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The company that has been secretly supplying rifle sights to the US military inscribed with coded references to the Bible, as revealed by The First Post this week, has agreed to halt the practice. Trijicon, the Michigan-based company founded by a devout Christian whose idea the inscriptions were, has bowed to pressure from the Pentagon and from New Zealand military leaders.

Like the US Marines and the US Army, the New Zealand army also has troops in Afghanistan and had no idea the rifle sights carried such coded inscriptions as 'JN8:12', which referred to the New Testament Book of John, Chapter 8, verse 12: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Read the whole thing here.
Via.

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Well...if it keeps them off the streets.

Utterly bizarre.
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Via EIT.
(if you're in FB, click here instead as you won't be able to see diddly)

Great new blog - Hipster Puppies. I shall be submitting my own photos forthwith.

Arlo says the bullshit 'no taping' policy at BB King’s Blues Club is a “third reich thought police tactic” and that it’s a tragedy this ween show will go undocumented

It may have been the wine talking, but I doubt it. Hammond Eggs, in one of his late night voyages of Wiki-discovery, stumbled on this delicious list: British Words Not Widely Used in the American Language.

There are some corkers. Some more obvious than others. Our Heath Robinson is their Rube Goldberg. We say arse rather than backside, buttocks or anus; plus there's always baps and bangers, blagging and bodging. But what about cagoule or breve (as in the musical note - for some reason Americans don't have quavers either)? Higgledy-piggledy? It's all at sixes and sevens.

The list is chock-full of words that, never mind the Americans, need to be bought back into limey-land and dropped into conversation once again. Little idiosyncrasies that give our speech texture and make English unique from the other commonwealth tongues.

So celebrate next time you call someone a Kev or a Joey; relish the way a squidgy, manky lurgy rolls off your tongue;  and watch out for mingers and nonces. English rocks - and not just the rhyming slang. Crikey! Let's scarper before the rozzers get here!

Valentine’s day. Hell all round for many people, single, attached or somewhere in between. The most common states? Worried about not “having anyone”. Freaking out in case the person you already love suddenly decides that, because you didn’t buy enough flowers or make a reservation in time, you clearly can’t be in love with them. Livid because now that you’ve chosen your life mate, you don’t get any mystery cards. Pining over the "brief encounters" column in Metro and wondering if any of them are about you. Gutted that despite being single, you don’t get any mystery cards. Fielding the inevitable newly-married couple’s “singles dinners” so they can get kicks out of unsuitable match making. Unable to look your secret crush in the eye when you see them at the train station every day. Stressed because while you’re head-over-heels in love, your best friend is utterly bereft and heart broken. Not to mention handling the near-constant barrage of dating websites, Tom Hanks films and love-themed TV programmes (E4’s Top 300 Lesbian Soap Opera Kisses or whatever they decide to cobble together) whilst trying to maintain an air of devil-may-care insouciance about the whole thing.

Hmmph. Who, you might ask, was St Valentine? Who do we have to blame for this sorry state of emotional saturation? Valentinus was a Roman priest, martyred during the reign of Claudius II (the soldier emperor, not the perve). He was caught conducting weddings for Christian couples and generally aiding-and-abetting the followers of Jesus – a crime in those days (around 269 – 270). Claudius didn’t think Valentine was entirely bad until he tried to convert him to Christianity. So the Emperor had him beaten with clubs and stoned. He was still alive, so they chopped his head off outside the Flaminian Gate.

This is a picture of his severed head. It’s now kept in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome.

The actual festival of St Valentine’s day took over from a (possibly pre-Roman) festival called Lupercalia, which was held on February 15. It was a spring rite designed to scare off evil spirits, purify the city and generally make things healthy and fertile (it also took the place of an even earlier spring festival called Februa, which is the root of the month's name).

The Lupercalia was named after the Roman god Lupercus, who was related to Faunus, their equivalent of the Greek god Pan. Lupercus is the god of shepherds, so his priests tended to hang around nude except for a goatskin. It was also part in honour of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus.

