Once more just redirecting you to someone else’s genius idea (or less honestly sharing a link), but the idea of warning labels for journalism is just too excellent not to share. Tom Scott has produced a set of warning labels for sticking onto news reports and has made them downloadable as a PDF for avery labels. As he puts it:

“It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there’s no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.

I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers. I’ve been putting them on copies of the free papers that I find on the London Underground. You might want to as well.”

So go read, print and enjoy.

Alice Cooper and Preacher
I’ve loads of browser windows open with stuff I should link to, or mutter about or something. However rather more fun I thought I’d plug two friends of mine of somewhat awesome talent. So last night after my day job I took a break from reading blogs and thinking “I really should write something” to lend a friend of mine a hand. After all how often do you get the chance to help a mate audition in front of Alice Cooper? So I toddled along to a pub changed jacket and drank beer whilst Preacher (the not so pretty chap stood next to Mr Cooper in the photo) got changed, before we all toddled along to the London Dungeon to sit twiddling our thumbs waiting to be called. This was just as well as it gave the ever talented Ms. Gugenheim FaceBook a bit more time to fix Preachers face (she took about 30 minutes or so to do what you see in the photo). The other performers were generally goos sorts so hanging around was quite jolly, which was just as well as himself was on almost last, and ended up being called on earlier than the props guys expected – which made for an amusing ad-hoc start to his act, most of which I missed due ot having to lurk out of sight behind the late to stage table. So one very punchy 4 minute act later and with himself on a bed of nails, I got to place some floor tiles on top of him before smashing them with the sharp end of an axe. At this point wondering if we should have rehearsed that bit did cross my mind, but he survived amidst much applause. There then followed more thumb twiddling (or axe twiddling in my case), before the winners got called back – which fortunately included himself.
ITN have a bit of his act in thier interview with Alice Cooper and he’s apparently been on the news a bit elsewhere all of which I’ve missed, it’ll all allegedly be shown on Sky at some point. If that turns out to be true I’ll get my 15 seconds of fame with my first time not backstage (Usually I do Preachers pyro’s and stay firmly back stage).

So preacher will be performing at Alice Coopers gigs at Halloween and Ms. Gugenheim will be doing his and the other freaks make-up. I’d heartily recommend going along to see, or even toddle along to the Brickhouse sometime next month where he’ll be doing a regular show. Then with luck at some point he can pay me for the props I’ve made him. If you ever need a body painter or a fire/sideshow performer you really can’t go far wrong working with either of these two people.

Auditioning for Alice Cooper was a hell of a lot more fun than the farce that’s Britains got Talent which we did earlier in the year. If you’re not a song or dance act really there’s no point in doing that they’ll make you look bad and will actively make sure you don’t stand a chance. I may write more about that some other time having been invovled with two acts taking part in it now.

I’ll now return you to your scheduled ranting.

Rather than actually righting something I’m just going to point at other peoples writing for being far more readable than I.

Firstly what I hope is old news to everyone reading this, LegIron has published a book of his short stories which judging by the ones he’s posted on his blog should be an excellent read. Free to download as PDF or better yet go buy it (currently with discount code).

Utterly unrelated I’ve been pointed at a new (to me) blog: Still Drinking it’s a US blog and from what I’ve read so far not political but an excellent read – least ways if you’re a somewhat older goth who’s also still drinking it is. Go read an enjoy it’ll be a nice break… honest.

A couple of things for your Friday delectation.

Firstly via comments over on Anna Raccoon there is the wonder that is Daed Parrot’s Sleaze-O-scope. A one stop shop for locating all the latest sleaze.

And utterly unrelated to that a rather jolly rant against recycling.

It would seem that over at Labour Lost they thing that people don’t actually really rather despise the current Labour party and that they’re not as unpopular as the Tories used to be. The Appalling Strangeness disputes this idea, so if you dislike the current Labour lot as much as the Tories of yesteryear go on over and say “Hi” – and add you name to those that do actually “hate and revile” labour.

