Can't touch this

Also

Fascination with strangeness

There's something about this animated gif that I find fascinating.

I should warn you that many of you would find it offensive, distasteful or otherwise plain wrong. But it's just hypnotic. It's a combination of the pendulum-like swaying, the video being temporally reversed and the very silly face being drawn over the top of it.

It is, of course, not even slightly safe for work, your paren'ts house, or anywhere else that someone might walk up behind you and ask what the fuck you were looking at.

Meanwhile, in poltics

The Iranian Vice President has warned the US not to interfere in Iraq.

The Iranian government thought it was very important that the US should "keep their folks at home", he said.

No, wait, it was the other way round. What was actually said was:

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has warned Iran not to interfere in Iraq.*

The US government thought it was very important that the Iranians should "keep their folks at home", he said.

Which just makes my brain boggle. Of _course_ the US would like to be able to run countries halfway round the world without nearby countries interfering. If I had a huge armed force sitting in a foreign country I wouldn't want people with different aims making my life difficult. But this bizarre belief that Iran cares what the US would like is just baffling.

Cheers for the original quote go to octopoid_horror.

Torchwood Redux

In conversation with Ed, it suddenly occurred to me that Torchwood is the Who-verse equivalent of Justice League: Antartica. Cardiff is clearly the place you send people who are incapable of working in a team, dealing with complex moral situations or handling anything at all without messing it up terribly.

If they kicked off Season two with an episode which made this all explicit - and used that as a turning point for the characters, then determined to act like decent people and find out what was really going on, I'd actually be tempted to tune back in...