Sparkster

I havn't seen this posted on here so hope this is new. www.ted.com has some really interesting speakers so have a browse!

ACA redeemed a tiny part of itself with Crazy Dog man that night. I played it numerous times on Youtube until I couldn't bare the hilarity no more. Anyone who can't see the humour is overtly serious A-grade lamester.

Probably tends to be the flicks I saw as a kid. Labyrinth E.T Flight of the Navigator (don't laugh, it was pretty impressive back then) Return of the Jedi

Alot of the botanical illustrations seem to be of identifying run of the mill plants like Sunflowers, while alot of them seemed to be random made up botanical plants. e.g: Flowers with root structures that arn't really possible. I'm convinced it's old, but not entirely convinced that it wasn't created due to interested in old alchemical works and the prices people have been willing to pay, even 300 years ago.

Trying to even quieten down the mental noise becomes the cause of sporadic thoughts and all the typical tangents. I tend to sit with my back against a wall, and I try and visualise any thoughts as pieces of paper, and whenever there is a thought, I imagine it going into a rubbish bin. And it will happen again and again and you may think "oh i just thought about my thought, theres another thought.. into the bin you go..." but eventually there are less pieces of paper going into the rubbish. Anyway... Who cares if there are endless thoughts, it's to get into the habit of having a mind that doesn't resemble a chaotic pinball machine. Sitting quietly may feel like forever when your trying, but after 5 minutes you do get a little bored of thinking. If you're just beginning, I probably wouldn't recommend more than 15 minutes at a time. I think taking drugs to meditate is the complete opposite of what people are normally trying to acheive, you have to make your mind less busy, drugs are simply getting someone or something else to do the job for you! Good luck!!

There was a book about the Yoynich manuscript in the Brisbane City Library which I read around 05, insanely interesting. Pretty sure it would still be there if any Brisy people are interested.

I'm very meh on the Tasers. Give the police any instrument (sometimes a badge will simply suffice) and there will be some that will misuse it. Giving the police a weapon where they can shock people at varying volts without giving them any bruises is their wet dream. Come on, a weapon that causes pain (and it definately does) and is non-lethal, bound to shut the mouth of anybody they deem overtly annoying. bound-to-be-misused. Tasering people already restrained is already happening in the states and it's not like the police here arn't incomparable in their behaviours and jerkish nature. Any training and rules in place upon it's release eventually becomes degraded with time, every year or so there will be the typical publicised abuse of the tasers with the public outcry. Once the cats out of the bag, it won't be going back in. Edited to remove typos.

Looks like the internet is trying to be curbed by more than just governments. The whole copyright sh*t can't be too far away if conroys ballsy filtering fails. NZ is very closer to allowing companies to force ISPs to stop users or even block websites merely by being accused of breaking copyright rules. Irish Internet Firm to shut off illegal music users Protesters Say Copyright Law stripping rights One of the legal approaches that has worked for studios or copyright holders is to not target the millions who download this material, but bring legal proceedings against the ISP (just beginning to happen) or against the p2p software provider (e.g: napster, kazaa) or search engines (pirate bay trial currently under way) because they are "knowingly allowing" these copyright breaches. (what I would give to see someone try and sue Google for hosting copyrighted images in their image search....) Unfortunately it tends to be technically illiterate politicians, judges and claimants worming these changes on a society that doesn't really understand what this is all about.

I searched for it on DVD last year only to find out it wasn't even out on DVD? Can anybody let me know if they can find out if it exists on DVD yet and where it can be purchased? ta

I watched it again & again on youtube from as many views as possible. Bush was agile as a poisonous lizard when he dodged those shoes.... God.. I would have given my liver away to see one of those shoes hit him in the forehead.

So how would you close the gap in living standards though Baph? in a way that you would deem to be fair?

sooo.. that Australia movie....not bad eh? lol I don't have a huge gripe with either argument here really. I can understand people being annoyed by what they perceive to be special treatment, I certainly don't think it can be deemed as Rascist. How does one close the huge gap in life expectancy, poverty, health and decent services? There's a section of society that happens to belong to the same culture that has been treated badly for a very long time, and whose way of living has dramaticly changed after THOOOUSANDS of years in which they've effectively lost all control in which how their society operates. So....they have been screwed over, no arguement there, but how does the government close the gap as far as quality of life?... without targeting aborigines themselves? (for fear of being labeled 'rascist' & 'unfair') There is a huge irony for me. I made the same statements as you when I was living in NZ. It completely irked me that friends of mine who were 1/8 Maori and were more financially well off than me, received scholarships only available to maori students, higher unemployment benefits. The most absurd thing is the government had quotas of how many Maori people had to receive certain degrees each year, (such as law) effectively making some of them pass whereas they would have failed if they were Non-Maori. Then there was a seperate electoral role... Despite the NZ Labor parties good intentions, there was a larger cultural schism because it really irked alot of people and it created an 'us' & 'them' mentality. It became something of a cash cow with tribes squabbling over who could claim entitlements over what. In a small country where the people given additional handouts were you're next door neighbour, not people living destitute in the middle of nowhere with no facilities like in Australia, the public felt they weren't doing anything that really helped them. Did you see the Howard Years on ABC the other night? There was a government Minister under Howard (sorry forgot the name!) reduced to tears when he was talking about the horrific living standards of some of these communities. I don't think it's 'rascist' Baph to provide them assistance, targeted one way or another, it's certainly justified for Australian aborigines...

purple monkey (dishwasher)

faaaark, I remember reading a book he released 10 years ago about Pink Floyds art (the one he's re-released recently) and loved his stuff. Wish I could go there to see it :S Nice pick up holymoutain

My first impression of the NZ Police was a pretty negative one, my brother and his friends had been jumped when he was about 14, he was the only one who wasn't beaten unconscious or stabbed so he arrived home needing to call an ambulance for his mates. My other older brother called the police and after they eventually rocked up, the police didn't think much of it or want to believe it even fucken happened, least there be paper work to fill out and they'd have to fund the fuckers who done it... I've never done anything overtly illegal, never a fan of doing things to the detriment of others. But I was a keen underage drinker, almost everytime I had fallen asleep somewhere in public after drinking too much goon (lawns, sidewalks) the police would always give me the boot as a way of waking me up. Throw some water on my face, give me a shake... but don't kick me in the stomach to wake me, thats pretty fucken rude & uncompassionate... My friend had a house party that went out of control (as they do) when I was in high school and the police were called. The police asked everyone to leave and I quickly went inside to get my bag first. Before I could even get to the door a policeman grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, thrown me against the ground, picked me up and then threw me against the side of the house, he SCREAMED in my face "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE! YOUR GOING IN THE WAGON WITH US!" it was such a ridicuous overbrown response and I said "jesus christ, I was trying to get my bag from inside" Realising he was being a complete fuckwit he said he wouldn't put me in the wagon if I left immediately... There are much larger events that have happened to people I know whereby the police had done very sloppy unprofessional investigations and caused a great deal of pain to families. There will always be good & bad police, anyone with any hard on for power eventually becomes one of the bad ones. In some communities where they have to deal with alot of shit theres alot of fatigue because of the crap they have to put up with... but by treating citizens with distain their only shooting themselves in the foot. They will always be the publics least favourite government department... Aussie police seem O.K so far, larger cities = bigger fuckwit police. Small town = still big fuckwits. Kinda weird how that works... I've been to a few parties here with people who work in the police force and they didn't care about people smoking weed, hopefully I don't have any interactions that make me have a hatred for them as much as I do the NZ police.