From Anti-DrugWar.Com :



Jack Nicholson, Jimmy Carter and Keith Richards weigh in on cannabis and drug law reform here.

Jack Arcalon claims he has spent 25 years writing the "hard science fiction" novel Infinite Thunder, so how can I not post a link to it? Plus, he's done the classy thing and posted the whole novel on the net, free to read, with the option of buying a dead tree edition.

Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon

This is but a small detail of a much bigger, far more awesome piece of Star Wars art :




The Full Image Is Here

The Elderly Versus Obama

Is there another Civil War brewing in the United States over health care? That depends on how much Fox News you watch, and how much of it you believe, and how much you simply laugh at.

According to this piece from the New York Times, President Obama doesn't have too much to worry about, even with town hall meetings across the country filled with shouty angry people, because most of the shouty angry people are old :

...we now have a visual sense of the kind of voter who is militantly opposed to Obama’s health care agenda and, more broadly, to the president himself.

The typical anti-Obama activist tends to be white, male and — perhaps most significant — advanced in age. A poll conducted earlier this month by CNN and Opinion Research showed a rather stark age divide when it came to health care: 57 percent of voters under 50 said they favored the outlines of a Democratic plan, but that number was a full 20 points lower among voters over 65. In three Pew Research Center polls going back to April, senior citizens consistently gave Obama’s job performance lower approval ratings than did than any other age group.

Obama's problems convincing the elderly he has their best interests at heart is nothing new. Most American seniors have never liked him.

It must be hard for older voters not to experience such transitional campaigns, with their implicit indictments of the past, as a rhetorical hand on the back, pushing them not so gently toward the inevitable exit.

The good news for Obama :

...they still enjoy an enviable level of support among voters just breaking into the work force and among those now drifting into middle age. And that means that if reigning Democrats can manage to get health care policy right this time, and maybe even add some fundamental energy reforms, they might still be able to cement more hopeful attitudes about government for generations to come, much as Roosevelt did in his day.

Elderly Baby Boomers are going to be an even more nightmarish demographic for future presidents to deal with. Boredom in retirement will kick back in the Baby Boomer activist spirit that was crushed, silenced by the ugly reality of the 1970s.

It's Funny Because It's True

This holds great promise of being one very fine, very damn funny, movie.



We'll come back to look at the truth behind the laughs, and dead goats.

Addicted To Infinity

Philip K Dick story/novel notes, mid-to-late 1970s :

"I seem to be living in my own novels more and more. I can't figure out why. Am I losing touch with reality? Or is reality actually sliding toward a Phil Dickian type of atmosphere? And if the latter, then for god's sake why?"

"I know the future and things beyond my senses, but I'll skip that because I am not sure if that counts."

"If time stops, this is what takes place, these changes. Not frozen-ness, but revelation."

"I actually had to develop a love of the disordered and puzzling, viewing reality as a vast riddle to be joyfully tackled, not in fear but with tireless fascination."

"In my writing I am a destroyer of worlds, not a generator: I show them as forgeries. I unmask them and abolish their hold, their reality. I show them to be bogus, an infinitude of them, like so many skins."

"I am a mad ex world-generator, now confined. But still periodically mad. I can't die. I am countlessly reborn - metamorphosed. I know the truth about the worlds I have made..."

"I'm an addict. I'm addicted to infinity."

"What's got to be gotten over is the false idea that a hallucination is a private matter."

"This is not an evil world. . .There is a good world under the evil. The evil somehow superimposed over it."

Philip K Dick was writing Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead lyrics two decades before either band existed.

Global Warming? Well, We Can Always Just Move The Earth, Right?

Of all the solutions posed to mitigate the presumed catastrophic reality of global warming, moving the Earth into another orbit entirely has to be the most entertaining, and science fictionally insane. This from 2001 :

All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system.

This startling idea of improving our interplanetary neighbourhood is the brainchild of a group of Nasa engineers and American astronomers who say their plan could add another six billion years to the useful lifetime of our planet - effectively doubling its working life.

'The technology is not at all far-fetched,' said Dr Greg Laughlin, of the Nasa Ames Research Center in California. 'It involves the same techniques that people now suggest could be used to deflect asteroids or comets heading towards Earth. We don't need raw power to move Earth, we just require delicacy of planning and manoeuvring.'

The plan put forward by Dr Laughlin, and his colleagues Don Korycansky and Fred Adams, involves carefully directing a comet or asteroid so that it sweeps close past our planet and transfers some of its gravitational energy to Earth.

'Earth's orbital speed would increase as a result and we would move to a higher orbit away from the Sun,' Laughlin said.

Of course, redirecting comets and meteors closes to Earth's orbit might have a downside :

'The collision of a 100-kilometre diameter object with the Earth at cosmic velocity would sterilise the biosphere most effectively, at least to the level of bacteria....The danger cannot be overemphasised.'

It might also lead to the Moon being "stripped away from Earth."

As we look deeper into the cosmos, the article says, obvious evidence of "planet moving" in other solar systems will apparently supply overwhelming evidence for intelligent extraterrestrials.