At the Lupercalia, the young citizens of Rome (mainly noble youths and magistrates – the Luperci, or brothers of the wolf, included Caesar, Mark Antony and more) would kick off by sacrificing two male goats and a dog. A bit of wool would be dipped in milk and sacrificial blood, then used to wipe the heads of the Luperci, at which they were supposed to smile and laugh.

Then they’d have a big feast, each cut two strips from the victims’ skins and run around the walls of the old Palatine city. As they ran, girls and young women would line the route, and the Luperci would whip them with these bloody strips – if you were hit by them, it would make you fertile and ease the pains of childbirth. Even in the fifth century, when “paganism” was outlawed, the Christian Romans still celebrated the Lupercalia – but it was something the plebs did, not something the aristos bothered with.

Now, of course, it has all changed and evolved from something with meaning (fertility etc) to a day that almost celebrates the superficial. We are encouraged to take the easy way out, buying little white bears holding garish hearts, two dozen roses because That's What Women Want, whipped into a panic by competitive spending with friends ("yeah well I'm taking MINE to Nobu and I'm getting her KNICKERS made from SPIDER SILK," "yeah well I'm taking MINE to VENICE and getting her lingerie that has been WASHED in the tears of ANGELS").

Whatever happened to just going for a walk and carving each other's names in a tree trunk, or picking wild flowers, or just a nice card and a kiss? Now, though, Valentine’s Day is the second most gifted holiday next to Christmas. The most lucrative sectors for marketers are the lovers staples: flowers, chocolates and jewellery. This year, Britons are expected to spend £107.2m on flowers, £55.4m on chocolates, £89.1m on jewellery, while £82.5m will go on "other gifts". Over a billion cards are exchanged worldwide on Feb 14th, and the sad thing is, most of them already have the Hallmark message written in them.

On balance, I think I’d rather do the whole chasing chicks naked with a fresh bit of goat skin up The Strand than suffer the choice of either an interminable evening of shit telly at home or finding all pubs and restaurants full of couples who aren’t talking to one another because they’re so done in by being “spontaneous”. Okay so it's not a completely made up festival, but if you love people, you shouldn't have to be told when to be nice. So there.

ps - The St Valentine's Day Massacre is a whole different ball game, but fascinating. Al Capone, Chicago gangsters etc. Click this to read about it.

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[googlemaps http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=portobello+market&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=18.409311,38.583984&ie=UTF8&hq=portobello+market&hnear=Portobello+Market,+Portobello+Rd,+Kensington,+W10+5,+UK&ll=51.519989,-0.209568&spn=0.019107,0.038418&layer=c&cbll=51.513349,-0.202844&panoid=D6zbUT2D0O6C7e-38Hibxw&cbp=12,26.72,,0,13.82&output=svembed&w=415&h=350]

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[by Tim Edwards in The First Post]
Chris Morris's comedy film, Four Lions, about a group of bungling British Muslim terrorists who try to attack the London Marathon, premiered to a warm reception at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday - the same day Home Secretary Alan Johnson announced he was raising the UK terrorism alert level from 'substantial' to 'severe'.

Yet if Four Lions contains any truths at all, the government has little chance of being taken seriously when it makes such pronouncements. As for Osama bin Laden, he came out on Sunday to 'claim' for al-Qaeda the Christmas Day plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit. Why would the world's most feared terrorist leader endorse a bungled attempt that has landed the perpetrator, Farouk Abdul Mutallab, with the moniker "The underpants bomber". Does Osama perhaps have a sense of humour?

Four Lions was conceived by Morris, the satirist behind such media-skewering TV series as The Day Today and Brass Eye. He says he first came up with the idea of a film about incompetent jihadis when he read of a plot to destroy a US warship at night. The terrorists slipped their boat into the water at the quayside and stacked it with explosives. It sank. "I laughed," said Morris.

