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BoJo: Big Meat Eater

Last week, London Mayor Boris Johnson’s Telegraph piece on eating meat received a prominent reprint in Wellington’s DomPost. It really is drivel.
Shorter BoJo: “Some UN chappie says I should forgo meat one day a week to cut carbon emissions. But the world is overpopulated! The end.”
The most unpleasant aspect of this is Johnson’s, no doubt sincerely ignorant, failure to understand that the people who are driving meat overconsumption (i.e. the developed West) are not the people who are driving overpopulation (i.e. not the developed West). Even on its own terms, this ridiculous argument amounts to a massive disavowal of responsibility: we’ll keep eating all the meat, thank you, but would you mind having many fewer kids over in your countries? The whole argument is Eton debating society rhetoric without a shred of value to it, except as yet another example of the debased understanding of reality held by the West’s elites. Still, silver linings: at least he accepts that anthropogenic climate change is real.
And, yet again: DomPost editorial – what on earth were you thinking?

Where Friday Goes, Linky Shall Follow


Weird signs
The US Presidential Election as a game of Magic: The Gathering.
British Medical Journal article on the efficacy of parachutes in preventing death from gravitational challenge.
Interiew with Mike Leigh about the Canadian debut of “Happy Go Lucky”, previously discussed on this blog here – if you saw this film, give it a read, it gives Leigh’s perspective on what he has created.
And finally, yet more proof that old-skool comics were seriously weird: a complete Herbie story. Prepare to say “what the what?”
[most of these linky courtesy Making Light and Journalista]

BadWrongFun

An amusing coinage to come out of the RPG community (at least, that’s where I think it was coined) is “badwrongfun” (always written as one word). This represents the idea that the fun you are having is ideologically unsound – it is exactly the same idea as political correctness, i.e. fun that is politically incorrect is badwrongfun.
In specific, “badwrongfun” is often used to deride attempts to analyse and define the RPG field. Such attempts invariably leave some people feeling like they are being disparaged, and they proudly own their badwrongfun to mock the theorists. (I will spare you further details – RPG theory is not something I would lightly inflict upon good people such as you, readers.) It is also now used tongue-in-cheek to reference games and non-game entertainments that are can be seen as improper – unwholesome movies, for example, are always “badwrongfun” (assuming they are fun at all).
Even though this term is often used in high seriousness, which I find exasperating in the extreme, it still pleases me as a coinage. Its the overload of negativity that does it, the scold’s indulgent delight in taking the moral high ground which only undermines itself. It’s a great little phrase.
I wonder, what pleases you among the coinages and phrases that have cropped up in your fields of interest?

My Petition

This records the presentation of my petition to Parliament: the Petition of Morgan Davie and 86 others requesting that the House of Representatives urge the Government to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as quickly as possible. (I blogged about this petition previously.)
You might wonder, how could I possibly squeeze in the time to organise a petition while preparing for a wedding, studying, working, and blogging far far too much?
The answer, of course, is I didn’t. I heartily endorse the message of this petition, and I was pleased to put my name to it, receive correspondence, and otherwise be the front-person, but it is not even remotely mine. This petition is entirely the hard work of doughty freedoms-fighter Idiot/Savant of No Right Turn.
It will be some time before the select committee reports back on the petition, but whenever that should happen, you’ll hear about it here as well as at NRT.
[edit: hello, NRT readers. Yes, I am the beard of idiot/savant. Or, perhaps, the Groucho Marx nose-moustache-and-glasses.]

morgueatlarge: UK

For those not subscribed to my travel email list, morgue at large, here are links to posts about my recent two-week trip to the UK:
London: “..wandering towards the west end from Liverpool Street station on my first morning back – here I’m in a Bangladeshi street market, now I’m surrounded by families come to London to photograph the sights, now around the corner I’m in the square mile with pin-striped twenty-somethings discarding cigarettes, now edging back out of the City and I’m surrounded by white van men scoffing bacon butties and reading the Daily Sport…”
Winchester for the wedding: “It’s a beautiful town, with ancient buildings, King Arthur’s Round Table (built in the 13th century or so), Jane Austen’s house, and a meadow walk that inspired Keats ode “To Autumn” – but how could any of those attractions possibly compare to the sheer joy to be had at that wedding?”
Edinburgh: “I admit it – when the train came rolling into Edinburgh and I looked up and saw the Salisbury Crags and Calton Hill and the Jacob’s Ladder stair – my heart was beating faster”
[morgueatlarge is where my travel stories go. You can scan the full archives here – they cover Europe, North America, the Middle East, and a few other points of interest. Subscribe with a blank email to morgueatlarge-subscribe@topica.com if you are so inclined…]

