"Almost one-third of Japan's married couples are sexless, with about 20 percent of unions bereft of physical intimacy for one year or more, an alarming poll conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Japan Family Planning Association showed."

This new poll found me rummaging through the pre-weblog days of The Huge Entity for a post long since forgotten in the depths of internet archive purgatory - I quote myself here:

"Durex^TM recently undertook the biggest global sex survey in recorded history (I assume the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Emperors of Roman and even the Sumerian Kings had an interest in the sexual behaviour of their subjects, but it is only with the power of the mass-produced contraceptive and internet marketing that this wonder of modern census can now be brought to the world). I was disappointed to discover that the Japanese, as a nation, have (on average) the least sex per person, per year of any of the 41 nations covered in the survey.

"Globally, people are having sex an average of 103 times a year with women (106) having sex more frequently than men (101)"

Japan, comes in bottom at only 43 times a year! [The French have nearly 8 times as much sex, ranking the top with an average of 337 times a year]. To counteract my disappointment though was this seemingly completely opposed statistic. The Japanese are among the most promiscuous races on the planet.

"People around the world have had an average number of 10.5 sexual partners"

Japan, comes in third in the world with an average of 12.7 sexual partners! [The Vietnamese come in bottom with a more conservative average of 2.5 sexual partners.] Can any light be shed on these apparently diametrically opposed statistics? I have recently undertaken deeply physical research to get to the root of the Japanese sexual-psyche and will report soon on my own findings. For the time being though please click on either of the quotes above to go directly to the relevant sections of The Durex 2004 Global Sex Survey or alternatively check out my Survival Section to uncover some of the stark contrasts in Japanese society. "

Could it be true? Am I living in the society where the single young can't get enough and the married middle aged don't get any?

I think this round of statistics, although somewhat questionable (how did Durex conduct this survey for instance?) shows something deeply embedded within Japanese society; that in some way marriage does not mean love, or even sexual union in Japan.
But Japan is changing, and who knows how these figures will change over the coming decades. All I do know is that for a society for whom sex is such a contradiction (school-girl anime porn can be bought in your local convenience store / female contraceptives are still highly unpopular throughout Japan, having only been introduced in 1999) these contradicting polls are not a surprise...

Check out this link for the full text of the most recent news story and go here for a related article about sexless marriages in Japan...

Categories: Japan, Culture, Society, News, Tradition, Sex

"Experts have dated the UK's oldest rock art, at Creswell Crags in the midlands, to more than 12,800 years ago...

The complex of caves at Creswell Crags has preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. "

"The man in charge of the Hubble space telescopes science missions has appealed to Nasa's new administrator to find the money for one last servicing mission to the observatory...

This week marks Hubble's 15th year in space. Already, its stunning pictures have transformed our understanding of the cosmos."

Reality is a LOT bigger than it used to be (check out yesterday's Simulacrum article for more on this...) Picturing the world around us sure has come a long way in 12,800 years.

Click the pictures above for relevant articles, or go here for access to some of the best Hubble Telescope pictures from the last 15 years.

Categories: Science, Humanity, History, News, Technology, Reality

True perceived reality is a nonsense.

In this mass produced, mass perceived world we inhabit one is often brought to the deceptive conclusion that we live on the brink of some progressive, maybe final understanding; a wave of truth about to sweep our modern shores. With mass communication systems we have closed in the seemingly infinite world of human experience. Radio, television and even more so the internet have each in their own way brought solace to those who use them, that the world they perceive is one shared by others, by millions, billions of souls. No one is a lost entity anymore, the key to reality is about to be written in one inch long formula which everyone will be able to understand. The truth is broadcast 25 hours a day, 366 days a year, and soon, we believe, it will be available to everyone, at a knock down price.

So now we come to my point for all this...

I read with interest an article about a semi-virtual sightseeing device being put through its paces in the Swiss city of Basel. The BBC website outlines its purpose:

"One step on from virtual reality, augmented reality takes the real world and digitally distorts and transforms what we see around us...
LifeClipper, a project created by new media organisation Plug. In, gives artists the digital tools to prise open the doors of perception.

The augmented reality system is entirely put together with off-the-shelf components.

A head-mounted camera, for instance, acts as the eyes.

As the subject makes his or her way around the tour [of Basel], global positioning satellites help trigger visual high-jinks in the rucksack computer according to whichever zone the subject has wandered into."

The birth city of LSD is once again blurring the lines between perceived realities. Augmented reality wins over completely virtual equivalents because the user transforms many of their perceptions themselves. The 'real world' is the canvas on which the psychedelic digital art is painted, thus intensifying the sense that perception is truth.

