery of 75 starlings falling from the sky

Genius.

Nanometre 'fuses' for high-performance batteries

UK treenage slang. A nifty section shows how kids in different areas express this phrase in their own patois:

"John's girlfriend is really pretty. But she got mad with him the other day because he wanted to hang out with his friends rather than take her to the cinema. She got really angry and stormed off. It was very funny."

Giant croc skull

I'm lazy and thus quoting my mate Andrew:

"If you want to save BBC 6 Music, BBC websites, Asian Network, Blast, Switch etc. then you need to contact the BBC Trust. It's they who make the decision, not the Culture Secretary (Tory or Labour) or anyone else. You can give them your views here."

What's really cool is that once you've filled in the questionnaire, the site gives you a PDF of your own responses. For those interested, I've attached mine to this post.

(The questions in the PDF are abridged, so the "what do you think of those proposals?" ones won't make that much sense if you haven't seen what the proposals are. They're shown in full on the consultation site, so go along and have a look if you're curious.)

• BBC responses, 3 March

Electroshock collars banned in Wales. Ha! In your FACE, Cesar Milan!

Sheepies in the snow

Taking home leftovers from work parties can be bad for you, Ancient Egyptians find.

Stemming blood flow to the arm protects heart during attack. Not sure if I'd dare do this as part of my first aiding…

Naughty tigie behaviour. Remind anyone else of The Life of Pi?

'Most unfortunate names' revealed. How I adore puns.

Personally, I've come across the name Pritti Mistry – which is quite sweet, actually – and know of a Jane Eyre in my family history. Of late, I have persuaded a Ms Robson of my acquaintance to call her first son Jerome. (Luckily, I'm sure she'll forget long before she should have this opportunity.)

And as a Baskerville, don't think I have considered adopting a Howard or Howell. Not that a wolfhound would understand the intricacies of wordplay, so it wouldn't be cruel.

Is Switzerland a hotbed of "Zionism and foreign aggression", then?

Children 'over-exposed to sexual imagery'. I saw Dr. Papadopoulos interviewed on breakfast news this morning. Amazingly, it was a good interview (though dumbed-down, as usual). I can't see that clip online; here's another video report on early exposure to sexualised imagery.

Giant George the Great Dane enters the record books.

Presumably they've had him measured now because 4 years is pretty long-lived for a Great Dane. Poor beasts.

edit: Brother's been on Oprah.

Hiding FAIL: German man betrayed to police by his own dog.

Springy spaniel jumps off cliff to see if she bounces.

Aerial view of County Tyrone (Ireland).

Gentlemen: bring me Superman and I'll give you One Meeelyun Dollars!

I just composed an email to Alistair Darling asking him to go ahead and implement a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses.

I include my email below in case it inspires my other UK friends to do likewise. Feel free to use it as a template, but do personalise it and include your name so the Community Chestellor knows it's from a real person.

Dear Alistair Darling,

Please do announce a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses this week.

We were given no choice when our money was used to rescue the banks whose irresponsible trading caused the current financial crisis.

Last week the High Court gave them carte blanche to continue imposing ludicrous charges on the people who bailed them out.

Now the same greedy, irresponsible institutions are trying to put pressure on the government when it threatens to curtail the money they skim off the top.

I will be right behind the government if it shows the courage to say "enough is enough". Our money rescued the banks from collapse. Do not make us watch it go into the pockets of bankers before they scurry away from their sinking ships.

Yours sincerely,

I like this 38 Degrees site. They email me a little often for my liking, but they do make activism easy.

(Usual disclaimer applies: this post is my opinion, not that of my employer. My employer loves everyone, even bankers. I do not.)

Found a cool new real-time blog, like the Dracula one but non-fiction.

Lolz, we're gonna pwn the Antarctic!

Dog 'saves' sleep condition woman

Ooh, here's one for the wishlist next to Cold Reading by Ian Rowland…

And now, Windows tips via someone on Yammer.

Clicking Start > Run (or pressing Windows key + R if, like me, you are a keyboard man) and typing the abbreviation "clipbrd" will bring up the clipboard viewer.

Clicking Start > Run and typing "flipbrd" will bring up a picture of Bill Gates giving you the finger.

Pet labrador which 'knew train timetable' dies (shut up, it is not a slow news day!1!)

Read the original story too, linked in the sidebar. That signalman is after my own heart.

Police making arrests 'just to gather DNA samples'

Colours, sounds and moving objects

HIV infections and deaths fall as drugs have impact

The worldwide stats are really interesting.

Grandmother monkeys care for baby

I bet this guy is the new football sex symbol. Ladies?

NOM!

This article also wins for coining a slightly more disturbing variant of "it's not rocket science":

"We're not building an atomic bomb," he points out. "You just have to use the right quantities, and the right ingredients."

On trams too, please!

(If someone were to give me a Wave Bubble for Christmas, chances are high that I'd wuv them forever for months.)

