...for a fun-loving scientologist...

whilst religions regularly set themselves up as an
 easy source of hilarity, cults surely serve no other
 purpose than merely to be ridiculed.

following my wednesday post ...for the freedom to disbelieve... 
a sharp-eyed reader sent me the link to this story -

stupid scientology revisited on the blog 'jack of kent'.

it's a lesson in abuse, tweeting, the law, and idiocy. 
and for that, i love it.

...for the next tsar...

the results of russia's 2012 presidential election have, in a throw-back to the soviet era, already been announced. 

and the winner is... 

vladimir putin.

his overwhelming victory in the election, due to be held next spring, has cemented his leadership of the country for a further twelve years.

congratulations vlad. it's like you never went away. 

how do you do it?

...for the freedom to disbelieve...

intra-faith back-biting - 

there's nothing more fun (to an outsider) than the scent of it.

this time it's the jehovah's witnesses.

it seems their official magazine, the watchtower, has described those who leave the church as 'mentally diseased' apostates.

their's is a faith with an ultra-centralised leadership, and one which calls for unquestioning discipline from the followers of its rigid doctrine. it's not the only one.

how they all got themselves in this mess, 'god' only knows.

the following is taken from 'will you heed jehovah's warnings?'

 the watchtower, 15 july 2011

"because of love. we love 'the god of truth', so we are not interested in twisted teachings that contradict his word of truth"

blimey. they all sound as mad as hatters.

the benefit of being genuinely engaged with those whose 

beliefs differ from ours is that it serves as a safeguard

 against idolizing our own ideology.

...for the other sock...

i think this post was supposed to be a metaphor for something.

i just can't quite remember what for.

...for the next nancy kominsky...

long before tv went 24/7 there was nancy.

nancy kominsky (b. 1915 - d. 2011), improved the lives of many

it's impossible to imagine the likes of her show 'paint along with nancy' being commissioned in our slick, modern era. instead we're fed a diet of fantasy masquerading as reality.

she regularly extolled the virtues of painting with a knife.

when a tissue was required she thought nothing of tearing a sheet off her always-to-hand toilet roll.

she could have been liberace's sister, or perhaps he hers. 

but this was the 1970s and it all seemed so right.

you can be reminded, or introduced, here...

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg4TvOIfw6o

...for a segregated polling booth...

saudi women get the right to vote.

bravo, king abdullah.

saudi women will be able to run and vote in municipal elections in the kingdom. but not in this thursday's elections, from which they remain barred. the next ones. we promise.

...for a reason to be bothered...

so, albert einstein has been proved wrong. so what?

the interweb has been ablaze with news that sub-atomic particles have been measured travelling at a speed exceeding that of light. much of modern physics - as largely defined by albert einstein in his theory of relativity - is tied to the fact that nothing can exceed it.

well, something has. and they're called neutrinos.

i just want to ask all those that have tweeted, re-tweeted, blogged and forwarded the story - "so what?"

i guess we all know it's an important discovery, 

but can anyone explain why?

answers on a postcard to:

CERN,

somewhere under the alps

switzerland

...for a soft landing... (part three)

'a very large person'

it seems nasa's uars satellite is still, tantalizingly, on the edge of space. according to earlier reports it was by now expected to have parked itself, oz-style, on the wicked witch of the west leaving only her ruby slippers unflattened.


the good news is that it has given extra time to locate the only true expert on falling space debris. in 1997 lottie williams was struck by a piece of the delta ii rocket near her home in oklahoma. hit on the shoulder she survived, and became the only person known to have been hit by part of a falling satellite. her sage advice? to go outside and look to the sky. if you see the satellite heading for you - run. i like the simplicity of real people.


nasa have estimated the largest single piece of debris to make it to the earth's surface will weigh 158kg - they say this is equivalent to 'a very large person'. similar to the one above, i imagine. 

...for my own green gold... (part two)

there runs joy unbounded in my life this morning. pleasantly surprised to discover i have been left $5.2million by ms. selma khat from lebanon who died in a car crash in chad in 2009. it seems all I have to do is pass my bank details to a gentleman in lagos for immediate transfer of the funds. which is nice. 

