Clipmarks | anonymology's clips

Happy, happy Holidays!

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:17:03 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: (Do you like my very elaborate image!)

I hope you all have a lovely break over the holidays, however you celebrate it. England is covered in a layer of fog at the moment, and a large number of flights have been cancelled, so I'm crossing my fingers that I'm going to be able to fly home to my family on Christmas eve. Erk!

My absence on Clipmarks is due to the enormous amount of work I've been doing lately. I'm very pleased with myself and I've actually made a lot of progress; there's always room for more, though!

Take care all, and enjoy yourselves!

anon x

Clip Source: i118.photobucket.com

Tags: random

Bushfeld: the new sitcom about nothing (except destroying the planet) (Satirical Political)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:14:46 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: A rather current (in more ways than one) satire on the White House.

Please no one get on my case about how this is Actually Really Serious. It's not. It's satire. Read it as such.

Clip Source: satiricalpolitical.com

SCENE: THE OVAL OFFICE

CHENEY: I think I can sum up the Iraq War for you with one word: NOTHING.

BUSH: Nothing?

CHENEY: (Smiling) Nothing.

BUSH: What does that mean?

CHENEY: The war is about nothing.

COLIN POWELL: (To Cheney) Well, it’s not about nothing.

CHENEY: (To Colin) No, it’s about nothing.

POWELL: Well, maybe in philosophy. But, even nothing is something.

CONDOLEEZZA: What’s the war’s premise?

POWELL: Well, I would go to the U.N., and make a presentation about mobile biological labs and we would pretend there are threats of mushroom clouds, yellow cake and apocalypse.

CHENEY: Yeah, but nothing happens to trigger the war. You see, it’s just like life. You know, you eat, you go shopping, you read. You eat, you read, you invade Iraq.

BUSH: You read? You read about Iraq?

CHENEY: Well, forget the reading; we don’t want to learn about 1300 years of Sunni-Shia fighting.

BUSH: All right, tell me, tell me about the rationale for war. What kind of rationale?

CHENEY: Oh, no. No rationale.

BUSH: No rationale? So, what is it?

CHENEY: What’d you do today?

BUSH: I got up and worked out.

CHENEY: There’s a rationale. That’s a rationale for war.

BUSH: (Confused) How is that a rationale?

POWELL: Well, uh, maybe something happens on the way to your workout, like you find out Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, or his aides met with Mohammed Atta in Prague.

CHENEY: No, no, no. Nothing happens.

POWELL: Well, something happens.

BUSH: Well, why am I starting a war?

ROVE: Because it’ll be on TV, and help your re-election.

BUSH: By the way, where the hell is Rummy?

POWELL: I don’t know, but it seems the raisins are missing … along with a coupla’ hundred thousand troops.

Tags: satire

'Social contract' with Britian (Guardian)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:29:39 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: Do you agree with this proposal? (I can almost predict who will and who won't.) It seems to be a attampt by the Government to force every single meber of society to abide by its rules.

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

Hobbes and Rousseau must be spinning in their graves at the news that Tony Blair is planning a "new social contract". The old idea of a social contract was that individuals exist in an implied bargain with the state: they'll play by its rules, and it will guarantee their liberties. What, by contrast, is the flavour of the new contract? Well, according to the new policy review that Blair has initiated, it goes like this. You'll only get a hip replacement if you promise to keep your weight down. Or, as a parent, you'll have to promise to do certain things at home in order to have your child educated at school. If you want stuff, you had better do what they say in return.

We have, of course, already paid for the public services that this newfangled scheme threatens to withdraw, which might previously have been thought "contract" enough. But let's try to imagine how such ludicrous-sounding stipulations might work in practice. If a woman gets a hip replacement and then fails to lose the required number of kilos, will a doctor perform a revenge surgery to remove the hip? Or maybe he'll just say: "Sorry love, you were warned. I'm not treating fatties any more."

This almost comically bad idea shows that, in the decadent coda of his career, Blair has snapped utterly free of the notion that government exists at the sufferance of the people. Not a man ever to have taken seriously the idea that he is a public servant, he has now morphed decisively into a kind of giant inflatable Mary Poppins, minus the joie de vivre, floating untethered in the sky above us all. Tetchily nannyish, he says to himself: all the problems of British society could be solved if the people would just - well, behave.

Tags: commentary

Kidman pregnant

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:13:05 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: This only fuels my notion that Tom was the infertile one in the coupling and that this baby he's had with Holmes isn't actually is.

(I don't know why I care. I think it's because Cruise freaks me out and I would run for the hills if I met him.)