Mussolini's 'brain and blood for sale on internet' – presumably to frustrated commuters for vodou purposes

Astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis becomes a father – more impressive if it was "becomes a mother"…

Galileo gives Church the finger from a Florence museum. Wait, did I read that right?

Iraqi children attend a pretend maths class

On the Origin of Faeces

(Hel yes I went there.)

Captions <3

And finally, fabbydabbydoo pictures of nature pwnage.

Senator Nick Xenophon moar like XENUphon amirite?

If you don't eat your mutt you can't have any puddy! How can you have any puddy if you won't eat your mutt?!

(Picture = cutest brindle mastiff EVAR TODAY.)

Dog survives 65ft plunge into sea, looks nervously at RNLI rescuers licking their lips.

Swan

Penguin

Bat

Shackleton's whisky to be dug up

Bitter divorcees 'using children'

It's arseholes like this who should be stopped from marrying, not them scary scary gays.

Megaloceros giganteus (giant deer) starved to death during ice age. Clearly they didn't think of storing their booze in a nearby glacier.

"That means that mainland giant deer had some sort of refugia from the Ice Age before they met their ultimate extinction; they were able to move to a better environment and survive later," says Ms Chritz. BBC

And that, my UK friends, is why moose go to Iceland.

Rare Barbastelle bat found on the Isle of Wight

White hind caught on camera in Scotland; Queens Susan, Lucy, Kings Peter, Edmund, seen rushing to site

This article can't make up its mind whether the hind (which is a female deer) should be referred to as "it" or "she". Come on, folks, language guidelines should state that if an animal's sex is known, he or she should be referred to appropriately. Possibly non-sexually-dimorphic arthropods and small fish could be exempt, but it's stupid to refer to a queen bee or ant drone as "it".

Dog lost in Afghan battle returns. Again with the "its"! What is this rudeness? To a war veteran, no less! (Oh, sorry, Sabi, I meant to say war experienced person.)

28,000 people in the UK have black and white television sets.

You mean BCC, sigh…

Nu Labour in a nutshell:

"It is with considerable disappointment, therefore, that the government has agreed not to remove the 'freedom of expression' section."

The superstitions around opening an umbrella indoors apparently date back to the Ancient Egyptians.

Nurse shark? This one's a midwife.

Smart wife launches her own entrapment operation to catch her paedophile husband in the act. Also, they live in Pantygog.

Chile says "thanks but no thanks" to statue of authoritarian paedophile-abetting misogynist with creepy Virgin Mary fixation. Sadly not on those grounds, just because of an underground car park.

This one's fascinating: Traditional African rulers should apologise for the role they played in the slave trade, a Nigerian rights group has said.

'I agreed to become a suicide bomber' – after days of beatings and being shouted at, poor kid. I admire him.

Greek Church throws a hissy fit about a ban on "the compulsory display of crucifixes" in classrooms.

Darwin foiled by ambulance service

Lion is taken on midnight safari. Disapproves of stop signs but enjoyed drive-thru.

Forest pursues 'dark sky' status. Galloway is in the south of Scotland. This would be the first certified 'dark sky' place outside the USA (which you'd think would have a natural advantage in the sheer amount of less-populated space over there).

Dolphin football off north coast

Massive killer whale pod sighted

"I'm utterly lost for words" – well shut up, then; your yapping isn't adding to the moment here!

Royal award for fold-up bike man

Swedes divided over bunny biofuel

Slightly misleading picture of a pet bunny. We're talking about dead wild rabbits. Given a bunch of dead rabbits after a cull that would have happened regardless, you can incinerate them, toss them into a mass grave or try to put them to some kind of use. Left up to me, well, somebody's doggies would have some very nice gourmet cooked meals.

Dogs who attacked child will be destroyed

I wonder how many of the roughly 50% of UK inhabitants who oppose the death penalty for humans (I know, frighteningly low number) would also oppose it for dogs.

Delay formal lessons 'to age six'

I dunno. If we can trust parents to teach and engage their kids in the meantime, that'd be good. And then there's the question of if parents can afford to stay at home and teach their kids (and in an ideal world the answer to this should be absolutely yes). Not necessarily formal lesson-style learning, but socialisation, zoo, finger-painting, all the stuff a kid needs to experience.

My concern (as usual) is about gifted kids especially, and stunted potential all around. I needed to start reading at age two, and if I hadn't had a minion on hand to teach me, it would've been rubbish.

"Everybody is used to science fiction featuring science that seems, well, not very scientific."

Er, if we're being pedantic, I beg to dub that 'science fantasy' or soft SF, not cool hard sci-fi. But continue.

Welcome to the world of sci-fi science

In today's "won't you walk into my parlour" news…

Cat Party to recruit mice, Nazi party to admit Jews, Roma, disabled people, and: BNP to consider non-white members.

Vatican to host Galileo exhibit. Sounds fabtastic. I'd like to see it.

