Hammer Mill Days

Couple in the next room, bound to win a prize. They've been going at it all night long. No, seriously - they're playing some kind of video game in there, and I think they may just be on the verge of winning a trophy. Believe it. Why am I reciting 36-year-old Paul Simon lyrics? Well, that story's seldom told. I am just a poor boy... No, no, wait. There is a reason (and not one that turns out to be yet another P.S. song). Seems the planet we have landed on (third planet in the Cancri 55 system) is home to a race that's real big on sixties acoustic folk-rock music. Of course, they think it's all new - smoking hot platters ripping up the airwaves, straight from planet Earth. That's 'cause Cancri 55 is 41 light years from Earth, and... well... those transmissions are just reaching them now, having crossed the trackless void of space these last four decades. Now revolution is in the air, my friends, and so is the Lovin' Spoonful . All these Cancrites are w...

When someone with a history like that of George W. Bush convenes a peace conference, it should inspire little more than joyless laughter. The fact that the focus is the middle east makes it doubly ludicrous. Dubya wants peace in the middle east? How simple is that? Just stop bombing the place, there's a good chap. If peace is so bloody important to the bugger, why doesn't he pull the troops out of Iraq and leave Iran the fuck alone? Simple answer - George Bush doesn't care about black people, or brown people, or pretty much anybody outside of his circle of millionaire cronies. So, why hold a mid east peace conference now? Well, I'm inclined to agree with Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery ( see his recent column here ). You have three leaders who are politically on the ropes. Bush's stock is pretty much in the toilet. Olmert is dangling by a thread, merely keeping the prime minister's chair warm for someone worse (i.e. Netanyahu). Abbas, at best an invented leade...