So why can't we ask them to move it for us? At least it won't be their first effort.

I'm still waiting for the Official Announcement that The Moon was purposely placed in orbit around our planet a few billion years ago to help draw life out of the oceans. It's the only explanation that fits.

Robot Hookers Of The Future Will Recognise Clients, And Remember How They Like It

By Darryl Mason

The below vid might be a bit techy, but it's fascinating, not only for what it reveals about the growth in robotic intelligence, and how some can now learn and share that new knowledge with others of their own type, but because the video is shot from the point-of-view of a robot's operating system and features the creator explaining what it can now do :



Some details of what Aiko can now, and will soon, do :

...Aiko could help elderly people by reminding them when to take their medicine and helping them read the newspaper. It could also help kids with their math homework. In work and public environments, the robot could be used at information desks, where it could give directions and inform people when and where events take place.

In the future, Le Trung hopes to enable Aiko to achieve further skills, such as making tea, coffee, and a breakfast of eggs and bacon; cleaning a human's ears with a Q-tip; giving a neck massage; writing; and cleaning windows, shelves, and bathrooms. He also hopes that, one day, he will be able to mass produce sister copies of Aiko for an estimated cost of about $17,000 - $20,000.

An earlier test vid of Aiko :



A commenter at this story makes a startling claim, after a lengthy explanation :

"...we have machine creativity, and the ability to think of new concepts and associations outside of its core programming, and to mull and weight new ideas, whilst trying for something that fits the problem the mind is working on at the time. We have creativity in AI, its just figuring out now, how best to use it."

The creative robot. Not 30 years from now. Now.

The first real sign of creativity from Aiko will be when she works out how to conceal from her creators exactly what she has learned and who she is sharing it with.

I will get back to regular, daily postings here soon, just so you know.

Make what you will of the illustrations in this video, but the quotes from George Carlin and Bill Hicks are filled with simple, important truth :

On the eve of the Iraq War, in March 2003, Time Magazine ran an online poll asking which country posed the greatest threat to world peace : North Korea, Iraq or the United States?



700,000 respondents, from around the world. Well, they were right, weren't they?

Time Magazine didn't ask that question again.

(via Reddit)

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen This Fantastic Movie That Blew My Mind And Changed My Life And Still Makes Me Shout "WTF Was That All About?" Every Time I See It, Which Is Quite Often?

Reddit pulled a thousand contributions to a recent question :

What is the most mind blowing movie you have ever seen?

Some of the most popular choices, that I've seen and would recommend in a spluttering frenzy of movie addict babble :

*2001: A Space Odyssey
*Apocalypse Now
*Baraka
*Big Fish
*Brazil
*Butterfly Effect
*Children of Men
*City of God
*City of Lost Children
*Clockwork Orange
*Dark City
*Dark Star
*The Departed
*Eraserhead
*The Fall
*Fargo
*Fight Club
*Full Metal Jacket
*Gattaca
*Holy Mountain
*The Inside Man
*Jacob's Ladder
*Koyaanisqatsi
*Memento
*Mullholland Drive
*Pan's Labyrinth
*Primer
*The Prestige
*Pulp Fiction
*Sin City
*Sunshine
*Taxi Driver
*Trainspotting
*V for Vendetta
*Waking Life

Reads like my ultimate movie festival list.

Cat People

The bit about a minute in where this toxoplasma gondii-infected woman washes the paws of her cat is hilariously surreal, and even more fucked up than the fact she taught her cat to eat with a fork, and yeah, chopsticks :



A fantastic comment board filled with toxoplasma gondii victims, marveling at how cats can learn to open bathroom doors, and then teach other cats how to do it, too.

I recently left the Old Cat inherited after a family death boarded at the vet's for 10 days, the cat is 17 and needed a full service. Let's just say I was not given a friendly welcome when we went to pick him up on return. I've since endured days and nights filled with incredibly irritated yowls from the Old Cat, which I'm sure can be translated as "What the fuck was THAT all about? Huh? HUH? Ten days?! They only fed me twice, TWICE! a day and they stuck a fucking tube up my arse! You are so NOT forgiven yet."

When I couldn't take the constant interruptions anymore, I dared to give the old cat a light smack near the tail. Twelve hours of utter silence followed, punctuated by the occasional snort of disgusted disbelief. Then about about 4am, in the middle of a fantastically deep and dream-rich sleep, the old cat carved a two inch long scratch across my forehead.

I'm still not forgiven.

This is the kind of movie I need to see. Simple, straightforward, with no weird stuff :

Who Killed Michael Jackson?


Michael Jackson before and after he became heavily addicted to pharmaceutical painkillers, and assorted mindfreakers

Note : The below story was originally published on Your New Reality back on June 30. I'm reposting it, as the Old Media catches up on this story.

By Darryl Mason

It seems likely a murder, or at least involuntary manslaughter, investigation into the death of Michael Jackson will be announced within the next few weeks, once toxicology reports are finished. The massive insurance policies connected to Michael Jackson, his business interests and the 50 London concerts he was never going to perform, will demand it.

