make with the scooching

Happy Christopher Walken's birthday!

In honour of this momentous occasion, here's a flash game that is fun. It is called Tanks. Link.

quote of the week

"We're talking about five federal members on a junket touring European whorehouses at a cost of $40,000 each. I can take anyone of them down to Bridge St. in Niagara Falls and get them laid for less than $50."

That was Ontario NDP MPP Peter Kormos, 'mocking a plan by Ottawa politicians to travel to Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Nevada to study how those jurisdictions deal with the sex trade'. (link to article; via Optimus Crime!)

rwandan hutus lay down their arms

The main ethnic Hutu rebel group of Rwanda, many members of which have been blamed for the genocide there in 1994, has declared that they will abandon violence and turn in

"The FDLR is one of a number of rebel groups accused of creating instability in eastern DR Congo, where the United Nations is trying to establish security after years of war. Under a 2002 peace deal to end five years of war in DR Congo, the Hutu rebel groups were supposed to be disarmed but progress has been slow.

Rwanda has twice invaded its larger neighbour, saying it was doing so to hunt down the rebels. The last invasion in 1998 sparked a wider war, which sucked in six neighbouring countries and led to the deaths of an estimated 3m people."

Link to BBC article.

the situation in iraq again

"Ahmad al-Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress
and a member of the Iraqi United Alliance"

I just wanted to point at a few stories about things happening in Iraq.

Over the past few days, there have been a number of incidents of violence, including gunmen killing six people at a checkpoint in northern Mosul, the explosion of a car bomb near a US convoy in Baghdad, and an attack on Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad. (link to AP article)

Meanwhile, the parliament has been dealing with the underrepresentation of Iraq's Sunni minority, the group who held power under Saddam Hussein. Voting was low in Sunni neighbourhoods, resulting in a parliament controlled mostly by Kurds and the majority Shiites. The latter two groups have been trying to ensure that Sunnis have a voice in the new government, but that has proven to be complicated. The insurgency is also believed to be composed mostly of Sunni Iraqis, which doesn't help things politically. (articles: Reuters, AP, BBC)

blog-based vigilante academic justice

So a student instant-messaged a total stranger, asking him to write a college paper on Hinduism for her. He wrote the paper, sent it to her, and then published a complete account of the incident online, going so far as to include her full name.

You can read it about it here. I still don't know how to feel about it, but a few minutes ago I'd convinced myself it would be ok to link to it. I think I have a fever. Send medecine!

(The fiasco has also produced pages and pages and pages of stupid internet conversation.)

Update: ... and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages ...

final fantasy

Last night I saw Final Fantasy play at Casa del Popolo and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. Owen Pallett (formerly of Les Mouches, currently touring with Arcade Fire) played violin alone with loops.

Final Fantasy - Please Please Please (mp3, 5.4 MB)
Final Fantasy - CN Tower (mp3, 5.2 MB)
Final Fantasy - Peach, Plum, Pear [Joanna Newsome cover] (mp3, 3.4 MB)

The first two tracks are courtesy of the BLOCKS recording club website (see also Hank, Lenin i Shumov, les Mouches, Creeping Nobodies, etc), the third is from Final Fantasy's website, where you may be able to buy their album.

more bands with helmets

Last night's Donkey Heart show at la Sala Rossa was pretty fun. I especially appreciated the helpful ethics lesson in the form of the song Your Raps Don't Have To Rhyme:

smelling your socks in the morning
is good
hitting people when you're not supposed to
is bad

You can stream some songs at the band's website.

first judgment on an iraq war resister in canada

Jeremy Hinzman is one of the many former U.S. army volunteers who have tried to gain refugee status in Canada after deserting because of the illegality of the Iraq war. In a disappointing but not entirely surprising decision, a Toronto immigration panel has decided against Hinzman.

"Hinzman faces a court martial if he goes back and could be sentenced to five years in jail as a deserter.

'Removal to the U.S. would not subject them personally to a risk to their lives or to a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment,' the board said in a statement." (CBC online)

The case could have an impact on the other resisters' chances. Link to CBC article; link to BBC article.

camping out against cuts

A bunch of students have been camping out in downtown Montreal to protest Quebec Premier Jean Charest's cuts to post-secondary education. The CBC has some coverage online, but it is shoddy. Aside from playing the usual game of making the protesters seem like idiots and framing the police as humble, peace-loving folk, this article spends only a sentence or two discussing the issue being protested:

"Quebec students, who pay the lowest tuition fees in the country, have been demonstrating for weeks against a plan to convert millions in grants to loans."

That first part, by the way, is not only irrelevant, it's also misleading: Quebec universities are packed with out-of-province students who end up paying twice as much as Quebec residents do, bringing their tuition rates much closer to (if not higher than) the national averages.