In the meantime have a cartoon (Thanks to Ara).
Types of Libertarian

(In other news work is excessively busy – so I’m being even quieter than usual. Just in case you’re wondering.)

Hot on the heels of the First Annual Everybody Draw Mohammad Day comes… Everybody Research the Holocaust Day.

This it seems is a response from someone who got a teense upset about people drawing pictures of Mohammad (and to be fair many of them mine included really weren’t great works of art).

However as Harry’s place has a plan:

Now it seems to me that a bit of lesson in free speech is very much in order here, so if its an ‘Everybody Research the Holocaust Day’ that the members of this Facebook group want then let’s give them exactly what they’re asking for.

Between now and the 30th June, I’d like as many bloggers as possible to spend just a little bit of time researching the Holocaust.

This should not be too onerous a task as there’s no great shortage of fantastic online resources to draw on – just to get you started you could try the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, the Holocaust History Project, the Holocaust Cybrary, HolocaustSurvivors.org and the Holocaust section of the Jewish Virtual Library and, of course, there’s a wealth of other information out there on teh Interwebs, only a Google/Bing/Yahoo search away.

And then, on the 30th June, I’d like you all to write and publish a blog post telling the world what you’ve found out, turning the day into a real Holocaust Research Day.

As for the Holocaust deniers and their childish little Facebook group, all I ask is that you leave them alone – so, please, no complaints to Facebook, no protests and no abusive comments either publicly or by email/personal messages. If you want to take any direct action against this group and its members then I’d suggest you do no more than look out for any conspiracist nonsense posted to the group and, if you have time, subject it to a good old-fashioned fisking.

Anyway go read the whole article, join the facebook group and then on the 30th post something.

A slight break from looking at those purple people, but via Samizdata it would seem that tomorrow is First Annual Everybody Draw Mohammad Day.

First Annual Everybody Draw Mohammad Day

Expect some very bad art here tomorrow.

Just in case you missed it, we’re all being put on a central NHS database unless we “opt out”, and it looks as though we may not be able to even do that fully.

Go and read more over at:
The Big Opt Out.

Of course if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear and will be quite happy having your medical details, phone number, GP details and the like available to “over a million NHS employees and central government bureaucrats“.

Those of you that aren’t reading this via RSS may have noticed a little logo that has appeared over on the right hand side.

646 All Out!

It’s a little campaign I’m trying to launch which I think might appeal to anyone that may happen to be reading here. I shall simply repeat here what I’ve said there and hope that if the idea appeals to you, that you’ll maybe spread the word a bit and maybe lend a hand in anyway you can.


“646 All out!” is a non-affiliated independent campaign, that receives no funding from anyone. This is not an anti-politics site nor is it in favour of people disconnecting from the political process – quite the reverse in fact. “646 All out!” is in favour of everyone exercising their right to vote and believes that there is no such thing as a wasted vote. That said we’ve seen no evidence that any of the current incumbents are fit for office, and believe that the purposes of democracy would be best served if they were all removed and no candidate from any of the major parties returned.
Read more…

you may or may not have heard by Baroness Buscombe the new chair of the Press Complaints Commission is pondering if it might not be a frightfully jolly idea for the PCC to also regulate blogs. Regulating blogs seeming to be an idea that governments just can’t let go of, despite the vast numbers of technical difficulties that would prevent it working for anyone with even half a technical clue. So despite this being an even sillier idea than holding ISPs liable for usenet posts made by people that aren’t their customers, it’s probably best to try and kill it as soon as possible. After all they did end up making ISPs liable for usenet posts, and the evidence is they’ve only got dafter since then.

So go and sign this rather well written letter over at Liberal Conspiracy explaining to the powers that be, that it’s a very silly idea and that we’re doing quite well on our own thanks very much and that maybe the PCC should get the hang of effectively regulating the press first before they start worrying about anything else.

© 2010 Anonymong Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha