Go for it!

OK Go - Here It Goes Again...the funky monkey fitness freaks.

Blogpoets...sad, joyless people in their underwear...

...as the BBC tries once again to fathom out why do we do it. I am in Amsterdam's public library so I don't think it's a good idea to sit here in my Tony Blair designer summer holiday underwear. Might attract too much attention from security. It's been a busy week in the Russian squat with lots of very nice visitors from Poland, including the Funky Monkey DJ, who played for us during the funniest mushroom trip I've had in years. I definitely believe that giggling is very healthy. Comrades, eat Thai shrooms and giggle and change the world. Pluto the planet is no more. So bye, bye Pluto. Rachel is asking us to pass on the word and defend free speech so if you're in London on the day go for it. Tonight I'll be defending my right to be silly again in the third party of the week. Saturday is Soma mushroom tea time so I'm looking forward to some silly blogging in my underwear on the weekend. Joli weekend, mes amis!

World's oldest vinyl record shop for sale...

...in Cardiff. This is the record shop where I bought my first Beatles record as well as Hendrix, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin et al. Henry Spiller opened the world's oldest record store in 1894 in the Hayes in Cardiff but the shop is now up for sale as part of a divorce settlement. Spiller's was where you went to spend your pocket money in the sixties, and where you got your punk vinyl in the seventies and the independent store is still flourishing in the internet download age. Spiller's has been a part of the musical and cultural life of many Cardiffians for a long time. Bobcaster Swipe has made the suggestion that George Orwell would have been a blogger if he were alive today. Very probably. Blogging is also a way to be a small voice in the crowd and part of the wider dialogue. The sale of Spiller's has made me feel a bit nostalgic and sentimental for all the quirky individuals and projects that help to define our lives. Yet to constantly compare with the past is to lose the present in regret. Perhaps today would be a good day to start a new Spilller's.

Blogpoets...

...Sonia has been looking into British foreign policy and writes, "If countries want to go about being violent - then obviously we ordinary individuals have tried but have not been able to stop them. Pointing to the cycle of violence which makes it much harder to stop future violence is hardly ‘justifying’ violence - precisely the opposite - you want to stop ALL kinds of violence! if you wanted to justify violence you wouldn’t be much interested in stopping the overall cycle. I guess a lot of people are just too dumb to see that or frankly = not interested in the overall picture. They could just be honest about that." Which seems simple enough so why don't we accept that the cycle of violence in the Middle East will have consequences for us. Whatever the real cause of terrorism it seems that a large number of people have lost confidence in a government that will not even recall Parliament to discuss the risk to the country. The constitutional royal prerogative gives the Prime Minister too much power. He does not seem to know how to exercise it wisely so perhaps we need a better constitution that gives a fairly ele cted Parliament a bit more power. Rachel has linked to this interesting posting on the whole business of flying toi let terror. Will we ever know the truth? Joli weekend, mes amis.

Microsoft security...oxymoron of the day...

...as last Friday the US Department of Homeland Security, who are usually fighting the war on terror, has urged Windows users to install the latest patches from Microsoft as quickly as possible. In particular it warned about one bug fixed in the latest batch of security updates that, if exploited, could put a PC under the control of an attacker. The bug allows attackers to take over Windows machines. In any other industry a market share of 90% would be considered a monopoly in need of urgent regulatory intervention. Now I know that what I'm saying is not new but I think it's still worth saying. When will the EU bite the bullet and do something about Microsoft's dominance of the operating system market? After all we now have much better open source software such as Linux and Ubuntu. After a week of Windows/Internet Explorer/Dell hell with a computer that crashes on average once an hour I'm quite ready to start saving up for my Apple MacBook. Why is it so difficult to buy a PC without Windows? It should be the law that a customer can demand to buy a PC without having to make an involuntary contribution to Bill Gate's pension fund. I have a friend who works with Ubuntu on her PC and it is fast and never crashes.

Dell is recalling 4.1 million laptop batteries which is why we are reposting the lovely Japanese photo above. That must be the ultimate security flaw. For more Dell hell read buzzmachine. So if there is a reliable laptop manufacturer out there that is prepared to sell it's products with an open source OS such as Linux I would like to hear from you.

Blogpoets...anoraks and zombies...

...and the great unwashed and uneducated are taking over according to the dazed and confuzzled Heather. And the hacks are scared wicked. How dare we have the temerity to give our purile opinions on the internet. That sort of thing should be left to the experts. They are known as journalists. Maybe Arnie Blairo can pass a new law to get us all burned at the stake? Roll up! Roll up!Auto da fe in the bunker. Not content with just writing. People such as the Rockmother are even podcasting. Now perhaps even the BBC will get its knickers in a twist. So it seems we are here to stay and we are lowering the tone of the place. Janet Street Porter sums up her views on blogging in her frankly obnoxious column by saying:
"The web is fast becoming clogged with blogs; the verbal diarrhea of the under-educated and banal."
Patroclus comments, "What a great post, nice one Heather. At times like this I like to air my zombie analogy - the media are scared of blogs because blogs are like a horde of attacking zombies: they look like the media, but they're all disfigured and horrid, and there are millions of them, and you can't kill them, and even if you 'kill' one or two (e.g. by hiring them as columnists), hundreds more rise up in their place."
As information degenerates into chaos and stranded holidaymakers have spontaneous champagne parties in airports around the world life imitates art yet again and a horror scenario future becomes our present. 8/11 nearly joined 9/11 in the annals of the bizarre Orwellian reality we now inhabit. Greenland's icecaps are melting three times faster than expected so I hope we can all swim. Across the channel maybe! Joli weekend mes amis.