...for my own personal barcode...

i want to have my own barcode tattooed on my forehead.

i can supply a reader, but i'd much prefer it if you all had your own. it'll be programmed with all those little details that everyone finds so interesting, and could therefore be accessed by anyone wishing to disrupt my day in order to try and have a 

pointless conversation with me.

it is the only way i can see myself avoiding those

"how are you?"; why have you lost so much weight?"; "why don't you drive?'; "how do you take your coffee?"; "where did you go on vacation?"; "where do you live?"; "where do you work?"; "why don't you smile more often?"; "is this the way to amarillo?"; "how did you chip your tooth?"; "would you like another slice of pizza?"

sort of questions.

look, there's probably a very good reason you don't already

 know my answers to all of those questions,

and the reason is most likely to be that i didn't

want to talk to you in the first place.

capiche?

...for the ghost of michael stipe...

you've got to the love the lines:

pull that baby off the teat / fill its face with tail meat / smiling jappy people nourished

funny. mostly because so many outraged idiots still appear to believe that this is really rem.

whereas this one really is michael stipe:

http://confessionsofamichaelstipe.tumblr.com/post/8317898465

...for 'a man, a plan, a canal, panama!'...

meet mr palindrome

barry duncan is the world’s only 'master palindromist'. each day the 53-year-old american sits down to create phrases which read the same backwards as well as forwards, such as "No! Set a date, son", or indeed the title of this post.

here 'believer' magazine profiles duncan 

and explores his 12-hours-a-day obsession.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/201109/?read=article_kornbluh

The Believer is a monthly magazine where length is no object. 

There are book reviews that are not necessarily timely, and that are very often very long. 

There are interviews that are also very long. 

The Believer is printed in four colors on heavy stock paper.

Recommended.

...for the perfect espresso... (part four)

the curse of the nespresso

what do these two statements have in common?

a) if you want to take great photos, 

buy an autofocus digital camera.

b) if you want to make a great espresso, 

buy a nespresso machine.

they are both ripe with contemporary bullshit, and both equally highlight the rapid descent of modern standards towards ever greater uniformity and a lack of all-consuming passion.

in the same way that fine photography is more than just a press of a button, so should coffee-making be too. 

if i wanted a facsimile of a perfect espresso i'd drink from the much hyped nespresso-fountain. but for as long as i crave the real thing i'll continue to seek out a barrista who cares, 

or i'll just make it myself.

i like to know that the next espresso i drink will be subtly different from my last. i like to know that it was made for me, by someone who shares the same passion for coffee.

that probably won't be george.

...for someone else to blame... (for 9/11)

saudi arabia is to be sued by a syndicate attached to london-based insurers lloyds of london in an effort to recover US$215million paid out by them following claims made subsequent to 9/11. 

the group alleges 'that the oil-rich middle eastern superpower bears primary responsibility for the atrocity because al-qa'ida was supported by banks and charities acting as "agents and alter egos" for the saudi state'.

their chance of winning the case?
zero.


their reason for bringing the case?
well, just because that's what insurers do - take a risk, take the premiums, and when they're asked pay they do their best to wriggle out of it. 9/11 being an emotive subject they probably think they'll get some support. 

just swallow it, parasites.

...for the middle ground...

islam vs. christianity - face off


when i step out of my apartment door and look left, 

this is what I see at one end of the hallway:

when i step out of my apartment door and look right, 

this is what I see at the other end of the hallway:

talk about being right at the heart of things...

...for salvador dali in mongolia...

in 1976, salvador dali set out on a mission to find a hallucinogenic mushroom in the wilds of upper mongolia. the surrealist artist took a film crew with him, who made a 50-minute mock-travelogue about his adventures. here’s the video (part one anyway, if you want to watch parts two through five you can search for them yourself) of dali’s unlikely film, entitled impressions de la haute mongolie.

...for rip van winklokovich...

i had cause to visit the russian embassy yesterday.

i learned that it was in the diplomatic zone, 

alongside many other embassies.

good. shouldn't be difficult to find.

just look for their flag.

after two circuits, on both occasions stopping outside

 the turkish embassy to squint really hard at their 

fluttering red flag, i remembered glasnost and perestroika and stopped looking for the soviet flag, 

i started looking for the russian flag...