I was struck by the implications of such a device in no small part because I have recently been reading Jean Baudrillard's post-modern classic Simulacra and Simulation. In the book Baudrillard tells us that:

"Our world has been launched into hyperspace in a kind of postmodern apocalypse. The airless atmosphere has asphyxiated the referent, leaving us satellites in aimless orbit around an empty center. We breathe an ether of floating images that no longer bear a relation to any reality whatsoever..."

That is simulation: the substitution of signs of the real for the real. The Simulacrum is a copy of a copy that has so moved away from its relation to the original as to become something entirely separate from its representation of the original. The Simulacrum is therefore a copy without an original model:

"Meaning is out of reach and out of sight, but not because it has receded into the distance. It is because the code has been miniaturized. Objects are images, images are signs, signs are information, and information fits on a chip. Everything reduces to a molecular binarism. The generalized digitality of the computerized society."

The photo-realistic painting is a copy not of reality, but of a photograph, which is already a copy of the original. In the same way augmented reality, as created by The LifeClipper Project, is in some sense bringing a copied reality to the perceptions of the user. A Simulacrum of a digital matrix overlays the separately existing world, a modern world which in itself is heading towards becoming a full Simulacrum as time weaves its path into our perceived future.

A new, stronger perception of reality is just a hairs breadth away. In the same way that the first campfire, the first light bulb, and the enormous impact of the internet has intensified our world experience so the future of augmenting, virtualising, our post-Simulacrum perceptions will bring into being a new dimension of truth for humanity. A dimension which is copy of a copy which bears no relation to the original. Our reality will become a Simulacrum of itself.


Links:
BBC article on The LifeClipper Project (includes a video of the tour)
Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation
Definition of Simulacrum
Further reading on The Simulacrum

Thanks Coming Anarchy!
Categories: Japan, China, Korea, History, News, Politics

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"Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged Japan to "seriously reflect" on its wartime history and back up government apologies with action." - Link

"Young Chinese are taught about the atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II. They are not however taught about the 17 official apologies that Japan has made to China over the last 30 years

Nor are they told of the $30bn in aid that Japan has given to China since ties were re-established in 1972, aid that has helped build Beijing's international airport and the city's new subway system. You'll search in vain for a plaque on either acknowledging where the money came from.

Unlike Japan, in China the government really does control history." - Link

Previous story:

"Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has reiterated his country's "deep remorse" over its aggression in Asia during World War II.

The speech at the Asia-Africa summit comes amid tensions over the approval by Tokyo of school textbooks which China says gloss over Japan's record....

Addressing delegates, Mr Koizumi said: "In the past Japan through its colonial rule and aggression caused tremendous damage and suffering for the people of many countries, particularly those of Asian nations.

"Japan squarely faces these facts of history in a spirit of humility." "

So finally an apology, but was it really necessary? Afterall, Japan's official stance on WWII is one of remorse. A few school textbooks, available to a tiny percentage of Junior High schools (about 12 schools throughout Japan) has arguably caused all this fuss. Now China might have to step aside and allow Japan's bid for a place on the security council to go through un-questioned. Words in politics go a long way, should Koizmi have bitten his lip and said sorry earlier?

What do you think? China or Japan? History or forgiveness? Please leave your comments below...

Categories: Japan, China, History, News, Politics, Asia

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"This week, a top insurance company charted the world's most dangerous places to do business. Unsurprisingly, regions like Iraq, India and Russia were shaded brown on the "risk map", marking them as at severe risk from terrorism.

But while most countries were classified as "guarded" risk or above, by Aon, the world's second-largest insurance broker, it also highlighted, in a calming sage-green, a handful of states dotted round the globe which remain unaffected by the seemingly ever-present terror threat. So where could you go for a relatively risk-free holiday? Here are just six of the "low risk" countries."

Mongolia, Greenland, Vietnam and even North Korea make the top list. Although Americans and South Koreans will find it difficult to get a visa for North Korea it is by no means an off limit travel location, even so...

"If it doesn't put off the most intrepid traveler, there's this: "Perceived insults to, or jokes about, (North Korea's) political system and its leadership are severely frowned upon. Foreigners have very occasionally found themselves caught up in criminal cases for not paying what is deemed to be sufficient levels of respect.""

