Linky Linky Shminky Pinky Heth – eth – eth – eth – eth – eth – eth – eth – eth! Chris Waddle

Bono Estente!

Cheers, Simes!

It’s finally election day, I appear to have a semi-reliable (so far) WiFi connection, I’ve rewritten and reposted the post WordPress ate last night and the hospital telly is allegedly fixed, so fingers crossed for the rest of the day – let’s hope the UK electorate is giving the politicoliterati the collective kick up the arse they so richly deserve. But we won’t know that till the results start rolling in when the polls close at 10pm Greenwich time, so until then here’s some interesting stuff to look at.

Ukip’s loudmouth-in-chief Nigel Farage and his pilot are injured while trailing a a campaign banner from a light aircraft

CNN: Sex slave girls face cruel justice in Iraq:

When Fatin found out her father was attempting to sell her, she immediately sought help from the law.

“I ran away from Najaf and escaped to Baghdad where I found my mother and asked her if she knew what my father was planning,” says 22-year-old inmate Fatin, “So she took me to court in Baghdad, we got a lawyer and brought a case against my father.”

Months passed and the lawsuit was never heard. While awaiting justice, Fatin says her father raped her. After the attack, she killed him, was tried, and is currently serving the fifth year of a 15 year sentence.

From astronomy blog Starts With A Bang : A Mysterious Light on the Darkest Night “….say hello to the gegenschein…” and some gorgeous time-lapse video of the Milky Way too.


Mr Benn becomes deputy leader of the Labour Party

I am the Isabella Blow of whiny transplant patients. Much obliged to Unfogged (yet again) for turning me on to The Rosa Parks of Blogs

Everybody is the Rosa Parks of something—or at least the Michael Phelps, Cap’n Crunch, Dick Cheney, Elmer Fudd, or Paris Hilton of whatever. This blog collects examples of the adaptable idiom “X is the Y of Z”, which is a snowclone. Feel free to use these descriptions when discussing your beautiful children, longtime companions, sworn enemies, favorite foods, and elected congressvermin. And if you need even more absurd comparisons, then you’re in luck.

Boneless, slithery and sometimes slimy but always fascinating, Circus of the Spineless No. 50 is up at Arthropoda.

Carry on, Master Bates….From the BBC News election campaign liveblog

Ever wondered if it’s OK to dress as a pirate when you head to the polling station to exercise your democratic right? For a list of the things you can’t do in a polling station, have a have a read of this

Apparently it’s OK to vote with bare manboobs, but not bare actual boobs

“Pyjamas are fine, provided they’re not indecent. And so is a builder who’s stripped to the waist. We want people to vote, we don’t want to turn people away,” he says. But a line does have to be drawn somewhere, he says. “A topless woman wouldn’t be appropriate as voters might get distracted.”

I’d’ve thought the returning officers would be more concerned about naked vote-stealing than naked norks. Sexist bastards.

And for my final flourish – from the Fast Show, it’s Channel 9 neus:

Falia helé, Falia hela, Falia helé, and don’t forget to vote.

Linky Linky

How was such a terrible environmental disaster allowed to happen? Deep Sea News has at least some answers in The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill: A Timeline. And guess what – the whole affair has Halliburton’s mucky fingerprints all over it.

Dill and Honey flavour potato chips anyone? Satay and Ginger? Frikadelle? Avocado & Lobster?

Maak de Smaak, the Cloggie version of Do Us a Flavour

If you thought Walkers crisps fans came up with some weird flavours in their “Do Us A Flavour” competition (last year’s winner, Builder’s Breakfast, allegedly tasted of bacon, eggs, sausage and baked beans) then you should see some of the suggestions in the Dutch version, Maak de Smaak. 95% of the entries can be dismissed as mere variations on that classic cloggie theme, kaas, kaas en kaas, garnalen met en beetje kaas, but there are some interesting entries, like the aforesaid Avocado & Lobster – mind you, whether the suggestions will translate into actual recognisable flavours remains to be tasted. Walker’s is still way ahead of Lay’s in the PR stakes though: their latest marketing effort is to tie new flavours to the world cup. Anyone for a bratwurst crisp?

Who says Merkins don’t get UK politics? A masterly summation of the election so far, by Stanley at Unfogged:

Let’s see. Labor and Tories are both lame-os. Brown, because, basically he’s boring, and there’s a recession about, and something about the banks, plus Britons are still smarting from the Blair decision to play wardude alongside Bush in Iraq, which was totes expensive and morally squicky at best. Cameron, because, despite being young and charismatic (not to mention riding a bike to work—did I get that part right? I remember something about a bicycle), he’s a privileged wanker.

