sorry I didn’t want to mention it

but everything is more expensive and not as good

it’s cold

and we are expected to buy presents for everyone we know. if you love them you give them presents anyway

Exciting day for JAXA! Japanese robots arrived on the moon for the first time today. Like most Japanese robots that make great um things, the lunar probe has a woman’s name Selene (short for Selenological Engineering Explorer). It was launched on September 14, four years behind schedule, but safely arrived at its destination, where it will hang out for a year investigating the evolution of the moon. It’s the largest lunar mission since Apollo. More here.

No pictures though

Political pranksters/Situationists Lite Space Hijackers are trying to raise the spondoolinks to buy a tank, or, at the very least, some kind of armoured personnel carrier…

There comes a time in every activist groups development when they realise that there is something missing in their set up. We have been striving to cause trouble, save the world and wind up the powers that be for 8 years now. However we still don’t own a tank… Please help us right this wrong.

For more info on how to help, see the Tank-O-Meter page.

Was watching ‘Black Belt Jones’, a rather stodgy 1974 blaxploitation/karate/mafia picture with Jim Kelly, and came across this fella Mel Novak, who’s a second string gangster in it. He’s definitely a familiar face - you’ll probably remember him from things like ‘Game Of Death’, or perhaps ‘Truck Turner’… Or maybe even one of his more recent flicks, like, ah, ‘Vampire Assassins’ or ‘Pocket Ninjas’. Or maybe not.

Anyhow, this dude doesn’t just star in Hollywood’s finest films; he also does his own stunts! And not only that, he’s “a dedicated Soldier for Christ, is an Ordained Minister called by God to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and salvation to the homeless on skid row and in prisons”!!!

According to Mel, he’s been blessed with personal experience of Teh Lord’s Good Workz:

Although Mel believes that Christ heals more important things than bodies, he has personally experienced God’s miraculous healing power. As a child, Mel’s leg was saved from amputation through prayer. Years later, his throat was healed by the Lord after having ten failed surgeries in ten years. The Lord healed a serious injury to the eye, a torn cornea, only hours before surgery. During Easter of 1983, Mel was spared from death after serious hemorrhaging from surgery. On March14, 1998, Mel almost died from peritonitis caused by an anti-inflammatory prescription medication. For the fourth time God spared Mel’s life. It was his twenty-first surgery.

A native of Pittsburgh, Mel was an outstanding athlete in several sports. He passed up 60 football scholarship offers and signed a pro baseball contract with the Pirates. His career was cut short by a massive rotator cuff injury. Despite the pain and setback from his injury, Mel learned even more clearly “that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and for those called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28), After sixteen years, he once again experienced a miracle. His shoulder was healed, including a complete deliverance from pain.

Crikey dude, if that’s miraculous then pass the smelling salts, I’m steering well clear, sounds all too painful

Anyhow, Mel documents all this and more in his personal Give For God page, where he also talks about some of the films he’s been in and stuff you godless heathens might be interested in…

“O Noez! We’s left teh TIGAz!!1!!”

Behold The Creation Museum! is a nifty Flickr photoset (233 images) taken around a Creationist museuem in Petersburg, Kentucky.

Apparently it’s all about the floods, dude!

Behold The Creation Museum! photoset
Creation Museum website
Take a tour of the museum with this handy Answers In Genesis walkthrough feature!

The 80s revival carries on into anarcho rampages across London!

Bash The Rich website
Ian Bone’s blog

7/7/7? It’s… It’s… It’s almost biblical innit?!

[edit] FFS it’s been postponed till September

BBC story

Organisers said they did not have enough time to prepare given the complications of the new regulations.

Pax Nindi, artistic director, said: “This is a blow for the carnival but the rules cannot be broken. But now we have more time to prepare.”

Anyway, anyone fancy it after its year off (council cowardice/police bullying/the usual)? (That’s if it happens at all grrr…)

It’s a compact carnival (not so far to walk) and it’s at the end of my street (not so far to go home for a cuppa and a toilet stop)

St. Paul’s Carnival website

“A shade-loving snail has been invaded by worms. These parasites take over the snail’s brain, and push into his tentacles, transforming them into swollen, colorful, pulsating targets…”

This parasite is apparently called Leucochloridium paradoxum. There are many other “mind-controlling” parasites such as the Spinochordodes Tellinii which infect grasshoppers and forces them to drown themselves.

Beatherder festival promises fun and frolics in’t north with some top acts including:

Dub Pistols, Andy Weatherall, Utah Saints, Zion Train, Dreadzone and all sorts of other ting.

Beatherder website

Andrewherring has flagged up the shiny new website of Bristolian inksmith Sepr, the chap who knocks up the sterling Eclectic Kettle posters.

On the site there’s photies of Sepr’s graffiti, tattoos, murals, flyers and much more besides… Definitely worth a click or two!

Sepr’s just one of the people who’s been brightening up BS2 as part of the People’s Republic Of Stokes Croft project, which has seen (the original, meatspace) Turbo Island given a spruce up, as well as the hoardings outside the Jamaica Street hostel being turned into an al fresco art gallery, and the street bins around the area being sprayed a very fetching shade of yellow.

It’s a refreshing counterpoint to the council’s wholesale bending over for big business and its city centre carve-up, aka ‘Bristol Alliance‘/Broadmead expansion/Cabot Circus…

PRSC believes that the only way forward is to do things ourselves, without top-down planning.No work must damage the essential fabric of any of the property involved. We are sure that we can work to gain permissions where possible for improvement works, but reserve the right to direct action where normal rights are deemed to have been been abrogated by either the owners of properties through neglect, lack of concern or through self-interest. It is the belief of PRSC that local government has lost the right to determine, from its lofty heights, the future of our area, after decades of lack of interest and lack of service. We welcome the support of government agency, but this support will have to meet our terms, as decided by ourselves through public debate…

Sepr’s website
People’s Republic Of Stokes Croft website