I have already booked tickets for the wonder that is Mongolia (heading there this August if all goes to plan). North Korea is also definitely on my top list of places to go. Is it the excitement of stepping in a Nuclear armed country that draws me? Or the fact that in some small way I am rebelling against the Western slant on this region? No. I want to go because it's there, and because the only way I believe you can truly know anything is to experience it first hand. North Korea may scare the wits out of the jumpy Westerner on constant terror alert, but it scares me a lot more to know that the future of this elusive country might rest in the inclinations and opinions of a Global Empire they are becoming less and less related to. A Global Empire who react and ask questions later. First-hand answers are much more interesting to me than any second-hand fear breeding tactics.

Check out the full story and detailed map at the link below...

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Calling all artists, illustrators, animators, bloggers, short-story enthusiasts and lovers of small, domesticated fur-balls wielding Hammers of Infinite power...

I have just uploaded my short children's story Thor: The Mighty Thunder Hamster to this website in order to attract possible collaborators for a creative, online project (issued under a creative commons license).

The story is about the imagined world of a small boy, obsessed with Viking myth. He receives a hamster for his birthday and sets out on a series of amazing, imagined adventures.

I believe that online multimedia fiction will sky rocket in popularity over the coming decades. So please take part now in this project and see your work online and available for thousands of prospective readers. Are you an illustrator with a zest for bizarre, comic creations? An animator looking for your next simple flash project? Or an artist looking for something new? Then I would really love to hear from you...

Take a look at the full story here, and if you are interested in taking part in the final project e-mail me directly at [email protected]

Also, if there are any bloggers/webmasters reading this who would be so nice as to publicise this project I will be forever in your debt!

Thanks a lot!

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Categories: Religion, Humour, News, Nonsense

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• Opposition to abortion
• Opposition to Homosexuality
• Opposition to the use of condoms worldwide
• Opposition to women priests
• Putting the smackdown on heresy

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Inspired by the forthcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, and by the simple fact that I've always had a deep rooted desire to carry out this task myself, here is a link discussing the various methods and means of Destroying the Earth.

Enjoy

Categories: Humour, Internet, Movies, Nonsense, Humanity, Nature

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Huge Entity favourite and infamously conservative Roman Catholic, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, crosses his fingers this week as voting starts for the election of the new Pope^TM. But as many conservative Catholics rally for Ratzinger's cause questions are being raised about his relatively unknown past as a Hitler Youth. Will JR be evicted from the Big Bloke in the Sky house? You won't decide...

"THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defense of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets including 'the enforcer', 'the panzer Cardinal' and 'God's rottweiler' is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who could come close to his tally.

Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger's past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit."

However strong his actual connections to the Nazis might have been it would seem to me the ultimate irony to go from a Polish Pope^TM straight to a Hitler Youth Pope^TM. Check out the full story below and keep your hands clasped firmly together for a Pope^TM with some Funk under his robes...

Categories: Religion, History, News, Politics

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Jesus, you are by far my all time favourite superhero. Come back soon!

Categories: Japan, China, Religion, Humour, Politics, Gnomz Comics

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"TOKYO: Officially pacifist Japan in 1994 studied the possibility of a pre-emptive attack on North Korea amid fears of a missile launch, even though it lacked the military capability, an official and a report said Friday.

The Sankei Shimbun said the Defense Agency conducted a simulation on mobilizing fighter jets in the event of an imminent missile threat by the Stalinist state."

Thanks Coming Anarchy!
Categories: Japan, Korea, History, News, Politics

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"The Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers are holding crisis talks in Beijing over a wave of anti-Japanese protests across China.

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura is seeking an apology for the protests, but China has said the real issue is Japan's wartime atrocities.

Protests have continued in at least five cities - with 10,000 people marching in Shenzhen, in the south."

Here's what Li, a Chinese citizen and restaurant worker had to say about Japan (taken from the BBC website):

"I have no feelings about Japan.
I prefer Korea to Japan. I prefer Korean clothes and hairstyles.
I don't like the Japanese that much. It's just a feeling."

So maybe the best way to solve the conflict is for Japanese people to get better haircuts? Its not going to happen... and when famous Korean people like Yon Sama and his splendid hair follicles are involved, who can argue with worshipping such perfect human specimens?

Categories: Japan, China, History, News, Politics, Korea

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Our universe is the music resonating on tiny strings of energy composed of 10 spacial dimensions floating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. At least, that's what String Theory says it is, the most infamous and often elusive theory of modern physics.
Of course many people have heard the phrase 'string theory' and I'd guess that most people have had that polite after dinner conversation about the existence of multiple universes, but few people go much farther into this strangest of mental jungles without turning back, to run screaming from the metaphysical beasts looming ahead.

