Not Even Good for Dehydration.

Take off the quotation marks around evidence based and you have yourself a convert for life.

Good Work, Gents.

It's rare, but some days you just have to appreciate The Sun. Puerile in a way few would dare - a bold claim for a British newspaper.

Duh-duh-duh-death panels.

American politics resembles British politics about as much as their take on wrestling does. In both cases, it's a case of distance from the classical Greek system, which is rather neat if you need a pithy introduction to an otherwise content-light blog post.

The current Bete noir of the howling vortex of wrongheadedness that currently constitutes the American Right is a move towards socialised healthcare. Living in Britain, as most of the people reading this most likely do, we take a system by which people are treated as best they can with a grain of salt. It's a monolithic enterprise, employing an integer percentage of the population. It's failings are many, manifest, sometimes amusing, frequently frightening. It is however, all considered, really rather good, and certainly better than many people could pay for themselves. Private healthcare can be rather nifty, but I'm sure few people who live under a socialised system would imagine medical insurance companies to be friendly, trustworthy institutions.

Which leads me to this. If you don't fancy clicking through, it's a business-orientated breakdown of how healthcare in this country works. Not too exciting, particularly as it's written in a bizarrely hostile tone from someone from a nation with lower life expectancy than ours. Still, the pertinent sentence is this:

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

FUCK.

Amazingly, these people actually stand a chance of derailing the process to set up a government alternative to private insurance. This is an example of a literate one. A slightly less literate one is described here:



Yeah. Death Panels. This is why I can't follow British politics any more. I'm gorged on the artificial flavourings over the pond.

So, Transformers 2.

Transformers 2 is a lot like being stuck in a washing machine on a repeat cycle, along with stones of various sizes, several racists, a few misogynists and a scatalogically obsessed 12-year-old boy.

Renowned auteur Michael Bay focuses primarily on the madonna/whore dichotomy that has so long been a part of western culture. He does this with shots of Megan Fox that would embarrass her gynecologist. He will sometimes cut to her pouting lip, seemingly operated by a length of wire from just off camera. Sometimes something will be blowing up when this happens. Sometimes not. You never know with Bay, and therein lies his genius. I don't know what point he's making, but several of the explosions were very large.

He has space for subtext though - there is a running commentary on the military industrial complex, specifically focusing on how frickin' awesome it is, how great it is to blow stuff up, and how empowering it is to point huge shiny penises that spray bullets wherever you goddamn please. Sometimes representatives of military industrial complexes that are not specifically the US turn up. You'll be able to spot these because they are on fire. Occasionally a robot farts. Sometimes one falls over in a comical manner.

Watching Transformers 2 is a lot like being Alex in A Clockwork Orange, but with Linkin Park instead of Beethoven. Same time 2011?

The Dilemma.

Right now, I cannot sleep.

I need something to keep me from running out and charging at the kids selling drugs behind my house. As I sit, wide awake in the middle of the night, I am struck with the notion of how utterly wonderful it would be to tear towards the little bastards at full clip screaming "AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaRrrrrrRRRGHFUCKYOUIAMBATMAN". But then, in my head there's less stabbing and stamping of my mangled form than that would probably precipitate in real life.

Suggestions for reasonably clean alternatives?

Books, Revisited.

I picked up a copy of The Raw Shark Texts for £1 from a remainder bookstore, the frayed edges of a Borders 3 for 2 sticker and associated smingy glue still attached to the top right-hand corner. Something is badly wrong with publishing.

Aether Patrol

Someone get me one of one of these.

Good Work YouTube, Good Work.

Possessed of an Abiding Usefulness.

Like burlesque? Want to survive the inevitable breakdown of society? Tactical Corsets.

That's right. Like the 'Why do they never just shoot them in the face?' fallacy of superhero comics, but much, much worse.

Libertarian Holiday Packages

Sadly, it fails to address Libertarian airlines. Not to worry, Ed of ginandtacos.com is here to cover that one.

And To Our Bitter Religious Friends, Happy Zombie Jeebus Day!

And with inspiring messages exchanged, I'm off to rewatch Doctor Who and Lara Croft's Low Budget Adventures! Featuring the best aliens that are just a boiler suit and a mask yet!

Actually, no. Fuck that - it was dreadful.

A Profoundly Perturbing Passover

Having picked up a copy of an old, obscure and possibly quite good Call Of Cthulhu videogame, I was thrilled to see that my Xbox recognised it as:



Which of course leads me to think:



With all necessary apologies.

Join The Rumpus.

As a child, I loved the book Where the Wild Things Are. I think, on reflection that it's one of the books my parents bought me on a day I'd been foul-tempered. We had a policy that I would get a book a week, to ensure that I turn into the verbose polymath I vaguely resemble on a good day, if you squint a bit. Frequently I would get to choose these books, but on certain weeks, dependent on bouts of ill-behaviour, I would end up with Naughty Nigel or Ffangs the Vampire and the Kiss of Truth. But that is by the by.

Where the Wild Things Are is a book that stands up to adult inspection, mainly on account of just how charming Maurice Sendak's illustrations are. I knew it was being adapted into a movie, but it seemed like a fools errand, even for someone as talented as Spike Jonze. There has also been a lot of talk of studio interference, massive reshoots, problems with the costumes and CGI integrating. Basically, everything that could derail a film has been claimed to have happened to this one, shy of Ragnarok. Still, the first trailer is here, and it looks astonishing. Visually, it's captured the look of the book to a tee. It also, if I'm reading things correctly, seems to have stretched out the story of Max and his temper in a believable and useful way. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, sold.

Gobstopper.

My eyes burn at the brilliance of this.

Gobstopper Trailer - watch more funny videos

Crochet Man.

Just read it. Whatever doesn't kill you, etc.

Speaking As A Mother

We already knew that Jenny McCarthy's tiny mind thinks "vaccination bad", but now we also know that it's parsed "botox good". Whilst it's good that she's not anti-science per se, it seems distasteful that someone who has contributed to the increase in child mortality from easily preventable diseases would refer to a chemical designed to keep you looking like a young-ish trout for as long as possible as "a saviour". Her contributions to the cult of "Speaking as a Mother" cannot be understated.

Because Supervillains Need Bailing Too.

The marvellous Jon Hamm of the marvelous Mad Men makes a marvelous Lex Luthor, albeit in a shitty, shitty bald cap. Play on.

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm - watch more funny videos

Fuck.

Need any more reason to think the Catholic Church is an increasingly irrelevant, monolithic and misogynistic organisation, here you go.

Bring Back The League Of Nations

On the topic of the UN, I have long held the opinion that I think is fairly prevalent in Britain, that being: "Good sorts, staggeringly incompetent, but they mean well, what what?", but this might change my mind.

Essentially outlawing free speech as regards to religion, apparently this resolution is to be observed in all member states. A slight problem is that it is, of course, it goes against the provisions in the U.S. constitution guaranteeing free speech. If the largest of the member states cannot legally follow this directive, then it is hopefully doomed to failure.

I find it difficult to even address the fundamental witlessness of this bill. It sounds like the sort of thing that might be put forward at a high school Model General Assembly. It should be no surprise to anyone that the main sponsor of this bill is Pakistan, a muslim state where 75% of the female prison population are there for being raped. I can imagine there is precious little more deserving of all the criticism that can be hurled at it.

Addendum.

Incidentally, you should all read the biography page for my new nemeses. Apparently the psychic world is not too hot on grammar.