Effluvia

Here's some crap from Memepool:

• World-ending possibilities
• Sheep Dung Estates
• How lightsabers work

"'I must have meant that in a funny context,' Carlson says. I give him the benefit of the doubt since, after all, nothing's more amusing than pedophilia."

Journals

• Bad Hair Days
• Plaintive Wail
• Humidity and Hebephrenia
• Randomly Ever After
• U9
• Fukushu
• Nature of life...
• DNA Sequencing

Um, yeah. Siobhan wrote that last entry - didn't it seem a little strange to you? She completely ignored the spirit of Harold, going instead for the easy laugh that is Stereotypical Harold. She's a hack.

And I wrote the thing about the rat over at her place. Funny, huh? I whip out a charming little story of anthropomorphification and what do I get in return? Mockery!

Bunch of savages in this town.

Another confession: I don't get Radiohead, at all. Does this mean I'm getting old? I mean, Creep was a cool tune in the loud/soft school of early '90s grunge, and that song about the plastic trees is nice, but other than that they leave me cold. I heard one of the new singles on Radio 1 today and I was like, "eh. Sounds like Pink Floyd on an uninspired day."

But the kids seem to like it.

Something I heard that I did like, though: Placebo's cover of Big Star's Holocaust. Just as sweetly devastating as the original, and Molko's voice does it justice. The DJ casully tossed out a Big Star reference as if his audience would automatically be familiar with them. Maybe they are; I think the English like their pop music more than your average American.

Of course the pundits are saying Al Gore was beat in the debate last night. Everyone has such low expectations of George W. now that as long as he doesn't drool, shit himself or bark like a dog while on stage it's considered a victory. Gore would have to heal a sick person, Benny Hinn-style, while perfecting cold fusion and calling down the finger of God to smite his enemies for the commentators to even call it a draw.

Speaking of politics...the middle eastern situation is not good, is it? Let's look at it like it's a football game.

For Israel or Palestine to win the secret is an attacking offense. They've both played great defense up 'til now, but it's very late in the game and they've got to turn the quarterback loose, if you know what I'm sayin'. Israel needs to totally unleash its state of the art military and annihilate every enemy within reach. No one will ever give them shit again if they do that. Stomp the Palestinians. Deport foreign nationals. Point long-range missiles the way Samuel Jackson points his gun in Pulp Fiction.

Palestine has a more interesting problem. While they don't have the weapons (literally) to match the other team they still need to go after them with all their truck-bombing, molotov-flinging energy. You see, Palestine has the home field advantage, and if they can get a little momentum going there's a good chance that everyone up in the stands (the rest of the Muslim world) will pour on to the field and turn this into a game of smear-the-queer, with Israel playing the dumb kid with the ball.

I don't see it ending well, regardless. Unless somehow they can get back to their previous state of unintentional semi-peace (and I don't see that happening) I think an all-out war is a real possibility. And I'm deadly afraid of someone setting off a nuclear weapon - either side. I bet Israel's got them tucked away somewhere, and you can buy anything from the Russians these days.

I wonder how this plays with the end-times crowd, who watch the middle east so closely? Isn't one of the conditions for the Rapture/Second Coming/Great Tribulation the peaceful ascension of Israel to full power over Jerusalem? How do you think they'd modify their philosophy if Jerusalem was a barren nuclear wasteland? At the very least, a tranquil Holy Land seems very remote, if not impossible in our lifetime.

I'm just thinking out loud, though. It could all blow over next week.