Well, it looks like India and Pakistan are going to add to the long history of nuclear war… I suppose if I'm to believe ancient Vedic poetry though, this is the second nuclear war India has faced (and this new one is no surprise)… Even though most people assume that nuclear war is limited to the US destroying a couple of Japanese cities, it's been shockingly common since at least on a “small” scale (ie. small nuclear weapons) — Iraq is now the cancer capitol of the world thanks to the US firing about 900,000 depleted Uranium shells into its cities during the gulf war.
India seems to think they'll win the nuclear war with Pakistan. Unfortunately you can't win a war, and certainly not a nuclear war… you can just be the country that gets slightly less fucked up by it. I'm sure the US is happy, it'll at least draw attention away from their continued bombing… Yeah, you might think the war is over (and lost I guess) but tell that to the poor bastards still dying as bombers obliterate their homes. Of course, the US has bases in Pakistan now, which may well draw it into the war, obliterating any hope that the US can ever become a part of the international community.
Sometimes — maybe always — the Bushes should just keep their mouths shut. Regarding John Walker, “He's just despicable — I thought of a unique penalty: Make him leave his hair the way it is and his face as dirty as it is and let him go wandering around this country and see what kind of sympathy he would get.” That type of idiocy might be fine to say when you're boozing it up in the back of a pickup truck, but… well… I suspect this is so fucking obviously wrong that I don't need to go on. It makes it pretty clear the complexity of Bush's understanding of the way life was for people in Afghanistan.
Dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy… A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts. All points of the compass were lost in darkness. Fierce winds began to blow. Clouds roared upward, showering dust and gravel.
Birds coaked madly… the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens. The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon. Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy… over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely.
Gurkha, flying in his swift and powerful Vimana, hurled against the three cities of the Vrishnis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousand suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of Vrishnis and Andhakas.
The corpses were so burnt they were no longer recognizable. Hair and nails fell out. Pottery broke without cause… Foodstuffs were poisoned. To escape, the warriors threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment.
- From the
The Mahabharata
What ever happened to the pave the earth society? I think they're going to get their wish…. Goodbye world, try and hang around at least until ModProm is done, ok? When the world goes up in flames, feel free to come to our place for a cold beer (hey, it's the end of the world, even if you're sXe you can have a drink) and we'll watch the world crumble.
PS. See you at ModProm.
Monday, December 31, 2001
Well, the new year's update is there… I definitely bit off more than I should have time-wise, but as James Tiberous Kirk always told me, “fortune favors the foolish.” Please don't complain about its inconsistencies too much, I've still got a lot to do on it. If you want to complain about how I've wrecked the site and all that stuff (it happens every time I change anything), at least wait two weeks so I can finish the changes.
I'm beginning to think maybe I did more damage than I'd thought to my knee. I banged it and cut it up, but there's not much actual pain in the skin that I wrecked. There is however increasing stiffness and a dull pain underneath the kneecap (ie. deep inside). I assume that the force of the impact may have driven the kneecap into whatever lies underneath… it was I think 12 hours ago now that I did it, and it's slowly getting worse. Hopefully it's fine in the morning.
Some Irish Paper wrote an article (fairly negative) on body piercing risks, and at the end of the article it gave BME's URL (well, an old URL actually). So now I'm flooded with email like:
From: Mary (Australia)
Would like further info from what was in the Irish Times.
Many thanks
and
From: Philip (Egypt)
I was reading an article in The Irish Times which indicated that further information on safe body piercing practice was available on the bme.freeq.com website.
I really want to know how a person manages to read an article that links to me, then follows that link, gets to BME, and somehow finds my email address before finding a body piercing link… I don't even know how it's possible.
I just got this message as well, it seemed funny to me, but maybe I'm just tired:
From: Daniel (bpmofthespirit@***.com)
Subject: where are the homeboy tattoos
I'm in to different stuff but what's in this season for east coast hiphop heads or core brothers
I really need something special to show off to all my friends
I told him that I didn't really think that copying someone else's tattoo was the best way to get “something special”.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped out in 2001 to make BME what it is… And to those of you who have just hung out on BME in 2001 and didn't help at all, I hope you make up for it in 2002! You know who you are!
Sunday, December 30, 2001
So much work, so little time… I think I forget sometimes just how damn big the site is. Even a tiny change in one place often means I have to make similar tiny changes in dozens of related places (which may require even more changes in other places). It's starting to come together… Right now I'm adding a bunch of routines to the index builder that check for the existance of the video archive. If it's not there, it builds those files to reflect any recent updates.
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| Leeta kept me company today, and was very well behaved. She's now off to Jenc0's house to be babysat over ModProm.
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I did some serious damage to my knee today… It doesn't look like much, but my knee now pretty much hurts all the time and walking isn't really fun.
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Vegan Jonny and his heavily bandana'd crew stopped by for a minute and I gave them a bag of needles and treats (thank you BMEshop for donating the supplies)… Hopefully they take some pictures to share in about a week on BME.
See you all tomorrow, but don't me mad if I have real big bags under my eyes… I'm really struggling to get this done (as you can tell by my non-presence here lately).
Saturday, December 29, 2001
Thursday, December 27, 2001
Now, I know that by saying this I'm going to get yelled at AGAIN. Every time I bring up medical concerns people assume that somehow I'm twisting medical research to suit some personal agenda… But this is something quite important that anyone with a hard implant on top of bone (ie. horn implants, sternum implants, hand implants, etc.) should know about — bone resorption. When I have more time I'll write about it for the glossary, but I'll quickly summarize:
- If your implant is resting on top of bone, it will erode it over time.
- The harder the implant, the more it will erode the bone (ie. silicone gel does not erode, silicone erodes a little, and hard implants like Teflon and steel erode a lot).
- Having your bone erode isn't really a good idea.
Now like I said every time I mention anything like this I'm accused of attacking people doing these procedures. It's not that at all. I'm just asking that the people doing these procedures start to actually educate themselves so they can work safely and responsibly. Not doing so is serious professional negligence. If you hurt someone, you'll lose a career-ending lawsuit, and if you kill someone, you'll be up on felony murder.
I have a lot of friends that are body modification artists. Most of them fall into this “underground” world, but a small number of well-respected plastic surgeons and very legitimate doctors. We do occasionally talk about these procedures, and if a far more educated and experienced person mentions these things, I don't feel bad in passing them on.
So please: I know there are a lot of people reading this who either do implants or who want to get them. My advice:
- Artists: Educate yourself thoroughly. This is moving into territory that can not be safely learned through trial and error.
- Clients: Educate yourself as if you were doing the procedure. Don't trust that the artist is an expert; most are not, and they won't tell you that they're not.
- Play it safe: Don't get a procedure just because it's cool. Don't get a procedure just because it's bigger or more extreme. Figure out what you want, and think long and hard about the safest way to do it. Analyze the risks, and be very sure you still want it.
PS. Bone resorption is just one of a zillion risks of course, and won't happen in every case. Check out any plastic surgery page online and they'll tell you all about them — doctors are legally required to inform you of all the risks, whereas body modification artists are totally unregulated…