Heathrow closed...Europe isolated...

...as the UK goes critical on the MI5 Richter scale of the new combined terror alert and shipping forecast. Sonia's media empire has all the latest on Britain's new splendid isolation. Once again our country needs lerts so if you want to be one send your holiday plans to "Arnie Blairo" 10 Downing Street Bunker, London or if you are stranded in Europe we recommend you hitchhike to the Costa Brava. Think of all the pollution these lerts are saving by closing down Heathrow.

So all the femails can't get to Rotterdam to make themselves young and beautiful again with stem cell embryos.

We have discovered a new personal search engine called Rollyo where you can roll your own search. "Rollyo offers the ability to search the content of a list of specified websites, allowing you to narrow down the results to pages from websites that you already know and trust." (BBC World)
We have also set up a few radio stations on Pandora with the help of a friend in NYC so happy listening. The stations are also on a button on Ceridwen Jazz where you can escape the lerts and watch some Jimi Hendrix. Have fun!

Magic mushrooms may cure depression...

...according to a study made by John Hopkins University. Soma sent us this link to theDaily Mail article on the study made by Professor Roland Griffiths, from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
" Researchers also found that people who took the chemical experienced genuine mystical experiences, as defined by psychologists. A third of the 36 study participants described their psilocybin experience as the 'most spiritually significant' of their lives." according to the Mail. The group were given either psilocybin or the drug Ritalin which was used as the placebo. "The volunteers were all healthy, well-educated, mostly middle-aged and with no family history of psychotic illness." The findings were published on July 11 in the journal Psychopharmacology. See also ABC News."[The study] shows that, under carefully controlled conditions, psilocybin can be administered safely and that it can occasion a mystical-type experience, which scientific measures say are very similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences" Griffiths said in an e-mail to ABC News. "The results suggest that such events may have lastingly beneficial consequences." So now the experts have confirmed what many of us know already. I've been drinking mushroom tea with Soma for over three years now and have had many mystical experiences during the monthly trips. I've also noticed a significant long term positive effect. I never get depressed these days perhaps because the mushrooms have given me a glimpse of the divine beauty of the universe.

Lord Rees makes global warming plea...

...Lord Rees, the President of the Royal Society has made a plea for more investment by government into tackling global warming. Whether anyone will listen to his words is a moot point. We seem to be living in a state of mass denial of the obvious. I had an email from a friend today pointing out that all us green activists don't have a clue and everything is really all due to the sun and the Mayan calender. So in 2012 it's all over anyway and the great cosmic shift comes to the new age of something or other. This sort of tosh is all over the place and even Britain's leading scientist can't do much against superstition. The rich love superstition as it means they don't have to do anything except consume more and fate will do the rest. I quote from my friend's email,

"In our environmental crisis the sun is the problem, not the earth. This on
a stellar, maybe even galactic or cosmic scale and this could be seen as us
(the solar system) moving toward higher energy area's or levels of the
galaxy/draco stellar system, in this material 3/4 or other, nonmaterial
dimensions...Blaming this solely on human greed and stupidity, as the green movement tends to do, makes us direct responsible for the developing disasters.
The earth is seen as an independent piece of the universe and we are to blame
for not taking care. However, if the real problem is the sun in its stellar
or galactic wanderings or energy cycles, then the scope of the situation is
broadened and new questions and scenario's arise...The relevance of the sun issue, as I stated in the beginning, is not merely hypothetical. Apart from the 2012 lore, the great shift as predicted by Maya's, Hopi's etc. (my guess is dec 29, 2011, however), now the ecological crisis can no longer be ignored and will have such enormous implications for our common psyche, that politicians, sociologists, psychologists and in fact nearly all scientists will have to deal with it. And maybe they will, as happened before in times of great upheaval, turn to the intradimensional specialists, the theologians, the priests, the mages and (true or false) prophets."

Now that's all very clear then. Just sit back and enjoy the ride in your Hummer!

Tea time...

...once again just a few blocks away from the ex Russian consulate. Mushroom tea of course and once again the cosmos was at home in my inner biochemistry. Funny how each time the tea takes me somewhere new. This time some old friends turned up out of the blue and I learned to smell and touch again. Awesome! Happy daze. There is a world in us and out there that is good and full of wonder. Just waiting to touch us.
Now a few days later on a rainy Amsterdam day I can still feel the afterglow of a wonderful vision.

Futurama on Global Warming...

...if only it were this simple!