Michio Kaku, one of the co-founders of String Field Theory, is a mind who has coped well in the deepest shadows of this jungle for almost 3 decades now, and he is also a physicist with an amazing ability to take the laymen right into the undergrowth with him: This weeks issue of New Scientist has an article by Michio on scientists attempts at Unifying the Universe, its a nice intro to the subject. Or for those of you ready to take a deeper excursion into the wilderness of theoretical physics I would definitely recommend his newest book Parallel Worlds as one of the more easily accessible guides on String Theory.

Admittedly, it all sounds a bit insane, but then, time wasn't relative until one particularly bizarre theory came along to say it was. E=mc² will always be the most famous equation ever devised, but could a String Theory equation possibly be the next?

Categories: Science, Philosophy, Nonsense?, Future, Sci-fi

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Theological issues burning your inner soul? Questioning your existence leave you overcome with thorough spiritual confusion? Well try out The God FAQ, it hopefully should answer any question you might have on that most reputedly inaccessible of impossibly ridiculous subjects.

Categories: Religion, Science, Nonsense, Internet

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A few things today...

Picturing the city of Kumamoto after the Cherry Blossom had long since blown away was a painful experience for me. Check out my photo galleries to compare the seasonal bloom with the seasonal bust.

Secondly today I'd like to draw attention to my new page 'SPAM Poetry'. A growing collection of the cesspool of word randomization to be found at the bottom of SPAM e-mails. Next time you get SPAM, check the bottom of the e-mail for its filter-evasion nonsense paragraph. Poetic? Bizarre? Then e-mail it to SPAM Poetry here.

Here's a ready made poem I found at the bottom of a SPAM mail advertising Viagra:

Hairy Green Baby Spit
Their hairy green baby spit.
Her daughters tall mouse stares or her silver door calculates.
Our small red shining ram smiles and our children stupid round-shaped odd shaped glasses prepare for fight.
Her daughters white sony stands-still.
Mine well-crafted round-shaped glasses snores.
The silver shining house fidgeting.

And finally.... Our new page 'a bit pointless' is completely pointless. I apologise.

"Thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Chinese city of Shanghai in the latest in a series of anti-Japanese demonstrations.
Protesters, shouting anti-Japanese slogans and carrying Chinese flags, threw eggs and plastic water bottles at the Japanese consulate....

...On Friday, the authorities in Beijing issued a statement calling on residents not to participate in any unapproved marches, or to do anything to influence social stability.
Chinese officials are wary of a repeat of last weekend's violent protests in Beijing, which angered Tokyo and led to escalating bilateral tensions."

Check out the full story below... Also check out this link for a personal opinion from Chinese citizens.

Categories: Japan, China, History, News, Politics

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Juergen Specht has a great feature about Japanese warning signs on his site.

"Japanese warning signs are very different than warning signs in other parts of the world, because they usually contain a visual and easy to understand reason why something is dangerous or not allowed."

Take a gander at how to avert danger in Japan...

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Go and check out my January photo galleries to see Mt. Aso on a normal day...

Categories: Japan, News, Kumamoto, Photos

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Oh dear, oh dear oh dear oh dear, oh deary dear dear dear...

When M J Simpson (biographer of the late Douglas Adams, and author of numerous guides to the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) says this movie is a stinker I start to sit up and take notice.
There was always a 50/50 chance that this movie would either be the ultimate answer or just a bunch of fetid dingo's kidneys. I think I might cry...


Douglas Adams sadly departed from this reality on 11th of May 2001, taking with him any hope of turning that most remarkable of books, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, into a quality movie.

I salute you Douglas and hope that the directors of the hollywood road accident ahead can re-edit it to some sort of order before its release (less than 2 weeks away. Kill me now...)

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Many regulars to the site may notice a few additions to The Huge Entity today.

To make matters of browsing the site a bit easier I have painstakingly included all most posts into del.icio.us Categories. From now on at the bottom of each post will be a list of related categories, and if you click these you will be whisked over to a page showing previous posts of a related nature. You can also do this by browsing through the new 'Categories' pull down menu in the sidebar.

So if you want to see all The Huge Entity posts with photographs, click the photos tab. Or if you are interested on all my previous posts about the China/Japan conflict just click the China or Politics tabs to be taken right into the action...

Plus, I added Haloscan's Trackback service to all my posts make linking to The Huge Entity a lot more Blog-friendly...

Happy surfing...

Categories: Weblog, Internet

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"The growing animosity between China and Japan has entered cyberspace, with Chinese Web sites calling for thousands to join new anti-Japanese demonstrations in the coming days. The protests have been prompted by what many in China see as Japan's attempts to whitewash the atrocities its troops committed before and during World War II.