Clip Source: thesuperficial.com

Nicole Kidman might be pregnant

Tags: entertainment, fiercly annoying

Iraq on the brink of civil war (Guardian)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:04:07 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: Only on the brink of a civil war? I would have thought Iraq was already there but no one had just called it yet.

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, has become the latest public figure to warn that Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war: "In fact," he said, "we are almost there."

Less than 24 hours earlier, the king of Jordan said in a TV interview: "We could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands," the three being Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

There is an understandable reluctance on the part of politicians and large sections of the media to admit that civil war has broken out in Iraq. Instead they continue talking about "fears" of civil war and how it might be averted, but as far as most political scientists are concerned it's a civil war already.

Tags: commentary

Male contraceptive (Guardian)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:01:36 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: Would you use it?

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

Scientists at Kings College London have developed a male contraceptive pill. The pill, which prevents the ejaculation of sperm, can be taken daily or just a few hours before a man is planning to have sex. This "instant", one-off medication thus negates such problems as skipping a pill, which can result in pregnancy for women using oral contraceptives.

Tags: commentary

'Queer, gay, homosexual ... ' (Guardian)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 13:45:29 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks:

Like every other expression of human culture, homosexual and heterosexual identities are historically transient. They haven't always existed, and they won't last forever. Indeed, the weakening, blurring and eventual dissolution of the labels queer and straight will be final proof of the demise of homophobia.

Um. It's a take on this that may be more about semantics than anything else, but from the social constructionist and post-modernity points of view, what Tatchell claims here could make sense.

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

This month has been Queer Awareness Month at many universities across Britain, with four weeks of stalls, debates and films to promote queer human rights.

Given that homophobia still exists, we need to challenge prejudice and defend our right to be gay. But in the long term, lesbian and gay identity is doomed. And a good thing, too.

Like every other expression of human culture, homosexual and heterosexual identities are historically transient. They haven't always existed, and they won't last forever. Indeed, the weakening, blurring and eventual dissolution of the labels queer and straight will be final proof of the demise of homophobia.

When I made this point in a recent university debate, I was greeted by howls of protest from some lesbians and gays in the audience:

"Mr Tatchell, you are obviously suffering from internalised homophobia," said one. Another interjected: "You are playing into the hands of homophobes."

Well, no. I was trying to express a truth that some gay people find disconcerting: while same-sex behaviour has existed since the beginning of human evolution, defining oneself as gay is a relatively modern invention and is unlikely to prevail in perpetuity.

Homosexuality and homophobia exist in a cultural context, as do heterosexuality and heterophobia. Culture is man-made, not biologically given. It evolves and changes.

Historical and anthropological research shows that same-sex behaviour has occurred in all cultures at all times - but in different manifestations. Homosexuality in pre-colonial African and Asian societies was very different from its counterparts in Ancient Greece, Confucian China, Tudor England and 21st-century western Europe.

Tags: commentary

Egos on the web (Guardian)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 13:38:32 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: This piece struck me, not least because of the many altercations which take place here on Clipmarks.

When you write for the web, you open yourself up to breathtakingly vicious vitriol. People wish things on your mother, simply for bearing you, that you wouldn't wish on Hitler.

Humorous but with a hint of truth?

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

If so, we are all crazy now. There is something about the web that brings out the ego monster in everybody. It's not just the well-established tendency to be nasty. When you write for the web, you open yourself up to breathtakingly vicious vitriol. People wish things on your mother, simply for bearing you, that you wouldn't wish on Hitler.

But even in their quieter modes, denizens of the web seem to lug around huge egos and deeply questionable assumptions about how interesting they and their lives might be to others.

This is strange. Anonymity, for better or for worse, is supposed to be one of the signature qualities of the web. As that dog in the New Yorker cartoon famously says, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." The Internet is a place where you can interact with other people and have complete control over how much they know about you. Or supposedly that is the case, and virtually everybody on the Internet is committed to achieving that goal.

Tags: commentary

'Michael Richards' on-stage meltdown exposed a racist subconscious.' (Guardian)

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 13:24:11 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: This lady really doesn't like Richards - and it seems with good reason!

From the page said:

The best part was about halfway through, when Richards knew how deep in he was but wasn't man enough to stop and apologise right then. No, homie just had to keep going, desperate to find a punchline that doesn't exist when you're not actually trying to be funny. I'd thought the incident made its own gravy, so to speak, and needed little commentary.

I found this amazing too; Richards knew that he'd gone completely overboard bbut he still didn't stop. He wasn't as vocal, but he still didn't shut up.

I can see why this writer gave him the name Michael Richards, King of Unearned Ego. Indeed!

