I just got through reading the novel Monster Island by David Wellington and thought it was pretty damn good for a first novel.
There's a bit of a zombie zeitgeist at the moment and though I'm a fan of the genre this is the first zombie novel I've read, I'm not even sure if there are any others. The novel does give the typical zombie story a wider scope than you get in a movie much in the same way as the events in the excellent The Walking Dead comic series written by Robert Kirkman does.
Basically civilisation has collapsed and the Earth seems to be overrun with zombies. Ironically states like Somaliland which were unstable and ungoverned are now the most stable places on the planet. Dekalb an American UN weapons inspector is captured by a female Somali warlord and despatched to New York (the monster island of the title) with a troop of Somali girl soldiers to retrieve much need medical supplies from the UN headquarters there.
In addition to your standard zombie fare there are a number of new ideas and expansions on the basic themes particularly in the case of the character of Gary, a zombie that has managed to retain his human faculties and intelligence.
I first learnt of the novel due to David Wellington's website on which he publishes his work chapter by chapter in a blog-like format that readers can read entirely for free. I read much of Monster Island there before buying the novel and as I couldn't wait I have already started reading the sequel Monster Nation online and will no doubt start on Monster Planet the final part of the trilogy in short order.
I'm convinced that publishing like this online or like Scott Sigler who records podcast audiobooks of his own work is the future and more and more writers will adopt it as a way to promote their work and interact with their readers.
Andy McNab was on This Week tonight giving his take on the week. A week in which the headlines have featured every day the British military in some way from the 90th anniversary of the Somme to the deaths of two special forces soldiers in Afghanistan.
The programme turned to Andy McNab, best-selling author and former SAS Patrol Commander, to answer the following questions.
So what is the role of our armed forces in the modern world of warfare? And do we sufficiently care?
A number of interesting points arose.
Politicians that have never fought in a war have insufficient understanding of the difficulties of waging war and McNab sees this worsening as the next generation of people that have grown up on videogames and the embedded reporting of war from the frontlines grow up and take power in Westminster. He fears that they will believe that war is a relatively easy thing to carry out.
A related point is the lack of clarity of mission and clearly defined rules of engagement. This is especially true for those on the ground in Iraq where they are required to act in a way that they have not been trained to do. With only the vague rhetoric of politicians to guide them coupled with the fear that any action they take may be seen as a war crime the soldiers on the ground have lost morale.
Finally is the fact that the British military is underfunded for it's purpose. Now I see this more of a problem of funds being spread too thinly as the British military tries to be all things to all people in effect a mini-US rather than insufficient funds being made available.
We have a perfect opportunity to reassess the British military soon as the question of the replacement of Trident is to be discussed (although both Blair and Brown seem to have already made their minds up). At the projected cost of £25 Billion does Britain still need an independent nuclear deterrent?
The Warsaw Pact plan Seven Days to the River Rhine which was recently released by the Polish government indicates that during the Cold War that Britain's independent nuclear deterrent really was a deterrent. But as the Prime Minister is so fond of saying the rules have changed and we face a new enemy.
We no longer face the enemy that we faced during the Cold War and I believe that Britain no longer needs an independent nuclear deterrent particularly when the replacement of Trident surely would constitute a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which this country signed in July 1968 and which commits us to long-term disarmament of our nuclear weaponry.
It is inexplicable particularly in the light of the British government's view on that other signatory of the treaty Iran and their burgeoning nuclear program.
How can me maintain our international standing when we don't respect the disarmament provisions of the treaty whilst insisting other countries abide by the non-proliferation provisions of that same treaty?
So I believe that 1. Britain does we not need a replacement for Trident given the changing geo-political situation and the nature of the new threat we as a country now face. 2. In the light that we do face a new threat in the form of terrorism which cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons surely the money could be better spent tackling a threat we do face rather than one we no longer do. 3. Our international standing is reliant on our honouring our commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the replacement of Trident would conctitute a breach. We could of course withdraw from the treaty but I believe that would be equally as damging to our international standing.
Watched Question Time (the show is viewable online here) on the BBC tonight and one of the panellists Melanie Phillips showed her typical restraint on the issue of Israel actions in Gaza.
I cannot but condemn the actions of those militants responsible for those two acts they are disgusting and evil acts but neither can I but condemn Melanie Phillips for her views and the actions of the Israeli military.
Israel vowed to take "extreme action" if the Corporal Gilad Shalit was not released and they have indeed.
The destruction of infrastructure in Gaza such as the bridges and power station was to put pressure on Hamas to secure the release of Cpl Shalit. But how can it be seen as anything other than collective punishment of the Palestinian people for the acts of a militant minority? Surely the actions of the Israeli military will do nothing but cause ordinary innocent Palestinians to become more militant.
Melanie Phillips apparently believes that they are already all extremely militant why else would they have voted for a Hamas government. The ordinary Palestinians just want to get on with their lives and voted for Hamas as a response to the corrupt Fatah government they had previously, who they viewed as being ineffective at securing a free independent Palestine.
I hope that this rumoured dialogue works as otherwise I cannot see the situation failing to escalate and further innocents being made to suffer on both sides of the conflict.
The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration does not have the authority to try terrorism suspects by military tribunal.
Justices upheld the challenge by Osama Bin Laden's ex-driver to his trial at Guantanamo, saying the proceedings violated Geneva Conventions.
The ruling is seen as a major blow to President George W Bush - but it does not order the closure of Guantanamo.
So the tribunals are ruled as illegal, doesn't surprise me as they seem as fair as the trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita. But having fair and open trials was never the reason for the prison at Guantanamo the prisoners were not there to be tried and punished for their crimes they are there solely for the extraction of intelligence in order for the US to carry out their War on Terror. Any open and fair trials would jeopardisde this and would reveal the true nature of the detainees there including that many of them are probably innocents that were sold to the US by corrupt members of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The fact that children were picked up and held before being released is surely an indication that people were detained without first establishing who they were and what threat they constituted.
I think that the pressure has built to such an extent that the prison will soon close particularly as the Bush administration seem to have finally woken up to the fact that it is a PR disaster. But any such closure will simply be the next step in a PR campaign as it will not mean the closure of those less well-known prisons around the world and the unknowable numbers of secret and hidden US military prisons.
I would be very surprised if we ever see more than a few token open and fair trials conducted under US law occur.
Alan Moore writer of seminal graphic novels Watchmen and From Hell faces controversy and accusations of copyright infringement over his latest work Lost Girls.
Moore not only faces criticism for the pornographic content of the graphic novel but also because Great Ormond Street Hospital maintains that it holds the copyright for the character of Wendy Darling from Peter Pan, who is one of the main charcters in Lost Girls.
A US-style bill of rights would outline the rights of citizens, while the Human Rights Act incorporates European rules into British law.
Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said Mr Cameron's plans were "unworkable".
The Conservatives have long-pledged to look at the 1998 Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
During the 2005 general election campaign, former leader Michael Howard pledged he would revise or scrap the act if elected, claiming prisoners' rights were being put before those of victims.
A British Bill of Rights sounds like a great idea but it should have been done decades if not centuries ago and is now irrelevant and unworkable now that Britain is signed up to European rights legislation.
Mr Cameron explains that he is not proposing a withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights but instead wishes to set up a panel "to examine the issue to ascertain whether a bill of rights could be given legal status instead."
Well I would think that such a panel will find that a separate British Bill of Rights will be contradictory with the European Convention on Human Rights and will therefore not be possible for them to exist in parallel.
Both the Government and the Conservative party have been attacking the human rights laws we have claiming they are hindering the fight against crime and terror.
The problem as I see it isn't the legislation but perhaps it's application in the courts.
This seems to be all politcal rhetoric with no real meat to it. Be seen to attack what the tabloid media have portrayed as ridiculous examples of the use of Human Rights Act whilst still being in favour of human rights as a concept.
So it follows that if he has a granddaughter then he must at one time have had a child. The subject of whether he has sex is one that has been alluded to but never really expanded upon and as what is a family show it probably never will.
However I have an alternate theory to explain the existence of a granddaughter, especially given that she appears to be human rather than Gallifreyan. She may in fact be the daughter of a human that The Doctor picked up and adopted as his child much in the same way that Death adopted a child in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books.
Coincidentally the name of Death's granddaughter is Susan.
Now that was without doubt the worst performance of any Englishman on the football pitch this World Cup and no I'm not talking about th team this time I'm talking about the referee of the Australia v Croatia match Mr. Graham Poll.
I think that's saying something given the dire fucking shite that our team has been at times in their matches that I consider his performance that bad but it really was. I'm so glad that Australia were able to come back and equalise again and finish the match 2-2 and thus proceed to the next stage as they came close to being robbed due to the incompetence of Poll.
Two clear penalties were not given one for a deliberate handball which seemed more obvious to me than the handball that he gave a penalty for earlier. Plus one awful tackle that was appropriate for a rugby match that he missed also.
Not to mention his fucking up of carding Simunic who ended the game with three yellow cards and a red card. Apparently Poll explains this as the first card we think given to Simunic was actually given to the player Simic but I think he's compounded his mistake there by trying to cover his ass and actually just ends up looking an ass. That's because he forgets that Simic actually did pick up two yellow cards from Poll in the match and thus a red so either way Poll has given three yellow cards to one of them.
Free online 2 players Sudoku. Each player receive the same Sudoku. The first person to finish it wins. Haven't won a game yet simply because my opponents keep leaving after a short while. Perhaps I scare them with my awesome sudoku solving skills.
It's been bugging me all day because I've wanted to be wrong about the issue of whether the prize money for the winner of the Women's chmapionship should be equal to that of the Men's. I now have an argument with which I've convinced myself.
As a sidebar I think I'm just getting stupidly incensed by this because I'm fatigued from getting riled up all the time by the knee-jerk reactions of John Reid at the Home Office and so have picked on a different government minister to rant about today.
They are like fucking movie stars it's all about bums on seats so irrespective of whether they are making a 3 hour epic or a short 90 minute movie they get payed for their box office draw i.e. for bringing in the punters.
So even though the work is seemingly unequal because the men play longer that's irrelevant because the actually work they are being payed for is bringing in the crowds who are paying to see them play.
Now this works for me and I'm happy or least I am until I find out that the male players are actually much more popular with the spectattors and more people pay to see their matches than they do to see the women's matches.
The culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, will today call for the abolition of the pay differences between men and women players at the Wimbledon championship.
In a letter to be sent today - exactly one week before the competition starts - to the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which organises the event, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport will express "deep concern" over the gender disparity in prize money at the tournament.
Two months ago the French Open announced it would offer equal prize money to its men's and women's champions. The Wimbledon tournament is now the last major tennis championship which does not offer equal pay to the competition's winners. Supporters of the pay discrepancy point out that women play three-set matches rather than the longer five-set matches in the men's game.
I'm all for pay equality but I don't think their is a case here for the Women's champion to be awarded prize money equal to that of the Men's champion.
Pay equality surely must be based on equal or equivalent work and I don't see there being equality of the amount of work they have to do. The Wimbledon Championship is a business and though the women's matches may be of equal draw to spectators and broadcasters because the Men's matches take longer spectators get more tennis and broadcasters get more footage.
Therefore the Men's matches are worth more to Wimbledon and the male players should therefore be payed a greater amount than the women.
If the women played five-set matches I'd be on the other side of the argument but they don't. There is a disparity but not inequality in my opinion.
Ghana v Czech Republic Bloody hell what a hell of a match that was. Following the Czech's first game I thought they would beat their African opponents relatively easily. How wrong could I have been? I had underestimated Ghana totally and they were simply wonderful on the pitch today and ripped open the Czech defence in a way that the US just simply didn't manage in the first match.
USA v Italy The US really held it together with only 9 men and deserved the draw for definite and I was hoping one of their attacks would result in a goal and they won it.
The effort they put in today was great.
The group really is wide open which is rare and anyone can qualify. Unfortunately no chance of both USAS and Ghana going through though as based on their respective matches today they both deserve to.
I've had a rather unusual day at the cinema today.
The damn DVD projection equipment packed up again. Bloody overheating pile of bollocks.
Damn the cheapskate film distribution company sending us a DVD copy rather than a print of the film to save money. The quality was dire as well.
Had to make apologies and give refunds to the customers.
Then a couple of passerbys dropped in to see what we were showing and the man said didn't you go to Bath University? He recognized me and it turns out we were classmates on the Electronic & Communication Engineering course. It's been ten years since we'd seen each other and much to my shame I hadn't recognized him.
Jeff Quek who now works for Motorola. Seeing him has brought back a flood of memories, but I couldn't remember anyone's names. So when I got home I sought out my degree ceremony booklet to see if it could help my recall.
Even tracked down some of my other classmates online via Google. Lusajo Kibonde and David Ockwell-Jenner were fairly easy to find as they have unique names.
But I also found Sarah Dolman who works for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society in Bath. I remember her because I thought she was way too attractive to be doing an Electrical Engineering degree.
Japanese gameshow where the object of the game is to try not to laugh at the guy trying to speak English. Like with many gameshows of the type losing contestants leave the show in a most unusual fashion. Ouch.
Actress Billie Piper is to leave Doctor Who at the end of the current series, the BBC has confirmed.
But the corporation refused to comment on reports that her character, Rose Tyler, would die in the final episode.
"It has been an amazing adventure and I can confirm it comes to an end, for now at least, as series two climaxes," the former pop star said.
Not really that much of a surprise as I'm pretty sure it was said that Billie would only be staying on for the second series back at Christmas. It has also been heavily hinted at that something dark and sinister is to befall her character, but I bet she doesn't die and will make cameo appearances in episodes of future series.