The war of words escalated Thursday, when Japanese police said they were investigating whether Chinese hackers might be linked to an attack that disabled police and defense Web sites for a short time earlier this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang denied any government connection.

"The hackers' behavior violates cyberspace ethics. The Chinese government consistently opposes this unethical behavior," the spokesman said."

Tags: Japan, Internet, China, Politics, News

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"China and Japan have kept up their war of words over disputed gas reserves and Japan's wartime behaviour.
China said Tokyo's decision to issue drilling rights in a disputed area of the East China Sea was a "serious provocation".

But Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura signalled he would take a tough line in weekend talks in China.

China has seen violent protests over Japanese textbooks which critics say play down Japan's wartime brutality.

The protests were also directed at Tokyo's bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat. "

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"A team of Japanese genetic scientists aims to bring woolly mammoths back to life and create a Jurassic Park-style refuge for resurrected species. The effort has garnered new attention as a frozen mammoth is drawing crowds at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan (see photo).

The team of scientists, which is not associated with the exhibit, wants to do more than just put a carcass on display. They aim to revive the Ice Age plant-eaters, 10,000 years after they went extinct.

Their plan: to retrieve sperm from a mammoth frozen in tundra, use it to impregnate an elephant, and then raise the offspring in a safari park in the Siberian wild."

I've always thought we lived in a quasi-sci-fi illusionary dreamworld. Trust Japanese scientists and 10,000 year old mammoth sperm to prove it. Next up, Dodos and Sabre Tooth Tigers as house hold pets... (maybe).

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"Did you ever wonder about your most ancient ancestors? The Genographic Project will introduce you to them, and explain the genetic journeys that bond your personal lineage over tens of thousands of years."

National Geographic are offering each and every one of us a $100 chance to genetically track our ancestors. Just send off for the Genographic Project Public Participation Kit, take a swab of saliva, post it back and HEY PRESTO instant ancestral Karma.

The project of course has wide reaching aims and implications. Tracking the genetic lineage from Africa onwards of so many applicants might unfold some of the more difficult questions anthropologists tackle everyday, but beyond all that, it's pretty damn cool yo...

Can anyone lend me $100?

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"CANNES, France (Hollywood Reporter) - The average level of television consumption increased on nearly every continent last year, but a new study has found that Japanese viewers watch more TV than anybody.

The newly released report from Eurodata TV Worldwide, the focus of a panel discussion at the MIPTV convention in Cannes, also found Americans' daily dose of TV climbed by three minutes last year to an average of four hours and 28 minutes -- nearly 90 minutes above the world average.

The Japanese watched the most television last year, clocking in a daily average of five hours.

Americans were second, followed by Argentinians and the Greeks, who consumed four hours and 25 minutes and four hours and four minutes, respectively."

Of course this study makes sense, every small, non-profit making business in Japan (and there are trillions of them, stacked one upon the other in an infinite reflection of Japan's expansionist drives) has a portable TV within a 1 metre square area of the shop's owner. Tuning in and out of channel 6, giggling at the same jokes they did yesterday, hoping they don't get any customers: this is normal, this is Japan; but what exactly are they watching?

Is it all anime porn, dangerous game shows and sumo wrestlers? Well there is a bit of that, but in the most part Japanese TV mainly resembles that of the UK and US in the 60s and 70s. Variety shows coming out of every orifice, and with only around 20 celebrities to share between the 5/6 channels these shows sure have to keep the variety various.

There is a J-pop group known as SMAP (yeah I know, they sound like the thick, yellow mucus which develops in the corner of your eyes, but they are far, far worse than that) who rule Japanese TV. On an average TV night at least one of the 4 members of SMAP will pop up in one or other quiz-variety show, music-variety show or comedy-variety show. Indeed SMAP have their own variety-variety show which has been running once a week for the past 8 decades (measured in variety-years). So watch out for the yellow mucus boys. Since I believe that SMAP make up the majority percentage of Japanese TV time, and since the Japanese watch the most TV in the world, SMAP might just be the most watched people on Planet Earth.

Check out more on SMAP here or read the full TV article below...

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"By 2050, the over 65s in Japan are expected to make up a third of the population... and it's likely that technology will be relied upon to help look after them.

To help combat the loneliness of longevity - and in true Japanese style - the country has turned to technology for guidance.

Akino has been introduced to Primo Puel, an interactive doll that talks, giggles and even asks for cuddles.

It provides her with much of the company she longs for, especially in the evening.

Originally designed to be a substitute boyfriend for young single girls in the workforce, the doll has become an unexpected hit with elderly people across Japan.

