These things often show up at Raves, there's always someone with one. Their name is a bit more accurate under those conditions....

The old funeral industry is a bit much with the caskets. I used to be a funeral director, and my advice would be to avoid caskets and get the simplest coffin you can get.
A black painted Jewish/Islamic coffin is usually best. they are very simple and cheap, no metal, no ugly linings, no terrible varnishes and fake wood grain.
Mind you, #21 above sounds good, though unless you use double layer graves, you won't actually save space.

Regarding the slide of the US into an fascist state, I was wondering when a 'Hitler Youth' analogue would appear.
Now it's here. The conditions are nearly complete.

I think most FHM and similar men's mags will include a few shots like this each month.
I agree it'd be funny if it happened to me, but taking photo's and putting it on BoingBoing?

'(Giggles) It looks like a thingee! (more giggles)'

Oh well, at least my firewall lets that through, unlike any other arty nudity we get on here.

As usual, the US gets more in arms about the sexual aspects than the violence.
The graphics are good enough that shooting up a street and cars looks amazingly real, bullet holes stay exactly where they hit vehicles and people react as wounded, limping away after non-lethal hits. You'd think more people would worry about that.

Anyway, GTA IV teaches good lessons as well, genuine road safety ones. I've been playing it for a couple days and there's a couple things you learn:
Look both ways when crossing the street! Traffic will ruin your day like never before.
The games makes it almost impossible to drive if you've been drinking (in game, but the Taxi's are great).
The game also really, really, needs a seatbelt button. The detail is fine enough that occupants often exit a car by the front windscreen in a crash. That's cool to watch, but Niko doesn't wear his belt, so several times car chases, dates or missions have ended up with me embedded in a wall. I just want a seatbelt button!

Another thing discussed int he Al-Qaeda manual is to not bother smuggling guns or weapons into the US. It says something to the effect that there is no point smuggling weapons in and blowing the operation, it's so easy to get firepower in the US that a potential terrorist need not bring anything into the country.

So why is it that photography is controlled, but not assault weapons? Maybe the latent fascists in George W's core of associates see guns as more im,portant than stopping the Islamic Fascists (who hey increasingly resemble).

Seems to me if the war on terror was about anything than scaring western voters, it would be conducted a lot more effectively.

This would be a knock-on effect due to China's increasing demand for it.
Here in Australia we've had number of butter shortages (prices went right up), supposedly because the Chinese will buy whatever is available.
Worryingly, it seems it'll happen to us to. At least our dairy farmers are laughing all the way to the bank.

How will this effect commercial interests? Surely this would apply to business documents or files, how can they look at that?
That seems extremely at odds with the ruling the Diebold didn't have to release it's voting machine source code because that would violate it's commercial interests.
If 'commercial interests' (those of W. and co.) can win out over snooping in that instance, is there a precedent to carry over?
In any case, I am now NEVER going to the US (or at least not until Obama gets in).

Good on her, the whole world needs more people like this. Things are no more dangerous for children than they have ever really been, and yet most of them are driven to school, not allowed to travel by themselves and are totally denied the normal happy freedom of childhood. I hope more people are able to do this, the more that do, the better our cities will be.
I think it would then be the responsibility of of any decent person to help kids that try this and do get into trouble.

I'm increasingly thinking that the 'War on Terror' is in fact a war of religious extremists.
Islamic extremists are 'terrorists' while the Christian extremists are called 'George Bush, The Republican party and their backers.'
The only way to stop them fighting is to preserve secular separation of state and religion worldwide (especially within the US) and the empowerment of Arab women.
Patience people, if you guys get Obama, you might do alright.

Respect to Nick D, #90 above.

It's going to take some more concerted and organized grass-roots action. Still, if another terrorist incident happens with the Republicans in power it'll be National Socialism for sure.
I don't see Hillary being much better, and am uncertain Obama can overcome the prevailing mentality in Washington and the world generally.

Sounds like it's been a bit dulled down since the SS Commodore it's based on. Hopefully this ad gets it some notice.
What you guys think of the 'Sports Truck' versions. (We call it a ute)

'Bioethical', 'morally dubious' 'contributing to widening...' Is it me, or are these new ones a bit subjective?
The old ones neatly encompassed human nature and motivations, these ones, well they're a pathetic attempt to remain relevant.
I used to be able to manage all 7 sins in 30 seconds, I'll have to improve my routine to get the rest in within a decent time-frame each day.

the Singularity is not about uploading everyone into a computronium substrate.
The Singularity will occur when an intelligent machine designs another intelligent machine without human assistance, making the rate of technological advancement exponential.

This is why I am interested in the Singularity, but am a Transhumanist, I want cool high tech stuff, augmented senses and bodies, but I want to remain in my body, I'm rather fond of it.

I always thought a weapons grade torture list was supposed to contain a bit more Aphex Twin and speedcore.

This looks like someone's slapped together list for a student or someone's secretary. An actual pathologist wouldn't need this paper.

An actual, official list of 'causes of death to refer to the coroner' is avaliable on request from your local coroner and is more interested in the circumstances of the death than the cause. The cause must be recorded, but the interest of the coroner is in whether or not anyone caused the death or is liable for it's having happened.

I've always liked steam-punk because it requires a degree of handmade, individual craftsmanship that is totally at odds with modern mass produced consumer goods.
Back in the day technology was simple, reliable, effective and easily repaired if needs be. All that of course is gone in a disposable culture, so objects have less value and permanence.

So I love Steampunk, partially for it's wonderfully anachronistic appearence, but largely because it makes technology accessible in a way that most science fiction does not allow for. A Steampunk style computer might be practically obsolete in a couple years, but if my ancient Apple Mac IIc was brass and wood, I might still use it for simple tasks rather than store it in a box because it's too old to use but too young to sell yet.

The very worst part of this is not the 'surprise,' it's the cold certainty of knowing that they'll get away with it.

I'm going to have a look around and see who's driving this and see about some encouraging correspondence.
I'd recommend other Aussies do likewise, it might help create widespread support against more restrictive copyright laws.

Kosovo was always going to be an insurmountable issue. I never realized it's full significance to the Serbs until, when working as a funeral director, I saw the inside of a local Serbian Orthodox Church: The Entire ceiling is a mural depicting the Battle of Kosovo. It still means that much too the Serbs, but obviously they aren't treating the locals well enough for the world community to allow them to keep it.
I'd liken the situation to the eternal Israel/Palestine problem, but to be fair, Balkan ethnic tensions must be at least on par with or greater than even that impasse

So, going after the oil to support the US dollar didn't work out, now they're after our biometric data.
It's alright Americans! Cheney and puppet are nearly out of office. Provided the Capitol (Reichstag) doesn't burn down between now and the end of the year, I think you'll all be just fine.

We Aussies would never touch dirty crap like that! Tomato sauce, salt, vinegar or a combination these are the only acceptable condiments for chips.

Wouldn't the 'cheese' in those texas cheese fries be that nasty canned stuff? We don't even have that down here.
And yes, it's true that we don't drink Fosters.
We long ago decided it was sub standard and so have exported it for years (it's really hard to find here). We let the world have the crap beer and keep the Coopers, VB, Crownies, James Boags and such for ourselves.