Update: Optimus Crime raises a crucial point: "don't get me wrong, i think charest is out to lunch with this plan... but your riposte is also misleading. though many out-of-province students pay double the tuition, out-of-province students are not eligible for the program that is at the centre of the controversy."

Thanks, OC. Consider me corrected. The CBC article still sucked, though, and the fact that Quebec tuitions are the lowest in the country does not have any bearing on the protesters' arguments.

foam swords don't hurt as much as real ones

Months ago, SFB posted photos of the crazy kids who hit each other with foam swords every Sunday in a park here in Montreal (see them here). SeeThink Productions has picked up where I left off, producing a film about those who LARP ("live-action role-playing"). You can watch the trailer for Darkon here.

Via Waxy.

no one's ever done that before and lived

In response to the Men's Health article entitled "The 30 hottest things you can say to a naked woman" (link), Defective Yeti has this hilarious post: "The 30 least hot follow-ups to the 30 hottest things you can say to a naked woman".

Any use of the word "hot." Especially: "You're so hot" or "Ever since we ate that dim sum I haven't felt so hot."

wolfowitz cares

Bush has nominated Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to be the new president of the World Bank. I don't think I can put it better than the Washington Post did, so I won't try:

"Wolfowitz is energetically reaching out to his critics in the hope of persuading them that he would do a lot better at heading the bank than they might think. He appears to be making progress. But as the neoconservative hawk best known as the brains behind the war in Iraq, he has his job cut out for him.

Since the announcement Wednesday, Bush's choice of Wolfowitz has drawn opposition from many quarters, mostly focusing on the fear that the move marked a plan to use the World Bank's antipoverty aid to reward Washington's friends, punish its enemies and advance the Bush administration's ideological agenda, especially in the Middle East. The bank lends about $20 billion a year to developing countries for projects ranging from roads to schools to HIV/AIDS programs."

Link to full article; link to Reuters article on the EU's lukewarm reaction; link to Wikipedia's Wolfowitz entry.

israel and palestine hold hands, grin sheepishly

More positive steps are being taken by Israel and Palestine to resolve their billion-year-old conflict. The Palestinian Interior Ministry has "begun placing restrictions on the use of weapons by militants" (presumably, non-militant citizens are still allowed to carry concealed machine guns), and Israel has agreed on plans to hand over control of the second of five West Bank towns to the Palestinians.

Not everything is guns 'n' roses though. Israel is violating the "road map" peace plan by approving the construction of 3500 housing units in a West Bank settlement, and both sides violated the current "informal" ceasefire in two separate incidents on Sunday.

how to waste a good hour

Via Addicting Games, Hapland will drive you insane. Go play it.

There is no theme to today's posts.

how to listen to some music

Via Goldkixx, here are two mp3s from a Victoria band called Chet. Both are from their forthcoming album Kauai.

Chet - Track 1 (mp3, 7.4 MB)
Chet - Pillow Talk In The Flames (mp3, 7.1 MB)

See also Chet's New Music Canada page, where you can stream six tracks.

how to wake up in the morning

Via Waxy, this alarm clock turns on at the appointed time and then rolls off the table and hides somewhere in your bedroom, forcing you to get out of bed and look for it if you want to turn it off.

It's called Clocky! And it has a cute little face.

how to make a duct tape wallet

Via Boing Boing, 3M Canada offers up this handy, detailed how-to for making your own hip duct tape wallet. It's been a slow news day.

Note: Wallet will only hold Canadian bills.

okay

So who keeps googling "flightless bird" and arriving at this website? I honestly get at least three or four people like that every day, and there are so many reasons why this confuses the hell out of me. Is it always the same person? Do they have an unhealthy obsession with flightless birds, or are they trying to get back here but have forgotten the address? If it's the latter, don't they know how bookmarks work? And if it's the former, how exactly did this site, with its almost total lack of anything flightless bird-related, distract them from their diligent efforts?

Anyway, I explained the title thing a long time ago, but you probably didn't read it because it was back at blog dot com.

he's at it again

Bush's answer to growing criticism and concern about his huge Social Security reform plans?

Don't tell anybody exactly what those plans are.

"President Bush said on Wednesday he would not send Congress a specific plan to change Social Security because it would be 'dead on arrival' and admitted his idea of personal accounts would not fix the retirement system."

(Link to Reuters article.)

chris ware documentary

Chris Ware is a cartoonist whose work chronicles the staggering loneliness of everyday life. And now a French TV channel has produced a documentary about him. You can download it here, if you're into that kind of thing.

I know I am. Via Boing Boing, bless their souls.

the daily show

I was gonna link to a site which has all of the clips available on the Daily Show's official site except without ads, but the site seems to be gone. Here's the link anyway, in case I'm wrong or it comes back.