Since they came on to the market five years ago, more than one million dolls have been sold."

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After installing a tracker to my site I can now see how people got here, either by link, e-mail or search engine query.

Here's a few searches that got people to www.huge-entity.com:

Google: koizumi gere and my personal favourite: simulacrum starbucks

Click the links to do the search yourself (wow, how interesting)

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"It has cost $24 million and taken more than 1300 scientists in 95 countries four years to put together. This week, the first ever global inventory of natural resources was finally published. Its overwhelming conclusion: we are living way beyond our means.

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, approximately 60 per cent of the planet's "ecosystem services" - natural products and processes that support life, such as water purification - are being degraded or used unsustainably. What is more, this degradation increases the risk of abrupt and drastic changes, such as climate shifts and the collapse of fisheries...

...The most obviously irreversible trend is the loss of biodiversity (see Chart - Link). Extinction rates today are perhaps as much as a thousand-fold higher than the norm throughout evolutionary history. Some 10 to 30 per cent of the world's land vertebrates are now threatened with extinction."

The danger is here, we all know it, for God's sake the signs have been there since the 1960s & 70s when man's effect on world ecosystems first came into focus. Do we have a chance to pull ourselves back from the brink? The findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment would suggest so, but only if we act now, and act on a large scale.

Once again I am reminded of an example from our ecological past...

Nowhere are the problems of environmental disharmony and increasing human population more vividly drawn than in the incredible true story of the Easter Islanders and the doomed fate of their obsessive and isolated civilisation. The Islander's fate acts as a microcosm for the modern rise of mankind. When there is only 1 tree left standing on the entire globe how many men will suffer for the chance to cut it down?

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"Meat is an extremely complex raw material in which a single factor results in a series of interrelated changes and processes. Throughout many varying and intricate operations, an ingenious sausage maker, skilled in his task, has to stimulate those desired structural and chemical changes and processes which lead to conversion of raw meat into a final sausage product that his customers want."

"How and when the first sausage was produced is not known since sausage manufacture antedates recorded history. There are numerous documents testifying that ancient civilizations made and consumed sausages some thousands of years ago."

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1. Ninjas are mammals.

2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.

3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

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Sesame Street are forcing Cookie Monster to eat less of his chocolate chipped friends labelling them a 'Sometimes Food'!

"This season, each episode opens with a "health tip" about nutrition, exercise, hygiene and rest.

..."Sesame Street" also will introduce new characters, such as talking eggplants and carrots, and offer parodies, such as "American Fruit Stand." Even guest stars will address healthy activities, such as Alicia Keys talking and singing about the importance of physical activity."

Teaching kids healthy eating is all well and good, but what about their parents? The clinically obese, waddling masses who create these cookie consuming machines.
We live in the era of excess and singing blue monsters with hands up their bum aren't going to change that. Keep munching kids, I'm sure your folks will.

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Want to share blood with your fellow Japanese citezens? Well soon you won't be able to, 'cos if you visited the UK between 1980 to 1996 your blood be deemed crazy blood!

"...Affecting donor numbers was the discovery on March 7 of Japan's first outbreak of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human equivalent of mad cow disease. The Red Cross responded to the disease by announcing a ban on blood donations from anybody who had stayed for longer than one day in either Britain or France at any time from 1980 to 1996."

It is truly a modern phenomenon where eating a beefburger in 1980 can see your blood excommunicated from the donation clinic in 2005. And what does it mean for us humble British folk? I ate several beefburgers between 1980 and 1996 and I feel just fine, not in the least bit spongy, I ain't crazy.

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"Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is head of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose mission is to "to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world" (John Paul II).

As Grand Inquisitor for Mother Rome, Ratzinger keeps himself busy in service to the Truth: correcting theological error, silencing dissenting theologians, and stomping down heresy wherever it may rear its ugly head -- and, consequently, has received somewhat of a notorious reputation among the liberal media and 'enlightened' intellegensia of pseudo-Catholic universities.

However, there are those among us who have delved beyond the polemics of his critics, who in familiarizing ourselves with his works have come to admire him both as brilliant Catholic theologian but also as a man whose faith, honesty, integrity, and unswerving devotion to the Truth is readily apparent.

This, then, is our little way of expressing our thanks and moral support. We hope you enjoy it!"

Why not pop along to the website and buy this delicious 'Papist' truckers cap. Or for those who yearn to indoctrinate their young into the Catholic Faith check out the child-size sweatshirt immortalised with these faithful words:

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"Manila - A South Korean parliamentarian attending at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) 112th conference here Wednesday asked Japan to officially apologize for various crimes it committed during World War II, including recruiting 200,000 Asian women as "comfort women" for Japanese imperial troops.

