Iraq's bloody insurgency [Beej]

The recent incident involving a downed commercial helicopter north of Baghdad has resulted in a new insurgent video being released. So we've had decapitations before (and IEDs, and rockets, and so on) and that's, well, pretty fucking shocking to a Westerner. This new video shows insurgents gunning down a helicopter crash survivor in cold blood. They essentially help him up, then tell him to go, then shoot him down.
My beef with this is that I find the footage worse than the whole decapitation thing (for the record, I've chosen not to watch the beheading videos in full). You'd think surviving a helicopter crash would be a bit nifty, but oh no, these fuckers help you up and then riddle you with bullets.
Insurgent videos are an interesting subject. It must be some of the the most powerful media propoganda ever employed by a terrorist or insurgent group. Okay, well you're going to say that the Coalition also turn out their own propoganda, and that's partly true to a much lesser extent; that's about spin and lies rather than uploading videos of graphic killings of your enemy one by one.
I'm hopeful that these Islamic terrorist videos will cause more harm to the insurgency than good. Foreign fighters are an important factor that has probably helped turn the Iraqi people against the Muslim jihadists who have nothing better to do than do what they're told and wage a war in someone else's country.
There's too much media focus on the insurgents' videos; I want to see the real life insurgent confessions syndicated in the UK to even out this little propoganda war.

SWAT Monkey [Beej]

You just cannot make this shit up. It's the best news story ever:

"Send in the SWAT monkey" is not an order police commanders are accustomed to giving, but that could change if an Arizona police department follows through on a proposal to train a capuchin monkey for high-risk police operations.

A Special Weapons and Tactics veteran from Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, has researched the possibility of landing a $100,000 federal grant to fund a pilot program to train one monkey.

CNN: Risky situation? Call the SWAT monkey

Neds / Chavs are the new hilbillies! [Shedir]

1. What do you call a chav in a box? Innit.
2. What do you call a chav in a filing cabinet? Sorted.
3. What do you call a chav in a box with a lock on it? Safe.
4. What do you call an Eskimo chav? Innuinnit.
5. Why are chavs like slinkies? They have no real use but it's great to watch one fall down a flight of stairs.
6. What do you call a chavette in a white tracksuit? The bride.
7. You're in your car and you see a chav on a bike, why should you try not to hit him? It might be your bike.
8. What's the difference between a chav and a coconut? One's thick and hairy, the other's a coconut.
9. What's the first question at a chav quiz night? What you lookin' at?"
10. How do you get 100 chavs into a phone box? Paint three stripes on it.
11. Two chavs in a car without any music. Who's driving? The police.
12. What do you call a chav with 9 GCSE's? A liar.
13. What do you say to a chav with a job? Can I have a big mac please.
14. What do you say to a chav in a suit? Will the defendant please stand.
15. What do u call a knife in chavville? Exhibit A.
16. Why is 3 chavs going over a cliff in a Nova a shame? A Nova seats 4.
17. What do you call a 30 year old chavette? Granny.
18. How many chavs does it take to change a lightbulb? One, they'll screw anything.
19. What do you call 100 chavs at the bottom of a river? A start.
20. How many chavs does it take to clean a floor? None, "That's some uvver bleeders job innit."
21. Why did the chav take a shower? He didn't mean to, he just forgot to close the Nova's window in the car wash.
22. Why did the chav cross the road? To start a fight with a random stranger for no reason whatsoever.
23. What do you call a chav at college? The cleaner.
24. A bus full of chavs were driving through Wales. As they were approaching Llanfgogogferrinfourasoch they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town's name. They argued back and forth until they stopped for lunch. As they stood at the counter, one chav asked the blonde employee, "Before we order, could you settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are ... very slowly?" - The blonde girl leachav over the counter and said, "Burrrrrrrr-gerrrrrrr-Kiiiiing."
25. Two chavs jump off beachy head, who wins? Society.

Do Ants go to Heaven? [Houmous]

I was recently having a discussion on what we had to do to die happy – a reconciled death so to speak. I presented my case enthusiastically, speaking about the positive effect of life experiences as opposed to material wealth, and waxed lyrical about motorbikes, diving on the Great Barrier Reef, snowboarding off the top of mountains and having sex in airplane toilets etc etc.
My colleague however started to talk about what happens to us after death and what experiences may await us there, which rather caught me unawares. Despite a personal backdrop of having been closely involved in religion in my thirties (I was confirmed when I was 35 but drifted away from religion after I got divorced) I realised, in a blinding flash of clarity, that at no point in my life had I ever seriously thought any thing actually happened to us after our deaths – we just, you know, burnt or rotted.
This is despite believing, in my own way, in God, which perhaps can be neatly summarised by Richard Burton's response to a question on this subject, in his role as Alec Leamas in The Spy who came in from the Cold - "Well I believe that a 91 bus will get me to Chiswick but I dont believe Santa Claus will be driving it" (actually I think he used a different bus route - but I cant find my copy of the book - apologies :-) )
So am I alone in my views or are you all looking forward to popping your clogs so you can get to play Half Life 3 in 3400 x 2400 res on a 9Ghz PC?