Plus being German he has devoted a section of his site to The Hoff.
Being German, I love David Hasselhoff. It's actually the law back in the Motherland. For me the Hoff is almost like some kind of higher spirit. Hoff-ness is everywhere. The Hoff is a big inspiration - in times of trouble I often ask myself "how would the Hoff deal with this situation...?"
See the old stereotype about Germans is not true. I hope he has a good World Cup it'll be a shame that his team will probably lose to Aregentina in the Quater-finals.
"Wisconsin this week will become one of the first states to ban the forcible implantation of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags into humans. The act dictates that no person may force another to have a microchip implanted in his body. Violators face fines of $10,000 each day until the chip is removed."
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Colleen Graffy has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention".
Colleen Graffy told the BBC the deaths were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause", but taking their own lives was unnecessary.
But lawyers say the men who hanged themselves had been driven by despair.
A military investigation into the deaths is under way, amid growing calls for the centre to be moved or closed.
The suicides may have brought the Guatnanamo Bay detention camp back into the news but I don't think that any rational person could believe that the suicides were designed to draw attention. It's not like the camp is not an albatross around the neck of the US government in any case.
It has probably been the greatest tool for recruitment to the ranks of Al-Qaeda ever. It undermines the reputation of the US around the world amongst nations friendly to it and feeds it's enemies by giving them a talisman of propoganda about how the US hates Muslims and mistreats and tortures them.
What makes the notion that the suicides were just "a tactic to further the jihadi cause" even more sickening is the news that one of the three detainess was due to be released but hadn't been informed yet by the American officals.
Seriously if he was considered to be of such a low level of threat that he would be released is he really likely to commit suicide as an "act of asymmetric warfare".
There were some good points to the US team's game today but they were well and truly outplayed by an outstanding Czech team and the amazing talent of Rosicky.
Rosicky is the player to watch this World Cup I think.
Eddie Johnson looked dangerous and with a bit of luck and some better delivery to him a win against Italy is possible I think. The US face a hard task here but it ain't over yet.
These are the first suicides at the base, despite dozens of attempts The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war, the US military says.
The camp commander said the two Saudis and a Yemeni were "committed" and had killed themselves in "an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us".
That's just sickening isn't it.
How fucking dare they commit suicide. Think of the poor US soldier that had to discover their dead bodies how he must have suffered to see such a sight, that must surely be a breach of his human rights no soldier should have to experience such horrors. The sooner the detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay is closed the sooner these US servicemen can return home and no longer have to suffer at the hands of the terrorists.
Who knows if these were indeed members of Al-Qaeda committed to destroying the US through their own suicide or if they were innocents picked up by the Northern Alliance and sold to the US military who through despair took what they saw as the only possible route out of their unending detention.
I don't think the line given by camp commander Rear Adm Harry Harris that
I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.
really stands up to analysis.
Martyrdom is only effective if the outside world and one's followers are aware of the sacrifice. But the detainees have no contact with the outside world they could not possibly know that their deaths would be reported. Would they really make such an empty sacrifice as an act of war against the United States.
I was wondering whilst watching a video of the movie Men at Work, which my brother had bought for £1.99 at Oxfam, what the hell is Emilio Estevez up to these days?
Well apparently he's working on a movie which like Men at Work he's written and directed.
Bobby is the story of the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, on June 6th, 1968, which centers around 22 people who were at the Ambassador Hotel where he was killed.
I've been fascinated by this assassination to an even greater extent than that of his brother.
But unlike Men at Work it does not appear to star his brother it does however star his father amongst many others.
It really is an amazing cast list. Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy and Christian Slater.
Plus teen favourites like Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf and Lindsay Lohan possibly seeking a bit of prestige by starring in a serious movie like this.
This is an amazing coincidence that my brother finds a cheap video of a film we enjoyed as teenagers and it leads me to look up what Emilio Estevez is up to only to discover he's doing a movie about a subject that really interests me.
Happy birthday to my mum who should now be landing in Spain to enjoy a two-week holiday there.
Unlike Anderson Cooper my mother isn't famous and although like Gloria Vanderbilt she has been married more than once, not four times though.
One thing I do share with Anderson Cooper is the feeling that talking sex with mom is something I'd perefer not to do.
My mom never talked about sex with her mom, and she never brought it up with me.
But now my mom is 81, and all of a sudden she's started talking about sex. I know, I know -- I should be mature, supportive of her sexual identity, and I am, intellectually, but there are some things I'd prefer to stay ignorant about.
No matter how much my cerebrum says "Okay," my gut still sort of shudders at the thought of her, you know, touching the monkey.