...and finally found the right place.

lovely people, the russians.

what else have i missed?

oh, yes...

...for a soft landing... (part deux)

From NASA:

"As of Sept. 16, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 225 km by 250 km.

Re-entry is expected Sept. 23, plus or minus a day.

The re-entry of UARS is advancing because of a sharp increase in solar activity since the beginning of this week."

That's good news then.

You can find the original post here:

http://thestillsearchingblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/for-soft-landing.html

...for the perfect espresso... (part three)

not even close. so, still searching...

the arab world is responsible for the introduction and

growth in popularity of coffee-drinking.

and yet here today it is so hard to find a decent cup.

instead it's all 'extrahotskinnydrydecafflatte'.

venti, of course.

how can a society move so far from the values so intrinsically entwined in its foundation? 

i guess i'm not only talking about coffee here.

...for a soft landing...

i'm not usually one to panic,

but right now i'm a little concerned.

in one week's time nasa's upper atmosphere research satellite (cosily known as 'uars'), having fallen out of orbit, will crash back to earth. it could land anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south. that's most of the populated world.

comfortingly nasa say the risk to life has been

calculated at 'just' 1 in 3,200.

i'm not comforted.

but it did get me thinking where, when it lands,

would i most like it to hit in order to serve the world some good.

here's my wish list:

1 - the knesset

2 - wherever gaddafi is hiding (and i hope he sees it coming)

3 - on a large group of somali pirates

4 - the knesset

5 - microsoft

6 - on bashar assad

7 - the knesset

8 - near lady gaga (not enough to hurt her, yet just enough to snap her vocal cords)

9 - the knesset

10 - umm, the knesset

in the meantime, heed nasa's advice, and don't panic.

...for someone else to blame...

i learned some startling facts yesterday.

a third of irish travellers die before they are 25,

half die under 39, and 80% die before 65.

i pause because it disturbs me that i feel

no sense of guilt nor any responsibility.

The Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford (L) and the Right Reverend Thomas McMahon, Bishop of Brentwood (C) talk to Nora Sheridan at Dale Farm on August 30, 2011 in Basildon, England. Dale Farm is the largest Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller site in the United Kingdom. Part of the site is due for demolition after the local authorities deemed that it was built without planning permission.

...for wiser words than these...

observed on a train carriage: a lady drops and breaks her kindle. lady sitting next to her says, "real books don't break".


lovers of real books 1, electronic buffoonery 0.

...for a proof reader... (part two)

surely there needs to be some punctuation here.

tinker, tailor, soldier, spy.

or even (at a stretch) tinker. tailor. soldier. spy.

i'm not surprised gary oldman didn't pick up on this but colin, i'm hugely disappointed in you. the movie opens on friday, so there's still time to correct it.

...for my own green gold...

but expecting it to be just another moldy, tremendous turd.

...for the perfect espresso... (part duo)

coffee's holy grail. these beans are picked by monkeys from bushes growing on the southern slopes of kilimanjaro. the bushes only produce beans every seven years, which are then roasted over the smoldering maple-wood embers of splintered necks, ribs and backs from stradivarius violins. lucky me.  

...for a proof-reader... (part one)

on a restaurant wall. it's big too. i have a feeling this style of post shall become regular fare on still searching.

...under dark and slimy stones...

for the most recently deposed tyrant of the arab world. being careful not to lift too many stones though, for fear i'll discover nothing more than an equally tyrannical successor.

...for the full list...

and lazily wondering who the top three might be.

...for my own healthy obsession...

i've none to match anything seen here. yet.

http://www.obsessionistas.co.uk/

...for the perfect espresso...

but didn't find it here. close though.

...for just one cream to cure a few of the world's ills...

instead of trying to find individual fixes for everything.

...for an easy way to lose one or two more pounds...

because 163lbs (74kg) seems to be as low as these scales will go.

...for the perfect weekend companion...

but in the meantime there is this. the ft weekend edition. news. life & arts.

how to spend it. and tyler brule. a cornucopia.