Nice try, kid, but no cigar. Of course, he will have learned much from this preliminary attempt.

Israel taking a leaf out of the Bush administration's books. I'll be interested to see if Obama takes action on this kind of thing. America's about the only country to whom they're remotely likely to listen, and at least the "We Take the Book of Revelation Literally, Roll On Battle of Megiddo" loon squad are no longer in power.

Seal pups: look cute, but don't approach or you could cause them to starve.

Beautiful microscopy photos of blood cells and nerves.

Adults with autism 'cast adrift' in England

This, er, wow. So what are Auschwitz's five favourite singers and which Heroes character would Auschwitz be? Now we can find out. Er.

RIVAL CHILD OVERACHIEVER! It is so cute pathetic that at age 27 I still feel threatened by this kind of brat… oh man… issues. ;D

These poor kids, on the other hand, are lucky if they can learn at all.

Finally, I have to post this for you lot for the name alone. North Korea's Hotel of DOOM.

(Not to be confused with Latveria's Doctor of Doom or Disneyland's Tower of Terror, of course.)

"I felt I'd test my hypothesis and I did that by getting my cat certified by a number of the most prominent lay hypnosis organisations in the United States. It was a frighteningly simple process."

Cat registered as hypnotherapist

Look at the picture of the cat, though. That's an intense expression – every bit as convincing as Derren Brown. And less trustworthy.

'Lying down' NHS staff reinstated

Cage fighter punches out stag

Honour killings given Bollywood flavour

Uruguay approves sex change bill, jubilant blogger tries desperately not to type "You mean Uragay lol lol :D"

Cut them off with a rusty butter knife.

Derry City Council's Hallowe'en carnival encourages Satanism and has brought a curse on the city, according to a Methodist minister.

I don't celebrate Hallowe'en, but that Methodist minister has just caused me to drink some water as a proxy libation to Bau and Anubis (which I reasoned ought to count as Satan in his book). Self-important arsenoses like Rev Jonathan Campbell make Satanism look more attractive than do 19-year-old skinhead trick-or-treaters or noisy drunk people having fun.

Abortion bans do not reduce abortion rates. I'm sure pro-life mysogynists will not allow these facts to inconvenience them.

Yes they should – why don't they already?!

Berners-Lee 'sorry' for slashes, fanfiction writers up in arms

New flying reptile fossils found

Egypt to become den of vice and harlots with visible eyes

Saudi to become den of vice, mixed-sex conversations and literate car-driving harlots

Witch schools. I wonder why this upsets me so much less than Christian missionaries doing the same. Probably some ill-defined idea of cultural naturalness.

World's oldest POWs returned home

These people are spawning 10+ mini-mes and imbuing them with their Invisible Magic Friend disease while Brits raise one or two apiece and teach them about things like open minds. Something's going wrong here. Something's going very wrong.

In shock news, several gay Conservatives have been found to be able to live with themselves.

The latest craze to hit New York: Text My Beaver.

I wish this clip were on YouTube. I was dipping in and out of Channel 4's 9/11 documentary this morning because someone else was watching it on tape. Really nice filmmaking, incidentally – letting their good selection of clips speak for themselves. Nevertheless, one moment more than others made my blood run cold and my bloodlust run hot.

It's around 01:14:53, if you're able to watch it on 4OD from your location.

It's a soundbite/interview with a sane-looking (as far as anyone can judge) American chap in Times Square during the Twin Towers attacks – filmed before the second tower fell, while people were just standing watching it broadcast live on various screens. "My personal opinion is, we should go to Finland and all those Arab countries and just blow them up. Kill them. That's it. Honestly. Kill them."

Yes, I ran it back and I'm sure he said Finland. This fellow wasn't alone among those filmed in immediately demanding that somebody be invaded (and there were clips of women as well as men saying so), although he was the only one I saw who demonstrably thought Finland was in the Middle East.

Honestly, America, sometimes you make it hard for me to think you didn't deserve Dubya.

Don't get me wrong, though, I'd be out for someone's blood if anyone did this in my country, but I'd wait until I knew it was 'Arabs' – and perhaps even find out which particular Arabs – before invading them.

Well, I just found that an interesting and chilling insight.

Newly-elected British National Party MEP Nick Griffin inflamed racial sensibilities once again this afternoon when he insisted that protesters not throw eggs at him unless they had first separated the yellows from the whites.

People in the audience vocally disapproved of this, and as a result Griffin was hit by a boo meringue.

edit: OK, this is nuts. If this joke ends up on t' telly – 8 out of 10 Cats, recording Thursday evening for broadcast Friday night – it's all down to one of my colleagues retweeting it on Twitter. It will be stolen rather than credited to me, but I can confirm that I originated the joke over email and that I am awesome, and that you should all buy my book (chapter 1 free to read on the web). ;)

I've finally given in and started tweeting. @suitov

edit2: Didn't make it into the show, apparently. Hee. Clearly I'll have to start broadcasting witticisms to the world more often.