I'm reminded of my mum a lot when I read the blog of Bitch Ph.D., especially the bits with her kid PK (Pseudonymous Kid).
Coincidentally I have been given some thought to feminism following reading this blogpost about what I thought was a pretty innocuous beer commercial about the creation of Man Laws one of which is "you poke it, you own it". The blogpost is titled Whatever you do, don’t figure out that it’s systematic and argues that it might seem petty to complain about an advert that could be construed as demeaning to women but that adverts such as this and the defence it is has received following complaint is indicative of a low-level system wide injustice.
A website for music download fans offering chart albums at a fraction of their usual cost looked like it was too good a deal to be true, and now legal experts are warning that Britain's second-biggest download service probably is.
Thousands of internet users download music tracks and albums from the Russian-based website AllOfMP3.com which poses as a legitimate online store but actually sells pirated recordings.
Has The Guardian become the mouthpiece of the BPI?
What legal experts have made this warning about the legality of the service I wonder? Alice Gould of Wedlake Bell apparently. Wedlake Bell being a commercial law firm and Alice Gould being the partner who has expertise in intellectual property law and who seems to have been quoted again and again by news sources in recent months in articles concerning filesharing and the associated copyright infringement.
Why I wonder do I get the feeling that Wedlake Bell is the law firm that represents the BPI rather than being an independent firm offering their expert advice.
Having then checked the BPI's website it does look like that in fact the BPI had released a press release today about them suing the site AllofMP3.com in the UK courts amongst many other things (including yet again the argument that term of copyright for sound recordings should be extended but I'll address that issue in a different post) following an address to a House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee. The story has been covered by many other news sources including the BBC and The Register.
AllofMP3 claim that they are a legal service under Russian copyright law and that claim seems to stand up however much it dismissed by organisations like the BPI and the IFPI.
This seems to me to be nothing more than blatant scaremongering by the BPI. Regardless of whether AllofMP3.com are selling the files illegally or legally it is not I believe illegal under UK copyright law to purchase and import into this country any article which is, and which one knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of a copyright work if it is solely for ones private and domestic use.
The relevant subsections of UK Copyright law are subsection 107 and subsection 22, the former is regarding Secondary infringement: importing infringing copy and the latter is regarding criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles.
The BPI claims that users are making copies of the works themselves when they make a purchase which could indeed be an interpretation of the law.
Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means reproducing the work in any material form.
This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means.
This might necessitate a court to clarify the meaning of this. But if you take the BPI's line then any music file you download and store electronically is a copy that you the user has made even if you download it from a legal site such as iTunes, MP3.com or Tesco and surely such copying is an infringement unless licensed by the owner of the copyright.
Presumably the case is that these sites have acquired the right from the copyright owners for their users to make copies and the licence that AllofMP3 claims is has doesn't cover this. At what point can it be said that the work is in the process of being stored electronically? Is the act of downloading the infringement or is it just the state of having a work in an electronic format stored on a medium.
Is an MP3 stored on your hard disk defined as being a copy of an artistic work, or is it defined as being the act of making a copy of an artistic work? If the former then the importation of that MP3 for personal use is not infringement if the latter then it is.
This would appear to me to be a legal grey area and a question of metaphysics.
There is clearly a moral issue to be highlighted here also as musicians are being deprived of any royalties they may have accrued if their works were purchased in the UK rather than via the AllofMP3 service.
The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.
"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."
Of all the amazing things created within Second Life I think this stands out.
A U.S. company's video game simulating an invasion of Venezuela is supposed to hit the shelves next year, but it's already raising the ire of lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez supporters in Venezuela's National Assembly suspect the makers of "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames" are doing Washington's bidding by drumming up support among Americans for an eventual move to overthrow Chavez.
Pandemic describes "Mercenaries 2" as "an explosive open-world action game" in which "a power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a war zone." The company says players take on the role of well-armed mercenaries.
Chris Norris, a publicist for Pandemic in Los Angeles, said the game wasn't intended to make a political statement about Chavez, though designers "always want to have a rip from the headlines."
It's about time someone did something about that evil dictator Chavez and I'm glad to see that some enterprising company have taken it upon themselves to brainwash the next generation into taking action.
Actually I suspect that the genesis of the game is not the studio directly doing the bidding of the US Government but merely that they have fallen prey to the propoganda machine of the Bush administration. They've 'ripped from the headlines' as Chris Norris puts it the constructed image of Chavez as a power-hungry tyrant rather than the democratically elected leader he is who is returning the illegally sold off oil contracts to the people of Venezuela.
by David Wellington and thought it was pretty damn good for a first novel.