The General Election: policies, or personalities? [Brit]

Its that time again; its the General Election.
I'm quite a keen follower of all things political - it seems to be an EED 'thing' to keep abreast of and examine the Witterings of Westminster. I have to say however, that as far as this election is concerned, I really don't see the point of voting for anyone but Labour.
Why? Because its down to personalities, rather than policies (between the Labour crowd and the Tories) and the Liberal Democrats, no matter how they couch it, basically want to tax the living shit out of everything that moves.
Lets face it, Michael Howard comes across as a supremely untrustworthy individual, who I wouldn't give car keys to, let alone keys to the Exchequer. Its like the Tory party are incapable of electing a leader with which you & I might identify.
I also don't think the Iraq war will count for much either - General Elections tend to be about domestic issues more than anything; it's amazing how quickly the international political ripples cease to cause an effect when the ballot boxes are wheeled out.
The key problem is that I don't know who to trust on 90% of the issues I care about: crime, education, economy & jobs, savings, business and transport. Why? because everyone uses a different "authoritative" report or finding to support their cause. Where is the definitive article? there isn't one. So it's all rather pointless eh?
I was actually impressed by the Green Party's manifesto. Until the last point: "Give up all our nuclear weapons". At which point I realised the good intentioned flap-jack eating treehuggers really are most definitely never destined for power in the real world.
My predicition? Labour: re-elected for the 3rd term by a surprisingly large majority (stupid student-based tactical voting fails) Blair quits after 2 years, Brown takes over PM.
This is democracy! But slightly pointless nonetheless.

Non-replacable batteries [Lurks]

With my closet-greenie hat on, I just wanted to float an idea I had which I have become convinced is the right thing to do. I'm talking about electronic devices with non-replacable batteries in them but you could argue to extend this to any complex device which is predominently built to be used and then thrown away. Simply put, I think it ought to be illegal to manufacture and sell them.
Why's that? Well, essentially environmental impact. These firms are conning customers into a product with built-in obsolescence. These devices cost massive amounts of resources to manufacture which generates an impact on our environment through CO2 emissions and so on. Then there's the cost of disposal and the environmental impact of disposing of electronics.
The government has already mandated that recycling costs must be built-into the sale of a computer and that consumers should, by law, be able to take their computer back to the retailer for recycling. The sad fact that this is probably the first time you've heard that, demonstrates the ridiculous lip-service we pay to this laudible concept but of course industry and retail aren't going to jump up and down and tell you about their rights when there's a profit to be made.
I'm just saying this should be an extension of that. Of course devices do become obsolete and sadly they are thrown away if they're not (hopefully) sold-on or handed down to someone that can make use of them. However industry does need to be told in no uncertain terms that we won't stand for this consumer con-trick.
Of course the devil would be in the detail. What if the company offers a replacement service and charges an unfeasible amount of money? Will that absolve them of responsibility? I don't know. It needs to be talked about for sure. It's obviously a ridiculous state of affairs that there are tens of thousands of iPods, iBeads and Christ only knows what else being chucked into bins because of our rampant consumerism.

Return to the PDA [Lurks]

I was a big fan of PDAs when they first arrived. The Psion series 3A back in the Amiga era and later the lovely series 5. I preferred a full keyboard and predominently used them for what you'd do with an ulta-portable laptop today. Then things moved to the sylus model and I tried, oh so very hard, to adapt. An early-model WinCE Sharp and then a couple of the big and powerful iPAQ Pocket PC jobs. All looked great on paper, worth the £300 or so. In reality all languished in a desktop drawer and I came to realise, PDAs are a con. Not just me either, the market for them has basically tanked worldwide.
The last few years I've basically worked from a fixed location and used an old fashioned diary to record upcoming meetings and, I guess as an old-journalist carryover, I continue to use pen and pad to write down notes during meetings.
However now my job has me out and about, I've stuffed up repeatedly in terms of recording meetings. I also work at two PCs, in my proper office and in my home office. It occured to me for awhile that maybe a PDA would be the solution. I thought about these fancy smart-phones but so wary of having spent a fortune on stuff like this before, I was reluctant to fork out the wonga. I also can't convince O2 to sell me an XDA as an existing customer. Bizarre but that's another story.
So I thought about what I really need. I just need to make some notes and I need a calendar. With that in mind, and these extremely light requirements, I took a punt on an extremely cheap Palm Zire 31 for the princely sum of £99 of your Earth Pounds Sterling.
I'm not going to go into a lengthy review because I basically don't use piss all of what the thing is capable of however I am extremely pleased. Firstly, the software is dead basic to install and has something called PalmDesktop which is a collection of the key applications inside one application. It'll sync to Outlook but since I don't use Outlook, handling my notes, calendar, tasks and stuff from PalmDesktop is extremely convienient.
I'm also getting on fine with Graffiti 2, more or less first go. Syncing is fast. The thing charges on USB, which is nice, and the only thing I wish I had was a docking cradle for it since the mini USB thing is a bit of a faff as with all devices using that.
Bottom line is, it's basic but it's cheap and it works very well indeed and if I lose the damn thing in the pub, it wont be the end of the world - I'll just buy another and hit the sync button and bosh, all my stuff is back on it. The Zire 31 is going to be a permanent addition to my pocket from now on.
I might even see if I can transfer my ancient notepad and pen habit onto it too..