Bloggerheads

Romeo and Juliet (sings) especially for youuuu

Posted on December 8, 2004 by Tim Ireland

This post is dedicated to the lovely publicist for SkyMovies who sent me a plug for their latest amazing online quiz (also available as an Excel attachment) without actually looking at my site first. Bless.

Romeo and Juliet – the personalized romance novel!

Quite possibly the best thing ever. Your own version of Romeo and Juliet, except with the names of you and your life-partner in place of the (former) heroes. And, just in case you have trouble imagining that, they provide you with the following samples:

“Oh ~~Romeo, Romeo~~ Brad, Brad. Wherefore art thou ~~Romeo~~ Brad?”

“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and ~~Juliet~~ Helen is the sun.”

It gets better….

You can also choose a ‘Happy Ending Version’, where “a new scene is added with an unexpected plot twist – the lovers live happily ever after!”

:o)

Posted in Consume! | 4 Comments

Blogdex: Today’s Outrages, Advice and Insights

Posted on December 8, 2004 by Tim Ireland

The moral outrage is driven by a minority. There’s a surprise. Now, here are some cartoon characters stripped bare (SFW). Are you outraged? No?

OK, tinfoil time then: In sworn affidavit, programmer says he developed vote-rigging prototype for Florida congressman; Congressman’s office silent. But surely this prototype was only used to test the machines, thereby making them more secure?

(UPDATE – More links and much discussion at Slashdot.)

US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost. I am shocked. That such an admission would be made.

Kevin Drum has a few questions for you. My answer to Question 2 is a charter from a few days back:

Guardian – Washington funds false sex lessons: The Bush administration is funding sexual health projects that teach children that HIV can be contracted through sweat and tears, touching genitals can result in pregnancy, and that a 43-day-old foetus is a thinking person. A congressional analysis of more than a dozen federally funded “abstinence-only programmes” unveiled a litany of “false, misleading and distorted information” in teaching materials after reviewing curriculums designed to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

Here I choose to direct you to:
The Silver Ring Thing – The Lies of Denny Pattyn
Beware the deadly trouser snake

Finally, we have this:
Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make

Here, I choose to point out the success of JPEG Baby (which shows the correct use of Flash to promote music in a way that the music labels are still resisting) and direct you to the following not-entirely-unrelated article:
Hollywood Sites, Hollywood URLs

Posted in Riding High on Blogdex | Comments Off

Iraq, Friendly Fire, Civilian Casualties, and a Total Lack Of Torture

Posted on December 8, 2004 by Tim Ireland

How's my shooting? Washington Post – Barrage of Bullets Drowned Out Cries of Comrades – Myths shaped Pat Tillman’s reputation, and mystery shrouded his death. A long-haired, fierce-hitting defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League, he turned away a $3.6 million contract after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to volunteer for the war on terrorism, ultimately giving his life in combat in Taliban-infested southeastern Afghanistan. Millions of stunned Americans mourned his death last April 22 and embraced his sacrifice as a rare example of courage and national service. But the full story of how Tillman ended up on that Afghan ridge and why he died at the hands of his own comrades has never been told

And one can only wonder why…

Store that bit about Pat Tillman’s primary motivation. I’ll get back to it shortly.

For now, let’s take a look at what else is being hidden from us while we’re being asked to support the troops and believe in a humanitarian mission to rescue Iraqis.

BBC – Hold Iraq death probe, Blair told – Forty-six eminent figures including military men, ex-diplomats and bishops have written to Tony Blair urging a inquiry into civilian deaths in Iraq. It comes after a study in medical journal the Lancet said nearly 100,000 died following the invasion. The study, by US and Iraqi researchers, suggested the risk of violent death was higher after the war than before. UK ministers rejected October’s Lancet figures, but have offered no alternative estimate of their own.

Continue reading →

Posted in It's War! It's Legal! It's Lovely! | 1 Comment

Tim Ireland: Teh Profile

Posted on December 5, 2004 by Tim Ireland

A new version of my profile has been published here:
Tim Ireland

This will also lead to details regarding search engine optimisation, viral marketing and weblog marketing.

Posted in Updates | Comments Off

Bloggerheads II now live!

Posted on December 3, 2004 by Tim Ireland

If you’re reading this, it means that the DNS change has properly-gated and Bloggerheads II is officially live.

Well, almost. I had to make do with one or two ‘coming soon’ pages. Some static pages have been slotted in as posts (and back-dated), but for the most part we start anew from this point on. With about 10 exceptions…

Given the lack of comments and permalinks that has stood in our way these past years, I thought it might be nice to start off by opening up some of the juicer posts from last month.

Scroll down and fire at will.

Posted in Updates | 21 Comments

Star Wars Photoshopping Project Poster now available!

Posted on December 3, 2004 by Tim Ireland

T-shirts? Pshaw!

The Star Wars Photoshopping Project has now mutated into poster form!

And just in time for Christmas, too!

I know they’re a little pricey, but the prints are on photo-quality/thickness paper and won’t fade for 100 years. You may not plan on living that long right now, but I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning.

I’ve got a test print in front of me; it’s truly awesome. I plan to put it up in the living room so it can serve as a useful distraction during uncomfortable silences.

Posted in Photoshopping | 2 Comments

01-03 December, 2004

Posted on December 1, 2004 by Tim Ireland

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Date
20041201
In The News
Time
09:25
Daily Mail – Revealed: Nanny got visa in 19 days

And here’s how it happened. Some ass-kissing bureaucrat is for the chop, you just watch.

You know, if this happened to some senior chappie at the BBC, they’d already be out of a job. If it happened to anyone outside of Blair’s circle, Sun journalists would right now be hounding that person day-in day-out, waving ‘joke’ visa applications in their face and demanding their resignation with a front page banner headline.

