Donor

via Terreus, I came across the NHS UK transplant service. I’ve had a donor card previously, although I’m amazingly good at losing the bloody things, so it seemed like a good idea to also register myself with the service online. And I must remember to get another proper donor card too.

Hysteria and Hype

Sometimes, I find stories are utterly unbelievable right from the start, and on occasion it turns out that I’m right to think that way. This week, there was a case in point with the Americans upgrading their security on the basis of information received from a “credible source” about Al Qaeda planning more terrorist action. OK, all well and good, but the entire “credible source” stuff rings dodgy bells, because it really depends on who is being credulous of the entire story, and thus making it credible. In this case, it turned out that the information was actually already four years old. (and thus managed to even predated the 11/9 World Trade Center event) So I suppose it was credible, because it’d already happened.

Of course, now they’re jumping to defend the story, and of course the release of it this week had nothing whatsoever to do with knocking John Kerry off the headlines of every single news paper or programme in the US. No sir, not at all – it’s just coincidence that the story would break just after the Democrat Party convention.

“We do not do politics at the Department of Homeland Security,” Mr Ridge said. “Our job is to identify the threat.”

Aye right – and the current threat to Bush is that Kerry may actually knock him out of power. So that’s OK then.

Woo, Yay

The Scissor Sisters have just announced a new tour (do they ever actually stop?) including a date at Manchester Apollo on Saturday October 23rd. Yup, bigger venues too – should be good.

And yes, I have a ticket. I know, I need to get out more – but this is what happens when I do.

Liberty becomes available

Apparently, the Statue Of Liberty is to re-open. It’s been closed “because of security issues/failings” since Sept 11th 2001 (I must admit, I didn’t even know it’d been closed, so that’s impressive) but there’s been plenty of work going on.

“I think it’s significant that, despite the raising of the alert levels, we are still going ahead with the reopening,” said US Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson. “I think it shows the world that liberty cannot be intimidated.”

Absolute arse. Liberty’s been intimidated by the US since 11/9/2001, and it continues to be so. There’s no freedom to travel or visit. Instead Big Brother™ is now watching. I wonder how long it’ll be before someone decides to try an attack on yet another “symbol of america”?

Burning Bright

“Police have no special training on how to deal with tigers,” Durkin said. “Based on this tiger and the last tiger, we may have to incorporate something into our training.”

In fairness, I guess that you don’t really expect to see tigers walking down the street in the middle of New York.

The Fantastic Fountain Fuck-up – Part 3

It just gets better and better. After yesterday’s post regarding cowbag Jowell’s comments, Royal Parks may consider limiting the number of people around the Diana Memorial Fuck-up Fountain. It’s only one option, though, others including “roughening certain areas of the fountain”, or “replacing grass around the edge of the memorial with some form of hard standing to avoid slipping”.

As I said yesterday, this is all the kind of thing that should’ve been addressed in the planning of the idea, not as remedial work once the bastard thing’s been installed. The entire project has been a balls up from the start. What a wonderful memorial, eh?

I must admit, I also find it interesting that Earl “Wankhands” Spencer hasn’t been sticking his oar into this farce and blathering on about how this is disrespectful to Diana’s memory, or somesuch. I wonder when he will do so?

Macros

Over the last couple of months, when I’ve had the opportunity I’ve been getting very into Macro shots. Over the weekend I got a few more that I’m really pleased with, so took the opportunity to put them all on one page.