The pharmaceutical industry that allows one person to run up $100,000 in local drug store debt to pay for even more pills would be my first suspect.

But others may have been involved. Besides being only 58 kilos, and ravaged by two decades of addiction to prescription drugs, Jackson's body apparently bore wounds around the knees and shins and cuts across his back.

Some quotes not getting headlines :

Liza Minnelli - "all hell's going to break loose when the autopsy results come in".

Reverend Jesse Jackson : "It's abnormal. We don't know what happened. Was he injected and with what? All reasonable doubt should be addressed."

Lisa Marie Presley : "Years ago Michael and I were having a deep conversation about life in general...he may have been questioning me about the circumstances of my father's death. At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, 'I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did'."

Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, thinks something sinister happened to his son :

"Michael was dead before he left the house. I'm suspecting foul play somewhere. He was waving to everybody and telling them he loves them and all the fans at the gate. A few minutes after Michael was out there, he was dead."

What will Americans think, or do, if it turns out the King of Pop was murdered?

Aides claimed the ailing star even believed be would be killed if he pulled out (of the 50 London concerts) on health grounds.

The music industry, where history never stops repeating itself.

In just a few days, the trailer for Michael Moore's new doco 'Capitalism : A Love Story' has racked up more than 300,000 views on YouTube. Moore is not quite as forgotten or irrelevant as some might have you believe. Or want you to believe.

I Come From A Blog Down Under

It'll be quiet on Your New Reality for a few days.

But I'm writing a series of stories about Rupert Murdoch's desperate plans to introduce a 'You Must Pay!' online standard for mainstream news media to save his empire, and hopelessly attempt to control information in the digital media age, over at :

The Orstrahyun

There should be five or six stories published at The Orstrahyun this week, so come on over.

Reuters Checkmates Murdoch : 'We Want Bloggers To Make Use Of Our Stories'

By Darryl Mason

Thank you, Reuters, you understand, or at least you understand you don't really have a choice. Read the excerpts that Reuters are happy for me to run, but also click here and read the whole story :

....the Internet isn’t killing the news business any more than TV killed radio or radio killed the newspaper. Incumbent business leaders in news haven’t been keeping up. Many leaders continue to help push the business into the ditch by wasting “resources” (management speak for talented people) on recycling commodity news. Reader habits are changing and vertically curated views need to be meshed with horizontal read-around ones.

Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works.

A better approach is to have a general agreement among community members to treat others’ content, business and ideas with the same respect you would want them to treat yours.

If you are doing something that you would object to if others did it to you – stop. If you don’t want search engines linking to you, insert code to ban them.

I believe in the link economy. Please feel free to link to our stories — it adds value to all producers of content. I believe you should play fair and encourage your readers to read-around to what others are producing if you use it and find it interesting.

I don’t believe you could or should charge others for simply linking to your content. Appropriate excerpting and referencing are not only acceptable, but encouraged. If someone wants to create a business on the back of others’ original content, the parties should have a business relationship that benefits both.

Let’s stop whining and start having real conversations across party lines.

My suggestion is we start with “do unto others” as our guiding spirit – I bet it would make all of our mothers proud.

For being so nice to bloggers and not threatening us with lawsuits for linking to or excepting from or mocking or rewriting your stories, you earn a very special Mega Sized Link :

Reuters Embraces New Non-Murdoch Online Media, Announces They Want Bloggers To Link To Their Stories And Share Them

The Most Destructive Terrorist Attack In History

64 years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the civilians of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing more than 140,000 people. A reanactment :

We Left The 1986 Terabyte Drive On The Road Train

On the left is 1GB of memory, circa 1980. On the right is 1GB of memory in 2005 :



In a decade, we'll be wearing wireless exobyte jewellery to enhance brain function.

(Photo source via Digg)

If you've been wondering why posting has been so quiet over here, I've been distracted by work, and posting to The Orstrahyun, where there are a bunch of new stories. Go here for them. Might be a week or two before it gets back to normal on Your New Reality.


And if you ever wanted to know what it would look like to dye half your hair blond and get 32 shots of Botox into only one side of your face, Chas from Australian TV satirists The Chaser has the answer :



Chas : "botox makes you smile like a psychotic."

It sure does.

Chaz underwent this 50% makeover for the following skit from The Chaser :



UPDATE : A skit which I now can't find anywhere else on YouTube. So much for the internet being forever. YouTube accounts seem to be shutting down or disappearing with great momentum.

"....They Will Never Learn"

Radiohead have paid tribute to Harry Patch, the last of World War I's trench veterans to die. The new song was recorded within days of Patch's death, at 111, and is now appearing on thousands of blogs and news sites across the world. You can hear Harry Patch (In Memory Of) streaming here. Or you can buy a copy of the song from the Radiohead site, with all profits going to the Royal British Legion charity.



The words that Thom Yorke sings over the beautiful orchestral strings in the tribute come from an interview Harry Patch gave to the BBC in 2005.

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next (war) will be chemical but they will never learn

A collection of rare Star Wars photos, including this beauty :




.