There’s also the fact that that Cameron has (it’s not original but I can’t remember which commenter wrote it) a waxy-melty face like a Victorian doll. No really, just look:

Victorian wax boy doll

But do go on:

But! This year, they had very, very special US-style, televised debates, which, gasp!, propelled Liberal Dem Clegg into the national spotlight, and it’s possible that now, mayhaps, the Liberal Dems could win a plurality, but, no matter what, it seems no single party’s going to outright take it, so some sort of coalition of governing parties is inevitable, not to mention likely to be unstable. After all, the last time there was a comparable power-sharing agreement (in the 1970s? writing this from memory is easy, because I can seemingly make stuff up), the whole thing went in the can within six months or so.

So, lots of crazy uncertainty abounds, and no one’s really happy about the whole mess. But the queen’s position is definitely safe (for now)

Yup, that’s pretty much it.

Believe, indeed. We didn’t think the Labour Party would do such an illiberal and opressive thing as to force biometric ID cards on an unwilling populace either. But they did, because they were shit scared of being accused of being soft on immigration, just like Obama and the Dems. Now look where they are in the polls. Goodbye Gordon, Goodbye, Obama…

OMFG. This latest from Oklahoma is utterly inhumane. I’d even call it torture. From the Rude Pundit:

The Oklahoma Legislature Will Look Inside Your Daughter’s Vagina (Part of the “Your State Sucks, Too” Series):
The brutal assault on women’s rights continues in states where you’d expect there to be a brutal assault on women’s rights. This week’s yahoos are the members of the Oklahoma legislature who voted by a veto-proof majority to require pregnant women who want an abortion to get a vaginal-probe ultrasound in order to show them the fetus. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.

In other words, if you are a woman who wants a perfectly legal medical procedure in Oklahoma, you must submit to the forced insertion of an implement into you, even though that act carries medical risks (you know, perforation, infection, that kind of stuff) and serves no actual medical purpose. It’s just to be total dicks about abortion.

In otherer words, the Oklahoma legislature wants to sodomize pregnant women.

Like I said, OMFG.

Linky Goodness: Science, Scones and Squid

Discover Magazine: Off the California Coast, Giant Volcanoes Made of Asphalt

Tin-Tin In The Congo is likely to be banned in Belgium unless sold with a racism warning sticker. Quite right too.

Also sounding rather Tin-Tinesque, an insight into the odd social life of the world’s only living secular saint in The Mystery of Naomi Campbell and the Blood Diamond

But back to the benthic theme: a lovely deep sea fauna gallery, including video of the elusive oarfish (often mistaken historically for an actual sea serpent) , from the Serpent Project. NB: Piglet squid!

There’s nothing as delicious as scones with jam and cream (or better still, treacle and cream, AKA ‘thunder & lightning’) but it’s not a treat I get often; even though I was born and bred in Devon my scones are like bricks, despite my incredibly light hand with pastry and talent for cakes. But my mother’s scones were light as a feather, while her pastry was like concrete. Small wonder her pasties (the savoury kind, not the sequined nipple covers) were known in our family as ‘trainwreckers’. The scone gene got twisted somewhere. So when I saw this post – How to make the perfect scone– I was inspired to have another go. But first I have to get out of this hellhole of a hospital.

3,000 years of pre-Sumerian history left undiscovered because of husbandly misogyny

Your Happening World (15)

Easter weekend happenings:

  • The Dutch government has released (almost) its entire internet presence under a Creative Commons Zero licence, putting it in the public domain. As Dutch internet law expert Arnoud Engelfriet explains (in Dutch, natch), they didn’t need to do this as by law any government work is in the public domain, but this makes it explicit.
  • A few days ago Nick Cohen was busy upbraidign an obscure student for publishing a thesis critical of the work of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. This after he helped smear Amnesty International not a mere two months ago. Now he’s after Joanna Lumley for erm helping the Ghurka veterans getting their pensions. There’s no pleasing the guy.
  • Christian wannabe-terrorists are weird.
  • Jamie points out that being shocked at Catholic Church officials comparing the uproar about pedo priests to anti-semitism is just what they want. The discussion now revolves around what the Church says instead of what it does…
  • Lenny on the role the courts play in the class war.