RNC Protest (2)

My earlier post about protests at the RNC included this photograph:

Over at Making Light, they found a reverse of the same shot:

This illustrated a guest post about the protests that is well worth a read – particularly for the reminders of the propensity for law enforcement agencies to insert informers and agents provocateur into protest groups. (NZers will be well-acquainted with recent embarrassments to an energy company where protest-group infliltrators were exposed; ML links also to this photograph, which suggests dirty pool – and down in comments you see the suspicion of infiltration was later confirmed.
It all just makes a messy story messier. I doubt you need police agents to get Black Bloc vandalism – Occam’s Razor would suggest “young men + testosterone” is a better route to that outcome. And I furthermore am convinced that many in the Black Bloc are very thoughtful and insightful people, who would disagree with me vehemently when I say much of what they do is strategically disastrous. Add in the points made by commenters to the previous post, and it is clear there are no simple answers here.
Luckily I’m just a blog, so I don’t need to do “answers”, I can just claim that my entire purpose is to make you think, or at least, to entertain you. And to that end, here (courtesy again the Knifeman) is Rage Against The Machine putting on a show a capella after being refused permission to play at the RNC protests…

Friday Linky As Bro

The linkys are back! Yes the linkys are back! Using hyperlink styles, we’ll linky their files! The linkys are back!
First, pour 40 on the kerb for the voice of “In a world where…”, Don Lafontaine, who died aged 68. A quite lovely five-minute doco about him is worth a look – especially the first 20 seconds or so.
Speaking of voices: episodes of the Fantastic Four radio show from 1975. Featuring Stan Lee as the narrator, surprisingly good adaptations of the source material, and – most shocking of all – Bill Murray as the Human Torch! Every line reading he gives is both straight and parody at the same time. Beautiful stuff.
FrugalMe is a neat blog by Stephen of Spleen renown; basically its about saving money. Its lovely and funny, and Stephen conceptualises all the little savings as being “wouldn’t you like to find $x behind the sofa at the end of the year?” which is a helpful frame if ever there was one.
George Orwell’s diary entries, published to a blog each day, 70 years after they were written.
I found this linked from Tor.com: The Gadgey by Alan Campbell, a story of alien contact in Edinburgh involving a couple of neds:

The alien climbed out unsteadily, like Rab’s dad getting out of his chair at halftime to get more cans of Export from the fridge. The tentacles under its chin were wobbling. Its mirrored mask reflected the woods and the Craigmillar skyline. It had a spacesuit on, a proper one with plasmaloid nodules, all silvery blue and rippling.
“Rack me rigid,” Gordie said. “It’s pissed.”
“It’s no pissed,” Rab said. “Probably got mongled in the hyperspace.”
Gordie considered this, then gave a stiff nod. “Well mongled,” he agreed. “Look at the wee shite go.”

Achewood in colour in Myspace Dark Horse Presents! I’m loving what they’re doing with MDHP, and this just adds to the site’s growing rep for awesome. Knifeman spotted this first, as is appropriate for the longtime Achewood envangelist.
Finally: Marie Antoinette likes Kate Beaton’s cleavage. Read Kate Beaton!

Sleeping In, reversed

I’ve been going to bed at 10.30 for over a week now, in a drastic change from my traditional bedtime of 12.30-1am. Initially it was because 40+ hours of travelling caught up on me, but now it is dangerously close to becoming a habit. Going to bed early is nice.
How on earth am I going to complete this Masters if I’m going to bed at 10.30? *panics*

Comics in advertising


And while I’m talking comics, I want to give a shout-out to these great ads: the Throaties Find Your Voice campaign. They appear mostly in bus shelters, and what I love about them is they fit this presentation better than any other ad I’ve ever seen in the space – from a distance, they’re bold and eye-catching and present a mystery that can only be solved by getting closer, i.e. while you wait for the bus. Usually the advertising on this space works only to be seen from a distance, but this actively engages you from a distance and gives you a reason to stay engaged until, and while, you’re close. What’s more, the way the image is constructed from colour dots like an old comic reinforces the message by clearly indicating the scale at which your brain should be processing things, while adding in the message that the product is reliable because its been around a very long time. Its just very, very clever stuff.
99% of advertising makes me grumpy; this series makes me happy. Nice one, Toby Talbot et al.