Anyway, if you head over to the Daily Show's official site, you can watch over 600 clips from old shows, most of which are awesome. Navigate through the videos by the "videos by person" list at the bottom. Today's "The Mummy Returns" feature was hilarious.

no posts today

Yes, no posts today.

Er, except this one.

I was busy, and now that I'm not particular busy the ice cream I am greedily consuming is in turn consuming my attention. Preview for tomorrow: Daily Show! Chris Ware! Maybe an mp3 or something fun!

rice denies presidential aspirations

The possibility that Condoleeza Rice might run for President in 2008, combined with the likelihood of Senator Hillary Clinton doing the same, has caused many to imagine a US election race between two women. Well, it turns out Condi has no interest in the job:

"I don't know how many ways to say no. I don't have any desire to run for president. I don't intend to. I won't do it," Ms Rice told ABC television yesterday. "I won't."

To keep a watchful eye on Clinton's political manouverings, and to check up on all the latest dirty secrets of the Democrats, why not go visit Wonkette?

a lesson is learned but the damage is irreverisible

In Friday's episode of the excellent webcomic 'A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible', Dale's grandfather's rhythm gets stolen by giants, and it must be searched for in The Forbidden Forest of Fresh Cuts and Jams.

shizzle

My sister told me about gizoogle.com, which translates any website into gangsta. It's hilarious. Thanks, sister!

Here's their translation of Small Flightless Bird: lizzink.

duck hunt

The bird got away. Now the dog considers you a foolish figure.

Yes, duck hunt. Playing this game will bring you right back to your basement during elementary school. It's the day after your birthday party, and you're finally allowed to play with the best present you got: a Nintendo. It came with an incredibly wicked laser gun, and holy crap you can actually shoot it at the screen and actual ducks will actually die.

There's no more gun, but just play it for a second and you'll forget you're not wearing your favourite Hypercolor t-shirt.

he's just so dang loose

It has come to my attention (you don't want to know how) that Small Flightless Bird is the twentieth hit returned by a Google search for the phrase "Gilles Duceppe loose cannon". Let's see if this post can't get us up to number one! Clap your hands and believe, people.

Man, [Bloc Québécois leader] Gilles Duceppe is such a loose cannon [in the Canadian House of Commons]! He's proposing budget amendments left and right. (Actually, just left.)

onion headline of the month

Read the full article here.

Previously on Small Flightless Bird:
- Possibility of Iran War
- Visual Perspective

green day awakens boy from coma

This kid named Corey was in a coma for two weeks after getting hit by a car. His parents eventually brought in his favourite CD, Green Day's American Idiot, and played his favourite song. Less than an hour later, he was awake.

Words fail. Link to BBC article. Maybe in the comments you should tell me what song would wake you out of a coma.

canadian government survives confidence vote(s)

The Canadian government just came perilously close to losing a confidence vote - not once, but twice in two days. On Monday, the Bloq Québécois proposed an amendment to increase the funding for Kyoto protocol-related programs; that motion was defeated 209 to 71. On Tuesday, the House of Commons voted 205 to 85 against a Conservative amendment calling for less funding for Kyoto and the gun control registry.

Martin grinned in relief, realizing quickly that he would not have to call another election this year.

"It's an important vote ... I think everyone understands that if this amendment passes, the Parliament is dissolved," [government House leader Tony] Valeri said earlier Tuesday.

So, the Liberals survived assaults from the right and the left to remain firmly in the middle. There's nothing like being stuck in the middle of the road, eh?

Link to CBC article.

church sign generator

I like websites with self-explanatory titles, because it means I don't have to do a bunch of explaining. Here is a site called Church Sign Generator.

Pictured: an actual message I saw on an actual church sign a few years ago.

i.r.a. offers to shoot former i.r.a. members responsible for murder

This is a true story: In January, Robert McCartney was murdered in an Irish bar. The man's family claims that members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were responsible; these members have since been expelled by the group's leadership.

Now, amid calls for the arrest of the leader of Sinn Fein (the IRA's political wing), the IRA has announced that in private talks with the victim's family, it offered to shoot the men who were involved in McCartney's death.

The family politely declined:

"I think the feeling is that to shoot and possibly kill these people is revenge and not justice, and revenge is not what the family is looking for, the family is looking for justice," he [Mr McCartney's cousin Gerard Quinn] said.

Link to BBC article. Wikipedia entries: IRA, Sinn Fein

'counter-recruiters' try to stop americans from enlisting

From USA Today:

"Anti-war activists such as Murphy charge that to fill their quotas, some military recruiters make promises they can't guarantee, such as money for college or training in a particular specialty, and give misleading descriptions of military life.

... Counter-recruiters formed a national network at meetings in Philadelphia in the summers of 2003 and 2004. They range from Vietnam War veterans, such as Murphy, to high school students trained to talk to their peers about enlistment."