BE SURE YOU READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE - IT'S GOOD, AND YOU'LL SEE A TRAILER OF THE VIDEO.

I won't spoil it, but I will suggest you click this link to see Geekweek's full list. And you know what? I agree with pretty much every single one of them. Funny how I didn't even register a few of these scenes as extended takes or tracking shots until seeing them out of context just now. Also, I've never seen Hungarian film "The Werckmeister Harmonies" before (number 13 on the list), but the shot from that film is just plain nutty.

This scene, from Thai martial arts film "The Protector" (number five on the list), took five takes and over a month to shoot:
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Just. Plain. Bonkers.

(if you're on FB, click here or you won't see nuthin)

Saw this on Boingboing , and it's too important to miss. It was picked by Stephen Worth, who is the Director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive , a museum, library and digital archive for professional artists and students. He's bang on as far as the skill limbo goes. I couldn't agree more.
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CLICK THIS IF YOU'RE ON FACEBOOK Nathan Milstein: "Paganiniana" 1968

"Now here's an area of music where I'm a little out of my familiar territory. I played violin for one grueling year in elementary school and swore off it forever (much to the relief of my parents). Although I'm interested in violin music (as long as someone else is holding the fiddle) I've never really explored the repertoire for solo violin. I know a little bit about Paganini- he was a flamboyant showman who used pyrotechnic technique to dazzle audiences- and I know Nathan Milstein was a great violinist who performed into his 80s- but I can't call myself knowledgeable about this stuff at all.

"But I can tell you that when I first saw this clip on EMI's Great Recordings of the CenturyDVD, my jaw was hanging on the floor. Ever since Andy Warhol made "ideas without skill" fashionable back in the 60s, it seems to me that popular culture has been playing a game of "skill limbo". How low can we go? How badly drawn can a cartoon be and still be considered a cartoon? How many drum machines and sequencers can we stack up to avoid having to learn a real instrument? How much plastic surgery does it take to make acting skills unnecessary? I really don't know the answers to those questions. Every day is a new horror.

"But when I see someone who has both an idea AND skill, I'm reminded just how doggone powerful and dynamic a creative artist can be. I'm sick and tired of accepting "half a loaf". Speak to me with eloquence. Dazzle me with your skill. Communicate an important idea. I insist on "all of the above"."

Won Park. The man can FOLD though, you get me. His fish actually have scales. He has made the Millennium Falcon out of a dollar bill. Type his name into a Google image search. You won't be disappointed. He lives in Honolulu.

What’s more, he offers up downloadable instructions (PDF) and a series of instructional videos on how to fold your own dollar koi. Some of his stuff is in this gallery.

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(if you're on FB, click "view original post" or you won't be able to see anything)

Cyantrend posted these fantastic polygonal images of animals by Argentinian artist/creative Nacho Gil (whose moustache, incidentally, is rather disappointing - needs much more volume). The pictures look loads better big, so be sure to check out the full set on his website by clicking HERE.

Saw this on boingboing - I'm definitely going if I can. It's important. Bring your cameras, get your arses in gear. The UK activist group "I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist!" is planning a mass photo-shooting this Saturday in Trafalgar Square, London: "Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed police detaining an award winning architectural photographer in the City of London, the arrest of a press photographer covering campaigning santas at City Airport and the stop and search of a BBC photographer at St Pauls Cathedral and many others. PHNAT feels now is the time for a mass turnout of Photographers, professional and amateur to defend our rights and stop the abuse of the terror laws." Mass Gathering in defence of street photography

Genius adaptation of Be-yonsss.

Skinny Ladies - watch more funny videos

ps - if you're on FB, click "view original link" or you won't see nothin'.

And the winner is...

(I'm going out RIGHT NOW to buy the necessaries)

ps - if you're on FB, click to view original post or you won't see nothin'.

Good set of Venn diagrams on Huff Post. Click the pic to see the orginal set.