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

I felt only a passing sadness, and an equally short-lived vindicated satisfaction, as I watched the Kramer n-word meltdown on the web. I don't know if my distaste for both "Kramer" and Michael Richards came before or after reading a profile of him several years ago in which his whinging pretension was overshadowed only by his smugness, but he ruined Seinfeld for me. There was never enough of Elaine or Jerry to make either Cosmo or the screeching Costanzas bearable; both were nails on the blackboard to me and my trusty remote.

The parade of beauties eager, let alone willing, to bed that twitching nutjob only made me sneer. Often enough in my wasted youth, I'd sat in horrified silence trying to convince myself that the ranting, unemployed reject across from me was simply "marching to a different drummer" to know that the few hopeful, or desperate, enough to bed him would be sneaking out of his fetid apartment while he declaimed nonsense and calling each and every one of her girlfriends, seeking absolution and vows of secrecy lest they ever tell anyone what they'd almost done. And especially who they'd almost done it with.

Having read that profile, and having eye-rolled my way through Richards' overwrought hamminess for an episode or two, I was surprised that anyone with a public profile would launch such a brutal, grindingly evil tirade from a stage, but unsurprised that it turned out to be Michael Richards, King of Unearned Ego. Turns out, my armchair analysis of him was dead on: so full of himself that anyone incapable of appreciating his brilliance should and must be destroyed. Had a couple of size 14's heckled him, it would have been a "cow" and "Darfur gang rape" tirade. My 78-year-old mother? Dead granny jokes. The spectacle was almost funny; I kept expecting him to get Shakespearean and yell "Off with their heads" while looking around for an underling to do his bidding.

Tags: commentary

Cocomment and clipmarks

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:09:15 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: Does cocomment now work with Clipmarks? I see the facility on the bottom of the comment box.

Clip Source: www.cocomment.com

Tags: questions, internet

MS Word not so clever today!

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:28:08 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: It really does give the stupidest suggestions at time.

Clip Source: community.livejournal.com

Tags: humour

"The Cool List 2006" (NME)

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:31:30 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: I'm not entirely sure I agree with this list, but anyway. The Gossip are a cool band, though. I am pleased to see Karen O there - she's just about the 'coolest' there is.

Clip Source: www.nme.com

The annual NME Cool List is out and here we confirm how has made it into the top half, and most importantly this year's Number One.

Taking pole position is Beth Ditto, leader of The Gossip. Raised trailer park poor in Bible-belt state Arkansas,Ditto was bullied for her weight, frowned upon for her record collection and threatened with eternal damnation for her sexuality.

Fronting the greatest punk rock 'n' disco soul band on the planet for years, it wasn't until 2006's 'Standing In The Way Of Control' - a soulful holler against Republican homophobia - that saw the band and Ditto take over indie dancefloors everywhere. As well as earn a place in Noel Gallagher's record collection.

Tags: music

'A Call to Arms' (Guardian)

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:25:42 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks:

Why, during a period of transformative social change, is sociology not back at the forefront of intellectual life and public debate?

Clip Source: commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

All you sociologists out there! All you ex-students of sociology! All of you (if there are such people) who are simply interested in sociology and its future! I'd like to hear from you. We live in a world of extraordinary change, in everyday life, family relationships, politics, communications and in global society. We are witnessing, among other things, a return of the gods, as religion re-emerges as a major force in our societies, locally and on a worldwide level.

All grist to the sociological mill, one would have thought. Sociology was born at a period of transformative social change, during the early part of the 19th century. It was a time of the "three great revolutions" - secular political revolution, the industrial revolution, and the emergence of a predominantly urban society, replacing a predominantly rural one. It would be very difficult to say whether developments today are as far-reaching as those of 150 years ago. But we can probably all agree that this is a time of very large-scale change, for the first time happening on a truly worldwide level.

Tags: commentary, sociology

Ban on MP3 transmitters is lifted (BBC)

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:23:11 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: Good stuff. I find my iTrip (which allows me to play my iPod through my stereo) invaluable.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The use of devices, such as Griffin's "iTrip", was banned in the UK as their transmissions can interfere with broadcasts by legal radio stations.

However, the device and other similar accessories for MP3 players have been widely available online.

Now certain FM transmitters, which can be tuned to spare frequencies, will be legal from 8 December.

Tags: news

Powerful picture from Bagdad yesterday (Irish Independent)

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 10:58:06 GMT

clipped by: anonymology
clipper's remarks: I think this picture says so much.

Clip Source: www.unison.ie

Baghdad's bloodiest day as 160 die in wave of bombings
IRAQ sealed its borders last night and braced for a deadly onslaught of sectarian retaliation after Sunni extremists murdered at least 160 people in co-ordinated car bombings and mortar attacks in the Shia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad.
read on >>

Tags: pictures, news