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Date
20041202
Consume!
Time
09:29
Ahahahahahahahahahaha!

Yes, well… best of luck with that. I’m sure you’ll get on famously.

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Date
20041202
OK, So I’m a Lego Geek
Time
09:31
he’s right, you know. This is an awesome link.

BTW, it’s not a Death Star. It’s a Sandcrawler.

And it’s *this* close to finished.

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Date
20041202
Page 3 – Words of Wisdom
Time
09:32
Danni (18, from Coventry) looks like a lovely girl. And she’s all for the police using Taser guns. She says: “Tasers have been tried and tested and are effective. Violent criminals are easily disabled, which helps protect police and the public from injury. This is an acceptable alternative for armed police.”

PS – Keep telling yourself;

asylum-seeker=terrorist

asylum-seeker=terrorist

asylum-seeker=terrorist

asylum-seeker=terrorist

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Date
20041202
Updates
Time
09:37
Bloggerheads II will be here shortly. I’m working like mad to make it happen by Monday. Wibbler is helping.

Comments will require Typekey registration. You may want to sort that out now so you can hit the ground running.

Meanwhile, I’m also working to get the first pro-Blair viral mechanism together (as others toil on the website). Trust me, you will like it. I’ll have you backing Blair within a few days, just wait and see.

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Date
20041202
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
09:40
‘Blog’ is the No. 1 word of the year.

Blogs swoop into China.

A good thing, considering.

Mind you, we have our own censorship problems.

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Date
20041202
Flash Thingies
Time
10:05
No2ID Flash Competition. Normally something I’d jump at, but not this week.

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Date
20041202
Activism
Time
10:17
How to start a campaign and set up a group (a guide from those liberal nay-sayers at the BBC).

Might come in handy, knowing how to get a group together. I sure beats pretending to be a crowd.

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Date
20041202
Updates
Time
22:37
Another late one. Working damn hard to get Bloggerheads II up and running for Monday (but it really has to be done tomorrow, so I can have the DNS switched over the weekend). There may be a few ‘coming soon’ pages….

Flash music video for Blair is 3/4 done and looking very, very tasty. I think it’s my best work to date. For that, you’ll have to wait until Flarsday. About crunch-time.

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Date
20041202
Spam
Time
22:43
Oh dear.

Oh dear.

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Date
20041203
It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!
Time
09:21
Another great day for freedom:

U.S. Can Use Evidence Gained by Torture: Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550 foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing Thursday.

Not that the U.S. actually tortures anyone. Oh my, no….

(Link via ScaryDuck.)

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Date
20041203
Consume!
Time
15:49
The Star Wars Photoshopping Project Poster – it lives!

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Bloggerheads to back Blair

Posted on November 26, 2004 by Tim Ireland

I’ve been pondering for quite some time on the matter of the upcoming election and what my role would be. Now I know.

This is my position/task-sheet on campaign/political work (I’ve said by email many times; not sure if I’ve blogged it):
1. To the best of my ability, I will work to expand/defend the open form of political blogging that we now enjoy, and be very aware that the campaign season will bring a very dangerous breed of highly publicised one-way campaign blogs.
2. Know and accept that the above requires my offering guidance and assistance to individual MPs from almost any party bar UKIP or the BNP.
3. Know and accept that – on a party level – I can’t work for Labour while I oppose Blair, I won’t work for the Conservative Party full-stop and the Lib-Dems simply can’t afford me.

This pretty much leaves me out of the game. At best, shouting from the sidelines. I’m not happy about that.

Continue reading →

Posted in Tony 'King Blair | 4 Comments

We’re all going to die. No, really!

Posted on November 23, 2004 by Tim Ireland

Honest John Prescott was dragged out of bed to address the small problem of Radio 4 this morning (as he always is when the government is presenting something that’s total bollocks).

Prescott insisted that the new ‘security’ measures were nothing to be afraid of, as they would be open to public debate. Also, he insisted that the threat of global terror was not something that could be ignored (cross-reference with Blunkett’s recent soundbite: “…we will have to take whatever steps are necessary, particularly in terms of security and intelligence, because it’s no good picking up the pieces – literally – afterward”).

But, when the presenter quite rightly brought up the issue of Iraq (which was supposed to make us more secure, but did just the opposite) Prescott dismissed these concerns by claiming the presenter and the programme had an “obsession” with the subject. He also said – when pressed for details of the ‘benefits’ we were expecting from the invasion of Iraq – that we should “wait and see”.

1. Public debate, yes. But let’s not bother with any meaningless subjects. Like Iraq.
2. The threat of terror cannot be ignored. Action must be taken. But on the action in Iraq, which has done so much to promote global terrorism and continues to do so to this day, we should just hang around and see what happens.

Now, let’s get to the bit where you’re at risk of getting blowed up…

Continue reading →

Posted in The War on Stupid | Comments Off

Margaret Hassan: martyr for the Labour cause

Posted on November 17, 2004 by Tim Ireland

Guardian – Kidnapped aid worker blindfolded and shot: The video, which emerged a week ago but was kept secret, has been studied by experts, and both British diplomats and relatives of Mrs Hassan said they now believed it showed the 59-year-old and that she had been killed.

Given that I spoke out against the brutal and unlawful killing of a wounded and unarmed insurgent yesterday, you might very well ask me (as many RWCs do) where my anger is for the tragedy of the slain hostages in Iraq. Particularly for someone as innocent and as selfless as Margaret Hassan.

Here’s my anger, Jack….

It should be obvious now to anyone who’s been paying attention that there are people on one side of the war on terror who will commit any outrage to further their cause. And they’re enabled by those on the other side, who actually dare to try and frame and shape tragic events rather than fighting the threat itself.

Continue reading →