Eight Arms to Hold You. Some amazing pictures of a giant squid as well as a long article I haven't read yet.

Science Fiction Weekly has a good interview with horror writer Ramsey Campbell.

Neil Gaiman linked to a decent article on Will Eisner's new graphic novel. The novel takes a look at the famous racist propaganda piece "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and shows how they were created. The last Eisner book I picked up was Dropsie Avenue, which traces a New York street from the first American settlers to the current residents.
Eisner's is always looking to push the boundaries of comics. I'm sure his new book will be worth your time.

Just finished reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Somehow I managed to get through high school and college without reading Huxley's dystopian novel. I'm glad I finally did.
I think I find the novel scarier than George Orwell's 1984. In the novel, people brought this nightmare world on themselves. They accepted the premise of a happy society being the highest goal. People traded off freedom and thought for security and happiness, even if that happiness had to come in a pill.
I think people these days are all too ready to accept those kinds of solutions.
Along those lines, here's a bizarre argument for social engineering and soma creation: Aldous Huxley : Brave New World. Your Brave New World is right around the corner.
Here's a Web site that focuses on Huxley and his works. And here's an
online searchable version of the book.
In this review from the Guardian, an important question is asked: Huxley points out the problems of this scientific future and, through the Savage, points out the problems of romantic ways of thinking. But does he offer us any alternative? Any solution? Any better way of life?
In the version of the book I have, there is a special foreword by Huxley. He has this to say about the book:
"In the meantime, however, it seems worth while to mention the most serious defect in the story, which is this. The Savage is offered only two alternatives, an insane life in Utopia, or the life of a primitive in an Indian village, a life more human in some respects, but in others hardly less queer and abnormal. ... If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the utopian and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity -- a possibility alreaady actualized, to some extent, in a community of exiles and refugees from the Brave New World, living within the borders of the Reservation. In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque and co-operative. Science, and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle -- the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: 'How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End?' ... Thus altered, Brave New World would possess an artistic and (if it is permissible to use so large a word in connection with a work of fiction) a philosophical completeness, which in its present form it evidently lacks."

The serial murders of Fred and Rose West are being linked to the occult by Irish author Jim Cairns.
The article refers to Cairns as "renowned," but I can only find two books under his name at Amazon.co.uk and neither seems to be in print or have any reviews.
Also, the article seems link these murders to ritual satanic abuse, which I'm very skeptical about. However, I don't think it would be that hard to show the occult ties of people who keep bodies under their house and cut off fingers as souvenirs.

A World War II B-24 Bomber has been found intact in the sea near Palau. The search was conducted to bring "closure" to the families of the crew.

How cool is this: Gamera origami. I only wish there were instructions.

Giant squid news is so sparse these days, I have to rely on little items like this: guy wins science grant, decides he will use it on giant squid: "Dr Ritchie plans to use the grant to carry out a feasibility study on the mysterious giant squid (Architeuthis dux) to determine how many there are and where they come from."
Thank you Dr. Ritchie, thank you.

Thanks to Giant Monster Movies, I've noticed this book: Giant Robot Warriors. It's one more thing to add to the list of stuff I want to buy.

I've been regularly adding new blogs over on the right, so be sure to keep checking it out. There's plenty of good stuff. The latest addition is Giant Monster Movies, which I should have added a long time ago.

I picked up the latest issue of The Believer. They have a really interesting article called "Yukio Mishima and the Dream of the Holy Explosion." Mishima was a Japanese author who created a personal mini-army called the Shield Society. He used this group to take over a military academy, make a speech stating that Japan needed to become the military power it once was, and then committed ritual suicide. The article looks at Mishima's actions in relation to suicide bombers and how the two motivations are related.
And if this part of Mishima's life interests you, check out "Mishima -- A Life in Four Chapters." It's a film by Paul Schrader, the guy who wrote "Taxi Driver." It's not a perfect film, but it's very good.

dead fish comics has their paypal link up. Go buy their comic.

The Alarm, a UK band that had a hit in 1983, tried a novel approach to hitting the charts again. They hired a group of teens to play the band and renamed themselves The Poppyfields. Sure enough, the single "45RPM" hit the charts at No. 28. But now that the jig is up, will the single continue to climb the charts?

Piranha turns up on a barge -- in the Thames river.

Planet X found: "The largest object to be discovered in the Solar System since Pluto was found in 1930 was spotted by a sky survey on Tuesday." It's a big object in the Kuiper Belt.

I think I'm the very last person on the Internet to get around to mentioning this, but Kevin Smith is making a new film version of "The Green Hornet." Sounds like it could be very cool.

This pdf document is about the first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard. Here's the opening:

"On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an ‘Attempted Rape Flight’ that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard."

There's pictures too! Isn't science great?

Scientists say they have discovered a black hole tearing apart a star.

A new species has been discovered: the hairy water flea.

The photo in this article is considered by some to be one of the best UFO photos ever taken. I don't know, it doesn't look like all that much to me. And there's no perspective, nothing in the foreground to put it in context. And it looks blurry.
Besides, it was taken with a digital camera. With all the things that can be manipulated in digital photography, I'm surprised anyone trusts them at all.