Summer lasted till October, then in 3 or 4 days the weather switched from oppressive moist heat to howling wind and rainstorms. A decade ago, Britain's boring weather was an international joke, and so was our obsession with it's tiny fluctuations. My grandparents used to muse on whether the sky changing from mid-light grey to mid-dark grey meant there would be a light rain shower soon, and when our sunbathing resorts (like my home town) had actual sunbathing weather for a solid week, news of it pushed wars and famine from the headlines.
Now of course, foreign disasters are pushed from the headlines by footballers dating pop singers who last had a hit five years ago. Meanwhile summer gets hotter and longer, and winter gets colder and shorter. Intellectuals waffle on about how scientists who deny climate change are having their freedom of speech stifled by the liberal media. And newspapers breezily note that long hot summers are good news for the farming industry.
I wonder if the Atlantis Daily News reported on how rising sea levels were good news for fishermen and people who live in the attic.
How's this for a recording studio setup:
I've got a Fostex X28H cassette 4-track, bought 2nd hand 9 years ago. It has 4 mono 1/4'' jack inputs, and each input can be mixed and panned. I'm feeding it's Line output to...
...a Tascam DP01FX 8 digital 8-track, bought new something like a year ago. It has 1 stereo (or 2 mono) 1/4'' jack (or XLR) input. After recording, I will transfer it's WAV files to...
...a 3 year old PC made partly from bits of 5 year old PCs. It's got a pile of free mastering VSTs that I haven't tried yet.
So, I mix 4 mono microphone inputs live through the Fostex, into the 1 stereo input of the Tascam, and polish the result on a PC. This is how Strict Machines can record a live studio album without spending any more money. Apart from UKP40 on some cheap new microphones because we're all managed to lose all our microphones somewhere.
My parents have an idea for what to do with their retirement. They want...to be dog breeders! This involves setting up a "kennel" - a private limited company that "makes" and sells puppies, and has a small stable of studs and bitches, bought or rented from other kennels. All just as soon as they can think of a catchy name.
More blogging about dog-sprog flogging as it happens.
The big political news in America isn't war, torture or presidential incompenence. It's Senator Mark Foley resigning because he sent a sexual email to a 16 year old boy - an act which has damaged the Republican party's credibility in the polls.
In Foxnewspeak, this is called "having a sense of proportion".
An older man comes onto a boy of legal age, but doesn't have sex with him. This is "having sex with an underage child".
Whatever the boy's thoughts and intentions were, whatever his reaction or lack of it to the message, they haven't been reported. This is called "knowing all the relavent facts".
The man says he was sexually abused as a child, and is an alchoholic. This is "being the real vicim"
The man resigns from his post, because his sexuality makes him mentally incompetent to vote on bills. This is "logic".
His collegues knew all about his habits for years, and did nothing. This is "remarkable" and "unprecidented".
Yawn. Wake me up when the real crimes are in rhe news.
UPDATE: I've seen a transcription of an instant messaging conversation between Foley and the boy. The boy writes openly and sometimes unprompted about masturbation, fetishes and the size of his penis. As well as sport, his non-computer literate mother and his homework.
He is confident, in control, and obviously enjoying himself. If this is the extent of Foley's "abuse", it's utterly trivial as a scandal, and harmless to the boy.
Sex obsessed fundamentalist morons won't see it that way, as usual.
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On this Foley piece of crap, Pat Buchanan uttered a precious pearl destined to be kept in the anals of science forever more:
ReplyDelete«Homosexuals rproduce sexually by molesting children.»
All of us gays are therefore perverted persons... As for myself, I haven't the faintest idea about who may have molested me... All I know is that I was about 10/11 when I've had sex for the first time in my life with a boy my age. And it just felt great. How was I molested before this? Yes, in my wildest dreams, that's where it happened for sure.
Nice weekend!
10 or 11? I envy you. When I was 10 I looked at boys all the time, but I was 13 before one of them touched me.
ReplyDeleteBTW, under British law, when two people under 16 are found to have had sex with each other, both go on a list of "sex offenders" who are forbidden to work with children for their entire lives. Me and my friend at 13 are therefore both "predators".
It seems children are not allowed to have sexual thoughts. They're supposed to be pure and angelic. Only someone who's never met a child could believe that.
Anyway you have a nice weekend too.
^It probably depends in which jursidiction it takes place in but here in the States, children under the age of consent aren't put on a sex offender registry.
ReplyDeleteSome states even have an area where adults can not have sex with kids who have reached the age of consent (usually age 16). For example, a fifty year old man can't have sex with a 17 year old. Yet that 17 year old can have sex with a 16 year old. Naturally, that can be a problem. What happens when a couple ages 16 and 17 turn to 17 and 18? Although the 18 year old can technically be charged, there probably isn't a DA in the entire country would would choose to prosecute.
Going back to Foley, that is why I said that if Foley just had sex with the page, it is possible that he would be safe from prosecution.
And dang you guys were young! I'm 24 and never been kissed. Okay, I've been kissed but nothing more. I just wanted to use that movie line.