Link to full article.

arcade fire video - rebellion

You heard it here first. (Actually, you heard it here first.) The music video for Rebellion (Lies) is available for stream-atation from MTV.com, as of mere moments ago.

Go watch it now! Turn it up! Here's a link.

syria begins lebanon pullout

Syrian troops in Lebanon are heading east - not quite out of the country, but in that general direction anyway. They've been stationed there for decades, since the Lebanese civil war of the eighties and nineties, but now the international community has started really seriously asking them to leave. Bush himself is in on it, since he is, quote, "totally opposed to occupations and stuff."

The move, on Syria's part, seems to be half-hearted, but they are at least making claims that they will negotiate a full withdrawal with the government of Lebanon at some point in the near future.

Link to AP article.

get local before getting organic

A new study out of Britain says that it's generally greener to eat food grown within a 20 km radius from where you live than to eat organic food grown elsewhere.

"The team calculated a shopping basket's hidden costs, which mount up as produce is transported over big distances. The study found "road miles" account for proportionately more environmental damage than 'air miles'."

The problem, they say, comes with the lack of adequate labelling on food. Link to BBC article.

sunday chuckles

Today Small Flightless Bird is starting a new weekly feature which will run this week only: Sunday Chuckles! Here are three links to sites which may make you laugh.

1) McSweeney's Who's on First: Like that old comedy skit about baseball players, except with movie titles. (via Waxy)

2) Batman's Greatest Boner: From a 1951 comic. If you find this funny, you are immature and reprehensible. These images are not photoshopped. (also via Waxy)

3) Space Tree the Space Tree In Space: I don't know, you may very well not find this funny, but the episodes get better as they go along. (via PVP)

poison garden

Apparently there is a Duchess of Northumberland (perhaps she is related to the town of Cumberland, Ontario), and apparently she has just opened a public garden filled with drug-plants. These include cannabis, opium poppies, coca [of "cocaine" fame], poisonous foxglove, tobacco, and wild lettuce.

...Uh, wild lettuce "can be used as a tranquilizer," according to the article.

Via Boing Boing. But then, isn't everything?

dear condi

Boy howdy! Lloyd Axworthy, former Canadian foreign minister and man-about-town, has written a fiery open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on the subject of Canada's refusal to participate in missile defence. An excerpt:

"I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results. ... If we're going to spend money ... it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence."

Read the whole thing here.

a fun game or two

1) Top Dog: You are a World War I flying ace, except instead of a doghouse you fly a plane. This game is simple but very difficult, and it is also slow and graceful. Leave a comment if you can gun more than six bogeys (my best score). Via Addicting Games.

2) Phosphor Alpha 4: Awesome Shockwave game where you run around a crazy old warehouse trying to shoot at the computer, who has maybe deleted your files or something. Via Waxy.

undetectable small purchase yee-haw

A good thing to read would be The Credit Card Prank Part II, available for your seeing pleasure at zug.com (part one is available here). The author tries to see how much of a crazy signature it would take for a credit card purchase to be declined. The answer: extremely crazy. (via Boing Boing.)

new torture suit against rumsfeld

The ACLU has filed a new suit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. From a Reuters article:

"Secretary Rumsfeld bears direct and ultimate responsibility for this descent into horror by personally authorizing unlawful interrogation techniques and by abdicating his legal duty to stop torture," said Lucas Guttentag, lead counsel in the case.

The Pentagon's comeback?

"There have been multiple investigations into the various aspects of detainee abuse. None have concluded there was a policy of abuse," the Defense Department said in a statement.

Ouch! "None have concluded," huh? Take that, ACLU! The Pentagon has inconclusive investigations behind it, and all you have is evidence or something! This should be a pretty quick trial.

Link to full article.

your friendly neighbourhood saviour

Can you imagine the Bible without Spider-man? It would have been as boring as heck. This little educational comic reminds us about the real reason for the season: webslinging!

Link to Spiderman Bible stories; via Waxy.

how to disappear completely

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have come up with a new way to make things invisible to the nude naked eye. This is no projection-style invisibility, as developed by some kooks over in Tokyo (watch the not-fake video demo). Their method involves a "plasmodic screen" which reduces the amount of light bouncing off the object, reducing visibility from all angles.

"...[Their] calculations show that spherical or cylindrical objects coated with such plasmonic shields do indeed produce very little light scattering. It is as though, when lit by light of the right wavelength, the objects become extremely small, so small that they cannot be seen."

Link to nature.com article; via Boing Boing if memory serves.

boondocks strip gets pulled for being hilarious

Haha, just kidding. Of course the real reason for the strip being pulled was that it made reference to President Bush ingesting illegal substances. Here it is, in all its splendor:



According to this post at the Regular, "at least three of the approximately 300 Boondocks clients dropped today's strip." That's why everyone needs to stop getting their comics from the newspapers and needs to start reading comics on the internet, where stuff like this happens all the time.