At the open forum following the IPU panel discussion on violence against women and children in armed conflict situations on Wednesday, Hye Hoon Lee, member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, spoke for the other countries Japanese forces had brutally occupied during WWII.

She asked for an apology and compensation for the "pain, suffering, and humiliation" their people suffered. " -

Check out this link for the full article

Things are really hottin' up... See past related postings to this story here:

Erasing Sex Slave History
Erasing History - Follow Up
Yon Sama / Korean Pop Culture: Tribute

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Leonard Nimoy, otherwise known as Spock from the original Star Trek series, goes all black n' white, flesh n' stilletos with his new photography project. The Big Burlesque Fat Bottom Revue maintains its popularity with quotes like this on its website:

"RevaLucian's Fat-Bottom Revue has improved my sex life by leaps and bounds!" -- Annie Sprinkle

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German scientists capture the first image of a planet orbiting a Sun-like star.

The planet (B) orbiting star GQ Lupi (A) is thought to be in the region of 1 - 42 Jupiter masses, orbiting its parent star about 20 times further out than our own Jupiter orbits the Sun. The star GQ Lupi resides 400 light years away from the equipment that captured its image - to put things into perspective, that's 2,351,399,925,684,010 miles for us Earthlings.

"Now that we have a direct image, it's possible to start looking at what this planet’s atmosphere is made of and measure its temperature. It opens up a whole new arena for planetary science."

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"Risking new rows with its neighbors, Japan authorized for school use a nationalist-written history textbook which China and South Korea accuse of glossing over Japan's wartime atrocities.

The education ministry said Tuesday it approved the controversial book as one of eight that can be used to instruct students aged 13 to 15 from April 2006.

Japan's relations with South Korea have deteriorated recently, with Seoul alleging that Tokyo is acting like a colonialist for renewing its claim to a chain of uninhabited rock islands in the Sea of Japan...

...Four other approved textbooks also refer to the Nanjing Massacre as the "Nanjing Incident" while their accounts of the number of Chinese victims vary.

Only one of the eight approved texts mentions the euphemistically called "comfort women", the sex slaves taken from other Asian countries, particularly Korea, to serve in frontline brothels for Japanese soldiers."

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"Women-only coaches were introduced Monday on notorious JR Saikyo Line trains during the morning rush hour to protect women from molesters, East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) said...
...The JR Saikyo Line is infamous for having the largest number of molestation cases on a single train line. Last year, 217 cases in which men molested women on trains were reported on the line."

I have never known sex and reality to be so distinct as in Japan; where you can rent seedy love-hotel rooms completely anonymously for just an hour, but where the contraceptive pill is still widely unpopular. Where you can buy school girl anime-pornography in your local convenience store, but where stories like the one above still warrant surprise. The country of contrasts strikes again. If the shortness of skirts in Kumamoto is anything to go by its no wonder men's eyes (and hands) are wandering in Tokyo. Maybe first they should introduce a trouser only section on the trains, see if that makes a difference.
Check out the full story below...

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Science Fiction with its geek reputation; its furry knee-high reptilian sea creatures; its faster than light space missiles; its levitating planetary mega-dodo hyper-systems can of course be a turn off. But its that greatest of literary cliches that drives back the science fiction fanatic to their favourite genre: a deeper understanding of the human condition, in all its fetid and often mistaken glory, is the novel reader's gain. The realm of ideas is one to be relished, driven by creativity and shared with the world, so why is the single greatest vehicle for creative and philosophical theorising avoided, and quite literally the laughing stock, of so many fine Earth citizens?

Enter the new era of cinema. In 1982 Ridley Scott brought 'Blade Runner' to the world. A cyberpunk-esque jaunt into a future world with all the cracks, all the dark shadows of the real one. For the first time less than optimistic science fiction had found a world audience, ushering in a new era in future building. But was it really new? The movie Blade Runner was loosely based on Philip K Dick's philosophical masterpiece, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?', written some 20 years earlier. In the novel Dick masterfully uncovers that to be human in a post utopian driven world is not necessarily to be homosapien.

After Blade Runner's success it took a further 20 years for Dick to become a well known name, and only this fine year of 2005 has Dick finally been recognised by the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Many now concede that Dick was not just a notable sci-fi author; he was a forerunner of uber post-modern literature in a world that was not truly capable of recognising his talent until after his death.
The past few years has seen Dick's literature turned into several movies, and his ideas blatently stolen by countless others (cough cough Matrix). This spring sees the release of 'A Scanner Darkly' to the cinema screen, based on a novel motivated by the drug fuelled life Dick had lead in the late 60s. A novel which turns the paranoia of the main character into a thorough analysis of the reader's sense of self. I advise you to check out the trailer here, for it is the best looking slice of cinema I've seen in a long time.

If you're interested in Dick's work then the original Blade Runner inspiration, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' or the pant-soilingly disturbing 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' are your best places to start (he wrote around 50 novels in his stunning career).
If you want to check up on the fascinating real-life of Philip K Dick, with a paranoid, mystical wonder which often rivalled his fiction, then this Robert Crumb comic strip from the 80s is a fantastic introduction.

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I stumbled upon ChickenHead's Whitehouse website today.

Pure genius. Give it a peek...

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My recent Gnomz creation. Enjoy...

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"Tokyo - A senior Japanese government official said Thursday a word related to Japan's sex slavery practices in World War II should be removed from middle of school history textbooks...
...'Considering the children's growth and development stage, it is not appropriate to include the word 'comfort women' in junior highschool textbooks,' senior vice education minister Hakubun Shimomura told a House of Councilors committee, Kyodo News reported."

Having previously jested about the Japanese perspective on 'Comfort Women' I will simply direct you to the full quoted-article at asiansexgazette.com.

The Japanese are not the only country to have a habit of canceling history from their school curriculum. Where are the historical accounts of the American bombing of Dresden during WWII? And why not mention the popular eugenics movement in the West at the turn of the 20th Century (long before the advocation of eugenics by the Nazis)? History has a habit of being told by the winners, for the winners. Making guilty consciences fade into the ether since time immemorial.

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Too self conscious to try and match the monotonic drawl of your favourite J-pop heros? Suddenly aware that your neighbours have been giving you funny looks? Then here is the answer: The Karaoke Muzzle. I know a whole bunch of people who could do with one of these.

This one did the rounds a while back, but for those of you who haven't seen it another sure fire 'Only in Japan' cliche is right here for your pleasure: The lap shaped pillow. They should dish these out on the Kumamoto tram system. There is nothing worse than a middle aged man who smells of stale wee passing out on your shoulder, repeatedly (we've all been there, repeatedly).

British cinema has had its moments in the past decade or so, but on the whole, contemporary British cinema stinks. Maybe Quentin Tarantino was right when he recently said that British actors too quickly turn their backs on home grown cinema. Hollywood is just too powerful of a temptation. So it goes...

But it wasn't always the way, British cinema was alive and well in the 50s, 60s, even the 70s. Of special note is the infamous 'Hammer Films' studio, the phrase 'Hammer Horror' still widely in use today. Their low budget attempts at fear inducement weren't always successful, but after just watching 'Quartermass and the Pit' I am left wondering where the hell modern horror has gone. This movie was damn scary, the kind of fear that lingers inside you long after the credits have rolled. I've had enough of hollywood lollypop horror, and if the industry's leaching of Japanese cinema is anything to go by, so has the viewing public.

Check out this link to uncover the mysteries of Quartermass. As for Japanese cinema the website www.midnighteye.com is no better guide. Enjoy plunging your head into the world of Asian extreme. Hollywood remakes coming to a cinema near you, soon.

Take a bus load of drunken town office workers and one young British man. Apply small dashings of English, buckets of Japanese and mix with a gallon of karaoke.
My Friday night. I feel quite the worst I have ever felt right at this moment. Will somebody please come round and put me out of my misery?


Click for big pic.

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I believe in doing my bit for persons of all faiths, races and creeds, so it is with a sad hand on my yearning heart that I offer up this replacement therapy service, for those of you who will miss the Pope once he's gone. Here's how it works...

1. Leave your e-mail, religious inclination and relationship status to the Pope in the comments section
2. List three reasons why the Pope meant so much to you
3. List three ways in which you can substitute for the Pope once he's gone
4. Await a response!

Hopefully within several postings we will have built a list of replacement mortal helpers, because surely several mortal connections to God is better than one dead one? (However holy you are, being dead ain't that helpful to anyone - despite what the new testament might tell you).

This offensive posting was brought to you under the strict understanding that forgiveness is the basic premise of all Christian belief. Thank you

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"A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi. The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia. "The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans." "

I guess it's time to buy that poka-dot umbrella you've always want. Does this mean that the UK could never suffer God's/Allah's wrath? Being a country devoid of natural disasters is the real recipe for empire building.

Check the full story from The Jerusalem Post below...

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